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YouTube consistently followed their policy of removing videos which promote misinformation, disinformation, and policy proposals that contradict the World Healt

YouTube consistently followed their policy of removing videos which promote misinformation, disinformation, and policy proposals that contradict the World Health Organization's official guidelines during an emergency pandemic. I have my problems with YouTube, but this isn't censorship, and it isn't a conspiracy to silence anyone. It's an effort to be responsible to public health and safety. The hysteria I see here is completely unwarranted.

ksk 6y ago
An advertising company deciding what is credible or not is scary.
- drunkpotato 6y ago
  But YouTube is not deciding on the credibility of the video. They are simply saying that in this emergency, in the interests of public safety, they will not allow videos that contradict World Health Organization information and policy guidelines. And they removed a video that violated that policy. It's a very narrowly defined exception to their normally open platform. I don't see what is scary or sinister about that.
  - manfredo 6y ago
    > But YouTube is not deciding on the credibility of the video. They are simply saying that in this emergency, in the interests of public safety, they will not allow videos that contradict World Health Organization information and policy guidelines. No, YouTube still is determining credibility. YouTube is still saying, "this video is misinformation and we are removing it." The fact that it's treating the WHO information as the baseline does not change the fact that YouTube is deciding credibility, and removing videos that do not meet it's criteria for credibility.
  - joeclark77 6y ago
    How does it make it better that they've arbitrarily decided to censor videos that contradict China's volunteer propaganda agency?
    - dang 6y ago
      Please don't take HN threads further into political or nationalistic flamewar. This is a big step in the wrong direction, regardless of how you feel about issues with the WHO. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - istjohn 6y ago
    Who decided this at YouTube? What's their name? They weren't elected and they have no accountability to society for making decisions in our best interest. The WHO states that healthy people should "only wear a mask if [they] are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection."[1] This is contrary to current guidance in the US. In a democracy, as in science, no one gets to say what is true and what is false. We have allowed Alphabet to grow into a sprawling corporation that pervades our everyday lives. We cannot now allow them to dictate what is good and bad, true and false, venerable and deplorable. This is dystopic. 1. https://www.who.int/images/default-source/health-topics/coronavirus/masks/masks-2.png https://www.who.int/images/default-source/health-topics/coro...
  - wyck 6y ago
    So let me get this straight, you don't see how the largest most influential form of public communication( youtube) deciding to moderate the public interest via a 3rd partly that is governed more by politics than actual health is somehow not a problem. In your last sentence you said "I don't see", it's because you must be blind.
errantmind 6y ago
This is most definitely censorship, regardless of whether or not it is in the public good
busymom0 6y ago
Until February, WHO was saying COVID does not spread human to human and travel restrictions won't help. So anyone who said "it does spread human to human" and "travel restrictions will help" was considered misinformation and conspiracy theorist. February onwards, WHO did a full 180. But everyone who got censored before then was the victim. Same thing about effectiveness of wearing masks. So anyone pointing out the obvious that "China cannot have lesser deaths than Canada" is considered a "misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theorists" because they "contradict the World Health Organization's official guidelines during an emergency pandemic". How people don't see the clear danger of such censorship is beyond me. WHO also says China has been transparent.
- iso947 6y ago
  > WHO was saying COVID does not spread human to human The WHO said there had been no reports of it spreading human to human. And that was true, there hadn’t. The reason your favourite conspiracy sources are taken offline is because they lie - they make you, an otherwise intelligent person, believe something that wasn’t true. A favoured argument by one section of the internet is that “it doesn’t spread from Children to Adults”. An extraordinary claim. They interpret the statement “there have been limited cases of it spreading from children” and treat that absense of evidence as an evidence of absence. Note that in January, in a QA dated 9th, they did say “Yes, some coronaviruses can be transmitted from person to person, usually after close contact with an infected patient, for example, in a household workplace, or health care centre.” I.e coronaviruses in general spread, we haven’t seen this one spread yet. https://web.archive.org/web/20200129195709/https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses https://web.archive.org/web/20200129195709/https://www.who.i...
s1artibartfast 6y ago
I understand the theoretical basis for removing misinformation and disinformation, but policy proposals is an entirely different ballpark. Two reasonable people can agree on the underlying facts but disagree on policy. Additionally, this is absolutely censorship and an effort to silence people. It is not an illegal act of censorship. similarly, you can agree that it is legal, but still not like the censorship.

