Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

boingboing.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 609 posts

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#21

Post by logifail »

pornel wrote: post #10

There is a massive YouTube and Instagram industry of outright faking craft and cooking tips. They're not just bad or a stretch, they're intentionally fabricated, made at scale by TheSoul Publishing with 550 employees. That's because making cool things looking surprisingly easy goes viral way better than actual reality-grounded instructions, and for the adtech giants nothing matters except the number of clicks. Before…

> Before people realize that they can't really make a 3-layer cake in a toaster

Our 12-year-old recently tried to make himself "cheese on toast" by putting both cheese and uncooked bread into the (almost brand new, upright) toaster. Aaargh!

Cue the house full of smoke, a stern reprimand, then a couple of hours of my time wasted on removing every last piece of burnt greasy cheese from inside the toaster, followed by several empty runs with it outside to let it get properly hot and burn off the last of the fatty residues.

He was, at least, quite sheepish about his learning experience.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#24

Post by colejohnson66 »

dazzawazza wrote: post #3

Big Clive has a good video on why this is dangerous and how to make it more safe. Note: not safe safe, just more safe. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBeSKL9zVro

I like Big Clive (and Electroboom) because they know how to be safe, but do the stupid thing anyways (safely) to show how bad the ideas are.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#25

Post by fendy3002 »

exar0815 wrote: post #8

When I was young and stupid, I did this. Suddenly felt some tingling sensation in my fingers, threw the leads away and jumped back. Most certainly saved my life and drilled in my head how dangerous it is. Still get a sinking feeling in my stomach whenever I am at some switching station below the 380KV leads, remembering that day. Especially after knowing people who got into 120KV, and what happened to them... Electri…

Such as a gun is always loaded, my take is electricity is always dangerous.

Even professionals can get into accidents, moreover us uneducated plebs.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#26

Post by headsoup »

rvz wrote: post #4

The whole point of the 'trusted news initiative' [0] is to combat the so called 'fake news', and disinformation and to replace that (or at least flag these videos as 'misleading') with actual fact checked articles, videos, etc. What is happening here is the direct opposite of the TNI [0] and especially YouTube is removing videos unveiling the dangers in these fractal wood-burning videos and are instead promoting thes…

Just about all occurrences have been so, it just depends what you believe.

Entirely obvious irony in naming it 'Trusted News Initiative' like a good old 'Honest Al's Second-hand Cars!'

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#27

Post by logifail »

viraptor wrote: post #19
pornel wrote: post #10

There is a massive YouTube and Instagram industry of outright faking craft and cooking tips. They're not just bad or a stretch, they're intentionally fabricated, made at scale by TheSoul Publishing with 550 employees. That's because making cool things looking surprisingly easy goes viral way better than actual reality-grounded instructions, and for the adtech giants nothing matters except the number of clicks. Before…

Not just fabricated for the views, but reactions too. For each debunking video, some will follow the actual videos to see how bad they are. But the viewer intention doesn't matter - clicks are clicks.

> Not just fabricated for the views, but reactions too

I regard videos which include the word "reacts" in the title as having a huge red flag.

The signal-to-noise on this junk content is simply appalling.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#28

Post by headsoup »

mcherm wrote: post #17
avsteele wrote: post #6

It could easily be the case that a popular channel warning 'DON'T DO THIS' could make the situation worse by telling more people about an idea they would never have heard of otherwise. The fact that some (presumably less seen) videos haven't been removed (yet) doesn't change this calculus.

That is a very creative excuse but it cannot explain why this video which described the dangers of the practice and did not explain in detail how to go about doing. It would be removed when none of the videos that demonstrate how to do this were taken down. I think a much more plausible explanation is that YouTube simply does not have an effective mechanism for deciding what videos to take down and which ones to leav…

And yet they've decided they should have the authority and mandate to do so. You can't automate good moderation.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#29

Post by kevingadd »

avsteele wrote: post #6

It could easily be the case that a popular channel warning 'DON'T DO THIS' could make the situation worse by telling more people about an idea they would never have heard of otherwise. The fact that some (presumably less seen) videos haven't been removed (yet) doesn't change this calculus.

The new video shows lots of examples of comments on the original video where people thanked her for warning them not to do it, so it's worth factoring that in. Certainly a couple people will go 'wow, getting killed to make cool wood? sounds sick' and do it but I suspect the number of people scared away is higher.

Re: YouTube removes criticism of dangerous fractal wood burning, but leaves up tips

#30

Post by flir »

logifail wrote: post #21
pornel wrote: post #10

There is a massive YouTube and Instagram industry of outright faking craft and cooking tips. They're not just bad or a stretch, they're intentionally fabricated, made at scale by TheSoul Publishing with 550 employees. That's because making cool things looking surprisingly easy goes viral way better than actual reality-grounded instructions, and for the adtech giants nothing matters except the number of clicks. Before…

> Before people realize that they can't really make a 3-layer cake in a toaster Our 12-year-old recently tried to make himself "cheese on toast" by putting both cheese and uncooked bread into the (almost brand new, upright) toaster. Aaargh! Cue the house full of smoke, a stern reprimand, then a couple of hours of my time wasted on removing every last piece of burnt greasy cheese from inside the toaster, followed by s…

Toaster pockets! A whole new world of bread-related experiments awaits.
Post reply on HN