[HN Gopher] YouTube takes down independent court livestreams
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       YouTube takes down independent court livestreams
        
       Author : crocodiletears
       Score  : 335 points
       Date   : 2021-11-15 19:47 UTC (3 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (twitter.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (twitter.com)
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | thirteenfingers wrote:
       | Between stuffing non-monetized videos with ads, the dislike
       | button thing, and capricious censorship, I'm seriously looking
       | into self-hosting[0] my video and streamed content. Disregarding
       | the difficulty of maintaining a following outside of the big
       | platforms, do any of you HNers have experience with hosting your
       | own video and streaming sites? What software do you use?
       | 
       | [0] I could also just switch platforms, but I have similar
       | problems with all the big platforms. Vimeo is a potential paid
       | option, but their streaming plans are a bit out of my budget.
        
       | angry_octet wrote:
       | The Twitter suggested content when you open this tweet (in a tab
       | without twitter login) is insanity crank stuff: anti-vaxxers,
       | LGBT hate, Scott Adams, Posobiec/Pool/Ben Shapiro, race hate...
       | 
       | And people wonder why extremist politicians prevail.
        
         | mikevm wrote:
         | Ben Shapiro is under insanity crank stuff? I think the only
         | crank here is you.
        
           | skinkestek wrote:
           | Same with Scott Adams...
        
         | swlp21 wrote:
         | I'm not sure I understand - do you mean these suggestions are
         | placed there by Twitter to deligitimize the original tweet
         | [who, in that case, would have a valid complaint but is being
         | maligned by association with the addition of "crank stuff"] ?
         | 
         | Or are you saying the original tweet is from a crank and the
         | placement by twitter of additional "crank stuff" is proof of
         | the crank label?
         | 
         | BTW when I view the tweet (also not logged in), I got no
         | suggestions at all, so Twitter are presenting it in a different
         | way to different visitors (i.e. you and me for sure). Perhaps
         | you were part of an A-B test?
        
         | eertami wrote:
         | You're not wrong. I clicked through on one guy and he's posted
         | all caps angry rants about this trial 2 to 3 times per minute
         | for the last hour.
         | 
         | It's getting harder to tell the difference unhinged lunatics
         | and paid bots.
        
       | paganel wrote:
       | On that note, google-ing "WarRoom podcast" doesnt' return as the
       | first result a link to the website itself [1], the first page is
       | occupied by other podcast websites that "re-publish" (is that the
       | correct word?) said podcast. Yandex does the correct thing, the
       | website actually behind Bannon's podcast is the first in the
       | SERPs, DDG has it as the 3rd result, still ok, because visible.
       | 
       | So it looks like the people at Alphabet/Google are well into
       | suppressing political discourse, in which case I think a break-up
       | of the company once this administration is voted out is totally
       | in the cards.
       | 
       | [1]
       | https://listen.warroom.org/?__cf_chl_rt_tk=gIeuKWPwW6dBmcIkh...
        
       | BitwiseFool wrote:
       | I really want to stress that while the internet has enabled just
       | about everyone to act as a citizen journalist, it is not the
       | ubiquity of information that matters, but rather, the access to
       | information. YouTube and Google wield great power when it comes
       | to gatekeeping information. The sinister part is that plenty of
       | people, left and right, will defend Google's ability to do this
       | merely because they are "a private company".
        
         | dfxm12 wrote:
         | When we're ingrained to all but deify corporatism, capitalism
         | and laissez faire, it's only natural that the people will think
         | that a private company must be allowed to do what it wants.
         | 
         | Such ingratiation has also poisoned the well against even
         | considering options like having a strong/big government step
         | in, handing Google over to the people, etc.
         | 
         | As long as greed is good, cash is king, and stock prices are
         | equated with the economy, you're not going to see anyone
         | challenge the status quo of a corporation acting in their own
         | best interest, not mine or yours or ours.
        
         | Aunche wrote:
         | > The sinister part is that plenty of people, left and right,
         | will defend Google's ability to do this merely because they are
         | "a private company".
         | 
         | People didn't merely defend Google to gatekeep information,
         | they demanded it. A decade ago, Youtube, along with other
         | social media companies, was happy to be pro-free speech. It's
         | not like they have any reason to cut engagement and ad revenue.
         | However, they after two adpocapyses and even the President
         | demanding that they censor more misinformation, they have been
         | pushed into the position of the gatekeeper of the internet.
         | Given that they aren't paid for this position, they will
         | obviously choose most cost effective-route possible, hence why
         | they censor whatever they think will be controversial.
        
           | chrisdhoover wrote:
           | There was a time when Google was happy to stay out of
           | politics and culture wars. The had few lobbyists and donated
           | little. They were happy building a private surveillance
           | apparatus. But the government, mostly democrats came calling
           | and demanded action against whatever the hysteria de jour
           | was. It was never about policing the internet. It was always
           | about sucking funds out of Google. Then brainwashed graduates
           | took positions at Google and here we are. The perfect
           | mechanism for propaganda and thought control
        
         | mbostleman wrote:
         | In my very layman view, one loses the "private" status when
         | they become a monopoly. And anyone that knows enough law to be
         | dangerous can point out plenty of technical reasons why Google
         | isn't a monopoly. But everyone knows a monopoly when they see
         | one. And everyone knows when a company has the vertical and
         | horizontal scale to crush competitors before they get out of
         | the gate.
        
         | jjk166 wrote:
         | Well for better or worse, our freedom of speech only limits
         | government interference. You and I and every other private
         | citizen is free to say, and to not say, anything they like
         | within an extremely broad range. While private companies may
         | have an ethical requirement to avoid censorship, they don't
         | have a legal one. No matter how big their datacenters, no
         | matter how large their audience, you don't have the fundamental
         | right to force them to rebroadcast your message if they do not
         | wish to. You may dislike or even be disgusted by their
         | decisions, but remember that anyone who has the power to limit
         | Google's freedom has the power to limit yours.
        
         | nova22033 wrote:
         | _The sinister part is that plenty of people, left and right,
         | will defend Google 's ability to do this merely because they
         | are "a private company"._
         | 
         | A lot of people will defend google ability to do that because
         | they have a "first amendment right".
         | 
         | Adding air quotes or actual quotes doesn't change that..
        
         | fault1 wrote:
         | Isn't this just a market opportunity for other companies?
         | 
         | Google isn't the only company that owns the field of
         | information retrieval. They just came the right place/right
         | time after the .com crash.
        
           | eftychis wrote:
           | Are you going to vote with your money and pay for such a
           | company to exist is the right question I would say.
        
           | sm4rk0 wrote:
           | It is in a perfect market, but Google holds the monopoly and
           | the game is set against competition.
        
             | fault1 wrote:
             | A monopoly for information retrieval? Surely not.
             | 
             | For online ads? Sure you can make that case.
             | 
             | Their business in the end is based on delivering relevant
             | content. If there is a market for the traffic Google
             | refuses to host, then there are probably market
             | opportunities there.
        
           | imwillofficial wrote:
           | And how is it a fair market when the government subsidies
           | give google et al a home field advantage?
        
             | fault1 wrote:
             | government subsidies?
        
           | colordrops wrote:
           | There are a couple problems with the "market opportunity"
           | argument. The first is that no, there isn't a market
           | opportunity due to network and monopolistic forces. The
           | second is that there is a fundamental issue with the system
           | itself, whereby both state and private establishment players
           | eventually force any player with a large piece of the market
           | to do things like censor certain narratives.
        
             | rabuse wrote:
             | While I agree that network effects play a large role in
             | entrenchment, I wouldn't be so surprised if smaller players
             | start swooping up the dissenters and begin slowly chipping
             | away at the giants.
        
           | BitwiseFool wrote:
           | In principle, yes. But Google seems to hold a unique position
           | because of network effects. Countless YouTube clones have
           | been created but none ever seem to gain enough critical mass
           | to become viable competitors. Trying to build a competing
           | platform on the value proposition of being anti-censorship is
           | also fraught with perception issues.
        
             | oriki wrote:
             | I mean, not just perception issues, but also the fact that
             | you're inherently setting yourself up to build a platform
             | with a core userbase of "People banned from [the more
             | popular version of the platform they're cloning]." You
             | build VidMe and the first people interested in VidMe are
             | people that got kicked off of YouTube, which it turns out
             | are rarely oppressed free speech advocates and much more
             | often trolls and similarly unwanted individuals. If your
             | userbase is entirely toxic, nobody wants to stay there, and
             | your platform never really succeeds because of that.
             | 
             | It's worth noting that I'm loosely parroting the content of
             | a Folding Ideas video[1] that covers the discussion of the
             | creator vs platform relationship overall.
             | 
             | [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r3snVCRo_bI
        
           | gwright wrote:
           | > Isn't this just a market opportunity for other companies?
           | 
           | Perhaps but that doesn't preclude criticizing those editorial
           | choices as harmful (false narratives, ideological bubbles,
           | general free-speech principles).
        
         | rat87 wrote:
         | > The sinister part is that plenty of people, left and right,
         | will defend Google's ability to do this merely because they are
         | "a private company".
         | 
         | How is this sinister, it seems trivially correct
         | 
         | It course Google and other companies will mess up with their
         | moderation and should be called on it when they do but what
         | exactly is wrong with them moderating in general?
        
         | belltaco wrote:
         | YouTube didn't start removing conspiracy and culture war videos
         | until advertisers started boycotting them back in 2017/2018 for
         | having such content.
         | 
         | YouTube has only recently started making a profit. If they
         | didn't censor videos they'd be unable to pay for the servers,
         | storage and bandwidth that everyone seem to feel entitled for.
        
