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YouTube tightens rules after David Icke 5G interview

106 points by laumars 7y ago

rhema 7y ago
Spreading misinformation is bad. However, maybe casting media into the memory hole risks creating glorified digital martyrs. I wish the WHO made more transparent arguments about the utility of masks. Their failure and apparent flip-flop gives the crazies low-hanging fruit and ethos.
- lukifer 7y ago
  We have a major "boy who cried wolf" problem with the media, and many of our truth-finding institutions. There've been enough instances in recent decades of arrogant incompetence and self-serving deception, that the public grows to distrust experts disproportionately in domains where it really matters: vaccines, epidemics, climate change.
  - vkou 7y ago
    Do you hold lunatics and quacks to the same standards, or are they not considered part of the media... Despite having what are, essentially, television channels?
    - lukifer 7y ago
      "Quack" is in the eye of the beholder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life_of_knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life_of_knowledge I don't mean to paint a false equivalence between the likes of Icke, and the first person to say "maybe bloodletting isn't helpful". But what does one do about collective/consensus quackery? Even if the consensus of experts is the more solid bet on average, the outliers are consequential, whether it's telling citizens not to wear masks, or invading Iraq for no good reason. > Despite having what are, essentially, television channels? Mu. The new media landscape doesn't map cleanly to the old. For better and for worse, cheap and asynchronous publishing puts us in uncharted territory relative to the "Blue Church" of 20th-century broadcast media: https://medium.com/deep-code/understanding-the-blue-church-e4781b2bd9b5 https://medium.com/deep-code/understanding-the-blue-church-e... (I do find it interesting that InfoWars is now incorporating their pariah status into their branding: they brag that they are the "Most Banned Network in the World". For those on the other side, a banning by the Social Media Giants can serve as an erroneous counter-signal that the bannee should be trusted. Cross-reference with the Streisand Effect, and Orwell's admonition that "journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed".)
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    A healthy dose of distrust towards experts is necessary, because they're wrong all the time. What about the experts - including those at the CDC - that said COVID-19 was no worse than a flu? Are they no real experts, or are they just the wrong kind of expert? https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-lesser-threat-to-americans-than-flu-2020-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-lesser-thr... "Trust the experts" is nothing but an argument from authority. You're likely going to trust whatever expert confirms what you already believe.
    - Retric 7y ago
      It’s important to separate individual experts from the general belief of experts as a group on some topic. However, this is a different problem where understanding context of experts is the issue. Back when 5 known cases of COVID-19 where in the US, the risk on that specific day was lower from the virus than the flu for the average American. “immediate health risk” However, understanding that risks change over time is critical to understanding what was being poorly communicated by that piece.
    - AJ007 7y ago
      This covid-19 debacle illustrated a big conflation with experts and authoritative bureaucracies. Researchers, scientists, and people on the ground in China, Taiwan, and South Korea issued early warnings well ahead of the WHO, CDC, and FDA flip flopping on transmit-ability, masks, and testing. Unfortunately the average person can’t tell the difference between a researched investigative journalism piece in the New York Times and an opinion column in the New York Times. Most people can’t tell the difference between the Washington Post and the Washington Times. Many people can’t tell the difference between the Chicago Tribune and a random website that stole the Chicago Tribune’s layout. All these differences matter an enormous amount. They don’t matter subtlety like missing the freeway exit and taking the next one. They matter like chopping your hand off instead of keeping it.
      - ksk 7y ago
        >Researchers, scientists, and people on the ground in China, Taiwan, and South Korea issued early warnings well ahead of the WHO, CDC, and FDA flip flopping on transmit-ability, masks, and testing. Do you have a rough timeline for 'well ahead'? From what I've read it was classified as zoonotic, because the staff in China who handled the initial cases weren't presenting, and the wet-market was the only causal link. That's when the WHO reported (mid/late Jan) that human-human transmission wasn't possible. >Unfortunately the average person can’t tell the difference between a researched investigative journalism piece in the New York Times and an opinion column in the New York Times. Most people can’t tell the difference between the Washington Post and the Washington Times. Many people can’t tell the difference between the Chicago Tribune and a random website that stole the Chicago Tribune’s layout. But its not just "average people", its most people, including HN folks. On any expert topic, when you have no hands-on expertise, you apply "common sense", or read some articles, and then you're back to square one. Most scientific fields are advanced to the point where common sense doesn't get you very far. Not only that, there are a lot of professional explainers who muddy the waters by repeating things without understanding the nuances. I think its fine to say whatever, as long as its fine for me to ask "OK, but what makes your opinion worth something".
  - dntbnmpls 7y ago
    > We have a major "boy who cried wolf" problem with the media, and many of our truth-finding institutions. Media isn't a "truth-finding institution". Neither are global political organizations. What we have a problem with is people being brainwashed into believe that media/political organizations are "truth-finding institutions". > There've been enough instances in recent decades of arrogant incompetence and self-serving deception Because they are in the business of deception. And it's not decades. It's centuries. "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." "I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors." -- Thomas Jefferson
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  That was only like #3 in bad/dumb things the WHO has done lately. I struggle to figure why anyone trusts an organization that is so in China’s pocket they’re happy to report it’s not human to human spreadable then fake a disconnect on a video interview just to try and avoid answering a question about Taiwan and then to double down by answering the question pretending Taiwan doesn’t exist and just substitute China in place (no, Taiwan is not an “area of China”). I don’t care about the opinion here. The WHO has lost almost all credibility to me. [Taiwan isn’t a country] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HjpOqVgP36o https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HjpOqVgP36o [No human to human transmission, China says so] https://mobile.twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://mobile.twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?re...
  - orbifold 7y ago
    Anyone that ever had close contact to what the UN does, knows that it is a corrupt, inefficient and grossly incompetent organisation, filled with cousins of African strongmen and other connected people. Same goes for people working in NGOs cooperating with the UN, a common arrangement for example in Geneva is that while the partner works as an oil broker, the other writes position papers on women's rights and observes meetings that has half of the members of the subcommittee asleep.
- jswny 7y ago
  I believe they (and the CDC) are switching their stance on masks because they didn't want people wearing masks to have a false sense of security. Now, it's getting bad enough that the benefits of people wearing masks and not infecting others are starting to outweigh the downsides.
samizdis 7y ago
David Icke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke Can't remember him when he was a footballer, but I wonder how many times he headed the ball ;-)
