11 ms·

YouTube Censors Nobel Prize Winner Professor Satoshi Omura

54 points by shaicoleman 5y ago

zpeti 5y ago
So I wonder when all the people asking for censoring misinformation will finally realise that the “free speech extremists” were right, these censorship tools will inevitably be used by those in power for bad ends. For me the Wall Street bets shutdown (discord) was a big alarm bell, that censorship was a absolutely about power and not “misinformation” or hate speech. And now we have Nobel prize winning scientists silenced. This is absolutely terrible.
- evgen 5y ago
  Preventing the spread of more ivermectin bullshit is not a 'bad end' and having a Nobel Prize does not make you infallible (c.f. James Watson.) If you don't like the policies on one site you are free to find another, it is not like anyone owes you or anyone else a platform. Your 'free speech' rights end at the point where your hand dips into someone else's wallet to pay for the platform.
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    >Preventing the spread of more ivermectin bullshit is not a 'bad end' and having a Nobel Prize does not make you infallible Wow, what an extremely deluded point of view. And I am, for one, a person who is extremely picky with fallacies and constantly point out appeals to authority (among other things) here on the site, you can check my comment history. Still, this is the guy that discovered the family of compounds that Ivermectin is part of, he is a scientist with no known issues of dishonesty of wrongdoing and he is extremely familiar with the compound and its effects. What is the problem with him giving its opinion on this medication, under the current light of the pandemic we are experiencing? What problem would anyone have with that? Geez.
    - evgen 5y ago
      The problem is that he has no qualifications or data to indicate that it is effective for this specific use. Invermectin was developed as an anti-parasite treatment as a variant of something discovered by the microbiologist in question. Let's be perfectly clear about this: Satoshi Omura is not a doctor, he is a microbiologist. He has no specific expertise when it comes to in vivo application of invermectin and absolutely no expertise regarding covid-19. I have no problem with him providing his opinion, but I also don't care if an airline ignores my car mechanic when it comes to maintenance of the latest Airbus.
      - prohobo 5y ago
        Here's a problem I'm having with these discussions: first of all, none of the people involved - like you - are qualified to make a judgement one way or another. What we're left with is just straight up following the rules of scientific inquiry. So, just going at it from that perspective: you're clearly in the wrong. Anyone who might have information that helps solve a problem should be able to come forward. Anyone who wants to stop that is a problem. As for your skepticism - disparaging credentialed scientists as conspiracy theorists - you also have that ass-backwards. In any scientific discussion, it's the people who have vested interests (financial, institutional, personal) who you most need to be skeptical of. Satoshi Omura has nothing to gain from this, but the pharmaceutical companies definitely do. So what are you trying to do here?
      - moralestapia 5y ago
        >The problem is that he has no qualifications or data to indicate that it is effective for this specific use. Whew. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_%C5%8Cmura https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_%C5%8Cmura 1958, Science teacher at Tokyo Metropolitan Sumida Tech High School. 1960, Enrolled in the Tokyo University of Science (TUS) and studied sciences. ~1968, M.S. degree from TUS and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences (literally!) from the University of Tokyo. 1970, Ph.D. in Chemistry at TUS 1973, He became a director of the antibiotic laboratory at Kitasato University. "Since the 1970s, Ōmura has discovered more than 480 new compounds, of which 25 kinds of drugs and reagents are in use." 2015, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with William C. Campbell and Tu Youyou for discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites. Let me get this straight, so now you and your deluded mind are, somehow, suggesting that this person is not qualified to talk about Ivermectin? Just stop it, really, you're making a fool of yourself.
  - zpeti 5y ago
    So you would prefer YouTube be the arbiter of truth in the case of scientific debate, and have the power to overrule the speech of a Nobel winning scientist? How does that results in a good situation for science in the long run? Even if ivermectin works or doesn’t, is YouTube’s community standards team the right people to decide on controversial scientific issues?
    - evgen 5y ago
