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On the one hand I understand why YouTube does it. On the other hand, as a Russian citizen, I shudder to think what will happen if russian government asks YouTub

On the one hand I understand why YouTube does it. On the other hand, as a Russian citizen, I shudder to think what will happen if russian government asks YouTube the same thing in regards to our election results. Turns out, instead of playing hide and seek with different parties by blocking unwanted information on the internet, all a government has to do is notify YouTube/Facebook/whatever that the "truth is this and this and would you be so kind as to block any kind of misinformation for us, thank you". The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

jschwartzi 6y ago
Nothing is stopping the Russian government from doing that today, so I don't see why it matters. I could say the same thing about your ask that YouTube allow a free-for-all on their platform but that's only because I'm witnessing the logical conclusion here in the US. We have to do something different or these events will repeat themselves.
- s3tz 6y ago
  Maybe the path of least resistance isn't the best answer. This sets a very dangerous precedent.
  - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
    I think we've pretty conclusively proven that there's no non-dangerous option available. Maybe this isn't the best answer, but speaking as someone who's very consistently opposed these kinds of content policies in the past, I no longer think it's tenable to take a hard line against information control here.
staplers 6y ago
While I do believe we are at a "benevolent dictator" stage of social media, what happened yesterday should be feared by every democratic nation and regardless of the "side" you are on it should be avoided at most costs. It's quite literally the seeds to fracturing a society.
AgentME 6y ago
This action is YouTube pushing back against government misinformation! Why would you think it's a sign that they're more likely to push government misinformation in the future?
- core-questions 6y ago
  Zoom out. This action is YouTube controlling the dialogue and acting as though they're the Ministry of Truth. Here's an amazing suggestion for you: if you don't like someone's opinion, don't watch their videos. Amazing. Super easy to do. Just click that little X button at the top right and move on with your life. No draconian censorship, no 1984 bullshit required. Just walk away. Adults who can handle contrasting opinions should be allowed to see, read, share, and issue them to their hearts' content. Even if you think they're wrong. It's kind of the whole damned point of free speech, which is being pissed away by childish morons who never understood why people fought and died for it to start with.
  - tylersmith 6y ago
    I agree with you 100%, but the people that push for these kinds of policies are not concerned with what they choose to watch, they want to limit what others watch. Simply being able to not watch a video won't be sufficient for them.
  - km3r 6y ago
    As another commenter mentioned, we are adjusting to a new form of information flow now in the post social media age. What was easily disproven and dismissed 20 years ago, now is amplified by radicals. I don't think banning the speech is the right choice but we need someway to counter misinformation. Its 100x easier to come up with these lies then it is to dispel them. The information war is already heavily on the side of misinformation. Clearly with the rise of Qanan, antifa, and even yesterdays events, our current approach is not work. I am all ears to hear better solutions but trusting people to be able to navigate the sea of misinformation to the island of truth leads to many shipwrecks.
    - 6y ago
raverbashing 6y ago
Let's say your case happens and that there is a case to suspect of election interference and results tampering The way to make the population aware is not through videos that people "MUST SEE!!11". Or typical manipulative ways of steering the masses. Of course the winners write history, if they were correct or not is in the end "less important" in some ways and more important in others
cle 6y ago
Indeed, I don't know what the right answer is here. As a civilization, we're struggling to adapt to the sudden fundamental shift in how information flows. I see these things as experiments in ways to mitigate the negative externalities caused by the changes, which to me is a good thing. We should be trying stuff out to see what works. I just fear that we won't be able to understand the blast radius of these experiments and may end up causing something dreadful to happen.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- nightski 6y ago
  I'm going to be honest I wonder if the censorship and content policing isn't having a worse effect than allowing the content in the first place. Tech companies have demonstrated a very clear liberal bias (which in itself isn't a bad thing necessarily). However by removing/censoring content they are actually legitimizing it because people don't see these companies as a neutral third party but rather a biased dictator of information. I have distant family that has bought into the conspiracy theories. But now that Youtube has started directing traffic away from their channels and putting up these warnings they feel under attack and have only doubled down on their beliefs. It makes it a lot harder to work with them/discuss these issues. When 49% of the country voted for a man who is currently the sitting president by law, and you can't even retweet his tweets it's pretty upsetting to them. They feel like they are under attack by the Big Tech companies. I know why Twitter did this. But it's only creating far more polarization between the rich people in power (aka Big Tech) and these people.
  - SR2Z 6y ago
    > Tech companies have demonstrated a very clear liberal bias (which in itself isn't a bad thing necessarily). The bias here is that the election has concluded with a clear winner in accordance with state law and the Constitution, and one man is using their platforms to make people doubt the integrity of the election. Given how difficult it is to build trust in democracy and how easy it is to collapse it, I think that these companies would be irresponsible to continue providing a megaphone for these claims. Alternative sites dedicated to the people who feel like they are "under attack" fail to launch because it turns out that catering to these people leads to nothing but misinformation, racism, and content that is either borderline or outright child pornography. My 2c on this issue is that we will not resolve this situation by accommodating conspiracy theories and racism. Instead, the only way that we can reconcile these two groups of people is by ensuring that everyone sees the same news - recommenders that have partitioned the world in half need to be done away with, even if it reduces user engagement.
picardythird 6y ago
But Youtube is actually defying the government. It’s the opposite of what you’re saying.
yongjik 6y ago
Slippery slope works in both directions. If the president is spreading misinformation on an election he just lost, and if everybody's OK with that, what happens when a more capable wannabe dictator comes next and spreads misinformation? We just let them seize the power?

