5 ms·

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

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+.
        vdaniuk 13y ago
        How much time did you spend figuring Google+ pages? It is straightforward and is nearly the same experience as creating a page on facebook. You literally need less than 10 minutes to create a Google+ page http://www.google.com/+/business/brands/get-started.html http://www.google.com/+/business/brands/get-started.html
        tripa 13y ago
        It used to take an order of magnitude less time than that to create a pseudonymous YouTube account.
        vdaniuk 13y ago
        That is a good thing when creation of an anonymous account takes some time and/or proof-of-work. That limits spam while providing an opportunity for legit uses of anonymous accounts.
        graeme 13y ago
        I did successfully create a page. The problem was that it's still not clear to me how to keep identities separate. I previously worked for a startup, and had a google apps account. It was impossible to convince Google that the account shouldn't have a Google+ profile, or that it should be the same profile as my personal profile. And to date I'm still not sure if my page is a youtube account page, a page on my personal account page, or both. I'm sure there are answers to these questions. I'd say most of my research time was spent making sure that the page wouldn't do something I didn't want it to do, because Google+ burned me repeatedly by unintended behavior. Google also tends to make things permanent, such as the capitalization of my Youtube account channel. So it's not as simple as "follow the instructions on the page". If you care about identity, you have to follow the instructions on the page AND make sure the instructions won't lead to something permanently wrong.
    - kevingadd 13y ago
      Fake names get your account suspended. (Real names get accounts suspended too, if they look fake enough)
      - vdaniuk 13y ago
        Just create an account with "John or Jane Smith" or any other believable combination of common names.
        varjag 13y ago
        That doesn't work long term. Sooner or later, your social and activity graphs overlap enough to warrant flagging.
        vdaniuk 13y ago
        Care to elaborate? Preferably with proofs that if activity and social graphs of two accounts ovelap at some threshold level user accounts are flagged.
        varjag 13y ago
        I don't work at Google, so you won't see any proofs out of me (nor of course you'd see any if I did work at Google). But sooner or later, the browsing habits out of the two active accounts are bound to converge pretty well. Remember you've been tracked not just when you post comments, but on every page out there that has a "+1" button. Then, there will be some close friends who'd be connected on both accounts. In addition both your real and fake account are very likely to be accessed from the same set of IPs or subnets, locations and time slices. This may sound complicated, but this sort of mining is just an extension of spam filtering techniques (to which at this point Google invested many millions), and requires zero human intervention. And since it can be done and there is an incentive for Google to do it, it will be done.
        vdaniuk 13y ago
  - jessedhillon 13y ago
    You think such people are sitting around posting their vital, dissenting, dangerous opinions on Youtube?
    - anon1385 13y ago
      Do I think gay people post or comment on videos about the experience of being gay in a society that is often homophobic? Yes. Do I think feminists post or comment on videos about feminism or rape? Yes. Do I think transgender people post or comment on videos about being transgender? Yes. Is there a subset of the above people that wouldn't want their YouTube activity known to their family or employer? Yes.
      - o0-0o 13y ago
        Ding ding ding! We have a winner.
      - dd36 13y ago
        Reddit still exists.
    - michh 13y ago
      No, but I might have previously liked or commented on a vlog by another gay or transgender person which is suddenly publicly tied to my regular Google account. Or I might have expressed a political opinion which isn't going to get me persecuted but might alienate a manager at work or a relative. And yeah, there's ways of preventing this but they're pretty difficult to figure out (the Google+ page route) and it's fairly easy to make a mistake. Especially if they keep changing things.
