6 ms·

> What's tricky about it? ... The public has to search through garbage to find the truth. "The public" is not some perfectly rational collection of human being

> What's tricky about it? ... The public has to search through garbage to find the truth. "The public" is not some perfectly rational collection of human beings. Rather, it's droves of people susceptible to propaganda and misinformation campaigns. Let's be clear: there was no widespread election fraud, certainly not by large enough margins to overturn the election. Videos that purport otherwise are not improving public discourse; in fact, they're causing it to disintegrate. I agree that Youtube should not have carte blanche to remove content that it finds objectionable per its own capricious standards. But that doesn't mean it should have no discretion at all. Truth seeking must be grounded in reality; these spurious claims of fraud are not.

wpasc 6y ago
I agree that humans and "the public" are not perfectly rational people. BUT, I don't know that any system that does not treat them as such is any better. Then systems put in place by people who think they DO know better are never sustainable and are corruptible by all influences that corrupt any form of power
- Daishiman 6y ago
  > BUT, I don't know that any system that does not treat them as such is any better. In all of the civilized world, people are assumed to not be knowledgable about a myriad of problem domains such that only licensed professional can exercises certain classes of judgement. You are not considered to be rational enough to determine what kind of chemotherapy you get, just to name an example of all sorts of prescription medicines. You are not assumed knowledgeable about architecting a building, a car, investing, or all licensed occupations where it turns out that bad opinions can kill people by the millions. So no, effectively we assume by default that people are mostly dumb and dangerous and we raise high bars of qualification for anything in society where there is a potential for huge damage from bad decisions.
  - jtdev 6y ago
    ...but your examples are completely unrelated to the conversation we're having here. Censoring content to millions of people is in no way similar to requiring a dentist to be properly trained and licensed.
    - Daishiman 6y ago
      All are examples of social assumptions that people are not qualified enough to evaluate evidence at face value without a substantial background in specialized knowledge. If you claim that there's voting fraud and it turns out I'm not knowledgeable enough to evaluate that claim at face value, as a society we have a problem, just like a lot of the misinformation that leads to the voting public to support policies for erroneous reasons. That's pretty much the basis for representative democracies (disregarding whether they're effective at it or not): choosing experts who have the time and inclination to decide policies that you would otherwise not be able to evaluate effectively on your own. Edit: to cite a clear example: climate science is not a field where laymen can make useful opinions, although it's a field where anyone with a high-school level education can follow the reasoning behind the conclusions reached by the experts. And yet we have a political party that attempts to deny and politicize this topic without even a hint of qualifications to do so, and nonexperts believing that their opinions are useful, or a reflection of reality.
everdrive 6y ago
What if Youtube were a truly bad actor. (genuinely, a theoretical) and were working to actively censor the truth? What would be the right response here?
- panda-giddiness 6y ago
  Were Youtube truly acting in bad faith, the correct response would be for the government to intervene (either by lawsuit or legislation). But of course, the government should respond to actual harms, not hypothetical harms.
  - everdrive 6y ago
    That's an interesting response. I started my first comment by playing devil's advocate with myself. I'm almost a free speech absolutist, but I also really hate all the crazy, conspiratorial thinking that is so common these days. It puts me odds with myself. I can't say I'm sad when crazy and dangerous ideas are removed from the internet. However, I think it's clear to see how this could be abused. A system where the "right" ideas are allowed depends on the people in charge having the "right" ideas. When such things are possible, the pendulum swings quickly. (ie, if the government could really truly censor, imagine how the kind of censorship would differ between a red and blue administration.) And, this is part of the problem: can you trust the government to decide what sort of speech is appropriate. I don't mean now, with regards to this particular issue. I mean every time this problem crops up for the next 50 to 100 years. It relies on the same theoretical. What if instead, it's the company which is telling the truth, but the government which is malicious, and wants to censor them?
    - csnover 6y ago
      > What if instead, it's the company which is telling the truth, but the government which is malicious, and wants to censor them? This is not hypothetical, you can see this in many countries today like North Korea, Iran, India, etc. Government censorship is extremely dangerous because it is backed by the power of the state. ISP censorship is extremely dangerous because there are very few options and circumvention requires expensive physical infrastructure. YouTube not allowing certain videos on their site… doesn’t seem to me to warrant these histrionics, since there are multiple other channels for video distribution (Vimeo, Twitch, Dailymotion, BitChute, Periscope, Twitter, and Facebook all come to mind off the top of my head). And, if there were no other channels for video distribution, a $5/mo server gets you one of your own. Is it a huge bummer that we can’t have nice things and that the ‘free marketplace of ideas’ concept is fraying at the edges? Yes. Is this the end of the world, or even a slippery slope to a dystopia? Seems pretty unlikely. Distributors have always been allowed to choose what they will and won‘t carry; Barnes & Noble won’t sell books published by Amazon[0], and you know what you can do? Just buy them at Amazon. YouTube won’t carry your video? Fine, post it somewhere else. [0] https://business.time.com/2012/02/06/in-latest-moves-barnes-noble-is-betting-it-can-compete-with-amazon/ https://business.time.com/2012/02/06/in-latest-moves-barnes-...
skissane 6y ago