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  Isn’t this basically an ad hominem attack? I don’t know the guy, but you’re attacking him and not his argument. Isn’t the rule here to take the strongest part of an argument and go off that? Edit: Downvoted on a site for pointing out the rules of the site. Maybes it’s just me, but since the Great Quarantine, some websites have been a little extra smug and “hide the wrong think” prone.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    Are we actually under obligation to listen to everything a crank says and then evaluate each statement? Once I find out someone believes in "reptoids", I don't see a lot of value in wasting my time with them, and it's exhausting to make that effort when they clearly aren't.
    - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
      No, I believe you have the option of not watching his content, not replying to it, and generally allowing others to be as wrong as they would like to be. Unless someone is forcing your to interact with him... are they? That isn’t the topic of an ad hominem however. Saying “he’s been kicked in the head too many times” is.
  - driverdan 7y ago
    No. Icke has serious mental health issues and promotes ridiculous conspiracies like all government leaders are reptile aliens. I'm not making this up, this is what he actually believes and promotes.
    - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
jstewartmobile 7y ago
When did David Icke try to pass a gun range in Kentucky off as Syria? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/business/media/turkey-syria-kentucky-gun-range.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/business/media/turkey-syr...
- lern_too_spel 7y ago
  When did David Icke issue a correction?
  - jstewartmobile 7y ago
    What does David Icke have to correct?
    - detaro 7y ago
      2 random examples that would be useful corrections from him: "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion aren't a legitimate historical document laying out a plan for world domination" "No world leaders are human/shapeshifting-alien hybrids"
      - jstewartmobile 7y ago
        In that case, "The Weekly World News" has a lot of corrections to issue.
        lern_too_spel 7y ago
        So you've admitted that Icke and The Weekly World News are comparable and not like ABC News.
        jstewartmobile 7y ago
        I admit that I don't live in bizzaro world--where some crazy old man's conspiracy theories must be suppressed, while multi-billion-dollar corporations that deceive broadly, frequently, and incompetently are the "good guys." "But, BUT, we retracted!" After they were caught...
swiley 7y ago
Google: “it’s better to be illiterate than have the possibility to read something wrong.” I swear to god I thought the internet would be so different in 2020. Before (and even after) the ban there was a lot of good information on YouTube, a lot of it was from trained medical professionals and now it’s all going away and people will be left with gossip and guesses.
- gre 7y ago
  Could you please elaborate on what you mean by the YouTube information going away?
- lonelappde 7y ago
  What do you think "illiterate" means?
gridlockd 7y ago
I don't think this is helpful, it's quite possibly counter-productive. If you're prone to conspiracy thinking, you're going to link any current event to any alternative explanation, no matter how far fetched. If 5G wasn't in the news, it would be something else. Suppressing the signal only makes it stronger, because now you've "proven" that "the elite can't allow the secret information out". David Icke is preaching to the choir, he isn't converting anyone. Nobody who is otherwise capable of sound reasoning is going to watch him and go: "I might disagree with this person on whether Zionist Reptile Shapeshifters are controlling the world, but his analysis of the effects of 5G on human health and COVID-19 seem credible!" Conspiracy thinking is extremely common even among clinically sane people. The "cure" is not suppression, not derision, but letting people figure it out how their mind sometimes works against them. The biggest obstacle is the human ego.
Solvitieg 7y ago
What is the problem with believing 5G causes coronavirus? The people who believe it are misinformed, and so what? I understand why it's harmful to spread anti-vax memes, but 99% of "misinformation" is harmless. It's often difficult to separate theory and conspiracy from harmful information, a dubious concept.
- jjjensen90 7y ago
  Besides being bad on principle, misinformation in times of struggle can lead to irrational behavior, including misguided violence. For example, in this specific case: "5G-coronavirus conspiracy theory spurs rash of telecom tower arson fires" https://fortune.com/2020/04/06/5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-telecom-tower-fires/ https://fortune.com/2020/04/06/5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-the...
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  Nothing is wrong with it. But the belief is complete incorrect and Icke is clearly mentally unwell, and social platforms have a right to defend their communities from people like him. They should not have to indulge lunatics that reduce their brand value or community health. Icke has the right to believe what he wants, and speak/write about it freely. Youtube should be under no obligation to provide a platform for him on their private service, either.
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    > Youtube should be under no obligation to provide a platform for him on their private service, either. And that’s TOTALLY FINE. But the issue surrounding the whole “should these monopolies be the free speech overlords?” Is that if they say this guy can’t be allowed speech, they should have to take responsibility for the speech they do allow. Publisher vs Platform.
    - mullingitover 7y ago
segmondy 7y ago
They need to be careful, such approach would have limited the info about covid-19. When I was watching the news, youtube videos in early Jan, it was coming from the "conspiracy theory" folks. Not mainstream media. Those folks were right.
- dguaraglia 7y ago
  They weren't right, they were just doing their usual shtick: weave panic narratives. The only reason they were 'right' because it so happens COVID-19 is actually pretty bad. But if you go and check their history of 'predictions' I bet everything in my savings account they've predicted a thousand 'tragedies' before and none of them came to pass. In other words: even a broken clock is right twice a day, that doesn't mean it's working.
  - NullPrefix 7y ago
    If correct actions were taken right at the start it wouldn't have happened either. Crisis silently averted is a crisis wasted.
  - rasz 7y ago
    They were 100% right. "Wuhan: Chinese Authorities Welding Apartment Doors Shut to Impose Quarantine" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXpHD9bjGe0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXpHD9bjGe0 "Wuhan: Disinfection Spray over Wuhan" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCY6OJskQRk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCY6OJskQRk 9 Feb 2020 was full conspiracy theory while mass media stood silent. Even today its not entirely common knowledge to what lengths China went at the end of January while WHO was spreading lies about no human to human transmission, no masks, and definitely no international border closing necessary.
  - threr234234 7y ago
    ... and pray tell us what the 'heaven descended' Ministry of Truth was doing ? Oh that's right, they were claiming it was no big deal "it's just the flu... don't worry about it". This was the case even after witnessing China's troubles. Now the same people have the gall to go and complain about WHO. Hindsight 20/20.
yters 7y ago
To some degree, the media needs to treat its audience like grown ups who are capable of thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions. The more they try to handhold everyone, it will produce two effects: reduce audience ability to make informed decisions, and reduce audience trust in the media. Someone showed me the Icke lecture, and so we discussed what are easy ways we could falsify his claims. E.g. countries with high incidence of covid19 and no 5g. Especially when the conspiracy theory is so easily debunked the media should handle such cases more liberally. Think of it as inoculating the population against misinformation. I do tentatively agree there are some kinds of misinformation that should be suppressed, but any such thing should be very exceptional, and very well explained. Otherwise, the media will end up being the modern Catholic church and go the way of the reformation. The church has spent centuries undoing the mistakes it made handling Luther's and other's criticisms.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  > the media needs to treat its audience like grown ups who are capable of thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions Sure, right after we feed them some unicorn tears for breakfast.
