13 ms·

Petition against forced Google+ integration on YouTube hits 112,000

261 points by threatmodel 13y ago

vanderZwan 13y ago
First they came for Google Reader...
vdaniuk 13y ago
I guess it is a complete coincidence that popular "we are now hacker news" thread appeared on 4chan and four posts against real name policy on Youtube are now on the front page of HN. All submitted within 24 hours. /s And now lets look at this article again. One of the worst pieces of journalism about the Google+ policy, written by a "outspoken and controversial author and journalist". Is the bit about 80 n-words in a comment relevant? Obviously not. Was it included in the article to argue that Google+ integration is bad and stir controversy? Certainly it was! The quality of the article is abysmal, offers no additional data or insights and is a linkbait bordering on spam. But fine, lets look at some numbers: 120000 users signed a petition? Is it a significant number? Yep. Out of a billion youtube users? So that's about 0.00012. Put in perspective, this is absolutely nothing.
- tty 13y ago
  >Put in perspective, this absolutely nothing. Put in perspective, it absolutely is something. It's the biggest public outcry Google's faced thus far.
  - vdaniuk 13y ago
    "It's the biggest public outcry Google's faced thus far." Care to share what metrics are you using to define that? I just dont see this. Including that Google got under fire for closing Google reader, NSA leaks, Wi-Fi data gathering, circumventing safari protections to track users, privacy policy consolidation, etc.
    - abraxasz 13y ago
      If you look only at the latest youtube thing, it might not be the worst google's been through. But if you look back at all the examples you compiled, two of them happened in the last 6 months. I don't know how it's all perceived outside of the "tech community", and maybe people don't care after all. My impression of all this is that it's a lot of bad press, in a fairly short amount of time. It's definitely changed my view on google, and I guess the question that all articles / speculations / blogspams are trying to get at is: how many people's views of google changed as a result to the recent events. And is that number big enough to start worrying google? A common view, from what I gather, is that being a "data-driven" company, google has probably run the numbers and concluded that whatever "outcry" is going on, it is the result of a small group, and that it is not going to threaten their business. I am usually wary of such non-arguments. I really don't know what the short-term/long-term effects of all this are going to be (if any), but I don't think that any company can really predict the full extent of "bad press" either. So even if it's a relatively small percentage of the user base, writing off this movement as being "insignificant" seems a little unwise.
- onli 13y ago
  > I guess it is a complete coincidence that popular "we are now hacker news" thread appeared on 4chan and four posts against real name policy on Youtube are now on the front page of HN. All submitted within 24 hours. /s Possible. But on the other hand, that topic was a relevant topic here the last days anyway. > Is the bit about 80 n-words in a comment relevant? Yes, it is. Not alone, but given the argumentation that Youtube-comments did get even worse because of this change. Note, I can't judge that, Youtube isn't working for me atm. But she shows the argumenation and combines it with Youtubers leaving the plattform, at least for commenting. Failing even basic spamblock-checks is relevant and surprising (especially for Google, as Gmails spamfilter is great). > Put in perspective, this is absolutely nothing Wouldn't say that. Even if it's a small but vocal technically minded minority complaining: Ignoring those is not a good idea for a tech-company in for the long run. Look at Microsoft…
  - vdaniuk 13y ago
    >Yes, it is. Not alone, but given the argumentation that Youtube-comments did get even worse because of this change. No, it is not. You cant cherry pick examples to prove your point. To argue that Youtube comments did get worse by supplying a single(10,100,10000) data point(s) is preposterous. One should do a comprehensive scraping of comments for many videos and many countries and many categories, analyze for quality and compare with previous data(without Google+ integration). Then you have a solid foundation for making conclusions. Anything else is just verturing into fantasy land.
    - onli 13y ago
      This is not a scientific journal… Sure, we could use those principles for everything, but I doubt it is necessary here. To look at the opinion of the people hosting those channels, who are directly in contact with those comments, and to observe their reaction and base a first conclusion on that, is perfectly fine for me.
      - vdaniuk 13y ago
        Well, obviously we have very different criteria for judging arguments and data.
- corresation 13y ago
  I do not understand what drives this sort of activism that we're seeing regarding YouTube and G+ comments. Why it's suddenly such an issue on HN, worthy of such passion and fanaticism. For all that is happening in the world, and even just the tech world, whether you use one identity system or another to comment on someone's ripped from Vine video on YouTube sits pretty low on the importance scale. This is YouTube comments we're talking about. The rotting garbage dump of the internet. The notorious, worst-case example of what happens when everyone airs their thoughts. Now, apparently, we all are to remember as a system that worked? One that is so worthy of defense? Maybe I'll take a break from HN for a week while people wave their flags and battle in the open plains over something so utterly irrelevant.
  - vdaniuk 13y ago
    People are claiming that is straight, undeniably evil of Google to merge identity systems. I say that those commenters don't really know what evil is and their priorities are way off.
    - michh 13y ago
      Easy to say if you're not in a vulnerable position where losing anonymity matters, a lot.
      - jfoster 13y ago
        If you are in that position, why not just have your entire Google account under a fake name?
        vdaniuk 13y ago
