13 ms·

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is co

This is the slippery slope of censorship on display for everyone to see. What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? I'm pretty sure they don't have any doctors doing this. The ban is a political act and not a scientific one.

optimiz3 6y ago
> ban is a political act What is political about objective science?
- anonymousiam 6y ago
  Much of the information being banned has been published by credible, knowledgeable doctors and scientists who are working "in the trenches". Epidemiologists who have specialized in this area are being censored because political bodies (such as the WHO) have released contrary information, but the WHO (and others) have contradicted themselves multiple times throughout the SARS-Cov-19 pandemic. To answer your question directly, it seems to me that objective science becomes political when an unpopular politician cites a scientific publication or opinion. Attacking the messenger then becomes important to those politically opposed, and the original scientific message gets lost in the political controversy.
  - ikiris 6y ago
    [citation needed]
    - anonymousiam 6y ago
      Enter this search on Google and see what you get: "Is hydroxychloroquine effective in treating COVID-19?" Why should there be such a controversy about this issue? It only became political when Trump mentioned it.
      - gruez 6y ago
        >Enter this search on Google and see what you get: "Is hydroxychloroquine effective in treating COVID-19?" what am I supposed to be looking at? is there supposed to be an info box that says "yes" or "no"?
        anonymousiam 6y ago
        Sorry for not being clear. I am not the best communicator. What you should notice upon entering that search term are the wildly conflicting results. Google will present a "No" answer near the top, but if you scroll down through the thousands of results, you will see some saying "Yes", some saying "No", and some saying "We don't know". Google (and all of the other big social media giants) was quick to post a definitive answer, but is it the correct answer? The volume of uncertainty would seem to indicate that it is not.
        bduerst 6y ago
        Pointing to search engine results being varied for a specific query is not a citation.
        Cthulhu_ 6y ago
        You shouldn't make any conclusions based on skimming search results though. Ask critical questions like: - Who is answering the question? - Who paid for that answer? - What platform is it posted on, and where lie their loyalties? The problem with search results for questions like that is that you end up on a ton of trash media sites, none of which are neutral; they are all paid for, operated by or supported by parties with political goals and ambitions.
      - nomel 6y ago
        I did this a few days ago. You need to limit the date range to before he mentioned it to find anything suggesting positive results. I did find a recent story mentioning possible positive outcomes buried near the bottom of one story.
      - sixothree 6y ago
- throwaway69123 6y ago
  objective science, got any examples?
  - anonymousiam 6y ago
    They have all been censored in favor of today's consensus opinion.
    - sintaxi 6y ago
      Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one.
      - anonymousiam 6y ago
        Exactly! QED
- cicero 6y ago
  He didn't say objective science is political, but banning is. Science promotes the free exchange of ideas with the hope that the truth will be established and falsehood will be disproved.
s3r3nity 6y ago
Agree on this one - authoritative bodies can be wrong / misled as well, and shouldn't be the only arbiters of truth. Ex: The WHO made many mistakes during COVID, including faulty recommendations and (alleged) influence by a governing body to limit bad press. [1] (Before the ad hominem attacks come in, I'm obviously very pro vaccine...but against censorship and generally distrust authoritative bodies of most kinds.) [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-health-organization-blame-pandemic-coronavirus/609820/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-h...
- Shish2k 6y ago
  > authoritative bodies can be wrong / misled as well, and shouldn't be the only arbiters of truth I agree, but with a very large caveat - the human brain is not good at probabilities, it basically only recognises “outcome A is guaranteed” and “outcomes A and B are equally likely”. So how much credit should we give to an authority who is correct 90% of the time? 90% isn’t great when it comes to life-or-death matters, so it’s dangerous to recommend “always trust them”. But recommending “don’t always trust them” results in people thinking that the authorites and the crackpots are 50/50 correct, which results in even more people dying :(
  - xupybd 6y ago
    Yes but this has been politicised so heavily even the truth is normally garnished with a partizan message. It's hard to believe YouTube will be even remotely competent when it comes to filtering fact from fiction in this case.
  - konjin 6y ago
    There's a difference between being wrong about "put a band aid on a cut" and "aids is transmitted by having sex with Puerto Ricans". Health authorities are good at the first, and very bad at the second.
  - raxxorrax 6y ago
    I think there is merit to the argument that if you cannot guarantee 100% correctness, that you cannot strip people of their ability to form their opinion themselves. And that requires access to different perspectives.
jimmydorry 6y ago
It would be a shame if notable Democrats and any media house that hosts them, were deplatformed for their anti-vaccination views. I refer specifically to the people spreading fear and doubt about any vaccine produced under the Trump administration. Or... as you have said, this is just another political move, another rule to be selectively enforced when the undesirables are otherwise not flagrantly breaking any platform rules.
knaq 6y ago