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    The fact that it's not true is largely irrelevant. When the media pursues a strategy of manipulating the masses rather than reporting the truth, the masses notice and stop believing what the media has to say. In the modern age, the media only has power to the extent that people believe what it's saying.
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      The problem extends far beyond "the media". Substantial numbers of people don't trust their own pediatricians on vaccinations. 40% of Americans think God created humans in their current form instead of evolution. Society has become hostile to facts, and sites like YouTube are all too often happy to serve up bullshit if it gets engagement.
whywhywhywhy 7y ago
Suppressing David Icke only makes this conspiracy stronger. Icke has close to zero credibility in the UK and well known to believe in lizard people and other such wacky theories. If you stop people knowing he is also talking about this then the only people left to talk about it are the regular normal seeming folks. Channels like this https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsAwM1EqcYXKeIEufJqwWjw/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsAwM1EqcYXKeIEufJqwWjw/vid... thousands of views per video, seems like any normal bloke you'd chat to down the pub. So well done by silencing a known eccentric you just made the only voices in this conspiracy the normal everyday folks, if regular people searched this theory and Icke popped up they might have actually questioned it because they don't want to be associated with the lizard guy.
- throwaway5752 7y ago
  All you have to do is look at the antivax movement for a possible counterexample. Social media has allowed that movement to strengthen to the point where they are a global public health threat. Groups like this need the equivalent of email spam filters. Flagged and hidden by default, at best. They should be marginalized and stigmatized.
  - jb775 7y ago
    So muzzle and suppress anyone who doesn't agree with your personal worldview?
    - anthonypasq 7y ago
      Wow, what a charitable and good faith response!
      - jb775 7y ago
        What does this comment even mean? In my comment, I was putting it bluntly what he/she was basically saying. I agree it sounds harsh, but that was my point. My point is that it's not acceptable or productive for a society to suppress someone else's right to be heard just because they are disagreed with.
mullingitover 7y ago
Good. This conspiracy theory idiocy about 5G is actively harmful to public infrastructure and it has to stop. My only complaint is that Icke wasn't demonetized over this. He should be banned from the platform entirely. He's actively harmful to society.
- gridlockd 7y ago
  I disagree completely. David Icke is responsible for the major conspiracy theory innovation that the Zionists controlling the world are actually shape-shifting Reptilians, effectively letting the Jews off the hook. That means a set of people who could've otherwise ended up in classic Nazi conspiracy circles end up in something closer to a science fiction fanclub. Yet another set of people who dipped their toes into conspiracy theories might actually start to question whether it's all bullshit, upon finding that the Pope is supposedly a lizard. The 5G thing on the other hand is something that a lot of people think is probably dangerous, whether they're conspiracy theorists or not. Of course conspiracy theorists picked it up, but if it wasn't 5G, it would be fluoride, or contrails, or literally anything else that might somehow be polluting water, ground or air.
  - mullingitover 7y ago
    > The 5G thing on the other hand is something that a lot of people think is probably dangerous, whether they're conspiracy theorists or not. If you think 5G is dangerous, and that there's a conspiracy to harm the public through wanton disregard for public health, you are a conspiracy theorist, it's just a matter of degree.
    - gridlockd 7y ago
      Yes, but if you think 5G is dangerous, but don't think that there's a conspiracy to harm the public, then you are not a conspiracy theorist. I don't understand the point of your comment.
      - mullingitover 7y ago
bcheung 7y ago
We can't outsource our critical thinking to private companies. People need to develop the ability to think critically for themselves and not rely on appeals to authority. This can't happen if people become lazy and simply trust whatever media is out there. This also raises concerns for me around the question of freedom of speech and censorship. I fear we are centralizing too much power into a few private companies that effectively wield more power than the government and the people for whom it represents. I'd rather have freedom of speech even if it means tons of misinformation out there. If and when there is some information that is unpopular but critical for people to know, I don't want censorship to be the norm.
- antisthenes 7y ago
  > People need to develop the ability to think critically for themselves and not rely on appeals to authority. This can't happen if people become lazy and simply trust whatever media is out there. That's a nice normative statement, but that battle has been lost over a century ago with advent of cheap mass media that enshrined consumerism. Consumerism advocates that the optimal behavior isn't "what is optimal and fair here?" but "what do I want ?" It erodes critical thinking at grassroots levels. Not to mention that these days media companies have perverse incentives to generate outrage and polarizing viewpoints instead of just reporting the damn news
  - nightski 7y ago
    Wow I disagree. If you look at the US as a whole, it is clear we are much better at critical thinking and even thinking in numbers than ever before. YES lots of people get things very wrong. But we are now throwing data, charts, statistics in front of the general population. People are seeking out data and trying to make decisions for themselves (even if they are not doing a great job yet, it's far better than before!). I know it is fun to be doom and gloom but the reality is our society is better than it was before. People are calling out the media and politicians on their BS faster than ever before.
    - bawolff 7y ago
bishalb 7y ago
All social media are strangely censoring anything that even remotely questions the official coronavirus story. I had shared this article on twitter some days ago and it's not even some weird conspiracy theory but twitter flagged it https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/ https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-t...
- laumars 7y ago
  Most platforms don’t really like censorship themselves because it effectiveness is limited, costs them money to implement and acknowledges liability for stuff contributed to their platform. However COVID-19 poses a unique challenge in that misinformation can have a death toll. At least other conspiracy theories and extremist content is either (relatively) harmless or requires the viewer to step far beyond the boundaries of common sense.
- jswny 7y ago
  Because this is not the time for conspiracy theories. People talking about the earth being flat doesn't really hurt anyone. People believing conspiracy theories about a global pandemic can be seriously dangerous.
  - guscost 7y ago
    This is not the time for fascism, either.
    - jswny 7y ago
      We are talking about private companies right? This has nothing to do with the government.
      - guscost 7y ago
        It's just one (and hopefully the only) step in a very troubling direction. Several places in Europe are much further along, for example: https://www.thelocal.dk/20200313/denmark-passes-far-reaching-emergency-coronavirus-law https://www.thelocal.dk/20200313/denmark-passes-far-reaching... Apparently there's a newer law that makes posting crackpot theories illegal, but I can only find one source: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=da&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnewsvoice.se%2F2020%2F04%2Fdanmark-forbjuder-corona-policy%2F https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=da&tl=en&u=htt...
