11 ms·

YouTube Takes Down Chess Podcast for Being Harmful or Dangerous

92 points by csense 6y ago

jonathankoren 6y ago
I’ve noticed these “click to appeal” links (on YouTube, and other places) always have a near instantaneous turn around time, and they always rejected. Conspiracy me, suspects that all appeals are rejected by rule, to scare people from appealing further, and only these much fewer second appeals are actually reviewed.
- bsder 6y ago
  I suspect all appeals are rejected and only get reviewed if the channel has enough pull to smack Google on social media.
- perl4ever 6y ago
  It's not like that sort of thing is some new social media/tech innovation. I remember being hearing or reading if you're turned down for SSDI, you've got to keep appealing, because there are metrics being used where they can't approve more than a certain percentage initially.
  - jonathankoren 6y ago
    I'm thinking that they know everyone will appeal, but by threatening them on second appeal, you thin it out to people that actually think they have a case. Still, it's obviously a bullshit process.
- redis_mlc 6y ago
  I believe you're correct. If you click on the appeal button in Youtube admin UI, my understanding is that the complaint gets escalated from demonetization (somebody else gets your views revenue) to a likely copyright strike, which risks your channel being closed. Unless you know somebody at Youtube, of course.
haolez 6y ago
It seems that saying things like "black is in trouble, white is always better in this scenario" might have triggered the algorithm.
- incompatible 6y ago
  The guy on the channel said he doesn't think this is the case, since he has loads of other videos still up and its "white vs black to the death" in every case. His other guess was that it was a casual mention of the "Covid situation". It's too bad that he is left guessing about what the problem really was, and that the review procedure is apparently fully automated.
  - JeremyReimer 6y ago
    I've noticed that other YouTubers, for example the Game Grumps, have stated that they cannot mention "Covid" in their videos for fear of being demonetized or taken down. To get around it, they refer to the situation as the "Backstreet Boys Reunion Tour" instead.
    - incompatible 6y ago
      Yeah, in this case it was just something like mentioning that people stuck indoors in some cases were playing chess (online) for the first time in years.
      - ashtonkem 6y ago
        YouTube is pretty famous for having poorly implemented moderation. My favorite instance is when they banned CGP Grey for impersonating himself.
    - majewsky 6y ago
      I mostly see it referred to as "the current situation (around the world)".
- nix23 6y ago
tigerbelt 6y ago
I’m a big fan of agadmator - he makes incredible content and definitely never anything harmful YouTube cops gone mad
kypro 6y ago
This seems to be an honest mistake, but unfortunately I can only see this becoming more common in the years to come. I was discussing this with a friend recently. Specifically, we were wondering what the incentive would be, if any, for big-tech to stop this trend towards increased censorship. Obviously censoring anything that could be perceived as controversial is good for the bottom-line of these companies, but it's also worth remembering there's little to no political incentive to ensure free-speech on these platforms either. If the only political content YouTube promotes is from the main-stream media and the only fact checkers Twitter and Facebook are using are from the legacy media, then these actions work in favour of establishment politicians. For years corporations and the media have been basically able to dictate political candidates to the public, but in 2016 that momentarily changed due to rise in influence social media had. I suspect Youtube, et al. have finally wised up and that's why we're seeing this sudden increase in the big-tech censorship. They don't want another Sanders or Trump slipping through the cracks. This year at this point in time obviously the biggest threat is from the right with Trump, and Biden is seen as the safe establishment bet, so the direction of the censorship for now is towards the right. But make no mistake, if the safe candidate was on the right you'd see these companies take a very different view on what's acceptable and not acceptable to say.
xkgt 6y ago
Are there really no popular alternatives to Youtube to keep them honest? It is the virtual monopoly that allows them to be complacent enough to enforce such lousy automation. This is not healthy.
- stevehawk 6y ago
  it's a loss leader, no one is going to try to compete with it.
  - lordfoom 6y ago
    This is a myth it seems to me. As far as I can tell, YouTube makes money. I'd be interested in sources that show otherwise, but not speculative sources.
    - systemvoltage 6y ago
      How can you just tell it’s making money? Can you elaborate please?
      - flocial 6y ago
        It generated $15 billion last year not including 20 million Premium subscribers. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-alphabet-earnings-revenue-first-time-reveal-q4-2019 https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-al...
        AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
        This is the first time Google has released this information. It’s also likely this is the first year that YouTube was profitable.
        jasode 6y ago
        >It generated $15 billion last year not including 20 million Premium subscribers. To clarify, that $15 billion is revenue and not net income/profit. Since Alphabet Inc didn't reveal the internal costs for Youtube, it means we still don't know if Youtube is losing money, or breaking even, or making a profit. So the gp's question of "how do we know it's making money?" is still unanswered. Another example to help differentiate revenue vs profit: Tesla "generated" $24 billion in revenue last year but it didn't "make money" because they still lost $862 million.[1] No profits. It doesn't help that the journalist of your The Verge article further confuses readers by incorrectly using the phrase "bottom line" instead of the "top line".[2] Revenue is actually the "top line". Net income/profit is the "bottom line": >, that the company has revealed how much money YouTube-hosted ads contribute to the search giant’s _bottom line_. On an annual basis, Google says YouTube generated $15 billion last year and contributed roughly 10 percent to all Google revenue. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+revenue+2019+loss https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+revenue+2019+loss [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_statement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_statement
throwawaysea 6y ago
Censorship is bad. Discuss a better future for video at https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeAlternatives/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeAlternatives/. Current options seem like Bitchute (https://www.bitchute.com/ https://www.bitchute.com/), LBRY (https://lbry.com/ https://lbry.com/), and D.tube (https://d.tube/ https://d.tube/). Reddit and Twitter alternatives are listed at https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/list_of_active_reddit_alternatives_v5/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/...
- wcerfgba 6y ago
  Not sure why this is getting downvoted so heavily, there is another comment above which is asking about competition in this space and this comment is just sharing some links relevant to that discussion. Thanks parent.
- bjourne 6y ago
  Are those sites long-term alternatives? What is to say Bitchute won't be bought by a giant corporation one day? A site I was a longtime member of and helped grow wrote "Yes, we promised to always keep the site free. We now break that promise. To access content, from now on will require a subscription." Everyone who uploads videos to these video sites runs the risk of the owner commercializing their work.
gundmc 6y ago
The video/stream in question was restored almost 5 days ago, shortly after this happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrFa4B0Ghjk&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrFa4B0Ghjk&feature=youtu.be AI misses will happen, I'm generally okay with them if they're identified and resolved quickly. The concerning thing to me here is that his request for appeal was rejected in 30 seconds. What actually happens when you click appeal? Clearly it's automated, so why not run that logic before taking the stream down?
- infogulch 6y ago
  I've never heard of the appeal actually doing anything other than just existing. Maybe it notes down that the user attempted to appeal (which may be a useful signal for YT), but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just sends a single template response to every request.
- lopmotr 6y ago
  If they're really random, that's not so bad. Just like other computer failures. But Youtube alters people's behavior out of fear. You see Youtubers replacing "dangerous" words with joke words even though they're not saying anything bad, they're just scared. Often it's no use that it gets restored the next day because the prime money making time has passed. Options to appeals are probably just there to string people along and wear them down.
pttp 6y ago
It's Time to Ban Chess: https://www.accredited-times.com/2020/05/15/its-time-to-ban-chess/ https://www.accredited-times.com/2020/05/15/its-time-to-ban-...

