Facebook says it has removed promotion of anti-quarantine events • Hacker News Board

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

#501

Post by ModernMech » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

thu2111 wrote: post #479

ModernMech wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The virus would have shut them down anyway if they had stayed open and their employees and customers became ill. The bad decision making here is the lack of foresight to keep cash on hand to weather a storm like this, despite making record profits in the billions. We are all told if we don’t keep 6 months of cash on hand we are financially negligent. Large companies were begging for money within two weeks of shutdown…

Sweden shows that view is wrong.

These data show that retail, travel, and restaurants were all taking huge hits before lockdowns went in to wide effect: https://www.ft.com/content/d184fa0a-6904-11ea-800d-da70cff6e...

Bay area issued the first national stay at home order on March 13. By then demand had already dropped precipitously. If your restaurant is seeing 60% fewer bookings, are you going to keep as many wait staff? Are you going to order as much food? How is that going to impact your supplier? And their supplier?

On the flip side we have places like Smithfield food that stayed open and their workforce became infected. Smithfield alone has as many infected as the entire country of Sweden reported newly infected yesterday. These are problems of different orders of magnitutde. How does a factory stay open with 500 people infected at once?

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

#502

Post by dahart » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

hartator wrote: post #342

dahart wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought the Supreme Court has already shown that there are limits to speech Yes correct, freedom of speech is not absolute, there are a lot of limitations in the U.S.: “libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public se…

> libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public security, and perjury.” Half of this doesn’t apply to the US. In the same Wikipedia article: > The opinion in Brandenburg discarded the previous test of "clear and present d…

> Brandenburg [...] made the right to freedom of (political) speech's protections in the United States almost absolute.

Ah, yeah that is a good point, since these protests are political speech. Does it matter that the protests are assembling? I could imagine the protected ability to say anything you want about politics, while reserving some rights about the ability to do anything.

Personally, I don’t think it should be illegal to protest this. It doesn’t seem like a particularly bright idea though.

This situation doesn’t have a lot of legal precedent, and it might cause some to occur right now. But since communicable disease is a threat to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and the law and constitution weren’t exactly written with global pandemic in mind, do you think the ability to assemble should be absolute?

> Half of this doesn’t apply to the US.

Here’s the US specific list... it’s still long

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

* Actually, would you mind listing the specific exceptions above that you believe do not apply to the US? I could be wrong, but I scrubbed through all of them and can’t find a single one that doesn’t seem to apply at least partially.

In the US, fighting words, obscenity and pornography are there explicitly; false statements of fact covers things like libel, slander, dignity and perjury; the imminent lawless action exception covers sedition and incitement; commercial speech and speech owned by others covers classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, and non-disclosure agreements; right to privacy is implicitly granted by several amendments in the constitution, and the right to be forgotten has legal precedent. I think that’s all of them. What did I miss?

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

#503

Post by pjc50 » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 1:59 PM UTC

zarkov99 wrote: post #480

pjc50 wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something I've been wondering for a while is how long Facebook et al would let conspiracy stuff run wild once it came close to damaging their own interests. It's one thing to look at a forest fire from a distance and say "it's people's right to play with matches", quite another thing when it reaches your own office. Neither Facebook staff nor management are immune to the consequences of a pandemic. There is a legitim…

The problem is relying on FB as the arbiter of truth. Ideas that sounded insane a few weeks back, and might have been censored for the sake of the confused masses, like the possibility the virus escaped from a bio-lab or that masks really help, are now respectable. FB, Google, Twitter, etc, will, by default, protect the status quo, the safe, consensual views, and censor anything else. This is very dangerous.

Like the physical epidemic, there will be false positives and false negatives. The idea that masks would help was never ludicrous, but it was disreccomended for bad reasons. The "virus escaped from a bio-lab" theory is still rather lacking in evidence, which may be very hard to find, but that doesn't actually affect how to treat it. The "virus is spread by 5G" is both wrong and getting masts burnt down. The "virus is a hoax" is extremely likely to get a lot of people killed.

(Does anyone have a definitive "masks will not help" statement from the WHO? Rather than a "masks should not be worn" one)

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

#504

Post by mellosouls » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:01 PM UTC

irq11 wrote: post #484

mellosouls wrote: post #467

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lots of panicky people are on HN and reddit, every day, calling for extensions of these lockdowns “because people are dying!”, even though the original pretense was quite different (“flattening the curve” doesn’t change the area under the curve). How was it different? One of the main points of flattening the curve was to minimise the risk of overwhelming (particularly) health services by ensuring that pressure was sp…

”One of the main points of flattening the curve was to minimise the risk of overwhelming (particularly) health services by ensuring that pressure was spread out over time. Overwhelmed health services = people dying” You are illustrating the problem perfectly: the goal of this is not (and was never) to prevent ”people dying”. It was only to prevent “collapse of the healthcare system”. To the extent that we have accomp…

To the extent that we have accomplished this goal

Country dependent obviously, but it is very preliminary to think we have anywhere near accomplished it.

it is a moral imperative to move on to less drastic interventions, even if continuing might save additional lives.

I'd agree that the next steps will be phased but am not as optimistic as you on time-frame; also I'm still not clear how you adopt such an assured understanding of the situation to consider the loss of additional lives to be worth relaxing the constraints and to be dismissing the opinions of others, the point of my original response?

