Just ask them. They'll tell you. And tell you. And tell you.
The vast majority of content I watch on Youtube is produced by independent creators covering a variety of topics with much more detail, expertise, and truth than any mainstream program.
We aren’t going to conclude anything useful until we can agree that there are good and bad tradeoffs between central information control and decentralized, and that the optimum at any given point in time probably lies somewhere in between and depends on the context in which the communication takes place.
I would also look to inspiration from the past, and here I will copy loosely from a talk by Eben Moglen. Government wants to control communication. Sometimes in a claim of some civilizing mission on the belief that government and only government can really artfully determine who ought to speak to the masses, and sometimes quite explicitly for the purpose of remaining itself in power. But whatever the reason may be, a lust for power or a misguided belief in the superiority of government wisdom about who should speak to many, central information control is an evil whose time has come.
Right now Google is not seen as an essential part of the infrastructure of society. Google can shutdown email, maps, search and Youtube today and we the citizens have no voice to dictate otherwise. No matter how much people rely on Google maps for driving, or have information stored in the cloud that impact their lives, for now those systems are not considered essential. That view however is starting to change as people's lives start to get unseparable from their use of those services. At that point we get the same discussion. Who ought to speak to the masses, and what will that decision be based on? A lust for power, or the belief in the superiority of government wisdom?
It depends on the context. If your city is being invaded by a civilian-slaughtering army, I doubt many of the civilians would refer to a coordinated military defense as "evil", even though it would rely heavily on centralized information control.
During war time people genuinely believe in the superiority of government wisdom. It is sad aspect of how people work during a crisis, and it has enabled many atrocities which we in peace time can't image a human being could commit. Thankfully in peace time people tend to build up some resistance and recognize government wisdom for what it is. Sometimes it is right, sometimes it is not, and only through open dialog and free communication can we determine which is which.
If I had the skills I would build a strategy game that deals with the new reality - that tribes are nonlocal but often ideologically quite cohesive. Exploring the idea that one's ideological affiliations, rather than one's government or search engine, controls one's thought seems like it would lend itself to the medium rather well.
Today 600 million women are alive that were sold before they were 18 to the highest bid, around 200 million also received a physical downgrade by butchering & cutting out a part of their vagina.
Tribes are hyper local.
Even if censorship is good in the particular context (which seems to be the case here), but bad in general and bad in principle, it seems that the real issue is that there should be one unaccountable entity who gets to make that decision. Why is Youtube big enough to have such an impact without being accountable in any way to the public?
I think censorship can be dangerous in this context so I'm working on a decentralised fact-checker. I think it could be a more constructive solution to fake news that isn't subject to these problems: https://blog.verifact.io/2020/04/20/A-decentralised-fact-che...
[1] https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2020/covid-19....
[2] https://nypost.com/2020/04/17/facebook-fact-checkers-foul-ag...
Who cares if people consume incorrect information? Who decides what is correct?
The WHO has been wrong throughout this pandemic. Accusations of misconduct and a pro-CCP bias are still playing out. The establishment sources have similarly been wrong. At the end of the day, man is still fallible and 'fact-check' is a deceptive misnomer.
Anti-vax information can get people killed.
The "5G causes coronavirus" conspiracy theory is causing people to burn down mobile phone masts.
The Rohingya crisis was accelerated by all sorts of fake news and racial libel, resulting in a large number of deaths.
No. Not vaccinating children get people killed. Therefore, the reasonable response is to mandate child vaccinations (together with fines and other punishments for non-compliance). With such mandates (that are already in many countries), non-compliance is limited to very tiny segment of population.
> The "5G causes coronavirus" conspiracy theory is causing people to burn down mobile phone masts.
The "5G causes coronavirus" is an obvious nonsense, but lets assume for the purpose of an argument that it is true. Even in such case a reasonable response is to petition your MP or do mass demonstrations, not burning mobile phone masts (as violent vigilantism is generally unacceptable approach).
