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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#291

Post by Yhippa »

jacquesm wrote: post #212
rtpg wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a revival of kids not being given other vaccines as well. The knock on effects from the absolute bad faith mess from discourse around vaccines is going to fuck up so much in public health for decades. I am sympathetic to skepticism when public health officials spent a lot of time lying to avoid having to explain complicated truths. But so many bad faith voices and outright scammers with nonsense vitamins to s…

> There’s a revival of kids not being given other vaccines as well. Yes, the anti-vaxx (and anti-government) sentiment has received an enormous boost from this, time will tell what the damage is but a resurgence of things like Polio is not out of the question. > I am sympathetic to skepticism when public health officials spent a lot of time lying to avoid having to explain complicated truths. I'm partially ok with th…

> time will tell what the damage is but a resurgence of things like Polio is not out of the question.

We're about to find out, buddy.

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/04/how-polio-silently-spread-in...

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#292

Post by Yhippa »

dannyw wrote: post #33
stevebmark wrote: post #22

I don't really care about a private company making reasonable decisions and learning about their internal debate process. Up until Musk, I was impressed to see Twitter grow a backbone and not fall to the cowardly cries of "free speech." What I don't follow is the jump some people make from reasonable moderation like this, to fascism. They see internet platform moderation as a gateway drug to a physically oppressive g…

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…

> but if your loved ones were unlucky enough to get myocarditis from the vaccine

Curious, did this happen to you?

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#293

Post by chitowneats »

notacoward wrote: post #235

It sounds a lot less nefarious when you consider that the "suppressed" views were believed at the time - and not without reason - to be both incorrect and harmful. The passage of time and 20/20 hindsight has revealed that some of the mainstream views were themselves incorrect, but if we're counting the hits for alternatives then we have to count the misses as well. Many claims about methods of transmission, dangers o…

> It sounds a lot less nefarious when you consider that the "suppressed" views were believed at the time - and not without reason - to be both incorrect and harmful.

The same thing was said about those who opposed the Iraq War.

It's amazing how quickly the supposed "liberals" forgot this lesson and beclowned themselves.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#294

Post by DisjointedHunt »

petmon wrote: post #173
DisjointedHunt wrote: post #83

Imagine if this was Trump. That for me puts the reaction in tech circles in perspective. We would see two impeachments, wall to wall news coverage, protests by employees at Facebook, Apple and Google, all asking for deplatforming everyone associated and so much more. Its ridiculous that we're unable as a society to separate actions from political affiliation.

Imagine if what were Trump? Per the article, the Trump administration sought "help from the tech companies to combat misinformation."

I should have been more specific so asinine comments like these who can't read the story before commenting don't show up:

Imagine if the Trump Administration had people who donated predominantly to their cause making decisions at the highest level at Social Media companies and directly affecting policy of posts being taken down such as Jim Baker asking why "don't be afraid of COVID" isn't taken down.

Imagine if employees at social media companies took the view that they knew better than abortion and lgbt activists and overruled coverage of their protests, flagged their tweets, locked their accounts from gaining any distribution.

Imagine if the Trump administration established a department within the San Francisco field office of the FBI to EXCLUSIVELY check social media feeds of their political opponents to have them reported to twitter under government pressure to take them down.

I thought all of this was implied and anyone reading this comment would at least acknowledge the severity of these revelations, but here we are.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#295

Post by seattle_spring »

rajin444 wrote: post #203
jacquesm wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they haven't stopped agitating. And probably won't stop. Which makes me wonder: with the degree of weaponization of the internet on the side of the anti-vaxxers will the next pandemic be 'the big one'? Enough people that refuse vaccination and you are looking at an entirely different probable outcome. Here in NL a small army of foaming-at-the-mouth conspiracy theorists did their utmost to undermine the vaccinatio…

> This is a worrisome development. Governments are working with private corporations to promote misinformation and silence real information and you’re worried about…anti vaxxers? I can maybe steel man a utilitarian stance for this position though I’m afraid it’s weak to “surely the lepers won’t eat my face”.

