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But that misses the point. The very fact that a few people at Google/Youtube have the power to censor whomever they want for whatever reason they choose is a pr

But that misses the point. The very fact that a few people at Google/Youtube have the power to censor whomever they want for whatever reason they choose is a problem in itself. Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? I think what they said in the video was eminently reasonable. But perhaps I'm wrong. Luckily we have the freedom to publicly critique their claims - assuming our critiques aren't censored by major internet companies - which is how falsehoods and untruths should be dealt with, not with censorship.

downerending 6y ago
Google/YouTube is moving from annoying to disgusting. If the claims are wrong, take them apart. Censorship is not the way.
- techntoke 6y ago
  Businesses have the right to refuse service, why should YouTube be any different? I think the solution is a decentralized video sharing platform.
  - golergka 6y ago
    > why should YouTube be any different? Because it's almost a monopoly. It's not one of roughly equal dozens video hosting services. It's freaking youtube.
    - olliej 6y ago
      No it’s not. There are innumerable hosting services. The crux is people wanting to spread their views but who don’t want to pay to do that.
      - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
        > There are innumerable hosting services. Is this an honest comment or one you hope won't be challenged? There are NO video hosting services with the popularity or reach of YouTube, by a very long shot. Customers of ours have lost their entire livelihood because content that was present on YouTube for a decade was suddenly politically incorrect and their accounts got banned. That wouldn't be the case if they had more than one reasonable option.
        techntoke 6y ago
        There are hundreds if not thousands of video sharing platforms. Plus a shared web host cost very little, and there is always BitTorrent too. No one is forcing anyone to use YouTube for videos. Anyone that lost their livelihood because of YouTube should have read the TOS.
        downerending 6y ago
        That may well be true, but it's not a reason for me to think of Google/YouTube's behavior as in any way acceptable.
        techntoke 6y ago
        So in order to have a business, you believe that you should have to cater to everyone regardless of what they do or say because otherwise you are censoring them?
        downerending 6y ago
        I think that if you get a reputation for immoral behavior, even if it's legal, your business is going to eventually pay a price (and rightfully so).
        techntoke 6y ago
        Have you told that to Comcast?
    - seppin 6y ago
      You misunderstand the word "monopoly". Youtube is where the exposure is, they technology for hosting videos is a commodity. In other words, no one has the "right" to Youtube's distribution and promotion. Put you video on another site and promote it yourself.
- jdkee 6y ago
  You are apparently unaware of how anti-vaccination videos are promoted as legitimate on social media platforms.
sneak 6y ago
This is an existential threat to a free society in any times of crisis involving the military, not just pandemics: https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/ https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/
senectus1 6y ago
I dont get this mindset. They aren't stopping them voicing their opinions or views... they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service. Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different?
- TechBro8615 6y ago
  It’s not like these are crackpot doctors that uploaded the video themselves. It was a press conference that a local news station uploaded to YouTube. https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-with-dr-dan-erickson-and-dr-artin-massihi-taken-down-from-youtube https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-wi...
  - busymom0 6y ago
    Yep. The video was a news conference from Dr. Dan Erickson, who along with Dr. Artin Massihi, own the largest testing site in Kern County, Accelerated Urgent Care, California. It wasn't some random joe making claims.
- forgot_my_pwd 6y ago
  Imbalance. There has always been the assumption in media that all sides will have their champions, and this has traditionally been the case. Unfortunately that no longer holds as certain entities have a stranglehold on online communication. Perhaps the free market will fix this. Perhaps not. Are we willing to allow a small cadre of like minded individuals manipulate the internet in the meantime? I believe that's an intolerant situation and am not willing to wait.
- busymom0 6y ago
  > Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. And that's why newspapers are classified as publishers and therefore are able to be sued. "Platforms" like YouTube are can't be sued because they are supposed to act like platforms - which they are not. Right now YouTube is acting like publishers while using the advantage of being called a platform. This is the Communications Decency Act section 230.
threatofrain 6y ago
But the endgame is to have an organization, such as the AMA or the ABA, for the delegation of responsible judgment. Google and YouTube just grew up too fast without the FCC catching up, but in a society where we felt that Google and YouTube shouldn't be in a position of deciding whether youths might come into contact with swear words, that ultimately means we want delegation to another trustworthy body such as the FCC. In this case Google choose the WHO. We can argue that there's a better choice on the table, but what?
