7 ms·

Agreed - the lesson here is platforms like YouTube have a lot more control than most assume. An easy to use, censorship resistant, video host seems needed.

vippy 5y ago
That's an interesting, and entirely unrelated, takeaway given what Barrin92 wrote.
PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
They have precisely as much control as anyone familiar with US law and business practice should expect: total control. As for censorship, I'm sorry but I don't consider what even a corporation whose operation is on the scale of YT or FB does to be censorship.
- sneak 5y ago
  It's still censorship even if it's not the government. User A posts content. User B subscribes. Entity C decides that B is not allowed to read what A has to say. C is a censor.
  - analognoise 5y ago
    Are you a censor if you own the platform? You can't come into my print shop and print Nazi literature. Could you print it yourself? Sure. So I'm not preventing you from printing it - I'm preventing you from printing it on my equipment. I.E - No, that's not censorship.
    - kbenson 5y ago
      It is censorship, it's just that not all censorship is bad, and people should care more about the details than that the definition fits for a word they have knee-jerk reactions to.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        "Censorship" always has a context. When a government censors, it is (generally) saying "You may not say or print this in our society". When a parent censors a child, they are generally saying "You may not say this within our family". When a particular social group censors a member, they are saying "You cannot say this within our social group". When a social media platform censors someone, they are saying "You may not say this (or anything else) on our platform". One of these things is not like the others.
        LeonB 5y ago
        The parent and the government ones are similar because the censored individual can’t easily switch government or switch parents. (And when the social media platform (google) owns not just the video site but also the search engine and the browser - it starts to move closer to the government/parent example.)
        PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        I'll grant both points. But ... We traditionally grant children less rights (at least as far as self-determination) than adults, so this aspect is really in keeping with broader cultural norms. And sure, the google.com/YT/chrome empire does move closer to the government example, but how much closer is a matter of some considerable debate. I'd argue not by much, but I know others would disagree.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    There's the definition of censorship, and then there's people's perception of censorship as something the government does. Beyond that, it's not just that many people can't distinguish the two, but that they've merged aspects of each into the same thing in their head. Censorship is natural and expected in many, many contexts. Any time a parent punishes their child for saying something they feel is unacceptable, that's censorship. It's just censorship in the hope of teaching their children how to be responsible members of society. The difference between censorship at the individual or group level and at the government level is that with individuals or groups it's possible to find to other people or groups (or create your own) where that speech is not censored. At the government level, where they can control all aspects of expression, that might not be possible, which is why it's more of a problem and why it's set as a fundamental right in some countries. YouTube does not control all expression through video. There are both other video streaming platforms, and peer delivery networks that can have platform front ends, and social media networks (which YouTube might classify to some degree as also) that allow video dissemination but are operated differently and have different restrictions. YouTube is censoring people, just like it has always done since day one, and in new and evolving ways as their policies change. That's expected, and legal, and the same thing every other commercial platform does, and if people have a problem with a specific type of censorship YouTube performs, they should give their attention to a platform that doesn't, but not just because there's censorship at all, because of course there is.
    - loup-vaillant 5y ago
      > YouTube does not control all expression through video. There are both other video streaming platforms, For almost all intents and purposes, the audience is on YouTube only. Use anything else, and you are basically guaranteed to divide your audience by two orders of magnitude. Such is their monopoly on videos that are over 1 minute long. This makes YouTube deplatforming very close to actual government censorship. The only meaningful difference is the lack of due process.
      - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        This is even worse logic than some arguments in this sphere. The audience is wherever there's a link to click on. Anyone who can watch YT can watch vimeo or peertube or even a self-hosted video. There's no problem with that click - the problem is getting people to click. You want YT to do more than host videos, you want them to market videos to their users. If YT was a completely passive video host (i.e. when you watched a video, there were no links to other videos at all), saying "the audience is on YT" would be meaningless - people could watch YT videos all day and would never ever see a link to any video that they didn't learn about via some other mechanism. What you seem to object to is YT removing material from participating in "the algorithm", which is essentially a marketing process.
  - cortesoft 5y ago
    Technically yes, but I think this sort of argument is trying to force people to see all censorship as the same. The type, scope, and implementation of the censorship matters. Hackernews removing spam comments is different than YouTube removing this guys account which is different from YouTube removing any video that is critical of google. And all of those are completely different from Thailand arresting anyone who criticizes the king. If you insist on saying all of these things are the same and if you are against one of them then you have to be against all of them, then you aren't going to get much support for fighting censorship.
notriddle 5y ago
> An easy to use, censorship resistant, video host seems needed. Are you sure? It sounds nice, but I think in practice it would be overrun with quacks selling herbal remedies that claim to make your boobs bigger, just like email. So instead of censorship being built-in, you get censorship tacked on after-the-fact. In the world of search engines, bad content drives out good. Alternatively, you have a dumb pipe that takes care of hosting video without trying to host things like comments or recommendations, so even if you upload spam nobody actually sees it unless they find it elsewhere. But that’s not a solution to spam. It’s just making it somebody else’s problem.
- reginold 5y ago
  I'm sure. And yes, we need to solve that problem too. But it's more like a spam folder than a deletion. Like someone else on HN pointed out, "label, not remove"
SoylentYellow 5y ago
Locals.com is such a platform and Youtube's censorship (right or wrong) has significantly increased its popularity.

vippy 5y ago

That's an interesting, and entirely unrelated, takeaway given what Barrin92 wrote.

