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YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

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Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#221

Post by Keverw »

weare138 wrote: post #71
Keverw wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why trust the WHO when they are being defunded in the first place? After mismanaging and trying to cover things up? Sounds like YouTube is blindly following the WHO. I am so sick of big tech and all the censorship, privacy invasion, etc. Wish there was more alternatives but everyone will flock to what’s popular... Wish I had the resources to start alternatives, maybe headquarters in Texas where I bet they have a more…

> Alex Jones, sure people disagree with him maybe Just some things or even everything he says but if you don’t agree with him, don’t watch his channel, don’t follow him Alex Jones was successfully sued because of his videos and repeatedly warned. YouTube like any business has a right to legally protect themselves. If YT continues to host Jones's content they could be held legally liable. I'm no fan of YouTube but the…

Yeah, I don't agree with anything Alex Jones says, but I do think he should be allowed to say his own perspectives on things. Just used him as an example.

I never really watched his full shows which is a few hours daily I think. Don't really have the attention span to listen to all the people who call in and stuff. I seen just clips and hilights here and there. He recently built a new website which is sorta like his own little private YouTube.

I'd imagine YouTube would be covered under Section 230 immunity would cover them.

Personally I think as long as something isn't illegal, let them publish it... However I bet if you had that policy your hosting company would shut you down unless you owned your own datacenter and peering agreements...

But I heard on YouTube you can't even say the C word right now without the algorithm messing with your videos... Like some travel vlogger was talking about how it disrupted his travel plans, so he called it the current unicorn instead. Not some conspiracy theory video either, just telling his true story. So I think YouTube is going overboard right now with their censorship... and more and more censorship, people start censoring themselves and are scared to speak out about things... I think this is a dangerous and dark path we're going down - regardless if people think there's some conspiracy with a global elite or deep state or whatever you want to call it is apart of it or not...

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#222

Post by foolinaround »

Youtube has actually been censoring content it does not agree with for quite a while, and unless it hurts us in some personal way, we have been ok with it getting away.

eg., Youtube has been censoring a lot of conservative content. They won in court[1]

Youtube cannot have it both ways. Either they are a publisher and if so, must be fully responsible for the content they host. Or they are a platform, and they need to be neutral.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-google-censor-court-...

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#223

Post by gr33nman »

beaner wrote: post #159
gr33nman wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that it’s not the job of news media to herd their audience into thinking the right things. However, it is their duty to uncover and report the truth. “If someone says it's raining, and another person says it's dry, it's not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the [expletive] window and find out which is true” -Jonathan Foster

I really disagree with this. Sometimes the important thing to know is just that a debate is happening. Then the reader can view both sides and make up their own mind. More often than not, the supposed responsibility to "uncover the truth" results in journalists inserting their own bias.

I share your concern about journalists inserting their own bias. A good journalist would investigate the factuality of claims by all parties in a story, not just the ones they agree with. Of course, bias does happen even with the best intentions, and that is why it is a good idea to read multiple news sources with good journalistic ethics (https://www.spj.org/ethicscode.asp).

Lazy “he said, she said” journalism, sometimes called “bothesidesism”, is dangerous to a free society because it enables propaganda and disinformation. Lay public do not have time or resources to debunk lies and find out which side in a public debate is telling the truth (if any). That is the sacred duty of a free press.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#224

Post by shard972 »

p1necone wrote: post #216
ThisIsTheWay wrote: post #9

One of the comments made in the video (referenced in the article as well) is "We always have between 37,000 and 60,000 deaths in the United States, every single year. No pandemic talk. No shelter in place. No shutting down businesses." Since early Feb we've seen ~54K deaths from Coronavirus alone (excluding influenza deaths) [0]. The argument that this is just part of the normal flu cycle doesn't make any sense. [0]…

Exactly - there's so many people spreading this conspiracy theory bullshit and it's completely farcical even at a glance. Like do they think it's normal during flu season to have to bring in tens of refrigerated trucks to act as temporary morgues? [1] The pattern is so transparent too - telling us to listen to "both sides", and implying we're being biased when we dismiss obvious misinformation. I can't help that the…

Then they are a publisher

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#226

Post by kerkeslager »

senectus1 wrote: post #119
forgot_my_pwd wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that misses the point. The very fact that a few people at Google/Youtube have the power to censor whomever they want for whatever reason they choose is a problem in itself. Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? I think what they said in the video was eminently reasonable. But perhaps I'm wrong. Luckily we have the freedom to publicly critique their claims - assuming our critiques a…

I dont get this mindset. They aren't stopping them voicing their opinions or views... they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service. Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different?

> They aren't stopping them voicing their opinions or views... they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service.

