[HN Gopher] The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been termi...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       The Linux Experiments YouTube channel has been terminated
        
       Author : mngnt
       Score  : 411 points
       Date   : 2021-09-07 10:57 UTC (12 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | globular-toast wrote:
       | Can someone add some context to this? I have never heard of this
       | channel and a link to a screenshot of a generic message from
       | Google tells me nothing.
        
       | Shorel wrote:
       | Google is EVIL.
        
       | jbj wrote:
       | I hope he can get it back, it is a great resource for well
       | researched news in my oppinion. I just tried out /e/ recently
       | after learning about it on his channel
        
       | mcjiggerlog wrote:
       | The Linux Experiment is probably my favourite linux-focussed
       | YouTube channel. Nick has been doing absolutely fantastic work
       | and his channel being permanently deleted would be an absolute
       | travesty and a clear mistake. He is producing high quality,
       | thoughtful, inoffensive content. Here's to hoping the channel is
       | rightly reinstated ASAP, along with an apology and explanation
       | from Google.
       | 
       | Also, if you don't know the channel and want to check out his
       | videos, you can still watch them on Odysee -
       | https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment.
        
         | enriquto wrote:
         | > Here's to hoping the channel is rightly reinstated ASAP
         | 
         | I for one am not looking forward to this. Youtube is no longer
         | an acceptable platform for distributing your videos. If a
         | person who makes good videos is forced out of youtube, that can
         | only be a good thing. Hopefully their videos will help make
         | another service more popular.
         | 
         | Youtube terms of service are public and unacceptable. People
         | who get burned by them had it coming.
        
           | amelius wrote:
           | YouTube should be forced to allow "Watch this video on
           | $COMPETING_SERVICE" links.
        
             | pbhjpbhj wrote:
             | AIUI creators can post links or to other services? So you
             | can link Patreon, or link Twitch or what-have-you, and
             | people can then find your content elsewhere.
             | 
             | Presumably, it's better financially for big channels to
             | keep users on YouTube.
        
             | spurgu wrote:
             | What a little authoritarian you are. :)
             | 
             | That train of thought applied across the web would end up a
             | clusterfuck. Who decides what and why?
             | 
             | Authors can already post whatever links in the description,
             | why do you want to force someone to do something?
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | How are people gonna view the description if the channel
               | is suspended? The web is already a clusterfuck, perhaps
               | its most powerful incumbents should be subject to certain
               | restraints. I'm sure you can make this argument better
               | without engaging in name calling and emotional attacks.
        
           | mattl wrote:
           | YouTube is fairly ubiquitous in terms of support on hardware
           | players. Any alternative would need to be similar. Vimeo
           | perhaps?
        
           | Uehreka wrote:
           | If there was a clear alternative that'd be one thing, but
           | there isn't, and I suspect this creator is one of those high-
           | quality-but-small-audience channels where they don't have
           | enough pull to bootstrap an alternative themselves. So it
           | seems kind of naive to say "that can only be a good thing".
        
             | betwixthewires wrote:
             | Does there need to be "a clear alternative?" A video host
             | is a video host. I don't care where I watch videos, I only
             | care about what I'm trying to watch. I never understood
             | this insistence that a video has to be on a certain site.
             | The more video hosting sites there are the better.
        
               | dredmorbius wrote:
               | Media publishers, broadcasters, or netcasters (as with
               | YouTube) serve a number of critical roles. Among these
               | are both audience and advertiser aggregation.
               | 
               | Audient aggregation matters because _once on site_ ,
               | recommendations and discovery systems increase the
               | likelihood of some other site content being viewed or
               | accessed.
               | 
               | Advertiser appeal matters if advertising provides a
               | significant portion of site revenues (and it virtually
               | always does, for large-scale properties). Advertisers
               | themselves seek audiences, with particular interest in
               | both size and composition. As with audiences, there are
               | cognitive and organisational costs to maintaining
               | multiple relationships, so that advertising platforms
               | tend to grow and monopolise over time. Small niche
               | platforms are of very limited interest.
               | 
               | Both factors intersect with other elements, including
               | site infrastructure development and maintenance, such
               | that large sites have vastly superior economies of scale.
               | This includes a lot of activities and benefits with low
               | public visibility including moderation, abuse, legal, and
               | general business overhead effects.
               | 
               | The overall result is a pronounced tendency to create
               | large and durable media monopolies. New technologies may
               | disrupt earlier established entities for a time. But the
               | old structures have an exceedingly high likelihood of re-
               | emerging. More pointedly, technologies of greater
               | efficiency only amplify the tendency to form, and the
               | size of, such monopolies.
        
               | 0xffff2 wrote:
               | YouTube provides content curation in addition to mere
               | video hosting. In the current state, I can open up my
               | YouTube subscriptions page and see a list of all new
               | videos from people I'm interested in. If every video
               | creator hosts their work on a different platform, I no
               | longer have a one stop shop for video consumption. I
               | subscribe to lots of people on YouTube, but there are
               | probably only two or three that I care enough about to go
               | check a different site for new content.
        
               | pwdisswordfish8 wrote:
               | The situation you just described does not match YouTube's
               | value being in that it "provides content curation". The
               | situation you described involves _you_ doing the
               | curation, and YouTube acting as a glorified RSS reader.
               | 
               | If you can subscribe to channels on YouTube and be
               | satisfied with that content (and not from e.g. YouTube's
               | recommendations for stuff you don't subscribe to), then
               | you can do those same things whether the videos are
               | hosted on YouTube or not, just like millions of people do
               | with their podcast subscriptions that are never actually
               | hosted "on" iTunes.
        
               | iforgotpassword wrote:
               | Is that something an average teen with an iPhone can do,
               | or wants to do? And apart from the subscription feed,
               | there's recommendations based on the videos you already
               | watched. If creators were distributed across different
               | platforms, this wouldn't work.
        
               | pwdisswordfish8 wrote:
               | > Is that something an average teen with an iPhone can
               | do, or wants to do?
               | 
               | Use an app that can listen to podcasts? Uh... yeah.
               | 
               | > apart from the subscription feed, there's
               | recommendations based on the videos you already watched
               | 
               | So you're just going to ignore the context and pretend
               | that you're saying something insightful? The comment
               | you're responding to specifically pointed out that the
               | original commenter _doesn 't_ cite YouTube's
               | recommendation engine as the source of value for him/her.
        
               | betwixthewires wrote:
               | I think curation might be one of the drivers of the
               | problems we have nowadays, I'd prefer a host that does no
               | curation.
               | 
               | > If every video creator hosts their work on a different
               | platform, I no longer have a one stop shop for video
               | consumption.
               | 
               | Yes you can, use an RSS reader and subscribe via RSS.
               | This problem was solved before tube sites were even
               | widespread, and then the UX for subscriptions devolved,
               | primarily because these sites want to lock you in and
               | make you feel how you do. But you can still curate your
               | own feed and have all your video content in one feed, I
               | do it, you just have to use RSS.
        
               | 0xffff2 wrote:
               | I used to use RSS a decade or more ago. It always felt
               | clumsy and half-supported at best. Perhaps you could
               | share what RSS reader you use?
        
               | betwixthewires wrote:
               | Sure. On desktop I use Thunderbird, on mobile I use
               | something called Feeder, it is a FOSS RSS/Atom feed
               | reader with built in Webview so you can watch the video
               | in app if you like.
               | 
               | YouTube and Bitchute both support RSS, also Peertube has
               | RSS built in if you watch anything self hosted using that
               | software, as far as all the other tube sites out there
               | I'm not sure because I don't subscribe to anyone on those
               | sites, but I would expect that they do more than likely
               | as RSS is still a web standard.
               | 
               | All but Peertube I've found sort of hide syndication in
               | some way to encourage their account based subscription
               | because they'd rather you use that. It might take a
               | minute when you want to subscribe on a new site you don't
               | usually use to figure out their feed URL format.
               | 
               | It can be a little clunky to add subscriptions I guess,
               | but how often are you doing that? What matters more is
               | integrating all your subscriptions into one feed, you're
               | watching every day multiple times a day, you're not
               | subscribing every day.
        
               | iforgotpassword wrote:
               | > It can be a little clunky to add subscriptions I guess,
               | but how often are you doing that?
               | 
               | And you're saying that as a techie. How do you think the
               | average subscriber of Markiplier, Pewdiepie or Logan Paul
               | would feel about that? Things like peertube will always
               | be a super small niche because there are two dozen
               | alternatives to YouTube and they all suck if you depend
               | on YouTube for income. As long as those oopsies don't
               | happen to the big YouTubers on a regular basis, the
               | status quo will remain.
               | 
               | Plus, as much as people complain about YouTube
               | recommendations, I found a couple small but interesting
               | channels already. Imagine everything were distributed
               | across ten different platforms.
        
               | betwixthewires wrote:
               | > How do you think the average subscriber of Markiplier,
               | Pewdiepie or Logan Paul would feel about that?
               | 
               | I don't care about them. People can do what they want.
               | I'm not trying to revolutionize the world. I'm just
               | trying to live life the way I want to and help people who
               | are interested in doing things that I do.
               | 
               | It doesn't require you to be a techie to copy paste a
               | URL. It's as easy as adding a contact on your phone.
               | 
               | I watched an interview with Jaron Lanier yesterday
               | actually talk about YouTube recommendations, he talks
               | about an experiment, click the top recommendation and let
               | it play 10 times and see what you get. You have to keep
               | in mind just because they've been helpful a few times
               | doesn't mean they're more helpful than no curation at
               | all. Confirmation bias exists. Remember YouTube before
               | Google owned it? Most of the content was not as good as
               | it is now but it was still much easier to find new
               | interesting things. That algorithm is superior to
               | anything that's been implemented since, and honestly
               | every iteration makes it worse. The fundamental
               | difference with it was that it recommended based on what
               | other people watched, not based on some hand waving about
               | getting to know you and your preferences.
               | 
               | If everything were distributed across ten platforms then
               | viral spread of content could only occur organically.
               | That would be amazing.
        
             | enriquto wrote:
             | Ultra-famous accounts with zillions of subscribers are
             | likely on a first-name basis with the youtube admins who
             | cater to them. The move out of the platform will of course
             | start from below.
        
               | Bayart wrote:
               | Maybe Pewdiepie, but quite a few channels in the millions
               | have hinted that getting through to a human was
               | impossible without a Twitter campaign.
        
               | vorpalhex wrote:
               | Markiplier, one of those ultra famous accounts who is on
               | a first name basis with their rep, has posted a few
               | stories about how content gets demonitized for no reason
               | and even his rep has no clue why and is powerless.
        
               | iforgotpassword wrote:
               | And still there is nothing else that gets him close in
               | reach and monetization. Even if only one out of ten
               | videos is monetized that's most likely still better than
               | anything else.
        
             | martin_a wrote:
             | > where they don't have enough pull to bootstrap an
             | alternative
             | 
             | Maybe I'm thinking too easy, but what about self-hosting.
             | Some "all inclusive" hosting with Hugo or whatever static
             | page builder you like.
             | 
             | That should be enough to get your content out to the
             | masses.
             | 
             | Throw in Disqus if you really need to, set up an RSS feed
             | and a newsletter and let's go.
        
               | oblio wrote:
               | Congratulations! You've solved the easiest part.
               | 
               | Now get back to us in 5 years, when you'll have managed
               | to build a comparable audience just by using SEO.
        
               | amanaplanacanal wrote:
               | Wait. Is building an audience using SEO supposed to be a
               | good thing or a bad thing?
        
               | oblio wrote:
               | It's neither, it's just not a trivial undertaking.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | betwixthewires wrote:
               | For video hosting I'd go with Peertube.
        
               | martin_a wrote:
               | No!
               | 
               | These networks, no matter how they work under the hood,
               | are obviously the problem, as they are single points of
               | failure.
               | 
               | Run your own stuff. Most channels will not have enough
               | visitors/viewers to kill a shared webhosting package, so
               | there's no big deal in doing this on your own.
        
               | betwixthewires wrote:
               | Peertube is tube site software that you can run yourself.
               | It is a way to run your own stuff.
               | 
               | https://joinpeertube.org/
        
               | ipaddr wrote:
               | Curious how does the network deal with adult or censored
               | content? If self-hosting does one need to join the
               | network?
        
               | betwixthewires wrote:
               | So "the network" in context of sites like Facebook or
               | YouTube is a fancy marketing term for "the website."
               | Peertube servers actually federate, so there is actually
               | a network there.
               | 
               | You don't have to federate. As host, you can host
               | whatever you want (you are of course subject to laws in
               | the country you're hosting in) and censor whatever you
               | want on your server. You can basically do anything you
               | want.
               | 
               | If you host adult content like pornography it is very
               | likely the larger federation will not federate with your
               | server, and for adult content that isn't pornographic in
               | nature it is probably best to require content warnings.
        
               | AcerbicZero wrote:
               | Self hosting?
               | 
               | That sounds like an unregulated place for all the people
               | who were thrown out by those with at least some ethics
               | left.
        
             | roenxi wrote:
             | High-quality-but-small-audience might have an easier time
             | than most, I suspect. To get niche content people have to
             | be willing to trawl the internet.
             | 
             | Still wild guesses, but I'd be worried about mid-sized
             | channels with a lot of ambivalent viewers, not really
             | invested, not going to swap platforms. Although how all
             | that factors in to various monetisation strategies is
             | complex.
             | 
             | Anyway, the situation is really interesting. I don't think
             | YouTube can pull off the censorship campaign that they are
             | trying for. They're fighting some really fundamental
             | economic forces - it is too cheap to get people a message
             | if they want to hear it.
        
             | input_sh wrote:
             | What do you mean by clear alternative? Feature parity?
             | There's at least 10 nearly feature-compatible software out
             | there. I can name five without looking it up: PeerTube,
             | LBRY/Odysee, Cinnamon, Nebula (okay this one's a bit of a
             | stretch because you can't outright sign up and post videos,
             | you need some creator to invite you), DTube.
             | 
             | Thing is none of them will make you YouTube money, so
             | smaller creators don't bother, while larger ones usually
             | just cross-post stuff, leaving no incentive for their
             | audience to bother with the alternative.
        
         | lucasyvas wrote:
         | Does anyone have more context? This is one of my favourite
         | Linux channels... what the fuck.
         | 
         | This drive-by algorithm BS is ridiculous.
        
         | fouc wrote:
         | Seems like odysee doesn't have captioning. Looks amazing but no
         | captioning is a deal killer.
        
         | drcongo wrote:
         | What is Odysee? I'm intrigued because at first glance it seems
         | to be better than YouTube in almost every way possible. Page
         | loads are quick, if you turn off AutoPlay it actually stays
         | off, the controls are actually usable on an iPad etc.
        
           | fragileone wrote:
           | It's a peer-to-peer video client, with part of it's data
           | being directly shared (similarly to torrents) and part via a
           | blockchain. This makes it highly resistant to censorship and
           | thus is where many people are moving their channels to.
        
             | bitL wrote:
             | Can you self-host it like PeerTube?
        
               | 2Gkashmiri wrote:
               | there is something called tilvids.com that hosts
               | educational as well as edutainment content. a good fit
               | for the linuxexperiment. either that or do like
               | videos.lukesmith.xyz and build your own. It is really not
               | difficult or does not cost a fortune
        
             | corobo wrote:
             | > This makes it highly resistant to censorship
             | 
             | We should probably stop using this phrase as a feature
             | 
             | Instant thought was "ok so other than this channel it's all
             | racism"
        
               | bmsd_0923 wrote:
               | What we really need is to stop listening to people who
               | have this kind of attitude.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | burnished wrote:
               | I see you are getting a lot of pushback and I think its
               | unwarranted. I agree with you, the phrase is becoming
               | tainted. I would like a way to differentiate between
               | places that are wary of the whims of power and places
               | where opinions are so appalling they can't be a part of
               | polite society. We currently talk about them the same,
               | and there has been an uptick of the latter recently that
               | makes being able to differentiate more relevant.
               | 
               | As a side note its sort of interesting to me how your un-
               | popular, perhaps controversial yet not particularly
               | offensive opinion is going to be censored from this
               | discussion in which people are opposing your perhaps
               | reasonable association with the phrase 'resistant to
               | censorship'. "how dare they voice a dissenting opinion!"
               | they might tell themselves, as they press the little
               | button that will make your words fade away.
        
               | drcongo wrote:
               | I'm the asker of the original question, and I actually
               | agree with you on a lot of this. As soon as I read
               | @fragileone and @iotku's excellent answers to my question
               | my heart sank a little at the thought of a site even more
               | racist than YouTube. Almost every site that pops up
               | claiming an anti-censorship position is quickly filled
               | with pretty abhorrent content. Downvoting someone on HN
               | for pointing it out doesn't make it untrue.
        
               | int_19h wrote:
               | It gets filled with all kinds of content, of which racism
               | and other far-right talk is merely the most visible part
               | because it's in the spotlight. But it's not just far
               | right that's getting "deplatformed". Even politically,
               | there are plenty of leftist groups that were wiped out
               | from e.g. Facebook during the recent purges. All those
               | people also have to look for other platforms.
        
               | drcongo wrote:
               | I'm not saying there aren't other valid uses, just that
               | racism is pretty much guaranteed on a no-censorship site.
               | It _should_ be something that we can all agree on as
               | being "bad", even when dressed in its Sunday best from
               | the likes of Jordan Peterson.
        
               | swebs wrote:
               | When did Jordan Peterson ever discuss race?
        
               | artificialLimbs wrote:
               | I'm open to the possibility of hearing Jordan Peterson
               | saying something racist, but haven't in watching hours
               | and hours of his videos. Please source.
        
