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Thanks to Google, Facebook and the others this is the golden era of being able to widely disseminate your alternate theories on everything. If that is your defi

Thanks to Google, Facebook and the others this is the golden era of being able to widely disseminate your alternate theories on everything. If that is your definition of freedom then you are less oppressed then any other humans in history.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
roenxi 7y ago
Some people would like freedom to discuss the coronavirus without being oppressed. They can't on YouTube if this policy takes hold. The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one; they predicted a problem early and tended to pre-empt the WHO on upcoming problems. This was also expected, because the WHO only advises stuff that is already obvious to everyone. Interested parties can offer better advice than the WHO because they can move with news while the WHO has to wait. Case in point, Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity runs a prepper/doomsday style channel. He is also a very smart bloke with an honest-to-goodness PhD in a virus-related field. Who are YouTube to say his opinions are less valid than an organisation that can't say "Taiwan" in a sentence and can only say things that are politically palatable to China and the US? Chris' advice on the coronavirus has been consistently high quality, accurate, sourced and early compared to the WHO. His only fault is his standards for safety are a lot higher than are reasonable. This policy will be aimed at exactly people like him. He has been contradicting the authorities all the way.
- seppin 7y ago
  > freedom to discuss the coronavirus Unfortunately platforms that reach billions must prioritize the danger of misinformation spreading that far and wide over allowing for every dangerous and wrong opinion. The complete and total censorship you fear never emerges, Youtube if anything is far too lenient on allowing terrible opinions to linger on their platform. They never do away with anything besides the most harmful, hate filled rhetoric.
  - holler 7y ago
    > They never do away with anything besides the most harmful, hate filled rhetoric. who decides what speech is "hate filled"? this is free speech 101. what is the point of a publicly accessible social platform if people can't express themselves freely?
    - driverdan 7y ago
      Free speech applies to the government, not businesses. Which is good because if it didn't there wouldn't be spam filters. Don't like their rules? Host it yourself.
      - seppin 7y ago
        Exactly, the term "free speech" has no relevance in the private sector.
  - rorykoehler 7y ago
    The WHO are themselves spreading misinformation for political reasons.
    - seppin 7y ago
      They are making a calculation that a global run on masks would hurt efforts to contain spread due to shortages for medical professionals confronting the virus everyday, as opposed to general public confrontation which is more sporadic. Should they just come out and say that? Probably. Would it be effective? No people are irrational in crisis and their words wouldn't prevent the above scenario. They made a calculated choice with their language which is misleading, but necessarily so. You can disagree with it, but it's far from "spreading misinformation for political reasons".
      - rorykoehler 6y ago
        FWIW I agree re masks but withholding information from Taiwan to appease the CCP is inexcusable. Luckily the Taiwanese are far more competent than their counterparts in this farce.
- onion2k 7y ago
  The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one; they predicted a problem early... Suggesting YouTubers were correct a form of survivorship bias. You're only paying attention to the ones that were right. Plenty of other YouTubers said things along the lines of it being a hoax, or it'd die off, or that it'd be thousands of times worse long before, and long after, the WHO reacted. YouTube is big and covers all opinions, so of course some would be correct.
  - glenstein 7y ago
    I think you are right, and that this is one of the more helpful comments in this thread. But maybe even this gives Youtubers too much credit. I suspect that even those hailed as 'survivors' weren't necessarily more correct. Nobody remembers who was wrong. Nobody remembers anything, ever. Youtubers pay no price with their audience for outrageous false claims. Those were made in the past, which was a month ago. There's 30 new videos up. Meanwhile, they reap rewards by fanning the flames of whatever subset of claims they've made that haven't proved false, and can claim they knew it all along.
