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Well, she is easier to defend than Nazis. So, here I go... Freedom of expression, not just free speech the legal concept, should be a societal goal. Google has

by KGIII 9y ago

Well, she is easier to defend than Nazis. So, here I go... Freedom of expression, not just free speech the legal concept, should be a societal goal. Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. However, in an ideal world, they'd do no such thing and would let people judge based on the merits of the message. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'd like to work towards that ideal world. Maybe the solution is enabling people to realistically host content themselves, on their own property, and just ensuring the ISP is nothing but a dumb pipe? Maybe the solution is distributed content and P2P networks? Either way, the continued aggressive censorship by Google, while their legal right, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They can do it, but I don't have to like it. That said, if anyone can think of something that I can do to help, I'm all ears.

mankyd 9y ago
> Maybe the solution is enabling people to realistically host content themselves, on their own property, and just ensuring the ISP is nothing but a dumb pipe? For what it's worth, this is mildly achievable, but I doubt there's much of a market for it. It's (usually) not hard to convert one's internet connection to some sort of business-class connection, get a static ip, and have port 80/443 unblocked, (I've done it). Mind you, there's costs associated with all that. Then you have to setup and maintain a web server. Plenty of HN folks can do that on their distro of choice, but it's definitely a technical feat. I bet folks have tried to make a one-click install style thing before. I bet one even exists today, but I couldn't tell you what it is. Then there's maintenance on said server... Ultimately, people use 3rd parties because its a significantly lower barrier to entry in monetary cost, time, and complexity. I won't speak to Google's actions here, but no one has yet proven out your proposed solution. I'd love it if we could.
- xf86alsa 9y ago
  Check out ZeroNet: https://zeronet.io https://zeronet.io Decentralized websites that are hosted by your users. Can be accessed over ZeroNet or without using a proxy.
- fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
  There are things like Yunohost and, I think, sandstorm.io
tpeo 9y ago
Besides being an issue of freedom of expression, couldn't this be construed as a form of damage? I mean, part of a journalist's trade is to reach out as many people as they possibly can. Taking stuff down goes in the opposite direction to that.
- jiggunjer 9y ago
  If you choose to build your house on an abandoned indian graveyard, should you complain when you get haunted? It doesn't matter if your house has incredible value to society; old Running Bear doesn't care.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
sbov 9y ago
How tightly bound we are to just a few large tech companies is... unfortunate. I would love it if it were easier for the common person to host their own stuff. Between all the concerns involved (security, hardware, demand, etc.) I'm not sure how feasible it is. I've given it a lot of thought, and have slowly unwound my custom tech setups - from domains, to emails, to hardware. Mostly for the "bus" factor. When my dad died, my mom let his computer sit untouched for years. At some point I transferred the files on it to my computer so they wouldn't disappear forever. But still, a decade later, and it's just sitting there. She never bothers to turn it on. I have a family, and my wife is not technical in the slightest. If I were to be gone tomorrow, there's no way she would have a clue as to what to do. My #1 barometer for everything I use in life is how easy it is for her to use things. It's interesting to me how temporary and inaccessible our digital lives actually are.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Maybe something like a RPi, made to just be a web server. Something pretty dumb. Also, possibly legislation that forces ISPs to let residential customers use their outbound bandwidth the way they want, within the bounds of the law? I dunno...
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - mirimir 9y ago
    Sure, Pi are great. And if you setup a Tor onion service, the ISP can't block access. Unless they block Tor, of course. And people don't even need Tor to access it. When high security isn't necessary, it's fine to publish Tor2web links, such as https://m_facebookcorewwwi.onion.link/ https://m_facebookcorewwwi.onion.link/
- glenstein 9y ago
  This is a great point, because I think it shows that people who are trying to redefine the contours of the standard free speech conversation (which had historically been about freedom from government imposed limits) are attempting to solve the wrong problem. The problem is dependence on huge monolithic tech platforms, such that we feel that the societal value of free expression is threatened by the standard forms moderation that we had accepted as normal for most of the history of the internet. Now, the ability to moderate carries a significant amount of power in a way that didn't use to be the case. And some people, looking over the available options and the effort required to pursue them, would now prefer to resign themselves to permanent dependence on huge monolithic platforms and just focus on making sure those platforms are not engaging in moderation. But this is hugely problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that moderation at least sometimes offers a genuine good to users because toxic, manipulative, illegal behaviors that undermine the platform are removed. There's a "societal value" in having flourishing discourse that isn't compromised by the toxicity that would naturally occur without moderation. And there is good reason to not want to make that sacrifice. Either side offers a distasteful sacrifice. So maybe the answer is to try and bypass the dilemma by making non-centralized communication more accessible, so that people like your wife (or my mom, or my dad's entire side of the family) don't have to make that kind of choice.
