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YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

washingtonpost.com

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Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#141

Post by nanis »

wepple wrote: post #64

Can anyone recommend a good book on the balance between free speech versus disallowing harmful ideas to propagate? Or even one book from each side of the argument? I don’t think I’ve even begun to comprehend a robust position on what might make sense, or the arguments involved.

> balance between free speech versus disallowing harmful ideas to propagate?

There is no balance. The very fantasy of such a balance relies upon the presumption that 1) there are harmful _ideas_; and 2) that there is an authority that can certify some ideas as _safe_ vs _harmful_.

The discussion here gets overwhelmed by several generations of people who never actually understood what people had to give up for the right of everyone to speak and for the right of everyone to be able to expose themselves to any idea they themselves deem interesting or appropriate.

Also, enmeshment of barons of industry with powerful political operatives to suppress competition to both is literally fascism (regardless of the historical revision of the definition 100 years after the fact).

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#144

Post by [deleted] »

vibrato2 wrote: post #98
afavour wrote: post #40

Time for repeat showing of the free speech debate we’ve already had a dozen times, whoopee! As ever, IMO, the problem isn’t the hosting or the banning, it’s the algorithms. I don’t care whether YouTube hosts anti-vaccine activists, I care that they actively promote anti-vaccine content to users simply because it’s proven to get clicks and earn them money. Bans like this look incredibly stupid when you realise YouTube…

The only disinformation I've seen about these vaccines has been from Fauci and other pro vaxxers. “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.” - Joe Biden there was never a basis for this statement, making it clear disinformation. Grass roots research doesn't fit the bill of what that word means.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#145

Post by [deleted] »

deelowe wrote: post #134

Of course it will. Welcome to the new propaganda. Same as the old propaganda. Free speech is the act of standing up for those who you disagree with simply because you believe they have the right to be heard. In today's world of "woke" content creators, everyone seems to miss this point. What started out as fairly clear cut issues such as racism and homophobia has now bled into grey areas around vaccines and gain of f…

[deleted]

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#146

Post by toomuchtodo »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #115
ookblah wrote: post #50

Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision? I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of "principle". Just a no win situation. It's too easy for bad characters to screw up an entire system with little effort (look at trolls, spammers, etc). Either you moderate everyone and slippery slope down into censorship where the tools…

>Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat disinformation Yeah. Don't do shit. Let the stupid run its course. Trying to combat disinformation is like bombing villages in hope of hitting an ammo dump. The collateral damage is more damaging than ignoring the problem. Why do we always have to be Doing Something(TM)?

You're arguing to let low information or critical thinking challenged people die because of the actions of others (whether those actions are in good faith or not is immaterial). If Youtube decides it wants to take action to promote the public welfare, that's their right as a business.

"Doing Something" is usually harm reduction within the framework of law and public policy, and there's a lot of harm out there, hence the continual debate over a) should something be done? and b) what can be done?

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#148

Post by EL_Loco »

deelowe wrote: post #134

Of course it will. Welcome to the new propaganda. Same as the old propaganda. Free speech is the act of standing up for those who you disagree with simply because you believe they have the right to be heard. In today's world of "woke" content creators, everyone seems to miss this point. What started out as fairly clear cut issues such as racism and homophobia has now bled into grey areas around vaccines and gain of f…

Well, in the field of immunization, the WHO has done quite a lot since its creation.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#149

Post by strgcmc »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #115
ookblah wrote: post #50

Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision? I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of "principle". Just a no win situation. It's too easy for bad characters to screw up an entire system with little effort (look at trolls, spammers, etc). Either you moderate everyone and slippery slope down into censorship where the tools…

>Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat disinformation Yeah. Don't do shit. Let the stupid run its course. Trying to combat disinformation is like bombing villages in hope of hitting an ammo dump. The collateral damage is more damaging than ignoring the problem. Why do we always have to be Doing Something(TM)?

Imagine this attitude applied to climate change. Letting the stupid runs its course and choosing inaction, will lead to disastrous warming outcomes.

So, maybe there are situations where doing nothing is okay, but I don't think very large scale problems that require coordinated large scale action over long time scales to address, like global pandemics or mitigating the impacts of man made climate change, are the right situations for that kind of approach. Too many thousands/millions will die, too many billions/trillions of dollars of damage will be done, via inaction.

Of course, it all comes down to whether you can stomach the cost of inaction, because maybe you don't think the impacts are all that bad. I don't have an answer to that, if two parties fundamentally disagree about what the cost of impact will be or whether that cost is acceptable (e.g. many folks in the US apparently think 600k+ COVID deaths in the US isn't a big deal, and wasn't worth the interventions applied to mitigate it to that level).

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#150

Post by helen___keller »

IMO, go further. Remove all medical recommendation and assertions from YouTube. Leave YouTube for entertainment, and have other platforms - perhaps ones better regulated and better managed - for medical discussions in a scientific context.

There's inherent difficulty in trying to judge between wackos and pros, because wackos do their best to masquerade as pros. This is basically a turing complete issue, because there's always people straddling the line between wacko and pro. YouTube has mostly avoided the difficulty with this issue until now by avoiding moderation entirely (aside from certain categories that suffer from the same problems, like copyright claims), so the issue with most of YouTube is that you can jump from pro to extreme wacko and not realize it as a non-professional yourself. Meanwhile, all content creators, wacko and pro, are given the same platform to promote their claims - one that incentivizes eyeballs, clicks, and engagement, not one that incentivizes accuracy or merit (or one that allows discussion in a context independent of monetization and ranking, which are known to poison good faith discussion).

Similarly but unrelated, let's also ban drug ads on cable TV. These are much like buying a social media influencer to push your medical claims. It's disgusting.

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