I'd say that blocking the content doesn't always reinforce their beliefs. For a lot of people, reading something that is then blocked at a later date reinforces the belief that the information they consumed is not only true, but so true that it has to be censored by some authority, because it would threaten said authority's legitimacy.
As an example, imagine you think that the police are too violent, and you stumble upon police bodycam footage of a cop getting unnecessarily violent at a traffic stop. You bookmark the video, and then later when you try to tell people about it, the video has been taken down the police, for whatever reason. Wouldn't that reinforce your belief that police are too violent?
I know this isn't a perfect example, because a video of someone doing something is much different than an article making claims based on little to no evidence. But the reason some people's beliefs are reinforced by censorship is because they can't help but wonder if the people doing the censoring are trying to hide something.
Some people are beyond saving- there is nothing that you can say or do to get them to accept that their beliefs are wrong. So you're better off expending efforts on the option that disrupts the radicalization pipeline.
What could I possibly say or do to convince this person otherwise? They are so far beyond rational understanding of the vaccine that I'd rather take down the misinformation than be afraid of somehow re-enforcing that family member's beliefs.
I like to do in-depth research for myself (example: watching an entire Trump or Biden speech instead of relying on a selected soundbite), viewing the original video or source instead of blindly believing on what mainstream media says about them.
Unfortunately as more things get censored from social media/YouTube whether fairly or unfairly, it looks like I'll have to spend more time on "alternative" platforms, being exposed to the stuff that is common on such platforms. In the end, there's going to be the Twitter echo chamber, and the Gab echo chamber, etc (note that Parler seems to be dead).
A slightly more effective approach for you might have been to remove such videos from their recommendation algorithm. But, that doesn’t mean it’s ineffective for people who would be initially discovering this stuff.
Platforms, by their nature, are mostly worried about what's happening on their platforms - when it's occurring elsewhere, it is no longer their problem. It is a mistake to think YouTube wants to bring an end to all misinformation everywhere - their focus starts and ends with misinformation on YouTube. Balkanization is the best option they can hope for, as long as it's not on YT.
The arguments goes in both directions, if you don't handle it correctly then being too heavy handed has the opposite effect.
Pontius Pilate doesn't really care, as long as he's washed his hands of the matter and has rid of the man (and crowds) from his court.
But the pipeline is not a single thing. It’s a mutating and evolving entity. If you remove the content from one place, it shows up in another, but now it has more credibility because it’s been “removed for truth”.
Unless there is a plan to block these people from the internet entirely, disrupting the pipeline ends up being gasoline on a fire.
Such is the nature of a decentralized internet. The only centralized authority that can keep people off the internet is the government, and it would immediately run into freedom of speech issues (and I'm not a fan of government action. I'd much rather have private sites use their free speech/editorial powers to combat this).
Are many smaller fires better than fewer, but larger conflagrations? Depends on who you ask, I think so. However, platforms don't care about the larger picture, they are only concerned about the fires on their properties.
Then doing things on basis of motivating them is a dead end, and we should staunch the flow of falsehoods to keep other people from becoming contaminated.
A previous fundamental tenant of public health was candid communication.
Censorship goes against that - many activities through this - such as not promoting general health and wellness, diet etc, - go against past foundations of PH.
If people are questioning the legitimacy of PH, censorship reinforces that perception.
What's next, in that case?
I'd rather focus on "what now", because in my opinion there has not been any candid communication between the yays and the nays. All of the media produced along the lines of "5 common vaccine myths DEBUNKED by fauci" are drivel and work backwards from the position that anti vaxxers are dumb and irrational and all their complaints are totally wrong, rather than actually trying to convince people of anything.
What I would love to see is a public, formal debate between two people/groups about vaccine mandates. I might even pay to see it, or fund it or something. I think the closest we have had to this was Rand Paul "grilling" Fauci in a congressional hearing, which was not helpful because it devolved into the participants yelling over each other.
