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YouTube says it'll bring back creators banned for Covid and election content
- pessimizer 1y agoBetter article: https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-reinstate-channels-banned-over-covid-content-policies-2025-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-reinstate-channels-b... Actual letter: https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-judiciary.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2025-09-23-letter-to-hjc.pdf https://judiciary.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/republicans-j... Good editorial: https://www.businessinsider.com/google-meta-congress-letter-youtube-zuckerberg-bongino-jordan-biden-2025-9 https://www.businessinsider.com/google-meta-congress-letter-...
- murphyslab 1y agoTwo articles that I found offered a well-rounded analysis: - https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/youtube-may-reinstate-channels-banned-for-spreading-covid-and-election-misinformation-190257602.html https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/youtube-may-reinstate-chan... - https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/09/youtube-will-restore-channels-banned-for-covid-and-election-misinformation/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/09/youtube-will-restore...
- topspin 1y agoAll those words, and no mention of Section 230, which is what this is really all about. Google can see which way the wind is blowing and they know POTUS will -- for better or worse -- happily sign any anti-"Big Tech censorship" bill that gets to his desk. They hope to preempt this. Yes, I know about the Charlie Kirk firings etc.
- dang 1y agoOk, we've changed the URL above to that first link from https://www.offthepress.com/youtube-will-let-users-booted-for-repeated-violations-of-covid-elections-policies-rejoin/ https://www.offthepress.com/youtube-will-let-users-booted-fo.... Thanks!
- oldpersonintx2 1y ago[dead]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- najarvg 1y ago[flagged]
- eschulz 1y agowho doesn't get free speech?
- jimt1234 1y ago[flagged]
- cptnapalm 1y ago[flagged]
- SV_BubbleTime 1y ago[flagged]
- lesuorac 1y ago[flagged]
- SV_BubbleTime 1y agoNice edit where you cut out all the “progressive” stuff to make the same lie that the shooter is right wing because you want to do anything you can to avoid admitting that extreme left even exists lets alone is capable of assassination. Yes, those are Kimmel words, and when he said them, everyone already knew the facts about his gay lifestyle and trans boyfriend and that he murdered Kirk out of hate. It’s nice to see that you picked up his torch regardless of how little rational sense it makes. >Somebody using violence for political means is exactly aligned with Charlie Kirk's spoken words. Cite it. In whole context, but video is preferable. The guy had a decade of being in front of the camera, post any the hateful video, it should be easy! Show us the hate, if not the justification for his own murder of course.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- lesuorac 1y ago2 years is a pretty long ban for a not even illegal conduct. Although if they got banned during the start of covid during the Trump administration then we're talking about 5 years.
- jackmottatx 1y ago[dead]
- Simulacra 1y agoThey went against a government narrative. This wasn't Google/Youtube banning so much as government ordering private companies to do so.
- stronglikedan 1y ago[flagged]
- 3cKU 1y ago[flagged]
- LeafItAlone 1y agoAnd do you think the impetuous behind this action happening now is any different? In both cases YouTube is just doing what the government wants.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> wasn't Google/Youtube banning so much as government ordering private companies to do so No, it was not. It’s particularly silly to suggest this when we have live example of such orders right now. The companies were nudged. (And they were wrong to respond to public pressure.) The President, after all, has a “bully pulpit.” But there were no orders, no credibly threats and plenty of companies didn’t deplatform these folks.
- 1y ago
- whycome 1y agoWhat exactly constituted a violation of a COVID policy?
- jimt1234 1y ago[flagged]
- perihelions 1y agoAccording to Google's censorship algorithm, Michael Osterholm's podcast (famous epidemiologist and, at the time, a member of President Biden's own gold-star covid-19 advisory panel). https://x.com/cidrap/status/1420482621696618496 https://x.com/cidrap/status/1420482621696618496 ("Our Osterholm Update podcast episode (Jul 22) was removed for “medical misinformation.”" (2021)) Most ironic thing I've ever seen. I still recall it perfectly, though it's been four years. Never, ever trust censorship algorithms or the people who control them: they are just dumb parrots that suppress all discussion of an unwanted topic, without thought or reason.