Which “real information” was silenced? I sure hope you’re not referring to that farce of an article from ZeroHedge about “weaponized lab-grown covid.” What misinformation was promoted? Are you still on about the first week or 2 when they said masking was ineffective?

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#296

Post by jacquesm »

Yhippa wrote: post #291
jacquesm wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There’s a revival of kids not being given other vaccines as well. Yes, the anti-vaxx (and anti-government) sentiment has received an enormous boost from this, time will tell what the damage is but a resurgence of things like Polio is not out of the question. > I am sympathetic to skepticism when public health officials spent a lot of time lying to avoid having to explain complicated truths. I'm partially ok with th…

> time will tell what the damage is but a resurgence of things like Polio is not out of the question. We're about to find out, buddy. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/04/how-polio-silently-spread-in...

Ugh. Ok. Let's hope they manage to contain it and that the anti-vaxx crowd will realize in time what kind of risks they are playing with.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#297

Post by ckvjdonee »

jacquesm wrote: post #212
rtpg wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s a revival of kids not being given other vaccines as well. The knock on effects from the absolute bad faith mess from discourse around vaccines is going to fuck up so much in public health for decades. I am sympathetic to skepticism when public health officials spent a lot of time lying to avoid having to explain complicated truths. But so many bad faith voices and outright scammers with nonsense vitamins to s…

> There’s a revival of kids not being given other vaccines as well. Yes, the anti-vaxx (and anti-government) sentiment has received an enormous boost from this, time will tell what the damage is but a resurgence of things like Polio is not out of the question. > I am sympathetic to skepticism when public health officials spent a lot of time lying to avoid having to explain complicated truths. I'm partially ok with th…

The white lie didn't stop profiteering, it was transparent for anyone watching with their eyes open and only made hoarding worse.

Telling the truth would have resulted in far less supply shocks, instead, half the population willfully ignored the obvious lie by putting their heads in the sand and the other half ratcheted up their preparedness (because the govt clearly lying about everything at this point)

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#300

Post by matheusmoreira »

88913527 wrote: post #284
matheusmoreira wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly what they are suggesting, unfortunately. I was about to reply to another comment but I think it was deleted. I think what I wrote is important enough to post here anyways. > It's obvious the messaging landed on was chosen was to maximize the individual choice to vaccinate as that was reasoned to the best possible outcome for all. This is inducing people to pick the choice you consider correct. This is…

If people are as indeed as smart as you and your parent commenter say they are, then they will understand there doesn't exist any risk-free medical procedure. Having to remind of them of that fact is the kind of patronizing you both seem to be rallying against, after all. The argument could evolve further to say, the messaging doesn't matter at all, since everyone is smart enough to make their own choice, so why be u…

> Having to remind of them of that fact is the kind of patronizing you both seem to be rallying against, after all.

Not really. You'd be surprised how many people believe that. They need to make informed choices. The way to do that is to say "the benefits are X and the risks are Y". If they have trouble understanding X or Y, you do whatever is necessary to help them understand.

What you don't do is say "Oh COVID-19 vaccines? Yeah, go ahead, nothing to worry about, they're completely safe". It's not up to you to determine that they are safe, the patient makes that judgement. One person might consider them safe, another might not.

> since everyone is smart enough to make their own choice

They don't have to be "smart enough" to make choices. Unless they are mentally impaired to the point of dependence on a legal representative, they have the autonomy to decide about any matter regarding their own bodies. Even if they are uneducated. They could refuse it simply because they don't like vaccines or even you personally and it's your duty to respect that.

Unless the patient is literally dying right in front of you, there is no case you could make for overriding their will on any medical treatment, and even that varies by nation.

> so why be upset about it?

Because it's unethical and undermines trust. When you do this, people notice. They immediately stop trusting you and start actively resisting you instead. As is their right as human beings with freedom and autonomy.

> when exactly where they lied to if you claim they're smart enough to dissect the nuance?

It's still a lie. Detecting the lie does not somehow invalidate the fact it is a lie.

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