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YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

reuters.com

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Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#721

Post by walterbell »

shawnz wrote: post #648
Mattasher wrote: post #543

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put another way, almost free speech works great for those with power, and badly for everyone else. When people advocate censorship of any kind, they're really saying, "I have the correct views held by the establishment, so I'm not worried about it."

> "I have the correct views held by the establishment, so I'm not worried about it." If the establishment's views are strongly codified and checks and balances are in place to maintain them, is that so bad?

If existing reality seems to "work", is it so bad to exclude non-establishment innovations, while the larger world/markets continue to compete and innovate?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#722

Post by ativzzz »

umvi wrote: post #626

@dang can I make a suggestion? On threads with high comment counts, put numerical pagination links at the very top of the comments. Otherwise to see the next pages of comments I have to scroll to the bottom, click "more", scroll to the bottom again, click "more" again... If I could just click a little "1", "2", "3", etc. to jump straight to second and third page top level comments, I think it would help improve visib…

Problem is it seems that the order of posts frequently changes within a discussion tree. I don't think HN was really built with these large discussions in mind.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#723

Post by read_if_gay_ »

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #647
read_if_gay_ wrote: post #583

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are so afraid of losing "one correct idea" that we allow orders of magnitude more bad ones to flourish and drown out good ideas anyway. The price we’re paying is not just that one correct idea. We’re giving up debate. That is expensive .

The large amounts of misinformation also threatens debate, does it not? Most misinformation and conspiracy theories are not looking for proper debate and often times result to logical fallacies and falsehoods to prove their point. Thus, proper debate is drowned out. By and large I don't think debate is threatened. We have to draw a pragmatic line somewhere, otherwise we will waste time debating if the earth is flat a…

I don't know if conspiracies do that much harm to debate. They're quite the fringe topic. Misinformation, yes, but classifying misinformation (in its not-so-obvious forms) is a hard problem. So while I agree there needs to be a line, I also think that in enforcing a ban on misinformation we will necessarily end up limiting debate. The line should stay at something like inciting violence.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#724

Post by ativzzz »

thinkingemote wrote: post #373
alexandr1us wrote: post #179

So happy to see that most HN users aren't pro censorship CCP bullshit. Thank you for your existence you are good people

Given the time right now, silicon valley hasn't woken up yet. It's currently mostly Europeans here who have a deeper connection to authoritarian history. Once the Americans get here, expect to see more support or at the very least the tired "actually this is a company therefore it's not censorship"

People don't do a good job of solving problems until it happens to them. Give us until after WW3 and then we'll be onboard.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#725

Post by umvi »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #716
umvi wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free speech is a meaningless freedom if there are effectively zero public fora in which you can exercise it. "I said some garbage on Rush Limbaugh's show, so he hung up on me" "So then I put it on Facebook, but Facebook censored it" "So then I put it on Youtube, but Google censored it" "So then I self hosted, but then Cloudflare censored it" "So then I hosted it out of my own house, but then Comcast blocked it" "Oh w…

Youtube and facebook refusing to host something is not a slippery slope to something being completely censored. Anyone can rent a server in pretty much any country. Saying the biggest companies in the world not hosting you is the same as being completely censored is like saying you will die of thirst if you aren't allowed to drink coke.

> like saying you will die of thirst if you aren't allowed to drink coke.

I will die of thirst though if every source of water has a megacorp in the supply chain that can cut me off from it.

Imagine a world where your tap water is ultimately sourced from Dasani. And imagine Dasani can cut off my water if I say bad things they don't like. That is the world we live in: s/tap water/information/g, s/Dasani/tech megacorps/g

To reach a significant audience on the internet, you must go through a tech megacorp at some layer in the stack. And that tech megacorp can decide to cut you off from the internet at their layer in the stack if they don't like what you are saying or if Twitter mobs put pressure on them to do so.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#726

Post by joelmichael »

mlang23 wrote: post #706
bryan0 wrote: post #690

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I also can't block it for my daughter because she has school assignments that involve watching YouTube videos. Our school uses http://www.viewpure.com/ to avoid this. Also, I agree you don't even need to watch a political video to see political garbage on youtube. Last night they showed me some bizarre political conspiracy ad saying Pelosi and Harris are going to invoke the 25th amendment on Biden to make Harris th…

I regularily see shady ads as well. This is the actual outrage IMO. Before going off and create a corporate censorship network, they should at least apply some "standars" to what they let through on the ad side. But I guess it is all too late. The Circle proofs to be a pretty prophetic book.

I subscribe to Youtube Premium. It's handy if you use Youtube a lot and dislike ads.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#727

Post by umvi »

ativzzz wrote: post #722
umvi wrote: post #626

@dang can I make a suggestion? On threads with high comment counts, put numerical pagination links at the very top of the comments. Otherwise to see the next pages of comments I have to scroll to the bottom, click "more", scroll to the bottom again, click "more" again... If I could just click a little "1", "2", "3", etc. to jump straight to second and third page top level comments, I think it would help improve visib…

Problem is it seems that the order of posts frequently changes within a discussion tree. I don't think HN was really built with these large discussions in mind.

Yeah but when I click "more" it's just a link to "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24782944&p=2"

So I'm saying just add convenience links to `p=2`, `p=3` URL queries at the top of the page.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#728

Post by shadowgovt »

rmrfstar wrote: post #710
shadowgovt wrote: post #703

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are alternatives working out? Because we're watching people worry so much about an Orwellian future that they're running headlong into a Stephensonian future.

The difference between Orwell and Stephenson is that Orwell spent time as a police officer in Burma, and a solider in Spain. Stephenson does not understand the corrupting influence of power the way Orwell does. And the alternatives are fantastic, for those who chose to use them intelligently.

If we're going to require intelligence for the whole system to succeed, we're setting ourselves up for failure. Half of everyone is below average.

> The difference between Orwell and Stephenson is that Orwell spent time as a police officer in Burma, and a solider in Spain. Stephenson does not understand the corrupting influence of power...

So you're saying Orwell has practical experience, such that one should weigh his musings on the subject more highly, while Stephenson is some rando expositing from a place he doesn't understand?

Fascinating. What happens if a bunch of people just disagree with your argumentum ab auctoritate and accept Stephenson's musings anyway? That would result in a bad outcome?

Should we have a mechanism in place to tilt people towards Orwell's interpretation over Stephenson (such as, hypothetically, putting one and not the other on the required reading curricula of schools)? If not, what happens if the Stephensonian interpretation of risks wins out?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#729

Post by WarOnPrivacy »

goodluckchuck wrote: post #709
cwhiz wrote: 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…

No, the problem is that extremist content is a nonsense concept. Specifically, there's no reliable way of determining whether content is "extremist content" because a lot of information that the political and religious extremes focus on is actually true information. It often these extreme views that provide unique insights and the most valuable information. So how - and moreover why - should Youtube try to sift throu…

> There's often no way of knowing whether the lecture is being given by a college physics professor or a 9/11 truther, except by examining the contents

Exactly this.

Your points about extremist content stand as well. We've countless examples of NGOs that fight extremism, that get their content taken down due to algorithmic monitoring.

AI aren't capable of this sort of nuanced decision making and there is no evidence that they're going to be capable in the near future.

The only method to achieve consistent, quality content monitoring involves human eyes backed by qualified human judgment.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#730

Post by dtech »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #406
dtech wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, so everyone should be allowed to broadcast, promote and advertise: "all white people are inherently evil and criminal and should all be exterminated, go out and shoot every and kill every white person you see!"?

Are you saying that's not allowed now?

In most western countries you aren't allowed to put something like that on TV and would probably end up in jail.
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