YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#441

Post by camelite » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:49 PM UTC

jonny_eh wrote: post #146

gowld wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right now, today, while half the world is lockdown in their own homes, WHO is still advocating for unrestricted international travel. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... Telling people to not fly across the world is bannable misinormation acording to Wojcicki's definition. Of course, it wouldn't be banned, because the actual rule is a much more subjective "whatever makes YT look bad to adv…

A big hinderance to containing the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014 was all the cancelled flights, since it prevented medical experts from getting to the impacted areas. While it seems counter-intuitive at first, travel bans do little to stop the spread (especially after it's reached other countries), but they do limit our ability to fight the pandemic. http://www.flanderstoday.eu/politics/white-house-praises-br…

Well this isn't the ebola epidemic of 2014 now is it? Rules that apply to countries with extremely deficient medical systs don't apply to the richest country in the world.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#442

Post by bad_user » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

logifail wrote: post #121

Current WHO advice: "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19." [0] Where we live, due to local laws , we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping. Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO? I fear there isn't "one truth" out there, despite the content providers' and fact-checkers' attempts :( We keep trying to encourage our ki…

What WHO is saying is that there is no solid proof that wearing a mask will do much to protect you. And they are correct in saying that.

They do not say that masks offer no protection. They also don't say that you shouldn't wear masks.

Actual scientists give advice based on available evidence. When there is no evidence, or available evidence is too weak, they don't give that advice and they also don't fall in the trap of considering a lack of evidence as being evidence of absence.

This is what politicians do, like Trump.

Let's not mix these.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#443

Post by maerF0x0 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:53 PM UTC

subhobroto wrote: post #203

umvi wrote: post #85

Free speech (well, most freedoms, really) will die the day we decide "saving lives" is worth _any_ cost. Heck, we already decided trashing the economy is worth "saving lives" (how many?), I imagine some people would be overjoyed to remove the 1st amendment in order to lower disease spread, lower the suicide rate of those vulnerable to hate speech, etc. And why stop there? Remove 2nd amendment and you can save even mo…

I am noticing, increasingly in the country I live in - the U.S., an extremely concerning attitude towards love for censorship. More concerning is that the proponents have "good intentions" at heart. It's almost as if the concept of freedom is not understood. Freedom is not free. Freedom has a price, often a heavy price that one has to pay for it. The fact that we are not children anymore who desparately need oversigh…

>Oh! What do you do about those YouTUbe videos that tell you to drink bleach because it saves you from SARS-COV2!"

Also you should be free to sue the content creator, maybe instead of censoring content youtube should have better "know your creator" type legislation?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#444

Post by jdavis703 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

glenstein wrote: post #381

logifail wrote: post #121

Current WHO advice: "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19." [0] Where we live, due to local laws , we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping. Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO? I fear there isn't "one truth" out there, despite the content providers' and fact-checkers' attempts :( We keep trying to encourage our ki…

>Where we live, due to local laws, we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping. Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO? Examples like these are frivolous. There's a heartland of obvious, flagrant misinformation that is indisputably worth banning and for which a moral case exists to ban immediately: '5g caused corona, this home remedy will cure it!' etc. The go-to move of internet…

The problem is they give one body the ultimate authority on what is truth. Science, epidemiology & politics is more complex than that.

For example some in the Chinese government think coronavirus was released by the US Army while some in the US intelligence community think coronavirus leaked from a Chinese government lab in Wuhan. Another example, some US government officials think chloroquine is a COVID cure, while others disagree or remain undecided.

Google should instead have a list of allowed sources (e.g. WHO, CDC, NHS, etc) and explicitly disallowed sources (states owned media organizations, politicians and intelligence agencies).

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#445

Post by Dylan16807 » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:55 PM UTC

vkou wrote: post #427

nv-vn wrote: post #413

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sure it doesn't seem like that to the citizens of Taiwan who are basically told to go fuck themselves by the WHO

I did not realize that the WHO's job is to get involved in arguments over borders. I always thought that their job was to get involved in arguments over public health.

Public health is the problem with them ignoring data from Taiwan.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#446

Post by EGreg » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:56 PM UTC

SilasX wrote: post #422

CamperBob2 wrote: post #376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously it's good advice to wear masks in public when confronted with a respiratory disease capable of asymptomatic transmission for days after infection. The masks don't make any one person safer, but widespread usage makes us all safer. Trouble is, there weren't enough masks at first. It's not clear that there are now, for that matter. One of the few things Trump is correct about is that the WHO has bungled this…

There weren’t enough N95 masks. There were plenty of ad hoc/DIY masks.

That’s exactly right

There were enough surgical masks

You could double or triple them up if you thought they were not effective enough

The velocity of a particle that could get through that would not be enough to infect a person two feet in front of you

This should be obvious

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#447

Post by lern_too_spel » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:56 PM UTC

@dang The actual policy does not say that anything that goes against the WHO's recommendations will be removed. That looks like it came from a quote from Wojcicki as an example of something that might be risky. The title is misleading. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9803260?hl=en

The article itself references this interview, which does not announce any policy changes: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/business/2020/04/19/inside-yo...

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#448

Post by Press2forEN » Thu, Apr 23, 2020, 11:59 PM UTC

The tech companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al.) have taken for themselves the power of censorship, and they have lost the credibility to claim that they are neutral carriers.

I believe it is now justified to call for their algorithms to be made public, by legal means if necessary.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#449

Post by 101404 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 12:00 AM UTC

That's really bad.

In my country (Germany), the government changed position so many times. What was yesterday "a hoax", became official government position few days later, etc

Treating WHO positions as "the only truth that may be publicly discussed", seems rather authoritarian and dangerous.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#450

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 12:01 AM UTC

ardy42 wrote: post #214

Barrin92 wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither does the US. Taiwan is only recognised by IIRC 12 natinos, mostly small island states. This has become another weird internet talking point as international recognition pretty much unanmiously switched to the PRC in the 1970s.

> Neither does the US. Taiwan is only recognised by IIRC 12 natinos, mostly small island states. This has become another weird internet talking point as international recognition pretty much unanmiously switched to the PRC in the 1970s. That's misleading. The US de facto recognizes Taiwan, and the only reason it doesn't recognize it de jure is that the PRC would formally cut off relations if it did. https://en.wikipe…

[deleted]