Should the mainstream media and government agencies decide what's best for people? Or should people be able to evaluate information themselves and make their own decisions?

It seems self-evident that in a democracy people should have the right to access information to think and decide for themselves — but that's not what happened with COVID-19, political commentator and comedian Russell Brand argued in a recent video on his YouTube channel.

Instead, he said:

"The mainstream media are preventing their own medical experts from accurately reporting on potential COVID problems. Meanwhile they continue to repress information about vaccine efficacy.

"This is what happens when you politicize information and create a category called disinformation which essentially gives you the opportunity to censor."

Ideas about COVID-19 cast as disinformation or misinformation earlier in the pandemic — that immunity gained from infection is robust, that unvaccinated people aren't dangerous and that data on the boosters is lacking — have proven true.

Yet mainstream media continues to distort the facts, even when those facts are revealed by their own trusted experts, Brand said.