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

They have precisely as much control as anyone familiar with US law and business practice should expect: total control. As for censorship, I'm sorry but I don't consider what even a corporation whose operation is on the scale of YT or FB does to be censorship.

sneak 5y ago
It's still censorship even if it's not the government. User A posts content. User B subscribes. Entity C decides that B is not allowed to read what A has to say. C is a censor.
- analognoise 5y ago
  Are you a censor if you own the platform? You can't come into my print shop and print Nazi literature. Could you print it yourself? Sure. So I'm not preventing you from printing it - I'm preventing you from printing it on my equipment. I.E - No, that's not censorship.
  - kbenson 5y ago
    It is censorship, it's just that not all censorship is bad, and people should care more about the details than that the definition fits for a word they have knee-jerk reactions to.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      "Censorship" always has a context. When a government censors, it is (generally) saying "You may not say or print this in our society". When a parent censors a child, they are generally saying "You may not say this within our family". When a particular social group censors a member, they are saying "You cannot say this within our social group". When a social media platform censors someone, they are saying "You may not say this (or anything else) on our platform". One of these things is not like the others.
      - LeonB 5y ago
        The parent and the government ones are similar because the censored individual can’t easily switch government or switch parents. (And when the social media platform (google) owns not just the video site but also the search engine and the browser - it starts to move closer to the government/parent example.)
        PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
        I'll grant both points. But ... We traditionally grant children less rights (at least as far as self-determination) than adults, so this aspect is really in keeping with broader cultural norms. And sure, the google.com/YT/chrome empire does move closer to the government example, but how much closer is a matter of some considerable debate. I'd argue not by much, but I know others would disagree.
- kbenson 5y ago
  There's the definition of censorship, and then there's people's perception of censorship as something the government does. Beyond that, it's not just that many people can't distinguish the two, but that they've merged aspects of each into the same thing in their head. Censorship is natural and expected in many, many contexts. Any time a parent punishes their child for saying something they feel is unacceptable, that's censorship. It's just censorship in the hope of teaching their children how to be responsible members of society. The difference between censorship at the individual or group level and at the government level is that with individuals or groups it's possible to find to other people or groups (or create your own) where that speech is not censored. At the government level, where they can control all aspects of expression, that might not be possible, which is why it's more of a problem and why it's set as a fundamental right in some countries. YouTube does not control all expression through video. There are both other video streaming platforms, and peer delivery networks that can have platform front ends, and social media networks (which YouTube might classify to some degree as also) that allow video dissemination but are operated differently and have different restrictions. YouTube is censoring people, just like it has always done since day one, and in new and evolving ways as their policies change. That's expected, and legal, and the same thing every other commercial platform does, and if people have a problem with a specific type of censorship YouTube performs, they should give their attention to a platform that doesn't, but not just because there's censorship at all, because of course there is.
  - loup-vaillant 5y ago
    > YouTube does not control all expression through video. There are both other video streaming platforms, For almost all intents and purposes, the audience is on YouTube only. Use anything else, and you are basically guaranteed to divide your audience by two orders of magnitude. Such is their monopoly on videos that are over 1 minute long. This makes YouTube deplatforming very close to actual government censorship. The only meaningful difference is the lack of due process.
    - PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
      This is even worse logic than some arguments in this sphere. The audience is wherever there's a link to click on. Anyone who can watch YT can watch vimeo or peertube or even a self-hosted video. There's no problem with that click - the problem is getting people to click. You want YT to do more than host videos, you want them to market videos to their users. If YT was a completely passive video host (i.e. when you watched a video, there were no links to other videos at all), saying "the audience is on YT" would be meaningless - people could watch YT videos all day and would never ever see a link to any video that they didn't learn about via some other mechanism. What you seem to object to is YT removing material from participating in "the algorithm", which is essentially a marketing process.
- cortesoft 5y ago
  Technically yes, but I think this sort of argument is trying to force people to see all censorship as the same. The type, scope, and implementation of the censorship matters. Hackernews removing spam comments is different than YouTube removing this guys account which is different from YouTube removing any video that is critical of google. And all of those are completely different from Thailand arresting anyone who criticizes the king. If you insist on saying all of these things are the same and if you are against one of them then you have to be against all of them, then you aren't going to get much support for fighting censorship.

notriddle 5y ago

> An easy to use, censorship resistant, video host seems needed. Are you sure? It sounds nice, but I think in practice it would be overrun with quacks selling herbal remedies that claim to make your boobs bigger, just like email. So instead of censorship being built-in, you get censorship tacked on after-the-fact. In the world of search engines, bad content drives out good. Alternatively, you have a dumb pipe that takes care of hosting video without trying to host things like comments or recommendations, so even if you upload spam nobody actually sees it unless they find it elsewhere. But that’s not a solution to spam. It’s just making it somebody else’s problem.

reginold 5y ago
I'm sure. And yes, we need to solve that problem too. But it's more like a spam folder than a deletion. Like someone else on HN pointed out, "label, not remove"

SoylentYellow 5y ago

Locals.com is such a platform and Youtube's censorship (right or wrong) has significantly increased its popularity.