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It was folly to think that YouTube would be a safe place to document war crimes. YouTube is a distribution channel, not a preservation channel. Its ease of use

It was folly to think that YouTube would be a safe place to document war crimes. YouTube is a distribution channel, not a preservation channel. Its ease of use certainly makes it an attractive option to upload things quickly, but anything of historical significance should have the video raws immediately turned over to a human rights organization for preservation.

eloisius 9y ago
I doubt they're grieving lost footage. It's loss of access to that distribution channel. Documentation is pointless if it can't be distributed and used to effect change.
- privong 9y ago
  > I doubt they're grieving lost footage. This comment by jacobr suggests there is a risk of lost footage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998452
Mangalor 9y ago
Where else should they be stored?
- moogly 9y ago
  liveleak
- Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
  archive.org
  - osteele 9y ago
    I hope we're in a world where that can happen. At the least, we probably need “upload video to archive.org” mobile apps to make this as useful to journalists in the field as YouTube currently is. If the Archive grows as a journalistic distribution channel, it might then face YouTube's issues of copyrights, piracy, and other criminal use. However, the Archive could apply goals that are more compatible with journalism than YouTube can. Maybe sufficient philanthropic support could make this possible.
- sologoub 9y ago
  How about a public s3 bucket curated by a non-profit? Tools exist already to upload to S3 from practically every device, especially Android. Curation would be much harder, but there is a lot of money in philanthropy and I could see some deep pockets contributing to that. YouTube is fine as a means of promoting and gaining awareness - world should know about these things, but it's not rational to expect a corporation (aka people within it) to act in any other interest other then it's own. Seems like this could be an interesting infrastructure non-profit for YC to fund.
ballenf 9y ago
Youtube used to be a distribution channel but it slowly became an ad delivery tool with content along for the ride. Like 99% of other free (and even some paid) internet sites. Either way, totally agree that it's a tragic situation. The only sympathy I have for Google is that trying to separate the good vs. "evil" (as in "Don't be evil.") content is a monumental task that machine learning will probably never be capable of performing. So they're left with the choice of spending an inordinate amount on human review and detailed research or just make wildly over-broad removals. I'd rather they leave up more rather than less, but they tried this approach and it almost lost them every major advertiser. So continuing down that road would potentially lead to the whole platform losing viability. Maybe some would like that outcome but these historical videos would be just as lost. Maybe we'll see the pendulum swing back in an effort to reach a more reasonable middle ground.
- nxc18 9y ago
  Google has an inordinate amount of money to spend on inordinate amount of content review. Deleting history and evidence of war crimes is Evil; good thing Google had abandoned their earlier aspirations.
  - jptman 9y ago
    I think you are underestimating the amount of video that gets uploaded to Youtube. Smaller sites may be better at stuff like this but that's solely because they don't have quite the amount of content. Hundreds of hours of videos are uploaded per minute. They may eventually have AI good enough to do a better job, but this is an unprecedented amount of content to review.
    - CaptSpify 9y ago
      So? If youtube can't handle the load, then they shouldn't claim that they can. At the absolute lest, they need a usable appeals process. If they can't do that, then they need to own up to it, and stop allowing anyone to upload anything.
osteele 9y ago
One issue with YouTube is archival status. Another is provenance. At some point it will be as easy to create fake videos as to create fake text. It is unrealistic to expect people who aren't information literate about text will be literate about video, but I hope that there's a way for journalists to move away from YouTube by then.
- Too 9y ago
  This is already happening. I was googling for baking videos the other day, when all of the sudden most of the hits I got was auto generated videos uploaded on youtube. They just had some panning stock photos in the background with text scrolling on top and super generic music, must be really simple to generate. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of them from various accounts, all conveniently linked to each other making more of them appear as relevant in the rightmost column.
ComodoHacker 9y ago
>should have the video raws immediately turned over to a human rights organization for preservation You're saying like every human rights organization have some magical means of preservation other than uploading to YouTube.
- PeterisP 9y ago
  Something like a computer with a hard drive or an USB memory stick?
- fastball 9y ago
  If it's so important than maybe, yes, these orgs should have some means other than YouTube. If it's so important, these orgs should maybe build their own platform that is purely about video longevity. Expecting a private company to host content they don't want to host is silly.