        Or make a G+ page that allows pseudonymous comments for YT videos. Simple as that.
        graeme 13y ago
        I'm a Hacker News user with 2236 karma, and I can't figure out the Google+ Pages system. Where does that leave the average user? It seems very easy to make a permanent change you don't intend when you're using Google+.
- ancarda 13y ago
  No coincidence. 3 of the posts against Google were all #1, #2 and #3 before the HN thread was started on 4chan.
- leoc 13y ago
  The article mentions people who are (iirc) some of the largest Let's Play creators as among the people who are taking action. If enough of them permanently move to a different uploader or disable YouTube comments then that will be something nontrivial.
  - Kylekramer 13y ago
    But there's the rub: comments aren't that valuable to anyone in the game but the commenters. No major YouTuber are moving off YouTube for a different uploader. Or even considering it. The biggest moves popular YouTubers have done are disabling comments. Google own the monetization of web video, so content providers won't leave. YouTube comments were already shit, so converting that shit into Google+ shit will at least help Google+. And if people disable comments, Google still get the views and gets to move the headache of dealing with YouTube comments to someone else (obviously if done in mass to a single discussion site this may be a problem for Google, but it is currently far too disjointed to matter much). From Google's perspective, the new comment system is a win-win situation.
- r0h1n 13y ago
  > One of the worst pieces of journalism about Google+... That's a nice opinion, and you're entitled to it. But please don't try to present it as a fact. > written by "a outspoken and controversial author and journalist"... I don't see anything wrong with that. Since when did HN veer towards safe and conservative journalists or authors? As for the straw man argument about the N-word, I don't think that was the gist of her article. For me, this is where she nailed it: Before anyone tells me I can't complain about "free" things, and starts to remind me that Google hasn't done anything directly to feed the U.S. Government's flagrant - and growing - surveillance law abuses enacted on civilians, consider this. No one likes being tricked by a company that leverages a monopoly to force unrelated services and nonconsensual exposure onto people's lives. Hundreds of thousands (actually, more) are being coerced, through threat of withholding essential utilities (email, work docs, etc.), to consolidate their online identities, tie it to real life and real names, reveal friends and family connections, have communications scanned, be put in advertisements, provide phone numbers and credit cards numbers, and more, while discovering that service settings and privacy defaults are being changed behind the curtain. And when they complain and demand privacy, the ability to give informed consent, and control over their personal information, they're told they're doing settings wrong, the policies are really for their own good, to send in their IDs for verification, that they agreed to all this in the beginning anyway, it's too late, that this is how everyone does it, and that wanting privacy really means something else because only good people don't have anything to hide.
  - vdaniuk 13y ago
    Literally no one is being coerced. No one. And this redefinition of words is what makes the article really bad. If she is referring to holding the personal data hostage as coercion, user is always free to leave Google properties while retaining most of their data. Google has one of the best data export tools that include documents, email archives etc. So that's straight out misinformation. see: Google Takeout.
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    Blue's "free things" remarks are where her article absolutely nails it. I called that out specifically commenting on her G+ post of this.
- jrs99 13y ago
  Do you think there are only 120000 angry users?
- mcphilip 13y ago
  >One of the worst pieces of journalism about the Google+ policy, written by a "outspoken and controversial author and journalist". That's a straw man right there. The article is clearly marked as an opinion piece in its summary. The op ed sections of news contains activism, not journalism.
Kylekramer 13y ago
http://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-running http://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-ru...
aj700 13y ago
Wow: Spam Filter Not Triggered By Typing "Nigger" 85 Times. Some new gold standard for shittyness in software. I know a lot of Googleplexizens moved to Fb and Apple, but, huh????
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  Are you really trying to imply that Google does shitty software? Based on a single failure of spam/obscenity filter? Your reality distortion field must be really powerful.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    >Are you really trying to imply that Google does shitty software? I'm happy to make that argument. We are talking about a site with user comments that allowed unescaped HTML [1]. One of the frustrating things about using Google services is that over the years it has become apparent what a mess the user accounts backend is. There must be a dozen or more different 'types' of youtube accounts (depending on age, if they opted in or out of various levels of gmail/g+ integration over the years etc), so it's no wonder the attempts to consolidate and merge that mess has been so buggy (although I can see why they are desperate to simplify the situation). With the high staff turnover at Google, who at Youtube still remembers the difference between an account that opted to be tied to a gmail account in 2009 and one that didn't? (I think at some point that latter became impossible; I seem to remember that I lost access to my oldest YouTube account because I kept refusing to provide email and/or phone number information and in the end they just killed that type of account). [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/07/pranksters-have-a-field-day-with-youtube-injection-flaw/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/07/pranksters-have-a...
    - vdaniuk 13y ago
