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YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

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Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't work? This article is claiming otherwise: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02801-8

So what? It's easy to find a million articles that say whatever you need them to say. The point is that Youtube has decided which articles are "right" and "wrong", when they have no business deciding such things.

Therefore they should lose sec 230 protections.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#62
post #3

> YouTube indicated that examples of the offending content in the video included the line: “Most of the masks you get over the counter don’t work. They don’t prevent infection.” > It also included the quote: “Trying to shape human behavior isn’t the same as following the actual science which tells us that cloth masks don’t work.” Regardless of what you think about YouTube's misinformation policy, I don't think this i…

My wife and I were looking into traveling from the US to Europe this summer, if the borders had opened up earlier. At the time, Germany was not allowing cloth masks on public transport. N95, surgical masks, or stay home. So here we have a sitting US senator being censored for agreeing with the German health authorities. WTF?!?

If he meant that "cloth masks aren't good enough" he could have said that. But he's a senator. His statement was a dog whistle to his base. They're not looking for an argument that people should be wearing N95s, they want to discredit all masking. The word "prevent" is a red herring -- nothing is 100% -- the goal is to decrease infection, not prevent it.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#63
post #57

So if Rand Paul is democratically elected and YouTube silences him, then in effect YouTube is silencing the population that elected Rand Paul. Furthermore (I can't see the video) - if he did indeed simply quote two peer-reviewed papers is it right to suspend him? As an exercise, which of the following statements are correct: 1. Gaiter masks will stop you from getting COVID-19 2. Surgical masks will stop you from gett…

Why is the obviously incorrect phrase "will stop you" in all of those options? As opposed to a more reasonable "will reduce the probability of"?

Rand Paul used the dichotomy of "works" vs. "doesn't work" which is in line with "stops" vs. "doesn't stop."

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#64
What I find particularly funny about the mask conversation is that if you remember way back to March-July 2020, if you tried to buy a box of surgical face masks on Amazon, there was a large, bold warning in the top description that said “does not prevent the spread of viruses”.

The reason for this was the FDA, which regulates masks, clearly held the position that face masks were for preventing transmission of large droplets and saliva, NOT aerosols.

Those bold warnings went away when the narrative changed and the FDA issued an EUA that meant sellers no longer needed that disclaimer.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#65

‘masks’ is about as vague as ‘food’ There are good and bad masks, just as there is good and bad food. A cloth mask will not protect you against an aerosol (note: am a researcher who has seen the electron microscopy images proving this), that is why N95s are mandated with no beards in any ISO work environment where you are subjected to aerosol risk. The inability of public dialog on this nuance is just a reflection of…

> A cloth mask will not protect you against an aerosol "In unpublished work, Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and her colleagues found that even a cotton T-shirt can block half of inhaled aerosols and almost 80% of exhaled aerosols measuring 2 µm across. Once you get to aerosols of 4–5 µm, almost any fabric can block more than 80% in both directions, she says." "Benn worked with…

On the other hand some researchers think cloth masks, specifically gaiter types, are worse than nothing.

https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/36/eabd3083

> A bigger droplet scatters more light than a smaller droplet. This insight is important to interpret the result of the neck gaiter. The neck gaiter has a larger transmission (110%; see Fig. 3A) than the control trial. We attribute this increase to the neck gaiter dispersing larger droplets into several smaller droplets, therefore increasing the droplet count. The histogram of the binary diameter for the neck gaiter supports this theory (see fig. S5).

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#66
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point, the adults need to be in charge. I for one applaud YouTube for taking this step, because it's not an easy choice, because they'll get pushback like this. Misinformation about Covid is deadly. Rand Paul is spreading misinformation - masks stop the spread of everything because it prevents bodily fluid particles from getting on everything, and also stops people from touching their face. Both of these are…

Lots of misinformation on YouTube is bad for people and isn't stopped. And I would hardly call Google, YouTube's owners, a "company with a conscience" since nearly their entire business is based on predatory surveillance advertising. In a democratic society, the elected leaders need to communicate their ideas, however wrongheaded. If they aren't allowed to communicate, how do they reach their electors and how do they…

YouTube is NOT the government. If Rand Paul was arrested for his speech, that would be a violation of his First Amendment rights and wrong. The right to speak does not compel a private platform to carry that speech.

Certainly Fox News gives RP and his ilk plenty of opportunity to spread their harmful propaganda. So it's not like, even in a practical sense, his ability to express himself has been curtailed.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#67

So if Rand Paul is democratically elected and YouTube silences him, then in effect YouTube is silencing the population that elected Rand Paul. Furthermore (I can't see the video) - if he did indeed simply quote two peer-reviewed papers is it right to suspend him? As an exercise, which of the following statements are correct: 1. Gaiter masks will stop you from getting COVID-19 2. Surgical masks will stop you from gett…

None of the above. The only mask that will stop you from getting covid are masks that will also stop you from breathing.

Different masks have different effectiveness in different environments with different risk levels. Cloth masks may be inappropriate in some environments while being effective in others.

Research has consistently shown that 3-point seatbelts are completely inadequate in auto racing environments when compared to modern 5-point harnesses. Passenger cars do not come equipped with 5-point harnesses. Is that a reason to not wear a seatbelt at all?

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#68
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why haven't we seen significantly better outcomes in states with mask mandates vs. those without?

There has been data showing areas with greater mask compliance have slower infection rates.

I'd bet that areas with greater mask compliance also have greater compliance with social distancing and other, more effective mitigation measures.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#69

Took a bit of searching to find Paul’s statement where he claims to have support from studies. Does anyone know which studies these are? > A Danish study of 6000 participants found that wearing a surgical mask did not significantly reduce a person's risk of COVID-19 infection, compared to the risks facing those who did not wear masks. > And a Vietnamese study of 1600 participants found that cloth masks allow for 97%…

There is a portion of the population who believes that if you've already been infected, then having a mask over your face just causes you to reinfect yourself over and over again.

Re: YouTube suspends Rand Paul for seven days

#70
https://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2021/08/covid-incompetenc...

Say many things worth reading, but of masks specifically:

> Masks do much more to stop you from giving it to someone else than to protect you. Cloth masks are close to useless. Well-fitting N95 masks work much better in both directions. Neither comes close to vaccination. Wearing cloth masks outdoors, far from other people, in the wind, as is the fashion in Palo Alto, is just part and parcel of the pointless virtue-signaling so prominent here. If you do go to that crowded all-night disco, wearing an N95 mask might be a good idea. Of course if you’re even thinking about wearing a mask, you’re not going in the first place, which is why the whole mask-mandate business is a bit silly.

Absolutely worth reading the whole thing for the full context.

If we're going to have a Ministry of Truth, shouldn't it at least be run by accountable, elected officials? Hasn't history proven pretty well that Ministries of Truth are damaging to society?

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