5 ms·

There's a difference between "removing false/misleading videos that perpetuate a scam" and Fahrenheit 451

jerf 8y ago
Depends on who gets to decide what "false/misleading" is. I'm not sure how this could be any less transparent. I personally see less than no reason to trust YouTube's judgment in these matters.
- maxerickson 8y ago
  So should it be illegal to run a curated platform?
  - emodendroket 8y ago
    It certainly presents problems when all the most popular channels for communication are controlled by a handful of companies.
    - Caprinicus 8y ago
      And that they grew to this point before imposing this "curation". It seems to be a recurring theme with these companies to grow to a monopoly with a place for relatively free discourse and then to do this as soon as they feel safe.
      - emodendroket 8y ago
        The incentives are aligned that way... once you're big the biggest thing is protecting your position.
  - merinowool 8y ago
    To be fair information is a weapon and there should be no free reign for anyone. If you are on purpose suppressing some information to fulfil political agenda - that should be a criminal act.
    - maxerickson 8y ago
      So what's a political agenda? Is the promotion of cats a political agenda? Can allcats.com take down videos of dogs?
      - RoyTyrell 8y ago
        > Can allcats.com take down videos of dogs? Sure. Why shouldn't a private entity be able to determine what kind of speech they allow on their own property?
        girvo 8y ago
        Because if they have a huge defacto monopoly, and also a outsized impact on our culture, the impacts of them doing so are far more far-reaching than, say, LiveLeak removing some video (trying to think of a competitor for YT is surprisingly hard).
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      Ok, but what about the opposite: What if you are, on purpose, constantly disseminating false information to fulfill a political agenda?
- vkou 8y ago
  Any time you open the paper, turn on the TV, crack open a book, or visit Hacker News, you are trusting some curator, gatekeeper, editor, or censor's judgement. Even bazaars like 4chan are moderated.
  - crankylinuxuser 8y ago
    And the unmoderated spaced of before don't exist any more (Usenet), because companies didn't make money on it. Or worse, because it violated some company's "right". Now, in order to speak, you nearly have to go through one of Their gateways. If you piss off FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon), you're gone off the net. Some of those gatekeepers are big scripts with no human intervention for your level. If you fall between the cracks, then you have no recourse, other than find a place like HN and beg publicly - lest you get shitcanned by the HN gatekeepers.
    - s73v3r_ 8y ago
      "If you piss off FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon), you're gone off the net." No, you're not. Not even close. The Daily Stormer is still online; you will be too.
      - musage 8y ago
        I don't see why the burden to "make ends meet" in a totally scorched landscape should be on those not scorching it, with those looking the other way preaching to them from a supposed moral high horse. Stuff like the right to confront your accuser is totally lost with these companies as well as on HN. But don't worry, even being on the wrong side of history you'll still be in history.
- vertexFarm 8y ago
  It's interesting. I think we're at a strange period in history where personal speech can reach such a huge audience, thus new ways of suppressing speech are being invented. Youtube is a private service, thus they can remove content as they wish. Of course, most forms of historical media have also removed or suppressed controversial content. But in the old days it was preemptive. There was only so much room in a newspaper, you had to own presses and a distribution network, and they didn't hire just any schmoe to write columns. It was a proactive system of censorship. They got people invested in a career of finding the proper stories and promoting what was acceptable to the establishment. Obviously common people could say whatever they like in their daily lives, but their freedom to put content into a newspaper or television show for all to see was extremely limited. We have enormous freedom in self-publishing mass media today. So much content is being created that no mortal person can serve as gatekeeper and pick and choose what gets published like a newspaper editor could. So on one hand, we're living in a utopia of free speech. But new ways are being devised to automatically manage content all the time. And even though human moderators don't catch everything, but they slowly do what they can. There are some genuinely harmful ideas out there, of course. Some things that ought to be restricted. Who gets to decide? Is it right for a private company to choose? I doubt it, but private companies have always been choosing what gets into media. In the past their decisions were much more totalitarian than today.
colordrops 8y ago
There are plenty of political videos being removed or demonetized as well. We are not as far off as it may seem.
noetic_techy 8y ago
The problem is, the status quo likes to label the people on the periphery who often may be on to something "a scam".
fmihaila 8y ago
> There's a difference between "removing false/misleading videos that perpetuate a scam" and Fahrenheit 451 reply Where does that leave Alex Jones, then? It's called a slippery slope for a reason.
- s73v3r_ 8y ago
  "False/misleading videos that perpetuate a scam."
  - fmihaila 8y ago
    > "False/misleading videos that perpetuate a scam." You seem to be implying that Jones' videos are truthful/informative and totally-not-a-scam, while the videos in the article, which actually contained educational content, were false, misleading, and perpetuating a scam. Meanwhile, Jones has a supplement business that pulled an estimated $15 mil over two years (some estimate $25 mil) [1]. Here is a sampling of reviews from an independent lab that tested the substances: - "Both of these products are most likely safe, but ineffective." - "This product is a waste of money. The claim that 'Anthroplex works synergistically with the powerful Super Male Vitality formula in order to help restore your masculine foundation and stimulate vitality with its own blend of unique ingredients' is fluff on multiple fronts." - "This product's claims related to 'nascent oxygen' also have no real basis in science." - "We tested this product on the chance that it might be potassium iodide or sodium iodide, which it wasn't. Survival Shield is just plain iodine." etc. This is a guy who "... repeatedly asserted the Sandy Hook shooting was staged and the parents were liars and frauds who helped in a cover-up" [2]. So, what's your definition of false and/or misleading? [1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/we-sent-alex-jones-infowars-supplements-to-a-lab-heres?utm_term=.fpY4PnLXD#.obaDbw2ay https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/we-sent-alex-jones-in... [2] https://globalnews.ca/news/4149778/sandy-hook-sue-infowars-conspiracy-alex-jones-defamation/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4149778/sandy-hook-sue-infowars-c... EDIT: it seems I misread the intent of the post above mine. My apologies. I'll leave my response up for reference.
    - detaro 8y ago
      I believe you are reading the parent poster the wrong way around.
kristofferR 8y ago
The channels in question aren't accused of containing false/misleading videos, they're accused of containing disallowed facts. Noone disputes that modafinil promotes wakefulness or that magnesium makes many sleepy.
- atomical 8y ago
  Facts, lies, or unproven?
- joew42k 8y ago
  Websites have always been allowed to decide which facts to allow on their site. Right now, if I visited an anti-vaxxer forum, and posted "vaccines don't cause autism" in the comments, I'm sure it would be removed. So why is youtube any different?
  - kristofferR 8y ago
    Of course YouTube have a right to remove every pro vaccination video from their site, I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that they shouldn't.
    - joew42k 8y ago
      I agree with you. They shouldn't. I'm playing devils advocate to make a point. You can't expect websites to treat all opinions as equal. Even 4chan has moderators. Youtube only differs from other websites in scale. They are moderating content as we see fit. We can disagree with their reasoning behind moderation. But it's silly to act like they didn't have this right all along (And that's what I see in this comment section. Comments like "why should youtube say what I can and can't watch?" I'm pointing out that those arguments are a dead end.)
  - JamesBarney 8y ago
    Because youtube has a de-facto monopoly on online video viewing.
  - wnoise 8y ago
21 8y ago
So it would be fine by you if YouTube removed a video titled "Python is the best programming language in the world" because it is misleading.
- ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
  That is definitely not ok. However if the title was "PHP is the best programming language in the world", then the account should be banned, and they should possibly forward the authorities the offenders IP Address so they can get the crazy person on a watch list.

