Carlos Maza and the VoxAdpocalypse

Politics US Politics
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So over the past few days Carlos Maza of Vox pestered the YouTube team about Steven Crowder’s “targeted harassment” of him. As far as I have been able to tell, this so-called targeted harassment of Maza consists of Crowder posting rebuttal videos to Maza’s Vox opinion pieces and calling Maza names like “lispy queer (that’s the worst thing that I can find).” Maza also claims that Crowder sends his fans over to his videos to call him names and harass him, but I have seen absolutely zero evidence that Crowder has ever asked anyone to say anything to Maza.

I am not really a Crowder fan. He is much too much of a pro-war pro-America conservative for my taste. I am subscribed to his channel because occasionally he has some interesting pieces on free speech issues (I subscribed to Vox as well…until today).

Initially, YouTube basically said that they weren’t going to do anything, but Maza and his fans continuously pestered them and then today YouTube unveiled an entirely new policy about hate speech, videos promoting certain ideologies, etc. YouTube also completely demonetized Crowder’s channel as well as many other right-leaning channels.

YouTube also released this AMAZING statement:
Even if a creator’s content doesn’t violate our community guidelines, we will take a look at the broader context and impact, and if their behavior is egregious and harms the broader community, we may take action. In the case of Crowder’s channel, a thorough review over the weekend found that individually, the flagged videos did not violate our Community Guidelines. However, in the subsequent days, we saw the widespread harm to the YouTube community resulting from the ongoing pattern of egregious behavior, took a deeper look, and made the decision to suspend monetization.

So they are blatantly admitting that Crowder’s content does not violate any of their guidelines, but they don’t like it so they are completely demonetizing his channel. That is insane.

A couple of days ago, I sent a tweet at Maza after noticing that he repeatedly refers to himself as queer so I asked him if “lispy” is the thing he is objecting to. He immediately blocked me on Twitter.

I would also like to point out some things about Facebook’s new policy.

Here is their post outlining their new policy.

Here are some highlights:
Today, we’re taking another step in our hate speech policy by specifically prohibiting videos alleging that a group is superior in order to justify discrimination, segregation or exclusion based on qualities like age, gender, race, caste, religion, sexual orientation or veteran status. This would include, for example, videos that promote or glorify Nazi ideology, which is inherently discriminatory. Finally, we will remove content denying that well-documented violent events, like the Holocaust or the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, took place.

I hate conspiracy theorists as much as anyone, but this is a VERY BAD idea. This will only encourage them and will likely eliminate one of my favorite types of content on YouTube, rebuttals of idiotic conspiracy theories.

In addition to removing videos that violate our policies, we also want to reduce the spread of content that comes right up to the line. In January, we piloted an update of our systems in the U.S. to limit recommendations of borderline content and harmful misinformation, such as videos promoting a phony miracle cure for a serious illness, or claiming the earth is flat. We’re looking to bring this updated system to more countries by the end of 2019. Thanks to this change, the number of views this type of content gets from recommendations has dropped by over 50% in the U.S. Our systems are also getting smarter about what types of videos should get this treatment, and we’ll be able to apply it to even more borderline videos moving forward. As we do this, we’ll also start raising up more authoritative content in recommendations, building on the changes we made to news last year. For example, if a user is watching a video that comes close to violating our policies, our systems may include more videos from authoritative sources (like top news channels) in the “watch next” panel.

Yes…because we can always trust CNN and the rest of the corporate media to get it right. This is also insane.

What do you guys think about these developments?

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They demonetized Crowder, who made rebuttal videos and mocked Maza, yet the “journalist” (Maza) who actually promotes physical attacks and doxxing gets a pass.
Yt, Fb, and Twitter rules are bullshit, they’re just made to censor whoever they want to censor, regardless of reasons. They want to act like platforms, so that they cannot be blamed for users’ content, yet they behave like publishers and censor/hide whatever they want.
When it’s not flat-out censorship it’s shadowbanning, with users not being able to reach their audience. I go through my YT subscriptions every month or so to double check if any channel has become a dead one, and every now and then I find people who had been uploading on a daily basis but I never got their content in my subs page. Facebook decides what content to show and what to hide, and let’s not talk about Twitter bans and suspensions.

It wouldn’t be a huge problem if Fb & friends were not doing all they can to prevent new platforms to provide competition. Every single time an alternative platform start to get traction:“ThEy PrOmOtE AlT-RiGhT CoNtEnT !!1!!!”, and suddenly whole websites get de-hosted, they are kicked out of Paypal, all major credit cards deny transactions etc etc. (but if someone who ends up shooting a school had a Twitter and FB account…shhhh…we don’t talk about that, just a coincidence…)

I really hope the rumored investigation to determine whether Google & Co are operating from a monopoly position will bring some change in the system, but with the amount of money that Fb and the others conveniently donate to politicians it may be a hard task.

