YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#841

Post by sieabahlpark » Mon, May 04, 2020, 4:48 PM UTC

Andrex wrote: post #611

sieabahlpark wrote: post #599

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't we want the exact opposite? Slavery was once the norm, talking out against it was how we actually changed it. Trying to imply that we should censor all those who go against the group is no better than if everyone who was against slavery was killed. It makes no sense in any "free" America where censorship of differing ideas is something we should strive for. When did the public suddenly get too sheltered from…

> Slavery was once the norm, talking out against it was how we actually changed it. Pretty sure you missed a war there.

Moot point, if the south won, would slavery still be ok? No.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

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Post by MaxBarraclough » Mon, May 04, 2020, 4:58 PM UTC

asdkjh345fd wrote: post #805

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is right wing about claiming 5g causes covid? Nothing. I hadn't meant to imply it was, but I can see how my comment could be read that way.

So what is "far-right" that needs to be silenced, and why? Do you also want the "far-left" silenced?

> what is "far-right" that needs to be silenced, and why?

I'm not about to explain why I believe YouTube should officially oppose neo-Nazism. [0]

> Do you also want the "far-left" silenced?

If there are left-leaning life-threatening lies being spread, YouTube should treat them similarly. It's not the left/right spectrum that matters here.

I suspect anti-vaxxers tend to lean left, for instance (the natural=good branch of human folly), but it's less clear-cut on the left/right spectrum than Nazism.

On a related note, jihadist recruitment videos could be described as 'far right', but that's not normally how we think of them, and it's not especially relevant. YouTube should clearly ban those videos; the left/right question is of little concern.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Nazism

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#843

Post by _oqcu » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:10 PM UTC

Gatsky wrote: post #99

I don’t understand the free speech arguments here. Youtube is an advertising platform. They can do what they want with their platform. If I own a billboard, and someone wants to advertise their bags for dead kittens, I can say no. There needs to be some sense of proportionality. If the government bashed down Icke’s door and smashed his computer then sure, we should worry about free speech. But getting banned from You…

Free speech is the principle that you should let people say whatever they want without censorship or legal consequences (excluding cases where the speech causes direct harm).

> They can do what they want with their platform.

Of course they can, but they can't then say they believe in free speech. Similarly to "you don't make peace with your friends" : you can't say you're free speech if you only allow information you agree with.

What annoys me is when people think that free speech isn't a principle, but just a law in the US which applies to the government only. It's usually: "Hurr duur, it's a private company so it can practice full communism and we should be okay with that."

(That said, personally I have mixed feelings about this because I feel like it might be causing harm... Same with the antivaxxer crap.)

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#844

Post by benbristow » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

supermatt wrote: post #740

ianbooker wrote: post #698

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or like https://watchnebula.com/ be owned by creators in the first place and try to finance by subscriptions without ads. But this obviously will not scale like Youtube..

I had never heared of this. I followed your link, then struggled to find something as you have to choose from a list of thumbnails. I then clicked to view something and immediately hit a paywall. How are you supposed to "discover" this content? That is where youtube is so strong. Often on youtube I will be directed to patreon, etc - does this work on the same principle?

I guess you don't watch much YouTube.

A lot of large YouTubers (like Wendover Productions/Half as Interesting) have been doing sponsored ads for a thing called 'CuriosityStream' which is basically Netflix for Documentaries/Non-Fiction and as part of a bundle if you subscribe with their link you get Nebula for free as an extra for as long as you pay for CS.

It's mainly existing content from YouTubers but with premium exclusive videos like Patreon has.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#845

Post by petersellers » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:26 PM UTC

quietbritishjim wrote: post #635

petersellers wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

YouTube has no problem banning content on ideological grounds, though. I remember last year various news articles about YouTube's removal of white supremacist content. I don't really see why it's important to distinguish whether the content is problematic "factually" vs "ideologically". Clearly there are valid reasons to ban content on ideological grounds but on the other hand removing any content that has factual er…

> YouTube has no problem banning content on ideological grounds, though. I never said they did. I just said that this isn't that, and comparisons with it just confuse the discussion.

I don't see why it's confusing. What is the importance of distinguishing between factual vs ideological violations?

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

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Post by ggreer » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:53 PM UTC

hef19898 wrote: post #696

ggreer wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that argument proves too much. It can be applied in many more cases than it actually is, and I can't help but notice certain discrepancies in who gets the banhammer and who is spared. What about the dangerous misinformation regarding the coronavirus? We had Twitter accounts telling people not to wear masks. Do we ban the WHO[1][2] and the US Surgeon General[3][4] from Twitter? Do we delete the account of NYC'…

There is one big difference between sharing the best avaiable information (taking circumstances into account) and conspiracy theories and disinformation. The WHO falls in the first category, Alex Jones and Co. in the latter.

