from the nielson-smielson-ratings-mean-nothing-except-to-a-reality-tv-show-president dept.
YouTube Recommendations for 'Alt-Right' Videos have Dropped Dramatically, Study Shows:
Google has made "major changes" to its recommendations system on YouTube that have reduced the amount of "alt-right" videos recommended to users, according to a study led by Nicolas Suzor, an associate professor at Queensland University of Technology.
During the first two weeks of February, alt-right videos appeared in YouTube's "Up Next" recommendations sidebar 7.8 percent of the time (roughly one in 13). From Feb. 15 onward, that number dropped to 0.4 percent (roughly one in 250).
Suzor's study took random samples of 3.6 million videos, and used 81 channels listed on a recent study by Rebecca Lewis [.pdf] as a starting point. That list includes voices like Richard Spencer, an American white supremacist, but also includes more mainstream voices like Joe Rogan, who does not self-identify as alt-right but often plays host to more extremist voices on his podcast (including alt-right figures such as Alex Jones).
The drop appears significant, but it's difficult to figure precisely how that drop occurred. We don't know if YouTube is targeting 'alt-right' videos specifically or if the drop off is part of broader changes to YouTube's recommendation system.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by ilsa on Friday March 15 2019, @06:21PM (3 children)
Didn't they announce that they were going to be making a bunch of sweeping changes to narrow the viewership of alt-fact videos like conspiracies, anti-vax, extremism, etc?
Seems to logical to me that alt-right videos would get caught up in that net.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @06:31PM
Utility functions aren't facts, and can be neither correct nor incorrect.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @06:32PM
Yeah, Youtube stopped recommending conspiracy videos like chemtrails, gay frogs, flat earth, anti-wax, Sandy Hook, 9/11 and so on. Guys like Alex Jones are less likely to be recommended and if you have people like that on a podcast...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @07:25PM
Beauty is they already have those papers, about conspiracies, anti-vax etc, lined up for the next conference.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Friday March 15 2019, @06:23PM (24 children)
Alt-right, or whatever - Youtube and it's parent Google have decided that they are the gatekeepers. They will decide what is fit for the public to see.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart he dreams himself your master."
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @06:43PM
It even helpfully refers to the ole idiot-tube right in the name.
(Score: 5, Informative) by ilsa on Friday March 15 2019, @06:45PM (8 children)
If your post was a youtube video, it would have been similarly affected. That's because you are stretching the truth to the breaking point just to satisfy your narrative.
Youtube is not blocking access to anything. If you really want to watch your conspiracy and anti-vax videos, they're still there. They just arn't getting included in the 'recommended' rotation anymore.
There's a HUGE difference between giving nutters a platform to spew nonsense on, and actually endorsing what they have to say, which is what the 'recommended' feed was effectively doing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @07:07PM
s-t-f-u!
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 15 2019, @07:40PM (2 children)
"Recommended" doesn't mean YouTube endorses the video. It just means based on what a user has searched for and watched before the videos are 'recommended' as being related to that type of content, and/or watched by other users who also watched the videos that user has watched.
Dropping obviously related content from the recommended feed is suppression. If it doesn't show up in that feed, it's as good as non-existent. It's like moving a naughty book to a random back shelf deep in the stacks and not updating the card catalog, and then having the balls to claim that, gosh, we're not censoring anything because the book is still in the library...somewhere.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by ilsa on Sunday March 17 2019, @07:36PM (1 child)
I know that and you know that, but how much do you want to bet that the average person doesn't know that? The average person that doesn't understand how recommendation systems work are going to read more into the recommendation than is actually there.
Also, keep in mind that this is in the backdrop of them de-emphasizing videos like anti-vax videos and other ridiculous conspiracy videos. Anti-Vax videos in particular are directly responsible for people dying and costing millions of dollars in health care costs. Speech is not unlimited and unrestricted, and speech that has devastating consequences must, and already has been, restricted. You can't shout "fire" in a crowded theatre for example, and rightly so.
