YouTube to allow filtering of comments, users prove it's a smart idea.

[lacktheknack]

So most everyone here is exited to be embracing the worst aspect of extremist ideology (the desire to silence criticism)? Disappointing.

I hope that Youtube will at least have the courtesy of having "filters applied" being added to the video info. That way us sensible people can at least know who we should be losing respect for and how much.

We don't desire to silence criticism. We desire the ability to block the word "faget".

Tell me that wouldn't be nice.

 

[Tsun Tzu]

I'm...in opposition, I guess?

Staunch believer in the "you don't have to read it if you don't want to" concept. Then again, I'm not really a fan of censorship in general.

 

[piinyouri]

This is... This is wonderful.

This. There is literally no downside. Now we can deal with troll comments without having to block everything.

Hey cool!
I can remove my Firefox addon that literally turns all youtube comments into DERP DERP DERP.
I'll know what people are saying again!

We don't desire to silence criticism. We desire the ability to block the word "faget".

Tell me that wouldn't be nice.

I want to 'like' this post so damn bad.

I don't want to cover up criticism, real fucking criticism or even a well spoken disagreement. Just all the verbal garbage that gets in the way of it.

 

[Arcanite Ripper]

People read Youtube comments?

Wait wait wait, people CARE about Youtube comments?

Jeez. Give it up.

 

[Raine_sage]

I think this is nice in theory but how will it work?

I would assume something like tags would be the best way, to avoid things like filters blocking the middles of words. One forum I was on for example would change the word "rape" into "attack" presumably to help prevent triggers. But it would also turn the word therapist (note the word rapist at the end) into theattacker which just looked silly.

 

[lacktheknack]

This is... This is wonderful.

This. There is literally no downside. Now we can deal with troll comments without having to block everything.

Hey cool!
I can remove my Firefox addon that literally turns all youtube comments into DERP DERP DERP.
I'll know what people are saying again!

I have that plugin for Chrome!

I'll keep it, just in case. There was a surreal moment in my life where the top comment was hidden behind "derp derp herp herp derp". and when I clicked it to read it, it read "herp herp derp derp".

Derpception!

 

[jesse220]

I like the idea mostly, but it does open the door to certain chameleon blocking all kinds of negativity with no regard to to validity, content or conversation, making the entire comments section nothing but praise. When I think about this people like Geoff Keighly come to mind and that's never a good sign.

 

[Eldritch Warlord]

So most everyone here is exited to be embracing the worst aspect of extremist ideology (the desire to silence criticism)? Disappointing.

I hope that Youtube will at least have the courtesy of having "filters applied" being added to the video info. That way us sensible people can at least know who we should be losing respect for and how much.

We don't desire to silence criticism. We desire the ability to block the word "faget".

Tell me that wouldn't be nice.

I fail to see the difference between silencing dissenting points of view and blocking posts that use the word "faget". After all your desire to block them is based on your view that people either shouldn't misspell or shouldn't use the word "******" and clearly the commenter in question dissents.

So yes, I am telling you it's not nice to arbitrarily censor people from an otherwise open forum based on their word choice. A rational person who respects freedom of speech would allow them to post and then call them idiots (either privately or publicly).

 

[conmag9]

I never applaud censorship. Yeah, Youtube comments don't exactly have the best history (although I see far less stupidity than the general public opinion seems to indicate), but false positives are a thing. That, and even if it was done correctly, it sets an uncomfortable precedent where censorship is "okay" in certain circumstances. That's bound to grow out of control, given that those interested in censoring things aren't usually the ones liable to use such power with much discrimination.

Besides, it wont get rid of trolls. They'll just get more subtle but stay annoying.

 

[Alfador_VII]

Put me into the camp that opposes this.

Yeah, Im saying it, free speech is free speech. Even if that speech is fucked up and disrespectful at times...

Mark my words, this ain't going to go the way you hope it does. What I forsee is using this to block criticism, since it seems most youtube creators cant seem to handle negative comments very well. (not all, but alot)

You actually believe you had freedom of speech on the comments section of a site privately owned by a massive corporation, under videos posted by content creators who can already delete comments, or simly disable all of them?

Youtube is not a public place much as we consider it such, we're only allowed to do and say what Google allow us to.

 

[neokiva]

there is a downside, what will happen if people try and have an intelligent dissenting opinion of let's say anita sarkeesian and anita say's i don't like that valid point block it. or say some creationist venomfangx is told he's wrong about something and he decides to censor that comment so his ridiculous video doesn't get challenged.

 

[lacktheknack]

I fail to see the difference between silencing dissenting points of view and blocking posts that use the word "faget".

This is why the internet cannot have nice things.

After all your desire to block them is based on your view that people either shouldn't misspell or shouldn't use the word "******" and clearly the commenter in question dissents.

So yes, I am telling you it's not nice to arbitrarily censor people from an otherwise open forum based on their word choice. A rational person who respects freedom of speech would allow them to post and then call them idiots (either privately or publicly).

