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YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content
- null0pointer 5y agohttps://archive.is/OJlxk https://archive.is/OJlxk
- temptemptemp111 5y agoVaccines or "The Tuskegee Tuesday Special" I will pay anyone here thousands of dollars to inject merely the so-called "inactive" ingredients into themselves every week for a year... I doubt you'll last that long though.
- yosito 5y agoI'm surprised other major platforms haven't done this yet.
- hakre 5y agoFollowing the report, some have. But why be surprised? They grow a lot of greens out of such content. Why kill the golden cow unless you need to (because forced to)?
- danso 5y agoFacebook banned all anti-vax content 7 months ago, according to the article
- yosito 5y agoThey haven't banned it very consistently, according to my news feed.
- dredmorbius 5y agoSetting a policy, and effectively enforcing it, are two different things. The fact remains that FB were 7 months earlier to this decision, however well they're delivering on that goal.
- afavour 5y agoTime for repeat showing of the free speech debate we’ve already had a dozen times, whoopee! As ever, IMO, the problem isn’t the hosting or the banning, it’s the algorithms. I don’t care whether YouTube hosts anti-vaccine activists, I care that they actively promote anti-vaccine content to users simply because it’s proven to get clicks and earn them money. Bans like this look incredibly stupid when you realise YouTube itself is responsible for this disinformation getting so much traction.
- BrianOnHN 5y agoAdmitting change to the algo inherently admits fault, so good luck waiting for that. Counsel will never allow it.
- IgorPartola 5y agoLet me reframe: let’s say that YouTube hosts anti-vax content and as a result some percentage of people are swayed by this content to not vaccinate themselves or their children. Some percentage of them dies. Let’s say in absolute numbers it is 10,000 people. Do you think that YouTube did a good thing by allowing that content?
- zpeti 5y agoLet me reframe, in spring 2020 the CDC says don't buy or use masks, they don't work. This was spread as the gospel, by the media and probably youtube. How many people died because of increased infections? Is that Youtube's fault or anyone else who repeated the CDCs guidelines?
- IgorPartola 5y agoTwo wrongs don’t make a right, do they? Also this is one of the most misquoted incidents in this saga, you don’t seem to know exactly what happened there.
- Dumblydorr 5y agoThat was a special case. They messed up and retracted it. They thought the N95 mask shortage would harm healthcare workers and wanted to save the top masks for those most at risk. They realized they were wrong and changed their views. Can as much be said for anti vaxxers? Did they make the mistake and recant it? Did they change their view with new evidence? No, they're misinformed and close-minded. They ignored millions upon millions of safe vaccine uses, pointing to unsubstantiated edge cases and ridiculous conspiracies. The CDC was not buying into such rubbish and I hope they never do.
- pyronik19 5y agoTrust the science...or else.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- rdtwo 5y agoThe same way trust in God
- mc32 5y agoExcept we’re not allowing Sputnik V travelers in the country despite science…
- avianlyric 5y agoThe Sputnik V vaccine might be good. But there’s a fair bit of evidence that it’s mass manufacture has some problems. Which makes it difficult to say with certainty that what’s injected into peoples arms, is effective as what was tested during clinical trials.
- mc32 5y agoSputnik V isn’t the only sars-cov2 vaccine with manufacturing issues.
- ulucs 5y agoIn tandem with not recognizing natural immunity, it's not really about science is it?
- thriftwy 5y agoOne have to admit this is a major anti-vax move being performed by USA and EU. If the government get to discriminate which vaccines are good and which are not, why their citizens won't do the same, even if they leave the 'good' bucket empty? When I travelled to South America I had to do "the" vaccine shot (yellow fever I believe), but nobody would inquire me "which one" and whether it is on some white list.
- rflec028 5y agoA global conglomerate seeking to carry out an agenda and censoring dissenting opinions, credible and conspiracy alike? Color me surprised.
- thisiswater 5y agoA private media company deciding which media it publishes and doesn't publish. Can put it many ways.
- thesis 5y agoSo they should be held liable for illegal things posted on their site right?
- flandish 5y agoYes.
- mariodiana 5y agoSo, then, YouTube is a publisher, not a platform?
- EL_Loco 5y agoWhy does Youtube being a platform means they have to post everything? Are the anti-vaccine video sites forced to post pro-vaccine videos?
- criddell 5y agoI only recently learned that this was a myth. The core of S230 is: No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider. As long as YouTube isn't creating the content they are protected.
- criddell 5y ago
- literallyaduck 5y agoFirst they came for the Republicans, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Republican. Then they came for the antivaxers, and I did not speak out— Because I was not an antivaxer. Then they came for the antimaskers, and I did not speak out— Because I was not an antimasker. Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me. — adapted from Martin Niemöller
- micromacrofoot 5y agoTo be clear, you're satirizing content moderation by comparing it to concentration camps.
- tacobelllover99 5y agoWho said anything about concentration camps?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- jf22 5y agoRelax. This isn't Germany in the 1930s.
- roenxi 5y ago> Misinformation researchers have for years said the popularity of anti-vaccine content on YouTube was contributing to growing skepticism of lifesaving vaccines in the United States and around the world. Vaccination rates have slowed and about 56 percent of the U.S. population has had two shots... I assume 20% of the US population can't take the vaccine or something, maybe because they are kids. That suggests YouTube is coming out as a political opponent of ~25% of their customer base. This is an unwise course of action. Also, the mandate part of vaccine mandate is legitimately scary. It is reasonable not to trust a big pharma-big government alliance actively controlling our medical life with no ability of the patient to opt out. It is easy to see this ending badly, US healthcare is not known for being full of angelic, selfless and friendly actors. These opinions should be aired.
- jjice 5y ago> I assume 20% of the US population can't take the vaccine or something, because they are kids. That suggests YouTube is coming out as a political opponent of ~25% of their customer base. This is an unwise course of action. Are you counting those children as political opponents? I don't think they have a political interest because they can't get it due to regulation yet, and they're also children.
- roenxi 5y ago55% vacced + 20% kids + 25% likely politically opposed ~= 100%. Plus some will have gotten the vaccine despite political opposition to the mandates. Being vaccinated is a good idea in a pandemic.
- jjice 5y agoAh, thank you for clarification.
- mc32 5y agoI think poster is discounting children altogether as they are outside the scope therefore you’re left with an actual 25%.
- gootler 5y agoWhy don't they let you sue the drug companies? Why sign away your rights when you get the jab?
- lmilcin 5y ago"Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The right to freedom of expression has been recognized as a human right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international human rights law by the United Nations." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/principle https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/principle It is hard to sympathize with people who sow disinformation that costs people lives. But it is also hard to watch principles being ignored for immediate benefit. Principles are tested not when it is convenient for you to follow them. What I think is needed is people spending more time to figure out how it is possible to reconcile fight against misinformation with preserving basic human right which is ability to express your opinion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce... "In the United States, some categories of speech are not protected by the First Amendment. According to the Supreme Court of the United States, the U.S. Constitution protects free speech while allowing limitations on certain categories of speech.[1] (...) Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that violates intellectual property law, true threats, and commercial speech such as advertising. Defamation that causes harm to reputation is a tort and also an exception to free speech." So in short. There are existing laws that can be used to decide what is and what is not protected by freedom of speech. These laws should in my opinion be applied by judicial system, not invented on the spot by corporations. People should understand they are responsible for what they say online just as if they used other methods of communication. And if the exceptions to free speech are incorrect or incomplete, we should demand that the law is corrected in a democratic process rather than having companies act on their own.
- elliekelly 5y agoWhat about YouTube’s right to freedom of expression?
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- pvm3 5y agoWho will check the fact checkers?
- IgorPartola 5y agoCertainly not the people who can’t read a scientific publication.
- amimrroboto 5y agoIt's the top scientists in the world vs Sheryl from South Carolina. The research and testing these professionals do will be good for fact checking.
- ulucs 5y agoAren't top scientists in Wuhan the ones who probably got us into this mess?
- kristofferR 5y agoThis is so dumb, vaccine proponents doesn't have anything to hide (like censoring information from vaccine opponents gives the impression of).
- IgorPartola 5y agoCorrect. You are free to read all the studies. YouTube isn’t a place to learn about vaccines.
- CodeWriter23 5y agoWould you please point me to the Clinical Trial Studies for coronavirus vaccines?
- IgorPartola 5y agohttps://cdn.pfizer.com/pfizercom/2020-11/C4591001_Clinical_Protocol_Nov2020.pdf https://cdn.pfizer.com/pfizercom/2020-11/C4591001_Clinical_P... Here is an example. Just search the web for “[name of vaccine] phase 3 pdf”
- CodeWriter23 5y agoThat’s not the complete study.
- IgorPartola 5y agoHow do you mean?
- CodeWriter23 5y agoDoesn’t cover through Phase 4.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
- timnetworks 5y agoWhat's the thing where things are either nazi bars or supplement pyramids? YouTube* already disallows nazi bars. Your whole host getting banned when you make your own youtube is the issue at hand, methinks.
- WmyEE0UsWAwC2i 5y agoOne of The Osterholm update's video (a podcast) was censored for spreading "misinformation". I hope they can survive this.
- pbourke 5y agoFor context, Michael Osterholm runs the Center for Infectious Disease Reasearch and Policy at the University of Minnesota and was a member of Biden’s COVID advisory board during the presidential transition.
- bxrxdx 5y agogood
- xqcgrek2 5y agoThey're a private company and can do whatever they want. However, one only needs to see the trending page in any country to see the kind of crap YouTube promotes and profits from. So, please spare me of the corporate propaganda for YouTube's rationale of this decision.
- woodpanel 5y ago> "They're a private company and can do whatever they want." Flies in the face of jurisprudence accross industrialized nations, as many courts again and again ruled that a platform cannot "do whatever they wan't" if they dominate the market and thus effectively are a public space of opinion.
- xqcgrek2 5y agoNo, they can do what they want -- but you're right, they'll have to face the consequences.
- rafaelturk 5y agoAs much I condemn anti-vaxxers: “I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”
- user-the-name 5y agoThis is not about "disagreeing with what you say". This is about people literally dying. Not just the people spreading the information either, innocent bystanders that get killed by the disease.
- the_snooze 5y agoThey still have every right to say what they want. YouTube also has the right not to aid them. This is the information version of "You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here."
- kkoncevicius 5y agoYouTube of course has the right not to aid them. But we also have the right to point out that YouTube is making a mistake by doing this.
- IgorPartola 5y agoSo this is your opportunity! Go make VaxxTube. The mistake they are making, if you are to be believed, is that they are leaving money on the table. Go pick it up.
- kkoncevicius 5y agoI am not talking about monetary mistakes, I also don't think they are making these changes and restrictions in order to increase profits.
- IgorPartola 5y agoSo what kind of mistake is it?
- karlkloss 5y agohttps://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
- paws 5y agoAnybody know of examples/precedent where an entity covered by Section 230 lost that protection?
- josh_today 5y ago“ YouTube will ban any videos that claim that commonly used vaccines approved by health authorities are ineffective” So speaking truth can get me banned from YouTube? • Infections happen in only a small proportion of people who are fully vaccinated, even with the Delta variant. When these infections occur among vaccinated people, they tend to be mild. • If you are fully vaccinated and become infected with the Delta variant, you can spread the virus to others. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vaccinated.html#:~:text=•%20Infections%20happen%20in%20only,the%20virus%20to%20others https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vac....
- hef19898 5y agoPretty sure these two statements alone won't get you banned.
- williamdclt 5y agoWhat's your point? "Infections happen in only a small proportion of people who are fully vaccinated, even with the Delta variant" does suggest the vaccine is effective. You can still spread the virus, nobody's pretending it's 100% effective, but that doesn't make it ineffective
- Uberphallus 5y agoIt's an antivaxxer classic, for them effective means 100% effective under all conditions, otherwise it's ineffective. It's called fallacy of composition[0] when they cherry pick the cases where it's less effective to infer it's not effective as a whole, and fallacy of division[1] when trying to do reductio ad absurdum by claiming that, if it's effective as a whole, it should also be so under all underlying metrics. Two sides of the same nonsense coin. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division
- fallingknife 5y agoA reasonable definition of effectiveness would be that it stops the virus from spreading through a population. Even in the case of Israel with the highest vaccination rate in the world, it has failed this test. I personally would say that it is effective because it has prevented a lot of deaths. But a reasonable person could disagree.
- chrisco255 5y agoTechno-fascism rears its ugly head once more. These mRNA shots aren't flawless medications with zero side effects. People are getting strokes. People are getting heart inflammation. It's not even working against new variants. The emperor really doesn't have clothes. I've had dozens of vaccines in my life. The Covid vaccine might be the worst-performing vaccine of all time as far as effectiveness goes. You need 3 booster shots apparently in less than 9 months and you'll probably still get Covid. But meanwhile lets throw out all human rights that hundreds of millions died for and many more suffered for. The reason freedom of speech is a must in a free society is that speaking is the same as thinking. Who watches the watchmen? There is no amount of "misinformation" that could ever hold a candle to the absolute evil that has been perpetrated throughout history by outlawing or banning or shunning free speech.
- avianlyric 5y ago> I've had dozens of vaccines in my life. The Covid vaccine might be the worst-performing vaccine of all time as far as effectiveness goes. Funny thing about those other vaccines. They protect against viruses that we already have collective heard immunity for. As it happens, it turns out that herd immunity substantial reduces community transmission, and thus makes vaccines appear more effective. Without that, you’re pretty much always gonna get breakthrough infections. So you want the COVID vaccine to be as effective as other vaccines. Then get vaxxed, and get everyone in your community vaxxed.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
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- hestefisk 5y agoOnly 12 months too late…..
- s9w 5y agoSay the line bart: ItSaPrIvAtEcOmPaNY
- ookblah 5y agoSomeone want to throw out there a better way to combat disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision? I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of "principle". Just a no win situation. It's too easy for bad characters to screw up an entire system with little effort (look at trolls, spammers, etc). Either you moderate everyone and slippery slope down into censorship where the tools used to police are used on good actors, or you do nothing and watch the bad actors poison your entire ecosystem.
- mariodiana 5y ago"Misinformation" should not be combatted by anything other than better, more persuasive information.
- ookblah 5y agoGreat in theory, but if you've ever debated someone who is not acting in good faith online it's near impossible. Their energy input is an order of magnitude lower than yours. And yes, in this specific context it IS misinformation, disinformation, or just flat out false.
- vibrato2 5y agoI haven't seen any serious attempt to address the concerns with the "vaccines". Only ostracism and censorship. Plus a healthy dose of disinformation about the safety and efficacy profiles of these therapies. If the science is so clear, why not give an anti vaxxer a huge prime time platform and embarrass them in debate?
- JaimeThompson 5y agoWhich concerns do you have?
- vibrato2 5y agoWith these specific therapies: 1) Myocarditis (long term heart damage) 2) general inflammation and clot risk 3) long term risks of brand new mRNA technology For myself and other young athletes, my research leads me to understand that the vaccine is higher risk than the infection. My greatest concern is the totalitarianism behind vaccine passports. At this point even if the shot cured cancer I wouldn't take it because of how it's pushed.
- Jimmc414 5y agoThe problem is that questions about the vaccine are being labeled as anti-vaccine. Real data about the side effects of the vaccine constitutes science not anti-vax propaganda. It is distressing that supporters of informed consent are being lumped in with QAnon.
- IgorPartola 5y agoMaybe YouTube isn’t the best place to discuss results of scientific inquiry?
- Jimmc414 5y agoWhy not?
- IgorPartola 5y agoYou know a lot of scientists who hang out in YouTube comments?
- Jimmc414 5y agoI know a lot of scientists who produce content on YouTube. Do you think we should limit where science can be freely discussed?
- IgorPartola 5y agoNo, I simply think that intelligence of a crowd is measured by the smartest person there, not the size of the crowd. YouTube gives equal voice to a subject matter expert as to any single one of 10,000 quacks. Given that it is a lot easier to be a quack than a SME, there will always be more quacks. As a result, when you see a crowd of 10,000 quacks arguing with a single SME, you might wrongly assume that the SME is wrong. To me the solution is to not play the game: don’t get your opinions on matters that require a SME on YouTube. Or give the SME 10,001 the exposure than the quacks. Or teach science and critical thinking skills in public schools such that people are less likely to grow up such that they easily fall for bullshit sold to them by quacks.
