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YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

reuters.com

171–180 of 933 posts

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#171

> "The video platform said it would now ban any content with claims about COVID-19 vaccines that contradict consensus from local health authorities or the World Health Organization." The local health authorities (in the US) and the WHO also told us in February and March that masks were useless for normal people. Even though people in Asian countries were broadly wearing masks based on prior experience from SARS. It t…

Is your argument that because US public health authorities and WHO might occasionally be wrong, we therefore need to make sure we also get the opinions of people who are almost always wrong?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#172
post #163
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's not disingenuous. The surgeon general said in March that masks were not effective for the general public against Covid-19. The CDC said on March 13, 2020 that there is really no evidence that wearing a mask will reduce your risk for any respiratory infection. https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1238487810874789889

You’re completely misinterpreting the mask situation. Of course they say there’s no evidence that a mask will protect YOU. Masks aren’t supposed to protect YOU. They prevent YOU transmitting the virus to OTHERS. So of course it doesn’t reduce YOUR risk of respiratory infection. That conclusion has not changed. The guidance was pretty clear: they didn’t want people wearing masks because there was a PPE shortage. Now t…

Are you sure that masks don't protect you? You've made that statement three times in four sentences.

It's false that the guidance was clear the reason for recommending people not wear masks was because of a shortage. US health officials stated that masks were ineffective and may increase the likelihood of infection because of touching your face while wearing a mask.

As someone pointed out Sweden to this day has this to say about mask usage:

"The scientific evidence around the effectiveness of face masks in combatting the spread of infection is weak, which is why different countries have arrived at different recommendations."

https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency...

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#173
post #158
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. My issue is that why did US health officials say masks were not effective against respiratory infections, when health officials from Asian countries had deemed them effective. Why didn't we have the science? Respiratory infections aren't new. I remember debating people early in the outbreak about the use of masks and they were pointing out that there was little scientific evidence on the use of masks, e…

They lied because they didn't want medical professionals to run out of masks

Source?

From what I remember the message very early on wasn't that masks don't work, it was "save the masks for the front line workers"

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#174
I'll preface this by stating that I hate the idea of censorship and I always have.

However, were I to happen across someone motionless on the floor with a needle in their arm, I would give them NARCAN instead of a ride to a rehab center.

I'm from the United States. Social media is currently poisoning our country to a degree that I think it may be too late to try and draw out the fight for free speech by using free speech alone.

The idea is that we are supposed to be equally free to say whatever we want, regardless of our status or wealth. This has been corrupted.

The ability for one person to amplify their voice or ideas via hundreds or thousands of bots, paid assholes, and gullible people who lack the capacity for critical thought is a problem. It's a big problem.

Truth, facts, and hoping that people can apply logic to find their way to them isn't enough anymore and the people exploiting this advantage are getting better at it.

I agree that what YouTube is doing here is a slippery slope and it's scary. However, I personally think that this is now a war for democracy, and things are going to need to be sacrificed.

I do not like the idea that hard, easily proven facts can be overwhelmed by voluminous bullshit. If this is allowed to continue, our country is going to die. Banning obvious bullshit, albeit akin to censorship, is NARCAN. The underlying problem exists and is dangerous, but this will keep us going long enough to hopefully find a more suitable solution.

I hate this.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More freedom of speech is the answer to misinformation because then it can be challenged. Censorship allows convenient mistruths to spread unchallenged.

Fact checking is hard and time-consuming but making up bullshit is easy. People love sharing contary-to-conventional-wisdom news and ideas that they come across, because it makes them feel smart. Given these two facts, it's far easier for lies to spread quicker than truth. How do you solve for this in your spherical cow model of free speech?

Why are you time limiting it, and why so arbitrarily?

Which lies have persisted the longest, and were those lies supported by free speech or by censorship?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#176
post #87

> YouTube doesn't allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts local health authorities’ or the World Health Organization’s (WHO) medical information about COVID-19 So all videos must refer to an IFR of > 3%?

WHO has now accepted https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf for publication, which concludes:

"Most locations probably have an infection fatality rate less than 0.20% and with appropriate, precise non-pharmacological measures that selectively try to protect high-risk vulnerable populations and settings, the infection fatality rate may be brought even lower. "

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#177
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They lied because they didn't want medical professionals to run out of masks

Source? From what I remember the message very early on wasn't that masks don't work, it was "save the masks for the front line workers"

Here is a short video from the CDC in March of this year. https://twitter.com/CDCgov/status/1238487810874789889

If you search Google news for "masks" between February and March you can see where the surgeon general and others were saying that masks may increase the likelihood of infection because of touching your face.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#178

Yay, this is great, and should be used for everything! /s If we used this for medical advice in my country, this would make it very funny... at the start of the epidemic, our government "experts" said: - "healthy people don't need masks" ...and youtube would censor all the "fearmongering paranoics" advocating for mask use. Then on some random spring day, our government makes a new rule: - "you need a mask and gloves…

Isn't this how science works, you have new information and you use it to make a better decision.

Indeed. Something thought to be right was actually wrong. Happens all the time. And of course something thought to be wrong was actually right. This is why disallowing "misinformation" is utterly stupid.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus vaccine misinformation

#180

Yay, this is great, and should be used for everything! /s If we used this for medical advice in my country, this would make it very funny... at the start of the epidemic, our government "experts" said: - "healthy people don't need masks" ...and youtube would censor all the "fearmongering paranoics" advocating for mask use. Then on some random spring day, our government makes a new rule: - "you need a mask and gloves…

Scott Alexander wrote a very insightful article about the mask issue:

https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/03/23/face-masks-much-more-t...

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