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YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

reuters.com

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Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#191

Post by spuz »

owlbynight wrote: post #174

I'll preface this by stating that I hate the idea of censorship and I always have. However, were I to happen across someone motionless on the floor with a needle in their arm, I would give them NARCAN instead of a ride to a rehab center. I'm from the United States. Social media is currently poisoning our country to a degree that I think it may be too late to try and draw out the fight for free speech by using free sp…

I'd be interested to know what your thoughts are on the UK and German models of "free speech" where no one has an absolute right to say what they want - certain subjects such as Holocaust denial or promotion of terrorism are banned. You could argue that we have been on a slippery slope for a long time but you could equally argue the slippery slope is a fallacy.

I think it's important to think about what the actual purpose is of the rights that we value. The right to free speech is simply a shortcut to a more fundamental right to allow people to live freely without undue influence from others. It may be that the absolute right to free speech might not be the best way to achieve that.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#192

Post by roenxi »

pzmTWLwfwJ wrote: post #126
ajsnigrutin wrote: post #115

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.

Banning everyone who disagrees with the current state of the science is also not how science works; and yet YouTube is going to attempt (and fail) to do just that.

YouTube is almost certainly going to be banning literal doctors with actual PHDs from expressing scientific opinions which later turn out to be substantiated.

The article says this ban includes material that "explicitly disputes health authorities’ guidance on self-isolation or social distancing.". There are some rather eminent doctors who do exactly that. Social distancing policy is a political, not a scientific, question of trade-offs.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#193

Post by dtech »

lki876 wrote: post #178
pzmTWLwfwJ wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Indeed. Something thought to be right was actually wrong. Happens all the time. And of course something thought to be wrong was actually right. This is why disallowing "misinformation" is utterly stupid.

This is not an argument to allow any fearmongering and actively spreading a harmful message. You can use this argument to say nothing should ever be forbidden/punished to say ever.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#194

Post by brigandish »

zaarn wrote: post #116
brigandish wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Youtube already had plenty of free speech where everyone can say anything unhindered and is rewarded if they generate attention. The ultimate free speech hasn't lead anywhere good on the internet because quacks that previously where relegated to soap boxes in their villages when free speech was thought of in the US are now given the same platform and power of voice as field experts who have studied their domain for y…

> Youtube already had plenty of free speech where everyone can say anything unhindered and is rewarded if they generate attention.

Hard to separate that out from the algorithms that promote videos. Would it be as bad, in your eyes, if discovery was "flattened", so to speak? i.e. no recommends, no shaping of the feed, no shadowbans or hidden videos

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#195

Post by DanielBMarkham »

owlbynight wrote: post #174

I'll preface this by stating that I hate the idea of censorship and I always have. However, were I to happen across someone motionless on the floor with a needle in their arm, I would give them NARCAN instead of a ride to a rehab center. I'm from the United States. Social media is currently poisoning our country to a degree that I think it may be too late to try and draw out the fight for free speech by using free sp…

I hate it as well, and if I could come up with some new way of advancing our species aside from free speech I would. I cannot and cannot see how such a thing would ever be possible.

Here's a bit of sunshine: the human species has not changed in thousands of years. We're still the same hairless monkeys we were back when people were thinking up all kinds of cool shit. Knowing this, it follows that 10% or so of the population are, well, nuts. Another 10% are so are willing to do anything to become famous. It has always been this way. (Of course, I'm just guessing the exact numbers)

What's happened is that these folks are using this wonderful new instant worldwide publishing tool we've made to continue their pathologies. And companies are happy to make money letting them do so as long as nobody gets too upset. We are now reaching the point where lots of people are getting upset and those companies are running around like a single fireman in a city on fire trying to figure out how to make their business keep going.

