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When did conspiracy theories become harmful? This seems like a move straight out of “1984”. If someone wants to believe (insert grandiose and stupid theory), w

by mcast 9y ago

When did conspiracy theories become harmful? This seems like a move straight out of “1984”. If someone wants to believe (insert grandiose and stupid theory), who cares? YouTube started as an entertainment platform, not a learning tool.

dawnerd 9y ago
pizzagate comes to mind. That went beyond being harmless conspiracy.
- throw_away2 9y ago
  also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting#Conspiracy_theories,_disinformation,_and_harassment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_s... http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/06/portland_man_pleads_guilty_to_6.html http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/06/portlan... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-shooting-conspiracy-theories-social-media https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-sh...
teraflop 9y ago
Well there was that one guy who murdered his father last year because he thought his parents were part of the Pizzagate conspiracy: http://www.businessinsider.com/former-milo-yiannopoulos-intern-killed-his-own-father-alt-right-circles-online-trump-2017-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/former-milo-yiannopoulos-inte...
- verylittlemeat 9y ago
  I have a controversial and maybe stupid question that is probably unanswerable one way or the other. If you're going to murder your parents over a conspiracy theory is there any reason to assume you wouldn't murder them for a dozen other reasons? How justified is censoring a platform for millions of users because of one mentally ill user? Is there any evidence that being exposed to certain ideas "pushes someone over the edge" any more than what they can come up with in their own head or without technological assistance? I've read some stuff about school shootings that suggests media coverage encourages "copycat" attacks. I'm not just trying to be a contrarian or apologist for a murderer but the causation here seems rhetorically appealing but realistically sketchy to me. People have been killing each other over politics since as long as recorded history.
  - baddox 9y ago
    There is certainly a lot of research about the radicalization process, generally aimed (unsurprisingly) at terrorism rather than isolated murderers. I don’t have a signal succinct citation to point you to, but I am relatively confident that there is good evidence to support the claim that an individual being increasingly surrounded by media espousing a radical or fringe belief is correlated with that individual becoming increasingly radical. That doesn’t answer your question about justifying censorship, but I think that’s not the best question to ask, since media recommendation algorithms that penalize certain radical subjects is hardly what I would call “censorship.”
    - verylittlemeat 9y ago
      >I am relatively confident that there is good evidence to support the claim that an individual being increasingly surrounded by media espousing a radical or fringe belief is correlated with that individual becoming increasingly radical. I get where you're coming from but I have some issues with that perspective. Would you agree that a conspiracy theorist who uses physical violence and/or threats of physical violence is strong indicator of a dangerously radicalized person? Then how can we explain the large number of people exposed to radical media but only a small handful performing radical violence? Are conspiracies and radical beliefs always some kind of treadmill where you take a nibble and then inevitably go deeper and deeper until you become so delusional that you feel the need to take violent action? To me that feels too much like a just-so narrative. Also, I think we should be concerned about what some people consider "radicalization." Everyone is against radical violence and media that contributes to that end. But what about media that makes someone a Trump voter? Rhetorically some argue that they are just as dangerous as any shooter because they create a social environment that precipitates violence, even though the causation isn't direct. It's difficult to talk about these things without coming up with false dichotomies or bad generalizations. Really what I'm trying to get at is a "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" understanding. It's easy to get rid of the baby when it's not your baby or the baby is casually stereotyped in an appealing way.
