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I 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 discu

• jakelazaroff 5y ago
  Okay, 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 ago
    People 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
      In Texas, as a schoolteacher, you must agree not to boycott Israel. Is boycotting violence?
      • mc32 5y ago
        I feel that is overreach by the state (and there are quite a few others), but I would also ask if boycotting is not violence then not using a specific pronoun would fall in the same category as the above -impolite but not violent. As a teacher, your job is to educate in the subject, teach some social behaviors (civics0 and stay away from political indoctrination.
        • IndPhysiker 5y ago
          It isn't an overstep, but is probably just a weird method for compliance. The Export Administration Regulation is a US federal law that includes penalties for supporting boycotts of US trade partners and allies. Normally this is directed towards anti-Israel boycotts in the middle east where legislation in several countries prohibit trade with organizations that also trade with Israel. If a US entity adheres to that country's boycott by refusing business with Israel, then they are in a legally actionable position. I don't personally know how Texas may be notifying people about compliance requirements, but this is actually pretty standard language in many contracts involving export compliance sections.
  • invisible 5y ago
    We are on a news site focused mostly on tech, startups, and entrepreneurship that often just has other intellectual conversations. It makes sense that the general flavor of submissions leans tech. > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
  • rvz 5y ago
    > 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. Do you mind reading the HN guidelines once again? [0] HN is not for flamewars or ideological battles especially when comments like this are unsubstantiated with lack of evidence. From [0] > Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
    • jakelazaroff 5y ago
      I don’t see the issue here. My comment is on-topic and not more flamebaity or ideological than the average comment in this thread.
      • rvz 5y ago
        Not only your comment is unsubstantiated and has no evidence, it had already created a flamewar and caused the whole thread to go off topic which is exactly what the HN guidelines I highlighted to you is supposed to prevent as the topic gets divisive. Can you please read the HN guidelines again? [0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
        • deleted 5y ago
          [deleted]
        • jakelazaroff 5y ago
          I would hardly call this handful of replies (within a thread of 1200 comments) a "flamewar", and I disagree that it's unsubstantiated or off-topic. If the moderators think I'm breaking the guidelines, I'll happily comply. Until then, could you please stop telling me to read them?
          • rvz 5y ago
            So you will continue to break the guidelines until you get caught? Right. Your comment is still unsubstantiated, has zero evidence and also risked (and has caused) a flamewar in this thread to go off-topic and that is exactly how it can get divisive very quickly and it was already met with mass flagging earlier from other users to prevent other replies from falling for this flame-bait. > Until then, could you please stop telling me to read them? By commenting here, I assume you have read the guidelines but it seems that you already admitted that you haven't read them which why I'm asking you to read them once again. From [0] > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive. > Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  • josephcsible 5y ago
    > states are enacting legal bans against teaching the history of racism There's a big difference between keeping government employees from saying certain things during their official duties, and keeping everyone from saying certain things in general.
    • jakelazaroff 5y ago
      Sure, but there’s also a big difference between keeping YouTube users from saying certain things on YouTube, and keeping everyone from saying certain things in general.
      • josephcsible 5y ago
        That's not the equivalent. The equivalent would be keeping Google employees from saying certain things on YouTube with their work accounts.
        • jakelazaroff 5y ago
          The article is about keeping YouTube users from saying certain things on YouTube.
      • pacerwpg 5y ago
        Ah, the irony of your root comment getting censored by being flagged in a thread about censorship, because it wasn't popular.
        • jakelazaroff 5y ago
          You can really feel the commitment to public debate!
    • themusicgod1 5y ago
      what was the above comment?
      • 5y ago
  • jquery 5y ago
    Precisely. This is a private company taking a stand against dangerous medical disinformation in the middle of a pandemic and HN is willing to die on this hill. Meanwhile I see HN cheer what you just mentioned. It churns the stomach. Reminds me of how Reddit just dropped the ban hammer threat on /r/hermancainaward because it was making right-wingers angry, while leaving up /r/conspiracy and other antivaxx disinformation subreddits. The faces of the dead have to be censored now, sanitizing the entire experience of /r/hermancainaward, making the experience little more than a bunch of anonymous antivaxx memes.
• Dumblydorr 5y ago
  The wackos are the ones creating the context in which moderate voices lose their power. If you want moderation, you have to remove the extreme BS and the algorithms that thrive on it, which process buries moderates and makes their views anathema to the polarized extremes. Why allow polarized extremes to form on your private, I must emphasize privately owned, platform? This isn't the public square, freedom of speech does not guarantee freedom of reach. Content moderation is a good thing, it has the word moderate in it after all, that may signal that it promotes healthy dialogue just like public ridicule and scorn and shame should, in theory, moderate discourse actually covered by free speech in the public square, where it's not anonymous.
  • vorpalhex 5y ago
    The wackos don't actually have the power to take down moderates as parent discusses. Only youtube has that power. Content moderation is not inherently good or bad, it simply is. A version of Youtube that cracked down on well known science would be legal but not "good".
  • SamPatt 5y ago
    The problem is: who determines who the "wackos" are and what is and isn't "extreme BS"? If it's defined by social consensus then during periods of groupthink and hysteria (common among humans) even the most reasonable people will be labeled wackos and shunned.
    • jakelazaroff 5y ago
      Do you think YouTube would be justified in banning ISIS recruitment videos, for example? After all, who’s to say that’s “extreme BS”?
      • HeroOfAges 5y ago
        Well, any ISIS content on the platform could be considered recruitment material. If in the content of the video no crime has been committed, YouTube would not be justified in banning ISIS recruitment videos or any of their content.
• inglor_cz 5y ago
  This is my concern as well. How many people refrain from saying anything about Covid at all for fear of triggering some mindless algorithms? Human review of such blunders is unreliable at best.
  • bildung 5y ago
    Funnily enough, I have exactly this problem with ads on a youtube channel right now. On the Channel, one video mentions Covid in the context of healthcare politics. This results in instant rejection of ads for other videos about other topics. Requesting review of the denial results in confirmation of the denial in about 95% of the cases so far. The video in question is citing official recommondations, i.e. is pro-vaccination, of course.
  • ggggtez 5y ago
    Obviously not enough people are shutting up, given the way that antivax content is the #1 propagator on Facebook. There is money to be made from lying to people. That's why it's being banned. It should have been done last year honestly, but social media companies were afraid to anger Trump. They took the barest actions to add warnings, and no surprise, no one reads them.
    • rabuse 5y ago
      I shouldn't need to be "warned" about some wrongthink by a platform that believes they know the world best. It's dystopian as fuck.
      • xadhominemx 5y ago
        It’s not “wrongthink”, it’s actually just factually wrong and people are dying because they believe it anyway.
    • inglor_cz 5y ago
      This isn't question of quantity (not enough) but quality. The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.
• mc32 5y ago
  Thank you for presenting the nuance. It’s easy to condemn the quacks and extremely ill informed, but all sorts of opinions get swept away. Skeptics, those who want to study the details, exceptions, oddities, etc., get swept up by the system thus stifling legitimate debate and learning of a critical topic.
  • raxxorrax 5y ago
    Covid is a serious disease, there is denying of that. But information control of this kind is far more insidious and overtakes Covid here by a few steps in my opinion. There is a loud advertising crowd that is transparently motivated to stick it to some deniers that will welcome this and I think they put pressure on Youtube. In some form they deserve each other. I think this behavior is just as resistant to learning, not hat I think that this measure will even net you one more vaccinated person or that it will change any position. So this only incurs huge cost without benefit.
• silicon2401 5y ago
  Society in general has been making chilling moves away from free speech, and this has been accelerated by the pandemic. I hope the pendulum will swing the other way, but it's also possible to cross a tipping point where we just lose our way.
