Skip to content

As disinformation and hate thrive online, YouTube quietly changed how it moderates content

Technology
39 17 2
  • Those instances weren't breaking laws. At least not American ones. It is not illegal to be an incivil assclown, but you are going to get thrown out of the bar.

    It’s not a place for incivility that I’m making, either. I just struggle to believe you genuinely don’t understand what people mean when they ask for less moderation or censorship.

  • It’s not a place for incivility that I’m making, either. I just struggle to believe you genuinely don’t understand what people mean when they ask for less moderation or censorship.

    I know what they mean when clutching their frozen peaches. It also never works out as they imagine because paradox of tolerance.

  • I don’t see the issue. This is how it was in the early days and things were infinitely better. I’m convinced that the overly paternalistic moderation that overtook online platforms what was gave power to the alt right in the first place.

    All online spaces could do with less moderation.

    Yep. I'm old enough to remember when online censorship was taboo. It's pathetic how far we have fallen. Now the normies demand it.

  • Yep. I'm old enough to remember when online censorship was taboo. It's pathetic how far we have fallen. Now the normies demand it.

    Its mind boggling that these are the same people who will claim the corporations are oppressing them but in the same breath they ask for seconds. The political tribalism is so great right now that people don’t even realize how contradictory their narratives and views are I guess.

  • Hello, I was in the "good old days" of the internet. It wasn't the "right-libertarian utopia" that right wingers like to paint it was. Sure people believed in "free speech absolutism", usually until someone whose first "forum" was 4chan, who demanded the same kind of "freedom of speech" they had over there. Also those 4chan bastards were extremely hypocritical with their own "free speech absolutism", as the moment they got doxxed instead of someone they disagreed with, they either backpedalled, just cried like a bitch online, or rarely literally went that they only meant the free speech for themselves. People who actually lived in those days on the interne,t and weren't just heard about it some zoomer internet historian or someone whose first "forum" was an anonymous image board know that 4chan marked the end of the old internet, and marked the beginning of the centralization era (4chan sucked up some traffic from fan forums, similarly to what Facebook did later).

    What actually is happening is that if you also peddle the right kind of economic policies for Google, you get whitelisted for hatespeech, meaning moderators are only allowed to act on your hatespeech after consultation with the higher ups. Talk about uBlockOrigin? Banned! Talk about how fascists are cruel in the comment section? Your comment is insta-deleted without explanation by the YouTube automod system. Demonize trans people? Wanna call "bad" black people n****rs? Want to talk about how all women are whores and deserve all their rights being taken away? Make sure you also bitch about taxes, how artists and other workers are "entitled", and write odes about how we need to "move fast and break things, ask for forgiveness later". Google will be happy to play "heel" for your "face" in case of "censorship", so you can have the facade of a freedom warrior.

    This is revisionism of the highest degree. Everyone knows Google et al were very heavy handed at dealing with any dissent with the liberal agenda, for the lack of a better term. Facebook fired Luckey Palmer because he supported Trump! That’s how far the tech industry went to protect left wing views and for the best part of the last decade.

    And no one is being allowed to say any of those words on any major social media. Hell my comment up there that says faggot would have gotten me suspended in all the major social media. So stay grounded and stop making shit up.

  • YouTube, the world's largest video platform, appears to have changed its moderation policies to allow more content that violates its own rules to remain online.

    someone should make a dearrow but for moderation

  • This is revisionism of the highest degree. Everyone knows Google et al were very heavy handed at dealing with any dissent with the liberal agenda, for the lack of a better term. Facebook fired Luckey Palmer because he supported Trump! That’s how far the tech industry went to protect left wing views and for the best part of the last decade.

    And no one is being allowed to say any of those words on any major social media. Hell my comment up there that says faggot would have gotten me suspended in all the major social media. So stay grounded and stop making shit up.

    More and more often I see mainstream social media platforms letting people say slurs. A few days ago I literally say the F-slur on YouTube, while you cannot say "porn".

    Old internet weren't 4chans, kiwifarms-style doxxing forums! Just because some YouTube pseudohistorian said the old internet literally were composed of unmoderated image boards and forums, that doesn't make that true.

  • More and more often I see mainstream social media platforms letting people say slurs. A few days ago I literally say the F-slur on YouTube, while you cannot say "porn".

    Old internet weren't 4chans, kiwifarms-style doxxing forums! Just because some YouTube pseudohistorian said the old internet literally were composed of unmoderated image boards and forums, that doesn't make that true.

    No they weren’t but they sure as fuck weren’t banning people for slurs either except the few really socially unacceptable ones. It was a good balance.