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

#505

Post by 52-6F-62 » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:02 PM UTC

p1necone wrote: post #163

gruez wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

examples?

The biggest one is claiming that these people are protesting because they're actually in financial trouble - all the protestors I've seen seem to be well off people complaining they want to get haircuts or go out to eat... There's also a large number of conspiracy theorists in these crowds claiming that the virus doesn't exist, or it's some kind of hoax.

I've quite literally seen people waving around placards pleading with people to listen to "Q".

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

#506

Post by dahart » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:04 PM UTC

kelnos wrote: post #382

dahart wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought the Supreme Court has already shown that there are limits to speech Yes correct, freedom of speech is not absolute, there are a lot of limitations in the U.S.: “libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, sedition, incitement, fighting words, classified information, copyright violation, trade secrets, food labeling, non-disclosure agreements, the right to privacy, dignity, the right to be forgotten, public se…

Given that the gatherings themselves would be illegal due to shelter-in-place orders, planning a protest would seem to be speech that "incites a violation of the law that is both imminent and likely". But then I guess you have to contend with the question of whether or not making gatherings illegal in the first place is constitutional, even for the purposes of curbing a public health crisis. I personally hope it is c…

I wouldn’t frame it that way, it’s not a question of whether gatherings are constitutional. They are, and legal, peaceful protesting is protected in this country. But there already are some kinds of gatherings that are illegal and unprotected, so it’s not some kind of slippery slope. Whether it’s legal, protected and/or constitutional always depends on what kind of gathering you’re talking about.

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

#507

Post by 52-6F-62 » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:10 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #243

phakding wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the link here. Yes there are 22 million laid off. But given a choice between being alive and being jobless, I think people would choose being jobless. The people protesting are not the same people lining up at food banks. I have seen wapo video of Michigan protest. People there were angry because they want to get their hair done or buy paint and fertilizer. They want others to go to work to they can stay…

> But given a choice between being alive and being jobless, Read literally, this says everyone who returns to work will die. For the future, I recommend more nuance in your writing. Losing your livelihood does carry a substantial risk of increased death.

Is that so universally true?

I'm thankful right now that I live in Canada where every week—sometimes multiple times a week—measures are added or adjusted in order to prevent anyone from falling through the cracks. Some businesses have faltered or are closing permanently, but many others are receiving substantial support.

We're currently beating the projections in Ontario, and while this is not an easy time, every action necessary is being taken to at least try and prevent as many deaths by this thing as possible.

I think things would look different if the United States had taken different measures to support people during this crisis.

The barber in this narrative should receive enough aid to get by, and enough support for their business for it to persist until it can reopen—and the people who just want their hair done should just have to wait.

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

#508

Post by samdamsam » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:15 PM UTC

junius2020 wrote: post #475

sjg007 wrote: post #468

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense. Laissez faire exploitation results in banana republics.

Laissez faire exploitation results in banana republics in the victim nations, and ultra wealthy first world countries in the predator nations. I.e. the US and UK have gone ahead wonderfully; the Philippines, China, Vietnam, Zimbabwe, South Africa.. not so much

This is right, except the “predator nations” are really a ”predator class”. Working American have gotten a very raw deal. We have lost industry and jobs and wages galore to globalist projects. We may be the consenters of imperialism, but we are not the beneficiaries.

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

#509

Post by 52-6F-62 » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:19 PM UTC

stanfordkid wrote: post #363

elgenie wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That preprint [1] is a great example of how far ahead of the skis you can get with motivated reasoning, bad math, and no peer review. They recruited people over Facebook at a time that California's COVID tests were backlogged (with ads not presented in the paper, with links to signup that could, anecdotally, be shared out); in that situation, avoiding selection bias towards people that were sick with something previo…

Wow -- really enjoyed the write up by Balaji S. -- I had heard about these flaws earlier, but didn't realize how great they really were. I still maintain the gist of my point though -- we don't have sufficient evidence for widespread quarantine. New York and Italy are outliers, and should be understood as such. Even if the results are 5x or 10x instead of 50x -- it still means decisions were made on grossly inflated…

There is some data.

https://toronto.citynews.ca/2020/04/20/new-modelling-shows-p...

Ontario is largely a rural province.

> New modelling predictions show that the wave of new, community spread cases of coronavirus in Ontario appears to have peaked, but the spread in long-term care homes and other group settings is still growing.

> Earlier models predicted the peak would be hit in May, however according to data released by the province’s Ministry of Health, public health measures and social distancing have brought it forward.

In spite of this we are not yet moving to reopen, rather deciding not to cut the parachute just because it started to slow our fall.

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

#510

Post by Gunax » Tue, Apr 21, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

staticassertion wrote: post #213

abnry wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most people sensibly realize that a lock-down in the face of a pandemic is not a regression in our fundamental rights as US citizens, but just a temporary measure to save lives. The problem is that it may not be temporary due to legal creep. See: U.S. Patriot Act.

Very little about this feels like the Patriot Act. I also don't really see why the government would want to tank its economy. I mean, I can think of some really out there reasons, but I don't really feel it's worth entertaining given the far more reasonable reason for lock-in during a pandemic. edit: When I say 'this' I mean enforced lock in, specifically.

We have governor's calling for detention of people who have comitted no crime. We have officials suspending HIPAA. The president is claiming he has total authority and isn't limited by the constitution.

That feels very much like an erosion of civil liberties to me.