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by chrisseaton 2242 days ago
No they're definitely saying not to wear masks because they think it's net harmful. For example

> WHO also said community masking could lead to a "false sense of security" and cause people to ignore other evidence-based measures like handwashing and self-isolation.
3 comments
shawnz 2242 days ago
That still doesn't seem like a contradiction to me since they are not explicitly recommending not to do it, only suggesting to be aware of the possible downsides.

That said, they also don't explicitly recommend to not take vitamin C or turmeric so the examples given by YouTube are already in conflict

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endgame 2241 days ago
And so continues this disgustingly paternal approach of "nudging" people to do things instead of presenting clear information and empowering citizens to take correct action.
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takeda 2242 days ago
because it is true, the N95 mask don't protect you from the virus completely, and the masks that city advocate to use (non N95) don't do anything to protect you, they are there to protect others from you. If you sneeze or talk those masks will restrict most of the droplets from traveling far.
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chrisseaton 2241 days ago
> because it is true

I don't have an opinion on whether it's true or not myself. I’m not qualified to say.

I just know that reputable authorities disagree on it. So how can you enforce a truth here?

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dmix 2241 days ago
This is the heart of the issue. Just because legitimate and identifiably bad advice exists doesn't mean this is suddenly widely applicable to all health information. Youtube isn't banning content that the WHO is "absolutely certain is true" either, they are using any of the (frequently changing) general advice coming out of WHO.

There's always tons of grey area on what is true or good advice. No matter how much 'science' is thrown around, or credentialism ("they have a PhD!"), or credibility some international organization has, that does not make this any less true. Especially when it comes the speech of the general public - not some advice via some formal expert forum or government body.

Even Snopes.com is littered with incorrect and politicized positions, and unlike the WHO, their actual stated goal is trying to determine what is true or not. WHO has a million different incentives beyond this.

What is useful advice for governments to disseminate, given tons of competing interests (which is what WHO specializes in), doesn't automatically translate to what regular people should be allowed or not allowed to discuss in an open forum.

Additionally, we're not being asked to just trust WHO to have good advice and good intentions, Youtube is telling everyone to trust WHO information proxied via an Youtube moderation teams interpretation of it, via an opaque no-appeals process.

Anyone who has used any major platform before (Reddit, Paypal, etc) knows how stupid moderation teams can be. And the vast majority of moderation teams haven't been stupid enough to try to determine what is 'true' or not. Because that's crazy.

The only way I might support this is if it helps bring about the demise of Youtube.

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