The Impossibility Of Content Moderation Plays Out, Once Again, On YouTube
from the no-one-will-agree dept
I was traveling a bit this week so didn't watch the slow motion train wreck that was happening on YouTube in real time. The latest situation began when Vox video producer Carlos Maza posted publicly on Twitter about Steven Crowder -- one of those ranty angry "comedians" -- kept posting "repeated, overt attacks on my sexual orientation and ethnicity." He noted that Crowder's fans had taken to harassing and doxxing him and generally being assholes. He "reported" the content to YouTube, saying that he felt the content violated its policies on bullying and harassment. After a few days, YouTube posted via Twitter (oddly) a kinda weird explanation, saying that after reviewing the videos, they didn't actually violate YouTube's harassment policies.
Lots of people got angry about that decision, and then YouTube changed its mind (partly), choosing to (maybe temporarily) demonetize Crowder's channel until he agreed to "address all of the issues with his channel", specifically "continued egregious actions that have harmed the broader community" whatever that means.
As Robby Soave at Reason notes, this is a solution that pissed off absolutely everyone and satisfied absolutely no one. Though, there is one thing that pretty much everyone agrees: boy YouTube sure pointed a pretty large cannon at its own foot in dealing with this one (seriously, don't they employ people who have some sort of clue about these kinds of communication issues?).
As Soave points out, there's really no good results here. He's correct that Crowder does seem to be an asshole and there's no reason to express any sympathy for Crowder being a jerk and attacking someone for their sexual orientation or ethnicity. Crowder deserves to be called out and mocked for such things. At the same time, it is quite reasonable to sympathize with Maza, as being on the end of such targeted harassment by assholes is horrific. Part of the problem, here, is the disconnect between what Crowder himself did (just be a general asshole) and what Crowder's followers and fans did (taking Crowder's assholish comments and escalating them into harassment). That puts a platform like YouTube (once again) into a really impossible position. Should it be holding Crowder responsible for the actions of his crazy deranged followers (which it can easily be argued he winkingly/noddingly encouraged) even if Crowder didn't do the harassment directly, and was just generally an asshole? It's a tough call. It may seem like an easy call, but try to apply that standard to other situations and it gets complicated fast.
Katie Herzog, at The Stranger, posted a thoughtful piece about how this particular standard could boomerang back on the more vulnerable and marginalized people in our society (as is the case with almost any effort towards censorship). Even if Crowder is deeply unfunny and a jerk, this standard creates follow on effects:
Crowder is a comic, doing exactly what comics do: Mocking a public figure. There's nothing illegal about that, and if YouTube does reverse its decision and start to ban everyone who mocks people for their sexuality or race, they're going to have to ban a whole lot of queer people of color who enjoy making fun of straight white dudes next. That's not a precedent I'd like to see set.
Of course, the usual response to this is to have people claim that we're making a bogus "slippery slope" argument that isn't there. What they mean is that since you and I can somehow magically work out which assholes deserve to be shut down and which assholes are doing it in pursuit of the larger good, then clearly a company can set in place a policy that works that says "stop just the assholes I don't like."
And there are reasons to be sympathetic to such a position. It's just that we have a couple decades of seeing how this works at scale in actual practice and it doesn't work. Ratchet up the ability to silence assholes and there are plenty of "false positives" -- people getting kicked off for dopey reasons. Go in the other direction and you end up with too many assholes on the platform. As we've discussed for years, there is no right level and there is no way to set the controls in a way that works. No matter what decision is made is going to piss off a ton of people. This is why I've been pushing for platforms to actually move in a different direction. Rather than taking on all of the policing responsibility themselves, open it up. Let others build services for content moderation, push the power to the ends of the network, and let there actually be competition among the moderation options, rather than having it come from a single, centralized source. There will still be problems with that, but it avoids many of the issues with the mess described here.
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Filed Under: bullying, carlos maza, content moderation, content moderation at scale, harassment, policies, steven crowder
Companies: youtube
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Evidently "humiliating but not life-threatening" is OK sometimes
Followed the twitter link into the rabbit hole ... holy crap.
Deeper in the comment thread is the discussion of "milkshaking" - throwing milkshakes at people you don't like. One of Maza's supporters said throwing food at people was acceptable social commentary, because it doesn't actually hurt anyone.
Evidently, saying bad things is literally violence, but throwing food at people isn't actually hurtful.
How do these clowns deal with the cognitive disonance?
DragonTamer
https://twitter.com/DragonTamer1992/status/1136743565516689408
@DragonTam er1992
18h18 hours ago
More
No this is throwing a milkshake on someone.
No knives involved. Can't milkshake someone to death by repeatedly throwing shakes at them. It's humiliating and disrespectful, but not life threatening.
It's literally not life threatening.
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Re: Evidently "humiliating but not life-threatening" is OK somet
Where does the article say that Crowder was threatening Maza's life?
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Re: Evidently "humiliating but not life-threatening" is OK somet
Something something lactose intolerant
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Hey, how bout people learn to, you know, not watch videos from people they don't like? Maybe that is too adult-like for people nowadays.
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Re:
This +1000.
The right level seems to me to just butt the hell out and quit trying to police people's speech in the first place. (At least here in the U.S., where the government isn't requiring it because it legally can't require it.)
The only 'content-moderation' these forums should bother engaging in is content that violates the law. Beyond that, let people shit-post all they want.
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Re: Re:
This +1000.
Uh. Again: no. That's not even remotely related to the issue.
The right level seems to me to just butt the hell out and quit trying to police people's speech in the first place. (At least here in the U.S., where the government isn't requiring it because it legally can't require it.)
Again, this misses the point. If you do that then you end up with a platform that is full of spam and abuse. It's not a reasonable solution to anyone who knows the first thing about this.
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Re: Re: Re:
As far as I know, you don't moderate comments here based on content, because there's certainly plenty of spam and abuse here.