As violent vigilantism is completely unacceptable reaction regardless of truthness of such statements, it does not make sense to blame that statements for such reaction based on being false (unless that statements also contain calls to violence, but in that case even truthfull statements would be responsible for that).
Two wrongs don't make a right. A wrong information source is not the counter to another wrong information source.
WHO advice is the standard being proposed. Adults should be capable of consuming and evaluating information. The solution is not to regard everyone as a child who needs to be coddled.
>'So .. we should give up on all informational hygiene standards and just let people tell their followers to inject bleach or whatever'
Let individual consumers determine their own standards. It is absurd to suggest that there would be no standards without platforms or supranational organizations determining them. When you choose to take a politically charged interpretation of a presser as your own standard, you establish this.
Individuals can disagree. We can't make the world safe for everyone. If based upon your informational standards you think that the president told someone to inject bleach, that's fine. Reasonable people can disagree.
> a question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposedly when we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting, right? And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful. Steve, please.
What is your interpretation of "And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside"? I mean, it's kind of gibberish, not full sentences where one concept is logically related to another, but what do you think it means? Do you think it's a responsible thing to say after the deaths of people from self-administered chloroquine? Do you not think it refers to injections of disinfectant?
Of course, part of how this tactic works is that for any interpretation I can offer you can say "that's not what he said/meant", because what he said is incoherent.
"And I then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in one minute, and is there a way you can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning. Because you see it gets in the lungs, and it does a tremendous number on the lungs. So it'd be interesting to check that. So you're going to have to use medical doctors, but it sounds interesting to me, so we'll see."
The point being he is talking about doctors investigating and employing his "technique".
Don't get me wrong, it is disappointing that someone who doesn't appear to be able to formulate long, coherent thoughts is our president, but I am sick to death of the way some of the things he says are twisted simply because people hate on him. It is a deep level of bias.
(the first talks about ozone, which is a disinfectant but fundamentally cannot be taken internally as it's a gas, and it's slightly toxic https://www.epa.gov/indoor-air-quality-iaq/ozone-generators-... ; the book mentions "Oxygen-Ozone therapy is a complementary approach less known than homeopathy and acupuncture" so that's obviously quackery as well)
that say that if you cannot make the difference between an professional (or informed) opinion, and some redneck with the deep belief that the Earth is flat then I cannot do anything for you
Nobody is asking you to do anything for them, in fact they're asking for the opposite; to let them decide for themselves. And most people can do that just fine. Just because some extremist views exist does not mean the majority believes in them.
Countering assertions which are proven false is good (pointing to a FAQ is sufficient). Censoring, on the other hand, seems counterproductive to me and nourishes the usual "they censor us because they cannot produce a valid counter-argument".
That's what I said in my first post.
I'm not sure the point you wanted to make on the first place but you seemed to oppose the fact that some people should stfu a little on the internet because they know nothing.
Long before all this "5g causes corona virus" in the early 90's my local paper would often have stories about cell phones causing cancer. Long before "china to blame for coronavirus" we had "legitimate" media pushing the link between Iraq and 911. Long before any WHO was at the center of conspiracy theories the UN was.
Let's not even go into things like current affairs shows and fox news. The internet may have made you more aware of the amount of crazy out there, but it was always there.
telling in what way? This behavior hasn't really slowed down, and was persistent through the Obama administration, too.
Many, including myself, feel as if that behavior is par for the course with regards to NYT. Chomsky refers to it as the NYT's special role of 'creating history'[0].
That's why they have some strange ability to be cited realistically by serious people, even when they're entirely wrong about something.
All sources will get it wrong from time to time. A reporter's primary loyalty should be to the truth, regardless of whether it aligns with their pre-conceived notions. Coming up with a way to quantify that loyalty would be a service to society.
Calling out "hey, we totally got this one wrong, and here's why" even "louder" than original prediction is great. This is how you earn trust.
Quietly publishing a correction on the metaphorical back page? Nope. Not even close.
Silently changing the article after the fact? Oh hell no. Go directly to credibility jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
And I am afraid I do not know a mainstream media that doesn’t do that on a massive scale. The WSJ perhaps. Certainly not the NYT.
