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YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

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Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#431

Post by imode »

at_a_remove wrote: post #249
imode wrote: post #30

I see a lot of people not wanting to offer alternative solutions to the treatment of this particular individual's content: if you're not in favor of removal, then what? This content can't be allowed to stand as-is. I'm sure you'd complain about any measure other than leaving this individual alone. If so, you deserve to be angry, because you're part of the overall problem. Edit: To remind all of you, downvotes should…

Don't consider the downvotes as not contributing to the discussion, think of them as ... deplatforming your idea. It cannot be allowed to stand as-is, after all.

It's nice that you can't contribute in a meaningful way to the discussion. Means I'm right.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#432

Post by rukittenme »

rukittenme wrote: post #428

I, for one, welcome corporate censorship of the public discourse. Because if there's anyone I can trust its my local, multi-national brand. I love you brand!

Also, spare me the asinine "you're free to speak on public property" responses. Public discourse has de-facto moved into private custody. There is no "escaping it".

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#433

Post by lonelappde »

econcon wrote: post #407
stevebmark wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I believe in shining a light on them I hear this a lot. Light is the best disinfectant. What evidence do you have for this? I've never seen a bad or immoral or harmful idea die out when more people learn about it and scrutinize it. However, I have repeatedly seen the opposite: Sharing bad ideas increases their audience, increases ignorance, hate, fear, and human suffering. You're looking at an article describing th…

>However, I have repeatedly seen the opposite: Sharing bad ideas increases their audience, increases ignorance, hate, fear, and human suffering. A lot of time hate is already there, just it doesn't find a way out untill someone shows there is no consequence of doing so. Hitler is one example of this who harnessed anti Jewish sentiments, he didn't create it, you can't make so many people change their beliefs.

That's off the mark. It's more that there are angry, frustrated, or stupid people and they taught how to channel their anger, frustration, and stupidity into specific forms of hate. Conspiracy theories don't grow because all these people came to the same conclusion independently and then found each other.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#434

Post by AnthonyMouse »

rojoca wrote: post #421
ryankemper wrote: post #46

I very strongly feel that we should be very careful to avoid adopting a legalistic attitude towards freedom of speech. That is, I am opposed to the argument that private corporations are not bound by the first amendment, and therefore it's okay for them to suppress content. I agree that they're not bound by the first amendment (I don't claim to understand the nuances of the "platform" laws so I won't address that), b…

The following may seem frivolous and/or uncharitable but I think you would find them hard to disagree with: - booting people off platforms is a "bad idea" which you wish to "suppress". - booting people off platforms shines a light on their "bad ideas" I'm sympathetic to the spirit of your comment, but I think Mr Icke has plenty of other ways to publish his ideas, and I don't believe youtube is suppressing them in a w…

> booting people off platforms is a "bad idea" which you wish to "suppress".

Not censoring an idea and arguing that an idea should not be implemented are not equivalent.

> booting people off platforms shines a light on their "bad ideas"

If this is true, i.e. reporting of the censorship increases the visibility of the bad idea, then it completely destroys the pro-censorship argument that it reduces the visibility of bad ideas. It would also immediately cease to be true if censorship ever became uncontroversial, in which case you couldn't claim that it's giving the allegedly bad idea a chance at a fair debate.

> I'm sympathetic to the spirit of your comment, but I think Mr Icke has plenty of other ways to publish his ideas, and I don't believe youtube is suppressing them in a way that necessitates suppression of theirs.

Is somebody suggesting that YouTube should be prohibited from creating and distributing their own videos?

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#435

Post by diebeforei485 »

gamblor956 wrote: post #127
Mirioron wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The studies show that it reduced the amount of overt hate speech on reddit. That's not the same thing as reducing hate speech on reddit nor is it the same thing as reducing hate speech total. The people who left might've ended up creating seeds elsewhere. We don't know that. Furthermore, overt hate speech isn't necessarily the problem for society. It matters more for society what beliefs someone holds than what they…

That's ridiculous. Of course it matters what someone is willing to express. A person willing to express hateful speech is a person who is also more willing to engage in hateful acts. Making it harder to cross that first line absolutely matters in making it harder for them to cross the line of becoming an active danger to others.