    Also who’s the YouTube historian you cite? Because I was there too and I know exactly how it was. Lemmy has the right amount of moderation imo most of it enforced by users themselves as it should be.

    Also I’d like to add, since you keep bringing it up, that 4chan often had more stringent moderation than other websites because on-topic discussions were strictly enforced. Outside of the adult boards (I forget their name, blue boards was it?) stuff like gore, porn etc was not allowed at all.

    Fuck your paternalistic bullshit is all I have to say. Let people say whatever they want, let society decide what is acceptable or not. Not fucking corporations.

  • No they weren’t but they sure as fuck weren’t banning people for slurs either except the few really socially unacceptable ones. It was a good balance.

    Also who’s the YouTube historian you cite? Because I was there too and I know exactly how it was. Lemmy has the right amount of moderation imo most of it enforced by users themselves as it should be.

    Also I’d like to add, since you keep bringing it up, that 4chan often had more stringent moderation than other websites because on-topic discussions were strictly enforced. Outside of the adult boards (I forget their name, blue boards was it?) stuff like gore, porn etc was not allowed at all.

    Fuck your paternalistic bullshit is all I have to say. Let people say whatever they want, let society decide what is acceptable or not. Not fucking corporations.

    That's like bottom of the barrel kind of moderation. Even Kiwifarms has that much of a moderation even if they let people doxx others, but only if they're the wrong kind of people.

    Here's the problem with the whole "free speech absolutism" experience: People don't want to be told that they're wrong, not just when Trump supporters are doing that. You know why Trump is popular? Because people want to be told they're not racist if they have double standards towards "less trustworthy races". Because people want to be told it's okay if they drive their big trucks even to the toilet. Because people want to be told that their home remedies are much better, than vaccines. And people will go as far with this that they'll go after people who don't, often by doxxing or sending threats.

  • No they weren’t but they sure as fuck weren’t banning people for slurs either except the few really socially unacceptable ones. It was a good balance.

    Also who’s the YouTube historian you cite? Because I was there too and I know exactly how it was. Lemmy has the right amount of moderation imo most of it enforced by users themselves as it should be.

    Also I’d like to add, since you keep bringing it up, that 4chan often had more stringent moderation than other websites because on-topic discussions were strictly enforced. Outside of the adult boards (I forget their name, blue boards was it?) stuff like gore, porn etc was not allowed at all.

    Fuck your paternalistic bullshit is all I have to say. Let people say whatever they want, let society decide what is acceptable or not. Not fucking corporations.

    Well, well, well, it seems like "letting people decide what's okay and what is not" favors hatespeech every time...

  • That's like bottom of the barrel kind of moderation. Even Kiwifarms has that much of a moderation even if they let people doxx others, but only if they're the wrong kind of people.

    Here's the problem with the whole "free speech absolutism" experience: People don't want to be told that they're wrong, not just when Trump supporters are doing that. You know why Trump is popular? Because people want to be told they're not racist if they have double standards towards "less trustworthy races". Because people want to be told it's okay if they drive their big trucks even to the toilet. Because people want to be told that their home remedies are much better, than vaccines. And people will go as far with this that they'll go after people who don't, often by doxxing or sending threats.

    Oh for fucks sake, you keep using the same trite examples of shithole websites instead of looking at the place you’re at. I already told you, lemmy has a pretty good balance and this is where it should be as far as I’m concerned.

    I don’t know what people want to be told, but I can tell you the double standards very much apply to both sides of the aisle. Like this very conversation is proof of that because the modern day American “leftist”simply defines itself in opposition to MAGA.

    But even then I don’t even know why you bring that up because I’m not making an argument in favor of a side. You seem to imply that I do simply because the view I’m advocating for is often shared by the right, and because so much of the left is defined by being in opposition to MAGA then I must be defending MAGA or Trump; I guess the logic is that surely someone who disagrees with them will take every opposing viewpoint at any moment.

    The fact is that heavy centralized moderation simply lends itself so that corporations can enforce whatever are the views of the current government. Which is fine they are in their right to do so, it is a private network after all. But I’m not gonna defend it no matter if it’s left leaning or right leaning because it just doesn’t seat right with me being dictated by a corporation what is correct enough for me to hear and see, and I will always move to the platform that has the least amount of paternalistic attitudes towards its users. Thats it, that’s the bottom line.

    If you prefer heavy moderation and an enforced point of view of the world then that’s fine, there are plenty of social media networks with that approach. Just look at hexbear or r/conservative. No one is taking away your right to be dictated to.

  • Well, well, well, it seems like "letting people decide what's okay and what is not" favors hatespeech every time...

    This “study” is biased by design. But also even if it weren’t , one study does not prove anything. You’d need a lot more evidence than that.

