Live data from Hacker News

The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

twitter.com

311–320 of 451 posts

Re: The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

#311
post #29

The Linux Experiment is probably my favourite linux-focussed YouTube channel. Nick has been doing absolutely fantastic work and his channel being permanently deleted would be an absolute travesty and a clear mistake. He is producing high quality, thoughtful, inoffensive content. Here's to hoping the channel is rightly reinstated ASAP, along with an apology and explanation from Google. Also, if you don't know the chan…

What is Odysee? I'm intrigued because at first glance it seems to be better than YouTube in almost every way possible. Page loads are quick, if you turn off AutoPlay it actually stays off, the controls are actually usable on an iPad etc.

Except oddly dark mode requires an account. That's a strange requirement when they can pull this from the browser preference.

Re: The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

#312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to use RSS a decade or more ago. It always felt clumsy and half-supported at best. Perhaps you could share what RSS reader you use?

Sure. On desktop I use Thunderbird, on mobile I use something called Feeder, it is a FOSS RSS/Atom feed reader with built in Webview so you can watch the video in app if you like. YouTube and Bitchute both support RSS, also Peertube has RSS built in if you watch anything self hosted using that software, as far as all the other tube sites out there I'm not sure because I don't subscribe to anyone on those sites, but I…

> It can be a little clunky to add subscriptions I guess, but how often are you doing that?

And you're saying that as a techie. How do you think the average subscriber of Markiplier, Pewdiepie or Logan Paul would feel about that? Things like peertube will always be a super small niche because there are two dozen alternatives to YouTube and they all suck if you depend on YouTube for income. As long as those oopsies don't happen to the big YouTubers on a regular basis, the status quo will remain.

Plus, as much as people complain about YouTube recommendations, I found a couple small but interesting channels already. Imagine everything were distributed across ten different platforms.

Re: The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

#313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember when posting the lab leak hypothesis on Facebook would get you banned and now it's, as best as we can figure, the most plausible theory? There is no human run group fit to decide what is or is not "disinformation".

In fact, most of the "people are dying because they're injecting themselves with horse dewormer" story can be traced back to a rolling stone article that quoted a doctor who said so. The only problem was, they actually quoted the doctor's name as well as an actual hospital he supposedly worked at - and the hospital issued a statement that that doctor neither worked there nor had they treated any Ivermectin overdoses…

No. The Rolling Stone debacle literally just happened.

The idea "most of the story" is traced backed to one bad article, from two days ago, when it's been a story for over a month is ridiculous nut-picking.

Re: The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

#314
post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Algorithms don't warn. Nor do they communicate. They just delete.

Algorithms do whatever humans program them to do, which can be delete, warn, email, slack, or call phones.

> Algorithms do whatever humans program them to do, which can be delete, warn, email, slack, or call phones.

I think it's worth noting that algorithms like these are deployed specifically to take employees out of the loop, and adding a communications step would almost certainly pull them back in.

Re: The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

#315
post #189

The fault is on YouTube’s reliance on automated systems, making permanent decisions, without human intervention. However, in my humble opinion, people are naturally lazy. The humans who might be charged with reviewing automated decisions are no different. Especially if there is a cultural or language divide.

no - see above comment re illegal sweepstakes

Preventing illegal sweepstakes, even if accidentally illegal ones, seems like a good rule for YT to enforce. That being said, banning accounts without a process to solve the issue until there’s enough public furor for a moderator to notice is a bad system. If someone repeatedly breaks the rules, fine permaban them. But having a fake appeal process is pretty annoying, and makes me not want to do business with Google in general.

Re: The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

#316
I'm sympathetic but not a video creator, but I wonder why don't people band together and sue, or alternatively pressure their state attorneys-general to bring a civil enforcement action? Yes, yes, arbitration clauses, but there's a doctrine in law called 'unconscionable contract' and a demonstrable pattern of unilateral kafkaesque behavior by YT is a good start for any attorney.

As I have pointed out over and over market solutions don't work when there are huge power/capital differentials involved. Hoping some plucky little underdog product/service will lead to an exodus isn't going to happen.

Back in the day, Google ate Yahoo's lunch (along with Altavista, Lycos and everyone else) because Google had a genuine search engine (in the form of a graph database) whereas the incumbents were operating directories, and the classification/curation couldn't keep up with the volume of information being crawled. For those who were not around at the time, it's hard to communicate how different the products were. Incumbents let you search but also offered a huge number of categories, like a library catalog. Google looked like a joke website the first time you visited due to the lack of any categorical or navigational options, just this over-confident search field...except that it worked. It was like sorcery.

The reason I mention this is because in economics there's a concept of elasticity of demand, of how attached you are to a thing you already use or consume. Generally, you want to stick with what works. This is especially true where network effects come into play. Competitors that offer X + some incremental improvement usually fail; their best outcome is that X buys them and incorporates the incremental improvement (which is sometimes the competitors' ultimate goal). To lure people away from a successful product the additional benefit to the buyer has to be more like 100% than 10% or 20%, and that rarely happens. If you look at Youtube's contenders, they fall into specialized categories such as art stuff like Vimeo (extra access control, higher video quality/ delivery options), Twitch (emphasis on livestreaming and social, especially for gamers), Rumble (for Freeze Peach aficionados), Pornhub and the whole adult entertainment ecosystem, or high-end commercial content streaming.

