
YouTube CEO calls EU’s proposed copyright regulation financially impossible - doener
https://www.theverge.com/2018/11/12/18087250/youtube-ceo-copyright-directive-article-13-european-union
======
consumer451
I watch a decent amount of YouTube, but if it went away, I don’t think that it
would be a net loss to humanity given what YT shows to children [0], and how
YT radicalizes viewers [1]. It’s actually Patreon that pays my favorite
creators, not YT, so they could protentially distribute videos via any other
site. A new site for discovery would likely rise up, if Patreon didn’t do that
themselves.

This is the entire platform vs publisher argument that tech companies have
been hiding under for years. No one is responsible for content, and look what
that’s gotten us. I would shed no tears if YT ended operation in the EU, where
I live.

[0] [https://www.wired.co.uk/article/youtube-for-kids-videos-
prob...](https://www.wired.co.uk/article/youtube-for-kids-videos-problems-
algorithm-recommend)

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-
po...](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-
radical.html)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/youtube...](https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/youtube-
extremism-and-the-long-tail/555350/)

[https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-youtubes-far-right-
radi...](https://www.thedailybeast.com/inside-youtubes-far-right-
radicalization-factory)

~~~
intertextuality
You're severely downplaying the amount of educational content that it has to
offer. If youtube went down overnight, it -would- be a huge loss.

If you give your children unfettered access to youtube, that's your own fault
as a parent. Youtube should be better about handling this but I think it's
more of a communication issue.

Youtube is essentially a medium unto itself. A LOT of people use it so there's
going to be good, and there's going to be bad. You can make the case of
"radicalizing people" for just about any other medium that people consume.

In the end, it's basically what you make of it. You can find a wealth of
diverse channels to watch and grow from, or you can watch drivel.

It isn't any different than the trash on tv or in pulp novels, except that
individual people have more power and freedom to create things. If you think
differently then you're just looking at older mediums with rose-tinted
glasses.

~~~
sytelus
> If you give your children unfettered access to youtube, that's your own
> fault as a parent.

How do you propose to prevent the disasters described in this thread? YouTube
have loose standards and virtually no demonstrated ability for enforcement.
I'm specifically worried about giving locked down PC to kid with my best
effort and still kids getting exposed to content that they are not yet ready
to process. How does YouTube enables me to to make sure that kids are
protected?

~~~
intertextuality
> How does YouTube enables me to to make sure that kids are protected?

It doesn't. I don't know why this expectation exists; youtube has not shown
itself to be trustworthy in this sort of thing. Clearly an alternative needs
to be used, like downloading youtube videos beforehand or using something else
entirely.

~~~
pluma
This is basically the all-American argument of "sure, the advertising is a
complete lie but it's the consumer's fault for being gullible".

YouTube Kids presents itself as specifically for kids. You don't expect weird
fetish porn on daytime kids TV and it's completely reasonable to expect a
similar level of moderation for an app that positions itself as an equivalent
of that.

Blaming the parents really understates how much YouTube has fucked this one
up. YT relies on a wonky algorithm and crowdsourcing to moderate its content
at scale but their dirty little (open) secret is that this is error prone and
exploitable. In a typical Google way they thought they could eliminate paid
humans from the equation and still deliver quality -- they can't, and it's
entirely their fault.

If a company misrepresents a product in a way that results it to cause harm
when used exactly as advertised, it's the company's fault.

~~~
Lkjhmnbv
Your problem is then with YouTube kids, not YouTube.

Not everyone wants their content censored by dogmatists.

~~~
pluma
What are you even talking about?

YouTube Kids is from YouTube and is advertised as a kids-friendly filtered
version of YouTube. YouTube Kids however failed to filter tons of disturbing
and inappropriate content. The entire raison d'etre of YouTube Kids is to
provide a filtered YouTube experience -- it failed hard.