This is getting way out of hand, across all social media. The president's medical report got banned, probably because it was good news. It was dry, factual, scientific... and now banned as coronavirus misinformation. Evidently his health is disputed by our social media overlords. They must know more than the doctor. Today it was a ban on posting links to the stuff leaked off Hunter Biden's hard drive. It confirms that Joe was well-involved in the Ukraine corruption. There is also a horrifying email that says in part: "We had assurances the PRC money would come first and we would build on that. Right now I don't see that happening. If they want us in Beijing once a month and pitching this outside PRC we should be getting paid in advance just like every other team member thats getting a salary." It seems that every day something major gets banned. It's really distorting people's view of reality. Even private messages are not immune.
- anonymousiam 6y ago
  Fully agree, and I'm not sure why you were modded down. I guess the answer is that the censorship of unpopular views is okay with most people. This could be an innocent consequence of our click-bait culture, or it could be something more sinister.
  - ojnabieoot 6y ago
    Speaking personally: I downvoted them because the thing about blocking Trump's medical report is just not true. FYI: "getting downvoted on HN because my comment is spreading false rumors" is not an example of censorship.
    - stickyricky 6y ago
      Nit: It's a collective act of censorship if downvotes lead the comment to be removed from public view.
      - anonymousiam 6y ago
        That is true, but now his post has been "Flagged" so it is officially censored.
Polylactic_acid 6y ago
Something has to be done. Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage. We have always selected acceptable content and it has usually been a positive. Schools have always picked which info to teach and what to not and that's largely a positive thing.
- throwaway69123 6y ago
  I will take short term damage over long term tyranny
  - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    A Samuel Adams quote posted by Naval today on twitter I’ve been thinking about: > If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! Feeling hungry for change, what will our generation trade in exchange for our inheritance?
    - raverbashing 6y ago
      Personal opinion: Naval is one of the most insufferable personalities on twitter, it's just vain quotes and other empty statements with vague meanings
  - bleepblorp 6y ago
    Like the results of a numerical integration, the long term is the sum of all the short terms that came before it. Long term damage is the inevitable consequence of too many bad short term decisions. Poor short term leadership damages societies just as a poorly maintained codebase rots from accumulated technical debt.
- xienze 6y ago
  > Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage. “Obvious” is debatable. Hardly anyone watching scientific content of any kind is an expert in the subject matter. What the public has always relied on is some sort of authority figure lending credibility to some idea or news story. For instance, saying masks don’t work is “obvious” bullshit. But remember back in March? Our glorious leaders were urging us not to buy masks because they don’t work, and besides, doctors need them. Even though they don’t work. And to have argued differently at the time was “misinformation.” Now we’re trusting Facebook, Twitter, and Google to be the authority from which all truth flows.
raz32dust 6y ago
What is not a political act these days? If youtube bans spam content, that involves some subjectiveness. Would you say banning spam is political? How about if Youtube's algorithms downrank this kind of content instead of outright ban? Is that not political? Does every algorithm need government approval then? Also what incentive does YT have to be political?
threatofrain 6y ago
If misinformation leading to loss of life can be traced back to YT, wouldn't YT be far more at risk for across-the-board negative response? Science and politics have a massive intersection in the arena of public communication; e.g., fracking, nuclear energy, climate change, vaccines... IMO, any nation which cannot establish a harmonious relationship with their own institutions of science is in a shaky spot.
- brink 6y ago
  The whole point of freedom is that it's risky, but worth it. The first people who attack freedom always point to it's risk as a reason to remove it.
ojnabieoot 6y ago
> The ban is a political act and not a scientific one. It is a public health act and a moral act, and therefore both scientific and political. These considerations don't take place in a vacuum of Free Speech Patriots versus Social Media Authoritarians. YouTube's decision has to be considered alongside the widespread consensus among doctors and public health officials that social media disinformation about COVID-19 has killed tens of thousands of people worldwide, in a pandemic that has killed over 1,000,000 people in less than a year. And let's be absolutely clear: the reason why YouTube's actions are so politically controversial is that unscrupulous politicians like Trump and Bolsorano have deliberately politicized misinformation about COVID-19. It is not YouTube's fault that "should we listen to scientists about COVID-19?" has become a partisan issue. Also: "Section 230" concerns are irrelevant here (and irrelevant in most cases of social media "censorship"). Section 230 specifically allows content providers a great deal of latitude in blocking material they deem "objectionable," including constitutionally-protected speech. YouTube is well within their rights to make reasonable determinations about what constitutes COVID-19 misinformation, and to ban such materials. YouTube blocks pornography with nary a peep from free speech activists. This is because a "free speech" argument is transparently absurd: YouTube is a business and not the government, and is allowed to regulate the data it keeps on its servers for business reasons. Yet the idea that YouTube might regulate for reasons of ethics or public health in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years is apparently the slippery slope of censorship.
AgentME 6y ago
How many TV stations have allowed themselves to run shows with covid vaccine misinformation? Is it censorship that they mostly don't?
gymknight 6y ago