- Uberphallus 5y agoI'm normally against this kind of thing, but then I read the comments, even here on HN, and kind of see it as the lesser evil.
- seph-reed 5y agoThe fact that so many people are willing to choose a "lesser evil" is striking to me. I wasn't even done with High School by the time I figured out that any dichotomy of two evils is a dead end, and that there is always a better place to focus energy upstream. In this case, AI algorithms are the core problem. Their metrics for success (view time) appear to often lead to extremes. Nothing needs to be banned, it definitely needs to stop being suggested though.
- cmrdporcupine 5y ago"Even" here on HN? Frankly, every time I read the comments on articles about COVID on HN I lose more respect for this community. Been here for years, but I may just leave and never come back.
- mach1ne 5y agoPeople don't see what the actual problem here is - perhaps because they don't want to see. What is happening is very much the transformation from an open society to one where freedom of speech is limited and certain other individual rights are stripped away. Perhaps not de jure, but de facto. And sure, one might argue that it's for a good cause (even though it's a complex topic). However, the fact is that as this is done once, it becomes something that can be leveraged as the norm. There is a very real danger here, and nobody knows whether it will realize or not. The question is not whether you can post anti-vax content today. It's whether you can post anti-anything tomorrow.
- IgorPartola 5y agoYes our freedoms are being eroded. It’s a slippery slope. All that bullshit. Come on. A private company doesn’t want to contribute to people dying. Oh and by the way don’t they have the right to do what they want? You want what, regulation to prohibit this?
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoYoutube doesn't give two shits about people dying. They care about not drawing the ire of advertisers or legislators.
- IgorPartola 5y agoIs it not their right to pursue profits? Do you want someone to regulate them?
- throwaway0a5e 5y agoIt may be their right to pursue profits within the bounds of the law but that doesn't mean their actions along the way aren't distasteful.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
- wepple 5y agoCan anyone recommend a good book on the balance between free speech versus disallowing harmful ideas to propagate? Or even one book from each side of the argument? I don’t think I’ve even begun to comprehend a robust position on what might make sense, or the arguments involved.
- seanhunter 5y ago"The Open Society and its Enemies" by Karl Popper would be one thought-provoking contribution on this topic.
- nanis 5y ago> balance between free speech versus disallowing harmful ideas to propagate? There is no balance. The very fantasy of such a balance relies upon the presumption that 1) there are harmful _ideas_; and 2) that there is an authority that can certify some ideas as _safe_ vs _harmful_. The discussion here gets overwhelmed by several generations of people who never actually understood what people had to give up for the right of everyone to speak and for the right of everyone to be able to expose themselves to any idea they themselves deem interesting or appropriate. Also, enmeshment of barons of industry with powerful political operatives to suppress competition to both is literally fascism (regardless of the historical revision of the definition 100 years after the fact).
- wepple 5y agoThere are folks out there that believe some level of content moderation is useful, and I’d like to understand their argument. If my conclusion is that it’s not robust, so be it. But let’s run a thought experiment. Let’s say an idea shows up on Twitter that Asian people are ruining the US. It spreads and gains attention. People start killing, and citing the Twitter misinformation as a key motivator. Can the vast majority of society not agree that 1) this is a harmful idea and 2) reasonable people agree it is harmful. And therefore Twitter has a responsibility to remove that content?
- xqcgrek2 5y ago
- mariodiana 5y agoI think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on open discussion by moderate voices. I'm subscribed to the channel of an M.D. on YouTube who discusses COVID-19, vaccines, etc. He is very careful to (repeatedly) point out that he is vaccinated, he has personally vaccinated hundreds of patients, he encourages everyone to speak to their doctor and follow their recommendations, believing that the vaccine is beneficial for the overwhelming majority of people. But, for all that, he has had videos taken down, and worries that it will happen again. Months ago he was insisting that the people who had contracted COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may not need the vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming out to support that. But months ago that was "anti-vax" (employing the slanderous use of the term). People are going to cheer that "wackos" will no longer have a platform. It's not the wackos we should be worrying about. It's the stifling of legitimate public debate, the stifling of legitimate voices who find themselves in the minority.
- jakelazaroff 5y agoOkay, but we really need to talk about what “stifling of public debate” means. Companies are routinely pressured to fire people in public positions who espouse pro-Palestinian views. Across the nation, states are enacting legal bans against teaching the history of racism, and firing teachers who dare to make students uncomfortable (by the same people who decried “safe spaces” less than a decade ago). Plenty of people on HN support this! But for some reason, the only “free speech” issues that get attention here are radical right-wing viewpoints that get moderated on private tech platforms.
- mc32 5y agoPeople don’t get fired for being pro Palestinian they get fired for being violently anti-Israel. Don’t conflate the two.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- JustResign 5y ago
- kkoncevicius 5y agoThe article is pay-walled to me. But I am interested - do they mention where the line for being "anti-vaccine" currently is? For example - is someone who is making a video about why he/she will not be taking a 3rd booster shot anti-vaccine and therefore banned?
- afarrell 5y agoIf I recall correctly, the internet was born from a DARPA project to enable resilient communications that would ensure a nuclear missile launch order would always get through. If so, then it is indeed contrary to the spirit of the internet to block messages on the basis that they guide people to actions which cause harm to existing structures. The internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it. My question is: How wise is the spirit of the internet? Does it lead to human flourishing?
- squeaky-clean 5y agoPeople can still post anti-vax things on the internet if they want. Youtube is not the internet.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoyoutube isn't the internet. Why should you or I be able to tell Youtube want to host on their own servers? If we don't like it we can go to other services.
- machiaweliczny 5y agoCan we? I don't think so. Network effects are too strong.
- mensetmanusman 5y agoYouTube frontpage promoted and is still promoting crypto scams. A family member lost $4000 to it, and they are still ongoing, and YouTube is too overwhelmed to pull them.
- swayvil 5y agoGiven that youtube looks, walks and quacks precisely like the classic "public forum where free speech is valued" that we all know and love, this move is clearly a massive act of deceit.
- redfieldac 5y agoInb4 it’s a private company argument. Or they are free to setup their own video sharing site argument. What happens when a topic you care about is censored? How would you feel? Are you really going to recreate your own video sharing website just to share your ideas?
- mabbo 5y agoYouTube is a private company, not a public service. Anti-vax is not a protected class of people, and so there is no law that says YouTube cannot discriminate against them. As a company, they've decided to take this path. They don't have to justify it. If that makes you angry, boycott them. Don't conduct business with them, which includes watching their content and ads. And if you think that YouTube is large enough and a big enough monopoly that it should be treated as a public service and subject to the rules that apply to public services, then either nationalize it so that it is, or break it up so that there's competition in the market.
- prohobo 5y agoYou're right; but I just want to point out that most people arguing against these actions hold this principle despite their visceral reaction. Two things can be true: YouTube (and Google) have way too much power and are destructive to democracy, AND they have the right to be that way. The point is that people believe they shouldn't have that right.
- machiaweliczny 5y ago> have the right to be that way. Not for long. I think they pissed off Republicans a tiny bit too much.
- detcader 5y agoA private company shouldn't get to pick and choose what opinions are valid. YouTube is not an arbiter of truth, and there is no universal law that says YouTube's moderators will always be correct. As a massive corporation, when they decide to take the path of banning critics of Google, pro-Palestinian activists, feminists and so on, the other companies will follow suit. They don't have to justify it, because almost no-one will care. If that makes you angry, go convince people that vaccines are safe and effective. You use the internet to out-argue anti-vaxxers, which should be easy because they're so wrong and ideological. And if you think that YouTube is large enough and a big enough monopoly that it should be treated as a public service and subject to the rules that apply to public services, then either nationalize it so that it is, or break it up so that there's competition in the market.
- gentle 5y agoThank god.
- mmcdermott 5y agoOne of the things that gets lost in the arguments around this sort of censorship (and, before I lose you, it is censorship and that is fine; we all engage in forms of censorship in determining what we will or will not ingest - the danger comes when some third party is acting as the censor for others) is the distinction between legality and morality. Legally, it seems self-evident that YouTube should be permitted to curate their own content however they deem fit, whether it is fair in the abstract or not. I wouldn't want to live in a world where anyone was compelled to publish, disseminate or engage with content against their will. Morally, this sort of mass banning of a position ought to be a taboo if we want a free society. We, as free citizens, have every right to petition that an open stance be adopted even if YouTube is well within their rights to refuse. The other thing I tend to think important is to always ask one more question - would I support this action if it was taken if the sides of the issue were reversed? Sometimes the answer is 'yes', but I've found it a warning sign when the mental response is 'but....'
- strgcmc 5y agoIn a funny twist of fate, I for one have become less and less worried about the "opposite" scenario coming to pass, as time goes on and we observe the evolution of political discourse at least in America (and to a lesser extent globally perhaps). What I mean is, the general trend towards anti-intellectualism in the right-wing, means that their policy positions generally trend towards being based on opinions rather than facts, and become further and further divorced from reality. For example, think about banning contraception or sex education, which are proven to reduce teen pregnancy and abortions; these are counterproductive policy positions the right wing takes, because they don't care to judge policies by their factual outcomes, but instead by what "feels right". Ergo, as time passes, I find it less and less likely that corporations or organizations that have to live in the real world, deal with practical real world facts and outcomes, will end up taking right wing policy positions or censoring pro-reality positions. It would be fundamentally anti-profit and anti-capitalist to do so and goes against their self-interest (which is an incentive structure that political parties don't share, as spewing misinformation and even acting irrationally won't necessarily lose them voters or supporters, but companies who act irrationally will over time tend to be less profitable), which is cynically the best available guarantee of good decision-making that we have in our broken society. TLDR: I am not worried about a world where "round Earther's" or pro-vaxx positions get censored, because corporations know that round Earth and pro-vaxx policies lead to better outcomes, being better grounded in reality.
- mrtksn 5y agoI can't tell if I'm more disgusted by the anti-vaxxers or the censorship. IMHO no content should be banned, ever. The only thing is to be held responsible for the content if you are not going to be impartial. For example, instead of banning videos of anti-vaxxers, put a claim progress list clearly visible together with the video that can be maintained by those of opposing views. For example, according to some anti-vaxxers, people with mRNA vaccines are about to die en mass. In places like Portugal, full vaccination rate approaches %90. Wouldn't be good to keep the video and see if Portuguese are dying? Content moderation by elimination is one of the biggest sins of the internet era. The internet has become a place where history doesn't exist because you can't have a history without having the artefacts that make it. We should be able to look back a few years back and see who said what.
- gitgud 5y agoFree speech on Youtube is like being in the audience of a sitcom, you can't just yell out swear words, it could cost the production company money...
- deelowe 5y agoOf course it will. Welcome to the new propaganda. Same as the old propaganda. Free speech is the act of standing up for those who you disagree with simply because you believe they have the right to be heard. In today's world of "woke" content creators, everyone seems to miss this point. What started out as fairly clear cut issues such as racism and homophobia has now bled into grey areas around vaccines and gain of function research. On the latter, should we not be concerned about this? We're in the middle of a global pandemic and we're not allowed to discuss whether GoF research is too risky? We're not allowed to discuss the nuances of what a "lab leak" may really entail? For example, I think the theory that a researcher collecting specimens from the wild accidentally infecting people in wuhan or themselves holds a lot of merit. Yet, it cannot be discussed. We should be outraged. And, back on the topic of anti-vaxers. They kind of have a point. Why should they trust the government, the CDC, the WHO and the like? What have they done to prove they are trustworthy at this point? Shutting down open discussion around this topic will only make the situation worse, not better.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- EL_Loco 5y agoWell, in the field of immunization, the WHO has done quite a lot since its creation.
- artificialLimbs 5y agoIn the field of rape as well. https://www.mypanhandle.com/health/panel-finds-80-alleged-abuse-cases-tied-to-whos-congo-work/ https://www.mypanhandle.com/health/panel-finds-80-alleged-ab...
- swader999 5y agoCensoring discussion in an environment of coercive mandates. Anyone working for Google - how do you justify this? You have great options out there you know?
- 5y ago
- rvz 5y agoAnother day another ban-hammering from YouTube; so what. It is their private platform and if you sign up you agreed to their T&Cs and they can choose to ban or remove whoever they want. Mistake or not, robot or not. They will never change and it will only get worse.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- haunter 5y agoI wonder when they start banning people who don't want a not-compatible with the EU vaccine passport jab (for example Sputnik and Sinopharm)
- helen___keller 5y agoIMO, go further. Remove all medical recommendation and assertions from YouTube. Leave YouTube for entertainment, and have other platforms - perhaps ones better regulated and better managed - for medical discussions in a scientific context. There's inherent difficulty in trying to judge between wackos and pros, because wackos do their best to masquerade as pros. This is basically a turing complete issue, because there's always people straddling the line between wacko and pro. YouTube has mostly avoided the difficulty with this issue until now by avoiding moderation entirely (aside from certain categories that suffer from the same problems, like copyright claims), so the issue with most of YouTube is that you can jump from pro to extreme wacko and not realize it as a non-professional yourself. Meanwhile, all content creators, wacko and pro, are given the same platform to promote their claims - one that incentivizes eyeballs, clicks, and engagement, not one that incentivizes accuracy or merit (or one that allows discussion in a context independent of monetization and ranking, which are known to poison good faith discussion). Similarly but unrelated, let's also ban drug ads on cable TV. These are much like buying a social media influencer to push your medical claims. It's disgusting.
- LocalH 5y agoTaken to its logical end, that would also prevent many very useful channels from existing. What about all the people who live with a mental illness and also have a Youtube channel documenting that experience? Should that be prohibited too? For which disorders? If you remove all ADHD-related individual content from YouTube, you're harming the platform and a crapton of people who have bettered their lives with the aid of such videos.
- paulryanrogers 5y agoIt could be a slippery slope. Still I wonder if such a ban could also have positive effects by fostering smaller, more collaborative communities too. As it is YouTube is becoming a (mostly unidirectional) public commons that is captured by a single profit-seeking corporation.
- helen___keller 5y agoYou're alluding back to the moderation problem. I claimed that discerning between pros and wackos is turing complete, and you have indeed shown that discerning between ANY kind of allowable content A and disallowed content B is also turing complete - you can get arbitrarily close to the line between A and B, so any algorithm (or human guidelines) is necessarily going to have issues on some edge cases. I agree, you're absolutely right. Still, I claim it should be done, and maybe the content you listed should also be disallowed. I'm not saying these videos and discussions shouldn't exist, I'm suggesting that perhaps it's time we dispelled the idea of a global Town Square - one platform for all content. It's a recipe for disaster. We've seen what can happen and what will continue to happen. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - how many times do we have to watch a global town square devolve into shit flinging, disinformation, and hate? Let's stop pretending that there can be a global free speech forum and that we can have some fair minimum ruleset to moderate all content on that forum. We should opt for the opposite - a spectrum of platforms that appeal to different interests and are regulated in proportion to the severity of incorrect or bad-faith information in that interest. The entertainment that dominates Youtube is minimally severe if incorrect or bad faith, so YouTube would have minimal regulation. Content on personal health and experiences could go into HealthTube, where moderation exists to prevent making strong medical claims or pushing bullshit (the "pay an influencer to say that ElaMexaTrin cured my covid" problem), but people are otherwise allowed to post what they want about their personal experiences. Content with strong scientific claims on health would go into MedicalTube, which is regulated and heavily moderated to prevent commercial interests and disinformation. Really, if YouTube was forward thinking, all of these could be different subsets of the same platform. But instead we have one platform with the same erratic hand of moderation slapping things down left and right based on whatever changing ruleset seems convenient today.
- b0tzzzzzzman 5y agoAn hour ago this was in the top 5 of hot. Had undern20 comments. Now it's 77 and nearly 250 comments. What is going on with HN moderation?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bla15e 5y agoThank god, praying that this includes those vagabond anti-booster folks (JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE VACCINATED DOESNT MEAN YOU'RE FULLY VACCINATED!!!)
