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posted by Dopefish on Sunday February 16 2014, @11:34PM   Printer-friendly
from the why-deny-reality? dept.
Blackmoore writes: "The producers of "House of Numbers" have used a series of bogus copyright takedown notices to get Youtube to remove videos, in which he uses clips from the documentary as part of his criticism, showing how they mislead viewers and misrepresent the facts and the evidence. It's pure censorship: using the law to force the removal of your opponents' views."

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End of Day 1: Systems Update 149 comments

So, as I write this, day one has officially come to an end. I'm still somewhat in shock over it. Last night when I was editing the database to change over hostnames and such, I was thinking, man, it would be great if we got 100 regular users by tomorrow. Turns out I was wrong. By a factor of ten. Holy cow, people. I'm still in a state of disbelief, partially due to the epic turnout, but also because our very modest server hardware hasn't soiled itself from the influx (the numbers are, well, "impressive" is a way to put it). Anyway, I wanted to do a bit of a writeup of where we stand now, what works, and what doesn't. Check it out (and some raw numbers) after the break! Warning, it is a bit lengthy.

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  • (Score: 1) by unitron on Sunday February 16 2014, @11:58PM

    by unitron (70) on Sunday February 16 2014, @11:58PM (#341) Journal

    ...someone who has it and claims they don't, or someone who, for whatever bizarre reason, claims that there's no such thing?

    --
    something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
    • (Score: 1) by Blackmoore on Monday February 17 2014, @12:13AM

      by Blackmoore (57) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:13AM (#348) Journal

      "well, i dont know anyone who's died from aids, it must be a scam."

      infuriates me. I've lost people to that.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by romanr on Monday February 17 2014, @12:49AM

      by romanr (102) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:49AM (#358)

      The aids deniers in the "documentary" claim that there is not enough evidence about HIV and its link to AIDS, so they more or less claim, that HIV/AIDS is a myth.

    • (Score: 1) by VLM on Monday February 17 2014, @12:48PM

      by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Monday February 17 2014, @12:48PM (#633)

      Its the HIV AIDS version of the guy who walks around saying "correlation isn't causation" constantly.

      One is a virus. The other is a vast array of inevitably fatal symptoms. Its accidentally a remarkably insightful observation, because it does seem true that a huge quantity of dangerous and expensive drugs can reduce or eliminate the causation regardless of the correlation. Or in summary, its possible to reduce or eliminate the symptoms without getting rid of the seemingly unkillable virus.

      Most of the time for most people, rather than being a scientific observation, it just means the denier is a complete nutcase. That's also merely a correlation, not a causation.

  • (Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2014, @11:59PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 16 2014, @11:59PM (#343)

    AIDS isn't real. It's a conspiracy. I know, because I saw this one guy with Lupus. If Lupus exists, how can there be AIDS? You know who's behind the AIDS conspiracy? Beta!

  • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2014, @12:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 17 2014, @12:13AM (#347)

    I know it's in alpha stages and you want to test content but there are better articles than AIDS deniers. Let's be conscious of the precedent of articles we post on Soyl so that it gets off to a good start and reputation. Post something meaningful. We can talk about it. Then after a while, post something else meaningful.

    • (Score: 5, Insightful) by unitron on Monday February 17 2014, @12:19AM

      by unitron (70) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:19AM (#351) Journal

      "I know it's in alpha stages and you want to test content but there are better articles than AIDS deniers."

      Au contraire, this is a story about misuse of the DMCA--what even the people who wanted the DMCA in the first place would acknowledge is misuse.

      It's a perfect "Your Rights Online" category story.

      --
      something something Slashcott something something Beta something something
      • (Score: 1) by Nerdfest on Monday February 17 2014, @12:46AM

        by Nerdfest (80) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:46AM (#357)

        I always found the "Your rights online" some of the most interesting stuff. There aren't name places that cover that area in depth either.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by everdred on Monday February 17 2014, @08:22AM

      by everdred (110) on Monday February 17 2014, @08:22AM (#498) Journal

      SoylentNews: we only read the first two words.

      • (Score: 1) by mwvdlee on Tuesday February 18 2014, @07:11AM

        by mwvdlee (169) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @07:11AM (#1455)

        "SoylentNews: we"
        I agree!

    • (Score: 1) by kwerle on Monday February 17 2014, @05:29PM

      by kwerle (746) on Monday February 17 2014, @05:29PM (#866) Homepage

      I know it's in alpha stages and you want to test content but there are better articles than AIDS deniers. Let's be conscious of the precedent of articles we post on Soyl so that it gets off to a good start and reputation. Post something meaningful. We can talk about it. Then after a while, post something else meaningful.

