Ex: The WHO made many mistakes during COVID, including faulty recommendations and (alleged) influence by a governing body to limit bad press. [1]
(Before the ad hominem attacks come in, I'm obviously very pro vaccine...but against censorship and generally distrust authoritative bodies of most kinds.)
[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/world-h...
One of my favorite science channels, Cody's Lab, gets banned all the time because he has educational videos on making explosives. The guy is so family friendly he doesn't even swear in his videos.
Anyway, Youtube - and by extension, the US government - are a bit cagey about instructions on how to make explosives (and thermite). If amateurs try to emulate it, they can injure themselves badly. I mean you only have to look at some of the "fail" compilations on youtube to see how stupid some people are.
I agree, but with a very large caveat - the human brain is not good at probabilities, it basically only recognises “outcome A is guaranteed” and “outcomes A and B are equally likely”. So how much credit should we give to an authority who is correct 90% of the time?
90% isn’t great when it comes to life-or-death matters, so it’s dangerous to recommend “always trust them”. But recommending “don’t always trust them” results in people thinking that the authorites and the crackpots are 50/50 correct, which results in even more people dying :(
Not recommending travel/border restrictions was a cached thought from a 1990s plague outbreak in India.
The CDC did bow to political authority on COVID-19 measures so. Contrary to science.
If information is going to be censored based on what they say, they do have to be right all the time. And the point is, they aren't right all the time.
By the way, Youtube has been banning pornography basically since day one. No outcry about that. Counterpoint, would you accept removing content about abortion and gay marriage rights? If the answer is yes, it indicates that it is not free speech you are worried about.
The cheapest content moderators possible, of course. Outsourced through contract agencies in foreign countries to keep costs down. I doubt anybody with a medical degree would take the job. Here's an article about the life of YouTube, Facebook and Twitter content moderators in Manila:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/07/25/social-...
"At the end of a shift, my mind is so exhausted that I can’t even think,” said a Twitter moderator in Manila. He said he occasionally dreamed about being the victim of a suicide bombing or a car accident, his brain recycling images that he reviewed during his shift. “To do this job, you have to be a strong person and know yourself very well." The moderators worked for Facebook, Facebook-owned Instagram, Google-owned YouTube, Twitter and the Twitter-owned video-streaming platform Periscope, as well as other such apps, all through intermediaries such as Accenture and Cognizant.
If these platforms don't do anything then everyone talks about how misinformation is rampant on these platforms, how dangerous it is and that nothings being done about it. If they do, then everyone's worried about censorship or blamed to be politically motivated.
There could be simple legislation that defines what is and what isn't to be censored, then these platforms can adhere to that and check a compliance box and leave it at that.
Perhaps a better response would be, what do you think these platforms should do, really? Maybe we can crowdsource a good idea. And, while at it, also think how to thread the needle of keeping these platforms as less scammy etc. as possible, so that the people won't stop using the platforms.
Why should anyone care about these platforms' engagement metrics? What about these platforms necessitates their survival?
The assumption that Youtube is an unalloyed good for the world is a very controversial one.
The problem starts when you have a Yale educated doctor telling publicly that eggs (or butter, or fat) are unhealthy and then you have Harvard educated doctor who tells you the opposite.
Same with wearing masks. We heard from the official sources (WHO, governments) that wearing mask by healthy people does not help, while 3 months later we hear the opposite and then again we hear they don't help.
Censorship on YT will not solve the problem that people stopped believing in science and that happened because many scientists were working hard to lose public trust.
This is an actual thing that we can see happen in real time. It very, very obviously causes damage - and claiming it’s just “some random youtubers” is a deliberate attempt to misrepresent that.
If you disagree that this approach is wise, or effective, or morally correct, thats a totally fine argument to make. You don’t need to also lie about the impact in order to make it.
It isn't obvious to me. Where has this caused concrete damage?
A lot of countries used to have censors around a few decades ago. Usually they regulated radio, TV broadcast, and cinema, and the popularity of such government regulation were at times pretty high, especially among parents and conservatives. In my nation it stopped dangerous information that taught children to kill other children, and also information that could harm national interests.
They were however removed on the principles of free speech concepts (not the US constitution specific version). It also happened that the amount of children that killed other children did not actually rise, so there were clearly a lack of any scientific method to determining how dangerous a piece of information really was.
> everyone talks about how misinformation is rampant on these platforms
There is no tangible evidence for that, supporters of this strategy believe in conspiracies themselves. Same strategy as with Nazis on the net: ignore them.
That really works and it already has for years before everyone became panicked.
Long term damage is the inevitable consequence of too many bad short term decisions.
Poor short term leadership damages societies just as a poorly maintained codebase rots from accumulated technical debt.
> If you love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom — go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!
Feeling hungry for change, what will our generation trade in exchange for our inheritance?
By definition, 'Obvious bullshit' cannot fool huge chunks of the population. If some bullshit can fool a huge part of the population then it is not obvious to them.
Anyone who wants to get in the way of strangers talking to each other is someone who thinks he's your king.
You're not going to like the future you just wished for.
“Obvious” is debatable. Hardly anyone watching scientific content of any kind is an expert in the subject matter. What the public has always relied on is some sort of authority figure lending credibility to some idea or news story. For instance, saying masks don’t work is “obvious” bullshit. But remember back in March? Our glorious leaders were urging us not to buy masks because they don’t work, and besides, doctors need them. Even though they don’t work. And to have argued differently at the time was “misinformation.”
Now we’re trusting Facebook, Twitter, and Google to be the authority from which all truth flows.
I think this is a bit disingenuous. First of all, you're looking back with the benefit of hindsight and the knowledge of the virus that we have today. Additionally, weren't most of the recommendations around mask wearing that people not gobble up PPE because there was such a shortage of it around the country for first responders and hospital staff? Isn't that one of the primary reasons why people across the country started making homemade masks out of t-shirts and other spare cloth?
The surgeon general said in March that masks were not effective for the general public against Covid-19.