EDIT: I can't even begin to comprehend how you think any of this is about
"dogmatists censoring YouTube". YT Kids only providing kids-friendly content
is no different from YT Music only providing music. It's not censorship, it's
filtering. You can still go to YouTube proper and watch everything.

~~~
Lkjhmnbv
Your problem is still with YouTube kids and not with YouTube.

Your entire argument is the filtration they tried failed. We agree. Great.

My point is that the conclusion you draw is that everything needs more
censorship. We disagree. I think parents need to take responsibility and not
blame a company for providing a product they don't like.

Its the equivalent of censoring the radio because think of the children. It
was a dumb idea then, it's a dumb idea now, because everyone knows that's not
where it ends.

~~~
detaro
I don't see where you get the idea that that's the conclusion they draw. It
seems like you arguing against something they never said.

~~~
Lkjhmnbv
How do you understand the arguments.

~~~
detaro
That they're unhappy with how they handled YouTube Kids, nothing about
censoring the main YT product.

~~~
Lkjhmnbv
And I said his problem is with YouTube kids not YouTube.

Not sure what part of that you disagree with.

~~~
detaro
> _My point is that the conclusion you draw is that everything needs more
> censorship._

That claim about their conclusion I do not understand, since I don't see where
they are saying anything like that.

~~~
Lkjhmnbv
They believe YouTube kids is possible if only YouTube were to censor more
content.

My argument is that more censorship won't help, because not everyone agrees on
what is, and is not, kid friendly. So the entire enterprise is doomed to
failure. The only solution I see is parents taking responsibility.

------
mcphage
Even if YouTube could afford to do this, nobody else could, which would lock
us into an EU-sanctioned YouTube monopoly...

~~~
jerf
Market leaders are generally in favor of regulation, for that exact reason.
Sometimes they'll play the protest game in public, but privately they are
happy to see regulation.

If YouTube is actually lobbying against this both in public and in private,
then I would personally consider that extremely strong evidence this is really
bad. However, I have no inside info on their private position.

~~~
TulliusCicero
Well, they _can_ be, but what if the regulations substantially shrink the
market as a whole? May be more profitable to have 30% of a large market than
90% of a small one.

~~~
alex_c
A lot of tech industries seem to be winner-take-all, so aiming for 30% might
not be a sustainable plan in many cases.

~~~
bduerst
Not really. Vimeo shows that you can corner niche markets successfully.

Profitability and growth aren't dependent on market dominance, even in tech.

~~~
trjordan
YouTube Vimeo is more like 1% / 99%. By almost anybody's definition, that's
winner take all.

Vimeo aims for $100mil this year: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iac-
interactive-vimeo/iac...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iac-interactive-
vimeo/iacs-vimeo-aims-for-100-million-in-revenue-this-year-ceo-idUSKCN1G71PN)

YouTube Could be a $15 billion business this year:
[https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/18/youtube-could-
be-a...](https://www.fool.com/investing/2018/02/18/youtube-could-
be-a-15-billion-business-this-year.aspx)

~~~
bduerst
Again, success isn't measured by marketshare, but profitability and growth.
Vimeo has 15% of the embedded market by domain, and has managed to be
profitable.

Even in your article it talks about how Youtube isn't exactly profitable, and
is dragging down Google's average CPC for the business.

------
s3r3nity
I'm curious: are there any supporters of the copyright regulations around HN
that can provide some thoughts on the "pro" side of this? I'm trying to get my
head around both sides of the argument, and I just can't see why it might be a
good idea - but I may be biased by the strong "against" views from HN posters.

~~~
lgleason
A newspaper curates their content and is legally liable for any copyright
violations along with civil liability in the US. Many platforms like YouTube
are curating content, but don't want to have the responsibility. It gives
these platforms a unfair advantage, to the detriment of media outlets and
because of the pseudo monopoly status of them has a chilling effect on diverse
ideas. Many, who are experts on the law also feel that it is going beyond the
"good samaritan" allowance of section 230 the way they are currently being
performed.

~~~
TulliusCicero
There's a fundamental difference between curating content like a newspaper
does vs what Youtube and similar sites do. It's a whitelist vs blacklist
approach: a newspaper approves things one by one and only has so much content,
while Youtube allows anything by default and then removes thing in certain
categories.

And even newspapers use the latter approach for some things. I doubt the New
York Times wants to be held responsible if someone posts a link to pirated
content in an article comment, for instance.

