What follows is an over-analyzed over-done examination of the claim that our free speech was violated when YouTube and Vimeo removed two videos involving controversial COVID-19 medical research, and public health policy recommendations. What is arrived at are some thoughts regarding free speech, and why it is not relevant here regarding these videos.
Setting the Stage:
I refer above to its use in defending the two doctors in CA, Drs. Dan Erickson and Artin Massihi, who challenged the standard telling of COVID-19 pandemic. That was the free speech controversy from two or perhaps three weeks ago now. More recently we had the Plandemic video. Both of these involve challenges to the COVID-19 response and both were quickly removed from YouTube and Vimeo. And with the removal of these videos, people responded that we and the doctors responsible for these videos had been harmed. Specifically, both the doctors' and our own freedom of speech had been violated.
These videos have their supporters, obviously. Folks who claim that regardless of what you or more importantly, Google believe, the owner of YouTube, they would like to decide for themselves regarding the content of these videos. These videos, they say, simply offer a compelling alternative theory of the nature of the virus, and our responses to it. They assert that the only reason these videos were removed was they challenged the mainstream orthodox state-controlled tale regarding COVID-19. And in their removal our free speech has been violated.
Their challenges to the videos' removal does lead one to ask why they were removed. What does justify a video being removed from YouTube? Obviously explicit violence, graphic content. Pornography. Neither of these videos are any of those. Rather, these videos simply do challenge the standard narrative regarding our current public health crisis. They offer an alternative view of something that is effecting everyone of us today.
Why would we not want to consider such an alternative theory of what is going on? Are we that invested in our positions that we cannot consider such alternatives? Are we simply not able to consider the facts and evidence from other perspectives? Are we and more importantly YouTube and Vimeo not able to consider another theory of the events of the day?
Free Speech and the State:
With the above argument, it is very much a classic free speech argument. The videos contain no graphic violence, no nudity. Both simply offer positions which challenge assumptions embraced by our government, our public health system, and for that matter a large percentage of the public. And it seems at first blush correct to appeal to free speech here.
If you want to appeal to the historical application of free speech, the response to the pandemic is driven by our federal, state, and local governments. The policies they embrace are offered by our public health institutions - groups such as the Center for Disease Control and the National Institute of Health. All are part of the state, our government.
Our free speech as found in the Bill of Rights is what guides and allows for such a critique of how our leaders, our government, and likewise our bureaucracy have responded to this health crisis. And to have videos that provide such criticism removed is it seems to violate our right to free speech.
It seems only more appropriate to challenge our institutions, the government, considering the mortality rates, and the economic carnage in the last weeks and months. Such questions must be asked. One has to wonder if there is a better way to manage this virus. Is what we have in place truly the best that we could do? This is exactly why the founders put the right to free speech front and center in the Bill of Rights. They wanted the people to have a voice. The intent was to allow people to express their concerns and opinions - to challenge their government.
Considering all of this, the idea of free speech, and just how easy it is to embrace such questions and such videos, the question again becomes how is it that YouTube and Vimeo removed these videos? What justification is there for such?
Property versus Speech:
Now the initial response, typically to the above, is that YouTube and Vimeo have no relation to the Federal, State, and local governments and as such the First Amendment and with it the right to free speech is not really applicable. The companies controlling these platforms can remove what they want, whether the viewing public agrees and likes it or not.
Both are privately owned internet platforms distributing video content. If they see content that could be harmful to their business they are largely obligated to remove such. Maybe they fear that having such content on their platform risks censorship by the state. Better to self-regulate than have the federal government begin regulating their content. Or they simply see such content as not helpful regarding the current health-crisis. Their reasoning does not matter, it is their platform.
Any of these could justify their decision. Again, each respective company is responsible for their platform and the content offered through it. They do ultimately decide what videos will be seen on each. Private property trumps free speech. You are entitled to express your opinion, but you are not entitled to a microphone, a PA system, or a video on such an internet platform.
Many, however, are not happy with this read of the matter. Typically, their response is that granted YouTube and Vimeo are private entities, they should still acknowledge our right to free speech. No?
Those arguing such suggest YouTube and Vimeo even though they disagree with the opinions of the videos, do have some sort of obligation to distribute such content. In short, to have a fair and free public discourse, which allows for all opinions and positions, it should be required or allowed that controversial alternative views be offered. Youtube and Vimeo in many ways have become the public square, and as such all are entitled to express their positions on them. In short, Google, YouTube, and Vimeo cannot be forced to distribute such content, but morally it is the right thing to do. In the name of free speech, or perhaps in the spirit of free speech, they should allow for such videos.
The Requirements of Free Speech and Communication?
The above are the standard arguments. I want to offer here an alternative to the above. I want to suggest that YouTube and Vimeo’s actions were not violations of free speech because the videos were not expressions of free speech. Rather, the videos can be seen as an abuse of free speech or were not allowed the license or benefit of free speech.
