[chordalkeyboard]

> But as the case stands right now, Youtube isn't shutting down good faith actors on one side, but bad faith actors, who happen to be on one side.

How are they determining bad faith in an objective, reliable, and verifiable way? The policy is to delete content that alleges that there was widespread fraud. That doesn't reference the sincerity or faith of the actor, but the object-level claims that are being made. It would seem that means they are deleting content they disagree with, regardless of whether it is put forth in good faith or not.

> There is no silencing of good faith actors

Can you support this statement? It seems like an article of faith to me. How would you know that all the videos that had been removed are put forth in bad faith?

> although I wholly agree in concept that it's a thin line to walk.

Does that mean you acknowledge the possibility of error in judgment with respect to this issue?

[hhas01]

The burden of proof rests on the claimant. There’s a reason US courts of law keep throwing out these claims of widespread fraud: because the claimants consistently fail to provide the widespread evidence to back their claims up.

What there is widespread evidence of, however, is bad-faith actors that are both highly active and plentiful.

Therefore I would suggest the few good-faith actors who find themselves unfairly suppressed first take it up with those dirty lying bastards for sullying ALL their reputations, and secondly ask themselves what they must do to fully disassociate themselves from the scum and rebuild their negative credibility to a level where people are willing to listen again.

Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent. They can fix it or they can whine. And which they choose speaks volumes too.

[chordalkeyboard]

> The burden of proof rests on the claimant.

Indeed. Which is why I'm so interested in the evidence behind these claims that I keep hearing that there was no vote fraud, or at least not enough to change the election. Sadly, when asked for proof, these people who believe there was no vote fraud always walk it back: "I haven't seen any evidence." Well great, then maybe you're not in a position to make positive claims on the basis of a lack of evidence.

> There’s a reason US courts of law keep throwing out these claims of widespread fraud: because the claimants consistently fail to provide the widespread evidence to back their claims up.

Are you so sure you can read the mind of a judge? This whole discussion is about motivated reasoning and cognitive biases. When did we start assuming that judges were immune to political bias?

> What there is widespread evidence of, however, is bad-faith actors that are both highly active and plentiful.

I agree with that. Where is your evidence that none of them are judges or Google/YouTube employees?

> Therefore I would suggest the few good-faith actors who find themselves unfairly suppressed first take it up with those dirty lying bastards for sullying ALL their reputations

That would be like telling BLM activists to go tell the black criminals in their community to stop doing crimes that piss off the police. You're implying value judgments that aren't in evidence and lumping people together on the basis of your perceptions when those people may not even really have anything in common except being seen as enemies by the same group of people. People want to be heard. Its wrong to shut them down because some other people said some other ridiculous stuff that you think is basically the same thing because you're done listening.

> secondly ask themselves what they must do to fully disassociate themselves from the scum and rebuild their negative credibility to a level where people are willing to listen again.

People are willing to listen, that's why its so important not to give them a platform. Surely you don't think that YouTube is suppressing videos because they don't like them when those videos aren't going to be watched by anyone?

> Qui cum canibus concumbunt cum pulicibus surgent. They can fix it or they can whine. And which they choose speaks volumes too.

Part of fixing the alleged election fraud would be to present evidence to the public, including videos of that alleged fraud. And if those videos are being suppressed then part of fixing that would be to debate the propriety of suppressing viewpoints that you don't like.

[hhas01]

“Which is why I'm so interested in the evidence behind these claims that I keep hearing that there was no vote fraud, or at least not enough to change the election.”

[Sees what you did there]

Did we mention bad-faith arguments? Yes. Yes, we did.

[chordalkeyboard]

> Did we mention bad-faith arguments? Yes. Yes, we did.

A good example of a bad faith argument is repeatedly employing the motte-and-bailey fallacy by making positive claims, and then when asked to support those claims with evidence, shifting the burden of proof to your opponent by equivocating between statements of the form "there was no X" and "I haven't seen any evidence for X." People often do this unintentionally because they are confused about the difference between object-level claims and statements about the evidence for object-level claims. But one begins to suspect bad faith when this distinction is explained and then ignored, and the behavior repeated.

