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

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

#151

Honest question- what is Google's exposure here? Both Youtube and Google (Youtube's parent company) are blocked in China; those revenue streams were cut off a long time ago. What does Google have to lose by letting Youtube keep the videos up? I'm sure the exposure exists; I recognize that Googlers aren't stupid. I honestly am just curious what that risk is. Having lived in Shanghai for 5 years, I don't see China reve…

> what is Google's exposure here?

They want in. They really want in. And they're not alone.

Google and every other company dream that, one day, the Great Firewall will come down, and they'll suddenly have a billion more customers.

They have a great financial incentive (like every other company) to ignore the Uyghur genocide and the literal concentration camps in Xinjiang.

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

#152
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All it took to "debunk" the lab leak hypothesis is to call it racism. So easy. I'm sure someone from China must have realized by now how convenient of a "get out of jail free card" this is.

Really it's a classic boy who called wolf situation. If you blame everything on china, people won't want to believe you when there are legitimate things

Surely journalists and fact checkers shouldn't claim something is fake just because the person making the claim has said fake things in the past. If they do then they should be fired for completely failing at their job.

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

#153

Honest question- what is Google's exposure here? Both Youtube and Google (Youtube's parent company) are blocked in China; those revenue streams were cut off a long time ago. What does Google have to lose by letting Youtube keep the videos up? I'm sure the exposure exists; I recognize that Googlers aren't stupid. I honestly am just curious what that risk is. Having lived in Shanghai for 5 years, I don't see China reve…

> I recognize that Googlers aren't stupid.

Everyone is stupid, but on different levels.

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

#154
post #134

I doubt this was YouTube policy, or that it was driven from the top. If it was, we'd have seen a few leaks. This is more likely mass reporting of such content (perhaps organized by State apparatus), exploiting the automated flagging algorithm. In any case, I hope Google takes a stand now.

It doesn't require top-down capitulation to the CCP. Much cheaper to infiltrate from the bottom-up. How heavily vetted are those filling the ranks of YouTube's Community Standards teams?

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

#155

>Following inquiries from Reuters as to why the channel was removed, YouTube restored it on June 18, explaining that it had received multiple so-called 'strikes' for videos which contained people holding up ID cards to prove they were related to the missing, violating a YouTube policy which prohibits personally identifiable information from appearing in its content >YouTube asked Atajurt to blur the IDs. But Atajurt…

Yeah but what's the issue of posting your own PII?

I mean I understand that probably you shouldn't, for various reasons. And posting someone else's PII should absolutely be banned. But if I want to post my ID online, what harm can I make to anyone else?

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

#156
post #124

So the censorship on China is fine on HN while censorship on Palestine is flagged? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27638871

That article has been on HN's front page for hours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27645282 . Just to be clear, [flagged] on a submission means users flagged it, not moderators. This is in the FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html . Users flagged your submission ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27638871 ), then someone else reposted the article. We turned off flags on the latter. Since yours was…

I did not mean to complain the moderators. I just want to draw the comparison to readers. I understand your points and know it is flagged by readers. It shows people intrinsically view things differently, thus, there won’t be fair view in real and virtual world. HN has done a better job than most of platforms already.

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

#158
post #134

I doubt this was YouTube policy, or that it was driven from the top. If it was, we'd have seen a few leaks. This is more likely mass reporting of such content (perhaps organized by State apparatus), exploiting the automated flagging algorithm. In any case, I hope Google takes a stand now.

Google wants back in to China, antagonizing the CCP is not on their agenda.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragonfly_(search_engine)

> The Dragonfly project was an Internet search engine prototype created by Google that was designed to be compatible with China's state censorship provisions.[1][2][3] The public learned of Dragonfly's existence in August 2018, when The Intercept leaked an internal memo written by a Google employee about the project.[4][5] In December 2018, Dragonfly was reported to have "effectively been shut down" after a clash with members of the privacy team within Google.[6] However, according to employees, work on Dragonfly was still continuing as of March 2019, with some 100 people still allocated to it.[7]

> In July 2019, Google announced that work on Dragonfly had been terminated.[8]

This project even included a weather widget that took the AQI from a special government server in Beijing instead of the usual sources, so Google would be disseminating the state lies about air quality. Google engineers in the US worked on this, even after Google claimed to have shut down the project.

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

#159
post #140

There's a statistic that polled Americans with 83% "approving of action against China" [1] if covid was made in a Chinese lab. This story was floated early during covid and rejected, but because the US is trying to manufacture consent for action against China it's gotten a second wind. Also the Adrian Zenz "genocide" is part of the same attempt. Don't fall for it. [1] https://thehill.com/hilltv/what-americas-thinking…

Adrian Zenz’s work is a generation-leading project in uncovering human rights violations and promoting human freedom. Your empty pot shot notwithstanding.

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

#160
post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would guess also that it has to do with "normalizing" relationships with China as well. Every country has skeletons in its closet. And every government seeks to rationize and minimize those skeletons as much as possible. As a country gains stake in mefia institutions, those institutions internalize some of the propaganda of that country.

This skeleton is not in the closet, it’s on the front yard and still being punched in the face every day. Meaning they have not stopped oppressing which is needed for it to be a skeleton in the closet.

My comment is not to minimize the oppression. It is rather to point out that other countries, engaging in similar oppression and dehumanization have managed their PR in such a way that they don't need to twist the arm of a company like Google to ensure their preferred vocabulary is used. It is the status quo. China is doing the work now of integrating itself with the "free" media to ensure a certain image. A country like the US did so decades ago.
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