- delichon 1y agoMy wake up moment was when they not only took down a Covid debate with a very well qualified virologist, but also removed references to it in the Google search index, not just for the YouTube link.
- miltonlost 1y ago[flagged]
- delichon 1y agoI am not comfortable letting Google make that decision for me. You are?
- theossuary 1y agoWe lost that choice when google became a monopoly. What I'm not comfortable with is preventing a private company from moderating their product.
- moomoo11 1y agoI think hardware and ip level bans.. should be banned. I know that some services do this in addition to account ban.
- ocdtrekkie 1y agoAny service which allows user generated content and allows arbitrary IP addresses to create infinite accounts is guaranteed to be overrun with CSAM. It's practically a law of physics.
- jjk166 1y agoIf you actually cared about CSAM you would want those posting it to self incriminate and then face consequences in real life at the hands of actual authorities. Websites banning such posters only serves to alert them that they need to improve their tactics and give them the opportunity to hide. Removing only the offending content and alerting authorities is the appropriate thing a website like Youtube should be doing. Even if one does argue that CSAM should result in hardware and IP bans, there's no reason that can't be a sole exception to a wider prohibition on such bans.
- ocdtrekkie 1y agoYes, we should let people "self-incriminate" with Tor and disposable email services...
- jjk166 1y agoWe're talking about websites like Youtube implementing hardware and IP bans. If your argument is that these are easily circumventable by CSAM distributors, that seems like all the more reason not to use them to combat CSAM.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> If you actually cared about CSAM you would want those posting it to self incriminate and then face consequences in real life We don’t have the resources for this, even when the FBI isn’t being purged and sent to Home Depots. Unrestricting IPs means a boom for CSAM production and distribution.
- apercu 1y ago[flagged]
- guelo 1y ago[flagged]
- paulryanrogers 1y agoSteelman argument is it's better to know what liars, bigots, and other naughty people are up to than push them entirely underground. And someday future moderators may think you're naughty/lying/a quack/etc. IMO we should not let private platforms become near monopolies, and certainly not without regulation, since they become a defacto public square. But if we're going to let them eat the world, then hopefully they'll at least use good judgment and measures like de-ranking or even banning folks who encourage others to do harm. Making bans temporary is a safety valve in case of bad moderation.
- hash872 1y agoWhat is Youtube a 'near monopoly' in? Online video.....? Do you have any idea how much video there is online that's not on Youtube? They don't meet the legal definition of a monopoly
- immibis 1y agoThat steelman is still a pretty bad argument, though. I don't see why giving liars, bigots and other naughty people a megaphone is required in order to know what they're saying.
- paulryanrogers 1y agoYeah, I personally still see a place for permanent bans. But I can see the other side.
- jimmygrapes 1y agoI suppose the argument there is that it's not necessarily a megaphone for the fella with 24 followers. The concern comes from when someone amasses a following through "acceptable" means and then pivots. Not sure how to balance that.
- jimt1234 1y ago[flagged]
- cactusplant7374 1y ago> From President Biden on down, administration officials “created a political atmosphere that sought to influence the actions of platforms based on their concerns regarding misinformation,” Alphabet said, claiming it “has consistently fought against those efforts on First Amendment grounds.” This actually surprised me because I thought (and maybe still think) that it was Google employees that led the charge on this one.
- softwaredoug 1y agoIt's in their interests now to throw Biden under the bus. There may be truth to this, but I'm sure its exaggerated for effect.
- nitwit005 1y agoWorth noting that Trump directly threatened to put Zuckerberg in prison for life in relation to this: https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/31/politics/video/smr-trump-zuckerberg https://www.cnn.com/2024/08/31/politics/video/smr-trump-zuck... I wouldn't trust any public statement from these companies once that kind of threat has been thrown around. People don't exactly want to go to prison forever.
