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> Whats so special about anti covid desinfo rules? - The magnitude of content involved. - The fact that there exists a significant part of the society which i

> Whats so special about anti covid desinfo rules? - The magnitude of content involved. - The fact that there exists a significant part of the society which is vocal about not endorsing these particular deletions. - The fact that many people became aware of the moderation ("censorship") that YouTube does and its power. - The fact that these COVID information videos (despite being perhaps wrong) formed important patterns of opinions, i.e. some opinions considered "extremist" or "wrong" were suppressed.

shakna 1y ago
We also suppress videos on the correct manufacturing process for plastic explosives. Not because doing it safely is a bad idea, but because proliferating bomb making materials is. Covid disinformation got people killed. It will continue to get people killed, especially with a proponent of it leading the US health service. Things likely to lead to death, are likely things you do not want on your platform.
- p1dda 1y ago
  [flagged]
- aleph_minus_one 1y ago
  > Covid disinformation got people killed. If they trust bad medical advice on YouTube and die, it's their problem.
  - thrance 1y ago
    No, it's everyone's. Herd immunity can only be achieved if a sufficiently large part of the population is vaccinated. Also, and I know basic empathy is a foreign concept nowadays, but what if I wished for my fellow to not die of a preventable disease because a grifter sold them on an insane idea?
    - account42 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - shakna 1y ago
        ... Most vaccines do not completely prevent you from contracting a virus. They reduce the liklihood, and thus reduce the footprint. Heck, the concept of herd immunity is about protecting individuals who cannot be vaccinated at all. By reducing a virus' footprint.
        zanfr 1y ago
        there is no long term herd immunity with coronaviruses; which is why they are often use in disaster prevention scenarios... what you call "herd immunity" is merely letting people die...
        shakna 1y ago
        Herd immunity, for some definitions of a debated term, is absolutely achievable - and lasting. [0] > Technically, then, a population can reach herd immunity even with low levels of the pathogen still circulating, which means it hasn't necessarily been eradicated for good. The point, ultimately, is that herd immunity may not be the right shorthand to refer to the end of the pandemic. It’s been bandied about incorrectly, certainly imprecisely, Fine says. “I think people often haven’t a clue what they’re saying.” [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8166024/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8166024/
      - ekianjo 1y ago
        Even Pfizer recognized they never produced any data to support that in their trials. So the government was lying all along.
      - teamonkey 1y ago
        Of course vaccines don’t prevent you from catching the virus, that is not how they work. They train your immune system so it’s better at fighting the virus when it enters your body. This reduces the chances of your immune system being overwhelmed by the virus, reduces your recovery time, reduces your symptoms, and therefore reduces the chances of you spreading it to other people.
  - peterclary 1y ago
    Even if you don't care about those people, what about the people who would be affected by them? A would-be bomb-maker might only blow themselves up, or they may kill many in a crowd. Somebody walking around with a deadly pathogen infects and kills others. Children die because their parents believe in anti-vax nonsense. Individual freedom ends at the point at which it causes real harm to other people. Also, you know who tends to be most in favour of "let stupid people face the consequences of their poor choices"? Those who want to profit from those people and their choices.
    - logifail 1y ago
      > Children die because their parents believe in anti-vax nonsense Do we know how many otherwise healthy children caught Covid and died from it? My impression from the official figures is that in most countries the number is vanishingly small if not zero.
      - pmarreck 1y ago
        Well, it's CERTAINLY not ZERO... I recall seeing numerous articles about overweight children dying of it, for example Remember that even polio only put like 1% of its victims into an iron lung
        freedomben 1y ago
        I'm not agreeing nor disagreeing with GP, but I would imagine they would argue that an overweight kid is not "otherwise healthy children."
        kube-system 1y ago
        And I would argue that lives have value even when people have preexisting medical conditions.
        freedomben 1y ago
        I certainly don't disagree with that, and I would imagine there aren't many people who would, but it is not in any way an argument against how many otherwise healthy children died of covid. If you want to make an argument that an overweight child should still be considered otherwise healthy, that would be a welcome and relevant argument, and also an interesting one.