  • 107 Stimmen
    24 Beiträge
    3 Aufrufe
    swelter_spark@reddthat.comS
    The amount of suffering it's already caused will never be worth it.
  • 196 Stimmen
    21 Beiträge
    2 Aufrufe
    S
    Sure: for professionals. However when casually commenting in a forum it is fine because the reader can go check the citations (and perhaps come back and add to the thread).
  • 1k Stimmen
    95 Beiträge
    6 Aufrufe
    G
    Obviously the law must be simple enough to follow so that for Jim’s furniture shop is not a problem nor a too high cost to respect it, but it must be clear that if you break it you can cease to exist as company. I think this may be the root of our disagreement, I do not believe that there is any law making body today that is capable of an elegantly simple law. I could be too naive, but I think it is possible. We also definitely have a difference on opinion when it comes to the severity of the infraction, in my mind, while privacy is important, it should not have the same level of punishments associated with it when compared to something on the level of poisoning water ways; I think that a privacy law should hurt but be able to be learned from while in the poison case it should result in the bankruptcy of a company. The severity is directly proportional to the number of people affected. If you violate the privacy of 200 million people is the same that you poison the water of 10 people. And while with the poisoning scenario it could be better to jail the responsible people (for a very, very long time) and let the company survive to clean the water, once your privacy is violated there is no way back, a company could not fix it. The issue we find ourselves with today is that the aggregate of all privacy breaches makes it harmful to the people, but with a sizeable enough fine, I find it hard to believe that there would be major or lasting damage. So how much money your privacy it's worth ? 6 For this reason I don’t think it is wise to write laws that will bankrupt a company off of one infraction which was not directly or indirectly harmful to the physical well being of the people: and I am using indirectly a little bit more strict than I would like to since as I said before, the aggregate of all the information is harmful. The point is that the goal is not to bankrupt companies but to have them behave right. The penalty associated to every law IS the tool that make you respect the law. And it must be so high that you don't want to break the law. I would have to look into the laws in question, but on a surface level I think that any company should be subjected to the same baseline privacy laws, so if there isn’t anything screwy within the law that apple, Google, and Facebook are ignoring, I think it should apply to them. Trust me on this one, direct experience payment processors have a lot more rules to follow to be able to work. I do not want jail time for the CEO by default but he need to know that he will pay personally if the company break the law, it is the only way to make him run the company being sure that it follow the laws. For some reason I don’t have my usual cynicism when it comes to this issue. I think that the magnitude of loses that vested interests have in these companies would make it so that companies would police themselves for fear of losing profits. That being said I wouldn’t be opposed to some form of personal accountability on corporate leadership, but I fear that they will just end up finding a way to create a scapegoat everytime. It is not cynicism. I simply think that a huge fine to a single person (the CEO for example) is useless since it too easy to avoid and if it really huge realistically it would be never paid anyway so nothing usefull since the net worth of this kind of people is only on the paper. So if you slap a 100 billion file to Musk he will never pay because he has not the money to pay even if technically he is worth way more than that. Jail time instead is something that even Musk can experience. In general I like laws that are as objective as possible, I think that a privacy law should be written so that it is very objectively overbearing, but that has a smaller fine associated with it. This way the law is very clear on right and wrong, while also giving the businesses time and incentive to change their practices without having to sink large amount of expenses into lawyers to review every minute detail, which is the logical conclusion of the one infraction bankrupt system that you seem to be supporting. Then you write a law that explicitally state what you can do and what is not allowed is forbidden by default.
  • Unionize or die - Drew DeVault

    Technology technology
    3
    75 Stimmen
    3 Beiträge
    5 Aufrufe
    W
    and hopefully also elsewhere. as Drew said in the first part, tech workers will be affected by billionaire's decisions even outside of work, on multiple fronts. we must eat the rich, or they will eat us all alive.
  • 186 Stimmen
    18 Beiträge
    4 Aufrufe
    N
    Part of the reason for my use of "might".
  • Microsoft wants Windows Update to handle all apps

    Technology technology
    45
    1
    61 Stimmen
    45 Beiträge
    7 Aufrufe
    N
    the package managers for linux that i know of are great because you can easily control everything they do
  • 21 Stimmen
    1 Beiträge
    1 Aufrufe
    Niemand hat geantwortet
  • How I use Mastodon in 2025 - fredrocha.net

    Technology technology
    11
    1
    0 Stimmen
    11 Beiträge
    4 Aufrufe
    J
    Sure. Efficiency isn't everything, though. At the end of the article there are a few people to get you started. Then you can go to your favorites in that list, and follow some of the people THEY are following. Rinse and repeat, follow boosted folks. You'll have 100 souls in no time.