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Time 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 th

Time 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 ago
Admitting change to the algo inherently admits fault, so good luck waiting for that. Counsel will never allow it.
IgorPartola 5y ago
Let 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 ago
  Let 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 ago
    Two 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 ago
    That 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.
    - zpeti 5y ago
      Right. But what happens before it's retracted? The incorrect position of the authority is repeated, and now in this case is basically denied distribution by Youtube. Now in this case youtube is probably right "scientifically", but what if they weren't like with masks? You basically have 0 discussion or challenge allowed to the authorities position. And lets just bring in the recent controversy here, a panel of scientists said third shots shouldn't be administered. Yet the government decided they should. Which position will youtube censor?
      - jquery 5y ago
        What if ISIS was right about the nature of God and we will all suffer hellfire in the afterlife? There’s no obligation for YouTube to give terrorists a platform. Regarding a booster shot, I’m sure they will make reasonable calls, nearly exclusively only silencing bad-faith actors. Much like their policy towards CP or terrorist content.
      - davesque 5y ago
        Seems like your basic point is that no trusted authority should ever be wrong about something. I'm sure you would say, "No, that's not what I meant." But that seems like the only thing that could be implied by what you're saying. You didn't address a very important point that the parent comment made which is that trusted authorities like the CDC are more likely to correct their mistakes whereas anti-vax propagandists will never retract their statements. That's part of what makes the CDC trustworthy compared to the propagandists. The fact that the CDC or any other trusted public organization has technically made a mistake in the past seems like an irrelevant distraction. Haven't you ever had an argument with a spouse or family member where you called out something they were doing and they came back with, "Look who's taking."? And that felt like a bullshit tactic, right? Accusations of hypocrisy are a really common fallacy in debate. They contribute nothing to the discussion at hand and are basically just an appeal to emotion. And what you're doing is just a version of that.
  - unethical_ban 5y ago
    Good-faith vs. bad faith. I hate that the CDC did that action, only because it gave skeptics another reason to distrust them. But it is 100% clear to anyone who, you know, was alive when it happened that they did that to prevent a mask shortage for those who needed them most. I would rather have seen some emergency declaration that N95s must be seized from stores and go to healthcare workers, but that would have caused perhaps an even bigger panic. Because then, everyone would have freaked out, vs. what they did. Now, we only have people who were already going to distrust government giving a shit about the mask declaration last year. Back to good-faith vs. bad-faith: I'm not certain there is more than a hair's worth of anti-vaccine content that is produced with good intention or even attempted to be backed by statistics. Put simply, I wager there is no anti-vaccine content produced out of a legitimate, well-founded public interest. It's charlatans, fools, anti-science and anti-authority interests.
    - zpeti 5y ago
      What's your position on the current third shot issue? Should we listen to the scientist panel that said no, or the government that said yes? What is youtube's position? Will it delete all government communications because the scientists said on, or will it delete all scientific discussion because the government said yes?
      - IgorPartola 5y ago
        Let’s not add misinformation here. It was a panel of researches at the CDC that said the evidence for boosters for under 65 at risk individuals was marginal that the thought it wasn’t worth it. A similar panel of researches at the FDA said it was a close call but they said it was worth it. The CDC panel is advisory to the FDA panel, not the other way around. The debate here is specifically for under 65 at risk individuals.
        marcosdumay 5y ago
        Besides, the official recommendation was more on the line of "a 3rd dose is much less useful than applying those vaccines on the antivaxers". What is very clearly correct, but is of a laughable political naivety, because the preferred goal is practically impossible to reach.
- dongping 5y ago
  Or this way, let’s say that YouTube hosts earlier anti-mask content from Dr. Fauci/CDC and as a result some percentage of people are swayed by this content to not wear mask. Some percentage of them dies. Do you think that YouTube did a good thing by allowing that content?
  - hef19898 5y ago
    Yes, because back then (as much as a communications fuck-up that was) this was scientific consensus. What Youtube is banning is pure propaganda and falsehoods.
    - dongping 5y ago
      The scientific consensus was that there was no evidence that mask would work (or not work) for 2019-nCoV. There's plenty of evidence that it helps prevent transmission of other respiratory viruses. So which hypothesis would have most likely been true at the time? Not to mention that Dr. Fauci himself had admitted that it was a noble lie (aka pure propaganda and falsehoods).
