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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

#211

Post by photochemsyn »

IgorPartola wrote: post #53
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…

Let me reframe: let’s say that YouTube hosts anti-vax content and as a result some percentage of people are swayed by this content to not vaccinate themselves or their children. Some percentage of them dies. Let’s say in absolute numbers it is 10,000 people. Do you think that YouTube did a good thing by allowing that content?

It's an interesting question, but keep in mind that Youtube allows junk food advertising targeted towards children, which contributes to the obesity epidemic, and obese people have much higher medical needs and tend to die earlier (and are much more sensitive to COVID). Clearly, this contributes to untimely death, right?

So should we ban all junk food advertising on Youtube? Also, how about a ban on all pharmaceutical advertising on Youtube (which is the norm in most countries)?

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

#212

Post by dilap »

Someone I follow on instagram had opened up a conversation for women about irregular periods as a side-effect of the vaccine. They had to carry on the conversation using an emoji code to avoid getting banned.

The basic idea behind these bans is that authorities decide what is right, and common people should not have a forum to discuss the decisions.

It's basically soft-censorship, a partnership between government and large tech companies to make conversations contra government policy much more difficult to have.

Seems unfortunate, to me.

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

#213

Post by BeefWellington »

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 personally really preferred old Youtube, where your subscriptions were the main thing you saw along with the absolute "most popular viewed today" kinds of things.

The algorithm has only made the site worse in my experience and I always go directly to my subscriptions to be able to at least see things I'm subbed to.

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

#214

Post by scoutt »

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.

> “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.”

Not to defend Biden, but the vaccine decreases the probabilities of getting COVID. You still get infected with sars-cov-2, and you are probably still contagious, but it's unlikely you get COVID (as in COronaVIrus Disease, the disease produced by sars-cov-2 virus (or coronavirus), that is the thing that eventually kills you and/or jeopardizes the public health system).

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

#215

Post by 1cvmask »

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…

Woke-ism is a blunt instrument of the elites to shut down any discussion that threatens their narrative. It is used as a propaganda tool of the dominant and elites. It is repackaged bigotry, or performative anti-bigotry bigotry, to bully and intimidate people and become part of the evolving toolset of modern sociopaths.

https://theintercept.com/2021/09/28/israel-palestine-unc-aca...

https://greenwald.substack.com/p/an-nba-star-and-new-yorks-g...

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1442879729669914637

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1442520376278409222

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1443200943764480002

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

#217

Post by sporkland »

I don't understand the approach of banning certain content. It feels like the root cause here is self reinforcing filter bubbles that social media creates. Is it not possible for YouTube to instead change their algorithm around this to recommend a blend of videos for topics like this one? Kinda like labeling approaches used elsewhere but a little more subtle.

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

#218

Post by arein3 »

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…

Why should you jump trough so many hoops to convey some information.

Why an anti mandatory vaccine person shouldn't be able to explain his position?

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

#219

Post by photochemsyn »

mach1ne wrote: post #57

People don't see what the actual problem here is - perhaps because they don't want to see. What is happening is very much the transformation from an open society to one where freedom of speech is limited and certain other individual rights are stripped away. Perhaps not de jure, but de facto. And sure, one might argue that it's for a good cause (even though it's a complex topic). However, the fact is that as this is…

I can see the CEOs and politicians wanting to implement a Chinese-style 'social citizenship score' and if it falls below some level you get banned from all platforms and your travel rights are restricted, etc.

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

#220

Post by pjc50 »

swader999 wrote: post #168
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…

Censoring discussion in an environment of coercive mandates. Anyone working for Google - how do you justify this? You have great options out there you know?

There's still people dying in large numbers, unvaccinated? Eventually people notice the body count against a point of principle. That's how we got to this point.
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