
YouTube deleting Palmer Luckey’s comments about CCP’s Wumao division - emsy
https://twitter.com/PalmerLuckey/status/1265077232176775168
======
eggy
This is why I believe it is important to teach our children from first
principles; we can no longer rely on media, left or right, to convey a large
percentage of truth. I am old enough that the cliche "believe only half of
what you read" is still good advice. Too many people glued to their devices,
knee-jerk responses without much thought and propagate misinformation at
almost the speed of electrons without consulting their slower-thinking,
rational mind. I find relief in going back to first principles for many things
now even if it is time consuming. I lived in Macau for 7 years and Indonesia
for 1 year. I used a VPN when I first arrived in Macau due to trips to the
mainland. Hong Kongers are looking for VPNs like crazy this week, since the
CCP announced new efforts to monitor "trouble makers" in HK. HK will never be
the same.

~~~
frandroid
> left or right

There are very few false news actors on the left. Most fake news is either
corporate or state-sponsored, and /somehow/ that heavily skews very right.

~~~
verylittlemeat
How about the nytimes printing the names of 100,000 people who died of
covid-19?

~~~
frandroid
What about it?

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thoughtstheseus
I’m curious what google would not censor. Perhaps I’m misunderstanding this
but it looks like google is supporting a political party here. The dollar
value of this must be huge.

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baylearn
How come this was on the front page an hour ago, but no longer there? Seems it
got taken off quite fast.

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detaro
Previous discussions of YT censoring some chinese terms in the last 14 days:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223219](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23223219)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221264](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23221264)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23172564](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23172564)

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Jommi
Anyone have actual sources noting that this "wumao" thing actually exists and
isn't just a slander phrasing against CCPs supposed censorship efforts?

~~~
etcet
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party#References](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party#References)

~~~
Jommi
Thanks, seems like most is based on a leaked gov memo.

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dpbriggs
Don't they realize that people will just generate euphemisms?

Idiotic.

~~~
Freak_NL
Doesn't that just mean Winnie-the-Pooh gets banned as well?

~~~
SuoDuanDao
An arms race like that favours the trolls though.

I do believe the answer to an overly snoopy surveillance state is to drown it
in data.

~~~
bitL
In that case everybody ends up as a false positive in some subsystem with real
consequences.

~~~
SuoDuanDao
If everyone is a false positive, the system is clearly poorly designed.

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jannes
And now this story has been flagged on hacker news... It's already off the
front page despite 103 upvotes in 1 hour

~~~
calibas
I've noticed that if you even try to talk about the manipulation of HN, things
like abusing flags to get posts buried, the comments get downvoted.

Certain posts disappear very quickly, and there's almost always a clear
political reason for why some group wouldn't want people seeing that post.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
Its contrary to policy, to talk about voting in posts not about voting. I
shouldn't even be posting this.

~~~
calibas
Which makes talking about manipulation of HN on HN very difficult.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
No, just start a post about it.

~~~
calibas
I already have. So far it's been ignored entirely.

You can talk about manipulation of any other social network here, but
suggesting HN is being manipulated is oddly taboo.

~~~
JoeAltmaier
So, no interest? The answer isn't to spam it other places to forge interest.

The rule is here to avoid dilution, folks hijacking a post to talk about a
meta-topic. It's been a problem from the start.

~~~
calibas
What are you talking about? This thread already had multiple comments about
how fast it disappeared, I just responded to one of them.

I like HN, and I'd believe abusing the flag system is hurting the site. I see
people talking about this all the time, so people are obviously interested,
but instead of really being addressed, there's usually people like you
reminding everyone that talking about it is against the guidelines.

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wendyshu
A glossary for those interested in Chinese internet terminology:
[https://www.chinasmack.com/glossary#%E4%BA%94%E6%AF%9B%E5%85...](https://www.chinasmack.com/glossary#%E4%BA%94%E6%AF%9B%E5%85%9A)

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0xdeadb00f
This should surprise no one.

This is the same company that created an alternate version of their browser +
search engine specifically for the CCP in order to censor citizen's online
activities.

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dTal
Reposting my comment from my own submission:

This is a reported issue[0] since last year, but is now apparently going viral
[1]. 五毛 translates as "50 cent party", the somewhat well-known CCP
astroturfing division.

According to the comments in [1], another apparently banned phrase is
"gongfei" ( 共匪 ) , which supposedly translates as "communist bandit".

[0]
[https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/17821466?hl=en](https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/17821466?hl=en)
[1][https://imgur.com/gallery/KQPcEkB](https://imgur.com/gallery/KQPcEkB)

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resheku
hold on, isn't this against some constitutional freedoms of our american
friends? or am I misunderstanding something here?

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manuelabeledo
It looks to me like another example of failed automatic comment moderation.
But again, it will be interpreted as big tech kneeling to the CCP.

~~~
wendyshu
How could we do a test to determine which is the true cause?

~~~
judge2020
Youtube certainly doesn't have enough moderators to look at every comment,
best they can do is have watch words/phrases that flag a comment either for
automatic deletion/shadow deletion/human moderation.

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speechisaright9
The scary part is that there is a significant contingent of people in tech who
believe Youtube is morally justified in doing this because it's a private
platform, and therefore and not subject to human rights standards like freedom
of speech. Want to criticize an abusive regime? Build your own Youtube clone!

~~~
BiteCode_dev
But the same persons would be scandalized if youtube would censor US
politicians propaganda.

Because I tell you, looking at Fox News as a European, I can't understand how
it qualifies as "news", yet many americans are very attached to it.

I'm sure there are plenty of chinese people that feels like Fox News viewers
about their own news sources. And they think they are right just as much.

And each camp will say "you can't compare us to them because...".

It's always the same story: it's not about the truth, it's about power and
believes.

~~~
eqdw
Fox news is a laughably pathetic excuse for news.

But, so are the rest of the major corporate news outlets. In the US, they're
all garbage, and Fox isn't any worse than the others.

The best way I can describe this is by analogizing to Canada, where I'm from.
In Canada, when you watch or read the news (eg CBC), for the most part it just
tells you what happened. In the US, when you watch or read the news, for the
most part, it tells you how you're supposed to feel. Of course, Fox tells you
you're supposed to feel conservative and (eg) NBC tells you you're supposed to
feel progressive. But they all do this. They all editorialize. They all try to
manipulate your emotions. None of them are willing to just present facts and
let you think for yourself.

~~~
BrandoElFollito
This is exactly my feeling with French news as well (the mainstream ones at
least).

Since one of our national sports is to protest, people complain that "they"
(the bad news paper or station) is showing one side only, and that "we" are
different.

In reality they all tell the same thing, objectively without even
editorializing it. So I can read Le Monde, Le Figaro, l'Obs, la Croix or
l'Humanité and get the same info. And this is very good.

