41 ms·

The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated

459 points by mngnt 5y ago

rvz 5y ago
Once again, using the private platform argument here: YouTube (owned by Google) reserves the right to terminate and de-platform anyone's account who has been in violation of YouTube's guidelines and terms of service. You can criticise, protest, appeal, scream or throw a tantrum about it, etc but you should finally see that this can happen to anyone sitting on private platforms like YouTube. YouTube will never change and it will only get worse.
- gmemstr 5y ago
  That's not the issue here. The issue here is letting automated systems having final say on such destructive actions as terminating an account entirely, with no concrete way to appeal. From what I am aware of, few channels wrongfully suspended get reinstated through support but rather through public outcry on the likes of Twitter.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    I don't think that's in disagreement with the parent. Whatever means YouTube uses to determine who to drop and who to keep is irrelevant because the point is that if you host content on someone else's servers you are giving them control.
    - segfaultbuserr 5y ago
      I don't think so. The original comment says that YouTube has: > the right to terminate and de-platform anyone's account who has been in violation of YouTube's guidelines and terms of service. The problem here is letting automated systems, with a history of producing false-positives for content that didn't violate the Guidelines or ToS, having final say on account termination, with no concrete way to appeal - To me this is a fair criticism. If the original comment says "the right to arbitrarily terminate and de-platform anyone's account", then I'll say that you have a point.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  There is apparently a large contingent of people on this site holding the belief that if your private platform is large then the government should step in to force you to host things you don't want to host. It's kinda funny, because it's effectively saying that they want to nationalize tech companies for being successful.
  - throwawaylinux 5y ago
    No that's not true, there is a vast difference between regulation on business practices like this and nationalization.
  - Gollapalli 5y ago
    If you think about it, publicly traded companies are precisely that: nationalized. They exist as partly as government fiat, and partly of managerial control, but not as property. They are, by necessity, of somewhat unknowable, and almost always unaccountable ownership, ownership so diffuse it may be regarded as a generally representative subset of and equivalent to the general public. As such, can any public company be regarded as private? Or treated as private? Their ownership is public, and no individual, or small, knowable, and generally convenable group of people can say: these are our servers. On the contrary, a group of people equivalent to the general public, a subset of them in fact public or pseudo-public institutions (pension funds, university endowments), are the owners. As such, public institutions should very much be treated as public entities. After all, it is the general public which owns them.
    - WhyNotHugo 5y ago
      Publicly traded companies have a main goal of making profits for shareholders. This seldom aligns with the public's interest. For many (most?) companies, only the rich have any voting power, whereas the majority of the population just has to follow along. Publicly traded companies are like a democracy where you get more votes the more money you have. The implication here is that your voice/needs are only important if you're rich, and are unimportant if you're average or poor (which kind of explains why the US is the way it is).
- _null_ 5y ago
  >YouTube will never change and it will only get worse. Private entities can be swayed by their customer's demands. Not saying that YT _will_ be swayed, just that this sort of creator outrage has a place in the market system, and "throwing a tantrum" over their bad behavior doesn't always have to be met with "private entities can do whatever they want!"
  - mrkstu 5y ago
    That actually sounds like a good test for monopoly status- do you have to worry about what your customers want/desire or are you so entrenched that you don’t care?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- WhyNotHugo 5y ago
  Not sure why this guy is getting downvoted. I wish he were wrong, because he's saying sucks, but he's just telling the hard truth the way it is. YouTube won't change, yet we continue using it as if it didn't have the track record it does.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  > the private platform argument No part of what you said is an argument. Do private platforms have unlimited latitude? If not, what are the underlying philosophies underlying current limitations, and can those be seen to imply that other limitations should be made? Should private platforms have unlimited latitude? Those are discussions that could be had. "Private things are allowed to do whatever they want" is not only a thought-terminating cliché that avoids all ethical or tactical judgement, but a simple falsehood.
  - rvz 5y ago
    > Do private platforms have unlimited latitude? Who is arguing that? No need to create a straw-man argument. > "Private things are allowed to do whatever they want" Who are you quoting here? So YouTube (owned by Google) doesn't reserve the right to terminate and de-platform anyone's account who has been in violation of YouTube's guidelines and terms of service? I already said the offended users can appeal, didn't I? I'm just saying that not only this can happen to anyone, but YouTube (Google Inc.) will not change and we'll see more of this regardless if it is automated or not.
    - pessimizer 5y ago
      I'm not saying that you're arguing anything. > Who are you quoting here? Nobody. But if the fact that Google reserves the right to ban people for reasons described in its ToS is an argument for something, I'd like to know what else it could be an argument for. Who cares what Google reserves? edit: I'm being sloppy. "Google reserved the right to delete for this reason," and "private things that reserve rights get them", and "Google is private" equals "Google gains this right." This would be an argument you could make. However, you haven't made this argument. Are you making an argument about choosing youtube? I might be mistaking a pragmatic observation for a political/legal discussion.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  I'm out of the loop- what rules were broken?
- grey_earthling 5y ago
  I hope cases like this lead more people to understand that proprietors of private services do have so much control (even if they often wield it soberly), and persuade them to consider decentralised or protocol-based open alternatives. As ever, Tony Benn's five questions are instructive: “what power do you have; where did you get it; in whose interests do you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; and, how can we get rid of you?” => https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1998-11-16/debates/db35bbc5-17ba-4097-bcec-b18ba5057ad7/EuropeanParliamentaryElectionsBill#contribution-6dbb256d-47c3-484c-b7be-8e3d466aaa0a https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1998-11-16/debates/db3...
- maccolgan 5y ago
  Private platforms can indeed do whatever they want, but I think there's a discussion to be had about whether what they are doing is right or wrong...
