I've already banned youtube, along with all tyrannical platforms. People should be more proactive.
YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
341–350 of 1001 posts
Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
#342At this point I'm not hesitant about the vaccine, but getting it would only validate the heavy-handed approach we're seeing wrt censorship.
So you understand and acknowledge that this vaccine can literally save your life, and you accept all the science that shows that it is safe and effective, but you refuse to get it because some people are being forbidden (by a privately-owned platform, only on that platform) to spread lies about how it's not safe or effective? That's a very strange position to take, to put your own life in literal mortal danger becaus…
I have values and principles that I want to see embodied by the society in-which I participate. The vaccination rate is (to my knowledge) the only metric being used to validate these policies that I can directly and consciously affect. So I do.
If I was unwilling to tolerate even the minute risk of not getting the jab, my position wouldn't be based on values or principles, it'd simply be aesthetic preference.
As it stands, I keep an eye on my health, keep an extra distance when I'm around others, mask when it makes sense, and keep social interaction to a reasonable minimum. If the mortality rate of covid increases significantly I'll reconsider my position in light of the new numbers, though I don't know if I'll reach a different conclusion.
Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
#343My wife is very vaccine hesitant, and every time they make a move like this to block content or take it down, it only strengthens her position. She thinks they’re taking it down because they don’t want people to know the truth. The only thing worse than bad ideas is the suppression of bad ideas. It’s tragic that we knew this at some point, but are going to have to figure it all back out again the hard way.
That line of reasoning doesn't make a lot of sense to me. One of my family members is also very hesitant to get the vaccine and gets all kind of anti-vaccine propaganda through various groups and channels. She takes that content as "reasonable" and "potentially true" even tho basically all of what I've seen is simply untrue. E.g. an article claiming there were more deaths due to covid vaccines than to covid, which is…
Looking at ONS and NHS statistics for deaths and using the same criteria to look at deaths within X days of a vaccine, and adjusting the excess deaths in each as compared to the baseline rate of deaths in previous years, adjusted by age group, has been considered anti vaccine propaganda for a lot of this covid debacle.
UNfortunately what your family member is doing is actually the mirror opposite of what the official reports and mainline consensus has been, that all deaths in X days of a positive covid test are caused by covid but that no deaths after vaccination are are caused by vaccines. Also consider that harms from covid have been reported averaged amongst all age groups to give and inflated risk for the young, while risks from vaccination have been averaged amongst all age groups to lower the stated risk to the young. I state this last point just to illustrate how deliberate misinformation has been government policy with regards to covid stats, so the same technique used by anti vaxxers is of no surprise whatsoever.
When the mainstream consensus uses precisely the behaviour nudging abuse of data as a conspiracy theorist, do not be supposed when some people are unable to see what the problem is.
Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
#344Time for repeat showing of the free speech debate we’ve already had a dozen times, whoopee! As ever, IMO, the problem isn’t the hosting or the banning, it’s the algorithms. I don’t care whether YouTube hosts anti-vaccine activists, I care that they actively promote anti-vaccine content to users simply because it’s proven to get clicks and earn them money. Bans like this look incredibly stupid when you realise YouTube…
I'm not sure that 'banning' and 'changing the algorithm so that it doesn't pop up' is meaningfully different. We can just assume that YT hasn't banned this content, but it never ever shows up in recommendations. The effect would be practically the same.
It's a hard problem to solve.
Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
#345Time for repeat showing of the free speech debate we’ve already had a dozen times, whoopee! As ever, IMO, the problem isn’t the hosting or the banning, it’s the algorithms. I don’t care whether YouTube hosts anti-vaccine activists, I care that they actively promote anti-vaccine content to users simply because it’s proven to get clicks and earn them money. Bans like this look incredibly stupid when you realise YouTube…
I personally really preferred old Youtube, where your subscriptions were the main thing you saw along with the absolute "most popular viewed today" kinds of things. The algorithm has only made the site worse in my experience and I always go directly to my subscriptions to be able to at least see things I'm subbed to.
