Jon Stewart, Modern Contrarian?

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
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It is not ridiculous, my friend. I am not a medical expert, but it was Joe Rogan’s podcast who introduced me to Ivermectin. I know who Bret Weinstein is, although I haven’t listened to his podcast, but I have listened another 2 Joe Rogan podcasts with Weinstein.

We are talking here about a drug that has been successful in threating Covid in Mexico, India, South Africa and partially in Brasil, and the majority of people learned about it just after the Joe Rogan’s podcast, me including.

We have probably more than 300 mil, the population of USA threated with the drug successfully and we learned that just last week, thanks to a podcast in spotify. Btw Joe Rogan uploads parts in youtube, guess from which podcast there are missing uploads.

So do not tell me topics arent silenced.

This is the only major outlet reporting on Ivermectin on my google search.
The rest of the google searches look like medical journals or websites.

This is the only pre Joe Rogan Experience news from The Conversation. I do not know what website this is.

This is google searches, not social media. So I am a bit out of topic. However Bret Weinstein came specifically crying out loud for strikes on his youtube channel discussing the topic.

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So the way you obtained information means what? Should you have originally heard it somewhere else? Talk radio? Cable news? A giant banner on Twitter?

I didn’t even hear about this until a podcast means what exactly?

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Maybe I’m typing something different in but my search yields has the FDA, Washington Post, AP news discussing it before the podcast came out. The New York Times has been tracking coronavirus drugs and treatment methods for a long time now.

So it seems as if information was being discussed before this you just didn’t see it. See below for excerpt from New York Times. It’s been discussed and talked about on at least in the US some of the biggest news sites we have.

“For decades, ivermectin has served as a potent drug to treat parasitic worms. Doctors use it against river blindness and other diseases, while veterinarians give dogs a different formulation to prevent heartworm. Studies on cells have suggested ivermectin might also kill viruses. But scientists have yet to find strong evidence in animal studies or human trials that it can treat viral diseases. As a result,ivermectin is not approved to use as an antiviral.

Last April, Australian researchers reportedthat the drug blocked coronaviruses in cell cultures, but they used a dosage that was so high it might have dangerous side effects in people. The F.D.A. immediately issued a warning against taking pet medications that contain ivermectin. “These animal drugs can cause serious harm in people,” the agency warned. On March 5, 2021, the F.D.A. issued another warning not to use ivermectin to treat or prevent Covid-19. The European Medicines Agency released a similar warning later that month. And in April, the British Medical Journal recommended against ivermectin regardless of disease severity.

A number of clinical trials have been launched to see if a safe dose of ivermectin can fight Covid-19. The results reported so far have been mixed. The N.I.H. Covid-19 treatment guidelines state that there is insufficient datato recommend for or against the use of ivermectin for the disease, except in a clinical trial. Nevertheless ivermectin is being prescribed increasingly often in Latin America, much to the distress of disease experts. In the United States, the Senate held a committee hearing in December where a doctor extolled ivermectin as a “effectively a ‘miracle drug’ against Covid-19.” But large, randomized clinical trials have yet to deliver clear results that ivermectin improves the outcome of people with Covid-19.”

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84

I am from Europe, maybe this is why. Perhaps I get different results. I am following mainly BBC and The Guardian (due to excellent soccer reporting lol) from the major news outlets and lately I have tried to follow CNN and Fox for some diversity in views. However I am getting more reliable news on The Hill, Louder with Crowder and Tim Cast when it comes to news from America.
On Tv I try to get some news on Euronews and Bloomberg and local TV which is very lame. I am following different facebook posters for local news for reliable information, since I know most of the guys and I know they do excellent journalism.

Tl;dr. Perhaps we get different search results.

Anyway I have a problem with the texting in the article. Although I am not able to open the links due to lack of subscription. The texting is very negative, but it does a good recommendation to not use Ivermecting for pets, but for humans, which is hilarious. It does not give the whole story it seems, but does not recommend via selective sourcing (the British Medical Journal) to not use it.

See this is not quality reporting. You need to present both sides and give the whole story. The conclusion is good “But large, randomized clinical trials have yet to deliver clear results than invermectin improves the outcocme of people with Covid-19”. However the way the conlusion is reached is very one sided.

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Well it’s not a long form article or anything written solely about the topic of that drug. The general point was you heard about it on a podcast and seemed to think that was fucked up. I hear a lot of things on podcast. I don’t use social media often and haven’t watched cable news in forever. I listen to sports talk radio or other music. That’d be like complaining I don’t know what happened today in the state government session, but I’m not making an effort to find out. Unproven drugs also don’t tend to get massive amounts of reporting anyways. That doesn’t mean the whole internet is hiding it from you.

