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Why do War Thunder players leak classified information? [video]
- Tarq0n 2y agoHey I just watched this! His channel has a great blend of history, politics and video games. Personal favorites: How economic and cultural conditions create friction between genders in South Korea: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Im4YAMWK74 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Im4YAMWK74 Why do you always kill gods in Japanese role playing games? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEUqLL8J4gI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IEUqLL8J4gI
- nomius10 2y agoI remember a time when crossing the 10 minute mark was really stretching it on YouTube. Nowadays most videos hit the 1 hour mark... I'm not sure if this is what the market demands, or this is just Google nudging creators in this direction. Fortunately people still make short videos, like this (relevant) one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WWbpBxLCI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0WWbpBxLCI
- labster 2y agoI remember a time when YouTube was limited to 10 minute videos, and we watched Hollywood movies on there, 10 minutes per segment.
- zoklet-enjoyer 2y agoThat was back before Google purchased YouTube and they had their own video service called Google Video. Google Video was great because they didn't have that limit.
- bdndndndbve 2y agoPretty sure the answer is ads. "Long-form" content has more opportunities to insert ads or sponsored content. There's not a lot of money to be made being quick and to the point. People's viewing habits have also changed in response, rather than having the algorithm bounce them around they'd rather half-pay-attention to a 3 hour video. But I think the trend of ever-growing video lengths was spawned by a desire for more revenue.
- ashoeafoot 2y agoAlso you can split out shorts.
- AlotOfReading 2y agoThe market bifurcated. Short form content became Snapchat and tiktoks and YouTube shorts. There were never any significant competitors to YouTube for long form content because of how expensive streaming it is, so all of that content remained on the one platform with an audience and decent payouts.
- galangalalgol 2y agoI only go to youtube when I want to learn something that is hard to explain with pictures. Usually that is diy stuff for me, but I can see it being something like a dance move or a boss fight in a game, those things take longer than a minute to explain but never take more than 15 unless it is padded.
- jamesy0ung 2y agoI quite like to grab the transcript from youtube and ask chatgpt to give me the key points.
- bredren 2y agoWhat is your workflow for this? I recently described a manual workflow that includes extracting comments and combining them with the transcript using a system prompt. I’m curious how others are approaching this. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901077 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42901077
- jamesy0ung 2y agoYouTube generates a transcript that’s on the sidebar (above the recommended videos). It is kind of broken text though, so I copy and paste the block into Gemini (it’s free and has a huge context) and ask it to read it and generate the points for me
- mindcrime 2y agoFortunately people still make short videos Interesting. I don't see anything fortunate about that myself. I guess it's a "different strokes for different folks" thing. Personally, I rarely watch any video that's less than 20 minutes long. I think of short videos as being too small to contain enough useful info to be worth my time (although that's obviously not literally true for all short videos). And generally speaking, I prefer videos that are 30 minutes to an hour long, that really dive into the nitty gritty of some topic. I don't know how representative of "the market" I am (probably not very) but I can at least attest that there are those of us out there with this particular preference.
- LPisGood 2y agoThe problem with everyone making long videos is that it leads to a situation where, intentional or not, it seems like everyone is trying to waste your time. Some things just aren’t worth talking about for that long.
- nomius10 2y agoPretty much this. A short video is a fairly strong indication that the author did his work and respects your time, while a long one is a fair indication of the opposite. I've come to recognize some red flags in longer videos, such as including unnecessary bloopers, reading very slowly, reading long and frequent definitions, going on tangents, and generally not synthesizing the information enough such that all the bits presented tie into the main topic. I would lie if I said that I don't consume long form documentaries on Youtube. I do and there are some channels that I deeply enjoy. But for a while, especially since they removed the dislike button, I've become wary of discovering new channels. It's often hit or miss, and the overall time investment doesn't look justifiable in retrospect. For this exact reason, I've removed all my subscriptions, and disabled all recommendations. I mostly poll for channels that I remember had good content that was meaningful to me.
- hluska 2y agoThere’s a third option that I’ve run into since I’ve started learning how to create video content. I have a bit of a background in print journalism so telling stories that convey information isn’t new to me. By the end, I was pretty good at conveying enough information in a limited number of inches. Video is a totally different beast and short videos are very hard. I have a couple of 10 minute videos that may as well be presented in a foreign language that I don’t speak…and I made them. Reading this, I think I’m just going to quit. It’s really not worth the time investment.
- 4ad 2y agoIt's exactly backwards, YouTube favours short videos and frequent uploads. People doing long videos do it purely out of passion. The claim that most videos nowadays are hitting the one hour mark is trivially false.
- cgriswald 2y agoI simply can't believe there isn't some incentive for longer videos. It may be that YouTube only cares about total watch time and doesn't care if a creator pushes lots of short ones or a few long ones, as long as viewers keep viewing. I see so many videos like this: Tie Shoes Like a Pro "If you're watching this video you probably want to know the secrets to good shoe tying. We'll show you how in this video. It's surprisingly easy, so don't go anywhere. But first, have you ever wondered why we tie our shoes? The first shoes weren't actually tied but were just soles that people nailed to their feet. <Cue hammer sound effect and scream> Haha, actually this didn't hurt at all because... <10 minutes pass> ...and then in 1890 Eritrea was founded, but you don't care about that! Haha! You're here to learn how to tie shoes! Don't worry, we'll get to that too! Anyway, also in 1890 all the leather factories in France burned down and so they couldn't spare leather for shoe buckles, so they began using bits of string..."