  • BeefWellington 5y ago
    It's funny to me because Free Speech is one of those topics on its own that doesn't permit nuance in my experience - either you're for it or you're a dictator/sheep/lapdog/etc. In reality though, laws have been limiting speech for hundreds of years, and those laws and judgements are enforced by the government. The idea that it is sacrosanct and is (and should "continue" to be) unabated is already not what happens. The usual example is about shouting bomb in an airport or fire in a crowded movie theatre but those are more about mischief than any freedom to say a thing (you aren't punished for the words alone). However, Libel and Slander laws exist and have for a long long time and are limits on free speech. I'm not in favor of draconian laws designed to chill debate but it's important to recognize that limits already exist and how we navigate where to draw the line is the key I think.
    • spamizbad 5y ago
      Nobody complained when social media sites shut down ISIL videos or Taliban content. And why would they? Those are bad ideas from bad people! But anti-vaccine content? Why, that could be your neighbor! And your neighbor doesn't deserve to be censored (unlike the evil people who definitely needed to be)
      • evv555 5y ago
        That's a very selective interpretation on events. ISIS propaganda spread like wildfire through Twitter. The administration did nothing and the media barely made a peep about the root cause until the horses had already left the barn. None of these "concerned" stakeholders gave a shit about the socially corrosive nature of social media and they still don't beyond their own interests.
• sixothree 5y ago
  I wouldn't blame YouTube here. I would blame the anti-vaxxers. They created an impossible atmosphere for youtube to navigate.
  • yonaguska 5y ago
    The beatings will continue until morale improves.
  • risk000 5y ago
    Anti-vaxxer is a pejorative word, it lumps people together in ways that aren't fair. Many were just skeptical and wanted to discuss and debate the evidence, and that was ridiculed, as evident everywhere in this thread.
• ocdtrekkie 5y ago
  I'm not sure "legitimate public debate" is warranted in this case. Too many people who are not qualified think they have "done their own research" and come to conclusions causing real harm to other people. Even MDs are not necessarily well-suited to make expert opinions on pandemics and vaccine technology and such. A lot of MDs are qualified to diagnose conditions and recommend treatment and prescription medication... that doesn't mean they should act like they know more than people who specialize in infectious diseases. The place for "debate" of the effectiveness and safety of vaccines is peer-reviewed studies, not YouTube videos.
  • photochemsyn 5y ago
    There is a certain legitimate distrust at this point over the lab leak issue. That's because of those two papers published in I believe Nature and the Lancet claiming that the evidence strongly supported a natural origin theory; those papers have now been discredited and some of the authors have deleted their Twitter accounts after exposure of their own emails that questioned natural origin theories due to anomalies in the viral sequence. That's very suspicious behavior for 'peer-reviewed research'.
    • criddell 5y ago
      So you're saying the system works?
      • Notanothertoo 5y ago
        The lab leak is still not known or accepted by the wider public. Even after vanity fairs write up.
      • photochemsyn 5y ago
        1) The papers shouldn't have made it through any kind of honest peer-review process. 2) The papers to my knowledge have not been formally retracted, which is what normally happens after a peer-reviewed report is discredited. So, not working very well.
  • 5y ago
• winternett 5y ago
  Youtube should have instead declared war on the companies and people that are simply generating junk content to game their creator funds... No one really wants to uncover the fact that most disinformation campaigns are simply created by people who are desperate to make money off of video views, and also those who want to sell off products (like horse de-wormer) that they may have an overstock of. YouTube should de-monetize all independent and unverifiable political content instead of this censorship approach. Taking away the money making for people who just want to stoke public emotions to their benefit of popularity. Politics should not be a for-profit business... No content platform wants to give that profit up because it generates a lot of money, but we face peril if the profits rise. Make politics boring again. MPBA.
• peakaboo 5y ago
  Honestly, the world has gone off the deep end. I don't even know where to start to explain, but it should be obvious for anyone what's wrong anyway.
• oliwarner 5y ago
  Right to ask, but not without also balancing against the issue of people being utter idiots. A little sensible conversation has lead to tens of thousands of hours doctors talking patients down when they come in demanding anti-parasitic medicines. I don't know what the best balance is. One thing is evident: social media is not the venue for scientific debate.
  • hammock 5y ago
    >anti-parasitic medicines Protease inhibitors* , similar to the one Pfizer is testing right now for COVID.
    • mminer237 5y ago
      I think he was talking about Ivermectin, which is a glutamate-gated chloride channel binder. I've never heard of people taking unprescribed protease inhibitors, although I guess there's no end to snake oil.
      • hammock 5y ago
        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996102/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996102/ >Ivermectin was found as a blocker of viral replicase, protease and human TMPRSS2, which could be the biophysical basis behind its antiviral efficiency. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-01577-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-01577-x >Our results indicate that boceprevir, ombitasvir, paritaprevir, tipranavir, ivermectin, and micafungin exhibited inhibitory effect towards 3CLpro enzymatic activity.
    • oliwarner 5y ago
      No, they're not licensed for that. They're still testing. And that's even forgiving how much work the word "similar" is doing there. It is still the case that thousands of people are badgering their HCPs, trying to get off-licence scripts for something that's efficacy is contested and method isn't certain. The Venn diagram between people who want wormer and those that refuse a vaccine is practically a circle. I stand by my original statement on what sort of people these are. If you want to have a chat about the ongoing research into protease inhibitors, that's great, but anecdotes about curing it with an ill-gotten tube of horse medicine is as dangerous and virulent as covid in the first place.
• nimbius 5y ago
  >I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on open discussion by moderate voices first, youtube isnt where open discussion by moderate voices happens. Its a cavalcade of endlessly random videos promoting everything from free energy to colloidal silver cures and get rich quick schemes. Second, the topic of conversation is vaccination methodology during an ongoing pandemic in which a sizeable quantity of affected persons refuse to vaccinate. This is without a doubt a sensitive topic and likely shouldnt use Youtube as a forum. You should have a gatekeeper and there should be a minimum level of scientific competency and acumen required to participate in the conversation. A moderator should exist, and that moderator is not youtube. Might i suggest matrix or signal? or perhaps even pleroma? as an aside, the concept of an "anti-vaccine activist" is puerile and absolutely should be banned. No reasonable person would evangelize healthy adults forego vaccination during a global pandemic.
  • syshum 5y ago
    >>as an aside, the concept of an "anti-vaccine activist" Well they change what "anti-vaccine" means [1], so now I am classified as a "person who has been vaccinated but is Anti-vaccine" because I oppose any and all governments mandates that would force a person to be vaccinated, or would impose conditions on them by government to participate in society. private companies can impose them but government should not, not if we want to claim to be a free society. Due to my position against authoritarian policies I am officially a "Vaccinated Anti-vaxxer" a oxymoronic label only government could come up with. [1]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-vaxxer https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-vaxxer
    • flavius29663 5y ago
      I never understood why vaccine mandates are so badly received. As long as there are solid exemptions in place, for proof of antibodies or twice a week testing, it should be normal to require it. The mandates themselves can be ok. I personally have a problem with the absolutely insane gaslighting that is happening in the US now. You are not allowed to question anything, or you get cancelled.
• djent 5y ago
  Yes, making claims about vaccines with without basis is "anti-vax"
  • HeroOfAges 5y ago
    Does this include those that made claims about the effectiveness of the vaccine that turned out to be overstated?
    • DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      It depends on who was making those claims, and if those claims were made in good-faith and with the best-available information at the time.
