Is YouTube Now Presuming to be in Charge of Science?

Guest Post by Jeffrey Tucker

Courts around the country are striking down vaccine mandates and even Covid restrictions in general. Protests against both have erupted the world over. There is a trend in which major names and faces that imposed lockdowns on the country are resigning from their positions and otherwise dropping out of politics. The Biden administration in general has sunk in the polls. The resistance to the entire regime of command and control that seized the world in March 2020 is growing by the day. .

But none of this seems to matter to the dominant Internal portals of Google and YouTube, which Google owns. They occupy the number one and number two spots for global traffic and reach. That’s some serious power over what the majority of people read, see, hear, and believe. It’s true that critically thinking people have already shifted to DuckDuckGo, Rumble, and many other platforms, and their market share is growing, to be sure. But nothing can compare to the 75% market share of YouTube, or the 86% share of search controlled by Google.

Often individual users can develop a distorted sense of that whole based on their own browsing habits. You like Brownstone.org, for example, and you get great information from this site. It is easy to forget that its 4 million users seem nearly invisible compared with the traffic enjoyed by the larger sites. Being on the admin side, it is much easier to observe how a myth spread, for example, by CNN can reach tens of millions of people whereas its refutation on a small site might only reach a few thousand. The myth stands.

For this reason, their Terms of Use seriously matter for culture, politics, intellectual life, and public opinion in general. And Google has just changed its terms as they apply to YouTube. It’s a fair presumption that Google’s search results will reflect these same terms. They pertain directly to the science behind Covid, mitigation policies, and mandates on the vaccines. These new terms go into effect on January 6, 2022 (why that date?). If they are truly enforced, freedom of speech and the ability of the scientific process to operate unimpeded will be severely curtailed.

Under the new rules, you cannot claim “that the pandemic is over.” Which is to say, the pandemic is now declared to last forever. You cannot make “claims that any group or individual has immunity to the virus or cannot transmit the virus,” which means that all the science on naturally acquired immunity can be deleted.

You cannot claim that ”vaccines do not reduce risk of contracting COVID-19,” which directly contradicts the FDA: “The scientific community does not yet know if the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine will reduce such transmission.” You cannot post “videos alleging that social distancing and self-isolation are not effective in reducing the spread of the virus” and you cannot claim that “wearing a mask causes oxygen levels to drop to dangerous levels.”

And there is this one: you cannot make claims that “achieving herd immunity through natural infection is safer than vaccinating the population,” even though endemicity is inevitable and the vaccines cannot make a substantial contribution to its achievement due to their inability to protect fully against infection and transmission.

As usual, the long list of Do Nots also includes statements that are patently false and otherwise ridiculous – so much so that it seems not dangerous to permit them! The full list is extremely long and includes many fully open questions that Google/YouTube wants to be declared closed. Some of the Do Nots also include statements that are contradicted by statements from Fauci and Biden, such as the rule that you cannot make “claims that any vaccine is a guaranteed prevention method for COVID-19.” The head of the CDC made exactly this claim!

If these rules are strenuously enforced, millions of videos, interviews, television shows, lectures, press conferences, and scientific presentations will disappear. Maybe tens of millions actually. And all in the name of protecting “science” against its corruption, as if YouTube should be the determinant of what constitutes good science.

Here is what Google says about the consequences of violating the rules:

We may allow content that violates the misinformation policies noted on this page if that content includes additional context in the video, audio, title, or description. This is not a free pass to promote misinformation. Additional context may include countervailing views from local health authorities or medical experts. We may also make exceptions if the purpose of the content is to condemn, dispute, or satirize misinformation that violates our policies. We may also make exceptions for content showing an open public forum, like a protest or public hearing, provided the content does not aim to promote misinformation that violates our policies.

If your content violates this policy, we’ll remove the content and send you an email to let you know. If this is your first time violating our Community Guidelines, you’ll likely get a warning with no penalty to your channel. If it’s not, we may issue a strike against your channel. If you get 3 strikes within 90 days, your channel will be terminated.

An intriguing question for any defender of private enterprise – I am certainly that – is why Google would so willingly turn over its platform to a branch of the state and its medical/policy priorities. It cannot be simply the desire to only say true things because there is plenty that is thoroughly disputable in these rules and much has already been challenged by vast quantities of peer-reviewed studies.

How does it come to be that such a huge business can become fully captured by government? I have friends who say it is the reverse actually, that Google has fully captured government, and is driving forward the agenda of politics. Regardless, it becomes a troubled world in which one can no longer distinguish business from the state, or either from big pharmaceutical companies. The state finds it more advantageous to enlist business in its rights violations than risk the court challenges that come with directly violating the First Amendment. The law restricts states in ways that do not apply to private companies, so the answer for the state seems obvious: use the private sector to achieve state policy priorities, particularly as it pertains to controlling the information to which the public has access.

Others might observe that Google has everything to gain from its investment in lockdown policies and mandates, all the better to keep people glued to their personal computers. Even granting that big tech benefited enormously from lockdowns, that’s an outlook on enterprise that is too cynical for me to believe at this stage. Or maybe I’m naive.

