The "slippery slope" is always a lazy argument w. little substance. It's easy to get induction wrong even in simple math problems let alone trying to pigeonhole humanity into tidy formula. The idea that the market will regulate itself because (... because what?) is also lazy. The bottom line is it really makes a great deal of sense to say,"hey, don't drink bleach," "hey, no Nazis on this platform please!", "hey, it's…
YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
101–110 of 933 posts
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think I disagree with that statement. Censorship would prevent the information from being accessible, make it illegal, come with repercussions for those who publish it, or other such things. Platforms like YouTube, Google Search, Twitter, Facebook and all have a problem of amplification through algorithms that don't promote well proven, high quality, trusted content. You could almost see these platforms themselves…
...so you are saying that Google should stop recommending such videos, but has no reason to ban them entirely from being posted, right?
Though even with search, if the search algorithms are biased, and prioritize things in a way that could be argued to be recommendation, like personalized results based on what it thinks you'll like for the given keywords, you could say that's also a problem, which is why I mentioned Google Search.
To put it another way, you'd expect that the easiest content to find and discover, and thus be shown and recommended would also be the most commonly held opinion and current scientific consensus. But you'd also want representation for less commonly held opinions and scientific hypothesis and claims. Just that, if 1 scientist is pushing some wildly different idea, and 99 others are pushing the same idea, you'd expect that the idea pushed by 99 scientist would be the easiest to come around and that it be clear that it is weighted to 99%, while the other would be a little harder to come around and it be clear that it's weighted to 1%.
The issue is those platforms fail heavily to represent things proportionally as such. Often, the outlying wild claim will be recommended more heavily, and be promoted over others. Even without algorithms, the people pushing wild claims generally employ amplification tactics by spamming and posting multiple times over and over, etc. to falsely boost their representation.
So that's the problem I see here. Banning the more problematic instances of this is their poor solution to keep their platforms operating in a way that doesn't offer proper representation (because it makes more money), but avoid the extreme cases that could put them in hot water.
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#103Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#104Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
[citation needed]
Enter this search on Google and see what you get: "Is hydroxychloroquine effective in treating COVID-19?" Why should there be such a controversy about this issue? It only became political when Trump mentioned it.
Answer: No
Anyone believing the BS that this is an efficient drug is delusional
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#106The "slippery slope" is always a lazy argument w. little substance. It's easy to get induction wrong even in simple math problems let alone trying to pigeonhole humanity into tidy formula. The idea that the market will regulate itself because (... because what?) is also lazy. The bottom line is it really makes a great deal of sense to say,"hey, don't drink bleach," "hey, no Nazis on this platform please!", "hey, it's…
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#107Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#108The local health authorities (in the US) and the WHO also told us in February and March that masks were useless for normal people. Even though people in Asian countries were broadly wearing masks based on prior experience from SARS. It turns out that the US public health authorities and the WHO were both wrong.
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#109Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agree on this one - authoritative bodies can be wrong / misled as well, and shouldn't be the only arbiters of truth. Ex: The WHO made many mistakes during COVID, including faulty recommendations and (alleged) influence by a governing body to limit bad press. [1] (Before the ad hominem attacks come in, I'm obviously very pro vaccine...but against censorship and generally distrust authoritative bodies of most kinds.) […
> authoritative bodies can be wrong / misled as well, and shouldn't be the only arbiters of truth I agree, but with a very large caveat - the human brain is not good at probabilities, it basically only recognises “outcome A is guaranteed” and “outcomes A and B are equally likely”. So how much credit should we give to an authority who is correct 90% of the time? 90% isn’t great when it comes to life-or-death matters,…
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#110Earlier quoted context omitted.
More freedom of speech is the answer to misinformation because then it can be challenged. Censorship allows convenient mistruths to spread unchallenged.
> More freedom of speech is the answer to misinformation because then it can be challenged Do we have any evidence that it's true? Anecdotally, it seems that the more the internet has expanded our ability to communicate, the more widespread misinformation has gotten. I see the moral and anti-authoritarian arguments against censorship, but only in the context of accepting the costs. This "have your cake and eat it" ar…
I don't think this is the right conclusion. After thinking about it more, it's not like the internet is patient zero for conspiracies and misinformation. It's just that the internet has exposed to the rest of us how common it is for people to hold such beliefs.