[querez]

I disagree with both of the conclusion in this article.

1. Contact tracing is just a necessary evil, and I for one am fairly happy with the way Big Tech has handled this. Many nations in the EU preferred a centralized approach so they could follow the epidemiological development of covid-19. It was Apple & Google who in the end decided that "nope, not doing that", thus dictating a more privacy-preserving way of doing this. Likely because it's in their interest to have this app/data-collection being as privacy-preserving as possible, to avoid the type of FUD that this article is trying to disseminate. If you accept that contact tracing is necessary, then what we are currently seeing is actually the best possible scenario for preserving everyone's privacy and the web's openness. I'm all ears for better approaches. What would YOU have the smartphone producer's do?

2. This brings me to the next point: censorship. It's tricky. Not just in this instance, but in general in the current development. Personally, I'm seeing more and more that an entirely "open web" doesn't seem to work out so well due to all the misinformation we're disseminating, and something's got to give. The example the article is citing is a very good one, I think the conclusion that are drawn in the article are wrong:

> They were sharing their observations, and opinions. Right or wrong, is not the point.

In my opinion, this is EXACTLY the point! A medical doctor who uses his authority to spread what he thinks is the right message, but goes against what most informed scientists consider correct, is EXACTLY spreading misinformation. The same way we're seeing this with anti-vax, homeopathy, chem-trails or whatever other nonsense: Yes, science is a discourse, but the right way of discussing is within the scientific community. So you don't call a press conference to spread your observations -- especially if the implications of you being wrong are so dire. You write a paper (NEJM is publishing a lot of discussion-pieces these days, why not send it there, to reach the medical audience?) or maybe as a first step you call your friendly epidemiologists and talk it over with them. Given the circumstances, removing this video was absolutely the right call.

With that said, I agree that this is a much, much, much larger problem. Given how important Youtube, Facebook and Twitter are in disseminating information, it is concerning that they can pick what they want to publicize/suppress (often w/o chance of recourse to the censored). To me, this is one of the biggest issues we have in our current times. I hope we'll be able to find good solutions. But given the current situation we're in (not just Covid19, also populism and targeted misinformation), censoring might be a necessary first step to fight our way out.

[mpfundstein]

> A medical doctor who uses his authority to spread what he thinks is the right message, but goes against what most informed scientists consider correct, is EXACTLY spreading misinformation

If everyone would think like you, science wouldn't progress far. Einstein would have never happened. While Einstein was busy developing his theory of relativity, the majority of the scientific world thought Newton is the end of it all. He was the crazy dude who dared to go against the order.. even annihilating academic friends by doing so.... However, the crazy dude was right.

Having Majority DOES NOT EQUAL Being right. Always remember that.

You even write 'to spread what HE THINKS IS THE RIGHT MESSAGE' > Thats a mega important point. If he is convinced that this is how things are then there must be a (public) place to share those ideas. Even though he might be wrong in the long run. And that's different from FAKE NEWS, where an actor spreads midsinformation with a malicious goal. Hence in the FAKE NEWS case, he would KNOW ITS NOT RIGHT but spread it ANYWAY.

See what I mean?

[querez]

> Having Majority DOES NOT EQUAL Being right. Always remember that.

In a democracy, it kind of does. And science is a democratic discourse. If 99.9% of all scientists say global warming is real or evolution "just a theory", and 0.1% says it is not, the likelihood of the 99.9% being right is... well, 99.9%. When people mention how Einstein revolutionized science, you have to remember that he was the absolute, astounding and rare exception. The very vast majority of people who go against the grain of the dominant scientific belief tend to be crackpots. Always remember that.

You even write 'to spread what HE THINKS IS THE RIGHT MESSAGE' > Thats a mega important point. [...] Even though he might be wrong in the long run. And that's different from FAKE NEWS, where an actor spreads midsinformation with a malicious goal. Hence in the FAKE NEWS case, he would KNOW ITS NOT RIGHT but spread it ANYWAY.

I agree with you, "fake news" was a bad choice of words. I think that's the extreme end of a spectrum of "spreading non-true information", and I personally think that's what this doctor did. But my beef isn't even with that. It's perfectly okay (Very, very much encouraged, actually) to voice dissenting opinions in science! That is how science works, after all. And hence it is important to voice dissenting options in a scientific manner. Which brings me to:

> If he is convinced that this is how things are then there must be a (public) place to share those ideas.

There absolutely is: Peer-reviewed scientific literature. That's the place where scientific ideas are evaluated, based on their merit. You don't go call a press conference when you have a plausibly sounding hypothesis that might explain some observations you made. You write a paper about it, make your case, back it up with data and experiments, and evaluate your findings to see if they hold up to statistical scrutiny. And then an informed discourse among peers can start, and the facts & data will decide who is right/wrong. And if you want to prove something that most of the scientific community thinks is wrong, and when potentially many lives are at stake, then the burden of proof rests on you, and that burden is rightfully high. Much higher than "I called some friends and we our subjective impression is that this is overblown". And _THAT_ is why I think this is misinformation, even if I'm sure it was done with the best of intentions.

[Chris2048]

> Einstein would have never happened

How did Newtonian physics threaten human life? Also, Einstein had no authority, so he couldn't possibly abuse it to spread his message.