~~~
youeseh
When you visit youtube.com, you are shown a small slice of all the videos in
the YouTube database that YouTube thinks you should watch. Isn't that
curation?

YouTube tries to automate curation with the use of algorithms that cater
content to who they think their visitor is.

~~~
TulliusCicero
> Isn't that curation?

It's not the kind of curation we're talking about, no. We're talking about
whether it's allowed (or at least publicly visible) on their website at all,
not what is shown on the front page to each user.

~~~
da_chicken
Eh, there is some _functional_ equivalence. Less than 5% of videos on YouTube
have more than 10,000 views [0]. That means the vast majority of videos are
functionally not published. YouTube won't promote any of those videos. They
won't show up in on the Home page, let alone the Trending page. They're very
unlikely to show up in recommended videos. Unless you're looking for that
specific person or a very narrow topic, you're not going to find these
channels, let alone these videos.

[0]: [https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/19/1-percent-
youtub...](https://www.digitalmusicnews.com/2016/05/19/1-percent-youtube-
videos-94-percent-views/)

~~~
topoftheforts
I don't really get what you're trying to prove here, I mean yes we can see the
algorithm as a form of curation but the point here's different, newspapers
have a set amount of pages and articles whereas YouTube has 400 hours of
content uploaded every minute. Hence it's not fair to compare the two of them,
in my opinion.

~~~
lovich
All I'm getting out of your argument if YouTube is using these arguments they
are trying to say that they do so much business they should be allowed to skip
rules, and that they are potentially violating orders of magnitude more
copyright than other industries.

Should we allow companies to skip out on laws just because they scaled their
business up?

~~~
LanceH
A newspaper isn't the right metaphor. Google runs a print shopt.

~~~
lovich
It's not a metaphor. They both engage in referencing copyrighted material, but
YouTube gets to skip out on the laws that appky to other industries.

This board is usually in agreement that patents that are effectively of the
pattern of "were doing something that's been done before, but it's on the
internet so it's different now" are complete bullshit.

Why are we giving a pass to internet based companies when it comes to
copyright, just because they are making a lot of money?

------
MikeGale
The legislators in the EU are an example of what happens when the clueless,
make law. Their GDPR has apparently only benefitted Google, with Facebook
taking the smallest hit of the rest.

Many want these behemoths to get less power but these EU guys give them more.

Now this.

One answer it to ghettoise Europe and block them from receiving your content.
For one thing that would get rid of those stupid "we use cookies things".

~~~
ApolloFortyNine
I so hate the cookies thing. It's led me to have to actually read popups
rather than immediately close them, and sometimes I end up accepting something
that I thought was a cookie popup but was something else.

Absolutely infuriating. Most every site uses cookies, I know that, I don't
need to be told that, and your average user doesn't even care.

~~~
mcv
I just want my browser to know how to manage my cookies.

And to some extent, my browser already does that: I refuse third-party
cookies. Only now I get popups telling me to accept third-party cookies
because otherwise they won't be able to remember my choice to reject their
cookies.

It's a mess. I want smarter browsers that give me more control over this
stuff.

------
alanlamm
I regularly see a number of videos of clearly copyrighted content that have
been up for years, with several million views, for fairly mainstream search
terms and that would be relatively easy to filter algorythmically (real
example - via the characteristic sound & image of the HBO intro in a pirated
tv episode). Hard to look at that and believe that Google is doing everything
it can to bring them down. That they reject copyright violation reports that
come from anyone other than the actual rightsholders (sure, they’d have to
make sure someone is not reporting by mistake - it is not a perfect, but still
a valuable signal, and if they really wanted to they could encourage it) is
further evidence. Further, where these specific videos are not monetized via
ads, they bring traffic to YT which is then monetized in other videos,
therefore this pirated content is being used commercially, even if indirectly.
Like many here I’m no fan of copyright law, but that is no excuse for a multi-
billion listed company to make a fortune deliberately flaunting it and then
play coy.

~~~
dahdum
I'm not following. By your example, HBO content is being shared and Content ID
can trivially determine it's HBO content. Do you have evidence that HBO wants
those videos gone, but isn't capable of filing the request? Isn't it just more
likely they are getting royalties instead?