               | int_19h wrote:
               | We can agree on it being bad, but that doesn't
               | necessarily mean that we have to censor it, and
               | especially so when such censorship has an already-
               | demonstrated tendency to quickly expand in scope.
        
               | spurgu wrote:
               | Uh, what are you even saying? That racism is so prevalent
               | that it pops up everywhere naturally? And only censorship
               | can fix it?
        
               | corobo wrote:
               | I'd rather say the wrong thing and have a discussion than
               | say nothing and remain ignorant! I did appreciate the
               | irony haha
               | 
               | Downvotes are kinda tedious but I understand the original
               | idea behind them. Such is life :)
               | 
               | Can't reply to the entire wasps nest I kicked over but
               | I've read, agreed, disagreed, learned. Decent result
               | overall!
        
               | slightwinder wrote:
               | This is not so far from the truth. In the past,
               | censorship usually only happens to people doing something
               | illegal, meaning copyright infringement, radical
               | political content or other disturbing content (usually
               | porn or violence-related). So most of those people have
               | seek for alternative platforms where they are free.
               | 
               | But more and more the line is shifting, and we see
               | censorship happening with far tamer content. Youtube
               | specifically seems to crack down on security-related
               | content for a while now. I've seen similar things
               | happening over trivial content in the past. Things which
               | nobody working in the business would consider as
               | problematic, like how to setup VPN and firewalls. It's
               | not really clear why this is happening. People at Youtube
               | are claiming the content seems to be ok, but system says
               | nope.
        
               | pm90 wrote:
               | > In the past, censorship usually only happens to people
               | doing something illegal
               | 
               | What past are you talking about? Censorship has been
               | everywhere for most of human history.
        
               | ArtDev wrote:
               | Fan fiction has a lot of problems with censorship as
               | well. Recently, Games Workshop went after all fan
               | animations on Youtube based on the fictional sci-fi
               | setting it owns; Warhammer 40,000.
        
               | afroboy wrote:
               | You can always downvote.
        
               | wiskinator wrote:
               | You're getting downvoted, but I completely agree.
               | 'Resistant to censorship' has become a dogwhistle for
               | "you can post your racist / fascist BS here".
        
               | CyanBird wrote:
               | My first thought was "oh the heck will you take out all
               | the porn and potential faaar more ilegal types of porn
               | from that"
               | 
               | And
               | 
               | "I don't want to need down load a ledger which might
               | contain even encrypted versions of that"
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | martin_a wrote:
               | Yeah, sounds like an unregulated place for all the people
               | who were thrown out by those with at least some ethics
               | left.
               | 
               | update: yeah, downvotes, whatever... "censorship" these
               | days is often enough because people tell other people to
               | use horse dewormer or drink bleach. It's not because
               | they're having highly sophisticated discussions about
               | global politics, but simply because they're actively
               | harming people, spreading hate and whatnot. platforms
               | should be able to decide whether they want to "poison"
               | their living room by giving a platform to such content.
        
               | bloopernova wrote:
               | And the folks downvoting you would probably call
               | themselves "free speech advocates".
               | 
               | Which in my experience means they speak from a position
               | of high privilege to not see the massive negative effects
               | of the hate speech they strive to protect. Or that their
               | purpose on this site is to spread division and hate.
        
               | dmantis wrote:
               | US guy detected. Go travel to Russia, China, Middle East
               | and other funny countries, you would find a lot of
               | interesting things which you can be jailed for, not just
               | banned by gov request on social media platform.
               | 
               | If you talk about international platforms, you should
               | kinda think about that.
        
               | TheRealPomax wrote:
               | Not everything's for just the US.
        
               | throwaway316943 wrote:
               | > If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only
               | one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be
               | no more justified in silencing that one person, than he,
               | if he had the power, would be justified in silencing
               | mankind.
               | 
               | >...the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an
               | opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity
               | as well as the existing generation; those who dissent
               | from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If
               | the opinion is right, they are deprived of the
               | opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they
               | lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer
               | perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by
               | its collision with error.
               | 
               | --John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
               | 
               | Truth is not determined by a list of approved opinions,
               | it can only be revealed by rigorously disproving
               | everything that opposes it.
               | 
               | All these calls for censorship make me think we really
               | are doomed to repeat history forever.
        
               | mcguire wrote:
               | What happens if nobody listens to your proofs? What
               | happens if they prefer the lie?
        
               | WillPostForFood wrote:
               | What if only one truth is allowed, and it is wrong or a
               | lie? You are putting all your eggs in one basket.
        
               | mcguire wrote:
               | Marx was almost right: " _Hegel remarks somewhere that
               | all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so
               | to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as
               | tragedy, the second time as farce._ "
               | 
               | Postmodernism, the first time around, was the comedy.
        
               | artificialLimbs wrote:
               | Then they will learn hard lessons.
        
               | mcguire wrote:
               | Or their victims.
        
               | teakettle42 wrote:
               | What you're really asking is "What happens if people do
               | not do what we tell them to do? What happens if they
               | disagree with us?"
               | 
               | Is it appropriate to force people to adhere to your
               | strictures if they won't do so voluntarily?
        
               | mcguire wrote:
               | (So we've already given up on "Truth is not determined by
               | a list of approved opinions, it can only be revealed by
               | rigorously disproving everything that opposes it" then.
               | Fine. Truth is relative.)
               | 
               | No, what I'm really asking is, "What happens if innocent
               | people start being hurt by the lie?"
               | 
               | What happens if you are seriously injured in an accident
               | but cannot get medical help because the intensive care
               | facilities are full of people who disagree with the
               | truth? Thoughts and prayers?
               | 
               | Does freedom come with any responsibility?
        
               | teakettle42 wrote:
               | > No, what I'm really asking is, "What happens if
               | innocent people start being hurt by the lie?"
               | 
               | That would suggest we might benefit from a better
               | mechanism for establishing the truth.
               | 
               | The best mechanism we've come up with so far is open and
               | vibrant debate.
               | 
               | Do you have a better suggestion?
               | 
               | > What happens if you are seriously injured in an
               | accident but cannot get medical help because the
               | intensive care facilities are full of people who disagree
               | with the truth?
               | 
               | The Rolling Stone story positing the above turned out to
               | be entirely fabricated.
               | 
               | How would you propose we stem misinformation like that
               | Rolling Stone article?
               | 
               | > Thoughts and prayers?
               | 
               | Open and vibrant debate.
               | 
               | > Does freedom come with any responsibility?
               | 
               | Sure it does, though assessing _culpability_ is often a
               | nightmarish impossibility, especially a priori.
               | 
               | Should we establish prior restraints on individual's
               | freedoms to enforce correct speech and beliefs?
               | 
               | If not, then what exactly are you proposing?
        
               | mcguire wrote:
               | " _The best mechanism we've come up with so far is open
               | and vibrant debate._
               | 
               | " _Do you have a better suggestion?_ "
               | 
               | I do not. But open and vibrant debate only works when
               | people are capable of determining when the debate has
               | been settled, at least for the moment. And are willing to
               | accept the settled decision.
               | 
               | Have you ever had a serious chat with a creationist? Of
               | course, there is no positive evidence that can disprove
               | the young earth theory, any more than you can disprove
               | solipsism. The creationist argument ultimately fails
               | because of the implications of its own flexibility. I've
               | known people who claim that the faster they drive, the
               | better they drive. Or that they are perfectly safe to
               | drive stoned or drunk. fortunately, in those cases
               | _culpability_ is, as you point out, is easy.
               | 
               | Anti-intellectualism comes in many varieties. Someone can
               | be so skeptical that they do not accept any argument
               | because, say, Big Media and The Man are out to oppress
               | them...somehow. Someone else can be so un-skeptical as to
               | believe the first comforting story that comes along in
               | spite of any facts suggesting that reality is harsher.
               | 
               | Open and vibrant debate is the only way to establish the
               | truth, but truth is not established by popularity, nor by
               | who yells the loudest.
               | 
               | " _The Rolling Stone story positing the above turned out
               | to be entirely fabricated._
               | 
               | " _How would you propose we stem misinformation like that
               | Rolling Stone article?_ "
               | 
               | I have no idea what Rolling Stone article you are talking
               | about. Is it one of these:
               | 
               | https://www.kwch.com/2021/08/25/family-mcpherson-man-
               | dies-wa...
               | 
               | https://abcnews.go.com/US/oregon-covid-19-patient-unable-
               | icu...
               | 
               | https://abc13.com/us-army-veteran-daniel-wilkinson-
               | michelle-...
               | 
               | " _Open and vibrant debate._ "
               | 
               | Not really an answer to my question, but I'm sure it's
               | very comforting to intensive care patients spending hours
               | to days on gurneys in hospital hallways.
               | 
               | https://www.wtvy.com/2021/08/18/alabamas-hospital-crisis-
               | int...
               | 
               | https://www.msn.com/en-gb/health/medical/patients-being-
               | tran...
               | 
               | Freedom is easy if it _doesn 't_ come with
               | responsibility, precisely because culpability is often a
               | nightmare to identify. How many people are you willing to
               | injure or kill in the name of freedom?
               | 
               | Should we just get used to the fact that there are no
               | limits on lies and an idea just dreamed up by some rando
               | on the internet is just as true as something from a so-
               | called expert?
               | 
               | If not, then what exactly are you proposing?
        
               | hermitdev wrote:
               | This is really prescient with the ongoing "debate" around
               | vaccine mandates.
        
               | throwaway316943 wrote:
               | Conversely, what if your assumed truth is false and you
               | successfully censor any attempt to disprove it?
        
               | mcguire wrote:
               | Conversely, yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater is a
               | great way to drum up an evening's entertainment.
        
               | ZWoz wrote:
               | Yelling "Fire!" in theatre is miscontructed-misunderstood
               | idea and probably legal:
               | https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-
               | tim...
        
               | mcguire wrote:
               | Excellent nit!
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_
               | the...
               | 
               | https://constitutioncenter.org/interactive-
               | constitution/inte...
        
               | wintermutestwin wrote:
               | >All these calls for censorship
               | 
               | Isn't the root problem here is the near monopoly held by
               | god-tier corporations? Shouldn't FB/Goog have the right
               | to moderate their content as they see fit? Shouldn't
               | their network effect de facto monopolies be regulated so
               | that there is room for other voices?
        
               | sanderjd wrote:
               | People have a right to speak, but they don't have a right
               | to have their speech amplified by others. There is no
               | right to broadcast. Mill would agree with this, assuming
               | you could explain to him how broadcast media works, which
               | didn't exist in his time.
        
               | teakettle42 wrote:
               | Mill wasn't talking about _rights_ ; he was talking about
               | the propensity to suppress unpopular speech, why that's
               | dangerous, and accordingly, and the moral necessity (and
               | implications) of open discourse.
        
               | starfallg wrote:
               | >Truth
               | 
               | An illusion of truth can be created by repeatedly stating
               | falsehoods by agents with an agenda to push. The question
               | isn't about censorship, but rather how we can make our
               | liberal democratic societies resistant to this type of
               | manipulation, which inevitably results in terminal
               | decline.
        
               | a_c wrote:
               | Much debate in the society stems from unfalsifiability
        
               | causi wrote:
               | Everyone always seems happy to carve out their own
               | exceptions to freedom of expression. Freedom, except for
               | racism. Freedom, except for transgenderism. Freedom,
               | except for porn. Freedom, except for violence. Freedom,
               | except for political dissent or mis-gendering or the
               | promotion or criticism of a religion.
               | 
               | As someone who falls near the middle on most issues I
               | probably detest a larger percentage of speakers than
               | anyone who's solidly on the Left or the Right, but I have
               | no issue understanding that my freedom depends on their
               | freedom. If the people I despise are not free to speak
               | then neither am I.
        
               | didibus wrote:
               | Okay, but how do you reconcile that with the fact that
               | hate speech and propaganda has been a part of almost all
               | atrocities ever done in the past?
               | 
               | Or put some other way, how do you reconcile that your
               | freedom can be affected by someone's else's freedom? Like
               | what if I use my freedom to turn others against you and
               | have them hate you and berate you and bully you and
               | ridicule you and refute you, and potentially have them
               | vote for laws that take actions against you, or possibly
               | have them commit hateful acts towards you, etc.
        
               | inglor_cz wrote:
               | Not the OP, but basically you are complaining about
               | _humans_. I am not convinced that by banning certain
               | expressions you get any security against future
               | oppression.
               | 
               | Stupid hateful people might get trapped by anti-hate-
               | speech laws, but the smarter ones, precisely the ones you
               | need to be careful about, are fairly good at avoiding
               | them and may even use the threat of prosecution to raise
               | sympathy from the part of population that dislikes the
               | incumbent government.
               | 
               | Most European countries have vibrant extremist movements
               | (left, right, Islamic) even though their freedom of
               | speech is much more limited than the U.S. standard.
        
               | didibus wrote:
               | I see your point, and I think that needs thoughts for
               | sure.
               | 
               | I think most people (including myself) don't know why
               | some harbor hateful resentment and intolerant ideals. And
               | it isn't clear how to deal with it. It's very possible
               | that we need to resist the temptation to try and simply
               | brush those people aside. But I think one thing that
               | isn't clear is if one of the cause for this increase is
               | related to the internet providing bigger megaphones to
               | those smart ones who like to recruit members to their
               | ranks.
               | 
               | And part of that for me is how recommendation algorithms
               | on Twitter and Facebook and YouTube operate, it seems to
               | be tuned towards sensationalized and hateful content. So
               | it does give you the impression that those platforms are
               | failing to educate people with values of tolerance,
               | liberalism, freedom, and individual rights which the USA
               | is founded on.
               | 
               | It's a great question though, you probably don't fight
               | intolerance with intolerance, but at the same time, you
               | might need to be ready to fight it if it comes to that.
               | But how do you avoid having it reach this point?
        
               | zozbot234 wrote:
               | I have no issue with people turning against, hating,
               | berating, bullying, etc. me. These are simply matters of
               | feeling and opinion. I _do_ have a problem when other
               | people feel entitled to escalate such conflicts by
               | reacting to these unwelcome points of view with real,
               | actual violence, including government censorship. Even,
               | and perhaps especially, when these people are purporting
               | to act in my defense.
        
               | didibus wrote:
               | Ok, but what are you referring too? Because I'm not sure
               | I'm seeing any government censorship (except for maybe
               | the voter suppression and the child protection laws as
               | well as some of the anti-protest forces deployed by the
               | government in recent protests like BLM). And I'm mostly
               | seeing violence driven by hate speech, like the various
               | shootings happening.
               | 
               | I would be very against government censorship or
               | interventions against constitutional rights of free
               | speech and right to assemble and protest, and right to
               | vote.
               | 
               | Maybe I just don't have the data you have, but right now
               | I'm not too sure I follow you.
        
               | sanderjd wrote:
               | The privilege to broadcast thoughts to billions of people
               | at no cost is one that we just invented in the last
               | twenty years. It is not a right.
        
               | commandlinefan wrote:
               | Then it should be either:
               | 
               | a) removed from everybody or
               | 
               | b) removed from nobody.
        
               | throwaway316943 wrote:
               | In that case lets apply your principal evenly to all
               | rights.
               | 
               | Freedom of movement: heading somewhere we don't agree
               | with, ok but you aren't allowed to use public roads since
               | we own those. Good luck getting to the voting station.
               | 
               | Freedom of assembly: we don't support your protests
               | cause, stay off public property, go hold your protest at
               | your own house.
               | 
               | Freedom of conscience: fine think whatever you want but
               | if you attempt to record it in any way we'll block you.
               | 
               | A right without the means to act on it is nothing at all.
               | You're arguing for a society built like a prison. You
               | should be ashamed.
        
               | mcguire wrote:
               | So you've nationalized Youtube, eh?
        
               | tg180 wrote:
               | YouTube, as well as other major Internet companies, have
               | a near-monopoly over their sectors which leaves them
               | lacking any competitive drive to be better, do better, or
               | for people to go elsewhere.
               | 
               | Without realistic alternatives it is spontaneous (even if
               | erroneous) to think about the implication of private
               | infrastructure over public rights. But the real matter is
               | an issue of scale.
               | 
               | I am convinced that sooner or later governments will wake
               | up and that the tech giants will be broken up or severely
               | limited: the European GDPR and the Chinese crackdown on
               | the sector are only the first signs.
               | 
               | https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/06/five-new-
               | bills-a...
        
               | mcguire wrote:
               | I have no doubt that you are right. But that's a kind of
               | censorship, too, isn't it?
        
               | BizarroLand wrote:
               | This is a slippery slope fallacy. Just because you can
               | see a flaw with a system does not mean there is a flaw.
               | 
               | Sometimes the flaw is with you & or your line of thought.
               | 
               | In this case, equating "not being allowed to post far-
               | right propaganda on every concourse of communication" is
               | not the same as being harassed at your own home because
               | people are allowed to protest.
        
               | BizarroLand wrote:
               | The paradox of tolerance states that if a society is
               | tolerant without limit, its ability to be tolerant is
               | eventually seized or destroyed by the intolerant.
               | 
               | It stands to reason then that if all speech is truly free
               | eventually some speech will be censored. America doesn't
               | allow people to say "Fuck" on public TV broadcasts,
               | therefore all speech isn't free. No one is harmed by a
               | curse word. Worst case a child will learn the word a few
               | years earlier than when they usually do, and yet we
               | censor that anyway.
               | 
               | Therefore, you can't say that all speech is free speech
               | on all channels.
               | 
               | What you say in person may at worst get you into an
               | altercation or ostracized, but you have the right to say
               | it. Once your voice is amplified out of earshot you are
               | no longer truly free to speak as you will.
               | 
               | You can say what you want to say, yes, but the
               | repercussions of your words amplify with every
               | repetition. Not everyone is aware of that, and when you
               | are on a platform where, by words, you can incite a group
               | to violence safely from the other side of the country,
               | you should have your speech monitored and censored if
               | need be.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
        
               | tick_tock_tick wrote:
               | Go and actually read Popper and you'll find he was close
               | to a free speak maximalist his views on when you
               | shouldn't "tolerate" intolerance was an incredibly high
               | bar that almost nothing ever hits.
        
