4 ms·

I wonder if YouTube takes into consideration local values when doing this. For example, nudity and other controversial stuff can have much different standards o

by mrtksn 3y ago

I wonder if YouTube takes into consideration local values when doing this. For example, nudity and other controversial stuff can have much different standards on what's acceptable and what's not. If this is not baked into the formula, then it's likely that YouTube is pushing cultures to align with SV or some managers in Google. I'm not going to defend Russel Brand, just making a point about YT's impact. This time around maybe many people agree with their decisions on content but what happens if the managers change and the rules change with them? What happens if Andrew Tate types get positions in the corporate? Will people be OK about promoting videos about how you can make money by pimping your girlfriend on live stream and how to recruit more girlfriends and demonetise videos on climate change? It's very disturbing that those utility level services can pick winners and losers. IMHO, we need to move to a model where if you can moderate content you are liable for the content. If you don't want to be liable for content then you should have nothing to do with that content, just provide the service and cooperate with the law enforcement when they are after someone who posts illegal content. You can't be the curator and have no responsibility, and if you don't want responsibility don't be the curator. I'm sorry that you don't like this unpopular opinion but we need to go to the dumb wire days of the telephone companies who couldn't control what people say on the phone and if their services were used to do bad things it was the law enforcements job to deal with it.

lotsofpulp 3y ago
> but we need to go to the dumb wire days of the telephone companies who couldn't control what people say on the phone and if their services were used to do bad things it was the law enforcements job to deal with it. That is today. You do not get to control Google’s computers. Buy your own server(s), buy your own bandwidth, and do what you please. Lobby your representatives to make symmetric fiber internet a utility to each home, and implement ipv6 so you can serve content from your house and not have to depend on bigger companies to get around CGNAT.
- ClumsyPilot 3y ago
  > You do not get to control Google’s computers. Then why does Google control my phone? Can't have it both ways
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    That is an unrelated topic.
  - threeseed 3y ago
    > why does Google control my phone Because you chose to buy that phone. Plenty of phones without their software.
    - phpisthebest 3y ago
      Yes I can instead choose to buy an Apple.... much worse
- fallingknife 3y ago
  The internet is no longer decentralized and interoperable. It's all walled gardens. Want to send an email? Better be on a major email platform or none of your messages will arrive. Guaranteeing internet access as a utility is a great idea but by itself it's only an illusion of freedom. Access to things like Google accounts / AWS / cloudflare and of course the banking system and payment processor duopoly also need to be guaranteed to some degree all law abiding citizens. Edit: I don't think this applies in the case here with Russell Brand and demonitization. There should obviously not be any right to be paid by advertisers.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    Government should offer email (and identity verification) as a utility. And if the populace wants video streaming as a utility, then that too, although I would rather the government simply provide high quality fiber internet connections as a utility since that is limiting factor in hosting your videos.
    - biscottigelato 3y ago
      That further centralizes, makes matter worse. Government is also extremely inefficient. To build the service it'll cost them 10x more than private companies doing it. How much do you want to pay in taxes? There will come a point that even if the government actually is trying, that even if the entire GDP is converted the taxes that it'll still end up with a worse quality of life for the rest of us. Governments is easily corrupt and extremely inefficient. Its almost never the answer.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        I don’t think so. Email is low barrier to entry, and a constitutionally protected email account would protect people’s ability to communicate electronically, especially if the government is going to communicate via email with you. USPS can handle it all. SMS 2FA should also be replaced with something that is legally protected no matter what, so it doesn’t matter if you get blocked by Google/Apple/ATT/Verizon/etc, you can still live your life. Same for an electronic money account.
- pseg134 3y ago
  Then why were you crying the other day that the US needs to nationalize SpaceX to help Ukraine? Can’t they just built their own space based internet network?
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    I do not recall commenting on that topic at all.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  This is like saying that if you don't like the planet Earth, find yourself a planet suitable to terraform, go there terraform it, populate it the way you like and live there. Sure, you can do that but you can also solve the problem at hand. Ownership, money, property etc. are all constructs based on a social contract, Sundar Pichai by himself can't have control on more than a suitcase and a vehicle maybe - he can control Alphabet only because as a society we decided to operate in a certain way and sounds he makes and finger movements he does end up steering giant network of people who interact with other networks of people who happen to have control over some machinery. This means, if the social contract isn't working out we can change that social contract to suits our needs better. One change can be about how computers that transmit videos over TCP/IP should operate.