False.

I respect freedom of speech, but I also take advantage of the fact that a private area does not have "Freedom of Speech" enforced on it. If someone ran around my house screaming "FAGGOTS EVERYWHERE", I'd kick him out and tell him to never come back. That's "censorship", is it not? Similarly, if people are cluttering up my videos with unreadable and pure-hate comments, I'm completely in the right by law, sanity and my emotional standards to tell them to shove of and take their mouths elsewhere.

Freedom of speech != Freedom from consequence. Being filtered out is a consequence.

Why should I have to deal with comments loaded with hate and "faget" if I can skip the middleman and just not see them? Not everyone is emotionally strong, you know.

I find it amusing that you're posting this on the Escapist, which has much stricter "Thou Cannot Say This" standards than most other forums. Is that not still censorship?

 

[BrotherRool]

There's been scientific research that shows trolls don't further debate and in fact worsen. Moreover I'm sure everyone is committed to preserving the person whose showing a challenging but through provoking and meaningful opinion with his use of the word '******' but we've been on the internet for a while and haven't found him yet.

I think some people in this thread are overvaluing the idea of freedom of speech taught as a core value from birth at the expense of the reason we need free speech, which is that people should be free from oppression in their beliefs and our society should be able to challenge itself and keep itself honest through allowing ready dispersal of minority opinions.

Allowing a public platform for people to be homophobic, misogynistic, bullying and unpleasant does the opposite of this. It oppresses people and their opinions and crushes weaker minorities, poisoning discourse and debate.


But there is a genuine cause for concern here, that everything is in the power of the channel holder. It really isn't unreasonable that Intel's youtube channel might choose to ban the word AMD, or that someone who holds strong opinions on the relationship between church, national marriage and gender might declare 'homophobic' a trollish word. Heck after all the troll comments you _will_ get, banning the word 'DotA' from a LoL channel might seem worth the genuine comments it crushes.

There's a lot of potential for actual censorship here, and I don't think you even have to be particularly evil to do it. If you face a constant barrage of people telling you that climate change does exist, they probably will begin to look like troll comments. It's not like people have ever showing any hesitation in being uncivil when telling someone they're wrong

 

[lacktheknack]

Youtube already has censorship tools in place if you're the sort of idiot that fears criticism, filters will just be making the job easier. It's not like my distaste is going to keep these features from being implemented either.

Loud yelling in or near your property and hateful comments under your Youtube video are incomparable. Your property is not a designated space for discussion and yelling is a disturbance regardless of what is being said. Of course you have the right to censor those comments under your video if you wish, but there's nothing admirable about doing it.

So the consequence for using your freedom of speech the wrong way is to be preemptively prevented from speaking at all.

Why do you feel entitled to not be offended? Being offended just means that your view of the world has been challenged in some way. If you're not emotionally capable of handling that then I think there's probably something wrong with your view of the world.

I find it amusing that you think me using this site's forums constitutes an implied approval of all of its policies. Honestly I think this site is largely run by a bunch hypersensitive morons incapable of understanding why anyone would disagree with their half-baked worldview. Despite that they put out some entertaining videos and provide a bit of gaming news.

I don't regard "go kil urself **** niggr" to be discussion.

If you consider that to be discussion, consider spending more time on /b/, the last bastion of true free speech on the internet (assuming you don't post child porn, anyways).

I don't want to censor dissent or discussion.

I want to hold back a barrage of pure abuse. Filters will help with that.

Being offended by abuse is not "challenging a viewpoint". If you seriously think that it is, I have nothing more to say to you.

 

[Xdeser2]

Put me into the camp that opposes this.

Yeah, Im saying it, free speech is free speech. Even if that speech is fucked up and disrespectful at times...

Mark my words, this ain't going to go the way you hope it does. What I forsee is using this to block criticism, since it seems most youtube creators cant seem to handle negative comments very well. (not all, but alot)

You actually believe you had freedom of speech on the comments section of a site privately owned by a massive corporation, under videos posted by content creators who can already delete comments, or simly disable all of them?

Youtube is not a public place much as we consider it such, we're only allowed to do and say what Google allow us to.

Yeah that is very true, but I'm an idealistic ************, I gotta stick to my guns haha

 

[briankoontz]

I fail to see the difference between silencing dissenting points of view and blocking posts that use the word "faget".

This is why the internet cannot have nice things.

After all your desire to block them is based on your view that people either shouldn't misspell or shouldn't use the word "******" and clearly the commenter in question dissents.

So yes, I am telling you it's not nice to arbitrarily censor people from an otherwise open forum based on their word choice. A rational person who respects freedom of speech would allow them to post and then call them idiots (either privately or publicly).

False.

I respect freedom of speech, but I also take advantage of the fact that a private area does not have "Freedom of Speech" enforced on it. If someone ran around my house screaming "FAGGOTS EVERYWHERE", I'd kick him out and tell him to never come back. That's "censorship", is it not? Similarly, if people are cluttering up my videos with unreadable and pure-hate comments, I'm completely in the right by law, sanity and my emotional standards to tell them to shove of and take their mouths elsewhere.

