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

YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 933 posts

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#291

Post by zaarn »

brigandish wrote: post #260
zaarn wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No because bullshit is easier to make than truth. There is dozens of bot channels that have nothing better to do at the moment but post videos that look like news channel broadcasts with a semi-convincing TTS reads various news regarding conspiracy theories (ie, "Bill Gates about to be arrested over 5G-Corona"). They post videos at almost hourly pace, distributed over several channels and each video has a unique imag…

> bullshit is easier to make than truth Of course, but truth wins out over the long run. > If normal well researched content had to compete with that, it would loose by being buried under the sheer mass of bot generated bullshit. How do you stay above it all? It's not censored now but you seem able to detect it and protect yourself. > A lot of conspiracy theorists aren't above threatening violence That is censorship,…

>Of course, but truth wins out over the long run.

I doubt that, and if that was even the case, until then lies can do a lot of damage.

>How do you stay above it all? It's not censored now but you seem able to detect it and protect yourself.

I don't. Sometimes I get fed bullshit and believe it. I'm certain there is things I believe right now that are lies. Sometimes I find out a more proper explanation, sometimes I never get any truth.

Getting behind what is lies and what not requires education, something the US for example has abandoned over time for the rich to enjoy.

>That is censorship, I'm not sure how that supports an argument for more free speech? We have laws against assault already.

Censorship is enacted by government, not private individuals. Besides, they are smart enough to never call for violence directly. They say "I wish someone would call SWAT on this guy" or "this kinda behaviour ends you with a broken nose wink wink".

>How could they win? Defamation laws, at least in the US, value truth above other considerations.

In the US, a lawsuit isn't about who is right but who has enough money to keep the lawsuit going for longer.

>Again, I'm not sure what this has to do with a free speech argument?

Free speech is valuable in respectful and calm debate. Disrespectful and violent speech is not free speech, it's violence.

>Violence and disrespect really are completely different ball games, I don't see how conflating them clarifies things

Reread, I don't conflate them.

>If you could find someone who can judge such things infallibly then perhaps I would agree.

It doesn't have to be infallible, just reasonably provable or not disprovable. If you're lying on purpose then this entire point is moot anyway, no need to prove anything. Then you're just out for harm.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#292

Post by cheph »

hef19898 wrote: post #269
cheph wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree that what YouTube is doing here is a slippery slope and it's scary. However, I personally think that this is now a war for democracy, and things are going to need to be sacrificed. YouTube choosing what you can see is as far from democracy as it can get. Not sure how you get from that to saving "democracy".

Youtube is part of a public, non-state-controlled entity. As such, it has close to nothing to do with democracy as a form of government. It does have a social impact, which then influences democracy. As such, Youtube, and FB and Twitter and all the others, do have a responsibility for all of us. And they have to be held accountable for their actions, up to know they just raked in the profits and gave shit about anyth…

What I don't see in your response is an actual argument for how YouTube doing something which not democratic is good for democracy.

> up to know they just raked in the profits and gave shit about anything else. Them now changing that is a good thing.

Censoring unpopular and controversial views on their platform makes it more attractive for advertisers, which is good for YouTube's bottom line. This action in no way indicates an renunciation of a profit motive.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#293

Post by crististm »

CyanBird wrote: post #228
crististm wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point is that youtube is not an absolute authority and truth reference. So when they decide what is misinformation they position themselves above public scrutiny. It's not that the masses are dumb or smart. The few deciders from Youtube are not truth dispensers that we should all trust above all else.

And the few people on the editorial boards of selected news papers or wherever are? Do I need to mention the "kicking babies out of incubators", or the "Iraq has chemical weapons" bits? Do you honestly prefer to give the manufacture of consent machinery to the exact same people that had it before hand? The very reason why people don't trust the media is because the old "guardians of the news" thoroughly failed at the…

The editors of those selected papers are not truth fountains either. They at least have the backbone to sign and suffer if need be.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#294

Post by csomar »

pzmTWLwfwJ wrote: post #126
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #115

Yay, this is great, and should be used for everything! /s If we used this for medical advice in my country, this would make it very funny... at the start of the epidemic, our government "experts" said: - "healthy people don't need masks" ...and youtube would censor all the "fearmongering paranoics" advocating for mask use. Then on some random spring day, our government makes a new rule: - "you need a mask and gloves…

Isn't this how science works, you have new information and you use it to make a better decision.

The problem is that govts around the world didn't do this in a scientific fashion. They had mask shortages and wanted to keep the masks for health workers and also not make people worry. Now they have masks and want everyone to wear one.

Very hard to have any credibility after a few similar interactions. This is not about speech all over the world (maybe except China), this is about the political elites losing leadership.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#295

Post by AlchemistCamp »

hef19898 wrote: post #254
tomp wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you talking about?! Don’t blame social media, the biggest and loudest source of COVID-related misinformation have been institutions like the WHO. There is very little science (we don’t yet have enough data, and not enough time has passed), so all we have to go on is “broscience” (smartly connecting anecdotal facts and whatever little data we have, and drawing sensible conclusions). By designating one opinion…

The WHO, and all other western CDC-like orgs, made one mistake regarding masks early on during the pandemic. One. A mistake they corrected since. And because of that, you and other see them as totally discredited. On the other hand, the "alternative" sources suggest bleach, un-proofed and not working medication, global conspiracies involving chips and 5G and what not. Seriously, get a grip.

