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Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

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Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#191

Google & YouTube employees on HN: how do you justify still working at this company? Enough of the cognitive dissonance. Face your choices and tell me how you square yourself with them. For shame.

I don't work there anymore, but this is a confused argument born of zealotry. Taking Google's money to work on open source is totally fine. More money spent on good things might even mean less spent on bad things.

For example, nothing good would come from the Go team quitting over unrelated political stuff.

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#192
post #63

Youtube is in a tough spot. They will be blamed: - if they don't take down speech some consider hateful - if they take down speech some do not consider hateful 共匪 is seen as an insult by a group, but others do not. If Youtube bans nothing, then hate speech thrives and they get bad PR. If Youtube bans anything anyone flags as hate speech, then they become de facto as censorship agents for foreign powers. Anything crit…

> 共匪 is seen as an insult by a group, but others do not

This is where the legal concept of protected classes may be helpful. They're sets of attributes society has deemed one cannot discriminate against. That tends to line up well with said society's line between insulting and hateful.

As a legal definition, these class definitions tend to be precise. That makes them convenient for exporting.

Notably, political affiliation is not a protected class under U.S. law.

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#193
post #85

Google & YouTube employees on HN: how do you justify still working at this company? Enough of the cognitive dissonance. Face your choices and tell me how you square yourself with them. For shame.

I have a bunch of friends at Google; it's a mix of "not my department," "the pay is good," and a few "true believers."

Don't say that he's hypocritical

Rather say that he's apolitical

"Once the rockets go up, who cares where they come down?"

"That's not my department!" says Werner von Braun

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#194
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some users tend to flag stories about China and censorship because they generate a lot of nationalistic and hot headed comments and very little actual intelligent discussion. Just look at the comments attached to this submission.

The submission I linked is not flagged (at least as far as I can see from my account?). Either there's some non-intuitive stuff going on with the way submissions stay on the front page, or HN soft-nuked it. Either way I think we deserve an explanation and a clear understanding of the underlying rules.

Does HN always tell you when someone flags it? Or just a critical number of users or something like that?

I see the flagged indicator now and then, but I see it somewhat less frequently than I would THINK things get flagged, admittedly that's all conjecture.

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#196

I think a more fundamental problem is a single private company having a near-monopoly on various public communication channels, and having financial interests in various global dictatorships. The Founding Fathers could not have predicted this. Google's "We're a private company" get-out-jail-free card cannot continue to apply.

But is it replaced with "I'm an American company?" There's a deep rabbit-hole of hyper-nationalism right next to the deep rabbit-hole of hyper-corporatism. Does a YouTube beholden to the US government get banned from being used in China at all? And if it does, what happens when China creates a competing product that is more successful than YouTube, and YouTube gets displaced globally by a product that is beholden to…

What if the laws against censoring content would be quite strict, then a censoring Chinese YouTube clone wouldn't even be possible.

(In the countries where it's strict. Which could be the EU, US, Kanada, Japan and more. Through it would be more tricky for smaller China dependent countries or autocratic powers. But the other countries could push that through in the way they currently push through commercial interest like copy right).

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#197

In other news, Youtube will soon be coming to China. Pick your adventure, which do you want? Youtube in CN or write whatever you like? You'll also get videos deleted if you include in them info against WHO advice.

Actually, this is more like: “In other news, you are in China now.” I don’t care that much about how Chinese citizens let their 共肥 party censor them, but it’s not ok when I am being censored for speech that could be considered offensive to the communist party of China.

Nope. Well, sort of, but not really. It's more like. You are on Earth now. All the big govs work together at the highest levels. The whole nationalistic shtick is for us proles down here in the bleachers, working the boilers, eating scraps. You know, like entertainment? Something to get all excited about, like.

And all govs control info. Democracies just pretend they don't (they do it covertly, through narrative control, disinfo, etc). Social media now presents them with a problem. They have to censor platforms, which makes it overt.

This is against the historical trend of democracies modus operandi for information control. Brave new world out there!

Edit (this thread now has restrictions, can't reply you, below, so here):

I mean more "nationalistic shtick" as in the trope of "US vs China" or "US vs Russia" etc. They have to be able to start a profitable war, for something, right?

All the same...expanding the argument (as you have) to the "truths we hold to be self-evident", well, they are unfortunately not implemented in as iron-clad a way as us proles would think. It should be obvious. I love the US, living there, the people, the environment, everything about it...aaaannndd....structurally, you can't really say that the debt trap, opioid epidemic, Wall St bailout, social division deliberately inflamed by the media, covert info control and surveillance, democratic "theatrics" that stymie results, really equates with "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" can you, chum?

