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YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

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Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube is just not that important. It's not some type of important political fixture, it's pretty universally regarded as a cesspool with regard to political discussion and most of the content is non-political anyway.

What exactly do you mean by "not that important"? Is it your position that if, say, YouTube took down all content that was in favor of Democrats, and pushed content that was in favor of Republicans to the front page, and put it all over recommendations, that there would be no impact to elections?

The impact would be negligible, not only because the YouTube demographic skews very young (i.e. people who don't vote), but also because most of the content on YouTube is not political content.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-subscribed_YouTub...

None of the top channels are political. Do you have any evidence to support the idea that YouTube is so important to politics that the government should step in to regulate it?

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#563
post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe that's what is called "a distinction without a difference". You can argue that whatever your local xenophobic hatreds you have going on aren't technically white supremacy, because you have different historical and cultural understandings of race etc, but at the end of the day, your hating haters sure seem to hate basically the same people as our hating haters, so I'm not sure why it's worth arguing about th…

This is pretty much the point i tried to make... that there is no huge difference and it is totally fine to simplify to "white" in communities like these. But re-reading my comment, i can now see how it can be seen as nit-picking instead of approving of this idea.

Apologies for misreading; hope there wasn't too much vitriol in my response.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#564
post #283
post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google. Is this a trick question or something?

More specifically, the political party with the most supporters at Google (currently democratic party, but could change)

They gave slightly more to republicans last time around: https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2018&cmte=...

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If they don't want the government forcing them to host content and uphold free speech then they have to take responsibility for the content in the eyes of the law. Currently they're having it both ways, free to ban ideas they don't like and control the content they deliver without being responsible for libel/slander. It sounds like you're saying that they either have to host absolutely any video anyone uploads, or…

That isn't what I said nor what I meant. They are overstepping on the censorship front by continually constricting their "acceptable" guidelines based off of their very fluid internal rules. "In 2018 alone, we made more than 30 policy updates. One of the most complex and constantly evolving areas we deal with is hate speech" They even state it as a point of pride - they continually shift the lines on what is "hate sp…

I share your concern about how Youtube influences society, and it's likely that content I consider good will be taken down by Youtube in the future. I don't like that.

But it still sounds to me like you're demanding that, after removing illegal videos, a site should either be 100% curated or 0% curated.

https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/05/07/number-hours-video-upl... says:

> The platform’s users upload more than 500 hours of fresh video per minute, YouTube revealed at recent press events.

100% curation is unrealistic in that case. They could crowd source the work, but it's hard to see how they can be legally accountable for what users mark as OK.

But 0% curation would mean that they're forced to host videos they consider repugnant. Imagine starting a video sharing platform, having your business grow, and one day being told "well now you're big enough that you no longer get any say in what your site hosts."

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#566
post #564
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More specifically, the political party with the most supporters at Google (currently democratic party, but could change)

They gave slightly more to republicans last time around: https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2018&cmte=...

Yeah but that doesn't tell you anything about the party alignment of employees.

1 rich republican Google employee donating $500K vs 100 middle class democrat Google employees donating $4K will yield those results you posted, yet the demographics would indicate 1% republican.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#567
post #484
post #433

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"In reality, you're not a woman, we're just pretending because we're polite" isn't a very pro-trans stance.

It feels you're taking the least charitable interoperation of what I'm trying to say. I believe trans women are "real women" in just about every way that matters. I only make an exception when I absolutely have to. For example, in sports, or in a medical context. It might help to remember the word "women" is just a label we assign to people who share a certain common set of social and biological traits. And the major…

I think you mean well, but are maybe a little out of touch with how things have changed in the last few years. Wikipedia does a good job of analyzing this topic: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender

The way I read it is that it's taken over 50 years for "gender" and "sex" to become different things. It's still a word that's transitioning (ok, some pun intended), but essentially we're past the tipping point now and you'll offend people if you use gender words incorrectly.

The WHO has the progressive definition that you want to be using: https://www.who.int/gender-equity-rights/understanding/gende...

This is in contrast with the dictionary definition from Google, which still uses biological sex: https://www.google.com/search?q=define+gender

It does feel a little bit like when "literally" changed meaning to "figuratively", but this distinction is really important to an ever growing group of people.

It's also worth noting that it applies to gender words like "man" or "woman" which are different than sex words like "male" and "female".

I still don't understand how non-binary people fit into this, but if you embrace the "singular they", you'll probably not offend anyone.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#569
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No censorship. You are still free to create your own YouTube clone and publish your extreme political views there. Maybe call it "GabTube"?

This is only a sensible argument if you define censorship as violating the letter of the law of the US constitution or of another constitution that does require individuals and companies to respect basic rights. But if you consider the purpose of freedom of opinion -- to enable the public discourse necessary for a democratic society -- this is absolutely censorship.

*does not. I really should proofread my posts when using noprocrast.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#570

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We didn't decide to guarantee free speech in "public spaces" for funsies. We did it because guaranteeing people the ability to meaningfully participate in the public political debate is a preventative measure against real world violence. If people cannot peacefully advocate for their interests, they are going to do so violently. The fact of the matter is that places like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are where a sub…

> We didn't decide to guarantee free speech in "public spaces" for funsies. We did it because guaranteeing people the ability to meaningfully participate in the public political debate is a preventative measure against real world violence. If people cannot peacefully advocate for their interests, they are going to do so violently. Is this supposed to threaten me? I don't know where you're from but here in Germany the…

>Is this supposed to threaten me?

I'm not sure what that would mean in this context.

>You can suppress free speech in private spaces. You don't even have to allow access to private spaces while it's the other way around in public spaces. There are laws for that.

The point I'm making is that it's probably not a good idea to allow certain private spaces to suppress free speech.

>You can't display swastikas in a Bundesliga stadium just because there are plenty people there.

As I understand, you can't display them anywhere in your country, because your country has more restrictions on political speech than some other parts of the world, e.g. the US. Regardless, I am not suggesting that stadium owners should be forced to allow political demonstrations on their private property. I'm suggesting that certain key internet websites where a significant portion of the public political debate takes place should not be given carte blanche to reduce the ability of people to spread political ideas which the owners of those sites do not like.

>The amount of people does not matter.

What matters is whether people feel as though they have lost their ability to peacefully and meaningfully advocate for their interests.

>Censorship is something the state forces upon you. It restricts things in public spaces. There is no place left you can go in a state with censorship present to challenge that.

I'm not interested in debating your strange and highly restricted meaning of the word. I'm interested in the real world consequences of the actions that these mega-corporations are taking.

>It wears it out and it ridicules people who really suffer under true censorship.

The people you mean to refer to are not my concern.

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