- philwelch 6y ago
  Delegating “responsible judgment” to a formal institution or organization sounds fundamentally dubious in this context.
  - threatofrain 6y ago
    How is it fundamentally dubious? If you don't trust Google to make a category of social or moral judgments, you're either trusting the market or you have another institution do the job.
    - philwelch 6y ago
      Or you could just not do the censorship in the first place and give people the freedom to make their own personal judgments whenever they’re presented with conflicting perspectives. You’re assuming that some global institution has to be The Arbiter Of Truth because common people are too stupid to think for themselves and I find that assumption disgusting.
      - threatofrain 6y ago
        > Or you could just not do the censorship in the first place and give people the freedom to make their own personal judgments whenever they’re presented with conflicting perspectives. > You’re assuming that some global institution has to be The Arbiter Of Truth because common people are too stupid to think for themselves and I find that assumption disgusting. The market is the sharpest vote the people may give for companies. Next would be holding businesses liable, which Google is in various ways. If Google is accountable for the content it serves, and it is in various ways, then that is the people's will in motion. I find it alarming that you think you understand my thoughts without getting into a conversation with me, to the point of announcing your disgust over a forum.
ceejayoz 6y ago
> Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? Yes, they are. https://www.dailynews.com/2020/04/28/california-doctors-with-dubious-covid-conclusions-debunked/ https://www.dailynews.com/2020/04/28/california-doctors-with... > But public health experts were quick to debunk the doctors’ findings as misguided and riddled with statistical errors — and an example of the kind of misleading information they are forced to waste precious time disputing. > The doctors should never have assumed that the patients they tested — who came for walk-in COVID-19 tests or who sought urgent care for symptoms they experienced in the middle of a pandemic — are representative of the general population, said Dr. Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington biologist who specializes in infectious disease modeling. He likened their extrapolations to “estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court.” And most credible studies of COVID-19 death rates in reality are far higher than the ones the doctors presented. > In a rare statement late today, the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine declared they “emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Messihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.”
- forgot_my_pwd 6y ago
  Many studies across the world are showing infection rates for Covid-19 are far higher than official numbers indicate. These studies appear to support the spirit of their statements.
  - cjhopman 6y ago
    AFAIK, there is not a single study that "[shows] infection rates for Covid-19 are far higher than official numbers indicate". There is no place in the world (again, afaik) that is attempting to report the number of infected people, all the "official numbers" are roughly either "confirmed infected" or clinically-confirmed infected. All health experts (as far back as early january when we just had numbers from Wuhan) were saying that the actual number of infected will be much higher than those confirmed infected. There are a lot of studies that indicate that those experts are correct (and I am, maybe unfairly, assuming that those are the studies that you are misrepresenting).
endgame 6y ago
To those who support YouTube removing these vids: Without remarking on the quality of the video in this specific instance I will note that Dr. John Campbell's videos were contradicting WHO advice while WHO was asleep at the wheel. By the current standards, would they have been removed?
- reagank 6y ago
  Was he advocating a course of action that would cause people to die? Because if he wasn’t (he wasn’t) then no, they wouldn’t be removed.
  - Fjolsvith 6y ago
    > Was he advocating a course of action that would cause people to die? I thought the censorship was about the Coronavirus. There are a lot of videos that advocate a course of action that would cause someone, somewhere to die, that aren't being censored.
  - glofish 6y ago
    Doesn't the WHO advocate a course of action that will cause people to die? Of course they do, it is just that different people will die at a different time. It is more fuzzy and diffuse rather than a data driven counter.
austincheney 6y ago
There have been several lawsuits about this over the past few years and they always fail. Google is a commercial company and not a public institution. There are no first amendment protections here and they can remove any content they wish. The commonality of the platform does not make it a public institution. If that bothers you then boycott them.
- perf1 6y ago
  Are they arguing that they are a publisher? Because that would also mean being liable for the content.
  - javagram 6y ago