If they are making changes that de-emphasize videos like anti-vax, conspiracies, etc, and for some alt-right videos are getting caught up in the mix, then rather than saying we need to stop doing that, we should instead be asking ourselves what the "alt-right" videos are saying that are triggering them to be de-emphasized.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by sjames on Thursday March 21 2019, @02:20AM
Perhaps more to the point, your free speech rights don't obligate me to lend you my megaphone and they don't obligate me to suggest that people go listen to you.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @08:01PM (3 children)
If real people are actually and literally interpreting a video being recommended as endorsement by YouTube then no wonder they're having kittens about the current state of society rather than writing the creators off as obscure wingnuts.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 15 2019, @08:56PM (2 children)
endorse [merriam-webster.com]
: to approve openly
endorse an idea
especially : to express support or approval of publicly and definitely
endorse a mayoral candidate
b : to recommend (something, such as a product or service) usually for financial compensation
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @09:41PM
a) Perhaps the dictionary accurately documents use in your country, but where I live a politician saying they endorse mein kamf would be met with horror rather than approval. It's pretty much the opposite of disavow over here.
b) Per that definition of endorse, there's literally nothing wrong with endorsing alt-right videos.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @09:50PM
If you actually did intend for me to parse "endorse" as "recommend", then what on earth is the word "effectively" doing in that sentence? Am I to believe you described the recommended videos list as merely "effectively recommending" videos?
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 15 2019, @06:50PM (8 children)
Are you against platforms trying to exercise a measure of control for things they might not like on their platform?
I am conflicted about it.
I would rather they not have to restrict anything. In principle.
In practice, I am of the opinion that social media may be tearing apart the fabric of society.
And . . . I don't have a magic solution to my conflictedness.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday March 15 2019, @07:15PM (2 children)
It might be a step in the right direction if we were to extend anti-libel laws to include provably false information that doesn't specifically target an individual.
Of course we'd probably still be running into the same problems with standing and proof-of-harm that makes it basically impossible to (for example) sue the government to get an unconstitutional law repealed before you've actually been materially harmed by the enforcement of that law. But that weakness could be repaired, if we cared to.
Plus, many churches would be up in arms about having to include "scientific evidence refutes this" disclaimers on so very much of their material.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Friday March 15 2019, @09:08PM (1 child)
Since religions have been around for so long, and are so widespread, maybe that falls into a different category.
But then, Santa Claus might also be a problem.
So maybe some things are grandfathered in. (Like how alcohol or aspirin would never be allowed to be legalized today.)
Or maybe what you really go after is information that can clearly cause actual harm. Like "I do not believe cigarettes cause lung cancer" CEOs. Or anti-vaxxers which I think science could make a good argument. But what about conspiracy theories like Chemtrails? Or Flat Earthers? I suppose it can be argued that Flat Earth is provably wrong. As for Climate Change Deniers, or many other topics, it is easy to manufacture controversy. Our court system has taught us how to do this, because every expert has an equal and opposite expert whose ignorant opinion is just as valid. We've been too willing to listen to utter nonsense and give it more consideration than it is due.
That's the problem that scoundrels exploit. It can be hard to define a line of what speech should be ignored -- and if we don't exclude it -- many innocent people are just too dumb to know better. Which is a failing of our education system. Which is perpetuated by dumb adults not recognizing that society could fall apart if they don't adequately fund education, which leads to underfunding, which leads to more failing education system.
To transfer files: right-click on file, pick Copy. Unplug mouse, plug mouse into other computer. Right-click, paste.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday March 16 2019, @12:00AM
I could well see an exception being carved for religion, just because of the combined political sway they hold. (and the fact that it's virtually impossible for a proclaimed atheist to get elected) Get Christian, Jews, and Muslims united in their opposition to something, and it's going to have a rough time.
I don't see how Santa Clause would be a problem though - he's pretty much only "published" in two forms: obviously fictional entertainment, which would obviously have to be exempt, and Christmas advertisements, which the world would be better off without (but I'm sure could be just as ruthlessly manipulative without involving Santa)
Conspiracy theories are another realm altogether, not least of which because it's naive to imagine that there *aren't* countless major conspiracies amongst those at the highest levels of power, and it's important that the media (both organized and, especially, independent) remain free to expose them. How to tackle the total wackjob ones though? I really don't know. There's proof of falseness, but conclusively disproving chemtrails could get really expensive fast, and we know from declassified documents the US government has in fact done similarly abhorrent experiments on unsuspecting citizens in the past, so it's hardly intellectually honest to try to simply dismiss such claims as preposterous. That's a tough one - I'm not sure there's an answer. The tough thing about conspiracies is that by definition we only know about the characteristics of the ones that were eventually exposed.
As for something like global warming - you're right, it's easy to generate controversy over something important that most people can barely understand. However, when scientific facts are at the foundation of a controversy, it seems not unreasonable to ask a simple question: is there a consensus (overwhelming majority agreement) about the facts among the actual experts in the field. And if there is then to avoid being sued anyone publishing something that disagrees with those facts always must include a prominent disclaimer that ""The overwhelming majority of experts say I'm wrong about this". That's not going to dissuade the people who've already gone down the rabbit hole, but for people just reading/watching interesting stories in their facebook feed? You're a lot less likely to get sucked in by a manufactured "controversy" when one side has to start out every argument with "The overwhelming majority of experts say I'm wrong about this, but..."
