6 ms·

As I understand it, the WHO changed policy on HCQ because of this study. So, if you had posted a YouTube video criticizing this study and the WHO decision, Goog

by emtel 6y ago

As I understand it, the WHO changed policy on HCQ because of this study. So, if you had posted a YouTube video criticizing this study and the WHO decision, Google may have taken that video down in accordance with their policy to delete videos the are counter to WHO policy. That didn't actually happen, to my knowledge. But it would have been Google policy if it did. That is what is wrong with platforms like Google and Facebook adopting the role of fact-checkers.

matthewmarkus 6y ago
This comment cannot be upvoted enough IMHO. This scandal is the medical science equivalent of Enron, and it could've easily been covered up in a world where a oligopoly determines the truth. I think the even bigger danger here is when people want to point out flaws in policies like Section 230 and Net Neutrality. The incentives are huge for these companies to either bury or suppress dissenting views that impact their bottom lines.
- Natsu 6y ago
  The Lancet basically created modern anti-vaxxers with the Wakefield fiasco, too, lest we forget.
- knzhou 6y ago
  The Enron scandal lasted for 10 years and was only exposed by outsiders. This paper was questioned by other scientists from the very first day, and now has been retracted by the authors themselves after barely lasting 10 days. It's not at all comparable.
adventured 6y ago
> That is what is wrong with platforms like Google and Facebook adopting the role of fact-checkers. Along with that little problem of Google and Facebook being aggressive monopolies capable of wiping you off the Internet as a presence to an extent that whatever you're trying to publish will barely exist online (G search, gone; YouTube, gone; FB, gone; Instagram, gone; WhatsApp, gone). Five monopoly positions on critical speech platforms between the two of them. Those two monopolies have more totalitarian speech restriction capabilities than the US Government does by a dramatic margin. They should be broken up and regulated accordingly, due to their monopoly positions de facto putting them into the role of censor.
- Andrew_Quentin 6y ago
  Lol downvoted. ON HACKER NEWS. Fuck happened to this place?
knzhou 6y ago
You do realize that the whole reason we're discussing this retraction is because the scientific community did discuss its validity? So far I've seen a lot of self-correction done by the scientific and medical communities themselves. There hasn't been a single example of a nontrivial story broken by a guy delivering spittle-flecked rants on Youtube. The ranters, however, are very good at taking credit for what actual scientists did.
- emtel 6y ago
  Self-correction in this case is not much cause for celebration. You have to ask yourself how the hell this ever got into The Lancet in the first place. But that's not really the point. Doesn't it bother you even a little bit that you might be barred from posting a valid critique of a bogus study?
  - snowwrestler 6y ago
    Can you give us an example of a valid critique that was barred from YouTube?
    - nostromo 6y ago
      This video was removed, before being reinstated later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB-_SV-y11Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB-_SV-y11Y
- nostromo 6y ago
  > spittle-flecked rants This added color detracts from your comment's point. It's the kind of thing that would be included in, well, a spittle-flecked YouTube rant.
- creddit 6y ago
  YouTube: censors any conversation about topic. HN Commenter: claims no one YouTube did anything to help change conversation about topic. Uses this to validate YouTube censorship. That’s some Catch-22 type stuff.
- 6y ago
newacct583 6y ago
> Google may have taken that video down in accordance with their policy to delete videos the are counter to WHO policy. Good grief. Why are urban legends so hard to kill? There is no such policy. There never was. The source of that bit of ginned-up outrage was an informal interview (when I looked this up earlier, there wasn't even video or a transcript available anywhere!) where someone senior was asked about what Youtube's criteria were for vetting advice in the face of the pandemic. And the answer was a hand-wavy thing about how anything that was clearly wrong, or clearly dangerous, and one of the examples given was about medical advice that clearly runs counter to existing health care bodies like the WHO. And that's as far as it went. There never was a policy about the WHO. To my knowledge no video was ever removed because of a conflict with the WHO. The whole point wasn't to nitpick about exactly what the WHO said, it was to reference the fact that Youtube would adhere to expert consensus where possible. > That is what is wrong with platforms like Google and Facebook adopting the role of fact-checkers. The irony there is that, had Google or Facebook or someone taken on that role, you wouldn't have internalized this fake fact because whoever it was that spun it to you wouldn't have had an audience. But they didn't. So you got lied to. Which is better?
- ryanobjc 6y ago
  This is a great comment. People complain about youtube censorship... on YouTube. There is a widespread misunderstanding of the YouTube removal reasons. Bad faith actors are spreading these rumors and creating conditions to falsely claim censorship. For example, most "alt-right" videos and users were removed due to their targeted harassment of other users. But they mix it in a larger video and then claim that YouTube removed the video for the generalized content. This is a bad faith argument, and they know what they are doing.
- nostromo 6y ago
  > There never was a policy about the WHO. "Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy." - YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki > To my knowledge no video was ever removed because of a conflict with the WHO. "Sharyl Attkisson, host of the nationally syndicated news magazine TV show "Full Measure" had her story about "politicizing COVID-19 medicine" pulled by YouTube, because the video service deemed it 'dangerous.' The issue was that one doctor said that hydroxychloroquine still needed to be studied." https://abc3340.com/news/nation-world/youtube-reinstates-hydroxychloroquine-story-after-deeming-it-dangerous https://abc3340.com/news/nation-world/youtube-reinstates-hyd...
tuna-piano 6y ago
Let me take this tech-platform-speech train of thought into a recent area that may be super-downvotable (oh well!). Trump was fact checked by Twitter a few weeks ago for claiming mail in ballots are linked to voter fraud [1]. In reality, there have been several hundred cases of mail in voter fraud, though certainly the convicted cases are rare on a percentage basis (though actual cases are unknown).[2] Many thousands are today posting about how black people are being continuously killed by police, but yet no Twitter fact checks. In reality, just 10 unarmed black men were killed by the police last year.[3] Can anyone here imagine Twitter putting up a fact check saying "Misrepresentation/exaggeration: Only 10 unarmed black men were killed by police last year"? Is it just a coincidence that Twitter is a company who's employees lean heavily left and their policies also lean heavily left? What would a conservatively run Twitter look like with fact checks, and would you be comfortable with that? [1] https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384?lang=en https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384?lang=en [2] https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/more-false-mail-in-ballot-claims-from-trump/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/more-false-mail-in-ballot-... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police... Need to clarify (for those harsh to judge) that I am in no way comparing the severity or tragic nature of fraud vs killing, just Twitter's response to various facts on its platform.
- shkkmo 6y ago
  I believe the specific issue at play was not the claims about voter fraud, but the misleading representations about who will recieve a mail in ballot in California (specifically an implied assertion that you don't need to register to vote to recieve a mail in ballot in California) The later goes against the specific rules in Twitter's "civic integrity policy" that try to prevent to use of Twitter to spread misinformation that can result in voter suppression. You can say falsely say election was rigged but you cannot falsely say that a poling location was closed (at least on Twitter).
  - tuna-piano 6y ago
    Fair for that "who will receive a ballot" point. If that's all Twitter was fact checking my point would not stand. But disagree on the other point of their fact check - which goes with my argument. Here is the quote from the top of their fact check of his tweet: "Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud On Tuesday, President Trump made a series of claims about potential voter fraud after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced an effort to expand mail-in voting in California during the COVID-19 pandemic. These claims are unsubstantiated, according to CNN, Washington Post and others. Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud." This quote could literally be written to disprove any of a number of liberal arguments - but yet curiously isn't.

