YouTube Bans QAnon, Other Conspiracy Content That Targets Individuals (nbcnews.com) 117
YouTube said Thursday that it would no longer allow content that targets individuals and groups with conspiracy theories, specifically QAnon and its antecedent, "pizzagate." From a report: "Today, we are taking another step in our efforts to curb hate and harassment by removing more conspiracy theory content used to justify real-world violence," the company announced on its blog. The new rules, an expansion of YouTube's existing hate and harassment policies, will prohibit content that "threatens or harrasses someone by suggesting they are complicit in one of these harmful conspiracies, such as QAnon or Pizzagate," the post read. YouTube said it would be enforcing the updated policy immediately and plans to "ramp up in the weeks to come."
Epstein Conspiracy Hypothesis (Score:1, Offtopic)
So YouTube would have banned the people who were talking about the Epstein Island child sex trafficking evidence before the FBI made its arrest at Teterboro. Sean Attwood and his (regularly work on Prince Andrew's abuses and the like.
Is that correct?
They seem awfully concerned with protecting the power-elite.
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The entire pizzagate thing was based on a tweet, from an anonymous person, with no followers, reported on by journalists that had previously been covering the epstein/clinton story, who then stopped reporting on the epstein/clinton story.
The conspiracy of pizzagate is that the journalists turned a non-story into a story, on purpose, so that they wouldnt have to talk about the real story.
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I'll bet they ban zero US deep state propganda, like the Syrian war, created by UK PR=B$ corporations for profit, private UK corporations used media to promote, back and support terrorism in another country. How much of that was banned, NONE, how much of the stuff exposing that was banned, a whole fucking bunch.
US major tech corporations aided and abetted terrorism in another country, backing the entirely fabricated propagandan and actively censoring the truth.
Got a claim to make to censor some one, prove
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No, Pizzagate came about because of John Podesta's very real leaked emails that were posted to wikileaks.
Some emails were code phrased like this one [wikileaks.org] leading to a lot of speculation.
Qanon seemed to have grown out of people trying to crowdsource their own investigation, because it seemed doubtful someone as politically connected as Podesta would be scrutinized.
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"handercheif with a map that's pizza related" will probably forever remain a mystery of its true meaning, like what Biden actually learned about roaches. Us mere mortals will just have to try to use our imagination.
Nope just Qannon (Score:5, Informative)
Also if you'd RTFA you'd know this is less about going after baseless conspiracy theories and more about the harassment. Qannon has been baselessly accusing people of pedophilia and YouTube won't have that.
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how many times one can anonymously reply to oneself
Don't know. There's a lot of echo chamber stuff going on around here. I suspect that some people have multiple accounts and just upvote themselve a lot.
If so I'll have to play games with logging out of my account.
I'm not sure that works. You can post AC, but you have to be logged on (so Slashdot knows who you are).
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totally unlike the Wayfair thing, right? You do remember that one?
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Qannon seems to have got it started with a classic "I'm just asking questions" attack and by leveraging reddit's r/conspiracy forum and going from there.
To me it looks like Qannon is just feeding off of frightened people trying to make sense of the world. The problems in the world are extremely complex and require complex solutions. Focusing on
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If you disregard the fake complexity within these problems, most of them turn out to be quite simple.
One of the listed problems is food security - there's more than enough food produced, yet there's still starvation because some people don't have access to it. Additionally, there's an obesity issue in some countries, simply because there's a preference to purchase the cheap stuff that's not as nutritious as it should be.
There's a COVID-19 epidemic going around,
I was there when it was written (Score:2, Informative)
Pizzagate was long before QAnon. Despite the popular conception thereof, it split off into a lot of investigations, Alefantis' creepy Instagram, Epstein, and whatever Podesta was doing by writing 13 and a fish symbol on his hands in that photo, pizza-related maps on handkerchiefs or discussing whether one would do better playing dominoes on pizza or pasta. The emails, BTW, were DKIM validated and have a bh (body hash) parameter.
Very few people ever believed there were tunnels under a pizza place and Hilla
Pizzagate was never tied up with Trump (Score:2)
As for Qannon being a LARP... I don't think you understand just how many of those people weren't LARPing....
If you haven't already I'd get yourself away from those communities. They're not healthy, and you sound like you got way, way deeper into them then you should. I mean that.
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If you RTFA you'd know they are specifically targeting Qanon, likely because it's long since proven to be completely baseless nonsense that can and has lead to violence.
Can you provide a reference for the claim that Qanon has led to violence? I have seen a lot of evidence linking BLM and Antifa to violent incidents (some of it elsewhere in this discussion) but I have not seen anything connecting Qanon to violence. (I am not saying it does not exist, just that I have not seen it).