(Score: 4, Touché) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 15 2019, @07:16PM (3 children)
Like, say, deciding that Aristarchus submissions shouldn't be displayed on the front page?
He has a journal, right? Well, the Alt-Right videos are still there, too....
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @07:27PM (2 children)
lololol
cognitive dissonance laid bare! nice point.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday March 15 2019, @07:33PM (1 child)
Haha! What's truly lololol is that this IS an aristarchus sub! D'oh!
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @09:10PM
Check out the original sub, that's some serious snark, there. Right next to the alt-right video.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @07:59PM
So, are you opposed to a site like SoylentNews, where you can spew vile garbage in the comments section and your comment won't be removed?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @07:16PM (2 children)
I've never looked at videos like this, and I don't think any were recommended to me by YouTube.
So where do I fit in the scheme of things?
(Score: 3, Touché) by isostatic on Friday March 15 2019, @07:30PM (1 child)
You're normal
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:18PM
That cuts deep. You bastard.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @08:17PM
As evil as Google is, I don't think it is leading in this dance. The Establishment has required Facebook, Google and Youtube to start taking gatekeeper roles, because the Masses are consuming content out of their control.
If they fail to comply, the Establishment will make their employees riot in SJW outrage and drag them through the main stream media as slimy purveyors of hate, racism, sex and child abuse, possibly financed by Russia.
The bones of MySpace are still visible for these social media companies to see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @09:51PM
I guess that means you'll be voting for the candidate that wants to break up these gatekeepers. Sen Warren will appreciate your support.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Sulla on Friday March 15 2019, @06:54PM (3 children)
I don't particularly care what a company chooses to do with their platform, but I also don't have to continue to use their platform. I was recently watching a Scott Adams video where he talked with someone about various ways the climate can be effected. Scott was playing the part of AGW advocate and the guest was a skeptic. Google included a nice little note at the bottom telling me that the video was fake news and in their additional reading it compared the video's content to denying the moon landing. Since that came up a few weeks ago I haven't used google to search, have not watched youtube, have not used their maps or any of their other page functions. I have used gmail but I am in the middle of buying a house and its a bad time to transition, but that will be coming soon. My phone is still android, so I will probably cease using it and go back to a blackberry 10 device.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday March 15 2019, @07:21PM (2 children)
Well, if you've got a AGW denier "playing the part of AGW advocate", then it's almost by definition fake news, is it not? At best they're going to misrepresent the arguments due to ignorance, and at worst via intentional deception.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:39PM (1 child)
Why do you assume that an AGW skeptic is either ignorant or deceptive?
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Saturday March 16 2019, @07:18PM
Well, for starters they're taking part in a straw-man argument by playing the part of a supporter, rather than arguing with someone who actually knows the facts.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @06:58PM (33 children)
The real alt-right just wants to put the USA first, but the political competition (religious right, corporate globalist libertarian right, and all kinds of left) don't want the threat of that winning message.
The solution for them is two-fold. First, smear the alt-right unjustly, by labeling all sorts of racist violent people as "alt-right". That poisons the branding. Second, take advantage of this to throw a few other threats under the bus.
So the idea is that you hear "alt-right" and think "nazi fascist kkk skinhead", and that ordinary patriotic Americans will get tagged with that association. Fear keeps more people in check, discouraging them from being openly patriotic and thus making most such people feel isolated.
It's a clever tactic, and mighty evil. It works. We even have a regular user on this site who pushes it hard.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @07:10PM
yeah, richard spencer is an agent of some kind and isn't even where he's said to be politically. the fake news are these media whore propaganda platforms.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 15 2019, @07:18PM (29 children)
Yes, it is a smear. I have been walking those paths and listening to those people for the last three years. They are not crazy and they are not stupid. They're quite intelligent and make good arguments. I often disagree with them, but the way Google and others are de-platforming them makes me angry as an American. Neither they nor anyone else has the right to suppress speech they don't like. That represents the greatest threat to democracy, not anything those parties are saying.
What's more, left-wing censorship like the MSM and Big Tech are practicing now is quite likely to be counter-productive. When people are prevented from using words to express themselves, they will find other ways. That is dangerous.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 15 2019, @07:23PM (10 children)
They're not suppressing speech - the videos are still available if you care to look for them. They're just no longer actively *promoting* them via their recommendation engine.