> What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? According to the article youtube's policy team meets with the WHO weekly to discuss potentially problematic videos.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  So would WHO have recommended censor of videos in mid January from people claiming C19 could be spread human-to-human? https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?s=20 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?s=20
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Don't jump to conclusions, please. Because you seem to assume the WHO didn't change their minds based in research but on public opinion. And that they would "censor" any other information. No proof for either. Also, only governments can censor. Youtube is a private entity, so whatever they do cannot be censorship yo begin with.
    - j8hn 6y ago
      But did WHO make the original claim based on sound evidence or trying to appease a certain government? Taiwan disagreed with that assessment early on.
    - sanedigital 6y ago
      Wikipedia disagrees with your definition of Censorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship "Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies."
      - hef19898 6y ago
        Censorship =|= free speech. Free speech is a right guaranteed by the state, what Youtube is doing is more resembling a news paper refusing to pick publish certain readers letters. Freedom of speech is not supposed to guarantee you the maximum possible reach or to protect you from the consequences of ehat you said, social and professional.
narshian 6y ago
Um no, it’s a public welfare act.
cam_l 6y ago
Just like eating 'fads' lollies as a kid is not a slippery slope to drug addiction. Banning clear misinformation* is not a slippery slope to censorship. Just like drug addiction, each step along the path to censorship is a clear decisive act. I am way more concerned about the fast train to banning encryption than the baby step of banning misinformation. And by the way, let's also not lose sight of the fact that presenting misinformation is a bastard political act itself. Fuck those people. Edit: *on a non government platform
- ipiz0618 6y ago
  This is assuming that the YouTube management (or the software behind) is authoritative of what information is correct. In reality, YouTube has not just once banned stuff "by mistake" and will continue to do so.
  - cam_l 6y ago
    I make no such assumption. I merely suggest that the line between mistake and "mistake" is a deliberate step. It is a choice the management decided to take and were rightly ashamed of. Making an argument for 'misinformation cesspit' over 'moderation' is just never going to be an argument you can win. Not with the business, and not with the public. This is one of those 'perfect is the enemy of good' things. If you don't give them a good business option to take, you will get handed the easy one (and it sure as shit is not going to be perfect).
  - imhoguy 6y ago
    And it is not even management who makes the final censoring decisions. Does being content moderator require degree in any related area, or is it just group of trained low wage hires to review user or AI flagged content and decide on ban/leave? Honestly I would like to try out such job shaddowing myself.
  - tshaddox 6y ago
    If you oppose all human processes in which it is possible to make a mistake, then you oppose all human processes.
- 6y ago
anigbrowl 6y ago
Zzzz. Yeah that's a problem, but come back with a proposal about how to deal with the existing misinformation and bad faith problem.
- brigandish 6y ago
  More freedom of speech is the answer to misinformation because then it can be challenged. Censorship allows convenient mistruths to spread unchallenged.
  - ed25519FUUU 6y ago
    That’s what it does at its best. At its worst it’s a tool to allow oppressive governments to conceal the truth and further their grip on power.
    - brigandish 6y ago
      I'd say there was a stronger relationship between governments that censor and those that oppress. Which oppressive governments are using free speech to conceal the truth?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - wyattpeak 6y ago
    > More freedom of speech is the answer to misinformation because then it can be challenged Do we have any evidence that it's true? Anecdotally, it seems that the more the internet has expanded our ability to communicate, the more widespread misinformation has gotten. I see the moral and anti-authoritarian arguments against censorship, but only in the context of accepting the costs. This "have your cake and eat it" argument feels hollow.
    - remarkEon 6y ago
      >Anecdotally, it seems that the more the internet has expanded our ability to communicate, the more widespread misinformation has gotten. I don't think this is the right conclusion. After thinking about it more, it's not like the internet is patient zero for conspiracies and misinformation. It's just that the internet has exposed to the rest of us how common it is for people to hold such beliefs.
pzmTWLwfwJ 6y ago
Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If these platforms don't do anything then everyone talks about how misinformation is rampant on these platforms, how dangerous it is and that nothings being done about it. If they do, then everyone's worried about censorship or blamed to be politically motivated. There could be simple legislation that defines what is and what isn't to be censored, then these platforms can adhere to that and check a compliance box and leave it at that. Perhaps a better response would be, what do you think these platforms should do, really? Maybe we can crowdsource a good idea. And, while at it, also think how to thread the needle of keeping these platforms as less scammy etc. as possible, so that the people won't stop using the platforms.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  I don’t think it’s this simple, because the “don’t do anything” case is actually “use engagement-maximizing algorithms to actively spread misinformation as fast as possible.”
- akiselev 6y ago
  > And, while at it, also think how to thread the needle of keeping these platforms as less scammy etc. as possible, so that the people won't stop using the platforms. Why should anyone care about these platforms' engagement metrics? What about these platforms necessitates their survival? The assumption that Youtube is an unalloyed good for the world is a very controversial one.
