The person I am talking about is Dr. Palaniappan Manickam aka Dr. Pal, a board-certified gastroenterologist from Sacramento, California, who is also a YouTuber. He’s created various videos targeting Indian netizens, most of which are decent, but not without adding his own twist of misinformation, that are considered unscientific - some of them have been debunked here and here (auto-captions available).

I can’t help but think why YouTube would immediately remove videos that spread misinformation, but only when it affects the western world, but not the other part? Clearly, this guy’s video is in English, he participates in collaborations with other misinformation-peddling YouTubers - the consequences of which a few percent of the billion people in India have to face - which is still, a lot of people? Sure, you can complain that it is the responsibility of the Indian government - but they are themselves in this business of pseudo-science. When there’s no one taking responsibility, I can’t help but feel helpless about the lies people will hear.

Edit: And to why this matters, there’s an on-going case in the Supreme Court of India. Said “guru” sold Coronil kit, and mocked dying doctors. What did the kit do? It had high concentration of lead. Dr. Cyriac Abby Philips fought against it - and the system tried to punish him.

  • possibly a cat@lemmy.ml
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    2 months ago

    I think they can probably be held liable if damages can be proven and litigation is initiated through the US court system, but that is a big undertaking.

    YouTube has some algorithms set up to remove content that it believes is highly likely to lead to trouble for itself. They are legally compelled to not host certain types of content, but most removed content is not in this category and is instead removed for business/political/optics reasons. The algorithms are primed for moderating western content because that is where YouTube expects these legal/political risks to come from.

    In other words it is a very leaky net and there is no serious desire to make it airtight because it’s not a matter of mandatory regulation, it’s a matter of risk management. (If it were regulatory then the platform wouldn’t realistically be able to exist in the form that it does.)