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This thread feels like a game of broken telephone: you're literally quoting a quote of a quote. Rand Paul's overall stance is basically "let's revolt against ma
by lhorie 5y ago
This thread feels like a game of broken telephone: you're literally quoting a quote of a quote. Rand Paul's overall stance is basically "let's revolt against masks because freedom". Whether Rand Paul's carefully cherrypicked arguments are technically medically/factually correct doesn't really matter, you need to consider the narrative as a whole. Youtube deemed that promoting his overall message is a threat to public health, regardless of whether he made factually correct statements or not.
It strikes me as unfortunate that the rationale Youtube gave tried to add legitimacy to their decision by quoting Rand Paul as "evidence" for their case (under the presupposition that a "bad" position must necessarily be supported by factually incorrect arguments), when they could just have said that his anti-mask position goes against CDC guidelines or something along those lines that is easier for a non-expert to verify.
If anything the lesson here is for Youtube to be careful of snake talk that employs half truths as weapons. In other words, if they are not experts enough to determine whether specific quotes are factually true, then don't base decisions on your ability to determine accuracy, and instead defer to the language of the official guidelines.
- kcplate 5y agoYou realize you are advocating thought policing here, right?
- lhorie 5y agoI'm not advocating for anything though? I didn't even claim to agree w/ Youtube in the first place. I merely said that the way they went about this specific case could've been far less controversial if they deferred explaining rationales to the proper health authority rather than taking it upon themselves to decide what "evidence" is factually correct. Besides, thought, speech, broadcasting and individual rights on private and public spaces are all very different things. At the end of the day, Youtube's platform is their own turf and they ultimately have the physical power to take down whatever the heck they want. Twitter, Facebook and self-hosted wordpress instances all exist as alternatives for Rand Paul, and he'll certainly be back on YT with his same agenda next week. Countries can (and do) hit Youtube with whatever fines they think are appropriate. Rand Paul's constituents will be Rand Paul's constituents. Every party in this saga is basically just doing whatever they want. Where does thought policing fit into any of this?
- kcplate 5y ago> Whether Rand Paul's carefully cherrypicked arguments are technically medically/factually correct doesn't really matter, you need to consider the narrative as a whole. Youtube deemed that promoting his overall message is a threat to public health, regardless of whether he made factually correct statements or not. These couple of sentences came pretty close in my opinion. They read to me as advocacy for the censorship of factual information if you happen disapprove of an opinion the person might hold.