Oh yeah, because the best way to convince people about something is to censor anyone who says otherwise.
In China it’s well documented that on 89/6/4 nothing happened, so I guess no one will be even slightly suspicious.

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I personally don’t like crowder. He’s a bit of a douche and it’s a turn off even if I agree with his general point.

Plus he did this douche bag video on Bruce Lee. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. And it’s pretty racist.

https://youtu.be/yMFVOtvQ29k

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I pretty much agree with this.

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Crowder is too much for me… but the ‘queer’ part i find interesting. like queer people can call themsevles queer but other people can’t. or just depends on the tone of voice…

this piece says youtube condoned crowders bullying of him

wtf is this world

also its really shitty when one media outlet has a beef with one person and then they all team up to take that person out… really messed up

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I liked him in the beginning when I first saw his video. But he just is such a douche about things. He’s also not as smart as he thinks he is, and never comes at anyone worth while. This guy would get ripped apart if he debated anyone legit. Most of his stuff is him going at college kids or random people. And it’s cut and produced by him. For all I know, some 18 year old freshmen taking lesbian dance theory whooped his ass before.

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I pretty much agree with this as well.

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This is funny though.
https://youtu.be/nXzYGgCcHmQ

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Do what you can get away with shall be the whole of the law.

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Since we’re talking about censorship and oppression of wrongthinkers, I think this would be a good thread to share this:

Basically: if you watch these “”“problematic”"" youtubers, you get radicalized and become far-right!!1 (but the Denver shooters who hated Trump and Christians, and one of whom was transgender…shhhhh…#notall).

It looks like the those white supremacists on the far right include plenty of gay and jewish people, as well as some people of color. They seem to be a fairly inclusive club to me! I didn’t know some of the people on that list and I’ll now have to check them out, because if Vox & friends consider them to be the Antichrist, odds are they produce interesting content.

They even included a pic of Milton Friedman, for fuck’s sake…

The day these hit pieces camouflaged as “”“journalism”"" will stop being a thing, will be a day too late.

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If that collage is meant to be people that are considered “far right,” this paragraph calls me a “bigot”:

Some young men discover far-right videos by accident, while others seek them out. Some travel all the way to neo-Nazism, while others stop at milder forms of bigotry.

So someone who stops at Milton Friedman is just stopping at “milder forms of bigotry?” Hilarious…

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I suppose another issue is that when a few powerful companies control so much content , when do they cease to uphold the original criteria of freedom of expression ( of course with extreme exceptions) and start to become overtly political in their banning of a particular genre . If there was genuine choice of platforms , then the free market would fix it . There is not really , and this is perhaps why some question as to whether these hosts should be deemed publishers are being raised . The platforms who promoted freedom are now restricting that idea … based on all sorts of reasons . The irony is that there are some pretty extreme sites allowed to post hatred …that seem to escape the de-platforming regulations . That disparity causes issues .

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Last I heard, David Duke has a Twitter account, but Alex Jones does not.

I think Alex Jones is a raving lunatic, but there is no way that he is more hateful than David Duke.

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Economic theories that do work are a gateway drug to the far right. The only way to be safe is to become a socialist. Get with the program!

I just noticed there’s also a photo of Big Man Tyrone! Wtf!

“Independent content that we don’t like and steals views from us is evil, stop watching it, you Nazi!”. The absolute pits. I’m glad someone sent me that article, I have the Nyt blocked on facebook and would have missed on that.

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Why would you block the best comedy feed on the internet?

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I used to think Alex Jones was a raving lunatic. That all changed when I saw him on Rogan’s JRE youtube channel. I mean, I think he’s constitutionally prone to conspiracy theories but it appears that he sort of indulges this side of his personality, consciously, because in the past doing so earned him a sizable audience and a sizable income.

I think Jones is probably crazy like a fox. For example, watch him wind up Cenk Uygur in this classic video shitpost from 2016.

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The Alex/Cenk confrontation is one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.

To be honest, I’m not sure if Alex is a raving lunatic or just plays one on TV… but in my opinion, he forwards some pretty stupid and dangerous theories. He also hits on truth now and then.

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They crossed the line between:“this is so dumb it’s funny” and:“this is so dumb it’s upsetting”.
It was a hard decision, but if when I wake up I read all the nonsense from nyt, vox, huffpo etc I’ll just start every day by losing a bit more hope in humanity and I’ll also run out of time to watch hentai. I mean anime.

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Yeah. The post made a few days ago about sex/gender representation is samples used for scientific experimentation reminded me that my NYT subscription was set to auto-renew this month. Thankfully I went over and canceled it before it started dinging me at the rate of US$12/month.

All of the mainstream media have just gone off the rails. Just enough news to argue that they’re not propaganda … but they’re all about the propaganda. I refuse to pay for propaganda.

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now you can subscribe to Vox! Yay!

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