General News YouTube controversy

I certainly won't be adding my name to the signature.

 

They should be required to use real names. Anonymity is only a shield for mindless hate speech. Youtube comments are bottom-of-the-barrel for a reason.

 

I don't want to use my real name. Makes it too easy for people with uncommon names to be tracked down. Nor do I want to be forced into having Google+, something that I had no desire and never will have a desire to use.

Not to mention, if you don't want to see the comments, there's countless of browser add ons that hide the comments or otherwise filter them.

Edit: and if you think forcing people to use their real name will stop "mindless hate speech" you're sadly mistaken. Take a look at any youtube video and the comment section. If anything,, since the change over it's gotten worse. Shittons of spam, ACSI shit, and so forth.

As an example: http://edwardspoonhands.com/post/66425515182/ok-so-my-friend-emma-puts-this-video-of-her

 

I happen to agree. I mean, if people want to post really abusive political comments, they should at least be required to be motivated enough to do so to create a fake Google+ account.

For those who actually do use their real names to post abusive political comments, I hope others will be data mining those comments and providing them to hiring managers as appropriate.

I believe in freedom of speech. I also believe that when you exercise it, other people can react accordingly. So if you say something that causes people to believe you're an asshole and a bad fit for an organization, they don't have to deal with you. Period.

 

So what about those that happen to get someone crazy after them? With usernames, it'd be hard for anyone to find them if they're smart about what they post.

With real names, that's right out the window. I have an uncommon first name and a common last name, but googling my name still results in my facebook being on the first page. That's why I chose to keep my channel name.

 

I won't add my name to the list either.

They allow you to create a google+ page for your youtube channel. Nothing else. No real name is necessary.

I have a new username due to this, as I was stuck with one I hated. I can change said username at anytime now as well.

Only people who synced their youtube account to their real Google+ account are affected, and even then, they can sync it to a new google+ account when they log in. So anonymity still exists, people just aren't you know, doing it.

Not to mention youtube and google support people making google+ pages (and thus, an account) for their youtube channels. So only people who sync it to their personal page are affected, and they can still desync it and re-sync it to a new page. They just aren't actually paying attention to the text.

I get that being forced to use google+ is annoying, but it's not destroying the anonymity of youtube unless you don't actually read the stuff that pops up before pressing okay.

 

The thing I've noticed is that whenever Google buys a site, they totally ruin it. They've taken YouTube into the ground, shot Blogspot straight to hell, as well as Android, Zagat, and Motorola.

 

If people get someone crazy after them, then that's bad, obviously. Crime is bad. I'm not advocating societal openness so that people can have crimes committed against them. That may be a consequence of societal openness, but only because the possibility of crime is a constant in this equation.

While adverse things might happen with a sustained challenge to anonymity, I would argue the moral fault is not with those who attack anonymity but rather the scoundrels who would use the information for evil.

If I were to walk into a town hall meeting and start to rant about Jews, anyone else in attendance would be perfectly entitled to take my picture, research who I am, and circulate that information widely. I was in public when I made the utterance, and I would be abridging other people's freedom of speech if I were to claim that they had no right to obtain my information and circulate it.

 

I can already say that it's not going to make a bit of difference. The comment section has turned into a literal cesspool now. At least previously, the top comments were some witty comment, or at worst, some funny comment that was in the video. Now, it's just copy pasted spam, swastikas, etc.

With the old system, such things could be downvoted into oblivion.