92 points by csense 6y ago

I’ve noticed these “click to appeal” links (on YouTube, and other places) always have a near instantaneous turn around time, and they always rejected. Conspiracy me, suspects that all appeals are rejected by rule, to scare people from appealing further, and only these much fewer second appeals are actually reviewed.

bsder 6y ago
I suspect all appeals are rejected and only get reviewed if the channel has enough pull to smack Google on social media.
perl4ever 6y ago
It's not like that sort of thing is some new social media/tech innovation. I remember being hearing or reading if you're turned down for SSDI, you've got to keep appealing, because there are metrics being used where they can't approve more than a certain percentage initially.
- jonathankoren 6y ago
  I'm thinking that they know everyone will appeal, but by threatening them on second appeal, you thin it out to people that actually think they have a case. Still, it's obviously a bullshit process.
redis_mlc 6y ago
I believe you're correct. If you click on the appeal button in Youtube admin UI, my understanding is that the complaint gets escalated from demonetization (somebody else gets your views revenue) to a likely copyright strike, which risks your channel being closed. Unless you know somebody at Youtube, of course.

haolez 6y ago

It seems that saying things like "black is in trouble, white is always better in this scenario" might have triggered the algorithm.

incompatible 6y ago
The guy on the channel said he doesn't think this is the case, since he has loads of other videos still up and its "white vs black to the death" in every case. His other guess was that it was a casual mention of the "Covid situation". It's too bad that he is left guessing about what the problem really was, and that the review procedure is apparently fully automated.
- JeremyReimer 6y ago
  I've noticed that other YouTubers, for example the Game Grumps, have stated that they cannot mention "Covid" in their videos for fear of being demonetized or taken down. To get around it, they refer to the situation as the "Backstreet Boys Reunion Tour" instead.
  - incompatible 6y ago
    Yeah, in this case it was just something like mentioning that people stuck indoors in some cases were playing chess (online) for the first time in years.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      YouTube is pretty famous for having poorly implemented moderation. My favorite instance is when they banned CGP Grey for impersonating himself.
  - majewsky 6y ago
    I mostly see it referred to as "the current situation (around the world)".
nix23 6y ago

tigerbelt 6y ago

I’m a big fan of agadmator - he makes incredible content and definitely never anything harmful YouTube cops gone mad

