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Tell HN: YouTube is banning accounts that support Ukraine

• browningstreet 5y ago
  When Google bans an account like this, and that account is a Premium subscriber, do they automatically cancel the subscription?
  • Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    I presume so, else Google would get sued for charging for a service not delivered.
• foxfluff 5y ago
  Again, simply watching or having watched live streams from Kiev might net you a ban. > If you watched any Kiev livestream it may have been the reason for your termination. It happened to a lot of us too, it seems some Russian bots have been mass-reporting every single person that watched them > Yes, yesterday night I watched a livestream. Im shocked > I also watched a Livestream yesterday night. How i wish I didn't now since my account got terminated. https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/t1445p/this_account_has_been_terminated_due_to_multiple/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/t1445p/this_accoun...
  • gambiting 5y ago
    Do you lose your entire google account just for watching a stream on YT??? Because if yes, that's an absolute madness
    • monkeybutton 5y ago
      Does this apply to embedded videos too? Imagine reading a news article during lunch at work and getting your corporate account kicked!
      • raverbashing 5y ago
        Besides autoplay being evil, sounds like the GDPR-compliant pages have it right. Your data is only sent to YT after your approval.
        • tentacleuno 5y ago
          One great example of this is the Gumtree site[0]. The social media share buttons at the bottom only load in when you hover over them (with the placeholder being Gumtree-styled social media icons). Great for performance and privacy (although I would prefer no buttons / social media code at all). I've always been really impressed by this, I wish more sites would do it. [0]: https://www.gumtree.com/ https://www.gumtree.com/
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • TheFreim 5y ago
      I don't think YT bans usually affect your google account. I got falsely flagged by a bot for copyright striking a bunch of my own videos which resulted in permanent, apparently unappealable, ban of all my YouTube accounts on that google account but the google account still works just fine.
      • dhimes 5y ago
        permanent, apparently unappealable This should be illegal. It's like a diner owner saying he's going to deny service to all terrorists and then denying service to anyone with brown skin because it's how he determines who is a terrorist.
  • TigeriusKirk 5y ago
    How would a bot know to report you? How could it tell you watched a livestream?
    • plainnoodles 5y ago
      Isn't there a "chat"-like feature similar to Twitch, where you can see everyone's usernames?
      • TigeriusKirk 5y ago
        Yes, I checked and in the chat window you can get a list of participants. I'm watching the (non-Ukraine) stream but not in the participants list, so I assume you have to actually say something in chat.
    • altdataseller 5y ago
      Maybe if you commented on it, liked it or chatted on the livestream. Otherwise I don't see how they know you actually viewed it.
      • freeflight 5y ago
        OP of the Reddit submission claims they didn't comment or chat. But afaik YouTube livestreams with a chat also have a user list for who is present, at least they used to when I last checked.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
  • Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Ukraine has actually discouraged people live streaming or publishing Ukranian troop movement, it's revealing their positions and capabilities to the Russians. I'm sure that's a two way street. How much live streaming happened on Youtube - and how many accounts were terminated - during the conflicts in the middle east?
    • MattGaiser 5y ago
      This could be why YouTube is banning everything. People assume this is anti-Ukraine, but it could be the opposite.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • imiric 5y ago
    One more reason to never watch YouTube logged in or by using any of the official apps. Ideally we should switch to alternative platforms, but the amount of content on YT is unmatched. So try these instead: - https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp - https://newpipe.net/ https://newpipe.net/ - https://github.com/iv-org/invidious https://github.com/iv-org/invidious
    • fsflover 5y ago
      > Ideally we should switch to alternative platforms Please consider supporting PeerTube: https://joinpeertube.org https://joinpeertube.org.
  • popctrl 5y ago
    I noticed something last night watching a live stream of Kyiv. A lot of accounts were posting the comment '/cam2', with others implying something was happening on cam2. Others were saying that the cam thing was fake. I kind of thought it was a way to find out who was watching the video, since obviously youtube chat isn't going to change the video angle...And now I think that's exactly what it was, for this exact purpose. One thing is clear, and it's very scary in light of all the NATO press conferences where people are asking if a cyber attack constitutes an act of war: There is a massive war happening on the internet right now. Reps are reluctant to respond to these questions because it's clear that total cyber war has been going on for years.