The good news is that we're still the same species as before, and we've solved over and over again the problem of what it takes to have a peaceful and progressive society. The problem we have is that social media should not exist. It shouldn't be regulated, broken up, or any of that. It simply should not exist. The incentives here are not aligned with the survival of our species (There's a huge discussion of what to make instead. That's for another day)

I think the problem is not easy to solve, but it's certainly easy to explain. It's not the end of civilization as we know it, at least it doesn't have to be.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#196

Post by gurkendoktor »

onion2k wrote: post #166
j8hn wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. My issue is that why did US health officials say masks were not effective against respiratory infections, when health officials from Asian countries had deemed them effective. Why didn't we have the science? Respiratory infections aren't new. I remember debating people early in the outbreak about the use of masks and they were pointing out that there was little scientific evidence on the use of masks, e…

My issue is that why did US health officials say masks were not effective against respiratory infections, when health officials from Asian countries had deemed them effective. Because Asian countries were basing their advice on science and the US was basing the advice on what would poll well with Republican voters who believe individual freedom is more important than community welfare. The US absolutely did have acce…

> Because Asian countries were basing their advice on science and the US was basing the advice on what would poll well with Republican voters who believe individual freedom is more important than community welfare.

It was the WHO who repeatedly stated that healthy people shouldn't wear masks, or close borders for that matter, and most politicians across the world didn't question that. And why would they, it's the job of the WHO to understand the science for us.

(If anything, Trump was initially harder on COVID than most by pushing for travel restrictions. At that time it was the Democratic NYC establishment that put individual freedom over safety [1], the two positions only flipped later on.)

The initial response, especially by the WHO, was an absolutely disaster. Asian countries did better than the US and the West in general because they _didn't_ listen to the 'experts'.

[1] https://twitter.com/billdeblasio/status/1234648718714036229

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#197

Post by PlasticTank »

onion2k wrote: post #166
j8hn wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. My issue is that why did US health officials say masks were not effective against respiratory infections, when health officials from Asian countries had deemed them effective. Why didn't we have the science? Respiratory infections aren't new. I remember debating people early in the outbreak about the use of masks and they were pointing out that there was little scientific evidence on the use of masks, e…

My issue is that why did US health officials say masks were not effective against respiratory infections, when health officials from Asian countries had deemed them effective. Because Asian countries were basing their advice on science and the US was basing the advice on what would poll well with Republican voters who believe individual freedom is more important than community welfare. The US absolutely did have acce…

>Because Asian countries were basing their advice on science

Actually for the most part this isn't true, our government was also telling us to wear masks but because of our previous experience with SARS everyone wore them anyway. Now of course it is illegal not to wear one.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#198

Post by j8hn »

hef19898 wrote: post #125
ed25519FUUU wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But did WHO make the original claim based on sound evidence or trying to appease a certain government? Taiwan disagreed with that assessment early on.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#199

Post by nickff »

spuz wrote: post #191
owlbynight wrote: post #174

I'll preface this by stating that I hate the idea of censorship and I always have. However, were I to happen across someone motionless on the floor with a needle in their arm, I would give them NARCAN instead of a ride to a rehab center. I'm from the United States. Social media is currently poisoning our country to a degree that I think it may be too late to try and draw out the fight for free speech by using free sp…

I'd be interested to know what your thoughts are on the UK and German models of "free speech" where no one has an absolute right to say what they want - certain subjects such as Holocaust denial or promotion of terrorism are banned. You could argue that we have been on a slippery slope for a long time but you could equally argue the slippery slope is a fallacy. I think it's important to think about what the actual pu…

>"The right to free speech is simply a shortcut to a more fundamental right to allow people to live freely without undue influence from others."

You are asserting a series of very controversial points here:

1) Some rights are more important than others.

2) Positive rights can override negative rights.

3) 'Living freely without undue influence from others' is more important than 'the right to free speech'.

Which philosophical or moral framework are you using? This may be compatible with utlitarianism and Rawlsianism (though you'd have to do the numbers on the long-term impacts, not just your short-term goals), but I'm not sure how other ethics would support it.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#200

Post by CryptoPunk »

Absolutely terrible terrible idea. Deeply complex issues, like a global pandemic caused by a new virus which there is little understanding of require liberal treatment of new ideas, and a free flow of information, to enable society to collectively tackle them.

People having the liberty to publish information that may be wrong is how information that may be right has a chance to get exposure.

We do not know, before dissemination and public review, what is and isn't correct information.

The process of critiquing a flawed analysis, or critiquing a flawed criticism of a correct analysis, is also extremely valuable.

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