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Google is claiming these videos were never on YouTube? That seems... odd? And surely easy to refute, if they were public? Internet Archive would at least have

Google is claiming these videos were never on YouTube? That seems... odd? And surely easy to refute, if they were public? Internet Archive would at least have scraped the channel's page. TFA links to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGPZJTVIpNe-hroLo-CQ9wQ/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=1 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGPZJTVIpNe-hroLo-CQ9wQ/vid... which currently 404s... But which indeed did contain many videos... https://web.archive.org/web/20201101020416if_/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGPZJTVIpNe-hroLo-CQ9wQ/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=1 https://web.archive.org/web/20201101020416if_/https://www.yo...

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
It's worth noting, though, that this channel is not the one which the source article describes as "the conference's channel". I wouldn't say it's impossible that Google would delete a channel for bad reasons, but it really seems like nobody in this story is super clear on what happened.
motbob 6y ago
Fwiw, there have been instances of Google straight up not being able to restore deleted content. When you go to delete videos, you do get warnings that deletion cannot be undone. I wouldn't be surprised if Google didn't have great records of deleted content. Maybe Google deleted this tiny channel, or maybe it was user error by Project Censored (the apparent organizers of the conference), or maybe it was a publicity stunt by Project Censored. All three possibilities seem about equally likely.
- ikerdanzel 6y ago
  Google censorship is more equal than other possibilities. They themselves have committed a lot lately compare to say owner did it. Purely based on perception, without any proof, I say your last statement is unlikely.
  - jfrunyon 6y ago
    "More equal"? The idea that YouTube deleted some random videos that no one has ever heard of and then lied about it, is "more equal" than the idea that an organization whose stated position is basically "Google bad because censor" wants to make Google seem bad?
    - devlopr 6y ago
      This was an academic channel conference that many people viewed. Perhaps not a popular channel for you but still worthy of existing.
      - grandmczeb 6y ago
        I don’t think they’re questioning whether it’s worthy of existing, but rather why Google would choose to target this video specifically given that it has ~0 reach and the potential PR consequences of lying.
      - judge2020 6y ago
        Sure, but in a sea of billions of views a day[0] YT isn't targeting specific channels - at this scale, there's going to be at least one moderation mistakes for every million views (and that's being generous). 0: https://blog.youtube/press/ https://blog.youtube/press/
- DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
  > Fwiw, there have been instances of Google straight up not being able to restore deleted content. When you go to delete videos, you do get warnings that deletion cannot be undone As there’s (former, no-NDA) YouTube SWEs/SREs here - can anyone shed light onto how YouTube’s storage system works? What amount of storage redundancy and retention is available for the vast majority of videos that only get a few views ever?
- Triv888 6y ago
  > I wouldn't be surprised if Google didn't have great records of deleted content. It would surprise me if Google didn't keep everything. Harvesting data is part of their business model.
  - CydeWeys 6y ago
    Then consider yourself surprised. Deleted data is actually deleted. Keeping it around is a huge liability.
    - bordercases 6y ago
      Good SRE practices suggest keeping data of certain sorts around for awhile before the deletion is fully completed.
    - Yoric 6y ago
      I don't know how things work these days, but a few years ago, Google's GFS didn't support deletion. The "delete" flag only meant "don't replicate this data" and it was just simpler for them to keep it around until the disk died. Source: This was published by Google in their research papers on GFS. Sorry, can't remember which paper.
      - joshuamorton 6y ago
        Without reading the paper, I'm about 99% positive it also would mark the data as unused, which would allow the disk space to be reclaimed and overridden. Disks aren't write once. It also likely would reindex it, meaning that you can't find it if you go looking for it unless you happen to know which disk it's in already and it hasn't been overwritten yet.
        catmanjan 6y ago
        So basically recycle bin rather than shredder
        6y ago
gipp 6y ago
They said they had no record. Considering this incident supposedly happened in November, there would be a strong possibility the content would have been permanently deleted after a given period due to GDPR concerns, in which case of course they would have no record.
Thorrez 6y ago
>TFA links to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGPZJTVIpNe-hroLo-CQ9wQ/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=1 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGPZJTVIpNe-hroLo-CQ9wQ/vid... which currently 404s... Where is that link in the article? I just see a link to this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWo6nbsYT3a5jfHIRF3WmtQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWo6nbsYT3a5jfHIRF3WmtQ

