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submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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YouTube starts mass takedowns of videos promoting ‘harmful or ineffective’ cancer cures | The platform will also take action against videos that discourage people from seeking professional medical ...::YouTube will remove content about harmful or ineffective cancer treatments or which “discourages viewers from seeking professional medical treatment.”

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[–] Crunchypotat77@lemm.ee 57 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Thank you. Finally.

My mum had cancer. The number of such bullshit videos i got sent, offering no real hope, was painful. It's heartbreaking to toy with people in that situation.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 1 year ago

that probably means that advertisers started to have issue with that, and it didn't bother them for well over decade

[–] Burn_The_Right@lemm.ee 13 points 1 year ago

How rude! Now where will conservatives "do their own research"?

[–] Hexagon@feddit.it 10 points 1 year ago

Should have happened many years ago really

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This is the best summary I could come up with:

YouTube hopes that this policy framework will be flexible enough to cover a broad range of medical topics, while finding a balance between minimizing harm and allowing debate.

In its blog post, YouTube says it would take action both against treatments that are actively harmful, as well as those that are unproven and are being suggested in place of established alternatives.

YouTube’s updated policies come a little over three years after it banded together with some of the world’s biggest tech platforms to make a shared commitment to fight covid-19 misinformation.

While the major tech platforms stood united in early 2020, their exact approaches to covid-19 misinformation have differed since that initial announcement.

Most notably, Twitter stopped enforcing its covid-19 misinformation policy in late 2022 following its acquisition by Elon Musk.

Meta has also softened its moderation approach recently, rolling back its covid-19 misinformation rules in countries (like the US) where the disease is no longer considered a national emergency.

I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

YouTube hopes that this policy framework will be flexible enough to cover a broad range of medical topics, while finding a balance between minimizing harm and allowing debate.

there's nothing to debate

[–] Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'd say that claim is debatable

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

if you want to determine efficacy of a treatment, you run a clinical trial, not a debate

[–] BilboBargains@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can we run a clinical trial on that comment?

[–] XTL@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 year ago

Reader described experiencing mild discomfort but no visible signs of cancer.

[+] Reva@startrek.website 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

that's why we have peer review, replications, editorial standards and so on, if something's funky with your paper you get a retraction. generally scientific method got pretty good at getting better description of reality over time

[–] Zebov@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Who determines what is ineffective or harmful?

I mean chemo isn't puppies and rainbows.

[–] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Maybe let's go with science?

Chemo is one thing.

The Steve Jobs pancreatic cancer buster plan, not so much.

[–] Isthisreddit@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago

Science and scientific studies help determine what is ineffective or harmful, the problem is the FDA doesn't have authority over shit plenty of things - a person can go on YouTube and say drinking their special bottled water will cure cancer, and they don't fall into FDA guidelines so they are free to claim whatever they want, essentially. These woo-woo type cure-alls have gotten into trouble with the FDA because of their ridiculous and unfactual, unproven claims, but that's usually where the lawyer wordsmiths show up to change the wording just enough to not get into trouble with the FDA.

There is a whole history of pseudoscience as an industry and how it was able to bribe/lobby for its current position in public view (since you even have to ask this question)

[–] altima_neo@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I mean chemo is effective. It fucks you up. But it's pretty good at "curing" cancer.

[–] SiriusCybernetics@lemmy.ca -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Maybe someone should start a social media platform that only publishes the truth. Truth something. And it could be moderated by a really smart AI that is the final arbiter. It would know what’s true because it’s scraped the whole of human knowledge.

[–] dx1@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

We did that, the answer was 42

[+] HikuNoir@lemmy.world -34 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Well colour me shocked. That YT would do the bidding of big pharma.. Never.

[–] Starayo@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You're right, we should let these vile scammers prey on vulnerable people when they're at their most hopeless. They don't deserve their money! They won't have any use for it!

[–] Thorny_Thicket@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 year ago

The fact that there's debate about the efficancy of certain medicine doesn't change the fact that we atleast have a relatively good idea about what doesn't work. People like Steve Jobs would probably have a thing or two to say about that aswell.

[+] Reva@startrek.website 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

[deleted]

[–] dx1@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"Big pharma" companies do have a potential interest in covering up the harms of medicines in their patent rosters. If it doesn't straight up kill their customers, it's less money they have to spend on R&D for less harmful treatments.

Not to imply random snake oil assholes selling ivermectin etc. don't have similar, worse interests. But no one in the space whatsoever is just immune from standing to gain from doing something bad without serious oversight from all angles. That includes vigorous and scientifically-minded public conversation about it - not just walled off to professionals. There's no magical formula here, you need public education and open information, to not only just have correct information but refute incorrect information. If you have this big walled garden around "The Truth" and delete everything else, well, we just lived through the consequence of that with COVID, it breeds distrust and pseudoscience.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

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

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

there are probably more, starting with aspirin (salicin), modern opioids (opium) and modern anticholinergics (atropine). there's also plenty of stuff in traditional medicine that maybe does nothing beneficial or even kinda works but it's way too toxic for modern regulatory agencies, like all heavy metals and aconitine

[–] Neuron@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Taking these medicines in the forms they are found in nature is a horrible idea. Most of the plants they come from are poisonous because the therapeutic index of most of the drugs here are low, meaning the line between medicine and poison is very fine. Purifying the ingredient and allowing tight control of the dosage is the reason any of these are able to be used safely. Please don't go around eating bits of foxglove or belladonna.

