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Suppressing David Icke only makes this conspiracy stronger. Icke has close to zero credibility in the UK and well known to believe in lizard people and other su

Suppressing David Icke only makes this conspiracy stronger. Icke has close to zero credibility in the UK and well known to believe in lizard people and other such wacky theories. If you stop people knowing he is also talking about this then the only people left to talk about it are the regular normal seeming folks. Channels like this https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsAwM1EqcYXKeIEufJqwWjw/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsAwM1EqcYXKeIEufJqwWjw/vid... thousands of views per video, seems like any normal bloke you'd chat to down the pub. So well done by silencing a known eccentric you just made the only voices in this conspiracy the normal everyday folks, if regular people searched this theory and Icke popped up they might have actually questioned it because they don't want to be associated with the lizard guy.

throwaway5752 7y ago
All you have to do is look at the antivax movement for a possible counterexample. Social media has allowed that movement to strengthen to the point where they are a global public health threat. Groups like this need the equivalent of email spam filters. Flagged and hidden by default, at best. They should be marginalized and stigmatized.
- jb775 7y ago
  So muzzle and suppress anyone who doesn't agree with your personal worldview?
  - anthonypasq 7y ago
    Wow, what a charitable and good faith response!
    - jb775 7y ago
      What does this comment even mean? In my comment, I was putting it bluntly what he/she was basically saying. I agree it sounds harsh, but that was my point. My point is that it's not acceptable or productive for a society to suppress someone else's right to be heard just because they are disagreed with.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - throwaway5752 7y ago
        Then let me bluntly reply. That is wrong. We suppress all sorts of speech and have well before the internet. I don't need to enumerate it, but there are all sorts of content encouraging or causing harm or violence that is already illegal, policed, and most people will have no problems with agreeing should not have a platform. Now, let's look at Youtube specifically. It is a business unit in a US corporation. The company has an obligation to make money. That is completely at odds of the role of a public forum and we all shouldn't pretend it is one. If we want a public forum (which only makes sense in the universe of a federal government with robust protections for individual rights) then the it should be a publicly funded resource. The government should run a free video site or should bid out a contract to have a private company operate one. If that existed, then certainly, yes Icke's video should stay up there. But Youtube is a private business and it should operate under what makes best business sense for its social platform. Anything else is an harmful illusion.
        jb775 7y ago
        Your argument points don't align. You first said that anything the platform doesn't agree with should be "Flagged and hidden by default, at best. They should be marginalized and stigmatized.". (Why not tar and feather while you're at it?) You're now stating that YouTube censors things based on business decisions. If it's about "business", wouldn't they want to promote juicy conspiracy theories to get more views? Also, you have very strong opinions for someone cowardly hiding behind a throw-away account.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
  - throwaway5752 7y ago
    It is not binary. 5G doesn't cause coronavirus, airplane contrails don't contain mind controlling chemicals, vaccines don't cause autism, and the Earth isn't flat. Those aren't worldview choices, those are facts. They aren't subject to opinion. It is a shame that mental healthcare has been stigmatized, that so few resources in mental health exist for those who need it, and that modern society has created such a profound loneliness that otherwise well people feel the need to attach to groups like this to fulfill a sense of community. But no, I welcome people I disagree with. 5G causing COVID-19 or it being a Bill Gates conspiracy is not something that is categorized by agreement or disagreement.
    - cbnotfromthere 7y ago
      "5G doesn't cause coronavirus, airplane contrails don't contain mind controlling chemicals, vaccines don't cause autism, and the Earth isn't flat. Those aren't worldview choices, those are facts. They aren't subject to opinion." The problem with your black and white view is that it's bound to needlessly antagonize a lot of people. Let me give you two examples. 1) Are transgender ladies female or male? 2) Did USSR liberate Poland in 1944 or did it occupy it?
