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It just blows my mind to see how conservative Americans have become convinced that "big tech" is actively censoring them. Any online person knows that social m

It just blows my mind to see how conservative Americans have become convinced that "big tech" is actively censoring them. Any online person knows that social media is an absolute mudslide of right-wing content.

wredue 3y ago
It’s not just a mudslide. No matter how much I block alt-right YouTube channels, google continuously either ignores those blocks, or forces more and more in to my recommended. It’s crazy to see “right wing content is being censored” claims while google is very very clearly pushing right wing content above everything else. I don’t use Facebook, but my wife does and Facebook is exactly the same. It is very obviously pushing right wing content up. When you can open up a video and within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views, it really begs the question of what the hell these people are saying that it’s actually being removed. Cause straight up calling for genocide is not just allowed to thrive on Facebook and google, it is actively pushed on to recommended no matter how much you try to block it. I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?
- salad-tycoon 3y ago
  You might consider me alt right, I sure wouldn’t but regardless, this has absolutely not been my experience. I’ve heard many of the alt podcasts and YouTube and movies, heck I’ve even gone on infowars... I definitely have never had anything even remotely close to your examples. Very bold claims but also very incorrect.
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    The Infowars guy is spreading propaganda that Democrats are killing children and drinking blood. That is a very thin veneer over actual Nazi propaganda. I don't know if I have ever heard of a video with many views openly calling for genocide, but one can certainly spot those calls in the comments of those sources. That shit is coming from somewhere not far removed.
    - wredue 3y ago
      You’ll miss it if you blink, or aren’t up to date with the dog whistles. If you see a right wing video and it says “we gotta get rid of these Hollywood elites”, they’re actually calling for the eradication of the Jews. The right wing spends half of their time online creating and sharing “plausibly deniability” phrases. Here’s a common dog whistle right here in this very thread: “You’ll get banned for wrong think”. — just a dog whistle for “I want to drop hate speech and n-bombs with no consequence” Or “Different political opinions”. — a dog whistle for the exact same as above.
      - plagiarist 3y ago
        In this thread there is something unusual to see in the wild: a dog whistler immediately talking about "hereditary intelligence" and IQ tests after a single question on what precisely "wrong think" is.
  - FrustratedMonky 3y ago
    Not Bold at all. I just watch Science and Programming on YouTube, and it will start suggesting alt-right, red-pill, religious content, pretty radical religious content. From my perspective, the internet leans right. This isn't some isolated experience.
    - wredue 3y ago
      Even HN as of late is being inundated with alt-right hot takes anti-science, anti-intellectualism. The reason they don’t “see it” is because they’re participating in spreading the hate.
- zo1 3y ago
  I don't know what to tell you. I watch "right wing content" exclusively and not even I got "exterminate the jews" level content. Though I see plenty of commentary about day to day beliefs by academia that calls for my race to be wiped out and discriminated against. I'd say the media is playing both sides except you all can't deny that there is systemic discrimination against white people in multiple countries' law books right now, in 2023.
  - plagiarist 3y ago
    "I haven't seen any Antisemitism at all but white people are indeed being genocided," is a pretty hot take.
    - zo1 3y ago
      I thought the other one was even more odd: "Oh Youtube keeps promoting right-wing, eradicate the Jews content". But, to be fair, I didn't say I don't see antisemitic content. That for sure pops up once in a while in very "muted" language. I've also seen a rising trend for the traditional values of Jewish people to be admired on the right/conservative side, so there is that.
  - wredue 3y ago
    Academics are not calling for genocide dude. If you can point to even one non right wing academic figure that calls for the genocide of any race of people, I’ll donate $100 to Doctors Without Borders that moment.
    - zo1 3y ago
      There are two I had on my mind that I had come across recently: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10145969/Public-furious-Rutgers-professor-Brittney-Coopers-history-anti-white-comments.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10145969/Public-fur... No mention of this "controversy" on her Wikipedi page, either. https://www.foxnews.com/us/professor-under-fire-for-white-genocide-tweet-blames-violent-racists-for-uproar https://www.foxnews.com/us/professor-under-fire-for-white-ge... But with a bit more googling, I found some additional ones. https://www.thecollegefix.com/video-uc-berkeley-professor-under-fire-for-abolish-white-people-comments/ https://www.thecollegefix.com/video-uc-berkeley-professor-un... https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/02/texas-professor-white-people/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/02/texas-professor-white... https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanford-student-senator-says-white-people-need-to-be-eradicated/ https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanford-student-senator-says-... https://jonathanturley.org/2021/04/28/barnard-professor-triggers-free-speech-controversy-after-writing-about-detonating-and-gassing-white-people/ https://jonathanturley.org/2021/04/28/barnard-professor-trig... Look, I agree these things aren't straight out "hey lets go out and gas white people" (Well one of them is). But the pattern is disturbing, and the media coverage is even more disturbing because they're (I would argue) hiding the level of this stuff, thus preventing us from having the conversation. Why do conservatives feel threatened, this is just Affirmative Action and Inclusion (such orwellian terms that hide their discrimination), so why do you feel that way unless you're secretly racist? Well, it's because there is a sustained, and secretly promoted hatred of white people and it needs to be brought to light. As an example, the Wikipedia page on Brittney Coopers at Rutgers University. No mention of this pretty-notable controversy about her racist comments. Probably edited for months after the story broke until people lost interest dealing with the Wikipedia rules.
- brightlancer 3y ago
