Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

unherd.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

201–210 of 596 posts

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#201

Post by the_af »

mullingitover wrote: post #140
_vertigo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are moderating the content on their platform with respect to their business process and company values, those decisions are not a reflection of credibility. YouTube is a corporate product This is such a tired argument. YouTube is ubiquitous - it is the primary (read: effectively only) platform for video hosting, which today comprises a large proportion of all information transfer between humans. Companies like…

> This is such a tired argument. YouTube is ubiquitous - it is the primary (read: effectively only) platform for video hosting Far from it. You can host your video anywhere you like, but you get the most eyeballs and revenue from YouTube, and that's based on user preference and not on some nefarious activity on their part. A lot of what makes them successful as a hosting platform is the same content curation that peo…

> A lot of what makes them successful as a hosting platform is the same content curation that people like to complain about.

I'm not sure about this. Besides removing obvious hate speech, which sort of content curation do you mean? I thought its success was due to everyone being able to upload and share video clips. I don't think curation was an important feature.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#202

Post by filoleg »

scarface74 wrote: post #190
filoleg wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the point. Yes, I fully agree with you that they have the right to remove whatever content they want. And I absolutely don't want that right to be taken away from them. However, I disagree with how they are currently utilizing that power, even though they have full rights to do so. It's kind of similar to how I support the 2nd amendment rights and don't want them to be taken away from people (includin…

I can see that. But the same reason that I am against the government regulating tech is similar to why my position on gun control has gone from being pro gun control to anti-gun control. The government would probably go out of it’s way to make sure “Focus on the Family” content would be allowed but not “Black Lives Matter” just like they shut down the government in Michigan but the same conservatives passed laws for…

Fully in agreement with you on the actual legal positions regarding both tech and gun control. I am also against government regulating either.

But it doesn't mean that I cannot be upset at youtube for exercising their rights in ways that I disagree with. Mind you, I am not calling for a legal action against them or to change laws pertaining to those rights. I am just expressing that they shouldn't be exercising their rights in such a way, but they should still have the legal right to do so. Mostly because I believe that the unintended consequences of regulating that will be much worse (same with gun control).

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#203

Post by exolymph »

octygen wrote: post #8
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative medicine is mostly bunk, but I absolutely don't agree that it constitutes "harmful or dangerous countent" or should be banned from Youtube. Disputing the consensus should not by itself be forbidden, even when the consensus is accurate and important.

That depends what the alternative medicine asks the patient to do. Anecdote: my mother was told to do coffee enemas in Tijuana to get rid of her colorectal cancer. She very seriously debated it with me.

Whose responsibility is that? Serious question.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#204

Post by wrsh07 »

coldtea wrote: post #13
jasode wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>, but I really wish these platforms took the "phone company" approach, in which they considered themselves neutral carriers of information. This suggestion (and the comparison to phone companies) comes up repeatedly but Youtube can't _be_ a neutral carrier if they are funded by advertising . That's because the businesses' choice to pay for advertising is not a neutral choice . See "advertiser friendly content"[1] an…

> This suggestion (and the comparison to phone companies) comes up repeatedly but Youtube can't _be_ a neutral carrier if they are funded by advertising. That's because the businesses' choice to pay for advertising is not a neutral choice. It should be as well. Disallow advertising companies from paying for ads on specific content only. They should have a blanket agreement to show N ads, to user demographics, interes…

Advertisers are ultimately pulling ads because of the will of the people, so if you're going to follow this one step further you see that the public has censorship power and that's what we want

I think if you want to separate YouTube into separate stacks (eg fundamental infrastructure for hosting videos & a publisher / curator of those videos) you could imagine the infra part not being picky about what is uploaded (as long as it is legal) but the publisher part de listing videos except to be shared by link

Do you take issue with that?

