Compare with this excellent piece by the CBC on a somewhat similar viral video in Canada:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/saskatchewan/u-of-r-biology-p...
Are the doctors in the video saying untruths or misrepresenting data? I think what they said in the video was eminently reasonable. But perhaps I'm wrong. Luckily we have the freedom to publicly critique their claims - assuming our critiques aren't censored by major internet companies - which is how falsehoods and untruths should be dealt with, not with censorship.
Yes, they are.
https://www.dailynews.com/2020/04/28/california-doctors-with...
> But public health experts were quick to debunk the doctors’ findings as misguided and riddled with statistical errors — and an example of the kind of misleading information they are forced to waste precious time disputing.
> The doctors should never have assumed that the patients they tested — who came for walk-in COVID-19 tests or who sought urgent care for symptoms they experienced in the middle of a pandemic — are representative of the general population, said Dr. Carl Bergstrom, a University of Washington biologist who specializes in infectious disease modeling. He likened their extrapolations to “estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court.” And most credible studies of COVID-19 death rates in reality are far higher than the ones the doctors presented.
> In a rare statement late today, the American College of Emergency Physicians and the American Academy of Emergency Medicine declared they “emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Messihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical societies and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.”
That article makes inaccurate statements like, "basically hyped a bunch of data and weren’t transparent about their methods" which is not true. There were 100% transparent about where there information was from and how they were presenting it.
I can vouch for their transparency. The speed with which I was able to see that their statistical methods were totally wrong was almost entirely due to their transparency. The only fact I had to find outside of what they said was the criteria for testing in the county for which they cited statistics, which I found at https://kernpublichealth.com/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-...
"Testing is NOT indicated for asymptomatic persons."
The doctors' statistics in the quote below don't work because of sampling bias.
“In Kern County, we’ve tested 5,213 people and we have 340 positive COVID cases. Well, that’s 6.5 percent of the population. Which would indicate a widespread viral infection similar to the flu,”
They use the same logic for Kern County, California, and New York. Their logic is, that if you test N people and find M positive cases, that in the population at large you'll have an infection rate of M/N. This would be true if the N tests were performed on random members of the population. But because the tests are only performed when there's reason to suspect infection, M/N is a higher infection rate than in the population at large. Their inflated number for total infected persons makes the death rate appear smaller.
https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-wi...
I suppose that’s the real problem, in so many words...
Because you have a basic understanding of statistics.
> Why can't we watch and make our own judgements?
You can. The video is available in many places.
I'm not saying that you are misrepresenting or disinforming people. But, how would you know unless someone told you?
https://www.aaem.org/resources/statements/joint-endorsed/phy...
And then, comparing that to the flu and saying this isn't much worse, we're now well into the "this video is a potentially a public health hazard" territory.
No, lockdowns are the public health hazard. The data is quite clear at this point that what's going on here is no worse than the flu. Here's a simple graphic from the UK to make that point clear:
http://inproportion2.talkigy.com/
And if you look at when lockdowns could have possibly started working given incubation and death lags, you'll see that most countries seem to have peaked before the lockdowns could have started working. Implication: they weren't responsible for the peak and decline.
But the more important point is that it's critical such things can be debated. Simply assuming you're right and anyone who disagrees is a "public health hazard" is totalitarianism. You won't have any ability to defend yourself, or even any right to, next time someone erases you because e.g. Trump declared your views to be dangerous.
Also i've said it here before, but young, healthy people who did not had to have invasive respiration (so no ICU) still got out of their sickness with lingering asthma, possibly caused by a pulmonary fibrosis. I found this [0] in English if you don't know what it is. In five to seven years (assuming we find a vaccine for sras-cov2 in two year) we will really start counting our dead, unless we find a non-chirurgical fibrosis cure.
[0] https://lungdiseasenews.com/2017/06/16/12-facts-pulmonary-fi...
Sample size doesn't help if the sampling method is biased. Even if tests were available to everyone regardless of symptoms, you would still have a selection bias that would skew the numbers. The only way to accurately estimate overall infection rates in the general population is to test a random sampling.
Then there is the "comparison" of Sweden (no lock down) and Norway/California. They mention the death counts and population of these countries in another attempt to show that the "number of cases is high and the number of deaths is small regardless of lockdown" but completely gloss over the fact that Sweden has more that 5x the covid deaths per capita that Norway and California have.
Regardless of if this video should be censored, these guys are awful scientists.
This is the exact reason why it shouldn't be censored. Because if their science is bad then it needs to be available for people who know better to tear it to shreds.
If you take it down then the story can't be "this is why they're wrong" because what they said isn't available anymore, so a rebuttal isn't believable because you can't tell if it's an accurate representation of the original presentation.
So then the story becomes about censorship and you're making it all too easy for motivated people to spin a conspiracy theory about how these scientists are speaking truth to power and getting oppressed, even if they are in actual fact totally wrong.
This isn't something I have been able to confidently form an opinion on; it's a hard topic. I think we will be strugging with how to balance bias, deliberate misinformation and freedom of speech for a long time.
But I think at the very least, YouTube needed to put up prominent disclaimers and links to limit the harm that this content can cause.
I count several detailed criticisms of it just in this thread. Do none of them have a YouTube account?
Why don't the people proposing to censor it post their own rebuttal?
> I think at the very least, YouTube needed to put up prominent disclaimers and links to limit the harm that this content can cause.
Which is totally different. Leaving the video up while posting a prominent link to a rebuttal isn't censorship, it's more speech.
I did post a rebutal in some of the duplicates I found on YouTube. YouTube comments are not really a great platform for debate and the way their algorithm works tends pull videos like this into an echo chamber that avoids the exact types of critical discussion you are calling for.
So, given the (artificial) choice between leaving the video up as is and taking it down, I suspect that in this particular case, the practically beneficial choice for society (in the short term at least) is to take it down precisely because of how YouTube works as a platform and community.
> Which is totally different. Leaving the video up while posting a prominent link to a rebuttal isn't censorship, it's more speech.
Yes, I am a big fan of free speech. However it has become increasingly clear that simply making speech as free as possible in as many places as possible is not enough (by itself) to solve the problems of misinformation, partisanship and radicalization that we are facing as a society. We can't just dismiss those problems, so as advocates for free speech, we need to find non-censorship ways to help solve those problems.