JungleGymSam 7y ago
YouTube needs to fail. This is ridiculous. You don't suppress information because it's a conspiracy theory. The progressive left is a cancer on society. Their message is piss poor so the only thing they can do is suppress speech. This guy is a nut job but ... there's just nothing else to say. The people running YouTube are idiots.
jb775 7y ago
Whenever conspiracy theory talk pops up, I notice 2 groups of people: 1) the conspiracy theorists 2.) the people calling the conspiracy theorists crazy lunatics....rarely anything in-between. Is there anyone out there that can scientifically debunk this guy's claims?
- 01100011 7y ago
  5g isn't alien technology. It was developed over years by engineers and technicians. Did any of those folks show symptoms of 5g poisoning?
  - jb775 7y ago
    I have no idea, do you know if those folks haven't shown symptoms of 5g poisoning? Probably something worthy of looking into since many people have concerns about 5g.
    - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
      > Probably something worthy of looking into since many people have concerns about 5g. Take flat earthers. Because many people believe it we should investigate - so people post evidence that the earth is round, the flat earthers reject that evidence and make the flat earth claim again. So do we keep investigating? The same number of people still believe. How many times around that wheel do we go? Do you believe that no one has honestly looked into the health effects of 5g? What evidence do you think it'll take for someone who believes radio waves are causing these effects, even though scientists have pictures of the virus, to have their mind changed?
- thu2111 7y ago
  It's a variant of "wifi allergies". These sorts of things do crop up from time to time. In Switzerland there were people who claimed a mobile tower (or was it a new electricity mains cable) was causing them headaches and other illnesses. Only problem: the thing wasn't on when they reported complaints. That's the usual way this belief is debunked. Find people who say they can sense radio waves or are made sick by them. Wait until they complain they're sick. Show them the device was switched off. Job done. I'd love to know what it is about 5G specifically that's got these people so worked up. Maybe tower density? There are going to be just way more 5G towers than prior generations?
jv22222 7y ago
> Conspiracy theories linking 5G signals to the coronavirus pandemic continue to spread despite there being no evidence the mobile phone signals pose a health risk. > One falsely suggests 5G suppresses the immune system, the other falsely claims the virus is __somehow using the network's radio waves to communicate and pick victims, accelerating its spread.__ (__ emphasis mine) W T Actual F people! Facepalm. If it were true it might be one of the greatest discoveries of all time ;)
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
atomashpolskiy 7y ago
> Now any content that disputes the existence or transmission of Covid-19, as described by the WHO [World Health Organization] and local health authorities is in violation of YouTube policies. > This includes conspiracy theories which claim that the symptoms are caused by 5G. Yeah, fair point. But it's a red herring. > For borderline content that could misinform users in harmful ways, we reduce recommendations. We'll continue to evaluate the impact of these videos on communities around the world. This one is KEY. Truth is, the majority of views comes from the Recommended, Trending and Next to Play. No one without a direct link will see your video, if it's nerfed by the algorithm. Checkmate. Corona is a very heated topic with many unknowns. Deciding what can and can not be labeled as misinformation is thus very tricky even for an expert, because there is a very fine line between misinformation and speculation (which is different in the sense that it's done in good faith and thus perfectly fine). Who's going to make these decisions? A private corp with zero transparency? We sorely need very clear distinction (maybe even legal - e.g. a framework for Terms of Service) between media and medium. With the former being free to set arbitrary rules, push agendas, ban otherwise harmless content, fuck with content promotion in whatever ways they want, etc. And the latter providing just the infrastructure and technical means to publish content with minimal governance. Status of being either of these must be granted upfront and then prohibited to change. Otherwise every "social media" platform will eventually mutate into a weaponized propaganda machine, promoting the interests of its stakeholders and greater powers-that-be and suppressing any dissenting opinion. This temptation is evidently impossible to resist.
- guscost 7y ago
  If you weren't already convinced that YouTube is a publisher rather than a platform, this latest episode should make it obvious.
  - atomashpolskiy 7y ago
    Absolutely. My point is that this won't change unless we as a society explicitly regulate/prohibit such behavior.
newsdig 7y ago
latest updated figures of coronavirus on https://coronaworld.info https://coronaworld.info
senectus1 7y ago
oh man... David Ike. If you ever wanted a trip through la la land go visit his website's forums.... Its a not so coherent and less nasty version of 4Chan where everyone is off the hinge. some more than others.
aaron695 7y ago
How about we remove all the videos claiming people shouldn't be wearing masks? Or is actually saving lives to much bother and it's more fun attacking people who believe in reptilians?
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Are those getting as many views?
dreamlayers 7y ago
If some speech is suppressed everywhere, how can one know that it's false?
whoisjohnkid 7y ago
Don’t like the direction YouTube and other social media companies are headed. This is pretty much censorship of free speech. I understand that he may be spewing garbage, but sheesh. At this rate YouTube will only have content it wants you to see; this is how it starts.
comzilla 7y ago
I think a solution would be to let the video on the platform but display a huge yellow banner or something like Reddit's quarantine thing where it says "this video contains misinformation about Covid-19" or something more intrusive if you'd like. That way you're not necessarily compromising free speech
- lonelappde 7y ago
  How about modelling good behavior? Instead of opinionated name-calling "misinformation", simply add a comment with their claims about such and such authorities explanation of the situation. If you can trust people to believe your facts, why would you assume they trust your opinions?
poarneemn123 7y ago
Just because there is no evidence (yet) doesn't mean it is misinformation
briefcomment 7y ago
The interview is on London Real's FB page for anyone interested. https://www.facebook.com/londonreal/videos/206277527340570/?vh=e&d=n https://www.facebook.com/londonreal/videos/206277527340570/?...
basicplus2 7y ago
The answer is education.. we need free, comprehensive education for every person on the planet
- lonelappde 7y ago
  Cool. So, who writes the textbooks? The Indian government allegedly (can't find source except John Oliver's TV show, so take with grain of salt) published textbooks claiming that Caucasian people are undercooked toast and Africans are burnt toast, and is currently running an ethnicity cleansing campaign to eliminate Muslims.
okareaman 7y ago
This will only further fuel the conspiracy theories because of course the high tech companies suppress information critical of 5G
ornornor 7y ago
This makes me wonder if there will be “covid19 deniers” in the future just like there have been holocaust deniers ever since the war, claiming that it never happened and is a conspiracy. It’s really depressing these theories, anti vaccine, and anti science ideas are gaining so much momentum in recent years. And then the world governments pull something like they just did, saying masks don’t work when in fact they help... how can you ever convince anti science people to trust, well, science and governments when this happens?? I suspect this will become a bigger and bigger problem, with more and more people dying of illnesses we have vaccines for. Very sad.
- LyndsySimon 7y ago
  There already are “deniers”.