ksk 6y ago

An advertising company deciding what is credible or not is scary.

drunkpotato 6y ago
But YouTube is not deciding on the credibility of the video. They are simply saying that in this emergency, in the interests of public safety, they will not allow videos that contradict World Health Organization information and policy guidelines. And they removed a video that violated that policy. It's a very narrowly defined exception to their normally open platform. I don't see what is scary or sinister about that.
- manfredo 6y ago
  > But YouTube is not deciding on the credibility of the video. They are simply saying that in this emergency, in the interests of public safety, they will not allow videos that contradict World Health Organization information and policy guidelines. No, YouTube still is determining credibility. YouTube is still saying, "this video is misinformation and we are removing it." The fact that it's treating the WHO information as the baseline does not change the fact that YouTube is deciding credibility, and removing videos that do not meet it's criteria for credibility.
- joeclark77 6y ago
  How does it make it better that they've arbitrarily decided to censor videos that contradict China's volunteer propaganda agency?
  - dang 6y ago
    Please don't take HN threads further into political or nationalistic flamewar. This is a big step in the wrong direction, regardless of how you feel about issues with the WHO. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- istjohn 6y ago
  Who decided this at YouTube? What's their name? They weren't elected and they have no accountability to society for making decisions in our best interest. The WHO states that healthy people should "only wear a mask if [they] are taking care of a person with suspected 2019-nCoV infection."[1] This is contrary to current guidance in the US. In a democracy, as in science, no one gets to say what is true and what is false. We have allowed Alphabet to grow into a sprawling corporation that pervades our everyday lives. We cannot now allow them to dictate what is good and bad, true and false, venerable and deplorable. This is dystopic. 1. https://www.who.int/images/default-source/health-topics/coronavirus/masks/masks-2.png https://www.who.int/images/default-source/health-topics/coro...
- wyck 6y ago
  So let me get this straight, you don't see how the largest most influential form of public communication( youtube) deciding to moderate the public interest via a 3rd partly that is governed more by politics than actual health is somehow not a problem. In your last sentence you said "I don't see", it's because you must be blind.

errantmind 6y ago

This is most definitely censorship, regardless of whether or not it is in the public good

busymom0 6y ago

Until February, WHO was saying COVID does not spread human to human and travel restrictions won't help. So anyone who said "it does spread human to human" and "travel restrictions will help" was considered misinformation and conspiracy theorist. February onwards, WHO did a full 180. But everyone who got censored before then was the victim. Same thing about effectiveness of wearing masks. So anyone pointing out the obvious that "China cannot have lesser deaths than Canada" is considered a "misinformation, disinformation and conspiracy theorists" because they "contradict the World Health Organization's official guidelines during an emergency pandemic". How people don't see the clear danger of such censorship is beyond me. WHO also says China has been transparent.

iso947 6y ago
> WHO was saying COVID does not spread human to human The WHO said there had been no reports of it spreading human to human. And that was true, there hadn’t. The reason your favourite conspiracy sources are taken offline is because they lie - they make you, an otherwise intelligent person, believe something that wasn’t true. A favoured argument by one section of the internet is that “it doesn’t spread from Children to Adults”. An extraordinary claim. They interpret the statement “there have been limited cases of it spreading from children” and treat that absense of evidence as an evidence of absence. Note that in January, in a QA dated 9th, they did say “Yes, some coronaviruses can be transmitted from person to person, usually after close contact with an infected patient, for example, in a household workplace, or health care centre.” I.e coronaviruses in general spread, we haven’t seen this one spread yet. https://web.archive.org/web/20200129195709/https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses https://web.archive.org/web/20200129195709/https://www.who.i...

s1artibartfast 6y ago

I understand the theoretical basis for removing misinformation and disinformation, but policy proposals is an entirely different ballpark. Two reasonable people can agree on the underlying facts but disagree on policy. Additionally, this is absolutely censorship and an effort to silence people. It is not an illegal act of censorship. similarly, you can agree that it is legal, but still not like the censorship.