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Banning conspiracy theories is such a slippery slope. Where is the line for something like the lab leak hypothesis? What had to change to allow it to exist? W

Banning conspiracy theories is such a slippery slope. Where is the line for something like the lab leak hypothesis? What had to change to allow it to exist? Weren't Woodward and Bernstein or Daniel ellsberg conspiracy theorists? Should they have been silenced?

seventytwo 5y ago
Slippery slope arguments aren’t good arguments.
- WillPostForFood 5y ago
  They are good arguments as long as you can show evidence the slope is slippery. The slippery slope fallacy isn't that slippery slopes don't exist, it is that they are asserted without evidence.
  - seventytwo 5y ago
    Fair… but but even one cycle of cause/effect is difficult to provide evidence for, let alone a cascade of causes and effects which sum to a slippery slope. Slippery slope arguments would need entire dissertations of evidence to even be plausibly considered, and yet they’re one of the most common methods of naysaying. While you’re technically correct, I’m functionally correct.
  - 8note 5y ago
    Evidence of the slipperiness is also insufficient. Youre really lookingfor an inductive argument where each step implies the next one. Showing that you can get n+3 via separate evidence for n+1, n+2, and n+3 says nothing about n+7
    - julianapostate 5y ago
      do political things not start, get normalized, then serve as a foundation on which new trends can build?
      - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
        They absolutely do. Everything starts from today, regardless of what yesterday looked like. But the new trend can go in any direction, including a major reversal from whatever the last trend was.
LordDragonfang 5y ago
>Banning conspiracy theories is such a slippery slope. And not moderating them is a slippery slope to facilitating violent extremism, and to anti-science activists leading an otherwise-developed country to top the chart in pandemic deaths. There's no perfect solution, only compromises which have to be made.
- Jimmc414 5y ago
  Should we entrust Google, Facebook or Twitter with deciding what compromises have to be made in the name of good science and good medicine?
  - zaik 5y ago
    If you accept the premise, what mechanism do you suggest?
    - StanislavPetrov 5y ago
      Accepting that premise is tantamount to admitting you don't have the judgement to be part of the conversation.
    - LinuxBender 5y ago
      If I were allowed to rewrite all the rules at Youtube, I would simplify censorship. Only content that breaks the laws where Youtube is headquartered would be removed by Youtube. No exception. AI would be allowed to "flag" a video for review and a large crowd-sourced team of moderators would vote on whether or not the video is breaking a law. They would have to attest to which laws specifically are being broken. Moderators that false-flag will slowly lose points that count towards a quorum. When a quorum of moderators agree a video is breaking one or more laws, the video would become invisible to the public and handed off to a forensic interface for law enforcement to subscribe to. The forensic queue would summarize who is posting the most illegal material and give law enforcement officials the ability to search for specific content, IP addresses, geographic locations, etc... Law enforcement could un-flag a video if it is in fact legal. Verified law enforcement are also welcome to join the moderator queue and review process. This might be a good option for those having recently left the police force due to current events. If there are laws on the books that the district attorney does not wish to enforce, they could log in and gray them out. A comment will appear showing which district attorney muted those laws. As for false information, quackery, etc... there would be icons that people could up/downvote to provide public opinion as to something being false information. Post a video of the earth being flat? No problem, go right ahead. People can upvote the "Cool story bro" icon. Quackery icons will slowly de-rank a video from showing up in suggested. There would also be industry specific icons and people verified to be from those industries could double-up-vote icons as well as post comments with a checkmark next to their name linking to their public credentials and contact information. Cost? The verification process would pay for itself. Being a verified subject matter expert provides exposure for the individual, so there is incentive to pay to be manually verified. Being a SME does not grant the ability to remove a video, only the ability to add a comment with a checkmark. Not all SME's will agree with one another. Let the merits of their conversations drive public opinion and emoji voting. Post a cure for covid or cancer? Go for it. Verified doctors and scientists can post checkmark comments and upvote the quackery emojis if they feel it is required. Or they could upvote the green checkmark if they agree. More verified checkmarks equates to higher rank in suggested content.
8note 5y ago
There is a range. They could be not banned, but also not algorithmically advertised for via recommendations or trending pages.
wantoncl 5y ago
> Weren't Woodward and Bernstein or Daniel ellsberg conspiracy theorists? Not theorists. They researched and published actual conspiracies, based on government documentation.
c789a123 5y ago
Relax, even the CCP pigs won't be so careless to leak a virus so dangerous. Its release were well planned and scheduled. CCP is making a new more powerful virus in the mean time. As a tradition, they published paper about it in advance. Do not complain they gave no warnings when it finally got "leaked".
ineptech 5y ago
Youtube flip-flopped because they rely on others (who also flip-flopped), which is exactly what they should be doing, right? Surely if youtube middle managers decided what's kosher all by themselves, that'd be worse? Journalists use youtube to get a wider audience, but youtube is not really a mechanism of original reporting. It's not Physical Review Letters, it's Popular Science. If things were otherwise, if getting a true and important fact idea kicked off youtube could actually silence it, we'd already be screwed.
- TechBro8615 5y ago
  Uh, how about they just don’t remove any video unless it contains pornographic or copyrighted content? The problem isn’t who YouTube relies on for “the truth.” It’s that they’re removing “untrue” videos in the first place.
  - ineptech 5y ago
    It's not a public service, it's a business; they delete covid misinfo because they get yelled at if they don't, not out of some misguided notion that they're wikipedia.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      They have covid misinfo up while also removing accurate covid info. The problem is what is info vs misinfo has changed multiple times in the last year.
      - ineptech 5y ago
        Of course youtube does a poor job of distinguishing misinformation from controversial-but-accurate scientific information. Why wouldn't they? Isn't that the expected result? All the angst in this thread mystifies me. You might as well go to a strip bar and then act shocked and outraged that your steak is overcooked. Of course it is; you're in the wrong place. The solution is to not to demand that youtube do a better job of curating science information for you, it's to not get your science information from youtube.
cdolan 5y ago
> Where is the line for something like the lab leak hypothesis? Recent history seems to have an answer - thats off limits until it fits the narrative!
choward 5y ago
I don't care what other political values you have. If you are pro-censorship you're not on my side. It's as simple as that.
- amanaplanacanal 5y ago
  Hmm. I’m anti government censorship, but pro my ability to censor what people say in my house, just like probably everybody. Don’t know if I’m on your side or not.

