5 ms·

YouTube !== Government Your comparison is off.

korantu 6y ago
My understanding of GP point is that majority of social media companies is negative to Trump and positive to Biden. The difference with Russia is that media is controlled by government, but the original point is that it is healthier when media scrutinises government
- edmundsauto 6y ago
  > My understanding of GP point is that majority of social media companies is negative to Trump and positive to Biden I don't think this is accurate, unless you mean that most employees of big tech vote/contribute Democrat. However, it doesn't necessarily follow that bias exists on the platform.
- cgrealy 6y ago
  citation very much needed. Just because content on social media is negative towards Trump, doesn't mean the platform itself is. In fact, Twitter has been incredibly lenient with Trump. Much of what he tweets (threats for example) contravene the TOS.
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    As I recall, after his election, Twitter explicitly updated its TOS to basically say that they don't apply to certain public figures, in effect admitting that he does violate the TOS but they are unwilling to do anything about it.
  - julianapostate 6y ago
    https://www.newsweek.com/big-tech-employees-donate-overwhelmingly-2020-democrats-1515430 https://www.newsweek.com/big-tech-employees-donate-overwhelm...
    - cgrealy 6y ago
      Irrelevant. Employees != company.
baryphonic 6y ago
I get your point, but given the proximity of Obama, Kamala Harris and the Democrat Party as a whole to Google/Alphabet and subsidiaries, it stands to reason that there's not some wall of separation between Google/YouTube management and the US government. This doesn't seem so hard to believe: we all saw that leaked video after the 2016 US elections where Sergey Brin and several other executives clearly aligned themselves with Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.
- JamisonM 6y ago
  The business practices, profit sources, and donation habits of the Google/Alphabet on the other had point in entirely the other direction.
  - baryphonic 6y ago
    I'm having trouble parsing your reply. Google/Alphabet employees overwhelmingly support left-of-center politicians and causes. Management is aligned with the establishment New Left Democrats and the workers are split between populist New Leftists (e.g. Warren) and the socialists (e.g. Bernie).
    - hcnews 6y ago
      Funny thing is Democratic party and Biden themselves are center-right by most reasonable international definitions. The fact that republicans try to paint Biden and Democratic parties as radical left is laughable to most people with an international view. This also gives insight into the Republican style of pushing out falsities just for the sake of being in power.
      - humanrebar 6y ago
        The U.S. definition of "left" is different than the international estimation of "left". I don't know why international folks feel the need to correct this. It doesn't seem to bother the folks affected (U.S. citizens and residents). Note that the reasons for this are complicated, but the U.S. doesn't historically have to deal with monarchy, titles of nobility, vestigial aspects of governance left over from feudalism, a relatively recent postwar recovery period, or government implicated into churches. For instance, there's no American conservative impulse to support the monarchy because there's no American monarchy. The lack of that issue means other things are discussed instead.
bird_monster 6y ago
God would I love to live in a world where Youtube videos, facebook comments, instagram stories weren't the _actual_ source of most people's news (and by news I mean baseless things people with obvious biases and insidious motives say).
- nine_k 6y ago
  What would be then? Newspapers? Gossip? News sources are always biased, even when they try to stay neutral. The trick is to learn to extract useful nuggets of information from a number of biased streams. Having these streams biased differently helps. This is much like raw data in science: all data have noise and imperfections, but statistics help extract a signal if there is one.
  - bird_monster 6y ago
    > What would be then? Newspapers? Gossip? I think anywhere that libel and slander are enforced. Any random person with any random agenda can write on facebook or make youtube videos advancing that agenda. > News sources are always biased, even when they try to stay neutral. The trick is to learn to extract useful nuggets of information from a number of biased streams. Having these streams biased differently helps. I'm not talking about bias, I'm talking about obvious made-up QAnon garbage. > This is much like raw data in science: all data have noise and imperfections, but statistics help extract a signal if there is one. I would argue that baseless data is not data at all.
nine_k 6y ago
But the "government" (well, several senators, the legislative branch of the power) did just politely ask YouTube to start censoring content. I'd be fine with videos marked with something like "YouTube believes this video is untrue and spreads dangerous disinformation" put before or even over a video. But taking videos down is quite another matter.