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 15 2019, @07:32PM (9 children)
It is suppression. Douglas Adams had a brilliant bit about the notice for the demolition of Arthur Dent's house being in a sub-basement of the council building behind a door that said, "Beware of Cheetah." This is a less comical version of that. Instead of neutrally recommending content based on what a user has searched for and watched, the platform is trying to steer what he can see.
That's like being, say, a CNN viewer who turns on his TV to watch the evening broadcast only to find that it has been moved to channel 987 without telling anyone, simply because your local cable provider doesn't think it's good for you. If something like that actually happened to you, you'd probably tar and feather the local cable provider.
It's a very slippery slope. It's a dangerous thing to do. If we stop talking to each other, if we start trying to silence everyone we don't like, then violence won't be far behind.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Immerman on Friday March 15 2019, @07:45PM (2 children)
Sorry, I must disagree. The entire concept of a recommendation engine is to steer what people watch. The "neutral" form tries to steer them towards things they're more likely to sit through the ads for. A more socially responsible version will also try to steer them away from provably false content claiming to be true. And let's be honest - while a lot of "alt-right" content is legitimate difference of opinion, there's also an awful lot of of it that involves active deception, through either intent or ignorance.
(Score: 1, Offtopic) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 16 2019, @04:15AM (1 child)
You mean like what the MSM did to the Covington kids, and are now getting sued for hundreds of millions of dollars for? You mean like promulgating Jussie Smollett's racist hoax and whipping up more racial division?
Pot calling kettle black.
I don't need Big Brother, anyone's Big Brother, pre-sifting all information for me to decide what's good for me and what isn't, what's "true" and what isn't. First, I'm not a child and can judge for myself. Second, there is no absolute objective definition of what is "true" and what isn't. What one person gets triggered by is another person's sensible statement.
Seriously, does nobody read Bradbury or Vonnegut anymore? Are we about to see firefighters ransacking houses and burning books because some self-righteous prig considers them wrongthink?
It is deeply depressing that so many are ready to discard the Western tradition of free inquiry and critical thought to chase a fleeting illusion of acceptability.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Immerman on Saturday March 16 2019, @07:22PM
What you seem to be missing, and I'm beginning to believe it's willful, is that the recommendation engine is *already* sifting through all that information for you. If you use it at all, you're voluntarily submitting yourself to that.
And unfortunately, if your only sifting criteria is "maximum viewer engagement", then you're going to tend to go off the rails very quickly, because most people are extremely bad at rational thought, and easily engaged and deceived by their pre-existing biases.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by https on Friday March 15 2019, @08:02PM (2 children)
Genocide has always followed a predictable pattern, and it always start with speech of a particular kind. The form of that speech is readily identifiable. So it's not trying to silence what "we don't like", it's trying to silence people advocating allowing genocide to become a policy topic.
Genocide is not a policy to discuss. It's a crime to be punished, stopped, prevented. Not stopping these discussions, allowing them to become commonplace and open, is step one on the road to mass graves, which is a damn sight worse than the violence you're imagining "won't be far behind". Or not, I dunno, maybe you have a really vivid imagination.
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @09:02PM
You seem to have written this assuming nobody will ever be mistaken about whether something is genocide or not, the folks who believe in 'white genocide' are a real counterexample in today's society of why people need to be willing to consider that what they currently view as genocide (i.e. mass immigration) is actually acceptable policy.
The alt-right claim that a genocide is occurring and are trying to stop it. They're wrong, but this IS what many of them believe in good faith. The worst of them skip the 'debate people to convince them this genocide is wrong' stage and go straight to direct action to prevent what they incorrectly think is genocide.
They're wrong, it isn't genocide and it isn't planned, but to convince them of that you need them to be willing to discuss whether what they consider genocide is acceptable policy. By precluding that discussion you preclude attempts to convince them that what they call 'white genocide' isn't genocide.
You can't demand they be open to debating what they consider genocidal policy if you aren't.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @08:08PM
So, can you scientifically demonstrate that a genocide is just over the horizon if we allow this speech on platforms like Youtube, Google, etc.?
And I always find it funny that people don't realize that these speech restrictions will inevitably impact more than just The Bad People that everyone hates. The adpocalypse on Youtube, for example, didn't stop at nazis; it impacted many left-wing independent political commentators such as Kyle Kulinski, David Pakman, and countless others. Basically, people who aren't mega corporations and who challenge the status quo are going to be screwed over, while you sit there and pretend that only evil nazis are being smitten.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @09:58PM (2 children)
Not promoting is not the same as suppression. Are grocery stores suppressing the products that they don't put at the end of the aisle but keep on the shelves? If so, then what the fuck would you call actively taking product off the shelf?
