Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 744 posts

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#301

Post by nathan_long »

falcolas wrote: post #231
root_axis wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube is the most popular video website on the internet. This makes it a fundamental human right. I am being sarcastic.

If a private developer were to take over most residential areas in a section of town, they would be responsible for providing public access, affordable housing, and other responsibilities normally associated with the government. This is enshrined in law - a private company that is the de-facto entity for a particular function gains the responsibilities of acting as a government entity. Since YouTube has a monopoly on…

> If a private developer were to take over most residential areas in a section of town

There is a finite amount of land in a town, so a monopoly can exclude people. This is not true of video hosting - there can be as many video hosts as people care to build, and they are all equally usable from anywhere on the internet.

> Since YouTube has a monopoly on video content on the internet

They don't.

Now, if ISPs started censoring particular political viewpoints, that would be different IMO. It's much harder to get a different ISP (at least where I live) than it is to browse to a different web site.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#302

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

xwdv wrote: post #218

What I worry here is that the extremity of a view will vary depending on how close it is to your own beliefs. Extremists don’t self identify as extremists, so the question is where does YouTube’s temperament lie?

We’ve seen their leaked meeting videos. We know where their temperaments lie.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#303

Post by chronial »

la_barba wrote: post #184
chronial wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Err, how do you know that the algorithm does this? Youtube optimizes for watch time. Most people don't want to spend their afternoons having their views challenged. Any algorithm that properly optimizes for watch time of the masses will learn to validate views.

Right, we can all speculate. I'm asking for some objective proof, if any such is available. We can only propose a solution if we first demonstrate that the problem is real.

I don't want to assume bad faith, but I have the impression that you are arguing just for the sake of arguing.

What about my statement is speculation?

• Youtube themselves state that they optimize for watch time.

• I don't want to go and search for papers on this, but I don't think the idea that people prefer to have their views validated instead of challenged is in any way controversial or speculation.

• It's also not speculation to state that people want to spend their time doing things that gives them positive emotions.

You clearly won't get "objective proof" on this, because the only way to actually proof this would be to do a formal study on it. And why would anyone to a study on such an obvious non-controversial topic?

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#304

Post by [deleted] »

creaghpatr wrote: post #242
Animats wrote: post #221

Not good. What's "extreme"? Medicare for All? Brietbart News? Islam? Haredi? School shootings? Kim Jong-un? Putin? Trump? YouTube already tries to transcribe videos to text. Is it within the state of the art to recognize common false statements and superimpose a crawl with counterarguments? One thing you have going for you is that the nuts aren't that original. If you had a classifier that could pick up the 100 best…

It's up to the advertisers really, think cable TV. A little bit of edginess, but if it gets crazy a boycott can force an advertiser pull out. We're only a few years away from YouTube turing into cable TV, maybe even the FCC will get involved in making that determination. Edit: I don't agree that advertisers should be in charge, I just think they will ultimately decide the line between edgy and extreme.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#305

Post by Faark »

gfodor wrote: post #269
bityard wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They worked so hard to research and create a 2000 word article that accurately reflects the world (in accordance to their editorial guidelines) using their good name I'm not sure which news sites you read but most of the ones I've seen count only as journalism in a very vague and abstract sense. The information is thin, the writing poor, and major important questions go unanswered and ignored. If there is indeed an…

Most journalism is close enough to propaganda these days that the least they could do is open comments so that the public can correct the record.

If you look at the comment sections of actual propaganda sites... well, you won't see Breitbart comments "correct the record". Quite the opposite, they are an important part of the local echo chamber. The only good they can do is giving others an unfiltered view into the minds of those communities.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#306

Post by mistermann »

AndrewStephens wrote: post #136
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 was shocked when news sites started publishing comments as a matter of course. They worked so hard to research and create a 2000 word article that accurately reflects the world (in accordance to their editorial guidelines) using their good name - and then let fReEtHiNkErChAd and 2020BloodInTheStreets chime in at the end. It would be OK if they strictly moderated the comments, but few sites seem to do that.

> accurately reflects the world

Sometimes, to some degree, and sometimes not. The level and consistency of accuracy varies per organization, per individual reporter, per story, and per person doing the judgement of "accuracy".

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#307

Post by anigbrowl »

warp_factor wrote: post #37
wnevets wrote: post #15

Why do some people think they're entitled to say what they want on youtube?

because it became the de facto place most of non tech-savy people go to to see videos online. They have a huge monopoly on our time and attention and that's extremely disturbing. Imagine that the electricity company providing electricity policed what kind of devices you can use inside your home (you are allowed to connect a Samsung washer but not a Bosh washer). There would be a lot of outcry.

But there are lots of other places you can watch video without being subject to YouTube's content policies.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#308

Post by rabidrat »

Faark wrote: post #305
gfodor wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most journalism is close enough to propaganda these days that the least they could do is open comments so that the public can correct the record.

If you look at the comment sections of actual propaganda sites... well, you won't see Breitbart comments "correct the record". Quite the opposite, they are an important part of the local echo chamber. The only good they can do is giving others an unfiltered view into the minds of those communities.

That is interesting, I wonder if we could use the level of disagreement in the comment sections to detect propaganda vs news sites.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#309

Post by dageshi »

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…

Is a privately owned museum a "public square"? Or a sports stadium owned by a private company? Or a Cinema? Or a threatre? No, neither is youtube.

It's a place the public visit not a piece of public infrastructure. Repeating "public square" over and over again does not make it so.

Re: YouTube to Remove Thousands of Videos Pushing Extreme Views

#310

Post by smsm42 »

> The company also said that channels that “repeatedly brush up against our hate speech policies,” but don’t violate them outright, would be removed from YouTube’s advertising program

Even their own rules written by them is never enough for censors. They have to invent stuff like "brush up" to extend censorship even further, even when recognizing there's no violation of their own policies, that they themselves wrote. Talk about slippery slope...

Post reply on HN