seventytwo 5y ago

Slippery slope arguments aren’t good arguments.

WillPostForFood 5y ago
They are good arguments as long as you can show evidence the slope is slippery. The slippery slope fallacy isn't that slippery slopes don't exist, it is that they are asserted without evidence.
- seventytwo 5y ago
  Fair… but but even one cycle of cause/effect is difficult to provide evidence for, let alone a cascade of causes and effects which sum to a slippery slope. Slippery slope arguments would need entire dissertations of evidence to even be plausibly considered, and yet they’re one of the most common methods of naysaying. While you’re technically correct, I’m functionally correct.
- 8note 5y ago
  Evidence of the slipperiness is also insufficient. Youre really lookingfor an inductive argument where each step implies the next one. Showing that you can get n+3 via separate evidence for n+1, n+2, and n+3 says nothing about n+7
  - julianapostate 5y ago
    do political things not start, get normalized, then serve as a foundation on which new trends can build?
    - amanaplanacanal 5y ago
      They absolutely do. Everything starts from today, regardless of what yesterday looked like. But the new trend can go in any direction, including a major reversal from whatever the last trend was.

LordDragonfang 5y ago

>Banning conspiracy theories is such a slippery slope. And not moderating them is a slippery slope to facilitating violent extremism, and to anti-science activists leading an otherwise-developed country to top the chart in pandemic deaths. There's no perfect solution, only compromises which have to be made.