  - devonbarrett 13y ago
    If anonymity matters you should not have been using Google as a way to remain anonymous prior to this.
    - michh 13y ago
      There's a lot of stuff I don't mind Google knowing about me, but I do mind being publicly connected to my real name.
    - graeme 13y ago
      This amounts to saying "You should not participate in society". Yes, everyone is free to avoid using Google/Facebook/Popular Service X/. Now, which group are you advising to avoid using Google accounts? Members of marginalized groups are often those who must keep their identities private. Your recommendation further marginalizes them.
      - rustynails 13y ago
        I don't understand that argument. If I use Facebook, it's easy to see when I log on/off to profile my usage (and possibly employment / holiday trends). If many of the people I speak to are young or gay or work in finance, doesn't that imply something about me? I am not a fan of this Google policy (it leaves me very uncomfortable) and I support the protests. But, as far as I can see, I can opt out without being marginalized. That's the bit of your argument I cAnt understand. Your argument, to me, appears to be that Google shouldn't be allowed to link you and your opinions to your real name. I'd argue "why not?" I don't use Facebook, etc for this very reason - I don't want to be profiled with the depth that Facebook allows. Am I marginalized? Not that I'm aware.
        graeme 13y ago
        I didn't say everyone who opts out is marginalized. I said that people who are marginalized are more likely to want to be anonymous. Google and Facebook are infrastructure. We seem to be moving towards some version of "You can't be gay on google without telling THE WHOLE WORLD you're gay". Then your options are: 1. Tell the whole world you're gay 2. Don't be gay on google, pretend you're straight 3. Don't use Google services The way to not marginalize minority groups is to leave in the fourth option: 4. Be gay on google, but without being forced to reveal it to the whole world. Some people, for example, want to post on youtube in ways that reveal their sexual preferences without linking it to their real name. For instance, maybe they are commenting on videos related to gay rights, but their parents are homophobes and they haven't revealed their sexuality to them. A person in that situation has to choose one of options 1-3 above. Whereas I, as a white, straight, male, can post publicly about most things without fear of anyone knowing. That's how this policy effectively marginalizes already certain already marginal groups. Edit: To make things perfectly clear, I'm suggesting that access to Google services is about as important in our society as, say, banks.
bowlofpetunias 13y ago
You may have missed the bigger issue of powerful multinational corporations waging an all out war on the concepts of anonymity and privacy in the internet. If that is "irrelevant", I suggest you read up on the course of human history over the past century. Are there other more acute priorities, sure. But it's also important to maintain a society where we are actually free to address those other priorities without completely surrendering our identity to public commercial exploitation.
- VMG 13y ago
  > You may have missed the bigger issue of powerful multinational corporations waging an all out war on the concepts of anonymity and privacy in the internet. No, not on the internet. On the platforms they provide, for free, and for which they are responsible.
  - dbecker 13y ago
    And, given the abysmal quality of YouTube comments, it's seems very reasonable to think the platform will be better off without anonymous comments. As it stands, it's just proof of the Greater Internet F-wad Theory [1]. [1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
  - AlexandrB 13y ago