- HankStallone 1y agoIt was. At the time, they felt like they were doing the right thing -- the heroic thing, even -- in keeping dangerous disinformation away from the public view. They weren't shy about their position that censorship in that case was good and necessary. Not the ones who said it on TV, and not the ones who said it to me across the dinner table. For Google now to pretend Biden twisted their arm is pretty rich. They'd better have a verifiable paper trail to prove that, if they expect anyone with a memory five years long to believe it.
- dotnet00 1y agoTo be fair, even if they were being honest about Biden twisting their arm (I don't buy it), the timing makes it impossible to believe their claim.
- softwaredoug 1y agoI'm very pro-vaccines, I don't think the 2020 election was stolen. But I think we have to realize silencing people doesn't work. It just causes the ideas to metastasize. A lot of people will say all kinds of craziness, and you just have to let it ride so most of us can roll our eyes at it.
- felixgallo 1y ago[flagged]
- dotnet00 1y agoHow can you say that banning Nazis has worked well considering everything so far this year?
- miltonlost 1y agoWell it would if we would actually ban Nazis instead of platform them. They haven't been banned. That's the problem.
- dotnet00 1y agoYou'd have to ban them from society outright without somehow devolving into an authoritarian hellhole in the process (impossible). Trump still primarily posts on a platform specifically created to be a right wing extremist echo chamber.
- felixgallo 1y agothe choice is not 'devolving into an authoritarian hellhole' or 'give the nazis the ability to do whatever they want'. There is a middle ground that we have lived in for many decades effectively, until recently.
- dotnet00 1y ago
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- woeirua 1y agoIt seems to me that a lot of people are missing the forest for the trees on misinformation and censorship. IMO, a single YouTube channel promoting misinformation, about Covid or anything else, is not a huge problem, even if it has millions of followers. The problem is that the recommendation algorithms push their viewers into these echo chambers that are divorced from reality where all they see are these videos promoting misinformation. Google's approach to combating that problem was to remove the channels, but the right solution was, and still is today, to fix the algorithms to prevent people from falling into echo chambers.
- terminalshort 1y agoThe algorithm doesn't push anyone. It just gives you what it thinks you want. If Google decided what was true and then used the algorithm to remove what isn't true, that would be pushing things. Google isn't and shouldn't be the ministry of truth.
- TremendousJudge 1y ago"what it thinks you want" is doing a lot of work here. why would it "think" that you want to be pushed into an echo chamber divorced from reality instead of something else? why would it give you exactly what you "want" instead of something aligned with some other value?
- terminalshort 1y agoGiven the number of people that describes it's pretty clear that people do want that. It's not exactly a new and surprising thing that people want things that are bad for them.
- woeirua 1y agoExactly, they shouldn't be the ministry of truth. They should present balanced viewpoints on both sides of controversial subjects. But that's not what they're doing right now. If you watch too many videos on one side of a subject it will just show you more and more videos reinforcing that view point because you're likely to watch them!
- rustystump 1y agoThe problem with any system like this is that due to scale it will be automated which means a large swath of people will be caught up in it doing nothing wrong. This is why perma bans are bad. Id rather a strike system before a temp ban to give some breathing room for people to navigate the inevitable incorrect automation. Even then if the copyright issue is anything to go by this is going to hurt more than help.
- cbradford 1y agoSo absolutely no one involved will have any repercussions. So they will all do it over again at the next opportunity
- johnnyanmac 1y agoyeah, 2025 in a nutshell. The year of letting all the grifts thrive.
- lazyeye 1y agoWhat should the punishment be for having opinions the govt disagrees with?
- th0ma5 1y agoNotoriety
- lazyeye 1y agoYep..and fame, admiration, contempt, loathing, indifference etc
- Supermancho 1y agoPromoting medical misinformation or even health misinformation should be critically judged. Alternative health companies are rubbing their hands together. The next Drain-o chug challenge "accident" is inevitable, at this rate.
