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> This policy will be aimed at exactly people like him. He has been contradicting the authorities all the way.

What advice has he given that contradicts the WHO's guidance?

That masks work.

Where, specifically, do they say that masks are ineffective?

On their website and twitter and through press outlets like CNN:

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-r...

"There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit."

That is completely and totally wrong. It is INSANE to suggest something so horrifyingly stupid and dangerous with a virus that has a two week asymptomatic, contagious incubation period. All the infected but don't know it yet people would lower the number of people they infect massively if they work masks. Every single country where mask wearing in public is the norm has a much lower fatality rate than every single country where it is not the norm.

Does that say it's harmful to wear masks? The WHO's guidance has been that it isn't necessary for individuals to wear medical PPE. There are valid concerns about this, both related to shortages and improper care.

>Does that say it's harmful to wear masks?

Yes, it does. "In fact, there's some evidence to suggest the opposite". But that is irrelevant, since that is not what I claimed. I said the WHO says masks don't work. I quoted them saying it to CNN for you, and linked it. How much more in denial can you get?

>The WHO's guidance has been that it isn't necessary for individuals to wear medical PPE

I just showed you their guidance, which says they will not help. The overwhelming evidence unanimously says that it does help.

>There are valid concerns about this, both related to shortages and improper care.

There are not. There is no shortage of cotton fabric. Improper use of masks is still superior to no masks.

There is, as far as I know little to no scientific evidence that cloth masks are effective at reducing the spread of covid-19 This would make the who's statement factual.

There's conjecture, and maybe some empirical evidence about cloth masks, but it's weak.

There is overwhelming evidence. Dozens of studies, all show significant reduction the spread of viral diseases simply by tying a folded piece of cotton over your face. And if you need to back peddle this hard, maybe you should be so quick to snark in the first place?

I have been watching his channel nightly; it’s really good. How are his safety standards higher? I think the only think he expounds is wearing a mask.

The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one; they predicted a problem early...

Suggesting YouTubers were correct a form of survivorship bias. You're only paying attention to the ones that were right. Plenty of other YouTubers said things along the lines of it being a hoax, or it'd die off, or that it'd be thousands of times worse long before, and long after, the WHO reacted.

YouTube is big and covers all opinions, so of course some would be correct.

> a very smart bloke with an honest-to-goodness PhD in a virus-related field

How do I embolden text on HN? When a person with a PhD is talking about something related to their PhD it is imprudent policy to ban their content because it disagrees with a body who are (a) political, (b) purposefully slow to recommend things and (c) have covered themselves with something a lot less pleasant than glory with their response to the worst pandemic we've seen in a century. Turns out he has a biological Nature publication too [0]. I want to hear his opinion even and especially if it contradicts the WHO on coronavirus. I like to live dangerously; I'll take the risk that he isn't a specialist in respiratory infections and viruses.

YouTube has picked a policy that bans good advice if they don't like the tone or word choice on behalf of an organisation I believe the US government is trying to defund for incompetence. This is not a move that should inspire confidence in their fact-checking abilities. I'd bet they don't have doctors or nurses enforcing this policy either but it'd be nice to be wrong.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/366066a0

Your original statement was "The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one;" Now you're saying that one specific person might be right, and because of that YouTube should let any crackpot broadcast potentially lethal videos on their platform. That's idiotic.

Also, there are plenty of cases of respectable scientists throwing away their credentials to make a ton of money making completely unscientific social media posts. I'm not saying this guy is doing that, but YouTube certainly need to do more than just look as someone's history and whether they're published. The article you cite is from 27 years ago. He will certainly have changed a great deal in that much time.

I'm saying that the WHO was literally a mouthpiece for a Chinese propaganda operation in the early stages of this pandemic. Not maliciously, not intentionally, but the facts of the matter are not really an open question. The WHO were communicating based on Chinese claims that had very little basis in fact. That isn't a strange situation for UN bodies, who are buffeted by strong political winds from all directions and reliant on reporting from their member nations.

The sort of people who are happy to contradict authority were totally correct to contradict the WHO. The WHO weren't communicating best known evidence; they were communicating best known evidence that was acceptable to the Chinese.

YouTube removing people who disagree with the WHO is YouTube setting up a system that will amplify Chinese (or other large state sponsored) propaganda. And I can give an excellent example of a credentialed person who was correctly applying his credentials to warn people about an outcome that has, in fact, emerged. People like that will be targeted under YouTube's policy, which is not interested in correctness but in authority. It is enacting a policy that would have made this crisis even worse for me, because it would have removed the channel that I found out about it from. I am very thankful for having 45 days early notice.

Wrapping with asterisks, with no whitespace, italicizes. I don't think that you can embolden, otherwise.

