YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#161

Post by hrktb » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:01 PM UTC

60secz wrote: post #139

_vertigo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are moderating the content on their platform with respect to their business process and company values, those decisions are not a reflection of credibility. YouTube is a corporate product This is such a tired argument. YouTube is ubiquitous - it is the primary (read: effectively only) platform for video hosting, which today comprises a large proportion of all information transfer between humans. Companies like…

> The fact that it is so widely used and owns such a significant share of the "ways to spread information" market outweighs the fact that the company is private. That argument seems a slippery slope towards reverse privitization. Who determines what companies are allowed to censor? Who censors the censors? Companies censor content because they are primarily afraid of liability (legal, political, cultural). There are…

It’s not unprecedented to have different rules apply to private company passed a given reach.

We could see it the same way we see banks. Banks are private entities but tightly regulated and their activity is overseen by their operating country.

Applying a given set of restrictions and requiremnts to services used by more than 50% of the population for instance could be a thing.

In the US I know people would call bloody murder, but other countries could do with sensible rules of that kind.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#162

Post by root_axis » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:01 PM UTC

djsumdog wrote: post #154

root_axis wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not This point is often repeated during discussions on these topics but I believe this is an inaccurate characterization. YouTube is not "in charge of deciding what is credible" in the fashion that kind of phrasing suggests; they are moderating the content on their platform with respect to their business process and company values, those decisions…

YouTube/Google/Alphabet have repeatedly said they are removing things about COVID19 from non-government sources. They cannot simply be written off as a private agents who can do what they want with their platform, considering their dominance and monopoly on content. This is textbook definition of Orwell's Ministry of Truth. Google is either becoming the Ministry of Truth, or by its policy, allowing governments to be…

YouTube is not the ministry of truth, it is a popular entertainment website that people visit voluntarily. People very incorrectly treating YouTube like it's some kind of authoritative source of knowledge is the problem, not YouTube.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#163

Post by downerending » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:05 PM UTC

dlp211 wrote: post #119

downerending wrote: post #87

Instead of pussyfooting around, it'd be nice if YouTube would just tell us explicitly what we're supposed to think.

You act like information isn't constantly being curated in all forms of knowledge delivery. The same way we don't tolerate students attempting to derail professors in class with unfounded hypothesis or flawed logical arguments, Youtube doesn't have to tolerate the same on its platform. Disclaimer: Work at Google, thoughts are my own.

There's a lot of difference between preventing a student shouting down a professor in class with some crap argument and the college telling the student they're not allowed to quietly discuss an "unfounded hypothesis" in some corner with another student.

The beauty (theoretically) of platforms like YouTube is that we can watch what we like and skip what we don't without harming any other user.

And as for qualifications, if an oncologist isn't qualified to have an opinion on COVID-19, YouTube sure as hell isn't.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#164

Post by kerkeslager » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:06 PM UTC

macintux wrote: post #93

kerkeslager wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It has achieved a lower spread of misinformation. Has it? I'm not really sure how you came to this conclusion. If kicking Sakora off YouTube causes his followers to become angry and go share his personal site through a bunch of different channels, that could easily outpace the impact of a YouTube channel where refutations are included. If someone censored your views, what would you do? Why do you think people who d…

YouTube is one of the largest disseminators of information in the world. No amount of small replacements with an existing audience of gullible fools can make up for the loss of audience of hundreds of millions of not-yet-introduced-to-this-garbage victims.

None of his videos are on this page[1]. The idea that just being on YouTube gets you an audience of "hundreds of millions" is completely false. In fact, I have friends who make great content that is lucky to hit 1000 views.

Meanwhile, Fox News is the most popular news network in America.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most-viewed_YouTube_vi...

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#165

Post by hoka-one-one » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:08 PM UTC

mullingitover wrote: post #140

_vertigo wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> they are moderating the content on their platform with respect to their business process and company values, those decisions are not a reflection of credibility. YouTube is a corporate product This is such a tired argument. YouTube is ubiquitous - it is the primary (read: effectively only) platform for video hosting, which today comprises a large proportion of all information transfer between humans. Companies like…

> This is such a tired argument. YouTube is ubiquitous - it is the primary (read: effectively only) platform for video hosting Far from it. You can host your video anywhere you like, but you get the most eyeballs and revenue from YouTube, and that's based on user preference and not on some nefarious activity on their part. A lot of what makes them successful as a hosting platform is the same content curation that peo…

This whole argument has been repeated many, many times on HN. Can we stop letting this stuff devolve into generic honest discourse vs corporate nihilism debates? At least mention something about COVID so I know which thread I'm in.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#166

