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LAPD YouTube Channel Suspended for Posting Violent Content
- armchairhacker 3y agoThis seems barely worth an article: the LAPD posted a violent assault asking people to identify the suspect, and YouTube (possibly an algorithm) suspended the account for posting violence. Should violent content be allowed on the internet? I believe so. Should it be allowed on YouTube? I believe YouTube can decide: if they want to block violence, porn, and other 18+ content for everyone, that's fair and those people can post on the other sites. There's an argument that posting on YouTube instead of a less popular platform is necessary for LAPD to increase the audience and more likely identify the suspect; but I think there are better ways which get a higher-quality audience and don't involve exposing random people to a random assault.
- nonethewiser 3y agoWhat you say seems completely reasonable. Zooming out a bit, it’s really unfortunate youtube doesnt have any competition.
- SenAnder 3y agoFortune has little to do with it. Google prioritizes Youtube over other video sites in search [1]. This had even greater impact before Youtube was established as the default video site. [1] https://www.businessinsider.com/google-prioritizes-youtube-videos-over-competitors-2020-7 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-prioritizes-youtube-v...
- OnlineGladiator 3y agoI've always been curious but never done more than cursory research (which is my own fault), but isn't YouTube operating at such a massive scale and requires so much infrastructure you basically need a true behemoth roughly the size of Google in order to make money or just break even? I'm not apologizing for Google's monopolistic policies and there are many things I dislike about the company, but despite all its faults YouTube is still one of the gems and miracles of the modern internet. I'm genuinely happy for someone to explain to me why I'm wrong and how this could operate without being attached to a multibillion dollar conglomeration, or just any further data/research about the logistics and costs of operating something like YouTube.
- SenAnder 3y agoOther, smaller video sites exist and had existed in YouTube's early days. If they were (and are - many are still around) viable, why would growth make them less viable? Economies of scale would work in their favor (and if they didn't, then we would have a multitude of smaller video sites that, together, would sum to the equivalent of a YouTube).
- harimau777 3y agoDo those alternatives allow users to upload long (e.g. an hour or more) videos in HD quality? I'm not saying that they don't, that just seems like it could be one area where they might differ.
- kurthr 3y agoI think you'll find Vimeo or even Loom could be used, but probably only for private groups. Most people (advertisers) don't want to randomly have graphic violence included in their stream (or pay for it). I'd say if you opt in it's fine, but even then it's really hard to force a for-profit entity to carry violent (or pornographic etc.) content, if they have strict terms of service.
- bsder 3y agoThat's because video is ferociously expensive in bandwidth and Google subsidizes it with profits from ads. This is a pure monopoly that should be broken up by the government for anti-trust reasons.
- inemesitaffia 3y agoIt's cheaper now
- Freedom2 3y ago> Zooming out a bit Pun intended? Perhaps Zoom has an opportunity to enter the video space.
- _ea1k 3y agoIn that case, shouldn't they just mark the video as 18+ rather than suspending the channel?
- mensetmanusman 3y agoYes, that would be rational, but politics isn’t rational.
- catlover76 3y agoIf YouTube's content moderation takes down government content that is being posted for responsible or generally good reasons, then why isn't that worth an article?
- krapp 3y agoYoutube's capricious moderation policies are well known, they take down content posted for responsible or generally good reasons all the time. This isn't news just because it's the LAPD. It would be news if they treated the LAPD different from anyone else posting violent content.
- inferiorhuman 3y agoI got this recommendation[1] right around the time Youtube decided I'd seen enough ad free videos. Whatever sympathy I had for them missing out on ad revenue evaporated. 1: https://i.imgur.com/ymOmwBy.jpg https://i.imgur.com/ymOmwBy.jpg
- RichardCA 3y agoThe "Russian Dashcam" videos are horrific these days, basically snuff films and yes that includes children. I'm the kind of person who likes realistic war movies and the like but this is on a different level. I won't post links but they are easy to find, a simple search will surface them with no issues.
- catlover76 3y agoDo you think most people realize(d) that such content moderation policies resulted in government postings like this getting taken down?
- blooalien 3y agoHonestly, I don't think most people realize (or care about) the massive damage these giant corporations like Google and Facebook are doing to society in general.