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:35PM (1 child)
You go to the cookie aisle and all the cookies are there except cashew crunch cookies, which are on a shelf in amongst the laundry detergent.
And then you go to the nuts section, and there are no cashews there, because they are on a shelf in amongst the bug sprays.
And every day the staff moves them both to two new random locations somewhere else in the store, so that if you want them you have to search or ask a staff member.
Are they suppressing cashews?
What about if they record every time someone specifically searches for or asks for cashews?
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @06:17PM
> You go to the cookie aisle and all the cookies are there except cashew crunch cookies, (etc)
Looks like you need a lesson in marketing? The food manufacturers often buy shelf space from the supermarket. In your example above, the Cashew Crunch company didn't pony up enough for your local Snakeway (or other chain market) to get placement in the cookie aisle.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @07:32PM
Welcome to capitalism. Deplatforming is well within Alphabet DBA Google's rights. They own the platform. If the platform doesn't have the content you want, it's up to you to move to a different platform.
Additionally, a private server (platform) can be had from Linode for as little as $20/month. There is no rational reason to rely on Alphabet DBA Google.
(There is also whatever the living fuck Alphabet is doing with the misogynerd narrative. Reasons, reasons, reasons, and more reasons to #walkaway from the unblinking eye atop Barad-dûr.)
insert usual vague desire for GNUSocial, Diaspora*, and XMPP to rise to prominence (along with the great steam age) at last!
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday March 15 2019, @07:38PM (8 children)
Youtube only ever recommends music to me. Then again, I don't really use it for other purposes.
And while I'm all for freedom of expression, that includes the right of private organizations to modulate its own expression.
As long as it's not mandated by the government, it's not censorship -- it's the exercise of free speech.
And if you object to that exercise you can vote with your feet and your wallet.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 15 2019, @07:44PM (7 children)
Uh-huh. So if you want to look up somebody's number in the phone book, but can't because the publisher of the phone book thinks they're naughty, then that's perfectly OK because, hey, that person you want to call does still have a phone number. I mean, so what if nobody knows what it is, and there's no way to find out? Hey, if you don't like it, then you can go and build your own phone system, right?
How about the UPS refuses to deliver packages to your house, because you said something critical of the UPS. That's OK, right, because you could just go out and create your own multi-billion dollar delivery service overnight?
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Friday March 15 2019, @08:06PM (3 children)
Phone Book? What?
I know you live in Crooklyn. I live in the city. so I know that NY Telephone/Nynex/Bell Atlantic/Verizon/whatever those scumbags are calling themselves these days stopped distributing those more than ten years ago.
I just looked myself up on whitepages.com and I'm there. My address too. But if you want my phone number it's $5. So what was it that your were trying to say?
As for UPS, would it surprise you to know that back in the 1980s, FedEx wouldn't deliver to two places in the continental US? The Mojave Desert and Bed-Stuy. True story.
And no, I wouldn't need to start my own global delivery company -- I could use FedEx or DHL or USPS or any of dozens of smaller logistics companies.
And you can use Vimeo, Dailymotion, Wistia, Vidyard and others. Or host the content yourself.
With Google/YouTube you forget who the customer is. It ain't you. It's the advertisers. And if they don't want their ads shown next to Richard Spencer, Alex Jones, Milo or Jordan Peterson, Youtube will hop to it because they're the customer and the Golden Rule [quoteinvestigator.com] applies in spades.
It's not even about ideology like you were trying to make it out to be. It's about the almighty dollar. Don't like it, boycott those who advertise on Youtube.
I don't know who that is since I never see ads, but you're a bright guy. I'm sure you can figure it out.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @02:45PM
https://www.whitepages.com/name/Notsanguine [whitepages.com]
Liar. You are not there at all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @08:13PM (1 child)
I didn't know that you were a hardcore free marketeer anarcho-capitalist. Or are you just against regulations in this one area?
You know that hosting the same content yourself isn't viable for the vast, vast majority of people. As for the others, once they got big enough, they would simply adopt the exact same restrictions, or be dropped by payment processors and web hosts, effectively limiting their size.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 16 2019, @11:50PM
I'm not any of those things. I'm a hardcore free speech guy.
I disagree that it isn't viable, unless your goal is to make money from advertising or subscriptions or selling your content.
If you're interested in expressing yourself rather than *making money*, there are all sorts of ways to get the word out.
I'd also point out that the issues with asymmetric bandwidth and abusive ISP TOS harm free speech and aggressive regulation needs to be applied. Not likely with the cable industry's lapdog in charge of the FCC, eh?
