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

nytimes.com

131–140 of 168 posts

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

#131
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In fact, exact title searches will usually not turn up videos with that title unless you use quotes. YouTube will return clickbait and Jimmy Kimmel, entirely unrelated to the search, for exact title searches of videos with only a few tens of views.

Heaven forbid I ever accidentally click on or get interested in some random talk show video, video roughly about video games or a big media news video. All of my normal engineering, business, programming, guns, history, and mechanics recommendations go right the fuck out the window. For the next week, half my recommendations are just filled with dogshit because of one accidental video. I stopped watching movie traile…

There is a minor chilling effect to this. I have chosen to follow a link because of the mess I thought it would make of my youtube/amazon recommendations.

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

#132
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…

>You're speaking for other people when you can only speak for yourself, and you need to get out more

Millions upon millions of people watching YT, but GP "needs to get out more" in order to experience your fantasy platform that doesn't exist. Ok.

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

#133
post #95

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?

Depends what you say to them. If you say "hey guys, feel free to use this storage to host stuff" and then delete it, then yes, you're an asshole. If you say "hey guys, I have some hard drive space, send me stuff you think I might like and if I like it I'll host it for a while before deleting it" then no, you're not an asshole. If you say something that sounds like the first statement but is actually the second statem…

What if you promote this service with a name that starts with "You" and ends with a word referencing one of the most dominant media of public record for over a half century?

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

#135
I have said this before and will say again:

Honestly, why do platforms need to delete anything. Why not just have options like most search engines sort have... Let the users decide if they want to see objectionable or even violent content. They are adults they can make up their own mind.

Consider duckduckgo's search results you can choose:

  Strict
   *No Adult content*
  Moderate
   *No Explicit images or video*
  Off
   *Don't filter content*

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

#136
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends what you say to them. If you say "hey guys, feel free to use this storage to host stuff" and then delete it, then yes, you're an asshole. If you say "hey guys, I have some hard drive space, send me stuff you think I might like and if I like it I'll host it for a while before deleting it" then no, you're not an asshole. If you say something that sounds like the first statement but is actually the second statem…

What if you promote this service with a name that starts with "You" and ends with a word referencing one of the most dominant media of public record for over a half century?

The only way that is a "public record" is if we consider the perspective that anything that was ever broadcast is still radiating in space.

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

#137
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They've recently made the process intentionally more annoying. You used to be able to exclude a site you control via a robots.txt file. That wouldn't actually delete archived content and would merely hide it from viewing. They no longer honor that approach. You now have to send them an email and specifically request content removal.

I consider this to be acceptable.

Most rational people would.

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

#138
In the media, you're damned if you do and damned if you don't. If tech companies weren't removing violent content, there would be twice as many articles complaining about it. For any choice, whether it's a blanket policy or a content moderator's personal call, either action can be painted as "dystopian" or "violating human rights" or whatever else is the flavor of the day. Reading hundreds of one-sided hit pieces over the years has totally desensitized me, to the point that I start feeling extreme skepticism whenever anybody starts talking about human rights or dystopias. That's not a good thing, but I would say it's not all my fault, either.

Across prestigious universities, mini-think tanks that study "tech and society" have been popping up. As far as I can tell, they exist solely to contribute to this tidal wave of narrative. They look at what is happening, and make up a reason it's bad. I can't think of a single example where they concluded that tech did something good.

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

#139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The number of times I've taken a google search that gave me useless results, copied-and-pasted it into duck-duck-go, and immediately found what I'm looking for, is astounding. I do think that they are starting to lose the power-user userbase when it comes to browsers and search engines. But their email, docs/sheets/whatever, drive, and now their DNS registrar services are all cemented into business flow. It makes sen…

Yeah lately I've been shocked about the search result quality as well, way too often I am getting almost all seo spam results on google. I was actually reading their 10k earnings report a while back, Google specifically highlighted spam/seo results as a threat to their business. Most google users probably have never even heard of duck duck go before, I doubt they are in any kind of risk of losing market share.

I'm starting to notice more results from ddg. Google doesn't seem to be indexing most sites anymore. Not sure I understand why.

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

#140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The number of times I've taken a google search that gave me useless results, copied-and-pasted it into duck-duck-go, and immediately found what I'm looking for, is astounding. I'll bet it's dwarfed by the number of times I get useful results from Google and total garbage from DDG. Earlier today I searched for "CADT syndrome" to figure out what another HN comment meant by it. Both engines automatically correct that…

You should use verbose mode

are quotes around the search term not the command for verbose mode?
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