- photochemsyn 5y agoWell, I do believe two FDA officials resigned in protest saying there was no scientific evidence for the efficacy of a third dose, and that does sound like legitimate informed scientific dissent. I think the claim that this 'third dose' was pushed through by pharmaceutical corporations and compliant government officials can't be so glibly dismissed, given such issues. Of course, future data might support or undermine this view, but it's hardly 'anti-vax hysteria'. Our pharmaceutical system has a long history of this kind of thing, due to their mindless focus on profit margins with much less regard for the safety or efficacy of their products. Look up the Vioxx debacle, for example.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- antioxidant 5y agoAwesome! Finally. I think they should ban all anti-Facebook content as well. Facebook is a good company and never makes mistakes, to think otherwise is simply dangerous for the whole tech industry and must be removed.
- tacobelllover99 5y agoBanning dissenting opinions has always been a great thing throughout human history /s
- deadalus 5y ago2 points by deadalus 22 minutes ago | parent | edit [–] | on: YouTube removes “I Can't Believe You've Done This”... Youtube Alternatives : Centralized : Dailymotion, Bitchute, Rumble, DTube, Vimeo, Vidlii, DLive, Triller, Gab TV Decentralized : Odysee(LBRY), Peertube
- listless 5y agoMy wife is very vaccine hesitant, and every time they make a move like this to block content or take it down, it only strengthens her position. She thinks they’re taking it down because they don’t want people to know the truth. The only thing worse than bad ideas is the suppression of bad ideas. It’s tragic that we knew this at some point, but are going to have to figure it all back out again the hard way.
- commandlinefan 5y ago> She thinks they’re taking it down because they don’t want people to know the truth. Hell, I always thought anti-vaxxers were looneys and was first in line for the COVID shot when it was available in March... but even I'm starting to be convinced that the anti-vaxxers might have a point because of all this effort to silence them. I'm becoming vaccine... remorseful?
- crazy_horse 5y agoThey're making an effort to silence them after allowing rampant misinformation for a year and a half because in the US we still have over 30% of the population not vaccinated and the death toll continues to climb.
- leetcrew 5y ago> after allowing rampant misinformation for a year and a half my recollection is that they started dealing with the "misinformation" early on. they've been ratcheting up the countermeasures the whole time.
- raxxorrax 5y agoI am remorseful at this point. By calculation taking the vaccine is sensible. But very closely so in my age group. There is currently a push to vaccinate children which is technically irresponsible since they won't suffer symptoms and would reach a better immunity they will never get with the vaccine. There is a lot of room for critique and much panic about a serious but not too deadly disease.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- mrcrypto2020 5y agoThe challenge is to determine how misinformation is defined. Would peer reviewed scientific papers that come to different conclusions than the current CDC guidelines be considered anti-vaccine? Should we consider conflicts of interest or sources of funding when determining misinformation? Are open ended questions about the safety and efficacy allowed? What about other medications?
- woodpanel 5y agoDon't be evil, eh?
- owlbynight 5y agoGood. They're dangerous morons.
- tut-urut-utut 5y agoYou are a dangerous moron, you Nazi. If you lived in middle age, you would be burning witches, in Nazi Germany killing Jews, but in present time all you can do is calling people morons. NB: @dang, please remove both my and parent comment. I wrote this one just so that parent can “feel” how it looks to be on the opposite side of hate speech and internet insults.
- AgentME 5y agoThe difference is it's possible to believe that people spreading antivax misinformation are dangerous morons for objective reasons rather than just because it's a popular position.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- themusicgod1 5y agoWho's next? People who are pro-vax, fully vaccinated, but skeptical of proprietary software (ie https://shitposter.club/notice/ABq6GiHXERyKEqCCqO https://shitposter.club/notice/ABq6GiHXERyKEqCCqO or https://stallman.org/archives/2020-nov-feb.html#16_February_2021_(Vaccine_passports) https://stallman.org/archives/2020-nov-feb.html#16_February_... )?
- sampo 5y agoThis is worrying. I still remember, in March 2020 believing that face masks work was still the contrarian opinion. Large Western countries such as USA, Germany, changed their official position in April. WHO changed their position in June. My country (Finland) only in the end of August. If contrarian voices had been efficiently suppressed, would the medical mainstream have changed their position at all?
- bagacrap 5y agoAre you suggesting YouTube helped reverse the position on masks? The anti-mask recommendation was a decision made by the political mainstream, not medical. It wasn't a poll of doctors or scientists that determined whether we thought masks worked. And in the end, at least in the US, I don't think the official position switched because of contrarian voices. It switched because supply caught up with demand.
- dilap 5y agoSomeone I follow on instagram had opened up a conversation for women about irregular periods as a side-effect of the vaccine. They had to carry on the conversation using an emoji code to avoid getting banned. The basic idea behind these bans is that authorities decide what is right, and common people should not have a forum to discuss the decisions. It's basically soft-censorship, a partnership between government and large tech companies to make conversations contra government policy much more difficult to have. Seems unfortunate, to me.
- btbuildem 5y agoPaywall
- sporkland 5y agoI don't understand the approach of banning certain content. It feels like the root cause here is self reinforcing filter bubbles that social media creates. Is it not possible for YouTube to instead change their algorithm around this to recommend a blend of videos for topics like this one? Kinda like labeling approaches used elsewhere but a little more subtle.
- ridaj 5y agoI think people outraged at the content censorship on YouTube can look at the media landscape overall and consider that, compared with Hulu, CBS, MSNBC or Fox News, it's still a extremely permissive environment, an outlier in the world of ad-supported media companies. This looks like regression to the mean - as it becomes bigger and forever needs to get more money from advertisers to sustain growth, it gets pushed to provide a product that emphasizes middle-of-the-road views. YouTube of 10 years ago was so much smaller that it got away with a lot worse (eg terrorism apology and recruitment), but as it's grown, it's going to be increasingly difficult for controversial content to live on ad-support.
- djent 5y agoThis should have happened months ago. The damage is done
- rodolphoarruda 5y agoFree speech! As long as we are in agreement with each other.
- pmlnr 5y agoGood.
- mrcrypto2020 5y agoWe know vaccinated people still replicate and transmit the virus. So the only reason to get the vaccine is to potentially lessen the symptoms. With lessened symptoms you will be less likely to add to the clogged up the hospital system. Should we also ban food ads that contribute to obese or diabetic folks clogging up the hospitals? What about people choosing to ride motorcycles? Kids trampoline ads? Why do we still have cigarettes?
- rmu09 5y agoEven if some vaccinated people replicate and transmit the virus, they do so for a shorter amount of time and with less infectious virus than unvaccinated.
- mrcrypto2020 5y agodata source? "...less infectious virus than unvaccinated." the sars-cov-2 virus doesn't mutate and become less infectious somehow when it encounters a vaccinated person.
- gfodor 5y agoNeo-fascism, plain and simple. If this feels hyperbolic, I’m just applying definitions. The government has already admitted it colludes with these companies to censor. Time to build. Time to exit.
- crocodiletears 5y agoAt this point I'm not hesitant about the vaccine, but getting it would only validate the heavy-handed approach we're seeing wrt censorship.
- MrRadar 5y agoSo you understand and acknowledge that this vaccine can literally save your life, and you accept all the science that shows that it is safe and effective, but you refuse to get it because some people are being forbidden (by a privately-owned platform, only on that platform) to spread lies about how it's not safe or effective? That's a very strange position to take, to put your own life in literal mortal danger because other people want to spread lies (that you acknowledge are lies) that put their own lives and the lives of people who listen to them at risk.
- crocodiletears 5y agoI have values and principles that I want to see embodied by the society in-which I participate. The vaccination rate is (to my knowledge) the only metric being used to validate these policies that I can directly and consciously affect. So I do. If I was unwilling to tolerate even the minute risk of not getting the jab, my position wouldn't be based on values or principles, it'd simply be aesthetic preference. As it stands, I keep an eye on my health, keep an extra distance when I'm around others, mask when it makes sense, and keep social interaction to a reasonable minimum. If the mortality rate of covid increases significantly I'll reconsider my position in light of the new numbers, though I don't know if I'll reach a different conclusion.
- MrRadar 5y agoWhile none of the widespread variants show increased mortality compared to the original strain, the Delta variant is significantly more infectious than the original strain meaning that even if you're still taking the same precautions you were before vaccines were available you're much more likely to get it today than you were then. And it's not just about whether you live or die, look up people who have "long COVID" who are still suffering significant disability for months after they've "recovered". Vaccination doesn't only prevent you from dying, it has also been shown to significantly reduce the length and severity of the infection if you do get it.
- andreskytt 5y agoFree speech used to mean the right to say anything without persecution. Does it now mean the right to have ones opinion be actively globally distributed by a third party? This is very much about fighting two viruses: one biological and the other one informational. We agree to limit contacts between people to stop the one but do not accept the same method to stop the other. Why? In both cases it is vital to ensure the measures to not cross certain boundaries and are rolled back.
- ceejayoz 5y ago> Free speech used to mean the right to say anything without persecution. It never meant that. People have always been similarly free to say "that guy is a dick, we shouldn't invite him to our get togethers" based on your free speech.
- btmiller 5y agoI think you’re saying exactly what OP was implying. Persecution as in legal consequences. “You can say whatever you want, but we’re going to ask you to leave our private establishment”.
- ceejayoz 5y agoThen use the term "prosecution". It's entirely legal - and often appropriate - for someone with shitty views to be persecuted. People who march in neo-Nazi rallies with swastikas should see non-governmental consequences for their actions.
- gruez 5y ago>It's entirely legal - and often appropriate - for someone with shitty views to be persecuted. People who march in neo-Nazi rallies with swastikas should see non-governmental consequences for their actions. Who decides what counts as shitty views? Is it decided solely based off your political preference? How do you feel about people who march in pro-socialim rallies facing see non-governmental consequences for their actions, during the mccarthy era?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- clever-leap 5y agoYouTube and Google just joined the most brutal regimes on Earth in suppressing different opinions than what is government given propaganda. I am from former communist Czechoslovakia, never believed that again in my life I will have to challenge news and meet with censorship on such a big scale.
- silent_cal 5y agoBig Pharma worshipping elitist shills see that they're losing the argument, so instead of thinking harder or changing their minds, they ban their opponents. These people are the worst.
- greyhair 5y agoThe problem is all down to the cost of moderation, nothing else. Maintaining YouTube profitability. Troll farms are spamming all of social media with misinformation, and that makes it hard to filter out the actual rational voices in the discussion. I don't know the solution, I really don't. Without some form of 'trust' label that gets vetted to drown out mere 'views' and 'likes'. Just read an article that in 2019, 19 of the top 20 Christian sites on Facebook were generated by Troll farms in Eastern Europe. It is all messed up (disclosure, I don't have a Facebook account) and I don't know how it gets fixed. I am all for factual vaccine information, pro and con, but I am opposed to people learning any topic from trolls with an adversary agenda. The anti-vax crowd has been very effective in killing off Trump supporters for the last two months, for example.
- nerdponx 5y agoI have an anti-vax person in my family. As disturbing and wrongheaded as their opinions are, I find it significantly more disturbing that they are being censored. The irony is that this censorship doesn't even work. It just strengthens their resolve and deepens their conviction that they have found The Truth in their conspiracy theories.
- etchalon 5y agoI see we’re going to spend another day talking about “the death of free speech” because a private company doesn’t want to pay to host someone’s content.
- kubb 5y agoYoutube is also banning content that incites racial violence, and that is not an issue, so why is this? Both cause immense harm.
- ohdannyboy 5y agoI was hesitant for a while and the massive censorship was part of it. I got vaccinated in May and have convinced others to get the shot since the side effects, while existent, appear to be minor compared to the reduction in harmful symptoms. Talking to my doctor is what did it for me. He cleared up most of my concerns and pressed me that my remaining concerns were too nebulous to be useful. If he just said "shut up and take it" I wouldn't have. My mother only got vaccinated last month. She and my father are both medical professionals (she's retired and my dad got it early on since he's super high risk). Her main hangup was the lies and coercion. She believed that if the vaccine was actually as great as they're saying they'd be able to make more objective goalposts and win arguments instead of stopping them because the other side is too stupid to make their own decisions. I'm confident there was also some element of "if I get it now I'm telling them their tactics worked."
- NotSammyHagar 5y agoI'm glad you got vaccinated. But... Can you expand on why you were hesitant because of censorship? Because if there were lots of serious problems with the vaccine, they'd be covered in a second on fox news. Meanwhile, a lot of people are hugely influenced by false stories on social media, it's just a fact, with recent examples being things like ivermectin and the 2016 presidential election conspiracies, and don't forget q-anon. Since covid is so deadly if you get it, and there are basically almost no cases of serious health issues with vaccination and furthermore, vaccination is also almost guaranteed to protect you from serious cases, why wouldn't you get it? Have you heard rumors of some problems from vaccination?
- MarcoZavala 5y agoYou should be stabbed to death you worthless piece of shit.
- crazy_horse 5y agoReally devalues the meaning of censorship. Social media platforms broadcasting your views around the world and moderating some of them was not censorship.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- tinus_hn 5y agoGood thing they told us yesterday that ‘free speech is a 'core value'’ https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-google-russia-putin-google-alexey-navalny-app-removal-2021-9?international=true&r=US&IR=T https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-google-russia-putin-... Well, not that kind of speech, of course!
- amznbyebyebye 5y agoAs the moderate and wholesome voices get drowned out by the push of “the algorithm” towards engaging (read: polarizing) content, YouTube will sadly become like Facebook for me- obsolete and deleted. Once I’m convinced that your product is unhealthy, especially in this time, I’m out, and I won’t be back. Sex, hate, anger, violence, political extremism- so over it. How about a tech platform that actually does good for once? What alcoholism and obesity were to the precious generation, we are on a fast track to a mental health crisis of epic proportion if something isn’t done. I don’t know how people work at places like fb/ig/yt in good conscience.
- Program_Install 5y agoIt's a start.
- cblconfederate 5y agoHow about those scammy financial advisers and history rewriters?
- snambi 5y agoThis is simply wrong. Now, we are slowly moving towards to communist regimes.
- pupppet 5y agoYouTube/Facebook/Twitter have proven that anonymized free speech doesn't work. You have no way of knowing if the discourse is being generated by trolls/bots/foreign actors.
- eranima 5y agoITT: Hacker News comment section continues to boast about how awful they are
- jimbob45 5y agoOn one hand, you can claim that YouTube is being proactive against what they perceive to be a problem and that's something. On the other hand, they don't choose to be proactive against copyrighted material - they just comply with the law when the law comes knocking and that's that. It simply doesn't make sense for them to allow the law to do its job in one place and then be overly proactive in another. At the very least, it undermines their argument that they're only doing this to comply with the law. They're not. They actively want to censor material that they don't agree with and they'll use whatever excuse they need to do it.
- ZetaZero 5y agoThe real problem is with the discovery algorithm. If the algorithm sees a user watching subject XYZ, it keeps suggesting more XYZ to that user. The goal of the algorithm is to own the users eyeballs as long as possible. This results in more ad-views and a more accurate profile of the user. So if a user watches one anti-vax video, YouTube then suggests a bunch of other anti-vax videos. Many people will start believing it, after being bombarded with misinformation. Fixing the algorithm is hard. Instead, as usual, YT is just removing videos that cause the problems. This is just a bandaid
- baobabKoodaa 5y agoCorporations like Youtube shouldn't be in the business of arbiting the truth, because they have time and time again proven themselves utterly incompetent at it.
- Heyso 5y agoI guess I be spending more time on odysee and telegram. At worst it is censorship, at best youtube (meaning whoever random peoples are behind the compagny) think they know better than you and me.
- snidane 5y agoGoogle: from 'Don't be evil' to 'Support the genocide' in one decade.
- heywherelogingo 5y agoI've already banned youtube, along with all tyrannical platforms. People should be more proactive.
- sneak 5y agoThey should, but they won't be, and this sort of head-in-the-sand approach will just mean you personally get left behind, not that YouTube will change. We live in the world we live in, not the one we should live in.
