Two dead after YouTube conspiracy video claims drinking bleach cures autism | Hacker News Reader

Two dead after YouTube conspiracy video claims drinking bleach cures autism

businessinsider.com

40 pointspseudolus34 comments

That was an extremely difficult read.

Especially part with the moderators of these forums encouraging the parents to up the dosage of poison in response to photos of their children's medical issues brought on after they started 'treatment'.

The Guardian published a more detailed backgrounder on this quackery and some of the people behind it [0].

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/18/bleach-miracle...

Is there a reason why this was flagged?

I'm a bit incredulous here, because topics discussing how YouTube censors people (even tangentially) can spark a massive discussion which isn't flagged and buried, but ones about the harms of some conspiracies spread on YouTube seem to be buried immediately.

If HN wants to really be a site that advocates for intellectual curiosity and sunlight being the best disinfectant, then harmful and anti-scientific beliefs should be exposed, discussed and challenged.

I also am very curious why this topic was flagged.

I don't see anything particularly off topic here, or obviously wrong.

Users flagged it, no doubt because it doesn't gratify intellectual curiosity, which makes it off topic for HN. See https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

Battling "harmful and anti-scientific beliefs" may be an important thing to do, but it isn't about curiosity, and frankly it brings out shallow comments and ugly sentiments in internet forums.

If a girl can go to jail for texting her depressed boyfriend encouragement to commit suicide, why can't we throw these fraudsters in jail for manipulating stupid people?

So how do politicans, do not deserve the same (in case they do the same)? Or when Mark Zuckerberg manipulates the mood of fb users? Where is the line?

I don't know, but somehow I think deliberately tricking people into doing things that directly cause physical harm to themselves falls on the illegal side of that line.

I'm quite sure the girl was not deliberately wanting his ex to die. The "I'll kill myself if you leave me" kind of emotional blackmailing is just too common among hurt exes.

Good question, but I think it's safe to take one of the largest Sharpies at OfficeMax and draw a solid black line right before telling autistic kids to drink bleach.

Oh, this is Miracle Mineral Solution. I've heard of this disgusting quackery for years and years. I'm surprised YouTube is getting around to this just now. They need to read more Respectful Insolence at the Goog.

I remember hearing about MMS from a Myles Power video a few years ago, and I honestly didn't realize (initially) that anyone took it seriously. It's really sad that this is the natural conclusion to selling industrial bleach snake-oil.

There's also a conspiracy theory going around that drinking Hydrogen Peroxide is healthy for the body. Uggghhh...

People who fail at basic chemistry and biology need to shut the hell up before people die. Its called "Food Grade Hydrogen Peroxide" because you use it to clean food. Not because you can drink it.

Hydrogen Peroxide is so reactive that it will (eventually) turn into water. the H2O2... the extra "O"... will bubble away under natural conditions.

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Anyway, I should be surprised that people are literally drinking bleach. But... I'm not... because I'm still jaded from learning about the H2O2 guys. In fact, Hydrogen Peroxide was historically considered a bleach.

Whats the Darwin Award for taking other people out of the gene pool?

Murder 1 maybe?

Well if you can convince people that the earth is flat, a bleach miracle shouldn't be hard right?

So what is the business model here? Is this stuff sold?

Why did this get flagged?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rope_worms

This is just too funny to be true.

Instead of funny, your link provided the answer to a previous post that asked how MMS made money and what their motivation may be.

"These 'ropeworms' are often discussed, with images shared and claimed as evidence of successful detoxing, on autism forums and Facebook groups, where bleach enemas (for example MMS) are falsely claimed to cure autism.[6] In one group, 8500 members have allegedly been charged $60 to join, half a million dollars combined, leading to questioning of the leaders' intentions."

Well, YouTube can't really stop people from being stupid.

Of course they can't, but they conceivably could reduce the spread of material that stupid people are going to use to hurt themselves (or their kids).

You mean more censorship

Ugh, I am so tired of people making this argument every single time something horrible happens and people suggest, you know, DOING something about it.

First off, they don't have to censor, they could just stop recommending these videos, and that would help a lot.

Second, if you seriously can't see why a for-profit corporation restricting content that literally leads to children being poisoned and dying isn't anywhere near Orwellian, then I am afraid that we have nothing further to discuss.

Ugh I’m so sick of people ignoring the brainwashing of the populace via media control

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