Not sure why what's good enough for TechDirt isn't good enough for the wider world.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
As far as I know, you don't moderate comments here based on content, because there's certainly plenty of spam and abuse here.
We do moderate for spam. We're also WAY smaller than the platforms we are discussing. Which makes us both a smaller target and also it doesn't involve nearly as much to moderate.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
"there's certainly plenty of spam and abuse here"
Nowhere near as much as there would be if there was actually no moderation. The fact that you don't like what comes through the filters does not mean there are no filters.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Nowhere near as much as there would be if there was actually no moderation. The fact that you don't like what comes through the filters does not mean there are no filters.
Our filters stop about 500 to 1000 spam comments per day...
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Re:
Hey, how bout people learn to, you know, not watch videos from people they don't like? Maybe that is too adult-like for people nowadays.
That, uh, really has nothing to do with this at all. The issue is not Maza watching videos he doesn't like. It's the people who ARE watching the videos then taking it upon themselves to harass him constantly.
Do keep up.
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Re:
"how bout people learn to, you know, not watch videos from people they don't like"
OK, good idea. Now, how does that help the guys who didn't watch the videos but was getting harassed by the people who did?
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Re: Re:
If their actions are illegal, as opposed to just stuff you don't like to see/hear, call the Police. They in turn can tell the Police that Crowder made them do it after watching one of his videos.
Deal with it or ignore it. Not sure where/how ABC, BBC, NBC, Netflix, Blockbuster or YouTube could come into play though...What brand of device is being used to watch? Samsung could be responsible for this mess.
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Crowder is an asshole?
I don't think I've ever seen Crowder's being an asshole. However, he does mock people. I guess the asshole level is higher on my character meter than most people's meter.
Regardless, you are correct. There is no good answer to these subtle questions. It's probably a good idea for YouTube to remove/block sexual conduct wherein genitalia are displayed. Extreme acts of (actual, physical) violence should probably be age-moderated. Otherwise, everything should be allowed. The suggestion above is apt: if you don't like it, don't watch it.
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Re: Crowder is an asshole?
You're proposing allowing terrorist recruitment videos (that don't actually show violence), neo-Nazi propaganda, hate speech, harassment, stalking, and fraud. Just for some examples I can think of immediately. As you say, there is no good answer, including yours. ;-)
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Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
Yes.
Yes.
Yes. (Especially considering 'hate speech' is regularly defined as 'any criticism of me and my pet issue'.)
No. All of these are already illegal.
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Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
Everything btr1701 just said.
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Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
Wait, you don't think that terrorist videos and Nazi propaganda constitute harassment?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
If you don't have to watch it, no.
I am sure there are movies out their you don't like, such as nazi propaganda films, are you being harassed with them now?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
Me personally? No, but I've never been the intended target of such videos. Speak to someone who is, and you'll find that they are being harassed even if they don't personally watch them.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
Everybody is the intended target of those propaganda videos.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
You're saying that a white man is as much of a target of Nazi propaganda as a Jewish man or a black woman? That's an interesting take with no basis in reality...
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
More so: Are they recruiting Jewish people?
Propaganda;
information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote or publicize a particular political cause or point of view
Do they want to convert Jews to see things their way or kill them?
My reality is different than yours.
Jewish people are the goal, White Men are a target to help achieve the goal.
For the record, I am a white male who has never seen a full propaganda film nor have I ever been harassed with them.
I remember the good old days when there was something you didn't want to see you could turn the channel or walk away. Probably the reason why I have never seen a full propaganda movie or the Christchurch murders. I don't want to.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
"My reality is different than yours."
No, your reality is the same. Your perception of it might be different, but we all live in the same place.
"For the record, I am a white male who has never seen a full propaganda film nor have I ever been harassed with them."
Then why are you telling people who have that they're wrong? I've never been a target personally AFAIK< but I do sympathise with those who are.
"I remember the good old days when there was something you didn't want to see you could turn the channel or walk away."
Again, that doesn't work when you do exactly that but continue to be harassed anyway.
"Probably the reason why I have never seen a full propaganda movie or the Christchurch murders"
Funny you should being up Christchurch since the shooter was directly influenced by the videos you ignore (among other things). How did just walking away and not watching videos work out for the victims there?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
"Your perception of it might be different, but we all live in the same place."
Yes, I don't believe the purpose of nazi propaganda is designed to convert Jews to nazism and their way of thinking as it is perceived in your reality.
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Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
because everybody know if it wasn't for those viral terrorist recruitment videos, ISIS and Al-Qaeda would be out of a job.
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Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
Terrorist recruitment videos, neo-Nazi propaganda and hate speech are all protected forms of speech in the US. Harassment, stalking and fraud, if provable, are illegal.
The standard is simple: If it's illegal, report it. Otherwise, if you don't like it then remove yourself from it.
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Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
I'll just ask what the difference is between Nazi propaganda and harassment. Isn't the former at the very least harassment of the Jews, by definition?
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Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
I find your answer far worse than his. You combat bad speech with good speech, not shutting those people up. Hiding their speech away does no one any good at all and does very real harm by not allowing people to view the bad with the good and make decisions for themselves.
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Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
I'm not saying that's not right, but what do you think would happen to YouTube (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) if they took that stance? They would not have time for anything other than defending themselves from criticism and testifying to Congress. It just isn't practical for a prominent platform to allow all legal content.
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Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
"You combat bad speech with good speech, not shutting those people up"
That worked great in the 30s.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
What Paul says.
Counter-speech only works when it's being issued at the same level as the speech it's aimed at. Otherwise you have a water pistol V machine gun situation where the counter-speech is drowned out by the hate speech.
I had a bit of a barney with another poster last week; his speech was equal to mine in terms of volume, I didn't have multiple posters wailing on me so my counter-speech did the job. No harm, no foul, no complaint to make.