               | BizarroLand wrote:
               | So, I should read 25 books to verify that your one
               | sentence claim is valid?
               | 
               | Why not back that up with some relevant quotes to support
               | your thesis, friend? That seems a decent thing to do
               | compared to the litany of homework you callously threw at
               | me.
        
               | tick_tock_tick wrote:
               | What the hell kind of response is this? You try to puppet
               | Popper's work, I tell you that's not at all what he said,
               | you affirm you never read any of it and complain it's
               | unreasonable to expect you to read it.........
        
               | BizarroLand wrote:
               | Well, you're the first person I've encountered who has
               | said that the well-known and oft-quoted bit of his work
               | that I even provided a link to in wikipedia with quotes
               | taken directly from is completely false in all regards.
               | 
               | You followed that up with a command to read more of his
               | work without narrowing down out from which of his 25
               | books would provide any context to back your assertion
               | up.
               | 
               | I just want a little more context than a single sentence
               | from some person on the internet to re-evaluate my
               | hypothesis. That shouldn't be too much to ask. Especially
               | since you're asserting that you know more about the
               | subject than the people who authored the Wikipedia page
               | and every person who has written an article about it.
        
               | tablespoon wrote:
               | >> Go and actually read Popper and you'll find he was
               | close to a free speak maximalist his views on when you
               | shouldn't "tolerate" intolerance was an incredibly high
               | bar that almost nothing ever hits.
               | 
               | > So, I should read 25 books to verify that your one
               | sentence claim is valid?
               | 
               | > Why not back that up with some relevant quotes to
               | support your thesis, friend? That seems a decent thing to
               | do compared to the litany of homework you callously threw
               | at me.
               | 
               | Your snark isn't warranted. The Wiki article you yourself
               | cited says where Popper introduced the concept and even
               | speaks about what his limitations were.
               | 
               | I will let you read that again to find them, rather than
               | providing a quote.
        
               | kbenson wrote:
               | > Your snark isn't warranted.
               | 
               | Honestly, given the comment being replied to started with
               | "go and actually read" I think the snark is warranted if
               | they want. Also, for what it's worth I think they were
               | trying to modulate that snark a bit by using "friend".
               | 
               | If it's truly easy to realize what is being asked, a
               | pointer in the right direction is useful. If it does
               | require a lot of work, then providing some evidence to at
               | least get someone started if not an actual reference
               | would be called for.
               | 
               | In any case, I'm not sure a comment that boils down to
               | "if you actually read X, you'd know that what you just
               | said is wrong" is worth defending, regardless of whether
               | you think it's factually correct or not. You could have
               | just pointed out that there was evidence of this position
               | and left it at that.
               | 
               | For what it's worth, I only bothered to reply because
               | you're not the only person that took the comment that
               | way. The strongest possible interpretation of the prior
               | comment is "This isn't helpful to me. If you're going to
               | state I'm wrong, please provide more information on how
               | so I can address that usefully" which I think is a vary
               | valid complaint to what it was responding to.
               | Interpreting snark where it doesn't necessarily exist or
               | providing additional snark in your own in response (not
               | that you did this) isn't a useful way to move the
               | discourse forward.
        
               | tablespoon wrote:
               | > Also, for what it's worth I think they were trying to
               | modulate that snark a bit by using "friend".
               | 
               | The internet sucks for nuance, but "friend" in this
               | context doesn't read as modulation to me, it reads as
               | sarcasm (and thus intensifies the snark).
               | 
               | Edit: Dropped a response that was due to a simple
               | misreading. Sorry.
        
               | kbenson wrote:
               | > The internet sucks for nuance, but "friend" in this
               | context doesn't read as modulation to me, it reads as
               | sarcasm (and thus intensifies the snark).
               | 
               | It does suck for nuance. The safest and most useful thing
               | to do here (as a place that tries to keep things civil)
               | is to assume it's not snark and treat it as sincere. If
               | it was sincere, treating it as if it's not is causing
               | more of a problem, and if it's not, treating it as if it
               | is leads to useful responses.
               | 
               | > I don't think that's the case. There are a couple of
               | other comments that read the GGP as unnecessarily snarky.
               | 
               | I think perhaps you misread me? I chose you as a
               | representative comment to reply to because there were a
               | few along similar lines. If it was just one, I probably
               | wouldn't have bothered.
               | 
               | > The only thing I did that was unique was note that he
               | didn't have to search through "25 books" to get the
               | answer, because his own source gave it directly.
               | 
               | I'll just say that if that information was known to the
               | original replier, it should have been included, and if it
               | wasn't, perhaps the reply should have been reworded?
               | 
               | That you actually provided useful info is another reason
               | I bothered to reply to yours. As one that actually
               | provided value to the discussion, I hoped to steer any
               | additional eyeballs responses might draw to a useful
               | comment, rather than a useless one.
               | 
               | I don't want to clutter this discussion too much with
               | meta forum etiquette stuff, which I'm already prone to do
               | at times, so I'll try to refrain from any additional
               | responses on this.
        
               | tablespoon wrote:
               | > I think perhaps you misread me? I chose you as a
               | representative comment to reply to because there were a
               | few along similar lines. If it was just one, I probably
               | wouldn't have bothered.
               | 
               | I did, sorry.
        
               | BizarroLand wrote:
               | When I use the word friend with a stranger, I mean it to
               | say, "I have no ill intentions towards you". I'll look
               | for a better way to express that in the future if the
               | intent isn't coming through.
        
               | BizarroLand wrote:
               | There's no snark intended.
               | 
               | Maybe using the word "callous" made it seem that way, but
               | that is an accurate depiction of what their response was,
               | rough, without thoughtfulness, the reflexive expression
               | of an above average mind unconcerned with how their
               | message was received.
        
               | abecedarius wrote:
               | Just look up where he wrote about this paradox of
               | tolerance? It was in a _footnote_. (To guard, I 'd guess,
               | against people deliberately misinterpreting his words in
               | the main text and going "Ha, look at this doctrinaire
               | free-speech absolutist." I've read the book that was in.)
        
               | BizarroLand wrote:
               | Why does where it was written matter? Saying that it
               | being written in the footnotes invalidates the argument
               | is the logical fallacy of poisoning the well.
               | 
               | You would actually need to refute the argument directly
               | for your assertion to have any weight to it.
        
               | luckylion wrote:
               | That's such a weird reply. You claimed, were told that
               | it's not accurate, and then went on the offense with a
               | slightly nicer version of "why should I read about the
               | things I claim? How about you prove that it's not as I
               | read on that one meme on imgur.com".
        
               | BizarroLand wrote:
               | I didn't ask why I should read it. I asked for what to
               | read. If they so much as selected the single book they're
               | basing their claim on that would cut down their homework
               | assignment by 96%.
               | 
               | I don't need chapter and verse, just a homing beacon
               | would suffice.
               | 
               | Besides, we're roughly adults here. Someone saying "Nuh-
               | uh" to an oft-quoted article has the gravitas of damp
               | toast. Why shouldn't I question their response?
        
               | didibus wrote:
               | My read of Popper was that we should be prepared to even
               | use force against intolerant people who are not willing
               | to engage in rational debate.
               | 
               | What Popper didn't anticipate is that the square of
               | public opinion would become the internet, and a big
               | question this creates is if the internet is a place where
               | rationale debate and proportional representation of ideas
               | is possible or not.
               | 
               | If the internet were to make the public square of opinion
               | a place of irrational debate, I think Popper would be
               | very much against it, and would want us to do something
               | about it.
               | 
               | Here's a quote from him:
               | 
               | > as long as we can counter them by rational argument and
               | keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would
               | certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to
               | suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may
               | easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on
               | the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing
               | all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen
               | to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach
               | them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or
               | pistols
               | 
               | So the condition he puts forward is: can we counter the
               | intolerants on the internet by using rational arguments?
               | If we can, than suppression (he claims) would be unwise,
               | but if we can't, than suppression by force (he claims)
               | might be warranted.
               | 
               | At least that's how I interpret Popper.
        
               | bradknowles wrote:
               | Your freedom of speech does not extend to yelling
               | "FIRE!!!" in a crowded theater.
               | 
               | Your freedom of speech does not extend to inciting a
               | riot.
               | 
               | There are obvious limits to "free speech".
        
               | bradknowles wrote:
               | You are free to hold whatever opinions you want.
               | 
               | You are not free to force me to listen to them.
        
               | gmadsen wrote:
               | What I've come to realize is this asks far too much of
               | the average person. Ideas do not win on their logical
               | merits. Rationality is not the driving force of opinion
               | for the majority of people. The alternative is probably
               | worse, as some sort of totalitarian regime, but I just
               | don't think billions of humans are capable of ensuring
               | their own survival as a species
        
               | lelanthran wrote:
               | >> This makes it highly resistant to censorship
               | 
               | > We should probably stop using this phrase as a feature
               | 
               | > Instant thought was "ok so other than this channel it's
               | all racism"
               | 
               | If you want to be in a place where only approved thoughts
               | are allowed, there's plenty of places in the world and on
               | the net that would accommodate you _right now._
               | 
               | No need to turn every place into an arm of Mini-truth.
        
               | christophilus wrote:
               | > ok so other than this channel it's all racism
               | 
               | It's sad that that was your instant thought. My
               | experience so far with Odysee has been pretty good. It's
               | no YouTube, but for the channels I follow, it's good
               | enough. I hope it continues to to build momentum.
        
               | sanderjd wrote:
               | It definitely is sad, but the sad part is that it's a
               | true comment on human nature. Every other application
               | that advertises in this way has eventually ended up being
               | primarily used for racism, glorifying violence, and
               | spreading falsehood. What happens is that even if they
               | attract good natured users early on, they are eventually
               | discovered by people who have been run off of other
               | platforms after publishing actually awful things, and
               | then the good intentioned early users leave because they
               | don't want to be associated with that newly dominant
               | crowd on the platform. It's a constant pattern.
        
               | intpx wrote:
               | the only thing sad is that its the reality of the
               | situation. Tor started off with some pretty pie in the
               | sky ideals and now over half of its active use is for
               | illegal activity. Tech censorship doesn't even register
               | on the scales of stuff that is de-platformed from social
               | networking platforms.
        
               | ArtDev wrote:
               | A lot of the content removed on Youtube is fan fiction.
               | Many companies are effectively IP trolls. Games Workshop,
               | for example.
        
               | brigandish wrote:
               | _illegal activity_ is a phrase that covers things that
               | are _actually_ wrong, and increasingly, things that we
               | are _told_ are wrong by our betters.
               | 
               | How much of the "over half" is the former and how much is
               | the latter?
        
               | JasonFruit wrote:
               | And people opposing powerful institutions, and people who
               | are concerned they may be censored in the future, and
               | people who love free speech and want to enrich any medium
               | that promotes it, and people who have unpopular opinions,
               | right or wrong... and some racists too. That's the way
               | freedom works: some people use it to do good stuff, and
               | some people don't. I believe it's worth it, even if some
               | people might hurt others' feelings.
        
               | Igelau wrote:
               | You seem to have missed the thread topic and are make-
               | believing that "censorship" is a dog whistle. Not a fun
               | game.
        
               | zbrozek wrote:
               | Certainly wasn't my first thought. Though there may be a
               | better phrase.
        
               | bArray wrote:
               | Sure, racists are censored by big tech, but also
               | hackers/security researchers (if they show exploits for
               | example), qualified medical doctors/researchers who
               | oppose the official position of the WHO, journalists that
               | share disturbing news (Facebook have been long deleting
               | records of atrocities in Myanmar for example), creators
               | that show the method for recreating dangerous
               | experiments, etc, etc. And that's not to mention the
               | selective monetization and promotion as a backdoor form
               | of censorship too.
               | 
               | I think this just points out a fundamental misconception
               | that censorship only applies to the ideas you oppose to
               | and nothing else. I believe it's fully correct for the
               | word 'censorship' to be used in this context.
        
               | int_19h wrote:
               | "Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts
               | kept dark, without the need for any official ban. Anyone
               | who has lived long in a foreign country will know of
               | instances of sensational items of news--things which on
               | their own merits would get the big headlines--being kept
               | right out of the British press, not because the
               | Government intervened but because of a general tacit
               | agreement that 'it wouldn't do' to mention that
               | particular fact. So far as the daily newspapers go, this
               | is easy to understand. The British press is extremely
               | centralised, and most of it is owned by wealthy men who
               | have every motive to be dishonest on certain important
               | topics. But the same kind of veiled censorship also
               | operates in books and periodicals, as well as in plays,
               | films and radio. At any given moment there is an
               | orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all
               | right-thinking people will accept without question. It is
               | not exactly forbidden to say this, that or the other, but
               | it is 'not done' to say it, just as in mid-Victorian
               | times it was 'not done' to mention trousers in the
               | presence of a lady. Anyone who challenges the prevailing
               | orthodoxy finds himself silenced with surprising
               | effectiveness. A genuinely unfashionable opinion is
               | almost never given a fair hearing, either in the popular
               | press or in the highbrow periodicals."
               | 
               | "One of the peculiar phenomena of our time is the
               | renegade Liberal. Over and above the familiar Marxist
               | claim that 'bourgeois liberty' is an illusion, there is
               | now a widespread tendency to argue that one can only
               | defend democracy by totalitarian methods. If one loves
               | democracy, the argument runs, one must crush its enemies
               | by no matter what means. And who are its enemies? It
               | always appears that they are not only those who attack it
               | openly and consciously, but those who 'objectively'
               | endanger it by spreading mistaken doctrines. In other
               | words, defending democracy involves destroying all
               | independence of thought."
               | 
               | "The word ancient emphasises the fact that intellectual
               | freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our
               | characteristic western culture could only doubtfully
               | exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are
               | visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle
               | that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or
               | damned, not on its merits but according to political
               | expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view
               | assent to it from sheer cowardice."
               | 
               | Sounds familiar? It was written during WW2:
               | 
               | https://www.orwellfoundation.com/the-orwell-
               | foundation/orwel...
        
               | hojjat12000 wrote:
               | At the bottom of that page it says:
               | 
               | "Proposed preface to Animal Farm, first published in the
               | Times Literary Supplement on 15 September 1972 with an
               | introduction by Sir Bernard Crick. Ian Angus found the
               | original manuscript in 1972."
               | 
               | So, I don't think this was written during WWII.
        
               | tablespoon wrote:
               | > So, I don't think this was written during WWII.
               | 
               | If it wasn't, it was probably written very soon after the
               | end. It uses "this war" to refer to WWII and it doesn't
               | appear to discuss anything post-war.
        
               | int_19h wrote:
               | Animal Farm itself was written in 1943-44.
               | 
               | The essay I linked to was written in 1945 - if you read
               | it, it actually talks about the ongoing war etc, e.g.:
               | 
               | "... we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to
               | see won"
               | 
               | It wasn't _published_ until 1972, for exactly the reasons
               | Orwell outlines in it. Indeed, publishing Animal Farm
               | itself was hard enough - many American and British
               | publishers refused to do so, on the ground that the book
               | clearly satirizes the USSR, which was then a war ally.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Farm#Preface
        
               | kbenson wrote:
               | What this is really describing is what we now call the
               | Overton Window[1], and how it's controlled to a degree. I
               | think it's a mistake to think it can be controlled
               | completely, but depending on the society and the makeup
               | of the media control, more or less control can be
               | exerted. China has much more control over it for their
               | citizens than the United States or the media companies
               | within it, most likely.
               | 
               | 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window
        
             | iotku wrote:
             | It's worth noting that while based on LBRY (The supposedly
             | censorship resistant blockchain protocol) Odysee is a bit
             | more opinionated front end with restrictions on things such
             | as pornography.
             | 
             | By the standards of "alternative" video sites there's a
             | pretty diverse set of content including mirrors from some
             | well known YouTube creators (KhanAcademy, EEVBlog,
             | GreatScott, Veritasium, HarwareUnboxed, Not Just Bikes,
             | EposVox) who don't produce heavily political content
             | (whereas many other alt tech video sites are just 99%
             | political content going a single direction)
             | 
             | Given goals towards freedom of speech, some content won't
             | align with you politically (and some might), but there's
             | enough decent content that you can potentially use it as an
             | alternative platform successfully.
        
               | joe_guy wrote:
               | > Given goals towards freedom of speech, some content
               | won't align with you politically (and some might), but
               | there's enough decent content that you can potentially
               | use it as an alternative platform successfully.
               | 
               | I find high curation is the only way I find a service
               | like YouTube to be usable.
               | 
               | There's an endless sea of content on there. It's not
               | important that I agree with it or not, it's important if
               | it's quality, which the overwhelming majority of it
               | isn't.
               | 
               | I'm looking at the landing page of odysee now.
               | 
               | * Why can't Wolverine shack up with doctor strange?
               | 
               | * 1 minute of Luigi in a bag!!!
               | 
               | * Top sleep hacks
               | 
               | * Guess how old this Korean actress is?
               | 
               | I can't block these channels or show disinterest even
               | though I made an account.
               | 
               | My issue isn't the politicalness, it's quality and
               | relevance.
        
