Do you have any citations? I saw both of those claims being discussed heavily on Twitter and Facebook during that time without those disclaimers so if there was some campaign it appears to have been pretty limited.
Anecdata but the more "official" covid subreddits /r/coronavirus and then /r/covid19 started off pretty free speech but then began bringing in more and more moderation and allowing less divergence from agreed upon narrative, if parent poster is a heavy Reddit user perhaps that is where their feelings come from.
> Anecdata but the more "official" covid subreddits /r/coronavirus and then /r/covid19 brought started off pretty free speech but then began bringing in more and more moderation (...)
Aren't you talking about the growth in conspiracy nuts fabricating all sorts of conspiracy theories and assorted loony claims, such as the infamous "covid is caused by 5G" idiot fest, which were flooding covid-related forums?
Are we now expected to turn a blind eye to all the sadly avoidable deaths that conspiracy nuts and antivaxxers with their bullshit claims brought upon the world in the last couple of years? I mean, countless people ended up queuing veterinarian supply stores to gargle on horse dewormer thanks to these morons. Depicting these loonies as innocent truth-seekers that just asked questions and fought conspiracies is intellectually dishonest.
That could definitely explain something like that - basically upgrading some random Reddit moderators to “Big Tech”, and substantially broadening the perceived scope.
The policy was first applied in May 2020 so it wouldn't have been relevant during most of the period in question but even if it had, the examples do not make it seem like they'd be going after someone who said that an N95 would protect you against COVID-19.
Part of why I asked for specific examples is that a common problem you'll see in alternative health circles is where someone will say something which isn't completely wrong in the middle of a bunch of blather which is, and then when they're moderated they'll claim that the former was the reason and a bunch of people will hear that claim without the full original context.
Given that YouTube is region aware, why is it stupid? Just index to whatever the local health authority says and show only items which agree with that.
It’s stupid because there is a pretense they are defending the truth, while the difference between what local authorities claim make it plainly obvious there either is no truth or if there is a truth it can’t ever be what half of the authorities are saying and thus what YouTube is defending.
And that’s of course just an example the dumb anti science stance of forbidding disagreement with the ‘scientific’ status quo, it really puts YouTube in the position of the church silencing Galileo. The church was as sure they were right as are those local authorities.