    That is not how it works. It’s a complete legal myth that there is some sort of “Platform” v “Publisher” distinction in the law. Section 230 of the CDA was created 25 years ago to avoid this being the case. It gives companies the ability to moderate user generated content on their platforms without being held responsible for other UGC posted to them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati... > One of the first legal challenges to Section 230 was the 1997 case Zeran v. America Online, Inc., in which a Federal court affirmed that the purpose of Section 230 as passed by Congress was "to remove the disincentives to self-regulation created by the Stratton Oakmont decision".[8] Under that court's holding, computer service providers who regulated the dissemination of offensive material on their services risked subjecting themselves to liability, because such regulation cast the service provider in the role of a publisher. Fearing that the specter of liability would therefore deter service providers from blocking and screening offensive material, Congress enacted § 230's broad immunity "to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material."[8] In addition, Zeran notes "the amount of information communicated via interactive computer services is . . . staggering. The specter of tort liability in an area of such prolific speech would have an obviously chilling effect. It would be impossible for service providers to screen each of their millions of postings for possible problems. Faced with potential liability for each message republished by their services, interactive computer service providers might choose to severely restrict the number and type of messages posted. Congress considered the weight of the speech interests implicated and chose to immunize service providers to avoid any such restrictive effect."[8]
cycomanic 6y ago
In other news fox news is censoring anyone who does not agree with their Conservative narrative.
- thatsenough 6y ago
  IMO, this is a matter of public health and should be treated as such (as much as some politicians want to cast this as a partisan issue for political gain).
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
olliej 6y ago
Ignoring the context here, YT has every right to choose what to display, and what not to. In context: they don’t want to be responsible for harm to others and they certainly don’t want to pay to broadcast that content. If people really want to spew nonsense they can pay to do it themselves. No one is stopping them.
- aantthony 6y ago
  Youtube is responsible for the harm here IMO. The video is long and boring. If it wasn't being censored, nobody would care to pay any attention to it.
  - skuthus 6y ago
    It was retweeted by Elon Musk like a day ago
threeseed 6y ago
If you were a bit more self aware you would realise how hypocritical you are. You want your freedom to communicate what you want. But you don't want Google/Youtube to have their freedom. They are a private website who should have the right to host whatever content they choose and free to look after their own interests. And remember nobody is stopping you from exercising your freedom to host whatever content you like on your private website.
- alvah 6y ago
  So we just need to build our own Google or YouTube? That shouldn't be too hard /sarc
  - threeseed 6y ago
    Youtube is very easy to build. AWS has all of the components e.g. hosting, CDN, transcoding, live streaming, analytics, ML. You could easily put together an MVP in a weekend. Of course you would have to convince people to visit and pay for the content to cover your traffic costs. But since I am sure this content is so incredibly popular and valuable there will be no shortage of people willing to do this.
- djsumdog 6y ago
  I hate this argument because it breaks down at the scale at what YouTube is. Viemo and Daily Motion don't even begin to compare in scale and reach. At what point is a company's reach so big they control the means of distribution? How many people even know what a PeerTube instance is?
raz32dust 6y ago
I think the current scenario has to be treated as a special case. Spreading falsehoods on this topic can do too much damage to the whole community. We should separate the general discussion of companies having too much power vs. what needs to be done right now.
luminadiffusion 6y ago
Your comment misses the point of why they did this. These doctors were in no way qualified or licensed to provide the opinions they did and they had huge undisclosed conflicts of interest. 1. Their medical practice is an Urgent Care. 1a. They own said Urgent Care. They have a vested monetary interest in claiming these things so people start using them more. 2. They are not licensed to practice epidemiology - nor are they properly trained in Epidemiology. 3. They are not licensed to practice emergency medicine - nor are they properly trained in emergency medicine. These guys misquoted the facts at every step and misled millions with their improper application of statistics. This viewpoint is harmful and incorrect. This is telling everyone that “there is no fire” and to sit down and keep watching the movie in a theater that is on fire. They do not deserve a platform on which to spread these lies and misinformation. Now, their medical licenses are in jeopardy. For the misinformation the presented, not the truths. If they understood statistics and still said the crap they did, the board is going to want to talk to them about gross negligence. If they didn’t understand statistics and still said what they did, the medical board is going to want to talk to them about practicing without a license. These two idiots are going down for this. Good for YouTube. In this instance, this is disinformation, and they were correct.
- wesammikhail 6y ago
