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Youtube Australia Medicine The Media

YouTube Bans Sky News Australia for One Week Over Misinformation (bbc.co.uk) 288

"YouTube has barred Sky News Australia from uploading new content for a week, saying it had breached rules on spreading Covid-19 misinformation," writes the BBC.

Long-time Slashdot reader Hope Thelps shares their report: YouTube issued a "strike" under its three-strike policy, the last of which means permanent removal. It did not point to specific items but said it opposed material that "could cause real-world harm".

The TV channel's digital editor said the decision was a disturbing attack on the ability to think freely. Sky News Australia is owned by a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp and has 1.85 million YouTube subscribers. The ban could affect its revenue stream from Google.

A YouTube statement said it had "clear and established Covid-19 medical misinformation policies based on local and global health authority guidance". A spokesperson told the Guardian it "did not allow content that denies the existence of Covid-19" or which encouraged people "to use hydroxychloroquine or ivermectin to treat or prevent the virus". Neither has been proven to be effective against Covid.

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YouTube Bans Sky News Australia for One Week Over Misinformation

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  • Good move (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 01, 2021 @12:49PM (#61644293)

    Sky News AU is even crazier than Fox News and that takes some doing.

    • Re:Good move (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 01, 2021 @01:18PM (#61644403)

      "Sky News AU is even crazier than Fox News and that takes some doing."

      Same guy, both owned by Murdoch, who BTW, was one of the first people to get vaccinated.

      • Re:Good move (Score:5, Insightful)

        by allcoolnameswheretak ( 1102727 ) on Monday August 02, 2021 @03:09AM (#61646115)

        "Sky News AU is even crazier than Fox News and that takes some doing."

        Same guy, both owned by Murdoch, who BTW, was one of the first people to get vaccinated.

        Murdoch is the fucking antichrist. I don't know what his agenda is or why he does what he does, but his news networks with their spread of disinformation against climate change, liberal and democratic policies and politicians, FUD on Covid, blind, fanatical support of Trump and his army of conspiracy theorists... it's hard to quantify the damage he has done, but I can't think of another person who has done more damage to the western hemisphere than him, since the end of WW2.
        His companies are in the business of poisoning peoples minds.

    • Why is this upvoted? Why is this interesting. Aside from religious fervor, this is demonstrably not true.

      In the last several years, the major network carried hysteria about Trump/Russian collusion, which was pretty much all proven to be untrue. The speakers who took the airwaves, suddenly changed their stories when in front of the court, and lying has a consequence. Do you change your belief in such networks after lying? Apparently not.

      There are many such examples. The press that you are lauding is at
    • I want to be able to add entries to a KILLFILE, on youtube.

      is there such a thing?

      I want to see NO thumbnails, no nothing from a list of channels or producers.

      I can block ads very well, but I want to block things I know would just aggrivate me and there's no reason to have to deal with NOISE. noise management was supposed to be a key goal of the web..

      all the biden hate from sky news aus just is pathetic. I could tell just by the image thumbnails that they are a fox news related site.

      so, any good content fi

    • Re: Good move (Score:2, Informative)

      Facebooks own extremist censors have censored the CDC for misinformation. Let that sink in. https://youtu.be/W9Vmq9JyD3Y [youtu.be] We only need to look at last century to see what happens when the ruling class can censor political opponents. It never ends well. Freedom to speak is critical in preventing violence. Once you remove that outlet it means extremist thoughts go underground and they canâ(TM)t be heard until itâ(TM)s too late. Blows my mind how quickly people are willing to throw out these basic fr
  • Freedom of the Press belongs to he who owns the press.

    Methinks Sky News needs to buy their own presses and stop using presses that belong to other people. If one is dependent on others allowing you to speak, then so shall ye be controlled. Deliberate unabashed use of Other People's Presses without a clear contract leads to being controlled by those Other People.

    It also makes plainly obvious the total incompetence of Sky News when they complain of a situation of their own device.

    • by Shadow of Eternity ( 795165 ) on Sunday August 01, 2021 @01:15PM (#61644387)

      That doesn't work when a handful of tech giants monopolize the entire world's infrastructure to the point you would need to literally lay down your own fiber backbones and start up your own alternative DNS system just to get STARTED.

      • by fazig ( 2909523 ) on Sunday August 01, 2021 @01:20PM (#61644413)
        I would agree if we were talking about some smaller news station. But we're talking about Rupert Murdoch. A guy with a net worth of 22.2billion and one of the largest owner of media on this planet.
        The closest thing to a traditional media monopoly there is.

        This is not the little guy being oppressed by the big guy this is the former oppressor getting a taste of his own medicine.
        • by physicsphairy ( 720718 ) on Sunday August 01, 2021 @10:18PM (#61645641)

          What you should be considering is not whether or not Murdoch should be censored, or has the resources to personally bear being censored.

