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YouTube approves ad by Belarusian gov with journalist from hijackd Ryanair plane
- notimetocry 5y agoThe ad shows the journalist Roman Protasevich "confessing" that he is being treated well and he has no complaints. However, he looks beaten and scared.
- tyingq 5y agoThey are also showing parts of the video, outside of the ad, where he "confesses" to organizing mass riots[1]. I'm guessing that's the bit he was beaten into submission for. Close up of his forehead: https://archive.is/bYKJt/0961300a066abefe7e7cea32db259ef162cc03f6.jpg https://archive.is/bYKJt/0961300a066abefe7e7cea32db259ef162c... [1]https://archive.is/bYKJt https://archive.is/bYKJt
- henadzit 5y agoBelta (the state news agency) was using YouTube for propaganda for almost a year since the protests in 2020 in Belarus. Videos of "confessions" by beaten protestors were very common. I'm not sure how much the government spends on ads but you can hardly watch anything on YouTube without stumbling into a propaganda video.
- smallstepforman 5y agoHow is this any different from State sponsored propaganda from Western governments?
- cycrutchfield 5y agoOther than the fact that almost everything is different?
- chesusfingkrist 5y agoWhataboutism is not helpful in any way, and you should feel bad for not appreciating that (regardless of you deliberately trolling or not.)
- njovin 5y agoI assume that participants in the videos sponsored by Western governments have not been detained/kidnapped and coerced (or worse).
- eptcyka 5y agoI've not seen Western states using videos of tortured hostages to signal boost their propaganda channels. I think this is a significant difference, don't you think?
- qwertox 5y agoI mostly share your view on this, but don't forget that when our TV stations show on repeat how our cops are beating Antifa members in demonstrations, that this has also the same chilling effect on us. They are usually followed by interviews from higher-ups in the police force who then frame their view of things. Also, you don't see them followed by interviews from Antifa members, which might have something just as valid to say. It is a different thing, but there are similarities.
- xwolfi 5y agoSame with the capitole attacks yeah, we see a lot of people being arrested but no hour long interviews of thought leaders being QAnon. Antifa and QAnon are the new Christianity and if the US was founded to protect religions, these should now be protected as well, in all their glory. Disclaimer: Im in China, I may not have the US' best interests in mind :p
- qwertox 5y agoI want to explicitly distance myself from your comment. Did you forget an /s-tag?
- valuearb 5y agoWhat cops beating what antifa members?
- 8note 5y agoWestern states try hard to hide their torture. I'd assume that's the main difference.
- 5y ago
- saba2008 5y agoCounter question. How is this any different from videos of beheadings by ISIS and skinnings by narco cartels?
- 746487482 5y agoIt includes a hostage. I don't care about the message of the video as long as its subject participates voluntary. It's like an execution video. YouTube shouldn't show it because it's degrading to the victim.
- alkonaut 5y ago”Don’t be evil”
- underseacables 5y agoYouTube has never shied away from monetizing human rights abuses. I guess this is no different. Before watching this video of a journalist who was kidnapped and possibly tortured to give you this false statement, here’s an ad about liberty mutual life insurance. Liberty!
- dilyevsky 5y agoPossibly? Look at his face
- alfalfasprout 5y agoFrankly it's stuff like this that gives me pause about ever working at a company like Google. It's truly disgusting.
- BitwiseFool 5y ago"Don't be Evil" is outdated. Now it's "Do the right thing".
- zibzab 5y agoDo the right thing To get us another deal Sometimes it's a bit evil Sometimes just a bit shady And don't you ever worry If we cancel anything it will be Hangsout, Play Music, Timely and Poly
- munk-a 5y agoI'm still sad over losing iGoogle.
- Tade0 5y agoSuddenly the JSON license doesn't appear that problematic.
- 746487482 5y ago
- IAmEveryone 5y agoI don't get these "confession" videos. Not only is it usually obvious that they are coerced, either by the person's demeanour or obvious signs of violence. They are such a trope of dictatorships it wouldn't even be possible to broadcast the most truthful of any such confession video without looking suspicious. Indeed the very act of humiliating your enemies in public is incompatible with the idea of democracy. So, what gives? Is it supposed to demonstrate the regime's ability to break you? Do these dictatorships just suck at PR as much as they suck at other aspects of governing?
