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The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

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Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#641

Post by andrei_says_ »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #624
hackyhacky wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the kinds of "both-sides-ism" that gives centrists a bad reputation. You're basically saying: "everyone uses media to achieve their goals, therefore all sides are equally bad." No. Using misinformation to intentionally disrupt a democratic election is demonstrably dangerous to society. Say what you will about the "establishment," but traditional media still bear some semblance of the truth. Now we're seeing t…

I’m not a centrist and none of my points are making any centrist arguments. Using misinformation to intentionally disrupt a democratic election is demonstrably dangerous to society. And you think this is the first time in the history of American democracy that actors used misinformation to influence an election? Again, this is not a new phenomenon whatsoever. All that’s new is that more people have access to the tech…

I hope this is not an argument for giving powerful weaponized mass disinformation tools to more people, including foreign governments and other actors actively seeking to polarize society to the point of inciting conflict and dismantling democracy.

Yes, removing this type of speech from YouTube may be an imperfect / stopgap solution.

What are some better alternatives?

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#642

Post by colordrops »

ronaldj wrote: post #308
swiley wrote: post #2

If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves. Democracy and free speech are intrinsically linked.

This country's government is based on the idea that people aren't intelligent (or interested) enough to think about politics for themselves. That's what a representative democracy is.

That's not why it's a representative democracy. The reason is that direct democracy was not logistically possible at the time, and also for support if states' rights.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#643

Post by hackyhacky »

forgingahead wrote: post #632
hackyhacky wrote: post #622

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're assuming a hypothetical "informed viewer," who is able to consume multiple streams of information and make a rational choice. That's not what we're dealing with. The worst kinds of propaganda make their point with emotion, repetition, and invective. Most people can't tell the difference between that and real information. Thus, sources that seek to manipulate people will win against those that are fair and hone…

No I don't. Your point about "propaganda making their point with emotion, repetition, and invective" is a great descriptor of ALL media for the past several years, from all sides. If established elites are determining which media outlets are "correct" and which ones are "propaganda", then the disenfranchised, minorities, subjugated, and others who are outside this elite group have no way to amplify their voices witho…

You're right. I've been foolishly ignoring the subjugated minority of white, male, wealthy, Christian Trump supporters. Let's give a voice to this oft-neglected underclass.

/s obviously.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#644

Post by yew »

hackyhacky wrote: post #635
rayiner wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The idea that banning certain information will somehow result in it disappearing has been shown repeatedly to not work. A cursory reading of history should make this clear. You cannot turn the entire world into West Coast USA by banning everyone that disagrees with you. You’ll only create further echo chambers, both on your own platform and on the (new) platforms inevitably created by the exiled. And in the process…

The half of the country that voted for Trump is already alienated. They're fully prepared to destroy every American institution, simply because Trump them that they should. As we've already seen countless times, there is no amount of rational discussion or documented evidence that will persuade them otherwise. The question is, do the rest of us have to go along with it, or are allowed to fight back?

Speaking as an American who didn't vote for Trump, either time, you've certainly alienated me. You'd (collectively) best hope you're making more friends than enemies.

Hope's all any of us have at this point.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#645

Post by jmnicolas »

rayiner wrote: post #623
parsimo2010 wrote: post #616

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“You’ll only create further echo chambers, both on your own platform and on the (new) platforms inevitably created by the exiled.” In case anyone is wondering, this isn’t just hypothetical. The website full30.com was created specifically because YouTube decided that talking about guns wasn’t advertiser-friendly. There weren’t that many gun-related videos that YouTube actually removed, but they started to de-monetize…

Wait, YouTube censored guns?

A couple months ago I watched a video of Wranglestar where he spoke about his "ammo dispersion units" in an attempt for his video not to be demonetized / banned.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#646

Post by rayiner »

hackyhacky wrote: post #607
ceilingcorner wrote: post #495

I find it really disconcerting how many people on Hacker News want a corporate entity to decide what information is deemed acceptable to know. Do you even know where that word came from? The irony is almost overwhelming. But I digress... The idea that banning certain information will somehow result in it disappearing has been shown repeatedly to not work. A cursory reading of history should make this clear. You canno…

It's not about banning disagreement. It's not even about opinions. It's about combating weaponized misinformation. It's strange for Americans to be on the business side of a propaganda weapon, as we're more used to using against our enemies. Technology has finally made it feasible for malicious actors to cheaply and effectively manipulate people with lies, here in the US. If you don't believe it's a weapon, you're wr…

What is the harm model here? After the 2016 election, more than half of Democrats disagreed that the elections “were free and fair.” https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/politics-government/e...