Every idea starts out as some fringe crackpot idea relative to the status quo. Government recognized marriage of a same sex couple comes to mind as a recent example. Some ideas (e.g. "the general public should wear a mask in public to reduce the spread of coronavirus") make it from crazy to accepted faster than others.
no, word of mouf always existed. It just found new channels
It's especially fascinating to read this after we have literal viral pandemic, about which WHO told us it's not transmissible human to human, government told us go and enjoy restaurants and parades, CDC banned third-party tests and then completely bungled their own tests, same CDC advised people not to wear masks, and so on, and so on... yeah sure, "crackpot ideas" have become a plague. That's where the problem is. I am sitting a month in a quarantine while watching the economy slowly turning to dust - because some crackpot dude made a video about his ideas on Youtube, right?
By this reasoning, _any_ platform that features _any form of moderation at all_ will devolve into oppression. Is HN at risk of becoming oppressive due to banning flamebait and spam comments?
Is Youtube actually in the right here? The guy just wanted to say he couldn't find pork ribs. He wasn't telling anyone to inject bleach or chug quinine.
That isn't just clamping down on the conspiracy nutters. This has repeatedly become an issue in multiple videos from videogame commentary to cooking shows I watch. Youtube and other large corporates often see themselves as leading the dumb cattle that is the general population and frankly it's outright insulting and their handling of this situation is abysmal.
But also it's going to get worse. The more Youtube can get away with these things, the more they'll do them. Don't be surprised when this extends even more to protected political speech (Israel BDS, free HK, Taiwanese independence, etc) because it's happened before and it will happen again.
I'm arguing against the parent comment that essentially makes the argument that _all forms_ of censorship/moderation are bad and inherently lead to oppression.
If you instead want to argue that youtube's specific policies regarding coronavirus are bad/harmful/etc, go ahead, I won't stop you.
Except you can view the dead comments. You can still see the removed stories. You have to opt-in to that, but it's just a checkbox in your profile. HN is moderated, but there is no censorship.
The issue with censorship is that it has to grow. You can't defend taking down say, videos about the Israel BDS movement, and not also take down videos about Free HK. Either the platform openly admits that it's biased or it has to keep growing what can't be discussed and inevitably that's going to start including content that everyone feels shouldn't be censored.
> The issue with censorship is that it has to grow. You can't defend taking down say, videos about the Israel BDS movement, and not also take down videos about Free HK.
I fail to see how this property, if it exists, is any less present in a "moderated but without explicit censhorship" system.
Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky wrote an entire book about 'censorship' that's not technically censorship, titled Manufacturing Consent. Rather, what happens in the industrialized west uses soft influence and economic power to achieve the same ends. Media in such a "propaganda model" of operation does technically disseminate information, but does it in such a way as to reduce visibility, reduce emotional impact, and economically discourage.
Actually, the power to engage in a "propaganda model" of operation enjoyed by YouTube is in many ways much more immediate and absolute than that exercised by the western governments in the 20th century.
If your employer threatened to not pay you because you took a political position that would be abhorrent and oppressive treatment. Youtube is not a direct employee and it's more of a business partner, but it's wielding it's power to control speech - which is oppressive.
This is "basic straw-manning 101." Of course, if you put an absolute re-framing into the mouth of another, it's going to break. Let's try this: Any censorship/moderation of sufficient scope and power, combined with too little accountability, is probably going to produce bad outcomes.
Is YouTube possessed of great scope and power? Check.
Is YouTube transparent and accountable in the way it uses this power? Many, many people don't see it this way. To the point, that people write innumerable articles and make innumerable videos about it. In fact, people have even established at least one union around this issue.
Look, the whole principle of "Power Corrupts" is based upon the same underlying forces as, "You can't convince someone of a fact, if their paycheck depends on it." Everyone is subject to such biases. No one is possessed of all the relevant facts and perspectives. This, in fact, is the true principle behind such phrases as "check your privilege."
