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YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

reuters.com

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Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#61

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

Just like eating 'fads' lollies as a kid is not a slippery slope to drug addiction. Banning clear misinformation* is not a slippery slope to censorship.

Just like drug addiction, each step along the path to censorship is a clear decisive act. I am way more concerned about the fast train to banning encryption than the baby step of banning misinformation.

And by the way, let's also not lose sight of the fact that presenting misinformation is a bastard political act itself. Fuck those people.

Edit: *on a non government platform

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a particularly great argument (and is scientifically dubious). There are different strains of flus, colds, and recently, a few different strains of coronavirus. You can't generally be reinfected by the same strain. What can happen is that new strains can infect you. There are tons of cold strains around, and the flu mutates quickly enough that each year we get a new one, so vaccines have to be redeveloped…

> You can't generally be reinfected by the same strain. Unless the word "generally" is doing a lot of work in this sentence - YES YOU CAN be reinfected by the same strain. It's called "homologous reinfection": the person's natural immune response is not always up to the task of actually providing immunity to a specific viral strain, and that exact same viral strain can reinfect the patient even immediately after reco…

So you are agreeing with the statement, and describing a rare outlier exception. I believe the number of documented Covid-19 re-infections is very small, and that one (1) person has died after re-infection. Statistically speaking, we're still up in the six sigma range of people who have not been re-infected. This (statistics) is the basis of public health policy.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#63
post #61

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

Just like eating 'fads' lollies as a kid is not a slippery slope to drug addiction. Banning clear misinformation* is not a slippery slope to censorship. Just like drug addiction, each step along the path to censorship is a clear decisive act. I am way more concerned about the fast train to banning encryption than the baby step of banning misinformation. And by the way, let's also not lose sight of the fact that prese…

This is assuming that the YouTube management (or the software behind) is authoritative of what information is correct. In reality, YouTube has not just once banned stuff "by mistake" and will continue to do so.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#66
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just like eating 'fads' lollies as a kid is not a slippery slope to drug addiction. Banning clear misinformation* is not a slippery slope to censorship. Just like drug addiction, each step along the path to censorship is a clear decisive act. I am way more concerned about the fast train to banning encryption than the baby step of banning misinformation. And by the way, let's also not lose sight of the fact that prese…

This is assuming that the YouTube management (or the software behind) is authoritative of what information is correct. In reality, YouTube has not just once banned stuff "by mistake" and will continue to do so.

I make no such assumption. I merely suggest that the line between mistake and "mistake" is a deliberate step. It is a choice the management decided to take and were rightly ashamed of.

Making an argument for 'misinformation cesspit' over 'moderation' is just never going to be an argument you can win. Not with the business, and not with the public. This is one of those 'perfect is the enemy of good' things. If you don't give them a good business option to take, you will get handed the easy one (and it sure as shit is not going to be perfect).

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#67

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

Zzzz. Yeah that's a problem, but come back with a proposal about how to deal with the existing misinformation and bad faith problem.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#68
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Enter this search on Google and see what you get: "Is hydroxychloroquine effective in treating COVID-19?" what am I supposed to be looking at? is there supposed to be an info box that says "yes" or "no"?

Sorry for not being clear. I am not the best communicator. What you should notice upon entering that search term are the wildly conflicting results. Google will present a "No" answer near the top, but if you scroll down through the thousands of results, you will see some saying "Yes", some saying "No", and some saying "We don't know". Google (and all of the other big social media giants) was quick to post a definitiv…

Pointing to search engine results being varied for a specific query is not a citation.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay, first of all: it is 100% true that getting infected with COVID-19 does not provide immunity. There have been two cases identified of people who got reinfected after a full recovery https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/08/another-covid-19-rei... Second of all, this is not how vaccines work. Recovery from an illness does not mean that your immune system was maximally effective: a weak immune response coupled with…

The reinfections were likely from a genetically different strain. So was Trump more right or more wrong with his simplified message? I would say that if he tested negative, he would be unable to transmit infection so that part would be true. I would say that he could not be infected (with the same strain) so that would be also true. I don't believe any sensible person believes that they become immune to all strains a…

Not really, given that the genetic strains are pretty well tracked and regionally locked.

It's more likely that the reinfections came from different immune responses, where the first infection was beat with a cytotoxic T-cell response (viral defense) but not an antibody response (viral and bacterial defense), the latter of which increases immunity with antibodies.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#70

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

If misinformation leading to loss of life can be traced back to YT, wouldn't YT be far more at risk for across-the-board negative response? Science and politics have a massive intersection in the arena of public communication; e.g., fracking, nuclear energy, climate change, vaccines... IMO, any nation which cannot establish a harmonious relationship with their own institutions of science is in a shaky spot.

The whole point of freedom is that it's risky, but worth it. The first people who attack freedom always point to it's risk as a reason to remove it.
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