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YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

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Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Free speech" does not mean you also are entitled to a platform and an audience. "Free speech" is a right but also an ideal. When speech is being silenced (de-platformed) or people (the audience) are forbidden from hearing it even when they want to, it violates those principles. > YouTube is not a public service. Youtube is a powerful and unique resource without meaningful competition which I think does give them a…

> "Free speech" is a right but also an ideal. The problem with the ideal is that most people have it wrong. "Free speech" is not speech without consequences. Nobody here thinks that speech should be criminalized but that doesn't mean you have the right to be heard. If nobody wants to associate with you because of your speech, that's their right. You are not entitled to a soapbox.

> Nobody here thinks that speech should be criminalized but that doesn't mean you have the right to be heard.

If someone offers a platform for the public to use but censors people who say things they don't like, that is a clear violation of free speech principals. I don't have to listen to anything, but if someone chooses to speak and I choose to listen no one should try to prevent us from doing so.

There are consequences for speech, but they shouldn't involve include gatekeepers silencing specific voices on the basis of what they have to say. In fact, if you want to take a punitive approach to speech then censoring people so we never get a chance to hear what they're saying actually denies us the ability to make a judgement and hold speakers accountable for those words.

I'd sure like to know if my own doctor was spreading misinformation and making illogical errors when talking about a global pandemic that's impacting me. If she was, but I wasn't allowed to know about that I might easily think she was trustworthy when I shouldn't.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#562

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your comment misses the point of why they did this. These doctors were in no way qualified or licensed to provide the opinions they did and they had huge undisclosed conflicts of interest. 1. Their medical practice is an Urgent Care. 1a. They own said Urgent Care. They have a vested monetary interest in claiming these things so people start using them more. 2. They are not licensed to practice epidemiology - nor are…

Fuck this reply and everything it represents. I truly detest this madness and everyone who believe in such warped nonsense. One giant pile of argument from authority bullcrap. This idea that only narrow set of domain experts can speak up about something is blatantly insane. You are not an epidemiologist either, so by the same token, you don´t have the right to criticize anything anyone says, yet here you are. So mayb…

You missed all the points by turning this into some strawman crying fit of moral outrage about "appealing to authority".

These doctors did not have proper training the statistics they horrifically misrepresented. They also made it sound like they had substantial knowledge in the field of Epidemiology. They don't.

Both of these doctors are now going before the California Medical Board because they got the facts wrong and they were wrong to give this advice. They misrepresented their data and exaggerated - because their urgent care is having a low patient turnout and they want to end the lockdown.

> This idea that only narrow set of domain experts can speak up about something is blatantly insane.

Your couple of hours on Google is not equivalent to a medical degree. When we are talking about medicine, you do not get a seat at the table because you think you are smart.

A standard Medical School only includes 1 semester in Virology and 1 more semester in Microbiology. An Epidemiologist goes through 4 YEARS of detailed training in Statistics, Microbiology, and Biochem. This is before years of experience in the field.

Those are NOT equivalent bases of knowledge.

> You are not an epidemiologist either...

What the fuck do you know? My degrees are in Mathematics with a specialization in Statistics. So, yeah, I know A LOT more than they do in this area.

> If credibility is a function of imbued institutional authority...

Doctors have to demonstrate their skills by getting licensed for the areas of their practice. We have a licensure process for a reason - to demonstrate competence in a field. These guys are going to lose theirs.

End of story.

> epidemiologists are not statisticians

You don't know a single fact that you are talking about. You are the fucking problem - along with everyone else who thinks their Google search is as good as a medical degree.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's with your logic that we have the anti-vax movement, the anti-gmo one, flat-earthers and so on and so forth.

Great. Don’t have problem with that. Why do you?

Never Argue With a Fool, Onlookers May Not Be Able To Tell the Difference. - Mark Twain

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#564

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Suppose you're right. Does it justify censorship? Fauci can defend himself, and the docs are welcome to express their opinions. What gives Google/YouTube the justification to silence them?

YouTube has the right to censor anything it likes. It's their platform. If you don't like it, don't use YouTube.

There are arguments that don't involve "private property, absolute authority" which permit both some censorship (in the public interest), and some guarantees of access most especially to under-served, unprivileged, and minority viewpoints (also in the public interest).

That argument is public interest.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? Yes, they are. https://www.dailynews.com/2020/04/28/california-doctors-with... > But public health experts were quick to debunk the doctors’ findings as misguided and riddled with statistical errors — and an example of the kind of misleading information they are forced to waste precious time disputing. > The doctors should never have assumed that…

Many studies across the world are showing infection rates for Covid-19 are far higher than official numbers indicate. These studies appear to support the spirit of their statements.