I'm of the same opinion. A user's subscriptions seemingly matter very little nowadays, I've noticed. The focus on recommendations is so heavy I'm very often recommended videos I've already watched, some of them multiple times; very few recommendations are videos (old or new) from channels I'm subscribed to.
I've also noticed that many content creators are now offering email newsletters (such as Tom Scott) and encouraging subscribers to connect outside of YouTube, presumably as a response to this.
Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
#346I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on open discussion by moderate voices. I'm subscribed to the channel of an M.D. on YouTube who discusses COVID-19, vaccines, etc. He is very careful to (repeatedly) point out that he is vaccinated, he has personally vaccinated hundreds of patients, he encourages everyone to speak to their doctor and follow their recommendations, believing that the vaccine is…
What should happen here? Do we not allow YouTube to ban content they don’t want on their platform? What type of content? Just anti vax or anything that’s not illegal? Should YouTube be forced to host racist content, porn etc? Is it just YouTube or any site with user generated content like forums? What about illegal content? Who gets to decide what’s illegal? Is YouTube the law enforcement on YouTube or do we need to go through courts to take down content that’s potentially illegal?
Slippery slopes go both ways.
Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
#347IMO, go further. Remove all medical recommendation and assertions from YouTube. Leave YouTube for entertainment, and have other platforms - perhaps ones better regulated and better managed - for medical discussions in a scientific context. There's inherent difficulty in trying to judge between wackos and pros, because wackos do their best to masquerade as pros. This is basically a turing complete issue, because there…
Hope nobody against abortion is at the wheel in this scenario. Censorship is a shortcut to avoid doing the real work of de-radicalizing people and convincing the undecided. It's not even a working shortcut. For every issue liberals focus on, there has grown a loud minority who want to normalize Big Tech using their power to ban opponents because they don't see how it will always backfire, and/or they're bullies who c…
Not sure how this relates to my comment, sorry.
Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
#348Remember Wuhan lab outbreak ? It took 9 months for mainstream media to present it as plausible (France). Before that, it was called a "conspiracy theory", synonym to a fable. What did you think happened to people speaking about it on twitter, facebook or youtube before mainstream media greenlighted this theory ?
Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
#349My wife is very vaccine hesitant, and every time they make a move like this to block content or take it down, it only strengthens her position. She thinks they’re taking it down because they don’t want people to know the truth. The only thing worse than bad ideas is the suppression of bad ideas. It’s tragic that we knew this at some point, but are going to have to figure it all back out again the hard way.
==She thinks they’re taking it down because they don’t want people to know the truth.== Sounds like she has already made up her mind, in which case I’m not sure it matters if the content is moderated or not. It’s possible she will find whatever reinforces the decision she’s already made. ==The only thing worse than bad ideas is the suppression of bad ideas.== This sounds good, but is it true? The bad idea exists toda…
> In schools, we suppress all sorts of bad ideas
No, fortunately that is not worldwide practice. "Challenge", possibly, «suppress», not everywhere.
Would suppressing the discussion about eugenics worsen the matter: yes, for example by having to restart the discussion from stage one. The naïve would retain naïve ideas, unchallenged.
Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
#350YouTube is a private company, not a public service. Anti-vax is not a protected class of people, and so there is no law that says YouTube cannot discriminate against them. As a company, they've decided to take this path. They don't have to justify it. If that makes you angry, boycott them. Don't conduct business with them, which includes watching their content and ads. And if you think that YouTube is large enough an…
A private company shouldn't get to pick and choose what opinions are valid. YouTube is not an arbiter of truth, and there is no universal law that says YouTube's moderators will always be correct. As a massive corporation, when they decide to take the path of banning critics of Google, pro-Palestinian activists, feminists and so on, the other companies will follow suit. They don't have to justify it, because almost n…
> A private company shouldn't get to pick and choose what opinions are valid
They aren't. Their not deciding universal truths. They're deciding what content they want to host on their platform, which they operate and pay for. You have no control, nor any say, in what content that is. Go make your own.
And I'd gladly vote in favor of a break up of all the big tech firms.