This is like Google banning the YouTube app from the play store for having videos about covid that aren't from government sources. Insane stuff.
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Google is actually applying the same standard in this case (or at least attempting to). They're also fighting conspiracy theories on YouTube.
Here's a few citations:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52388586
https://fee.org/articles/youtube-to-ban-content-that-contrad...
https://www.theblaze.com/news/youtube-will-remove-any-corona...
https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/youtube-ramps-up-actio...
These haven't been cherry picked, they're the top 4 results on a DDG search.
Your example only demonstrates that you don't understand the difficulty in censoring content on social platforms as enormous as YouTube; not that Google don't have a policy that prohibits such content.
I get it's cool to hate Google these days and I'm not saying I agree with the removal of the podcast app, however the removal of that app is consistent with how Google have been maintaining some of their other platforms too. This isn't a theoretical point either, it's been well documented in the news and talked to death on here too. So regardless of my opinion of Google (and to be clear: I'm not fan either) I still can't help feeling that all the "Google are hypocrites" remarks being made are completely ignorant of the fact that Google are actually removing content on YouTube as well.
Here's a bunch of citations that proves this and the GP comments are actually correct despite the down votes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23220864
It's too bad google is so insanely incompetent that there are more every day instead of less. It's enough to make you think that they aren't staggeringly incompetent, have talented engineers, and aren't trying to fight conspiracy theory videos that are among the stickiest content on their sites.
With regards to the app removal, do we know it is a Google management decision and not the work of an overzealous app reviewer or an algorithm (the latter being the way Google usually operate)?
The reason I talk about internal consistency is because it is hard getting the right balance between removing stuff that should be vs stuff that shouldn’t and that problem is only magnified when when doing so at scale. So if this were a management then I totally understand the pitchforks but if it’s a false positive an in algorithm then hopefully Google will rectify and we can all go back to moaning about Electron or whatever the next meme is.
"They are removing content on youtube." is a true factual statement.
"They are applying the same standard." is not.
The motivation may be the same, but the types of removal are very different. As long as their own podcasting app is up in its current form, there is a very good argument that they're not being consistent.
I’m not talking about disagreement of these posts (there’s nothing to disagree, the comments were factually accurate), I’m talking about the comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“, which clearly isn’t true (as I’ve proven).
I also don’t agree with you exaggerating my comments to claim I was accusing people of being mindless and agree when I said no such thing.
> The motivation may be the same, but the types of removal are very different. As long as their own podcasting app is up in its current form, there is a very good argument that they're not being consistent.
When splitting hairs there’s a risk you sub-divide the problem so finely that you then can argue nothing is equivalent and I think that’s what’s happening here.
There’s a saying that goes something like “don’t attributed malice to acts of incompetence” which applies here. People are quick to jump on the offensive when it’s clearly a policy that Google follow on their other platforms and it might well be a decision that is overturned upon review.
I explain this point more eloquently here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23222167
The real question is whether it should be consistently upheld without exceptions and the answer to that is obviously “no” because some apps are hubs to user curated content like that podcast app is.
As for your comment about them suspending their entire YouTube app, you talk as if this was a management exec decision rather than rouge judgement that will inevitably get overturned.
Google isn’t a single entity. It’s a collection of people and algorithms all making their own judgements based on Google’s policies. Sometimes they miss stuff they should moderate and sometimes they get overzealous and remove content they shouldn’t. There is such a large grey area and scope for personal judgement that you have to expect some unpopular verdicts from time to time. It’s shit but no two situations are identical so it’s a problem that’s impossible to avoid. The real tell is whether Google reverse the decision once the complaint gets escalated.
"Coronavirus Live Map and realtime counter - Latest worldwide COVID-19 stats and figures." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRy5_KpPxyM
And there're tons more when you search "covid 19 stats" in YT
> It would be trivial for a human to find this.
Someone literate in Swedish maybe (to gather the context of those key words) but it isn't humans which do this.
Google are big into automation to the extent that they have machines doing their review. You might consider that wrong but then you have to ask yourself how many humans would it take to moderate a platform as large as YouTube. I bet you that whatever number you come up wouldn't be enough and someone else would say "I found another video that was trivial to find, Google don't hire enough platform moderators!"
Plus it's a pretty horrible job being a professional moderator and spending your whole day reviewing the dregs of society. I've read reports where people who've done it had said it's had a very real negative impact on their mental health.
As I said earlier, fixing problems like this at scale is insanely hard. It's one of those things that might seem easy at a superficial level but it's fraught with errors and you can guarantee that whatever decision the moderator makes (be that human or algorithm) someone will be unhappy and claim it's not fair.
The equivalent to the youtube bans is when they ban apps that are actually about covid-19. Not apps with internet search.
> I’m not talking about disagreement of these posts (there’s nothing to disagree, the comments were factually accurate), I’m talking about the comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“, which clearly isn’t true (as I’ve proven).
No, the exact opposite of that. Because I was replying to the part of your post that says "It's a great pity all the factual comments about YouTube's COVID-19 video removal policy (or "censorship" depending on your viewpoint) are being down voted"
That is about disagreement, and is not about comments where people say stuff like “Google's rules only apply to their competitors“.
> I also don’t agree with you exaggerating my comments to claim I was accusing people of being mindless and agree when I said no such thing.
You said "factual comments are being down voted" in favor of "anti-Google rhetoric". That's either people being mindless or people being malicious. Maybe I shouldn't have used the word "anger", but I don't think "mindless" is exaggerating what you said at all. You painted the situation as having no legitimate reason to downvote those comments.
However I still object to you twisting my words to something far more sinister then they’re clearly intended. That’s simply not good debating.
And yeah, that disagreement is fine.
But you need to understand that I am not trying to twist your words at all. I see those two things as synonyms. No twisting is intended. And for you to say "far more sinister then they’re clearly intended" sounds like an accusation of deliberate malicious behavior, not even me making a mistake, and I don't appreciate that.
“Deliberate” and “malicious” is another example of related but terms that are not synonyms.
Whereas “mindless” was entirely fabricated by you.
You can’t just swap out words for more emotive terms and assume that was the writers original intent. Especially when you then go on to use those new, more highly charged words, as part of your complaint against the original comment.
I can also see for your post history ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229973) that you don’t like it when you feel misquoted yourself, so why do the same to others?
My post was only talking about disagreement as expressed by downvoting. I was not using disagreement as a synonym for hate.
> “Deliberate” and “malicious” is another example of related but terms that are not synonyms.
I wasn't saying they were. I feel like you're greatly misunderstanding my posts or something.
> Whereas “mindless” was entirely fabricated by you.
So what motivation were you implying, when you talked about it being a "great pity that all the factual comments" about the policy were being downvoted?
I wasn't swapping out your own words for other words. You never explicitly said what the motivation was, so I did my best to convert that into words. You're telling me I did that wrong, fine, but it wasn't on purpose. You tell me what words I should use there, to talk about the motivation of those downvoters.
> I can also see for your post history ( https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23229973) that you don’t like it when you feel misquoted yourself, so why do the same to others?
What a weird flex. They weren't quoting me at all.