So how many channels get removed for no reason each week for people who don't have the benefit of being a respected audio developer whom Peter Kirn will fight for?
roenxi 365 days ago [-]
It is an interesting variant of the "you owe bank $1k it is your problem vs you owe the bank $1B it is their problem" saying. This is a problem for small companies as long as YouTube/Alphabet are generally good moderators. It is a problem for YouTube/Alphabet if they start clamping down too hard. Some of these people are going to go elsewhere, set up shop and start peeling the audience away from YouTube. Audiences aren't smart, but sooner or later they figure it out if they should be using a different site.
joemi 365 days ago [-]
It's absolutely maddening that this is the only way to get some problems fixed sometimes, _especially_ with Google.
floydnoel 365 days ago [-]
it is why i refuse to use almost all google products. my one exception is gmail, which is impossible to get away from.
i once had google emailing me every single week to bother me about trying out GCP (i used it at work and nearly got certified for that company so i didn't need to scope it out). they offered hundreds or thousands in free credits. well now, you are trying to give me many free dollars, but i have an issue. i couldn't get Google's captcha to work. So i said if you can put me in contact with some person who can help with this very prevalent google product- then i will consider it.
the answer from google is something i will never forget. it was just "we don’t offer support, sorry"
why would i ever give you money? google even sent me a CR-48 for free as a tester, that's how much i used to use them. never again! (except gmail, ugh)
fsflover 365 days ago [-]
I moved from Gmail to another, paid email company by changing my preferences at each website, one by one. It took about a year without too much effort. Can't recommend enough.
jazzyjackson 365 days ago [-]
There are a lot of domain registrars that will give you a mailbox for free with purchase/transfer of a domain. Good combo if you want a custom email anyway. I can recommend infomaniak. iirc roughly same price as namecheap, but with added Swiss flavor.
Download thunderbird and sign in via IMAP and bobs your uncle
floydnoel 365 days ago [-]
yeah that is obvious but unfortunately this is for a company email and needs to integrate with Calendly and a CRM, etc. Outlook and Gmail are the only real options.
for personal use, I'm already using MX Route which i learnt about from comments here. $30/yr for unlimited domains and mailboxes. feel free to drop me a message to check how it works! cto@floydnoel.com
for personal use the last G product i am stuck with is Google Voice. not sure of a good replacement for that if you have any recs.
darig 365 days ago [-]
[dead]
CursedUrn 365 days ago [-]
This is why we need an online Bill of Rights.
_heimdall 365 days ago [-]
How would that work exactly? And are there things that need to be protected in the online world but not the physical/real world?
When it comes to YouTube censorship freedom of speech seems applicable except for the fact that YouTube is a private platform with terms of service you have to agree to for them to host and distribute your content.
harimau777 365 days ago [-]
At a practical level, once a platform like YouTube becomes The Commons, then certain rights become necessary for us to live in a free society. No idea how you implement that legally though.
Perhaps something like utilities where a company operates at sort of a midpoint between private and public?
nradov 365 days ago [-]
One way it could potentially work is for Congress to legislate that large online platforms operate as common carriers and refrain from censoring any legal content. I think this is worth considering. It would create challenges for content moderation but there are ways to deal with that by giving users better tools to filter out objectionable content from their feeds.
> It would create challenges for content moderation
Honestly it sounds like this problem would be gone entirely. The government already defines speech that is so bad as to making it illegal despite the first amendment. Treating social media as a common carrier means they get to skip moderation entirely and just have to follow what is legally allowed.
Forcing social media to act as a common carrier could very well mean algorithmic feeds aren't allowed as they impede speech and still toe the line of censorship. Without algorithmic feeds we could be back to seeing just from those in your circle, meaning moderation shouldn't be nearly as big of a concern anyway.
Anon for obv reasons. They were flagged for "spam and deceptive practices" - this isn't always for content, it can totally be based on behavior of associated accounts along with other web activity. Trying not to tar a whole group of people with the same brush, but I'm afraid most spam and deception online have certain common attributes. These are easily detected and actual false positives are rarer than you'd think. This person is lucky media got involved.
floydnoel 365 days ago [-]
so you’re saying their youtube channel did nothing wrong, but some associated account activity was flagged? what a joke of a company.
jiggawatts 365 days ago [-]
Google doesn't differentiate between any activity linked to the same account, and it's a viral thing so that "bad behaviour" by even vaguely associated accounts will "tar and feather" everything associated.
