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YouTube Disabled Comments On Livestreams Of A Congressional Hearing On White Nationalism Because They Were Too Hateful (buzzfeednews.com)

Tuesday's hearing was meant to examine the rise of white nationalism and white supremacy and the role social media plays in its spread. Then the comments got hijacked. From a report: YouTube moderators disabled comments on livestreams of the House Judiciary Committee's hearing about hate crimes the rise of white nationalism on Tuesday, deeming them too hateful for the platform. The comment sections quickly flooded with hate speech and white nationalist memes before the hearing had even started. The comments included derogatory remarks about women on camera, anti-Semitic slurs, far-right memes with references to "white genocide," and pro-Trump slogans. The channels' comments sections were deactivated within an hour. [...] YouTube's disabling of comments is ironic: House Judiciary Committee Chair Jerrold Nadler, a Democrat from New York, made special reference in his opening statement of the role social media platforms play in spreading hate speech and extremism in his opening statement.

38 of 431 comments (clear)

  1. Why this one video by SuperKendall · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I don't know if these "You Tube Moderators" have looked around much, but you can find hateful comments on pretty much any video. Why block comments on just this one?

    If YouTube wants to block "hateful comments" why do they allow comments anywhere?

    --
    "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
    1. Re:Why this one video by Freischutz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't know if these "You Tube Moderators" have looked around much, but you can find hateful comments on pretty much any video. Why block comments on just this one?

      If YouTube wants to block "hateful comments" why do they allow comments anywhere?

      Because the quantity and hatefulness blew the scale?

    2. Re:Why this one video by BringsApples · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seems proper to me. Here they are, the big-wigs meeting about the role that social media plays in fueling hate. YouTube, a social media platform would be super stupid to NOT turn off the hate in such a situation.

      --
      Politics; n. : A religion whereby man is god.
    3. Re:Why this one video by Crashmarik · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Oh that's hilarious. Truly hateful speech invalidates itself. It's why conservatives love it when totalitarians of all stripes open up their mouths.
      I would guess it's more a case of far too many accurate comments and questions.

      Examples:
      How do you raise the minimum wage to 15/hr while simultaneously allowing an endless flood of people in that will work for $5/hr ?
      If sexual preference is biologically determined, just how is gender a social construct ?
      Or the simple If it's OK for the U.S. to interfere in Russian elections, why wouldn't you expect them to return the favor ?

    4. Re:Why this one video by Freischutz · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Examples: How do you raise the minimum wage to 15/hr while simultaneously allowing an endless flood of people in that will work for $5/hr ?

      The federal minimum wage is already $7.25/hr so if you are right this is already a problem. The only thing that changes when raising the minimum wage to $15/hr is that a ton of people will actually get paid $15/hr since there is plenty of businesses that respect the law.

      If sexual preference is biologically determined, just how is gender a social construct ?

      I have no idea, I have been a heterosexual all my life and I have never doubted my gender or my sexual orientation for a second. The philosophy of gender ambiguity is a topic I'm quite content to leave to others and I am certainly not going to sit in my basement for hours on end reading Breitbart and getting angry about what the two gay boys next door might be doing in their bedroom. It's none of my f***ing business and I am quite happy with it not being any of my f***ing business.

      Or the simple If it's OK for the U.S. to interfere in Russian elections, why wouldn't you expect them to return the favor ?

      Well, US interference in the Russian election got the Russians Boris Yeltsin instead of Vladimir Zhirinovsky which is going from catastrophic to merely terrible. Russian interference in the US election got the Americans a completely senile, corrupt businessman, money launderer, tax cheat, bank fraudster, slum lord, pussy grabber and serial liar (basically Trump is American Yeltsin) instead of a controversial but generally competent female politician. I'm not quite sure who got the shorter end of the stick here but since Zhirinovsky would not have hesitated to start WWIII but Trump merely might start WWIII I think the we all probably benefitted more from American interference in Russa's elections than vice versa.

    5. Re: Why this one video by SuperKendall · · Score: 4, Insightful

      No federally elected Democrat is arguing that,

      Multiple elected Democrats in the House and Senate are for totally open borders and minimum wage at $15.