         | throwawaygh wrote:
         | You know, you could just... not use youtube. It actually isn't
         | that hard.
        
           | yjftsjthsd-h wrote:
           | If most people do watch YouTube, and YouTube censors stuff,
           | then me not watching YouTube doesn't magically get that
           | information to the other people
        
             | throwawaygh wrote:
             | You can make the exact same criticism of OAN, Fox News, or
             | MSNBC. At the end of the day, non-public venues are
             | private.
        
         | arminiusreturns wrote:
         | This is why everyone should read RMS's _Right to Read_ story.
         | Its not just about censoring the output, they want to censor
         | our inputs too! While the RMS parable is less about censorship
         | and more about drm its still relevant. [1]
         | 
         | Unfortunately there are a lot of people who are so bought into
         | the tribalistic dialectic that, in the more recent version,
         | they heard about all the censoring, they saw the people being
         | censored were "those evil others" and said "yeah thats ok with
         | me!", failing to understand the lack of principle would/will
         | come for them next.
         | 
         | The beauty of it all is that I think the oligarchs are
         | overplaying their hand to the point they are going to force a
         | pendulum swing back the other way at some point. The counter-
         | point to that is that with techno-tyranny at some point the
         | oligarchs are going to be able to stop the pendulum swing.
         | 
         | 1. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.en.html
         | 
         | bonus: Hitchens on freedom of speech,
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Z2uzEM0ugY&t=0
        
       | baryphonic wrote:
       | Never forget that Susan Wojcicki won a free speech award
       | sponsored by YouTube. [0]
       | 
       | Never forget it.
       | 
       | [0] https://www.newsweek.com/youtube-ceo-susan-wojcicki-gets-
       | fre...
        
       | blumomo wrote:
       | YouTube also just deleted the accounts of the German independent
       | investigatory committee www.corona-ausschuss.de who are an
       | important information source for many German citizen.
        
         | rat87 wrote:
         | > German independent investigatory committee
         | 
         | Sounds like an official body or a body set up by prominent
         | scientists
         | 
         | > www.corona-ausschuss.de
         | 
         | Seems to be a bunch of crazy conspiracy theorists. I didn't
         | 3ven have to look far for a description.
         | 
         | So good I'm glad YouTube is moderating their platform
         | 
         | https://m-tagesspiegel-de.translate.goog/luegen-und-hetze-im...
        
         | martneumann wrote:
         | You are being _very_ generous by calling them an
         | "investigatory committee". They routinely compare the anti
         | Covid measures by the German government to the Holocaust [1].
         | On the same site, you can also see that they touted the weird
         | conspiracy theory of becoming magnetic after being vaccinated.
         | 
         | They violated Youtube's ToS with their conspiracy theories and
         | got kicked out, it seems.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.psiram.com/de/index.php/Stiftung_Corona-
         | Ausschus...
        
           | trhway wrote:
           | >They violated Youtube's ToS with their conspiracy theories
           | and got kicked out, it seems.
           | 
           | great sign of progress. Just mere 400 years ago they would
           | have been tortured and burned at stake as heretics. Though
           | who knows, the way things been moving lately ...
        
             | rat87 wrote:
             | Yes I see it as progress that YouTube kicks off antivax
             | conspiracies. It would be nice if Facebook did the same
        
               | ravenstine wrote:
               | Yeah, because surely governments and medical institutions
               | have never lied to, hurt, or killed anyone. They say they
               | want to help us and no one should be allowed to say
               | otherwise. And I'm sure YouTube's only motivation is to
               | protect us.
        
               | trhway wrote:
               | From USSR times I'm very sceptical about supposed truths
               | which can't stand on their merits alone and require
               | active administrative suppression of the doubt to
               | maintain the perception of truthiness.
        
               | Karsteski wrote:
               | Out of curiosity, why did people downvote this comment? I
               | find that it states a very valid concern in our digital
               | age where information can be very effectively suppressed
               | from the majority of people, regardless if I agree or
               | disagree with the message of said information.
        
           | 1cvmask wrote:
           | Everything is a conspiracy theory till proven otherwise.
           | 
           | Tuskegee Syphillis "Study" (exposed by leak in 1972 after
           | more than 4 decades), Iraqi WMDs, Syrian chemical attacks,
           | Russiagate, Gulf of Tonkin, the Surveillance state (exposed
           | by Edward Snowden), war crimes (exposed by Julian Assange),
           | USS Maine alleged bombing, Mossadegh accused of being a
           | communist sympathizer by US press, Evo Morales overthrown by
           | military to "restore" alleged stolen election
           | (retracted/corrected months later by NY Times) and so many
           | many more
        
             | martneumann wrote:
             | None of these things relate to what the "Corona-Ausschuss"
             | has been doing in any way. Just because the government does
             | shady things, doesn't mean the quack theories by some
             | people on the internet are suddenly correct. Especially
             | when they do not believe Covid exists, or if it does that
             | it's a bioweapon, which is apparently harmless for some
             | reason, but masks don't work and vaccines don't work,
             | either...
             | 
             | They also receive lots of support and attention from
             | Russians state media. It is to be assumed that the Russian
             | state has an interest in fanning the flames here and to sow
             | doubt in the German government. Isn't it ironic that the
             | Russian media in Germany pushes any negative vaccine story
             | they can find to foster hesitancy, but urges its own
             | population to get vaccinated ASAP in domestic media?
             | 
             | I will leave it at that.
        
             | shadowgovt wrote:
             | Are you sure you meant to toss the Maine in there?
             | 
             | Because history strongly suggests that was a maintenance
             | failure / expected consequence of the volatile coal used at
             | the time. If anything, the story of the Maine proves the
             | rule; it reminds us that sometimes conspiracies _aren 't_.
        
               | 1cvmask wrote:
               | Yes. They spread a whole bunch of conspiracies to justify
               | the war. Those conspiracies were later proven to be
               | bogus. The USS Maine was not blown up by the Spanish as
               | the US media asserted.
               | 
               | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Propaganda_of_the_Spanish-
               | Amer...
        
             | throwawaygh wrote:
             | _> > the weird conspiracy theory of becoming magnetic after
             | being vaccinated._
             | 
             |  _> Everything is a conspiracy theory till proven
             | otherwise._
             | 
             | Please tell me this comment is ironic.
        
               | rat87 wrote:
               | Nice pun.
        
             | ajsnigrutin wrote:
             | Yep... even with covid, "it's just 14 days, to flatten the
             | curve", "covid passports are just a conspiracy theory",
             | "all vaccines are safe", "...except astrazeneca" ...
             | "...except J&J" .... "...except moderna",.... add inflation
             | denials, and yeah...
             | 
             | Basically the difference between conspiracy theories and
             | reality was ~6 months.
        
               | ViViDboarder wrote:
               | You do understand that COVID was new to everyone and, as
               | such, new information has been learned as we've
               | progressed through this pandemic that has caused a shift
               | in course?
               | 
               | It doesn't have to be because of a conspiracy for new
               | information to direct in a different way. In fact, if
               | despite new information we didn't adjust, that'd be just
               | plain regressive.
        
               | ajsnigrutin wrote:
               | Well of course, but the society at large, including the
               | media, and most people on here and other social networks
               | act as if the current situation is the actual final
               | truth. I remember the start of covid, when we were
               | talking about single digit total cases in european
               | countries, and a few people ("conspiracy theorists") wore
               | ffp3 masks, respirators, etc. to stores, and they were
               | made fun as "stupid idiots", "conspiracy nutjobs", and
               | that we should believe(!) science, and wash our hands....
               | then bam, almost overnight, mandatory masks everywhere.
               | 
               | > "There is no specific evidence to suggest that the
               | wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential
               | benefit. In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the
               | opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or
               | fitting it properly," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director
               | of the WHO health emergencies program, said at a media
               | briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday.
               | 
               | https://edition.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-
               | mas...
               | 
               | Same with vaccines... all four approved vaccines here
               | were perfectly safe, until they weren't. The mandates
               | basically forced you to pay for testing unless you get
               | vaccinated, and while all other vaccines need two doses,
               | J&J needs only one, so a lot of people got vaccinated by
               | that, because paying 12eur for tests every 48h to be able
               | to ride a bus to work was expensive... and a 20yo girl
               | died due to the vaccine (blood clots), bringing the death
               | toll for girls under 25 to "1" because of the vaccine and
               | "0" due to covid (with around half of ~2mil population
               | getting infected). And what did people say? "why didn't
               | she take the mRNA vaccine?" Why... because the science,
               | our ministers, doctors and the government said that J&J
               | is perfectly safe... a few days after, vector vaccines
               | only for 50yo+ and those who explicitly request them.
               | 
               | And also... a lot of masks actually dont help at all:
               | 
               | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/
               | 
               | > Penetration of cloth masks by particles was almost 97%
               | and medical masks 44%.
               | 
               | For a year now, people were wearing masks, which let
               | through 97% of (influenza-like) viruses, and that was
               | "perfectly ok" (except in few countries, that mandated
               | ffp masks).
               | 
               | TLDR: If we remove every skeptic (eg. people who wear
               | masks, even though WHO says that there's no evidence
               | masks help, and might even even be worse, if you handle
               | them incorrectly), and then science "changes", and we ban
               | all those, who say masks don't help... who's left?
        
