
YouTube Is Removing Some Nootropics Channels - freedomben
https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/9kgpk5/youtube-is-removing-nootropics-channels
======
jerf
"Cronin’s YouTube channel was up to about 22,000 subscribers when he received
a notice from YouTube about one of his videos, “Relax and Improve Your Sleep
with Natural Calm Magnesium.” The notice said the video had been removed for
violating YouTube’s community guidelines, but didn’t specify further."

Magnesium isn't even a nootropic. That is, while it may have some ability to
boost cognition, it isn't a substance primarily ingested for that reason. It
is a substance primarily ingested so that the person ingesting it will stay
alive.

A quick cruise around Duck Duck Go suggests that while science isn't saying
you should use magnesium for sleep per se, it isn't necessarily a crazy idea
in desperate need of being censored. Certainly the idea that magnesium is
generally deficient is widespread, with estimates around 50% not meeting the
US RDA for magnesium in the US, and while magnesium may not be a good solution
for insomnia _qua_ insomnia, it can be a good solution for many things that
may be _causing_ you to be "unable to sleep"[1], whether or not that is
"insomnia".

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_deficiency_(medicine...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnesium_deficiency_\(medicine\)#Signs_and_symptoms)

~~~
jrhurst
Problem is medical claims are highly regulated in the West. So there is a
likely legal liability for youtube in the US and in the UK. In fact, they
might have already had pressure from regulators.

~~~
vertexFarm
“Nothing illegal, no medical advice offered, I've always been incredibly
careful about this.”

The article then goes on to name several videos with titles like "increase
energy," "improve concentration and memory," "improve sleep," etc.

Are there any lawyers around who know of a legal definition for "medical
advice" or "medical claims?" Because these videos sound a lot like medical
advice despite his insistence that they aren't.

Youtube censorship sucks sometimes, but this guy experimenting on himself is
not nearly rigorous enough to figure out what's really happening when he is
taking these supplements. When a person sets out to improve themselves with
drugs, test the process on themselves, and interpret and analyze those results
themselves, it's a viper's pit of biases. Obviously the experimenter has a
huge personal stake in the experiment (arguably the largest; his person is the
experiment!) and that generally is great for motivation but bad for science.

I like playing with nootropics but I'm also relatively healthy and I can't
imagine how damaging it might be for a seriously ill person who is taking
advice from youtube in a desperate and futile attempt to improve their
condition and survive. The ethics are pretty complex, above my pay grade for
sure.

~~~
driverdan
Those are called non-functional claims and are allowed in the US.

Any time you see something non-specific like "boosts the immune system" or
"increases energy" it means the product is likely worthless because those
claims don't actually mean anything.

~~~
p1necone
How do those claims not mean anything? They sound pretty clear to me.

~~~
X-Istence
Because the FDA has very specific rules as to what constitutes medical advice
and what doesn't. The claim of "helps you sleep" is not medical advice and not
regulated.

It's the reason so many "nutrition" companies can get away with claiming all
kinds of things such as "burn fat faster". That statement means something to
you and I, but it's not a medical statement.

~~~
p1necone
The comment I was replying to said the claims had no meaning, not referring to
the FDA.

They might be "meaningless" to actual medical professionals or people with
decent knowledge of the ways that companies skirt product labelling laws. But
the average layperson who might buy these products is probably neither of
those things and is more likely to interpret them literally.

------
joew42k
Youtube is a private company and can do whatever they want with their own
website. Nobody's stopping makers of these videos from hosting the videos
themselves.

This is not censorship in the way we have traditionally understood. It only
feels like it because Youtube is where the biggest audience is. It's the same
whenever Facebook penalizes a post in the timeline, or whenever Google hides
content from the search results. They feel like a the phone company or the
post office - neutral platforms where people expect the right to free speech.
In reality, they are publishers that exercise editorial discretion.

If we had focused on building decentralized platforms with interoperability
and open standards, this wouldn't be an issue. Instead, you all wanted to make
money. (Understandable)

My proposal - the government should recognize that network effects produce
defacto monopolies, and use existing anti-trust law to break up these behemoth
platforms, or force regulation on them.