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago

It's worth noting, though, that this channel is not the one which the source article describes as "the conference's channel". I wouldn't say it's impossible that Google would delete a channel for bad reasons, but it really seems like nobody in this story is super clear on what happened.

motbob 6y ago

Fwiw, there have been instances of Google straight up not being able to restore deleted content. When you go to delete videos, you do get warnings that deletion cannot be undone. I wouldn't be surprised if Google didn't have great records of deleted content. Maybe Google deleted this tiny channel, or maybe it was user error by Project Censored (the apparent organizers of the conference), or maybe it was a publicity stunt by Project Censored. All three possibilities seem about equally likely.

ikerdanzel 6y ago
Google censorship is more equal than other possibilities. They themselves have committed a lot lately compare to say owner did it. Purely based on perception, without any proof, I say your last statement is unlikely.
- jfrunyon 6y ago
  "More equal"? The idea that YouTube deleted some random videos that no one has ever heard of and then lied about it, is "more equal" than the idea that an organization whose stated position is basically "Google bad because censor" wants to make Google seem bad?
  - devlopr 6y ago
    This was an academic channel conference that many people viewed. Perhaps not a popular channel for you but still worthy of existing.
    - grandmczeb 6y ago
      I don’t think they’re questioning whether it’s worthy of existing, but rather why Google would choose to target this video specifically given that it has ~0 reach and the potential PR consequences of lying.
    - judge2020 6y ago
      Sure, but in a sea of billions of views a day[0] YT isn't targeting specific channels - at this scale, there's going to be at least one moderation mistakes for every million views (and that's being generous). 0: https://blog.youtube/press/ https://blog.youtube/press/
DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
> Fwiw, there have been instances of Google straight up not being able to restore deleted content. When you go to delete videos, you do get warnings that deletion cannot be undone As there’s (former, no-NDA) YouTube SWEs/SREs here - can anyone shed light onto how YouTube’s storage system works? What amount of storage redundancy and retention is available for the vast majority of videos that only get a few views ever?
Triv888 6y ago
> I wouldn't be surprised if Google didn't have great records of deleted content. It would surprise me if Google didn't keep everything. Harvesting data is part of their business model.
- CydeWeys 6y ago
  Then consider yourself surprised. Deleted data is actually deleted. Keeping it around is a huge liability.
  - bordercases 6y ago
    Good SRE practices suggest keeping data of certain sorts around for awhile before the deletion is fully completed.
  - Yoric 6y ago
    I don't know how things work these days, but a few years ago, Google's GFS didn't support deletion. The "delete" flag only meant "don't replicate this data" and it was just simpler for them to keep it around until the disk died. Source: This was published by Google in their research papers on GFS. Sorry, can't remember which paper.
    - joshuamorton 6y ago
      Without reading the paper, I'm about 99% positive it also would mark the data as unused, which would allow the disk space to be reclaimed and overridden. Disks aren't write once. It also likely would reindex it, meaning that you can't find it if you go looking for it unless you happen to know which disk it's in already and it hasn't been overwritten yet.
      - catmanjan 6y ago
        So basically recycle bin rather than shredder
        6y ago

gipp 6y ago

They said they had no record. Considering this incident supposedly happened in November, there would be a strong possibility the content would have been permanently deleted after a given period due to GDPR concerns, in which case of course they would have no record.

Thorrez 6y ago

>TFA links to https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGPZJTVIpNe-hroLo-CQ9wQ/videos?view=0&sort=dd&shelf_id=1 https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGPZJTVIpNe-hroLo-CQ9wQ/vid... which currently 404s... Where is that link in the article? I just see a link to this channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWo6nbsYT3a5jfHIRF3WmtQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWo6nbsYT3a5jfHIRF3WmtQ