It's certainly their right under ownership laws to censor on their platform. But just because it's your right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. The question isn't "do social media platforms have the right to censor?". The question is, "given social media platforms have the right to censor, should they censor?".

Like it or not, these platforms make up a significant portion of how our society communicates, and if you believe that free speech is a human right that's important for a free society, I don't see how you can say that it suddenly doesn't matter because we put a corporation in charge of a huge portion of our communications.

I don't think that social media platforms should allow free speech because they're obligated to, I think that social media platforms should allow free speech because free speech has importance and inherent value.

> Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different?

Newspapers, TV, and radio didn't sell themselves as platforms for conversation. They've always created their content (or paid someone else to create it) and curated it. Op/eds and viewer/listener calls are only a small fraction of the service these media channels provide, and frankly, these are usually more valuable for the producers of the media than the consumers in most cases. And even op/eds and viewer/listener calls are curated, with no pretense of anything else.

Social media initially gained traction on the false idea that they were platforms where anyone could have a conversation. Many people (myself included) warned that we shouldn't be giving up so much of our communications to corporations, but here we are decades later and everyone is using these as communications platforms.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#227

Post by cycomanic »

busymom0 wrote: post #149
colmvp wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's recorded cases. There might be people who died from Covid-19 who weren't tested post-mortem, especially in February when the virus was flying under the radar. NYTimes had an article which showed a number of places around the world have had a surge in deaths compared to the same time period in previous years. And even if you subtract the known Covid-19 cases, there's still a sharp increase in the count.

That's the exact opposite of what's happened. The number of deaths being reported includes "probable deaths". It's even more than the actual confirmed cases. Look at the graph on the last page for NYC for example: https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-d...

Well the flu deaths are all counted as probable deaths, what you call "confirmed cases" for flu deaths is at least an order of magnitude lower (in Germany in the 2017/18 flu outbreak it was a couple of hundred, while the outbreak is typically blamed for around 25000 deaths in that year, based on statistics).

To highlight the spike in deaths being significantly higher than even the worst flu over the last years look at the data from Euromono https://www.euromomo.eu/graphs-and-maps/ It's even worse if one considers that so far the deaths have been quite localised compared to e.g. the flu.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#228

Post by dpatru »

paulcole wrote: post #145
irjustin wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's that youtube, reddit take on more of a public forum than TV, radio at least that was the feeling in the past. The idea that anyone can be a content creator is, it's supposed to be as neutral as possible. Let the world battle it out against itself. Once you start taking sides of opinions (as opposed to legal ones) then you become a content curator. For better or worse, America was built on the idea that I can hav…

> America was built on the idea that I can have an absolutely stupid idea and that's my right. Was it though? First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances” Until YouTube…

> Until YouTube joins the Senate, I think they’re fine doing whatever they want.

I think it's reasonable to assume that the American government contains the same kind of people that are in governments the world over and throughout history. And governments have always attempted to suppress speech: that's why the First Amendment was written.

Given Snowden's revelations, can you be sure that Youtube's censoring is simply a business decision by executives and not a result of government influence? How would things be different if the government were pressuring the big platforms to squelch speech?

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#229

Post by mixmastamyk »

ThisIsTheWay wrote: post #9

One of the comments made in the video (referenced in the article as well) is "We always have between 37,000 and 60,000 deaths in the United States, every single year. No pandemic talk. No shelter in place. No shutting down businesses." Since early Feb we've seen ~54K deaths from Coronavirus alone (excluding influenza deaths) [0]. The argument that this is just part of the normal flu cycle doesn't make any sense. [0]…

Flu season is only a few months. What would the numbers be if it were the entire year?

Flu season is vaccinated against.

Also it has been known that cv has a larger multiple death rate.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#230

Post by kolanos »

brlewis wrote: post #215
ghthor wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand what's wrong with the data they presented. That article doesn't explain it, it just says it's wrong. There applications of data make perfect sense to me, that's how I'd use the data they presented. That article makes inaccurate statements like, "basically hyped a bunch of data and weren’t transparent about their methods" which is not true. There were 100% transparent about where there information w…

> That article makes inaccurate statements like, "basically hyped a bunch of data and weren’t transparent about their methods" which is not true. There were 100% transparent about where there information was from and how they were presenting it. I can vouch for their transparency. The speed with which I was able to see that their statistical methods were totally wrong was almost entirely due to their transparency. Th…

Did you watch the video or are you just basing this on out of context quotes? What you're quoting was a brief anecdote about what those doctors were seeing on the ground. Their extrapolations are based on state-level aggregates in New York and California. Sample sizes of 300-650K patients.
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