In the mean time, I'll shout "i told you so" from my lonely, facebookless,
linux-powered compound.

~~~
JackCh
The _" my preferred definition of censorship specifies that it can only be
done by governments, and [company] is not a government"_ rhetoric that always
appears with these sort of stories is truly tiring and pedantic. Nobody here
thinks that youtube is a government. The problem isn't people thinking that
youtube is a government; the problem is people thinking that censorship is
something only a government can do, or thinking that because censorship is
legal (when done by corporations) people shouldn't complain when it happens.
Many things that are legal are worth complaining about.

With regard to the rest of your comment, I'm not confident breaking up the
google 'monopoly' would actually solve this problem. If you spun youtube off
as its own company distinct from the rest of google, wouldn't it still have a
virtual monopoly on this user-uploaded online video space? How would you
actually solve that? Split youtube itself into several "Baby Youtubes"? How
would that work, which one would get the domain name?

~~~
joew42k
> the problem is people thinking that censorship is something only a
> government can do,

It's not. Private companies can attempt to silence people.

But Youtube isn't preventing the creators from hosting content elsewhere. They
aren't hitting them with a slapp lawsuit. They aren't colluding with other
websites to ban these videos.

Youtube is just saying "host these somewhere else." How is that different from
a publishing company choosing not to publish a book?

Well it is a little different. For the reason I mentioned in my post. Because
youtube is the only game in town.

> I'm not confident breaking up the google 'monopoly' would actually solve
> this problem.

The problem, in my eyes, is that youtube can ban you, and there is no
alternative place to host your videos with the same level of exposure. Having
a competitive market place would solve this problem, and give video hosting
sites an incentive to treat creators fairly.

~~~
JackCh
> _" But Youtube isn't preventing the creators from hosting content elsewhere.
> They aren't hitting them with a slapp lawsuit. They aren't colluding with
> other websites to ban these videos."_

Again, you're not refuting anything that anybody here actually thinks.

> _" Well it is a little different. For the reason I mentioned in my post.
> Because youtube is the only game in town."_

Exactly, which is why the devil's advocate routine is so tiring.

> _" The problem, in my eyes, is that youtube can ban you, and there is no
> alternative place to host your videos with the same level of exposure.
> Having a competitive market place would solve this problem, and give video
> hosting sites an incentive to treat creators fairly."_

I agree, but how could that actually be accomplished? If the government split
up google/youtube like they split Bell, what would go to who? Would one of the
Baby Youtube's get the "youtube" domain/brand? Or could they all? Would
youtube.com just give you a "web portal" that impartially linked to all the
various Baby Youtubes that were created by fracturing youtube? Would third
party video websites unrelated to the youtube breakup get a place on that web
portal?

~~~
joew42k
> Again, you're not refuting anything that anybody here actually thinks.

And you aren't refuting what I said. How is this any different than a book
publisher deciding what books to publish? Are you saying youtube and other
websites should be forced to host content they don't agree with? Should HN be
held to the same rules? How would that work?

------
logfromblammo
If you derive a significant portion of your income from streaming video
content, you should probably be using hosting sites like YouTube and Vimeo
only to mirror your self-hosted content and drive traffic back to servers you
control if you can.

You never know when companies like Alphabet or Facebook or Amazon or Apple
will pull the rug out from beneath you and yank away that source of income, so
don't stand on their rugs. If you let someone stand between you and your
money, there will be someone standing between you and your money.

And as there is no way they could possibly review all uploaded videos with
actual humans, much of this enforcement is done by machine detection and
automated processing, and you will _never_ get any explanation from a human,
unless you are in the top 1000 accounts ranked by how much money they make
_for YouTube_.

Not that this sort of content needs to be in video form, anyway. If I feel the
need to learn about new, unregulated, or misregulated drugs, I'd prefer
reading text, with as few still images as is possible to convey the needed
information.

