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YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

reuters.com

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Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#691
post #680
post #465

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they were denying it a week earlier: https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152

Their actual message is exactly what you should want and expect from a science based organisation: Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China🇨🇳. There is nothing false or misleading, and they updated the public as new information came to light. I can't emphasis enough h…

The Taiwanese CDC shared evidence in December that strongly suggested human-to-human transmission[1]. The WHO chose not to share this communication and went further by publishing the above tweet which suggested the exact opposite.

Their co-lead on COVID-19 even went so far as to hang up on a journalist[2] who asked about Taiwan.

If this is your idea of "correct behaviour" for a scientific org, I cringe to imagine your vision of a poorly run one.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov.tw/En/Bulletin/Detail/PAD-lbwDHeN_bLa-vi....

[2] https://youtu.be/fASh2_RzMuE

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#692
post #472
post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Censorship and other forms of regulating free speech is simply never a good solution. The almost free speech on the other side of the ocean seems to be working pretty well. You get to say anything that isn’t actively harmful to others, but you won’t be able to advertise bleach as a way to get Corona out of your system.

Sure, arresting people for quoting Churchill seems like a potential definition of "working". [1] There's no way that arresting people for a twitter post [2] could be abused. Nobody needs free speech for reposting rap lyrics. [3]

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

[1] https://thenewamerican.com/hate-speech-u-k-political-leader-...

[2] https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/arrests-offensive-face...

[3] https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-merseyside-43816921

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#693
post #631

The YouTube suggestion algorithm is the problem! Create a new account, watch any political video, and then click through the suggestions. Keep clicking through the suggestions and in hour you will be on some extremist nonsense. YouTube is the source of this problem, and their solution is censorship? It's ridiculous. Show people the videos they have subscribed or searched for, and that's it. The majority of people don…

The YouTube suggestion algorithm is also amazing. As a hobbyist I find so much cool stuff completely unrelated to politics. I hope they can fix the bad without ruining the good, is what I'm saying.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#694

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…

> things are going to need to be sacrificed. What a comically cliche and stereotypical error that people keep making. 20 years ago it was the Bush and Cheney saying the same thing. Now its the liberals saying that the "poor, ignorant masses" need to be saved from themselves. For the record, I'm also a liberal, but old school liberal, not the contemporary liberal that eschews giving the same rights to those that I dis…

> The only thing that will save us as a society is completely unadulterated free speech.

I really want this to be true, but I have doubts. Do you know any resources that expand and elaborate on this point?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#695
post #631

The YouTube suggestion algorithm is the problem! Create a new account, watch any political video, and then click through the suggestions. Keep clicking through the suggestions and in hour you will be on some extremist nonsense. YouTube is the source of this problem, and their solution is censorship? It's ridiculous. Show people the videos they have subscribed or searched for, and that's it. The majority of people don…

You don't even have to watch a political video. I have crap popping up all the time, "Watch this professor get destroyed by !" I know youtube is a shithole and yet it still surprises me. My son's favorite kid's show is only on YouTube so I created a new account, subscribed just to their channel and still inappropriate content shows up. How hard is this? I also can't block it for my daughter because she has school ass…

I use this extension for Firefox, which does the job pretty well: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/remove-youtub...

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember the day I learned that Youtube comes preinstalled on iOS devices -- because the Youtube app somehow (despite never being used, let alone being logged into Google) managed to put a push notification on my home screen -- a push notification for a new upload from a fringe alt-right channel with just a few thousand views. Naturally, every single recommended video on that video was alt-right and far right wing…

Youtube hasn't come preinstalled on iOS for like 8 years (removed in iOS 6).. so I really have no idea what you're getting at.

Fair enough, according to my Apple ID history I did in fact install it a couple years ago. But the point still stands - the app wasn't used, not connected to any account, yet one day it still pushed extremist content to my home screen.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#697
post #655

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting free speech wrong, at least by european standards. In Sweden or in France, you can certainly discuss the topics you proposed without risking prison or worse. But free speech applies to other people as well, who are equally free to refute your opinion. Free speech is not censorship merely because it stops at other people's basic rights. That's merely finding a balance between fundamental rights that may…

Conversations about Muslim integration are sensitive enough that you wouldn't mention them in your workplace in fear of being labelled racist and possible repercussions. Not quite illegal, but its going that direction.

"If I say shitty racist things that others correctly perceive as shitty and racist people won't want to associate with me" isn't even remotely comparable to the state putting you in jail and it requires an incredibly easily bruised sense of self to suggest it.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#698
post #631

The YouTube suggestion algorithm is the problem! Create a new account, watch any political video, and then click through the suggestions. Keep clicking through the suggestions and in hour you will be on some extremist nonsense. YouTube is the source of this problem, and their solution is censorship? It's ridiculous. Show people the videos they have subscribed or searched for, and that's it. The majority of people don…

How is this different from the outrage factories of the tabloid news?

Is YouTube’s approach to extremist content different from a tabloid in any way other than efficiency/reach?

Are we really complaining about a basic aspect of human psychology rather than a business innovation from these companies?

If we smash YouTube, what about the tabloid press? How do we actually regulate this stuff in a consistent way? (And how do we do it inside the confines of the first amendment?)

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#699
post #685

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And last year in January they didn't even talk about it. Why would we listen anyway? I hope that's not your point.

Do you mean in January 2020? They were talking about it a lot then: they had daily situation reports on the WHO website. I know because I was reading them!

No January 2019. As a reply to the WHO revising their opinion on human-to-human transmission commment above. I read the situation reports a lot as well, I guess I'll start doing so again.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the NYT isn't highly likely to publish things that source to Russian propaganda ops, The people who lied us into Iraq?

Yes, those people. As I said, they get tripped from time-to-time, but they modify their process when it happens. In that case, they had multiple intelligence agency sources feeding them the same bad data, so their cross-checks failed. They've down-sampled the reliability of those sources in subsequent years.

Everything about your response screams "naivete".

The NYTimes role in society is packaging official narratives for mass consumption. Their MO is mindlessly repeating whatever the IC tells them. This is not a new concept [1].

[1] https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/orwells-proposed-introduc...

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