It was definitely not the best information at the time. Everyone knew that masks worked, but many organizations and governments lied to the public because they didn't have enough masks. And how could anyone think that encouraging people to go to crowded public events during a pandemic is the best available information? It was clearly harmful at the time and it's one of the reasons why over 18,000 New Yorkers are now dead from coronavirus.

It's easy to find far more harmful information than a stupid conspiracy theory that almost nobody believes. Here's a fun one: Should we ban all pro-life messages? After all, they reliably lead to some crazies attacking abortion doctors. Should we ban all pro-communist sentiment? Communism led to mass death and starvation in the USSR, China, and North Korea. If there's a more harmful ideology, I have yet to hear it.

Getting back to cell phones: Should we ban anyone who says that cell phones cause cancer? The exact same argument applies: It can cause people to damage cell phone towers and threaten maintenance workers.

There is no coherent framework for censorship that allows these things while also banning 5g conspiracy theories. The double-standard could not be more obvious.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#847

Post by anthonypasq » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:54 PM UTC

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…

This is a frighteningly naive take on the rationality of humans.

If you are an engineer at a tech company you really don't have a grasp of how unfathomably dumb most people are because you only associate with smart people all the time.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#848

Post by Frondo » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

BurningCycles wrote: post #548

Frondo wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, so far I haven't seen anyone on here take the strong free speech absolutist position -- that nothing should be censored ever, including calls to violence. I've seen several comments that basically say "don't censor in general, but do remove calls to violence," so that seems like it's not a controversial opinion at least in this discussion. Why are calls to violence bad, but spreading misinformation about a pandem…

>Why are calls to violence bad, but spreading misinformation about a pandemic How do you know what is 'misinformation' ? WHO claimed that face masks were worthless, now you are forced to wear them in lots of places. WHO also claimed that there was no human to human transmission of COVID-19, etc. The powers that be will not stop spreading misinformation when it suits them, they just want no one to be able to question…

I don't know how to define what is "misinformation" but I could surely call out a couple examples. Maybe we can figure out what makes them misinformation.

1) 5G causes COVID-19 2) COVID-19 doesn't exist, i.e. it's all a hoax 3) Aquarium cleaning solution is a cure for COVID

I don't know what makes those different from "masks are worthless" but they seem qualitatively different. Maybe for a couple of reasons.

Maybe for #1, there's no plausible mechanism of action linking 5G and covid. But the people claim there is! Using a nested series of faulty reasoning and unreproduceable evidence to back it up.

Maybe for #2, there's no observable evidence that it's a hoax, i.e. people claiming otherwise are doing so with no supporting evidence, only reasoning that they (subjectively) do not trust government or media, therefore their claim is supportable.

But I don't know. I don't think the answer is that it's unknowable (which you may or may not have been getting at).

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#849

Post by DangitBobby » Mon, May 04, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

samiru wrote: post #661

zimpenfish wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would venture that the government should be protecting its people from misinformation like Icke's (after all, they enforce things like "truth in advertising", "medicines must state side effects", etc.) and not leaving it up to YouTube.

The problem is, the "protection" and "regulation" quickly become tools to eliminate your political enemies. In some ways this is already happening in the western world. We are becoming what we used to oppose against to.

Is protection against fraudulent advertising, poisonous food, products, and "medicine" being used to eliminate political enemies? If so, is it not worth it to limit the ability to lie to prevent the massive ensuing harm?

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

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Post by ggreer » Mon, May 04, 2020, 6:05 PM UTC

wyattpeak wrote: post #702

remarkEon wrote: post #519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "shouting 'fire' in a theatre" meme comes from a case where the Supreme Court used the Espionage Act to restrict speech because the speech in question didn't sufficiently support entering into a World War and advocated against the draft. Not exactly the best way to convince people that restricting speech is actually good.

The fact that you need to explain that sort of demonstrates that it isn't relevant to the use of the argument. Good arguments can come from poor sources. Most people agree that shouting fire in a crowded theatre is the sort of speech which should be restricted, wherever the argument came from.

> Good arguments can come from poor sources.

All the more reason to not silence cranks and conspiracy theorists.

From John Stuart Mill's On Liberty:

> But the peculiar evil of silencing the expression of an opinion is, that it is robbing the human race; posterity as well as the existing generation; those who dissent from the opinion, still more than those who hold it. If the opinion is right, they are deprived of the opportunity of exchanging error for truth: if wrong, they lose, what is almost as great a benefit, the clearer perception and livelier impression of truth, produced by its collision with error.

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2