Comment by ryanmercer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ryanmercer | Hacker News Reader

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I don't know about banning something because it leads to illegal activity, however I do see why they ban some content.

I'm Pro 2a but YouTube was demonetizing, and even removing some, many firearm videos 1-2 years ago and it had everyone in the firearm community in an uproar and the people screaming the most were the uploaders that had videos along the lines of:

"what happens if I shoot a barbie doll with a 50 cal"

"what happens if I shoot a watermelon full of tanerite"

"what happens if I microwave ammunition" (Demolition Ranch has an entire series of these)

"what happens if I microwave a full ak mag" (Demolition Ranch has an entire series of these)

"what happens if I put the wrong caliber ammunition in a firearm" (Demolition Ranch, also I believe King of Everything did this as well he also was in the news for at least two of his videos and had legal action taken against him for making explosives around the same time)

Like, you aren't teaching people how to safely shoot or reviewing firearms, you're doing stupid stuff that is extremely dangerous and absolutely should not be replicated by viewers at home.

Similarly Cody's Lab was losing it last year or the year before when his account was suspended... after he literally rushed through an airport talking to his phone animatedly about making explosives and --- blowing himself up --- in a previously uploaded prank video, and this year he's been griping about how his videos are being demonetized again... well... yeah... you poured liquid mercury into your mouth and were squirting it through your teeth... and you previously almost blew your finger off when you were whacking home-brew nitro glycerine with a steak knife... and you had the federal agents visit your house in response to when you talked about how to make yellow cake at home and were showing your incredibly poor storage methods for radioactive dust. You aren't being persecuted, Google and/or the authorities are trying to make sure you aren't going to do harm to others or instruct others how to do harm.

I imagine the spirit behind this is more to ban videos like

"hack your girlfriend's phone to install secret tracking apps"

and

"how to hack our neighbors WiFi"

instead of "how to assess vulnerabilities in your network"

> what happens if I microwave a full ak mag

I seem to recall Mythbusters baking a loaded .44 Magnum in an oven, and that was on corporate broadcast TV.

I can't speak for the average person, but if I find myself curious about the results of something obviously dangerous, I like to look up a video of someone else doing it so I can find out with no risk. I don't find myself wanting to replicate dangerous experiments once I've watched a video.

>I seem to recall Mythbusters baking a loaded .44 Magnum in an oven, and that was on corporate broadcast TV.

If this did happen in an episode they likely had firefighters and EMTs on hand, an entire safety crew, ballistic glass and/or a proper bunker, etc.

Demolition Ranch though... he's a veterinarian that had a microwave in his field in Texas with some cinder blocks around the sides. Likely with one other person on hand in case he injured himself.

You're probably right. But.. so? Mythbusters has a huge budget and paid a bunch of people to run something safely, vs. dude with a microwave--this does not change one iota what was recorded and broadcast.

The point of those videos (besides providing some entertainment) is satisfying one's curiosity. I don't need to put bullets in a microwave, I can just watch the video to see what happens (personally I don't really care but I'm sure there is some young person somewhere who is curious about it and these videos might save their life).

> Like, you aren't teaching people how to safely shoot or reviewing firearms, you're doing stupid stuff that is extremely dangerous and absolutely should not be replicated by viewers at home.

I agree. We should only publish videos of things that are safe for viewers to replicate.

I'm afraid this comment may fall afoul of Poe's law - but I think I agree.

In my elementary school, That Favorite Science Teacher made gunpowder as an in-class demonstration, as well as hydrogen balloons.

Should that content be allowed on YouTube? There are plenty of college-level chemistry demonstrations which have serious safety concerns; if not in the performance, then in the safe and ethical disposal.

Cody's views on elemental mercury being vilified push me over the edge to wanting that type of speech protected on the platform, lest fears of dihydrogen monoxide rule.

I think doing things in a safe method are fine.

Channels like NileRed discuss that this is dangerous, that is dangerous, I'm properly venting and wearing a respirator, I have to do these steps so this is safe to dispose of etc. That is safe, channels like this are commendable.

Channels like BackyardScientist and Cody's Lab where you are making your own nitro and whacking it with a steak knife or making weapons firing rather fast moving (and heavy) projectiles in your backayrd in the suburbs... yeahhh not so much (or worse, the time DemolitionRanch fired a proper firearm inside his HOUSE).

Channels like TheSlowMoGuys and Hydraulic Press Channel/Beyond the Press are the grey area. They both use some safety precautions and both often stress "don't try this yourself" or some such, but they also do stuff that is still pretty dangerous and questionable at best like getting inside giant water balloons for Slow and making rocket engines out of "play doo" for Beyond.

And how many people injure themselves doing stupid "science experiments" vs any type of sporting activity? By your logic youtube should ban anything to do with soccer, football, cheerleading, skateboarding, extreme sports. Definitely anything to do with getting cars to go faster as cars kill about 30k people a year in the US.

IIRC, even Cody's steak knife NG video had pretty serious "don't do this" disclaimers. And, I genuinely think it had educational value as an example of a project gone wrong.

The biggest problem for me in this train of thought is whether the danger lies in the danger (if emulated), the attractiveness, or the availability.

At what point do you start banning extreme sports videos from the platform? There are some activities which simply aren't safe, and are clear outliers. (Say, free soloing vs typical rock climbing.)

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