      - baddox 9y ago
- wallace_f 9y ago
  I couldn't find any mention of Pizzagate in that article. However, they claimed his problem was the his Father supported "leftist pedophiles" which sounds like it would have been related to Pizzagate, but could have been related to something like Epstein or human traficking and 100s of millions missing in the strange, mysterious and horrible world of charitable work in Haiti. Either the way this offender is a particular idiot for what he did to his Father, among other things. Per the article, the fact he acted out so horribly didn't surprise me when I read that he was involved with Gamergate--a horrendous display of aggressive, toxic behavior in the gaming community. I am a gamer, and I know that neo-Nazi, racist, sexist hateful ideologies are alive in gaming communities from my time spent playing games like TF2 and CS. They're kind of like 4chan--unmoderated, except the people are angrier.
- lopmotr 9y ago
  People kill and die far more often for far more reasons than conspiracy theories. Censor driving videos because it might make someone crash their car? Censor Islamic videos because it might make someone beat their wife? Censor the news because it might make people fight in whatever popular war is happening? False information seems like a particularly harmless thing.
ubernostrum 9y ago
When "stupid" conspiracy theories lead to real-world violence committed by their believers, they're harmful. And there's pretty clear evidence that YouTube's recommendation algorithm, in optimizing for time spent watching YouTube videos, has as a side effect optimized for sending people to the most extreme stuff on the site. YouTube has an ethical responsibility to, y'know, do something about that.
- Natsu 9y ago
  Does this logic imply that we can ban Islam because of terrorists? As I understand it, they thought they were bringing about the end times and there was some theory about the 12th Imam or something. Why or why not?
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    Do you think YouTube is a government? Why or why not?
    - Natsu 9y ago
      No, I don't and I'm not sure what I said to make you imagine such a strawman. I'm interested in whether you think YouTube should block Islam entirely, or perhaps to separate out the terrorist conspiracies within Islam from the rest and where to draw the line. Would, e.g., this 12th Imam stuff, even from ostensibly peaceful folks who did not advocate violence, draw a ban in your view if it was also something terrorists used? Please explain.
      - ubernostrum 9y ago
        Why should I? Your approach obviously is going to be to make a laundry list of things you don't like and that you'll claim I somehow do like, and aggressively accuse me of all sorts of things if I don't either give up or assert perfect agreement with you. What's in it for me to engage with you?
        9y ago
dragonwriter 9y ago
> When did conspiracy theories become harmful? A long time ago; see, as an example—but not the first harmful conspiracy theory—the theory of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy that was a central element of early-20th Century anti-Semitism.
- lopmotr 9y ago
  Sounds a lot like the current conspiracy theory of whites suppressing blacks which is leading to race violence in South Africa that looks like it's going downhill fast. Should they also ban all "slavery and racism is why blacks are poor" videos too? I can't believe young people are so keen on censorship and so afraid of ideas. That's cold war type thinking. I grew up between the cold war and extreme leftism where freedom of ideas was high, so that's my standard.
  - singularity2001 9y ago
    The sad thing is that some conspiracy theories contain some true nucleus, that's why nuanced sources are so important.
- gowld 9y ago
  anti-Semitic conspiracies go back many centuries further than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel 16th century isn't even the oldest.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    I wasn't even trying for the oldest, just something that was outside of the present generation and directly tied to harms that would be familiar to most people as soon as you mentioned the conspiracy itself.
TorKlingberg 9y ago
To add to the other examples posted, vaccine conspiracy theories lead to children dying from preventable diseases.