106 points by laumars 7y ago

Spreading misinformation is bad. However, maybe casting media into the memory hole risks creating glorified digital martyrs. I wish the WHO made more transparent arguments about the utility of masks. Their failure and apparent flip-flop gives the crazies low-hanging fruit and ethos.

lukifer 7y ago
We have a major "boy who cried wolf" problem with the media, and many of our truth-finding institutions. There've been enough instances in recent decades of arrogant incompetence and self-serving deception, that the public grows to distrust experts disproportionately in domains where it really matters: vaccines, epidemics, climate change.
- vkou 7y ago
  Do you hold lunatics and quacks to the same standards, or are they not considered part of the media... Despite having what are, essentially, television channels?
  - lukifer 7y ago
    "Quack" is in the eye of the beholder: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life_of_knowledge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Half-life_of_knowledge I don't mean to paint a false equivalence between the likes of Icke, and the first person to say "maybe bloodletting isn't helpful". But what does one do about collective/consensus quackery? Even if the consensus of experts is the more solid bet on average, the outliers are consequential, whether it's telling citizens not to wear masks, or invading Iraq for no good reason. > Despite having what are, essentially, television channels? Mu. The new media landscape doesn't map cleanly to the old. For better and for worse, cheap and asynchronous publishing puts us in uncharted territory relative to the "Blue Church" of 20th-century broadcast media: https://medium.com/deep-code/understanding-the-blue-church-e4781b2bd9b5 https://medium.com/deep-code/understanding-the-blue-church-e... (I do find it interesting that InfoWars is now incorporating their pariah status into their branding: they brag that they are the "Most Banned Network in the World". For those on the other side, a banning by the Social Media Giants can serve as an erroneous counter-signal that the bannee should be trusted. Cross-reference with the Streisand Effect, and Orwell's admonition that "journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed".)
- gridlockd 7y ago
  A healthy dose of distrust towards experts is necessary, because they're wrong all the time. What about the experts - including those at the CDC - that said COVID-19 was no worse than a flu? Are they no real experts, or are they just the wrong kind of expert? https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-lesser-threat-to-americans-than-flu-2020-1 https://www.businessinsider.com/wuhan-coronavirus-lesser-thr... "Trust the experts" is nothing but an argument from authority. You're likely going to trust whatever expert confirms what you already believe.
  - Retric 7y ago
    It’s important to separate individual experts from the general belief of experts as a group on some topic. However, this is a different problem where understanding context of experts is the issue. Back when 5 known cases of COVID-19 where in the US, the risk on that specific day was lower from the virus than the flu for the average American. “immediate health risk” However, understanding that risks change over time is critical to understanding what was being poorly communicated by that piece.
  - AJ007 7y ago
    This covid-19 debacle illustrated a big conflation with experts and authoritative bureaucracies. Researchers, scientists, and people on the ground in China, Taiwan, and South Korea issued early warnings well ahead of the WHO, CDC, and FDA flip flopping on transmit-ability, masks, and testing. Unfortunately the average person can’t tell the difference between a researched investigative journalism piece in the New York Times and an opinion column in the New York Times. Most people can’t tell the difference between the Washington Post and the Washington Times. Many people can’t tell the difference between the Chicago Tribune and a random website that stole the Chicago Tribune’s layout. All these differences matter an enormous amount. They don’t matter subtlety like missing the freeway exit and taking the next one. They matter like chopping your hand off instead of keeping it.
    - ksk 7y ago
      >Researchers, scientists, and people on the ground in China, Taiwan, and South Korea issued early warnings well ahead of the WHO, CDC, and FDA flip flopping on transmit-ability, masks, and testing. Do you have a rough timeline for 'well ahead'? From what I've read it was classified as zoonotic, because the staff in China who handled the initial cases weren't presenting, and the wet-market was the only causal link. That's when the WHO reported (mid/late Jan) that human-human transmission wasn't possible. >Unfortunately the average person can’t tell the difference between a researched investigative journalism piece in the New York Times and an opinion column in the New York Times. Most people can’t tell the difference between the Washington Post and the Washington Times. Many people can’t tell the difference between the Chicago Tribune and a random website that stole the Chicago Tribune’s layout. But its not just "average people", its most people, including HN folks. On any expert topic, when you have no hands-on expertise, you apply "common sense", or read some articles, and then you're back to square one. Most scientific fields are advanced to the point where common sense doesn't get you very far. Not only that, there are a lot of professional explainers who muddy the waters by repeating things without understanding the nuances. I think its fine to say whatever, as long as its fine for me to ask "OK, but what makes your opinion worth something".
- dntbnmpls 7y ago
  > We have a major "boy who cried wolf" problem with the media, and many of our truth-finding institutions. Media isn't a "truth-finding institution". Neither are global political organizations. What we have a problem with is people being brainwashed into believe that media/political organizations are "truth-finding institutions". > There've been enough instances in recent decades of arrogant incompetence and self-serving deception Because they are in the business of deception. And it's not decades. It's centuries. "Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle." "I will add, that the man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them; inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors." -- Thomas Jefferson
SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
That was only like #3 in bad/dumb things the WHO has done lately. I struggle to figure why anyone trusts an organization that is so in China’s pocket they’re happy to report it’s not human to human spreadable then fake a disconnect on a video interview just to try and avoid answering a question about Taiwan and then to double down by answering the question pretending Taiwan doesn’t exist and just substitute China in place (no, Taiwan is not an “area of China”). I don’t care about the opinion here. The WHO has lost almost all credibility to me. [Taiwan isn’t a country] https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HjpOqVgP36o https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HjpOqVgP36o [No human to human transmission, China says so] https://mobile.twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw https://mobile.twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152?re...
- orbifold 7y ago
  Anyone that ever had close contact to what the UN does, knows that it is a corrupt, inefficient and grossly incompetent organisation, filled with cousins of African strongmen and other connected people. Same goes for people working in NGOs cooperating with the UN, a common arrangement for example in Geneva is that while the partner works as an oil broker, the other writes position papers on women's rights and observes meetings that has half of the members of the subcommittee asleep.
jswny 7y ago
I believe they (and the CDC) are switching their stance on masks because they didn't want people wearing masks to have a false sense of security. Now, it's getting bad enough that the benefits of people wearing masks and not infecting others are starting to outweigh the downsides.

samizdis 7y ago

David Icke: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke Can't remember him when he was a footballer, but I wonder how many times he headed the ball ;-)

SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
Isn’t this basically an ad hominem attack? I don’t know the guy, but you’re attacking him and not his argument. Isn’t the rule here to take the strongest part of an argument and go off that? Edit: Downvoted on a site for pointing out the rules of the site. Maybes it’s just me, but since the Great Quarantine, some websites have been a little extra smug and “hide the wrong think” prone.
- SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
  Are we actually under obligation to listen to everything a crank says and then evaluate each statement? Once I find out someone believes in "reptoids", I don't see a lot of value in wasting my time with them, and it's exhausting to make that effort when they clearly aren't.
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
    No, I believe you have the option of not watching his content, not replying to it, and generally allowing others to be as wrong as they would like to be. Unless someone is forcing your to interact with him... are they? That isn’t the topic of an ad hominem however. Saying “he’s been kicked in the head too many times” is.
- driverdan 7y ago
  No. Icke has serious mental health issues and promotes ridiculous conspiracies like all government leaders are reptile aliens. I'm not making this up, this is what he actually believes and promotes.
  - SlowRobotAhead 7y ago

jstewartmobile 7y ago

When did David Icke try to pass a gun range in Kentucky off as Syria? https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/business/media/turkey-syria-kentucky-gun-range.html https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/business/media/turkey-syr...

lern_too_spel 7y ago
When did David Icke issue a correction?
- jstewartmobile 7y ago
  What does David Icke have to correct?
  - detaro 7y ago
    2 random examples that would be useful corrections from him: "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion aren't a legitimate historical document laying out a plan for world domination" "No world leaders are human/shapeshifting-alien hybrids"
    - jstewartmobile 7y ago
      In that case, "The Weekly World News" has a lot of corrections to issue.
      - lern_too_spel 7y ago
        So you've admitted that Icke and The Weekly World News are comparable and not like ABC News.
        jstewartmobile 7y ago
        I admit that I don't live in bizzaro world--where some crazy old man's conspiracy theories must be suppressed, while multi-billion-dollar corporations that deceive broadly, frequently, and incompetently are the "good guys." "But, BUT, we retracted!" After they were caught...

swiley 7y ago

Google: “it’s better to be illiterate than have the possibility to read something wrong.” I swear to god I thought the internet would be so different in 2020. Before (and even after) the ban there was a lot of good information on YouTube, a lot of it was from trained medical professionals and now it’s all going away and people will be left with gossip and guesses.

gre 7y ago
Could you please elaborate on what you mean by the YouTube information going away?
lonelappde 7y ago
What do you think "illiterate" means?

gridlockd 7y ago

I don't think this is helpful, it's quite possibly counter-productive. If you're prone to conspiracy thinking, you're going to link any current event to any alternative explanation, no matter how far fetched. If 5G wasn't in the news, it would be something else. Suppressing the signal only makes it stronger, because now you've "proven" that "the elite can't allow the secret information out". David Icke is preaching to the choir, he isn't converting anyone. Nobody who is otherwise capable of sound reasoning is going to watch him and go: "I might disagree with this person on whether Zionist Reptile Shapeshifters are controlling the world, but his analysis of the effects of 5G on human health and COVID-19 seem credible!" Conspiracy thinking is extremely common even among clinically sane people. The "cure" is not suppression, not derision, but letting people figure it out how their mind sometimes works against them. The biggest obstacle is the human ego.

Solvitieg 7y ago

What is the problem with believing 5G causes coronavirus? The people who believe it are misinformed, and so what? I understand why it's harmful to spread anti-vax memes, but 99% of "misinformation" is harmless. It's often difficult to separate theory and conspiracy from harmful information, a dubious concept.

jjjensen90 7y ago
Besides being bad on principle, misinformation in times of struggle can lead to irrational behavior, including misguided violence. For example, in this specific case: "5G-coronavirus conspiracy theory spurs rash of telecom tower arson fires" https://fortune.com/2020/04/06/5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-telecom-tower-fires/ https://fortune.com/2020/04/06/5g-coronavirus-conspiracy-the...
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
throwaway5752 7y ago
Nothing is wrong with it. But the belief is complete incorrect and Icke is clearly mentally unwell, and social platforms have a right to defend their communities from people like him. They should not have to indulge lunatics that reduce their brand value or community health. Icke has the right to believe what he wants, and speak/write about it freely. Youtube should be under no obligation to provide a platform for him on their private service, either.
- SlowRobotAhead 7y ago
  > Youtube should be under no obligation to provide a platform for him on their private service, either. And that’s TOTALLY FINE. But the issue surrounding the whole “should these monopolies be the free speech overlords?” Is that if they say this guy can’t be allowed speech, they should have to take responsibility for the speech they do allow. Publisher vs Platform.
  - mullingitover 7y ago

segmondy 7y ago

They need to be careful, such approach would have limited the info about covid-19. When I was watching the news, youtube videos in early Jan, it was coming from the "conspiracy theory" folks. Not mainstream media. Those folks were right.

dguaraglia 7y ago
They weren't right, they were just doing their usual shtick: weave panic narratives. The only reason they were 'right' because it so happens COVID-19 is actually pretty bad. But if you go and check their history of 'predictions' I bet everything in my savings account they've predicted a thousand 'tragedies' before and none of them came to pass. In other words: even a broken clock is right twice a day, that doesn't mean it's working.
- NullPrefix 7y ago
  If correct actions were taken right at the start it wouldn't have happened either. Crisis silently averted is a crisis wasted.
- rasz 7y ago
  They were 100% right. "Wuhan: Chinese Authorities Welding Apartment Doors Shut to Impose Quarantine" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXpHD9bjGe0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXpHD9bjGe0 "Wuhan: Disinfection Spray over Wuhan" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCY6OJskQRk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCY6OJskQRk 9 Feb 2020 was full conspiracy theory while mass media stood silent. Even today its not entirely common knowledge to what lengths China went at the end of January while WHO was spreading lies about no human to human transmission, no masks, and definitely no international border closing necessary.
- threr234234 7y ago
  ... and pray tell us what the 'heaven descended' Ministry of Truth was doing ? Oh that's right, they were claiming it was no big deal "it's just the flu... don't worry about it". This was the case even after witnessing China's troubles. Now the same people have the gall to go and complain about WHO. Hindsight 20/20.

yters 7y ago

To some degree, the media needs to treat its audience like grown ups who are capable of thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions. The more they try to handhold everyone, it will produce two effects: reduce audience ability to make informed decisions, and reduce audience trust in the media. Someone showed me the Icke lecture, and so we discussed what are easy ways we could falsify his claims. E.g. countries with high incidence of covid19 and no 5g. Especially when the conspiracy theory is so easily debunked the media should handle such cases more liberally. Think of it as inoculating the population against misinformation. I do tentatively agree there are some kinds of misinformation that should be suppressed, but any such thing should be very exceptional, and very well explained. Otherwise, the media will end up being the modern Catholic church and go the way of the reformation. The church has spent centuries undoing the mistakes it made handling Luther's and other's criticisms.

