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> What else should scientists do than challenging the status quo? Sure, and I rather suspect there are all sorts of venues that scientists could use to communi

> What else should scientists do than challenging the status quo? Sure, and I rather suspect there are all sorts of venues that scientists could use to communicate scientific reasons challenging the status quo, ones in which there'd be a process of discourse with other domain experts capable of independently evaluating claims. YouTube is significant mass media. But the idea that it's a crucial early stage link in the scientific process is one of the most ridiculous things about this conversation. When you deal in mass distribution, the dynamics and responsibilities are different than when you're in conversation/process with other domain experts. If you can't build up a decent threshold of support within circles of expertise first, it's likely your counterclaim won't have real value for a mass market. Or worse. And if you want access to a mass market anyway without having to face those challenges first, it's possible that what you're about is more personal privilege than substantial contribution to the marketplace of ideas. And given how ridiculously diverse and incredibly free the online marketplace for ideas is right now, considering how it has never been easier to get mass distribution of even pretty questionable ideas, it's a pretty weird time to take the posture that we're actually suffering under an oppressively censored discourse regime.

natural219 5y ago
> When you deal in mass distribution, the dynamics and responsibilities are different than when you're in conversation/process with other domain experts. Why? Is the implicit assumption here that people are too stupid or irresponsible to handle hearing information & coming to their own conclusion on it? This seems like a distressingly common viewpoint nowadays...
- DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
  > Is the implicit assumption here that people are too stupid or irresponsible to handle hearing information & coming to their own conclusion on it? At risk of being flippant, have you been on Facebook lately at all in the past 5-6 years?
  - squidlogic 5y ago
    So the solution is to censor what information is ok for the plebs to see and what is too ideologically harmful for them? This is a very condescending and authoritarian position that I would hope those of us who care about free discourse would eschew.
    - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
      > So the solution is to censor what information is ok for the plebs to see and what is too ideologically harmful for them? I'm not saying that.
    - voganmother42 5y ago
      “If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it." Is free discourse about being free from consequences? Is it about equal representation/distribution? I am curious about ideological harm when compared to things like offering legal or medical advice. What does a private company/platform have to do with censorship? Why does a private company/platform need to represent and publish all ideological viewpoints, and what is that company’s responsibility to free discourse?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- wwweston 5y ago
  You seem to have chosen "too stupid or irresponsible" when I chose my words to focus on "lacking education and domain expertise." Perhaps you were just helping my case out by demonstrating how easily people sometimes confuse even relatively accessible topics like the difference between stupidity and ignorance?
  - natural219 5y ago
    Restricting access to information because you feel that its potential audience is too ignorant seems a little counter-productive to me :/. Wouldn't the idea be to provide them with more information?
DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
YouTube isn’t just mass-media though - it’s a general-purpose video hosting and sharing site. I’m not familiar with the current story nor the work of those involved, but academics and researchers can and do use YouTube to share information between themselves - *if* this was, say, a highly technical or academic video with a specialised intended audience and YouTube took that down then that’s different compared to a heterodox (read: quack) researcher putting out a video intending to make their argument directly to laypersons.
- the_third_wave 5y ago
  > ...compared to a heterodox (read: quack) researcher You do realise that it often takes heterodoxy - i.e. going against the orthodoxy in a field - to achieve a breakthrough? You also realise that the people Brett Weinstein is talking to are anything but quacks? Why, then, this cheap shot of implying that what they are discussing is quackery? What is to be gained by such behaviour? It is not as if the orthodox approach to the treatment of SARS2 has been set in stone, nor is it a spectacular success. If the treatment they discuss - mainly Ivermectin as prophylaxis, Ivermectin in combination with Fluvoxamine and some other preparations as treatment - work they should be used given the long experience with and low cost of these preparations. They indicate these preparations help against 'long-term covid', they claim to have proof of their efficacy. What is to be gained by ignoring what they have to say? I understand that Pfizer, Moderna, Curevac, Astra-Zeneca, J&J, Merck and a few others potentially stand to loose a great deal should the emergency use authorisation for their vaccines be withdrawn prematurely because of the proven efficacy of other preparations - this is what would happen if the rules were followed which state that EUA is only given where there are no alternatives. That is not a valid reason for not allowing them to present their claimed evidence. What is to be gained by defending the continued suppression of this information? It is clear that the information will come out in any case, most likely soon - it will be published no matter the hurdles which are being thrown up. Should their proof hold it will be yet another blow against the trust people have in the institutions of government. I say publish this information, without censorship, without interference. The mantra of "trust the science" can only hold when the scientific method is allowed to function. Censoring anything which goes against the orthodoxy is not science, it is authoritarianism. It is what allowed Trofim Lysenko to push his Lamarckian nonsense which eventually led to disastrous famines in the Soviet Union and Communist China [1]. Just like Lysenkoism was not science, authoritarian dogmatic orthodoxy is not science. Publish and discuss, in the open, without fear of repercussions, without censorship. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko#Consequences_of_Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko#Consequences_of...