> Let's be clear: there was no widespread election fraud, certainly not by large enough margins to overturn the election. Videos that purport otherwise are not improving public discourse; in fact, they're causing it to disintegrate. I think there almost certainly was some fraud, but not enough to change the outcome. (Whether or not "some but not enough to change the outcome" counts as "widespread", I don't know.) But I also think it is true that the US electoral system is very poorly organised, creating a lot more scope for fraud–or at least the appearance of fraud, or the appearance of the possibility of fraud–than in some other countries. In a number of other countries, national elections are fully run by an apolitical independent national agency (e.g. the Australian Electoral Commission), not by a hodgepodge of state and county officials many of whom are politicians or political appointees. That system provides a lot more professionalism and a lot less opportunities for suspicion of fraud than the American system does. Yet, I think some people are so committed to "everything Trump says is 110% wrong" that they want to shut down discussion of the flaws in the US election system. It is possible that both there are real flaws in the election system, including flaws that permit fraud or the appearance of a possibility of fraud, and that simultaneously those flaws while very real and in need of being addressed didn't change the outcome this time around. Possibly, one outcome of this election might be support from Republicans for some reforms in the way elections are carried out. Given America's toxic political polarisation, there is the risk that Democrats will oppose such reforms simply because it is Republicans proposing them.
- jacquesm 6y ago
  If you have any proof of fraud at all there is a guy in the White House that wants to speak to you pronto.
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    And there's a guy (the Lt. Governor, no less!) in Texas[0] who will pay you USD$25,000 for information that leads to a conviction for voter fraud. Go get 'em tigers! [0] https://www.texastribune.org/2020/11/10/texas-dan-patrick/ https://www.texastribune.org/2020/11/10/texas-dan-patrick/
briefcomment 6y ago
>Let's be clear: there was no widespread election fraud, certainly not by large enough margins to overturn the election There's evidence to the contrary that is yet to be addressed. There may very well be too little voter fraud to matter, but at the moment, no one can say that with confidence if they are paying attention to the allegations. If Youtube feels obligated to correct what it thinks are misconceptions, they can present their arguments and evidence that contradict current allegations. They should hire a team of lawyers to put together the most up to date refutations of claims, and post that on relevant videos. Straight censorship is treating the general public like children. Arguably, it's treating the public like livestock. Domesticating us for ad revenue.
- mistermann 6y ago
  > but at the moment, no one can say that with confidence if they are paying attention to the allegations And yet marvel at the number of otherwise highly logical people who do just that. > If Youtube feels obligated to correct what it thinks are misconceptions, they can present their arguments and evidence that contradict current allegations. They should hire a team of lawyers to put together the most up to date refutations of claims, and post that on relevant videos. It's interesting that: - a centralized, slowly changing "balance sheet" approach like this, which is a standard in project management, is rarely taken toward matters of public concern - I am a conspiracy theorist, but if there was a resource that enumerated all of the "just(!) a conspiracy theory" claims and illustrated how it is known(!) that they are false, I would gladly read it. Rather, the public has to somehow sort out what is true based on hundreds of "news" articles that get released into the information ecosystem on a daily basis. Or, just offload their thinking to The Experts. - we regularly hear that we need more "critical thinking" among the public, but we never get further than talking about the incredibly important need for this It's also interesting that ~nobody seems to notice these sorts of things (and when they are mentioned, it seems to generally displease people, for reasons that are not stated). I sometimes wonder if these sorts of information management oversights, apparently by thousands of people in positions of power, are purely accidental.
- sib301 6y ago
  allegations !== evidence
judge2020 6y ago
I can't find the comment now, but someone pointed out that misinformation and propaganda used to be a tool that only the local (national) government could use at scale, so teaching citizens how to identify misinformation and propaganda wasn't something prioritized in schools (lest you be considered 'anti-american'). With the internet and the current state of social media, suddenly anyone can broadcast any message they want at scale, including foreign governments.
CivBase 6y ago
> "The public" is not some perfectly rational collection of human beings. Rather, it's droves of people susceptible to propaganda and misinformation campaigns. Correct. > Let's be clear: there was no widespread election fraud, certainly not by large enough margins to overturn the election. I am not 100% committed to that being an impossibility, but I have yet to see any evidence to make me question the final outcome of the 2020 US election. I'm legitimately concerned about small scale voter fraud, but nothing significant enough to invalidate the final result. > Videos that purport otherwise are not improving public discourse; in fact, they're causing it to disintegrate. I agree. But far be it from me to determine what constitutes "quality public discourse". I have a history of being wrong about a great many things so I'd rather not have myself - or any individual or organization - arbitrate on what the public is allowed to discuss. > I agree that Youtube should not have carte blanche to remove content that it finds objectionable per its own capricious standards. But that doesn't mean it should have no discretion at all. Maybe I'd be less critical of Goolge if they actually had some sort of guidelines for objectively determining what content should be allowed on their platforms. This inconsistent "whatever we think is best" policy strategy is way too susceptible to abuse and Google hasn't proven themselves trustworthy.
- rtx 6y ago
  As a non American your voting process is insane, I am not sure how you all trust it. No ids, mailed ballots and not even identifiers after voting.
  - CivBase 6y ago
    As an American, you're absolutely right. Both parties have dumb justifications for why they think the voting system should stay the way it is, but the reality is simply that the person/party in charge has no incentive to overhaul the system that go them there. They call foul and make a big fuss when the system doesn't work in their favor, but then they don't have the power to fix it. They've realized it's easier to just undermine the legitimacy of the winner and just patiently wait for the next opportunity. I wish I knew what it would take to get the support necessary to fix it without endorsement from a political party.

