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YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

nytimes.com

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Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#631

Post by root_axis »

HBKXNCUO wrote: post #621
root_axis wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which platforms in particular are you referring to? HN, reddit, twitter, facebook, instagram, voat, snapchat, tumblr, livejournal, gab, vimeo, dailymotion, metacafe and many others. > because it's where a substantial part of the public political debate takes place. Define "substantial part". I would argue that it is not at all substantial and the evidence is on my side. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-vi…

>HN Good joke. First of all, this site actively tries to ban political discussion. Second, it's tiny in comparison to YouTube. >reddit Maybe. Definitely far up there, and a good candidate for being regulated. >twitter, facebook Agreed, should be regulated like youtube. >instagram Very little political content from what I know, but I don't know much about it. >voat Ya, OK. Smaller than HN. >tumblr, livejournal Small c…

> Good joke. First of all, this site actively tries to ban political discussion

Yet here we are. Are you banned yet? YouTube also bans certain types of political discussion as you are well aware... so what?

> . Second, it's tiny in comparison to YouTube.

So you think the uninformed conversations occurring in a video entertainment cesspool are more impactful than the discourse between the engineers, founders and investors that actually built, maintain, understand and operate these platforms on a day to day basis? That's totally absurd. You're so hung up on popularity that you seem to have lost sight of relevance.

> ...

So in summary, if the site isn't a top 10 alexa ranking you regard it as politically unimportant. Popularity != political relevance. League of Legends is the most popular online game in the world, there are millions of people having political discussions on that platform every day, should Riot be prohibited from banning people?

> You keep suggesting that the amount of non-political content on YouTube somehow reduces the effect of the political content on YouTube.

No, I'm demonstrating that YouTube is primarily and overwhelmingly an entertainment platform and your attempts to suggest that it's so important to the fabric of political discourse that YouTube should not be allowed to ban people is not supported by the evidence of the activity on the platform.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#632

Post by nybble41 »

chronial wrote: post #76
wnevets wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think you're right to free speech has anything to do with what you can say on someone else's property?

As warp_factor said in sibling: > because it became the de facto place most of non tech-savy people go to to see videos online. They have a huge monopoly on our time and attention Society has a vested interest in either regulating or breaking up monopolies. Our rights don't magically stop at property borders. It needs to be checked on a case-by-case basis, whether the right to free speech or youtube's right to do wha…

> Our rights don't magically stop at property borders.

Actually that's almost exactly what "property" means. Famously, "Your right to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose." Or in less flowery language: Your rights end where others' property begins.

If you think YouTube has a "monopoly", the right way to address it would be to start up a competing site. There are no significant barriers to entry in starting a video streaming site. They're a dime a dozen these days. Google will even sell you the server capacity and bandwidth, or you can host it on one of their competitors' cloud platforms or rent space in a datacenter somewhere. Your main concern will be dealing with the inevitable DMCA complaints related to user-submitted content.

Of course, you should be prepared to deal with the fact that your site will mainly be populated with all the videos YouTube doesn't want to host, often for very good reasons.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#633

Post by gfodor »

Faark wrote: post #305
gfodor wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most journalism is close enough to propaganda these days that the least they could do is open comments so that the public can correct the record.

If you look at the comment sections of actual propaganda sites... well, you won't see Breitbart comments "correct the record". Quite the opposite, they are an important part of the local echo chamber. The only good they can do is giving others an unfiltered view into the minds of those communities.

Certainly, but all other things equal without comments there's a reduced opportunity for alternative views to surface on the same page.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#634

Post by StanislavPetrov »

vowelless wrote: post #91

Good. Online radicalism is a thing. To all the people here who are decrying this as “censorship”, remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons (Ex: Awlaki and his “tour of Paradise” lectures that inspired Boston 2013, fort hood and a bunch of other international attacks). YouTube removed all that out and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouT…

I'm reasonably certain our invasion and destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and our bombings in a host of other countries had more to do with "fomenting radicalism" than any Youtube videos.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#635

Post by StanislavPetrov »

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…

The whole idea that a mass censorship policy can be implemented in a way that is "unbiased" is absurd. This would be true even if it wasn't being implemented by a company with incredible political bias like Google (Youtube).