  > When you can open up a video and within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views, it really begs the question of what the hell these people are saying that it’s actually being removed. Cause straight up calling for genocide is not just allowed to thrive on Facebook and google, it is actively pushed on to recommended no matter how much you try to block it. > I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit? I call bullshit. There's plenty of racist crap on the internet, but "within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views" is just not believable, unless you're _deliberately_ going into some very dark corners. Facebook isn't suggesting this to the broad audience because it would get immediately flagged -- in some countries, such a video is illegal. YouTube's algorithms can get twisted up and make recommendations based upon associations we don't see, but "I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?" is just not believable, unless someone in your house is deliberately searching for it, or you think anything non-Marxist is alt-right.
  - how_gauche 3y ago
    I have an extremely similar profile (chess, PBS space time!) and I get non stop Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate in my recommendations. YouTube Shorts are the worst for this, I can't scroll through ten videos without seeing this guy, no matter how many times I click "do not want!"
  - wredue 3y ago
    Dude. I’ve selected “don’t recommend this channel”, reported and blocked “the critical drinker”, who’s videos can be summed up as “women and black people are bad”, no less than 8 times and YouTube is STILL recommending this fucker as of 7 minutes ago.
- throwawaymobule 3y ago
  Is there anyone out there collating data on YouTube suggestions in a widespread way? Like a browser extension that tracks when and what videos appear vs which ones are watched. I assume doing this would be a privacy nightmare, and not capture most data 'the algorithm' runs off of. I've heard of specific studies where fresh accounts are tested and the time until certain 'radical' content starts showing up, but nothing on existing accounts in use by people. I don't have a great handle on this, since I limit the amount I use YouTube's suggestions.
johng 3y ago
It just blows my mind to see liberal Americans being ok with every major social media platform ban accounts and block content they said was false when it was actually true. Biden laptop for one.
- claytongulick 3y ago
  Liberal doesn't mean liberal anymore. Liberalism has been coopted by authoritarianism and branded as a weird sort of "friendly fascism" [1]. Instead of recognizing the historical dangers of that sort of philosophy, it's wholly embraced - with an illusion of legitimacy pasted on top that exploits our better natures by channeling good intentions (anti-racism, anti-discrimination, self-ownership, public health, environmentalism) into a mechanism for certain people to gain more power and control. The part of this that I've found the most disturbing is the absolutely bizarre pivot the "left" made from being deeply suspicious of Big Pharma, to a sudden (almost overnight) support of government regulatory partnership with megacorps, with all of the actors in the scenario receiving big money and little scrutiny. Even asking basic questions and pointing this stuff out gets you shouted down and cancelled (I'm burning lots of karma just posting this viewpoint). The over 6 billion dollars [2] per year that pharma spends on direct-to-consumer ads on TV, and how that influences the content that's shown on TV and which politicians the media supports are completely ignored. Somehow the folks that have traditionally been the champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power, have instead become cheerleaders for an authoritarian state controlled mostly by the military industrial complex and big pharma. I don't think it's unique to the "left" - the "right" is certainly guilty of the same stuff, it's just particularly painful to watch coming from the folks I grew up believing were the ones that were supposed to protect us from that sort of abuse. We live in interesting times. [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism [2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/healthcare-industry-spends-30b-on-marketing-most-of-it-goes-to-doctors/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/healthcare-industry-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...
  - wredue 3y ago
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
veave 3y ago
I'm conservative (actually conservative) although not American and my point of view is the opposite of yours. Terms of service of big tech are written in particular not to allow me to express my political opinions. Goes to show how we all have a different experience. But what is surprising is how the experience is negative for everyone involved...
- nickthegreek 3y ago
  Please provide the ToS segments that are not allowing you to express your political opinions. Feel free to provide said political opinions as well. I am open to your opinion, but not without examples.
  - veave 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - manuelabeledo 3y ago
      What you are saying is that these TOS don’t allow you to behave like a horrible person towards other users of the platform, which is why these provisions are there in the first place.
      - veave 3y ago
        Precisely big tech's playbook is to move the goalposts as to brand conservative discourse "unreasonable" so it can be silenced.
        manuelabeledo 3y ago
        Hate to break this to you, but society as a whole, and not "big tech", have "moved the goalposts" to consider hate speech frowned upon.
        brightlancer 3y ago
stronglikedan 3y ago
And yet, the twitter files proved that was exactly what was happening, and at the behest of the US government itself.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
pjscott 3y ago
The following can both be true, and IMO both are true: 1. The vast majority of right-wing content goes uncensored. 2. A few really choice targets for censorship get categorized as "misinformation", "disinformation", or "malinformation" and are subject to widespread campaigns of suppression. (... And there may be systematic algorithmic down-weighting of some right-wing ideas or accounts, but I'm not confident enough in the evidence here to call it a serious problem, which is why there's no #3 on that list.) Probably the most non-partisan example I can think of would be the Christchurch shooter's manifesto, a document which approximately everyone disagrees with. For a while after the massacre, it seemed like every social media platform was aggressively trying to make sure nobody could read the thing. You could find a copy with some effort, but only by skulking around in the shadier parts of the web. You could say that they're private companies and can do what they want -- but if they hadn't censored in lockstep, it's likely that some government displeasure would come down on the uncooperative companies later. The result of this is a censorship regime that's hard to see because it only goes after the high-value targets.
- cudgy 3y ago
  “but if they hadn't censored in lockstep, it's likely that some government displeasure would come down on the uncooperative companies later” This is the root of the problem, right? In the US, the government is specifically excluded from doing this either directly or indirectly, except in specific and rare circumstances that were not in play for most of the censorship that has occurred like covid origins, speech deemed racist, criticism of vaccines, speech deemed hateful, and speech deemed incorrect for example.
Exoristos 3y ago
If only the rest of social media were populated by cowering conformist milquetoasts, like HN is, the alleged censorship would be unnecessary.

