Comment by colpabar | Hacker News Reader

Comment by colpabar | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

>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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

A dead Jesus cannot create more followers, right?

The arguments goes in both directions, if you don't handle it correctly then being too heavy handed has the opposite effect.

> A dead Jesus cannot create more followers, right?

Pontius Pilate doesn't really care, as long as he's washed his hands of the matter and has rid of the man (and crowds) from his court.

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.

"Raises hand"

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.

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.

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.

> “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.

"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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com