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

> by this standard YouTube is also “silencing (deplatforming)” people who don’t have computers because it’s not giving them resources to help them make and post videos.

unlike directly removing videos from their platform youtube is not responsible for preventing people from having a computer. We should all however strive to make computers and internet access as accessible to people as possible.

> Deplatforming is not silencing.

I disagree. It is suppression and obstruction of information

> The default state of an individual in society is no platform.

The default state is a very limited platform (those immediately around you at any given time perhaps), but when you explicitly provide a platform for the public to use and then censor voices because you don't like what they have to say you're violating free speech principles.

> People who want platforms should build them.

All people or just the ones you want to silence? Should that also apply to people like the WHO or any of the doctors who are spreading truths on youtube? Should they all get off youtube and just use their own platforms?

I actually agree that people should build their own platforms where it's possible because we shouldn't be entire reliant on any one place, but it's unreasonable to expect people to replicate anything on the scale of youtube. Youtube has no meaningful competition for a reason.

> You do not need to give people bad information to educate them.

It is often far more effective to show people something that is wrong, explain why\how\where it is wrong and how to spot similar wrong things than to give only explicit facts. In fact I'd argue that without that kind of instruction or understanding you're unlikely to fully understand whatever you're supposed to be learning in the first place.

route memorization is inferior to actual understanding. In addition not even YouTube controls the narrative everywhere. The same misinformation they silently censor and fail to correct often being spread elsewhere unchecked. Youtube, being so popular, has a great opportunity to raise awareness of truth by addressing misinformation at the very place people hearing it (and vulnerable to believing it) will actually see it. That's something that isn't done in email chains or facebook group etc.

> 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.

You’ve been expressing your thoughts on that same forum, and if I’ve misunderstood them I am sorry, but as far as I did understand them I am disgusted by them. You are free to clarify anything you think I have misunderstood, of course. But I would advise you to be more careful publicly sharing your thoughts on any forum if you’re going to go clutching pearls at how they are received. Failing that, let me clarify that I am merely disgusted at what you actually wrote, which may have nothing to do with the ineffable inner workings of your mind.

Did you not mean to imply, as a premise, that Google (specifically YouTube) should be censoring user-submitted content on the basis that it disagrees with the “responsible judgment” of some institutional authority? If so, please inform me what you meant in the first place. Because even in the best of faith I can’t find any other way to interpret your comment.

Specifically:

> 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.

If someone posts a video on YouTube, anyone who watches that video will make their own “social and moral judgments” about the content of that video, and in most circumstances that’s enough for me. Why are you assuming that some “institution” will inevitably make those judgments for us, and decide based on those judgments whether we’re allowed to see the video in the first place? Why is that something you accept, and seemingly advocate? Because that is the premise that I question, reject, and express my disgust at.

Which is why the liability argument is utterly absurd.

Why? It was mostly the Jews that received the brunt of the non-warfare violence and it stopped once the war was over. (I'm going to assume we're not considering the bombing of civilians as a Nazi exclusive strategy) The destruction of humanity caused by the French revolution continues to this day, it's celebrated and adored but is an unstoppable poison.

This doesn't help your argument.

We accept people dying from the flu every year, because vaccines and other measures have pushed the death rate low enough. It is also very rare that young people die from the flu, and since there is a vaccine there is an element of personal responsibility.

In comparison, unmitigated covid-19 seems to be 5x-10x deadlier than a regular mitigated flu, and covid-19 cases requires a lot more healthcare resources in the form of ICU beds and ventilators, which is a very limited resource. If we run out of ICU beds, people will start dying of other preventable things like heart attacks, strokes, and car accidents. In addition, covid-19 kills far more young people than the flu does.

It is very probable that we'll live with a mitigated coronavirus for a long time ahead, either by getting vaccines, or by discovering treatments that reduce the fatality rate. But as long as we don't have those mitigation strategies, lockdowns are all we have to reduce the fatality rate low enough for us to accept it.

Right now covid-19 is excessively deadly, and that is why we are in lockdown, and will remain in lockdown until it isn't, or until economic desperation changes the tolerance for its fatality rate.