               | iotku wrote:
               | >I'm looking at the landing page of odysee now. [...]
               | 
               | I think your examples are a valid criticism, it's just
               | that many of the alternatives are far worse (depending on
               | your standpoint)
               | 
               | FWIW I would suggest looking at the home page of YouTube
               | in incognito mode, most of the videos don't meet my
               | quality standards either.
               | 
               | * TikToks that will get you in trouble
               | 
               | * Medical Emergencies: When Acts Go Horribly WRONG!
               | 
               | * Family Guy roasting every country
               | 
               | >I can't block these channels or show disinterest even
               | though I made an account.
               | 
               | Yeah I think appropriate filtering options are vital for
               | less curated platforms to be more usable. That's not an
               | impossible problem to solve, but I would have expected
               | better options by now.
               | 
               | >My issue isn't the politicalness, it's quality and
               | relevance.
               | 
               | I think it's mainly a chicken and egg problem, there's
               | not as much quality content as I'd prefer so there's less
               | relevant quality content.
               | 
               | My biggest hope is that a certain threshold can be met
               | where more quality content will be added and people
               | aren't scared by the preexisting lower quality content
               | that they don't want to be associated with.
               | 
               | There's definitely a need for there to be some
               | competition to YouTube (Google et al.), but it's a pretty
               | large hill to overcome to get there.
               | 
               | Of course YouTube still has a very strong hand in regards
               | to monetization.
        
               | strainer wrote:
               | The prominent Linux tech blogger, Bryan Lunduke left and
               | denounced them this summer despite having been an early
               | adopter and supporter. He had made a complaint on how
               | they chose to give an exclusive spotlight to a
               | partiuclarly trashy channel and then recieved a reply
               | from their "Cheif Marketing Officer" which was itself
               | shamelessly vulgar and trashy and boasted that such trash
               | is "the Odysee Brand". Lundukes explaination for leaving
               | seems to be only archived in his subscription/free-to-
               | view social network lunduke.locals.com.
               | 
               | For worthwhile content I hold more hope for rokfin -
               | www.rokfin.com/discover
        
               | filmgirlcw wrote:
               | I have no general opinion about Odysee/LBRY, except that
               | I expect it to fair as well as every other blockchain
               | buzzword bingo social thing and every other YouTube
               | compete, which is to say, I expect it to never gain
               | traction in any sizable way (I would certainly never
               | choose it as a way to build my video audience), but if
               | the argument against Odysee is that it is too permissive
               | of what content it allows (and the line seems to be stuff
               | that is maybe trashy and not like, beheadings), I have to
               | think _most_ of the potential users /creators see that as
               | a good thing.
               | 
               | Like, if the worst thing you can say about it is that a
               | guy that refuses to say "damn" or "shit" or "fuck," is
               | morally offended by some of the legal content, I'm not
               | sure that will matter to people who are looking for a
               | platform that won't kick people off the platform for
               | arbitrary reasons.
        
               | strainer wrote:
               | > if the worst thing you can say about it is that a guy
               | that refuses to say "damn" or "shit" or "fuck," is
               | morally offended by some of the legal content
               | 
               | But that's not what I described. Its not the content
               | Lunduke had an issue with, it was the marketting decision
               | to promote it with an exclusive spotlight, and then the
               | following unprofessional communications revealing
               | something really dodgy about the company. Conversations
               | about it on reddit have been removed apparently. I found
               | Lunduke has posted an account of it on youtube.
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBZjUPavvs8
        
               | jvdheuvel wrote:
               | If you use the LBRY app from this repository you can get
               | more results, https://github.com/paveloom-f/lbry-
               | desktop/releases
        
               | laurent92 wrote:
               | Veritasium is not political? He is, very. It's just that
               | you don't see it. It's not an accusation, just a reminder
               | that the background noise is non-neutral, and he doesn't
               | contrast very much on your background ;)
        
               | wiskinator wrote:
               | In what ways? I'm just curious. The channel doesn't seem
               | political to me either, so I want to investigate my
               | blindspots.
        
               | meowface wrote:
               | Veritasium is _very_ political?
               | 
               | Can you link a video where politics comes in at all, let
               | alone something that's very political?
               | https://www.youtube.com/c/veritasium/videos
               | 
               | Maybe the driverless car one can be seen as somewhat
               | political (by advocating for use of self-driving cars),
               | but it's not necessarily a polarizing issue split along
               | US political party lines, at the moment.
               | 
               | Or do you mean the host of the channel is very political,
               | whether or not any of that is indicated in any of the
               | videos?
        
               | rg111 wrote:
               | I found only this video to be slightly political:
               | 
               |  _Is Success Luck or Hard Work?_
               | (https://youtu.be/3LopI4YeC4I)
               | 
               | I don't know about any other video that has any politics
               | in them.
        
               | kbenson wrote:
               | Maybe, inasmuch as it's espousing an idea that is
               | generally more associated with one party than the other,
               | but the focus is really that idea, and it's supporting
               | evidence, not how it related to politics or the parties
               | and how they view it.
               | 
               | I would hope people try to asses it on the merits of the
               | arguments and examples, and not how they perceive it
               | related to a specific political agenda they are for or
               | against.
        
               | iotku wrote:
               | Eh perhaps, I revised the comment a few times here and
               | there.
               | 
               | I guess I would say I'm aiming towards examples that are
               | big enough to be notable and not just directly focused on
               | political analysis or similar or type channels.
               | 
               | A lot of what throws somewhat sane people (I would
               | include myself in that but of course I'm biased) off of
               | using the alternate video sites is the second you load up
               | the home page of something like BitChute or rumble and
               | see nearly an entire page full heavily one-sided
               | political content and many (justifiably) believe there's
               | no content for them if they don't align there.
               | 
               | Odysee could use some more quality content for sure, but
               | they at least operate in such a way that I'm not
               | convinced they're only for one type of content and some
               | of the creators I watch in Linux/technology space have
               | somewhat of a presence there.
        
           | kxrm wrote:
           | Except oddly dark mode requires an account. That's a strange
           | requirement when they can pull this from the browser
           | preference.
        
         | phkahler wrote:
         | >> you can still watch them on Odysee
         | 
         | Never heard of them, but that page looks great! Bookmarked.
        
           | dan1234 wrote:
           | It's the video/consumer frontend to LBRY, a
           | decentralised/p2p/blockchain based publishing platform.
           | 
           | I hope it can achieve a critical mass because it does look
           | interesting, but I don't hear many people talking about it -
           | even in tech circles.
           | 
           | https://lbry.com https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LBRY
        
             | morganvachon wrote:
             | I just scrolled through their main feed and every other
             | video was some kind of alt-right misinformation rant (COVID
             | is fake, Joe Biden is dead/dying/has dementia, Antifa is
             | killing kids, etc.). Just based on that alone I want no
             | part of it.
        
               | int_19h wrote:
               | Most of the content on any such platform is going to be
               | the kind that was banned from mainstream platforms for
               | whatever reason. But it's not just alt-right agitprop
               | that gets banned. And any individual targeted group is
               | not large enough to maintain a viable platform of their
               | own. So either we have a public platform place with the
               | stink, or we have none at all.
        
               | Forbo wrote:
               | I think the complaint isn't that the content exists
               | there, but rather that it makes up the vast majority of
               | what is found there. If the majority of Netflix content
               | is trash that I wouldn't want to watch, why would I
               | continue using Netflix? I think the big issue here is
               | that there hasn't been a need for opposing content to be
               | published on the platform, and until there is it will
               | remain slanted one way. This in and of itself will
               | further reduce adoption by the opposition, as seen above,
               | because of how immediately off-putting it is.
        
               | int_19h wrote:
               | You might continue to watch Netflix because the shows you
               | do like are exclusively available there, and just ignore
               | the rest of the library.
               | 
               | It's not that there hasn't been a need for other stuff to
               | be published - it's that there hasn't been a
               | _proportional_ need. Which is exactly what I meant: any
               | alternatives to established platforms are going to have
               | the preponderance of content banished from those
               | established platforms, in direct proportion. So if the
               | purges on e.g. YouTube _mostly_ target right-wing
               | extremism, but _also_ target some other content, then
               | that 's the distribution you're going to see on
               | alternative platforms. But what other choice do you have,
               | if you're interested in that other content?
        
               | anigbrowl wrote:
               | You can nearly always find some other route to a given
               | piece of content, or just lose interest in consuming it.
               | Very little content is _sooooo_ compelling that it
               | overcomes all other considerations. Otherwise people who
               | had problems with YT would just set up on a big porn
               | site, which tend to have good infrastructure and long-
               | term viability (at least for as long as people want to
               | keep watching porn, which is probably forever).
        
               | jvdheuvel wrote:
               | There is plenty of content on Odysee that is not alt-
               | right of alt-left. https://odysee.com/@aantonop:8 (talks
               | a lot about crypto) https://odysee.com/@HackerSploit:26
               | (cybersecurity) https://odysee.com/@NaomiBrockwell:4 (all
               | kinds of it stuff) etc. etc. put a word in the search bar
               | and see what you get
        
       | WhyNotHugo wrote:
       | YouTube has been changing in weird ways in the last year or so.
       | 
       | The amount of propaganda on the platform is ridiculous, though
       | very frequently disguised as "news" or "educational". As someone
       | who's been around quite a bit, I can also imagine that it doesn't
       | look like propaganda to average Americans (I'd be glad to be
       | wrong on this).
       | 
       | A great deal of content is just plain sophistry too. Inspecting
       | comments, it seems that most viewers don't pick up on this.
       | 
       | At the same time, finding reviews or alike for products or
       | services is near impossible -- the platform is filled with
       | generic reviews which are indistinguishable form ads.
        
         | nickysielicki wrote:
         | The way that they've changed search to only link to checkmarked
         | channels is infuriating. When Kabul was falling I wanted to see
         | older videos of the embassy, from when it was opened, to see
         | the buildings and how extravagant they were. I couldn't find
         | any, though, because no matter what I searched I got videos
         | from news channels released within the past 24 hours about
         | evacuating the embassy. The war on "misinformation" needs to
         | stop.
        
         | devwastaken wrote:
         | Watch one "conservative news" video and it will do a complete
         | 180. Ads for "rations", "preparing for the end of the world",
         | "how to be self sustainable", tons of PragerU propaganda, and
         | some of the most low quality l BS you'll ever see from
         | political ads.
         | 
         | YouTube delivers content based on what you've watched.
        
           | wing-_-nuts wrote:
           | Yeah I watched some 'forgotten weapons' and 'demolition
           | ranch' videos, and it was _wild_ how quickly my feed changed
           | from science and history stuff to conservative talking
           | points. I spent a rather long time marking videos as  'do not
           | recommend this channel, I dislike this video' etc, before
           | things returned to normal.
        
             | VRay wrote:
             | Man, I had a similar problem
             | 
             | I watched something right wing, I can't remember what, and
             | for years YouTube was bombarding me with crazy half-truths
             | and memes. I tuned them out just like most of the other
             | bullshit I get bombarded with all day, but I wonder how
             | many people have been radicalized this way..
        
             | vl wrote:
             | Another simple way to address this is to remove
             | uninteresting videos from history, then recommendations go
             | back to normal. We have to do it on our kids account
             | periodically.
        
               | dvdkon wrote:
               | I just fully revoked Google from keeping any data on my
               | viewing habits and for some time now my YouTube main page
               | has been a rehash of popular videos from my subscribed
               | channels (and the occasional cat video). I sure don't
               | miss the craziness desperately trying to get me to watch
               | as much as possible.
        
           | sjmulder wrote:
           | Late night show Zondag met Lubach put this to the test:
           | https://youtu.be/FLoR2Spftwg (English CC available. Skip to
           | 11:48 if you just want to see this bit.)
           | 
           | They created a fresh account using a fresh browser, clicked
           | the top result for "PCR test reliable", then some recommended
           | videos. Just three clicks in they get to 9/11 and qanon
           | conspiracy videos. By then their home feed too is full of
           | that stuff.
        
           | rjbwork wrote:
           | I watch a lot of lefty "news" and infotainment. I still get
           | ads for the conservative propaganda, survival rations,
           | prepping, etc. I think it's because I also watch a lot of
           | firearms hobby content.
           | 
           | Kinda silly, but it does make me chuckle that people like Ben
           | Shapiro, PragerU, and 4Patriots are subsidizing my lefty
           | youtube subscriptions.
        
             | ashtonkem wrote:
             | What's particularly fascinating is how there is an almost
             | complete absence of a leftist equivalent on YT. There are
             | some leftist channels here and there, but you're not going
             | to get bombarded with communist ads after watching one
             | video like you might on the right.
        
               | rjbwork wrote:
               | It's strictly a function of funding and the economic
               | power of the interested parties. Rich capitalists are,
               | naturally, invested in promoting policies, ideologies,
               | and politicians that will 1) keep them being rich
               | capitalists and 2) make them richer capitalists. I don't
               | know, but am fairly confident in stating, that there are
               | not rich communists waging a communistic propaganda
               | campaign in order to keep them being rich communists and
               | making them richer communists. Certainly not in the
               | Anglosphere, anyway.
        
               | ashtonkem wrote:
               | You're not wrong, but leftists also tend to spend an
               | inordinate amount of energy and resources fighting
               | internecine battles rather than trying to convert others.
               | This does make it rather hard to do things like run self-
               | reinforcing YT campaigns, assuming YT would tolerate
               | them.
        
               | klyrs wrote:
               | I like to tell myself that's because real lefties adhere
               | to the doctrine of Gil Scott Heron, The Revolution Will
               | Not be Televised, even though they won't understand 99%
               | of the cultural references
        
               | ashtonkem wrote:
               | I'm split between two causes myself.
               | 
               | 1) The utter lack of support from monied interests.
               | 
               | 2) The fact that leftists love nothing more than fighting
               | slightly different types of other leftists.
        
             | pohl wrote:
             | I mostly consume guitar technique & music theory videos,
             | yet I still see ads suggesting I might want to buy & bury a
             | plastic tote full of MREs out in the wilderness just in
             | case. Maybe it's because I live in Nebraska? -\\_(tsu)_/-
        
               | da_chicken wrote:
               | That's probably part of it, but you can tell YouTube to
               | stop showing you those videos. The algorithm does work
               | it's just kind of like a 7-year-old.
        
               | kingTug wrote:
               | Same here, 95% of my YT consumption is related to
               | advanced music theory. The (constant) ads that drive me
               | up a wall are the "learn to play guitar" services that
               | feature children practicing their first guitar notes. Ive
               | heard this from other musicians too - the algorithm
               | thinks everyone is a novice.
        
           | zenron wrote:
           | Calling PragerU propaganda is like calling an Western history
           | book written by a religious person contraband. What exact
           | points do you take umbrage with or is this just a signal to
           | your political preference?
        
             | danparsonson wrote:
             | Here's a counterpoint for you, regarding the 'war on cars':
             | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z8Tb7OA_F4
        
               | tenaciousDaniel wrote:
               | Meh, I'm still not seeing what make it propaganda,
               | instead of just a terrible argument.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | CRConrad wrote:
               | Nobody is as blind as he who does not want to see.
        
             | elliekelly wrote:
             | Propaganda, according to Wikipedia:
             | 
             | > Propaganda is communication that is primarily used to
             | influence an audience and further an agenda, which may not
             | be objective and may be selectively presenting facts to
             | encourage a particular synthesis or perception, or using
             | loaded language to produce an emotional rather than a
             | rational response to the information that is being
             | presented.[1]
             | 
             | PragerU's "About Us" Page:
             | 
             | > Prager University is the world's leading conservative
             | nonprofit that is focused on changing minds through the
             | creative use of digital media. Taking full advantage of
             | today's technology and social media, we educate millions of
             | Americans and young people about the values that make
             | America great.[2]
             | 
             | I'd also encourage you to check out their "What is
             | PragerU"[3] brochure (PDF) which goes into more detail.
             | 
             | [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda
             | 
             | [2]https://www.prageru.com/about
             | 
             | [3]https://assets.ctfassets.net/qnesrjodfi80/UfBbMy7Kkcxxjz
             | VTlR...
        
             | devwastaken wrote:
             | PragerU is the one funding advertisements with wild,
             | baseless, and often scientifically dishonest "research". I
             | don't recall traditional universities doing this. They
             | firmly market themselves as "conservative intellectuals",
             | telling you the "real truth" liberals won't recognize. I'd
             | call that propaganda by definition.
        
             | toiletfuneral wrote:
             | why do you weirdo conservatives always talk like Ducktale
             | villains?
             | 
             | Anyway, I thought Candace Owens comments on nationalist
             | socialism were just straight up insane, also their series
             | defending creationism is completely hilarious.
        
         | bilbo0s wrote:
         | _I can also imagine that it doesn 't look like propaganda to
         | average Americans_
         | 
         | It looks like propaganda to us too.
         | 
         | We're not quite as dumb as the rest of the world thinks. That
         | said, I suppose everyone's a bit dumber than they think they
         | are, so take my statement with a grain of salt.
        
         | OneEyedRobot wrote:
         | >The amount of propaganda on the platform is ridiculous, though
         | very frequently disguised as "news" or "educational".
         | 
         | I certainly don't see that on the youtube channels I frequent,
         | but admit that the 'news' is typically op-ed disguised as news.
         | 
         | An alternative theory is that they (youtube) pushes 'news'
         | since it pays well and is quite popular. 'News' tends to come
         | from official channels over time with a kind of network effect.
         | Those channels are all Pravda. The fact that it's propaganda is
         | not necessarily a youtube choice but a major news organization
         | choice.
        