  - oarsinsync 3y ago
    Symmetric fibre internet exists in many European countries, and is readily available to a large bulk of citizens in those countries already. I pay $25pm for 500Mbps symmetric today. I can’t fly to another planet and terraform it. I can (and do) host my own video streams however.
    - mrtksn 3y ago
      It's not about the tech. Plenty of people could have built Twitter from scratch, but Musk had to pay over $40B to have Twitter and no one came around to offer him to build a Twitter for $39B.
      - lotsofpulp 3y ago
        >but Musk had to pay over $40B to have Twitter and no one came around to offer him to build a Twitter for $39B. As far as I understand, musk offered $40B for Twitter, unprompted. Is there any evidence that he put out offers to build an alternative for $39B? Because I feel like it would have been taken up given the widespread belief that he was overpaying, and even Musk believed that since he tried to back out.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
- vmladenov 3y ago
  There’s a bit more to it than this. If you run afoul of the big payment processors like Visa and Mastercard, you may find it difficult to even pay for the stuff you mentioned (or get paid). The ideal of companies being able to refuse service makes sense from a freedom perspective but in reality we have a handful of very skewed markets, and there is often no “municipal alternative” to support those who have been blacklisted.
  - lotsofpulp 3y ago
    So the solution is to create those “municipal alternatives”. Constitutionally guaranteed electronic money account and ability to receive and send money, constitutionally guaranteed access to internet, email, and identity verification services, provided by the government. And any abuse should be prosecuted by the government.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  Zayo, HE and Kiwifarms
ghaff 3y ago
And if you don’t moderate at all you get deluged under piles of crap, hate speech, spam, and bot-created garbage. Might as well not even try. In any sort of forum context, zero moderation makes it useless at least for most.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  Moderation against abuse of your own system is fine, that's given. Even electricity companies will go after you if you abuse their grid but they won't care what kind of videos you film using their electricity. However I don't think that YouTube should decide what's hate speech and ban it. If that speech is illegal, the law enforcement should find the person. Maybe it can be acceptable to let the law enforcement delete videos but that's also risky because that's how you can get speech suppression when the government isn't very good.
  - madeofpalk 3y ago
    Hate speech is not illegal in the US. Youtube is not judging what speech is legal or not, they're just making a decision about which types of content they want to distribute.
    - mrtksn 3y ago
      Then that speech should remain on YouTube and those concern by the content of the speech should simply produce counterarguments and discredit that speech.
      - ghaff 3y ago
        You realize the idea that YouTube videos of the sort being discussed here will result in thoughtful counter arguments is a completely naive notion?
        mrtksn 3y ago
        Twitter's community notes works quite well. I don't think that people are incapable of discussion. IMHO the problem is anonymity combined with some harmful dopamine loop, making people act horribly. Maybe even putting the age of the poster next to the nickname will reduce the heat of the discussion quite a bit.
madeofpalk 3y ago
Youtube is not a utility.
- Slava_Propanei 3y ago
  [dead]
nateglims 3y ago
YouTube had to appease its advertisers to make money. I can’t think of a utility that has this revenue model.
- mrtksn 3y ago
  If that revenue model doesn't work YT should find a new one or seize to exists. It's not god's given right to run a profitable business, businesses who harm the society and can't find ways to operate at profit without harming the society go out of business all the time.
- spacebanana7 3y ago
  Modern auction based ad platforms are much less economically sensitive to the pressure of advertiser ethics than traditional ad platforms like cable TV. If one advertiser pulls out for ethical reasons their placement goes to the next bidder at an infinitesimally smaller price. And at the back of the line there’s always a game developer willing to pay a couple of dollars per install. This is why the Facebook ad boycotts were so ineffective. Especially compared to the impact of the Twitter ad boycott - with Twitter having never developed a modern auction based platform.
  - nateglims 3y ago
    The YouTube “adpocalypse” suggests that YouTube is sensitive to it in a way that google and Facebook aren’t. I don’t know how their ad purchasing system works though.
morkalork 3y ago
Hasn't pushing cultural norms on others always been the case with American-centric media? Before silicon valley it was Hollywood. They've got all the big budgets to produce hyperviolent movies but lord help you, if there's an uncovered boob, then it's an R rating and a much tougher pitch to studios.
mongol 3y ago
> then it's likely that YouTube is pushing cultures to align with SV or some managers in Google. This is as sure as that the sun will rise tomorrow. I have absolutely no doubt that the rest of the world is culturally influenced by the larger SV companies. > we need to move to a model where if you can moderate content you are liable for the content. Agree completely.
zarzavat 3y ago
The answer to that is yes, kind of. Google only really cares what people say in English and perhaps some other major languages. Speech in less common languages is less moderated in general across the internet.

