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Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

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Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#101
post #43
post #14

The thing that really bothers me about Weinstein's approach is that, while he and his wife are scientists, they're exceedingly quick to assert their hunches as scientific fact. They wear their scientist labels on their sleeves but their thinking is far more ideological. In a recent podcast about fluoridation in tap water, they were talking about how they avoid iodized salt, because iodine is a reactive chemical and y…

The thing is, you've had Nobel Prize winners like Linus Pauling promote vitamin C as a panacea. Or Dawkins use his biology credentials to say something about philosophy/religion. Scientists using their credentials to give credence to whatever their particular argument in whatever domain is nothing new. In fact, it is part of what the Weinstein's general critique of the scientific realm is. Perhaps they lack the self-…

You're conflating several things. Dawkins making philosophy hot takes is not in the same category as promoting Vitamin C as a panacea for disease, which is literally just scientifically wrong. As is Weinstein's claim about tap water, which is probably the offshoot of some sort of "the government is mindcontrolling us with tapwater" conspiracy which they have bought into because both Weinstein's have gone completely and utterly mad.

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#102
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I picture a future with hordes of millions of gullible fools who can be commanded like armies by social media demagogues. I watched a stream of a London anti-lockdown protest the other day, and that's more or less what occurred to me. https://youtu.be/hy7bmdDGKZ8 The stream is six hours long, but it's packed with moments such as: 35m — Crowd listens to some conspiracy theorist blame all the world's ills on 'Kabalah'…

The phrase 'hordes of millions' is important to take note of...

By the most liberal estimate I saw, there were a few hundred people that attended these protests, the largest single one had a few thousand, overall we can say 10 to 15k across the whole country.

That's 0.0002% of Trump's voter base, and 0.00005% of the American population.

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#103
post #14

The thing that really bothers me about Weinstein's approach is that, while he and his wife are scientists, they're exceedingly quick to assert their hunches as scientific fact. They wear their scientist labels on their sleeves but their thinking is far more ideological. In a recent podcast about fluoridation in tap water, they were talking about how they avoid iodized salt, because iodine is a reactive chemical and y…

> In a recent podcast about fluoridation in tap water, they were talking about how they avoid iodized salt, because iodine is a reactive chemical and you don't want to OD on it.

That's a total fabrication. Here's what they actually said: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_iJaExg2_4.

To summarize their point: the fluoridation of drinking water and toothpaste is unjustified, because what is used is not the fluoride salt that has been demonstrated to have benefits for stronger bones/teeth, and on top of that the distribution method is absurd because you can't control for how much water people drink. Then Bret brings up that iodized salt is a similar case in that the distribution method via table salt doesn't allow you to titrate, but that it has nevertheless been a success that solved major problems. That they personally don't use iodized salt because you only need to avoid a deficiency, which is also achieved via a balanced diet, is a separate point.

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#104
post #11

Facebook's censoring of #Revolution via their claims of moral superiority should frighten the shit out of every free person on earth. While we still have it reasonably good in America, their willingness to suppress speech in good times doesn't bode well for people who will be oppressed during bad times. The first amendment made it clear that not even the government had the authority to use their vast moral authority,…

Don't use facebook

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#105
post #14

The thing that really bothers me about Weinstein's approach is that, while he and his wife are scientists, they're exceedingly quick to assert their hunches as scientific fact. They wear their scientist labels on their sleeves but their thinking is far more ideological. In a recent podcast about fluoridation in tap water, they were talking about how they avoid iodized salt, because iodine is a reactive chemical and y…

It could be that part of the problem is that you only see their public persona. Start adding all the weasel words to imply that you think that something is 73% likely to be mostly true and you lose an audience Everyone (well, most everyone) could stand to examine their own problems (well, issues) with stating opinions as fact.

It's funny because that's actually literally the kind of thing they do on the show in question, for which there is apparently quite a sizable audience. For example around April or May 2020 Bret presented a model assigning probabilities for various scenarios of lab leak vs zoonotic origin of Sars-Cov-2 (the kind of discussion for which they were branded conspiracy theorists for a long time).

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#106
post #11

Facebook's censoring of #Revolution via their claims of moral superiority should frighten the shit out of every free person on earth. While we still have it reasonably good in America, their willingness to suppress speech in good times doesn't bode well for people who will be oppressed during bad times. The first amendment made it clear that not even the government had the authority to use their vast moral authority,…

I know this isn't the simplest solution, but the only solution is to stop giving them your speech. If a child lights something on fire every time they get their hands on a book of matches (dating myself perhaps), you stop giving them matches. You're right if you bring up the fact that we've never had to deal with the entire neighborhood supplying the kid with matches, but I think my point stands. We can only control our own (re)actions.

And don't be mistaken: the "freedom" sites fired up as First Amendment outposts to service nazis who got kicked off of mainstream services by corporate overlords, they're "censoring" too:

https://www.rawstory.com/baked-alaska-trump/

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#107
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A possibile solution is changes to section 230. I saw a good approach last year that you can read about here: https://www.nationalreview.com/2020/10/washington-can-put-a-... The key bit was a recommendation from the Trump DOJ, which said: > The Justice Department, which last month announced recommended amendments to the statute, has suggested that Congress replace “otherwise objectionable” with “unlawful” and “promot…

Make that change, and watch the definition of "terrorism" expand out of all recognition.

Agreed. Terrorism seems like it is unneeded.

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#108
post #14

The thing that really bothers me about Weinstein's approach is that, while he and his wife are scientists, they're exceedingly quick to assert their hunches as scientific fact. They wear their scientist labels on their sleeves but their thinking is far more ideological. In a recent podcast about fluoridation in tap water, they were talking about how they avoid iodized salt, because iodine is a reactive chemical and y…

Fine, so he’s an idiot. Who cares! It changes nothing to me. The entire idea of outlawing misinformation and fake news is absurd. Let him speak, let his viewers be misinformed, the world keeps on turning.

Re: Using government guidelines to police content: state censorship?

#109
I'm on record railing against the collective power of BigTech, in particular some of their leaders' public statements about using their power to put the thumb on the scale since the 2016 election.

However, here I'm not convinced there's a huge issue. As I understand it the videos are still available on YouTube, but the creators are no longer able to generate revenue from them (or other videos on their channel). I'm not convinced YouTube owes anyone the ability to generate revenue from videos hosted (for free) on their platform.

I would expect many advertisers would not want to be associated with "fringe" theories; as the money YouTube pays creators is funded by advertising revenue, this makes demonetizing anything that strays too far from socially acceptable norms the sensible thing for YouTube to do IMO.

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