THREAD. AdTube, I mean YouTube, has gone full Lysenko. They are taking down videos and issuing Community Guidelines strikes against anyone who "explicitly disputes the efficacy of local health authority or WHO guidance." 1/n
2/n YouTube has gone further than simply removing videos, however. By issuing strikes, it is deliberately creating a chilling effect on people who might be able to otherwise warn against legitimate danger.
3/n
If there is any way to determine if an idea is valid, it *must* tolerate dissent. Dissent is the lifeblood of good ideas. YouTube (and Twitter) are now blessing all content. If your content is not blessed, you will be punished. If you defy our blessing, you will be punished.
4/n
Whether you agree or disagree with an idea is for YOU to decide. YouTube's explicit "concern" that you may be persuaded by an idea is a direct insult to YOUR intelligence and powers of reason.
5/n Even worse, YouTube is stating, explicitly, that it is now a propaganda arm of the World Health Organization.
Exaggeration? Not in the slightest. Here's that screenshot once more.
6/n
People are getting extremely lopsided views, and are assuming that because they can't find evidence that none exists - unaware that YouTube (among others) has been systematically removing anything that contradicts that view - there is none to be found.
7/n There is a name for this. It's called Lysenkoism.
8/n KingCrocoduck has a fantastic short video on Lysenkoism from 2016. (I'm actually a bit amazed that it is still allowed to be published; he is suspended from Twitter).
9/ It's not just YouTube. Medical journals have been removing peer-reviewed studies that have stood unmolested for the past 20 years. News articles from the Swine Flu, Bird Flu, and other epidemics have also disappeared.
10/ "Show me the science," as incorrect a demand as one can get, is still a valid query from someone who genuinely wants to understand the arguments from both sides. That can only happen if "science" is actually followed - all ideas are left on the table for observation/review.
11/ The sad thing is that I think people actually believe they are "helping science" by trying to silence these voices. They believe, unfortunately, that science is "settled" and all the studies have to do is simply "prove" that it's settled. Anything else is heresy.
12/ That, of course, is backwards. "Science" is not about "proving what you know." It's about trying to reduce what you don't know by just a little bit.
13/ Science NEEDS contrarian points of view. Because if you have entities like YouTube and Twitter censoring that content, you get situations like this:
14/ And government officials who know you can't or won't do anything when they will put you in jail for doing the things that they do anyway, like this:
16/ Oh screw it, here's 10 more assholes who want to lock YOU down based upon the "Science" that is "undisputed." Rules that they don't actually believe in, themselves. Because, you know, "Science" is what the government tells you it is.
17/ Now you know - from AdTube's own words, no less - that they are going to tear down any video or content creator who defies the "local health authority or World Health Organization," so they these authorities have carte blanche to tell you ANYTHING they want.
And they are.
18/ If you want to be "true to science," then, you have to be willing to accept dissent. Not being able to find content on sites that explicitly tell you that they won't allow it, does NOT mean that it doesn't exist.
Otherwise, you don't follow science. You follow demagogues.
19/ Sadly, other places that offer these dissenting voices have been labeled heretics and 'dangerous.' Gab, Minds, BitChute, Parler, and others, are the refuge of "conspiracy theorists."
Heretics. Losers. Crazies. Tinfoil hats.
20/ Absolute fanatics and lunatics. Like Gallileo. Copernicus. Einstein. Darwin. People who had to self-publish or, worse, had to publish close to death, because of the threat of ex-communication.
All being told to shut up by governments and publishers of gov't propaganda.
21/ Don't worry. I'm not saying that every YouTuber falls into that category. But the scientist who DOES fall into that category is being censored. The klaxon of warning of government overreach will not be heard because there will be no one to call it.
22/ I have not yet seen the censored video that got me on this rant, but because YouTube does not WANT me to see it, because they're afraid of how I might think, or what I might do - so much they have to prevent me from seeing it - means that you bet I will see it.
23/ I find it insulting and infuriating that some junior editor at AdTube not only thinks that I am too stupid, too mindless, too ignorant to 'correctly' evaluate an idea that s/he has to threaten the content creator to stop making such videos.
24/ Here is the video in question. I may agree with it, I may not. There may be good points, or it may be tripe. I honestly don't know.
But that's for ME to decide. If you want to decide for yourself too, here it is:
25/ Ultimately, I don't like being manipulated. I deserve to be given all the information and left for me to decide what's best for me as a course of action, and that extends to determining what content *I* will consume.
Time to look for more diversity in my media.
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I've been constantly railing against the *reporting* of COVID, and how poorly the media is in keeping any semblance of honesty and integrity.
Michael Crichton wrote in "State of Fear", “Nothing is so firmly believed as that which is least known.”
1/
A few months ago I shared a message from the PR campaign inside the UK. This is the organization (SAGE) that prepared the guidelines and recommendation to "sufficiently threaten" the public.
SAGE put together an entire playbook on population behavior control in the age of COVID, and fed it to the media, who relayed the message in dutiful fashion.
Here's a rundown of how it got played out in the UK in perfect lockstep:
THREAD. This is truly getting scary. We’ve moved beyond creating policies in order to address the pandemic. We're creating policies to address *adhering* to policies. IOW, we're in a phase of the Corona Virus pandemic that's more frightening than the actual virus itself. (1/long)
You've seen stories of police overreach that go beyond sane precautions all over the world. People are getting arrested/fined not for harming others, but for simply *existing* outside of State-approved functions. Take this guy, e.g.: (2/long)
THREAD: Okay, so I've been sharing some information lately, because I'm concerned about the *reporting* of Coronavirus. Had a long twitterconvo with @docrod2008 about this (who is a good friend of mine, btw). But now there is some additional data to back up my concerns 1/n
You may have seen this graphic passed around lately. It shows that the *reporting* of pneumonia deaths is in a sharp decline. 2/n
The CDC website that the chart identifies itself, does not have this graphic anywhere. 3/n