We are all human beings. We are all fallible. We all have the potential to make mistakes and even carry out miscarriages of justice and unfairness, if we are given enough power with too little accountability. It's thinking one is somehow immune, or somehow justified by circumstances, which is the key ingredient to the very worst evils in history.
Scope for self doubt and transparency work, and when people lack self doubt and exercise power without transparency, bad things happen. It's not some "weird slippery slope." It's an established part of the human conditions, going back thousands of years, valid in all times, all cultures, and all places.
(P.S. A key historical indicator that such corruption is happening: When a group of highly educated people start to work against transparency and the openness of information, one is in this regime of "Too much power, too little transparency." Heck, these highly educated, smart people might even pull some middle-school shenanigans, like "refutations" that leave out the sources.)
(P.P.S. One thing younger people don't understand, is how in past decades the ethos of Free Speech used to suffuse society. People wouldn't just accede to the letter of the law, they would enact the ethos in their everyday lives. There is an obvious epistemological wisdom in such practice. Really, wanting to hang out with people with such an ethos is really just an extension of wanting to hang out with honest people. Seems to me, this changed in the early days of the Internet, with electronically implemented forms of near-censorship, and that the ethos of regular life has shifted to accepting such practice of near-censorship.)
Are you saying he got banned for this? I feel like you left something out in your comment.
When a grown man who was in the marines for several years is afraid he's going to lose his youtube channel talking about why he can't find pork ribs, that's a chilling effect. When a multi-million dollar videogame streamer is afraid he's going to be demonetized if he talks about why he's filming from home instead of his studio, that's a chilling effect.
The goal of a good censor is not to enforce censorship. It's to get the people to enforce it themselves.
Now the conversation is drifting away from the original point so I want to be sure
https://www.reddit.com/r/SamandTolki/comments/foem3m/h3h3_up...
Here's a related article:
https://onezero.medium.com/youtubes-independent-creators-are...
We only have one telephone system so being banned has a rather large impact as it is an essential service. So maybe we should ask what platforms are like other essential services. Radio is an essential service. What about Youtube? The telephone system is an essential service. What about Skype? I think libraries are also seen as an essential service, so what about Wikipedia? And then we have HN. How essential is HN?
If this rule was implemented earlier, you’d be banned for saying there is human-to-human transmission, proposing flight restrictions, or advocating for the general public to use masks. The W.H.O. has explicitly advised against each of those measures, despite significant disagreement on every one of those claims. It’s absurd that dissenting against the W.H.O. has been banned, although it’s predictable of course.
For example, shutting down a flamewar for simply being aggressive is not censorship, as long as the same discussion would have been permitted if held in good spirit.
Censoring "wrong" content likely has bad outcomes, the worst being that with only "good" content, critical thinking may get even sloppier.
Again, does banning content from an internet forum inevitably lead to "oppression" or "bad outcomes"? If so, why hasn't this happened to HN/Reddit/Twitter/etc?
Sure, if you stop something early you may have overstepped, but no one questions violence taking place when rocks are being thrown. Same goes for once a discussion degrades to ad hominem attacks/insults.
You may call something an insult or an ad hominem as a third party, but you cannot know what value the consenting parties are gaining from the fight.
If you claim that you do, you are asserting that you know better about their experience than they do.
I’m not saying there is no room for third parties to intervene, but I question the judgement of anyone who thinks it’s that easy.
There are good reasons why people choose to engage in combative dialog, although it may not be obvious to observers.
Sorry, but history is overwhelmingly against you. The historical precedents are legion. We're not talking about some "weird slippery slope argument." This is well established human nature. In fact, many of the items in the Bill of Rights are based around this principle.
In fact, the principle has a much shorter, snappier version: Power Corrupts.
The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one; they predicted a problem early and tended to pre-empt the WHO on upcoming problems. This was also expected, because the WHO only advises stuff that is already obvious to everyone. Interested parties can offer better advice than the WHO because they can move with news while the WHO has to wait.
