11 ms·

Good. Online radicalism is a thing. To all the people here who are decrying this as “censorship”, remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were g

Good. Online radicalism is a thing. To all the people here who are decrying this as “censorship”, remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons (Ex: Awlaki and his “tour of Paradise” lectures that inspired Boston 2013, fort hood and a bunch of other international attacks). YouTube removed all that out and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouTube plummeted. White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk than Islamic extremism. Don’t see why anyone would object to removal of Neo nazi content yet go along with the removal of wahabi sermons.

creaghpatr 7y ago
>getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons Which is it? You're contradicting yourself here.
- vowelless 7y ago
  The point is, awlakis sermons were not even “extreme”. They didn’t call for violence. They just talked about how great heaven was. YouTube rightly removed those videos because they were inspiring suicide attacks by teaching pretty mainstream Islamic beliefs like: martyrs go to heaven. Would be for or against YouTube removing videos that encouraged suicide in depressed individuals?
  - lugg 7y ago
    How is that not extreme?
    - remarkEon 7y ago
      The paradox here is that calling what are mainstream views within Islam “extremist” is in itself an “extreme” and potentially “bigoted” view ... which could get you banned.
      - lugg 7y ago
        Thats not a paradox. Suicide / death is as extreme as things get for living organisms. It's not bigoted to state facts you don't like. Mean, maybe, if I time it right. In fact someone calling you a bigot in this isntance actually makes them a bigot. Talk about a useless insult.
  - smsm42 7y ago
    > They just talked about how great heaven was. Wait, so talking about how great heaven is now considered extremism? That's bad news for most Abrahamic religions. I suspect you are trying to pull the narrative in diametrically opposing directions - to show the videos were both very benign and super dangerous - and the narrative just tears up. > because they were inspiring suicide attacks by teaching pretty mainstream Islamic beliefs like: martyrs go to heaven. Wait, so if I say that good people go to heaven, and somebody believes it's good to kill infidels, I am now an extremist? I think your narrative is missing something.
chrisjc 7y ago
> White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk than Islamic extremism. Wait... you're saying that white supremacy is worse than islamic extremism? Is you opinion perhaps a manifestation of your perspective? I'm sure there are some people in Syria, Afghanistan, etc... that would disagree with you. BTW, I'm not saying one is worse than the other, just that they are both bad, both a problem, and both should be removed from social media.
- vowelless 7y ago
  White supremacy was the cause for the worst wars of the 20th century. A white nationalist uprising in Europe would be deadlier (again) than Islamic extremists taking over most middle eastern nations due to the resources that will be available to them.
  - chrisjc 7y ago
    > White supremacy was the cause for the worst wars of the 20th century Again, I think that statement is shaped by your perspective. I imagine a lot of Russian, Chinese and Africans would disagree with you about that.
    - gaogao 7y ago
      If you recognize that racial supremacy goes hand-in-hand with the imperialistic expansionism of Nazi Germany and Japan, I think it's fairly apt descriptor of one of the major causes of the war.
      - chrisjc 7y ago
        bait and switch
        IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
        Are you seriously denying that Nazis were motivated by ideology of racial supremacy?
martin_bech 7y ago
Seems like the last part is pure speculation.. Islamic extremism, is what happened in Syria, and the root of pretty much all terrorism in Europe and parts of Africa..
baud147258 7y ago
> White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk Do you have anything to support that assertion?
- vowelless 7y ago
  WW2.
  - baud147258 7y ago
    WW2 wasn't caused by white supremacy, it was caused by nationalism. It was part of the Reich's propaganda to say that they were waging war against the jews (and socialists and communists…), but they were doing this because they though that Germany was superior to its neighbor and was fit to conquer and rule them.
    - fwip 7y ago
      Do you think it's possible that without the propaganda of white supremacy, the German public would have been less willing to go to war?
      - Faark 7y ago
        Also please be aware that you will see terms like "white" supremacy be used in these discussions instead of more appropriate terms like "Aryan" to make the topic easier to approach for an American audience.
        saalweachter 7y ago
        I believe that's what is called "a distinction without a difference". You can argue that whatever your local xenophobic hatreds you have going on aren't technically white supremacy, because you have different historical and cultural understandings of race etc, but at the end of the day, your hating haters sure seem to hate basically the same people as our hating haters, so I'm not sure why it's worth arguing about the distinction between the two groups.
themagician 7y ago
