Please watch and listen to the first 2 minutes of this video if you want to hear YouTube’s CEO, Susan Wojcicki, explain her COVID-19 censorship policy. It has two sides. The one is to make sure YouTube houses endless “authoritative” sources, except when a blacklisted authority goes against the acceptable authorities.
That brings us to the other side of her censorship which is her “removal” policy. She makes fun of Vitamin C and “anything that is medically unsubstantiated”; they’re all banished and removed.
Then she drops this bomb: “Anything that would go against World Health Organization recommendations would be a violation of our policy, and so removal is another really important part of our policy.”
This is why Wojcicki removed a video with 1.3 million views by a reputable medical authority, epidemiologist Dr. Knut Wittkowski. His videos are available here. There is also a transcript. Wittkowski’s views are discussed here.
“In his second interview with Journeyman Films, Dr. Knut Wittkowski states how his initial claims have now been vindicated – the US and European policy lockdowns – came way too late as the virus had already made its way into the populations and therefore any panic measures to contain it would not be effective, and more likely could exact a massive cost on society and the economy. In other words: from a public health and respiratory virus mitigation perspective, the lockdowns were useless.”
Wojcicki’s interview is disgusting because of her self-pride, because of her know-it-all attitude, her automatic pro-establishment position, and her close-mindedness. In layman’s terms, who does she think she is or YouTube is? What does she think gives her a right to pick and choose among authorities, touting the WHO and censoring Wittkowski? What gives her the right to be the arbiter of matters that are in dispute? Have YouTube users conferred this upon her?
Can Wojcicki hide behind YouTube’s community policies? Not at all, not one bit. For what reason was Wittkowski censored? Nudity? Dangerous content? Hateful content? Violent content? Bullying? Spam? Threats? Copyright? Etc. None need apply. No reason applies.
Wittkowski expressed his considered opinions. That is all he did. Wojcicki’s censorship is disgusting because the only reason, and she says this openly if we apply her remarks to him, is that he disagreed with World Health Organization recommendations. So there. The WHO is automatically right; anyone who disagrees must be wrong.
If we search YouTube, and it will not take much, we will find huge amounts of objectionable material that YouTube allows. Its community guidelines are a joke, an excuse, a cover for the prejudices and biases of the censors.
There are understandable reasons for censorship. We self-censor all the time. But not in this case. With its censorship, YouTube has entered the realm of politics and public debate. It makes itself like a newspaper with an editorial policy, but it hides it under censorship. In doing this, it makes itself an unreliable information source because it infuses its content with editorial decisions. It’s like a newspaper that censors stories all along the way. But it doesn’t make this clear to its readers. Instead it claims to be protecting them from various dangers. It’s not, and that’s disgusting.
9:50 am on May 27, 2020
