YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#71

Post by Bartweiss » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

vertexFarm wrote: post #51

jrhurst wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Problem is medical claims are highly regulated in the West. So there is a likely legal liability for youtube in the US and in the UK. In fact, they might have already had pressure from regulators.

“Nothing illegal, no medical advice offered, I've always been incredibly careful about this.” The article then goes on to name several videos with titles like "increase energy," "improve concentration and memory," "improve sleep," etc. Are there any lawyers around who know of a legal definition for "medical advice" or "medical claims?" Because these videos sound a lot like medical advice despite his insistence that t…

> a legal definition for "medical advice"

If you're talking about the FDA, the basic rule is that you can't claim a product treats or cures any diagnosable condition it hasn't been certified for. Claims like "improve concentration" and "improve sleep" are generally permissible, where specific statements like "helps with ADD" and "cures insomnia" are not.

Based on those video titles, I don't see anything which constitutes medical advice in the narrow sense. Someone could well have decided the overall effect was tacit medical advice, but these titles in isolation aren't clear violations.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#72

Post by kawfey » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:22 PM UTC

New Ask HN thread: where are creators migrating to in lieu of YouTube?

Vimeo? Twitch? Facebook? Metacafe or Dailymotion? There are also also already dozens of dapps for streaming like dtube, lbry, viewly, lino, flixxo....(etc, just see https://www.google.com/search?q=decentralized+youtube), but I don't see any particular venue rising above the rest, as a lot of creators seem to choose "all of the above" as an answer, syndicating content across as many domains as possible.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#73

Post by yladiz » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

I remember when I was in high school, I got onto Something Awful and saw some posting about nootropics and was interested in the possible effects, like improved memory and sharper concentration, so I got some (I think piracetam). In the instructions it said it would take some time to work, like a week or two, and after a few days of feeling the same and seemingly having no effects I stopped taking them and the only benefit I got afterwards was selling the remaining pills to my friend since they apparently make the high from pot more intense.

Beyond the anecdote I don't think this is censorship from Youtube, it's likely the creators were either venturing into advertising/selling products as the primary purpose of their videos, or giving some kind of medical advice about how they can improve your life/body, or both, both of which I think are against Youtube ToS. Given that it's a story from Motherboard we're probably just getting a partial part of the story and the article is just making it seem like Youtube is censoring something they shouldn't, rather than putting the creators at fault.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#74

Post by enginaar » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:26 PM UTC

So a creator trusts the guidelines provided by youtube and invests in a business to find out later youtube can actually shut that business down without a tangible reason. I don't understand how being a private entity gives youtube the right to make a false advertisement and treat their creators as fools.

Is it clearly stated that youtube can remove your videos just because? (considering, claiming it's not fitting guidelines is as vague as claiming it is bad for the environment)

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#75

Post by JackCh » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:27 PM UTC

joew42k wrote: post #54

Youtube is a private company and can do whatever they want with their own website. Nobody's stopping makers of these videos from hosting the videos themselves. This is not censorship in the way we have traditionally understood. It only feels like it because Youtube is where the biggest audience is. It's the same whenever Facebook penalizes a post in the timeline, or whenever Google hides content from the search resul…

The "my preferred definition of censorship specifies that it can only be done by governments, and [company] is not a government" rhetoric that always appears with these sort of stories is truly tiring and pedantic. Nobody here thinks that youtube is a government. The problem isn't people thinking that youtube is a government; the problem is people thinking that censorship is something only a government can do, or thinking that because censorship is legal (when done by corporations) people shouldn't complain when it happens. Many things that are legal are worth complaining about.

With regard to the rest of your comment, I'm not confident breaking up the google 'monopoly' would actually solve this problem. If you spun youtube off as its own company distinct from the rest of google, wouldn't it still have a virtual monopoly on this user-uploaded online video space? How would you actually solve that? Split youtube itself into several "Baby Youtubes"? How would that work, which one would get the domain name?

