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> Hacker News Guidelines > What to Submit > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new pheno

> Hacker News Guidelines > What to Submit > Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters, or cute animal pictures. If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic. > In Comments > Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email us and we'll look at the data. These guidelines seem like a private corporation censoring content. Are platform guidelines like these also an example of censorship? To me, these guidelines shape the content and quality of discussions of the community, but also it's one of the reasons why it's a highly effective community. I don't see why YouTube cannot do the same.

nyanpasu64 6y ago
From my perspective, Hacker News is a website built for the tech community. However I don't view Youtube as a community, but as a platform for individuals to publish videos, broadcast, and sometimes form sub-communities. It's possible that some people who don't login and hang around on the homepage of algorithmically selected videos treat Youtube as a publisher for curating.
identity0 6y ago
It’s an issue that’s difficult to distill in a way that could work as a law or as a winning argument against snarky commenters playing Devil’s Advocate. In theory the line between rules and censorship is vague and grey, but in practice it’s pretty easy to tell what is rule enforcement and what is political censorship. I guess a good place to start would be examining the rules of a website and determining if the takedowns follow the rules and the rules are not overly broad.
- close04 6y ago
  While banning or deleting accounts could go all the way from legitimate to oppression, it doesn't seem like banning the account of someone spreading false information that leads to dangerous situations to be an abuse in any way. Yes, we have to hold YouTube to higher standards than others simply because of the disproportionate power the platform has. But this doesn't change the fact that in such cases the measure was warranted. People constantly misunderstand "freedom of speech" as something that somehow entitles one to trample over someone else's freedom. For example every time there's a discussion about "hate speech" someone will say that the laws are routinely abused to punish people for their legitimate free opinions. Yet no such examples of routine abuse are ever given. There's room for common sense when judging a situation. Common sense can't be put in law but you also can't really judge these gray areas without it.
  - SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
    >Yes, we have to hold YouTube to higher standards than others simply because of the disproportionate power the platform has. That's rather conclusory.
    - close04 6y ago
      Well there are 2 aspects for this. Laws in general consider magnitude and criticality when defining measures. So would a judge. YouTube's reach implicitly means the potential for abuse is orders of magnitude higher. And the effects of that abuse are far more dangerous than what a small platform can induce. The other part, the one I was mostly referring to, is moral. I know, it's a company, it doesn't need to have morals. But this shouldn't stop people from holding them to a higher standard. With a flip of the algorithmic switch platforms like YouTube or Facebook can influence results of elections, escalate social issues over the tipping point, etc. Can you honestly say that my conclusion needed too much explaining?
jlawson 6y ago
YouTube isn't a 'community' any more than the roads we all travel on. There is no viable alternative to YouTube/Google. There is no way to escape its influence. And being banned from it can ruin you (depending on how your life/work is structured). HN is totally different because of the completely different scale and the existence of viable alternatives.
- chrononaut 6y ago
  > There is no viable alternative to YouTube/Google There is an interesting "monopoly" factor here, but YouTube is also not negatively impacting other groups or organizations from trying to start their own video platforms tailored to general content. In fact, it seems there have been various organizations chipping away at YouTube (e.g. Twitch, TikTok) of people who would normally be watching YouTube have other platforms to visit, watch and host content. Nothing is preventing those platforms from also further expanding into areas where YouTube is traditionally the leader.
- iso947 6y ago
  I watch videos on Vimeo and search on DuckDuckGo. I struggle to find a good place to read and talk about interesting tech news other than HN though
PureParadigm 6y ago
Yes, as the parent mentions, YouTube can do the same kind of content curation from a legal point of view. The question is whether YouTube is a platform where we should advocate for less censorship/more freedom. I think that since YouTube is a general platform and that no serious alternatives exist, we should advocate for less censorship. YouTube is different from Hacker News because YouTube is more of a general platform (not focused on a particular topic). In contrast with Hacker News, less censorship on YouTube would not significantly degrade the experience. You can still go subscribe to the channels you like and be completely unaware of the content you don't want to see. On Hacker News, the whole point is that it is focused on particular subjects (I suppose it would be analogous to a curated list of YouTube channels), and its rules keep it that way. Another factor to consider is what alternatives exist. As far as I know, YouTube is the only serious option at the moment for general video content. YouTube content includes news and politics, and many people use it as their primary source of information. No matter what your politics are, they will likely differ from Google's in some way, and if YouTube begins to aggressively censor opinions they disagree with, you'll find yourself without a platform since no serious alternatives exist.
- fragmede 6y ago
  For one, Facebook's trying to give YouTube a run for their money. There's an entire tab in their mobile app dedicated to small bite-size videos like are watched on YouTube, and Facebook Live is all about connecting small video producers directly to their audiences. Outside of that, there are lesser known sites. Vimeo, Metacafe, Dailymotion, Twitch, Veoh. YouTube has the brand recognition, but simply hosting video online isn't that hard. It's way harder if you have to build your own colo though. For the casual viewer, YouTube has unbeatable brand recognition, and if I was trying to build an audience for a mainstream idea, that's the obvious place. However, for dedicated fans of a specific ideology, with YouTube deplatforming that ideology, the usual considerations are fewer. Normally, the friction associated with getting viewers to install an app would be enough to dissuade a large number of users. For users who believe the government lies and that they're seeking the truth, and only the RushLimbaughTube app can expose them to it, I don't know if there's the same friction.