- lazyeye 1y agoThat sounds great in theory. In practice, "misinformation" ends up being defined as anything the govt finds inconvenient. Or it is selectively applied so that when misinformation comes from all sides of the political spectrum, only people the govt doesnt like (in the more general sense) get kicked off platforms.
- cubefox 1y ago
- bluedino 1y agoI'm banned from posting in a couple subreddits for not aligning with the COVID views of the moderators. Lame.
- c-hendricks 1y agoWhenever someone says "i was banned from ..." take what they say with a huge grain of salt.
- mvdtnz 1y agoReddit (both admins and many subreddit moderators) are extremely trigger happy with bans. Plenty of reasonable people get banned by capricious Reddit mods.
- pinkmuffinere 1y agoEverybody here is strangers online, so I think grains of salt are reasonable all around. That said, I'm not sure that people-who-were-banned deserve above average scrutiny. Anecdotally, a lot of the RubyGems maintainers were banned a week ago. It seems really unfair to distrust people _just_ because a person-in-control banned them.
- c-hendricks 1y agoOof, I'm outside my edit window and didn't make my correct point. It's when people say "I was banned from _____ for _____". When people say "for _____" I take their word with a huge grain of salt. Not even much to do with Reddit, it's something I picked up from playing video games: https://speculosity.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/the-lyte-smite/ https://speculosity.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/the-lyte-smite/
- pinkmuffinere 1y agoAh I see, you’re saying it’s very hard/impossible to verify the reason for the ban, so the given reason is especially low-signal. That actually does make sense to me, thanks for clarifying
- guelo 1y agoThe amount of flagged hidden comments here by the supposed anti censorship side is almost funny.
- dang 1y agoIf you (or anyone) run across a flagged comment that isn't tediously repeating ideological battle tropes, pushing discussion flameward, or otherwise breaking the site guidelines, you're welcome to bring it to our attention. So far, the flagged comments I've seen in this thread seem correctly flagged. But we don't see everything. On this site, we're trying for discussion in which people don't just bash each other with pre-existing talking points (and unprocessed rage). Such comments quickly flood the thread on a divisive topic like this one, so flagging them is essential to having HN operate as intended. To the extent possible at least. (oh and btw, though it ought to go without saying, this has to do with the type of comment, not the view it's expressing. People should be able to make their substantive points thoughtfully, without getting flagged.) https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- alex1138 1y agoYeah but in practice this isn't actually the case, people flag all the time for people just having a dissenting opinion, fitting none of the categories you mentioned
- dang 1y agoAs mentioned, I haven't seen cases of that in the current thread. If there are any, I'd appreciate links. We don't see everything.
- diego_sandoval 1y agoAt the time, YouTube said: “Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy.” [1] which, in my opinion, is a pretty extreme stance to take, especially considering that the WHO contradicted itself many times during the pandemic. [1] https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52388586 https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52388586
- hyperhopper 1y agoThe united states also said not to buy masks and that they were ineffective during the pandemic. Placing absolute trust in these organizations and restricting freedom of speech based on that is a very bootlicking, anti-freedom stance
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- amanaplanacanal 1y agoYeah they burned a lot of trust with that, for sure.
- lisbbb 1y agoThey burned it beyond down to the ground and below. And many of you on here willfully continue to trust them and argue vehemently against people who try to tell you the actual truth of the matter. RFK Jr. is a flawed human being, but he's doing some good work in unwinding some of the web of lies we live under right now.
- alphabettsy 1y agoHe’s just bringing different lies with new sponsors.
- aeternum 1y agoIt's good RFK is more willing to question things but he seems just as guilty when it comes to spinning webs of lies. If we think tylenol might cause autism why doesn't he run/fund a nice clean and large randomized controlled trial? Instead he spreads conjecture based on papers with extremely weak evidence.
- serf 1y agoi'd like to think that if I were a YTer that got banned for saying something that I believed in that I would at least have the dignity not to take my value back to the group that squelched me. ..but i'm not a yter.