  Fuck this reply and everything it represents. I truly detest this madness and everyone who believe in such warped nonsense. One giant pile of argument from authority bullcrap. This idea that only narrow set of domain experts can speak up about something is blatantly insane. You are not an epidemiologist either, so by the same token, you don´t have the right to criticize anything anyone says, yet here you are. So maybe you should heed your own advise you damn hypocrite. I can do the same dance and say epidemiologists are not statisticians so Fauci should never EVER talk about numbers. Similarly, Trump has no PhD in economics so he should never EVER talk about money. Ooh, also, you´re not an NBA player so you should never EVER talk about how a game should have unfolded. This is nuts man. You make your arguments, we listen and we assess based on the level of evidence and logic you presented. The piece of paper on your wall does not tell me shit about fuck. I couldn´t care less about who makes an argument. If credibility is a function of imbued institutional authority in the form of a piece of paper, and that´s all it takes to convince you that someone´s opinion should be heard but not others, then YOU are the problem.
vannevar 6y ago
If you're saying that it's a problem that something that has become of great public utility is a de facto monopoly entirely in the hands of private interests, sure. But given that, the unfettered censorship is a feature, not a bug. If there were a public utility similar to Youtube, it would have to have a clear policy for censorship, and some means for a public review of any decision to censor. And then you might have a legitimate complaint (though in this case there was a pretty clear case of a material factual misrepresentation, regarding the mortality rate of COVID-19). But since that is not the case, Youtube/Google is pretty much free to censor anyone on any basis they choose, and they owe no one any particular explanation for their decisions.
sbuttgereit 6y ago
It's wrong to conflate this with censorship. A few people at Google/Youtube should absolutely have the power to allow/disallow what they want on their platform for whatever reason they choose. That is as much a freedom of speech issue as is the doctors' right to public speech. The real problem is that Google/Youtube has special legal protections related to not having editorial controls, yet here they are exercising editorial control. That they can play it both ways is the greater tragedy.
SquishyPanda23 6y ago
> The very fact that a few people at Google/Youtube have the power to censor whomever they want for whatever reason they choose is a problem in itself. In the US, the media is almost entirely run by private corporations. If you feel that is a mistake it's probably a better use of your time advocating for better funding and more independence for public media than criticizing corporations for exercising oversight of their platforms.
pmarreck 6y ago
> censor whomever they want for whatever reason they choose As long as "whomever they want" includes only people pushing cherry-picked and dangerous bullshit, and "whatever reason" includes saving the lives that would have otherwise been spent had that bullshit spread further, then I have absolutely zero qualms about this bending of the free-speech rules, the same way I have zero qualms about there being rules against someone yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. You're missing the forest for the trees, man. Perhaps they need to leave it but flag it extremely visibly with something like this: "The information this video purports to be true has been in dispute due to <reason> and <reason>, as pointed out by <rebuttal> and <rebuttal>." But doing that for every single video would be extremely laborious, and during the week it might take for the work behind such a change to take effect, hundreds of people might die who might not otherwise.
jerry1979 6y ago
This is their math. See if you can see whats wrong... 39,500,000 -- Pop. of California 12.00% -- Pct. of people who tested positive for covid 4,740,000 -- Estimated cases (Pop. * Pct.) 1,227 -- Reported deaths 0.03% -- Estimated chance of dying from covid in California (deaths/estimated cases)
- Claudus 6y ago
  That math seems correct, you do have an extra space on the fourth line of your statistics.
  - joshuamorton 6y ago
    The positive cases aren't a representative sample, as has been said 30 times in this thread. So line 3 is bad statistical reasoning, and completely invalidates their conclusion. The only people who are getting tested are those who believe they have symptoms. This is beginning to change as we get more tests, and as a result, the % infected by their reasoning is decreasing day by day.
  - jerry1979 6y ago
    The math does not reflect reality. Why do you think 12% of Californians have covid? What impact does that have on the chance of dying stat? Also, I fixed the space on the fourth line.
threatofrain 6y ago
You ask, "Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? I think what they said in the video was eminently reasonable." > The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) jointly and emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical society and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health. > COVID-19 misinformation is widespread and dangerous. Members of AAEM and ACEP are first-hand witnesses to the human toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities. AAEM and ACEP strongly advise against using any statements of Drs. Erickson and Massihi as a basis for policy and decision making. https://www.aaem.org/resources/statements/joint-endorsed/physician-misinformation https://www.aaem.org/resources/statements/joint-endorsed/phy...