      A Nobel laureate does not need Youtube to get a message out, unless they are peddling conspiracy-grade bullshit. Youtube gets to be the arbiter of what content gets shared over Youtube. Don't like that? Too bad.
      - rdbell 5y ago
        I've got no dog in this fight either way, but it sounds like you're celebrating the fact that Omura can't share his opinions on this drug, meanwhile you're sharing your opinions on the same drug here on HN. Feels a little bit hypocritical.
        evgen 5y ago
        I am not celebrating, but I do not think it is some grand conspiracy or worthy of much note. Given the amount of 'this is the magic bullet, I am sure of it this time' bullshit that we have all had to put up with for over a year from anti-lockdown idiots I am simply sick and tired of it. We did this a year ago with hyroxychloroquine from the same group of people. Maybe we can let the actual experts do the research. There are a bunch of garbage surveillance studies out there, a few biased sample studies, but no real data. We are now starting the real studies so maybe we can wait a bit before deciding that this is some magic treatment and that anyone claiming otherwise or trying to slow the spread of these mis-informed stores is somehow participating in some censorship conspiracy.
        rdbell 5y ago
        Fair enough. It's sad to see everything online turned political and used as ammunition against the other side. I think the reality is that (mostly) everyone wants truth to be discovered and for everyone to be healthy.
  - effie 5y ago
    > Preventing the spread of more ivermectin bullshit Educate yourself. Ivermectin has been thoroughly tested and works in profylaxis and early treatment [1]. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34145166/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34145166/
    - evgen 5y ago
      There are also meta-analysis that show invermectin to be ineffective and even deadly. Perhaps you should educate yourself regarding the different meta-analysis available and how they differ (in particular, the one you cite is noted for its high bias.) Feel free to try [1] or [2] and assess the differences in outcome of the analysis when obviously garbage studies are removed or weighted less. Thankfully, we have several _real_ studies happening that are being conducted by people who know what they are doing and are not just surveillance studies but are directly looking at the efficacy of invermectin as a treatment option. [1] https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-148845/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-148845/v1 [2] https://cadth.ca/sites/default/files/covid-19/RC1336%20-%20Ivermectin%20for%20COVID-19%20v6.4.pdf https://cadth.ca/sites/default/files/covid-19/RC1336%20-%20I...
      - shaicoleman 5y ago
        From link 1 (Jan/2021): "In six randomized trials of moderate or severe infection, there was a 75% reduction in mortality (Relative Risk=0.25 [95%CI 0.12-0.52]; p=0.0002); 14/650 (2.1%) deaths on ivermectin; 57/597 (9.5%) deaths in controls) with favorable clinical recovery and reduced hospitalization." From link 2 (Feb/2021): "The RCT reported no serious drug-related adverse events in all patients." "The overall pooled odds ratio was 0.53 (95% CI 0.29 to 0.96); P = 0.04. It was estimated that ivermectin was associated with 54 fewer deaths per 1,000 (95% CI, 3 fewer to 85 fewer)" Ivermectin is one of the safest drugs in the world, with no adverse events when taking 10x the approved dose. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12362927/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12362927/ Both links are out of date, and there's been plenty of studies since.
        evgen 5y ago
  - twirlock 5y ago
    You don't know anything about ivermectin. You have no clue at all whether it's effective or not.
- UncleMeat 5y ago
  I’d believe they were right if the free speech extremists actually showed up to defend groups they hate when their voices are attacked. What I observe is a desire to provide just enough rights to defend established groups but not enough to defend agitators seeking transformative change around topics like racial justice.
  - zpeti 5y ago
    To defend what exactly? Literally every big corporation had rainbows everywhere in the last month, almost all denounced racism and embraced BLM last year. Not much was done against BLM protests/riots. So what exactly is the free speech issue around these issues?
    - UncleMeat 5y ago
      Protestors were gassed and shot with bean bags. Woke capitalism does not mean that the state won’t violently crush actual revolutionary activism and I don’t expect right wing free speech absolutists to actually come defend me from my jail cell.
      - tonfreed 5y ago
        Protesters also destroyed property and committed a lot of violent acts against uninvolved people.
        UncleMeat 5y ago