Case in point, Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity runs a prepper/doomsday style channel. He is also a very smart bloke with an honest-to-goodness PhD in a virus-related field. Who are YouTube to say his opinions are less valid than an organisation that can't say "Taiwan" in a sentence and can only say things that are politically palatable to China and the US?
Chris' advice on the coronavirus has been consistently high quality, accurate, sourced and early compared to the WHO. His only fault is his standards for safety are a lot higher than are reasonable. This policy will be aimed at exactly people like him. He has been contradicting the authorities all the way.
What advice has he given that contradicts the WHO's guidance?
https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-r...
"There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit."
That is completely and totally wrong. It is INSANE to suggest something so horrifyingly stupid and dangerous with a virus that has a two week asymptomatic, contagious incubation period. All the infected but don't know it yet people would lower the number of people they infect massively if they work masks. Every single country where mask wearing in public is the norm has a much lower fatality rate than every single country where it is not the norm.
Yes, it does. "In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite". But that is irrelevant, since that is not what I claimed. I said the WHO says masks don't work. I quoted them saying it to CNN for you, and linked it. How much more in denial can you get?
>The WHO's guidance has been that it isn't necessary for individuals to wear medical PPE
I just showed you their guidance, which says they will not help. The overwhelming evidence unanimously says that it does help.
>There are valid concerns about this, both related to shortages and improper care.
There are not. There is no shortage of cotton fabric. Improper use of masks is still superior to no masks.
There's conjecture, and maybe some empirical evidence about cloth masks, but it's weak.
Suggesting YouTubers were correct a form of survivorship bias. You're only paying attention to the ones that were right. Plenty of other YouTubers said things along the lines of it being a hoax, or it'd die off, or that it'd be thousands of times worse long before, and long after, the WHO reacted.
YouTube is big and covers all opinions, so of course some would be correct.
How do I embolden text on HN? When a person with a PhD is talking about something related to their PhD it is imprudent policy to ban their content because it disagrees with a body who are (a) political, (b) purposefully slow to recommend things and (c) have covered themselves with something a lot less pleasant than glory with their response to the worst pandemic we've seen in a century. Turns out he has a biological Nature publication too [0]. I want to hear his opinion even and especially if it contradicts the WHO on coronavirus. I like to live dangerously; I'll take the risk that he isn't a specialist in respiratory infections and viruses.
YouTube has picked a policy that bans good advice if they don't like the tone or word choice on behalf of an organisation I believe the US government is trying to defund for incompetence. This is not a move that should inspire confidence in their fact-checking abilities. I'd bet they don't have doctors or nurses enforcing this policy either but it'd be nice to be wrong.
Also, there are plenty of cases of respectable scientists throwing away their credentials to make a ton of money making completely unscientific social media posts. I'm not saying this guy is doing that, but YouTube certainly need to do more than just look as someone's history and whether they're published. The article you cite is from 27 years ago. He will certainly have changed a great deal in that much time.
The sort of people who are happy to contradict authority were totally correct to contradict the WHO. The WHO weren't communicating best known evidence; they were communicating best known evidence that was acceptable to the Chinese.
YouTube removing people who disagree with the WHO is YouTube setting up a system that will amplify Chinese (or other large state sponsored) propaganda. And I can give an excellent example of a credentialed person who was correctly applying his credentials to warn people about an outcome that has, in fact, emerged. People like that will be targeted under YouTube's policy, which is not interested in correctness but in authority. It is enacting a policy that would have made this crisis even worse for me, because it would have removed the channel that I found out about it from. I am very thankful for having 45 days early notice.