         | omgitsabird wrote:
         | This seems rather vague. Can you give examples of propaganda?
        
           | z3ncyberpunk wrote:
           | The same woke, leftist marxist propaganda the as is
           | everywhere at the moment?
        
           | jostmey wrote:
           | It is rather vague, but I have the same impression. So N=2
        
           | sbarre wrote:
           | Oh come on... spend 10 minutes on YouTube and you'll find
           | tons of it.
           | 
           | There have been countless articles and posts written about
           | this problem over the last several years.
           | 
           | I would challenge _you_ to go educate yourself on this rather
           | than ask others to bring this widely available and widely
           | accepted information to you.
        
           | sprafa wrote:
           | The current "ivermectin is a dangerous horse dewormer"
           | debacle has been the biggest example of a moment where I'm
           | not sure whether everyone is lying at this point. YouTube
           | censored a few videos with actual experts and doctors who
           | were discussing ivm.
           | 
           | Yes we had issues with HCQ in the beginning, but ivm is being
           | actually studied right now by Oxford Uni/NHS in their big
           | covid trials in the UK... it's amazing what a hit job the
           | media is doing on it.
        
             | onei wrote:
             | There's a difference between trials and it being suitable
             | for public use though, right? It is undeniably a horse
             | dewormer, and has had some use on humans, but not as a
             | covid treatment.
             | 
             | For me, it's about preventing people that aren't medical
             | professionals from self-medicating with a potentially
             | harmful substance. Plus there's been some less than stellar
             | suggestions of covid treatments in the past ranging from
             | dubious to lethal. If it turns out to be safe, then doctors
             | will no doubt prescribe it as necessary.
        
               | vorpalhex wrote:
               | Calling ivermectin horse dewormer is like calling
               | penicillin cow antibiotics or fish tank saver.
               | 
               | It's in significant use in humans.
        
               | handrous wrote:
               | I figured that term had taken off because people were
               | acquiring it from farm stores or pet supply places, so
               | they were _literally_ buying  "horse dewormer", as it
               | might be labeled on the packaging or signage. Same as
               | they do for other off-prescription medications
               | (antibiotics).
        
               | OldTimeCoffee wrote:
               | It's in significant use in humans as a dewormer, though.
               | It's used in humans to treat river blindness which is
               | caused by a worm. It's also used for the prevention of
               | worms in dogs. It's fair to call it a dewormer, even if
               | you disagree with including the 'horse' part.
               | 
               | It's not an anti-viral in any sense of the word.
        
               | jsight wrote:
               | Ok, I'll be more specific. Using the word "horse" is like
               | calling other medications that are used on people and
               | dogs as "dog" medicine.
               | 
               | The qualifier is not necessary. Truthfully, they should
               | just call it ivermectin and describe what it actually is,
               | how it has actually been used, and the current state of
               | research showing that currently has little proof of
               | effectiveness though there are trials ongoing.
        
               | vorpalhex wrote:
               | Correct, and while it's use as an anti-viral has been
               | noted pre-covid we don't understand what it's method of
               | action is, or why it sometimes behaves as an anti-viral.
               | 
               | I'm not recommending using drugs we don't understand or
               | have a full picture of. I am recommending to stop calling
               | it horse dewormer. At the very least call it an anti-
               | parasitic in use in the 3rd and 2nd worlds.
        
               | SnowProblem wrote:
               | Two people in my circle were taking IVM pre-pandemic to
               | treat rosacea and lyme disease. This is not an obscure
               | drug in the 1st world. It also doesn't need to be an
               | anti-viral to work on covid - it's already a general
               | anti-inflammatory. Inflammation of the lungs is why
               | people can't breath and often die, and that inflammation
               | is due to the body's own immune response, not the virus
               | itself. The virus is gone by that point. But our standard
               | protocol at first symptoms does not include treating
               | potential inflammation, so by the time people get to
               | hospital it's often too late. It's not good.
        
               | OldTimeCoffee wrote:
               | You can drop the '3rd and 2nd worlds' part. It's used for
               | the treatment of parasites in the 1st world as well.
               | 
               | I'm not a infectious diseases expert, but to my knowledge
               | the viruses that it's been found to be effective against
               | are all mosquito borne; it's just as likely related to
               | it's toxic action on mosquitos in general. Still, it's
               | all baseless conjecture on everyone's part. If someone
               | cares to throw money at it, it's something that can be
               | investigated.
               | 
               | At the end of the day just get the widely available
               | vaccine and move on with life, like you would for other
               | viruses that we've got vaccines for. I feel like we're
               | all making this way harder than it has to be just so we
               | can all continue to yell at each other.
        
               | ufo wrote:
               | I believe there have been studies showing that ivermectin
               | is not useful against covid in these situations either.
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | sprafa wrote:
               | I would hope so.
               | 
               | My point about "horse dewormer" is that some articles in
               | the media list it as _just_ that without mentioning at
               | all that it is also human medication. Look at the recent
               | articles about Joe Rogan, they couldn't stop themselves.
               | 
               | Afaik the only difference between human and animal ivm
               | are levels of impurity.
        
               | sophacles wrote:
               | That's because people are literally buying and eating
               | horse dewormer. Its in a package that says "horse
               | dewormer" on it. It's sold at livestock stores in the
               | "horse medicine" section. The media is 100% correct to
               | call what people are poisoning themselves with "horse
               | dewormer".
               | 
               | I bet you get mad at the news for reporting rain because
               | water exists in other forms, and has other ways of moving
               | about besides rain right?
        
               | kragen wrote:
               | It's really hard to poison yourself with ivermectin if
               | you're a vertebrate. Apparently the total number of
               | poisoning cases in the US, a country of 330 million
               | people, is about 500, and the vast majority of those
               | cases had minor or no effects; people were just worried.
               | So if you buy horse dewormer in a livestock store and
               | take it, you'll probably _still_ be fine.
               | 
               | https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/too-good-to-check-
               | a-pl...
        
               | pwdisswordfish8 wrote:
               | Did Joe Rogan literally buy and eat something from a
               | package that says "horse dewormer" on it? You willingly
               | ignored the salient parts of the comment you responded to
               | (ironically providing more evidence of the very
               | phenomenon that they're trying to discuss).
        
               | numeromancer wrote:
               | No, it was prescribed by his doctor.
               | 
               | Which brings up another point: some pharmacies are
               | refusing to fill it, even when prescribed by a doctor. If
               | you want to place the blame for people getting "horse
               | dewormer", such pharmacies deserve part of the blame.
        
               | sophacles wrote:
               | Too bad most of the people who want horse dewormer were
               | the same people who wanted the "pharmacist conscience"
               | laws that allow pharmacists to deny their veterinary
               | prescriptions. Who would have thought that such a law
               | would come back to bite them.
        
             | blitzar wrote:
             | > ivm is being actually studied right now by Oxford Uni/NHS
             | in their big covid trials in the UK
             | 
             | So you are saying because something is being investigated
             | it must have strong positive properties?
             | 
             | Well - have I got something for you ... You know when you
             | take a poo and flush it down the toilet? Did you know all
             | this time you could be eating it, and it would have
             | tremendous health benefits?
             | 
             | Dont believe me? They did a study on eating shit once, so
             | it must be true, and I must be only just touching on the
             | health benefits of Coprophagia.
             | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3168083/
        
               | sprafa wrote:
               | I never said anything of the sort.
        
               | blitzar wrote:
               | You said the proof it is a 'hit job by the media' is
               | because the medication is 'being actually studied right
               | now by Oxford Uni'
        
               | concordDance wrote:
               | Which is a reasonable proof. Media shouldn't be shitting
               | on stuff that might work.
        
               | Reubachi wrote:
               | Weird this needs to be reiterated in Covid 2021....What
               | do you think "media" should be doing? Remember, media =/=
               | op-ed journalists that you want to have the same opinion
               | as you.
               | 
               | "media" should not have to do anything by anyone's
               | standards. it is a omnipresent, global, ever changing
               | opinion glued transparently to percieved values and
               | morays of the time.
               | 
               | If you click on a link/article that says "X will not work
               | and we do not like it", then that media outfit is doing
               | exactly what it needs to do as a media outfit.
        
               | fireflash38 wrote:
               | It's not a proof at all!!!!
        
             | uj8efdkjfdshf wrote:
             | I mean, it's quite likely the ivermectin and
             | hydroxychloroquine has some effect against the virus in the
             | early stages of infection, but their use needs to be
             | balanced against their side effects, of which there are
             | many. It's like how bleach kills cancer cells, but you
             | really shouldn't be treating cancer with it...
        
               | sprafa wrote:
               | I believe ivermectin is a far safer drug than HCQ.
        
               | kieselguhr_kid wrote:
               | I mean, it's great that you personally believe something,
               | but to make ethical medical decisions we need lots of
               | clinical data. If your belief is well founded, which it
               | damn well might be, the data should bear that out.
        
               | kragen wrote:
               | We have lots of clinical data, their belief is well
               | founded, and the data does bear that out. It's as if you
               | commented without even skimming the Wikipedia article
               | about ivermectin.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivermectin#Contraindication
               | s
        
               | jvdheuvel wrote:
               | Here you can find some clinical data:
               | https://c19ivermectin.com/
               | 
               | Here on a whole list of other early treatments:
               | https://c19early.com/
               | 
               | Check also https://odysee.com/@FrontlineCovid19CriticalCa
               | reAlliance:c/F... and https://flccc.net/
        
               | hajile wrote:
               | The data on the safety of Ivermectin is very well
               | established. It's well-known to be very safe with pretty
               | minimal side effects and extremely low serious side
               | effect rates despite the billions of doses handed out
               | over the past decades.
               | 
               | The real question is about its anti-viral properties. We
               | know they exist, but don't know why or to what extent.
               | Further, we don't know if they extend to COVID and we
               | don't now if the effective dosage is high enough to
               | increase the rates of side effects (especially bad ones).
               | 
               | The result is extremists on both sides saying wild
               | garbage. Either it's the salvation of mankind hidden from
               | you by the grand conspiracy or it's toxic horse dewormer
               | that will certainly kill anyone who even approaches it.
               | 
               | This is a real problem. If I were researching Ivermectin
               | and COVID, I'd be scared that loonies from one side or
               | the other might attempt to hurt me or ruin my life over
               | their delusions.
        
             | devwastaken wrote:
             | Being studied, _not_ accepted in use in humans for COVID.
             | Blame the idiots injecting themselves with the actual horse
             | versions, and the doctors /vets illigally prescribing it.
             | IVM is as useful as eating dirt in relation to COVID, until
             | proven otherwise with studies that aren't fabricated data
             | or otherwise p-hacked to death - it's disinformation, and
             | rightfully removed.
        
               | vorpalhex wrote:
               | Remember when posting the lab leak hypothesis on Facebook
               | would get you banned and now it's, as best as we can
               | figure, the most plausible theory?
               | 
               | There is no human run group fit to decide what is or is
               | not "disinformation".
        
               | commandlinefan wrote:
               | In fact, most of the "people are dying because they're
               | injecting themselves with horse dewormer" story can be
               | traced back to a rolling stone article that quoted a
               | doctor who said so. The only problem was, they actually
               | quoted the doctor's name as well as an actual hospital he
               | supposedly worked at - and the hospital issued a
               | statement that that doctor neither worked there nor had
               | they treated _any_ Ivermectin overdoses
               | (https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/rolling-stone-
               | s-ive...). In other words, "people overdosing on horse
               | dewormer" is _actual_ misinformation... which isn 't
               | being censored.
        
               | smallbizdev420 wrote:
               | Relying on one source for information is wrong, the
               | hearsay article which reported what the doc in Oklahoma
               | said without verifying the claims about ivermectin
               | overdoses was wrong.
               | 
               | What is not wrong is this:
               | 
               | According to the National Poison Data System (NPDS),
               | which collects information from the nation's 55 poison
               | control centers, there was a 245% jump in reported
               | exposure cases from July to August -- from 133 to 459.
               | 
               | Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-
               | updates/2021/0...
               | 
               | On the one hand, it's nice to know this number is low, on
               | the other hand the numbers are likely under-reporting.
               | Low toxicity doses and symptoms are likely unrecorded.
               | Self medication with prescription drugs is a bad idea.
        
               | etchalon wrote:
               | No. The Rolling Stone debacle literally just happened.
               | 
               | The idea "most of the story" is traced backed to one bad
               | article, from two days ago, when it's been a story for
               | over a month is ridiculous nut-picking.
        
               | refenestrator wrote:
               | It became 'plausible' based on fashion -- the evidence
               | didn't change at all. Which is even crazier.
        
               | slightwinder wrote:
               | To be fair, the bans usually were about china fabricating
               | the virus on purpose and releasing it with intention,
               | accompanied by racism against Asians. This is pretty
               | different from the accidental leak of a research-object,
               | which is now the accepted theory.
        
               | vorpalhex wrote:
               | The media did themselves and the public a disservice by
               | gluing the two theories together and blending them.
               | Several friends - college educated, intelligent
               | professionals - were confused enough to approach and ask
               | me about the lab leak/release theories.
               | 
               | The intentional lab release theory is the stuff of
               | nonsense conspiracy theories. The accidental leak theory
               | has always had some support but is now more widely
               | accepted (but will likely never have hard proof).
               | 
               | For a time, both were bannable offenses on Facebook,
               | Youtube and others. Likely because the media glued them
               | together and assigned them both as "disinformation".
        
               | [deleted]
        
               | shadowgovt wrote:
               | On YouTube and Facebook, "the media" is just "stuff
               | people are saying in videos they post."
               | 
               | So this point reduces to "both were bannable offenses
               | because people were posting videos that glued them
               | together," which... Yes, that's why.
        
               | slightwinder wrote:
               | It wasn't really the media doing that. It was more a
               | combination between nut heads, meme heads with their
               | umbrella-connection and the first panic. The media just
               | amplified it and rode the wave, as usual. And after the
               | message was out, it was hard to turn it around. And I
               | guess the platforms were just unable to distinguish
               | between them, as also had more interest to wait till the
               | nutty wave died down.
        
               | vorpalhex wrote:
               | > It wasn't really the media doing that.
               | 
               | [1] - https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2021/06
               | /covid-la...
               | 
               | [2] -
               | https://www.cnn.com/2020/10/21/politics/coronavirus-lab-
               | theo...
               | 
               | [3] - https://www.politifact.com/li-meng-yan-fact-check/
        
               | slightwinder wrote:
               | Not sure what you mean. These articles are all from 6+
               | months after the first panic. At that point, the theories
               | were already long merged and spreading wild. They were
               | already present from the first days in January 2020, when
               | China's situation became epidemic. And this didn't really
               | change till spring 2021 when everyone cooled down a bit
               | and sanity returned a bit.
        
               | bart_spoon wrote:
               | > To be fair, the bans usually were about china
               | fabricating the virus on purpose and releasing it with
               | intention, accompanied by racism against Asians. This is
               | pretty different from the accidental leak of a research-
               | object, which is now the accepted theory.
               | 
               | No, both versions were lumped into the same bucket.
        
               | devwastaken wrote:
               | "most plausible theory" according to whom? It's not a
               | theory, it's a hypothesis with little tangible but
               | evidence due to the nature of chinas control. It could
               | have happened, it may not have. The problem with lab leak
               | discussion on YouTube/Facebook is it was heavily
               | associated with politics, and incredible unsubstantiated
               | claims. "Experts" from nowhere, hired degrees talking
               | about a lab they know nothing about, anonymous and
               | convenient unheard of "researchers" supposedly "exposing
               | the lab leak". The disinformation was incredible. Even if
               | lab leak did happen - very few had the actual proof or
               | good arguments to back it.
        
               | concordDance wrote:
               | > IVM is as useful as eating dirt in relation to COVID,
               | until proven otherwise with studies
               | 
               | Um. No. IVM is useful or not useful regardless of whether
               | studies have been done.
               | 
               | Studies are useful for _finding out_ whether it is
               | useful, but they do not affect the result.
               | 
               | If people take it now and then it turns out it's a
               | miracle cure that halts ageing the people taking it now
               | will have benefited. If instead it actually causes
               | incurable cancer in five years the people taking it now
               | are in the shitter. These things are true or false
               | regardless of whether we know them and regardless of
               | whether we got that knowledge from formal studies.
        
               | mseepgood wrote:
               | > IVM is useful or not useful regardless of whether
               | studies have been done
               | 
               | Just like dirt.
        
               | kragen wrote:
               | Injecting? When I took ivermectin (for parasites, not
               | covid, of course) I took it orally. Why on Earth would
               | you inject it?
        
           | heh9001 wrote:
           | Anything you see on the front page of youtube, i.e. you
           | didn't specifically search for it, is most likely being
           | promoted by some ad agency or think tank somewhere down the
           | line. Meaning it's propaganda to some extent. The exceptions
           | to this rule are, of course, independent creators that the
           | algorithm latches onto, but the algorithm only promotes
           | videos that people are gonna click on and generate revenue
           | for Youtube. That is, in a way, controlled propaganda too.
        
             | kragen wrote:
             | I see "African grey parrot singing along to I can see
             | clearly now", "Cucumbers are cat's enemy - Funny Pet
             | Reaction | Purr Purr", "Cockatoo Farts and Runs Away",
             | "House Relax: Ed Sheeran, Martin Garrix, Kygo, Dua Lipa,
             | Avicii, The...", "Venezuela 1-3 Argentina | Eliminatorias a
             | Qatar 2022 -...", etc.
             | 
             | This is because yesterday I looked at videos of Alex the
             | African grey parrot.
             | 
             | As far as I can tell, there are no ad agencies or think
             | tanks involved here, except I guess that Atlantic Records
             | made Ed Sheeran more popular than he was already by
             | promoting him. I think this is pretty much purely "videos
             | that people are gonna click on".
             | 
             | The propaganda is in what's missing.
        