My understanding of GP point is that majority of social media companies is negative to Trump and positive to Biden. The difference with Russia is that media is controlled by government, but the original point is that it is healthier when media scrutinises government

edmundsauto 6y ago
> My understanding of GP point is that majority of social media companies is negative to Trump and positive to Biden I don't think this is accurate, unless you mean that most employees of big tech vote/contribute Democrat. However, it doesn't necessarily follow that bias exists on the platform.
cgrealy 6y ago
citation very much needed. Just because content on social media is negative towards Trump, doesn't mean the platform itself is. In fact, Twitter has been incredibly lenient with Trump. Much of what he tweets (threats for example) contravene the TOS.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  As I recall, after his election, Twitter explicitly updated its TOS to basically say that they don't apply to certain public figures, in effect admitting that he does violate the TOS but they are unwilling to do anything about it.
- julianapostate 6y ago
  https://www.newsweek.com/big-tech-employees-donate-overwhelmingly-2020-democrats-1515430 https://www.newsweek.com/big-tech-employees-donate-overwhelm...
  - cgrealy 6y ago
    Irrelevant. Employees != company.

baryphonic 6y ago

I get your point, but given the proximity of Obama, Kamala Harris and the Democrat Party as a whole to Google/Alphabet and subsidiaries, it stands to reason that there's not some wall of separation between Google/YouTube management and the US government. This doesn't seem so hard to believe: we all saw that leaked video after the 2016 US elections where Sergey Brin and several other executives clearly aligned themselves with Hillary Clinton and the Democrats.

JamisonM 6y ago
The business practices, profit sources, and donation habits of the Google/Alphabet on the other had point in entirely the other direction.
- baryphonic 6y ago
  I'm having trouble parsing your reply. Google/Alphabet employees overwhelmingly support left-of-center politicians and causes. Management is aligned with the establishment New Left Democrats and the workers are split between populist New Leftists (e.g. Warren) and the socialists (e.g. Bernie).
  - hcnews 6y ago
    Funny thing is Democratic party and Biden themselves are center-right by most reasonable international definitions. The fact that republicans try to paint Biden and Democratic parties as radical left is laughable to most people with an international view. This also gives insight into the Republican style of pushing out falsities just for the sake of being in power.
    - humanrebar 6y ago
      The U.S. definition of "left" is different than the international estimation of "left". I don't know why international folks feel the need to correct this. It doesn't seem to bother the folks affected (U.S. citizens and residents). Note that the reasons for this are complicated, but the U.S. doesn't historically have to deal with monarchy, titles of nobility, vestigial aspects of governance left over from feudalism, a relatively recent postwar recovery period, or government implicated into churches. For instance, there's no American conservative impulse to support the monarchy because there's no American monarchy. The lack of that issue means other things are discussed instead.

bird_monster 6y ago

God would I love to live in a world where Youtube videos, facebook comments, instagram stories weren't the _actual_ source of most people's news (and by news I mean baseless things people with obvious biases and insidious motives say).

nine_k 6y ago
What would be then? Newspapers? Gossip? News sources are always biased, even when they try to stay neutral. The trick is to learn to extract useful nuggets of information from a number of biased streams. Having these streams biased differently helps. This is much like raw data in science: all data have noise and imperfections, but statistics help extract a signal if there is one.
- bird_monster 6y ago
  > What would be then? Newspapers? Gossip? I think anywhere that libel and slander are enforced. Any random person with any random agenda can write on facebook or make youtube videos advancing that agenda. > News sources are always biased, even when they try to stay neutral. The trick is to learn to extract useful nuggets of information from a number of biased streams. Having these streams biased differently helps. I'm not talking about bias, I'm talking about obvious made-up QAnon garbage. > This is much like raw data in science: all data have noise and imperfections, but statistics help extract a signal if there is one. I would argue that baseless data is not data at all.

nine_k 6y ago

But the "government" (well, several senators, the legislative branch of the power) did just politely ask YouTube to start censoring content. I'd be fine with videos marked with something like "YouTube believes this video is untrue and spreads dangerous disinformation" put before or even over a video. But taking videos down is quite another matter.