  - shakna 1y ago
    Its the problem of those they affect. "Infectious" is not self-contained to a singular individual. Its also a problem for the platform - who is now party to it happening. YouTube allowing bad medical advice will hurt YouTube. Their safest option, is to disallow it.
    - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
      > YouTube allowing bad medical advice will hurt YouTube. YouTube censoring videos people want to see will also hurt YouTube.
      - shakna 1y ago
        I don't think that is so certain - or a viable alternative would be competing with them.
      - const_cast 1y ago
        Evidently not very much.
    - ekianjo 1y ago
      [flagged]
      - fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
        This doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Big Pharma would benefit from everyone taking ivermectin to cure their covid, yet content about that was removed. Google is bigger than the entire Pharma industry, and only a couple Pharma companies had covid vaccines. There's also a ton of general anti-pharma content on YouTube that they'd get taken down, demonetized, etc if they had any power over YouTube.
        ekianjo 1y ago
        > Big Pharma would benefit from everyone taking ivermectin I don't follow. Why would Big pharma benefit from everyone taking ivermectin since its off patent and ultra cheap?
- redeeman 1y ago
  but its not about the information, its about who spouts it. For example its possible for the same government entity to be 100% whitelisted in saying "DONT MASK", and also "MASK OR YOU KILL GRANNY", both are 100% allowed, but when some layperson says the one that isnt favored by the regime at the time, well, they are censored at best.
  - shakna 1y ago
    Disinformation got people killed. That creates liability. The causes a platform to suppress information. Information, backed by experts, usually requires intervention by a higher power to supress - because it doesn't carry the same liability.
    - handoflixue 1y ago
      Amazon.com currently carries the "Anarchist's Cookbook", including the Author's Footnote saying that the publication of this book is a terrible and dangerous idea. My local library also carries this book. Is this disinformation really more dangerous than that book? Is there some reason YouTube should be more liable for user-uploaded content, versus a bookstore being liable for content they deliberately choose to carry?
      - shakna 1y ago
        For a time, the Cookbook was banned. However, due to most of it being common knowledge, and the rest of it being ineffectual nonsense unlikely to harm anyone, restrictions were relaxed. In some jurisdictions, however, it does remain banned to this day. YT are liable if they broadcast the contents of the Cookbook to the UK, for example. Which is a great example of companies acting because they'll end up liable. Which is the only point I've made.
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      > Disinformation got people killed Back this up with data if you want to keep stating this as fact. How do you know know disinformation got people killed, and what specifically are you defining as disinformation?
- belorn 1y ago
  Since Swedish policy during covid, produced by medical professionals and researchers, was contrary to US policy during covid, this kind of information was also removed. You do not have this kind of disagreement within the professional field with bomb making materials. Pandemic prevention is an on-going research topic where a lot of different professionals has wild difference in views and approaches, and the meta studies done post the covid pandemic has also demonstrated that much of the strategies deployed by countries all over the world, including US and Sweden, was proven to be inefficient or directly false. The effectiveness of non-N95 respirator against an airborn virus that mostly spread through aerosols (rather than droplets) was one of them, and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden demonstrated that in an early study when they found live virus surviving the filtered air conditioning in the hospital. Some people in Sweden first learned about the US censorship because official news from the Swedish government was removed from platforms. Some fringe Covid disinformation might get people kill, but the chilling effect from liberal use of censorship will also kill people. The biggest killer of all seems to be the politicization of pandemic research. The meta studies seems to be mostly ignored by the political discussion, and its very possible that we get a repeat of the pandemic sooner than later without any thing changing from last time.
  - zanfr 1y ago
    Sweden is widely recognized as the example to absolutely not follow in handling pandemics. N95s (and above) definitely work, so does filtered air. But sweden has a long standing history of eugenics
    - stefantalpalaru 1y ago
      [dead]
    - Sloowms 1y ago
      As opposed to the US? Like sending infected elderly people to elderly homes to infect more people?