downerending 6y ago

Google/YouTube is moving from annoying to disgusting. If the claims are wrong, take them apart. Censorship is not the way.

techntoke 6y ago
Businesses have the right to refuse service, why should YouTube be any different? I think the solution is a decentralized video sharing platform.
- golergka 6y ago
  > why should YouTube be any different? Because it's almost a monopoly. It's not one of roughly equal dozens video hosting services. It's freaking youtube.
  - olliej 6y ago
    No it’s not. There are innumerable hosting services. The crux is people wanting to spread their views but who don’t want to pay to do that.
    - RonanTheGrey 6y ago
      > There are innumerable hosting services. Is this an honest comment or one you hope won't be challenged? There are NO video hosting services with the popularity or reach of YouTube, by a very long shot. Customers of ours have lost their entire livelihood because content that was present on YouTube for a decade was suddenly politically incorrect and their accounts got banned. That wouldn't be the case if they had more than one reasonable option.
      - techntoke 6y ago
        There are hundreds if not thousands of video sharing platforms. Plus a shared web host cost very little, and there is always BitTorrent too. No one is forcing anyone to use YouTube for videos. Anyone that lost their livelihood because of YouTube should have read the TOS.
        downerending 6y ago
        That may well be true, but it's not a reason for me to think of Google/YouTube's behavior as in any way acceptable.
        techntoke 6y ago
        So in order to have a business, you believe that you should have to cater to everyone regardless of what they do or say because otherwise you are censoring them?
        downerending 6y ago
        I think that if you get a reputation for immoral behavior, even if it's legal, your business is going to eventually pay a price (and rightfully so).
        techntoke 6y ago
        Have you told that to Comcast?
  - seppin 6y ago
    You misunderstand the word "monopoly". Youtube is where the exposure is, they technology for hosting videos is a commodity. In other words, no one has the "right" to Youtube's distribution and promotion. Put you video on another site and promote it yourself.
jdkee 6y ago
You are apparently unaware of how anti-vaccination videos are promoted as legitimate on social media platforms.

sneak 6y ago

This is an existential threat to a free society in any times of crisis involving the military, not just pandemics: https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/ https://sneak.berlin/20200421/normalcy-bias/

senectus1 6y ago

I dont get this mindset. They aren't stopping them voicing their opinions or views... they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service. Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different?

TechBro8615 6y ago
It’s not like these are crackpot doctors that uploaded the video themselves. It was a press conference that a local news station uploaded to YouTube. https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-with-dr-dan-erickson-and-dr-artin-massihi-taken-down-from-youtube https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-wi...
- busymom0 6y ago
  Yep. The video was a news conference from Dr. Dan Erickson, who along with Dr. Artin Massihi, own the largest testing site in Kern County, Accelerated Urgent Care, California. It wasn't some random joe making claims.
forgot_my_pwd 6y ago
Imbalance. There has always been the assumption in media that all sides will have their champions, and this has traditionally been the case. Unfortunately that no longer holds as certain entities have a stranglehold on online communication. Perhaps the free market will fix this. Perhaps not. Are we willing to allow a small cadre of like minded individuals manipulate the internet in the meantime? I believe that's an intolerant situation and am not willing to wait.
busymom0 6y ago
> Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. And that's why newspapers are classified as publishers and therefore are able to be sued. "Platforms" like YouTube are can't be sued because they are supposed to act like platforms - which they are not. Right now YouTube is acting like publishers while using the advantage of being called a platform. This is the Communications Decency Act section 230.

threatofrain 6y ago

But the endgame is to have an organization, such as the AMA or the ABA, for the delegation of responsible judgment. Google and YouTube just grew up too fast without the FCC catching up, but in a society where we felt that Google and YouTube shouldn't be in a position of deciding whether youths might come into contact with swear words, that ultimately means we want delegation to another trustworthy body such as the FCC. In this case Google choose the WHO. We can argue that there's a better choice on the table, but what?