throwawayjava 9y ago
> That said, if anyone can think of something that I can do to help, I'm all ears. You already live in this world. Who cares if Goolge won't host these videos on youtube? I don't understand why this matters. There are millions of other video upload sites, all of which are extremely easy to find and use. There are literally too many open source options for sharing files to count, and many of them are even usable by non-technical folk. Millions of people shared videos online for at least a good decade before youtube became popular. Maintain a local copy of everything you put on the cloud.
- kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
  You seriously see no material difference in having your video on the YouTube vs on randomvideowebsite.com? It's not merely a question of finding a host to upload your file.
  - KGIII 9y ago
    Not to mention the trouble when nobody will allow you to host your legal content because they disagree with the message. Hell, even registrars are refusing to point to an IP address. I know... We all hate Nazis. I get it. I don't like them and, being not white, they definitely don't like me. But, they are the current good example of what happens when the controllers decide you can no longer share your legal content. I don't know what the solution is, but I want a world where even the deplorable are able to express their thoughts and feelings. I want a world where we aren't cowards and trying to force conformity. I want a world where even the worst of us can express themselves, using the same tools as others, so long as it is legal content. Yes, speech must have restrictions. However, we already know what those restrictions are. I guess I'm just a hopeless idealist.
    - wallace_f 9y ago
      It wasn't too long ago that we had the McCarthy era, where speech professing communism was effectively targeted by what were basically thought police. Just as then you don't have to advocate free speech because you are a communist, now you don't have to advocate it because you are a Nazi. You advocate it to protect against authoritarianism.
sshumaker 9y ago
xoogler here. I would definitely subscribe to occam's razor here. Rather than explicit censorship, this is probably something that just got snagged in the net of Google's semi-automated content moderation process, which is probably overzealous in combating #extremism. Having no human channel to contact doesn't help either.
- KGIII 9y ago
  At this point, I'm no longer comfortable giving them the benefit of doubt. They burned that bridge. If this is a problem with aggressive filtering, they have had ample opportunity to note the problem and provide a solution that applies to all. I really can't trust that they are benevolent or incompetent.
  - throwawaymaroon 9y ago
    The point at which they rely on mystery algorithms is the point at which benevolence and incompetence become indistinguishable.
  - hedora 9y ago
    Does it matter all that much if they are incompetent or if they are maliciously censoring? I'm actually not sure what is worse. Indiscriminately punishing a small number of people for legitimate speech is at least as chilling as going after specific viewpoints -- any speech can get you banned, apparently.
- flukus 9y ago
  > I appealed both decisions. Those appeals were apparently rejected, (at least that is what I gathered.because the videos were removed). That the community strikes stood (despite my appeals) was not explicitly clear during the process. Is the appeal process automated? If there is no way to circumvent an automated process then it has to work 100% correctly, 99% is simply not acceptable.
  - tertius 9y ago
    Almost all people will appeal, it's quite easy. This brings us to the volume of appeals. Google has never liked to support this type of grunt work.
Iv 9y ago
> Maybe the solution is distributed content and P2P networks? Zero Net does that: https://zeronet.io/ https://zeronet.io/ A surprising relatively recent project that is much more usable than Tor onions or Freenet project. All content is hosted in a P2P fashion, you seed all the contents you have visited. If enough people visit your content, you won't need to host it.
blfr 9y ago
Above being more than a legal concept, it's also not really about expression, ie. the biggest value to society is not from Alexa O'Brien being able to express her thoughts and feelings, which is a minor benefit to her, but in us being able to read them and then choose the best ideas to adapt/copy/implement. The fact that you can make your (realistically, very tiny) contribution to the culture is much less important than being able to access everything created by other people. Robin Hanson calls it "free hearing"[1]. The branding could be improved but the argument is exactly right. We shouldn't even hide behind commentary and journalism. The source bin Laden videos should be available for us to judge. Removing them is not an act against the terrorists but against the public. [1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/01/free-hearing-not-speech.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/01/free-hearing-not-speec...
- taurath 9y ago
  The cynical side of me thinks that a society with no control over (certain) information is one which is more vulnerable to control by bad actors. We have more of a filtering problem than an access problem at the moment - there's too much information to support all beliefs so people are more likely to become entrenched in whatever they do believe.
  - cptskippy 9y ago
    By and large I think people's desire for raw data has grown from a mistrust of the News stemming from the move away from reporting towards commentary and hidden agenda. Once upon a Time you could mostly trust the news but these days we have "no spin zones" which are in fact entirely spin. You can no longer sit back and consume news, to get the real facts requires a great deal of effort and attention which is exhausting.
    - flukus 9y ago
      > Once upon a Time you could mostly trust the news Could we trust them or did we simply not have the means to fact check them and communicate the errors? Awful current affairs programs were around before the web and they were reporting some pretty dubious "facts" back then. Tabloids have been around for 100 years, maybe more.