        "Some people committed property crime so we need to show up with tanks and shoot these other people with gas and bean bags" is a much much much more serious threat to free speech than videos being removed from youtube.
  - tonfreed 5y ago
    Just because you block them all doesn't mean they aren't talking.
shaicoleman 5y ago
* Original tweet: https://twitter.com/KatsuNakajima/status/1408989016339349504 https://twitter.com/KatsuNakajima/status/1408989016339349504 * Archived tweet: https://archive.is/m8C13 https://archive.is/m8C13 * YouTube link (now defunct): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbfNKW4BzjE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbfNKW4BzjE
berenza 5y ago
i can't watch the video so i can't be sure, but i somehow doubt the professor has violated any of the commmunity guideline policies set out here. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9891785?hl=en&ref_topic=9282436 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9891785?hl=en&ref_... if it turns out youtube is suppressing information about a cheap, effective, safe treatment they should be sued.
- evgen 5y ago
  And if it turns out that people are using youtube to convince others to take a treatment that is ineffective and leads to death and injury (including through replacement of known-good treatment with an ineffctive placebo) then those people who spread the misinformation should also be sued. I like where this is going, a real 'put your money where your mouth is' situation.
  - nojokes 5y ago
    We do not know for sure what is the actual effect of this drug. There are many under powered studies that indicate that the effect might be positive. Good news is that Bill and Melinda Gates Fund supported study is trying to find this out https://trialsitenews.com/bill-and-melinda-gates-fund-global-ivermectin-fluvoxamine-clinical-trial-targeting-covid-19-together-covid-19-trial/ https://trialsitenews.com/bill-and-melinda-gates-fund-global...
    - evgen 5y ago
      There are some bad studies that suggest it might be effective and some equally questionable studies that indicate it raises the risk of death. Right now there are two meta-analysis that come to different conclusions based on how they weight the studies. Like the hydroxychloroquine BS from last year, there are question to be answered and several real studies have started (including one being done by Oxford in the UK) so hopefully we will learn answers. OTOH, baseless claims of this being a cheap cure help no one -- if invermectin's efficacy was as obvious as claimed it would show up quickly and be easy to demonstrate, but the fact that we need to go into meta-analysis based on a bunch of questionable surveillance studies is a strong signal that the effect, if any, is small.
0xy 5y ago
Previously YouTube incompetently censored discussion of lab leak theory, allowing misinformation to fester on the platform. [1] YouTube's Trust and Safety team are actively malicious at this point. This was no error. They regularly censor correct information based on the current thinking among the orthodoxy, which I highly suspect is operating in a cartel manner to censor like-minded topics (hence why FB also sloppily censored the same topic). Don't worry though, YouTube has been awarded a Free Expression Award from an organization sponsored by... YouTube. [2] [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-07/facebook-youtube-erred-in-censoring-covid-19-misinformation https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-07/facebo... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcvPf78g1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcvPf78g1k
machinehermiter 5y ago
I mean is there any doubt at this point that youtube would censor heliocentrism as misinformation if this was a certain year in the past? Not just censor but censor heliocentrism in the name of "science".
effie 5y ago
Youtube/Google and other big companies sociopathy is unraveling. By suppressing important information on COVID treatments, they are likely causing prolonged pandemic, increased harm to health of people and deaths. Employees of Google, do you really want to be part of this?
dekhn 5y ago
From what I can tell, a person very high up at Youtube, probably Susan, decided that the policy will be: shut down people who say things that youtube hasn't defined as completely 100% correct about COVID. This is a mistake, and the moment you shut down the person who discovered a molecule that is a widely used drug for saying something which isn't completely unreasonable, will ultimately tar Youtube's reputation (worse than it already is) as anti-science.
- voakbasda 5y ago
  Hasn’t this already happened though? Repeatedly? With no real consequences?
twirlock 5y ago
I am so unbelievably fucking sick of Reddit style intelligence dipshits astroturfing the entire internet.

