7 ms·

Misinformation is killing people. Given that, who should YouTube use as a source of truth? The US government? Bill Nye the Science Guy? Or should they let 4

by Pxtl 7y ago

Misinformation is killing people. Given that, who should YouTube use as a source of truth? The US government? Bill Nye the Science Guy? Or should they let 4chan tell your grandma to drink bleach to fight the Rona?

ColanR 7y ago
4chan was taking the virus seriously back in January, when the WHO was denying the need for travel lockdowns. The misinformation coming out of the WHO is what killed people, not the early warning that 4chan gave us. Edit: note that in both replies to my comment, none of the specific facts I mentioned were responded to. The response of the countries is being blamed, the date I mentioned is being ignored; but I am comparing the information coming publicly out of the WHO in January to the information coming out of 4chan in January. In hindsight, if you compared the information from both at that time, you would have had a better idea of the real situation if you believed 4chan over the WHO.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- phs318u 7y ago
  Do you really believe that? Check archive.org. The WHO published info on CV including technical guidance for the health ministries of nation states, at least as early as January 24. It’s safe to assume that national delegates would have been in discussions with WHO ahead of this. Remember, there’s only one WHO and yet we have many different responses and outcomes in different countries. The only logical conclusion is that those nations who’s responses led to poor outcomes should look to their own interpretation of WHO advice and the decisions they themselves made, as the cause of poor outcomes.
  - enaaem 7y ago
    In Februari the WHO urges to not impose travel bans: 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... Nations who handled the crisis the best, imposed travel bans early on and were criticised by the WHO. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china-coronavirus-is-officially-an-international-emergency/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china...
    - phs318u 7y ago
      His actual speech (that Reuter’s reported on). https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-statement-on-ihr-emergency-committee-on-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov) https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-... The key sentence that Tedros is being criticised for is: “First, there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. WHO doesn’t recommend limiting trade and movement.” However, in the same speech: “ we must all act together now to limit further spread. The vast majority of cases outside China have a travel history to Wuhan, or contact with someone with a travel history to Wuhan” and “Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it” This leads me to believe that perhaps he was trying to have it both ways: - flag the need for action - keep a major player from “losing face”. I don’t envy his job, or in fact any of the UN organisations. You’re at the mercy of your big funders; you’re trying to influence hundreds of countries who’d rather focus on their own internal politics; you have no actual power. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. How on earth do you move the needle at all in that kind of environment?
      - ColanR 7y ago
        His job is world health. If he put "saving face" for China, or trying to keep his job, over recommending a travel ban to prevent the spread of a deadly virus, then he is incompetent and he failed to prevent deaths... and my point still stands.
- streb-lo 7y ago
  This is a hilariously revisionist take people are trotting out. Forget the WHO for a second (which remember was politically cast adrift by the US when they refused to participate in it.) The news coming out of Europe/Iran/China had lay people in the US concerned by late February -- yet the American Government did everything it could to belittle or otherwise diminish the threat. Now it wants to turn around and suggest that it's actions are to be blamed by the WHO? What happened to self-responsibility? Give me a break.
  - wolco 7y ago
    You are making a different point that the US could have acted sooner in late Feb. Before the news coming out of Europe and Iran things were breaking in China. The 4chan guys were all over it way back in Jan. Remember the Chinese Dr whistle blower who got punished for letting the truth? He was dead by Jan 20-22.. at this point the WHO was downplaying, later praising China and telling everyone not to wear a mask. The WHO response caused the outbreak to get out of control in Europe and elsewhere long before it hit North America.
