YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#751

Post by cmdshiftf4 » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:40 AM UTC

tw600040 wrote: post #745

So, if China censors something that's censorship and if Youtube and Twitter does it (with the blessing of the Govt) , it's to protect the people from conspiracies..Got it..

The people passively or actively supporting this stuff because it suits their ideological aims are mentally more aligned with the guards over at China's Uyghur concentration camps than they are to the freedom orientated people who founded the country they're currently occupying.

Shoulder shrugs and "ugh, fuck, well at least it's the people we disagree with" at best.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#752

Post by grawprog » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:41 AM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #742

grawprog wrote: post #694

https://www.engadget.com/youtube-election-misinformation-dem... So, i'm kind of curious how it's reasonable a political party can ask for partisan censorship. >YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki received a letter on Tuesday from four Democratic senators expressing “deep concern” over the spread of election misinformation on Google’s video platform. In the letter, senators Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii…

This is roughly the equivalent of the yelling "fire" in a crowded theater problem. A lot of these videos are saying things that cannot reasonably be classified as anything other than misinformation. For example, they typically refer to things like mail-in voting as "fraud" to begin with. They also make up vague but scary claims about large numbers of illegal immigrants having voted, etc. All of this has a chilling ef…

>This is roughly the equivalent of the yelling "fire" in a crowded theater problem

I don't see the equivalence. One of those has the potential of causing very immediate panic and potential injury or death as people rush to escape a non-existant fire. The other leads to people thinking dumb things about politics.

>For example, they typically refer to things like mail-in voting as "fraud" to begin with.

Ok, so wouldn't it be the people who seek out and watch these kinds videos that would be the ones that would be too afraid to use mail in ballots? Seems like the people who think those videos are nonsense won't believe them anyway.

>All of this has a chilling effect on democracy and people exercising their lawful right to vote by post

How? From what I understand, there was a record number of mail in ballots this year, seems like it did nothing of the sort.

>More Senators (from both parties) should be joining the named ones about cracking down on misinformation.

No, the government should not be allowed to decide what is or isn't real information, that's called propaganda.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#753

Post by jkhdigital » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:41 AM UTC

quadrifoliate wrote: post #742

grawprog wrote: post #694

https://www.engadget.com/youtube-election-misinformation-dem... So, i'm kind of curious how it's reasonable a political party can ask for partisan censorship. >YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki received a letter on Tuesday from four Democratic senators expressing “deep concern” over the spread of election misinformation on Google’s video platform. In the letter, senators Robert Menendez of New Jersey, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii…

This is roughly the equivalent of the yelling "fire" in a crowded theater problem. A lot of these videos are saying things that cannot reasonably be classified as anything other than misinformation. For example, they typically refer to things like mail-in voting as "fraud" to begin with. They also make up vague but scary claims about large numbers of illegal immigrants having voted, etc. All of this has a chilling ef…

You’re going to have to walk me through that line of reasoning. The chain of causation between yelling “fire!” in a crowded theater and someone getting trampled to death while attempting to flee doesn’t require any stretch of the imagination. You claim that YouTube videos with false information about the 2020 election have a “chilling” effect on democracy. What does that even mean? And how would you even begin to establish some concrete chain of causation between the videos and whatever it is you define as “chilling”? Do you see how hand-wavy your argument is?

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#754

Post by singron » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:44 AM UTC

singlow wrote: post #330

If there is to be toleration in the world, one of the things taught in schools must be the habit of weighing evidence, and the practice of not giving full assent to propositions which there is no reason to believe true. For example, the art of reading the newspapers should be taught. The schoolmaster should select some incident which happened a good many years ago, and roused political passions in its day. He should…

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.