Proven 5y ago
Why should we care? The tweet says it's been terminated "for some reason". WTF. Maybe it's justified. Unless you can explain why they terminated and show you did NOT violate their, I don't care. Do your homework first.
- mcjiggerlog 5y ago
  That's exactly the problem - they do not tell you why you were terminated.
- sodality2 5y ago
  How can Nick prove a negative? How about Youtube shows what violated the terms? Why can't they back up their claim with evidence, instead of Nick being forced to provide proof to disprove a claim without any?
  - happybirds07 5y ago
    Which would be very hard to do when the account is deleted, too
- josephcsible 5y ago
  > Unless you can explain why they terminated and show you did NOT violate their, I don't care Guilty until proven innocent!
- megous 5y ago
  Your post here was terminated. Now tell us why. And prove you did not violate ToS.
- aaronmdjones 5y ago
  It's impossible to prove that you have not violated the terms of service, as a sibling comment points out. It should be on YouTube to provide evidence that they have.
mcjiggerlog 5y ago
The Linux Experiment is probably my favourite linux-focussed YouTube channel. Nick has been doing absolutely fantastic work and his channel being permanently deleted would be an absolute travesty and a clear mistake. He is producing high quality, thoughtful, inoffensive content. Here's to hoping the channel is rightly reinstated ASAP, along with an apology and explanation from Google. Also, if you don't know the channel and want to check out his videos, you can still watch them on Odysee - https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment.
- lucasyvas 5y ago
  Does anyone have more context? This is one of my favourite Linux channels... what the fuck. This drive-by algorithm BS is ridiculous.
- drcongo 5y ago
  What is Odysee? I'm intrigued because at first glance it seems to be better than YouTube in almost every way possible. Page loads are quick, if you turn off AutoPlay it actually stays off, the controls are actually usable on an iPad etc.
  - fragileone 5y ago
    It's a peer-to-peer video client, with part of it's data being directly shared (similarly to torrents) and part via a blockchain. This makes it highly resistant to censorship and thus is where many people are moving their channels to.
    - corobo 5y ago
      > This makes it highly resistant to censorship We should probably stop using this phrase as a feature Instant thought was "ok so other than this channel it's all racism"
      - zbrozek 5y ago
        Certainly wasn't my first thought. Though there may be a better phrase.
WhyNotHugo 5y ago
YouTube has been changing in weird ways in the last year or so. The amount of propaganda on the platform is ridiculous, though very frequently disguised as "news" or "educational". As someone who's been around quite a bit, I can also imagine that it doesn't look like propaganda to average Americans (I'd be glad to be wrong on this). A great deal of content is just plain sophistry too. Inspecting comments, it seems that most viewers don't pick up on this. At the same time, finding reviews or alike for products or services is near impossible -- the platform is filled with generic reviews which are indistinguishable form ads.
- omgitsabird 5y ago
  This seems rather vague. Can you give examples of propaganda?
  - sbarre 5y ago
    Oh come on... spend 10 minutes on YouTube and you'll find tons of it. There have been countless articles and posts written about this problem over the last several years. I would challenge _you_ to go educate yourself on this rather than ask others to bring this widely available and widely accepted information to you.
  - sprafa 5y ago
    The current “ivermectin is a dangerous horse dewormer” debacle has been the biggest example of a moment where I’m not sure whether everyone is lying at this point. YouTube censored a few videos with actual experts and doctors who were discussing ivm. Yes we had issues with HCQ in the beginning, but ivm is being actually studied right now by Oxford Uni/NHS in their big covid trials in the UK… it’s amazing what a hit job the media is doing on it.
    - devwastaken 5y ago
      Being studied, not accepted in use in humans for COVID. Blame the idiots injecting themselves with the actual horse versions, and the doctors/vets illigally prescribing it. IVM is as useful as eating dirt in relation to COVID, until proven otherwise with studies that aren't fabricated data or otherwise p-hacked to death - it's disinformation, and rightfully removed.
underseacables 5y ago
The fault is on YouTube’s reliance on automated systems, making permanent decisions, without human intervention. However, in my humble opinion, people are naturally lazy. The humans who might be charged with reviewing automated decisions are no different. Especially if there is a cultural or language divide.
- cube00 5y ago
  :s/YouTube/Google
  - reasonabl_human 5y ago
    Usually I have to type :%s, and a trailing /g, you can omit those?
    - r3dey3 5y ago
      without % it only does the change on the current line; and /g means change all occurrences instead of first (per line)
- asah 5y ago
  no - see above comment re illegal sweepstakes
  - ashtonkem 5y ago
    Preventing illegal sweepstakes, even if accidentally illegal ones, seems like a good rule for YT to enforce. That being said, banning accounts without a process to solve the issue until there’s enough public furor for a moderator to notice is a bad system. If someone repeatedly breaks the rules, fine permaban them. But having a fake appeal process is pretty annoying, and makes me not want to do business with Google in general.
flavius29663 5y ago
This is anecdotal, but in my experience democrat Americans actually believe everything that the party tells them. They quote the exact same lines, I hear the exact same phrase from different people, and when I ask further questions there is silence. e.g. "rich people stash their money" with absolutely nothing to back that up. Surprisingly, republicans can be more open to conflicting ideas and for debate, even though their propaganda is significantly worse. Probably that is an effect of knowing vs not knowing it's propaganda, it seems to me that democrats in general are true believers in the party lines.
- lolinder 5y ago
  I live in a red state and my experience is the opposite. I suspect it might be that when your view is the majority in your area, you're more inclined to shut out opposing ideas as "fringe". It's the "I don't know anyone who voted ___" effect.
  - flavius29663 5y ago
    I definitely know more democrats than republicans (my area votes 80% democrat). But they are highly educated people (think U Chicago, Georgia Tech etc.) still believing every opinion their favorite news outlet sells them. I find that disturbing. Not the fact that they believe most of the party lines, but believing and defending ALL of them, like the party can do no wrong.
    - vcxy 5y ago
      My experience is also the opposite fwiw. To be fair, I don't think I know any democrats who actually like the party. They're more "not republican" than democrat. Maybe the democrats you've talked to are the true believers. The only example I can come up with that matches your experience is my dad, so maybe it's generational?
    - lolinder 5y ago
      That is exactly my experience of most Republicans in a red state. Every Trump talking point, every coronavirus conspiracy, it all gets eaten up. There are exceptions, to be sure, but a surprising number of otherwise thoughtful people accept it all unthinkingly.