  - darawk 6y ago
    People like them. They wouldn't survive if they didn't.
    - akiselev 6y ago
      Like cancer?
      - darawk 6y ago
bmarquez 6y ago
> What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? The cheapest content moderators possible, of course. Outsourced through contract agencies in foreign countries to keep costs down. I doubt anybody with a medical degree would take the job. Here's an article about the life of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter content moderators in Manila: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/25/social-media-companies-are-outsourcing-their-dirty-work-philippines-generation-workers-is-paying-price/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/25/social-... "At the end of a shift, my mind is so exhausted that I can’t even think,” said a Twitter moderator in Manila. He said he occasionally dreamed about being the victim of a suicide bombing or a car accident, his brain recycling images that he reviewed during his shift. “To do this job, you have to be a strong person and know yourself very well." The moderators worked for Facebook, Facebook-owned Instagram, Google-owned YouTube, Twitter and the Twitter-owned video-streaming platform Periscope, as well as other such apps, all through intermediaries such as Accenture and Cognizant.
jhanschoo 6y ago
Why do you say that it's a slippery slope as opposed to, say, a (continuously evolving) policy with forces pulling in both directions?
ReptileMan 6y ago
And well - the way washing hands after autopsies and before surgery to prevent infection needed 30 years to be accepted by the community (1850-1880 I think) - even panels of certified physicians could be wrong
didibus 6y ago
I think I disagree with that statement. Censorship would prevent the information from being accessible, make it illegal, come with repercussions for those who publish it, or other such things. Platforms like YouTube, Google Search, Twitter, Facebook and all have a problem of amplification through algorithms that don't promote well proven, high quality, trusted content. You could almost see these platforms themselves as a kind of censorship through obscuring and creating noise around quality information. I think because of the way content is amplified on such platforms, that's why they need policies like this, to limit the possible damage and liability they might face if they'd promote something that caused a lot of damages. This is very different from someone choosing to host their own content which is equally accessible to all other content. But as soon as you rank content, as soon as you have an algorithm pick and choose content to shown you, in what order to show it to you and all that, you actually have a propaganda problem, because you become a propaganda machine, and that's really what these platforms have become.
- saurik 6y ago
  ...so you are saying that Google should stop recommending such videos, but has no reason to ban them entirely from being posted, right?
  - didibus 6y ago
    Yes, if they didn't recommend the video, if it could only be found through search, there wouldn't be any issue with it. Though even with search, if the search algorithms are biased, and prioritize things in a way that could be argued to be recommendation, like personalized results based on what it thinks you'll like for the given keywords, you could say that's also a problem, which is why I mentioned Google Search. To put it another way, you'd expect that the easiest content to find and discover, and thus be shown and recommended would also be the most commonly held opinion and current scientific consensus. But you'd also want representation for less commonly held opinions and scientific hypothesis and claims. Just that, if 1 scientist is pushing some wildly different idea, and 99 others are pushing the same idea, you'd expect that the idea pushed by 99 scientist would be the easiest to come around and that it be clear that it is weighted to 99%, while the other would be a little harder to come around and it be clear that it's weighted to 1%. The issue is those platforms fail heavily to represent things proportionally as such. Often, the outlying wild claim will be recommended more heavily, and be promoted over others. Even without algorithms, the people pushing wild claims generally employ amplification tactics by spamming and posting multiple times over and over, etc. to falsely boost their representation. So that's the problem I see here. Banning the more problematic instances of this is their poor solution to keep their platforms operating in a way that doesn't offer proper representation (because it makes more money), but avoid the extreme cases that could put them in hot water.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
raverbashing 6y ago
Yes, please, I'm all in favour of more political statements Please don't wear a mask. Please don't take vaccines. Please congregate in closed spaces for long periods of time Do your part to achieve heard immunity. Just don't say they might suffer the consequences of their actions, the deniers don't like it
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Misinformation is also a slippery slope though; you have to say "enough is enough" at one point because else you reach a point of no return. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance (iirc that was linked to on here a while ago, I may misremember)
- watt 6y ago
  This "paradox" is resolved by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streitbare_Demokratie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streitbare_Demokratie - self-defending democracy. Before this idea, a democracy would allow itself to be subverted by allowing a dictator to be democratically elected, and consequences be damned. Not a good idea as we find out. By extension, a system that wants the idea of free speech to stay viable needs to protect itself from ideas that bring harm to it. Maybe it can be argued that from mathematical sense there is some kind of paradox (a set of all sets that are not blah blah), but this is no contradiction for us humans. There is no mathematical beauty in submitting to a wave of harmful, malicious misinformation.