--Bertrand Russell

It's an important skill to independently discern the likely from the unlikely on your own, but any idea repeated often enough becomes "truth", and it's an important function of society to recognize fake truths and purge them.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#755

Post by dstola » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:45 AM UTC

balozi wrote: post #607

dstola wrote: post #512

Regardless of where you stand, this is _blatant_ political bias (democrats) towards an equally valid opposing viewpoint (republican) This is literally definition of a slippery slope where Google is going and would have caused an absolute outrage had it happened with the whole Russian election meddling 4 years ago. Let the freedom of expression take course, trying to control the narrative is exact opposite of democrac…

Bet you thought that the slippery slop would stop at the "deniers" and the "anti-vaxers".

It will only stop at 1984 levels when the only opinions you can have are the government mandated ones

You think that would never fly, but I bet people thought censorship on the internet on this scale would never work 20 years ago

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#756

Post by cynoclast » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:46 AM UTC

lalaland1125 wrote: post #492

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #386

Unpopular opinion: it is much better to have a leader hated by the media and who's every move is scrutinized by the press than to have a leader cowtowed by the press and given a free pass on anything. How do I know? I'm from Russia. Authoritatism begins with tight control of news sources.

This comment is really weird. There is a good reason why the media publishes more negative articles about some presidents and fewer on others; some presidents are legitimately better or worse than others.

And sometimes the media is simply biased against that president: https://www.npr.org/2017/10/02/555092743/study-news-coverage...

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#757

Post by anonytrary » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:47 AM UTC

I just don't get this. Why does Google have to be the censorship police here? Just let people post what they want (minus graphic and illegal content) and make their own mistakes and their own learnings. Google is going down a rabbit hole full of worms. Posting conspiracy theories about election fraud is just people exercising their free speech. Google is a private platform, so they can censor whatever they want, but it's not like Google is going to get in trouble for allowing people to post about conspiracy theories. What's the goal here?

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#758

Post by dec0dedab0de » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:48 AM UTC

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #386

Unpopular opinion: it is much better to have a leader hated by the media and who's every move is scrutinized by the press than to have a leader cowtowed by the press and given a free pass on anything. How do I know? I'm from Russia. Authoritatism begins with tight control of news sources.

I live in the US and I've said this for decades. I wish the media were just as hard on the politicians they agree with.

The one thing different about trump is that he purposely provoked the media and responded to petty nonsense that previous presidents would have just ignored. Trump and the media have a symbiotic relationship because they both need the attention.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#759

Post by gravity13 » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:49 AM UTC

chki wrote: post #710

duemti wrote: post #140

I'm baffled how people support this behavior from big tech. It almost seems like they think of themselves as immune to this somehow, like little sheep unable to comprehend that they themselves once will deviate will get the same treatment (assuming they have spine to stand for what they believe).

The "slippery slope" argument doesn't work in this case (as for usual). Youtube already removes certain types of content and it already removes certain types of political content. This is necessary to monetize the platform in a meaningful way.

The year is 2047 and California is half desert, half ocean. Youtube has moved their offices to the hippest, most promising upstart of a community, Beluga, once a suburb of Fairbanks, Alaska.

A small collective of cyberpunk hackers have declared independence on an island remainder of Mt. Diablo. They call themselves "Hackerbridge" and base their upcoming government around ideas of universal basic income and their culture is based on pansexualism.

Youtube blocks any videos recognizing the independence of Hackerbridge.

As Hackerbridge fails to be recognized as a real nation, they cannot trade their wealth of knowledge building outdated UI apps with necessities like food, water, toilet paper, and general plumbing.

As their society perishes, their leader, Alexis Ohanian, finally leaves behind a stranded leftover on the island as he pushes away his hovercraft in the direction of Reno.

It is thought to be heard him say, "Where were you in 2020 when Youtube caved to corrupt government censorship?" but this quote is contradicted by other accounts.

Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud

#760

Post by allarm » Thu, Dec 10, 2020, 12:50 AM UTC

duemti wrote: post #140

I'm baffled how people support this behavior from big tech. It almost seems like they think of themselves as immune to this somehow, like little sheep unable to comprehend that they themselves once will deviate will get the same treatment (assuming they have spine to stand for what they believe).

Sure, they even support it right here on hn - the downvoted comments are very difficult to read and you can’t read the flagged comments - thanks guys for your gentle care for my mental health.