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Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

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Re: Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

#171

Post by wutbrodo »

rufus_foreman wrote: post #169
esyir wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fundamental rule imo should be that the more absurd the claim, the more it deserves a double check. That hospitals are prioritising gunshots below ivermectin is absurd to what I hope is most people.

The fundamental rule is to double check everything. Otherwise you end up letting false stories through that confirm your preexisting biases, since they don't sound "absurd" to you. If your mother says she loves you, check it out.

Yup, and the common excuse that you don't have time to check everything out is nonsense too. You're not required to have an opinion on everything, and you shouldn't have an opinion on anything you haven't bothered to inform yourself about.

Re: Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

#172

Post by mikem170 »

jolux wrote: post #55
grapist420 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subs like transpets illustrate more how ridiculous it is people are fooled. Thousands of upspergs on posts about dilating dogs or castrating cats. People are absurdly gullible and it’s really just terrible.

> People are absurdly gullible and it’s really just terrible. Have you considered how far we would have gotten as a species if we had a pervasive assumption of bad faith in our interactions with other people? Complex societies depend on assuming good faith. People who assume others are always acting in bad faith are often traumatized or suffering from other forms of mental illness. I don’t find it “ridiculous” that p…

> Complex societies depend on assuming good faith.

Maybe stuff like this exposes the fact that the media are not as reliable as we think. If they are propagating this fake news, what other fake news are they propagating?

Re: Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

#173

Post by notfromhere »

macinjosh wrote: post #156
msrenee wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Horse paste? It's not you specifically, but you're not the first person I've seen recently who has referred to it and didn't appear to understand what the substance is. Someone I know called it a "horse tranquilizer" in a conversation the other day. It's Ivermectin. It's a dewormer. It shows some promise, but more research is needed into its efficacy. Anyone who has a baseline knowledge of medicine would call it a de…

Humans take ivermectin everyday to treat rosacea. Referring to it only as a dewormer is overly specific and is purposefully chosen to imply a human taking it would be out of the ordinary. It is carefully phrased propaganda.

It’s horse dewormer when your doctor won’t prescribe it for you and you go to the animal feed store to get a dose intended for horses.

Re: Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

#174

Post by gunfighthacksaw »

All of this talk about doing it for the lulz leading to extremism may have some merit to it, since it can normalize extremist positions, even behind humour.

However, let’s not ignore that there are actual extremists right now on the knee jerk side that escalated literal bullshit to national media before discovering the ruse.

People are more worried about the potential of new extremists vs handling the ones we already have.

Re: Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

#175

Post by ryandrake »

wutbrodo wrote: post #165
dabbledash wrote: post #8

It doesn’t take much to convince “professional journalists” of things, as long as the things confirm their priors. I’d cut them some slack, because we’re all bad at that, but their literal job is to check things out.

> I’d cut them some slack, because we’re all bad at that, It's really not that difficult a skill to build though. The trick is not to get perfect at detecting sarcasm or trolls but to realize that if you're talking about an individual or a minuscule group of people online (like the 57 members of the "bounty hunter ring"), it's almost never worth paying attention to regardless of its trolling status. Best-case they're…

> Even in the worst case, "I found an infinitesimal amount of nutty people on the internet" is not useful information for either a journalist or your personal model of the world.

Careful though, QAnon was once an infinitesimally small amount of nutty people, and now they have at least two[1], likely more, sitting US Congressional representatives, with 36 running next year[2].

1: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/11/04/congres...

2: https://www.businessinsider.com/the-36-qanon-supporters-runn...

Re: Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

#176

Post by wutbrodo »

rejectedandsad wrote: post #70

I feel like Reddit drama is a few pegs less important than actual abortion bounties being ostensibly legal by a 5-4 SCOTUS decision in Texas?

I understand your concern that discussing this incident will prevent anyone from talking or thinking about the abortion ban. But you'll be thrilled to hear that HN actually supports sharing and discussing more than one link! In fact, at any one time there are dozens and dozens of links being shared. On top of that, there are new ones everyday.

I hope that puts your concern to rest. Unless there's some other reason that you think discussing this topic binds everyone into a magical compact forbidding them from discussing the ban itself?

Re: Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

#177

Post by actually_a_dog »

macinjosh wrote: post #157
actually_a_dog wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a dewormer for horses that literally comes in paste form: https://archive.is/k2JUb

It is also used to treat rosacea and other ailments in _humans_. Calling it a dewormer in this context is a lie of omission.

In that case, why you lying by not mentioning the FDA is telling people not to take ivermectin intended for _horses_ and _cows_? [0] Or that calls to poison control centers involving ivermectin are up by a huge amount, and that the drug has repeatedly failed clinical trials for COVID? [1]

---

[0]: https://twitter.com/us_fda/status/1429050070243192839

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/30/health/covid-ivermectin-p...

Re: Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

#178

Post by smsm42 »

jjeaff wrote: post #126
gruez wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anyone who has a baseline knowledge of medicine would call it a dewormer Right, but in all the contexts I've heard it, it's not just a "dewormer", it's a "horse dewormer". That's technically true, but it's also FDA approved for human consumption. Making fun of people for consuming "horse dewormer" is like making fun of people for consuming "horse tranquilizer" for their depression[1]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…

Except many of the people being made fun of are calling poison control because they are literally overdosing on horse dewormer. Literally apple flavored dewormer paste for horses.

Not many. About a thousand cases this year, compared to about 700 last year. Over 300 million country. Which includes calls like "I took thus medicine and now I feel funny! Also I drunk a bottle of whiskey but that never hurt me before, must be the medicine!". The real overdose cases are in dozens, no more, over all the nation. It's like saying "many people are struck by lightning " or "many people are eaten by the sharks". It happens, but it's not many.

Re: Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

#179

Post by smsm42 »

notfromhere wrote: post #173
macinjosh wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans take ivermectin everyday to treat rosacea. Referring to it only as a dewormer is overly specific and is purposefully chosen to imply a human taking it would be out of the ordinary. It is carefully phrased propaganda.

It’s horse dewormer when your doctor won’t prescribe it for you and you go to the animal feed store to get a dose intended for horses.

The compound is the same, the dose is controlled by the user.

Re: Trolls convinced journalists they were “abortion bounty hunters”

#180

Post by esyir »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #142
esyir wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big paper retracted recently, current status is in the low to no effect size. Still under study and might get a better grasp of effectiveness in the future, so nothing on efficacy is conclusive atm.

Since you seem to be knowledgeable is there an objective writeup of the thought process behind this whole thing e.g. Joe Rogan, who was vaguely skeptical of Covid, I think, I remember Bill Burr mocking him for having a big opinion on the manliness of masks rather than listening to doctors. But then he got Covid and announced he was taking a medicine that some people think might help, but hasn't been proved. Now there…

So, a few things, I don't think outright covid denial is a major thread. I tend to see much more "herd immunity/get to normal" from right-adjacent circles.

Regarding Right-wing distrust: The vaccine is new tech (and I mean fundamentally new, not just another flu vaccine). This means that unlike previous vaccines, it's safety profile wasn't nearly as well understood. It's efficacy is pretty well characterized. Conversely, Ivermectin isn't just horse dewormer, it's used in humans too. It has a known safety profile, and had early research dramatic report a 90% reduction in death (the one that was later retracted). Remember, not believing in vaccines doesn't make covid go away, so you've got a chunk of people desperate for an alternative solution. So they see this "known element" and reported efficacy and think that it'll be an alternative to the vaccine.

The previous case was Hydroxy chloroquinine, and I have quite a bit of spite for both sides of that argument then too.

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