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#636

Post by Gibbon1 »

StanislavPetrov wrote: post #634
vowelless wrote: post #91

Good. Online radicalism is a thing. To all the people here who are decrying this as “censorship”, remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons (Ex: Awlaki and his “tour of Paradise” lectures that inspired Boston 2013, fort hood and a bunch of other international attacks). YouTube removed all that out and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouT…

I'm reasonably certain our invasion and destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and our bombings in a host of other countries had more to do with "fomenting radicalism" than any Youtube videos.

The biggest fomenters of terrorism are our dear allies in the Middle East.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#637

Post by incongruousa »

asdf21 wrote: post #328
anigbrowl wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was a huge proponent of this in the early days of the web and was leading the crusade for reader engagement, championing the idea of anonymous commentary and a pure marketplace of ideas. Well, it turns out I had an over-optimistic view of people.

What no one really wants to admit here on YC is that the userbase here is something like the top .01% of (intelligence / literacy / analytical skills). Hell, even reddit, as low-brow as that has gotten, is still top 1% easily. But there are still plenty of staggeringly oblivious views in both places. It's hard to admit that dichotomy, because when we realize that the top 1% or .01% can still be so ignorant, we also g…

Well, whichever measure of IQ you want to use as a proxy for intelligence, it's plausible that the self-selected group of people who comment on HN is higher compared to the world population (oh, this includes me, too -- how embarassing). How much higher is an empirical question which is unlikely to be settled, although I would guess that your .01% is a bit of an overestimate.

The important point, though, is that "dichotomy" not the same as "contradiction". The contradiction between your estimate of the high intelligence of HN commenters and the, let's say, less-than-intelligent ideas sometimes expressed here can be explained by noticing that being somewhat smart doesn't make someone immune to having stupid ideas.

What, after all, is the minimal IQ beyond which one will never make a mistake?

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#638

Post by nybble41 »

anbop wrote: post #376
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 agree with your comment but find it rambling, so I’ll concur with this: If free speech is a right worth protecting from the government, it’s worth protecting against equally powerful corporations.

> If free speech is a right worth protecting from the government, it’s worth protecting against equally powerful corporations.

The right of free speech is that you can say what you want without violent repercussions, such as fines, prison time, or capital punishment. Corporations and individuals already aren't allowed to do any of that, so no additional protection is needed. Governments are singled out specifically because they do not follow the same rules as everyone else—asserting that violence is a "legitimate" means of achieving arbitrary goals.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#639

Post by [deleted] »

anbop wrote: post #376
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 agree with your comment but find it rambling, so I’ll concur with this: If free speech is a right worth protecting from the government, it’s worth protecting against equally powerful corporations.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#640

Post by chronial »

nybble41 wrote: post #632
chronial wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As warp_factor said in sibling: > because it became the de facto place most of non tech-savy people go to to see videos online. They have a huge monopoly on our time and attention Society has a vested interest in either regulating or breaking up monopolies. Our rights don't magically stop at property borders. It needs to be checked on a case-by-case basis, whether the right to free speech or youtube's right to do wha…

> Our rights don't magically stop at property borders. Actually that's almost exactly what "property" means . Famously, "Your right to swing your fist stops at the end of my nose." Or in less flowery language: Your rights end where others' property begins. If you think YouTube has a "monopoly", the right way to address it would be to start up a competing site. There are no significant barriers to entry in starting a…

I don't know where you heard that, but that is not what property means. The concept of property represents a set of rights (and maybe obligations) that an owner of said property does possess. Your nose is not your property by the way, because the rights you have towards your own body are very different (and a lot stronger) than the ones you have towards your property.

So your rights do not end where other's property begins. What they actually might do is be in conflict with the rights of the owner. But only in a country where capitalism is driven to cynical extremes would the rights of the owner win per default. I know of no such country.

> There are no significant barriers to entry in starting a video streaming site.

Of course there are and you even state one of them three sentences later. Online platforms with user content are very similar to natural monopolies. While anyone can start a video streaming site, it is obviously extremely hard if not impossible to actually compete with Youtube. I mean even google tried and failed. But I'm sure you aware of that. What I don't know is why you bring up the straw-man of "starting a video streaming site", knowing full well that starting such a site will not change anything about youtube's monopoly.

> If you think YouTube has a "monopoly", the right way to address it would be to start up a competing site.

So, no – the right way to address it is to handle it as we handle all the other monopolies and regulate it or break it up.

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