But there's a limited amount that the FCC could do anyway. Strong municipal FTTH is definitely the way to go, but local and state legislatures around the US have been bought and paid for to keep competition out.
tl;dr: Free speech good. Making money from your speech is not a requirement of free speech.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by Immerman on Friday March 15 2019, @11:15PM (2 children)
But that's not at all what's happening. Like your phone number, the content is still there if you go looking for it, they're just no longer recommending it. It's more like if the phone book publisher refused to sell you a front-page ad, or UPS refused to hand out fliers advertising your company to their other customers.
(Score: 1, Troll) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 16 2019, @03:53AM (1 child)
Follow this behavior to its logical conclusion. Substitute other groups and beliefs for the one you don't like and see if it still feels hunky dory to you.
Let's imagine YouTube/Google and their ilk doing this to people who eat meat, because meat is bad for you and bad for the environment. Are you still OK with them not "recommending" related content?
Let's imagine they do this to LGBT people, because homosexuality is immoral and likely to spread STDs (or whatever justification you like). Are you still OK with it?
And so on.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 16 2019, @04:46AM
If you don't like how Google does business, don't use their services.
Or do you believe that we need a 28th amendment that extends the 14th amendment to private organizations?
I'm not making fun, I just want to understand what you think an appropriate "remedy" might be.
I'd also point out that it's simple enough to host your own content -- the "value" for most Youtubers is the *revenue* they get for ads displayed next to their content -- without having to set up interfaces from your own infrastructure to google's advertising platform.
As I said earler, remember that for google you are the *product*, not the customer.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 4, Insightful) by edIII on Friday March 15 2019, @08:25PM (4 children)
De-platforming is fake news, or essentially meaningless.
It's difficult for people to put what the Internet is into perspective. Google is at most providing what amounts to private property whereby people can "visit" and peruse content. Just like a 7-11 can refuse service with "No shoes, no shirt, no service", Google can refuse service for similar reasons. They are a private company, and never waived those rights. Does a person have a right to enter Disneyland, set up a soapbox, and espouse their politically charged views? The answer is clearly no. They do have a right to do so on public property, which by nature, is owned and operated by the public. "We The People" would never restrict the content of a soapbox speech, although in practice, that has very much happened in the past too for topics like Communism and Socialism. Those topics have been deliberately construed to be the same, when anybody over the age of 50 damn well knows that Socialism != Communism. People were not so much de-platformed as they were harassed. For anybody that knows the history of unions and protesting is aware of how they were suppressed too, and often labeled Communists, Socialists, and anti-Capitalists which translated into anti-American. Yet, all of the success and prosperity enjoyed in the 50's and 60's was precisely because of high union participation.
Before Internet based platforms for mass discussion and dissemination of information, you had publishers that could publish your books, public (and private) venues to hold your conferences and speeches. Stopping it usually required pressing the owners of the private property to disallow the events, of they made the bureaucracy create so much difficulty with proper permits that it effectively stifled speech. Yet, at the end of the day, free speech still existed in public spaces.
What the real argument is about here is exposure and money. Internet platforms allow the views being espoused to reach far and wide beyond the soapbox on a street corner, and unlike the soapbox, offers several different methods of monetization. It's the difference between forced listening and free speech. The minorities in this case (the Alt-right and White Nationalists) are complaining because their voices are being silenced in the places that are in the majority occupied by people who find those views utterly repugnant. They can't go back to pre-Internet spaces because they know that practically nobody is listening there anymore, or the amount of people exposed for their recruitment and conversion to their views is far less. It would require a lot more time and organization to put a White Nationalist on every street corner prepared with a soapbox and talking points. Time is money, and they don't make any that way either. That, quite understandably, pisses them off :) Well, fuck them. We don't want to hear their shit, and Google and the others are private companies, and as such, will pander to the groups responsible for the majority of their revenue. Total shocker, I know. So Alex Jones isn't as nearly pissed off about the lack of exposure as he is about the lack of monetization of said exposure. He's in it to make money, not espouse views hoping that we will change for the better as he understands it.
Nobody has free speech rights with an Internet platform, because it is in it's entirety, a private venue.
I agree with you that it's not a great idea to give so much power, money, and influence to private platforms. We also desperately need the art of debate to come back more than anything. Not just the ability to express controversial and/or minority views, but the ability to discuss these things. What we truly need is a mass public space in cyberspace where civil rights can be defended. You can't be deplatformed by law, but at the same time, a public platform will not have "recommended" or "likes" or anything possibly related to endorsement. Nor will it have any kind of monetization present either. Just a search function. If the owner of a video wants more exposure they can enter into a linking agreement with other video owners to share their links, and share links between all of their videos. Monetization would necessarily only occur with private platforms like Patreon.
