[Nesze]

Age old follow-up question. Who decides what anti-vaccine content is? Who is going to draw the fine line? How simple (i.e. black and white) is to make this distinction? Do you trust that person / entity making these decisions for you and your peers?

But even without defending free speach, looks to me that when you start censoring you just create multiple new problems with zero solution. So even from a design point of view it's clearly a bad thing.

[jefb]

What's the difference between whispering "fire" in a crowded movie theater vs. yelling it out loud? - is it simply the volume of ones voice? Might some intangible like intent have something to do with it? How do you even go about quantifying that? What if everyone laughs at your outburst? What if they trample each other to death?

I feel as though this crowd gets wrapped around the axel on these kinds of questions - anything with too much ambiguity that can't be code golfed into the tersest possible formal logic statement.

When Justice Stewart attempted to define what "hardcore pornography" actual __is__ he simply wrote "I know it when I see it" (1964 Jacobellis v. Ohio).

That's about as good as one can do in some cases.

[roenxi]

That analogy is rather good here because it has a dual interpretation - in terms of the actual history that could be dredged up by wiki editors [0] yelling fire in a crowded theatre has led to ~81 stupid deaths globally and failing to yell fire at an appropriate time has led to at least 278 really stupid deaths in the US. In practice there, there is evidence that yelling fire is not encouraged enough.

There are real threats that are mitigated by an open and tolerant approach to speech. Cracking down on people will lead to a culture that is really bad. Which should be intolerable since the crackdown is only trying to defend against things that are mildly annoying.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the...

[adamrezich]

> What's the difference between whispering "fire" in a crowded movie theater vs. yelling it out loud?

both are protected speech though

[LindyTalker]

Yelling fire in a crowded theater is not protected free speech, fyi

[AlexandrB]

Well...

> Nearly 100 years ago Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., voting to uphold the Espionage Act conviction of a man who wrote and circulated anti-draft pamphlets during World War I, said"[t]he most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic."

> That flourish — now usually shortened to "shout fire in a crowded theater" — is the media's go-to trope to support the proposition that some speech is illegal. But it's empty rhetoric. I previously explained at length how Holmes said it in the context of the Supreme Court's strong wartime pro-censorship push and subsequently retreated from it. That history illustrates its insidious nature. Holmes cynically used the phrase as a rhetorical device to justify jailing people for anti-war advocacy, an activity that is now (and was soon thereafter) unquestionably protected by the First Amendment. It's an old tool, but still useful, versatile enough to be invoked as a generic argument for censorship whenever one is needed. But it's null-content, because all it says is some speech can be banned — which, as we'll see in the next trope, is not controversial. The phrase does not advance a discussion of which speech falls outside of the protection of the First Amendment.

From [1] by Ken White, a lawyer. As I am not a lawyer so I can't really comment on the nuance here. But it doesn't seem as simple as "Yelling fire in a crowded theater is not protected free speech".

[1] https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-critique-...

[stjohnswarts]

Try it, if you are responsible for someone getting hurt (and any number of other direct implications) you are going to be criminally and civilly liable for it. The theater can sue you for lost profits. That doesn't sound very much like "protected" to me.

[stjohnswarts]

Not sure, I assume someone reports it then it gets turned over to AI to convert voice->script and compare it to a large set of known antivax rhetoric, if it surpasses a threshold it gets banned and stays that way until the owner asks for a review and then at that point a human probably enters the chat.

[cblconfederate]

youtube employees.

Even if they create a panel of "external experts", the responsibility for it should fall squarely on Youtube. Enough with the big tech deflection

[duhast]

Thought experiment:

Would you be making the same points if the debate was about ISIS propaganda? Or Holocaust denialism? Or content encouraging child exploitation? Viral videos encouraging suicides?

Wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be taken down immediately, accounts banned and that platform owners are responsible? Or would you advocate for free speech and watch as the algorithm encourages more and more people to leave their home and join ISIS in Syria?

After all, people are free to make decisions and are responsible for their actions. Suicide doesn't harm anybody else, right?

[Andrew_nenakhov]

> Wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be taken down immediately, accounts banned and platform owners are responsible?

It is obvious that you have a totalitarian mindset and believe in one 'objective truth'. A Free society that holds to the free speech principle should do the opposite. After all, this principle is not about protecting views that you agree with, but those that you don't.

History has shown time and again that censorship never resulted in a positive long-term outcome, and you are repeating past mistakes.

Also, coming from a totalitarian USSR and now living in a totalitarian Russia, I tell you this, fellow Americans: most of you here don't seem to understand the value of free speech and harm that censorship does to society.

Quick example: beside vaccine deniers, youtube now also bans users who doubt the official election results. What could possibly go wrong with that, right?!

[flavius29663]

Americans can be so short sighted. Banning speech about election results is fine, because it's the "other" side that lost ...this time. It doesn't occur to people that the wheel turns, and next time youtube and facebook might side with the others...then what?

