4 ms·

> Google recently deleted hundreds of videos of the war in Syria Wow, that is truly evil. Do you have a source on this? Edit: found article about it: https://

> Google recently deleted hundreds of videos of the war in Syria Wow, that is truly evil. Do you have a source on this? Edit: found article about it: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/middleeast/syria-youtube-videos-isis.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/22/world/middleeast/syria-yo...

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
> Wow, that is truly evil. Arguably. Youtube is a video hosting site, it's not a political platform and has no obligation to host content it doesn't deem suitable for their platform. Those videos should be sent to news agencies, (inter)national archives, the UN, war crime tribunals, etc instead (or in addition to) "entertainment" video hosting sites.
- ethics_gradient 9y ago
  Sure, in theory... In the end you either educate the users if you can, or try to make the big platforms more accepting of this, or both. There is no perfect solution. Being an "entertainment site" isn't a good excuse.
- digi_owl 9y ago
  The likely reason why they ended up on Youtube was because every last Android phone (and a fair few other phones) have Youtube bundled, complete with a one button upload. In the spur of the moment, in particular in a warzone, the proper place to store something is the last thing on one's mind.
- hwillis 9y ago
  They are under no obligation to host the videos, but they can't just delete them. It's irresponsible, immoral and unethical. By parallel, misprision of felony is a crime in the US: > Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. There is a moral imperative created when someone else is giving you these records. It's like someone asking you to call 911. You don't have to go out looking for emergencies to call 911 about, but you do have to deal with it when one is dropped in your lap. In this case "dealing with it" just means retaining a copy and making it available on some terms.
  - rsj_hn 9y ago
    > They are under no obligation to host the videos, but they can't just delete them. One implies the other. If your media backup and recovery plan is Youtube, then you need another plan.
- otakucode 9y ago
  YouTube is not just a video hosting site. They are a primary conduit through which global human culture is conducted. Their actions to actively control and manipulate human culture (as Eric Schmidt said in his book The New Digital Age it is Googles responsibility to do because they are rich and therefore know better than humanity how human culture should go) is something they bear total responsibility for. And, at least for me personally, "but we thought it would make more money this way" is not a legitimate reason to facilitate mass murder.
- wwweston 9y ago
  > Youtube is a video hosting site, it's not a political platform and has no obligation to host content it doesn't deem suitable for their platform. For "not a political platform," Youtube has quite a lot of political content, and it's not at all clear to me why someone would think that the idea of a general interest video hosting site and a political platform are somehow exclusive at all. And as far as obligations go... I'd imagine that there's no legal obligation, and maybe there shouldn't be, but that isn't the end of the question. As far as I know, I'd have no formal obligation to stop and render aid or even contact emergency services if I came across someone unconscious and bleeding on the sidewalk near my house, but that doesn't mean I might not be under some obligation. And one problem is that organizations like Youtube often don't put themselves together in such a way that there's anyone interested in and capable of responding to these questions. It's almost like they come across a turtle in the desert, and it's flipped over on its back, belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not with out their help. But they're not helping. Why is that?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - gspetr 9y ago
    > why someone would think that the idea of a general interest video hosting site and a political platform are somehow exclusive at all. A general interest here seems commercial in nature and is thus susceptible to whims of the owner(s) and their ToS. One possible solution seems to be something like a Wikipedia for videos, a non-profit org, but the cost of video hosting seems to still be prohibitively high for a non-commercial entity in 2018.
- Digital-Citizen 9y ago
  Regarding "Youtube is a video hosting site, it's not a political platform": politics enters any situation where 2 or more people are involved. Another poster has clearly explained how YouTube is quite fine hosting shows with what are clearly political views as well as choosing whose views are currently in favor. Calling any editing effort non-political is either woefully uninformed or an attempt to manipulate others (snowed or trying to snow others). Regarding "has no obligation to host content it doesn't deem suitable": Yes, sadly, this is a problem not unique to YouTube. All hosters get to decide what to host and to change that decision at any time. Some people choose to respond to hosting on sufferance by becoming sycophants (placate the hoster with speech one believes won't offend the censors) but that is ultimately detrimental to one's own message and free speech overall. We have no solution for this that is really easy for nontechnical computer users because we all depend on other parties for Internet access. If homes had Internet access that could not be taken away, we might be able to recommend self-hosting. For now, in the age of the ISPs, the best we can do is massively decentralized hosting which uses no DRM, running additional nonfree code (such as YouTube's DRM in JS), and somehow getting a lot of peers with lots of storage and bandwidth to keep available copies of everything uploaded (we ought not decide that one message is worth sharing and not another message because that is the very problem we're trying to solve). This is a tough problem to solve. I don't know what a viable solution will look like quite yet. But I know what to avoid: we won't solve this problem by placating big business desires for more control over what we say and how we get copies of other people's works.
  - Digital-Citizen 9y ago
    A correction: running no additional nonfree code.
hellbanner 9y ago
See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998429