This seems like a YouTube-specific problem that should have solutions not involving censorship.
They took stats from a massively self-selecting population - people seeking out COVID-19 testing at their facilities - and extrapolated to the general public.
That's inexcusably dumb.
As the bit I quoted states, that's like "estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court".
Even if that’s true, what does it have to do with banning the video and preventing the public from making their own decision?
Right this moment I can go on youtube and look up a million rap videos that talk about guns, violence, murder, and more. I can look at videos that would lead me to harm myself in all sorts of ways if I didn’t have a brain. By picking and choosing like they’re doing, it leads one to distrust the company which will ultimately hurt them.
This video was more like yelling fire in a theater. I’m willing believe the doctors were sincere, but they were gravely wrong, and their misinformation was endangering the public.
YouTube was correct to turn off the alarm they erroneously turned on.
Granted, YouTube’s method of throwing up a standard “violation of community guidelines” message is crude, and leads to suspicion. Then again, so was ABC’s editorial judgment. It’s a hard problem.
The point is that even if they’re wrong, youtube and others are playing a dangerous Orwellian game and it’s going to harm their reputability in the end.
Research done on fake news illustrates why ordinary consumers of news cannot be trusted to make informed judgements.
"Right this moment I can go on youtube and look up a million rap videos that talk about guns, violence, murder, and more. I can look at videos that would lead me to harm myself in all sorts of ways if I didn’t have a brain."
Exactly this. This is why it is irresponsible for a global platform to promote this tripe.
There are a few population studies for very specific areas, but no widespread statewide sampling anywhere.
PS: The US has ~50,000 Coronavirus deaths. Assuming a very optimistic mortality rate of 0.5% suggests at most 10 million infections out of 330 million people or 3.3%. A higher mortality rate of say 5% would mean total infections are possibility as low as 0.3% of the US population.
This could mean that substantially more Americans have it. (Though on current projections, less than a factor of 2.)
The biggest question IMO is how much we are undercounting fatalities. NYC lists Confirmed deaths at 11,820 plus Probable deaths at 5,395. They also add: Due to delays in reporting, recent data are incomplete. https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page
Making any assumptions about the mortality rate with the abysmal state of testing in the US and around the world is guesswork.
Making assumptions based on the horrific codebase that's spawned our most cited models should also give anyone in software at least a twinge of anxiety.
The US has an older and sicker population than SK, and in NYC an overworked healthcare system. So, a 1% US mortality rate discounted to 0.5% due to recent infections not having time to die is extremely optimistic. It would also mean testing was only discovering 10% of cases.
PS: Many more people are exposed without having sufficient infections to trigger long term immunity. But, it’s herd immunity or deaths/long term issues we care about making such cases irrelevant as their still at risk.
So, no I don’t see how it’s misinformation.
They then use this to massively misrepresent the lethality of Covid 19.
I don’t understand why YouTube couldn’t leave the video up, and put some kind of warning or interstitial advising of problems with the content. I would have problems with that approach too, but certainly less so than I do with the wholesale deletion of the video.
Anyway, you can find it hosted here: https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-wi...
By pulling videos, YouTube/Google is saying they don't trust people to be able to discern anything or do research among several dissenting opinions. And yes, it's their platform and yada yada .. they still allow a lot of content to be uploaded and they have become the most typical/standard centralized source of videos.
I will admit, they might be right to not trust people ... at which point why do we even care about humanity anymore? Are those with more power and influence always going to think the rest of the world are sheep who can't think for themselves and need to be led around?
This time sets all kinds of dangerous prescients. I wish Orwell was still alive.
Most people are not qualified to "examine the evidence" and make public health policy decisions. This is why we rely upon the experts. Otherwise you have measles outbreaks in Beverly Hills.
Perfect example, no expert said there was no human to human nor is there any chance of it. The only language close to that was "there isn't any proof of it now" which might have been informed by CCP misinformation.
Even though they were misinformed, any true expert should have known not to make any definitive statement either way. If you have such a quote, it was not made by an expert.
Do you think epidemiologists are? The people who have apparently never predicted a disease outbreak successfully, ever? Why are they experts but not these doctors?
And what makes YouTube employees believe they're qualified to decide who's right? They're experts in HTML5 video serving, not health.
Even doctors generally recognize that public health (of which epidemiology is only a part) is a separate domain of expertise. There are doctors who specialize in infectious disease who need some public-health training, but there's no reason to expect that e.g. a oncologist or trauma surgeon would know more than the average scientifically-literate person about a different profession.
> 33,865 COVID cases out of a total of 280,900 total tested--that's 12% of Californians were positive for COVID.
This would only be true if those tested were randomly selected. Even in the most optimistic Santa Clara County study prevalence was estimated at under 5%. 1
1. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v...
Does Youtube also censor videos where plumbers present an incorrect way to install a toilet that can lead to backflow and flooding.
The point to make here is that Youtube is NOT the New England Journal of Science and should not act like one for just one topic - Coronavirus.
If anybody feels that their data or interpreation of the data is incorrect, they should post their own video on Youtube, refuting their claims.
Instead what Youtube is doing is just silencing them.
1) They probably would censor the plumber, if they received enough complaints about it, and 2) an incorrectly installed toilet doesn't have the potential to kill tens of thousands of people, whereas erroneous information about the danger of COVID-19 very well could. So they're not waiting for the complaints.
Nor is cnn, fox news, msnbc, etc. They all exercise editorial control over what goes on their channel however.
The rules by which youtube exercises its editor control is its guidelines and policies from my understanding.
Which may be the result of its execs being dragged before congress about "fake news" -- hence the allegations of censorship.
It would suck if a firmware upgrade goes out to all LG TVs disabling certain content. It’s within LG’s right, but what a betrayal of the customer who was sold a non universal television.
Exactly! So why are the doctors using it as a platform when they should be going through reputable peer-reviewed channels?
Youtube owns the platform, we allowed it to become the largest and most powerful platform but there are others out there. Youtube (and google, and bing) have no reason to have to host misleading, wrong, or hurtful opinions/websites.
This is more akin to YouTube removing a “I’m a plumber, trust me, clean your bathroom by mixing bleach and ammonia in your toilet” video.
The point here is that youtube is not a harbinger of
scientific truth.
