The Hoover Institution at Stanford University is one of the most prominent think tanks in America, and its fellows are some the most accomplished in their respective fields. But that doesn’t matter to Big Tech. YouTube recently removed a June 23 interview its senior fellow Dr. Scott Atlas did with Hoover because it goes against the World Health Organization’s position on the Wuhan coronavirus.
According to Avik Roy, president of the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, the decision was made because the video “contradicts the World Health Organization or local health authorities’ medical information about COVID-19.”
In the interview’s description it explains that Atlas is not “COVID-19 denier” but that the “one-size-fits-all approach we are currently using is overly authoritarian, inefficient, and not based in science.” Moreover, he argues “an economic shutdown, and all of the attendant issues that go along with it, is a terrible solution.” The transcript is still available here.
As Mollie Hemmingway pointed out, the decision to remove this is “utterly terrifying” because the WHO has a track record of being wrong “with alarming frequency.” But beyond that, in America, there must be the ability to hear other perspectives.
Big Tech is utterly terrifying right now. The World Health Organization is not our master and they are dangerously wrong with alarming frequency. Even if that weren’t true, free people must be free to counter them. https://t.co/C1JaG8CROX
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) 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
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Atlas has continued to be a much-needed voice against the prevailing coronavirus wisdom. In a recent op-ed, he reminded readers that "only 0.2 percent of U.S. deaths have been people younger than 25, and 80 percent have been in people over 65; the average fatality age is 78." We've come a long way since Spring and yet the economy isn't fully open, he said.
"While the lockdown may have been justified at the start, when little data was known, we know far more about the virus today," Atlas concluded. "It’s time we use all we have learned and all we have done to reopen our schools and our economy safely and get back to restoring America."
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