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Andy and Bosch recently started a new show called "Truth In Politics." It appears the YT channel for this show has been terminated "due to multiple or severe violations" of TOS.

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The most recent upload appears to have been an interview with Dr. Jason Hill about "transgender insanity" and "academic cancel culture."

Unfortunately I missed this episode and it doesn't seem to be on Andy's Facebook page. If you find it please let me know. Thanks. And thanks to Tony for pointing this matter out on the HBvAB thread.

 

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Thanks for making a separate thread about this. I didn't really know who exactly was hosting the video.

Now I don't agree that it's an attempt to stifle dissent, or that the left should be characterized as a unified front. But I do find it insane that YouTube cares so much about the margins of disagreement that they bothered to remove such content. It's probably some algorithm that pointed out some phrases that flags some words and that's about it.

As a devils advocate, perhaps it will be appealed and YouTube will allow it because algorithms made a bad decision. So I am not going to jump into ulterior motives immediately.

But if it is a person that decided this, or if they don't accept an appeal, then it is an example of how trans issues are taken as a cause by people who are not trans trying to protect people who are trans from the words of others. I'm not even sure that many trans people put so much stock into what others say about trans people except when a specific issue affects them directly. It's stupid and I think if YouTube let it be, no one would bother to attack it. 

Still, I don't want to judge until I know the details.

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I found the episode with Jason Hill on their Rumble account. But now I'm not sure whether this was their latest episode uploaded to YT, because it's from last month and marked #3 of six episodes.

In yesterday's new, anti-Islam episode, not yet archived on Rumble but published live on Andy's Facebook page, they briefly discussed the YT situation. According to them YT said they were "severe violators of community standards." Bernstein thinks this is "code" for their general criticism of the left. He does mention Hill's particular words that the leftist intellectuals are "pimps and whores." So maybe you can't say that on YT, because it's offensive to pimps and whores.

Edited by MisterSwig
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1 hour ago, MisterSwig said:

Bernstein thinks this is "code" for their general criticism of the left.

Andrew Bernstein: "I think that's code for you guys take an uncompromising stance against the left."

1m:02s—1m:08s on the Facebook rendition.

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7 hours ago, MisterSwig said:

Bernstein thinks this is "code" for their general criticism of the left.

This is pure speculation unless he has something to substantiate this claim. I think it's far more likely that they triggered a red flag for words in an algorithm. Maybe they used some number of slurs that they don't think are slurs, maybe they were simply using a phrase only loosely  associated with hate groups even though it was not intended. The truth is YouTube doesn't care enough about Bernstein to watch him, they are far more likely to let an algorithm do its work - an algorithm that is not able at all to detect what is general criticism of the left. Not that such algorithms are good for moderation, just that such algorithms are the ones making the decisions based on word frequencies. Moderation is not usually done with explicit evaluation of content in mind. There are too many videos to do that except with extremely popular people.

Did anyone watch the whole video linked above whether he gives any evidence?

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6 hours ago, Eiuol said:

This is pure speculation unless he has something to substantiate this claim.

I don't think Andrew Bernstein gives much of a hoot that Youtube canceled his TruthInPolitcs channel, if anything he is going to consider it a validation and confirmation of what is going on in the culture.

The show was simulcast on other websites as well. Canceling President Trump's twitter account followed by canceling the hosing of Parler's app on AWS, Apple and GooglePlay are providing free advertisement in this regard.

At 1h:04m—1h:07m into Ep. 3, Andrew is already anticipating the potential of Youtube canceling this particular show, a recognition on his behalf of what is going on, and the alternatives that are at bay currently.

Perhaps it has to do with choosing James D. Hill as a guest on the episode in question.

 

AWS, Youtube and other tech giants were made possible by the internet. If the foundation that makes the internet possible continues to deteriorate, AWS, Youtube and other tech giants influencing internet policy will take a backseat to the havoc brought about by "every other industry, wherever machines are used—the machines which they thought could replace our minds" (Atlas Shrugged, The Utopia of Greed).

The "This is pure speculation" angle got me to listen to Ep. 003 while considering this response.  Hmm. Ep. 003 - Andrew is how old? Between this and the other series he has been producing, his enthusiasm is infectious. Wear a mask, or get inoculated if concerns exist about being infected. . . .

