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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

#831

Post by jaccarmac »

oicu812 wrote: post #789
jaccarmac wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Transparent" vs "opaque" governments strikes me as a false dichotomy. There is certainly a spectrum of transparency and I grant that the United States is more transparent than China (at least from my perspective inside the former), but keep in mind that Snowden is still facing charges if he comes home and Manning just got free after her latest round of detainment. Considering the ways national interests interact is…

Transparency International ranks the US as number 23 and China as number 80 in their list of transparency/corruption. They are not in the same quartile and can't be considered similar in transparency. https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2019/results/table

Don't overgeneralize: The page you linked explicitly lays it out. Corruption Perceptions Index. Each word is important. In addition, think tanks have biases and TI is no exception. Do you think that the "experts and business people" they interview to calculate CPI have interests which may align more or less with different nations?

In any case, I opened by admitting my perception of the United States is as a more transparent actor than China. Still doesn't make a dichotomy.

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

#832

Post by manigandham »

BeetleB wrote: post #818
manigandham wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You made a claim here.[1] Then to virtually every response, you ask lots and lots of questions like "What does this mean?" "Why.." "What..." While your questions are fair, it is noteworthy that you haven't clarified or backed up your original claim. As someone reading this thread, I'm a bit surprised people are engaging with you. Personally, I would not engage with someone who makes an unsubstantiated claim, and inst…

Which part of that statement are you referring to? The rules are the First Amendment, stated here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23224929

The fact that hate speech is subjective is evidenced by my questions which examine just how loose and vague the definitions are. There still is no clear answer on what hate speech is, beyond the 1st Amendment which I think is good enough.

If you mean something else, then please state what it is that's unsubstantiated.

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

#833

Post by dang »

All: please don't miss that there are multiple pages of comments. Unfortunately the two top subthreads have become so large that they fill out the first page entirely. You have to click 'More' at the bottom to see the rest (there are almost 1000 at this point).

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

#835

Post by mesozoic »

Flantastical wrote: post #499
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.

I think part of the issue is the power of comments like yours that pretends there's a simple solution. In some conversations bad actors can gain more power in a debate using misleading information than a good actor can by using the truth. Most conversations, such as this one about free speech, are so complex that it's tough for a 'good actor' to offer solutions. They may discuss the pros / cons of each side, talk abo…

I am offended when you say these things: Bad actors weeded abuse fear lies misinformation anger

They should delete your post for sure right?

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

#836

Post by int_19h »

JAlexoid wrote: post #802
esotericn wrote: post #722

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thought experiment: Google controls 90% of the search market, the 10% (or 1%, whatever) they don't serve being made up of people who are oppressed in some way by the 90%, deliberately or otherwise. Google censors information relating to that 10% for everyone else. They don't care enough to switch. Centralization is an issue _a priori_. It's giving power to a single entity that we have no reason to trust will act in e…

And who gets to decide what is "best interests"? Google Search is a consumer focused product, if they don't serve up the stuff that the users want - they loose viewers. No viewers - no revenue. Their bottom line depends on giving each person the best search results possible. Pretending that they'll just decide to cut off even 1% of users is insane.

The citizens get to decide what their best collective interests are. They do that by, among other things, electing representatives that appoint officials to anti-trust committees.

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

#837

Post by seph-reed »

wmkn wrote: post #218
gabaix wrote: post #63

Youtube is in a tough spot. They will be blamed: - if they don't take down speech some consider hateful - if they take down speech some do not consider hateful 共匪 is seen as an insult by a group, but others do not. If Youtube bans nothing, then hate speech thrives and they get bad PR. If Youtube bans anything anyone flags as hate speech, then they become de facto as censorship agents for foreign powers. Anything crit…

> Youtube is more and more siding towards removing content. I wonder, can US regulators do something about it? A few weeks ago the discussion here was about how YouTube is not removing enough content (mostly in relation to Covid-19). The consensus was pretty much that they do it on purpose because it makes them money. I don’t think YouTube (or any large public content platform) has a winning move in this discussion.…

User configurations.

Opt in/out features.

This isn't even remotely difficult, and I can't believe people are so obsessed with forcing their opinions on each-other that a live-and-let-live solution does not even occur to them.

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

#838

Post by int_19h »

ochoseis wrote: post #675
nine_k wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please remember that democracy is a way to control a shared resource by the opinion of the majority, and it makes the minority submit to the decision of the majority. A democracy is more free than a tyranny, but it's not freedom incarnate. If 1.5B Chinese people totally democratically voted to ban particular words from usage worldwide, and were very serious at enforcing their decision, would you conform? I'd very muc…

Keep in mind the framers of the constitution in the US realized this type of issue, which led to the Bill of Rights protecting things like free speech and other government encroachments on individual liberty. I appreciate that corporate platforms are different than public spaces when it comes to free speech, but we've got a long way to go before US society broadly tolerates censorship by foreign entities (at least, I…

US Bill of Rights was originally written more to protect the states against the federal government. It couldn't even be enforced against the states until the 14th Amendment provided some vehicles for incorporation, and the courts acknowledged them. And even then the process of incorporation is still ongoing - e.g. the 7th is still not incorporated.

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

#839

Post by jb775 »

dang wrote: post #846
dang wrote: post #833

All: please don't miss that there are multiple pages of comments. Unfortunately the two top subthreads have become so large that they fill out the first page entirely. You have to click 'More' at the bottom to see the rest (there are almost 1000 at this point).

I made this a collapsed stub comment to collect replies, since we don't want to distract the top of the thread too much.

The "more" pagination button appears to only be visible on the first page of comments....you need to update the URL manually to get to comment pages 3+

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

#840

Post by jb775 »

ccktlmazeltov wrote: post #830
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.

Am I crazy or was there a comment in this thread calling out the moderators of HN and their own censorship? Did it disappear as well?

Discussion was buried low the comments because it was "down-weighted" by the moderators:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223555#23225685

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