qwerty456127 5y ago
As it often happens, again I discover a cool resource from the news about its termination. Is there by any chance a mirror of its content anywhere to download? If I were a YouTuber I would maintain an archive of my old videos available on ThePirateBay.
- izacus 5y ago
  The problem is that ThePirateBay will not pay you per view. YouTubers stay on YT because it pays out a slice of ad revenue and not because it's just a convenient distribution site. Making those videos costs an insane amount of time and money - which means that most YTers can't afford to do it for free. Any kind of YT competition needs to figure out on how to keep the revenue streams intact.
  - qwerty456127 5y ago
    That's why I wrote "an archive of my OLD videos". They probably don't generate much revenue already. Also, ThePirateBay does not compete with YouTube even in the cases of the same content being available on both the platforms. Most of the people want to watch the videos on-line, go to YouTube naturally and won't bother using torrents. Sophisticated people who want an off-line copy just use youtube-dl anyway. The actual YouTube audience will only go to ThePirateBay when they really can't access the videos on YouTube.
- aembleton 5y ago
  You can watch the channel at https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e
christophilus 5y ago
Wow. It's hard for me to imagine how he crossed any line worthy of deletion. He's one of the best Linux voices on YouTube, and seems like an incredibly nice guy. His content can be seen on Odysee[0]. Chris Titus Tech has a video covering this[1]. Honestly, I try to watch everything on Odysee these days, anyway, just to try to continue de-Googling my life. [0] https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHeZXkZT_jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHeZXkZT_jk
- asah 5y ago
  no - see above comment re illegal sweepstakes
- jvdheuvel 5y ago
  Chris Titus Tech has also an Odysee channel, https://odysee.com/@christitustech:5 https://odysee.com/@christitustech:5
gambler 5y ago
Any large communication platform has a choice: either accept some form of content neutrality or become a petty and chaotic tyrant constantly reeling from one public backlash after the other. YouTube made its choice. Now, random videos and channels get demonetized, content gets deleted for no reason and people covering basic news speak in code to avoid the wrath of the idiot AI. In the background Google publishes batshit crazy research papers that call automated propaganda "AI fairness" and relies on a horde of underpaid serfs bordering mental breakdown to make final decisions on content moderation. Welcome to the predicable future of your bad decisions.
- RegnisGnaw 5y ago
  The choice of "content neutrality" is pretty much keyword also for: 1. constantly reeling from one public backlash after the other 2. advertising dropping you due to controversial content 3. government coming after you for controversial content If I were a business, I'd go content moderation all the way. Less blow black and more steady income.
  - tedivm 5y ago
    Most of these platforms start off trying to be content neutral and end up adding more moderation as a result of how badly it ends up hurting them. There's only so many times advertisers are willing to have their brand shown next to child pornography (ie, reddit's former /r/jailbait) or hate speech. If complete neutrality was an answer these companies would be doing that, since it's the cheapest option.
    - throwawaysea 5y ago
      > There's only so many times advertisers are willing to have their brand shown next to child pornography (ie, reddit's former /r/jailbait) or hate speech. I’m not sure advertisers care about this as much as people claim. YouTube’s censorship really ramped up in 2017 after Trump was elected, and was fairly limited before then. I don’t think they had trouble with advertisers before then all those years. I could be wrong - have any sources that could help?
ggrrhh_ta 5y ago
Most people do not give a second thought to employees having a minimum set of rights and obligations even if they work for a private company. I think it is not difficult to consider any contributor in a (virtual) Commons to be subject not only to obligations but also to a set of rights.
globular-toast 5y ago
Can someone add some context to this? I have never heard of this channel and a link to a screenshot of a generic message from Google tells me nothing.
hapless 5y ago
It appears to have been banned when the author offered an illegal sweepstakes. Contests and sweepstakes are carefully regulated in America, with slightly different regimes in all 50 states. You should not run one unless you have gotten legal help with it!
- EastToWest 5y ago
  Source? The creator's twitter doesn't mention that at all.
  - dom111 5y ago
    It's implied here: https://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP/status/1435107199785832449 https://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP/status/1435107199785832449 but no more detail than that I can see...
  - juniperplant 5y ago
    There was a giveaway of a Tuxedo laptop[1]. Whoever wanted to participate had to comment on the video announcing the giveaway, which apparently goes against YouTube's TOS (as far as I can tell comments count affects YouTube's algorithm). [1] https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e/win-the-tuxedo-aura-15!-linux-laptop:4 https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e/win-the-tuxedo-aura...
    - ganoushoreilly 5y ago
      If that's it, it's a ridiculous premise. I won some music equipment from Sweetwater by liking and commenting on a video (though not sure they would be able to verify the like). I expect things like this to continue to grow as we rely more and more on algorithms in all walks of life without thinking through true recourse options.
      - dangus 5y ago
        If true, the channel owner was trying to game the system to make their channel look like it was more popular than it really was. An analogy would be like a TV host telling the audience to watch the show on five televisions so that they would get a higher Nielsen ratings and then get more money from advertisers. No TV network or advertiser would be happy about that. In other words, if this is what was really happening, this channel was essentially trying to scam YouTube into thinking they were more popular than they really are for their own monetary gain. To me it seems like this channel deserved what they got, if the allegations are true. I even doubt that the channel was automatically removed by an algorithm. Maybe it was flagged by one for human review. Just because a company doesn’t contact you doesn’t mean a human wasn’t involved in your particular case. Furthermore, just because Sweetwater got away with it one time doesn’t mean it’s not against the TOS. I’m just speculating, and I don’t have skin in the game.
tmaly 5y ago
I was doing this YouTube survey last night. This was one of the points I raised in the survey. That a channel with 10 years of videos can be deleted without notice.
fastssd 5y ago
Chris Titus has covered this topic excellently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHeZXkZT_jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHeZXkZT_jk
jbj 5y ago
I hope he can get it back, it is a great resource for well researched news in my oppinion. I just tried out /e/ recently after learning about it on his channel
petepete 5y ago