𝗔𝗕𝗖𝗗𝗘𝗙𝗚𝗛𝗜𝗝𝗞𝗟𝗠𝗡𝗢𝗣𝗤𝗥𝗦𝗧𝗨𝗩𝗪𝗫𝗬𝗭𝗮𝗯𝗰𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗴𝗵𝗶𝗷𝗸𝗹𝗺𝗻𝗼𝗽𝗾𝗿𝘀𝘁𝘂𝘃𝘄𝘅𝘆𝘇
𝟬𝟭𝟮𝟯𝟰𝟱𝟲𝟳𝟴𝟵 🞷
And bold italics:
𝘼𝘽𝘾𝘿𝙀𝙁𝙂𝙃𝙄𝙅𝙆𝙇𝙈𝙉𝙊𝙋𝙌𝙍𝙎𝙏𝙐𝙑𝙒𝙓𝙔𝙕𝙖𝙗𝙘𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙜𝙝𝙞𝙟𝙠𝙡𝙢𝙣𝙤𝙥𝙦𝙧𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙫𝙬𝙭𝙮𝙯
Saying the population can be misled is an admission that our school system creates naive dumbasses. MAYBE we should fix that first.
I suspect that even those hailed as 'survivors' weren't necessarily more correct. Nobody remembers who was wrong. Nobody remembers anything, ever. Youtubers pay no price with their audience for outrageous false claims. Those were made in the past, which was a month ago. There's 30 new videos up.
Meanwhile, they reap rewards by fanning the flames of whatever subset of claims they've made that haven't proved false, and can claim they knew it all along.
Unfortunately platforms that reach billions must prioritize the danger of misinformation spreading that far and wide over allowing for every dangerous and wrong opinion.
The complete and total censorship you fear never emerges, Youtube if anything is far too lenient on allowing terrible opinions to linger on their platform. They never do away with anything besides the most harmful, hate filled rhetoric.
who decides what speech is "hate filled"? this is free speech 101. what is the point of a publicly accessible social platform if people can't express themselves freely?
Should they just come out and say that? Probably. Would it be effective? No people are irrational in crisis and their words wouldn't prevent the above scenario.
They made a calculated choice with their language which is misleading, but necessarily so. You can disagree with it, but it's far from "spreading misinformation for political reasons".
The term isn't interchangeable with lying, it's purpose-driven.
No, they don't. See, this is the core problem, that premise: that's the job of governments. And in the US, the law says the government doesn't get to do that.
Arguing that entities who are arguably more powerful than the government should be doing it is literally arguing for the dictionary definition of fascism.
Individuals, and collections thereof, however, are free to censor whomever they want. This misguided idea that your protection from government censorship affects your contractual agreement with me needs to stop.
You need to read my comment again.
In the US, it is NOBODY'S JOB.
> This misguided idea that your protection from government censorship affects your contractual agreement with me needs to stop.
Repeat after me: "I am not Google. I am not Google. I am not Google. I don't affect the lives of billions of people. I don't affect the lives of billions of people."
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
I'd rather have many companies competing with one another.
We’ve had such a long time between the passage of things like the Fairness Doctrine and now to turn the boat (not to mention countless critiques of the consolidation of local news and syndicated television networks for examples), maybe learn a few lessons along the way that I wonder if this isn’t an emergent outcome and is in reality an inherent one.
Is this an extreme terminus of network effects?
It happened with news (the cable news cycle) and it’s happening with social media.
The bare, sad truth is that any private or public societal scale information sharing function eventually gets captured - driven to relentlessly pound away at subconscious fight or flight routines so that they keep their cut of the audience.
Eventually the need to keep the network alive (advertising) overcomes its ostensible mission of carrying valuable signal.
As long as the two are not divorced - the advantage will lie in exploiting the vulnerability of our neurological systems over investing in carrying more in depth, boring but accurate news articles.
At some level we must recognize that we need to get the best of a central source of truth while also ensuring that this source of truth is not captured by the governing bodies of a country.
The courts broke up Microsoft, and it's not like that hurt them at all.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...
YouTube by comparison is essentially arbitrary.
If only our judges would get with the program and acknowledge facts don't exist, and there's no such thing as wrong or right, true of false :)
That's what a typical modern government is.
Google is joining them.
Suggesting that Apple has historically been at fault here and that Google is now just joining them sounds incredibly biased.
In the meantime, Trump advocates injecting disinfectant, what argument have you got for him?
"EVERYONE IS GONNA DIE AHHHHHHHH!!!!!" is not a good basis on which to be making planetary policy.
