YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine • Hacker News Board

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

#261

Post by threatofrain » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:37 AM UTC

philwelch wrote: post #236

threatofrain wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it fundamentally dubious? If you don't trust Google to make a category of social or moral judgments, you're either trusting the market or you have another institution do the job.

Or you could just not do the censorship in the first place and give people the freedom to make their own personal judgments whenever they’re presented with conflicting perspectives. You’re assuming that some global institution has to be The Arbiter Of Truth because common people are too stupid to think for themselves and I find that assumption disgusting.

> Or you could just not do the censorship in the first place and give people the freedom to make their own personal judgments whenever they’re presented with conflicting perspectives.

> You’re assuming that some global institution has to be The Arbiter Of Truth because common people are too stupid to think for themselves and I find that assumption disgusting.

The market is the sharpest vote the people may give for companies. Next would be holding businesses liable, which Google is in various ways. If Google is accountable for the content it serves, and it is in various ways, then that is the people's will in motion.

I find it alarming that you think you understand my thoughts without getting into a conversation with me, to the point of announcing your disgust over a forum.

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

#262

Post by ab_testing » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #138

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…

> Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? Yes, they are. https://www.dailynews.com/2020/04/28/california-doctors-with... > But public health experts were quick to debunk the doctors’ findings as misguided and riddled with statistical errors — and an example of the kind of misleading information they are forced to waste precious time disputing. > The doctors should never have assumed that…

The point here is that youtube is not a harbinger of scientific truth. These doctors present their findings with their collected data to come to this conclusion that the according to them, this virus is not dangerous and the quarantine should end.

Does Youtube also censor videos where plumbers present an incorrect way to install a toilet that can lead to backflow and flooding.

The point to make here is that Youtube is NOT the New England Journal of Science and should not act like one for just one topic - Coronavirus.

If anybody feels that their data or interpreation of the data is incorrect, they should post their own video on Youtube, refuting their claims.

Instead what Youtube is doing is just silencing them.

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

#263

Post by TechBro8615 » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

brlewis wrote: post #245

kolanos wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I did not get the chance to see the video before it was taken down, but I got the content of their arguments here: http://www.tathasta.com/2020/04/watch-er-doctors-urge-reopen... They use the same logic for Kern County, California, and New York. Their logic is, that if you test N people and find M positive cases, that in the population at large you'll have an infection rate of M/N. This would be true if the N tests w…

FYI the full video is available at the website of the news station that uploaded it to YouTube (where it was removed):

https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-wi...

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

#264

Post by Jd » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:38 AM UTC

wesammikhail wrote: post #250

kolanos wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you watch the video? That is not what they did. What you're describing is a brief anecdote they shared about what they were seeing on the ground. Their statistics are based on state level aggregates for New York and California.

People will always put their fingers in their ears and not read/watch the source because it is easier to bash someone than to actually do the work that may change your beliefs

The source is gone.

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

#265

Post by vannevar » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:39 AM UTC

forgot_my_pwd wrote: post #88

gmfawcett wrote: post #47

This is lazy reporting. It's not wrong, but there's no insight here. No critical assessment of the claims made in the video nor the Youtube T&C, just a few clickbaity excerpts and some reaction comments. Compare with this excellent piece by the CBC on a somewhat similar viral video in Canada: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/u-of-r-biology-p...

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…

If you're saying that it's a problem that something that has become of great public utility is a de facto monopoly entirely in the hands of private interests, sure. But given that, the unfettered censorship is a feature, not a bug.

If there were a public utility similar to Youtube, it would have to have a clear policy for censorship, and some means for a public review of any decision to censor. And then you might have a legitimate complaint (though in this case there was a pretty clear case of a material factual misrepresentation, regarding the mortality rate of COVID-19). But since that is not the case, Youtube/Google is pretty much free to censor anyone on any basis they choose, and they owe no one any particular explanation for their decisions.

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

#266

Post by victorbstan » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:39 AM UTC

The problem with with freedom to just post whatever by whoever, even if with credentials (perhaps more so) is that it can influence people in the wrong way, before it is criticized or debunked. Even so, there is ample evidence that plenty of people take any info that supports their point or worldview and stick with it and repeat it, even after it has been critiqued or shown to be wrong, etc. So I don’t think complete freedom of speech is a good thing. You have to consider the negative effects, as long as there are negative effects, you can’t say it’s unanimously “good”. That being said, there already is a channel for Doctors and researchers to publish: peer reviewed journals. Key words here “peer review”, this is when other professionals in your field of research review your work. And it’s not youtube or a blog post or social media. The fact that they went around the peer review process should Make you suspicious about their agenda.

