137 ms·

Youtube and Facebook, while convenient, aren't really appropriate mediums for them to share this sort of footage. Liveleak comes to mind as a service better sui

by least 7y ago

Youtube and Facebook, while convenient, aren't really appropriate mediums for them to share this sort of footage. Liveleak comes to mind as a service better suited for a public repository of this video. Archival of footage shouldn't be dependent on a third party platform that can, at will, delete every single video on a whim. Likely for this sort of thing a diligent archivist will need to put in the effort of storing it safely, because those videos will almost all end up being deleted on platforms that rely on ad revenue.

campfireveteran 7y ago
Exactly. You need something like Internet Archive or better that is archival quality, random internet vandalism-proof and FBI raid-proof.
- reaperducer 7y ago
  Or even something more distributed. Like each public library has a storage cube and each cube has an overlapping portion of history. They checksum each other peer-to-peer to detect anyone trying to change history. There are 110,000 public libraries in the United States. Plus thousands more private libraries. Seems like enough for U.S. history, at least.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    Shouldn't be the public libraries though. Public libraries will not save certain videos. Especially if the local police or the guys in the blue windbreakers with three yellow letters on them show up. Maybe that's a problem that everyone has? But it would be best if there was some offshore, FBI proof, kind of way to do this archiving.
    - reaperducer 7y ago
      Especially if the local police or the guys in the blue windbreakers with three yellow letters on them show up. I wouldn't be so sure about that. After 9/11, the libraries were the first to stand up to the government's desperate search for information. The feds wanted everyone's lending history, and ended up backing off when the libraries put up a fight.
  - gowld 7y ago
    This is what BitTorrent and IPFS is for.
    - dredmorbius 7y ago
      Those are ultimately transport and distribution systems. At some point, you need curators and archivists.
- nilkn 7y ago
  I noticed a month or two ago that certain sites seem to be excluded even from internet archives like the Wayback Machine. The first example I stumbled on was Snopes. I only noticed because I saw a Snopes link on Reddit where the thumbnail was clearly different from the live version; the thumbnail appeared to show a human-like baby in the womb, whereas the live version had that edited out. Example: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fetus-can-send-stem-cells-repair-mothers-damaged-organs/ https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch...
  - lucasmullens 7y ago
    I get "Sorry. This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine." To my understanding websites can chose to not be included in the Wayback Machine.
    - chongli 7y ago
      Not only that, if they are archived at one point and later decide to be excluded then all of the archives for that domain are deleted retroactively. This means that a valuable site can be archived for years but if the domain lapses and gets bought up by somebody who decides to exclude the Wayback Machine then all of that precious content is destroyed even though the destroyer never owned it! I feel like we’re in the Internet equivalent of the early years of Hollywood. We’ve lost so many precious early movies because there were no backups of the film.
      - schoen 7y ago
        I don't think your interpretation of the latter case is quite right. In my understanding, the Archive is willing to disable display of the site content retroactively due to a new robots.txt, but they won't delete that content. It will still be present in their files.
        chongli 7y ago
        What you’re describing may have been a recent change that I wasn’t aware of. If so, it’s at least some consolation. We could still do better.
- waffle_ss 7y ago
  The Islamic State posted their content for many years on the Internet Archive. I believe IA did take down content in some cases.
  - bilbo0s 7y ago
    Here's the thing, we're never likely to find a place that allows everything. I think most people understand that. But to find a provider of public access to archives more expansive than YouTube's, well, that's improvement.
  - washadjeffmad 7y ago
    With IA, I feel that they probably de-listed the content but are hosting it for a time when it may be safer to reveal it as part of a greater historical record. I somehow don't get the same impression from same impression from YouTube
  - docbrown 7y ago
    Modern day jihadist groups are now utilizing Telegram, Whatsapp, and TikTok to preserve and spread material. It’s quite easy to gain access to them — i’ve heard — as many researchers are gaining access to these messages to preserve said materials. Plus these apps give them an ability to easily communicate transcontinentally.
- dmix 7y ago
  Archive.is has constantly faced harassment from people filing DMCA claims and having domain names taken away for bullshit copyright claims. I'm sure if they started doing this the Twitter outrage warriors wouldn't be happy about it and add to the difficulty of their job.
  - 1337biz 7y ago
    >the Twitter outrage warriors Somebody should classify this as an addictive behavior. 'The immanent urge to get emotionally excited by interacting with an equally excitable peer group on issues only remotely related to one's personal life'.
  - dwild 7y ago
    Just in case there's confusion, the Internet Archive isn't Archive.is but Archive.org. They are 2 differents organizations. Internet Archive seems to be handling this kind of trouble quite well.
thinkingkong 7y ago
Been wondering about this phenomenon for awhile. Spotify can delete music history. Youtube can delete video history. If it's on a streaming service it may as well not exist. We're at this strange point where convenience may as well be access, because the same service you used for discovery is the one for consumption. I don't know if this phenomenon has a name.
- nixpulvis 7y ago
  My feelings exactly.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- pixl97 7y ago
  You better start unthinking before you're the one getting put down the memory hole.
- ddiq 7y ago
  Likewise Amazon removing books from its site is much more effective than any book burning.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    Fahrenheit 451, good movie about that. I just found out Amazon owns Goodreads. They also own IMDB.
    - ddiq 7y ago
      An oft-overlooked aspect of Fahrenheit 451 is that it's everyday people that report others to the firemen in the book, very similar to how content is censored these days. Goodreads will list any book for the time being, even ones banned from Amazon. One example is The Culture of Critique - the link to Amazon goes to a broken page, but links to buy it from other vendors remain. Link to the book - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182136.The_Culture_of_Critique https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182136.The_Culture_of_Cr...
mindgam3 7y ago
> Liveleak comes to mind as a service better suited for a public repository of this video. Liveleak, seriously? I'm not convinced that a site known for hosting gory and violent videos is really what these human rights activists are looking for. [Edit] Some context: https://www.businessinsider.com/profile-of-hayden-hewitt-founder-of-liveleak-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/profile-of-hayden-hewitt-fou...
- least 7y ago
  It comes to mind for that very reason. The rules for uploading to it are less stringent than other services because it's there to provide a platform for things that don't fit on other video platforms on the web. If you're going to be hosting videos of the horrors of war, it's much more likely to stick on liveleak than any other platform.
  - mindgam3 7y ago
    I agree that it works from a technology perspective, but from the product/marketing perspective it's a non-starter. People who want to watch violent videos != human rights activists. There's the "blood and gore" people, and the "social justice warrior" people, and not a ton of overlap. In order to solve this use case there would really need to be a site that combines LiveLeak's content moderation policy with an activist ethos.
    - least 7y ago
      The reason I'm suggesting it as an an alternative is because of its policies, not because the platform is a great place for discoverability. The intent isn't to help people find these videos, just that they are somewhere online where people can view them that's less likely to be taken down.
    - jxramos 7y ago
      Or at least with a filtered tag that's fairly reliable. All around a pretty risky site for this use case along other considerations.
- 7y ago
dependenttypes 7y ago
> Archival of footage shouldn't be dependent on a third party platform that can, at will, delete every single video on a whim Thankfully censorship-resistant anonymous p2p file sharing systems exist, I hope they become more popular for archival work.
Iv 7y ago
During the Arab Spring I had savec gigabytes of Youtube footages of protests, because I 100% expected them to be removed. "You should not show identifiable people being beaten!" That's true, because it could go one way or another depending on whether the revolution succeeds. If it does, though, it can help identify the perpetrators of brutality. Publishing it is irresponsible, but destroying them is as well. This is potential criminal evidences.