by mrtksn 3y ago

lotsofpulp 3y ago

> but we need to go to the dumb wire days of the telephone companies who couldn't control what people say on the phone and if their services were used to do bad things it was the law enforcements job to deal with it. That is today. You do not get to control Google’s computers. Buy your own server(s), buy your own bandwidth, and do what you please. Lobby your representatives to make symmetric fiber internet a utility to each home, and implement ipv6 so you can serve content from your house and not have to depend on bigger companies to get around CGNAT.

ClumsyPilot 3y ago
> You do not get to control Google’s computers. Then why does Google control my phone? Can't have it both ways
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  That is an unrelated topic.
- threeseed 3y ago
  > why does Google control my phone Because you chose to buy that phone. Plenty of phones without their software.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    Yes I can instead choose to buy an Apple.... much worse
fallingknife 3y ago
The internet is no longer decentralized and interoperable. It's all walled gardens. Want to send an email? Better be on a major email platform or none of your messages will arrive. Guaranteeing internet access as a utility is a great idea but by itself it's only an illusion of freedom. Access to things like Google accounts / AWS / cloudflare and of course the banking system and payment processor duopoly also need to be guaranteed to some degree all law abiding citizens. Edit: I don't think this applies in the case here with Russell Brand and demonitization. There should obviously not be any right to be paid by advertisers.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  Government should offer email (and identity verification) as a utility. And if the populace wants video streaming as a utility, then that too, although I would rather the government simply provide high quality fiber internet connections as a utility since that is limiting factor in hosting your videos.
  - biscottigelato 3y ago
    That further centralizes, makes matter worse. Government is also extremely inefficient. To build the service it'll cost them 10x more than private companies doing it. How much do you want to pay in taxes? There will come a point that even if the government actually is trying, that even if the entire GDP is converted the taxes that it'll still end up with a worse quality of life for the rest of us. Governments is easily corrupt and extremely inefficient. Its almost never the answer.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      I don’t think so. Email is low barrier to entry, and a constitutionally protected email account would protect people’s ability to communicate electronically, especially if the government is going to communicate via email with you. USPS can handle it all. SMS 2FA should also be replaced with something that is legally protected no matter what, so it doesn’t matter if you get blocked by Google/Apple/ATT/Verizon/etc, you can still live your life. Same for an electronic money account.
pseg134 3y ago
Then why were you crying the other day that the US needs to nationalize SpaceX to help Ukraine? Can’t they just built their own space based internet network?
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  I do not recall commenting on that topic at all.
mrtksn 3y ago
This is like saying that if you don't like the planet Earth, find yourself a planet suitable to terraform, go there terraform it, populate it the way you like and live there. Sure, you can do that but you can also solve the problem at hand. Ownership, money, property etc. are all constructs based on a social contract, Sundar Pichai by himself can't have control on more than a suitcase and a vehicle maybe - he can control Alphabet only because as a society we decided to operate in a certain way and sounds he makes and finger movements he does end up steering giant network of people who interact with other networks of people who happen to have control over some machinery. This means, if the social contract isn't working out we can change that social contract to suits our needs better. One change can be about how computers that transmit videos over TCP/IP should operate.
- oarsinsync 3y ago
  Symmetric fibre internet exists in many European countries, and is readily available to a large bulk of citizens in those countries already. I pay $25pm for 500Mbps symmetric today. I can’t fly to another planet and terraform it. I can (and do) host my own video streams however.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    It's not about the tech. Plenty of people could have built Twitter from scratch, but Musk had to pay over $40B to have Twitter and no one came around to offer him to build a Twitter for $39B.
    - lotsofpulp 3y ago
      >but Musk had to pay over $40B to have Twitter and no one came around to offer him to build a Twitter for $39B. As far as I understand, musk offered $40B for Twitter, unprompted. Is there any evidence that he put out offers to build an alternative for $39B? Because I feel like it would have been taken up given the widespread belief that he was overpaying, and even Musk believed that since he tried to back out.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
vmladenov 3y ago
There’s a bit more to it than this. If you run afoul of the big payment processors like Visa and Mastercard, you may find it difficult to even pay for the stuff you mentioned (or get paid). The ideal of companies being able to refuse service makes sense from a freedom perspective but in reality we have a handful of very skewed markets, and there is often no “municipal alternative” to support those who have been blacklisted.
- lotsofpulp 3y ago
  So the solution is to create those “municipal alternatives”. Constitutionally guaranteed electronic money account and ability to receive and send money, constitutionally guaranteed access to internet, email, and identity verification services, provided by the government. And any abuse should be prosecuted by the government.
inemesitaffia 3y ago
Zayo, HE and Kiwifarms

