4 ms·

Eh, I'm not sure I agree. YouTube is manifestly the wrong platform for serious discussion of anything. All their incentives are are geared toward engagement vol

Eh, I'm not sure I agree. YouTube is manifestly the wrong platform for serious discussion of anything. All their incentives are are geared toward engagement volume, not quality. The very best you could possibly expect from them is to include "science our advertisers don't hate" in recommendations.

Iverm2837 5y ago
If your intention is to inform as many people as possible, YouTube is manifestly the only platform for serious discussion of anything.
- gamacodre 5y ago
  Let me rephrase: It's the wrong platform for the discussion of anything controversial. Their ToS can pretty much be boiled down to "If you make trouble for us, we'll punish you. Or just delete your account." And "trouble" is defined as "threaten our business model in any way," which leads to their delightfully vague policies that try to balance the advertising revenue a loud idiot can generate against potential regulatory actions.
eindiran 5y ago
What is the suggested alternative for hosting serious video content? Vimeo? PeerTube? BitChute? Some other video hosting platform that is either entirely a ghost town or hosting manifestly questionable content?
- gamacodre 5y ago
  My guess would be that a "platform" for serious video content could not be financially viable on today's internet. It would need be able to alienate advertisers over points of principle, effectively argue those same points with regulators, and field an army of capable moderators. It would probably end up looking more like a public-interest media company than a video-sharing site. Discovering an algorithm to govern on-site activity by the general public that doesn't lift the scum to the top could be a decent start.
- MilnerRoute 5y ago
  I have a server. I can upload video to my server. That was sort of the whole promise of the web... YouTube made it so easy to upload video to their site instead that vast swaths of the population now seem to have forgotten that you can also upload video to your own site. If a medical researcher has something to say: they could upload it to their university's site, or to their own personal site, or to the web site of whatever conference they want to present their talk at. Upload it to their blog, and then share the post's URL... YouTube's policies deserve scrutiny and probably criticism. But I think it's a dead-end argument to say that mistakes in YouTube's policies can entirely stop a video from being disseminated online.
mc32 5y ago
But lots of other scientific and other pseudo-scientific debates and videos get hosted on YT no problem. The problem seems to be if the content goes against certain narratives, it then gets flagged. You wanna talk about hormones doing or not doing something for you. Go for it. Sugar is bad or good. Go for it. It questions certain narratives pushed by certain interests... nah ah ah.
- gamacodre 5y ago
  But that’s the point of what I was trying to say. Their policies and more particularly their actions seem inconsistent from the standpoint of [science/politics/research/reason] because they’re based on [revenue/regulatory defense/regulatory capture/traffic]. That strategy is obviously successful, which is disheartening to me. But I’m not sure how to argue against it.

Iverm2837 5y ago

If your intention is to inform as many people as possible, YouTube is manifestly the only platform for serious discussion of anything.

gamacodre 5y ago
Let me rephrase: It's the wrong platform for the discussion of anything controversial. Their ToS can pretty much be boiled down to "If you make trouble for us, we'll punish you. Or just delete your account." And "trouble" is defined as "threaten our business model in any way," which leads to their delightfully vague policies that try to balance the advertising revenue a loud idiot can generate against potential regulatory actions.

eindiran 5y ago

What is the suggested alternative for hosting serious video content? Vimeo? PeerTube? BitChute? Some other video hosting platform that is either entirely a ghost town or hosting manifestly questionable content?

gamacodre 5y ago
My guess would be that a "platform" for serious video content could not be financially viable on today's internet. It would need be able to alienate advertisers over points of principle, effectively argue those same points with regulators, and field an army of capable moderators. It would probably end up looking more like a public-interest media company than a video-sharing site. Discovering an algorithm to govern on-site activity by the general public that doesn't lift the scum to the top could be a decent start.
MilnerRoute 5y ago
I have a server. I can upload video to my server. That was sort of the whole promise of the web... YouTube made it so easy to upload video to their site instead that vast swaths of the population now seem to have forgotten that you can also upload video to your own site. If a medical researcher has something to say: they could upload it to their university's site, or to their own personal site, or to the web site of whatever conference they want to present their talk at. Upload it to their blog, and then share the post's URL... YouTube's policies deserve scrutiny and probably criticism. But I think it's a dead-end argument to say that mistakes in YouTube's policies can entirely stop a video from being disseminated online.

mc32 5y ago

But lots of other scientific and other pseudo-scientific debates and videos get hosted on YT no problem. The problem seems to be if the content goes against certain narratives, it then gets flagged. You wanna talk about hormones doing or not doing something for you. Go for it. Sugar is bad or good. Go for it. It questions certain narratives pushed by certain interests... nah ah ah.

gamacodre 5y ago
But that’s the point of what I was trying to say. Their policies and more particularly their actions seem inconsistent from the standpoint of [science/politics/research/reason] because they’re based on [revenue/regulatory defense/regulatory capture/traffic]. That strategy is obviously successful, which is disheartening to me. But I’m not sure how to argue against it.