93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform • Hacker News Board

Re: 93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform

#61

Post by andrewinardeer » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 6:34 PM UTC

CamperBob2 wrote: post #7

qmarchi wrote: post #6

Disclaimer: Former Technical Solutions Engineer for GCP, aka Support for Customers. Also Former Engineer on YouTube Caching. To get it out of the way, I do not agree that it should've taken a journalist to get involved to have this situation solved. However, I'd like to prompt Hacker News with how would you handle receiving support requests from a product that has >2.7B users. Almost all of which are non-directly rev…

It's a social problem, not a technical one. Facilitate a hierarchy of trust among users who more-or-less volunteer to moderate at the lower trust levels and engage on unjustly-banned users' behalf with YouTube staff at higher trust levels. Better yet, pay them. It is, after all, work.

Why pay?

Reddit, a multi-billion dollar company has perfected the art of exploiting unpaid volunteer work.

So much so that when said workers rebel against the administration they get booted from their position. Moderators are easily replaced as there is always someone willing to toe the administration's line.

Re: 93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform

#62

Post by sbarre » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 6:42 PM UTC

vundercind wrote: post #59

sbarre wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't a new player in the space run into the same challenges though? I don't think this is a Google-specific problem (although they are particularly bad at it).

Their moderation challenge is one of centralization and insistence on taking control of promoting videos. Nobody needs to, or does, police my email to make sure I haven't subscribed to any naughty newsletters. (you know, aside from five-eyes programs or whatever—but businesses don't). [EDIT] To pre-empt an obvious objection, yes, spam filtering exists and Google and others will absolutely sometimes blackhole email, b…

Hmm interesting. I sort of see your point here..

I would worry that a much more decentralized approach would just lead to inconsistent and fragmented moderation, and it would feel arbitrary.. Most creators, and viewers, wouldn't know where to go to find their content.

For better or worse, YouTube's centralization makes discovery very easy, and incentivizes creators to invest in their work because they see greater returns from such a large audience.

I'm not sure I agree that in 2024 it's "not impossible" for a business to host completely unmoderated content on the Internet, especially video.. The amount of behind-the-scenes moderation (by humans or machines) that happens on the big platforms has been well documented..

I think video hosting is something that is hard to do not-for-profit, at least in a way that is approachable for the average viewer (i.e. doesn't have the barriers of something like PeerTube etc)..

And even if they could host unmoderated content, I think we all know what happens there (see KiwiFarms, 4chan, Rumble, etc)... they become spaces that the average creator doesn't want to be associated with because all of the extremists (of all kinds) end up there.

Re: 93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform

#63

Post by some_random » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 7:37 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #56

some_random wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're not willing to engage in discussion, why are you here?

We are engaging in discussion.. I don't know that OP's comment, with their snarky confrontational tone and demands, is what I would call "discussion".. I guess I expect a level of civility in my discussions.

Telling someone to educate themselves and that they can just google whatever thing you're talking about is about as uncivil as you can get before openly insulting them.

Re: 93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform

#64

Post by gooosle » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 8:32 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #55

gooosle wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I asked for a very specific thing, not 'regulations that impact youtube'. The fact that you're telling me about your little search engine adventure without actually sharing a single link/specific regulation, says a lot.

> these regulatory restrictions which supposedly force this kind of behavior from Google The above was your first post... > I asked for a very specific thing, not 'regulations that impact youtube'. My apologies then for misunderstanding, that's how I interpreted your initial request. Can you explain the difference then? I suggested a path for you to educate yourself, again pointing out that resources are available to…

> Can you explain the difference then?

Do you really need me to explain the difference between'specific regulations that force YouTube to take this specific action' vs 'regulations that may affect youtube'?

> I suggested a path for you to educate yourself, again pointing out that resources are available to you so you can learn things for yourself without demanding them from others.

Wow thank you for the amazing suggestions and letting me know that search engines exist! Apparently it wasn't enough for you to be able to answer the question asked though, and the only thing you were able to contribute was this passive aggressive tale about how you tried to Google something.

By the way - when someone claims that there are certain regulations behind decisions/actions it's totally okay to ask what those specific regulations are. Your little tantrum adds absolutely nothing to the conversation, and this hilarious comment of yours trying to explain away this tantrum only serves to underline the fact that you're not even trying to have an honest/sincere conversation.

Re: 93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform

#65

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 8:53 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #18

ryandrake wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, an entire channel was shut down (with no opportunity for appeal) on account of a single instance of someone zoom-bombing a live stream with pornography. Presumably the decision was entirely automated and there was no human in the loop. It doesn't matter how many users you have. This "solution" seems like swatting a fly with a nuclear weapon. Why not just take down the offending video until the user take…

Yeah it feels like there should be an escalating series of consequences for infractions.. It should have been pretty straightforward to establish a pattern (or lack of) around whether this was an intentionally abusive channel or a first-time offence. But of course this costs money and takes time to build.