  - Aeolun 7y ago
    To be fair, the WHO was advocating against travel restrictions, and against calling what was clearly a global pandemic as such. If they’d switched tune to ‘close your borders’ and ‘this is a global pandemic’ earlier you would have seen some different responses.
- jerf 7y ago
  "4chan was taking the virus seriously back in January," I think the thread under this is kinda missing a deeper point. 4chan was taking this virus seriously back in January. I also wouldn't be surprised that 4chan was the original origin of "it's just a flu, bro" meme, which is to say, plenty of 4chan and related communities was also mocking the idea of taking it seriously. The point of free speech isn't that the speech will freely contain only the truth. The point of free speech is we need that debate to find the truth. Declaring the WHO as the one and only source of truth is a bad idea, even before we observe the fact that it has manifestly made numerous incorrect statements within the past couple of months, and that reasonably people can question some of the things it is saying even now. There isn't an option where we get only pure, unfiltered truth. Sorry. That's life. But there is an option where we pretty much guarantee ourselves that we will not get the truth, and that option is declaring a single trusted source of truth who will somehow transcend the fact they are made up of falliable and potentially untrustworthy human beings to deliver you that truth.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  4chan and terrorgram were also workshopping Corona-chan memes, entertaining the misconception that black people were immune to it, and trying to figure out ways to launch the boogaloo on the back of it. They take it seriously in the same way that a rotating drum full of ping-pong balls happens to contain the winning lottery numbers every week. Glomming on to novelty is is the defining trait of quasi-anonymous social networks.
twblalock 7y ago
> Misinformation is killing people. How many? I don't think it's very many.
- what_ever 7y ago
  Isn't one too many?
  - twblalock 7y ago
    You'd need to ban pretty much everything if that was the standard.
- nathanyukai 7y ago
  Think of all the protest and conspiracy against Bill gates, 5G, think how many people are still gathering, not wearing any protection, think of how Trump compared it with just another flu, how it would just magically go away. I'd say misinformation indirectly killed thousands of people
- knzhou 7y ago
  The ban is meant for 4chan-based messages like "drink bleach/rubbing alcohol/methanol to cure yourself now!", which have killed plenty of people.
  - nomel 7y ago
    I think it's unfortunate that the population has become so stupid that we need to protect them from killing themselves by drinking household chemicals, based on tweets or whatever. I can't see and end game that's not terrible.
  - anigbrowl 7y ago
    Those are White House-based messages now. https://www.history.com/news/printing-press-renaissance https://www.history.com/news/printing-press-renaissance
  - twblalock 7y ago
zucker42 7y ago
They could remove only obvious errors/lies like "drink bleach" rather than subscribe to a single authoritative source of truth. As another commenter noted, wearing a mask contradicts WHO advice.
- vondur 7y ago
  It frightens me think that anyone would seriously drink bleach to fight a disease.
Reedx 7y ago
None. There is no single source of truth. Maybe they should just have a disclaimer on every video: "Watch this with a critical eye and a grain of salt. Perhaps a truckload of salt. Use your brain."
- JungleGymSam 7y ago
  That leads to free thinking and that is _exactly_ what they don't want.
nexuist 7y ago
>Given that, who should YouTube use as a source of truth? Why are we expecting a private company to provide "a source of truth"? What happened to the whole idea of the Internet being about the free flow of information? >Or should they let 4chan tell your grandma to drink bleach to fight the Rona? Why don't we have parental controls for our parents yet? Why are we applying blanket bans on parts of the Internet when it's clearly a specific subset of the population that needs hand-holding to not injure themselves or others?
- subhobroto 7y ago
  Apparently I have hit the nerves of lots of people from my parent post and since I am and like to be publicly accessible, people who disliked my thoughts have really let me know what they think of me and where I belong :D 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!