Within seconds I could find multiple articles talking about this long before the podcast you seemed to think was the first time anyone had anything on it.

I don’t know how you write an article about the science of the drug, come to this conclusion, and not be one sided. Some things don’t have two sides. Saying we don’t have enough data to really know but it’s being studied isn’t a two sided thing. People saying we need more studies before we can know more about this and you want everyone to take multiple sides doesn’t make a lot of sense. Not if your argument is grounded in science.

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86

This…!

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Apologies, I did go quite a bit too far off the topic.

However, I’d add that the business aspect when it comes to YouTube does come into play in a big way when certain information is censored. I don’t think this should be ignored. Companies that buy ads simply don’t want them in any form of “controversial” content. I guess they also took this into consideration when updating their algorithm.

What I’m seeing now is they’re having their cake and eating it. They get to virtue signal by placing a nice red “demonitized” flag on certain videos AND get to “socially engineer” their content creators into creating content that derives them the most profit when it comes to demand for ads.

I’m really not convinced that they’re doing this because of ideological reasons over the goal of profit maximization. Maybe some of this happens to certain content creators but overall I’m not seeing the profit motive overriding this or they’d just kick them off the site like they did with Alex Jones after his videos had the potential to put them in a position where authorities may have considered investigating their processes and opening themselves to taking on certain liabilities.

They don’t make money when these content creators get the bulk of their income through another site like Patreon, paypal/crypto donations or from the personal merchandize they sell. There’s also a lot less incentive to retain the allegedly “fringe” ones, some of whom sometimes can’t be differentiated by the algorithm, since their viewers may not even view other ad-friendly content.

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88

I also don’t understand how the right can talk about cancel culture or freedom of speech important when they are constantly chanting lock person x up at all of their rallies. We aren’t even talking about them wanting to silence someone. It’s literally throw that person I disagree with in jail. Now I don’t know about anyone else but to me someone banning me from Facebook is light years less threatening than sending me to fucking jail.

And yet when the actual President of the United States said like a week after a plot to kidnap a governor lock Em all up that was met with “oh man TDS! TDS!” What’s really important is that Twitter banned a dude for wanting to kill the Vice President. They have destroyed his free speech! He can’t even TWEET! Do you know what it’s like to not be able to tweet? I don’t tweet (although I do read Twitter from time to time I’ve never sent a tweet in my life) and it’s unbearable. Now I only have a bajillion other ways to communicate with people. But not being able to tweet that’s the dealbreaker. I’ve heard once you can’t tweet you might as well be dead.

I just don’t get how people can’t realize the hypocrisy. Do Republicans have no memories? This shit wasn’t happening 150 years ago. It was quite recent.

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89

I agree with some of the points in your post.

But putting aside all the silly politics and the arguments on whether it’s right for private corporations to censor things, I personally think freedom of speech really is an all or nothing kind of thing and is worth fighting for no matter how small the issue is.

It’s good that this is being debated even if some of the points in contention may be wrong. I’ve not even given enough thought to lots of these points to really make a call at the moment. All I can say is that probability is on the side of profit maximization, not ideology, when it comes to the intents and actions of corporations.

With this in mind, if I could actually be bothered to, my focus would be on whether any government actions, whether in the form of undue incentives or excessive regulation, are compelling corporations to act in any manner that they wouldn’t in a (relatively) free market.

If there are, you focus on fixing that part. I’ve personally never really bought the idea that real monopolies or oligopolies can occur without at least some form of government enablement. But that’s only based on analysing things in my region.

If not, then you have to accept the good and bad that comes with capitalism.

*I’m not talking about direct or, to a certain extent, indirect incitement of illegal actions. That’s a legal issue with criminality involved, not an ideological one.

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I said either in this thread or another one that YouTube was flagging real content from people objectively telling the audience about what China is really like during the HK protests. IME and from what friends living in HK tell me, they were pretty accurate. However, that was not what the overall view was in the West. The media was painting it as a “fight for freedom”. Prominent talking heads from all sides of the political spectrum from SJWs to the Far Right were almost all in unison with this POV. Tim Poole heroically ranted away at his webcam about it all being a fight for liberation!

5 churches out of 100,000 in China get shut down. One caught fire most likely due to stupidity on the part of one of the lower level guys in involved. China is burning churches! Religion is under attack! All this while they have fucking Muslim schools with Imams allowed autonomy over them.

