InternetUser

What was the "Trump exception"? Banning videos that were supportive of him?

On a separate note, "the bigger they are, the harder they fall":

Remember AOL in the '90s (unless you're under 35)?

And how powerful was the social networking site, MySpace? -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwG3P5ob-nk

And at that same time, how big was Blogger and even blogging itself?

And as for Almighty Facebook/Instagram dominance among teenagers and 20-somethings:

[TikTok] was also the most-downloaded app on Apple's App Store in 2018 and 2019, surpassing Facebook, YouTube and Instagram.[68][71]

Cloudflare ranked TikTok the most popular website of 2021, surpassing Google.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TikTok

And most recently:

1. TikTok – 825 million [downloads in 2024]

https://www.designrush.com/agency/mobile-app-design-developm...

To solve that problem: when you're logged in, go through the suggested-videos margin and right-click on the suggested videos that appear irrelevant or awful to you, and you can click either "Do not recommend channel" or, more mildly, "Not interested." Do that a few times and you'll see the suggested videos get far more relevant to what you want to see. Yes, they definitely have an agenda in terms of the channels they push, whether it's political news clips, late-night talk show interviews, celebrity gossip, or zany pranks and challenges, but you can block them all. They love CNN, Joe Rogan, the Kardashians, and New York City real-estate mogul Donald Trump, but you don't need to see them if you don't want to. I've also done this with my Instagram "Explore" page and now it's always nearly all posts I'm definitely interested in, like about technology, science, astronomy, history, archaeology, coins, all sorts of stuff I like, it's great.

There are many genres of content where other video platforms--all of them entirely entirely or mostly premium--are bigger than YouTube, for instance, for:

- movies (Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Paramount+, Disney+, Turner, Criterion)

- old as well as current TV shows (Netlix, Hulu, Amazon Prime)

- cartoons (Netflix, Hulu, Disney, Tubi)

- pro sports (ESPN and league-specific platforms)

- video game videos (Twitch)

And for short advice videos (I call it "advice-ology," and there are tons of people doing it, whether about relationships life, nutrition, health, or fitness), comedy shorts, and prank videos, a video app called TikTok has been the biggest app in the U.S. and the world for the past 6 years, and Instgram, with its video "Reels," is also bigger for such videos.

So, my question to you is: What are 2 of more types of videos you'd like to get YouTube get disrupted in? Music videos? Podcasts? Movie trailers? Here's the current "Trending" list:

https://www.youtube.com/feed/trending

Rick Beato has talked about this problem; in one video, he was even talking about how 5-second snippets of jazz were causing videos to be taken down, but the algorithm didn't even identify the right song. It reminds of how, in using the Shazam app, I've had numerous instances where it will wrongly identify a track 2 or 3 times, and even stick with the wrong answer. But even bands like Guns N' Roses and The Eagles will get videos of cover performances quickly blocked for sounding too close to the originals. Here's a great video where he talks about YouTube's recklessly draconian algorithms:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5lY_DbUsok

I think a bigger reason is all of those is the brand trust that YouTube has. If I, as an independent director, make a music video, or a 10-minute tutorial video, or a short cinematic film, and want it to be seen by tens of thousands of people this month, YouTube is where I'm posting it. If you can persuade me that there's a video URL that thousands and even millions of random strangers would be even more likely to click on than one that starts with YouTube.com, I'd be very grateful to know it. Even Vimeo is known to far fewer Gen Z viewers than it has been to Millennials -

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=v...

What's an example or two of what one of those static Webserver's URLs would look like? I'd like to see one that you believe would get as many random people to click on it as would click on it if were a YouTube link. In my own experience, sharing videos on Reddit, X, and via text message that are not from YouTube often get comments and questions of suspicion and distrust about the site it's posted from, and sometimes, even people even posting a YouTube copy of the same video. Some of those sites have been Odysee, DailyMotion, and Ok.ru. YouTube is a name that billions of people worldwide trust, and it has been the 2nd most visited online property in the U.S. and worldwide for many years now.

Ok, hit me with the hard way. Home-school my kids and allow no Internet usage?

You're one of those video game defenders, extolling the interactivity as though it's so sophisticated and intellectually edifying. Video games are mental garbage. I remember kids telling me in elementary school that Nintendo and Sega were really good for improving hand-eye coordination, and now it's seriously being called "esports."

I'll take your advice and watch 6 hours of TikTok every day for the next 12 months and then confirm to you whether or not you're right about it being scary. Thanks for the suggestion! Looking forward to what I learn.