      - IgorPartola 5y ago
        That’s a slightly better description of what happened. And I will say it again: two wrongs don’t make a right.
        dongping 5y ago
        Surely it would be great if you might provide a better description of the event (and the timeline, long after the outbreak in Wuhan).
        IgorPartola 5y ago
        Surely. But frankly I don’t feel like it.
    - 5y ago
- afavour 5y ago
  IMO one of the reasons these debates go back and forth forever is because it’s impossible to come up hard and fast rules that cover every scenario. Maybe a poorly thought out analogy but think about cars. There are a ton of car accidents every year, a good number of which result in death. But we don’t ban cars because they’re essential for the way many people live. But if 50% of all car journeys resulted in accidents? Maybe we’d be having a different conversation.
- DiabloD3 5y ago
  That is a moral argument and has no place in a discussion of the laws of a modern western country. We are a system of law, not a system of justice. Although I do agree with you that anti-vaxers should be treated no different than common terrorists; as Americans, under the law, they have a right to declare that they are terrorists and give their little illogical terrorist rants. The First Amendment is very clear on what is not covered, and the courts have repeatedly confirmed that being wrong, being disingenuous, and lying is covered (as long as you are not committing perjury or other similar, actual, crimes). Our founding fathers knew exactly what they were doing when they penned this: in their day, they also had their form of denialism. The first amendment is, essentially, "It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubts.", but weaponized against the idiots that shall forever plague us. That said, if a rational adult, one that we have, as a society, cannot tell the difference between the truth and the lies, then we have both failed as a society, but also have trusted an adult to actually act like one and they, personally, made the choice to act like a spoiled brat; acting like a spoiled brat is not a victimless crime, and sometimes, but not always, they are punished like an adult for violating the trust of the society that they live in.
  - IgorPartola 5y ago
    First amendment doesn’t apply here. This is not about the government persecuting individuals on the basis of what they are saying.
  - HeroOfAges 5y ago
    It almost seems as if you believe you can't be lied to by the people you agree with. In this case, we'll call them "vaxxers" since you seem to believe only "anti-vaxers" are capable of duplicity.
    - DiabloD3 5y ago
      Nope, because that's the beauty of science. I personally run on a "trust, but verify" basis: science allows society to come together and verify many aspects of claims: can it be done, can it be replicated, what's the likelihood of the replication actually measuring a real effect, etc. "Vaxxers", as you have so put it, (or as I like to call them, normal human beings) have reached a level of proof that vaccines are safe, and that, specifically, the COVID-19 vaccines currently in deployment are several magnitudes safer than, say, contracting COVID-19 itself. "Anti-Vaxxers", however, have (un?)intentionally proved that vaccines work, performing one of the largest voluntary human drug trials in history as the placebo group. Their sacrifice shall, hopefully, not be forgotten (lest we repeat it).
- noxer 5y ago
  The whole thing is a "correlation does not imply causation" fallacy because you just assume that changing one thing lead to the change of something else while ignoring all the other effect it has. For example by leaving the content and being a neutral platform the subjective value of the content on the platform is higher. More people who are not sure about something can listen both sides and choose based on that. However by removing it you exclude these people (for a million of other topics too) even trough they could very well end up on the "right" side after doing their own research. They wont do this if its clear that the platform already removed one side and the other therefore is propaganda. So by removing it, how many additional death would this actually cause? You just leave this out. What if it causes thousands of deaths too? Let’s say in absolute numbers it is 10000 people. You can now make a non-emotionally decision whether removing it or not is actually a good idea because the arbitrary appeal to emotion evens out. This is the way think about such stuff, not by making arbitrary emotional "arguments" which can not be proven or disproved and may as well be completely irrelevant or even in reverse. Whenever the "logic" of "X people (less) die if we do Y" is used its an attempt to make it emotional instead of rational it should ring some bells and raise some flags. You can see this with autonomous driving or gun control an many other topics. Its some kind of appeal to emotion fallacy combined with false cause fallacy. And instead of convincing anyone or find common ground it just pushes people to more extreme opposition. Because you "literally kill people if you disagree with X".
  - IgorPartola 5y ago
    The pragmatic thing is to remove the blatantly false content to prevent deaths. That’s not an emotional argument, that’s a logical one. Some percentage of people will watch anti-vax videos on YouTube, will believe them, will not vaccinate, and some percentage will die. Not having that content there would mean more people get vaccinated and fewer die. Nobody is dying from getting vaccinated. Also, I would love to see what common ground looks like with anti-vaxxers. I don’t think they are willing to give an inch on this, but willing to be proven wrong.