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Or how about this - does YouTube have the right to deny the accused person the opportunity to challenge the allegatio
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Not at all..
The Epstein issue was not a conspiracy that impacted anyone other than those that were actually involved.. QAnon tries to tie baseless conspiracies to a number of people and much more importantly, they then go harass (verbal/physical/financial) these same people.. basically acting as vigilantes (which is also against the law) based on false information. So if people say, harassed the Epstein players family/friends and physically/verbally/financially assaulted them.. then it would be the same bec
Re: Epstein Conspiracy Hypothesis (Score:2)
*before his arrest* are the key words. If you are aware of crimes, they need to be reported to police for investigation which may lead to arrest. On conviction talk about them, write the articles. But when they are being reported publicly without even reporting to police, its slander.
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It's not correct because they are only targeting QAnon, but let's say for the sake of argument they did decide to ban that particular conspiracy theory. What difference would it have made?
Seems like none. Nothing happened until the FBI investigated, the rumours seemed to make no difference as it was well known the guy was extremely dodgy, banned from donating to certain universities and the like, but people kept going to his island anyway.
And don't forget that for every time one of these conspiracies turns
got too hot to handle I guess (Score:3)
I'm gonna be watching very closely after the election. I give Facebook and Twitter a 50/50 odds that they'll quietly roll these policies back. A LOT of people enjoy that stuff, and lots of eyeballs means lots of ad sales. Crushing conspiracy theories definitely hurts their bottom line.
I'm sure the Zuckerberg knows exactly how much surpressing Qanon is going to cost him in ad revenue, and he's carefully weighing that cost against the potential damage of a regulatory blowback or the damage of ushering in a brave new world where facts don't matter and nobody believes anything. Zuck's home would be prime target for looters.
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I'm sure the Zuckerberg knows exactly how much surpressing Qanon is going to cost him in ad revenue, and he's carefully weighing that cost against the potential damage of a regulatory blowback or the damage of ushering in a brave new world where facts don't matter and nobody believes anything. Zuck's home would be prime target for looters.
It may already be too late to stop the regulatory blowback. [theverge.com]
LK
Oh crap (Score:2)
Real Conspiracies happen! (Score:1)
Are the targets public figures? Are they suing? (Score:2)
Why should YouTube be permitted to intervene and prevent individuals from exercising their free speech rights in order to protect public figures from criticism without the requisite court order? It doesn't matter if the criticism is grounded in reality
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Why should YouTube be permitted to intervene and prevent individuals from exercising their free speech rights in order to protect public figures from criticism without the requisite court order?
You do know that free speech rights don't apply to private properties. Youtube does have the right to ban anyone they want. The 1st amendment doesn't apply to private sites like Youtube, Facebook or Slashdot. Now a government run version of any of these WOULD be protected by the 1st.
Missing a vital point... (Score:1)
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Are either of these groups targeting individuals?
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Yes. You should watch the news sometime.
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The police are not an individual.
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Are they targeting groups?
Why doesn't targeting have a tt?
Re:QAnon but not BLM (Score:5, Insightful)
BLM is not a conspiracy, it's a civil rights movement. You may not like it but it is not calling for the extrajudicial execution of their political enemies...
Antifa is an ethos, there are many groups who call themselves Antifa but no top down organization. You may not like them but they are not calling for the extrajudicial execution of their political enemies...
Marxism is a method of socioeconomic analysis... you may not use it in your own analysis but it of itself is incapable of calling for the extrajudicial execution of their political enemies...
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No suspect has been named or found in the Indiana shooting as I could find, this is conjecture and again, are these groups calling for the murder of their political entities?
Chants are not murder. You may not like those chants, but many communities have good reason to not like the police.
Effigies are not murder. You may not like those effigies, but many communities have good reason to not like the police.
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You may not like it but it is not calling for the extrajudicial execution of their political enemies...
Chants are not murder
Effigies are not murder
Do you get tired from shifting goal posts like that?
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Well, all those things are examples of things that are "OCCURRING" at a protest, and are not official or unified messages.
I could show up at any big congregation and do whatever and pin it on the entire movement, right? That was the problem with Occupy Wall Street -- they started pinning random things done by homeless people on the movement to deal with financial corruption and fairness.
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CNN ridiculed for 'Fiery But Mostly Peaceful' caption with video of burning building in Kenosha
https://thehill.com/homenews/m... [thehill.com]
Say what you will about Antifa (Score:1, Troll)
Seriously though, don't feed the trolls
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Do you have any evidence that Deonte Lee Murray was a "member of Antifa" or are you just assuming that? Has "Antifa" the organization you claim to exist as a monolithic entity called for the murder of cops by it's members?