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

#267

Post by javagram » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:39 AM UTC

busymom0 wrote: post #133

senectus1 wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

> Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. And that's why newspapers are classified as publishers and therefore are able to be sued. "Platforms" like YouTube are can't be sued because they are supposed to act like platforms - which they are not. Right now YouTube is acting like publishers while using the advantage of being called a platform. This is the Communications Decency Act section 23…

Section 230 of the CDA was written expressly to give YouTube-like companies the right to do this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...

> One of the first legal challenges to Section 230 was the 1997 case Zeran v. America Online, Inc., in which a Federal court affirmed that the purpose of Section 230 as passed by Congress was "to remove the disincentives to self-regulation created by the Stratton Oakmont decision".[8] Under that court's holding, computer service providers who regulated the dissemination of offensive material on their services risked subjecting themselves to liability, because such regulation cast the service provider in the role of a publisher. Fearing that the specter of liability would therefore deter service providers from blocking and screening offensive material, Congress enacted § 230's broad immunity "to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material."

[. . .]

> Blumenthal v. Drudge, 992 F. Supp. 44, 49-53 (D.D.C. 1998).[71]

> The court upheld AOL's immunity from liability for defamation. AOL's agreement with the contractor allowing AOL to modify or remove such content did not make AOL the "information content provider" because the content was created by an independent contractor. The Court noted that Congress made a policy choice by "providing immunity even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others."

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

#268

Post by holler » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:40 AM UTC

ceejayoz wrote: post #178

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…

> I don't understand what's wrong with the data they presented. They took stats from a massively self-selecting population - people seeking out COVID-19 testing at their facilities - and extrapolated to the general public. That's inexcusably dumb. As the bit I quoted states, that's like "estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court".

> That's inexcusably dumb.

Even if that’s true, what does it have to do with banning the video and preventing the public from making their own decision?

Right this moment I can go on youtube and look up a million rap videos that talk about guns, violence, murder, and more. I can look at videos that would lead me to harm myself in all sorts of ways if I didn’t have a brain. By picking and choosing like they’re doing, it leads one to distrust the company which will ultimately hurt them.

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

#269

Post by TechBro8615 » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:40 AM UTC

wesammikhail wrote: post #250

kolanos wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you watch the video? That is not what they did. What you're describing is a brief anecdote they shared about what they were seeing on the ground. Their statistics are based on state level aggregates for New York and California.

People will always put their fingers in their ears and not read/watch the source because it is easier to bash someone than to actually do the work that may change your beliefs

Well, it’s also hard to watch the source video when YouTube goes out of their way to delete it. So here in this very thread, is a great example of the harms of taking down the content. It makes it hard to even have a discussion about its merits.

I don’t understand why YouTube couldn’t leave the video up, and put some kind of warning or interstitial advising of problems with the content. I would have problems with that approach too, but certainly less so than I do with the wholesale deletion of the video.

Anyway, you can find it hosted here: https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-wi...

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

#270

Post by cjhopman » Wed, Apr 29, 2020, 2:41 AM UTC

forgot_my_pwd wrote: post #146

ceejayoz wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? Yes, they are. https://www.dailynews.com/2020/04/28/california-doctors-with... > But public health experts were quick to debunk the doctors’ findings as misguided and riddled with statistical errors — and an example of the kind of misleading information they are forced to waste precious time disputing. > The doctors should never have assumed that…

Many studies across the world are showing infection rates for Covid-19 are far higher than official numbers indicate. These studies appear to support the spirit of their statements.

AFAIK, there is not a single study that "[shows] infection rates for Covid-19 are far higher than official numbers indicate". There is no place in the world (again, afaik) that is attempting to report the number of infected people, all the "official numbers" are roughly either "confirmed infected" or clinically-confirmed infected. All health experts (as far back as early january when we just had numbers from Wuhan) were saying that the actual number of infected will be much higher than those confirmed infected. There are a lot of studies that indicate that those experts are correct (and I am, maybe unfairly, assuming that those are the studies that you are misrepresenting).