The point to make here is that Youtube is NOT the New
England Journal of Science and should not act like one
for just one topic - Coronavirus.
If anybody feels that their data or interpreation of the
data is incorrect, they should post their own video on
Youtube, refuting their claims.
A scientific journal has a panel, which are qualified experts in the field or related fields, that read and pick up on statistical errors, and other errors, and decide whether or not to publish the paper. Youtube does not.
Peer review as a whole, means that your work gets assessed by experts, and they decide before publication if your paper is of the right quality to enter the journal.
'Peer Review' =/= 'Allowing everyone to post and the truth will be found out or agreed upon in the end'
'Peer Review' == 'Having your work assessed by equally or more skilled people, who then decide if your work is good enough to publish'
Youtube operates in a fundamentally different way to peer review, it allows anyone to post, then retroactively decides if that work meets guidelines. This means that not only is it not possible to immediately filter work that is submitted, it also does not go through proper assessment of it's validity by a panel of specialists and experts. Youtube could not operate with it's current business model using that method, and so is forced to choose another. Just because it's retroactive enforcement, doesn't mean that the terms of the service and guidelines are not in force, or should be considered censorship. Nobody is actually censoring these people, they are free to post their video literally anywhere else, but they broke the terms of the Youtube service.
As many other people have pointed out, the work produced and hosted on Youtube does contain errors, these are statistical errors that would have been caught had they submitted this to an academic journal, however the video's makers explicitly decidedin to publish it on Youtube. There is very little reason to do that, other than to market this information to others.
As this information is dubious at best, it is fundamentally and ethically irresponsible of them, as scientists, as medical workers who have taken an oath to do no harm, to publish this work on Youtube and to the public without going through the basic step that is peer review. The comments section does exist, but has no value, because you cannot count on the general public to be as informed in the subject matter as a peer review panel would be.
If we were talking an order of double, I think people would be a bit less ruffled. We're not though. We're talking 50-85 times in places like Santa Clara.
But you're now asking people to trust experts, which in 2020 is apparently crazy-talk
They are experts in an entirely different field.
You don't need any training in statistics, epidemiology, public health, etc. to be an urgent care doc. They're experts in diagnosing and fixing ailments (at an individual level) that don't require a full-blown ER visit or hospitalization.
There are no experts in this disease, only people trying to control other people through false proclamations of authority.
The answer of course is ideology. These are two experts giving two different opinions based on different sets of similarly poor evidence. The fact that a doctor goes against consensus does not necessarily mean he's wrong and it certainly does not warrant censorship, all else considered.
Youtube is making a dangerous mistake.
It’s not one side thinks this, the other side thinks that, it’s that their video is factually wrong, and in being wrong encourages dangerous behavior.
An expert made a statement. YouTube went out of its way to find a doctor who supported YouTube's ideological slant and used that as justification for taking action.
This obliviousness. This is why we must restrict power. This is why we can't have nice things.
YouTube has no authority to suppress credible doctors from going against the consensus. The fact that this particular decision agrees with what the majority of us think is right doesn't mean that YouTube is right to choose.
Exactly, so he should not be speaking on epidemiology. And it's even more dangerous because people, like you, believe he could be an expert.
> YouTube has no authority to suppress credible doctors from going against the consensus.
But the WHO does.
Ignoring ramifications of politicization, How many developments will be missed if we embark on a campaign to suppress all dissenting opinions?
You don't think a doctor on the front line is qualified to make inferences about the disease that he is literally treating en masse? You don't think direct observation and experimentation with hundreds of patients could provide valuable insight into the properties of this disease or potential working treatments and/or best practices? How far backwards are you going to bend to defend this position?
Again, the fact that this particular decision agrees with your preconceived notions does not mean that YouTube's emerging practice of choosing truth is good for society. The WHO is also not the only qualified body, nor is it a final authority, yet here YouTube is suddenly treating it as one and, conveniently, YouTube's political slant is aligned with this particular decision. If we allow this behavior, it won't be the last time that YouTube picks a winner and shapes the reality perceived by millions of people. This is a possibly unprecedented amount of soft power and it is being used without oversight or control by the society that is being influenced by it.
I'm not suggesting we make it illegal but educated citizens should be at least resistant to the idea, not welcoming of it because it happens to agree with their politics now. The same goes for Google and FB and any other platform that acts as a window to information - these corporations are not authorities and should not be gatekeeping information. Long term that's a far greater danger to society than COVID19.
Let's not. It's relevant to real world actions.
> You don't think a doctor on the front line is qualified to make inferences about the disease that he is literally treating en masse?
About symptoms or specific treatment plans, perhaps. About government response? No. It's the difference between macro and micro scale approaches. The front line doctors are experts at mirco-scale treatment. Epidemiologists are best at macro-scale treatments. The two skillsets are not the same. An expert at one is not an expert at the other, and no amount of repeating that belief will change that.
> Again, the fact that this particular decision agrees with your preconceived notions does not mean that YouTube's emerging practice of choosing truth is good for society.
Correct. I just happen to believe that suppressing lies that can kill people if they believe them is also a good thing. Or do you think that "take Hydroxychloroquine, it's a miracle drug" should be posted on the youtube homepage?
> The WHO is also not the only qualified body, nor is it a final authority, yet here YouTube is suddenly treating it as one and, conveniently, YouTube's political slant is aligned with this particular decision
What is the political slant you're describing? The WHO, CDC, and pretty much every expert body on epidemiology in the world, in every nation, from Iran to Argentina to Germany to China are doing approximately the same thing. The political spectrums in those nations cross the gamut. Yet they're all following the same treatment plan for the pandemic response. What is the political slant?
> If we allow this behavior, it won't be the last time that YouTube picks a winner and shapes the reality perceived by millions of people.
They already do that. They're just doing so with a bit of morality instead of hoping that unmonitored algorithms will lead to the best outcomes for society.
> these corporations are not authorities and should not be gatekeeping information.
Information is relative. Google's mission statement is "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful". So which is more in line with that mission: providing a platform for lies, or curating correct information?
Is "up is down" information? Or is it something else? I don't think lies (or perhaps less aggressively, falsehoods) are "information", they're something else. If the doctors are correct (they aren't, but assuming they were), they'd have evidence they could share and that actual experts would agree with. Then the expert consensus would change.