Rioters stop public transport and destroy subways in HK. The Right in the US goes, “Freedom!”. BLM rioters burn down a building. “Lock them up!”. The Left just gets confused as usual and spouts gibberish.

If I looked at this from an ideological perspective, I’d (erroneously) think YouTube was using it’s power to enforce Western values upon the world while censoring anyone who even dared speak of real Chinese culture and values. You don’t want to accept that they have a completely different mindset when it comes to politics. You don’t want real Chinese food. You want the commercialized, watered down shit made for Westerners you get from Chinese takeaways that taste nothing like the real shit with that fucking fortune cookie that I’ve only seen served in a Chinese restaurant ONCE in my entire life 20 years ago while spending lots of time in THREE fucking Asian countries.

:joy:

Most people I know in China don’t even want democracy. Half the people I know in HK didn’t give a shit about any of it and were complaining about all the disruptions to their lives and damage of public property by the fringe protestors.

Why was a Western country trying to tell THEM what they SHOULD WANT? Do they think they’re too stupid to think for themselves? Are they ALL mindless victims of State propaganda so they need to be saved from themselves? Why was a major corporation trying to direct public opinion by removing or burying content against their values?

Now that China REALLY fucked HK, where are all those heroes that wanted to be part of a revolution from behind their webcams? Of course they’re moved on. So many other headlines to ride on. COVID, Trump, etc. After fanning the flames which arguably contributed to giving China the excuse and motivation to do so, it’s like they just shrugged and went about their way. “Hey, it’s the CCP. Watcha gonna do?”.

My point is YouTube was simply going along with the whims and wants of it’s advertisers, which is normally dictated by their customers, and their customers were being fed misinformation from their media of choice. Nothing more, nothing less. It played out like a fucking full circle. Tao. I ching. All that ying/yang shit. You had the entire political spectrum in the West agreeing and NO ONE got censored other than ACTUAL Chinese and even HK citizens who tried to “educate” other parts of the world on what was the real mindset in the region.

The current fucks on YouTube aren’t some heroes heroically challenging the system either. They’re just opportunists who found a niche market amongst people who want alternative news. Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes they’re wrong. They’re no different from any mainstream media.

Just my 2 cents while adding to a previous point I was trying to make.

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I would never say freedom of speech isn’t worth fighting for and as I’ve said I would prefer less moderation in these areas by companies like Twitter. At the same time we are ALL using a form of social media on here that absolutely will get rid of you for repeating certain things. As is their right. Much like Twitter we all signed up with terms and conditions and we can either abide by those terms and conditions or T-Nation can say you gotta go elsewhere.

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Good job! Another straw man mercilessly slain. You guys are both right, you can still find someone talking about anything somewhere on the internet.

Nobody in this thread is making the case that there’s some omnipresent entity controlling speech across the entire internet. I’m making the case that there are roughly half a dozen entities controlling speech that spans the majority of internet news traffic. As time goes on the level of power and influence will continue to grow as people accustomed to print, radio and eventually broadcast TV begin to die off.

My proposed solution is to update the legal framework that’s been in place for 25 years now, when social media did not exist. The vague guideline of “objectionable” is being predictably warped to include political speech and even rational scientific discussion. It is beyond obvious to anyone who reads the bill that these companies are not in any way keeping with the neutral spirit of section 230. We need updated language to force these companies into a neutral role free of censorship OR they need their liability protections removed and they can operate like any other news service. They can be just like CNN and pay for the MAGA hats of Catholic high school children that they slander.

Do you believe my concerns about social media censorship are misplaced? Are you in favor of transnational media conglomerates taking on a censorship role in the USA?

You seem to believe my clearly-stated concerns of social media censorship are hyperbolic, but the only hyperbole in this thread is your entire post here.

I’ve never been to a rally or chanted to have anyone locked up. Why do you believe the actions of others makes my concerns hypocritical?

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That’s not hyperbole. This shit happened for like four years and is continuing. This ain’t making it so someone can’t link a meme on Facebook. This is Republicans chanting to lock people up for thinking differently than them politically. I won’t speak for you, but I’ll take the second one being more concerning.

Wow talk about strawmen indeed. Did I put somewhere in my post that you had been? Clearly I wasn’t talking about you directly. If I was I would have just said your name.

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Uh, English is not my first language. But when we were studying academic English, we were taught exactly this. How academically even in a General Statement to use critical thinking and be able to show at least two sides of a problem, before making conclusions.

I am not sure how a NY Times journalist would have difficulties doing so, when my university ranked not even top 50 in Europe was able to teach me write critically academic work.

