Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

support.google.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

601–610 of 1001 posts

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

#601

Post by leoh »

mikaeluman wrote: post #57

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.

It's more complex than that. Imagine that you are a US company operating in Germany that provides German citizens with an incredible amount of information that wouldn't otherwise be available. You have thousands of people working in Germany. Occasionally, the Nazis ask you to censor things, If you don't, your entire team is at risk and will all loose their employment and citizens of Germany will loose access to an incredible amount of information and services. It's not cut and dry.

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

#602

Post by peterwwillis »

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.

> having a near-monopoly on various public communication channels

> Google's "We're a private company" get-out-jail-free card cannot continue to apply

You're upset that they have a monopoly on their own website/business? What the hell are you even talking about?

Do you even remember the internet before Google? I do. You know how I found new websites? By typing random domain names into the URL bar and trying different combinations of TLDs.

Then I used Yahoo. Excite. AltaVista. Lycos. Ask Jeeves. Dmoz. Alltheweb. They all kinda sucked in their own unique ways. And then Google came around, and I could actually find what the hell I was looking for in one go.

Your outrage is pure entitlement. You don't like the way the world works, so you think you deserve to change everything to function exactly the way you want. As if that's in any way rational, fair, or ethical. Presumably you think of yourself as a good person. How is it good to demand unreasonable things from people who do not owe you anything? Do you really think this is the best way to effect societal change?

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

#603

Post by MiSeRyDeee »

Veen wrote: post #531
socrates1998 wrote: post #245

I can't fathom how private companies still think that they can make the CCP happy AND their western customers. The CCP holds values that are completely untenable to western values. As time goes on, companies who don't know this will lose massive brand value in the western world. The NBA has managed to tight rope this so far, but I doubt they can hold it together for very much longer. The CCP is still calling for the…

It goes beyond private companies. We can't even rely on the WHO to do the right thing when it risks annoying the CCP.

Which is an untrue story that Trump trying to tell

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

#604

Post by missosoup »

dang wrote: post #577
missosoup wrote: post #535

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems like my comment was also vanished from the top of the thread? I don't see what guidelines I came even close to breaking. Help me out here? No one's going to see your reply, my comment is detached from the submission. But I do want to understand what's going on here.

Of course I marked it off topic. It's the most off topic thing you could possibly have posted. Guideline: " Please don't post on HN to ask or tell us something. Send it to hn@ycombinator.com. " https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

That's a bit disingenuous isn't it? You're saying that the actual beef (vanishing Ask thread about google censorship) is okay to mention, and the reason my comment was silently nuked is because I happened to address the HN team? That's a bit strange.

I really do believe you have the best interests of the community in mind, but this chain of events is making it difficult. Using 'off topic' as an arbitrarily broad mechanism to remove high SnR content doesn't have the best optics, especially when a lot of the child discussion was pointing out seemingly inconsistent and arbitrary enforcement of HN guidelines.

Again, help me out here. You're acting in good faith. Maybe a more clear and specific set of guidelines would help?

You're not going to tell me with a straight face that the highest upvoted comment on that submission and the origin of some healthy debate was 'off topic' when the top 3 comments of most front page submissions are far less related to TFA, are you?

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

#605

Post by pathseeker »

tidepod12 wrote: post #508
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.

Drew, ever since sourcehut got a little positive attention you seem to have adopted this mindset of " I started my own company and don't have to work for the man anymore, why doesn't everyone else just do the same?" You need to realize that this is an extremely narrow minded view to have. Not everyone can start their own business. What would you have done if sourcehut hadn't gained enough popularity to be successful?…

Google employees are more than capable of getting jobs at thousands of other smaller companies with narrower customer bases and clearer ethical stances. Nobody "needs" Google SWE money. You can still easily clear 6 figures while taking a moral stance so this "think of the starving" argument doesn't work.

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

#606

Post by centimeter »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #282
toolz wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ah yes, the idea that profit driven management is a better juror of freedom than our democratic society. Whatever they decide, they owe you no explanation or recourse. After all, these people are 'accountable' to wall street. To them 2008 and Boeing 737 were an unforceable turn of fortune, and they should bear no harm from it.

> a better juror of freedom than our democratic society.

Almost anything is better at safeguarding freedom than allowing people to vote on what counts as freedom.

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

#607

Post by cosmojg »

Apes wrote: post #548
SquareWheel wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I'm not sure RedHat is a good example any more, since they were aquired by IBM.

They continue to operate fairly independently, and there business is still fully open source. IBM executives have also paid lip service to their model, suggesting they might move towards it. (Of course, lip service is lip service, and action is action. Two different things.)

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

#608

Post by anigbrowl »

Can any native Chinese speaker offer some additional context, like whether this is likely just a request from the CCP to mute criticism in general, or whether the phrase in Chinese has some specific meaning/implications beyond the separate meaning of the two characters?

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

#609

Post by golergka »

ardy42 wrote: post #565
manigandham wrote: post #442

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The First Amendment of the US Constitution.

>>> The solution is to realize "hate speech" is mostly subjective and revert back to the clear rules that we had last decade before the current political climate of gratuitous outrage. >> What were those clear rules we apparently abandoned for no reason? > The First Amendment of the US Constitution. Ah yes, the good old days when every newspaper was obligated to publish every letter to the editor and every citizen wa…

Newspaper has editorial control, while Google and YouTube pretend to be platforms. Phone company doesn't censor your conversation, but also doesn't take responsibility for their content. YouTube has much more in common with it than with a newspaper.
Post reply on HN