7 ms·

This feels like a really silly question, but why are these sorts of scientific discussions happening on Facebook and YouTube instead of, like, a journal or conf

by geofft 5y ago

This feels like a really silly question, but why are these sorts of scientific discussions happening on Facebook and YouTube instead of, like, a journal or conference or mailing list or something? Like, independent of the particular thing they're blocking, YouTube is not a scientific repository and their financial incentives are not aligned with supporting science. Why are we relying on them? Do we want to watch a Grammarly ad interrupt a scientific presentation every few minutes? What do you do if you're a scientist who got banned from YouTube because of copyright strikes or something? It seems possible that the Substack crowd can push back against this particular culture-war issue with enough public shaming (and friendly legislators), but it seems like very much the wrong path. If you want a scientific presentation to be watchable by other scientists, why isn't a university or an academic press hosting the video? It is, I hear, possible to run a video hosting site of your own. YouTube isn't the internet.

version_five 5y ago
Two things: look up machine learning stuff on YouTube and you'll find millions probably of sciency videos. Like it or not, its definitely a place where scientific content is present. Secondly, the article talks about things like testimony before Congress. It's not just that people use YouTube to upload conference presentations (they do) but it's also a general platform for excerpts from tv, other proceedings, etc. So I think it doesnt lead anywhere to just dismiss is as "why are they posting on YouTube anyway"
- geofft 5y ago
  That just makes it worse, doesn't it? Why have we let a private corporation that's stuffing ads on everything and has a bizarre view of fair use become the location of record for all video in our society? We have an entire agency - the US Government Publishing Office - whose job is to maintain the Congressional Record and handle all sorts of other printing and preservation requirements for the government. Why isn't congressional testimony there? Like, yes, it's bad for YouTube to delete congressional testimony, but isn't it worse to entrust YouTube with it in the first place?
  - version_five 5y ago
    I agree with you, although I think the most pragmatic way to deal with it is to acknowledge when platforms have a de facto monopoly, and hold them to a standard when they do
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    You may have heard of a little thing called C-SPAN...
- Zababa 5y ago
  Aren't testimonies before Congress posted on a plateform controlled by the US government, so the public can get their information without depending on Youtube? I'm not american so I'm not familiar with how everything works.
EdTsft 5y ago
YouTube is very convenient for hosting and sharing recordings of talks. You can't put a video recording in a mailing list or a paper journal, and journal/conference websites are generally not in the business of hosting video recordings. Often it's much easier to understand another's research in the form of a presentation than a paper (papers give you the details but not necessarily the high level story), so, like it or not, YouTube is a significant scientific repository.
proc0 5y ago
By your logic there should also be no discussion of vaccines in either platform. Those discussions are scientific as well.
- geofft 5y ago
  My logic is that you shouldn't rely on those platforms, not that you shouldn't try to have the discussions. If YouTube decides that all discussion of the coronavirus in any form - truthful or otherwise - is bad for their ad revenue, they are within their rights to shut all of it down, and those people who want to discuss it (i.e., just about all of us in society) need to make sure we have alternatives. Allowing companies to centralize vital functions of our society because it brings them profit and then whining that they're profit-motivated is a losing game. That's all. Imagine if we'd had all our discussions of the vaccine on Google+ and then it shut down. Nobody calls the Google+ shutdown "censorship," and yet it would have had exactly the same effect.
  - proc0 5y ago
    > If YouTube decides that all discussion of the coronavirus in any form - truthful or otherwise - is bad for their ad revenue, they are within their rights to shut all of it down, Sure, but it's not ALL conversations they are shutting down. Adn then it's a simple observation that if they are doing it for their ad revenue, then advertising companies are the ones deciding this. So then advertisers are the ones effectively allowing and disallowing the medical advise. I don't see that as ethical. Again, if they come up with "universal" rules like "no discussion of this whatsoever", I would agree, but it is obviously clear there are right and wrong discussions based on what a corporation and/or their advertisers deem fit. This means they are indeed trying to advise the public with what medical actions to take, and people are not "going to another platform" for this.

by geofft 5y ago

version_five 5y ago

Two things: look up machine learning stuff on YouTube and you'll find millions probably of sciency videos. Like it or not, its definitely a place where scientific content is present. Secondly, the article talks about things like testimony before Congress. It's not just that people use YouTube to upload conference presentations (they do) but it's also a general platform for excerpts from tv, other proceedings, etc. So I think it doesnt lead anywhere to just dismiss is as "why are they posting on YouTube anyway"

geofft 5y ago
That just makes it worse, doesn't it? Why have we let a private corporation that's stuffing ads on everything and has a bizarre view of fair use become the location of record for all video in our society? We have an entire agency - the US Government Publishing Office - whose job is to maintain the Congressional Record and handle all sorts of other printing and preservation requirements for the government. Why isn't congressional testimony there? Like, yes, it's bad for YouTube to delete congressional testimony, but isn't it worse to entrust YouTube with it in the first place?
- version_five 5y ago
  I agree with you, although I think the most pragmatic way to deal with it is to acknowledge when platforms have a de facto monopoly, and hold them to a standard when they do
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  You may have heard of a little thing called C-SPAN...
Zababa 5y ago
Aren't testimonies before Congress posted on a plateform controlled by the US government, so the public can get their information without depending on Youtube? I'm not american so I'm not familiar with how everything works.

EdTsft 5y ago

YouTube is very convenient for hosting and sharing recordings of talks. You can't put a video recording in a mailing list or a paper journal, and journal/conference websites are generally not in the business of hosting video recordings. Often it's much easier to understand another's research in the form of a presentation than a paper (papers give you the details but not necessarily the high level story), so, like it or not, YouTube is a significant scientific repository.

proc0 5y ago

By your logic there should also be no discussion of vaccines in either platform. Those discussions are scientific as well.

geofft 5y ago
My logic is that you shouldn't rely on those platforms, not that you shouldn't try to have the discussions. If YouTube decides that all discussion of the coronavirus in any form - truthful or otherwise - is bad for their ad revenue, they are within their rights to shut all of it down, and those people who want to discuss it (i.e., just about all of us in society) need to make sure we have alternatives. Allowing companies to centralize vital functions of our society because it brings them profit and then whining that they're profit-motivated is a losing game. That's all. Imagine if we'd had all our discussions of the vaccine on Google+ and then it shut down. Nobody calls the Google+ shutdown "censorship," and yet it would have had exactly the same effect.
- proc0 5y ago
  > If YouTube decides that all discussion of the coronavirus in any form - truthful or otherwise - is bad for their ad revenue, they are within their rights to shut all of it down, Sure, but it's not ALL conversations they are shutting down. Adn then it's a simple observation that if they are doing it for their ad revenue, then advertising companies are the ones deciding this. So then advertisers are the ones effectively allowing and disallowing the medical advise. I don't see that as ethical. Again, if they come up with "universal" rules like "no discussion of this whatsoever", I would agree, but it is obviously clear there are right and wrong discussions based on what a corporation and/or their advertisers deem fit. This means they are indeed trying to advise the public with what medical actions to take, and people are not "going to another platform" for this.