I want to suggest here that Vimeo and YouTube took them down in light of two points we routinely fail to acknowledge regarding speech: That free speech, aka the spirit of free speech, are limited projects, and that most speech is in fact not free.
Let us look at the first of these points: That free speech and the spirit of free speech are limited projects. Let us begin again with free speech. Again, it has its roots in the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution. The first ten amendments of the US Constitution basically limit what the state or government can do.
The 1st Amendment of the US Constitution asserts:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Again, the 1st Amendment and the Bill of Rights limits what the state can do. It limits how the federal, state and local government engages with their citizens. In this case the state cannot make any law involving the abridgment of free speech. It cannot limit the free speech of its people. So far we are largely echoing what was said above. The point is that the 1st Amendment is the prohibition of state action regarding the speech rights of its citizenry.
Now, when you embrace the idea of free speech or the spirit of free speech, it is largely in regard to political views, personal opinions, or self-expression regarding the political sphere. Perhaps, the key here is not so much what is shared, but where it is shared. Places such as a newspaper's letter to the editor regarding the mayor or city council, or a township's zoning board meeting. Any local municipal board, school boards, park departments, sometimes police departments - all will have their public meetings, public forums to hash out a particular point or challenge. All requesting public comment and public involvement. All typically scheduling meetings open to the public with time dedicated to questions and discussing concerns from those concerned, the public.
We find this even in corporate environments. We find management routinely attempting to encourage employees to share their actual opinions. They beg customers to share what they actually think of products, facilities and services. In each of these the desire is for all to participate and engage. That said these events are very much regulated and controlled by management. The same can be said of the school and zoning boards, and likewise the city hall meetings.
In each of the above examples free speech is structured. Whether it has to be approved by the newspaper's editor or that you are given a few minutes to raise some concerns at a local zoning board meeting, or that you go to a business's event to discuss a new factory site or take a survey regarding a service or product. Each typically offers some time for questions or concerns, each allows for some to express their opinions and raise issues.
None of the above allow for one to offer a full dissertation challenging the organization's position, actions, or interests. None of the above, are going to allow you to take over the meeting or event and present your own position, whatever it is. If that does happen it certainly is not welcome. Such behavior could lead to arrest or at the least threat of such.
What we see in each of these is free speech regulated. This is not an indictment of free speech, but more a fact of basic communication. To communicate with another, to convey a message to another simply requires a process, a procedure, a certain time, a certain place, a certain mail address, a certain format. Even regarding First Amendment free speech rights, one cannot threaten another, one cannot just start offering up foul language, one cannot randomly yell fire in a crowded theater. Even 1st Amendment speech rights are regulated limited. Regardless of where you are, there is a procedure, a protocol required to communicate, and the same is true of free speech.
Again this requirement for process or procedure is required for any type of communication. Whether, it is a wink of an eye, a handshake, a dash of Morris code, a poem, or appearing on TV. All of these and communication in general have basic requirements for the message to be sent and received. To watch an interview on TV requires that you know what a TV is, what an interview is. The point is that for an any act of communication to happen requires certain conditions to be met.
So it is not surprising that moments where you engage in what we call free speech, also have conditions. That is assuming that "free speech" is comparable to a handshake, a wink, a conversation, etc. I would suggest that the requirement for free speech is that it is language which challenges politically. And that can be applied in a group of three friends, or in the pages of a local newspaper, or on YouTube. Wherever it is speech that challenges the situation politically. If you are making an assertion that is unpopular, it is in the domain of free speech.
Free speech is often provocative and confrontational but always political, meaning you are challenging someone who somehow holds some type of power, some type or authority, most commonly political or economic. Free speech does not, generally, work against military power, law enforcement, nor a thug that simply embraces brute force and violence.
Free speech is speech that challenges power structures. It in fact reinforces those power structures. It reinforces the social contract, whether this contract involve a state or a group of business partners, some senior and some junior.
Going back to our two videos that we began with, both are challenging political power, specifically federal and state government policies initiated in response to the COVID-19 virus. And as I said above, those defending these videos and their authors assert that this is exactly why they were removed - the videos challenged those in power.
The response to such a claim, however, is the millions of videos on YouTube and Vimeo. Many of them involving every conceivable political discussion. Many of them involving discussions of COVID-19 and our response to it, our failures and our successes. Likewise there are videos of every political theme, challenging Republican and Democratic talking points. There is Marxist theory and likewise call to arms for capitalist, even the rallies of the President are there. Of course, some of these are more dangerous than others, but all are allowed and present.