               | godshatter wrote:
               | I see the "House Relax" one when I go to YouTube in a
               | private window without signing in. It seems to be one of
               | the "stock" links that YouTube shows complete newbies
               | that have never been there before (as far as it knows),
               | so I'm guessing it's pretty strongly advertised
               | presumably at the behest of the ad agencies.
               | 
               | I do, always, see three or four covid-19 videos when I go
               | to the main YT page. Whatever you think about their
               | message, they look like propaganda to me.
        
       | anigbrowl wrote:
       | I'm sympathetic but not a video creator, but I wonder why don't
       | people band together and sue, or alternatively pressure their
       | state attorneys-general to bring a civil enforcement action? Yes,
       | yes, arbitration clauses, but there's a doctrine in law called
       | 'unconscionable contract' and a demonstrable pattern of
       | unilateral kafkaesque behavior by YT is a good start for any
       | attorney.
       | 
       | As I have pointed out over and over _market solutions don 't
       | work_ when there are huge power/capital differentials involved.
       | Hoping some plucky little underdog product/service will lead to
       | an exodus isn't going to happen.
       | 
       | Back in the day, Google ate Yahoo's lunch (along with Altavista,
       | Lycos and everyone else) because Google had a genuine search
       | engine (in the form of a graph database) whereas the incumbents
       | were operating directories, and the classification/curation
       | couldn't keep up with the volume of information being crawled.
       | For those who were not around at the time, it's hard to
       | communicate how different the products were. Incumbents let you
       | search but also offered a huge number of categories, like a
       | library catalog. Google looked like a joke website the first time
       | you visited due to the lack of _any_ categorical or navigational
       | options, just this over-confident search field...except that it
       | worked. It was like sorcery.
       | 
       | The reason I mention this is because in economics there's a
       | concept of _elasticity of demand_ , of how attached you are to a
       | thing you already use or consume. Generally, you want to stick
       | with what works. This is especially true where network effects
       | come into play. Competitors that offer X + some incremental
       | improvement usually fail; their best outcome is that X buys them
       | and incorporates the incremental improvement (which is sometimes
       | the competitors' ultimate goal). To lure people away from a
       | successful product the additional benefit to the buyer has to be
       | more like 100% than 10% or 20%, and that rarely happens. If you
       | look at Youtube's contenders, they fall into specialized
       | categories such as art stuff like Vimeo (extra access control,
       | higher video quality/ delivery options), Twitch (emphasis on
       | livestreaming and social, especially for gamers), Rumble (for
       | Freeze Peach aficionados), Pornhub and the whole adult
       | entertainment ecosystem, or high-end commercial content
       | streaming.
       | 
       | So if you dream of beating YouTube in the market, you need to
       | either occupy a niche they don't want to be in (most of which
       | have already been occupied) or offer something that's radically
       | different _for the consumer_. Being distributed / FOSS/
       | blockchain/ whatever isn't it because only nerds care about that
       | stuff. Nerds don't rule the marketplace, even when they build the
       | marketplace: 95% of people _do not care_ how something works or
       | that it serves a higher purpose. It needs to offer a wholly
       | different _user experience_ , and really, it's kinda hard to see
       | how you're gonna radically rethink TV.
       | 
       | You have a better chance to do something amazing in virtual
       | reality or internet navigation in general, and provide a native
       | offering in which Youtube is diminished to the minor status of a
       | channel owner, ie your UI/brand is The Thing and YouTube is just
       | a minor service provider icon _below the content_.
       | 
       | So the alternative is to address the situation legally. Monopoly
       | complaints won't work, because the nice capitalists at the
       | University of Chicago have institutionalized the idea that
       | monopolies are fine as long as the public is happy, and the huge
       | # of consumers using YouTube vastly outweighs the small # of
       | creators who are pissed off with it, so good luck with your
       | public interest argument. However, there might be some mileage in
       | attacking the contract terms or alleging that YouTube has
       | implicitly defamed creators by suspending them without
       | explanation. Or you could go in a different direction and argue
       | that YouTube is a sort of public utility, though then you need to
       | decide whether you really want online video to be regulated by
       | FCC.
       | 
       | Litigation would be expensive and stressful and would need to be
       | a collective rather than individual undertaking, and a selective
       | one at that - folks like Linux Experiment are sympathetic
       | plaintiffs, folks like Logan Paul are not (you may think this
       | shouldn't matter, but tough luck, it does). Chances are that such
       | a case would almost certainly fail, but the object would be to
       | make discovery and the trial excruciatingly embarrassing for
       | youtube, which would mean _refusing to settle_ and (probably)
       | looking for specific performance like YT submitting to
       | supervision of some kind in the form of a consent decree, rather
       | than mere compensation. If you just ask them for money you 'll
       | (maybe) eventually get some but nothing will change, because
       | asking for money is essentially the same as saying whoever has
       | the most money gets to be king of the market and Alphabet has
       | plenty of coins to toss in the direction of the peasants.
       | 
       | The potential upside here is not winning in court (a vanishingly
       | unlikely possibility) or getting a big check to shut up and go
       | away (nice and what your lawyers want, but basically selling out
       | your principles), but either a change in the law from Congress
       | (ha ha good luck) or a shift in the public's thinking about how
       | contracts should work, the distribution of obligations, and how
       | much market power is acceptable.
        
       | hapless wrote:
       | It appears to have been banned when the author offered an illegal
       | sweepstakes.
       | 
       | Contests and sweepstakes are carefully regulated in America, with
       | slightly different regimes in all 50 states. You should not run
       | one unless you have gotten legal help with it!
        
         | sschueller wrote:
         | If this is true there are several very large youtubers that are
         | running illegal sweepstakes. Jake and Logan Paul for example.
        
           | raydev wrote:
           | How do you know those sweepstakes are illegal? Have you
           | verified that the Paul brothers either have bad legal teams
           | or no legal teams?
        
           | heavyset_go wrote:
           | If you suspect this, report them to the FTC.
        
         | EastToWest wrote:
         | Source? The creator's twitter doesn't mention that at all.
        
           | juniperplant wrote:
           | There was a giveaway of a Tuxedo laptop[1]. Whoever wanted to
           | participate had to comment on the video announcing the
           | giveaway, which apparently goes against YouTube's TOS (as far
           | as I can tell comments count affects YouTube's algorithm).
           | 
           | [1] https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e/win-the-tuxedo-
           | aura...
        
             | ganoushoreilly wrote:
             | If that's it, it's a ridiculous premise. I won some music
             | equipment from Sweetwater by liking and commenting on a
             | video (though not sure they would be able to verify the
             | like).
             | 
             | I expect things like this to continue to grow as we rely
             | more and more on algorithms in all walks of life without
             | thinking through true recourse options.
        
               | dangus wrote:
               | If true, the channel owner was trying to game the system
               | to make their channel look like it was more popular than
               | it really was.
               | 
               | An analogy would be like a TV host telling the audience
               | to watch the show on five televisions so that they would
               | get a higher Nielsen ratings and then get more money from
               | advertisers. No TV network or advertiser would be happy
               | about that.
               | 
               | In other words, if this is what was really happening,
               | this channel was essentially trying to scam YouTube into
               | thinking they were more popular than they really are for
               | their own monetary gain.
               | 
               | To me it seems like this channel deserved what they got,
               | if the allegations are true.
               | 
               | I even doubt that the channel was automatically removed
               | by an algorithm. Maybe it was flagged by one for human
               | review. Just because a company doesn't contact you
               | doesn't mean a human wasn't involved in your particular
               | case. Furthermore, just because Sweetwater got away with
               | it one time doesn't mean it's not against the TOS.
               | 
               | I'm just speculating, and I don't have skin in the game.
        
               | Spivak wrote:
               | I don't think you deserve the downvotes, this is click-
               | fraud and I'm not at all surprised that it got axed. I'm
               | sure it with enough media outrage and a private mea culpa
               | from the creator it will be reinstated but on first blush
               | I think this was the right call.
        
               | raydev wrote:
               | Sweetwater is not "getting away with it." They have
               | verified legal clearance, and the owner of linux
               | experience does not.
               | 
               | Your concerns about "scamming" aren't relevant. Many of
               | YouTube's most popular channels do this sort of contest,
               | and there is no hard ban on this type of thing.
        
             | [deleted]
        
           | dom111 wrote:
           | It's implied here:
           | https://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP/status/1435107199785832449
           | 
           | but no more detail than that I can see...
        
           | [deleted]
        
         | mabbo wrote:
         | Let's presume you're right and this is why the channel was
         | legitimately deleted.
         | 
         | Was there a warning? Was there some communication with the
         | owner saying "Hey, what you're doing violates or Ts&Cs"? It
         | seems like if there was, the owner would be tweeting that he
         | _disagrees_ with the deletion rather that completely not
         | understanding why it happened.
         | 
         | Putting more humans in the loop would be more expensive, but it
         | would help end these puzzling situations where creators don't
         | know _why_ they 've been told to stop creating.
        
           | comeonseriously wrote:
           | Algorithms don't warn. Nor do they communicate. They just
           | delete.
        
             | remram wrote:
             | Algorithms do whatever humans program them to do, which can
             | be delete, warn, email, slack, or call phones.
        
               | tablespoon wrote:
               | > Algorithms do whatever humans program them to do, which
               | can be delete, warn, email, slack, or call phones.
               | 
               | I think it's worth noting that algorithms like these are
               | deployed specifically to take employees out of the loop,
               | and adding a communications step would almost certainly
               | pull them back in.
        
               | Choco31415 wrote:
               | However, there is still less manual work being down if
               | videos are flagged via an algorithm versus checked one-
               | by-one by a person. Though, results may vary.
        
             | grishka wrote:
             | So maybe make all algorithm-generated decisions be vetted
             | by a human.
        
               | floatingatoll wrote:
               | The labor costs of that would destroy Google and
               | Facebook. What a beautiful thing it would be to see,
               | though.
        
               | grishka wrote:
               | Google and Facebook have more money than they know what
               | to do with.
        
             | Tarq0n wrote:
             | Coming soon to a drone near you!
        
             | colordrops wrote:
             | Yes but the servers that software that use these algorithms
             | are perfectly capable of including business logic for
             | warning and communicating.
        
         | rscoots wrote:
         | That's still begs the question though, why not simply hide or
         | abridge that video. Or add a disclaimer?
         | 
         | How can deleting the entire channel without warning possibly be
         | the ethical move here?
        
           | spurgu wrote:
           | It's not. The consensus (here at least) seems quite clear.
        
             | rscoots wrote:
             | Well not clear enough I guess since my comment just got
             | downvoted 4 times lol.
        
               | pbhjpbhj wrote:
               | Perhaps they're fallacy fans who dislike your use of
               | 'begs the question' (an archaic term that does _not_ mean
               | 'raises the question', which you mean here).
        
         | tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
         | The error message claims that an account has not existed or has
         | been deleted long ago, not "you violated our ToS and are
         | permabanned no appeals kthxbye". Assuming this recovery attempt
         | was started within whatever Google considers that short time,
         | it implies _something_ else is happening.
         | 
         | One possible guess would be the account getting hacked, somehow
         | moved to a different address, then deleted. (I have no idea how
         | primary e-mail addresses work for Google/Gmail accounts, except
         | that what used to be a standalone YouTube account got merged
         | into a Google account which once I created a gmail address for
         | it suddenly had a different primary e-mail address, so there
         | are ways for stuff like this to change and "brand accounts"
         | complicate it further on YouTube).
        
           | e40 wrote:
           | This is what happened to Jim Browning (YT channel about
           | scammers... very entertaining). He was tricked into it.
           | 
           | https://youtu.be/YIWV5fSaUB8
        
         | Teknoman117 wrote:
         | That doesn't make much sense though, given that many of the
         | tech YouTubers (LinusTechTips, JayzTwoCents, to name a few)
         | have done hardware giveaways fairly regularly. "We're giving
         | away RTX 3080s and 3090s to verifiable gamers" is the recent
         | trend. LTT is in Vancouver, but JayzTwoCents is in Southern
         | California somewhere, and therefore, the United States.
        
           | KeepFlying wrote:
           | Except those channels probably have the means to run it
           | legally and with the right caveats, legalese, tax
           | documentation, etc.
           | 
           | Sweepstakes and giveaways aren't banned, they just have some
           | overhead and legal requirements around them.
        
           | wheybags wrote:
           | LTT weren't giving them away though. First come first served,
           | and you only got the _opportunity to buy_ them at MSRP,
           | instead of scalper markups. They werent given away for free.
        
       | christophilus wrote:
       | Wow. It's hard for me to imagine how he crossed any line worthy
       | of deletion. He's one of the best Linux voices on YouTube, and
       | seems like an incredibly nice guy.
       | 
       | His content can be seen on Odysee[0].
       | 
       | Chris Titus Tech has a video covering this[1].
       | 
       | Honestly, I try to watch everything on Odysee these days, anyway,
       | just to try to continue de-Googling my life.
       | 
       | [0] https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e
       | 
       | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHeZXkZT_jk
        
         | jvdheuvel wrote:
         | Chris Titus Tech has also an Odysee channel,
         | https://odysee.com/@christitustech:5
        
         | asah wrote:
         | no - see above comment re illegal sweepstakes
        
       | egberts1 wrote:
       | I just sauntered over to Apple App store to take a look-see at
       | Odysee app and its privacy "level".
       | 
       | No thanks.
        
       | nabakin wrote:
       | Channel has been reinstated!
       | 
       | https://twitter.com/thelinuxEXP/status/1435311971973406726
       | 
       | I want to know what happened for Google to make such a serious
       | mistake.
        
         | fouc wrote:
         | That twitter link didn't work for me.
         | 
         | Can confirm it's back:
         | https://www.youtube.com/c/TheLinuxExperiment
         | 
         | Seems glitchy though, I can't sort by "most popular", it
         | suddenly says "this channel has no videos". Hopefully that's
         | just an old cached result that will clear up at some point.
        
           | nabakin wrote:
           | Looks like he couldn't login so he deleted the tweet. Here's
           | the new twitter thread:
           | https://twitter.com/TeamYouTube/status/1435317727158177796
        
         | skinkestek wrote:
         | > I want to know what happened for Google to make such a
         | serious mistake.
         | 
         | Remember, this is Google. They do everything automatically
         | including messing up big time.
         | 
         | Needing a human in the loop to mess up big time wouldn't scale,
         | at least not web scale.
        
       | hamburgerwah wrote:
       | Another "google's customer support is only available via online
       | mob outrage" situation. Just pathetic, who isn't embarrassed to
       | work for Google at this point?
        
       | rvz wrote:
       | Once again, using the private platform argument here: YouTube
       | (owned by Google) reserves the right to terminate and de-platform
       | anyone's account who has been in violation of YouTube's
       | guidelines and terms of service.
       | 
       | You can criticise, protest, appeal, scream or throw a tantrum
       | about it, etc but you should finally see that this can happen to
       | anyone sitting on private platforms like YouTube.
       | 
       | YouTube will never change and it will only get worse.
        
         | [deleted]
        
         | WhyNotHugo wrote:
         | Not sure why this guy is getting downvoted.
         | 
         | I wish he were wrong, because he's saying sucks, but he's just
         | telling the hard truth the way it is.
         | 
         | YouTube won't change, yet we continue using it as if it didn't
         | have the track record it does.
        
         | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
         | I'm out of the loop- what rules were broken?
        
         | maccolgan wrote:
         | Private platforms can indeed do whatever they want, but I think
         | there's a discussion to be had about whether what they are
         | doing is right or wrong...
        
         | pessimizer wrote:
         | > the private platform argument
         | 
         | No part of what you said is an argument.
         | 
         | Do private platforms have unlimited latitude? If not, what are
         | the underlying philosophies underlying current limitations, and
         | can those be seen to imply that other limitations should be
         | made? Should private platforms have unlimited latitude?
         | 
         | Those are discussions that could be had. "Private things are
         | allowed to do whatever they want" is not only a thought-
         | terminating cliche that avoids all ethical or tactical
         | judgement, but a simple falsehood.
        
           | rvz wrote:
           | > Do private platforms have unlimited latitude?
           | 
           | Who is arguing that? No need to create a straw-man argument.
           | 
           | > "Private things are allowed to do whatever they want"
           | 
           | Who are you quoting here?
           | 
           | So YouTube (owned by Google) doesn't reserve the right to
           | terminate and de-platform anyone's account who has been in
           | violation of YouTube's guidelines and terms of service?
           | 
           | I already said the offended users can appeal, didn't I? I'm
           | just saying that not only this can happen to anyone, but
           | YouTube (Google Inc.) will not change and we'll see more of
           | this regardless if it is automated or not.
        
             | pessimizer wrote:
             | I'm not saying that you're arguing anything.
             | 
             | > Who are you quoting here?
             | 
             | Nobody. But if the fact that Google reserves the right to
             | ban people for reasons described in its ToS is an argument
             | for something, I'd like to know what else it could be an
             | argument for. Who cares what Google reserves?
             | 
             | edit: I'm being sloppy. "Google reserved the right to
             | delete for this reason," and "private things that reserve
             | rights get them", and "Google is private" equals "Google
             | gains this right." This would be an argument you could
             | make. However, you haven't made this argument.
             | 
             | Are you making an argument about _choosing_ youtube? I
             | might be mistaking a pragmatic observation for a political
             | /legal discussion.
        