54 points by shaicoleman 5y ago

So I wonder when all the people asking for censoring misinformation will finally realise that the “free speech extremists” were right, these censorship tools will inevitably be used by those in power for bad ends. For me the Wall Street bets shutdown (discord) was a big alarm bell, that censorship was a absolutely about power and not “misinformation” or hate speech. And now we have Nobel prize winning scientists silenced. This is absolutely terrible.

evgen 5y ago
Preventing the spread of more ivermectin bullshit is not a 'bad end' and having a Nobel Prize does not make you infallible (c.f. James Watson.) If you don't like the policies on one site you are free to find another, it is not like anyone owes you or anyone else a platform. Your 'free speech' rights end at the point where your hand dips into someone else's wallet to pay for the platform.
- moralestapia 5y ago
  >Preventing the spread of more ivermectin bullshit is not a 'bad end' and having a Nobel Prize does not make you infallible Wow, what an extremely deluded point of view. And I am, for one, a person who is extremely picky with fallacies and constantly point out appeals to authority (among other things) here on the site, you can check my comment history. Still, this is the guy that discovered the family of compounds that Ivermectin is part of, he is a scientist with no known issues of dishonesty of wrongdoing and he is extremely familiar with the compound and its effects. What is the problem with him giving its opinion on this medication, under the current light of the pandemic we are experiencing? What problem would anyone have with that? Geez.
  - evgen 5y ago
    The problem is that he has no qualifications or data to indicate that it is effective for this specific use. Invermectin was developed as an anti-parasite treatment as a variant of something discovered by the microbiologist in question. Let's be perfectly clear about this: Satoshi Omura is not a doctor, he is a microbiologist. He has no specific expertise when it comes to in vivo application of invermectin and absolutely no expertise regarding covid-19. I have no problem with him providing his opinion, but I also don't care if an airline ignores my car mechanic when it comes to maintenance of the latest Airbus.
    - prohobo 5y ago
      Here's a problem I'm having with these discussions: first of all, none of the people involved - like you - are qualified to make a judgement one way or another. What we're left with is just straight up following the rules of scientific inquiry. So, just going at it from that perspective: you're clearly in the wrong. Anyone who might have information that helps solve a problem should be able to come forward. Anyone who wants to stop that is a problem. As for your skepticism - disparaging credentialed scientists as conspiracy theorists - you also have that ass-backwards. In any scientific discussion, it's the people who have vested interests (financial, institutional, personal) who you most need to be skeptical of. Satoshi Omura has nothing to gain from this, but the pharmaceutical companies definitely do. So what are you trying to do here?
    - moralestapia 5y ago
      >The problem is that he has no qualifications or data to indicate that it is effective for this specific use. Whew. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_%C5%8Cmura https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satoshi_%C5%8Cmura 1958, Science teacher at Tokyo Metropolitan Sumida Tech High School. 1960, Enrolled in the Tokyo University of Science (TUS) and studied sciences. ~1968, M.S. degree from TUS and his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences (literally!) from the University of Tokyo. 1970, Ph.D. in Chemistry at TUS 1973, He became a director of the antibiotic laboratory at Kitasato University. "Since the 1970s, Ōmura has discovered more than 480 new compounds, of which 25 kinds of drugs and reagents are in use." 2015, Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with William C. Campbell and Tu Youyou for discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites. Let me get this straight, so now you and your deluded mind are, somehow, suggesting that this person is not qualified to talk about Ivermectin? Just stop it, really, you're making a fool of yourself.
- zpeti 5y ago
  So you would prefer YouTube be the arbiter of truth in the case of scientific debate, and have the power to overrule the speech of a Nobel winning scientist? How does that results in a good situation for science in the long run? Even if ivermectin works or doesn’t, is YouTube’s community standards team the right people to decide on controversial scientific issues?
  - evgen 5y ago
    A Nobel laureate does not need Youtube to get a message out, unless they are peddling conspiracy-grade bullshit. Youtube gets to be the arbiter of what content gets shared over Youtube. Don't like that? Too bad.
    - rdbell 5y ago