           | HideousKojima wrote:
           | While I don't believe the COVID vaccines make you magnetic,
           | the default of trusting governments and major corporations
           | despite their long (and well-documented) histories of
           | atrocities and deceits is just naive. We're talking about
           | things like:
           | 
           | Intentionally feeding radioactive oatmeal to mentally
           | handicapped children https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-
           | xpm-1997-12-31-19973650...
           | 
           | Kidnapping homeless people and force feeding them LSD:
           | https://www.npr.org/2019/09/09/758989641/the-cias-secret-
           | que...
           | 
           | In the case of the German government specifically, knowingly
           | and intentionally housing orphans with pedophiles:
           | https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/07/26/the-german-
           | exp...
           | 
           | And specifically relevant to COVID vaccines, Pfizer
           | subcontractors falsifying test data:
           | https://www.bmj.com/content/375/bmj.n2635
        
             | soco wrote:
             | As your examples correctly point out, the sites documenting
             | government abuses were _not_ censored. Only the tinfoil
             | wackos were taken down, so I believe in this particular
             | case it works as expected. (later clarification: anyway I
             | definitely don 't like the way YouTube goes and I'd post my
             | stuff also on other sites)
        
               | thriftwy wrote:
               | These abuses are also historical. They ought to have a
               | different censorship dynamic from current events.
        
             | nawgz wrote:
             | What does this piece of misdirection have to do with the
             | fact that this channel promoted - falsely - anti-vaccine
             | myths and in doing so made TOS-violating statements?
             | 
             | It is clear that government and corporation are both
             | largely morally devoid institutions in the modern age, but
             | this doesn't even rely on any traditional sense of trust.
             | The data is published and we can see what it does and
             | doesn't do, and if you want to discard that you mightaswell
             | just take the kid gloves off and type something really
             | offensive next
        
               | HideousKojima wrote:
               | >The data is published and we can see what it does and
               | doesn't do
               | 
               | See my last link
        
       | crocodiletears wrote:
       | Note: the streams in the screenshot have since been restored.
        
         | shadowgovt wrote:
         | It's entirely possible they were taken down in the first place
         | because so many parallel streams of coverage on the same data
         | tripped either a spam detector or an honest-to-God bug in the
         | YouTube backend ("Hm... lots of parallel channels running the
         | exact same bytes. I bet we can consolidate this if we just tee
         | the stream sinks against a source that _oops that 's a
         | hotspot_...").
        
           | GenerocUsername wrote:
           | doubt.
           | 
           | Over the last 6 years there have been toooooo many
           | coincidences which go in 1 direction politically instead of
           | equally in both directions.
           | 
           | You only need to flip a coin 5-6 times before you suspect it
           | might be rigged... and after 100's of tosses there is no
           | longer any question.
        
             | r00fus wrote:
             | You are comparing YouTube policing their platform to a a
             | coin flip?
             | 
             | YT isn't a public service.
        
               | Natsu wrote:
               | They're gesturing at the argument that was famously made
               | in the 2016 movie Denial.
               | 
               | In that, a Holocaust denier has filed a defamation
               | lawsuit against a Jewish professor. Under UK law, she
               | bears the burden of proof.
               | 
               | When they later confront the denier, they point out that
               | he makes many historical mistakes and every single one of
               | them favors the Nazis and/or Hitler. They then compare
               | this to a rigged coin. If he were being honest and doing
               | history wrong, then some of his mistakes should've gone
               | either way, but the fact that his mistakes are
               | substantially in one direction shows evidence of bias.
               | 
               | Denial is a great film, I recommend it.
        
               | r00fus wrote:
               | Thanks for the background. Fascinating analogy that
               | YouTube is allegedly equivalent to a holocaust denier by
               | removing streams in a biased manner.
        
               | Natsu wrote:
               | It's funny because I was discussing this just the other
               | day wishing there was a better way to address that fact
               | pattern--a history of biased decisions--without dragging
               | irrelevant and inflammatory stuff into the mix.
               | 
               | Sadly, nobody in that discussion could quite find a good
               | way to reference it without the inflammatory bits at the
               | time.
        
             | shuntress wrote:
             | This is a false equivalency and willful ignorance of the
             | Overton window.
             | 
             | "Reality has a well known liberal bias"
             | 
             | If heads & tails are left & right and the edge is far right
             | extremism, it's not a "coincidence" that these "coin
             | tosses" go in "1 direction politically instead of equally
             | in both directions" when "1 direction" is _left or right_
             | and the other  "direction" is _far right extremism_
        
             | yuliyp wrote:
             | There have been many things which go into many directions.
             | However, your social circle provides a biased sample of
             | that to you. I don't actually know which political
             | direction you're arguing is being victimized. But a biased
             | sample will lead people on both sides to feel like they're
             | the victims since that's what they see more of.
        
             | shadowgovt wrote:
             | I'm not sure what the directions are as relates to dropping
             | signal on the Rittenhouse trial.
        
         | rossdavidh wrote:
         | Significant point, I hope it will get upvoted to nearer the
         | top.
        
       | [deleted]
        
       | rayiner wrote:
       | Wow. We slid down that slippery slope pretty quick.
        
       | im3w1l wrote:
       | Hopefully this is a big enough misstep that something comes off
       | it. Can't say I'm holding my breath though.
        
       | kyleblarson wrote:
       | It doesn't fit the narrative that they and the entire mainstream
       | media are so desperate to perpetuate. Allowing the plebs to see
       | unbiased content and judge for themselves terrifies them. Same
       | thing with removing the downvote count. They can't stand to see
       | ratio of down to up votes on content about the current US
       | administration, COVID, etc.
        
         | rat87 wrote:
         | "unbiased content"
        
           | merpnderp wrote:
           | I think they mean unbiased by the giant advertising agencies
           | through which all major media's takes are filtered through.
           | If you're watching CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc, you're watching what
           | their advertisers approve of. And usually that approval is
           | "The hottest take that, causes the most angry tweets, that
           | gets the most views, of our dish soap." But also sometimes
           | corporate politics bleeds through. Like you the WaPo ignoring
           | or soft-pedaling Amazon stories.
        
           | dang wrote:
           | You've unfortunately been using HN primarily for ideological
           | and political battle. That's the line at which we ban
           | accounts, regardless of their ideology or politics, because
           | doing that destroys what HN is supposed to be for. Would you
           | please review the site guidelines
           | (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html) and stop
           | this? I don't want to ban you, but if you keep this up, we're
           | going to end up having to.
           | 
           | You've also been posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait
           | and/or snarky comments too. That's also against the site
           | guidelines, so if you'd please stop that as well, we'd
           | appreciate it.
        
           | GenerocUsername wrote:
           | "Raw feeds of court proceedings"
        
           | jfax wrote:
           | I'd like to think a court would be the definition of
           | unbiased.
        
       | shuntress wrote:
       | Is it possible for us to put aside the edgelord screeching over
       | censorship and instead talk rationally about content distribution
       | regulations, required public APIs, and using the Post Office for
       | things like email/videos/blogs/PGP keys/etc?
        
       | etchalon wrote:
       | The streams are back up.
       | 
       | Yet, this thread quickly devolved into a discussion about the
       | grand conspiracy to censor instead of the repeated failure of
       | automated tools and the ease at which they're abused.
        
         | __s wrote:
         | > Streams are back up just in time for the closing arguments
        
         | bjt2n3904 wrote:
         | Once is an accident.
         | 
         | Twice is coincidence.
         | 
         | Three times is enemy action.
        
           | president wrote:
           | It's not even just that. Earlier this year, the White House
           | admitted it had a line to Facebook and presumably other
           | social media companies so that it could tell it which stories
           | to censor.
        
           | estaseuropano wrote:
           | Thats not fact, just drivel.
           | 
           | If it were true YouTube would long be an enemy of pretty much
           | everyone.
        
             | bequanna wrote:
             | Not an enemy of everyone, just the ~50% of the US that
             | doesn't share YT's politics.
        
             | h2odragon wrote:
             | > YouTube would long be an enemy of pretty much everyone.
             | 
             | and Twitter, and facebook, and etc, yes. The ones shaping
             | the discourse "for the good of society" are, in fact bad
             | for society, even when the power was inherent and not used.
             | 
             | Now one has to work to deny the negatives.
        
       | thepasswordis wrote:
       | I think at this point we can just expect this stuff.
       | 
       | The ridiculousness of it, though. The rekieta law stream (which
       | is _fantastic_ , btw:
       | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7YXd2M5E-8) has anywhere from
       | 4-12 active lawyers giving commentary and context to everything
       | that is happening.
       | 
       | This is exactly the type of thing we dreamed about when we were
       | first creating the internet.
       | 
       | However: often times these smaller independent journalists and
       | commenters go against the reality that media companies want you
       | to believe you live in. Thus: they get censored. Rekieta lost
       | almost 40,000 people who _were_ getting live commentary from a
       | diverse (idealogically) set of lawyers, and now must to places
       | where these companies can assert more narrative control.
       | 
       | It's sad.
        
         | caeril wrote:
         | > these smaller independent journalists and commenters go
         | against the reality that media companies want you to believe
         | you live in.
         | 
         | For an example from this specific case, compare the actual
         | unedited testimony of Gaige Grosskreutz, who admitted on the
         | stand that Rittenhouse did not fire until Gaige's Glock 17 was
         | pointed _directly at Kyle 's head_, to the coverage of his
         | testimony by CNN, et. al.
         | 
         | The mainstream media lies, constantly and blatantly, not by
         | minor omissions or bad research, but by gross, egregious
         | violations of truth that can only be explained by extreme
         | malice and contempt for their viewers.
        
