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YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

nytimes.com

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Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#141

Post by nv-vn »

root_axis wrote: post #104
rukittenme wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because some people view free speech as more than a legal requirement. Its a philosophy of individual rights.

Getting banned from YouTube is not a violation of individual rights. Forcing a company to host videos for free sounds like a violation of individual rights though.

No it's totally not a violation of anyone's rights, but that doesn't stop me from being able to oppose the idea. Like how I support drugs being legalized but I don't think everyone should start doing drugs.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#142

Post by microdrum »

The beginning of the end of YT. "Extreme" is the ultimate slippery slope situation, and Google is unable to articulate respectable, bright-line rules around extremism. I can think of dozens of startups that allow video sharing, and some like streamable seem to have speeds and compute that outperform YT.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#143

Post by HBKXNCUO »

Krasnol wrote: post #61
nilkn wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. We might as well allow public speech in cities and towns to be controlled and limited as well, and if you don't like it you can always just go settle your own town somewhere. There's tons of open land in the US available for cheap after all.

No wonder people are throwing around "censorship" when they don't understand the difference between a public space and a private homepage....

We didn't decide to guarantee free speech in "public spaces" for funsies. We did it because guaranteeing people the ability to meaningfully participate in the public political debate is a preventative measure against real world violence. If people cannot peacefully advocate for their interests, they are going to do so violently.

The fact of the matter is that places like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter are where a substantial amount of the public political debate takes place. Users banned from there are significantly less able to participate in the political debate, and so significantly less able to peacefully advocate for what they see as their interests.

If you find those people so deplorable that you don't want them to be able to advocate for their own interests, don't be surprised when they return the sentiment with fast moving lead.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#144

Post by vowelless »

baud147258 wrote: post #132
vowelless wrote: post #91

Good. Online radicalism is a thing. To all the people here who are decrying this as “censorship”, remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons (Ex: Awlaki and his “tour of Paradise” lectures that inspired Boston 2013, fort hood and a bunch of other international attacks). YouTube removed all that out and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouT…

> White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk Do you have anything to support that assertion?

WW2.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#145

Post by skrowl »

adwi wrote: post #133

Even as lifelong card-carrying ACLU supporter I don’t see why they don’t just take down anything they damn well please. They’re a private company and are entitled to have a curatorial viewpoint—and for my particular beliefs culling white suprematists and borderline pedophilic content is a Good Thing. You’re entitled to say whatever you want in this country, but I’m not obligated to broadcast it for you.

I think the problem is that they censor views they don't like that aren't breaking any laws, which makes them a PUBLISHER but then they claim they need protections only offered to OPEN PLATFORMS.

They've often claimed in court to be an open / neutral platform, because that comes with legal protections against what your users post - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/02/facebook-...

Publishers (like Forbes when people blog on there) on the other hand are responsible for their user posts. I think Facebook / Youtube is more like the Forbe here, so they should be treated legally as a publisher.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#146

Post by [deleted] »

baud147258 wrote: post #132
vowelless wrote: post #91

Good. Online radicalism is a thing. To all the people here who are decrying this as “censorship”, remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons (Ex: Awlaki and his “tour of Paradise” lectures that inspired Boston 2013, fort hood and a bunch of other international attacks). YouTube removed all that out and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouT…

> White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk Do you have anything to support that assertion?

[deleted]

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#147

Post by JacksonGariety »

Regarding the general phenomenon of removing 'hateful content' from social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter as well) there seem to be primarily two reactions:

1) Good. Hateful content spreads hate and causes it to multiply. We should not allow it to proliferate on the internet.

2) This is censorship. It it is the fault of the individuals watching/reading the hateful media who are to blame for number of views the videos/articles get.

So I wonder: is it really an either/or decision? Is there no third option here? It seems like a classic ethical antinomy. Authority influences people but, at the same time, the authority always needs to be recognized as authoritative by the people who are influenced by it.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#148

Post by FabHK »

la_barba wrote: post #80
patagonia wrote: post #33

Will YouTube also remove their algos that send people down rabbit holes of “extreme views” and encapsulate individuals in information bubbles that seem to validate and fail to challenge their views? The platform should shoulder as much or more blame than the content in this case. Free speech man. This is not ok.

>and encapsulate individuals in information bubbles that seem to validate and fail to challenge their views? Err, how do you know that the algorithm does this? And also, how do you know that people are not exposed to other views outside of YouTube. And lastly, why do you think its the job of an entertainment platform to "challenge" views?

It might not be the job of an entertainment platform to challenge views, per se, but you can argue that it is its job to make sure that their profit-maximising algorithms do not devolve into steering users down a rabbit hole of ever more extreme and dishonest content within an information bubble.

Or, at any rate, if that's the outcome, then it might be time to regulate said platform.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#149

Post by chrisjc »

vowelless wrote: post #126
chrisjc wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk than Islamic extremism. Wait... you're saying that white supremacy is worse than islamic extremism? Is you opinion perhaps a manifestation of your perspective? I'm sure there are some people in Syria, Afghanistan, etc... that would disagree with you. BTW, I'm not saying one is worse than the other, just that they are both bad, both a problem, and both sho…

White supremacy was the cause for the worst wars of the 20th century. A white nationalist uprising in Europe would be deadlier (again) than Islamic extremists taking over most middle eastern nations due to the resources that will be available to them.

> White supremacy was the cause for the worst wars of the 20th century

Again, I think that statement is shaped by your perspective. I imagine a lot of Russian, Chinese and Africans would disagree with you about that.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#150

Post by skrowl »

ausbah wrote: post #69

Here is the actual blog post: https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/our-ongoing-work-to-t... Main points: >Removing more hateful and supremacist content from YouTube I think this is great, I see nothing of value being lost from channels whose whole schtick is to marginalize people's of a target group. >Reducing borderline content and raising up authoritative voices I do like attempts to curtail outright scams and mi…

> > Removing more hateful and supremacist content from YouTube

> I think this is great, I see nothing of value being lost from channels whose whole schtick is to marginalize people's of a target group.

Who gets to pick what's 'hateful' and 'supremacist' though? Did you think of that?

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