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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

#421

Post by shkkmo »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #346
shkkmo wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did watch the video and I can safely say that these doctors make massive and very convenient statistic mistakes throughout. Sample size doesn't help if the sampling method is biased. Even if tests were available to everyone regardless of symptoms, you would still have a selection bias that would skew the numbers. The only way to accurately estimate overall infection rates in the general population is to test a rand…

> Regardless of if this video should be censored, these guys are awful scientists. This is the exact reason why it shouldn't be censored. Because if their science is bad then it needs to be available for people who know better to tear it to shreds. If you take it down then the story can't be "this is why they're wrong" because what they said isn't available anymore, so a rebuttal isn't believable because you can't te…

Yet if you look at the comment sections for this video, there isn't anyone tearing it to shreds.

This isn't something I have been able to confidently form an opinion on; it's a hard topic. I think we will be strugging with how to balance bias, deliberate misinformation and freedom of speech for a long time.

But I think at the very least, YouTube needed to put up prominent disclaimers and links to limit the harm that this content can cause.

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

#422

Post by runawaybottle »

smileysteve wrote: post #385
runawaybottle wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s just stick to the facts then for a second. In this particular case, Youtube has decided I can’t watch a video with dubious facts and make up my own mind whether it’s bullshit or not. American values are not all about capitalism. We have some ideas on the individual in America. But, I’m with you on the need for YouTube competitors, but I lack the imagination to see how it can happen. That’s why I’m advocating fo…

> That’s why I’m advocating for the jamming of American values into a what is essentially becoming an institution as opposed to a company that operates against market forces. Do you also feel this way about historically monopolistic media companies? They also exercise editorial control. NBC, NewsCorp, Sinclair, ClearChannel, AT&T, Disney... Not every conspiracy theorist gets an oped or interview on any other platform…

I’ll say that old school television had a real scheduling and demographic constraint, they really had to hone in on their programming.

Our modern internet media landscape doesn’t have these constraints, so we really are curating on certain criteria where the overwhelming deciding factor isn’t just ‘do we have enough time for this’ and ‘is this what most of our viewers want’.

Youtube can get content to exactly the right demo, and scheduling is a non factor. So, what is editorial control in this landscape?

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

#423

Post by javagram »

manfredo wrote: post #197
javagram wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “data presented by the two doctors” has obvious reasoning errors to anyone who has taken even high school math. At this point, how can you look at the number of people who died from COVID-19 in just the last month in NYC and claim this is no worse than the flu? https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/27/upshot/corona... The last flu to cause such a severe spike in mortality statistics was the devastating 1918…

The death counts rise extremely quickly, but also drop quickly as well. The total amount of deaths is represented by the area of under the graph, not the maximum. This is a tall, but narrow spike. Also, bear in mind that you're being very selective with your data: you're picking out one of (the?) most densely populated centers, which also happens to be an international travel hub

There isn’t any reason to believe the virus kills a resident of NYC any easier than it kills a resident of Kansas if either is infected with it.

NYC is an excellent example to look at precisely because of what you said - it’s a dense population center and international travel hub, so it was seeded with quite a few coronavirus cases early on and unfortunately the virus seems to have infected up to 20% of the residents of the city (as shown by a new serology survey), despite social distancing having begun mid-March.

Other regions outside NYC weren’t as affected in terms of mortality, and we have no indication that’s because of anything other than that not as many people outside NYC fell ill with the virus.

The drop in deaths after the spike is because of data reporting (deaths are commonly revised upward as the data trickles in) and also because 6 weeks of social distancing and school closures would have greatly reduced the spread of the virus, this is just common sense as we know the virus spreads through physical proximity of an infected person with non-infected persons, and social distancing has greatly reduced the number of those situations.

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

#424

Post by SkyMarshal »

foolinaround wrote: post #190
CamperBob2 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's look at the death rates, no it's not. They're similar in prevalence and in death rate. That statement alone is justification for removing their video as a public health hazard.

There's lots and lots of bad stuff there... The question is should youtube be censoring it? if so, why this, and not others?