optimiz3 6y ago

> ban is a political act What is political about objective science?

anonymousiam 6y ago
Much of the information being banned has been published by credible, knowledgeable doctors and scientists who are working "in the trenches". Epidemiologists who have specialized in this area are being censored because political bodies (such as the WHO) have released contrary information, but the WHO (and others) have contradicted themselves multiple times throughout the SARS-Cov-19 pandemic. To answer your question directly, it seems to me that objective science becomes political when an unpopular politician cites a scientific publication or opinion. Attacking the messenger then becomes important to those politically opposed, and the original scientific message gets lost in the political controversy.
- ikiris 6y ago
  [citation needed]
  - anonymousiam 6y ago
    Enter this search on Google and see what you get: "Is hydroxychloroquine effective in treating COVID-19?" Why should there be such a controversy about this issue? It only became political when Trump mentioned it.
    - gruez 6y ago
      >Enter this search on Google and see what you get: "Is hydroxychloroquine effective in treating COVID-19?" what am I supposed to be looking at? is there supposed to be an info box that says "yes" or "no"?
      - anonymousiam 6y ago
        Sorry for not being clear. I am not the best communicator. What you should notice upon entering that search term are the wildly conflicting results. Google will present a "No" answer near the top, but if you scroll down through the thousands of results, you will see some saying "Yes", some saying "No", and some saying "We don't know". Google (and all of the other big social media giants) was quick to post a definitive answer, but is it the correct answer? The volume of uncertainty would seem to indicate that it is not.
        bduerst 6y ago
        Pointing to search engine results being varied for a specific query is not a citation.
        Cthulhu_ 6y ago
        You shouldn't make any conclusions based on skimming search results though. Ask critical questions like: - Who is answering the question? - Who paid for that answer? - What platform is it posted on, and where lie their loyalties? The problem with search results for questions like that is that you end up on a ton of trash media sites, none of which are neutral; they are all paid for, operated by or supported by parties with political goals and ambitions.
    - nomel 6y ago
      I did this a few days ago. You need to limit the date range to before he mentioned it to find anything suggesting positive results. I did find a recent story mentioning possible positive outcomes buried near the bottom of one story.
    - sixothree 6y ago
throwaway69123 6y ago
objective science, got any examples?
- anonymousiam 6y ago
  They have all been censored in favor of today's consensus opinion.
  - sintaxi 6y ago
    Consensus is a political concept, not a scientific one.
    - anonymousiam 6y ago
      Exactly! QED
cicero 6y ago
He didn't say objective science is political, but banning is. Science promotes the free exchange of ideas with the hope that the truth will be established and falsehood will be disproved.

s3r3nity 6y ago

Agree on this one - authoritative bodies can be wrong / misled as well, and shouldn't be the only arbiters of truth. Ex: The WHO made many mistakes during COVID, including faulty recommendations and (alleged) influence by a governing body to limit bad press. [1] (Before the ad hominem attacks come in, I'm obviously very pro vaccine...but against censorship and generally distrust authoritative bodies of most kinds.) [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-health-organization-blame-pandemic-coronavirus/609820/ https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-h...

Shish2k 6y ago
> authoritative bodies can be wrong / misled as well, and shouldn't be the only arbiters of truth I agree, but with a very large caveat - the human brain is not good at probabilities, it basically only recognises “outcome A is guaranteed” and “outcomes A and B are equally likely”. So how much credit should we give to an authority who is correct 90% of the time? 90% isn’t great when it comes to life-or-death matters, so it’s dangerous to recommend “always trust them”. But recommending “don’t always trust them” results in people thinking that the authorites and the crackpots are 50/50 correct, which results in even more people dying :(
- xupybd 6y ago
  Yes but this has been politicised so heavily even the truth is normally garnished with a partizan message. It's hard to believe YouTube will be even remotely competent when it comes to filtering fact from fiction in this case.
- konjin 6y ago
  There's a difference between being wrong about "put a band aid on a cut" and "aids is transmitted by having sex with Puerto Ricans". Health authorities are good at the first, and very bad at the second.
- raxxorrax 6y ago
  I think there is merit to the argument that if you cannot guarantee 100% correctness, that you cannot strip people of their ability to form their opinion themselves. And that requires access to different perspectives.

jimmydorry 6y ago

It would be a shame if notable Democrats and any media house that hosts them, were deplatformed for their anti-vaccination views. I refer specifically to the people spreading fear and doubt about any vaccine produced under the Trump administration. Or... as you have said, this is just another political move, another rule to be selectively enforced when the undesirables are otherwise not flagrantly breaking any platform rules.