~~~
alanlamm
No, I don’t have evidence. But I find it unlikely that HBO wants grainy
versions of full TV episodes (eg filmed from a VHS recording playing on a TV)
on the page of some random YT uploader (not an HBO page or influencer or etc)
even if somehow in exchange for tiny CPM royalties. That is only one of
several examples I have seen. Perhaps in the case of HBO they could be doing a
better job given their size & resources, but for smaller creators it would be
a challenge and why should the burden be on them anyway?

~~~
icebraining
Can you link to one of these videos filmed from a VHS recording playing on a
TV which has several million views?

~~~
manquer
Individually they don't get million views as beyond a certain view count
youtube will flag and remove.

However I have seen plenty of shows get constantly reuploaded with new
accounts. They usually crop or put some padding animation etc to get through
content ID. With HBO' content you can search for example John Oliver's non
free segments which are not available on the official channel

~~~
icebraining
Right, but that's not what alanlamm was talking about. The claim was that
there were videos with millions of views that were trivially detectable, and
that Google simply didn't care.

~~~
PavlovsCat
[https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpmOEfgOG-6uC7Y45UI1V...](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLpmOEfgOG-6uC7Y45UI1VU9s1pTJ5YBbp)

First result for "HBO movie".

~~~
icebraining
So a bunch of twenty year old movies (not actually by HBO for the most part,
but whatever) that probably didn't sell even at the time.

My guess is that those companies didn't even bother to submit them to Content-
ID, considering that Google had no problem detecting a bunch of copyright
songs in those movies, for which they're paying royalties.

If submitting stuff to Content-ID is the "challenge" that alanlamm was talking
about, then fine, color me unconcerned.

~~~
PavlovsCat
It's trivial to find obviously pirated content, and Google does not care
(since it generates views). Being legally forced to react to complaints, and
HBO not caring, are each separate from that. Which, admittedly, isn't what the
original claim was, that HBO probably cares but that Google doesn't react. But
Google doesn't care.

------
pbhjpbhj
YouTube's objection seems to be primarily a business model problem - they
assume consent and then provide original content creators with a share of
YouTube's profit from that work. It's no surprise that they wouldn't want to
have to get permission first.

What stops YouTube from doing cursory scans and then relying on a user
agreement to protect themselves from liabilities, like "you agree to pay to us
sums sufficient to cover all legal costs including any copyright charges,
fines, etc., arising as a result of uploading this work"??

However, the Wikipedia page on the Directive [1] mentions that Art.13 :

>"extends any licenses granted to content hosts to their users, as long as
those users are not acting "on a commercial basis".

That would be massive as videos uploaded to YouTube would then be able to be
downloaded, and even shared, as works for [personal] non-commercial use. This
would be a huge change in favour of the people and against copyright rights
holders -- perhaps Wikipedia editors misinterpreted?

The article mentions the "Fair Use Act", what's that a reference too? The para
it's in is about EU, and the USA Fair Use Act never survived. We don't have a
Fair Use in Europe.

It would really help to know which companies are trying to push this and what
specifically they're trying to protect from??

\---

[1] -
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directive_on_Copyright_in_the_Digital_Single_Market)

------
macspoofing
Europe just can't stop making dumb regulations to punish American Tech giants.
They created the stupid cookie law and now half the sites have an annoying
cookie notice ... and nothing got better. GDPR is shaping up as a boondgle
that is either going to be (is) ignored or result in blacklisting Europeans.
And now this poorly thought out regulations will continue this 'winning'
streak.

~~~
bepotts
What I love most about the EU and Europeans on this site is that they think
that all these regulations will mostly hurt companies like Google and
Facebook, and sure they'll be hurt. But the US is the largest market for most
US companies, so they're unable to really hurt them like they want to.
Instead, the people most affected are European companies that become
successful enough for those onerous regulations to apply.

There was a Hacker News thread about a new research paper that showed that
GDPR is hurting European investment, and there were plenty of Europeans in
that thread saying "Good, stop using my data." Like really? Wouldn't it be
better to stop data usage without hurting investment? It's such a self own.