The CDC said on March 13, 2020 that there is really no evidence that wearing a mask will reduce your risk for any respiratory infection.
Of course they say there’s no evidence that a mask will protect YOU. Masks aren’t supposed to protect YOU. They prevent YOU transmitting the virus to OTHERS. So of course it doesn’t reduce YOUR risk of respiratory infection. That conclusion has not changed.
The guidance was pretty clear: they didn’t want people wearing masks because there was a PPE shortage. Now there isn’t a shortage, so they want people wearing masks.
It's false that the guidance was clear the reason for recommending people not wear masks was because of a shortage. US health officials stated that masks were ineffective and may increase the likelihood of infection because of touching your face while wearing a mask.
As someone pointed out Sweden to this day has this to say about mask usage:
"The scientific evidence around the effectiveness of face masks in combatting the spread of infection is weak, which is why different countries have arrived at different recommendations."
https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency...
(I'm not sure this is on point to Youtube's policy here, though - they say they aren't banning all vaccine skepticism, just specific categories of silly disinformation like microchips.)
My country made masks for protests mandatory. Now people are complaining too. I would say that you should enjoy this new freedom. In normal times you meet the water cannon if you show up with a mask to a protest.
The problem is that many outlets lied directly in their readers faces with a reference to intelligence agencies. Turns out it was all a bunch of bullshit too.
Just like drug addiction, each step along the path to censorship is a clear decisive act. I am way more concerned about the fast train to banning encryption than the baby step of banning misinformation.
And by the way, let's also not lose sight of the fact that presenting misinformation is a bastard political act itself. Fuck those people.
Edit: *on a non government platform
Making an argument for 'misinformation cesspit' over 'moderation' is just never going to be an argument you can win. Not with the business, and not with the public. This is one of those 'perfect is the enemy of good' things. If you don't give them a good business option to take, you will get handed the easy one (and it sure as shit is not going to be perfect).
While presenting misinformation is a political act, it is a more 'neutral' political act. In that, since many people are able to put forward content, that doesn't stop ideas from either side. Yes, that doesn't mean that truth will automatically come from that mix, but it allows for the potential of truth to be found. When you have a massive company controlling so much of content, it has a large amount of ability to influence the people using the platform. As well, I think banning misinformation is a legitimate slippery slope. It increases people's willingness to have other's censored for their incorrect beliefs, which once you have gotten far enough will be the new normal.
But since that’s their entire business model, it’s unlikely to happen.
I for one am glad I'm not responsible for setting policies like that.
Not exactly, I just meant that they could largely solve the problem by ending the algorithms that massive boost distribution for "engaging" content.
Do we have any evidence that it's true? Anecdotally, it seems that the more the internet has expanded our ability to communicate, the more widespread misinformation has gotten.
I see the moral and anti-authoritarian arguments against censorship, but only in the context of accepting the costs. This "have your cake and eat it" argument feels hollow.
I don't think this is the right conclusion. After thinking about it more, it's not like the internet is patient zero for conspiracies and misinformation. It's just that the internet has exposed to the rest of us how common it is for people to hold such beliefs.
> Anecdotally, it seems that the more the internet has expanded our ability to communicate, the more widespread misinformation has gotten.
I completely agree, but why should we assume falsehoods and truth travel at the same rate? History would suggest otherwise.
This slippery slope is fallacious.
There's quite a lot of psychological evidence suggesting that first impressions stick stronger than corrections (which everyone knows who has ever accidentally believed something just because they heard it quickly), that only people who are predisposed to corrections actually believe them, and that in others corrections even augment belief in the originally wrong claim ("see, the mainstream media feels threatened by this revelation!")
There's also a good book by Bartels and Achen[1] suggesting that prevalence of wrong beliefs can actually increase with education (climate change denial is more prominent among highly educated Republicans, highly engaged people on both sides of the political spectrum are more likely to make wrong assumptions about the demographics of the other), because they have more capacity to rationalise false priors.
So there's actually significant reason to believe that more speech, by increasing engagement increases partisanship, which in turn leads to ample adoption of misinformation. Which I think makes a little bit more sense when one looks at the state of discourse in the last few years.
[1]https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691169446/de...
Christianity, for example, was supported by blasphemy laws. Once those laws were undermined or removed its doctrines and practices were able to be challenged, and now we see greater numbers of non-believers in formerly Christian countries as a result.
There's certainly dogma in that example but not the sort you were positing.
As I've pointed out elsewhere, you've time limited the results for no apparent reason. That a lie can get halfway round the world before truth has a chance to get its trousers on does not obviate the power of truth and the power to speak truth.
This is alt history. Religious rule in the Western World came to an end through revolution. The French revolution in particular. Religious power was ousted out of systems of governance by force, civic codes were established and that was that. In the communist world, the other large sphere that is now irreligious, force was used even more explicitly. Nothing had anything to do with peasants having a discussion about religion over a cup of coffee after blasphemy laws were lifted. Secularism as well as religion were imposed by elites and institutions, blasphemy laws were lifted afterwards.
Given these two facts, it's far easier for lies to spread quicker than truth.
How do you solve for this in your spherical cow model of free speech?
Which lies have persisted the longest, and were those lies supported by free speech or by censorship?
The truth may never become as widely known as the lie due to the frictions it encounters in spreading. People like to see news that confirms their own biases (me too), they like spreading news that's counter-intuitive or unusual, and they hate reading boring stuff (like fact-checks with a long list of citations). An interesting lie will spread quicker and wider, and be remembered for far longer, than the correction that just a few days later.
Overall this whole "free speech kills lies" idea sounds like religious dogma to me. It may be true in some cases, but it's taken as an immutable, universal article of faith and its proponents never feel the need to cite any actual evidence or address the horrific consequences of the edge cases. It's an idealistic image of how the world works, similar to a socialist utopia.
Free speech is crucial to liberty and progress, and the government must not regulate speech. But that should not apply to private platforms.
