5 ms·

Do you have a standard in mind that's better than the WHO? Would you prefer content prohibited on the basis of whether it sounds right or wrong to a random Goog

by knzhou 6y ago

Do you have a standard in mind that's better than the WHO? Would you prefer content prohibited on the basis of whether it sounds right or wrong to a random Google employee?

imgabe 6y ago
I would prefer content not to be prohibited at all. Content is not a problem. Actions are a problem. Watch all the videos you like telling you to burn down a cell tower. Once you do burn down a cell tower, then you go to jail. Perhaps we should also then hold the people telling people to burn down cell towers responsible, criminally and civilly, for the people who listen to them. David Icke might not be so cavalier about telling people to burn down cell towers if he could be sued and/or jailed after people took him up on it. As a general principle, I think we should focus on actual consequences, not imagined, potential consequences. This has the effect of also encouraging useful dissent. If you disagree with WHO and you turn out to be right, you can be properly credited with it. You are not automatically punished for the crime of daring to disagree with the WHO, and we all benefit from having more accurate, useful information.
- knzhou 6y ago
  > Content is not a problem. Actions are a problem. This is an absurd standard that would excuse literally Hitler. When the Nazi party was coming to power, he never fired a shot himself -- he just talked a lot.
  - imgabe 6y ago
    I have no idea how you managed to misconstrue what I said so badly that you came to that conclusion, but that is not the case at all. The people in the concentration camps did not get talked to death. They died because of actions that people took.
    - throwaway2048 6y ago
      But under your logic, Hitler was not the problem, and should have been free to say whatever he liked, correct?
      - imgabe 6y ago
        People are responsible for their own actions. "Hitler told me to" or "David Icke told me to" do not excuse anything someone does. I believe we established particularly after WWII that "I was just following orders" is not a valid defense to committing atrocities. You might also want to remember that one of the first things Hitler did after getting power was to outlaw any opposition parties and violently break up meetings of any dissenters, then arrest and torture anyone who was promoting anything other than the Nazi party line. Hmm, sound familiar?
        quazeekotl 6y ago
        So Hitler was guilty of no crimes then? It would have been a good, or at least morally obligated thing that nobody stopped him, yes?
        imgabe 6y ago
        Is giving a speech a crime? Which speeches are crimes? Who is going to determine that? You? More importantly, who would you like to put in charge of determining whether your speech is a crime? Contrary to what is expressed above, Hitler did much more than give speeches. He also gave orders which is a different thing entirely. Saying "Gee I wish so-and-so were dead" is not a crime in any reasonable democracy. Telling your subordinate "I order you to go and kill so-and-so" is. Do you see the difference? The person following and the person giving the order are both responsible. Are you arguing that the people who physically pulled the triggers or shoved prisoners into gas chamber do not bear any responsibility? At any point, all that was necessary to stop Hitler was for people to not listen to him. What would help that is providing an environment of healthy dissent, not stifling it. I also mentioned above specifically that we should hold people accountable for the actual consequences of their speech. How you get from that to "Hitler did nothing wrong" is completely beyond me. Actual consequences mean real things that occur in reality. Not "I think something might possibly happen because of this" or "You dared to contradict an authority so you must be silenced".
- ashtonkem 6y ago
  If you’re worried about freedom of speech, then giving more people standing to sue David Icke for taking his dumb advice would be far more stifling than allowing YT to ban people. This would basically allow anyone with deep enough pockets to police speech using the courts.
  - zimpenfish 6y ago
    > This would basically allow anyone with deep enough pockets to police speech using the courts. Which, tbf, the US and UK already have to some degree.
    - ashtonkem 6y ago
      Which is what I was thinking of. But there is a big difference between the U.K. and America here; in the U.K. if you lose a litigation, you have to pay your opponents legal bills. In America the cases where the loser must pay are very limited with high bars to clear. This means that it’s absolutely possible to bankrupt someone in America with frivolous lawsuits, so long as those lawsuits aren’t bad enough to trigger the limited exceptions.
