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> These types of censorship patterns are identical to that employed by China in intent. The practical consequences are the same as well. True, if you ignore th

> These types of censorship patterns are identical to that employed by China in intent. The practical consequences are the same as well. True, if you ignore the fact that China is a government and YouTube is an internet video portal. And that there are sites like HN that can point it out. And that YouTube isn't taking steps to cover up what they've done. But yeah, let's compare the policing of bad information in a pandemic that gets people killed, where YouTube doesn't benefit from the "censorship", to what China's government is doing. At least you get to feel good about your purity when you're posting comments on HN, secure in the knowledge that you don't have a teenager or a parent that might die as a result.

naasking 6y ago
> where YouTube doesn't benefit from the "censorship" Of course they do. You think they're spending all that money out of the kindness of their hearts? Way to dodge actually engaging with the principles at play here. You can certainly assert your consequentialist/utilitarian arguments, but not everyone agrees with that ethical framework.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- michaelmrose 6y ago
  What ethical framework yields non insane results that isn't consequentialist/utilitarian?
  - naasking 6y ago
    Consequentialism also yields insane results. Look up "the repugnant conclusion". If ethics were settled, it would no longer be a philosophy but a science.
    - michaelmrose 6y ago
      Thanks for that topic its very interesting. It will take some time to digest.
rcoveson 6y ago
> At least you get to feel good about your purity when you're posting comments on HN, secure in the knowledge that you don't have a teenager or a parent that might die as a result. What's this ad hominem crap doing here? I don't know anything about the poster you're replying to, but I think I'm safe in assuming that they don't want your teenager or parent to die either. It's acceptable--essential, even--to be concerned about more than one thing at a time, even during a pandemic.
- jb775 6y ago
  He's using pedophrasty in his argument in desperation by adding unnecessary elements that distract from the underlying debate and illicit emotions you can't really argue against without being the bad guy. Once you see this approach used, it's safe to assume that person's an idiot (at least on the underlying discussion topic). Pedophrasty Definition: Argument involving children to prop up a rationalization and make the opponent look like an asshole, as people are defenseless and suspend all skepticism in front of suffering children: nobody has the heart to question the authenticity or source of the reporting.
  - krapp 6y ago
    > as people are defenseless and suspend all skepticism in front of suffering children: nobody has the heart to question the authenticity or source of the reporting. But that's not actually true. It's nearly impossible to express concern for children in any context on the internet without being mocked and dismissed for having invoked a "won't someone think of the children" ad hominem. It's strange how deeply that particular meme has dug into the psyche of internet culture, and has become almost an unwritten rule.
    - jb775 6y ago
      In your example, the people saying "won't someone think of the children" are the culprits of pedophrasty. Once you conceive the concept, you see it all over the place. See here for a more in depth explanation: https://medium.com/incerto/pedophrasty-bigoteering-and-other-modern-scams-c84bd70a29e8 https://medium.com/incerto/pedophrasty-bigoteering-and-other...
lopmotr 6y ago
Stop this "bad information gets people killed" nonsense. You can justify any kind of censorship with that. That's what China does too. If they allow protests, they'll get violent and people will get killed. If the government is overthrown, millions of people will probably be killed or die from the ensuing chaos. Youtube, Facebook, etc. in some ways have more power than the government because they can influence public opinion. They also set the standard for what's morally acceptable and people carry that standard with them elsewhere in their lives. Eventually, they'll probably vote for the government to enforce it because it's so popular. I once met an American who believed hate speech was a crime. It turns out that a lot of young people believe that. No doubt because it is a "crime" on all their social media platforms. Some of them already want to make it a real crime when the discover it isn't yet.
Closi 6y ago
> True, if you ignore the fact that China is a government and YouTube is an internet video portal. That's the way the west perceives the situation - although over there they might see this as 'powerful unelected corporation which is legally mandated to maximise profits arbitrarily censors with no oversight, in a country where these unelected corporations control parts of the government'.
roenxi 6y ago
Firstly, I agree with rcoveson; there are a lot of complaints to be made about your second paragraph. Including that "a teenager ... that might die" is emotional misinformation - they almost surely won't. The difference between governments doing it and YouTube doing it is that people do have the practical choice of leaving YouTube if the situation is deemed intolerable. Up until that point there isn't a practical difference between YouTube and China if they employ the same censorship methods. > And that YouTube isn't taking steps to cover up what they've done. The Chinese government isn't exactly subtle; they are promoting peace and harmony through censorship. A lot of people died in the last Chinese revolution & aftermath - they do have a reasonable argument that unstable government will kill people. It is just we know from experience in the west that transparent democracies are more stable because problems tend to get dealt with when they affect large groups of people.
dang 6y ago
This comment breaks the site guidelines by being snarky, crossing into personal attack, and taking the thread further into flamewar. That's not cool here, regardless of how right you are (or feel) or how wrong someone else is (or you feel they are), so please don't. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the intended spirit of the site, we'd be grateful.