• kilnr 5y ago
  I wasn't aware you can see what others are watching. How does one do that?
  • foxfluff 5y ago
    On a live stream there's chat and in the "..." menu you can click to see participants.
    • whitepaint 5y ago
      What the hell?!?!
      • mistrial9 5y ago
        yeah - add to that the Google AUTH with location records, and you get the New New Tech scene
      • baud147258 5y ago
        I think you need to have posted something in the chat for your account to appear there
• Jabbles 5y ago
  OK what seems more plausible: YT is banning people simply for watching a live stream that they are hosting, or that these reports are mistaken or part of a disinformation campaign by a country known for them.
  • jdminhbg 5y ago
    Given what we know about YT’s gameable enforcement mechanisms, probably the former.
  • rurp 5y ago
    The most plausible explanation I've seen is that Youtube's reporting algorithm is being gamed. It's a known weakness that Google has had no interest in fixing in the past.
  • foxfluff 5y ago
    One report came to me personally from a small local IRC channel (less than 100 people) from a person who's been around for years. I trust them 100%.
• throwthere 5y ago
  We’ll this is just massively embarrassing for YouTube. The Reddit thread will get picked up by National media. YouTube will say the reporting was misuse of their terms and was a cyberattack from state level actors implying their reporting algo isn’t actually at fault. They will mention that the automated algo protects children and at risk people. They will then reinstate the accounts and say they are sorry for the temporary inconvenience and pleased that they could respond so swiftly. And the algos won’t change, not one bit. And there will still be no human oversite of these sorts of bans.
  • megaman821 5y ago
    I can't imagine what change they could make to the the algorithms to understand world context at an acceptable level. Reporting on the Russian Ukraine conflict and show a dead body. That is news and should probably be left up. A school shooting and show a dead body. Why did the algorithms leave that up so long?
    • freeflight 5y ago
      2017 had a kind of similar situation where YouTube started deleting a whole lot of Syrian civil war related channels [0], apparently due to the algorithm going haywire trying to censor "extremist propaganda". [0] https://www-nytimes-com.translate.goog/2017/08/22/world/middleeast/syria-youtube-videos-isis.html?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=de&_x_tr_hl=de&_x_tr_pto=op,sc https://www-nytimes-com.translate.goog/2017/08/22/world/midd...
      • consumer451 5y ago
        I always assumed this was related to abuse of reporting systems by the opposition.
  • jquery 5y ago
    The only thing Google understands is money. A nice fat fine from Uncle Sam for aiding and abetting Russia in violation of sanctions might make them prioritize a fix.
  • 5y ago
• alergnon1234 5y ago
  I'll always be amazed at how advanced and desperate pro-Kremlin shilling is, using a throwaway account just in case they decide to DDoS my side project as retaliation.
• hericium 5y ago
  Reddit I understand but Alphabet/Google/YouTube reached next level of incompetence.
  • ivoras 5y ago
    Yeah, but that's about "normal" for what they have been doing with YouTube and account security for the last 10-15 years. It's incredibly difficult to reach a human being in their customer support chain, and using bots to take out rival / oponent / people you don't like YouTube channels has been "normal" for years. Anyone can literally create a few fake Google accounts (or take over / steal existing ones esp. long-running ones) and write a bot to ban practically anyone else.
  • baby 5y ago
    Creators have been complaining about youtube robot moderation for a while
• vezycash 5y ago
  A livestream about watching Kiev livestream to demo how long it takes for the account to get banned should be interesting.
• sharken 5y ago
  YouTube, where oppressive regimes decide what you can watch. I'm sure this is top priority right now for Google to fix. But perhaps everything is automated to an extent that this has no good countermove. We shall see.
  • jjoonathan 5y ago
    Oppressive regimes decide what you can watch and megacorps decide if you are allowed to downvote. "It's automated" has become the new "it's policy," the go-to excuse for doing evil and pretending it's not a choice.