  - imgabe 6y ago
    If you're going to give people advice, you should be prepared to take at least partial responsibility for what happens when they take that advice. If a lawyer, doctor, accountant, engineer, or any professional gives you bad or malicious advice, they expose themselves to liability for the results of it. If you want to present yourself as an expert on some topic and expect people to listen to you, put some skin in the game and stand behind what you say. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be advising people on anything.
- jfoster 6y ago
  They could even keep the content available but give it a ranking penalty. This way they stop short of full on censorship, but also prevent the spread of terrible quality information.
colordrops 6y ago
No, there should not be a standard of truth, that's the point. It's a market place of free ideas.
- longtom 6y ago
  But then we'd learn about all those oligarchs, abuses of the system, tax evasion, astroturfing, propaganda, opposition gate-keepers, distractions, fake conspiracies etc. ;)
- knzhou 6y ago
  It's not a "marketplace of ideas", in practice it's a used car dealership. Just about anybody with the slightest bit of cleverness and free time can convince any trusting person of anything whatsoever, no matter how horrible, given enough exposure.
  - colordrops 6y ago
    But it is, assuming you are in the US. That is how the legal framework is laid out. It is extremely difficult and near impossible to restrict speech in public forms.
  - koheripbal 6y ago
    So the alternative is to create "oracles of truth" that cannot be questioned? That's just the opposite idiotic extreme.
    - knzhou 6y ago
      Who said that? The range of bullshit information you can find at a moment's whim remains extremely high, in fact higher than it ever has been in history.
      - ThomPete 6y ago
        so what?
throwaway122378 6y ago
WHO, CDC, hospitals, universities, doctors
6nf 6y ago
Nobody should be above scrutiny, that's the point!
koheripbal 6y ago
NIH? CDC? Their statements were more accurate.
- Leary 6y ago
  The same CDC that to this day says masks don't prevent the wearer from getting infected?
  - downerending 6y ago
    Yes, but the effect of this CDC stance is far worse than it sounds. Because of the CDC policy that masks have not been proven to be useful, many health workers have been forbidden to wear them. (source: someone close to me)
pnako 6y ago
Right now in France one doctor (professor Didier Raoult) has been mostly right about the whole thing (in my view), and he became popular thanks to YouTube. Yet his views are in radical opposition to both the French government and the WHO. Should his videos be removed? He's one of the most published expert on infectious diseases, so who in YouTube has authority to decide that he is more wrong than the minister of health, who is mostly a politician?
- knzhou 6y ago
  Nobody is talking about banning people like Didier Raoult. If you can't tell the difference between a professor and a guy who gives spittle-flecked rants about the lizard people, this discussion will not be productive. For example, we all know he did a terrible job with the hydroxychloroquine study, but of course he retains his position.
  - triyambakam 6y ago
    You've really missed the point
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  > (professor Didier Raoult) has been mostly right about the whole thing Can you cite some sources? Everything I've seen about him has pointed out how bad his study was, how he has a track record of just plain making stuff up, etc. Here's a good example (with extra links) that pretty much demolishes his claims: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/29/more-on-cloroquine-azithromycin-and-on-dr-raoult https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/29/mo...
  - pnako 6y ago
    The main source would be the website of his own research center https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/en/ https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/en/ (but it's mostly the content in French that's interesting) He had a lengthy interview on French media last week. As far as I'm concerned he got pretty much every part of that epidemic right from the beginning and the facts are now vindicating him. But that's not really the point anyway. My point is: he went against the WHO and the French government. And at least some people, like me, find value in what he is saying. So who is to judge whether or not he should be allowed to spread his ideas?

