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Re:The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire by nonbirithm on Friday December 11, 2020 @06:53PM (#25393386)
There has to be a good reason why psychological warfare is used, including by the United States in periods like the Vietnam War. The expectation is that statements written on paper or recited through loudspeakers or similar influence people's thoughts, which influences what actions they will take. Those actions are supposed to be beneficial to the forces scattering them from a helicopter or posting them on walls. They're trying to get you to do something regardless of what your preexisting thoughts are beforehand.

Now tear down the pieces of propaganda and burn them. Is this censorship?

I think human brains are sufficiently able to be hacked by the right information. With certain kinds of information, those people could end up causing material harm to someone who is completely uninvolved. That is the ultimate danger that I believe YouTube and the like are trying to avoid, and if true it would be an admittance of a sort that some kinds of information are dangerous to some kinds of people. The name "psychological warfare" implies that communication can be weaponized, in a sense. Certain people do not change their ways regardless of what you try to tell them.

I think the issue is centered not around people trying to have a reasoned debate, but those who have been lost to debate more or less permanently. Previously, you couldn't scatter this kind of information about on the scale were seeing today, and also recommend similar content using very effective algorithms. The more millions of people the content reaches, the more latent believers it will reach and end up converting, even if the conversion rate is a fraction of a percent. And many of these people are very vocal.

In a sense, the content takedown seems like an attempt to counteract the fact that the algorithms are too effective of a medium for misinformation. I don't think we would have seen this kind of scale with books or flyers.

Re:The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire by chordalkeyboard on Friday December 11, 2020 @07:25PM (#25393675)
> I think the issue is centered not around people trying to have a reasoned debate, but those who have been lost to debate more or less permanently. Previously, you couldn't scatter this kind of information about on the scale were seeing today

you and I couldn't. Oligarchs and their governments could and did. The difference is that now their position is threatened by the democratization of information warfare.

[dead]
Re:The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire by dang on Friday December 11, 2020 @09:13PM (#25394665)
We've asked you before not to do religious flamewar on HN. If you keep doing it we're going to have to ban you.

It also looks like you've been using HN primarily for ideological battle, which is exactly what the site is not for, and which destroys what it is for (thoughtful conversation on intellectually curious topics).

We've warned you many times about this in the past. If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and fix this going forward, we'd appreciate it.

Re:The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire by maccard on Friday December 11, 2020 @07:21PM (#25393654)
This is one of the most shallow and outright racist comments I've ever seen on this site.
Re:The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire by newfriend on Friday December 11, 2020 @08:59PM (#25394562)
Islam isn't a race. If you criticize Christianity, or Hinduism, or Buddhism, or yes, even Islamism, you aren't being racist.
Re:The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire by rayiner on Saturday December 12, 2020 @01:17AM (#25396064)
This is mostly true but the three religions you mention aren’t parallel in this respect. Apostasy in Islam is (typically) defined as someone who leaves Islam after being born into a Muslim family or previously accepting Islam: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam. So it’s not a race or ethnicity, but in a theological and practical sense people are “born Muslim.” Put differently, separation of ethnic group, language, and religion are less well-defined in many parts of the world than it is among people of European descent.
Re:The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire by skolsuper on Saturday December 12, 2020 @02:08AM (#25396339)
You left a certain major world religion off your list that counters your argument... Accident?
Re:The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire by skinnymuch on Saturday December 12, 2020 @01:09AM (#25396012)
The poster meant bigoted. This is pedantic.
Re:The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire by maccard on Saturday December 12, 2020 @05:42AM (#25397369)
I did. Thank you.
Re:The YouTube ban is un-American, wrong, and will backfire by skinnymuch on Monday December 14, 2020 @07:45PM (#25425572)
Hah people correcting racism on a technicality but not at all addressing the bigotry issue is a personal pet peeve of mine. Anti intellectual in my humble opinion