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YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

reuters.com

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Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#441

Post by brongondwana »

pjc50 wrote: post #420
blub wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, if we could snap our fingers and wish social media out of existence tomorrow nothing really bad would happen, besides some influencers becoming poorer. The opposite of social media today (election manipulation, divided societies, ethnic cleansing) is the state of affairs before social media, which wasn't bad at all. I'm struggling to think of large-scale benefits social media has brought us, because the ind…

Obliterating email and whatsapp would probably put a lot of people out of business permanently, far more so than the pandemic. "But I didn't mean those!" OK, fine, now we need to define social media. Clearly everybody wants to count Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But some of the major incidents come from memetic circulation of fake news and racial hatred propaganda etc on Whatsapp. The Christchurch shooter (and ot…

> OK, fine, now we need to define social media.

Here's my definition of the elements of "toxic social media":

1) the automated surfacing of messages from random people because they are "popular" (i.e. highly engaged) mixed in with personal messages. This is the amplifying effect that makes things hot.

2) the immediacy - a message can be spread insanely rapidly, faster than any individual humans can understand or respond to it. This is the fuel.

It's the fact that it happens at an inhuman scale that I think is the biggest part. Email at a human-to-human level is like letter writing. Information can travel through it, but it can't amplify by bypassing the human connections in the way that Twitter trending topics can. Likewise 1:1 or limited-sized groups on Whatsapp.

I'd even put Facebook groups into that bucket, so long as they're full of humans who know each other. It's once you get to groups with millions of people who don't know each other directly that things get out of hand.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#442

Post by UncleMeat »

concordDance wrote: post #301
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…

> 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 speech alone. Why do people think this? A few selected anecdotes and some tiny numbers (1000 people liking a post talking about covid causing 5G? Tiny numbers)? What is the end-game that is so feared? If the people as a whole can't be trusted to make sensible decisi…

The end game is hard radicalization towards fascism by movements like qanon, which structurally encourages its followers to take matters into their own hands and commit acts of violence based on modern Blood Libel.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#443

Post by brongondwana »

dTal wrote: post #435
pjc50 wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obliterating email and whatsapp would probably put a lot of people out of business permanently, far more so than the pandemic. "But I didn't mean those!" OK, fine, now we need to define social media. Clearly everybody wants to count Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. But some of the major incidents come from memetic circulation of fake news and racial hatred propaganda etc on Whatsapp. The Christchurch shooter (and ot…

You raise a good point. Is the problem "social media", or is it simply democratized publishing? Would a "fediverse" of distributed blogs really be more resistant to misinformation, or would it just be harder to censor? Is this simply a problem inherent to the internet?

The fediverse would be better because it wouldn't have an algorithm choosing things to show you based on what keeps you engaged.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#444

Post by moralestapia »

paul_f wrote: post #306
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…

What we need is a Ministry of Truth to decide what is real and what is misinformation.

You are missing an /s, right? ... r-right? :S

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#445

Post by lr4444lr »

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…

Democracy functions with an educated electorate. If you're saying that YouTube has to act as gatekeeper ban non-libellous, legal misinformation, you're passing a grim judgment on your fellow citizens which implies that the battle for the country is already lost.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#446

Post by clinta »

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…

Regardless of what the science says, Fauci believed masks worked, and he engaged in a deliberate misinformation campaign with the goal of preserving PPE for medical staff.

People who have admitted publicly to engaging in a misinformation campaign are now considered to be the authorities against which dissenting views will be judged misinformation.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#447

Post by indymike »

spuz wrote: post #191
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'd be interested to know what your thoughts are on the UK and German models of "free speech" where no one has an absolute right to say what they want - certain subjects such as Holocaust denial or promotion of terrorism are banned. You could argue that we have been on a slippery slope for a long time but you could equally argue the slippery slope is a fallacy. I think it's important to think about what the actual pu…

"I'd be interested to know what your thoughts are on the UK and German models of "free speech" where no one has an absolute right to say what they want"

The US version of freedom of speech was created based on personal experience with the British model. The American version is broad and almost absolute. The British model was a document that said you had it and a crown that would execute you or take your property for your words (usually when those words were against the crown).

Freedom of speech is fundamental to freedom of conscious, which is different than "live freely without undue influence from others". I'm very happy with American style freedom of speech, where the cure to speech you don't like is more speech instead of jail and violence.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#448

Post by clinta »

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…

Just wait until the CIA is considered the foreign affairs authority, and all information that disagrees with them is considered misinformation.

The US government will be able to engage in as many coups as they want and Google and Facebook will help make sure nobody ever knows.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#449

Post by cambalache »

concordDance wrote: post #301
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…

> 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 speech alone. Why do people think this? A few selected anecdotes and some tiny numbers (1000 people liking a post talking about covid causing 5G? Tiny numbers)? What is the end-game that is so feared? If the people as a whole can't be trusted to make sensible decisi…

People think that because it was their honest hope/belief that technology would work to amplify ONLY the kind of information they like: Vote liberal, open the borders, affirmative action everywhere, include tech elites in decision making, heavier taxes for everyone above my income bracket, condemn every country who is not a western liberal democracy. When they realized that technology is amplifying EVERYBODY voices from the town's loony to ideological enemies they want to reign the system back, they dont want actual freedom, they want finely tuned control masked as a virtue.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#450

Post by 542354234235 »

sasavilic wrote: post #372
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…

The problem with censorship is that it "proves" that there is a "conspiracy" and it is like putting gas on a fire. I know this from people around me who believe in that stuff. If something is taken offline, than that "damn mainstream media is trying to hide a truth". EDIT: IMHO, it would be much better option to flag/warn that video as misleading and provide link to resources with correct information.

I would argue that the real gas on the conspiracy fire is the combination of the ad/attention based internet economy and the power of algorithms. They plug in data and tell algorithms to increase viewing time and clicks, however you can. Well, it turns out that of all the topics people are interested in, outrage is one of the best ways to keep people engaged and to encourage them to engage others. So when person X clicks on one news item questioning vaccine safety, the algorithm starts sprinkling in more inflammatory articles and a few videos. So they click on a couple. Which leads them to groups of other people that reinforce the belief and leads to more clicks and more viewership. Very quickly, most of their online experience shows them that vaccines never worked, that it is a government hoax, and there are a plethora of “experts” to back up and continually reinforce this idea. We seem to have accidentally automated conspiracy theory propagation.
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