What happens when there's a torrent of abuse against a person that goes real life and there's no one to stand with the victim for fear of being victimised themselves? I've been in that situation. Not fun. And there's no easy answer. You can't just ignore it when they're contacting your employers, your family, and other people you interact with.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
"Otherwise you have a water pistol V machine gun situation where the counter-speech is drowned out by the hate speech."
Maybe it isn't hate speech but the voice of the majority.
I'm guessing you are the mystery person Mike talked about a few years ago who had no other option but to sue someone(may have been a family member), then regretted that decision and wished they had pursued the other options rather than suing.
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Re: Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
I'm going to copy-paste my response to this argument from Ars (somebody had quoted Justice Louis Brandeis's line about "MORE speech, not enforced silence"):
--
It also bears noting that -- and I won't embed the xkcd again (yet) -- Brandeis was talking about the government enforcing silence in his Whitney opinion.
In the context of a private party exercising its free association, kicking people off YouTube is more speech. It is YouTube responding to speech it doesn't like by telling the speaker to take it somewhere else.
Nobody is enforcing silence, except in the limited context of a private platform exercising its own First Amendment right to determine what does and doesn't get said on its platform. YouTube isn't telling anyone that they can't go post the same videos somewhere else. And it sure as hell isn't putting anyone in prison.
The point of Brandeis's "more speech" comment is that when someone says something offensive, the appropriate response isn't for the government to sanction that person, it's for another person to respond by exercising their First Amendment rights. That's exactly what happened here.
A private platform saying someone is an asshole, and showing him the door, is exactly what Brandeis was talking about when he said we should combat speech with more speech. The government isn't forcing anyone to stop speaking. A private party is responding to that speech by saying "You're not welcome here."
--
Now, I meant this in the general context of enforcing a rule against white supremacist content. I do agree with Mike that enforcement is a clusterfuck, because effective moderation is impossible at scale. But I think that's the problem. A rule against white supremacists on a private platform isn't a problem in and of itself; the problem is that when you try to apply it to a community the size of YouTube, there are inevitably going to be fuckups.
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Re: Crowder is an asshole?
Would the sexual content you describe include sex education videos with appropriate age blocks?
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Re: Re: Crowder is an asshole?
If I were running YouTube then basically everything would be allowed except for hard core pornography.
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Who Can't Get no Satisfaction?
YouTube's actions are driven by a legally bound fiduciary obligation to maximize ad revenue.
So it's possible their response satisfied the companies who advertise on the platform.
Tim Pool and others believe the sudden outrage against Crowder (he's been ragging on the "lispy little queer" for two years) is a campaign by Vox and Vox's backers to shut down competition across the platform. Crowder is just the logical focal point for the false outrage.
YouTube created a place where independent creators spend very little money to command the attention of millions. Vox spends the millions they get from NBC to carefully plan and create their content, only to find out they aren't getting as many eyeballs as their project managers estimated and 16 year old kids with $400 YouTube Creator Kits from eBay make more than Vox.
Vox is jealous because their business model isn't working and they can't really change it. Then their own employees who feel entitled to [whatever the Vox union is demanding] turn against them.
If this is a "follow the money" situation, all that kind of makes sense. There's a culture war going on now, but it's probable Vox is just using it as a vehicle to snuff out competition. YouTube's response satisfied their advertisers and sent a message to big budget producers like Vox indicating YouTube isn't interested in abandoning its business model and will continue to allow individuals with laptops to make a living so long as they aren't dicks about it.
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Re: Who Can't Get no Satisfaction?
This is a very common misconception but still totally incorrect. Nobody, not even a publicly traded company, is legally bound to maximize revenue of any sort. There is no such law.
They are selfishly motivated to maximize revenue because that drives up the price of the huge pile of shares they own and makes them wealthy. It has nothing at all to do with any kind of obligation.
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Re: Re: Who Can't Get no Satisfaction?
The issue is not nearly that simple.
There is such a thing as Fiduciary Responsibility. While it doesn't directly require that they maximize revenue, not at least trying to do that for your stakeholders can be seen as not acting in their best interests which would violate your obligations to them.
You are certainly right that it generally appears to be a selfish motivation, but the implication of your statement seems to be that that's a bad thing. The entire advantage of a capitalistic system is that the rich getting richer makes everyone else richer too. Just because something is selfish doesn't always mean it's wrong. Sure it would be better if they chose to act with higher moral values but that's true of all of us to some degree.
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Re: Re: Re: Who Can't Get no Satisfaction?
"The working homeless" is a thing now. Where did the money trickle down to? They're not seeing much of it.
Just because something is selfish doesn't always mean it's wrong.
Selfishness usually excludes the wider community from any benefit enjoyed by the selfish individual.
Sure it would be better if they chose to act with higher moral values but that's true of all of us to some degree.
Okay, you get that one.
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Re: Re: Re: Who Can't Get no Satisfaction?
Improve Shareholder wealth. Maximizing revenue may or may not have anything to do with this. Upgrading facilities(more money) and lowering price(less money) could improve Shareholder wealth
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Re: Who Can't Get no Satisfaction?
YouTube's actions are driven by a legally bound fiduciary obligation to maximize ad revenue.
This is a meaningless statement. Even accepting that there is such a fiduciary duty, how do you define "maximize ad revenue." Is it over the short term? Or the long term? You could easily argue that to maximize revenue (and it does not need to be "ad revenue" despite your claim) over the long term it makes sense to keep the platform free of assholes.
Tim Pool and others believe the sudden outrage against Crowder (he's been ragging on the "lispy little queer" for two years) is a campaign by Vox and Vox's backers to shut down competition across the platform. Crowder is just the logical focal point for the false outrage.
LOL. Yeah, and some people believe that there was a shooter in the grassy knoll. Doesn't make it any more accurate.