knaq 6y ago

This is getting way out of hand, across all social media. The president's medical report got banned, probably because it was good news. It was dry, factual, scientific... and now banned as coronavirus misinformation. Evidently his health is disputed by our social media overlords. They must know more than the doctor. Today it was a ban on posting links to the stuff leaked off Hunter Biden's hard drive. It confirms that Joe was well-involved in the Ukraine corruption. There is also a horrifying email that says in part: "We had assurances the PRC money would come first and we would build on that. Right now I don't see that happening. If they want us in Beijing once a month and pitching this outside PRC we should be getting paid in advance just like every other team member thats getting a salary." It seems that every day something major gets banned. It's really distorting people's view of reality. Even private messages are not immune.

anonymousiam 6y ago
Fully agree, and I'm not sure why you were modded down. I guess the answer is that the censorship of unpopular views is okay with most people. This could be an innocent consequence of our click-bait culture, or it could be something more sinister.
- ojnabieoot 6y ago
  Speaking personally: I downvoted them because the thing about blocking Trump's medical report is just not true. FYI: "getting downvoted on HN because my comment is spreading false rumors" is not an example of censorship.
  - stickyricky 6y ago
    Nit: It's a collective act of censorship if downvotes lead the comment to be removed from public view.
    - anonymousiam 6y ago
      That is true, but now his post has been "Flagged" so it is officially censored.

Polylactic_acid 6y ago

Something has to be done. Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage. We have always selected acceptable content and it has usually been a positive. Schools have always picked which info to teach and what to not and that's largely a positive thing.

throwaway69123 6y ago
I will take short term damage over long term tyranny
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  A Samuel Adams quote posted by Naval today on twitter I’ve been thinking about: > If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! Feeling hungry for change, what will our generation trade in exchange for our inheritance?
  - raverbashing 6y ago
    Personal opinion: Naval is one of the most insufferable personalities on twitter, it's just vain quotes and other empty statements with vague meanings
- bleepblorp 6y ago
  Like the results of a numerical integration, the long term is the sum of all the short terms that came before it. Long term damage is the inevitable consequence of too many bad short term decisions. Poor short term leadership damages societies just as a poorly maintained codebase rots from accumulated technical debt.
xienze 6y ago
> Obvious bullshit is fooling huge chunks of the population and causing huge damage. “Obvious” is debatable. Hardly anyone watching scientific content of any kind is an expert in the subject matter. What the public has always relied on is some sort of authority figure lending credibility to some idea or news story. For instance, saying masks don’t work is “obvious” bullshit. But remember back in March? Our glorious leaders were urging us not to buy masks because they don’t work, and besides, doctors need them. Even though they don’t work. And to have argued differently at the time was “misinformation.” Now we’re trusting Facebook, Twitter, and Google to be the authority from which all truth flows.

raz32dust 6y ago

What is not a political act these days? If youtube bans spam content, that involves some subjectiveness. Would you say banning spam is political? How about if Youtube's algorithms downrank this kind of content instead of outright ban? Is that not political? Does every algorithm need government approval then? Also what incentive does YT have to be political?

threatofrain 6y ago

If misinformation leading to loss of life can be traced back to YT, wouldn't YT be far more at risk for across-the-board negative response? Science and politics have a massive intersection in the arena of public communication; e.g., fracking, nuclear energy, climate change, vaccines... IMO, any nation which cannot establish a harmonious relationship with their own institutions of science is in a shaky spot.

brink 6y ago
The whole point of freedom is that it's risky, but worth it. The first people who attack freedom always point to it's risk as a reason to remove it.

ojnabieoot 6y ago

> The ban is a political act and not a scientific one. It is a public health act and a moral act, and therefore both scientific and political. These considerations don't take place in a vacuum of Free Speech Patriots versus Social Media Authoritarians. YouTube's decision has to be considered alongside the widespread consensus among doctors and public health officials that social media disinformation about COVID-19 has killed tens of thousands of people worldwide, in a pandemic that has killed over 1,000,000 people in less than a year. And let's be absolutely clear: the reason why YouTube's actions are so politically controversial is that unscrupulous politicians like Trump and Bolsorano have deliberately politicized misinformation about COVID-19. It is not YouTube's fault that "should we listen to scientists about COVID-19?" has become a partisan issue. Also: "Section 230" concerns are irrelevant here (and irrelevant in most cases of social media "censorship"). Section 230 specifically allows content providers a great deal of latitude in blocking material they deem "objectionable," including constitutionally-protected speech. YouTube is well within their rights to make reasonable determinations about what constitutes COVID-19 misinformation, and to ban such materials. YouTube blocks pornography with nary a peep from free speech activists. This is because a "free speech" argument is transparently absurd: YouTube is a business and not the government, and is allowed to regulate the data it keeps on its servers for business reasons. Yet the idea that YouTube might regulate for reasons of ethics or public health in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years is apparently the slippery slope of censorship.