by least 7y ago

campfireveteran 7y ago

Exactly. You need something like Internet Archive or better that is archival quality, random internet vandalism-proof and FBI raid-proof.

reaperducer 7y ago
Or even something more distributed. Like each public library has a storage cube and each cube has an overlapping portion of history. They checksum each other peer-to-peer to detect anyone trying to change history. There are 110,000 public libraries in the United States. Plus thousands more private libraries. Seems like enough for U.S. history, at least.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Shouldn't be the public libraries though. Public libraries will not save certain videos. Especially if the local police or the guys in the blue windbreakers with three yellow letters on them show up. Maybe that's a problem that everyone has? But it would be best if there was some offshore, FBI proof, kind of way to do this archiving.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    Especially if the local police or the guys in the blue windbreakers with three yellow letters on them show up. I wouldn't be so sure about that. After 9/11, the libraries were the first to stand up to the government's desperate search for information. The feds wanted everyone's lending history, and ended up backing off when the libraries put up a fight.
- gowld 7y ago
  This is what BitTorrent and IPFS is for.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    Those are ultimately transport and distribution systems. At some point, you need curators and archivists.
nilkn 7y ago
I noticed a month or two ago that certain sites seem to be excluded even from internet archives like the Wayback Machine. The first example I stumbled on was Snopes. I only noticed because I saw a Snopes link on Reddit where the thumbnail was clearly different from the live version; the thumbnail appeared to show a human-like baby in the womb, whereas the live version had that edited out. Example: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/fetus-can-send-stem-cells-repair-mothers-damaged-organs/ https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.snopes.com/fact-ch...
- lucasmullens 7y ago
  I get "Sorry. This URL has been excluded from the Wayback Machine." To my understanding websites can chose to not be included in the Wayback Machine.
  - chongli 7y ago
    Not only that, if they are archived at one point and later decide to be excluded then all of the archives for that domain are deleted retroactively. This means that a valuable site can be archived for years but if the domain lapses and gets bought up by somebody who decides to exclude the Wayback Machine then all of that precious content is destroyed even though the destroyer never owned it! I feel like we’re in the Internet equivalent of the early years of Hollywood. We’ve lost so many precious early movies because there were no backups of the film.
    - schoen 7y ago
      I don't think your interpretation of the latter case is quite right. In my understanding, the Archive is willing to disable display of the site content retroactively due to a new robots.txt, but they won't delete that content. It will still be present in their files.
      - chongli 7y ago
        What you’re describing may have been a recent change that I wasn’t aware of. If so, it’s at least some consolation. We could still do better.
waffle_ss 7y ago
The Islamic State posted their content for many years on the Internet Archive. I believe IA did take down content in some cases.
- bilbo0s 7y ago
  Here's the thing, we're never likely to find a place that allows everything. I think most people understand that. But to find a provider of public access to archives more expansive than YouTube's, well, that's improvement.
- washadjeffmad 7y ago
  With IA, I feel that they probably de-listed the content but are hosting it for a time when it may be safer to reveal it as part of a greater historical record. I somehow don't get the same impression from same impression from YouTube
- docbrown 7y ago
  Modern day jihadist groups are now utilizing Telegram, Whatsapp, and TikTok to preserve and spread material. It’s quite easy to gain access to them — i’ve heard — as many researchers are gaining access to these messages to preserve said materials. Plus these apps give them an ability to easily communicate transcontinentally.
dmix 7y ago
Archive.is has constantly faced harassment from people filing DMCA claims and having domain names taken away for bullshit copyright claims. I'm sure if they started doing this the Twitter outrage warriors wouldn't be happy about it and add to the difficulty of their job.
- 1337biz 7y ago
  >the Twitter outrage warriors Somebody should classify this as an addictive behavior. 'The immanent urge to get emotionally excited by interacting with an equally excitable peer group on issues only remotely related to one's personal life'.
- dwild 7y ago
  Just in case there's confusion, the Internet Archive isn't Archive.is but Archive.org. They are 2 differents organizations. Internet Archive seems to be handling this kind of trouble quite well.