Those looking to be radicalized will look at this as an example of the conspiracy. Look at QAnon. Or look at things like Conservapedia: https://www.conservapedia.com/Paul_Manafort https://www.conservapedia.com/Paul_Manafort Go ahead and read that article on Paul Manafort. That's just one, mundane article—you could pick any. Understand that, true or false, it doesn't matter anymore—this is a narrative and a set of facts that around 100 million people in the United States now subscribe to. We are way, way, way, way past removing a few thousand YouTube videos. That might have been marginally effective ten years ago. But there's been a decade of rhetoric now about how "they" control the media and will try and censor it. Sometimes it's "they" and sometimes it's (((they))). Jews control the media, shadow governments, deep state, extreme hate against muslims, gays, etc.. This stuff is mainstream. Patrick Little ran for Senate in California, of all places, as an actual nazi and got 1.2% of the vote. That's 50,000+ people who went out of their way to vote for someone who was relatively unknown, all because his platform was based on removing Jews from the United States. I don't know what the solution is, I really don't. But I DO know that removing videos from YouTube won't make it better. It may make it worse.
- Zancarius 7y ago
  > But I DO know that removing videos from YouTube won't make it better. It may make it worse. I think you're right, and I have some first-hand knowledge on the matter. I've debated QAnon types and flat earthers alike. In both cases, they often see an absence of information as some overarching conspiracy. I'm not really sure who is worse (the flat earthers are a subset of a broader "government-is-hiding-things" conspiracy), but they both follow a cult-like structure in that if you disagree with them, you're not "one of us" and are either not smart enough to understand the implications of their beliefs or are willfully blind to their "truth." I doubt YT would ever remove QAnon or flat earth videos, but if they did, I suspect the fallout would be far worse than just leaving them alone. In some cases, it's helpful to cite their own predictions (and have something to cite) to dismantle their argument! Admittedly, this isn't useful in direct debate, because they're forever moving the goalpost, but it can be helpful for illustrating deficiencies to third parties that might be sympathetic to their views but are still open to the idea that there are problems with the opposition's argument[1]. Now, I say this as a conservative with some libertarian leanings. I don't like censorship, and I think it's harmful to shield people from ideas they don't like. However, I think moderation within a community is incredibly important to its survival provided it is applied equally. Nothing is worse for reasonable discourse than having someone jump in and start slinging pejoratives, insults, and abuse for no other reason than they don't like what you've said. As an example, I've personally had someone stalk my admittedly limited social media presence across various sites in order to post screenshots "proving" some inane belief they had about me supporting some ridiculous conspiracy. They then repeatedly posted insults and diatribes across numerous unrelated comments until I blocked them. That type of behavior should be an immediate--and permanent--ban. [1] We might be passed this point, because the number of undecided people with regards to any particular conspiracy (for or against) is diminishing. I used to think the flat earth groups were largely trolling, but I've spoken with some people who have encountered them in real life or have friends who have been duped into believing the conspiracy. I also know a small handful of people who believe QAnon. No amount of evidence is going to sway either party. And no, I don't know what the best solution is other than to continue engaging where appropriate and banning where there's abuse.
smsm42 7y ago
> remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons Yet I am reading every day now about how "hate speech" has to be banned from Youtube, but I almost never hear Islamic radicals cited as an example. Most vividly discussed usually is some spat between a left-wing loudmouth and a right-wing loudmouth (usually both Americans of course, because that's where all the world's problems are, shut up Al Qaeda, ISIS and Taliban, you are all JV team compared to a rich American youtuber that says hurtful things about a rich American media personality), and usually the latter gets all passes in the world for calling for actual physical violence, and the former gets banned. > and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouTube plummeted. You think that based on what data? What about Muslims radicalized not on YouTube? If they are just radicalized in other places, but in the same way and the same numbers, what's the point? > White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk than Islamic extremism. What you mean by "white supremacy"? If you mean actual people that think White race (whatever the hell that is) is supreme and are willing to take action to ensure its power - it is demonstrably false, the number of these people are tiny, and they could never pull off even one hundredth of what ISIS has been pulling off for years. In fact, every manifestation they do draws like 10x more counter protesters. The only power they have is the press attention they get because they are useful to agenda-pushers as a scary monster that can justify giving more control over the speech to the government or megacorps. OTOH, many people use "white supremacy" as synonymous to "Western culture" (I even saw presentation calling things like logical reasoning, competitiveness and insistence on keeping schedule being signs of "white supremacy"). In this case, it is a bigger deal that Islamic extremism, that is true. It is huge, strong and achieved much, though of course its history, like most of cultures, is filled both with heroic achievements and disgusting atrocities. > Don’t see why anyone would object to removal of Neo nazi content yet go along with the removal of wahabi sermons. One could maybe justify removal of the content calling for direct violent action. Otherwise, I do not see why a Muslim sermon calling for hating infidels is worse than a sermon from a Congress member calling for attacking and publicly harassing members of the opposing party. Both are despicable, but then let's start banning Congress members too - why should they get a free pass?