      I've got no dog in this fight either way, but it sounds like you're celebrating the fact that Omura can't share his opinions on this drug, meanwhile you're sharing your opinions on the same drug here on HN. Feels a little bit hypocritical.
      - evgen 5y ago
        I am not celebrating, but I do not think it is some grand conspiracy or worthy of much note. Given the amount of 'this is the magic bullet, I am sure of it this time' bullshit that we have all had to put up with for over a year from anti-lockdown idiots I am simply sick and tired of it. We did this a year ago with hyroxychloroquine from the same group of people. Maybe we can let the actual experts do the research. There are a bunch of garbage surveillance studies out there, a few biased sample studies, but no real data. We are now starting the real studies so maybe we can wait a bit before deciding that this is some magic treatment and that anyone claiming otherwise or trying to slow the spread of these mis-informed stores is somehow participating in some censorship conspiracy.
        rdbell 5y ago
        Fair enough. It's sad to see everything online turned political and used as ammunition against the other side. I think the reality is that (mostly) everyone wants truth to be discovered and for everyone to be healthy.
- effie 5y ago
  > Preventing the spread of more ivermectin bullshit Educate yourself. Ivermectin has been thoroughly tested and works in profylaxis and early treatment [1]. [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34145166/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34145166/
  - evgen 5y ago
    There are also meta-analysis that show invermectin to be ineffective and even deadly. Perhaps you should educate yourself regarding the different meta-analysis available and how they differ (in particular, the one you cite is noted for its high bias.) Feel free to try [1] or [2] and assess the differences in outcome of the analysis when obviously garbage studies are removed or weighted less. Thankfully, we have several _real_ studies happening that are being conducted by people who know what they are doing and are not just surveillance studies but are directly looking at the efficacy of invermectin as a treatment option. [1] https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-148845/v1 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-148845/v1 [2] https://cadth.ca/sites/default/files/covid-19/RC1336%20-%20Ivermectin%20for%20COVID-19%20v6.4.pdf https://cadth.ca/sites/default/files/covid-19/RC1336%20-%20I...
    - shaicoleman 5y ago
      From link 1 (Jan/2021): "In six randomized trials of moderate or severe infection, there was a 75% reduction in mortality (Relative Risk=0.25 [95%CI 0.12-0.52]; p=0.0002); 14/650 (2.1%) deaths on ivermectin; 57/597 (9.5%) deaths in controls) with favorable clinical recovery and reduced hospitalization." From link 2 (Feb/2021): "The RCT reported no serious drug-related adverse events in all patients." "The overall pooled odds ratio was 0.53 (95% CI 0.29 to 0.96); P = 0.04. It was estimated that ivermectin was associated with 54 fewer deaths per 1,000 (95% CI, 3 fewer to 85 fewer)" Ivermectin is one of the safest drugs in the world, with no adverse events when taking 10x the approved dose. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12362927/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12362927/ Both links are out of date, and there's been plenty of studies since.
      - evgen 5y ago
- twirlock 5y ago
  You don't know anything about ivermectin. You have no clue at all whether it's effective or not.
UncleMeat 5y ago
I’d believe they were right if the free speech extremists actually showed up to defend groups they hate when their voices are attacked. What I observe is a desire to provide just enough rights to defend established groups but not enough to defend agitators seeking transformative change around topics like racial justice.
- zpeti 5y ago
  To defend what exactly? Literally every big corporation had rainbows everywhere in the last month, almost all denounced racism and embraced BLM last year. Not much was done against BLM protests/riots. So what exactly is the free speech issue around these issues?
  - UncleMeat 5y ago
    Protestors were gassed and shot with bean bags. Woke capitalism does not mean that the state won’t violently crush actual revolutionary activism and I don’t expect right wing free speech absolutists to actually come defend me from my jail cell.
    - tonfreed 5y ago
      Protesters also destroyed property and committed a lot of violent acts against uninvolved people.
      - UncleMeat 5y ago
        "Some people committed property crime so we need to show up with tanks and shoot these other people with gas and bean bags" is a much much much more serious threat to free speech than videos being removed from youtube.
- tonfreed 5y ago
  Just because you block them all doesn't mean they aren't talking.