  - 6y ago
JSavageOne 6y ago
HN is a niche community focused on startups and tech. Youtube is the monopoly on user-uploaded video content and has 2 billion users.
- chrononaut 6y ago
  I am unsure of your argument. Are you saying that the size of the company factors into what policies it can enforce? i.e., smaller companies can have more freedom in policing content, but if an undefined critical mass is reached (perhaps market share), they should have less flexibility on curated content? Or is it a factor of what it's trying to build? e.g., if YouTube only focused on hosting political content, should they be allowed to censor that content or shape what is permitted?
  - JSavageOne 6y ago
    Yes the size most certainly matters, obviously Facebook should be held to a different standard than some niche social network for pet owners with 100 users. Monopolies should be held to a different standard. I'd argue that the nature of the business should factor into it as well. Since Youtube advertises and presents itself as a platform where any user can upload any kind of content excluding pornography and dark stuff (eg. animal abuse), I don't think that censoring on the basis of political views alone is justified (I'm not familiar with David Icke, so I can't speak for this specific incident).
    - alasdair_ 6y ago
      >Since Youtube advertises and presents itself as a platform where any user can upload any kind of content excluding pornography and dark stuff (eg. animal abuse), I don't think that censoring on the basis of political views alone is justified YouTube is pretty clear about their stance on what is and is not allowed. They have made it very clear, in particular, that coronavirus misinformation is not allowed. I see little difference between choosing to censor pornography and choosing to censor coronavirus misinformation. Both are protected speech in the USA but they are both also things that are allowed (and is reasonable to) censor if the platform wishes.
parsimo2010 6y ago
My actual answer is in the last line, but I'll ramble a bit first. You make an interesting point, but I think there are times in which we can prohibit certain types of posts and comments that might technically be censorship (using the definition of suppression or prohibition of things that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security), but they aren't bad censorship. I would place some sort of test using focus and/or ubiquity. Focus: if a community has a stated purpose, then it's okay to censor things that don't contribute to the purpose. If I ran a forum dedicated to ham radio, then it's okay to censor topics about NASCAR. Usually forums have a miscellaneous section for off-topic discussion rather than prohibiting it outright. Ubiquity: if a community is small enough or in a limited setting, it is okay to censor things. It is accepted practice in many households to censor profanity. That's okay, because each family's censorship only applies to a few people. It is okay for a school to censor certain disruptive things (some people may disagree on what is okay to censor), because it's limited. Once a kid goes home they can read a banned book if they choose to. Unfortunately for YouTube, I think they fail on both the focus and ubiquity tests. YouTube's purpose (from a layman's perspective) is to share videos. If someone uploads a video then they are staying within YouTube's focus, and YouTube has been pretty free with allowing any video as long as it isn't illegal. So they shouldn't be censoring crackpot videos, because they aren't illegal and seem to stay within YouTube's norms. [Some economically minded people might argue that YouTube's true purpose is to sell ads and should censor videos that cause fewer ads to be shown, but YouTube's previous behavior is that they demonetize/pull the ads from controversial videos, not deleting accounts]. And YouTube has clearly crossed the ubiquity threshold, with zillions of views all over the world. I struggle a bit with whether YouTube should be legally required to follow the First Amendment (they are a US corporation, not a government), but I can say that I think that their deletion of David Icke's account leaves a bad taste in my mouth- not because I like him, but because I worry that YouTube may one day bow to majority pressure and censor a topic in which I belong to the minority. To get back to your actual point- HN's guidelines are technically censorship, but they are good censorship. It's designed to keep a community focused and to foster good discussion. The best part is that HN's guidelines are easy to understand and seem to be applied consistently. It would be great if YouTube adopted easy to follow policies and would terminate accounts based on clear breaches of policy, rather than just playing whack-a-mole with whatever topic is hot at the moment. There are tons of other videos spreading misinformation on YouTube about other public health topics (the anti-vax movement being a big one), why is David Icke's account being deleted and not theirs? There are tons of other conspiracy theorists on YouTube, why are Alex Jones and David Icke the only ones to get their accounts deleted?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
mellow2020 6y ago
"Community" is meaningless enough, "highly effective community" means even less, and squeezing everyone on the planet into one "community" means something else entirely.
simonebrunozzi 6y ago
Subtle difference: YouTube is the biggest TV channel in the world, by probably an order of magnitude.
coldtea 6y ago
>These guidelines seem like a private corporation censoring content. Are platform guidelines like these also an example of censorship? Obviously they are. Nominally they censor certain content. That said, not all instances of censorship are equally bad -- e.g. a parent forbidding their kid to swear at strangers, or some small forum like HN is not comparable to a large platform with big global political influence like FB or YouTube.
40four 6y ago
I see where you’re trying to go with that, but there is a huge gap between “Here are some suggested guidelines for submissions and comments, please try to follow them.”, and “Under no circumstances can you say anything that contradicts the policies of this particular political organization we agree with, repeated violations will result in de-platforming.”