      So that you won't be able to move goalposts later, what exactly is your criteria to state that a company does shitty software? As it is now, your comment states the following: Google did some software with bugs and bad UX => Google does shitty software. I can't argue against this for quite obvious reasons :)
Tloewald 13y ago
It seems to me that anything that stops a huge proportion of youtube comments from being posted is "a good start".
api 13y ago
The fundamental problem is that G+ is a Facebook imitation. It's the sincerest form of flattery... of your competition.
- eonil 13y ago
  The fundamental problem is Google is ad-saling company. So they always need to sell user profiles. And now they needs more because there's competition - Facebook. That's all.
scholia 13y ago
"No one likes being tricked by a company that leverages a monopoly to force unrelated services and nonconsensual exposure onto people's lives."
bingobob 13y ago
Google really listen to all them Reader users
d0m 13y ago
I wonder if adding a "different identity" with a google account could fix that problem. So, yes, you still have to log and post with your real account, but you can pick another nickname that people would see. It may limit the trolling since it's not 100% anonymous.
Bahamut 13y ago
So I was all for the G+/YouTube integration change originally, but I came upon an issue that hit close to my own circle. I am a part of staff for a hobbyist website on video game music rearrangements, and the change created a split between the YouTube accounts of the organization and the account that created it. Google really bungled the execution of this change.
- wslh 13y ago
  Same problem here. The can make a tool to move stuff from one account to another. It seems like Google is suffering from the legacy issue.
summerdown2 13y ago
I understand her frustration with Google+, because I share it myself. I spent a long time thinking Google might help to save those parts of the internet I loved. They've certainly been a powerful player on things like the fight to preserve net neutrality: http://www.google.co.uk/help/netneutrality_letter.html http://www.google.co.uk/help/netneutrality_letter.html and SOPA: https://www.google.com/doodles/sopa-pipa https://www.google.com/doodles/sopa-pipa ... the difficulty, for those like me who thought Google might keep the internet alive is that it feels like betrayal to have them come out so strongly against anonymity. I'm writing this because it helps to understand where Violet Blue (the author of the article) is coming from, if you realise she was one of the first people to be banned by Google for having a non-standard name: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/google-plus-too-much-unnecessary-drama/652 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/google-plus-too-much-un... ... and has ever since been a strong proponent of the fact pseudonyms are important: http://mynameisme.org/violet-blue/ http://mynameisme.org/violet-blue/
- eliasmacpherson 13y ago
  I think jwz makes a solid point on his blog about it too: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/09/bodies-hanging-from-bridge-in-mexico-are-warning-to-social-media-users/ http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/09/bodies-hanging-from-bridge-i...
  - kordless 13y ago
    The fact that someone is capable of murdering people and hanging them up on a bridge has very little to do with your right to comment anonymously on a funny cat video.
    - mikeash 13y ago
      Unless you propose that some committee oversee and approve every use of online anonymity to decide whether or not it's legitimate and necessary, it does in fact have everything to do with your right to comment anonymously on a funny cat video.
    - 13y ago
ctdonath 13y ago
Frequent occurrence of a word common in a large subculture hardly constitutes "spam".
panacea 13y ago
The UX people at Google must be wondering whether to venture into work on Monday.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- mtkd 13y ago
  I suspect they're probably at work right now.
teekert 13y ago
The service is free, you are the product, stop acting like a customer. Search for alternatives of don't use the service at all. "Vote with your wallet." Edit: customer in stead of costumer
- alextingle 13y ago
  A "costumer"? Do you mean "tailor", or "wardrobe assistant"?
pmorici 13y ago
Ha, this outrage is quaint. You know what it reminds me of is when Facebook made their big interface change a couple years back and everyone was all up in arms and signing petitions to change it back. Anyone remember what the outcome of that was? Nothing.
- Brakenshire 13y ago
  You're right in that much of the complaining arises from the new comment system - which is probably better than what came before, you could hardly make the old system any worse - and is futile. The issues of privacy intrusion, though, are valid, and will not go away.
- username223 13y ago
  I don't comment or post on Youtube. I can't remember exactly whether it was around the time of your "big interface change" or not, but at some point I blanked my Facebook profile. I still post the occasional comment or chit-chat, but my several-year-old interests are probably not worth much money to them. My sense is that Facebook is becoming the next Myspace; maybe Google can be the next Alta Vista.
pearjuice 13y ago
Can a moderator please change the thread title? This is outright linkbait. Especially how it is written by "an outspoken and controversial author and journalist" accentuates this fact. It is a piece of opinion with a perfect application of Betteredige's law; "But will Google listen?"
amakaruk 13y ago
You can't delete your Google+ account without deleting your YouTube account now. That's a devious move, Google. I want to keep my YouTube account, because I have videos on there with 100k+ views that I use for my resume. Now, I'm torn - what can I do?
mlangdon 13y ago
I can't sympathize with the "you're ruining youtube comments" argument as everybody knows youtube comments have been a vile racist backwater since its inception. I get "privacy concerns" but those are also hard to swallow from those in the habit of posting their real _face_ in public, for-profit videos. What's a name at that point. Seriously, any action to drain the malarial swamp that yt has always been is a good action.
jfoster 13y ago