adventured 9y ago
> They can do it, but I don't have to like it. While correct currently, that isn't going to continue much longer. These abusive tech giants are about to start getting regulated left and right. You can practically hear the political machine awakening. Google's ability to freely control what is or isn't allowed on their platforms, will be replaced by government determined rules. That process has already started, it's a constant discussion in DC now on both sides of the political aisle. The Democrats and Republicans are both increasingly interested in regulating Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. Within the next few years they'll also pass laws governing tighter advertising rules for the platforms (or all sites in general); which is what the Russia-Facebook headline propaganda is all about delivering. There's no scenario where these companies make it another five years without government regulators beginning the process of restraining their behavior. Ten years ago I would have been upset about the government proceeding toward regulation of companies like Google. Now I can't help but think no other company deserves it more, given the increasing abuse of monopoly power that Google is guilty of. Their hubris has become extreme. They better double down on their buying of politicians in DC, I mean, lobbying.
- braveo 9y ago
  I've also changed my stance on it, mostly because I think these companies have become too influential over people. There's a difference between a scrappy company hosting content for people and a company hosting such a large percentage of the worlds opinions in media form and moderating those opinions with no oversight.
- Natanael_L 9y ago
  Regulation of what these companies can't do with content will only guarantee that they'll leave your jurisdiction. Decentralized hosting is the only plausible solution.
blazespin 9y ago
Nah, I'm all for google doing this. Youtube is absolutely NOT the place to host these videos, as makes it very hard if not impossible to ferret out all the highly destructive hate speech that's occurring.. Obviously, there should be a place, similar in price and ease as YouTube to where she can host such things, but YouTube is not the place. Ideally the new system will be set up to weed through what makes sense and what doesn't.
- KGIII 9y ago
  I'm not sure this is the time or place, but what is it that you're calling hate speech and how is it 'highly destructive?' What prevents the user from selecting a different video and who is the arbiter of 'what makes sense and what doesn't?' I suppose those can be rhetorical questions, if you want. To be clear, I suspect I hold very extreme views on the concept of free speech, at least from your perspective. Lest you read too much into that, the speech I'm defending sometimes comes from people who would harm me simply by virtue of my not being white. In this case, the lady is a journalist. Her reporting included extremist videos. You're saying YouTube is not the place to share investigative journalism because it's highly destructive hate speech.
  - simonh 9y ago
    Do you think that she should be able to post this content because she's a white westerner that you like, while brown Muslims you don't like who posted the same material should not? Youtube has rules about the content they are willing to host and she knowingly violated those rules. Who she is any why she did it shouldn't come into it.
    - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
      > Youtube has rules about the content they are willing to host and she knowingly violated those rules. Who she is any why she did it shouldn't come into it. No, it shouldn't matter who she is. It matters that the rules are Wrong.
    - KGIII 9y ago
psyc 9y ago
I just wanted to say that I agree with everything you've written in this thread, and I share the same concerns about freedom and the Internet. I'm also an idealist. I recommend everyone with interest learn as much as they can about crypto and distributed systems. It's not a panacea. It's hard. Mathematics and the law appear to be roughly evenly matched, at least in the short term. At the least, it seems to me that crypto/p2p don't stand a chance without at least some support from the law. I think there is a great need for more effort towards user-friendly p2p software. There are a lot of people working on it, but in general they aren't backed by tons of capital. I suppose thats the ideal buried at the heart of the ICO mania. I wonder where all this will end up in another 20 years.
- KGIII 9y ago
  I am a mathematician, I wasn't kidding when I asked what I could do to help. I can program but you really don't want me to do that. So, I write. I write these comments, I promote these ideals. They were pretty common ideals, not that long ago. I try to explain why and see if I can understand the responses. I'm kinda happy with the way this thread has turned out. I've done this before. This one has seen lots of support and has some great ideas and thoughts. It's much easier when the subject is not a Nazi, but the principles are exactly the same.
stcredzero 9y ago
Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. However, in an ideal world, they'd do no such thing...the continued aggressive censorship by Google, while their legal right, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They can do it, but I don't have to like it. One does not get to "Organize the World's Information" and do so without exemplary intellectual honesty and regard to morality.
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  In any ideal world yes. In real world fiefdoms exist.
tanilama 9y ago
> just ensuring the ISP is nothing but a dumb pipe Trump's FTC largely disagree with you
maccard 9y ago