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#76

Post by joew42k » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #66

joew42k wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can decide to not watch youtube. TV stations decide what shows they want to air, and which ones they don't. And nobody calls it censorship. Youtube feels like public infrastructure. But legally, it's no different than a TV station deciding to cancel a show.

A TV station has limited bandwidth. They have a constant ongoing algorithm to choose what to fit in there. YouTube could keep all videos forever. There can be no commercial reason to 'cancel' a YouTube video. So we know that this decision is almost completely unrelated to the TV Station reasons.

1. Hosting videos costs Youtube money. It's probably a tiny amount per video. But that doesn't mean they can host every video forever.

2. They have a commercial reason to cancel these videos. Maybe they think the use of these drugs is risky, and gives their website an unsavory reputation. That hurts their brand (and potentially their bottom line). This is not unlike a TV show canceling a successful show when it's star actor becomes embroiled in controversy.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#77

Post by 2_listerine_pls » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:29 PM UTC

atomical wrote: post #15

kristofferR wrote: post #7

YouTube will probably remove fitness videos soon, since some people invariably are stupid and will hurt themselves with the exercises on display, a completely analogous situation.

Exercise is much different from research chemicals. One difference is you don't need to buy exercise from shady sites that will eventually be shut down by the FDA.

TIL calcium supplements are research chemicals.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#78

Post by RoyTyrell » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:31 PM UTC

maxerickson wrote: post #62

merinowool wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair information is a weapon and there should be no free reign for anyone. If you are on purpose suppressing some information to fulfil political agenda - that should be a criminal act.

So what's a political agenda? Is the promotion of cats a political agenda? Can allcats.com take down videos of dogs?

> Can allcats.com take down videos of dogs?

Sure. Why shouldn't a private entity be able to determine what kind of speech they allow on their own property?

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#79

Post by crankylinuxuser » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:32 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #47

jerf wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on who gets to decide what "false/misleading" is. I'm not sure how this could be any less transparent. I personally see less than no reason to trust YouTube's judgment in these matters.

Any time you open the paper, turn on the TV, crack open a book, or visit Hacker News, you are trusting some curator, gatekeeper, editor, or censor's judgement. Even bazaars like 4chan are moderated.

And the unmoderated spaced of before don't exist any more (Usenet), because companies didn't make money on it. Or worse, because it violated some company's "right".

Now, in order to speak, you nearly have to go through one of Their gateways. If you piss off FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon), you're gone off the net. Some of those gatekeepers are big scripts with no human intervention for your level. If you fall between the cracks, then you have no recourse, other than find a place like HN and beg publicly - lest you get shitcanned by the HN gatekeepers.

Re: YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels

#80

Post by chillingeffect » Mon, Apr 30, 2018, 9:33 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #9

"Cronin’s YouTube channel was up to about 22,000 subscribers when he received a notice from YouTube about one of his videos, “Relax and Improve Your Sleep with Natural Calm Magnesium.” The notice said the video had been removed for violating YouTube’s community guidelines, but didn’t specify further." Magnesium isn't even a nootropic. That is, while it may have some ability to boost cognition, it isn't a substance pr…

really? https://duckduckgo.com/?q=magnesium+sleep+research&t=ffsb&ia...

First result: The effect of magnesium supplementation on primary insomnia in elderly: A double-blind placebo-controlled clinical trial.

CONCLUSION:

Supplementation of magnesium appears to improve subjective measures of insomnia such as ISI score, sleep efficiency, sleep time and sleep onset latency, early morning awakening, and likewise, insomnia objective measures such as concentration of serum renin, melatonin, and serum cortisol, in elderly people.

btw I was a fan of Steve Cronin's channel and of reddit's nootropics subreddit. Steve's stuff was hardly experimental. Lots of this stuff is heavily researched. Youtube probably has input from Big Pharma. What's next, eliminating smoothy and juicing videos? Vegan recipes? Will they let themselves become a perfect shady of the corporate lifestyle?