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Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

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Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#81

Post by joshuamorton »

ddevault wrote: post #38

Google & YouTube employees on HN: how do you justify still working at this company? Enough of the cognitive dissonance. Face your choices and tell me how you square yourself with them. For shame.

Other than the hn-liberitarian anything that resembles censorship in any form is bad circlejerk, I don't actually see what the fuss is about here.

Assume I believe that moderation is a reasonable action. Why is this unreasonable moderation, who is harmed?

Put another way, assume that I have some line on the sand drawn on when I would leave. Assume also that I believe that what I'm doing at Google has net-positive impact. Why should I move my line in the sand back to ?

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#83

Post by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 »

gabaix wrote: post #63

Youtube is in a tough spot. They will be blamed: - if they don't take down speech some consider hateful - if they take down speech some do not consider hateful 共匪 is seen as an insult by a group, but others do not. If Youtube bans nothing, then hate speech thrives and they get bad PR. If Youtube bans anything anyone flags as hate speech, then they become de facto as censorship agents for foreign powers. Anything crit…

Compounding this is the veritable explosion of what words which are considered “harmful”, not to mention how vogue it is to be offended (“harmed”) on behalf of another group.

If google is hoping to appease these groups, they’re in for a futile challenge.

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#84

Post by JumpCrisscross »

gerbal wrote: post #73
missosoup wrote: post #41

There was a previous unrelated discussion about this just a few hours ago which was climbing to the top of the front page when I saw it. And then just vanished: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221264 It's not flagged, it just went from #13 on the front page to invisible. In a single refresh. How does that work? Looking at the votes and age, it should be in the top 5 of both Ask and the front page. What's the m…

If this is true, follow the money. HN is run by a Venture Capital firm. What are their incentives? Who does the business have to keep happy?

> If this is true, follow the money

Isn't it more likely it was flagged off the front page by overly-enthusiastic users?

I'll also admit that this link, to a support thread, is more compelling than the Ask HN, where half the comments were questioning whether the phenomenon was actually happening.

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#85

Post by dleslie »

ddevault wrote: post #38

Google & YouTube employees on HN: how do you justify still working at this company? Enough of the cognitive dissonance. Face your choices and tell me how you square yourself with them. For shame.

I have a bunch of friends at Google; it's a mix of "not my department," "the pay is good," and a few "true believers."

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#86

Post by pm90 »

MangoCoffee wrote: post #56

its really sad to see Google kowtow to China. i guess money trump everything. a free, open and democratic China is Taiwan. you can see it by Taiwan's handling of covid 19. they are open about their cases, allowed press to ask unlimited questions and show everything to Taiwanese and not conceal any info. its sad that Western companies love money more than the Western values that they always talk about. "Don't be evil"

Western companies don’t talk about values, Western governments do. The past few decades have seen an aggressive destruction in the power of Western governments to subdue them to Corporate power. The US is a prime example where the Republican party’s only policy platform (not even exaggerating) is “tax cuts are the solution to every problem”.

The US government specifically has been declawed and dismembered by the current administration to the point of uselessness. The only time it’s willing to assert power is to enable the corrupt dealings of political appointees and lobbyists.

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#87

Post by est »

BlackCherry wrote: post #58
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #46

Some interesting background on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_bandit

I was just about to post this: Communist bandit (Chinese: 共匪; pinyin: gòngfěi) is an anti-communist insult directed to the Chinese Communist Party. The term originated from the Nationalist Government in 1927. This is direct censorship on behalf of the Chinese Government.

It's an insult but also a historical fact. KMT was listed a observer party in COMINTERN and Chiang Kai Shek himself was nominated as president of COMINTERN China branch. So in a sense KMT was the real Communist deal and CCP was a copycat version.

COMINTERN even ordered CCP to join force with KMT to form "united front", Mao himself was forced to join KMT. And it turned out to be a bloodshed purge by the KMT. Afterwards The CCP failed to hold its insurgent territories, CCP vows to kickout the Soviet consultants and cut links with COMINTERN and became independent, thus began the famous "Long March". THe term "bandit" was invented at that time.

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#89

Post by uoaei »

joobus wrote: post #39
uoaei wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, they're pro-people-who-call-themselves-Communist-and-also-have-a-lot-of-geopolitical-power-and-market-share. China is most certainly a capitalist state through and through, and Google is a money-grubbing company whose sole motive is profit. It really isn't hard to talk about these things in frank terms without resorting to silly culture-war-style name-calling.

[flagged]

Hey, I can also make unsubstantiated claims on public fora.

China is not communist.

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#90

Post by qubex »

haram_masala wrote: post #47

Why would Google do this, though? They seem to have mostly ceded the Chinese market.

Because the Chinese market is huge. Because freedom of speech in the Western world is an individual liberty which platforms such as YouTube do not need to guarantee, whereas censorship in China is an absolute requirement they must abide by. The payoffs are asymmetric. If we had legislation in the EU or in the US that demanded that YouTube not tamper with users’ comments, then they’d have to choose between one side and the other. As it is, they’re not legislated as a utility, so they have editorial oversight.
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