         | gmemstr wrote:
         | That's not the issue here. The issue here is letting automated
         | systems having final say on such destructive actions as
         | terminating an account entirely, with no concrete way to
         | appeal. From what I am aware of, few channels wrongfully
         | suspended get reinstated through support but rather through
         | public outcry on the likes of Twitter.
        
           | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
           | I don't think that's in disagreement with the parent.
           | Whatever means YouTube uses to determine who to drop and who
           | to keep is irrelevant because the point is that if you host
           | content on someone else's servers you are giving them
           | control.
        
             | segfaultbuserr wrote:
             | I don't think so. The original comment says that YouTube
             | has:
             | 
             | > _the right to terminate and de-platform anyone 's account
             | who has been in violation of YouTube's guidelines and terms
             | of service._
             | 
             | The problem here is letting automated systems, with a
             | history of producing false-positives for content that
             | didn't violate the Guidelines or ToS, having final say on
             | account termination, with no concrete way to appeal - To me
             | this is a fair criticism.
             | 
             | If the original comment says "the right to arbitrarily
             | terminate and de-platform anyone's account", then I'll say
             | that you have a point.
        
         | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
         | There is apparently a large contingent of people on this site
         | holding the belief that if your private platform is large then
         | the government should step in to force you to host things you
         | don't want to host.
         | 
         | It's kinda funny, because it's effectively saying that they
         | want to nationalize tech companies for being successful.
        
           | ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
           | The government should step in to enforce data standards and
           | data-transfer functionalities so that large tech companies do
           | not have oversized monopoly like influence due to natural
           | network effects.
        
             | happybirds07 wrote:
             | Under GDPR you have the right to data portability, i.e. you
             | can demand your data in a commonly used digital format to
             | take it to another provider.
        
               | ersii wrote:
               | Which usually, at least in Sweden means you'll get your
               | data dump in a PDF. Not a joke, unfortunally.
        
               | happybirds07 wrote:
               | It should be "structured, commonly-used and machine
               | readable", and I'm not sure PDF qualifies for that. I'd
               | file a complaint with IMY.
               | 
               | In any case, I've never received anything other than
               | json, xml and csv. Jag ar inte svenska, though.
        
           | sinyug wrote:
           | > There is apparently a large contingent of people on this
           | site holding the belief that if your private platform is
           | large then the government should step in to force you to host
           | things you don't want to host.
           | 
           | I am part of that group. I am willing to accept a free-for-
           | all till a company reaches a certain size as far as its user-
           | or-customer base is concerned: something between the
           | population of New Zealand and that of Australia. Beyond that
           | it should be answerable to the people.
           | 
           | I also think supranational corporations should either be
           | banned or very tightly regulated.
        
           | throwawaylinux wrote:
           | No that's not true, there is a vast difference between
           | regulation on business practices like this and
           | nationalization.
        
           | Gollapalli wrote:
           | If you think about it, publicly traded companies are
           | precisely that: nationalized. They exist as partly as
           | government fiat, and partly of managerial control, but not as
           | property. They are, by necessity, of somewhat unknowable, and
           | almost always unaccountable ownership, ownership so diffuse
           | it may be regarded as a generally representative subset of
           | and equivalent to the general public. As such, can any public
           | company be regarded as private? Or treated as private? Their
           | ownership is public, and no individual, or small, knowable,
           | and generally convenable group of people can say: these are
           | our servers. On the contrary, a group of people equivalent to
           | the general public, a subset of them in fact public or
           | pseudo-public institutions (pension funds, university
           | endowments), are the owners. As such, public institutions
           | should very much be treated as public entities. After all, it
           | is the general public which owns them.
        
             | WhyNotHugo wrote:
             | Publicly traded companies have a main goal of making
             | profits for shareholders.
             | 
             | This seldom aligns with the public's interest. For many
             | (most?) companies, only the rich have any voting power,
             | whereas the majority of the population just has to follow
             | along.
             | 
             | Publicly traded companies are like a democracy where you
             | get more votes the more money you have. The implication
             | here is that your voice/needs are only important if you're
             | rich, and are unimportant if you're average or poor (which
             | kind of explains why the US is the way it is).
        
               | Gollapalli wrote:
               | Yeah, that's what we're all taught.
               | 
               | But, the actual incentive structure of "who controls the
               | corporation?" is not shareholders, whose ownership is a)
               | so diffuse as to be unknowable, sans documentation from a
               | stock exchange b) very often held by proxies, with voting
               | rights exercised by those proxies as well [1], c) nearly
               | impossible to coordinate, even when the majority of
               | shares in in private hands, and d) frequently bought back
               | and owned by management itself. Looking at this
               | structure, one can say that the actual control of the
               | corporation is held a) by the people that manage it, b)
               | by the people that capitalize it (not the same thing as
               | stockholdership) and c) by the people that regulate it.
               | c) is very clearly the government. You could make a very
               | good case that b) is indirectly the government as well,
               | since it comes from banking institutions who receive
               | money to lend from the federal government, or rather, the
               | ability to create debt.
               | 
               | My point is that, given the diffusion and non-
               | coordination of ownership of a publicly traded company,
               | combined with the effect of regulation, (and if you know
               | anything about regulatory capture), the coordination of
               | regulation with the large interests being regulated,
               | public corporations may be treated, quite reasonably as
               | public.
               | 
               | [1] Something to the tune of a fifth of all shares of
               | Fortune 500 companies are held by Blackrock, Fidelity and
               | Vanguard, as a part of how they issue index funds. These
               | financial institutions are the ones who execute the
               | voting rights on those shares, not the people who bought
               | the index funds. See:
               | https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2020/11/the-new-power-
               | bro...
        
           | krageon wrote:
           | > nationalize tech companies for being successful
           | 
           | It's not saying that at all (nationalising companies is a
           | very specific action that doesn't have anything to do with
           | what you described).
           | 
           | That said, I don't agree with your premise which appears to
           | be that this is bad. Converting something that is basically a
           | utility already (i.e. everyone uses it and everyone expects
           | to be able to. It's almost unthinkable to have daily life
           | without it) to a nationalised company would be a good thing.
        
             | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
             | For the record, I'm actually quite in favor of not leaving
             | necessary infrastructure in the hands of private companies.
             | Although I don't think social media sites are necessary
             | infrastructure personally.
        
           | pessimizer wrote:
           | Do you think that the phone company should be allowed to ban
           | women from using their lines?
        
             | gruez wrote:
             | Women, maybe not, because they're not Bad People. However,
             | the "contingent" that GP was talking about are totally fine
             | with banning Bad People.
        
           | addicted wrote:
           | You are right.
           | 
           | The US has basically been a communist country since the 70s
           | when it passed the ADA requiring businesses not only to serve
           | the disabled but spend money to make sure disabled people can
           | access their services.
           | 
           | There's basically no difference between the US and the USSR
           | ever since.
        
             | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
             | That's actually a good point, except that the ADA only
             | concerns itself with accessibility to content, not the
             | content itself. What we're talking about is forcing
             | businesses to hang up signs for NAMBLA on their bulletin
             | board if they let anyone hang stuff up at all.
        
             | pessimizer wrote:
             | Why start there? What about when they illegally seized the
             | property of slaveholders?
        
           | cbradford wrote:
           | For over 100 years we have had laws and rules that prescribe
           | that when a firm or industry reaches monopoly statue they
           | must act as a common carrier and not discriminate. Been that
           | way since telephones and railroads. People should understand
           | history, this is not a new challenge and the solutions are
           | already on the books.
           | 
           | https://blog.scorchedweb.com/technology/supreme-court-on-
           | con...
        
             | gruez wrote:
             | >For over 100 years we have had laws and rules that
             | prescribe that when a firm or industry reaches monopoly
             | statue they must act as a common carrier and not
             | discriminate.
             | 
             | Was that because they got big, or was it because they were
             | granted a government monopoly?
        
               | kaibee wrote:
               | > Was that because they got big, or was it because they
               | were granted a government monopoly?
               | 
               | The first one. Natural monopolies exist. This libertarian
               | talking point of "there wouldn't be monopolies without
               | government intervention" is lunacy.
        
               | gruez wrote:
               | >The first one.
               | 
               | Can you provide the legislative history that supports
               | this? According to wikipedia airlines, cell phone
               | companies, cruise ships, and shipping companies operate
               | as common carriers, even though none of them are
               | controlled by monopolies.
               | 
               | > Natural monopolies exist. This libertarian talking
               | point of "there wouldn't be monopolies without government
               | intervention" is lunacy.
               | 
               | I'm not a libertarian, but I can still see the difference
               | between "it would be really expensive to lay another set
               | of phone lines" and "the state forbids you from laying
               | another set of phone lines".
        
               | kaibee wrote:
               | > Can you provide the legislative history that supports
               | this?
               | 
               | No, I'm not a lawyer/historian.
               | 
               | > According to wikipedia airlines, cell phone companies,
               | cruise ships, and shipping companies operate as common
               | carriers, even though none of them are controlled by
               | monopolies.
               | 
               | Airlines, cruise ships, and shipping companies, do not
               | own the 'land' (in the georgist sense) that they
               | traverse, so they're just completely irrelevant to the
               | discussion.
               | 
               | As for cell phone companies, you may remember that a
               | certain company known as AT&T was famously broken up into
               | dozens of smaller companies (that have since re-
               | congealed). Also those companies are legally required to
               | interoperate with each other, ie: your T-Mobile phone
               | will "roam" on AT&T's network.
               | 
               | > I'm not a libertarian, but I can still see the
               | difference between "it would be really expensive to lay
               | another set of phone lines" and "the state forbids you
               | from laying another set of phone lines".
               | 
               | As far as I'm aware, the state, does not forbid anyone
               | from laying another set of phone lines or railroad lines
               | or roads, for the same reason that it doesn't forbid
               | anyone from violating conservation of energy.
        
               | SV_BubbleTime wrote:
               | > Was that because they got big, or was it because they
               | were granted a government monopoly?
               | 
               | Got big.
               | 
               | But why would it matter? Govs suck at accountability, I
               | wouldn't expect that to factor in now.
        
             | AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote:
             | Personally I think anything that's a natural monopoly
             | should probably be the purview of the government anyway,
             | since that's as close to an entity acting solely in the
             | public good as we can get.
             | 
             | However, I also don't count any current social media entity
             | as a monopoly.
        
           | selfhoster11 wrote:
           | Is nationalisation evil in itself? The private sector just
           | doesn't have sufficient incentive to serve the public over
           | their own interest. We've seen this time and time again.
        
             | commieplant wrote:
             | The private sector has its share of issues, but be very
             | careful assuming ownership by the state always serves the
             | public interest.
        
             | axelroze wrote:
             | > Is nationalisation evil in itself?
             | 
             | Oh very much it is. Come to the lovely Eastern Europe and
             | see for yourself how good national owned companies are.
             | Full of useless bureaucrats put there to ensure voters so
             | the ruling party can continue ruling. Also in huge debts
             | which are paid by more taxes so the working people pay for
             | the lazy.
             | 
             | Unless the human race somehow chains itself to
             | selflessness, nationalization + democracy is a sure way to
             | destroy any organization. Now privately owned is not much
             | better but in theory can be replaced with a competitor. Not
             | so much for a national organization.
             | 
             | Source: Living and suffering daily in Eastern Europe.
        
               | trasz wrote:
               | On the other hand, outside the Eastern Europe many of the
               | state-owned corporations work pretty well, and usually
               | the service goes down the drain after selling them off -
               | see UK railways.
        
               | selfhoster11 wrote:
               | UK railways are a classic example of privatisation going
               | wrong. They even quietly re-nationalised then recently.
        
               | selfhoster11 wrote:
               | I'm from Eastern Europe too (actually Central Europe - if
               | you know what I mean, you'll know exactly which country),
               | but I've been living in the UK for many years so I have a
               | different perspective.
               | 
               | Privatisation of the British railways was a disaster, and
               | the creeping privatisation of the National Health Service
               | is a disaster in the making as well. As far as I'm
               | concerned, when we're talking about well-understood,
               | national-scale services, private sector almost always
               | starves the service out of greed or is outright
               | incompetent.
        
         | _null_ wrote:
         | >YouTube will never change and it will only get worse.
         | 
         | Private entities can be swayed by their customer's demands. Not
         | saying that YT _will_ be swayed, just that this sort of creator
         | outrage has a place in the market system, and "throwing a
         | tantrum" over their bad behavior doesn't always have to be met
         | with "private entities can do whatever they want!"
        
           | mrkstu wrote:
           | That actually sounds like a good test for monopoly status- do
           | you have to worry about what your customers want/desire or
           | are you so entrenched that you don't care?
        
         | grey_earthling wrote:
         | I hope cases like this lead more people to understand that
         | proprietors of private services do have so much control (even
         | if they often wield it soberly), and persuade them to consider
         | decentralised or protocol-based open alternatives.
         | 
         | As ever, Tony Benn's five questions are instructive: "what
         | power do you have; where did you get it; in whose interests do
         | you exercise it; to whom are you accountable; and, how can we
         | get rid of you?"
         | 
         | =>
         | https://hansard.parliament.uk/commons/1998-11-16/debates/db3...
        
       | underseacables wrote:
       | The fault is on YouTube's reliance on automated systems, making
       | permanent decisions, without human intervention. However, in my
       | humble opinion, people are naturally lazy. The humans who might
       | be charged with reviewing automated decisions are no different.
       | Especially if there is a cultural or language divide.
        
         | asah wrote:
         | no - see above comment re illegal sweepstakes
        
           | ashtonkem wrote:
           | Preventing illegal sweepstakes, even if accidentally illegal
           | ones, seems like a good rule for YT to enforce. That being
           | said, banning accounts without a process to solve the issue
           | until there's enough public furor for a moderator to notice
           | is a bad system. If someone repeatedly breaks the rules, fine
           | permaban them. But having a fake appeal process is pretty
           | annoying, and makes me not want to do business with Google in
           | general.
        
         | cube00 wrote:
         | :s/YouTube/Google
        
           | reasonabl_human wrote:
           | Usually I have to type :%s, and a trailing /g, you can omit
           | those?
        
             | r3dey3 wrote:
             | without % it only does the change on the current line; and
             | /g means change all occurrences instead of first (per line)
        
       | tmaly wrote:
       | I was doing this YouTube survey last night. This was one of the
       | points I raised in the survey. That a channel with 10 years of
       | videos can be deleted without notice.
        
       | zenron wrote:
       | The Linux Experiment is one of the best Linux channels on Youtube
       | for beginners as well as just a feel good vide technology channel
       | for everyone.
       | 
       | Its a must have channel next to Destination Linux Network suite
       | of channels.
       | 
       | Hope it gets reversed.
        
       | sneak wrote:
       | Donating free content to censorship platforms is a way to
       | continue having this sort of nonsense happen forever.
        
       | petepete wrote:
       | I love his channel. Definitely one of the better Linux-focussed
       | channels around and far less cringe than Baby WoGuE.
        
       | fastssd wrote:
       | Chris Titus has covered this topic excellently:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GHeZXkZT_jk
        
       | gambler wrote:
       | Any large communication platform has a choice: either accept some
       | form of content neutrality or become a petty and chaotic tyrant
       | constantly reeling from one public backlash after the other.
       | YouTube made its choice. Now, random videos and channels get
       | demonetized, content gets deleted for no reason and people
       | covering basic news speak in code to avoid the wrath of the idiot
       | AI. In the background Google publishes batshit crazy research
       | papers that call automated propaganda "AI fairness" and relies on
       | a horde of underpaid serfs bordering mental breakdown to make
       | final decisions on content moderation. Welcome to the predicable
       | future of your bad decisions.
        
         | shadowgovt wrote:
         | In this case, looks like someone hacked authorization to the
         | channel and deleted it. This is probably not "channel taken
         | down for violating policy," but instead "channel deleted by
         | 'owner.'"
         | 
         | The wording in the email from Google suggests they don't yet
         | have enough info to trust the inquisiting email comes from the
         | channel owner (source: my own experience proving email account
         | A and email account B were the same person).
        
         | caeril wrote:
         | > either accept some form of content neutrality or become a
         | petty and chaotic tyrant constantly reeling from one public
         | backlash after the other
         | 
         | No, there is a middle ground that Google, with its army of
         | engineers, could implement in a weekend:
         | 
         | 1. You stop trying to assume you know what advertisers want
         | their ads to be displayed on.
         | 
         | 2. You implement a basic, fixed (but can be expanded) ACL-type
         | system based on categories such as "hacking content",
         | "politically sketchy content", "sexual content", etc.
         | 
         | 3. YOU LET THE GOD DAMN ADVERTISERS DECIDE FOR THEIR OWN GOD
         | DAMNED SELVES WHAT KIND OF CONTENT THEY'RE OK WITH ADVERTISING
         | ON.
         | 
         | 4. You end up spending LESS on content moderator salaries, and
         | end up with FEWER unhappy advertisers because THEY can align
         | their principles with the content. Hak5/Sparkfun would be fine
         | advertising on Linux Experiments. I'm sure MyPillow would be
         | happy to advertise on a Q Conspiracy channel. The demand for
         | this feature is unquestionably there.
         | 
         | 5. You stop playing God and pretending that the concept of
         | global "community standards" means _anything at all_ in a world
         | with 7 billion people and hundreds of thousands of disparate
         | interests-based communities, each with their own disparate
         | community standards.
        
           | RegnisGnaw wrote:
           | Your plan fails, lets say they implement what you do. Let say
           | that company X advertises but only on the safe subjets. Then
           | my immediate attack will be:
           | 
           | "Company X advertises on a website showing jailbait sexual
           | content" or "Company X advertising on a site promoting Q
           | Conspiracy".
           | 
           | You are going to fight an uphill battle explaining to people
           | the naunces of the system, which is a losing battle.
        