Genuinely curious why you think this is so (is there data about this?). It's entirely possible that letting things out makes people less likely to act on them.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#436

Post by tomhoward »

james-mcelwain wrote: post #386
WalterBright wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it is. All kinds of ideas died when information became readily available, even when the authorities tried to suppress them. For example, the idea of a nobility class.

Past results do not guarantee future performance.

This is a pretty low effort comment, but more importantly is conceding the several upthread assertions that freedom of speech has historically been effective at correcting bad ideas.

If your claim is that we shouldn't expect this to continue in the future, that's a whole new claim that you need to support.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#437

Post by knzhou »

pnako wrote: post #418
knzhou wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a standard in mind that's better than the WHO? Would you prefer content prohibited on the basis of whether it sounds right or wrong to a random Google employee?

Right now in France one doctor (professor Didier Raoult) has been mostly right about the whole thing (in my view), and he became popular thanks to YouTube. Yet his views are in radical opposition to both the French government and the WHO. Should his videos be removed? He's one of the most published expert on infectious diseases, so who in YouTube has authority to decide that he is more wrong than the minister of heal…

Nobody is talking about banning people like Didier Raoult. If you can't tell the difference between a professor and a guy who gives spittle-flecked rants about the lizard people, this discussion will not be productive. For example, we all know he did a terrible job with the hydroxychloroquine study, but of course he retains his position.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#438

Post by lonelappde »

knzhou wrote: post #305
zozbot234 wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" E pur si muove...! "

Galileo didn't deliver spittle-flecked rants either. He carefully gathered evidence and wrote it up, and his ideas gained acceptance by peer review.

Galileo in particular was prosecuted by the Catholic church for making spittle flecked rants against the Pope. Much like a modern YouTuber, he then pretended he was persecuted for his science.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#439

Post by quietbritishjim »

mrfusion wrote: post #223

Just some food for thought. If youtube was around in the past and doing this stuff they could have deleted videos in support of the following: (these all started as fringe beliefs(1)) Interracial marriage Gay marriage Smoking causes lung cancer (1) interesting topical read and it has sources for these at the end https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/american-brain.html

Those are ideological beliefs. Yes, at one time they were very widely and strongly held. But they were never remotely comparible to spreading factually incorrect information about something biological.

A simple demonstration to this: even the reverse of these (e.g. "I believe gay marriage is morally wrong") can't reasonably be argued against with "that is factually incorrect".

It's fair to believe that private companies like YouTube shouldn't be censoring speech like this. But these comparisons are bogus and only weaken your point.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#440

Post by factsaresacred »

joshuamorton wrote: post #257
longtom wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The WHO seems to have been embarrassingly wrong or overconfident on many accounts: 1. Global air travel does not need to be stopped. 2. There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission. 3. There is still a "window of opportunity". 4. Masks don't work (but health workers need them!). 5. The CFR is like 4%.

> Global air travel does not need to be stopped. This isn't what the WHO said. They said bans on air from specific places (especially those that disrupt supply chains) are bad. This is true. Banning all air travel to/from china would have hurt medical supply chains in the US, with very little benefit. > 2. There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission. When this claim was made (in early january), there was not…

> They said bans on air from specific places (especially those that disrupt supply chains) are bad. This is true.

The idea that bans on travel are 'bad' is nonsense. There's a global ban on civilian travel precisely because it is effective.

> There is no evidence of human-to-human transmission.

Sending out a message only to contradict it days later is poor communication and management.

> They said that random people shouldn't go out of their way to acquire medical PPE

No they said masks were not effective: ‘very little evidence of widespread benefit from masks use outside of these clinical settings’. Study after study contradicts this.

Additionally, as a cynical example of subterfuge, their Director-General made up some lies about Taiwan being racist while at the same time, in mainland China, Africans were being banned from shopping malls and evicted from their homes.

The WHO messed up, repeatedly. And now their word is apparently sacrosanct on social media by threat of deletion which is simply outrageous.

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