This is not the case as well. Steven Crowder, one of the most famous and watched
youtubers is demonetized and he has come several times speaking that advertisers have insisted being advertised on his videos without success. He is doing silly but funny adds now live for that reason.

Lets not get too much out of topic. But you do believe that this was a coup? Lmao.

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They chanted “Lock HER up” because she had an illegal server with classified information on it. Not because of different political beliefs.

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96

Huh? You don’t think them chanting to lock up governor Whitmer and AOC has anything to do with their political beliefs? Also do you think they chant that if Clinton is a Republican?

It started about Clinton and then expanded to anyone who didn’t think right politically. This isn’t a fact check on a vaccine meme. This is the actual (at the time) President of the United States saying lock them all up to political opponents. I’m just saying Republicans who constantly talk free speech and cancel culture might need to look in the mirror. Because they have done or attempted a shit ton of that in the last 20 years.

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What are you talking about? They mentioned Australian researchers reporting that it blocked coronavirus in cell cultures, but used a high dosage that may be harmful to humans. The FDA said this may be harmful to humans. Then they said a number of political trials have been launched to study it more and right now we don’t have conclusive evidence.

I have no idea what you expected them to write but that seems about as middle of the road as it gets.

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This will be my last replying the topic in this thread so as to keep @twojarslave and his topic on track… Or at least not contribute to further derailing. Also I have in mind to reply to you later @twojarslave.

This is possible. I’m sure we don’t get the same sources as you on EU news. I personally like The Hill.

This is actually a good recommendation. Ivermectin is a common component of pet medication and if you don’t know what the OTHER drugs in the medication do you risk seriously hurting yourself in your attempt to get ivermectin into your system… Kind of like those idiots that killed themselves by drinking chloroquine phosphate (which is NOT hydroxychloriquine), because they thought it was the same thing.

Recommendations against self-medication are good, not bad. They’re responsible, not irresponsible. It is well established that many people don’t know what the fuck drugs do. This has nothing to do with the area of study of ivermectin for covid treatment… and everything to do with a recommendation that people who have no idea what they’re doing not take drugs that could hurt them.

Hard to parse what you mean with the repeated use of double negatives, but as far as single sources go the British medical journal is actually a very reliable source.

Any source can be wrong so one should always check multiple sources, but the British medical journal has a very good track record and a very long history and is about as close to reliable as you’ll get.

It’s also not social media, so if you want to continue this topic maybe post in the Coronavirus thread.

Yeah. The concentrations used in the cell culture study are approximately 50-100 times higher than those reached by normal approved doses of ivermectin in people. There was no research on those doses in humans.

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99

…so you were pointing out perceived hypocrisy, but not of me or anyone in this thread. You were only calling people who chanted “lock her up” and also share my views on social media censorship hypocrites. Is that the point you were trying to make?

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How many advertisers? YouTube doesn’t operate on a micro level. Do you even understand there are different fees for different categories of content with regard to genres such as finance vs food vs politics?

There are several major content creators who have both ads enabled AND sponsors which they do their own ads for.

I also wouldn’t take his word for it wholesale. He may not be giving you the whole story. Surely you can’t be doing this while selectively questioning the words of others you don’t agree with?

Not that I’m calling him an outright liar. It’s a fact that he’s demonetized. However, there are several questions I would ask.

Would the advertisers he’s making ads for have even bought YouTube ads in the first place or are they using a different approach such as choosing and sponsoring specific content creators for their advertising campaigns?

Did HE approach advertisers that generally don’t buy YouTube ads but give you commissions if you drive audiences to their sites and make purchases through links with promo codes?

How do you think some of those gamers or even that kid unboxing toys get millions per annum? It’s not just from YouTube ads. They derive more income from sponsors.

Some content creators without many subscribers can even make decent money just from donations during livestreams because they have a niche market. They’d make peanuts from YouTube ad commissions.

My point is this shit isn’t so simple. There’s a lot of stuff I haven’t’ even gotten into when it comes to deriving revenue both for content creators and YouTube.

Do you see why you can’t just give me a couple of examples like Crowder to render the argument I was making invalid? I didn’t just pull it out of my ass or base it only on what is being claimed by these creators and 3rd hand information from other ones.

EDIT:

I’ll give Crowder props for his ability to entertain, though. He’s got some genuine talent. I loved his parody of that fat fuck from The Young Turks’ loony nephew. Seriously LMAO-ed when he decided to do an interview with Jordan Peterson as that parody of him without once breaking character.

That Eminem post-Trump victory rap parody was gold too. It was deadpan comedy at it’s best IMHO. If anyone doesn’t agree: Change my mind.

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