YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#781

Post by ardy42 » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 5:05 PM UTC

dgb23 wrote: post #452

owlbynight wrote: post #174

I'll preface this by stating that I hate the idea of censorship and I always have. However, were I to happen across someone motionless on the floor with a needle in their arm, I would give them NARCAN instead of a ride to a rehab center. I'm from the United States. Social media is currently poisoning our country to a degree that I think it may be too late to try and draw out the fight for free speech by using free sp…

> things are going to need to be sacrificed I say this for emphasis, not to personally attack you: Whenever I read or hear this it makes me extremely suspicious, because it often doesn't come from those who will do the sacrifice themselves. Censorship and other forms of regulating free speech is simply never a good solution. Perpetrators of lies will even hide behind this, and create a false image of rebellious heroi…

> Censorship and other forms of regulating free speech is simply never a good solution. Perpetrators of lies will even hide behind this, and create a false image of rebellious heroism, instead of facing public discourse and the consequences thereof.

> YouTube is a private entity but they correctly assess that they have a significant responsibility here. But curating social media content is not unheard of, Wikipedia manages it surprisingly well. Instead they could for example certify and emphasize content that is grounded in science and verify content creators of such. This is from the top of my head but there are certainly other people who have smarter ideas that don't involve straight up censorship.

I'm 100% certain that some crank and their followers are complaining about censorship on Wikipedia right now, because that community decided to not present their tendentious opinions or lies as the truth or to not present them at all.

The word "censorship" has been ruined: it's devolved into an epithet to describe any barrier, not matter how justified, between a speaker and his desired audience. It's not censorship for YouTube to ban this content, just like it's not censorship for me to ban anti-vaxxers and white suprecemists from putting signs up on my lawn. The mass dissemination of truth (or our best approximation) has always depended on decisions to not disseminate. You can't expect the common man to sort through a bag of 99 compelling lies and one truth to find the truth. That's too much work for an amateur, and too many will settle for a lie. Everyone relies on others to improve the truth-to-lie ratio to some manageable ratio that an individual can handle.

It's also worth noting is that one of the main reasons Wikipedia does better than YouTube is that it's process is 100% manual. Google's bias towards totally automated processes driven by some quantity of shallow data points greatly reduces how effective they can actually be.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#782

Post by amanaplanacanal » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

mlindner wrote: post #759

ativzzz wrote: post #702

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure current China would disagree with you given the amount of people they've raised from essentially peasantry to a modern middle class in the past generation.

That experiment is still ongoing and it's unclear what the ultimate result will be. They've very much not reached steady state yet.

I much prefer the western system, but really all our experiments are ongoing.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#783

Post by zaarn » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #767

zaarn wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We aren't the same at all. In the last 10'000 years, we developed lactose tolerance, enabling us to herd cows for more than just meat. Only about 200 years ago, the first people with three arteries instead of two in their arms are showing up and recent studies seem to indicate that wisdom teeth are evolving away. The evolution of a species never stops, even if it gets a bit slow. And our brains may have changed in th…

How far could a new mutation have spread in the last 200 years though? Not far.

According to newspapers, about 30% of people born 20th century have this mutation.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#784

Post by nineplay » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 5:07 PM UTC

nendroid wrote: post #756

nineplay wrote: post #661

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't even have to watch a political video. I have crap popping up all the time, "Watch this professor get destroyed by !" I know youtube is a shithole and yet it still surprises me. My son's favorite kid's show is only on YouTube so I created a new account, subscribed just to their channel and still inappropriate content shows up. How hard is this? I also can't block it for my daughter because she has school ass…

Your kid will be corrupted by society anyway. What's this whole thing about protecting children from the reality of the real world anyway? A bit off topic but a serious question. What's your logical reasoning for blocking the content now. It's just slowing down what he will be able to see (by deliberately going around you) within a couple years. I never understood this with parents.

I'll point up to the original topic. Do you think it's a good idea to let a young child watch anti-vaccine videos? What about political videos which claim that 'the other' side supports killing babies? Young kids don't yet have the context to understand lying and propaganda, and it's not clear when they'd have the mental maturity to understand it.