naasking 6y ago

> where YouTube doesn't benefit from the "censorship" Of course they do. You think they're spending all that money out of the kindness of their hearts? Way to dodge actually engaging with the principles at play here. You can certainly assert your consequentialist/utilitarian arguments, but not everyone agrees with that ethical framework.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
michaelmrose 6y ago
What ethical framework yields non insane results that isn't consequentialist/utilitarian?
- naasking 6y ago
  Consequentialism also yields insane results. Look up "the repugnant conclusion". If ethics were settled, it would no longer be a philosophy but a science.
  - michaelmrose 6y ago
    Thanks for that topic its very interesting. It will take some time to digest.

rcoveson 6y ago

> At least you get to feel good about your purity when you're posting comments on HN, secure in the knowledge that you don't have a teenager or a parent that might die as a result. What's this ad hominem crap doing here? I don't know anything about the poster you're replying to, but I think I'm safe in assuming that they don't want your teenager or parent to die either. It's acceptable--essential, even--to be concerned about more than one thing at a time, even during a pandemic.

jb775 6y ago
He's using pedophrasty in his argument in desperation by adding unnecessary elements that distract from the underlying debate and illicit emotions you can't really argue against without being the bad guy. Once you see this approach used, it's safe to assume that person's an idiot (at least on the underlying discussion topic). Pedophrasty Definition: Argument involving children to prop up a rationalization and make the opponent look like an asshole, as people are defenseless and suspend all skepticism in front of suffering children: nobody has the heart to question the authenticity or source of the reporting.
- krapp 6y ago
  > as people are defenseless and suspend all skepticism in front of suffering children: nobody has the heart to question the authenticity or source of the reporting. But that's not actually true. It's nearly impossible to express concern for children in any context on the internet without being mocked and dismissed for having invoked a "won't someone think of the children" ad hominem. It's strange how deeply that particular meme has dug into the psyche of internet culture, and has become almost an unwritten rule.
  - jb775 6y ago
    In your example, the people saying "won't someone think of the children" are the culprits of pedophrasty. Once you conceive the concept, you see it all over the place. See here for a more in depth explanation: https://medium.com/incerto/pedophrasty-bigoteering-and-other-modern-scams-c84bd70a29e8 https://medium.com/incerto/pedophrasty-bigoteering-and-other...

lopmotr 6y ago

Stop this "bad information gets people killed" nonsense. You can justify any kind of censorship with that. That's what China does too. If they allow protests, they'll get violent and people will get killed. If the government is overthrown, millions of people will probably be killed or die from the ensuing chaos. Youtube, Facebook, etc. in some ways have more power than the government because they can influence public opinion. They also set the standard for what's morally acceptable and people carry that standard with them elsewhere in their lives. Eventually, they'll probably vote for the government to enforce it because it's so popular. I once met an American who believed hate speech was a crime. It turns out that a lot of young people believe that. No doubt because it is a "crime" on all their social media platforms. Some of them already want to make it a real crime when the discover it isn't yet.

Closi 6y ago

> True, if you ignore the fact that China is a government and YouTube is an internet video portal. That's the way the west perceives the situation - although over there they might see this as 'powerful unelected corporation which is legally mandated to maximise profits arbitrarily censors with no oversight, in a country where these unelected corporations control parts of the government'.

roenxi 6y ago

Firstly, I agree with rcoveson; there are a lot of complaints to be made about your second paragraph. Including that "a teenager ... that might die" is emotional misinformation - they almost surely won't. The difference between governments doing it and YouTube doing it is that people do have the practical choice of leaving YouTube if the situation is deemed intolerable. Up until that point there isn't a practical difference between YouTube and China if they employ the same censorship methods. > And that YouTube isn't taking steps to cover up what they've done. The Chinese government isn't exactly subtle; they are promoting peace and harmony through censorship. A lot of people died in the last Chinese revolution & aftermath - they do have a reasonable argument that unstable government will kill people. It is just we know from experience in the west that transparent democracies are more stable because problems tend to get dealt with when they affect large groups of people.

dang 6y ago

This comment breaks the site guidelines by being snarky, crossing into personal attack, and taking the thread further into flamewar. That's not cool here, regardless of how right you are (or feel) or how wrong someone else is (or you feel they are), so please don't. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the intended spirit of the site, we'd be grateful.