 

Edited by dream_weaver
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16 hours ago, Eiuol said:

Did anyone watch the whole video linked above whether he gives any evidence?

I watched the whole thing. They refer to it once or twice but don't elaborate. The beginning couple minutes contain all the detail given.

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12 hours ago, dream_weaver said:

Perhaps it has to do with choosing James D. Hill as a guest on the episode in question.

I'll bet the algorithm didn't like the episode on voter fraud either. They have been cracking down on "stop the steal" advocates. 

Edited by MisterSwig
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An algorithm, from the standpoint, that 500 hours of content is uploaded every minute, is generating plenty of discussion about tech platforms censoring content. Like values, having a broad colloquial usage, and a narrower philosophic refinement, Hank Rearden put his brother on notice of what could be talked about at the dinner table, a form of censuring.

Amazon does not let me rate my purchase transactions citing unusual reviewing activity on my account. Aside from an occasional mention, I shrug my shoulders and think "their loss", on both Amazon and the Vendor's end. Other people have reported getting the same message, the few times I've tried digging into it a little bit. 

The deplatforming is obviously a hotter button, and has provided opportunity to point out the private property or contractual issues, alternative providers (though creating a new Parler account is not viable). 

Is a future where one has to surf the dark net in order to get their fix of rational, objective content in the cards? Reason is more resourceful than that, and people, by nature, have free will, and are generally open to well reasoned positions when they are provided such at their level.

 

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On 3/11/2021 at 10:38 PM, MisterSwig said:

It appears the YT channel for this show has been terminated "due to multiple or severe violations" of TOS.

Interesting that Marilyn Manson's music video for (s)Ain't is still there but not this.  I won't post any link (it actually is pretty obscene) but images of Marilyn Manson snorting what looks like cocaine, cutting himself in a bathtub and having actual sex on camera do not violate the TOS while "academic cancel culture" apparently does.

It also appears that none of the people responsible know that declaring something forbidden is the single best way to make the entire internet go and look at that thing.

Speaking of which - where can we go to find this thing that's even spicier than Marilyn Manson?

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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54 minutes ago, dream_weaver said:

Reason is more resourceful than that, and people, by nature, have free will, and are generally open to well reasoned positions when they are provided such at their level.

When they are free to choose rationally, yes.  But there's a reciprocal sort of vicious cycle between censorship, coercion and irrationality, just as there is between freedom and rationality.

I'm not saying that a private company's choice of whom to platform could constitute censorship (it can't) but perhaps we need another term for what it actually is.  It's not as bad as literal censorship and we are all still free to do business with companies we don't consider evil (as Parler is an excellent example of) but I do think the actions of some of these companies are evil and certainly not good for a free and open dialogue.

Take all the money Amazon donated to Black Lives Matter during the height of their rioting (I believe it was upwards of one billion dollars).  Does anyone think a single penny of it went towards anything useful or good?  I certainly don't.  And although it was their right to donate whatever money they have to whomever or whatever they choose, giving it to BLM was such an irresponsible call that I'm choosing it as my example of "corporate evil" (if you will).

Again, this isn't to say that anyone should try and take those choices away from any corporation of any size; only that we as consumers should probably start paying more attention to such choices when deciding who we'd like to do business with.

That's basically how Amy Peikoff framed Amazon's underhanded attempt to destroy Parler and there's not much else I can add to it.

On 3/13/2021 at 5:29 PM, Eiuol said:

This is pure speculation unless he has something to substantiate this claim.

Are you familiar with Project Veritas?  I only watch their stuff occasionally (and a few of the claims they've made seem only weakly supported by their reporting of the actual evidence for them) but they did a very illuminating bit about Facebook last year which I think would totally substantiate that claim, if we assume that YouTube is being run in a similar way.

That is an assumption.  It seems like a good one to me, but it might be wrong.

But to return to Marilyn Manson's (s)Ain't video, if THAT doesn't trigger their moderating algorithm (or person) then whatever is doing the moderating simply is not interested in the filth, smut, personal abuse, swearing, or any other non-partisan concept of "cleanliness" one could think to invoke.

YouTube is obviously not cleaning up the same sorts of refuse that they claim to be.

I guess all of that is, itself, also pretty speculative.  But it seems like a step in the right direction.

