General > General Technical Chat

Youtube/Google is evil, time to fight back

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coppice:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on May 04, 2022, 03:46:44 pm ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on May 04, 2022, 01:16:26 pm ---
--- Quote ---https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_controversy
--- End quote ---
Whenever you use Wikipedia as a source, I recommend also looking at the history of the page, i.e. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Hunter_Biden&action=history.  It contains gems like "New York Post is unreliable" as a basis for deletion, even though Media Bias / Fact Check rates New York Post as reliable as MSNBC or CNN.

--- End quote ---
I do read Wikipedia, but it does have a strong left-wing bias. If the left-wing Guardian thinks it's slightly biased towards the Democratic Party, then it must be strongly left-wing.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/jul/29/the-five-wikipedia-biases-pro-western-male-dominated

--- End quote ---
I think it would be more accurate to say wikipedia has a strong stupid bias. If you look at pure technical pages, without any real political angle, they are gradually edited into meaninglessness, by people who clearly have no clue about the topic.

nctnico:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on May 04, 2022, 03:46:44 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on May 04, 2022, 03:15:43 pm ---
--- Quote from: ve7xen on May 04, 2022, 05:41:49 am ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on May 04, 2022, 05:13:24 am ---Journalists are not supposed to be the guardians of truth!  They are not the watchdogs of the population, they are the watchdogs of the powers that be!
--- End quote ---

YouTube et al are not journalists, nor are (most of) their users. That is the problem. If they were, they would vet their sources, do proper research, and censor unreliable information before publishing it...

They are platforms that host user generated content, and an entirely different thing. It is well within their rights and perfectly reasonable for them to censor the content they choose to host. I do think they have some ethical responsibility to at least make a good-faith effort to stem the spread of scams, misinformation, and hate on their platforms, but ultimately it is up to them. There is certainly no reason Google or anyone else should be obligated to host or publish any content on behalf of their users, especially if they believe it is harmful/misleading, which is in effect what you are saying.

--- End quote ---
Indeed. Most of the junk that goes against what is scientifically accepted as being true (or at least the best possible assumption) can go into the bin. There is too much noise nowadays which is echoed and amplified by people that have no clue at all and really need protection to prevent harming themselves and others.

--- End quote ---
What's scientifically accepted to be true changes. Remember, back in February/March 2020, we were told face masks were ineffective at preventing the spread of COVID-19, then a few months later, the position was reversed? It turns out that there wasn't much real world evidence to support them back then. There were a few lab experiments, involving cages of animals infected, with a cloth cover placed over the cages and computer simulations, but nothing concrete.

--- End quote ---
That is how science works and why I wrote 'the best possible assumption'.


--- Quote ---Fortunately, a study was done in Bangladesh last year. It shows surgical masks reduce the spread by 11%, yet cloth masks didn't have a statistically significant effect. Great, you'd expect the mainstream media would report this and governments would start recommending people wear proper surgical masks, but no, ineffective cloth masks prevailed.  :palm:
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02457-y

--- End quote ---
That depends per country where some countries choose not to change their position on the type of masks to avoid a new tsunami of fake news on social media that (in the big picture) has a detrimental effect on the society. IMHO the real problem is that people are insecure and want answers to their worries and many don't care that they get the wrong answer as long as they get an answer. This opens a whole can of worms; like how religions are being used as crowd control.

wraper:

--- Quote from: nctnico on May 04, 2022, 04:28:35 pm ---
--- Quote from: Zero999 on May 04, 2022, 03:46:44 pm ---
--- Quote from: nctnico on May 04, 2022, 03:15:43 pm ---
--- Quote from: ve7xen on May 04, 2022, 05:41:49 am ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on May 04, 2022, 05:13:24 am ---Journalists are not supposed to be the guardians of truth!  They are not the watchdogs of the population, they are the watchdogs of the powers that be!
--- End quote ---

YouTube et al are not journalists, nor are (most of) their users. That is the problem. If they were, they would vet their sources, do proper research, and censor unreliable information before publishing it...

They are platforms that host user generated content, and an entirely different thing. It is well within their rights and perfectly reasonable for them to censor the content they choose to host. I do think they have some ethical responsibility to at least make a good-faith effort to stem the spread of scams, misinformation, and hate on their platforms, but ultimately it is up to them. There is certainly no reason Google or anyone else should be obligated to host or publish any content on behalf of their users, especially if they believe it is harmful/misleading, which is in effect what you are saying.

--- End quote ---
Indeed. Most of the junk that goes against what is scientifically accepted as being true (or at least the best possible assumption) can go into the bin. There is too much noise nowadays which is echoed and amplified by people that have no clue at all and really need protection to prevent harming themselves and others.

--- End quote ---
What's scientifically accepted to be true changes. Remember, back in February/March 2020, we were told face masks were ineffective at preventing the spread of COVID-19, then a few months later, the position was reversed? It turns out that there wasn't much real world evidence to support them back then. There were a few lab experiments, involving cages of animals infected, with a cloth cover placed over the cages and computer simulations, but nothing concrete.

--- End quote ---
That is how science works and why I wrote 'the best possible assumption'.

--- End quote ---
So valid and important information should be banned because somebody assumed something, be it good or ill willed?

nctnico:
No, you are twisting my words around. What I'm saying is that it is best to wait for the scientific community (as a whole) to take a position on a subject instead of jumping to conclusions based on messages / videos circulating on social media. Science is truth by broad concensus; not what a single person thinks is true. The problem however is reaching concensus takes time while the public doesn't want to wait that long. 'Experts' take advantage of that by showing up on TV and other media to spout their opinions but in the end it is just meaningless drivel.

coppice:

--- Quote from: Zero999 on May 04, 2022, 03:46:44 pm ---What's scientifically accepted to be true changes. Remember, back in February/March 2020, we were told face masks were ineffective at preventing the spread of COVID-19, then a few months later, the position was reversed? It turns out that there wasn't much real world evidence to support them back then. There were a few lab experiments, involving cages of animals infected, with a cloth cover placed over the cages and computer simulations, but nothing concrete.

--- End quote ---
One of the interesting things that changed was years of sober minded research by a number of bodies around the world concluded that large scale lockdowns would never be the right approach to take in any plausible pandemic. When a real disease popped up those with power immediately went in the opposite direction, based on nothing new being uncovered.

As for masks, there have been a number of studies about them over the years, drawing conclusions between ineffective, and mildly effective, depending on the transmission characteristics of the disease being studied. Did you hear anything nuanced like that being said by anyone with power in early 2020? It was either do not wear a mask or you an evil granny killer if you don't wear a mask, oscillating between those positions as time went by.

I was amused by a group of parents in the US being interviewed about their small children using N95 masks. They all felt they were absolutely essential. When questioned about the effect on their child's breathing, they responded that the masks fit their child's face so poorly they were breathing around the sides, and the mask didn't impede their breathing at all. Perhaps these were parents who had studied drama rather than a STEM subject.

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