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Stop buying into the "the AI did it" whitewashing. Youtube is selectively targeting more and more channels and videos for daring to be any sort of contrarian. I

Stop buying into the "the AI did it" whitewashing. Youtube is selectively targeting more and more channels and videos for daring to be any sort of contrarian. Its psyops under any other name.

finnthehuman 6y ago
"The AI did it" is the same cop-out as "A low level employee did it of their own volition" and should be rejected as an excuse for all the same reasons.
root_axis 6y ago
It's not a "psyops", YouTube, like every gigantic corporation is motivated entirely by money, and they would be happy to monetize every video on the site if they could, but advertisers pay the bills, and since advertisers are sensitive to their public image, YouTube goes out of their way to appease them. The problem here is the ad model, not AI or YouTube's values.
- seriousquestion 6y ago
  That's an outdated view. Youtube now bends to activists and political winds.
  - root_axis 6y ago
    So what is the activist political position on WPA2 vulnerabilities? You see what you want to see, but YouTube hosts an overwhelming abundance of evidence that contradicts your claim.
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      Internal employee pressure is the cause of some things getting removed, but they are not behind everything. In this particular case it might bdriven by legal concerns or something. But it should also be seen in light of the status quo. When censorship being the new default, then it doesn't take a strong reason to add another thing, such as hacking-adjacent content to the no-go pile. The code is already written, and the routines are well-known. There is no freedom-of-speech reputation left to protect. So the cost of removing this content is very low, lower than the legal risk.
      - root_axis 6y ago
        Without any evidence this is just speculation. The reality is, there are many popular political YouTube channels that represent viewpoints all across the spectrum and this is an easily verifiable fact. I am yet to see any evidence that YouTube is motivated by anything other than money.
        deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
        im3w1l 6y ago
        I have seen evidence, but nothing I can share publicly.
    - tomschlick 6y ago
      > So what is the activist political position on WPA2 vulnerabilities? Well we did just have a case with Twitter and IIRC Youtube where they redefined their "hacked material" policies to bend to the political will after the whole Hunter Biden laptop fiasco. So this may just be collateral damage due to those policy changes and the AI behind enforcing them.
    - int_19h 6y ago
      The activist political position is that targeted hacking is a major political threat (DNC hacks etc). Thus, any material that sounds like it might be providing assistance to that is potentially politically volatile.
  - president 6y ago
    IMO bending to activists and political winds is within the same realm of what OP mentioned. There is a LOT of money to be made by following the trends and in today's world, activism and politicizing is the name of the game.
  - benlivengood 6y ago
    Advertisers (and PR departments) are fragile to activists and political winds. Society gives PR departments far too much power. We should be electing governments that enforce reasonable standards, not relying on what is essentially DDoS to achieve social mores.
- IronWolve 6y ago
  >hey would be happy to monetize every video on the site if they could, but advertisers pay the bills, and since advertisers are sensitive to their public image Thats the excuse, but in reality, google still runs ads on demonetized channels. And there are companies that want to advertise on these other channels. Google is actually doing a disservice to stock holders by excluding profits, but many suspect that they want to be a cable network in the long run, siding with media corps. There are tiers of advertisers, lower tier companies will gladly pay to advertise on lower quality channels.
ehsankia 6y ago
Are you claiming that Youtube is running psyops trying to cover up PhD research into WPA2 security? I don't want to distort your argument, I honestly don't get how you went from a WPA2 video being accidentally taken down to "this is intentional psychological warfare"...
- arminiusreturns 6y ago
  No, I'm talking about youtubes censorship campaign much more broadly. I was hoping that was much more obvious. I am saying that I have been paying attention to this trend for years, and I very often have seen both creators on youtube and youtube use the AI did it excuse, often without evidence that its true, and I posit if someone wanted to, it would be possible to prove. I can't prove it myself, but I can offer a plethora of inductive evidence that builds up the probability that I am right to a high enough probability range to be correct. More than just a pattern on youtube itself, but just read the kind of doublespeak Susan Wojcicki puts on on the topic.
t-writescode 6y ago
YouTube is? Or we as a society are? The world of Fahrenheit 451 didn't arrive that way in a day, it probably took decades.