 

---

 

Of all the companies I'm gonna have to minimize my own business with I think I'll miss Coca-Cola by far the most.  I've been drinking it every day for so long that I'm not sure I remember how to live without it.  But they recently forced all their employees to attend some thing about "being less white" and I can only assume they were referring to their customer base.  And is there anything more white than a ginger?

I think not.

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10 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

That's basically how Amy Peikoff framed Amazon's underhanded attempt to destroy Parler and there's not much else I can add to it.

Amazon stated that it wasn't because of any particular viewpoint expressed on Parler. It was because of Parler failed to moderate threats of violence and illegal activity. The poor security of Parler is well known, so it is entirely reasonable that they would fail to properly moderate for criminal or violent activity. And it is reasonable for Amazon to respond to that by pulling away server support. 

Of course it might be easier to put every action of Amazon in a narrative about micromanaging speech, but just because they do one thing bad doesn't mean that every single thing they do is bad or for the wrong reasons. 

26 minutes ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

But to return to Marilyn Manson's (s)Ain't video, if THAT doesn't trigger their moderating algorithm (or person) then whatever is doing the moderating simply is not interested in the filth, smut, personal abuse, swearing, or any other non-partisan concept of "cleanliness" one could think to invoke.

I watched the video. It's a pretty blatant violation of content. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802002?hl=en&ref_topic=9282679

To begin with, I don't think they care about decency (I don't either), and I don't think they care about even trying to control what people say. What they care about is making money and absolutely nothing else. They don't care about the values they supposedly promote, or at least the methods that they employ are empty of value judgments. What probably happened is that Marilyn Manson has enough money that he can quickly and easily appeal any content judgment thanks to his lawyers. It's easier to let Manson go. Normally, the algorithm will do its thing, take away the video, and no one could do anything about it. 

I think the mistake here is treating tech companies as if they are run by emotional moralizers. If instead you think in terms of calculating utility for the purpose of collective economic stability, it makes more sense. This is also wrong, but it requires a different analysis.  

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9 hours ago, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Take all the money Amazon donated to Black Lives Matter during the height of their rioting (I believe it was upwards of one billion dollars).

When the local store is out of cat food, and Amazon delivers, it is the product that is being focused on, not the establishment of the establishment running in the background. 

Real Clear Politics is doing fluff pieces on what BLM is advocating while Amazon's contributions are brought up as an aside in an OO thread. 

Gratefully occupationally work-from-home-capable keeps the 9 to 5 hours focused on maintaining the supply side of the Amazon equation, where a conscientious objection from the manufacturing side of the equation would remind me that paychecks come from products Amazon purchasers click "buy" on (though not exclusively in my line of work.)

 

 

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On 3/13/2021 at 8:50 PM, dream_weaver said:

I don't think Andrew Bernstein gives much of a hoot that Youtube canceled his TruthInPolitcs channel, if anything he is going to consider it a validation and confirmation of what is going on in the culture.

Perhaps, but I would at least appeal the decision or make "Truth in Politics 2" and start over.

On 3/14/2021 at 4:48 PM, dream_weaver said:

Amazon does not let me rate my purchase transactions citing unusual reviewing activity on my account...

Have you talked to Amazon yourself? Assuming you're not doing something bad, you might win an appeal. I look at it this way, these mega-companies need to police activity on their sites and sometimes they just make a mistake. You won't know if they made a mistake unless you talk to them about it.

On 3/14/2021 at 4:48 PM, dream_weaver said:

Is a future where one has to surf the dark net in order to get their fix of rational, objective content in the cards?

Some people create the channel over again and edit their content to conform with TOS. Heretical podcasters will talk in code to avoid the algorithm's axe. But I kind of doubt Andy and Bosch are willing to do that to stay on YT.

Edited by MisterSwig
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On 3/14/2021 at 5:31 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Interesting that Marilyn Manson's music video for (s)Ain't is still there but not this.

You think that's obscene? Watch this!

It's okay to leave up all the videos of Dems accusing Trump of collusion but dare to say the election was stolen and your channel is terminated. This isn't about "severe violations," it's about protecting favored classes of people.

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On 3/14/2021 at 6:05 PM, Harrison Danneskjold said:

Of all the companies I'm gonna have to minimize my own business with I think I'll miss Coca-Cola by far the most. 

For me it's Ben & Jerry's. Giving that up hurt because I love their ice cream. 