Seems it would be rather easy to use the YouTube API to create a YouTube site that allows anonymous comments. I'm supportive of what Google is trying to do here, because I've found YouTube's comments distasteful in the past. For everyone who is pissed at Google about this, though, why not just create a YouTube (like FixYT.com) that does allow anonymous comments? It wouldn't even take that long, and is probably more likely to address your concerns than than the petitions are, as I doubt that Google is backing down from this one.
thamlol 13y ago
Yup, just like the backlash against News Feed. http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1532225,00.html http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1532225,0...
tszming 13y ago
Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it made me laugh when I see this in the petition Petition by John Doe Well played.
bad_user 13y ago
I am a Google Apps paying customer, I've always liked their products (heck, I even have a Google+ account) and I've always defended them, but their moves are breaking the camel's back. Just today I received a message from Google Hangouts on my Android, asking me if I want Hangouts to manage my SMS messages. The 2 available answers were: [Maybe Later] [Yes, I'm In] For everything they ask these days, those are the only 2 available answers. And you just know that if you won't accept willingly, they'll just shove it down your throat sooner or later. Right now my trust in them is being eroded and fast. I'm already thinking of completely deleting my entire Google account and switching to alternatives. Google, if you're listening to this, just stop it.
- graeme 13y ago
  Feels like a clingy friend. It seems like Google doesn't see the difference between wanting to be with them "sometimes" vs. "all the time, for all the things".
- eonil 13y ago
  You can't delete the last Google account from an Android device.
  - aestra 13y ago
    This might have been true at one point (I know it was) but my phone didn't have my Google account on it for a few days. I could use it, except I couldn't sync my contacts or presumably use the play store. It came on but not with any accounts attached.
    - elxx 13y ago
      Was this when you initially got the phone or did you set it up and delete the account later on? Last I tried you can set up the phone and use it with no Google account, but once you add one you can't remove it without resetting to factory defaults.
      - 13y ago
af3 13y ago
Practical question for all those JS/CSS hackers: Can we do something like this extension for YT: Disqus comments on any site (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/60946 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/60946) Imagine then, switching from disqus to a p2p-distributed comment system on the whole internet?!
plg 13y ago
no, actually I can ignore it quite easily
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
tutysara 13y ago
Any mashups with reddit/disqus comments for youtube videos?
joeldidit 13y ago
I'm glad the backlash is too much to ignore. They are getting way too annoying and invasive. I don't want my real name linked to my YouTube activity, I don't want to be forced onto the still sub-par Google+ service (so they can inflate their user count), I don't want to be forced to sign into Google Chrome to have all my private data pushed to the cloud, and I don't want to be in any other way tricked or robbed of choice. It's not like I would've made the choice anyway, and this is just them saying get over it, I (and most it would seem) would literally not want to do these things. Google+'s strategy is starting to look as seedy as Zynga's, and perhaps even more annoying. It seems like they are using confusion to get everyone to unknowingly and unwilling sign up for Google+ for YouTube (etc), and this is unacceptable. Their practices were questionable before, but this is outright wrong. On a slightly related note, I'm annoyed to see that Google+ hasn't really gone anywhere. Some may argue otherwise, but I still sign onto the service, then wonder what to do next. There's nothing to do, and there's no point to it. They need to add more features that people want to use and that people have a use for (like Hangouts, I guess). What's the point of forcing 1 billion users onto a service on which they can do nothing but sit? To claim that you have as many users as Facebook? For shame Google.
blah314 13y ago
There seem to have been half-a-dozen negative personal experience stories about G+ turn up this weekend. And now this. Is nobody else sensing organization behind this? (Not that I'm defending Google's "just the wrong side of creepy" approach, but if I was in competition with them I'd want to make sure everyone knew just how creepy they are).
runn1ng 13y ago
not saying that I like the new comments, but.... there is a backlash like this every time a popular page goes with something a little different than people are used to. Every time Facebook changes their design, there are petitions like this.
judk 13y ago
How many votes do those ineffectual Facebook anti-change petitions get?
ChrisNorstrom 13y ago
This Google+ garbage is so illogical and incorrect. ===== The Normal Way to Gain Users ===== - Build something people want because it solves a problem or their needs. If they don't sign up, then they don't want it, you re-iterate and re-envision the product, and try again until you get the "correct formula" and "winning product". You and your users are both happy because you've built something they want. ===== The Dumb (Google) Way to Gain Users ===== - Build something you want to force others to use because it helps your company's problem and needs. Not your customers. If they don't sign up, force them to use it even though they don't want to. You can't re-iterate or re-envision the product because you have users by force. You can't achieve the perfect winning formula for your product because no body was given a choice to choose it or it's other iterations. You have a losing product with millions of users who can't wait to leave. You and your users are unhappy, you can't grow your user base outside of the ones you forced it on and are frustrated that you spent so much money and time building the product and your users are pissed off at you.