- TeMPOraL 1y agoIt's showbiz. For those making actual money there, sacrificing dignity is the price of entry.
- valentinammm 1y ago[dead]
- alex1138 1y agoSo the other day, I linked to something on Rumble right here on Hacker News and was told to find a better source First of all, you can't separate a thing's content from the platform it's hosted on? Really? Second of all, this is why I'll just go do this again and if you flag me it's on you, you have no standing to do it (the internet is supposed to be democratic, remember?) https://rumble.com/v28x6zk-sasha-latypova-msc.-nsa-team-enigma-covid-19-countermeasures-evidence-of-th.html https://rumble.com/v28x6zk-sasha-latypova-msc.-nsa-team-enig... https://rumble.com/v3zh3fh-staggering-17m-deaths-after-covid-jab-rollout-drs.-denis-rancourt-marine-ba.html https://rumble.com/v3zh3fh-staggering-17m-deaths-after-covid... https://rumble.com/vt62y6-covid-19-a-second-opinion.html https://rumble.com/vt62y6-covid-19-a-second-opinion.html https://rumble.com/v2nxfvq-international-covid-summit-iii-part-1-european-parliament-brussels.html https://rumble.com/v2nxfvq-international-covid-summit-iii-pa... I could go on. Feel free if you want to see more. :) (Was it misinformation when Fauci said you shouldn't rush a vaccine or all hell breaks loose years later? Or when he intimated that masks wouldn't work for covid?)
- 1121redblackgo 1y agoBoo
- braiamp 1y agoThe reason why you are asked better source is because, and let me say this slowly, anyone can post any crap on the internet without repercussions. Lets start with the one that references "Sasha Latypova". If I search her credentials she earned a title on Master of Business Administration, except that she used that to work as a co-founder of two companies, and none of them are even adjacent to pharmacology, but she is a "global PHARMA regulation expert". I'm sure that the other persons there will not have those issues, right?
- The_President 1y ago“And let me say this slowly” No point in typing this out - it is condescending to the parent poster.
- ironman1478 1y agoThere isn't really a good solution here. A precedent for banning speech isn't a good one, but COVID was a real problem and misinformation did hurt people. The issue is that there is no mechanism for punishing people who spread dangerous misinformation. It's strange that it doesn't exist though, because you're allowed to sue for libel and slander. We know that it's harmful, because people will believe lies about a person, damaging their reputation. It's not clear why it can't be generalized to things that we have a high confidence of truth in and where lying is actively harmful.
- alex1138 1y agoVirtually all of the supposed misinformation turned out not to be that at all. Period, the end. All the 'experts' were wrong, all those that we banned off platforms (the actual experts) were right
- alex1138 1y ago[flagged]
- reop2whiskey 1y agoWhat if the government is the source of misinformation?
- ironman1478 1y agoIt's interesting you say that, because the government is saying Tylenol causes autism in infants when the mother takes it. The original report even says more verification is required and it's results are inconclusive. I wouldn't be surprised if some lawsuit is incoming from the company that manufactures it. We have mechanisms for combatting the government through lawsuits. If the government came out with lies that actively harm people, I hope lawsuits come through or you know... people organize and vote for people who represent their interests.
- EasyMark 1y agoIt certainly happens we're currently flooded with it from current regime - Tylenol causes autism - Vaccines cause autism - Vaccines explode kids hearts - Climate change is a hoax by Big Green - "Windmill Farms" are more dangerous for the environment than coal - I could go on but I won't
- pcdoodle 1y agoSo great to see the censorship apparatus in full swing on HN. Lots of great comments into the dust bin.