  • _-david-_ 5y ago
    Is somebody who makes the claim that vaccines are better than natural immunity actually "anti-vax"?
• raverbashing 5y ago
  Try having a "legitimate public debate" about anything where the loudest 90% are there to be antagonistic for purely personal reasons (or, in English, jerks) Really, about anything. Free software. Best football players. How to best build a bike shed. Anyone with willingness for legitimate debate gets drowned by the noise.
• arein3 5y ago
  Why should you jump trough so many hoops to convey some information. Why an anti mandatory vaccine person shouldn't be able to explain his position?
• mattigames 5y ago
  I woulb be surprised if even 1% of the videos being pulled out are moderate voices, but that's the price of moderation, in order to enjoy any freedom you need to stay alive but if you get killed by disinformation you lose them all, so in such cases as this one moderation of mass communication channels is the lesser evil even if a few reasonable people get their content pulled out.
  • enriquto 5y ago
    Let's kill them all and God will choose the good ones!
    • mattigames 5y ago
      Let's disinformation roam free in the land of the poorly educated so it can kill them? That doesn't seem very nice.
• aioprisan 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. No such study exists, please link to the primary research. Vaccination always offers stronger protection than getting the virus [1], and more importantly, even if they offered equivalent protection for 99% of people, the portion of the additional 1% of people without a vaccine who show up at a hospital are going to be much sicker than the vaccinated with breakthrough infections and more likely to need to go or stay at a hospital for an extended period of time (29x more likely [2]), which our healthcare system cannot support. We've had to ration care and kick out cancer patients out of hospitals [3], who have subsequently died as a result of lack of care, but we should allow for limited resources to be used up by the willfully unvaccinated? I have personally had family members in need of critical care have care rationed due to hospitals being full with 99%+ unvaccinated folks. So much for the personal responsibility crowd living up to their slogans. [1] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-protection.html https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-pr... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/24/cdc-study-shows-unvaccinated-people-are-29-times-more-likely-to-be-hospitalized-with-covid.html https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/24/cdc-study-shows-unvaccinated... [3] https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article253946053.html https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article25394605...
  • m-ee 5y ago
    That’s not really true that vaccination is always more protective, immunology is complex and there’s more interesting nuance to that. See the latest twiv with Shane Crotty, he goes into detail about how natural infection plus one shot creates a better response than reversing the order. I’m not wringing my hands over anti vax content being pulled at all, but I don’t think we should be reductive about the science. That doesn’t help to establish trust.
  • gotoeleven 5y ago
    You're simply wrong https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101 https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101 This religious fervor that has developed around the vaccine has done as much to burn the establishment's credibility as anything.
• tebruno99 5y ago
  The only reason You can watch any video for free on Youtube at all is because Youtube chooses to let you do so. It is not a public forum for debate, it is a business.
  • swader999 5y ago
    They still use enough of the public commons to be held to account.
    • tebruno99 5y ago
      Not sure what You mean. Do You mean Youtube use other business’ wires, electricity, and services that Youtube pays for to provide You with free videos?
      • swader999 5y ago
        You could go lots of places with it. Tax breaks wherever they build and locate anything physical, section 230, and yeah everything else infrastructure that they use and rely on. Protocols, open source, gov technical bodies etc.
• Bhilai 5y ago
  I agree with most of what you said but my opinion is that right wing media, radio show hosts and podcasters have pushed it too far this time by peddling conspiracy theories that are doing actual harm to populace at large.
• Ardren 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. He was insisting without any studies? How is that not a problem?
  • deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
• dlisboa 5y ago
  > 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. My opinion is that we didn't need YouTube/Facebook to conduct public policy debate before, and we don't need it now. It has brought nothing to the table except the, as you put it, "wackos". I really challenge the idea that there is value to them at all in the public debate. Take this example you gave (by the way I agree that the doctor in question was doing good work). This doctor, 20 years ago, had direct influence in his own practice, some influence in his hospital, and maybe some influence in the health agency, although that is mostly reserved to the politically connected "big doctors" who sit at the top. What is his influence to enact public policy change today? The exact same as it was then. He's no closer to personally convince his health agency or Hospital administration than he was 20 years ago. The difference is that now he has direct influence over millions of people, outside of any nuanced structure or supervision. We may argue this isn't great, or democratic, that is true. But it is also true that YouTube videos and Facebook commenters have contributed nothing of value to public health debate. No single life was saved because of YouTube, except for videos where people were urged to see a "real doctor" and not follow Internet advice. --- As a more general note, I always find the idea that YouTube/Facebook are free speech enablers disturbing. They are companies, they have nothing to do with rights. We have to perform a simple test: If YouTube went bankrupt tomorrow and had to close doors, would someone's right to Free Speech be diminished? They would suddenly not be able to reach as many people, but they'd still hold the exact same rights.
  • Tuckerism 5y ago
    I would say the distinction here is allowing some parties "direct influence over millions of people" and not others. As other commenters have pointed out, it feels like the decision on who gets access to the "virtual town square" is a small, un-elected, and limited-accountability group. I do agree with your final point-- if social media went dark tomorrow, no ones rights would be diminished. But if it went dark for only certain people, I think we would agree that -something- is being diminished (even if it's not necessarily a right or that it's in the best interest of everyone). I fully believe that this is a topic where people get to land differently, and I respect those that do their mental calculus differently. There's so many second-order and third-order effects when it comes to speech, and then you amplify it to global-level... there's no great, clean answer. But ultimately, we get to choose what we weigh as most important-- as I've heard others on HN say, "If we wrap ourselves around every conceivable axle then nothing will be achieved."
• gitfan86 5y ago
  It is a matter of consumer protection. We allow a farmer to set up a farm stand and sell tomatoes by the side of the road without much regulation, because consumers in general can determine if the product is good. We don't allow that farmer to sell auto insurance by the side of the road without regulation. This is because a consumer cannot possibly look at a few documents from the farmer and know the quality and reliability of that auto insurance policy that the farmer is selling. Things are more complicated with regulating free speech because people approach the speech from very different angles. Maybe I watch a scummy Televangelist because I want to make a new farting preacher video. Maybe an elderly person watches the same video and gives away the money she had for food for the week. How do you balance the religious and free speech rights of the preacher, my right to make fun of him, and the consumer protection of the elderly person?
• dragonwriter 5y ago
  > It's the stifling of legitimate public debate No, non-State actors choosing what messages to relay or not with their resources is fundamentally the conduct of public debate, not its suppression.
• ggggtez 5y ago
  > I think we have to ask No we don't. The question we have to ask is whether allowing this content is worse for society than any stifling of moderate voices. And the answer is obviously yes. Covid-hoaxers represent millions of people who are causing a national health crisis that doesn't need to be happening anymore. Fuck moderate voices who are "just asking questions". They can deal with playing a little less devil's advocate, and getting more in board with the obvious health benefits of vaccination.
  • jaybrendansmith 5y ago
    Hard agree. I've had it with moderate voices on this issue, it's a matter of life and death. Would we not push someone out of the way of an oncoming train? Do we not have lights, gates, and bells that ring when a train is going to come through? Should we take those down, and just leave it up to each individual and their opinion? Fuck their idiotic opinions.
    • tastyfreeze 5y ago
      A pandemic is a natural disaster akin to a forest fire. Once a disease reaches pandemic level there is very little that can be done to control or extinguish it. There is no going back to before no matter how hard we try. So, we learn how to live with a new disease without letting fear dictate our behavior.
  • whywhywhywhy 5y ago
    > causing a national health crisis that doesn't need to be happening anymore This just isn't true, it's never going away and nothing can stop it, this is it for the rest of your life. It'll get less deadly over time but you will get covid at some point in your life and you will get it again and again as it mutates over the years. Same with flu it was initially deadly, now it's just bad but it's never going away.
