351–360 of 1001 posts
Not rejected of course but if you deny Covid-19 vaccine you are behind in line after people who did get it.
“Reap what you sow”.
I 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…
Antivaxxers are without exception folks that are harming themselves and the people around them by holding a position that is in every case not well reasoned and in a few cases founded on actual ill thinking (as in mentally ill). Just like actual nazis need to not have a platform, and preventing them from having one hasn't had a stifling effect on society. These people are perpetrating evil with intent, that makes them qualitatively separate from everyone else.
My 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.
Edit: because I realize this is an apples-to-oranges comparison, here's an appropriate one: we don't allow cigarette companies to advertise, since smoking cigarettes is manifestly unhealthy. There's been an extraordinary amount of reporting on the undisclosed financial relationships between prominent anti-vaxxers and snake-oil companies; it's not clear to me why forbidding this kind of manifestly dangerous profiteering on a global pandemic actually represents a risk to free expression.
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/nyregion/vaccine-health-c...
Free speech used to mean the right to say anything without persecution. Does it now mean the right to have ones opinion be actively globally distributed by a third party? This is very much about fighting two viruses: one biological and the other one informational. We agree to limit contacts between people to stop the one but do not accept the same method to stop the other. Why? In both cases it is vital to ensure the…
> Free speech used to mean the right to say anything without persecution Free speech used to be more of an ubiquitous social courtesy like that, yes. However, that courtesy is rapidly disappearing in our society and free speech is being distilled down to its legal core which is: "you won't go to jail if you say something unpopular" Everything else is on the table including losing your job, being boycotted, being houn…
Oh, come on. Social consequences have been part of history since the start of the US, and long before that elsewhere too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Brown_(loyalist)
> On 2 August 1775 a crowd of Sons of Liberty confronted him at his house. Brown requested the liberty to hold his own opinions, saying that he could "never enter into an Engagement to take up arms against the Country which gave him being", and finally met their demands with pistol and sword. Taken prisoner with a fractured skull, he was tied to a tree where he was roasted by fire, scalped, tarred, and feathered. This mistreatment resulted in the loss of two toes and lifelong headaches.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Titus
> Despite Robert's importance in Rehoboth community, he began to have problems with his fellow townsmen. On June 6, 1654, he was told to move his family out of the Plymouth Colony for allowing Abner Ordway and family, "persons of evil fame", to live in his home. The practice of banishing a family from the colony was known as a "Warning Out Notice."
Black people got lynched for using their right to free speech for much of this country's history. People who piss off their communities have been banished or exiled or worse for millennia. Our close cousins in the animal kingdom do the same thing; if you're a dick, you're either the new leader or you're out of the group.
Of course it will. Welcome to the new propaganda. Same as the old propaganda. Free speech is the act of standing up for those who you disagree with simply because you believe they have the right to be heard. In today's world of "woke" content creators, everyone seems to miss this point. What started out as fairly clear cut issues such as racism and homophobia has now bled into grey areas around vaccines and gain of f…
My 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…
Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision? I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of "principle". Just a no win situation. It's too easy for bad characters to screw up an entire system with little effort (look at trolls, spammers, etc). Either you moderate everyone and slippery slope down into censorship where the tools…
> I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of "principle". I can confirm your suspicions in my case. I'm vaccinated (against COVID, the flu, and tetanus, and all the other things you can get vaccinated against), but I think YouTube is wrong here.
When your child gets polio because some soccer mom spent too much time listening to crackpots online and decided not to vaccinate their children, that's when you realise they were correct. And perhaps society as a whole did not nearly go far enough.
My 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.
And there it is--this doesn't sound like a person who is weighing their options in good faith. It sounds like someone who is already convinced of what the truth is. Let's stop calling them "hesitant".
Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision? I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of "principle". Just a no win situation. It's too easy for bad characters to screw up an entire system with little effort (look at trolls, spammers, etc). Either you moderate everyone and slippery slope down into censorship where the tools…
"Misinformation" should not be combatted by anything other than better, more persuasive information.