I love his channel. Definitely one of the better Linux-focussed channels around and far less cringe than Baby WoGuE.
zenron 5y ago
The Linux Experiment is one of the best Linux channels on Youtube for beginners as well as just a feel good vide technology channel for everyone. Its a must have channel next to Destination Linux Network suite of channels. Hope it gets reversed.
sneak 5y ago
Donating free content to censorship platforms is a way to continue having this sort of nonsense happen forever.
croes 5y ago
Maybe governments should forbid and fine YouTube and if they ask why just answer that they violated laws and that no appeal is possible.
egberts1 5y ago
I just sauntered over to Apple App store to take a look-see at Odysee app and its privacy “level”. No thanks.
nabakin 5y ago
Channel has been reinstated! https://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP/status/1435311971973406726 https://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP/status/1435311971973406726 I want to know what happened for Google to make such a serious mistake.
- fouc 5y ago
  That twitter link didn't work for me. Can confirm it's back: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheLinuxExperiment https://www.youtube.com/c/TheLinuxExperiment Seems glitchy though, I can't sort by "most popular", it suddenly says "this channel has no videos". Hopefully that's just an old cached result that will clear up at some point.
  - nabakin 5y ago
    Looks like he couldn't login so he deleted the tweet. Here's the new twitter thread: https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1435317727158177796 https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1435317727158177796
- skinkestek 5y ago
  > I want to know what happened for Google to make such a serious mistake. Remember, this is Google. They do everything automatically including messing up big time. Needing a human in the loop to mess up big time wouldn't scale, at least not web scale.
- _-david-_ 5y ago
  Google frequently make mistakes like this. Sometimes channels are not so lucky when it comes to the reinstatement though.
anigbrowl 5y ago
I'm sympathetic but not a video creator, but I wonder why don't people band together and sue, or alternatively pressure their state attorneys-general to bring a civil enforcement action? Yes, yes, arbitration clauses, but there's a doctrine in law called 'unconscionable contract' and a demonstrable pattern of unilateral kafkaesque behavior by YT is a good start for any attorney. As I have pointed out over and over market solutions don't work when there are huge power/capital differentials involved. Hoping some plucky little underdog product/service will lead to an exodus isn't going to happen. Back in the day, Google ate Yahoo's lunch (along with Altavista, Lycos and everyone else) because Google had a genuine search engine (in the form of a graph database) whereas the incumbents were operating directories, and the classification/curation couldn't keep up with the volume of information being crawled. For those who were not around at the time, it's hard to communicate how different the products were. Incumbents let you search but also offered a huge number of categories, like a library catalog. Google looked like a joke website the first time you visited due to the lack of any categorical or navigational options, just this over-confident search field...except that it worked. It was like sorcery. The reason I mention this is because in economics there's a concept of elasticity of demand, of how attached you are to a thing you already use or consume. Generally, you want to stick with what works. This is especially true where network effects come into play. Competitors that offer X + some incremental improvement usually fail; their best outcome is that X buys them and incorporates the incremental improvement (which is sometimes the competitors' ultimate goal). To lure people away from a successful product the additional benefit to the buyer has to be more like 100% than 10% or 20%, and that rarely happens. If you look at Youtube's contenders, they fall into specialized categories such as art stuff like Vimeo (extra access control, higher video quality/ delivery options), Twitch (emphasis on livestreaming and social, especially for gamers), Rumble (for Freeze Peach aficionados), Pornhub and the whole adult entertainment ecosystem, or high-end commercial content streaming. So if you dream of beating YouTube in the market, you need to either occupy a niche they don't want to be in (most of which have already been occupied) or offer something that's radically different for the consumer. Being distributed/ FOSS/ blockchain/ whatever isn't it because only nerds care about that stuff. Nerds don't rule the marketplace, even when they build the marketplace: 95% of people do not care how something works or that it serves a higher purpose. It needs to offer a wholly different user experience, and really, it's kinda hard to see how you're gonna radically rethink TV. You have a better chance to do something amazing in virtual reality or internet navigation in general, and provide a native offering in which Youtube is diminished to the minor status of a channel owner, ie your UI/brand is The Thing and YouTube is just a minor service provider icon below the content. So the alternative is to address the situation legally. Monopoly complaints won't work, because the nice capitalists at the University of Chicago have institutionalized the idea that monopolies are fine as long as the public is happy, and the huge # of consumers using YouTube vastly outweighs the small # of creators who are pissed off with it, so good luck with your public interest argument. However, there might be some mileage in attacking the contract terms or alleging that YouTube has implicitly defamed creators by suspending them without explanation. Or you could go in a different direction and argue that YouTube is a sort of public utility, though then you need to decide whether you really want online video to be regulated by FCC. Litigation would be expensive and stressful and would need to be a collective rather than individual undertaking, and a selective one at that - folks like Linux Experiment are sympathetic plaintiffs, folks like Logan Paul are not (you may think this shouldn't matter, but tough luck, it does). Chances are that such a case would almost certainly fail, but the object would be to make discovery and the trial excruciatingly embarrassing for youtube, which would mean refusing to settle and (probably) looking for specific performance like YT submitting to supervision of some kind in the form of a consent decree, rather than mere compensation. If you just ask them for money you'll (maybe) eventually get some but nothing will change, because asking for money is essentially the same as saying whoever has the most money gets to be king of the market and Alphabet has plenty of coins to toss in the direction of the peasants. The potential upside here is not winning in court (a vanishingly unlikely possibility) or getting a big check to shut up and go away (nice and what your lawyers want, but basically selling out your principles), but either a change in the law from Congress (ha ha good luck) or a shift in the public's thinking about how contracts should work, the distribution of obligations, and how much market power is acceptable.
Shorel 5y ago
Google is EVIL.
hamburgerwah 5y ago
Another "google's customer support is only available via online mob outrage" situation. Just pathetic, who isn't embarrassed to work for Google at this point?