  • Notanothertoo 5y ago
    This is a very dangerous slope, especially because you are so willing to dismiss the conversation under the assumption that you know best/everything.
• _hilro 5y ago
  MD is a just a general doctor correct? So, who is he to make that proclamation: > 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). He doesn't have the expertise to say this.
  • jonemi 5y ago
    MD means Doctor of Medicine, i.e., they completed medical school. Dr. Fauci is a Doctor of Medicine in that he completed medical school and received his MD. After medical school, doctors will enter a residency program for a specialty, but they are still MDs (DOs are equivalent). Their post-graduate training (residency and fellowship) varies but they are still MDs. MDs who specialize in infectious disease or epidemiology are still MDs. MDs who specialize in family medicine are still MDs. You are falsely inferring MD means GP (general practitioner) which it may or may not. And you are further falsely inferring that a GP cannot have expertise in virology and immunology, which they likely don't, but they may. If you were to conclude a GP does not have CREDENTIALS to speak authoritatively about virology and immunology, I'd accept that assertion.
  • willcipriano 5y ago
    Do you have the expertise to evaluate his expertise? Did the person who granted you proof of this expertise also have sufficient expertise to do so? What about the person above that? What is the root of expertise? Plato with his allegory of the cave, casually dismissing claims that come from the wrong mouths in his lofty opinion? In my mind it would be simpler to evaluate claims as they are rather than bringing the speakers life story into it.
• laserbeam 5y ago
  Honestly, in a world where wackos will take the smallest soundbite they agree with from a moderate legitimate discussion, blow it out of proportion and weaponize it... It's hard to imagine this move by Google as overall bad. It's definitely heartbreaking, but so is the fact that a 3rd of the world is refusing to help out with solving the pandemic. I honestly have no idea which move has an overall higher cost for society. Yet, we can't keep incentivizing wackos by giving them a platform or there'll keep being more and more of them. Free speech, amplified to a wide audience is clearly having a negative impact on society and on out ability to be compassionate as a society. Maybe this is a step in the right direction. Only time will tell but it's far to early to criticize the move. Especially when without it, wackos are gaining agency.
• roody15 5y ago
  Agreed shutting down discussion is not helping matters and we appear to be moving in an autocratic dystopian direction as a nation. The FDA advisory panel was overridden to endorse a booster shot. Even mentioning FDA officials resigning and the board being overridden gets you labeled as anti-vax and blocked. Future not looking good :/
  • rchaud 5y ago
    Nothing is stopping you from running a server and hosting your own website.
    • vikingerik 5y ago
      Not yet -- until the upstream network providers and DNS registrars also start dropping you for wrongthink content.
      • shadilay 5y ago
        And cloudflare drops DDoS protection because one guy is in a 'bad mood'. Centralization of power is a moral hazard. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/17/cloudflare-ceo-says-removing-the-daily-stormer-is-slippery-slope.html https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/17/cloudflare-ceo-says-removing...
      • rchaud 5y ago
        Only if you reach a certain scale. Macedonian misinformation sites seem to have figured out the formula.
• codyswann 5y ago
  Don't be naive. It's not the wackos who won't have a platform. It's the people who know vaccines aren't dangerous, but realize they can snag an audience by claiming otherwise, so they prey on those people. These charlatans are the people who won't have a platform and, I say good riddance.
• sto_hristo 5y ago
  The main problem is that you think you need open discussion and public debates on this topic. You don't. That is not a movie or a painting, it's science. You need research, proof, scrutiny. This is a job and it's done by professionals. Moderate voices, voices of reason, voices you like, voices you don't like, opinions, ... are irrelevant, useless, not needed, and just add noise. This noise, in all its forms and shapes is detrimental to the only thing that really matters and has value - what the actual researchers and scientists are communicating back to the public. Opinions, wish-beliefs, convictions are something Reality doesn't concern itself with. Think of it that way - when the plane is falling due to some technical problem, will you open facebook to scout for opinions and rally support, or will you just sit you bottom down and do as you're told by the cabin crew? What about during some surgical procedure - are you going to pop open a youtube stream so that your followers can judge and guide the surgeon? Anyway, too late, too little. Damage has been done. And it's not really youtube or the social network's faults. Even without them, stupidity would find another way to make itself visible.
• jlebar 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'm curious what his evidence is, because I find this argument compelling: https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/574284-natural-covid-19-immunity-is-powerful-but-kind-of-irrelevant https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/574284-natural-covid-...
• yibg 5y ago
  What should happen here? Do we not allow YouTube to ban content they don’t want on their platform? What type of content? Just anti vax or anything that’s not illegal? Should YouTube be forced to host racist content, porn etc? Is it just YouTube or any site with user generated content like forums? What about illegal content? Who gets to decide what’s illegal? Is YouTube the law enforcement on YouTube or do we need to go through courts to take down content that’s potentially illegal? Slippery slopes go both ways.
  • pessimizer 5y ago
    Do you have an opinion on any of these questions? Or are you just implying that the world is so complicated that no one should make any decisions about anything?
    • yibg 5y ago
      My opinion is a private entity like youtube should be able to choose what goes on their platform. We're free to criticize of course, and not use their product if we choose. But they have the right to not host content they don't agree with.
• krageon 5y ago
  > moderate voices Antivaxxers are without exception folks that are harming themselves and the people around them by holding a position that is in every case not well reasoned and in a few cases founded on actual ill thinking (as in mentally ill). Just like actual nazis need to not have a platform, and preventing them from having one hasn't had a stifling effect on society. These people are perpetrating evil with intent, that makes them qualitatively separate from everyone else.
  • caeril 5y ago
    > These people are perpetrating evil with intent, that makes them qualitatively separate from everyone else. Yeah, so HN rules of civility go out the window when you start talking like a tinpot little Hitler. "Qualitatively separate", indeed. To this, I say: go fuck yourself. You're the evil one here. You guys go ahead and enact your dream of putting us on boxcars, we'll see how that works out for you. Just test us, asshole.
  • tro7ghor4 5y ago
    >without exception >harming themselves >mentally ill >actual nazis >perpetrating evil I hope you're just an inflammatory bot because this post is complete garbage.
• tomrod 5y ago
  > I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on open discussion by moderate voices I argue that it won't. We have had over a year for Anti-vaccination advocates to make their case. In all instances the goalposts tend to move. Spotlighting continual questioning and false claims benefits no one. It's time to move on.
• SSilver2k2 5y ago
  No one is stopping anyone from hosting their own website and getting on their own soap box. You just can't do it on this person's lawn anymore.
  • shadilay 5y ago
    What happens when the company owns the whole town and you're not allowed to have your own lawn to speak on?
    • SSilver2k2 5y ago
      What happens when aliens land and vaporize us?
• numeromancer 5y ago
  The accumulation of "chilling effects" has now become a deep-freeze.
• esja 5y ago
  The stifling seems to be by design, or at the very least it's being considered acceptable collateral damage. Our modern censorship infrastructure does not see minority voices as legitimate. That infrastructure may not even be capable (as evidenced here) of allowing for minority voices or any form of nuanced dissent, because it has been outsourced to a combination of incompetent "AI" (or dumb algorithms) as well as underpaid, understaffed, undertrained humans. We are reaping the benefits of tech companies prioritisation of "scale" above all else.
• zionic 5y ago
  People need to get it through their skulls that "tech companies" have _no place_ "moderating" scientific debate. If you've ever found yourself typing "Should X give Y a platform?" you are part of the problem. Be better, be a part of the solution.