What seems clear is that these censorious moves could seriously erode market share and give rise to new platforms that will eventually compete more directly. But before we get too optimistic about this, the time between now and then is a very long time away, while the change in the scientific culture that this move will enact starts next month.

Here is the full text of Google Terms of Use as it pertains to the most critical issues affecting freedom, free speech, and science in the world today. For your research amusement, you can see via the WaybackMachine how this page has expanded over time from its initial page on May 2, 2020, to today.

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It is my sincere desire to provide readers of this site with the best unbiased information available, and a forum where it can be discussed openly, as our Founders intended. But it is not easy nor inexpensive to do so, especially when those who wish to prevent us from making the truth known, attack us without mercy on all fronts on a daily basis. So each time you visit the site, I would ask that you consider the value that you receive and have received from The Burning Platform and the community of which you are a vital part. I can't do it all alone, and I need your help and support to keep it alive. Please consider contributing an amount commensurate to the value that you receive from this site and community, or even by becoming a sustaining supporter through periodic contributions. [Burning Platform LLC - PO Box 1520 Kulpsville, PA 19443] or Paypal

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mapletruck
mapletruck

The internet is a curse to those who cannot afford to have billions of plebes freely exchanging information. The push for censorship is beyond measure really, no matter what, unless the plug is pulled the masses will still continue to use the internet to expose the global criminal psychopaths and communicate with each other to organize resistance.

Steve Z.
Steve Z.

The UN anti-terrorism branch is taking down domain names. There will be no countervailing voices allowed.
There will be only one unified “truth” allowed and big brother will tell you what that is. Ice Age Farmer gives us the run down

Anonymous
Anonymous

This is all part of the WEF & NWO Agenda . Command & Control by the minister of truth !
The same group of billionaires and government lackeys that have promoted lies upon lies debt piled upon debt all under the watchful eye of the ChiComs .
Many directly and indirectly financed thru a network of operatives in our own government at all levels : local , state & federal . Most are just complacent useful idiots playing the “Just doing my job” excuse !
While many more are leftist treasonous bastards that will hopefully end up dangling from a a rope choking or breaking their fucking necks Nuremberg style !
HOPE SPRINGS ETERNAL
FORGET ME NOT

Balbinus

Should the day arrive in my lifetime it will be reason to party!

MrLiberty

Elections and court rulings certainly aren’t going to be able to fundamentally address these problems in our society.

Ken
Ken

Tyrants and their blood are needed.

Balbinus

Elections have always been dirty but have descended well down past dirty.

Anonymous
Anonymous

James Corbett had a piece a while back looking into the origins of these tech companies. I think you will find your answer there— if in fact his expo is mostly true. In a nutshell, he says there is no real line of division between these companies and the government programs that spawned them. We like to think our country is run by the people through their elected representatives. We are not. We are run by a gang — a sophisticated one no doubt —- but a gang nonetheless. He who has the guns and gold rules.

BTW: going out on a limb here, but do Zuck and Dorsey look real? They look like androids to me — especially Zuck.

bigfoot
bigfoot

Gates looks like a ten-year-old in an 80-year-old body who had a rough passage through the canal of mutant spider monkey and fathered by a diseased cannibal from New Guinea..

brian
brian

I think most here know that Alphabet who owns google is/was an advertising company. It was dark money from CIA and DARPA that poured not only money but ‘researchers’ into the software coding that is Google. The end game… to control all the info you see.

The precursor to the CIA was the OSS, old news. All the heads of the lame stream media were all from the OSS psyc/propaganda divisions, after the war. CIA directors let the cat out of the bag many times about CIA operations within the continental borders, which is ‘supposed’ to be illegal.

Fast forward. Googles dominance is no accident. Obozo signed over ICANN as well as an EO for a kill switch. All setting the stage for an orwellian takeover in the near future. Googles ToS changes reflect this end game goal every time changes are made, which very few even bother to read.

Imo, google(cia) owns the government. That data google collects is hugely valuable and the software is well beyond what you think it is. Amazons version brags it has your next order ready to go before you place it, based on your buying patterns. Big tech IS big brother, no surprises with TBP folks, and its about to get more intrusive.

Even with all the information coming out about the failings of covid vax’s etc, you’d think the evil sob’s would back down. Have they backed off climate scam yet??? They are going to not only not back down, but like in Australia, Austria, Norway, canukistan, they will double down on enforcement. No amount of real data is going to deter or slow down these vile parasites. Evil never rests or stops and you never give it a milimeter of ground.

Take a stand… its a war

Balbinus

I use the Internet for info and it is useful, but our computers can go in the lake if the left takes total control. We have prepared aginst that day for many years. People, it is not to late to prepare yet so get cracking! Fooey on the devil and his miserable crowd of losers.

Balbinus

YouTube has gone from a useful platform to become part of the left wing agenda.

Anonymous
Anonymous

“Dropped out of politics”?….Dropping through trapdoors would be better. We shall see.

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