459 points by mngnt 5y ago

rvz 5y ago

Once again, using the private platform argument here: YouTube (owned by Google) reserves the right to terminate and de-platform anyone's account who has been in violation of YouTube's guidelines and terms of service. You can criticise, protest, appeal, scream or throw a tantrum about it, etc but you should finally see that this can happen to anyone sitting on private platforms like YouTube. YouTube will never change and it will only get worse.

gmemstr 5y ago
That's not the issue here. The issue here is letting automated systems having final say on such destructive actions as terminating an account entirely, with no concrete way to appeal. From what I am aware of, few channels wrongfully suspended get reinstated through support but rather through public outcry on the likes of Twitter.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  I don't think that's in disagreement with the parent. Whatever means YouTube uses to determine who to drop and who to keep is irrelevant because the point is that if you host content on someone else's servers you are giving them control.
  - segfaultbuserr 5y ago
    I don't think so. The original comment says that YouTube has: > the right to terminate and de-platform anyone's account who has been in violation of YouTube's guidelines and terms of service. The problem here is letting automated systems, with a history of producing false-positives for content that didn't violate the Guidelines or ToS, having final say on account termination, with no concrete way to appeal - To me this is a fair criticism. If the original comment says "the right to arbitrarily terminate and de-platform anyone's account", then I'll say that you have a point.
AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
There is apparently a large contingent of people on this site holding the belief that if your private platform is large then the government should step in to force you to host things you don't want to host. It's kinda funny, because it's effectively saying that they want to nationalize tech companies for being successful.
- throwawaylinux 5y ago
  No that's not true, there is a vast difference between regulation on business practices like this and nationalization.
- Gollapalli 5y ago
  If you think about it, publicly traded companies are precisely that: nationalized. They exist as partly as government fiat, and partly of managerial control, but not as property. They are, by necessity, of somewhat unknowable, and almost always unaccountable ownership, ownership so diffuse it may be regarded as a generally representative subset of and equivalent to the general public. As such, can any public company be regarded as private? Or treated as private? Their ownership is public, and no individual, or small, knowable, and generally convenable group of people can say: these are our servers. On the contrary, a group of people equivalent to the general public, a subset of them in fact public or pseudo-public institutions (pension funds, university endowments), are the owners. As such, public institutions should very much be treated as public entities. After all, it is the general public which owns them.
  - WhyNotHugo 5y ago
    Publicly traded companies have a main goal of making profits for shareholders. This seldom aligns with the public's interest. For many (most?) companies, only the rich have any voting power, whereas the majority of the population just has to follow along. Publicly traded companies are like a democracy where you get more votes the more money you have. The implication here is that your voice/needs are only important if you're rich, and are unimportant if you're average or poor (which kind of explains why the US is the way it is).
_null_ 5y ago
>YouTube will never change and it will only get worse. Private entities can be swayed by their customer's demands. Not saying that YT _will_ be swayed, just that this sort of creator outrage has a place in the market system, and "throwing a tantrum" over their bad behavior doesn't always have to be met with "private entities can do whatever they want!"
- mrkstu 5y ago
  That actually sounds like a good test for monopoly status- do you have to worry about what your customers want/desire or are you so entrenched that you don’t care?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
WhyNotHugo 5y ago
Not sure why this guy is getting downvoted. I wish he were wrong, because he's saying sucks, but he's just telling the hard truth the way it is. YouTube won't change, yet we continue using it as if it didn't have the track record it does.
pessimizer 5y ago
> the private platform argument No part of what you said is an argument. Do private platforms have unlimited latitude? If not, what are the underlying philosophies underlying current limitations, and can those be seen to imply that other limitations should be made? Should private platforms have unlimited latitude? Those are discussions that could be had. "Private things are allowed to do whatever they want" is not only a thought-terminating cliché that avoids all ethical or tactical judgement, but a simple falsehood.
- rvz 5y ago
  > Do private platforms have unlimited latitude? Who is arguing that? No need to create a straw-man argument. > "Private things are allowed to do whatever they want" Who are you quoting here? So YouTube (owned by Google) doesn't reserve the right to terminate and de-platform anyone's account who has been in violation of YouTube's guidelines and terms of service? I already said the offended users can appeal, didn't I? I'm just saying that not only this can happen to anyone, but YouTube (Google Inc.) will not change and we'll see more of this regardless if it is automated or not.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    I'm not saying that you're arguing anything. > Who are you quoting here? Nobody. But if the fact that Google reserves the right to ban people for reasons described in its ToS is an argument for something, I'd like to know what else it could be an argument for. Who cares what Google reserves? edit: I'm being sloppy. "Google reserved the right to delete for this reason," and "private things that reserve rights get them", and "Google is private" equals "Google gains this right." This would be an argument you could make. However, you haven't made this argument. Are you making an argument about choosing youtube? I might be mistaking a pragmatic observation for a political/legal discussion.
2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
I'm out of the loop- what rules were broken?
grey_earthling 5y ago
I hope cases like this lead more people to understand that proprietors of private services do have so much control (even if they often wield it soberly), and persuade them to consider decentralised or protocol-based open alternatives. As ever, Tony Benn's five questions are instructive: “what power do you have; where did you get it; in whose interests do you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; and, how can we get rid of you?” => https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1998-11-16/debates/db35bbc5-17ba-4097-bcec-b18ba5057ad7/EuropeanParliamentaryElectionsBill#contribution-6dbb256d-47c3-484c-b7be-8e3d466aaa0a https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1998-11-16/debates/db3...
maccolgan 5y ago
Private platforms can indeed do whatever they want, but I think there's a discussion to be had about whether what they are doing is right or wrong...