Yes, that's unfortunate. There is no way to consistently detect lies, which is also unfortunate for anyone arguing for censorship as then you cannot ascertain which claims should be censored and which should not.
> Lies about, for example, the stab-in-the-back, tobacco and WMDs in Iraq got the liars what they wanted at the cost of millions of lives.
I don't know what "stab-in-the-back" is but tobacco and WMDs are examples of lack of speech. If we'd all had access to secret documents then the lies about WMDs wouldn't have worked quite as well, I reckon.
> Overall this whole "free speech kills lies" idea sounds like religious dogma to me
Which is ironic considering you've stated it again, and again without reason to back it up.
> its proponents never feel the need to cite any actual evidence or address the horrific consequences of the edge cases
There are no edge cases because it's not promising utopia, it's promising freedom, and it does that because the alternatives are worse - I would rather choose free speech for all than your idea of censoring people based on which method? The abilities of the high priests to divine it, perhaps?
Now that would be religious thinking.
Edit: typo
The edge cases are where millions die because of lies perpetuated unchecked. "Freedom" is the ability to say whatever you want without the government getting involved, nothing else. If a private party doesn't like what you say, tough shit get off their property. Otherwise you're impinging on their freedom to keep anyone the hell they want off their property.
Speaking of high priests, it would be pretty funny if discussion boards required declarations of faith to join and being kicked off was akin to excommunication. In such an environment, moderation is just another name for "suppression of heresy within the religion". Surely the government wouldn't dare intervene in the free practice of religion, would they?
Overall, I find it hilarious in this whole discussion that conservatives appear to be arguing for more government interference in private property rights and freedom of expression.
When did this happen? The Holocaust? If there weren't blasphemy laws then the Bible could've been challenged and you wouldn't have rampant anti-semitism waiting to be pushed into something far more abhorrent than nasty speech. Same goes for the cause of the pogroms, free speech would've been more likely to end them before they had begun.
There are plenty of other socialist movements that ended in genocide of many more millions - would you say they existed in an environment of free speech?
> "Freedom" is the ability to say whatever you want without the government getting involved, nothing else
Freedom of speech is the ability, without interference by government or society, to say what you want, to whom you want, at the time of your choosing; and to listen to whom you want, when you want. The US government is restrained in interference by the constitution but that does not mean other entities don't interfere in others' speech. Was there no racist action before racist action was defined in law?
> If a private party doesn't like what you say, tough shit get off their property. Otherwise you're impinging on their freedom to keep anyone the hell they want off their property.
There are exceptions to every rule - arrest warrants for certain classes of crime are one example, you cannot simply tell the police to go away if you're wanted for murder. When the application of several entities' rights butt up against one another then one right or entity's rights may have more merit than another, which is why we have courts to decide on such novel moments or for legislators to define the sensible limits of rights.
Since you're really talking about social media though and not physical property, I would agree except in the case of monopolies. If HN wants to kick someone off, no problem. FB or Twitter or Google are different propositions.
> Overall, I find it hilarious in this whole discussion that conservatives appear to be arguing for more government interference in private property rights and freedom of expression.
I'm not a conservative, nor an anarchist. Regardless, government is supposed to interfere where rights are being impinged in order to protect those rights. Hence, you've got the wrong end of the stick, we "conservatives" are arguing for government interference against censorship.
Because time matters. Look at elections (where there are huge incentives to exploit the fixed timescale), or look at fraudulent operations like pyramid schemes - eventually they get exposed, but if the originators are sufficiently disciplined to cash out and bail before that they may reap handsome profits. The incentives to spread false information are a function of the profits that can be obtained from doing so before the next decision cycle.
As a parallel example, look at the way the clock influences strategies in professional sports, with teams using timeouts and deliberate fouls to game the outcome of a match. At that point they're not playing ball, but rather a meta-game about time management. It's one reason I like baseball; the game runs for a defined number of plays (9 innings, each of which runs until 3 batters have been struck out), so while games can run very long, that sort of metagame doesn't really exist.
It's not that I like censorship, in fact I'm adamantly opposed to it. But saying 'boo censorship, yay free speech' is ducking the real and measurable problem of false content spread by a mix of ignorance and dishonesty.
I support calls for more education and critical thinking, but that takes years to pay off; the answer to high levels of fraud or corruption is not as simple as 'let's just create a culture of honesty', which substitutes the desired outcome for the solution.
Consider also specific examples of disinformation campaigns. It's easy to create the appearance of controversy by attacking the formation of social consensus, and then to point to point to that appearance of controversy as pseudo-evidence that the prevailing public consensus is a deception carried out by The Powers That Be.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6137759/ - trolling behavior in anti-vaccination forums
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/exxon-knew-about-...
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3490543/ - tobacco industry disinformation strategies
That's an interesting paper and I hope to give it more than the cursory read I've given it so far. I've requested the dataset (there's a waiting period of 4 weeks, unfortunately) because the outcomes obviously rely upon what is considered false news. Their reliance upon "independent" fact-checkers is not good enough in my eyes, because of what I've learnt about those doing the fact checking (just one example[1], there are many).
I agree, false content is a real and somewhat measurable problem and that it is spread through ignorance and dishonesty. However, we know from experience that censorship does not lead to a culture of honesty - far more often it is used to support the opposite - and would you contend that it encourages critical thinking? Those cultures certainly support education as long as it's approved. Hence, I'm not sure why any of those should count against having more free speech.
I'm not against being pragmatic, I simply think that there are other more effective and largely unheralded ways these problems could be mitigated. For instance, you shared a paper on trolling (I've yet to read, my apologies). Instead of widespread censorship in response, why not give users the powers that social media companies have? I've seen Twitter claim that they removed bots and score users based on behaviour, why can't you or I see those scores or know who bots are? Why can't I be given power over the algorithms and filters that dictate my feed? Surely that would be a better way forward that diktat by very powerful entities from above?
Free speech implies the freedom to choose who to listen to, and censorship also removes that.