Either that or you think there's a worldwide conspiracy to keep us in our homes, hurting the economy and millions, or even billions, so that...as far as I can tell, the best guess is so that governments can replace the batteries in the birds. There's nothing for the WHO or CDC to gain by suppressing these guys. There's nothing for Google to gain by suppressing these guys. And yet, they do because it's morally right to keep people safe from disinformation.
This is literally why we have the first amendment. Because, as you say, information is relative; that also means it is relative in time. And we can only come to a correct consensus if we allow all voices to be heard.
This is an excellent example of a time not to suppress dissidents. The doctors on the front line are just as likely, if not moreso, to come up with potential treatments or policies, because this is happening in real time and the information arbitrage lends extra credibility to the doctor's words. Do you see how subjective this decision of censorship is? And any subjective decision is subject to bias, political or otherwise.
>There's nothing for Google to gain by suppressing these guys.
It's no secret Google leans left. It's no secret that protestors of the lockdown lean right. You don't see a conflict of interest here?
What if the WHO and CDC are in conflict? Who decides then? YouTube? What about platforms that are partly owned by China? Conflict of interest?
What about elections? You think it's OK for a platform like Google or YouTube to pull ads that fail "fact checks"? What about viral posts? You don't think it'll be a partisan shitshow?
If not then we have no reason to continue this discussion because we will not agree.
No. I'd see a conflict of interest if this were a political issue. But it's not. Making something political by spouting a bunch of lies until people believe them doesn't change the science.
>What if the WHO and CDC are in conflict?
But they're not. So we're well into the realm of irrelevant hypotheticals.
> treatments or policies
Treatments, yes. Policies, no. Because as I keep saying, they're different things. You're comparing, in essence, the skills of a software engineer and a CEO. Drop either into the others' chair and they'll flounder.
> What about elections? You think it's OK for a platform like Google or YouTube to pull ads that fail "fact checks"?
They already have policies that disallow lying in political ads: https://www.blog.google/technology/ads/update-our-political-...
> It’s against our policies for any advertiser to make a false claim—whether it's a claim about the price of a chair or a claim that you can vote by text message, that election day is postponed, or that a candidate has died.
> You don't think it'll be a partisan shitshow?
I mean, I expect that no matter what people will complain that it'll be a partisan shitshow. Given that like I said these policies already exist and I didn't notice any obvious political shitshow, only the usual suspects complaining, no.
> What about platforms that are partly owned by China?
They can make their own policies, and I'm free to use them, or not.
> This is literally why we have the first amendment.
And I fully support both the doctor's right to exercise it by spouting bullshit, and Youtube's right to exercise it by removing said bullshit from their platform.
This uncertainty is an avenue for bias. I don't think you understand the dangers of giving a handful of people the power to censor and curate the material that reaches a majority of the eyes in the US. You'll change your mind when they bend against your own leanings though, I guarantee that. It's the spirit of the first amendment, because this is an enormous power that affects all of us, without our consent.
The CDC and the WHO were in conflict at one point regarding mask usage. As it happens, they are arguably in conflict today, as the WHO has praised Sweden's model which, in case you're not aware, is not a lockdown. So what now? Will you be expecting YouTube to remove any videos from the WHO suggesting people adopt the policy of Sweden?
How can you even put faith in authority right now after so many nations, organizations, hospitals, the world over, totally failed in responding to or preparing for this pandemic? And you think YouTube is in a position to choose? It's bad for society.
But that's mostly beside the point. No one is preventing these two doctors from determining the truth. If they think they have a breakthrough, they can present it in a paper, to other experts, who are capable of analyzing it.
> I don't think you understand that in a reality with limited information, it is impossible for humans to know objective truth. And further you underestimate the degree of uncertainty regarding lockdown measures.
Conventional news is far worse than Google both in terms of the things and, at least currently, in terms of reach. I'd much prefer if Fox news presented actual experts on subjects, instead of political pundits or "Dr. Phil" when discussing COVID-19. I am not and have not taken any political side anywhere in this conversation. I've been on the side of scientific consensus. I don't expect that will change.
> As it happens, they are arguably in conflict today, as the WHO has praised Sweden's model which, in case you're not aware, is not a lockdown.
Let's talk when the WHO releases official guidance to end lockdowns. Until then you're just trying to create conflict where there isn't any.
> How can you even put faith in authority right now after so many nations, organizations, hospitals, the world over, totally failed in responding to or preparing for this pandemic?
Because I trust the institutions of government (and their access to experts) more than I trust hucksters on the internet. While I don't expert the average person to be able to discern an expert from a huckster on the internet, especially due to the actions of certain politicians.
It's not the unpopularity of the views of the doctors in the video that makes them wrong, it is their complete misapplication of statistics. The analogy of “estimating the average height of Americans from the players on an NBA court.” is very apt.
It may not mean that they should be censored, but at a minimum they deserve to be called out and ridiculed.
In the US, the media is almost entirely run by private corporations.
If you feel that is a mistake it's probably a better use of your time advocating for better funding and more independence for public media than criticizing corporations for exercising oversight of their platforms.
Section 230 of the CDA was created 25 years ago to avoid this being the case. It gives companies the ability to moderate user generated content on their platforms without being held responsible for other UGC posted to them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
> One of the first legal challenges to Section 230 was the 1997 case Zeran v. America Online, Inc., in which a Federal court affirmed that the purpose of Section 230 as passed by Congress was "to remove the disincentives to self-regulation created by the Stratton Oakmont decision".[8] Under that court's holding, computer service providers who regulated the dissemination of offensive material on their services risked subjecting themselves to liability, because such regulation cast the service provider in the role of a publisher. Fearing that the specter of liability would therefore deter service providers from blocking and screening offensive material, Congress enacted § 230's broad immunity "to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material."[8] In addition, Zeran notes "the amount of information communicated via interactive computer services is . . . staggering. The specter of tort liability in an area of such prolific speech would have an obviously chilling effect. It would be impossible for service providers to screen each of their millions of postings for possible problems. Faced with potential liability for each message republished by their services, interactive computer service providers might choose to severely restrict the number and type of messages posted. Congress considered the weight of the speech interests implicated and chose to immunize service providers to avoid any such restrictive effect."[8]
Without remarking on the quality of the video in this specific instance I will note that Dr. John Campbell's videos were contradicting WHO advice while WHO was asleep at the wheel.
