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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

#701

I was hesitant for a while and the massive censorship was part of it. I got vaccinated in May and have convinced others to get the shot since the side effects, while existent, appear to be minor compared to the reduction in harmful symptoms. Talking to my doctor is what did it for me. He cleared up most of my concerns and pressed me that my remaining concerns were too nebulous to be useful. If he just said "shut up a…

I also find the censorship to be deeply disturbing, but for me that's counterbalanced by the fact that the arguments against vaccination are so dumb. The best argument is basically, "It's not researched enough and it might kill you." But so what, doing things that might kill you on the basis of limited data is like a basic part of being an adult.

Crossing the street is also potentially deadly.

Not crossing it, staying home all day until you starve or go insane from isolation is more deadly.

So we choose to cross the street.

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

#702

I was hesitant for a while and the massive censorship was part of it. I got vaccinated in May and have convinced others to get the shot since the side effects, while existent, appear to be minor compared to the reduction in harmful symptoms. Talking to my doctor is what did it for me. He cleared up most of my concerns and pressed me that my remaining concerns were too nebulous to be useful. If he just said "shut up a…

What kind of medical professionals?

Probably chiropractors

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

#703
on the one hand, i think that calling this "censorship" is wrong because, in my understanding, "censorship" is an activity of the government in an attempt to remove the (presumably dissenting) voice of the populace. this is simply a company refining its product in an attempt to make it more attractive to current, or potential, consumers.

on the other hand, masks and vaccines have been so conflated with political ideology that it's easy to see why people immediately make the leap to "censorship" and it does highlight the critical reality that internet corporations either do, or believe they do, own your content and can remove it in order to suit their ends.

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

#705
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…

Provide a better education for the poor. I don’t mean education about a particular subject; better education in general. In almost all conspiracy theories, one side has a lot of facts, the other has a lot of “feelings”. If you try having a conversation with someone who believes in some conspiracy you’ll eventually get to “I just don’t feel…”

Ok, and you get this how through school boards who don't want to talk about slavery and want to teach creationism?

And in what timescale, 2 generations?

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

#706
post #693

I was hesitant for a while and the massive censorship was part of it. I got vaccinated in May and have convinced others to get the shot since the side effects, while existent, appear to be minor compared to the reduction in harmful symptoms. Talking to my doctor is what did it for me. He cleared up most of my concerns and pressed me that my remaining concerns were too nebulous to be useful. If he just said "shut up a…

Hey, if you want to die, go for it. It's your freedom.

Unfortunately there's so many of these idiots they're clogging up the hospitals. I don't know why they don't just "do their own research" and die at home.

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

#708
one major concern i have is when things like religion get blocked as misinformation, or the whole fake it til you make it crowd gets blocked. part of growing is seeing yourself differently than how you previously saw yourself, what is stopping youtube in 10 years from becoming stricter because of pressure from some new movement? imagine presenting your product in the most professional way possible and then getting flagged by you aunt who you never got along with saying the content is disinformation and you are just some try hard who can't code? or what about your dating profile? you decide to put your best foot forward by dressing nice and then you get flagged as misinformation? or here's one, what if the mainstream narrative is wrong? about something major? that most people consider the truth but its harming a certain minority group. if the internet existed during slavery times, and someone were to post a video saying black men and women are equal to white men and women and deserve to be treated equally, now you and i both know this is absurd but, that's because there was a lot of work done that changed the narrative. that work done was started by small groups and grew into a movement, imagine that movement today never getting off the ground because of it's seed content being plucked out of circulation due to it being "misinformation". sometimes social and science references are completely off, and for someone to question that mainstream narrative can appear to be misinformation for those believing a lie. don't tell me it doesn't happen; there are plenty of people who are gullible enough to hold a faulty mainstream narrative in place. look at all the crazy videos from last year and tell me if you think most people are intelligent enough to come to the right conclusions. no hate, it's just a reality.

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

#709

I was hesitant for a while and the massive censorship was part of it. I got vaccinated in May and have convinced others to get the shot since the side effects, while existent, appear to be minor compared to the reduction in harmful symptoms. Talking to my doctor is what did it for me. He cleared up most of my concerns and pressed me that my remaining concerns were too nebulous to be useful. If he just said "shut up a…

> Her main hangup was the lies and coercion. Can you provide examples of the lies you're referring to?

Off the top of my head:

Fauci told the American public that masks don't work. My mom already owned N95 masks and got looked at like a crazy person because she was wearing one when shopping, ect. Then suddenly it became "the science" on the heels of all the research that already existed... Turns out it was a noble lie to protect the supply of masks while production caught up with demand.

It looks like Fauci lied about the lab leak theory for his own reasons, although I'm pretty out of date on that issue. Even if not Fauci we know that scientists with conflicts of interest all signed an open letter saying the theory is bunk and it was uncritically paraded around as "the science."

We were very clearly told "get the vaccine and you'll get your life back" but that hasn't even happened in paces like Israel with extremely high rates.

The vaccine was initially sold to us as something that would prevent infection, but that turned out not to be true. (I'm willing to concede this probably wasn't a lie but just something we learned as time went on, but it does reflect that they may have been overconfident and refrained from discretion because it was a pro-vaccine talking point)

Vaccine passports used to be conspiracies. Same with the idea that we'd have to get booster shots every so often to stay current.

And this is probably the biggest one: So many of the politicians pushing covid restrictions fail to practice what they preach outside of photo ops. The list is a mile long of local, state and federal politicians constantly violating their own restrictions. It lends credibility to the idea that none of them believe any of it.

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

#710
post #691

I was hesitant for a while and the massive censorship was part of it. I got vaccinated in May and have convinced others to get the shot since the side effects, while existent, appear to be minor compared to the reduction in harmful symptoms. Talking to my doctor is what did it for me. He cleared up most of my concerns and pressed me that my remaining concerns were too nebulous to be useful. If he just said "shut up a…

There are at least four people close to me who become more entrenched in their anti-vax stance the more this stuff happens. It's so obvious to me how counter-productive these measures are. However I don't suppose increasing vaccination rates are part of the goal of these measures, but just protecting YouTube from having to do moderation or take responsibility for the content on their platform. My mom for example, aft…

> Biden's recent speech blaming unvaccinated people being directly responsible for killing the vaccinated, a nonsensical supposition.

Can you explain how this is nonsensical? There is quite a bit of data showing that those who are unvaccinated are much more likely to spread the disease.

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