AgentME 6y ago

How many TV stations have allowed themselves to run shows with covid vaccine misinformation? Is it censorship that they mostly don't?

gymknight 6y ago

> What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? According to the article youtube's policy team meets with the WHO weekly to discuss potentially problematic videos.

ed25519FUUU 6y ago
So would WHO have recommended censor of videos in mid January from people claiming C19 could be spread human-to-human? https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?s=20 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?s=20
- hef19898 6y ago
  Don't jump to conclusions, please. Because you seem to assume the WHO didn't change their minds based in research but on public opinion. And that they would "censor" any other information. No proof for either. Also, only governments can censor. Youtube is a private entity, so whatever they do cannot be censorship yo begin with.
  - j8hn 6y ago
    But did WHO make the original claim based on sound evidence or trying to appease a certain government? Taiwan disagreed with that assessment early on.
  - sanedigital 6y ago
    Wikipedia disagrees with your definition of Censorship: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship "Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies."
    - hef19898 6y ago
      Censorship =|= free speech. Free speech is a right guaranteed by the state, what Youtube is doing is more resembling a news paper refusing to pick publish certain readers letters. Freedom of speech is not supposed to guarantee you the maximum possible reach or to protect you from the consequences of ehat you said, social and professional.

narshian 6y ago

Um no, it’s a public welfare act.

cam_l 6y ago

Just like eating 'fads' lollies as a kid is not a slippery slope to drug addiction. Banning clear misinformation* is not a slippery slope to censorship. Just like drug addiction, each step along the path to censorship is a clear decisive act. I am way more concerned about the fast train to banning encryption than the baby step of banning misinformation. And by the way, let's also not lose sight of the fact that presenting misinformation is a bastard political act itself. Fuck those people. Edit: *on a non government platform

ipiz0618 6y ago
This is assuming that the YouTube management (or the software behind) is authoritative of what information is correct. In reality, YouTube has not just once banned stuff "by mistake" and will continue to do so.
- cam_l 6y ago
  I make no such assumption. I merely suggest that the line between mistake and "mistake" is a deliberate step. It is a choice the management decided to take and were rightly ashamed of. Making an argument for 'misinformation cesspit' over 'moderation' is just never going to be an argument you can win. Not with the business, and not with the public. This is one of those 'perfect is the enemy of good' things. If you don't give them a good business option to take, you will get handed the easy one (and it sure as shit is not going to be perfect).
- imhoguy 6y ago
  And it is not even management who makes the final censoring decisions. Does being content moderator require degree in any related area, or is it just group of trained low wage hires to review user or AI flagged content and decide on ban/leave? Honestly I would like to try out such job shaddowing myself.
- tshaddox 6y ago
  If you oppose all human processes in which it is possible to make a mistake, then you oppose all human processes.
6y ago

anigbrowl 6y ago

Zzzz. Yeah that's a problem, but come back with a proposal about how to deal with the existing misinformation and bad faith problem.

brigandish 6y ago
More freedom of speech is the answer to misinformation because then it can be challenged. Censorship allows convenient mistruths to spread unchallenged.
- ed25519FUUU 6y ago
  That’s what it does at its best. At its worst it’s a tool to allow oppressive governments to conceal the truth and further their grip on power.
  - brigandish 6y ago
    I'd say there was a stronger relationship between governments that censor and those that oppress. Which oppressive governments are using free speech to conceal the truth?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- wyattpeak 6y ago
  > More freedom of speech is the answer to misinformation because then it can be challenged Do we have any evidence that it's true? Anecdotally, it seems that the more the internet has expanded our ability to communicate, the more widespread misinformation has gotten. I see the moral and anti-authoritarian arguments against censorship, but only in the context of accepting the costs. This "have your cake and eat it" argument feels hollow.
  - remarkEon 6y ago
    >Anecdotally, it seems that the more the internet has expanded our ability to communicate, the more widespread misinformation has gotten. I don't think this is the right conclusion. After thinking about it more, it's not like the internet is patient zero for conspiracies and misinformation. It's just that the internet has exposed to the rest of us how common it is for people to hold such beliefs.

pzmTWLwfwJ 6y ago

Damned if you do, damned if you don't. If these platforms don't do anything then everyone talks about how misinformation is rampant on these platforms, how dangerous it is and that nothings being done about it. If they do, then everyone's worried about censorship or blamed to be politically motivated. There could be simple legislation that defines what is and what isn't to be censored, then these platforms can adhere to that and check a compliance box and leave it at that. Perhaps a better response would be, what do you think these platforms should do, really? Maybe we can crowdsource a good idea. And, while at it, also think how to thread the needle of keeping these platforms as less scammy etc. as possible, so that the people won't stop using the platforms.