• sebow 5y ago
  This has happened way too frequently and in distinct cases to keep pretending 'it's just incompetence/ignorance'. By the time people realize it's more akin to malevolence it will sadly be too late. I now propose an updated motto: "Don't be evil: just look away."
• jb1991 5y ago
  For starters, regarding live streams, the Ukraine government doesn't want citizens filming what is happening because it might give away positions of the Ukraine defenders as they attempt to maneuver in Kyiv, so that could be one motivation.
  • MrDresden 5y ago
    If that were the case, then deleting the videos would be sufficient. Banning or deleting accounts for watching these streams makes no sense at all.
    • jb1991 5y ago
      That makes sense.
• glogla 5y ago
  Twitter, Facebook and Google - reliable allies of evil everywhere in the world. I mean we knew that, but now it's like they're competing who is worse.
  • adventured 5y ago
    The most interesting thing about this, is that the people that run big tech are all anti-Russia. They're in the Biden | Obama | Hillary camp, not the perceived Trump | Putin camp philosophically (the far left regards Trump and Putin as being aligned and view that as one connected political union; and they view themselves as being specifically on the other side of that; the people in charge of Twitter, Facebook, Google are all far left and very anti-Trump | Putin). Big tech more likely wants to censor the Kremlin than the pro Ukraine wing. Which leads me to believe this is YouTube getting trapped in its own algorithmic approach to moderation, until or unless they can manually intervene.
    • glogla 5y ago
      I don't think they're anti-Russia or anti-anything really, they're pro-being-even-more-insanely-rich and that can materialize in many ways, like talking about being in one camp while doing things that help the other, no matter which camps those are.
    • rurp 5y ago
      I believe those are weakly held beliefs relative to their strongly held belief of making piles of money. Despite the lip service Google and others haven't exactly been going out of their way to help improve democracy and institutions in recent years.
      • adventured 5y ago
        What piles of money? Russia is an entirely irrelevant source of income for them. And if that were true, they would not have de-platformed Trump and they wouldn't take down lots of other high traffic content (eg anti vax) that they do. Russia has a mediocre economy, mediocre median standard of living, mediocre consumer economy, zero economic growth for a decade, and a disaster of a future economically going forward. US big tech all by itself generates more surplus cash (capital available for saving after expenses) every year than the entire nation of Russia does. Russia is an economic weakling and provides no great allure for big tech.
• ganzuul 5y ago
  Isn't YT moderation outsourced? The infiltrators might just be overzealous Russian nationals in one of those cubicle farms.
  • AlexandrB 5y ago
    That's an interesting possibility. Another hazard to outsourcing everything.
  • rcoveson 5y ago
    Or Russian money swaying the occupants of said farms.
• lmilcin 5y ago
  I think larger interesting problem here is possibility of those huge corporations taking sides in wars.
  • AlexandrB 5y ago
    I don't know. I think it would have been good if IBM had taken sides during WWII instead of helping Germany build the infrastructure for genocide. It's usually not that clear cut, but the war in Ukraine has a clear unilateral nature (aggressor is pretty obvious). It's not crazy for western companies to echo western values and interests in such situations. Edit: Consider the alternative, where western companies maintain "neutrality" and help oppressive regimes surveil their citizens or spread propaganda at home and abroad. This seems like a great way for western democracy to shoot itself in the head.
    • moistly 5y ago
      Corporations don’t much care what system of federal governance is in use. Heck, it’s arguable that they prefer dictatorships and oligarchies: easier to bribe. If the West expects corporations to ensure democracy prevails, the West will fail.
• andrewinardeer 5y ago
  I'd be willing to wager money this is a cyber operation by a nation state weaponizing YT's automated systems.
  • ziml77 5y ago
    That's what the first reddit post is saying. Which makes sense to me. If YouTube had an interest in blocking support of Ukraine, they wouldn't have replaced the COVID news section on the main page with one for the Ukraine invasion news. All of the US mainstream media (except for one) is taking a pro-Ukrainian sovereignty angle, and that's what shows in the news area. Seems like Google needs to disable autobans triggered by user reports until they have a solution to filter out the reports originating from Russian-operatred bots.