    - lonelappde 7y ago
      How do you know what's fact and what's not? A novel prize is waiting for you.
      - throwaway5752 7y ago
        You're confusing general and specific cases. Computer people should introspect more often, because we approach problems trying to solve them in general when an solving it for specific cases on a per case basis is called for. I can't evaluate any given claim as true or not, but I am perfectly comfortable evaluating the truth of the four cases I mentioned as well as millions of others. Further, I'm perfectly happy saying "I don't know". I'd probably be perfectly capable giving a 1-10 score on the truth of most things. Further, it would be perfectly approachable to use a variant of graph spectral theory (using pagerank as an example) to score people as sources of information. This isn't as hard as the generalized solution. I don't have to deal with Godel or Turing limits on the possibility of computability and provable truth to know QAnon is a bunch of lunatics and that I should ban them from a forum if I don't want them to ruin it. There are a bunch of things that are more borderline and what to include and not include is an editorial decision for community owners / moderators. Further, the "<bad actor> will abuse this and you'll be one the other end of it some day": guess what, bad actors will act badly. They will abuse the system anyway, there is no way to prevent that.
  - driverdan 7y ago
    I downvoted you because that's clearly not what's happening. A delusional person spreading lies and made up facts is not just disagreeing with a worldview.
    - im3w1l 7y ago
      Freedom of religion says you have to believe in and spread delusions and lies. And to top it off, we have seen multiple instances of religious ideas directly leading to spread of Corona. I'm aware of both jewish, muslim and christian cases.
  - dguaraglia 7y ago
    Hm, I think there's a difference between disagreeing with 'worldviews' and repeating provable lies that cause actual damage. The whole 'intellectual dark web' was built around the idea that 'every idea is worth discussing', even though it so happens a lot of the 'ideas' presented have been debunked a million times over, and the proponents usually ignore the data disproving their 'theories'. Personally, I think the biggest damage the internet has done to the world is allowing anyone to parrot insanely stupid anti-science positions unchecked. There's no good solution to that problem, but it is important to be reminded that just because a problem doesn't have a good solution, it doesn't mean it's beyond the realm of ethics.
Majromax 7y ago
> Suppressing David Icke only makes this conspiracy stronger. I think this is begging the question. Why does Youtube, in particular, have an obligation to not "suppress" this person, especially when there's no element of Youtube's terms of service that would force them to carry his content? He's not being hauled to jail by the authorities, he's just being denied (the greatest use of) the Youtube platform. If Youtube wants to enforce a degree of content control over what it hosts, that would ordinarily be its right -- in the same way that if I run a print shop I don't have to print flyers from any crank who walks in the front door. Moreover, you're making a testable point here, that suppression "only makes this conspiracy stronger." Is there social science evidence to back this claim up, or is this just an intuitive opinion? An alternative framework is that by denying a pernicious idea its greatest platforms, it makes the topic seem more rare and thus less credible. (The converse of "everyone's saying it, there must be some truth to it.")
- contravariant 7y ago
  When discussing whether Youtube should or should not suppress a particular person / point of view it is not conductive to bring up the fact that Youtube has little (financial, legal) obligation to not suppress anything. Frankly they are able to do whatever they want, but I reckon we can at least agree that this wouldn't necessarily be desirable. And yes it is a problem to have this much depend on the decisions of a single organisation, as they are wrong no matter what they do, and frankly they don't have the mandate to make such decisions to begin with.
- ramblenode 7y ago
  > Moreover, you're making a testable point here, that suppression "only makes this conspiracy stronger." Is there social science evidence to back this claim up, or is this just an intuitive opinion? If there is, you might begin with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect But the conspiracy minded do seem to latch on to anything resembling information suppression.