261 points by threatmodel 13y ago

First they came for Google Reader...

I guess it is a complete coincidence that popular "we are now hacker news" thread appeared on 4chan and four posts against real name policy on Youtube are now on the front page of HN. All submitted within 24 hours. /s And now lets look at this article again. One of the worst pieces of journalism about the Google+ policy, written by a "outspoken and controversial author and journalist". Is the bit about 80 n-words in a comment relevant? Obviously not. Was it included in the article to argue that Google+ integration is bad and stir controversy? Certainly it was! The quality of the article is abysmal, offers no additional data or insights and is a linkbait bordering on spam. But fine, lets look at some numbers: 120000 users signed a petition? Is it a significant number? Yep. Out of a billion youtube users? So that's about 0.00012. Put in perspective, this is absolutely nothing.

tty 13y ago
>Put in perspective, this absolutely nothing. Put in perspective, it absolutely is something. It's the biggest public outcry Google's faced thus far.
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  "It's the biggest public outcry Google's faced thus far." Care to share what metrics are you using to define that? I just dont see this. Including that Google got under fire for closing Google reader, NSA leaks, Wi-Fi data gathering, circumventing safari protections to track users, privacy policy consolidation, etc.
  - abraxasz 13y ago
    If you look only at the latest youtube thing, it might not be the worst google's been through. But if you look back at all the examples you compiled, two of them happened in the last 6 months. I don't know how it's all perceived outside of the "tech community", and maybe people don't care after all. My impression of all this is that it's a lot of bad press, in a fairly short amount of time. It's definitely changed my view on google, and I guess the question that all articles / speculations / blogspams are trying to get at is: how many people's views of google changed as a result to the recent events. And is that number big enough to start worrying google? A common view, from what I gather, is that being a "data-driven" company, google has probably run the numbers and concluded that whatever "outcry" is going on, it is the result of a small group, and that it is not going to threaten their business. I am usually wary of such non-arguments. I really don't know what the short-term/long-term effects of all this are going to be (if any), but I don't think that any company can really predict the full extent of "bad press" either. So even if it's a relatively small percentage of the user base, writing off this movement as being "insignificant" seems a little unwise.
onli 13y ago
> I guess it is a complete coincidence that popular "we are now hacker news" thread appeared on 4chan and four posts against real name policy on Youtube are now on the front page of HN. All submitted within 24 hours. /s Possible. But on the other hand, that topic was a relevant topic here the last days anyway. > Is the bit about 80 n-words in a comment relevant? Yes, it is. Not alone, but given the argumentation that Youtube-comments did get even worse because of this change. Note, I can't judge that, Youtube isn't working for me atm. But she shows the argumenation and combines it with Youtubers leaving the plattform, at least for commenting. Failing even basic spamblock-checks is relevant and surprising (especially for Google, as Gmails spamfilter is great). > Put in perspective, this is absolutely nothing Wouldn't say that. Even if it's a small but vocal technically minded minority complaining: Ignoring those is not a good idea for a tech-company in for the long run. Look at Microsoft…
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  >Yes, it is. Not alone, but given the argumentation that Youtube-comments did get even worse because of this change. No, it is not. You cant cherry pick examples to prove your point. To argue that Youtube comments did get worse by supplying a single(10,100,10000) data point(s) is preposterous. One should do a comprehensive scraping of comments for many videos and many countries and many categories, analyze for quality and compare with previous data(without Google+ integration). Then you have a solid foundation for making conclusions. Anything else is just verturing into fantasy land.
  - onli 13y ago
    This is not a scientific journal… Sure, we could use those principles for everything, but I doubt it is necessary here. To look at the opinion of the people hosting those channels, who are directly in contact with those comments, and to observe their reaction and base a first conclusion on that, is perfectly fine for me.
    - vdaniuk 13y ago
      Well, obviously we have very different criteria for judging arguments and data.
corresation 13y ago
I do not understand what drives this sort of activism that we're seeing regarding YouTube and G+ comments. Why it's suddenly such an issue on HN, worthy of such passion and fanaticism. For all that is happening in the world, and even just the tech world, whether you use one identity system or another to comment on someone's ripped from Vine video on YouTube sits pretty low on the importance scale. This is YouTube comments we're talking about. The rotting garbage dump of the internet. The notorious, worst-case example of what happens when everyone airs their thoughts. Now, apparently, we all are to remember as a system that worked? One that is so worthy of defense? Maybe I'll take a break from HN for a week while people wave their flags and battle in the open plains over something so utterly irrelevant.
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  People are claiming that is straight, undeniably evil of Google to merge identity systems. I say that those commenters don't really know what evil is and their priorities are way off.
  - michh 13y ago
    Easy to say if you're not in a vulnerable position where losing anonymity matters, a lot.
    - jfoster 13y ago
      If you are in that position, why not just have your entire Google account under a fake name?
      - vdaniuk 13y ago
        Or make a G+ page that allows pseudonymous comments for YT videos. Simple as that.
        graeme 13y ago
        I'm a Hacker News user with 2236 karma, and I can't figure out the Google+ Pages system. Where does that leave the average user? It seems very easy to make a permanent change you don't intend when you're using Google+.
ancarda 13y ago
No coincidence. 3 of the posts against Google were all #1, #2 and #3 before the HN thread was started on 4chan.
leoc 13y ago
The article mentions people who are (iirc) some of the largest Let's Play creators as among the people who are taking action. If enough of them permanently move to a different uploader or disable YouTube comments then that will be something nontrivial.
- Kylekramer 13y ago
  But there's the rub: comments aren't that valuable to anyone in the game but the commenters. No major YouTuber are moving off YouTube for a different uploader. Or even considering it. The biggest moves popular YouTubers have done are disabling comments. Google own the monetization of web video, so content providers won't leave. YouTube comments were already shit, so converting that shit into Google+ shit will at least help Google+. And if people disable comments, Google still get the views and gets to move the headache of dealing with YouTube comments to someone else (obviously if done in mass to a single discussion site this may be a problem for Google, but it is currently far too disjointed to matter much). From Google's perspective, the new comment system is a win-win situation.
r0h1n 13y ago
> One of the worst pieces of journalism about Google+... That's a nice opinion, and you're entitled to it. But please don't try to present it as a fact. > written by "a outspoken and controversial author and journalist"... I don't see anything wrong with that. Since when did HN veer towards safe and conservative journalists or authors? As for the straw man argument about the N-word, I don't think that was the gist of her article. For me, this is where she nailed it: Before anyone tells me I can't complain about "free" things, and starts to remind me that Google hasn't done anything directly to feed the U.S. Government's flagrant - and growing - surveillance law abuses enacted on civilians, consider this. No one likes being tricked by a company that leverages a monopoly to force unrelated services and nonconsensual exposure onto people's lives. Hundreds of thousands (actually, more) are being coerced, through threat of withholding essential utilities (email, work docs, etc.), to consolidate their online identities, tie it to real life and real names, reveal friends and family connections, have communications scanned, be put in advertisements, provide phone numbers and credit cards numbers, and more, while discovering that service settings and privacy defaults are being changed behind the curtain. And when they complain and demand privacy, the ability to give informed consent, and control over their personal information, they're told they're doing settings wrong, the policies are really for their own good, to send in their IDs for verification, that they agreed to all this in the beginning anyway, it's too late, that this is how everyone does it, and that wanting privacy really means something else because only good people don't have anything to hide.
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  Literally no one is being coerced. No one. And this redefinition of words is what makes the article really bad. If she is referring to holding the personal data hostage as coercion, user is always free to leave Google properties while retaining most of their data. Google has one of the best data export tools that include documents, email archives etc. So that's straight out misinformation. see: Google Takeout.
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  Blue's "free things" remarks are where her article absolutely nails it. I called that out specifically commenting on her G+ post of this.
jrs99 13y ago
Do you think there are only 120000 angry users?
mcphilip 13y ago
>One of the worst pieces of journalism about the Google+ policy, written by a "outspoken and controversial author and journalist". That's a straw man right there. The article is clearly marked as an opinion piece in its summary. The op ed sections of news contains activism, not journalism.

