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YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

bbc.com

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

#481

Post by joshfraser »

The level of censorship that Facebook, Medium and YouTube are applying right now should be terrifying to anyone who cares about free speech.

Dissenting opinions are important for a free society. If facts and truth are on your side, what are you so afraid of?

Aaron Ginn's "evidence over hysteria" post (1) that was quickly censored by Medium is a good example for discussion. Aaron may have been wrong, but he made his case civilly and argued in good faith. Do we really want to elect these platforms as the thought police who decide which ideas or information we're allowed to consume? Especially right now, when the "official sources" like the Whitehouse and WHO are lying to us!

In the words of Naval Ravikant, "Give your worst political enemy the power to decide what is "hate speech" and what is "disinformation" and then you'll realize that free speech isn't something we should ever compromise on".

(1) https://www.zerohedge.com/health/covid-19-evidence-over-hyst...

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

#482

Post by knzhou »

eej71 wrote: post #235
phs318u wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please provide references for your assertions. Thanks.

Not the original poster, but I found at least this one. https://twitter.com/who/status/1217043229427761152?lang=en

"No clear evidence" uncovered in a "preliminary investigation" was a completely true statement. They never ever said "okay, this definitely isn't transmissible, everybody can ignore it". They said in the early stages that it was too soon to be sure. All the other tweets from this period are saying the same thing: something might be coming, so countries should prepare.

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

#483

Post by MauranKilom »

subhobroto wrote: post #198
nexuist wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Given that, who should YouTube use as a source of truth? Why are we expecting a private company to provide "a source of truth"? What happened to the whole idea of the Internet being about the free flow of information? >Or should they let 4chan tell your grandma to drink bleach to fight the Rona? Why don't we have parental controls for our parents yet? Why are we applying blanket bans on parts of the Internet when it…

Apparently I have hit the nerves of lots of people from my parent post and since I am and like to be publicly accessible, people who disliked my thoughts have really let me know what they think of me and where I belong :D 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.…

The problem is not primarily when you make bad decisions and suffer harm from it. It's when you make bad decisions and others suffer harm from it. You even bring up drunk driving, yet your argument remains exclusively about damage to yourself.

Your freedom ends where the freedom of the next person begins. So not only is it "not free", it's also "not boundless". You don't get to kill people intentionally. You also don't get away with it if you do it by gross negligence (such as drunk driving).

Inciting violence is an offence in most parts of the world. Not because governments love to be oppressive but because society figured out that it's the point where you cross how much personal freedom you can have without infringing on everyone else's.

Where is this point for COVID-19 misinformation? It's a difficult question, and it's unclear what is appropriate and what is overbearing. What is clear is that harm is actively being cause by people propagating this nonsense. Whether an ideal rational adult could cut through it is entirely immaterial to this question, it doesn't stop the harm.

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

#484

Post by happytoexplain »

throwaway55554 wrote: post #271
hrayr wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's contradicting. Directly contradicting would be "Don't wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19". What you described sounds more like extending the current WHO recommendations.

> I don't think that's contradicting. Sure it is. Only means exclusively, one, no more. They're saying, "You exclusively need to wear a mask if you're taking care of a person with C-19". This action, excluding all others.

In English, "you only need to" is completely different from "you need to only".

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

#485

Post by freehunter »

OrderlyTiamat wrote: post #417
glenstein wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

I agree with the conclusion that you should be clear about what percentage of content is on the side of reasonable, and which is not. Let me however disagree strongly with your claims that this concerns 99.99999% of cases, and that the other commenter was talking about "what ifs" and "hypotheticals". That last claim seems to me to just be untrue: we know in fact that local laws, for example several american states, c…

That law is not contradicting the WHO, it’s just setting a stricter standard. It would be contradicting if the WHO said masks made things worse and the governments forced people to wear them anyway, endangering public health against the advice of the WHO. That’s not the case.

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

#486

Post by fomine3 »

tree3 wrote: post #55
subhobroto wrote: post #21

The road to hell is paved with good intentions. WHO is a political organization with medical leanings just like Fox News is an entertainment channel that covers newslike topics. Yes, there's a lot of information out there about SARS-COV2 and COVID-19 infections out there that are downright misleading at best and life threatening at worst. No, censoring that content including videos is NOT the role of a hosting platfo…

> No, censoring that content including videos is NOT the role of a hosting platform. Huh? If I ran a hosting platform and people were putting absolute BS on there, I'd remove it too. People who run hosting platforms want to have integrity.

"absolute BS" various.

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

#487

Post by nwienert »

holler wrote: post #462
guscost wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They'll probably cull everything that doesn't earn them ad revenue, to minimize the fallout. The content will trend toward sanitized garbage and the viewers will start leaking to somewhere else.

This is all great news if you're building a new social project...

Or if you just want more diversity.

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

#488

Post by yters »

new_time wrote: post #475
mmazing wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let the market sort them out then, right?

We can't wait for markets to sort themselves out while a few executives and their well connected friends control and decide the information we get to see and hear. The stakes are too high to wait for a market solution here.

Or a market solution will be decisive if it gets to that point.

The courts broke up Microsoft, and it's not like that hurt them at all.

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

#489

Post by xster »

bobcostas55 wrote: post #440
glenstein wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 WHO has been spreading misinformation from the start, including claims that covid does not spread from human to human after it was abundantly clear that it does[0], claims that travel bans would be unnecessary to halt its spread[1], and claims that people should not wear masks[2]. These are not mere edge cases. We have structured our public organizations in a way that gives credentialed "experts" enormous amounts…

> claims that covid does not spread from human to human after it was abundantly clear that it does

There's evidence that human to human transmission was documented on January 14? That would be the first time I hear about it. Do you have a source?

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

#490

Post by EGreg »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #376
EGreg wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly the problem. All our politicians around the world were so reactionary, many knew it has a 1-2 week incubation period, but no one was willing to make an order saying "WEAR MASKS" when no one was testing positive yet. They could have gotten ahead of this thing and prevented the outbreaks. The quarantines are a last resort because PUBLIC POLICY FAILED to contain the outbreaks. WE WILL FACE THIS SITUATION…

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…

The CDC guidelines you’ve linked to continue to say surgical masks should be for medical personnel.

This is ridiculous!! A mask is a cloth on a string. We are how many months into this thing... why hasn’t our private industry created enough cloths on strings???? What is the shortage? Is it the cloth?

It’s because the politicians were reactionary and behind on the most basic things every step of the way. Why not order American companies to produce a billion masks and mail them to every building in bulk?? Save trillions of dollars later.

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