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/22/the-dai...
The ultimate free speech hasn't lead anywhere good on the internet because quacks that previously where relegated to soap boxes in their villages when free speech was thought of in the US are now given the same platform and power of voice as field experts who have studied their domain for years and know the dangers.
Hard to separate that out from the algorithms that promote videos. Would it be as bad, in your eyes, if discovery was "flattened", so to speak? i.e. no recommends, no shaping of the feed, no shadowbans or hidden videos
They post videos at almost hourly pace, distributed over several channels and each video has a unique image to it (ie, different logos, different TTS settings). If normal well researched content had to compete with that, it would loose by being buried under the sheer mass of bot generated bullshit.
And that isn't even counting the number of videos produced by actual humans that are just as bad.
A lot of conspiracy theorists aren't above threatening violence and law suits (usually libel) against those exposing them or simply posting the truth, I've heard of multiple instances of that occuring, atleast one in-person.
This isn't two sides arguing peacefully about one position or the other, it's one side being violent and disrespectful to the other. "Flattening" the discovery of other content is basically asking the otherside to be not-violent and stand back so that the violent side can have their say.
Sometimes violence comes from both sides of the debate too (ie, US politics) but that doesn't make the amount of disrespect by people purposefully lying or spreading lies any better.
Free speech, as I see it, means that you can express your opinion freely without repercussions unless it's advocating for violence against people or groups of people. If you're talking about facts, those should not fall under free speech under the simple premise that facts are either provable or you should say that you have no proof or you should expose them as the opinions they are.
Of course, but truth wins out over the long run.
> If normal well researched content had to compete with that, it would loose by being buried under the sheer mass of bot generated bullshit.
How do you stay above it all? It's not censored now but you seem able to detect it and protect yourself.
> A lot of conspiracy theorists aren't above threatening violence
That is censorship, I'm not sure how that supports an argument for more free speech? We have laws against assault already.
> and law suits (usually libel) against those exposing them or simply posting the truth
How could they win? Defamation laws, at least in the US, value truth above other considerations.
> it's one side being violent
Again, I'm not sure what this has to do with a free speech argument?
> and disrespectful to the other
I'm also not sure why this is relevant - it's not nice but so what?
> Sometimes violence comes from both sides of the debate too (ie, US politics) but that doesn't make the amount of disrespect by people purposefully lying or spreading lies any better.
Violence and disrespect really are completely different ball games, I don't see how conflating them clarifies things.
> Free speech, as I see it, means that you can express your opinion freely without repercussions unless it's advocating for violence against people or groups of people.
I agree, that's a very good starting point.
> If you're talking about facts, those should not fall under free speech under the simple premise that facts are either provable or you should say that you have no proof or you should expose them as the opinions they are.
If you could find someone who can judge such things infallibly then perhaps I would agree.
I doubt that, and if that was even the case, until then lies can do a lot of damage.
>How do you stay above it all? It's not censored now but you seem able to detect it and protect yourself.
I don't. Sometimes I get fed bullshit and believe it. I'm certain there is things I believe right now that are lies. Sometimes I find out a more proper explanation, sometimes I never get any truth.
Getting behind what is lies and what not requires education, something the US for example has abandoned over time for the rich to enjoy.
>That is censorship, I'm not sure how that supports an argument for more free speech? We have laws against assault already.
Censorship is enacted by government, not private individuals. Besides, they are smart enough to never call for violence directly. They say "I wish someone would call SWAT on this guy" or "this kinda behaviour ends you with a broken nose wink wink".
>How could they win? Defamation laws, at least in the US, value truth above other considerations.
In the US, a lawsuit isn't about who is right but who has enough money to keep the lawsuit going for longer.
>Again, I'm not sure what this has to do with a free speech argument?
Free speech is valuable in respectful and calm debate. Disrespectful and violent speech is not free speech, it's violence.
>Violence and disrespect really are completely different ball games, I don't see how conflating them clarifies things
Reread, I don't conflate them.
>If you could find someone who can judge such things infallibly then perhaps I would agree.
It doesn't have to be infallible, just reasonably provable or not disprovable. If you're lying on purpose then this entire point is moot anyway, no need to prove anything. Then you're just out for harm.
Strangely, it's only the proponents of censorship that claim it will lead to utopia.
> Censorship is enacted by government, not private individuals.
This is not true at all. Free speech is not a synonym for the US 1st amendment. That part of the constitution only protects government interference, which implies that there can be other types, and there's more than one country in the world. Are you really going to claim that social media companies cannot censor?
> Besides, they are smart enough to never call for violence directly. They say "I wish someone would call SWAT on this guy" or "this kinda behaviour ends you with a broken nose wink wink".
This sounds to me like conspiracy theory talk, as does the bit about rich people. I'm sure both happen but to paint everything or everyone that way lacks nuance at best and sounds like something you'd hear from a quack in a tinfoil hat at worst.
> In the US, a lawsuit isn't about who is right but who has enough money to keep the lawsuit going for longer.
This is partly true, but it is no doubt true that the law - explicit as it is - states the opposite. Again, who was claiming that the system was perfect?
> Disrespectful and violent speech is not free speech, it's violence.
> Reread, I don't conflate them.
If you didn't then you just have. I suspect you, either knowingly or unknowingly wish to tie disrespect to violence because it's convenient for arguing against disrespectful speech being free. Well, SCOTUS has ruled that even some forms of "violent speech" are covered by the 1st amendment (speech containing threats must be credible and imminent to lose coverage), disrespect is definitely covered.
Can I blashpheme or is that too disrespectful? Is satire allowed or is that too disrespecful? Would I be committing violent acts by dismissing God? I'd expect that kind of talk from religious fundamentalists.
> It doesn't have to be infallible, just reasonably provable or not disprovable
You're circling back to a court system with judges, but…
> If you're lying on purpose then this entire point is moot anyway, no need to prove anything. Then you're just out for harm.
…you appear to have discarded presumption of innocence along the way. Terrifying.