- drewcoo 3y agoDifferent take: YouTube has created a walled commons. The main walled commons for video by far. Thanks, YouTube, for caretaking the commons. We wouldn't let the LAPD post that in a public park or at a municipal swimming pool or next to a playground and we'd rather not have it on YouTube.
- jowea 3y agoOk, but you really want Google caretaking the commons?
- darigo 3y agoThat depends, who are you proposing the alternative caretaker? I don't want my government to force video apps to host violent content, nor do I want my government making their own digital commons.
- jowea 3y agoI'm not sure, maybe not have a single commons so people can self-sort into the place they want, the Fediverse option basically. But if we're going to have a single commons a democratic government may be preferable to a company that at best wants to keep it advertiser friendly.
- darigo 3y ago>But if we're going to have a single commons a democratic government may be preferable to a company that at best wants to keep it advertiser friendly. I'm also a big fan of the fediverse. However, I'm skeptical in the quality and even practical accountability of "democratic" governments, who are themselves pressured to be "advertiser-friendly" in their own way.
- robertlagrant 3y agoWhy post a whole video instead of a photo?
- faeriechangling 3y agoYouTube’s content policy regularly demonetizes history channels, even ones which are throughly self-censoring and separating the most likely to be demonetized content into separate videos. The EU digital services act incentivized YouTube to ramp up age restrictions to avoid running afoul of the law which basically strangles the financial viability of much of this content since you need to be logged in and the less people who see it the less people will be shown the video. So it’s not just simply YouTube mulling things and going they don’t want this content on their platform, it’s YouTube thinking it’s easier to blanket block everything and ask questions later in response to regulation. It’s not just how things have always been on YouTube things are getting worse and will get worse as more and more organizations believe YouTube needs to be reformed by threatening them and YouTube continues utilizing the cheapest laziest forms of compliance. We’re creating a world which isn’t in anybodies best interest just to be risk adverse against pissing off whatever special interest be it copyright holders, advertisers, or governments.
- mc32 3y agoIf they want to be The Disney of Video Content that's fine, but be consistent and predictable about it. I guess there goes any war reporting, cockfighting, etc., on Youtube.
- 8note 3y agoI think it's a sign that the government needs to run social media sites with free speech rights included
- refurb 3y agoYou have a lot more faith in the government and the fact it won't be heavily politicized than I do.
- navigate8310 3y agoA government running social media site that includes free speech rights is oxymoron at best
- avery17 3y agoNo, we all need to start self hosting. Decentralization is the real way forward. Aggregators need to be running locally on your device to create a seamless experience and a feeling of centralization but we need to stop relying on meta and youtube to host our content.
- tomohawk 3y agoYoutube is a monopoly (70% control or more is a monopoly). Monopolists do not have the same legal rights that non monopolists have to use their own discretion, since to allow them to do that would allow them to push everyone around. For example, a utility monopoly cannot turn off the power to your house if they don't like your social media posts. A monopoly such as Youtube that controls the public square that involves important constitutional rights should be forced to make provision to protect those rights. There are also important societal concerns. If youtube existed while the Nazis were exterminating Jews and others, and someone smuggled out videos of what was going on, would it be a good thing for youtube to censor those videos and not allow them to be shown? Youtube obviously has important responsibilities given its monopoly status and if they are not willing to live up to them they should be directed to live up to them.
- harimau777 3y agoI'd be fine with that approach as long as a law was passed that said that if a journalist wants to commentate on a video, then they have to provide a link where anyone can view the video in full (potentially with exceptions for certain cases like those involving minors). I just don't trust journalists when they claim that they have a video showing unjustified violence. I imagine that sentiment probably is held by people on both sides. E.g. a leftist would be suspicious of stories accusing protestors of violence while someone on the right would be suspicious about stories of police violence.
- nradov 3y agoWhat is a journalist? That term isn't even clearly defined in US federal law. Any random person can act as a journalist.
- anticensor 3y agoThey mean professional journalists, those who report news for a living and have at least one formal press credential.
- quadhome 3y agoTranslated into tech: They mean professional programmers, those who write code for a living and have at least one formal git repository.
- nradov 3y agoThat is meaningless from a legal standpoint. Press credentials are not a real thing with any official weight. And if someone reports news as a volunteer for a non-profit organization are they not a journalist?