ghaff 3y ago

And if you don’t moderate at all you get deluged under piles of crap, hate speech, spam, and bot-created garbage. Might as well not even try. In any sort of forum context, zero moderation makes it useless at least for most.

mrtksn 3y ago
Moderation against abuse of your own system is fine, that's given. Even electricity companies will go after you if you abuse their grid but they won't care what kind of videos you film using their electricity. However I don't think that YouTube should decide what's hate speech and ban it. If that speech is illegal, the law enforcement should find the person. Maybe it can be acceptable to let the law enforcement delete videos but that's also risky because that's how you can get speech suppression when the government isn't very good.
- madeofpalk 3y ago
  Hate speech is not illegal in the US. Youtube is not judging what speech is legal or not, they're just making a decision about which types of content they want to distribute.
  - mrtksn 3y ago
    Then that speech should remain on YouTube and those concern by the content of the speech should simply produce counterarguments and discredit that speech.
    - ghaff 3y ago
      You realize the idea that YouTube videos of the sort being discussed here will result in thoughtful counter arguments is a completely naive notion?
      - mrtksn 3y ago
        Twitter's community notes works quite well. I don't think that people are incapable of discussion. IMHO the problem is anonymity combined with some harmful dopamine loop, making people act horribly. Maybe even putting the age of the poster next to the nickname will reduce the heat of the discussion quite a bit.

madeofpalk 3y ago

Youtube is not a utility.

Slava_Propanei 3y ago
[dead]

nateglims 3y ago

YouTube had to appease its advertisers to make money. I can’t think of a utility that has this revenue model.

mrtksn 3y ago
If that revenue model doesn't work YT should find a new one or seize to exists. It's not god's given right to run a profitable business, businesses who harm the society and can't find ways to operate at profit without harming the society go out of business all the time.
spacebanana7 3y ago
Modern auction based ad platforms are much less economically sensitive to the pressure of advertiser ethics than traditional ad platforms like cable TV. If one advertiser pulls out for ethical reasons their placement goes to the next bidder at an infinitesimally smaller price. And at the back of the line there’s always a game developer willing to pay a couple of dollars per install. This is why the Facebook ad boycotts were so ineffective. Especially compared to the impact of the Twitter ad boycott - with Twitter having never developed a modern auction based platform.
- nateglims 3y ago
  The YouTube “adpocalypse” suggests that YouTube is sensitive to it in a way that google and Facebook aren’t. I don’t know how their ad purchasing system works though.

morkalork 3y ago

Hasn't pushing cultural norms on others always been the case with American-centric media? Before silicon valley it was Hollywood. They've got all the big budgets to produce hyperviolent movies but lord help you, if there's an uncovered boob, then it's an R rating and a much tougher pitch to studios.

mongol 3y ago

> then it's likely that YouTube is pushing cultures to align with SV or some managers in Google. This is as sure as that the sun will rise tomorrow. I have absolutely no doubt that the rest of the world is culturally influenced by the larger SV companies. > we need to move to a model where if you can moderate content you are liable for the content. Agree completely.

zarzavat 3y ago

The answer to that is yes, kind of. Google only really cares what people say in English and perhaps some other major languages. Speech in less common languages is less moderated in general across the internet.