>candid communication doesn't address if the opposing view has overwhelming (and un-candid) counterpoints
I'm not sure if a formal debate counts as "candid communication", but I do think a formal debate would address this. If one side is totally unreasonable and none of their arguments hold up, everyone will see that. If one side just reverts to yelling, everyone will see that.
I know this is a pipe dream, because our media masters have decided that vaccine opposition is just too dangerous. But frankly I cannot think of a better opportunity for the people who claim they know best to actually prove that their opponents are wrong.
To remove false information is not a failure to be candid
We have always removed false information
A private company removing content is not censorship
Public health has always been in favor of removing false information
The perception is being reinforced by false moral equivalences and false claims about the past
There is no downside to removing structured false information being presented by a foreign power
Your hand-wringing doesn't make sense
Logically many of your points that use ‘always’ are highly unlikely to be true, because we’d only need find one case to prove the statement false.
"vaccine producers are immune from liability", is not false but is anti-vaccine ... its taken down.
When reports about problems with AstraZeneca were coming out, those were tagged as misinformation, today most countries no longer give out AZ vaccine.
Theyre suppressing truthful info, why should you trust anything they say?
> ... there should be a preference for an alternative to the AstraZeneca [1]
> Canada’s largest province says it will stop giving out first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine due to concerns over its link to rare blood clots [2]
> More nations halt use of AstraZeneca's COVID vaccine citing clots [3]
[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/use-of-the-astraz...
[2] https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/canadas-large...
[3] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/more-nations-halt-use-o...
False. Here's the note on the image showing vaccine usage:
"Note: The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is known as Covishield in India. Only countries that report doses administered are shown. Other countries may have approved vaccines but have not administered them yet."
Unwinding decades of malfeasance and indoctrination takes time and effort.
Even those who snap out of it then spend decades coming to terms.
Even worse: The liberal tendency to cult shame and scold backfires. (Am guilty as charged.)
The only effective remedy I'm aware of is distraction and redirection. Like the guy who slow walked his wife out of the QAnon cult by encouraging her interest in the opera.
Meanwhile, cockblocking the grifters helps too.
UNfortunately what your family member is doing is actually the mirror opposite of what the official reports and mainline consensus has been, that all deaths in X days of a positive covid test are caused by covid but that no deaths after vaccination are are caused by vaccines. Also consider that harms from covid have been reported averaged amongst all age groups to give and inflated risk for the young, while risks from vaccination have been averaged amongst all age groups to lower the stated risk to the young. I state this last point just to illustrate how deliberate misinformation has been government policy with regards to covid stats, so the same technique used by anti vaxxers is of no surprise whatsoever.
When the mainstream consensus uses precisely the behaviour nudging abuse of data as a conspiracy theorist, do not be supposed when some people are unable to see what the problem is.
Fauci, the CDC, the WHO; all of the communications from these institutions used the noble lie constantly, fudging numbers, re-casting things to fit their narrative. I already deeply mistrust the media apparatus, who also parrot this narrative.
Realizing that the vaccines are safe took a LONG time for me to come to. I do think I am very much in the minority of the vaccine hesitant category. Many of them dig not dig through all news sources from both sides like I have the perception I did (in truth, I looked at more on the right than the left).
But you have to understand that a huge swarth of the country do not trust ANY of the institutions. All of the officials are viewed as corrupt, manipulating liars.
This is pretty close to the truth. For a further nudge in the right direction you should apply that thinking to the state of mind your family member was in prior to encountering any "anti-vaccine propoganda".
They were not in a kind of limbo where they could go either way on covid vaccination. They consumed specific media because they already distrusted the authorities in power in the USG.
The reason you are ending up in this apparent to censor or not to censor paradox is because leadership had already previously failed to convince your family member that they could be trusted. Everything that came after was just mobilization.
Now in your situation you should of course censor the hell out of any anti-vaccine sentiment for the same reason that ISIS should not get to train on Army gym equipment and weapons: it *strengthens* your enemies.
Downranking will of course be equally hopeless. This is the equivalent of the Army allowing ISIS to train with them but only on Sundays at midday or something. Its incoherent.