    > No, not on the internet. On the platforms they provide, for free, and for which they are responsible. This is rapidly becoming a distinction without difference. Consider the bait-and-switch that has occurred with all of these services (Google, Facebook, etc.) - the initial model was free with minimal (or at least less) data gathering but as each service got more popular it has tried to get more and more data out of users. How is this in any way different than Microsoft's embrace/extinguish model in the 90s? Initially any competitors that had a different strategy were doomed to fail because hey, it's free right. Now there's no little to no choice left. The cumulative effect is an embrace/extinguish of the "old" internet - the one that was about people communicating. We are now rapidly approaching a point where every byte of data sent over the internet is monetized. Every email is scanned for keywords, every text message becomes a "like" in some database, every human interaction results in shareholder value. It's the triumph of capitalism over humanity.
gte910h 13y ago
White man here, with a skill based job in a hot industry: I'm guessing you might be too (or relatively similar)? Possibly even living in an accepting area of the country YouTube is now requiring you basically own all content publicly. For people like you and I, this isn't a problem: We have a job we're not going to be fired over for being a little odd, have a different political opinion, showing off a skill we obviously spend a lot of time on, or having certain hobbies. For the vast majority of people: This isn't the case. They can be fired for being odd (G+ Post: "Mr Corresation's star fox cosplay outfit") as it's just weird, and customers googling them find it. Their boss may find out they're a liberal when the boss is a conservative, and find out they're saying some things that are out there. The boss may find out they play D&D and are an accountant and he may decide this goes against his christian values. It's a matter of "non-sanctioned identities". I'm a white, 30 somethings vegetarian with moderate views on a ton of things, who plays table top RPGs regularly but on a firmly adult schedule and attends a huge local convention about these things. This is all you can discern from my G+ and I'm worried about it. I'd far prefer to have an anonymous handle "BLAH BLAH 1979" and google not feel like my identity needs to be slathered all over my hobbies. Now take that anxiety, and apply it to all the transsexuals, closet wiccians, in the closet gays and lesbians, hidden area tattoo fans, subscribers to odd philosophies, only slightly out there conservative philosophies (doomsday prep, huge gun collections), video game players, buffy the vampire game fans, historical reenactors, and all the other freaks and geeks out there. Or even a "stereotyping beating minority" (aka, the black man in a mostly white firm who dresses exceptionally well so white people think "he's one of the good ones" and hides his hip hop appreciation, or the executive woman who hides the fact she's a mother while actually caring about some mother/parent issues on the weekend) who'd prefer to not bring that up at the office. G+ screws up all this when it's brought into that area. I can use it, you can use it, the mostly "white guys in 20's and 30's who work at google" can use it, but it really screws up a lot of the promise of the internet for other people who don't have it so easy. Sorry about the long comment, trying to reach out to someone possibly like me who just sees the bad stuff going away (the outright bigotry, etc), but doesn't really notice the bad stuff coming in (the outing of everyone's private life).
- kordless 13y ago
  There's no reason to assume the "white guys in their 20s and 30s who work at Google" don't fly their freak flags every once in a while. Whether or not sharing flags present a risk of trust and why it presents a risk of trust is the real issue to address here.
PavlovsCat 13y ago
> such passion and fanaticism Huh? Okay, let's say "3 stories on the frontpage" indicates passion, but where is the fanaticism? You need to take a break from HN for a week because of 3 stories about the same subject being on the frontpage? Come on. > Now, apparently, we all are to remember as a system that worked? One that is so worthy of defense? I agree that YouTube comments always sucked compared to even the most basic forum. But not because of trolls and stupid people. Depending on the video, you could have perfectly fine discourse or humour. If you're not aware of this, blame the videos you're watching, but don't generalize from them. People talk about personal things on YouTube, too, and sometimes they want