Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
The fact that you have to ask speaks volumes about the current state of affairs.
YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
491–500 of 933 posts
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#492I'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…
> Banning obvious bullshit, albeit akin to censorship, is NARCAN.
I'll agree with your plan for banning "obvious bullshit" so long as I get to decide what constitutes "obvious bullshit". Don't like that idea? Then why should I like it when you get to decide? Or when some Google policy goon gets to decide? I never voted for you or for that policy goon.
Whenever you give anyone power to censor b"obvious bullshit", it takes a few milliseconds for "obvious bullshit" to become "political positions I dislike". That's how people work. The disruption to the free flow of information is more harmful than any amount of bullshit. Your "war for democracy" is in fact a war against democracy, since democracy is about building a distributed consensus about what constitutes truth, not about letting unelected censors control the public.
Anyone who tries to control what strangers say to each other is someone who wants to control your thoughts and rule over you. No thanks.
Social media is not some kind of existential problem. What you're claiming is a massive civilization-scale problem is what people claimed about the printing press. Oh no! Anyone can make a pamphlet! This terrible danger must be dealt with! We can't allow the bible to be published in lay people's language! They might misinterpret it if they can read it without the help of priests! Smash the presses! -- this is what people actually thought. Now we think this attitude is ridiculous, because it is.
The real danger we have right now is a few people using their influence over social media platforms to control public conversation and subvert democracy by manipulating the conversation. I am completely opposed to all SV attempts to decide for themselves what is true and what is false and censor eight billion people based on the result. No. They do not get to have that power.
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#493I'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 hear people say free speech is "a threat to our democracy" often these days. I've never understood, can you clarify what you mean? Is it an actual threat to your right to vote? Or is it just a threat to people voting the way you like? In which case isn't the answer just to put out equally salacious information in the opposite direction? That seems like the democratic option to me.
i suggest asking yourself a theoretical question: is a vote to end democracy democratic?
then look up cases in history when such a vote took place.
free speech here is used as a tool to convince people to vote against democracy (and/or free speech itself).
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#494I'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 think it’s risky to believe something is a war. It’s too often this line of thinking that is used to remove civil liberties.
I take a different view. We are actively having an open debate and that is a good thing.
YouTube is not part of our government, they are like a magazine or tv station of the past and they can and IMO have the right to choose what content they allow or disallow and this is totally fine and has nothing to do with free speech (in the legal sense)
Now if we past a law that stated I can not speak my mind about covid that would be a law that IMO violates the 1st amendment.
But what is happening today is not bad it’s just one company making a decision on it’s own.
A separate question for the legal system to probably decide is whether YouTube as part of Google is acting as a monopoly to abuse its power. But I do not think anything about YouTubes decision as a business to not allow certain content published is anyway a matter of our 1st amendment rights... hopefully my perspective isn’t too poorly received - but thankfully you can down vote me, or up vote me and I don’t have to worry about being throw in jail for posting - happy hacking
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#495Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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…
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…
No, I shouldn't just pick up the phone more. I dislike talking on the phone. I'm happy we have instant text communication. It doensn't require me (in general) to stop what I'm doing and talk to someone and I can have a private conversation - well, at least private to anyone sitting around me. I'm truly don't want to give it up.
And go out.. where, exactly?
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#496Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something has to be done. Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage. We have always selected acceptable content and it has usually been a positive. Schools have always picked which info to teach and what to not and that's largely a positive thing.
> Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population By definition, 'Obvious bullshit' cannot fool huge chunks of the population. If some bullshit can fool a huge part of the population then it is not obvious to them.
When people say things like "Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population", they * mean* "views that I find disagreeable are becoming popular". Tough luck: that's how democracy works.
Anyone who wants to get in the way of strangers talking to each other is someone who thinks he's your king.
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#497Earlier quoted context omitted.
Something has to be done. Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage. We have always selected acceptable content and it has usually been a positive. Schools have always picked which info to teach and what to not and that's largely a positive thing.
> Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage. “Obvious” is debatable. Hardly anyone watching scientific content of any kind is an expert in the subject matter. What the public has always relied on is some sort of authority figure lending credibility to some idea or news story. For instance, saying masks don’t work is “obvious” bullshit. But remember back in March? Our glorious l…
Censoring content like this is pure bullshit that will have little effect on the positive side, but complaining about a measures that may safe lives is also not really enlightened in any way.
My country made masks for protests mandatory. Now people are complaining too. I would say that you should enjoy this new freedom. In normal times you meet the water cannon if you show up with a mask to a protest.
The problem is that many outlets lied directly in their readers faces with a reference to intelligence agencies. Turns out it was all a bunch of bullshit too.
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#498This would be great in a universe where it was possible to know the truth with absolute certainty.
Scientists disagree about this stuff, so how is YouTube in a position to determine what's misinformation and what isn't?
Why is censorship suddenly so in vogue now?
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#499I question what constitutes censorship here to people? Is all censorship is bad? Moderation is bad? Should Hacker News in particular not have rules to censor content that does not follow rules? Censorship has and will always be part of our lives. The problem is the application of it. I applaud YouTube, Twitter and FB primarily for trying to not facilitate distribution of bullshit all because free speech. Free speech…
And in what way are YouTube, Twitter and Facebook qualified to determine what's bullshit and what isn't?
What really happens is that those services just end up forcing their values/beliefs on their users.
Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation
#500I'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…
> things are going to need to be sacrificed I say this for emphasis, not to personally attack you: Whenever I read or hear this it makes me extremely suspicious, because it often doesn't come from those who will do the sacrifice themselves. Censorship and other forms of regulating free speech is simply never a good solution. Perpetrators of lies will even hide behind this, and create a false image of rebellious heroi…
> certify and emphasize content that is grounded in science and verify content creators of such
Respectfully, how does this help? My impression is that the majority of the people who believe that e.g. vaccines are detrimental think that credentialing by traditional sources that don't agree with them (e.g. mainstream media) is simply evidence that the party has been compromised.
You'd be creating a subset of YouTube that is easier to ignore for the people who wish to.