           | 908B64B197 wrote:
           | > The mainstream media lies, constantly and blatantly, not by
           | minor omissions or bad research, but by gross, egregious
           | violations of truth that can only be explained by extreme
           | malice and contempt for their viewers.
           | 
           | At least, here in America we decided that justice should be
           | public and cameras freely admitted into courtrooms. It's sad
           | to see that YouTube is trying to work against these ideals of
           | transparency, openness and universal access.
           | 
           | It is not, however, a universal freedom. In many foreign
           | countries (even in Canada) it's simply impossible to get a
           | simply video and audio feed outside of the courtroom.
           | 
           | Only people with the means of queuing up and spending the
           | whole day in court can get the privilege of seeing and
           | hearing justice with their very own eyes and ears. The rest
           | have to rely on what these people will decide to write in
           | either the state backed medias or billionaire owned news
           | outlets.
        
           | short12 wrote:
           | Too bad he didn't pull the trigger considering he had already
           | gunned down people. Isn't that the narrative? If some starts
           | shooting people some one with a gun will stop him
        
             | noxer wrote:
             | You can't just "stop" someone with deadly forth because he
             | appears to have "gunned down" someone before. You dont know
             | the whole story and you are not in the position to declare
             | who is the victim and who is the "bad guy". Its not self-
             | defense if you chase someone. A fleeing suspect even if you
             | would have witnessed an execution style murder is not legal
             | to just shot. It must be reasonable to believe that you or
             | someone else is in imminent danger of harm. Like a
             | terrorist who just randomly shoots at anyone. Commonly
             | referred to as "an active shorter". In this case there was
             | no doubt he was fleeing from the mob.
        
           | roody15 wrote:
           | Yes its like they are shaping reality and attempting to cause
           | social unrest. What the ultimate aim of such a narrative is I
           | am unsure?
           | 
           | Just keep people divided? Get more viewers who are
           | "outraged"?
           | 
           | Dystopic
        
             | drc37 wrote:
             | Violence sells.
        
             | infamouscow wrote:
             | The fact is most people don't want to know about things
             | that conflict with their world view. I don't think what the
             | media is doing is intentionally malicious, they just need
             | to perpetuate a specific world view to keep their viewers.
        
               | rabuse wrote:
               | This is a naive view of it, IMO. Political ideologies run
               | rampant at large corporations nowadays, and then it
               | trickles into the actual product/service due to
               | management.
        
               | blacksmith_tb wrote:
               | It's possible that some large corporations have decided
               | that appearing to publicly support one ideology or
               | another will be good for business. If that alienates you,
               | you are likely not the audience they're targeting. If
               | they're doing a bad job of that and alienating people who
               | should be their customers, well, the market will take of
               | that, won't it?
        
             | akudha wrote:
             | The only thing they need from viewers is eyeballs. Truth
             | and facts don't get you eyeballs, outrage and propaganda
             | do.
             | 
             | It is insanely hard to present only facts and be truthful
             | and impartial. It is quite easy to pick a narrative and
             | stick to it, damn the facts.
             | 
             | MSM is funded by advertisers and big corporations. They'll
             | do what their money masters want them to - vilifying unions
             | is a good example.
        
               | S_A_P wrote:
               | I'm surprised how blantant the narrative pushing is
               | orchestrated. This example happened the other day on NBC
               | news(main channel). So regardless of your stance on
               | ivermectin, this is what played the other day: Aaron
               | Roger's used ivermectin at the advise of Joe Rogan.
               | Ivermectin is oftentimes used a horse dewormer. <cut to
               | Pfizer commercial> Return from Pfizer commercial. Pfizer
               | has announced a new Covid antiviral drug that combines
               | mRNA therapy with a low dose HIV drug and has proven
               | (some high 80s/90s number). Pfizer is asking for an
               | emergency approval for treatment with Covid 19.
               | 
               | Look, I don't know if Ivermectin is effective for Covid
               | or not. From what I have heard it seems like looking into
               | it with an unbiased lens may be worth it. I don't care if
               | it is effective or not so much as I don't think news and
               | corporate interest should drive the national opinion.
               | 
               | I'm not even that scared about the anti viral that Pfizer
               | is pushing. HIV drugs have been around long enough to
               | establish a safety profile and weigh the risk vs reward.
               | I do think, that despite reports ivermectin has a pretty
               | solid safety record. However safe HIV drugs are, the
               | commercials for them list significant side effects. Again
               | I hesitate to post this as someone thinks I'm pushing
               | ivermectin as a legitimate therapy. I truly do not
               | know...
               | 
               | To me the sequence of the story commercial and the
               | counter story made me feel a bit queasy.
        
               | akudha wrote:
               | _Manufacturing Consent_ by Chomsky describes in detail
               | how the media lies, manipulates, twists the facts /truth
               | to fit a particular narrative. He gives example after
               | example after example. They also _selectively_ ignore
               | certain stories while simultaneously amplifying certain
               | other stories.
               | 
               | This has been going on for decades, this is nothing new.
               | What is new is the medium and the cost. TV is still
               | expensive even today, while internet is cheap, its reach
               | is much larger and it has permanent memory.
               | 
               | This is why we should support smaller independent outlets
               | like TYT. We may or may not like their style, but they
               | don't rely on corporate sponsors and that deserves
               | respect. I am also happy about independent newsletter
               | publishers (on substack, for example) - these are a drop
               | in the ocean, but still a start.
               | 
               | I can't name a single large publication (left, right,
               | center, liberal, conservative... whatever) that I trust
               | or respect :(
        
               | belltaco wrote:
               | It all depends on the scientific evidence in the highest
               | quality large clinical trials. Ivermectin has failed to
               | show benefit, the Pfizer drug has.
               | 
               | >I don't care if it is effective or not so much as I
               | don't think news and corporate interest should drive the
               | national opinion.
               | 
               | Even more frightening is that a lot of people who think
               | that don't have the same opinion on things like these
               | that are way worse than anything NBC News does:
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NAh4uS4f78o
               | 
               | They always focus and nitpick on media that's mostly
               | following the science, and ignore the other side pushing
               | drugs with unsound studies as some kind of magic drugs.
               | 
               | >From what I have heard it seems like looking into it
               | with an unbiased lens may be worth it
               | 
               | And do you think every country where covid isn't as
               | politicized, like India, China, UK, European countries,
               | Canada etc. haven't looked at it with an unbiased lens?
               | 
               | Maybe listen to actual scientists with decades of drug
               | development research experience instead of 'both siding'
               | the conversation?
               | 
               | E.g https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/ivermectin-
               | covid-1...
        
             | B1FF_PSUVM wrote:
             | Sells more soap.
        
             | freejazz wrote:
             | They sell controversy. It's not really that hard to
             | understand and all of these other "motives" are just
             | ridiculous.
        
             | Apofis wrote:
             | Can we get over the notion that foreign state interference
             | is not a thing in our media? There, you have your culprit;
             | outside of other national interests whom social unrest and
             | division benefits. They play both sides, same as the admen.
             | Suddenly, what is happening and why is crystal clear.
        
               | forgotmyoldname wrote:
               | Always resorting to blaming a foreign boogeyman is
               | dangerous thinking. Sometimes you need to accept that
               | there are bad actors within your own country.
               | 
               | For a lot of news programs, the credits are publicly
               | visible and verifiably citizens. The people talking are
               | citizens of your own country. They could care about their
               | country instead of money. They just don't.
        
               | spoonjim wrote:
               | You don't need to believe in a foreign boogeyman to
               | believe that American society is fundamentally broken and
               | is thus tearing itself apart. I don't see anything that's
               | happened in the last 10 years that required the
               | involvement of a foreign actor. This stuff was pioneered
               | by guys like Newt Gingrich and Mitch McConnell, not
               | Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping.
        
             | sneak wrote:
             | They're playing to the crowd. Many people already have
             | opinions formed when they hear the word "Rittenhouse" due
             | to the ongoing US culture war, and media outlets don't
             | generally like to alienate their audience.
        
               | ALittleLight wrote:
               | I think people only have opinions because of what they
               | have heard from the media. I don't get why it's not
               | reported in more neutral terms - "Incident at protest
               | leaves two dead, one wounded. 'Self-defense' says
               | shooter." Then describe the circumstances as they are on
               | video or given by eye witnesses.
               | 
               | Instead, media outlets seem to obfuscate and
               | sensationalize the story and imply wrongdoing or bias by
               | the criminal justice system.
        
               | Eelongate wrote:
               | > _I think people only have opinions because of what they
               | have heard from the media._
               | 
               | While I think there is doubtlessly some truth to that, I
               | think it misses the bigger picture which is: People
               | weren't blank slates going into this story. Most people
               | who care about the trial one way or the other already had
               | opinions about subjects relating to the trial before they
               | ever heard of this particular incident. People already
               | had opinions about gun control, self defense, protesting,
               | etc.
               | 
               | Media companies, knowing there are _already_ a bunch of
               | people inclined to feel one way or the other, find it
               | convenient to pander to people with these preformed
               | opinions or biases.
        
               | metamet wrote:
               | > when they hear the word "Rittenhouse" due to the
               | ongoing US culture war
               | 
               | I think that's an oversimplification. Rittenhouse's
               | decision to show up there armed was due to the partisan
               | division and demonization.
               | 
               | Rittenhouse showing up armed and killing two people is a
               | product of the stoked polarization.
        