    - andrepd 1y ago
      That's your perspective. What if I were to demand it be silenced and only opinions praising its policy were shown? Let's talk it over in the open, it's not perfect but it's the best way.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >We also suppress videos on the correct manufacturing process for plastic explosives. Not because doing it safely is a bad idea, but because proliferating bomb making materials is. >Covid disinformation got people killed. It will continue to get people killed, especially with a proponent of it leading the US health service. >Things likely to lead to death, are likely things you do not want on your platform. Proliferating attitudes about the restriction of communication like you are doing and advocating for is bad and gets people killed. The history books are chock f-ing full of the recipe and the steps. I'll take my chances with the plastic explosives and the health quackery. Even though people may spew falsehoods the truth "just is" and will keep coming back up.
  - catlifeonmars 1y ago
    > Even though people may spew falsehoods the truth "just is" and will keep coming back up. I wish I had your level of confidence about this. I just feel like it is not the case these days and it’s depressing.
    - andrepd 1y ago
      Indeed. In the ages pre-algorithmic social media and pre-generative AI I would agree that about truth. Now I'm not so sure.
      - kevindamm 1y ago
        funny, I still had this open from when I saw it mentioned in another thread on HN https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law Debunking disinfo takes significantly more energy than it did to create it, although I have no more than anecdata to back it up I have yet to find anyone who disagrees. So, I too would like to believe that the truth prevails but imo it only does so when its champions are incredibly persistent.
    - insin 1y ago
      > Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect… -- Jonathan Swift, 1710 [1] (very apt that this has an ad in the middle of it) [1] http://books.google.com/books?id=KigTAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Truth+comes%22#v=snippet& http://books.google.com/books?id=KigTAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Truth+com...
- _heimdall 1y ago
  > Covid disinformation got people killed. You know this claim can never be substantiated right? You will never be able to show causation like that and we would never allow some controlled trial to see whether giving people whatever information you deem as misinformation actually increases the death rate relative to a control group.
  - pmarreck 1y ago
    Come on, man. COVID deaths per capita were highest in countries that had very active vaccine skepticism. While this is not causation establishment, it is super highly correlative: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-... gives good estimates of COVID death impact using a very reasonable methodology. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.27.22271579v1.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.27.22271579v... illustrates that it's hard to nail this relationship down since UNDERREPORTING was ALSO highest in countries with high vaccine skepticism. While establishing causation is the gold standard, dismissing strong correlative relationships where everything reasonably considered conflationary has been ruled out (which a raw death count would ostensibly do much of) is not arguing in good faith, IMHO
    - _heimdall 1y ago
      Sure, you can absolutely claim correlation there and say something like "information making people hesitant to get the vaccine may have increased risk of death." That's wildly different than claiming that misinformation killed people. Comparing country level statistics is also pretty inaccurate. The populations aren't controlled at all, here you are assuming the only meaningful difference in the populations are vaccination rate. Plenty of other factors could come into play; environmental differences, average health, average number of prescription drugs, preexisting conditions like heart disease or diabetes, etc. You can't just hand wave away any other population differences and assume that vaccination rate was the key there. As you pointed out the data itself isn't reliable due to differences in reporting and testing. How can you skip past that and still land on misinformation caused deaths?
- calvinmorrison 1y ago
  [flagged]
- catlifeonmars 1y ago
  I think an administration that was happy to spread disinformation and cast doubt on vaccination had an outsized impact. YT ain’t the problem.
  - AlexandrB 1y ago
    > cast doubt on vaccination This seems like a bizarre retcon. No only did Trump fund "Operation Warp Speed" but he still (occasionally) expresses pride at funding the vaccine research. This is not "casting doubt on vaccination". I think the US right was generally doubtful of vaccination, but I'm fuzzy about whether this started before or after the vaccine mandates. Certainly I remember it being more of a phenomenon once Biden took office - perhaps as knee jerk opposition to a Democrat president.
