
YouTube's New Moderators Mistakenly Pull Right-Wing Channels - Jerry2
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-28/youtube-s-new-moderators-mistakenly-pull-right-wing-channels
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lurker69
Its not a mistake and its not a coincidence that this happened. Youtube
employed a lot of left wing NGOs like SPLC and ADL and lots of similar left
wing authoritarians. Left wing commentators were cheering the news that
InfoWars might get banned from youtube. They are extremely short sighted. This
very tool will soon be turned against them too.

Damore warned about google hiring policies. Susan Wojcicki, CEO of youtube is
sister of Sergei Brins (Sergey Brin, together with Larry Page, co-founded
Google) ex wife.

ToS on most of social media are too vague for fair moderation and moderators
are too ideologically driven. Social media became largest meeting place humans
had in history. Moderation should not be controlled on the whims of CEOs and
business interests.

~~~
krapp
If it were the case that Google and Youtube were actively engaged in a
campaign of "left wing authoritarianism," and that Google employed "a lot of
left wing NGOs like SPLC and ADL" specifically to implement such an agenda
(which is what you seem to be implying,) why would they allow right-wing
content to be hosted to begin with, or not specify under their terms of
service that they only allow left-wing content?

I understand the need for right-wingers to believe themselves to be victims of
global leftist persecution, many forms of identity politics do so, but Youtube
can legally delete any material from their platform under any terms they
choose. There's no need for a conspiracy when you already have absolute and
arbitrary power.

~~~
lurker69
Youtube publicly stated that they are working with SPLC and ADL on Youtubes
Trusted Flagger Program. I am not implying that this was plan of evil CEOs
from the start. But they let it happen. They let political bias seep in and
steer public discourse on largest communication channels we have. This recent
ridiculously vague "hate speech" rules can be used to prevent posting anything
negative about arbitrary topics is we define those things as "protected
groups" first. This is not partisan problem. Sooner or later this censorship
that is normal now will be used against the left too.

I’m more on the side of saying that Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and the like
are large enough that they should be thought of as public space. Having as
much social interaction as we do on platforms that can be controlled on the
whims of CEOs and business interests isn’t much different than government
control of ideas, and I would argue it’s worse because the government is at
least elected. They have transcended beyond a business-customer relationship
and have become the largest meeting space in history, and as such they should
be free and open just like a public square.

~~~
pasabagi
I think the problem is the right wing stalwarts like Alex Jones are doing
stuff like inciting people to send hate mail to the people who lost their kids
at the Sandy Hook massacre. Further, hate speech rules are often codified in
law, and for good reason. It's not youtube's fault that mainstream rightwing
culture is deeply sick, neither is it politicized censorship to censure people
like Alex Jones.

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octonion
They're two conspiracy-theory scumbags who should be booted off YouTube. It's
a private company, not a common carrier.

~~~
Double_a_92
The problem is that that private company is so big it's basically entangled
with most (younger) peoples lifes.

Edit: Talking in general about censorship. Not about those 2 specific
conspiracy theorists...

Edit 2: Ok good, calm down. I guess we should censor everyone that doesn't
agree with us. Even if "us" is some private company that somehow got control
of your kids. Got it :)

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singularity2001
the last thing the world needs is more censorship

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nanis
"mistakenly"

~~~
tutts
Eh. The explanation they offered that they were hiring a large mass of
moderators and some of them made mistakes is more than plausible. When they
add that many people it's really inevitable that someone would get over-eager
or misread the message of a video.

~~~
dreta
It can hardly be called a mistake when the same doesn’t happen to people and
channels that align themselves politically with Google’s internal policies and
culture.

Google can do as they please, YouTube is theirs, but you can’t seriously
accept statements like these at face value.

~~~
tutts
Of course it can. Taking this action against someone with a political stance
opposite from yours may be a mistake you're more likely to make, but it's
still a mistake.

Besides that, the point I was trying to make was less about whether it was a
mistake, and more that it's plausible that this was something that was done by
an individual against company policy rather than in accordance with it.

~~~
nanis
Regardless of whether the actions are against company policy, they were taken
on purpose by the "moderators".

~~~
tutts
I don't dispute that. What I dispute is the implication that they had been
instructed to do so by Google.

~~~
CompanionCuuube
So similar to the Wells Fargo account creation fraud.

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Hydraulix989
Good thing DTube topped HN the other day:

[https://d.tube/](https://d.tube/)