The right answer has been and will always be to have a leadership class (and that includes the people at Youtube and Google as well as legacy politicians) who can be relied upon to display even a modicum of trustworthiness towards *all* Americans. Ironically censorship also fails to move the needle in the right direction at this point.
Guess we are still in that paradox after all.
Can you think about one time in history when you conclude "the government was right to censor this"?
Those who have good arguments against something can convince people with them.
Those without good arguments, need to ban it.
The rules of debate say it's always better to refute the main argument and to address their issues. If you resort to ad-hominem attacks, appeal to authority, or just plain censorship, to me it is a confession that you do not have better information to add to the debate. Which implies that I'm right.
A good faith discussion between opposing parties requires establishment of some common ground and a set of rules of engagement (eg 'claims must be supported with facts/data'). Cult leaders foster a sense of paranoia among their followers which makes a good faith debate virtually impossible.
In this case you may think you know. Maybe you are even correct. But maybe you won't be next time.
Anyone who won’t accept that vaccines save lives
That is itself both cult like and in bad faith.
There are probably better ways to structure your arguments for whatever it's worth.
Please stop with the cult like behavior.
That really depends where you are located. There are US states where <50% of the eligible population is vaccinated.
Why the qualifier, 'in general?' In what cases does one of the major US COVID vaccines reduce a healthy adult's life expectancy?
At that point you have to work out whether offering them a platform is something you want to do.
No, the claim is that statistically for every life saved via vaccination, more lives are lost due to vaccine complications, based on officially compiled numbers.
It occurs to me that most of the people arguing for vaccination are just as ignorant and faith based in their argumentation as the people they demonize for arguing against it. This is probably a consequence of the normal distribution of competence, and a significant argument against censoring dissent (dishonestly conflated with "misinformation"), because when ≈70% of the population is not competent enough to consume and evaluate literature, suppression of counter narratives becomes an oppressive tool of the establishment, even when done by so called "private" companies. Our economic system is conveniently organized such that going public for the funding necessary to compete with VC money subjects your company to the rule of an inevitably politically connected board.
It's telling that almost all of this recent censorship (not just regarding the COVID vaccine) aligns so neatly with leftist views. This top down authoritarianism is leading to a parallel society, encouraged by the pervasive breadth and depth of dissent suppression: if you have the "wrong" opinion, you cant post videos on social media, you cant host your own social media on cloud providers, you can't host your own servers because CC companies will refuse to service you...
The authoritarian dystopia has already arrived, not with the sort of force we were warned about, but with welcome cheers from a naive, docile populace.
One of my family members is also very hesitant to get the vaccine and gets all kind of anti-vaccine propaganda through various groups and channels. She takes that content as "reasonable" and "potentially true" even tho basically all of what I've seen is simply untrue. E.g. an article claiming there were more deaths due to covid vaccines than to covid, which is "backed up" by official NHS statistics. How did they arrive at this claim? Well they just said any recorded covid death with a recorded precondition didn't die due to covid but due to the precondition and any death that occured within 14 days after a vaccine shot was definitely because of the vaccine. I think I don't have to explain the logical fallacy in that argument, but it does make for a nice headline and many (most?) readers only read the headline. Who really takes the time to carefully read and see if the claim has any logical basis? To make things worse, this kind of "news" is regularly republished across multiple sites hiding the "data" multiple links deep (if directly linked to at all).
That's the kind of content many anti-vaxxers are exposed to on a daily basis. For your line of reasoning to make any impact it would mean that not blocking this kind of content actually weakens the positions of anti-vaxxers. However, I strongly belief the opposite is the case. Being exposed to this kind of content and treating it with similar credibility as other news/media is strengthening their position too.
So we have a situation where keeping the content is reinforcing the beliefs and where blocking the content is also reinforcing the beliefs, because "legitimate" content telling "the truth" is blocked "without reason".
I'm also not convinced that outright blocking it is the right move. Hindering it's discoverability (e.g. by downranking it in the so dangerous social media reinforcement bubble algorithmns) and somehow making clear that it might be of very low credibility might be a better approach. It might also be equally hopeless.