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

washingtonpost.com

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

#581

Post by themacguffinman »

Loughla wrote: post #114
mach1ne wrote: post #57

People don't see what the actual problem here is - perhaps because they don't want to see. What is happening is very much the transformation from an open society to one where freedom of speech is limited and certain other individual rights are stripped away. Perhaps not de jure, but de facto. And sure, one might argue that it's for a good cause (even though it's a complex topic). However, the fact is that as this is…

I genuinely don't get it. YouTube, a private entity and not a government entity, is saying they don't want certain content on their platform. This is not the end of your free speech. This isn't really even a movement away from free speech. It's YouTube exercising their right to freedom of speech by not allowing what they believe to be harmful or disagreeable on their platform. They already do this with other categori…

I completely agree that YouTube should absolutely be free to do this but they're obviously doing this because citizens and their own employees demand it. The movement away from free speech is caused by the growing number of people (including people in this very thread) who want YouTube to do this, YouTube acquiescing to their demands is just a symptom of this trend.

YouTube is the profit-driven canary in the coalmine. YouTube's business model naturally incentivizes more speech of all kinds. This crackdown indicates there is mounting pressure - from democratically elected governments, from HN commentators, from our friends and neighbors that regulate & patronize YouTube - to stop being tolerant of certain kinds of speech like antivax.

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

#582

Post by Laremere »

spiderice wrote: post #541
landryraccoon wrote: post #447

Here's a thought experiment. Suppose we were at war with a hostile adversary, and that adversary had killed over 700,000 people already, and thousands more each day. I can scarcely believe that any reasonable person would argue that blocking propaganda or misinformation that harms the war effort would be an egregious imposition on free speech. Once the imminent threat is over, those efforts can and should stop, but n…

I think a large part of it is because the "misinformation" keeps changing. At first masks did nothing, then saying masks did nothing became "misinformation". The lab leak theory was "misinformation", until suddenly it wasn't. Large group gatherings spread Covid, but the BLM protests didn't. The list goes on, and the "experts" have changed their mind so many times that the idea that Youtube should be deciding what kin…

From what I've seen, they never lied about needing a mask. The early pandemic CBS interview with Fouci says wearing a mask is fine, but unnecessary for most people and would take masks from those who really need it. There was also a larger emphasis on sanitizing surfaces and avoiding face touching. This is because sars-cov-2 is more effective spreading infections as an airborn virus than expected. Once evidence showed otherwise, masking was recommended.

The lab leak theory shows a problem with human thought and why scientific methods are valuable. People focus on what's true, instead of eliminating what's impossible. To say the lab leak theory is a possibility is reasonable. However to say it might have spread to humans through another medium (eg, meat market) is also reasonable. To try and put any sort of probability between the two reasonable possibilities is a pointless endeavor. China is likely the only one with good enough evidence to say either way, and China isn't telling anyone else. Though even that doesn't say anything, because either way they wouldn't tell anyone else.

Big gatherings are bad, but the right to fight against tyranny is more important than the badness of the big gatherings. That is the context in which experts are not condoning BLM protests.

The problem is it's really hard to tell between a carefully considered expert opinion, and just someone talking out of their ass. It's also an evolving situation, with even experts trying to work with slow to come data. It's reasonable to say that people should focus on directing others to experts, and not and try to reinterpret or make predictions of their own.

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

#583

Post by oceanplexian »

lijogdfljk wrote: post #553
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…

Frankly, i applaud this censorship. Granted i'm super left/liberal/pro-vax/etc so i'm _definitely_ not in the camp of anti-vaxxers, however we have for years put all our faith and trust in corporations. Now private entities aren't aligning with a lot of people and they're shocked that corporations aren't the free speech utopia that they once thought. It frustrates me that many of these people didn't care when it was…

> Now private entities aren't aligning with a lot of people and they're shocked that corporations aren't the free speech utopia that they once thought.

I've worked at some of these companies so I can give you an insider perspective, because what you're saying isn't an accurate reflection of history. Maybe the internet wasn't a "Utopia" but compared to what it is now it certainly was.

In the tech community 5-10 years ago, all of us working for these larger platforms used to pride ourselves upholding free speech as a core value. At that time the only content banned were threats, copyright violations, child pornography, etc. Only after the 2016 election rolled around did everything change. The problem is that it's an incredibly slippery slope and once you start compromising your moral compass for "the right reasons", it quickly snowballs into something much worse than anticipated.