As you've seen, modern medicine is not shy about taking ingredients found in nature when they actually have a useful purpose in medicine, and enabling them to be actually used safely instead of taking some random unknown dosage of a potentially deadly drug and hoping for the best.

Except for fixing vitamin and mineral deficiencies, supplements are ineffective at best and dangerous at worst. They're in desperate need of better regulation in the United States. They scam tons of people and get away with ridiculous claims like fighting dementia based on no evidence that would be totally illegal for any actual pharmaceutical company to claim, all while selling bottles of stuff with "proprietary formulas" or claiming to have plants that aren't even in there when independent researchers look at them. All totally legal by the way, no requirement for ingredients listed on a supplement to reflect reality. Stay away if you value your health or your money. Not saying pharmaceutical companies are always shining beacons of beneficence here, obviously I have many problems with them as well, but they at least have some sort of regulated evidence base for the most part.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

i'm with you, i'm just saying that the bits of "traditional medicine" that work (as in, have active compounds) become medicine without adjectives

Taking these medicines in the forms they are found in nature is a horrible idea

not really, if you know how much of the active compound is out there. but this limits applicability heavily (can't put herbal extract in iv bag). pure compounds are much better (better stability, higher degree of quality control etc)

[+] bruzzard@lemmy.world -36 points 1 year ago (5 children)

The need for a free internet that is community-regulated cannot be more urgent. This move will indiscriminately ban any kind of speech, important traditional therapies, etc. Implemented, this will be a huge loss to our collective knowledge and ability to organise as communities.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

at this point "important traditional therapies" don't exist. if they were working, these things are tested, standardized or sometimes used as a starting point of something else, at which point they become therapies without adjectives. this is how we got artemether and digoxin. everyone in pharma is looking for new stuff, this is why they're looking for alkaloids in obscure sea sponges and random vines, sometimes it's the entire thing, but more often not. this is also how we got taxol

what are you saying could have been true in 70s, but by now almost all attested traditional therapies were tested already and developed into something new that works and passes all regulatory tests

you can't just throw random bullshit at desperate people and expect everything to work. you can expect them to pay, that's how scams work. also i don't see, in most charitable terms, how restricting scammers is a barrier to organizing

[–] nous@programming.dev 0 points 1 year ago

IMO there is nothing wrong with alternative/traditional techniques so long as they don't actively harm the person and they are not expensive and they don't discourage seeking actual medical treatment. Sadly a lot of these treatments break one or all of those caveats - and those should be cracked down on. Yeah they might not do much more than a placebo effect on the person - but the placebo effect is very powerful and can help them manage or lessen their symptoms.

If someone wants to take some herbal tea to manage pain or chicken soup to help with a cold there is nothing wrong with that. So long as it is not actively hurting them or stopping them from actual treatments or causing them to pay far more than need to for it. IMO we should be making more use of the placebo effect as it is a powerful effect, and there are ways to do it ethically with out trying to scam people or lead them away from modern medicine.

Even a some clinical medicines, treatments and even surgery has been shown to have no or little more than a placebo effect. Though once difference here is that when these are found they tend to stop being used. But does go to show how powerful the placebo effect is.

Hell, you could make a whole market off of sugar pills with completely honest marketing as the placebo effect still works even when you know it is only a placebo. So long as it is reasonably priced and honest about what it is (though this could very easily be abused for profit as well - so would need to be regulated quite well).

That said, I do think harmful or predatory treatments should be cracked down on. And sadly a lot of alternatives at the moment do fall into this category. Additionally I also think the pharmaceutical industry should be cracked down on as well as they do some very predatory practices as well, even if their treatments are more effective it does not mean they need to charge an arm and a leg for it.

[–] dx1@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This always struck me as a lazy approach. Traditional methodologies for medicine may not be as rigorous as Western scientific ones, but they weren't just universally so stupid that they couldn't figure out something didn't even work. At least not across the board. You want to vet them to the highest standard possible, but you can't just assume they don't work by default, a lot of that stuff hasn't been studied at all.

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

if it's working, it's working when you test it rigorously. one such big screening of traditional medicines happened in china somewhere in 70s: they collected 2k+ traditional malaria medicines, of which 350+ were tested on mice and found ONE new compound that had any activity and could be used safely in humans, so yes, there's plenty that didn't work

getting new active compounds is hard. most of the time it's easier to look up to nature, because some fungi or sponge had millions of years to get that one poison that wards off predators just right, and because of that it might be active in humans as well. whether is it useful clinically is another question. using things from traditional medicine is another filter on top of that, but far from perfect based on limited diagnosis available to ancients, limited to nonexistent disease mechanism understanding, limited plant availability, magical thinking, and more

and yes, there's plenty of things in traditional medicine market that are known not to work. realgar, shark fin, powdered rhino horn, nigella seeds, cow piss and many more do absolutely nothing at best. intricate magical systems behind their inclusion in medicine don't add any value or validity

[–] skillissuer@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

or turmeric, i have very strong opinions on curcumin, read this to understand why: https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/curcumin-will-waste-your-time

[–] dx1@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Well, that does get into the question of how the other methodologies work. TCM does have that fairly dumb system where they thing of everything in terms of dualities and approach medicine accordingly, like, this plant is "hot" so it will help you if you have a "cool" disease. You can't make the same generalization about the efficacy of that as you could about another methodology altogether.

Also anti-malarials are a really specific thing. Practically nothing is going to be a specific antidote so you're looking at really haphazard things like bolstering immune response. If you take a broader category like say, anti-inflammatories, you'll find a lot more effective traditional remedies.

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