wpasc 6y ago

I agree that humans and "the public" are not perfectly rational people. BUT, I don't know that any system that does not treat them as such is any better. Then systems put in place by people who think they DO know better are never sustainable and are corruptible by all influences that corrupt any form of power

Daishiman 6y ago
> BUT, I don't know that any system that does not treat them as such is any better. In all of the civilized world, people are assumed to not be knowledgable about a myriad of problem domains such that only licensed professional can exercises certain classes of judgement. You are not considered to be rational enough to determine what kind of chemotherapy you get, just to name an example of all sorts of prescription medicines. You are not assumed knowledgeable about architecting a building, a car, investing, or all licensed occupations where it turns out that bad opinions can kill people by the millions. So no, effectively we assume by default that people are mostly dumb and dangerous and we raise high bars of qualification for anything in society where there is a potential for huge damage from bad decisions.
- jtdev 6y ago
  ...but your examples are completely unrelated to the conversation we're having here. Censoring content to millions of people is in no way similar to requiring a dentist to be properly trained and licensed.
  - Daishiman 6y ago
    All are examples of social assumptions that people are not qualified enough to evaluate evidence at face value without a substantial background in specialized knowledge. If you claim that there's voting fraud and it turns out I'm not knowledgeable enough to evaluate that claim at face value, as a society we have a problem, just like a lot of the misinformation that leads to the voting public to support policies for erroneous reasons. That's pretty much the basis for representative democracies (disregarding whether they're effective at it or not): choosing experts who have the time and inclination to decide policies that you would otherwise not be able to evaluate effectively on your own. Edit: to cite a clear example: climate science is not a field where laymen can make useful opinions, although it's a field where anyone with a high-school level education can follow the reasoning behind the conclusions reached by the experts. And yet we have a political party that attempts to deny and politicize this topic without even a hint of qualifications to do so, and nonexperts believing that their opinions are useful, or a reflection of reality.

