That line of reasoning doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
One of my family members is also very hesitant to get the vaccine and gets all kind of anti-vaccine propaganda through various groups and channels. She takes that content as "reasonable" and "potentially true" even tho basically all of what I've seen is simply untrue. E.g. an article claiming there were more deaths due to covid vaccines than to covid, which is "backed up" by official NHS statistics. How did they arrive at this claim? Well they just said any recorded covid death with a recorded precondition didn't die due to covid but due to the precondition and any death that occured within 14 days after a vaccine shot was definitely because of the vaccine. I think I don't have to explain the logical fallacy in that argument, but it does make for a nice headline and many (most?) readers only read the headline. Who really takes the time to carefully read and see if the claim has any logical basis? To make things worse, this kind of "news" is regularly republished across multiple sites hiding the "data" multiple links deep (if directly linked to at all).
That's the kind of content many anti-vaxxers are exposed to on a daily basis. For your line of reasoning to make any impact it would mean that not blocking this kind of content actually weakens the positions of anti-vaxxers. However, I strongly belief the opposite is the case. Being exposed to this kind of content and treating it with similar credibility as other news/media is strengthening their position too.
So we have a situation where keeping the content is reinforcing the beliefs and where blocking the content is also reinforcing the beliefs, because "legitimate" content telling "the truth" is blocked "without reason".
I'm also not convinced that outright blocking it is the right move. Hindering it's discoverability (e.g. by downranking it in the so dangerous social media reinforcement bubble algorithmns) and somehow making clear that it might be of very low credibility might be a better approach. It might also be equally hopeless.
>So we have a situation where keeping the content is reinforcing the beliefs and where blocking the content is also reinforcing the beliefs, because "legitimate" content telling "the truth" is blocked "without reason".
I'd say that blocking the content doesn't always reinforce their beliefs. For a lot of people, reading something that is then blocked at a later date reinforces the belief that the information they consumed is not only true, but so true that it has to be censored by some authority, because it would threaten said authority's legitimacy.
As an example, imagine you think that the police are too violent, and you stumble upon police bodycam footage of a cop getting unnecessarily violent at a traffic stop. You bookmark the video, and then later when you try to tell people about it, the video has been taken down the police, for whatever reason. Wouldn't that reinforce your belief that police are too violent?
I know this isn't a perfect example, because a video of someone doing something is much different than an article making claims based on little to no evidence. But the reason some people's beliefs are reinforced by censorship is because they can't help but wonder if the people doing the censoring are trying to hide something.
Except people will take any and all things that happen as conformation of their beliefs. YouTube leaving a video up is support, YouTube removing a video is the conspiracy in action.
"X is good for BitCoin" for any value of X, and not(X).
Some people are beyond saving- there is nothing that you can say or do to get them to accept that their beliefs are wrong. So you're better off expending efforts on the option that disrupts the radicalization pipeline.
I feel bad but yes I agree with this. I have a family member who won't get the vaccine because of "5G Microchips" and "government tracking us" with "poison" (despite her receiving literal poison in the form of chemotherapy, and clutching her phone with Facebook and TikTok no problem...)
What could I possibly say or do to convince this person otherwise? They are so far beyond rational understanding of the vaccine that I'd rather take down the misinformation than be afraid of somehow re-enforcing that family member's beliefs.
I remember early in the pandemic YouTube was removing any video where the word “pandemic” was used. They also censored videos suggesting mask wearing might be beneficial. Similar censorship occurred regarding the now well accepted lab leak origin of the pandemic. Because lab leaks must be racist or something.
Depends what you consider the radicalization pipeline to be. For example, if you ban a user from Twitter, and they end up on Parler, they're gonna be exposed to a lot more "radical" (for lack of a better word) stuff than when they were just on Twitter. It's really not guaranteed that banning "undesirable" content actually does disrupt the pipeline, so much as just further balkanize and radicalize the dissidents.
I like to do in-depth research for myself (example: watching an entire Trump or Biden speech instead of relying on a selected soundbite), viewing the original video or source instead of blindly believing on what mainstream media says about them.
Unfortunately as more things get censored from social media/YouTube whether fairly or unfairly, it looks like I'll have to spend more time on "alternative" platforms, being exposed to the stuff that is common on such platforms. In the end, there's going to be the Twitter echo chamber, and the Gab echo chamber, etc (note that Parler seems to be dead).
