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The media's lab leak fiasco

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Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#31

Post by MeinBlutIstBlau »

Moodles wrote: post #16

The media is so disappointing these days. A lot of people don't remember this, but the mainstream media outlets were actually playing down the coronavirus pandemic at the start. Then they attacked the travel ban to China. Then did a complete U-turn. Pelosi was dancing in the streets of Chinatown San Francisco to prove how safe and not racist she is. It seemed like they hated Trump and would fight anything he did. htt…

This last year alone has made me lose more faith in the democratic party and the media altogether. Not only did they push a radical agenda with retribution, they did it like religious people used to do centuries ago. Don't challenge the status quo or face reprecussions (fine, demobilization, banned). Now egg on their faces.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#32

Post by throw_nbvc1234 »

e40 wrote: post #9
partiallypro wrote: post #4

To me what gives me credence to the "lab leak theory" more than anything, was China's behavior during and initially after the outbreak. Where they thwarted any investigations from WHO or anyone else and arrested journalists even attempting to cover it. Now we have additional information of lab workers being sick back in November...I genuinely wonder why people immediately jumped in to defend China's actions through t…

I think it was because the Trump admin had a history of China bashing and many of us just thought this was more of the same.

I'm surprised nobody paid trump a ton of money to bash a crypto currency so that all the trump "haters" would buy it up and increase the price. Or why trump didn't just do that himself. Then maybe he wouldn't be as scared to show his tax returns in 2024 lol.

The whole politicization of America is such a problem right now.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#33

Post by ganzuul »

partiallypro wrote: post #4

To me what gives me credence to the "lab leak theory" more than anything, was China's behavior during and initially after the outbreak. Where they thwarted any investigations from WHO or anyone else and arrested journalists even attempting to cover it. Now we have additional information of lab workers being sick back in November...I genuinely wonder why people immediately jumped in to defend China's actions through t…

I think they defend China because it makes them feel as if China needs their defense, even though it is far more powerful than they are prepared to admit.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#34

Post by neither_color »

There’s a question as to why that fake consensus emerged. But I think the more troubling question is: How did people let the original story of what Tom Cotton even said go so badly awry? Essentially Cotton said something that was then transformed into a fake claim of a Chinese bio-attack, then the fake claim was debunked, and then the debunking was applied to the real claim with little attention paid to ongoing disagreement among researchers.

I think this part of the text really sums up everything I hated about reading the news and social media in 2020. Each site seemed to be funneling you into a single source of truth and way of not only thinking, but FEELING about an event. I don't like being reminded of corporate sponsored social movements if I open facebook/google/amazon/twitter. I don't want my app reminding me to vote/get vaccinated(I did both btw) every time I open it without a way to dismiss and select 'I already did, stop reminding me.' I don't want reddit creating a central sub-page for discussing [Current Event] within the narrow bounds of what their moderators think is acceptable. I don't like non-dismissable context text on twitter and under youtube videos that are often off topic and triggered by bad speech detection that simply take you to a link dump of regular news articles. I don't like the idea that there's an oligopoly on "truth" and "credible sources." No amount of branding will convince me that "fact checkers" are any more objective and impartial than regular newspaper columnists; fact checkers are what editors are supposed to be. There's no academic rigor to fact checking, and the reality that so much casual skepticism on a variety of topics was suppressed and equivocated with being a flat-earther is sickening.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#35

Post by throwaway69123 »

Maybe people will start to understand that it’s very hard to be a unbiased arbitrator of truth and that beyond illegal speech the media and social platforms should let people talk. You have to wonder if the parties were reversed and it was a democrat incumbent president making these claims, would the reaction have been the same. I think if we are being honest to ourselves we know the truth.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#36

Post by 99_00 »

partiallypro wrote: post #4

To me what gives me credence to the "lab leak theory" more than anything, was China's behavior during and initially after the outbreak. Where they thwarted any investigations from WHO or anyone else and arrested journalists even attempting to cover it. Now we have additional information of lab workers being sick back in November...I genuinely wonder why people immediately jumped in to defend China's actions through t…

China forbade sharing covid-19's genome. When a Chinese scientist published it his lab was shut down the next day.

>The Chinese government had prohibited labs from publishing information about the new coronavirus, though Zhang later said he did not know about the prohibition. The next day, the Shanghai Health Commission ordered Zhang's laboratory to close temporarily for "rectification". While some media reports argued that the closure was retaliation for Zhang's decision to publish the genome, Zhang disputed this, saying that officials were right to have the lab improve its biosafety protocols.

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

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#37

Post by yawaworht1978 »

Call me cynical...but... What would any government do about it if it was proven to be a lab leak? They could declare it an accident (probably this would be true) and that would be the end of the story.

No country would dare to impose sanctions or engage beyond diplomacy.

I do not think that the Chinese governments reaction or handling of the case is suspect, they likely want to shut down potential fake news. To label it as potential espionage is an ok measure until there was a conclusive investigation. If this happened in other nations, they would just declare it as a matter of national security and incarcerate whistle blowers too. Look no further than Manning and Snowden.

In other words, China will not face any harsh consequences.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#39

Post by ajcp »

> “Cotton’s views should be associated with conspiracy theories and misinformation,” even though his core factual claim was not particularly different from what anyone was else was saying.

Does the author not know how conspiracy theories and misinformation campaigns work?

I'm not sure how useful it is doing a hotwash on how we could have been so remiss as to ignore the comments of a public official whose views are often associated with conspiracy theories and misinformation, even if this one time they were not.

Re: The media's lab leak fiasco

#40

Post by chipotle_coyote »

generalizations wrote: post #13
andybak wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm generally in favour of the actions taken against misinformation but this situation surprises me. Lab leak always seemed plausible and non-crazy even if you think the odds are against it. I don't envy the task of making a call on any of this stuff.

If we accept that taking action against misinformation is good, then this sort of mistake will inevitably happen. If you're in favor of taking action against misinformation, then you should be willing to accept this situation as an acceptable failure. I'm not willing to accept that.

> If you're in favor of taking action against misinformation, then you should be willing to accept this situation as an acceptable failure.

We can believe taking action against misinformation is a generally good principle while still believing that both our definition of "misinformation" and the kinds of actions we take may need to be improved.

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