everdrive 6y ago

What if Youtube were a truly bad actor. (genuinely, a theoretical) and were working to actively censor the truth? What would be the right response here?

panda-giddiness 6y ago
Were Youtube truly acting in bad faith, the correct response would be for the government to intervene (either by lawsuit or legislation). But of course, the government should respond to actual harms, not hypothetical harms.
- everdrive 6y ago
  That's an interesting response. I started my first comment by playing devil's advocate with myself. I'm almost a free speech absolutist, but I also really hate all the crazy, conspiratorial thinking that is so common these days. It puts me odds with myself. I can't say I'm sad when crazy and dangerous ideas are removed from the internet. However, I think it's clear to see how this could be abused. A system where the "right" ideas are allowed depends on the people in charge having the "right" ideas. When such things are possible, the pendulum swings quickly. (ie, if the government could really truly censor, imagine how the kind of censorship would differ between a red and blue administration.) And, this is part of the problem: can you trust the government to decide what sort of speech is appropriate. I don't mean now, with regards to this particular issue. I mean every time this problem crops up for the next 50 to 100 years. It relies on the same theoretical. What if instead, it's the company which is telling the truth, but the government which is malicious, and wants to censor them?
  - csnover 6y ago
    > What if instead, it's the company which is telling the truth, but the government which is malicious, and wants to censor them? This is not hypothetical, you can see this in many countries today like North Korea, Iran, India, etc. Government censorship is extremely dangerous because it is backed by the power of the state. ISP censorship is extremely dangerous because there are very few options and circumvention requires expensive physical infrastructure. YouTube not allowing certain videos on their site… doesn’t seem to me to warrant these histrionics, since there are multiple other channels for video distribution (Vimeo, Twitch, Dailymotion, BitChute, Periscope, Twitter, and Facebook all come to mind off the top of my head). And, if there were no other channels for video distribution, a $5/mo server gets you one of your own. Is it a huge bummer that we can’t have nice things and that the ‘free marketplace of ideas’ concept is fraying at the edges? Yes. Is this the end of the world, or even a slippery slope to a dystopia? Seems pretty unlikely. Distributors have always been allowed to choose what they will and won‘t carry; Barnes & Noble won’t sell books published by Amazon[0], and you know what you can do? Just buy them at Amazon. YouTube won’t carry your video? Fine, post it somewhere else. [0] https://business.time.com/2012/02/06/in-latest-moves-barnes-noble-is-betting-it-can-compete-with-amazon/ https://business.time.com/2012/02/06/in-latest-moves-barnes-...

skissane 6y ago

> Let's be clear: there was no widespread election fraud, certainly not by large enough margins to overturn the election. Videos that purport otherwise are not improving public discourse; in fact, they're causing it to disintegrate. I think there almost certainly was some fraud, but not enough to change the outcome. (Whether or not "some but not enough to change the outcome" counts as "widespread", I don't know.) But I also think it is true that the US electoral system is very poorly organised, creating a lot more scope for fraud–or at least the appearance of fraud, or the appearance of the possibility of fraud–than in some other countries. In a number of other countries, national elections are fully run by an apolitical independent national agency (e.g. the Australian Electoral Commission), not by a hodgepodge of state and county officials many of whom are politicians or political appointees. That system provides a lot more professionalism and a lot less opportunities for suspicion of fraud than the American system does. Yet, I think some people are so committed to "everything Trump says is 110% wrong" that they want to shut down discussion of the flaws in the US election system. It is possible that both there are real flaws in the election system, including flaws that permit fraud or the appearance of a possibility of fraud, and that simultaneously those flaws while very real and in need of being addressed didn't change the outcome this time around. Possibly, one outcome of this election might be support from Republicans for some reforms in the way elections are carried out. Given America's toxic political polarisation, there is the risk that Democrats will oppose such reforms simply because it is Republicans proposing them.