Kylekramer 13y ago

http://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-running http://www.change.org/petitions/google-keep-google-reader-ru...

aj700 13y ago

Wow: Spam Filter Not Triggered By Typing "Nigger" 85 Times. Some new gold standard for shittyness in software. I know a lot of Googleplexizens moved to Fb and Apple, but, huh????

vdaniuk 13y ago
Are you really trying to imply that Google does shitty software? Based on a single failure of spam/obscenity filter? Your reality distortion field must be really powerful.
- anon1385 13y ago
  >Are you really trying to imply that Google does shitty software? I'm happy to make that argument. We are talking about a site with user comments that allowed unescaped HTML [1]. One of the frustrating things about using Google services is that over the years it has become apparent what a mess the user accounts backend is. There must be a dozen or more different 'types' of youtube accounts (depending on age, if they opted in or out of various levels of gmail/g+ integration over the years etc), so it's no wonder the attempts to consolidate and merge that mess has been so buggy (although I can see why they are desperate to simplify the situation). With the high staff turnover at Google, who at Youtube still remembers the difference between an account that opted to be tied to a gmail account in 2009 and one that didn't? (I think at some point that latter became impossible; I seem to remember that I lost access to my oldest YouTube account because I kept refusing to provide email and/or phone number information and in the end they just killed that type of account). [1] http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/07/pranksters-have-a-field-day-with-youtube-injection-flaw/ http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2010/07/pranksters-have-a...
  - vdaniuk 13y ago
    So that you won't be able to move goalposts later, what exactly is your criteria to state that a company does shitty software? As it is now, your comment states the following: Google did some software with bugs and bad UX => Google does shitty software. I can't argue against this for quite obvious reasons :)

