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YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

bbc.com

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

#861

Post by cmeacham98 »

stcredzero wrote: post #270
logifail wrote: post #121

Current WHO advice: "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19." [0] Where we live, due to local laws , we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping. Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO? I fear there isn't "one truth" out there, despite the content providers' and fact-checkers' attempts :( We keep trying to encourage our ki…

I fear there isn't "one truth" out there, despite the content providers' and fact-checkers' attempts :( The idea is: "We are the decent, good, people who know the truth. Now we control the platforms, so it's only well and good we control the information, and we tell the deplorable others what they can and can't say." Almost everyone in the history books as a horrible oppressor has told themselves that narrative. Many…

This sort of weird slippery slope argument that banning obviously bad advice somehow leads to youtube becoming a "horrible oppressor" doesn't pass the smell test.

By this reasoning, _any_ platform that features _any form of moderation at all_ will devolve into oppression. Is HN at risk of becoming oppressive due to banning flamebait and spam comments?

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

#862

Post by serf »

sjwright wrote: post #550
doctoboggan wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So if you made a video a few weeks ago recommending people wear masks then your video would be banned.

No, because while the CDC did incorrectly dismiss the value of masks and recommended that people focus on hand washing and distancing, they never said you must not wear a mask.

> they never said you must not wear a mask.

You're right, but..

What was said (by Surgeon General Jerome Adams) was for the American people to stop buying masks on March 2nd.[0]

I don't know why that is effectively any different for folks that had no access to them.

[0]: https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/face-masks-coronavirus...

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

#863

Post by liaukovv »

ZenPsycho wrote: post #600
ZenPsycho wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, how many deaths are you willing to be responsible for? make sure to scale it up to youtube size.

Really disappointed in hacker news today. Children all of you, crying for the right to scream "fire" in a crowded theater.

Do you even understand how insulting it is to deny other people agency? That's the most insulting thing you can do or say, worse than racism, sexism or whatever else, it is plain denying that the other person is a human with their own free will.

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

#864

Post by yters »

k33n wrote: post #844
yters wrote: post #488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a market solution will be decisive if it gets to that point. The courts broke up Microsoft, and it's not like that hurt them at all.

Microsoft wasn’t broken up.

Ah, you're right. The break up never happened.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...

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

#865

Post by eej71 »

knzhou wrote: post #482
eej71 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the original poster, but I found at least this one. https://twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152?lang=en

"No clear evidence" uncovered in a "preliminary investigation" was a completely true statement. They never ever said "okay, this definitely isn't transmissible, everybody can ignore it". They said in the early stages that it was too soon to be sure. All the other tweets from this period are saying the same thing: something might be coming, so countries should prepare.

To me - its just weasel words issued by an organization that was denied first hand access to wuhan. Perfectly crafted to play both sides.

None of us should be surprised that a large scale multi-national organization like the WHO can only speak in bureaucratic half truths. Their primary purpose for the CCP is to be a tool for moral laundering.

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

#867

Post by 0x5002 »

0xy wrote: post #558
robrenaud wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Germany bans holocaust denial. That seems fine.

Nothing emboldens racists like pointing to government oppression of their ideas. The KKK has free reign in the USA and they've experienced plummeting membership. Nothing kills bad ideas like sunlight and scrutiny, you don't need to ban it and make them martyrs.

To the point where the ACLU actively defended KKK members' First Amendment rights multiple times.

Second, and more directly related to the events of this weekend, there are important reasons for our long history of defending freedom of speech — including speech we abhor. We fundamentally believe that our democracy will be better and stronger for engaging and hearing divergent views. Racism and bigotry will not be eradicated if we merely force them underground. Equality and justice will only be achieved if society looks such bigotry squarely in the eyes and renounces it. Not all speech is morally equivalent, but the airing of hateful speech allows people of good will to confront the implications of such speech and reject bigotry, discrimination and hate. This contestation of values can only happen if the exchange of ideas is out in the open.

There is another practical reason that we have defended the free speech rights of Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Today, as much as ever, the forces of white supremacy and the forces for equality and justice are locked in fierce battles, not only in Washington but in state houses and city councils around the country. Some government decision-makers are deeply opposed to the speech we support. We simply never want government to be in a position to favor or disfavor particular viewpoints. And the fact is, government officials — from the local to the national — are more apt to suppress the speech of individuals or groups who disagree with government positions. Many of the landmark First Amendment cases, such as NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware and New York Times v. Sullivan, have been fought by African-American civil rights activists. Preventing the government from controlling speech is absolutely necessary to the promotion of equality.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/equality-justice-and-f...

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

#868

Post by Faark »

jshevek wrote: post #563
glenstein wrote: post #431

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 99.99999% case scenario concerns videos that are saying '5g caused coronavirus', and meanwhile you're trying to tie up everybodies attention with special cases that don't represent the majority of cases. People get disoriented with special cases and trick questions. Let me put it this way. If you're not just pointing to the mask example as a tentative, academic exercise, and sincerely believe that they constitute…

> The 99.99999% case scenario concerns videos that are saying '5g caused coronavirus' If this were the case, they could simply announce that their policy is to ban videos that blame coronavirus on 5G. In practice, they will probably be banning a lot more videos than simply ones which blame coronavirus on 5G.

Might has something to with it being easier to come up with new crackpot theories than announcing policy changes. Kind of like "then debunk the conspiracy" doesn't really work, since this requires a disproportional amount of effort. Society might be able to handle this additional effort in a "low noise" environment, but hardly when motivated actors got their foot in the door already.

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

#870

Post by arghwhat »

cmeacham98 wrote: post #861
stcredzero wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear there isn't "one truth" out there, despite the content providers' and fact-checkers' attempts :( The idea is: "We are the decent, good, people who know the truth. Now we control the platforms, so it's only well and good we control the information, and we tell the deplorable others what they can and can't say." Almost everyone in the history books as a horrible oppressor has told themselves that narrative. Many…

This sort of weird slippery slope argument that banning obviously bad advice somehow leads to youtube becoming a "horrible oppressor" doesn't pass the smell test. By this reasoning, _any_ platform that features _any form of moderation at all_ will devolve into oppression. Is HN at risk of becoming oppressive due to banning flamebait and spam comments?

Moderation is not necessarily censorship. It is only censorship if the content is removed based on the content itself.

For example, shutting down a flamewar for simply being aggressive is not censorship, as long as the same discussion would have been permitted if held in good spirit.

Censoring "wrong" content likely has bad outcomes, the worst being that with only "good" content, critical thinking may get even sloppier.

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