      Just the facts, man.

      --
      "There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
  2. Action and reaction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    The more speech is suppressed the stronger the suppressed will react. Censorship is a loser's game

  3. Re:There is only one kind of speech in America by CohibaVancouver · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Hey Anonymous Coward - Don't quote the constitution if you don't understand it.

    The constitution says THE GOVERNMENT can't censor your speech. Last time I checked, there was no mention in the constitution of private corporations like YouTube.

  4. Oversight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    YouTube blocked comments on this video because it's politically sensitive. They want to maintain control of the narrative, and having the congress look at the comments is likely to impact their control of the narrative.

    1. Re:Oversight by MightyMartian · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The narrative here seems to be "talk about white nationalists, and gangs of white nationalists show up to prove just how demented and determined to be assholes they are."

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Oversight by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      ... and their perspective of blatant discrimination got validated by YouTube promptly censoring them.

      "Oh, but it's a corporation, not the government censoring them" isn't a great argument when you also claim that corporations own the government, and in this case, I'd agree with you that Google has an amazingly large, malign, influence on the government.

    3. Re:Oversight by PopeRatzo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      I'd agree with you that Google has an amazingly large, malign, influence on the government.

      If that's true, then how is Trump president?

      --
      You are welcome on my lawn.
    4. Re:Oversight by Mashiki · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That's certainly the narrative. I'd bet the reality is "the chans saw this as a wonderful opportunity to troll, plus some actual white nationalists (who were also channers).".

      Don't worry, the media is currently all over the rainbow clowns(honkhonk) are really a white nationalist and neo-nazi symbol.

      The reality is, youtube doing this proves both sides right. YT is censoring some views(politically correct or not) and thus validating it. And the opposing side is "see look at all that hate! They were right!" Pure accelerationism all the way down, looks like the NZ nut was spot on.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
  5. Dumb-but-serious question... by Penguinisto · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I understand what a "white supremacist" is. I understand what a "French Nationalist", or a "Argentinian Nationalist" would be. However, the term "White Nationalist" is semantically and massively wrong (but then, so would "Black Nationalist" or "Asian Nationalist"...) After all, what nation is titled as "White"?

    I get that stamping out racism is a good thing, but seriously, folks - at least don't mangle the language while you do it.

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    1. Re:Dumb-but-serious question... by mcmonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

      However, the term "White Nationalist" is semantically and massively wrong (but then, so would "Black Nationalist" or "Asian Nationalist"...) After all, what nation is titled as "White"?

      If someone was a nationalist, and thought their nation should be solely or dominantly one race, would it not be semantically and massively correctly to refer to them as a "[Race] Nationalist"?

      (Race being not a biological category, as humans are a single species, but a reference to skin color, geographical ancestry, or religion.)

    2. Re:Dumb-but-serious question... by sycodon · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The problem is that when you say you are a Nationalist, as Trump did, the Left automatically adds, "White" to the beginning.

      --
      When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
  6. Re:There is only one kind of speech in America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Free Speech. Guaranteed by the first (foremost) amendment to the supreme law of the land.

    Anyone who would knowingly abridge it is an enemy of the United States of America.

    Period. Full Stop.

    All Trump supporters should be tied to a post and flogged with a clue stick whilst wearing a refrigerated steel butt plug up their fundament <- That was free speech, now mod me up for making use of the 1st amendment.

  7. Re:There is only one kind of speech in America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Why is the government then using a private corporation like YouTube to stream?

  8. The timing on this is almost perfect. by slappynipsy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's nearly the 10 year anniversary of John Gabriel's groundbreaking theory. https://www.penny-arcade.com/c...

  9. Re:There is only one kind of speech in America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Free Speech. Guaranteed by the first (foremost) amendment to the supreme law of the land.

    Anyone who would knowingly abridge it is an enemy of the United States of America.

    Period. Full Stop.

    All Trump supporters should be tied to a post and flogged with a clue stick whilst wearing a refrigerated steel butt plug up their fundament <- That was free speech, now mod me up for making use of the 1st amendment.

