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By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

nytimes.com

101–110 of 168 posts

Re: By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

#101
post #26

Go ahead and add reddit into the mix as well. It's starting to be really concerning only a few people control these important discussion and meeting places, and exercise (often) power abuse from such a position to push their agenda. History isn't pleasant, that doesn't mean reddit and YouTube should be white washing it.

I mentioned the hypocrisy of the reddit ceo Steve Huffman's answer to an Ama he was holding and my account was deleted a half hour later with no email no explanation.

Re: By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

#102

Is this pure populism, or does the principle apply to the "little guy" as well? If I set up a machine under my desk at home with a domain (courtesy of dynamic DNS), and provide a few terabytes of free-of-charge storage to a small bunch of people, am I "erasing history" if I can't keep all their stuff forever? Or do I have to be a Youtube-sized corporate entity before I'm a fucking asshole?

Imagine offering a family member a couple terabytes to host pictures and video of their kid growing up. If you deleted all of their data without notice, you would be a huge fucking asshole for erasing history. Proper notice goes a long way.

Re: By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

#103
post #92
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it well documented that the human moderators who do exist at places like facebook and youtube end up having their mental health screwed after they watch so much disturbing content? Just throwing human moderators at the problem probably has more cost than just the salaries involved.

How does 4chan do it? Last I checked they have moderators (well "janitors"). They are volunteers, work for almost no recognition (still Anon), and probably do not have the mental health problems that regular people do. There is also clearly an ability to follow direction or enforce appropriate (e.g. the janitors of /b/ /pol/ /g/ and /fit/ are clearly all operating on different sets of rules). I am 100% in agreement t…

4chan is extremely tiny compared to social media platforms.

Re: By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

#104
post #72
post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They don't. It's unreasonable to expect anything different. This is modern day cynicism. I fully understand and am unsurprised by their lack of good storage, but we shouldn't help companies lower the bar of their own existence to be purely profit driven entities.

I don't see why you would think they're anything but profit driven entities. That's literally what a corporation is. If they didn't make a profit, they wouldn't exist. It's not cynicism, it's reality.

> That's literally what a corporation is.

But it's not all a corporation is.

Re: By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sheer amount of pro-Chinese government moderators on Reddit is absolutely insane. So much dissent being either erased or forced into "megathreads." This is not how we should be reacting to genocide.

Thanks for helping me think differently about megathreads. political containment and pruning is the result.

Yup, another classic tactic is a moderator stepping in and doing some variation of "This thread has gone out of control! Locked." This has become very common in Hong Kong threads. I strongly believe that TenCent needs to be rooted out of U.S. tech and media, and fast.

Re: By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

#106
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah these aren’t content recommendation engines, they’re ad engines

I somewhat do agree with the ad engine... but it's a crappy one. I'm a guy in my 30s. Nothing in my view history ever says, "Hey, this guy is progressive enough to wear makeup." At that, I watch english, polish, and french videos. Ads I get, Spanish. I dont know spanish. I'd accept general language learning ads. But tostitos and I think one was health or house insurance... in spanish. It's like the ad bot is some red…

Do you have the “tune ads based on view history” (or whatever it’s called) turned off by chance?

Re: By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

#107

As far as I'm aware, knowingly destroying evidence of a crime is illegal. So would this be illegal also?

Only if Google has a branch in Syria that is destroying the evidence for a legal action in Syria. Laws are linked to territories, US law is not applicable in Syria and the other way around.

> Laws are linked to territories, US law is not applicable in Syria and the other way around.

Doesn’t stop countries from trying. The CLOUD Act in the US is the US trying to extend its influence into other countries.

Re: By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

#108
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only solution is another platform that respects creators, has sane/straightforward policies and doesn't permit rampant scams and extortions. What is that alternate platform? For many people, web video is YouTube.

You're speaking for other people when you can only speak for yourself, and you need to get out more. A not-yet-existent, co-op-owned platform where creators share in monetization and have straight-forward/transparent content policies and processes, not secret ones, and not shady algorithms that curate user filter-bubbles without telling them how they're being shown recommendations. YT isn't the only web address on th…

I didn't downvote you, I feel the same way.

But YT is where channels I watch such as Linus TechTips, BigClive, Cody's Channel, Chef John, Glen and Friends, Andrew Camarata et al publish their content to.

Realistically, how do we change this?

Re: By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

#109
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It comes to mind for that very reason. The rules for uploading to it are less stringent than other services because it's there to provide a platform for things that don't fit on other video platforms on the web. If you're going to be hosting videos of the horrors of war, it's much more likely to stick on liveleak than any other platform.

I agree that it works from a technology perspective, but from the product/marketing perspective it's a non-starter. People who want to watch violent videos != human rights activists. There's the "blood and gore" people, and the "social justice warrior" people, and not a ton of overlap. In order to solve this use case there would really need to be a site that combines LiveLeak's content moderation policy with an activ…

The reason I'm suggesting it as an an alternative is because of its policies, not because the platform is a great place for discoverability. The intent isn't to help people find these videos, just that they are somewhere online where people can view them that's less likely to be taken down.

Re: By removing “extremist content,” platforms are purging human rights evidence

#110
post #92
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't it well documented that the human moderators who do exist at places like facebook and youtube end up having their mental health screwed after they watch so much disturbing content? Just throwing human moderators at the problem probably has more cost than just the salaries involved.

How does 4chan do it? Last I checked they have moderators (well "janitors"). They are volunteers, work for almost no recognition (still Anon), and probably do not have the mental health problems that regular people do. There is also clearly an ability to follow direction or enforce appropriate (e.g. the janitors of /b/ /pol/ /g/ and /fit/ are clearly all operating on different sets of rules). I am 100% in agreement t…

I’m sorry, if we’re looking to 4chan for inspiration on how to do the internet properly we’ve already lost.
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