Of course there is no test for bad faith and people can be both confused as emotionally involved so they repeat themselves. Which may be the case here, I'm not a mind reader.

[croon]

> How are they determining bad faith in an objective, reliable, and verifiable way? The policy is to delete content that alleges that there was widespread fraud. That doesn't reference the sincerity or faith of the actor, but the object-level claims that are being made. It would seem that means they are deleting content they disagree with, regardless of whether it is put forth in good faith or not.

How many cases of fraud has there been in this election? 1? There has been 0 evidence of widespread fraud. The only possible way any argument could be made in good faith is if you have the naivete of a child. I'm not saying that as a value judgment, but as a matter of fact.

> > There is no silencing of good faith actors

> Can you support this statement? It seems like an article of faith to me. How would you know that all the videos that had been removed are put forth in bad faith?

I can not prove a negative, other than the absence of evidence of the contrary. Do you have any examples of good faith actors being silenced that we can discuss the merits of?

> Does that mean you acknowledge the possibility of error in judgment with respect to this issue?

Yes, but I have seen no evidence of this, so I reserve that hypothetical for when it happens.

[chordalkeyboard]

> How many cases of fraud has there been in this election?

I haven't the foggiest idea, I'm not a cop or political-type person.

> There has been 0 evidence of widespread fraud.

What kind of evidence would you expect to see?

> The only possible way any argument could be made in good faith is if you have the naivete of a child. I'm not saying that as a value judgment, but as a matter of fact.

How are you able to attest to that fact?

> I can not prove a negative, other than the absence of evidence of the contrary.

What evidence would you expect to see if YouTube had deleted a good faith video?

> Do you have any examples of good faith actors being silenced that we can discuss the merits of?

No because I'm not even sure how one would attest to the "good faith" of a video that is no longer on YouTube. Thats why I'm so puzzled at the certainty exhibited by people who seem determined that these videos and ideas are so dangerous that they should be suppressed. What kind of experiences and evidence would make someone so confident that they were right and they hadn't merely been misinformed?

> Yes, but I have seen no evidence of this, so I reserve that hypothetical for when it happens.

Wouldn't you want to have some evidence in support of your statement before you make sweeping claims? I'm trying to see how you can reconcile the part where you think these other people are bad because they make statements about reality without evidence, but you're fine with making statements about reality yourself without evidence.

[croon]

> What kind of evidence would you expect to see?

That any person in the long chain of people required for the type of conspiracy suggested would slip up and leave any tangible trace, have a change of heart, leak something, or that hundreds of people noticing their names had been used to vote already when they tried to, or any number of other possible evidence.

> What evidence would you expect to see if YouTube had deleted a good faith video?

I don't expect any Youtube video to provide evidence to begin with, I expect it in court, where over 50 cases have failed to produce a single piece of evidence.

> Wouldn't you want to have some evidence in support of your statement before you make sweeping claims? I'm trying to see how you can reconcile the part where you think these other people are bad because they make statements about reality without evidence, but you're fine with making statements about reality yourself without evidence.

I make statements about the reality that santa and big foot don't exist because there's never been any evidence showing they do. I accept that this is not 100% certainty, but it's absolutely reliable enough to base reality around until further notice.

I'm opposing your suggestion that videos stating something very provable without any kind of evidence is the same thing as what I'm doing, and I've explained that stark difference.

[chordalkeyboard]

Thanks for your reply.

> That any person in the long chain of people required for the type of conspiracy suggested would slip up and leave any tangible trace, have a change of heart, leak something, or any person that noticed their name had been used to vote already when they tried to, or any number of other possible evidence.

You haven't seen the videos [0] [1]? Interesting, did you look for them? Didn't the news report on them? Did you see the affidavits? [2] [3] [4]

Or do you just interpret all of that in a way that is consistent with your belief that these are all spurious allegations by bad faith actors?

> I don't expect any Youtube video to provide evidence to begin with, I expect it in court, where over 50 cases have failed to produce a single piece of evidence.

Surely you understand that sworn affidavits are evidence?

> I make statements about the reality that santa and big foot don't exist because there's never been any evidence showing they do.

