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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#361

Post by creato »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #252
88913527 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you supposed to communicate 1 in 10^7 chance of anything happening versus communicating it's risk-free. The public isn't educated well enough to ascertain the difference. College-educated members of society sure, but what about the rest? Health messaging has to be broadly applicable. Most people won't have an issue, so it's simplest to convey this idea.

> 1 in 10^7 chance I'm not sure I believe that. > The public isn't educated well enough to ascertain the difference. The public may be uneducated but they're still equipped with brains capable of pattern recognition. In my country, the public saw young famous people "mysteriously" dying of heart attacks and strokes immediately after getting vaccinated, in some cases not long after tweeting some insults at skeptics. P…

You’re suffering from confirmation bias just as much as /r/HermanCainAward. There are 8 billion people in the world, there will be plenty of examples of any theory you can come up with.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#363

Post by JSavageOne »

1MachineElf wrote: post #355
JSavageOne wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Twitter as a public platform has a duty to uphold freedom of speech and not censor viewpoints it doesn't like. Amazing that people in a country founded on free speech are trying to defend censorship.

I agree with your second point, but your first one is simply not true. My hope is that Mastodon, because it is not for-profit, will take up the role of public platform upholding free speech.

I don't see what there is to disagree as the first.

Either you're a platform or a publisher, and the difference is whether the company is legally liable for the user's content.

Twitter claims itself to legally be a platform, and therefore on a legal basis should uphold free speech (not to mention on a moral basis).

If they want to be a publisher then they can do that and destroy their site, and everyone will migrate off to competitors.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#364

Post by ytpete »

twblalock wrote: post #185
SkipperCat wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a lot of speech on Twitter and Facebook, but the purpose of those companies is profit. If they could curate and filter content to increase revenue, they will. Plus, telecom laws protect them from liable so they can get away with publishing outright lies. The fact that people use these poorly vetted sites as their primary source of news is unsettling. There is a lot of quality content, but it’s surrounded by…

And yet the purpose of the NYT and WSJ is also profit. They also publish a lot of total dreck. You are chasing after a distinction without a difference.

Right, but you don't expect NYT or WSJ to be required to print every "letter to the editor" submitted by anyone in the world. They are for-profit, non-government, and they print what they want. Twitter is also for-profit and not the government – so why is it different if they also choose not to broadcast some things?

Newspapers and TV media also have always received a lot of government pressure trying to spin their coverage or convince them to downplay (or emphasize) certain stories. I'm still confused about why it's suddenly so much more scandalous that anything similar happened with Twitter.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#365

Post by IOT_Apprentice »

seneca wrote: post #258
88913527 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are you supposed to communicate 1 in 10^7 chance of anything happening versus communicating it's risk-free. The public isn't educated well enough to ascertain the difference. College-educated members of society sure, but what about the rest? Health messaging has to be broadly applicable. Most people won't have an issue, so it's simplest to convey this idea.

Sorry, are you suggesting that people without a college education are too ignorant to make judgements about their own health and that it's therefore ok to lie to them? This sort of high handed paternalism is exactly the attitude that has destroyed faith in institutions.

There are people who have taken 2nd mortgages on their homes to send money to Trump for his “stop the steal” grift. People are too ignorant in general.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#366

Post by kornhole »

seattle_spring wrote: post #295
rajin444 wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

Here is some promotion of misinformation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqaN68vBvXQ&t=3

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#367

Post by yongjik »

spritefs wrote: post #324
yongjik wrote: post #316

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If people don't trust a system that raised them, there are inherent flaws with the system that it is either unable or unwilling to address

Sure, but a major flaw of the American system is that it's deliberately pushing its people into being distrustful of the system (and each other). Not trusting the government, or wanting to make it less effective, is considered a virtue in many parts of America. (And it's not just the conservatives.)

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#368

Post by mmcgaha »

Nomentatus wrote: post #283
mmcgaha wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Heart problems caused by the virus, especially if you haven't been vaccinated, are far more frequent and severe than from the vaccination. Our immune system is powerful and can hurt us all by itself; but it's powerful because it has to be.

So in fairness, I am in no way anti-vax but I am not vaccinated and intend to ride out this whole unvaxed thing until either my risk levels become higher or some new bad ass strain comes along like the fourth horseman.

So as I understand your logic is unvaxed = worse infection = worse heart damage. At this point close to 100% of the western population has had covid. Has there been enough research to know for sure that the unvaxed are at a higher risk for heart damage or are you simply asserting that because it sounds logical?

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#369

Post by barry-cotter »

solarpunk wrote: post #317
mhh__ wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

man, skip talking about the vaccines, what about the refusal to simply utilize MASKS ???

Are you referring to how the US Surgeon General told everyone masks didn’t work or something else?

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#370

Post by barry-cotter »

Fatnino wrote: post #266
unity1001 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the distrust it created for big government, big pharma, and big tech. No worries. The people will forget it just like they forgot the Iraq War, the Avandia drug scandal, the Three Mile island, the Mexican gulf oil leak, Iran-Contra and everything else. They will vote in the election. The administration will change. And despite the incoming administrations will be staffed fully by the SAME people who staffed the adm…

Nothing happened at TMI

That’s not true. The extra cancer screening saved tens of lives and the strangling of the nuclear industry probably resulted in millions of excess deaths from pollution compared to if TMI had never happened.
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