By the current standards, would they have been removed?
I thought the censorship was about the Coronavirus. There are a lot of videos that advocate a course of action that would cause someone, somewhere to die, that aren't being censored.
A few people at Google/Youtube should absolutely have the power to allow/disallow what they want on their platform for whatever reason they choose. That is as much a freedom of speech issue as is the doctors' right to public speech.
The real problem is that Google/Youtube has special legal protections related to not having editorial controls, yet here they are exercising editorial control. That they can play it both ways is the greater tragedy.
In this case Google choose the WHO. We can argue that there's a better choice on the table, but what?
It's fine to have a trusted organization to make decisions. It's not fine to place that organization above all criticism.
I think their statistical methods are suspect and likely wrong. I don't think they should be censored and the act of censoring them is actively harmful if you don't want people taken in by misinformation, then we need to actively produce good information. There is not and cannot be some way to absolve a free society of that burden. Censorship only helps to convince people that you know you're wrong and you're hiding from criticism. This is especially bad when you're right.
as it stands, google is already above all criticism because they are to big to be approached by any individual wronged by their decisions. an independent organization would be much more approachable, even if that approach ends up being a lawsuit.
It will be if we have no problem deplatforming all criticism.
You’re assuming that some global institution has to be The Arbiter Of Truth because common people are too stupid to think for themselves and I find that assumption disgusting.
> You’re assuming that some global institution has to be The Arbiter Of Truth because common people are too stupid to think for themselves and I find that assumption disgusting.
The market is the sharpest vote the people may give for companies. Next would be holding businesses liable, which Google is in various ways. If Google is accountable for the content it serves, and it is in various ways, then that is the people's will in motion.
I find it alarming that you think you understand my thoughts without getting into a conversation with me, to the point of announcing your disgust over a forum.
You’ve been expressing your thoughts on that same forum, and if I’ve misunderstood them I am sorry, but as far as I did understand them I am disgusted by them. You are free to clarify anything you think I have misunderstood, of course. But I would advise you to be more careful publicly sharing your thoughts on any forum if you’re going to go clutching pearls at how they are received. Failing that, let me clarify that I am merely disgusted at what you actually wrote, which may have nothing to do with the ineffable inner workings of your mind.
Did you not mean to imply, as a premise, that Google (specifically YouTube) should be censoring user-submitted content on the basis that it disagrees with the “responsible judgment” of some institutional authority? If so, please inform me what you meant in the first place. Because even in the best of faith I can’t find any other way to interpret your comment.
Specifically:
> If you don't trust Google to make a category of social or moral judgments, you're either trusting the market or you have another institution do the job.
If someone posts a video on YouTube, anyone who watches that video will make their own “social and moral judgments” about the content of that video, and in most circumstances that’s enough for me. Why are you assuming that some “institution” will inevitably make those judgments for us, and decide based on those judgments whether we’re allowed to see the video in the first place? Why is that something you accept, and seemingly advocate? Because that is the premise that I question, reject, and express my disgust at.
Hello first amendment.
any third party would be easier to approach, even if they need to be sued to see the error of their ways (if there is a decision in dispute).
ideally such an institution is directly answerable to the public and to lawmakers for their decisions and it could be properly funded to handle those decisions.
such an institution could work with multiple companies, especially smaller ones who can not afford this amount scrutiny to their content, and who would already are affected by the ever increasing requirements to police content.
Because it's almost a monopoly. It's not one of roughly equal dozens video hosting services. It's freaking youtube.
In other words, no one has the "right" to Youtube's distribution and promotion. Put you video on another site and promote it yourself.
The crux is people wanting to spread their views but who don’t want to pay to do that.
Is this an honest comment or one you hope won't be challenged? There are NO video hosting services with the popularity or reach of YouTube, by a very long shot. Customers of ours have lost their entire livelihood because content that was present on YouTube for a decade was suddenly politically incorrect and their accounts got banned.
That wouldn't be the case if they had more than one reasonable option.
You keep trying to gloss over the fact that RandomVideo has nowhere near the size or reach of YouTube. Monopolies DO NOT REQUIRE zero competitors, that has never been part of their definition. Some videos on YT have BILLIONS of views. There's literally no meaningful competitor.
If there were a public utility similar to Youtube, it would have to have a clear policy for censorship, and some means for a public review of any decision to censor. And then you might have a legitimate complaint (though in this case there was a pretty clear case of a material factual misrepresentation, regarding the mortality rate of COVID-19). But since that is not the case, Youtube/Google is pretty much free to censor anyone on any basis they choose, and they owe no one any particular explanation for their decisions.
> The American Academy of Emergency Medicine (AAEM) and the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP) jointly and emphatically condemn the recent opinions released by Dr. Daniel Erickson and Dr. Artin Massihi. These reckless and untested musings do not speak for medical society and are inconsistent with current science and epidemiology regarding COVID-19. As owners of local urgent care clinics, it appears these two individuals are releasing biased, non-peer reviewed data to advance their personal financial interests without regard for the public’s health.
> COVID-19 misinformation is widespread and dangerous. Members of AAEM and ACEP are first-hand witnesses to the human toll that COVID-19 is taking on our communities. AAEM and ACEP strongly advise against using any statements of Drs. Erickson and Massihi as a basis for policy and decision making.
https://www.aaem.org/resources/statements/joint-endorsed/phy...
39,500,000 -- Pop. of California
12.00% -- Pct. of people who tested positive for covid
4,740,000 -- Estimated cases (Pop. * Pct.)
1,227 -- Reported deaths
0.03% -- Estimated chance of dying from covid in California (deaths/estimated cases)The only people who are getting tested are those who believe they have symptoms. This is beginning to change as we get more tests, and as a result, the % infected by their reasoning is decreasing day by day.
Also, I fixed the space on the fourth line.
In context: they don’t want to be responsible for harm to others and they certainly don’t want to pay to broadcast that content.
If people really want to spew nonsense they can pay to do it themselves. No one is stopping them.
They aren't stopping them voicing their opinions or views... they're just stopping them posting it on THEIR service.
Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different?
Newspapers, TV programs, and radio programs are publishers. In contrast, Youtube, Facebook, and other services like them are platforms. They are more like the theater building, the radio/TV station, or a telephone company. This gives them some legal protection against being held responsible for the conduct of their users. See [1]. Without this distinction, these services could not have taken off, because Youtube and Facebook would have had to sign off on each user's post.