To play devils advocate - are you ok with YouTube brings discovery and hosting platform for extreme Islam propaganda, or neo nazi/far right? Or what about less extreme content deliberately designed to mislead and draw attention to an issue (see the constant barrage of lies published in tabloid newspapers directed at certain hot topics, ranging from slightly misleading to downright lies). I also don't see what the ISO has to do with it in this case, the authors gripe is with YouTube. Regardless of their ISP, this could have happened with YouTube. If you want to share politically sensitive content, I think it's fair to say that YouTube isn't your friend. Regarding solutions, there are plenty of solutions for sharing video that will never result in content being taken down. thesr methods don't offer the same visibility or discovery that YouTube does, which is why they're not as popular. If you want to provide a censorship free place to host content, you better be prepared to fight a very difficult fight. Where do you stand on copyrighted content, on illegal material (some of which may be legal in some countries but not others), distasteful or offensive material?
- AstralStorm 9y ago
  Your comment has been deemed as recommending fascism by an automated algorithm. /s (which is so complex even Google doesn't know how it works) There isn't anything in this world that is not political. Everything is to a varying degree.
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    Technical documentation. Recipes. How-to pages. Some games. Some books. Not everything is, should be, or needs to be political.
    - danek 9y ago
      Anything involving people is political. I'm not sure it can be avoided. And even if it's somehow not political today it's not future-proof. For example, a recipe could call for an ingredient that's considered unethical.
- shevy 9y ago
shevy 9y ago
> Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. Please quit defending censorship. Thank you.
- KGIII 9y ago
  You read my post and THAT is what you took from it? Oh, wow... I'm not even remotely defending censorship, I think it's horrible. That doesn't mean they don't have a right to do so. It does mean I don't think they should. You might want to read my whole post, maybe the whole thread.
  - rndgermandude 9y ago
    They should stop having that right, in my humble opinion. We regulate companies, trying to prevent them from doing things that we deem harmful to people or the society as a whole. I've seen a ton of people on here (not you; in general) argue that e.g. that Christian homophobe baker has to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, or that the Hobby Lobby company has to provide access to contraceptives under ACA. So why can't we have legislation and regulations to force "social" networks (of a certain size, maybe) to host content that their operators don't like but is still lawful and legal?
    - KGIII 9y ago
      I agree. I only say they have that right because they do, currently, have that right. I also make it a point to stress that I only suggest this for lawful content. Nobody should have to host illegal things. I'm not sure what the solution is, but this situation is not acceptable to me.
    - Natanael_L 9y ago
      If you take away their right to decide what to host, they'll just take away their servers from your jurisdiction. Or they'll always limit their userbase to be below the regulated size. If we're lucky they might opt for federation like email, so that it doesn't break up the ability to reach others easily on other servers. Decentralized hosting is the best solution. The existing right to refuse service is currently only limited by very few laws, like discrimination law and some utility regulations. Taking away the right to refuse service will not work well at all
imtringued 9y ago
The problem isn't that the video was deleted. The problem is that they decided to delete the entire account which contains data that is unrelated to the video.
doomslay 9y ago
The bigger problem is that Google use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Instead of removing the videos, Google will shut down your whole google account - emails, google drive, docs, all gone - They'll do it without telling you, without recourse, no appeal, nothing. No chance of contacting a real person to discuss it. It's so odd that the left who are so up in arms about 'fascism', white supremacists, trump etc, are the very people being violent, suppressing free speech, and behaving like fascists. It's especially a shame to see it so prevalent in Hollywood and Silicon Valley which should be bastions of freedom and expression.
- 15155 9y ago
  > trump etc > Hollywood and Silicon Valley which should be bastions of freedom and expression. It's funny you mention this: anyone who supported "not Her" during the election was silenced and ridiculed at every turn.
thatzerodude 9y ago
> Maybe the solution is distributed content and P2P networks? So... ZeroNet? https://zeronet.io https://zeronet.io Freenet? https://freenetproject.org/pages/about.html https://freenetproject.org/pages/about.html
daveheq 9y ago
I'm not sure you're understanding that the author isn't complaining that Google is deleting content based on a free speech issue but the fact that they're misunderstanding it as terrorist propaganda when it's simply evidence from a court case of her research into whether it was a fair trial or not... The author is not complaining about free speech, she's complaining about Google's overly-broad definition of propaganda which is leading to the deletion of her account. It doesn't apply here because the author is not promoting propaganda, she is simply presenting evidence of research in a potentially unfair court case.
specialist 9y ago
"Maybe the solution is enabling people to realistically host content themselves." I used to blog about politics, policy (election integrity). Even scored some minor policy victories. Like with indie bands, the challenge is having access to an audience, rising about the noise, finding your tribe (and them finding you). Posting on someone else's site sucks. Groveling, genuflecting to get some consideration (front page!). No different than the gatekeeping role newspapers played. I strongly support going the solo route. But it's a lot of work. Maybe even 80%. And I sucked at it. And the self-promotion efforts takes time away from all the other activities (research, FOIA requests, writing, speaking, lobbying). Saving democracy doesn't pay very well. I marvel, applaud the indie bands, err, solo bloggers that somehow keep it up for years, decades.

