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Comment by mrfusion | Hacker News Reader

Just some food for thought. If youtube was around in the past and doing this stuff they could have deleted videos in support of the following: (these all started as fringe beliefs(1))

Interracial marriage

Gay marriage

Smoking causes lung cancer

(1) interesting topical read and it has sources for these at the end https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/american-brain.html

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Those are ideological beliefs. Yes, at one time they were very widely and strongly held. But they were never remotely comparible to spreading factually incorrect information about something biological.

A simple demonstration to this: even the reverse of these (e.g. "I believe gay marriage is morally wrong") can't reasonably be argued against with "that is factually incorrect".

It's fair to believe that private companies like YouTube shouldn't be censoring speech like this. But these comparisons are bogus and only weaken your point.

> But they were never remotely comparible to spreading factually incorrect information about something biological.

> Smoking causes lung cancer

The parent comment was comparing against YouTube banning videos that claimed smoking does cause lung cancer, back before the link was proven, in some steampunk world where YouTube existed 100 years ago. That is not comparible because initially there were at least some scientific studies, or even a vague possible link to a rational doctor, between smoking and lung cancer. There is nothing like a possible link between 5G and coronavirus to anyone that understands what a virus is.

YouTube has no problem banning content on ideological grounds, though. I remember last year various news articles about YouTube's removal of white supremacist content.

I don't really see why it's important to distinguish whether the content is problematic "factually" vs "ideologically". Clearly there are valid reasons to ban content on ideological grounds but on the other hand removing any content that has factual errors would be cumbersome (or impossible) to do. You need to also look at other criteria to make a reasonable determination.

> YouTube has no problem banning content on ideological grounds, though.

I never said they did. I just said that this isn't that, and comparisons with it just confuse the discussion.

I don't see why it's confusing. What is the importance of distinguishing between factual vs ideological violations?

you really think that somebody cant come up with strong scientific evidence to support all of those? cmon, it's a lack of knowledge and imagination on your part. There are plenty of real scientific arguments against gay marriage or gay rights at large. You just dont ever hear them because everyone who ever so much as hints at them gets banned immediately.

>There are plenty of real scientific arguments against gay marriage or gay rights at large

Such as?

>You just dont ever hear them because everyone who ever so much as hints at them gets banned immediately.

Then where do you hear them?

You're appealing to authority and you're using weasel words. What are these arguments? Who made them?

I'd look up those examples listed in history books if I were you; it was widely taken as fact that non-whites were biologically inferior. Look up Nazi propaganda, or what the US civil war was about. It really doesn't take much research to realize that people were (and are) othered using "scientific / biological facts".

You seem to imply that it's okay for YouTube to censor content as long as the content is 'factually incorrect'. What is your definition of 'factually' incorrect content? More importantly, how do you prevent YouTube from coming up with their own definition of factual correctness and start banning content at will.

There are videos on both sides of each of these topics on YouTube right now, so I'm not sure I understand your point.

The point is -- at one point the founding fathers of America were terrorists, according to the government of the time.

Those in authority will never be above questioning and doubting, even if that means considering dumb questions.

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