~~~
mcv
> What I love most about the EU and Europeans on this site is that they think
> that all these regulations will mostly hurt companies like Google and
> Facebook

On which site? HN? Many Europeans here are well aware this will mostly hurt
smaller sites and independent content creators. Many MEPs seem to hope that
European newspapers will get some of Google's money, but I honestly don't see
how that's going to happen.

GDPR is a different issue. It's less unreasonable and better intentioned, but
the implementation is incredibly annoying. I'd rather see browsers handle this
for me in a way I can easily control.

EU data protection laws are excellent. Far better than those of the US, which
do pretty much the complete opposite.

~~~
macspoofing
>Many MEPs seem to hope that European newspapers will get some of Google's
money,

I'm surprised Google News doesn't stick ads on news results and do some sort
of 70/30 profit sharing like YouTube. That's the best way for newspapers to
profit from a Google Listing. Instead Google News sidesteps copyright issues
by not monetizing news results at all.

>EU data protection laws are excellent. Far better than those of the US, which
do pretty much the complete opposite

Forget laws. Are things better __in practice __? Because people tend to get
enamoured with regulations because they sound great (I mean, who doesn 't want
low emission, high efficiency cars in 5 years) that are disconnected with
reality.

------
resters
Ironically, in the US pressure is mounting for content platforms to police
"fake news" which is a moralistic mission, rather than enforce something
fairly obvious like massive content piracy and systemic copyright violation as
a service.

Even in 2018 it seems that Youtube is being funded by the "Napster model" of
allowing de facto circumvention of copyright law.

Or, put another way, Youtube is profitable mainly because of vastly imperfect
enforcement of laws.

~~~
naravara
I feel like this criticism of YouTube is about 5 years out of date. At this
point most of their traffic is original content by content creators. It's not
the Napster model so much as hoodwinking young creatives into shouldering all
the risks of producing a service for YouTube's users and using their monopoly
power to freeze them out of being able to make anything resembling a decent
cut of the revenues for their efforts.

Call it the "Uber" model.

~~~
will_brown
>At this point most of their traffic is original content by content creators.

That’s not my experience. Name me a non-obscure movie, show, or song and I’ll
bet I find it on YouTube. Except of course YouTube’s paid content...good luck
finding a pirate version of say YouTube original series Kobra Kai, They seemed
to have figured out a way to police their own content without issue.

~~~
icebraining
_Name me a non-obscure movie, show, or song and I’ll bet I find it on
YouTube._

Sure: Kill Bill (vol 1).

~~~
lovich
[https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9D10D8B604D6B7EC](https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL9D10D8B604D6B7EC)

Not quite the full movie, but a substantial portion and its certainly not
being used under fair use doctrine like using these clips as examples to
discuss film techniques or a parody. This took all of 5 seconds to find
copyrighted content on youtube

~~~
icebraining
Uh, those were uploaded by Fandango, a company that sells movie tickets, and
which is itself owned by NBC and Warner. It's authorized content.

All you've proven is that detecting copyright infringement is actually hard
and not obvious as people here are claiming.

~~~
lovich
ah, well there you go

------
xhruso00
Funny how they threat cutting Europeans and at the same time want to comply
with Chinese laws so they are able to enter the market. Is it really
impossible Google?

~~~
akie
They just don't want to.

------
em3rgent0rdr
‘No company could take on such a financial risk’

Even worse, no individual can take on the risk of self hosting their own
videos.

------
dayaz36
If youtube doesn't have the resources to handle these regulations, then
imagine a start-up trying to. Ironically these draconian laws help youtube
have a monopoly. They have billions to absorb any mistakes/law suites,
etc...draconian laws always help the entrenched large corporations and destroy
start-ups.

------
ronilan
A little tangent nugget from the original text:

> _Kurzgesagt — In a Nutshell recently became the number one channel in
> Germany by creating videos that help others fall in love with science._

If the number one channel in Germany is in English, then maybe YouTube still
has some more fundamental challenges to overcome in Europe.

~~~
whatshisface
There are a lot more Germans that know English than there are Americans that
know German. In fact I have never even talked to a German who did not know
English. ;)

~~~
DoreenMichele
Can confirm.