Proven 5y ago

Why should we care? The tweet says it's been terminated "for some reason". WTF. Maybe it's justified. Unless you can explain why they terminated and show you did NOT violate their, I don't care. Do your homework first.

mcjiggerlog 5y ago
That's exactly the problem - they do not tell you why you were terminated.
sodality2 5y ago
How can Nick prove a negative? How about Youtube shows what violated the terms? Why can't they back up their claim with evidence, instead of Nick being forced to provide proof to disprove a claim without any?
- happybirds07 5y ago
  Which would be very hard to do when the account is deleted, too
josephcsible 5y ago
> Unless you can explain why they terminated and show you did NOT violate their, I don't care Guilty until proven innocent!
megous 5y ago
Your post here was terminated. Now tell us why. And prove you did not violate ToS.
aaronmdjones 5y ago
It's impossible to prove that you have not violated the terms of service, as a sibling comment points out. It should be on YouTube to provide evidence that they have.

mcjiggerlog 5y ago

The Linux Experiment is probably my favourite linux-focussed YouTube channel. Nick has been doing absolutely fantastic work and his channel being permanently deleted would be an absolute travesty and a clear mistake. He is producing high quality, thoughtful, inoffensive content. Here's to hoping the channel is rightly reinstated ASAP, along with an apology and explanation from Google. Also, if you don't know the channel and want to check out his videos, you can still watch them on Odysee - https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment.

lucasyvas 5y ago
Does anyone have more context? This is one of my favourite Linux channels... what the fuck. This drive-by algorithm BS is ridiculous.
drcongo 5y ago
What is Odysee? I'm intrigued because at first glance it seems to be better than YouTube in almost every way possible. Page loads are quick, if you turn off AutoPlay it actually stays off, the controls are actually usable on an iPad etc.
- fragileone 5y ago
  It's a peer-to-peer video client, with part of it's data being directly shared (similarly to torrents) and part via a blockchain. This makes it highly resistant to censorship and thus is where many people are moving their channels to.
  - corobo 5y ago
    > This makes it highly resistant to censorship We should probably stop using this phrase as a feature Instant thought was "ok so other than this channel it's all racism"
    - zbrozek 5y ago
      Certainly wasn't my first thought. Though there may be a better phrase.

WhyNotHugo 5y ago

YouTube has been changing in weird ways in the last year or so. The amount of propaganda on the platform is ridiculous, though very frequently disguised as "news" or "educational". As someone who's been around quite a bit, I can also imagine that it doesn't look like propaganda to average Americans (I'd be glad to be wrong on this). A great deal of content is just plain sophistry too. Inspecting comments, it seems that most viewers don't pick up on this. At the same time, finding reviews or alike for products or services is near impossible -- the platform is filled with generic reviews which are indistinguishable form ads.

omgitsabird 5y ago
This seems rather vague. Can you give examples of propaganda?
- sbarre 5y ago
  Oh come on... spend 10 minutes on YouTube and you'll find tons of it. There have been countless articles and posts written about this problem over the last several years. I would challenge _you_ to go educate yourself on this rather than ask others to bring this widely available and widely accepted information to you.
- sprafa 5y ago
  The current “ivermectin is a dangerous horse dewormer” debacle has been the biggest example of a moment where I’m not sure whether everyone is lying at this point. YouTube censored a few videos with actual experts and doctors who were discussing ivm. Yes we had issues with HCQ in the beginning, but ivm is being actually studied right now by Oxford Uni/NHS in their big covid trials in the UK… it’s amazing what a hit job the media is doing on it.
  - devwastaken 5y ago
    Being studied, not accepted in use in humans for COVID. Blame the idiots injecting themselves with the actual horse versions, and the doctors/vets illigally prescribing it. IVM is as useful as eating dirt in relation to COVID, until proven otherwise with studies that aren't fabricated data or otherwise p-hacked to death - it's disinformation, and rightfully removed.

underseacables 5y ago

The fault is on YouTube’s reliance on automated systems, making permanent decisions, without human intervention. However, in my humble opinion, people are naturally lazy. The humans who might be charged with reviewing automated decisions are no different. Especially if there is a cultural or language divide.

cube00 5y ago
:s/YouTube/Google
- reasonabl_human 5y ago
  Usually I have to type :%s, and a trailing /g, you can omit those?
  - r3dey3 5y ago
    without % it only does the change on the current line; and /g means change all occurrences instead of first (per line)
asah 5y ago
no - see above comment re illegal sweepstakes
- ashtonkem 5y ago
  Preventing illegal sweepstakes, even if accidentally illegal ones, seems like a good rule for YT to enforce. That being said, banning accounts without a process to solve the issue until there’s enough public furor for a moderator to notice is a bad system. If someone repeatedly breaks the rules, fine permaban them. But having a fake appeal process is pretty annoying, and makes me not want to do business with Google in general.

flavius29663 5y ago

This is anecdotal, but in my experience democrat Americans actually believe everything that the party tells them. They quote the exact same lines, I hear the exact same phrase from different people, and when I ask further questions there is silence. e.g. "rich people stash their money" with absolutely nothing to back that up. Surprisingly, republicans can be more open to conflicting ideas and for debate, even though their propaganda is significantly worse. Probably that is an effect of knowing vs not knowing it's propaganda, it seems to me that democrats in general are true believers in the party lines.

lolinder 5y ago
I live in a red state and my experience is the opposite. I suspect it might be that when your view is the majority in your area, you're more inclined to shut out opposing ideas as "fringe". It's the "I don't know anyone who voted ___" effect.
- flavius29663 5y ago
  I definitely know more democrats than republicans (my area votes 80% democrat). But they are highly educated people (think U Chicago, Georgia Tech etc.) still believing every opinion their favorite news outlet sells them. I find that disturbing. Not the fact that they believe most of the party lines, but believing and defending ALL of them, like the party can do no wrong.
  - vcxy 5y ago
    My experience is also the opposite fwiw. To be fair, I don't think I know any democrats who actually like the party. They're more "not republican" than democrat. Maybe the democrats you've talked to are the true believers. The only example I can come up with that matches your experience is my dad, so maybe it's generational?
  - lolinder 5y ago
    That is exactly my experience of most Republicans in a red state. Every Trump talking point, every coronavirus conspiracy, it all gets eaten up. There are exceptions, to be sure, but a surprising number of otherwise thoughtful people accept it all unthinkingly.

