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YouTube's New Moderators Mistakenly Pull Right-Wing Channels (bloomberg.com)
In December, said it would assign more than 10,000 people to moderate content in an attempt to curb its child exploitation problem. Today, Bloomberg reports that those new moderators mistakenly removed several videos and some channels from right-wing, pro-gun video producers and outlets in the midst of a nationwide debate on gun control. From the report: Some YouTube channels recently complained about their accounts being pulled entirely. On Wednesday, the Outline highlighted accounts, including Titus Frost, that were banned from the video site. Frost tweeted on Wednesday that a survivor of the shooting, David Hogg, is an actor. Jerome Corsi of right-wing conspiracy website Infowars said on Tuesday that YouTube had taken down one of his videos and disabled his live stream. Shutting entire channels would have marked a sweeping policy change for YouTube, which typically only removes channels in extreme circumstances and focuses most disciplinary action on specific videos. But YouTube said some content was taken down by mistake. The site didn't address specific cases and it's unclear if it meant to take action on the accounts of Frost and Corsi. "As we work to hire rapidly and ramp up our policy enforcement teams throughout 2018, newer members may misapply some of our policies resulting in mistaken removals," a YouTube spokeswoman wrote in an email. "We're continuing to enforce our existing policies regarding harmful and dangerous content, they have not changed. We'll reinstate any videos that were removed in error."
Facebook rolled out its new algorithm in January.
Due to the algorithm, Trump's total engagement dropped by about half, while the engagements of left-wing people such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren stayed largely the same.
I don't mind healthy competition between political viewpoints, but why does "oops, we're having some trouble with the algorithm" always seem to be in favor of the left?
PopeRatzo railed:
Today, CNN was lying about President Trump saying that he wanted to confiscate guns without due process. More fake news. We all know our President would never ever say such a thing!
The phony quote, if you can possibly believe it, was, "I like taking the guns early...Take the guns first. Go through due process second,” They even had some CGI version of President Trump speaking these words in a supposed meeting with members of congress.
We're not going to fall for it, no sir. We're way to smart for that. YOU DON'T GET TO SLANDER OUR PRESIDENT THAT WAY, LIBS.
Moderate parent +1 Funny, please ...
Check out my novel.
It suffers from multiple basic failures of reasoning in an attempt to make an emotional appeal that doesn't hold water.
Good policy is not defined by what parties advocate for it. The fact that the Democratic party was historically infused with terrible racism in no way excuses the Republican party from embracing it today. Now Republicans aren't the only voice for conservatism and admittedly not even a good one. But as long as conservatism and the toxic Republican party are intertwined, there really is no way to advocate for conservative positions without stepping on a landmine. It's not okay for either party to embrace racism and keeping score of past wrongs may be interesting but isn't a mechanism to guide current thinking. Instead we should look for sound policy.
Comparing consequences of having unpopular viewpoints with genuine discrimination is a perfect example of fallacy. Youtube does not discriminate against conservatives. They're welcome to use the same platform as everybody else. Conservatives can share their cat videos. They demonstrate proper lightbulb changing techniques. Welcome to setup a thousand dominoes and show a video of them falling down. In short, conservatives can use Youtube the same as everybody else. Nobody asks for your political viewpoints when you sign up.
A fast food restaurant isn't discriminating against homeless if they don't allow those people to panhandle on the premises. They are discriminating if they refuse to sell the homeless person (who has the money) a hamburger. Likewise, they aren't discriminating against me if they refuse to let me stand in the middle of the restaurant with a bullhorn shouting profanities.
Indeed, if a business refused to do business with someone simply because that person was racist, there may be an argument about discrimination. But if they refuse to serve a customer because that person is engaging in a racist tirade, that's not discrimination.
"Conservatives" seem to think they should be able to behave however they want and associate with whatever unsavory characters they desire and not suffer an consequences. So much for "personal responsibility."
In short, a person can't control their gender, race, or a variety of other factors which is why those are protected statuses. A person can control their behavior which is why it's okay for a business to refuse to serve those who won't behave in ways compatible with the business. Those two are as different as night and day. But it's exactly these two that the parent conflates. Too bad there isn't a -1 Propaganda mod.