philwelch 5y ago
What you are implicitly proposing is that whenever there is disagreement within the scientific community, that disagreement should be kept behind closed doors and hidden from the public until some Institution (CDC/WHO/etc) decides on a Consensus of Truth, and that this Consensus of Truth is the only narrative that can be communicated to the public. This raises a lot of questions. For instance, what happens when the Consensus of Truth changes, as we’ve seen with the lab leak hypothesis and the efficacy of wearing masks? The “mass media” goes back and ninja edits their historical news coverage so it fits the new narrative. As for YouTube being “mass media”, come on—it’s filled with random crap uploaded by members of the public. It’s not the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.
- weaksauce 5y ago
  There are two things there... the lab leak thing has always been consistent and regardless of that we didn't really need to know the origin of it at the time; it changed nothing material of how to handle a large pandemic which was killing thousands of people daily. Yeah there has always been the possibility that the lab accidentally leaked it but there wasn't much evidence of that other than coincidence. masks have been similar in general outside of a few fringe idiots speaking out of turn. they know and knew that well fitted n95 masks were effective in slowing the spread and should be used in the hospital settings. the advice was not to buy masks. they didn't know the efficacy of general cloth masks at the time and weather or not having them on would be a net detriment because it might cause people to touch their face more often while adjusting the masks and cause contaminated hands to come in contact with the face more often. the data showed that those fears were not fruitful and thus the recommendation changed. there is also the disastrous TB paper that took the conclusion from a miner's lung paper as gospel and misinterpreted the results of that and then every subsequent paper used that erroneous data in their papers. (mining paper said that the nose was very good at blocking out everything down to 5 microns and aerosolized particles could be 100 microns or smaller but since the nose was effective at blocking particles larger than 5 microns you needed to worry about masks that block the small stuff. well the TB paper used the 5 micron aerosol particles as TB only infects you if you get the particles deep in your lungs. The problem is that aerosol particles greater than 5 microns can infect you with other diseases if the receptors for those are not deep in the lungs. in the end 5 micron was chosen as a magical aerosol particle threshold when the actual threshold is 100 microns and one scientist finally got the WHO et al to understand this after doing much research and advocacy) in the end science is messy even when done with rigor.
squidlogic 5y ago
This is a strange take on how issues should be discussed in a free society. Rather than have ideological gate keeping at every level, I believe we in tech should advocate for a plurality of viewpoints discussed in the open. Probing, reasonable discourse is the best antidote to propaganda and confusion.
- garyfirestorm 5y ago
  Yup we should totally Facebook it
- wwweston 5y ago
  > Rather than have ideological gate keeping at every level Are you taking the position that all gatekeeping is ideological? Because otherwise, bringing it up when the topic seems to be gatekeeping of factual understanding seems off topic.
  - squidlogic 5y ago
    Issues of fact are not always easy to discern and may require reasonable discourse to arrive at a conclusion, wouldn’t you agree?
  - thu2111 5y ago
    It clearly is in this case. Nothing YouTube is doing is anything to do with factual understanding - Google's understanding of the topics in question is extremely poor and certainly not justified with any medical evidence. Their FAQ on the topics simply says they'll block "medical misinformation" which they define as anything the WHO disagrees with. As the WHO has repeatedly disagreed with itself there's no way to be consistent with that standard, at least not without erasing all material from the WHO and its supporters too, but they don't do that. Of course they don't because in the end, this is pure authoritarianism. No fact-finding has gone into this decision.
    - apmee 5y ago
      > Their FAQ on the topics simply says they'll block "medical misinformation" which they define as anything the WHO disagrees with This seems entirely sensible to me. > As the WHO has repeatedly disagreed with itself Unless I misunderstand you, you're saying this as if it's a bad thing. No one's saying the the decision-making processes at the WHO are perfect, but shifts in stance and advice in response to newly available evidence is not "disagreeing with oneself". It's fundamentally how science works. In fact, most of the criticisms from credible experts have been that the WHO have been too resistant to updating their positions (in the face of the increasingly overwhelming evidence last year that the virus is airborne, for example). > this is pure authoritarianism. No fact-finding has gone into this decision. You consider their policy of deferring to an internationally recognised public health body to inform their content guidelines to be an example of authoritarianism? If so, what alternative "fact-finding" approaches would you suggest? Because if we imagine for the sake of argument that YouTube somehow had the means, resources and competence to conduct their own rigorous studies and research, in such a notoriously complex field as public health, and used this to inform their content moderation decisions instead of information from the WHO, how would this be any less "authoritarian"?
spfzero 5y ago
I think spreading new thinking on treatments for a pandemic that is killing millions, might actually be "crucial". May turn out to be right, may turn out to be wrong, but we've already seen lots of "wrong" information turn out to have been actually right, and the successful censorship of that "wrong-but-soon-to-be-right" information was in retrospect unfortunate, to say the least.
- SergeAx 5y ago
  Thinking of treatment should be lab and clinical tested by scientists and doctors, not spreaded among hundreds of millions laypeople.