qwerty456127 5y ago

As it often happens, again I discover a cool resource from the news about its termination. Is there by any chance a mirror of its content anywhere to download? If I were a YouTuber I would maintain an archive of my old videos available on ThePirateBay.

izacus 5y ago
The problem is that ThePirateBay will not pay you per view. YouTubers stay on YT because it pays out a slice of ad revenue and not because it's just a convenient distribution site. Making those videos costs an insane amount of time and money - which means that most YTers can't afford to do it for free. Any kind of YT competition needs to figure out on how to keep the revenue streams intact.
- qwerty456127 5y ago
  That's why I wrote "an archive of my OLD videos". They probably don't generate much revenue already. Also, ThePirateBay does not compete with YouTube even in the cases of the same content being available on both the platforms. Most of the people want to watch the videos on-line, go to YouTube naturally and won't bother using torrents. Sophisticated people who want an off-line copy just use youtube-dl anyway. The actual YouTube audience will only go to ThePirateBay when they really can't access the videos on YouTube.
aembleton 5y ago
You can watch the channel at https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e

christophilus 5y ago

Wow. It's hard for me to imagine how he crossed any line worthy of deletion. He's one of the best Linux voices on YouTube, and seems like an incredibly nice guy. His content can be seen on Odysee[0]. Chris Titus Tech has a video covering this[1]. Honestly, I try to watch everything on Odysee these days, anyway, just to try to continue de-Googling my life. [0] https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHeZXkZT_jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHeZXkZT_jk

asah 5y ago
no - see above comment re illegal sweepstakes
jvdheuvel 5y ago
Chris Titus Tech has also an Odysee channel, https://odysee.com/@christitustech:5 https://odysee.com/@christitustech:5

gambler 5y ago

Any large communication platform has a choice: either accept some form of content neutrality or become a petty and chaotic tyrant constantly reeling from one public backlash after the other. YouTube made its choice. Now, random videos and channels get demonetized, content gets deleted for no reason and people covering basic news speak in code to avoid the wrath of the idiot AI. In the background Google publishes batshit crazy research papers that call automated propaganda "AI fairness" and relies on a horde of underpaid serfs bordering mental breakdown to make final decisions on content moderation. Welcome to the predicable future of your bad decisions.

RegnisGnaw 5y ago
The choice of "content neutrality" is pretty much keyword also for: 1. constantly reeling from one public backlash after the other 2. advertising dropping you due to controversial content 3. government coming after you for controversial content If I were a business, I'd go content moderation all the way. Less blow black and more steady income.
- tedivm 5y ago
  Most of these platforms start off trying to be content neutral and end up adding more moderation as a result of how badly it ends up hurting them. There's only so many times advertisers are willing to have their brand shown next to child pornography (ie, reddit's former /r/jailbait) or hate speech. If complete neutrality was an answer these companies would be doing that, since it's the cheapest option.
  - throwawaysea 5y ago
    > There's only so many times advertisers are willing to have their brand shown next to child pornography (ie, reddit's former /r/jailbait) or hate speech. I’m not sure advertisers care about this as much as people claim. YouTube’s censorship really ramped up in 2017 after Trump was elected, and was fairly limited before then. I don’t think they had trouble with advertisers before then all those years. I could be wrong - have any sources that could help?

ggrrhh_ta 5y ago

Most people do not give a second thought to employees having a minimum set of rights and obligations even if they work for a private company. I think it is not difficult to consider any contributor in a (virtual) Commons to be subject not only to obligations but also to a set of rights.

globular-toast 5y ago

Can someone add some context to this? I have never heard of this channel and a link to a screenshot of a generic message from Google tells me nothing.

hapless 5y ago

It appears to have been banned when the author offered an illegal sweepstakes. Contests and sweepstakes are carefully regulated in America, with slightly different regimes in all 50 states. You should not run one unless you have gotten legal help with it!

EastToWest 5y ago
Source? The creator's twitter doesn't mention that at all.
- dom111 5y ago
  It's implied here: https://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP/status/1435107199785832449 https://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP/status/1435107199785832449 but no more detail than that I can see...
- juniperplant 5y ago
  There was a giveaway of a Tuxedo laptop[1]. Whoever wanted to participate had to comment on the video announcing the giveaway, which apparently goes against YouTube's TOS (as far as I can tell comments count affects YouTube's algorithm). [1] https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e/win-the-tuxedo-aura-15!-linux-laptop:4 https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e/win-the-tuxedo-aura...
  - ganoushoreilly 5y ago
    If that's it, it's a ridiculous premise. I won some music equipment from Sweetwater by liking and commenting on a video (though not sure they would be able to verify the like). I expect things like this to continue to grow as we rely more and more on algorithms in all walks of life without thinking through true recourse options.
    - dangus 5y ago
      If true, the channel owner was trying to game the system to make their channel look like it was more popular than it really was. An analogy would be like a TV host telling the audience to watch the show on five televisions so that they would get a higher Nielsen ratings and then get more money from advertisers. No TV network or advertiser would be happy about that. In other words, if this is what was really happening, this channel was essentially trying to scam YouTube into thinking they were more popular than they really are for their own monetary gain. To me it seems like this channel deserved what they got, if the allegations are true. I even doubt that the channel was automatically removed by an algorithm. Maybe it was flagged by one for human review. Just because a company doesn’t contact you doesn’t mean a human wasn’t involved in your particular case. Furthermore, just because Sweetwater got away with it one time doesn’t mean it’s not against the TOS. I’m just speculating, and I don’t have skin in the game.

tmaly 5y ago

I was doing this YouTube survey last night. This was one of the points I raised in the survey. That a channel with 10 years of videos can be deleted without notice.

