YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

>If you're claiming something that hasn't been demonstrated through peer-reviewed scientific research,

That's not how science has worked, especially in this pandemic. Most of what we know about SARS-CoV-2 came to us through biorxiv preprints and posts on forums like virological.org; the added value of peer review has typically been minimal (but often adding 3-12 months of delay in disseminating information). Even the role of peer review as a gate keeper has been wanting, lots of garbage studies about Covid-19 with glaring confounders keep getting published in peer reviewed journals. You could probably find a few hundred trials with systematic age differences between treatment groups that have been published in respectable venues. Some of these studies even contribute significantly to misinformation about the efficacy of sham treatments like hydroxycholoroquine and ivermectin.

There is unfortunately no short-cut to the development of individual scientific literacy, no trusted tier of experts which can safeguard us from misunderstanding and falsehood. We're all more or less on our own.

I disagree. I think we can all agree that we don't need videos talking about how the "bad ideas" of slavery/child abuse/human trafficking/etc. are wonderful things. I think we are right to suppress them. You can make the same argument that allowing these videos validates that they must be telling the truth or YT wouldn't allow it. If all you are looking for is confirmation bias, it is all you will find. It sounds like you wife won't get a vaccine no matter what so let's not argue semantics about what will make her even less likely to get a vaccine.

Principles aren't worth anything if people don't stick by them when expediency would recommend another course of action.

... This is why I chucked this particular principle overboard years ago. I don't personally think it holds water in light of irrational human actors and an under-informed public, given the immense power of modern bidirectional communications media.

Personal attacks are not cool here no matter how wrong someone is or you feel they are. Please make your substantive points without stooping to this.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28694731.

This is why I prefer Rumble. Given how woke politically Google has become it is no longer a platform I want to support.

Whenever information is censored I am naturally suspicious around the motivations. Censorship also gives the censored opinion more credibility because if that opinion was so objectively false and crazy it would be easy to convince people about the craziness of it. But when your ideas are so weak that the only way you can convince people you are right is to censor, ban, violently crush etc. the opposing view this is what you get.

Even though I got the vax, given all of the authoritarian thinking etc. around the pro-vax stand, lockdowns etc. I often wonder if I made the right decision.

The lockdowns, vaccines etc. have mostly been a massive over-reaction. As a software engineer I have benefited from them economically, but I still don't think the devastation from the cure, which was been far worse than the sickness was the right thing and really have never supported it.

Life is risky and dangerous. Many anti-vaxers have a philosophy where they would rather live in a dangerous democracy instead of a "safe" authoritarian government. Trying to ban their ideas does nothing to win their hearts and minds.

Also, ironically, while everyone is making a big deal about hospitals being at capacity etc. when there is a surge of cases, why is it that nobody is putting as much energy into discussing the spiraling cost of health care of why it is that we have a system with so little slack for emergencies.