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Offline Tom Bishop

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YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« on: August 27, 2018, 05:04:57 PM »
It appears that many people of the wider FE community are complaining that YouTube is demoting Flat Earth videos. YouTube admitted that they were planning on demoting such videos, and a spokeswoman specifically calls out Flat Earth as something to censor in this video.

On the most recent Flat Earth Podcast there was discussion about halting the "Research Flat Earth" slogan, since when you search for Flat Earth you get the Flat Earth Society, which they characterize as "full of trolls," and YouTube, which now promotes anti-FE videos. The prospects for the growth of the movement is dismal if Flat Earth is being censored.

This is important. Flat Earth was given its fair assesment in 2015, the first time in hundreds of years, and it exploded into a movement of flat earthers that is still growing. Flat earthers grew to thousands, and the subject is reaching millions of people, because no one had ever seen the evidence from that side before 2015. In 2018, it has now grown and become such a big thing that even mainstream media and the government are attempting to to stop it with censorship, ridicule and education.

Since we rank highly for Flat Earth, I believe that it is increasingly becoming our obligation to come up with some kind of scheme that promotes videos and contents of the wider Flat Earth community. We have discussed a sort of video content site in the past; which still seems like a good idea. Another idea is a Digg-like rating system, where users may submit content that gets upvoted. The old Digg had one option: You have the option to either "Digg" it, or do nothing. This type of scheme would protect from the trolls.

The current admins do not have the time to work on such a venture, and my suggestion would be to create a subdomain and give access to myself and others who would like to work on it. There are plenty of tube and rating-system type content manager systems to base this on.

What is the best way to handle the censorship of YouTube?
« Last Edit: August 28, 2018, 04:42:32 PM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #1 on: August 27, 2018, 06:09:32 PM »
Since we rank highly for Flat Earth, I believe that it is increasingly becoming our obligation to come up with some kind of scheme that promotes videos and contents of the wider Flat Earth community.
Or, we let everyone else get pwned and we get all the traffic. You see, when someone types 'flat earth' and all content telling you the earth is flat is being struck down ... what results will be shown? Well I'd imagine the flat earth society, because its the thing you are looking for, and as long as it is not deemed to be anti-education .... it won't be harmed like the youtube videos.

I know you won't want to hear this, but this censorship will clear a lot of the background noise leaving only a few voices ... ours being one of them. You may have a great blog post but you'll be hampered by the censorship in google results ... but we have thousands of backlinks and other things that will still push us to the top.

What is the best way to handle the censorship of YouTube?
We aren't on Youtube. Why do we need to save them? In fact they think we are trolls. Where does that traffic go instead when it gets even more curious now that things are being censored? Censorship drives intrigue. It will only fire people's curiously. If you push something underground, you can't control it. It is like a prohibition of flat earth content.

Most of all, they aren't asking for our help.

When something changes, the balance of winners and losers shifts. You could see this as an obstacle, or you could see this as an opportunity. There will be winners and losers ... play our cards right and we could be the winners.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2018, 06:34:13 PM by Baby Thork »
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Offline Tom Bishop

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #2 on: August 27, 2018, 10:45:41 PM »
It's not a competition. The audience for this is actually unlimited. There is no limited audience that must be shared between them and us. The fact is that those YouTube content creators inspire the curiosity of the public moreso than our forum posts ever could.

Are we profiting from having more traffic? I haven't seen an increase in my bank account from this. What benefit is it to me for those channels to die off and for us to receive more traffic? This is entirely non-profit. There are no "competitors". It would more benefit us to bring those channels on board and adopt them into the website.

If this website eventually evolved into a tube or news aggregator, with links and graphics to the latest Flat Earth articles and videos, it would greatly benefit the movement and the society. It would help us generate a movement. The forums and debates should actually be a secondary focus, for those people who want to discuss and look into the matter further. The public face of the society needs to inspire and inform. I would rather have a page filled with the latest videos and articles than a news page that is updated once or twice a year.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2018, 12:39:23 AM by Tom Bishop »

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #3 on: August 27, 2018, 11:34:10 PM »
I find this difficult to get enthusiastic about for several reasons.

