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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

#191

Post by photochemsyn »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #166
mariodiana wrote: post #65

I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on open discussion by moderate voices. I'm subscribed to the channel of an M.D. on YouTube who discusses COVID-19, vaccines, etc. He is very careful to (repeatedly) point out that he is vaccinated, he has personally vaccinated hundreds of patients, he encourages everyone to speak to their doctor and follow their recommendations, believing that the vaccine is…

I'm not sure "legitimate public debate" is warranted in this case. Too many people who are not qualified think they have "done their own research" and come to conclusions causing real harm to other people. Even MDs are not necessarily well-suited to make expert opinions on pandemics and vaccine technology and such. A lot of MDs are qualified to diagnose conditions and recommend treatment and prescription medication..…

There is a certain legitimate distrust at this point over the lab leak issue. That's because of those two papers published in I believe Nature and the Lancet claiming that the evidence strongly supported a natural origin theory; those papers have now been discredited and some of the authors have deleted their Twitter accounts after exposure of their own emails that questioned natural origin theories due to anomalies in the viral sequence. That's very suspicious behavior for 'peer-reviewed research'.

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

#192

Post by raxxorrax »

helen___keller wrote: post #150

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…

That would be another sensible approach. Or Youtube would need to employ doctors that judge on a case by case basis and articulate their decisions. Anything else is a bad solution in my opinion and this current position warrants a lot of pushback in my opinion.

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

#193

Post by commandlinefan »

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…

> I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of "principle".

I can confirm your suspicions in my case. I'm vaccinated (against COVID, the flu, and tetanus, and all the other things you can get vaccinated against), but I think YouTube is wrong here.

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

#195

Post by crazy_horse »

commandlinefan wrote: post #182
listless wrote: post #174

My wife is very vaccine hesitant, and every time they make a move like this to block content or take it down, it only strengthens her position. She thinks they’re taking it down because they don’t want people to know the truth. The only thing worse than bad ideas is the suppression of bad ideas. It’s tragic that we knew this at some point, but are going to have to figure it all back out again the hard way.

> She thinks they’re taking it down because they don’t want people to know the truth. Hell, I always thought anti-vaxxers were looneys and was first in line for the COVID shot when it was available in March... but even I'm starting to be convinced that the anti-vaxxers might have a point because of all this effort to silence them. I'm becoming vaccine... remorseful?

They're making an effort to silence them after allowing rampant misinformation for a year and a half because in the US we still have over 30% of the population not vaccinated and the death toll continues to climb.

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

#197

Post by x86_64Ubuntu »

mariodiana wrote: post #73
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…

"Misinformation" should not be combatted by anything other than better, more persuasive information.

Why do we always assume that it's "misinformation" and that if people were told or shown better, they would want better. Many times, people actually want the bad thing. I can't help but see the "Free Speech" alarmism on HN originating from the fact that the market of ideas is no longer participating in arguments about right-wing viewpoints, but is actively moving against them and taking them off the shelf.

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

#199

Post by photochemsyn »

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…

I'm really curious if it would be possible for Youtube / Google etc. to expose their algorithmic interface to their public users so that they could twiddle with the settings themselves - or is that just technologically impossible given the internal structure of their systems? I really have no idea, but I've been wondering about it for some time.

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

#200

Post by sampo »

This is worrying. I still remember, in March 2020 believing that face masks work was still the contrarian opinion. Large Western countries such as USA, Germany, changed their official position in April. WHO changed their position in June. My country (Finland) only in the end of August. If contrarian voices had been efficiently suppressed, would the medical mainstream have changed their position at all?
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