  - alexis_fr 7y ago
    Maybe those Youtubers were less popular because their predictions are less accurate and their logic is flawed, and people are able to see the difference? Why is biasing information the role of Youtube, shouldn’t USA and other countries educate their citizen to be resilient to inaccurate predictions, rather than cut any information at the root and only ever expose citizen to “true information”, which inevitably makes your citizen more gullible? Saying the population can be misled is an admission that our school system creates naive dumbasses. MAYBE we should fix that first.
    - toastal 7y ago
      Yes, let's go fix people's entire educational upbringing (often tied to income and scenarios outside one's control) in the middle of a crisis so that way they can be your flavor of 'smart enough' to discern fact from fiction. This stance is absurd given the immediacy of the crisis all hinging on some slippery-slope argument that if they ban one video they can ban them all.
- immutate 7y ago
  "Some people would like freedom to discuss the coronavirus without being oppressed. They can't on YouTube if this policy takes hold." so find another platform. YouTube has no obligation whatsoever to continue to disseminate disinformation, or theories. They've had a hard enough time banning and preventing the spread of chlorine dioxide-based "protocol" information, let alone the flimflam that's being discussed right now.
- madengr 7y ago
  I have been watching his channel nightly; it’s really good. How are his safety standards higher? I think the only think he expounds is wearing a mask.
- joshuamorton 7y ago
  > This policy will be aimed at exactly people like him. He has been contradicting the authorities all the way. What advice has he given that contradicts the WHO's guidance?
  - asdkjh345fd 7y ago
    That masks work.
    - joshuamorton 7y ago
      Where, specifically, do they say that masks are ineffective?
      - asdkjh345fd 7y ago
        On their website and twitter and through press outlets like CNN: 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... "There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit." That is completely and totally wrong. It is INSANE to suggest something so horrifyingly stupid and dangerous with a virus that has a two week asymptomatic, contagious incubation period. All the infected but don't know it yet people would lower the number of people they infect massively if they work masks. Every single country where mask wearing in public is the norm has a much lower fatality rate than every single country where it is not the norm.
        joshuamorton 7y ago
        Does that say it's harmful to wear masks? The WHO's guidance has been that it isn't necessary for individuals to wear medical PPE. There are valid concerns about this, both related to shortages and improper care.
        asdkjh345fd 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

roenxi 7y ago

Some people would like freedom to discuss the coronavirus without being oppressed. They can't on YouTube if this policy takes hold. The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one; they predicted a problem early and tended to pre-empt the WHO on upcoming problems. This was also expected, because the WHO only advises stuff that is already obvious to everyone. Interested parties can offer better advice than the WHO because they can move with news while the WHO has to wait. Case in point, Chris Martenson of Peak Prosperity runs a prepper/doomsday style channel. He is also a very smart bloke with an honest-to-goodness PhD in a virus-related field. Who are YouTube to say his opinions are less valid than an organisation that can't say "Taiwan" in a sentence and can only say things that are politically palatable to China and the US? Chris' advice on the coronavirus has been consistently high quality, accurate, sourced and early compared to the WHO. His only fault is his standards for safety are a lot higher than are reasonable. This policy will be aimed at exactly people like him. He has been contradicting the authorities all the way.

seppin 7y ago
> freedom to discuss the coronavirus Unfortunately platforms that reach billions must prioritize the danger of misinformation spreading that far and wide over allowing for every dangerous and wrong opinion. The complete and total censorship you fear never emerges, Youtube if anything is far too lenient on allowing terrible opinions to linger on their platform. They never do away with anything besides the most harmful, hate filled rhetoric.
- holler 7y ago
  > They never do away with anything besides the most harmful, hate filled rhetoric. who decides what speech is "hate filled"? this is free speech 101. what is the point of a publicly accessible social platform if people can't express themselves freely?
  - driverdan 7y ago
    Free speech applies to the government, not businesses. Which is good because if it didn't there wouldn't be spam filters. Don't like their rules? Host it yourself.
    - seppin 7y ago
      Exactly, the term "free speech" has no relevance in the private sector.