1) These people don't like us. We are 'controlled opposition' and trolls and whatever else they think of on the day. Now I'm pretty sure if TFES was controlled opposition, you and me would be on the payroll by now, Tom. We'd have a least had a memo. So when I know they are talking rubbish from the get go, its hard to support.
2) A large portion of their content is toxic. Its a poo flinging contest. Its kind of nice to take the moral high ground and not be dragged into it. A lot of the top FE creators are very weird indeed. Patricia whatshername and that guy who desperately wants to have sex with her. Matt 'I've got 24 hours to save the world Boylan', Lord Steven Christ who not only thinks the earth is flat but that he is the son of God and makes regular demands to be Pope, Eric 'gas the Jews' Dubay ... these people are 2 stars short of a constellation.
3) These people are going to get zapped ... and if their content is all over our site, we are going to be collateral damage. If we started hosting Alex Jones and Tommy Robinson videos, what do you think would happen to our google rank? Its going to be the same with these FE videos.
4) This isn't our fight.

I think these people should be able to say what they want, I think they should allow market forces to dictate what people watch, I think the governments should keep their noses out of online content. But I don't think TFES should be nominating itself to help a youtube community that has from the outset made it clear they want nothing to do with us.
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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #4 on: August 27, 2018, 11:41:17 PM »
Edit: Ahh, it seems Lord Steven Christ no longer thinks the earth is flat. He now thinks it is concave ... but he is still God, in case you were wondering. Here is God below, taking a train.



How do we choose whose videos we host and whose we don't? Do we endorse His Lord and Savior in the video above, or do we become the censors?


As an aside, God lives in a dirty bedsit, goes by the name Steven, has amassed 253 subscribers on youtube in several years, uploads every day and demands you repent and worship him. God also has a lot of baseball caps and chain smokes. I'm hoping Satan is a lot more personable and that I get sent to hell.



*cold shivers*
« Last Edit: August 27, 2018, 11:56:29 PM by Baby Thork »
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Rama Set

Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #5 on: August 28, 2018, 12:20:42 AM »
Thork, you literally just posted an epic rant basically espousing now-nazi views. Whether you were sincere or not, the way people will perceive you is more Eric Dubay than Tom Bishop.

 I think Tom has a good view for how this should play out. Although I have no idea what the technical challenges are in turning this site in to a FE Media aggregator, it sounds like an excellent way to continue to improve its position in the FE community.

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #6 on: August 28, 2018, 12:26:03 AM »
Thork, you literally just posted an epic rant basically espousing now-nazi views. Whether you were sincere or not, the way people will perceive you is more Eric Dubay than Tom Bishop.
How do you understand other people's point of views, if you never explore their position? How will you know the flaws in their arguments, if you never try to make those arguments? I can have a conversation here, that it is almost impossible to have in my real life, or sanitised places on the internet. TFES is my safe space.

I think Tom has a good view for how this should play out. Although I have no idea what the technical challenges are in turning this site in to a FE Media aggregator, it sounds like an excellent way to continue to improve its position in the FE community.
So ... do we become the censors, or does Lord Steven Christ get an equal billing when he says the earth is flat?
« Last Edit: August 28, 2018, 12:28:05 AM by Baby Thork »
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Rama Set

Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #7 on: August 28, 2018, 12:39:14 AM »
Thork, you literally just posted an epic rant basically espousing now-nazi views. Whether you were sincere or not, the way people will perceive you is more Eric Dubay than Tom Bishop.
How do you understand other people's point of views, if you never explore their position? How will you know the flaws in their arguments, if you never try to make those arguments? I can have a conversation here, that it is almost impossible to have in my real life, or sanitised places on the internet. TFES is my safe space.

Yeah fine, but you literally just criticized others for putting out the exact content you do.

Quote
I think Tom has a good view for how this should play out. Although I have no idea what the technical challenges are in turning this site in to a FE Media aggregator, it sounds like an excellent way to continue to improve its position in the FE community.
So ... do we become the censors, or does Lord Steven Christ get an equal billing when he says the earth is flat?

As always, ideas should be judged on their merits.  If he has good ideas, then those should be discussed. This site does not have to censor material to aggregate it.

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Offline stack

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #8 on: August 28, 2018, 12:46:43 AM »
So ... do we become the censors, or does Lord Steven Christ get an equal billing when he says the earth is flat?

You become curators, not censors.

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #9 on: August 28, 2018, 12:49:05 AM »
Yeah fine, but you literally just criticized others for putting out the exact content you do.
And I put it in a thread that will be buried. Not on youtube.



[
As always, ideas should be judged on their merits.  If he has good ideas, then those should be discussed. This site does not have to censor material to aggregate it.
Lord Steven Christ's idea yesterday was to get on that train and go to the whitehouse. Where he stood outside and proclaimed that '1000 shall flee at the rebuke of one'.



