4 ms·

Taken to its logical end, that would also prevent many very useful channels from existing. What about all the people who live with a mental illness and also hav

by LocalH 5y ago

Taken to its logical end, that would also prevent many very useful channels from existing. What about all the people who live with a mental illness and also have a Youtube channel documenting that experience? Should that be prohibited too? For which disorders? If you remove all ADHD-related individual content from YouTube, you're harming the platform and a crapton of people who have bettered their lives with the aid of such videos.

paulryanrogers 5y ago
It could be a slippery slope. Still I wonder if such a ban could also have positive effects by fostering smaller, more collaborative communities too. As it is YouTube is becoming a (mostly unidirectional) public commons that is captured by a single profit-seeking corporation.
helen___keller 5y ago
You're alluding back to the moderation problem. I claimed that discerning between pros and wackos is turing complete, and you have indeed shown that discerning between ANY kind of allowable content A and disallowed content B is also turing complete - you can get arbitrarily close to the line between A and B, so any algorithm (or human guidelines) is necessarily going to have issues on some edge cases. I agree, you're absolutely right. Still, I claim it should be done, and maybe the content you listed should also be disallowed. I'm not saying these videos and discussions shouldn't exist, I'm suggesting that perhaps it's time we dispelled the idea of a global Town Square - one platform for all content. It's a recipe for disaster. We've seen what can happen and what will continue to happen. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - how many times do we have to watch a global town square devolve into shit flinging, disinformation, and hate? Let's stop pretending that there can be a global free speech forum and that we can have some fair minimum ruleset to moderate all content on that forum. We should opt for the opposite - a spectrum of platforms that appeal to different interests and are regulated in proportion to the severity of incorrect or bad-faith information in that interest. The entertainment that dominates Youtube is minimally severe if incorrect or bad faith, so YouTube would have minimal regulation. Content on personal health and experiences could go into HealthTube, where moderation exists to prevent making strong medical claims or pushing bullshit (the "pay an influencer to say that ElaMexaTrin cured my covid" problem), but people are otherwise allowed to post what they want about their personal experiences. Content with strong scientific claims on health would go into MedicalTube, which is regulated and heavily moderated to prevent commercial interests and disinformation. Really, if YouTube was forward thinking, all of these could be different subsets of the same platform. But instead we have one platform with the same erratic hand of moderation slapping things down left and right based on whatever changing ruleset seems convenient today.
- swader999 5y ago
  You can't expect people to be informed and able to vote without access to information, including dissenting views. The quacks do need to be out in the open facing ridicule. I think it gets worse if they are pushed to a telegram channel where they have no opposition.
  - bena 5y ago
    I don't expect people to be informed. Because they're not. Even now. I find it hilarious that people think they are informed on all the topics they consider themselves informed on. There is simply way too much information out there to be well-informed on all of it. I can't be an infectious disease expert. I can't even be reasonably informed on all the stuff that goes on surrounding it. I need a sieve. I need filters. I need vetters. I need vouching. I need those who are informed on a topic to do all the legwork and present the results. And that's not you or other randos on the internet. And that's what we've actually lost. We've lost all the filters and firewalls that stopped the majority of misinformation. With everyone having a global megaphone to broadcast their every thought, it's become harder to discern between those who are informed on a topic and those who aren't. The world's signal to noise ratio is weighted too heavily towards noise.
    - swader999 5y ago
      "I need filters. I need vetters. I need vouching. I need those who are informed on a topic to do all the legwork and present the results." How can you rely on this approach when some of them or some of their sources are censored?
      - bena 5y ago
        You realize we have more access to more raw information than we have at any point in the past. Even 20 years ago, we just did not have the scope of information that we do now. Those sources you fear are getting censored, we'd never even know they exist before. It just wouldn't reach us. Domain experts would hash out the wheat from the chaff. The plausible from the bunk. Now people are getting their information from Joe Fucking Rogan of all people.

by LocalH 5y ago

paulryanrogers 5y ago

It could be a slippery slope. Still I wonder if such a ban could also have positive effects by fostering smaller, more collaborative communities too. As it is YouTube is becoming a (mostly unidirectional) public commons that is captured by a single profit-seeking corporation.

helen___keller 5y ago

You're alluding back to the moderation problem. I claimed that discerning between pros and wackos is turing complete, and you have indeed shown that discerning between ANY kind of allowable content A and disallowed content B is also turing complete - you can get arbitrarily close to the line between A and B, so any algorithm (or human guidelines) is necessarily going to have issues on some edge cases. I agree, you're absolutely right. Still, I claim it should be done, and maybe the content you listed should also be disallowed. I'm not saying these videos and discussions shouldn't exist, I'm suggesting that perhaps it's time we dispelled the idea of a global Town Square - one platform for all content. It's a recipe for disaster. We've seen what can happen and what will continue to happen. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - how many times do we have to watch a global town square devolve into shit flinging, disinformation, and hate? Let's stop pretending that there can be a global free speech forum and that we can have some fair minimum ruleset to moderate all content on that forum. We should opt for the opposite - a spectrum of platforms that appeal to different interests and are regulated in proportion to the severity of incorrect or bad-faith information in that interest. The entertainment that dominates Youtube is minimally severe if incorrect or bad faith, so YouTube would have minimal regulation. Content on personal health and experiences could go into HealthTube, where moderation exists to prevent making strong medical claims or pushing bullshit (the "pay an influencer to say that ElaMexaTrin cured my covid" problem), but people are otherwise allowed to post what they want about their personal experiences. Content with strong scientific claims on health would go into MedicalTube, which is regulated and heavily moderated to prevent commercial interests and disinformation. Really, if YouTube was forward thinking, all of these could be different subsets of the same platform. But instead we have one platform with the same erratic hand of moderation slapping things down left and right based on whatever changing ruleset seems convenient today.

swader999 5y ago
You can't expect people to be informed and able to vote without access to information, including dissenting views. The quacks do need to be out in the open facing ridicule. I think it gets worse if they are pushed to a telegram channel where they have no opposition.
- bena 5y ago
  I don't expect people to be informed. Because they're not. Even now. I find it hilarious that people think they are informed on all the topics they consider themselves informed on. There is simply way too much information out there to be well-informed on all of it. I can't be an infectious disease expert. I can't even be reasonably informed on all the stuff that goes on surrounding it. I need a sieve. I need filters. I need vetters. I need vouching. I need those who are informed on a topic to do all the legwork and present the results. And that's not you or other randos on the internet. And that's what we've actually lost. We've lost all the filters and firewalls that stopped the majority of misinformation. With everyone having a global megaphone to broadcast their every thought, it's become harder to discern between those who are informed on a topic and those who aren't. The world's signal to noise ratio is weighted too heavily towards noise.
  - swader999 5y ago
    "I need filters. I need vetters. I need vouching. I need those who are informed on a topic to do all the legwork and present the results." How can you rely on this approach when some of them or some of their sources are censored?
    - bena 5y ago
      You realize we have more access to more raw information than we have at any point in the past. Even 20 years ago, we just did not have the scope of information that we do now. Those sources you fear are getting censored, we'd never even know they exist before. It just wouldn't reach us. Domain experts would hash out the wheat from the chaff. The plausible from the bunk. Now people are getting their information from Joe Fucking Rogan of all people.