jschwartzi 6y ago

Nothing is stopping the Russian government from doing that today, so I don't see why it matters. I could say the same thing about your ask that YouTube allow a free-for-all on their platform but that's only because I'm witnessing the logical conclusion here in the US. We have to do something different or these events will repeat themselves.

s3tz 6y ago
Maybe the path of least resistance isn't the best answer. This sets a very dangerous precedent.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  I think we've pretty conclusively proven that there's no non-dangerous option available. Maybe this isn't the best answer, but speaking as someone who's very consistently opposed these kinds of content policies in the past, I no longer think it's tenable to take a hard line against information control here.

staplers 6y ago

While I do believe we are at a "benevolent dictator" stage of social media, what happened yesterday should be feared by every democratic nation and regardless of the "side" you are on it should be avoided at most costs. It's quite literally the seeds to fracturing a society.

AgentME 6y ago

This action is YouTube pushing back against government misinformation! Why would you think it's a sign that they're more likely to push government misinformation in the future?

core-questions 6y ago
Zoom out. This action is YouTube controlling the dialogue and acting as though they're the Ministry of Truth. Here's an amazing suggestion for you: if you don't like someone's opinion, don't watch their videos. Amazing. Super easy to do. Just click that little X button at the top right and move on with your life. No draconian censorship, no 1984 bullshit required. Just walk away. Adults who can handle contrasting opinions should be allowed to see, read, share, and issue them to their hearts' content. Even if you think they're wrong. It's kind of the whole damned point of free speech, which is being pissed away by childish morons who never understood why people fought and died for it to start with.
- tylersmith 6y ago
  I agree with you 100%, but the people that push for these kinds of policies are not concerned with what they choose to watch, they want to limit what others watch. Simply being able to not watch a video won't be sufficient for them.
- km3r 6y ago
  As another commenter mentioned, we are adjusting to a new form of information flow now in the post social media age. What was easily disproven and dismissed 20 years ago, now is amplified by radicals. I don't think banning the speech is the right choice but we need someway to counter misinformation. Its 100x easier to come up with these lies then it is to dispel them. The information war is already heavily on the side of misinformation. Clearly with the rise of Qanan, antifa, and even yesterdays events, our current approach is not work. I am all ears to hear better solutions but trusting people to be able to navigate the sea of misinformation to the island of truth leads to many shipwrecks.
  - 6y ago

raverbashing 6y ago

Let's say your case happens and that there is a case to suspect of election interference and results tampering The way to make the population aware is not through videos that people "MUST SEE!!11". Or typical manipulative ways of steering the masses. Of course the winners write history, if they were correct or not is in the end "less important" in some ways and more important in others

cle 6y ago

Indeed, I don't know what the right answer is here. As a civilization, we're struggling to adapt to the sudden fundamental shift in how information flows. I see these things as experiments in ways to mitigate the negative externalities caused by the changes, which to me is a good thing. We should be trying stuff out to see what works. I just fear that we won't be able to understand the blast radius of these experiments and may end up causing something dreadful to happen.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
nightski 6y ago
I'm going to be honest I wonder if the censorship and content policing isn't having a worse effect than allowing the content in the first place. Tech companies have demonstrated a very clear liberal bias (which in itself isn't a bad thing necessarily). However by removing/censoring content they are actually legitimizing it because people don't see these companies as a neutral third party but rather a biased dictator of information. I have distant family that has bought into the conspiracy theories. But now that Youtube has started directing traffic away from their channels and putting up these warnings they feel under attack and have only doubled down on their beliefs. It makes it a lot harder to work with them/discuss these issues. When 49% of the country voted for a man who is currently the sitting president by law, and you can't even retweet his tweets it's pretty upsetting to them. They feel like they are under attack by the Big Tech companies. I know why Twitter did this. But it's only creating far more polarization between the rich people in power (aka Big Tech) and these people.
- SR2Z 6y ago
  > Tech companies have demonstrated a very clear liberal bias (which in itself isn't a bad thing necessarily). The bias here is that the election has concluded with a clear winner in accordance with state law and the Constitution, and one man is using their platforms to make people doubt the integrity of the election. Given how difficult it is to build trust in democracy and how easy it is to collapse it, I think that these companies would be irresponsible to continue providing a megaphone for these claims. Alternative sites dedicated to the people who feel like they are "under attack" fail to launch because it turns out that catering to these people leads to nothing but misinformation, racism, and content that is either borderline or outright child pornography. My 2c on this issue is that we will not resolve this situation by accommodating conspiracy theories and racism. Instead, the only way that we can reconcile these two groups of people is by ensuring that everyone sees the same news - recommenders that have partitioned the world in half need to be done away with, even if it reduces user engagement.

picardythird 6y ago

But Youtube is actually defying the government. It’s the opposite of what you’re saying.

yongjik 6y ago

Slippery slope works in both directions. If the president is spreading misinformation on an election he just lost, and if everybody's OK with that, what happens when a more capable wannabe dictator comes next and spreads misinformation? We just let them seize the power?