jacquesm 6y ago
If you have any proof of fraud at all there is a guy in the White House that wants to speak to you pronto.
- nobody9999 6y ago
  And there's a guy (the Lt. Governor, no less!) in Texas[0] who will pay you USD$25,000 for information that leads to a conviction for voter fraud. Go get 'em tigers! [0] https://www.texastribune.org/2020/11/10/texas-dan-patrick/ https://www.texastribune.org/2020/11/10/texas-dan-patrick/

briefcomment 6y ago

>Let's be clear: there was no widespread election fraud, certainly not by large enough margins to overturn the election There's evidence to the contrary that is yet to be addressed. There may very well be too little voter fraud to matter, but at the moment, no one can say that with confidence if they are paying attention to the allegations. If Youtube feels obligated to correct what it thinks are misconceptions, they can present their arguments and evidence that contradict current allegations. They should hire a team of lawyers to put together the most up to date refutations of claims, and post that on relevant videos. Straight censorship is treating the general public like children. Arguably, it's treating the public like livestock. Domesticating us for ad revenue.

mistermann 6y ago
> but at the moment, no one can say that with confidence if they are paying attention to the allegations And yet marvel at the number of otherwise highly logical people who do just that. > If Youtube feels obligated to correct what it thinks are misconceptions, they can present their arguments and evidence that contradict current allegations. They should hire a team of lawyers to put together the most up to date refutations of claims, and post that on relevant videos. It's interesting that: - a centralized, slowly changing "balance sheet" approach like this, which is a standard in project management, is rarely taken toward matters of public concern - I am a conspiracy theorist, but if there was a resource that enumerated all of the "just(!) a conspiracy theory" claims and illustrated how it is known(!) that they are false, I would gladly read it. Rather, the public has to somehow sort out what is true based on hundreds of "news" articles that get released into the information ecosystem on a daily basis. Or, just offload their thinking to The Experts. - we regularly hear that we need more "critical thinking" among the public, but we never get further than talking about the incredibly important need for this It's also interesting that ~nobody seems to notice these sorts of things (and when they are mentioned, it seems to generally displease people, for reasons that are not stated). I sometimes wonder if these sorts of information management oversights, apparently by thousands of people in positions of power, are purely accidental.
sib301 6y ago
allegations !== evidence

judge2020 6y ago

I can't find the comment now, but someone pointed out that misinformation and propaganda used to be a tool that only the local (national) government could use at scale, so teaching citizens how to identify misinformation and propaganda wasn't something prioritized in schools (lest you be considered 'anti-american'). With the internet and the current state of social media, suddenly anyone can broadcast any message they want at scale, including foreign governments.

CivBase 6y ago

> "The public" is not some perfectly rational collection of human beings. Rather, it's droves of people susceptible to propaganda and misinformation campaigns. Correct. > Let's be clear: there was no widespread election fraud, certainly not by large enough margins to overturn the election. I am not 100% committed to that being an impossibility, but I have yet to see any evidence to make me question the final outcome of the 2020 US election. I'm legitimately concerned about small scale voter fraud, but nothing significant enough to invalidate the final result. > Videos that purport otherwise are not improving public discourse; in fact, they're causing it to disintegrate. I agree. But far be it from me to determine what constitutes "quality public discourse". I have a history of being wrong about a great many things so I'd rather not have myself - or any individual or organization - arbitrate on what the public is allowed to discuss. > I agree that Youtube should not have carte blanche to remove content that it finds objectionable per its own capricious standards. But that doesn't mean it should have no discretion at all. Maybe I'd be less critical of Goolge if they actually had some sort of guidelines for objectively determining what content should be allowed on their platforms. This inconsistent "whatever we think is best" policy strategy is way too susceptible to abuse and Google hasn't proven themselves trustworthy.

rtx 6y ago
As a non American your voting process is insane, I am not sure how you all trust it. No ids, mailed ballots and not even identifiers after voting.
- CivBase 6y ago
  As an American, you're absolutely right. Both parties have dumb justifications for why they think the voting system should stay the way it is, but the reality is simply that the person/party in charge has no incentive to overhaul the system that go them there. They call foul and make a big fuss when the system doesn't work in their favor, but then they don't have the power to fix it. They've realized it's easier to just undermine the legitimacy of the winner and just patiently wait for the next opportunity. I wish I knew what it would take to get the support necessary to fix it without endorsement from a political party.