nyanpasu64 6y ago

From my perspective, Hacker News is a website built for the tech community. However I don't view Youtube as a community, but as a platform for individuals to publish videos, broadcast, and sometimes form sub-communities. It's possible that some people who don't login and hang around on the homepage of algorithmically selected videos treat Youtube as a publisher for curating.

identity0 6y ago

It’s an issue that’s difficult to distill in a way that could work as a law or as a winning argument against snarky commenters playing Devil’s Advocate. In theory the line between rules and censorship is vague and grey, but in practice it’s pretty easy to tell what is rule enforcement and what is political censorship. I guess a good place to start would be examining the rules of a website and determining if the takedowns follow the rules and the rules are not overly broad.

close04 6y ago
While banning or deleting accounts could go all the way from legitimate to oppression, it doesn't seem like banning the account of someone spreading false information that leads to dangerous situations to be an abuse in any way. Yes, we have to hold YouTube to higher standards than others simply because of the disproportionate power the platform has. But this doesn't change the fact that in such cases the measure was warranted. People constantly misunderstand "freedom of speech" as something that somehow entitles one to trample over someone else's freedom. For example every time there's a discussion about "hate speech" someone will say that the laws are routinely abused to punish people for their legitimate free opinions. Yet no such examples of routine abuse are ever given. There's room for common sense when judging a situation. Common sense can't be put in law but you also can't really judge these gray areas without it.
- SpelingBeeChamp 6y ago
  >Yes, we have to hold YouTube to higher standards than others simply because of the disproportionate power the platform has. That's rather conclusory.
  - close04 6y ago
    Well there are 2 aspects for this. Laws in general consider magnitude and criticality when defining measures. So would a judge. YouTube's reach implicitly means the potential for abuse is orders of magnitude higher. And the effects of that abuse are far more dangerous than what a small platform can induce. The other part, the one I was mostly referring to, is moral. I know, it's a company, it doesn't need to have morals. But this shouldn't stop people from holding them to a higher standard. With a flip of the algorithmic switch platforms like YouTube or Facebook can influence results of elections, escalate social issues over the tipping point, etc. Can you honestly say that my conclusion needed too much explaining?