Post by hartator » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:09 PM UTC

root_axis wrote: post #109

acituan wrote: post #51

I don’t agree with the interview contents, nor think professorship alone gives sufficient credibility in the face of a novel pandemic, data of which is in the process of emerging. That said, I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not. They don’t have in-house experts on these domains, they don’t have a magic epistemology machine that spits out the “facts”. They are good at writing web se…

> I don’t want youtube to be in charge of deciding what is credible or not This point is often repeated during discussions on these topics but I believe this is an inaccurate characterization. YouTube is not "in charge of deciding what is credible" in the fashion that kind of phrasing suggests; they are moderating the content on their platform with respect to their business process and company values, those decisions…

> they are moderating the content on their platform with respect to their business process and company values, those decisions are not a reflection of credibility.

There is a difference between morality and legality. It might be legal for ATT to cut your Internet because they don't like you but it will be immoral for sure.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#167

Post by aianus » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:10 PM UTC

joshuamorton wrote: post #146

aianus wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in Canada and they actively recommended against cloth mask wearing for the general public on the grounds that it leads to a "false sense of security" and "increases touching of one's face" and that asymptomatic persons do not spread COVID-19. "Putting a mask on an asymptomatic person is not beneficial". You can listen to Theresa Tam's (Canada's version of Dr. Fauci) exact words here: https://www.msn.com/en-ca/…

So here's what she said: - Prioritizing supply to healthcare workers is of the utmost priority - Current evidence supports wearing a mask if you're sick to prevent spreading droplets, also wearing a mask if you're in close contact with a symptomatic person - Masks can provide a false sense of security. Her final statement is "if people try to use these measures, they have to be really, really careful and wash their h…

"Putting a mask on an asymptomatic person is not beneficial", followed by a list of dangers posed by masks.

It was a statement that masks are a placebo for the general public and actually require one to take extra precautions so that they don't make things worse.

It couldn't have been more discouraging towards people on the fence about wearing a mask in late March.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#168

Post by thebean11 » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:11 PM UTC

Rebelgecko wrote: post #122

DiffEq wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The model said if we don't lock things down China-style millions will die. But we see now from Sweden it was not true. See top graph: https://informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/covid-19-c... Also Neil's other predictions have been completely wrong on the Swine Flu and Bird flu. Why this "expert in his field" is still listened to is a mystery to me.

If you're talking about that first graph on the page, I think that it is not very helpful. Comparing total number of deaths can be misleading, especially for small countries like Sweden. If my state had a Coronavirus death rate as high as Sweden's 15,000 more people would be dead. Still not "millions", but it wouldn't be an ideal outcome.

Weren't his projections for deaths assuming we did a lockdown also much higher than the actual numbers?

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#169

Post by acqq » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

benjaminwootton wrote: post #2

Wow that’s dangerous. The interviewee is an ex director at the WHO with over 50 years experience as an Oncologist. He's being deplatformed for even slightly questioning the conventional wisdom. Wow! These tech companies hold way too much power. https://mobile.twitter.com/ProfKarolSikora

> ex director at the WHO

Regarding his relation to WHO, according to his own claims (dead link on wikipedia) he was "Chief of the Cancer Program from 1997" (to 1999, just two years, two decades ago). But we also know that he falsely claimed to be professor on Imperial College, see also posts here.

Re: YouTube removes interview with professor of medicine on Covid stats and policy

#170

Post by alabaster_punt » Thu, May 21, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

kerkeslager wrote: post #68

alabaster_punt wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Which is why it's important that we present the truth right next to it, so people don't have to look elsewhere. This still assumes that people will be willing to watch it. > Well, it is available, in places where the truth isn't available, so I don't really know what you think taking it off YouTube has achieved. It has achieved a lower spread of misinformation. Now nobody browsing YouTube will happen upon this vide…

> It has achieved a lower spread of misinformation. Has it? I'm not really sure how you came to this conclusion. If kicking Sakora off YouTube causes his followers to become angry and go share his personal site through a bunch of different channels, that could easily outpace the impact of a YouTube channel where refutations are included. If someone censored your views, what would you do? Why do you think people who d…

> Has it? I'm not really sure how you came to this conclusion.

I explained in the comment you replied to. You seem to be deliberately ignoring that people who are not predisposed to the viewpoint could also be exposed. I do not believe that censoring on YouTube will prevent anyone who already believes this stuff from finding the content elsewhere, and I already admitted as such.

If two groups of people (those who actively seek the misinformation, and those who encounter it by chance) could access the misinformation, it stands to reason that preventing one of those groups from accessing the misinformation results in a lower overall spread of misinformation, even if the other group is unaffected.