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YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice

• topoftheforts 6y ago
  Is this the beginning of the end for YouTube? As someone who deeply hates how much fake news have been spreading in the past few years, I still find this very worrying, especially since the WHO has been very inconsistent with their messaging during this pandemic [1] and sometimes plain wrong [2]. [1] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who/who-chief-says-widespread-travel-bans-not-needed-to-beat-china-virus-idUSKBN1ZX1H3 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who/who-chie... [2] https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152
  • kongolongo 6y ago
    To be fair no major health organization has been completely consistent or completely "correct" regarding the pandemic, in fact its virtually impossible to do so as the situation develops and our understanding of the situation changes. The recent change to CDC guidelines for the general public to wear face masks is an example of reaction to new research. That's not to say there isn't outright incorrect fake news, but in hindsight some guidelines will always seem more correct than others.
    • mellow2020 6y ago
      https://twitter.com/wilfredchan/status/1243887606569590784?s=20 https://twitter.com/wilfredchan/status/1243887606569590784?s... Fine, things like this "happen". That is, incredibly cowardly and dishonest persons can play roles in otherwise not completely cowardly and dishonest organizations. However, where is the criticism? Does this guy still have a job at the WHO, what would you guess? People who look the other way with something like this have nothing to tell me, ever, just like someone who murders people doesn't get to tell me to not use swear words. Anyone who claims to be concerned about outcome and public safety, and wants to cooperation of people who pay attention and are not blackmailable -- I dare say, the kind of people whose support you want, not the "majority", but the ones with principles and determination, who will stick with things as long as the things demand it, not as long as they are cozy -- should get the WHO as far away from this as soon as possible. That shouldn't even need saying, but now that it's been said a lot, failure to even acknowledge the issue simply means some people do not care about outcome, they care about agenda and the prepared networks to push it, and others just blindly fall in line.
    • gowld 6y ago
      Right now, today, while half the world is lockdown in their own homes, WHO is still advocating for unrestricted international travel. https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/travel-advice https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2... Telling people to not fly across the world is bannable misinormation acording to Wojcicki's definition. Of course, it wouldn't be banned, because the actual rule is a much more subjective "whatever makes YT look bad to advertisers and PR"
      • jonny_eh 6y ago
        A big hinderance to containing the Ebola epidemic in West Africa in 2014 was all the cancelled flights, since it prevented medical experts from getting to the impacted areas. While it seems counter-intuitive at first, travel bans do little to stop the spread (especially after it's reached other countries), but they do limit our ability to fight the pandemic. http://www.flanderstoday.eu/politics/white-house-praises-brussels-airlines-flying-ebola-hit-countries http://www.flanderstoday.eu/politics/white-house-praises-bru... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ttpHvK6yw https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9ttpHvK6yw
        • camelite 6y ago
          Well this isn't the ebola epidemic of 2014 now is it? Rules that apply to countries with extremely deficient medical systs don't apply to the richest country in the world.
          • jonny_eh 6y ago
            Where do you think most of our medical supplies come from?
    • orangecat 6y ago
      To be fair no major health organization has been completely consistent or completely "correct" regarding the pandemic Exactly, which is why declaring that any one entity is the unquestionable source of truth not only shreds the concept of freedom of expression but may be actively harmful. The recent change to CDC guidelines for the general public to wear face masks is an example of reaction to new research. Was it actually in response to new research? (Not a rhetorical question). My impression is that they had to change their policy because their "noble lie" of "masks don't work, also we have to save them for healthcare workers" was increasingly recognized as utter nonsense. Which might not have happened if anyone who advocated masks had been summarily deplatformed.
      • kongolongo 6y ago
        Responding to new research is one of reasons they list on their site for the face new mask guidelines. It was shown that asymptomatic people can also transmit the virus, so the CDC is recommending everyone, not just high risk people, wear face masks to limit the spread in areas where social distancing is difficult. "In light of this new evidence, CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission." [1] [1] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/cloth-face-cover.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-si...
    • CodeWriter23 6y ago
      Right. So what makes the WHO the unquestionable authority then?
  • rrmm 6y ago
    I find it worrying as well. However, I enjoy dabbling in the crazy side of youtube now and again, and there is absolutely content out there that will harm people, and there seems to be an audience for it. It seems like one of those lamentable 'this is why we can't have nice things' stories. The line youtube is drawing seems like the wrong line. Youtube has a storied history of making dumb choices and an inscrutable system to appeal their arbitrary decisions. I'm pretty confident they will continue to mess it up. I would like to be a free speech maximalist; it's easier since there are no tough choices to make. Unfortunately there has always been speech that is not protected (incitement/yelling fire) and we are left with the difficult task of delineating which side of the line some speech falls. In the end that means we must always be ready to fight to keep our freedom of speech.
  • notafraudster 6y ago
    My sense is that the denotation of the rule ("no contradicting the WHO") and the obvious connotation of the rule ("no cranks claiming Corona is a lie that you can cure by drinking bleach") differ. My guess would be the intent and general enforcement of the rule will not be designed to preclude criticism of the form "The WHO is politically hobbled by needing Chinese cooperation, leading to awkward situations like the Taiwan exchange" or "The WHO was slow to adjust mask guidance in response to increasing on-the-ground evidence of asymptomatic transmission" or "The one study about surface life of Coronavirus is based on very limited research design parameters and the in-air survival number seems totally indefensible", or even an Ioaniddis-style "We're vastly overestimating the threat here" objection motivated by "good science" concerns. I wouldn't preclude, like every stupid automated Google system, that legitimate content would be removed. But I think the intent is not to remove scientifically-oriented criticism or guidance or expert debate or context. I think it's meant to remove cranks. I understand that denotation is important, just as it is when parsing say privacy policies or AUP documents or whatever -- and if people have criticism then YouTube should refine the language here. But we shouldn't blind ourselves to the fact that reality is primarily connotative. I have zero objection to major providers collectively deciding they don't want to do business with Del Bigtree. Others might. Regardless of where you end up on that, I think we can agree that the debate here is about Del Bigtree, not about epidemiologists disagreeing.
  • knzhou 6y ago
    > [2] https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have a bunch of statements saying that nations should get prepared, one saying that specific studies haven’t yet found hard evidence for person-to-person transmission (because at that point most of the cases they’d managed to find were tied to the market). The WHO never, ever said that it can’t be transmitted, and they absolutely never said that people should do nothing about COVID-19. They were urging nations to act for months before they actually did.
    • BickNowstrom 6y ago
      > Wojcicki: "So people saying, ‘Take vitamin C, take turmeric, we’ll cure you,’ those are the examples of things that would be a violation of our policy > Who: Fact. There is no scientific evidence that lemon/turmeric prevents COVID-19. In general, however, WHO recommends consuming adequate fruit and vegetables as part of a healthy diet. > Potential Youtuber early January: There is news going around of a new SARS-like pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan on Chinese Social Media. SARS was very contagious, so if this is SARS we should be very worried of a pandemic, especially with our interconnected world. > WHO: Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus > WHO: Not a pandemic > WHO: China is transparent and setting new standard for outbreak control > WHO: Advice members not to ban travel from China
• pnako 6y ago
  TheirTube
• cwhiz 6y ago
  Does that include recognizing Taiwan?
  • mraudiobook_com 6y ago
    Yes.
• bsaul 6y ago
  "Mrs Wojcicki added YouTube had seen a 75% increase in demand for news from "authoritative" sources." Who ??? who in its right mind is watching youtube for an "authoritative" source ??
  • marcoperaza 6y ago
    Maybe I'm imagining it, but I've noticed that it's difficult to find user-generated current-events content on Youtube. The search results are dominated, artificially it feels, by clips from the major broadcasters and news agencies. User-created content is pushed down. I guess that's what preferring "authoritative" sources looks like, and I wonder if people are just "choosing" ("demanding") what the search results have been rigged to give them.
    • rodiger 6y ago
      Or if those are initially organically selected and then pushed further by the algorithm. Likely a combination of real preference + manufactured
      • marcoperaza 6y ago
        I should have added that it's definitely very different from how it was four years ago.
  • v0tary 6y ago
    Me. All of my Canadian news broadcasters stream on YouTube and cover covid related news both live and recorded content. I use YouTube because I will not pay for cable service just to watch the news. I can see why they want to remove bad content, but a single authority is very bad.
• Y-Bopinator 6y ago
  Y̶o̶u̶t̶u̶b̶e̶ China Fixed it
• viridian 6y ago
  The fact that they are backing WHO here as a means of curation and censorship instead of a less political org like the CDC, is pretty concerning. We already know WHO has stated objective falsehoods multiple times that impact the health of the world negatively.
  • barryrandall 6y ago
    Citations please?
    • viridian 6y ago
      please see the top comment in this thread, or the fourth top comment in this thread. I'm not sure why I was downvoted for making the same point as the top comments.
• krapp 6y ago
  The actual title of the article is "Coronavirus: YouTube bans 'medically unsubstantiated' content." While the article does state that content that contradicts WHO advice would violate this policy, the implication behind the current title, that the policy is exclusively focused on the WHO, is incorrect.
• aaron695 6y ago
  “Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy.” ----------------------------------------- "WHO continues to advise against the application of travel or trade restrictions to countries experiencing COVID-19 outbreaks." https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/updated-who-recommendations-for-international-traffic-in-relation-to-covid-19-outbreak https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/updated-who-re...
• rapind 6y ago
  Fake news can't be solved with bans, only through education. Education is a long term investment though and everyone wants immediate fixes. Expect more of this nonsensical short term thinking.
  • subhobroto 6y ago
    > Fake news can't be solved with bans, only through education. Education is a long term investment though and everyone wants immediate fixes. Upvoted! I wish yours was the top rated comment and more thought like you. Instaed we have views like this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22956485 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22956485 Very concerning. As I wrote here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22956536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22956536 To a regular random person, Youtube is synonymous with video content. Youtube is the news. Perhaps one solution for Youtube would be to demonetize and label such content as "unsafe" or don't sue me bro mode". Anyone who's a minor doesnt get to see this "unsafe" content. Anyone who watches the content with "unsafe" mode on, sees the content. Give customers the choice to choose and make up their own minds. Removing content with the authority of being the primary video content platform? They don't get away so easy. With power comes responsibility. They have to handle this another way and this, is not it.
