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

351–360 of 933 posts

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#351

Post by collyw »

kortilla wrote: post #304
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy to engage you in another forum, which would probably be more productive. Ping me if you'd like to video chat. But it's a good question and I'll try to reply in a brief and somewhat hand-wavy way (due to the medium, space, etc) Everything I'm going to say has caveats. And I can't cover them all. Meh. If you believe that the species as a whole has never been this unstable before, then the real question is this: w…

Your thesis is based on the notion that “society is unstable” more than ever before. How are you measuring that? Despite tons of noise in social media, real life up has been incredibly stable for the last couple of decades in the west. The least amount of violence, lowest extreme poverty, highest disposable income, etc etc. In the 70s (before social media), there were multiple bombings every year in the US. That is c…

>In the 70s (before social media), there were multiple bombings every year in the US. That is completely unfathomable today. T

We get quite a lot of Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe still, but they do seem to be getting less effective over time - A man with a knife rather than a man with a truck.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#352

Post by TomSwirly »

pjc50 wrote: post #299
DanielBMarkham wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Are you honestly claiming that banning paid lies on YouTube leads to Rohingya-style genocide?

It's increasingly difficult to have rational conversations with Americans these days, and this idea is certainly a big part of it.

It just astonishes me that Americans see little difference between a private company forbidding liars from using their free service, and people being rounded up at gunpoint and being killed.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#353

Post by fareesh »

CyanBird wrote: post #233
dandare wrote: post #186

Now think about all the conspiracy theories that actually turned out to be truth. MK ULTRA, Dark Alliance, Tuskegee Syphilis Study, COINTELPRO, PRISM, you name it. Would these be banned ("fact checked") from YouTube, Facebook or Twitter under these new rules? On the other hand, there is a clear evidence that authoritarian regimes (Russia) are weaponizing social media, using troll farms, puppet accounts and fake news,…

> there is a clear evidence that authoritarian regimes United States, say it with me, United States My country suffered a literal coup as a consequence of US meddling in our internal affairs and hijacking our media, newspapers, radio, against the national interest and democratic values of the nation spreading literal fake news I'll let you guess which country I am talking about, because heaven knows there's not only…

Sure nobody denies this but "you deserve it therefore stop complaining" is not really an argument, more like shutting down the point entirely. I agree with you that the sanctimonious outrage over the attempted, but laughable election interference is quite tone deaf.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#354

Post by hef19898 »

bufferoverflow wrote: post #307
tony101 wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Demonetize and demote these videos, without taking them down entirely. Make them accessible through search but do not recommend them to people who are not specifically looking for the videos.

What "these videos" though? How do you determine which ones are misinformation, when WHO was demonstrably wrong at least 3 times in this pandemic? What's your source of infallible truth?

And how often did the WHO insist that their stance, in any of these three cases which you didn't name, was correct after it turned out to be not the case?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#355

Post by swiley »

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.

Excommunicating people who disagree with you is how the catholic church works not science.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#356

Post by rv-de »

CyanBird wrote: post #233
dandare wrote: post #186

Now think about all the conspiracy theories that actually turned out to be truth. MK ULTRA, Dark Alliance, Tuskegee Syphilis Study, COINTELPRO, PRISM, you name it. Would these be banned ("fact checked") from YouTube, Facebook or Twitter under these new rules? On the other hand, there is a clear evidence that authoritarian regimes (Russia) are weaponizing social media, using troll farms, puppet accounts and fake news,…

> there is a clear evidence that authoritarian regimes United States, say it with me, United States My country suffered a literal coup as a consequence of US meddling in our internal affairs and hijacking our media, newspapers, radio, against the national interest and democratic values of the nation spreading literal fake news I'll let you guess which country I am talking about, because heaven knows there's not only…

> United States, say it with me, United States

Murrica ... Mur-ri-ca ... MURRICA!

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#357

Post by hef19898 »

cheph wrote: post #347
noahtallen wrote: post #310

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the idea is to censor untrue and dangerous ideas rather than unpopular ideas. Yes, determining that is challenging. But denying COVID, for example, is very dangerous to all of society. Thousands of people are dying because of COVID deniers. To me, this is theoretically similar as if a massive video campaign was messaging you to drink bleach. I’m sure that sort of video is against YouTube’s terms of service —…

> I think the idea is to censor untrue and dangerous ideas rather than unpopular ideas. I would definitely agree that if all viewpoints except mine were eliminated the world would be a better place.

I'd say this way of thinking is un-democratic, and deeply dangerous.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#358

Post by jpttsn »

noahtallen wrote: post #310
cheph wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I think the idea is to censor untrue and dangerous ideas rather than unpopular ideas. Yes, determining that is challenging. But denying COVID, for example, is very dangerous to all of society. Thousands of people are dying because of COVID deniers. To me, this is theoretically similar as if a massive video campaign was messaging you to drink bleach. I’m sure that sort of video is against YouTube’s terms of service —…

> But with a great production value, paid influencers, just the right wording and messaging, you can manipulate social networks into spreading very dangerous information and actually making people believe things that can kill them.

Clearly, you’d need an arbiter that is immune to such influences. Someone who knows what’s really true and can sensor the misinformation despite its high production values. I think the interesting question is where you’d find such an oracle, and how you’d convince it to work for YouTube.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#359

Post by fareesh »

It says "claims that contradict consensus" and then gives the example of content saying the that COVID19 vaccines will cause death or infertility - is there a consensus that a vaccine will be 100% non-fatal and not have infertility as a side-effect? I have not heard of this.

I understand the obvious point that there are people screaming at the camera saying it's part of the globalist trans-dimensional vampire plot to reduce the world population, led by the regular cast of rich characters - but what's wrong with saying that? Too many people believe it? In my country people perform idol worship, why isn't that banned? Poor people donate their paltry savings to temples, mosques, churches, etc. whose corrupt trustees often enrich themselves. It's not harmless.

I also understand that to successfully beat COVID-19 we need everyone to be on board - but has anyone gamed out what happens when you censor the people who have these views? Do you think it becomes easier to convince them to vaccinate or wear a mask? I am not impressed with the competence of the decision makers at YouTube.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#360

Post by blub »

belorn wrote: post #154
0xy wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dr Fauci publicly claimed masks were not effective as a means of protecting the supply of masks to healthcare workers, he knew his claims were false at the time he made them. So no, it wasn't "science", it was deliberately misleading public statements.

From the Swedish public health agency: "We do not currently recommend face masks in public settings since the scientific evidence around the effectiveness of face masks in combatting the spread of infection is unclear. However, there may be situations where face masks can be useful despite the uncertain state of knowledge about the effects. Face masks must always be seen as complementary to other recommendations: sta…

The science does not depend on who you ask.

As I was looking at this back in February / March there were plenty of studies dating back years or decades, looking at N95 and surgical masks and their role in preventing the spread of respiratory infections. The WHO and all western countries were claiming contrary to those studies that masks do not work and should not be worn. Then when things got more critical, EU countries did a 180 and started making masks mandatory or recommending them. Finally the WHO commissioned a meta-analysis and lo and behold in June it turned out that masks do work.

The Swedish public health agency's quite lonely in the opinion it holds now. But even so, I don't see why Sweden's or its health agency's opinion should count for anything in all of this. If anything I'd rather listen to what Taiwan, the KCDC or CCDC have to say, since they actually have some results to show besides empty words and opinions.

Post reply on HN