eloisius 9y ago

I doubt they're grieving lost footage. It's loss of access to that distribution channel. Documentation is pointless if it can't be distributed and used to effect change.

privong 9y ago
> I doubt they're grieving lost footage. This comment by jacobr suggests there is a risk of lost footage: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998452 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998452

Mangalor 9y ago

Where else should they be stored?

moogly 9y ago
liveleak
Sir_Cmpwn 9y ago
archive.org
- osteele 9y ago
  I hope we're in a world where that can happen. At the least, we probably need “upload video to archive.org” mobile apps to make this as useful to journalists in the field as YouTube currently is. If the Archive grows as a journalistic distribution channel, it might then face YouTube's issues of copyrights, piracy, and other criminal use. However, the Archive could apply goals that are more compatible with journalism than YouTube can. Maybe sufficient philanthropic support could make this possible.
sologoub 9y ago
How about a public s3 bucket curated by a non-profit? Tools exist already to upload to S3 from practically every device, especially Android. Curation would be much harder, but there is a lot of money in philanthropy and I could see some deep pockets contributing to that. YouTube is fine as a means of promoting and gaining awareness - world should know about these things, but it's not rational to expect a corporation (aka people within it) to act in any other interest other then it's own. Seems like this could be an interesting infrastructure non-profit for YC to fund.

ballenf 9y ago

Youtube used to be a distribution channel but it slowly became an ad delivery tool with content along for the ride. Like 99% of other free (and even some paid) internet sites. Either way, totally agree that it's a tragic situation. The only sympathy I have for Google is that trying to separate the good vs. "evil" (as in "Don't be evil.") content is a monumental task that machine learning will probably never be capable of performing. So they're left with the choice of spending an inordinate amount on human review and detailed research or just make wildly over-broad removals. I'd rather they leave up more rather than less, but they tried this approach and it almost lost them every major advertiser. So continuing down that road would potentially lead to the whole platform losing viability. Maybe some would like that outcome but these historical videos would be just as lost. Maybe we'll see the pendulum swing back in an effort to reach a more reasonable middle ground.

nxc18 9y ago
Google has an inordinate amount of money to spend on inordinate amount of content review. Deleting history and evidence of war crimes is Evil; good thing Google had abandoned their earlier aspirations.
- jptman 9y ago
  I think you are underestimating the amount of video that gets uploaded to Youtube. Smaller sites may be better at stuff like this but that's solely because they don't have quite the amount of content. Hundreds of hours of videos are uploaded per minute. They may eventually have AI good enough to do a better job, but this is an unprecedented amount of content to review.
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    So? If youtube can't handle the load, then they shouldn't claim that they can. At the absolute lest, they need a usable appeals process. If they can't do that, then they need to own up to it, and stop allowing anyone to upload anything.

osteele 9y ago

One issue with YouTube is archival status. Another is provenance. At some point it will be as easy to create fake videos as to create fake text. It is unrealistic to expect people who aren't information literate about text will be literate about video, but I hope that there's a way for journalists to move away from YouTube by then.

Too 9y ago
This is already happening. I was googling for baking videos the other day, when all of the sudden most of the hits I got was auto generated videos uploaded on youtube. They just had some panning stock photos in the background with text scrolling on top and super generic music, must be really simple to generate. There were hundreds, maybe even thousands, of them from various accounts, all conveniently linked to each other making more of them appear as relevant in the rightmost column.

ComodoHacker 9y ago

>should have the video raws immediately turned over to a human rights organization for preservation You're saying like every human rights organization have some magical means of preservation other than uploading to YouTube.

PeterisP 9y ago
Something like a computer with a hard drive or an USB memory stick?
fastball 9y ago
If it's so important than maybe, yes, these orgs should have some means other than YouTube. If it's so important, these orgs should maybe build their own platform that is purely about video longevity. Expecting a private company to host content they don't want to host is silly.