HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

⬐ barbacoa

Another history channel I follow had their videos mass de-monetized and age restricted. It was purely educational nothing about the channel is remotely controversial.

I am convinced YT is deliberately doing this to push out small content creators and replace them with corporate content creators that are fleeing the sinking ship that is cable TV.

⬐ no_time

I'm pretty sure their policies don't take channel size into account. Otherwise they wouldn't have nuked my favorite channel, JCS. Currently sitting at 4.7mil subscribers.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SwimJim/status/148026868974841447...

⬐ barbacoa

Probably not based on size. But it is notable that this automated moderation collateral damage doesn't ever hit corporate channels such as those owned by ABC or Viacom -- even when those channels are smaller in subscribers and viewership than independent channels.

⬐ ALittleLight

I'm just imagining the YouTube censors who have to watch a thousand videos a day (or whatever). They see "drinking acid", click ban, and hit next. It's a cute joke but understandable why it gets banned.

⬐ rasz

hundreds of videos about drinking acids and smearing acids on your skin still up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvE7cqogFzc

⬐ lil_dispaches

Who are all these YT defenders in the comments? "Well, it says ACID, and as every ignorant person knows, ACID means BAD, and knowing the difference between substances is stupid!" You sound like a bot trying to make common sense from adversarial policies. ThisCommonSenseIsFake.com.

⬐ hogrider

At this point I'm pretty sure anyone shilling for these megacorps are paid trolls.

⬐ lil_dispaches

I am starting to believe that 90% of the internet is performance spectacle psyops for the corporate government complex. The blue-checks larping with paid digital mercenaries to create the illusion of a realpolitic. That is all they need, as the illusion is the real in the world of the spectacle (DeBord).

⬐ danlugo92

Web3 fixes this.

Pretty telling how much FUD Web3 receives.

⬐ the_biot

He's so done he posted a video on Youtube about it.

Like every other post here with "YouTube" in the title, it's just clickbait and drama.

⬐ LatteLazy

People insist youtube be a safe place to leave their kids unsupervised. Then they complain when YouTube acts like a shitty kindergarten. It's that simple really.

⬐ secludedrelish

Are those two the same groups of people?

⬐ hffftz

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/regulating-hydric-acid-art-po...

⬐ Epskampie

How disingenuous to first make a video about drinking “ hydroxic acid”, then call it “water” again in your complaint video.

⬐ bmeski

None

⬐ Barrin92

Seems completely understandable that YouTube removed it. For people who didn't watch it, the guy made a prank title "drinking hydroxic acid" (which is water) but I can completely understand why youtube doesn't want anything with "drinking acid" in a video title that even vaguely resembles actual acids.

Plenty of youtube viewers are literal 12 year old children who don't even bother to read the description. "nobody will do anything stupid" doesn't really seem plausible to me when we have adults killing themselves with fish tank cleaner because they confuse it for anti-viral meds

⬐ SilasX

For consistency, then, YouTube should be taking down videos of people doing the Dihydrogen Monoxide experiment/hoax[1]. It's the same idea, framing an anodyne substance as being dangerous.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_parody

⬐ cute_boi

Well youtube has lot of guns games videos, nonsense pranks, knife games in counter strike etc.. Are we going to ban all of those videos?

I don't expect 12 year children to know about acid so it would be surprising if children discovers such video. And parent has to decide which video their children should watch otherwise children can easily go to google.com and do anything.

I really don't think youtube should act like judge in such cases. Outright deleting video in minor thing like this sets very bad precedence.

⬐ Karishma1234fff

Fair point, but they should apply that standard uniformly. Wasn't the ice bucket challenge dangerous ? And it was literally dangerous.

⬐ mlazos

Personally I think a video with drink acid in the title seems a little more dangerous than videos properly named with people pouring ice water on each other, especially for children.

⬐ rasz

>Personally I think a video with drink acid in the title seems a little more dangerous

like citric acid? you cant cure stupid by censoring thing they dont understand

⬐ spoiler

There also the problem of fact retention. I really doubt children will remember the name of the substance accurately, and then they suddenly drink hydrochloric acid, which to most people sounds "close enough," and that's just exacerbated in the case of children

⬐ ergocoder

But drinking hydroxic acid is not stupid. I wish people drink more hydroxic acid. Would have been healthier.

So, YouTube now bans a scientifically accurate video?

⬐ vba616

If it dilutes the electrolytes in your body too much, it can affect brain functioning and even be lethal. You should always check a MSDS for any chemical.

I just went looking for the LD50 and some sources say >90 and others >150 ml/kg, at least in rats. Odd that they don't give an upper bound, but it's probably safe to assume that's within an order of magnitude. For rats.

Antidotes, I assume, include Brawndo.

⬐ snypher

Please understand that a 'science prank' can be dangerous to someone not educated in that field. In this case the prank is only intended to 'work' on someone who didn't know it was water. So where does that leave the viewer; hopefully they do not take this new knowledge as advice to drink other acids.

⬐ Barrin92

Youtube bans video titles which if misinterpreted might make people do harmful things, like say, confusing hydroxic acid with hydrochloric acid. They're not a scientific journal, they're a video platform serving a general audience.