by Pxtl 7y ago

ColanR 7y ago

4chan was taking the virus seriously back in January, when the WHO was denying the need for travel lockdowns. The misinformation coming out of the WHO is what killed people, not the early warning that 4chan gave us. Edit: note that in both replies to my comment, none of the specific facts I mentioned were responded to. The response of the countries is being blamed, the date I mentioned is being ignored; but I am comparing the information coming publicly out of the WHO in January to the information coming out of 4chan in January. In hindsight, if you compared the information from both at that time, you would have had a better idea of the real situation if you believed 4chan over the WHO.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
phs318u 7y ago
Do you really believe that? Check archive.org. The WHO published info on CV including technical guidance for the health ministries of nation states, at least as early as January 24. It’s safe to assume that national delegates would have been in discussions with WHO ahead of this. Remember, there’s only one WHO and yet we have many different responses and outcomes in different countries. The only logical conclusion is that those nations who’s responses led to poor outcomes should look to their own interpretation of WHO advice and the decisions they themselves made, as the cause of poor outcomes.
- enaaem 7y ago
  In Februari the WHO urges to not impose travel bans: 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... Nations who handled the crisis the best, imposed travel bans early on and were criticised by the WHO. https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china-coronavirus-is-officially-an-international-emergency/ https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/01/30/275959/the-china...
  - phs318u 7y ago
    His actual speech (that Reuter’s reported on). https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-s-statement-on-ihr-emergency-committee-on-novel-coronavirus-(2019-ncov) https://www.who.int/dg/speeches/detail/who-director-general-... The key sentence that Tedros is being criticised for is: “First, there is no reason for measures that unnecessarily interfere with international travel and trade. WHO doesn’t recommend limiting trade and movement.” However, in the same speech: “ we must all act together now to limit further spread. The vast majority of cases outside China have a travel history to Wuhan, or contact with someone with a travel history to Wuhan” and “Our greatest concern is the potential for the virus to spread to countries with weaker health systems, and which are ill-prepared to deal with it” This leads me to believe that perhaps he was trying to have it both ways: - flag the need for action - keep a major player from “losing face”. I don’t envy his job, or in fact any of the UN organisations. You’re at the mercy of your big funders; you’re trying to influence hundreds of countries who’d rather focus on their own internal politics; you have no actual power. You’re damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. How on earth do you move the needle at all in that kind of environment?
    - ColanR 7y ago
      His job is world health. If he put "saving face" for China, or trying to keep his job, over recommending a travel ban to prevent the spread of a deadly virus, then he is incompetent and he failed to prevent deaths... and my point still stands.
streb-lo 7y ago
This is a hilariously revisionist take people are trotting out. Forget the WHO for a second (which remember was politically cast adrift by the US when they refused to participate in it.) The news coming out of Europe/Iran/China had lay people in the US concerned by late February -- yet the American Government did everything it could to belittle or otherwise diminish the threat. Now it wants to turn around and suggest that it's actions are to be blamed by the WHO? What happened to self-responsibility? Give me a break.
- wolco 7y ago
  You are making a different point that the US could have acted sooner in late Feb. Before the news coming out of Europe and Iran things were breaking in China. The 4chan guys were all over it way back in Jan. Remember the Chinese Dr whistle blower who got punished for letting the truth? He was dead by Jan 20-22.. at this point the WHO was downplaying, later praising China and telling everyone not to wear a mask. The WHO response caused the outbreak to get out of control in Europe and elsewhere long before it hit North America.
- Aeolun 7y ago
  To be fair, the WHO was advocating against travel restrictions, and against calling what was clearly a global pandemic as such. If they’d switched tune to ‘close your borders’ and ‘this is a global pandemic’ earlier you would have seen some different responses.
jerf 7y ago
"4chan was taking the virus seriously back in January," I think the thread under this is kinda missing a deeper point. 4chan was taking this virus seriously back in January. I also wouldn't be surprised that 4chan was the original origin of "it's just a flu, bro" meme, which is to say, plenty of 4chan and related communities was also mocking the idea of taking it seriously. The point of free speech isn't that the speech will freely contain only the truth. The point of free speech is we need that debate to find the truth. Declaring the WHO as the one and only source of truth is a bad idea, even before we observe the fact that it has manifestly made numerous incorrect statements within the past couple of months, and that reasonably people can question some of the things it is saying even now. There isn't an option where we get only pure, unfiltered truth. Sorry. That's life. But there is an option where we pretty much guarantee ourselves that we will not get the truth, and that option is declaring a single trusted source of truth who will somehow transcend the fact they are made up of falliable and potentially untrustworthy human beings to deliver you that truth.
anigbrowl 7y ago
4chan and terrorgram were also workshopping Corona-chan memes, entertaining the misconception that black people were immune to it, and trying to figure out ways to launch the boogaloo on the back of it. They take it seriously in the same way that a rotating drum full of ping-pong balls happens to contain the winning lottery numbers every week. Glomming on to novelty is is the defining trait of quasi-anonymous social networks.

twblalock 7y ago

> Misinformation is killing people. How many? I don't think it's very many.

what_ever 7y ago
Isn't one too many?
- twblalock 7y ago
  You'd need to ban pretty much everything if that was the standard.
nathanyukai 7y ago
Think of all the protest and conspiracy against Bill gates, 5G, think how many people are still gathering, not wearing any protection, think of how Trump compared it with just another flu, how it would just magically go away. I'd say misinformation indirectly killed thousands of people
knzhou 7y ago
The ban is meant for 4chan-based messages like "drink bleach/rubbing alcohol/methanol to cure yourself now!", which have killed plenty of people.
- nomel 7y ago
  I think it's unfortunate that the population has become so stupid that we need to protect them from killing themselves by drinking household chemicals, based on tweets or whatever. I can't see and end game that's not terrible.
- anigbrowl 7y ago
  Those are White House-based messages now. https://www.history.com/news/printing-press-renaissance https://www.history.com/news/printing-press-renaissance
- twblalock 7y ago

zucker42 7y ago

They could remove only obvious errors/lies like "drink bleach" rather than subscribe to a single authoritative source of truth. As another commenter noted, wearing a mask contradicts WHO advice.

vondur 7y ago
It frightens me think that anyone would seriously drink bleach to fight a disease.

Reedx 7y ago

None. There is no single source of truth. Maybe they should just have a disclaimer on every video: "Watch this with a critical eye and a grain of salt. Perhaps a truckload of salt. Use your brain."

JungleGymSam 7y ago
That leads to free thinking and that is _exactly_ what they don't want.

nexuist 7y ago

>Given that, who should YouTube use as a source of truth? Why are we expecting a private company to provide "a source of truth"? What happened to the whole idea of the Internet being about the free flow of information? >Or should they let 4chan tell your grandma to drink bleach to fight the Rona? Why don't we have parental controls for our parents yet? Why are we applying blanket bans on parts of the Internet when it's clearly a specific subset of the population that needs hand-holding to not injure themselves or others?

subhobroto 7y ago
Apparently I have hit the nerves of lots of people from my parent post and since I am and like to be publicly accessible, people who disliked my thoughts have really let me know what they think of me and where I belong :D 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!