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September 14, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Google-owned video giant YouTube has deleted a June interview with Dr. Scott Atlas, who has since taken on a role advising the Trump administration on its response to COVID-19, because his views conflict with the judgment of the embattled, World Health Organization (WHO).
Atlas is a medical doctor, internationally recognized medical scholar, and senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. On June 23, prior to his becoming an advisor to the president, Atlas participated in an interview with Peter Robinson on the wisdom of public lockdowns and other strategies governments have adopted to fight COVID-19. (The video and transcript are still available on Hoover’s website).
“I think we can all understand why the initial lockdown was done,” but “extension of the lockdown is completely and utterly incorrect,” Atlas argued, citing costs such as Americans delaying or canceling other critical medical care such as chemotherapy. All told, Atlas contends that while COVID-19 was responsible for “800,000 lost years of life” as of this past summer, the lockdown “is responsible for at least 700,000 lost years of life every month, or about 1.5 million so far.”
Over the weekend, Forbes health policy analyst Avik Roy reported that YouTube deleted the video. According to a screenshot of the notice, YouTube claimed that the video “spreads medical misinformation that contradicts the World Health Organization (WHO) or local health authorities’ medical information about COVID-19, including on methods to prevent, treat, or diagnose COVID-19 and means of transmission of COVID-19.” It did not identify specific examples of “misinformation.”
Choosing the WHO as the arbiter of what constitutes the “right” information about COVID-19 has been the biggest point of contention regarding internet giants’ self-appointed role as “misinformation” watchdogs, however, given the international body’s statements legitimizing the false claims coming out of the Chinese government that initially downplayed the gravity of the outbreak and covered up the Communist regime’s mishandling of it.
Antitrust jurisprudence and regulation in the U.S. needs to be modernized on many fronts, especially to tackle the problem of multinational technology companies that attempt to impose a monopoly on information.
— Avik Roy (@Avik) September 13, 2020
Will @YouTube disclose the name of the person (or the person programming the algorithm) responsible? Is he/she/it more knowledgable, or less, about #COVID19 than @SWAtlasHoover? What specifically about Atlas' remarks did @YouTube find so dangerous for the public to consume?
— Avik Roy (@Avik) September 13, 2020
“The motivation for this policy is obvious,” Jewish News Syndicate editor-in-chief Jonathan Tobin writes at The Federalist. “The left-wing billionaires that own Google and the other major tech companies, as well as their overwhelming left-wing staffs, view any commentary from those questioning the lockdowns as a threat to the prevailing narrative about President Trump’s alleged incompetence in dealing with the pandemic. Questions about the lockdowns or any advocacy for limiting the economic and social misery these policies have created are viewed as somehow helping Trump’s re-election.”
Back in July, Pew Research reported that 72 percent of the public believes social media companies have “too much power and influence” in politics today.