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

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#731

Post by la_barba » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 4:52 PM UTC

skinnymuch wrote: post #717

la_barba wrote: post #620

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Parent made broad claims without evidence. Maybe those convinced you. They did not convince me. If you cannot respect that then what is the point of a discussion? Also, I said I want "some objective proof". You twisted that into "complete proof". Its funny that you are doing the exact thing you're accusing me of.

I didn’t do the same thing at all. You’re seemingly continuing the same trend. There have been multiple people now all claiming the same thing about Youtube’s algo. Of course nothing convinced me because I already knew. It’s an obvious thing to many people who use YouTube to a certain degree. So did other people here. I didn’t do the same thing as you because I didn’t post around multiple times asking for the same th…

'Oops, my bad' would have been a nice reply, but oh well. Anyway, have a nice day.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#732

Post by HBKXNCUO » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #730

HBKXNCUO wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Getting banned from YouTube doesn't prevent you from voting. Right, it prevents you from taking part in the public political debate that tens of millions of voters are participating in. It's like telling someone "You can't talk about your political message on this popular street corner where there are actually people to hear you. You are welcome to go stand on the street corners way outside of town, though, where pr…

> Right, it prevents you from taking part in the public political debate that tens of millions of voters are participating in. I don't think that's true, but even if you could prove it, it doesn't matter. You should not be entitled to use YouTube just because its popular and people discuss politics there. > You can't talk about your political message on this popular street corner where there are actually people to he…

>I don't think that's true

You don't think tens of millions of voters and future voters are have watched political videos on YouTube?

>but even if you could prove it, it doesn't matter.

You keep saying it doesn't matter without actually addressing my argument.

>You should not be entitled to use YouTube just because its popular and people discuss politics there.

Says who? You?

>YouTube is not a public street corner, it's a private business and platform that you don't pay to use.

The point of analogies is not that the two things are identical, but that they are similar in some particular important way.

>It's more like saying you can't talk about your political message inside a popular tavern because the owners have decided they are not friendly to the political message.

A popular tavern with tens of millions of people in it, maybe.

>That is not a violation of your rights

Depends on who you ask. Rights aren't written anywhere in the stars. People make them up.

>that is how private property works.

Private property rights are not absolute.

>Wow. That's a very disingenuous reading of what I wrote.

Actually you revealed a lot about your opinion from what you wrote. You said it's a mistake for people to value being able to post political content on YouTube more highly than they value being able to post political content on HN, because HN is filled with elites who do some ripple effect thing, whereas YouTube is filled with poor uninformed simpletons. In other words, they should value being able to beg the elites to do the ripple effect thing for them more than they should value being able to spread their message directly to like-minded people. Poor uninformed simpletons can't make changes on their own, they need elites to do it for them.

The problem is that the elites want cheap vegetables, so they don't want the poor simpletons to get paid more.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#733

Post by dang » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:10 PM UTC

vowelless wrote: post #722

dang wrote: post #694

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. " What a wretched, demoralizing 118-comment subthread. A white supremacy vs. Islamic extremism cage match was the last thing we needed, and of course it hopped via WWII and Nazis to capitalism vs. communism—the mother of generic ideological flamewars, whither all retu…

I apologize. I’m just going to avoid those topics from now on.

Thank you, and I hope it didn't feel like I was picking on you personally. This kind of thing is a co-creation.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#734

Post by CodiePetersen » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:31 PM UTC

ravenstine wrote: post #718

CodiePetersen wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although any hateful speech is terrible of course, I think censoring like this is a bad idea. Like other conversations about freedom of speech on HN it will eventually lead to talking about banning non hateful but extreme ideas like flat earth and anti vax. While ridiculous as they are, I think it would be equally ridiculous to ban them. What's the line you draw when you decide what gets to be promoted. Maybe certain…

Yet you say that "they can do what they want to an extent ." I'm not sure that we disagree at all. I support private businesses right to do what they want, until they become large enough that they've reached "escape velocity", if you will, where they have become so large that it's unlikely that any meaningful competition can come close to matching them in budget or influence. Companies of Google's size should see eve…

I think it's going to be weird and messy whichever way it goes. If it is under government oversight, politics is just going to ruin the whole purpose maybe make it worse. Me and you can have a debate about whether or not neo nazis should have the right to speak their hateful messages without calling eachother nazis. But voters aren't so calm when their elected official slings mud suggestion someone is one because they don't want to ban their speech.

