I was skeptical, so tried it out myself and tried making a comment there with 'communist bandits' / 共匪. My Youtube comment was indeed removed completely and silently, including from my comment history. I am very disappointed with Youtube.
Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
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Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
#792Similar 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.
Facebook deletes posts with that name in it as well. You're not allowed, even if the name appears in "main steam" press. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2019/11/11/face-n11.html
World Socialist Web Site as mainstream press needs very-very big quotes.
And this Eric C character turned out to be a nobody (maybe a CIA analyst). So why censor this name? Could be a NSL? (But can that somehow compel the recipient to censor a name anywhere?)
Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
#793I 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…
Unfortunately, for most of the Western would values like democracy, freedom of speech, human rights, etc. are more of a vague ideal than something to live by. They surely support it, in words, but if it costs them more than $100 to uphold these values, if there's any substantial risk in it, if you have to risk losing money for standing up to CCP - forget about it. As a society, we'd rather spend weeks debating whether wearing sombrero, growing cauliflowers and drinking craft beer is racist (yes, that's real debates that people have) or whether it's OK to have a particular picture as a logo of a company, than address people being put in concentration camps and disassembled for spare parts by CCP. Maybe if CCP actions cause a pandemic that kills hundreds of thousands we vaguely consider doing something... but nah, arresting single surfers for "not social distancing" sounds more fun.
So don't put too much hope in "western customers". They'd allow likes of Google to get away with a lot, unfortunately.
Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
#794Youtube 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…
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.
That's belittling a very serious issue. A lot of these recent anti-lockdown protests have been fueled out of social media by actors peddling extremely questionable narratives.
Holocaust denial has seen a massive revival in Germany, to such a degree that sentiments like that are intermixing with conspiracy theories about the "NWO" supposedly using COVID-19 to finalize their "2000 years old rule", with the help of Bill Gates who apparently wants to microchip everybody on the planet to "depopulate" it.
Trump is supposedly the last and only defense against this take-over by the "deep state", and will soon end it all when he reveals "Obamagate", he apparently also federalized the FED. Tho none of these people could even tell me when that supposedly happened.
While individually these ideas and movements have been floating around the web for quite a while, it's absolutely scary how they are now merging together [0] and being chanted by people in the streets after they got their "Information on the Internet" which regularly means: Facebook groups, YouTube channels and now even Twitch streams, places they usually arrive at after using search engines in the most misleading way possible.
It's like peak Eternal September where people will just believe the most obscure sources when they confirm their already established beliefs, over well-established data, and factual reality, which apparently is all controlled and manipulated by "dark powers behind the scenes". It's depressing and scary because so far I thought rationality will pull trough, people will learn to properly parse information for its validity and sources for their credibility.
That did not happen, the bad actors are now taking over to a point where they stage events in the meat world, openly threatening democratic institutions. I do not know how to stop this, but this can't keep on going like this, it will take us no place good.
[0] https://www.thedailybeast.com/neo-nazis-qanon-nuts-and-hardc...
Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
#795Youtube 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…
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.
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Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
#796Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think part of the issue is the power of comments like yours that pretends there's a simple solution. In some conversations bad actors can gain more power in a debate using misleading information than a good actor can by using the truth. Most conversations, such as this one about free speech, are so complex that it's tough for a 'good actor' to offer solutions. They may discuss the pros / cons of each side, talk abo…
> In some conversations bad actors can gain more power in a debate using misleading information than a good actor can by using the truth. Can "actors" be neatly divided into "good" and "bad"? Who decides who is a "good actor" and who is a "bad actor"? Your judgement of who is "good" and "bad" may well differ from mine.
> Your judgement of who is "good" and "bad" may well differ from mine.
One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter.
Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
#797This phrase is a pejorative for Communists; it is more or less equivalent to the term 'commies' in English. EDIT: Please don't downvote me for contributing relevant facts to the discussion. I do not support censorship.
A banded together band of bandits bandying about their propaganda. Communists are not US citizens, and even if they were, the US does not have laws to protect softies from "pejorative speech." Clearly, someone claimed it was "hate speech" -- which it is not -- and now it's banned globally on YouTube because US laws stipulate they must not entertain Hate Speech, but until a US judge says "Communist Bandito" is hate sp…
Sure, vote me down but it's true - extranational powers do not have citizens' rights in the US, and even if they did, pejorative language is not something citizens are insulated from as a right.
Google is siding with a fascist prison-state over Americans' right to free speech, it is deplorable.
And furthermore, the only real justification for a global ban for a US-based company could be "hate speech," which clearly enough communist operatives claimed it was, but just because somebody's feelings are hurt doesn't make something hate speech, it doesn't come down to cancellation politics.
In other words, Google is siding with the Party Room of Control because Google is not an American company. If they were, they would not let this stand.
Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
#798Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did the same a few years back, use duck duck go for search, iphone for phone, apple maps for directions, firefox|safari|brave for browser, it is really easy to get google out of your life, only thing I am still looking to replace is mail, if anyone has found something that is free(or relatively cheap) and is reliable I'd love to know.
purelymail.com is hella cheap!
That actually looks decently cheap but has anybody else on HN used this before? I don't think I've heard of it till now.
Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
#799Earlier quoted context omitted.
There are two parties that decide what constitutes an intelligent, well-reasoned critique. The first party is the owner(s) of a platform. For any owner, there is incentive to preserve power, but there is also incentive to not act as an oppressive villain. The owner sometimes has ideals beyond power, such as cultivating free communication to build ideas for a better world. But even the most callous, iron-fisted dictat…
I disagree, since I think all speech* is equally protected speech, including a crude slur. The reason for that is because it is far too easy for the powers that be to use claims of "only cleaning out the trash" to censor legitimate thoughts and expressions. Throughout history humans have proven incapable of making the right call on where to draw that line, so the only option is to draw it at all. To refute your point…
You posit a false dilemma:
* Accept suppression of intelligent dissent.
* Allow all speech, including unintelligent and hateful speech.
This is evidently false, given:
1) Intelligent, well-reasoned dissent against a platform is permitted on virtually all large platforms on the internet, and this has been the case for decades.
2) Virtually all large platforms censor unintelligent, hateful speech.
Your nightmare scenario of intelligent speech disappearing due to censorship of small-minded vulgarity simply hasn't happened.
Quite the opposite, intelligent speech does disappear when small-minded vulgarity isn't censored. See voat or 4chan or the thousands of other poorly censored, poorly moderated places on the internet. Productive, intelligent communication does not happen in public forums without censorship.
Concerning what-ifs and slippery slopes, call me when someone with a well-reasoned argument is being suppressed by a large platform. All I've ever seen is hate and misinformation being pushed down the drain, and good riddance.
Censoring kids spamming "communist bandit" isn't a problem, not in this universe.
Censoring a professor critiquing communism as a viable form of government would be a problem, but that's neither here nor there.
Meanwhile, legitimate problems in the free speech domain are draconian copyright laws, suppressing science and creativity, and espionage laws, suppressing whistleblowers such as Snowden.
If we've decided that free speech shall be our crusade, and we're in the US, our limited time and resources should be focused on these real, ongoing, and broad-reaching problems.
Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube
#800I 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.
Google even more outrageous qet-out-of-jail-free card is the "our servers aren't in your country so we don't have to obey your laws"