As an American who lived in Germany decades ago, this was actually a
substantial barrier to me improving my German. It was usually easier for them
to converse in English than for me to converse in German, they jumped at the
chance to practice their English with a native speaker and it made it
difficult for me to find opportunities to practice my German.

~~~
mrep
God it is easy and convenient being American/english speaker. Cue old joke:

"bilingual" is someone who speaks two languages, "trilingual" is someone who
speaks three languages. What do you call someone who can only speak one
language? An American.

~~~
DoreenMichele
Yeah, but that's usually presented as an _ugly American_ characterization. I
actually _wanted_ to be multilingual. I failed in part because I'm American.

I know a little German and a little French. I know a smattering of Spanish and
Russian. I wanted to be fluent in all of those. I fell far short of fluency.

------
sam0x17
Youtube could continue to exist just fine without "youtubers". I miss the good
old days when thumbnails weren't curated, and it was random users with a day
job uploading videos instead of today's career spammers.

------
kachurovskiy
That would free up a few hours of my time each day I spend watching stuff like
[https://youtu.be/FFBhoojrU_M](https://youtu.be/FFBhoojrU_M) :-)

------
KaiserPro
So, Youtube, who _still_ make a large amount of money from infringing other
people's copyright, are not keen on being held liable for what they allow on
their website?

~~~
amanaplanacanal
> So, Youtube, who _still_ make a large amount of money from infringing other
> people's copyright

Do they though? Other people are saying that also, but the evidence I've seen
isn't very good.

~~~
KaiserPro
[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+its+made](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=how+its+made)

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mythbusters+ful...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=mythbusters+full+episodes)

[https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=simpsons+full+e...](https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=simpsons+full+episode)

With the exception of the last one, which has paid options, all of those do
not have permission.

~~~
amanaplanacanal
Wait, how do you know that they don't have permission? I would assume that the
owners of those copyrights are just as capable of using the contentID system
as any of the rest.

------
tinkerteller
With current state of things YouTube will be toast virtually with any
copyright regulation. Huge amount of popular content on YouTube is stolen and
retrofitted for your viewing pleasure. This is a raving cottage industry on
YouTube and unthinkable just couple of decades ago when studios were going
crazy over copyright infringement. You can find several old TV series, movies
etc posted by others and comfortably ripping of ad revenue.

------
throwaway487548
The same problem again - disconnected from reality humanities majors and
liberal arts academics trying to regulate ecosystems they do not comprehend or
understand.

They are guided by abstract nonsense instead of careful judgements based on
the scientific method (measure, make and test your hypothesis).

------
Tsubasachan
Hilariously the Verge website doesn't like me blocking all their trackers.

It was supposed to be a choice, not just "I accept". I rather type out this
comment than take the 10 seconds to open this article in an unmodified
browser.

------
dools
I'm sure they'll figure it out

------
jsmeaton
I wonder if it’d make financial sense for YouTube to provide ContentID as a
service for other video platforms.

------
geggam
or maybe this levels the playing field so smaller companies can compete

~~~
zamadatix
If YouTube can't make the margins I don't see how it could level the playing
field for smaller companies to compete.

~~~
stirlo
With a better product? Imagine if you got rid of the whole user generated poor
quality content and toxic comments section and simply uploaded a few hundred
human reviewed best of the best videos per day. I don't see why we need 400
hours of video uploaded every minute when the vast majority of revenue and
views is comings from a handful of videos.

~~~
icebraining
_I don 't see why we need 400 hours of video uploaded every minute when the
vast majority of revenue and views is comings from a handful of videos._

What a depressing statement. So there's no value in having a diversity of
choice, points of view, taste, etc? Or in allowing anyone to share what
they've made, without gatekeepers? Do you only listen to the top handful of
musicians, or read the top handful of books? Hell, HN is not in the top
handful of sites with the vast majority of revenue and views, does that mean
it has no value?

I'd say it's actually the _only_ value it has; it's what distinguishes it from
TV, which is otherwise a better system in other ways.