This is a man who is one day going to decide on his very own judgement day. That's the kind of video you see on the news after it is too late. I'm picking him because he is an extreme case ... but he does do a lot of flat earth videos. And honestly, I don't think we want to promote a lot of the things said by flat earthers outside of this forum. I may decide to see what you might say when confronted with a notion of genocide on a forum out of intellectual curiosity, but I don't go to the White house declaring 1000 people need to 'fear me'. I'm not actually mad or dangerous. Lots of these FE advocates have ulterior motives. And If you haven't noticed ... we don't have insane FErs here. They are all remarkably stable. We chase the lunatics away. We don't need to start hosting their content. Note controversial views in posts, are not the same as a controversial wiki of video library. TFES doesn't endorse a post. But we do endorse any content we distribute.

So ... do we become the censors, or does Lord Steven Christ get an equal billing when he says the earth is flat?

You become curators, not censors.
If we are picking and choosing, it is the same thing.
« Last Edit: August 28, 2018, 12:57:30 AM by Baby Thork »
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Offline stack

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #10 on: August 28, 2018, 01:15:51 AM »
So ... do we become the censors, or does Lord Steven Christ get an equal billing when he says the earth is flat?

You become curators, not censors.
If we are picking and choosing, it is the same thing.

I guess it's all in how you position (spin) it. Is the Louvre censoring it's collection?

But a valid point, TFES would become somewhat more of an endorser of outside content. It gets tricky pretty quickly.

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Rama Set

Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #12 on: August 28, 2018, 01:24:14 AM »
Yeah fine, but you literally just criticized others for putting out the exact content you do.
And I put it in a thread that will be buried. Not on youtube.

So it’s only that platform that differentiates you? Got it.

Quote
As always, ideas should be judged on their merits.  If he has good ideas, then those should be discussed. This site does not have to censor material to aggregate it.
Lord Steven Christ's idea yesterday was to get on that train and go to the whitehouse. Where he stood outside and proclaimed that '1000 shall flee at the rebuke of one'.



This is a man who is one day going to decide on his very own judgement day. That's the kind of video you see on the news after it is too late. I'm picking him because he is an extreme case ... but he does do a lot of flat earth videos. And honestly, I don't think we want to promote a lot of the things said by flat earthers outside of this forum.

As I said, accept each idea on its merits, like I am with yours right now. I don’t let your hideous and moronic trolls interfere with other discussions. It’s a virtue of this community and all kindred content should be welcome. A video abot bring on Judgement Day is not FE content, so it would not be the responsibility of a FE media aggregator to House it.

Quote
I may decide to see what you might say when confronted with a notion of genocide on a forum out of intellectual curiosity, but I don't go to the White house declaring 1000 people need to 'fear me'.

Is that what you were doing? Being intellectually curious?

Quote
I'm not actually mad or dangerous. Lots of these FE advocates have ulterior motives. And If you haven't noticed ... we don't have insane FErs here. They are all remarkably stable. We chase the lunatics away.


Sure we do and they have the same responsibility to follow the rules as everyone else. Once they stop following the rules, they get treated as anyone else would under the rules.

Quote
We don't need to start hosting their content. Note controversial views in posts, are not the same as a controversial wiki of video library. TFES doesn't endorse a post. But we do endorse any content we distribute.

You sound like a tone-deaf SJW.



You become curators, not censors.
If we are picking and choosing, it is the same thing.
[/quote]

No, highlighting content is different than obscuring content.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #13 on: August 28, 2018, 06:18:28 AM »
And I put it in a thread that will be buried. Not on youtube.
You put it in a thread in one of the Google-indexable boards. Much like your rants here, that is harmful to our reputation. I don't quite know what to do about it, since I have no interest in censoring you, but perhaps I should say this: You're not helping. You could be having these discussions in AR, but you choose to start them here, and to pepper them with keywords. It's really not appreciated.
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
Follow the Flat Earth Society on Twitter and Facebook!

If we are not speculating then we must assume

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Offline Tumeni

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #14 on: August 28, 2018, 09:46:59 AM »
From personal experience, if a FE uploader on YouTube receives comments on their video that they don't like, or which contradict their video too much, they either delete the comments, or block the user from further comment.  This can easily be shown by the commenter logging in with their own ID, in which case they can see their own comments, then viewing the same thread either without logging in, or with a different login. Then the comments are invisible. 

Isn't a bit ... you know,   ...  hypocritical of them to bemoan YT for censorship, when they do this so blatantly?
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Not Flat. Happy to prove this, if you ask me.
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Nearly all flat earthers agree the earth is not a globe.

Nearly?

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Offline Dr Van Nostrand

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #15 on: August 28, 2018, 02:06:33 PM »
I find this difficult to get enthusiastic about for several reasons.