But advancing technology is making it possible to police speech automatically. So the distinction between the publisher and platform is fading. Because platforms can regulate their users' speech now in almost real time, very cheaply, they are kind of forced to do it. Some speech is very hard to defend. The best, and easiest argument for allowing offensive speech on these platforms has been that the offensive speech could not be technically prevented without squelching a lot of acceptable speech. But now that argument is going away.
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=youtube+publisher+or+platfor...
https://www.turnto23.com/news/coronavirus/video-interview-wi...
Unfortunately that no longer holds as certain entities have a stranglehold on online communication.
Perhaps the free market will fix this. Perhaps not. Are we willing to allow a small cadre of like minded individuals manipulate the internet in the meantime?
I believe that's an intolerant situation and am not willing to wait.
And that's why newspapers are classified as publishers and therefore are able to be sued. "Platforms" like YouTube are can't be sued because they are supposed to act like platforms - which they are not. Right now YouTube is acting like publishers while using the advantage of being called a platform. This is the Communications Decency Act section 230.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Section_230_of_the_Communicati...
> One of the first legal challenges to Section 230 was the 1997 case Zeran v. America Online, Inc., in which a Federal court affirmed that the purpose of Section 230 as passed by Congress was "to remove the disincentives to self-regulation created by the Stratton Oakmont decision".[8] Under that court's holding, computer service providers who regulated the dissemination of offensive material on their services risked subjecting themselves to liability, because such regulation cast the service provider in the role of a publisher. Fearing that the specter of liability would therefore deter service providers from blocking and screening offensive material, Congress enacted § 230's broad immunity "to remove disincentives for the development and utilization of blocking and filtering technologies that empower parents to restrict their children's access to objectionable or inappropriate online material."
[. . .]
> Blumenthal v. Drudge, 992 F. Supp. 44, 49-53 (D.D.C. 1998).[71]
> The court upheld AOL's immunity from liability for defamation. AOL's agreement with the contractor allowing AOL to modify or remove such content did not make AOL the "information content provider" because the content was created by an independent contractor. The Court noted that Congress made a policy choice by "providing immunity even where the interactive service provider has an active, even aggressive role in making available content prepared by others."
That is clearly nonsense.
The CDA doesn’t say “in order to not be liable you must host everything regardless of what it is” it allows you to host potentially anything that is uploaded without being considered directly liable for that (which would be far more censorious)
The idea that anyone can be a content creator is, it's supposed to be as neutral as possible. Let the world battle it out against itself. Once you start taking sides of opinions (as opposed to legal ones) then you become a content curator.
For better or worse, America was built on the idea that I can have an absolutely stupid idea and that's my right. We'll fight to my death but it is my right to hold said stupid idea and voice it with youtube being my megaphone.
That's a core tenant of free speech and youtube was supposed to be able to help that. Now they're taking sides and it's not comforting
> That's a core tenant of free speech
I'd disagree heavily with this assessment based on these two points.
The founding fathers drew much of their inspiration from Hobbes who wrote that liberty involved ceding some "sovereign power" (liberty) to a state so that we could be free to do things without worrying about survival of the fittest.
I believe it was Jefferson that was vehemently against government officials making false claims / lying...which is a limitation of free speech, but results in a net surplus of free speech.
The idea that all speech should be free is a fairly ignorant one.
> and voice it with youtube being my megaphone.
And this is ABSOLUTELY against any sort of semblance of the ideas America was founded on. YouTube is a private platform. They can (and SHOULD) police their speech, because it is a private platform.
YouTube is ultimately socially responsible for the outcomes of what people say on it's platform. If someone is denying or minimizing a VERY REAL and VERY SERIOUS global pandemic, YouTube had a social obligation to curtail their free speech.
Look, most people on HNews agree with you, myself included. That stupid speech and stupid acts are costing very real lives.
But the whole point of this thread is that protected speech does cost lives as well. That we should be debating, identifying and responding to bad/poor speech. It should not be simply removed.
> YouTube had a social obligation to curtail their free speech.
Put a banner up. Identify it with Mr Yuck sticker. Don't remove it as if it never existed. That's dangerous, no?
If you don't believe it's dangerous, is it because the thing that's being censored is in your favor/belief/alignment?
Tomorrow, if Youtube said, "We'll remove all content that does not agree with the POTUS." That's only a few letters away from the WHO, right? POTUS is authority.
But that's insane. That's absurd.
That's what this debate is about. Censoring goes both ways.
I would consider this a form of censorship as well, and I would absolutely support it.
> That we should be debating, identifying and responding to bad/poor speech. It should not be simply removed.
I suppose I could agree in this particular circumstance that YouTube having some sort of banner over this content would suffice, I think it's the same thing as just removing it.
> If you don't believe it's dangerous, is it because the thing that's being censored is in your favor/belief/alignment?
(I think you mixed your words up here, but I am interpreting this as you asking I'm ok with censorship if furthers my beliefs, if I'm wrong please correct me)
I'm ok with any censorship/curtailing of free speech that: results in a net-surplus of free speech, endangers others ("fire" in a crowded theater), or incites violence.
> Censoring goes both ways.
Censorship that is used to silence legitimate opinions that do not cause harm to others is a terrible thing and shouldn't exist. This has nothing to do with "both ways" or any "way"
Yea, you're right, but thanks for getting the spirit.
> Censorship that is used to silence legitimate opinions that do not cause harm to others is a terrible thing and shouldn't exist.
That's your belief because "legitimate opinions". What is "legitimate opinions"? That is the crux.
Your sense of justice is driving your opinions. Someone else's is going to be slightly different. Okay that's obvious, but the high level is how do you decide what is right/wrong? It's a spectrum, a very wide and diverse one. What's simply stupid vs outright dangerous?
> I'm ok with any censorship/curtailing of free speech that: results in a net-surplus of free speech, endangers others ("fire" in a crowded theater), or incites violence.
FWIW, that's a contradictory statement. You cannot have a net-surplus of free speech by censoring. They're mutually exclusive ideas. You can have a net-surplus of "good done" via censorship. But what is "good done"? More lives? More freedom?
All I'm trying to get you to see is that censorship is one of the most powerful tools that exist for a society. A concrete example is Singapore's fake news law.