- bjornsing 5y agoI suspect it’s meant to deter opponents and fool the loyal base, both at the same time. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s effective, at both objectives.
- watwut 5y agoIt shows power. If you do a he did, this will happen to you. All with plausible deniality. If allows for many bad faith arguments.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- superjan 5y agoSome people may be fooled, but more importantly, if you are an ally of the regime it helps you to an alternative story (fairy tale) that you can claim to believe in, and then pressure others to act on the premisse that the fairy tale is true.
- rodgerd 5y agoPrecisely. It becomes a talking point, whether for true believers in support of the current Belarussian regime or its allies, or useful idiots; one of the challenges of an open society is how to move without becoming hopelessly bogged down in bad-faith argumentation: "skeptical environmentalists", pro-tobacco fake science, or the latest push from apparently Russian-based PR agencies to pay influencers for an astroturf campaign against vaccination.
- albertop 5y agoI wonder how much time before whataboutism comments will show up.
- jaywalk 5y agoDeclaring "whataboutism" has become more of a fallacy than actual "whataboutism" could ever be.
- RhodoGSA 5y agoHad to google whataboutism, which sent me into a fallacy wiki-hole. Only then could i come back, understand and laugh at your comment lol. After some thinking it seems a lack of authority on what 'Truly' constitutes a logical fallacy during a conversation, but claiming the other is using a fallacy is a fallacy in it's own right. May I suggest Fallaception?
- infamouscow 5y agoI think the problem is people cry whataboutism as a way of silencing dissenting opinions rather than engaging in a discussion rebutting the premise(s).
- kbelder 5y agoIt reminds me of calling 'slippery slope' on an argument. Slippery slope arguments are sometimes fallacious, and sometimes very pertinent. You actually have to use reason to distinguish the two scenarios, not just use pattern recognition to try to spot a match to a list of fallacies. Lots of people using 'what about' are doing so to try to make reasonable comparisons between two cases. Lots of people do it to avoid blame or confuse the argument. You have to actually read to figure out which it is.
- infamouscow 5y agoNot only will you have to read, you'll also have to think critically.
- 5y ago
- smoldesu 5y agoHis face is very obviously covered in makeup, it's almost glaringly apparent that he's been abused heavily.
- formerly_proven 5y agoThat's the point of these videos I would say.
- smsm42 5y agoProof of life too. "He's not dead.... yet".
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- thanatos519 5y agoI've been thinking that the most appropriate response to this situation is to send an extraction team to rescue him.
- zionic 5y agoI’m not sure we can count on the governments that keep JA rotting in prison to rescue a journalist.
- thanatos519 5y agoDid I say anything about governments? Let's crowdfund it.
- H8crilA 5y agoImagine thinking that money solves such problems. Who are you going to pay for that? Your neighbor Joey, he will go and perform an intelligence operation in a foreign country? Or maybe some professional CIA-as-a-service corporation?
- sillysaurusx 5y agoI might go. But I'm not sure an out of shape balding programmer would be much help. It's appealing to try to help this person, though. Maybe other people feel the same.
- sam_lowry_ 5y agoFor sure I do.
- sillysaurusx 5y agoThe main problem is that a paramilitary group (us) has a disadvantage vs a government agency (them). They have the people, the equipment, and the home territory. There's also the language barrier; most of the people we'd recruit wouldn't be able to blend in, which is crucial for an op like this. There's also the question of logistics. It would be hard to transport weapons across country borders. The most likely way to do it might be to start the op in a neighboring country. But if you want to drive, you'll probably be stopped at a checkpoint. Walking isn't very appealing. I suppose you could parachute in, Fortnite-style, but that's pushing the boundaries of believability. Plus that Mig they sent to intercept the civilian plane might have a few things to say about that. That poor guy. I wish there was something to do for him.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dougSF70 5y agoYouTube's profiteering from this is sickening.
- zokier 5y agoHN frontpage is the best support route for goog services. I'll guess the issue will now be addressed within 24 hours. I wished I was joking.
- tehwebguy 5y agoMy experience is that YouTube only budges when a major newspaper publishes an article.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- sundvor 5y agoOr it reaches top spot on HN.
- bassman9000 5y agoMajor left leaning newspaper FTFY
- tehwebguy 5y agoI'm not sure Wall Street Journal is considered left-leaning
- sillysaurusx 5y agoIs it true, though? It seems easy to make this up, and get everyone riled up. But it seems like it could be true, too. I'm just wondering how to verify.