> Of registered voters surveyed, 53% said the 2016 election between Trump and Democrat Hillary Clinton was free and fair and 33% said it was not.... 39% of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters said it was. Half of Democratic or Democratic-leaning voters said it wasn’t free and fair.

I’m not trying to create an equivalence between what Clinton said and what Trump is saying. I’m talking about the beliefs of the voting public, which are clear in the polls. Half of the people who lost in 2016 thought the election wasn’t fair, but democracy didn’t end. What’s the danger here that justifies censorship?

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#647

Post by viraptor »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #613
hackyhacky wrote: post #607

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about banning disagreement. It's not even about opinions. It's about combating weaponized misinformation. It's strange for Americans to be on the business side of a propaganda weapon, as we're more used to using against our enemies. Technology has finally made it feasible for malicious actors to cheaply and effectively manipulate people with lies, here in the US. If you don't believe it's a weapon, you're wr…

You are assuming that the regular media is the default, the truth, and that propaganda didn’t exist prior to 2016. Read Manufacturing Consent for a brief overview of this history of widespread weaponization of information by innumerable actors. Weaponized misinformation has existed as long as human speech has existed. What is new is the democratization of it, hence the establishment’s hostility.

Other kind of media having issues does not disprove the comment you're responding to. You're also assuming some opinions at the beginning which we haven't seen in the parent's comment. Things don't have to be black or white - it doesn't have to be democratisation vs establishment. There's way more nuance here. Including platform protecting its existence in case they fail so badly at filtering content that they get regulated by... establishment.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#648

Post by ceilingcorner »

andrei_says_ wrote: post #641
ceilingcorner wrote: post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m not a centrist and none of my points are making any centrist arguments. Using misinformation to intentionally disrupt a democratic election is demonstrably dangerous to society. And you think this is the first time in the history of American democracy that actors used misinformation to influence an election? Again, this is not a new phenomenon whatsoever. All that’s new is that more people have access to the tech…

I hope this is not an argument for giving powerful weaponized mass disinformation tools to more people, including foreign governments and other actors actively seeking to polarize society to the point of inciting conflict and dismantling democracy. Yes, removing this type of speech from YouTube may be an imperfect / stopgap solution. What are some better alternatives?

I’m not arguing for that, but it might actually be an indirect solution. By forcing everyone to deal with it, skepticism will grow and new solutions toward treating information and the media will arise.

As an example, I think a similar situation will happen with deepfakes. Once it becomes widely known that it’s easy to fake video, people will become more skeptical of it.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#649

Post by twentydollars »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #601
kill-procrustes wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a really underrated point. This whole site is really "tech industry news" with some hacking sprinkled in, but its name at least is based on the idea of the hacker ethos. That whole thing about decentralization, distrusting authority, information being free? A curiosity for how things work and logical investigation rather than letting someone else do your thinking for you? Disinformation is a huge problem and…

I really can’t think of anything more alien to the hacker ethos than, “A group of unknown people at a technology corporation should be the ultimate authority on what I’m allowed to say, read, or share with my friends.” Disinformation is indeed a difficult problem, but there are enough smart people in the world to figure it out without resorting to authoritarianism. We can do better.

> “A group of unknown people at a technology corporation should be the ultimate authority on what I’m allowed to say, read, or share with my friends.”

Literally nobody is suggesting this.

It's about freedom of Reach, not freedom of speech.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#650

Post by forgingahead »

hackyhacky wrote: post #643
forgingahead wrote: post #632

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No I don't. Your point about "propaganda making their point with emotion, repetition, and invective" is a great descriptor of ALL media for the past several years, from all sides. If established elites are determining which media outlets are "correct" and which ones are "propaganda", then the disenfranchised, minorities, subjugated, and others who are outside this elite group have no way to amplify their voices witho…

You're right. I've been foolishly ignoring the subjugated minority of white, male, wealthy, Christian Trump supporters. Let's give a voice to this oft-neglected underclass. /s obviously.

Is this you?

It's great that you feel empowered and have been successful in this country. Lots of minorities haven't been, and for reasons outside of their control, based in historical inequalities.[0]

So do these minorities you reference have yours and other elites permission to post on Youtube? Or will they also get censored?

[0]https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25025556

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