    - noxer 5y ago
      The damage to the "value of the content" is done anyway even if you "just" "remove blatantly false content". Also instead of an arbitrator of truth you need an arbitrator of "blatantly false" which is exactly as impossible and comes with the same risk of abuse of power, bias and all that. Anyway you missed the point where I assumed the death evens out aka try make an argument that isn't based on emotion an "backed" by numbers we can not know. >Also, I would love to see what common ground looks like with anti-vaxxers. I don’t think they are willing to give an inch on this, but willing to be proven wrong. I'm not an anti-vaxxer but I'm p sure the common ground for most of them would be to let people decide. Anti-vaxxers who want to remove pro-vaccine information to prevent people from dying form the vaccine seem to be rather rare. As far as I know most are perfectly fine with anyone voluntary injecting toxic and dying. They might be wrong on almost everything but that doesn't mean common ground can not be found. Also by picking the furthest away extreme position to proof no common ground is possible is kind silly. We wan common ground for the majority on both sides not with the extremists.
- photochemsyn 5y ago
  It's an interesting question, but keep in mind that Youtube allows junk food advertising targeted towards children, which contributes to the obesity epidemic, and obese people have much higher medical needs and tend to die earlier (and are much more sensitive to COVID). Clearly, this contributes to untimely death, right? So should we ban all junk food advertising on Youtube? Also, how about a ban on all pharmaceutical advertising on Youtube (which is the norm in most countries)?
ihsw 5y ago
There is such a thing as anti-mandate pro-vaccine activists and their voice is being squashed as well. There is no nuance to the conversation.
OJFord 5y ago
> proven to get clicks and earn them money Aren't they already 'demonetised' (as Youtube terms its withdrawal of adverts and hence money)? I agree though, simply not recommending them (i.e. you can be linked to them, or get them from search results only) would be better.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  I'd imagine most of this type of thing (prominent anti-vaccine personalities) is externally monetized via donations, as opposed to directly through YouTube.
- toyg 5y ago
  It's all very simple, considering Youtube has had a feature to keep videos out of their search indexes since, I don't know, forever...? It's effectively a form of voluntary shadowbanning, used by people who just want to embed videos somewhere else or, y'know, simply keep them somewhat private. YT could just say "right, anything we object to, gets removed from the search index." Two-minutes job. If you want to be more proactive, stop them from embedding too, so they can't be reposted elsewhere. The videos are then effectively neutered and only the already-nutcase will see them, limiting the virality.
- capdeck 5y ago
  > Aren't they already 'demonetised'... That affects only content creator. YouTube, even if not directly profiting from ads, profits indirectly from you staying on the site and moving on to other 'monetized' videos eventually.
- emilfihlman 5y ago
  Demonetised videos can be loss leaders, pulling views to other monetised videos and having the user stay on the platform.
VikingCoder 5y ago
Not entirely true. If it's hosted on YouTube and then goes viral on Twitter or Facebook...
chmsky00 5y ago
The stupid information is still out there. It’s just not on YouTube. We don’t live in the reality where the local book store and media owner keeping information away actually had an impact. This only effects YouTube. Of the millions of other sites out there. I think even the smart people are a bit stuck on YouTubes marketing effects on their limbic brain versus the reality; the bad info is just a Google search or friend posting in private away for anyone still. YouTube is not the center of the internet.
vibrato2 5y ago
The only disinformation I've seen about these vaccines has been from Fauci and other pro vaxxers. “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.” - Joe Biden there was never a basis for this statement, making it clear disinformation. Grass roots research doesn't fit the bill of what that word means.
- KittenInABox 5y ago
  I might suggest we avoid using superlatives. I have seen disinformation about vaccines both from mainstream media presumptions that breakthrough infections won't happen at all, and also from other mainstream media publishing entire segments that the vaccine might cause infertility in women or somehow affect the fetus (a spreading of FUD basically).
  - vibrato2 5y ago
    I will certainly disregard your suggestion. It's proven that the spike protein accumulates in the ovaries after vaccine injection. As the FDA claims, there is no long term data. Anecdotally I've heard many pregnancies ended from the shot. It's not FUD to be concerned about female fertility. We have no long term data and we know the spike protein accumulates in the ovaries from mRNA injections.
    - afavour 5y ago