    So, modded down to -1 already, it's fun being censored by a bunch of Trump supporters who usually are the first to complain about being censored for hating on brown people in violation of their rights under the 1st amendment.

  10. Re:They should see Starcraft II general chat! by thereddaikon · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Agreed. Just look at 4chan, the guys who tried to get "hitler did nothing wrong" voted as a new Mountain Dew flavor. The do it to get a rise out of people, or in their own words, do it for the lulz. There certainly are real neo nazis, stormfront wouldn't exist otherwise, but that site has always been tiny. I think it more closely represents the true size of such groups. And they aren't all that big or threatening.

    What we do have is a polarization problem right now. It feels like people are generally more divided than they have been in some time. Trolls being trolls and Godwin's law has always been a thing. But now I see people seriously calling others Nazis and getting into fights about it. Guys, nobody is a Nazi. We used to be able to disagree about politics. Just exaggerating everything and demonizing one another just pushes each other farther apart. Until eventually we do have people who are something like Nazis when they otherwise wouldn't be.

  11. Re:There is only one kind of speech in America by MightyMartian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    For the same reason the Government uses newspapers to advertise and TV networks for televised addresses. Just because the government can use private companies for providing services does not mean that private companies suddenly become branches of the government, and bound to the first Amendments.

    Jesus Christ, the utter lack of understanding on the part of some here just astonishes. This black and white thinking, this inability to comprehend nuance or complexity, and the fundamental ignorance that gets married to it, so that your lack of knowledge gets coupled with astonishing arrogance, that you become blind to how things are actually supposed to work.

    --
    The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
  12. Re:There is only one kind of speech in America by smooth+wombat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    As usual, the dullards miss the teeny, tiny caveat to the First Amendment. It only applies to the government.

    As has been stated who knows how many times, a company is free to limit free speech if it so chooses. This is no different than if a casino doesn't want to provide service to someone. It's their property, their rules. Same with YouTube.

    It has nothing to do with being an "enemy" of the U.S. It has to do with a company doing what it wants on its platform. Don't like it? Don't frequent YouTube.

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  13. Humans and Great Apes differ by 2% by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Upwards of 4% of European DNA is Neanderthal DNA; black Africans have zero Neanderthal DNA.

    The point is not that one group is "better" than another, but this idea that all humans are clones of each other, and that race is a social construct, makes no sense; it makes no sense in the raw numbers, and it makes no sense in everyday life.

    People know it's bullshit.

    Now, look into average IQ measurements. Come on; you can do it. Stare into that deep abyss, and know reality for what it is.

  14. Re:They should see Starcraft II general chat! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Um, actually, if you march carrying torches at night shouting Nazi slogans, then yes, you are a Nazi. Mike Godwin himself, author of that law, came out and publicly said "Go right ahead and call them Nazis, because they are!" AC

  15. Re:They should see Starcraft II general chat! by mcmonkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Guys, nobody is a Nazi.

    You generally have a good point, but the people marching with torches chanting "the Jews will not replace us" are nazis.

    Not everyone who disagrees with me is a nazi. Nor is everyone more conservative than I am or everyone who believes negative stereotypes based on skin color or religion.

    But that does not mean there are no nazis.

  16. Re:There is only one kind of speech in America by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    But the interesting difference between your lawn and google's lawn is google has opened their lawn to the public. For now you are correct but we do need to have a conversation about privately owned public spaces.

  17. Yeah no fan of that by Crashmarik · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But I don't see anyone banning Che Guevara shirts.

    1. Re:Yeah no fan of that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      But I don't see anyone banning Che Guevara shirts.

      You are either joking or seriously comparing Che Guevara shirts to death threats which, ironically, is also a joke because the comparison is so stupid. If you want to stick it to the Che Guevara shirt wearing latte slurping hipsters you can always invest in one of these: https://fineartamerica.com/fea... I bet you don't have the guts to wear it in public.

    2. Re: Yeah no fan of that by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Communists murdered 10x as many people in the past century as the Nazis.

      But you know that already. You're just complicit.

