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YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

reuters.com

61–70 of 269 posts

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#61

We're back at the platform vs. publisher debate... I think this should be a either-or thing, that every webpage chooses. Then, you're either a platform, and can only remove directly illegal stuff (or when told by the courts to do so), or a publisher, decide what content you publish and what you remove, and then carry the full responsibility for that content. The current situation, where pages like youtube can act as…

Companies that do business with the US .gov should be req’d to apply 1st amendment rights to their users. Much like public universities who receive taxpayer funding.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#62

I’m kind of curious here: if I were creating any service or running any group that had any chance of getting taken down completely from my provider (versus in the SRE sense of high availability), I would have multiple options on standby at the ready at all times, ready to deploy. This seems obvious, am I missing something here?

Some groups are further along in their operational model and opsec journey than others.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#63
post #41
post #22

No worries, Google will just sponsor a human rights award and award it to themselves to help them feel better about enabling human rights violations. They have the playbook perfected. [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26880262

Or blame on human error like Microsoft did after the Tank Man/Bing issue.

Human error is the default behavior now.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's some evidence to support your hunch about Russia: > Across our interviews, our respondents [former and current RT journalists] agreed that the goals of the channel [RT] since 2008 have been and still are as follows. First, to push the idea that Western countries have as many problems as Russia. Second, to encourage conspiracy theories about media institutions in the West in order to discredit and delegitimize…

I haven’t looked at RT recently, but I didnt see conspiracy talk. I never saw a truther debate there. RT doesn’t have to lie at all to document many of the problems in the west. It was usually what should be Capt. Obvious stuff, stories not covered in the US media, Syria/Iraq/Afghanistan coverage, Snowden and Assange (take off the RT logo and the HN crowd would be orgasming to it), stories of racial inequality, finan…

> The channel [RT] has provided the likes of Alex Jones, Webster Tarpley, David Ray Griffin and Jim Marrs with the opportunity to promote, to an international audience, their ideas about the New World Order, 9/11, the Bilderberg group or the climate change conspiracy, all while being treated with absolute deference by the channel's journalists. Embedded video clips of appearances on Russia Today have become a regular feature on the websites of American conspiracy theorists, where they are brandished as a sign of credibility and mainstream recognition.

-- Conspiracy Theories: A Critical Introduction, https://www.google.com/books/edition/Conspiracy_Theories/e0i...

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#66
I have issue with the laziness of the report regarding the Xinjiang genocide reporting. The whole article is centered on this statement:

"""

where UN experts and rights groups estimate over a million people have been detained in recent years.

"""

The UN experts and right groups are not named. But I assume it was Adrian Zenz who was throughly discredited in [1] and the so-called evidences are from satalie images analyzed by non professional intelligence analyst like Ms. Xu Xiuzhong [2] who by all means have good faith but seriously lacking the credit to command such a large scale political crusade against China.

Disclaimer: I was born and raised in China and live in silicone valley for the last 10 years. And I think the current political narrative is from fear of unknown, and CCP needs to adjust it's policy to be more open.

But I cannot see any serious evidence of large scale concentration camp. Everything so far presented are no where close to the scale reported, aka 1 million.

[1] https://thegrayzone.com/tag/adrian-zenz/

[2] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UDkC1ZMFBCg

Edit:

> Zenz isn't discredited, it's just the PRC propaganda apparatus is trying its hardest to smear him as part of their coverup.

Grayzone has no connection with CCP.

And AFAIK, none of the CCP propaganda apparatus actually did any original research to attack Adrian Zenz. All I read is from Grayzone and Daniel Dumbrill, both are providing fact-checked new reporting.

Zenz is discredited by Grayzone report.

And TBH, I dont think Zenz should be treated as authority in the first place. This guy has not set foot on Xinjiang in his lifetime...

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#67

We're back at the platform vs. publisher debate... I think this should be a either-or thing, that every webpage chooses. Then, you're either a platform, and can only remove directly illegal stuff (or when told by the courts to do so), or a publisher, decide what content you publish and what you remove, and then carry the full responsibility for that content. The current situation, where pages like youtube can act as…

Companies that do business with the US .gov should be req’d to apply 1st amendment rights to their users. Much like public universities who receive taxpayer funding.

Public universities can kick you out for expressing your 1st amendment right based off of whatever bs reason they want to give just to expel you. Likewise also, teachers can fail you just because they don't like you or you hold certain views. Public universities are as fair about granting your constitutional rights as the US government. At that is, only when you beat them in court.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m going to take a guess that perhaps it has to do with Google’s ability to continue to commercially operate in China. Perhaps X leadership from Google spoke with Y leadership from China and reached this compromise in order to avoid a potential all-out ban of Google’s services in China, similar to - though nowhere close to the same reasoning behind - the US’ ban of Huawei telecommunications equipment. PLEASE NOTE th…

I would guess also that it has to do with "normalizing" relationships with China as well. Every country has skeletons in its closet. And every government seeks to rationize and minimize those skeletons as much as possible. As a country gains stake in mefia institutions, those institutions internalize some of the propaganda of that country.

This skeleton is not in the closet, it’s on the front yard and still being punched in the face every day. Meaning they have not stopped oppressing which is needed for it to be a skeleton in the closet.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#69

Their platform, their rules. If the rights group needs to publish videos, they should create their own platform.

They shouldn't have this much power in the first place. The fact they have a platform that captures basically an entire market is a feature of corporate-applied technology and a failure of the political system.

But that's where we are, and after this incident we'll merely negatively adjust our perceptions of Google and continue to use their services.

Re: YouTube takes down Xinjiang videos, forcing rights group to seek alternative

#70
post #3

I can understand the copyright stuff because Google can’t possibly afford the fight against the MPAA/RIAA. Why wade into politics though? What gain does Google obtain through political censorship?

I’m going to take a guess that perhaps it has to do with Google’s ability to continue to commercially operate in China. Perhaps X leadership from Google spoke with Y leadership from China and reached this compromise in order to avoid a potential all-out ban of Google’s services in China, similar to - though nowhere close to the same reasoning behind - the US’ ban of Huawei telecommunications equipment. PLEASE NOTE th…

The article explains which YouTube policies the removed videos violated, so there is no need to conjecture.
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