YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#171

Post by fooey » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:02 PM UTC

throwaway190605 wrote: post #82

We're not talking about the removal of extreme political views. We're talking about the censorship of one particular ideology. Where is the corresponding elimination of polarizing videos espousing views from the radical left? A wholesale expunction from one end of the spectrum is hard not to interpret as politically charged censorship. Let's see how many Antifa and BLM videos get taken down.

Preventing the spread of hate isn't an act of partisan censorship

I find it interesting that conservatives want to protect genocidal racists, but there isn't an equivalent on the progressive side of things. If there was, progressives would want that noise shut down faster than anyone else.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#172

Post by busterarm » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

skrowl wrote: post #134

AndrewStephens wrote: post #117

In my opinion, sites like YouTube that rely on user generated content should drop any pretense of being neutral - they aren't and never have been. What they have been doing is dodging responsibility for being the publisher of racist and harmful material. I'm sure that YouTube would say that they don't play favorites but even if that were true, as we have seen there are organizations all the way up to nation states th…

Google / Facebook are private companies, and they should absolutely be able to pick and choose what is posted on their platform if they want. However, they SHOULD NOT be able to have it both ways where they censor posts they don't like (like a publisher would do) but enjoy protections afforded to actual open / neutral platforms. Once you start censoring things that aren't breaking any laws, you're now a PUBLISHER and…

The problem that you're missing, is that these companies choose the aspects of being a publisher when it's convenient to them and a platform what that is more convenient.

Publishers are responsible for the content that they put out. The New York Times can't publish some of the things that people put on Facebook without legal repercussions. When the government wants to stop some behavior happening on Facebook, Facebook says "we're not a publisher, we're a platform".

But as a platform there are certain consumer protection laws that apply to these companies. In some regard, they are responsible to their users/customers. Except when people try to exercise their rights there, Facebook says "we're not a platform, we're a publisher. We're responsible for the content we publish and we can't publish that."

They really shouldn't be able to have it both ways.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#173

Post by zelon88 » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

creaghpatr wrote: post #101

zelon88 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, it should to some extent. Conspiracy theorists and/or political extremists (on both sides) should have to seek out their extreme content with prejudice. No more marketing birther theories alongside CSPAN videos on YouTube, or click-bait "TOP 10 UNEXPLAINED PHENOMENON" when someone looks for academic material. It shouldn't be possible to "stumble" onto a video that promotes falsehoods like vaccines causing a…

>It's damaging our society because not everyone has the acumen to know when they're being gaslit. Do you understand how pretentious this sounds?

Honestly, no. We've got people who still believe that feeding your kids bleach is a holistic medical treatment. It's not pretentious: it's 100% true.

I've got an 8 year old who watches YT. How is he supposed to have the contextual data to know when he's being gaslit?

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#174

Post by baud147258 » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:03 PM UTC

vowelless wrote: post #144

baud147258 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

WW2.

WW2 wasn't caused by white supremacy, it was caused by nationalism. It was part of the Reich's propaganda to say that they were waging war against the jews (and socialists and communists…), but they were doing this because they though that Germany was superior to its neighbor and was fit to conquer and rule them.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#175

Post by javagram » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

skrowl wrote: post #163

javagram wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW, this would be a major shift in the law. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communica... > The court upheld AOL's immunity from liability for defamation. AOL's agreement with the contractor allowing AOL to modify or remove such content did not make AOL the "information content provider" because the content was created by an independent contractor. The Court noted that Congress made a policy choic…

No it's not, if Facebook / Youtube / etc are found to be PUBLISHERS. AOL in the case you mentioned was being looked at as an open / neutral platform. I'm saying that clearly Facebook / Youtube no longer fit that definition due to the censorship mentioned in OP.

The law is specifically written for that case, as noted in my excerpt. AOL had a contract allowing them to censor their contractor’s work, did not censor it (although they did moderate and censor various content on their service), and was still held immune from liability.

The CDA basically grants publishers the ability to have their cake and eat it too, so you’d need to change the law.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#176

Post by nocturnial » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:04 PM UTC

Simulacra wrote: post #125

I strongly disagree banning anyone or any video that does not call for violence. I think it's a slippery slope and smacks of book banning. The information is out there, right or wrong. Who is it to judge what the public should see?

I'm not sure if I follow your line of reasoning. Suppose it wasn't a call to violence but rather a call to never speak or engage with that person again. That person can be fired and never be able to rent again... (I have examples of this if you're curious)

The slippery slope argument works both ways.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#177

Post by Nasrudith » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

yoodenvranx wrote: post #138

ravenstine wrote: post #107

I'm starting to think that comment sections on news sites are a really bad idea. At first I thought NPR and the like were cowards for removing theirs. It's bad enough that NYT can be pretty biased on its own, but the comment sections are always full of low-tier thinking that just push whatever narrative is currently in the Overton window. What I find distressing is how people remark that a telecom and advertising gia…

> I'm starting to think that comment sections on news sites are a really bad idea I have no idea how it is in other countries but in Germany the comment sections in every single newspaper is _horrible_, especially when it is articles about refugees, climate change and similar topics.

That is sadly the way anywhere mainstream without heavy moderation. The scary thing about Youtube comments isn't that they are extra stupid because they aren't - they are the norm and essentially what happens when a representative sample of the population is available.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#178

Post by Retra » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:05 PM UTC

skrowl wrote: post #150

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?

Why do you assume they didn't? People make decisions. That's how decisions are made the world over.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#179

Post by Dirlewanger » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

happytoexplain wrote: post #98

GrayTextIsTruth wrote: post #87

There are comments being removed from this thread even though they are not supremacist. People need to wake up to the control of big tech, big govt, etc.

Wouldn't that imply that the only reason comments might be removed from Hacker News is if they encourage violent, extremist political ideologies?

I'm surprised this post is even still up. HN usually removes anything remotely controversial. A couple weeks ago, they removed a NYT article solely because the article had "White Liberals" in the title.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#180

Post by AndrewStephens » Wed, Jun 05, 2019, 5:06 PM UTC

skrowl wrote: post #134

AndrewStephens wrote: post #117

In my opinion, sites like YouTube that rely on user generated content should drop any pretense of being neutral - they aren't and never have been. What they have been doing is dodging responsibility for being the publisher of racist and harmful material. I'm sure that YouTube would say that they don't play favorites but even if that were true, as we have seen there are organizations all the way up to nation states th…

Google / Facebook are private companies, and they should absolutely be able to pick and choose what is posted on their platform if they want. However, they SHOULD NOT be able to have it both ways where they censor posts they don't like (like a publisher would do) but enjoy protections afforded to actual open / neutral platforms. Once you start censoring things that aren't breaking any laws, you're now a PUBLISHER and…

Youtube has always been a PUBLISHER. They have never been an OPEN PLATFORM in any real sense.

They have so far managed to shirk responsibility for PUBLISHING hateful content while being amazingly on-the-ball when dealing with copyrighted material.

I am sure YouTube wouldn't put it in these terms, but from the outside it looks like every day they make the editorial decision to enforce copyrights while pushing hate speech. I am sure this makes sense financially.