- Heyso 5y agoRemember Wuhan lab outbreak ? It took 9 months for mainstream media to present it as plausible (France). Before that, it was called a "conspiracy theory", synonym to a fable. What did you think happened to people speaking about it on twitter, facebook or youtube before mainstream media greenlighted this theory ?
- the-pigeon 5y agoAnd what did censoring the theory do? It made actual researchers and scientists shut up to not hurt their reputations. And made internet conspiracy conspiracies go crazy in all directions. I believe the more we censor vaccine information, true or not, the more hardened people will get in their beliefs. What I'd love to see is YouTube change their algorithms to promote quality content over engaging content so good information rises to the top.
- HKH2 5y agoThey already do promote content which they consider to be good quality.
- wellthisisgreat 5y agowhy not set the terms for anti-vax or “vaccine hesitant” behavior where people are deprioritized in terms of getting medical treatment for diseases they refuse to get vaccinated for? Not rejected of course but if you deny Covid-19 vaccine you are behind in line after people who did get it. “Reap what you sow”.
- ryandrake 5y agoA little off topic, but I wish we could stop using this nice-sounding "hesitant" euphemism. Hesitant implies that people are weighing options and open to changing their minds. With the amount of time they have been available and the overabundance of evidence that the COVID vaccines are safe, effective, and that they decrease hospitalizations and death, I find it very hard to believe that anyone is still "on the fence" about it. > She thinks they’re taking it down because they don’t want people to know the truth. And there it is--this doesn't sound like a person who is weighing their options in good faith. It sounds like someone who is already convinced of what the truth is. Let's stop calling them "hesitant".
- colordrops 5y agoIt's certainly better than "anti-vaxxer" which labels them and buckets them as crazy and makes them dig their heels in further. If the goal is to convince people to get vaccinated, belittling them is not the right approach.
- tomrod 5y agoWhen I was in the process of disassociating from a high demand religion (a decade long process), I was struck with how effective people who insisted on reality were. Reality sounded belittling, but it really wasn't. I see an analogy here with the people insisting against vaccination with zeal and fervor. It is very hard to break through the bubble of cognitive dissonance, and lone/let live or "humor them" approaches frankly are disingenuous.
- colordrops 5y agoStrawman. No one said you shouldn't speak about the truth and reality. I'm saying not to give them a demeaning label.
- tomrod 5y agoshrug. Labels are quite effective for concise communication, all negatives aside. Such as your classification of my point as a strawman (which I don't consider it to be), you communicate a precise response with a single word.
- Nesze 5y agoAge old follow-up question. Who decides what anti-vaccine content is? Who is going to draw the fine line? How simple (i.e. black and white) is to make this distinction? Do you trust that person / entity making these decisions for you and your peers? But even without defending free speach, looks to me that when you start censoring you just create multiple new problems with zero solution. So even from a design point of view it's clearly a bad thing.
- duhast 5y agoThought experiment: Would you be making the same points if the debate was about ISIS propaganda? Or Holocaust denialism? Or content encouraging child exploitation? Viral videos encouraging suicides? Wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be taken down immediately, accounts banned and that platform owners are responsible? Or would you advocate for free speech and watch as the algorithm encourages more and more people to leave their home and join ISIS in Syria? After all, people are free to make decisions and are responsible for their actions. Suicide doesn't harm anybody else, right?
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago> Wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be taken down immediately, accounts banned and platform owners are responsible? It is obvious that you have a totalitarian mindset and believe in one 'objective truth'. A Free society that holds to the free speech principle should do the opposite. After all, this principle is not about protecting views that you agree with, but those that you don't. History has shown time and again that censorship never resulted in a positive long-term outcome, and you are repeating past mistakes. Also, coming from a totalitarian USSR and now living in a totalitarian Russia, I tell you this, fellow Americans: most of you here don't seem to understand the value of free speech and harm that censorship does to society. Quick example: beside vaccine deniers, youtube now also bans users who doubt the official election results. What could possibly go wrong with that, right?!
- flavius29663 5y ago
- xrd 5y agoI'm against censorship. But I'm also against algorithmic promotion of dubious information. As an example, several people I know personally told me they saw videos of black lives matter activists and antifa starting fires here in Oregon. It's ridiculous. But, there is enough evidence to show that those videos were created and promoted in the right way such that YouTube and Facebook put them into their viral loops and lots of succeptible people thought they were the truth. How do we strike a balance between letting information be free and at the same time prevent black box algorithms and evil actors from hacking our society?
- jlebar 5y agoIt's ironic (or maybe not?) that the comments section here is filled with exactly the kind of anti-vax misinformation that YouTube is trying to take down. To respond to one point I keep reading in here over and over: Getting and recovering from covid does not necessarily give you better protection from disease than getting the vaccine. 1/3 of people who get covid develop no antibodies at all, as compared to 0% of (non-immunocompromised) people who get the vaccine. https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/574284-natural-covid-19-immunity-is-powerful-but-kind-of-irrelevant https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/574284-natural-covid-... Also, of course, if you get covid...you got covid which was kind of the thing that we were trying to avoid. Not just for ourselves, but for our communities. Another point I keep reading is, we don't know the long-term effects of these vaccines. And, it's undeniably true that we don't know with the certainty of evidence what will happen in ten years. But: - 2.5 billion people have gotten at least one covid shot. This is one of the most-studied medical interventions in the history of medical interventions. - There is no known and plausible mechanism by which the shot suddenly has bad effects years down the line. Historically, any side effects from vaccines show up within a few weeks, https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19-vaccine-wont-have-long-term-side-effects https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19... - We also don't know what will happen in ten years to people who caught long covid, and we do know that people who die from covid will not be alive in ten years. Stay safe, everyone.
- colordrops 5y agoIronic indeed. How about referencing scientific sources rather than opinion pieces from political news sites. It's less than 2%, not 1/3, that don't develop antibodies. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24622-7#Sec2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24622-7#Sec2 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf4063 https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf4063 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9 https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9
- jlebar 5y ago> How about referencing scientific sources rather than opinion pieces from political news sites. The dude is a MD PhD who's been on NPR, NYT, etc. He's literally a scientist who is a source -- a scientific source. But sure, we can talk journal articles. Where is your "less than 2%" number coming from? I see this in the first Nature article: > Of the 125 subjects exposed to SARS-CoV-2 according to the baseline ground truth definition, 101 (80.8%) participated to the May serosurvey. Among them, 93.5% (86 out of 92, 95% CI 86.3–97.6%), 84.2% (85 out of 101, 95% CI 75.5–90.7%), and 100% (92 out of 92, 95% CI 96.1–100%) had a positive result for Abbott, DiaSorin and Roche, respectively, whereas 44.9% (44 out of 98, 95% CI 34.8–55.3%) had a neutralising titre greater than 1:40 (1/dil). In November, 86 subjects (68.8%) were tested again, all of them except one (98.8%) tested positive to at least one serological assay. They're saying that 44.9% of people infected had neutralizing antibodies at the level they recognize, right? They re-tested the same people six months later, and >98% of them tested positive for one assay. This doesn't speak to the 98% number you cite above. Maybe you're looking elsewhere. I'm not going to be sealioned into going through studies if you can't point me to the section that supports your point. Anyway for the article's 1/3 number, he also cites a study by the CDC, a fact which I guess you've chosen to ignore? https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article
- jeantherapy 5y agoThe more wrong they are the more they n down. One of these days that strategy may pay off. Better than admitting you're incompetent egotistical dumbasses who have been acting like nazis.
- water8 5y agoThese people act like mRNA vaccines are 100% understood and there is no room for debate
- blackflame7000 5y agoYup totally right!
- momirlan 5y agoSo big tech have become the holders of "truth". I don't care whose legitimacy they claim, governments are not the holders of truth either, and science changes daily. Suppressing freedom of information is not alright.
- masterof0 5y agoSo is Joe Rogan gone from Youtube? Or only his "only fat people need to get the vaccine" videos are going to be banned? I wonder what other companies like Spotify would do to the big influencers that are spreading misinformation, etc.
- caeril 5y agoRogan is not spreading misinformation. The top two comorbidities, BY FAR, are old age and obesity. The CFR for normal-weight people under 65 is vanishingly small. This is an established fact. https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e4.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e4.htm One can fairly argue that he's doing a moral disservice to the obese and elderly by encouraging community spread, but this trend of throwing ethical disagreement under the banner of "misinformation" is absurd, when the actual science on hand supports the position.
- mlang23 5y agoAnother reason to NOT by YouTube Premium, and leave my spare phone on autoplay when going out, so that youtube ad customers get to pay for supporting the biggest scam operation ever. 80% of the ads I get would never pass a sanity-check in my home country, such ads are simply illegal on our TV. But hey, the american is spreading scam ads, so lets just accept that.
- malkia 5y agoGood!
- wvh 5y agoOnce again, we found a way to get rid of those we don't like by censoring them completely based on any utterance of a Topic or Viewpoint That Can Not Be Expressed Out Loud. Any open discussion or criticism on any sensitive topic could be enough to close down the participant's account, take away their right to be heard and even effectively erase them. This is not a defense of any particular opinion as much as it is the right for people to be heard by those willing to listen and hopefully keep communication open to foster better education and understanding.
- jude- 5y agoGood. It's long past time we stop humoring the destructive delusional narcissism of anti-vaxxers. Let them build their own fucking YouTube to host their bullshit.
- koolba 5y agoWe live in a world where the rat that heads the NIAD cannot bring himself to publicly say that natural immunity (i.e. you’ve recovered from COVID) provides substantial protection and instead says things like “we’re still looking at the data on that…”: https://twitter.com/drsanjaygupta/status/1436133536239599619 https://twitter.com/drsanjaygupta/status/1436133536239599619 If we’re going to let that continue unchallenged then banning dissenting voices is a drop in the bucket.
- gred 5y agoIt used to be that I didn't want to work for Google because I'm not a fan of surveillance capitalism and all of the second order effects. I'm now realizing that there is a second, just-as-important reason: the level of censorship that Google enables. A few years ago I wouldn't have thought there could possibly be a second reason just as important to me as the centralized, pervasive surveillance... but here we are.
- 99_00 5y agoFirst they came for Alex Jones, and I did not speak out Because I was not an Alex Jones viewer.
- aimor 5y agoWhat parties motivate Google? For example: does the US Government make requests to Google directly? Do advertisers? Lobbyists? Wealthy individuals? Friends and family of higher-ups? Is the source completely internal to Google? I'd love to see more about the process these ideas go through.
- macinjosh 5y agoIn this situation my money is on advertisers who are being criticized on social media for sponsoring 'undesirable' content because the algorithm put their ad in front of a random video. By and large I don't think YouTube cares what is in a video unless it is illegal or something advertisers don't want to associate with.
- calltrak 5y agolook on https://bitchute.com https://bitchute.com or https://brandnewtube.com https://brandnewtube.com and you will lots of information why I will not being taking an injected experimental medical procedure . No way no how!
- chasd00 5y agoNot unlike the censoring any discussion of the lab leak hypothesis they (the censors) better be perfectly accurate every single time. The moment they get it wrong and censor something that turns out to be the truth they lose 100% of their credibility and become a part of the conspiracy.
- dougSF70 5y agoYouTube set to win coveted heel-dragging award 2021. Yes protecting free speech on anything but science and public health.
- newbamboo 5y agoIt worries me when far right libertarians and the authoritarian left agree. Nothing has meaning anymore.
- nathias 5y agoPeople give them absolute control and then wonder why they would use it. Stop watching youtube, there are numerous viable p2p alternatives.
- supperburg 5y agoI had to wait for 7 hours at the ER last night. People who choose to not vaccinate shouldn’t be allowed entry to the hospital.
- adamhearn 5y agoWhy?
- supperburg 5y agoBecause they clog up the hospitals. In Singapore if you opt out of donating your organs after death then you also opt out of receiving organs. It’s just a sensible way of allowing people who really have a principled stance on an issue to do what they want while not being a burden on the rest of us.
- xkbarkar 5y agoMy guess is this acvount belongs to a 14 year old troll.
- supperburg 5y agoCan you explain why? Do the unvaccinated not occupy more hospital beds?
- chasd00 5y agoif you're talking about the the ER in the USA and you didn't have a life threatening injury/illness then i say a 7 hr wait was pretty quick.
- landryraccoon 5y agoHere's a thought experiment. Suppose we were at war with a hostile adversary, and that adversary had killed over 700,000 people already, and thousands more each day. I can scarcely believe that any reasonable person would argue that blocking propaganda or misinformation that harms the war effort would be an egregious imposition on free speech. Once the imminent threat is over, those efforts can and should stop, but not while the destruction is immediate. Covid-19 has killed more people in the United States than US combat casualties every war since World War 2 combined. It is the the worst mass casualty event any living American has ever experienced. Why is it unreasonable that serious and extraordinary measures should be taken? Misinformation about the pandemic has surely massively contributed to that death total. The chilling effect on free speech is worse? No, it's not. It simply isn't true that free speech won't return. But those 700,000+ and counting dead are not coming back.
- d0gsg0w00f 5y agoBreakthrough case here. Clinic said that's all they've been seeing recently, dozens per day. One thing I've never understood is why the vaccinated care so much about what he unvaccinated are doing? Vaccinated people still carry viral loads so it's either how it affects you personally or your compassion for the enhanced vulnerability of the unvaccinated. Based on the toxic rhetoric towards the unvaccinated it seems to me the former. You've done everything within your control to protect yourself so why do you feel the need to have an opinion on their bodily choices?
- kleer001 5y agoBecause the unvaccinated are: 1) Filling ICUs and taking up other hospital resources unnecessarily. Leaves that for people who are injured in accidents. 2) Dying. We don't want our fellow humans dying. Only anti-social jerks don't care if their fellow humans die from easily preventable causes. 3) Carrying larger viral loads for longer. > their bodily choices? If it were only their body it wouldn't be a much of an issue. However, it's not just their body. See above.
- 5y ago
- hpen 5y agoWould they have blocked the lab leak theory when it was less popular?
- fnord77 5y agoI think having a small percentage of the population who are anti-vax adds to the robustness of the species. What if, odds unlikely, that there was some problem with the vax where it killed or sterilized everyone who got it? It would be extinction except for the anti-vaxxers. Now this is an super unlikely event, but there's a non-zero chance this could happen.
- henning 5y agoAre people mad about censorship on YouTube also mad about all the censorship that occurs on this site? Stuff gets deleted and manipulated by the mods all the time.
- goatlover 5y agoIt seems to me that some people on here believe there should be no moderation/censorship whatsoever on the internet. I don't know how they propose to keep sites from being completely overwhelmed by bad actors, spam and illegal activities.
- WalterBright 5y agoAll this does is justify the anti-vaccine activists.
- jonstaab 5y agoAnti vaccine content is just posting pro-vaccine content from six months ago next to pro-vaccine content from today.
- y04nn 5y agoI'm for freedom of speech, people should be able to make their own choice with all the information available. There should be a right to be a "conscientious objector"[1] for vaccination. But to be fair, it would work only for an educated population that is capable to distinguish facts from misinformation. And for me, science should always be questioned, if not there is no research and no discoveries. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objection_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objection_in_the...
- xkbarkar 5y ago> Months ago he was insisting that the people who had contracted COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may not need the vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming out to support that. But months ago that was "anti-vax" (employing the slanderous use of the term). I live in Iceland. Recovery from cov-sars-2 infection is considered as valid as a vaccine here. The same goes for Norway and ( to the best of my knowledge) Sweden, Denmark and Finland. They all recognize recovery from covid-19 as sufficcient protection. Looking at US and Canada, along with a slew of terrifying commenters in this thread, the entire Nordic region consist of misinformed anti-vaxxers that have fallen prey to fake news by this definition. We have also never put masks on our 24 month old toddlers. US and Canda WTF is wrong with you? We have a very high vaccination rate here in Iceland but that did not stop hospitalisations, or deaths. But definetly decreased them. Our high vaccination rate has had 0 effect on the spread of infections though. Even if hospitalizations have reaped the benefits because of it. If anything we got the highest wave of infections we have ever encountered this summer. But with a clear decrease in hospital load. We went back to mandates after only a very brief 4 week reopening because our high vaccination rate did absolutely nothing to stop the spread. When this fact hit us in Iceland, when the summer wave hit, we as a country went into a state of mild shock. As so many nations we declared victory way, way too soon. No one mentions this in the news though. Crickets. We might not even exist for all CNN, Times, all the Posts and vox cares. I am not in any high risk group. Got moderna 2 shots, I still have PTSD from the side effects of the second shot. I sincerely thought I took the vaccine to help prevent the spread. But I most likely went through one of the worst nights of my life for no good fucking reason whatsoever. I statistically never needed the extra protection, I can still very much catch cov-sars-2 and still very much infect and kill another fully vaccinated vulnerable human being. I guess I am now a misinformed anti-vaxxer
- jcon321 5y agoWhile I'm sure some people would dismiss this entire comment as anecdotal I thank you for writing it.
