Hacker News Reader

Comment by jetpks | Hacker News Reader

You are all over this thread claiming that the White House is explicitly pressuring Google to remove this feature of the site. Do you have supporting evidence, or did you just make this up? It seems more like you have a narrative and agenda to push.

View on HN

The White House is just the last one whose videos dislikes are being made fun of and shared in memes

I'm sure YouTube consulted with their biggest customers and partners before removing a functionality that increases engagement

Yeah the only reason The White House YouTube channel receives views right now is because Trump used it to to campaign and it became fairly popular amongst his supporters. It's main audience is still his supporters because most people don't really watch The White House on YouTube.

I didn't say anyone, let alone the White House is pressuring them to remove anything. Why would the WH have to pressure them? I have zero doubt that Google is pushing this themselves.

What I firmly believe, based on statements by the companies and the employees that work for them as well as their actions (over the past five years in particular) is they have a particular agenda to push and if you aren't on the right side of their messaging they intend to suppress it by any means possible.

Where in the comment do they claim “the White House is explicitly pressuring Google to remove this feature”?

The revolving door and growing ties between Google and segments of government strongly suggests a constant flow of information and the creation of incentives in a way that create a common understanding across both. Meaning, you might not need to "tell" anyone to do anything in particular. Your ties create common interest and once two groups, here relatively fluid groups with fuzzy boundaries, share a common interest, no explicit coordination is necessary.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com