What a piece of shit decision. For all of you who don't run ublock please do so, take away their revenue and cost them bandwidth.
YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
781–790 of 1001 posts
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#782Unpopular 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.
No, there were other differences. Let’s just go with his most recent example: He’s still refuting election results with no evidence to backup his claim.
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#783https://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…
For it to be government censorship, they'd have to use government power to censor. No formal power was used. It's also not urged by the federal government, which is the organization that Trump runs, but instead by elected representatives.
I also think it's misleading to call it partisan, as if truth and falsehood are just two different flavors of ice cream, or two different sports teams. An informed populace is a necessary precondition for democracy to survive. Google might have the right to profit from misinformation, but I don't think they have an obligation to do so. They are allowed to support free and fair elections, just like the rest of us.
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#784https://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…
Another good analogy is fraudulent advertising. Freedom of speech does not mean that people can say any old thing without consequence. If people were selling fake Covid-19 cures, Google would be well within their rights to take down ads and videos. And elected officials would certainly be allowed to ask about it if they weren't.
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#785If we don't have a meaningful signature match, than we don't have a meaningful way to prevent fraud with mail in ballots. Period. Bad ballot Rejection rate of 6% in previous election to now 0.02%, with mail in ballots. Mismatched signatures resulted in a rejection for only 0.02% of all absentee ballots cast. How is that even possible. They counted almost everything. For those of you that think its unfair to reject ba…
As others have noted, the statistics you listed are recklessly inaccurate.
That said: even if they were accurate, we'd still need to examine how may signature match failures result in detecting actual fraudulent voting, and how many signature match failures don't (ie they are false positives that serve to disenfranchise voters).
It turns out that the vast majority (97%) of ballots rejected due to signature match issues are likely valid. IOW: we'd disenfranchise 32 people for every case of fraud occurring. I have personal doubts that the rate for fraud was even that high (3% of the % of ballots rejected for sig mismatch), as you'd expect some type of criminal charges resulting from it.
Even assuming the 3% of sig rejects number, because that's already a % of sig rejects, it comes out to 3% of 0.2% (the actual number of sig mismatch rejections). This is 0.006% of the total vote.
Additionally, signature match checking disproportionately rejects votes from specific groups, while accepting votes from other groups. In other words, having a signature check (or making it "stricter") allows tuning which demographics you accept votes from. Allowing this type of targeted disenfranchisement is not good
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#78620 years ago reputed organizations such as newspapers, radio stations and television informed people the truth. Conspiracy theories were fringe and didn't have a way to spread. Today more than half the population believes in conspiracy theories because they learn the "truth" from disreputable sources on social media. This is dangerous for society. I am glad social media companies are taking action themselves, instead…
> 20 years ago reputed organizations such as newspapers, radio stations and television informed people the truth. Conspiracy theories were fringe and didn't have a way to spread.
Are you genuinely arguing that conspiracy theories are a phenomenon that is unique to the 21st century?
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#787Absolutely nothing about the USA is in danger of falling apart. These conspiracy theories would die by themselves in a month or two. Lets be clear about what's happening here: Google/Facebook and the like are becoming targets of anti-trust regulatory lawsuits (privacy, data-gathering, monopolistic behavior, etc). This is just an attempt to build goodwill with the incoming administration so they can call in a favor la…
Absolutely nothing about the USA is in danger of falling apart. These conspiracy theories would die by themselves in a month or two. Yes, totally normal to have armed militias running around state capitols, organizing kidnap plots of governors, retired generals calling for suspension of the Constitution etc., happens every election cycle. /sarcasm
Interesting that you chose those specific things, and not mobs rioting and looting, attempting to burn down public buildings, and taking over whole city blocks. All far more widespread and damaging.
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#788Is there anyone that doesn't see what's going on at this point?
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#789If 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…
He wrote that nearly 100 years ago. With an additional century's experience, I think it's clearer that teaching media literacy just isn't enough.
One reason is the bullshit asymmetry principal: "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it." Another is that liars get a lot more practice in selling their lie than people do in analyzing and refuting a particular lie. A third is that people who live on their lies usually have a much stronger incentive; if I blow $10 on a stupid purchase due to lying ads, I'm out $10, but the liar is making a living. And that's before we even get to the asymmetry in mass communication, where a liar can reach millions. Or the modern micro-targeting era, where lies can be tuned to the audience and hidden from debunkers. Or the way the whole idea of truth can be weakened by authoritarian behavior and mass disinformation.
So we really can't expect individuals to keep up on their own. As much as I love cynical skepticism, it's not enough these days.
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#790This is an enormous overreach. > Given that, we will start removing any piece of content uploaded today (or anytime after) that misleads people by alleging that widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of the 2020 U.S. Presidential election, in line with our approach towards historical U.S. Presidential elections. For example, we will remove videos claiming that a Presidential candidate won the election due to…
> Its also deeply hypocritical to claim that this is "in line with [Google's] approach towards historical U.S. Presidential elections.
Indeed.
I was told by all the right people that Russia hacked the 2016 election for 4 years.
To this day, Stacy Abrams acts like she's governor of Georgia and claims the election was stolen.
All of that content will not be taken down.
But yes, given the fact that 1) "safe harbor" means nothing historically, 2) there have been electoral contests in the U.S. decided within days of inauguration, and 3) there is active litigation being pursued, this chilling of speech can't be seen as anything other that Google pushing their hands on the scale here.