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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

#331

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #265
marcolussetti wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, political affiliation is a protected class in other countries where YouTube operates. It's hard to strike a balance on this I fear.

> political affiliation is a protected class in other countries where YouTube operates At which point Google should decide on what countries they operate in. If they operate in a country where political affiliation is a protected class, go ahead and hide those comments to users in that country. But don't export that country's values to mine.

Unfortunately, the Internet allows a user to connect to to a server in any country on the planet, so your solution is really a non-solution because it's trivially bypassed.

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

#332

Post by zbentley »

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…

Might it be because threads like these often cause toxic, rude, unproductive, and generally tribal discourse in the comments?

Looking around the comment threads, I certainly don't see a lot of intellectual curiosity being stimulated or minds being expanded. I see a lot of dogmatic accusations, hyperbolic bemoaning-the-downfall-of-civilization, and general "how could you possibly believe that?!"-toned rudeness. Not our finest hour.

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

#333

Post by atomashpolskiy »

duxup wrote: post #330
atomashpolskiy wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

New submission has 13 points in 21 minutes and still not displayed on front or "ask" page. How come?

What is supposed to get something on the 'ask' page? I've found things that ... I suspect never showed up on the ask page.

Posting text without a link?

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

#334

Post by JumpCrisscross »

specialp wrote: post #259
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 共匪 is seen as an insult by a group, but others do not This is where the legal concept of protected classes may be helpful. They're sets of attributes society has deemed one cannot discriminate against. That tends to line up well with said society's line between insulting and hateful. As a legal definition, these class definitions tend to be precise. That makes them convenient for exporting. Notably, political affil…

Yes but that is a difficult thing even in our society in the US. Then to project that to the world is harder. In the USA we have values that tend to see political censorship as evil, but in some other countries they see political criticism as insulting and a hindrance to government. I too thought for a long time that any place that censored or punished political dissidents probably was a place that had people yearnin…

> that is a difficult thing even in our society in the US

Difficult. Yet commonly done. (With respect to protected classes, I mean.)

> Then to project that to the world is harder

This is not a requirement. My beef is with Google exporting China's censorship regime to New Yorkers like me. I'm not thrilled with China censoring what its people see. But that's a different category of problem.

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

#335

Post by SquareWheel »

pacala wrote: post #295
skybrian wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't work there anymore, but this is a confused argument born of zealotry. Taking Google's money to work on open source is totally fine. More money spent on good things might even mean less spent on bad things. For example, nothing good would come from the Go team quitting over unrelated political stuff.

FWIW, open source is not an absolute good. It is undercutting the ability of your peers to make a living. It is making software a commodity, such that capital rich hardware owners can make a killing. See AWS. Commoditize your complement. https://www.gwern.net/Complement

It may not be common, but it is possible to make money on open-source software. Redhat would be the largest example. Automattic's WordPress is another.

If software can be profitable whether it's open or closed-source, then isn't open-source inherently better?

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

#336

Post by Vysero »

jtdev wrote: post #240
brmgb wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It so happens that we've entered a period where technology, morality, ideology, etc. are converging - to censor those who wish to talk about these connections would seem very antithetical to a culture of inspiring bright minds, innovation, and technological advancement for the good of mankind.

I for one have never shied away from a "hot headed" argument. Imho, I feel that as adults it is our responsibility to voice our opinions even in times when that opinion will contrast with another. In fact, sometimes it is crucial to do so as often times the most important arguments to be had are the most heated.

I believe the HN esk counter-point would be that HN is not the proper forum for those kinds of discussion. Imho, there is no "proper" forum for these kinds of discussions. They simply need to be had, more now than ever in my lifetime, on every street corner, and in every shop.

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

#337

Post by usr1106 »

duxup wrote: post #213
kens wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's why software should be open source.

Ironically the article about google censorship ended up discussing whether there is hn censorship or whether it just magic ranking.

With open source everybody could check whether there was censorship outside of any smart ranking algorithm.

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

#338

Post by ddevault »

yashap wrote: post #255
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’m not a Google employee, but really all companies of large enough size care only about the bottom line. Large companies don’t have morals, they just try to make money at all costs, full stop. Google is a bit more hypocritical in that they pretend to be about more than this, but lots of companies are similarly hypocritical, especially tech companies. It’s really only small businesses that have any sort of humanity (…

The answer to this is collective action.

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

#339

Post by eeZah7Ux »

101404 wrote: post #256
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…

"some consider hateful"... There will always be "some people" to consider anything hateful. Maybe we should just all stop communicating with each other, so nobody gets "hurt".

Not so fast. All societies need to draw a line on where speech constitute offense, libel, or even death threats.

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

#340

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ThrowawayR2 wrote: post #331
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> political affiliation is a protected class in other countries where YouTube operates At which point Google should decide on what countries they operate in. If they operate in a country where political affiliation is a protected class, go ahead and hide those comments to users in that country. But don't export that country's values to mine.

Unfortunately, the Internet allows a user to connect to to a server in any country on the planet, so your solution is really a non-solution because it's trivially bypassed.

> your solution is really a non-solution because it's trivially bypassed

One, governments who don't like this have ways of fixing it. Two, this true for other media--I can ship my friend a book banned in their country. And three, tough. Nobody has global jurisdiction.

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