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This is truly wrong. Far from censorship, this is a field test of memory-holing. Deleting a part of the history of the Internet (yes, this silly little nonsense

This is truly wrong. Far from censorship, this is a field test of memory-holing. Deleting a part of the history of the Internet (yes, this silly little nonsense video is now part of Modern Culture) is a Rubicon I'm shocked YouTube has the temerity to cross. I can't wait to see what more conventional history they'll delete. For now, note the conscious blowing-off, on YouTube's part, of all the re-uploads. Will they also get got? If not, why not? I-- I can't believe they've done this.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago
I think you are confusing Youtube with a NGO. Google is a for profit company. Their mission is to make money, not to archive the internet. They are not your friend. Nor anybody's friend.
- revolvingocelot 5y ago
  See, I'd have thought that everybody tacitly understood that YouTube's scale has redefined presentation of videos over the Internet and as a consequence is the premier video archive for all of Humanity. This doesn't erase their fiduciary duties, but it does attenuate them -- archiving and presenting videos (to show ads) is actually how the money is made. But I'll bite -- I'm a credulous idiot who's confused YouTube for an NGO. You are a wise cynic who's come to correct me. >Their mission is to make money, not to archive the internet. So how did deleting this make YouTube money?
  - jwmhjwmh 5y ago
    > So how did deleting this make YouTube money? I assume they remove "violent" videos to appease advertisers. In this case, they did not consider the value of the video being removed, instead prioritizing the safety of the content with respect to the advertisers.
    - revolvingocelot 5y ago
      Thanks for the assumption, it clarified a lot about what you think about the situation.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    By itself, it doesn't. In the large, YouTube's terms of service are structured around retaining an audience (both in terms of individual and institutional choice... Without a TOS that at least nominally says what constitutes offensive content, businesses and schools block access to YouTube and that decreases viewership which decreases revenue potential). They are also structured around being a hospitable place for advertising, and advertising (in particular brand advertising) gets real gun-shy on spending dollars on content that might be significantly off the bead from "wholesome." Whether or not this video in particular violates the TOS is debatable (though having never heard of this before this link on Hacker News, my naive read on it is that it's simple violent aggression and a display of unadulterated physical violence, which generally doesn't pass the TOS for graphic violence... "Content featuring anything listed above where the viewer is not given enough context to understand that the footage is dramatized or fictional").
- frankfrankfrank 5y ago
  I get your rather stunted libertarian take, but fact of the matter is that they are not allowed to delete or remove evidence of crimes.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Actually in the US YouTube is legally allowed to delete or remove any videos they want to, regardless of whether they might contain evidence of crimes. They would generally only be required to preserve such evidence if given a court order, which doesn't appear to be the case here.
- rvz 5y ago
  Exactly. They are on the side of making money and do not care about taking anyone's videos down.
theandrewbailey 5y ago
Not just history of the internet: Youtube takes down videos of war crimes. Destroying or covering up evidence of war crimes is, itself, a war crime. I'm surprised that Youtube isn't in hot water over that. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170812/01102937985/once-again-rather-than-deleting-terrorist-propaganda-youtube-deletes-evidence-war-crimes.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170812/01102937985/once-... https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-ai-deletes-war-crime-videos-extremist-material https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-ai-deletes-war-cr...
- josefx 5y ago
  Isn't YouTube headquartered in one of those countries that officially consider foreign war crime tribunals directed at their citizens a reason to invade the responsible country?
  - AegirLeet 5y ago
    I looked it up and YouTube is indeed headquartered in the United States of America, a known rogue state that regularly commits war crimes.
    - shadowgovt 5y ago
      We should probably stop trusting them with the video cultural memory of the Internet.
  - Vinnl 5y ago
    Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hague_Invasion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hague_Invasion_Act
- j16sdiz 5y ago
  I am not sure what we want YouTube to be. Sometimes we want it big enough to fight against state-level censorship; sometimes we want it small enough to obey anti-trust or privacy law.
- skissane 5y ago
reilly3000 5y ago
Thank you for introducing me to the word temerity. Clearly they are relying upon an immature AI dragnet to classify and kill categories of objectionable material. Thankfully they have an appeals process, but it seems to me that automated takedowns are blatantly wrong. Instead they ought to use that data to generate a queue for humans to review and flag, where more popular videos have more reviewers requiring consensus. No matter, it’s clear we’ve allowed a commercial platform to outgrow its structural integrity, and no algorithm can do a thing but delay its collapse under its own weight.