An example that came up was someone's GCP being wiped out because he was engaged in "ad theft". The guy had a personal video channel where he was uploading videos and then checking them for quality. Because he was a significant percentage of the viewer count, his account was flagged as "faking views to get ad revenue" and his online presence was nuked by Google. Email, VMs, YouTube channel, everything.
soraminazuki 365 days ago [-]
> A reporter from Ars Technica, after reading the article by @pkirn.bsky.social, was able to reach out to us and then directly contact a Google employee that could accelerate our appeal to be looked into.
Or the reporter was able to contact someone that could get the issue looked into at all, more like. You don't "accelerate" something that was never going to happen in the first place.
Also, this is a good time to remember that Google occasionally doubles down when they cause serious harm to individual users, even after being contacted by the media. Google invaded the privacy of numerous parents sharing sensitive medical pictures of their children with doctors, took away access to their entire digital lives including Gmail, called the cops, and effectively called them criminals after being contacted by the New York Times. Absolutely disgusting behavior that Google hasn't taken accountability for to this very day.
never forget! who would want their phones to call them perverts and send them to jail and delete their online identities over trying to be good parents to their kids in a horrible situation. good job google, really not evil at all
joemi 365 days ago [-]
What's SineVibes? And it'd be nice to read the mentioned Ars Technica article.
i once had google emailing me every single week to bother me about trying out GCP (i used it at work and nearly got certified for that company so i didn't need to scope it out). they offered hundreds or thousands in free credits. well now, you are trying to give me many free dollars, but i have an issue. i couldn't get Google's captcha to work. So i said if you can put me in contact with some person who can help with this very prevalent google product- then i will consider it.
the answer from google is something i will never forget. it was just "we don’t offer support, sorry"
why would i ever give you money? google even sent me a CR-48 for free as a tester, that's how much i used to use them. never again! (except gmail, ugh)
Download thunderbird and sign in via IMAP and bobs your uncle
for personal use, I'm already using MX Route which i learnt about from comments here. $30/yr for unlimited domains and mailboxes. feel free to drop me a message to check how it works! cto@floydnoel.com
for personal use the last G product i am stuck with is Google Voice. not sure of a good replacement for that if you have any recs.
When it comes to YouTube censorship freedom of speech seems applicable except for the fact that YouTube is a private platform with terms of service you have to agree to for them to host and distribute your content.
Perhaps something like utilities where a company operates at sort of a midpoint between private and public?
https://www.npr.org/2021/04/05/984440891/justice-clarence-th...
Honestly it sounds like this problem would be gone entirely. The government already defines speech that is so bad as to making it illegal despite the first amendment. Treating social media as a common carrier means they get to skip moderation entirely and just have to follow what is legally allowed.
Forcing social media to act as a common carrier could very well mean algorithmic feeds aren't allowed as they impede speech and still toe the line of censorship. Without algorithmic feeds we could be back to seeing just from those in your circle, meaning moderation shouldn't be nearly as big of a concern anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df5aakJdTzE
An example that came up was someone's GCP being wiped out because he was engaged in "ad theft". The guy had a personal video channel where he was uploading videos and then checking them for quality. Because he was a significant percentage of the viewer count, his account was flagged as "faking views to get ad revenue" and his online presence was nuked by Google. Email, VMs, YouTube channel, everything.
Or the reporter was able to contact someone that could get the issue looked into at all, more like. You don't "accelerate" something that was never going to happen in the first place.
Also, this is a good time to remember that Google occasionally doubles down when they cause serious harm to individual users, even after being contacted by the media. Google invaded the privacy of numerous parents sharing sensitive medical pictures of their children with doctors, took away access to their entire digital lives including Gmail, called the cops, and effectively called them criminals after being contacted by the New York Times. Absolutely disgusting behavior that Google hasn't taken accountability for to this very day.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32538805
https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2025/02/youtube-briefly-...
(PS: Ars Technica is a bit sluggish for me this evening. Not sure why.)
Why would YouTube flag them?