by emtel 6y ago

matthewmarkus 6y ago

This comment cannot be upvoted enough IMHO. This scandal is the medical science equivalent of Enron, and it could've easily been covered up in a world where a oligopoly determines the truth. I think the even bigger danger here is when people want to point out flaws in policies like Section 230 and Net Neutrality. The incentives are huge for these companies to either bury or suppress dissenting views that impact their bottom lines.

Natsu 6y ago
The Lancet basically created modern anti-vaxxers with the Wakefield fiasco, too, lest we forget.
knzhou 6y ago
The Enron scandal lasted for 10 years and was only exposed by outsiders. This paper was questioned by other scientists from the very first day, and now has been retracted by the authors themselves after barely lasting 10 days. It's not at all comparable.

adventured 6y ago

> That is what is wrong with platforms like Google and Facebook adopting the role of fact-checkers. Along with that little problem of Google and Facebook being aggressive monopolies capable of wiping you off the Internet as a presence to an extent that whatever you're trying to publish will barely exist online (G search, gone; YouTube, gone; FB, gone; Instagram, gone; WhatsApp, gone). Five monopoly positions on critical speech platforms between the two of them. Those two monopolies have more totalitarian speech restriction capabilities than the US Government does by a dramatic margin. They should be broken up and regulated accordingly, due to their monopoly positions de facto putting them into the role of censor.

Andrew_Quentin 6y ago
Lol downvoted. ON HACKER NEWS. Fuck happened to this place?

knzhou 6y ago

You do realize that the whole reason we're discussing this retraction is because the scientific community did discuss its validity? So far I've seen a lot of self-correction done by the scientific and medical communities themselves. There hasn't been a single example of a nontrivial story broken by a guy delivering spittle-flecked rants on Youtube. The ranters, however, are very good at taking credit for what actual scientists did.