    • djrogers 5y ago
      > All of the US mainstream media (except for one) is taking a pro-Ukrainian sovereignty angle Which one would that be? I haven’t seen a single US media outlet saying this is a good thing…
      • JadeNB 5y ago
        > Which one would that be? I haven’t seen a single US media outlet saying this is a good thing… Fox is taking a more strongly pro-Russian stance than most other networks.
        • graphpercolator 5y ago
        • xanaxagoras 5y ago
          I don't watch Fox News generally so I can't speak to that (though I doubt it). I do watch Tucker Carlson - easily their top rated program - and the notion that he is taking a pro-Russian stance is patently false.
• gzer0 5y ago
  I stand corrected. My apologies.
  • Rd6n6 5y ago
    The Reddit accounts are not new Eg, 6 year old account https://www.reddit.com/user/lamka02sk/ https://www.reddit.com/user/lamka02sk/ Or 2 years https://www.reddit.com/user/SoftGreener/ https://www.reddit.com/user/SoftGreener/ 4 years https://www.reddit.com/user/omerby12/comments/ https://www.reddit.com/user/omerby12/comments/
    • vhgyu75e6u 5y ago
      There are thousands of dormant accounts, the other day I found one dormant for 5-6 years, became active 1 year ago and had 95k comments! Most bashing the west and defending Russia and populist regimes
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • foxfluff 5y ago
    Those are not usernames, but auto-generated ids of the linked comments/posts. The rest of the url is just a human readable title, which you can erase and still get to the same post.
  • TheHypnotist 5y ago
    Those aren't user names.
  • npacenop 5y ago
    and this is how fake news is born.... These are the reddit thread ids which have "similar namess". The users behind them have different names and have been active on the network for up to 6 years.
• kybernetyk 5y ago
  Too bad but luckily I don't really care anymore. I de-googlified myself some time ago. My email is fastmail on my own domain, I don't use Google's cloud services. Sucks for people who are still trapped in the Goolag ecosystem though. Maybe this should be a warning at least not to host your precious family photos with Google and not to use their email service.
  • lpcvoid 5y ago
    This is absolutely irrelevant for the situation. I did similar things, yet you cannot deny that Youtube is hugely important for people's viewpoints on world politics. This isn't about you or me.
  • mrtesthah 5y ago
    Your personal habits are irrelevant. We live in a shared society and Youtube content will still have an effect on you by way of its viewing by everyone else.
  • can16358p 5y ago
    I de-googlified myself too and never intend to go back, though this is not just about Google. This is about centralization. If there isn't Google, there is Facebook Video which would do the same. If there isn't FB Video then there's Twitter, which would do the same and so on. Even if we, as a minority remove all our accounts from those platforms, the majority use them as the primary media platforms. We need a paradigm shift at scale to move people off centralized platforms, but we need a candidate first that is convenient for people.
• Dolores12 5y ago
  Probably what happens is that people are being reported for saying something in chat that others don't like. X reports and your account is terminated automatically.
• lallysingh 5y ago
  Is this actually happening or are people trying to keep others from supporting Ukraine?
• itchyjunk 5y ago
  I am not sure about watching, but a few different streamer have said showing dead bodies other other list of things can get you banned. Some streamer I was watching mentioned that even violent gun fights and other things might get you in trouble. They were watching videos first without showing it to make sure it was safe. I also wonder if youtube is trying to do detect propaganda somehow. Some videos were clearly using old/altered clips and making claims about the war. This might be factoring in too. Unfortunately, no actual detail is provided of what exactly was the trigger. Even some of the reddit thread seems to have disappeared. In my humble opinion, HN is a file place to be outraged about something some company/person has not but not really that good of a place if there is no data/information/real indication/ that something bad has happened. I am happy to listen to counter points.
