YouTube has been cracking down on anything Covid related for over a year. Any discussion about Covid that has gone much past saying stay safe or get vaccinated has been instantly demonitized and hidden from people's subscriptions. This is just the next obvious step they were obviously going to take. The thing is, this is an incredibly complicated topic.

Legislation that could result in YouTube being held liable for user posted content that deseminates misinformation has been more than lightly discussed. The problem of misinformation is frequently made worse by the fact that studies have shown around 80% of misinformation of major topics can generally be traced back to fewer than a dozen unique users. It's not the same dozen people on every topic of discussion, but once some of the misinformation has gone viral it's extremely difficult to stop it getting shared again and again. This may seem like a matter of freedom of speech, but on some topics viral misinformation spreading can end up being deadly to thousands of real people.

Consider an analogy. If a person sets up to pull a prank by changing the words on a billboard, with only the intention of just surprising some people. But 3 car crashes occur where the drivers blaim the billboard for being a distraction. How much responsibility would you say the prankster has? How much should the billboard owner have for failing to prevent the prankster?

Now consider that instead of changing a billboard he changes the speed listed on a sign that cautions people not to take a blind turn at greater than 25 mph. Say he changes it to just be the same as the posted speed limit for the road and several cars spin out or there are minor fender benders. Then say he changes it to be even faster than the speed limit. How much responsibility should the prankster have for those accidents? How much should the city have for failing to prevent the prankster from being able to change their official signs?

There are strong points for debate in all of these situations. How easy was it for the prankster to access the billboard and make changes? What else were the drivers doing that a billboard could cause them to crash? What was so distracting about what they put on the billboard?

Why didn't the city post a sign that was more difficult to tamper with? How much effort did the prankster put into their fake? Why didn't local people notice the change and report it? How quickly did the city respond? How believable was the speed he put on the sign?

My point isn't to ask for the answers to these specific questions, but to point out that there is a difference between circumstances that requires greater responsibility from the medium the prankster changed. The contents of a billboard is just an advertisement, speed limits and road hazard signs are more important. Speed limits and road hazards also have to display probably true information that has some degree of validation that relying on them is safe.

This is a particularly tricky subject for YouTube because they are essentially a billboard, but people have started treating what's on it like road signs. How responsible should YouTube be when people use their platform to post complete nonsense that has the potential to get thousands or even millions killed?