- foldr 7y ago
  > but I almost never hear Islamic radicals cited as an example. That's probably just because banning radical Islamists isn't very controversial. >What you mean by "white supremacy"? If you mean actual people that think White race (whatever the hell that is) is supreme and are willing to take action to ensure its power - it is demonstrably false, the number of these people are tiny, and they could never pull off even one hundredth of what ISIS has been pulling off for years. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-extremist-terrorism-christchurch.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-e... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-terrorists-2018-were-almost-all-right-wing/581284/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-...
fulafel 7y ago
Trivia: "The term Radical (from the Latin radix meaning root), during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, identified proponents of democratic reform, in what subsequently became the parliamentary Radical Movement." "The term political radicalism (in political science known as radicalism) denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary or other means and changing value systems in fundamental ways. " And of course the classic Rules for Radicals book about community organizing and starting grassroots movements. Let's not label all radical things bad, it can become a way to suppress dissent and societal change.
013a 7y ago
Its so concerning that you simplify ridiculously complex issues down to a soundbyte like "islamic radicals were getting radicalized", like the videos are some kind of hypnosis spiral that turns a promising young middle eastern boy into a monster.
OCASM 7y ago
Communism, a far deadlier threat, is quite popular these days. Will Youtube ban it too? For some reason I think not.
StanislavPetrov 7y ago
I'm reasonably certain our invasion and destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and our bombings in a host of other countries had more to do with "fomenting radicalism" than any Youtube videos.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  The biggest fomenters of terrorism are our dear allies in the Middle East.
tal8d 7y ago
> Don’t see why anyone would object to removal of Neo nazi content yet go along with the removal of wahabi sermons. Setting aside the fact that this culling has nothing to do with Neo nazi content... maybe islamic extremism is a greater threat because we've had decades to implement countermeasures to a resurgence of white supremacy, whereas islamic terrorists exploit existing gaps in our society's trust model? I'm confident that had the KKK employed trucks of peace in the 50s, civil engineers wouldn't have assumed that nobody would be insane enough to drive down a pedestrian thoroughfare at full speed. Now back to the issue at hand. This is a purge of alternative media at the behest of Vox Media, of which Comcast is the majority shareholder. This has been going on for well over a year now, the old media making demands for Youtube deplatformings and policy changes. I started listing them, but the list of crybullies is effectively a list of all media companies founded before Youtube. It is really amazing how stupid Google has been in all this, because it seems that they don't understand who their competitors are in the attention market, and how those competitors have effectively transformed them from a relatively low maintenance and legally protected platform - into a legally exposed publisher full of upset content providers. Youtube has been a loss leader for a long time, which might explain the leadership selection and the lack of corrective action for laughably stupid executive decisions... but it is well beyond the point of just being a money hole - it is in the precedent setting legal liability zone at this point. They aren't even subtle about being a publisher anymore, selectively editorializing user generated content with editor's notes under the guise of fighting disinformation.
iamnothere 7y ago
> Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons (Ex: Awlaki and his “tour of Paradise” lectures that inspired Boston 2013, fort hood and a bunch of other international attacks). YouTube removed all that out and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouTube plummeted. Regardless of the effects, this was also wrong, IMHO. If you are a supporter of radically free expression, sometimes you have to allow radicals to express themselves too. Edit: I know there will be a contingent that disagrees with this. For many people, the ends justify the means, regardless of the corrosive effect to civil liberties. In my opinion this is a myopic view.
dang 7y ago
"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." What a wretched, demoralizing 118-comment subthread. A white supremacy vs. Islamic extremism cage match was the last thing we needed, and of course it hopped via WWII and Nazis to capitalism vs. communism—the mother of generic ideological flamewars, whither all return. None of this is good discussion for Hacker News; it's predictable, nasty, and the essence of what we're trying to avoid. To the extent it proliferates like this here, we might as well just shut the damn place down. Everyone: please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- vowelless 7y ago
  I apologize. I’m just going to avoid those topics from now on.
  - dang 7y ago
    Thank you, and I hope it didn't feel like I was picking on you personally. This kind of thing is a co-creation.

