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The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

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Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#101

Post by treeman79 »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #96
treeman79 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alternative view point sites aren’t really possible. Advertisers are attacked relentlessly if they advertise on non-liberal media. Been at ad-tech companies and seen this happen in person. Even 20 years ago this was common pattern for talk radio.

> Alternative view point sites aren’t really possible. They're certainly possible for alternatives to, say, reddit. These sites already exist. Are you referring to the high costs of serving video?

Video.

Forums are one thing.

Hosting huge amounts of videos, adding in all the security to keep DOS from taking out the system is a lot of money.

Oh and since most sites do this all for free, you can’t really change anything either.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#102

Post by tzs »

swiley wrote: post #2

If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves. Democracy and free speech are intrinsically linked.

It's not a question of whether they are intelligent enough to do so. It is whether or not they can get the information that allows them to do so.

With the vast amount of information on social media, which is where more and more people are getting most of their information nowadays, and the way social media algorithms are designed to maximize engagement, and the way human cognitive biases work, the result is you almost never get a balanced view presenting arguments for all sides even if all sides offering information are acting in good faith.

Then add in all those who are not acting in good faith, who have a much easier time generating vast quantities of low quality information than the people arguing in good faith have for generating high quality information, and it is even worse.

There was a recent article in Scientific American that covered research into this. Here was the HN discussion of it [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25153716

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#103

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

tomohawk wrote: post #52
hobs wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you believe in science, you also believe that things can be proven wrong, and that repeating wrong things can influence people especially if you have the power to amplify your voice with money. If you believe in liberty, you believe in the liberty of a set of an individuals (a company) to do what they damn well please with their platform.

Science does not talk about right or wrong. It talks about things that are falsifiable. If there is an idea that so far has not been falsified, it becomes the established scientific fact. However, someone else may come up with a better idea. Do we prevent them from talking about it or collaborating with people? It may take some time and lots of communication and collaboration to get to the bottom of it. Years or even…

So... the existence of God is "established scientific fact"?

Because it hasn't exactly been falsified as far as I know.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#104

Post by enkid »

roenxi wrote: post #43
jiofih wrote: post #4

Then what? Allowing false information to fester is wrong, censorship is wrong. The way forward is to ban recommendation algorithms and go back to personal (as in, from other humans you know) recommendation systems.

> Allowing false information to fester is wrong... That sounds good, but it is not true. If the CEO of YouTube was a committed Hindi the public would demand that he overlook Buddhist/Muslim/Christian/Atheist content on his platform. Tolerance of people we truly believe to be wrong is a key value that needs to be preserved. The sort of people who talk about "false information" in their policies tend to be running more…

What about people who earnestly believe that genocide is justifiable? What should YouTube do with that content? Or people advocating Euthanasia of mentally handicapped individual? I'm not saying I know a good line, but there clearly is one.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#105

Post by stuart78 »

bcheung wrote: post #60
Spartan-S63 wrote: post #16

These types of articles are always insane to me. YouTube is a private company. They're pretty much allowed to moderate the content on their platform in an arbitrary way. I would argue that this is a good thing. We can't have it both ways, but we want it both ways. We want a non-government controlled way to communicate, but we want to mandate that they're liable to uphold the same First Amendment protections that the…

I think there needs to be updated thought leadership on what qualifies as "common carrier" and what doesn't. Whether gov't or private, if a platform is primarily promoted as an open communication channel then I think that some, if not all, aspects of "common carrier" laws should apply. Social media platforms would not have the trust and would not have been adopted as quickly if they started off censoring as much as t…

YouTube censors content all the time. Pornography and pirated content, being just the most obvious examples. Others that want censored content have only to look to other sites to find that content.

In my opinion, YouTube should (and does) have content standards, and be extremely free in how they determine them. People certainly have a right to publish and consume conspiracy theories, but I don't understand why YouTube has anything close to an obligation to host or promote them.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#106

Post by rightbyte »

tzs wrote: post #102
swiley wrote: post #2

If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves. Democracy and free speech are intrinsically linked.