to support each other without making their identity known. Stuff like this, the actual value to be had in communicating, is what necessitates protecting it from spam, trolling etc. It's not to protect the people who "just want to watch videos" and can't help but glance downwards and throw fits over how stupid some people are. So if you're not involved or interested in YouTube comments, why would you care? And if you are, why wouldn't you? This dismissal a la "it's just, you know, youtube comments" just doesn't work for me. Yeah, and? I know there is a line, and that you can't just allow anything everywhere all the time, but generally: if one doesn't stand up for the freedom of expression for silly, stupid or simply young people on a site that's potentially about everything and nothing, how committed are they? And if people being stupid is a problem, how is censoring that stupidity a solution? It's YouTube, not SomeTube. And I say this as someone who has been using his real name on YouTube since 2006, and rarely comments. If only the people having real stakes in it would speak out against such crap, the people having real stakes in it would be fucked; so the rest of us have to use our imagination, and show a little solidarity. People high on the "importance scale" generally can look out for themselves, after all.
- vdaniuk 13y ago
  I,too, see fanatics in this thread and many others. They produce no cost-benefit analysis of G+ YT integration, use loaded language, provide anecdotal evidence and appeal to emotions.
  - anon1385 13y ago
    >They produce no cost-benefit analysis of G+ YT integration What? Few of us work at Google. We don't have the numbers. And even if we did, we can't predict what the outcome of the backlash and bad PR will be. Maybe it will be like the times people got upset at Facebook, which didn't really change much[1]. Maybe it will be like when people got upset at Digg and it basically killed the site. I don't see people getting particularly emotional here. I'm not sure you know what emotional looks like. This is emotional: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs (Note: she managed to get her issues fixed in the end) [1] I would note that the Facebook privacy issues were things that didn't really affect 99% of users, for most people the information that leaked didn't matter and the people probably didn't notice. The YouTube situation is a bit different because as well as the privacy concerns (which I think alone wouldn't be enough to have any lasting impact) there is also the fact that the switch over was completely bungled and has resulted in people turning off comments on their videos because the new system has so many problems: hugely long comments, allowing outside links, ranking comments based on how much response they get (i.e. moving trolls to the top).
alextingle 13y ago
Look, this isn't a new issue. Lots and lots of us have been getting increasingly dissatisfied with Google for years. But each problem is isolated and hasn't made much of a ripple in the wider world... Is it a big deal to me that Google messed up their automated AdWords "publisher" interaction script, and cut off my income for a few weeks? Why yes, yes it is... but that doesn't mean that anyone else cares about that. Even if Google's generally poor supplier relations affects a lot of people (and it does), there's never enough of them for it to affect Google, the brand. Same goes for any number of other Google problems. Did the "nym wars" cause lots of disaffection amongst Google users? Yes, but again not enough. Did adding lots of pointless JavaScript to search results pages piss off a lot of people? How about the fact that search results are much less specific/useful than they used to be? Unilateral changes to the privacy policy? Or Google Reader? Code Search? Etcetera, etcetera... Google have created a huge amount of simmering resentment over the last few years. So, once an issue like this starts to get some traction, there are a lot of people ready to wait in line to put the boot in.
coffeeaddicted 13y ago
It's not because of YouTube comments, but about another social network trying to squeeze into our lives. The harmless fun they once had been is gone. Now something comparable to an immune system reaction is kicking in whenever a social network tries to grab another piece of us.