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

#584

Post by hackinthebochs »

3grdlurker wrote: post #444
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…

I’m not a believer that vaccine science is a matter of “public” debate. It’s scientific debate, where only experts who have the tools, experience, and knowledge to argue should be allowed to weigh in. If you already have the problem of bad actors misappropriating yet-to-be-verified “scientific” claims for their own political agenda, then I don’t see why it’s right to let those ideas go out there. I believe that peopl…

But much of the debate isn't strictly scientific. What is appropriate policy is not something science can determine. People who will be affected by policy absolutely should weigh in on it.

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

#586

Post by belorn »

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…

When the different vaccines came out we did not have peer-reviewed studies to show that they were effective, only the smaller studies done by the drug companies that developed them. In much we were accepting the opinions about the effectiveness as facts, as well as the side effects which were yet to be discovered.

We saw the same thing about the effectiveness of cloth mask and anti-bacterial cleaning had on spreading of covid. It took well past the first year before we started to see when, how, where and whom benefited from different strategies, and the meta studies is yet fully clear on the answers to those.

Looking what we don't know as far as today in terms of vaccinations, the biggest unknown variables seems to be about duration. With most nations having gone through two rounds of vaccinations, it seems now that a third one is now needed. One study cited recently was conducted on patients that is undergoing transplantation, with half of the patients missing antibodies while having taken two vaccination already this year. As a result there is a lot of talking about treating covid vaccination as something that will be added to the existing seasonal flue vaccinations that vulnerable groups take, but which the general population do not because of the short window of protection. Time will tell and it won't be anti-vax people that do the research or conduct the discussion.

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

#587

Post by TameAntelope »

elsonrodriguez wrote: post #579
TameAntelope wrote: post #483

I know this comment will be lost in the shuffle, and I notice this was submitted by danso, so I imagine there's an intentionality here, but I very strongly believe submissions like these are a substantial and growing threat to HN. Just remove them! Let's talk tech, startups, science! Submissions like these distract from the stuff I like on HN, but more importantly I worry they chase away the people I like from HN. I…

People in technology fields absolutely have an obligation to talk about the morality of technology. I'd highly recommend you to read Cat's Cradle if you haven't already. Carl Sagan also had something to say about this. In lieu of that, one can meditate on this more condensed take: > Don't say that he's hypocritical > Say rather that he's apolitical > "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? > That's…

I don't think people in technology should stop talking about these things, I just think they should talk about it somewhere other than HN.

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

#588

Post by kleer001 »

d0gsg0w00f wrote: post #572
landryraccoon wrote: post #447

Here's a thought experiment. Suppose we were at war with a hostile adversary, and that adversary had killed over 700,000 people already, and thousands more each day. I can scarcely believe that any reasonable person would argue that blocking propaganda or misinformation that harms the war effort would be an egregious imposition on free speech. Once the imminent threat is over, those efforts can and should stop, but n…

Breakthrough case here. Clinic said that's all they've been seeing recently, dozens per day. One thing I've never understood is why the vaccinated care so much about what he unvaccinated are doing? Vaccinated people still carry viral loads so it's either how it affects you personally or your compassion for the enhanced vulnerability of the unvaccinated. Based on the toxic rhetoric towards the unvaccinated it seems to…

Because the unvaccinated are:

1) Filling ICUs and taking up other hospital resources unnecessarily. Leaves that for people who are injured in accidents.

2) Dying. We don't want our fellow humans dying. Only anti-social jerks don't care if their fellow humans die from easily preventable causes.

3) Carrying larger viral loads for longer.

> their bodily choices?

If it were only their body it wouldn't be a much of an issue. However, it's not just their body. See above.

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

#589

Post by y04nn »

I'm for freedom of speech, people should be able to make their own choice with all the information available. There should be a right to be a "conscientious objector"[1] for vaccination. But to be fair, it would work only for an educated population that is capable to distinguish facts from misinformation. And for me, science should always be questioned, if not there is no research and no discoveries.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objection_in_the...

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

#590

Post by gorwell »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #450
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…

I was banned from a Reddit sub for saying that a previous Covid infection probably infers some immunity. This was around 8 months ago. Now EU vaccine passports accept a recovery from infection as being sufficient proof of immunity. On top of that now it's coming out that the Canadian military/government (and likely others) was intentionally deploying propaganda to make the populace more compliant. This is why moderat…

Can you provide more info re: compliance propaganda? I haven't heard about that.
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