It's not a question of whether they are intelligent enough to do so. It is whether or not they can get the information that allows them to do so. With the vast amount of information on social media, which is where more and more people are getting most of their information nowadays, and the way social media algorithms are designed to maximize engagement, and the way human cognitive biases work, the result is you almos…

> you almost never get a balanced view presenting arguments for all sides

By banning allegations of election fraud you could change "almost never" to "never".

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#107

Post by miohtama »

tibbydudeza wrote: post #54

Democracy will eventually die. “In sum, the majority of Americans are generally unable to understand or value democratic culture, institutions, practices or citizenship in the manner required”. “To the degree to which they are required to do so, they will interpret what is demanded of them in distorting and inadequate ways. As a result they will interact and communicate in ways that undermine the functioning of democ…

A very interesting paper. It would nice to see more on the topic as quantative studies how the change happens.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#108

Post by madengr »

roenxi wrote: post #86
enchiridion wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a non sequitur. Free speech is an ideal. We would like google to preserve free speech, even though they are not legally obligated to per the Constitution. If their EULA does not uphold that ideal, then they should change it, not compromise the ideal.

I'm going to agree but offer a different focus. The agreement is in that YouTube can do this legally and that is not the problem. But this is also about the practice of ideals. I watched a Chris Martinson video (PhD neurotoxicology, runs something of a prepping channel on YouTube because he doesn't see how the current US approach will resolve comfortably for people who trust the government) on Vimeo the other day bec…

I have been watching him since March. He can only talk about dweeezeban1 and dweezeban2. I ordered some dweezeban2 for my horse on Amazon.

https://www.amazon.com/Durvet-Ivermectin-Paste-Equine-Deworm...

There is no evidence that dweezeban2 works against COVID. Just like there is no evidence of election fraud. Protests are mostly peaceful.

I have so had it with media and big tech.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#109

Post by danieltillett »

gabereiser wrote: post #9
swiley wrote: post #2

If you reject the idea that people are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to govern themselves. Democracy and free speech are intrinsically linked.

YouTube can choose to keep or delete any content on their platform regardless of truth/free speech/or not. It's in the EULA. You want free speech, go outside and yell. No one is stopping anyone from free speech. What Google is doing is cleaning up content on their service according to their EULA. If you disagree with the EULA, you can gladly go use another service. I will add, targeting a specific genre of videos loo…

Ok what if your telephone or internet company decided the same thing? We will listen in to your private conversations and if you say something we don’t like we will terminate your contract.

Some services are so large and entrenched that they have become natural monopolies that need to be regulated. We place restrictions on what natural monopolies can do because of the effects on society as a whole.

The question that needs to be debated is if YouTube has reached the status of a natural monopoly or not. I think it probably has, but I am open to evidence on the other side.

Re: The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire

#110

Post by prucomaclu2 »

stordoff wrote: post #100
prucomaclu2 wrote: post #88

What's really sad about what Youtube is doing, is that Trump's lawsuits do have some legitimacy. Potentially enough legitimacy to win. I'm not saying there is enough to win, but the potential is there and it should be given a fair hearing by the media & judges. From day 1 of this election, the media has 50% of this country convinced that everything Trump's lawsuits are nothing except outlandish lies & conspiracies. J…

> Election laws have been ignored - on a large scale. Do you have any specific examples? I haven't looked at the claims in any great detail.

This woman's testimony starts at 1:34:40

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZXkAv7yKgw&list=UU8Ioh4atND...

I use this example because I find it particularly blatant, but there are many examples to choose from.

According to her testimony, ballots which had two intentional marks (e.g., one for Biden, and one for Trump) would go to Biden.

When she raised challenges to this, she was ignored. When she escalated to the supervisor running the floor, she was ridiculed.

There were many other witnesses at TCF Center who shared similar stories.

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