YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#771

Post by mathogre » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 3:35 PM UTC

px43 wrote: post #646

mathogre wrote: post #584

Fuck YouTube. If they're going to control what news I get, I'll choose other than YouTube. I do not need them. I have read from both hard left and hard right, and am intelligent enough to make my own decisions about what makes sense. Let them play their games, whether silly or dangerous. I form my own opinions. Losers!

This isn't about you, it's about the 30-40% of YouTube users who don't have that skill, and become radicalized and violent when stupid bullshit like this starts gaining traction. YouTube isn't a news network. It's a video platform catering to a global audience, many of whom are really really bad critical thinking. Same with Facebook. We all know what happens when content isn't curated, and it's really, really bad. I'…

Actually, you're right. You made very good points here. I always assume other people are rational. While many are, many are not, and I often forget the latter. Thank you.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#772

Post by downandout » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 3:36 PM UTC

pfisch wrote: post #766

downandout wrote: post #740

Earlier quoted context omitted.

War being threatened by a nuclear power like Russia carries with it the “catastrophic risk” of the end of the world, with billions of people dead. Even if one were to wholeheartedly believe that the hyperbole in your comment was an entirely plausible outcome of January 6, the Russian tweet is far more dangerous than anything related to the Capital riot. It’s outrageously hypocritical that the Russian official’s accou…

Except social media can't control if Russia will fire nukes. The Russians don't need to rally a russian mob on social media to goto war at all. Twitter can't prevent this from happening by censoring a russian official.

They couldn’t control January 6 either. Literally the only people charged with sedition - those who had a plan - were part of an extremist organization that coordinated in person.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#773

Post by mohanmcgeek » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 3:37 PM UTC

greyhair wrote: post #762

mohanmcgeek wrote: post #659

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the 30-40% of YouTube users who don't have that skill, Who are you or YouTube to make this judgement? More often than not, the "I'm smarter than the average person" types are the ones making the worst decisions.

Always keep in mind that 50% of all people are dumber than average.

The smarter-than-the-average people aren't the problem

The people who are very sure that they're way smarter than the average are often not very smart.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#774

Post by adam_arthur » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC

DoctorOW wrote: post #675

adam_arthur wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no evidence to support the fact that corporate greed in an otherwise competitive market leads to inflation, yet we have plenty of politicians pushing that. There's no evidence supporting price controls to be an effective way to fight inflation, as was shown to produce awful results in the 70s among many other eras, yet we have politicians pushing for that. There's no evidence to support that nominal wages ris…

This comment is unrelated to my point. I asked for an example of a viewpoint being eliminated. Instead, I get a wrong answer and a pivot to a request for my views. You're changing the subject yet again to just listing other things politicians have said. That doesn't substantiate the claim that there are viewpoints being eliminated.

It replies directly to your point. You imply that dangerous views shouldn't be kept around.

"Also, it's not a view worth keeping around. There's no evidence to support it and it's just used to justify violence and division."

So I listed some very dangerous economic views that have been proven to fail throughout history, and are widely agreed upon by economists.

So we should silence anybody promoting these views, following your logic. It's for the good of society

We should ban all videos proposing the ex president colluded with Russia too, as it was always a conspiracy theory with no evidence. No matter how much people wanted it to be true. Undermining the legitimacy of a validly elected president should be a silence-able offense. All the better if the party in power or their affiliates are the ones to do the silencing.

Maybe take into consideration which regimes throughout history have used silencing speech the most and whether you want to align with them.

But generally I don't expect holders of these views to acknowledge the hypocrisy of them, or how closely they align to the tactics of authoritarian regimes throughout history.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#775

Post by mkr-hn » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 3:56 PM UTC

wahern wrote: post #355

lurquer wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most? Source? Nearly 9% of US presidents have been assassinated. Over a much much smaller timeframe. I would bet you would be less likely to have been assassinated as a Tsar than as a President.

According to Wikipedia, 5 of 14 Tsars (35%) were murdered. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emperor_of_all_the_Russias That seems substantial, at least compared to Presidents, especially considering the threat of assassination was a serious consideration given all the political intrigue. Whereas AFAIU U.S. Presidents didn't take the threat of assassination seriously until the 20th century, exposing themselves to the pub…

I think it's hard to divine trends from such small numbers. 14 Tsars, 45 presidents. It's not even enough to determine if the odds of one outcome or the other is better than a coin toss. This is before getting into confounding variables like availability and quality of medical care. How would the numbers change if they all had access to emergency care available to the next person to face an assassination attempt? Or if they all had the Secret Service looking out for them. The President flies around with a world class hospital with some of the world's best staff.