------
crankylinuxuser
That's a bummer. But I guess Google knows better, or something.

Pardon me, while I go watch "Peppa Pig Goes to the dentist crying Elsa". It's
been on YT since Feb 2017.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVx4hA0Tcdo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVx4hA0Tcdo)

Aside the snark, its time to regulate how our data is used, what decisions are
made upon it, and a proper grievance for companies that do that. The GDPR is a
good start, to be honest.

------
kristofferR
This is really scary. People who warned of the slippery slope of censorship
were definitely right.

~~~
pboutros
There's a difference between "removing false/misleading videos that perpetuate
a scam" and Fahrenheit 451

~~~
jerf
Depends on who gets to decide what "false/misleading" is. I'm not sure how
this could be any less transparent. I personally see less than no reason to
trust YouTube's judgment in these matters.

~~~
maxerickson
So should it be illegal to run a curated platform?

~~~
merinowool
To be fair information is a weapon and there should be no free reign for
anyone. If you are on purpose suppressing some information to fulfil political
agenda - that should be a criminal act.

~~~
maxerickson
So what's a political agenda?

Is the promotion of cats a political agenda? Can allcats.com take down videos
of dogs?

~~~
RoyTyrell
> Can allcats.com take down videos of dogs?

Sure. Why shouldn't a private entity be able to determine what kind of speech
they allow on their own property?

~~~
girvo
Because if they have a huge defacto monopoly, and also a outsized impact on
our culture, the impacts of them doing so are far more far-reaching than, say,
LiveLeak removing some video (trying to think of a competitor for YT is
surprisingly hard).

------
wcunning
The question I have about this, gun related content and anything else that is
"A violation of our T&C" is this: when does YouTube/FB/whatever stop being a
safe harbor according to the DMCA? Which special interest group (NRA?) is
going to bankroll the law suit against Google for hosting copyrighted content
without permission and that they are entirely liable because they're
exercising editorial control? Or is the safe harbor provision toothless
because Google is a giant?

------
kristofferR
YouTube will probably remove fitness videos soon, since some people invariably
are stupid and will hurt themselves with the exercises on display, a
completely analogous situation.

~~~
atomical
Exercise is much different from research chemicals. One difference is you
don't need to buy exercise from shady sites that will eventually be shut down
by the FDA.

~~~
kristofferR
You didn't bother to read the article, this isn't about research chemicals.

And even if it was about RCs - talking about them and sharing experiences
should be allowed, censorship of information only aids misuse.

~~~
atomical
Many research chemicals are sold as nootropics. We are allowed to discuss
things that are related.

But not sell them, which is what YouTubers do indirectly through affiliate
links.

------
newnewpdro
Without having watched any of this stuff, my assumption is these videos are
not clear enough in disclaiming any confirmed medicinal or FDA-approved
effects. If the content is tantamount to advertising on the level the
supplement manufacturers are prohibited from (and careful to avoid) doing
themselves, it's probably appropriate for YouTube to close down the channels.
Especially if these YouTubers are somehow generating income from the "product
reviews".

~~~
awakeasleep
I bet this is close to the real issue here. All this guy's videos were hawking
products from specific manufacturers.

Anyone know whether he disclosed that he was being compensated by the
companies?

------
yladiz
I remember when I was in high school, I got onto Something Awful and saw some
posting about nootropics and was interested in the possible effects, like
improved memory and sharper concentration, so I got some (I think piracetam).
In the instructions it said it would take some time to work, like a week or
two, and after a few days of feeling the same and seemingly having no effects
I stopped taking them and the only benefit I got afterwards was selling the
remaining pills to my friend since they apparently make the high from pot more
intense.

Beyond the anecdote I don't think this is censorship from Youtube, it's likely
the creators were either venturing into advertising/selling products as the
primary purpose of their videos, or giving some kind of medical advice about
how they can improve your life/body, or both, both of which I think are
against Youtube ToS. Given that it's a story from Motherboard we're probably
just getting a partial part of the story and the article is just making it
seem like Youtube is censoring something they shouldn't, rather than putting
the creators at fault.

------
kawfey
New Ask HN thread: where are creators migrating to in lieu of YouTube?

Vimeo? Twitch? Facebook? Metacafe or Dailymotion? There are also also already
dozens of dapps for streaming like dtube, lbry, viewly, lino, flixxo....(etc,
just see
[https://www.google.com/search?q=decentralized+youtube](https://www.google.com/search?q=decentralized+youtube)),
but I don't see any particular venue rising above the rest, as a lot of
creators seem to choose "all of the above" as an answer, syndicating content
across as many domains as possible.