BiteCode_dev 5y ago

I think you are confusing Youtube with a NGO. Google is a for profit company. Their mission is to make money, not to archive the internet. They are not your friend. Nor anybody's friend.

revolvingocelot 5y ago
See, I'd have thought that everybody tacitly understood that YouTube's scale has redefined presentation of videos over the Internet and as a consequence is the premier video archive for all of Humanity. This doesn't erase their fiduciary duties, but it does attenuate them -- archiving and presenting videos (to show ads) is actually how the money is made. But I'll bite -- I'm a credulous idiot who's confused YouTube for an NGO. You are a wise cynic who's come to correct me. >Their mission is to make money, not to archive the internet. So how did deleting this make YouTube money?
- jwmhjwmh 5y ago
  > So how did deleting this make YouTube money? I assume they remove "violent" videos to appease advertisers. In this case, they did not consider the value of the video being removed, instead prioritizing the safety of the content with respect to the advertisers.
  - revolvingocelot 5y ago
    Thanks for the assumption, it clarified a lot about what you think about the situation.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  By itself, it doesn't. In the large, YouTube's terms of service are structured around retaining an audience (both in terms of individual and institutional choice... Without a TOS that at least nominally says what constitutes offensive content, businesses and schools block access to YouTube and that decreases viewership which decreases revenue potential). They are also structured around being a hospitable place for advertising, and advertising (in particular brand advertising) gets real gun-shy on spending dollars on content that might be significantly off the bead from "wholesome." Whether or not this video in particular violates the TOS is debatable (though having never heard of this before this link on Hacker News, my naive read on it is that it's simple violent aggression and a display of unadulterated physical violence, which generally doesn't pass the TOS for graphic violence... "Content featuring anything listed above where the viewer is not given enough context to understand that the footage is dramatized or fictional").
frankfrankfrank 5y ago
I get your rather stunted libertarian take, but fact of the matter is that they are not allowed to delete or remove evidence of crimes.
- nradov 5y ago
  Actually in the US YouTube is legally allowed to delete or remove any videos they want to, regardless of whether they might contain evidence of crimes. They would generally only be required to preserve such evidence if given a court order, which doesn't appear to be the case here.
rvz 5y ago
Exactly. They are on the side of making money and do not care about taking anyone's videos down.

theandrewbailey 5y ago

Not just history of the internet: Youtube takes down videos of war crimes. Destroying or covering up evidence of war crimes is, itself, a war crime. I'm surprised that Youtube isn't in hot water over that. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170812/01102937985/once-again-rather-than-deleting-terrorist-propaganda-youtube-deletes-evidence-war-crimes.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170812/01102937985/once-... https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-ai-deletes-war-crime-videos-extremist-material https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/youtube-ai-deletes-war-cr...

josefx 5y ago
Isn't YouTube headquartered in one of those countries that officially consider foreign war crime tribunals directed at their citizens a reason to invade the responsible country?
- AegirLeet 5y ago
  I looked it up and YouTube is indeed headquartered in the United States of America, a known rogue state that regularly commits war crimes.
  - shadowgovt 5y ago
    We should probably stop trusting them with the video cultural memory of the Internet.
- Vinnl 5y ago
  Context: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hague_Invasion_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hague_Invasion_Act
j16sdiz 5y ago
I am not sure what we want YouTube to be. Sometimes we want it big enough to fight against state-level censorship; sometimes we want it small enough to obey anti-trust or privacy law.
skissane 5y ago

reilly3000 5y ago

Thank you for introducing me to the word temerity. Clearly they are relying upon an immature AI dragnet to classify and kill categories of objectionable material. Thankfully they have an appeals process, but it seems to me that automated takedowns are blatantly wrong. Instead they ought to use that data to generate a queue for humans to review and flag, where more popular videos have more reviewers requiring consensus. No matter, it’s clear we’ve allowed a commercial platform to outgrow its structural integrity, and no algorithm can do a thing but delay its collapse under its own weight.