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YouTube, please help stop the war in Ukraine

9 points by geoka9 ↗ HN
There are plenty of Russians on Youtube commenting under pleas posted by Ukrainians asking them to help stop the war. And there are plenty of videos taken by people on the ground in Ukraine that show what's going on. But due to the way Youtube works, the Russian users are not very likely to come across those videos.

Ukrainian Youtube users are trying to interact with them by replying with links to the videos.

If somebody from Youtube is reading this, I understand that you need to curb spammers who post a lot. But if you could somehow help with this effort, it might actually help change the public opinion in Russia.

11 comments

[ 1.8 ms ] story [ 39.0 ms ] thread
Klaster_1
What a brilliant idea, use The Algorithm to force the truth over Russians. Or maybe roll videos as mandatory ads. Was this done before at all?
geoka9
Or at least figure out a way to let the Ukrainians interact with the Russian commenters without getting shadowbanned.
theandrewbailey
Contrary to popular opinion on HN, the world isn't tech companies. You've put way too much trust in them to change the world. It isn't working.
geoka9
Every little bit helps. And Youtube may be the only way a lot of Russians can get exposed to something else than their TV.
rvz
I do not think the Russian government cares about the sanctions, bans or terminations since it seems they were prepared for it. I don’t think any of these changes would stop the war at all.

The Big Tech companies trying to fix the world’s problems always ends in a double edged dilemma and exposes what they can really do when pressed into a corner.

Having allied ants pleading and begging a anteater to eat the other ‘enemy ants’ it will later one day turn against their allies as it has done before.

These tech companies are not to be trusted.

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sunilkannan
No it won’t work. Problem is truth is subjective. It differ with people. Also tech companies can’t solve these issues. Because these are like tools. They can be changed.
olliej
Facts aren't subjective, there are things where the facts to provide a definitive "truth" are not sufficient.

However this is not one of those cases.

The facts are that Russia invaded Ukraine (realistically this started in 2014), Russia is targeting civilian centers, and so on.

geoka9
And lots of Russians actually believe that the strikes are "precision" and only aimed at the military targets. There's a video recorded by a woman in Mykolaiv walking among the rubble and cursing at her Russian relatives for not believing her while her city is literally under shelling.
olliej
In fairness to the Russians they're getting extremely comprehensive propaganda, and we know from the US you don't need such comprehensive and exclusive propaganda to convict a large portion of the populace of non-true statements. I imagine when everything is reporting the lies, and you hear nothing contrary (because people get arrested), its going to be more effective.

But it is astounding that people are refusing to believe their own friends & family who are literally being shelled. It truly is depressing just how effective propaganda can be :-/

Ramarin
1) There are no restrictions on YouTube in Russia 2) Are there restrictions on YouTube in Europe and America? Why don't you see that since 2014 Ukraine has been destroying the people of Donetsk and Luhansk for 8 years?