~~~
21
There is nowhere to go, no platform wants to host polarizing videos, which
will alternatively be attacked by both the far left and the far right (mostly
by the left today since tech companies employees mostly sympathize with them
thus they get more favorable outcomes)

~~~
mike00632
Looking into DTube, their about page says, "Because of the decentralized
nature of IPFS and the STEEM blockchain, D.Tube is not able to censor videos,
nor enforce guidelines. Only the users can censor it, through the power of
their upvotes and downvotes."

------
ComputerGuru
YouTube has a monopoly on free online video and this is what monopoly looks
like.

When Google bought out YouTube, as those that were online back then can
attest, there were dozens of not hundreds of competing sites. None of those
could hold a candle to the resources Google’s cash could buy, and they quickly
dropped out of the running. The only site still around is probably vimeo, and
only because they were smart enough to not target the masses and instead pick
a niche to serve.

~~~
mike00632
The few video sites that have managed to compete with YouTube all have
interesting angles. There is DailyMotion, which is popular in France and seems
to play fast and loose with IP laws. Tudou for when you're behind the great
Chinese Firewall. Facebook videos, which compete in view counts with YouTube
by force of their own monopoly on social media. And Twitch which carved out a
niche in video game streaming. Maybe we should consider Twitter videos too.
RIP Vine.

------
pasbesoin
Here's part of the deal:

Take YouTube, a large commercial interest.

Add their lobbying, that is participating and influencing a _limited,_ largely
invitation-only discussion of what video distribution is and will be on the
Web.

(I say largely invitation-only, because 10's and 100's of thousands of us can
mount campaigns "of the masses" without moving the needle, or generating only
a temporary reaction until the powers that be can slip their changes through
another avenue or after simply wearing us out.)

Now, they are no longer "just" a commercial provider, free to choose what they
wish to host.

They are defining the very nature of Web video (and, more broadly, content)
distribution -- to suit their own purposes.

THAT's why you worry when big players start doing stuff. Because it tends to
become "the law".

------
RIMR
Look, I know there are plenty of people here who will sing the praises of
their chosen Nootropic stack, but quite honestly, the majority of the videos I
have seen on the subject online tout over-the-counter supplements as miracle
pills with limitless-esque possibilities.

9/10 pieces of advice I see on Nootropic use amount to dangerous and
misinformed medical advice.

I can understand why YouTube would want to avoid looking complicit in all of
this, especially with more than one popular Nootropic supplement sending users
to the hospital in recent months.

~~~
nyrulez
I wasn't aware YouTube is liable for any advice on it's platform. Is that the
case?

------
retox
Big pharma are untouchable on TV (the silence around mass shooters and
prescription meds is deafening) so my guess is you will soon see more pharma
ads on YouTube etc. Can't upset the sponsors now.

------
dawhizkid
My curiosity about nootropics was the only reason I bought Bitcoin in 2014 so
I could buy them online.

------
digitalneal
Would be interesting to know if these "silenced" channels have monetization
turned on.

------
erickhill
I had to Google what a Nootropic even was.

TL;DR It is suggested they improve cognitive function (memory, focus, etc.).
They are not fully regulated and you can find examples for sale on Amazon. As
such, no idea if short or long-term usage is safe but it's interesting product
if you simply read what the labels claim.

~~~
deelowe
Nootropics aren't really products in and of themselves. Caffeine is a
nootropic for example. There's a pretty broad range from herbals all the way
to perscriotion and illicit drugs.