      > A study shows the vaccine accumulating in the ovaries - False > This theory comes from a misreading of a study submitted to the Japanese regulator. The study involved giving rats a much higher dose of vaccine than that given to humans (1,333 times higher). > Only 0.1% of the total dose ended up in the animals' ovaries, 48 hours after injection. Far more - 53% after one hour and 25% after 48 hours - was found at the injection site (in humans, usually the arm). The next most common place was the liver (16% after 48 hours), which helps get rid of waste products from the blood. > And those promoting this claim cherry-picked a figure which actually referred to the concentration of fat found in the ovaries. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57552527 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57552527 "Anecdotally I've heard many pregnancies ended from the shot." No you haven't. You've heard of pregnancies ending in people that happen to also have been vaccinated but you have no proof connecting the two. The reality is that a lot more pregnancies fail than anyone cares to admit in public because couples tend to be private it about it. This is nothing new. It's heartbreaking for everyone that experiences it and anti-vaxxers latching onto it to serve their agenda is incredibly sad.
swayvil 5y ago
It isn't the guy with the gun. It's actually the bullets that are to blame.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Ha. I think part of this struggle, to borrow your analogy, is that YouTube and Facebook are organizationally blind to the fact that they built a gun. Or maybe Google is concerned. And Facebook just doesn't care. But the root cause is "algorithms for increasing engagement will prefer shock content." Solve that, and they wouldn't need to band-aid issues like this.
  - swayvil 5y ago
    Dude, the "root cause" is that profit is part of the equation. There is no "right algorithm" for controlling the public conversation. All fascism is bad fascism. Is that overboard?
    - ethbr0 5y ago
      How'd you get from profit to censorship to fascism? That's a lot of jumps! There are simpler explanations.
      - swayvil 5y ago
        Fascism is governmental power (ie dictatorial control over the public conversation.) in the hands of the corporation. Which is exactly what we have here.
afarrell 5y ago
There seems to be an AI safety problem here: The youtube algorithm is optimizing for engagement at the cost of some other less-quantifiable human value like social trust. https://youtu.be/L5pUA3LsEaw https://youtu.be/L5pUA3LsEaw
- macinjosh 5y ago
  I am gonna go out on a limb and say Google's product dashboards likely all have engagement metrics and probably close to zero have "social trust" metrics.
  - afarrell 5y ago
    Right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
photochemsyn 5y ago
I'm really curious if it would be possible for Youtube / Google etc. to expose their algorithmic interface to their public users so that they could twiddle with the settings themselves - or is that just technologically impossible given the internal structure of their systems? I really have no idea, but I've been wondering about it for some time.
- goldenbikeshed 5y ago
  Technologically possible, corporocratically impossible - it would lose the company money.
BeefWellington 5y ago
I personally really preferred old Youtube, where your subscriptions were the main thing you saw along with the absolute "most popular viewed today" kinds of things. The algorithm has only made the site worse in my experience and I always go directly to my subscriptions to be able to at least see things I'm subbed to.
- syshum 5y ago
  It appears to me that YT is actively trying to move away from subscriptions completely, relaying on this recommendation algorithm for everything hell I would not be surprised if with in 5 years they remove the subscribe button completely, replacing it with just the notification bell
- toby- 5y ago
  I'm of the same opinion. A user's subscriptions seemingly matter very little nowadays, I've noticed. The focus on recommendations is so heavy I'm very often recommended videos I've already watched, some of them multiple times; very few recommendations are videos (old or new) from channels I'm subscribed to. I've also noticed that many content creators are now offering email newsletters (such as Tom Scott) and encouraging subscribers to connect outside of YouTube, presumably as a response to this.
  - NoraCodes 5y ago
    Why would YouTube recommend videos from people you're subscribed to? You already have a reliable feed of those videos on the subscriptions feed. They are trying to get you to subscribe to other channels to increase your watch time.
    - 0xffff2 5y ago
      I agree. This is actually my chief complaint about YouTube's front page. I wish there were options to categorically remove videos from channels I'm subscribed to and videos I've already watched from the recommendation feed.
    - 5y ago
sz4kerto 5y ago
I'm not sure that 'banning' and 'changing the algorithm so that it doesn't pop up' is meaningfully different. We can just assume that YT hasn't banned this content, but it never ever shows up in recommendations. The effect would be practically the same. It's a hard problem to solve.
- syshum 5y ago
  Banning means the content is not accessible at all. Changing the Algorithm would mean the content is less discoverable but could still spread outside the platform via alternative methods, such as Tweets, Links, emails, slack, etc. There is a difference, and the effect is not the same
vkou 5y ago
> Bans like this look incredibly stupid when you realise YouTube itself is responsible for this disinformation getting so much traction. People keep repeating that the solution to bad speech is more speech, and more speech is more money for YouTube. Unsurprisingly, more speech on this subject has not managed to drown out the nonsense, but it has done a great job of amplifying it.

