YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#71

Post by viklove » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:31 PM UTC

airstrike wrote: post #66

viklove wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if they make the wrong decisions and spread misinformation or fail to censor misinformation, can I sue them? Why do they get the power but none of the responsibility? Is it just because they happen to agree with your worldview? And what if they don't -- what if they start banning videos that suggest Taiwan is a country? Would your opinion change?

> So if they make the wrong decisions and spread misinformation or fail to censor misinformation, can I sue them? IANAL but unless someone is knowingly spreading false information as true (i.e. fraud), the answer is no. They probably don't even carry the burden of having to reasonably vet information first. > Why do they get the power but none of the responsibility? Because it is your privilege to use YouTube, not yo…

Ok, so what you're saying is that if YouTube starts banning videos that suggest Taiwan is a country, you would support their decision.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#72

Post by JordanFarmer » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

Just look back through the years where the WHO has posted information and data that has been false. There were scientists and doctors who disagreed, those doctors were correct. So YouTube wouldn't allow correct information in this scenario for Covid 19?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#73

Post by redml » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:33 PM UTC

tree3 wrote: post #56

knowmad wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides who the liars, cranks and con artists are?

YouTube. It's their platform, they make decisions. If you don't like their platform/decisions, go elsewhere.

You know its funny how I only see this argument when the service is doing something they agree with. When it's something they don't like there's suddenly outrage.

Remember a few years ago ISPs wanting to remove net neutrality and wanting to potentially charge for access to websites on "their platform"? Suddenly they're big enough to be a "public utility" and "invasion of free speech".

You can't have it both ways.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#74

Post by WalterBright » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:34 PM UTC

subhobroto wrote: post #21

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. WHO is a political organization with medical leanings just like Fox News is an entertainment channel that covers newslike topics. Yes, there's a lot of information out there about SARS-COV2 and COVID-19 infections out there that are downright misleading at best and life threatening at worst. No, censoring that content including videos is NOT the role of a hosting platfo…

> just like Fox News is an entertainment channel that covers newslike topics

All TV news shows are that. For example, consider the cliche about the news business "if it bleeds, it leads" which is far older than Fox News.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#75

Post by calebm » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:35 PM UTC

Who watches the watchers?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#76

Post by colmvp » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:39 PM UTC

JordanFarmer wrote: post #72

Just look back through the years where the WHO has posted information and data that has been false. There were scientists and doctors who disagreed, those doctors were correct. So YouTube wouldn't allow correct information in this scenario for Covid 19?

In Canada for months we followed WHO's directions to a tee and ended up rapid growth of infections until we did a 180 and implemented nearly every measure that the WHO disagreed with.

Taiwan is one of the few countries to have very few cases, and they essentially did a lot of measures the WHO did not recommend initially.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#77

Post by DanielLihaciu » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

sunir wrote: post #45

jjice wrote: post #13

Things like this are tricky to me. YouTube is a private platform, so they can make their own decisions, but any sort of censorship is scary to me. I honestly don't know where to stand when it comes to issues related to censoring content like this. On one hand, you can limit information we know is false, but restricting spread of information is censoring people, something that is pretty widely regarded as oppressive.…

Yes, they are private and can do what they want... and we can judge them harshly for it. What’s legal and what’s moral aren’t the same thing.

They make their own law on their platform which is 1000x times more scarier knowing that is a monopoly in content sharing

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#78

Post by Barrin92 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #70

Barrin92 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither does the US. Taiwan is only recognised by IIRC 12 natinos, mostly small island states. This has become another weird internet talking point as international recognition pretty much unanmiously switched to the PRC in the 1970s.

Maybe formally, but Trump has implicitly recognized it[1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump%E2%80%93Tsai_call

Pretty much all global institutions have informal or de-facto relationships with Taiwan, that's besides the point. Not recognizing Taiwan formally has been the position of just about any institution or country on the globe for 50 years.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#79

Post by staticautomatic » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:40 PM UTC

What's most interesting about watching platforms target "mis"-information is the question/problem of whether and how they define it.

For example, Facebook refers to "fake news" as "false news"; if you search their domains for "false news is", you'll get around 6,500 results, none of which include an actual definition of what "false news" is. Setting aside the obviously problematic policy issues associated with this, it suggests that FB either doesn't have a definition or has one but has chosen not to publish it.

Loosely, I think you could categorize information on a grid (allowing for overlap), where the columns are "information", "wrong information", and "non-information"; the rows are "deliberate" and "inadvertent".

"Dis"-information would fall under "deliberate" and "wrong", whereas "mis"-information is "wrong" but may be "inadvertent" (someone posting something they don't know is incorrect, for example). OTOH you can have "deliberate" "non-information" in the form of "obscurantism" or "inadvertent" "non-information" in the form of "bullshit". And of course you can have all kinds of stuff in between.

Then again, most platform policies ultimately boil down to whether or not a statement is likely to cause to some kind of real harm. If that's the case then I'm not sure why you need to formally identify it as "misinformation" at all. If at the end of the gay you're going to say "We removed this because it violated our policy against posts that may cause actual harm to others", then calling it out as belonging to any particular category of impermissible content is just a perfunctory nod to transparency in your policy enforcement.

If anyone here has a policy issue they're seeking advice on please feel free to reach out. I love this stuff.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#80

Post by ALittleLight » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 7:41 PM UTC

tree3 wrote: post #56

knowmad wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who decides who the liars, cranks and con artists are?

YouTube. It's their platform, they make decisions. If you don't like their platform/decisions, go elsewhere.

This seems very simplistic. YouTube is more than a company, it is a community of hundreds of millions of users and thousands of workers. People use YouTube not just for ability to search and share videos, or the recommendation engine, but for the user created content. The owner of the platform is the shareholders, and their designee, the CEO, is ultimately responsible for the decision. I don't think the broader definition of YouTube made this decision.

I think it's wrong to be okay with YouTube suppressing information and misinforming people about global pandemics just because they own the corporation and infrastructure YouTube is built on. YouTube is abusing their monopoly to hurt people.

People don't like government censorship and misinformation not because it's inherently wrong for government to do these things, but because censorship and misinformation create harm. When you consider YouTube's scale and lack of real competitor - it's obvious that their censorship and misinformation is also harmful and therefore problematic. Even if it's legal, it's certainly not moral.