creaghpatr 7y ago

>getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons Which is it? You're contradicting yourself here.

vowelless 7y ago
The point is, awlakis sermons were not even “extreme”. They didn’t call for violence. They just talked about how great heaven was. YouTube rightly removed those videos because they were inspiring suicide attacks by teaching pretty mainstream Islamic beliefs like: martyrs go to heaven. Would be for or against YouTube removing videos that encouraged suicide in depressed individuals?
- lugg 7y ago
  How is that not extreme?
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    The paradox here is that calling what are mainstream views within Islam “extremist” is in itself an “extreme” and potentially “bigoted” view ... which could get you banned.
    - lugg 7y ago
      Thats not a paradox. Suicide / death is as extreme as things get for living organisms. It's not bigoted to state facts you don't like. Mean, maybe, if I time it right. In fact someone calling you a bigot in this isntance actually makes them a bigot. Talk about a useless insult.
- smsm42 7y ago
  > They just talked about how great heaven was. Wait, so talking about how great heaven is now considered extremism? That's bad news for most Abrahamic religions. I suspect you are trying to pull the narrative in diametrically opposing directions - to show the videos were both very benign and super dangerous - and the narrative just tears up. > because they were inspiring suicide attacks by teaching pretty mainstream Islamic beliefs like: martyrs go to heaven. Wait, so if I say that good people go to heaven, and somebody believes it's good to kill infidels, I am now an extremist? I think your narrative is missing something.

chrisjc 7y ago

> White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk than Islamic extremism. Wait... you're saying that white supremacy is worse than islamic extremism? Is you opinion perhaps a manifestation of your perspective? I'm sure there are some people in Syria, Afghanistan, etc... that would disagree with you. BTW, I'm not saying one is worse than the other, just that they are both bad, both a problem, and both should be removed from social media.

vowelless 7y ago
White supremacy was the cause for the worst wars of the 20th century. A white nationalist uprising in Europe would be deadlier (again) than Islamic extremists taking over most middle eastern nations due to the resources that will be available to them.
- chrisjc 7y ago
  > White supremacy was the cause for the worst wars of the 20th century Again, I think that statement is shaped by your perspective. I imagine a lot of Russian, Chinese and Africans would disagree with you about that.
  - gaogao 7y ago
    If you recognize that racial supremacy goes hand-in-hand with the imperialistic expansionism of Nazi Germany and Japan, I think it's fairly apt descriptor of one of the major causes of the war.
    - chrisjc 7y ago
      bait and switch
      - IfOnlyYouKnew 7y ago
        Are you seriously denying that Nazis were motivated by ideology of racial supremacy?

martin_bech 7y ago

Seems like the last part is pure speculation.. Islamic extremism, is what happened in Syria, and the root of pretty much all terrorism in Europe and parts of Africa..

baud147258 7y ago

> White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk Do you have anything to support that assertion?

vowelless 7y ago
WW2.
- baud147258 7y ago
  WW2 wasn't caused by white supremacy, it was caused by nationalism. It was part of the Reich's propaganda to say that they were waging war against the jews (and socialists and communists…), but they were doing this because they though that Germany was superior to its neighbor and was fit to conquer and rule them.
  - fwip 7y ago
    Do you think it's possible that without the propaganda of white supremacy, the German public would have been less willing to go to war?
    - Faark 7y ago
      Also please be aware that you will see terms like "white" supremacy be used in these discussions instead of more appropriate terms like "Aryan" to make the topic easier to approach for an American audience.
      - saalweachter 7y ago
        I believe that's what is called "a distinction without a difference". You can argue that whatever your local xenophobic hatreds you have going on aren't technically white supremacy, because you have different historical and cultural understandings of race etc, but at the end of the day, your hating haters sure seem to hate basically the same people as our hating haters, so I'm not sure why it's worth arguing about the distinction between the two groups.

themagician 7y ago

Those looking to be radicalized will look at this as an example of the conspiracy. Look at QAnon. Or look at things like Conservapedia: https://www.conservapedia.com/Paul_Manafort https://www.conservapedia.com/Paul_Manafort Go ahead and read that article on Paul Manafort. That's just one, mundane article—you could pick any. Understand that, true or false, it doesn't matter anymore—this is a narrative and a set of facts that around 100 million people in the United States now subscribe to. We are way, way, way, way past removing a few thousand YouTube videos. That might have been marginally effective ten years ago. But there's been a decade of rhetoric now about how "they" control the media and will try and censor it. Sometimes it's "they" and sometimes it's (((they))). Jews control the media, shadow governments, deep state, extreme hate against muslims, gays, etc.. This stuff is mainstream. Patrick Little ran for Senate in California, of all places, as an actual nazi and got 1.2% of the vote. That's 50,000+ people who went out of their way to vote for someone who was relatively unknown, all because his platform was based on removing Jews from the United States. I don't know what the solution is, I really don't. But I DO know that removing videos from YouTube won't make it better. It may make it worse.