It doesn't change the actual number of people killed by the virus, at all. That is to say, regardless of the shape of the curve, the area under the curve remains the same.
And economic depressions kill people too, in fact in far greater numbers than this virus has, yet. You don't seem to care about those lives either.
That's the problem with having a comfortable life. You don't see the consequences of your choices. I live in a place where I see people suffering and starving because they live hand to mouth and can no longer make the $2-$3 dollars a day it takes to keep them alive. They can't go out on the street to sell food. They can't make their few cents helping cars in and out of parking lots. They can't open their "shop" the size of a porta-potty in order to sell a few shirts. And when these conditions spread, crime and death spread with them. I've started to give away what food I can just to try to help whoever I can.
All the while, cozy HN commenters who earn $250,000 USD a year pontificating about whether we should shut off the entire planet for 18 months or more because it doesn't affect them one tiny little damn.
Nobody arguing for that point of view gives a shit about human life, they want control, plain and simple.
Indeed, asymptotic carriers (as well as healthy people that are going to become asymptotic carriers) following the political crackpot pseudoscience advice from WHO and end up not wearing masks do not harm only themselves but everyone around them as well.
For the next time I would suggest to confirm if you haven't misunderstood something before hurrying to insult the one that you are talking to.
Also let’s be honest - the likes of Hitler actually came from the likes of people who would tell you to stop listening to WHO advice and to go start fires in 5G towers.
Don’t get me wrong, freedom of speech et. al., and we’re probably also going to get burnt by the freedom with which today’s global platforms invent the rules - but the laws are being written now; and we’re obviously not dealing with an easy, black-and-white answer.
Yes they did - where do you think Martin Luther composed his 95 theses?
This is not true. The rise of the Third Reich is fascinating because of its populism rooted in hard-working citizens who believed in their country.
> and the fact that you can absolutely be "censored" on a private platform.
Yes. That's the point. Otherwise, we wouldn't be having this conversation.
Nothing kills bad ideas like sunlight and scrutiny, you don't need to ban it and make them martyrs.
This is old, early internet era naïveté.
Sure - anecdotally- you could perhaps convince one person by highlighting information.
But the plural of anecdote is not data.
At scale - sunlight and exposure increases dissemination of bad ideas.
Designing ideas to sound appealing in a viral sense means that even their dismissal and refutation by authority sources only increases their spread in the target population.
“Of course the governments going to deny they made the corona virus! They aren’t stupid.”
“Of course scientists would say that, they need grant money.”
All the ideas that grow from the root of this tree fail at scale.
Malicious actors are beyond the scope of this axiom for example - they don’t care about being defeated in argument- they just want to let vulnerable people know they exist, and then have them fall into their ideological orbit.
Competition over information networks only drives the news cycle effect - a market adapting to target the weakest link the human Fight or flight response, over giving better quality news.
Second, and more directly related to the events of this weekend, there are important reasons for our long history of defending freedom of speech — including speech we abhor. We fundamentally believe that our democracy will be better and stronger for engaging and hearing divergent views. Racism and bigotry will not be eradicated if we merely force them underground. Equality and justice will only be achieved if society looks such bigotry squarely in the eyes and renounces it. Not all speech is morally equivalent, but the airing of hateful speech allows people of good will to confront the implications of such speech and reject bigotry, discrimination and hate. This contestation of values can only happen if the exchange of ideas is out in the open.
There is another practical reason that we have defended the free speech rights of Nazis and the Ku Klux Klan. Today, as much as ever, the forces of white supremacy and the forces for equality and justice are locked in fierce battles, not only in Washington but in state houses and city councils around the country. Some government decision-makers are deeply opposed to the speech we support. We simply never want government to be in a position to favor or disfavor particular viewpoints. And the fact is, government officials — from the local to the national — are more apt to suppress the speech of individuals or groups who disagree with government positions. Many of the landmark First Amendment cases, such as NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware and New York Times v. Sullivan, have been fought by African-American civil rights activists. Preventing the government from controlling speech is absolutely necessary to the promotion of equality.
https://www.aclu.org/blog/free-speech/equality-justice-and-f...
