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

taibbi.substack.com

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

#111

Post by bordercases »

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 need expertise to interpret information and you need the right kind of expertise and even the right combinations of expertise, and even knowing what the right combination of expertise is.

It is a question of intelligence, information, expertise and meta-expertise, all of those things. Privileging any of those components of sense-making is myopia of different sorts depending on what claims people are actually wanting to forward.

For instance if you want to look like a centrist while avoiding calling people dumb you say they're low-information voters, change the news, make them listen to these experts, give person X more control or say, when the news and those experts and that person all have problems of different sorts. Not one-dimensional.

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

#112

Post by nonbirithm »

tbatchelli wrote: post #66
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.

People are rational most of the times, and act based on the well of knowledge they have at the time. When you choose to promote certain content because of its high engagement benefits you given its controversial nature, then you are poisoning the well of knowledge for each individual. If you do so in a feedback loop, considering what they were interested in before, you accelerate your earnings as well as the poisonin…

There has to be a good reason why psychological warfare is used, including by the United States in periods like the Vietnam War. The expectation is that statements written on paper or recited through loudspeakers or similar influence people's thoughts, which influences what actions they will take. Those actions are supposed to be beneficial to the forces scattering them from a helicopter or posting them on walls. They're trying to get you to do something regardless of what your preexisting thoughts are beforehand.

Now tear down the pieces of propaganda and burn them. Is this censorship?

I think human brains are sufficiently able to be hacked by the right information. With certain kinds of information, those people could end up causing material harm to someone who is completely uninvolved. That is the ultimate danger that I believe YouTube and the like are trying to avoid, and if true it would be an admittance of a sort that some kinds of information are dangerous to some kinds of people. The name "psychological warfare" implies that communication can be weaponized, in a sense. Certain people do not change their ways regardless of what you try to tell them.

I think the issue is centered not around people trying to have a reasoned debate, but those who have been lost to debate more or less permanently. Previously, you couldn't scatter this kind of information about on the scale were seeing today, and also recommend similar content using very effective algorithms. The more millions of people the content reaches, the more latent believers it will reach and end up converting, even if the conversion rate is a fraction of a percent. And many of these people are very vocal.

In a sense, the content takedown seems like an attempt to counteract the fact that the algorithms are too effective of a medium for misinformation. I don't think we would have seen this kind of scale with books or flyers.

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

#113

Post by ignoramous »

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.

FTFY: If you reject the idea that a majority are intelligent enough to think about politics for themselves then you reject the idea that they're intelligent enough to elect a capable government.

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

#114

Post by smadge »

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…

The only time Taibbi brought up government intervention in the article was to oppose it. Specifically he criticized a new bill that would "require that political ads or content produced by foreign governments be marked by disclaimers, and that companies should remove any such content appearing without disclaimers. It would also expand language in the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) requiring that any content intended to influence U.S. citizens politically be reported to the Department of Justice."

Saying something is bad is not the same thing as saying something should be illegal.

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

#115

Post by worker767424 »

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.

People want Youtube to be free and open...and remove things that aren't true.

They want Facebook to open its social graph so other social networks can compete...and take privacy seriously so there isn't another Cambridge Analytica.

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

#116

Post by prepend »

I remember how insufferable friends were after the 2016 election claiming that Trump was a Russian agent, that voting machines were hacked, that electoral college voters would revolt, etc etc. And their basis seems as similarly based as this round of butthurt conspiracy theories (eg, people making claims, no actual evidence).

I hope that Youtube makes some statement that wish they had blocked all that crap back then.

It seems like if the goal is to stop stupid stuff from YouTube, they everyone should just turn it off. Because while I think conspiracy theories of people yelling stupid stuff that is unsubstantiated about voting machines, then I think that’s as dangerous as videos of kids cyber bullying, or blowing people’s heads off in video games, etc.

I don’t think any of that stuff is truly dangerous and adults should be trusted to watch the right things. But if Youtube is saying they are trying to help democracy or whatnot, then they need to ban coke ads. Because sugar does way more harm to America than dipshits masturbatorily posting about election conspiracies.

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

#117

Post by prucomaclu2 »

Vomzor wrote: post #65
appleflaxen wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

was this presented in court? what were the courts' findings?

So far it has not. The courts have shot down the the lawsuits on procedural grounds without looking at the evidence. Several states have held hearings were a lot of these allegations are discussed in detail. The hour long hearings are on youtube. Edit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkqFTUEvMoU Wisconsin State Legislature Election Hearing is still live streaming when I post this. Second edit: Why is my first comment…

Generally speaking the affidavits that have been presented to the judges have been casually dismissed as wild conspiracy theories and never really been taken seriously. Vast majority of affidavits are not addressed at all in their findings.

E.g. the PA lawsuits, I wouldn't really classify it as dismissing it on procedural grounds.

It was moreso that the case was dismissed on overwhelmingly partisan bias grounds.

I am happy to reference posts where I go into greater detail on the facts of these judgements on which my opinion is based, if anyone is legitimately interested.

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

#119

Post by cousin_it »

tbatchelli wrote: post #66
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.

People are rational most of the times, and act based on the well of knowledge they have at the time. When you choose to promote certain content because of its high engagement benefits you given its controversial nature, then you are poisoning the well of knowledge for each individual. If you do so in a feedback loop, considering what they were interested in before, you accelerate your earnings as well as the poisonin…

Sometimes I see the argument made that people are hackable by lies, therefore censorship is needed as an antidote. But I don't buy it, because 1) lying is equally available to all, but censorship is available only to the powerful 2) the powerful are as flawed as anyone else, except with power 3) historically the powerful who dabbled in censorship have also lied a lot, and censorship has helped them lie more easily. So the "censorship as antidote to lies" theory is just total bunk from every angle.

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

#120

Post by falcrist »

siliconc0w wrote: post #47

It is amazing to me that there are so many people, smart people even, that are adamant that we shouldn't have free speech in society.

Freedom of speech in the broadest sense (as in "the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or sanction.") isn't binary, and cannot be absolute. There are some forms of expression that we almost universally agree shouldn't be allowed. Incitement to violence, "shouting fire in a crowded theater", depictions of sex with minors, etc are all unprotected from restriction.

In that sense it's like the concept of freedom in general. It's slippery, difficult to define, and has fuzzy boundaries. We're not always going to agree on the extent of each freedom. Where does your freedom end and mine begin?

In this particular case, how big does a company need to be before we start forcing it to host content that it doesn't want to host? When is it ok to force someone to provide a universal platform... to tie their hands so they can't moderate as they see fit?

Do I have a right to stand on your stage and shout whatever I want at your audience?

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