[duhast]

Overrun hospitals. Ballooning medical bills. Attack on congress. Over 600,000 dead from COVID. High vaccine hesitancy. States enacting voting restrictions to discourage voter participation. Growing social discontent, division and distrust in institutions and democracy.

Your response? Government needs to step in and force YouTube to distribute election lies and COVID misinformation.

[BurritoKing]

The growing "social discontent, division, and distrust in institutions and democracy" is fueled by the over zealous authoritarian push by certain elements of society to stamp out any disagreement or discord as "misinformation". The more one side doubles down on control from the top the more distrust in institutions will grow.

We've abundant historical examples of this occurring, and we're busy repeating the same mistakes and causing fundamental mistrust across a broad spectrum of society.

[flavius29663]

There are always crises. The current ones are not even that great compared to historical problems. Fixing crises should not mean that you can erode democracy for the sake of fixing said crises. That is literally how totalitarian regimes start: by swift action needed to fix the current "insurmountable" issues. I am not saying that the US will become totalitarian, but taking steps in the wrong direction does not bode well.

And to address some of your points,

> voting restrictions

When people say this, it's usually about voter ID laws, which are the norm in most of the developed world, all of Europe has this, with the exception of UK. There might be some issues with voter discouraging, but it's not as big of a deal as some make it seem.

> division and distrust in institutions and democracy.

Well, the entire pandemic handling was rife with things that caused this mistrust in institutions. From the masks (e.g. Fauci, the surgeon general and others lying about them not being needed, and then Trump going against them anyway for political reasons) to vaccines where even the top democrats were saying all over the place they won't take them because they were rushed under Trump. Well, what do you know? They are still rushed, under Trump, but now we try to convince everyone they are perfectly safe (while Trump not pushing for them anymore). WHO covering for China's role in the initial spread. Democrats acting all high and mighty in regards to masks and public gatherings, only to be maskless themselves [1][2][3], sometimes in large gatherings[4]. Or like Pelosi, which personally called the beauty salon to have a special appointment, even though all the salons were closed. The republicans were at least consistently against science on this: both in front and behind cameras.

If the authorities cannot convince people about COVID truths, that is on them, not on the people talking freely about how they mistrust the government and their solutions.

Distrust in democracy will grow even larger with every censorship action.

As a disclaimer, I made my own masks and wore them in shops even before they were recommended, it was pretty obvious that an airborne disease is slowed by a mask. I was the only one in store with a mask, early on. I got my vaccine as soon as I could, driving half a day to get it. Throughout the pandemic I kept my social distancing to maybe extreme measures.

What is happening now is dangerous for democracy and society, we're handing over way too much power to the government, mass media and social apps. The government should make sure there are no monopolies, but if there are (like youtube, twitter, facebook, google search) they should make sure there is a public open oversight over the rules governing them. This is our standard oil battle but with higher stakes, and most people seem just happy to be boxed in by private corporations, with no recourse in the future.

https://www.kusi.com/photos-emerge-of-mask-less-gavin-newsom...

https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1605383471858/andrew-cuomo-sl...

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-san-francisco-hair-s...

https://nypost.com/2021/08/09/private-jets-and-no-masks-how-...

[syshum]

Clearly you are in an information bubble, I would encourage you to extract yourself from it because most of what you just listed is either a out right fabrication or at best a distortion from reality

[stjohnswarts]

Facebook has the right to limit content on their platform as much as you have the right to talk about it. Comparing this to being totalitarianism is ridiculous. No one is banning them from going elsewhere and spouting their drivel, but accepting it on a mainstream platform is just stupid.

[heartbreak]

> coming from a totalitarian USSR and now living in a totalitarian Russia

> Quick example: beside vaccine deniers, youtube now also bans users who doubt the official election results. What could possibly go wrong with that, right?!

[duhast]

So YouTube has no rights and must distribute all speech? Who is going to compel them? Government?

You can't have your cake and eat it. Which way is it?

[Andrew_nenakhov]

YouTube is a de-facto monopoly (a fact further complicated that it seems to be closely aligned with the current ruling party).

Monopolies have a more or less successful history of being regulated. In other words, governments limiting their exploitation of their market position.

[duhast]

I will only point out that it took Twitter years to ban Trump despite him violating their ToS almost on a daily basis. Your point about "alignment" applies to power in general. Be it political power, money or influence and following.

How is YouTube exploiting their market position? Last time I checked it cost literally 0$ to use their video platform. What do you think government should do?

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Twitter banning and censoring Trump was an extremely outrageous action. Only very short-sighted and brainwashed people cheer for it because they are unable to imagine whom this playform with enormous reach would ban next. What if it'll be your favourite candidate?

