YouTube banned most videos from “JCS – Criminal Psychology”
youtube.comI see a lot of people commenting that his channel is "pseudoscience." After watching several of his videos in full, he mainly talks about the interrogation techniques officers use over the actual subject or their psychological reaction. He also does any the analysis of a subject after the case has concluded with full knowledge of what the end result is. He is more looking back, trying to explain the subject's actions based on the full knowledge that the person is found guilty or not. He also analyzes full videos and takes into consideration all the facts of the case. He doesn't make assumptions based on one small tell or the other.
He also actively shows that not everyone reacts the same. One of his videos is fully based around an innocent man who seems to react differently than the average person and is kept in jail because of it. He makes the point that cops sometimes do read too much into these tells and forget the facts.
If you think that this could somehow be problematic; after watching the channel the only conclusion you can reasonably come to is "if the police suspect me of a crime, shut the hell up and get a lawyer." He is quite clear that the police are way better at psychological games, and the absolute last thing they want you to do is get your lawyer involved. Heck, he shows a cop who murdered someone get caught to show that even cops can't keep up with their own interrogation tactics! This is actively helpful and exactly what anyone under investigation should do.
JCS has actually spawned an entire new genre of YouTube videos. Just search for "JCS inspired" to find more. I find it really compelling, because it is much more grounded and less sensational than documentaries that would be shown on cable television.
It makes me sad that so many people have a knee-jerk reaction that anything amateurish must be fake news.
I have watched many police interrogations on Youtube including many that contain "JCS inspired" in the description.
Most of the latter simply present the interrogation unedited whereas the JCSCriminalPsychology channel edits out most of the interrogation and have a lot of talk by a narrator on the strategy being employed by the police or on the suspect's body language. My point is that the presence of the "JCS Inspired" language should not be interpreted as evidence that the channel JCSCriminalPsychology was a seminal influence on later YT creators.
BTW I found what the narrator says to be worthless and consequently have told YT to stop recommending the channel JCSCriminalPsychology to me.
This comment would be more satisfying if I could explain why "JCS Inspired" occurs so often in the descriptions of videos on YT, but alas, I cannot. (Nor can I explain why YT chose to ban most of its videos. All very mysterious.)
Feels like a tipping point of sorts. Nothing about this channel is “problematic” in any mainstream consensus. Spotify might be the landing place of choice for the time being.
Youtube’s claims are that the channel violates “sensitive events” or “violence” themes, which I don’t really take at face value. Especially with all the actual gore promoting content of youtube this was an presentation vlog, without claiming any specific accuracy. Most likely it was maliciously flagged for presenting the simplistic methodologies of said agencies. Presenting agency methodology is absolutely free speech and has been a target of random and sometimes unrelated harassment and legal actions for many years in many cases (stop and frisk, polygraph pseudoscience, racial profiling, journalist harassment in general etc)
That channel had high quality psychological explanations of suspects' and police's behaviour during interrogations.
Except it wasn’t high quality, but incredibly bad pseudoscience.
Explain please?
JCS frames what he does as psychology, most of the things he claims have absolutely nothing to do with the field.
He regularly makes wild claims which aren’t supported by research at all.
In (real) psychology you rarely have clear “x caused y” situations, in JCS’s “criminal psychology” you do.
Stuff like this can be incredibly dangerous, people have literally been sentenced to death based on the testimony of similar quacks.
I have no idea what videos you were watching.
The thing that is so compelling about JCS is that he keeps his distance from the subject, and lets the facts speak for themselves most of the time. The only time he really talks about psychology at any length it is pretty textbook criminology that you could find on the wikipedia entry about criminal psychology.
>Stuff like this can be incredibly dangerous
By this logic, History Channel should've been sent to the shadow realm decades ago along with their alien pyramids and pawn shop "experts".
Would you also argue that TV shows like "The Search for Bigfoot" and whatnot should be banned? I can understand removing something because it contains personal information or something really obscene (like terrorists beheading someone), but videos like this are mostly just entertainment.
I think “Search for Bigfoot” is obviously different. Nobody is going to hurt themselves or others after watching it.
JCS - Criminal Psychology will create idiots who think they’re master criminal psychologists and get innocent people put in prison.
There’s a simple solution for JCS, just distance from the pseudoscientific “psychology” and stick to the true crime.
Quite the slipper slope you got going on there. I fail to see how a youtube video discussing interrogation techniques is going to magically cause people to 'think they're master criminal psychologists and get innocent people put in prison.'
By your reasoning anything discussing anything could be 'harmful'.
How about we decide for ourselves what we want to watch/listen/read.