  • hackeryogi 6y ago
    With all my heart, I agree with you; but I wished I shared some of your enthusiasm. I've been brought up with the saying, 'The sole purpose of education is to help a person think sensibly in difficult times'. However, I've not come across any _major_ shift in education systems worldwide. Yes, there are heartening stories about a few charter school systems [1] and a few countries making strides (like Finland). But these are one off success stories. I do hope that technology companies make a step towards solving this. But our startup culture, unfortunately, also is laced with trying to 'show growth' all the time and that leads us to think short term too. Perhaps something like the LTSE may help private players take long term bets (fingers crossed). Also, even the history of education is ripe with missteps [2], mind you :) not unlike the decision by YouTube here (as someone said, The road to hell is paved with good intentions) Don't get me wrong, I want to be as optimistic as you are :) [1] https://www.wikiwand.com/en/KIPP https://www.wikiwand.com/en/KIPP (I think I came across this while reading Outliers by Gladwell) [2] http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/AHistory.html
• X0nic 6y ago
  I guess that means they will have to ban all content mentioning Taiwan?
• jjice 6y ago
  Things like this are tricky to me. YouTube is a private platform, so they can make their own decisions, but any sort of censorship is scary to me. I honestly don't know where to stand when it comes to issues related to censoring content like this. On one hand, you can limit information we know is false, but restricting spread of information is censoring people, something that is pretty widely regarded as oppressive. I guess all I can do is wait and see what comes of this.
  • mraudiobook_com 6y ago
    You shouldn't use the USD, HN, Reddit, Google or Amazon if you are trying to avoid censorship.
  • krapp 6y ago
    >On one hand, you can limit information we know is false, but restricting spread of information is censoring people, something that is pretty widely regarded as oppressive. Yes. But liars, cranks and con artists should be oppressed.
    • knowmad 6y ago
      Who decides who the liars, cranks and con artists are?
      • krapp 6y ago
        Yeah, no... I'm not jumping down that rabbithole of thought-terminating cliches. HN is already replete with countless tiresome retreads of the same slippery slope arguments around freedom of speech, censorship, social media policies, whether truth even exists, Voltaire quotes and Orwell references. Feel free to browse if that's what you're looking for, they all devolve into the same unproductive quagmire.
        • subhobroto 6y ago
          An echo chamber sure feels good. This is what I know - SARS-COV2 is novel and not even highly trained, world renowned infectious diseases experts know how it behaves and how to treat it. I don't, for a second, believe Youtube has figured that one out. Now whether you have decided to reject all competing hypothesis to something you have already decided to be the truth so you can move on with your life and be productive in areas you find valuable - that's your call but if I see you foisting your opinions on what kind of content I get to see, that's you infringing on my freedom and we have a problem.
• tinus_hn 6y ago
  Nice to see they have hired thousands of the top scientists to judge this. Unless this is just another rule that’ll be at best enforced poorly.
• ratacat 6y ago
  I don't like this. All of the question of 'Why on earth choose WHO' aside...it is dangerous and depressing precident. I live with a number of ladies who are very familiar with plant medicine. When this whole thing started we all started taking lots of dandelion root / hawthorne tincture. Dandelion is well known to both help your lymphatic system and support respiratory issues. Hawthorne is an amazing heart / circulatory support. There is literary NO RISK for us in applying these home grown medicines. We've all been infected since then, and each of us had pretty mild symptoms, that lasted for relatively short amounts of time. About two to three weeks. Many many people see 30-40 days of symptoms. It cost us nothing. The medicine was prepared at home. Who knows what using these plant medicines across a population would result in statistically? Maybe it would reduce hospitalizations by 1%, or maybe it would reduce them by 75%, we don't know because there's no money to be made in it. YouTube is a fantastic avenue for period to share their own experiences. Yes, you must take what people say with a grain of salt. You can't just believe anything you see. I feel sad that they are censoring people from sharing their own experiences in this time where are governments and medical systems are largely failing us.
  • subhobroto 6y ago
    > I feel sad that they are censoring people from sharing their own experiences in this time where are governments and medical systems are largely failing us. Upvoted. I don't feel sad, I feel outraged! https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22956536 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22956536 To a regular random person, Youtube is synonymous with video content. Youtube is the news. Perhaps one solution for Youtube would be to demonetize and label such content as "unsafe" or don't sue me bro mode". Anyone who's a minor doesnt get to see this "unsafe" content. Anyone who watches the content with "unsafe" mode on, sees the content. Give customers the choice to choose and make up their own minds. Removing content with the authority of being the primary video content platform? They don't get away so easy. With power comes responsibility. They have to handle this another way and this, is not it.
  • mc32 6y ago
    Right in the beginning even the WHO knew little about Covid19 and transmissibility, mortality , etc., so anyone questioning their initial assertions would have been banned. That’s bad. The WHO is not an infallible know-it-all. This is bogus.
• subhobroto 6y ago
  The road to hell is paved with good intentions. WHO is a political organization with medical leanings just like Fox News is an entertainment channel that covers newslike topics. Yes, there's a lot of information out there about SARS-COV2 and COVID-19 infections out there that are downright misleading at best and life threatening at worst. No, censoring that content including videos is NOT the role of a hosting platform. We already have examples of central authorities pushing "information" that they agree with and supressing information they believe is "incorrect" - as a freeish country, we should absolutely not encourage this behavior. The argument can be made that Youtube is a private company and free to do as they please. I personally dont agree with that argument - to a regular random person, Youtube is synonymous with video content. Youtube is the news. Perhaps one solution for Youtube would be to demonetize and label such content as "unsafe" aka "don't sue me bro mode". Anyone who's a minor doesnt get to see this "unsafe" content. Anyone who watches the content with "unsafe" mode on, sees the content. Give customers the choice to choose and make up their own minds. Removing content with the authority of being the primary video content platform? They don't get away so easy. With power comes responsibility. They have to handle this another way and this, is not it.
  • cambalache 6y ago
    > The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Agree, youtube has to be very careful there. > WHO is a political organization with medical leanings just like Fox News is an entertainment channel that covers newslike topics. Hell no! The fact you even consider them in the same sentence is astounding. No point in continue reading .
    • GhettoMaestro 6y ago
      > Hell no! The fact you even consider them in the same sentence is astounding. No point in continue reading . NPC programming successful. Unauthorized content tail-dropped.
    • subhobroto 6y ago
      Thank you for taking the time to not only read my thoughts but responding to them with your own. > Hell no! The fact you even consider them in the same sentence is astounding Which one do you disagree with: 1. WHO is a political organization with medical leaning 2. Fox News is an entertainment channel that covers newslike topics.
• throwaway2048 6y ago
  A lot of knee jerk responses in this thread. Can anyone elaborate why exactly allowing demonstrably harmful and malicious lies during a major health emergency is a good thing on its own merits?
  • brink 6y ago
    Because the official narrative is not always the truth. And censorship breeds tyranny.
    • throwaway2048 6y ago
      So again, this is an argument for allowing specific, identifiably harmful and wrong claims?
      • brink 6y ago
        I understand the motivation. And it may even appear to be beneficial at first, but censorship is a slippery slope.
        • throwaway2048 6y ago
          So in other words you don't have an argument for not blocking specific instances of harmful content.
  • alvarelle 6y ago
    > Can anyone elaborate why exactly allowing demonstrably harmful and malicious lies [...] "Contradicting WHO" is not the same as "demonstrably harmful and malicious lies"
• jonnydubowsky 6y ago
  Does anyone have any links that outline the moderation protocols used to implement this type of thing? I have read about some videos where they talk about using code words to circumvent being flagged. How much of this is human moderated?
• mrwesleycrusher 6y ago
  Remember when the WHO didn't recognize Taiwan as a sevreign nation? Obviously the WHO isn't solely objective.
  • pmiller2 6y ago
    This has what to do with their medical and public health recommendations?
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • deelowe 6y ago
      Taiwan data was being counted with China's. This means that many of the early safeguards Taiwan was taking to protect their country was overlooked as it's effectiveness didn't show up in the global trends reported by the WHO. In fact, when specifically questioned by the press on how Taiwan was so successful at containment and preventing the spread, the WHO leadership acted like they had never heard the term Taiwan before. For reference, Taiwan's handling of the pandemic has been nothing short of amazing. Source: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/taiwan/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/taiwan/
      • pmiller2 6y ago
        So has Newfoundland's response to the pandemic been extremely effective [0]. Where is Newfoundland's data being published by the WHO site? Here is what I was able to find as far as case statistics: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/20200422-sitrep-93-covid-19.pdf?sfvrsn=35cf80d7_4 https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situati... No mention of Newfoundland in that document that I can find. --- [0]: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/covid19-newfoundland-labrador-update-april-23-1.5542270 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/covid19...
      • xster 6y ago
        Is that quantifiably true? There are the same number of deaths in Shanghai and Beijing as Taiwan and the population is about the same size while Shanghai and Beijing have much less "travel restriction" from Taiwan. Why should the WHO, an agency of the UN, make an extremely aggressive political and undemocratic move and special case Taiwan when only 14 of the 193 members of the UN have diplomatic relations with Taiwan and when it performed average vis a vis other Chinese provinces.
• carapace 6y ago
  The first time I got a color printer/scanner the first thing I did was slap a $5 bill on there to see if it would print a color copy. What do you think happened? I'll give you a hint: "EURion constellation". Anyway, my point is, "It's all fun and games until somebody loses an eye." When it comes to pandemics or currency control our systems have no problem toeing the hard line. Has nothing to do with whether you like it or not, government's gonna govern. Make FAANG the new government and they're gonna govern.