You've never seen a video purportedly of Bigfoot? Or did you interpret it as a hoax because of your priors? You've never heard of Saint Nicholas? Or do you think that he never existed because someone told you outlandish stories about him and that colored your perception of the entire thing?

> I'm opposing your suggestion that videos stating something very provable without any kind of evidence is the same thing as what I'm doing, and I've explained that stark difference.

You're asserting that there isn't any evidence when you're actually ignorant of evidence and defending the decision of a major corporation to prevent their platform from being used to share evidence.

I'm not really keen to present evidence myself here because I think its clear that there is no such thing as evidence without interpretation, and most people (on both sides of the issue) have already decided to interpret everything in the way that justifies their biases. I'm also not convinced that there was enough fraud to change the outcome of the election (although the attorney general of Texas and 17 other states do seem to think so [5]). But there's so much purported evidence of fraud it was pretty easy to go get some links so I could disprove the notion that there hasn't been any presentation of evidence. There has been enough to raise questions about election integrity. Which is actually where these allegations of bad faith start to become really interesting because the same people saying there's no evidence are accusing people of bad faith for their arguments alleging fraud that refer to evidence. So humans being human, basically, which is why I'm actually much more interested in the epistemological and cognitive issues that arise in this case.

[0] https://apelbaum.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/cctv-suite-604-...

[1] https://twitchy.com/samj-3930/2020/12/04/that-is-some-handof...

[2] https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.miwd.99598/...

[3] https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.miwd.99598/...

[4] https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.miwd.99598/...

[5] https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/ima...

[adamsea]

Dude the courts looked at whatever "evidence" was presented and rejected it. Multiple times. And we've listened to you here. Now fuck off.

What you're really saying is that there is election fraud and Biden's win is illegitimate. Which is just another way of saying, "I don't believe in democracy, I'm an authoritarian and I'm going to go out and undermine democracy because I want America to be an authoritarian state."

You should be banned from HN and I think that anyone who doesn't believe that the election was legitimate - i.e. that no meaningful fraud occurred - should be banned from the HN community.

Enough is enough. It's clearly dangerous to allow these views the shroud of legitimacy by giving them space in the public square. Otherwise HN is just enabling them.

You're full of shit and all this pseudo-philosophical pseudo-analytical pseudo-objective cant you're spewing is nonsense.

You're acting exactly like one of those crypto-racists who knows that their true belief would be deemed unpalatable or unacceptable by the community so they'll blow as much smoke around as possible without ever stepping out to say what they're actually driving towards.

[chordalkeyboard]

> What you're really saying is that there is election fraud and Biden's win is illegitimate.

I can't help it if five pieces of evidence lead you to that conclusion. But maybe now you can see why we think it is so important that people be allowed to make these allegations so they can be responded to, rather than suppressed and allowed to fester. If 5 pieces of evidence can suggest to you that the election was fraudulent and the President-elect is illegitimate, then can you imagine how much easier it is to persuade someone who isn't so firmly pro-Biden as yourself?

> Dude the courts looked at whatever "evidence" was presented and rejected it. Multiple times.

Actually a lot of those cases were dismissed for lack of standing. Evidence wasn't even presented.

> You should be banned from HN and I think that anyone who doesn't believe that the election was legitimate - i.e. that no meaningful fraud occurred - should be banned from the HN community.

This is how echo chambers are formed.

> Enough is enough. It's clearly dangerous to allow these views the shroud of legitimacy by giving them space in the public square. Otherwise HN is just enabling them.

Its probably more dangerous to allow them to be suppressed if in fact they are untrue. Now if they are true and you're saying that's what makes them dangerous, then I can understand why you would want them suppressed.

> You're acting exactly like one of those crypto-racists who knows that their true belief would be deemed unpalatable or unacceptable by the community so they'll blow as much smoke around as possible without ever stepping out to say what they're actually driving towards.

So you don't even think its possible in theory to be concerned about election integrity unless its for partisan reasons? That would explain a lot.

> You're full of shit and all this pseudo-philosophical pseudo-analytical pseudo-objective cant you're spewing is nonsense.

> Now fuck off.

I think statements like this are unhelpful and I'd suggest you examine your own emotional state and see why you feel so hostile to people you don't even know.