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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

#791

Post by belltaco »

triyambakam wrote: post #669
zimpenfish wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no human to human transmission "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus" There is a world of difference between "no human to human transmission" as you claim they said and "no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission" as they actually said. https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

I fail to see this world of difference. Can you explain?

No evidence of something is not the same as evidence of (not something).

No evidence that Person A is the murderer does not mean there is evidence that he is not the murderer(e.g. alibi). Evidence may turn up later on that he was indeed the murderer.

WHO said that there was no evidence of human to human transmission. They did not say they found evidence that it is not transmissible from human to human. That's a world of difference.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#792

Post by leonvv »

krapp wrote: post #763
leonvv wrote: post #761

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The root of the problem seems to be the inability of people to correctly judge the likeliness of David's arguments to be true. This is not a problem that we're going to solve by banning David's content.

>This is not a problem that we're going to solve by banning David's content. Ok. How are we going to solve it by guaranteeing that his content proliferates as widely as possible, or even as some have suggested, by having governments force platforms to host it against their will, in the name of absolute free speech? The principle that we can debate the merit of ideas only so long as we never prevent any idea from spre…

> his content proliferates

This is the root of the problem. The fact that his content is on YouTube does not imply that it will proliferate.

> How are we going to solve it

Critical thinking skills are apparently undervalued. This is a problem that is hopefully solvable by education and public debate. Even if not, the situation in which a small part of the population believes in David's ideas seems preferable to me than one in which a small group of (non democratically chosen) people decide what is acceptable content and what is not.

> It's implied in the concept of a marketplace of ideas that some ideas will have value over others.

I agree, but different people will have different definitions of value.

> And so it seems implicit to the concept of free speech that one should have the freedom to accept or reject an idea, or try to disabuse someone of an idea you deem fallacious.

I agree, but censoring someone goes much farther than to disabuse. Too far, in my opinion.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#793

Post by pbhjpbhj »

mschuster91 wrote: post #663
PureParadigm wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as the parent mentions, YouTube can do the same kind of content curation from a legal point of view. The question is whether YouTube is a platform where we should advocate for less censorship/more freedom. I think that since YouTube is a general platform and that no serious alternatives exist, we should advocate for less censorship. YouTube is different from Hacker News because YouTube is more of a general platf…

> As far as I know, YouTube is the only serious option at the moment for general video content. Are they? There's Vimeo, Facebook, Pornhub's SFW option, Twitter can host short videos, there's a metric shitload of porn hosts, and if you're in for premium service every major CDN offers video hosting/distribution.

It wasn't quite what the parent was saying, but basically here we're advocating that YouTube amounts to the public sphere in a way that other sites do not.

To be a little extreme: If we limited your freedom of speech by saying you can speak freely, but only in your own house, then that would still effectively curtail your rights. Whilst being technically true that you'd still have the right to speak, it wouldn't be in the spirit of freedom of speech.

This situation seems similar to me.

I think there's an argument to say, for the biggest providers of web communications, that if you would be allowed to stand on the street corner and say your bit that those providers shouldn't be allowed to prevent you speaking that 'bit' either.

Obviously as with IRL speech you have no right to an audience; none of us need listen. And, the provider has no curtailment of providing counter-points adjacent to your "speech", just as counter-protest is a normal part of protesting.

This ability to speak in ostensibly public forums is a natural and necessary part of democracy. IMO we should act to maintain that.

I'd add a couple of provisos:

# warnings on extreme content are fine

# the platform can demand those who are "speaking" be identified by name and nationality

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#794

Post by ThomPete »

deadmutex wrote: post #471
ThomPete wrote: post #362

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so what?

People actually believe it, and cause harm. Case in point: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/05/us/pizzagate-comet-ping-p...

you are missing the point. with your logic much more should be banned and censored than is.

People also believe WHO and did harm too.

You are walking down a path that doesent lead to anything good.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#795

Post by Fjolsvith »

toofy wrote: post #655
rlt wrote: post #549

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. The First Amendment is one specific protection of freedom of speech. It does not equal freedom speech, which is a general concept that private companies can also uphold (but I think everyone here acknowledges they are not legally obligated to)

Not only are they not legally obligated to uphold free speech, very few (almost zero) companies allow anyone to say whatever they wish whenever they wish. Im still wondering why anyone expects this of youtube but would never ever expect it of the bar down the street.

> Im still wondering why anyone expects this of youtube but would never ever expect it of the bar down the street.