    - Larrikin 1y ago
      They are casting doubt on the vaccine currently by prohibiting access to it, downplaying the disease, and removing science funding. The very first commercial I saw after Biden was sworn in was a government ad telling people to get vaccinated.
thrance 1y ago
[flagged]
- huijzer 1y ago
  > I'm really tired of people hiding behind free speech and "but what if someone had something important to say!". But who is going to decide what we are allowed to say and what not? We all know “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. It’s very easy for someone to “manufacture consent” if you can take all the opponents out.
  - thrance 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - huijzer 1y ago
      > So the answer is: it has to be decided democratically. Okay so the voters have to choose what other people are allowed to say? Either we all have to say what the democrats want us to say and then what the republicans want us to say?
      - Defletter 1y ago
        You say that like it's not already de-facto true.
        A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        This is, by far, one of the saddest statements I have read on this site. You are not wrong. The world around us serves as a clear proof of that and yet I still want to believe in the 'aspirational nature' of the values that are supposedly guiding US as a country.
        Defletter 1y ago
        I think the problem comes from an unconscious belief that the Constitution is self-executing, thus is something that can be taken for granted because it'll always be there protecting them. That they can elect someone like Trump and it's fine because he's confined by the Constitution. Ultimately, the Constitution and its amendments are just words on paper: their worth comes from the People's demand, substantiated with an implied threat of revolution, that those words be obeyed. When your society acquiesces to the tyranny of partisanship within your institutions, particularly within the Supreme Court and it's self-proclaimed right to amend the Constitution at will, your Constitution only continues to exist through inertia. Elect someone like Trump who has no regard for the law unless it's useful to him, and that inertia slows. To quote Danielle Allen: "I have seen time and again people who just stop reading at that period after 'pursuit of happiness'." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqiFMiQeXNQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqiFMiQeXNQ)
nobody9999 1y ago
I respect that view. And I think you (and anyone else who shares that view) should be able to access any legal content, should they wish to do so. That said, what does what you or I think have to do with YouTube's policies? If you disagree with some or all of their policies (I certainly do), you are free not to use YouTube. I tend not to use that site because I don't like ads and I don't like being spied upon. No one is stopping you or anyone else from creating a platform for the topic(s) you'd like to see disseminated and discussed. Or is it (and I'm not saying it is) your contention that YouTube should be required to provide both hosting and ad monetization to everyone, without regard to the content of those hosted videos?

shakna 1y ago

We also suppress videos on the correct manufacturing process for plastic explosives. Not because doing it safely is a bad idea, but because proliferating bomb making materials is. Covid disinformation got people killed. It will continue to get people killed, especially with a proponent of it leading the US health service. Things likely to lead to death, are likely things you do not want on your platform.

p1dda 1y ago
[flagged]
aleph_minus_one 1y ago
> Covid disinformation got people killed. If they trust bad medical advice on YouTube and die, it's their problem.
- thrance 1y ago
  No, it's everyone's. Herd immunity can only be achieved if a sufficiently large part of the population is vaccinated. Also, and I know basic empathy is a foreign concept nowadays, but what if I wished for my fellow to not die of a preventable disease because a grifter sold them on an insane idea?
  - account42 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - shakna 1y ago
      ... Most vaccines do not completely prevent you from contracting a virus. They reduce the liklihood, and thus reduce the footprint. Heck, the concept of herd immunity is about protecting individuals who cannot be vaccinated at all. By reducing a virus' footprint.
      - zanfr 1y ago
        there is no long term herd immunity with coronaviruses; which is why they are often use in disaster prevention scenarios... what you call "herd immunity" is merely letting people die...
        shakna 1y ago
        Herd immunity, for some definitions of a debated term, is absolutely achievable - and lasting. [0] > Technically, then, a population can reach herd immunity even with low levels of the pathogen still circulating, which means it hasn't necessarily been eradicated for good. The point, ultimately, is that herd immunity may not be the right shorthand to refer to the end of the pandemic. It’s been bandied about incorrectly, certainly imprecisely, Fine says. “I think people often haven’t a clue what they’re saying.” [0] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8166024/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8166024/
    - ekianjo 1y ago
      Even Pfizer recognized they never produced any data to support that in their trials. So the government was lying all along.