------
eulers__number
there needs to be a decentralized YouTube

~~~
ungzd
On blockchain.

~~~
TomTomXC
Like DTube?

------
xstephen95x
Who is YouTube to decide what I can and can't watch?

~~~
butterfi
The owners of the platform. They are not a public service nor to they have to
pretend to be one.

~~~
politician
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_owned_public_space](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Privately_owned_public_space)

YouTube essentially has a monopoly on video. Monopolies and other actors can
be forced to comply with public space laws or to respect principles that
normally apply only to the government.

~~~
tptacek
How exactly does Youtube have a monopoly on video? What's the underlying
scarcity they're exploiting?

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Well, they are the de-facto curator of the bulk of our civilizations videos.
Lets be honest, if you aren't on YouTube your chances of being
searched/promoted/seen are greatly diminished. Maybe to nearly zero.

~~~
reitanqild
The only video content I can remember paying for has been on vimeo and udemy.

But then again I'm old fashioned and like to read about stuff on some web site
and then click to whatever video hosting site they use.

------
lostgame
I run an independent music label in Toronto, and our group has been
considering for some time to create a semi-serialized web series but one of
the big prohibiting factors in us actually getting it done is that nobody
wants to use YouTube.

If we generate a serious following that is dependent on the platform we're
giving up a tremendous degree of creative control and direction for our fans.

Not to mention the serious lock-down on live-streaming musical content, and
copyright restrictions. If so much as five seconds of the wrong song is
playing in the background, the whole episode gets pulled.

Can we do a cover of 'x'? Other people have, but will ours get pulled?

Here we have an instance where hundreds of other similar videos and channels
exist, yet these three individuals were singled out.

If there was at least consistency in the censorship and copyright stuff, or a
proper channel for communication, the platform would still be viable.

But, like the Apple iOS App Store, you can produce an entire project, upload
it, and, if it even gets up there to start, you've basically just gotta cross
your fingers and hope it stays there, because the right to pull it at any time
is there.

tl;dr: at least if YouTube, Apple, etc, were consistent with censorship and
offered proper channels of communication they would be much more viable
platforms.

~~~
joew42k
My advice would be to use
[https://indieweb.org/POSSE](https://indieweb.org/POSSE) That approach might
be more agreeable with your label-mates.

I wouldn't put covers in the videos at all. You're right, that's a legal
minefield. Just use original music that you have the rights to.

------
sometimelydat
They will not stop at nootropics, nor psychedelics; They will stop at nothing.

~~~
weego
I mean, I think you'd find they would stop at content that was suitable for
their ad partners to run profitable ad campaigns on. That is after all how
they keep the lights on.

------
enginaar
So a creator trusts the guidelines provided by youtube and invests in a
business to find out later youtube can actually shut that business down
without a tangible reason. I don't understand how being a private entity gives
youtube the right to make a false advertisement and treat their creators as
fools.

Is it clearly stated that youtube can remove your videos just because?
(considering, claiming it's not fitting guidelines is as vague as claiming it
is bad for the environment)

~~~
mynameisvlad
Of course it is. Almost every single sharing service has some sort of clause
in their ToS that they can remove any content at their discretion.

~~~
enginaar
I get that. I wish I emphasized "clearly" because it seems common practice to
create a false perception of justice/security/privacy with almost every single
online service now. I just don't understand how this practice can be the
"right" of any entity not just private. This sounds like an excuse for people
who know to despise others for not knowing.

------
josteink
While it seemed against the times when I, in the age of YouTube, Spotify and
Netflix, decided to start to build my media library with Plex...

...with artists suddenly withdrawing their music from streaming services...

...and Netflix constantly upping their price while enforcing ever more
stringent HW-requirements for “good enough” DRM throughout your media rig for
“premium” content...

...and YouTube happy to censor anything not approved by the Sanfran extreme
left...

I have to say I really start appreciating having a personally curated,
persistent library of media which is mine to own, and mine to decide where and
how I use.

Everything old is new again, I guess.

