3 ms·
It's not just about "liberal opinions", though, is it? Guns are undeniably a public health issue, with 30,000 "death by firearms" in the USA each year, it's on
by WhompingWindows 9y ago
It's not just about "liberal opinions", though, is it? Guns are undeniably a public health issue, with 30,000 "death by firearms" in the USA each year, it's on the same level as traffic fatalities and slightly below the opioid deaths. When you have a category of devices responsible for 30,000 deaths, we move beyond mere opinions, mere he said/she said, into a moral territory where it is incumbent on those in power to do something.
Would you fault Google for removing videos promoting unsafe driving practices that endanger lives, or promotional materials
or sponsored videos or ads for cigarette brands, or videos demonstrating the means by which fentanyl can be mixed in with heroin? I'm not saying these are perfect analogies, but rather where do we expect massive companies to draw the line when it comes to distributing potentially harmful content?
Does SV/Google have the right answer to reduce gun deaths? I don't know, but do I fault them for trying something when deaths are occurring minute by minute? Certainly not, something must be done to curb the tragic number of deaths we are shrugging off.
- cat199 9y ago> Would you fault Google for removing videos promoting unsafe driving practices that endanger lives, or promotional materials or sponsored videos or ads for cigarette brands, or videos demonstrating the means by which fentanyl can be mixed in with heroin? yes, yes and yes.
- WhompingWindows 9y agoSo absolute freedom of speech, even promotion of very dangerous products and practices, should be enforced onto private company's products?
- gscott 9y agoProblem: U.S. vehicle deaths topped 40,000 in 2017. Solution: Let's ban car videos Problem: Johns Hopkins patient safety experts have calculated that more than 250,000 deaths per year are due to medical error in the U.S. Solution: Videos about medical procedures? Get rid' of em! and so on. Only allow cat videos.
- WhompingWindows 9y agoWhat about videos on how to install bump stocks? Would you support allowing those to remain up on YT?
- alethiophile 9y agoMost "death by firearms" are suicides, and suicides mostly don't need instructional videos. The rest are mostly murders, and there's nothing to suggest that gun videos on Youtube make people more or less likely to murder. There's no good reason to think that this step by Youtube will help with the "public health" side of the issue at all; it's fairly transparently about an animus against guns qua guns.