YouTube suspends Cody's Lab for making video about homemade gunpowder | Hacker News Reader

YouTube suspends Cody's Lab for making video about homemade gunpowder

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28 pointssillysaurus311 comments

wow, he should be commended not only for his awesome scientific content but for keeping such a level head and taking what many would consider as an unfair sanction pretty well. I for one would be a lot angrier and perceive this as totally unfair and arbitrary. kudos to him

"Never bite the hand that feeds you."

Right after having his wrist slapped, for some abnoxious reason.

It’s really strange to see people who are genuinely interested in knowledge and sharing a learning experience get shut down.

It also is just upsetting because Cody’s Lab contains so much interesting material.

Seeing as I can still watch kids make backyard flamethrowers and attempt to break bottles over their heads, it's interesting that this is where YouTube chooses to make a stand. Is this politically motivated, i.e. pro-gun control? If so, that is not good. The last thing I want my tech companies deciding is what constitutes free speech. This huge anti-Silicon Valley backlash has very dangerous unintended consequences.

> Is this politically motivated, i.e. pro-gun control?

I like how this seems to be framed as something negative

I think the comment was more along the lines of “did they block it because it purports to be education for children but it’s actually propaganda” which was last year’s “YT is evil” story :D

Censorship is always negative.

There is a point behind prohibiting "just about everyone" from having access to easy gunpowder. Consider how "just about everyone" includes anything from anti-social prankers to vengeful people with no concern for collateral, to plain `terrorists`.

Gunpowder isn't some super secret formula. Anyone with basic chemistry knowledge can make it. I remember kids making it in high school chemistry class to make a black powder rocket.

The real problem is that everything is so concentrated - YouTube blocking something functionally censors it completely. On the other hand 20 years ago such a channel couldn't even really exist.

It would be more feasible if people were willing to pay for things like this, and that setting up such a payment system would be viable (yes I know that was what bitcoin was ostensibly meant to do)

Alternatively I wrote this but decided it was too snarky but I don’t want to delete it:

This is American dammit, we need to protect children from dangerous things like how to make gunpowder, kinder surprises, science, etc.

Otherwise when will they find the time to play with their guns?

This is the kind of thing I expected after they started the “don’t be terrible” policy following dbag looking for dead people.

I think the better option would be to allow advertisers to have an ability to blacklist certain channels completely. But given the quality of web ads maybe that would not be sufficient?

I assume they now have a policy banning “how to make a bomb in 3 easy steps” but the phrasing of the rule necessarily captures “I made gunpowder at home to do science”

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