>discussing interrogation techniques
Spreading misinformation about interrogation techniques in a sort-of educational format.
> How about we decide for ourselves what we want to watch/listen/read.
We can, of course. I just also happen to believe that youtube should get to decide what they distribute, and this is a fairly reasonable thing to choose not to distribute.
> I just also happen to believe that youtube should get to decide what they distribute...
Sort of like a publisher, right? Well that sounds totally reasonable for a publisher to... oh. Might wanna rethink that one - it would be a shame to lose that sweet sweet platform protection.
In a hypothetical world where you’re right, why would that not kill sites like HN? And if it would, is that a good outcome?
How is a very real situation at all hypothetical? Because it goes against the narrative you're screaming?
Pick one. You are a publisher or a platform. The days of companies having their cake and eating it too need to be over.
Also, HN's an aggregator, at least come with legit comparisons if you want to even try and make a salient point, for once.
And if getting rid of HN meant all of this shit would end, I'd forget it existed. Youtube made itself a lynch-pin of society by begging us to join and host our videos in the beginning, then they got so big they felt they didn't need us, and the censor waves began.
Now they've taken away dislike counts solely to appease companies buying ads on their platform.
I absolutely love how you are all for censorship of videos on YouTube, but you seem to abhor the thought of HN going away.
You are willing to silence people whom you disagree with, but heaven forbid they come for the platform you happen to use :)
What you’re suggesting is not in line with current legislation, it’s just mere fantasy.
But if we lived in a world where your fantasy came true, how could any moderated discussion board exist?
> I absolutely love how you are all for censorship of videos on YouTube, but you seem to abhor the thought of HN going away.
These two are the same. HN wouldn’t exist without all the hours put into censorship by dang.
Current legislation is selectively enforced - pointing to a lack of enforcement only weakens your position. There are a lot of major distinguishing differences between HN and Youtube, but one of the most obvious is the way HN has a narrowly tailored scope - it is a platform for a very specific kind of content. You have the direct opposite (originally) for Youtube - unbound scope with narrowly defined no-go zone (illegal and copywrite protected material).
This isn’t about selective enforcement, the current legislation simply does not work the way you would like it to work.
> You have the direct opposite (originally) for Youtube - unbound scope with narrowly defined no-go zone (illegal and copywrite protected material).
This isn’t true, youtube has a far bigger no-go zone than you suggest.
What if I deem your comment to be misinformation because it could lead to people developing capitalistic tendencies? Would you have a problem then?
You can deem whatever you want. You don't run HN, so its not really relevant.
But if I did run HN and had you de-platformed - would you be singing the same tune? You cheer for authoritarianism now, but what happens if the narrative shifts against you?
I mean, I have been told by HN that some of my comments weren't appropriate and I needed to stop making them and I did. So empirically the answer here is "yes".
What about if I decided to remove your access to the internet in case you continue to espouse your pro-capitalist thinking? Would you have an issue then?
If I am reading your comments correctly, it seems that you would have no issue with being silenced by an authority, regardless of the justification used or its validity, per se. I don’t think this is an intellectually honest position to hold.
> What about if I decided to remove your access to the internet in case you continue to espouse your pro-capitalist thinking? Would you have an issue then?
Who are you in this case? The government? (Also as an aside "pro-capitalist" being applied to me of all people is a good one. I'm taking a pro-free-expression opinion here, not a particularly capitalist one).
> it seems that you would have no issue with being silenced by an authority, regardless of the justification used or its validity,
Depends on the authority and what you mean by "issue". Governments, no. That's problematic. Issue? I take issue with many things I ultimately believe people should be allowed to do.
Okay, what about if I decide that your post leans too socialist, and contains dangerous anti-freedom misinformation? Would you be open to being silenced then? If the boot is on the other foot, do you have an issue? To make it more plain: if the other team gets into power, and starts using these laws against you, would you then start to see the benefit in having a basic standard of human right to speak freely?
What laws? If anything, I'm arguing against laws regulating speech.
I agree that we shouldn’t legislate this. But I think people should be aware that limiting someone’s ability to participate in society on political grounds, without trial, is not a great step forward for humanity. Especially when these decisions are made based on profit not truth.
You don't run youtube either, so why is what you think relevant?
For all you know it could be C&D letters, not all the vids have been stricken.
You've an obvious axe to grind, which is fine, but does not give you the right to dictate what is and is not misinformation, nor harmful.
> You've an obvious axe to grind, which is fine, but does not give you the right to dictate what is and is not misinformation, nor harmful.