             | Jensson wrote:
             | Your comment doesn't make sense, Youtube still show those
             | videos in the current system it just doesn't run ads on
             | them. So if it was an issue then it would have already
             | happened, the fact that it doesn't mean that it isn't an
             | issue.
        
               | RegnisGnaw wrote:
               | Again your dealing with absolutes here.
               | 
               | Yes there are still jailbait videos on YouTube, but
               | Google is already heavily moderating and deleting videos.
               | The more "extreme" ones are already being deleted and
               | moderated, what is left is probably more of the tamer
               | ones. The amount of jailbait videos or hate videos or
               | whatever you see now is probably 1/10 or less of what
               | would be there if it was a free for all.
               | 
               | What is being proposed is no moderation of content. The
               | advertisers can choose what to show ads on, but that's
               | it. In that case there would be a flood of these
               | contents. Then its easier to attack them.
        
           | otterley wrote:
           | How do you know this could be done in a weekend, let alone a
           | year, in a way that will make YouTube's stakeholders happier
           | than they are today? You seem to know an awful lot about
           | this.
           | 
           | "There is always a well-known solution to every human problem
           | --neat, plausible, and wrong." --H. L. Mencken
        
           | MisterTea wrote:
           | _2. You implement a basic, fixed (but can be expanded) ACL-
           | type system based on categories such as "hacking content",
           | "politically sketchy content", "sexual content", etc._
           | 
           | Who or what ensures that the Q conspiracy channel is properly
           | categorized as "politically sketchy content" and not "hacking
           | content"?
           | 
           | The reality is no amount of computer code will fix a human
           | problem.
        
           | ridaj wrote:
           | > You stop playing God and pretending that the concept of
           | global "community standards" means anything at all in a world
           | with 7 billion people and hundreds of thousands of disparate
           | interests-based communities, each with their own disparate
           | community standards.
           | 
           | I think you're confusing the Internet with YouTube. The
           | Internet has no global content standard, but this is not the
           | world that YouTube lives in. It lives in the world of ad-
           | supported services which has been repeatedly very clear about
           | its minimum expectations regarding community standards. See:
           | https://www.google.com/search?q=adpocalypse
        
           | mschuster91 wrote:
           | > 2. You implement a basic, fixed (but can be expanded) ACL-
           | type system based on categories such as "hacking content",
           | "politically sketchy content", "sexual content", etc.
           | 
           | The problem: for some of these, the definitions, the legality
           | status and the liabilities (especially around "politically
           | sketchy" stuff) may differ wildly between jurisdictions. And
           | you will _always_ have trolls mis-labeling their content on
           | purpose, or content that is to be classified as  "gambling"
           | in the US but not in Germany... the list of issues is
           | endless.
           | 
           | > 3. YOU LET THE GOD DAMN ADVERTISERS DECIDE FOR THEIR OWN
           | GOD DAMNED SELVES WHAT KIND OF CONTENT THEY'RE OK WITH
           | ADVERTISING ON.
           | 
           | And then they will _still_ have headlines  "Youtube allowing
           | Nazis, antivaxxers, incels and other threats to the general
           | public". Not to mention the legal issues (e.g. Nazi content
           | is banned in Germany/Austria, LGBT content in Russia, a whole
           | boatload of stuff illegal in India with jail threats for
           | local staff)...
           | 
           | > 5. You stop playing God and pretending that the concept of
           | global "community standards" means anything at all in a world
           | with 7 billion people and hundreds of thousands of disparate
           | interests-based communities, each with their own disparate
           | community standards.
           | 
           | You will always need some sort of "global minimum standards"
           | that ideally is at least somewhat of a common ground in
           | Western-allied nations. And that means: no Nazis/white
           | supremacists, no Qanon, no antivaxxers, no incels, no adult
           | content/gore, no drugs (tobacco/alcohol/illegalized drugs),
           | no gambling, no glorification of violence.
        
             | concordDance wrote:
             | Why Western allied nations in particular? I'm also not sure
             | that list is as universal as you think. For instance, the
             | no drugs thing would likely not apply to the Netherlands.
        
               | mschuster91 wrote:
               | > Why Western allied nations in particular?
               | 
               | Simple: Western nations are a somewhat coherent cultural
               | sphere.
               | 
               | Adding in India (with its current war against Twitter and
               | anything that dares criticize Modi), the Arabian and
               | other dominant-Muslim countries (women's rights, LGBT,
               | democracy) or Russia/China (which are essentially
               | dictatorships) into consideration would add way too much
               | illiberality to be acceptable.
        
           | Macha wrote:
           | > YOU LET THE GOD DAMN ADVERTISERS DECIDE FOR THEIR OWN GOD
           | DAMNED SELVES WHAT KIND OF CONTENT THEY'RE OK WITH
           | ADVERTISING
           | 
           | Have you talked with advertisers? They're really twitchy
           | about this stuff, they even have vendors for brand safety
           | they'll want to include in their ads or have you integrate
           | with if you're a platform like YouTube to rule out ads on
           | anything that could show their brand in a bad light.
           | 
           | I don't use YouTube, but I thought this was what the
           | demonetisation was - the creators were getting a trickle of
           | revenue, but most of it was gone, sounds to me like the
           | impacts of it being considered not "brand safe" and most
           | advertises enable such controls reflexively.
        
         | hashkb wrote:
         | Don't forget the police playing copyrighted music while they
         | abuse you to stop you from filming them. When the police are
         | ahead of the tech, you know the People are f'd.
        
           | noasaservice wrote:
           | And at least when they're playing a popular song with easy to
           | obtain MP3s, you can use gnuradio to cancel that out of the
           | audiotrack.
           | 
           | Yeah, they're being shitty piggies, but we have tech we can
           | use too.
        
         | asah wrote:
         | no - see above comment re illegal sweepstakes
        
         | BoxOfRain wrote:
         | If we must live in a cyberpunk dystopia, I wish we could at
         | least get sci-fi style "holographic" displays as a consolation
         | prize.
        
         | titzer wrote:
         | It's Kafka-esque, really. Google has always thought it is
         | smarter than everyone else and that has led, inexorably, to it
         | establishing itself as the final arbiter of truth. Except
         | Google is a dysfunctional, distracted, neurotic, schizophrenic
         | entity, like all organizations, with an ever-changing set of
         | in-fighting fiefdoms and warring executives.
         | 
         | Worse, growthism forced its "Organize the world's information"
         | mission into "Swallow and monetize the world's information"
         | with an added helping of "know exactly what every person wants,
         | even if they don't know they want it yet."
        
           | acomar wrote:
           | > growthism
           | 
           | any day now, the moral, upstanding, self-restrained
           | capitalists will buck the profit motive and save us from the
           | unsavory sorts who rule our world today.
        
         | only_as_i_fall wrote:
         | I feel we pretty badly need to revisit laws surrounding social
         | media platforms in the US. I'm not sure what the silver bullet
         | is here, but the way platforms have almost limitless latitude
         | to filter and shape discourse on their platform and also
         | virtually zero liability for that same discourse seems like an
         | obvious problem.
         | 
         | Unfortunately the average senator is over 60 and the companies
         | that own these platforms have deep pockets.
         | 
         | "It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his
         | salary depends on his not understanding it." -Upton Sinclair
        
         | RegnisGnaw wrote:
         | The choice of "content neutrality" is pretty much keyword also
         | for:
         | 
         | 1. constantly reeling from one public backlash after the other
         | 
         | 2. advertising dropping you due to controversial content
         | 
         | 3. government coming after you for controversial content
         | 
         | If I were a business, I'd go content moderation all the way.
         | Less blow black and more steady income.
        
           | tedivm wrote:
           | Most of these platforms start off trying to be content
           | neutral and end up adding more moderation as a result of how
           | badly it ends up hurting them. There's only so many times
           | advertisers are willing to have their brand shown next to
           | child pornography (ie, reddit's former /r/jailbait) or hate
           | speech.
           | 
           | If complete neutrality was an answer these companies would be
           | doing that, since it's the cheapest option.
        
             | throwawaysea wrote:
             | > There's only so many times advertisers are willing to
             | have their brand shown next to child pornography (ie,
             | reddit's former /r/jailbait) or hate speech.
             | 
             | I'm not sure advertisers care about this as much as people
             | claim. YouTube's censorship really ramped up in 2017 after
             | Trump was elected, and was fairly limited before then. I
             | don't think they had trouble with advertisers before then
             | all those years. I could be wrong - have any sources that
             | could help?
        
               | mkmk wrote:
               | Many times advertisers honestly just don't know. You're
               | spending a lot of money across a lot of different
               | channels, and then all of a sudden somebody says, "uh-oh,
               | we're getting dragged on Twitter for advertising on
               | $bad_page." You definitely don't like child porn or covid
               | disinformation or anything like that, and the tweets make
               | you look like an idiot, so you email the owner of
               | $bad_page (some sort of advertising network, or maybe a
               | site like Reddit) and say "if my ads are ever on this
               | page again, I will pull my budget from your entire
               | network."
        
             | OneEyedRobot wrote:
             | It seems to me that content neutral (neutrality?
             | neutralness?) and copyright violations are there in order
             | to build eyeballs and brand. You use them for growth.
             | 
             | Once the size is there, you curate. Profit becomes the
             | issue and the tendency is to simply become cable TV with
             | thousands of channels.
             | 
             | I wonder how you could architect video access for content
             | that gets peoples' knickers in a twist but is still legal.
             | There's loads of single points of failures still. TV settop
             | box access, smart TV/Roku access, the difficulties and
             | expense in storing and serving up video, etc.
        
               | [deleted]
        
             | concordDance wrote:
             | I greatly dislike the conflation of things like jailbait
             | (which is mostly provocative clothed images taken
             | voluntarily by teens) and classic child pornography where a
             | 6 year old is brutally raped.
             | 
             | One is harmless the other involves lifelong trauma.
        
               | ziml77 wrote:
               | It's not necessarily harmless. JB includes nasty
               | creepshots. And even if the subject took the photo
               | themselves, it's unlikely they wanted a bunch of weirdos
               | on the internet to lust over it. And if they somehow did
               | want that lust, it's even more unlikely that they fully
               | understood the consequences.
               | 
               | All of that can end up being very harmful to one's mental
               | health. And that's not even accounting for the people who
               | try to physically go after those children after seeing
               | them and convincing themselves that they "love" the
               | child.
        
               | tedivm wrote:
               | That subreddit was exploiting children for sexual
               | gratification. It wasn't just teens, and it wasn't people
               | posting purposefully provocative images. It was children
               | living their normal lives and having their pictures
               | exploited for the sexual gratification of perverts.
               | 
               | Calling this harmless is absolutely disgusting.
        
       | croes wrote:
       | Maybe governments should forbid and fine YouTube and if they ask
       | why just answer that they violated laws and that no appeal is
       | possible.
        
       | Proven wrote:
       | Why should we care?
       | 
       | The tweet says it's been terminated "for some reason". WTF.
       | 
       | Maybe it's justified. Unless you can explain why they terminated
       | and show you did NOT violate their, I don't care. Do your
       | homework first.
        
         | megous wrote:
         | Your post here was terminated. Now tell us why. And prove you
         | did not violate ToS.
        
         | aaronmdjones wrote:
         | It's impossible to prove that you have not violated the terms
         | of service, as a sibling comment points out.
         | 
         | It should be on YouTube to provide evidence that they have.
        
         | mcjiggerlog wrote:
         | That's exactly the problem - they do not tell you why you were
         | terminated.
        
         | sodality2 wrote:
         | How can Nick prove a negative? How about Youtube shows what
         | violated the terms? Why can't they back up their claim with
         | evidence, instead of Nick being forced to provide proof to
         | disprove a claim without any?
        
           | happybirds07 wrote:
           | Which would be very hard to do when the account is deleted,
           | too
        
         | josephcsible wrote:
         | > Unless you can explain why they terminated and show you did
         | NOT violate their, I don't care
         | 
         | Guilty until proven innocent!
        
       | ggrrhh_ta wrote:
       | Most people do not give a second thought to employees having a
       | minimum set of rights and obligations even if they work for a
       | private company.
       | 
       | I think it is not difficult to consider any contributor in a
       | (virtual) Commons to be subject not only to obligations but also
       | to a set of rights.
        
       | flavius29663 wrote:
       | This is anecdotal, but in my experience democrat Americans
       | actually believe everything that the party tells them. They quote
       | the exact same lines, I hear the exact same phrase from different
       | people, and when I ask further questions there is silence. e.g.
       | "rich people stash their money" with absolutely nothing to back
       | that up.
       | 
       | Surprisingly, republicans can be more open to conflicting ideas
       | and for debate, even though their propaganda is significantly
       | worse. Probably that is an effect of knowing vs not knowing it's
       | propaganda, it seems to me that democrats in general are true
       | believers in the party lines.
        
         | lolinder wrote:
         | I live in a red state and my experience is the opposite. I
         | suspect it might be that when your view is the majority in your
         | area, you're more inclined to shut out opposing ideas as
         | "fringe". It's the "I don't know anyone who voted ___" effect.
        
           | flavius29663 wrote:
           | I definitely know more democrats than republicans (my area
           | votes 80% democrat). But they are highly educated people
           | (think U Chicago, Georgia Tech etc.) still believing every
           | opinion their favorite news outlet sells them. I find that
           | disturbing. Not the fact that they believe most of the party
           | lines, but believing and defending ALL of them, like the
           | party can do no wrong.
        
             | vcxy wrote:
             | My experience is also the opposite fwiw. To be fair, I
             | don't think I know any democrats who actually like the
             | party. They're more "not republican" than democrat. Maybe
             | the democrats you've talked to are the true believers. The
             | only example I can come up with that matches your
             | experience is my dad, so maybe it's generational?
        
           | betwixthewires wrote:
           | I think this phenomenon is the result of a confirmation bias.
           | Half of all people are below average intelligence, so if you
           | live in a majority democrat region most of the stupid people
           | are going to be democrats the same for majority republican
           | regions. Add to that the social friction with going against
           | the herd, the friction must be worthwhile to the person so it
           | is more likely a lot of thought went into someone's
           | conclusions if they're willing to make their life more
           | difficult for it, ideological minorities like that are
           | (probably not remotely near astronomically) more likely to be
           | a more thoughtful. Both of these pressures skew the majority
           | political leaning in any region below average intelligence
           | and have the opposite effect on the minority.
        
             | flavius29663 wrote:
             | This might be the most reasonable explanation. In the end,
             | the republicans I talked to were very reluctant to hint
             | they vote republican, so in general they would approach
             | issues much more carefully. It still doesn't fully explain
             | the democrat behavior.
        
         | dang wrote:
         | Please don't take HN threads into partisan flamewar. Not what
         | this site is for.
         | 
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
         | 
         | We detached this subthread from
         | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28444380.
        
           | flavius29663 wrote:
           | That was not my intention at all, I was rather discussing the
           | state of propaganda, which is an interesting field in itself.
           | 
           | I can see how it can be easily mis-interpreted as partisan
           | politics. I'll abstain from getting too close to politics,
           | little politics is what's keeping this site quality up.
        
         | Enginerrrd wrote:
         | As someone who straddles the lines in the sand, I actually
         | agree that conservatives I interact with seem to be the more
         | open-minded cohort these days, but it's pretty marginal. The
         | big difference is the amount of self-back-patting that liberals
         | do about how "open-minded" they are and their agreement with
         | standard narrative condemning conservatives as closed-minded or
         | uneducated. Though, even that is mirrored by the other side to
         | an extent.
        
           | flavius29663 wrote:
           | That is the most ironic thing. In the same breath I hear
           | complaints about "half the population is brainwashed by you
           | know who" and then a narrative taken line for line from the
           | other side. And the funny thing is...I agree with a lot of
           | the Democrat opinions, I just feel very uneasy about such a
           | big cohort thinking exactly the same, with no nuance - it
           | reminds me of state controlled media in a communist country.
        
         | BoxOfRain wrote:
         | This is just a long-winded way of saying $my_team good,
         | $your_team bad. In my experience anyone who identifies
         | primarily with a political _party_ rather than a political
         | _philosophy_ is far more likely to be guilty of this.
        
       | qwerty456127 wrote:
       | As it often happens, again I discover a cool resource from the
       | news about its termination.
       | 
       | Is there by any chance a mirror of its content anywhere to
       | download?
       | 
       | If I were a YouTuber I would maintain an archive of my old videos
       | available on ThePirateBay.
        
         | aembleton wrote:
         | You can watch the channel at
         | https://odysee.com/@TheLinuxExperiment:e
        
         | izacus wrote:
         | The problem is that ThePirateBay will not pay you per view.
         | YouTubers stay on YT because it pays out a slice of ad revenue
         | and not because it's just a convenient distribution site.
         | Making those videos costs an insane amount of time and money -
         | which means that most YTers can't afford to do it for free.
         | 
         | Any kind of YT competition needs to figure out on how to keep
         | the revenue streams intact.
        
           | qwerty456127 wrote:
           | That's why I wrote "an archive of my OLD videos". They
           | probably don't generate much revenue already.
           | 
           | Also, ThePirateBay does not compete with YouTube even in the
           | cases of the same content being available on both the
           | platforms. Most of the people want to watch the videos on-
           | line, go to YouTube naturally and won't bother using
           | torrents. Sophisticated people who want an off-line copy just
           | use youtube-dl anyway. The actual YouTube audience will only
           | go to ThePirateBay when they really can't access the videos
           | on YouTube.
        
       ___________________________________________________________________
       (page generated 2021-09-07 23:01 UTC)