Cthulhu_ 9y ago

> Wow, that is truly evil. Arguably. Youtube is a video hosting site, it's not a political platform and has no obligation to host content it doesn't deem suitable for their platform. Those videos should be sent to news agencies, (inter)national archives, the UN, war crime tribunals, etc instead (or in addition to) "entertainment" video hosting sites.

ethics_gradient 9y ago
Sure, in theory... In the end you either educate the users if you can, or try to make the big platforms more accepting of this, or both. There is no perfect solution. Being an "entertainment site" isn't a good excuse.
digi_owl 9y ago
The likely reason why they ended up on Youtube was because every last Android phone (and a fair few other phones) have Youtube bundled, complete with a one button upload. In the spur of the moment, in particular in a warzone, the proper place to store something is the last thing on one's mind.
hwillis 9y ago
They are under no obligation to host the videos, but they can't just delete them. It's irresponsible, immoral and unethical. By parallel, misprision of felony is a crime in the US: > Whoever, having knowledge of the actual commission of a felony cognizable by a court of the United States, conceals and does not as soon as possible make known the same to some judge or other person in civil or military authority under the United States, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. There is a moral imperative created when someone else is giving you these records. It's like someone asking you to call 911. You don't have to go out looking for emergencies to call 911 about, but you do have to deal with it when one is dropped in your lap. In this case "dealing with it" just means retaining a copy and making it available on some terms.
- rsj_hn 9y ago
  > They are under no obligation to host the videos, but they can't just delete them. One implies the other. If your media backup and recovery plan is Youtube, then you need another plan.
otakucode 9y ago
YouTube is not just a video hosting site. They are a primary conduit through which global human culture is conducted. Their actions to actively control and manipulate human culture (as Eric Schmidt said in his book The New Digital Age it is Googles responsibility to do because they are rich and therefore know better than humanity how human culture should go) is something they bear total responsibility for. And, at least for me personally, "but we thought it would make more money this way" is not a legitimate reason to facilitate mass murder.
wwweston 9y ago
> Youtube is a video hosting site, it's not a political platform and has no obligation to host content it doesn't deem suitable for their platform. For "not a political platform," Youtube has quite a lot of political content, and it's not at all clear to me why someone would think that the idea of a general interest video hosting site and a political platform are somehow exclusive at all. And as far as obligations go... I'd imagine that there's no legal obligation, and maybe there shouldn't be, but that isn't the end of the question. As far as I know, I'd have no formal obligation to stop and render aid or even contact emergency services if I came across someone unconscious and bleeding on the sidewalk near my house, but that doesn't mean I might not be under some obligation. And one problem is that organizations like Youtube often don't put themselves together in such a way that there's anyone interested in and capable of responding to these questions. It's almost like they come across a turtle in the desert, and it's flipped over on its back, belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over. But it can't. Not with out their help. But they're not helping. Why is that?
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- gspetr 9y ago
  > why someone would think that the idea of a general interest video hosting site and a political platform are somehow exclusive at all. A general interest here seems commercial in nature and is thus susceptible to whims of the owner(s) and their ToS. One possible solution seems to be something like a Wikipedia for videos, a non-profit org, but the cost of video hosting seems to still be prohibitively high for a non-commercial entity in 2018.
Digital-Citizen 9y ago
Regarding "Youtube is a video hosting site, it's not a political platform": politics enters any situation where 2 or more people are involved. Another poster has clearly explained how YouTube is quite fine hosting shows with what are clearly political views as well as choosing whose views are currently in favor. Calling any editing effort non-political is either woefully uninformed or an attempt to manipulate others (snowed or trying to snow others). Regarding "has no obligation to host content it doesn't deem suitable": Yes, sadly, this is a problem not unique to YouTube. All hosters get to decide what to host and to change that decision at any time. Some people choose to respond to hosting on sufferance by becoming sycophants (placate the hoster with speech one believes won't offend the censors) but that is ultimately detrimental to one's own message and free speech overall. We have no solution for this that is really easy for nontechnical computer users because we all depend on other parties for Internet access. If homes had Internet access that could not be taken away, we might be able to recommend self-hosting. For now, in the age of the ISPs, the best we can do is massively decentralized hosting which uses no DRM, running additional nonfree code (such as YouTube's DRM in JS), and somehow getting a lot of peers with lots of storage and bandwidth to keep available copies of everything uploaded (we ought not decide that one message is worth sharing and not another message because that is the very problem we're trying to solve). This is a tough problem to solve. I don't know what a viable solution will look like quite yet. But I know what to avoid: we won't solve this problem by placating big business desires for more control over what we say and how we get copies of other people's works.
- Digital-Citizen 9y ago
  A correction: running no additional nonfree code.

hellbanner 9y ago

See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998429 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14998429