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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

#361

Post by davesque »

shadowgovt wrote: post #171
ddevault wrote: post #38

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.

"To organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful." "The world's" doesn't mean "The part of the world we like most." "Universally" doesn't mean "Nobody in China gets to use our system until the Chinese government adopts Western notions of information control." Google would operate in North Korea if it could, because as a point of philosophy, it's believed that access to more informtio…

Are you speaking as a Google employee or just from personal opinion?

Also, this viewpoint is naive. Simply more information isn't better. What if all that information was about the flat earth theory and nothing else? Wouldn't more "mutually consistent" information be a better goal? Flat earth stuff is fun but you must limit yourself to a very small plausible universe in order to really buy into it.

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

#362

Post by jonny_eh »

koheripbal wrote: post #112

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 Founding Fathers could not have predicted this.

Who cares what a bunch of dead slave owners thought. We should be able to decide for ourselves what kind of laws we have, let's stop second guessing these guys that rarely even agreed with each other.

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

#363

Post by dleslie »

shadowgovt wrote: post #203
manigandham wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is to realize "hate speech" is mostly subjective and revert back to the clear rules that we had last decade before the current political climate of gratuitous outrage.

Sadly, can't agree. The rules we had in the last decade weren't actually working; they only appeared to work. They looked like they were creating conflict-free environments, but they were really creating environments where, in general, minority populations hate speech was targeted against weren't using the tools or participating in the forums that had a laissez-faire attitude on such things.

Conflict isn't necessarily a bad thing. Conflict can resolve tension and raise long-hidden concerns to the forefront. Conflict is a natural part of human interaction.

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

#364

Post by koheripbal »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #352
ashtonkem wrote: post #348

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m always really worried about the unintended consequences of having the government regulate what Google can and cannot moderate on their platform. That strikes me as a larger free speech issue than our current system. I’d recommend just breaking Google’s monopoly; which is an idea that has more benefits and less downside risk.

> I’d recommend just breaking Google’s monopoly Would an independent YouTube be less susceptible to these requests?

Probably, as it would have fewer conflicts of interests and relationships with foreign dictatorships.

...but ideally, we would have multiple YouTube competitors, that would allow content creators vote with their choice to use Google.

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

#365

Post by [deleted] »

manigandham wrote: post #285
shadowgovt wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, can't agree. The rules we had in the last decade weren't actually working; they only appeared to work. They looked like they were creating conflict-free environments, but they were really creating environments where, in general, minority populations hate speech was targeted against weren't using the tools or participating in the forums that had a laissez-faire attitude on such things.

What do you mean by not "actually working"? What is a "conflict-free environment"? What does hate speech have to do with minority populations? Do people within those populations never say hateful things, even to each other? How do you know they never participated in any forums? This sounds like an awful lot of assumptions.

[deleted]

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

#366

Post by koheripbal »

jonny_eh wrote: post #362
koheripbal wrote: post #112

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 Founding Fathers could not have predicted this. Who cares what a bunch of dead slave owners thought. We should be able to decide for ourselves what kind of laws we have, let's stop second guessing these guys that rarely even agreed with each other.

My point was that the Constitution does not handle the current situation - not specifically that the authors thought of it or not.

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

#368

Post by yorwba »

dooglius wrote: post #346
im3w1l wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker news and dang in particular has a very good track record of even handed and well thought of moderation. They have definitely earned benefit of the doubt from me. Let's wait a little before bringing the torches.

And how exactly did you determine this track record? It's not as if there's a log or appeals process...

The log is https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

The appeals process is to write to hn@ycombinator.com (Contact link in the footer.)

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

#369

Post by foldr »

manigandham wrote: post #285
shadowgovt wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, can't agree. The rules we had in the last decade weren't actually working; they only appeared to work. They looked like they were creating conflict-free environments, but they were really creating environments where, in general, minority populations hate speech was targeted against weren't using the tools or participating in the forums that had a laissez-faire attitude on such things.

What do you mean by not "actually working"? What is a "conflict-free environment"? What does hate speech have to do with minority populations? Do people within those populations never say hateful things, even to each other? How do you know they never participated in any forums? This sounds like an awful lot of assumptions.

>What does hate speech have to do with minority populations?

Come on. There's a debate to be had about hate speech and free speech, but it can't even get started on a reasonable footing if some of the participants don't know enough history to be able to answer this question.

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

#370

Post by harpratap »

koheripbal wrote: post #112

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.

> having a near-monopoly on various public communication channels

Since when did Google became the defacto public communication channel?

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