I mean, I sort of agree with you a little bit, even, in a way. It is sad. And I do think it is an impressive argument. Yes. Very much! ツ

Edit (to your edit ツ): Yes, the Muslims in camps, that is a hard thing for Westerners to get their head around. It's funny, tho. I wonder about it, for a few reasons:

- Western tech supports the security in XJ

- China has protected Russian, and US interests along its Western (Central Asian) borders with regard to the countries there, the Tajik, Afghan and Pakistan areas. It could have caused plenty of troubles for US/Russia there, but on the face of it their security interests align. And honestly, who do you think is coming across the Afghan-Chinese border (or via Tajik) and doing some of the interrogations in the detention centers, working right alongside Chinese? You guessed it, the [C_A] ツ.

- I would have thought an American would be more supportive of counter-terrorism/deradicalization/counter-narrative. Being soft on sepratist terrorists almost seems like being an apologist for terrorism. Something I know no American would ever do...I'm sure. :P Especially considering how tough the English speaking world has been on terrorists in the Middle East. I can't imagine them standing up to support Islamic terrorism in XJ, or is that just because it's against CN and it's like "enemy of my enemy is my friend"? But truth is CN no your enemy. Really no!

- The XJ narrative is actually cooperative propaganda between US/China. 90%+ of "whistleblowers/defectors" are Chinese disinfo agents working this psyop. Preparing for the "great discrediting" that will come. The remaining ones are fakes/unaffiliated individuals trying to get attention. The real story is: There is strong CT presence in XJ, but the "camps" is fake news, as you say. People apply to go. Like college. And yes, some people wish they were not there, just like college! But they can leave. Only people who are "detained" are terrorists, exactly like in the US.

- This XJ propos is a complex info strategy but boils down to:

1) an overly critical narrative works to support China (just like the overly critical MSM actually supported President Trump into election because it fired up his base);

2) regular Chinese, seeing how crazy and fake is Western coverage of XJ, begin to distrust more and more Western media, helping the Party;

3) eventually, when the time is right, XJ will be revealed as to have been wildly-mis-assessed by Western media, in a "mea culpa" moment that boosts Chinese world image, and plays to the idea of it having been unfairly "maligned and mistrusted".

4) For the US side, anything that supports criticism of China plays well domestically for racist/nationalist reasons, and can be used to fire up a base,

5) Also for US, anything extremely emotive and triggering, can be used to make proles act irrationally and distract them, and also thereby to grease the wheels for other moves such as law passage, etc. It's also a distraction to how they're working together.

It's all just calculations designed to take the global proletariat to a destination, through the best path. Path has to be right for each country's circumstances. So each country needs their own story. That's all it is. Don't worry about it. As long as you obey the law, you'll be fine.

I hope this "red pill" doesn't taste too bitter. I'm not trying to rock your worldview. Nor offend you. Actually I hope you feel a little more a peace about everything. The world doesn't have to be perfect, nor make perfect sense...but it's all still OK. Focus on the stuff that matters to you. Ignore the noise because it's a lie, and it's gonna happen anyway. You still have a lot of power to make your own life good.

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#198
post #111

Google & YouTube employees on HN: how do you justify still working at this company? Enough of the cognitive dissonance. Face your choices and tell me how you square yourself with them. For shame.

How do you buy hardware? I’m genuinely asking because where I live it’s impossible to buy stuff that wasn’t made in China. It’s almost impossible to lead en ethical life in this day and age if you do anything related to tech.

> It’s almost impossible to lead en ethical life in this day and age if you do anything related to tech.

That doesn't change that an engineer in the bay area can choose to work for Google or choose to find an alternative place of employment. People can choose more ethical choices without living in a pure ethical panacea.

Re: Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube

#200
post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some users tend to flag stories about China and censorship because they generate a lot of nationalistic and hot headed comments and very little actual intelligent discussion. Just look at the comments attached to this submission.

The submission I linked is not flagged (at least as far as I can see from my account?). Either there's some non-intuitive stuff going on with the way submissions stay on the front page, or HN soft-nuked it. Either way I think we deserve an explanation and a clear understanding of the underlying rules.

If a story gets moderately flagged, it gets deranked but don't show up as "flagged"
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