TALLAHASSEE -- Governor DeSantis slammed YouTube for removing a video of his recent roundtable on COVID-19.
The governor held a forum in March, with several experts including Stanford University's Dr. Scott Atlas, that countered conventional wisdom on the pandemic. Atlas called COVID-related lockdowns "the biggest ever public health mistake" in history. Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said masks should not be used by small children... comments which led to YouTube removing video of the governor's roundtable.
DeSantis called a Zoom conference Monday to denounce YouTube and its parent company, Google. He called the decision inconsistent, saying YouTube hosts videos promoting all sorts of misinformation, including people who claim the 9-11 attacks were an inside job by the U.S. government.
The governor called YouTube and Google "enforcers of a narrative" "in service of the ruling elite."
DeSantis asserted that lockdowns resulted in the deaths of thousands of people and that "freer exchange of ideas" might have headed off those casualties. YouTube reportedly said the comments in DeSantis' roundtable contradicted scientific consensus. DeSantis said that scientific consensus is "synthetic consensus" based on enforcement by big tech and corporate media.
Three of the participants in the March roundtable, Dr. Atlas, Dr. Bhattacharya, and Dr. Martin Kulldorff, rejoined him for Monday's rebuttal session. Bhattacharya pointed out that his comments on masks and children were based on standards set by the World Health Organization.
DeSantis quoted video from Dr. Anthony Fauci early in the outbreak in which he opposed mask wearing.
Dr. Atlas declared that "not only have the experts failed, they have failed to admit that they failed."
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