  • seph-reed 6y ago
    I'd never heard of "EURion constellation". The little video on this page has a nice explanation: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/counterfeit-money-eurion-constellation_n_576a3aa8e4b0c0252e77b6c4 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/counterfeit-money-eurion-cons...
• elicash 6y ago
  I was defending Facebook for removing anti-quarantine events. There's a difference between mere opinions versus actions that directly risk the public health of non-participants and I think Facebook is nailing it. However, Google has gotten it wrong: 1. As others have said, WHO has not earned this trust to date and is also a political organization, not one that is independent. 2. There were other options available, such as demonetization. Stopping people from profiting over putting out information that could hurt people seems more legit to me. They also could have used disclaimers, like the article mentions Facebook is doing for similar content. 3. Another option available to them? Limit the promotion of these videos through recommendations. I get why Google wouldn't want to actively be promoting videos that give terrible misinformation, so they can decide not to promote while still allowing the video to be posted. This is their normal policy for content that is considered "harmful misinformation." (Which was strengthened last year.) Why not use existing policy? Edit: One example Google could give of precedent is that they removed videos of people encouraging and participating in the Tide Pod Challenge: https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/17/16902990/youtube-tide-pod-challenge-video-take-down-community-guidelines-removal https://www.theverge.com/2018/1/17/16902990/youtube-tide-pod... However, I'd actually be fine with them removing video of people drinking bleach to combat coronavirus. And maybe even just encouraging others to do so. But taking vitamin C? (An actual example in the article.)
  • saalweachter 6y ago
    Vitamin C is like, classic nonsense. People only take it seriously because it's been around forever, like homeopathy and acupuncture, not because there's any good evidence for it doing anything useful, beyond, you know, preventing scurvy.
    • elicash 6y ago
      I'm just saying it's not bleach. But I didn't know that, interesting.
• JordanFarmer 6y ago
  Just look back through the years where the WHO has posted information and data that has been false. There were scientists and doctors who disagreed, those doctors were correct. So YouTube wouldn't allow correct information in this scenario for Covid 19?
  • colmvp 6y ago
    In Canada for months we followed WHO's directions to a tee and ended up rapid growth of infections until we did a 180 and implemented nearly every measure that the WHO disagreed with. Taiwan is one of the few countries to have very few cases, and they essentially did a lot of measures the WHO did not recommend initially.
    • Someone1234 6y ago
      This is incredibly vague. WHAT measures did the WHO "disagree" with that saved Canada? I'd love to see this post cited up to include what measuring you're referring to in both parts (agree w/WHO and disagree) and where the WHO disagreed with Canada's measures.
      • darepublic 6y ago
        I think he saying that Canada followed WHO advice to their detriment whereas Taiwan strayed from WHO advice with success. I don't know about any specific examples but the efficacy of masks is one I've heard about -- essentially the WHO discouraged use of masks whereas now the common wisdom seems to be that even makeshift masks when widely used are a lot better than none.
      • benjohnson 6y ago
        The WHO advised against the public wearing masks and advised against travel restrictions. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/all-uk-hospital-staff-and-patients-should-wear-masks-says-doctors-group https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/01/all-uk-hospita... https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/updated-who-recommendations-for-international-traffic-in-relation-to-covid-19-outbreak https://www.who.int/news-room/articles-detail/updated-who-re... As I understand it - many Canadians of Asian decent in Vancouver BC wore masks early on. https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/3078875/coronavirus-british-columbia-winning-covid-19-fight https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article... EDIT: As of 3/30 WHO still doesn't recommend wearing masks (except for the obviously sick) - contrary to Vancouver BC who now require at least a covering or mask. https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-r...
• calebm 6y ago
  Who watches the watchers?
  • stOneskull 6y ago
    David Icke :P
• staticautomatic 6y ago
  What's most interesting about watching platforms target "mis"-information is the question/problem of whether and how they define it. For example, Facebook refers to "fake news" as "false news"; if you search their domains for "false news is", you'll get around 6,500 results, none of which include an actual definition of what "false news" is. Setting aside the obviously problematic policy issues associated with this, it suggests that FB either doesn't have a definition or has one but has chosen not to publish it. Loosely, I think you could categorize information on a grid (allowing for overlap), where the columns are "information", "wrong information", and "non-information"; the rows are "deliberate" and "inadvertent". "Dis"-information would fall under "deliberate" and "wrong", whereas "mis"-information is "wrong" but may be "inadvertent" (someone posting something they don't know is incorrect, for example). OTOH you can have "deliberate" "non-information" in the form of "obscurantism" or "inadvertent" "non-information" in the form of "bullshit". And of course you can have all kinds of stuff in between. Then again, most platform policies ultimately boil down to whether or not a statement is likely to cause to some kind of real harm. If that's the case then I'm not sure why you need to formally identify it as "misinformation" at all. If at the end of the gay you're going to say "We removed this because it violated our policy against posts that may cause actual harm to others", then calling it out as belonging to any particular category of impermissible content is just a perfunctory nod to transparency in your policy enforcement. If anyone here has a policy issue they're seeking advice on please feel free to reach out. I love this stuff.
• hartator 6y ago
  Not even mentioning they are playing a dangerous censorhip game, it's very weird that they pick the WHO over the CDC after all the WHO controversies. (Taiwan, slow COVID-19 response, alignment with China lines, head of WHO was part of the corrupt Ethiopian government, $200M in business class travel, and probably more scandals.) CDC has also a way bigger budget than the WHO. $11.1B vs $4.2B. Ref: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Health_Organization - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_and_Prevention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centers_for_Disease_Control_an...
  • dijit 6y ago
    The majority of WHO controversies are made up, the WHO are not a political entity so they do not want to comment at all on political issues; and whatever you want to say about Taiwan it is a very heated political situation. That's also the evidence of "alignment with china": because we in the west see a failure to recognise taiwan as siding with china. Which is odd because the USA doesn't officially recognise Taiwan itself. In fact the WHO did almost exactly what a US diplomat would have done- albeit a bit delayed. Corruption not withstanding (yeah, it's unfortunate but that thing is going to happen, what matters is the response not that it happened) it's better to have a bipartisan global concerted effort to manage these things than the centralised health organisation of a single country. Even though that country is the homestead of the service in question.
    • gnusty_gnurc 6y ago
      > The majority of WHO controversies are made up, the WHO are not a political entity so they do not want to comment at all on political issues; and whatever you want to say about Taiwan it is a very heated political situation. They make overt political statements all the time. For one: calling Taiwan racist when it took issue with the WHO’s inaction after their attempts to disseminate health information. Then Tedros calling travel bans “stigmatic.” Precisely when travel bans were needed at the onset of the spreading. If WHO is supposed to be apolitical, it shouldn’t be parroting Chinese talking points.
• umvi 6y ago
  Free speech (well, most freedoms, really) will die the day we decide "saving lives" is worth _any_ cost. Heck, we already decided trashing the economy is worth "saving lives" (how many?), I imagine some people would be overjoyed to remove the 1st amendment in order to lower disease spread, lower the suicide rate of those vulnerable to hate speech, etc. And why stop there? Remove 2nd amendment and you can save even more lives! Too much freedom just seems to lead to people dying, because people make bad choices that affect others.
  • ff10 6y ago
    You’re on a slippery slope and don’t consider that this is an exceptional situation. The danger of losing civil liberties comes when the exception becomes the rule. AFAIK, no amendments have been violated since YouTube is a private entity. They can editorialize what they, how they want. It’s is their liberty to make a choice here, the same as your liberty to not support that choice.
    • umvi 6y ago
      > and don’t consider that this is an exceptional situation exceptional situations are ripe for exploitation by corporations and governments and political parties. And indeed we've seen all of these try (and succeed) in taking advantage of the situation... "Never let a good crisis go to waste" -- Winston Churchill
    • nyczomg 6y ago
      A reasonable point. But I am worried about the day that those who seek more power are able to convince people that we are in a sustained exceptional situation that is not really all that exceptional. And with private entities doing their bidding to clamp down on dissenting voices, that could become even more possible. I don't think we are there yet, but we should be wary of that possibility.
    • HarryHirsch 6y ago
      since YouTube is a private entity That's a slippery slope right there, a very dangerous one. In the US, spaces where one engages in political activities have moved from public (town square in front of City Hall) to private (the mall plus parking lot). That's a problem. The other thing is monopolies. In the past, when you were on the fringes of the spectrum you'd publish with your fringe publisher and could at least get your message out. Nowadays Youtube suppresses the neonazis. That's nice and good, as long as it's nazis, but what if they don't like what you have to say? Big publishers and government have a symbiotic relationship, and there is always a sprachregelung.
• root_axis 6y ago
  Nothing of value was lost. It doesn't matter if you hold WHO in poor regard; pay for your own hosting if you want to publish content that YouTube doesn't want to host. I'll never understand the twisted mental gymnastics that lead people to believe they should be entitled to free HD video hosting from a private corporation.
• malcolmgreaves 6y ago
  This is great -- amplifying lies that kill people is ridiculous. And out of crisis, amplifying lies is unethical, period. It's not censorship if you can prove it's bullshit. People have a right to express themselves, but we also have a right to not accept lies as truth.
  • hirundo 6y ago
    > It's not censorship if you can prove it's bullshit. If you think that you can prove any of the assertions at issue here one way or another, you are illustrating the problem. For instance whether masks are worthwhile PPE is a highly complex issue and no definitive proof is available as to the correct policy across a wide variety of contexts. Yet YouTube is saying, if WHO claims it, nobody can refute that claim on their platform. The same goes for the WHO's claims that eating seed oils and avoiding saturated fats is better for immunological health. This is a very controversial issue, and to simply rule out any contradiction on it can cause a lot of suffering if the WHO is wrong. Whether this is censorship or not it makes YouTube a less valuable forum, and tends to protect official dicta from authorities as fallible as anyone else.
• paypalcust83 6y ago
  Nuance is required. There's two sub-category ends of contradictory content spectrum: baseless/wrong/speculative (worthless) and scientific inquiry (worthwhile). Hopefully algorithms won't automatically ban people like Dr. Kyle-Sidell for questioning COVID treatment protocols. OTOH, allowing snake oil salesman junk content like from Alex Jones harms the public good.
