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

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#451

Post by joshuaheard » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

decoyworker wrote: post #263

ravenstine wrote: post #107

I'm starting to think that comment sections on news sites are a really bad idea. At first I thought NPR and the like were cowards for removing theirs. It's bad enough that NYT can be pretty biased on its own, but the comment sections are always full of low-tier thinking that just push whatever narrative is currently in the Overton window. What I find distressing is how people remark that a telecom and advertising gia…

They can choose to not be a platform for anything that they want. You don't have a right to that platform. Forcing YouTube to leave everything up infringes on their rights to run their site as they want.

YouTube has become a mass communication platform, more akin to the telephone company than say a magazine. A magazine has editorial control over what it publishes, and can decide what to put into its content. A telephone company has no say over what is said over its phone lines.

YouTube is just asking to be regulated in such a way as the phone companies. And it should be regulated to follow the First Amendment as a mass communication platform, even though it is a private company.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#452

Post by umvi » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

fwip wrote: post #442

patagonia wrote: post #364

You ever been to a legit protest? Have you been near the police line at a protest when there are thousands of protesters and hundreds of police officers and tensions are high and really not nice stuff is being said all around? And the police officers just stand there at the ready. (Sometimes they don’t and they antagonize protestors or just plain assault then, but my experience has been that is the exception.) I have…

I don't know if this is what you meant, but that's what youtube is doing now. They've decided that these neo-Nazi videos are causing violence, so they've stepped in to remove those bad actors for the sake of everyone else.

> They've decided that these neo-Nazi videos are causing violence

By this logic, shouldn't neo-Nazi rallies or protests be "causing violence" as well because they influence people to commit violent acts later the same way neo-Nazi videos influence people? Yet that is the very thing the officers in GP's comment are protecting.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#453

Post by scottlocklin » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 7:21 PM UTC

saynay wrote: post #399

ravenstine wrote: post #107

I'm starting to think that comment sections on news sites are a really bad idea. At first I thought NPR and the like were cowards for removing theirs. It's bad enough that NYT can be pretty biased on its own, but the comment sections are always full of low-tier thinking that just push whatever narrative is currently in the Overton window. What I find distressing is how people remark that a telecom and advertising gia…

I'm wondering why YouTube doesn't have something like Reddit's "quarantine" where certain videos and/or channels are blocked from the recommendation algorithms without being outright banned, but still available for those who specifically search for them.

They do. Now they're taking the additional step of just deleting them.

FWIIW this censorious crap cost them $70b in market cap last quarter. Looking forward to next quarter.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#454

Post by neetdeth » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 7:23 PM UTC

QualityReboot wrote: post #285

ausbah wrote: post #69

Here is the actual blog post: https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/our-ongoing-work-to-t... Main points: >Removing more hateful and supremacist content from YouTube I think this is great, I see nothing of value being lost from channels whose whole schtick is to marginalize people's of a target group. >Reducing borderline content and raising up authoritative voices I do like attempts to curtail outright scams and mi…

> Today, we're taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status. I wonder if things like the Freedom From Religion Foundation would qualify for a ban. Or a church that preaches that their god is t…

This is all a very interesting thought experiment, but you're supposing some attempt at logical consistency which will surely not be made.

What this announcement actually means is that YouTube is going to become more politically active in their content curation. This is what a subset of their employees, as well as influential bluechecked Twitterati, have been lobbying for. As a progressive/neo-liberal institution, it will apply exactly the sort of differential policy enforcement that one might expect.

I won't delve into the details of how that applies to your examples because it would quickly become too controversial for HN.

Just imagine how the median Bay Area tech-person would parse out the details and you'll have the answers.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#455

Post by noelsusman » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 7:23 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…

I'm sure you could find an individual case of that, but in general those phrases do not mean what you described them to mean.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#456

Post by dane-pgp » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 7:24 PM UTC

edmundsauto wrote: post #429

bzbarsky wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What it means it allows people to visit without discrimination on basis of legally protected classes like gender and race No, the "public square" designation specifically allows people to do things like come to the mall and set up political protests and whatnot. It's not about _access_ to the mall; it's about speech protections. Is uploading videos more akin to setting up a store at the mall, or more akin to standi…

One flaw in the analogy is that physical space is limited and difficult for a person to move around in. The digital space is effectively infinite, and switching is as easy as typing in a new url (compared to the physical challenge of moving to another state/region).

Telling a silenced victim that they can easily move to somewhere else in digital space is of little comfort when their complaint is that they are being denied access to a public audience who are habitually congregating in an existing location.

The extent to which someone is entitled to an audience is of course more difficult to judge.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#457

Post by malloreon » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 7:24 PM UTC

I said it about facebook and I'll say it again about youtube: zero credit for deciding extremist views like white hate have no place on your platform a decade later.

How many ad dollars did Google make off these videos?

And how much damage did hosting those videos do?

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#458

Post by themacguffinman » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

llamataboot wrote: post #243

I think the difference is that YouTube /pays these people/. It's almost an employer/employee relationship. YouTube generates revenue, youtube shares that revenue, contributors with tons of views are making money directly from YT. This is simply not the same as Twitter, etc. Twitter may make money off of eyeballs. I may somehow make money by becoming twitter famous. But my money is not coming as a share of twitter rev…

If that was the only issue, YouTube can demonetize the content or creator. They already do so for controversial content that advertisers won't abide. The fact remains that people want this content completely gone from YouTube, and preferably the entire internet.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#459

Post by patagonia » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

Balgair wrote: post #436

patagonia wrote: post #418

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick google, the top three results said average was 50k-60k. One result said the top 10% make low 6 figures. I doubt the majority of officers in those lines are top 10%, almost by simple math.

Departments pay differently, but it is not uncommon that protests pay overtime and that picking up extra shifts in 'normal' work also pays overtime. Such things that pay overtime may be providing security at a parade, may be going into a school for education, may be going to a confrence, etc. Typically, any time you see an officer in uniform, they are getting compensated for that. This is VERY dependent on department…

Well. Then it would be over time? So they are paid more for the time worked during a protest, but that doesn’t make them “well paid” overall. I guess, I’m not seeing any more data in your comment. But. Even if I grant that they make 80k or 90k (up to 50% increase in base pay of 60k, and I’m gonna suppose the cost of living for those officers is commensurately higher), argument sake, I don’t see that really making a substantive difference in the argument

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#460

Post by anigbrowl » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 7:25 PM UTC

indigochill wrote: post #397

anigbrowl wrote: post #377

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I abandoned that idea a while ago. I think we could move toward a wikiocracy , which would have problems of its own but for which we have a working prototype that is reasonably transparent, responsive, and accessible and delivered a significant public good in a relatively short time frame.

How would the rules look for establishing the long-term governance of a wikiocracy? Specifically, my impression is that it works because it has good people. If the good people left and lesser people replaced them, could it still be made to work? One of the things I'll give the US is as crappy as the leaders get, the system still remains cohesive rather than suffering a bloody coup every four years.

Well lots of other countries get on OK with parliamentary democracies, I don't think the US system is uniquely reliable in this regard. You'd have to look at the ups and downs of Wiki edit wars, figure out what standards would apply for citations of empirical data as valid policymaking inputs and so forth. I don't think Wikipedia has especially 'good people', just experienced ones and a general agreement to operate within the wiki framework.