BrianOnHN 5y ago

Admitting change to the algo inherently admits fault, so good luck waiting for that. Counsel will never allow it.

IgorPartola 5y ago

Let 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 ago
Let 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 ago
  Two 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 ago
  That 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.
  - zpeti 5y ago
    Right. But what happens before it's retracted? The incorrect position of the authority is repeated, and now in this case is basically denied distribution by Youtube. Now in this case youtube is probably right "scientifically", but what if they weren't like with masks? You basically have 0 discussion or challenge allowed to the authorities position. And lets just bring in the recent controversy here, a panel of scientists said third shots shouldn't be administered. Yet the government decided they should. Which position will youtube censor?
    - jquery 5y ago
      What if ISIS was right about the nature of God and we will all suffer hellfire in the afterlife? There’s no obligation for YouTube to give terrorists a platform. Regarding a booster shot, I’m sure they will make reasonable calls, nearly exclusively only silencing bad-faith actors. Much like their policy towards CP or terrorist content.
    - davesque 5y ago
      Seems like your basic point is that no trusted authority should ever be wrong about something. I'm sure you would say, "No, that's not what I meant." But that seems like the only thing that could be implied by what you're saying. You didn't address a very important point that the parent comment made which is that trusted authorities like the CDC are more likely to correct their mistakes whereas anti-vax propagandists will never retract their statements. That's part of what makes the CDC trustworthy compared to the propagandists. The fact that the CDC or any other trusted public organization has technically made a mistake in the past seems like an irrelevant distraction. Haven't you ever had an argument with a spouse or family member where you called out something they were doing and they came back with, "Look who's taking."? And that felt like a bullshit tactic, right? Accusations of hypocrisy are a really common fallacy in debate. They contribute nothing to the discussion at hand and are basically just an appeal to emotion. And what you're doing is just a version of that.
- unethical_ban 5y ago
  Good-faith vs. bad faith. I hate that the CDC did that action, only because it gave skeptics another reason to distrust them. But it is 100% clear to anyone who, you know, was alive when it happened that they did that to prevent a mask shortage for those who needed them most. I would rather have seen some emergency declaration that N95s must be seized from stores and go to healthcare workers, but that would have caused perhaps an even bigger panic. Because then, everyone would have freaked out, vs. what they did. Now, we only have people who were already going to distrust government giving a shit about the mask declaration last year. Back to good-faith vs. bad-faith: I'm not certain there is more than a hair's worth of anti-vaccine content that is produced with good intention or even attempted to be backed by statistics. Put simply, I wager there is no anti-vaccine content produced out of a legitimate, well-founded public interest. It's charlatans, fools, anti-science and anti-authority interests.
  - zpeti 5y ago
    What's your position on the current third shot issue? Should we listen to the scientist panel that said no, or the government that said yes? What is youtube's position? Will it delete all government communications because the scientists said on, or will it delete all scientific discussion because the government said yes?
    - IgorPartola 5y ago
      Let’s not add misinformation here. It was a panel of researches at the CDC that said the evidence for boosters for under 65 at risk individuals was marginal that the thought it wasn’t worth it. A similar panel of researches at the FDA said it was a close call but they said it was worth it. The CDC panel is advisory to the FDA panel, not the other way around. The debate here is specifically for under 65 at risk individuals.
      - marcosdumay 5y ago
        Besides, the official recommendation was more on the line of "a 3rd dose is much less useful than applying those vaccines on the antivaxers". What is very clearly correct, but is of a laughable political naivety, because the preferred goal is practically impossible to reach.
dongping 5y ago
Or this way, let’s say that YouTube hosts earlier anti-mask content from Dr. Fauci/CDC and as a result some percentage of people are swayed by this content to not wear mask. Some percentage of them dies. Do you think that YouTube did a good thing by allowing that content?
- hef19898 5y ago
  Yes, because back then (as much as a communications fuck-up that was) this was scientific consensus. What Youtube is banning is pure propaganda and falsehoods.
  - dongping 5y ago
    The scientific consensus was that there was no evidence that mask would work (or not work) for 2019-nCoV. There's plenty of evidence that it helps prevent transmission of other respiratory viruses. So which hypothesis would have most likely been true at the time? Not to mention that Dr. Fauci himself had admitted that it was a noble lie (aka pure propaganda and falsehoods).
    - IgorPartola 5y ago
      That’s a slightly better description of what happened. And I will say it again: two wrongs don’t make a right.
      - dongping 5y ago
        Surely it would be great if you might provide a better description of the event (and the timeline, long after the outbreak in Wuhan).
        IgorPartola 5y ago
        Surely. But frankly I don’t feel like it.
  - 5y ago
afavour 5y ago
IMO one of the reasons these debates go back and forth forever is because it’s impossible to come up hard and fast rules that cover every scenario. Maybe a poorly thought out analogy but think about cars. There are a ton of car accidents every year, a good number of which result in death. But we don’t ban cars because they’re essential for the way many people live. But if 50% of all car journeys resulted in accidents? Maybe we’d be having a different conversation.
DiabloD3 5y ago