So if you dream of beating YouTube in the market, you need to either occupy a niche they don't want to be in (most of which have already been occupied) or offer something that's radically different for the consumer. Being distributed/ FOSS/ blockchain/ whatever isn't it because only nerds care about that stuff. Nerds don't rule the marketplace, even when they build the marketplace: 95% of people do not care how something works or that it serves a higher purpose. It needs to offer a wholly different user experience, and really, it's kinda hard to see how you're gonna radically rethink TV.

You have a better chance to do something amazing in virtual reality or internet navigation in general, and provide a native offering in which Youtube is diminished to the minor status of a channel owner, ie your UI/brand is The Thing and YouTube is just a minor service provider icon below the content.

So the alternative is to address the situation legally. Monopoly complaints won't work, because the nice capitalists at the University of Chicago have institutionalized the idea that monopolies are fine as long as the public is happy, and the huge # of consumers using YouTube vastly outweighs the small # of creators who are pissed off with it, so good luck with your public interest argument. However, there might be some mileage in attacking the contract terms or alleging that YouTube has implicitly defamed creators by suspending them without explanation. Or you could go in a different direction and argue that YouTube is a sort of public utility, though then you need to decide whether you really want online video to be regulated by FCC.

Litigation would be expensive and stressful and would need to be a collective rather than individual undertaking, and a selective one at that - folks like Linux Experiment are sympathetic plaintiffs, folks like Logan Paul are not (you may think this shouldn't matter, but tough luck, it does). Chances are that such a case would almost certainly fail, but the object would be to make discovery and the trial excruciatingly embarrassing for youtube, which would mean refusing to settle and (probably) looking for specific performance like YT submitting to supervision of some kind in the form of a consent decree, rather than mere compensation. If you just ask them for money you'll (maybe) eventually get some but nothing will change, because asking for money is essentially the same as saying whoever has the most money gets to be king of the market and Alphabet has plenty of coins to toss in the direction of the peasants.

The potential upside here is not winning in court (a vanishingly unlikely possibility) or getting a big check to shut up and go away (nice and what your lawyers want, but basically selling out your principles), but either a change in the law from Congress (ha ha good luck) or a shift in the public's thinking about how contracts should work, the distribution of obligations, and how much market power is acceptable.

Re: The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

#317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch one "conservative news" video and it will do a complete 180. Ads for "rations", "preparing for the end of the world", "how to be self sustainable", tons of PragerU propaganda, and some of the most low quality l BS you'll ever see from political ads. YouTube delivers content based on what you've watched.

Yeah I watched some 'forgotten weapons' and 'demolition ranch' videos, and it was wild how quickly my feed changed from science and history stuff to conservative talking points. I spent a rather long time marking videos as 'do not recommend this channel, I dislike this video' etc, before things returned to normal.

Man, I had a similar problem

I watched something right wing, I can't remember what, and for years YouTube was bombarding me with crazy half-truths and memes. I tuned them out just like most of the other bullshit I get bombarded with all day, but I wonder how many people have been radicalized this way..

Re: The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

#318
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe ivermectin is a far safer drug than HCQ.

I mean, it's great that you personally believe something, but to make ethical medical decisions we need lots of clinical data. If your belief is well founded, which it damn well might be, the data should bear that out.

Here you can find some clinical data: https://c19ivermectin.com/

Here on a whole list of other early treatments: https://c19early.com/

Check also https://odysee.com/@FrontlineCovid19CriticalCareAlliance:c/F... and https://flccc.net/

Re: The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

#319
post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind. >…the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, st…

Everyone always seems happy to carve out their own exceptions to freedom of expression. Freedom, except for racism. Freedom, except for transgenderism. Freedom, except for porn. Freedom, except for violence. Freedom, except for political dissent or mis-gendering or the promotion or criticism of a religion. As someone who falls near the middle on most issues I probably detest a larger percentage of speakers than anyon…

Okay, but how do you reconcile that with the fact that hate speech and propaganda has been a part of almost all atrocities ever done in the past?

Or put some other way, how do you reconcile that your freedom can be affected by someone's else's freedom? Like what if I use my freedom to turn others against you and have them hate you and berate you and bully you and ridicule you and refute you, and potentially have them vote for laws that take actions against you, or possibly have them commit hateful acts towards you, etc.

Re: The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

#320
post #243
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube should be forced to allow "Watch this video on $COMPETING_SERVICE" links.

What a little authoritarian you are. :) That train of thought applied across the web would end up a clusterfuck. Who decides what and why? Authors can already post whatever links in the description, why do you want to force someone to do something?

How are people gonna view the description if the channel is suspended? The web is already a clusterfuck, perhaps its most powerful incumbents should be subject to certain restraints. I'm sure you can make this argument better without engaging in name calling and emotional attacks.
Post reply on HN