    3. Re:Yeah no fan of that by Luckyo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Marxist terrorism has the second highest victim count after islamic terrorism right now. It's obviously not as big of a terror threat as islam by a long shot, because islam is by far the most powerful driver of terrorism hence accounting for well over 90% of all terror world wide. But of all of the non-islamic terror, lion's share belongs to various Marxist organisations.

    4. Re: Yeah no fan of that by AmiMoJo · · Score: 1, Insightful

      You actually believe that, don't you? Despite having Trump in the White House, both major parties to the right of centre, Nazis openly marching on your streets and committing acts of terror... You think communists are the problem.

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  18. Now that's funny by Crashmarik · · Score: 1, Insightful

    That anyone would think they are making a point by starting off with fake laughter and the word "seriously"

    If you can't deal with talking about issues own it and and own the rest of your mental health problems.

    1. Re: Now that's funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      White Nationalism is the radical notion that we whites have human rights.
      Specifically:

      we have the right to ethnicity
      we have the right to nationality
      we have the right to our culture
      we have the right to national self-determination
      we have the right to self-government

  19. Re:Sadly any place by LordAba · · Score: 3, Insightful

    any place at all where speech is truly free is going to be flooded with hatred trying to drown out everything else.

    It's unfortunate, and I don't have a solution, but it is an incontrovertible fact of life.

    I totally disagree. Sunlight is a great disinfectant, and more speech is always better. The issue comes in echo chambers that are cut off from one another either voluntarily or by force. These allow extreme ideas and sentiment to exist. Some of the best research on getting rid of extremism states that two people talking will do more than nearly any amount of censorship.

    It's a lot harder to use the n-word when a friend will smack you in the back of the head. It's a lot harder to breed resentment when people close to you say "not cool" when you post about white genocide. Virtue signalling usually gets you odd looks when you do it on the bus. But get into a community of like minded people who enforce such behavior and that all goes out the window.

    Being social and interacting with others is a muscle like any other (even the "brain muscle")... without training and exercise one can easily become an NPC.

  20. Interesting... by Big+Boss · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I find it amusing and interesting that the "conservatives" want businesses to have rights and religion when they are discriminating against gays, but freak out when some business decides they don't want said "conservatives" as a customer.

    It's a bit like the "tolerance" groups that only have tolerance for the groups/religions/etc. THEY like.

    Left/Right, D/R, doesn't matter. They are all stupid. :)

  21. Dem Angry White Folks is Crazy by nehumanuscrede · · Score: 2, Insightful

    There is an awful lot of anger out there.

    Those of Caucasian decent have been told for years that they are racists simply because of their skin color.
    They can't be discriminated against because they aren't the right color.
    They have something called " White Privilege " that, apparently, is some sort of " I win " button available on tap.
    They get turned down for jobs and education slots because the Company or University has to have enough minorities lest they be called racists too.
    Standardized tests are all racist because, apparently, minorities have issues with them. So they just get rewritten to make the numbers look better.
    Slavery is still their fault apparently, irregardless of the fact the last " slaves " in America were freed ~150 years ago.
    ( The reparations movement, and all the politicians using it to further their political career, can just f*ck off. )
    Starting a #WhiteLivesMatter movement would instantly be classified as some White Nationalist Klan Nazi Terrorist Group and the media would just lose it.

    Given the above:

    Is there anyone out there who doesn't think a very small percentage of impacted folks might be just a tad bit angry about it all ?
    Is there anyone out there who doesn't think an even smaller percentage of that small percentage might even be REALLY angry about it ?

    And of that laughably tiny percentage, a few folks might actually do something rather radical ?

    This is shocking why ?

    Maybe they're just tired of being the " Bad Guy " for nothing more than their skin color.

  22. Um.. no, that's not the problem. by rsilvergun · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Problem is that when you cut programs for fighting domestic terror in a country where white supremacists account for a disproportionate amount of attacks and then say both sides are bad when literal Nazis are rallying, well...

    There just comes a time to call a Spade a Spade. I don't care of Trump really drinks the Kool-Aid or is just doing it for the votes or even the lulz. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and hiel Hitler's like a duck, it's a White Nationalist. Sooner we stop living in denial the better. This will not end well for us otherwise. Ignoring reality never does...

    --
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