by KGIII 9y ago

mankyd 9y ago

> Maybe the solution is enabling people to realistically host content themselves, on their own property, and just ensuring the ISP is nothing but a dumb pipe? For what it's worth, this is mildly achievable, but I doubt there's much of a market for it. It's (usually) not hard to convert one's internet connection to some sort of business-class connection, get a static ip, and have port 80/443 unblocked, (I've done it). Mind you, there's costs associated with all that. Then you have to setup and maintain a web server. Plenty of HN folks can do that on their distro of choice, but it's definitely a technical feat. I bet folks have tried to make a one-click install style thing before. I bet one even exists today, but I couldn't tell you what it is. Then there's maintenance on said server... Ultimately, people use 3rd parties because its a significantly lower barrier to entry in monetary cost, time, and complexity. I won't speak to Google's actions here, but no one has yet proven out your proposed solution. I'd love it if we could.

xf86alsa 9y ago
Check out ZeroNet: https://zeronet.io https://zeronet.io Decentralized websites that are hosted by your users. Can be accessed over ZeroNet or without using a proxy.
fiddlerwoaroof 9y ago
There are things like Yunohost and, I think, sandstorm.io

tpeo 9y ago

Besides being an issue of freedom of expression, couldn't this be construed as a form of damage? I mean, part of a journalist's trade is to reach out as many people as they possibly can. Taking stuff down goes in the opposite direction to that.

jiggunjer 9y ago
If you choose to build your house on an abandoned indian graveyard, should you complain when you get haunted? It doesn't matter if your house has incredible value to society; old Running Bear doesn't care.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

sbov 9y ago

How tightly bound we are to just a few large tech companies is... unfortunate. I would love it if it were easier for the common person to host their own stuff. Between all the concerns involved (security, hardware, demand, etc.) I'm not sure how feasible it is. I've given it a lot of thought, and have slowly unwound my custom tech setups - from domains, to emails, to hardware. Mostly for the "bus" factor. When my dad died, my mom let his computer sit untouched for years. At some point I transferred the files on it to my computer so they wouldn't disappear forever. But still, a decade later, and it's just sitting there. She never bothers to turn it on. I have a family, and my wife is not technical in the slightest. If I were to be gone tomorrow, there's no way she would have a clue as to what to do. My #1 barometer for everything I use in life is how easy it is for her to use things. It's interesting to me how temporary and inaccessible our digital lives actually are.

KGIII 9y ago
Maybe something like a RPi, made to just be a web server. Something pretty dumb. Also, possibly legislation that forces ISPs to let residential customers use their outbound bandwidth the way they want, within the bounds of the law? I dunno...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- mirimir 9y ago
  Sure, Pi are great. And if you setup a Tor onion service, the ISP can't block access. Unless they block Tor, of course. And people don't even need Tor to access it. When high security isn't necessary, it's fine to publish Tor2web links, such as https://m_facebookcorewwwi.onion.link/ https://m_facebookcorewwwi.onion.link/
glenstein 9y ago
This is a great point, because I think it shows that people who are trying to redefine the contours of the standard free speech conversation (which had historically been about freedom from government imposed limits) are attempting to solve the wrong problem. The problem is dependence on huge monolithic tech platforms, such that we feel that the societal value of free expression is threatened by the standard forms moderation that we had accepted as normal for most of the history of the internet. Now, the ability to moderate carries a significant amount of power in a way that didn't use to be the case. And some people, looking over the available options and the effort required to pursue them, would now prefer to resign themselves to permanent dependence on huge monolithic platforms and just focus on making sure those platforms are not engaging in moderation. But this is hugely problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that moderation at least sometimes offers a genuine good to users because toxic, manipulative, illegal behaviors that undermine the platform are removed. There's a "societal value" in having flourishing discourse that isn't compromised by the toxicity that would naturally occur without moderation. And there is good reason to not want to make that sacrifice. Either side offers a distasteful sacrifice. So maybe the answer is to try and bypass the dilemma by making non-centralized communication more accessible, so that people like your wife (or my mom, or my dad's entire side of the family) don't have to make that kind of choice.

throwawayjava 9y ago

> That said, if anyone can think of something that I can do to help, I'm all ears. You already live in this world. Who cares if Goolge won't host these videos on youtube? I don't understand why this matters. There are millions of other video upload sites, all of which are extremely easy to find and use. There are literally too many open source options for sharing files to count, and many of them are even usable by non-technical folk. Millions of people shared videos online for at least a good decade before youtube became popular. Maintain a local copy of everything you put on the cloud.