I haven't been in a bar where the patrons were told they couldn't discuss quack medicine.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#796

Post by polytronic »

I completely align with this:

"When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes to say to its subjects, This you may not read, this you must not see, this you are forbidden to know, the end result is tyranny and oppression no matter how holy the motives."

Robert A. Heinlein

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#797

Post by pbhjpbhj »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #691
PureParadigm wrote: post #460

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, as the parent mentions, YouTube can do the same kind of content curation from a legal point of view. The question is whether YouTube is a platform where we should advocate for less censorship/more freedom. I think that since YouTube is a general platform and that no serious alternatives exist, we should advocate for less censorship. YouTube is different from Hacker News because YouTube is more of a general platf…

> since YouTube is a general platform and that no serious alternatives exist, we should advocate for less censorship. Disagree. Online misinformation can kill people [0] and act as a recruitment tool for Nazis [1]. Less seriously, it can result in people burning down 5G towers. There's plenty to lose by YouTube hosting this stuff, and they're under no obligation to do so in the name of free speech. It strikes me as o…

Who decides what content gets censored?

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#798

Post by RobertKerans »

JSavageOne wrote: post #482

I have no familiarity with David Icke, but I wonder how much of his "popularity" was fueled by the Youtube algorithm recommending his gullible viewers more and more of the same kind of conspiracy content. I remember speaking to a Flat-Earther once (yes, they actually exist), and it seemed he basically became a flat-earther because he watched one flat-earth video and Youtube kept recommending him more similar content…

As sibling commenter said, was well known in UK, but anecdotally (from talking to other FB conspiracy theorists, also including a flat earther, and from having a few close acquaintances of that bent) this seems spot on. Literally all of them do the same thing, following YT recs, often sitting for hours.

Specifically re Icke, I've talked to otherwise reasonable people who will watch him _despite knowing_ who he is because he comes across as reasonable (and much of what he says fits a certain worldview -- note this isn't left or right specific). He is a good speaker, which you would expect given he was a presenter before he decided to demonstrate he was absolutely batshit crazy live on TV. For people unaware of this, this demonstration was why he was well known in the UK - he went on the biggest talkshow on TV to proclaim that he was the son of god and that the world is controlled by a cabal of lizard people (and was going to be consumed by tidal waves etc etc). The lizard people cabal idea may seem at first glance to be a fairly obvious crude antisemitic trope, but he seems to be absolutely serious about everything, he literally means lizards.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#799

Post by pbhjpbhj »

italicbold wrote: post #730
zimpenfish wrote: post #719

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well thats my point, they werent forced underground. My mistake, I misfollowed your logic. > it was not socially acceptable to have a reasonable conversation around them without being labeled racist Well, that's because Trump is an outspoken racist, the GOP is also pretty racist (but better at keeping it quiet), and Brexit was largely predicated on racism.

Do you really believe there are 15,188,406 racists in the UK and 62,984,828 racists in the USA? If you truly believe that then I feel sorry for you, because you live in a really sad world. Is that really the experience you have living in or visiting these countries or travelling around them, that 1 in 2 people you meet are racist? I think its a bit lazy and easy to substitue fringe views from within these two camps a…

I'd say most people want their country to "win" against others, they want to be richer than other people and want their country to be the richest sat the expense of other nations.

That's racism/xenophobia, isn't it?

Brexit seems to be predicated on the idea that Brits would rather suffer than risk the possibility that mutual benefit would be weighted towards others in the EU. That's pretty extreme racism (albeit founded on greed) IMO, and is endemic in British society AFAICT.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#800

Post by couchand »

mirimir wrote: post #365
couchand wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A business decision to avoid risk of costly litigation is not at all the same as actual harm. If you have any information on actual harm, please share it. Otherwise, please leave your FUD at the door.

So you don't believe that people ought to have the right to sue when injured? Also, calling stuff "FUD" is a classic strategy to escape responsibility. For example, the tobacco industry claimed that lung cancer risk was FUD for decades. Other examples include groundwater pollution, asbestos, and lead paint. Not to mention human overpopulation. Which is arguably the root cause of the COVID-19 pandemic. Along with HIV…

I would absolutely agree that those who are harmed need adequate remedies under the law. I also know that vaccines provide an immense public benefit. If the specifics of the tort system were causing companies to exit the vaccine business (and they were) , that's certainly something the government ought to step in to fix. However, that doesn't mean there were "issues with safety" as you claim. The implications in your comment are actively harmful to the public health.
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