But your past the initial pipeline for radicalization.
A slightly more effective approach for you might have been to remove such videos from their recommendation algorithm. But, that doesn’t mean it’s ineffective for people who would be initially discovering this stuff.
> Depends what you consider the radicalization pipeline to be.
Platforms, by their nature, are mostly worried about what's happening on their platforms - when it's occurring elsewhere, it is no longer their problem. It is a mistake to think YouTube wants to bring an end to all misinformation everywhere - their focus starts and ends with misinformation on YouTube. Balkanization is the best option they can hope for, as long as it's not on YT.
But that banned user cannot radicalize others on twitter, the larger platform with a wider reach.
Parler is a niche platform for people already down the rabbit hole.
For the Romans, all that mattered is that the followers didn't wish to start an actual rebellion against Rome. Which doesn't seem like they did from the writings of Paul and the rest of the NT and early Christianity.
> “So you’re better off expending your efforts on the option that disrupts the radicalization pipeline”
But the pipeline is not a single thing. It’s a mutating and evolving entity. If you remove the content from one place, it shows up in another, but now it has more credibility because it’s been “removed for truth”.
Unless there is a plan to block these people from the internet entirely, disrupting the pipeline ends up being gasoline on a fire.
> If you remove the content from one place, it shows up in another, but now it has more credibility because it’s been “removed for truth”.
Such is the nature of a decentralized internet. The only centralized authority that can keep people off the internet is the government, and it would immediately run into freedom of speech issues (and I'm not a fan of government action. I'd much rather have private sites use their free speech/editorial powers to combat this).
Are many smaller fires better than fewer, but larger conflagrations? Depends on who you ask, I think so. However, platforms don't care about the larger picture, they are only concerned about the fires on their properties.
YouTube leaving something up shouldn't--and wouldn't--feel special if YouTube leaves everything up... but they don't, because they selectively take things down for "reasons" that are often inscrutable. Maybe it is easy to think that conspiracy theorists are stupid or something and will randomly believe anything, but that at least isn't the case for all of them, even if it is for some: they are just trying to figure out how to most easily explain inscrutable decision making processes, as YouTube does not take down the vast majority of false things said on YouTube, right? For whatever reason YouTube is only bothering to take down this false information, and do they seem to care more about the conclusions than the content... you can be very very sane and very very smart and still give weight to this being nefarious.
I am not arguing either way, I'm just trying to explain how some people see the world. I also don't really understand the point of your comment, because of course there are irrational people who have all sorts of beliefs.
"Except people will take any and all things that happen as conformation of their beliefs."
Then doing things on basis of motivating them is a dead end, and we should staunch the flow of falsehoods to keep other people from becoming contaminated.
> That line of reasoning doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
A previous fundamental tenant of public health was candid communication.
Censorship goes against that - many activities through this - such as not promoting general health and wellness, diet etc, - go against past foundations of PH.
If people are questioning the legitimacy of PH, censorship reinforces that perception.
I'd rather focus on "what now", because in my opinion there has not been any candid communication between the yays and the nays. All of the media produced along the lines of "5 common vaccine myths DEBUNKED by fauci" are drivel and work backwards from the position that anti vaxxers are dumb and irrational and all their complaints are totally wrong, rather than actually trying to convince people of anything.
What I would love to see is a public, formal debate between two people/groups about vaccine mandates. I might even pay to see it, or fund it or something. I think the closest we have had to this was Rand Paul "grilling" Fauci in a congressional hearing, which was not helpful because it devolved into the participants yelling over each other.
>candid communication doesn't address if the opposing view has overwhelming (and un-candid) counterpoints
I'm not sure if a formal debate counts as "candid communication", but I do think a formal debate would address this. If one side is totally unreasonable and none of their arguments hold up, everyone will see that. If one side just reverts to yelling, everyone will see that.
I know this is a pipe dream, because our media masters have decided that vaccine opposition is just too dangerous. But frankly I cannot think of a better opportunity for the people who claim they know best to actually prove that their opponents are wrong.
Fighting the good fight, day after day, without end? There is no way to force the right thing. There's no law that can't be repealed, no power that can't be corrupted. So we have to work and be vigilant, always.
your link shows where it was approved, those aren't usage numbers,
> ... there should be a preference for an alternative to the AstraZeneca [1]
> Canada’s largest province says it will stop giving out first doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine due to concerns over its link to rare blood clots [2]
> More nations halt use of AstraZeneca's COVID vaccine citing clots [3]
> your link shows where it was approved, those aren't usage numbers.
