[redeeman]

but its not about the information, its about who spouts it. For example its possible for the same government entity to be 100% whitelisted in saying "DONT MASK", and also "MASK OR YOU KILL GRANNY", both are 100% allowed, but when some layperson says the one that isnt favored by the regime at the time, well, they are censored at best.

[shakna]

Disinformation got people killed. That creates liability. The causes a platform to suppress information.

Information, backed by experts, usually requires intervention by a higher power to supress - because it doesn't carry the same liability.

[handoflixue]

Amazon.com currently carries the "Anarchist's Cookbook", including the Author's Footnote saying that the publication of this book is a terrible and dangerous idea. My local library also carries this book.

Is this disinformation really more dangerous than that book? Is there some reason YouTube should be more liable for user-uploaded content, versus a bookstore being liable for content they deliberately choose to carry?

[shakna]

For a time, the Cookbook was banned. However, due to most of it being common knowledge, and the rest of it being ineffectual nonsense unlikely to harm anyone, restrictions were relaxed.

In some jurisdictions, however, it does remain banned to this day. YT are liable if they broadcast the contents of the Cookbook to the UK, for example.

Which is a great example of companies acting because they'll end up liable. Which is the only point I've made.

[_heimdall]

> Disinformation got people killed

Back this up with data if you want to keep stating this as fact. How do you know know disinformation got people killed, and what specifically are you defining as disinformation?

[strangattractor]

In March 2020, an Arizona man died and his wife was hospitalized after ingesting chloroquine phosphate, a substance used in fish tanks to clean aquariums, in an attempt to prevent or treat COVID-19. They reportedly mixed the substance with liquid and drank it, experiencing immediate effects. The man's wife told NBC News she had seen televised briefings where President Trump discussed the potential benefits of chloroquine for COVID-19 and remembered using it for her koi fish. The Banner Health hospital system issued a warning against taking inappropriate medication and household products to treat or prevent COVID-19, emphasizing that chloroquine used for malaria should not be taken for this purpose.

[_heimdall]

I don't like the president, but I don't remember seeing him say to take chloroquine phosphate tablets. I definitely heard him say that he though hydroxychloroquine might me a possible treatment, presumably referring to hydroxychloroquine sulfate tablets.

More importantly though, the then (and unfortunately now) president isn't a doctor and didn't directly tell people to take it. If a person heard that and decided to eat a bottle of pills meant for a fish tank, I don't know who we could lay blame on other than the person that made that choice.

[strangattractor]

Do you remember him suggesting to drink bleach or exposing yourself to UV? [0]

Let's say for example the President keeps his yap shut about hydroxychloroquine or drinking bleach [0] etc and 10 people listening to Alex Jones die taking it because they are frightened. Now lets say POTUS goes on televised News and suggest doing dangerous things to 100 times the size of Alex Jones's audience and we end up with 1000 needless deaths of people that may not get COVID anyway. I expect Alex Jones to be an irresponsible sleaze bag but POTUS should have some restraint/intelligence.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zicGxU5MfwE

[brigandish]

I watched that press conference[1] at the time. He didn't suggest it to the audience, as you can see in the short clip too, and even though that short clip is not only clipped in time but in the viewport so you can't see that he's speaking to a doctor, Deborah Birx[2], and asking her about these things, because they'd been discussed with him previously, off camera.

I have no idea why people keep saying that he suggested injecting household detergents or drinking bleach or some other nonsense like that, other that parroting biased nonsense or coming up with it themselves. What's more worrying is the way it was reported as such, even though he's talking to journalists, the press conference was filmed start to finish and is freely available in several places.

This lie needs to die.

Also, if you watch earlier, the guy from Homeland goes through their experiments that show the virus does indeed die when exposed to sunlight[3]. I thought it was very interesting and instructive but the next day saw the media distorting it beyond recognition.

And this, in a thread about misinformation and disinformation.

[1] https://youtu.be/bATddhoI6gI?si=2ITmdayt4rLNLalT&t=1591

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deborah_Birx

[3] https://youtu.be/bATddhoI6gI?si=NQVQo3GZq-PDyqfA&t=1198

[strangattractor]

You're correct he is not trained as a doctor but that doesn't stop him from giving medical advice. When referring to hydroxychloroquine "...what do you have to lose..." [0]

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB5e0AKSIm4

[shakna]

Hundreds verifiably died, after following misinformation [0]. And I would define misinformation as claiming something has health benefits, when very clearly, it will kill you. Like when Gary Lenius believed that hydrochloroquine was a cure.

[0] https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-52731624

[_heimdall]

> A BBC team tracking coronavirus misinformation has found links to assaults, arsons and deaths. And experts say the potential for indirect harm caused by rumours, conspiracy theories and bad health information could be much bigger.

The claims in the article, which is notably from very early in the pandemic, are focused mainly on looting, rioting, etc.

There are also stories of people poisoning themselves with household cleaners that they believed to be doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate.

I'm not sure how that's relevant though, they were dosing themselves with household chemicals based on what they heard from the then (and unfortunately now) president who notably has no medical background.

If a person says advil is useful for headaches and someone is harmed when they take a whole bottle, I wouldn't blame the first person for that decision and I definitely wouldn't begin to say speech should have been censored to avoid it.