- brutal_chaos_ 5y agoRegardless, being here will get Google's attention, which is what I believe OP was getting at.
- notimetocry 5y agoI wish all of this wasn't true. Is there some sort of archive for YouTube ads? It would be very helpful right now.
- morelisp 5y agoPeople often ask what a union could do for tech employees given they are already extremely well-compensated. One key thing would be to stop bullshit like this.
- andrewflnr 5y agoI agree in principle, but the connection between a hypothetical union and the approving particular ads is tenuous. I can see the argument for letting engineers resist being told to build unethical systems, but approving ads is a general policy decision engineers wouldn't ordinarily have control over. If they swing their weight around on that, there's basically nothing that's off limits, and I don't know if that's the right way to go about this problem.
- asquabventured 5y agoHow does a union help stop a foreign dictator from buying ads?
- dhanna 5y agoI really wish there was an electoral system of some sorts .
- smsm42 5y agoWe have an electoral system that elected the Congress. Do you think they are awesome and doing an awesome job? 33% of citizens agree with you, up from 15% last year (all it took was distributing $2k to everybody - see how easy it is?).
- varispeed 5y agoThere is this saying "pecunia non olet". Google do support different questionable agendas as long as it suits them financially.
- wnevets 5y agoIf YouTube didn't approve the AD would that be considered "Big Tech" using their monopoly to censor free speech?
- livre 5y agoI doubt that, free speech is for people not for governments. And an ad is a commercial relationship, both parts have to agree. They are still free to upload it as a normal video to their channel, they went the ad route because people would not normally support it but as an ad they can force them to watch.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- hardlianotion 5y agoDisgraceful
- twirlock 5y agoMaybe the western intelligentsia doesn't want to assert too many standards what will come back to bite it. [I'm just kidding. They obviously don't give a shit about that.]
- vbezhenar 5y agoI saw ad which called on storming government building in Kazakhstan at the day of the elections. It was on Youtube and I saw it twice with few days in-between. I sent a report first time.
- baybal2 5y agoWhy?
- djxfade 5y agoDisgusting. Google should be ashamed. Dirty money
- AussieWog93 5y ago"Content Reviewer Earning $5 a Day in The Philippines isn't Aware of Geopolitical Situation on Foreign Continent"
- ggggtez 5y agoWhile this explains how the problem happens, they should still fix it. I do agree that people get overly outraged when it's likely an honest mistake by a minimum wage worker.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- justaguy88 5y agoGive them some reading time each day at the start of the shift
- dylan604 5y agoTo read what? DC comics, Vogue, Hello, etc? Just because people have reading time doesn't mean they are going to read what you are hoping they might.
- account42 5y agoPeople aren't outraged at a minimum wage worker though, they are outraged at a billion dollar corporation that insists on making those minimum wage workers the only official contact point.
- ljm 5y agoAll I see is a link to a tweet, with a screenshot. And an editorialised title. The link isn't to the advert in question. Flagging.
- lolc 5y agoOne can link to an ad?
- davesque 5y agoRelatedly, I wish there was a way to tell Google I never want to see another PragerU ad ever again.
- hexis 5y agoThe way is YouTube Premium.
- tomcatfish 5y agouBlock Origin** (Why would you pay someone in order to stop behavior you find unethical?)
- gretch 5y agoSo you consider it ethical to watch videos hosted on the YouTube platform with their own servers/datacenters, that a creator is earning non-zero revenue from and block all ads? Like block ads if you want man, whatever, but to take a moral high road lol...
- anders_p 5y agoThat's not what the comment said at all. He didn't claim that his action was ethical. He said that YouTube's was unethical. You completely misunderstood.
- gretch 5y agoNo, I took the argument that would logically follow instead of purely reading it literally. Ethics is the basis of parent's argument. If what you are saying is true, that parent would yield their action is unethical, then the comment completely spelled out would be: "Do not take YT's prescribed course (YT premium) because they are unethical. Instead, take my suggested route, even though it is also unethical" Additionally, OP presented their option with * which means it's a correction or superior form, and not just an alternative. If they had said 'or alternatively use ublock' then maybe it would have been okay.
- trhway 5y agoIt is Belarus, yet he is talking in Russian. Though it is pretty obvious that he isn't really talking, he is reading the text behind the camera, and evidently that text is in Russian.