  • rootlocus 5y ago
    Scientific debate happens in scientific circles. The results are presented to the media. The public debates it on social media. > Be better, be a part of the solution. And what is the solution?
    • naasking 5y ago
      > The results are presented to the media. [The media misrepresents the results to the public, intentionally or unintentionally]. The public debates it on social media. I filled in the critical missing step. Science journalism is mostly trash.
      • rootlocus 5y ago
        That still doesn't make public discourse "scientific debate".
        • naasking 5y ago
          Not sure I entirely agree with that either. Scientific debate is evolving with the times. Online isn't a traditional formal venue where these debates happen, but they do happen here too. Scientists discussing actual scientific facts, or disputing each other's claims get silenced too. Seems like a reasonable interpretation of "scientific debate". And I suspect the OP meant "scientific debate" as the public's discussion of science and the policies that should be formed around the facts as they see them.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• vikingerik 5y ago
  > People are going to cheer that "wackos" will no longer have a platform. And if you deplatform wackos, you just create incentive to decry everything as wacko in order to ban it. The way to combat misinformation is in the free market of ideas and discourse. Not by banning it. That's just might-makes-right.
  • goatlover 5y ago
    Problem is that combating misinformation in the free market hasn't been working so well. While I agree this is fine for most things, there are exceptions such as a pandemic or when a powerful political figure can invoke a riot.
• tylerhou 5y ago
  The problem with your argument is that you assume that legitimate voices won't be coöpted by people pushing some agenda that is not supported by any data; i.e. you assume that the people on the other side of the "public debate" are operating in good faith. There is no debate when one side is not seriously & honestly looking at the data. It's good to debate science and to question whether vaccines are safe and effective. The problem is that if someone with any credentials asks these questions in public, a firestorm of antivaxxers will immediately create thousands of posts claiming "doctor questions the safety of the vaccines." Most people who read those posts won't take the time to understand the nuance -- their takeaway will be "this confirms my belief that the vaccine was rushed/etc." That's not to say that these debates shouldn't happen -- they absolutely should, but not on YouTube or social media where nuance is easily lost. During a global pandemic the consequence of airing objections in public on social media can mean that thousands of people might not get vaccinated because of bad or malicious actors. That leads to real deaths.
  • stickfigure 5y ago
    By censoring the debate on youtube, you're basically confirming to the wacko conspiracy theorists that there is in fact a conspiracy. The damage to civil society is far greater than a little misinformation. The solution to bad speech is more speech. Speaking of nuance easily lost, an algorithm is not going to be able to figure out the nuance required to censor rationally. Honestly, I don't think most humans are capable of it. Best to err on the side of letting information spread.
    • kevinpet 5y ago
      "By censoring the debate on youtube, you're basically confirming to the wacko conspiracy theorists that there is in fact a conspiracy." This is an excellent point. My view has been these are wackos but you can't silence wackos without giving someone in authority the discretion to decide who to label a wacko. But as you point out, having the discretion to decide someone is a wacko and has ideas too dangerous to be heard, at a large organized scale, actually is a conspiracy.
  • cft 5y ago
• 2OEH8eoCRo0 5y ago
  I think we have to ask whether adversaries have the right to run hogwild on western social media and spread disinformation.
• CodeMage 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). If you're claiming something that hasn't been demonstrated through peer-reviewed scientific research, then you're offering your opinion. If you present that opinion as a fact, then that's misinformation. I don't know what form his "insistence" had, but I've seen plenty of similar cases so far, and all of them have been from people pushing their own narratives, instead of informing people responsibly. If you're pushing a narrative that implies that you shouldn't get vaccinated, then yes, that's "anti-vax". > It's the stifling of legitimate public debate, the stifling of legitimate voices who find themselves in the minority. Being in a minority does not absolve one of responsibility. If you're publishing your opinion, or if you're discussing your research before it's been peer-reviewed, you have the responsibility to make that clear, and even to point out that it does not agree with the current scientific consensus (if any exists).
  • belorn 5y ago
    When the different vaccines came out we did not have peer-reviewed studies to show that they were effective, only the smaller studies done by the drug companies that developed them. In much we were accepting the opinions about the effectiveness as facts, as well as the side effects which were yet to be discovered. We saw the same thing about the effectiveness of cloth mask and anti-bacterial cleaning had on spreading of covid. It took well past the first year before we started to see when, how, where and whom benefited from different strategies, and the meta studies is yet fully clear on the answers to those. Looking what we don't know as far as today in terms of vaccinations, the biggest unknown variables seems to be about duration. With most nations having gone through two rounds of vaccinations, it seems now that a third one is now needed. One study cited recently was conducted on patients that is undergoing transplantation, with half of the patients missing antibodies while having taken two vaccination already this year. As a result there is a lot of talking about treating covid vaccination as something that will be added to the existing seasonal flue vaccinations that vulnerable groups take, but which the general population do not because of the short window of protection. Time will tell and it won't be anti-vax people that do the research or conduct the discussion.
• 3grdlurker 5y ago
  I’m not a believer that vaccine science is a matter of “public” debate. It’s scientific debate, where only experts who have the tools, experience, and knowledge to argue should be allowed to weigh in. If you already have the problem of bad actors misappropriating yet-to-be-verified “scientific” claims for their own political agenda, then I don’t see why it’s right to let those ideas go out there. I believe that people only have the right to speak their own opinion, but have none to spread disinformation.
  • Malician 5y ago
    Experts should be allowed to weigh in, not office workers and bureaucrats. Where were the aerosol dispersion specialists when the CDC/WHO were preaching "droplet?"
  • hackinthebochs 5y ago
    But much of the debate isn't strictly scientific. What is appropriate policy is not something science can determine. People who will be affected by policy absolutely should weigh in on it.
  • mewpmewp2 5y ago
    But vaccination can't be as binary as that it's "safe" and that it's "effective" for each and every individual. As a layman I can't accept binary beliefs given like that. Nothing is truly safe. These words are meaningless to me. Everything has trade-offs and risks associated. Claiming something can be "safe and effective" to me throws so many red flags. How can I tell if the research done on the subject and conclusions of it are in my best interests? For me easy example and what concerns me about both covid and vaccines are the long term effects, like brain fog aka "long covid". If vaccines can cause similar symptoms to what covid can cause, then can vaccines cause "long covid"? If spike protein can reach brain for example can it give you brain fog indefinitely? I've seen several anecdotal reports where people have had brain fog, fatigue, lethargy and other long covid symptoms after vaccines for many months, some claiming they are still not over those. Reading Pfizer study for instance, I don't see that this was researched at all. All everybody seems to be caring about is short term hospitalizations, deaths and side effects. But where can I find data on how large percentage of people have long covid either from vaccines, or covid or breakthrough after vaccine? There was a study done according to which 19% of individuals who had taken a vaccine and got breakthrough after had long covid. I definitely would like to see more information about that as I definitely don't want to get brain fog lasting for many months. The study in question: https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2109072 https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2109072
• Mikeb85 5y ago
  I was banned from a Reddit sub for saying that a previous Covid infection probably infers some immunity. This was around 8 months ago. Now EU vaccine passports accept a recovery from infection as being sufficient proof of immunity. On top of that now it's coming out that the Canadian military/government (and likely others) was intentionally deploying propaganda to make the populace more compliant. This is why moderate voices are being drowned out. I got vaccinated pretty much as soon as it was available to me. Yet to some on the left, I'm a rabid anti-vaxxer (!?!) and to my anti-vaxx friends, a sell-out (ironically, they're far less angry, just disappointed in me for not pushing back against government overreach).
