Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/02/28/youtube-is-disabling-all-comme.html
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YouTube doesn’t need to stop comments on all videos featuring children – they need waaaaay more than that. Like real-name posting and commenting (no posting without ID), moderation of all content (not just for content but also, yes, for copyright) and hard, fast de-platforming of hate speech.
If you took away YouTube, it wouldn’t hurt society that much; leaving it up as a virtual monopoly that enables jerks, monetizes and algorithm-izes marginal hate speech by shoving it to the mainstream and violates copyright like you and I breathe in nitrogen, though, does hurt society.
And before you say this would all take money, I don’t think Google’s exactly hurting for cash flow. Maybe it’s time to spend some of YouTube’s money protecting the liberal, secular society that helped create YouTube…
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Agreed. And why the emphasis on “young children?” A creep creeping on a 9yold is bad, but a creep creeping on a 14yold is… what, business as usual in Alabama?
I’m also concerned about the bit about “states of undress.” I know there are people who would freak out over the video of a toddler running in a sprinkler in nothing but a diaper, but it would be spectacular if we had some consistent, reasonable standards for what constitutes obscenity? There will always be somebody who freaks out over a kid in a bikini, and somebody else who salivates over a kid in a bikini, but at the end of the day, you can’t outlaw a feeling.
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Just remove all comments.
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I disagree.
If anything, real name posting makes things worse, because the only ones who dare to comment are those who consider themselves the protected class. It only takes the microphone away from the persecuted.
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The company also says it has launched a new machine learning system that it says will remove twice as many comments as the old one
I can’t see how this could possibly go wrong.
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That is … not accurate, but.
Again, you have the right to free speech. You don’t have the right to it at all times, only under your rules, esp, in regards to your relationship to a business. And since YouTube gives people money for users posting videos, it’s incumbent on YouTube to have each account linked to a real human with their correct ID .
Yes, anonymity is a vital part of a free society’s media. But Karen Silkwood isn’t warning about bad nuclear plants on YouTube, nor are the Pentagon Papers being published there. This is people messing with a business, and, like any business, youTube has a right to know who its customers are, and its customers have a right to know who’s posting what.
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Youtube’s response to this problem is arbitrary and harming a vast majority of legit channels. LaoWhy86 for example has only very rarely ever showed his daughters in passing on his channel, yet he’s been punished for it. No comments leads to a lack of shares which results in a decline in income, so it’s quite bad if it’s your vocation.
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This seems like applying a bandaid with a sledgehammer. Doesn’t this just mean the pedos will move over to say cat videos? At the same time killing off user engagement for tons of channels? It seems like a rather panicked response that won’t do much to address the actual problem.
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Panic is how we address problems. This is America.
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yep, the EU thinks the same with article 13. 300 hours per minute material uploaded. no problem at all to moderate that amount with humans, right?
define “hate speech”.
maybe it wont. but I would hate it to miss some very usefull DIY-chanels, repair-chanels, science-chanels, independent-filmmaker-chanels, independent-music-chanels, news-chanels…you get the picture.
I dont give a single fuck about “money”. but I do care for universal knowledge, even when the platform belongs to a fucking monopolist like abc/google. doesnt mean I support their buisness-model
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I can’t imagine they be over in the cat videos timestamping like “3:16 dat ass <3”
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YT videos do not need comments. Period.
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For the most part this is true, but there are some cases where the comments are valuable. AvE for example engages with his audience via the comments, and very occasionally his daughter shows up in the videos so that might be in jeopardy.
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A lot depends on what channel/community, there are some channels that i follow that have taken a lot of time and effort to build a positive community and the comments are always really positive, constructive and thoughtful.
That said the normal experience in comments is just a burning dumpster fire, but i don’t think that doing away with them entirely is good for channel creators.
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Yep. It’s also how “problems” are managed; manufactured panic.
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Frankly, like others here, I’ve always thought comments on YouTube videos should be turned off by default and only enabled by choice.
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In no possible way is YouTube a “virtual monopoly”. Have you ever heard of Vimeo, Hulu, Dailymotion, PornHub, or a dozen other video sites?
I’m not sure you understand the massive reach that YouTube and its competitors have. And I have no idea how you can categorize it as “liberal” while also demanding that they deplatform (presumably racist and bigoted) hate speech.
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So everyone on the entire planet knows that, on the whole, YouTube comments are nearly entirely hateful trash and it only took them 14 years to do a single damn thing about it (or, rather, a very narrow segment of it)?
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