wredue 3y ago

It’s not just a mudslide. No matter how much I block alt-right YouTube channels, google continuously either ignores those blocks, or forces more and more in to my recommended. It’s crazy to see “right wing content is being censored” claims while google is very very clearly pushing right wing content above everything else. I don’t use Facebook, but my wife does and Facebook is exactly the same. It is very obviously pushing right wing content up. When you can open up a video and within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views, it really begs the question of what the hell these people are saying that it’s actually being removed. Cause straight up calling for genocide is not just allowed to thrive on Facebook and google, it is actively pushed on to recommended no matter how much you try to block it. I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?

salad-tycoon 3y ago
You might consider me alt right, I sure wouldn’t but regardless, this has absolutely not been my experience. I’ve heard many of the alt podcasts and YouTube and movies, heck I’ve even gone on infowars... I definitely have never had anything even remotely close to your examples. Very bold claims but also very incorrect.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  The Infowars guy is spreading propaganda that Democrats are killing children and drinking blood. That is a very thin veneer over actual Nazi propaganda. I don't know if I have ever heard of a video with many views openly calling for genocide, but one can certainly spot those calls in the comments of those sources. That shit is coming from somewhere not far removed.
  - wredue 3y ago
    You’ll miss it if you blink, or aren’t up to date with the dog whistles. If you see a right wing video and it says “we gotta get rid of these Hollywood elites”, they’re actually calling for the eradication of the Jews. The right wing spends half of their time online creating and sharing “plausibly deniability” phrases. Here’s a common dog whistle right here in this very thread: “You’ll get banned for wrong think”. — just a dog whistle for “I want to drop hate speech and n-bombs with no consequence” Or “Different political opinions”. — a dog whistle for the exact same as above.
    - plagiarist 3y ago
      In this thread there is something unusual to see in the wild: a dog whistler immediately talking about "hereditary intelligence" and IQ tests after a single question on what precisely "wrong think" is.
- FrustratedMonky 3y ago
  Not Bold at all. I just watch Science and Programming on YouTube, and it will start suggesting alt-right, red-pill, religious content, pretty radical religious content. From my perspective, the internet leans right. This isn't some isolated experience.
  - wredue 3y ago
    Even HN as of late is being inundated with alt-right hot takes anti-science, anti-intellectualism. The reason they don’t “see it” is because they’re participating in spreading the hate.
zo1 3y ago
I don't know what to tell you. I watch "right wing content" exclusively and not even I got "exterminate the jews" level content. Though I see plenty of commentary about day to day beliefs by academia that calls for my race to be wiped out and discriminated against. I'd say the media is playing both sides except you all can't deny that there is systemic discrimination against white people in multiple countries' law books right now, in 2023.
- plagiarist 3y ago
  "I haven't seen any Antisemitism at all but white people are indeed being genocided," is a pretty hot take.
  - zo1 3y ago
    I thought the other one was even more odd: "Oh Youtube keeps promoting right-wing, eradicate the Jews content". But, to be fair, I didn't say I don't see antisemitic content. That for sure pops up once in a while in very "muted" language. I've also seen a rising trend for the traditional values of Jewish people to be admired on the right/conservative side, so there is that.
- wredue 3y ago
  Academics are not calling for genocide dude. If you can point to even one non right wing academic figure that calls for the genocide of any race of people, I’ll donate $100 to Doctors Without Borders that moment.
  - zo1 3y ago