No, a court still has to prove that but it's a lot easier in most cases where harm is intended.
>Can I blashpheme or is that too disrespectful? Is satire allowed or is that too disrespecful? Would I be committing violent acts by dismissing God? I'd expect that kind of talk from religious fundamentalists.
The disrespect is meant in terms of a reasonable discussion. Blasphemy usually lies in the realm of religion, which is in the realm of opinion, unless you don't believe in freedom in religion. Satire is rarely calling for violence last I checked and most reputable satirists I know check their facts before the show to make sure they don't get things wrong. Plenty of people like to dress up violent speech as satire but it rarely works well when they're not punching up.
>If you didn't then you just have. I suspect you, either knowingly or unknowingly wish to tie disrespect to violence because it's convenient for arguing against disrespectful speech being free. Well, SCOTUS has ruled that even some forms of "violent speech" are covered by the 1st amendment (speech containing threats must be credible and imminent to lose coverage), disrespect is definitely covered.
As you so beautifully stated above, free speech isn't a synonym for the US paper scrolls. In germany, violent speech is far outside the realm of protected speech. If you threaten to punch someone in germany, the courts can put you in jail for up to 30 days, depending on situation, history and such, usually it's a fine or 1-2 weeks probation/public work. The exceptable clause is that the speech must clearly be unactionable, ie you jokingly tell your friend you're gonna punch them if they win against you in Mario Kart or something like that.
>This is partly true, but it is no doubt true that the law - explicit as it is - states the opposite. Again, who was claiming that the system was perfect?
If it's not actionable then it doesn't matter what the law says since it's not enforcced.
>This sounds to me like conspiracy theory talk, as does the bit about rich people. I'm sure both happen but to paint everything or everyone that way lacks nuance at best and sounds like something you'd hear from a quack in a tinfoil hat at worst.
There have been multiple instances of this happening over the years, most famously KeemStar, if I recall the name correctly, had a private stream for dedicated followers where he would repeatedly wish for someone to be SWATted, which can be a death sentence in the US.
>This is not true at all. Free speech is not a synonym for the US 1st amendment. That part of the constitution only protects government interference, which implies that there can be other types, and there's more than one country in the world. Are you really going to claim that social media companies cannot censor?
The german constitution may not know free speech, but it knows freedom of opinion, which is a tighter subset. Censorship in germany is still defined as being done by the government.
In colloquial language you may refer to some actions that SMC do as censorship but it is hardly correct. What SMC are doing is enabling or surpressing people's ability to share their speech.
>Strangely, it's only the proponents of censorship that claim it will lead to utopia.
Germany has clauses that make you criminally accountable for lies you tell. It's called "Volksverhetzung" and generally means any type of speech that is capable or suitable to arouse hatred against people, a group of people or otherwise defined membership in some thing. It has well defined (by our constitutional court) limits and it has worked well in the past to root out fascist groups and bring them to justice before they do anything to actually harm people.
> The disrespect is meant in terms of a reasonable discussion.
Which begs the question. Again we are led back to the question of what is (un)reasonable? Something you repeatedly fail to define, beyond persistent conflation with violence. I'm yet to see the necessary link between unreasonableness and harm. I think you're being unreasonable and likely you feel likewise - where's the actual harm?
> Blasphemy usually lies in the realm of religion, which is in the realm of opinion, unless you don't believe in freedom in religion.
“the realm of religion” is a curious phrase - do religious people not speak? I wonder if you're making such a nebulous distinction because you'd rather not have to ban several religious books (and hence religions. Hooray for freedom of religion) because they're quite clearly more hateful and an incitement in theory and in practice than nearly everything ever written on Twitter and Facebook that you would hold "unreasonable".
I'd allow them their freedom to speak, and I would allow people to speak against them. Freedom of religion (and from religion) is predicated on freedom of conscience, which is only fulfilled by having freedom of speech.
> Satire is rarely calling for violence last I checked and most reputable satirists I know check their facts before the show to make sure they don't get things wrong.
Forgive me, but this is utter nonsense. Why would satarists need to check facts? Is it because ssatarists in Germany are liable to be put in danger and legal hazard?[1]
> Plenty of people like to dress up violent speech as satire but it rarely works well when they're not punching up.
The world is not a black and white place filled with victims and oppressors. You might note how all oppressors are against freedom of speech.
> As you so beautifully stated above, free speech isn't a synonym for the US paper scrolls. In germany, violent speech is far outside the realm of protected speech. If you threaten to punch someone in germany, the courts can put you in jail for up to 30 days, depending on situation, history and such, usually it's a fine or 1-2 weeks probation/public work.
It's good to hear that you have an assault law. Are less or more people attacked in German for expressing a view than in the US? By all accounts Germany still has rampant anti-semitism[2] and regular attacks on citizens for their speech that are incited by hateful speech. German law would restrict criticism of those incitements because it's “the realm of religion” and "hateful" to do so, no doubt.
> >This is partly true, but it is no doubt true that the law - explicit as it is - states the opposite. Again, who was claiming that the system was perfect?
> If it's not actionable then it doesn't matter what the law says since it's not enforcced.
I'll have to send you to court for telling lies ;-) You can search for "us defamation win" and see a whole host of times courts decided before either side ran out of money. Usually, running out of money leads to a settlement if the plaintiff is not the underdog, which makes the settlement by the SPLC of Maajid Nawaz's case[3] perplexing… if we assume your statement to be true.
> There have been multiple instances of this happening over the years, most famously KeemStar, if I recall the name correctly, had a private stream for dedicated followers where he would repeatedly wish for someone to be SWATted, which can be a death sentence in the US.
Are you arguing that private individuals do or don't enact censorship? Hard to tell, you seem to have started out on one side and are now on the other.
> The german constitution may not know free speech, but it knows freedom of opinion, which is a tighter subset. Censorship in germany is still defined as being done by the government.