- dennis_jeeves 5y agoI share the same sentiment. Thanks for sharing xkbarkar
- xkbarkar 5y agow
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoYoutube can do whatever it wants, but by taking this political stance, it creates a precedent that other actors will use to ask it to censor other political content. I'm not anti-vax, I've had dozen of vaccines including covid, but I still think anti-vaxers should be able to express themself. Who knows, one day I may realize some doubts were justified.
- mikaeluman 5y agoThe one thing you can do to ensure vaccine hesitancy and distrust is to ban that very topic. This standard they are setting up, already started with warnings and bans for in any way contradicting the WHO, is impossible to maintain in a consistent fashion. I can still find thousands of videos on homeopathy, ranging from debunkings to lecture-style videos. There are people who would advocate using this rather than modern health services. In fact, there are people who would advocate the use of witchcraft to treat cancer. Will YouTube ban them all? Or will they just ban certain topics based on a whim?
- asdff 5y agoI would say that currently today that there is a much bigger threat to public health of people believing in insane vaccine conspiracies than there is of people following homeopathy. If you kill yourself snorting ginger root it doesn't really affect other people like it does when you spread covid to 200 people in your church, since rough math would say two of them will die directly from your insane actions. If we had an epidemic of homeopathy where millions of people are doing that instead of surgery and ending up dead instead of healed, we'd probably see similar enforcement. You can't put out every tiny little fire, there are too many as you say, but stopping the big blazes that are currently taking over can certainly be done to an extent within your own platform with moves like this.
- pknerd 5y agoFirst of all I am fully vaccinated. It is believed that Vaccine supporters are dumb and ignorant, could be, but how can you prove that the other party is small and well educated. Such carpet will fuel further the conspiracy theorists and they would say to their followers, "See, we were right! they do not want you to learn the truth about vaccine"
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- GaryTang 5y agoThe only solution as I see it is to stop using YouTube.
- lgleason 5y agoThis is why I prefer Rumble. Given how woke politically Google has become it is no longer a platform I want to support. Whenever information is censored I am naturally suspicious around the motivations. Censorship also gives the censored opinion more credibility because if that opinion was so objectively false and crazy it would be easy to convince people about the craziness of it. But when your ideas are so weak that the only way you can convince people you are right is to censor, ban, violently crush etc. the opposing view this is what you get. Even though I got the vax, given all of the authoritarian thinking etc. around the pro-vax stand, lockdowns etc. I often wonder if I made the right decision. The lockdowns, vaccines etc. have mostly been a massive over-reaction. As a software engineer I have benefited from them economically, but I still don't think the devastation from the cure, which was been far worse than the sickness was the right thing and really have never supported it. Life is risky and dangerous. Many anti-vaxers have a philosophy where they would rather live in a dangerous democracy instead of a "safe" authoritarian government. Trying to ban their ideas does nothing to win their hearts and minds. Also, ironically, while everyone is making a big deal about hospitals being at capacity etc. when there is a surge of cases, why is it that nobody is putting as much energy into discussing the spiraling cost of health care of why it is that we have a system with so little slack for emergencies.
- chasd00 5y agothey better be perfectly right every time or else they become a part of the conspiracy. You would think they would learn after the lab-leak censorship fiasco.
- robd003 5y agoCensoring ideas just makes them more popular. If YouTube wanted to do the right thing they'd let people debate openly, instead this will just push people further into their respective echo chambers.
- jl6 5y agoYou’d think they might try a softer approach first like slapping a strongly-worded warning on the video. “This video contains incorrect information and should be watched for entertainment purposes only.”
- hereforphone 5y agoSocial media companies are stifling freedom of speech in America. Have you seen the "Who's banned from Twitter and who's not" meme with Donald Trump and the Taliban? Unpopular or non-conformist opinions are censored, and it's dangerous. "But it's private companies! They can do whatever they want!" The telephone companies are private. Do they have a right to kill your connection when you talk about unapproved subject matter? Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and so on are the modern de-facto means of communicating long distance and to wide-spread audiences. "But it's dangerous to let these opinions reach the ears of the masses." Open discourse and trusting society to (eventually) make the right decision, given all available information, is something we've done (or attempted to do) in modern democracies. This is important.
- j79 5y ago> "But it's private companies! They can do whatever they want!" The telephone companies are private. Do they have a right to kill your connection when you talk about unapproved subject matter? Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and so on are the modern de-facto means of communicating long distance and to wide-spread audiences. If I started robo-calling millions of people with unapproved subject matter, I'd wager they'd kill my connection fairly quickly.
- macinjosh 5y agoI am not convinved this is a logical metaphor. Robocalls directly bother every person on a list. A social media post goes to those who've consented (i.e. subscribed/followed) and other places the social media company decides they should go. I don't see what the two have in common.
- kats 5y agoIt's a difference between banning behavior vs. ideas.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y ago>If I started robo-calling millions of people with unapproved subject matter, I'd wager they'd kill my connection fairly quickly. Except that they don't. Have you been called about your car warranty, or student loans yet today?
- holdupnow 5y agoFuckin Nazis
- rc_mob 5y agoanti vaccine people are indeed close to as evil as nazis
- macinjosh 5y agoAmazing YouTube! Finally, some good news! I am really pumped for what this means for alternative platforms like rumble and odysee. This is the boost the independent web needs! YouTube was way too centralized. The network is healing!
- only_as_i_fall 5y agoIt'd be cool if this would decrease the number of antivaxxers, but actually it probably won't and Google really shouldn't be able to do this anyway. Perhaps if YouTube didn't have almost total market dominance it would be less problematic.
- burlesona 5y agoI think a better solution would be to ban algorithmic media distribution. Let people post whatever they want on YouTube. If there wasn’t a toxic engagement algorithm radicalizing people this wouldn’t be a problem. That would kill the social media business model, which is an added bonus IMO.
- vosper 5y agoHow will we tell if it works? A decrease in anti-vax sentiment and an uptick in vaccine take-up? How will we tell that it was due to YouTube? What if it doesn’t move the needle at all (pun intended) - does it mean YouTube is much less influential than we (and they, apparently) think? Or that they waited too long and the anti-vax message had already embedded? It’ll be very interesting to watch.
- uuddlrlr 5y agoYouTube's algorithms probably radicalized a good chunk to begin with.
- FpUser 5y agoAnti-vaccers have limited amount of claims. Instead of shutting them down and feeding into conspiracy if governments and big corps are so concerned they should make web sites where they disprove said claims with valid data in a way understandable by mere mortals. For interested there can be also list of references for further reading. Youtube and the likes are then free to promote / put on first page headlines from this websites. Instead what I see when opening youtube (I am Canadian) is the pic of Theresa Tam: our Chief Public Health Officer. She is known to change her opinion every other day to the point that whatever she says can be ignored - she'll come up with something different tomorrow.
- FpUser 5y agoAnti-vaccers have limited amount of claims. Instead of shutting them down and feeding into conspiracy if governments and big corps are so concerned they should make web sites where they disprove said claims with valid data in a way understandable by mere mortals. For interested there can be also list of references for further reading. Youtube and the likes are then free to promote / put on first page headlines from this websites.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- TameAntelope 5y agoI know this comment will be lost in the shuffle, and I notice this was submitted by danso, so I imagine there's an intentionality here, but I very strongly believe submissions like these are a substantial and growing threat to HN. Just remove them! Let's talk tech, startups, science! Submissions like these distract from the stuff I like on HN, but more importantly I worry they chase away the people I like from HN. I flag each of these, hoping enough of us can get content like this removed, and I'm willing to be outvoted on that count, but I personally think HN is better off without this content.
- elsonrodriguez 5y agoPeople in technology fields absolutely have an obligation to talk about the morality of technology. I'd highly recommend you to read Cat's Cradle if you haven't already. Carl Sagan also had something to say about this. In lieu of that, one can meditate on this more condensed take: > Don't say that he's hypocritical > Say rather that he's apolitical > "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down? > That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun - Tom Lehrer
- TameAntelope 5y agoI don't think people in technology should stop talking about these things, I just think they should talk about it somewhere other than HN.
- ironman1478 5y agoTechnology doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists to address societal, political, existential (climate change), or financial problems. For example, let's talk about self driving cars (my field). The only reason they are necessary are fundamentally societal (people die from cars) and political (America doesn't want to invest in public transit for many societal reasons that aren't logical). It's a technology that doesn't have to exist. These societal issues are the reason why it's worth investing in the tech and they affect the design of the car and what problems it needs to solve. I get the appeal of trying to look at technology solely in isolation, but society influences whether technology needs to exist and how it's designed.
- PerkinWarwick 5y agoHeck, I view it all as 'misinformation', and I certainly don't need some cubicle drone at youtube to decide for me. Certainly the average person is smart enough to understand the statistics of the thing, after all that's something of the point of epidemiology. There should be enough data points by now to tell me a few things. . What is the real value of a cloth mask worn inside in a crowd with strangers? What is the value of a properly fitted N95 mask? Give it to me as an odds calculation. . Just what percentage of covid is picked up in bars? grocery stores? schools? at home? Our local health department is notably mum about that preferring only to hand out the county-wide ages and that's it. .Actual strong data on value of vaccine in terms of infection and symptoms. 1st, 2nd, 3rd dose. How long are these valuable? How long will they remain so due to mutations? Odds. .Actual data on nasty side effects of vaccine including odds. .Fairly presented value of home remedies, anti-virals, etc. .etc. You can twizzle out some of this, but rarely. Cut down to the essentials, it wouldn't take up a single sheet of paper. Post that sheet of paper whenever anyone feels the need to opine. Instead I'm treated to shaming and scolding and peoples' fear about their precious bodily fluids and I'm sick of everyone. Somehow this has become a proxy for the 2016/2020 elections complete with all the religious overtones. Please stop.
- gkop 5y ago> I'm confident there was also some element of "if I get it now I'm telling them their tactics worked." Thanks for your vulnerability admitting someone very close to you has behaved out of spite and contrary to their own interest and the interests of their community. How is your mother’s behavior in delaying^ not “too stupid to make their own decisions” though? Behaving out of spite is stupid (and totally human! Not judging her character, but yes her behavior was wrong on several levels). Is it that Yes people are too stupid to make their own decisions, but a government mandate isn’t the right tactic to influence their behavior? What’s the right tactic to influence stupid people? (Genuinely curious since you appear to see both sides)
- ohdannyboy 5y agoHer belief was that she'd be feeding into a system that encouraged things to happen that were against her principles. I wouldn't call that self harm out of spite. Spite would be "they were right, but I'll be damned if I let them know that!" She never changed her mind on the censorship. Is it that Yes people are too stupid to make their own decisions, but a government mandate isn’t the right tactic to influence their behavior? That's pretty much what I see. People make sub-optimal decisions all the time for a variety of reasons and these decisions often affect others. Government mandates on bodily autonomy get tricky and have massive externalities. It's all good fun until you're the one the government says is making a bad decision. What’s the right tactic to influence stupid people? I don't think making a sub-optimal decision makes you stupid. In this particular case I think a better question would be "how do we influence people who are making bad decisions based on emotions and politics?" It's pretty tough to craft a government solution to that last part since the government is always political. Polite discourse is the best way IMO. It won't turn everyone, but when people get interested they won't be thrown back into their in-group by seeing nothing but coercion and vitriol.
- gkop 5y agoThanks! This polite discourse is helpful to my understanding others’ perspectives.
- dang 5y ago
- cryptica 5y agoTime to switch to https://odysee.com/ https://odysee.com/ - It's been growing very fast. You can buy LBRY tokens to align your incentives on the financial side: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/library-credits/ https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/library-credits/ You can profit from doing the right thing and taking a stance against censorship.
- Ajedi32 5y agoEnough. This sort of large-scale systematic suppression of human rights (in this case the right to the free exchange of ideas) is fundamentally evil and needs to be stopped. That it's "for a good cause" is no excuse. Neither is the fact that the perpetrator of these mass-scale human rights violations is a corporate oligopoly rather than a government, nor that the target of these abuses is "them" rather than "us". All of that is a distraction. They. Are. Trampling. Your. Rights. This cannot be allowed to continue.
- thehappypm 5y agoYouTube is a private enterprise. They have 100% the right to control what goes on their site. Would you be mad if a fishing forum banned non-fishing posts? Is that a large-scale systematic suppression of human rights?
- Ajedi32 5y agoNo, because your hypothetical fishing forum is not "large scale", and because discrimination based on general topic does not suppress the free exchange of ideas the same way that discrimination based on the beliefs of the poster does. If YouTube banned all health-related discussion regardless of what position the video was advocating for I would still disagree with that decision, but it would not be a blatant human rights violation the way their current policy is.
- skocznymroczny 5y agoOnce again YouTube is standing against free speech. Yes, most of you will cheer for it just as you did when Twitter banned Trump. You will say it's a private company, they have the right to do that. Don't expect people like me to support you when you complain about YouTube banning e.g. Russian activists. Part of supporting free speech is that you have to support the speech you don't agree with.
- dragonwriter 5y ago> Once again YouTube is standing against free speech. No, exercising it. > Yes, most of you will cheer for it just as you did when Twitter banned Trump. Well, I mean, its better than when Twitter rewrote its rule to officially privilege those in established positions of power to justify not taking actions against Trump's regular and egregious violations of their rules. > Don't expect people like me to support you when you complain about YouTube banning e.g. Russian activists. I don't expect that anyway. I expect people like you to continue to pursue the position that it is impermissible for YouTube to choose not to relay propaganda of your faction because it is somehow contrary to free speech rights for them to do so, while not taking that position for viewpoints you are less interested in, all while chanting the virtues of supporting speech you disagree with. I, on the other hand, will continue to view it as within YouTube’s free speech rights to choose not to relay either kind of content, but undesirable for other reasons in certain cases (and, where it is bot a free choice by YouTube but compelled by a government seeking to suppress dissent, a violation of free speech by the government involved, not YouTube.) > Part of supporting free speech is that you have to support the speech you don't agree with. No, it isn't. Part of supporting free speech is that you have to support the right of people to express viewpoints you disagree with, including by declining to relay the positions you do agree with. (It also doesn't mean you have to support their choice to express those viewpoints, or the manner in which they do it, only their right to do it.)
- mrkramer 5y agoDecentralized p2p video ftw!
- dang 5y agoAll: if you want to read all 2500+ comments you'll need to click More at the bottom, or like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693060&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693060&p=2 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693060&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693060&p=3 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693060&p=4 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693060&p=4 etc. (Sorry for the annoyance - comments like this will eventually go away.)
- gorwell 5y ago“All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting existing institutions.” George Bernard Shaw “Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable condition, of nearly every other form of freedom.” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut "If you believe that the arguments against slavery in their time and against Jim Crow laws more recently could only have been expressed when people had the freedom to voice unpopular opinions, then you can’t now say that free speech is inherently dangerous." Stephen Pinker “Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.” Noam Chomsky "To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the right of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would be to rob him of his money.” Frederick Douglass
- beebmam 5y agoYouTube isn't the government
- gorwell 5y agoIn our internet age, the freedom of speech that truly matters is ALL digital. The US has no Public ISP, nor Public Speech Platform equivalent of Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc.