  • 0xy 6y ago
    The Streisand effect ensures the censorship you champion will be amplified and emboldened.
• TheUndead96 6y ago
  Even without endorsing any conspiracy theories, I don't think the WHO has proven themselves to a faultless institution.
• logifail 6y ago
  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 kids to ask good questions, then I see what's happening out there in the world, and I wonder when the grown-ups are going to start asking good questions... [0] https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/when-and-how-to-use-masks https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2...
  • hrayr 6y ago
    I don't think that's contradicting. Directly contradicting would be "Don't wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19". What you described sounds more like extending the current WHO recommendations.
    • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      Only in the same sense that "take vitamin C" is an extension of the WHO recommendations, and Wojcicki explicitly mentioned that as an example of what's banned.
      • jimsmart 6y ago
        My understanding here, from the quote in the article, is that one is ok to say 'Take vitamin C', but it is not ok to say 'Take vitamin C, it will cure you [of x]'.
    • RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
      I think "You need to wear a mask when you go out of the house" directly contradicts "you only need to wear a mask when taking care of someone with COVID-19"
      • 6y ago
• throwaway_USD 6y ago
  Pick any politician and you will likely find some egregiously false statements about Covid-19...but I have to say the WHO, maybe acting on the best info at the time or acting as puppet for China, had put out some seriously dangerous false statements, including: On January 14, the WHO stated that there was “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.”
  • knzhou 6y ago
    This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have a bunch of statements saying there probably is person-to-person transmission, and a bunch saying that specific studies haven’t yet found hard evidence for person-to-person transmission (because at that point most of the cases they’d managed to find were tied to the market). The WHO never, ever said that it can’t be transmitted, and they absolutely never said that people should do nothing about COVID-19. They were urging nations to act for months before they actually did.
    • throwaway_USD 6y ago
      >This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. You say it is "completely false" that people only believe is true by repetition, well WHO has a twitter account and their whole tweet is: Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 An wouldn't you know the WHOs completely false tweet was repeated 20k times.
      • knzhou 6y ago
        "No clear evidence" uncovered in a "preliminary investigation" was a completely true statement. They never ever said "okay, this definitely isn't transmissible, everybody can ignore it". They said in the early stages that it was too soon to be sure. All the other tweets from this period are saying the same thing: something might be coming, so countries should prepare.
• JungleGymSam 6y ago
  This is so stupid.
• buboard 6y ago
  youtube is offering a convenient service subsidized by googles big pockets, they are not some arbiter of truth (but are entitled to their opinions). there are already plenty of podcasts in their archives that directly contradicted WHO guidelines at the time they were made. I don't even think they are a major source of hoaxes/conspiracies. this is actually a bad look for youtube.
• Leary 6y ago
  Some people say the WHO denied human to human transmission, and denied that masks work. Do these people think the following two statements are equivalent: 1. There's no clear evidence of God 2. God does not exist
  • lbeltrame 6y ago
    FTR, The WHO's stance on masks was criticized by a post on the British Medical Journal blog[1], which called it "confusing". [1] https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/03/11/whos-confusing-guidance-masks-covid-19-epidemic/ https://blogs.bmj.com/bmj/2020/03/11/whos-confusing-guidance...
  • knzhou 6y ago
    > the WHO denied human to human transmission This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have a bunch of statements saying there probably is person-to-person transmission, and a bunch saying that specific studies haven’t yet found hard evidence for person-to-person transmission (because at that point most of the cases they’d managed to find were tied to the market). The WHO never, ever said that it can’t be transmitted, and they absolutely never said that people should do nothing about COVID-19. They were urging nations to act for months before they actually did.
• golemiprague 6y ago
  Would be nice if all those platforms would adhere to the principles of freedom of speech. It is proven again and again that the founding fathers of the US were pretty smart implementing this idea, any other alternative is worst and in some cases like this, can danger people lives.
• thorwasdfasdf 6y ago
  this is a slippery slope. sure, it may seem reasonable now. But, once Youtube and facebook start deciding what you can and can't see, we're going down what could become a very dangerous path.
• tr33house 6y ago
  This is one of the many times I wish YouTube had a worthy competitor
• triyambakam 6y ago
  The WHO previously stated on Twitter in January that there is no evidence of human to human transmission of SARS-CoV-2. If this rule on YouTube were in place then and someone was sharing evidence of human to human transmission that technically would have been banned.
  • knzhou 6y ago
    This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have a bunch of statements saying there probably is person-to-person transmission, and a bunch saying that specific studies haven’t yet found hard evidence for person-to-person transmission (because at that point most of the cases they’d managed to find were tied to the market). The WHO never, ever said that it can’t be transmitted, and they absolutely never said that people should do nothing about COVID-19. They were urging nations to act for months before they actually did.
    • triyambakam 6y ago
      What is false about this tweet? [1] [1] https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152
      • knzhou 6y ago
        "No clear evidence" uncovered in a "preliminary investigation" was a completely true statement. They never ever said "okay, this definitely isn't transmissible, everybody can ignore it". They said in the early stages that it was too soon to be sure. All the other tweets from this period are saying the same thing: something might be coming, so countries should prepare.
        • triyambakam 6y ago
          I'm moreover pointing out that it isn't clear what YouTube would enforce or not - taken simply, there are a lot of YouTube videos that would have been in conflict with this statement on Twitter. Would they have been taken down?
• antman 6y ago
  I assume that includes banning videos that promote previous WHO advice.
• analyst74 6y ago
  We're in a very interesting time, from an outsider perspective, the American ideal of free speech originated from a time when only the establishment (mainstream media, governments, large organizations, etc) have the ability to have their speech reach general public. Meaning people who say things that damage their reputation or relationship with the establishment will quickly disappear from public eye as they lose access to those platforms. Today, thanks for all the social/media platforms, anyone can say whatever they want, gain a cult following and make a living. This is probably not something free speech idealist originally envisioned, and is seriously testing the viability of unrestricted free speech. Will the newer media platforms follow the footsteps of media companies of yesterday and start de-platforming people they disagree with? Or will they continue to endorse free speech in its ideal, testing if unrestricted, technologically-enhanced free speech is a net positive to society?
• DanielBMarkham 6y ago
  I guess if this were the 1500s YouTube would only have us post videos that confirm that witches and heretics should be burned at the stake. Maybe it would be okay to talk about a few more crusades. Mankind improves because systems become big, rigid, and unable to evolve. People come along and point that out, suggesting various theories about how those systems got that way, the reasons why they are wrong, and offering suggestions for improvement. It needs to be said that 99% of the time, these people are wrong. They're emotionally ill, they don't understand the situation, they have perhaps virulent and insidious ideologies that blind them to reality. These are exactly the people you want in the public square. They teach the youth about critical thinking and how to reason about your view of the world. They let the rest of us keep an eye on them in case they get violent. Plus, many of them are just happy to yell into the void; without that, there would be a lot more violence than there would be otherwise. But every 1% of the time, those folks are actually right. Slowly they convince the rest of us. Our species improves. YouTube can't do this. Whatever their intentions, they are directly acting against the health of our species by creating a new orthodoxy. They have to be stopped, whether broken up, taxed, or banned. It's not that the WHO is wrong here. They're probably right. It's that YouTube is making it so that the WHO can never be wrong, ie, we can never have a public discussion about their policies. Worse still, history has shown us that when you start going down this route you are actually acting against your society's interest. People treated as if they can't think for themselves turn into a population that can't think for itself. The WHO is fine, it's YouTube that has become the real enemy to public health by doing this.
  • subhobroto 6y ago
    I am noticing, increasingly in the country I live in - the U.S., an extremely concerning attitude towards love for censorship. More concerning is that the proponents have "good intentions" at heart. It's almost as if the concept of freedom is not understood. Freedom is not free. Freedom has a price, often a heavy price that one has to pay for it. The fact that we are not children anymore who desparately need oversight and constant handholding, seems to be an alien concept. "Oh! What do you do about those YouTUbe videos that tell you to drink bleach because it saves you from SARS-COV2!" Well, I watch that video and research what the potential effects of drinking bleach even if there was no SARS-COV2 in this world would be and then weigh the potential effects of a COVID-19 infection and weigh the options. This is, what I assumed, were the responsibilites of an adult - a process to make rational decisions instead of being spoonfed and told what to do like one would a child. As I clarified elsewhere on this thread, the point I was making wasn't "liars, cranks and con artists don't exist, and no one gets to decide otherwise." It was "liars, cranks and con artists do exist, and we need to empower people to decide which is which by letting them practise." Yes, being an adult means having the freedom to drink alcohol and drive a car instead of waiting for a bus or a parent to come pick me up. It also means having the responsibilities of making my own decisions instead of waiting for someone else to do it for me. What's the expectation - that if the decision making authority makes a wrong decision that kills me, I can then blame them and collect damages? That's crazy talk - for one, I will be dead already!
• cryptica 6y ago
  The concept of 'fake news' was invented to bring power back into the hands of large media companies and the corporations which control them by discrediting all alternative news sources. I don't believe in fake news or conspiracy theories, but I do read conspiracy media and articles from 'fake news' outlets because it helps to get perspective. There is definitely a grain of truth in many conspiracy theories and 'fake news' articles... And unfortunately this grain of truth is often never mentioned at all on mainstream media. For example, some scientists found that covid-19 shared some non-trivial segment of RNA with the HIV virus. This is a fact but mainstream media does not mention it at all because they don't want to invite conspiracy theories that the virus could be man-made. Of course they could mention this and also add that this particular RNA sequence is also shared by many other viruses and not just HIV. But mainstream media will avoid the topic entirely because of political and financial pressures. They prefer to turn any scientist who mentions this fact into a social pariah rather than admit that there is an element of truth to it and that it could deserve further scrutiny. Also, mainstream media would never dare to point out just how grotesquely massive the recent bailouts by the Federal Reserve Bank of the United States are. The amount of fiat dollars which will be injected into the economy is so alarming that even the billionaire fund manager Ray Dalio hinted that it would usher in a "new world order" (in an economic sense) but the gravity of the situation is not conveyed at all by the mainstream media. Consuming conspiracy and 'fake news' media is mind-opening if you consume it in small quantities alongside mainstream media. If you hate how divisive the world has become, then it's your moral duty to expose yourself to the other side's perspective. Mainstream media is becoming complacent and just like 'fake news' media, it's loaded with political and economic agendas. The only way to see past the agendas is to consume both.