Censorship in German law. It's quite possible for censorship to be possible and not covered by law. If the law changes tomorrow will your argument change too? (or again)
> In colloquial language you may refer to some actions that SMC do as censorship but it is hardly correct. What SMC are doing is enabling or surpressing people's ability to share their speech.
In English that is known as censorship, since at least the publication of On Liberty, but it's also a good example of German paternalism and application of positive liberty, the form of "liberty" that always leads to bad things.
> > Strangely, it's only the proponents of censorship that claim it will lead to utopia.
> Germany has clauses that make you criminally accountable for lies you tell. It's called "Volksverhetzung" … > and it has worked well in the past to root out fascist groups and bring them to justice before they do anything to actually harm people.
Pre-crime as a category is tyrannical. Those who cannot remember - or understand - the past are condemned to repeat it.
[1] https://m.dw.com/en/german-satirist-jan-b%C3%B6hmermann-sues...
[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/21/magazine/anti-semitism-ge...
[3] https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/06/maajid-...
Ah, I think I see what side you stand on, if you can't see all the far-right stuff going down where Nazis are parading US politics for almost 4 years.
>In English that is known as censorship, since at least the publication of On Liberty, but it's also a good example of German paternalism and application of positive liberty, the form of "liberty" that always leads to bad things.
I disagree, positive liberty ensures that as much as your liberty remains preserved without infringing on the liberties of other people. Your freedom ends where other people's freedom begin.
>Pre-crime as a category is tyrannical. Those who cannot remember - or understand - the past are condemned to repeat it.
Is it pre-crime if you've been calling for the death of a minority group? That is a crime in my eyes, regardless of how actionable it was, as it hurts those minorities regardless due to the sentiment expressed.
>Are you arguing that private individuals do or don't enact censorship? Hard to tell, you seem to have started out on one side and are now on the other.
Private individuals can surpres speech by their own speech, that isn't censorship but it is violent in many cases.
>Forgive me, but this is utter nonsense. Why would satarists need to check facts? Is it because ssatarists in Germany are liable to be put in danger and legal hazard?[1]
If they are lying about things, yes. A satirist can't just start insulting people or spew lies without repercussions from the people injured as a result, physically or otherwise.
>I'd allow them their freedom to speak, and I would allow people to speak against them. Freedom of religion (and from religion) is predicated on freedom of conscience, which is only fulfilled by having freedom of speech.
I don't think that freedom of religion requires an american freedom of speech but feel free to prove me wrong. While germany has problems with anti-semitism, people are working against it, the government is working against it.
THe US in recent years has started to have problems with anti-semitism, however, since your government is not doing anything in that regard, one has to rely on civil organization to attempt to even track it's rise.
The US has many problems at the moment and a lot of them stem from the fact that the US is unwilling to stamp out those people who will only take the liberties granted to them to stamp those very same liberties out. In the early 20th century, germany had much experience in this regard, you can't use speech to surpress nazis, they will use guns and violence to silence you if the government does not stop it.
But feel free to wallow in your imagined freedoms until the steel boots come.
Ah, the promised rise of fascism in the US government! It's been almost 4 years now, when will it materialise? There are, however, fascists in the streets burning, looting and rioting, and they've been implicated in the deaths of many people. Do wake me when the government fascism begins though ;-)
> I disagree, positive liberty ensures that as much as your liberty remains preserved without infringing on the liberties of other people. Your freedom ends where other people's freedom begin.
That's not positive liberty, that's negative liberty[1].
> >Pre-crime as a category is tyrannical. Those who cannot remember - or understand - the past are condemned to repeat it.
> Is it pre-crime if you've been calling for the death of a minority group?
No. Pre-crime is the judgement of a crime that has not occurred.
> That is a crime in my eyes, regardless of how actionable it was, as it hurts those minorities regardless due to the sentiment expressed.
Words do not cause objective harm, that's why there's a distinction easily made between words and other actions like using your fists. Feeling hurt by words is something we would all wish to avoid but incredibly dangerous as the basis for criminal statute.
> Private individuals can surpres speech by their own speech, that isn't censorship but it is violent in many cases.
Speech is not violence, violence involves the application of physical force. If speech causes someone to anticipate imminent physical force then I would criminalise that. Luckily, that was done a thousand years ago in English common law under "assault" so I don't need to bother.
>Forgive me, but this is utter nonsense. Why would satarists need to check facts? Is it because ssatarists in Germany are liable to be put in danger and legal hazard?[1]
> If they are lying about things, yes. A satirist can't just start insulting people or spew lies without repercussions from the people injured as a result, physically or otherwise.
Luckily (again) there are laws in place for malicious lying that defames, in civil law. It is only a crime in countries that are not au fait with freedom, like Germany.
> I don't think that freedom of religion requires an american freedom of speech but feel free to prove me wrong.
If the government can interfere in your speech then you may only practise your religion - and I'm including private practice - as much as they allow. That's not freedom, that's an allowance, like daddy might give a child at the weekend.
> While germany has problems with anti-semitism, people are working against it, the government is working against it.
Hard to believe you could write that if you'd read the article. I wouldn't point the finger at anyone else if you can put out an apologetic like that, and yet you do…
> THe US in recent years has started to have problems with anti-semitism, however, since your government is not doing anything in that regard, one has to rely on civil organization to attempt to even track it's rise.
I'm not an American, and you'll find that anti-semitism in the US is rising for reasons that will be uncomfortable to you politically[2], though it should hardly be a surprise that socialist movements are anti-semitic, we had at least a whole century of it to learn from.
> The US has many problems at the moment and a lot of them stem from the fact that the US is unwilling to stamp out those people…
Did you write that and then this with a straight face?
> But feel free to wallow in your imagined freedoms until the steel boots come.
I was worried about satire in Germany but I see it is safe in your hands.
> In the early 20th century, germany had much experience in this regard, you can't use speech to surpress nazis, they will use guns and violence to silence you if the government does not stop it.