    - teamonkey 1y ago
      Of course vaccines don’t prevent you from catching the virus, that is not how they work. They train your immune system so it’s better at fighting the virus when it enters your body. This reduces the chances of your immune system being overwhelmed by the virus, reduces your recovery time, reduces your symptoms, and therefore reduces the chances of you spreading it to other people.
- peterclary 1y ago
  Even if you don't care about those people, what about the people who would be affected by them? A would-be bomb-maker might only blow themselves up, or they may kill many in a crowd. Somebody walking around with a deadly pathogen infects and kills others. Children die because their parents believe in anti-vax nonsense. Individual freedom ends at the point at which it causes real harm to other people. Also, you know who tends to be most in favour of "let stupid people face the consequences of their poor choices"? Those who want to profit from those people and their choices.
  - logifail 1y ago
    > Children die because their parents believe in anti-vax nonsense Do we know how many otherwise healthy children caught Covid and died from it? My impression from the official figures is that in most countries the number is vanishingly small if not zero.
    - pmarreck 1y ago
      Well, it's CERTAINLY not ZERO... I recall seeing numerous articles about overweight children dying of it, for example Remember that even polio only put like 1% of its victims into an iron lung
      - freedomben 1y ago
        I'm not agreeing nor disagreeing with GP, but I would imagine they would argue that an overweight kid is not "otherwise healthy children."
        kube-system 1y ago
        And I would argue that lives have value even when people have preexisting medical conditions.
        freedomben 1y ago
        I certainly don't disagree with that, and I would imagine there aren't many people who would, but it is not in any way an argument against how many otherwise healthy children died of covid. If you want to make an argument that an overweight child should still be considered otherwise healthy, that would be a welcome and relevant argument, and also an interesting one.
- shakna 1y ago
  Its the problem of those they affect. "Infectious" is not self-contained to a singular individual. Its also a problem for the platform - who is now party to it happening. YouTube allowing bad medical advice will hurt YouTube. Their safest option, is to disallow it.
  - aleph_minus_one 1y ago
    > YouTube allowing bad medical advice will hurt YouTube. YouTube censoring videos people want to see will also hurt YouTube.
    - shakna 1y ago
      I don't think that is so certain - or a viable alternative would be competing with them.
    - const_cast 1y ago
      Evidently not very much.
  - ekianjo 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
      This doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. Big Pharma would benefit from everyone taking ivermectin to cure their covid, yet content about that was removed. Google is bigger than the entire Pharma industry, and only a couple Pharma companies had covid vaccines. There's also a ton of general anti-pharma content on YouTube that they'd get taken down, demonetized, etc if they had any power over YouTube.
      - ekianjo 1y ago
        > Big Pharma would benefit from everyone taking ivermectin I don't follow. Why would Big pharma benefit from everyone taking ivermectin since its off patent and ultra cheap?
redeeman 1y ago
but its not about the information, its about who spouts it. For example its possible for the same government entity to be 100% whitelisted in saying "DONT MASK", and also "MASK OR YOU KILL GRANNY", both are 100% allowed, but when some layperson says the one that isnt favored by the regime at the time, well, they are censored at best.
- shakna 1y ago
  Disinformation got people killed. That creates liability. The causes a platform to suppress information. Information, backed by experts, usually requires intervention by a higher power to supress - because it doesn't carry the same liability.
  - handoflixue 1y ago
    Amazon.com currently carries the "Anarchist's Cookbook", including the Author's Footnote saying that the publication of this book is a terrible and dangerous idea. My local library also carries this book. Is this disinformation really more dangerous than that book? Is there some reason YouTube should be more liable for user-uploaded content, versus a bookstore being liable for content they deliberately choose to carry?
    - shakna 1y ago
      For a time, the Cookbook was banned. However, due to most of it being common knowledge, and the rest of it being ineffectual nonsense unlikely to harm anyone, restrictions were relaxed. In some jurisdictions, however, it does remain banned to this day. YT are liable if they broadcast the contents of the Cookbook to the UK, for example. Which is a great example of companies acting because they'll end up liable. Which is the only point I've made.
