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YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

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Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#461

Post by crooked-v »

helen___keller wrote: post #150

IMO, 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…

> Similarly but unrelated, let's also ban drug ads on cable TV.

I'm reminded of seeing anecdotes about British and Australian people watching US TV streams and them finding the prevalence of drug ads really bizarre.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#462

Post by seieste »

duhast wrote: post #395
Nesze wrote: post #362

Age old follow-up question. Who decides what anti-vaccine content is? Who is going to draw the fine line? How simple (i.e. black and white) is to make this distinction? Do you trust that person / entity making these decisions for you and your peers? But even without defending free speach, looks to me that when you start censoring you just create multiple new problems with zero solution. So even from a design point of…

Thought experiment: Would you be making the same points if the debate was about ISIS propaganda? Or Holocaust denialism? Or content encouraging child exploitation? Viral videos encouraging suicides? Wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be taken down immediately, accounts banned and that platform owners are responsible? Or would you advocate for free speech and watch as the algorithm encourages more…

> if the debate was about ISIS propaganda?

Google recently deleted the entire account of someone who had videos of vehicles in the Middle East, claiming it was extremist content [0]. He was a historian who was cataloging how vehicles are used and modified in military operations across the globe. But google’s bots (which are probably pretty similar to YouTube’s) classified it as extremist content.

So I disagree with the premise of your argument — that we’d all support the automatic removal of “ISIS propaganda”.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28621412

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#463

Post by ravar »

CodeMage wrote: post #433
mariodiana wrote: post #65

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…

> Months ago he was insisting that the people who had contracted COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may not need the vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming out to support that. But months ago that was "anti-vax" (employing the slanderous use of the term). If you're claiming something that hasn't been demonstrated through peer-reviewed scientific research, then you're offering your opinion. If y…

never mind that many of the positions that are "scientific consensus" are not supported by the current peer reviewed research.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#465

Post by macinjosh »

Amazing YouTube! Finally, some good news!

I am really pumped for what this means for alternative platforms like rumble and odysee. This is the boost the independent web needs! YouTube was way too centralized.

The network is healing!

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#466

Post by seph-reed »

ookblah wrote: post #50

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…

YouTube's algorithm actively pushes people down rabbit holes towards fringe content.

The best way to combat this is not invest billions of dollars in infrastructure meant to do exactly the thing it just did.

Bad actors didn't poison the system, youtube covered itself in lacerations and jumped into sewer water. They stand back watching their algorithm divide and extremize everyone on every side of every debate, and now that the flame wars are starting to turn into mass graves they're hoping they can stop the whole thing by banning a few extremes here and there.

> Just a no win situation

I think there is a clear win here: AI should not be allowed to do what it is doing. Humans can't handle it. And the cost of lives is on Facebook and YouTube, plenty of employees took a stand to say exactly what was/is happening and were ignored.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#467

Post by flavius29663 »

duhast wrote: post #395
Nesze wrote: post #362

Age old follow-up question. Who decides what anti-vaccine content is? Who is going to draw the fine line? How simple (i.e. black and white) is to make this distinction? Do you trust that person / entity making these decisions for you and your peers? But even without defending free speach, looks to me that when you start censoring you just create multiple new problems with zero solution. So even from a design point of…

Thought experiment: Would you be making the same points if the debate was about ISIS propaganda? Or Holocaust denialism? Or content encouraging child exploitation? Viral videos encouraging suicides? Wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be taken down immediately, accounts banned and that platform owners are responsible? Or would you advocate for free speech and watch as the algorithm encourages more…

ISIS propaganda - at what point does a cleric preaching the Coran becomes ISIS propaganda? Should we stop seeing news where the taliban shout "death to america" - is that pro-taliban propaganda? Should we ban videos showing life inside Kabul today? Is that taliban propaganda? What about a person interviewing that says under Americans the soldiers came in his home and broke his stuff and also streets were unsafe at night and now under the Taliban it's safer all around?

Holocaust - what is denialism? If you argue for the figure of deaths in Auschwitz being smaller than it is currently publicly known, is that denialism? Does that mean that you are never allowed to challenge the dogma in the "wrong direction" ? What if the official number is actually wrong? https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-05-07-920210... Btw, there are countries in Europe that will prosecute you for denying holocaust, but that is an actual formal process: the prosecutors gather evidence that you consistently try to deny it, with false information, for the sole purpose of minimizing it, not for research or open discussion reasons. This is something prosecutors should do, not some random employees at youtube.

Viral encouraging suicides - should we ban Radiohead altogether? What about "Virgin Suicides"? Should we ban all depressing music and movies? Where do you draw the line? Should we only see happy stuff all the time?

I think speech should be free, except for the cases where it causes actual harm, and those cases should be determined by an official body that has a democratic control over it, like the police, FBI, DAs etc. Youtube/twitter/facebook are completely undemocratic, opaque and unaccountable for their actions. They should not have this much power to steer speech.

And children abuse is a hairy one. When exactly is something ban-able? Does it start at anything below 18? What about countries where 15 is the norm(and the law). What about Romeo and Juliet? And what constitutes abuse? I personally think Desmond is a clear abuse, same with Cuties, same with all beauty peageants for kids. I would ban them all, but you see, I should never have that power, it should come from officials that are ultimately democratically elected.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#468

Post by vkou »

afavour wrote: post #40

Time 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…

> Bans like this look incredibly stupid when you realise YouTube itself is responsible for this disinformation getting so much traction.

People keep repeating that the solution to bad speech is more speech, and more speech is more money for YouTube.

Unsurprisingly, more speech on this subject has not managed to drown out the nonsense, but it has done a great job of amplifying it.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#469

Post by lopis »

duhast wrote: post #395
Nesze wrote: post #362

Age old follow-up question. Who decides what anti-vaccine content is? Who is going to draw the fine line? How simple (i.e. black and white) is to make this distinction? Do you trust that person / entity making these decisions for you and your peers? But even without defending free speach, looks to me that when you start censoring you just create multiple new problems with zero solution. So even from a design point of…

Thought experiment: Would you be making the same points if the debate was about ISIS propaganda? Or Holocaust denialism? Or content encouraging child exploitation? Viral videos encouraging suicides? Wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be taken down immediately, accounts banned and that platform owners are responsible? Or would you advocate for free speech and watch as the algorithm encourages more…

> Would you be making the same points if the debate was about ISIS propaganda?

It doesn't matter, that's a fallacious comparison. It's not what the videos are about, and even if it was, who decides what is pro-ISIS propaganda and what is just discussion about what ISIS was doing? For years Youtube has been de-platforming anything that is not advertising friendly using AI, often de-listing videos altogether, with very little recourse unless you know someone who works at Youtube.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#470

Post by only_as_i_fall »

It'd be cool if this would decrease the number of antivaxxers, but actually it probably won't and Google really shouldn't be able to do this anyway.

Perhaps if YouTube didn't have almost total market dominance it would be less problematic.

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