1) These people don't like us. We are 'controlled opposition' and trolls and whatever else they think of on the day. Now I'm pretty sure if TFES was controlled opposition, you and me would be on the payroll by now, Tom. We'd have a least had a memo. So when I know they are talking rubbish from the get go, its hard to support.
2) A large portion of their content is toxic. Its a poo flinging contest. Its kind of nice to take the moral high ground and not be dragged into it. A lot of the top FE creators are very weird indeed. Patricia whatshername and that guy who desperately wants to have sex with her. Matt 'I've got 24 hours to save the world Boylan', Lord Steven Christ who not only thinks the earth is flat but that he is the son of God and makes regular demands to be Pope, Eric 'gas the Jews' Dubay ... these people are 2 stars short of a constellation.
3) These people are going to get zapped ... and if their content is all over our site, we are going to be collateral damage. If we started hosting Alex Jones and Tommy Robinson videos, what do you think would happen to our google rank? Its going to be the same with these FE videos.
4) This isn't our fight.

I think these people should be able to say what they want, I think they should allow market forces to dictate what people watch, I think the governments should keep their noses out of online content. But I don't think TFES should be nominating itself to help a youtube community that has from the outset made it clear they want nothing to do with us.


Wow! Thork comes through.  Good stuff....


But Tom's opposing point is also very valid. This conflict is often at the very heart of a religion  or political party.
"How do we deal with the extreme edges of our own ideology?"

The current discussion boils it down nicely. "Those people are NOT us but if their freaky extremism creates interest in us, it's not a bad thing."


Be aware, right now the extremists are merely an embarrassment. If any of them start to talk about using violence to reveal the conspiracy, it will behoove TFES to denounce them openly.  (right?)




Round Earther patiently looking for a better deal...

If the world is flat, it means that I have been deceived by a global, multi-generational conspiracy spending trillions of dollars over hundreds of years.
If the world is round, it means that you’re just an idiot who believes stupid crap on the internet.

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Offline Pete Svarrior

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #16 on: August 28, 2018, 03:06:08 PM »
Be aware, right now the extremists are merely an embarrassment. If any of them start to talk about using violence to reveal the conspiracy, it will behoove TFES to denounce them openly.  (right?)
I would certainly hope so. We have denounced acts of vandalism in the past, anything more severe should be a no-brainer.
Read the FAQ before asking your question - chances are we already addressed it.
Follow the Flat Earth Society on Twitter and Facebook!

If we are not speculating then we must assume

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Offline Bobby Shafto

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #17 on: August 28, 2018, 04:55:52 PM »
From personal experience, if a FE uploader on YouTube receives comments on their video that they don't like, or which contradict their video too much, they either delete the comments, or block the user from further comment.  This can easily be shown by the commenter logging in with their own ID, in which case they can see their own comments, then viewing the same thread either without logging in, or with a different login. Then the comments are invisible.
I've noticed this too, but I can't tell if that's an action taken by the video author or just a YouTube filter that may bias toward those who contribute more comments.

I had posted a comment on JTolen Media's IR video of San Jacinto that I thought had been deleted. But it only appeared to be hidden when I was logged into YouTube with my son's account. When I logged in under my own, it was right there.

Since there are critical comments visible under that video, I don't think JTolen is doing any censoring. There's something else going on there with YouTube's algorithm, I think.

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Offline Tumeni

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #18 on: August 28, 2018, 05:58:40 PM »
I've noticed this too, but I can't tell if that's an action taken by the video author or just a YouTube filter that may bias toward those who contribute more comments.

Look for the comment without logging in. If, after that, you still only see it with your own login, it or you has been suppressed by the video author.
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Nearly all flat earthers agree the earth is not a globe.

Nearly?

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Offline Dr David Thork

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Re: YouTube now censoring and demoting Flat Earth videos
« Reply #19 on: August 28, 2018, 11:32:21 PM »
My objection to this proposal is because we have had this discussion before regarding a video library.

And I suggested we collect the best videos ... ie ones that we like and ones that fit with our view of FET. But Tom was against this.

There are way too many Flat Earth videos -- hundreds of them -- to go through them one by one and create tags. My suggestion is to do massive YouTube scrapes of Flat Earth videos and video titles/descriptions from the big authors rather than doing it on a video by video basis.

Here is the scraping method, that I sent to you via PM when we were talking about it: https://www.shivarweb.com/4277/scrape-export-video-information-youtube/

If we scrape the titles and descriptions with the video links then we won't have to create tags. The title and description already has the key words of "Coriolis Effect" or whatever the topic may be.

...

And I don't like this idea. Because I know the kind of junk we'll end up with in our library. My question persists

So ... do we become the censors, or does Lord Steven Christ get an equal billing when he says the earth is flat?

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