As a footnote (headnote) to the last two paragraphs of my last post, I now learn Knut Wittkowski has told the New York Times that YouTube removed a video of him expressing his views about the virus, after it had achieved more than 1.3 million views.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has told CNN.
Twitter removed two tweets by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Dr Wittkowski is not a political figure in any way and his views have no political colour. I do not know if people like him will benefit from whatever President Trump had in mind when he tweeted today, in reply to the irrepressible conservative journalist Michelle Malkin.
YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki has told CNN.
“Anything that goes against [World Health Organization] recommendations would be a violation of our policy and so removal is another really important part of our policy,”Facebook has been working with state governments in California, New Jersey and Nebraska to remove pages for anti-quarantine events.
Twitter removed two tweets by Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.
Dr Wittkowski is not a political figure in any way and his views have no political colour. I do not know if people like him will benefit from whatever President Trump had in mind when he tweeted today, in reply to the irrepressible conservative journalist Michelle Malkin.
I think Knut Wittkowski is almost certainly a crank. But this kind of censorship is still worrying. Mostly cranks turn out to be wrong but occasionally they're right. I suspect Wittkowski is wrong but who knows?
ReplyDeleteIt looks plain that lockdowns were not a good idea, doesn't it?
DeleteIt looks plain that lockdowns were not a good idea, doesn't it?
DeleteAt the moment the evidence is unclear. Lockdowns seem to have worked extremely well in Australia and New Zealand, in China and in other East Asian nations. They seem to have failed in Britain and the US and in many European countries.
The problem is that we don't know which of the lockdown measures worked and which were unnecessary. It's possible that the really effective measures were simply shutting down large public events, restaurants and bars and cinemas. We still don't know how effective masks are. Maybe with masks many of the lockdown measures would not have been needed. We don't know.
In Australia small shops were not shut down and the lockdowns still worked so it seems likely that shutting down small shops is totally unnecessary.
It is clear that lockdowns work if they're imposed early. The alternative to lockdowns is herd immunity which seems like a very very dubious proposition. The Chinese went for lockdowns and I'm inclined to think the Chinese government is a lot more competent than for example US or British governments. The US is paying a high price for colossal governmental incompetence.
I'm on the fence about this. I don't like the lockdowns but going for herd immunity is probably a worse choice. We'll have to watch Sweden.