fastssd 5y ago

Chris Titus has covered this topic excellently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHeZXkZT_jk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHeZXkZT_jk

jbj 5y ago

I hope he can get it back, it is a great resource for well researched news in my oppinion. I just tried out /e/ recently after learning about it on his channel

petepete 5y ago

I love his channel. Definitely one of the better Linux-focussed channels around and far less cringe than Baby WoGuE.

zenron 5y ago

The Linux Experiment is one of the best Linux channels on Youtube for beginners as well as just a feel good vide technology channel for everyone. Its a must have channel next to Destination Linux Network suite of channels. Hope it gets reversed.

sneak 5y ago

Donating free content to censorship platforms is a way to continue having this sort of nonsense happen forever.

croes 5y ago

Maybe governments should forbid and fine YouTube and if they ask why just answer that they violated laws and that no appeal is possible.

egberts1 5y ago

I just sauntered over to Apple App store to take a look-see at Odysee app and its privacy “level”. No thanks.

nabakin 5y ago

Channel has been reinstated! https://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP/status/1435311971973406726 https://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP/status/1435311971973406726 I want to know what happened for Google to make such a serious mistake.

fouc 5y ago
That twitter link didn't work for me. Can confirm it's back: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheLinuxExperiment https://www.youtube.com/c/TheLinuxExperiment Seems glitchy though, I can't sort by "most popular", it suddenly says "this channel has no videos". Hopefully that's just an old cached result that will clear up at some point.
- nabakin 5y ago
  Looks like he couldn't login so he deleted the tweet. Here's the new twitter thread: https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1435317727158177796 https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1435317727158177796
skinkestek 5y ago
> I want to know what happened for Google to make such a serious mistake. Remember, this is Google. They do everything automatically including messing up big time. Needing a human in the loop to mess up big time wouldn't scale, at least not web scale.
_-david-_ 5y ago
Google frequently make mistakes like this. Sometimes channels are not so lucky when it comes to the reinstatement though.

anigbrowl 5y ago

I'm sympathetic but not a video creator, but I wonder why don't people band together and sue, or alternatively pressure their state attorneys-general to bring a civil enforcement action? Yes, yes, arbitration clauses, but there's a doctrine in law called 'unconscionable contract' and a demonstrable pattern of unilateral kafkaesque behavior by YT is a good start for any attorney. As I have pointed out over and over market solutions don't work when there are huge power/capital differentials involved. Hoping some plucky little underdog product/service will lead to an exodus isn't going to happen. Back in the day, Google ate Yahoo's lunch (along with Altavista, Lycos and everyone else) because Google had a genuine search engine (in the form of a graph database) whereas the incumbents were operating directories, and the classification/curation couldn't keep up with the volume of information being crawled. For those who were not around at the time, it's hard to communicate how different the products were. Incumbents let you search but also offered a huge number of categories, like a library catalog. Google looked like a joke website the first time you visited due to the lack of any categorical or navigational options, just this over-confident search field...except that it worked. It was like sorcery. The reason I mention this is because in economics there's a concept of elasticity of demand, of how attached you are to a thing you already use or consume. Generally, you want to stick with what works. This is especially true where network effects come into play. Competitors that offer X + some incremental improvement usually fail; their best outcome is that X buys them and incorporates the incremental improvement (which is sometimes the competitors' ultimate goal). To lure people away from a successful product the additional benefit to the buyer has to be more like 100% than 10% or 20%, and that rarely happens. If you look at Youtube's contenders, they fall into specialized categories such as art stuff like Vimeo (extra access control, higher video quality/ delivery options), Twitch (emphasis on livestreaming and social, especially for gamers), Rumble (for Freeze Peach aficionados), Pornhub and the whole adult entertainment ecosystem, or high-end commercial content streaming. So if you dream of beating YouTube in the market, you need to either occupy a niche they don't want to be in (most of which have already been occupied) or offer something that's radically different for the consumer. Being distributed/ FOSS/ blockchain/ whatever isn't it because only nerds care about that stuff. Nerds don't rule the marketplace, even when they build the marketplace: 95% of people do not care how something works or that it serves a higher purpose. It needs to offer a wholly different user experience, and really, it's kinda hard to see how you're gonna radically rethink TV. You have a better chance to do something amazing in virtual reality or internet navigation in general, and provide a native offering in which Youtube is diminished to the minor status of a channel owner, ie your UI/brand is The Thing and YouTube is just a minor service provider icon below the content. So the alternative is to address the situation legally. Monopoly complaints won't work, because the nice capitalists at the University of Chicago have institutionalized the idea that monopolies are fine as long as the public is happy, and the huge # of consumers using YouTube vastly outweighs the small # of creators who are pissed off with it, so good luck with your public interest argument. However, there might be some mileage in attacking the contract terms or alleging that YouTube has implicitly defamed creators by suspending them without explanation. Or you could go in a different direction and argue that YouTube is a sort of public utility, though then you need to decide whether you really want online video to be regulated by FCC. Litigation would be expensive and stressful and would need to be a collective rather than individual undertaking, and a selective one at that - folks like Linux Experiment are sympathetic plaintiffs, folks like Logan Paul are not (you may think this shouldn't matter, but tough luck, it does). Chances are that such a case would almost certainly fail, but the object would be to make discovery and the trial excruciatingly embarrassing for youtube, which would mean refusing to settle and (probably) looking for specific performance like YT submitting to supervision of some kind in the form of a consent decree, rather than mere compensation. If you just ask them for money you'll (maybe) eventually get some but nothing will change, because asking for money is essentially the same as saying whoever has the most money gets to be king of the market and Alphabet has plenty of coins to toss in the direction of the peasants. The potential upside here is not winning in court (a vanishingly unlikely possibility) or getting a big check to shut up and go away (nice and what your lawyers want, but basically selling out your principles), but either a change in the law from Congress (ha ha good luck) or a shift in the public's thinking about how contracts should work, the distribution of obligations, and how much market power is acceptable.

Shorel 5y ago

Google is EVIL.

hamburgerwah 5y ago

Another "google's customer support is only available via online mob outrage" situation. Just pathetic, who isn't embarrassed to work for Google at this point?