YouTube created a place where independent creators spend very little money to command the attention of millions. Vox spends the millions they get from NBC to carefully plan and create their content, only to find out they aren't getting as many eyeballs as their project managers estimated and 16 year old kids with $400 YouTube Creator Kits from eBay make more than Vox.
LOL. This is an elaborate fantasy theory that has little connection to how online videos work or make money (or of NBC's control over Vox)
Vox is jealous because their business model isn't working and they can't really change it. Then their own employees who feel entitled to [whatever the Vox union is demanding] turn against them.
Such a conspiracy theory would, kinda, rely on the claims being made by Maza not actually happening, you know.
Some people...
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Re: Who Can't Get no Satisfaction?
YouTube's business model has continually evolved throughout its existence, and there's every indication that this evolution will proceed at an even faster rate. As a for-profit company, Youtube's only reason for existing is to make money. Youtube has no loyalty whatsoever to the millions of content creators who made the company what it is today, and transitioning into a mainstream media portal would be the likely evolution of youTube, due to 1. media companies now, unlike before, wanting their content to be viewed there, and 2. political and social pressure induced headaches, as well as costs, of being forced to moderate 3rd party content to increasingly high standards.
Of course the corporate media is the driving force behind Youtube's steadily increasing use of advertising bans and changes in search algorithms and recommended videos to punish the politically incorrect. It's in their own interest to defeat their competition, and when people can make videos from their bedroom that have a bigger audience than the average cable TV shows, it's only natural that the corporate media will see that as a major threat to their own existence.
Last month's TV ratings showed that CNN attracted less than 200 thousand viewers on average in primetime among the advertizer-coveted 25-54 age group. Very many Youtube "news" and commentary channels have far greater reach, at a microscopic fraction of CNNs budget, and this trend has not gone unnoticed by the media bosses, who are no doubt working hard behind the scenes to try to get their own content to replace that of the popular uploaders on Youtube. The Wall St Journal (part of Rupert Murdoch's media empire) was the driving force behind the so-called Adpocalypse in 2017, when several large advertizers were pressured (on threat of public shaming) into asking Youtube to remove their ads from a wide variety of content producers.
Not unlike the WSJ's hit-piece attack on Youtube's #1 most-watched channel Pewdiepie, this deplatforming attack on Steven Crowder had another media company behind it in the name of Vox (strange coincidence yet again). Anyone who thinks this scrubbing of controversial content off youtube will never drip down to innocuous cat videos is sadly mistaken. The big media companies want those views too, and very slowly, step by step, they'll eventually squeeze out the very last of the people who still naively believed that Youtube was for and about them. This shouldn't be thought of as something especially evil, it's just the way that capitalism works, with the stronger and smarter (and usually more ruthless) companies working hard to kill off or buy out the weaker companies, or in this case, ordinary people with laptops that they see as their main competition.
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There's one sort of thing that I feel like this analysis is missing.
Content moderation at scale principles might not be the right ones to apply, because there is an inherently limited amount of high-attention people on the Internet.
I would argue that moderating the big channels is or should be separate from moderating everyone else's channels.
(That said, endpoint moderation tools are good.)
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There's one big glaring problem here: advertising. For this to work, advertising has to be tied to the moderation system, not to the content hosting system. And no content host is going to want to give up its advertising.
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Re:
[citation needed]
Advertising doesn't have to be tied to anything. Some advertisers would prefer their ads not appear on a page promoting nazis but that doesn't require moderation of the content. It requires analysis and (internal) tagging of content to that the ads can avoid tags they dislike but it doesn't require the content be removed or censored.
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Re: Re:
"Some advertisers would prefer their ads not appear on a page promoting nazis but that doesn't require moderation of the content"
It does if they refuse to do business with a platform that allows Nazi propaganda and live school shooting feeds.
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If only Youtube hadn't done anything ...
Well, first of all, I couldn't care less of which of the parts is more guilty .. in real life most of the times no one is completely innocent ( in one hand we have a unsavory commedian, on the other some unsavory people that took offense on the unsavory commedian ... Black pot, black kettle )
That said, Youtube could had kept away of all of this mess and do nothing, but then someone would accuse the company of not being "advertisement friendly" and of enabling/promoting "toxic" behaviour ... and because Youtube, when the rubber hits the tarmac, cares above all about who pays the bills, SOMETHING had to be done, even if idiotic.
I really miss the times when Youtube wasn't trying to be the conscience of the ones with none, TBH ...
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It is stories like that remind me of something. A few years ago (not sure if this is still the case) there was an age filter on youtube for watching Hetalia in the US.
Part of the problem is that few people have the same ideas of what goes too far / not enough. The problem was here in the US before the early days of youtube, with the inconsistency from the ESRB and the TV/Movie guidelines.
Now the problem is worse, because there is a lot more content going out in a lot less time.
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"Do Keep Up"
Mike,
RE: "He's correct that Crowder does seem to be an asshole and there's no reason to express any sympathy for Crowder being a jerk and attacking someone for their sexual orientation or ethnicity."
Calling Crowder a comedian is like calling Bill Maher a comedian. While technically true, it's small part of why his audience watches. Crowder has posted over a thousand videos to his YouTube channel. Hundreds are not comedy, but commentary or educational. His most popular are 'Prove Me Wrong' videos. In those videos, he is respectful, thoughtful, and goes out of his way to not antagonize. Often, the people he engages or the general audience standing around supporting the counter-position are anything but respectful. Watch a few of his videos, "crazy and deranged" just starts to describe some of their actions.
The irony of your post is that you, on the word of a person employed by a division of a billion dollar corporation who creates media in competition with YouTube self-publishers, and the same person that began the drumbeat of asking YouTube to remove Crowder long before the Crowder teasing of him began, take to your platform to call him an a--hole and jerk. Good thing you don't have a YouTube platform with millions of followers, or you could be accused of far worse.