• dr_faustus 5y ago
  On the other hand, RT is still happily streaming on YouTube, spouting their non-sense. German viewers is not even IP blocked, even though the have lost their broadcasting license.
  • Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    I mean, Fox News and One America News Network are still on there as well.
  • magicroot75 5y ago
    Putin should go on Rogan. The censors at Spotify's brains will break.
• batch12 5y ago
  The chilling effect of this should be taken in account too. Once this is more widely reported, I can see many people choosing to avoid these sources of information even after bans are lifted because they are afraid of losing their google account.
• TekMol 5y ago
  What is the state of decentralized (ake Web3) video hosting platforms? Are they ready to fill the gap to some extend? I think this is a typical use case for the decentralized approach?
  • Cthulhu_ 5y ago
    Well there are a few 'alternative' social networks, but they weren't very successful (gab, parler, truth social is the latest one iirc).
  • can16358p 5y ago
    This is what I exactly want, and I believe it will happen in the long run. We need a convenient/fast/reliable way of hosting content in global scale and incentivize who host content. Still not there, once it gets there it will revolutionize media. Yet we definitely need something different than BitTorrent, Tor, or IPFS. Something that incentivizes hosting and creation of an economy around this is a must.
• mabbo 5y ago
  This is what happens when you remove all humans from the loop. The decisions made by software can be manipulated once you have a reasonable estimation of what the software is doing. This time it's Russia. Next time it will be an American political party (whichever one you don't like). YouTube saved some money on human moderation, and all it cost was selling their platform to the first group willing to abuse the system. And do you know how they'll respond? By trying to improve the automation. No no, no need to add costs by having humans in the loop, we'll just make better software. Because that's what worked so well for SEO, right?
  • consumer451 5y ago
    > YouTube saved some money on human moderation, and all it cost was selling their platform to the first group willing to abuse the system. Last week I thought I had invented the phrase "accountability arbitrage" to describe the core FB, Google, section 230 business model. But a quick search found it actually has been previously used in some interesting documents. I would like to see that phrase used more commonly. It seems important and timely. https://www.google.com/search?q=%22accountability+arbitrage%22 https://www.google.com/search?q=%22accountability+arbitrage%...
• dutchbrit 5y ago
  My YouTube channel also got removed, received an email 3 hours ago. "We have reviewed your content and found severe or repeated violations of our Community Guidelines. Because of this, we have removed your channel from YouTube." Also posted a message showing support to Ukraine in a Kiev livestream.
  • dutchbrit 5y ago
    Update: Hi ***, We’re pleased to let you know that we’ve recently reviewed your YouTube account, and after taking another look, we can confirm that it is not in violation of our Terms of Service. We have lifted the suspension of your account, and it is once again active and operational. We’d like to thank you for your patience while we reviewed this case. Our goal is to make sure content doesn't violate our Community Guidelines so that YouTube can be a safe place for all - and sometimes we make mistakes trying to get it right. We hope you understand, and we’re sorry for any inconvenience or frustration this has caused. If you have any further questions, please feel free to reach out to us here. Sincerely, The YouTube Team
  • desmondl 5y ago
    Did your entire Google account get deactivated? My Google account is linked to Gmail, GCP/Firebase, Youtube, Drive, and a ton of SSO apps. Used it for the past decade, but I know now not to put all my eggs in one basket so I have backups of my most important data. Still, what happened to you is a big fear of mine.
    • rg111 5y ago
      > My Google account is linked to Gmail, GCP/Firebase, Youtube, Drive Don't. Have separate accounts for dev stuff, entertainment, storage, social media each. > and a ton of SSO apps Never do so. Use a password manager (self-host if you want) and use good old username-password to sign up and log in. I once had all my passwords stored in Chrome leaked in a security breach. A friend's Gmail was suspended that was connected to bank. He had to waste literally tens of hours in commute and waiting and meetings to change it.
• drocer88 5y ago
  Don't browse youtube on the browser you have logged in to google. Use firefox with ublock origin and don't log in to google. Youtube is great without ads. Use chrome for any of those things that you are okay with being tracked. Use archive.is when they bitch about blockers. Use tor browser to see interesting ads not targeted to you.