               | robbedpeter wrote:
               | Rittenhouse showing up was a result of unrest in a town
               | where he had friends and family. He gave aid to rioters
               | and protesters as well as counter protesters. He showed
               | up to protect and help people, and if he hadn't been
               | armed, he could have been shot and killed or beaten to
               | death, because he told people he was there to help the
               | police. It wasn't until he'd been shot at, attacked with
               | a skateboard, and had a gun aimed at him by an asshole
               | who threatened to kill him earlier that Rittenhouse used
               | his weapon.
               | 
               | I think being armed was probably responsible and it's
               | fairly clear given the evidence from the trial that it
               | was used in a responsible way that exemplifies the use of
               | lethal force in self defense.
               | 
               | The media stoked narratives that caused the riots are to
               | blame. Sensationalism of topics like police on black
               | violence manipulates people into believing things that
               | aren't true, and they react in ways that might very well
               | be reasonable if the narratives _were_ true. I think
               | Rittenhouse is going to sue the ever loving shit out of a
               | lot of legacy media corporations, and maybe that will
               | make them a little more cautious when hyping the tabloid
               | bullshit.
        
           | HideousKojima wrote:
           | Also compare Grosskreutz's testimony to his statements to
           | various news networks this past week, where he repeatedly
           | contradicted his own sworn testimony.
        
             | marcusverus wrote:
             | Anderson Cooper 'confronted' Grosskreutz about
             | contradicting his sworn testimony, but the guy (clumsily)
             | dodged the question, and apparently Cooper wasn't
             | interested in following up on it.
             | 
             | Cooper: On Good Morning America today you said that you
             | were absolutely not pointing your gun at Rittenhouse. Can
             | you clarify there?
             | 
             | Grosskreutz: Yes, absolutely. Um. First and foremost, [the
             | cross examination] was a very tense situation. Something
             | that I've never been in before. Just like never being shot
             | before. I think it's important to note though, specifically
             | during cross that, if there's skilled attorney, they're
             | able to present questions to help support their narrative.
             | That's their job. And with one of the exhibits that
             | Attorney Sharrad(?) had introduced, there's a photo of me
             | with my gun pointed towards the defendant. Either just
             | after or right during he had shot me in my right arm. I
             | think it's important to note though that the physiology of
             | my wound would be inconsistent with someone being shot with
             | their arm in.. we'll say the traditional way that you would
             | point your gun at somebody or something. The only way that
             | I could have sustained the injury that I have is if I had
             | been shot with my arms up.
             | 
             | Cooper (looking perplexed): So... so you're say--did you
             | ever point your gun at him?
             | 
             | [someone speaks to Grosskreutz off camera, he looks at
             | them, turns back] Grosskreutz: I think that in the still
             | photos it certainly looks like it. But never intentionally.
             | You have to understand that, following that gunshot, I was
             | --I had no use of my arm. I wasn't able to move anything. I
             | --and--in my right arm, or in my right arm.
             | 
             | https://www.cnn.com/videos/us/2021/11/12/gaige-
             | grosskreutz-i...
        
             | LogonType10 wrote:
             | He lied to the media but told the truth under oath? I'm
             | surprised.
        
               | remarkEon wrote:
               | What should be surprising here is that, when interviewed
               | on these major networks after his court testimony, no
               | journalist asked him that very obvious and clear follow-
               | up question.
        
               | mannerheim wrote:
               | There was video evidence of everything he testified to
               | under oath. If he had lied, it would have been obvious
               | perjury.
        
               | LogonType10 wrote:
               | Thanks for the context.
        
           | Natsu wrote:
           | Yes, that was terrible. First, here's a copy of the photo of
           | their interaction for reference which I found online. There
           | are plenty of copies, including in the tweet referenced by
           | Snopes below if you don't like this one:
           | 
           | https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/290695292964306948/90.
           | ..
           | 
           | Now here's what Grosskreutz said on the stand:
           | 
           | Corey Chirafisi: Now, you'd agree your firearm is pointed at
           | Mr. Rittenhouse. Correct?
           | 
           | Gaige Grosskreutz: Yes.
           | 
           | CC: Okay. And once your firearm is pointed at Mr.
           | Rittenhouse, that's when he fires his gun. Yes?
           | 
           | GG: No.
           | 
           | CC: Sir, look, I don't want to - does this look like right
           | now your arm is being shot?
           | 
           | GG: That looks like my bicep being vaporized, yes.
           | 
           | CC: Okay. And it's being vaporized as you're pointing your
           | gun directly at him. Yes?
           | 
           | GG: Yes.
           | 
           | CC: Okay. So when you were standing 3-5 feet from him with
           | your arms up in the air, he never fired. Right?
           | 
           | GG: Correct.
           | 
           | CC: It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on
           | him with your gun -- now your hands down -- pointed at him
           | that he fired. Right?
           | 
           | GG: Correct.
           | 
           | Now compare that to what Grosskreutz said to ABC:
           | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oocNVvTHP5M
           | 
           | ABC: "So here you're allowed to say whatever you feel like
           | you need to say. So you're saying you weren't pointing your
           | gun at him? Is that what you're saying?"
           | 
           | Grosskreutz: "That's absolutely what I'm saying, yes.
           | 
           | Problems with this:
           | 
           | * Grosskreutz has a $10M lawsuit against the city over this.
           | 
           | * Grosskreutz' phone was not searched, despite a signed
           | search warrant for the same, due to the DA's personal
           | intervention. Nor was his and only his police interview
           | recorded.
           | 
           | * Grosskreutz has an expired CCL, so was not legally
           | carrying.
           | 
           | * As a side note, the illegal gun charge against Kyle,
           | meanwhile, was dropped. Kyle was not carrying a short-
           | barreled rifle, so Kyle's possession was ruled to be legal
           | under WI's poorly-written laws.
           | 
           | * Grosskreutz lied to the police both about having a gun at
           | all, then later changed his story to dropping it, but was
           | caught on camera in possession of it the entire time.
           | 
           | * The police testified that this is the one and only time
           | they have _ever_ done things that way.
           | 
           | * Grosskreutz testified that he chose to attack because Kyle
           | re-racked his gun. However, this does not happen anywhere in
           | the video of the exchange and no unspent ammo from Kyle's gun
           | was found.
           | 
           | * What was found is an unspent round matching Grosskreutz'
           | glock.
           | 
           | * This implies that Grosskreutz re-racked his gun at some
           | point--something he claims is a threat to kill.
           | 
           | * While that was not seen on camera, this must have happened
           | while he still had two arms.
           | 
           | * Grosskreutz' roommate posted on social media that
           | Grosskreutz regretted not killing Kyle. He later claimed to
           | have been lying when brought to the stand.
           | 
           | In short, ABC put on someone who has changed their story
           | multiple times when confronted with new evidence, who
           | provably lied to the cops that were investigating a murder,
           | and who has $10 million reasons to lie about everything.
           | 
           | This particular exchange has even been fact-checked, so ABC
           | has little excuse for platforming someone they know or should
           | have known to be lying without challenging them:
           | 
           | https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/kyle-rittenhouse-gaige-
           | gro...
           | 
           | One wonders if this coverage will ever show up with a
           | "disputed by fact checkers" label on social media?
        
             | pwdisswordfish8 wrote:
             | > * This implies that Grosskreutz re-racked his gun at some
             | point--something he claims is a threat to kill.
             | 
             | It doesn't imply that. It would be nice if, in a thread
             | about the media misreporting the facts of the case and
             | feeding the biases of the folks who are supposed to be
             | benefiting from the coverage, we wouldn't make other
             | assumptions. You might think it's reasonable to make this
             | assumption, but (a) the people leaping to conclusions--many
             | of which turned out to be wrong--and repeating them ad
             | nauseum over the last year _also_ thought _their_
             | assumptions about Rittenhouse were reasonable, and (b) as
             | it turns out, the source of the ejected round is knowable
             | /known since it was also caught on video (and it wasn't
             | Grosskreutz doing as you said).
             | 
             | [I'm not going to actually delve into the details on that,
             | since as far as I'm concerned this thread is about the meta
             | issues of epistemology in the age of social media echo
             | chambers and the contributions of traditional media to it,
             | and we're best served by staying on that topic and not
             | straying into the details of the case, which provides us a
             | vehicle for the discussion but other than that is really
             | just a tangential third rail.]
        
               | Natsu wrote:
               | I'm basing my opinions on those statements made in open
               | court that were subjected to cross-examination, not
               | random social media nonsense, which is pretty much all
               | there was a year ago when you formed this opinion.
               | 
               | The police said the unspent round did not match Kyle's
               | weapon. It does match the ammo in the Glock.
               | 
               | If you have video evidence of another Glock (EDIT: or any
               | other gun using the same ammo) being racked at the scene,
               | please show it. There were claims previously that it came
               | from Kyle's rifle, but it was not a match and this is
               | attested to by the prosecution's own police witness.
               | 
               | I was not able to locate any other claims for where the
               | unspent round came from after several searches. This
               | makes me wonder if you can actually produce the claimed
               | video evidence of another source of the same ammo.
        
           | 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
           | > Gaige Grosskreutz, who admitted on the stand that
           | Rittenhouse did not fire until Gaige's Glock 17 was pointed
           | directly at Kyle's head
           | 
           | I've more or less read that fact on NYT though.
           | 
           | https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/08/us/kyle-rittenhouse-
           | gaige...
           | 
           | > "So when you were standing three to five feet from him with
           | your arms up in the air, he never fired, right?" Corey
           | Chirafisi, a defense lawyer, asked.
           | 
           | > "Correct," Mr. Grosskreutz answered.
           | 
           | > "It wasn't until you pointed your gun at him, advanced on
           | him with your gun -- now your hands down, pointed at him --
           | that he fired, right?" Mr. Chirafisi said.
           | 
           | > "Correct," he said.
        
