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Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

reuters.com

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Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#21

A lot of this is starting to remind me of the way Galileo and Darwin were treated for announcing their breakthroughs. I know nothing about this drug Maduro is touting, but I can't help worrying that one of these days somebody is going to find an actual cure and the world will never know about it because big social media companies exile them for wrongthink.

In a sense, we already had some taste of tech-powers-that-are blocking information that ended up being true ( Biden's Hunter drug issues ).

edit: I am going to add some sources, since I am not certain why the downvoting is taking place on this particular comment. Not sure how the statement is controversial.

[Biden himself admits issues with drugs]https://www.businessinsider.com/hunter-biden-opens-about-add... [Same thing only in his book]https://people.com/politics/hunter-biden-to-release-memoir-d...

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#22

A lot of this is starting to remind me of the way Galileo and Darwin were treated for announcing their breakthroughs. I know nothing about this drug Maduro is touting, but I can't help worrying that one of these days somebody is going to find an actual cure and the world will never know about it because big social media companies exile them for wrongthink.

People promoting ivermectin have been making claims with appropriate expressed confidence. It seems to have decent evidence, too.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#23

Facebook is a private platform, so they should be able to censor whatever they want as long as it is not discriminatory against protected characteristics.

Good god am I fucking sick and tired of the 'they're a private platform' argument

comedically broke take isn't it

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#24

Not sure about this - I don’t think government leaders or anybody should be censored. Better to have public health messages as part of the platform than to censor It’s a fine line between hate and misinformation and dissent (Clearly the content in question is wrong; but in other cases, WHO and others been proven incorrect - eg on masks and asymptotic transmission) Don’t know what the answer is, we don’t want echo cha…

You don’t really need to worry about drawing the line between facts and lies just because you remove the 10% most blatant disinformation. It doesn’t make Facebook the final arbiter of truth.

There are things that are controversial or debated and Facebook and others stay away from that.

Advocating injecting bleach or eating albinos to cure Covid is one thing while arguing the amount of asymptotic transmission is another thing entirely.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#27

Facebook is a private platform, so they should be able to censor whatever they want as long as it is not discriminatory against protected characteristics.

Good god am I fucking sick and tired of the 'they're a private platform' argument

Should be allowed to censor but we should still discuss if each particular instance is a good idea or not.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#28
post #12

People should start thinking twice before using US-controlled platforms/services/anything.

Have to wonder how long before non-US alternatives pop up and the US loses control of this industry segment. There are already regional alternatives to many of the US's biggest tech companies, so international alternatives might be next. How long before there's a tiktok of Google, where US and western consumers go to a Chinese or Russian source without even considering what the US companies have to offer anymore. Obviously companies in those countries will have their own local biases, but mostly on matters internal to those countries that aren't typically relevant to US and western users.

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#29
post #19

A lot of this is starting to remind me of the way Galileo and Darwin were treated for announcing their breakthroughs. I know nothing about this drug Maduro is touting, but I can't help worrying that one of these days somebody is going to find an actual cure and the world will never know about it because big social media companies exile them for wrongthink.

You don't announce the discovery of a miracle cure via social media, you announce it via clinical trial papers.

You're just exemplifying the point. Who says you have to announce something a specific way first time?

Back in the days it would be "you can't just publish trial papers, it has to go through the church"

Re: Facebook freezes Venezuela president Maduro's page over Covid-19

#30
post #20

A lot of this is starting to remind me of the way Galileo and Darwin were treated for announcing their breakthroughs. I know nothing about this drug Maduro is touting, but I can't help worrying that one of these days somebody is going to find an actual cure and the world will never know about it because big social media companies exile them for wrongthink.

Social media isn’t really the proper avenue for vetting science.

Social media companies aren't really the proper vetters of science.
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