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Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

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Re: Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

#161

Post by laureny »

snogglethorpe wrote: post #102
laureny wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is that anonymity leading to great conversation is disproved by reality. How ironic that you are posting this on Hacker News. Or pick reddit for another flagrant counter example to your claim. Uncivilized discussions don't happen because of anonymity but because of uncivilized people. Create forums where mature people are inclined to participate and you will get great discussions, whether these posts ar…

> Create forums where mature people are inclined to participate and you will get great discussions, whether these posts are authored by anonymous people or not No doubt that works well in some cases, but the average YouTube video is not such a forum. Google has a problem ("The comment section on many YouTube videos is an insane cesspool"), and they need to address that problem. They don't really have the option of ju…

> No doubt that works well in some cases, but the average YouTube video is not such a forum.

Yes, and that's the mistake that Google is making: thinking the problem is procedural ("Just have people log in with their real name") instead of social.

I'm not sure what the best solution is but their current one is obviously wrong. Maybe they could start by doing a better job at sorting/upvoting/downvoting so that only the best comments get shown on the front page and not the most recent ones.

Re: Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

#162

Post by davidgerard »

rdl wrote: post #156

I think it's kind of offensive to refer to a product decision by a website as Anschluss; both because it implies Google's leadership are the Nazis, and because it trivializes the actual German/Austrian union (and thus beginning of WW2). Marginally more offensive than the "co-prosperity sphere" thing pinboardguy did.

Yeah, Godwination isn't stylish. The analogy is inaccurate too. But that's what the pissed-off people are calling it, and that was the title of the post.

Re: Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

#163

Post by thaumasiotes »

tehwalrus wrote: post #157
thaumasiotes wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Women are the majority, so "minority status" => "diversity status" Surely, by that reasoning "diversity status" is just as inappropriate a term? If a group is over 50% female, adding one more female will make it less diverse.

"diversity streams" is the term I prefer, since it's about under-representation in specific spheres of activity (which should be more diverse). This context, internet anonymity, is rather an odd case - we're discussing the advantages of hiding in the crowd, by masking your identity as a member of a stream. I'm still using my preferred language for similar political problems involving the diversity streams, because I…

Well, I've never been sympathetic to the language and politics of "diversity", but I think it's especially, gratuitously inapt here. I suspect very strongly that women and men are present on youtube in comparable numbers. Youtube has mass awareness.

The problem discussed here has nothing to do with representation in specific spheres of activity; it's driven by specifically being female in the presence of men. Women walking by men on the street get catcalled, even though walking on the street is open to, and participated in by, all. The female commenters you mention are not trying to hide their "diversity" status, they're trying to hide their female status.

Re: Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

#164

Post by ExpiredLink »

rdl wrote: post #156

I think it's kind of offensive to refer to a product decision by a website as Anschluss; both because it implies Google's leadership are the Nazis, and because it trivializes the actual German/Austrian union (and thus beginning of WW2). Marginally more offensive than the "co-prosperity sphere" thing pinboardguy did.

BTW, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anschluss

Re: Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

#165

Post by SnydenBitchy »

spenvo wrote: post #140
tehwalrus wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But on reddit you can create an account called "fred_jones" or "slwkajbgj" instead of "Eleanora Rashid-Feldman" and avoid having that behaviour directed at you like a heat-seeking missile. GP is arguing that the douchebags only become a significant problem if your diversity[1] status is tagged to your profile. [1] Women are the majority, so "minority status" => "diversity status"

@SnydenBitchy - Given the context, Reddit seems off-putting as an example. The comment I reposted was not in direct response to the OP. Tehwalrus makes an excellent observation. The role that anonymity played for OP on YT would serve her well on other communities like Reddit. Specifically to your remark on the questionable 'positive impact' of Reddit: I would argue that it has done a great deal to heighten the visibi…

Well, this is a bit tangential, but I wonder if it’s true that reddit’s intolerant culture (extending far beyond “insensitive humor”) really doesn’t matter. A community like reddit, I think, would be so much more useful as a resource for activism and knowledge-sharing if only the culture of its mainstream were inclusive rather than hostile towards marginalized voices, including women and minorities.

For example, the issues you mention of open internet, NSA spying, etc. affect everyone, not just the redditor in-crowd, and presumably would be of interest to a wider audience. And there are plenty more cases of injustice that don’t stand a chance of exciting passion among the redditor demographic—I’m thinking feminism or issues of racial justice (to name another example from recent memory, the voting majority of redditors are convinced George Zimmerman is a hero).

I don’t know how different reddit’s culture would be without the anonymity, but I agree it’s an interesting question.

