YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#221

Post by Animats » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

Not good. What's "extreme"? Medicare for All? Brietbart News? Islam? Haredi? School shootings? Kim Jong-un? Putin? Trump?

YouTube already tries to transcribe videos to text. Is it within the state of the art to recognize common false statements and superimpose a crawl with counterarguments? One thing you have going for you is that the nuts aren't that original. If you had a classifier that could pick up the 100 best known nutty statements, you could do this.

Is there a startup in this?

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#222

Post by radiator » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

javagram wrote: post #175

skrowl wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it's not, if Facebook / Youtube / etc are found to be PUBLISHERS. AOL in the case you mentioned was being looked at as an open / neutral platform. I'm saying that clearly Facebook / Youtube no longer fit that definition due to the censorship mentioned in OP.

The law is specifically written for that case, as noted in my excerpt. AOL had a contract allowing them to censor their contractor’s work, did not censor it (although they did moderate and censor various content on their service), and was still held immune from liability. The CDA basically grants publishers the ability to have their cake and eat it too, so you’d need to change the law.

... did not censor it (although they did moderate and censor various content on their service) ...

What does this mean? I don't understand at all.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#223

Post by lugg » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #104

rukittenme wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some people view free speech as more than a legal requirement. Its a philosophy of individual rights.

Getting banned from YouTube is not a violation of individual rights. Forcing a company to host videos for free sounds like a violation of individual rights though.

Marginalizing a group of individuals for nothing but their culture is a violation of individual rights if you ask me.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#224

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

untog wrote: post #139

throwaway190605 wrote: post #82

We're not talking about the removal of extreme political views. We're talking about the censorship of one particular ideology. Where is the corresponding elimination of polarizing videos espousing views from the radical left? A wholesale expunction from one end of the spectrum is hard not to interpret as politically charged censorship. Let's see how many Antifa and BLM videos get taken down.

> We're not talking about the removal of extreme political views. Yes we are. You are implying equivalence where there is none. Black Lives Matter and Antifa are not equivalent to white supremacists.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#225

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:19 PM UTC

FabHK wrote: post #148

la_barba wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and encapsulate individuals in information bubbles that seem to validate and fail to challenge their views? Err, how do you know that the algorithm does this? And also, how do you know that people are not exposed to other views outside of YouTube. And lastly, why do you think its the job of an entertainment platform to "challenge" views?

It might not be the job of an entertainment platform to challenge views, per se, but you can argue that it is its job to make sure that their profit-maximising algorithms do not devolve into steering users down a rabbit hole of ever more extreme and dishonest content within an information bubble. Or, at any rate, if that's the outcome, then it might be time to regulate said platform.

The thing is that those definitions aren't unambiguously definable to humans let alone machines which can't tell. Who defines extreme? Who defines dishonest? Not to mention context and satire. If I suggest killing all the lawyers am I quoting Shakespeare, joking, or trying to incite violence?

Anyone capable of doing so is clearly capable of heading a Unicorn start up which isn't overvalued.

Large tech companies frequently receive demands for the literally impossible like backdoors which don't compromise security.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#226

Post by la_barba » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

patagonia wrote: post #115

la_barba wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and encapsulate individuals in information bubbles that seem to validate and fail to challenge their views? Err, how do you know that the algorithm does this? And also, how do you know that people are not exposed to other views outside of YouTube. And lastly, why do you think its the job of an entertainment platform to "challenge" views?

I assume based on my own use of it and pretty much all the memes and anecdotes from everyone. I make no assumptions about what people are exposed to outside of YouTube. It’s not the platforms job to challenge one’s views, rather one’s views are naturally challenged when in an open marketplace of ideas. YouTube isn’t an open marketplace of ideas. It is effectively a curated presentation of ideas, customized to each in…

>I assume based on my own use of it and pretty much all the memes and anecdotes from everyone.

Well, now that its clear that it is simply an assumption/speculation, then I have no problem with anything you say. Your original comment seemed to imply that this is a demonstrable fact.

>It’s not the platforms job to challenge one’s views, rather one’s views are naturally challenged when in an open marketplace of ideas.

And you counter extreme ideas, with better ideas of your own - in this same open marketplace of ideas.

>YouTube isn’t an open marketplace of ideas.

Right, because YouTube seems to think that some ideas are verboten, and simply should not exist which is why they are removing those videos. Are you in favor of removing these videos?

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#227

Post by crankylinuxuser » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

busterarm wrote: post #64

GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> other bigoted ideologies That's not specific enough. What about people who want to preserve European culture but don't think its "superior" to any other culture?

What about people with conservative religious beliefs that others perceive to be exclusionary?

"But what about..."

NO. We're talking about people who want to exterminate other people. We know that because the last time they got power, we had mass executions (Holocaust), lynchings, and a century of extreme segregation.

This isn't a 'what-if'. We know what happened the last time.

Never again.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#228

Post by mjfl » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

davidw wrote: post #59

nullbyte wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube gets to decide what a "bigoted ideology" is. That's a sweeping term that can be used as a catch-all for videos they don't like. I think that this will be bad for the platform overall -- an increase in censorship is never good.

If nazis are fundamental to the success of their platform, that's... a problem.

[flagged]

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#229

Post by sneak » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

nyczomg wrote: post #210

From the article: 'The new policy will ban “videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion,” the company said in a blog post.' Is this going to include videos that mention "white privilege" (which one could argue alleges superiority of white people) in which white people are asked to "check their privilege" in some way (which one could argue is an attempt to just…

How about PHP devs? Furries? Racists? KKK members? Pedophile activism? Nationalism? Pro-EU content?

I will happily allege that people who aren’t racist are superior, and that racists should be discriminated against, segregated, and excluded wherever possible. Is that video permitted?

YouTube is going too far. This will either be the biggest footgun due to unintended blast radius, or will be selectively enforced so that they have an excuse to editorialize and shut down stuff they or their advertisers personally find icky (entirely subjectively) while ignoring other stuff that breaks these rules.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#230

Post by ajross » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

nyczomg wrote: post #210

From the article: 'The new policy will ban “videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion,” the company said in a blog post.' Is this going to include videos that mention "white privilege" (which one could argue alleges superiority of white people) in which white people are asked to "check their privilege" in some way (which one could argue is an attempt to just…

> "check their privilege" [...] (which one could argue is an attempt to justify exclusion)?

If you can make the case, maybe. I mean, it sounds like a kind of insane case to make to me. Who's being excluded, and from what, merely by having their assumptions challenged in a discussion context?

The groups actually being targetted are ones that tend to advocate for the status of the US as an inherently white nation. Sort of an easier sell to my mind.