- fy20 5y agoFYI the main language spoken in Belarus is Russian. Lukashenko effectively abandoned the Belarusian language early in his days of power. Most people under 35 can't even speak proper Belarusian. https://www.quora.com/Do-the-Belarusians-still-speak-Belarusian https://www.quora.com/Do-the-Belarusians-still-speak-Belarus...
- spoonjim 5y agoEven worse — YouTube approved ads from the US government, who forced down not an ordinary passenger plane but the plane of Bolivian President Evo Morales on a bad hunch that Snowden was on board. So YouTube has been advertising for terrorist regimes for quite some time.
- anders_p 5y agoDid the US government ads show a tortured hostage forced to "confess" to something? No they didn't. You are comparing apples to oranges. We are seeing a dicator state broadcast their use of torture on a dissident via Google ads. I'm appalled that you would trivialize this like it's a "business as usual" scenario.
- spoonjim 5y agoI’m not saying it’s “business as usual” — I’m saying that the US government is the world’s most active and most effective terrorist operation, effective to the point where its terrorism is normalized as just part of life.
- azangru 5y agoI remembered that incident and searched Google for more details. According to Wikipedia[0], the plane was not "forced down" — it was denied air space by several countries, requested an emergency landing in Austria, and was searched in the airport. At no point were any American or NATO jet fighters involved in forcing the landing. [0] — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident#Forced_landing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident...
- senbarryobama 5y agoOh man. YouTube ads are getting ridiculous
- dkersten 5y agoGoogle monetising tortured people, yet another reason why I find them to be a truly evil company and why the “I work in ads at google and I’m not a bad person” people are deluded, in my opinion.
- shashurup 5y agoI believe Google is just an ad business unexpectely found itself to be a media company figuring what standards to adhere. IMO their try to be unbiased is a bit awkward.
- dkersten 5y agoThat's no excuse. If they weren't chasing giant growth, then they could have dealt with the issues as they arose, but instead they're largely turning a blind eye. I've seen so many advertisements served by them that were downright trash (as I've said before in other HN threads... I've seen adverts for: outright scams, malware, gambling, mobile games with extremely exploitative monetisation, porn, incest porn games) and they are tirelessly working to take away any privacy I might have to keep showing me this shit. Then they claim that at their scale they can't do anything about it (or downright ignore it) yet they're the ones who chose to become that big, in an effort to chase profits. They chose profits over people, that makes them evil and makes people who work for them, knowingly making it worse in order to collect a higher paycheck, also evil.
- shashurup 5y agoMy experience with youtube is different. I've never seen an ad which I considered inappropriate, nothing from what you listed. So commenting on that I was mostly focused on content rather than ads. For ads, I think, it is pretty clear that what you mentioned is inappropriate. But the subj IMO is just an exception which probably sneaked through in the disguise of social ad or something.
- wly_cdgr 5y agoIt's called YouTube, not BetterThanYouTube
- hollerith 5y agoIf you have seen a video ad by the Belarusian gov, please reply with what country Youtube thought you were in when they served it to you. I'm curious which countries the Belarusan gov is trying to influence. (If I had to guess, I'd say they limited their ad spend to the US.)
- aembleton 5y agoWhy would you guess that? Iewould have thought they would spend it advertising to those in Belarus.IIts propaganda for domestic consumption.
- hollerith 5y agoWhat you say makes sense, and one sign that you are right is the fact that no one has chimed in here to say that they saw one of the ads.
- dukeofdoom 5y agoSomething similar happened when Snowden was trying to get away from the US. The US govt forced a plane down, on mere suspicion Snowden was on board. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales_grounding_incident
- ashtonkem 5y agoCan we discuss this for one second without such naked whataboutism? It’s really quite tiresome.
- Anthony-G 5y agoFor those who aren’t aware of Evo Morales’ plane being forced down (by denial of airspace), this comment provides relevant context. Perhaps, the Belarussian state learned from this and decided to take abuse of airspace regulations one step further. It’s not “whataboutism” if one considers both incidents to be an abuse of power.
- stevespang 5y agoTRAITORS ! YouTube staff ought to be arrested immediately and dragged before a tribunal.
- kecupochren 5y agoHow is this with 820 points, 12 hours ago, on 5th page?
- cameron_b 5y agocontentiousness sinks, so comments being downvoted will bring the headline down