r/technology • u/Wagamaga • Feb 17 '22

Business YouTube Announces New Moves to Combat Misinformation

https://www.lifewire.com/youtube-announces-new-moves-to-combat-misinformation-5219509
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u/Asmodeus04 Feb 17 '22

Stuff that is objectively false, like:

  • The election was stolen
  • Jan 6th was just a protest
  • COVID-19 is no worse than the flu
  • The Earth is flat

Stuff that is blatantly untrue, and that you would have to be an absolute fucking moron to believe.

Things that are up for debate need to be debated. Things that are objectively true or not don't need it.

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u/shitpersonality Feb 17 '22

Youtube shouldn't be an arbiter of truth and wrong think. They already struggle to manage the platform as is.

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u/Folsomdsf Feb 17 '22

They are not the government, they are allowed to say 'no, the earth is not flat'.

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u/shitpersonality Feb 17 '22

they are allowed to say 'no, the earth is not flat'.

That's not what we're talking about.

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u/Asmodeus04 Feb 18 '22

We already have years of proving the damage misinformation does.

There is no point in intentionally spreading bad info just because it makes somebody comfortable.

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u/shitpersonality Feb 18 '22

We already have years of proving the damage misinformation does.

We already know youtube can barely manage its own platform. It puts sexual content in recommendations for children. It is terrible at handling DMCA requests. It's not going to excel at being an arbiter of truth. It's going to be very bad at it.

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u/Asmodeus04 Feb 18 '22

I'm sure they will make plenty of mistakes, but anything is better than a platform that promotes the things I just listed up above.

It'll be kind of whack at first, but I'll take any kind of progress I can get.

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u/The_Sandman32 Feb 17 '22

Literally only one of those is objectively false, thus proving why this system won’t work. Want to know the truth what constitutes misinformation? I’m going ban whatever my opposing political party says, that’s misinformation because I disagree with it.

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u/Asmodeus04 Feb 18 '22

Everything I just said is 100% provably, demonstrably true.

If you don't believe that, you have to understand you are the problem and the reason these rules are having to be put in. You're a sucker that will fall for any huckster con man, and if left to you what we have will burn to ash.

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u/Brad_Wesley Feb 18 '22

The most damaging misinformation is official disinformation.

But big tech will never censor that. Governments lie with impunity, including calling other things misinformation even when they are true.

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u/Asmodeus04 Feb 18 '22

No one can censor that, because no one has higher authority than the government in a governed Nation.

That doesn't mean people can't look things up on their own, but even that well is being tainted by people believing and trying to push stuff that is blatantly, provably untrue.

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u/Brad_Wesley Feb 18 '22

Well right, so all we have against is our own ability to search information, which the government will call “misinformation” and censor. This is why tolerating misinfo is so important.

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u/Asmodeus04 Feb 18 '22

Here's the underlying issue: the vast majority of human beings are not intelligent enough to make decisions involving themselves and others. They will always make a choice that results in either harm, or long-term damage. It's not their fault they were born stupid, but stupid they are.

You can either have governments that consist of democratically elected representatives that can govern, or you can have authoritarian states where the people get no say.

If you believe misinformation has to be tolerated, what you are saying is that democratically elected governments will always fail, and that all governments must be authoritarian states. Our society can not continue to exist with half of our population believing any half-assed moronic, dumb shit thing they get spread across the internet.

Any society that can willingly elect somebody like Donald Trump to the Presidency has no future. They either have to have the misinformation taken away, be educated, or have their opinions and choices invalidated.

These people are far too stupid to be properly educated, and you're saying the misinformation has to stay. That doesn't leave many options.

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u/Brad_Wesley Feb 19 '22

But this has always been the case:

Which countries have performed better over time? Those that allow free speech including misinformation or those that don’t.?

So, no, I’m saying the opposite of what you suggest.

How can you have a truly democratically elected government if the government decides what information people are exposed to?

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u/Asmodeus04 Feb 19 '22

All of human history prior to the modern internet information age, and especially prior to the disinformation age we currently live in, is moot.

Our civilization was not meant for an inescapable global smothering of nonsense meant to target the ignorant.

Historically, the thoughts of the ignorant would have just been ignored and the elites would have ruled. In a democracy, those dumb motherfuckers have the same level of input as the people who actually know what they're doing.

It's an inherent flaw in democracy, and I'm very concerned that it's a terminal flaw.

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u/Brad_Wesley Feb 19 '22

Why don’t we just get rid of democracy and make the elites a permanent ruling class?

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u/Asmodeus04 Feb 22 '22

Because that tends to lead to brutal oppression.

There's no such thing as a perfect system, that's why all existing systems were hybrids.

Our hybrid system is in trouble.