  • trident5000 5y ago
    The mere suggestion that covid came out of a lab was banned by youtube, and downvoted by Reddit and HN heavily at the time. You were considered a crazy person. Now its the leading theory. It shows how fast people listen to authoritarians in desperate times despite common sense lingering in the background. That phenomenon has led to terrible events in the past and carries forward today. If someone says you cant discuss/debate something be suspicious.
    • bryan0 5y ago
      You make a good point, but to be clear a lab leak is not "the leading theory", it is a plausible theory.
      • deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      • pstrateman 5y ago
        It's clear that COVID-19 is a bat virus isolated in or near laos that was then modified by EcoHealth Alliance and Peter Daszak such that it can infect humans at the WIV or the nearby Chinese equivalent to the CDC. All of the investigations into the origin of COVID-19 have Daszak on their advisory boards, the conflict of interest is literally insane. The idea that a lab leak isn't the most likely cause is just willful ignorance at this point. https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2021/03/26/sanjay-gupta-exclusive-robert-redfield-coronavirus-opinion-origin-sot-intv-newday-vpx.cnn https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2021/03/26/sanjay-gupta-ex... [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28656209 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28656209 [2] https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-grant-darpa/ https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-gra...
• loudtieblahblah 5y ago
  If freedom of speech - as a concept - doesn't protect the worst of us, it won't protect the rest of us.
• RGamma 5y ago
  We need to worry about the wackos especially, since these tend to network and radicalize more due to their skewed perception. A prerequisite to the tasteful application of censorship in these cases is a functioning scientific and moral apparatus and strong civil society to keep things in the public interest.
• gentle 5y ago
  They're banning a set of channels that are known to be spreading vaccine lies and then they're also banning videos that are claiming that vaccines aren't safe. We know they're safe because they undergo exhaustive testing. Banning videos from people that are lying isn't stifling debate, it's banning lies.
  • txsoftwaredev 5y ago
    Do you agree they should also ban the lies about Russian collision? What about the lies about Hunter B.'s laptop? What about the videos of Fauci saying we shouldn't be wearing masks?
• loudmax 5y ago
  I think one of the things we need to appreciate is the scale of video uploads that YouTube has to deal with. There are something like hours of videos uploaded to YouTube every single minute. Aside from dodgy medical advice, they need to look out for child pornography, revenge porn, snuff videos and incitements to terrorism and violence, not to mention copyrighted content. There's no way they could hire enough people to review every single video that's uploaded, so if they're going to have any review at all, it has to be automated. Getting their algorithm to have any understanding of content that's being uploaded is an extremely difficult problem, and the fact that they're able to do so with any degree of accuracy is an impressive achievement, whatever the merits. Expecting a YouTube algorithm to be able to parse a nuanced reasonable argument from bullshit is to expect a level of AI sophistication that doesn't exist yet. YouTube could, and probably should, hire people to review videos from high profile YouTubers, but this is only going to work for people who've already established themselves. There's no way to scale that down to everyone that wants to upload something. So yeah, moderate voices pointing out that people who have already had covid have a solid degree of acquired immunity, or maybe we shouldn't shut down schools are being clobbered. That's a bad thing but it's tough problem to solve. I also think there's a broader problem that a handful of private companies have such control over public discourse that they're able to effectively censor ideas at all. Or maybe they're not so effective, but the level of control that Google, Facebook, etc, have should give us pause. I'm sympathetic to the idea that we should go back to the free for all internet that we had in the 90's where everyone who got online had equal access. This would allow a level of nuanced moderate discussion that we desperately need, but it will also allow crazies, and child porn and terrorists and all the rest. If we don't want that kind of stuff to be easily available online, we need to figure out not just where to draw the line, but how to draw the line. This is a hard problem.
• dogman144 5y ago
  It's possible but what needs to be added to this (very common) what-if is the anti-pattern your response creates for solving complex problems. "Chilling effect" concerns have been raised since '08 or so, and that platforms have unilaterally moved on with a decision indicates to me the failure of this approach. What does that show? It's a (very, very valid) counterpoint that's ultimately a slippery slope argument in disguise. Slippery slope arguments rarely present a way out of a mess, and instead just serve as this semi-stakeholder that won't help solve things but adds nice insight. A position's side needs to be more than just a slippery slope approach, in short. It's important to sense when "something" is going to get done, and shift from wise advice on second order effects to something more outcomes-oriented.
• munk-a 5y ago
  I think America has a very serious problem right now accepting that personal liberties, while important, need to not deride public welfare. It's like the entire nation has taken it's anti-anything-socialized fervor to an extreme level and is now becoming self-destructive. During a pandemic it is unacceptable that prominent national politicians vocally fight against societal welfare but that's where we're at. I'm looking at you guys from up here in Canada where there were some CPC (Conservative Party of Canada) candidates who are still openly anti-vax and the party leader took a lot of shit on the public stage for failing to stamp out their voices. The PPC (People's Party of Canada) by comparison is openly anti-vax and did secure a big chunk of voters (I'd assume the vast majority of anti-vaxers) but again failed to win even the party leader's seat and the GPC (Green Party of Canada) had their turnout decline staunchly after a combination of weak leadership and continued ambiguity over vaccine passport rollout. No where on the main stage except for the PPC (which failed to qualify for the debates) was there any voice actually advocating against vaccination. This is I think why America has a real problem that the entire world is getting their civil liberties curtailed in order to address. The country needs to get its house in order - it is unacceptable that mask mandate prevention laws have been passed by governors that might legitimately consider a presidential run next year. This is a crisis that needs to be addressed seriously and overcome and at this point governments in the rest of the world are losing their ability to keep order internally because of how fractured the nation has got. It absolutely sucks that it has come to this - but the domestic government in the US has not been acting competently. Even with both sides of the aisle have technically worked together you still have the BS "We're not going to side with them" crap going on. America has a long, long history of severely curtailing civil liberties - if you think this sort of an action is new I would direct you to one of the most regretful legal frameworks ever issued - the Sedition Act of 1918. Get vaccinated and get your friends and family vaccinated - get those numbers up so you can be a world leader again.
  • robhunter 5y ago
    Can you point me to the specific sections of the PPC platform that are anti-vaxx? Are you sure you're not conflating anti-vaccine-passport with anti-vaccine?
• teawrecks 5y ago
  > Now, we have a number of studies coming out to support that. The studies from the CDC indicate the opposite: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm Which studies are you referring to?
• brianobush 5y ago
  Most MDs are general physicians and know little about vaccines other than textbook knowledge that is decades old. Why would you trust them over a team of researchers? Especially at this point of the pandemic when we have so much data showing their effectiveness?
  • ptaipale 5y ago
    I generally trust MDs here more than others. That doesn't mean that some MDs couldn't be completely wrong. But almost all MDs agree that vaccines are very effective. MDs have, via connections such as subscriptions to medical publications and net sites or databases, access to more information than most people, and because of their training have an ability to assess information, including which teams of researchers are doing genuine science, and which are selling horse dewormers.
• RandomLensman 5y ago
  One of the reasons we find ourselves even in such a predicament is so odd: while governments the world over were (and are) quite willing to put very strong curbs, shut-downs etc. in place, they are hesitant to generally mandate vaccination. So now we are in these proxy campaigns on vaccinations. Of course, one could argue that governments should not/cannot mandate vaccination, but then we also generally accept that governments can send you off to die in wars. Generally speaking, this whole mess actually brings some much deeper issues on state vs the individual to the surface. Those are the ones that will eventually need proper debate much more than finer points on immunology.
  • eecc 5y ago
    Indeed. I rationalized it so: COVID is a wild enemy that will do whatever to survive at our own expense. We need to fight and wage all-out war, conscript, treat the wounded and comfort the widowed.
