YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#631

Post by wvenable » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 5:01 PM UTC

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #628

skuthus wrote: post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more like 'I have the right to choose which voices get heard on my private platform'

Yeah no. YouTube is arguably a very, very public platform. Open to the public; entirely populated and funded by the public (i.e. millions of content providers and viewers generate all the income). Its reasonable to have different rules for a local newspaper vs a worldwide monopolist.

> entirely populated and funded by the public

You just described every single business in the whole world except those funded by taxpayer money (which is generally what is meant by "funded by the public"). Actually, YouTube isn't even funded by the public -- they're funded by advertisers.

> Its reasonable to have different rules for a local newspaper vs a worldwide monopolist.

All local newspapers are owned by large companies. As for monopolist, you can't just throw that around without argument. YouTube is far far from the only provider of online video.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#632

Post by loceng » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 5:03 PM UTC

gccxsse wrote: post #600

Barrin92 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What gives Google/YouTube the justification to silence them? The fact that it is their platform. >Fauci can defend himself, Fauci is a 79 year old man busy working 20 hours a day trying to stop more people from dying, he doesn't have the time to debunk garbage on the internet. Youtube is completely within their rights to remove dangerous disinformation from their platform and I hope they take an agressive stance goi…

>dangerous disinformation What does this even mean?? Have we forgotten the importance of free speech?

Do you believe that the system of censorship by the CCP for China's population is worse than what YouTube did, and do you understand that the two doctors weren't detained by authorities and that they could find a host to post the video on again that isn't YouTube - and so how are they being prevented from speaking?

Distribution is very different than freedom of speech, and distribution of their video is allowed on the internet - however the internet is a platform to allow decentralized moderation, so then platforms on top of the internet can moderate depending on what they believe is [hopefully] best for society - and based on that people, viewers, will decide what platforms they will trust or watch content from and give their attention and support/money to - whether through shallow manipulative ads or payment.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#633

Post by loceng » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 5:11 PM UTC

thdrdt wrote: post #520

Barrin92 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What gives Google/YouTube the justification to silence them? The fact that it is their platform. >Fauci can defend himself, Fauci is a 79 year old man busy working 20 hours a day trying to stop more people from dying, he doesn't have the time to debunk garbage on the internet. Youtube is completely within their rights to remove dangerous disinformation from their platform and I hope they take an agressive stance goi…

I know it's their platform so they can do what they want. But why not show a warning like "the following content has false and dangerous information"? Now it is gone so it can't be discussed. And I also think you take away responsibility of the viewers if they don't need to be critical about any information.

"And I also think you take away responsibility of the viewers if they don't need to be critical about any information."

This is exactly the problem currently though - the general population doesn't have either the time or critical thinking developed to understand this.

Daniel Schmachtenberger on Eric Weinstein's The Portal episode #27 said: “... and the most awesome thing of the current system [of suppressing unruly people] we don’t even have to deal with protestors with tear gas or bean bags or whatever mostly, because mostly addiction, and student debt, and information overwhelm and those things deal with the people adequately so they don’t actually understand enough or care enough or have the capacity to organize very meaningly."

Eric replied: “We just legalize weed and make porn free and everyone’s de-motivated.."

- timestamped link to talk https://youtu.be/_b4qKv1Ctv8?t=3780 - but I'd highly recommend watching the whole interview.

The goal has to be getting the population healthy enough to be responsible and reasonable, rational enough, otherwise these hierarchal systems lead by people are guiding this like parents raise children until people are mature enough; the extreme of this would be CCP controlling China's population.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#634

Post by jeegsy » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

gccxsse wrote: post #600

Barrin92 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>What gives Google/YouTube the justification to silence them? The fact that it is their platform. >Fauci can defend himself, Fauci is a 79 year old man busy working 20 hours a day trying to stop more people from dying, he doesn't have the time to debunk garbage on the internet. Youtube is completely within their rights to remove dangerous disinformation from their platform and I hope they take an agressive stance goi…

>dangerous disinformation What does this even mean?? Have we forgotten the importance of free speech?

> Distribution is very different than freedom of speech

Whenever these dabates arise it would save a whole lot of time if participants assume as a given that everyone understands the first amendment as written. IMHO it will be far more useful to discuss the point of having this amendment in the first place. The idea that everytime someone has a remotely controversial idea, they have to setup an internet video company with global reach in order to propagate said idea is ridiculous. Even if you agree that Youtube has the right (which they do) to take down this video, their reasons for doing so should trouble everyone who in some way contributed to their near monopoly of internet video. Also, consider that they didnt even have to provide a reason. They provided one in the belief that the public actually favors censorship!

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#635

Post by ric2b » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 5:22 PM UTC

hkai wrote: post #630

philipov wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the constitutional amendments only place restrictions on the government, we don't get to have free speech if we rely on private platforms to be the primary means of political expression.

Is this desirable?

