Google takes action on Climate Change Hoaxsters 26

[TugboatEng]

Al Gore is to climate change as Kenneth "I need a private jet so I can be closer to God" Copeland is to religion.

Have we forgotten about Al Gore's 221MWh/year energy bill for his own home?

 

[JoshPlumSE]

The notion that this is some sort of "forced belief" system is a dodge;

The notion that this is some sort of "forced belief" system seems to be pretty central to the main point of this thread.... Google taking action on climate change hoaxsters. No?

The issues I have with this sort of action have already been stated. However, I will point out that I have watched a number of conservative outlets (news and comedy, both) get their videos censored for "misinformation" even though they only were doing a parody of the news, or they accepted the basic premise of climate change being caused by human action, but objected to some specific claim (like climate change being the primary cause of CA wild fires).

That sort of censorship is scary to me if it's wide spread and intentional. Though I retain some skepticism on the subject because we're only hearing one side of the dispute. If the videos get put back up relatively quickly, that's fine to me. These companies (google, youtube, and such) have to rely on a lot of AI, algorithms, and user's "flagging" sites for false content. So, they are bound to make lots of mistakes. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's nefarious. Even so, by today's standards, it could still easily be referred to as "systemically" biased against conservative views.

 

[IRstuff]

The notion that this is some sort of "forced belief" system seems to be pretty central to the main point of this thread..

So, anything goes? Should we allow pedophiles to wax poetic about having sex with babies? Is that not a "forced belief" system as well? Should we allow racists a platform to discuss ways to lynch people of color? Should we allow bullies free rein to harass their victims; is it not their fundamental belief that they have a right to bully the weak?

At the end of the day, we, as a society, have drawn a bright red line on certain behaviors and speech, so the wringing of clothes and wailing about censorship goes both ways; a large segment of the right have actually imposed limits on the speech of teachers to not allow them to even explore the possibility of systemic racism, or to even address the fact that racism exists at every level of society. "We've made it illegal to discriminate, so talking about actual racism is therefore not allowed." That's a "forced belief" system imposed in law, not just on social media. The climate deniers and hoaxers lament being censored, yet they are often part of the same group that censors other speech.

TTFN (ta ta for now)
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[JoshPlumSE]

IRstuff -

I agree that enginesrus' analogy was poor. I was merely pointing out what I believed he was trying to say... not agreeing with it. Then when you seemed to object to it being discussed on this thread, I wanted to point out that the concept he was talking about (if I interpreted his meaning correctly) is pretty central to this thread.

For what it's worth, I don't believe your expansion into censorship of teachers is anywhere near as relevant to this thread. This thread is very specifically related to Google (or other related tech companies) and climate change.

Your thoughts on censorship of teachers and CRT and racism or such are not COMPLETELY irrelevant to this thread. And, I get why you brought it up. Therefore, I won't chastise you for going completely off topic. However, there are likely a number of other threads where that discussion would probably be more applicable. And, it would take this thread into a very different direction.

 

[dik]

This whole thing is so sad and is indicative of a serious failure of societal issues and the education system. I'm not big on censorship; my attitude is that it is a matter of education, and let people decide. I'm not sure they can anymore. Values have changed dramatically... the US is on it's way to 1,000,000 Covid fatalities and no one seems to care. There was an excellent opportunity for the world to 'pull together' to address Covid... it didn't happen. There will be the same outcome with climate change. It's so sad.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[TugboatEng]

The problem with censorship is that it skews perception. Take a spectrum, say 1-10 with 5 being ideal. If we remove 7-10 for being undesirable, then suddenly 6 becomes the fringe extreme.

 

Two things I think we can all agree on:

1) YT will not solve climate change no matter what they do or don't do.
2) There is no legislating for intelligence, or lack thereof.


"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[IRstuff]

This thread is very specifically related to Google (or other related tech companies) and climate change.

But, part and parcel to that premise should be whether Google can, or should, censor other "free speech," such as hate, racism, etc. Do we want to live in a society where, say, racism denial, or Holocaust denial, is allowed to stand. If the answer is "No," then it's a different question than whether Google is "only" censoring climate denial. And the only reason that the climate change denial positions have changed from denying existence to denying mechanism is because all their arguments about non-existence and "it's actually cooling" have been refuted by the reality of the last decade. No one really bothers with bashing Mann's "hockey stick" because it essentially turned out to be actually true.

And I get that they think they are fighting the good fight that Galileo fought centuries ago, when actual science was anathema because it was counter to the religious "forced belief," enforced by the Inquisitors, to boot. And while Google is being castigated here, we're ignoring all the state legislatures that have enacted laws to put that another "forced belief" into law, which is a more serious problem, in my mind. In effect, denying the existence of rampant discrimination and racism is essentially the law of the land in certain states.