  • knzhou 6y ago
    > For example, some scientists found that covid-19 shared some non-trivial segment of RNA with the HIV virus. This is "zombie information" and a perfect example of the kind of nonsense that should be stopped. The single paper this came from was thoroughly debunked by a hundred real scientists the day it was posted. (It used statistical criteria so loose that it could have said any virus was related to HIV.) The paper had never passed peer review, and was retracted by the authors from the preprint server it was posted on the next day. You are part of the problem.
• imjustsaying 6y ago
  YouTube also delists from search results content that details non-strawman evidence against the Apollo moon landings and videos of rockets appearing to hit the firmament, among many others. You can still find those videos with the same search terms by searching YouTube with Yandex or with a direct URL. They also have unclear "hate speech" guidelines where they will remove videos and ban channels without specifying why. The point is, this behavior is consistent with YouTube.
• sebastianconcpt 6y ago
  This is going to inject a distortion on medical innovation in a time of crisis. Manipulative in the worst possible way. The moment they start censoring they become editors and not a platform.
• ninetyfurr 6y ago
  YouTube is headquartered in the US, so it should follow CDC advice, rather than a global counterpart.
• kauffj 6y ago
  If you are outraged about this, please consider using or contributing to LBRY. All of our tech is open, we've been growing incredibly quickly, and we have a great roster of creators who are fed up with YouTube. LBRY for n00bs: https://lbry.tv https://lbry.tv Private, P2P desktop app: https://lbry.com/get https://lbry.com/get Recent progress blog post: https://open.lbry.com/@lbry:3f/progress-at-lbry:0 https://open.lbry.com/@lbry:3f/progress-at-lbry:0 Contributor's guide and source code: https://lbry.tech/contribute https://lbry.tech/contribute One-click YouTube sync: https://lbry.com/youtube https://lbry.com/youtube IEEE accepted whitepaper: https://open.lbry.com/@kauffj:f/lbrywhitepaper https://open.lbry.com/@kauffj:f/lbrywhitepaper
  • thekyle 6y ago
    Looks interesting. I started syncing my YouTube channel.
  • valtism 6y ago
    By advertising this here, is your growth plan based on gaining customers who are banned, or disgruntled at the system of moderation on YouTube? If that is the case, you may end up with a less savoury community than you hope for. Voat is an example here.
    • kabacha 6y ago
      What a brillaint point that always gets overlooked. People only start taking decentralization when extremes happen and extremist are first ones on board. You end up with majority extremist community when 90% of user pool is centrist - good luck tapping into that now.
    • kauffj 6y ago
      I'm commenting on HN, which generally has a pretty low quota of unsavory people. There's no denying LBRY has gotten some attention from the fringes, but there is a ton of mainstream, smart, completely unobjectionable content on LBRY. Check out the progress post above.
  • yellowapple 6y ago
• rasz 6y ago
  WHO advices: -masks dont work -closing borders doesnt work -should of closed borders, its too late now
  • knzhou 6y ago
    > -should of closed borders, its too late now The WHO is completely consistent: they have never advocated for closing borders. (After all, the W in WHO stands for World.) They still don't want closed borders.
• sneak 6y ago
  This is terrible. I wrote this week how centralized, point-and-click mass censorship has a non-obvious failure mode in emergencies/pandemics/wars that poses an existential threat to a free and self-determined society: https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/ https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/ (Note well that this exceptionally dangerous failure mode is based simply on the existence of the technological capability of mass instant censorship, not the merit of the specific editorial decisions of what content is censored or not.) Furthermore, in any crisis or rapidly evolving situation, any one organization deeming themselves the sole arbiter of truth is extremely dangerous. What is true one day we learn with more information is false the next. You may recall this is the same WHO who said that healthy people get no benefit from wearing masks, and that also parroted China’s line about no human-to-human transmission. They are not immune to criticism, nor should they be. Do you trust Google and the WHO to be superhuman, prescient and perfectly informed at all times? I don’t. (I also don’t think it’s any adult’s business telling another adult what they should or should not be able to read or watch.) YouTube’s other censorship efforts have been actively impeding the research and prosecution of war crimes in the Syrian war as they are deleting hundreds of thousands of videos, amounting to destruction of evidence. Either YouTube needs to stop being the default video upload target for most of internet-connected Earth, or they need to stop doing this shit. The current situation is far too dangerous. Instagram/Facebook are even worse. Same problem. These point-and-click mass censorship platforms are ticking time bombs for society-wide abuse even if they don’t censor anything most days of most decades.
  • knzhou 6y ago
    > parroted China’s line about no human-to-human transmission This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have a bunch of statements saying that nations should get prepared, one saying that specific studies haven’t yet found hard evidence for person-to-person transmission (because at that point most of the cases they’d managed to find were tied to the market). The WHO never, ever said that it can’t be transmitted, and they absolutely never said that people should do nothing about COVID-19. They were urging nations to act for months before they actually did.
• lerpapoo 6y ago
  "no you can't have it as a toggle button in the settings because we need to be able to control what you watch"
• beepboopbeep 6y ago
  The comments in this thread are embarrassing. Youtube has every right to take responsibility for the content on their platform. Good for them for exercising it.
• chrononaut 6y ago
  I do find the "censorship by private companies" discussions particularly interesting as a number of comments seem to overlook that we're conversing this very topic on a heavily censored and moderated forum that tailors its permitted content either directly (moderators) or indirectly (users downvoting). Its content, moderation, and selection are the primary reasons we enjoy visiting this site and having discussions. Articles get flagged on a weekly basis, and most (all?) probably for good reason. Is that unwarranted censorship, or a core component of what makes this website "successful"?
  • thu2111 6y ago
    Weekly? Try daily or hourly. I routinely read HN starting at https://news.ycombinator.com/active https://news.ycombinator.com/active which shows flagged stories and I have showdead switched on, exactly because I don't trust the moderation here. All kinds of interesting and useful stories get flagged for no obvious reason at all. HN's own guidelines are very vague and contradictory. I'm sure the mods just erase stuff outright too, but unfortunately there aren't really many better forums out there - subreddits are hardly a paragon of transparent and fair moderation. Slashdot got it the most right even so many years ago but the site has been abandoned and was decaying for a long time. It's just unpleasant to use these days (not because of the comments).
    • ShorsHammer 6y ago
      I don't really agree with your position here, despite having (what I think to to be) reasonable comments flagged or warned a bit. They do ok to keep a balance in this place. That said, publicmodlogs are a boon for subreddit transparency and is certainly a move in the right direction to counter conscious and unconscious biasing in online forums. It's a bright spot in the murky world of volunteer reddit moderation https://www.reddit.com/r/publicmodlogs/ https://www.reddit.com/r/publicmodlogs/
• sremani 6y ago
  I get my Coronavirus info from following people on twitter - who are mostly honest even if biased and understand that there is a lot of unknown and being honest about it the best place to start.
• eqdw 6y ago
  Prior to March 3rd, the official position of the WHO was that "The flu is worse" I don't expect the WHO to be infalliable, and I don't think this reflects malice or incompetence (they updated as information became available) but that's kind of my point. The WHO is not infalliable. The things they say are not gospel truth. Categorically banning discussion of anything that contradicts what they say is a horrendous measure that will suppress critical information, because _even the WHO_ contradicts the WHO. If the WHO is wrong again, but we are not allowed to discuss it, we will never find out. We will instead _enforce_ incorrect information, and people will die.
  • knzhou 6y ago
    > Prior to March 3rd, the official position of the WHO was that "The flu is worse" This is a lie, and the product of many different organizations flat out making up claims about the WHO to deflect blame away from themselves. The WHO has been telling nations to prepare since January. I mean, I'm an ordinary citizen and I got clued in to preparing in January from their statements.
    • epicureanideal 6y ago
      You must have been watching different news sources than me. The comment you're replying to is what I saw as well.
      • knzhou 6y ago
        My news source was the actual WHO press conferences. They've been quite clear on this since January. If you've only heard what some secondary source says the WHO said, then your perception of the WHO is completely determined by what that secondary source wants you to think.
      • rsynnott 6y ago
        Perhaps they were. "Watching" may be a warning sign here; TV news is generally... not good. Here is the WHO warning the world to be ready at the end of January: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/29/whole-world-must-be-ready-to-deal-with-coronavirus-says-who https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jan/29/whole-world-mu... Now, there've been lots of problems with the WHO's response, but to claim that they were downplaying it until March is outright false, and if the news you're watching is telling you that you should consider watching (or reading) something else.
• bazzert 6y ago
  Are you allowed say that Robert Mugabe was not a good choice as goodwill ambassador ?
• throwaway122378 6y ago
  Great post, couple days of visibility and then back to business. Google (YouTube), Facebook, Twitter, Reddit and others have recently increased censorship. And. Nothing. Will. Happen. Unless we all leave their sites or something else
• nell 6y ago
  I don’t think YouTube believes WHO is accurate. This is just CYA. The media gave Facebook a hard time about fake news. With this policy, they’ll be on the clear pointing to WHO.
• zarkov99 6y ago
  Very dangerous stuff. The WHO has not exactly done a stellar job in this crisis.