I would say no, which is why net neutrality is important.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#636

Post by manfredo » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 5:29 PM UTC

javagram wrote: post #591

manfredo wrote: post #454

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The infection rate relevant insofar as it means the population will approach 100% infection [1],- and subsequent immunity or death - faster than other regions. Densely populated areas like New York will have a sharp spike and sharp decline. Loosely populated areas like Kansas will see a slower, steadier rise but also a slower and steadier decline. Social distancing makes areas behave more like rural areas, by virtue…

> New York's 20% indicated infection rate likely means that the infection rate today is approaching the 50% or more required to achieve herd immunity. Yes, if by approaching you mean at least twice the number of people who have already died from the virus would have to die to achieve this, since 20% is less than half of 50%. I’ve seen scientific experts estimating that with this specific virus, due to its high R0, 50…

The R0 of Measels is 10-3x as high as COVID-19, at 12-18 as compared to 1.7 to 5. The total number of people affected to achieve herd immunity is fixed. Distancing reduced the rate at which people get infected. And contrary to what you claim, several countries are not engaging in social distancing. And they're not experiencing death rates several times higher than the US.

Where much of the western world is seeing cases peak, China has been seeing them rise again [1]. The idea that the virus has been eliminated is incorrect. China aggressively flattened its curve, but concluding that they will eliminate infections without herd immunity is not a certainty at this point.

1. https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#637

Post by downerending » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 5:33 PM UTC

techntoke wrote: post #629

RonanTheGrey wrote: post #524

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are innumerable hosting services. Is this an honest comment or one you hope won't be challenged? There are NO video hosting services with the popularity or reach of YouTube, by a very long shot. Customers of ours have lost their entire livelihood because content that was present on YouTube for a decade was suddenly politically incorrect and their accounts got banned. That wouldn't be the case if they had more…

There are hundreds if not thousands of video sharing platforms. Plus a shared web host cost very little, and there is always BitTorrent too. No one is forcing anyone to use YouTube for videos. Anyone that lost their livelihood because of YouTube should have read the TOS.

That may well be true, but it's not a reason for me to think of Google/YouTube's behavior as in any way acceptable.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#638

Post by asdff » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 5:34 PM UTC

dependenttypes wrote: post #593

asdff wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course they should. Youtube isn't bound by any law to be the standard video hosting site. They are simply the most popular over the past 10 years. Zero government mandate or anything. They can remove all hosted content tomorrow if they'd like, entirely up to them. If you don't like it, feel free to build your own platform. That's the beauty of disseminated knowledge of computer science and the internet, after all.

> If you don't like it ... feel free to discuss about it on hacker news. Regardless, would you say the same if someone was banned from a super market over being gay?

No, because there are laws against discriminating protected classes (although sexuality is not quite a protected class per se and laws can vary between states). There are no laws against discriminating bigoted content or propaganda, these aren't protected classes.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#639

Post by kerkeslager » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 5:39 PM UTC

klyrs wrote: post #301

kerkeslager wrote: post #248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's certainly their right under ownership laws to censor on their platform. But just because it's your legal right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. The question isn't "do social media platforms have the right to censor?". The question is, "given social media platforms have the legal right to censor, should they censor?". The bill of rights is a legal document, and it can only govern the actio…

Is spam free speech? Are bookstores required to stock every book ever published? Are fraud and defamation free speech? Must newspapers post every classified ad submitted to them? Is medical advice free speech? Are government clerks required to serve verbally abusive clients? No, no, no... there are plenty of examples where the right to free speech is found to have limits. Especially when that speech violates other fr…

Did you actually read the post you're responding to? I'm confused on why you would view this as a response to what I said.

Again, the question isn't "do social media platforms have the right to censor?". The question is, "given social media platforms have the legal right to censor, should they censor?".

If you don't understand that there might be reasons to do something beyond legal obligation or profit, you're not equipped to participate in this conversation.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#640

Post by krapp » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 5:41 PM UTC

jeegsy wrote: post #634

gccxsse wrote: post #600

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>dangerous disinformation What does this even mean?? Have we forgotten the importance of free speech?

> Distribution is very different than freedom of speech Whenever these dabates arise it would save a whole lot of time if participants assume as a given that everyone understands the first amendment as written. IMHO it will be far more useful to discuss the point of having this amendment in the first place. The idea that everytime someone has a remotely controversial idea, they have to setup an internet video company…

>The idea that everytime someone has a remotely controversial idea, they have to setup an internet video company with global reach in order to propagate said idea is ridiculous.

This isn't an idea that anyone is actually proposing to you, it's a strawman of your own making. The picture you're trying to paint whereby it's almost impossible for anyone to spread their ideas on the internet without Youtube's consent doesn't remotely correspond to reality. Every website has global reach, and plenty of controversial content has been spread on the internet in text form. You don't need video to propagate controversial ideas, but even then, video distribution existed on the internet before youtube. Filesharing and torrent sites exist, as do other streaming platforms which also have a global reach.

>They provided one in the belief that the public actually favors censorship!

The public does favor censorship. Free speech absolutism, to the degree of allowing even fraudulent and hateful speech to proliferate without check or consequence, is a minority view.