      You're exactly right. And the fact that you were modded -1 troll and that someone who disagrees with you was marked +5 is every indication that this site will fall into the same pool of crap articles that /. has.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by lcklspckl on Tuesday February 18 2014, @03:23PM

        by lcklspckl (830) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @03:23PM (#1648)
        He's exactly right if the article is about AIDS. It is not. It is about DMCA. Because News for Nerds. There may be better articles than this about questionable uses of DCMA and you are welcome to bring those to the table. The fact that this guy was modded troll is every indication that the user base is reasoned and that they recognize someone who is reacting to a story in a knee-jerk fashion. The fact that your comment sits un-modded is an indication that we all have short attention spans.
        • (Score: 1) by kwerle on Tuesday February 18 2014, @04:07PM

          by kwerle (746) on Tuesday February 18 2014, @04:07PM (#1674) Homepage

          This article is NOT about the DMCA. It is about someone bullying/threatening and lying. They happen to be using the DMCA as a weapon.

          Frankly, I don't see where copyright is much of a technology topic. The fact that D stands for Digital really doesn't hold much water for me.

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by combatserver on Monday February 17 2014, @12:23AM

    by combatserver (38) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:23AM (#352)

    "The AIDS denial movement encourages people who are HIV-positive to go off the medication that keeps them alive."

    I watched someone die from AIDS many years ago--while I cannot say that the drug-cocktail he was taking kept him alive any longer than he would have otherwise, I can assure you he wasn't going to take the chance opting-out. The chances of survival wouldn't of gone up if he didn't take the drugs--that was all that mattered at that point in his life.

    --
    I hope I can change this later...
    • (Score: 1) by Asshole on Monday February 17 2014, @06:35AM

      by Asshole (159) on Monday February 17 2014, @06:35AM (#457)

      But what is their motive? Do they profit from this somehow? The only other motive I can think of is they want people to die for religious reasons.

    • (Score: 1) by Thexalon on Monday February 17 2014, @04:07PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday February 17 2014, @04:07PM (#800)

      A good friend of mine has been living with HIV for a long time, and the drugs he is taking for it mean that he's still alive, when in the bad old days he would have been dead about 15 years ago. He'll still die much younger than he otherwise would have (probably somewhere in his 60's rather than 80ish), but in the meantime he's a very productive member of society with a strong scholarly and charitable streak. Any efforts to make him stop taking advantage of available medical treatment for his condition are simply evil, in my view, since they're basically wishing death upon him.

      A lot of the people who are against treating HIV and AIDS are motivated by the idea that it's God's righteous punishment for being gay or promiscuous, an idea they developed in the 1980's when it was "the gay disease". In their worldview, having a different sort of sex than they approve of is more sinful than allowing somebody to die. Even if the people in question were raped, a lot of these guys (it's mostly men who think this way about rape) think is somehow the victim's sin rather than the rapist's sin.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 5, Informative) by romanr on Monday February 17 2014, @12:38AM

    by romanr (102) on Monday February 17 2014, @12:38AM (#355)

    can be found here [dailymotion.com].

  • (Score: 4, Interesting) by soulde on Monday February 17 2014, @03:11AM

    by soulde (27) on Monday February 17 2014, @03:11AM (#388)

    south africa suffered a lot with those aids deniers.
    The old ministry of healthcare believed that aids was just a nutrition problem (linked with poverty) and these is the main reason why a not-so-poor country now have more than 30% of the population with aids.

    These people are criminals and should be put in jail.

    • (Score: 1) by Thexalon on Monday February 17 2014, @04:20PM

      by Thexalon (636) on Monday February 17 2014, @04:20PM (#813)

      For starters, it's worth remembering that while South Africa as a whole is not ridiculously poor, a lot of its wealth is heavily concentrated, so there are large areas of the country where everyone is in fact dirt poor. There is a lot of mineral wealth in South Africa, but the mines are owned by European companies, who bribe the government to ensure that very little of the wealth in those mines actually goes to South Africans.

      There are lots of misconceptions about AIDS floating around lots of areas in Africa which have definitely made the problem worse. For example, in some places there were lots of people who believed that sex with a virgin would cure AIDS, and some men who were infected would rape girls to try to save their lives (this, of course, killed the girls and did nothing to help the men).

      The situation is still bad enough that even the Catholic Church is handing out condoms and teaching people how to use them.

      --
      The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by CowboyTeal on Monday February 17 2014, @05:49AM

    by CowboyTeal (15) on Monday February 17 2014, @05:49AM (#423)

    I think a lot of us here have a hard time swallowing the vast amount of semen our politicians force down our throats and Aids is no different. There are many conspiracies that surround it, there is even this guy at this organization that I worked at that came in for a board meeting and started talking about his life and how helped create HIV. Weirdos aside, I doubt having sex with or eating a purple monkey really started the whole thing but needless to say HIV exists and it's here to stay for a while (until Super Aids happens). I can understand where they are coming from, the government is hard to trust and they lie all the time, but the problem is that you can't deny the symptoms. Although I wish I could RTFA, and watch the video (blame my shiddy net) I'm going on a limb here and say that there are fools everywhere and no matter where you go they will defy conventional logic for their own strange reasoning.