Beyond a public platform though, there is nothing that can be done against Google being the gatekeepers of what we see. Yes, that is very problematic and quite worrisome, even though the I technically side with most of the views and likewise find Alt-right people to be morally and intellectually repugnant.
Finally, the tiniest of the tiny violins for all of you. I never agreed with, or participate in these social platforms precisely because of the power we give them. I deliberately keep Amazon as less than 5% of all of my purchases because I absolutely know it doesn't help me, or America, when I prop up those anti-American anti-union companies. I support employee owned businesses before all others. So for those bitching about it, get off your asses and create a public platform that deliberately stands up for free speech, and get ready for the storm of CTRL-LEFT bullshit to rain down upon you. It will be up to you to weather it and stick to your principles. I would monetarily support such a space too, and if hosted by a public department of the government, pay taxes for its operation.
Technically, lunchtime is at any moment. It's just a wave function.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @10:12PM
Free Speech isn't the first amendment to your constitution.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 16 2019, @04:06AM (2 children)
It is exasperating to sit here in 2019 and hear this kind of argument. Have we not spent the last several decades tearing down country clubs that want to exclude Jews and black people? I mean, hey, according to the argument you're stating it's perfectly OK for businesses to discriminate that way because they're private companies.
Please look past these blind spots. If you do this today to people you don't like, you better believe they will return the favor double tomorrow.
It's cute to sit atop three of the most prominent platforms for public discourse, Hollywood, the MSM, and Big Tech, dominated by the Left, and sniff that if conservatives don't like it then they can go right ahead and build their own services. Except, when they go ahead and do that like they've done with Gab and Dissenter, the Left-dominated outlets chop away at the financial services they use to get paid by their audiences and work very hard to get them de-platformed at the basic levels of the Internet.
That behavior is un-American, and, frankly, dangerous. Shit, I'm a progressive and hate Nazis, but this kind of crap from the Left is not progressive, but Marxist-Leninist.
If we don't like others have to say, we answer with vigor. We don't silence them. If we do silence their words, they will answer with fists. Bet on it.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 16 2019, @05:08AM
And how did we "[tear] down country clubs that want to exclude Jews and black people"? Certainly not through government regulation/threat of force. When such action has been tried [wikipedia.org], the Supremes smacked it down. Hard.
Because freedom of expression doesn't just extend to expression that you like (cf. NSPA v. Skokie [wikipedia.org]).
And Google's "recommendation engine" is absolutely expression. And given that Google is not a government entity, they can choose (or not) to express themselves however they like (with certain caveats like inciting to riot or credible physical threats).
As to your example in another post (meat and LGBT), if Google chose to do the same for those topics, it would be the same thing.
You say "If we don't like others have to say, we answer with vigor. We don't silence them. If we do silence their words, they will answer with fists. Bet on it."
And I agree wholeheartedly. But demanding that Google act as *we* wish (promoting and defending free expression) and trying to back that up with government action is just as wrong as doing the same to promote censorship.
As for those being "silenced" (which is far too expansive a term for the consequences of what Google is doing), if they choose to "answer with fists," then they will, as they should, be prosecuted. And that goes just as much for those who decry being marginalized/"silenced" for their speech in support of LGBT/vegetarianism/pro or anti-choice stances/etc.
And in the end, just as with any other corporation, Google will act to maximize profit. That's what corporations do. As such, it seems a little silly to call Google's actions "Marxist-Leninist."
They are acting (rightly or wrongly, ethically or unethically) to benefit their shareholders. That's pretty far from "Marxist-Leninist" if you ask me.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 16 2019, @08:17PM
The Left? Hardly. The neoliberal, corporatist, authoritarian left? Yes.
(Score: 4, Informative) by aristarchus on Friday March 15 2019, @09:19PM (2 children)
Oh, contraire, mon cheri! They are quite crazy (racist) and really stupid (racist), and since they are so, they tend to go beyond words even when they are given a platform, since ultimately they are frustrated by language, because it doesn't work when you are crazy and stupid. Case in point, cf. "Runaway1956". You are right, deplatforming is not enough, these people need to be incapacitated, incarcerated, and educated.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @10:44PM
You are far too optimistic, the world isn't so convenient as to make critically important facts obvious. Indeed the world hardly seems to care how important something is to us when providing (or not) evidence for it.
Most people aren't nonracist because they've read the papers proving it, they're nonracist because they've perceived no meaningful difference/been told from a young age there isn't a meaningful one. Those who were unfortunate enough to perceive a meaningful difference due to small sample sizes and/or been told from a young age there is one are just as justified in being racist as most people are in not.