Actually, Germany institued speech laws against Nazis, from[3]:
> In Weimar Germany, the Nazis and their ideas were censored – regularly, in fact. Leading Nazis including Joseph Goebbels, Theodor Fritsch and Julius Streicher were all prosecuted for hate speech before they rose to power – and Streicher was imprisoned twice. The Nazi publication Der Stürmer was regularly confiscated and its editors were taken to court on at least 36 occasions. Anti-Semitic speech was explicitly prohibited by law, leading to more than 200 prosecutions in the 15 years before Hitler came to power. ‘As subsequent history so painfully testifies’, writes civil-liberties campaigner Alan Borovoy in When Freedoms Collide, ‘this type of legislation proved ineffectual on the one occasion when there was a real argument for it’.
By contrast, Nazism did not arise in the US despite there being widespread racism, and the use of free speech actually helped the civil rights movement bring equality to all. In the words of Frederick Douglass from his speech, "A Plea For Freedom of Speech in Boston"[4]:
> Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down. They know its power. Thrones, dominions, principalities, and powers, founded in injustice and wrong, are sure to tremble, if men are allowed to reason of righteousness, temperance, and of a judgment to come in their presence. Slavery cannot tolerate free speech
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfhQhdA-zss A primer in the two concepts of liberty.
[2] https://www.newsweek.com/anti-semitism-derail-black-lives-ma...
[3] https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/07/28/you-cant-defeat-rac...
[4] https://lawliberty.org/frederick-douglass-plea-for-freedom-o...
Edit: typo
What we're experiencing is the limit of freedom of speech.
It used to be that at scale things were controlled by the media and governments because they had the monopoly on the infrastructure required, which was costly.
You can say that this enabled a level of censorship, but that also enabled to filter a lot of noise.
What we're experiencing is what happened with the printing press and every communication technology since - the democritisation of communication. That always leads to unrest because it moves power towards the masses.
> You can say that this enabled a level of censorship, but that also enabled to filter a lot of noise.
I would say that because it did, but on the noise point, I cannot listen to or read more than I did then, I only have 24 hours in a day. I can choose from more sources but the volume has not gone up. I am the filter now - should I not be?
Are you going to tell me what I should read and listen to? I have to tell you that I think I can do a better job that you at that, thanks all the same.
I mean I can invoke Godwin's Law, but we don't have to go that far back; everybody knew Trump was a terrible person and he should not have been eligible for the presidency, but because of tolerance he was given a shot anyway, and a minority of the population (~19%, ~63 million votes) managed to make him president.
My new favorite wiki page (for now) is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Firstly, the Nazis rose despite and possibly helped by speech laws.
> My new favorite wiki page (for now) is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Secondly, Popper is not calling for speech to be supressed in any way except for those who choose violence instead of speech. The original[1] is better than a Wikipedia article that cuts off the important part of his words:
> In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion…
Hence he is supportive of the right to discussion for all. He contrasts this with those who won't support speech and sets the limits:
> for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols
They've given up on speech so he gives up on tolerance, which is wise. Free speech is there to reduce violence and supplant it and nothing Popper wrote in the "paradox of tolerance" contradicts that.
[1] https://archive.org/details/TheOpenSocietyAndItsEnemiesPoppe...
Which we cannot do the way Youtube worked until now. The way YouTubes algorithms worked rational argument gets drowned out and public opinion cannot keep anyone in check.
See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance (iirc that was linked to on here a while ago, I may misremember)
By extension, a system that wants the idea of free speech to stay viable needs to protect itself from ideas that bring harm to it. Maybe it can be argued that from mathematical sense there is some kind of paradox (a set of all sets that are not blah blah), but this is no contradiction for us humans. There is no mathematical beauty in submitting to a wave of harmful, malicious misinformation.
Platforms like YouTube, Google Search, Twitter, Facebook and all have a problem of amplification through algorithms that don't promote well proven, high quality, trusted content. You could almost see these platforms themselves as a kind of censorship through obscuring and creating noise around quality information.
I think because of the way content is amplified on such platforms, that's why they need policies like this, to limit the possible damage and liability they might face if they'd promote something that caused a lot of damages.
This is very different from someone choosing to host their own content which is equally accessible to all other content. But as soon as you rank content, as soon as you have an algorithm pick and choose content to shown you, in what order to show it to you and all that, you actually have a propaganda problem, because you become a propaganda machine, and that's really what these platforms have become.
Though even with search, if the search algorithms are biased, and prioritize things in a way that could be argued to be recommendation, like personalized results based on what it thinks you'll like for the given keywords, you could say that's also a problem, which is why I mentioned Google Search.
To put it another way, you'd expect that the easiest content to find and discover, and thus be shown and recommended would also be the most commonly held opinion and current scientific consensus. But you'd also want representation for less commonly held opinions and scientific hypothesis and claims. Just that, if 1 scientist is pushing some wildly different idea, and 99 others are pushing the same idea, you'd expect that the idea pushed by 99 scientist would be the easiest to come around and that it be clear that it is weighted to 99%, while the other would be a little harder to come around and it be clear that it's weighted to 1%.
The issue is those platforms fail heavily to represent things proportionally as such. Often, the outlying wild claim will be recommended more heavily, and be promoted over others. Even without algorithms, the people pushing wild claims generally employ amplification tactics by spamming and posting multiple times over and over, etc. to falsely boost their representation.
So that's the problem I see here. Banning the more problematic instances of this is their poor solution to keep their platforms operating in a way that doesn't offer proper representation (because it makes more money), but avoid the extreme cases that could put them in hot water.
According to the article youtube's policy team meets with the WHO weekly to discuss potentially problematic videos.
Also, only governments can censor. Youtube is a private entity, so whatever they do cannot be censorship yo begin with.
"Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies."
Also what incentive does YT have to be political?
Do you have a source for that frankly outrageous claim?
Flagging something as misinformation is not "banning." And Trump claiming he's "immune" has nothing to do with the report in question.
FYI: "getting downvoted on HN because my comment is spreading false rumors" is not an example of censorship.