• jeffwask 5y ago
  It's far past time for American companies to espouse some American values like freedom and democracy rather than boot licking foreign dictators for nickles.
• oi2j3oi32 5y ago
• 0xJRS 5y ago
  YouTube: "What're you gonna do? Go use Vimeo?"
• bedast 5y ago
  It's probably worth noting that these are livestreams which have chat enabled. You are automatically added as a participant, and show up on the participant list, which anyone can see. I suspect watching, say, the WaPo livestream is fine because they have disabled chat and comments. If you must go to one of these livestreams, for some reason, check to see if chat is enabled, and if so, probably avoid it until Youtube figures out how to deal with this.
• Avamander 5y ago
  Google's approach to abuse has a lot of false positives and false negatives but no proper way to remedy either of them. The spiciest example I can think of is one Estonian parish being marked as belonging to Russia, even right this moment, on Google Maps.
• seanw444 5y ago
  Everyone keep an eye on https://youtube.com/channel/UCXZs3e_VSlYgrUuTqm3GgVA https://youtube.com/channel/UCXZs3e_VSlYgrUuTqm3GgVA They have been posting very consistently and frequently. They went from tens of subscribers two days ago, to over 100K as of like 12 hours ago. They're putting in the work.
• jandrese 5y ago
  This should come as a surprise to absolutely nobody. People have been complaining for a decade now that all automated takedown bots are ripe for abuse are are actively being abused by media cartels. You can't be shocked when systems that enable abuse are abused by foreign intelligence services. Google has said it is cheaper to ignore the problem and until that changes they aren't going to fix it. And remember that on the other end of these abusive systems are corporations that are willing to sue individuals for literally billions of dollars over sharing files. Big corporations will not have your back when it could affect their income stream.
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  • deutschewelle 5y ago
    tbh what is the harm done to Alphabet/Youtube here? Bunch of alleged russian bots mass report youtuber's account temporarily and Youtube reversed their incorrect ban. It seems to me the system is working as intended as demonstrated by the reversal of the bans being reported 90 minutes ago. title written by OP is obvious clickbait. Youtube isn't banning accounts that support Ukraine, the automated queue mod system's threshold has been breached and after a human review on the AI's decision, the bans were reversed.
• protomyth 5y ago
  The cynical side of me thinks this to remove competition from the approved (read monetization) news networks on YouTube, but I bet it is more algorithmic incompetence with no human oversight.
• freeflight 5y ago
  What's the chance of these accounts having been compromised for a while, and they were now activated to serve as bots, with YouTube detecting that increased activity and changed behavior, thus flagging them for suspend?
• lkxijlewlf 5y ago
  Question: When YouTube (aka Google, aka Alphabet) bans a user, is that user then deleted from the ad database so that Alphabet no longer makes any money from that user's data?
  • airstrike 5y ago
    No. To the data was never the user's to begin with.
    • lkxijlewlf 5y ago
      Sure it was. Your data is a currency that buys you the services.
      • airstrike 5y ago
        There's no "my data". There's my usage of their service and there's their data about my usage
• ravenstine 5y ago
  YouTube is quickly going on its way to becoming of low relevance. It will take a while, but when even non-controversial YouTube channels have to speak in code words in order to not get demonetized/striked/deleted, you know there's a real problem. I don't know if this banning of Ukraine support is real and, if it is, whether it's intentional or just another round of The Google's Best AI snagging on bugs again, but it doesn't matter. YouTube simply is becoming an nonviable platform to tie to one's business or opinions. At this point, you're not even that likely to get a following without several years of posting videos every day because of just how biased YouTube has become against small creators; you're better off posting on smaller video platforms or even just making your own website.
  • eldaisfish 5y ago
    I highly doubt that youtube will become irrelevant any time soon. The infrastructure cost to hosting over a decade of video across the globe is immense and that alone creates a significant moat. Even if some channels leave, others will take their place quickly. Youtube has sufficient size for that.