    There are two I had on my mind that I had come across recently: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10145969/Public-furious-Rutgers-professor-Brittney-Coopers-history-anti-white-comments.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10145969/Public-fur... No mention of this "controversy" on her Wikipedi page, either. https://www.foxnews.com/us/professor-under-fire-for-white-genocide-tweet-blames-violent-racists-for-uproar https://www.foxnews.com/us/professor-under-fire-for-white-ge... But with a bit more googling, I found some additional ones. https://www.thecollegefix.com/video-uc-berkeley-professor-under-fire-for-abolish-white-people-comments/ https://www.thecollegefix.com/video-uc-berkeley-professor-un... https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/02/texas-professor-white-people/ https://www.snopes.com/news/2017/06/02/texas-professor-white... https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanford-student-senator-says-white-people-need-to-be-eradicated/ https://www.thecollegefix.com/stanford-student-senator-says-... https://jonathanturley.org/2021/04/28/barnard-professor-triggers-free-speech-controversy-after-writing-about-detonating-and-gassing-white-people/ https://jonathanturley.org/2021/04/28/barnard-professor-trig... Look, I agree these things aren't straight out "hey lets go out and gas white people" (Well one of them is). But the pattern is disturbing, and the media coverage is even more disturbing because they're (I would argue) hiding the level of this stuff, thus preventing us from having the conversation. Why do conservatives feel threatened, this is just Affirmative Action and Inclusion (such orwellian terms that hide their discrimination), so why do you feel that way unless you're secretly racist? Well, it's because there is a sustained, and secretly promoted hatred of white people and it needs to be brought to light. As an example, the Wikipedia page on Brittney Coopers at Rutgers University. No mention of this pretty-notable controversy about her racist comments. Probably edited for months after the story broke until people lost interest dealing with the Wikipedia rules.
brightlancer 3y ago
> When you can open up a video and within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views, it really begs the question of what the hell these people are saying that it’s actually being removed. Cause straight up calling for genocide is not just allowed to thrive on Facebook and google, it is actively pushed on to recommended no matter how much you try to block it. > I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit? I call bullshit. There's plenty of racist crap on the internet, but "within 30 seconds, they’re calling for the eradication of the Jews, with hundreds of thousands of views" is just not believable, unless you're _deliberately_ going into some very dark corners. Facebook isn't suggesting this to the broad audience because it would get immediately flagged -- in some countries, such a video is illegal. YouTube's algorithms can get twisted up and make recommendations based upon associations we don't see, but "I watch PBS space time, various software engineering talks, and chess. That’s it. Why is YouTube recommending conspiracy theorist alt-right shit?" is just not believable, unless someone in your house is deliberately searching for it, or you think anything non-Marxist is alt-right.
- how_gauche 3y ago
  I have an extremely similar profile (chess, PBS space time!) and I get non stop Jordan Peterson and Andrew Tate in my recommendations. YouTube Shorts are the worst for this, I can't scroll through ten videos without seeing this guy, no matter how many times I click "do not want!"
- wredue 3y ago
  Dude. I’ve selected “don’t recommend this channel”, reported and blocked “the critical drinker”, who’s videos can be summed up as “women and black people are bad”, no less than 8 times and YouTube is STILL recommending this fucker as of 7 minutes ago.
throwawaymobule 3y ago
Is there anyone out there collating data on YouTube suggestions in a widespread way? Like a browser extension that tracks when and what videos appear vs which ones are watched. I assume doing this would be a privacy nightmare, and not capture most data 'the algorithm' runs off of. I've heard of specific studies where fresh accounts are tested and the time until certain 'radical' content starts showing up, but nothing on existing accounts in use by people. I don't have a great handle on this, since I limit the amount I use YouTube's suggestions.