by mcast 9y ago

dawnerd 9y ago

pizzagate comes to mind. That went beyond being harmless conspiracy.

throw_away2 9y ago
also, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_shooting#Conspiracy_theories,_disinformation,_and_harassment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoneman_Douglas_High_School_s... http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/06/portland_man_pleads_guilty_to_6.html http://www.oregonlive.com/portland/index.ssf/2013/06/portlan... https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-shooting-conspiracy-theories-social-media https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/26/las-vegas-sh...

teraflop 9y ago

Well there was that one guy who murdered his father last year because he thought his parents were part of the Pizzagate conspiracy: http://www.businessinsider.com/former-milo-yiannopoulos-intern-killed-his-own-father-alt-right-circles-online-trump-2017-10 http://www.businessinsider.com/former-milo-yiannopoulos-inte...

verylittlemeat 9y ago
I have a controversial and maybe stupid question that is probably unanswerable one way or the other. If you're going to murder your parents over a conspiracy theory is there any reason to assume you wouldn't murder them for a dozen other reasons? How justified is censoring a platform for millions of users because of one mentally ill user? Is there any evidence that being exposed to certain ideas "pushes someone over the edge" any more than what they can come up with in their own head or without technological assistance? I've read some stuff about school shootings that suggests media coverage encourages "copycat" attacks. I'm not just trying to be a contrarian or apologist for a murderer but the causation here seems rhetorically appealing but realistically sketchy to me. People have been killing each other over politics since as long as recorded history.
- baddox 9y ago
  There is certainly a lot of research about the radicalization process, generally aimed (unsurprisingly) at terrorism rather than isolated murderers. I don’t have a signal succinct citation to point you to, but I am relatively confident that there is good evidence to support the claim that an individual being increasingly surrounded by media espousing a radical or fringe belief is correlated with that individual becoming increasingly radical. That doesn’t answer your question about justifying censorship, but I think that’s not the best question to ask, since media recommendation algorithms that penalize certain radical subjects is hardly what I would call “censorship.”
  - verylittlemeat 9y ago
    >I am relatively confident that there is good evidence to support the claim that an individual being increasingly surrounded by media espousing a radical or fringe belief is correlated with that individual becoming increasingly radical. I get where you're coming from but I have some issues with that perspective. Would you agree that a conspiracy theorist who uses physical violence and/or threats of physical violence is strong indicator of a dangerously radicalized person? Then how can we explain the large number of people exposed to radical media but only a small handful performing radical violence? Are conspiracies and radical beliefs always some kind of treadmill where you take a nibble and then inevitably go deeper and deeper until you become so delusional that you feel the need to take violent action? To me that feels too much like a just-so narrative. Also, I think we should be concerned about what some people consider "radicalization." Everyone is against radical violence and media that contributes to that end. But what about media that makes someone a Trump voter? Rhetorically some argue that they are just as dangerous as any shooter because they create a social environment that precipitates violence, even though the causation isn't direct. It's difficult to talk about these things without coming up with false dichotomies or bad generalizations. Really what I'm trying to get at is a "throwing the baby out with the bathwater" understanding. It's easy to get rid of the baby when it's not your baby or the baby is casually stereotyped in an appealing way.
    - baddox 9y ago
wallace_f 9y ago
I couldn't find any mention of Pizzagate in that article. However, they claimed his problem was the his Father supported "leftist pedophiles" which sounds like it would have been related to Pizzagate, but could have been related to something like Epstein or human traficking and 100s of millions missing in the strange, mysterious and horrible world of charitable work in Haiti. Either the way this offender is a particular idiot for what he did to his Father, among other things. Per the article, the fact he acted out so horribly didn't surprise me when I read that he was involved with Gamergate--a horrendous display of aggressive, toxic behavior in the gaming community. I am a gamer, and I know that neo-Nazi, racist, sexist hateful ideologies are alive in gaming communities from my time spent playing games like TF2 and CS. They're kind of like 4chan--unmoderated, except the people are angrier.
lopmotr 9y ago
People kill and die far more often for far more reasons than conspiracy theories. Censor driving videos because it might make someone crash their car? Censor Islamic videos because it might make someone beat their wife? Censor the news because it might make people fight in whatever popular war is happening? False information seems like a particularly harmless thing.

ubernostrum 9y ago

When "stupid" conspiracy theories lead to real-world violence committed by their believers, they're harmful. And there's pretty clear evidence that YouTube's recommendation algorithm, in optimizing for time spent watching YouTube videos, has as a side effect optimized for sending people to the most extreme stuff on the site. YouTube has an ethical responsibility to, y'know, do something about that.

Natsu 9y ago
Does this logic imply that we can ban Islam because of terrorists? As I understand it, they thought they were bringing about the end times and there was some theory about the 12th Imam or something. Why or why not?
- ubernostrum 9y ago
  Do you think YouTube is a government? Why or why not?
  - Natsu 9y ago
    No, I don't and I'm not sure what I said to make you imagine such a strawman. I'm interested in whether you think YouTube should block Islam entirely, or perhaps to separate out the terrorist conspiracies within Islam from the rest and where to draw the line. Would, e.g., this 12th Imam stuff, even from ostensibly peaceful folks who did not advocate violence, draw a ban in your view if it was also something terrorists used? Please explain.
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      Why should I? Your approach obviously is going to be to make a laundry list of things you don't like and that you'll claim I somehow do like, and aggressively accuse me of all sorts of things if I don't either give up or assert perfect agreement with you. What's in it for me to engage with you?
      - 9y ago

dragonwriter 9y ago

> When did conspiracy theories become harmful? A long time ago; see, as an example—but not the first harmful conspiracy theory—the theory of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy that was a central element of early-20th Century anti-Semitism.

lopmotr 9y ago
Sounds a lot like the current conspiracy theory of whites suppressing blacks which is leading to race violence in South Africa that looks like it's going downhill fast. Should they also ban all "slavery and racism is why blacks are poor" videos too? I can't believe young people are so keen on censorship and so afraid of ideas. That's cold war type thinking. I grew up between the cold war and extreme leftism where freedom of ideas was high, so that's my standard.
- singularity2001 9y ago
  The sad thing is that some conspiracy theories contain some true nucleus, that's why nuanced sources are so important.
gowld 9y ago
anti-Semitic conspiracies go back many centuries further than that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blood_libel 16th century isn't even the oldest.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  I wasn't even trying for the oldest, just something that was outside of the present generation and directly tied to harms that would be familiar to most people as soon as you mentioned the conspiracy itself.

TorKlingberg 9y ago

To add to the other examples posted, vaccine conspiracy theories lead to children dying from preventable diseases.