thinkingkong 7y ago

Been wondering about this phenomenon for awhile. Spotify can delete music history. Youtube can delete video history. If it's on a streaming service it may as well not exist. We're at this strange point where convenience may as well be access, because the same service you used for discovery is the one for consumption. I don't know if this phenomenon has a name.

nixpulvis 7y ago
My feelings exactly.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
pixl97 7y ago
You better start unthinking before you're the one getting put down the memory hole.
ddiq 7y ago
Likewise Amazon removing books from its site is much more effective than any book burning.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  Fahrenheit 451, good movie about that. I just found out Amazon owns Goodreads. They also own IMDB.
  - ddiq 7y ago
    An oft-overlooked aspect of Fahrenheit 451 is that it's everyday people that report others to the firemen in the book, very similar to how content is censored these days. Goodreads will list any book for the time being, even ones banned from Amazon. One example is The Culture of Critique - the link to Amazon goes to a broken page, but links to buy it from other vendors remain. Link to the book - https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182136.The_Culture_of_Critique https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182136.The_Culture_of_Cr...

mindgam3 7y ago

> Liveleak comes to mind as a service better suited for a public repository of this video. Liveleak, seriously? I'm not convinced that a site known for hosting gory and violent videos is really what these human rights activists are looking for. [Edit] Some context: https://www.businessinsider.com/profile-of-hayden-hewitt-founder-of-liveleak-2014-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/profile-of-hayden-hewitt-fou...

least 7y ago
It comes to mind for that very reason. The rules for uploading to it are less stringent than other services because it's there to provide a platform for things that don't fit on other video platforms on the web. If you're going to be hosting videos of the horrors of war, it's much more likely to stick on liveleak than any other platform.
- mindgam3 7y ago
  I agree that it works from a technology perspective, but from the product/marketing perspective it's a non-starter. People who want to watch violent videos != human rights activists. There's the "blood and gore" people, and the "social justice warrior" people, and not a ton of overlap. In order to solve this use case there would really need to be a site that combines LiveLeak's content moderation policy with an activist ethos.
  - least 7y ago
    The reason I'm suggesting it as an an alternative is because of its policies, not because the platform is a great place for discoverability. The intent isn't to help people find these videos, just that they are somewhere online where people can view them that's less likely to be taken down.
  - jxramos 7y ago
    Or at least with a filtered tag that's fairly reliable. All around a pretty risky site for this use case along other considerations.
7y ago

dependenttypes 7y ago

> Archival of footage shouldn't be dependent on a third party platform that can, at will, delete every single video on a whim Thankfully censorship-resistant anonymous p2p file sharing systems exist, I hope they become more popular for archival work.

Iv 7y ago

During the Arab Spring I had savec gigabytes of Youtube footages of protests, because I 100% expected them to be removed. "You should not show identifiable people being beaten!" That's true, because it could go one way or another depending on whether the revolution succeeds. If it does, though, it can help identify the perpetrators of brutality. Publishing it is irresponsible, but destroying them is as well. This is potential criminal evidences.