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YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

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Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#861

Post by ptaipale »

brianobush wrote: post #497
mariodiana wrote: post #65

I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on open discussion by moderate voices. I'm subscribed to the channel of an M.D. on YouTube who discusses COVID-19, vaccines, etc. He is very careful to (repeatedly) point out that he is vaccinated, he has personally vaccinated hundreds of patients, he encourages everyone to speak to their doctor and follow their recommendations, believing that the vaccine is…

Most MDs are general physicians and know little about vaccines other than textbook knowledge that is decades old. Why would you trust them over a team of researchers? Especially at this point of the pandemic when we have so much data showing their effectiveness?

I generally trust MDs here more than others. That doesn't mean that some MDs couldn't be completely wrong. But almost all MDs agree that vaccines are very effective.

MDs have, via connections such as subscriptions to medical publications and net sites or databases, access to more information than most people, and because of their training have an ability to assess information, including which teams of researchers are doing genuine science, and which are selling horse dewormers.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#862

Post by im3w1l »

jlebar wrote: post #372

It's ironic (or maybe not?) that the comments section here is filled with exactly the kind of anti-vax misinformation that YouTube is trying to take down. To respond to one point I keep reading in here over and over: Getting and recovering from covid does not necessarily give you better protection from disease than getting the vaccine. 1/3 of people who get covid develop no antibodies at all, as compared to 0% of (no…

That's why this thread is at 2000 comments and counting. The censorship is no longer affecting some nebolous "other people". It's coming close. People can tell that they are next in line. That they will have to start practice serious self-censorship or get banned from FAANG-land, isolating them from friends, family and potential love interests.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#863

Post by batch12 »

jackson1442 wrote: post #792
ohdannyboy wrote: post #290

I was hesitant for a while and the massive censorship was part of it. I got vaccinated in May and have convinced others to get the shot since the side effects, while existent, appear to be minor compared to the reduction in harmful symptoms. Talking to my doctor is what did it for me. He cleared up most of my concerns and pressed me that my remaining concerns were too nebulous to be useful. If he just said "shut up a…

> She believed that if the vaccine was actually as great as they're saying they'd be able to make more objective goalposts and win arguments instead of stopping them because the other side is too stupid to make their own decisions. The problem I see here is that the (I hesitate to call it this) anti-vax "side" has been shifting goalposts since day n-1. If you've ever talked to someone who's shifted goalposts you'll s…

> Oh, but it's also not FDA approved. I haven't looked at the numbers, but I bet vaccinations haven't gone up significantly since FDA approval. Obviously it's because the FDA isn't to be trusted, that's a given.

I believe that the FDA has only approved one of the vaccines so far. When I got mine, I didn't have a choice.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#864

Post by monksy »

For those who were keeping track:

The virus is just like the flu it's not a problem

. The ICUs aren't that overloaded, theres no reason to worry

.. -> We shouldn't have a lock down that is this strict allow people to make decisions on their own

... -> Restaurants shouldn't be required to be closed for indoor dining

.... -> Let people chose to wear the mask or not (Considering the US/CDC's terrible stance on masks that wasn't safe on a society level [The US gov ignored and discouraged stronger masks such as KN95, KF94, FFP2 for civilian usage])

.... -> The vaccine is too new, need more info

..... -> It's not fda approved, can't take it

...... -> My freedoms/won't get it/don't have more info

It's not just citiziens that are spouting nonsense about this. It's government officials spouting this. I talked with an liqour board agent about why fining a lady operating a bar with live music during the peak of the pandemic is the correct thing to do. (Executive order banned indoor dining and alcohol consumption in the state) He literally try to discredit me at every step of the way. This was an executive order + strict liqour board rules put down.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#865

Post by Grustaf »

ookblah wrote: post #50

Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision? I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of "principle". Just a no win situation. It's too easy for bad characters to screw up an entire system with little effort (look at trolls, spammers, etc). Either you moderate everyone and slippery slope down into censorship where the tools…

I think a big part of vaccine resistance is because of the insane levels of propaganda and censorship.

Anyone who is even slightly suspicious of authorities will be much more hesitant to take a vaccine when any criticism of it is effectively forbidden.

Put it the other way around, how many will be convinced to get vaccinated thanks to censorship? Here in Scandinavia, I'm sure at least 99% of people happily give their children the standard childhood vaccines, so it's not like people are anti-vaccines in general.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#866

Post by IshKebab »

deadpannini wrote: post #796
ookblah wrote: post #50

Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision? I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of "principle". Just a no win situation. It's too easy for bad characters to screw up an entire system with little effort (look at trolls, spammers, etc). Either you moderate everyone and slippery slope down into censorship where the tools…

"Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision?" Yes. Combat disinformation by refuting it. This requires credibility, and censorship is one of the fastest ways to burn that down.

People don't fall for this stuff because they've weighed up the evidence for and against.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#867

Post by _prototype_ »

All this for a virus with a 99% survival rate [1]. Nevermind the fact that media and government forces completely ignore natural immunity which has been shown to provide 27x more resistance to covid infection by a recent study [2].

You can't really be surprised at the general distrust and hesitancy. You can get a "Vaccine Passport" but you can't get a "Immunity Passport"?

Ridiculous

https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-970830023526 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#868

Post by risk000 »

sixothree wrote: post #155
mariodiana wrote: post #65

I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on open discussion by moderate voices. I'm subscribed to the channel of an M.D. on YouTube who discusses COVID-19, vaccines, etc. He is very careful to (repeatedly) point out that he is vaccinated, he has personally vaccinated hundreds of patients, he encourages everyone to speak to their doctor and follow their recommendations, believing that the vaccine is…

I wouldn't blame YouTube here. I would blame the anti-vaxxers. They created an impossible atmosphere for youtube to navigate.

Anti-vaxxer is a pejorative word, it lumps people together in ways that aren't fair. Many were just skeptical and wanted to discuss and debate the evidence, and that was ridiculed, as evident everywhere in this thread.

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#869

Post by roenxi »

jefb wrote: post #472
Nesze wrote: post #362

Age old follow-up question. Who decides what anti-vaccine content is? Who is going to draw the fine line? How simple (i.e. black and white) is to make this distinction? Do you trust that person / entity making these decisions for you and your peers? But even without defending free speach, looks to me that when you start censoring you just create multiple new problems with zero solution. So even from a design point of…

What's the difference between whispering "fire" in a crowded movie theater vs. yelling it out loud? - is it simply the volume of ones voice? Might some intangible like intent have something to do with it? How do you even go about quantifying that? What if everyone laughs at your outburst? What if they trample each other to death? I feel as though this crowd gets wrapped around the axel on these kinds of questions - a…

That analogy is rather good here because it has a dual interpretation - in terms of the actual history that could be dredged up by wiki editors [0] yelling fire in a crowded theatre has led to ~81 stupid deaths globally and failing to yell fire at an appropriate time has led to at least 278 really stupid deaths in the US. In practice there, there is evidence that yelling fire is not encouraged enough.

There are real threats that are mitigated by an open and tolerant approach to speech. Cracking down on people will lead to a culture that is really bad. Which should be intolerable since the crackdown is only trying to defend against things that are mildly annoying.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

Re: YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

#870

Post by goatlover »

henning wrote: post #568

Are people mad about censorship on YouTube also mad about all the censorship that occurs on this site? Stuff gets deleted and manipulated by the mods all the time.

It seems to me that some people on here believe there should be no moderation/censorship whatsoever on the internet. I don't know how they propose to keep sites from being completely overwhelmed by bad actors, spam and illegal activities.
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