Stop buying into the "the AI did it" whitewashing. Youtube is selectively targeting more and more channels and videos for daring to be any sort of contrarian. Its psyops under any other name.

finnthehuman 6y ago

"The AI did it" is the same cop-out as "A low level employee did it of their own volition" and should be rejected as an excuse for all the same reasons.

root_axis 6y ago

It's not a "psyops", YouTube, like every gigantic corporation is motivated entirely by money, and they would be happy to monetize every video on the site if they could, but advertisers pay the bills, and since advertisers are sensitive to their public image, YouTube goes out of their way to appease them. The problem here is the ad model, not AI or YouTube's values.

seriousquestion 6y ago
That's an outdated view. Youtube now bends to activists and political winds.
- root_axis 6y ago
  So what is the activist political position on WPA2 vulnerabilities? You see what you want to see, but YouTube hosts an overwhelming abundance of evidence that contradicts your claim.
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    Internal employee pressure is the cause of some things getting removed, but they are not behind everything. In this particular case it might bdriven by legal concerns or something. But it should also be seen in light of the status quo. When censorship being the new default, then it doesn't take a strong reason to add another thing, such as hacking-adjacent content to the no-go pile. The code is already written, and the routines are well-known. There is no freedom-of-speech reputation left to protect. So the cost of removing this content is very low, lower than the legal risk.
    - root_axis 6y ago
      Without any evidence this is just speculation. The reality is, there are many popular political YouTube channels that represent viewpoints all across the spectrum and this is an easily verifiable fact. I am yet to see any evidence that YouTube is motivated by anything other than money.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - im3w1l 6y ago
        I have seen evidence, but nothing I can share publicly.
  - tomschlick 6y ago
    > So what is the activist political position on WPA2 vulnerabilities? Well we did just have a case with Twitter and IIRC Youtube where they redefined their "hacked material" policies to bend to the political will after the whole Hunter Biden laptop fiasco. So this may just be collateral damage due to those policy changes and the AI behind enforcing them.
  - int_19h 6y ago
    The activist political position is that targeted hacking is a major political threat (DNC hacks etc). Thus, any material that sounds like it might be providing assistance to that is potentially politically volatile.
- president 6y ago
  IMO bending to activists and political winds is within the same realm of what OP mentioned. There is a LOT of money to be made by following the trends and in today's world, activism and politicizing is the name of the game.
- benlivengood 6y ago
  Advertisers (and PR departments) are fragile to activists and political winds. Society gives PR departments far too much power. We should be electing governments that enforce reasonable standards, not relying on what is essentially DDoS to achieve social mores.
IronWolve 6y ago
>hey would be happy to monetize every video on the site if they could, but advertisers pay the bills, and since advertisers are sensitive to their public image Thats the excuse, but in reality, google still runs ads on demonetized channels. And there are companies that want to advertise on these other channels. Google is actually doing a disservice to stock holders by excluding profits, but many suspect that they want to be a cable network in the long run, siding with media corps. There are tiers of advertisers, lower tier companies will gladly pay to advertise on lower quality channels.

ehsankia 6y ago

Are you claiming that Youtube is running psyops trying to cover up PhD research into WPA2 security? I don't want to distort your argument, I honestly don't get how you went from a WPA2 video being accidentally taken down to "this is intentional psychological warfare"...

arminiusreturns 6y ago
No, I'm talking about youtubes censorship campaign much more broadly. I was hoping that was much more obvious. I am saying that I have been paying attention to this trend for years, and I very often have seen both creators on youtube and youtube use the AI did it excuse, often without evidence that its true, and I posit if someone wanted to, it would be possible to prove. I can't prove it myself, but I can offer a plethora of inductive evidence that builds up the probability that I am right to a high enough probability range to be correct. More than just a pattern on youtube itself, but just read the kind of doublespeak Susan Wojcicki puts on on the topic.

t-writescode 6y ago

YouTube is? Or we as a society are? The world of Fahrenheit 451 didn't arrive that way in a day, it probably took decades.