          What you should be considering is whether, if Google is unafraid to censor him, there is anything that *you* - who almost certainly does not own a private media network - could do if they decided to censor you.

          You may have a stake in this fight regardless of how much you despise Rupert Murdoch.

          • by fazig ( 2909523 )
            Google certainly aren't the good guys here.
            But just like when Stalin took on Hitler, that particular development was still a lot better than having both cooperate.
      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        You are pleading facts not in evidence. The so-called "tech giants" are neither "tech" nor "giant". They are merely handy crutches for the incompetent.

        There is nothing which requires one to deal with your so-called "tech giants". They do not own the infrastructure nor do they control DNS.

        • by Etcetera ( 14711 ) on Sunday August 01, 2021 @02:48PM (#61644729) Homepage

          There is nothing which requires one to deal with your so-called "tech giants". They do not own the infrastructure nor do they control DNS.

          This is such a polyanna view that I have to wonder if it isn't a sock account.

          Google in fact owns a great deal of fiber, runs the most popular public DNS service, runs about 40% of all internet advertising network revenue, operates the most popular browser, and runs both the OS and -- more importantly -- the middleware of the most popular smartphone model.

          The days where all you needed was some space at your local ISP to host a webpage are gone. If Google wanted to G-Line you from the internet and put its full weight behind it to knock you off the web to all but the most committed, it could.

      • They own a TV network, so don't feel too bad.

      • by _xeno_ ( 155264 ) on Sunday August 01, 2021 @01:28PM (#61644465) Homepage Journal

        That doesn't work when a handful of tech giants monopolize the entire world's infrastructure to the point you would need to literally lay down your own fiber backbones and start up your own alternative DNS system just to get STARTED.

        It's not just that, though. Sky News could almost certainly host their own videos on their own infrastructure, if they wanted to.

        The problem is that what Facebook and Google control are the major ways people find content. If you want to post a video to the Internet that other people will ever find, you use YouTube. Because that's where people go to find video content.

        If you want to post a news story in such a way that people can share it with their friends and family, you use Facebook. Because that's the way the majority of people share things these days. If you don't play Facebook's games, your content doesn't get "promoted" on people's timelines.

        And, really, that's what section 230 needs to be updated to address. When it was written it kind of assumed people could just go elsewhere, that having content taken off a single website didn't mean you were effectively removed from the Internet. But thanks to large tech monopolies on very specific areas of the Internet, that's no longer really true. For some people, Facebook is the Internet. They start at Facebook and they only ever see content that's been posted to Facebook.

        For others, Google is. If you can't find it via Google, if it's not available via a Google search or a YouTube search, it might as well not exist.

        And that's the problem. Sure, you can always go off and host your own stuff on the Internet, but does it really matter if no one is ever going to be able to find it?

        • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

          "The problem is that what Facebook and Google control are the major ways people find content. If you want to post a video to the Internet that other people will ever find, you use YouTube. Because that's where people go to find video content."

          "people" do not go to YouTube to find video content. "people" go to YouTube to find YouTube content.

          "If you want to post a news story in such a way that people can share it with their friends and family, you use Facebook. Because that's the way the majority of people

        • I suppose *some* people only get their news by searching in Youtube, but that's guaranteed to be a bubble. Youtube does NOT give you news you need to know, it just figures out videos you may want to watch based upon your past viewing history. If you watch a lot of shitty conspiracy videos, then that's all you ever see. Anyone with half a brain, regardless of political stances, knows that you get news elsewhere.

          If you want Fox style news, then head over to Fox, or Aussie Sky. You don't need Youtube for t

        • And, really, that's what section 230 needs to be updated to address.

          Noting that this story is about events in Australia and Section 230 is a US law, but I think the EU and Australia have similar laws based on or inspired by the US Communications Decency Act and Section 230. Don't know how similar though.

        • by Ksevio ( 865461 )

          And, really, that's what section 230 needs to be updated to address. When it was written it kind of assumed people could just go elsewhere, that having content taken off a single website didn't mean you were effectively removed from the Internet.

          Kind of curious what you think the solution would be in this case. Should youtube be held liable for misinformation posted by skynews or should youtube not be allowed to moderate their platform?

        • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday August 01, 2021 @02:53PM (#61644747)

          When it was written it kind of assumed people could just go elsewhere

          I'm confused. When does Facebook or Youtube prevent you going elsewhere? You're making up fantasies for your Section 230 argument. How do you think morons get their news on Facebook? Someone actually needs to go to a news site and post a link. That's kind of the entire point of a social network.

