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YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

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Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#901

Post by dang »

stevebmark wrote: post #311
throwaway829 wrote: post #295

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is who decides what's a "bad idea"? Every group has its own list, whether it's Scientology, the CCP, NAMBLA, PITA, etc. What group do you trust with defining your list of "bad ideas"? Historically the "bad idea" list has been generated by whoever rules/controls you. Why do you think it's different this time?

Yes, this is a completely valid question. In this specific case: Do you think it's bad for YouTube to be active in reducing the spread of this information? Because to me it's almost self evident it shouldn't be entertained as a valid idea. I might also ask why you aren't protesting Hacker News having moderators? Content is deleted from this platform all the time.

Moderators don't delete content on HN in the sense of removing it altogether. The most we do is kill it, meaning remove it from the default view of the site—but anyone with 'showdead' set to 'yes' in their profile can still see it.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#902

Post by dang »

asdkjh345fd wrote: post #805
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #786

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What is right wing about claiming 5g causes covid? Nothing. I hadn't meant to imply it was, but I can see how my comment could be read that way.

So what is "far-right" that needs to be silenced, and why? Do you also want the "far-left" silenced?

Please don't start using HN for ideological battle again or we'll have to ban you again. It's not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#903

Post by MaxBarraclough »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #899
MaxBarraclough wrote: post #803

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My comment was on the topic of YouTube's content policies.

And you're content with YT effectively having the ability to choose the way "public" discourse is censored? Media outlets have immense political power because of this ability to keep the demos out of the loop of what can and can't be censored. Politicians have leverage with the media outlets, but The People do not. I'm not particularly content with that.

> And you're content with YT effectively having the ability to choose the way "public" discourse is censored?

This strikes me as a backward way of approaching the problem.

My opinion is that it's not only acceptable for YouTube to ban certain categories of videos, but morally obligatory. It would clearly be atrocious for them to officially permit ISIS recruitment videos in the name of freedom of expression, or in the name of never taking down political videos (ISIS is political, after all).

To put that another way then, my position is that:

1. A video platform like YouTube clearly needs to have, and to enforce, a content policy. It seems obvious that it cannot be a free-for-all. 2. Videos with political content cannot be granted a special exemption from the content policy on the grounds of political videos being special.

The question then is what categories should be on the ban list. It clearly shouldn't include ordinary political videos. It clearly should include recruitment videos from ISIS or neo-Nazi groups. It clearly should include dangerous misinformation about COVID19.

There may be contentious edge-cases, as there are for just about any matter of policy. That doesn't mean YouTube should run a free-for-all. That's just not a reasonable option.

If you want a free-for-all, a centralised platform like YouTube isn't the place to start anyway.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#904

Post by Digit-Al »

ggreer wrote: post #846
hef19898 wrote: post #696

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is one big difference between sharing the best avaiable information (taking circumstances into account) and conspiracy theories and disinformation. The WHO falls in the first category, Alex Jones and Co. in the latter.

It was definitely not the best information at the time. Everyone knew that masks worked, but many organizations and governments lied to the public because they didn't have enough masks. And how could anyone think that encouraging people to go to crowded public events during a pandemic is the best available information? It was clearly harmful at the time and it's one of the reasons why over 18,000 New Yorkers are now…

> Everyone knew that masks worked

Well, that's disingenuous at best. There's still fierce debate as to whether it's worth the general public wearing masks.

Pro life? Communism? You're really digging now. How about capitalism? Lots of people die because of capitalism. Shall we ban any debate about capitalism as well?

Freedom of speech is one of those issues that will never be resolved because there are no clear boundaries. We all agree that there are some things that people should not say. That's why we have things like libel/slander laws. I'm sure you wouldn't like it if someone was going around trying to convince people that your father likes to give blow jobs to dobermans. You would, rightfully, want that person stopped. Is that suppression of freedom of speech?

The question is: where does the boundary lie? This is where we have the debates.

> Should we ban anyone who says that cell phones cause cancer?