My guess is both attempts and successes are fewer over time and will approach 0 until some structural change shocks increasingly complacent protections.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#776

Post by dane-pgp » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 3:58 PM UTC

YATA0 wrote: post #559

dane-pgp wrote: post #539

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're talking about more than "Russian troll farms" here: > Trump and his associates' participation in and enabling of this Russian activity If you want to understand more, there is a summary of "Links between Trump associates and Russian officials" in the Wikipedia article about "Russian interference in the 2016 United States elections"[0], including this section, for example: > In the email, Goldstone said the info…

>We're talking about more than "Russian troll farms" here Not really, no. From your own source: "The Special Counsel's report, made public in April 2019, examined numerous contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials but concluded that there was insufficient evidence to bring any conspiracy or coordination charges against Trump or his associates." It literally states there was no evidence of collision or…

The Wikipedia article doesn't actually provide a citation for that conclusion, and if you follow the link through to the article about "The Special Counsel's report", i.e. the Mueller Report, you'll find that:

> Mueller privately wrote to Barr, stating that the March 24 Barr letter "did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance of this office's work and conclusions"

Bear in mind that Mueller was a Republican special counsel, whose remit was set by Trump's DOJ, and that:

> On May 1, Barr testified that he "didn't exonerate" Trump on obstruction as "that's not what the Justice Department does" and that neither he nor Rosenstein had reviewed the underlying evidence in the report.

and:

> In July 2019, Mueller testified to Congress that a president could be charged with crimes including obstruction of justice after the president left office.

so he was prevented by policy (not the law or the facts) from bringing charges against Trump.

The article summary concludes:

> In 2020, a Republican-appointed federal judge decided to personally review the report's redactions to see if they were legitimate. The judge said Barr's "misleading" statements about the report's findings led him to suspect that Barr had tried to establish a "one-sided narrative" favorable to Trump.

In any case, the Senate investigation (which is what I originally quoted) came later, and was more forthcoming about the connection between Trump's team and Russia.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#777

Post by trustscientism » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 3:59 PM UTC

spacexsucks wrote: post #756

Before internet, the village idiot was just that and laughed off. With internet, they got a group and justified themselves and now people are falling for that. If these idiots were taking just themselves off the cliff, then sure. But they are taking villagers who cant tell the difference between legit or not off the cliff too. Even worse, those idiots are turning these misguided villagers onto the rest who know bette…

I agree the news feed algorithm is pouring gasoline on the fire, but how do you expect human beings to react to being persecuted and censored as "viruses" and "cancers"; untermensch? What is the ultimate end game with that line of thinking?

"Like a boil that can never be cured as long as it is covered up but must be opened with all its pus-flowing ugliness to the natural medicines of air and light, injustice must likewise be exposed, with all of the tension its exposing creates, to the light of human conscience and the air of national opinion before it can be cured."

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#778

Post by clord » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 4:03 PM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #627

clord wrote: post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No the point is whether YouTube is better if it allows us to evaluate. I want YouTube to show me darker news and also keep my kid entertained without worry. I don’t want to be treated like the child here though. If I click on a Ukraine war video or I want to find a quote from trump to pick apart there should not be filters preventing it. The product is better if I am in control. YouTube ought to stay out of it. It do…

> I want YouTube to show me darker news and also keep my kid entertained without worry. This is a different argument. You already have the agency of being in control, you can pick any platform to watch from. Youtube is exercising it's own right to censor, similar to how you want to censor for your kid, based on what you think is harmful.

Yep. I can pick a different restaurant. But I can still leave bad reviews.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#779

Post by pfisch » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 4:16 PM UTC

downandout wrote: post #772

pfisch wrote: post #766

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except social media can't control if Russia will fire nukes. The Russians don't need to rally a russian mob on social media to goto war at all. Twitter can't prevent this from happening by censoring a russian official.

They couldn’t control January 6 either. Literally the only people charged with sedition - those who had a plan - were part of an extremist organization that coordinated in person.

Jan 6th would not have happened without social media spreading lies about the election for months. It is ridiculous to pretend otherwise.

Re: YouTube suspends The Hill for playing clip of Trump denying election results

#780

Post by frabbit » Sat, Mar 05, 2022, 4:21 PM UTC

cudgy wrote: post #707

px43 wrote: post #646

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't about you, it's about the 30-40% of YouTube users who don't have that skill, and become radicalized and violent when stupid bullshit like this starts gaining traction. YouTube isn't a news network. It's a video platform catering to a global audience, many of whom are really really bad critical thinking. Same with Facebook. We all know what happens when content isn't curated, and it's really, really bad. I'…

> 30-40% of YouTube users who don't have that skill, and become radicalized and violent when stupid bullshit like this starts gaining traction. Taking away their ability to hear different viewpoints especially those they believe to be true just drives these people to radicalize even further. I’m not even touching the matter of dismissing almost half of a country. Very shortsighted perspective.

It strikes me that the effort that goes into trying to outright suppress disinformation is also a waste of time. It leaks through anyway and the consequences of being seen to suppress it leads to distrust.

All that you can hope is that the person reading it is open to information and changing their mind. If they are not then there is nothing that can be done anyway.

I have been drawn into trying to evaluate this claim that the Czech Republic / Czechia has had a statement issued by its "Supreme Prosecutor" that anyone supporting the Russian invasion of Ukraine will face criminal penalties. I would love to be able to go to a reputable media source to evaluate it. It is inordinately difficult to judge. I would prefer that the BBC/CNN/LA Times spent time debunking this sort of thing or confirming it. As it is I am on my own with nothing but a wall of flag-waving and emotional condemnation instead of investigative journalism -- that's what I want from the media -- not opinion pieces: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30560672

In looking at that story it was fascinating to see the struggle within the Czech Republic with various sides accused of being Russian mouthpieces and the establishment of state censorship apparatuses well in advance of this phase of the conflict with Russia.