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YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

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

#811

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…

Stuff like this is what really annoys me with Hacker News, imagine a public health official reading programming recommendations, not understanding half and making declarations that it's misinformation.

You claim they claimed it does not spread from human to human, but the tweet talks about preliminary research. If you don't understand how science works, don't make such rash opinions on it.

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

#813

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Truth exists, sorry for those who like to pretend it dosen't.

So would you support banning everyone on YouTube who went against WHO’s tweet[1] saying there’s no evidence of human to human transmission? That was only in January. https://nypost.com/2020/03/20/who-haunted-by-old-tweet-sayin...

>saying there’s no evidence of human to human transmission

Saying there is preliminary research that gives no clear evidence of it. Stop twisting the words

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

#814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the idea is "there is a massive coordinated disinformation campaign designed to make the pandemic worse, what, if anything should we do to address it?" There are two obvious options (and lots of options in between). (1) Do nothing. Pros: the propaganda gets clicks, which means revenue. The armchair libertarians are happy because nation states continue to have the freedom to saturate all communication channels wit…

>'The armchair libertarians...Hayek fairy tale...' This is noxious. >'YouTube is part of a private company. They're under no obligation to...' This is the free-market, libertarian position.

>This is the free-market, libertarian position.

It is the status quo. Which in this case is free-market.

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

#816
So...

> So people saying, ‘Take vitamin C, take turmeric, we’ll cure you,’ those are the examples of things that would be a violation of our policy,” she told CNN.

...and:

> "So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to test it," Trump said. "And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting."

But: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=trump+injecting

???

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

#817

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…

Youtube is not a public service, it's not a democratic discussion platform and it's not neutral in any way.

It's a for profit advertised funded private video streaming site.

People use it to have debates, but that works as long is it's providing more value than trouble to google.

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

#818

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So far as I can tell, your extremely confident, categorical interpretations of your own citations are basically mistaken, across the board. As I read [0] it is not, in fact, a blanket declaration about transmissibility. As I read [1] it is not in any way an inaccurate statement (see [3]). When read [2] it's clear that it is not a blanket declaration not to wear masks. Meanwhile Youtube is going to take down videos cl…

> As I read [0] it is not, in fact, a blanket declaration about transmissibility. It's still misinformation, and it's specifically misinformation that makes the WHO complicit in 187,420 deaths and counting. There had been plenty of indications by that point that - even if human-to-human transmission had not yet been confirmed - it was still evidently spreading beyond people at ground zero. That is, I ain't sure how y…

>this is an outright lie, given that the sheer number of people by that point who were hospitalized with the virus without ever having visited the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market would be, I would argue, evidence.

Oh yes, the random programmer who know public health better than actual public health experts. You have not done the research, you were not there. You can argue it's evidence, but arguing something is, is not enough. There are many different ways of transmission, secondly the Huanan Seafood Market was suspected as a source of the virus but it could have come from somewhere else too.

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

#819

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just regarding your first statement: isn't 'no evidence of X' entirely different than 'evidence of no X'? Seems to me they were saying the first, but you're interpreting it as the second?

The vast majority of laypeople (inclusive of people who would be getting their information from the WHO's Twitter account) would readily interpret "no evidence of X" to be equivalent to "we shouldn't be worried about X". To pretend otherwise betrays a misunderstanding of how laypeople think. If the WHO had a more nuanced stance, they should've made that clear - e.g. "We don't have evidence yet that the #coronavirus s…

But the thing is, that was their stance. I agree that their tweet might show a lack of scientific communication skills or scientific education of the general public, the official recommendations have been very clear. Countries and public health organisations don't base decisions on a tweet. They go to the official guidance.

A Jan 1st interim guidance: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/surveil...

The first thing they recommend:

"The primary objectives of surveillance are to: 1. Detect confirmed cases/clusters of nCoV infection and any evidence of amplified or sustained human-to-human transmission;"

Then on Jan 10th:

https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/330374/WHO-... "As information about the etiology, clinical manifestations and transmission of disease in the cluster of respiratory disease patients identified in Wuhan is limited, WHO continues to monitor developments and will revise these recommendations as necessary."

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

#820

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course the WHO recognizes Thailand as a sovereign nation. Next question?

They said “when”. Has there been a time when they haven’t?

Taiwan != Thailand.
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