             | graton wrote:
             | CNN also had an article with the same information:
             | https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/08/us/kyle-rittenhouse-trial-
             | mon...
        
               | noxer wrote:
               | The target audience that is fooled does not read more
               | than headlines especially not thous who already saw the
               | TV coverage of the topic.
        
           | andrepd wrote:
           | Really? Can you link me to said CNN coverage where they
           | twisting his words?
           | 
           | Anyways this is a classic ruling class tactic: keep the plebs
           | entertained with something else. While they're busy endlessly
           | discussing the Rittenhouse case with ever more inane partisan
           | takes, they're not discussing the impending economic crisis,
           | the unprecedented levels of income and wealth inequality,
           | pressing climate crisis...
        
           | shiohime wrote:
           | We live in a society whose narrative is completely and
           | utterly controlled by megacorporations who create truths that
           | are convenient for them, or their overall agendas, regardless
           | of the _actual_ truth. It 's a disgusting world and it's only
           | going to get worse. We're all pawns to these companies that
           | are performing social engineering on scales we cannot even
           | fully comprehend.
        
           | nope35467 wrote:
           | A quick search shows that NPR and the New York Times both
           | covered this aspect of Mr. Grosskreutz' testimony. Covering
           | additional details from the testimony is not lying. More
           | importantly, focusing narrowly on that fact detracts from the
           | fact that Mr. Rittenhouse had already shot and killed two
           | other people that night. Mr. Grosskreutz' pointing of his
           | gun, whether intentional or not, is not what turned Mr.
           | Rittenhouse into a killer.
        
             | superflit2 wrote:
             | Well he did the Kenosha Hat trick Shot a wifebeater, a
             | pedo, and a burglar.
        
         | etchalon wrote:
         | Considering the streams are back up, this seems more like a
         | failure of automation and reporting tools than a grand
         | conspiracy.
        
           | tauntz wrote:
           | .. but it's so easy and lazy to just blame "the man" or a big
           | conspiracy.
        
             | thesuitonym wrote:
             | It's also so easy and lazy to just blame "the algorithm"
             | than fixing your broken system.
        
         | perihelions wrote:
         | This is inverted moderation: they're penalizing anodyne,
         | wonkish lawyers' podcasts, while leaving up most of the
         | nonfactual, inflammatory ragebait. This is the exact opposite
         | of how every platform professes to moderate.
         | 
         | The rules-violating stuff must look very impressive for ad
         | engagement metrics.
        
           | thriftwy wrote:
           | I'm yet to see any moderation system that used content
           | quality as a criteria.
        
           | narrator wrote:
           | The political power of youtube is way more valuable than any
           | ad stream.
        
           | freejazz wrote:
           | Pretty sure it was just automatic and based upon the fact
           | that they are using the same feed, but let's not let reason
           | get in the way of finding our conclusions when they can just
           | confirm how we want to feel.
        
         | ignoramous wrote:
         | > _This is exactly the type of thing we dreamed about when we
         | were first creating the internet_
         | 
         | This is one reason why I think P2P tech like peertube will not
         | only be around longer but even thrive.
        
         | poorjohnmacafee wrote:
         | "Freedom of speech is overrated, I don't agree with it as a
         | general principle"... It's a minority but the people who
         | actually say this are just promoting increased government
         | control of citizenry. Either they are naive or that's what they
         | want.
        
           | laurent92 wrote:
           | They are delusional. I confronted my father about not being
           | in favor of basic democratic principles (67, I'm 40), he
           | maintained he wanted freedom of speech until, after a few
           | targetted questions from myself, he admitted to having limits
           | to it. Same for the right to vote, which he defends fiercely,
           | except for the people who are under influence, foreign or
           | otherwise.
           | 
           | Such horrible people maintain a doublespeak even in their own
           | mind.
           | 
           | We've lost. We've lost.
        
             | poorjohnmacafee wrote:
             | Well every family member and person I've ever gotten to
             | know well enough where we talk politics, believe that the
             | state naturally seeks to increase its power over time, so
             | that people should be skeptical of the state. As cliche as
             | it is to bring up, this is what the American founding
             | fathers talked extensively about. Freedom of speech is the
             | fundamental way that people can push back when governments
             | do this, inevitably as they try to, as every state in every
             | historical period has tried to.
             | 
             | Again, they're either naive or that's what they want and
             | should be honest about it.
        
               | freejazz wrote:
               | The founders also were aware that the only freedom of
               | speech that you have is from the gov't restricting your
               | speech.
        
               | remarkEon wrote:
               | This is absolutely not at clear cut as you are describing
               | it. They were well aware that public opinion _generally
               | understood_ is what is supposed to bound government
               | action. I don 't have all the Federalist references handy
               | atm, but it is not the case that they would have said
               | "meh if a private corporation does it it's okay". As will
               | all things with those folks it's considerably more
               | nuanced than that.
        
             | yuliyp wrote:
             | Do you really think your father is a horrible person
             | because some of the ideas in his head might be wrong, or
             | come from a different set of values than you? Are all of
             | your own views self-consistent? Have you ever come to a
             | conclusion, and later changed your views after thinking
             | further or getting new evidence, or from discussing them
             | further?
             | 
             | I also find myself disagreeing with my father's politics
             | often. I do compartmentalize it into a judgment of his
             | political views, not my view on him as a person.
        
               | golemotron wrote:
               | Good practice. It's also good to make note of the
               | differences you and your father have politically and then
               | compare then to those of your children (or that age
               | cohort if you don't have children) when you are your
               | father's age. What we consider important, and why, change
               | a lot over our lifetimes.
        
               | laurent92 wrote:
               | Yes, of course. He constantly lies to hide his real
               | political opinions: He obviously fights for women to
               | succeed, he favors my sisters every time he can, he's a
               | staunch feminist, but he doesn't want to lose his son. He
               | puts a visible fat thumb on the balance in favor of
               | women, and he's surprised that I point out his fat thumb
               | resting on the balance.
               | 
               | It's sad, I'm sad, he's sad, but he keeps doing it, and
               | doesn't want to discuss it.
               | 
               | To answer your question, I have often changed my mind in
               | my life. Precisely because I've always engaged with
               | opponents, had animated debates, and sometimes
               | encompassed their point of view. I don't understand how
               | one can stay stuck _on a demonstrably false information_
               | , and be so mean about it that you wouldn't want it
               | undemonstrated. But I feel like 10-20% of the Gen Z
               | generation has the same problem dealing with their
               | parents consuming fake news.
        
         | SubiculumCode wrote:
         | Maybe. Buts its also as likely that this is the result of an
         | automated copyright take-down notice.
        
           | remarkEon wrote:
           | If I'm re-streaming a public access channel, say PBS, that is
           | live-streaming a trial and I'm doing commentary on it how
           | exactly does that trigger an automated copyright take-down
           | notice? Am I missing something on how public events are
           | covered under copyright law? (IANAL)
        
             | freejazz wrote:
             | You are missing the fact that automated copyright take-down
             | systems aren't perfect and are likely designed to learn
             | towards taking fair things down, and not living infringing
             | things up.
        
               | remarkEon wrote:
               | I'm not missing anything. If this is automated, you're
               | telling me they can't put in a rule that says "if public
               | access, then take-down not apply"? Maybe you're making a
               | different claim that a network stream (from CBS or
               | another) is not eligible for re-stream? That I find more
               | compelling, but then again it also shouldn't be hard to
               | add another layer to that rule.
        
               | randallsquared wrote:
               | Is all the metadata really in place such that CBS' and
               | other networks' streams are able to be labeled as sourced
               | from public access? I don't know, but my assumption is
               | that it isn't, and that large media companies wouldn't
               | bother to use it even if it's technically feasible.
               | 
               | Given the lack of such metadata on the streams which
               | typically have protected content, the system taking these
               | down probably just looks at similarity of content to
               | streams which are proprietary and silences them "to be
               | safe".
        
               | remarkEon wrote:
               | I think the conclusion I'm drifting toward is thus
               | "YouTube could make it possible for wonkish commentary on
               | live public access topics by creators on the platform,
               | but they don't care enough to do it", which makes sense.
        
               | jjk166 wrote:
               | How exactly would they know that it's public access?
               | Their algorithms don't understand what content is, it
               | just recognizes patterns in data, and that one snippet of
               | video is sufficiently similar to another as to be
               | considered the same snippet. Putting in a rule to deal
               | with an edge case is non-trivial, and there are an
               | infinite number of edge cases.
        
               | skinkestek wrote:
               | They are pretty smart, I guess they could reuse the same
               | technology they use to not to take down videos with
               | "correct" views that they agree with?
        
               | remarkEon wrote:
               | You don't have to make the algorithm do it, is what I'm
               | saying.
        
         | adminscoffee wrote:
         | let's just replace google with a better source. it's bound to
         | happen when you choose profit over freedom
        
         | hintymad wrote:
         | I wonder how lying for the so-called narratives could possibly
         | benefit these media in the long run? They don't learn history?
         | A country that does not care about facts will eventually hurt
         | everyone, including those righteous journalists.
        
         | Miner49er wrote:
         | So I tuned in out of curiosity. I'm assuming these guys are
         | biased in favor of the defense? They were just laughing at the
         | fact that Rosenbaum is dead.
         | 
         | Or do they just have a dark sense of humor or something?
        
           | HideousKojima wrote:
           | Rosenbaum was literally a convicted child rapist, multiple
           | witnesses testified that he threatened to kill Kyle if he
           | caught him alone, and he's on video shouting "SHOOT ME N***A"
           | repeatedly. So most people aren't feeling much sympathy for
           | the fact that he died.
        
