WSJ
By The Editorial Board
Sept. 14, 2020
Li Wenliang, the Chinese doctor who tried to raise the alarm about the coronavirus in 2019 and was muzzled by the government before himself succumbing to the disease, has become a symbol of the way controls on speech can endanger the public. America’s civil liberties ensure that couldn’t happen here. But YouTube’s latest effort at politicized censorship of a reputable physician reminds us that such impulses aren’t unique to China.
On Friday Google’s YouTube platform notified Stanford University’s Hoover Institution that it had removed a 50-minute video interview with Scott Atlas, a neuroradiologist and Hoover fellow, that was published in June. Dr. Atlas has argued publicly—including in an interview in our pages—that the social harm from strict coronavirus lockdowns is severe.
YouTube’s notice to Hoover says “YouTube does not allow content that spreads medical misinformation that contradicts the World Health Organization (WHO) or local health authorities’ medical information about COVID-19.” Note that YouTube has appointed the WHO as an arbiter for what Americans can see on the platform. The WHO has sometimes been swayed by China’s Communist Party, and as recently as January it relayed Chinese assertions that there is “no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of the virus.
YouTube tells us in a statement that it removed the Atlas interview for “falsely stating that a certain age group cannot transmit the virus.” The company is apparently referring to Dr. Atlas’s remark, amid a discussion about school reopening, that children “do not even transmit the disease.”
That seems to have been an exaggeration for emphasis. Dr. Atlas corrected himself in his next answer, saying that transmission by children is “not impossible, but it’s less likely.” A body of research shows precisely that. An August review from the American Academy of Pediatrics cites data suggesting that “children are not significant drivers of the COVID-19 pandemic.” While children can transmit the virus, on current evidence they don’t seem to do so as readily as adults.
The Atlas interview was posted in June, yet YouTube only removed it in September. The public can be forgiven for wondering if Dr. Atlas’s appointment as a White House coronavirus adviser last month has made him a political target. A group of Stanford faculty published an open letter sliming their former colleague last week, and the video came down two days later. Does anyone think past videos of Joe Biden’s virus advisers will be taken down if a remark turns out to be incorrect?
If the virus nightmare has taught the world anything, it’s that no one has a monopoly over the right policy advice. That’s why a free society fosters debate—so that better policies can be arrived at incrementally through argument and evidence. Understanding a presidential adviser’s views is crucial to free debate and political competition. Google may take its cues from the WHO, but it is still an American company, and it shouldn’t be surprised if there is a democratic backlash to its censorship.