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+.
      - vdaniuk 13y ago
        How much time did you spend figuring Google+ pages? It is straightforward and is nearly the same experience as creating a page on facebook. You literally need less than 10 minutes to create a Google+ page http://www.google.com/+/business/brands/get-started.html http://www.google.com/+/business/brands/get-started.html
        tripa 13y ago
        It used to take an order of magnitude less time than that to create a pseudonymous YouTube account.
        vdaniuk 13y ago
        That is a good thing when creation of an anonymous account takes some time and/or proof-of-work. That limits spam while providing an opportunity for legit uses of anonymous accounts.
        graeme 13y ago
        I did successfully create a page. The problem was that it's still not clear to me how to keep identities separate. I previously worked for a startup, and had a google apps account. It was impossible to convince Google that the account shouldn't have a Google+ profile, or that it should be the same profile as my personal profile. And to date I'm still not sure if my page is a youtube account page, a page on my personal account page, or both. I'm sure there are answers to these questions. I'd say most of my research time was spent making sure that the page wouldn't do something I didn't want it to do, because Google+ burned me repeatedly by unintended behavior. Google also tends to make things permanent, such as the capitalization of my Youtube account channel. So it's not as simple as "follow the instructions on the page". If you care about identity, you have to follow the instructions on the page AND make sure the instructions won't lead to something permanently wrong.
  - kevingadd 13y ago
    Fake names get your account suspended. (Real names get accounts suspended too, if they look fake enough)
    - vdaniuk 13y ago
      Just create an account with "John or Jane Smith" or any other believable combination of common names.
      - varjag 13y ago
        That doesn't work long term. Sooner or later, your social and activity graphs overlap enough to warrant flagging.
        vdaniuk 13y ago
        Care to elaborate? Preferably with proofs that if activity and social graphs of two accounts ovelap at some threshold level user accounts are flagged.
        varjag 13y ago
        I don't work at Google, so you won't see any proofs out of me (nor of course you'd see any if I did work at Google). But sooner or later, the browsing habits out of the two active accounts are bound to converge pretty well. Remember you've been tracked not just when you post comments, but on every page out there that has a "+1" button. Then, there will be some close friends who'd be connected on both accounts. In addition both your real and fake account are very likely to be accessed from the same set of IPs or subnets, locations and time slices. This may sound complicated, but this sort of mining is just an extension of spam filtering techniques (to which at this point Google invested many millions), and requires zero human intervention. And since it can be done and there is an incentive for Google to do it, it will be done.
        vdaniuk 13y ago
- jessedhillon 13y ago
  You think such people are sitting around posting their vital, dissenting, dangerous opinions on Youtube?
  - anon1385 13y ago
    Do I think gay people post or comment on videos about the experience of being gay in a society that is often homophobic? Yes. Do I think feminists post or comment on videos about feminism or rape? Yes. Do I think transgender people post or comment on videos about being transgender? Yes. Is there a subset of the above people that wouldn't want their YouTube activity known to their family or employer? Yes.
    - o0-0o 13y ago
      Ding ding ding! We have a winner.
    - dd36 13y ago
      Reddit still exists.
  - michh 13y ago
    No, but I might have previously liked or commented on a vlog by another gay or transgender person which is suddenly publicly tied to my regular Google account. Or I might have expressed a political opinion which isn't going to get me persecuted but might alienate a manager at work or a relative. And yeah, there's ways of preventing this but they're pretty difficult to figure out (the Google+ page route) and it's fairly easy to make a mistake. Especially if they keep changing things.
- devonbarrett 13y ago
  If anonymity matters you should not have been using Google as a way to remain anonymous prior to this.
  - michh 13y ago
    There's a lot of stuff I don't mind Google knowing about me, but I do mind being publicly connected to my real name.
  - graeme 13y ago
    This amounts to saying "You should not participate in society". Yes, everyone is free to avoid using Google/Facebook/Popular Service X/. Now, which group are you advising to avoid using Google accounts? Members of marginalized groups are often those who must keep their identities private. Your recommendation further marginalizes them.
    - rustynails 13y ago
      I don't understand that argument. If I use Facebook, it's easy to see when I log on/off to profile my usage (and possibly employment / holiday trends). If many of the people I speak to are young or gay or work in finance, doesn't that imply something about me? I am not a fan of this Google policy (it leaves me very uncomfortable) and I support the protests. But, as far as I can see, I can opt out without being marginalized. That's the bit of your argument I cAnt understand. Your argument, to me, appears to be that Google shouldn't be allowed to link you and your opinions to your real name. I'd argue "why not?" I don't use Facebook, etc for this very reason - I don't want to be profiled with the depth that Facebook allows. Am I marginalized? Not that I'm aware.
      - graeme 13y ago
        I didn't say everyone who opts out is marginalized. I said that people who are marginalized are more likely to want to be anonymous. Google and Facebook are infrastructure. We seem to be moving towards some version of "You can't be gay on google without telling THE WHOLE WORLD you're gay". Then your options are: 1. Tell the whole world you're gay 2. Don't be gay on google, pretend you're straight 3. Don't use Google services The way to not marginalize minority groups is to leave in the fourth option: 4. Be gay on google, but without being forced to reveal it to the whole world. Some people, for example, want to post on youtube in ways that reveal their sexual preferences without linking it to their real name. For instance, maybe they are commenting on videos related to gay rights, but their parents are homophobes and they haven't revealed their sexuality to them. A person in that situation has to choose one of options 1-3 above. Whereas I, as a white, straight, male, can post publicly about most things without fear of anyone knowing. That's how this policy effectively marginalizes already certain already marginal groups. Edit: To make things perfectly clear, I'm suggesting that access to Google services is about as important in our society as, say, banks.