kinkrtyavimoodh 9y ago
You seriously see no material difference in having your video on the YouTube vs on randomvideowebsite.com? It's not merely a question of finding a host to upload your file.
- KGIII 9y ago
  Not to mention the trouble when nobody will allow you to host your legal content because they disagree with the message. Hell, even registrars are refusing to point to an IP address. I know... We all hate Nazis. I get it. I don't like them and, being not white, they definitely don't like me. But, they are the current good example of what happens when the controllers decide you can no longer share your legal content. I don't know what the solution is, but I want a world where even the deplorable are able to express their thoughts and feelings. I want a world where we aren't cowards and trying to force conformity. I want a world where even the worst of us can express themselves, using the same tools as others, so long as it is legal content. Yes, speech must have restrictions. However, we already know what those restrictions are. I guess I'm just a hopeless idealist.
  - wallace_f 9y ago
    It wasn't too long ago that we had the McCarthy era, where speech professing communism was effectively targeted by what were basically thought police. Just as then you don't have to advocate free speech because you are a communist, now you don't have to advocate it because you are a Nazi. You advocate it to protect against authoritarianism.

sshumaker 9y ago

xoogler here. I would definitely subscribe to occam's razor here. Rather than explicit censorship, this is probably something that just got snagged in the net of Google's semi-automated content moderation process, which is probably overzealous in combating #extremism. Having no human channel to contact doesn't help either.

KGIII 9y ago
At this point, I'm no longer comfortable giving them the benefit of doubt. They burned that bridge. If this is a problem with aggressive filtering, they have had ample opportunity to note the problem and provide a solution that applies to all. I really can't trust that they are benevolent or incompetent.
- throwawaymaroon 9y ago
  The point at which they rely on mystery algorithms is the point at which benevolence and incompetence become indistinguishable.
- hedora 9y ago
  Does it matter all that much if they are incompetent or if they are maliciously censoring? I'm actually not sure what is worse. Indiscriminately punishing a small number of people for legitimate speech is at least as chilling as going after specific viewpoints -- any speech can get you banned, apparently.
flukus 9y ago
> I appealed both decisions. Those appeals were apparently rejected, (at least that is what I gathered.because the videos were removed). That the community strikes stood (despite my appeals) was not explicitly clear during the process. Is the appeal process automated? If there is no way to circumvent an automated process then it has to work 100% correctly, 99% is simply not acceptable.
- tertius 9y ago
  Almost all people will appeal, it's quite easy. This brings us to the volume of appeals. Google has never liked to support this type of grunt work.

Iv 9y ago

> Maybe the solution is distributed content and P2P networks? Zero Net does that: https://zeronet.io/ https://zeronet.io/ A surprising relatively recent project that is much more usable than Tor onions or Freenet project. All content is hosted in a P2P fashion, you seed all the contents you have visited. If enough people visit your content, you won't need to host it.

blfr 9y ago

Above being more than a legal concept, it's also not really about expression, ie. the biggest value to society is not from Alexa O'Brien being able to express her thoughts and feelings, which is a minor benefit to her, but in us being able to read them and then choose the best ideas to adapt/copy/implement. The fact that you can make your (realistically, very tiny) contribution to the culture is much less important than being able to access everything created by other people. Robin Hanson calls it "free hearing"[1]. The branding could be improved but the argument is exactly right. We shouldn't even hide behind commentary and journalism. The source bin Laden videos should be available for us to judge. Removing them is not an act against the terrorists but against the public. [1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/01/free-hearing-not-speech.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2010/01/free-hearing-not-speec...

taurath 9y ago
The cynical side of me thinks that a society with no control over (certain) information is one which is more vulnerable to control by bad actors. We have more of a filtering problem than an access problem at the moment - there's too much information to support all beliefs so people are more likely to become entrenched in whatever they do believe.
- cptskippy 9y ago
  By and large I think people's desire for raw data has grown from a mistrust of the News stemming from the move away from reporting towards commentary and hidden agenda. Once upon a Time you could mostly trust the news but these days we have "no spin zones" which are in fact entirely spin. You can no longer sit back and consume news, to get the real facts requires a great deal of effort and attention which is exhausting.
  - flukus 9y ago
    > Once upon a Time you could mostly trust the news Could we trust them or did we simply not have the means to fact check them and communicate the errors? Awful current affairs programs were around before the web and they were reporting some pretty dubious "facts" back then. Tabloids have been around for 100 years, maybe more.