- beebmam 5y agoThat's correct. The US government should have equivalents of Twitter, Google, Facebook and so on, though. And then speech on those platforms would be protected by the 1st amendment, including spam, pornography, and so on.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y agoWhat's your point? The concept of free speech is 2400 years old. Don't be one of those people that conflates that concept with the American first amendment which only blocks government censorship and is barely 200 years old. Private companies, groups, and people can and do infringe on everyone's right to free speech.
- tikiman163 5y agoYouTube has been cracking down on anything Covid related for over a year. Any discussion about Covid that has gone much past saying stay safe or get vaccinated has been instantly demonitized and hidden from people's subscriptions. This is just the next obvious step they were obviously going to take. The thing is, this is an incredibly complicated topic. Legislation that could result in YouTube being held liable for user posted content that deseminates misinformation has been more than lightly discussed. The problem of misinformation is frequently made worse by the fact that studies have shown around 80% of misinformation of major topics can generally be traced back to fewer than a dozen unique users. It's not the same dozen people on every topic of discussion, but once some of the misinformation has gone viral it's extremely difficult to stop it getting shared again and again. This may seem like a matter of freedom of speech, but on some topics viral misinformation spreading can end up being deadly to thousands of real people. Consider an analogy. If a person sets up to pull a prank by changing the words on a billboard, with only the intention of just surprising some people. But 3 car crashes occur where the drivers blaim the billboard for being a distraction. How much responsibility would you say the prankster has? How much should the billboard owner have for failing to prevent the prankster? Now consider that instead of changing a billboard he changes the speed listed on a sign that cautions people not to take a blind turn at greater than 25 mph. Say he changes it to just be the same as the posted speed limit for the road and several cars spin out or there are minor fender benders. Then say he changes it to be even faster than the speed limit. How much responsibility should the prankster have for those accidents? How much should the city have for failing to prevent the prankster from being able to change their official signs? There are strong points for debate in all of these situations. How easy was it for the prankster to access the billboard and make changes? What else were the drivers doing that a billboard could cause them to crash? What was so distracting about what they put on the billboard? Why didn't the city post a sign that was more difficult to tamper with? How much effort did the prankster put into their fake? Why didn't local people notice the change and report it? How quickly did the city respond? How believable was the speed he put on the sign? My point isn't to ask for the answers to these specific questions, but to point out that there is a difference between circumstances that requires greater responsibility from the medium the prankster changed. The contents of a billboard is just an advertisement, speed limits and road hazard signs are more important. Speed limits and road hazards also have to display probably true information that has some degree of validation that relying on them is safe. This is a particularly tricky subject for YouTube because they are essentially a billboard, but people have started treating what's on it like road signs. How responsible should YouTube be when people use their platform to post complete nonsense that has the potential to get thousands or even millions killed?
- ddingus 5y agoThis won't end well. Suppression drives people to seek it more --and where they find it, they will have stronger investments in the ideas and it all will be harder to discuss to a rational conclusion.
- adamrezich 5y agodoes anyone else think that this is sort of the intended goal? not necessarily by YouTube in this case specifically but in a sort of meta sense, for many things such as this, in the past decade or so. it's almost as though those in power benefit when those who aren't in power are divided along ever more axes, axes which didn't exist only a few short years ago, but whose division is more significant than anything we've seen in many years. for example, I'm reminded of how contemporary identity politics seemed to sprout up out of nowhere conveniently around the same time as the #occupy movement(s). since then, I haven't been able to shake the feeling that the powerful people in the world are maintaining power by dividing the populace.
- ddingus 5y agoI can't speak to intent, but I do recognize divided populace as being ineffective in the body politic.
- trentnix 5y agoYouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content Which will, of course, galvanize those who are skeptical of the vaccine and the intentions of our bureaucratic overlords. And because that's so obvious, it makes the conspiracy-theorist squirrel part of my brain wonder if that's the point.
- thepasswordis 5y agoMaybe I’d be more okay with this if the vaccines weren’t owned by multi billion dollar companies who stand to make billions of dollars by requiring the world to use their products. Can you imagine that for anything else? You MUST use the product of ours, and we are actually going to make it illegal for you not to, and ban any discussion about not using it.
- bobulous 5y agoThe scandal is that it has taken this long. YouTube is not a public platform and should be held responsible for the content they promote.
- busymom0 5y agoWhat an awesome idea. People who have consistently been wrong and censored the correct people are making more rules to censor more. More censorship and coercion will definitely convince people to take the shots. As someone who's fully vaccinated against polio, smallpox, chickenpox, measles etc., I still get called an anti-vaxxer. My buddies in the military who have more vaccinations than the general public get called anti-vaxxer because they don't want to take the COVID vaccine since they have already had covid infection. Amazing. Currently, the government of Canada has misinformation on their own YouTube page and government site: 1. The Canadian government uploaded "How do I know COVID-19 vaccines are safe without long-term data?" on March 25, 2021, 4 months after vaccine was authorized under the interim order and when merely 4.45% of Canada was fully vaccinated. The government's video completely sidesteps the entirely valid question about lack of long-term safety data and stated: "Clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines have been taking place since the spring of 2020 and millions of people around the world have already been vaccinated. The vast majority of side effects from vaccines are minor and occur soon after vaccination." The video obviously doesn't answer the actual question about lack of long-term safety data because it's impossible to know this in the very short period that the vaccines have been in the market. Without knowing this data, it is also impossible to give informed consent to the treatment. One-Third of the drugs approved by the FDA and (by inference) Health Canada from 2001 through 2010 had major safety issues years after the medications were made widely available to patients. 71 of the 222 drugs approved were withdrawn, required a "black box" warning on side effects or warranted a safety announcement about new risks. The median follow-up period was 11.7 years and it took a median of 4.2 years after the drugs were approved for these safety concerns to come to light and issues were more common among psychiatric drugs, biologic drugs, drugs that were granted "accelerated approval" and drugs that were approved near the regulatory deadline for approval. Drugs ushered through an accelerated approval process were among those that had higher rates of safety interventions. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2625319 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/26253... So when the median follow-up period was 11.7 years and it took a median of 4.2 years after the drugs were approved for these safety concerns to come to light and this was more common for those given "accelerated approval", is it not a valid for people to be concerned about long-term safety tests? With such a horrible track record for drug approvals and delayed withdrawals and discoveries of side effects, coercing young, fit and healthy people with negligible risks to inject an irreversible, involuntary, non-long term safety tested, short-lasting, unaccountable and rushed vaccine without any guarantees of how many and how often boosters will be required is wildly unreasonable. https://youtu.be/f4lJHthI0tE https://youtu.be/f4lJHthI0tE 2. The government also uploaded a video titled "Do I need to get the vaccine if I've already had and recovered from COVID-19?" on September 3, 2021. The video shows Dr. Marc-André Langlois, Executive Director of the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response Network (CoVaRR-Net) and Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa, state that you should still receive both COVID-19 vaccine doses even if you’ve previously had a COVID-19 infection. The video completely fails to explain the rationale behind inoculating those with prior infection induced natural immunity when over 15 studies have now demonstrated that individuals with natural immunity from prior infection have longer lasting and stronger protection against infection, symptomatic disease and hospitalization compared to the vaccine-induced immunity. We have had over 18 months and millions of cases to work with world wide to study natural immunity and yet, Dr. Langlois, claims that it is still unclear how long natural immunity protection from an infection lasts and unclear of the reinfection from variants. Health officials had a 1 year head start to study natural immunity from infection before the vaccine was even rolled out, and yet they are falsely claiming that they know more about the vaccine than natural immunity. This, clearly shows that the government's claims are not based on any science or logic. https://youtu.be/wGbZc7q9Dpk https://youtu.be/wGbZc7q9Dpk 3. The government also uploaded a video titled "How long does it take for the COVID-19 vaccine to work after I receive it?" on September 3, 2021. The video again shows Dr. Marc-André Langlois, state that the second dose of the vaccine "boosts" the immune response and is essential "for longer lasting protection and better protection against the variants." This is also misleading because we know now that the fully vaccinated effectiveness declines to anywhere between just 16% to 66% in 3-6 months. https://youtu.be/1jUh0VvG-b4 https://youtu.be/1jUh0VvG-b4 4. Even Health Canada's September 16, 2021 approval for the Pfizer vaccine misleadingly claims it prevents COVID even though they know that it is now uncontested that the vaccine does not "prevent" COVID in any meaningful way. It's just a potential severe symptom mitigator, not a prevention: > "COMIRNATY is indicated for active immunization to prevent coronavirus disease 2019" https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/regulatory-decision-summary-detail.html?linkID=RDS00856 https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/regulatory-decision-sum... 5. Health Canada approved Pfizer on September 16, 2021 using 6 month old outdated data (data cut-off dated March 13, 2021) claiming the vaccine showed a vaccine efficacy of 91.3%. Why use 6 month old data? They also said it's to "prevent coronavirus disease 2019". We know it does not "prevent" COVID. We know it's a potential severe symptom mitigator, not a prevention. https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/regulatory-decision-summary-detail.html?linkID=RDS00856 https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/regulatory-decision-sum... 6. Quebec’s July 25, 2021 onwards "Being vaccinated, it’s a win Contest" lottery makes misleading and false claims such as "reap the benefits of optimal long-term protection, including protection from the variants of the virus." It is uncontested that the vaccine efficacy declines in 3-6 months and this doesn’t provide "optimal long-term protection". So Quebec is clearly offering such monetary benefits under false promises. https://cdn-contenu.quebec.ca/cdn-contenu/sante/documents/Problemes_de_sante/covid-19/reglement_concours_vaccination_anglais.pdf?1630417274 https://cdn-contenu.quebec.ca/cdn-contenu/sante/documents/Pr... Plus informed consent requires the consent to be provided without coercion and without undue inducement and unfair incentives. Yet governments are running multi-million dollar lotteries to violate informed consent. 7. Ontario government also makes false promises when mandating vaccines stating: "You can protect yourself, your loved ones and your community by getting the COVID-19 vaccine." This is similar to the Federal government's misleading claims saying "You’ll have very good protection against infection, including against most current variants of concern." The vaccine neither prevents you from catching COVID, not spreading it and the effectiveness declines in 3-6 months. Yet governments continue to mislead people. 8. Similarly, in the US, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) changed the definition of a "vaccine" after August 26, 2021: CDC defines Immunity as "Protection from an infectious disease. If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without becoming infected." On August 26, 2021, CDC defined a vaccine as: "A product that stimulates a person’s immune system to produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease." https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g... However, by September 2, 2021, CDC changed the definition of a vaccine to: "A preparation that is used to stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases. https://web.archive.org/web/20210902194040/https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/imz-basics.htm https://web.archive.org/web/20210902194040/https://www.cdc.g... These 2 have very different meanings. Till August 26, vaccines were supposed to "produce immunity to a specific disease, protecting the person from that disease" whereas now they claim it only "stimulates the body’s immune response against diseases" - i.e. it doesn’t produce immunity, nor protects the person from the disease. Based on these new changes, any therapy that boosts the immune system would meet the new pseudo-definitions of "vaccine" and "protect". Even a smoothie with healthy fruits and vegetables such as spinach, yoghurt and garlic would qualify as vaccines as they "stimulate the body’s immune response against diseases." 9. Even though Pfizer and Federal government states that the Pfizer vaccine is effectiveness starts "1 week after the second dose", yet their data continues to use 2 weeks for detailing the breakthrough cases. https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health-products/covid19-industry/drugs-vaccines-treatments/vaccines/pfizer-biontech.html https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health... The number 1 principle of doctor-patient relationship is informed consent. All this misleading messaging by the governments makes people give "misinformed" consent. Imagine you were told a medical procedure is 95% effective at preventing you from catching HIV without any disclosures that this effectiveness declines rapidly. 3 months later, you realize that you still caught HIV, it was only around 16-66% effective and few months from now, you have an even higher chance of catching and spreading COVID. Would you be okay with this? I have countless such examples. Those pushing for censoring misinformation are the biggest purveyor of misinformation.
- cmckn 5y agoI have wondered lately whether the anti-vax movement gains much of its power from the fact that most Americans don’t have a primary care physician anymore. I think almost any skeptic is convinced once they speak with a doctor they trust, who has read their chart. But most folks just visit doc-in-a-box places for their medical needs, especially in the last 10 years. I think this is bad for a lot of longer-term (public) health outcomes, one example being vaccination rates.
- EastOfTruth 5y agoMonopolies like Youtube should be prevented from censoring content.
- yawaworht1978 5y agoWith the traffic and gravity that YouTube etc have, they're almost as powerful news broadcasting tools as the classic news media. True, they're a private company and liable for some things, but they all try to squeeze out every last cent before a government intervention. Banning content like crypto, anti vax, gambling etc is understandable, but all the people without a voice will think they are silenced because they know the truth. If we as society accept that, we should not claim to be any better than china, Russia, Cuba, it's just a slightly different approach, the end result is the same, undesired content is deplatformed. By the way, I am a rationalist and never believe conspiracy theories, but I do get a good laugh out of them at times and how the people use counter arguments helps me to think in more perspectives.
- q1w2 5y agoThe issue is that a few corporations control a majority of global human communications, and are accountable to no one for their decisions of what to censor/promote. This is dangerous to democracy. If we do not subject them to the will of the people, they will eventually use this massive influence to make themselves immune to public scrutiny, and will one day be indistinguishable from an unelected branch of government.
- dredmorbius 5y agoNot regulating their own platforms is just as dangerous, as is being repeatedly demonstrated.
- YossarianFrPrez 5y agoSo the second-order effects of YouTube banning content, as you point out, are interesting and hard to predict. The question is should fear of second order effects prevent YouTube from taking action towards a desired first order effect? For some context, prior to Youtube changing the algorithm, flat earth videos basically created the modern flat earth movement [1]. It's likely that this effect can go the other way, too. I like to think that people are less drawn to conspiracy theories etc. when they are socially well-connected. The trouble about the pandemic is that there is a negative feedback loop: we have these socially isolating restrictions because there is a deadly virus, and one reason the virus remains unchecked is, in part because a subset of socially isolated people are drawn to misinformation. [1] See the documentary In Search of A Flat Earth for more details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
- destitude 5y agoIt would be useful for people to look up what the definition of a cult is and try and determine which side of the Covid vaccine debate that applies to.
- submeta 5y agoVaccination was developed over 200 years ago, and it saved millions of lives ever since. Only the most crazy people would dispute its effectiveness or insinuate that some sort of hidden powers wanted to poison humanity. Now when did this group of crazy people become so large that they start confusing people who don‘t have the intellectual capacity to get informed by reading serious sources. My gut feeling tells me it is not about vaccination per se. But that‘s another topic.
- issa 5y agoI am American, but I believe the American view of "we must allow everything so that important things aren't censored" is wrong. I believe it is possible to avoid the slippery slope and just ban certain things. For example, Nazi images are banned in Germany. In a sense, banning anti-vaccine propaganda is an even more important issue.
- sneak 5y agoVideo games with "too much" blood or gore are also banned in Germany, limiting artistic expression. The "censorship in Germany is fine because it's just nazi stuff" argument doesn't hold water. They are currently progressing down the slippery slope. Already you're saying it should be nazi stuff + vaccine propaganda. Next year it will be a third thing that is an important pet issue for you or an interest group. Civilized adults don't tell other adults what they are allowed to read.
- issa 5y agoI don't buy this all-or-nothing argument. People in the US have tried to ban books, heavy metal music, video games etc. And the idea that we've ONLY survived those attempts because we allow people to fly/wear swastikas is ridiculous on its face.
- sneak 5y agoIt's not about swastikas, it's about a hard and fast rule that speech is permitted because speech itself is not directly harmful to anyone or anything. Humans, of course, respond to speech and frequently do violence, but the speech itself is not the violence (there is an extra step involved). This "no banning speech" general rule is why it has been largely ineffective when people have tried to ban books, movies, music, or games. It's not the swastikas; those are simply a side effect of the same root cause.
- busymom0 5y ago> The moves come as YouTube and other tech giants like Facebook Inc. (FB.O) and Twitter Inc. (TWTR.N) have been criticized for not doing enough to stop the spread of false health information on their sites. Why not also state the opposite that they have been criticized for doing too much censorship of even valid and factual information? This clearly shows that the media lives in their own bubble.
