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

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

#291

Post by teslabox »

selimthegrim wrote: post #127
teslabox wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Disputing the consensus should not by itself be forbidden, even when the consensus is accurate and important. I have a facebook page for sharing my take on non-monopoly medicine. I wrote a blog post for one of my websites commenting on a Spectator.co.uk article about how the Germans were doing much better with their SARS-CoV-2 patients than the Italians. The interviewed German doctor attributed their success to the…

Calling nitrogen mustard a ‘blister agent’ is unhelpful in this context.

"Blister agents" refers to obsolete medications such as the extract from Spanish fly [0], which was used to try to help President George Washington recover from his cold:

"other treatments they gave [George Washington] during that period were enemas and drugs to make him vomit and something called blisters, where they applied Spanish fly onto his throat, which raises a painful blister, again to remove these terrible humors that are caution the inflammation."

-Bloodletting and blisters: Solving the medical mystery of George Washington’s death, https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/bloodletting-blisters-solv...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_fly [473]

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

#292

Post by the8472 »

bilekas wrote: post #278
chrischen wrote: post #238

These types of censorship patterns are identical to that employed by China in intent . The practical consequences are the same as well. In China information censorship is due to the government trying to promote peace and harmony. Aka, the government thinks it knows what’s best for people and forces it on people. Facebook et al also encounter these same problems, where they see people spreading “misinformation.” It’s…

> These types of censorship patterns are identical to that employed by China in intent. The practical consequences are the same as well. They're not identical, the state doesn't determine YouTubes actions.

Legislators puts pressure on them. E.g. by threatening to repeal CDA or bring other regulation if they do not self-regulate and "do something" about content they deem problematic for one reason or another.

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

#293

Post by bachmeier »

chrischen wrote: post #238

These types of censorship patterns are identical to that employed by China in intent . The practical consequences are the same as well. In China information censorship is due to the government trying to promote peace and harmony. Aka, the government thinks it knows what’s best for people and forces it on people. Facebook et al also encounter these same problems, where they see people spreading “misinformation.” It’s…

> These types of censorship patterns are identical to that employed by China in intent. The practical consequences are the same as well.

True, if you ignore the fact that China is a government and YouTube is an internet video portal. And that there are sites like HN that can point it out. And that YouTube isn't taking steps to cover up what they've done.

But yeah, let's compare the policing of bad information in a pandemic that gets people killed, where YouTube doesn't benefit from the "censorship", to what China's government is doing. At least you get to feel good about your purity when you're posting comments on HN, secure in the knowledge that you don't have a teenager or a parent that might die as a result.

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

#294

Post by erebrus »

JohnBooty wrote: post #267
xhkkffbf wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me be contrary: who shut down millions of businesses and put millions out of work? It wasn't QAnon. It was the state -- and it looks like YouTube is aligned with the pro-shutdown folks who don't want their wisdom questioned. Now I'm a big believer in keeping things shut. I thing prudence is super-important. But QAnon's actions are mainly talk. The state's, however, are different.

Let me be contrary: who shut down millions of businesses and put millions out of work? Well, I'd blame the pandemic itself. Sweden provides an imperfect but interesting what-if scenario for countries wondering what would have happened if they'd imposed little to no lockdown restrictions. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/30/coronavirus-sweden-economy-t... Their economy is still taking a very severe hit despite retail busi…

On top of that, Sweeden is recording very high death rates and latest estimates point to around 7% in immunity.

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

#295

Post by bilekas »

the8472 wrote: post #292
bilekas wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These types of censorship patterns are identical to that employed by China in intent. The practical consequences are the same as well. They're not identical, the state doesn't determine YouTubes actions.

Legislators puts pressure on them. E.g. by threatening to repeal CDA or bring other regulation if they do not self-regulate and "do something" about content they deem problematic for one reason or another.

Thats funny, I always thought it was business' lobbying the government to change policies..

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

#296

Post by tomcam »

_bxg1 wrote: post #207
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…

And on the other end of the spectrum we have people being indoctrinated into violent conspiracy groups like QAnon, or being prompted to set fire to cell towers, or bringing measles back from the dead, because of YouTube videos. There's a line to be drawn here - and it's a tricky line, to be sure - but "YouTube should be totally neutral and not pull anything" is not a viable answer.

How is QAnon violent? How does their violence level compare to Antifa?

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

#297

Post by adarioble »

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #235
mirimir wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Maybe not "nefarious" exactly. But YouTube does have a virtual monopoly. And that's arguably illegal in the US. Or at least, it exposes them to additional government oversight.

In what sense does YT have a monopoly?

In a sense that is a default go to platform for many people when searching for (video) content.

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

#298

Post by lopmotr »

chrischen wrote: post #238

These types of censorship patterns are identical to that employed by China in intent . The practical consequences are the same as well. In China information censorship is due to the government trying to promote peace and harmony. Aka, the government thinks it knows what’s best for people and forces it on people. Facebook et al also encounter these same problems, where they see people spreading “misinformation.” It’s…

Yep. It seems to have started with the 2016 election which left popular opinion being that there's a huge part of the population who are too stupid to think for themselves and must be shielded from bad ideas in case they believe them and harm the rest of us with them. Now that such an idea is readily accepted, censorship is easily seen as the morally right thing to do in lots of cases. The feeling is that we're protecting ourselves from real harm by people who really don't have the ability to correctly evaluate the information they receive. Just like China doing it for social harmony. It's not just terrorism and child porn that people tolerate censorship for anymore, it's for 5G and flat earth conspiracy theories, anti-religious ideas, nationalism, and all sorts of "misinformation".

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

#299

Post by the8472 »

bilekas wrote: post #295
the8472 wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legislators puts pressure on them. E.g. by threatening to repeal CDA or bring other regulation if they do not self-regulate and "do something" about content they deem problematic for one reason or another.

Thats funny, I always thought it was business' lobbying the government to change policies..

Those things are not mutually exclusive. Politicians ask for things that make them look good, companies ask for things that benefit their bottom line. As long as conspiracy theorists are not youtube's cashcow and tax cuts can be sold as improving the economy for everyone both sides benefit.

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

#300

Post by xphilter »

scottLobster wrote: post #282
xphilter wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

According to what though? Walmart is ubiquitous; do they have to let people protest inside stores? No. Do they have to sell antivax books? No. You could maybe argue youtube is closer to a pseudo public place like a mall, but even there you couldn’t force a mall to protest on behalf of someone else or sell something. What exactly is your end game? Create a new type of forum (like physical forum) where private companie…

Walmart is not ubiquitous in terms of property the same way Youtube is in terms of streaming video. If you want to protest you can easily avoid Walmart. Likewise if you want to publish a book you can easily avoid Walmart. If you want to communicate to a large audience with streaming video in the US (and many other nations), it's Youtube or nothing unless you have an already established audience (which you probably es…

I don’t follow. When you protest at Walmart you aren’t guaranteed an audience either (people can ignore you and walk away). And when you make a video you don’t get granted an audience either. Why should YouTube have to help you out?
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