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

#441

Post by coldtea » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

wrsh07 wrote: post #325

coldtea wrote: post #268

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 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 c…

>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

For one, I don't want anybody "making censorship decisions". We're not that far from the time the majority would like pro-integration/black, gay friendly, or atheist e.g content censored.

Second, they don't vote with their wallet on the actual content. They could always vote by not watching the video they don't like, and if enough people did that, the video would naturally not have advertising revenue.

But no, while they hate on the video, they don't target it, but target the company making some totally irrelevant to it advertised product, using their complain to negatively affect the video creators.

Third, and more important, this is not actual voting, nobody counts and there are no official rules and limits. A 20% or even 10% of customers can make the companys, and throu that, the content creators' life miserable (cut ad revenue, deplatform, censor, lose display space, etc), even if a bigger majority has no problem or even likes it. In fact, you don't even need that (10-20%), just enough determined hardcore complainers creating a fuzz, even if they're like 1% of customers, many companies just don't care to suffer them, and cave in.

Fourth, advertising companies also take pressure from their customers, the advertised companies, not just the public. Even more pressure there. So companies can also have leverage to stop them giving ads to content they don't like (whistleblowers, critical videos, etc).

>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

Since the problem is advertisers having too much power by being able to choose the videos they advertise in, of course more regulation disallowing that will fix it!

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

#442

Post by ta17711771 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:29 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #436

ta17711771 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> promptly restored upon manual review. Promptly restored upon viral traction of outrage...just like that podcast app was....

Exactly. What else aren't we hearing about that's being arbitrarily censored by YouTube? And can we really trust it as a platform? I'm losing more trust in Google every day. 10 years ago was "don't be evil." Now, they're just, "be only as evil as you can get away with."

P E E R T U B E

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

#443

Post by 2019-nCoV » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #436

ta17711771 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> promptly restored upon manual review. Promptly restored upon viral traction of outrage...just like that podcast app was....

Exactly. What else aren't we hearing about that's being arbitrarily censored by YouTube? And can we really trust it as a platform? I'm losing more trust in Google every day. 10 years ago was "don't be evil." Now, they're just, "be only as evil as you can get away with."

The abhorrent "safe space" culture was mostly contained to college campuses a decade ago. Unfortunately, every large left-leaning organisation across the US is now deeply steeped in it.

You reap what you sow.

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

#444

Post by ta17711771 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

_bxg1 wrote: post #207

acituan wrote: post #51

I don’t agree with the interview contents, nor think professorship alone gives sufficient credibility in the face of a novel pandemic, data of which is in the process of emerging. That said, I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not. They don’t have in-house experts on these domains, they don’t have a magic epistemology machine that spits out the “facts”. They are good at writing web se…

And on the other end of the spectrum we have people being indoctrinated into violent conspiracy groups like QAnon, or being prompted to set fire to cell towers, or bringing measles back from the dead, because of YouTube videos. There's a line to be drawn here - and it's a tricky line, to be sure - but "YouTube should be totally neutral and not pull anything" is not a viable answer.

Let the votes decide.

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

#445

Post by ta17711771 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:31 PM UTC

2019-nCoV wrote: post #421

_bxg1 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on the other end of the spectrum we have people being indoctrinated into violent conspiracy groups like QAnon, or being prompted to set fire to cell towers, or bringing measles back from the dead, because of YouTube videos. There's a line to be drawn here - and it's a tricky line, to be sure - but "YouTube should be totally neutral and not pull anything" is not a viable answer.

What is wrong with relying on the existing legal foundation? Arrest them for arson, if and when they decide to ravage a cell tower. Should we halt the sale of knives because they can be misused to murder?

Hey, it worked for the UK!

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

#446

Post by ta17711771 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:32 PM UTC

sneak wrote: post #381

_bxg1 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on the other end of the spectrum we have people being indoctrinated into violent conspiracy groups like QAnon, or being prompted to set fire to cell towers, or bringing measles back from the dead, because of YouTube videos. There's a line to be drawn here - and it's a tricky line, to be sure - but "YouTube should be totally neutral and not pull anything" is not a viable answer.

Censorship isn’t the answer to the things you fear. YouTube banning these things won’t stop them from spreading. YouTube not banning these things won’t cause people to commit violence. Try replacing “being indoctrinated” with “reading” or “being prompted to” with “watching crazies talk about how you should”, and try your sentence again without the biased framing. You misattribute the agency of the viewer. Video games…

No, but a hard drive was shot - right through the heart!!