          Does this link give you Google or Youtube's 404 page? http://www.skynews.com.au/ [skynews.com.au]

        • If there is a segment of the population that can only be reached via YouTube, yeah, you're gonna have to do what YouTube wants if you want to reach them. If you make something other people want to see, surely most of these people have friends or other media channels where they would hear about your fantastic site. What if there was a subset of people here on Slashdot who said "I'll only read comments that _xeno_ responds to". Should people be able to *make* you respond to them so that they can reach this we
        • For the umpteth time, S230 is not about dictating content, S230 is about protecting the distributor of user-created content against the liability of that content itself. If you repel S230 it will NOT in the SLIGHTEST change that every pricate company is allowed to censor anything they don't like. What it would change is that due to liability possibility ALL user content would have to be severely checked and pre-moderated before being posted, rather than the world of post-moderation we live in. Get it now ?
      • by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Sunday August 01, 2021 @01:30PM (#61644471)

        Ha ha ha.

        Conservatives worked tirelessly over the decades to make it almost impossible to take action over anti-trust issues, and now it's biting them in the ass. I can hear the world's smallest violin playing for them right now.

        Maybe the righgtwing media needs to take their own advice and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. Nobody's holding a gun to their heads and stopping them from creating their own global inter-networking system.

      • Huh, Youtube doesn't own the internet. Or even the fiber. Google might own some fiber, but it's most certainly not an internet monopoly in that sense. Social media is still relatively minor in the big scheme of things, especially when it comes to news. All the major news outlets stand on their own and do not rely on youtube or facebook or social media. The news that shows up in those places is just advertising for the main news sites. (or in the case of Fox and Sky, news creators)

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Sunday August 01, 2021 @02:50PM (#61644737)

        That doesn't work when a handful of tech giants monopolize the entire world's infrastructure to the point you would need to literally lay down your own fiber backbones and start up your own alternative DNS system just to get STARTED.

        You're defending the world's biggest news empire compared to a website that hosts videos. And the thought that you need an alternative DNS to get started sort of shows that you have no idea how DNS or the internet is run:

        Hint: So far no one, not major governments, not tech giants have been able to keep anyone off the internet. At best they've managed to no do business with people they don't like.

    • by MrL0G1C ( 867445 )

      Sky news just ran into a crowded theatre and shouted fire, they literally told lies that will literally get people killed if those people believe what they said and didn't act to protect themselves because of those ;lies.

      So buying their own presses is irrelevant, they shouldn't be spreading lies so dangerous that people can die if they believe those lies.

  • ... about all the money Google will save [theguardian.com].

  • Seems like a double standard... or does Russia have huge investments and can influence exceptions for their propaganda?

    This is all private business... Yeah, I have the right to "speak" part your software in my software, not pay you a cent for it, and claim I wrote it all while squatting on your land. It's my right!

  • by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Sunday August 01, 2021 @01:42PM (#61644513)

    They already do it on the search engine for "mature" content. Perhaps YouTube needs a similar thing for misinformation?

    I still don't think they'd want a bunch of neo-Nazis posting hate speech. But if you want to post misinformation about COVID, elections, or evolution then maybe you get a different URL with some kind of sticker or banner proclaiming the info might be wonky.

    It's still problematic, but so is banning videos, and letting dangerous misinformation flourish can be even worse.

  • I read in TFA "In one 12 July broadcast with MP Craig Kelly, both men claimed Delta was not as dangerous as the original and vaccines would not help." Indeed saying that doesn't help.

    Was the youtube account banned for that or other disinformation ? Can Aussie slashdotter provide more examples ?

  • Then why isn't Sky News or the Fox tabloid covering the potential rape story about Tucker Carlson? I've heard he supposedly raped a woman in the 90s. Why isn't that being looked into?

    Or the out of wedlock child Senator Lindsey Graham supposedly has?

  • by dwywit ( 1109409 ) on Sunday August 01, 2021 @04:10PM (#61644963)

    "The ban could affect its revenue stream from Google."

    Google (and others like Facebook) in Australia were recently forced into a revenue sharing deal with NewsCorp, for the use of news headlines and article summaries.

    This is payback, justified by the "misinformation" tag. Let the games begin. Facecbook, twitter, et al will now feel a bit braver about suspending NewsCorp accounts.

  • by fygment ( 444210 ) on Monday August 02, 2021 @10:50AM (#61647131)

    Thought experiment:

    YouTube bans something.

    Later its found out that the ban was inappropriate because actually the something was correct.

    Will YouTube then be liable for the damage caused? How much did Sky News loose with a week's ban ?

    Ha, silly thought!

Understanding is always the understanding of a smaller problem in relation to a bigger problem. -- P.D. Ouspensky

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