emtel 6y ago
Self-correction in this case is not much cause for celebration. You have to ask yourself how the hell this ever got into The Lancet in the first place. But that's not really the point. Doesn't it bother you even a little bit that you might be barred from posting a valid critique of a bogus study?
- snowwrestler 6y ago
  Can you give us an example of a valid critique that was barred from YouTube?
  - nostromo 6y ago
    This video was removed, before being reinstated later: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB-_SV-y11Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB-_SV-y11Y
nostromo 6y ago
> spittle-flecked rants This added color detracts from your comment's point. It's the kind of thing that would be included in, well, a spittle-flecked YouTube rant.
creddit 6y ago
YouTube: censors any conversation about topic. HN Commenter: claims no one YouTube did anything to help change conversation about topic. Uses this to validate YouTube censorship. That’s some Catch-22 type stuff.
6y ago

newacct583 6y ago

> Google may have taken that video down in accordance with their policy to delete videos the are counter to WHO policy. Good grief. Why are urban legends so hard to kill? There is no such policy. There never was. The source of that bit of ginned-up outrage was an informal interview (when I looked this up earlier, there wasn't even video or a transcript available anywhere!) where someone senior was asked about what Youtube's criteria were for vetting advice in the face of the pandemic. And the answer was a hand-wavy thing about how anything that was clearly wrong, or clearly dangerous, and one of the examples given was about medical advice that clearly runs counter to existing health care bodies like the WHO. And that's as far as it went. There never was a policy about the WHO. To my knowledge no video was ever removed because of a conflict with the WHO. The whole point wasn't to nitpick about exactly what the WHO said, it was to reference the fact that Youtube would adhere to expert consensus where possible. > That is what is wrong with platforms like Google and Facebook adopting the role of fact-checkers. The irony there is that, had Google or Facebook or someone taken on that role, you wouldn't have internalized this fake fact because whoever it was that spun it to you wouldn't have had an audience. But they didn't. So you got lied to. Which is better?

ryanobjc 6y ago
This is a great comment. People complain about youtube censorship... on YouTube. There is a widespread misunderstanding of the YouTube removal reasons. Bad faith actors are spreading these rumors and creating conditions to falsely claim censorship. For example, most "alt-right" videos and users were removed due to their targeted harassment of other users. But they mix it in a larger video and then claim that YouTube removed the video for the generalized content. This is a bad faith argument, and they know what they are doing.
nostromo 6y ago
> There never was a policy about the WHO. "Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy." - YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki > To my knowledge no video was ever removed because of a conflict with the WHO. "Sharyl Attkisson, host of the nationally syndicated news magazine TV show "Full Measure" had her story about "politicizing COVID-19 medicine" pulled by YouTube, because the video service deemed it 'dangerous.' The issue was that one doctor said that hydroxychloroquine still needed to be studied." https://abc3340.com/news/nation-world/youtube-reinstates-hydroxychloroquine-story-after-deeming-it-dangerous https://abc3340.com/news/nation-world/youtube-reinstates-hyd...

tuna-piano 6y ago

Let me take this tech-platform-speech train of thought into a recent area that may be super-downvotable (oh well!). Trump was fact checked by Twitter a few weeks ago for claiming mail in ballots are linked to voter fraud [1]. In reality, there have been several hundred cases of mail in voter fraud, though certainly the convicted cases are rare on a percentage basis (though actual cases are unknown).[2] Many thousands are today posting about how black people are being continuously killed by police, but yet no Twitter fact checks. In reality, just 10 unarmed black men were killed by the police last year.[3] Can anyone here imagine Twitter putting up a fact check saying "Misrepresentation/exaggeration: Only 10 unarmed black men were killed by police last year"? Is it just a coincidence that Twitter is a company who's employees lean heavily left and their policies also lean heavily left? What would a conservatively run Twitter look like with fact checks, and would you be comfortable with that? [1] https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384?lang=en https://twitter.com/i/events/1265330601034256384?lang=en [2] https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/more-false-mail-in-ballot-claims-from-trump/ https://www.factcheck.org/2020/05/more-false-mail-in-ballot-... [3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police-shootings-2019/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/police... Need to clarify (for those harsh to judge) that I am in no way comparing the severity or tragic nature of fraud vs killing, just Twitter's response to various facts on its platform.

shkkmo 6y ago
I believe the specific issue at play was not the claims about voter fraud, but the misleading representations about who will recieve a mail in ballot in California (specifically an implied assertion that you don't need to register to vote to recieve a mail in ballot in California) The later goes against the specific rules in Twitter's "civic integrity policy" that try to prevent to use of Twitter to spread misinformation that can result in voter suppression. You can say falsely say election was rigged but you cannot falsely say that a poling location was closed (at least on Twitter).
- tuna-piano 6y ago
  Fair for that "who will receive a ballot" point. If that's all Twitter was fact checking my point would not stand. But disagree on the other point of their fact check - which goes with my argument. Here is the quote from the top of their fact check of his tweet: "Trump makes unsubstantiated claim that mail-in ballots will lead to voter fraud On Tuesday, President Trump made a series of claims about potential voter fraud after California Governor Gavin Newsom announced an effort to expand mail-in voting in California during the COVID-19 pandemic. These claims are unsubstantiated, according to CNN, Washington Post and others. Experts say mail-in ballots are very rarely linked to voter fraud." This quote could literally be written to disprove any of a number of liberal arguments - but yet curiously isn't.