jlawson 6y ago

YouTube isn't a 'community' any more than the roads we all travel on. There is no viable alternative to YouTube/Google. There is no way to escape its influence. And being banned from it can ruin you (depending on how your life/work is structured). HN is totally different because of the completely different scale and the existence of viable alternatives.

chrononaut 6y ago
> There is no viable alternative to YouTube/Google There is an interesting "monopoly" factor here, but YouTube is also not negatively impacting other groups or organizations from trying to start their own video platforms tailored to general content. In fact, it seems there have been various organizations chipping away at YouTube (e.g. Twitch, TikTok) of people who would normally be watching YouTube have other platforms to visit, watch and host content. Nothing is preventing those platforms from also further expanding into areas where YouTube is traditionally the leader.
iso947 6y ago
I watch videos on Vimeo and search on DuckDuckGo. I struggle to find a good place to read and talk about interesting tech news other than HN though

PureParadigm 6y ago

Yes, as the parent mentions, YouTube can do the same kind of content curation from a legal point of view. The question is whether YouTube is a platform where we should advocate for less censorship/more freedom. I think that since YouTube is a general platform and that no serious alternatives exist, we should advocate for less censorship. YouTube is different from Hacker News because YouTube is more of a general platform (not focused on a particular topic). In contrast with Hacker News, less censorship on YouTube would not significantly degrade the experience. You can still go subscribe to the channels you like and be completely unaware of the content you don't want to see. On Hacker News, the whole point is that it is focused on particular subjects (I suppose it would be analogous to a curated list of YouTube channels), and its rules keep it that way. Another factor to consider is what alternatives exist. As far as I know, YouTube is the only serious option at the moment for general video content. YouTube content includes news and politics, and many people use it as their primary source of information. No matter what your politics are, they will likely differ from Google's in some way, and if YouTube begins to aggressively censor opinions they disagree with, you'll find yourself without a platform since no serious alternatives exist.

fragmede 6y ago
For one, Facebook's trying to give YouTube a run for their money. There's an entire tab in their mobile app dedicated to small bite-size videos like are watched on YouTube, and Facebook Live is all about connecting small video producers directly to their audiences. Outside of that, there are lesser known sites. Vimeo, Metacafe, Dailymotion, Twitch, Veoh. YouTube has the brand recognition, but simply hosting video online isn't that hard. It's way harder if you have to build your own colo though. For the casual viewer, YouTube has unbeatable brand recognition, and if I was trying to build an audience for a mainstream idea, that's the obvious place. However, for dedicated fans of a specific ideology, with YouTube deplatforming that ideology, the usual considerations are fewer. Normally, the friction associated with getting viewers to install an app would be enough to dissuade a large number of users. For users who believe the government lies and that they're seeking the truth, and only the RushLimbaughTube app can expose them to it, I don't know if there's the same friction.
- 6y ago

JSavageOne 6y ago

HN is a niche community focused on startups and tech. Youtube is the monopoly on user-uploaded video content and has 2 billion users.

chrononaut 6y ago
I am unsure of your argument. Are you saying that the size of the company factors into what policies it can enforce? i.e., smaller companies can have more freedom in policing content, but if an undefined critical mass is reached (perhaps market share), they should have less flexibility on curated content? Or is it a factor of what it's trying to build? e.g., if YouTube only focused on hosting political content, should they be allowed to censor that content or shape what is permitted?
- JSavageOne 6y ago
  Yes the size most certainly matters, obviously Facebook should be held to a different standard than some niche social network for pet owners with 100 users. Monopolies should be held to a different standard. I'd argue that the nature of the business should factor into it as well. Since Youtube advertises and presents itself as a platform where any user can upload any kind of content excluding pornography and dark stuff (eg. animal abuse), I don't think that censoring on the basis of political views alone is justified (I'm not familiar with David Icke, so I can't speak for this specific incident).
  - alasdair_ 6y ago
    >Since Youtube advertises and presents itself as a platform where any user can upload any kind of content excluding pornography and dark stuff (eg. animal abuse), I don't think that censoring on the basis of political views alone is justified YouTube is pretty clear about their stance on what is and is not allowed. They have made it very clear, in particular, that coronavirus misinformation is not allowed. I see little difference between choosing to censor pornography and choosing to censor coronavirus misinformation. Both are protected speech in the USA but they are both also things that are allowed (and is reasonable to) censor if the platform wishes.