Completely false. The WHO claimed there was no evidence of human to human transmission after doctors in Wuhan were already getting sick, failed to share warnings from Taiwanese researchers with the rest of the world, argued against travel restrictions from China and also claimed mask use wasn't helpful.

They did a horrible job that has cost many, many lives. I've been in Taiwan and was gritting my teeth while diffing what they were saying vs local reporting from December through March.

I'm not sure what one would expect from an organization that voted in a director general with this track record: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/13/health/candidate-who-dire...

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#296

Post by raxxorrax »

hef19898 wrote: post #269
cheph wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree that what YouTube is doing here is a slippery slope and it's scary. However, I personally think that this is now a war for democracy, and things are going to need to be sacrificed. YouTube choosing what you can see is as far from democracy as it can get. Not sure how you get from that to saving "democracy".

Youtube is part of a public, non-state-controlled entity. As such, it has close to nothing to do with democracy as a form of government. It does have a social impact, which then influences democracy. As such, Youtube, and FB and Twitter and all the others, do have a responsibility for all of us. And they have to be held accountable for their actions, up to know they just raked in the profits and gave shit about anyth…

Holding them accountable by giving them more power sounds like a losing strategy. Because that is exactly what the "pressure on big tech" has done in favor of classical publishers that thank them by favoring their censorious actions in articles.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#297

Post by bufferoverflow »

owlbynight wrote: post #174

I'll preface this by stating that I hate the idea of censorship and I always have. However, were I to happen across someone motionless on the floor with a needle in their arm, I would give them NARCAN instead of a ride to a rehab center. I'm from the United States. Social media is currently poisoning our country to a degree that I think it may be too late to try and draw out the fight for free speech by using free sp…

You don't hate the idea of censorship. You openly support it.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#298

Post by hef19898 »

cheph wrote: post #292
hef19898 wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Youtube is part of a public, non-state-controlled entity. As such, it has close to nothing to do with democracy as a form of government. It does have a social impact, which then influences democracy. As such, Youtube, and FB and Twitter and all the others, do have a responsibility for all of us. And they have to be held accountable for their actions, up to know they just raked in the profits and gave shit about anyth…

What I don't see in your response is an actual argument for how YouTube doing something which not democratic is good for democracy. > up to know they just raked in the profits and gave shit about anything else. Them now changing that is a good thing. Censoring unpopular and controversial views on their platform makes it more attractive for advertisers, which is good for YouTube's bottom line. This action in no way in…

The point being, nothing Youtube does is un-democratic to beginn with.

And up to now, Youtube and FB gained from contrversial content, not the other way round.

You are entitled to your opinion and to say it in public. You are not entitled to be protected from the social consequences. And if what you say is true, that this move drives the add revenue, that is only because people want to distance themselves from these views. Which would tell us something about public views. I just don't thin that is the case.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#299

Post by pjc50 »

DanielBMarkham wrote: post #195
owlbynight wrote: post #174

I'll preface this by stating that I hate the idea of censorship and I always have. However, were I to happen across someone motionless on the floor with a needle in their arm, I would give them NARCAN instead of a ride to a rehab center. I'm from the United States. Social media is currently poisoning our country to a degree that I think it may be too late to try and draw out the fight for free speech by using free sp…

I hate it as well, and if I could come up with some new way of advancing our species aside from free speech I would. I cannot and cannot see how such a thing would ever be possible. Here's a bit of sunshine: the human species has not changed in thousands of years. We're still the same hairless monkeys we were back when people were thinking up all kinds of cool shit. Knowing this, it follows that 10% or so of the popu…

> we've solved over and over again the problem of what it takes to have a peaceful and progressive society

... have we? Much of the 20th century was spent at war, with a death total somewhere in the region of a hundred million. As were most of the previous centuries. There have been isolated pockets where one might have a lifetime of stability over a wide area, but few of those were also "free".

> The problem we have is that social media should not exist

The challenge is to thread the needle between freedom degenerating into chaos and murder (Rohingya, etc) and total clampdown that also escalates into disappearances and murder.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#300

Post by foepys »

hef19898 wrote: post #269
cheph wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I agree that what YouTube is doing here is a slippery slope and it's scary. However, I personally think that this is now a war for democracy, and things are going to need to be sacrificed. YouTube choosing what you can see is as far from democracy as it can get. Not sure how you get from that to saving "democracy".

Youtube is part of a public, non-state-controlled entity. As such, it has close to nothing to do with democracy as a form of government. It does have a social impact, which then influences democracy. As such, Youtube, and FB and Twitter and all the others, do have a responsibility for all of us. And they have to be held accountable for their actions, up to know they just raked in the profits and gave shit about anyth…

> Them now changing that is a good thing.

I agree but it's not selfless or altruism. In the EU they are one law away from being effectively shut down.

The EU commission is eyeing the behavior of social media networks for a while now and the increasing misinformation and radicalization of groups like white supremacists or QAnon pose a very real threat to democracy and society.

If the social media giants like Facebook, Twitter, Google, etc. don't do anything against this, the EU will make a law that will make the social networks check each and every post for unlawful content.

Post reply on HN