by knzhou 6y ago

Do you have a standard in mind that's better than the WHO? Would you prefer content prohibited on the basis of whether it sounds right or wrong to a random Google employee?

imgabe 6y ago

I would prefer content not to be prohibited at all. Content is not a problem. Actions are a problem. Watch all the videos you like telling you to burn down a cell tower. Once you do burn down a cell tower, then you go to jail. Perhaps we should also then hold the people telling people to burn down cell towers responsible, criminally and civilly, for the people who listen to them. David Icke might not be so cavalier about telling people to burn down cell towers if he could be sued and/or jailed after people took him up on it. As a general principle, I think we should focus on actual consequences, not imagined, potential consequences. This has the effect of also encouraging useful dissent. If you disagree with WHO and you turn out to be right, you can be properly credited with it. You are not automatically punished for the crime of daring to disagree with the WHO, and we all benefit from having more accurate, useful information.

knzhou 6y ago
> Content is not a problem. Actions are a problem. This is an absurd standard that would excuse literally Hitler. When the Nazi party was coming to power, he never fired a shot himself -- he just talked a lot.
- imgabe 6y ago
  I have no idea how you managed to misconstrue what I said so badly that you came to that conclusion, but that is not the case at all. The people in the concentration camps did not get talked to death. They died because of actions that people took.
  - throwaway2048 6y ago
    But under your logic, Hitler was not the problem, and should have been free to say whatever he liked, correct?
    - imgabe 6y ago
      People are responsible for their own actions. "Hitler told me to" or "David Icke told me to" do not excuse anything someone does. I believe we established particularly after WWII that "I was just following orders" is not a valid defense to committing atrocities. You might also want to remember that one of the first things Hitler did after getting power was to outlaw any opposition parties and violently break up meetings of any dissenters, then arrest and torture anyone who was promoting anything other than the Nazi party line. Hmm, sound familiar?
      - quazeekotl 6y ago
        So Hitler was guilty of no crimes then? It would have been a good, or at least morally obligated thing that nobody stopped him, yes?
        imgabe 6y ago
        Is giving a speech a crime? Which speeches are crimes? Who is going to determine that? You? More importantly, who would you like to put in charge of determining whether your speech is a crime? Contrary to what is expressed above, Hitler did much more than give speeches. He also gave orders which is a different thing entirely. Saying "Gee I wish so-and-so were dead" is not a crime in any reasonable democracy. Telling your subordinate "I order you to go and kill so-and-so" is. Do you see the difference? The person following and the person giving the order are both responsible. Are you arguing that the people who physically pulled the triggers or shoved prisoners into gas chamber do not bear any responsibility? At any point, all that was necessary to stop Hitler was for people to not listen to him. What would help that is providing an environment of healthy dissent, not stifling it. I also mentioned above specifically that we should hold people accountable for the actual consequences of their speech. How you get from that to "Hitler did nothing wrong" is completely beyond me. Actual consequences mean real things that occur in reality. Not "I think something might possibly happen because of this" or "You dared to contradict an authority so you must be silenced".
ashtonkem 6y ago
If you’re worried about freedom of speech, then giving more people standing to sue David Icke for taking his dumb advice would be far more stifling than allowing YT to ban people. This would basically allow anyone with deep enough pockets to police speech using the courts.
- zimpenfish 6y ago
  > This would basically allow anyone with deep enough pockets to police speech using the courts. Which, tbf, the US and UK already have to some degree.
  - ashtonkem 6y ago
    Which is what I was thinking of. But there is a big difference between the U.K. and America here; in the U.K. if you lose a litigation, you have to pay your opponents legal bills. In America the cases where the loser must pay are very limited with high bars to clear. This means that it’s absolutely possible to bankrupt someone in America with frivolous lawsuits, so long as those lawsuits aren’t bad enough to trigger the limited exceptions.
- imgabe 6y ago
  If you're going to give people advice, you should be prepared to take at least partial responsibility for what happens when they take that advice. If a lawyer, doctor, accountant, engineer, or any professional gives you bad or malicious advice, they expose themselves to liability for the results of it. If you want to present yourself as an expert on some topic and expect people to listen to you, put some skin in the game and stand behind what you say. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be advising people on anything.
jfoster 6y ago
They could even keep the content available but give it a ranking penalty. This way they stop short of full on censorship, but also prevent the spread of terrible quality information.

colordrops 6y ago

No, there should not be a standard of truth, that's the point. It's a market place of free ideas.

longtom 6y ago
But then we'd learn about all those oligarchs, abuses of the system, tax evasion, astroturfing, propaganda, opposition gate-keepers, distractions, fake conspiracies etc. ;)
knzhou 6y ago
It's not a "marketplace of ideas", in practice it's a used car dealership. Just about anybody with the slightest bit of cleverness and free time can convince any trusting person of anything whatsoever, no matter how horrible, given enough exposure.
- colordrops 6y ago
  But it is, assuming you are in the US. That is how the legal framework is laid out. It is extremely difficult and near impossible to restrict speech in public forms.
- koheripbal 6y ago
  So the alternative is to create "oracles of truth" that cannot be questioned? That's just the opposite idiotic extreme.
  - knzhou 6y ago
    Who said that? The range of bullshit information you can find at a moment's whim remains extremely high, in fact higher than it ever has been in history.
    - ThomPete 6y ago
      so what?

throwaway122378 6y ago

WHO, CDC, hospitals, universities, doctors

6nf 6y ago

Nobody should be above scrutiny, that's the point!

koheripbal 6y ago

NIH? CDC? Their statements were more accurate.

Leary 6y ago
The same CDC that to this day says masks don't prevent the wearer from getting infected?
- downerending 6y ago
  Yes, but the effect of this CDC stance is far worse than it sounds. Because of the CDC policy that masks have not been proven to be useful, many health workers have been forbidden to wear them. (source: someone close to me)

pnako 6y ago

Right now in France one doctor (professor Didier Raoult) has been mostly right about the whole thing (in my view), and he became popular thanks to YouTube. Yet his views are in radical opposition to both the French government and the WHO. Should his videos be removed? He's one of the most published expert on infectious diseases, so who in YouTube has authority to decide that he is more wrong than the minister of health, who is mostly a politician?

knzhou 6y ago
Nobody is talking about banning people like Didier Raoult. If you can't tell the difference between a professor and a guy who gives spittle-flecked rants about the lizard people, this discussion will not be productive. For example, we all know he did a terrible job with the hydroxychloroquine study, but of course he retains his position.
- triyambakam 6y ago
  You've really missed the point
zimpenfish 6y ago
> (professor Didier Raoult) has been mostly right about the whole thing Can you cite some sources? Everything I've seen about him has pointed out how bad his study was, how he has a track record of just plain making stuff up, etc. Here's a good example (with extra links) that pretty much demolishes his claims: https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/29/more-on-cloroquine-azithromycin-and-on-dr-raoult https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/03/29/mo...
- pnako 6y ago
  The main source would be the website of his own research center https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/en/ https://www.mediterranee-infection.com/en/ (but it's mostly the content in French that's interesting) He had a lengthy interview on French media last week. As far as I'm concerned he got pretty much every part of that epidemic right from the beginning and the facts are now vindicating him. But that's not really the point anyway. My point is: he went against the WHO and the French government. And at least some people, like me, find value in what he is saying. So who is to judge whether or not he should be allowed to spread his ideas?