             | belltaco wrote:
             | We have a justice system if there are crimes like that.
             | 
             | >So most people aren't feeling much sympathy for the fact
             | that he died.
             | 
             | The GP said they were laughing and celebrating it, that's
             | quite different from 'aren't feeling much sympathy for
             | someone dying'.
        
               | HideousKojima wrote:
               | >We have a justice system if there are crimes like that.
               | 
               | And robust self-defense laws for when someone poses an
               | immediate threat and there's not enough time to go to law
               | enforcement to help.
               | 
               | >The GP said they were laughing and celebrating it,
               | that's quite different from 'aren't feeling much sympathy
               | for someone dying'.
               | 
               | It's called "understatement." To be clear, the death of
               | such a person, especially if it is while they are in the
               | process of trying to assault and/or kill someone (which
               | the evidence clearly shows) is in fact something to be
               | celebrated. The world is a better place for his absence
               | from it.
        
               | belltaco wrote:
               | Isn't it illegal for 17 year olds to carry assault rifles
               | and point them at others (prior to the incident where
               | life wasn't threatened) as admitted in court.
               | 
               | > To be clear, the death of such a person, especially if
               | it is while they are in the process of trying to assault
               | and/or kill someone (which the evidence clearly shows) is
               | in fact something to be celebrated. The world is a better
               | place for his absence from it.
               | 
               | It might also be the result of provocation by someone
               | open carrying around an assault rifle in public, after
               | traveling from out of state in order to specifically do
               | that.
        
           | afpx wrote:
           | I didn't even know who the guy was until today. So, I guess
           | this is what I'm missing by not having television?
        
           | xhevahir wrote:
           | Just looking at the video titles, I'm getting a strong right-
           | wing vibe. Particularly the ones mentioning Project Veritas.
        
             | joenot443 wrote:
             | It's probably worth doing more than just looking at video
             | titles before you describe a complex topic as being "right-
             | wing."
        
               | xhevahir wrote:
               | The topic may be complex, but there's no guarantee that
               | any given channel on YouTube will do that topic justice.
               | This channel's fulsome praise for James O'Keefe suggests
               | to me that they will not.
        
               | freejazz wrote:
               | Hasn't stopped anyone from assuming the worst about
               | YouTube or "the media'
        
             | Karsteski wrote:
             | And what if they video streams are right wing? What then?
        
         | CyberRabbi wrote:
         | > It's sad.
         | 
         | In reality, there has never been much tolerance for free
         | speech. This has been the norm for all of human history. It has
         | also been the norm that people with non-controversial thoughts
         | have believed they had freedom of speech. It's only once you
         | finally happen to have a thought that isn't tolerable by those
         | in power that you realize there was never any freedom from the
         | beginning. Is that sad? It's an increase in awareness. The
         | world is not a happy place.
        
         | roenxi wrote:
         | > I think at this point we can just expect this stuff.
         | 
         | It'd be interesting to have a poll of the people defending
         | YouTube back when they started taking a political stance and
         | see if they think that a line has been crossed somewhere
         | between there and here, or if this is still the sort of
         | behaviour they expect from YouTube.
         | 
         | It seems that YouTube has taken a firm stance against being a
         | knowledge repository a la Wikipedia or Google Search.
         | 
         | Although I do want to protest politics by Tweet. There is
         | nothing here to really discuss; we don't know why, or even if,
         | YouTube is suppressing commentary of the Rittenhouse trial or
         | what Rekieta thinks about it. Tweets are too shallow.
        
       | judge2020 wrote:
       | This might be happening because the same feed is available on
       | YouTube TV, so similar content might be hit by the Content ID
       | system meant to stop people from restreaming TV on YouTube.
        
         | SubiculumCode wrote:
         | Actually, this HN post was a honey trap to identify its
         | conspiratorial user-base. lol
        
           | [deleted]
        
       | _-david-_ wrote:
       | Is it just me or does it seem like these "accidents" impact
       | smaller and perhaps less politically authoritative channels than
       | the big channels? I am not just talking about this incident but
       | others as well.
        
         | rossdavidh wrote:
         | Well, this is somewhat similar to how it is rare for a large
         | email provider such as Yahoo, Gmail, etc. to mistakenly label
         | all content from one of the others as spam, but not uncommon
         | for them to make that mistake about small email providers. It
         | doesn't even need to be a conspiracy for that to happen, just a
         | greater concern for larger providers.
        
         | shadowgovt wrote:
         | I have no direct knowledge of YouTube's configuration, but my
         | more general knowledge of how Alphabet does business suggests
         | that high-business-value customers have company-internal
         | guardians (in sales, advertising, or biz-dev) who are actually
         | tasked with making sure nothing breaks on their services. I
         | assume they do the same for high-biz-value channels, so I'd
         | expect fewer accidents on bigger channels with more opportunity
         | to make a mess for YT than smaller ones.
        
         | oopsyDoodl wrote:
         | They own all IP, why would they be subject to automated scans?
        
           | fault1 wrote:
           | There is many good reasons to "scan" _all_ content. How about
           | spam, illegal content, or anything that violates their TOU?
           | These days if you do not have a litany of algorithms
           | performing these tasks, the worst case is that you'll end up
           | like Facebook where genocide occured (in Myanmar) because the
           | content was not in unicode and the detection systems couldn't
           | "read" it.
           | 
           | Like any other site, accounts with less "trust" are probably
           | going to be flagged by automatic mechanisms. I've been on a
           | few teams with various companies that have done things like
           | fraud detection and it almost always works this way.
           | sometimes there is of course, legitimate false positives.
        
             | oopsyDoodl wrote:
             | That's a good point. scanAll() and
             | applyAutomatedTakedownAI() would not be applied equally
             | because of course big corp never pirates
        
       | politician wrote:
       | Dry run for when the verdict is announced.
        
         | laurent92 wrote:
         | I couldn't imagine witnessing this in my life, not for
         | something so obvious and in plain sight.
         | 
         | But is it better than 30 years ago or worse? When I hear the
         | suicides committed upon whistleblowers in France 30 years ago,
         | or the Ustica crash, or the Greenpeace boat bombed in NZ, are
         | we committing more today?
        
         | rossdavidh wrote:
         | Likely true, especially given that the streams in question have
         | apparently been restored. And, given the potential for lives
         | lost and property damage, perhaps justified.
        
           | bequanna wrote:
           | Are you saying we should suppress the truth because we're
           | worried the woke mob won't like it?
           | 
           | One solution: Open, transparent justice and cities enforce
           | laws for rioters instead of letting them throw city burning
           | temper tantrums.
        
         | dkdk8283 wrote:
         | Sad but I think your conjecture is spot on. Platforms such as
         | YT abuse their power regularly without batting an eye.
        
       | sergiotapia wrote:
       | Can't have people talking freely
        
       | 1cvmask wrote:
       | YouTube is the great digital video censorship platform. My all
       | time favorite was when they censored an academic conference on
       | censorship. The HN discussion on it:
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26008217
        
         | inChargeOfIT wrote:
         | How about censoring Dislikes? This is in progress now
         | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOuG8jMIgI&t=1s
        
           | BitwiseFool wrote:
           | I _really_ hope this comes back to bite them. I already find
           | myself not watching as many videos simply because I can 't
           | gauge the like/dislike ratio on them. In the short term I
           | expect an explosion in clickbait and low quality videos
           | because people won't be able to immediately see that the
           | video is bogus from dislike counts. I suspect people will
           | tend to retreat into watching the channels they already like
           | and cut down on consuming recommendations.
           | 
           | I'm already trying to gauge likes vs watch count as a sloppy
           | proxy for video quality but it's just not the same.
        
             | jturpin wrote:
             | Yeah it occurred to me that I glance down to see the likes
             | and dislikes to see how credible some of the how-to videos
             | I watch are. A lot of them are garbage or dangerous and
             | that's reflected in the dislike count. Fortunately you can
             | scrub through maybe the top 30 comments to see if there's
             | anything off.
        
             | systemvoltage wrote:
             | YouTube is such an awesome thing. The executives want to
             | destroy it. The content creators and users are pissed off.
             | 
             | This whole dislike thing fundamentally breaks YT for me.
             | Completely. I will not waste time watching videos if
             | they're not worth watching.
             | 
             | There is a reason why IMDB is a thing. If they remove
             | ratings, it becomes useless. Ratings are the foundational
             | aspect of IMDB.
             | 
             | Google needs a lesson or two and I hope the community
             | responds in the strongest form of protest.
        
               | InitialLastName wrote:
               | > There is a reason why IMDB is a thing. If they remove
               | ratings, it becomes useless. Ratings are the foundational
               | aspect of IMDB.
               | 
               | Are the ratings why people go to IMDB? I use IMDB as a
               | database on the internet for movies and TV cast/crew
               | credits. I almost never look at the ratings for the
               | things I look up.
        
               | thriftwy wrote:
               | IMDB ratings are solid and often the main reason why
               | people go to IMDB at all.
               | 
               | 8: a masterpiece
               | 
               | 7: enjoyable
               | 
               | 6: watchable if you like that specific thing
               | 
               | 5 and lower: oddball
               | 
               | There are some exceptions for niche movies (may have very
               | low or very high rating) and for recently aired,
               | otherwise it's pretty reliable.
        
               | nefitty wrote:
               | I always thought crowd sourced ratings was one of the
               | killer apps of the internet. That's what makes Airbnb
               | possible, what made darknet markets successful, what
               | makes Amazon powerful...
               | 
               | Throwing away ratings is like going into the woods to
               | live and throwing away your book on native plant life. I
               | guess just nibble at whatever looks good, even if it
               | might be void of nutritional value or poisonous at worst.
        