philwelch 6y ago
Delegating “responsible judgment” to a formal institution or organization sounds fundamentally dubious in this context.
- threatofrain 6y ago
  How is it fundamentally dubious? If you don't trust Google to make a category of social or moral judgments, you're either trusting the market or you have another institution do the job.
  - philwelch 6y ago
    Or you could just not do the censorship in the first place and give people the freedom to make their own personal judgments whenever they’re presented with conflicting perspectives. You’re assuming that some global institution has to be The Arbiter Of Truth because common people are too stupid to think for themselves and I find that assumption disgusting.
    - threatofrain 6y ago
      > Or you could just not do the censorship in the first place and give people the freedom to make their own personal judgments whenever they’re presented with conflicting perspectives. > You’re assuming that some global institution has to be The Arbiter Of Truth because common people are too stupid to think for themselves and I find that assumption disgusting. The market is the sharpest vote the people may give for companies. Next would be holding businesses liable, which Google is in various ways. If Google is accountable for the content it serves, and it is in various ways, then that is the people's will in motion. I find it alarming that you think you understand my thoughts without getting into a conversation with me, to the point of announcing your disgust over a forum.

ceejayoz 6y ago

> Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? Yes, they are. https://www.dailynews.com/2020/04/28/california-doctors-with-dubious-covid-conclusions-debunked/ https://www.dailynews.com/2020/04/28/california-doctors-with... > But public health experts were quick to debunk the doctors’ findings as misguided and riddled with statistical errors — and an example of the kind of misleading information they are forced to waste precious time disputing. > The doctors should never have assumed that the patients they tested — who came for walk-in COVID-19 tests or who sought urgent care for symptoms they experienced in the middle of a pandemic — are representative of the general population, said Dr. Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington biologist who specializes in infectious disease modeling. He likened their extrapolations to “estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court.” And most credible studies of COVID-19 death rates in reality are far higher than the ones the doctors presented. > In a rare statement late today, the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine declared they “emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Messihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.”

forgot_my_pwd 6y ago
Many studies across the world are showing infection rates for Covid-19 are far higher than official numbers indicate. These studies appear to support the spirit of their statements.
- cjhopman 6y ago
  AFAIK, there is not a single study that "[shows] infection rates for Covid-19 are far higher than official numbers indicate". There is no place in the world (again, afaik) that is attempting to report the number of infected people, all the "official numbers" are roughly either "confirmed infected" or clinically-confirmed infected. All health experts (as far back as early january when we just had numbers from Wuhan) were saying that the actual number of infected will be much higher than those confirmed infected. There are a lot of studies that indicate that those experts are correct (and I am, maybe unfairly, assuming that those are the studies that you are misrepresenting).

endgame 6y ago

To those who support YouTube removing these vids: Without remarking on the quality of the video in this specific instance I will note that Dr. John Campbell's videos were contradicting WHO advice while WHO was asleep at the wheel. By the current standards, would they have been removed?

reagank 6y ago
Was he advocating a course of action that would cause people to die? Because if he wasn’t (he wasn’t) then no, they wouldn’t be removed.
- Fjolsvith 6y ago
  > Was he advocating a course of action that would cause people to die? I thought the censorship was about the Coronavirus. There are a lot of videos that advocate a course of action that would cause someone, somewhere to die, that aren't being censored.
- glofish 6y ago
  Doesn't the WHO advocate a course of action that will cause people to die? Of course they do, it is just that different people will die at a different time. It is more fuzzy and diffuse rather than a data driven counter.

austincheney 6y ago

There have been several lawsuits about this over the past few years and they always fail. Google is a commercial company and not a public institution. There are no first amendment protections here and they can remove any content they wish. The commonality of the platform does not make it a public institution. If that bothers you then boycott them.