I enjoy TechDirt for a variety of reasons related to your usually objective legal insights and ability to see the forest for the trees; your occasional breaks from thoughtful insights when speaking about conservatives aren't one of them.
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Re: "Do Keep Up"
How do you know that is all his opinion is based on?
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Re: "Do Keep Up"
The irony of your post is that you, on the word of a person employed by a division of a billion dollar corporation who creates media in competition with YouTube self-publishers, and the same person that began the drumbeat of asking YouTube to remove Crowder long before the Crowder teasing of him began, take to your platform to call him an a--hole and jerk.
That's an impressive run-on sentence. I got lost in the middle of it.
I did not take "the word of a person." I did my fucking research.
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Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
I'll use smaller sentences.
Why would I waste time rebutting someone's opinion? Your mind is already made up about Crowder.
Clearly you did zero research on the person who created the campaign to try to have Crowder removed. Or if you did, it's obvious you can't objectively apply the same standards with which you tarnish Crowder. Examples from just Maza's own Tweeter account: "Milkshake them all. Humiliate them at every turn. Make them dread public organizing…",
or
"For the record:
When I said I wanted someone to “murder my bussy” in Spring of 2013, I was not literally condoning the use of murder. I regret my comment and will try to do better moving forward."
or,
"I sincerely apologize for my August 2000 tweet in which I suggested that I would “murder my entire family” for a chance to meet Final Destination’s Devon Sawa.
It was cruel and vulgar and I shouldn’t have said it or actually tried it."
or,
"To clarify an earlier tweet that’s been dug up:
I did not literally mean I wanted to wear Celine Dion’s skin as a full body suit.
I abhor the skinning of humans and regret another tasteless joke."
or his current tagline on Tweeter:
"Tucker Carlson is a white supremacist."
My point, which you didn't contradict, is you enjoy the ability to have an opinion others may objectively disagree with, and call people derogatory names based on your opinion. You can do that within the confines of TechDirt today. Today, if you do it on YouTube, and if the opposition decides to unlesh the mob, you may be de-monetized or removed. History has shown that today's saint is tomorrow's sinner.
Crowder is neither an a--hole, crazy, or deranged in the opinion of millions of normal people who don't share your opinion. He's a content creator with a point of view and sometimes uses descriptive humor to make his point, which, as you point out, DID NOT VIOLATE YOUTUBE's POLICIES.
What followed was pandering to the flavor of the month. Here's to hoping you never get on the wrong side of the flavor of the month. But if you do, you'll only have your half-hearted attempts to defend the 1st Amendment from monopolistic corporations to thank for it.
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Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
Why would I waste time rebutting someone's opinion? Your mind is already made up about Crowder.
If you say that someone's wrong, they respond by disagreeing, and you, rather than demonstrating why they are wrong assign motive to them and claim that you aren't going to provide any evidence, you've kinda just shot yourself in the foot. At that point Hitchen's Razor kicks in and they and everyone else can just dismiss you.
Crowder is neither an a--hole, crazy, or deranged in the opinion of millions of normal people who don't share your opinion.
And yet he apparently attracts a good amount of people from those categories, if the Tweets from Maza's account are accurate.
I've been called an anchor baby, a lispy queer, a Mexican, etc. These videos get millions of views on YouTube. Every time one gets posted, I wake up to a wall of homophobic/racist abuse on Instagram and Twitter.
**
Last year, I got doxxed, and it scared the fuck out of me. My phone was bombarded with hundreds of texts at the exact same time. The messages?
(The message in question was 'Debate Steven Crowder')
**
'Harassment isn't siloed, either. Every time he makes one of these videos, his fans flood the comments on the original Vox video. So a piece I spent 4 weeks working on is drowning in homophobic and abusive comments and downvotes. Other Vox fans see it. It's humiliating.'
**
'I cannot explain how awful it is to see a video where you're called a "lispy queer" pass a MILLION views. THOUSANDS of comments piling on. How the fuck are LGBT people expected to produce interesting content in this environment?'
**
'A lot of people have pointed out that Crowder is wearing a “Socialism Is For Fags” shirt in several of his videos.
Turns out, he sells that shirt to his YouTube fans, and proudly displays it in his Twitter cover photo. What are these platforms doing?'
For someone who's not an asshole according to you he sure does seem to be popular with them. Now I've seen the argument made that he doesn't tell people to engage in that sort of harassment(and in fact has told people not to, though apparently not very well if it's still happening), but if he knows making a new video of that sort will have that result and does it anyway I'd say it's perfectly fine to lay some of the blame at his feet.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
Why would you assume they are?
But it's okay for him to hurl objects at people he doesn't like and encourage others to do the same. No banning or demonetizing there, dontcha know.
So? Crowder is not encouraging them to do it. He can't be held responsible for what people he doesn't know and has never spoken to may do.
And I'd bet a month's salary that some of Maza's own fans do the same thing to people they don't like on the internet, so should we be banning Maza every time some fan of his makes a rude comment somewhere on the internet?
Crowder is an asshole the same way Bill Maher and Colbert and Samantha Bee and all political comedians are assholes. Unless you want to ban the genre (and wouldn't that be a banner day for free speech?), you just have to suck it up and deal or turn the damned channel.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
"He can't be held responsible for what people he doesn't know and has never spoken to"
Erm, he is speaking to them, and not knowing someone personally does not absolve you from guilt when they act directly on what you say. The fact that Alex Jones didn't personally know the person who shot up a pizza place directly due to the conspiracy theory Jones invented does not mean that Jones was not involved.
"And I'd bet a month's salary that some of Maza's own fans do the same thing to people they don't like"
Funny. You have direct evidence that Crowder's fans are doing something, but you'll give him a pass because you assume with zero evidence that the other guys do the same things. This is why "both sides" bullshit is so damaging. You'll let actual damage run rampant because of blind assumptions about the victims.