Freedom of speech != Freedom from consequence. Being filtered out is a consequence.

Sure, but consequences work both ways. Socrates and Jesus were "filtered out" of their respective societies, and while the societies themselves thought they were punishing trolls and benefiting themselves in the process (not having to put up with their nonsense) history paints a different picture.

Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it. Creating a society where yes-manning with terrible articulation (would the phrase "Justin Bieber is so awesome!" ever be a problem?) is applauded but no-manning with an insufficient level of articulation is always a problem is a double standard.

What exactly are we saying is a problem here? Are we saying that people who disagree with the dominant ideology of a messageboard (like Jesus disagreed with the dominant ideology of the society in which he lived) should not voice their perspective? Are we falling prey to Ren and Stimpy's "happy happy joy joy!", where nothing but happiness, optimism, positivity, and yes-man comments are allowed?

If someone ran around my house screaming "FAGGOTS EVERYWHERE" I would begin by understanding what was going on, and then take appropriate action. Not action first and ask questions never. I'm not a video game protagonist.

 

[lacktheknack]

I fail to see the difference between silencing dissenting points of view and blocking posts that use the word "faget".

This is why the internet cannot have nice things.

After all your desire to block them is based on your view that people either shouldn't misspell or shouldn't use the word "******" and clearly the commenter in question dissents.

So yes, I am telling you it's not nice to arbitrarily censor people from an otherwise open forum based on their word choice. A rational person who respects freedom of speech would allow them to post and then call them idiots (either privately or publicly).

False.

I respect freedom of speech, but I also take advantage of the fact that a private area does not have "Freedom of Speech" enforced on it. If someone ran around my house screaming "FAGGOTS EVERYWHERE", I'd kick him out and tell him to never come back. That's "censorship", is it not? Similarly, if people are cluttering up my videos with unreadable and pure-hate comments, I'm completely in the right by law, sanity and my emotional standards to tell them to shove of and take their mouths elsewhere.

Freedom of speech != Freedom from consequence. Being filtered out is a consequence.

Sure, but consequences work both ways. Socrates and Jesus were "filtered out" of their respective societies, and while the societies themselves thought they were punishing trolls and benefiting themselves in the process (not having to put up with their nonsense) history paints a different picture.

Be careful what you wish for, because you might just get it. Creating a society where yes-manning with terrible articulation (would the phrase "Justin Bieber is so awesome!" ever be a problem?) is applauded but no-manning with an insufficient level of articulation is always a problem is a double standard.

What exactly are we saying is a problem here? Are we saying that people who disagree with the dominant ideology of a messageboard (like Jesus disagreed with the dominant ideology of the society in which he lived) should not voice their perspective? Are we falling prey to Ren and Stimpy's "happy happy joy joy!", where nothing but happiness, optimism, positivity, and yes-man comments are allowed?

If someone ran around my house screaming "FAGGOTS EVERYWHERE" I would begin by understanding what was going on, and then take appropriate action. Not action first and ask questions never. I'm not a video game protagonist.

Socrates and Jesus never abused, they only called out hypocrisy and made inflammatory statements.

All you have to do to make an easy distinguation is to block the normal array of baseless insults and permutations thereof. If you're being abusive, you probably don't care enough to articulate yourself properly. If you're trying to make an articulate statement, it's simple enough to avoid calling all dissidents "cuntboys", et al. Just saying.

I'm not hoping to block inflammatory statements (I generally enjoy reading them and trying to figure out how they came into existence). I'm all for blocking straight abuse.

 

[Asita]

What exactly are we saying is a problem here? Are we saying that people who disagree with the dominant ideology of a messageboard (like Jesus disagreed with the dominant ideology of the society in which he lived) should not voice their perspective? Are we falling prey to Ren and Stimpy's "happy happy joy joy!", where nothing but happiness, optimism, positivity, and yes-man comments are allowed?

...Yes man comments? How exactly do you suppose this is going to work? Do you honestly think that they're going to find a way to automatically filter a comment like "Justin Bieber's caterwauling has all the nuance of a Michael Bay movie, which is to say, none at all"? Really, dissenting comments that steer away from actually abusive language are at little more risk than they were before. Sure people could find ways to censor the above, but the number of permeations they'd have to go through to fully block criticism[footnote]Some variations of the above quote "If Bieber got a contract, could my tomcat? His yowling sounds MUCH better." "MY EARS ARE BLEEDING!" "I liked the part at the end. You know, when it stopped." "To call Bieber an artist is like calling roadkill a gourmet meal." "Listen Bieber, I'm really happy for you and I'm gonna let you finish, but yours is the least deserved contract of all time!", and that's just off the top of my head, mind you[/footnote] makes it so that trying to block negativity alone becomes FAR more trouble than it's worth very quickly. This is why I scoff at the notion that filters like this pose any form of hurdle to actual criticism.