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Pinterest Blocks Vaccination Searches in Move to Control the Conversation

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Re: Pinterest Blocks Vaccination Searches in Move to Control the Conversation

#21

Post by ummonk »

msla wrote: post #19
nabnob wrote: post #10

This is incredibly worrying. I understand that anti-vax conspiracy theories are dangerous, but I can think of a ton of ways banning "bad medical advice", as determined by a $10/hr contractor at Pinterest, Facebook, etc. could end up hurting people with health problems by preventing them from sharing useful information. I have gender dysphoria and at one point considered getting on testosterone, but thanks to conversa…

> I have gender dysphoria and at one point considered getting on testosterone, but thanks to conversations with transmen and detransitioned women on social media, I learned about less-commonly discussed side effects and decided against taking testosterone. This is an area where research is still developing and there aren't a ton of long-term studies, so it's incredibly helpful to be able to learn from other people's…

TERF is most definitely a slur, and cis is often used as one as well. E.g. "cis white males!"

Re: Pinterest Blocks Vaccination Searches in Move to Control the Conversation

#22

Post by tdb7893 »

sandworm101 wrote: post #15
tdb7893 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My father in law is a conspiracy theorist and it came a lot more from Fox News and talk radio than YouTube. They were pretty mainstream well before YouTube

The difference was that 1990s conspiracies were all about secret government agencies doing secret stuff in secret places. Modern conspiracies are out in public. Pizzagate, still belived by many, is different than area 51. This visibility means belief is constantly reenforced.

Most of the people I've talked to aren't crazy alien conspiracy theorists so I can't really comment on that brand of conspiracy theorist. Honestly my main experience is the standard 9/11, global warming, and Obama conspiracy theories (which were incredibly racist) from the early to mid 2000s and those were all pretty similar to modern theories and at least for my father in law and his friends were definitely from Fox News and talk radio.

Edit: a good example to me was the start of the birther movement, which is a quinessential modern conspiracy theory to me, and I remember that as talk radio and Fox News.

Re: Pinterest Blocks Vaccination Searches in Move to Control the Conversation

#23

Post by tomp »

msla wrote: post #19
nabnob wrote: post #10

This is incredibly worrying. I understand that anti-vax conspiracy theories are dangerous, but I can think of a ton of ways banning "bad medical advice", as determined by a $10/hr contractor at Pinterest, Facebook, etc. could end up hurting people with health problems by preventing them from sharing useful information. I have gender dysphoria and at one point considered getting on testosterone, but thanks to conversa…

> I have gender dysphoria and at one point considered getting on testosterone, but thanks to conversations with transmen and detransitioned women on social media, I learned about less-commonly discussed side effects and decided against taking testosterone. This is an area where research is still developing and there aren't a ton of long-term studies, so it's incredibly helpful to be able to learn from other people's…

There are people called Radical Feminists, that consider everyone that defines "woman" biologically and that wants to keep certain privileges to women only (e.g. sex-seggregated toilets) to be a "TERF", and proceeds to shame them and misrepresent their position.

Re: Pinterest Blocks Vaccination Searches in Move to Control the Conversation

#25

Post by travisoneill1 »

kennbutler wrote: post #2

I still feel like large tech companies don't understand the amount of power they wield beyond it's capacity to influence buying decisions. I personally believe that YouTube (pre-2009) was the early breeding ground for conspiracy theorists, and Facebook groups/pages was the enriched gasoline added to the fire.

Everyone is saying this, but is there actually a measured increase in belief in conspiracy theories? I have only ever seen it stated as an assumption.

Re: Pinterest Blocks Vaccination Searches in Move to Control the Conversation

#27

Post by sandworm101 »

tdb7893 wrote: post #22
sandworm101 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference was that 1990s conspiracies were all about secret government agencies doing secret stuff in secret places. Modern conspiracies are out in public. Pizzagate, still belived by many, is different than area 51. This visibility means belief is constantly reenforced.

Most of the people I've talked to aren't crazy alien conspiracy theorists so I can't really comment on that brand of conspiracy theorist. Honestly my main experience is the standard 9/11, global warming, and Obama conspiracy theories (which were incredibly racist) from the early to mid 2000s and those were all pretty similar to modern theories and at least for my father in law and his friends were definitely from Fox…

Global warming and birtherism were a turning point. It was then than condpiracy theories were directly applicable to politics. Managing them then became a practical political weapon.

Re: Pinterest Blocks Vaccination Searches in Move to Control the Conversation

#28

Post by maxxxxx »

C1sc0cat wrote: post #16
maxxxxx wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. It worries me that public conversation gets policed by companies whose main goal is to sell ads to the highest bidder. By definition they will have to prefer information that makes them money over information that doesn’t make them money. They are also very vulnerable to pressure from governments. In addition you have no real recourse if the big machine doesn’t like what you posted.

This is true but its more stopping scammers / snake oil salespersons selling placebo's to desperate people. I few years ago I reported (to Matt Cuts) people using ppc selling snake oil pills to people with chronic organ failure by buying ppc on the medication keywords that people like me where using.

"This is true but its more stopping scammers / snake oil salespersons selling placebo's to desperate people."

Snake oil salesmen are probably willing to pay good money for their ads so all incentives are for Google, Facebook and others to not stop these ads.

Re: Pinterest Blocks Vaccination Searches in Move to Control the Conversation

#29

Post by crazygringo »

This is a really, really, really thorny issue.

On the one hand, it seems noble/responsible to suppress anti-vax, Russian influence, conspiracy theories, etc.

On the other hand, for centuries it's been recognized that the best antidote to "bad speech" isn't censorship, it's more speech. Don't ban, convince.

But on the other other hand, that's been exclusively argued in the domain of government action, that government censorship is ultimately worse than what it purports to cure.

In this case, tech firms/platforms like Facebook, YouTube and Pinterest aren't the government or society, they're private actors just like newspapers and members of the free press in general. Just like it could be irresponsible of the NYT to publish letters to the editor supporting anti-vax, you can argue it's equally irresponsible for tech firms to allow the same on their platforms.

Yet on the other other other hand, we're reaching a point where a great deal of discourse is concentrated on a few user-content-driven sites, so censorship on them feels like it's inching closer in spirit to government censorship.

But on the other x 4 hand, mainstream public conversation has always been driven mainly by merely a handful of newspapers and then news programs with their own editorial agendas, so a handful of tech actors exercising their own "responsible" (as self-interpreted) curation and promotion doesn't seem to be anything new.

In the end, free speech has never been an absolute right (e.g. yelling fire in a crowded theater, libel, etc.) and it's ultimately a question of finding the right balance between harms.

Re: Pinterest Blocks Vaccination Searches in Move to Control the Conversation

#30

Post by nisten »

darkerside wrote: post #24

The cure for bad information is usually more information.

In my opinion this hypothesis is totally wrong because the accuracy of information is the problem and not the quantity of it.

We can handle quantity, now we need to handle error correction and build better access permissions too.

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