- rorykoehler 7y ago
  The WHO are themselves spreading misinformation for political reasons.
  - seppin 7y ago
    They are making a calculation that a global run on masks would hurt efforts to contain spread due to shortages for medical professionals confronting the virus everyday, as opposed to general public confrontation which is more sporadic. Should they just come out and say that? Probably. Would it be effective? No people are irrational in crisis and their words wouldn't prevent the above scenario. They made a calculated choice with their language which is misleading, but necessarily so. You can disagree with it, but it's far from "spreading misinformation for political reasons".
    - rorykoehler 6y ago
      FWIW I agree re masks but withholding information from Taiwan to appease the CCP is inexcusable. Luckily the Taiwanese are far more competent than their counterparts in this farce.
onion2k 7y ago
The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one; they predicted a problem early... Suggesting YouTubers were correct a form of survivorship bias. You're only paying attention to the ones that were right. Plenty of other YouTubers said things along the lines of it being a hoax, or it'd die off, or that it'd be thousands of times worse long before, and long after, the WHO reacted. YouTube is big and covers all opinions, so of course some would be correct.
- glenstein 7y ago
  I think you are right, and that this is one of the more helpful comments in this thread. But maybe even this gives Youtubers too much credit. I suspect that even those hailed as 'survivors' weren't necessarily more correct. Nobody remembers who was wrong. Nobody remembers anything, ever. Youtubers pay no price with their audience for outrageous false claims. Those were made in the past, which was a month ago. There's 30 new videos up. Meanwhile, they reap rewards by fanning the flames of whatever subset of claims they've made that haven't proved false, and can claim they knew it all along.
- alexis_fr 7y ago
  Maybe those Youtubers were less popular because their predictions are less accurate and their logic is flawed, and people are able to see the difference? Why is biasing information the role of Youtube, shouldn’t USA and other countries educate their citizen to be resilient to inaccurate predictions, rather than cut any information at the root and only ever expose citizen to “true information”, which inevitably makes your citizen more gullible? Saying the population can be misled is an admission that our school system creates naive dumbasses. MAYBE we should fix that first.
  - toastal 7y ago
    Yes, let's go fix people's entire educational upbringing (often tied to income and scenarios outside one's control) in the middle of a crisis so that way they can be your flavor of 'smart enough' to discern fact from fiction. This stance is absurd given the immediacy of the crisis all hinging on some slippery-slope argument that if they ban one video they can ban them all.
immutate 7y ago
"Some people would like freedom to discuss the coronavirus without being oppressed. They can't on YouTube if this policy takes hold." so find another platform. YouTube has no obligation whatsoever to continue to disseminate disinformation, or theories. They've had a hard enough time banning and preventing the spread of chlorine dioxide-based "protocol" information, let alone the flimflam that's being discussed right now.
madengr 7y ago
I have been watching his channel nightly; it’s really good. How are his safety standards higher? I think the only think he expounds is wearing a mask.
joshuamorton 7y ago
> This policy will be aimed at exactly people like him. He has been contradicting the authorities all the way. What advice has he given that contradicts the WHO's guidance?
- asdkjh345fd 7y ago
  That masks work.
  - joshuamorton 7y ago
    Where, specifically, do they say that masks are ineffective?
    - asdkjh345fd 7y ago
      On their website and twitter and through press outlets like CNN: 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... "There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit." That is completely and totally wrong. It is INSANE to suggest something so horrifyingly stupid and dangerous with a virus that has a two week asymptomatic, contagious incubation period. All the infected but don't know it yet people would lower the number of people they infect massively if they work masks. Every single country where mask wearing in public is the norm has a much lower fatality rate than every single country where it is not the norm.
      - joshuamorton 7y ago
        Does that say it's harmful to wear masks? The WHO's guidance has been that it isn't necessary for individuals to wear medical PPE. There are valid concerns about this, both related to shortages and improper care.
        asdkjh345fd 7y ago