Possibly. The difference is we have not (to my knowledge) heard any stories of engineers being attacked because of this whereas there have been a number of stories in the news recently of engineers being afraid to go to work because of idiots attacking them because of these ludicrous coronavirus 5G stories.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#905

Post by longtom »

joshuamorton wrote: post #886
longtom wrote: post #885

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, the 4% was based on academic papers and epidimeoligists The figure was actually 3.4% and it was just the dumb fatality-divided-by-cases estimate. IMO they failed to convey the uncertainty in this estimate. https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-who-di... > Well no, general travel restrictions and reductions, and travel bans instituted by areas under outbreak are both within the WHO policy. The po…

> The figure was actually 3.4% and it was just the dumb fatality-divided-by-cases estimate. IMO they failed to convey the uncertainty in this estimate. I don't believe you're referring to the same statement as the prior person. In the case that you are, that statement is very precise, very correct, and ultimately uninteresting if you're wondering how dangerous COVID is. It's observational (and has minimal uncertainty…

> I don't believe you're referring to the same statement as the prior person.

I am the same person.

> that statement is very precise, very correct, and ultimately uninteresting if you're wondering how dangerous COVID is

Indeed, but they've compared that figure to the CFR of the common flu. IMO when saying X% have died, they should rather say "between X and Y" and add that this figure is much more uncertain than the CFR of the common flu under normal circumstances. That's my entire point of critique. I know they need to dumb things down to be consumable by the media, but still.

https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-...

> Yes, if you do so before the thing spreads.

Well, of course. The earlier the better, the smaller the impact on the economy. The WHO and most countries reacted way too late.

> I'm not sure what the point of linking to a random youtube channel is.

I've linked to the YouTube channel because it's by an epidemiologist who covered the early outbreak in detail and repeatedly he called out the WHO not being proactive enough. It was obvious it was going to spread and stopping global travel for a couple of weeks would have saved us presumably trillions of USD if one could predict most countries would indeed do a full lockdown later.

> Which of those three statements do you feel the WHO got wrong? Please give cited evidence for your disagreement.

Those three statements are detached from the part I quoted, which is "a medical mask is not required, as no evidence is available on its usefulness to protect non-sick persons". This sentence is a lie at worst and overconfident at best. Other coronaviruses have similar transmission characteristics and molecule sizes and there was literature that even simple DIY masks help reduce the spread of e.g. SARS-CoV-1. The reason being that the highest viral loads are suspended in droplets which are large enough to be caught by simple fabric or a face shield. AFAIK the evidence that people tend to misapply masks is rather slim by comparison.

https://masks4all.co/the-science-masks4all/

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#906

Post by CamperBob2 »

hef19898 wrote: post #893
CamperBob2 wrote: post #879

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, people with guns and uniforms cause genocide. People with pens and typewriters have never harmed a hair on anyone's head. To disagree is to argue that human beings are nothing but programmable devices. If that's your position, fine, but we'll have to disagree.

Goebbels might want to have a word.

Really? Who did Goebbels kill, and with what implements?

He certainly did a number on his family, but he used cyanide pills for that, not words.

(If words are weapons, are downvotes assaults?)

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#907

Post by mirimir »

couchand wrote: post #900
mirimir wrote: post #880

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you read the background for that law, you'll find that people were in fact being injured by vaccines. And some still are. Just as virtually all medicines injure some people. Because there's great variability in responses. The law didn't get enacted just to prevent lawsuits, but also to compensate those who were injured. > The implications in your comment are actively harmful to the public health. That way lies tot…

Yes, vaccines have side effects, just as any other medication or treatment does. Nobody has claimed otherwise. The reason your comment is harmful is because you make implications that have no basis in evidence, but which serve to advance dubious claims accepted by a small but growing and very vocal group of antivaxxers that have had a clear negative impact on our society. If you have some new evidence or analysis to…

Well, I think that you're overreacting. Considering risks is important. We've suffered too much from denial. Pollution of groundwater. Fallout from nuclear weapons testing. Toxic chemicals in food packaging. And I could easily come up with another dozen examples.

> The reason your comment is harmful is because you make implications that have no basis in evidence, ...

That's exactly what attorneys for polluters always say. There's this thing called the precautionary principle. So you act when damage is possible, long before there's conclusive evidence.