throwaway5752 7y ago

All you have to do is look at the antivax movement for a possible counterexample. Social media has allowed that movement to strengthen to the point where they are a global public health threat. Groups like this need the equivalent of email spam filters. Flagged and hidden by default, at best. They should be marginalized and stigmatized.

jb775 7y ago
So muzzle and suppress anyone who doesn't agree with your personal worldview?
- anthonypasq 7y ago
  Wow, what a charitable and good faith response!
  - jb775 7y ago
    What does this comment even mean? In my comment, I was putting it bluntly what he/she was basically saying. I agree it sounds harsh, but that was my point. My point is that it's not acceptable or productive for a society to suppress someone else's right to be heard just because they are disagreed with.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - throwaway5752 7y ago
      Then let me bluntly reply. That is wrong. We suppress all sorts of speech and have well before the internet. I don't need to enumerate it, but there are all sorts of content encouraging or causing harm or violence that is already illegal, policed, and most people will have no problems with agreeing should not have a platform. Now, let's look at Youtube specifically. It is a business unit in a US corporation. The company has an obligation to make money. That is completely at odds of the role of a public forum and we all shouldn't pretend it is one. If we want a public forum (which only makes sense in the universe of a federal government with robust protections for individual rights) then the it should be a publicly funded resource. The government should run a free video site or should bid out a contract to have a private company operate one. If that existed, then certainly, yes Icke's video should stay up there. But Youtube is a private business and it should operate under what makes best business sense for its social platform. Anything else is an harmful illusion.
      - jb775 7y ago
        Your argument points don't align. You first said that anything the platform doesn't agree with should be "Flagged and hidden by default, at best. They should be marginalized and stigmatized.". (Why not tar and feather while you're at it?) You're now stating that YouTube censors things based on business decisions. If it's about "business", wouldn't they want to promote juicy conspiracy theories to get more views? Also, you have very strong opinions for someone cowardly hiding behind a throw-away account.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  It is not binary. 5G doesn't cause coronavirus, airplane contrails don't contain mind controlling chemicals, vaccines don't cause autism, and the Earth isn't flat. Those aren't worldview choices, those are facts. They aren't subject to opinion. It is a shame that mental healthcare has been stigmatized, that so few resources in mental health exist for those who need it, and that modern society has created such a profound loneliness that otherwise well people feel the need to attach to groups like this to fulfill a sense of community. But no, I welcome people I disagree with. 5G causing COVID-19 or it being a Bill Gates conspiracy is not something that is categorized by agreement or disagreement.
  - cbnotfromthere 7y ago
    "5G doesn't cause coronavirus, airplane contrails don't contain mind controlling chemicals, vaccines don't cause autism, and the Earth isn't flat. Those aren't worldview choices, those are facts. They aren't subject to opinion." The problem with your black and white view is that it's bound to needlessly antagonize a lot of people. Let me give you two examples. 1) Are transgender ladies female or male? 2) Did USSR liberate Poland in 1944 or did it occupy it?
  - lonelappde 7y ago
    How do you know what's fact and what's not? A novel prize is waiting for you.
    - throwaway5752 7y ago
      You're confusing general and specific cases. Computer people should introspect more often, because we approach problems trying to solve them in general when an solving it for specific cases on a per case basis is called for. I can't evaluate any given claim as true or not, but I am perfectly comfortable evaluating the truth of the four cases I mentioned as well as millions of others. Further, I'm perfectly happy saying "I don't know". I'd probably be perfectly capable giving a 1-10 score on the truth of most things. Further, it would be perfectly approachable to use a variant of graph spectral theory (using pagerank as an example) to score people as sources of information. This isn't as hard as the generalized solution. I don't have to deal with Godel or Turing limits on the possibility of computability and provable truth to know QAnon is a bunch of lunatics and that I should ban them from a forum if I don't want them to ruin it. There are a bunch of things that are more borderline and what to include and not include is an editorial decision for community owners / moderators. Further, the "<bad actor> will abuse this and you'll be one the other end of it some day": guess what, bad actors will act badly. They will abuse the system anyway, there is no way to prevent that.
- driverdan 7y ago
  I downvoted you because that's clearly not what's happening. A delusional person spreading lies and made up facts is not just disagreeing with a worldview.
  - im3w1l 7y ago
    Freedom of religion says you have to believe in and spread delusions and lies. And to top it off, we have seen multiple instances of religious ideas directly leading to spread of Corona. I'm aware of both jewish, muslim and christian cases.
- dguaraglia 7y ago
  Hm, I think there's a difference between disagreeing with 'worldviews' and repeating provable lies that cause actual damage. The whole 'intellectual dark web' was built around the idea that 'every idea is worth discussing', even though it so happens a lot of the 'ideas' presented have been debunked a million times over, and the proponents usually ignore the data disproving their 'theories'. Personally, I think the biggest damage the internet has done to the world is allowing anyone to parrot insanely stupid anti-science positions unchecked. There's no good solution to that problem, but it is important to be reminded that just because a problem doesn't have a good solution, it doesn't mean it's beyond the realm of ethics.

Majromax 7y ago

> Suppressing David Icke only makes this conspiracy stronger. I think this is begging the question. Why does Youtube, in particular, have an obligation to not "suppress" this person, especially when there's no element of Youtube's terms of service that would force them to carry his content? He's not being hauled to jail by the authorities, he's just being denied (the greatest use of) the Youtube platform. If Youtube wants to enforce a degree of content control over what it hosts, that would ordinarily be its right -- in the same way that if I run a print shop I don't have to print flyers from any crank who walks in the front door. Moreover, you're making a testable point here, that suppression "only makes this conspiracy stronger." Is there social science evidence to back this claim up, or is this just an intuitive opinion? An alternative framework is that by denying a pernicious idea its greatest platforms, it makes the topic seem more rare and thus less credible. (The converse of "everyone's saying it, there must be some truth to it.")

contravariant 7y ago
When discussing whether Youtube should or should not suppress a particular person / point of view it is not conductive to bring up the fact that Youtube has little (financial, legal) obligation to not suppress anything. Frankly they are able to do whatever they want, but I reckon we can at least agree that this wouldn't necessarily be desirable. And yes it is a problem to have this much depend on the decisions of a single organisation, as they are wrong no matter what they do, and frankly they don't have the mandate to make such decisions to begin with.
ramblenode 7y ago
> Moreover, you're making a testable point here, that suppression "only makes this conspiracy stronger." Is there social science evidence to back this claim up, or is this just an intuitive opinion? If there is, you might begin with this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect But the conspiracy minded do seem to latch on to anything resembling information suppression.