- system7rocks 1y agoWe live in a complicated world, and we do need the freedom to get things right and wrong. Never easy though in times of crisis. Silver lining in this is the conversation continued and will continue. I can see governments needing to try to get accurate and helpful information out in crisis - and needing to pressure or ask more of private companies to do that. But also like that we can reflect back and go - maybe that didn’t work like what we wanted or maybe it was heavy-handed. In many governments, the government can do no wrong. There are no checks and balances. The question is - should we still trust YouTube/Google? Is YouTube really some kind of champion of free speech? No. Is our current White House administration a champion of free speech? Hardly. But hopefully we will still have a system that can have room for critique in the years to come.
- electriclove 1y agoIt is scary how close we were to not being able to continue the conversation.
- doom2 1y agoIf anything, I think we're even closer. It feels like the current administration is stifling speech more than ever. It's open season on people who don't proudly wave the flag or correctly mourn Charlie Kirk. People who dare speak against Israel are being doxxed and in some cases hounded out of their jobs. Books are being taken off library shelves on the whim of a very few community members with objections. And all of it is getting a giant stamp of approval from the White House.
- type0 1y ago> Is our current White House administration a champion of free speech? Hardly. So after January 22 2026, US leaves WHO and youtube users will be able to contradict WHO recommendations
- cindyllm 1y ago[dead]
- reop2whiskey 1y agois there any political censorship scheme at this large of scale in modern us history?
- rimbo789 1y agoYes; the way the us government big business and the media, specifically Hollywood colluded during the Cold War
- lupusreal 1y agoPrediction, nobody will be unbanned because they'll all be found to have committed other bannable offenses. Youtube gives Trump a fake win while actually doing nothing.
- jmyeet 1y agoFirst, let's dispense with the idea that anybody is a free speech absolutist. Nobody is. No site is. Not even 4chan is (ie CSAM is against 4chan ToS and is policed). Second, some ideas just aren't worth distributing or debating. There's a refrain "there's no point debating a Nazi". What that means is there is a lot of lore involved with being a modern Nazi, a labyrinth of conspiracy theories. To effectively debate a Nazi means learning all that lore so you can dismantle it. There's no point. In reality, all you end up doing is platforming those ideas. I'm actually shocked at how ostensibly educated people fall into the anti-vax conspiracy trap. Covid definitely made this worse but it existed well before then. Certain schools in San Francisco had some of the lowest child vaccination rates in the country. As a reminder, the whole vaccine autism "theory" originated from one person: Andrew Wakefield. He was a doctor in the UK who was trying to sell a vaccine. The MMR vaccine was a direct compeititor so he just completely made up the MMR link to autism. He his medical license because of it. But of course he found a receptive audience in the US. He is and always was a complete charlatan. Likewise, the Covid anti-vax movement was based on believing random Youtube videos from laymen and, in many cases, an intentional ignorance in the most esteemed traditions of American anti-intellectualism. People who are confidently wrong about provably wrong things who had no interest in educating themselves. Some were griters. Some were stupid. Many were both. We had people who didn't understand what VAERS was. (and is). We had more than 10 million people die of Covid yet people considered the vaccine "dangerous" without any evidence of side effects let alone death. As one example, you had people yelling "J'accuse!" at hints of myocardial inflammation from the vaccine. But you know what else causes myocardial inflammation? Getting Covid. If you're excited by this move, it just further highlights that you have no idea whta's going on and zero interest in the truth. What's happening here is big tech companies capitulating to the fringe political views of the administration, a clear First Amendment violation, to curry favor, get their mergers approved, get cgovernment contracts and so on. Regardless of your views on this or any otehr issue you should care about capitulation by social media sites in this way. This comments on this post are just a graveyard of sadness.
- int_19h 1y agoThe problem with those "ideas that just aren't worth" is the usual, who decides? In my country of origin, you get called a Nazi simply for being opposed to the war of aggression that it is currently engaged in. In US, we have a long history of "terrorist" and "extremist" being similarly abused.
- boxerab 1y agotl;dr The Biden Administration has been caught using the government to force Twitter, YouTube and Facebook to censor its political enemies.
- EasyMark 1y agoThey never forced them, and they certainly never said "that's a nice merger you got there, it would be awful if something were to happen to it" per the current policies of the US government.
