Facebook and other companies are removing viral ‘Plandemic’ conspiracy video | Hacker News Reader

Facebook and other companies are removing viral ‘Plandemic’ conspiracy video

washingtonpost.com

14 pointsaspenmayer17 comments

‘Social media companies including YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook are removing a viral conspiracy theory video because of its claims regarding the coronavirus pandemic.

‘The approximately 26-minute video was presented as an extremely long “trailer” for a full-length film titled “Plandemic” and features an extended interview with Judy Mikovits, a well-known figure in the anti-vaccination movement who has made various discredited claims about the effects of vaccines.‘

‘By the time it was removed from Facebook, it had racked up “1.8 million views, including 17,000 comments and nearly 150,000 shares,” Digital Trends reported.’ [0]

‘Twitter responded to The Washington Post by stating that a tweet from Mikovits sharing a different video interview of hers does not violate its covid-19 policy but that the company has removed the hashtags #PlagueofCorruption and #PlandemicMovie from its searches and trends sections.‘

[0] https://www.digitaltrends.com/news/facebook-will-take-down-v...

This movie is trash, and removing it is a good thing. But I'm very uncomfortable with the power of these private companies to censor and shape public opinion.

Will we have a Facebook influenced the election scandal similar to what happened with Russia?

What happens when they silence an unpopular voice that is nevertheless true? Are we all not therefore poorer as a result?

It feels like a black mirror episode in the making.

When you can’t even search for it, it’s like it never even existed at all. It’s insidiously subversive. I agree with all of your points. It’s a trash video, this time. Next time, who knows? We may never know it’s happened, or how many times it’s happened before without our notice or consent.

Mandatory labeling of removed content out to be legally mandated. If I don’t know what was removed and why, how can I not be harmed unintentionally via unknown unknowns?

Post-edit for spelling/clarity: Mandatory labeling of removed content ought to be legally mandated.

YouTube has long been problematic with their removal of content (especially unsupportable copyright claims), but when it comes to this issue I don't care. Facebook and Twitter are still struggling to come up with guiding principles for content moderation and to distribute and standardize them to tens of thousands of moderators, so I'm willing to give them some leeway.

The core issue is: nobody has an expectation that they are guaranteed their (stupid) content _must_ be accepted by a social media platform.

So long as a person can make+host their own website or torrent for the controversial content (yes, I get that this is much higher friction), all that is lost is the _convenience_ to _find_ the content. I'd wager the Anarchist's Cookbook and issues of the ISIS magazines are still bouncing around the internet somewhere, but they shouldn't be available for the average teenager to stumble upon when their crazy uncle shares/retweets it to the world. It's a quick way to empower angst and anti-government sentiment among those who feel powerless (literally the recipe for terrorism).

The only thing I dislike about the removal of this video content is that it gives the gullible conspiracy theorists the "they are removing it because they know it's true!!1!" argument.

I mostly agree except that convenience is everything. Without the distribution a video is just a string of bits. if nobody can find it, it doesn't matter what the content of the video is - it doesn't exist.

It seems like a variant of the Library of Babel problem with a Traveling Salesman twist.

The ability to shape the public opinion by their publication has always been in place - even when they were town criers or bards.

For better or worse there is no sane mechanism one way or another. Everyone is free to speak but there is no obligation to listen, propagate, or provide an audience.

> What happens when they silence an unpopular voice that is nevertheless true?

We're well past that, even popular voices that say true things are silenced with regularity now, e.g. this interview with Chomsky:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-N3In2rLI4

Here is a reupload of it, judge for yourself:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CftLGLKvb_U

Yes, I can't even prove it's a reupload, the first link could be anything.. but that lack of transparency isn't my fault, I know what I bookmarked anyway. I cannot prove it, but I also cannot unsee "tech" pulling stunts like this and people who claim moral integrity standing on the sidelines. That they are "poorer" as a result isn't the problem, that the people who aren't doing that are poorer as a result is what matters.

Why not just serve up a disclaimer video exposing the flaws in 'Plandemic', and require users to watch that video first? That way, the people who watch this sort of stuff will be able to learn to think for themselves by resolving the cognitive dissonance.

I'd say it's not really their responsibility to do that, and could lead to something dangerous. Universality is important, so if they did that, the door would be wide open to them adding annotations to everyone's posts with an 'official' narrative. Sharing a post that you disapprove of a government policy or law? People reading your opinion may need to view a video from the ruling party on why they think they're right first.

"This video is definitely true. If it wasn't, Facebook would add their disclaimer."

Requiring users to watch probably isn't the right move but simply suggesting a video with the opposite viewpoint would be an excellent move.

With every tech company now using "AI" recommendation engines, users only see items that reinforce their beliefs. These tech platforms could really benefit society by simply showing opposing viewpoints once and awhile instead of constantly reinforcing tribal beliefs.

I support this if any WHO video also suggests users to watch Plandemic.

Makes sense

That sounds like any algorithimic implementation would be doomed to spread misinformation out of a misguided sense of fairness. It sounds very "teach the controversy".

Falsehood is not equal to fact. Favoring the truth but expecting even a human process would be foolish, an algorithic one even more so.

The problem with that line of reasoning is it assumes we have some oracle that can tell the difference between falsehood and fact.

Much important societal change starts out as a fringe theory. Remember that for much of history the idea that women should not vote was considered a relatively undisputed fact.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant, society has never been successful in trusting some oracle or government body to determine what is truth. Why do we believe/trust the large tech companies to succeed in this?

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