> a very smart bloke with an honest-to-goodness PhD in a virus-related field

How do I embolden text on HN? When a person with a PhD is talking about something related to their PhD it is imprudent policy to ban their content because it disagrees with a body who are (a) political, (b) purposefully slow to recommend things and (c) have covered themselves with something a lot less pleasant than glory with their response to the worst pandemic we've seen in a century. Turns out he has a biological Nature publication too [0]. I want to hear his opinion even and especially if it contradicts the WHO on coronavirus. I like to live dangerously; I'll take the risk that he isn't a specialist in respiratory infections and viruses.

YouTube has picked a policy that bans good advice if they don't like the tone or word choice on behalf of an organisation I believe the US government is trying to defund for incompetence. This is not a move that should inspire confidence in their fact-checking abilities. I'd bet they don't have doctors or nurses enforcing this policy either but it'd be nice to be wrong.

[0] https://www.nature.com/articles/366066a0

Your original statement was "The sort of people who contradict the WHO happened to be right on this one;" Now you're saying that one specific person might be right, and because of that YouTube should let any crackpot broadcast potentially lethal videos on their platform. That's idiotic.

Also, there are plenty of cases of respectable scientists throwing away their credentials to make a ton of money making completely unscientific social media posts. I'm not saying this guy is doing that, but YouTube certainly need to do more than just look as someone's history and whether they're published. The article you cite is from 27 years ago. He will certainly have changed a great deal in that much time.

I'm saying that the WHO was literally a mouthpiece for a Chinese propaganda operation in the early stages of this pandemic. Not maliciously, not intentionally, but the facts of the matter are not really an open question. The WHO were communicating based on Chinese claims that had very little basis in fact. That isn't a strange situation for UN bodies, who are buffeted by strong political winds from all directions and reliant on reporting from their member nations.

The sort of people who are happy to contradict authority were totally correct to contradict the WHO. The WHO weren't communicating best known evidence; they were communicating best known evidence that was acceptable to the Chinese.

YouTube removing people who disagree with the WHO is YouTube setting up a system that will amplify Chinese (or other large state sponsored) propaganda. And I can give an excellent example of a credentialed person who was correctly applying his credentials to warn people about an outcome that has, in fact, emerged. People like that will be targeted under YouTube's policy, which is not interested in correctness but in authority. It is enacting a policy that would have made this crisis even worse for me, because it would have removed the channel that I found out about it from. I am very thankful for having 45 days early notice.

Wrapping with asterisks, with no whitespace, italicizes. I don't think that you can embolden, otherwise.

You can do it using Unicode bold characters:

𝗔𝗕𝗖𝗗𝗘𝗙𝗚𝗛𝗜𝗝𝗞𝗟𝗠𝗡𝗢𝗣𝗤𝗥𝗦𝗧𝗨𝗩𝗪𝗫𝗬𝗭𝗮𝗯𝗰𝗱𝗲𝗳𝗴𝗵𝗶𝗷𝗸𝗹𝗺𝗻𝗼𝗽𝗾𝗿𝘀𝘁𝘂𝘃𝘄𝘅𝘆𝘇

𝟬𝟭𝟮𝟯𝟰𝟱𝟲𝟳𝟴𝟵 🞷‭

And bold italics:

𝘼𝘽𝘾𝘿𝙀𝙁𝙂𝙃𝙄𝙅𝙆𝙇𝙈𝙉𝙊𝙋𝙌𝙍𝙎𝙏𝙐𝙑𝙒𝙓𝙔𝙕𝙖𝙗𝙘𝙙𝙚𝙛𝙜𝙝𝙞𝙟𝙠𝙡𝙢𝙣𝙤𝙥𝙦𝙧𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙫𝙬𝙭𝙮𝙯

Maybe those Youtubers were less popular because their predictions are less accurate and their logic is flawed, and people are able to see the difference? Why is biasing information the role of Youtube, shouldn’t USA and other countries educate their citizen to be resilient to inaccurate predictions, rather than cut any information at the root and only ever expose citizen to “true information”, which inevitably makes your citizen more gullible?

Saying the population can be misled is an admission that our school system creates naive dumbasses. MAYBE we should fix that first.

Yes, let's go fix people's entire educational upbringing (often tied to income and scenarios outside one's control) in the middle of a crisis so that way they can be your flavor of 'smart enough' to discern fact from fiction. This stance is absurd given the immediacy of the crisis all hinging on some slippery-slope argument that if they ban one video they can ban them all.

I think you are right, and that this is one of the more helpful comments in this thread. But maybe even this gives Youtubers too much credit.

I suspect that even those hailed as 'survivors' weren't necessarily more correct. Nobody remembers who was wrong. Nobody remembers anything, ever. Youtubers pay no price with their audience for outrageous false claims. Those were made in the past, which was a month ago. There's 30 new videos up.

Meanwhile, they reap rewards by fanning the flames of whatever subset of claims they've made that haven't proved false, and can claim they knew it all along.