- busymom0 5y agoThe whole private sector censorship reminds me of a very good piece by Matt Taibbi: > "People in the U.S. seem able to recognize that China’s censorship of the internet is bad. They say: “It’s so authoritarian, tyrannical, terrible, a human rights violation.” Everyone sees that, but then when it happens to us, here, we say, “Oh, but it’s a private company doing it.” What people don’t realize is the majority of censorship in China is being carried out by private companies. > Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Bureau chief for Beijing and Tokyo, wrote a book called Consent of the Network that lays all this out. She says, “This is one of the features of Chinese internet censorship and surveillance—that it's actually carried out primarily by private sector companies, by the tech platforms and services, not by the police. And that the companies that run China's internet services and platforms are acting as an extension of state power.” > The people who make that argument don’t realize how close we are to the same model. There are two layers. Everyone’s familiar with “The Great Firewall of China,” where they’re blocking out foreign websites. Well, the US does that too. We just shut down Press TV, which is Iran’s PBS, for instance. We mimic that first layer as well, and now there’s also the second layer, internally, that involves private companies doing most of the censorship." https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea
- wqewqe 5y agoNo need to post anti-vax content on YouTube now, Hacker News is already full of it.
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- balozi 5y agoYouTube's business model is based on the free speech rights that have been secured by flesh-and-blood citizens for 245 years. The same benefits they don't see fit to extend to those citizens. They are like a beverage bottling company that draws clean water upstream before dumping their toxic waste back into the same river downstream.
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- dan_m2k 5y agoFucking good.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- swasheck 5y agoon the one hand, i think that calling this "censorship" is wrong because, in my understanding, "censorship" is an activity of the government in an attempt to remove the (presumably dissenting) voice of the populace. this is simply a company refining its product in an attempt to make it more attractive to current, or potential, consumers. on the other hand, masks and vaccines have been so conflated with political ideology that it's easy to see why people immediately make the leap to "censorship" and it does highlight the critical reality that internet corporations either do, or believe they do, own your content and can remove it in order to suit their ends.
- oauea 5y agoNever thought I'd see so much anti-vaccine rhetoric on hacker news. Very disappointing. @dang, maybe it's time to follow YouTube their example before this forum encourages more deaths?
- blacktriangle 5y agoShould read "Activist tech company bans doctors and scientists."
- disconjointed 5y agoone major concern i have is when things like religion get blocked as misinformation, or the whole fake it til you make it crowd gets blocked. part of growing is seeing yourself differently than how you previously saw yourself, what is stopping youtube in 10 years from becoming stricter because of pressure from some new movement? imagine presenting your product in the most professional way possible and then getting flagged by you aunt who you never got along with saying the content is disinformation and you are just some try hard who can't code? or what about your dating profile? you decide to put your best foot forward by dressing nice and then you get flagged as misinformation? or here's one, what if the mainstream narrative is wrong? about something major? that most people consider the truth but its harming a certain minority group. if the internet existed during slavery times, and someone were to post a video saying black men and women are equal to white men and women and deserve to be treated equally, now you and i both know this is absurd but, that's because there was a lot of work done that changed the narrative. that work done was started by small groups and grew into a movement, imagine that movement today never getting off the ground because of it's seed content being plucked out of circulation due to it being "misinformation". sometimes social and science references are completely off, and for someone to question that mainstream narrative can appear to be misinformation for those believing a lie. don't tell me it doesn't happen; there are plenty of people who are gullible enough to hold a faulty mainstream narrative in place. look at all the crazy videos from last year and tell me if you think most people are intelligent enough to come to the right conclusions. no hate, it's just a reality.
- User23 5y agoWhy does Africa have the lowest vaccination rate and the lowest death rate?[1] [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33075535/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33075535/
- disconjointed 5y agoalso one thing to add, what if this is a gateway to censorship in order to hide information about certain elites legally? i am not advocating pizzagate conspiracy but this could be a way of silencing journalists doing their job and getting the news out oon one of the most powerful media distribution sites, people can build another site but when it comes to social change you want high impact.
- boringg 5y agoCut off their revenue/ability to become a micro-celebrity /reward mechanism for incendiary garbage and these anti-vaccine activists will fade to obscurity. Too bad they didn't do this earlier so they could infect the general population with their deranged ideas.
- Trias11 5y agoI guess someone is part of gigantic political kickback collusion scheme with big pharma.
- anonymouswacker 5y agoOne would think YouTube could hear the Rumble-ing happening right now.
- gonational 5y agoIt's interesting to see people labeled as "anti-vaxxers" or "vaccine hesitant" or "unvaccinated". If I was not looking to purchase a medication because I had no ailment, and then a medical professional came up and showed me the following chart and told me "Vaccines have cured most of the calamitous diseases of yesteryear, and here is a new one that you should take.", I would not then decide to get a vaccine. Would you? Look at the chart. https://learntherisk.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/diseases-declined-updated-400px-wide.jpg https://learntherisk.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/diseases... No need to argue with me; why bother. I didn't create the data used to make the chart. When that feeling starts to come back look at the chart once again. The data doesn't change. Your feelings might change, but facts will stay the same each time you load the chart. Try it out. Labeling people, because they haven't made a choice to do something that you think they should do, is a strange phenomenon.
- ada1981 5y agoHow about banning any videos that present literal Bible content, for example.
- chefkoch 5y agoi don't think believing in the bible is killing hundreds a day in the US.
- superzadeh 5y agoTake a look outside the US, you’d be surprised. The world is not centered around the US.
- disconjointed 5y agoThe drug war was a huge misinformation campaign. can we ban anything that says marijuana has no medical benefit since the science is there like actual peer-reviewed articles saying that most of the negative information spread about cannabis is false
- cbtacy 5y agoReading the comments here is freaking terrifying to me. This is supposedly an educated and scientifically oriented subset of the human race and the levels of ignorance, dishonesty, and flat out lying going on here make me very, very sad. SMH.
- xanaxagoras 5y ago> YouTube will ban any videos that claim that commonly used vaccines approved by health authorities are ineffective or dangerous. > ineffective or dangerous Either you don't care if I get it, or they're ineffective.
- AHappyCamper 5y agoRecently I spoke with two senior scientists with decades of experience who specialise in pharmacology, biology, and vaccines, who both work at high-level labs that inspect all types of drugs. They both were extremely sceptical of the vaccine, with one being openly antagonistic towards it. YouTube's new rules allow them to post content, but they both say they've been warned by their jobs about speaking out - that they will lose their careers if they say anything against the vaccines. Where is the room for their opinion? Because they are the top of the tree scientifically. What the hell is going on when we are silencing senior scientists who are extremely worried about an experimental drug that we're giving to the entire world??! To clarify - the first scientist told me that her lab is not allowed to look at or test the vaccine, even though they test every other drug that comes into the country. She has only found a report from one other non-Pfizer lab that has looked at it under a microscope. To me, that is really scary.
- distrill 5y agotrust me bro
- corona-research 5y agoThere are plenty of such examples. Some of the most reputable scientists of that field have been banned for sharing their opinion on Youtube.
- babypuncher 5y agoIf there was a problem with the vaccine we probably would have noticed something by the time a billion people got injected with it. These skeptics need to put up some serious evidence if they want to be taken seriously.
- AlexandrB 5y agoI agree. This kind of skepticism-on-theoretical-grounds might have been interesting/valuable a year ago. At this point additional evidence for the vaccine's safety mounts every day as more people receive it. Evidence for the vaccine's efficacy is also mounting[1]. Claims to the contrary would need some extraordinary evidence to back them up. [1] https://www.foxnews.com/health/covid-19-hospitalizations-nonvaccinated https://www.foxnews.com/health/covid-19-hospitalizations-non...
- user-the-name 5y agoThis site is disgusting.
- everyone 5y agoAmericans are arguing about the vaccine even here on HN. Seems like Russian social media manipulators really did a number on ye.
- rackjack 5y agoI support the vaccine, but this feels like a dangerous play.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- NaturalPhallacy 5y ago>YouTube is banning anti-forced Sars COVID2 mRNA drug activists and blocking all anti-forced Sars COVID2 mRNA drug content FTFWaPo I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I'm happy to have my measles, mumps, rubella, and other vaccines. I'm looking forward to getting the new HPV vaccine (gardasil) now that they've started recommending it for adults and you can actually get your doctor to give it to you (a couple years ago they would refuse if you asked and said you'd pay for 100% of it). Resisting this latest moneygrab by big pharma and power grab by authoritarians is not "anti-vaccine". That's incredibly disingenuous. Because this drug is fundamentally different from what a vaccine is. If the authoritarians and their followers pushing this can't even admit that it so radically different from a vaccine as to be outright lying to call it one, how can we even talk about it?
- oblio 5y ago> That's incredibly disingenuous. Because this drug is fundamentally different from what a vaccine is. What is a vaccine in your eyes? Because the definition (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vaccine https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vaccine) is: > a preparation that is administered (as by injection) to stimulate the body's immune response against a specific infectious agent or disease It's something that's injected to stimulate the body's immune response. It doesn't to be through using a weakened version of the virus as we've been doing so far. That's just the mechanism we had. A diesel powered train is still a train, even if the original trains were steam powered.
- NaturalPhallacy 5y agoWhat is a vaccine in your eyes?> The same as it's always been: >a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to a particular disease https://web.archive.org/web/20190123105554/https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vaccine https://web.archive.org/web/20190123105554/https://www.merri... Same page. But from before they redefined it to include the new drug from big pharma.
- 5y ago
- KorematsuFredt 5y agoI wish Google had not done this sort of thing. I am not an anti-vaxxer but I think we should not silence those who question vaccines, their studies and their effectiveness. By banning vaccine criticism in public domain we essentially ensure that only FDA is responsible for calling a vaccine fake, once they approve we all have to fall in line and not be skeptical about them. This gives too much power to FDA (hence a higher possibility of corruption) and a free pass to pharma companies who might push more and more ineffective vaccines with the help of their friends in FDA and CDC. Google is pretty good at content recommendation and I am sure if they want they can solve this problem much better by identifying diversity in the vaccine criticism and accordingly give it exposure.
- 8note 5y agoI think the problem highlighted is that they're actually bad at recommendations beyond popularity.
- whiddershins 5y agoThey are doing it wrong. They should ban all discussions about vaccines. Then it wouldn’t be censorship. It’s just asking that those discussions happen elsewhere.
- RNCTX 5y ago...after they've been autoplaying those videos to millions of users' TVs after they fell asleep, for the past 6-9 months? Guess we really are getting to the end of COVID attention in the news if the Google ad algo says there's no more money in it.
- ellyagg 5y agoI wish I could find the post now, but a few months ago on /r/science, research showed that people who didn't believe in global warming were more likely to change their minds when presented with balanced evidence for and against. YouTube has no idea how damaging this is to the cause. Folks who think that policy is a war do not understand people very well or are more interested in grandstanding and point scoring than changing minds. Viewing those who disagree with you as villains or children makes life harder for everyone.
- jrootabega 5y ago/r/science has nothing to do with science and everything to do with whatever reddit's front page userbase needs to believe/ has been convinced to believe with ad dollars that month. It's a religion. Look at its usual submitters to see that it's a priesthood with its cult, not an open community. I say this as a non-vaccine-opponent (how ridiculous of a term is that?) Name-dropping it means nothing.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bena 5y agoI found these by searching for "climate change" on /r/science. https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/jseycg/conservatives_are_more_likely_to_express_concern/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/jseycg/conservativ... https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/hnlstq/republicans_have_become_more_skeptical_of_the/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/hnlstq/republicans... https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/cm0t6c/republicans_are_more_likely_to_believe_climate/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/cm0t6c/republicans... https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/f9wl7g/individuals_who_hold_antiintellectual_views/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/f9wl7g/individuals... https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/km0fzc/a_series_of_experiments_shows_that_understanding/ https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/km0fzc/a_series_of... The last looks to be the closest to what you are talking about. But even then, it's not talking about "balanced evidence" in the way you seem to present. Because some people seem to think that to balance the evidence, it's one piece from here, one piece from there, giving them equal consideration. But it's not, it's considering the evidence without consideration to the other side. We don't give the idea that the moon is made of green cheese the same weight as the idea that it's a big rock. Because the green cheese idea is just stupid. It does not deserve consideration. And you also have the caveat that it's self-reporting and/or questionnaire driven. I can take someone who doesn't believe in global warming, show them how greenhouse gases cause warming, get them to verbally agree that that's what happening, get them to even agree that the same could apply to the whole world, but then they'll still not believe in global warming. Because they'll have a reason as to why the example doesn't apply. But if I never ask the final question, never ask if I actually changed their mind, I can present the results as if I've converted them.
- eric_b 5y agoI myself am vaccinated, but I hold no ill will towards those who do not get it; whatever their reason. And yet, the media is conditioning all of us to hate those people. To shame them. To ignore their reason and free-will. The same people who are rabidly pro-vaccine are generally rabidly pro-choice when it comes to abortion. How does that reconcile? How come the government can sometimes tell you what to do with your body but not others? And the same people who are in favor of the vaccine mandates are almost universally supporters of BLM and social justice. And yet... the majority of the vaccine hesitant are non-white. That doesn't square either. The whole thing is absolutely fucking outrageous. I hate what the media has done to the United States. And I hate all the moral self-righteousness I see on display here and everywhere else.
- fwsgonzo 5y agoThe whole thing is easily explainable: People who walk around spreading COV19 is killing other people. Everyone has a story like that, and it's unfortunate that we have to explain it again and again. You have free will until you start killing other people over something that you can get for free, that lessens the long-lasting effects of a virus.
- eric_b 5y agoThis is such a horseshit argument. If you're at risk, by all means get the vaccine. You're protected. Job done. "But what about the children?!?!" is the next common refrain. What about them? Look at the numbers. COVID is not a relevant concern for pediatric public health policy. https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/9bhg-hcku?mobile_redirect=true https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/9bhg-hcku?mobile_redirect=true COVID deaths account for less than 1% of deaths in children under 15. I think the other 99% of things killing our kids is a bigger concern, don't you?
- dQw4w9WgXcQ 5y ago> You have free will until you start killing other people over something You do a lot of things every day that "have a chance of killing people". You get in a car and send thousands of pounds of metal hurdling down the road, you use your cell phone and drive distractedly in that metal block. Or maybe you visit Home Depot and buy a pack of nails and a few of those drop out in a parking lot and a mother in her van with children run over those nails and later have a blowout. You buy an iPhone made in China or a T-shirt made in Vietnam that employs some child laborer who is exposed to harsh chemicals and they die earlier because you personally wanted some product for your enjoyment... and the list is almost infinite. At what point do we acknowledge our minimal control over the butterfly effect of causality and cease the woke moralizing?
- summerlight 5y agoNot sure if everyone has read the actual policy (https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11161123 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11161123) but for those who hasn't: Don’t post content on YouTube if it includes harmful misinformation about currently approved and administered vaccines on any of the following: * Vaccine safety: content alleging that vaccines cause chronic side effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognized by health authorities * Efficacy of vaccines: content claiming that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction of disease * Ingredients in vaccines: content misrepresenting the substances contained in vaccines Also, the policy states some exceptional cases such as countervailing views with a support from medical experts, firsthand experiences, etc.
- grillvogel 5y agothis is legitimately dystopian. only can mention side effects that have been "recognized by health authorities" ? how would whistleblowing even be possible in this environment?
- thesagan 5y agoMisinformation should be put out in sunlight or else the public may lose the ability to think critically in some respects. Then they’ll be dependent on these companies to steer dialogue and be truth-tellers.
- jolux 5y ago> Also, the policy states some exceptional cases such as countervailing views with a support from medical experts, firsthand experiences, etc.
- grillvogel 5y agoits obvious that contrary opinions will be banned first with option to appeal coming after. im sure that will be a totally open and transparent process.