- terminalshort 1y agoYes they did https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019346177/democrats-want-to-hold-social-media-companies-responsible-for-health-misinformat https://www.npr.org/2021/07/22/1019346177/democrats-want-to-...
- boxerab 1y agoleftism is truly an inversion of reality - current govt is not outsourcing censorship to do end run around 1A, Biden admin did.
- breadwinner 1y agoI think it would be wise to listen to Nobel Prize-winning journalist Maria Ressa of The Philippines, regarding unchecked social media. "You and I, if we say a lie we are held responsible for it, so people can trust us. Well, Facebook made a system where the lies repeated so often that people can't tell." "Both United Nations and Meta came to the same conclusion, which is that this platform Facebook actually enabled genocide that happened in Myanmar. Think about it as, when you say it a million times... it is not just the lie but also it is laced with fear, anger and hate. This is what was prioritized in the design and the distribution on Facebook. It keeps us scrolling, but in countries like Myanmar, in countries like Philippines, in countries where institutions are weak, you saw that online violence became real world violence." "Fear, anger, hate, lies, salaciousness, this is the worst of human nature... and I think that's what Big Tech has been able to do through social media... the incentive structure is for the worst of who we are because you keep scrolling, and the longer you keep scrolling the more money the platform makes." "Without a shared reality, without facts, how can you have a democracy that works?" https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/12/us/video/gps0112-meta-scraps-fact-checking-program https://www.cnn.com/2025/01/12/us/video/gps0112-meta-scraps-...
- gchamonlive 1y agoThat's the evil genius behind the general movement in the world to discredit democratic institutions and deflate the government. Who would hold Meta accountable for the lies it helps spread and capitalize upon them if not the government. So by crippling democratic institutions and dwarfing the government to the point of virtual non-existence, all in the name of preserving freedom of speech and liberalism -- and in the process subverting both concepts -- elected leaders have managed to neutralize the only check in the way of big corps to ramp up this misinformation machine that the social networks have become.
- trhway 1y agoCensorship works both ways. When i tried speaking against violence and genocide perpetrated by Russia in Ukraine i was shut down on Linkedin. Even here on HN, i was almost banned when i said about children abduction by Russia https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33005062 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33005062 - the crime that half year later ICC wrote the order against Putin.
- petermcneeley 1y agoArguing online about the merits of free speech is as paradoxical as having discussions about free will.
- thrance 1y agoI think you have a shallow understanding of both free speech and free will if you think this is the gotcha you seem to think it is. Why couldn't people have discussions about free will in a determinist universe? They could be weaved by the laws of physics into having them. As for free speech online, do you think there should be no limit to what can be said or shared online? What about pedophilia or cannibalism? Or, more relevantly, what about election-denialism, insurrectionism or dangerous health disinformation that are bound to make people act dangerously for themselves and society as a whole? Point is, free speech is never absolute, and where the line is drawned is an important conversation that must be had. There is no easy, objective solution to it.
- petermcneeley 1y agoThere is an evolution from Luther to the Internet. But lets not pretend to know a reversal when we see it. I also cringed at your list. "what about election-denialism" I dont think I can help you.
- thrance 1y agoYour ad hominem does nothing to further whatever views you may hold.
- petermcneeley 1y agoI like perspectives that are based on a historical understanding.
- thrance 1y agoDonald Trump and the majority of the Republican party denied the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election's results. They used it to fuel insurrectionist sentiment. What do you disagree with? I'll note you still haven't advanced anything.
- saubeidl 1y agoThe world is going backwards rapidly. The worst people are once again welcomed into our now-crumbling society.
- keeda 1y agoIn other news (unrelated, I'm sure): "DOJ aims to break up Google’s ad business as antitrust case resumes" https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/09/google-back-in-court-as-it-tries-to-avoid-advertising-business-breakup/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/09/google-back-in-court...
- TwoNineFive 1y agoThey have a desperate need for false-victimhood. Without their claim to victimization, they can't justify their hatred.
