Ask HN: Googler/YTer Able to Help with CIDRAP's Dr Osterholm's YT Strike?

8 pointsrabboRubble4y ago3 comments

Dr. Michael Osterholm's podcast and associated YouTube channel, The Osterholm Update: COVID-19, earned a YouTube strike against his YouTube channel for COVID-19 disinformation. I believe this strike was against episode 61: Divided by Delta, which was removed from the YouTube platform. His team challenged the strike and failed to remove the strike and his channel is at risk of being deplatformed for disinformation. In episode 62, he described his attempt at countering misinformation in episode 61 as the reason for having an algorithm capturing his post as disinformation. He's caught in the position of being unable to talk about the disinformation and countering said disinformation, because mentioning banned words could trigger the automated strike. Anybody from Google / YouTube able to reach out to UofM's legal team to sort out his channel? Osterholm said that he had asked his university's legal group for assistance. It would be awesome if his channel could gain verified status to provide a rational voice against all the COVID-19 misinformation out there.

This is Osterholm's wiki bio, notably he is the head of CIDRAP he was named as an advisor by Biden during his transition : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Osterholm

Link to CIDRAP and the type of material he's putting out under his podcast for the public's benefit: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/

Link to his YouTube channel. It's a real shame he's unable to get a verified channel due to his low subscription numbers. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars

I am not affiliated with Dr. Osterholm, the University of Minnesota, CIDRAP, or his podcast support team. I'm just a listener.

3 comments

D_Chock4y ago

I read the pod cast's transcripts and could not see the reason why misinformation was claimed. Apparently Dr. Osterholm made reference to a misinformation statement and did not make the statement as an advocacy position. None the less the statement was part of the transcripts in black and white. I think it was an algorithmic error by the search engine because it could not pick up on the context on why the statement wording appeared.

cblconfederate4y ago

That's ridiculous. Osterholm's early interview in joe rogan was the most accurate prediction of thinks to come and he has been consistently reasonably cautious. Anyway youtube is a pit of disinformation so not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

rabboRubbleOP4y ago

I agree. Whatever YT's disinformation problem is, 100% not going to be helped by striking Osterholm's podcasts and channel off the platform :(

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