    • ioslipstream 5y ago
      So is every illness, potentially, and yet the world never cared before.
      • eecc 5y ago
        Yes, like every infectious disease with a high mortality rate and capable of overwhelming our healthcare infrastructure. And no, the world of professionals do care, as always. You’re talking about yourself
    • swader999 5y ago
      The problem is unchecked propaganda could push you to make these same conclusions about anything and anyone.
      • eecc 5y ago
        Yes, the slippery slope argument. Anything can be “unchecked propaganda”, you need to prove it is 1. Propaganda and 2. that it is unchecked
• ilogik 5y ago
  who is saying people that have had COVID shouldn't vaccinate? because they're wrong. Maybe not the second shot. But if you've had covid, you should 100% get vaccinated.
• supercanuck 5y ago
  *May The word May is doing a lot of work in this paragraph.
• ceilingcorner 5y ago
  It already has had a massive chilling effect, because anyone that even raises the slightest question about the situation is labeled as some kind of right wing Trump supporting radical. A lot of very normal, thoughtful people are not okay with what is happening.
  • xadhominemx 5y ago
    Correct, I am not ok with 10’s of thousands of completely unnecessary deaths because people believed dumb antivax memes on Facebook
• lemmsjid 5y ago
  It's highly debatable (bold face on that!!), but I'm not sure that Youtube counts as public debate. If you look at the comments sections on Youtube articles about vaccination, you will find a lot of manifestly false or misinterpreted information. If argued against, people will link to their evidence, which, unsurprisingly, is usually other Youtube videos. This is when you can go down a depressing rabbit hole. These are usually videos, slickly produced, making probably-intentionally bad faith arguments against vaccination. They will take public statements out of context, misinterpret public data, and use a combination of charisma and good (if scrappy) production values to give the viewer the sense that they are the ones telling you the truth. You will find these videos on pretty much any subject, and the makers are clearly monetizing them. You can then go down a rabbit hole, viewing video after video, each providing you with another nugget the confirms your growing suspicion that they're all out to get you. While it's, again, highly debatable, increasingly to me these videos do not count as public debate, though they are certainly an exercise in free speech. They are not public debate because they do not subject themselves to any form of such debate and intentionally avoid it. If you want skeptical takes on left wing politics, you can see public debate on, say WSJ, Fox News, even OANN. Public in the sense that they put themselves out there in the public sphere and can be scrutinized thusly. These shadowy Youtube articles clearly bank themselves on A) not being found by people who will disagree, or B) have an audience who increasingly will not seek out or countenance opposing viewpoints.
• frogpelt 5y ago
  There's an overwhelming tendency now to boil down all opinions to either "right side of history" or "wrong side of history", "anti-science" or "pro-science". This is especially true on social media, YouTube. etc. Out in the real world there is so much nuance. There are actually black people who don't agree with BLM. There are intellectual people who don't think they need the vaccine. There are Democrats who are pro-life. There are Republicans who support gay marriage. There are bunch of undecided people on a bunch of topics. We are not all on one side or the other. There is so much middle ground. I still believe most people are in the vast expanse of middle ground. It just doesn't look that way on the Internet.
  • LudvigVanHassen 5y ago
    Frogpelt has an understanding that so many lack. I wish there was some way for this middle ground to speak and make itself now. This "tribal" devolution of everything to two sides on an issue with interlocking viewpoints on all subjects is a major problem in our current climate. I agree the nuance of this situation is lost when there are so many people who do not see the nuance to begin with. A culture that cannot understand nuance is a culture more likely to go to war. To see others as "other", not seeking common ground, but seeing things that differ as reasons to hate
    • judahmeek 5y ago
      That nuance is the same reason the people complain about the Democratic Party having poor messaging. The masses don't spread nuanced messages. Instead, the simpler & more emotion-based a message is, the more likely it'll go viral.
  • mewpmewp2 5y ago
    This is so spot on. I have seen countless of times in forums how if someone voices concern about a vaccine they are immediately called "Trump supporter", even though they might not even be from the US. Especially in US though it seems that in people's minds there's just 2 types of people, one are allies and the other are enemies. Allies all have the exact same beliefs, and enemies exactly the opposite. Therefore if someone has a belief that doesn't agree with mine it means they must also hold all the other beliefs and must be of the enemy group. I think it's more than ridiculous. And you also can't hold a belief that's in between the other beliefs, this immediately means you are the enemy.
• simorley 5y ago
  > I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on open discussion by moderate voices. That's the point of all censorship. It isn't to censor the truly outrageous wackos spouting nonsense since hardly anyone believes them and most laugh at them. It's to censor the moderates who critically analyze and perhaps offer some truth. Heliocentrism has been around since the ancient greeks which the church leaders could easily write off as being the ideas of backwards pagans. After all, you can see for yourself that the sun rises in the east and crosses the sky and sets in the west. They could "prove" it to the laity. It was only when telescopes and scientific evidence proved that the sun doesn't revolve around the earth that the church started censoring, excommunicating and killing people. The censorship wasn't to silence the uneducated wackos, it was to silence the likes of galileo, copernicus, etc.
  • Guvante 5y ago
    Is your claim that moderate voices are causing people to not get vaccinated then? If that is the case maybe silencing them isn't a bad thing so that we can get past the pandemic rather than wallowing in "would we should we" territory. EDIT: To be clear this was meant to be a joke about loosely defining "moderate". Many things are being said that aren't "Bill Gates is tracking you" that are also staunchly anti vaxx such as "it doesn't actually work" and "it can kill you".
    • simorley 5y ago
      > Is your claim that moderate voices are causing people to not get vaccinated then? I suspect that's the case for the vast majority of the unvaccinated. Do you think most of the unvaccinated people are unvaccinated because of "metal chips in the vaccine" or "it's the serum of the devil"? Or do you think they are unvaccinated because they read up on the history of vaccines, talked to their doctors, etc? > If that is the case maybe silencing them isn't a bad thing so that we can get past the pandemic rather than wallowing in "would we should we" territory. But aren't we past the pandemic. I remember being told that we needed herd immunity. Remember "herd immunity"? It was all over the news and social media just a few months. Now we are way past herd immunity. It was the gold standard. Remember? To question it was to question science. But everyone forgot about herd immunity. It's never good to silence moderate voices as it only leaves you the choice of extremes which tend to be wrong. And sadly, as it pertains to covid, the extremes have been wrong about covid - everything from death rate to mandates to metal chips... Also, I can't think of another time moderate voices were silenced - other than the lead up to the 2nd iraq war when you absolutely could not question the lies about wmds. Can you?
• SquishyPanda23 5y ago
  > think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on open discussion by moderate voices You have to weigh that against the known chilling effect caused by the disinformation campaign. You also have to include the fact that the disinformation campaign is killing people. And that it is known to be partially funded by governments specifically to shut down discourse and destabilize the US.
• uhtred 5y ago
  youtube is a private company, they can ban you for whatever reason they want, presumably. Youtube, google, facebook, they aren't public services.
  • exporectomy 5y ago
    Of course they can, because they do. What are you really trying to say? Is it that you believe no other moral authority should exist besides the law?
    • uhtred 5y ago
      What do you think I am trying to say? It's not hard. If you don't like what youtube are doing then don't use youtube. They are beholden to their shareholders, not you.
      • exporectomy 5y ago
        So you favor a kind of libertarian capitalism where the problems caused by businesses are the responsibility of people suffering from them? If you don't like being addicted to heroin, don't buy heroin? Since you asked, to be honest, I don't believe you know what you're trying to say and are just repeating an argument you've heard before and didn't think critically about. But I wanted to give you the benefit of the doubt and see if I can learn some deeper idea you may have had.