- ggm 1y agoWithout over-doing it, as a non-american, not resident in the USA, It is so very tempting to say "a problem of your making" -but in truth, we all have a slice of this because the tendency to conduct state policy by mis-truths in the media is all-pervasive. So yes. This is a problem rooted in the USA. But it is still a problem, and it's a problem for everyone, everywhere, all the time.
- frollogaston 1y agoStill curious if the White House made them pin those vaccine videos on the homepage, then disable dislikes.
- cavisne 1y agoThey should bring back the content too. When history books are written the current state of things is misleading.
- bromuro 1y agoYouTube is like old school televison - at different scale, they have to answer to politics and society. Our videos are their line up.
- dev1ycan 1y agoSocial media and lack of scientific research literacy is going to eventually prove to be fatal for modern society, even with this Tylenol thing, I have on one side people that believe a study blindly without reading that it's not taking into consideration several important variables and more studies are needed, and on the other hand I have people that did not read at all the study saying that it's impossible Tylenol could be causing anything because it is the only pain med pregnant women can take... clear non understanding of how controlled trials work... Same thing with the UFO "Alien" video that was "shot down" by a hellfire missile (most likely a balloon), people just automatically assume that because it was said in congress it has to be true, zero analysis whatsoever of the footage or wanting to seek analysis by an expert, nope, it must be an alien. There is so much misinformation, so much lack of understanding, and so many people, from every side that just have complete and utter lack of understanding of how seemingly basic things work, I am afraid for the future. But yeah! let's unban unscientific sources, oh and people who are okay with a literal coup on a democracy.
- jameslk 1y agoMisinformation, disinformation, terrorism, cancel culture, think of the children, fake news, national security, support our troops, and on and on. These will be used to justify censorship. Those who support it today may find out it's used against them tomorrow.
- EasyMark 1y agoI'm not sure why they would, it's kind of a dumb move. They aren't violating anyone's freedom of speech by banning disinformation and lies. It's a public service, those people can head on over to one of the many outlets for that stuff. This is definitely a black mark on YouTube.
- whinvik 1y agoIts odd. People on HN routinely complain how Stripe or PayPal or some other entity banned them unfairly and the overwhelming sentiment is that it was indeed unfair. But when it comes to this thread, the sentiment mostly is banning is good and we should trust Google made the right choice.
- EverydayBalloon 1y ago[dead]
- st-keller 1y agoMore speech! The signal vs. noise-ratio shifts. So access to information will become more difficult. More disinformation and outright nonsense will make it more difficult to get to the valuable stuff. Ok - let‘s see how that works!
- rob74 1y ago> Google's move to reinstate previously banned channels comes just over a year after Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said [...] that the Biden administration had repeatedly pressured Meta in 2021 to remove content related to COVID-19. "I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it," Zuckerberg wrote in the August 2024 letter. I'm sure Zuckerberg will say the same thing in 2029 too if the ruling party changes again. Until then, removing fact-checking and letting conspiracy theorists have their freedom of speech while suppressing voices critical of the current administration will make that change less likely...
- flohofwoe 1y agoEven more misinformation, Russian propaganda and bots to sift through in the recommendations and comments, got it!
- incomingpain 1y agoCanada has a tyrannical style government that has been censoring speech. I had a discussion recently with a liberal who was arguing that it's a good thing the government is censoring the speech of their political opponents. That free speech comes with consequences. My argument, free speech is a limit on the government. Give them as much consequences you please but not with government power. That's the problem here, Democrats were using government power to censor their political opponents; but they wouldnt have been able to do it without government power.
- throwmeaway222 1y agoI'm shocked at how often people flip-flop their arguments when discussing private entities censoring speech. It's frustrating because it feels like the only speech allowed today is right-wing commentary. When Democrats were in power, it seemed like only left-wing commentary was permitted. It's baffling that, despite our education, we're missing the point and stuck in this polarized mess.