natural219 5y ago

> When you deal in mass distribution, the dynamics and responsibilities are different than when you're in conversation/process with other domain experts. Why? Is the implicit assumption here that people are too stupid or irresponsible to handle hearing information & coming to their own conclusion on it? This seems like a distressingly common viewpoint nowadays...

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
> Is the implicit assumption here that people are too stupid or irresponsible to handle hearing information & coming to their own conclusion on it? At risk of being flippant, have you been on Facebook lately at all in the past 5-6 years?
- squidlogic 5y ago
  So the solution is to censor what information is ok for the plebs to see and what is too ideologically harmful for them? This is a very condescending and authoritarian position that I would hope those of us who care about free discourse would eschew.
  - DaiPlusPlus 5y ago
    > So the solution is to censor what information is ok for the plebs to see and what is too ideologically harmful for them? I'm not saying that.
  - voganmother42 5y ago
    “If there be time to expose through discussion, the falsehoods and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence.” "The amount of energy needed to refute bullshit is an order of magnitude larger than to produce it." Is free discourse about being free from consequences? Is it about equal representation/distribution? I am curious about ideological harm when compared to things like offering legal or medical advice. What does a private company/platform have to do with censorship? Why does a private company/platform need to represent and publish all ideological viewpoints, and what is that company’s responsibility to free discourse?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
wwweston 5y ago
You seem to have chosen "too stupid or irresponsible" when I chose my words to focus on "lacking education and domain expertise." Perhaps you were just helping my case out by demonstrating how easily people sometimes confuse even relatively accessible topics like the difference between stupidity and ignorance?
- natural219 5y ago
  Restricting access to information because you feel that its potential audience is too ignorant seems a little counter-productive to me :/. Wouldn't the idea be to provide them with more information?

DaiPlusPlus 5y ago

YouTube isn’t just mass-media though - it’s a general-purpose video hosting and sharing site. I’m not familiar with the current story nor the work of those involved, but academics and researchers can and do use YouTube to share information between themselves - *if* this was, say, a highly technical or academic video with a specialised intended audience and YouTube took that down then that’s different compared to a heterodox (read: quack) researcher putting out a video intending to make their argument directly to laypersons.

the_third_wave 5y ago
> ...compared to a heterodox (read: quack) researcher You do realise that it often takes heterodoxy - i.e. going against the orthodoxy in a field - to achieve a breakthrough? You also realise that the people Brett Weinstein is talking to are anything but quacks? Why, then, this cheap shot of implying that what they are discussing is quackery? What is to be gained by such behaviour? It is not as if the orthodox approach to the treatment of SARS2 has been set in stone, nor is it a spectacular success. If the treatment they discuss - mainly Ivermectin as prophylaxis, Ivermectin in combination with Fluvoxamine and some other preparations as treatment - work they should be used given the long experience with and low cost of these preparations. They indicate these preparations help against 'long-term covid', they claim to have proof of their efficacy. What is to be gained by ignoring what they have to say? I understand that Pfizer, Moderna, Curevac, Astra-Zeneca, J&J, Merck and a few others potentially stand to loose a great deal should the emergency use authorisation for their vaccines be withdrawn prematurely because of the proven efficacy of other preparations - this is what would happen if the rules were followed which state that EUA is only given where there are no alternatives. That is not a valid reason for not allowing them to present their claimed evidence. What is to be gained by defending the continued suppression of this information? It is clear that the information will come out in any case, most likely soon - it will be published no matter the hurdles which are being thrown up. Should their proof hold it will be yet another blow against the trust people have in the institutions of government. I say publish this information, without censorship, without interference. The mantra of "trust the science" can only hold when the scientific method is allowed to function. Censoring anything which goes against the orthodoxy is not science, it is authoritarianism. It is what allowed Trofim Lysenko to push his Lamarckian nonsense which eventually led to disastrous famines in the Soviet Union and Communist China [1]. Just like Lysenkoism was not science, authoritarian dogmatic orthodoxy is not science. Publish and discuss, in the open, without fear of repercussions, without censorship. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko#Consequences_of_Lysenkoism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trofim_Lysenko#Consequences_of...