Re: Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

#166

Post by SnydenBitchy »

marvin wrote: post #148
SnydenBitchy wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s interesting that you would hold up reddit as an example of the “positive sociological impact” of anonymity on the internet, when OP specifically describes her desire to avoid “sexist, racist, homophobic, sophomoric, monosyllabic jerks”—precisely the sort of creature that reddit breeds. Though to be fair, the anonymity may not be to blame for reddit’s culture, seeing as other internet forums with similar traditio…

You are vastly overgeneralizing. Have you ever digged into the heavily moderated subreddits? The front page is not particularly representative of the positive parts of anonymity that spenvo is talking about. I am a very active reddit user and respectfully, you have no clue what you are talking about. In fact, I would go so far as to say that reddit as a whole is representative of the younger ( American society , not…

I don’t want to derail this topic any further, but I’m quite familiar with reddit, and I would disagree that “reddit as a whole” is very heterogeneous or representative of the vast diversity of younger Americans. At a minimum, reddit’s mainstream is dominated by people belonging to a certain archetype—under 30, perhaps, but certainly also white and male and textbook brogressive[0]—resulting in thoroughly predictable patterns of discussion and voting.

The problem with smaller subreddits is that even with heavy moderation, they tend to be dominated by the mainstream of the site. For example (at least as of a couple years ago, when I largely quit participating) every new feminist- or woman-friendly subreddit would immediately be invaded by “men’s rights” activists to the point of rendering it useless for discussion. The only subreddit I’m aware of today where this hasn’t happened is /r/shitredditsays, but I suspect you’d agree that SRS’s utility for meaningful discussion is… limited.

Apologies for going offtopic.

[0] http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=brogressive

Re: Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

#167

Post by acdha »

KaoruAoiShiho wrote: post #48
Zirro wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am sure you were joking, but to clarify and expand: Why do men seek contact with the opposite sex more frequently than women? Why do they tend to do so in a way that seems to bother the woman in question? Why are women not doing the same to men?

Because it costs far more for women than men to have children, biologically speaking.

That's an intellectually lazy excuse: humans are social creatures – completely ignoring that (and the existence of birth-control) to rely on biological determinism ignores most of the things which make us human.

(Put another way: your explanation would cover our closest relatives: chimps, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos – given the huge differences in behavior, a simple reproductive cost model is obviously incomplete)

Re: Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

#168

Post by aestra »

rmc wrote: post #153
tehwalrus wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But on reddit you can create an account called "fred_jones" or "slwkajbgj" instead of "Eleanora Rashid-Feldman" and avoid having that behaviour directed at you like a heat-seeking missile. GP is arguing that the douchebags only become a significant problem if your diversity[1] status is tagged to your profile. [1] Women are the majority, so "minority status" => "diversity status"

Women are the majority This is why I use the term "marginalized groups" rather than "minority". Black people were a majority in apartheid South Africa. But they were marginalized.

The term minority has a specific meaning in sociology not the same that it means in statistics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_(sociology)

Rather than a relational "social group", as the term would indicate, the term refers to a category that is differentiated and defined by the social majority, that is, those who hold the majority of positions of social power in a society. The differentiation can be based on one or more observable human characteristics, including, for example, ethnicity, race, gender, wealth, health or sexual orientation. Usage of the term is applied to various situations and civilizations within history, despite its popular mis-association with a numerical, statistical minority.

Blacks were still the minority in apartheid South Africa, just not the statistical minority.

Re: Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

#169

Post by zwrose »

Lagged2Death wrote: post #93

She makes some great points, and I agree completely. But in a sense, by making the great points, we who enjoy some small degree of privacy and anonymity on-line have already given up too much ground. We shouldn't have to make Very Serious Points about sexual harassment or hate crimes. As if a solution to those (quite real) problems would then make on-line anonymity moot. The fact is, I like being pseudonymous on the…

nothing about this situation is causing anonymity to cease to be possible on the internet. It just makes it more difficult on a single video-sharing site, one run by a single for-profit company.

Freedom of choice has never before been more relevant. You as an individual in a free web (which Google advocates for strongly) have the choice to move to any number of other platforms if you prefer anonymity while sharing/viewing videos online. If enough people believe in anonymity, traffic and users will migrate to another site, and Google/YT will become less relevant and/or be forced to policy backtrack.

Whether you are for or against the new commenting policy, we should all try not to exaggerate what it means for society at large.

Re: Dear Googles: G+/YouTube Anschluss – you've done outed me

#170

Post by rmc »

aestra wrote: post #168
rmc wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Women are the majority This is why I use the term "marginalized groups" rather than "minority". Black people were a majority in apartheid South Africa. But they were marginalized.

The term minority has a specific meaning in sociology not the same that it means in statistics. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Majority_(sociology) Rather than a relational "social group", as the term would indicate, the term refers to a category that is differentiated and defined by the social majority, that is, those who hold the majority of positions of social power in a society. The differentiation can be based on…

Yep.

But in spaces like there, where people are unlikely to know things like that, it can be helpful to use terms like "margalized group" or "oppressed group", in order to stop a pedantic geek ( :) ) getting into a dictionary definition argument.

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