I'm half-convinced you're philosophical zombies RN (Score:2, Insightful)
> Do you have any evidence that Deonte Lee Murray was a "member of Antifa" or are you just assuming that?
Look at his social media. What are we supposed to believe when they have ACAB, BLM, 1312, Antifa nonsense on their pages along with cop hate?
> Has "Antifa" the organization you claim to exist as a monolithic entity called for the murder of cops by it's members?
You're putting words in my mouth, they don't have to exist as "monolithic entities" to do this and I never claimed they were monolithic. H
Re: I think they're taking matters into their own (Score:2)
Earlier this summer an Air Force sergeant and member of the Boogaloo group was charged with the shooting deaths of a sheriff deputy and a federal officer in California. Boogaloo is far right, not antifa.
Re:QAnon but not BLM (Score:5, Informative)
These are philosophies based on real fact and historical analysis that stands up to much scrutiny. Even if you do not agree with it, you must agree they are based on premises that are true.
By contrast, QAnon thinks:
These are things that are not based in reality, and based on fabrications. So-called "evidence" offered by QAnon supporters is no better than evidence for the existence of Bigfoot or UFOs. Anything based on a false premise is false. That's why they get banned.
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Marxism has some really good ideas.
It's a shame that the word "Communism" was used by people to describe the USSR and red China as this has confused people to think they were good examples of communism.
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Re:QAnon but not BLM (Score:4, Insightful)
That's why they get banned.
I'd say that there's more to it than just spreading false rumours.
In some jurisdictions, claiming that someone is a pedophile has a special treatment under the rules for defamation.
What these conspiratoty types have achieved is to have thousands of posts drowning out normal political speech with defamatory statements, at a scale that makes it not viable to prosecute.
It's like the GNAA taking over mainstream social media and trying the same with TV.
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And did you really think "normal political speech" was ever not dominated by defamation? Take a look at the third US Presidential election and how Jefferson and Adams tore each other apart in the most vile, vicious, and s
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But my tags were bad.
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You ever going to actually respond to my argument about QAnon no
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I think you should take a leaf out of the zoomers book and just go with "no u".
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... BLM, Antifa and Marxism. I suppose they spread love.
Not as much as this comment spreads ignorance I wager.
QAnon is not the same. (Score:4, Insightful)
BLM is a legit non-profit with millions of supporters and enemies with a massive propaganda machine.
Antifa is historic and a once popular position but a boogieman for all practical purposes; it is nothing and therefore easy for anybody to appropriate.
Marxism is an indestructible set of ideas and facts from which there is little chance of them being adopted on whole; especially not by surprise. Mostly exists as a propaganda foe. Only reason can keep it in check; never ending problem.
QAnon is probably a Russian psy-op; couldn't do much better from a single op...except get an asset in the white house (perhaps you should graduate to adult level conspiracies?)
QAnon is a US government psy-op (Score:2)
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Except Russiagate is REAL and QAnon is FAKE.
Both are quite political so only paying attention at the surface (the political squabbling) they can seem like they are both sides of the same coin.
The Russian scandal was also complex and just like the mob, the main defense is to obstruct justice - "no rats" so stooges only do minor jail time for minor crimes taking the fall so the big crimes never get the evidence needed as well as spreading out the crimes which minimizes damage for evidence that does get out.
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Nope. The organization founded around a position (shorten "anti-fascist") died as an organization. It springs to life as organizations around the world because it's a position and organizers form around the position. There is no international living organization laying claim to the name let alone defending it's ownership. Even so, that can be difficult to do without a widespread presence and popular understanding of the org. Most people (in USA) haven't heard of Antifa until Trump scapegoated it.
Just becaus
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Fascism is a rejection of democracy. If you believe in Liberal Democracy, you are in opposition to Fascism. People who call themselves "anti-fascists" generally demonstrate complete ignorance as to what it is. For example, you seem to think it resides in the top-right corner of that naïve "compass". It is not. Fascism, like every familiar totalitarian-authoritarian political-economy, resides in the top-left. One of t
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If fascism and socialism/communism are the same, why were the fascists so virulently anti communist?
If they are the same, why did Germany back Franco and the Soviet Union back those rebelling against Franco?
If you believe America was founded on the idea that power should reside in the individual, why do you back Trump?
He is clearly for himself being "the state".
Why dont you argue against all the voter suppression nonsense that is being pushed by the GOP?
That is clearly not aligned with power residing in the
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Authoritarianism is being told that if you're riding a bike in the park and nobody's around, you have to wear a mask.