• fareesh 6y ago
  This is an absolute disgrace. Ok YouTube - what is the plan if Dr. Shiva Ayyadurai becomes the next Director General of the WHO? This creation of sacred cows from institutions is ludicrous. At one time YouTube associated itself with the SPLC to determine "hate groups", and Majid Nawaz from Quilliam successfully sued the SPLC into making a video apology and paying him millions - because they had previously placed him in their "Field Guide to Anti-Muslim Extremists". The tech industry seems to have a fetish for authoritative sources in a world that is constantly proving that these gatekeepers of canonical knowledge are fallible, and often to the detriment of many. Centralization of canonical information is not a solution to determining what's true and what isn't - it simply creates a structure where the truth can be determined by some organization, and all that's stopping it from being abused is blind faith that people in these organizations will do the right thing 100% of the time, infallibly. Everything ought to be in a position where it can be criticized freely. When you walk down the street there can be crazy people who yell all sorts of prophecies. The scale at which people can do this on the internet is higher, but that does not automatically mean that they necessarily need to be addressed.
• ethanwillis 6y ago
  This is why you can't trust companies that want to play all international sides.
• downerending 6y ago
  Hope WHO doesn't come out against cute cat videos.
• LocalH 6y ago
  This is dangerous. It presumes that there is a single approach that is required for the whole world.
• julienreszka 6y ago
  This isn't good. There's a reason why Trump left this corrupt organization.
• chriscaruso 6y ago
  I see this as fine for the case where someone is saying "it's fine assemble in large groups" or other negative contradictions. But it's not ok for cases where someone is advising being more restrictive or cautious or other positive contradictions.
• IAmGraydon 6y ago
  We can all debate who is right or wrong as much as we like, but you can be certain of one thing - right and wrong are not what drives the decisions of large companies like Google. What matters most to them is potential profit vs risk. Allowing their platform to be used for dissemination of potentially harmful advice puts them squarely at risk for lawsuits and bad press, both of which have very highly potential costs. At the same time, it presents relatively little potential profit. If someone is harmed following the advice they found on their platform, YouTube was just following WHO advice. The finger is pointed and the risk transferred elsewhere. From a business perspective, it becomes a very easy decision for them.
• MisterBastahrd 6y ago
  Yeah, I'm not seeing the outrage. 1. Youtube ad providers do not want their ads shown with bogus content. 2. Youtube does not want to be subject to lawsuits from the transmission of dangerous bullshit. 3. Pandemic situations are not the same as being a kook and watching garden variety kook material. Misinformation regarding this has already killed people. It will continue to kill people. Save your frustration for when a content platform censors everyday nonsense, and save me the slippery slope argument. There are freaking dentists and physicians who, in a panic, tried to prescribe hydroxychloroquine for themselves and their families because they heard about ONE study by a serial nutball out of France, which was then repeated by the freaking President of the United States.
• balozi 6y ago
  I believe that at this point most people already recognize that the information the receive -whether from mainstream sources or social networks- is doctored or massaged in some fashion, and almost always for political or commercial purposes.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• BurningFrog 6y ago
  Maybe this is what's needed to loosen the virtual monopoly YouTube has.
  • mac01021 6y ago
    What other players are going to emerge in the market?
• jdashg 6y ago
  Are the same people who fear corporate censorship actually disjoint from the ones who trust in unfettered markets to choose winners? It seems to me they must be, but are there people in fact straddling this chasm?
• swiley 6y ago
  Wearing a mask directly contradicted WHO advice and was correct. There's a lot of misinformation out there, this gives it more credibility.
• takeda 6y ago
  finally, so many family members are forwarding this. Though it would be better if if Facebook would do it as well. Most of the conspiracy theories originate from there, if you have family members on FB think about cutting them out of it.
• fouric 6y ago
  Isn't this the same WHO that spread the PRC's obviously-false propaganda about SARS-CoV-2 in early January? https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152
• ci5er 6y ago
  Like the USDA food pyramid - it's SCIENCE!
• BickNowstrom 6y ago
  > "So people saying, ‘Take vitamin C, take turmeric, we’ll cure you,’ those are the examples of things that would be a violation of our policy The WHO bannable hoax page: > Fact: There is no scientific evidence that lemon/turmeric prevents COVID-19. In general, however, WHO recommends consuming adequate fruit and vegetables as part of a healthy diet. First results from site:who.int Google search: > Effect of curcumin, the active constituent of turmeric, on penicillin-induced epileptiform activity in rats (2012) Curcumin is a major constituent of turmeric and has many biological functions such as anticancer and anti-inflammatory effects > Clinical trials on treatment using a combination of Traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine. Report of the WHO International Expert Meeting to review and analyse clinical reports on combination treatment for SARS (2003) All participants were patients with clinically confirmed SARS from Beijing Changxindian Hospital. Regimen: ... Radix Curcumae (15 g)... Relative to the control group, the integrated treatment group showed a significant decline in the general value of toxicosis symptoms, especially in the second and third weeks of treatment (p < 0.001). The integrated treatment group also showed radical improvement in alleviation of headaches, arthralgia, pantalgia, cough, expectoration and haemoptysis, chest pain, poor appetite, nausea, sweating and cardio palmus in comparison with the group treated with Western medicine. > Altered antibacterial activity of Curcumin in the presence of serum albumin, plasma and whole blood (2017) Curcumin has been studied for its anti-inflammatory, antioxidative, anti-carcinogenic, anti-viral, anti-fungal and anti-parasitic activities > CURCUMIN - HEALTH PROMISE FOR THE FUTURE (2015) Curcumin (diferuloylmethane) is a yellow pigment present in the turmeric (Curcuma longa) which gives the yellow color to turmeric that has been associated with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anticancer, antiviral, and antibacterial activities. These effects are mediated through the regulation of various transcription factors, growth factors, inflammatory cytokines, protein kinases, and other enzymes. Most westerners know turmeric as gold colored Indian spice. Turmeric and curcumin are not the same thing. The antioxidant and anti-inflammatory property of curcumin is much more potent in an extracted form. All of these studies suggest that curcumin has enormous potential in the prevention and therapy of various diseases. First results on Google Search: > Specific Plant Terpenoids and Lignoids Possess Potent Antiviral Activities against Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (2007) Curcumin, a known phytocompound from Curcuma longa, has been reported to exhibit antiinflammatory, antioxidant, anticarcinogenic, and anti-HIV activities. In this study, mild activity against SARS-CoV replication and inhibition of 3CL protease were observed. > Anti-infective Properties of the Golden Spice Curcumin (2019) Due to the lack of preventive and therapeutic options for many viral infections, numerous studies have been conducted to investigate the antiviral potential of natural compounds. For curcumin, an antiviral activity was observed against several different viruses including hepatitis viruses, influenza viruses and emerging arboviruses like the Zika virus (ZIKV) or chikungunya virus (CHIKV). Interestingly, it has also been reported that the molecule inhibits human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) and human papillomavirus (HPV). > Prof. Manges (2020) With the results of research that says curcumin can modulate the expression of ACE2, some parties state that curcumin makes it easy for COVID19 to enter the cell. Special research needs to be done to answer whether the administration of curcumin in lung cells accelerates the entry of germs and viruses, including the SARSCov-2 virus. What is certain is that research on turmeric, ginger, curcuma proved to show the work of the ingredients as an immune system booster. > Curcumin Suppression of Cytokine Release and Cytokine Storm. A Potential Therapy for Patients with Ebola and Other Severe Viral Infections (2015) Curcumin has been shown to inhibit the release of numerous cytokines. The term ‘cytokine storm’ is most associated with the 1918 H1N1 influenza pandemic ... also known to occur in advanced or terminal cases of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) > Catechin and Curcumin interact with corona (2019-nCoV/SARS-CoV2) viral S protein and ACE2 of human cell membrane: insights from Computational study and implication for intervention (2020) Here, through computational approaches we have reported two polyphenols, Catechin and Curcumin which have dual binding affinity i.e both the molecule binds to viral S-protein and as well as ACE2. > Revealing the Potency of Citrus and Galangal Constituents to Halt SARS-CoV-2 Infection (2020) Moreover, all of the citrus flavonoids possess good affinity to the respected receptors as well as curcumin, brazilin, and galangin, indicating that those compounds perform inhibitory potential for the viral infection and replication. > Turmeric curcumin inhibits entry of all hepatitis C virus genotypes into human liver cells (2013) I won't do the same for vitamin C, but it's definitely possible to do just that. Look, even if its scientifically proven that turmeric does absolutely nothing, it will still work as a harmless placebo. If you found out early and spread the word about: human-to-human transmission, qualifies as pandemic, passes brain-blood barrier, effectiveness of travel blockades, you'd be in direct opposition to the facts spread by the WHO. WHO's masks strategy amounts to: don't wear a seatbelt, it gives a false sense of security, so you may start speeding, and you'll choke yourself if you apply seatbelt without proper fit training, so just stay 1 meter apart from the car in front of you, and avoid drunk drivers. There is no scientific evidence that seatbelts work for the general public, just tons of research on effective protection for professional drivers. If you want to fact check, actually fact check, and send the reader to a reputable source that dispels it. Don't let swarm intelligence go to waste and turn YOUtube into WHOtube. At the most, ban or dispel "5G causes coronavirus", and "Bill Gates mark of the beast" state-actor disinformation.
• mesozoic 6y ago
  The WHO directly spreads misinformation so I don't know who to trust.
• mberning 6y ago
  YouTubers have known for a long time that certain topics and keywords will get your videos penalized. There is a popular legal channel that refers to the virus as the "My Sharona Cyrus" in order to avoid being flagged. YouTube has been engaged in social engineering for years, and yet there are still people out there who refuse to believe it, or believe it is OK because it agrees with their world view. Then there is a whole other discussion about how capricious they are in what they decide to promote, demote, and leave alone. You can go binge watch ISIS recruitement videos as much as you want, but try to post a video criticizing Islam, gay/trans issues, etc. See what happens.
• kypro 6y ago
  "You"Tube. What a joke. I've been active on YouTube since 2006. Back then I would watch and make comedy videos, but around 2008 I found a love for the political / philosophical side of YouTube. Back then there used some brilliant debates among communities, and I credit early YouTube for being a huge influence on my political views today. It helped me develop an open mind and critical thinking skills that I find immensely valuable in my life today. But today there isn't really any interesting debates there anymore. I've noticed the algorithms push certain views on me and the creators I like who speak against the YouTube's political views get their lives made very difficult through demonetisations, channel strikes, algorithm discrimination or straight up banning.