Edit: If you like, I can probably find defendants' briefs and expert reports from landmark cases, asserting that plaintiffs have provided insufficient evidence of causation to support their claims.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#908

Post by ksec »

Frondo wrote: post #297
ryankemper wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, by not addressing that I put myself in the trap where I was forced to respond to it anyway in a later comment. So, in order to avoid repeating myself, I believe I addressed that notion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23063309 In short, I am not saying that the truth will necessarily "win out" over the false. Rather I am saying - and this was my fault for not being clear enough - that I reject the noti…

So, so far I haven't seen anyone on here take the strong free speech absolutist position -- that nothing should be censored ever, including calls to violence. I've seen several comments that basically say "don't censor in general, but do remove calls to violence," so that seems like it's not a controversial opinion at least in this discussion. Why are calls to violence bad, but spreading misinformation about a pandem…

>Why ban that, but not misinformation about the pandemic?

Wearing Mask a few months ago was misinformation by many. Which most of the world finally revert course later but still not agreed by WHO.

So who is to define what is "misinformation"?

For every single downvote I got on HN for stating Hong Kong got it right with mask in March, do I get a brownie point for every single US citizen that is wearing a mask now?

I dont have an answer, but I am leaning towards the same thinking as OP. Because everything I said right now is considered as misinformation by the Hong Kong government. Personally I think "misinformation" is a pandora box that should never be opened / used.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#909

Post by dwardu »

DanBC wrote: post #708
dwardu wrote: post #705

It all started with Alex Jones, and everyone cheered... YouTube is a private company, and yes it can choose who it wants on its platform. On the other hand of the argument. When do we determine that a company's platform has become so big, that it is a public space and it should just "maintain" the platform and make it as inclusive as possible? For example, we had Alexandra Ocasio Cortez blocking people on twitter, an…

> and make it as inclusive as possible? This argument would be stronger if it mentioned all the people chased off these platforms by the virulent toxic supporters of Icke and Jones.

Irrespective of if they are right or wrong, and if others think it's stupid. Everyone is free has the right to speak their mind, and they must also understand that they must be accountable for what they say.

People who want to cancel others because they have a dissenting thought they want to say are ultimately terrible human beings.

Re: YouTube has deleted the account of David Icke

#910

Post by couchand »

mirimir wrote: post #907
couchand wrote: post #900

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, vaccines have side effects, just as any other medication or treatment does. Nobody has claimed otherwise. The reason your comment is harmful is because you make implications that have no basis in evidence, but which serve to advance dubious claims accepted by a small but growing and very vocal group of antivaxxers that have had a clear negative impact on our society. If you have some new evidence or analysis to…

Well, I think that you're overreacting. Considering risks is important. We've suffered too much from denial. Pollution of groundwater. Fallout from nuclear weapons testing. Toxic chemicals in food packaging. And I could easily come up with another dozen examples. > The reason your comment is harmful is because you make implications that have no basis in evidence, ... That's exactly what attorneys for polluters always…

Here's the thing: either you're simply naive to the tactics of anti-vaxxers and unaware that your comments play into their hand, or you're actively advancing their interests.

Yes, it's important to consider the risks of any medical treatment. Your comments make it seem like that hasn't been done, as if doctors and public health officials are just pretending that side effects don't exist. That's simply untrue -- rigorous clinical trials and careful reporting mean that modern vaccines are really quite safe. When you lucidly compare the incidence of side effects against the impact of contracting illnesses that vaccines prevent, there is only one reasonable position to take.

Your initial comments about thiomersal are pure FUD. You acknowledge that there's not real medical concern there, but choose to bring it up anyway? What could your motivation possibly be? If you'd like to discuss it objectively, here's how to do it: Someone with a financial interest who is no longer allowed to practice medicine falsified data in an effort to mislead the public about a supposed danger of a preservative in vaccines. Many people siezed onto that lie, despite the clear evidence that it was flawed, and continue to espouse it, causing lasting damage to society.

> So you act when damage is possible, long before there's conclusive evidence.

The damage that's real here is the damage caused by anti-vaxxers. That's actual damage that's caused harm to real people in the real world. Your comments help advance that agenda, which is why they are harmful.

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