    Jehovah's Witnesses refuse to be medically treated properly specifically through blood transfusion. Some far-right conspiracy theorists believe that the world will soon end in a nuclear holocaust and somehow their underground bunker will protect them for eternity. Life is full of loons, but the biggest problem here is how government uses its power to shut down the voice of the people, loon or not. If it's not libel, then what is it? Treason? Terrorism? Explain the motives.

    --
    Getting siggy with it.
  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by paddym on Monday February 17 2014, @07:22AM

    by paddym (196) on Monday February 17 2014, @07:22AM (#474)

    I've forgotten. Why does youtube have to remove these things? I remember it used to have some kind of safe harbor, but then because the terms of the site changed, they no longer could use safe harbor as a DMCA protection.

    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by dmc on Monday February 17 2014, @08:38AM

      by dmc (188) on Monday February 17 2014, @08:38AM (#502)

      "I've forgotten. Why does youtube have to remove these things? I remember it used to have some kind of safe harbor, but then because the terms of the site changed, they no longer could use safe harbor as a DMCA protection."

      DMCA is the safe harbor for youtube. DMCA is why they can make tons of money effectively being a host for mass amounts of 'pirated videos'. Alternate to the DMCA, the concept of "common carrier" is also a safe harbor if you get classified that way. Theoretically, if now after the verizon ruling fall of NetNeutrality, the FCC took the court's invitation to do NN the 'right way' by classifying and regulating ISPs as "common carriers", then ISPs like GoogleFiber _could_ remove all the crap from their Terms of Service, like the banning of "improper" use of the network (whatever that means, i.e. it means nothing at all). Once you are a "common carrier" you are not responsible for what goes through your pipes. DMCA is sort of a quasi-common-carrier status for websites that allow users to upload content. So long as youtube follows the DMCA protocol, they are no longer culpable for the literal vast troves of piracy going on there. Note of course that Google, like myself, can also legally use interesting interpretations of 'fair use' to defend their making available of otherwise copyright protected content. I for one think that every child and adult should pretty much have educational and artistic access to pretty much all copyrighted material. Especially in this bizarre world where the Disney lawyers find a way to keep Mickey Mouse out of the public domain perpetually. Everyone, especially the poor, need access to our rich cultural history. The more access they/everyone has, the more they/everyone will learn and gain wisdom, and the better off we will all be. The current copyright system, while easily defensible in some idealistic terms of enabling content creators to make a living from their art, just has not worked out that way in practice. The scary red screens that dvd players make people watch in front of movies with threats of hundreds of thousands of dollars of fines, and years in pound-me-in-the-ass penitentiaries, are as fracking stupid and counterproductive as the war on drugs. Did that answer your question? :)

      • (Score: 1) by paddym on Monday February 17 2014, @05:16PM

        by paddym (196) on Monday February 17 2014, @05:16PM (#850)

        Thanks.

    • (Score: 1) by edIII on Monday February 17 2014, @06:29PM

      by edIII (791) on Monday February 17 2014, @06:29PM (#923)

      I believe it is just your standard corrupt DMCA takedown notices, but also YouTube's custom way in which you can make objections. To my knowledge that entire system is horribly skewed to support the accuser, and not the accused.

      However, that is a problem not just with YouTube, but with the entire IP environment in the US period. Fair Use is being violently attacked by monied interests, along with the Public Domain. Even the Public Domain to these interests is treated like some Pinko-Communist-Socialist disease that needs to be eliminated at all costs.

      It's very similar to the credit reporting agencies. A business can expend practically no effort at all to ruin your credit, and consumers are left with an expensive burden (high interest-credit availability-punitive contractual clauses) to reverse the damages. It's a not-so-funny joke that a business can report a single detraction at will, but needs to bundle up positive notes on your credit 1000 at a time. It's quite literally geared towards creating 3rd party duress on the consumer to threaten them into paying a bill, even with a legitimate dispute.

      Why have Due Process when you can just threaten them into submission and levy punitive measures against a weaker opponents with no judicial oversight?

      Copyrights are no different. The system is geared towards the copyright owners and the proponents of the system were full of shit when they claimed that abuses like this would be limited. The abuse is widespread and has created the ability for corporations to now censor and control what people see.

      Governments are troubling for sure, but there is ZERO chance that a corporation has the citizen's best interests at heart. Capitalism tells us that nothing is off limits if it services the share holders, and this is what we get when we allow such notions to override our common sense and good judgement.

      --
      Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
  • (Score: 2, Informative) by Lagg on Monday February 17 2014, @07:53AM

    by Lagg (105) on Monday February 17 2014, @07:53AM (#489) Homepage Journal
    Some time ago I was trying to watch a video of Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers discussing themselves being invited to Expelled (a rather infamous "documentary" by now) under false pretenses. I saw that the video was removed for a copyright claim, so I and probably many others used Google's support mail thing and then it was suddenly up again. On a rather off topic note, it was quite an interesting excerpt [youtube.com]. But yeah, these people are pretty much all the same, and from what I'm told by friends there Google doesn't enjoy this crap anymore than the next person does so it's entirely possible that if you tell them they'll try to alleviate the problem.
    --
    http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