             | gknoy wrote:
             | I find what you said really interesting, mainly because I
             | don't think I've _ever_ used likes or dislikes (or their
             | ratio) as a metric for choosing what to watch. The most
             | I've interacted with dislikes is when seeing some helpful
             | low-production-value video, or some artist's music stream,
             | I've wondered why 1-3% of the viewers disliked it. I mean,
             | even when I've found _better_ or _more informative_ videos,
             | I've never been tempted to dislike the previous ones I'd
             | watched that weren't as good.
        
               | oriki wrote:
               | This. I find that the vast majority of cases where I'd
               | pay any attention to the dislike bar are just cases where
               | people are getting dogpiled for whatever reason (whether
               | they deserve it or not, or if anyone deserves to be
               | treated like that on the internet, is another matter
               | entirely) but I've heard reasonable arguments from people
               | talking about tutorials and other informative videos that
               | the like:dislike ratio is a convenient sniff test for if
               | the video is worth watching.
        
               | jjoonathan wrote:
               | Clickbait is bad enough _without_ removing one of the
               | last few tools left in the arsenal to fight it.
        
               | oriki wrote:
               | I feel like we have different definitions as to what
               | clickbait is - when I see a clickbait video, I can simply
               | identify it by it's title and thumbnail, I've never
               | needed to look at the like:dislike ratio to confirm that
               | it's clickbait. What kind of videos do you find as
               | clickbait?
        
               | BitwiseFool wrote:
               | I have a great example that illustrates my use of
               | likes/dislikes as a filter.
               | 
               | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NRCSX-u01eM
               | 
               | The video is titled: _" Boeing C-17 Globemaster Jet Crash
               | All Hell breaks loose"_. It has 2,302,640 views and I
               | took a screenshot of the like/dislike metrics before the
               | change took place. 1.6K Upvoted, 21K Downvoted.
               | 
               | The spoiler is that the plane taking off never actually
               | crashes. It just looks like it will because of the camera
               | angle. The uploader wrote "I made this video to start a
               | conversation and it has certainly started a conversation
               | ..." but has disabled comments. The video is a complete
               | and total lie and the ratio reflected that. Without
               | comments, you have nothing else to warn you about the
               | video. From now on, you will have to rely on the fact
               | that a video viewed two million times only has one and a
               | half thousand likes as a proxy.
               | 
               | Granted, I know some videos are prone to have bad-looking
               | ratios because they are discussing contentious topics. I
               | give those a wide berth and don't immediately dismiss
               | them because they have a 60-40 like dislike ratio.
        
               | jjoonathan wrote:
               | Dislikes indicate politics, clickbait, or unhelpfulness.
               | Politics is obvious, but clickbait and unhelpfulness can
               | waste a lot of your time before becoming obvious.
               | Dislikes help combat this.
        
           | klyrs wrote:
           | That's _their_ data that they 're choosing not to disclose.
           | That is _not_ censorship. Analogously, if somebody asks for
           | your name and you don 't mention your middle name, that is
           | also not censorship.
           | 
           | HN only shows max(upvotes-downvotes, -4) to the original
           | commenter. Censorship?
        
             | Trumpi wrote:
             | > That's their data that they're choosing not to disclose.
             | 
             | And newspapers own the copyright on everything they print,
             | even falsehoods.
             | 
             | What's important is the reason why they are doing it, not
             | whether they have the right, because we all agree that they
             | have the right to do it, but we are not all happy.
        
             | shiohime wrote:
             | imo it's censorship to the degree that seeing a ratio does
             | explicitly or implicitly set a specific context to a video.
             | For example, say we have a government published video for
             | an initiative that is incredibly unpopular. However, by
             | masking the actual dissent, all you see is one side of the
             | equation, not allowing you as a citizen to easily see how
             | contentious / controversial something that could directly
             | affect your life really is. It's all about controlling
             | dissent imo, there's no real reason to hide this otherwise.
             | 
             | As such, yeah HN does only show up/downvote ratios like you
             | are claiming. However, the scale is completely different
             | between here and YT, which is a primary source of
             | information for many people nowadays.
             | 
             | Edit - To further elaborate, with the same example, imagine
             | that not only is the dislike ratio masking the actual
             | dissent, but other companies and platforms are
             | collaborating on a truth, and discussion to the contrary
             | cannot be discussed on their platform. This is what is
             | literally happening, you have to be blind to not see it at
             | this point. Government published videos are having their
             | ratios hidden, anything that is counter to the decided
             | narrative is being automatically flagged by AIs on
             | FB/Twitter to throw "warnings" up. This is the nature of
             | the current web right now and you really should acknowledge
             | the tightening of the grip that these companies are doing
             | over the years.
        
               | irae wrote:
               | It could be argued as censorship only if they have it
               | enabled on the whole platform and on the hypothetical
               | video you mentioned it decides to turn off for whatever
               | reason. Censorship is against an individual or a target
               | group.
               | 
               | Since they analyzed the platform as a whole and decided
               | there are more harm than good in dislikes, and they are
               | applying globally (allowing for a transition period), it
               | is just how they decided the feature set to behave. You
               | can't call it censorship if it applies to 100% of people
               | and content without exception.
        
               | klyrs wrote:
               | I mean, that's definitely your opinion, but this doesn't
               | match any definition of censorship I'm aware of -- it
               | sounds like you want _compelled disclosure_. It 's a
               | single statistic that YT collects per video. YT also has
               | location data for the dissenters. Is it censorship that
               | they aren't showing a country-by-country breakdown of
               | where the dislikes are coming from? Is it censorship that
               | they aren't showing a town-by-town breakdown of where the
               | dislikes are coming from? Is it censorship that they
               | aren't showing the IP address of each dissenter?
               | 
               | Clearly, that got ridiculous. But, what I'm curious about
               | is if there's an underlying principal in your mind here.
               | Because what you appear to be suggesting is a regulation
               | compelling not only disclosure of internal statistics,
               | but specifically how fine-grain those internal statistics
               | are allowed to be? And, for example, what about twitter?
               | They don't have a dislike button -- do you think they
               | should be compelled to implement one? Since your focus
               | seems to be on where people are getting their news, do
               | you think that news sites (above a certain popularity?)
               | should be compelled to implement dislikes on their own
               | content, or only user-submitted comments?
        
               | shiohime wrote:
               | I guess, the underlying principal in my mind is around
               | the intent of why they are removing such a feature, when
               | it has very valid uses even as a consumer of content. I
               | understand some of the issues with the upvote/downvote
               | concept in terms of targetted ratio campaigns, however, I
               | think it is censorship if they are removing this
               | information for the intent of social engineering, which I
               | think that they are. I know I'm mostly speaking on gut
               | here, and I could be wrong as to the motivators behind
               | this change.
               | 
               | It's just that it is a very unique situation. We're at a
               | stage where YT is one of the most important platforms on
               | the current web, it's incredibly centralized, and at the
               | end of the day it is up to the whims of Alphabet execs on
               | how they want information published on their platform.
               | 
               | So maybe it's not exactly "censorship" in the standard
               | definition. However, there is functionality that exists
               | and has existed in the product since inception (when it
               | was a rating system instead of voting). You have _always_
               | been able to see how unpopular a video really is. Taking
               | this away is an alarm to me, especially in today 's
               | environment.
               | 
               | I apologize if it's a bit hard for me to explain my
               | reasoning here, but it just truly unsettles me.
        
         | serverholic wrote:
         | This is why decentralization is so important. Peertube, IPFS,
         | cryptocurrency, bittorrent, etc. and really web3 in general are
         | trying to move us in that direction.
         | 
         | Part of the problem is that people have been told that there is
         | such a thing as a free lunch. Yet YouTube censorship is a great
         | example of where that leads us.
        
           | nefitty wrote:
           | In this context, web3 looks more attractive. Too bad its
           | formative moments are being steered by scammers selling jpegs
           | of stick figure drawings.
        
       | 28uwedj wrote:
       | Nothing is stopping them from just making a live commentary of
       | them with no video, you just load it in the background.
        
       | skinkestek wrote:
       | It is pretty amazing isn't it?
       | 
       | Fun to work at Google these days? Get to manipulate the crowds
       | big time?
       | 
       | Edit: at least you have now gotten me to watch it. Seriously
       | interesting. Good thing the kid has gotten a good lawyer.
        
         | furgooswft13 wrote:
         | Remember when Google employees made a big stink about Project
         | Dragonfly (censored search for China) and got it "cancelled"?
         | Pepperidge Farm does.
         | 
         | Now just wait a few days for a wild "whistleblower" to appear
         | claiming Google coulda censored shit _even sooner_.
        
         | GenerocUsername wrote:
         | "Manipulating crowds at scale is what we do"
         | 
         | "I wouldn't even know how to manipulate just 1 person... unless
         | I am manipulating thousands of people, its just not worth my
         | time as a engineer at Google."
         | 
         | "Its not evil if it encourages people to think correctly about
         | issues"
        
           | rPlayer6554 wrote:
           | I don't think Google could manipulate only one person. They
           | can't count that low!
        
       | foxhop wrote:
       | This is why we must reject big tech's monopoly on moderation.
       | 
       | I wrote this essay here which you should read next:
       | 
       | https://www.remarkbox.com/remarkbox-is-now-pay-what-you-can....
        
       | butmuh wrote:
       | just in time for the removal of dislikes too..
        
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       (page generated 2021-11-15 23:00 UTC)