Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

reuters.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 933 posts

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#11

Post by Polylactic_acid »

anonymousiam wrote: post #2

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

Something has to be done. Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage. We have always selected acceptable content and it has usually been a positive. Schools have always picked which info to teach and what to not and that's largely a positive thing.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#12

Post by anonymousiam »

knaq wrote: post #8
anonymousiam wrote: post #2

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

This is getting way out of hand, across all social media. The president's medical report got banned, probably because it was good news. It was dry, factual, scientific... and now banned as coronavirus misinformation. Evidently his health is disputed by our social media overlords. They must know more than the doctor. Today it was a ban on posting links to the stuff leaked off Hunter Biden's hard drive. It confirms tha…

Fully agree, and I'm not sure why you were modded down. I guess the answer is that the censorship of unpopular views is okay with most people. This could be an innocent consequence of our click-bait culture, or it could be something more sinister.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#14

Post by anonymousiam »

ikiris wrote: post #10
anonymousiam wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much of the information being banned has been published by credible, knowledgeable doctors and scientists who are working "in the trenches". Epidemiologists who have specialized in this area are being censored because political bodies (such as the WHO) have released contrary information, but the WHO (and others) have contradicted themselves multiple times throughout the SARS-Cov-19 pandemic. To answer your question d…

[citation needed]

Enter this search on Google and see what you get: "Is hydroxychloroquine effective in treating COVID-19?" Why should there be such a controversy about this issue? It only became political when Trump mentioned it.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#15

Post by raz32dust »

anonymousiam wrote: post #2

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

What is not a political act these days? If youtube bans spam content, that involves some subjectiveness. Would you say banning spam is political? How about if Youtube's algorithms downrank this kind of content instead of outright ban? Is that not political? Does every algorithm need government approval then?

Also what incentive does YT have to be political?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#16

Post by throwaway69123 »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #11
anonymousiam wrote: post #2

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

Something has to be done. Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage. We have always selected acceptable content and it has usually been a positive. Schools have always picked which info to teach and what to not and that's largely a positive thing.

I will take short term damage over long term tyranny

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#17

Post by cicero »

optimiz3 wrote: post #3
anonymousiam wrote: post #2

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

> ban is a political act What is political about objective science?

He didn't say objective science is political, but banning is. Science promotes the free exchange of ideas with the hope that the truth will be established and falsehood will be disproved.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#18

Post by threatofrain »

anonymousiam wrote: post #2

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

If misinformation leading to loss of life can be traced back to YT, wouldn't YT be far more at risk for across-the-board negative response? Science and politics have a massive intersection in the arena of public communication; e.g., fracking, nuclear energy, climate change, vaccines...

IMO, any nation which cannot establish a harmonious relationship with their own institutions of science is in a shaky spot.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#19

Post by ojnabieoot »

anonymousiam wrote: post #2

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

> The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

It is a public health act and a moral act, and therefore both scientific and political. These considerations don't take place in a vacuum of Free Speech Patriots versus Social Media Authoritarians. YouTube's decision has to be considered alongside the widespread consensus among doctors and public health officials that social media disinformation about COVID-19 has killed tens of thousands of people worldwide, in a pandemic that has killed over 1,000,000 people in less than a year.

And let's be absolutely clear: the reason why YouTube's actions are so politically controversial is that unscrupulous politicians like Trump and Bolsorano have deliberately politicized misinformation about COVID-19. It is not YouTube's fault that "should we listen to scientists about COVID-19?" has become a partisan issue.

Also: "Section 230" concerns are irrelevant here (and irrelevant in most cases of social media "censorship"). Section 230 specifically allows content providers a great deal of latitude in blocking material they deem "objectionable," including constitutionally-protected speech. YouTube is well within their rights to make reasonable determinations about what constitutes COVID-19 misinformation, and to ban such materials.

YouTube blocks pornography with nary a peep from free speech activists. This is because a "free speech" argument is transparently absurd: YouTube is a business and not the government, and is allowed to regulate the data it keeps on its servers for business reasons. Yet the idea that YouTube might regulate for reasons of ethics or public health in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years is apparently the slippery slope of censorship.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#20

Post by xienze »

Polylactic_acid wrote: post #11
anonymousiam wrote: post #2

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

Something has to be done. Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage. We have always selected acceptable content and it has usually been a positive. Schools have always picked which info to teach and what to not and that's largely a positive thing.

> Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage.

“Obvious” is debatable. Hardly anyone watching scientific content of any kind is an expert in the subject matter. What the public has always relied on is some sort of authority figure lending credibility to some idea or news story. For instance, saying masks don’t work is “obvious” bullshit. But remember back in March? Our glorious leaders were urging us not to buy masks because they don’t work, and besides, doctors need them. Even though they don’t work. And to have argued differently at the time was “misinformation.”

Now we’re trusting Facebook, Twitter, and Google to be the authority from which all truth flows.

Post reply on HN