Please tell me you're just intentionally being obtuse and don't actually struggle with that point because this is a response I expect on reddit and not HN

⬐ eatmoarchikin

Let natural selection do it’s job if they’re that stupid to drink hydrochloric acid or anything else that’s not supposed to be ingested. Seriously, why do we continually have to be responsible for other people’s (referring to people old enough to know better here) stupidity or and/or lack of common sense? It’s too simple NOT to do something because some else did it. Looking at you Tide Pod idiots. Can we please stop coddling the world now.

⬐ bambax

Please don't post comments saying that HN is turning into Reddit.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

⬐ ratg13

HN is not turning into reddit, however there are some users that come to this site and treat it similarly.

Sometimes a friendly "that's not the way we do things here" is appropriate for newcomers.

⬐ Kaibeezy

Concur. It was a specific criticism of the comment, not a general criticism of HN.

⬐ yunohn

I don’t understand the reasoning behind claiming people are stupid and will mistake hydroxic for hydrochloride and die from drinking it - because of a YouTube video. There’s tons of legal material that teaches you infinitely dangerous things, with no “pranks”, just facts. Should we ban all of them too?

⬐ ratg13

Surely you recognize there is a difference between presenting facts and intentionally misleading your audience.

⬐ yunohn

Have you checked out the creators channel? What do you mean “misleading your audience”? It’s quite obvious to me that they are not a scientific awareness channel, and shouldn’t be treated like one.

⬐ ratg13

I agree with you that they are not a scientific awareness channel, which in my opinion is exactly why this sort of thing should be censored because it is intentionally misleading.

The author has the video re-posted, you can view it yourself.

⬐ yunohn

Who are they intentionally misleading? People who search for “can I drink acid”? I just find it quite ridiculous that something like this needs to be censored.

⬐ brutal_chaos_

Dihydrogen Monoxide is lethal. We should ban it. /s

If I were to make a video of me reading https://dhmo.org/truth/Dihydrogen-Monoxide.html should that be banned too?

⬐ fknorangesite

Hah on the contrary it's exactly the kind of obtuse, pedantic response I would expect on HN.

⬐ lmilcin

> Youtube bans video titles which if misinterpreted might make people do harmful things

Like political opinions?

⬐ ergocoder

Are you confused by hydroxic acid and hydrochloric acid?

Because I don't. They are obviously different spelling.

If people are confused by these two words, I have bad news for them. They might literally have brain problems.

> They're not a scientific journal, they're a video platform serving a general audience

So what? Are they not allowed to state anything that is scientifically accurate?

What next? We should ban non-scientific channel who says masks help?

> Youtube bans video titles which if misinterpreted might make people do harmful things

Anything that is misinterpreted will lead to harmful things. That's the consequence of misinterpretation.

Hacker News could be misinterpreted as a community of hackers trying to hack into people's computers. Therefore, we should close down the community?

⬐ fknorangesite

> They might literally have brain problems.

Or they might literally be children.

⬐ ergocoder

If children cannot tell the difference in spelling between those two words, then yeah they literally have brain problems.

⬐ apostacy

> ...doesn't really seem plausible to me when we have adults killing themselves with fish tank cleaner because they confuse it for anti-viral meds

What actually happened is that a woman murdered her husband with fish tank cleaner, and blamed Trump for it. And the media ran with it because that was a much more sensational story.

https://www.yahoo.com/now/woman-blamed-trump-giving-her-1336...

No, 30 people did not die in one night because Trump told them to drink bleach. Nobody did.

Nor was Kyle Rittenhouse a "mass shooter" that ambushed innocent civil rights demonstrators.

Big tech is wrong all the time.

⬐ brailsafe

Reddit told me I should think he's a mass murderer, so he's actually guilty. Next you'll tell me we shouldn't spread propaganda telling society it's good to identify people primarily by their skin colour! Crazy

\s

⬐ King-Aaron

> Nor was Kyle Rittenhouse a "mass shooter" that ambushed innocent civil rights demonstrators.

He did shoot some people with a high powered rifle in public though, which in most parts of the world is something that you wouldn't get acquitted for.

⬐ patrick451

It was clearly a case of self defense. What do other parts of the world have to do with it? If those regimes would rather you be dead than defend yourself, they are hardly a paragon liberalism.

⬐ King-Aaron

Pardon my cynicism, but if he wasn't aggravating people with a rifle at a public protest then perhaps he wouldn't need to "defend himself"

⬐ skim_milk

YouTube moderation is probably in a tight place financially. IIRC they've never generated a return on investment for Google, so all their revenue is split between paying creators and keeping the lights on. Could they pay thousands of people with bachelor degrees a quality salary to research a couple dozen videos a day for the highest-quality moderation? Sure, but the shareholders and creators on the platform want their share as well, and the viewers already hate the amount of ads on the videos. So we will probably have a skeleton crew of low-pay low-skill workers reviewing thousands of videos a day for moderation for the rest of the foreseeable future without something outside of the company forcing quality moderation otherwise.