YouTube removed a vid of me drinking water because “it's dangerous”. I'm done

YouTube removed a vid of me drinking water because “it's dangerous”. I'm done(youtube.com)

71 points by secludedrelish 4 years ago | 43 comments

Barrin92 4 years ago |

Seems completely understandable that YouTube removed it. For people who didn't watch it, the guy made a prank title "drinking hydroxic acid" (which is water) but I can completely understand why youtube doesn't want anything with "drinking acid" in a video title that even vaguely resembles actual acids.

Plenty of youtube viewers are literal 12 year old children who don't even bother to read the description. "nobody will do anything stupid" doesn't really seem plausible to me when we have adults killing themselves with fish tank cleaner because they confuse it for anti-viral meds

skim_milk 4 years ago | |

YouTube moderation is probably in a tight place financially. IIRC they've never generated a return on investment for Google, so all their revenue is split between paying creators and keeping the lights on. Could they pay thousands of people with bachelor degrees a quality salary to research a couple dozen videos a day for the highest-quality moderation? Sure, but the shareholders and creators on the platform want their share as well, and the viewers already hate the amount of ads on the videos. So we will probably have a skeleton crew of low-pay low-skill workers reviewing thousands of videos a day for moderation for the rest of the foreseeable future without something outside of the company forcing quality moderation otherwise.

SilasX 4 years ago | |

For consistency, then, YouTube should be taking down videos of people doing the Dihydrogen Monoxide experiment/hoax[1]. It's the same idea, framing an anodyne substance as being dangerous.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dihydrogen_monoxide_parody

cute_boi 4 years ago | |

Well youtube has lot of guns games videos, nonsense pranks, knife games in counter strike etc.. Are we going to ban all of those videos?

I don't expect 12 year children to know about acid so it would be surprising if children discovers such video. And parent has to decide which video their children should watch otherwise children can easily go to google.com and do anything.

I really don't think youtube should act like judge in such cases. Outright deleting video in minor thing like this sets very bad precedence.

Karishma1234fff 4 years ago | |

Fair point, but they should apply that standard uniformly. Wasn't the ice bucket challenge dangerous ? And it was literally dangerous.

spoiler 4 years ago | | |

There also the problem of fact retention. I really doubt children will remember the name of the substance accurately, and then they suddenly drink hydrochloric acid, which to most people sounds "close enough," and that's just exacerbated in the case of children

mlazos 4 years ago | | |

Personally I think a video with drink acid in the title seems a little more dangerous than videos properly named with people pouring ice water on each other, especially for children.

ergocoder 4 years ago | |

But drinking hydroxic acid is not stupid. I wish people drink more hydroxic acid. Would have been healthier.

So, YouTube now bans a scientifically accurate video?

Barrin92 4 years ago | | |

Youtube bans video titles which if misinterpreted might make people do harmful things, like say, confusing hydroxic acid with hydrochloric acid. They're not a scientific journal, they're a video platform serving a general audience.

Please tell me you're just intentionally being obtuse and don't actually struggle with that point because this is a response I expect on reddit and not HN

vba616 4 years ago | | |

If it dilutes the electrolytes in your body too much, it can affect brain functioning and even be lethal. You should always check a MSDS for any chemical.

I just went looking for the LD50 and some sources say >90 and others >150 ml/kg, at least in rats. Odd that they don't give an upper bound, but it's probably safe to assume that's within an order of magnitude. For rats.

Antidotes, I assume, include Brawndo.

snypher 4 years ago | | |

Please understand that a 'science prank' can be dangerous to someone not educated in that field. In this case the prank is only intended to 'work' on someone who didn't know it was water. So where does that leave the viewer; hopefully they do not take this new knowledge as advice to drink other acids.

apostacy 4 years ago | |

> ...doesn't really seem plausible to me when we have adults killing themselves with fish tank cleaner because they confuse it for anti-viral meds

What actually happened is that a woman murdered her husband with fish tank cleaner, and blamed Trump for it. And the media ran with it because that was a much more sensational story.

https://www.yahoo.com/now/woman-blamed-trump-giving-her-1336...

No, 30 people did not die in one night because Trump told them to drink bleach. Nobody did.

Nor was Kyle Rittenhouse a "mass shooter" that ambushed innocent civil rights demonstrators.

Big tech is wrong all the time.

King-Aaron 4 years ago | | |

> Nor was Kyle Rittenhouse a "mass shooter" that ambushed innocent civil rights demonstrators.

He did shoot some people with a high powered rifle in public though, which in most parts of the world is something that you wouldn't get acquitted for.

brailsafe 4 years ago | | |

Reddit told me I should think he's a mass murderer, so he's actually guilty. Next you'll tell me we shouldn't spread propaganda telling society it's good to identify people primarily by their skin colour! Crazy

barbacoa 4 years ago |

Another history channel I follow had their videos mass de-monetized and age restricted. It was purely educational nothing about the channel is remotely controversial.

I am convinced YT is deliberately doing this to push out small content creators and replace them with corporate content creators that are fleeing the sinking ship that is cable TV.

no_time 4 years ago | |

I'm pretty sure their policies don't take channel size into account. Otherwise they wouldn't have nuked my favorite channel, JCS. Currently sitting at 4.7mil subscribers.

https://mobile.twitter.com/SwimJim/status/148026868974841447...

barbacoa 4 years ago | | |

Probably not based on size. But it is notable that this automated moderation collateral damage doesn't ever hit corporate channels such as those owned by ABC or Viacom -- even when those channels are smaller in subscribers and viewership than independent channels.

ALittleLight 4 years ago |

I'm just imagining the YouTube censors who have to watch a thousand videos a day (or whatever). They see "drinking acid", click ban, and hit next. It's a cute joke but understandable why it gets banned.

rasz 4 years ago | |

hundreds of videos about drinking acids and smearing acids on your skin still up https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bvE7cqogFzc

lil_dispaches 4 years ago |

Who are all these YT defenders in the comments? "Well, it says ACID, and as every ignorant person knows, ACID means BAD, and knowing the difference between substances is stupid!" You sound like a bot trying to make common sense from adversarial policies. ThisCommonSenseIsFake.com.

hogrider 4 years ago | |

At this point I'm pretty sure anyone shilling for these megacorps are paid trolls.

lil_dispaches 4 years ago | | |

I am starting to believe that 90% of the internet is performance spectacle psyops for the corporate government complex. The blue-checks larping with paid digital mercenaries to create the illusion of a realpolitic. That is all they need, as the illusion is the real in the world of the spectacle (DeBord).

the_biot 4 years ago |

He's so done he posted a video on Youtube about it.

Like every other post here with "YouTube" in the title, it's just clickbait and drama.

LatteLazy 4 years ago |

People insist youtube be a safe place to leave their kids unsupervised. Then they complain when YouTube acts like a shitty kindergarten. It's that simple really.

secludedrelish 4 years ago | |

Are those two the same groups of people?

hffftz 4 years ago |

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/regulating-hydric-acid-art-po...