bowlofpetunias 13y ago

You may have missed the bigger issue of powerful multinational corporations waging an all out war on the concepts of anonymity and privacy in the internet. If that is "irrelevant", I suggest you read up on the course of human history over the past century. Are there other more acute priorities, sure. But it's also important to maintain a society where we are actually free to address those other priorities without completely surrendering our identity to public commercial exploitation.

VMG 13y ago
> You may have missed the bigger issue of powerful multinational corporations waging an all out war on the concepts of anonymity and privacy in the internet. No, not on the internet. On the platforms they provide, for free, and for which they are responsible.
- dbecker 13y ago
  And, given the abysmal quality of YouTube comments, it's seems very reasonable to think the platform will be better off without anonymous comments. As it stands, it's just proof of the Greater Internet F-wad Theory [1]. [1] http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19 http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19
- AlexandrB 13y ago
  > No, not on the internet. On the platforms they provide, for free, and for which they are responsible. This is rapidly becoming a distinction without difference. Consider the bait-and-switch that has occurred with all of these services (Google, Facebook, etc.) - the initial model was free with minimal (or at least less) data gathering but as each service got more popular it has tried to get more and more data out of users. How is this in any way different than Microsoft's embrace/extinguish model in the 90s? Initially any competitors that had a different strategy were doomed to fail because hey, it's free right. Now there's no little to no choice left. The cumulative effect is an embrace/extinguish of the "old" internet - the one that was about people communicating. We are now rapidly approaching a point where every byte of data sent over the internet is monetized. Every email is scanned for keywords, every text message becomes a "like" in some database, every human interaction results in shareholder value. It's the triumph of capitalism over humanity.

gte910h 13y ago

White man here, with a skill based job in a hot industry: I'm guessing you might be too (or relatively similar)? Possibly even living in an accepting area of the country YouTube is now requiring you basically own all content publicly. For people like you and I, this isn't a problem: We have a job we're not going to be fired over for being a little odd, have a different political opinion, showing off a skill we obviously spend a lot of time on, or having certain hobbies. For the vast majority of people: This isn't the case. They can be fired for being odd (G+ Post: "Mr Corresation's star fox cosplay outfit") as it's just weird, and customers googling them find it. Their boss may find out they're a liberal when the boss is a conservative, and find out they're saying some things that are out there. The boss may find out they play D&D and are an accountant and he may decide this goes against his christian values. It's a matter of "non-sanctioned identities". I'm a white, 30 somethings vegetarian with moderate views on a ton of things, who plays table top RPGs regularly but on a firmly adult schedule and attends a huge local convention about these things. This is all you can discern from my G+ and I'm worried about it. I'd far prefer to have an anonymous handle "BLAH BLAH 1979" and google not feel like my identity needs to be slathered all over my hobbies. Now take that anxiety, and apply it to all the transsexuals, closet wiccians, in the closet gays and lesbians, hidden area tattoo fans, subscribers to odd philosophies, only slightly out there conservative philosophies (doomsday prep, huge gun collections), video game players, buffy the vampire game fans, historical reenactors, and all the other freaks and geeks out there. Or even a "stereotyping beating minority" (aka, the black man in a mostly white firm who dresses exceptionally well so white people think "he's one of the good ones" and hides his hip hop appreciation, or the executive woman who hides the fact she's a mother while actually caring about some mother/parent issues on the weekend) who'd prefer to not bring that up at the office. G+ screws up all this when it's brought into that area. I can use it, you can use it, the mostly "white guys in 20's and 30's who work at google" can use it, but it really screws up a lot of the promise of the internet for other people who don't have it so easy. Sorry about the long comment, trying to reach out to someone possibly like me who just sees the bad stuff going away (the outright bigotry, etc), but doesn't really notice the bad stuff coming in (the outing of everyone's private life).

kordless 13y ago
There's no reason to assume the "white guys in their 20s and 30s who work at Google" don't fly their freak flags every once in a while. Whether or not sharing flags present a risk of trust and why it presents a risk of trust is the real issue to address here.