- anticensor 3y agoThey are a real thing and bring significant privileges in some jurisdictions. In some of them, press credential is actually government issued and yes, they tend to exclude volunteer journalists. It does not mean volunteer journalism is illegal, rather that volunteer journalists do not confer the same privilege as professional ones.
- jeffbee 3y ago[flagged]
- droptablemain 3y agoI don't know what the demographics of HN are but I suspect the average user is not a 22-yr old anarchist with a callous disregard for material reality.
- Sebguer 3y agoweird given the origins of 'hacker'
- droptablemain 3y agoAnd all the hippies grew up to be yuppie boomers. It happens.
- capableweb 3y agoNot all of us!
- decremental 3y ago[dead]
- faeriechangling 3y agoCops shouldn’t post videos trying to apprehend somebody who committed a violent assault on video? Why?
- coldbrewed 3y agoPer the guidelines: > Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
- underseacables 3y agoI'm surprised major police departments haven't created their own YouTube-like system for this kind of stuff.
- boomboomsubban 3y agoThis kind of video would want views and it's hard to imagine the LAPD's site getting comparable traffic. Presumably they keep local copies of the recordings too, possibly with an intranet system to view them. I say presumably, I worry I should say hopefully. I'm now imagining a story like "50 police misconduct cases dropped after YouTube account suspended."
- djbusby 3y agoCould just publish on their own sites and syndicate, maybe some XML feed, idk
- nradov 3y agoThe LAPD should post violent videos on WorldstarHipHop. They would fit right in. https://worldstarhiphop.com/watch/fight-videos https://worldstarhiphop.com/watch/fight-videos
- oldbbsnickname 3y agoI don't really care what YT does. I already know they're going to silence meaningful content if their algorithms determine it to be "sad" or "violent". Interestingly, there is much content lost, demonetized, and simply not made because they determine factual content to be "sad". There's an amateur reporter and retired commercial pilot in central California who determined he both wouldn't go viral and wouldn't make much money because journalism and facts aren't what YT rewards. This manipulation and ads like it's a goddamn cable network make it a pointless waste of time.
- andsoitis 3y ago[flagged]
- LeoNatan25 3y agoYour comment is a flippant one, but let me be flippant about your comment; I would find the world sad if there was no porn in it. ;-)
- oldbbsnickname 3y agoIf you're going to be inflammatory and rude, please use another site. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- DANmode 3y ago> I already know they're going to silence meaningful content As one of less than five major townsquares in our culture, that should be of at least mild concern.
- mensetmanusman 3y agoI have seen UFC fights more violent. Who got upset?
- LeoNatan25 3y agoIronically, clicking on the link displays the following message for me: > This content is not available in your country/region.
- pelty 3y agoThis filled me with glee. I just very recently reported some of their videos. Many of their videos were "look at this highly edited body cam footage, we did good", which is to be expected, sure, but they also didn't allow comments (which if I understand correctly is illegal/unconstitutional). Sure, I also hate youtube with all it's dark patterns, but... it's nice when the devil takes out a demon?
- positr0n 3y agoWhat law makes it illegal to not allow comments on a government-uploaded YouTube video?
- navigate8310 3y agoContempt of court
- inemesitaffia 3y agoThere was a Trump lawsuit for blocking.
- pelty 3y agoI don't feel like finding it again but I did go on to loosely clarify (by skimming an ACLU blurb) for myself that the distinction is they can't pick & choose comments to allow, but disallowing comments entirely isn't so much the issue. There were a couple videos that they didn't disable comments for, I assume unintentionally. It's maybe ironic because even if the comments on their own channel are mostly negative, they're probably not as negative as the bulk of comments on any other video on them. So the overall there is going to be less positive feedback.
- topaz0 3y agoAbout your parenthetical: not sure the recent cases about government officials blocking people on twitter applies here, at least straight-forwardly. E.g. it's not illegal for whitehouse.gov to put up press releases without a comment box. It seems like the twitter cases had more to do with choosing to deny comment from certain people, when comment was open to others.
- 416abc 3y agoA simple search on YouTube for "man being shot dead" presents an endless stream of violent content, doubt this was algorithmic and I'm guessing was most likely the result of a flagging campaign because of local "politics".