Youtube bans all anti-vaccine misinformation

[La Flames Fan]

Originally Posted by zamler

It's hardly that simple. Google controls 95% of all internet searches that gives them enormous power to use and abuse. Google gets to be both a publisher and platform at the same time meaning they cannot be sued for whatever ends up on their platform, but then gets to censor at will and in general decide what you can and cannot see.

Combine that with Alphabet Inc.'s hooks into government and it's the perfect system for corruption. I don't believe for 1 second Google is censoring because they care about everyone so much and want to protect them. They are doing it solely for their self interest.

And this is why there are anti-trust laws.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Originally Posted by TheIronMaiden

Sure

Lee, Carole & Sugimoto, Cassidy & Freeman, Guo & Cronin, Blaise. (2013). Bias in peer review. Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology. 64.

https://www.researchgate.net/publica...in_peer_review

Was this peer reviewed?

Yamer nailed it.

[Matata]

The more we funnel power and control to a tiny oligarchy, the sooner we will be relieved of the burden of thought. Ours is to comply and serve.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by Yamer

The problem is that these platforms, driven purely by profit through engagement, have utterly changed the game in how information is disseminated by utilizing complex algorithms. This isn't going to the library or watching different 5 o'clock news programs. This is force-feeding you different flavors of the same food all day, every day.

They have essentially created an information bubble factory that makes thicker and thicker bubbles the more you indiscriminately use it. That age old adage is dying in the face of relentless tribalism.

With the power of these platforms, in consideration of how people access information in 2021 and the media illiteracy of the general population, they absolutely need to be regulated.

I'm not sure what you mean by regulated here. Are you referring to what Google is doing to regulate content, or saying a government entity needs to regulate Google?

The biggest problem with Google's stance on this topic (or if it was done by the government) is that it further fuels the belief that this is all a conspiracy and drives people into even more un-hinged areas of the internet.

The low barriers of entry to setting up online bubbles of festering lies and conspiracies makes this all pretty much impossible to reign in.

[Cecil Terwilliger]

Originally Posted by La Flames Fan

And this is why there are anti-trust laws.

Could’ve fooled me.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by La Flames Fan

And this is why there are anti-trust laws.

Social media relies on critical mass. You can split up Facebook into three Facebooks, and users will eventually settle on which one will be "the" Facebook. Antitrust isn't the right tool to deal with this kind of monopoly - regulation is.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by SebC

Social media relies on critical mass. You can split up Facebook into three Facebooks, and users will eventually settle on which one will be "the" Facebook. Antitrust isn't the right tool to deal with this kind of monopoly - regulation is.

And what does regulation look like? You want a Trump run government regulating FB and Google? That doesn't seem like it would go well.

And if you regulate too much, you just push people to an unregulated platform. The nature of the internet makes it very tough to regulate and at best you're just playing whack a mole.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

I'm not sure what you mean by regulated here. Are you referring to what Google is doing to regulate content, or saying a government entity needs to regulate Google?

The biggest problem with Google's stance on this topic (or if it was done by the government) is that it further fuels the belief that this is all a conspiracy and drives people into even more un-hinged areas of the internet.

The low barriers of entry to setting up online bubbles of festering lies and conspiracies makes this all pretty much impossible to reign in.

I think you give too much credit to people. Most people find this stuff in a fairly benign way and then the algorithm pulls them along.

Just by breaking that chain, you probably remove the majority of it.

There will always be unhinged areas of the internet, sure. Right now we’re allowing those areas to be introduced into the mainstream with incredible ease. People don’t decide to be anti-vaccination, or racist, or an incel, or whatever. They’re taught. And if not by a parent, then by the internet, and at any age.

[Fuzz]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

And what does regulation look like? You want a Trump run government regulating FB and Google? That doesn't seem like it would go well.

And if you regulate too much, you just push people to an unregulated platform. The nature of the internet makes it very tough to regulate and at best you're just playing whack a mole.

They should never have been allowed to purchase Instagram and WhatsApp. So at this point, it's easy to break those off for regulators. It's a start.

[RyZ]

The masters need to control the flock somehow. It looks like we are into state mandated blinders at this point.