Tloewald 13y ago

It seems to me that anything that stops a huge proportion of youtube comments from being posted is "a good start".

api 13y ago

The fundamental problem is that G+ is a Facebook imitation. It's the sincerest form of flattery... of your competition.

eonil 13y ago
The fundamental problem is Google is ad-saling company. So they always need to sell user profiles. And now they needs more because there's competition - Facebook. That's all.

scholia 13y ago

"No one likes being tricked by a company that leverages a monopoly to force unrelated services and nonconsensual exposure onto people's lives."

bingobob 13y ago

Google really listen to all them Reader users

d0m 13y ago

I wonder if adding a "different identity" with a google account could fix that problem. So, yes, you still have to log and post with your real account, but you can pick another nickname that people would see. It may limit the trolling since it's not 100% anonymous.

Bahamut 13y ago

So I was all for the G+/YouTube integration change originally, but I came upon an issue that hit close to my own circle. I am a part of staff for a hobbyist website on video game music rearrangements, and the change created a split between the YouTube accounts of the organization and the account that created it. Google really bungled the execution of this change.

wslh 13y ago
Same problem here. The can make a tool to move stuff from one account to another. It seems like Google is suffering from the legacy issue.

summerdown2 13y ago

I understand her frustration with Google+, because I share it myself. I spent a long time thinking Google might help to save those parts of the internet I loved. They've certainly been a powerful player on things like the fight to preserve net neutrality: http://www.google.co.uk/help/netneutrality_letter.html http://www.google.co.uk/help/netneutrality_letter.html and SOPA: https://www.google.com/doodles/sopa-pipa https://www.google.com/doodles/sopa-pipa ... the difficulty, for those like me who thought Google might keep the internet alive is that it feels like betrayal to have them come out so strongly against anonymity. I'm writing this because it helps to understand where Violet Blue (the author of the article) is coming from, if you realise she was one of the first people to be banned by Google for having a non-standard name: http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/google-plus-too-much-unnecessary-drama/652 http://www.zdnet.com/blog/violetblue/google-plus-too-much-un... ... and has ever since been a strong proponent of the fact pseudonyms are important: http://mynameisme.org/violet-blue/ http://mynameisme.org/violet-blue/

eliasmacpherson 13y ago
I think jwz makes a solid point on his blog about it too: http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/09/bodies-hanging-from-bridge-in-mexico-are-warning-to-social-media-users/ http://www.jwz.org/blog/2011/09/bodies-hanging-from-bridge-i...
- kordless 13y ago
  The fact that someone is capable of murdering people and hanging them up on a bridge has very little to do with your right to comment anonymously on a funny cat video.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    Unless you propose that some committee oversee and approve every use of online anonymity to decide whether or not it's legitimate and necessary, it does in fact have everything to do with your right to comment anonymously on a funny cat video.
  - 13y ago

ctdonath 13y ago

Frequent occurrence of a word common in a large subculture hardly constitutes "spam".

panacea 13y ago

The UX people at Google must be wondering whether to venture into work on Monday.

deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
mtkd 13y ago
I suspect they're probably at work right now.

teekert 13y ago

The service is free, you are the product, stop acting like a customer. Search for alternatives of don't use the service at all. "Vote with your wallet." Edit: customer in stead of costumer

alextingle 13y ago
A "costumer"? Do you mean "tailor", or "wardrobe assistant"?

pmorici 13y ago

Ha, this outrage is quaint. You know what it reminds me of is when Facebook made their big interface change a couple years back and everyone was all up in arms and signing petitions to change it back. Anyone remember what the outcome of that was? Nothing.

Brakenshire 13y ago
You're right in that much of the complaining arises from the new comment system - which is probably better than what came before, you could hardly make the old system any worse - and is futile. The issues of privacy intrusion, though, are valid, and will not go away.
username223 13y ago
I don't comment or post on Youtube. I can't remember exactly whether it was around the time of your "big interface change" or not, but at some point I blanked my Facebook profile. I still post the occasional comment or chit-chat, but my several-year-old interests are probably not worth much money to them. My sense is that Facebook is becoming the next Myspace; maybe Google can be the next Alta Vista.

pearjuice 13y ago

Can a moderator please change the thread title? This is outright linkbait. Especially how it is written by "an outspoken and controversial author and journalist" accentuates this fact. It is a piece of opinion with a perfect application of Betteredige's law; "But will Google listen?"

amakaruk 13y ago

You can't delete your Google+ account without deleting your YouTube account now. That's a devious move, Google. I want to keep my YouTube account, because I have videos on there with 100k+ views that I use for my resume. Now, I'm torn - what can I do?

mlangdon 13y ago

I can't sympathize with the "you're ruining youtube comments" argument as everybody knows youtube comments have been a vile racist backwater since its inception. I get "privacy concerns" but those are also hard to swallow from those in the habit of posting their real _face_ in public, for-profit videos. What's a name at that point. Seriously, any action to drain the malarial swamp that yt has always been is a good action.

