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Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

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Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#21
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bogus argument. The protestors are advocating for behavior that will literally kill people, including medical personnel. The protesters are no different than those who call for deadly riots or civil war. They deserve to be shut down for jeopardizing public health and safety.

The deaths caused by the coronavirus will be nothing compared to the deaths caused by economic destruction. A 30% unemployment rate will kill substantially more people than the coronavirus. In fact, you could argue the protesters are advocating for behavior that would prevent people from dying (people who get laid off and are now in poverty). As you should know, poverty carries a much higher mortality rate.

Looks like you have no data supporting this argument. You also have to look at the economical impact of doing nothing. Hundreds of thousands of member of society dying/crippled/in hospitals (who's paying for that?). Add to that, regardless of shutdown, tons of people would be so scared of public interactions that they would stay home anyway, and also end up impacting the economy. Making the argument that there would be no economical destruction from doing nothing seems a bit weird.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#22
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a bogus argument. The protestors are advocating for behavior that will literally kill people, including medical personnel. The protesters are no different than those who call for deadly riots or civil war. They deserve to be shut down for jeopardizing public health and safety.

The deaths caused by the coronavirus will be nothing compared to the deaths caused by economic destruction. A 30% unemployment rate will kill substantially more people than the coronavirus. In fact, you could argue the protesters are advocating for behavior that would prevent people from dying (people who get laid off and are now in poverty). As you should know, poverty carries a much higher mortality rate.

We could fix the things that cause the poverty mortality rate to be so high, if we wanted. It's a lack of will, leadership and compassion that holds us back.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#23
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire comment is a strawman. This is not the same as "arbitrary platform bias". This is not Facebook saying "we have a certain political view and we talked to the government and they agreed so no other views are acceptable". This is them stopping stupid people from killing a lot of other people. Also, your rights aren't affected. This is Facebook telling stupid people to shut up and stop spreading fud that coul…

This would only be true if coronavirus was more deadly than the dramatic increase in poverty that the resulting economic destruction of the shutdown will cause, which is extremely doubtful. Unemployment is deadly. The mortality rate while in poverty is over 2.5x.

You need to account for positive second order effects, e.g. reduced deaths from pollution. That pushes "extremely doubtful" firmly into "we can't even guess if quarantine will be a net plus or minus" in the 2020 death rate. It also heavily depends on how long quarantine goes on for -- would the mortality rates be changed from a 1 year recession? Or would it take many years?

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#24
It's worth noting that there is a lot of discussion in serious circles (including here on HN) about the balance between too much and not enough with respect to quarantine, lockdown, etc., both in terms of where we are now and what we should do in the near future.

I see little reason to doubt that all involved are trying to minimize general death and misery, even if they may disagree radically about how to do that.

It'd be pretty wild if (say) Google decided that Chrome would no longer display pages that were "too far" in their discussion and advocacy of the options.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#25
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The deaths caused by the coronavirus will be nothing compared to the deaths caused by economic destruction. A 30% unemployment rate will kill substantially more people than the coronavirus. In fact, you could argue the protesters are advocating for behavior that would prevent people from dying (people who get laid off and are now in poverty). As you should know, poverty carries a much higher mortality rate.

Looks like you have no data supporting this argument. You also have to look at the economical impact of doing nothing. Hundreds of thousands of member of society dying/crippled/in hospitals (who's paying for that?). Add to that, regardless of shutdown, tons of people would be so scared of public interactions that they would stay home anyway, and also end up impacting the economy. Making the argument that there would…

http://news.mit.edu/2016/study-rich-poor-huge-mortality-gap-...

What proof do you want? I figured everything I said was common sense. 30% unemployment isn't outside the bounds of possibility and poverty has been repeatedly proven to have a much higher mortality rate.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire comment is a strawman. This is not the same as "arbitrary platform bias". This is not Facebook saying "we have a certain political view and we talked to the government and they agreed so no other views are acceptable". This is them stopping stupid people from killing a lot of other people. Also, your rights aren't affected. This is Facebook telling stupid people to shut up and stop spreading fud that coul…

This would only be true if coronavirus was more deadly than the dramatic increase in poverty that the resulting economic destruction of the shutdown will cause, which is extremely doubtful. Unemployment is deadly. The mortality rate while in poverty is over 2.5x.

Source?

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#27

These are Americans exercising their constitutional rights to freedom of speech and assembly. Whether you agree with the protestors or not is irrelevant. Your rights are impacted, too, by this arbitrary platform bias. This cannot stand for long. We have to move away from centralized monopolies on the web.

No, these people are spreading misinformation that in all likelihood will result in higher body counts. Free speech isn't shouting fire in a crowded theater.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire comment is a strawman. This is not the same as "arbitrary platform bias". This is not Facebook saying "we have a certain political view and we talked to the government and they agreed so no other views are acceptable". This is them stopping stupid people from killing a lot of other people. Also, your rights aren't affected. This is Facebook telling stupid people to shut up and stop spreading fud that coul…

> not the government breaking up peaceful and legal assemblies But the government is breaking up peaceful and legal assemblies. While I don't have the article handy, there have been arrests over the past few days for refusing to leave. As for "legal" - the First Amendment is very clear on this matter. The federal government (and through the incorporation doctrine, the governments of the several states) is specificall…

> peaceful and legal assemblies

They're not peaceful. They have members sharing the coronavirus within the groups. Additionally, they are putting enforcement agents at risk in dealing with it. You basically have members of the groups shooting other members. (without the direct acknowledgment that it was them and the initial impact)

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#29
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would only be true if coronavirus was more deadly than the dramatic increase in poverty that the resulting economic destruction of the shutdown will cause, which is extremely doubtful. Unemployment is deadly. The mortality rate while in poverty is over 2.5x.

You need to account for positive second order effects, e.g. reduced deaths from pollution. That pushes "extremely doubtful" firmly into "we can't even guess if quarantine will be a net plus or minus" in the 2020 death rate. It also heavily depends on how long quarantine goes on for -- would the mortality rates be changed from a 1 year recession? Or would it take many years?

People don't just drop dead upon becoming unemployed. It's just a higher per year mortality rate. Also, economic destruction is not necessarily temporary.

A very large number of industries, companies and communities will be permanently wiped out from this.

Re: Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events

#30
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This entire comment is a strawman. This is not the same as "arbitrary platform bias". This is not Facebook saying "we have a certain political view and we talked to the government and they agreed so no other views are acceptable". This is them stopping stupid people from killing a lot of other people. Also, your rights aren't affected. This is Facebook telling stupid people to shut up and stop spreading fud that coul…

This would only be true if coronavirus was more deadly than the dramatic increase in poverty that the resulting economic destruction of the shutdown will cause, which is extremely doubtful. Unemployment is deadly. The mortality rate while in poverty is over 2.5x.

That's an impossible claim to backup. A traditional unemployment rate may result in a 2.5x increase in mortality rate, but this isn't a normal period of unemployment -- congress just injected an unimaginably large amount of money into the economy with the deliberate goal of keeping the unemployed afloat until things can re-open.

You can't really look at a past study of unemployment effects and expect it to be anything like what we're about to experience; we literally have no idea.

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