Racism doesn't imply stupidity, beware the horns effect.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Saturday March 16 2019, @04:35AM
Listen to yourself, aristarchus. "Incapacitated, incarcerated, and educated?" That sounds an awful lot like the Khmer Rouge when setting up the Killing Fields.
Are you really sure that you should be talking like that when your guy isn't holding the reins of power? Because that's the kind of talk that makes the guy you don't like want to not give up power, since you've promised him he's going to be "incapacitated, incarcerated, and educated." Why shouldn't he pre-empt you, if that's what you intend to do, and do it to you first?
I get that you and others don't like Runaway, jmorris, khallow, frojack (although, I haven't seen his moniker in a while), but letting them say things we think are stupid is the price of us not having to shoot at each other.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by https on Friday March 15 2019, @07:42PM (1 child)
The problem with this nonsensical theory is that it's not an association, but a direct connection. The "alt-right" correctly realized that correctly calling themselves Neo-Nazi (from hence much of their ideology) would have a negative marketing effect.
Back in the 90s, Umberto Eco published an essay outlining fourteen essential components of fascism [nybooks.com]. (fair warning: 5,000+ words) Any one of them is dangerous as public policy, and combining two or three of them spells trouble for anyone who isn't an identifiable member of the group pushing the bullshit. At the same time, the smorgasbord of combinations possible allows for a dozen different fascist groups to each suggest to the unwary, "we can't be fascist, we're nothing like group B over there!" and a hundred groups to each spuriously claim "we are not exactly like them, we're different! Different is better!" But it's still fascism and still bullshit and still people dead for no reason but existing while not an identifiable member of the in-group.
Hey Buzzard, does that make me the evil regular user?
Offended and laughing about it.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @08:42PM
Nazi policy is to control industry via the government, ban guns, support abortion... does that really sound like the right?
You're just mixing things up, probably on purpose. Surprise me: admit you were wrong.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Friday March 15 2019, @07:24PM
I have also noticed that starting last week videos from those kinds of voices have started glitching, freezing, and crashing. It's not 100%, but it doesn't take a genius to figure out how to write a probability function to cause those problems with enough randomness to create plausible deniability.
If there are people out there with direct knowledge of companies shadow banning, they must tell them to cut it out. It doesn't take much for things to escalate and spiral out of control.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @08:25PM
You don't say!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @08:39PM (3 children)
Fuck all of this, can't somebody just host content who only cares about serving their users?
Liberty and free speech are insufficient defence against tyranny as Wiemar showed, but censorship isn't the answer, teaching critical thinking is. Just gotta be careful those critical thinking classes don't slowly become indoctrination classes by rejecting even the least-controversial political statements from them. ``Slavery is bad.'' should be considered unacceptable to be taught to children by the state, not because it's wrong, but because the area between it and full blown indoctrination is all smoothly darkening grey without any sharp divisions, and so you'll never muster enough people to stop a slide through it because nothing dramatic ever changes and there are no red-lines to be drawn anywhere except at the start.
(Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Friday March 15 2019, @09:01PM (1 child)
Yeah. It's called Diaspora [diasporafoundation.org].
It's open source and anyone can host a pod. It's a bit of a pain to set up, as the devs don't really seem interested in making it simple for Jenny Six Pack to set it up. A nice clean installer would go a long way, if...we can get symmetric bandwidth for consumers.
A pod could host just a small group of users and they can link up with whatever other pods they like.,
We'd need add in some grassroots work to get there though. Municipal FTTH enabling competition among ISPs making them stop port blocking and using abusive TOS. That will require cleaning out the sewers of filthy lucre from the big ISPs to local and state elected offcials.
I find the bigoted morons to be quite objectionable, but just because they're hateful pieces of shit, it doesn't mean they don't have free speech rights.
I keep waiting by the phone for Ajit to call and ask me what we should do, but it hasn't happened yet. Maybe I'll hold my breath.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @09:06PM
A p2p www replacement would be a helluva thing to see.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 15 2019, @09:29PM
Hey, AC! Prof. AC here! Bring your weak little mind into my classroom, and I will have you indoctrinated before you can recite π! First, I will display the instruments of indoctrination. Words, many words, words representing ideas, ideas that are the material of reasoning. Then I will require you to use them! This can be quite painful for those unused to thinking, so it may hurt at first. But as you progress, and become progressive, you will realize the errors of your past ignorance and conservative feefees. So, please! Step into my classroom, or that of any institution of higher learning! What, are ya scared, punk? Go ahead, make my millennial!