Let’s hear the argument, let’s see the evidence that YouTube used to decide it was misinformation. Let’s have a debate. Science works best when we have an open debate.
Forgive me for the clickbait title of this article. It’s not my style to make such histrionic, overwrought allegations. However, it is my style to accurately quote people, and I am merely repeating the words our NIH director, Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, who said things like this about censorship, not long ago:
Those are strong words, and they seem to apply well to our current moment. What calamity befell Dr. Bhattacharya to make him say this? Was he fired? Was his research defunded? Did no one know his name or what he believed? Was “media/social media suppression” really the only thing standing between Dr. Bhattacharya and a perfect pandemic response?
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya would have done amazing, incredible things
Dr. Bhattacharya felt grievously victimized because he was called “fringe” in an email, and he lost a YouTube video and some Tweets. To him, this was a calamity of epic proportions with grave implications for the future of free speech in the U.S. After losing a YouTube video in 2021, Florida Governor Ron Desantis put out a press release titled GOVERNOR RON DESANTIS HOLDS ROUNDTABLE WITH PUBLIC HEALTH EXPERTS TO DISCUSS BIG TECH CENSORSHIP. It contained the following quotes:
“There’s nothing more dangerous than being able to censor what is said in a country, because then you are simply not ever going to even hear the truth. And you are entering into a phase of countries that we used to criticize severely like the USSR, like communist China…I mean, this is almost the end of our civilization if we have this sort of censorship, I’m afraid,” said Dr. Scott Atlas.
“For science to work, you have to have an open exchange of ideas…If you’re going to make an argument that something is misinformation, you should provide an actual argument. You can’t just take it down and say, ‘Oh, it’s misinformation’ without actually giving a reason…Let’s hear the argument, let’s see the evidence that YouTube used to decide it was misinformation. Let’s have a debate. Science works best when we have an open debate,” said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya.
“We need to have debates, rather than censoring…When we do censoring and slandering, even if we are willing to continue to speak out, there are many other scientists that I know, including junior scientists, who do not want to speak out because they see what’s happening to us. They don’t want to have to go through the same thing. So, we really need a debate,” said Dr. Martin Kulldorff.
Again, these Big Feelings from famous doctors were about a single YouTube video. When Dr. Bhattacharya claims to have been silence and censored, this is what he is talking about, though he may have had motives beyond pure scientific discourse to keep people enraged and engaged with his social media feed.
Reasonable people can disagree about whether Big Tech and Biden administration overstepped their bounds in trying to limit online disinformation. Maybe government officials should have yawned and said nothing as anti-vaccine lies killed droves of Americans. Dr. Bhattacharya sure thinks so, and he wasn’t afraid to challenge the government. He excoriated them obsessively and even took a case about this to the Supreme Court. According to the Wikipedia article Murthy v. Missouri:
The lawsuit alleges that President Joe Biden and his administration were “working with social media giants such as Meta, Twitter, and YouTube to censor and suppress free speech, including truthful information, related to COVID-19, election integrity, and other topics, under the guise of combating ‘misinformation’.”
Imagine if the fate of social media posts was the sole concern of scientists today. It all seems pretty trivial now, doesn’t it? Yet, this hysterical, provocative language is how Dr. Bhattacharya routinely depicted a government that requested Facebook limit deadly anti-vaccine disinformation.
This article was about social media content.
The End of Free Speech is the End of Science.
In reality, Dr. Bhattacharya was not silenced. As the video below shows, he was loud, prominent, and influential. He didn’t come out of nowhere when Trump plunked him from obscurity to head the NIH. He was a celebrity on Fox News and Twitter. Billionaires sung his praises. He made an enormous number of YouTube videos, many of them about how he had been censored. He was on countless podcasts and wrote many columns in international newspapers. He advised presidents and governors. He testified in courts and before Congress. He was everywhere, except a hospital.
Dr. Bhattacharya is doing just fine today, and he was always doing just fine. While his feelings may have been hurt, he was famous, healthy, and gainfully employed. Indeed, he lost his Supreme Court case, as he couldn’t show he had been harmed in any way. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the opinion, stating:
To establish standing, the plaintiffs must demonstrate a substantial risk that, in the near future, they will suffer an injury that is traceable to a government defendant and redressable by the injunction they seek. Because no plaintiff has carried that burden, none has standing to seek a preliminary injunction.
She’s right. Dr. Bhattacharya was so “censored” that he became the director of the NIH.
Moreover, Dr. Bhattacharya’s experience was hardly unique. He was called “fringe” because he claimed the mass infection of unvaccinated people under 60-70 would end the pandemic in 3-6 months. Big deal. Dr. Bhattacharya wrote a fake “review” of my book and called me childish names for pointing out the flaws in his “plan.” It’s not fun being on the receiving end of such juvenile, content-free tantrums, but it’s not that bad either.
