YouTube Censorship and Michael Jackson

wednesday

Proud Member
Joined
Jul 25, 2011
Messages
550
Points
0
I just wrote 2 comments on 2 videos on YouTube, respectively, using the #michaeljackson. Several minutes later I still cannot find my comments.

I am quite tired of these arbitrary rules and the censorship. I don't care if YouTube is a company. Especially companies and corporations should, and I believe are, subject to law (state, federal etc.).

#FedUp


 
The comments are moderated by bots, unless the channel has the time and people to do it manually. If people flag your comment, it'll probably get dinged. It's not censorship, it's just because YouTube is way too massive to manually review all comments.
 
@Anna: Interesting. I heard of bots commenting but never of them moderating the comments sections.

However, the reason I was so perplexed and felt impelled to start a thread on this subject is that I monitored my computer while I wrote the comments on my phone. So I could see in real time whether my post showed up. It simply didn't. So I don't think anyone would have even had time to flag my post. I finally deleted the posts and tried again, this time without ## and my comments appeared immediately. So I guess it remains a mystery.
 
Maybe the uploader blocked the hashtag. You can choose to put certain words or phrases on a blacklist.
 
Maybe the uploader blocked the hashtag. You can choose to put certain words or phrases on a blacklist.

Highly unlikely. The channel is all about politics and they never talk about pop culture. There must be another reason and I suspect that YouTube might have decided to (temporarily) ban any ## that promote Michael Jackson because of the "controversy".
 
Highly unlikely. The channel is all about politics and they never talk about pop culture. There must be another reason and I suspect that YouTube might have decided to (temporarily) ban any ## that promote Michael Jackson because of the "controversy".

I don't see why YouTube would not be interested in controversies on it's platform. Controversies generate engagement by people - the gold of the internet. It can only be like Anna wrote, that some haters flagged a post. When that's done by enough people (2~3?), the post is automatically set into hidden mode. (Same as when you post some web link in a comment, it almost automatically goes into hidden mode for spam suspicion, and then the channel owner (if he even notices) can review and make those posts public again.

It's not single bots doing this, it's YouTube's general algorhythms with which they try to find a middle path between preventing spam and hate speech while at the same time making it all an enjoyoable place for millions of people posting and uploading there every day. It's just that the more controversial and emotionally loaded certain topics are, the more likely such flag / report functions will be abused.
 
Last edited:
did it ever occur to you that the youtube channel deleted the comment themselves?
No one is censoring that hashtag on youtube.
 
did it ever occur to you that the youtube channel deleted the comment themselves?
No one is censoring that hashtag on youtube.

The very instant I posted? Twice? On two separate videos? I checked for the newest post to pop up but mine never did. There was nothing offensive about my comments either.
 
The very instant I posted? Twice? On two separate videos? I checked for the newest post to pop up but mine never did. There was nothing offensive about my comments either.

Did you test that hashtag problem with another account?
Posts without that hashtag don't disappear?

Could be that your whole account is "blacklisted" (or however to call it). Maybe because in the past MJ haters reported other posts by you, so now new posts also automatically go into a pending mode, and are not publicly visible before the channel owners approve them.
 
Could be that your whole account is "blacklisted" (or however to call it). Maybe because in the past MJ haters reported other posts by you, so now new posts also automatically go into a pending mode, and are not publicly visible before the channel owners approve them.

If your posts get flagged, shouldn't you get a notification/message from YouTube?
 
Back
Top