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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

#181
post #59

Similar happens with the name "Eric Ciaramella", which YouTube instantly deletes. This is a name of a CIA whistle blower. It would be interesting to know what other words are in the YouTube censor list.

Wow. No Wikipedia articles on him either, and reports of people getting permanently banned from Wikipedia for trying to create that article, or even mentioning him in another.

Wow.

It's almost like the missions of popular websites fall in line with protecting individuals against government-sponsored attacks on whistleblowers.

Witness protection isn't some flashy thing in movies. It's real and society benefits from it.

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

#182

Imagine you posting “nazi bandits” on a WW2 video and seeing it vanish after 15s. We in the IT community need to disassociate with google as much as we possibly can. Free speech is more important than ever.

There s no “we” in the IT community, theres the “well funded groupthink” and “the sea of the unknowns”. When did the IT band together to achieve something?

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

#183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Google is in a no-win situation. Post-2016 election, there has been enormous pressure put on Google (and Facebook and Twitter) to ramp up their censorship from the anti-Trump center/center-left/left. The mainstream media is on it too and relishes taking shots at social media every chance they get (the YouTube 'adpocalypse' was spurned by a hit piece by Washington Post against some minor doofus thing that…

Off topic, but this framing really struck me: > the anti-Trump center/center-left/left So... basically everyone who isn't a Trump supporter, then? Is that really how you see the world? The president of the united states vs. literally everyone else? And you've chosen the political side instead of the social consensus?

>So... basically everyone who isn't a Trump supporter, then?

No. There are plenty of non-Trump supporters[1] who don't care for YouTube censorship. However, the calls for censorship and pressure on social media companies came as a result of the panic-induced from Trump's election and Russian election interference, which does correlate with anti-Trump voices, more specifically Democratic party establishment and their supporters.

Those aren't the only voices to call for censorship. There is also a parallel cultural war that pressures social media companies to censor hate-speech (as defined by supporters). This tends to generate a lot of noise from both sides, but I think it's probably minor in the grand scheme of things. That Democrats in Congress are cracking down on social media is by far a much bigger deal - because they can actually punish these companies through laws and regulation - and they have been threatening to do so.

[1] I supported Hillary in 2016 because, for all her faults and unlikability, she would have been a reasonable and competent leader. So no, I'm not a huge fan of Trump, but I also don't pearl-clutch every time he says something dumb on Twitter or in a press conference. In a similar vein, though I think he should be a one-term president, I don't think it's an existential threat if he gets elected again.

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

#184

Very unfortunate - should be able to critique anything and not be censored.

To critique is not to insult. They don't prevent you from criticising anything. They are only trying to remove insults.

Found the CCP shill.

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

#185

In other news, Youtube will soon be coming to China. Pick your adventure, which do you want? Youtube in CN or write whatever you like? You'll also get videos deleted if you include in them info against WHO advice.

As an American that's a pretty easy choice you're asking me to make.

We have 1 vote. Can I get another vote please? Anybody, lady in the back? Yes. alright!

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

#187

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…

A few years ago, I reverse-engineered the HN ranking algorithm [1]. Basic ranking is based on votes vs age, but there are numerous other factors. Penalties are applied based on words in the title or the domain. Posts with too many comments got penalized as controversial. A "voting ring detector" triggers other automatic penalties.

HN ranking has probably become more complex since I looked at it. Manual moderation also impacts ranking.

[1] http://www.righto.com/2013/11/how-hacker-news-ranking-really...

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

#188
post #139

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…

Some users tend to flag stories about China and censorship because they generate a lot of nationalistic and hot headed comments and very little actual intelligent discussion. Just look at the comments attached to this submission.

Yeah I've seen what looks like the same pattern.

I'm not sure this is a behind the scenes Snidely Whiplash situation or ... just mass flagging by users with a specific POV.

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

#189
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…

[deleted]

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

#190

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.

It might be easy to say this, but I believe I would quit if I was asked to implement something like that. But perhaps I'd be different if I were paid $300k a year. (I sure hope not, though)

by "like that" do you mean "a community moderation system" or "a system for the CCP to backdoor explicit takedown rules into the system?"

Based on what we're seeing right now, this is likely caused not by the latter, but by the former. Consider: the ML-assisted thread moderation logic can be vulnerable to brigading. If several tens of thousands of Chinese people decided to start flagging comments with that phrase, YT would also start killing the phrase (because its sample is biased towards seeing "That phrase usually results in a flag, so the community clearly doesn't want it").

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