That is a moral argument and has no place in a discussion of the laws of a modern western country. We are a system of law, not a system of justice. Although I do agree with you that anti-vaxers should be treated no different than common terrorists; as Americans, under the law, they have a right to declare that they are terrorists and give their little illogical terrorist rants. The First Amendment is very clear on what is not covered, and the courts have repeatedly confirmed that being wrong, being disingenuous, and lying is covered (as long as you are not committing perjury or other similar, actual, crimes). Our founding fathers knew exactly what they were doing when they penned this: in their day, they also had their form of denialism. The first amendment is, essentially, "It is better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubts.", but weaponized against the idiots that shall forever plague us. That said, if a rational adult, one that we have, as a society, cannot tell the difference between the truth and the lies, then we have both failed as a society, but also have trusted an adult to actually act like one and they, personally, made the choice to act like a spoiled brat; acting like a spoiled brat is not a victimless crime, and sometimes, but not always, they are punished like an adult for violating the trust of the society that they live in.
- IgorPartola 5y ago
  First amendment doesn’t apply here. This is not about the government persecuting individuals on the basis of what they are saying.
- HeroOfAges 5y ago
  It almost seems as if you believe you can't be lied to by the people you agree with. In this case, we'll call them "vaxxers" since you seem to believe only "anti-vaxers" are capable of duplicity.
  - DiabloD3 5y ago
    Nope, because that's the beauty of science. I personally run on a "trust, but verify" basis: science allows society to come together and verify many aspects of claims: can it be done, can it be replicated, what's the likelihood of the replication actually measuring a real effect, etc. "Vaxxers", as you have so put it, (or as I like to call them, normal human beings) have reached a level of proof that vaccines are safe, and that, specifically, the COVID-19 vaccines currently in deployment are several magnitudes safer than, say, contracting COVID-19 itself. "Anti-Vaxxers", however, have (un?)intentionally proved that vaccines work, performing one of the largest voluntary human drug trials in history as the placebo group. Their sacrifice shall, hopefully, not be forgotten (lest we repeat it).
noxer 5y ago
The whole thing is a "correlation does not imply causation" fallacy because you just assume that changing one thing lead to the change of something else while ignoring all the other effect it has. For example by leaving the content and being a neutral platform the subjective value of the content on the platform is higher. More people who are not sure about something can listen both sides and choose based on that. However by removing it you exclude these people (for a million of other topics too) even trough they could very well end up on the "right" side after doing their own research. They wont do this if its clear that the platform already removed one side and the other therefore is propaganda. So by removing it, how many additional death would this actually cause? You just leave this out. What if it causes thousands of deaths too? Let’s say in absolute numbers it is 10000 people. You can now make a non-emotionally decision whether removing it or not is actually a good idea because the arbitrary appeal to emotion evens out. This is the way think about such stuff, not by making arbitrary emotional "arguments" which can not be proven or disproved and may as well be completely irrelevant or even in reverse. Whenever the "logic" of "X people (less) die if we do Y" is used its an attempt to make it emotional instead of rational it should ring some bells and raise some flags. You can see this with autonomous driving or gun control an many other topics. Its some kind of appeal to emotion fallacy combined with false cause fallacy. And instead of convincing anyone or find common ground it just pushes people to more extreme opposition. Because you "literally kill people if you disagree with X".
- IgorPartola 5y ago
  The pragmatic thing is to remove the blatantly false content to prevent deaths. That’s not an emotional argument, that’s a logical one. Some percentage of people will watch anti-vax videos on YouTube, will believe them, will not vaccinate, and some percentage will die. Not having that content there would mean more people get vaccinated and fewer die. Nobody is dying from getting vaccinated. Also, I would love to see what common ground looks like with anti-vaxxers. I don’t think they are willing to give an inch on this, but willing to be proven wrong.
  - noxer 5y ago
    The damage to the "value of the content" is done anyway even if you "just" "remove blatantly false content". Also instead of an arbitrator of truth you need an arbitrator of "blatantly false" which is exactly as impossible and comes with the same risk of abuse of power, bias and all that. Anyway you missed the point where I assumed the death evens out aka try make an argument that isn't based on emotion an "backed" by numbers we can not know. >Also, I would love to see what common ground looks like with anti-vaxxers. I don’t think they are willing to give an inch on this, but willing to be proven wrong. I'm not an anti-vaxxer but I'm p sure the common ground for most of them would be to let people decide. Anti-vaxxers who want to remove pro-vaccine information to prevent people from dying form the vaccine seem to be rather rare. As far as I know most are perfectly fine with anyone voluntary injecting toxic and dying. They might be wrong on almost everything but that doesn't mean common ground can not be found. Also by picking the furthest away extreme position to proof no common ground is possible is kind silly. We wan common ground for the majority on both sides not with the extremists.
photochemsyn 5y ago
It's an interesting question, but keep in mind that Youtube allows junk food advertising targeted towards children, which contributes to the obesity epidemic, and obese people have much higher medical needs and tend to die earlier (and are much more sensitive to COVID). Clearly, this contributes to untimely death, right? So should we ban all junk food advertising on Youtube? Also, how about a ban on all pharmaceutical advertising on Youtube (which is the norm in most countries)?