"you just have to suck it up and deal or turn the damned channel"
Not if the people who don't do that continue to attack you. The issue in this case is not censoring what you don't like, it's trying to prevent harassment in the real world. YouTube have no responsibility to enable that behaviour, even if you believe that it's within the law to initiate the speech.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
Yeah, because a guy who gleefully throws things at people who have the gall to disagree with his politics and exhorts others to do the same attracts calm and rational people. You betcha.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
Why would you assume they are?
Other than the fact that it would be really stupid of him to make claims that would be trivial to be used against him with if he was lying, something that could be easily checked by anyone who cared to look? Oh, no reason.
But it's okay for him to hurl objects at people he doesn't like and encourage others to do the same. No banning or demonetizing there, dontcha know.
Whataboutism; noun. See: Your comment.
No in fact if he's telling people to throw milkshakes at people(which is just... weird) that would also not be cool and could be a violation of the TOS on the platform on which he does it, unless it was really clear it was meant as a joke(honestly it's so strange I'm either missing some context or that's just got to be a joke).
This however has absolutely squat to do with Crowder and what he's saying and/or doing.
So? Crowder is not encouraging them to do it. He can't be held responsible for what people he doesn't know and has never spoken to may do.
I mean other than speaking derogatorily and slinging slurs about someone's sexuality and their race on a regular basis, emboldening bigots, no, not at all, what could possibly cause people to think that harassing someone and being an ass is acceptable from that?
Is he telling them to do it? Not as far as I'm aware.
Has he told them not to doxx people and/or harass them at least once? Sure.
Does he know what the asshole segment of his fans like to do when he posts a new video mocking Maza? I'd find it almost literally impossible to believe the answer was anything but 'absolutely' at this point.
Was he still making those vids anyway? Far as I know, yes.
Given all that does he carry full responsibility for what the assholes follow him do? No, and holding him responsible as though he did those actions wouldn't be reasonable.
That said does he carry responsibility for what he said, and to a lesser extent what he almost certainly knew would happen when he said it and did so anyway? Yes, that strikes me as perfectly reasonable, though on the latter I'd probably consider something as simple as making it repeatedly clear that harassment wasn't acceptable until the message stuck to be a fair fulfillment of that responsibility. It wouldn't be perfect, but linking responsibility too tightly when there's only so far you can go without completely crippling speech on the off chance that some random nut/bigot will act out would probably have consequences outweighing any gains.
And I'd bet a month's salary that some of Maza's own fans do the same thing to people they don't like on the internet, so should we be banning Maza every time some fan of his makes a rude comment somewhere on the internet?
Ah yes, the classic 'but they're probably doing it too!' defense. As for what his fans may or may not do, is Maza regularly engaging in similar behavior, slinging racial/sexuality-based slurs against individuals, with the understanding that a number of his fans are likely to respond with their own harassment and derogatory remarks? Because if so the same standard from above would apply.
Crowder is an asshole the same way Bill Maher and Colbert and Samantha Bee and all political comedians are assholes.
Well that depends, do those people go around posting videos mocking someone's sexuality and/or race, possible at times while wearing a shirt(that they sell) including a slur against the same, and having a really solid belief that in so doing they will bring a barrage of bigots down on top of someone? Because if so then yes, they would also be assholes.
Unless you want to ban the genre (and wouldn't that be a banner day for free speech?), you just have to suck it up and deal or turn the damned channel.
Yeah, not watching Crowder really seems to have worked out great for Maza, huh? ... Wait, no, Crowders asshole fans still apparently harass Maza anyway, so I suppose he's just supposed to 'suck it up' then and deal with being barraged by loser bigots(but I repeat myself...) any time a new vid comes out.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
"Whataboutism": a convenient way to dismiss hypocrisy and double standards that others have pointed out when you can't refute them. See: you and anyone else here at TechDirt who engages in that tired nonsense.
It's hardly inappropriate or illogical to compare the behavior of both people at the center of this whole mess and note the disparate treatment one has received when the platform has admitted he hasn't even violated any of their rules, while the other suffers no consequence for actually violating their rules.
It's a thing. It's the current protest tactic du jour among the most woke and cool 'progressives'. It's gotten to the point where the cops in Scotland told McDonalds to stop selling milkshakes in the areas around protests because the leftists think it's so funny to chunk them at people who dare to disagree with their politics.
https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/18/uk/mcdonalds-nigel-farage-milkshakes-scli-gbr-intl/index.ht ml
Ah yes, another guy who doesn't understand that what I wrote isn't actually a defense of anyone.
No, he's only slinging ACTUAL PHYSICAL OBJECTS at people and telling others to do the same. I guess that's okay if you're a 'progressive', though.
And yes, Maza regularly refers to straight people as 'cis' and never once in a positive way that I've seen. He also frequently refers to 'straight white men' in a dismissive and derogatory way. So there's your racial/sexuality-based slurs.
So does this 'you can't mock an ideology because someone might react badly' theory only apply to sexuality or does it apply to other things?
If I sold a t-shirt mocking, say, socialism, would I be responsible for everyone on the internet's behavior toward socialists, too? How extensively are we now required to censor ourselves because someone we don't know might do or say something bad somewhere else that we have no control over?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
So, not only do you still refuse to acknowledge the actual issues being discussed, you have no defense other than "but mommy the other guys do it too!". There is a discussion to be had if you feel the treatment is unequal, but what Maza does has nothing to do with the harassment Crowder encourages. Nor does whether or not something is technically legal or allowed. There's plenty of a activities that you can commit that would be frowned upon or lead to consequences despite there not being a law about it on the books.
