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YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

bbc.com

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Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#841

Post by dependenttypes »

ZenPsycho wrote: post #583
stcredzero wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear there isn't "one truth" out there, despite the content providers' and fact-checkers' attempts :( The idea is: "We are the decent, good, people who know the truth. Now we control the platforms, so it's only well and good we control the information, and we tell the deplorable others what they can and can't say." Almost everyone in the history books as a horrible oppressor has told themselves that narrative. Many…

So, how many deaths are you willing to be responsible for? make sure to scale it up to youtube size.

Except people who decide out of their own free will to watch and follow a specific advice and they end up dying due to it are responsible for their own deaths. You can't blame the medium though which said advice propagated. Regardless, as is and by your own belief youtube should be held responsible for the people that end up dying due to following the WHO recommendations instead of what the experts suggest.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#842

Post by denzil_correa »

dependenttypes wrote: post #827
logifail wrote: post #121

Current WHO advice: "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19." [0] Where we live, due to local laws , we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping. Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO? I fear there isn't "one truth" out there, despite the content providers' and fact-checkers' attempts :( We keep trying to encourage our ki…

In the words of DJB: "Are you surprised to hear WHO saying that healthy skydivers don't need to and shouldn't use parachutes? This is backed up by a systematic review of randomized controlled trials, published in the British Medical Journal, cited more than 1000 times: https://www.bmj.com/content/327/7429/1459" From https://twitter.com/hashbreaker/status/1245493436939042816

> Interpretation: Although there is widespread interest regarding the BMJ paper arguing that randomized trials are not necessary for practices of clear benefit, there are few analogies in medicine. Most parachute analogies in medicine are inappropriate, incorrect or misused.

http://cmajopen.ca/content/6/1/E31.full

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#843

Post by dependenttypes »

glenstein wrote: post #494
OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, than I don't know what to say to you. I have already explained my view on the proportions, I have already given argument and explanation for it, and you seem to be intent on not supporting your own conclusions apart from a rather lame "you're a contrarianist" argument. Why not actually defend your arguments and attack mine instead of circling about the issue with "this actual real life example is a what if hypo…

>(Particularly this hammering that these are contrived examples is bordering on the ridiculous: we know this is true!) I'm just going to note you agree that these examples are contrived yet nevertheless want to debate them, apparently to performatively exhibit your appreciation for the values open-mindedness and free speech. That's a not a constructive use of anybody's time. It's a frivolous distraction. Youtube is d…

More like youtube is doing what they can to support a certain political position with disregard for human lives. If anything the WHO recommendations themselves are misinformation.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#844

Post by k33n »

yters wrote: post #488
new_time wrote: post #475

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We can't wait for markets to sort themselves out while a few executives and their well connected friends control and decide the information we get to see and hear. The stakes are too high to wait for a market solution here.

Or a market solution will be decisive if it gets to that point. The courts broke up Microsoft, and it's not like that hurt them at all.

Microsoft wasn’t broken up.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#845

Post by dependenttypes »

stevebmark wrote: post #630
freehunter wrote: post #480

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it appropriate to flag HN comments that are so blatantly wrong like the one you replied to? If YouTube is taking down misinformation, is HN doing the same?

I've never seen anyone be consistent in their kneejerk cries of "but free speech!" They still want moderation, banning, and silencing, especially of their critics. They want ideas removed from the spotlight they don't agree with. They say that the moderation that every platform needs to thrive is a "slippery slope" while already sliding down it

> I've never seen anyone be consistent in their kneejerk cries of "but free speech!" You are not looking hard enough then.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#847

Post by AdamHede »

logifail wrote: post #121

Current WHO advice: "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19." [0] Where we live, due to local laws , we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping. Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO? I fear there isn't "one truth" out there, despite the content providers' and fact-checkers' attempts :( We keep trying to encourage our ki…

I don't think we need to declare "One truth", in order to remove the worst layer of misinformation. It's a false dichotomy.

What is the effectivness of (homemade) masks? Disbuted, so here information should be free Should you inject disinfectives into you bloodstream to cure Covid-19? No. This is misinformation, is easily identified.

If there is doubt, it should be allowed. There will obviously always be a grey area, but for the time being, a lot of good can be done, without any harm.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#848

Post by golergka »

baddox wrote: post #804
golergka wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should always kept as small as humanly possible. Same with other government structures, too.

So, people who are tasked with determining truths like whether someone committed murder is okay, but it’s not okay to determine whether an online advertisement about a medical treatment is medically accurate?

I'm so glad we're discussing it on HN, so I can use better analogies: it's feature creep. Imagine a product wich was originally elegant and perfomant, almost in a unix way - but then dozens of product managers, each with best of intentions, started adding features to it. Oh, and the product itself was something akin to operating system kernel in terms of security - having monopoly on violence and able to literally kill people - but all those product managers wouldn't hear about moving all these shiny new features into userland, because of perfomance and ease of development.

That's what a typical modern government is.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#849

Post by belorn »

cle wrote: post #603
manigandham wrote: post #573

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What exactly qualifies someone to be a "professional" who is allowed to speak? The vast majority of content I watch on Youtube is produced by independent creators covering a variety of topics with much more detail, expertise, and truth than any mainstream program.

There isn’t “qualified” and “unqualified”. It’s not that black-and-white, and I wish people would accept that more. Basically what we should be asking ourselves is “What’s the likelihood that what this person is telling me is correct?” which is much more useful, because it immediately puts the focus on what factors contribute to that. We aren’t going to conclude anything useful until we can agree that there are good…

It is not a given that there exists an optimal middle ground when it comes to central information control. Similar arguments have been done in regard to encryption controls where the arguments are in favor of backdoors, escrows, export control. But it has been mostly rejected that we need to find a optimal middle ground between giving government access to information and providing encryption for e-commerce depending on the context in which the communication takes place. We either have strong encryption or we don't.

I would also look to inspiration from the past, and here I will copy loosely from a talk by Eben Moglen. Government wants to control communication. Sometimes in a claim of some civilizing mission on the belief that government and only government can really artfully determine who ought to speak to the masses, and sometimes quite explicitly for the purpose of remaining itself in power. But whatever the reason may be, a lust for power or a misguided belief in the superiority of government wisdom about who should speak to many, central information control is an evil whose time has come.

Right now Google is not seen as an essential part of the infrastructure of society. Google can shutdown email, maps, search and Youtube today and we the citizens have no voice to dictate otherwise. No matter how much people rely on Google maps for driving, or have information stored in the cloud that impact their lives, for now those systems are not considered essential. That view however is starting to change as people's lives start to get unseparable from their use of those services. At that point we get the same discussion. Who ought to speak to the masses, and what will that decision be based on? A lust for power, or the belief in the superiority of government wisdom?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#850

Post by [deleted] »

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #417
glenstein wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Where we live, due to local laws, we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping. Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO? Examples like these are frivolous. There's a heartland of obvious, flagrant misinformation that is indisputably worth banning and for which a moral case exists to ban immediately: '5g caused corona, this home remedy will cure it!' etc. The go-to move of internet…

I agree with the conclusion that you should be clear about what percentage of content is on the side of reasonable, and which is not. Let me however disagree strongly with your claims that this concerns 99.99999% of cases, and that the other commenter was talking about "what ifs" and "hypotheticals". That last claim seems to me to just be untrue: we know in fact that local laws, for example several american states, c…

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