Zancarius 7y ago
> But I DO know that removing videos from YouTube won't make it better. It may make it worse. I think you're right, and I have some first-hand knowledge on the matter. I've debated QAnon types and flat earthers alike. In both cases, they often see an absence of information as some overarching conspiracy. I'm not really sure who is worse (the flat earthers are a subset of a broader "government-is-hiding-things" conspiracy), but they both follow a cult-like structure in that if you disagree with them, you're not "one of us" and are either not smart enough to understand the implications of their beliefs or are willfully blind to their "truth." I doubt YT would ever remove QAnon or flat earth videos, but if they did, I suspect the fallout would be far worse than just leaving them alone. In some cases, it's helpful to cite their own predictions (and have something to cite) to dismantle their argument! Admittedly, this isn't useful in direct debate, because they're forever moving the goalpost, but it can be helpful for illustrating deficiencies to third parties that might be sympathetic to their views but are still open to the idea that there are problems with the opposition's argument[1]. Now, I say this as a conservative with some libertarian leanings. I don't like censorship, and I think it's harmful to shield people from ideas they don't like. However, I think moderation within a community is incredibly important to its survival provided it is applied equally. Nothing is worse for reasonable discourse than having someone jump in and start slinging pejoratives, insults, and abuse for no other reason than they don't like what you've said. As an example, I've personally had someone stalk my admittedly limited social media presence across various sites in order to post screenshots "proving" some inane belief they had about me supporting some ridiculous conspiracy. They then repeatedly posted insults and diatribes across numerous unrelated comments until I blocked them. That type of behavior should be an immediate--and permanent--ban. [1] We might be passed this point, because the number of undecided people with regards to any particular conspiracy (for or against) is diminishing. I used to think the flat earth groups were largely trolling, but I've spoken with some people who have encountered them in real life or have friends who have been duped into believing the conspiracy. I also know a small handful of people who believe QAnon. No amount of evidence is going to sway either party. And no, I don't know what the best solution is other than to continue engaging where appropriate and banning where there's abuse.

smsm42 7y ago

> remember that during the early 2010s, Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons Yet I am reading every day now about how "hate speech" has to be banned from Youtube, but I almost never hear Islamic radicals cited as an example. Most vividly discussed usually is some spat between a left-wing loudmouth and a right-wing loudmouth (usually both Americans of course, because that's where all the world's problems are, shut up Al Qaeda, ISIS and Taliban, you are all JV team compared to a rich American youtuber that says hurtful things about a rich American media personality), and usually the latter gets all passes in the world for calling for actual physical violence, and the former gets banned. > and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouTube plummeted. You think that based on what data? What about Muslims radicalized not on YouTube? If they are just radicalized in other places, but in the same way and the same numbers, what's the point? > White supremacy is a much bigger deal with a worse tail risk than Islamic extremism. What you mean by "white supremacy"? If you mean actual people that think White race (whatever the hell that is) is supreme and are willing to take action to ensure its power - it is demonstrably false, the number of these people are tiny, and they could never pull off even one hundredth of what ISIS has been pulling off for years. In fact, every manifestation they do draws like 10x more counter protesters. The only power they have is the press attention they get because they are useful to agenda-pushers as a scary monster that can justify giving more control over the speech to the government or megacorps. OTOH, many people use "white supremacy" as synonymous to "Western culture" (I even saw presentation calling things like logical reasoning, competitiveness and insistence on keeping schedule being signs of "white supremacy"). In this case, it is a bigger deal that Islamic extremism, that is true. It is huge, strong and achieved much, though of course its history, like most of cultures, is filled both with heroic achievements and disgusting atrocities. > Don’t see why anyone would object to removal of Neo nazi content yet go along with the removal of wahabi sermons. One could maybe justify removal of the content calling for direct violent action. Otherwise, I do not see why a Muslim sermon calling for hating infidels is worse than a sermon from a Congress member calling for attacking and publicly harassing members of the opposing party. Both are despicable, but then let's start banning Congress members too - why should they get a free pass?