News like this makes alternative media and alternative viewpoints grow. I hope they get what they are hoping for.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

I think you give too much credit to people. Most people find this stuff in a fairly benign way and then the algorithm pulls them along.

Just by breaking that chain, you probably remove the majority of it.

There will always be unhinged areas of the internet, sure. Right now we’re allowing those areas to be introduced into the mainstream with incredible ease. People don’t decide to be anti-vaccination, or racist, or an incel, or whatever. They’re taught. And if not by a parent, then by the internet, and at any age.

I don't see that as the majority. The people I know who were reasonable people to talk to 5 years ago didn't get persuaded by targeted FB posts or what showed up on their YT algorithm. The Podcasts seem to be the main fuel for their craziness, and they seem to get shared among their like minded friends and in online groups they intentionally belong in. The online groups and communities are where the craziness and misinformation grows like wildfire.

[PepsiFree]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

I don't see that as the majority. The people I know who were reasonable people to talk to 5 years ago didn't get persuaded by targeted FB posts or what showed up on their YT algorithm. The Podcasts seem to be the main fuel for their craziness, and they seem to get shared among their like minded friends and in online groups they intentionally belong in. The online groups and communities are where the craziness and misinformation grows like wildfire.

How did they find those podcasts, and those online groups? How do you think they went from reasonable and not accessing those things to unreasonable because of their access to those things?

[Envitro]

The issue that I take with this is that these corporations, with seemingly no political motivations, get to shape the information that is distributed and consumed.

Whether they have the right to do this or not is another debate.

But for me the concern, given the breadth of reach and the extreme power that these platforms have on a global scale, is that there is no good way to determine which information is "truth" and which is not. If you're not given the opportunity to view two sides of the same coin then you're disadvantaged as a modern human.

Very quickly we're veering down the path of "approved truth", whether it's government or corporations telling us what that is. Everything else is "disinformation", whether they're legitimate concerns or nutty conspiracy-types screaming at the clouds.

I don't know, this is just getting too dystopian for me. The slope is becoming slipperier as we go here. I don't like it.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

How did they find those podcasts, and those online groups? How do you think they went from reasonable and not accessing those things to unreasonable because of their access to those things?

I think they get them from people they know or are in groups with.

I don't know if I'm Facebooking wrong, but i don't get any unsolicited algorithm generated posts or solicitations to join groups. I see what my friends share and what people share in groups that I am in.

[Yamer]

Originally Posted by PepsiFree

How did they find those podcasts, and those online groups? How do you think they went from reasonable and not accessing those things to unreasonable because of their access to those things?

It's all highly efficient, automated radicalization. It's not necessarily nefarious on behalf of the platform, but there are not near enough checks to stymie it. Seemingly rational people can fall into it surprisingly easy if not careful.

And to the other poster's question: Yes, I think regulation should be administered by a third-party organization. Governmental or arms length, not sure. Logistics for thought. For the most part, these companies have shown a complete inability to regulate their own content for something as simple as hate speech and inciting violence. Facebook seems entirely disinterested while being the most weaponized of them all.

You could probably halve this kind of affect by pushing people to extremist platforms like Rumble, Telegram, and Parlor (RIP) where they are likely monitored by government agencies more closely. The casual userbase will lose steam having to constantly platform-jump to less robust systems or maintain multiple accounts across more platforms as people splinter towards their personally preferred dark corner of the web.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by nfotiu

The low barriers of entry to setting up online bubbles of festering lies and conspiracies makes this all pretty much impossible to reign in.

And the volume of content. Youtube alone has 30,000 hours of content uploaded per hour. They can use automation to catch obvious stuff like porn. How would they begin to vet that volume of content for empirical accuracy? And that’s not even getting into the biases and blind spots of whoever is tasked with making judgement calls on content.

The heart of the problem is the whole engagement economy the platforms run on.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Envitro

But for me the concern, given the breadth of reach and the extreme power that these platforms have on a global scale, is that there is no good way to determine which information is "truth" and which is not.

