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I don't know about censored, but from what I remember there was a bit of an about face on masking. This timeline seems to mesh with what I remember: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-07-27/timeline-cd...

And I think some platforms (specifically, I believe YouTube and Twitter, but maybe others) prevented or de-funded etc., content that was contradictory to CDC guidelines.



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What sort of topics are currently being censored? I haven't seen examples of things being suppressed, but that's also why I'm asking; because I wouldn't have seen things that got suppressed.

Depends on what exactly you mean by 'censored'. You don't need to suppress every mention of something to have an effect.

The most recent US example I can think of is that the Trump administration has been reasonably successful in suppressing hospital C19 images:

https://theintercept.com/2020/12/27/covid-photography-hospit...

But every administration in living memory (and probably without that qualifier, too) has suppressed something.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_in_the_United_State...


This is what the article says the government did:

> urging the major social media platforms to remove misleading or false content about the Covid-19 pandemic

They didn’t tell them what they had to do, and didn’t censor anything specifically from these companies, so can you explain what exactly you mean by “censors in the west”?


So I'd guess that your sensored content is probably a take like "masks are bad" or "covid is a hoax". And the reason I'd guess that, is because the word you're looking for is "censored". Is that right?

Sure. The Covid lab leak theory. One argument for censoring it was it incited anti-Asian violence.

Apparently now it’s a viable theory but rewind 9 months ago and one could see a hate speech law silencing any debate.


What is being censored, and how is it being censored?

If they are being censored it is clearly not working because the story is all over the news.

It is possible they are being censored in some places because they look exactly like an influence operation, and COVID-19 misinformation is a huge problem for online platforms right now.

We have people out in the real world right now protesting about Bill Gates' mind control vaccine - activated by 5G - because they have been "memetically compromised" via social media.

I expect it might have gone a little differently if the claims in the paper had been peer reviewed.


They've already been heavily censoring covid news.

Why confuse the issue with a comment about masks?

The point here is REAL information was censored effectively killing the conversation for nearly a year.

We should all be concerned when a corporation has the power to determine 'truth' with this outsized impact.


You say this as if there isn't widespread confirmed censorship AS WELL, for example, https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/may/27/facebook-...

That's FB censoring discussion of the origins of a pandemic responsible for millions of deaths, and even banning people who posted about the possibility.



How was any of that censored? I definitely have seen all that.

One of those is actually a major trial that had coverage all over any platform.


by censoring, I mean any action by HN admins that are meant to decrease visibility of comments and/or stories

That was one example everyone knows about. Talk about Ivermectin, or previously, WIV lab release hypothesis... all censored at the time. (now they have allowed some discussion again, but the damage is done and agenda realized).

We have not censored anything -- see my comment here https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36898661 (and others on this thread).

You may want to reconsider relying on /r/COVID19 as a source of information. There's been a lot of criticism on how they are applying censorship, and no transparency around it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/f2jiyz/uclo_jun...


You may want to reconsider relying on /r/COVID19 as a source of information. There's been a lot of criticism on how they are applying censorship, and no transparency around it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/conspiracy/comments/f2jiyz/uclo_jun...


Moderately interesting article, but what evidence is there that sites have begun self-censoring? There's no reference to the title in the article.

Link to where the censorship occurs, please?
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