        • uhtred 5y ago
          Eh? I'm in favor of YouTube banning anti vaxxers. So I'm definitely not libertarian, where as you seem to be in favor of anyone at all being able to post on YouTube without censorship - doesn't that make you more the libertarian? What a confusing conversation we find ourselves in! Good day!
• lijogdfljk 5y ago
  Frankly, i applaud this censorship. Granted i'm super left/liberal/pro-vax/etc so i'm _definitely_ not in the camp of anti-vaxxers, however we have for years put all our faith and trust in corporations. Now private entities aren't aligning with a lot of people and they're shocked that corporations aren't the free speech utopia that they once thought. It frustrates me that many of these people didn't care when it was others that were oppressed, but i digress. Regardless, this sort of mostly harmless but highly sensationalized censorship is very good for our freedoms in my mind because it forces us to decentralize. We've become far too centralized and complacent in unwarranted corporate faith. This is to be expected, and people should have been prepared. Let Youtube/etc censor all it wants. We need better than Youtube. Wake people up to that. My 2c.
  • oceanplexian 5y ago
    > Now private entities aren't aligning with a lot of people and they're shocked that corporations aren't the free speech utopia that they once thought. I've worked at some of these companies so I can give you an insider perspective, because what you're saying isn't an accurate reflection of history. Maybe the internet wasn't a "Utopia" but compared to what it is now it certainly was. In the tech community 5-10 years ago, all of us working for these larger platforms used to pride ourselves upholding free speech as a core value. At that time the only content banned were threats, copyright violations, child pornography, etc. Only after the 2016 election rolled around did everything change. The problem is that it's an incredibly slippery slope and once you start compromising your moral compass for "the right reasons", it quickly snowballs into something much worse than anticipated.
    • lijogdfljk 5y ago
      I agree but even 5-10 years ago - putting faith in a company being omnipotent is no different than government without oversight. I'm very pro government but oversight is required for it to function properly in my mind. 5-10 years ago was the source of the problem. We're seeing the fruits of this now.
  • pitspotter2 5y ago
• baron_harkonnen 5y ago
  > It's not the wackos we should be worrying about. It's really amazing to me how easily the "left" was able to be tricked in the same death of critical thinking as the "right". The "stick to the libs!" angle is far more responsible for the rise in support of Trump leading up to the election. People on the "right" were manipulated for decades into reducing their political beliefs to defending themselves from a fictitious adversary (this is why I put quotes around these terms). If you listen to any radical Trump supporter you'll quickly see that a large part of their logic is based on a deeply held belief that roughly half the country is mind washed, irrational liberals that seek to destroy their way of life. This rewriting of people skeptical of the vaccines as "wackos" serves the same purpose for the "left" and mainstream progressives have gobbled it up without hesitation. They now see roughly half the country as a bunch mind washed, irrational "wackos" that are a threat to the foundations of our society. Both the "left" and "right" (terms which honestly don't make any political sense any more, evidence by exactly this irrational support for corporate suppression of voices on the "left" and it's dissent on the "right") are currently structured so that any real, meaningful political discourse about the future of the country is dissolved into two insane groups of people throwing rocks at each other. If you find yourself defined by either of these major narratives, then you are being played.
  • Guvante 5y ago
    What angle about vaccine skepticism isn't summarized as "it might negatively impact you so maybe don't get it". The vaccine is totally the tragedy of the commons. If everybody gets it you are just making your life worse by also getting it. If nobody gets it it is bad for everybody. The reality is sometimes everybody collectively deciding to take one for the team is exactly what we need. Vaccination is one of those situations. There are exceptions, I don't mean to imply otherwise, but those are not what is being talked about. "Maybe we shouldn't vaccinate those who have been infected to vaccinate someone else" is being used to justify those who were presumed infected to not get vaccinated. The nuance is getting lost in a painful way.
    • jawarner 5y ago
      I don't think that's a complete characterization of the anti-vaccine "movement" or "meme." It's also rooted in distrust of the government science institutions. For instance, many people are taking ivermectin at some risk to themselves, since prolonged human consumption of ivermectin may have adverse effects.
• deleted 5y ago
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• maerF0x0 5y ago
  To me this is the key, I got the myocarditis symptoms post vaccine and notably none of the ER staff knew (or wished to acknowledge) that this was a potential sideffect. It's become heresy of the most dogmatic kind to not support the vaccine full stop. Also it took an unrelated to this situation healthcare worker (therapist) to even suggest to me to report it on https://vaers.hhs.gov/ https://vaers.hhs.gov/ which is how they find out if the vaccine has side effects. IMO we need to tolerate a lot of "free speech" in order to ensure the validly dissenting voices are not squashed.
  • 13415 5y ago
    What does this anecdote have to do with free speech? In my country rare cases of myocarditis were listed as a possible side effect immediately after the first potential cases came up and it was also all over the media. Do you claim that in your country the information was not available because of censorship and you nearly died? Which country do you live in? And what kind of medical doctor would not investigate a possible case of myocarditis (or any other kind of heart problems)?
    • maerF0x0 5y ago
      > And what kind of medical doctor would not investigate a possible case of myocarditis (or any other kind of heart problems)? One that fears ostracism from their peers or profession. In my region it's become heresy to even consider there may be risks to taking the "safe" vaccine. I personally experienced this even before the vaccine's efficacy/safety was established when I expressed concerns about the medical industry's track record citing thalidomide (fetal deformities) and omeprazole (stomach cancer) as two cases where things were "safe" until they were not.
      • 13415 5y ago
        That's crazy and I'm sorry to hear that. I guess I'm lucky to have only had doctors so far in my life who listen to their patients and exclude possible diseases with the usual diagnostics. Sometimes medical doctors simplify small risks because laymen are often unable to judge them adequately in lack of good comparisons. The better way would be to provide meaningful comparisons, though.
• jmull 5y ago
  > 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. We should be worrying about the wackos -- and stifling legitimate voices who find themselves in the minority. I doubt I will agree with exactly where Google draws the line between whacko and legitimate voice, but I have no doubt the line should be drawn. I also think there's no doubt Google has the right (and responsibility, IMO) to draw the line on their platforms.
• tgsovlerkhgsel 5y ago
  If you look at the policy, you'll see that this isn't aiming at the doctor who says that some people don't need the vaccine, but specifically at people who spread specific claims that are considered solidly disproven with overwhelming consensus: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11161123 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11161123 You definitely raise valid points about the side effects of false positives during enforcement and the resulting self-censorship, but the other side of the coin is that we've seen that we unfortunately do have to worry about the wackos too.
• nojs 5y ago
  The chilling effect is made worse by the fact that this censorship is conducted entirely by algorithms, and there are no reasonable channels available for appeal other than knowing Google employees or hoping to gain viral traction on other social media. Rational people making a living from their channels will therefore decide to avoid the topic entirely, even if they have something substantive to add that’s in the public interest.
• takeda 5y ago
  I welcome that chilling effect, because people who believe YouTube and other sites are required to not do censorship are completely wrong. Not only they are not required to keep everything, they actually have right to remove anything ironically by the first amendment. The only reason they don't do it because they want to appear neutral. Having the false belief that they can't censor is actually dangerous, because it makes everyone pile up to one service starving and killing competition creating monopoly.
• odessacubbage 5y ago
  the chilling effect in this case is by design.
• myko 5y ago
  > he was insisting that the people who had contracted COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may not need the vaccine. Actually the research shows the opposite: https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/covid-19-studies-natural-immunity-versus-vaccination https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/covid-19-studies-natural-i...