This is wrong, wrong, wrong. There are certainly subjects where truth can be determined, even though there are also subjects where it cannot. For example, and specific to the anti-vax misinformation Google is trying to censor:

- Vaccines cause autism.
- The vaccines developed for COVID are "experimental".
- You can be tracked on 5g wireless by having a vaccine injected in your body.
- You are more likely to experience serious side-effects or death from a vaccine than you are to experience serious symptoms or side-effects from catching COVID.
- Wearing a face mask concentrates CO2 in your body to dangerous levels that can cause you to be ill.
- Wearing masks doesn't reduce the spread of COVID.
- Hospitals are misdiagnosing patients with COVID to inflate pandemic numbers.
- Catching coronavirus isn't more dangerous than catching the flu.

None of the above statements are true, or opinions. They are false statements that not only have no evidence to support them, but have copious evidence to support their opposites. An opinion, in contrast, would be "we should not be forcing people to be vaccinated against COVID", which is not a question to be determined by the factual, but rather a statement deriving from belief or philosophy.

To further make a point, here is another and unrelated example where it is easy to differentiate truth from opinion:

1. Mussolini was the leader of Italy from 1922 until 1943.
2. Mussolini was a great leader, whose like is needed again.

Statement 1 is a fact. There's no ambiguity or room for dissension. Statement 2 is an opinion, for even those most people would not agree, it is an interpretation of the facts, not a denial of them. These are simple concepts , but concepts too often overcomplicated by those with an especial love of the hypothetical and the obtuse.

[Envitro]

Originally Posted by jammies

This is wrong, wrong, wrong. There are certainly subjects where truth can be determined, even though there are also subjects where it cannot. For example, and specific to the anti-vax misinformation Google is trying to censor:

- Vaccines cause autism.
- The vaccines developed for COVID are "experimental".
- You can be tracked on 5g wireless by having a vaccine injected in your body.
- You are more likely to experience serious side-effects or death from a vaccine than you are to experience serious symptoms or side-effects from catching COVID.
- Wearing a face mask concentrates CO2 in your body to dangerous levels that can cause you to be ill.
- Wearing masks doesn't reduce the spread of COVID.
- Hospitals are misdiagnosing patients with COVID to inflate pandemic numbers.
- Catching coronavirus isn't more dangerous than catching the flu.

None of the above statements are true, or opinions. They are false statements that not only have no evidence to support them, but have copious evidence to support their opposites. An opinion, in contrast, would be "we should not be forcing people to be vaccinated against COVID", which is not a question to be determined by the factual, but rather a statement deriving from belief or philosophy.

To further make a point, here is another and unrelated example where it is easy to differentiate truth from opinion:

1. Mussolini was the leader of Italy from 1922 until 1943.
2. Mussolini was a great leader, whose like is needed again.

Statement 1 is a fact. There's no ambiguity or room for dissension. Statement 2 is an opinion, for even those most people would not agree, it is an interpretation of the facts, not a denial of them. These are simple concepts , but concepts too often overcomplicated by those with an especial love of the hypothetical and the obtuse.

So you're telling me that an algorithm can differentiate between truth and opinion in a matter of seconds? Right now any post that has the word COVID, virus, or vaccine gets tagged with the little "info bar" but that's about the best that they can do. They're scraping text for keywords, that's all they're doing.

I agree that in reality there is a difference between fact and opinion, I just don't trust the major platforms to be able to differentiate between those things with any kind of efficiency or accuracy. And therein lies the problem.

[jammies]

Originally Posted by Envitro

So you're telling me that an algorithm can differentiate between truth and opinion in a matter of seconds?.

No, I'm not telling you anything of the sort, nor am I implying it in any way. I'm telling you that it's possible to tell fact from opinion, and any argument presupposing you can't is wrong.

I believe the phrase "don't let perfect be enemy of the good" applies here. Whether algorithms or people doing the curating, mistakes will be made. Is that a reason not to try? The alternative is the current cesspool of idiots and grifters going on as they are, or likely getting worse. A partial solution is better than nothing, even if it has some unwelcome consequences.

[Fuzz]

Bare minimum they could de-monetize controversial topics like vaccines and covid. Remove the incentive for the grifters to be there in the first place. That'd be very easy to implement.