perf1 6y ago
Are they arguing that they are a publisher? Because that would also mean being liable for the content.
- javagram 6y ago
  That is not how it works. It’s a complete legal myth that there is some sort of “Platform” v “Publisher” distinction in the law. Section 230 of the CDA was created 25 years ago to avoid this being the case. It gives companies the ability to moderate user generated content on their platforms without being held responsible for other UGC posted to them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communications_Decency_Act#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati... > One of the first legal challenges to Section 230 was the 1997 case Zeran v. America Online, Inc., in which a Federal court affirmed that the purpose of Section 230 as passed by Congress was "to remove the disincentives to self-regulation created by the Stratton Oakmont decision".[8] Under that court's holding, computer service providers who regulated the dissemination of offensive material on their services risked subjecting themselves to liability, because such regulation cast the service provider in the role of a publisher. Fearing that the specter of liability would therefore deter service providers from blocking and screening offensive material, Congress enacted § 230's broad immunity "to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material."[8] In addition, Zeran notes "the amount of information communicated via interactive computer services is . . . staggering. The specter of tort liability in an area of such prolific speech would have an obviously chilling effect. It would be impossible for service providers to screen each of their millions of postings for possible problems. Faced with potential liability for each message republished by their services, interactive computer service providers might choose to severely restrict the number and type of messages posted. Congress considered the weight of the speech interests implicated and chose to immunize service providers to avoid any such restrictive effect."[8]

cycomanic 6y ago

In other news fox news is censoring anyone who does not agree with their Conservative narrative.

thatsenough 6y ago
IMO, this is a matter of public health and should be treated as such (as much as some politicians want to cast this as a partisan issue for political gain).
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

olliej 6y ago

Ignoring the context here, YT has every right to choose what to display, and what not to. In context: they don’t want to be responsible for harm to others and they certainly don’t want to pay to broadcast that content. If people really want to spew nonsense they can pay to do it themselves. No one is stopping them.

aantthony 6y ago
Youtube is responsible for the harm here IMO. The video is long and boring. If it wasn't being censored, nobody would care to pay any attention to it.
- skuthus 6y ago
  It was retweeted by Elon Musk like a day ago

threeseed 6y ago

If you were a bit more self aware you would realise how hypocritical you are. You want your freedom to communicate what you want. But you don't want Google/Youtube to have their freedom. They are a private website who should have the right to host whatever content they choose and free to look after their own interests. And remember nobody is stopping you from exercising your freedom to host whatever content you like on your private website.

alvah 6y ago
So we just need to build our own Google or YouTube? That shouldn't be too hard /sarc
- threeseed 6y ago
  Youtube is very easy to build. AWS has all of the components e.g. hosting, CDN, transcoding, live streaming, analytics, ML. You could easily put together an MVP in a weekend. Of course you would have to convince people to visit and pay for the content to cover your traffic costs. But since I am sure this content is so incredibly popular and valuable there will be no shortage of people willing to do this.
djsumdog 6y ago
I hate this argument because it breaks down at the scale at what YouTube is. Viemo and Daily Motion don't even begin to compare in scale and reach. At what point is a company's reach so big they control the means of distribution? How many people even know what a PeerTube instance is?

raz32dust 6y ago

I think the current scenario has to be treated as a special case. Spreading falsehoods on this topic can do too much damage to the whole community. We should separate the general discussion of companies having too much power vs. what needs to be done right now.

luminadiffusion 6y ago

Your comment misses the point of why they did this. These doctors were in no way qualified or licensed to provide the opinions they did and they had huge undisclosed conflicts of interest. 1. Their medical practice is an Urgent Care. 1a. They own said Urgent Care. They have a vested monetary interest in claiming these things so people start using them more. 2. They are not licensed to practice epidemiology - nor are they properly trained in Epidemiology. 3. They are not licensed to practice emergency medicine - nor are they properly trained in emergency medicine. These guys misquoted the facts at every step and misled millions with their improper application of statistics. This viewpoint is harmful and incorrect. This is telling everyone that “there is no fire” and to sit down and keep watching the movie in a theater that is on fire. They do not deserve a platform on which to spread these lies and misinformation. Now, their medical licenses are in jeopardy. For the misinformation the presented, not the truths. If they understood statistics and still said the crap they did, the board is going to want to talk to them about gross negligence. If they didn’t understand statistics and still said what they did, the medical board is going to want to talk to them about practicing without a license. These two idiots are going down for this. Good for YouTube. In this instance, this is disinformation, and they were correct.