- lupusreal 2y agoThe "youtube meta" has changed overtime and not all creators have stayed current with it, so you can find old videos which were once optimized for youtube but no longer are, or new videos being created in an outdated style. With some channels though, I think they've decided to make suboptimal videos from the youtube algorithm perspective because they're getting most of their revenue from a loyal fanbase donating to them on patron/etc, so they cater to the preferences of that specific crowd.
- Gigachad 2y agoThere could be multiple valid strategies too. I’ve seen some creators will put out a video once every few months, but that video will be shown on everyone’s feed and will get millions of views. While mass content posters like gaming channels probably get less exposure or their videos spend less time on the top.
- vunderba 2y agoI'm guessing you're either missing or deliberately excluding the HUGE push by Youtube for "Youtube Shorts". Personally, I vastly prefer long (20+ minute) videos. However short videos are good for quick DIY / tutorials when I'm unable to find a written equivalent.
- RockRobotRock 2y agoI don’t think the rise of shorts is mutually exclusive with longer videos being pushed on the platform, as well. Many people leave YouTube on in the background, but it doesn’t make sense to do that with TikTok style clips
- fsckboy 2y agothe huge push for youtube shorts is to compete with tiktok and instagram for that segment of the market. the longer form videos are a different segment of the market, they aren't entirely related
- csa 2y ago> Nowadays most videos hit the 1 hour mark... I'm not sure if this is what the market demands For many genres, this is simply what pays the most for the creators. Some people just flip on a video and let it play — maybe just in the background, maybe as they fall asleep. The ads that get played when they aren’t paying attention still generate revenue for the creator. This is one reason why any working streamer should pretty much always have some sort of a long-form channel. It makes bank for relatively little additional effort.
- chowells 2y agoYou should try watching the video instead of complaining about it's length. It turns out that it actually takes a bit of time to cover the history of Russia and Germany sufficiently well to explain the situation. Yes, those turn out to be relevant to answering the question.
- nomius10 2y agoI gave it a go, not to the video in the OP, but another one that caught my eye - the one about gatcha and korean gender wars. I got through the end and found out that it was actually a part 1, the second part being almost 2 hours. I'm low-key upset about this situation.
- phreack 2y agoThey used to pay by the view, now they pay by the minute. I think it's that simple.
- RockRobotRock 2y agoPeople also use YouTube in different ways than they used to. Leaving it on in the background while they do something else. I’m sure YouTube’s algorithm is good at detecting which videos perform well even when you’re only listening to it.
- Gigachad 2y agoPeople are largely watching YouTube on their TV now instead of on a laptop/desktop. And mobile users are on tiktok. Personally I find it annoying to watch 15 minute videos on the tv since you’re always having to go back to the remote and find something new.
- brenainn 2y agoI'll provide some background for people that aren't familiar with the game. It's an online vehicular combat game where you pilot tanks, planes, helicopters and warships. The vehicles range from pre-WW2 to modern. The game aims for realistic vehicle specifications, like armour thickness, penetration values etc. For older, actually real vehicles, that information is more easily available. For modern, classified vehicles, and vehicles that were never actually produced, they have to make reasonable assumptions. Sometimes players get upset about these assumptions and how they impact the game balance, and post classified design documents on the forums to argue their points.
- itronitron 2y agoSounds like this could inspire a simple test as to whether someone should have access to classified information, which would also positively indicate their more mature than a twelve year old.
- CamperBob2 2y ago[flagged]
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- cyberax 2y agoF-35 OP, pls nerf. It's not OP! Here are secret docs to prove it!
- jmyeet 2y agoIt's this kind of leak that makes me 100% confident that there are no alien UFOs, there has been no alien contact, the US government wasn't behind the JFK assassination and so many other conspiracies. Why? Because people really can't keep secrets, particularly when they're not personally invested in them. Pretty much all conspiracy theories boil down to a lack of understanding about whatever the theory concerns. Some will object to that and point to examples like the United Fruit Company, various CIA-backed coups and so on but that's the point isn't it? Those things aren't secret.
- kmeisthax 2y agoThere's actually a mathematical model for this. See https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0147905 https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
- refulgentis 2y agoAnswer: they don't leak classified info, they leak restricted info that's effectively public domain. Because both sound bad, there's benefits to all involved to do a little bait and switch there. Notably, reputable publications don't play along. This sounds disagreeable, but it's the boring truth. Some sourcing: - "declassified information can still be considered “restricted,” and thus violates the game’s rules, [the game developer] said. In fact, the restricted manuals are available for purchase on legitimate websites." [via Task and Purpose: https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-military-sensitive-info-war-thunder-leak/ https://taskandpurpose.com/news/us-military-sensitive-info-w...] [via Task and Purpose in another PR round: https://taskandpurpose.com/culture/war-thunder-challenger-2-classified-specs/ https://taskandpurpose.com/culture/war-thunder-challenger-2-...] The UK Defence Journal is the worst offender, they're not reputable, but rather a bog-standard republisher that reliably finds a way to publish a headline on this every 6 months. They cleverly don't assert anything themselves, but rather quote comments that are confused about classification. (i.e. compare to 2nd Task and Purpose link. same incident: https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/classified-tank-specs-leaked-on-war-thunder-game-forums-again/ https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/classified-tank-specs-leaked...) They've also started using AI to write it up for them. c.f. comments on https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42490191 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42490191, the latest round of virality
- nutrientharvest 2y agoVery true. The most recent "leak" was of a document that is available on archive.org and has been for years[1]. But the bottoms of the pages have "NATO RESTRICTED" printed, so it was declined, and news sites once again exploded with "War Thunder player leaks secret military documents on forum!!" [1] https://archive.org/details/da-7-flight-manual-2003 https://archive.org/details/da-7-flight-manual-2003
- asdf6969 2y ago[flagged]