<story><title>YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52388586</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>glenstein</author><text>&amp;gt;Where we live, due to local laws, we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping. Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO?&lt;p&gt;Examples like these are frivolous. There&amp;#x27;s a heartland of obvious, flagrant misinformation that is indisputably worth banning and for which a moral case exists to ban immediately: &amp;#x27;5g caused corona, this home remedy will cure it!&amp;#x27; etc.&lt;p&gt;The go-to move of internet commenters craving debates is to look past the 99.9999% of cases that will get taken down and to tie everyone up in debates about hypotheticals.&lt;p&gt;Instead of telling me about your special what-if edge case, tell me whether you think the example you are bringing forward represents the heartland of content that is being targeted by this policy. Be clear about what percentage of cases you think are represented by your special example.</text></item><item><author>logifail</author><text>Current WHO advice: &amp;quot;If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19.&amp;quot; [0]&lt;p&gt;Where we live, due to local &lt;i&gt;laws&lt;/i&gt;, we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping.  Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO?&lt;p&gt;I fear there isn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;one truth&amp;quot; out there, despite the content providers&amp;#x27; and fact-checkers&amp;#x27; attempts :(&lt;p&gt;We keep trying to encourage our kids to ask good questions, then I see what&amp;#x27;s happening out there in the world, and I wonder when the grown-ups are going to start asking good questions...&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.who.int&amp;#x2F;emergencies&amp;#x2F;diseases&amp;#x2F;novel-coronavirus-2019&amp;#x2F;advice-for-public&amp;#x2F;when-and-how-to-use-masks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.who.int&amp;#x2F;emergencies&amp;#x2F;diseases&amp;#x2F;novel-coronavirus-2...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>OrderlyTiamat</author><text>I agree with the conclusion that you should be clear about what percentage of content is on the side of reasonable, and which is not.&lt;p&gt;Let me however disagree strongly with your claims that this concerns 99.99999% of cases, and that the other commenter was talking about &amp;quot;what ifs&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;hypotheticals&amp;quot;. That last claim seems to me to just be untrue: we know in fact that local laws, for example several american states, contradict WHO. Their point is valid. This could be a problem.&lt;p&gt;Now you have done well to state your belief of proportion clearly: only 1 in a million of the cases that will be removed should not have been removed, the rest are indisputably worth of banning.&lt;p&gt;I think you now need to go a step further: &lt;i&gt;Why&lt;/i&gt; do you think that all but one out of a million cases will be justified? And do you really think that a discussion about edge cases is so unnecessary? Given YouTube&amp;#x27;s history with copyright trigger happiness, I wouldn&amp;#x27;t be so sure of these proportions, myself.&lt;p&gt;And I think that it is actually very healthy that the introduction of (increased) censoring should go hand in hand with public scrutiny and discussion, in fact I&amp;#x27;d be very worried if we&amp;#x27;d all just accept all of it uncritically.&lt;p&gt;Your point is, in general, well taken. I think you&amp;#x27;re right to point out commentators can blow fringe issues out of proportions. I am however unconvinced in this particular case.</text></comment>
<story><title>YouTube bans coronavirus-related content that directly contradicts WHO advice</title><url>https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52388586</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>glenstein</author><text>&amp;gt;Where we live, due to local laws, we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping. Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO?&lt;p&gt;Examples like these are frivolous. There&amp;#x27;s a heartland of obvious, flagrant misinformation that is indisputably worth banning and for which a moral case exists to ban immediately: &amp;#x27;5g caused corona, this home remedy will cure it!&amp;#x27; etc.&lt;p&gt;The go-to move of internet commenters craving debates is to look past the 99.9999% of cases that will get taken down and to tie everyone up in debates about hypotheticals.&lt;p&gt;Instead of telling me about your special what-if edge case, tell me whether you think the example you are bringing forward represents the heartland of content that is being targeted by this policy. Be clear about what percentage of cases you think are represented by your special example.</text></item><item><author>logifail</author><text>Current WHO advice: &amp;quot;If you are healthy, you only need to wear a mask if you are taking care of a person with COVID-19.&amp;quot; [0]&lt;p&gt;Where we live, due to local &lt;i&gt;laws&lt;/i&gt;, we are now obliged to wear a mask to go shopping.  Can one discuss that on YouTube, or would one be contradicting the WHO?&lt;p&gt;I fear there isn&amp;#x27;t &amp;quot;one truth&amp;quot; out there, despite the content providers&amp;#x27; and fact-checkers&amp;#x27; attempts :(&lt;p&gt;We keep trying to encourage our kids to ask good questions, then I see what&amp;#x27;s happening out there in the world, and I wonder when the grown-ups are going to start asking good questions...&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.who.int&amp;#x2F;emergencies&amp;#x2F;diseases&amp;#x2F;novel-coronavirus-2019&amp;#x2F;advice-for-public&amp;#x2F;when-and-how-to-use-masks&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.who.int&amp;#x2F;emergencies&amp;#x2F;diseases&amp;#x2F;novel-coronavirus-2...&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bobcostas55</author><text>The WHO has been spreading misinformation from the start, including claims that covid does not spread from human to human after it was abundantly clear that it does[0], claims that travel bans would be unnecessary to halt its spread[1], and claims that people should not wear masks[2].&lt;p&gt;These are not mere edge cases. We have structured our public organizations in a way that gives credentialed &amp;quot;experts&amp;quot; enormous amounts of power, but without making sure they are _actually good at what they do_. This move by youtube further enshrines credentials on top of the grave of competence. This is how you end up with the FDA banning covid tests for more than a month, how you end up with a completely ineffective CDC, or (to return to the topic at hand) the WHO spreading nonsense.&lt;p&gt;The fact of the matter is that the twitter shitposters I follow were far ahead of all the major health organizations on this topic, but if they mention covid in a tweet they&amp;#x27;ll get their account suspended now. This censorship is not about censoring bad info, it&amp;#x27;s about censoring any &amp;quot;non-official&amp;quot; info regardless of its veracity.&lt;p&gt;[0]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pbs.twimg.com&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;EUN7LIXUMAY_2DI.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pbs.twimg.com&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;EUN7LIXUMAY_2DI.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pbs.twimg.com&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;EVCIDfoWAAc-mq0.jpg&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;pbs.twimg.com&amp;#x2F;media&amp;#x2F;EVCIDfoWAAc-mq0.jpg&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2]: &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.who.int&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;default-source&amp;#x2F;health-topics&amp;#x2F;coronavirus&amp;#x2F;masks&amp;#x2F;masks-2.png&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.who.int&amp;#x2F;images&amp;#x2F;default-source&amp;#x2F;health-topics&amp;#x2F;coro...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>