I'll admit though. I'm not so sure what the effect of breaking them up will be. How many services would be lost, how many sites would go down because of lost services, how much money would be lost due to search ranking being ineffective or businesses needing to buy ads from multiple companies. It would hurt a lot of people at least temporarily. But I think long term the Internet and business would thrive after a short term pain. It would definitely have to happen in stages though. Each part of the business broken up into a few.

But yeah I agree, the escape velocity companies you mentioned need to be put in check somehow.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#735

Post by bzbarsky » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

BubRoss wrote: post #724

bzbarsky wrote: post #682

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A literal reading of their new restrictions as quoted in the article would in fact make a bunch of Trump's campaign speeches fall under the restrictions. And while I'd much rather he had not made those speeches or that people had not listened, or both, it's not clear to me that refusing to broadcast them would have been the right call either. Now very likely Youtube plans to do extremely selective enforcement. I'm no…

I don't have a problem with people pushing bigoted fear mongering narratives for attention being powerless and unpopular. I think the truth is that big platforms that are conceivably open to anyone eventually become abused, unevenly enforced, and end up being a gamble when it comes to business. YouTube, Google play, Apple's app store and many more are all examples of this.

I think you have the causality backwards. What I said is that in practice only the powerless and unpopular will get silenced, not that silencing will make people powerless and unpopular. That is, in practice this will likely get applied against all sorts of minority viewpoints that fall under the rules, but not applied to sufficiently powerful/popular/near-majority-viewpoint rules violators.

Also, I couldn't care less whether things are a gamble when it comes to business. I do care about public discourse and control thereof.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#736

Post by danmg » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

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…

Is this lake wobegon?

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#737

Post by godshatter » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 6:13 PM UTC

CodiePetersen wrote: post #705

Frondo wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also okay banning anti-vax ideas, in defense of the community in general, and in defense in specific of those vulnerable few who can't be immunized and rely on herd immunity. Foregoing vaccination imposes an as-yet-unaccounted externality on the community; you put everyone at risk by not vaccinating yourself or your kids, and there's no way for the vulnerable (those relying on herd immunity) to know who around th…

>I'm also okay banning anti-vax ideas You are OK with banning the idea? It's one thing to make it criminal to endanger your children's health. It's another to put a blanket ban on the speech because you don't like the idea or you think it's "dangerous". The point of free speech is that you don't get individuals deciding who gets to be in charge of what is morally right to say. Society as a whole decides through civil…

There is also the problem that someday a company might produce a vaccine that was dangerous to the public, and people that find this out might want to tell others. A strict ban on "anti-vax ideas" would stifle that speech.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#738

Post by celdon25 » Thu, Jun 06, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

redog wrote: post #522

celdon25 wrote: post #368

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can argue that the Second Amendment was not written with machine guns and rocket launchers in mind. I'm going to argue that the First Amendment was not written with the foresight that nearly all of the total bandwidth of communication between all people would be done using technologies that transcend physical property.

I like your thinking on this but Cannons existed...I think our failing maybe to fully understand their definitions of their times. That said, I don't think their definition of speech and property would be much different even if we're actualizing them in virtual realms. That would have been covered by "freedom of the press." You're literally just still publishing an opinion to someone's virtual press. There's no reaso…

We have laws against monopolies and trusts to prevent this very thing, but the government is reluctant to enforce them. Not enforcing the 14th amendment's "Equal Protection" clause is the real spoiler here.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#739

Post by chrismcb » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 1:40 AM UTC

ndiscussion wrote: post #483

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.

Do you not consider an average 50-60k "high"? That is more than basically anyone I know personally outside of software, and I'm not in a low COL area.

Median household income is 56k.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#740

Post by oceanghost » Fri, Jun 07, 2019, 2:25 AM UTC

fwip wrote: post #652

oceanghost wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Give me a definition of "woman" that is acceptable to all parties involved. Don't forget things like androgen insensitivity syndrome, infertile women, etc.

Woman: someone who, when you ask them, tells you they're a woman. If we want a simple inclusive definition, you can't beat that.

Then we're back at "woman" just meaning a social nicety.