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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#191

Post by scifibestfi »

a_bonobo wrote: post #34
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 think Covid (and all the anti-vax grift around it) was the last straw, exploiting fears that were constructed by a cutthroat for-profit health system. It reminds me of this recent quote from Cory Doctorow: >We’ve had massive institutional failures that make people not believe anything. We focus a lot on the technical mechanics of why people don’t believe anything. Ten years ago, my pain specialist wanted me to go o…

Similarly, here's a medical health expert talking about how he's a junkfoodaholic:

https://twitter.com/PierreKory/status/1607144563558187009

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#192

Post by BurningFrog »

tayo42 wrote: post #45
jakear wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Downvoted because it completely misses the point, which is that a private company should not be told by the government to restrict speech, even if ( especially if) that speech is in conflict with the "official policy" the government has decreed. > Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the ri…

Free speach isn't absolute. There's plenty of examples in life already where you can't say whatever you want.

The argument here is that if something exists, it is good.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#193

Post by matheusmoreira »

acdha wrote: post #183
matheusmoreira wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 medici…

[flagged]

> they’re far less dangerous than getting COVID

Of course but that's not what authorities and all kinds of pro-vaccination people were saying at the time. General statements about safety don't inspire confidence. There's a possibility that the vaccines are beneficial for some groups but not others, for example.

Even today in my country they do everything possible to coerce people into vaccination. They come just short of abolishing personal freedom and consent. This is not how things are supposed to be done. People should want to take vaccines because there's data that shows benefit. Losing their trust means they won't even trust the data.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#194

Post by acdha »

twblalock wrote: post #169
mikeyouse wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People (on HN) are acting like the misinformation being targeted was innocent stuff on 51:49 judgement calls — complete retconning of the abject lunacy profiteers were out there saying. Talk to anyone in health care, people were nebulizing bleach and hydrogen peroxide, convincing their vets to give them literal animal medicine when the supplies of human ivermectin were cut off, taking fish antiparasite drugs, and on…

People were censored early in the pandemic for saying that wearing masks was a good idea, and a number of other things that are now widely accepted as true.

Can you be more specific? Who, where, and what did they say?

I ask because social media was full of that discussion so if there was any censorship it must have been highly ineffective.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#196

Post by jacquesm »

ryandrake wrote: post #178
jacquesm wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder for how long that will still be the case. The fringe is getting more and more grip on HN and we may well be fighting a losing battle.

Long time poster here. It was shocking to witness the last few years here. We have an absolutely remarkable and effective moderation system here and tireless, under-thanked mods doing the work. Looking at showdead, they are so good at moderating away the spam, nazis, trolls, and other various off topic troublemakers. I’m so grateful for having them here. They walk the line making difficult judgment calls, and have co…

And many of those same accounts are now pushing the current 'Twitter Files' narrative as though they were right all along.

People seem to forget that Elon Musk was willing to throw his employees under the bus for his personal gain, and yet they now trust a selective reading of history driven by that very same person.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#197

Post by mmcgaha »

AustinDev wrote: post #25
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 am a conspiracy theorist[1], and this was all well known since before we even did '2 weeks to slow the spread'. I'm just glad some of the mainstream folks are figuring it out now. [1]: The term "conspiracy theory" is itself the subject of a conspiracy theory, which claims the term was popularized by the CIA in order to discredit conspiratorial believers, particularly critics of the Warren Commission, by making them…

The best part about being a conspiracy theorist is not having myocarditis.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#198

Post by jhgfjhgfjhfgjhg »

walrus01 wrote: post #69
AustinDev wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you even read the thread or listen to the discussions surrounding it. The point of the evidence supplied in the thread is that leading virologists and epidemiologists were actively suppressed by non-experts.

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#199

Post by VagueMag »

dibt wrote: post #120
AustinDev wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a conspiracy theorist[1], and this was all well known since before we even did '2 weeks to slow the spread'. I'm just glad some of the mainstream folks are figuring it out now. [1]: The term "conspiracy theory" is itself the subject of a conspiracy theory, which claims the term was popularized by the CIA in order to discredit conspiratorial believers, particularly critics of the Warren Commission, by making them…

> '2 weeks to slow the spread' Wasn't that to prevent over-crowding of hospitals? Were hospitals not over-crowded?

Aside from a few urban hospitals which were turned into COVID case dumping grounds in the early weeks, no, they weren't. Hospital employment tanked at the beginning of lockdowns and has only just recovered to pre-Covid levels: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES6562200001

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#200

Post by etchalon »

andrew_ wrote: post #130
avs733 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shouldn’t it be up to the company? Congress made no law, no on forced Twitter from what I’m reading, they made a choice. That is their right. Demanding that people hold an antagonistic or untrusting view of government speech is no different than any other sort of speech code demand.

We have direct evidence of federal pressure from multiple federal sources. We can see from what's been released that Twitter's leadership had concerns when pushing back even in the slightest. To assert that Twitter could have ignored that pressure and the requests that accompanied it without repercussions would be incredibly naive.

There's evidence, posted in the threads, of Twitter doing exactly that about numerous specific points. Twitter has, on multiple occasions, fought against states and government interests to unmask its users.

So, there exists evidence, and examples, that Twitter could have pushed back without repercussions. There is no evidence of Twitter having suffered for doing so.

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