YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#321

Post by wrsh07 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:17 PM UTC

istjohn wrote: post #231

wrsh07 wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree I tend to think Ben Thompson has a good way of delineating who should be moderating the internet... that's discussed here (I think the day before he had an excellent interview with the cloud flare CEO) https://stratechery.com/2019/a-framework-for-moderation/ These platforms (fb, YouTube, Twitter) are not fundamental service providers As you move down the stack to fundamental infrastructure, you want them t…

We had this debate 250 years ago and decided that society is better off with free expression than with someone deciding what speach is and is not OK. It seems to have worked out pretty damn well so far. If we are going to change course, the impetus is on the pro-censorship side to make the case for the change. And no, it's not germane that these websites are operated by private corporations. If anything, the fact tha…

What myth are you reading? There are lots of things we forbid

We can decide that it's too dangerous to encourage people to commit violence, for example

We can still change laws (and have recently!) about what types of posts are acceptable. I want a world where we democratically decide that revenge porn is illegal.

But it doesn't even seem like you read my post, much less the link.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#322

Post by CyanBird » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:18 PM UTC

logicslave wrote: post #262

chrischen wrote: post #238

These types of censorship patterns are identical to that employed by China in intent . The practical consequences are the same as well. In China information censorship is due to the government trying to promote peace and harmony. Aka, the government thinks it knows what’s best for people and forces it on people. Facebook et al also encounter these same problems, where they see people spreading “misinformation.” It’s…

You have to wonder if there are Chinese actors within Google influencing these censorships...

Please avoid making bad jokes, take it to reddit

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#323

Post by AbrahamParangi » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:19 PM UTC

Justsignedup wrote: post #145

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll reiterate a point I’ve made before: the ultimate question is whether YouTube (and other social media platforms) should be permitted both the power to control on their platform as well as the freedom from liability of a common carrier. They exist in a limbo where they have their cake and eat it too- which I think is ultimately untenable.

The problem we face is that social media is about echoing information, not validity, which is how misinformation spreads so rapidly, because it sounds like what people want to hear. There is no precedent in human history in such a thing. A private entity which controls so much public understanding and opinion. Making YouTube liable for content would go a long way in helping keep YT content honest, and solve the moder…

For what it's worth, I do not think people in the past were more informed than people today. If anything, more people are more informed today than at any time in history.

What we're seeing is the breakdown of consolidated narratives. It used to be that people's beliefs were all wrong in the same way. You'll note that this looks basically identical to everyone being well informed.

Now that we've moved into a regime of information abundance it looks like the world's gone crazy, when really it's just decohered.

That said, youtube as a vector is spreading the most virulent memetic viruses we've ever seen. Hard to say how it shakes out though, memes aren't all bad. Everything good we've ever done started off as a meme too.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#324

Post by biztos » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:20 PM UTC

Am I the only one bothered by people talking about “censorship” in this context?

A private company chose to remove content from its service because it considers that content to be bad, and probably in violation of its terms.

Did the government force it to do so?

Is somebody preventing the owner of the video from hosting it on their own web site?

Censorship is a real thing in the world, and so is crying wolf.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#325

Post by wrsh07 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:21 PM UTC

coldtea wrote: post #268

wrsh07 wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Advertisers are ultimately pulling ads because of the will of the people, so if you're going to follow this one step further you see that the public has censorship power and that's what we want I think if you want to separate YouTube into separate stacks (eg fundamental infrastructure for hosting videos & a publisher / curator of those videos) you could imagine the infra part not being picky about what is uploaded (a…

> Advertisers are ultimately pulling ads because of the will of the people, so if you're going to follow this one step further you see that the public has censorship power and that's what we want They only pull ads because they can. If all platforms are banned from allowing removal of ads on specific videos, then those advertisers will have the option to (a) advertise, or (b) not advertise. Will the opt-out of YouTub…

This is such a bad idea. Also, you seemed to miss my points about why advertisers pull ads.

