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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#341

Post by stale2002 »

VagueMag wrote: post #227
DanHulton wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, put another way, people who self-medicated instead of getting the vaccine, putting those around them at risk, who used trickery to order the medication when it became restricted due to an unprecentedly and unplanned-for low supply, who resorted to using animal versions and mis-dosing themselves, risking needing a spot in the hospital that was already desperately needed for COVID patients. Yes, we distrusted those…

> people who self-medicated instead of getting the vaccine, putting those around them at risk How do you come to this conclusion when the vaccine's effectiveness against transmission was never demonstrated in controlled trials, and very highly vaxxed jurisdictions like the Bay Area saw huge and persistent waves of cases?

> How do you come to this conclusion

Because there have been many many studies of the effect of the vaccine, in many different countries, by many different groups.

The results are overwhelmingly that the vaccine saves lives.

> saw huge and persistent waves of cases

This is a bad argument.

A vaccine can be useful, and save millions of lives, even if we falsely assume for the sake of argument that it doesn't reduce the amount of people who get infected or transmissibility.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#342

Post by fastball »

yongjik wrote: post #316
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.

Maybe in the US, but not worldwide. When you compare, countries where citizens trusted the government and generally followed the government's plans fared better than countries where individuals fought for their rights to choose what they think was best for them. IMHO Covid demonstrated the importance of trust in the system. When people trust the system, and think of the society as something they need to work together…

How are you measuring that?

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#343

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…

> Is this a site for curious inquiry, or pure political piling-on?

Good question. It seems that curious inquiry was not an important consideration during the height of a pandemic caused by a novel pathogen. We all paid the price for that, sadly. Some of us would like a word or two.

I'm sorry if that's inconvenient for some people, particularly decision makers who were not only in power, but who abused that power to censor dissent.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#344

Post by Zpalmtree »

tayo42 wrote: post #278
jakear wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Encouraging people to not get a vaccine we decided is harmful speech. Who is "we"? I sure as hell haven't decided that. The supreme court hasn't either, unlike in the examples you mention. And my only discomfort with your example sprung from its severe lack of adroitness. My prior response could be roughly translated to "try harder".

Why do you think you get to decide what is harmful. What is your credential? Are you an elected policy maker, publish anything about vaccines or virus? Just another shit talker on a message board?

just trust the experts bro

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#345

Post by dagi3d »

rqtwteye wrote: post #217
a_bonobo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The for profit health system has a ton of problems and should be abandoned but it’s not the reason why people lost their minds over Covid. Germany has a better health system (for normal earners. The US system is great for wealthy people) but still has a ton of anti vaxxers and Covid deniers.

In Spain there is universal healthcare which is not perfect but works relative ok (although has been eroded over time) and most antivaxxers(and anti mask and anti everything) could be found within the right spectrum, basically as no sayers to everything the current government (social democrats) would recommend and propose.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#346

Post by Traubenfuchs »

JeremyNT wrote: post #337
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…

I think in a weird way COVID 19 fell into a strange area of lethality. For those looking at population data, it was horrific, but on a personal level the worst outcomes were rare enough that many people could avoid encountering any deaths or even severe illness in their inner circles. This made it rather easy to be an antivaxer, since people could just put their heads in the sand and remain blissfully ignorant of the…

Many young and healthy people still don‘t know anyone personally who died due to covid, nor anyone claiming to have long covid.

Covid was never dangerous to <50/60 year olds.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#347

Post by jacquesm »

JeremyNT wrote: post #337
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…

I think in a weird way COVID 19 fell into a strange area of lethality. For those looking at population data, it was horrific, but on a personal level the worst outcomes were rare enough that many people could avoid encountering any deaths or even severe illness in their inner circles. This made it rather easy to be an antivaxer, since people could just put their heads in the sand and remain blissfully ignorant of the…

Yes, that's very true. But that is also a super dangerous conclusion, that means that effectively until the dead are quite literally piling up in the streets that people will be happy to pretend it isn't real. This ability to deny something as long as it doesn't affect you personally is likely a very handy trait at some times but during pandemics it is going to lead to major trouble.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#348

Post by valleyer »

mc32 wrote: post #56
jakear wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Alcohol ads are definitely still a thing. Perhaps you’re thinking of tobacco?

I meant spirits but yeah you’re right tobacco is a better (worse) one.

Television ads for spirits, too, are legal and not uncommon in the United States.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#349

Post by lmm »

polygamous_bat wrote: post #245
lmm wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can prove anything you want with RCTs if you do enough selective reporting. I think the vaccine probably saved more lives than it cost, but I'm a lot less confident because of how much bad-faith covering-up of any counterveilling evidence there's been. (Were vaccine RCTs pre-registered? If they were, how many pre-registered trials were mysteriously stopped or abandoned?)

> You can prove anything you want with RCTs if you do enough selective reporting. Once you get to claims like these it's really difficult to prove anything anymore. At that point we may as well throw out hands up and start huffing bleach.

It's not like there's a replication crisis on, or we've recently seen promising drugs withdrawn because a couple of misclassified deaths in the RCT meant heart problems went unnoticed...

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#350

Post by Zpalmtree »

CharlesW wrote: post #38
jklm wrote: post #23

Relevant context - this was written by a member of the team who released the Twitter files, alongside Matt Tabibi.

Also, readers should know that The Free Press is Bari Weiss¹. Vanity Fair described her as "a provocateur", which is the kindest-possible interpretation of her editorial philosophy. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bari_Weiss

yep if they're saying stuff I don't like they're crazy and a provocateur, hey, maybe they're even a communist!
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