The issue of having someone's phone number is completely different these days; in 1985, I couldn't find out your age and your previous addresses and then find dozens or even hundreds of photographs of you alone and/or with your relatives and friends, as I can now - see my other comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26687321

Before the Internet, all you could do with a person's phone number is call them. But now, with PeopleSearchNow.com (the ultimate free source of personal info--feel free to look up your own real phone number in it, assuming you're American) and with Google and the MULTIPLE social networks that virtually everyone between the ages of 20 and 45 has been on now--typically using the same username on most or all of them--you can find out way more in a matter of a few MINUTES than a 1980s private investigator ever could in a span of a month. I can look up your number on PeopleSearchNow and then, if I can't find YOU on Facebook, I'm confident I can find one of your relatives (several of whom will be listed on PeopleSearchNow), and get to you from there--meaning find your other online profiles, thanks to those Facebook friends who know you.

As I've seen on WhatsApp on every smartphone I've had: when you download WhatsApp and tap the "New chat" icon in the upper right corner, the app SHOWS YOU a list of everyone from your phone's contact list who has a WhatsApp account. They also show the list when you click "Chat" at the bottom and then "New Group."

You're not avoiding having a shadow account created about you though, once I've upload my contact list and you're right there, Jim Wyclif, with your real phone number, and I've also tagged you in a photo we took together last year. And then there are all the other people who have your real phone number and who have been on Facebook, Messgenger, Instagram, or WhatsApp since they saved the number. And then there's even relatives and former classmates and co-workers who've looked up your name and typed in your town, school, and/or former company to find you. When I use Facebook, it still recommends former classmates and acquaintances who I literally looked up once ever. (As a side-note, Snapchat does the same type of things; people I've worked for in the past, as a tutor, are recommended to me on the "Add Friends" page.)

You're imagining some reality and it's very strange. Take a look here and you won't see any of the delusional things you're describing:

https://thedonald.win/

/r/Politics is centrism? Wow. If that's centrism, that I'll continue working to ensure a #Trump2020Landslide! These arrows will move even further to the right:

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9b/Presiden...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_United_States_presidentia...

Yeah, you're right. HN should allow participation only from people with at least 2 years of education in a Computer Science program.

"At some point" - This is some remarkable idealism. What is your estimated deadline for that "some point"?

Regarding the pattern you described:

On July 27, Tulsi Now Inc. filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the internet technology company suspended the campaign's Google Ads account without reason and that the company had treated the campaign's mail differently than it treated other campaigns' mail. The lawsuit seeks "an injunction against Google from further meddling in the election and damages of at least $50 million."[50]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulsi_Gabbard_2020_presidentia...

Interview about it, from yesterday:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gy797D3cAY

Won't be in the 3rd debate, so that it's for her:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Democratic_Party_presiden...

When do you think everyone will wise up? Like in what year?

Do you not naturally do the same thing in your own life? If you're hanging out with some friends and want to recommend a certain drink or food, do you say something like "Oh my god, you've gotta try this, it taste so good," or do you pick up the packaging and read off some of the ingredients list and nutritional facts? Would you first say some cookies should be tried because they're "delicious," or that they are worth trying because of the measurements and other particular properties? Or, going to the extreme, would you say I should try something because of certain gustatory and digestive processes afforded therefrom, which create a positively stimulating sensation, as transmitted by the parietal lobe of the cerebral cortex?

I think it's better (if less lucrative on average) to start your own business that takes a small chunk of business away from the giants, that you have ethical control over.

Ok, what's your business? I'll gladly check it out! I'm open-minded, love new ideas, and admire integrity and good founding principles!

So who's going to be the politician who can step forward and fight for those ideals without being bought out and thoroughly corrupted along the way? I hereby declare my endorsement for YOU, kaybe, to be that candidate! And with this push, I wish you the best of success between now and November of next year! https://i.imgur.com/7hvPycX.jpg

Advertising, soda, highly processed food

Did you see this? -

Crossfit, Inc. Suspends Use Of Facebook And Associated Properties - May 23, 2019

https://www.crossfit.com/battles/crossfit-suspends-facebook-...

Lol, we're already incredibly far down that path. Have you been using the same smartphone since 2008? I ask seriously: how many have you owned since then?

Well, the Military will soon include the Space Force[0][1], so let's see how the funding of space-related activity goes in the next couple years.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Space_Force

[1] https://www.military.com/space-force

MySpace is holding on to users' profiles? When was the last time you went to a Myspace page? There might still be an active page with that user's name, but several years ago, there was a massive MySpace re-design and overhaul that totally wiped out (at least from public view) HTML customizations of profiles (which MySpace became famous for), embedded music widgets, the entire "About Me" sidebar on the left (where people listed all their favorite stuff, and personal info), the comments (in the comment sidebar that was on the right), blog posts (in the blog section), and countless photos and photo albums, seemingly just saving the profile picture and then some photos that were NOT put into albums. I know that because I went back to a list of MySpace links I had bookmarked from 2006 to 2009 and they are just about all useless.