This is whataboutism at its finest - an attempt to pretend that the actions of one party excuses the actions of the other. When your argument essentially rest on "but mommy those guys do it to", it's as effective an argument as it was when you used it as a child to get out of trouble.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
It's hardly inappropriate or illogical to compare the behavior of both people at the center of this whole mess and note the disparate treatment one has received when the platform has admitted he hasn't even violated any of their rules, while the other suffers no consequence for actually violating their rules.
Really, what rules did Maza violate that Crowder didn't on that platform?
And yes, Maza regularly refers to straight people as 'cis' and never once in a positive way that I've seen. He also frequently refers to 'straight white men' in a dismissive and derogatory way. So there's your racial/sexuality-based slurs.
That would seem derogatory based upon how he uses them and not something he should get a pass on, but even then not in the same ball-park as what Crowder is doing(also make up your mind, if Maza doing that is a problem then Crowder doing worse is most certainly also a problem, so which is it?).
All four of those are accurate definitions assuming the person in question happens to identify with their birth gender, and/or happens to be a straight white male, and as far as I know none of those have a general history of being derogatory names for a class of people. Contrast that with 'queer' and 'fag', which most certainly do have a history of derogatory use and were not the accepted label for the group in question.
Or to put it another way, 'straight white men' is to 'lisping queer' as 'african american' is to 'nigger'. In both instances both labels can be used derogatorily, but only one of them has a history of being used as such and is basically only intended as derogatory when used by members outside the particular groups.
So does this 'you can't mock an ideology because someone might react badly' theory only apply to sexuality or does it apply to other things?
One of those things you choose to be, the other not so much. I'll leave you to figure out which is which and why it makes a difference.
How extensively are we now required to censor ourselves because someone we don't know might do or say something bad somewhere else that we have no control over?
Can't tell if deliberate strawman or you just didn't read my comment well enough. I already answered this above, give it another look if you want the answer, and if it's still unclear I can probably take another whack at it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
And 'cis' is not an accepted label for straight people who are satisfied with their gender. It may be accepted by the people who use it, more and more often lately as a derogatory slur, but not to the people to whom it applies.
I don't recall being asked my opinion about it and neither does anyone else I know. The rule among the 'progressive' social justice crowd is that the group a term applies to are the ones who get to decide whether it's offensive or not. Blacks get to decide what's offensive to blacks, gays get to decide what's offensive to gays, latinos get to decide what's offensive to latinos, etc. So it's the people to whom 'cis' refers are the ones who get to decide whether it's a slur or not and a quick perusal of the internet will show that not many people like being referred to that way.
In other words, under the rules we're all forced to play under these days by the Council of the Perpetually Aggrieved, Maza has no standing to use the term 'cis' at all, let alone to decide whether it's offensive or not, because he's not part of the group to which it refers.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
You're seriously trying to compare the two as even remotely equal... alrighty then, you have fun with that.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
No, I'm seriously arguing against the idea of double standards and hypocrisy.
You seem to be okay with both.
You have fun with that.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
"And 'cis' is not an accepted label for straight people"
So, you're offended by literal scientific terms? And you think that's on a level with racial and homophobic slurs?
This may be more of a problem of your mind than those of the people who use the term.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
'Cis" is not scientific, it's grammatical.
It's a Latin-derived prefix, meaning "on this side of", which is the opposite of 'trans', meaning "across from" or "on the other side of".
And more to the point, the origin and/or nature of a term is irrelevant in the Grand Game of Offense that we're all forced to play these days. How people feel about it is the only thing that matters.
For example, we're told the term 'illegal alien' is offensive, racist, and inappropriate, despite it being both a clear and accurate statement of reality with regard to the people to whom it applies, and a legal term of art that is used in actual immigration statutes the world over. It's easily as legitimate a term as any scientific word, yet we're told that it's use is forbidden upon pain of social justice retribution because people don't like it and it hurts their feelings.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
"'Cis" is not scientific, it's grammatical."
So, you're not offended by scientific terms but by grammar? Got it.
"How people feel about it is the only thing that matters."
Why have facts when you have feelings? You think this a good argument?
"For example, we're told the term 'illegal alien' is offensive, racist, and inappropriate"
Because it's usually used as an excuse to treat people who have committed nothing more than a misdemeanour, often as a last ditch attempt to escape real persecution, the same - or worse - than you'd treat hardened criminals. For some reason, as soon as you're told someone broke a law, you don't care about basic human rights.
Why you think this is the same as the use of cis to explain non-trans people, usually in response to the attacks on those people, is interesting but sadly not surprising. You'd rather get offended by accurate terminology than examine why people needed to make the distinction in the first place.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
Not at all. But if this is game we have to play these days, the rules should apply equally to everyone.
Yes, we 'treat people'-- i.e., arrest them and hold them accountable-- for committing misdemeanors all the time in every other area of society. It's called enforcing the law. For some reason the U.S. is the only country in the world that's not supposed to enforce its own borders.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
If you're stupid enough to think that people calling for detainees to be treated humanely, stop causing the situations that are creating many of these refugees, or that you at least keep track of the kids you're separating from their parents, means that there's a call for there to be no laws at all - I really don't know what I can respond with to that amount of disingenuous stupidity.
Oh, and I'd agree that you need to step up your game with the way you treat other prisoners as well, but that's a different discussion.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
"One of those things you choose to be"
At what age do you choose your gender? Do kids make these calls or do we wait till their brains are fully developed like with alcohol?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
TIL "straight white male" is a slur.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
"Does he know what the asshole segment of his fans like to do when he posts a new video mocking Maza? I'd find it almost literally impossible to believe the answer was anything but 'absolutely' at this point.
Was he still making those vids anyway? Far as I know, yes."
Have you seen what Mikes' articles do to the likes of OOTB? Perhaps Mike should quit writing articles here. I have observed OOTB for years now, there is some real damage being done here.
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Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
Clearly you did zero research on the person who created the campaign to try to have Crowder removed.
