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

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

#421

Post by 2019-nCoV »

_bxg1 wrote: post #207
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.

What is wrong with relying on the existing legal foundation? Arrest them for arson, if and when they decide to ravage a cell tower.

Should we halt the sale of knives because they can be misused to murder?

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

#422

Post by rmrfstar »

ilikehurdles wrote: post #366
adarioble wrote: post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a sense that is a default go to platform for many people when searching for (video) content.

Being the most popular platform doesn’t make something a monopoly.

Instead of arguing about the semantics of "monopoly," it could be fun to ask "does YouTube have power that we as a self-governing people should regulate?"

I think it does. Others disagree. Sometimes it's an interesting discussion.

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

#423

Post by s1artibartfast »

drunkpotato wrote: post #124

YouTube consistently followed their policy of removing videos which promote misinformation, disinformation, and policy proposals that contradict the World Health Organization's official guidelines during an emergency pandemic. I have my problems with YouTube, but this isn't censorship, and it isn't a conspiracy to silence anyone. It's an effort to be responsible to public health and safety. The hysteria I see here is…

I understand the theoretical basis for removing misinformation and disinformation, but policy proposals is an entirely different ballpark.

Two reasonable people can agree on the underlying facts but disagree on policy.

Additionally, this is absolutely censorship and an effort to silence people. It is not an illegal act of censorship. similarly, you can agree that it is legal, but still not like the censorship.

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

#424

Post by 2019-nCoV »

saulrh wrote: post #359
HomeDeLaPot wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a fine point, but YouTube isn't restricted to the option of taking down videos. They could stop recommending these videos, and they could pull them from search results. Actually, YouTube might be a better place if new videos were unlisted by default and teams of curators were responsible for approving new channels. But then maybe someone would just build their own YouTube index and search engine.

That works right up until the content-creator community or HN or Reddit riots about "the algorithm".

Opposed to them rioting about "the vehement censorship"?

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

#425

Post by RandomTisk »

raspasov wrote: post #404
takeda wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just guerilla advertising? So weird, that video is in the article that claims it was banned.

I would have been really surprised if they actually removed it. The points made in the video are mostly sensible. They acknowledge the many unknowns. It more or less advocates for the Swedish model of dealing with this vs. most other countries.

Google deleted / censored CSPAN video of a Senator on the floor of the Senate[0].

[0] https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/01/c-span-video-of-ran...

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

#426

Post by AgentME »

cfmcdonald wrote: post #283

I can't help but wonder if there is a generational divide occurring in these censorship debates. Some contributors to the discussion seem to believe that everyone has a natural right to post a video and have it available to (if not see by) a global audience. As someone who grew up in the 1980s this is a strange point-of-view to me, but I can see how it might feel more natural to someone who came of age in the 2010s.

This is getting more into forums than platforms like YouTube, but I like how the article "Well-Kept Gardens Die By Pacifism" (https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/tscc3e5eujrsEeFN4/well-kept-...) describes this divide:

>Maybe it's because I grew up on the Internet in places where there was always a sysop, and so I take for granted that whoever runs the server has certain responsibilities. Maybe I understand on a gut level that the opposite of censorship is not academia but 4chan (which probably still has mechanisms to prevent spam). Maybe because I grew up in that wide open space where the freedom that mattered was the freedom to choose a well-kept garden that you liked and that liked you, as if you actually could find a country with good laws. Maybe because I take it for granted that if you don't like the archwizard, the thing to do is walk away (this did happen to me once, and I did indeed just walk away).

I think many people coming to the internet nowadays have had their formative internet experiences on large social media sites, where moderation is both impersonal and rare, to the point that users don't bother understanding it because it's unlikely to affect them, and then if it does affect them, the reasons for it aren't understood and they feel singled out. When these people hear someone talk about smaller better-moderated places, they can't understand the appeal, as if it were proposed to them that a site would be better with more boogeymen.

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

#428

Post by ehsankia »

raspasov wrote: post #404
takeda wrote: post #399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So just guerilla advertising? So weird, that video is in the article that claims it was banned.

I would have been really surprised if they actually removed it. The points made in the video are mostly sensible. They acknowledge the many unknowns. It more or less advocates for the Swedish model of dealing with this vs. most other countries.

Their automated system has a non-zero false-positive rate. It will from time to time accidentally take down legitimate videos, which they restore fairly quickly once you request a manual review, such as in this case.

Yet people still jump to conclusion and assume malintent, posting headlines which imply Youtube is intentionally removing these videos. Clickbait.

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

#429

Post by s1artibartfast »

biztos wrote: post #324

Am I the only one bothered by people talking about “censorship” in this context? A private company chose to remove content from its service because it considers that content to be bad, and probably in violation of its terms. Did the government force it to do so? Is somebody preventing the owner of the video from hosting it on their own web site? Censorship is a real thing in the world, and so is crying wolf.

There is censorship and government censorship. Both are real and people can have valid opinions on both.

I like it when the government censors child pornography, but I don't like it when they censor political speech.

I like it when corporations censors child pornography, not not when they censor minority opinions on covid policy

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

#430

Post by ta17711771 »

ehsankia wrote: post #427

tl;dr: There are millions of videos about COVID-19 being uploaded to Youtube and they have a non-zero false-positive rate. This was accidentally removed and promptly restored upon manual review. Basically nothing to see here.

> promptly restored upon manual review.

Promptly restored upon viral traction of outrage...just like that podcast app was....

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