------
gaius
_that puts the responsibility on the platform instead of the user_

What did they think would happen when they started making editorial decisions
about what content to show and what to ban or at least bury?

They made their bed, let them lie in it.

~~~
Aqua
Although you are obviously right and YTs censorship is well known, these are
two unrelated things and an argument like that to justify bad law (which will
not only affect YT, but other platforms as well) is inappropriate.

~~~
tengbretson
I don't see how you can consider them unrelated. If you are going to exercise
editorial control over your platform you become responsible for (and
potentially liable for) what makes it through to the public.

~~~
gaius
It seems so obvious to everyone who isn’t a Silly Valley bro. Total
monoculture.

------
hedora
YouTube only really exists because the structure of DMCA safe harbors
essentially legislated centralization of user-posted content.

Live by the pen, die by the pen.

Hopefully this legislation will lead to re-decentralization of media
distribution, or at least a move away from surveillance-capitalism business
models like YouTube’s.

------
lgleason
They kind of brought this on themselves. At one time they said that they were
a neutral platform, and were fairly neutral. Now they very actively curate
content, so naturally people are starting to want to make them liable for
everything on their platform. Of course this will significantly reduce their
profitability etc., but you reap what you sow.

~~~
matt4077
Since someone else went to the trouble to explain to you why that argument is
neither the law, nor logic[0], I’ll spare us the repetition and just assume
you are arguing in bad faith.

0:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18319358](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18319358)

~~~
lgleason
With all due respect, I'm currently working with a bi-partisan group that is
looking into this issue. While you may not agree with my interpretation, there
are many who are more well versed with the intent (IE: know the people who
wrote the original bills) and the law who agree with my interpretation. A
concentration of power among a few tech companies is very worrying, but that
along with the moralizing of these large pseudo monopolies is a major problem.
IE: When your platform has 80+ percent market share, and is actively censoring
people for espousing views expressed by the elected president of the United
States. Now this does not explain the European situation, but their position
does not surprise me. With all of the EU's flaws they do have better anti-
trust provisions, and in this case it doesn't hurt that it is a foreign
company...

~~~
vatueil
> _censoring people for espousing views expressed by the elected president of
> the United States_

To the extent that's true, that says a lot more about how far the office of
President has fallen than anything else.

In a sane world, there would be bipartisan consensus that many of the views
Trump expresses should rightfully be condemned:

[https://www.weeklystandard.com/stephen-f-hayes/donald-
trump-...](https://www.weeklystandard.com/stephen-f-hayes/donald-trump-is-
crazy-and-so-is-the-gop-for-embracing-him?_amp=true)

> _The degree of this normalization is stunning. The Republican nominee for
> president made comments Friday that one might expect from a patient in a
> mental institution, the kind of stuff you might read on blog with really
> small print and pictures of UFOs. And yet his remarks barely register as
> news. There are no condemnations from fellow Republicans. His supporters
> shrug them off as Trump being Trump._

~~~
lgleason
My understanding is that this view is shared by a majority of YouTube
employees who censor the content. IE: We hate Trump, Trump is evil and his
supporters are deplorables, therefore it is the right thing to do to suppress
this horrible speech. If YouTube is treated like a publisher, and is liable
for all content that is fine. But irregardless of your feelings about those
views and people, when views that are held by a large percentage of the
American population are actively being banned/suppressed you are no longer a
neutral platform nor are you following the standard of just being a good
Samaritan. To be very clear I would also have an issue with this is the target
was people who are considered far left because at the end of the day I do not
want to have an un-elected, for profit, monopolistic corporation (which was in
fact given that power through safe harbor) forcing it's moralistic views on me
or anybody else. If anything the tech companies have shown that they are great
at technology and really bad at public policy, so lets let the democratic
governments sort out the public policy side and the tech get back to being
neutral platforms.

~~~
vatueil
I do not think that is an accurate description of how most YouTube employees
feel. It is certainly not an accurate description of mine. You have cause-and-
effect completely backwards: it is not because I "hate Trump" that I condemn
hate speech and conspiratorial content, but rather it is because I oppose hate
speech and conspiracy theories that I think Trump deserves to be condemned.