philwelch 5y ago

What you are implicitly proposing is that whenever there is disagreement within the scientific community, that disagreement should be kept behind closed doors and hidden from the public until some Institution (CDC/WHO/etc) decides on a Consensus of Truth, and that this Consensus of Truth is the only narrative that can be communicated to the public. This raises a lot of questions. For instance, what happens when the Consensus of Truth changes, as we’ve seen with the lab leak hypothesis and the efficacy of wearing masks? The “mass media” goes back and ninja edits their historical news coverage so it fits the new narrative. As for YouTube being “mass media”, come on—it’s filled with random crap uploaded by members of the public. It’s not the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite.

weaksauce 5y ago
There are two things there... the lab leak thing has always been consistent and regardless of that we didn't really need to know the origin of it at the time; it changed nothing material of how to handle a large pandemic which was killing thousands of people daily. Yeah there has always been the possibility that the lab accidentally leaked it but there wasn't much evidence of that other than coincidence. masks have been similar in general outside of a few fringe idiots speaking out of turn. they know and knew that well fitted n95 masks were effective in slowing the spread and should be used in the hospital settings. the advice was not to buy masks. they didn't know the efficacy of general cloth masks at the time and weather or not having them on would be a net detriment because it might cause people to touch their face more often while adjusting the masks and cause contaminated hands to come in contact with the face more often. the data showed that those fears were not fruitful and thus the recommendation changed. there is also the disastrous TB paper that took the conclusion from a miner's lung paper as gospel and misinterpreted the results of that and then every subsequent paper used that erroneous data in their papers. (mining paper said that the nose was very good at blocking out everything down to 5 microns and aerosolized particles could be 100 microns or smaller but since the nose was effective at blocking particles larger than 5 microns you needed to worry about masks that block the small stuff. well the TB paper used the 5 micron aerosol particles as TB only infects you if you get the particles deep in your lungs. The problem is that aerosol particles greater than 5 microns can infect you with other diseases if the receptors for those are not deep in the lungs. in the end 5 micron was chosen as a magical aerosol particle threshold when the actual threshold is 100 microns and one scientist finally got the WHO et al to understand this after doing much research and advocacy) in the end science is messy even when done with rigor.

squidlogic 5y ago

This is a strange take on how issues should be discussed in a free society. Rather than have ideological gate keeping at every level, I believe we in tech should advocate for a plurality of viewpoints discussed in the open. Probing, reasonable discourse is the best antidote to propaganda and confusion.

garyfirestorm 5y ago
Yup we should totally Facebook it
wwweston 5y ago
> Rather than have ideological gate keeping at every level Are you taking the position that all gatekeeping is ideological? Because otherwise, bringing it up when the topic seems to be gatekeeping of factual understanding seems off topic.
- squidlogic 5y ago
  Issues of fact are not always easy to discern and may require reasonable discourse to arrive at a conclusion, wouldn’t you agree?
- thu2111 5y ago
  It clearly is in this case. Nothing YouTube is doing is anything to do with factual understanding - Google's understanding of the topics in question is extremely poor and certainly not justified with any medical evidence. Their FAQ on the topics simply says they'll block "medical misinformation" which they define as anything the WHO disagrees with. As the WHO has repeatedly disagreed with itself there's no way to be consistent with that standard, at least not without erasing all material from the WHO and its supporters too, but they don't do that. Of course they don't because in the end, this is pure authoritarianism. No fact-finding has gone into this decision.
  - apmee 5y ago
    > Their FAQ on the topics simply says they'll block "medical misinformation" which they define as anything the WHO disagrees with This seems entirely sensible to me. > As the WHO has repeatedly disagreed with itself Unless I misunderstand you, you're saying this as if it's a bad thing. No one's saying the the decision-making processes at the WHO are perfect, but shifts in stance and advice in response to newly available evidence is not "disagreeing with oneself". It's fundamentally how science works. In fact, most of the criticisms from credible experts have been that the WHO have been too resistant to updating their positions (in the face of the increasingly overwhelming evidence last year that the virus is airborne, for example). > this is pure authoritarianism. No fact-finding has gone into this decision. You consider their policy of deferring to an internationally recognised public health body to inform their content guidelines to be an example of authoritarianism? If so, what alternative "fact-finding" approaches would you suggest? Because if we imagine for the sake of argument that YouTube somehow had the means, resources and competence to conduct their own rigorous studies and research, in such a notoriously complex field as public health, and used this to inform their content moderation decisions instead of information from the WHO, how would this be any less "authoritarian"?

spfzero 5y ago

I think spreading new thinking on treatments for a pandemic that is killing millions, might actually be "crucial". May turn out to be right, may turn out to be wrong, but we've already seen lots of "wrong" information turn out to have been actually right, and the successful censorship of that "wrong-but-soon-to-be-right" information was in retrospect unfortunate, to say the least.

SergeAx 5y ago
Thinking of treatment should be lab and clinical tested by scientists and doctors, not spreaded among hundreds of millions laypeople.