Of course, you'll say that your candidate will never break ToSs, but we've seen just today that these terms are rather random and can change on a whim.

Think just one step further into the future.

[dragonwriter]

> I will only point out that it took Twitter years to ban Trump despite him violating their ToS almost on a daily basis.

They actually rewrote their ToS specifically to excuse not sanctioning his violations while continuing to sanction others without his institutional position for the same violations.

[flavius29663]

ISIS propaganda - at what point does a cleric preaching the Coran becomes ISIS propaganda? Should we stop seeing news where the taliban shout "death to america" - is that pro-taliban propaganda? Should we ban videos showing life inside Kabul today? Is that taliban propaganda? What about a person interviewing that says under Americans the soldiers came in his home and broke his stuff and also streets were unsafe at night and now under the Taliban it's safer all around?

Holocaust - what is denialism? If you argue for the figure of deaths in Auschwitz being smaller than it is currently publicly known, is that denialism? Does that mean that you are never allowed to challenge the dogma in the "wrong direction" ? What if the official number is actually wrong? https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-1992-05-07-920210... Btw, there are countries in Europe that will prosecute you for denying holocaust, but that is an actual formal process: the prosecutors gather evidence that you consistently try to deny it, with false information, for the sole purpose of minimizing it, not for research or open discussion reasons. This is something prosecutors should do, not some random employees at youtube.

Viral encouraging suicides - should we ban Radiohead altogether? What about "Virgin Suicides"? Should we ban all depressing music and movies? Where do you draw the line? Should we only see happy stuff all the time?

I think speech should be free, except for the cases where it causes actual harm, and those cases should be determined by an official body that has a democratic control over it, like the police, FBI, DAs etc. Youtube/twitter/facebook are completely undemocratic, opaque and unaccountable for their actions. They should not have this much power to steer speech.

And children abuse is a hairy one. When exactly is something ban-able? Does it start at anything below 18? What about countries where 15 is the norm(and the law). What about Romeo and Juliet? And what constitutes abuse? I personally think Desmond is a clear abuse, same with Cuties, same with all beauty peageants for kids. I would ban them all, but you see, I should never have that power, it should come from officials that are ultimately democratically elected.

[duhast]

So you're effectively proposing that government should be deciding what speech is allowed on the platforms. How is this free speech if government can silence you?

[flavius29663]

It's free speech to the point it stops being just speech and turns into real damage, then the government can and should take action.

[adamrezich]

thought experiment:

what if YouTube existed and was as popular as it is now, in the early 00s, leading up to the US invasion of Iraq, and there videos attempting to prove that Iraq did not in fact have weapons of mass destruction, and YouTube was deleting these videos?

wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be taken down immediately, accounts banned and that platform owners are responsible? or would you advocate for free speech and watch as the algorithm encourages more and more people to question the Bush administration narrative, parroted and perpetuated unquestioningly by the media?

[asdff]

How would a video on youtube prove iraq did or did not have wmds? That wasn't determined until the US was able to inspect the country themselves. That's the thing of this. Anonymous accounts on the internet should not be seen as a source of truth since videos are easily misconstrued or manipulated or are outright fraudulent, yet people frequently hold up some faceless video as their truth rather than someone who spends all their time working in whatever area and is paid to have this expert knowledge. Like, imagine millions of people rejecting the advice of plumbers when it came to plumbing thanks to these crazy conspiracy videos being circled around the internet. That's not helpful to society, but its literally happening when it means medical advice.

[lopis]

> Would you be making the same points if the debate was about ISIS propaganda?

It doesn't matter, that's a fallacious comparison. It's not what the videos are about, and even if it was, who decides what is pro-ISIS propaganda and what is just discussion about what ISIS was doing? For years Youtube has been de-platforming anything that is not advertising friendly using AI, often de-listing videos altogether, with very little recourse unless you know someone who works at Youtube.

[duhast]

How would you make YouTube better? Monetise all content regardless of what advertisers say? Never remove any videos? Have courts make decisions whether video should be removed or not? Hire more human moderators as if humans are somehow super reliable and never make mistakes? I'm genuinely curious.

[datenarsch]

> Have courts make decisions whether video should be removed or not?

That would be a start, yes.

[syshum]

Not the OP, but You are not going to like my answer....

My Answer is simple "Unless the content constitutes a "True Threat" [1] as understood under US Constitutional Standards it should be allowed"

As to suicide, I advocate for assisted suicide to be Safe, Legal and Rare. if a person chooses to end their life that choice absent a clear and confounding mental health crisis should be respected by society. This idea that suicide is always wrong is simply false, there are all manner of reasons why one can logically choose suicide.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_threat

[seieste]

> if the debate was about ISIS propaganda?

Google recently deleted the entire account of someone who had videos of vehicles in the Middle East, claiming it was extremist content [0]. He was a historian who was cataloging how vehicles are used and modified in military operations across the globe. But google’s bots (which are probably pretty similar to YouTube’s) classified it as extremist content.

