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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

#211

Post by artificial »

toolz wrote: post #172
koheripbal wrote: post #112

I think a more fundamental problem is a single private company having a near-monopoly on various public communication channels, and having financial interests in various global dictatorships. The Founding Fathers could not have predicted this. Google's "We're a private company" get-out-jail-free card cannot continue to apply.

We have loads of communication channel alternatives. People freely choose google and should be allowed to continue freely choosing whatever platform they please. The idea that some governing body can better choose my communication platform for my personal needs than I can for myself doesn't seem logical from my point of view.

The argument is a popular Authoritarian viewpoint that isn't viewed as such. Meanwhile the work towards decentralization continues, one day I hope it'll get the network effect akin to Bittorrent.

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

#212

Post by CamelCaseName »

willis936 wrote: post #181
CamelCaseName wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1. I imagine state actors have better information than Wikipedia editors.

2. Leaving that aside, why permanently ban those who make such contributions to Wikipedia?

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

#213

Post by duxup »

kens wrote: post #187
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…

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 als…

Interesting.

I suspect the formula is changing if only because the sheer volume of spammy type stuff skyrocketing to the top seems to have subsided.

There was a short run where a lot of nearly raw spam type posts were quickly rising to the top, and sticking a long time despite almost / all the comments being about how terrible the spam is.

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

#214

Post by takecarefnd »

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…

舔共(which means curry favor of CCP) also will be deleted. We can confirm that Google is 舔共ing!

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

#215

Post by anoonmoose »

buckminstrix wrote: post #197
cbilson wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, this is more like: “In other news, you are in China now.” I don’t care that much about how Chinese citizens let their 共肥 party censor them, but it’s not ok when I am being censored for speech that could be considered offensive to the communist party of China.

Nope. Well, sort of , but not really. It's more like. You are on Earth now. All the big govs work together at the highest levels. The whole nationalistic shtick is for us proles down here in the bleachers, working the boilers, eating scraps. You know, like entertainment? Something to get all excited about, like. And all govs control info. Democracies just pretend they don't (they do it covertly, through narrative con…

Never really seen the Bill of Rights reduced to nationalistic slop for the proles before. Kind of impressed, in a sad way.

Edit: all governments control info. I can only think of one government that has a million Uygher Muslims in concentration camps.

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

#216

Post by RodgerTheGreat »

stri8ed wrote: post #164
RodgerTheGreat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope your youtube account isn't linked to a gmail account you consider important.

This is the first time I am seriously considering leaving Gmail. Seems like a royal pain in the ass to switch though, since you don't "own" your email handle like you would a domain.

It is a huge pain in the ass to switch, but the sooner you start transitioning to an email solution you control the sooner you'll be out of the tenuous position of depending on a free service that can be revoked at any time.

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

#217

Post by codegladiator »

barbegal wrote: post #132

As a software engineer I understand these sort of bugs. A product manager in China asks: can we find a way to prevent people commenting on these videos with comments that contain the word 共匪. Engineer goes away and comes up with a plan to train an AI model to detect these comments. He present's this solution to his manager who informs him that the solution needs to be in place next week, there is no time to gather th…

> He adds a new rule to the detector. Mark as spam if it contains the "共匪" sub-string

But they have the best people of the industry who are highly paid for their engineering and problem solving skills.

Isn't this the kind of problem they are supposed to solve ?

> As a software engineer I understand these sort of bugs.

As a software engineer I would have understood this sort of bug if it was some startup.

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

#218

Post by wmkn »

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…

> Youtube is more and more siding towards removing content. I wonder, can US regulators do something about it?

A few weeks ago the discussion here was about how YouTube is not removing enough content (mostly in relation to Covid-19). The consensus was pretty much that they do it on purpose because it makes them money.

I don’t think YouTube (or any large public content platform) has a winning move in this discussion. Any move will be perceived as nefarious.

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

#219

Post by im3w1l »

ddevault wrote: post #101
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…

YCombinator has a financial incentive to support the Chinese regime.

Hacker news and dang in particular has a very good track record of even handed and well thought of moderation. They have definitely earned benefit of the doubt from me. Let's wait a little before bringing the torches.

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

#220

Post by barbapapa22 »

techntoke wrote: post #106
gerbal wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I agree 100%. I've said this before and been threatened with ban by admin/mod. Anytime you go against the agenda, they prevent you for posting comments sometimes in excess of an hour. Then if you reply again and they don't like it you have to wait another hour. Nothing is transparent. They just say, no political discussion, however it only seems to apply towards comments they don't like. It looks like the previous po…

This is a very common bad experience on HN. To me, it must be PG's own character that is being reflected here through a series of mirrors (his disciples). The fish rots from the head down.
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