ihsw 5y ago

There is such a thing as anti-mandate pro-vaccine activists and their voice is being squashed as well. There is no nuance to the conversation.

OJFord 5y ago

> proven to get clicks and earn them money Aren't they already 'demonetised' (as Youtube terms its withdrawal of adverts and hence money)? I agree though, simply not recommending them (i.e. you can be linked to them, or get them from search results only) would be better.

ethbr0 5y ago
I'd imagine most of this type of thing (prominent anti-vaccine personalities) is externally monetized via donations, as opposed to directly through YouTube.
toyg 5y ago
It's all very simple, considering Youtube has had a feature to keep videos out of their search indexes since, I don't know, forever...? It's effectively a form of voluntary shadowbanning, used by people who just want to embed videos somewhere else or, y'know, simply keep them somewhat private. YT could just say "right, anything we object to, gets removed from the search index." Two-minutes job. If you want to be more proactive, stop them from embedding too, so they can't be reposted elsewhere. The videos are then effectively neutered and only the already-nutcase will see them, limiting the virality.
capdeck 5y ago
> Aren't they already 'demonetised'... That affects only content creator. YouTube, even if not directly profiting from ads, profits indirectly from you staying on the site and moving on to other 'monetized' videos eventually.
emilfihlman 5y ago
Demonetised videos can be loss leaders, pulling views to other monetised videos and having the user stay on the platform.

VikingCoder 5y ago

Not entirely true. If it's hosted on YouTube and then goes viral on Twitter or Facebook...

chmsky00 5y ago

The stupid information is still out there. It’s just not on YouTube. We don’t live in the reality where the local book store and media owner keeping information away actually had an impact. This only effects YouTube. Of the millions of other sites out there. I think even the smart people are a bit stuck on YouTubes marketing effects on their limbic brain versus the reality; the bad info is just a Google search or friend posting in private away for anyone still. YouTube is not the center of the internet.

vibrato2 5y ago

The only disinformation I've seen about these vaccines has been from Fauci and other pro vaxxers. “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.” - Joe Biden there was never a basis for this statement, making it clear disinformation. Grass roots research doesn't fit the bill of what that word means.

KittenInABox 5y ago
I might suggest we avoid using superlatives. I have seen disinformation about vaccines both from mainstream media presumptions that breakthrough infections won't happen at all, and also from other mainstream media publishing entire segments that the vaccine might cause infertility in women or somehow affect the fetus (a spreading of FUD basically).
- vibrato2 5y ago
  I will certainly disregard your suggestion. It's proven that the spike protein accumulates in the ovaries after vaccine injection. As the FDA claims, there is no long term data. Anecdotally I've heard many pregnancies ended from the shot. It's not FUD to be concerned about female fertility. We have no long term data and we know the spike protein accumulates in the ovaries from mRNA injections.
  - afavour 5y ago
    > A study shows the vaccine accumulating in the ovaries - False > This theory comes from a misreading of a study submitted to the Japanese regulator. The study involved giving rats a much higher dose of vaccine than that given to humans (1,333 times higher). > Only 0.1% of the total dose ended up in the animals' ovaries, 48 hours after injection. Far more - 53% after one hour and 25% after 48 hours - was found at the injection site (in humans, usually the arm). The next most common place was the liver (16% after 48 hours), which helps get rid of waste products from the blood. > And those promoting this claim cherry-picked a figure which actually referred to the concentration of fat found in the ovaries. https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57552527 https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57552527 "Anecdotally I've heard many pregnancies ended from the shot." No you haven't. You've heard of pregnancies ending in people that happen to also have been vaccinated but you have no proof connecting the two. The reality is that a lot more pregnancies fail than anyone cares to admit in public because couples tend to be private it about it. This is nothing new. It's heartbreaking for everyone that experiences it and anti-vaxxers latching onto it to serve their agenda is incredibly sad.