jerf 8y ago

Depends on who gets to decide what "false/misleading" is. I'm not sure how this could be any less transparent. I personally see less than no reason to trust YouTube's judgment in these matters.

maxerickson 8y ago
So should it be illegal to run a curated platform?
- emodendroket 8y ago
  It certainly presents problems when all the most popular channels for communication are controlled by a handful of companies.
  - Caprinicus 8y ago
    And that they grew to this point before imposing this "curation". It seems to be a recurring theme with these companies to grow to a monopoly with a place for relatively free discourse and then to do this as soon as they feel safe.
    - emodendroket 8y ago
      The incentives are aligned that way... once you're big the biggest thing is protecting your position.
- merinowool 8y ago
  To be fair information is a weapon and there should be no free reign for anyone. If you are on purpose suppressing some information to fulfil political agenda - that should be a criminal act.
  - maxerickson 8y ago
    So what's a political agenda? Is the promotion of cats a political agenda? Can allcats.com take down videos of dogs?
    - RoyTyrell 8y ago
      > Can allcats.com take down videos of dogs? Sure. Why shouldn't a private entity be able to determine what kind of speech they allow on their own property?
      - girvo 8y ago
        Because if they have a huge defacto monopoly, and also a outsized impact on our culture, the impacts of them doing so are far more far-reaching than, say, LiveLeak removing some video (trying to think of a competitor for YT is surprisingly hard).
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    Ok, but what about the opposite: What if you are, on purpose, constantly disseminating false information to fulfill a political agenda?
vkou 8y ago
Any time you open the paper, turn on the TV, crack open a book, or visit Hacker News, you are trusting some curator, gatekeeper, editor, or censor's judgement. Even bazaars like 4chan are moderated.
- crankylinuxuser 8y ago
  And the unmoderated spaced of before don't exist any more (Usenet), because companies didn't make money on it. Or worse, because it violated some company's "right". Now, in order to speak, you nearly have to go through one of Their gateways. If you piss off FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon), you're gone off the net. Some of those gatekeepers are big scripts with no human intervention for your level. If you fall between the cracks, then you have no recourse, other than find a place like HN and beg publicly - lest you get shitcanned by the HN gatekeepers.
  - s73v3r_ 8y ago
    "If you piss off FAMGA (Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, Google, Amazon), you're gone off the net." No, you're not. Not even close. The Daily Stormer is still online; you will be too.
    - musage 8y ago
      I don't see why the burden to "make ends meet" in a totally scorched landscape should be on those not scorching it, with those looking the other way preaching to them from a supposed moral high horse. Stuff like the right to confront your accuser is totally lost with these companies as well as on HN. But don't worry, even being on the wrong side of history you'll still be in history.
vertexFarm 8y ago
It's interesting. I think we're at a strange period in history where personal speech can reach such a huge audience, thus new ways of suppressing speech are being invented. Youtube is a private service, thus they can remove content as they wish. Of course, most forms of historical media have also removed or suppressed controversial content. But in the old days it was preemptive. There was only so much room in a newspaper, you had to own presses and a distribution network, and they didn't hire just any schmoe to write columns. It was a proactive system of censorship. They got people invested in a career of finding the proper stories and promoting what was acceptable to the establishment. Obviously common people could say whatever they like in their daily lives, but their freedom to put content into a newspaper or television show for all to see was extremely limited. We have enormous freedom in self-publishing mass media today. So much content is being created that no mortal person can serve as gatekeeper and pick and choose what gets published like a newspaper editor could. So on one hand, we're living in a utopia of free speech. But new ways are being devised to automatically manage content all the time. And even though human moderators don't catch everything, but they slowly do what they can. There are some genuinely harmful ideas out there, of course. Some things that ought to be restricted. Who gets to decide? Is it right for a private company to choose? I doubt it, but private companies have always been choosing what gets into media. In the past their decisions were much more totalitarian than today.