Celebrity tweets aside, people generally make that sweeping overestimation about the permanence (or at least the public discoverability of) such stuff; as for Facebook itself, users have deleted tons of photos and even their own entire profiles, and typically it's the most interesting (juicy) stuff, e.g. when a girl is going through college and deletes slutty and mischievous pictures of herself from earlier years and parties and relationships.

(Side-note: you spelled "loses" as "looses," one of the most common spelling mistakes.)

It became a massive "scandal" because it was part of the ongoing Facebook-scapegoating campaign that began the day after Trump won the election. There have been like 7 separate episodes in that scapegoating saga over the oas 2 years, and Zuckerberg has had to go public a bunch of times with some new vow to do something to get Facebook under control so that something so heinous doesn't happen again, lol... CNN and MSNBC viewers cannot understand how someone can support Trump unless than person is a white supremacist Nazi or whatever. All I know is that I have a nice $1,500 wager with a relative (who bet me last time as well) that if Trump is IN the election, he will win again. The only thing that could stop him is if he is simply not a candidate on Election Day. I think the main thing that could stop him is his own cholesterol; celebrity physician Dr. Oz said, in a show WITH Trump in September 2016, that Trump has too much of the "bad cholesterol."

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2018/02/18/opinion/sunday/18...

I think it can be gone quite a lot more simply: Register on each service with a different first and last name and birthdate, linked to a throwaway email address with its own different name and birthdate. Then register on another service with another, and so on. I'm a white American guy, yet because I've watched some Spanish pop videos and used Google Translate for Spanish translations (and done other things, not as part of a concerted mis/disinformation campaign), my Android phone believes I'm a Latin woman, and I even get a mixture of Spanish and English ads and pre-roll commercials on YouTube videos, and some of the ads are for women's clothing and makeup.

The minds that were behind LiveJournal, Friendster, and MySpace, to name just 3 other social platforms that had monthly active usership in the millions, were not as disgustingly criminal and unethical in nature as the mind of Zuckerberg, so, to answer your question, another online social platform could be more civil and nicer, and not as aggressive (with auto-playing, auto-looped videos, for one thing), and manipulative, and silo-creating in terms of the design and algorithms in the same way, and could be far less ruthlessly greedy, invasive, and devious toward its users in terms of the requiring, gathering, selling, and sharing of those users' data.

An online social networking platform could even take a total different format than one that invites users to upload all their real personal life information and photos; there could be a platform as one where the users are playing ficitonalized characters in a make-believe world, and there isn't the same severe data-mining and harvesting of users' minds and lives, let alone with clear algorithmic and editorial favoring of political-themed content; I'm thinking first of something like the The Sims from 2000 to 2015[0], but there is a now a certain game that has become the de-facto social network of pre-teens to early teens, and that is Fortnite Battle Royale - see these 2 articles from December 2018[1]-[5]. Yes, there are other risks and dangers with such a platform (where gamification is taken to a much further extent: you're playing much more of a character in a game than you are with the "character" you "play"--in the sense of "portray" and "direct" on Facebook)[6], but it's not, in my view, nearly as immoral and irresponsible as what Facebook does.

[0] Sims popularity, as recently as 2014, when the latest version of it was still the #1 computer game:

https://simscommunity.info/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Screen...

[1] Charged: Fortnite isn't a game, it's a place - As social media becomes ever more toxic, Fortnite has become the new social network and a place to hang out where you go to talk to friends

https://char.gd/blog/2018/fortnite-is-the-new-hangout-spot

[2] WSJ: How Fortnite Triggered an Unwinnable War Between Parents and Their Boys

http://www.wsj.com/articles/how-fortnite-triggered-an-unwinn...

[3] See the selected tweets here, including: "Fortnite is the tween generation's Facebook (at least for boys). Spent a few hours last weekend with a friend's 12 YO, Fortnite is the platform for his entire social/academic life. FYI i was labeled an 'old noobie'."

https://www.techmeme.com/181222/p8#a181222p8

[4] The astonishing usership stats (scroll down to the list):

http://www.businessofapps.com/data/fortnite-statistics/

[5] Many more stats:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortnite_Battle_Royale#Player_...

[6] Impact:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortnite_Battle_Royale#Impact

You honestly do not consume any news about current world events, whether local, national, or international? Or do you just mean that you continually and deliberately ignore political news? I mean, that's not exactly rare: 100 million eligible voters (42%) did not even care to vote in the 2016 U.S. presidential election[0]; I suppose they either don't believe their vote would matter, or that Hillary and Trump were the same enough. I would think there are still easily tens of thousands of those people are still indifferent about the electoral process. Anyway, to me, it's easy to see how sports, video games, TV shows, porn, eating, alcohol, weed, and drugs can be seen as more interesting than, for instance, the current "battle" about if, when, and where the 2019 State of the Union address will take place.

[0] http://archive.is/NDUkb