One should believe the science, and the scientific evidence is overwhelming that ivermectin (IVM) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) are effective for preventing and treating COVID, especially when combined with other drugs.

The studies supporting this conclusion are readily available and endorsed by clinicians and scientists with awesome credentials.  See, for example, the work of Pierre Kory and his team, the BIRD Group, Peter McCullough, Harvey Risch, Brett Weinstein/Steve Kirsch/Robert Malone, and many others.

The information has been available since the start of the pandemic.  As early as April of 2020, some clinicians were saving their patients and pleading, in vain, with the health authorities to investigate the value of these drugs.

Throughout this time, the major social media companies have suppressed this vital information.  Facebook seems to be the most ruthless.  YouTube and Twitter are close behind, though some information escapes the eagle eye of the censors.

Facebook's censorship fits ill with its assurance in its SEC filings:

COVID-19 Response. In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we launched multiple initiatives to support the global public health community's work to keep people safe and informed. We took steps to provide our community with access to accurate information, stop misinformation and harmful content, and support global health experts, local governments, businesses, and communities. . . We also launched an information center on Facebook and Instagram to provide our community with real-time updates, information, and the ability to offer and ask for help. We have already connected over two billion people to authoritative COVID-19 information[.]

In its zeal to "keep people safe and informed," Facebook also deplatforms groups that question the safety of the vaccines.

The wages of this sin of official mendacity and private enforcement of The Official Narrative is death.  Of the 600,000 Americans who died of COVID (at least according to official numbers), a defensible estimate is that 500,000 could have been saved.  And it continues, even as the evidence in favor of these treatments continues to confirm their value.

These facts raise a puzzling issue of corporate governance.  All of these companies are controlled by boards of directors composed of the crème de la crème of the American elite.  See the members of the Board of Facebook, Twitter, and Alphabet (which owns YouTube).  They are well compensated.  For example, Alphabet directors get $75,000 to $100,000 in fees, plus bonuses such as stock options that can boost total annual compensation to almost half a million.

Board members are mostly from the corporate and financial worlds, but not entirely.  A Twitter director is Fei-Fei Liu, a Canadian cancer researcher, whose personal opinion would be worth knowing.  Facebook's board includes Peter Thiel, one of the most brilliant entrepreneurs of our time, and chair of the company's Compensation, Nominating, and Governance Committee.  Until 2018, the Alphabet Board included Shirley Tilghman, a distinguished molecular biologist.  Her opinion on the censorship would also be interesting. 

So what is going on here?  These people are far too sophisticated to take at face value all the statements of Anthony Fauci or the World Health Organization.  They did not get rich and powerful by being so credulous, and their refusal to look behind the Wizard's curtain demands explanation.  

Because stupidity won't serve, the most logical explanation is strategic cowardice.  As long as the companies can pretend to believe Fauci and WHO, they will not bear legal responsibility for any consequences.  Were they to provide alternative information, they have reason to fear a weaponized Deep State, which could make a company's life hell.  All the quasi-monopoly social media outlets need continuing government forbearance.

But neither should one neglect sloth and greed.  For an individual director to raise the alarm would require work to review the literature and would risk the loss of a lucrative board seat.  It is easier to pretend to believe the staff's assurances.

As to the moral responsibility for the unnecessary fatalities, remember the old Tom Lehrer song: "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?  That's not my department!"  In the end, if cornered, the directors can claim that they were just following orders and blame Fauci.

But one would like to see the news media start asking them for an explanation.

Image via Max Pixel.

To comment, you can find the MeWe post for this article here.