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The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

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Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#781

Post by cmendel »

nomel wrote: post #752
hackyhacky wrote: post #699

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure you mean that sarcastically, but you shouldn't. It's fun to complain about "the establishment," until it isn't there anymore. In the current case, "the establishment" means American democracy, which is built on people's faith in the institution of elections. If you erode that faith, democracy no longer works. That may be fine with you, but it's not fine with me.

Then why base it on faith? Make it impossible to vote multiple times/places, or as someone else. Invalidate registration [6] for , and immediately flag when, a dead person tries to vote. Make it so you can instantaneously see that your vote was entered and confirm it to help with the anomaly detection. I think this is what everyone wants, and I think it would appease many worries. Unfortunately, this would almost cer…

Sure, but you also need to pair it with free Gov issued IDs for all individuals. The Voter fraud canard is a red herring when electoral fraud is an order of magnitude worse.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#782

Post by prohobo »

To anyone reading these threads who is disconcerted by all the apologists, rationalizations, and blindness: Hello, this is what modern totalitarianism looks like. The whole point is to shake the foundations of your principles, and make you doubt yourself.

Corporations that control 90% of the internet, and therefore public discourse, are hiding behind the technicality of being private entities, and therefore can enforce whatever rules they want. This can't really be disputed, but it's obviously unethical, and obviously used in bad faith. They are no longer just companies, but quasi-states.

Some people saw this coming in the early 2010's, but no one really cared. We saw people's indifference to being tracked by these companies and governments with Snowden's leaks. We saw the transformation of Google, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter from supposedly "open platforms" to editorialized publishers, and arbiters of truth.

This is exactly what we all signed up for, without caring about the consequences. This is only going to get worse.

Some people have called for a decentralized internet, where there is no overlord, but truly open platforms. That's the modern counter-culture, or modern activism. Decentralization won't solve all our problems, but it would make it easier to work on them in good faith.

Things I'd like to encourage, from a pragmatic view:

- Stop using the corporate internet.

- We must hear people out, even if they're wrong.

- We need to remove the addictive and exploitative systems currently ingrained in social media design.

- Move from a perspective of "us versus them" into a mindset of compassion for others who have valid grievances that are not being addressed.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#783

Post by rbanffy »

disgruntledphd2 wrote: post #771
nickysielicki wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demonetization is not censorship, imho. They support YouTube through their advertisers, and their advertisers don't want to be affiliated with guns. It makes sense that they won't pay you for videos that they can't monetize -- they're just passing on the loss to the video producer. Beyond demonetization, YouTube did categorically ban videos demonstrating how to install and/or fabricate an autosear. In practice, this…

If you think that this isn't censorship, then I strongly encourage you to read Manufacturing Consent.

There is a difference between for-profit content and free speech.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#784

Post by read_if_gay_ »

pii wrote: post #778
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t like the word bothsidesism because it implies that in reality only one side is the bad actor. That is a massive implication considering how casually it’s thrown around. Moreover, it’s used like an accusation. Accusing people of acknowledging that things probably aren’t black and white . Full on groupthink.

Black and white ;) It's more like 80% / 20%. The disparity is huge, documented, and factual.

How are you objectively going to document misinformation? How are you even going to assign weights?

Voter fraud is 100 points for Trump, the Hunter story is 50 points for the Dems, etc..?

The thing is that if you ask side X they’ll say it’s 80/20 for side Y and vice versa. Neither should be so confident that they’re right. And pointing that out is now called bothsidesism. The lengths people go to to avoid cognitive dissonance is beyond ridiculous.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#785

Post by rbanffy »

inglor_cz wrote: post #744
remarkEon wrote: post #693

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you should extend this thought a little bit further. If tech companies start deciding that certain gun content (to use the example in the parent) shouldn't be allowed, that will of course have an effect on the general population's opinion about guns and gun rights given their market control of online video. To me it's fairly obvious that this channel of media can be used to control what people think is "norma…

At the risk of Godwinizing the thread, one of the first oppressive operation against Jews in the Reich was a campaign "Kauft nicht bei den Juden" (Do not buy from Jews). It did not carry weight of the law, you COULD still go to a Jewish shop and buy something, but the message was that the society disapproves, the state disapproves and you are a dirty being for doing so. The result was severing of an important daily i…

This is not the same thing. The campaign you refer to was created to harm a large group. Demonetization targets only the content makers but not their audience.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#786

Post by samdlathsworth »

hackyhacky wrote: post #618
ceilingcorner wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are assuming that the regular media is the default, the truth, and that propaganda didn’t exist prior to 2016. Read Manufacturing Consent for a brief overview of this history of widespread weaponization of information by innumerable actors. Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed. What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility.

This is the kinds of "both-sides-ism" that gives centrists a bad reputation. You're basically saying: "everyone uses media to achieve their goals, therefore all sides are equally bad." No. Using misinformation to intentionally disrupt a democratic election is demonstrably dangerous to society. Say what you will about the "establishment," but traditional media still bear some semblance of the truth. Now we're seeing t…

The Democrats ran maybe the biggest misinformation campaign in my lifetime following the 2016 election. Massive turmoil and investigations later, it was all found to be false. What is this about “sides” again?

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#787

Post by rbanffy »

VyperCard wrote: post #686
bussierem wrote: post #633

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An algorithm doesn't write or tune itself. This is unnecessary pedantry.

In YouTube’s case it may do in part. If you give it the wrong objective like „make people look at more Videos“ it will optimize its suggestions for this

It would be useful to give it a different objective, say, to "suggest content that disproves what you just saw using verifiable facts", but that'd be too hard without curating lists of such proofs and sources.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#788

Post by pas »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #656
twentydollars wrote: post #649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> “A group of unknown people at a technology corporation should be the ultimate authority on what I’m allowed to say, read, or share with my friends.” Literally nobody is suggesting this. It's about freedom of Reach, not freedom of speech.

Right now, at this very moment, Facebook and Twitter prevent you from sending certain links via private message.

They also prevent sending links to known phishing sites. They prevent the spread of malware.

Yes, this Trump-idiocy is malware.

Yes, this oversight needs oversight in the open. A list of banned stuff, with explanation.

Also, not surprisingly alternative platforms quickly sprung up to serve that audience and host. Though they might eventually get kicked off Cloudflare, and so on.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#790

Post by MrMan »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #495

I find it really disconcerting how many people on Hacker News want a corporate entity to decide what information is deemed acceptable to know. Do you even know where that word came from? The irony is almost overwhelming. But I digress... The idea that banning certain information will somehow result in it disappearing has been shown repeatedly to not work. A cursory reading of history should make this clear. You canno…

Whats more disconcerting is sectarian violence fomenting by propaganda, even to the point of the breakup of a nuclear armed state, the US. That is disconcerting to me. Preventing it is of the highest priority.
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