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16 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

Perhaps, but I would at least appeal the decision or make "Truth in Politics 2" and start over.

Andrew and Bosch have not made much public on the matter, aside from acknowledging the fact of the occurrence.

16 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

Have you talked to Amazon yourself?

I sent an email to the address in the notification window. If I got a response, I did not notice it. 

 

16 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

You won't know if they made a mistake unless you talk to them about it.

I'm pretty sure they made a mistake. Is it a matter important enough to know for certain? Typically, I vote with my business. In this case, the added complexity is using my carrier to access Amazon and however much longer the chain may be. In the wider picture, boycotting Amazon for a list of infractions, and getting it to spread in a meaningful manner . . . I went to a local brick and mortar earlier this afternoon, . . . egads, I didn't check to see if the owner attended mass last Sunday. (skipping mass was tongue in cheek.)

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44 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

It's okay to leave up all the videos of Dems accusing Trump of collusion but dare to say the election was stolen and your channel is terminated.

I think that is an appropriate way to moderate people. On a broad level I really think that people who claim the election was stolen really are undermining standards of rationality and actively promoting subversion. I don't think it qualifies as force, but it certainly qualifies as something we should reject completely, something that should be kept out of our own spaces. 

I think the collusion accusations are valid, but if you think they are disingenuous, fine. But I think even if you disagree about the accusations, it's nothing like rejecting procedures of the government itself. Questioning the government is one thing, outright subversion and looking the other way when it comes to violence is significantly worse and more dangerous. They are not comparable. In fact, the accusations themselves are well within what is permitted by the Constitution, it can't be seditious because such accusations are an intended function of the government. 

52 minutes ago, MisterSwig said:

This isn't about "severe violations," it's about protecting favored classes of people.

I think the favored class of people really just ends up as who has the most money to make legal threats. It's pragmatic. Pulling videos by Manson risks lawsuits. Pulling videos by someone who talks about transgender issues in a cringey way doesn't really risk lawsuits, even if the algorithm was only intended to capture the most egregious violators. That person doesn't have enough money to be a threat. Easier to let them rot in appeal hell than improve the algorithm. 

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50 minutes ago, Eiuol said:

On a broad level I really think that people who claim the election was stolen really are undermining standards of rationality and actively promoting subversion.

That is a non sequitur.

It's not "undermining standards of rationality" to refuse to dismiss evidence that other people want dismissed. (In fact, I'd say it's the virtue of independence at work.)

It certainly isn't "actively promoting subversion."

Saying "the election was stolen" doesn't say what to do about it. As Peikoff puts it in The Ominous Parallels:

Quote

Practical crises confront a country with the need for action. They do not determine what the action will be. In the face of military ruin, economic strangulation, or governmental collapse, men may choose to investigate the disaster's causes and to discover a more rational course of action for the future, i.e., they may choose to think. Or they may choose to hate, or to pray, or to beg, or to kill. On such matters, the crisis itself is silent.

As I've said before, I think storming the Capitol was a horribly bad thing to do (so bad, in fact, that I think it's a lie to call the perpetrators "Trump supporters," because what they did did not actually support Trump), but just because some people try to enact a very bad solution to a problem doesn't mean we should deny the existence of the problem.

Even if you don't think the election was stolen, the fact that reasonable people think it was, indicates that there is too much doubt about the accuracy of the results. There are good reasons for such doubt and it's a mistake to dismiss those reasons.

The correct thing to do is to come up with a better solution. This might mean developing ways to ensure the integrity of future elections, and putting them into practice. Some state legislatures are already doing that. (I think it's telling, though, that HR 1 systematically does the exact opposite, making it easier for the Democrats to steal future elections. If it passes, it will severely undermine confidence in those elections, and in the government as a whole. It also makes the Democrats look even more guilty of stealing the last election, because it systematizes the exact same methods they were previously accused of using to fraudulently enhance their vote counts in certain key states.)

1 hour ago, Eiuol said:

I don't think it qualifies as force, but it certainly qualifies as something we should reject completely, something that should be kept out of our own spaces. 

I think censorship, including self-censorship of this kind, is evasion.

Contradictions cannot exist in reality. Therefore, it is reasonable to expect one's knowledge, including philosophy, to integrate all facts without contradiction. That's one of the main tenets of Objectivism.