colordrops 8y ago

There are plenty of political videos being removed or demonetized as well. We are not as far off as it may seem.

noetic_techy 8y ago

The problem is, the status quo likes to label the people on the periphery who often may be on to something "a scam".

fmihaila 8y ago

> There's a difference between "removing false/misleading videos that perpetuate a scam" and Fahrenheit 451 reply Where does that leave Alex Jones, then? It's called a slippery slope for a reason.

s73v3r_ 8y ago
"False/misleading videos that perpetuate a scam."
- fmihaila 8y ago
  > "False/misleading videos that perpetuate a scam." You seem to be implying that Jones' videos are truthful/informative and totally-not-a-scam, while the videos in the article, which actually contained educational content, were false, misleading, and perpetuating a scam. Meanwhile, Jones has a supplement business that pulled an estimated $15 mil over two years (some estimate $25 mil) [1]. Here is a sampling of reviews from an independent lab that tested the substances: - "Both of these products are most likely safe, but ineffective." - "This product is a waste of money. The claim that 'Anthroplex works synergistically with the powerful Super Male Vitality formula in order to help restore your masculine foundation and stimulate vitality with its own blend of unique ingredients' is fluff on multiple fronts." - "This product's claims related to 'nascent oxygen' also have no real basis in science." - "We tested this product on the chance that it might be potassium iodide or sodium iodide, which it wasn't. Survival Shield is just plain iodine." etc. This is a guy who "... repeatedly asserted the Sandy Hook shooting was staged and the parents were liars and frauds who helped in a cover-up" [2]. So, what's your definition of false and/or misleading? [1] https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/we-sent-alex-jones-infowars-supplements-to-a-lab-heres?utm_term=.fpY4PnLXD#.obaDbw2ay https://www.buzzfeed.com/charliewarzel/we-sent-alex-jones-in... [2] https://globalnews.ca/news/4149778/sandy-hook-sue-infowars-conspiracy-alex-jones-defamation/ https://globalnews.ca/news/4149778/sandy-hook-sue-infowars-c... EDIT: it seems I misread the intent of the post above mine. My apologies. I'll leave my response up for reference.
  - detaro 8y ago
    I believe you are reading the parent poster the wrong way around.

kristofferR 8y ago

The channels in question aren't accused of containing false/misleading videos, they're accused of containing disallowed facts. Noone disputes that modafinil promotes wakefulness or that magnesium makes many sleepy.

atomical 8y ago
Facts, lies, or unproven?
joew42k 8y ago
Websites have always been allowed to decide which facts to allow on their site. Right now, if I visited an anti-vaxxer forum, and posted "vaccines don't cause autism" in the comments, I'm sure it would be removed. So why is youtube any different?
- kristofferR 8y ago
  Of course YouTube have a right to remove every pro vaccination video from their site, I'm not disputing that. I'm just saying that they shouldn't.
  - joew42k 8y ago
    I agree with you. They shouldn't. I'm playing devils advocate to make a point. You can't expect websites to treat all opinions as equal. Even 4chan has moderators. Youtube only differs from other websites in scale. They are moderating content as we see fit. We can disagree with their reasoning behind moderation. But it's silly to act like they didn't have this right all along (And that's what I see in this comment section. Comments like "why should youtube say what I can and can't watch?" I'm pointing out that those arguments are a dead end.)
- JamesBarney 8y ago
  Because youtube has a de-facto monopoly on online video viewing.
- wnoise 8y ago

21 8y ago

So it would be fine by you if YouTube removed a video titled "Python is the best programming language in the world" because it is misleading.

ghostbrainalpha 8y ago
That is definitely not ok. However if the title was "PHP is the best programming language in the world", then the account should be banned, and they should possibly forward the authorities the offenders IP Address so they can get the crazy person on a watch list.