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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

#811

Post by FreedomToCreate »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #680
subsubzero wrote: post #472

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are some numbers to keep you up at night, they are very scary: Google controls 91.89% of the search market [1] G controls 68% of the browser market [2] G's android is on 84% of phones operating systems [3] G has 73% of the search advertising market [4] [1] https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share [2] https://www.statista.com/statistics/544400/market-share-of-i... [3] https://beta.trimread.com/articl…

Hm, I've switched to: DuckDuckGo - search Brave - browser Android - you've got me there; but I might switch to Apple next year. Gmail - ditto, but I'm hoping to switch to proton or similar Youtube - alternatives like Bitchute exist for banned videos Fortunately, although the GOOG does have a lot of best-in-class products out there, competition is rising. Consumers benefit from lots of choices.

Google biggest advantage (and its the same thing Apple and Microsoft are doing) is integration of services that ultimately make the users life easier. Personally I use a Mac and iPhone and all my data is stored in iCloud. I do a lot of my personal work with MS Office and my email is Gmail. But over time I have found that choosing an ecosystem does benefit you. Recently I switched my work tasks to Google suite products and dropped my Apple TV for an android based solution. The main advantage is now my TV, browser (chrome), gmail, youtube are all synced together. I can watch videos on my tv and save others to pick up on my phone later. I can edit my docs anywhere and link them into my emails easily. I have debated moving from Apples Photos to Google Photos so that my images are all centrally located for my own ease of use and cross platform integration. I still back up all files to a secondary drive and forward copies of important emails to my outlook account in case I ever get locked out of my google account, but the integration is really nice.

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

#812

Post by belorn »

JAlexoid wrote: post #786
belorn wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that's a monopoly, it's not quite the kind of a monopoly we should generally be worried about. It the same monopoly that a town center has in term of political activities. Anyone could easily choose to switch to hold demonstrations somewhere else, but the result of holding it where only 8% of people will see it will make that less of a choice for the ones organizing the event. As a society where I live we recogn…

That's a horrible analogy. While people can be physically only in one location, they do get their information from a variety of source online. Comparing Google to a town square is dumb, when you account that Facebook has much more engaged users than YouTube. At the time of writing I'm reading stuff on Facebook, Reuters, Yahoo Finance, Twitter, Reddit and watching YouTube videos in between.(HN as well) I'm present on…

I guess people has a bit different view about how sticky platforms are. If I imagine that google would take a political side in the US election and ban all site and comments of the other side, my belief is that it would have a direct impact on the election results and there would be nothing that the banned party could do. Politics right now depend highly on being visible on google search, Youtube and google ad network. A small but noticeable portion of users would move out, but it would not be close enough to compensate the loss and the impact on the political climate would take years to recover.

I would like to be wrong on this and that google do not have this kind of power.

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

#813

Post by JAlexoid »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #810
JAlexoid wrote: post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Let be honest. If your ads are stalking and spying on me then you're way more of an asshole.

Don't visit the sites that do that then. See? Magic!

No one is obligated to provide you with content on your terms, other than the government.

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

#814

Post by acituan »

drak0n1c wrote: post #748
acituan wrote: post #424

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don’t know, because right now youtube is one black box in Google’s finance sheets. We don’t know if it is a loss leader, which I think is very likely. Imagine youtube was a separate company that always ran in the red and another private company solely footed their bill. Would you trust YouTube’s neutrality then? Wouldn’t that explicate why competition is having difficulty emerging? Or imagine YouTube were to split…

YouTube was much more profitable before the current era of partisan activists engaging in targeted campaigns of harassment against specific brands when their ads appear next to controversial content. Before, industry players, YouTubers, and users largely didn't mind. Now, there is a systemic chilling effect in the form of demonetization, algorithm shenanigans, and banning. To recover revenue under this new paradigm,…

> YouTube was much more profitable before the current era.

We don't know if it has ever been profitable at all.