I was raised as a Christian and with the edicts that you shouldn't read certain books, listen to certain music, or watch certain movies. As a teenager I realized this was in contradiction with the First Amendment: if people aren't supposed to see certain things or hear certain things, why is "freedom of speech" there? What justifies it? Christianity doesn't have a good answer for this. Christians claim that "America is a Christian nation" but many of the ideas that the Constitution rests upon do not come out of the Bible.

Leftism doesn't have a good reason for the First Amendment either. Leftism is just secularized Christianity anyway. But those who think that people's thoughts create reality, think that, in order to remove something undesirable from reality, they need only remove it from people's thoughts, by censoring it.

Censorship does not work. The underlying reality is still there. But more to the point, for Objectivists, censorship isn't necessary. If you hold that the complete integration of your knowledge is both necessary and possible, then you don't have anything to fear from the new facts you might learn.

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The election was stolen.

There. I said it. 

Was it in jest? Am I soliciting subversion? 

Meanwhile, some think it was, some think it weren't, and others like it in the pot nine days burnt. 

If this thread were on YouTube, would the algorithm flag OO for this post, or other discussions here?

I look at a world implementing what is being fought for, dreamed of, and wished for. It is not just delineated to the Black Lives Matter crowd, Antifa, or Trump-baa-baa-baa-aa-ckers

It's not about the theft status of an election either. It is how to go about determining what qualifies as evidence. Fortunately, YouTube has an algorithm that will replace independent judgment 'accurately'* 90% of the time. 

* what were the total number of channels suspended for a given infraction, and the evidentiary breakdown substantiating the accuracy, or lack thereof? 

 

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45 minutes ago, necrovore said:

It's not "undermining standards of rationality" to refuse to dismiss evidence that other people want dismissed.

I don't know what non sequitur you are talking about, because I didn't make an argument with the phrase you quoted. It was a statement. If you want my argument, this isn't the place I want to present it because that's not why I joined the thread.

Anyway, what you write here is true, but if people dismiss evidence that is provided, and offer weak evidence for widespread and pervasive fraud that would cause an election to be stolen, I think it's because they have undermined standards of rationality. If I ran a social media platform, I would moderate these posts in some way, maybe by deletion, or something else. I'm not saying existing platforms always use good reasons to justify their moderation, but I think it can be appropriate to moderate posts like that and sometimes they do use proper justification. 

59 minutes ago, necrovore said:

so bad, in fact, that I think it's a lie to call the perpetrators "Trump supporters," because what they did did not actually support Trump

They did support him, literally. But anyway, you gave the same evidence twice in the same thread that the perpetrators were actually antifa, and I gave you refutations twice in the same thread. I and many other people have pointed out your very spurious relationship with evidence so I don't think I can talk about this rationally with you (if you're wondering, even though clearly I think some of your conclusions on this are irrational, I don't think it's a such a degree or pervasive enough that morally speaking I need to do anything at all other than respond to some of your posts.)

1 hour ago, necrovore said:

Censorship does not work. The underlying reality is still there. But more to the point, for Objectivists, censorship isn't necessary. If you hold that the complete integration of your knowledge is both necessary and possible, then you don't have anything to fear from the new facts you might learn.

I think this is playing fast and loose with the term censorship. Censorship can be equated with moderation, but I think it should be. I've changed my mind recently to think of censorship as strictly government enacted. I think that's what the term refers to, and doesn't need to extend beyond that. I don't think there is a such thing as private censorship, there is only censorship performed by government institutions. People might colloquially say that a school banned a book like Harry Potter, thus are censoring free expression. In public schools, I think this might be true. But if these are private schools, what you would actually be saying is that the school holds negative value judgments towards student autonomy and specific values expressed in those books. It isn't censorship if force is not involved in the thing in question still exists in the same form.

I think moderation is necessary and appropriate at times depending on the value judgments we are considering. I think it's fine to for example completely ban all Q-anoners on private platforms, and that's related to the kind of people that actively devalue a platform because of their views and don't promote anything remotely helpful even through their disagreement. Censorship is never necessary, as in, the government should have no say in what you wish to say within the domain of individual rights. But moderation plays a role in maintaining healthy environments and forums for discussion. Not because certain ideas are scary, but because some people are toxic. 

 

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