> using it to advance your own pet position is transparent and irritating
It's extremely poor form and extremely intellectually dishonest to claim that other people said something that they didn't.
"they removed the dislike counts purely because of the ratios of the YouTube Rewind videos" is not a claim that I was making in my comment - it was clearly an example of another position with zero evidence behind it, and the fact that I explicitly pointed out that there was no evidence makes it pretty clear that I wasn't adopting it as my own position. I suggest you read comments more carefully before responding to them, especially if you're going to put words in other peoples' mouths.
> Then present your argument and evidence if you like
No, that's not how this works. I don't need to present an alternative argument. As far as I know, there's no way to present any argument because there's no evidence for them, and even if there wasn't, I'm under no obligation to present an argument while debunking another.
> treating the absence of evidence outside of a court room or a scientific inquiry
The GP was making strong claims in their post ("it isn’t hard to justify Youtube’s choices on this very specific issue", "clearly being abused by troll hordes") and it's extremely reasonable to ask for some proof. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and so on.
It's extremely poor form and extremely intellectually dishonest to claim that other people said something that they didn't.
"they removed the dislike counts purely because of the ratios of the YouTube Rewind videos" is not a claim that I was making in my comment - it was clearly an example of another position with zero evidence behind it, and the fact that I explicitly pointed out that there was no evidence makes it pretty clear that I wasn't adopting it as my own position. I suggest you read comments more carefully before responding to them, especially if you're going to put words in other peoples' mouths.
> Then present your argument and evidence if you like
No, that's not how this works. I don't need to present an alternative argument. As far as I know, there's no way to present any argument because there's no evidence for them, and even if there wasn't, I'm under no obligation to present an argument while debunking another.
> treating the absence of evidence outside of a court room or a scientific inquiry
The GP was making strong claims in their post ("it isn’t hard to justify Youtube’s choices on this very specific issue", "clearly being abused by troll hordes") and it's extremely reasonable to ask for some proof. "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" and so on.