YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice • Hacker News Board

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#751

Post by onion2k » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 6:40 AM UTC

roenxi wrote: post #460

onion2k wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one; they predicted a problem early... Suggesting YouTubers were correct a form of survivorship bias. You're only paying attention to the ones that were right. Plenty of other YouTubers said things along the lines of it being a hoax, or it'd die off, or that it'd be thousands of times worse long before, and long after, the WHO reacted. YouTube is…

> a very smart bloke with an honest-to-goodness PhD in a virus-related field How do I embolden text on HN? When a person with a PhD is talking about something related to their PhD it is imprudent policy to ban their content because it disagrees with a body who are (a) political, (b) purposefully slow to recommend things and (c) have covered themselves with something a lot less pleasant than glory with their response…

Your original statement was "The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one;" Now you're saying that one specific person might be right, and because of that YouTube should let any crackpot broadcast potentially lethal videos on their platform. That's idiotic.

Also, there are plenty of cases of respectable scientists throwing away their credentials to make a ton of money making completely unscientific social media posts. I'm not saying this guy is doing that, but YouTube certainly need to do more than just look as someone's history and whether they're published. The article you cite is from 27 years ago. He will certainly have changed a great deal in that much time.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#752

Post by RonanTheGrey » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 6:41 AM UTC

seppin wrote: post #341

roenxi wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some people would like freedom to discuss the coronavirus without being oppressed. They can't on YouTube if this policy takes hold. The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one; they predicted a problem early and tended to pre-empt the WHO on upcoming problems. This was also expected , because the WHO only advises stuff that is already obvious to everyone. Interested parties can offer be…

> freedom to discuss the coronavirus Unfortunately platforms that reach billions must prioritize the danger of misinformation spreading that far and wide over allowing for every dangerous and wrong opinion. The complete and total censorship you fear never emerges, Youtube if anything is far too lenient on allowing terrible opinions to linger on their platform. They never do away with anything besides the most harmful…

> Unfortunately platforms that reach billions must prioritize the danger of misinformation spreading

No, they don't. See, this is the core problem, that premise: that's the job of governments. And in the US, the law says the government doesn't get to do that.

Arguing that entities who are arguably more powerful than the government should be doing it is literally arguing for the dictionary definition of fascism.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#753

Post by WalterBright » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 6:42 AM UTC

anigbrowl wrote: post #672

WalterBright wrote: post #642

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful that it's not just shows that seem to agree with one's particular personal biases.

How is it you assume you have the agency to make objective assessments, but that others don't?

I didn't say I did. I said one must be very careful to not leap to the conclusion that just because a show agrees with you, that therefore they are unbiased. Or that one is not suffering from bias themselves.

We're all very good at tricking ourselves into believing that we are objective. It's called confirmation bias.

Although some of us, like me, actually are being objective.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#754

Post by RonanTheGrey » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 6:43 AM UTC

ZenPsycho wrote: post #583

stcredzero wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I fear there isn't "one truth" out there, despite the content providers' and fact-checkers' attempts :( The idea is: "We are the decent, good, people who know the truth. Now we control the platforms, so it's only well and good we control the information, and we tell the deplorable others what they can and can't say." Almost everyone in the history books as a horrible oppressor has told themselves that narrative. Many…

So, how many deaths are you willing to be responsible for? make sure to scale it up to youtube size.

Are you aware of how irresponsible a decision-making heuristic that is?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#755

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 6:44 AM UTC

logifail wrote: post #121

Current WHO advice: "If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19." [0] Where we live, due to local laws , we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping. Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO? I fear there isn't "one truth" out there, despite the content providers' and fact-checkers' attempts :( We keep trying to encourage our ki…

Well, there's certainly truth, just WHO is not exactly the best way to it. And, as it appears, Youtube is certainly not the place one would look for a discussion that would reveal the truth. For them, whatever the official position of minitrue is this moment is the truth.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#756

Post by smsm42 » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 6:44 AM UTC

Remember that on January 14 WHO tweeted that "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission". So if you knew it's a lie - which by then many in China probably did - you could not publish it on Youtube based on current policy. It wasn't in effect then, but I wonder which lies such policy would support now?

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#757

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 6:45 AM UTC

sintaxi wrote: post #641

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #571

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right. We're so much better off when a significant segment of the population believes that the Secretary of State is pimping out children from a pizza restaurant.

Correct. That has has fewer downsides than truth being decided for the public.

[deleted]

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#758

Post by WA » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 6:46 AM UTC

allannienhuis wrote: post #721

WA wrote: post #712

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dare to ask the question how wearing a mask carries critical risk vs wearing no mask.

It's pretty easy to find official answers to that question. This is from the bccdc.ca website: > Masks may give a person a false sense of security and are likely to increase the number of times a person will touch their own face (e.g., to adjust the mask). http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19...

And I think it makes sense to be doubtful about this. It’s as if you’re saying wearing a helmet gives you a false sense of security. Wearing a mask may give some people a false sense of security. But at the end of the day the question is if mask-wearing populations have less infections than non-mask wearing populations.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#759

Post by toomanyrichies » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 6:47 AM UTC

I oppose Youtube's ability to single-handedly block content, for the same reason that I oppose the War On Drugs: it can't be won by fighting on the supply side. The war on misinformation has many parallels in this respect, not least because someone will always be ready and waiting to supply it, as long as the demand is there.

In this case, fighting the demand means teaching people basic critical thinking skills, how to spot logical fallacies, and methods of counter-acting propaganda and other forms of mass manipulation. Critical thinking is given short shrift, at least in American classrooms, and arming students with this kind of information would help them make more well-informed civic choices.

Re: YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

#760

Post by fsh » Fri, Apr 24, 2020, 6:47 AM UTC

trott wrote: post #748

fsh wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taiwan didn't even have a confirmed case until January 21. They couldn't possibly have reported anything but unconfirmed rumors from China. WHO warned about human-to-human transmission as soon as it was confirmed by Chinese scientists. The US cutting funding is obviously a political move in order to shift blame away from the utterly incompetent government.

> Taiwan didn't even have a confirmed case until January 21. They couldn't possibly have reported anything but unconfirmed rumors from China. Actually, Taiwan sent its own experts to Wuhan: https://www.cdc.gov.tw/En/Bulletin/Detail/jFGUVrlLkIuHmzZeyA...

As did several countries.

From the article it should be clear that the observers were there to learn from their Chinese colleagues, not to conduct independent research on human-to-human transmission.