[deleted]

Re: 93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform

#66

Post by vundercind » Wed, Dec 04, 2024, 9:04 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #62

vundercind wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their moderation challenge is one of centralization and insistence on taking control of promoting videos. Nobody needs to, or does, police my email to make sure I haven't subscribed to any naughty newsletters. (you know, aside from five-eyes programs or whatever—but businesses don't). [EDIT] To pre-empt an obvious objection, yes, spam filtering exists and Google and others will absolutely sometimes blackhole email, b…

Hmm interesting. I sort of see your point here.. I would worry that a much more decentralized approach would just lead to inconsistent and fragmented moderation, and it would feel arbitrary.. Most creators, and viewers, wouldn't know where to go to find their content. For better or worse, YouTube's centralization makes discovery very easy, and incentivizes creators to invest in their work because they see greater ret…

Yeah, the inherent problems of video hosting are real and highly-devolved decentralized hosting (e.g. IPFS) is nowhere near a satisfactory solution in a world where most end user devices sleep much of the time and need to conserve battery power, but these are separate from the reasons that Google finds humane moderation too difficult to even credibly attempt—the reasons video hosting is necessarily hard, aren't the reasons YouTube moderation is hard. I do agree that discovery would be a problem to solve, but I don't think it's insurmountable. After all, I hear running a search engine can be profitable...

I think at least separating hosting and the not-necessarily-connected role of curation and promotion (plus, maybe, separating distribution from hosting) would go a long way to solving a lot of problems. That'd basically require regulation for it to actually happen, though, because there's too much value in capturing that entire vertical, effectively "dumping" on parts of that potential-market to feed network effects and build a moat around for whichever part of it (the ad-laden curation and promotion interface, in YouTube's case) you're making money on.

This is how a lot of Google's—among others'—properties work. It's frustrating because dumping "free" products for the purpose of marketshare-capture in adjacent markets stifles not just interest in other commercial efforts with different funding models, but also FOSS or truly-free hobbyist efforts. I think this kind of thing is also why we basically don't develop new open Internet protocols anymore, or if we do, they don't take off, even when the need is there—they compete with free but deliberately closed and non-interoperable services funded by ads or propped up by other wildly profitable services, so are DOA even if you can convince anyone that trying to develop them in such an environment is worth their time in the first place.

Re: 93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform

#67

Post by sbarre » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 1:00 PM UTC

some_random wrote: post #63

sbarre wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are engaging in discussion.. I don't know that OP's comment, with their snarky confrontational tone and demands, is what I would call "discussion".. I guess I expect a level of civility in my discussions.

Telling someone to educate themselves and that they can just google whatever thing you're talking about is about as uncivil as you can get before openly insulting them.

We can agree to disagree then.

When someone comes around demanding that others provide them with information they can easily look up themselves, I don't see the problem in countering that with a politely-worded retort reminding them that they have agency in their own education.

I even pointed them in the right direction with some suggestions.

How would you have handled it?

Re: 93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform

#68

Post by sbarre » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 1:07 PM UTC

gooosle wrote: post #64

sbarre wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> these regulatory restrictions which supposedly force this kind of behavior from Google The above was your first post... > I asked for a very specific thing, not 'regulations that impact youtube'. My apologies then for misunderstanding, that's how I interpreted your initial request. Can you explain the difference then? I suggested a path for you to educate yourself, again pointing out that resources are available to…

> Can you explain the difference then? Do you really need me to explain the difference between'specific regulations that force YouTube to take this specific action' vs 'regulations that may affect youtube'? > I suggested a path for you to educate yourself, again pointing out that resources are available to you so you can learn things for yourself without demanding them from others. Wow thank you for the amazing sugge…

I'm not sure you know what the word "tantrum" means, but that's fine.

I'll reiterate that your immature and snarky tone does you no favours in terms of having a discourse, and again I encourage you to reconsider how you engage with others here.

Do you talk like this to people in the real world?

Re: 93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform

#69

Post by some_random » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 1:56 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #67

some_random wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Telling someone to educate themselves and that they can just google whatever thing you're talking about is about as uncivil as you can get before openly insulting them.

We can agree to disagree then. When someone comes around demanding that others provide them with information they can easily look up themselves, I don't see the problem in countering that with a politely-worded retort reminding them that they have agency in their own education. I even pointed them in the right direction with some suggestions. How would you have handled it?

I would have linked them directly to that easily available evidence, checking to make sure that I choose the strongest examples of me being correct. This isn't a high bar, and if you keep alluding to things without even naming them of course people are going to demand you make them legible. Going around demanding people take your word as gospel then getting offended when they ask not even for sources but examples is completely unacceptable to me and evidently enough of HN for your comment to be flagged and removed.

Re: 93-year-old YouTuber back in business after being kicked off platform

#70

Post by gooosle » Thu, Dec 05, 2024, 3:00 PM UTC

sbarre wrote: post #68

gooosle wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Can you explain the difference then? Do you really need me to explain the difference between'specific regulations that force YouTube to take this specific action' vs 'regulations that may affect youtube'? > I suggested a path for you to educate yourself, again pointing out that resources are available to you so you can learn things for yourself without demanding them from others. Wow thank you for the amazing sugge…

I'm not sure you know what the word "tantrum" means, but that's fine. I'll reiterate that your immature and snarky tone does you no favours in terms of having a discourse, and again I encourage you to reconsider how you engage with others here. Do you talk like this to people in the real world?

Maybe consider the fact that multiple people called you out for being rude and contributing nothing to the conversation, and the fact that your silly tantrum was flagged and removed, before you go around critiqueing other people's 'tone'.

Learn to have an honest conversation, without being rude, before you give others advice.

You're insecure and you're projecting, and it's obvious.