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#205

Post by Vysero »

root_axis wrote: post #109
acituan wrote: post #51

I don’t agree with the interview contents, nor think professorship alone gives sufficient credibility in the face of a novel pandemic, data of which is in the process of emerging. That said, I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not. They don’t have in-house experts on these domains, they don’t have a magic epistemology machine that spits out the “facts”. They are good at writing web se…

> I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not This point is often repeated during discussions on these topics but I believe this is an inaccurate characterization. YouTube is not "in charge of deciding what is credible" in the fashion that kind of phrasing suggests; they are moderating the content on their platform with respect to their business process and company values, those decisions…

There's only one grocery store in town and I need to buy food, but their prices are too high!! Oh well, guess I will just have to drive to this other town to buy food where the prices aren't so high.

..walks outside to car ..sees local grocery store owner has flattened his tire

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#206

Post by exolymph »

dpeterson wrote: post #149

Libertarian leaning myself, sad to say, this is the first time I am now in full realization that monopolies do in fact exist and are very dangerous. Platforms like Youtube are beyond ubiquitous and we all depend on them. The companies behind them have more money than countries. That, combined with the tax free private foundations their founders nearly all have, is taking us down some very bad roads. Of course, those…

> Libertarian leaning myself, sad to say, this is the first time I am now in full realization that monopolies do in fact exist and are very dangerous.

YouTube is not a monopoly. There are other websites where you can post or watch video. Not as many people choose to use them, but you're not entitled to their attention anyway.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#207

Post by _bxg1 »

acituan wrote: post #51

I don’t agree with the interview contents, nor think professorship alone gives sufficient credibility in the face of a novel pandemic, data of which is in the process of emerging. That said, I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not. They don’t have in-house experts on these domains, they don’t have a magic epistemology machine that spits out the “facts”. They are good at writing web se…

And on the other end of the spectrum we have people being indoctrinated into violent conspiracy groups like QAnon, or being prompted to set fire to cell towers, or bringing measles back from the dead, because of YouTube videos. There's a line to be drawn here - and it's a tricky line, to be sure - but "YouTube should be totally neutral and not pull anything" is not a viable answer.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#208

Post by Barrin92 »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #135
otikik wrote: post #4

Is it this Karol Sikora? > Promotion of alternative medicine > Sikora and the School of Medicine at Buckingham have in the past been supportive of alternative medicine. For a short time, Buckingham offered a diploma in "integrated medicine" (a relatively recent euphemism for alternative medicine). Sikora was a Foundation Fellow of Prince Charles' now-defunct alternative medicine lobby group The Prince's Foundation fo…

With this reasoning, all food videos showing desserts with high calories and high sugar content should be banned, since obesity is an epidemic that kills and is harmful.

Not a bad idea. At least direct advertisement or false information about unhealthy food should be banned. This has already happened with tobacco or high caloric drinks in some countries like Singapore in physical stores.

These are relatively simple steps that would improve public health dramatically, I'm not really sure why these kinds of arguments are presented like some sort of self-evident zinger against censoring dangerous content.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#209

Post by takeda »

restingrobot wrote: post #194
takeda wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is your source? An opinion piece in a right leaning columnist in a biased NY Post, where author couldn't even help himself but include other unrelated tidbits, like how is Joe Biden and Tara Reade related to corona virus? There's nothing there to verify that even the characters in the story are real not to mention the story.

LOL this is the first I've ever heard of a "right leaning columnist" at the NY Post, opinion or not.

So what you are saying that a tabloid owned by Rupert Murdoch is not biased to the right?

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#210

Post by doktrin »

restingrobot wrote: post #194
takeda wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So this is your source? An opinion piece in a right leaning columnist in a biased NY Post, where author couldn't even help himself but include other unrelated tidbits, like how is Joe Biden and Tara Reade related to corona virus? There's nothing there to verify that even the characters in the story are real not to mention the story.

LOL this is the first I've ever heard of a "right leaning columnist" at the NY Post, opinion or not.

all you have to do is click on his name to see a list of his work.

https://nypost.com/author/michael-goodwin/

"Susan Rice's email exposes Team Obama's 'by the book' treachery"

"Shameful media still slamming Donald Trump during coronavirus crisis"

"Trump passes coronavirus test with flying colors"

"Deep State snakes slither back after FBI, CIA swamp draining"

yeah, definitely not a right leaning columnist.

Post reply on HN