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Comment by catlover76 | Hacker News Reader

If YouTube's content moderation takes down government content that is being posted for responsible or generally good reasons, then why isn't that worth an article?

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Because nothing here is really surprising. What YouTube did in this case is both legal (search for Section 230) and in line with their TOS and historical behavior.

The posting of mostly surprising news is part of the reason why people have such skewed perceptions of how common various risks are, I don't think it's a good practice.

Youtube's capricious moderation policies are well known, they take down content posted for responsible or generally good reasons all the time. This isn't news just because it's the LAPD. It would be news if they treated the LAPD different from anyone else posting violent content.

I got this recommendation[1] right around the time Youtube decided I'd seen enough ad free videos. Whatever sympathy I had for them missing out on ad revenue evaporated.

1: https://i.imgur.com/ymOmwBy.jpg

The "Russian Dashcam" videos are horrific these days, basically snuff films and yes that includes children. I'm the kind of person who likes realistic war movies and the like but this is on a different level. I won't post links but they are easy to find, a simple search will surface them with no issues.

Do you think most people realize(d) that such content moderation policies resulted in government postings like this getting taken down?

Honestly, I don't think most people realize (or care about) the massive damage these giant corporations like Google and Facebook are doing to society in general.

There's no massive damage to society being done here. Law and order and civil society in Los Angeles don't depend on the LAPD's Youtube channel.

The posted article literally mentions the official website on which the content is also posted - and I guarantee most people are neither aware of, nor care about, either.

Censorship can and has caused damage when sweeping news under the rug. I'm thinking of the initial reports of a virus Chinese state media quickly squashed.

I recall more than just Chinese media censoring narratives about it, narratives which they later completely changed course on once it became more politically convenient.

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