• tazedsoul 6y ago
  This is not a good decision. The WHO advice has been contradictory to the common sense of anyone with a basic scientific background.
• lern_too_spel 6y ago
  @dang The actual policy does not say that anything that goes against the WHO's recommendations will be removed. That looks like it came from a quote from Wojcicki as an example of something that might be risky. The title is misleading. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9803260?hl=en https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9803260?hl=en The article itself references this interview, which does not announce any policy changes: https://edition.cnn.com/videos/business/2020/04/19/inside-youtubes-numerous-policy-changes-during-the-pandemic.cnn/video/playlists/business-reliable-sources/ https://edition.cnn.com/videos/business/2020/04/19/inside-yo...
• Press2forEN 6y ago
  The tech companies (Google, Facebook, Twitter, et al.) have taken for themselves the power of censorship, and they have lost the credibility to claim that they are neutral carriers. I believe it is now justified to call for their algorithms to be made public, by legal means if necessary.
• 101404 6y ago
  That's really bad. In my country (Germany), the government changed position so many times. What was yesterday "a hoax", became official government position few days later, etc Treating WHO positions as "the only truth that may be publicly discussed", seems rather authoritarian and dangerous.
• 101404 6y ago
  Remember when the WHO didn't want to recognize it as a pandemic for weeks and weeks, and the entire world was wondering why? Weird choice to select the WHO to be the only source of truth in this one.
• mbgerring 6y ago
  There are armed groups at state capitols spreading dangerous misinformation about COVID-19 that will almost certainly cause people to get sick and die. That misinformation effort is coordinated and well-funded. Whatever hypothetical you want to argue about censorship, you need to grapple with the fact that we face a persistent and aggressive misinformation threat, and combating it is part of the public health response to COVID-19.
  • sneak 6y ago
    Censorship is the naive and ineffective non-solution to the problem of coordinated misinformation campaigns. It’s sort of like torture: even if it worked for the problem it is trying to solve, it would debase us as human beings to try to use it. To top that off, it doesn’t work.
    • mbgerring 6y ago
      What do you suggest as an alternative? What would you have done in the situation where Facebook was used as a platform to incite pogroms against Muslims in Myanmar[1]? If we have a better solution in an emergency than censorship, I haven't heard it suggested. 1. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebook.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebo...
      • sneak 6y ago
        Facebook is a communications tool. It does not incite violence by anyone or against anyone else any more or less than any comparable communications tool. That violent people use it is not an issue with Facebook or reason to censor it, any more than the fact that violent people using cellphones is a reason to tap every cellphone. The alternative to censorship is... not censoring.
• joshfraser 6y ago
  The level of censorship that Facebook, Medium and YouTube are applying right now should be terrifying to anyone who cares about free speech. Dissenting opinions are important for a free society. If facts and truth are on your side, what are you so afraid of? Aaron Ginn's "evidence over hysteria" post (1) that was quickly censored by Medium is a good example for discussion. Aaron may have been wrong, but he made his case civilly and argued in good faith. Do we really want to elect these platforms as the thought police who decide which ideas or information we're allowed to consume? Especially right now, when the "official sources" like the Whitehouse and WHO are lying to us! In the words of Naval Ravikant, "Give your worst political enemy the power to decide what is "hate speech" and what is "disinformation" and then you'll realize that free speech isn't something we should ever compromise on". (1) https://www.zerohedge.com/health/covid-19-evidence-over-hysteria https://www.zerohedge.com/health/covid-19-evidence-over-hyst...
• samcheng 6y ago
  Dr. John Campbell, who posts daily on Coronavirus news internationally, and who also dives deep into the physiologic processes around viruses, illnesses, and immune function, is often at odds with the WHO. And he generally has a compelling argument for why, often quoting scientific literature. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9IOB2TExg3QIBupFtBDxg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCF9IOB2TExg3QIBupFtBDxg (I highly recommend watching his videos!) If YouTube shuts John Campbell down, they will be doing a major disservice to this global fight against a virus.
• trub 6y ago
  ah censorship in America, damn it feels good to lose liberty
• leoh 6y ago
  I'm surprised at how upset people are about this. The amount of garbage on the internet now is immense. Invoking free speech, more and more of the internet has slowly become 4chan and I don't understand why more people aren't sick of it.
  • gjs278 6y ago
    because they’re right. you want to censor anything that hurts your fragile feelings.
• someonehere 6y ago
  The WHO sent out a Tweet back on January 14 saying: “Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel coronavirus.” From my understanding that Tweet was deleted. With all the contradicting stories coming from the media, the WH, WHO, social media, I’m going to stick with facts and not twisted agenda pushing.
• Zenst 6y ago
  Yeah, so how would YouTube help when the WHO release things like: https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 https://twitter.com/WHO/status/1217043229427761152 Buy all means add a disclaimer advert akin to the old DVD FBI or other pirate warnings you couldn't skip, but to dismiss debate for people who are able to make their own mind up is only going to curtail facts. That in itself curtails advice the WHO may in itself give out. Will youtube be expanding this to anything health wise? Will there be an appeal process for false positives? I feel there is more that can go wrong with this, than right.
• diebeforei485 6y ago
  People aren't going to hurt themselves wearing face masks. People could hurt themselves taking random drugs (or taking excessive amounts of over-the-counter drugs). YouTube should focus on a "harm reduction to users" strategy.
• eveningcoffee 6y ago
  This is despicable act.
• bishalb 6y ago
  Bitchute.com might be a good alternative to the content creators who may have suffered from this ridiculous censorship.
• dvhh 6y ago
  Is this ban also covering misinformation about vaccines ?
• barell 6y ago
  How do we know what is best for us? What and who should we believe? It kinds of remind me how Copernicus was banned centuries ago despite now we know he was closer to truth than anyone else. If we live at his times we would say he is crazy and certainly his YouTube channel would have to be deleted but why? I guess if someone is right, he will prove it eventually. Even if it sounds crazy but the person is determined we should have right to know it and decide if we agree. Why someone esle should decide for us what we can know. http://origins.osu.edu/milestones/february-2016-400-years-ago-catholic-church-prohibited-copernicanism http://origins.osu.edu/milestones/february-2016-400-years-ag...
• cryptonector 6y ago
  Ahh, the same WHO that itself has spread misinformation on covid-19? (E.g., that there is no human-to-human transmission when they knew there was.)
  • knzhou 6y ago
    This is one of those completely false things that people only believe is true by repetition. Go back and actually read the full set of WHO statements in mid-January. They have a bunch of statements saying that nations should get prepared, one saying that specific studies haven’t yet found hard evidence for person-to-person transmission (because at that point most of the cases they’d managed to find were tied to the market). The WHO never, ever said that it can’t be transmitted, and they absolutely never said that people should do nothing about COVID-19. They were urging nations to act for months before they actually did.
    • cryptonector 6y ago
      > "Preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission of the novel #coronavirus (2019-nCoV) identified in #Wuhan, #China," the organization had said. That was on January 14, 2020. China almost certainly had evidence of human-to-human transmission by then. EDIT: Taiwan alerted the WHO of human-to-human transmission on December 31, 2019. So please, stop spreading misinformation about the WHO. The WHO dropped the ball, and it's being badly. Until there is a change in management at the WHO, everything they say has to be examined extra carefully.
• scruffyherder 6y ago
  The same WHO that dragged its ass in declaring a pandemic, showered the CCP with non stop praise, and tells me I don't need to wear any protection? Yeah, uh I'm not going to listen to anything that corrupt organization has to say. I'm more dismayed that so many people are actually listening to them at all.
• JakeAl 6y ago
  My advice is to read Neil Postman's works, specifically 1) Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, 2) How to Watch TV News, and especially 3) Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology if you think legacy/boomer media has any more credibility (especially today) than some random in their bedroom. I'd also recommend reading Sharyl Attkisson's The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think, and How You Vote and Stonewalled: My Fight for Truth Against the Forces of Obstruction, Intimidation, and Harassment in Obama's Washington That random in their bedroom is the fourth estate now.
• LanceH 6y ago
  I'll take the fake news today just to protect speech that may be wrong today but is right tomorrow. It's amazing how quickly people who benefited from free platforms think that people who defect to the other side only do so because they are weak minded and read some bad news.
• jb775 6y ago
  This is the type of thing that makes people upset, then everyone forgets about it and continues using the service. Are there any specific individual actions that can be taken to push back on this? Besides "don't use youtube", because let's be honest that isn't realistic.
• JSavageOne 6y ago
  Youtube also demonitized Chris Martenson's channel "Peak Prosperity" back in January when it was warning about the coronavirus crisis months before the WHO posthumous announcement of there being a pandemic.
  • JSavageOne 6y ago
    Downvoted for stating a fact? What a joke.
• sbussard 6y ago
  Terrible
• AzzieElbab 6y ago
  But the WHO is super careful to offer no advice, other than wash your hands.
• yuema 6y ago
  Social network, should really be owned by USERS instead of founders/investors. It should be decentralized and it should be governed based on democratic Principles. I once thought that blockchain can do the job but it proved to be untrue.
  • dvtrn 6y ago
    I wholeheartedly agree. Check out the IndieWeb when you have cycles for it. I think it lines up quite well with what you’ve expressed. https://indieweb.org/principles https://indieweb.org/principles
    • yuema 6y ago
      Thanks! I was really inspired by John Barlow's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" so I wanted to build something that can reflect my understanding of his vision, an autonomous cyberspace. I've tried to build blockchain, DApp and App in the past two years, all failed because of technical challenges. I'm on the fourth try and we are now building a "Wechat + Twitter" website. It is now open sourced at: https://github.com/Rackar/dao-quasar https://github.com/Rackar/dao-quasar
      • dvtrn 6y ago
        I was really inspired by John Barlow's "A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace" Somehow despite my own digital-revolutionary tendencies (don't read too far into this, heh) I'd never come across this bit of writing before. Thank you! I think you'll really appreciate the IndieWeb's adoption of microformats to enable federation, a brilliant example of it in use to display a timeline-esque rendering of contributors can be found on their directory: http://indieweb.xyz http://indieweb.xyz. Instead of posting directly to the directory, you enable your website with certain HTML tags and upon publishing a new page or blog entry, it federates out via webmention and anyone who subscribes to the directory gets your content. In my opinion this is the social-media web we should have gotten. Edit: Also, about your app...I love the UI. I can't read much of what's on the page, but I'll run your readme through a translator to learn more. Good luck!