jfoster 13y ago

Seems it would be rather easy to use the YouTube API to create a YouTube site that allows anonymous comments. I'm supportive of what Google is trying to do here, because I've found YouTube's comments distasteful in the past. For everyone who is pissed at Google about this, though, why not just create a YouTube (like FixYT.com) that does allow anonymous comments? It wouldn't even take that long, and is probably more likely to address your concerns than than the petitions are, as I doubt that Google is backing down from this one.

thamlol 13y ago

Yup, just like the backlash against News Feed. http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1532225,00.html http://content.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1532225,0...

tszming 13y ago

Maybe it's just a coincidence, but it made me laugh when I see this in the petition Petition by John Doe Well played.

bad_user 13y ago

I am a Google Apps paying customer, I've always liked their products (heck, I even have a Google+ account) and I've always defended them, but their moves are breaking the camel's back. Just today I received a message from Google Hangouts on my Android, asking me if I want Hangouts to manage my SMS messages. The 2 available answers were: [Maybe Later] [Yes, I'm In] For everything they ask these days, those are the only 2 available answers. And you just know that if you won't accept willingly, they'll just shove it down your throat sooner or later. Right now my trust in them is being eroded and fast. I'm already thinking of completely deleting my entire Google account and switching to alternatives. Google, if you're listening to this, just stop it.

graeme 13y ago
Feels like a clingy friend. It seems like Google doesn't see the difference between wanting to be with them "sometimes" vs. "all the time, for all the things".
eonil 13y ago
You can't delete the last Google account from an Android device.
- aestra 13y ago
  This might have been true at one point (I know it was) but my phone didn't have my Google account on it for a few days. I could use it, except I couldn't sync my contacts or presumably use the play store. It came on but not with any accounts attached.
  - elxx 13y ago
    Was this when you initially got the phone or did you set it up and delete the account later on? Last I tried you can set up the phone and use it with no Google account, but once you add one you can't remove it without resetting to factory defaults.
    - 13y ago

af3 13y ago

Practical question for all those JS/CSS hackers: Can we do something like this extension for YT: Disqus comments on any site (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/60946 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/60946) Imagine then, switching from disqus to a p2p-distributed comment system on the whole internet?!

plg 13y ago

no, actually I can ignore it quite easily

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

tutysara 13y ago

Any mashups with reddit/disqus comments for youtube videos?

joeldidit 13y ago

I'm glad the backlash is too much to ignore. They are getting way too annoying and invasive. I don't want my real name linked to my YouTube activity, I don't want to be forced onto the still sub-par Google+ service (so they can inflate their user count), I don't want to be forced to sign into Google Chrome to have all my private data pushed to the cloud, and I don't want to be in any other way tricked or robbed of choice. It's not like I would've made the choice anyway, and this is just them saying get over it, I (and most it would seem) would literally not want to do these things. Google+'s strategy is starting to look as seedy as Zynga's, and perhaps even more annoying. It seems like they are using confusion to get everyone to unknowingly and unwilling sign up for Google+ for YouTube (etc), and this is unacceptable. Their practices were questionable before, but this is outright wrong. On a slightly related note, I'm annoyed to see that Google+ hasn't really gone anywhere. Some may argue otherwise, but I still sign onto the service, then wonder what to do next. There's nothing to do, and there's no point to it. They need to add more features that people want to use and that people have a use for (like Hangouts, I guess). What's the point of forcing 1 billion users onto a service on which they can do nothing but sit? To claim that you have as many users as Facebook? For shame Google.

blah314 13y ago

There seem to have been half-a-dozen negative personal experience stories about G+ turn up this weekend. And now this. Is nobody else sensing organization behind this? (Not that I'm defending Google's "just the wrong side of creepy" approach, but if I was in competition with them I'd want to make sure everyone knew just how creepy they are).

runn1ng 13y ago

not saying that I like the new comments, but.... there is a backlash like this every time a popular page goes with something a little different than people are used to. Every time Facebook changes their design, there are petitions like this.

judk 13y ago

How many votes do those ineffectual Facebook anti-change petitions get?

ChrisNorstrom 13y ago

This Google+ garbage is so illogical and incorrect. ===== The Normal Way to Gain Users ===== - Build something people want because it solves a problem or their needs. If they don't sign up, then they don't want it, you re-iterate and re-envision the product, and try again until you get the "correct formula" and "winning product". You and your users are both happy because you've built something they want. ===== The Dumb (Google) Way to Gain Users ===== - Build something you want to force others to use because it helps your company's problem and needs. Not your customers. If they don't sign up, force them to use it even though they don't want to. You can't re-iterate or re-envision the product because you have users by force. You can't achieve the perfect winning formula for your product because no body was given a choice to choose it or it's other iterations. You have a losing product with millions of users who can't wait to leave. You and your users are unhappy, you can't grow your user base outside of the ones you forced it on and are frustrated that you spent so much money and time building the product and your users are pissed off at you.