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    > Disinformation got people killed Back this up with data if you want to keep stating this as fact. How do you know know disinformation got people killed, and what specifically are you defining as disinformation?
belorn 1y ago
Since Swedish policy during covid, produced by medical professionals and researchers, was contrary to US policy during covid, this kind of information was also removed. You do not have this kind of disagreement within the professional field with bomb making materials. Pandemic prevention is an on-going research topic where a lot of different professionals has wild difference in views and approaches, and the meta studies done post the covid pandemic has also demonstrated that much of the strategies deployed by countries all over the world, including US and Sweden, was proven to be inefficient or directly false. The effectiveness of non-N95 respirator against an airborn virus that mostly spread through aerosols (rather than droplets) was one of them, and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden demonstrated that in an early study when they found live virus surviving the filtered air conditioning in the hospital. Some people in Sweden first learned about the US censorship because official news from the Swedish government was removed from platforms. Some fringe Covid disinformation might get people kill, but the chilling effect from liberal use of censorship will also kill people. The biggest killer of all seems to be the politicization of pandemic research. The meta studies seems to be mostly ignored by the political discussion, and its very possible that we get a repeat of the pandemic sooner than later without any thing changing from last time.
- zanfr 1y ago
  Sweden is widely recognized as the example to absolutely not follow in handling pandemics. N95s (and above) definitely work, so does filtered air. But sweden has a long standing history of eugenics
  - stefantalpalaru 1y ago
    [dead]
  - Sloowms 1y ago
    As opposed to the US? Like sending infected elderly people to elderly homes to infect more people?
  - andrepd 1y ago
    That's your perspective. What if I were to demand it be silenced and only opinions praising its policy were shown? Let's talk it over in the open, it's not perfect but it's the best way.
potato3732842 1y ago
>We also suppress videos on the correct manufacturing process for plastic explosives. Not because doing it safely is a bad idea, but because proliferating bomb making materials is. >Covid disinformation got people killed. It will continue to get people killed, especially with a proponent of it leading the US health service. >Things likely to lead to death, are likely things you do not want on your platform. Proliferating attitudes about the restriction of communication like you are doing and advocating for is bad and gets people killed. The history books are chock f-ing full of the recipe and the steps. I'll take my chances with the plastic explosives and the health quackery. Even though people may spew falsehoods the truth "just is" and will keep coming back up.
- catlifeonmars 1y ago
  > Even though people may spew falsehoods the truth "just is" and will keep coming back up. I wish I had your level of confidence about this. I just feel like it is not the case these days and it’s depressing.
  - andrepd 1y ago
    Indeed. In the ages pre-algorithmic social media and pre-generative AI I would agree that about truth. Now I'm not so sure.
    - kevindamm 1y ago
      funny, I still had this open from when I saw it mentioned in another thread on HN https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law Debunking disinfo takes significantly more energy than it did to create it, although I have no more than anecdata to back it up I have yet to find anyone who disagrees. So, I too would like to believe that the truth prevails but imo it only does so when its champions are incredibly persistent.
  - insin 1y ago
    > Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect… -- Jonathan Swift, 1710 [1] (very apt that this has an ad in the middle of it) [1] http://books.google.com/books?id=KigTAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Truth+comes%22#v=snippet& http://books.google.com/books?id=KigTAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Truth+com...
_heimdall 1y ago
> Covid disinformation got people killed. You know this claim can never be substantiated right? You will never be able to show causation like that and we would never allow some controlled trial to see whether giving people whatever information you deem as misinformation actually increases the death rate relative to a control group.