- joe_the_user 5y ago
- mdp2021 5y agoMeanwhile, it seems that Russia has complained in the past 24 hours against some censorship on YT, based on "the fight against covid related misinformation", and raised a diplomatic issue accusing Germany to have supported the censorship. Some may find curious or even amusing this odd paragraph on Le Monde: > A la fin de janvier, le président Poutine avait jugé que les entreprises majeures du secteur de l’Internet étaient « en concurrence » avec les Etats. Il dénonçait leurs « tentatives de contrôler brutalement la société ». The main online enterprises being in competition with the states - in the attempt to brutally control society?! The formulation could probably have been less "suggestive". https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2021/09/29/moscou-menace-de-bloquer-youtube-pour-avoir-suspendu-rt-en-allemand_6096451_4408996.html https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2021/09/29/moscou-mena...
- bwship 5y agoThe funny part of this whole thing. Is that the same people that all they do is complain about privacy concerns by Apple and Alexa etc. here on HN are the same people that consistently downvote anything I say that is anti-vaccine. I thought this community knew no blind spots. Even if I am dead wrong on my stance, the concept that it gets downvoted just because I have a differing opinion is pathetic.
- touchpadder 5y agoBig Pharma and Marxist Google working hand in hand. Remember Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal? The lawyer who exposed it, who also fought Deutsche Bank in the US now exposes Covid as fraud and mass murder. https://odysee.com/@Corona-Investigative-Committee:5/Reiner-Fuellmich-Introduction-English_BestCut:e https://odysee.com/@Corona-Investigative-Committee:5/Reiner-...
- stjohnswarts 5y agoMarxist google? You have to be kidding right?
- eric_b 5y agoI mean, did you even read it? It is anything but definitive. "In this narrative review, we develop an analytical framework to examine mask usage, considering and synthesizing the relevant literature to inform multiple areas" So it's an analytical framework.... let's read on "Randomised control trial evidence that investigated the impact of masks on household transmission during influenza epidemics indicate potential benefit, although we should be careful of assuming these results will transfer to SARS-CoV-2. In particular, influenza has an R0 (the basic reproduction number) of 1.4 (21) whereas SARS-CoV-2 has an R0 of 2.4 or more" So they couldn't find an RCT about COVID specifically, and they're not confident prior studies will apply. And really the nail in the coffin: "There are currently no studies that measure the impact of any kind of mask on the amount of infectious SARS-CoV-2 particles from human actions" Like... this is not a good study, or even worth talking about further. [Edit: Perhaps those wielding the downvotes would care to elaborate on why my analysis of this study is wrong? Or is it just more gut feels? What a joke.]
- judahmeek 5y agoTry https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-masks-covid-19.html https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-mask... then Abstract: https://www.poverty-action.org/study/impact-mask-distribution-and-promotion-mask-uptake-and-covid-19-bangladesh https://www.poverty-action.org/study/impact-mask-distributio... Actual paper: https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publications/Mask_RCT____Symptomatic_Seropositivity_083121.pdf https://www.poverty-action.org/sites/default/files/publicati...
- eric_b 5y agoSo some mild effect for surgical masks they think (though the intervention group did more social distancing than the control group as well, hard to suss out the impact of that). But then they say this: "while cloth masks clearly reduce symptoms, we cannot reject that they have zero or only a small impact on symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections" Not exactly a slam dunk.
- judahmeek 5y ago
- monksy 5y agoFor those who were keeping track: The virus is just like the flu it's not a problem . The ICUs aren't that overloaded, theres no reason to worry .. -> We shouldn't have a lock down that is this strict allow people to make decisions on their own ... -> Restaurants shouldn't be required to be closed for indoor dining .... -> Let people chose to wear the mask or not (Considering the US/CDC's terrible stance on masks that wasn't safe on a society level [The US gov ignored and discouraged stronger masks such as KN95, KF94, FFP2 for civilian usage]) .... -> The vaccine is too new, need more info ..... -> It's not fda approved, can't take it ...... -> My freedoms/won't get it/don't have more info It's not just citiziens that are spouting nonsense about this. It's government officials spouting this. I talked with an liqour board agent about why fining a lady operating a bar with live music during the peak of the pandemic is the correct thing to do. (Executive order banned indoor dining and alcohol consumption in the state) He literally try to discredit me at every step of the way. This was an executive order + strict liqour board rules put down.
- dude4you 5y agoOk, take the vacc. (I would have taken it if had been offered it before I got corona.) Ok. Then what? What will happen? Corona goes away? Seriously? Corona is here to stay my friend.
- alexpw 5y agoYou should still get vaccinated. Post-infection immunity is very heterogeneous, with respect to what level of protection you'll have, and how long it will last. You might have great protection for a bit, or you might get reinfected just like the first time, like many have. The combined protection of natural with vaccination will be better than just one or the other. I hope you stay safe.
- dude4you 5y agoan israli paper claimed my immunity is 13 times better now compared to vaccinated people.
- _prototype_ 5y agoAll this for a virus with a 99% survival rate [1]. Nevermind the fact that media and government forces completely ignore natural immunity which has been shown to provide 27x more resistance to covid infection by a recent study [2]. You can't really be surprised at the general distrust and hesitancy. You can get a "Vaccine Passport" but you can't get a "Immunity Passport"? Ridiculous https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-970830023526 https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-970830023526 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
- hackerNoose 5y agoPeople don't get vaccinated because of the evidence but because they chose to believe in some authority. Heavy handed censors (or fact checkers in newspeak) and other coercive tactics lead people to distrust these authorities even more.
- holdupnow 5y agoWhat if the government figured out it could just use private companies to do what it can't?
- travisparker 5y agoDespite being a medical doctor, this disappoints me a great deal. This sort of authoritarian non-discussion is exactly what's caused vaccine resistance to become an "activist movement" in the first place. Some tinfoil-hat part of me wonders if that's actually the plan...
- b7bfcdeaab33 5y agoMike Adams: "So the spike protein is a toxic nano-particle... and that protein itself causes vascular damage" Judy Mikovits: "Yes, that is the disease. The envelope alone [the spike protein] causes the disease. And we've known that since 1980.“ https://www.bitchute.com/video/EXYCFOQBtsVF/ https://www.bitchute.com/video/EXYCFOQBtsVF/ (minute 08:30)
- cheeze 5y agoThis video is blatant anti vax BS. Watch the first 30 seconds and that's beyond obvious.
- b7bfcdeaab33 5y agoJudy Mikovits spent her career developing vaccines and stated she is pro-vaccines, not anti vax.
- b7bfcdeaab33 5y agoHeard this anecdotally from the following link, can't confirm it: Youtube had taken down a video from the creator of mRNA, Dr. Robert Malone. http://www.padrak.com/coronavirus/Dr.%20Sean%20Brooks%20at%20SW%20Ohio%20School%20Board%20Meeting%20-%20Transcript%208.18.21.pdf http://www.padrak.com/coronavirus/Dr.%20Sean%20Brooks%20at%2...
- jonnat 5y agoThis piece from The Atlantic has another view and more info on Malone's claims. https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/robert-malone-vaccine-inventor-vaccine-skeptic/619734/ https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/robert-m...
- stjohnswarts 5y agoThe fact that he was talking to Bannon and saying that the vaccines don't work and aren't safe even though 2.5 billion people have been given them is ludicrous. Even doctors can grow stupid over time.
- civilized 5y agoI saw someone post an antivax video in the comments about the toxicity of the spike protein the mRNA vaccine causes the body to manufacture. If you have such concerns, read this: https://health-desk.org/articles/what-do-we-know-about-the-toxicity-of-spike-proteins-made-from-covid-19-vaccines https://health-desk.org/articles/what-do-we-know-about-the-t... The vaccine is injected into muscle and causes a localized immune reaction. The protein doesn't really escape the muscle. So it might damage some muscle cells and capillaries, but those are stressed all the time anyway and will regenerate.
- lugged 5y agoThat was the expectation but we later found they travel around the body and particularly build up in bone marrow and your ovaries if you have them. They also are technically "toxic" but you need to take that word with a grain of salt. The damage is still far less than what the virus will cause if you catch it without the vaccine.
- 0x000000001 5y agoCitations please
- lugged 5y agoWhats the point? You'll just debunk it with a bs "fact check"[1] article that links to outdated information or quotes people with outdated information and call it a day. When the reality is: - Spike proteins from the virus and the vaccine are in-arguably cytotoxic[2] (but the low load has not lead to any long term negative effects and you should still get vaxxed). - Spike proteins do not stay near the injection site.[3][4] (only 20% of the dose is found to remain in the injection site after 48h) The thing that fucks me off so much about this censorship from youtube is that it leads to the fact checkers becoming gospel, the same fact checkers that have been found to be paid shills of big pharma.[5] Even the fact check article I link to here links to a youtube clip where this is all discussed in detail, only it doesn't discuss it in detail be cause its only a clip. A clip that was created to avoid youtubes filters. The full video[6] covers all of this in detail. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-vaccine-cytotoxic-idUSL2N2O01XP https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-vaccine-cytotoxic-... [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41375-021-01332-z https://www.nature.com/articles/s41375-021-01332-z [3] https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/covid-vaccine-spike-protein-travels-from-injection-site-organ-damage/ https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/covid-vaccine-sp... [4] https://www.docdroid.net/xq0Z8B0/pfizer-report-japanese-government-pdf#page=16 https://www.docdroid.net/xq0Z8B0/pfizer-report-japanese-gove... [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44B-OJcOXxc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44B-OJcOXxc [6] https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f/how-to-save-the-world,-in-three-easy:0?r=FuWwFotRbicqY9GHyWBqDdTNNHpaTgC9 https://odysee.com/@BretWeinstein:f/how-to-save-the-world,-i...
- mostertoaster 5y agoPeople keep arguing about the facts about side effects and long covid and death rates and hospital capacity. One side shows some facts in their favor and another “better” facts in another favor. This is pointless. If covid killed 10% or .00000001 of the population, censoring things like this is a terrible precedent. Just as china has “private companies” do their censoring this is no different. Just because the “facts” are very strong in favor of vaccination, and a majority of people are likely pro vax, this is a dangerous road. Effectively the message, the story told about those facts is being dictated from government guidelines. You do not know what future stories will be forced to be believed in the future regardless of the “facts”. Seriously just try and imagine a society who believes something you’re opposed too, where the facts don’t matter to you, and having it happen. Do you think you will never be on the other side? This power will one day be wielded by those who you are adamantly opposed to.
- Lily_telepath 5y agoWrote an article about this and how AI is used to enforce these bans: https://telepath.io/blog/youtube-bans-vaccine-misinformation-how-ai-moderates-what-you-see/ https://telepath.io/blog/youtube-bans-vaccine-misinformation...
- Kretinsky 5y agoI have an honest question to all of the honest people recommanding their relatives to get vaccinated: I've had covid twice, with very mild effects (stay in bed for one day or two). I'm young, no comorbidity, not obese etc. Clearly I won't die of covid, as experimental science goes. I'm the only provider for my family (wife, kid). If I take the vaccine and get crippled, meaning I can't work anymore, will the pro-vaccine people that recommend it pay my family a pension to compensate the financial loss caused by their advice?
- foota 5y agoYour risks are much higher from covid than from the vaccine.
- mbg721 5y ago...Where both the "much" and the "than" parts are miniscule.
- foota 5y agoRight, but there's also the social responsibility angle. Given that the vaccine is less risky than not getting vaccinated, then I believe you have a responsibility to get vaccinated.
- moistrobot 5y agoThis argument doesn't hold if he's already had covid. you don't put your seatbelt on after the car crash
- azemetre 5y agoNo, but you can get into multiple car crashes throughout your life. One would hope they take precautions for the future and start wearing their seatbelt.
- Tucanix 5y agoLet's just say that is an extreme unlikelihood. The risk that you would get a permanent lasting effect from covid is very large which has happened to many who have had covid, millions are not over their lasting effects. At least with the vaccine it is under someones control, designed vigorously to be safe and someone is legally responsible. If you got covid, bad luck, your problem. I don't know how it works in the US but where I live (DK) if you get some kind of bad side effect from a treatment you can get compensation very easily. I guess in the US there might be lawyers involved or I guess since you got it for free from the government that they are responsible. Also it's still likely that if you get covid a third time that you will get a worse outcome.
- mostertoaster 5y agoThey don’t need to ban flat-earther videos, just saying.
- mindless_solips 5y agoWhat we're seeing is essentially the Death of the Free Flow of Information on the Internet;coming concomitant with a pervasive social slide towards Elitism when the whole point of the original revolution was to break down the siloes of power aggregated into gatekeeper hands. In the Assault on Reason, AL Gore talked about the ability to craft systems that could enable people to create and engage with content in meaningful ways. No doubt viewing YouTube as an antidote to taking people out of a passive TV watching role and towards an active, civically engaged citizen. The problem is, when anybody can say anything, Everyone will say Everything. YouTube's Really Dumb Idea here is to "mitigate the problem by eliminating discussion." We see how well that worked for the Catholic Church and sexual abuse allegations, the Silent Generation and LGBTQIA rights, etc. Right after the web exploded in the early 2000s and we were all chanting "Information Wants to Be Free", a large number of us enthusiastically believed in Democracy and Reason. We believed in rational argumentation, with point, counter-point, analysis of biases and nuances, leading towards an ultimately acceptable conclusion. Instead we got Flat Earth, Anti-vax, and Donald Trump. It's not hard to see why the enthusiasm is failing. The problem is, it's not The Big Dumb Idiot Public's Fault. It's Ours, as technologists building these platforms. A +/- button and free-text fields in 2021 is exactly the same technology we were using to talk in 2001, now with far more robots and malicious actors adding noise. An Obvious Question that has been around since the advent of these technologies, that is in fact inherent in information itself, is "how do we identify Signal from Noise?" Treating all Anti-Vax view, and even Donald Trump's banned accounts, as just "Noise" are bad precedents. Rather, we should be leveraging Machine Learning and all the obtrusive user data we're gathering from ad farms to Actually Do Useful Things For Humanity like: * identifying a user's background and their "conceptual distance" from the topic at hand. Aside from pointing someone to an arcane Wikipedia article likely last edited by an expert into incomprehensible oblivion, how can we determine a "learning path" series of links that can take someone from "completely ignorant" to "common knowledge educated?" People love anonymity on the internet, but there are times when they don't, as well. (see Facebook's success) On a random Hot Topic thread in a non-anonymous platform (FB, Twitter), the commenter's background could be probabilistically calculated to inform readers about how likely they are to know what the fuck they're talking about. I. E. If a random computer scientist blowjob like me is mouthing off about how inefficient the vaccine process has been and someone with a PhD in Molecular Biology from a reputable institution that's actively working in a lab developing in a proximal space replies to my comments with counters, that level of expertise needs to be highlighted. "water flows uphill" and things that are just counter-factual can be detected and auto-flagged. Actively elevating the discourse by both teaching people And giving easy tools to identify sources, evaluate their credibility, learn the argument space by highlighting the authorities and hubs of different views related to a topic, and ultimately lead to better discussions is Hard... But an infinitely better direction than draconian choices/policies that directly undermine trust in public discourse --which is a core tenet of democracy--.
- fithisux 5y agoSo, capitalism has no relation to democracy. It is the worst enemy when gain is the target. Why didn't hey do it before? Because it is not about anti vaxxers, but about freedom.
- pvaldes 5y agoSelf defense against people that want you dead is not censorship. The rumor spreaders are clearly trying to do the maximum damage as possible in the society for money. Many of them ended being victims of the virus also, so nobody can't claim ignorance at this point or say that they were just joking. If they can't understand even the most basic facts explained by science is their problem, not twitter's problem or society's problem. Science is real. Deal with it. The snake puppeteers poisoning and driving this people to their own demise are evil. Twitter is not obligated to help them to kill more people.
- samirillian 5y agoI live in BC. I'm double vaxxed. We know the military, recently back from fixing Afghanistan, is using their proven effective propaganda techniques to make everything better at home. My ex's mom is a real-ass epidemiologist, albeit not a pandemic person but you know on gov't boards and stuff. She was recommending my ex not get astrazenica, purely on the evidence. Now, I have to have a passport to go to a restaurant. I have the card they gave me, but they will be requiring an app soon. This is insane, it looks like pure divide-and-conquer tactics to me.