Hacker News Reader

Comment by tfha | Hacker News Reader

This is overstepping.

Yes, anti-vax is not well founded, and yes, YouTube is a private entity that can do what they want, but this tells me YouTube is willing to get involved to push an agenda.

And that gives them a lot of political power.

View on HN

I disagree. I think their policy of reacting to content that is harmful and dangerous is a good idea. It's not like the are censoring them. They are still free to spout whatever nonsense they want, they just won't be monetarily compensated for putting other people's lives at risk.

If someone made a cleaning video that encouraged users to mix bleach and ammonia to make a super cleaning liquid, I don't think anyone would disagree that it's harmful and dangerous.

The worry is why a service that is designed to show people-created content should wield unlimited unilateral power to selectively decide what is going to be shown and what is not. Why a company and not a judge can decide what is not covered by freedom of speech? Can a large company just decide this because, well, it is large?

I understand anti-vac people are seriously misguided and are posing threat to others but has there been any ruling on this or Youtube just decided it doesn't like it?

I am of the opinion that this needs a transparent process so that YOUR rights are not stomped on when you are in minority. Say you we are transported back 200 years and you express an unpopular belief that black people should be made free and allowed to vote (and women too!) Who is to decide you are not allowed to even express your opinion because majority of the society thinks what you say is complete bullshit (why, who's going to do all this work?)

They haven't decided that people can't see this content though. The content that is already there is staying up, new anti-vax content can be uploaded and will (likely, i can't know for sure i suppose) be suggested if you are watching another anti-vax video. They have only demonitized the content, deciding they wont pay money for anti-vax content.

Fair point. You are correct, they were not prevented from expressing their opinion.

Youtube is not nor should be required to pay money to channels they do not want to. Saying that not paying money to channels is pushing an agenda is plain silly.

Youtube already has enormous political power and its algorithm already pushes various agendas - in this instance, a particularly harmful one. Demonetising anti-vax videos is merely course correction.

Pinterest made their search system not return any results related to vaccination as a way to combat it.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/next-front-in-tech-firms-war-on...

Every single company has an agenda. Every single company in America at least has enormous political power. Ultimately if we were to argue purely from a free market standpoint, this is an ideal scenario of users using their leverage to change how a company behaves, functioning as the free market is supposed to.

If you disagree with the government stepping in to control things, then the logical conclusion is the users stepping in to control things.

Fk them. People who endanger other people's lives and do it intentionally, have no place on YouTube. Thing is, if anti-vaxxers were not pushing their propaganda, I wouldn't have any issues.

Why should a private company be forced to publish opinions it disagrees with?

Why should a private company make a cake for a customer asking for the display of a message they disagree with ? Private companies are already bound to anti-discrimination provisions, this is no different. Either private company are free to do business with whoever they want (including on a gender, race, and religion basis), or they don't. You can have it either way, but not both.

Anti-vaxxers aren't a protected class. You can have it both ways, I don't understand why there's always a desire for clear-cut principles. Life is grey, and blurry principles are much more adaptable to changing circumstances.

What would you rather have them do?

I'd rather they stopped paying everyone. That would at least not show any bias.

Where do you draw the line between, say, anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, and actively advocating and planning harm of oneself and/or others?

Both sides of that particular discussion would argue the other one is doing things that are actively harmful to others.

I think one side is grossly unfounded fearmongering that's doing long-term sometimes irreparable harm to a great many people, some of whom are vulnerable and unable to decide for themselves, but they would say the same about people who encourage vaccination.

I'm just trying to convey that almost any form of filtering qualifies as pushing an agenda, and it's just how controversial we find the topic that affects whether it bothers us.

(Work for elgooG, not on anything even remotely related to Youtube, all opinions are my own, etc.)

It's not like this is their first.

And yes, companies like these have too much political power. That's something we all know. The question is how to fix that.

Hit them where it hurts, their wallet. Tweet at all their major advertisers to boycott them unless they stop demonetizing antivax channels. It’s easy!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com