You can do it using Unicode bold characters:

𝗔𝗕𝗖𝗗𝗘𝗙𝗚𝗛𝗜𝗝𝗞𝗟𝗠𝗡𝗢𝗣𝗤𝗥𝗦𝗧𝗨𝗩𝗪𝗫𝗬𝗭𝗮𝗯𝗰𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗴𝗵𝗶𝗷𝗸𝗹𝗺𝗻𝗼𝗽𝗾𝗿𝘀𝘁𝘂𝘃𝘄𝘅𝘆𝘇

𝟬𝟭𝟮𝟯𝟰𝟱𝟲𝟳𝟴𝟵 🞷‭

And bold italics:

𝘼𝘽𝘾𝘿𝙀𝙁𝙂𝙃𝙄𝙅𝙆𝙇𝙈𝙉𝙊𝙋𝙌𝙍𝙎𝙏𝙐𝙑𝙒𝙓𝙔𝙕𝙖𝙗𝙘𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙜𝙝𝙞𝙟𝙠𝙡𝙢𝙣𝙤𝙥𝙦𝙧𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙫𝙬𝙭𝙮𝙯

Maybe those Youtubers were less popular because their predictions are less accurate and their logic is flawed, and people are able to see the difference? Why is biasing information the role of Youtube, shouldn’t USA and other countries educate their citizen to be resilient to inaccurate predictions, rather than cut any information at the root and only ever expose citizen to “true information”, which inevitably makes your citizen more gullible?

Saying the population can be misled is an admission that our school system creates naive dumbasses. MAYBE we should fix that first.

Yes, let's go fix people's entire educational upbringing (often tied to income and scenarios outside one's control) in the middle of a crisis so that way they can be your flavor of 'smart enough' to discern fact from fiction. This stance is absurd given the immediacy of the crisis all hinging on some slippery-slope argument that if they ban one video they can ban them all.

I think you are right, and that this is one of the more helpful comments in this thread. But maybe even this gives Youtubers too much credit.

I suspect that even those hailed as 'survivors' weren't necessarily more correct. Nobody remembers who was wrong. Nobody remembers anything, ever. Youtubers pay no price with their audience for outrageous false claims. Those were made in the past, which was a month ago. There's 30 new videos up.

Meanwhile, they reap rewards by fanning the flames of whatever subset of claims they've made that haven't proved false, and can claim they knew it all along.

> freedom to discuss the coronavirus

Unfortunately platforms that reach billions must prioritize the danger of misinformation spreading that far and wide over allowing for every dangerous and wrong opinion.

The complete and total censorship you fear never emerges, Youtube if anything is far too lenient on allowing terrible opinions to linger on their platform. They never do away with anything besides the most harmful, hate filled rhetoric.

> They never do away with anything besides the most harmful, hate filled rhetoric.

who decides what speech is "hate filled"? this is free speech 101. what is the point of a publicly accessible social platform if people can't express themselves freely?

Free speech applies to the government, not businesses. Which is good because if it didn't there wouldn't be spam filters. Don't like their rules? Host it yourself.

Exactly, the term "free speech" has no relevance in the private sector.

Is there any reason to believe the dangers of the presumed misinformation being censored are actually significant? Is it killing more people than the Tide pod challenge for example? The article mentions taking vitamin C, and turmeric, but that just seems harmless to me. If it was just that, it’s clearly not worth banning the masks or origin discussion.

Yes telling people the virus isn't dangerous and to resume your life is how Italy got overrun. This is the misinfo being spread.

Yeah I agree that is very dangerous, although that is exactly what governments and most TV channels were saying at the time.

They are saying it now. Today. Attempting to change the subject to what was said 3 months ago isn't a great strategy.

You mentioned "how Italy got overrun", so I was talking about the timeframe that you brought up. I'm not trying to change the subject.

The WHO are themselves spreading misinformation for political reasons.

They are making a calculation that a global run on masks would hurt efforts to contain spread due to shortages for medical professionals confronting the virus everyday, as opposed to general public confrontation which is more sporadic.

Should they just come out and say that? Probably. Would it be effective? No people are irrational in crisis and their words wouldn't prevent the above scenario.

They made a calculated choice with their language which is misleading, but necessarily so. You can disagree with it, but it's far from "spreading misinformation for political reasons".

FWIW I agree re masks but withholding information from Taiwan to appease the CCP is inexcusable. Luckily the Taiwanese are far more competent than their counterparts in this farce.

Your second statement is a far ways away from your first one.

I disagree. Omitting critical information is a (more advanced) form of disinformation.

You don't release disinformation to help fight the spread of a virus, you release it to hurt government's ability to do so.

The term isn't interchangeable with lying, it's purpose-driven.

> Unfortunately platforms that reach billions must prioritize the danger of misinformation spreading

No, they don't. See, this is the core problem, that premise: that's the job of governments. And in the US, the law says the government doesn't get to do that.

Arguing that entities who are arguably more powerful than the government should be doing it is literally arguing for the dictionary definition of fascism.

Actually in the US it's explicitly not the job of government, hence the bill of rights.

Individuals, and collections thereof, however, are free to censor whomever they want. This misguided idea that your protection from government censorship affects your contractual agreement with me needs to stop.

> Actually in the US it's explicitly not the job of government, hence the bill of rights.

You need to read my comment again.

In the US, it is NOBODY'S JOB.

> This misguided idea that your protection from government censorship affects your contractual agreement with me needs to stop.

Repeat after me: "I am not Google. I am not Google. I am not Google. I don't affect the lives of billions of people. I don't affect the lives of billions of people."

I did. Are you suggesting that legally, Google is unable to do this, or that ethically there is some principle that says that large collections of people should have fewer rights than individuals? And therefore that the government should restrict the speech rights of those groups?

"Some people would like freedom to discuss the coronavirus without being oppressed. They can't on YouTube if this policy takes hold." so find another platform. YouTube has no obligation whatsoever to continue to disseminate disinformation, or theories. They've had a hard enough time banning and preventing the spread of chlorine dioxide-based "protocol" information, let alone the flimflam that's being discussed right now.