Hacker News Reader

Comment by 3fe9a03ccd14ca5 | Hacker News Reader

So would you support banning everyone on YouTube who went against WHO’s tweet[1] saying there’s no evidence of human to human transmission? That was only in January.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/20/who-haunted-by-old-tweet-sayin...

View on HN

First of all, this is about “YouTube banning 'medically unsubstantiated' content.” as well as content that “would go against World Health Organization recommendations,” which (if those guidelines are followed) doesn’t mean banning of people or discourse, but rather disinformation. Secondly, the WHO tweeted that, but had actually already acknowledged human-to-human transmission multiple times[1][2] in the days before the tweet, so no, I wouldn’t support banning discussion around a tweet.

1. https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unk...

2. https://www.who.int/china/news/detail/09-01-2020-who-stateme...

Content that goes "against World Health Organization recommendations" is not necessarily misinformation though.

I agree. That being said, I think getting more definition and transparency around all this on YouTube/Google's part is going to be really important, though I don't expect it, sadly. There's a fair amount of flimflam being pushed on YouTube right now--everything from literally ingesting chlorine dioxide, to other "holistic" cures that _appear_ to be benign.

>saying there’s no evidence of human to human transmission

Saying there is preliminary research that gives no clear evidence of it. Stop twisting the words

Reply on news.ycombinator.com