5 ms·

I just stumbled on a site that heavily leans on the “tech is censoring Trump” angle, namely this article about Google taking down a study on Hydroxycholoquine.

I just stumbled on a site that heavily leans on the “tech is censoring Trump” angle, namely this article about Google taking down a study on Hydroxycholoquine. I thought of posting it to front page, but instead I can just attach to this other timely thread of Google being evil/censors. Genuinely curious about info people have around this, if it is legit or not. It seems like something you’d have expected to see here front page, but then again this site leans left. https://defyccc.com/google-deleted-covid19-cure-paper/ https://defyccc.com/google-deleted-covid19-cure-paper/

kragen 6y ago
It looks fake. Would a real medical researcher refer to SARS-CoV-2 as "coronavirus" in the title, as if they didn't know there were other common human coronaviruses? Why are they publishing on Google Drive instead of MedrXiv? Why is the last author a lawyer? Why does it say "Stanford PhD" in the byline? Dr. Broker (the first author) does seem to have been doing biomedical research at UAB last year (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336977942_Targeting_DNA_Damage_Response_as_a_Strategy_to_Treat_HPV_Infections/download https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336977942_Targeting... is a legitimate virology research paper he worked on, which doesn't make obvious errors like the above), but https://web.archive.org/web/20200403213718/https://www.uab.edu/medicine/biochem/56-tom-broker-phd https://web.archive.org/web/20200403213718/https://www.uab.e... suggests he was gone by April 3. https://www.peakprosperity.com/forum-topic/chloroquine-hoax/ https://www.peakprosperity.com/forum-topic/chloroquine-hoax/ says he was born in 1944, so he'd be 76? Hmm, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8143845/Malaria-cure-coronavirus-promoter-cryptocurrency-hustler-fake-Stanford-University-claim.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8143845/Malaria-cur... says, "Professor Thomas Broker, who was named in the 'white paper' before it was removed from Google, asked for his name to be disassociated with it, while the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he works, said a claim that Nobel Prize winner Dr. Louise Chow's laboratory was involved was also false." "…the university's public relations manager Bob Shepard added that Dr. Chow, a Nobel-prize winner mentioned in the acknowledgments, was no part of the study. "'No one at UAB has any connection to this paper,' Shepard said. "Shepard said that Broker 'had previously done research into chloroquine as a possible therapy for human papillomavirus' which is more commonly known as HPV. "Shepard said: 'He had some contact with one of the authors of that paper at that time. He had no involvement with the work on coronavirus and is not affiliated with that research in any way.'" Now, I don't want to depend on the Daily Mail, but it seems like they may happen to have been correct in this case.
- nwienert 6y ago
  Yea would like to see source outside DailyMail. Also to people downvoting, why? I’m not backing the source, I’m just curious.
  - ravenstine 6y ago
    Probably because you said "Trump".
  - cmeacham98 6y ago
    Likely because you posted a comment asking if a source is true on a completely unrelated post.
    - nwienert 6y ago
      Google and censorship, not related?
      - Gigablah 6y ago
        Is antispam censorship? You tell me.
        nwienert 6y ago
        Haha that’s a really great way of putting it. All the worst censorship is framed as anti-spam/hate/misinformation, absolutely.
        ketzu 6y ago
        It's still possible to have personal judgement if a claim is true. I assume many people would aggree that preventing bots from spamming a forum is not a form of censorship, even though it might be "technically true" in a sense that muddies the seriousnes of what we usually mean with censorship. So having dissenting accounts deleted and the company claiming they are cleared as anti-spam does not mean anti-spam suddenly falls within the narrow definition of censorship some people use. It means the company is lying.

kragen 6y ago

It looks fake. Would a real medical researcher refer to SARS-CoV-2 as "coronavirus" in the title, as if they didn't know there were other common human coronaviruses? Why are they publishing on Google Drive instead of MedrXiv? Why is the last author a lawyer? Why does it say "Stanford PhD" in the byline? Dr. Broker (the first author) does seem to have been doing biomedical research at UAB last year (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336977942_Targeting_DNA_Damage_Response_as_a_Strategy_to_Treat_HPV_Infections/download https://www.researchgate.net/publication/336977942_Targeting... is a legitimate virology research paper he worked on, which doesn't make obvious errors like the above), but https://web.archive.org/web/20200403213718/https://www.uab.edu/medicine/biochem/56-tom-broker-phd https://web.archive.org/web/20200403213718/https://www.uab.e... suggests he was gone by April 3. https://www.peakprosperity.com/forum-topic/chloroquine-hoax/ https://www.peakprosperity.com/forum-topic/chloroquine-hoax/ says he was born in 1944, so he'd be 76? Hmm, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8143845/Malaria-cure-coronavirus-promoter-cryptocurrency-hustler-fake-Stanford-University-claim.html https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8143845/Malaria-cur... says, "Professor Thomas Broker, who was named in the 'white paper' before it was removed from Google, asked for his name to be disassociated with it, while the University of Alabama at Birmingham, where he works, said a claim that Nobel Prize winner Dr. Louise Chow's laboratory was involved was also false." "…the university's public relations manager Bob Shepard added that Dr. Chow, a Nobel-prize winner mentioned in the acknowledgments, was no part of the study. "'No one at UAB has any connection to this paper,' Shepard said. "Shepard said that Broker 'had previously done research into chloroquine as a possible therapy for human papillomavirus' which is more commonly known as HPV. "Shepard said: 'He had some contact with one of the authors of that paper at that time. He had no involvement with the work on coronavirus and is not affiliated with that research in any way.'" Now, I don't want to depend on the Daily Mail, but it seems like they may happen to have been correct in this case.

nwienert 6y ago
Yea would like to see source outside DailyMail. Also to people downvoting, why? I’m not backing the source, I’m just curious.
- ravenstine 6y ago
  Probably because you said "Trump".
- cmeacham98 6y ago
  Likely because you posted a comment asking if a source is true on a completely unrelated post.
  - nwienert 6y ago
    Google and censorship, not related?
    - Gigablah 6y ago
      Is antispam censorship? You tell me.
      - nwienert 6y ago
        Haha that’s a really great way of putting it. All the worst censorship is framed as anti-spam/hate/misinformation, absolutely.
        ketzu 6y ago
        It's still possible to have personal judgement if a claim is true. I assume many people would aggree that preventing bots from spamming a forum is not a form of censorship, even though it might be "technically true" in a sense that muddies the seriousnes of what we usually mean with censorship. So having dissenting accounts deleted and the company claiming they are cleared as anti-spam does not mean anti-spam suddenly falls within the narrow definition of censorship some people use. It means the company is lying.