ThrillSeeker getting censored for criticizing ByteDance

[ItzYeho]

Summary

YouTuber, Streamer, VR Enthusiast "ThrillSeeker", got censored by ByteDance and YouTube after posting a video criticizing ByteDance (TikTok parent company) for sensitive topics like LGBT and censorship. After receiving a couple of threats on the platform WeChat, ThrillSeeker's video went from 2.5k views per hour, to 2 (according to them). After this incident, ThrillSeeker has privated/deleted the video.

 

Quotes

Quote

And then I also talked about the negatives. About ByteDance's and TikTok's background, and their previous works in social media and how they censored people and how they actively shutdown political unrest, and how they've manually shadow banned accounts of people identifying as gay. This is a problem, and this is going on, and I gave the full image. The good, the bad. Apparently, that's not OK.

Quote

My ByteDance video for instance, after receiving a few messages on WeChat, I watched my analytics go from 2.5k views per hour, to 2 within 2 hours after refusing to listen to the messages I received. There's no making this up. I have been censored.

My thoughts

I don't think this is good for the tech and VR industry as a whole. As more and more people want to speak out and criticize companies that are doing bad for the ecosystem, they get censored by their respective platform, whether it be YouTube, TikTok or other platforms. I believe conversation regarding this topic should be free. As ThrillSeeker isn't very popular, I believe that some attention for this matter is strongly needed by more vocal voices like Linus Media Group.

 

Sources

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1141945906 [No articles yet]

[BobVonBob]

Did he post the video criticizing ByteDance on TikTok? Of course it was going to get shadowbanned. ByteDance is a Chinese company, censorship is half their business model. Now obviously that's not a good thing, but everyone paying even the slightest bit of attention already knows ByteDance does this stuff. It's already been signal boosted, but the only opinion that matters to ByteDance is the Chinese government's, and they approve.

[thechinchinsong]

How does a video about ByteDance uploaded to Youtube, owned by Google, get censored by ByteDance? If he posted the video on TikTok, then he should've expected that, but if this was a Youtube video, I'm confused as to how ByteDance can censor a person that is on a completely different platform (Youtube).

[TempestCatto]

I hate the internet.

[Fasterthannothing]

47 minutes ago, thechinchinsong said:

How does a video about ByteDance uploaded to Youtube, owned by Google, get censored by ByteDance? If he posted the video on TikTok, then he should've expected that, but if this was a Youtube video, I'm confused as to how ByteDance can censor a person that is on a completely different platform (Youtube).

Lol that's funny you don't think ByteDance can't call up YouTube tell them to censor him? C'mon you can't be that naive do you understand how China's relationship with tech companies works?

[Skiiwee29]

<-- Moved to Off-Topic -->

 

Since right now its only a twitch VOD and nothing else, its only one side of the story. As a whole this doesn't have much affect on the gaming community as a whole beyond an entertainer potentially having sanctions against them. 

[wanderingfool2]

4 minutes ago, SlidewaysZ said:

Lol that's funny you don't think ByteDance can't call up YouTube tell them to censor him? C'mon you can't be that naive do you understand how China's relationship with tech companies works?

I doubt that YouTube a subsidiary of Alphabet an US company would just "shadow ban" a video of someone's that criticizes a company from China...sure censoring inside of China yes, but not worldwide.  There are plenty of videos that would have been shadow banned otherwise (along with the political implications if Alphabet ever released that they were doing so).

 

Without seeing what the original video was, and what the analytics were on it, it's hard to actually say what might have happened.  After all, his Oculus 2 review had 87k videos in 2 months...that implies to me that maybe a decent amount of his viewers clicked on the video, saw a bit of the review and left (or just never clicked on the video).  Compare that to his recent video which averaged a thousand an hour and is above the 98k mark in 3 days.  So maybe, just maybe the people who saw the video saw it and the view count dropped off the map after that because it already was delivered to the people who would watch it (just the timing is coincidental).  Or maybe there was actually something slightly offensive said in it (that would get the video shadow banned...like mentioning certain words)

 

Not saying that shadow bans don't happen, or that it isn't what happened...but things don't add up when it's a criticism about a competing company and not really showing any proof of that (and if the original video is gone, then there isn't any way for people to really verify the claim)

[ItzYeho]

1 hour ago, wanderingfool2 said:

I doubt that YouTube a subsidiary of Alphabet an US company would just "shadow ban" a video of someone's that criticizes a company from China...sure censoring inside of China yes, but not worldwide.  There are plenty of videos that would have been shadow banned otherwise (along with the political implications if Alphabet ever released that they were doing so).

