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YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

reuters.com

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Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#21

Post by perihelions »

Remarkable that they're migrating to a decentralized video host:

>"Fearing further blocking by YouTube, they decided to back up content to Odysee, a website built on a blockchain protocol called LBRY, designed to give creators more control. About 975 videos have been moved so far."

I think this is them? I can't readily verify this (and also everything's written in Kazakh).

https://odysee.com/@ATAJURT

[late edit] Related HN discussions about the protocol:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12418081 "LBRY – A decentralized YouTube alternative" (2016)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928774 "Lbry.io – decentralized digital library" (2017)

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=LBRY

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#23

Post by devetec »

briefcomment wrote: post #15
kemonocode wrote: post #8

Conspiracy nuts and other unsavory members from fringe communities do make for odd bedfellows when one is being actively censored, thus why I am loathe to promote Bitchute et al. Best second alternative would be their own Peertube instance, but that of course requires them to put up their own infrastructure.

What about Odysee (LBRY) [1]? Seems promising. [1] https://odysee.com

Also filled with many nuts, though I wish more people would actually use it. It's a very good alternative to YouTube though.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#24

Post by mannerheim »

mc32 wrote: post #7

I'm sure YT is going to trot out some stock reason for not re-instating the videos. But this is pathetic. When YT goes on a bandwagon for some cause or other, this doesn't happen, but it appears to happen when the politics don't align with either their own politics or may offend one of their markets or their sponsors. So, I guess it's their platform and they can do what they want, but there is a danger that this will…

China isn't even a market for them since YouTube is blocked. That's what makes this even more pathetic.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#26

Post by contravariant »

economusty wrote: post #20

All Google and Alphabet current and former employees and investors are the creators of these tools used by evil.

I imagine some of them (though not all) would be quite upset about that.

That said this looks like a mostly manual act, so if you seek to assign blame then you should look elsewhere.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#27

Post by ajsnigrutin »

HNfriend234 wrote: post #17
kemonocode wrote: post #8

Conspiracy nuts and other unsavory members from fringe communities do make for odd bedfellows when one is being actively censored, thus why I am loathe to promote Bitchute et al. Best second alternative would be their own Peertube instance, but that of course requires them to put up their own infrastructure.

The conspiracy nuts are crazy, I agree, but they are also opposed to oppression so they are our allies. Be wary of the "divide and conquer" strategy when it is being used by oppressive regimes and various governments.

It's not a conspiracy, if they're really out to get you.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#29

Post by jackfoxy »

kemonocode wrote: post #8

Conspiracy nuts and other unsavory members from fringe communities do make for odd bedfellows when one is being actively censored, thus why I am loathe to promote Bitchute et al. Best second alternative would be their own Peertube instance, but that of course requires them to put up their own infrastructure.

Q: What's the difference between fake news / conspiracy theories and the real news?

A: About 8 months.

Sure this joke is an exaggeration, but occurrences like this seem to be getting more common. Sometimes it's much longer than 8 months. The informed reader can fill in the blanks.

One very big problem is YT and other content providers intentionally provide recommendations to reinforce confirmation biases of the viewer. If you click a few wacky conspiracy videos you will start seeing more in your feed. If you click fact and logic based alternate videos, you will start seeing confirmations of this particular view point, but no factual/logical discussions from opposing viewpoints. What's worse, inevitably you will start seeing references to censorship in your favorite topics. This feels very much like a political agenda on the part of big tech content providers.

In any event it is clear the algorithm is not interested in healthy reasonable discussion and debate to further democracy.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#30

Post by cortesoft »

jimbob45 wrote: post #3

I can understand the copyright stuff because Google can’t possibly afford the fight against the MPAA/RIAA. Why wade into politics though? What gain does Google obtain through political censorship?

You think it's more expensive to fight the MPAA/RIAA than the Chinese government?
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