Incorrect. For what it's worth, I was well aware of both Maza's and Crowder's work long before any of this happened.
Or if you did, it's obvious you can't objectively apply the same standards with which you tarnish Crowder
That is, uh, not how it works. If you want to make the case that Maza is an asshole too, go right ahead. I'm not sure how that would change even a single thing in what I wrote above. Because it wouldn't.
History has shown that today's saint is tomorrow's sinner.
Yes. Did you read this fucking article? Because I made that point.
You seem really triggered by the fact that I said Crowder is an asshole, and then made a whole bunch of dumb assumptions about my overall positions out of blind stupid rage over that. Calm down and maybe consider what I actually wrote.
Crowder is neither an a--hole, crazy, or deranged in the opinion of millions of normal people who don't share your opinion.
Yes. That's why people have opinions. Not everyone agrees. Obviously some people like him. And I can call anyone who does an ignorant asshole too. And -- AS I DID IN THIS POST AND WHICH YOU SEEM TO IGNORE -- I can still point out the problems with this kind of content moderation.
What followed was pandering to the flavor of the month. Here's to hoping you never get on the wrong side of the flavor of the month
Seriously. Did you not even read the fucking article after the part where I called Crowder an asshole?
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Re: Re: Re: "Do Keep Up"
The combined size of your two posts in this thread is 600 words. If you're not willing to rebut someone's opinion, come up with a better excuse than "My time is too valuable."
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You do realize that Crowder was using Maza's own words right?
Funny thing about all the so-called "mean, bigoted" things Crowder was calling Maza...
MAZA CALLS HIMSELF THOSE THINGS!
Whoops
ThingsWeIgnoreForGoingAgainstTheNarrative
Also, Maza isn't a lone individual or anything, he's part of Vox and has a huge platform. If anything, Crowder is the one punching up and Maza is punching down.
As Tim Pool puts it...
"Vox dropped a nuke on Youtube because Youtube wouldn't ban one guy." And "Vox is killing Youtube just because of a petty spat with one person."
Oh hey, teachers are having their youtube accounts deleted for having historical stuff on Hitler.
Thanks, Vox, and Carlos Maza!
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Re: You do realize that Crowder was using Maza's own words right
Better start looking for an alternative. Youtube is going to shut down because of Vox.
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Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder was using Maza's own words r
Even better - start looking for an alternative and use it, so there's a viable place where the racists and psychos can congregate, without demanding that decent people have to put up with their shit on the sites they frequent.
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Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder was using Maza's own wor
If the site is that vile, why do you frequent it?
I believe we ask OOTB and others the same thing about this site that they say they hate so much
Benefits must outweigh the negative.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder was using Maza's own
"If the site is that vile, why do you frequent it?"
You must have misread. I didn't say I frequented anywhere. Just just said it would be nice if the cockroaches exercised their freedom of association and go somewhere they are welcome, rather than remove everybody else's rights in order to stay where they're not welcome.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder was using Maza's
What rights did you have removed?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder was using Ma
I think you are full of shit.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder was using Ma
Sigh... not too bright are you?
I'll repeat - one of the important freedoms we have is freedom of association. By forcing people to host Nazis against their will, you are violating that freedom. The correct thing to do is the thing where nobody's rights are violated (Nazis get kicked off places that don't want them, they go to places they are welcome). But, those people want a guaranteed audience (not something that freedom of speech ensures), and so wish to remove the right of free association from people who don't want it.
Is that simple enough for you, or do you need smaller words?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder was usin
Smaller words, All I got was you are either a nazi or not, nothing in-between. Thought we were talking about Crowder, is he a nazi or not? Or just someone you don't like and therefore shouldn't be allowed on "your" platform.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder was
" All I got was you are either a nazi or not"
Read slower, you keep changing the subject of the conversation. I was just referring to Nazis because they're the ones whining the hardest about being told to go.
"Or just someone you don't like and therefore shouldn't be allowed on "your" platform."
No, I'm referring to literal Nazis and self-identified white supremacists. If you're confused try reading.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder
If we aren't talking about Crowder or Maza, then I am afraid you are the one who keeps changing the subject.
If you don't like a site online, move on, exactly what you tell others about this site. Someone else's site and they can run it how they want, right? Until the shoe is on the other foot you fucking bigot. Then you want the site changed.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crow
Agin you’re confused. But my point is that people who dislike a site’s policies should move on rather that try to force their own values on to a site that doesn’t want them.
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Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder was using Maza's own wor
Besides, let them keep their cesspool, a nice shiny new site built by the "decent people" where no one has to watch anything they don't want to see, sounds like a much better idea than another cesspool being created by "them."
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Re: Re: Re: Re: You do realize that Crowder was using Maza's own
I always liked Bill Cosby. Really liked Fat Albert. I always thought he was a decent people kind of guy. Funny how you see people differently over time.
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Re:
"You do realize that Crowder was using Maza's own words right?"
Yeah, which is why you won't get a reaction if you go into a black neighbourhood and start shouting n*gger at everybody. That's the word they use, right?
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Ban content moderation
"...clearly a company can set in place a policy that works that says "stop just the assholes I don't like."". Illustrates why content moderation is not Only impossible but undesirable ! After all hate speech is speech I hate!
Banning most content moderation is necessary for the 'net to continue to be useful and used.
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Re: Ban content moderation
We can always build technical limitations using software in such way that all these content issues are non-existent. Then what software cannot automatically check. we can use your fellow humans to filter out bad content. Then you just need to remember that some people spend years trynig to skip your technological limitations, and those evil people can be sued out of existence. Then if that doesn't help, start sending settlement letters to them. If settlement letters are no good, then lawyers are next step, followed by security personell and summoning the kung-fu experts as a stopgap.
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Re: Re: Ban content moderation
Go put your product on another London bus, numpty.
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