parsimo2010 6y ago

My actual answer is in the last line, but I'll ramble a bit first. You make an interesting point, but I think there are times in which we can prohibit certain types of posts and comments that might technically be censorship (using the definition of suppression or prohibition of things that are considered obscene, politically unacceptable, or a threat to security), but they aren't bad censorship. I would place some sort of test using focus and/or ubiquity. Focus: if a community has a stated purpose, then it's okay to censor things that don't contribute to the purpose. If I ran a forum dedicated to ham radio, then it's okay to censor topics about NASCAR. Usually forums have a miscellaneous section for off-topic discussion rather than prohibiting it outright. Ubiquity: if a community is small enough or in a limited setting, it is okay to censor things. It is accepted practice in many households to censor profanity. That's okay, because each family's censorship only applies to a few people. It is okay for a school to censor certain disruptive things (some people may disagree on what is okay to censor), because it's limited. Once a kid goes home they can read a banned book if they choose to. Unfortunately for YouTube, I think they fail on both the focus and ubiquity tests. YouTube's purpose (from a layman's perspective) is to share videos. If someone uploads a video then they are staying within YouTube's focus, and YouTube has been pretty free with allowing any video as long as it isn't illegal. So they shouldn't be censoring crackpot videos, because they aren't illegal and seem to stay within YouTube's norms. [Some economically minded people might argue that YouTube's true purpose is to sell ads and should censor videos that cause fewer ads to be shown, but YouTube's previous behavior is that they demonetize/pull the ads from controversial videos, not deleting accounts]. And YouTube has clearly crossed the ubiquity threshold, with zillions of views all over the world. I struggle a bit with whether YouTube should be legally required to follow the First Amendment (they are a US corporation, not a government), but I can say that I think that their deletion of David Icke's account leaves a bad taste in my mouth- not because I like him, but because I worry that YouTube may one day bow to majority pressure and censor a topic in which I belong to the minority. To get back to your actual point- HN's guidelines are technically censorship, but they are good censorship. It's designed to keep a community focused and to foster good discussion. The best part is that HN's guidelines are easy to understand and seem to be applied consistently. It would be great if YouTube adopted easy to follow policies and would terminate accounts based on clear breaches of policy, rather than just playing whack-a-mole with whatever topic is hot at the moment. There are tons of other videos spreading misinformation on YouTube about other public health topics (the anti-vax movement being a big one), why is David Icke's account being deleted and not theirs? There are tons of other conspiracy theorists on YouTube, why are Alex Jones and David Icke the only ones to get their accounts deleted?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

mellow2020 6y ago

"Community" is meaningless enough, "highly effective community" means even less, and squeezing everyone on the planet into one "community" means something else entirely.

simonebrunozzi 6y ago

Subtle difference: YouTube is the biggest TV channel in the world, by probably an order of magnitude.

coldtea 6y ago

>These guidelines seem like a private corporation censoring content. Are platform guidelines like these also an example of censorship? Obviously they are. Nominally they censor certain content. That said, not all instances of censorship are equally bad -- e.g. a parent forbidding their kid to swear at strangers, or some small forum like HN is not comparable to a large platform with big global political influence like FB or YouTube.

40four 6y ago

I see where you’re trying to go with that, but there is a huge gap between “Here are some suggested guidelines for submissions and comments, please try to follow them.”, and “Under no circumstances can you say anything that contradicts the policies of this particular political organization we agree with, repeated violations will result in de-platforming.”