I'd say this was a poor choice of words. All opinions are "legitimate" in that people actually hold them and believe in them.
> What's simply stupid vs outright dangerous?
I don't think this is hard to measure, especially since we already have tests for what is protected speech and what is not in the US. For instance, we have federal laws that stop employers or landlords from exercizing their right to free speech when it involves discrimination against certain protected classes of people. Or slander/libel, or inciting violence.
> FWIW, that's a contradictory statement. You cannot have a net-surplus of free speech by censoring. They're mutually exclusive ideas.
This is not the case, as explained above and in an earlier comment. In the US we already have laws that limit free speech, yet result in a more free society.
> But what is "good done"? More lives? More freedom?
Yes, both of these things are good and would be considered good under just about any normative ethical framework.
> All I'm trying to get you to see is that censorship is one of the most powerful tools that exist for a society. A concrete example is Singapore's fake news law.
I agree with this fully, and would condemn anyone using censorship to remove free speech that isn't harmful. I advocate for similar positions in that I am generally ok with the government jailing people (which is an act of violence) that commit crimes. The right to jail people is an even more powerful tool than censorship, but most people are ok with this being done.
Of course you can. The government banning a platform from moderating content is a form of government censorship. Yet you believe that this would lead to more free speech.
Either a platform moderating is more free speech, or not moderating is more free speech. In either case, someone is being censored. So some form of censorship leads to more free speech.
https://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-ha...
> First, they trot out the Holmes quote for the proposition that not all speech is protected by the First Amendment. But this is not in dispute.
Maybe not in the author's circles, but in this particular scenario, that point was in dispute.
Sure, but that's not a useful thing to know. I recall when Ken compared saying that to something akin to the following conversation, which I'm reconstructing from memory:
Help! I've been bitten by a snake and I want to know if it's poisonous!
Unless you're eating the snake, it only matters if the snake is venomous.
Okay, so can you tell me if the snake is venomous then?
Not all snakes are venomous.
So the important point is not to dispute over whether any speech can be banned, but whether the speech in question fits one of the categories of unprotected speech:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
You misunderstand how wrong information, identified as such, is received.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/09/11/facebook-fake-news...
Pointing out something is false either has no effect, or makes people double down on wrong ideas / beliefs. Continuing to host said ideas will cause them to spread.
The responsible thing was removal, but perhaps with more transparency around how and why.
Its arguable just as important for the concept of America to let owners of private property not be deprived of their freedom and liberties.
Was it though? First Amendment says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances”
Until YouTube joins the Senate, I think they’re fine doing whatever they want.
The bill of rights is a legal document, and it can only govern the actions of government. But I don't think that there's any debate that the first amendment came about because the founding fathers believed free speech was an inalienable human right. I don't think the founding fathers would say that inalienable rights are suddenly alienated because you put a corporation in charge of your communications platform.
Do you believe free speech is a human right? If so, then why do you care when it's violated by a government, but not care when it's violated by corporations who are arguably more powerful in the field of communication?
Are bookstores required to stock every book ever published?
Are fraud and defamation free speech?
Must newspapers post every classified ad submitted to them?
Is medical advice free speech?
Are government clerks required to serve verbally abusive clients?
No, no, no... there are plenty of examples where the right to free speech is found to have limits. Especially when that speech violates other freedoms.
You have the right to make videos and distribute them. You do not have the right to compel anybody to watch them, receive them or redistribute them. A platform such as youtube has the right to curate -- otherwise it would be a useless mass of SEO'd spam.
Again, the question isn't "do social media platforms have the right to censor?". The question is, "given social media platforms have the legal right to censor, should they censor?".
If you don't understand that there might be reasons to do something beyond legal obligation or profit, you're not equipped to participate in this conversation.
> ... you're not equipped to participate in this conversation.
Please review the site guidelines and take a more charitable approach to this conversation. There's some irony that your argument around ideologically pure free speech is punctuated by insinuation that I should self-censor because I'm not ideologically pure enough.
I provided a handful of reasons where speech can do harm, and where forced publication impinges other rights. I'm saying that yes, "platforms" (which are also publishers / promoters / marketers due to features such search, recommendation, featured content etc.) have an obligation, ethical or legal, to take certain content down. In the case of spam, that content is taken down or shadowbanned for the greater good. That's a free ethical choice, not a legal obligation.
By all means, there are cases where publishers should resist external pressure to censor, and I fully agree that Congress shall make no law. But youtube isn't the government. They have a right to curate the content that they distribute that is just as important as your right to produce and self-publish your content.
I said, "[J]ust because it's your legal right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do."
Sure, you're allowed to say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean saying it was the right thing to do. Saying that you said the wrong thing isn't ironic: it's exactly what one would expect given what I actually said.
There can be no irony with regards to my argument around ideologically pure free speech, because I didn't make any such argument.
Additionally, there's a difference between me censoring you by force, and me asking you to say things that are relevant.
> I provided a handful of reasons where speech can do harm, and where forced publication impinges other rights.
I never suggested forced publication, so these cases are not a response to my post.
> They have a right to curate the content that they distribute that is just as important as your right to produce and self-publish your content.
I specifically said that YouTube has this right. I said, "It's certainly their right under ownership laws to censor on their platform."
We’re going to need a Youtube clone that has a better charter for content creators, and viewers alike.
A decentralized video platform not under the control of a centralized company would bypass all the issues you mention. There are technological challenges, but we've made slow progress toward solutions over the past few decades.
Now that we've got that out of the way, care to discuss the question I asked?
I think it's reasonable to assume that the American government contains the same kind of people that are in governments the world over and throughout history. And governments have always attempted to suppress speech: that's why the First Amendment was written.
Given Snowden's revelations, can you be sure that Youtube's censoring is simply a business decision by executives and not a result of government influence? How would things be different if the government were pressuring the big platforms to squelch speech?
What did Snowden reveal about government influence over private sector censorship? I must have missed it.
The text of the amendment looks pretty clear to me. Pressuring big platforms is a world away from passing a law.
It's certainly their right under ownership laws to censor on their platform. But just because it's your right to do something doesn't mean it's the right thing to do. The question isn't "do social media platforms have the right to censor?". The question is, "given social media platforms have the right to censor, should they censor?".