    • penjelly 5y ago
      yeah weve seen other video providers come and go, but it feels like nobody else is capable of hosting this much content and having this many active content creators. its kindof sad really, if its not on youtube it probably wont be seen.
      • ravenstine 5y ago
        I don't think many alternative platforms are particularly serious. This is probably in part because hosting massive amounts of video and supporting streaming is a very hard problem. At the same time, they all shoot themselves in the foot in many ways, whether it's their marketing, lack of real moderation, low momentum of improvement, or their UI design.
    • ravenstine 5y ago
      I didn't say "irrelevance". Just low relevance, kind of like how ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and Fox are all still "relevant", but they mean a fraction to younger generations what they meant to even my generation (Gen Y). They're of such low relevance that those organizations have to pay YouTube to promote their content. There may come a day, maybe in another couple decades from now, where YouTube is paying some TNG platform to cross-post its content in much the same way. Relevance is a relative term, so I have to apologize for being pedantic here, but I also can't really help it in this case either. > Even if some channels leave, others will take their place quickly. Youtube has sufficient size for that. To some extent, yes. That doesn't mean it will be able to keep up with loss forever, especially when it's doing things to outright sabotage new channels. People will get tired of a mostly PG-rated platform once YouTube truly reaches that point. Cultures shift and change, and if global internet culture swings back to being more like it was in the 2000s, the warm safety blanket YouTube provides will be a totally uncool thing only old people and little kids watch. YouTube will someday have a rude awakening when their pushing of late-night TV and mainstream news clips is no longer a significant ROI to their customers. As for movies, well, they're definitely not the only ones in town for that.
• rr808 5y ago
  Most of Russian side social media is on Telegram. Does anyone even know if they ban people or moderate content?
• l4yj3lkzf 5y ago
• penjelly 5y ago
  its crazy to me this can occur for any reason, even if they blame the algo, most companies would not be able to get away with something like this without a major effect on their reputation.
• qiskit 5y ago
  • foxfluff 5y ago
    I can't verify the claim that r/youtube was deleting reports but having regularly used ceddit, I wouldn't be surprised. However, there's no need for me to argue about the first sentence. Please take a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/ and it is literally filled with reports of account bans from the past few hours. 95% of the hot stories. You look in the comments, you find dozens more. Saving screenshots for posterity (those termination/strike threads on r/youtube are all relevant): https://imgur.com/a/ekqk3B7 https://imgur.com/a/ekqk3B7
• ukraineally 5y ago
  There has also been huge amounts of bans on twitter. Say the wrong thing and you get ejected. Yet the clear russian propaganda is allowed to stay. I wonder what the threshold is to accuse twitter of russian collaboration. It's certainly a charged event with emotions running hot. People are going to say things that are wrong. Crimea was a difficult subject because they are ethnically russian. Due in large part to a gigantic naval base. They did vote to separate from the Ukraine. That was then, today is different. The direct invasion of Ukraine is aggression. Putin lied, diplomacy has failed. As emperor of canada I would have done what my gov has done so far, but also put a sunset. In 1 year, unless something changes, we end any and all connection to russia. their citizens may not come here. none of their citizens may own property here. Absolutely no trade of any kind. Anyone who is currently doing business with them, your contracts are null and void. Find new suppliers.
• ipaddr 5y ago
  The ironic thing is vk is not censoring similiar content.
• jdrc 5y ago
  This has happened to other wars in the region too. State trolls mass report twitter and youtube accounts to get people banned, or have their videos "age restricted" (which means youtube does not recommend them). It' s the standard practice of google's nonexistent jouranlism/publishing ethics. Twitter has this thing in Germany where they are required to tell you if someone reported your account. This is at least a good way for reporters to know that they are being targetted by trolls.
• decremental 5y ago
  Dollars to donuts says they were fed posting and got in trouble for it.
