A few months back, Hoover Institution Murdoch Distinguished Policy Fellow Peter Robinson interviewed Robert Wesson Senior Fellow Dr. Scott Atlas about COVID19 and the efficacy of measures taken to mitigate the spread.
The interview was posted on YouTube, but apparently it didn’t meet YouTube’s high standards. Because, as Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity president and health care policy expert Avik Roy, revealed yesterday, YouTube decided to take it down for being insufficiently respectful of the World Health Organization’s authoritah:
So @YouTube just took down a June 23 interview that Scott Atlas (@SWAtlasHoover) did with his employer, Stanford’s @HooverInst, because it “contradicts the World Health Organization or local health authorities’ medical information about COVID-19.” https://t.co/faOLD3Y6ep
— Avik Roy (@Avik) September 13, 2020
Antitrust jurisprudence and regulation in the U.S. needs to be modernized on many fronts, especially to tackle the problem of multinational technology companies that attempt to impose a monopoly on information.
— Avik Roy (@Avik) September 13, 2020
Fortunately, in this case, @HooverInst has published the transcript of the interview, so you can see for yourself what Scott Atlas had to say, and why @YouTube felt the need to censor it. https://t.co/GcRui6Vf3H
— Avik Roy (@Avik) September 13, 2020
Aside from the antitrust issues: Science is about constantly questioning established dogmas, and about having an open debate among people with different takes on the available evidence. To suppress that debate, as @YouTube did, is to oppose science.
— Avik Roy (@Avik) September 13, 2020
Will @YouTube disclose the name of the person (or the person programming the algorithm) responsible? Is he/she/it more knowledgable, or less, about #COVID19 than @SWAtlasHoover? What specifically about Atlas’ remarks did @YouTube find so dangerous for the public to consume?
— Avik Roy (@Avik) September 13, 2020
Inquiring minds want to know.
Scott Atlas and I don’t agree on everything—for example, our @FREOPP report on reopening schools is more nuanced than his position—but he has every right to his views, and contributes positively to the debate about lockdowns and reopening society. https://t.co/KJtKAOufxc
— Avik Roy (@Avik) September 13, 2020
Not according to YouTube:
A number of you have asked for more detail as to what exactly @YouTube wrote to @HooverInst. Here is a screenshot of the email Hoover received. pic.twitter.com/wqhOVaDcG1
— Avik Roy (@Avik) September 14, 2020
Does not allow content that contradicts the WHO? Really?
wait’ll @YouTube finds out about some of the stuff @LouisFarrakhan and the @OfficialNOI has on there… https://t.co/VXHyBm1ptV
— Jeryl Bier (@JerylBier) September 14, 2020
Ridiculous. https://t.co/jpzW7pm38h
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) September 14, 2020
Nuts. https://t.co/pSv1t8hcIH
— Anish Koka (@anish_koka) September 14, 2020
This is utter insanity.
— Patrick Breitenbach (@pbreit) September 14, 2020
“We, the content moderators with no formal training in anything, have found your MD’s analysis of the epidemic to be wrong. Try and do better next time.” https://t.co/mnfoYjyAls
— Inex (@inexemplum) September 14, 2020
Well thankfully @WHO has never been wron- https://t.co/E8oyIxsKle pic.twitter.com/K80K8zHYzr
— Drew Holden (@DrewHolden360) September 14, 2020
The fact that @YouTube considers the @WHO an authoritative resource on this subject is shameful. The WHO spread China’s early lie that COVID-19 could not be transmitted between humans. And it spread faulty information about the usefulness of masks at slowing the spread. https://t.co/9RVnjYzSQa
— Lanhee J. Chen (@lanheechen) September 14, 2020
As we all know, the WHO and local health authority’s record is unimpeachable and the science is settled. I trust YouTube to be the arbiter or medical information.
This is sarcasm, friends. https://t.co/ziWyiiKExG
— Michael H. Pelech (@michaelpelech10) September 14, 2020
Hasn’t the WHO and many local health authorities gotten a lot wrong? It’s weird Youtube feels the need to align themselves with one ‘side’ rather than just be a platform where ideas can be shared. Almost like editorializing, no?
— Jennifer Raub (@jenneraub) September 13, 2020
What a bad look for YouTube. We already know that the WHO was totally in the bag for China and spread their lies at the very beginning of all of this. And YouTube is now citing the WHO as a source for their reasoning to remove speech from their platform. https://t.co/hcIwA7cfb9
— Michael Pierce (@MichaelMPierce) September 14, 2020
Big Tech is utterly terrifying right now. The World Health Organization is not our master and they are dangerously wrong with alarming frequency. Even if that weren’t true, free people must be free to counter them. https://t.co/C1JaG8CROX
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) September 13, 2020
One day, someone will write about how bizarre the COVID-related speech suppression has been. But for now, we largely accept the censoring of doctors as normal & just. https://t.co/FfhrCiKWW0
— Andy Grewal (@AndyGrewal) September 14, 2020
