will they be taking all evidence of fraud shared on their platform or only that with commentary siggesting that it was widespread?
YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
851–860 of 1001 posts
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#852> We also disallow content alleging widespread fraud or errors changed the outcome of a historical U.S. Presidential election. How can any honest person accept this state of affairs? What would be the reaction of the gleefully censorious US big tech employees, many here on HN, if non-US social media giant enacted such measures in their locality? I don't see evidence that the 2020 election stolen from the Republican c…
> but this is a huge red flag that something might be going on On the contrary. This is an indicator of the Republican claims being based on no evidence. The fact that these lies happen to be incredibly damaging to the perception of US democracy is a good enough reason for a private company to decide not to host it. It's not part of an even larger coverup, as you seem to believe. Do you know how many people would nee…
The majority of big tech people live in D+∞ areas. Given that, and the likely bias that comes as a result, it isn't unreasonable to not want their influence on what political opinions are or are not able to be said aloud.
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#853If 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.…
> Or the way the whole idea of truth can be weakened by authoritarian behavior and mass disinformation.
So... YouTube. YouTube is the arbiter of truth we should accept?
Does that sound any less creepy to you? That a handful of people whose management is headquartered in a few zip codes in San Francisco can determine what people are allowed to talk about?
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#854https://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…
It is not partisan. There is no proof of fraud.
"Our observers could not see anything"... then they could not see any fraud taking place either. It is a dumb narrative.
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#855If 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…
That's not how the human brain works. Repeat a lie often enough and it become true no matter how analytical you pretend to be.
*as long as they don’t die or suffer any bodily harm from it. Painful feedback changes things quick
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#856https://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 isn't a company deciding, this is censorship urged by the government.
Which is not new, the exactly same happened a couple of years ago to force Social Media companies to moderate more strongly on "extremist/jihadist", "foreign interference" and "child nudity" content.
During Senate hearings Google, Facebook and Twitter were faced with the choice to either do it themselves, or be forced to do it trough regulation, those were bipartisan efforts [0].
But even back then it was pretty evident how that whole thing would end up as a slippery slope.
[0] https://www.fastcompany.com/40489793/senators-grill-facebook...
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#857Over the past 4 years, MSNBC spread conspiracy theories that the Russians "hacked" the 2016 election. Will their content also be taken down?
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#858I 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…
You're conflating free speech (government) with a business's decision to monitor their platform (private). These two things are very different. >What's the goal here? To make their platform not full of bullshit. YouTube isn't the government, there is no such thing as the 1st amendment to them, so they cull that which is bad for business.
> You're conflating free speech (government) with a business's decision to monitor their platform (private).
No, he specifically did not conflate those two things. Read his comment again. He said that he understands that Google can censor whatever they like, but doesn't understand why they choose to do so. I'd have to agree, I'm inclined to not trust YouTube as much anymore, even if I believe the content they are censoring is completely crazy in this case.
The argument that people conflate state censorship and private censorship has become overused to the point being disingenuous. There are some people who truly don't understand the difference between state and private censorship. But the more intellectually serious argument involves thinking about why we forbid the government from regulating speech. The first reason is that the government is ill-equipped to regulate speech; it's hard for the government to determine which speech is socially beneficial. The second is that it is often better in general to challenge incorrect ideas through rebuttal and education rather than censorship. This harkens back to Mill's argument for free speech. Importantly, the second idea doesn't just argue against government censorship, but private censorship as well.
As soon as someone argues that YouTube is wrong to take this action, people start parroting the argument that free speech only applies to government action. But that completely ignores the idea that censorship is just fundamentally the wrong way to combat wrong ideas or ideas you disagree with. And to make matters worse, many commenters also ignore the idea that you are allowed to disagree with a company's actions even if you don't think the government should compel them to act differently.
And another problem I see is we're trending toward there being two different groups of social media sites in the U.S., conservative social media and liberal social media sites, and I don't think that portends well to the future of American political discourse.
Whether all these ideas are rightly classified as "free speech" issues is a matter of terminology. Perhaps "open discourse" is a more accurate term. I just read an interesting article[1] that discusses this debate and argues it does not involve a fundamental threat to free expression, but nonetheless that it is important.
[1] https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/7/22/21325942/f...
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#859This is Orwellian bullshit. And I'll take it because I think the alternative is leading to a few greedy assholes using analytical data to successfully weaponize millions upon millions of uninformed people against logic and common sense. Do we add restrictions to voting to weed out people who habitually vote anti-facts? No. Disenfranchisement. Do we make fake news illegal? No. Censorship leading to state run media. Do…
I’m asking as sincerely as I can, I wish no one harm or to lose their right to vote —
How do we have a higher mail in ballot rejection rate in non-pandemic times than we do in pandemic times?
And then follow up, if we assume incredible voter turnout, how do many of these first time mail in ballots follow the process so correctly that the ballot rejection rate is lower?
Were the standards altered? That’s fine with me. Just say it.
Can we see all the ballot signatures side by side with the rolls? I don’t think that’s too much to ask really — I mean it’s a part of the process (we already check voter rolls in state and local elections).
These questions could really begin a true discussion to build a shared world views. It’s what I imagine a forthright and true partner would do for someone with slight reservations... or at least I’d hope.
Shutting it down with Orwellian tactics rather than hard verifiable data is what feels a bit disingenuous that we are all on the same team.
Re: YouTube to remove content that alleges widespread election fraud
#860https://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…
The facts aligning in the Senator's favor does not make the request partisan. Nor are they the only political figures to reference the widely acknowledged facts that there was no spread widespread voter fraud. Prominent Republican politicians in positions of oversight have agreed with this outcome.
If YouTube does as good a job as Facebook, then I have zero faith it won't just become partisan censorship. I have seen "False Information" labels on Facebook posts which were linked to "fact checking articles" which confirmed the post as true rather than false.