Videos like this not only spread false info, they do something more pernicious by distorting or distracting an already partially-numerate public from understanding growth rates and scale. Eg, the important thing about an outbreak is its second and third derivatives, rate of growth and rate of rate of growth.

Here they claim SARS-NCOV-2 is "similar in prevalance and death rate" to flu, somehow missing the fact that the former reached that point in one month and keeps going unless extensive social distancing, lockdowns and mask wearing is put in place.

I hate censorship, but I support censoring information sourced from the idiocracy (or malevolent foreign power as the case may be).

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

#425

Post by [deleted] »

foolinaround wrote: post #190
CamperBob2 wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's look at the death rates, no it's not. They're similar in prevalence and in death rate. That statement alone is justification for removing their video as a public health hazard.

There's lots and lots of bad stuff there... The question is should youtube be censoring it? if so, why this, and not others?

[deleted]

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

#426

Post by shkkmo »

xeromal wrote: post #418
shkkmo wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did watch the video and the critique by brlewis is perfectly accurate.

But why should we believe you? Why can't we watch and make our own judgements?

> But why should we believe you?

Because you have a basic understanding of statistics.

> Why can't we watch and make our own judgements?

You can. The video is available in many places.

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

#427

Post by autoexec »

montroser wrote: post #414
dilap wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should they have that right though? YouTube is owned by a Google, a massive, publicly-traded corporation with near-monopoly power. Are the best interests of society served by allowing it to be governed in an authoritarian, totalitarian fashion, or would it make sense, considering it is one of the most powerful mediums of speech ever created, to let it be governed by rules somewhat approximating the much-lauded, tradi…

The idea a private company should be forced to use their resources to host content they deem harmful to humanity seems obviously wrong. Of course they should have the right. YouTube is not a public service. "Free speech" does not mean you also are entitled to a platform and an audience.

> "Free speech" does not mean you also are entitled to a platform and an audience.

"Free speech" is a right but also an ideal. When speech is being silenced (de-platformed) or people (the audience) are forbidden from hearing it even when they want to, it violates those principles.

> YouTube is not a public service.

Youtube is a powerful and unique resource without meaningful competition which I think does give them a certain level of responsibility to uphold the ideals of free speech.

Personally, I think that education is always better than suppression. Rather than remove these videos, a better option would simply be to inform users that the video contains false information and where they can find the truth.

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

#428

Post by runawaybottle »

xeromal wrote: post #418
shkkmo wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did watch the video and the critique by brlewis is perfectly accurate.

But why should we believe you? Why can't we watch and make our own judgements?

Because, I’m Youtube, why would I ever lie to you. I have your best interest in mind, and trust me, this shits gonna get us all killed if we watch this.

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

#429

Post by r0s »

blisterpeanuts wrote: post #361
cowholio4 wrote: post #309

Not only were they completely wrong with their numbers, they even were wrong in their assessment of Fauci. They said they “are actually seeing the patients, Dr Fauci hasn’t seen a patient in 20 years.” In 2015, Dr Fauci personally helped take care of an Ebola patient when most of the world was terrified of Ebola. https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2015/03/why-nihs-anthony-fau...

Suppose you're right. Does it justify censorship? Fauci can defend himself, and the docs are welcome to express their opinions. What gives Google/YouTube the justification to silence them?

> Suppose you're right.

Easy to verify, why suppose anything?

> censorship?

On a privately owned site? Try again.

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

#430

Post by pmarreck »

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…

> censor whomever they want for whatever reason they choose

As long as "whomever they want" includes only people pushing cherry-picked and dangerous bullshit, and "whatever reason" includes saving the lives that would have otherwise been spent had that bullshit spread further, then I have absolutely zero qualms about this bending of the free-speech rules, the same way I have zero qualms about there being rules against someone yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater.

You're missing the forest for the trees, man.

Perhaps they need to leave it but flag it extremely visibly with something like this: "The information this video purports to be true has been in dispute due to and , as pointed out by and ." But doing that for every single video would be extremely laborious, and during the week it might take for the work behind such a change to take effect, hundreds of people might die who might not otherwise.

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