tshaddox 6y ago
I don’t think it’s this simple, because the “don’t do anything” case is actually “use engagement-maximizing algorithms to actively spread misinformation as fast as possible.”
akiselev 6y ago
> And, while at it, also think how to thread the needle of keeping these platforms as less scammy etc. as possible, so that the people won't stop using the platforms. Why should anyone care about these platforms' engagement metrics? What about these platforms necessitates their survival? The assumption that Youtube is an unalloyed good for the world is a very controversial one.
- darawk 6y ago
  People like them. They wouldn't survive if they didn't.
  - akiselev 6y ago
    Like cancer?
    - darawk 6y ago

bmarquez 6y ago

> What panel of certified physicians is YouTube using to identify what information is correct vs. incorrect? The cheapest content moderators possible, of course. Outsourced through contract agencies in foreign countries to keep costs down. I doubt anybody with a medical degree would take the job. Here's an article about the life of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter content moderators in Manila: https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/25/social-media-companies-are-outsourcing-their-dirty-work-philippines-generation-workers-is-paying-price/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/25/social-... "At the end of a shift, my mind is so exhausted that I can’t even think,” said a Twitter moderator in Manila. He said he occasionally dreamed about being the victim of a suicide bombing or a car accident, his brain recycling images that he reviewed during his shift. “To do this job, you have to be a strong person and know yourself very well." The moderators worked for Facebook, Facebook-owned Instagram, Google-owned YouTube, Twitter and the Twitter-owned video-streaming platform Periscope, as well as other such apps, all through intermediaries such as Accenture and Cognizant.

jhanschoo 6y ago

Why do you say that it's a slippery slope as opposed to, say, a (continuously evolving) policy with forces pulling in both directions?

ReptileMan 6y ago

And well - the way washing hands after autopsies and before surgery to prevent infection needed 30 years to be accepted by the community (1850-1880 I think) - even panels of certified physicians could be wrong

didibus 6y ago

I think I disagree with that statement. Censorship would prevent the information from being accessible, make it illegal, come with repercussions for those who publish it, or other such things. Platforms like YouTube, Google Search, Twitter, Facebook and all have a problem of amplification through algorithms that don't promote well proven, high quality, trusted content. You could almost see these platforms themselves as a kind of censorship through obscuring and creating noise around quality information. I think because of the way content is amplified on such platforms, that's why they need policies like this, to limit the possible damage and liability they might face if they'd promote something that caused a lot of damages. This is very different from someone choosing to host their own content which is equally accessible to all other content. But as soon as you rank content, as soon as you have an algorithm pick and choose content to shown you, in what order to show it to you and all that, you actually have a propaganda problem, because you become a propaganda machine, and that's really what these platforms have become.

saurik 6y ago
...so you are saying that Google should stop recommending such videos, but has no reason to ban them entirely from being posted, right?
- didibus 6y ago
  Yes, if they didn't recommend the video, if it could only be found through search, there wouldn't be any issue with it. Though even with search, if the search algorithms are biased, and prioritize things in a way that could be argued to be recommendation, like personalized results based on what it thinks you'll like for the given keywords, you could say that's also a problem, which is why I mentioned Google Search. To put it another way, you'd expect that the easiest content to find and discover, and thus be shown and recommended would also be the most commonly held opinion and current scientific consensus. But you'd also want representation for less commonly held opinions and scientific hypothesis and claims. Just that, if 1 scientist is pushing some wildly different idea, and 99 others are pushing the same idea, you'd expect that the idea pushed by 99 scientist would be the easiest to come around and that it be clear that it is weighted to 99%, while the other would be a little harder to come around and it be clear that it's weighted to 1%. The issue is those platforms fail heavily to represent things proportionally as such. Often, the outlying wild claim will be recommended more heavily, and be promoted over others. Even without algorithms, the people pushing wild claims generally employ amplification tactics by spamming and posting multiple times over and over, etc. to falsely boost their representation. So that's the problem I see here. Banning the more problematic instances of this is their poor solution to keep their platforms operating in a way that doesn't offer proper representation (because it makes more money), but avoid the extreme cases that could put them in hot water.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

raverbashing 6y ago

Yes, please, I'm all in favour of more political statements Please don't wear a mask. Please don't take vaccines. Please congregate in closed spaces for long periods of time Do your part to achieve heard immunity. Just don't say they might suffer the consequences of their actions, the deniers don't like it

Cthulhu_ 6y ago

Misinformation is also a slippery slope though; you have to say "enough is enough" at one point because else you reach a point of no return. See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance (iirc that was linked to on here a while ago, I may misremember)

watt 6y ago
This "paradox" is resolved by https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streitbare_Demokratie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streitbare_Demokratie - self-defending democracy. Before this idea, a democracy would allow itself to be subverted by allowing a dictator to be democratically elected, and consequences be damned. Not a good idea as we find out. By extension, a system that wants the idea of free speech to stay viable needs to protect itself from ideas that bring harm to it. Maybe it can be argued that from mathematical sense there is some kind of paradox (a set of all sets that are not blah blah), but this is no contradiction for us humans. There is no mathematical beauty in submitting to a wave of harmful, malicious misinformation.