I haven't been around here very long and recently figured out 'showdead' because I wanted to be able to see what folks were talking about -- especially when there were replies to such comments.
In fact, even if I'm skimming comments, I always read flagged/dead comments -- to make sure I hear all the voices. Even the ones I don't appreciate or even dislike (although that's not always the 'dead' ones)
Which services banned Trump's recent medical report? I would have assumed "Twitter blocks Trump medical record release" had been in the news and cannot find a single story about it. There was this tweet from Trump (not his doctor) that got flagged as containing COVID-19 misinformation, but was not deleted[1]:
> A total and complete sign off from White House Doctors yesterday. That means I can’t get it (immune), and can’t give it. Very nice to know!!!
There's a good reason Twitter flagged this: Trump is full of crap and idiotic tweets like this will literally get people killed. COVID-19 recovery definitely does not provide immunity to reinfection.
https://thehill.com/policy/technology/520550-twitter-labels-...
If the above is true, then there is no hope for a vaccine.
Second of all, this is not how vaccines work. Recovery from an illness does not mean that your immune system was maximally effective: a weak immune response coupled with anti-viral medication and hospital treatment could mean that your immune system is not equipped to fight the virus a second time. This happens often with flus and colds.
There are different strains of flus, colds, and recently, a few different strains of coronavirus.
You can't generally be reinfected by the same strain. What can happen is that new strains can infect you. There are tons of cold strains around, and the flu mutates quickly enough that each year we get a new one, so vaccines have to be redeveloped for each new round of mutations.
Coronavirus is the same way, except that as far as I know, it mutates much more slowly than cold and flu viruses, meaning that vaccines (and having gotten it once) will be equally and more effective than flu or cold vaccines.
Unless the word "generally" is doing a lot of work in this sentence - YES YOU CAN be reinfected by the same strain. It's called "homologous reinfection": the person's natural immune response is not always up to the task of actually providing immunity to a specific viral strain, and that exact same viral strain can reinfect the patient even immediately after recovery.
This idea that the human immune response is always 100% effective (assuming the patient survives) is frankly a bizarre misconception: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3863957/
He is immune. Similarly, we say that cars can cross the Golden Gate Bridge, despite the fact that the bridge could be destroyed (by bombing for example) or that one could call the NASA crawler-transporter a "car" that is 90 feet wide. Absurd, exotic, and rare possibilities don't change the basic truth.
Vaccines do work like getting the illness, or less so. The illness is nearly certain to provide long-term immunity, but a vaccine is not quite so likely. Those who can't generate immunity will survive the vaccine but not the illness.
It's more likely that the reinfections came from different immune responses, where the first infection was beat with a cytotoxic T-cell response (viral defense) but not an antibody response (viral and bacterial defense), the latter of which increases immunity with antibodies.
The re-infection cases that I read about were shown to have been from different strains. Perhaps this is not the common case, but without more information, I am reluctant to accept your statement at face value.
This has not, to my knowledge, happened yet.
> I don't believe any sensible person believes that they become immune to all strains after recovering from one, and I do not believe that Trump was saying this. Do you?
I certainly do believe that the message trump intends to convey is that he is immune to the coronavirus and can no longer be re-infected period.
Because that's not how censorship works. You don't block it and then draw attention to the thing you blocked. That would be counter productive. Here, have a look at this,
Now look at
https://twitter.com/thelastrefuge2
and all you can see is a retweet of
https://twitter.com/Breaking911/status/1315101764958539777
Twitter also regularly bans and blocks things temporarily while they're trending to stop the spread. Once attention has moved to another issue, they sometimes lift the restrictions. In effect, deleting their censorship actions.
Please don't wear a mask. Please don't take vaccines. Please congregate in closed spaces for long periods of time
Do your part to achieve heard immunity.
Just don't say they might suffer the consequences of their actions, the deniers don't like it
It is a public health act and a moral act, and therefore both scientific and political. These considerations don't take place in a vacuum of Free Speech Patriots versus Social Media Authoritarians. YouTube's decision has to be considered alongside the widespread consensus among doctors and public health officials that social media disinformation about COVID-19 has killed tens of thousands of people worldwide, in a pandemic that has killed over 1,000,000 people in less than a year.
And let's be absolutely clear: the reason why YouTube's actions are so politically controversial is that unscrupulous politicians like Trump and Bolsorano have deliberately politicized misinformation about COVID-19. It is not YouTube's fault that "should we listen to scientists about COVID-19?" has become a partisan issue.
Also: "Section 230" concerns are irrelevant here (and irrelevant in most cases of social media "censorship"). Section 230 specifically allows content providers a great deal of latitude in blocking material they deem "objectionable," including constitutionally-protected speech. YouTube is well within their rights to make reasonable determinations about what constitutes COVID-19 misinformation, and to ban such materials.
YouTube blocks pornography with nary a peep from free speech activists. This is because a "free speech" argument is transparently absurd: YouTube is a business and not the government, and is allowed to regulate the data it keeps on its servers for business reasons. Yet the idea that YouTube might regulate for reasons of ethics or public health in the middle of the worst pandemic in 100 years is apparently the slippery slope of censorship.
What is political about objective science?
To answer your question directly, it seems to me that objective science becomes political when an unpopular politician cites a scientific publication or opinion. Attacking the messenger then becomes important to those politically opposed, and the original scientific message gets lost in the political controversy.
what am I supposed to be looking at? is there supposed to be an info box that says "yes" or "no"?
- Who is answering the question?
- Who paid for that answer?
- What platform is it posted on, and where lie their loyalties?
The problem with search results for questions like that is that you end up on a ton of trash media sites, none of which are neutral; they are all paid for, operated by or supported by parties with political goals and ambitions.
By the way, if you make the claim, the burden of proof is on you.
Answer: No
Anyone believing the BS that this is an efficient drug is delusional
IMO, any nation which cannot establish a harmonious relationship with their own institutions of science is in a shaky spot.