False. Here's the note on the image showing vaccine usage:
"Note: The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine is known as Covishield in India. Only countries that report doses administered are shown. Other countries may have approved vaccines but have not administered them yet."
There's no silver bullet for cults and other addictions.
Unwinding decades of malfeasance and indoctrination takes time and effort.
Even those who snap out of it then spend decades coming to terms.
Even worse: The liberal tendency to cult shame and scold backfires. (Am guilty as charged.)
The only effective remedy I'm aware of is distraction and redirection. Like the guy who slow walked his wife out of the QAnon cult by encouraging her interest in the opera.
Looking at ONS and NHS statistics for deaths and using the same criteria to look at deaths within X days of a vaccine, and adjusting the excess deaths in each as compared to the baseline rate of deaths in previous years, adjusted by age group, has been considered anti vaccine propaganda for a lot of this covid debacle.
UNfortunately what your family member is doing is actually the mirror opposite of what the official reports and mainline consensus has been, that all deaths in X days of a positive covid test are caused by covid but that no deaths after vaccination are are caused by vaccines. Also consider that harms from covid have been reported averaged amongst all age groups to give and inflated risk for the young, while risks from vaccination have been averaged amongst all age groups to lower the stated risk to the young. I state this last point just to illustrate how deliberate misinformation has been government policy with regards to covid stats, so the same technique used by anti vaxxers is of no surprise whatsoever.
When the mainstream consensus uses precisely the behaviour nudging abuse of data as a conspiracy theorist, do not be supposed when some people are unable to see what the problem is.
That's exactly the allegation - that someone dying after taking the vaccine is investigated and only counted as a vaccine death if there's positive evidence of that being the cause, but COVID deaths were famously counted regardless of whether there was another cause. Causes like being in a motorcycle accident. Now, hopefully standards have improved for COVID deaths, but they're still not nearly as scrutinized as vaccine deaths.
This is precisely correct. As someone who was vaccine hesitant, I ended up getting the J&J but felt like a full 20 hours a week part time job to try to parse what was actually true.
Fauci, the CDC, the WHO; all of the communications from these institutions used the noble lie constantly, fudging numbers, re-casting things to fit their narrative. I already deeply mistrust the media apparatus, who also parrot this narrative.
Realizing that the vaccines are safe took a LONG time for me to come to. I do think I am very much in the minority of the vaccine hesitant category. Many of them dig not dig through all news sources from both sides like I have the perception I did (in truth, I looked at more on the right than the left).
But you have to understand that a huge swarth of the country do not trust ANY of the institutions. All of the officials are viewed as corrupt, manipulating liars.
So we have a situation where keeping the content is reinforcing the beliefs and where blocking the content is also reinforcing the beliefs, because "legitimate" content telling "the truth" is blocked "without reason".
This is pretty close to the truth. For a further nudge in the right direction you should apply that thinking to the state of mind your family member was in prior to encountering any "anti-vaccine propoganda".
They were not in a kind of limbo where they could go either way on covid vaccination. They consumed specific media because they already distrusted the authorities in power in the USG.
The reason you are ending up in this apparent to censor or not to censor paradox is because leadership had already previously failed to convince your family member that they could be trusted. Everything that came after was just mobilization.
Now in your situation you should of course censor the hell out of any anti-vaccine sentiment for the same reason that ISIS should not get to train on Army gym equipment and weapons: it *strengthens* your enemies.
Downranking will of course be equally hopeless. This is the equivalent of the Army allowing ISIS to train with them but only on Sundays at midday or something. Its incoherent.
The right answer has been and will always be to have a leadership class (and that includes the people at Youtube and Google as well as legacy politicians) who can be relied upon to display even a modicum of trustworthiness towards *all* Americans. Ironically censorship also fails to move the needle in the right direction at this point.
Germany was very hard on all the people who looked back on the "good old Nazi days" after ww2. I think that was a good thing. I don't think it happens often but I think it happens. However I don't think that there is anything so problematic that it needs to be censored today though.