shaicoleman 5y ago

* Original tweet: https://twitter.com/KatsuNakajima/status/1408989016339349504 https://twitter.com/KatsuNakajima/status/1408989016339349504 * Archived tweet: https://archive.is/m8C13 https://archive.is/m8C13 * YouTube link (now defunct): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbfNKW4BzjE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbfNKW4BzjE

berenza 5y ago

i can't watch the video so i can't be sure, but i somehow doubt the professor has violated any of the commmunity guideline policies set out here. https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9891785?hl=en&ref_topic=9282436 https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/9891785?hl=en&ref_... if it turns out youtube is suppressing information about a cheap, effective, safe treatment they should be sued.

evgen 5y ago
And if it turns out that people are using youtube to convince others to take a treatment that is ineffective and leads to death and injury (including through replacement of known-good treatment with an ineffctive placebo) then those people who spread the misinformation should also be sued. I like where this is going, a real 'put your money where your mouth is' situation.
- nojokes 5y ago
  We do not know for sure what is the actual effect of this drug. There are many under powered studies that indicate that the effect might be positive. Good news is that Bill and Melinda Gates Fund supported study is trying to find this out https://trialsitenews.com/bill-and-melinda-gates-fund-global-ivermectin-fluvoxamine-clinical-trial-targeting-covid-19-together-covid-19-trial/ https://trialsitenews.com/bill-and-melinda-gates-fund-global...
  - evgen 5y ago
    There are some bad studies that suggest it might be effective and some equally questionable studies that indicate it raises the risk of death. Right now there are two meta-analysis that come to different conclusions based on how they weight the studies. Like the hydroxychloroquine BS from last year, there are question to be answered and several real studies have started (including one being done by Oxford in the UK) so hopefully we will learn answers. OTOH, baseless claims of this being a cheap cure help no one -- if invermectin's efficacy was as obvious as claimed it would show up quickly and be easy to demonstrate, but the fact that we need to go into meta-analysis based on a bunch of questionable surveillance studies is a strong signal that the effect, if any, is small.

0xy 5y ago

Previously YouTube incompetently censored discussion of lab leak theory, allowing misinformation to fester on the platform. [1] YouTube's Trust and Safety team are actively malicious at this point. This was no error. They regularly censor correct information based on the current thinking among the orthodoxy, which I highly suspect is operating in a cartel manner to censor like-minded topics (hence why FB also sloppily censored the same topic). Don't worry though, YouTube has been awarded a Free Expression Award from an organization sponsored by... YouTube. [2] [1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-07/facebook-youtube-erred-in-censoring-covid-19-misinformation https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-06-07/facebo... [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcvPf78g1k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDcvPf78g1k

machinehermiter 5y ago

I mean is there any doubt at this point that youtube would censor heliocentrism as misinformation if this was a certain year in the past? Not just censor but censor heliocentrism in the name of "science".

effie 5y ago

Youtube/Google and other big companies sociopathy is unraveling. By suppressing important information on COVID treatments, they are likely causing prolonged pandemic, increased harm to health of people and deaths. Employees of Google, do you really want to be part of this?

dekhn 5y ago

From what I can tell, a person very high up at Youtube, probably Susan, decided that the policy will be: shut down people who say things that youtube hasn't defined as completely 100% correct about COVID. This is a mistake, and the moment you shut down the person who discovered a molecule that is a widely used drug for saying something which isn't completely unreasonable, will ultimately tar Youtube's reputation (worse than it already is) as anti-science.

voakbasda 5y ago
Hasn’t this already happened though? Repeatedly? With no real consequences?

twirlock 5y ago

I am so unbelievably fucking sick of Reddit style intelligence dipshits astroturfing the entire internet.