As for the role of content platforms, others have already explained the
difference between a journalistic publisher and a mere content filter better
than I can, so I won't bother to repeat it here.

Perhaps I am too optimistic, but I do not believe most of the large minority
of Americans that voted for Trump did so because he espouses hate and bigotry,
but rather despite it. I think many conservatives who voted for Trump
overlooked his rhetoric due to partisan fervor or because they were convinced
Clinton was worse, rightly or wrongly. I do not believe the alt-right and
unabashed racists are a "large percentage of the American population" or that
public platforms need accept their hateful views.

I do believe conservative voices deserve to be heard, whether I agree with
them or not. But it would be doing principled conservatives a disservice to
conflate them with Trumpists and the so-called alt-right. I understand there
may be concern about where to draw the line, but I think any government
regulation your "bi-partisan group" produces is more likely to do harm than
good in the current political context.

~~~
lgleason
You just helped to prove my point. A large swatch of Trump supporters agree
with many of his views, just look at the rally's. Many also feel that certain
positions of the left, such as the the support of abortion is morally
repugnant.

The term "hate speech" is extremely subjective, as are the terms "hate" and
"bigotry" as they are used today. If you take a person on the religious right,
they will use the terms such as "heathen", "sinner", "obscene" and
"degenerate" to describe many alternative lifestyles, also subjective terms.
I've heard some on the right say they want to think that many on the left do
not really feel these lifestyles are OK etc..

The reality is that that the person on the far right, and the person on the
far left, no matter how tolerant they may feel they are, will ultimately be
biased towards their own morals when dealing with subjective matters. They may
feel they are doing the right moral thing, yet the person from the other side
may fervently disagree. The reality is that there is an equal amount of sin on
both sides which is why I want neither of them being the sole arbiter of the
content I see.

This is why the checks and balances are so important. But when you have a
pseudo monopoly, for profit corporation such as YouTube, with a predominately
left leaning set of values running the show we no longer have that. More
importantly there is an argument to be made that the content filtering as is
being done today is not what was intended in the current legislation and
clarification via legal precedent and/or revised legislation is overdue.

------
exitcode00
Where was the Google CEO when all of this was being voted on? Where were the
Google home-pages telling people to get active?

------
benologist

         There are more than 400 hours of video uploaded every 
         minute to the platform, and putting the onus of     
         responsibility on platforms like YouTube to catch every    
         video isn’t fair, according to Wojcicki.
    

Sounds like they could solve this really easily by just hiring a lot of
people, which is also very easy to do when you stashed over $100,000,000,000
and revenue is still growing and taxes are still diminishing and employees are
still called contractors.

~~~
j-pb
That sounds like something out of an black mirror episode...

Where an unprivileged worker class has to go through hours and hours of video
material of the upper societal levels in order to make sure that they satisfy
the grotesque utopian "always happy no conflict" image of an all seeing
censor, including the denial of their own existence.

~~~
b_tterc_p
Amazon has people do this for Alexa inputs, to label whether responses were
good or bad.

~~~
wafflesraccoon
genuinely curious, do you have a source for that?

~~~
stedaniels
It's built into the app. It asks you to grade each response positively or
negatively.

~~~
spullara
Cool. We can just ask the uploader if it is copyrighted or not.

------
ocdtrekkie
Copyright infringement is just one of the ways platforms profit off illegal
activity as a standard practice of business. Scams and malware are prevalent
in paid advertising, fake news is propagated and shared on a mass scale
impersonating legitimate sources and individuals, etc. all because platforms
can hide behind blanket immunity for what's posted on their platforms.

I'm well into the opinion that if platforms can't operate within the law that
they take some responsibility for what the environment they build and the
problems they cause, they should be shut down. I think the world would be a
better place without YouTube.

In the US, I think removing Section 230 is an absolute imperative. These
platforms currently have no legal responsibility to police content, and many
of our problems today stem from the fact that they aren't going to do what's
necessary until they're legally responsible to do so.

If they're turning a profit on a user submission, and they aren't legally
required to remove it, they have no incentive to do so. Platforms _must_ be
held responsible for their content, and if that changes the landscape of the
Internet, so be it.

