YouTube starts mass takedowns of videos promoting “harmful or ineffective” cancer cures
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It’s attempting to streamline its health moderation policies.
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It's a gateway for stupider things.
Stupid isn't the same as harmful though. They didn't ban anti-vax because it was stupid, they banned it because they were putting people at risk. This is more of the same. I don't get what flatearthers put at risk other than our eyes after rolling them too hard.
They're gateways for other more dangerous conspiracy theories and the alt right. Folding Ideas has an excellent vid about it but I don't have the time to link it now.
And if we were to censor flat earthers, do you think you'll get less alt rights from the flat earthers or more?
Hint: by blocking their speech, you end up giving them first-hand evidence on a key alt-right talking point; that the mainstream censors ideas simply because it doesn't like them. "It was never about safety, like they said when they went after COVID deniers and anti vaxxers. They went after flat earthers who, even by their standards, aren't posing any harm."
Less, because deplatforming works. Disrupting the recruiting pipeline is a great way of reducing the impact of harmful extremist ideologies.
And flat earth is very much part of the alt-right pipeline. It sets the foundation for distrusting experts, science, and straight up ignoring reality, to then substitute with their own.
Actually it would blow up in your face. Because this move would be completely unprecedented, given how flat earthers are not harmful in and of themselves, such a move would get widespread attention and would be reported on widely.
The flat earth society doesn't set up shit. If you're joining the flat earth society, the distrust of science and experts is already there.
But ok, let's follow your logic, and while we're at it, let's ban churches and any talk of Christianity. After all, the right wing also uses Christianity as a recruitment tool, and Christianity has a long and infamous history of science denial.
Hey, why stop there? Let's also ban mosques and Islam! After all, mosques were used by Muslim extremists to recruit people into terrorist organisations. Truly nothing can go wrong!
This crisis of how many people fall for bullshit and stupid shit is unprecedented, and is about to break apart the United States. If it hasn't already done so.
Media has a massive hand to play in this.
It will not get better unless something is done about it.
...or do you want to see where this road truly leads? Because we are about to find out.
The problem isn't people falling for stupid shit. The problem is that people are afraid to be wrong. Sounds counter intuitive, but let me explain.
People attach too much ego onto being correct, such that when someone is wrong, it is seen as a weakness. Thus, once they have their theory, they're afraid to let go of it no matter how wrong they're proven, thus they will latch onto any other explanation, no matter how out there. You might have seen it yourself when people double down.
But once someone can recognise they are wrong, then they can course-correct.
Being wrong is an important part of the process to being right. And part of that is stating your theory.
It is not facts that we are truly battling here but egos. You will not see progress by shutting down conversation and telling them they're wrong. The fix needs a more emotionally intelligent approach.
The point is deplatforming is to prevent new people from falling into the conspiracy shit. Not about convincing the ones who have already fallen.
Right, but when you do this to a topic that isn't causing harm, you risk incurring a Streisand Effect and you don't have the moral standing that you do with things like anti-vax or COVID deniers. So masses of people can end up sharing flat earth material just to spite you and your overzealous moderation.
You can try point to the alt-right recruitments all you like, but people will point you straight back at your conservatism or Christianity topics.
People are allowed to be wrong or even be idiots. When they start causing actual harm is where the line should be drawn.