adventured 9y ago

> They can do it, but I don't have to like it. While correct currently, that isn't going to continue much longer. These abusive tech giants are about to start getting regulated left and right. You can practically hear the political machine awakening. Google's ability to freely control what is or isn't allowed on their platforms, will be replaced by government determined rules. That process has already started, it's a constant discussion in DC now on both sides of the political aisle. The Democrats and Republicans are both increasingly interested in regulating Google, Amazon, Facebook, etc. Within the next few years they'll also pass laws governing tighter advertising rules for the platforms (or all sites in general); which is what the Russia-Facebook headline propaganda is all about delivering. There's no scenario where these companies make it another five years without government regulators beginning the process of restraining their behavior. Ten years ago I would have been upset about the government proceeding toward regulation of companies like Google. Now I can't help but think no other company deserves it more, given the increasing abuse of monopoly power that Google is guilty of. Their hubris has become extreme. They better double down on their buying of politicians in DC, I mean, lobbying.

braveo 9y ago
I've also changed my stance on it, mostly because I think these companies have become too influential over people. There's a difference between a scrappy company hosting content for people and a company hosting such a large percentage of the worlds opinions in media form and moderating those opinions with no oversight.
Natanael_L 9y ago
Regulation of what these companies can't do with content will only guarantee that they'll leave your jurisdiction. Decentralized hosting is the only plausible solution.

blazespin 9y ago

Nah, I'm all for google doing this. Youtube is absolutely NOT the place to host these videos, as makes it very hard if not impossible to ferret out all the highly destructive hate speech that's occurring.. Obviously, there should be a place, similar in price and ease as YouTube to where she can host such things, but YouTube is not the place. Ideally the new system will be set up to weed through what makes sense and what doesn't.

KGIII 9y ago
I'm not sure this is the time or place, but what is it that you're calling hate speech and how is it 'highly destructive?' What prevents the user from selecting a different video and who is the arbiter of 'what makes sense and what doesn't?' I suppose those can be rhetorical questions, if you want. To be clear, I suspect I hold very extreme views on the concept of free speech, at least from your perspective. Lest you read too much into that, the speech I'm defending sometimes comes from people who would harm me simply by virtue of my not being white. In this case, the lady is a journalist. Her reporting included extremist videos. You're saying YouTube is not the place to share investigative journalism because it's highly destructive hate speech.
- simonh 9y ago
  Do you think that she should be able to post this content because she's a white westerner that you like, while brown Muslims you don't like who posted the same material should not? Youtube has rules about the content they are willing to host and she knowingly violated those rules. Who she is any why she did it shouldn't come into it.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 9y ago
    > Youtube has rules about the content they are willing to host and she knowingly violated those rules. Who she is any why she did it shouldn't come into it. No, it shouldn't matter who she is. It matters that the rules are Wrong.
  - KGIII 9y ago

psyc 9y ago

I just wanted to say that I agree with everything you've written in this thread, and I share the same concerns about freedom and the Internet. I'm also an idealist. I recommend everyone with interest learn as much as they can about crypto and distributed systems. It's not a panacea. It's hard. Mathematics and the law appear to be roughly evenly matched, at least in the short term. At the least, it seems to me that crypto/p2p don't stand a chance without at least some support from the law. I think there is a great need for more effort towards user-friendly p2p software. There are a lot of people working on it, but in general they aren't backed by tons of capital. I suppose thats the ideal buried at the heart of the ICO mania. I wonder where all this will end up in another 20 years.

KGIII 9y ago
I am a mathematician, I wasn't kidding when I asked what I could do to help. I can program but you really don't want me to do that. So, I write. I write these comments, I promote these ideals. They were pretty common ideals, not that long ago. I try to explain why and see if I can understand the responses. I'm kinda happy with the way this thread has turned out. I've done this before. This one has seen lots of support and has some great ideas and thoughts. It's much easier when the subject is not a Nazi, but the principles are exactly the same.

stcredzero 9y ago

Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. However, in an ideal world, they'd do no such thing...the continued aggressive censorship by Google, while their legal right, leaves a bad taste in my mouth. They can do it, but I don't have to like it. One does not get to "Organize the World's Information" and do so without exemplary intellectual honesty and regard to morality.

AstralStorm 9y ago
In any ideal world yes. In real world fiefdoms exist.

tanilama 9y ago

> just ensuring the ISP is nothing but a dumb pipe Trump's FTC largely disagree with you

maccard 9y ago

To play devils advocate - are you ok with YouTube brings discovery and hosting platform for extreme Islam propaganda, or neo nazi/far right? Or what about less extreme content deliberately designed to mislead and draw attention to an issue (see the constant barrage of lies published in tabloid newspapers directed at certain hot topics, ranging from slightly misleading to downright lies). I also don't see what the ISO has to do with it in this case, the authors gripe is with YouTube. Regardless of their ISP, this could have happened with YouTube. If you want to share politically sensitive content, I think it's fair to say that YouTube isn't your friend. Regarding solutions, there are plenty of solutions for sharing video that will never result in content being taken down. thesr methods don't offer the same visibility or discovery that YouTube does, which is why they're not as popular. If you want to provide a censorship free place to host content, you better be prepared to fight a very difficult fight. Where do you stand on copyrighted content, on illegal material (some of which may be legal in some countries but not others), distasteful or offensive material?

