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Comment by ausbah | Hacker News Reader

Here is the actual blog post: https://youtube.googleblog.com/2019/06/our-ongoing-work-to-t...

Main points:

>Removing more hateful and supremacist content from YouTube

I think this is great, I see nothing of value being lost from channels whose whole schtick is to marginalize people's of a target group.

>Reducing borderline content and raising up authoritative voices

I do like attempts to curtail outright scams and misinformation, but don't like YouTube choosing "top channels" as voices of authority.

>Continuing to reward trusted creators and enforce our monetization policies

I think this shows what drives YouTube and many other platforms, what is and isn't advertiser friendly. Principles only go as far as the bottomline.

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> > Removing more hateful and supremacist content from YouTube

> I think this is great, I see nothing of value being lost from channels whose whole schtick is to marginalize people's of a target group.

Who gets to pick what's 'hateful' and 'supremacist' though? Did you think of that?

Google. Is this a trick question or something?

More specifically, the political party with the most supporters at Google (currently democratic party, but could change)

They gave slightly more to republicans last time around: https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgot.php?cycle=2018&cmte=...

Yeah but that doesn't tell you anything about the party alignment of employees.

1 rich republican Google employee donating $500K vs 100 middle class democrat Google employees donating $4K will yield those results you posted, yet the demographics would indicate 1% republican.

Who do you think?

Hint: If they go the Facebook route it will be various 'anti-hate' orgs which have openly called people like Trump and Ben Shapiro Nazis.

Why do you assume they didn't? People make decisions. That's how decisions are made the world over.

> Today, we're taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status.

I wonder if things like the Freedom From Religion Foundation would qualify for a ban. Or a church that preaches that their god is the correct one.

You can't choose your age, gender (mostly), race, caste, sexual orientation, or veteran status, but religion is malleable and public discourse about those topics where one person argues that their view is superior to others is pretty important to society.

It's not clear if YouTube is going to remove anything that asserts some religious beliefs are indeed superior to others.

This is all a very interesting thought experiment, but you're supposing some attempt at logical consistency which will surely not be made.

What this announcement actually means is that YouTube is going to become more politically active in their content curation. This is what a subset of their employees, as well as influential bluechecked Twitterati, have been lobbying for. As a progressive/neo-liberal institution, it will apply exactly the sort of differential policy enforcement that one might expect.

I won't delve into the details of how that applies to your examples because it would quickly become too controversial for HN.

Just imagine how the median Bay Area tech-person would parse out the details and you'll have the answers.

You're exactly right, and maybe I should just be happy that YouTube is going to enforce political views that I mostly agree with, but the whole thing is a bit unsettling and definitely going to have unintended consequences.

It should unsettle you. Power in a democracy is obtained through the manufacture of consent. SF has been reluctant to take the reigns of power away from NYC, but it's finally happening. Strap in everybody.

As your quote shows, it's not simply a matter of saying your group is superior, but then using that view to "justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion".

What about the calls to boycott Hobby Lobby or Chick-fil-A for what they've argued are their religious positions? That's certainly exclusionary.

Or preachers telling the world that gays are evil sinners that need to be saved by conversion therapy? That's discriminatory.

Or feminist groups that advocate for women-only programs and institutions? Dividing the world into groups with different treatment is certainly segregation.

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