I'm a different person. I don't have an axe to grind. I'm not dictating anything misinformation or not. Neither was the other person.
> For all you know it could be C&D letters, not all the vids have been stricken
Then why would we be talking about videos YouTube removed for being misinformation?
> You don't run youtube either, so why is what you think relevant?
I believe the statement made was "YouTube has the right to choose what they distribute". You also have that right. So do I. I don't need to run YouTube (or HN) to believe they have those rights. You or I can deem whatever we wish, and you'd be correct: it isn't relevant.
You are indeed a different person, my apologies.
We are discussing a video being removed, the other poster was the one acreaming about it being misinformative. They have no idea why or even what videos were stricken, they were simply gloating.
This is beyond a platform having the right or not, they can indeed choose what to host. Byt once you start labeling videos as misinformation or censoring and removing them, you male yourself the arbiter of truth.
I personally do not want an ad company deciding anything for me, not ever.
A label would be one thing, but removing videos on a whim (which happens every single day- reasons are almost never given, and the rules arw arbitrary).
Also, comparing a person to a huge public square (youtube is very much an online public square) is very disingenuous. If I choose not to believe something (my version of 'allowing something on my platform or not), it wouldn't effectively silence that person, as it does when videos and channels are nixed.
> Nobody is going to hurt themselves or others after watching it.
https://www.montanarightnow.com/community/man-says-he-was-sh...
Don't be so sure.
> JCS - Criminal Psychology will create idiots who think they’re master criminal psychologists and get innocent people put in prison.
This is, at best, hyperbole.
But you know what else creates idiots? The homogenization of information.
Can you give any specific examples of JCS perpetuating pseudo science?
So what?
Most videos on youtube are just people giving their opinion.
I enjoyed the videos.
>people have literally been sentenced to death based on the testimony of similar quacks
The court system needs an overhaul if it's basing death sentences on the opinions of youtubers.
Isn't homeopathy pseudoscience? Yet YouTube is full of people praising it.
This channel was a flaming pile. It was some guy wildly speculating in hindsight and throwing the word "psychology" to argue that his SWAGs were some kind of scientific endeavor.
Could you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait and/or name-calling comments to HN? You've been doing a lot of it lately, unfortunately. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. And we've already had to ask you repeatedly not to do this.
Is it just the use of "flaming pile" that you take issue with or the underlying content of the post? Can I call the channel terrible or something? I don't feel that this content is "bad" or "not good". A sandwich is "not good". This channel is dangerous and insidious and I feel like using a phrase that is on the pretty restrained side of strong language is relatively in line. I'll be more careful to avoid it but I also see 20 things a day on here that are more strongly worded and less constructive.
This channel promotes an incredibly dangerous narrative and ideology that has the potential to do real damage to peoples lives. He accuses people of terrible crimes that could lose them their freedom for life because he thinks they seem "nervous" or like "they are giving too many details" and then uses a false veneer of science to justify what essentially boils down what I will standby as SWAGs or hunches. This is psycopathic behavior IMO and i believe it deserves to be openly ridiculed. At least having some voices say that they feel this is serious I really don't think is damaging the conversation.
I don't feel that I have an obligation to be positive on every topic. Nothing I write is written to elicit a negative response for the sake of eliciting a negative response ie trolling. I write plenty of positive posts. And I don't think the language I used here was even that colorful again especially relatively to the seriousness of the thing being discussed. If something is bad I might criticize it. In this case I think the tone was relatively in line to the seriousness of how dangerous the thing being promoted is and there is a real risk to normalizing these kinds of insidious things if the only response allowed is to agree or dissent with flowery language.
I come here generally because it is well moderated but I feel that there is a difference between trolling and expressing a viewpoint that something is genuinely really bad and it's not very interesting to have a discussion where the only acceptable viewpoint is to agree/support or even to make very weak statements of disagreement. If someone actively supports genocide or something like that politely saying "I disagree" is not a measured response. In this case they are advocating for things that not only could ruin people lives but aim to use the megaphone of youtube to normalize this philosophy. I'm not equivocating it with genocide but it is serious and I would suggest that saying "I disagree" is similarly not proportional to the seriousness of the topic at hand.
If you really feel like I'm trolling / flamebaiting just ask me to leave and I'll kill my account. I get vastly more positive feedback for what I write on here than negative and I think it's because I try to write honestly and clearly both on the positive and negative side of topics. I will try to avoid use of phrases like "flaming pile" in the future but if it's more than that than I wouldn't even know what I'm supposed to be saying or not saying
The problem with the GP comment is that it was a shallow dismissal combined with indignant rhetoric. Those are reliably bad comments, and they tend to evoke worse from others, hence the term flamebait.