AstralStorm 9y ago
Your comment has been deemed as recommending fascism by an automated algorithm. /s (which is so complex even Google doesn't know how it works) There isn't anything in this world that is not political. Everything is to a varying degree.
- Karunamon 9y ago
  Technical documentation. Recipes. How-to pages. Some games. Some books. Not everything is, should be, or needs to be political.
  - danek 9y ago
    Anything involving people is political. I'm not sure it can be avoided. And even if it's somehow not political today it's not future-proof. For example, a recipe could call for an ingredient that's considered unethical.
shevy 9y ago

shevy 9y ago

> Google has every right, legally, to delete this stuff. Please quit defending censorship. Thank you.

KGIII 9y ago
You read my post and THAT is what you took from it? Oh, wow... I'm not even remotely defending censorship, I think it's horrible. That doesn't mean they don't have a right to do so. It does mean I don't think they should. You might want to read my whole post, maybe the whole thread.
- rndgermandude 9y ago
  They should stop having that right, in my humble opinion. We regulate companies, trying to prevent them from doing things that we deem harmful to people or the society as a whole. I've seen a ton of people on here (not you; in general) argue that e.g. that Christian homophobe baker has to bake a wedding cake for a gay couple, or that the Hobby Lobby company has to provide access to contraceptives under ACA. So why can't we have legislation and regulations to force "social" networks (of a certain size, maybe) to host content that their operators don't like but is still lawful and legal?
  - KGIII 9y ago
    I agree. I only say they have that right because they do, currently, have that right. I also make it a point to stress that I only suggest this for lawful content. Nobody should have to host illegal things. I'm not sure what the solution is, but this situation is not acceptable to me.
  - Natanael_L 9y ago
    If you take away their right to decide what to host, they'll just take away their servers from your jurisdiction. Or they'll always limit their userbase to be below the regulated size. If we're lucky they might opt for federation like email, so that it doesn't break up the ability to reach others easily on other servers. Decentralized hosting is the best solution. The existing right to refuse service is currently only limited by very few laws, like discrimination law and some utility regulations. Taking away the right to refuse service will not work well at all

imtringued 9y ago

The problem isn't that the video was deleted. The problem is that they decided to delete the entire account which contains data that is unrelated to the video.

doomslay 9y ago

The bigger problem is that Google use a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Instead of removing the videos, Google will shut down your whole google account - emails, google drive, docs, all gone - They'll do it without telling you, without recourse, no appeal, nothing. No chance of contacting a real person to discuss it. It's so odd that the left who are so up in arms about 'fascism', white supremacists, trump etc, are the very people being violent, suppressing free speech, and behaving like fascists. It's especially a shame to see it so prevalent in Hollywood and Silicon Valley which should be bastions of freedom and expression.

15155 9y ago
> trump etc > Hollywood and Silicon Valley which should be bastions of freedom and expression. It's funny you mention this: anyone who supported "not Her" during the election was silenced and ridiculed at every turn.

thatzerodude 9y ago

> Maybe the solution is distributed content and P2P networks? So... ZeroNet? https://zeronet.io https://zeronet.io Freenet? https://freenetproject.org/pages/about.html https://freenetproject.org/pages/about.html

daveheq 9y ago

I'm not sure you're understanding that the author isn't complaining that Google is deleting content based on a free speech issue but the fact that they're misunderstanding it as terrorist propaganda when it's simply evidence from a court case of her research into whether it was a fair trial or not... The author is not complaining about free speech, she's complaining about Google's overly-broad definition of propaganda which is leading to the deletion of her account. It doesn't apply here because the author is not promoting propaganda, she is simply presenting evidence of research in a potentially unfair court case.

specialist 9y ago

"Maybe the solution is enabling people to realistically host content themselves." I used to blog about politics, policy (election integrity). Even scored some minor policy victories. Like with indie bands, the challenge is having access to an audience, rising about the noise, finding your tribe (and them finding you). Posting on someone else's site sucks. Groveling, genuflecting to get some consideration (front page!). No different than the gatekeeping role newspapers played. I strongly support going the solo route. But it's a lot of work. Maybe even 80%. And I sucked at it. And the self-promotion efforts takes time away from all the other activities (research, FOIA requests, writing, speaking, lobbying). Saving democracy doesn't pay very well. I marvel, applaud the indie bands, err, solo bloggers that somehow keep it up for years, decades.