Why I'm a Defender of YouTube (vortex.com)

Lauren Weinstein writes: In a time of fascist politicians spouting simplistic slogans about race, religion, terrorism, and censorship, along with whatever other pandering platitudes they believe will win them votes, prestige, power, and control — it's worth remembering how much good the Internet brings us, and how much poorer we'd all be in so many ways for the shackling of Internet services like YouTube, in the name of such self-serving proclamations and damaging false solutions.

Comments

Who cares?

[Threni]

Sorry, who are you? YouTube is the successful product of a wealthy and powerful company. It doesn't need defending.

But there IS a problem

[TWX]

Youtube's biggest problem isn't really the struggle that the article presents, it's that it's a monolithic entity that can be censored or manipulated by the nation-state, even if that state is limited to blocking. It's also subject to the whims of the corporation that owns it, as was demonstrated very poignantly by the integration of a social networking site and the adjustment of the way that usernames and the comments system function.

Granted, Youtube is not the sole video site on the Internet for personal content, and sometimes the huge amount of content that is acceptable to a nation-state makes it hard for them to justify blocking the whole site just to get a little bit of unacceptable content, but when one site emerges as the de facto default it becomes more likely that users don't even consider other sites or other options. Usually a competitive system is a healthy system, and this lack of competition threatens the health as it leaves the concept threatened to unilateral manipulation despite the interests of the users.

Fascist

[Anonymous Coward]

Newspeak for 'people I don't agree with'.

Media bias and misrepresentations

[Okian Warrior]

One thing has struck me recently, which is that YouTube allows us to catch out misrepresentations and media bias.

In previous years, we would *only* have the media interpretations of current events. My parents, for instance, would read the newspaper article about some incident or other, and have no way to judge whether the opinions and position were in any way correct.

Nowadays we can easily dig down to the source, and verify what we are told.

As an example that everyone knows about, we can look to some of the things said about Trump:

• The New York Times: “Trump’s claim that illegal Mexican immigrants are ‘rapists.”
• Time Magazine: “Trump’s comment that Mexican immigrants are ‘rapists.’”
• Associated Press: “Trump called Mexican immigrants rapists and criminals”
• CBS News: “Trump defends calling Mexican immigrants ‘rapists.’”
• L.A. Times: “describing Mexican immigrants as ‘rapists.’”
• Fortune: “in a speech branding Mexican immigrants as criminals and rapists.”
• Hollywood Reporter: “he referred to Mexican immigrants as ‘rapists.’”
• Huffington Post: “He called Latino immigrants ‘criminals’ and ‘rapists.’”
• The Washington Post: “He referred to Mexicans as “rapists.”

What he actually said:

They’re sending people that have lots of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists, and some, I assume, are good people.

An accurate representation of what he said was "some illegal immigrants are criminals", which is true simply by the law of averages, with the implication that if they went through a vetting procedure we could perhaps filter out the criminal portion.

This was taken so completely out of context that WaPo rephrased it as "He referred to Mexicans as “rapists.", with the implication that he insulted the entire population of another country, and a fair portion of our own citizens.

It's highly interesting to me that, as individuals, we now have the ability to find the evidence and come to our own conclusions, rather than blindly listen to the pronouncements of the elite.

And a little bit, I think that's why Trump's supporters are so immovable. When the MSM cries "but he's a *racist*!", most of the people who were at the rally think "he didn't actually say that".

It's definitely interesting the effect that YouTube has had on the political landscape.

Re:Media bias and misrepresentations

[lgw]

Opinion and "facts" were divided better, but rampant bias was still present in story selection and the truthy factoids chosen for publication. Look at US news coverage of the Vietnam war with with a jaded eye, and you'll see it: did you know we won every major battle in Vietnam? That's not the story the press told, because they wanted us out so very badly. Just like today, the press thinks of itself as smarter than the peasants, who are in need of having their beliefs "corrected". Read some earlier Heinlein stories where is opinion on the press leaks out: literal "newsclowns" in fright wigs and floppy shoes show up in multiple works. Same thing, different generation. Go back further and you reach the height of "yellow journalism".

Newspapers have always printed fiction inspired by true events, slanted to produce a desired result. Only the sports page is trustworthy, and then only the scores.