• AzzieElbab 6y ago
  But the WHO is very careful not to offer any advice other than wash your hands. Who is going to contradict that?
• mikaeluman 6y ago
  This is a mistake. It implies that we should all agree that WHO: 1) Is not corrupt 2) At all times represents the best available expert opinion and advice But all institutions can become corrupted and the second point is highly implausible. WHO ignored Taiwan’s early warning and maintained for a dangerously long time that human to human transmission was not possible. There is a reason why the US cut funding to WHO. This new direction of social platforms to silence people is a fundamentally anti-intellectual and authoritarian idea. We are heading for something awful if we all keep playing along.
  • kevinpet 6y ago
    They may not have ignored it. Maybe it was just Bruce Aylward's poor hearing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wePJF3MaPM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wePJF3MaPM
  • zemnmez 6y ago
    the WHO is... corrupt? this is the first I have heard of such an idea. What would someone gain by I guess bribing the WHO?
    • xvector 6y ago
      From "AP Exclusive: Health agency spends more on travel than AIDS" [1]: > Senior officials have complained internally that U.N. staffers break new rules that were introduced to try to curb its expansive travel spending, booking perks like business class airplane tickets and rooms in five-star hotels with few consequences. > “We don’t trust people to do the right thing when it comes to travel,” Nick Jeffreys, WHO’s director of finance, said during a September 2015 in-house seminar on accountability — a video of which was obtained by the AP. > the compliance rate for booking travel in advance was between 28 and 59 percent. [1]: https://apnews.com/1cf4791dc5c14b9299e0f532c75f63b2/AP-Exclusive:-Health-agency-spends-more-on-travel-than-AIDS https://apnews.com/1cf4791dc5c14b9299e0f532c75f63b2/AP-Exclu...
    • iratewizard 6y ago
      Bribing? How about Beijing hand placing the director and then letting the corruption trickle down. There are lots of things you can gain from owning a global organization like the WHO. For one, they will tote your colonies like N.Korea as being "the envy of the developing world." They can be used as a tool to influence your enemies. The only limits are your creativity.
• CryptoPunk 6y ago
  We really need decentralized, censorship resistant communication and data storage platforms.
• dkdk8283 6y ago
  Fuck YouTube. At first they liberated creators and gave everyone the same upload button. Now they’re a bunch of fascists pandering to a niche demographic. Being PC is fine in some cases but I firmly believe in freedom of expression / free speech especially when it’s controversial. Let’s build hours ok folks critical thinking capability. YouTube is becoming the very thing they tried not to be. What do I think about wackos on youtube saying covid is the rapture? I think they’re fucking bananas. But I still support their right to say what they want.
• nathias 6y ago
  This is pure evil. Once again the platforms have succeeded to turn an issue that concerns us all into a partisan american issue for all. It's sad to see so much of people working on software actively support this type of platfom power abuse for censorship.
  • kebman 6y ago
    It's for your own good. :) This is what my own government say every time they want to control the population. Luckily freedom of speech stands very firm in my own country of Norway, but it does not prevent the state from using the phrase. As for the validity, when policies are in the open, which they mostly are over here, and it is clear what it is based upon, then far more people willingly accept them, because they can look into the facts themselves. They can even discuss conspiracy theories if they wish, but no one buys them, because good information is readily available. So when Norway claims that something is "for your own good," it is actually mostly true, despite the negative connotation the phrase has in most other countries. The opposite tends to happen when information is subdued and censored, which is regretfully the route YouTube is now on. They're taking a path which is more similar to a state bureau than a private company. You're left to only speculate as to why they would do something like that, but it's likely that it is a combination of social justice leadership and governmental cooperation. As such, their difference from a state bureau is starting to blur. The strategy of top-down censorship is sadly a strategy most employed in purely Socialist and Communist countries. But then that shouldn't be very surprising when you also see the position YouTube is in, which is so much of a market leader that they border on a monopoly. While I can't speak for YouTube directly, since most video services are indeed free, one of the main business practises to retain such a position, is to bleed money to keep most of their services priced so low as to destroy all competition. YouTube is in a bit of a different position, howeve, because their service, particularly their suggeston service, is far better than most if not all competitors. But every time they employ censorship in any form, they bleed customers to alternative platforms, and the effect of their censorship is diminished, if not outright reversed.
• markvdb 6y ago
  According to those guidelines, YouTube would have to censor the US president's Thursday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing. “And then I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute. One minute! And is there a way we can do something, by an injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that. So, that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me.” --Donald Trump YouTube isn't able to perfectly apply this "complies with WHO" filter. Even if it would, some dangerous crackpot talk is actually newsworthy. Newsworthy as in we need to know that this harmful dribble came from the US president's mouth.
• smsm42 6y ago
  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?
• toomanyrichies 6y ago
  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.
• cannedslime 6y ago
  An WHOs advice is exactly what? Take some untested meds, because why not? Don't act in time, and if you must act, act in the most destructive way possible. Don't close borders before your country has infected. Close the whole bloody country down after the fact! Im sick and tired of every tech company and goverment using this as an excuse to limit rights and censor left and right. I'd rather have to filter out a few videos about bleach curing SARS than living in this censorship nightmare.
• bigbizisverywyz 6y ago
  Good. The fuckwits have had a platform to spread their uncontested fuckwittery long enough.
• beezischillin 6y ago
  I largely disagree with YouTube's stance here, it's stupid. They kinda forced themselves into a corner with this one, I don't realistically think they can enforce this. Yet this is just another step in them screwing over creators. I'm especially worried about retroactive enforcement. As they often do. For example: which WHO advice do you need to contradict? Would they take down a video from January that says there's no need to worry because there is no human to human contact - as the WHO said in January? YouTube generally speaking has done shady stuff like this and it never ended well. There has to be a better way to handle this but I generally think that Susan has been busy waging a PR battle with people who don't even matter for the future of her platform.
• alpple 6y ago
  Should they ban religious and spiritual videos too? Who decides what is real? Are ideas the coming warground? These questions sound dramatic, but I wonder about this stuff.
• krick 6y ago
  The real problem is not whatever youtube does, but the pretty much total lack of competition. Youtube is like all TV-channels at once, it really is a monopoly.
• gadders 6y ago
  They might as well just cut out the middle man and check all videos with the Chinese Communist Party.
• biolurker1 6y ago
  Does that include Trump interviews where he suggests bleach injections?
• severine 6y ago
  So... > So people saying, ‘Take vitamin C, take turmeric, we’ll cure you,’ those are the examples of things that would be a violation of our policy,” she told CNN. ...and: > "So, supposing we hit the body with a tremendous — whether it's ultraviolet or just very powerful light — and I think you said that hasn't been checked but you're going to test it," Trump said. "And then I said, supposing you brought the light inside of the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting." But: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=trump+injecting https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=trump+injecting ???
• major505 6y ago
  So... if someone mention corona in Taiwan, youtube will delete the video?
• williesleg 6y ago
  THANK YOU CHINA!!!!! FINALLY!!!!
• zeepzeep 6y ago
  Even if I understand this decision, I'm against censoring and this is censoring.
• ngcc_hk 6y ago
  To be honest 20 years ago when SARS is with us, it is fine to have a neutral scientific medical ... Now we cannot trust that. It has given advice which we know as Her not right. We just ignore it. And hence if anyone use WHO as standard, can they just shut off say Taiwan from YouTube etc. I am not talking about the politics. It is the bias built-in WHO. I am not starting China. Good day.
• neycoda 6y ago
  This is NOT GOOD... because the WHO has been known to be incorrect, the data they gather may be incorrect or incomplete, their assertions may be not be good enough, and we should hear alternative, anomalous, or contradictory information or opinions.
• skinnyasianboi 6y ago
  LBRY CEO statement regarding the topic: https://open.lbry.com/@lbry:3f/whothinks:8?r=kK4881oviXzKfRUsp8tda14TZzBE1S34 https://open.lbry.com/@lbry:3f/whothinks:8?r=kK4881oviXzKfRU... LBRY is a well working and growing decentralized Youtube alternative
• strategarius 6y ago
  Should YouTube ban the interview with the President of the United States, where he suggests injecting desinfectant or hand sanitizer to treat COVID-19? https://youtu.be/QtgVxGkrX1Y https://youtu.be/QtgVxGkrX1Y
• ezoe 6y ago
  This is the Google/Alphabet that is infamous for no human customer support at all. If you ever mention coronavirus or related terms, expect the automatic ban with no way to argue for it. I'm beginning to think that the Harry Potter was actually a dystopian novel. You must refer it like You-Know-The-Pathogen or The Pathogen That Must Not Be Named.
• tripu 6y ago
  As much as I, as a general principle, loathe the tech giants dictating what is and isn't true for the world, in this case I feel some sympathy for companies temporarily banning potentially dangerous advice from their platforms. Yes, it isn't absolutely clear what is "good advice". Yes, it might misfire and prevent useful content from being disseminated. Yes, the WHO is far from perfect. And yet, if I were the owner of YouTube, I would have to reduce the liability of having physical harm, or even human deaths, being attributed to content served by my product — regardless of how tenuous the connection between content and action would be, and how many disclaimers and waivers surround such content. Collectively, it's a disgrace if all digital media adopt this strategy, because we would be closing the most effective channels by which independent researchers, whistle-blowers, cutting-edge laboratories, etc can communicate with the masses. At the individual company level, limiting potential damage is the rational thing to do. There is no easy answer, I suspect.