 

Without seeing what the original video was, and what the analytics were on it, it's hard to actually say what might have happened.  After all, his Oculus 2 review had 87k videos in 2 months...that implies to me that maybe a decent amount of his viewers clicked on the video, saw a bit of the review and left (or just never clicked on the video).  Compare that to his recent video which averaged a thousand an hour and is above the 98k mark in 3 days.  So maybe, just maybe the people who saw the video saw it and the view count dropped off the map after that because it already was delivered to the people who would watch it (just the timing is coincidental).  Or maybe there was actually something slightly offensive said in it (that would get the video shadow banned...like mentioning certain words)

 

Not saying that shadow bans don't happen, or that it isn't what happened...but things don't add up when it's a criticism about a competing company and not really showing any proof of that (and if the original video is gone, then there isn't any way for people to really verify the claim)

I've seen the video. It was touching very sensitive topics like LGBT censorship and Chinese human rights violations. I guess ByteDance didn't like it.

[wanderingfool2]

5 hours ago, ItzYeho said:

I've seen the video. It was touching very sensitive topics like LGBT censorship and Chinese human rights violations. I guess ByteDance didn't like it.

It's very important though to make the distinction though that what he claimed is in effect saying that ByteDance censored him via YouTube.  That is quite a bold point to make (with him saying the views dropped to only like 2).  I find it unlikely that an American company would allow a video to be censored based on criticism of a Chinese based company.  Sure they could be censoring for other reasons, but again he offered up no proof of analytics or anything like that...it amounts to "trust me" type of argument

[David tech m]

8 hours ago, wanderingfool2 said:

It's very important though to make the distinction though that what he claimed is in effect saying that ByteDance censored him via YouTube.  That is quite a bold point to make (with him saying the views dropped to only like 2).  I find it unlikely that an American company would allow a video to be censored based on criticism of a Chinese based company.  Sure they could be censoring for other reasons, but again he offered up no proof of analytics or anything like that...it amounts to "trust me" type of argument

True. I also watched the video, it was an informative video I may add, one of the best he has done by far. 
I doubt he deleted it for no reason, he put a lot of effort in the video.
Furthermore, I wish someone had downloaded the video, so I could re-watch it, he made some good points against TikTok (Byte Dance).

[David tech m]

17 hours ago, ItzYeho said:

Summary

YouTuber, Streamer, VR Enthusiast "ThrillSeeker", got censored by ByteDance and YouTube after posting a video criticizing ByteDance (TikTok parent company) for sensitive topics like LGBT and censorship. After receiving a couple of threats on the platform WeChat, ThrillSeeker's video went from 2.5k views per hour, to 2 (according to them). After this incident, ThrillSeeker has privated/deleted the video.

 

Quotes

My thoughts

I don't think this is good for the tech and VR industry as a whole. As more and more people want to speak out and criticize companies that are doing bad for the ecosystem, they get censored by their respective platform, whether it be YouTube, TikTok or other platforms. I believe conversation regarding this topic should be free. As ThrillSeeker isn't very popular, I believe that some attention for this matter is strongly needed by more vocal voices like Linus Media Group.

 

Sources

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/1141945906 [No articles yet]

Hey, I have an idea how we might be able to watch the video again.
I did also watch the video, but I have my watch list turned off in YT, which is needed to obtain the URL of the video.
With the URL it is possible to find the video again on pages like the way back machine.

If you got your watch list (watch history however its called) on in YT it would be nice from you to send me the URL of the video.

If that's not the case, there is still hope.
One of the mods told me Thrill has privated the video.