Like it or not, these platforms make up a significant portion of how our society communicates, and if you believe that free speech is a human right that's important for a free society, I don't see how you can say that it suddenly doesn't matter because we put a corporation in charge of a huge portion of our communications.
I don't think that social media platforms should allow free speech because they're obligated to, I think that social media platforms should allow free speech because free speech has importance and inherent value.
> Newspapers do that all the time, TV and Radio does it all the time. Why is this different?
Newspapers, TV, and radio didn't sell themselves as platforms for conversation. They've always created their content (or paid someone else to create it) and curated it. Op/eds and viewer/listener calls are only a small fraction of the service these media channels provide, and frankly, these are usually more valuable for the producers of the media than the consumers in most cases. And even op/eds and viewer/listener calls are curated, with no pretense of anything else.
Social media initially gained traction on the false idea that they were platforms where anyone could have a conversation. Many people (myself included) warned that we shouldn't be giving up so much of our communications to corporations, but here we are decades later and everyone is using these as communications platforms.
As long as "whomever they want" includes only people pushing cherry-picked and dangerous bullshit, and "whatever reason" includes saving the lives that would have otherwise been spent had that bullshit spread further, then I have absolutely zero qualms about this bending of the free-speech rules, the same way I have zero qualms about there being rules against someone yelling "FIRE!" in a crowded theater.
You're missing the forest for the trees, man.
Perhaps they need to leave it but flag it extremely visibly with something like this: "The information this video purports to be true has been in dispute due to <reason> and <reason>, as pointed out by <rebuttal> and <rebuttal>." But doing that for every single video would be extremely laborious, and during the week it might take for the work behind such a change to take effect, hundreds of people might die who might not otherwise.
And really, the idea that news media need to herd their audience into thinking the right things is ridiculous. It's a news article, not an editorial.
“If someone says it's raining, and another person says it's dry, it's not your job to quote them both. Your job is to look out the [expletive] window and find out which is true” -Jonathan Foster
And even if they did that it wouldn't really serve what the author here is trying to cover. This is an article about Youtube censoring two doctors. The reason why is relevant (and they quote Youtube's reasoning) but it's not the main story.
Not that the article is amazing, but it's just frustrating people are piling on because it's not the story they wanted the author to write.
Lazy “he said, she said” journalism, sometimes called “bothesidesism”, is dangerous to a free society because it enables propaganda and disinformation. Lay public do not have time or resources to debunk lies and find out which side in a public debate is telling the truth (if any). That is the sacred duty of a free press.
And this press has proven time and again to be in the aggregate incompetent in this duty. Perhaps it's the fault of the changing landscape, with media chasing clickbait and online ads all the time. I'm a lot more skeptical of journalists today than I would've been a few decades ago, and there's plenty of evidence that the game is up and the political class if fully aware of how these people are unable to do this job in a way that doesn't enable propaganda and disinformation.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/obama-officia...
>“All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus,” he said. “Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
No, but they need to determine which story is based on the best possible information at the time, and which isn't. Which is a massive service for everyone else that doesn't have time do research everything they read.
A massive service not only gone unthanked, but actively attacked in the days of Trump.
Many writers nowadays think they are some sort of missionary on a mission to save the pagans(us).
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/21/world/coronav...
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/27/upshot/corona...
Giving that we're still low on tests, if someone dies before a test of COVID-like symptoms, it makes sense to consider them a probable (and save the test for someone alive) if deaths are 6x normal - you've got a roughly 5/6 chance of being correct.
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-04-22/almost-9-...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-ventil...
http://alloveralbany.com/images/capital_region_population_ag...
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/planning-l...
If you have another hypothesis, it would be better to at least do the napkin math and show that you've put in a tiny amount of work, rather than just tossing out random far-fetched stuff. For example, this new hypothesis of yours is even more absurd than the last one, because the relative demographics of New York have not changed much in the past year. It could not explain a large spike in deaths this year.
[0] https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/apr/21/facebook-p...
Even with such a fact slapping you in the face, I mentioned this to someone and the response was basically "hospitals and doctors exist to help people, they would never take advantage of the system like that". There was no continuing the conversation from there. Who knows how reality works, but at the least we've had radically different life experiences if you don't think this could cause the case count to be pulled strongly in the upwards direction away from the actual number. And I'm sure there are other influences pulling it back down, so maybe all the forces are balancing themselves out.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2020/04/24/fac...
Also the number of deaths being reported in US includes "probable deaths" which are not confirmed COVID cases. It's even more than the actual confirmed cases.
Look at the graph on the last page for NYC for example:
https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-d...
This guy used to sit on Fox News prime time and draw elaborate web of connections on a chalkboard. On national network television. He lost advertisers for the stuff he was doing, and his program was jet fuel for the Tea Party movement (which became the modern alt right).
Feel free to Youtube Glen Beck on Fox News, hopefully none of it is censored because it’s a real trip if it’s the first time you’re watching it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck#Barack_Obama_and_th...
Glenn Beck is not a reliable source for factual information.
Those 2 "highly credentialed doctors" just got an unprecedentedly strong and universal condemnation from the two main American medical associations. Just because you like what they are saying doesn't mean they are right. Think critically instead of seeking your evidence to support your opinions.
https://www.aaem.org/resources/statements/joint-endorsed/phy...
And I’m expected to just keep an open mind about it and assume that this dude isn’t being disingenuous.
People have started labelling anything they disagree with as "far right" now a days. How exactly is wanting to work to be able to pay the bills and take care for ones family a "far right" thing? How is calling out the rise in domestic abuse, child abuse, suicides, mental health issues a "far right" thing? I have many friends both left and right leaning who are struggling to pay the bills and have businesses shutdown with massive losses wanting to return back to work.
Also one could say the same thing about left leaning media (95% of the mainstream media and tech companies). When we start labelling everything we disagree with as "BAD NAME", we are living in a sad world.
And in case it matters (I feel like it does to you), I am a brown immigrant myself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Broadcasting_Corporat...
They are much happier with the murdoch press, who had headlines like "vote this bastards out" (don't remember the exact phrase but it was direct like that) as a headline some years ago arguing to vote out the Labour government.
It's always interesting to see how some people always argue that news sources should be neutral and report only on facts if there are some left leaning opinions published, but completely ignore the blatant electioneering that goes on in the murdoch press.