In 1990, nearly 50% of white respondents to a survey indicated they'd oppose living in a neighborhood where half the residents were black. In 2014, under 20% would oppose it and over 80% are indifferent or would favor it.
Going back further than 1990 only serves to bolster that fact.
"Throughout the 20th Century, racial discrimination was deliberate and intentional. Today, racial segregation and division result from policies and institutions that are no longer explicitly designed to discriminate. Yet the outcomes of those policies and beliefs have negative, racial impacts, namely with segregation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation_in_the_Unit...
At least in North America, racism and white supremacy is a fraction of what it was 50 years ago.
If you go by the number of hate crimes reported to the FBI (which has reporting bias), it has gone up, but it's still lower than it was during the late 90's.
Things have improved quite a bit. There was just a period where things were brushed under the rug and not acknowledged, but giving internet access to everyone has made us aware of what's been ignored for so long. There are clear bumps of race-motivated crimes or discrimination sometimes, but there's a pretty obvious downward trend in acceptance of it.
There remain many dark corners, where these pathologies flourish.
Social media just changed the landscape. Engagement maximizing algos birthed outrage cancel culture. It lets people find each other. It accelerates radicalization, both left and especially right leaning.
And the filter bubble keeps these things out of the public sphere.
I think that we, in 30 years, will look back at the rise of right wing populism as a symptom of a positive development. The populist parties do get a lot of votes, and if anything I believe that is a sign that the voters have not felt represented by the power. Which, in turn, I also believe is why the populist party supporters are so loud. If I actually believed that the government did not represent the people, I would be loud as well.
When the "anti establishment" has become the establishment I think the democratic process will end up being stronger with a discussion climate that better represents the population.
It takes a long time for the details of history to settle. For example, nobody knew most dinosaurs had feathers until the last decade.
https://nypost.com/2020/03/20/who-haunted-by-old-tweet-sayin...
1. https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unk...
2. https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/09-01-2020-who-stateme...
Saying there is preliminary research that gives no clear evidence of it. Stop twisting the words
Instead, there was a Greece threat to seize German property as a compensation for WWII: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-31831694
Vastly understates the influence, but it's a great start.
Edit: the partisan downvoting has been particularly bad as of late. I was asked for sources and I provided them. Academia is not immune to ideology.
There are two obvious options (and lots of options in between).
(1) Do nothing. Pros: the propaganda gets clicks, which means revenue. The armchair libertarians are happy because nation states continue to have the freedom to saturate all communication channels with lies. Cons: The pandemic gets worse, mass graves continue to fill up, the US continues to destabilize politically and economically.
(2) Learn from past mistakes and address the propaganda with some sort of restrictions. Pros: limits the spread of deadly misinformation, greater chance the US remains economically and politically stable. Cons: Lost revenue. The restrictions will never be perfect. The armchair libertarians get riled up because it reminds them of a Hayek fairy tale they once read.
YouTube is part of a private company. They're under no obligation to give a platform to the propaganda arms of every world's intelligence agency.
This is noxious.
>'YouTube is part of a private company. They're under no obligation to...'
This is the free-market, libertarian position.
Sure my tone could have been much better. You have a good point.
But political dogmatism is also noxious. Personally I think HN is at its worst when discussions get derailed into a dogmatic recital of political cliches.
> This is the free-market, libertarian position
Right, I'm deliberately framing the issue that way.
It is the status quo. Which in this case is free-market.
Forget history (it's popular) what about technical ability to do this? We can probably share information about "my sharona" after all.
Also, does youtube really want viewers it constantly has to protect from bad information?
The idea is: "We are the decent, good, people who know the truth. Now we control the platforms, so it's only well and good we control the information, and we tell the deplorable others what they can and can't say."
Almost everyone in the history books as a horrible oppressor has told themselves that narrative. Many of them were brave, noble, and well meaning, and had an ideology that told them they were in the right.
How are the employees of YouTube or any tech company exempt from those forces? What makes them somehow wiser or smarter than everyone else in history?