kypro 6y ago

This seems to be an honest mistake, but unfortunately I can only see this becoming more common in the years to come. I was discussing this with a friend recently. Specifically, we were wondering what the incentive would be, if any, for big-tech to stop this trend towards increased censorship. Obviously censoring anything that could be perceived as controversial is good for the bottom-line of these companies, but it's also worth remembering there's little to no political incentive to ensure free-speech on these platforms either. If the only political content YouTube promotes is from the main-stream media and the only fact checkers Twitter and Facebook are using are from the legacy media, then these actions work in favour of establishment politicians. For years corporations and the media have been basically able to dictate political candidates to the public, but in 2016 that momentarily changed due to rise in influence social media had. I suspect Youtube, et al. have finally wised up and that's why we're seeing this sudden increase in the big-tech censorship. They don't want another Sanders or Trump slipping through the cracks. This year at this point in time obviously the biggest threat is from the right with Trump, and Biden is seen as the safe establishment bet, so the direction of the censorship for now is towards the right. But make no mistake, if the safe candidate was on the right you'd see these companies take a very different view on what's acceptable and not acceptable to say.

xkgt 6y ago

Are there really no popular alternatives to Youtube to keep them honest? It is the virtual monopoly that allows them to be complacent enough to enforce such lousy automation. This is not healthy.

stevehawk 6y ago
it's a loss leader, no one is going to try to compete with it.
- lordfoom 6y ago
  This is a myth it seems to me. As far as I can tell, YouTube makes money. I'd be interested in sources that show otherwise, but not speculative sources.
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    How can you just tell it’s making money? Can you elaborate please?
    - flocial 6y ago
      It generated $15 billion last year not including 20 million Premium subscribers. https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-alphabet-earnings-revenue-first-time-reveal-q4-2019 https://www.theverge.com/2020/2/3/21121207/youtube-google-al...
      - AndrewUnmuted 6y ago
        This is the first time Google has released this information. It’s also likely this is the first year that YouTube was profitable.
      - jasode 6y ago
        >It generated $15 billion last year not including 20 million Premium subscribers. To clarify, that $15 billion is revenue and not net income/profit. Since Alphabet Inc didn't reveal the internal costs for Youtube, it means we still don't know if Youtube is losing money, or breaking even, or making a profit. So the gp's question of "how do we know it's making money?" is still unanswered. Another example to help differentiate revenue vs profit: Tesla "generated" $24 billion in revenue last year but it didn't "make money" because they still lost $862 million.[1] No profits. It doesn't help that the journalist of your The Verge article further confuses readers by incorrectly using the phrase "bottom line" instead of the "top line".[2] Revenue is actually the "top line". Net income/profit is the "bottom line": >, that the company has revealed how much money YouTube-hosted ads contribute to the search giant’s _bottom line_. On an annual basis, Google says YouTube generated $15 billion last year and contributed roughly 10 percent to all Google revenue. [1] https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+revenue+2019+loss https://www.google.com/search?q=tesla+revenue+2019+loss [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_statement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_statement

throwawaysea 6y ago

Censorship is bad. Discuss a better future for video at https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeAlternatives/ https://www.reddit.com/r/YoutubeAlternatives/. Current options seem like Bitchute (https://www.bitchute.com/ https://www.bitchute.com/), LBRY (https://lbry.com/ https://lbry.com/), and D.tube (https://d.tube/ https://d.tube/). Reddit and Twitter alternatives are listed at https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/list_of_active_reddit_alternatives_v5/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RedditAlternatives/comments/hi97fz/...

wcerfgba 6y ago
Not sure why this is getting downvoted so heavily, there is another comment above which is asking about competition in this space and this comment is just sharing some links relevant to that discussion. Thanks parent.
bjourne 6y ago
Are those sites long-term alternatives? What is to say Bitchute won't be bought by a giant corporation one day? A site I was a longtime member of and helped grow wrote "Yes, we promised to always keep the site free. We now break that promise. To access content, from now on will require a subscription." Everyone who uploads videos to these video sites runs the risk of the owner commercializing their work.

gundmc 6y ago

The video/stream in question was restored almost 5 days ago, shortly after this happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrFa4B0Ghjk&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrFa4B0Ghjk&feature=youtu.be AI misses will happen, I'm generally okay with them if they're identified and resolved quickly. The concerning thing to me here is that his request for appeal was rejected in 30 seconds. What actually happens when you click appeal? Clearly it's automated, so why not run that logic before taking the stream down?

infogulch 6y ago
I've never heard of the appeal actually doing anything other than just existing. Maybe it notes down that the user attempted to appeal (which may be a useful signal for YT), but I wouldn't be surprised if it's just sends a single template response to every request.
lopmotr 6y ago
If they're really random, that's not so bad. Just like other computer failures. But Youtube alters people's behavior out of fear. You see Youtubers replacing "dangerous" words with joke words even though they're not saying anything bad, they're just scared. Often it's no use that it gets restored the next day because the prime money making time has passed. Options to appeals are probably just there to string people along and wear them down.

pttp 6y ago

It's Time to Ban Chess: https://www.accredited-times.com/2020/05/15/its-time-to-ban-chess/ https://www.accredited-times.com/2020/05/15/its-time-to-ban-...