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

#815

Post by jb775 »

dang wrote: post #570
atomashpolskiy wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hey, dang. I've sent a letter to hn@ycombinator.com 5 hours ago, questioning why my AskHN submission "Self-censorship on HN" has been flagged and blocked for further replies. Have you seen it by any chance? I'm really concerned about the issue. > Do you really think we're suppressing discussion of the suppression of the phrase "communist bandits" from YouTube? I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion…

I have not seen it yet. If you saw the inbox you'd understand why. I'll get to it as soon as I can. Edit: One not-so-obvious reason why subthreads like this are so disastrous for HN is that they suck up all the moderation resources. I haven't had a chance to even look at the rest of the HN front page yet, let alone the emails.

Definitely agree it's not sustainable to moderate these issues individually. But maybe it's a red flag that HN needs to change their approach to this issue? It feels like a "guilty until proven innocent" setup.

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

#816

Post by [deleted] »

skissane wrote: post #787
Flantastical wrote: post #499

Earlier 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.

[deleted]

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

#818

Post by BeetleB »

manigandham wrote: post #285
shadowgovt wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, can't agree. The rules we had in the last decade weren't actually working; they only appeared to work. They looked like they were creating conflict-free environments, but they were really creating environments where, in general, minority populations hate speech was targeted against weren't using the tools or participating in the forums that had a laissez-faire attitude on such things.

What do you mean by not "actually working"? What is a "conflict-free environment"? What does hate speech have to do with minority populations? Do people within those populations never say hateful things, even to each other? How do you know they never participated in any forums? This sounds like an awful lot of assumptions.

You made a claim here.[1] Then to virtually every response, you ask lots and lots of questions like "What does this mean?" "Why.." "What..."

While your questions are fair, it is noteworthy that you haven't clarified or backed up your original claim. As someone reading this thread, I'm a bit surprised people are engaging with you. Personally, I would not engage with someone who makes an unsubstantiated claim, and instead of backing it up keeps trying to poke holes in others' responses.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223793

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

#819

Post by crocodiletears »

Swenrekcah wrote: post #720
MiSeRyDeee wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't you even see removing the CIA's whistle blower's name is in interest of US gov? How can that be interpreted as protecting an individual?

It certainly does not seem to be in the interest of the current US government. To answer your question: Protecting a whistleblower's identity is in the interest of US society as a whole. It protects the individual somewhat from persecution which in turn encourages people to blow the whistle on illegal activities, thus benefiting society.

If the last four years have proven anything, it's that the US gvt. is not a monolith. The three branches of the government are further subdivided into bureaus, agencies, committees, and regional subdivisions, all with their own distinct interests and concerns. The president may be the chief subject of public scrutiny at present, but that doesn't mean other interests within the state should be immune to scrutiny.

I can't claim to know anything about ciarmella's background, save what hyper-partisan, conservative outlets have spewed. But absent more even-handed coverage, or rebuttals from liberal and left-leaning outlets, the details of his personal history, and affiliations do seem to merit some level of public scrutiny. Anyone interested can look him up on Breitbart, conservapedia /wikispooks, or through any other connservativr outlet (oddly enough, not fox last time I checked). But I'd rather not link to those rags if I'm not confident of the veracity of the information within.

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

#820

Post by cmroanirgo »

JAlexoid wrote: post #786
belorn wrote: post #767

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If that's a monopoly, it's not quite the kind of a monopoly we should generally be worried about. It the same monopoly that a town center has in term of political activities. Anyone could easily choose to switch to hold demonstrations somewhere else, but the result of holding it where only 8% of people will see it will make that less of a choice for the ones organizing the event. As a society where I live we recogn…

That's a horrible analogy. While people can be physically only in one location, they do get their information from a variety of source online. Comparing Google to a town square is dumb, when you account that Facebook has much more engaged users than YouTube. At the time of writing I'm reading stuff on Facebook, Reuters, Yahoo Finance, Twitter, Reddit and watching YouTube videos in between.(HN as well) I'm present on…

All analogies fail given certain conditions. However for the choice of which search engine to register with and which ad company to choose, most companies would choose G first. So, back to the analogy (which I found strange, but certainly not dumb) a company (or person) looking to be heard would certainly have far smaller reach if G actively blocked them from their services.
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