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YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

nytimes.com

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Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe this should be reconsidered when a "private company" controls a large majority of humanity's social fabric and/or popular culture?

This is why developer and hacker community should strive to build open networks, and then have them adopted. This was what early internet was like: Usenet, IRC, etc.

Exactly, and look what happened to Usenet. People abused the commons and we lost it to spam. Unmoderated networks always fall to bad actors.

I'm building a p2p social network and struggling hard with how to balance company needs, community needs, and individual freedom. A free-for-all leads to a tyranny of structurelessness in which the loudest and pushiest form a defacto leadership that doesn't represent the will of the majority. On the flip side, overly restrictive rules stifle expression and cause resentment. These are hard questions and there is no one answer, except that unmoderated networks always suck eventually, so the question is one of line drawing and compromise.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#412
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He pulled an Elon. Elon Musk also came out as an alt-right troll when he was tipped that an expose about sexual harassment of a flight attendant was coming his way.

Elon Musk has greatly accelerated green energy innovation through EVs, battery technology, and solar. Are these actions appropriately described as "alt-right"?

Maybe reality is more nuanced than the binary choice you’re asking it to be reduced to.

e.g. Musk’s companies have done great things in the areas of EVs, batteries, and (most of all) space launches.

…and…

Some of his public-facing behaviour (especially on Twitter) is disturbing, and may be described as ‘alt-right’.

-

(It’s also disturbing that this has to be spelt out; yet here we are.)

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#413

So has the internet completely done away with innocent until proven guilty? The primary benefit of things like MeToo was supposed to be people being able to take action against individuals who otherwise would have been expected to squash things due to undue influence on law enforcement, the media, and politics - like Harvey Weinstein. But in cases like this, it seems quite dystopic that a D-list celeb, likely with li…

>So has the internet completely done away with innocent until proven guilty? I'm not a court. Are you a court? I hope you're not a court. Sentient buildings weird me out. If four employees came to me and accused someone of harassing them, I would weigh the evidence and if warranted, fire the employee. No court involved. When you are self-righteous prick as prickly as brand, it is extremely easy to believe the accuser…

>Sentient buildings weird me out.

Courts are not buildings, sentient or otherwise. A court can exist without even a single brick or piece of stone being around.

You're also making this about Brand when in fact this is a discussion at a higher level of abstraction.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#414

> “If a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community,” the spokeswoman said. Putting aside the validity of the accusations—let's say he did everything he's accused of, for the sake of argument—is Youtube alleging that he assaulted Youtube employees, app developers who use the Youtube ecosystem, or Youtube users? I assume the latter. But the thing is,…

I'll make one point, which is that if you are a violent asshole who punches anyone in the face that looks at you wrong, you still can't actually harm anyone through Youtube except by trying to convince someone to come get their ass kicked by you. Russel Brand is accused of grooming a 16 year old girl while he was 31, if true, that means there is the very real possibility that Brand could be using the YT platform as a…

Or reddit. Or email. Maybe we should cut his power just to be sure he isn't maybe grooming some 16 year olds.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#415

> “If a creator’s off-platform behavior harms our users, employees or ecosystem, we take action to protect the community,” the spokeswoman said. Putting aside the validity of the accusations—let's say he did everything he's accused of, for the sake of argument—is Youtube alleging that he assaulted Youtube employees, app developers who use the Youtube ecosystem, or Youtube users? I assume the latter. But the thing is,…

> But the thing is, a majority of people on Earth are Youtube users, so what the heck does that even mean?

This is an interesting question; why hasn’t anyone verified that these women are YouTube users?

Since we have established that “ecosystem” is a word that means “app developers” and not a broad term that could be interpreted to mean the general environment in which YouTube does business with advertisers and users, this means that YouTube is acting in defense of its users.

Furthermore this announcement gets even more confusing as punching someone in a bar is not something that can faithfully or objectively be separated from (alleged) rape by any community standards or legal bodies, YouTube is in even further hot water here

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between questioning everything and rejecting everything from the mainstream is an important one which Brand and many others seem not to understand.

It's amusing they recognize NPCs that uncritically repeat the establishment narrative and question nothing, but don't recognize they are doing the same thing in reverse. "I Support The Current Thing" vs "I Oppose The Current Thing"

sure, but one does not get clicks for telling people that "the current thing" is nuanced.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#417
post #309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He pulled an Elon. Elon Musk also came out as an alt-right troll when he was tipped that an expose about sexual harassment of a flight attendant was coming his way.

It's a point of no return. They know they'll never be accepted in polite company again, so they go rude.

that's an incredibly concise way to put the phenomenon, thanks for wording it so well.

there should probably be a name for it.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#418

So has the internet completely done away with innocent until proven guilty? The primary benefit of things like MeToo was supposed to be people being able to take action against individuals who otherwise would have been expected to squash things due to undue influence on law enforcement, the media, and politics - like Harvey Weinstein. But in cases like this, it seems quite dystopic that a D-list celeb, likely with li…

"innocent until proven guilty" only applies in a court of law. Similar to when people cite the 1st amendment in situations where a private company is taking action, this phrase is meaningless here. A private company can do what it wants within the bounds of the law.

This is such a common thing for people to say I have to wonder if it's propaganda from big corporations. The idea that core tenets of our civilisation are invalid because "it's a private company" is insane. These principles are based on practicalities, not technicalities.

Re: YouTube blocks Russell Brand from making money through its platform

#419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You need to understand that the majority of people simply don't agree with you. They choose platforms with moderation (aka censorship) and stay away from those that don't.

In the beginning YouTube was popular and had very little moderation. You could watch illegal streams of many films and movies and you could find some porn before it’d be taken down. Advertisers are what demand moderation not users so as to protect their bottom line. It’s disingenuous to say otherwise and ignores a multitude of services that became and still are incredible popular with little moderation.

>YouTube was popular and had very little moderation.

Emphasis on the AND. There is some correlation between Youtube's popularity and the lack of moderation but that isn't what made them popular.

I do agree on the advertiser's demanding moderation and I honestly don't blame them. If I made a product and I'm paying good money for advertising. I wouldn't want my products to be even remotely associated with anything that might promote controversy AND lower sales. Emphasis on the AND. The companies job is to make money and if that means embracing censorship or decrying it then they'll do it. Hell, they'll even do both at the same time. Advertisers are a leech on society and I hate that I'm defending them. But they pay the bills so....

That doesn't mean that vast majority of users don't want moderation. Every "free-speech" alternative to an already existing platform that I've visited has been complete shit. Filled with nutjobs that couldn't play nice with the normal folk.

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