It's actually a good thing if advertisers don't sponsor something because their customers don't like that thing. Those customers are voting with their money, and those customers -- the democratic electorate -- those are the people we want making censorship decisions

This bizarre notion that more regulation (advertisers can't choose what videos they advertise on) would somehow fix the problem we're seeing is completely disconnected from reality

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#326

Post by chiefalchemist » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:25 PM UTC

darkwater wrote: post #304

lopmotr wrote: post #298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. It seems to have started with the 2016 election which left popular opinion being that there's a huge part of the population who are too stupid to think for themselves and must be shielded from bad ideas in case they believe them and harm the rest of us with them. Now that such an idea is readily accepted, censorship is easily seen as the morally right thing to do in lots of cases. The feeling is that we're prote…

That a huge part of the population choose unwisely and footgun themselves and the rest it's quite obvious. But the real, longterm solution is education, not censorship. But we have to admit that we are in an ultra-connected world like never before and fake, easy news are even more easily spread. So, critical thinking is a necessary skill to be taught.

> That a huge part of the population choose unwisely and footgun themselves and the rest it's quite obvious.

Twitter and media hyperbole aside how exactly is the current admin that much different than the previous? Bush #2 had fake WMDs and leveraged that to go to war. A war that cost hundreds of thousands of lives and a ridiculous amount of money. The last admin bailed out Wall Street (with few concessions), re-signed and expanded the Patriot Act, floated the Paris Climate Accord as a victory (but Naomi Klein tells otherwise). Over both of these admins and prior income inequality has increased.

We've been getting shot in the foot, the head, the arse, etc. I'm not a DJT voter or fan but the idea that he's the problem is naive. If W.DC had been doing their job there would have been no opportunity for DJT to rise. Trump is a symptom. Let's not be foolish and blame the symptom.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#327

Post by CyanBird » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

michaelborromeo wrote: post #253

okreallywtf wrote: post #181

I think that we often get hung up on the what-ifs of censorship while misinformation is doing damage right this second. The problem is that people don't evaluate 2 narratives equally based on the information in them. If that was the case, you would just have to make sure that for every bogus report there is a reliable report, but once misinformation takes hold it takes a lot more than that to dislodge. The analogy I…

To get people to eat veggies, sure you can ban the production and sale of junk food. I prefer to live in a world where both are available and the preferred solution is education about the effects of junk food.

I do agree, I wish we could live in such a world, but we indeed do not. That's why economics professionals receive nobel prices for their investigations into nudge economics and imperfect trade systems

Cows are not perfect spheres, and people are not perfect rational agents and that won't change for the foreseeable future so policy makers need to handle things with their avaliable policy tools, not the tools they wish they had

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#328

Post by biofox » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

acqq wrote: post #169

benjaminwootton wrote: post #2

Wow that’s dangerous. The interviewee is an ex director at the WHO with over 50 years experience as an Oncologist. He's being deplatformed for even slightly questioning the conventional wisdom. Wow! These tech companies hold way too much power. https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora

> ex director at the WHO Regarding his relation to WHO, according to his own claims (dead link on wikipedia) he was "Chief of the Cancer Program from 1997" (to 1999, just two years, two decades ago). But we also know that he falsely claimed to be professor on Imperial College, see also posts here.

There are documents in the WHO's online archive which support the claim. E.g.:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/331393/WH-1...

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#329

Post by brink » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

biztos wrote: post #324

Am I the only one bothered by people talking about “censorship” in this context? A private company chose to remove content from its service because it considers that content to be bad, and probably in violation of its terms. Did the government force it to do so? Is somebody preventing the owner of the video from hosting it on their own web site? Censorship is a real thing in the world, and so is crying wolf.

I'd be more willing to have this conversation if Youtube had actual competition.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#330

Post by tibbydudeza » Thu, May 21, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

He is a oncologist so not an expert in the field of epidemiology.

The virus is getting "tired" ... really.

Lots of these contrarian "experts" popping up in youtube channels with rather slick production values (wonder who is funding them) about social distancing and lock down policies.