- pmarreck 1y ago
  Come on, man. COVID deaths per capita were highest in countries that had very active vaccine skepticism. While this is not causation establishment, it is super highly correlative: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-estimates https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-... gives good estimates of COVID death impact using a very reasonable methodology. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.27.22271579v1.full https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.27.22271579v... illustrates that it's hard to nail this relationship down since UNDERREPORTING was ALSO highest in countries with high vaccine skepticism. While establishing causation is the gold standard, dismissing strong correlative relationships where everything reasonably considered conflationary has been ruled out (which a raw death count would ostensibly do much of) is not arguing in good faith, IMHO
  - _heimdall 1y ago
    Sure, you can absolutely claim correlation there and say something like "information making people hesitant to get the vaccine may have increased risk of death." That's wildly different than claiming that misinformation killed people. Comparing country level statistics is also pretty inaccurate. The populations aren't controlled at all, here you are assuming the only meaningful difference in the populations are vaccination rate. Plenty of other factors could come into play; environmental differences, average health, average number of prescription drugs, preexisting conditions like heart disease or diabetes, etc. You can't just hand wave away any other population differences and assume that vaccination rate was the key there. As you pointed out the data itself isn't reliable due to differences in reporting and testing. How can you skip past that and still land on misinformation caused deaths?
calvinmorrison 1y ago
[flagged]
catlifeonmars 1y ago
I think an administration that was happy to spread disinformation and cast doubt on vaccination had an outsized impact. YT ain’t the problem.
- AlexandrB 1y ago
  > cast doubt on vaccination This seems like a bizarre retcon. No only did Trump fund "Operation Warp Speed" but he still (occasionally) expresses pride at funding the vaccine research. This is not "casting doubt on vaccination". I think the US right was generally doubtful of vaccination, but I'm fuzzy about whether this started before or after the vaccine mandates. Certainly I remember it being more of a phenomenon once Biden took office - perhaps as knee jerk opposition to a Democrat president.
  - Larrikin 1y ago
    They are casting doubt on the vaccine currently by prohibiting access to it, downplaying the disease, and removing science funding. The very first commercial I saw after Biden was sworn in was a government ad telling people to get vaccinated.

thrance 1y ago

[flagged]

huijzer 1y ago
> I'm really tired of people hiding behind free speech and "but what if someone had something important to say!". But who is going to decide what we are allowed to say and what not? We all know “Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely”. It’s very easy for someone to “manufacture consent” if you can take all the opponents out.
- thrance 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - huijzer 1y ago
    > So the answer is: it has to be decided democratically. Okay so the voters have to choose what other people are allowed to say? Either we all have to say what the democrats want us to say and then what the republicans want us to say?
    - Defletter 1y ago
      You say that like it's not already de-facto true.
      - A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 1y ago
        This is, by far, one of the saddest statements I have read on this site. You are not wrong. The world around us serves as a clear proof of that and yet I still want to believe in the 'aspirational nature' of the values that are supposedly guiding US as a country.
        Defletter 1y ago
        I think the problem comes from an unconscious belief that the Constitution is self-executing, thus is something that can be taken for granted because it'll always be there protecting them. That they can elect someone like Trump and it's fine because he's confined by the Constitution. Ultimately, the Constitution and its amendments are just words on paper: their worth comes from the People's demand, substantiated with an implied threat of revolution, that those words be obeyed. When your society acquiesces to the tyranny of partisanship within your institutions, particularly within the Supreme Court and it's self-proclaimed right to amend the Constitution at will, your Constitution only continues to exist through inertia. Elect someone like Trump who has no regard for the law unless it's useful to him, and that inertia slows. To quote Danielle Allen: "I have seen time and again people who just stop reading at that period after 'pursuit of happiness'." (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqiFMiQeXNQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqiFMiQeXNQ)

nobody9999 1y ago

I respect that view. And I think you (and anyone else who shares that view) should be able to access any legal content, should they wish to do so. That said, what does what you or I think have to do with YouTube's policies? If you disagree with some or all of their policies (I certainly do), you are free not to use YouTube. I tend not to use that site because I don't like ads and I don't like being spied upon. No one is stopping you or anyone else from creating a platform for the topic(s) you'd like to see disseminated and discussed. Or is it (and I'm not saying it is) your contention that YouTube should be required to provide both hosting and ad monetization to everyone, without regard to the content of those hosted videos?