ceejayoz 7y ago
> the media needs to treat its audience like grown ups who are capable of thinking rationally and coming to reasonable conclusions Sure, right after we feed them some unicorn tears for breakfast.
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  The fact that it's not true is largely irrelevant. When the media pursues a strategy of manipulating the masses rather than reporting the truth, the masses notice and stop believing what the media has to say. In the modern age, the media only has power to the extent that people believe what it's saying.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    The problem extends far beyond "the media". Substantial numbers of people don't trust their own pediatricians on vaccinations. 40% of Americans think God created humans in their current form instead of evolution. Society has become hostile to facts, and sites like YouTube are all too often happy to serve up bullshit if it gets engagement.

whywhywhywhy 7y ago

Suppressing David Icke only makes this conspiracy stronger. Icke has close to zero credibility in the UK and well known to believe in lizard people and other such wacky theories. If you stop people knowing he is also talking about this then the only people left to talk about it are the regular normal seeming folks. Channels like this https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsAwM1EqcYXKeIEufJqwWjw/videos https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsAwM1EqcYXKeIEufJqwWjw/vid... thousands of views per video, seems like any normal bloke you'd chat to down the pub. So well done by silencing a known eccentric you just made the only voices in this conspiracy the normal everyday folks, if regular people searched this theory and Icke popped up they might have actually questioned it because they don't want to be associated with the lizard guy.

throwaway5752 7y ago
All you have to do is look at the antivax movement for a possible counterexample. Social media has allowed that movement to strengthen to the point where they are a global public health threat. Groups like this need the equivalent of email spam filters. Flagged and hidden by default, at best. They should be marginalized and stigmatized.
- jb775 7y ago
  So muzzle and suppress anyone who doesn't agree with your personal worldview?
  - anthonypasq 7y ago
    Wow, what a charitable and good faith response!
    - jb775 7y ago
      What does this comment even mean? In my comment, I was putting it bluntly what he/she was basically saying. I agree it sounds harsh, but that was my point. My point is that it's not acceptable or productive for a society to suppress someone else's right to be heard just because they are disagreed with.

mullingitover 7y ago

Good. This conspiracy theory idiocy about 5G is actively harmful to public infrastructure and it has to stop. My only complaint is that Icke wasn't demonetized over this. He should be banned from the platform entirely. He's actively harmful to society.

gridlockd 7y ago
I disagree completely. David Icke is responsible for the major conspiracy theory innovation that the Zionists controlling the world are actually shape-shifting Reptilians, effectively letting the Jews off the hook. That means a set of people who could've otherwise ended up in classic Nazi conspiracy circles end up in something closer to a science fiction fanclub. Yet another set of people who dipped their toes into conspiracy theories might actually start to question whether it's all bullshit, upon finding that the Pope is supposedly a lizard. The 5G thing on the other hand is something that a lot of people think is probably dangerous, whether they're conspiracy theorists or not. Of course conspiracy theorists picked it up, but if it wasn't 5G, it would be fluoride, or contrails, or literally anything else that might somehow be polluting water, ground or air.
- mullingitover 7y ago
  > The 5G thing on the other hand is something that a lot of people think is probably dangerous, whether they're conspiracy theorists or not. If you think 5G is dangerous, and that there's a conspiracy to harm the public through wanton disregard for public health, you are a conspiracy theorist, it's just a matter of degree.
  - gridlockd 7y ago
    Yes, but if you think 5G is dangerous, but don't think that there's a conspiracy to harm the public, then you are not a conspiracy theorist. I don't understand the point of your comment.
    - mullingitover 7y ago

bcheung 7y ago

We can't outsource our critical thinking to private companies. People need to develop the ability to think critically for themselves and not rely on appeals to authority. This can't happen if people become lazy and simply trust whatever media is out there. This also raises concerns for me around the question of freedom of speech and censorship. I fear we are centralizing too much power into a few private companies that effectively wield more power than the government and the people for whom it represents. I'd rather have freedom of speech even if it means tons of misinformation out there. If and when there is some information that is unpopular but critical for people to know, I don't want censorship to be the norm.

antisthenes 7y ago
> People need to develop the ability to think critically for themselves and not rely on appeals to authority. This can't happen if people become lazy and simply trust whatever media is out there. That's a nice normative statement, but that battle has been lost over a century ago with advent of cheap mass media that enshrined consumerism. Consumerism advocates that the optimal behavior isn't "what is optimal and fair here?" but "what do I want ?" It erodes critical thinking at grassroots levels. Not to mention that these days media companies have perverse incentives to generate outrage and polarizing viewpoints instead of just reporting the damn news
- nightski 7y ago
  Wow I disagree. If you look at the US as a whole, it is clear we are much better at critical thinking and even thinking in numbers than ever before. YES lots of people get things very wrong. But we are now throwing data, charts, statistics in front of the general population. People are seeking out data and trying to make decisions for themselves (even if they are not doing a great job yet, it's far better than before!). I know it is fun to be doom and gloom but the reality is our society is better than it was before. People are calling out the media and politicians on their BS faster than ever before.
  - bawolff 7y ago

bishalb 7y ago

All social media are strangely censoring anything that even remotely questions the official coronavirus story. I had shared this article on twitter some days ago and it's not even some weird conspiracy theory but twitter flagged it https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-the-coronavirus-panic/ https://off-guardian.org/2020/03/24/12-experts-questioning-t...

laumars 7y ago
Most platforms don’t really like censorship themselves because it effectiveness is limited, costs them money to implement and acknowledges liability for stuff contributed to their platform. However COVID-19 poses a unique challenge in that misinformation can have a death toll. At least other conspiracy theories and extremist content is either (relatively) harmless or requires the viewer to step far beyond the boundaries of common sense.
jswny 7y ago
Because this is not the time for conspiracy theories. People talking about the earth being flat doesn't really hurt anyone. People believing conspiracy theories about a global pandemic can be seriously dangerous.
- guscost 7y ago
  This is not the time for fascism, either.
  - jswny 7y ago
    We are talking about private companies right? This has nothing to do with the government.
    - guscost 7y ago
      It's just one (and hopefully the only) step in a very troubling direction. Several places in Europe are much further along, for example: https://www.thelocal.dk/20200313/denmark-passes-far-reaching-emergency-coronavirus-law https://www.thelocal.dk/20200313/denmark-passes-far-reaching... Apparently there's a newer law that makes posting crackpot theories illegal, but I can only find one source: https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=da&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fnewsvoice.se%2F2020%2F04%2Fdanmark-forbjuder-corona-policy%2F https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=&sl=da&tl=en&u=htt...