When I look at the parties, I see one that is committed to restricting the authority of the Federal government so that it remains within the strict boundaries set in the Constitution, and one that sees any boundary restricting authority as entirely flexible. This is the very essence of the "living document" view of the Con
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"Why do Shia and Sunni Muslims have such a hard time getting along?"
They have something they differ on?
"Authoritarianism is being told that if you're riding a bike in the park and nobody's around, you have to wear a mask."
The state also doesnt allow you to fire a gun in the air in most places.
Because it will cause harm to others.
Like infecting others with COVID-19 will, because you refuse to wear a mask ( when it is appropriate, your example is a b
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Another Voter Suppression item:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/1... [nytimes.com]
I have a hard time seeing why the Republican members of the committee would disapprove of this.
Excepting that the disabled probably vote Democrat by and large.
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Consider Gov. Whitmer. She told her State that only certain kinds of boats could be taken out on the lakes. A canoe with four people packed in would be fine, but a motorboat with one person in it wasn't. When people complained, she and the press condemned the protesters. That is authoritarianism.
I realize that authoritarianism increases during a health panic, but come on.
What has
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"What has the GOP been doing to increase authority? BE SPECIFIC.":
Pushing for IDs for all.
Purging people from voter rolls
Govt shutdowns
Gerrymandering
It is not OK for any party to do this.
Seeking Reversal of Roe v Wade.
Seeking control/ authority over a w
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i dont know, but ive heard more about it in the last 2 months than ever before.. guess i should look into it so im informed.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's been a basic moral and societal failing that social networks have not cracked down hard on this kind of nonsense, especially when it's groups that engage in violence and deliberate attempts to cause harm.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
https://www.justsecurity.org/72339/qanon-is-a-na z i-cult-rebranded/ [tinyurl.com] (remove spaces)
https://preview.tinyurl.com/y2m5bzj3 [tinyurl.com] for the paranoid
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Don't let anyone else tell you what Q is or isn't, go see for yourself and make up your own mind...
qanon . pub
qresear . ch
we-go-all . net
qupdates . com
qanon . news
qagg . news
operationq . pub
qposts . online
theqpatriothub . weebly . com
inthematrixxx . com
qalerts . app
douknowq . com
http://bad-boys.us/ [bad-boys.us]
http://resignation.info/ [resignation.info]
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I wonder if any of the (at least 5 by my count) people who have downvoted my comment are familiar with both QAnon and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Definitely. There's a whole load of very coordinated neo-Na zi modding going on in this article. When I came through all of the comments that were either "liberal" or "sane" (often not the same thing) had been modded down and all the alt-right/troll posts were modded up. They know exactly what they are doing and why they don't want your comment visible.
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Ah, an anonymous claim about a secret network moderating posts to keep things hidden.
Sounds like you are peddling something with similarities to the anti-semitic conspiracy theories in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, where the Jews are trying to keep things hidden.
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I would have downvoted you if I had moderation posts, and I am somewhat familiar with both.
Your post is just an abuse of dead Jews for political purposes, trying to fabricate some tenuous link to anti-semitism without a reasonable basis.
Hey, you know, "patriarchy" theory? A network of men keeping others down? Isn't that quite like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, about a network of Jews keeping others down?
There have been claims of conspiracy for probably all of complex civilization - claims that a netw
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Q is some guy LARPing on the chans, posting cryptic nonsense. They mostly hate him because he tells people not to trust the media.
It's interesting that they haven't banned any of the Russian conspiracies targeting Trump, never mind Steele's primary subsource being a Russian agent. Please, tell us more about that nonsense where you found a "Trump server" (read: 3rd party marketing site) contacting a "Russian bank" ... via DNS queries caused by spam.
Never mind asking the obvious question: how were the peop
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But, credible reports about Biden's use of the VP office to make his son rich get banned immediately.
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Wanna take bets how long it takes until YouTube removes this video [youtube.com]? (archive link [archive.is]).
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You can blame Bush for some of that stuff, but Trump wasn't president in 2004 and last time I checked, Trump was getting us *out* of every possible war and avoiding new ones (despite pushes for that, as with the staged gas attack in Syria...).
Oh, and have you noticed? For some odd reason, Bush seems to quietly support Biden... Weird.
But I'll actually agree with you that we should put a stop to this war profiteering nonsense, no matter who is doing it.
Re:What's a QAnon? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet you don't seem to have an issue with Trump appointing his own family to every possible government position he can despite their complete lack of qualifications.
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Really? So far the biggest debate I've seen over it is whether Hunter has a crack pipe or a meth pipe in his mouth.
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https://8kun.top/qresearch/wel... [8kun.top]