Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

thefp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 986 posts

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#141

Post by matheusmoreira »

mhh__ wrote: post #59
RyanShook wrote: post #20

I'm not a conspiracy theorist but I think the longest lasting legacy of covid will be the distrust it created for big government, big pharma, and big tech.

I don't know. It should (and I think has) increase distrust in social media and big tech/gov but distrust in pharma? I don't know. I'm still waiting for everyone to drop dead from vaccine related injuries (I've paid this more earnest attention than most people this glib at least) — most people, I think correctly for the most part, regard the nu-antivax thing that came about during covid to basically be the realm of i…

> I'm still waiting for everyone to drop dead from vaccine related injuries

I didn't have to wait at all. There was a noticeable increase in thromboembolic events after COVID-19 vaccination started in my city. Plenty of people were saved by friends in the emergency room.

The problem of course is not the vaccines, it's this insistence that they are risk-free. They are not. There is no such thing as zero risk in medicine. When you claim something false like that and people start to notice events that contradict your words, they will no longer trust you.

This is why the cost benefit analysis must be detailed and presented clearly to people. They should make the choice of their own accord. Trying to impose it on them is how you get "anti-vaxxers" who no longer trust anything you say. I don't blame them.

This is not even a modern phenomenon. Over a century ago there was a revolt in my country over forced vaccination.

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

> To eradicate smallpox, Dr. Cruz convinced the Congress to approve the Mandatory Vaccination Law on October 31, 1904, authorizing sanitary brigade workers, accompanied by police, to enter homes and apply the vaccine by force.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#142

Post by kodyo »

myko wrote: post #94
andrew_ wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ro Khanna, the Congressman representing S.V. has thoughts on using "nothingburger": > Here’s why I think the “nothingburger” argument is compounding the problem. https://www.thefp.com/p/ro-khanna-on-twitter-free-speech It's worth a read to at least consider his thoughts.

I have read his thoughts, and while he makes good points he ignores the clear facts: - censoring Hunter Biden's nudes from the site was the right thing to do. - The laptop hoax had all the hallmarks of Russian disinformation, and still seems likely to have been developed by the Russian government - banning trump was the right thing to do, he had just attempted a coup against the US (I also think banning dictators/aut…

Multiple independent investigations showed that the laptop story was accurate. Our intelligence agencies conspired to suppress it, knowing it was true.

The FBI had the laptop for a year before the NY Post story.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#144

Post by cbb330 »

SkipperCat wrote: post #100
twblalock wrote: post #62

This is what we get when we expect corporations to police speech, and when governments pressure them to do it. We really would be better off with no censorship. Even allowing obvious conspiracy theories and fake news is better than trying to police the truth and getting it wrong. When moderators get it wrong even one time they lose trust forever and give the conspiracy theorists even more ammo — in some cases by maki…

You are mistaking social media companies as platforms for speech. The are not. They are for profit companies that must police their content to attain maximum ad revenue. They will curate, filter and edit content solely for that purpose. I don’t know why everyone is so up in arms about what Twitter does on their website. If it vanished tomorrow, I’d be fine. Most of us knew what was going in the 90’s just fine.

The importance is that every free and democratic nation in the world has its’ policies influenced by the loudest voices on Twitter. So if Twitter amplifies an idea it becomes reality.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#145

Post by at_a_remove »

peter422 wrote: post #90
dannyw wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are very real people who have been harmed by side effects from the vaccine. Whether the virus itself would've been more deadly is a question for another time, but if your loved ones were unlucky enough to get myocarditis from the vaccine, and you were silenced on social media, sometimes invisibly like you're being gaslit, and so were the doctors and researchers, it's easier to understand the strong emotional re…

I’m sure you mean well, but one of the few things we know for sure is that the virus is way, way, way more deadly than vaccine. If you are going to overlook all those RCTs run all throughout the world with different types of vaccines and huge populations of people, then you really should reflect on your own analysis of the data. I'm not saying the vaccine is perfectly safe, as few things are, but it's obviously, prov…

This may even be true, but you're missing a key point. There's a phrase and I think we're going to see a lot more of it surface in the discussions around this in the future. The phrase is "informed consent."

Informed consent means knowing the risks. It's why we have little packets of paper with side effects, why that guy on the radio rattles off "may cause ..." at the end of commercials for medicine. Being good for us on a statistical level does not in any way free the people who push whatever on us from the burden of informed consent.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#146

Post by andrew_ »

peter422 wrote: post #90
dannyw wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are very real people who have been harmed by side effects from the vaccine. Whether the virus itself would've been more deadly is a question for another time, but if your loved ones were unlucky enough to get myocarditis from the vaccine, and you were silenced on social media, sometimes invisibly like you're being gaslit, and so were the doctors and researchers, it's easier to understand the strong emotional re…

I’m sure you mean well, but one of the few things we know for sure is that the virus is way, way, way more deadly than vaccine. If you are going to overlook all those RCTs run all throughout the world with different types of vaccines and huge populations of people, then you really should reflect on your own analysis of the data. I'm not saying the vaccine is perfectly safe, as few things are, but it's obviously, prov…

> one of the few things we know for sure

Objectively, with the rate of change and revelation surrounding the vaccine, I'm not sure how anyone can confidently assert that we know anything about it "for sure." We're learning new things about side effects and efficacy quite often at the moment.

Current data suggests that the virus is far more deadly for a certain segment of the population but there are significant negative health impacts for other segments of the population, while the feds and pharma are pushing even more vaccine use for demographics which have consistently shown low vulnerability.

There's simply too much nuance to make a blanket "we know for sure" statement about this. It's a living, evolving topic.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#148

Post by [deleted] »

intended wrote: post #138

As pointed out - this is a hacker first forum. Go to reddit. Find an emotionally charged subreddit, become a member, and then offer to help moderate. There are FAR too many people discussing things, people with real experience making things, talking about moderation without doing their homework. Test your assumptions. See if it can work. Doing this while helping communities is not a bad way to go.

[deleted]

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#149

Post by PartiallyTyped »

jacquesm wrote: post #105
PartiallyTyped wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am fairly certain this is an American thing, or more broadly an issue in countries with lower levels of education and overall mistrust in their governments which clearly don’t work for them. The basis of my argument is counter example countries such as Denmark. In Denmark, we all got vaccinated, and as soon as a second booster (3rd jab) was available, the government coordinated the distribution with pharmacies to a…

> I am fairly certain this is an American thing The exact same thing happened here in the Netherlands.

Perhaps Denmark is the exception then?

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#150

Post by goatlover »

hintymad wrote: post #133

I wonder why people believe that CDC must always be right, and therefore any doubt or challenge to CDC’s messages is misinformation that is worth banning. I thought every school in a modern society teaches student not to blindly trust the authority.

I wonder as well. That's just one government, as the article points out. Other governments had different responses, recommendations and policies. What made Sweden's approach for example, more wrong than the CDC?
Post reply on HN