foldr 7y ago
> but I almost never hear Islamic radicals cited as an example. That's probably just because banning radical Islamists isn't very controversial. >What you mean by "white supremacy"? If you mean actual people that think White race (whatever the hell that is) is supreme and are willing to take action to ensure its power - it is demonstrably false, the number of these people are tiny, and they could never pull off even one hundredth of what ISIS has been pulling off for years. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-extremist-terrorism-christchurch.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-e... https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-terrorists-2018-were-almost-all-right-wing/581284/ https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/01/homegrown-...

fulafel 7y ago

Trivia: "The term Radical (from the Latin radix meaning root), during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, identified proponents of democratic reform, in what subsequently became the parliamentary Radical Movement." "The term political radicalism (in political science known as radicalism) denotes political principles focused on altering social structures through revolutionary or other means and changing value systems in fundamental ways. " And of course the classic Rules for Radicals book about community organizing and starting grassroots movements. Let's not label all radical things bad, it can become a way to suppress dissent and societal change.

013a 7y ago

Its so concerning that you simplify ridiculously complex issues down to a soundbyte like "islamic radicals were getting radicalized", like the videos are some kind of hypnosis spiral that turns a promising young middle eastern boy into a monster.

OCASM 7y ago

Communism, a far deadlier threat, is quite popular these days. Will Youtube ban it too? For some reason I think not.

StanislavPetrov 7y ago

I'm reasonably certain our invasion and destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and our bombings in a host of other countries had more to do with "fomenting radicalism" than any Youtube videos.

Gibbon1 7y ago
The biggest fomenters of terrorism are our dear allies in the Middle East.

tal8d 7y ago

> Don’t see why anyone would object to removal of Neo nazi content yet go along with the removal of wahabi sermons. Setting aside the fact that this culling has nothing to do with Neo nazi content... maybe islamic extremism is a greater threat because we've had decades to implement countermeasures to a resurgence of white supremacy, whereas islamic terrorists exploit existing gaps in our society's trust model? I'm confident that had the KKK employed trucks of peace in the 50s, civil engineers wouldn't have assumed that nobody would be insane enough to drive down a pedestrian thoroughfare at full speed. Now back to the issue at hand. This is a purge of alternative media at the behest of Vox Media, of which Comcast is the majority shareholder. This has been going on for well over a year now, the old media making demands for Youtube deplatformings and policy changes. I started listing them, but the list of crybullies is effectively a list of all media companies founded before Youtube. It is really amazing how stupid Google has been in all this, because it seems that they don't understand who their competitors are in the attention market, and how those competitors have effectively transformed them from a relatively low maintenance and legally protected platform - into a legally exposed publisher full of upset content providers. Youtube has been a loss leader for a long time, which might explain the leadership selection and the lack of corrective action for laughably stupid executive decisions... but it is well beyond the point of just being a money hole - it is in the precedent setting legal liability zone at this point. They aren't even subtle about being a publisher anymore, selectively editorializing user generated content with editor's notes under the guise of fighting disinformation.

iamnothere 7y ago

> Islamic radicals were getting radicalized on YouTube by pretty benign sermons (Ex: Awlaki and his “tour of Paradise” lectures that inspired Boston 2013, fort hood and a bunch of other international attacks). YouTube removed all that out and I think Muslims getting radicalized on YouTube plummeted. Regardless of the effects, this was also wrong, IMHO. If you are a supporter of radically free expression, sometimes you have to allow radicals to express themselves too. Edit: I know there will be a contingent that disagrees with this. For many people, the ends justify the means, regardless of the corrosive effect to civil liberties. In my opinion this is a myopic view.

dang 7y ago

"Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." What a wretched, demoralizing 118-comment subthread. A white supremacy vs. Islamic extremism cage match was the last thing we needed, and of course it hopped via WWII and Nazis to capitalism vs. communism—the mother of generic ideological flamewars, whither all return. None of this is good discussion for Hacker News; it's predictable, nasty, and the essence of what we're trying to avoid. To the extent it proliferates like this here, we might as well just shut the damn place down. Everyone: please don't. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

vowelless 7y ago
I apologize. I’m just going to avoid those topics from now on.
- dang 7y ago
  Thank you, and I hope it didn't feel like I was picking on you personally. This kind of thing is a co-creation.