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Google has recently banned YouTube Competitor "LBRY.tv" From Play Store. https://www.lacortenews.com/n/google-bans-youtube-competitor-from-play-store https://w

Google has recently banned YouTube Competitor "LBRY.tv" From Play Store. https://www.lacortenews.com/n/google-bans-youtube-competitor-from-play-store https://www.lacortenews.com/n/google-bans-youtube-competitor...

microcolonel 6y ago
I like Googlers but a lot of the time when Google loses in court, I feel like the court did the right thing.
causality0 6y ago
Looking at what trust-busting cases were like a few decades ago, I can't help but think that if Google had existed and behaved as it does today at any other time in the last century it would've already been smashed into tiny, non-evil pieces by the government.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  That's because ever since the 80s the US has switched to an anti-trust regime that essentially focusses on consumer price and nothing else. Lisa Khan's long but very good piece on the issue is worth a read. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
  - chrisco255 6y ago
    I think the political winds are shifting. Both conservatives and progressives are pushing for it. Big tech is rapidly losing any political base it could have.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      Only because Google doesn't budge on filtering search results for political benefit. If Google dropped this and removed all anti-trump results, there would be no possibility for anti-trust litigation.
      - chrisco255 6y ago
        Conservatives have been actively targeted by big tech for censorship, shadowbanning, selective and often false fact checking, flagging, and outright banning. After the 2016 election, Google employees met to discuss "what they should do about..." the outcome. They are a partisan, extremely political corporation that abuses its monopoly power for a variety of things. Conservatives are not welcome in silicon valley. It's an extremely intolerant and abusive subculture that is completely at odds with middle America. They hide behind section 230 protection, which was designed to protect free speech on the internet, not stifle it with massive monopoly advertising, persuasion and attention algorithms. Google is evil.
wyxuan 6y ago
I don't think the article is very good. It's just a regurgitation of tweets from the LBRY twitter account, and the comparison between Cuties and the comedy skit that got it banned is deceptive. One is a social criticism, and the other, according to the description of the video "Contains implied sex and mild nudity". The article doesn't bother bringing up Google's side, or if this action is unique.
- Justsignedup 6y ago
  That is basically what I was gonna say. Very he-said-she-said style. No indication of what rules were broken, no indication of why. Only that it happened and that LBRY said "we don't like that!"
Spivak 6y ago
I really don't get why this issue keeps coming up. How many times does this story have to be retold before developers realize that if you build apps/platforms/networks which are by their very nature unmoderateable or take a position against moderation then you're going to get rejected from every app store unless you're careful to make sure that users have to opt-in to all the content (like Mastodon). LBRY's unfiltered "Discovery" https://lbry.tv/$/discover https://lbry.tv/$/discover 1000% what got it canned. "We designed the system so that we can't control the content on our network" doesn't mean you get to abdicate responsibility for what users see when they open it. The implementation details of how your app works don't matter when reviews are based on what the user actually sees.
- ev1 6y ago
  Interesting, first time visiting lbry. The discovery page for me is about 75% really obvious MAKE MONEY FAST crypto scams and fraud, 10% weird alternative medicine or antivax stuff, 5% programming videos, 5% non-scam crypto stuff but largely oddities like "world hunger can be solved by bitcoin, fuck fiat", and the rest is misc/uncategorised stuff. Bunch of tutorials that offer free game cash/game cheats but are actually just offering malware and keyloggers.
- 9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
  But what's bad about the discovery page? Maybe we see different things, I don't see anything remotely controversial or even political there.
- chrisco255 6y ago
  Then why are browsers allowed?
  - notriddle 6y ago
    The same reason the Mastodon app is allowed. They allow you to access unmoderated content, but they don't proactively push it at you (the default search engines, and the news home pages on Edge/MSN and Firefox/Pocket, do proactively push content, but they're moderated).
  - 6y ago
throwawaysea 6y ago
Recent discussions of Google unfairly banning LBRY: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24605379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24605379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24594663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24594663

microcolonel 6y ago

I like Googlers but a lot of the time when Google loses in court, I feel like the court did the right thing.

causality0 6y ago

Looking at what trust-busting cases were like a few decades ago, I can't help but think that if Google had existed and behaved as it does today at any other time in the last century it would've already been smashed into tiny, non-evil pieces by the government.

Barrin92 6y ago
That's because ever since the 80s the US has switched to an anti-trust regime that essentially focusses on consumer price and nothing else. Lisa Khan's long but very good piece on the issue is worth a read. https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-paradox https://www.yalelawjournal.org/note/amazons-antitrust-parado...
- chrisco255 6y ago
  I think the political winds are shifting. Both conservatives and progressives are pushing for it. Big tech is rapidly losing any political base it could have.
  - judge2020 6y ago
    Only because Google doesn't budge on filtering search results for political benefit. If Google dropped this and removed all anti-trump results, there would be no possibility for anti-trust litigation.
    - chrisco255 6y ago
      Conservatives have been actively targeted by big tech for censorship, shadowbanning, selective and often false fact checking, flagging, and outright banning. After the 2016 election, Google employees met to discuss "what they should do about..." the outcome. They are a partisan, extremely political corporation that abuses its monopoly power for a variety of things. Conservatives are not welcome in silicon valley. It's an extremely intolerant and abusive subculture that is completely at odds with middle America. They hide behind section 230 protection, which was designed to protect free speech on the internet, not stifle it with massive monopoly advertising, persuasion and attention algorithms. Google is evil.

wyxuan 6y ago

I don't think the article is very good. It's just a regurgitation of tweets from the LBRY twitter account, and the comparison between Cuties and the comedy skit that got it banned is deceptive. One is a social criticism, and the other, according to the description of the video "Contains implied sex and mild nudity". The article doesn't bother bringing up Google's side, or if this action is unique.

Justsignedup 6y ago
That is basically what I was gonna say. Very he-said-she-said style. No indication of what rules were broken, no indication of why. Only that it happened and that LBRY said "we don't like that!"

Spivak 6y ago

I really don't get why this issue keeps coming up. How many times does this story have to be retold before developers realize that if you build apps/platforms/networks which are by their very nature unmoderateable or take a position against moderation then you're going to get rejected from every app store unless you're careful to make sure that users have to opt-in to all the content (like Mastodon). LBRY's unfiltered "Discovery" https://lbry.tv/$/discover https://lbry.tv/$/discover 1000% what got it canned. "We designed the system so that we can't control the content on our network" doesn't mean you get to abdicate responsibility for what users see when they open it. The implementation details of how your app works don't matter when reviews are based on what the user actually sees.

ev1 6y ago
Interesting, first time visiting lbry. The discovery page for me is about 75% really obvious MAKE MONEY FAST crypto scams and fraud, 10% weird alternative medicine or antivax stuff, 5% programming videos, 5% non-scam crypto stuff but largely oddities like "world hunger can be solved by bitcoin, fuck fiat", and the rest is misc/uncategorised stuff. Bunch of tutorials that offer free game cash/game cheats but are actually just offering malware and keyloggers.
9HZZRfNlpR 6y ago
But what's bad about the discovery page? Maybe we see different things, I don't see anything remotely controversial or even political there.
chrisco255 6y ago
Then why are browsers allowed?
- notriddle 6y ago
  The same reason the Mastodon app is allowed. They allow you to access unmoderated content, but they don't proactively push it at you (the default search engines, and the news home pages on Edge/MSN and Firefox/Pocket, do proactively push content, but they're moderated).
- 6y ago

throwawaysea 6y ago

Recent discussions of Google unfairly banning LBRY: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24605379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24605379 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24594663 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24594663