And there are exceptions. YouTube has with some controversy eliminated from their collections videos advocating Nazi and Neo-Nazi positions. Typically, though YouTube and Vimeo embrace the spirit of free speech, They welcome videos critical of their platforms and their failings. Whether they listen to or consider such videos is another thing, but such are available on both platforms.
So, these two videos were not removed due to their political challenges to our pandemic response. And considering that, their removal is not a violation of free speech or its spirit. Regardless of their actual threat to those in power, that was not why they were removed.
Once again. . . Why were they removed?
We still do not know why those videos were removed. We argue above it has nothing to do with free speech. And I have I hope explained above what I meant when I asserted earlier that free speech and the spirit of free speech are limited projects. I still owe an explanation regarding my claim that speech is commonly not free, though I have I think at least opened the door to such an explanation.
Let's start again with the idea that all language, all communication, requires certain conditions be met, for them to occur. This suggest that various groups, various professions, all have unique vocabularies, and communicate in varies ways. All of which are associated with the tasks, functions, and goals of the individual, groups, cultures, etc. This in turn includes such professions as medical doctors, medical researchers, epidemiologists, etc.
We can see this in how a General Practitioner / Medical Doctor ideally engages his or her patients, versus a Medical Researcher presenting the results of his or her research study. In each, audience, function, the practices involved betrays who each of the two are.
In short, communicating with patients would typically involve the explanation of medical diagnoses, medical procedures and medical testing etc., and all with an awareness of who the patient is. A medical researcher on the other hand will come with a summary of his conclusions, a hypothesis, a history of how he or she arrived there, an overview of the experiments conducted to test the hypothesis, etc. These are normal everyday practices in these medical communities. A nurse in an ER would likewise have a different set of practices, and would likewise be communicating those practices embraced in the ER in a certain fashion.
In none of the above do we find that Youtube videos are standard procedure. It is not how medical research is communicated. Nor is YouTube how doctors or nurses communicate with, or discuss their patients. Nor are Youtube videos audiences typically interested in such research. Now, the video involving the two doctors was actually a press briefing. The information was for a general audience.
Yet, what was the information. Without going into detail, they were making recommendations regarding public health and individual behavior. That, however, is not the standard method of the medical community, of which all are part of here. Typically, before going public with research results or any announcement to the public, there is discussion within the community. The doctors, nor the creators of Plandemic had no consultations with others in the field, no sharing of their data with others in the profession. There was no review of the assumptions upon which their work rested, despite the fact that their conclusions challenged the entire public health community's response to the current pandemic.
In short, what they offered could be seen as medical malpractice. To offer to the general public recommendations based upon what could be a flawed study, that was not peer reviewed, that was not shared with their fellow doctors, nor epidemiologists, nor anyone else. They just went public. And such is dangerous considering that they were making recommendations to the public on how we respond to this current health crisis. For medical doctors to disregard policy, and procedure, especially at such a time is to risk doing harm, is not acceptable.
The reason that the doctors' video and the other Plandemic video were removed was because they both were affronts to medical science by medical doctors, members of the medical community. They chose to do this not through a scientific process but rather through press briefings and in the case of "Plandemic" a documentary. Neither their work nor the way in which they shared that work involved the standard processes or procedures in either the healthcare or the medical research fields. And further, these actions were done as doctors, as members of the healthcare and medical research communities. In short, they took advantage of their standing in these fields, yet disregarded the very practices and procedures embraced by these communities, and which give them such standing.
And it is this fact that caused these videos to be removed. They disregarded the practices, procedures, and obligations of the medical communities they were part. Further they did this in the middle of a major health crisis. In doing so they lost their license to free speech. By disregarding the practices and procedures of the healthcare community, they lost the right to introduce themselves as medical doctors offering a medical research study. They lost any right, any license they had for making such claims. What they did may or may not be grounds for medical malpractice, but it certainly justifies the removal of their videos from YouTube and Vimeo.
And this in turn goes to my claim that speech is not free. Typically, speech is dictated by the conditions of who the speaker is, where he or she sits, and what he or she has done to be allowed to speak. Has the speaker met the requirements to speak? In the above we have medical doctors who did not abide by medical practice. And medical practice, like any other field or profession, does determine what can be said, when it can be said, and likewise how it is said. And if someone ignores these requirements and obligations, in the medical profession or any other profession, such speakers should and will be ignored or challenged.
One does have the right of free speech in the medical field. One can politically challenge in it. Just not in regard to the patients they treat, nor the research they do. Typically, however, not at the time of treatment. They can and protest and challenge medical facilities, practices, medical findings, fellow doctors, but here again there are procedures for each.
Last point. I am sure there are other medical researchers with similarly disreputable research that can be found on YouTube and Vimeo. Their videos I am sure continue to be available on Vimeo and YouTube. Why have they not been removed you ask? Why is every person that speeds on the highway not ticketed? Their license not taken away?