Same with the death rate. Covid is most always a co-factor in the death along with other reasons. Like a smoker with emphysema who was dying anyway and the virus is the trigger. They really died from smoking their whole life. Another virus or bacteria could've killed them.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#566

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fuck this reply and everything it represents. I truly detest this madness and everyone who believe in such warped nonsense. One giant pile of argument from authority bullcrap. This idea that only narrow set of domain experts can speak up about something is blatantly insane. You are not an epidemiologist either, so by the same token, you don´t have the right to criticize anything anyone says, yet here you are. So mayb…

You missed all the points by turning this into some strawman crying fit of moral outrage about "appealing to authority". These doctors did not have proper training the statistics they horrifically misrepresented . They also made it sound like they had substantial knowledge in the field of Epidemiology. They don't. Both of these doctors are now going before the California Medical Board because they got the facts wrong…

Dear Commenter,

I am sorry to inform you that you do not have a PhD in online commenting and therefor are not a domain expert in online communication. For that reason your comment and opinions in the previous reply are invalid and should be de-platformed.

Yours truly,

Hypocrisy

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#567
post #401

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should be able to see all the opinions of various experts; doctors in NYC, doctors in Minnesota. Just them on their merits and examine the evidence. By pulling videos, YouTube/Google is saying they don't trust people to be able to discern anything or do research among several dissenting opinions. And yes, it's their platform and yada yada .. they still allow a lot of content to be uploaded and they have become…

"People should be able to see all the opinions of various experts; doctors in NYC, doctors in Minnesota. Just them on their merits and examine the evidence." Most people are not qualified to "examine the evidence" and make public health policy decisions. This is why we rely upon the experts. Otherwise you have measles outbreaks in Beverly Hills.

You mean the experts that said no human to human transmission? or the experts that called for maska being ineffective? or the experts that didnt know how to store and deploy resources as they needed? or the experts that miscalculated projected infection rates?

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#568
post #403

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does not logically follow if the general public does not have the expertise to evaluate public health policy discussions and decisions.

> if the general public does not have the expertise to evaluate public health policy discussions and decisions But you're now asking people to trust experts, which in 2020 is apparently crazy-talk

ofc you shouldn´t trust experts wtf!!! Blindly trusting someone because they have a piece of paper on their wall? are you nuts? What is it with people and willingly accept argument from authority just because there is a PhD or MD next to the name?

Make your arguments, present your data, and let us peel through it and see if all works out as it should or if it is all just a bunch of bullshit. I don´t give a fuck if you are an expert or not. I care about ideas and results. Experts can go fuck themselves for all I care. I care about truth not some stupidly mind numbing notion of imbued institutional authority!

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#569
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that misses the point. The very fact that a few people at Google/Youtube have the power to censor whomever they want for whatever reason they choose is a problem in itself. Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? I think what they said in the video was eminently reasonable. But perhaps I'm wrong. Luckily we have the freedom to publicly critique their claims - assuming our critiques a…

Ignoring the context here, YT has every right to choose what to display, and what not to. In context: they don’t want to be responsible for harm to others and they certainly don’t want to pay to broadcast that content. If people really want to spew nonsense they can pay to do it themselves. No one is stopping them.

Youtube is responsible for the harm here IMO. The video is long and boring. If it wasn't being censored, nobody would care to pay any attention to it.

Re: YouTube removed a viral video of two doctors calling for an end to quarantine

#570
post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you watch the video or are you just basing this on out of context quotes? What you're quoting was a brief anecdote about what those doctors were seeing on the ground. Their extrapolations are based on state-level aggregates in New York and California. Sample sizes of 300-650K patients.

I did watch it. Their extrapolations were wrong. You can't just multiply positivity rate found in a biased sample by the whole population. That's not a meaningful extrapolation. Then using that extrapolation to say the death rate is low is just building up the error even more. And then, comparing that to the flu and saying this isn't much worse, we're now well into the "this video is a potentially a public health haz…

And then, comparing that to the flu and saying this isn't much worse, we're now well into the "this video is a potentially a public health hazard" territory.

No, lockdowns are the public health hazard. The data is quite clear at this point that what's going on here is no worse than the flu. Here's a simple graphic from the UK to make that point clear:

http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/

And if you look at when lockdowns could have possibly started working given incubation and death lags, you'll see that most countries seem to have peaked before the lockdowns could have started working. Implication: they weren't responsible for the peak and decline.

But the more important point is that it's critical such things can be debated. Simply assuming you're right and anyone who disagrees is a "public health hazard" is totalitarianism. You won't have any ability to defend yourself, or even any right to, next time someone erases you because e.g. Trump declared your views to be dangerous.

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