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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

#221

Post by woodpanel »

xqcgrek2 wrote: post #33

They're a private company and can do whatever they want. However, one only needs to see the trending page in any country to see the kind of crap YouTube promotes and profits from. So, please spare me of the corporate propaganda for YouTube's rationale of this decision.

> "They're a private company and can do whatever they want."

Flies in the face of jurisprudence accross industrialized nations, as many courts again and again ruled that a platform cannot "do whatever they wan't" if they dominate the market and thus effectively are a public space of opinion.

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

#222

Post by ridaj »

I think people outraged at the content censorship on YouTube can look at the media landscape overall and consider that, compared with Hulu, CBS, MSNBC or Fox News, it's still a extremely permissive environment, an outlier in the world of ad-supported media companies. This looks like regression to the mean - as it becomes bigger and forever needs to get more money from advertisers to sustain growth, it gets pushed to provide a product that emphasizes middle-of-the-road views. YouTube of 10 years ago was so much smaller that it got away with a lot worse (eg terrorism apology and recruitment), but as it's grown, it's going to be increasingly difficult for controversial content to live on ad-support.

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

#223

Post by the-dude »

Loughla wrote: post #114
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 genuinely don't get it. YouTube, a private entity and not a government entity, is saying they don't want certain content on their platform. This is not the end of your free speech. This isn't really even a movement away from free speech. It's YouTube exercising their right to freedom of speech by not allowing what they believe to be harmful or disagreeable on their platform. They already do this with other categori…

> If YouTube is THAT essential to getting your views heard, you need to take a lesson from business - don't rely on anyone else for critical infrastructure.

No other platform offers a competitive audience.

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

#224

Post by nyx-aiur »

dilap wrote: post #212

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…

Instagram is not the place for a support group.

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

#225

Post by pstuart »

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?

Are you now more interested in child pornography because that's not allowed on youtube?

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

#226

Post by mattigames »

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 woulb be surprised if even 1% of the videos being pulled out are moderate voices, but that's the price of moderation, in order to enjoy any freedom you need to stay alive but if you get killed by disinformation you lose them all, so in such cases as this one moderation of mass communication channels is the lesser evil even if a few reasonable people get their content pulled out.

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

#227

Post by aioprisan »

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…

> Months ago he was insisting that the people who had contracted COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may not need the vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming out to support that.

No such study exists, please link to the primary research. Vaccination always offers stronger protection than getting the virus [1], and more importantly, even if they offered equivalent protection for 99% of people, the portion of the additional 1% of people without a vaccine who show up at a hospital are going to be much sicker than the vaccinated with breakthrough infections and more likely to need to go or stay at a hospital for an extended period of time (29x more likely [2]), which our healthcare system cannot support. We've had to ration care and kick out cancer patients out of hospitals [3], who have subsequently died as a result of lack of care, but we should allow for limited resources to be used up by the willfully unvaccinated? I have personally had family members in need of critical care have care rationed due to hospitals being full with 99%+ unvaccinated folks. So much for the personal responsibility crowd living up to their slogans.

[1] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/24/cdc-study-shows-unvaccinated... [3] https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article25394605...

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

#228

Post by tebruno99 »

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…

The only reason You can watch any video for free on Youtube at all is because Youtube chooses to let you do so. It is not a public forum for debate, it is a business.
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