There's a third option of actually engaging in the discussion. You know, actually investing the efforts of silencing anti-vaxers into explaining the truth instead. And it's not like that option is unfathomable to the media. When the truth is aligned with their agenda, they are already experts in "fact-checking" and pointing out where their opponents are wrong.
The rules of debate say it's always better to refute the main argument and to address their issues. If you resort to ad-hominem attacks, appeal to authority, or just plain censorship, to me it is a confession that you do not have better information to add to the debate. Which implies that I'm right.
>There's a third option of actually engaging in the discussion. You know, actually investing the efforts of silencing anti-vaxers into explaining the truth instead
A good faith discussion between opposing parties requires establishment of some common ground and a set of rules of engagement (eg 'claims must be supported with facts/data'). Cult leaders foster a sense of paranoia among their followers which makes a good faith debate virtually impossible.
You aren't after a good faith discussion and the vast majority of people with reasonable knowledge, myself included, accept that in general, vaccines save lives.
Ideally, a debate would be best. The challenge is that it's very easy to make false statements. It takes very little effort. You can "Gish gallop" your way through a discussion and the other side is forced to refute every single false statement. A lot of conspiracy theories spread and are believed because their narratives are so simple and easy to understand. Showing that they're wrong takes a lot of explaining, which often strengthens the conspiracy. I can't say I have a solution to it, but it's worth recognizing that discussion doesn't, unfortunately, always work to educate the masses.
Censor someone because disagrees with your position is plain stupidity. Keep the conversation going is a healthy path. The problem is that currently social platform want to CONTROL full the discourse in their platforms. By the way, it's the pandora's box of censorship. Hold my comments.
>basically all of what I've seen is simply untrue. E.g. an article claiming there were more deaths due to covid vaccines than to covid
No, the claim is that statistically for every life saved via vaccination, more lives are lost due to vaccine complications, based on officially compiled numbers.
It occurs to me that most of the people arguing for vaccination are just as ignorant and faith based in their argumentation as the people they demonize for arguing against it. This is probably a consequence of the normal distribution of competence, and a significant argument against censoring dissent (dishonestly conflated with "misinformation"), because when ≈70% of the population is not competent enough to consume and evaluate literature, suppression of counter narratives becomes an oppressive tool of the establishment, even when done by so called "private" companies. Our economic system is conveniently organized such that going public for the funding necessary to compete with VC money subjects your company to the rule of an inevitably politically connected board.
It's telling that almost all of this recent censorship (not just regarding the COVID vaccine) aligns so neatly with leftist views. This top down authoritarianism is leading to a parallel society, encouraged by the pervasive breadth and depth of dissent suppression: if you have the "wrong" opinion, you cant post videos on social media, you cant host your own social media on cloud providers, you can't host your own servers because CC companies will refuse to service you...
The authoritarian dystopia has already arrived, not with the sort of force we were warned about, but with welcome cheers from a naive, docile populace.
One of my family members is also very hesitant to get the vaccine and gets all kind of anti-vaccine propaganda through various groups and channels. She takes that content as "reasonable" and "potentially true" even tho basically all of what I've seen is simply untrue. E.g. an article claiming there were more deaths due to covid vaccines than to covid, which is "backed up" by official NHS statistics. How did they arrive at this claim? Well they just said any recorded covid death with a recorded precondition didn't die due to covid but due to the precondition and any death that occured within 14 days after a vaccine shot was definitely because of the vaccine. I think I don't have to explain the logical fallacy in that argument, but it does make for a nice headline and many (most?) readers only read the headline. Who really takes the time to carefully read and see if the claim has any logical basis? To make things worse, this kind of "news" is regularly republished across multiple sites hiding the "data" multiple links deep (if directly linked to at all).
That's the kind of content many anti-vaxxers are exposed to on a daily basis. For your line of reasoning to make any impact it would mean that not blocking this kind of content actually weakens the positions of anti-vaxxers. However, I strongly belief the opposite is the case. Being exposed to this kind of content and treating it with similar credibility as other news/media is strengthening their position too.
So we have a situation where keeping the content is reinforcing the beliefs and where blocking the content is also reinforcing the beliefs, because "legitimate" content telling "the truth" is blocked "without reason".
I'm also not convinced that outright blocking it is the right move. Hindering it's discoverability (e.g. by downranking it in the so dangerous social media reinforcement bubble algorithmns) and somehow making clear that it might be of very low credibility might be a better approach. It might also be equally hopeless.