Of course you don't always have to be positive. Thoughtful critique is welcome, but it should be substantive and add real information, not just rhetoric. As the site guidelines say, a good critical comment teaches us something.
I really hope he switches platforms. This serves as a valuable lesson, though: archive everything from YouTube channels you like! Treat it as totally ephemeral. YouTube seem to just take things down at the turn of a hat. I hope Jim also mirrors his content to alternative platforms, instead of just using that as a threat. He has been a huge inspiration to many, as you can clearly see from the amount of 'JCS inspired' videos popping up on the platform.
> This serves as a valuable lesson, though: archive everything from YouTube channels you like!
Just threw together a script to do just this, if anyone wants it:
Throw this into a weekly cronjob and you should be golden!download () { local directory="/archives/YouTube Archives/$1" mkdir -p "$directory" pushd "$directory" # youtube-dl --download-archive https://youtube.com/$2 -o "%(title).%(ext)" youtube-dl --playlist-reverse -o '%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' --write-annotations --download-archive .archive --add-metadata --write-info-json --write-thumbnail -f bestvideo[ext=vp9]+bestaudio[ext=opus]/bestvideo+bestaudio --merge-output-format mkv --all-subs --embed-subs -i --embed-thumbnail "https://youtube.com/$2" popd } download "Jim Can't Swim" c/JCSCriminalPsychology # etc. etc.The only thing that function does is create a directory, and you could just as well have done an mkdir output && youtube-dl -o output/ I would also advise against using the mkv container, and use mp4 instead.
> "I would also advise against using the mkv container, and use mp4 instead."
Why? What exactly is wrong with Matroska? Almost every media player these days supports it just fine (as has been the case for a while now) and it's a great deal more featureful than the mp4 container. (Embedded subtitles, file attachment support for extended cover art and related files, DVD-type menu support, etc.)
One of the channels for which I would bother to sign up to a different platform
I'm interested in criminology and I found his videos really good. YouTube is no longer place suitable for free speech; they are banning everybody left and right no matter what if you are going against popular consensus and their agenda.
Crazy to see multiple comments treating this as legitimate content as opposed to harmful pseudoscience.
I'm not familiar with this channel. But even if it is really "harmful pseudoscience", is that really a reason to ban it? And if so, then who's in charge of deciding what's harmful pseudoscience and what's legitimate content, and what happens when they're wrong?
It all comes down to the exact nature of the content, which you admit to not be familiar with.
Do you genuinely believe that youtube should host videos attaching various involuntary physical traits to criminal behaviour?
It’s obviously not okay to say that “this guy is black, so he’s probably guilty”. But is it okay to say “this guy is jittery under stress, he’s probably guilty”? Why should it be okay to say one or the other? Both will result in equally harmful outcomes.
These are long-closed cases, not on-going, and even if it were, any 'pundit' talking on any channel would likely say as your example, JCS does not do this.
I seem to recall 'Judge' Janine Pirro going on pretty crazy rants, also Nancy Grace. Where were the 'harmful content' bans or nptices then?
>> It all comes down to the exact nature of the content
It seems evident to me, from the reading the HN comments, that there is hardly any sort of agreement about what the "exact nature of the content" actually is.
> But even if it were really "harmful pseudoscience", is that really a reason to ban it?
It is really a reason to decide not to distribute it.
> And if so, then who's in charge of deciding what's harmful pseudoscience and what's legitimate content
Anyone who is asked to actively participate in the chain of distribution.
> and what happens when they're wrong?
If someone disagrees with their decision not to distribute, they seek some other distribution. Except when it is a decision to distribute and the content is harmful in a way which produces liability, their decision being “wrong” in any authoritative sense isn't really an issue, only disagreement.
"Harmful" is a big, big hammer. It may crush something you enjoy next.
Isn't sitting on Hacker News a harmful waste of time?
Provide specific examples of JCS perpetuating pseudo science and maybe you'll have made a compelling argument. Until then, this reads as baseless accusation. Which, IMO, is no better than pseudo science.
That's YouTube for you. They will not change and it will only get worse.
They could single-handedly make peertube 100x more popular by moving there. The only problem being money from ad revenue of course. Brave style micropayments are starting to make more and more sense as I think about it.
Really sad to lose so much educational content.
I support this channel's right to exist but this channel is still pseudoscience garbage.
Then again, a non trivial portion of what is going on in academic psychology is pseudoscientific garbage so maybe this is state of the art?
“PROFILERS” are racists — YouTube, 2022.