News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube. Parent comment

Re:Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube by belorn on Monday May 18, 2020 @04:28PM (#23227954)
I guess people has a bit different view about how sticky platforms are. If I imagine that google would take a political side in the US election and ban all site and comments of the other side, my belief is that it would have a direct impact on the election results and there would be nothing that the banned party could do. Politics right now depend highly on being visible on google search, Youtube and google ad network. A small but noticeable portion of users would move out, but it would not be close enough to compensate the loss and the impact on the political climate would take years to recover.

I would like to be wrong on this and that google do not have this kind of power.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube by teddyh on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @07:18AM (#23233607)
> If I imagine that google would take a political side in the US election

They did. Maybe not in public, but it has been communicated clearly to the employees:

https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Google deletes “communist bandits” from comments on Youtube by Naracion on Tuesday May 19, 2020 @09:54AM (#23234876)
While this is true, I do not think this applies to the point that GP was making wrt influencing election results. Taking a public stance and enforcing said stance on communication through their services is a far cry from an internal discussion within a company where most employees lean towards one side.

I'm not saying this is okay--it probably could've been conducted in a more (politically) inclusive manner. But my argument is that this doesn't apply to the GP.

Edit. Also of course the main post about comment censoring is troubling.

[ Parent | on HN ]