Thoughtful discussion is one thing that should be allowed, but when the "discussion" is basically "No, it's not, it's something else, and we can't do anything about it because it's "natural" there's not much to discuss when those very parties don't have any data or theory to back up the arguments. And the arguments are continually changing, so it's a whack-a-mole argumentation landscape, particularly since there is no endpoint to the argument, i.e., they will never concede, much like the moon landing deniers.

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[DrZoidberWoop]

1) The 1,000,000 US Covid fatalities number is contentious at best and a pharmaceutical selling point at it's most useful. It's an aggregation that leaves out the critical defining characteristics of the deceased, which are HIGHLY stratified by age and comorbidities. There should have been a targeted response to Covid, and not attempts at blanket policy requiring young healthy people to behave in the same manner as obese chain-smoking septuagenarians with heart failure. Only a sick society would sacrifice the development of it's young to protect the old to such a ludicrous manner.

2) Climate change science is corrupt to the core, despite the intentions of good researchers who make small steps, while avoiding major items like nuclear.

3) At this point, the term "education" is nebulous and an "educated person" is someone who thinks in the same manner as the other "educated people."

 

[dik]

Nope, I don't think so and to argue the numbers does it a disservice... if it's 1,000,000 or 800,000 it shows a massive failure and disrespect for human life. This is reflected in daily crime statistics where six year olds are mugging and killing five year olds and using firearms (a little hyperbole, and I'm very pro gun)... like it or not, it's broken and there's no indication it will ever be fixed.


Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

[JoshPlumSE]

Dr Z / Ironic Metallurgist -

Can we keep this thread a little more focused? If possible, let's try not to venture out into Covid or education or such.

Hopefully, that means keeping the thread focused on technology companies restricting information (or misinformation), and / or how that relates to Climate change.

 

[dik]

Points taken, Josh... I'll get off my apple box too.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik

 

Sure, but when the heading is

'Google takes action on Climate Change Hoaxsters'

we're off the rails before we even begin.

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

 

[TugboatEng]

That’s why today we’re announcing a new monetisation policy for Google advertisers, publishers and YouTube creators that will prohibit ads for, and monetisation of, content that contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change. This includes content referring to climate change as a hoax or a scam, claims denying that long-term trends show the global climate is warming, and claims denying that greenhouse gas emissions or human activity contribute to climate change.

It's Google's words.

 

[IRstuff]

So, the issue isn't REALLY "forced belief" at all, is it? Google is not censoring the posts; they're simply saying that if you want to post climate denials, you don't get to make money off of it, so it's really a bunch of people upset about not making money off of posting misinformation.

If they were serious about having a actual discussion, the monetization shouldn't even be a factor.

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[TugboatEng]

Google also prohibits ads for the content so you may as well be posting it in a black hole.

And it's not the posters who are being harmed as much as it is the YouTube user. They're being denied the information to practice critical thinking.

 

[JoshPlumSE]

they're simply saying that if you want to post climate denials, you don't get to make money off of it, so it's really a bunch of people upset about not making money off of posting misinformation.

That's essentially correct. If you read my earlier posts, there is a lot of nuance here depending on what form of "censorship" google or YouTube or whoever is applying.

I don't personally think of this as outright "censorship". Though I understand why these policies annoy many people who make content.
a) If they "de-monetize" a video, there is generally an "appeal process" that you can use to contest the de-monetization. So, it's definitely not censorship. Though there are times when google / youtube will flat out remove a video, that's usually for different reasons.

b) People still object. Specifically, because they still lose money even if they win their appeal. You see, if you win your appeal, you are NOT allowed to recover the any portion of this revenue you would have received during the time between initial de-monetization and when you won your appeal and the channel or video was re-monetized. So, in many ways, these tech companies have a vested interest in de-monetizing as many videos as possible.

c) The other objection is that this actual process of de-monetization goes way way beyond what Google / YouTube say they are trying to do. If you're a conservative content provider ANY mention of climate change is likely to get you de-monetized even if you never call it a hoax or scam and never say anything that is not well established science. The best example that I remember is when John Stossel did a video about California wild fires. His video was labeled "misinformation" despite the "fact check" not disputing ANY of the fact presented in his video. Granted, that was related to Facebook, not YouTube or Google.

 

[IRstuff]

Josh, you're basically presenting a case that this has all been about making money and not having a frank and honest discussion about the pitfalls of climate prediction. The literal bottom line is, therefore, not anything to do with "free speech" but about the almighty dollar. That just makes them even less credible than they might have otherwise been

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[TugboatEng]

Climate speculation is very profitable for some. See the post about Energy Vault in this forum. Josh is right, this IS all about money.

 

[dik]

It's not all about money. There are terrible things happening and it's going to get a lot worse. It's going to be very costly and is going to cause some major interruptions in daily lives.

Rather than think climate change and the corona virus as science, think of it as the wrath of God. Feel any better?

-Dik