Live data from Hacker News

YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

reuters.com

121–130 of 933 posts

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#121
post #84
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree on this one - authoritative bodies can be wrong / misled as well, and shouldn't be the only arbiters of truth. Ex: The WHO made many mistakes during COVID, including faulty recommendations and (alleged) influence by a governing body to limit bad press. [1] (Before the ad hominem attacks come in, I'm obviously very pro vaccine...but against censorship and generally distrust authoritative bodies of most kinds.) […

Youtube's content moderation team also has a terrible track record. One of my favorite science channels, Cody's Lab, gets banned all the time because he has educational videos on making explosives. The guy is so family friendly he doesn't even swear in his videos.

He got raided / investigated by a government body as well at some point (it's in one of his videos) where they went looking for nuclear materials. He had some, but it was traces and stored securely (he made his own lead/concrete container).

Anyway, Youtube - and by extension, the US government - are a bit cagey about instructions on how to make explosives (and thermite). If amateurs try to emulate it, they can injure themselves badly. I mean you only have to look at some of the "fail" compilations on youtube to see how stupid some people are.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#122

Alternative Video Sites : https://lbry.tv/ https://www.dailymotion.com/ https://www.bitchute.com/ https://dlive.tv/ https://bittube.tv/

lbry is a great site, i still don't quite understand where the videos are hosted and served from though...

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zzzz. Yeah that's a problem, but come back with a proposal about how to deal with the existing misinformation and bad faith problem.

Getting rid of the algorithms that actively distribute certain types of misinformation as widely as possible would probably mostly solve the issue while maintaining the broadest definition of “free speech.” But since that’s their entire business model, it’s unlikely to happen.

But then again you run into the problem of determining what is misinformation, vs e.g. counterpoints / arguments / critical thinking / devil's advocate videos.

I for one am glad I'm not responsible for setting policies like that.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zzzz. Yeah that's a problem, but come back with a proposal about how to deal with the existing misinformation and bad faith problem.

More freedom of speech is the answer to misinformation because then it can be challenged. Censorship allows convenient mistruths to spread unchallenged.

The issues of fake news and misinformation have come about because the freedom of speech at scale that the internet and sites like Youtube enables.

What we're experiencing is the limit of freedom of speech.

It used to be that at scale things were controlled by the media and governments because they had the monopoly on the infrastructure required, which was costly.

You can say that this enabled a level of censorship, but that also enabled to filter a lot of noise.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? According to the article youtube's policy team meets with the WHO weekly to discuss potentially problematic videos.

So would WHO have recommended censor of videos in mid January from people claiming C19 could be spread human-to-human? https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?s=20

Don't jump to conclusions, please. Because you seem to assume the WHO didn't change their minds based in research but on public opinion. And that they would "censor" any other information. No proof for either.

Also, only governments can censor. Youtube is a private entity, so whatever they do cannot be censorship yo begin with.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#126

Yay, this is great, and should be used for everything! /s If we used this for medical advice in my country, this would make it very funny... at the start of the epidemic, our government "experts" said: - "healthy people don't need masks" ...and youtube would censor all the "fearmongering paranoics" advocating for mask use. Then on some random spring day, our government makes a new rule: - "you need a mask and gloves…

Isn't this how science works, you have new information and you use it to make a better decision.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Like the results of a numerical integration, the long term is the sum of all the short terms that came before it.

Long term damage is the inevitable consequence of too many bad short term decisions.

Poor short term leadership damages societies just as a poorly maintained codebase rots from accumulated technical debt.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#128

Yay, this is great, and should be used for everything! /s If we used this for medical advice in my country, this would make it very funny... at the start of the epidemic, our government "experts" said: - "healthy people don't need masks" ...and youtube would censor all the "fearmongering paranoics" advocating for mask use. Then on some random spring day, our government makes a new rule: - "you need a mask and gloves…

Isn't this how science works, you have new information and you use it to make a better decision.

But do you censor the people saying there is a better decision? And do you then censor the people that advocated for the former "better decision" at the time when it was 'current'.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Zzzz. Yeah that's a problem, but come back with a proposal about how to deal with the existing misinformation and bad faith problem.

More freedom of speech is the answer to misinformation because then it can be challenged. Censorship allows convenient mistruths to spread unchallenged.

This assumes rational, reasonable and good-faith arguments and behaviour though; if there's a thousand voices (pushed by interest groups, foreign governments, advertisers, etc) pushing one narrative, what's a single challenging voice going to do?

I mean I can invoke Godwin's Law, but we don't have to go that far back; everybody knew Trump was a terrible person and he should not have been eligible for the presidency, but because of tolerance he was given a shot anyway, and a minority of the population (~19%, ~63 million votes) managed to make him president.

My new favorite wiki page (for now) is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#130

Yay, this is great, and should be used for everything! /s If we used this for medical advice in my country, this would make it very funny... at the start of the epidemic, our government "experts" said: - "healthy people don't need masks" ...and youtube would censor all the "fearmongering paranoics" advocating for mask use. Then on some random spring day, our government makes a new rule: - "you need a mask and gloves…

Isn't this how science works, you have new information and you use it to make a better decision.

Dr Fauci publicly claimed masks were not effective as a means of protecting the supply of masks to healthcare workers, he knew his claims were false at the time he made them.

So no, it wasn't "science", it was deliberately misleading public statements.

Post reply on HN