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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#411

Post by mns »

ryandrake wrote: post #127
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…

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Well, most of the measures in most of the European countries were ruled as unconstitutional: locked into our houses not being allowed to get out, curfews afterwards at night and so on (and of course all these rules were set in place by politicians that never respected any of them - and worse, a lot of them made money by importing and selling back to the state masks and other PPE equipment). Most of the people, even if they took the vaccines, but dared to say anything about forcing people to get them or commenting on the absurdity of police patrolling parks and stopping any groups of more than 3 people, forcing masks outside in cold weather (not even bothering to read the instructions on the box) were all labelled antivaxxers, corona deniers and right wing nazis. So a lot of people decided to shut up and let the new religion of “I believe in science” do their thing. But next time when a serious pandemic hits, the trust has already been eroded.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#412

Post by Nomentatus »

mmcgaha wrote: post #368
Nomentatus wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tha…

There's a good recent analysis of the hospital stats vs vaccination rates over time, amongst other things. But remember, our defense against viruses includes having infected cells kill themselves, so damage is always widespread over the body after a serious viral infection, it's just that the heart and lungs can't take time off or ramp activity down sharply to recover, so they're extra vulnerable. People dying days after recovering from Spanish flu and returning to strenuous farm work was common, for example. Two such cases among my grandmother's 12 siblings.

You're right re 100% infection by now. I had the first two shots (and two infections, one before vaccines were available.) But I did skip the next two, since the bivalent wasn't available yet and evidence re boosting with the same old vaccine was thin. (Antibodies are an indicator not the whole story.) Now I'm scheduled for a bivalent shot. The first vaccine doesn't really help with the new strain, says a recent study. (Google pubmed and you can really dive into the papers, and know more than I about it pretty quickly.)

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#413

Post by leereeves »

andreyk wrote: post #400
paganel wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it shows that the government leaned on Twitter to do what it wanted but not able to mandate it, Why does a government has to "lean" on a private media company in a "democrat" and "liberal" democracy? Not able to "mandate" is total bs, see the Pentagon-related leaks where there wasn't any need of any "mandating". If anything, this shows how hypocritical the whole industry has become, including many of its workers. H…

"Why does a government has to "lean" on a private media company in a "democrat" and "liberal" democracy?" There are people within the government whose job it was to respond to the covid pandemic. Part of that response involved educating the public about the disease and best practices related to it, which therefore included fighting misinformation. Misinformation is spread on platforms such as Twitter, so it made sens…

Who gave them the mandate to control information about Covid? Trump was president at the time and he certainly didn't.

And even granting, for the sake of argument, that someone within the government had that job, suppressing disagreement and debate is not the right way to do it.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#414

Post by subradios »

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

Yes, but those flaws are not simply among the people these criticisms are leveled at.

Technocratic autocracy created the issues, but the response is typically "so add more technocratic autocracy".

It's not just those evil billionaires (read, people in the .1 percent whereas being on HN makes you highly likely to be in the 1%) manipulating society, it's Good, Honest, Educated professionals who are making incorrect or reactionary decisions regularly and doubling down when called on it.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#415

Post by Nomentatus »

unity1001 wrote: post #383
Nomentatus wrote: post #281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

History strongly shows that epidemics do change political consciousness, toward psychological conservatism. It will take two generations (as with economic depressions) before things get anything like as loose and sloppy again. We'll fail in other ways, meanwhile. Eventually, UK citizens lost their faith in the aristocratic system. But they did. I may be kidding myself but I think there will be some permanent change f…

> Eventually, UK citizens lost their faith in the aristocratic system. But they did. I may be kidding myself To start with, getting fed up with aristocrats would be a revolutionary and progressive thing, not conservative. But it does not seem like there is enough such sentiment in the UK to change things. They still have their royals with veto power, they still have the unelected house of lords with aristocratic, rel…

Re aristocracy, I only mean that change happens drop by drop even when the movement toward it is all but invisible, sometimes.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#416

Post by jacquesm »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #402
jacquesm wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large institution makes mistakes in face of unprecedented crisis, news at 11. All those standing by the sidelines and criticizing those in the hot seat would no doubt have done a much better job at managing this. I'm all for learning the lessons (such as the link you posted) but I'm categorically against assigning blame against those that worked their asses off to help mitigate this, as long as the lessons stay learn…

>which makes theirs a highwire act somewhere between medicine and politics. Welp, that's probably not what people thought about the WHO before Covid, and certainly justifies the decline in trust. Maybe they could rebrand as World Health And Politics Organization.

> Welp, that's probably not what people thought about the WHO before Covid

That would be hopelessly naive then. We do not have a 'world government', every government has complete autonomy on how they deal with healthcare issues, something that I believed to be well known. That's why each government has their own ministry of health and their own way of dealing with health insurance, budgets and so on. The degree to which these things are organized is impressive but in the end if the WHO publishes a guideline you'd be stupid to ignore it but you can if you want. And plenty of countries did.

And no, it should not result in a decline of trust in the WHO who clearly advocated for moving as fast as possible while governments the world over with some very rare exceptions took a 'let's wait and see' approach. If anything it should reduce the confidence that you can solve global issues with local policies.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#417

Post by mns »

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 Germany, anyone who didn’t agree with forcing people to get vaccinated and with lockdowns was considered a Covid denier. But in the end, once mask mandates were lifted and basically no one wears a mask any more, you see that a loud and aggressive minority was the one imposing the rules on everyone.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#418

Post by devtul »

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…

To say "trust the system" requires a religious inclination that many don't have

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#419

Post by ttoinou »

twblalock wrote: post #398
andreyk wrote: post #377

OK, so here's the key bit: "Twitter executives did not fully capitulate to the Biden team’s wishes. An extensive review of internal communications at the company revealed that employees often debated moderation cases in great detail, and with more care for free speech than was shown by the government. ... But Twitter did suppress views—and not just those of journalists like Berenson. Many medical and public health pr…

The government shouldn't be doing that. Also, it's important to break down what is meant by "the government" here -- it was the FBI attempting to suppress a news story which later turned out to be true about the son of a candidate for president. That sort of thing should not happen. Secondly, this kind of moderation is counterproductive. It gives all the conspiracy theorists a true conspiracy to point to -- they real…

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#420

Post by devtul »

afpx wrote: post #390
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.

When there are literally millions of medical experts recommending taking vaccines, why would you expect most people to do otherwise? We're not all medical experts. And, we can't survive without trusting others.

It wasn't really a recommendation per gov policy in many countries, it was take the shot or else type of deal. Also any talk that didn't toe the official line was deemed "misinformation".
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