johng 3y ago

It just blows my mind to see liberal Americans being ok with every major social media platform ban accounts and block content they said was false when it was actually true. Biden laptop for one.

claytongulick 3y ago
Liberal doesn't mean liberal anymore. Liberalism has been coopted by authoritarianism and branded as a weird sort of "friendly fascism" [1]. Instead of recognizing the historical dangers of that sort of philosophy, it's wholly embraced - with an illusion of legitimacy pasted on top that exploits our better natures by channeling good intentions (anti-racism, anti-discrimination, self-ownership, public health, environmentalism) into a mechanism for certain people to gain more power and control. The part of this that I've found the most disturbing is the absolutely bizarre pivot the "left" made from being deeply suspicious of Big Pharma, to a sudden (almost overnight) support of government regulatory partnership with megacorps, with all of the actors in the scenario receiving big money and little scrutiny. Even asking basic questions and pointing this stuff out gets you shouted down and cancelled (I'm burning lots of karma just posting this viewpoint). The over 6 billion dollars [2] per year that pharma spends on direct-to-consumer ads on TV, and how that influences the content that's shown on TV and which politicians the media supports are completely ignored. Somehow the folks that have traditionally been the champions of civil rights, anti-war, and watchdogs against the growth and abuse from corporate power, have instead become cheerleaders for an authoritarian state controlled mostly by the military industrial complex and big pharma. I don't think it's unique to the "left" - the "right" is certainly guilty of the same stuff, it's just particularly painful to watch coming from the folks I grew up believing were the ones that were supposed to protect us from that sort of abuse. We live in interesting times. [3] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascism [2] https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/healthcare-industry-spends-30b-on-marketing-most-of-it-goes-to-doctors/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/01/healthcare-industry-... [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_times https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_you_live_in_interesting_ti...
- wredue 3y ago

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

veave 3y ago

I'm conservative (actually conservative) although not American and my point of view is the opposite of yours. Terms of service of big tech are written in particular not to allow me to express my political opinions. Goes to show how we all have a different experience. But what is surprising is how the experience is negative for everyone involved...

nickthegreek 3y ago
Please provide the ToS segments that are not allowing you to express your political opinions. Feel free to provide said political opinions as well. I am open to your opinion, but not without examples.
- veave 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - manuelabeledo 3y ago
    What you are saying is that these TOS don’t allow you to behave like a horrible person towards other users of the platform, which is why these provisions are there in the first place.
    - veave 3y ago
      Precisely big tech's playbook is to move the goalposts as to brand conservative discourse "unreasonable" so it can be silenced.
      - manuelabeledo 3y ago
        Hate to break this to you, but society as a whole, and not "big tech", have "moved the goalposts" to consider hate speech frowned upon.
        brightlancer 3y ago

stronglikedan 3y ago

And yet, the twitter files proved that was exactly what was happening, and at the behest of the US government itself.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

pjscott 3y ago

The following can both be true, and IMO both are true: 1. The vast majority of right-wing content goes uncensored. 2. A few really choice targets for censorship get categorized as "misinformation", "disinformation", or "malinformation" and are subject to widespread campaigns of suppression. (... And there may be systematic algorithmic down-weighting of some right-wing ideas or accounts, but I'm not confident enough in the evidence here to call it a serious problem, which is why there's no #3 on that list.) Probably the most non-partisan example I can think of would be the Christchurch shooter's manifesto, a document which approximately everyone disagrees with. For a while after the massacre, it seemed like every social media platform was aggressively trying to make sure nobody could read the thing. You could find a copy with some effort, but only by skulking around in the shadier parts of the web. You could say that they're private companies and can do what they want -- but if they hadn't censored in lockstep, it's likely that some government displeasure would come down on the uncooperative companies later. The result of this is a censorship regime that's hard to see because it only goes after the high-value targets.

cudgy 3y ago
“but if they hadn't censored in lockstep, it's likely that some government displeasure would come down on the uncooperative companies later” This is the root of the problem, right? In the US, the government is specifically excluded from doing this either directly or indirectly, except in specific and rare circumstances that were not in play for most of the censorship that has occurred like covid origins, speech deemed racist, criticism of vaccines, speech deemed hateful, and speech deemed incorrect for example.

Exoristos 3y ago

If only the rest of social media were populated by cowering conformist milquetoasts, like HN is, the alleged censorship would be unnecessary.