Jimmc414 5y ago
Should we entrust Google, Facebook or Twitter with deciding what compromises have to be made in the name of good science and good medicine?
- zaik 5y ago
  If you accept the premise, what mechanism do you suggest?
  - StanislavPetrov 5y ago
    Accepting that premise is tantamount to admitting you don't have the judgement to be part of the conversation.
  - LinuxBender 5y ago
    If I were allowed to rewrite all the rules at Youtube, I would simplify censorship. Only content that breaks the laws where Youtube is headquartered would be removed by Youtube. No exception. AI would be allowed to "flag" a video for review and a large crowd-sourced team of moderators would vote on whether or not the video is breaking a law. They would have to attest to which laws specifically are being broken. Moderators that false-flag will slowly lose points that count towards a quorum. When a quorum of moderators agree a video is breaking one or more laws, the video would become invisible to the public and handed off to a forensic interface for law enforcement to subscribe to. The forensic queue would summarize who is posting the most illegal material and give law enforcement officials the ability to search for specific content, IP addresses, geographic locations, etc... Law enforcement could un-flag a video if it is in fact legal. Verified law enforcement are also welcome to join the moderator queue and review process. This might be a good option for those having recently left the police force due to current events. If there are laws on the books that the district attorney does not wish to enforce, they could log in and gray them out. A comment will appear showing which district attorney muted those laws. As for false information, quackery, etc... there would be icons that people could up/downvote to provide public opinion as to something being false information. Post a video of the earth being flat? No problem, go right ahead. People can upvote the "Cool story bro" icon. Quackery icons will slowly de-rank a video from showing up in suggested. There would also be industry specific icons and people verified to be from those industries could double-up-vote icons as well as post comments with a checkmark next to their name linking to their public credentials and contact information. Cost? The verification process would pay for itself. Being a verified subject matter expert provides exposure for the individual, so there is incentive to pay to be manually verified. Being a SME does not grant the ability to remove a video, only the ability to add a comment with a checkmark. Not all SME's will agree with one another. Let the merits of their conversations drive public opinion and emoji voting. Post a cure for covid or cancer? Go for it. Verified doctors and scientists can post checkmark comments and upvote the quackery emojis if they feel it is required. Or they could upvote the green checkmark if they agree. More verified checkmarks equates to higher rank in suggested content.

8note 5y ago

There is a range. They could be not banned, but also not algorithmically advertised for via recommendations or trending pages.

wantoncl 5y ago

> Weren't Woodward and Bernstein or Daniel ellsberg conspiracy theorists? Not theorists. They researched and published actual conspiracies, based on government documentation.

c789a123 5y ago

Relax, even the CCP pigs won't be so careless to leak a virus so dangerous. Its release were well planned and scheduled. CCP is making a new more powerful virus in the mean time. As a tradition, they published paper about it in advance. Do not complain they gave no warnings when it finally got "leaked".

ineptech 5y ago

Youtube flip-flopped because they rely on others (who also flip-flopped), which is exactly what they should be doing, right? Surely if youtube middle managers decided what's kosher all by themselves, that'd be worse? Journalists use youtube to get a wider audience, but youtube is not really a mechanism of original reporting. It's not Physical Review Letters, it's Popular Science. If things were otherwise, if getting a true and important fact idea kicked off youtube could actually silence it, we'd already be screwed.

TechBro8615 5y ago
Uh, how about they just don’t remove any video unless it contains pornographic or copyrighted content? The problem isn’t who YouTube relies on for “the truth.” It’s that they’re removing “untrue” videos in the first place.
- ineptech 5y ago
  It's not a public service, it's a business; they delete covid misinfo because they get yelled at if they don't, not out of some misguided notion that they're wikipedia.
  - _-david-_ 5y ago
    They have covid misinfo up while also removing accurate covid info. The problem is what is info vs misinfo has changed multiple times in the last year.
    - ineptech 5y ago
      Of course youtube does a poor job of distinguishing misinformation from controversial-but-accurate scientific information. Why wouldn't they? Isn't that the expected result? All the angst in this thread mystifies me. You might as well go to a strip bar and then act shocked and outraged that your steak is overcooked. Of course it is; you're in the wrong place. The solution is to not to demand that youtube do a better job of curating science information for you, it's to not get your science information from youtube.

cdolan 5y ago

> Where is the line for something like the lab leak hypothesis? Recent history seems to have an answer - thats off limits until it fits the narrative!

choward 5y ago

I don't care what other political values you have. If you are pro-censorship you're not on my side. It's as simple as that.

amanaplanacanal 5y ago
Hmm. I’m anti government censorship, but pro my ability to censor what people say in my house, just like probably everybody. Don’t know if I’m on your side or not.