JungleGymSam 7y ago

YouTube needs to fail. This is ridiculous. You don't suppress information because it's a conspiracy theory. The progressive left is a cancer on society. Their message is piss poor so the only thing they can do is suppress speech. This guy is a nut job but ... there's just nothing else to say. The people running YouTube are idiots.

jb775 7y ago

Whenever conspiracy theory talk pops up, I notice 2 groups of people: 1) the conspiracy theorists 2.) the people calling the conspiracy theorists crazy lunatics....rarely anything in-between. Is there anyone out there that can scientifically debunk this guy's claims?

01100011 7y ago
5g isn't alien technology. It was developed over years by engineers and technicians. Did any of those folks show symptoms of 5g poisoning?
- jb775 7y ago
  I have no idea, do you know if those folks haven't shown symptoms of 5g poisoning? Probably something worthy of looking into since many people have concerns about 5g.
  - SketchySeaBeast 7y ago
    > Probably something worthy of looking into since many people have concerns about 5g. Take flat earthers. Because many people believe it we should investigate - so people post evidence that the earth is round, the flat earthers reject that evidence and make the flat earth claim again. So do we keep investigating? The same number of people still believe. How many times around that wheel do we go? Do you believe that no one has honestly looked into the health effects of 5g? What evidence do you think it'll take for someone who believes radio waves are causing these effects, even though scientists have pictures of the virus, to have their mind changed?
thu2111 7y ago
It's a variant of "wifi allergies". These sorts of things do crop up from time to time. In Switzerland there were people who claimed a mobile tower (or was it a new electricity mains cable) was causing them headaches and other illnesses. Only problem: the thing wasn't on when they reported complaints. That's the usual way this belief is debunked. Find people who say they can sense radio waves or are made sick by them. Wait until they complain they're sick. Show them the device was switched off. Job done. I'd love to know what it is about 5G specifically that's got these people so worked up. Maybe tower density? There are going to be just way more 5G towers than prior generations?

jv22222 7y ago

> Conspiracy theories linking 5G signals to the coronavirus pandemic continue to spread despite there being no evidence the mobile phone signals pose a health risk. > One falsely suggests 5G suppresses the immune system, the other falsely claims the virus is __somehow using the network's radio waves to communicate and pick victims, accelerating its spread.__ (__ emphasis mine) W T Actual F people! Facepalm. If it were true it might be one of the greatest discoveries of all time ;)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

atomashpolskiy 7y ago

> Now any content that disputes the existence or transmission of Covid-19, as described by the WHO [World Health Organization] and local health authorities is in violation of YouTube policies. > This includes conspiracy theories which claim that the symptoms are caused by 5G. Yeah, fair point. But it's a red herring. > For borderline content that could misinform users in harmful ways, we reduce recommendations. We'll continue to evaluate the impact of these videos on communities around the world. This one is KEY. Truth is, the majority of views comes from the Recommended, Trending and Next to Play. No one without a direct link will see your video, if it's nerfed by the algorithm. Checkmate. Corona is a very heated topic with many unknowns. Deciding what can and can not be labeled as misinformation is thus very tricky even for an expert, because there is a very fine line between misinformation and speculation (which is different in the sense that it's done in good faith and thus perfectly fine). Who's going to make these decisions? A private corp with zero transparency? We sorely need very clear distinction (maybe even legal - e.g. a framework for Terms of Service) between media and medium. With the former being free to set arbitrary rules, push agendas, ban otherwise harmless content, fuck with content promotion in whatever ways they want, etc. And the latter providing just the infrastructure and technical means to publish content with minimal governance. Status of being either of these must be granted upfront and then prohibited to change. Otherwise every "social media" platform will eventually mutate into a weaponized propaganda machine, promoting the interests of its stakeholders and greater powers-that-be and suppressing any dissenting opinion. This temptation is evidently impossible to resist.

guscost 7y ago
If you weren't already convinced that YouTube is a publisher rather than a platform, this latest episode should make it obvious.
- atomashpolskiy 7y ago
  Absolutely. My point is that this won't change unless we as a society explicitly regulate/prohibit such behavior.

newsdig 7y ago

latest updated figures of coronavirus on https://coronaworld.info https://coronaworld.info

senectus1 7y ago

oh man... David Ike. If you ever wanted a trip through la la land go visit his website's forums.... Its a not so coherent and less nasty version of 4Chan where everyone is off the hinge. some more than others.

aaron695 7y ago

How about we remove all the videos claiming people shouldn't be wearing masks? Or is actually saving lives to much bother and it's more fun attacking people who believe in reptilians?

lonelappde 7y ago
Are those getting as many views?

dreamlayers 7y ago

If some speech is suppressed everywhere, how can one know that it's false?

whoisjohnkid 7y ago

Don’t like the direction YouTube and other social media companies are headed. This is pretty much censorship of free speech. I understand that he may be spewing garbage, but sheesh. At this rate YouTube will only have content it wants you to see; this is how it starts.

comzilla 7y ago

I think a solution would be to let the video on the platform but display a huge yellow banner or something like Reddit's quarantine thing where it says "this video contains misinformation about Covid-19" or something more intrusive if you'd like. That way you're not necessarily compromising free speech

lonelappde 7y ago
How about modelling good behavior? Instead of opinionated name-calling "misinformation", simply add a comment with their claims about such and such authorities explanation of the situation. If you can trust people to believe your facts, why would you assume they trust your opinions?

poarneemn123 7y ago

Just because there is no evidence (yet) doesn't mean it is misinformation

briefcomment 7y ago

The interview is on London Real's FB page for anyone interested. https://www.facebook.com/londonreal/videos/206277527340570/?vh=e&d=n https://www.facebook.com/londonreal/videos/206277527340570/?...

basicplus2 7y ago

The answer is education.. we need free, comprehensive education for every person on the planet

lonelappde 7y ago
Cool. So, who writes the textbooks? The Indian government allegedly (can't find source except John Oliver's TV show, so take with grain of salt) published textbooks claiming that Caucasian people are undercooked toast and Africans are burnt toast, and is currently running an ethnicity cleansing campaign to eliminate Muslims.

okareaman 7y ago

This will only further fuel the conspiracy theories because of course the high tech companies suppress information critical of 5G

ornornor 7y ago

This makes me wonder if there will be “covid19 deniers” in the future just like there have been holocaust deniers ever since the war, claiming that it never happened and is a conspiracy. It’s really depressing these theories, anti vaccine, and anti science ideas are gaining so much momentum in recent years. And then the world governments pull something like they just did, saying masks don’t work when in fact they help... how can you ever convince anti science people to trust, well, science and governments when this happens?? I suspect this will become a bigger and bigger problem, with more and more people dying of illnesses we have vaccines for. Very sad.

LyndsySimon 7y ago
There already are “deniers”.