wesammikhail 6y ago
Fuck this reply and everything it represents. I truly detest this madness and everyone who believe in such warped nonsense. One giant pile of argument from authority bullcrap. This idea that only narrow set of domain experts can speak up about something is blatantly insane. You are not an epidemiologist either, so by the same token, you don´t have the right to criticize anything anyone says, yet here you are. So maybe you should heed your own advise you damn hypocrite. I can do the same dance and say epidemiologists are not statisticians so Fauci should never EVER talk about numbers. Similarly, Trump has no PhD in economics so he should never EVER talk about money. Ooh, also, you´re not an NBA player so you should never EVER talk about how a game should have unfolded. This is nuts man. You make your arguments, we listen and we assess based on the level of evidence and logic you presented. The piece of paper on your wall does not tell me shit about fuck. I couldn´t care less about who makes an argument. If credibility is a function of imbued institutional authority in the form of a piece of paper, and that´s all it takes to convince you that someone´s opinion should be heard but not others, then YOU are the problem.

vannevar 6y ago

If you're saying that it's a problem that something that has become of great public utility is a de facto monopoly entirely in the hands of private interests, sure. But given that, the unfettered censorship is a feature, not a bug. If there were a public utility similar to Youtube, it would have to have a clear policy for censorship, and some means for a public review of any decision to censor. And then you might have a legitimate complaint (though in this case there was a pretty clear case of a material factual misrepresentation, regarding the mortality rate of COVID-19). But since that is not the case, Youtube/Google is pretty much free to censor anyone on any basis they choose, and they owe no one any particular explanation for their decisions.

sbuttgereit 6y ago

It's wrong to conflate this with censorship. A few people at Google/Youtube should absolutely have the power to allow/disallow what they want on their platform for whatever reason they choose. That is as much a freedom of speech issue as is the doctors' right to public speech. The real problem is that Google/Youtube has special legal protections related to not having editorial controls, yet here they are exercising editorial control. That they can play it both ways is the greater tragedy.

SquishyPanda23 6y ago

> The very fact that a few people at Google/Youtube have the power to censor whomever they want for whatever reason they choose is a problem in itself. In the US, the media is almost entirely run by private corporations. If you feel that is a mistake it's probably a better use of your time advocating for better funding and more independence for public media than criticizing corporations for exercising oversight of their platforms.

pmarreck 6y ago

> censor whomever they want for whatever reason they choose As long as "whomever they want" includes only people pushing cherry-picked and dangerous bullshit, and "whatever reason" includes saving the lives that would have otherwise been spent had that bullshit spread further, then I have absolutely zero qualms about this bending of the free-speech rules, the same way I have zero qualms about there being rules against someone yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater. You're missing the forest for the trees, man. Perhaps they need to leave it but flag it extremely visibly with something like this: "The information this video purports to be true has been in dispute due to <reason> and <reason>, as pointed out by <rebuttal> and <rebuttal>." But doing that for every single video would be extremely laborious, and during the week it might take for the work behind such a change to take effect, hundreds of people might die who might not otherwise.

jerry1979 6y ago

This is their math. See if you can see whats wrong... 39,500,000 -- Pop. of California 12.00% -- Pct. of people who tested positive for covid 4,740,000 -- Estimated cases (Pop. * Pct.) 1,227 -- Reported deaths 0.03% -- Estimated chance of dying from covid in California (deaths/estimated cases)

Claudus 6y ago
That math seems correct, you do have an extra space on the fourth line of your statistics.
- joshuamorton 6y ago
  The positive cases aren't a representative sample, as has been said 30 times in this thread. So line 3 is bad statistical reasoning, and completely invalidates their conclusion. The only people who are getting tested are those who believe they have symptoms. This is beginning to change as we get more tests, and as a result, the % infected by their reasoning is decreasing day by day.
- jerry1979 6y ago
  The math does not reflect reality. Why do you think 12% of Californians have covid? What impact does that have on the chance of dying stat? Also, I fixed the space on the fourth line.

threatofrain 6y ago

You ask, "Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? I think what they said in the video was eminently reasonable." > The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) jointly and emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical society and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health. > COVID-19 misinformation is widespread and dangerous. Members of AAEM and ACEP are first-hand witnesses to the human toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities. AAEM and ACEP strongly advise against using any statements of Drs. Erickson and Massihi as a basis for policy and decision making. https://www.aaem.org/resources/statements/joint-endorsed/physician-misinformation https://www.aaem.org/resources/statements/joint-endorsed/phy...