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

#447

Post by modriano » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:33 PM UTC

2019-nCoV wrote: post #421

_bxg1 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And on the other end of the spectrum we have people being indoctrinated into violent conspiracy groups like QAnon, or being prompted to set fire to cell towers, or bringing measles back from the dead, because of YouTube videos. There's a line to be drawn here - and it's a tricky line, to be sure - but "YouTube should be totally neutral and not pull anything" is not a viable answer.

What is wrong with relying on the existing legal foundation? Arrest them for arson, if and when they decide to ravage a cell tower. Should we halt the sale of knives because they can be misused to murder?

Nationally, the clearance rate for arson is typically under 23%, meaning the vast majority of arsonists get away with it. In general, clearance rates are pretty bad across most crimes. The homicide clearance rate is typically below 62%, clearance rates for non-fatal shootings is typically below 55%, clearance rates for reported rape is typically below 40%, clearance rates for motor vehicle theft is typically below 20%.

And the actual clearance-by-arrest rates are lower than those values.

And conviction rates are even lower. (*edit: relative to the total number of crimes. Conviction rates are pretty high for the cases that State's Attorneys or prosecutor's offices accept and agree to prosecute)

The standard of proof for State's Attorneys/prosecutors to accept a case from Law Enforcement Officers (LEOs) is pretty high, and it's expensive to build and prosecute cases. Clearance rates would be higher if law enforcement agencies had high definition surveillance camera networks covering all public spaces, but I think people would also find that solution unappealing.

I'm a homicide researcher in Chicago and I've come to the conclusion that the legal system will never be able to solve or even make a significant dent in the homicide problem, and taking a "law enforcement only" approach is the same as just surrendering to the problem forever. If you want to solve crime problems, you have to explore preventative solutions, namely give people better paths and eliminate paths that empirically lead to only bad destinations.

[0] https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2017/crime-in-the-u.s.-...

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

#448

Post by AgentME » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:35 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #151

gameswithgo wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Truth is the answer to lies. I haven't actually seen evidence that this is effective in the modern social media era.

White people who have never been around black people are more likely to hold racist views. Straight people who have never been around out gay people are more likely to hold homophobic views. MLK understood that to change the image of black people as dangerous, he had to get black people shown behaving peaceably on TV. Harvey Milk understood that to change the image of homosexuals as foreign and strange, he had to sho…

>the primary evidence that deplatforming works seems to be a study that shows that bigots left Reddit and declares victory, completely ignoring that Voat started at the same time.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bjbp9d/do-social-media-ba...

Deplatforming leaves people with a smaller audience. Only a fraction of the audience follows a banned person to another platform. Voat is nothing compared to Reddit.

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

#449

Post by busymom0 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:37 PM UTC

ta17711771 wrote: post #442

chrisco255 wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. What else aren't we hearing about that's being arbitrarily censored by YouTube? And can we really trust it as a platform? I'm losing more trust in Google every day. 10 years ago was "don't be evil." Now, they're just, "be only as evil as you can get away with."

P E E R T U B E

I haven't used Peertube. What are your thoughts on it?

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

#450

Post by zaroth » Thu, May 21, 2020, 11:46 PM UTC

Analog24 wrote: post #431

mc6 wrote: post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unlike most other European countries, Sweden is not increasing its sovereign debt load by 15+% of GDP to keep the citizenry afloat. That’ll feel a lot more important than Covid in 5 years.

I think this is likely a biased view. If you ask the families of the 300+k people who died from Covid-19 they probably won't consider the economic impact to be the most significant.

I think it’s fair to say that both numbers represent a measure of different ways that the pandemic has caused pain and suffering, whether it’s in terms of lives or livelihoods impacted.

We obviously need to deal with both problems concurrently. There are a lot of actions that can be taken which can help one which doesn’t come at the expense of the other, so it’s not purely a either-or decision.

It would be wrong to turn a blind eye to either effect. The death toll is an immediate concern, but so is a functioning food supply chain, and indeed a healthy economy is critically important to everyone.

No having lived through an economic collapse or a hyper inflation event, for example, it may be hard to appreciate how difficult (and deadly) that situation can be.