Additionally, Dr. Bhattacharya was not the only doctor who had their voice curtailed in one way or another. I wrote about being silenced for political reasons in an article titled I’ve Been Silenced, Censored, and Cancelled. The Reason Why Matters. I didn’t center my identity around this or expect anyone to pity me. The doctors I knew who died of COVID were truly silenced. Rather, I wrote about my canceled speech, once, fearing that it might foreshadow worse things to come.
In contrast, Dr. Bhattacharya treated his feelings and social media content as the central story of the pandemic. Nothing mattered more to him. While I never heard him express remorse over a young life lost to COVID, he produced an overwhelming amount of material depicting himself as both a “censored” scientist and true champion of free speech. He testified before Congress about having been a victim of a fictional “Ministry of Truth” gave and self-important talks with grandiose titles such as The End of Free Speech is the End of Science, A Personal COVID Perspective. Dr. Bhattacharya still feels he’s owed a public apology because he was called “fringe” in an email 4.5 years ago.
Dr. Bhattacharya’s identity was entirely based around grievance and victimhood, and the right-wing hive mind was eager to perpetuate the myth that he was a suppressed Galileo (Reason, Wall Street Journal, Epoch Times, Sensible Medicine, The Free Press, UnHerd, Tablet, The Heartland Institute, The Spectator, Fox News, Rubin Report, ZDoggMD). They agreed he was the pandemic’s Main Character and that his Tweets and YouTube videos mattered more than the victims of his misinformation.
Dr. Bhattacharya promised the horrors would end once he took office. He testified during his confirmation hearing that he would welcome dissent and promote a culture of free speech. He promised a new era of open discussion, where scientists would finally be free to Tweet without repercussions. No one would have to suffer or fear as he did. “We will never use this agency to censor scientists who disagree,” he said recently on Fox News.
NIH Director Removes Four Main Scientists Amid Massive Staff Purge
As with COVID, the depressing reality on the ground bears no relation to Dr. Bhattacharya’s cheerful Fox News fantasy. Though Dr. Bhattacharya promised to tolerate dissent, many articles about the NIH contain remarks from officials who ask to “remain anonymous for fear of retaliation.” Why is this? What are they afraid of?
Today, scientists have much more to worry about than their social media feeds. Scientists are being purged, research is being defunded, words are being banned, thought is being policed, universities and medical journals are being attacked. Foreign scientists are staying away, and many domestic ones want to flee. Here are some recent headlines:
- NIH Director Removes Four Main Scientists Amid Massive Staff Purge
- Women, Minorities Fired in Purge of NIH Science Review Boards
- Trump Officials Will Screen NIH Funding Opportunities
- NIH Reels with Fear, Uncertainty About Future of Scientific Research
- NIH Freezes Funds to Harvard and Four Other Universities, But Can’t Tell Them
- Leading Nutrition Scientist Departs N.I.H., Citing Censorship
- Nobel-Winning Scientist Says His Researchers Are Fleeing the Country Because Of Trump’s Cruelty
- I Work at NIH. The Fear Among Staff Is Palpable
- Here Are the Words Putting Science in the Crosshairs of Trump’s Orders
- NIH Sued Over ‘Ideological Purge’ of DEI, Covid and Vaccine Research
- Medical Journals Get Letters From DOJ
- Growing Signs of Discontent — and Resistance — Within NIH
- Scientists Say NIH Officials Told Them to Scrub mRNA References on Grants
- At NIH, ‘Everyone is on Edge’ as They Brace for Deep Cuts and More Centralized Control
- Survey: Trump Policies Push 75% of Scientists to Consider Leaving U.S.
- Fauci Allies, Covid Vaccine Officials Get Ax at NIH
- Nearly 300 Scientists Apply for French Academic Program Amid Trump Cuts in U.S.
- NIH Bans All Future Grants to Universities with DEI Programs or Israel Boycotts
- A Sense of Foreboding Hangs Over the National Institutes of Health
- ‘Chaos and Confusion’ at the N.I.H., the Crown Jewel of American Science
- NIH Removing Outside Scientific Advisers Who Evaluate Research
This is the state of science and research under Dr. Bhattacharya’s leadership and in the administration in which he proudly serves. “Massive” cuts to the NIH budget are on the horizon. Along with his COVID misinformation, this will be Dr. Bhattacharya’s permanent legacy. No one is going to care about the YouTube video he lost in 2021 or that he was called “fringe.”
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya’s legacy
You should be ashamed of yourself
Perhaps one day Dr. Bhattacharya will stop talking about free scientific debate and demonstrate a commitment to it. Until then, as with his flawed COVID pronouncements, we are allowed to remember and amplify what he said about censorship. He had strong feelings on the topic and expressed them often. The stakes today are higher than Tweets and YouTube videos. Like Dr. Bhattacharya, I call it like I see it, though I don’t feel nearly as safe and I once did. However, if I could speak freely, I might say something like this:
Those were the words of a man who knew he had nothing to fear from the government, but every incentive to pretend they were out to get him.