PavlovsCat 13y ago

> such passion and fanaticism Huh? Okay, let's say "3 stories on the frontpage" indicates passion, but where is the fanaticism? You need to take a break from HN for a week because of 3 stories about the same subject being on the frontpage? Come on. > Now, apparently, we all are to remember as a system that worked? One that is so worthy of defense? I agree that YouTube comments always sucked compared to even the most basic forum. But not because of trolls and stupid people. Depending on the video, you could have perfectly fine discourse or humour. If you're not aware of this, blame the videos you're watching, but don't generalize from them. People talk about personal things on YouTube, too, and sometimes they want to support each other without making their identity known. Stuff like this, the actual value to be had in communicating, is what necessitates protecting it from spam, trolling etc. It's not to protect the people who "just want to watch videos" and can't help but glance downwards and throw fits over how stupid some people are. So if you're not involved or interested in YouTube comments, why would you care? And if you are, why wouldn't you? This dismissal a la "it's just, you know, youtube comments" just doesn't work for me. Yeah, and? I know there is a line, and that you can't just allow anything everywhere all the time, but generally: if one doesn't stand up for the freedom of expression for silly, stupid or simply young people on a site that's potentially about everything and nothing, how committed are they? And if people being stupid is a problem, how is censoring that stupidity a solution? It's YouTube, not SomeTube. And I say this as someone who has been using his real name on YouTube since 2006, and rarely comments. If only the people having real stakes in it would speak out against such crap, the people having real stakes in it would be fucked; so the rest of us have to use our imagination, and show a little solidarity. People high on the "importance scale" generally can look out for themselves, after all.

vdaniuk 13y ago
I,too, see fanatics in this thread and many others. They produce no cost-benefit analysis of G+ YT integration, use loaded language, provide anecdotal evidence and appeal to emotions.
- anon1385 13y ago
  >They produce no cost-benefit analysis of G+ YT integration What? Few of us work at Google. We don't have the numbers. And even if we did, we can't predict what the outcome of the backlash and bad PR will be. Maybe it will be like the times people got upset at Facebook, which didn't really change much[1]. Maybe it will be like when people got upset at Digg and it basically killed the site. I don't see people getting particularly emotional here. I'm not sure you know what emotional looks like. This is emotional: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs (Note: she managed to get her issues fixed in the end) [1] I would note that the Facebook privacy issues were things that didn't really affect 99% of users, for most people the information that leaked didn't matter and the people probably didn't notice. The YouTube situation is a bit different because as well as the privacy concerns (which I think alone wouldn't be enough to have any lasting impact) there is also the fact that the switch over was completely bungled and has resulted in people turning off comments on their videos because the new system has so many problems: hugely long comments, allowing outside links, ranking comments based on how much response they get (i.e. moving trolls to the top).

alextingle 13y ago

Look, this isn't a new issue. Lots and lots of us have been getting increasingly dissatisfied with Google for years. But each problem is isolated and hasn't made much of a ripple in the wider world... Is it a big deal to me that Google messed up their automated AdWords "publisher" interaction script, and cut off my income for a few weeks? Why yes, yes it is... but that doesn't mean that anyone else cares about that. Even if Google's generally poor supplier relations affects a lot of people (and it does), there's never enough of them for it to affect Google, the brand. Same goes for any number of other Google problems. Did the "nym wars" cause lots of disaffection amongst Google users? Yes, but again not enough. Did adding lots of pointless JavaScript to search results pages piss off a lot of people? How about the fact that search results are much less specific/useful than they used to be? Unilateral changes to the privacy policy? Or Google Reader? Code Search? Etcetera, etcetera... Google have created a huge amount of simmering resentment over the last few years. So, once an issue like this starts to get some traction, there are a lot of people ready to wait in line to put the boot in.

coffeeaddicted 13y ago

It's not because of YouTube comments, but about another social network trying to squeeze into our lives. The harmless fun they once had been is gone. Now something comparable to an immune system reaction is kicking in whenever a social network tries to grab another piece of us.