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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

#271

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.

The very first multi-national companies were neck deep in looting India and smuggling opium to China. The American founding fathers were very aware of this.

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

#272
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…

Youtube, and Google as a whole, are in for a world of pain in politics. Google pushes "quality and relevance" when they promote news articles, but this leads to them heavily emphasizing established outlets like BBC / NYT / etc. There is an increasing number of calls from official government representatives for promoting "alternative" news. What will Google do when they get a DOJ request to promote or dissuade a specific political viewpoint that isn't endorsed by their chosen "reputable" media outlets? Is the current anti-trust action against Google happening because of their perceived bias against Trump-friendly news?

"Facebook, Google accused of anti-conservative bias at U.S. Senate hearing"

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-socialmedia-...

The volume of low quality biased news is set to explode in the coming years, and Google/Youtube will be attacked by various governments (Turkey, Hungary, USA, Brazil, China, Russia) when they avoid promoting this flood of content, and when Google promotes news and speech that various countries dislike.

Youtube will be forced to remove viral videos like "Plandemic" constantly. Imagine when they start getting calls from the Senate for scrubbing some powerful government official's [conspiracy of the month] youtube video. Or when US House members escalate from personally suing Twitter to creating the House Committee on Online Censorship and use official government subpoenas to harass companies that host content that harm their political allies under the guise of "online fairness".

Enough mainstream and fringe politics has now migrated onto the internet that there are no longer neutral platforms, only platforms that have not yet taken a political and editorial stance on speech.

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

#273

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 justify being a citizen of your country? (not sure what country that is, but most of them have done bad things in the past). It's possible to be a part of a large organization and not agree with its every action.

People are plopped into existence as a citizen of a country. Not quite the same as choosing to work somewhere.

https://thenib.com/mister-gotcha/

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

#274

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.

If every HN submission were spammed with "communist bandits," do you think at some point the mods would just write a script to block such comments? It doesn't seem absurd to me to think that they might. It wouldn't bother me in the least if they did. That type of comment is even less edifying than "first" or "top" or "did anyone else come here from 9gag."

I work for Google. It does some things I don't like but this does not prima facie appear to be one of them.

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

#275

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.

They want to have political influence and believe they are serving society's best interests. They believe dissenting voices must be silenced.

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

#276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow. It's almost like the missions of popular websites fall in line with protecting individuals against government-sponsored attacks on whistleblowers. Witness protection isn't some flashy thing in movies. It's real and society benefits from it.

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>You don't get special agent treatment for being in WP.

Yes. You do. WISTEC covers their bases, but they can't force large organizations to play ball at a whim. Those organizations need to be willing to help. And it's heart warming to see that they are.

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

#277

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 justify being a citizen of your country? (not sure what country that is, but most of them have done bad things in the past). It's possible to be a part of a large organization and not agree with its every action.

I have much less mobility as a US citizen to move to another country than I have as a software engineer. Almost any Google employee could have an offer somewhere else within 3 weeks of starting their search.

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

#278
I write some comments on Youtube that explains my understanding of the situation happening in China, in a objective as much as possible. And it turns out it could be viewed as Pro-china. Then these comments gets deleted by Youtube. Whether its reported or deleted by the system I don't know.

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

#279

There was a previous unrelated discussion about this just a few hours ago which was climbing to the top of the front page when I saw it. And then just vanished: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221264 It's not flagged, it just went from #13 on the front page to invisible. In a single refresh. How does that work? Looking at the votes and age, it should be in the top 5 of both Ask and the front page. What's the m…

I've posted an AskHN about self-regulation mechanisms on HN just today and instantly got flagged: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23220998 Please upvote another attempt: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223939

New submission has 13 points in 21 minutes and still not displayed on front or "ask" page. How come?

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

#280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Laughing all the way to the bank... It justifies the behavior to people who think for themselves and not for some intangible global internet community. i'm not trolling.

With all that blood on their hands, they'd better be careful in handling the check or else the bank won't be able to read the routing number.

Imagine thinking anything Google does comes close to resembling having blood on its hands. It really seems to me that the first world doesn't have enough real problems on its hands.
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