So I disagree with the premise of your argument — that we’d all support the automatic removal of “ISIS propaganda”.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28621412

[duhast]

Mistakes will always happen. Content moderation is hard, especially at the scale of YouTube. And no - adding more human moderators wouldn't make it better.

Most people would support it. Based on your response, I assume that you wouldn't mind if YouTube recommended you some ISIS beheadings for example. Who would be to judge if the video is real or not? It could be just artistic reconstruction. Free speech absolutists would never trust YouTube to make this determination.

[syshum]

> I assume that you wouldn't mind if YouTube recommended you some ISIS beheadings for example

You act as if the recommendation engine forces people to watch content...

No one if forcing anyone to click on and consume a recommended video... Most of the videos recommended to me I do not watch,

How did "just turn the channel" i.e ignore the video in today's nomenclature become an invalid option?

[Andrew_nenakhov]

Why would you want to remove videos of beheadings? Can there be a better example to teach people that ISIS is a wild barbaric horde that must be destroyed?

Continuing your line of thinking, what would you want to remove next? 9/11 videos of planes flying into buildings? Holocaust documentaries? Surely, these videos can give bad ideas to viewers...

[duhast]

I personally agree with you. Issue is that this view is not shared by the majority of the population. Even naked female nipples are still somehow offensive to some people.

Imagine being called ISISTube. This wouldn't be good for business especially with the family oriented crowd.

RIP LiveLeak.

[datenarsch]

And how can you be so sure to know what views are shared by the majority of the population?

[grillvogel]

wasn't tons of isis and taliban propaganda being posted on twitter long after they banned the orange man?

[datenarsch]

In fact there is still loads of grizzly ISIS and mexican cartel videos on Twitter and they don't care one bit about it.

[stjohnswarts]

Last I checked ISIS and the mexican cartel weren't attempting to start an insurrection and overthrow the American government, or at least they didn't have the slightest chance, unlike the orange man.

[Spivak]

The real answers:

* YouTube’s team of content moderators who are directed ultimately by YouTube’s ELT. So… humans. I mean if we expect every highschooler in the US to be able to read a book and interpret its meaning I think we can figure out what anti-vaccine content looks like.

* That same team is going to draw the line. If it were me I would bring the banhammer on any content that had hints of grey because unless the fence is electrified people will try to cozy up to it.

* I mean yeah. You trust them literally every day 24/7 if you use YouTube at all. I don't see what's different now.

The solution is that groups of people who are actively purposely spreading disinformation that is right now in real life killing people loses the platform they have to spread that disinformation.

In the trolly problem of “I can’t say the vaccine contains government microchips and my relatives who are susceptible to this garbage might actually get the vaccine” and “I can say that spike proteins are causing salmonella but Aunt Susie will actually believe me” I know which way I’m pulling the lever.

What’s the body count and risk to others where you think it’s time for someone to be the adult and say you’re not actually allowed to be this stupid anymore because it’s hurting people?

[SergeAx]

> every highschooler in the US to be able to read a book and interpret its meaning I think we can figure out what anti-vaccine content looks like

Good. Supposing you are graduated from hight scholl and read a book. I beleive that covid vaccines are good and everybody in their right mind and without medical conditions should vaccinate. I also beleive that everybody has a right to decide by themself to take vaccine or to pass any time. Am I pro-vaccine or am I anti-vaxxer?

[Spivak]

This is a perfect expression of the problem. That you think that this is what anti-vaxxer content looks like. This opinion doesn't even make it to "hot take" status let alone anything that would be modded. No scary corporate oligarchs are coming for you for having the cheese pizza of opinions.

But to be fair and actually answer your question it's pro-vaccine. You're literally stating the pro-vaccine stance verbatim.

[SergeAx]

So then why just don't leave those anti-vaxx people alone? They are 10-15% now top. Everyone else are even vaccinated or had been sick and now recovered. With Delta variant infection rate everybody will get their immunity pretty soon. Some will die because of their stupidity and there's nothing can be done about it. Or, even better, maybe one of those Israel drugs will come up good enough for emergency use.

[Spivak]

There is something that can be done about it! That's the whole point! It's crazy to me that people are actually all through this thread saying that some moron's right to make an internet video telling people that COVID is a hoax and the vaccine is a government conspiracy to turn men into femboys is more important than the lives of the actual victims -- the vulnerable people who fall down the rabbit hole, end up believing this junk and not getting vaccinated.

[SergeAx]

I see a lots of other guys and gals on YouTube with cooking recipes of literally breadcrumbed mix of cheese and bacon on butter which will send victim's cholesterol through the roof. But I don't see anybody bannig them from doing this because they will cause people to die of heart diseases.

[stjohnswarts]

Try 20% which is 70 million people.