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YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

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Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#271

Post by jimbob45 »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #103
PeterStuer wrote: post #64

Regardless of what you believe to be 'The Truth', has suppression or censorship ever worked to quench dissonance or convince skeptical people, again, whether right or wrong, that there really is 'nothing to see here'.

I'm pretty anti-censorship; specifically I believe that sunshine/debate is the best disinfectant. However, we aren't having a healthy debate right now because the election fraud conspiratorialists are shouting their message without regard for the rebuttals. I think there's something to be said for bringing the volume down to manageable levels so that we can actually have a debate. That said, I'm not remotely convince…

There was election fraud and I’m happy to link you some concrete evidence if you don’t believe me. That’s not the issue though. The issue is whether there was coordinated, systemic, and purposeful electoral fraud. That’s a much more difficult question to answer (probably a no lol). I would say that people like you who say that there was 0 electoral fraud are just as ignorant as the people conclusively saying that there was 1000% coordinated systemic electoral fraud.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#272

Post by mindslight »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #103
PeterStuer wrote: post #64

Regardless of what you believe to be 'The Truth', has suppression or censorship ever worked to quench dissonance or convince skeptical people, again, whether right or wrong, that there really is 'nothing to see here'.

I'm pretty anti-censorship; specifically I believe that sunshine/debate is the best disinfectant. However, we aren't having a healthy debate right now because the election fraud conspiratorialists are shouting their message without regard for the rebuttals. I think there's something to be said for bringing the volume down to manageable levels so that we can actually have a debate. That said, I'm not remotely convince…

Ugh. I'm very anti-censorship and I'm right there with you. It's hard to not acknowledge that we have a serious problem - half of the political establishment is hallucinating a different reality, far beyond the normal out of touch hubris pushed by both teams. I believe the raw energy is coming from being fed up with the looting and control by the plutocrats (like everyone), but they're being goaded in a completely nonsensical and destructive direction.

Every semi reputable editor (even Fox!) has put the brakes on this disinformation campaign, but it seems that doing so just makes the people believing it move on to even less credible feeds. Ultimately I think the hallucination can only die down on its own, but on the timescale of several years. Meanwhile the damage is being done right now. I just hope it's all just so Trump can continue grifting and developing political capital to try avoiding jail, rather than some larger plan like deliberately inciting a civil war.

Previously if one ventured into Internet conspiracy theory land, their new belief would be tempered by their social circle. Now whatever wild thing manages to get enough attention also creates its own social proof. We're essentially dealing with a violent mixture of the old and the new where digital non-natives are tuning into raw memetic noise while giving it the trust of the 1990's evening news.

I would be curious to see how this played out in a parallel universe where section 230 had never existed, the MITM business never gained popularity, new media ("tech") companies had to editorialize more like old media, and the anti-establishment action stayed on p2p nets with a higher barrier to entry.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#273

Post by hnracer »

shadowgovt wrote: post #200
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #110

We are very fortunate to have the algorithms, employees & management of Youtube/Google watching out for us. We're not intelligent enough to view a video and decide for ourselves what is fact v. propaganda v. entertainment. Hopefully some day we will have the same protections the CCP gives its people with even more content moderation. Thank you Google - you're the nanny the American people and the world always hoped f…

It's a private company. If you don't like their slant, use another private company. I swear, it's like people have never had to cancel a newspaper subscription before.

You're comparing a nearly perfectly competitive marketplace (newspapers) with an oligopoly due to network effects (social media). The customer has free choice in the former but very little in the latter.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#274

Post by ashtonkem »

PeterStuer wrote: post #64

Regardless of what you believe to be 'The Truth', has suppression or censorship ever worked to quench dissonance or convince skeptical people, again, whether right or wrong, that there really is 'nothing to see here'.

Yes. Extreme communities banned from their favorite platform always reform with significantly smaller numbers in whatever replacement platform they decide to go to.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#275

Post by orblivion »

dleslie wrote: post #131
Pungsnigel wrote: post #67

Will this include all videos talking of the Russia collusion?

No, because that actually happened. https://thehill.com/policy/national-security/512487-senate-p...

I this is a good example to bring up. One person sees "Russian Intelligence officer is an associate of Trump's campaign manager, and they worked together on some 'narratives', whatever that means. And if it were something more clearly bad, The Hill would have given a clear explanation.", and another person sees "Definitive evidence of collusion." One person sees a suitcase full of ballots hidden under a table after lying about whether counting was done, another person sees a normal ballot counting process and a misunderstanding.

The same people (YouTube employees) who don't agree with you in the first place are now in the position to decide whether your argument is reasonable enough to make. Nobody is rightly in the position to put guard rails on speculation over events, and I think we'll all be better off when we finally understand this.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#276

Post by jacquesm »

PeterStuer wrote: post #64

Regardless of what you believe to be 'The Truth', has suppression or censorship ever worked to quench dissonance or convince skeptical people, again, whether right or wrong, that there really is 'nothing to see here'.

I take it you also operate without a spam filter and an ad blocker on account of those being censorship?

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#278

Post by newacct583 »

bradenb wrote: post #105

Doesn't this just feed into people's fears about conspiracies? I can't understand why people are signing off on this. Let the Like/Dislike button do its job.

> Let the Like/Dislike button do its job.

Community moderation has completely and totally failed. Giant, enormous lies are being told to half the population without barrier. People who want to believe in a completely fabricated story about election fraud have all their eyeballs can get.

Fine. I get the free speech angle. But... who cares about free speech when democracy is dying in front of us? Free speech was supposed to have prevented this. It made it worse.

I don't have the answer here. But all I can see is people trying to deny the problem.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#279

Post by citilife »

throwaway894345 wrote: post #103
PeterStuer wrote: post #64

Regardless of what you believe to be 'The Truth', has suppression or censorship ever worked to quench dissonance or convince skeptical people, again, whether right or wrong, that there really is 'nothing to see here'.

I'm pretty anti-censorship; specifically I believe that sunshine/debate is the best disinfectant. However, we aren't having a healthy debate right now because the election fraud conspiratorialists are shouting their message without regard for the rebuttals. I think there's something to be said for bringing the volume down to manageable levels so that we can actually have a debate. That said, I'm not remotely convince…

I think the actual issue is that the claims of fraud are not being evaluated. I've watched tens of hours of testimonies thus far, seen the evidence, reviewed the data myself, and there's definitely something to all this.

The issue, is that the concerns are not being evaluated, both sides are not being interviewed, etc. We really need a trial. Unfortunately, that has not happened yet, in almost any of these "hearings". The lawsuits are dismissed due to "standing" or procedural issues, not on the merits.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#280

Post by meroes »

howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #110

We are very fortunate to have the algorithms, employees & management of Youtube/Google watching out for us. We're not intelligent enough to view a video and decide for ourselves what is fact v. propaganda v. entertainment. Hopefully some day we will have the same protections the CCP gives its people with even more content moderation. Thank you Google - you're the nanny the American people and the world always hoped f…

YouTube gets to make the call. That's the difference between it and the CCP.

If they are losing money to wasting bandwidth on unadvertisable content, why shouldn't they be able to decide to drop it?

Ironically, I'd say your alternative is closer to the CCP. The private entity gets to decide.

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