• LoveGracePeace 5y ago
  Some commenters have said it could be that the videos make it easier for Russia to see what the Ukranians are doing, though I'd imagine they'd just take those respective videos down instead of outright banning people's accounts (since several years ago they force tied our YT accounts directly to our Google accounts even though some of us pay for services like Drive storage and Google Domains - and YT Premium for that matter). Aside from that, food for thought; I know this won't be popular but Google does have ties to JetBrains (Android Studio, Android development used to be done in Eclipse, I prefer Eclipse). JetBrains has offices in Saint Petersburg and Moscow. Google has a strong interest in pushing nginx (formerly (?) Russian made, though I personally prefer Apache) in Kubernetes.
• somethoughts 5y ago
  Perhaps a happy medium for Youtube and other content hosters might be to disaggregate content uploads into two buckets of service: 1.) Generalized content hosting that has minimal oversight with commenting, upvotes and monetization, etc. Basically "bring your own audience" Vimeo style. 2.) More carefully moderated content that gets reviewed by human moderators/stricter opinionated screening filters before it is pushed into the auto-recommendation engine/viral feed algorithm. This blind viral content also based solely on uplikes seems a bit too blind/automated.
• macilacilove 5y ago
  Maybe they calculate that too much outrage will make Russia appear more powerful especially if at the same time Western leaders are not going to do that much(not sure if they will). Maybe they want to save face for politicians who - people will argue - mishandled this crisis. Maybe it is just not really true, despite some people saying it on the internet.
• supreme_berry 5y ago
  Just to remind you all YouTube and Stadia product manager was/is Russian person in Silicon Valley.
• thescriptkiddie 5y ago
  On the other hand, Facebook has temporarily lifted its ban on the Azov Battalion, a Ukrainian neo-nazi paramilitary group. https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-battalion-russia/ https://theintercept.com/2022/02/24/ukraine-facebook-azov-ba...
• JaimeThompson 5y ago
  And yet YouTube allows channels that call the holocaust a hoax, that threaten people, etc to stay up and collect superchats. Strange.
• josevalerio 5y ago
  It’s a private corporation, they can do what they want!! Wait not like that
• squarefoot 5y ago
  Some users reported that their accounts were restored. So it appears that Google is actually capable of reading complaints and checking for wrong removals, when they want to.
• rcoveson 5y ago
  @dang, I'm speaking from a position of ignorance here, but I think this thread is getting flagged, given its age, score, and position on the (currently) second page. It's possible that it has triggered some other less-documented condition, like "political keywords + too many upvotes?" or something, in which case disregard. If it is the flagging, I think we can agree that if any political thread were ever HN-appropriate then this one is. It would also be nice to have confirmation one way or another, since if it has been that fact in and of itself becomes part of the conversation.
• mindcandy 5y ago
  How likely is it that this is the result of Russian bots mass-reporting Ukraine supporters for "violations"?
• Buttons840 5y ago
  I've been leaving comments on YouTube videos and have seen some strange things. I post a comment, get a few thumbs up and engage in some responses, and then the video will disappear, taken down. Quite a coincidence. So I 100% believe the claim of this post.
• KingKaram 5y ago
• urthor 5y ago
  Not a new problem. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- People have talked a lot about how this is morally wrong. It's more morally pretty wrong for a long time. Copyright complaints shouldn't get settled by a "report them instant action," model. Not having a fair hearing in a court of law, is a serious weakness in our modern day legal system. Jurists legitimately have not figured out how to solve this problem. Copyright & patent law when social graphs spread IP at light-speed is a real conundrum. But it's not a new problem. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- What's new is Youtube's algorithm has become a huge asset to Russian foreign policy. Which is directly opposed to the United State's interests. If you're working in the foreign policy apparatus of the US Government and watching this... the fact Alphabet is projecting Russian soft power is a big big problem.
• pyuser583 5y ago
  Twitter was shutting down mainstream OSINT accounts. They eventually apologized. It seems like the new media are keen to shut down information offensives, but are trying to use AI or some other lazy technique.
• rurban 5y ago
  In Germany this is an important new principle called "Täterschutz". Eg if an amokrunner is active, you cannot post information of his location or identification. First I thought it's Reddit crazyness only, but it spread over.
• obayesshelton 5y ago
  And you wonder what happens around politics season..