swayvil 5y ago

It isn't the guy with the gun. It's actually the bullets that are to blame.

ethbr0 5y ago
Ha. I think part of this struggle, to borrow your analogy, is that YouTube and Facebook are organizationally blind to the fact that they built a gun. Or maybe Google is concerned. And Facebook just doesn't care. But the root cause is "algorithms for increasing engagement will prefer shock content." Solve that, and they wouldn't need to band-aid issues like this.
- swayvil 5y ago
  Dude, the "root cause" is that profit is part of the equation. There is no "right algorithm" for controlling the public conversation. All fascism is bad fascism. Is that overboard?
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    How'd you get from profit to censorship to fascism? That's a lot of jumps! There are simpler explanations.
    - swayvil 5y ago
      Fascism is governmental power (ie dictatorial control over the public conversation.) in the hands of the corporation. Which is exactly what we have here.

afarrell 5y ago

There seems to be an AI safety problem here: The youtube algorithm is optimizing for engagement at the cost of some other less-quantifiable human value like social trust. https://youtu.be/L5pUA3LsEaw https://youtu.be/L5pUA3LsEaw

macinjosh 5y ago
I am gonna go out on a limb and say Google's product dashboards likely all have engagement metrics and probably close to zero have "social trust" metrics.
- afarrell 5y ago
  Right. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy

photochemsyn 5y ago

I'm really curious if it would be possible for Youtube / Google etc. to expose their algorithmic interface to their public users so that they could twiddle with the settings themselves - or is that just technologically impossible given the internal structure of their systems? I really have no idea, but I've been wondering about it for some time.

goldenbikeshed 5y ago
Technologically possible, corporocratically impossible - it would lose the company money.

BeefWellington 5y ago

I personally really preferred old Youtube, where your subscriptions were the main thing you saw along with the absolute "most popular viewed today" kinds of things. The algorithm has only made the site worse in my experience and I always go directly to my subscriptions to be able to at least see things I'm subbed to.

syshum 5y ago
It appears to me that YT is actively trying to move away from subscriptions completely, relaying on this recommendation algorithm for everything hell I would not be surprised if with in 5 years they remove the subscribe button completely, replacing it with just the notification bell
toby- 5y ago
I'm of the same opinion. A user's subscriptions seemingly matter very little nowadays, I've noticed. The focus on recommendations is so heavy I'm very often recommended videos I've already watched, some of them multiple times; very few recommendations are videos (old or new) from channels I'm subscribed to. I've also noticed that many content creators are now offering email newsletters (such as Tom Scott) and encouraging subscribers to connect outside of YouTube, presumably as a response to this.
- NoraCodes 5y ago
  Why would YouTube recommend videos from people you're subscribed to? You already have a reliable feed of those videos on the subscriptions feed. They are trying to get you to subscribe to other channels to increase your watch time.
  - 0xffff2 5y ago
    I agree. This is actually my chief complaint about YouTube's front page. I wish there were options to categorically remove videos from channels I'm subscribed to and videos I've already watched from the recommendation feed.
  - 5y ago

sz4kerto 5y ago

I'm not sure that 'banning' and 'changing the algorithm so that it doesn't pop up' is meaningfully different. We can just assume that YT hasn't banned this content, but it never ever shows up in recommendations. The effect would be practically the same. It's a hard problem to solve.

syshum 5y ago
Banning means the content is not accessible at all. Changing the Algorithm would mean the content is less discoverable but could still spread outside the platform via alternative methods, such as Tweets, Links, emails, slack, etc. There is a difference, and the effect is not the same

vkou 5y ago

> Bans like this look incredibly stupid when you realise YouTube itself is responsible for this disinformation getting so much traction. People keep repeating that the solution to bad speech is more speech, and more speech is more money for YouTube. Unsurprisingly, more speech on this subject has not managed to drown out the nonsense, but it has done a great job of amplifying it.