More specifically, I was raised in a generation where adults didn't worry particularly about children seeing violent or upsetting content and it brought me nothing but nightmares and a lifetime of insomnia.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#785

Post by DenisM » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

enraged_camel wrote: post #526

dgb23 wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> things are going to need to be sacrificed I say this for emphasis, not to personally attack you: Whenever I read or hear this it makes me extremely suspicious, because it often doesn't come from those who will do the sacrifice themselves. Censorship and other forms of regulating free speech is simply never a good solution. Perpetrators of lies will even hide behind this, and create a false image of rebellious heroi…

>> Censorship and other forms of regulating free speech is simply never a good solution. This is of course false. We have hate speech laws for example.

Can you show a US law that stifles "hate speech"?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#786

Post by owlbynight » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 5:08 PM UTC

crusso wrote: post #752

owlbynight wrote: post #174

I'll preface this by stating that I hate the idea of censorship and I always have. However, were I to happen across someone motionless on the floor with a needle in their arm, I would give them NARCAN instead of a ride to a rehab center. I'm from the United States. Social media is currently poisoning our country to a degree that I think it may be too late to try and draw out the fight for free speech by using free sp…

I personally think that this is now a war for democracy In this war for democracy, which side of the war do you think wants everyone to be able to access any information and which side do you think wants to control the flow of information? How can we value each and every voter's input if we don't value their ability to filter for themselves what is true?

When you order a product on Amazon that immediately breaks and then you find out that of its 10000 reviews, 9750 of them were fake, I commend your ability to put your personal feelings aside in lieu of the greater fight for free speech.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#787

Post by owlbynight » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 5:15 PM UTC

joshuapark wrote: post #280

owlbynight wrote: post #174

I'll preface this by stating that I hate the idea of censorship and I always have. However, were I to happen across someone motionless on the floor with a needle in their arm, I would give them NARCAN instead of a ride to a rehab center. I'm from the United States. Social media is currently poisoning our country to a degree that I think it may be too late to try and draw out the fight for free speech by using free sp…

A war for democracy would be fighting to give everyone a voice, even to those who you disagree with. Remember: - Those who sacrifice freedom for security, deserve neither. We shouldn't sacrifice freedom allowing platforms to censor people. Annoys me the bullshit on youtube on all levels, but I don't want any platform removing the right of those people to say their ideas. People can have bots, but they will never be a…

Do you think that one person should be able to vote for a president 100 times by impersonating 99 other people?

Perhaps if there was someone on the other side doing the same for the other party's candidate, we can find balance?

What is the outcome? Democracy?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#788

Post by owlbynight » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 5:17 PM UTC

umvi wrote: post #566

owlbynight wrote: post #174

I'll preface this by stating that I hate the idea of censorship and I always have. However, were I to happen across someone motionless on the floor with a needle in their arm, I would give them NARCAN instead of a ride to a rehab center. I'm from the United States. Social media is currently poisoning our country to a degree that I think it may be too late to try and draw out the fight for free speech by using free sp…

No. Determining truth is a hard problem, and trusting huge corporations to arbitrate truth for us is extremely dangerous to our democracy[0]. [0] https://youtu.be/ZggCipbiHwE

Do you trust Amazon to remove fake reviews?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#789

Post by gizmo385 » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 5:19 PM UTC

j8hn wrote: post #141

gizmo385 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But remember back in March? Our glorious leaders were urging us not to buy masks because they don’t work, and besides, doctors need them. I think this is a bit disingenuous. First of all, you're looking back with the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge of the virus that we have today. Additionally, weren't most of the recommendations around mask wearing that people not gobble up PPE because there was such a shor…

No, it's not disingenuous. The surgeon general said in March that masks were not effective for the general public against Covid-19. The CDC said on March 13, 2020 that there is really no evidence that wearing a mask will reduce your risk for any respiratory infection. https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1238487810874789889

I'd also note that we just learned of this Virus at the end of December. We were and are still learning new things about how the virus spreads and how we can effectively fight its spread. The fact that some of the early guidance has been reversed is evidence that scientists are learning more about the virus, not that we shouldn't listen to them or that their advice is 'obvious bullshit'.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#790

Post by mancerayder » Thu, Oct 15, 2020, 5:20 PM UTC

What I find offensive is the idea that groups of individuals decide what information is good or bad for everyone. That implies we can't decide for ourselves, that experts should filter information before it gets to us. How naive is that, is there a lack of civic education and history in the dangers posed here?