Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

thefp.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

521–530 of 986 posts

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#521

Post by causi »

slg wrote: post #482
arcticbull wrote: post #432

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thing is, there wasn't that much of it before the CDC spent over a month spewing bullshit telling people not to wear masks because masks don't stop the spread of COVID. They made it clear after the fact that this was done because there wasn't an adequate supply of masks for 330M people, and they needed to secure a supply for first responders. The job of the government is to make tough decisions like this in times o…

>The job of the government is to make tough decisions like this in times of crisis. You can agree or disagree but this was neither malicious nor in my opinion outside the scope of the role. I understand how dangerous it is for the government to lie, but what do people think would have been the proper approach here? Do we not remember what it was like during the early pandemic and all the hoarding that was going on? D…

what do people think would have been the proper approach here

Tell us the truth. "N95s should be reserved for medical personnel but surgical masks provide nominal protection for yourself and significant protection for others you might infect."

People realizing the CDC can and will lie to them has already been and will be far into the future responsible for countless deaths. Not only that, it makes us question what else the CDC has just decided is worth lying to us about. Do they manipulate statistics to "save people"? Do they falsify treatment data? If they'll lie to us about one thing they'll lie to us about another. Every single effort they make for the next decade or more is irreversibly tainted.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#522

Post by gadders »

arcticbull wrote: post #445
stormking wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They made it clear after the fact that this was done because there wasn't an adequate supply of masks for 330M people, and they needed to secure a supply for first responders. That's still lying. They gave you, the individual, false information, and not for your own good. Quite the contrary, that misinformation would actually harm you if you believed it. Do you really not see how destructive this was? Do you really…

> That's still lying. They gave you, the individual, false information, ... Yes it was lying. Yes it was false information. No, that's not outside the scope of their role at times. > ... and not for your own good. Quite the contrary, that misinformation would actually harm you if you believed it. No, it was for the individual good. Hoarding of masks by randos in the middle of nowhere leading to no supply for the firs…

Once you realise governments feel justified using the "noble lie", you will never trust them again.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#523

Post by causi »

int_19h wrote: post #517
slg wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is confiscating privately owned safety equipment the more democratic and libertarian approach than trying to convince people they shouldn't buy that equipment in the first place? That seems way more dystopian to me.

"Trying to convince people" implies a good faith approach - i.e. being open about what you want and why. Lying to people that masks are no good is not "convincing" them to not buy masks - it's misleading them to do so. And yes, I think that between lying to literally everybody, and confiscating the property of some companies, the latter is much preferable from a democratic perspective. Indeed, it's just eminent domai…

Indeed. How many people saw the CDC lied about masks and then poisoned themselves because they thought the CDC was lying about ivermectin or hydrochloroquine? After she caught covid it took me days to convince my grandmother to stop taking ivermectin.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#524

Post by jacquesm »

Nursie wrote: post #507
mns wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

“Unconstitutional” in which countries and by what constitution? I learned that a lot of people think contrarianism makes them smart, and that even if everything everyone was saying about covid was true, they felt it necessary to ‘resist’ purely for the sake of it. I never though that in a pandemic, so many people in so many places would both politicise public health measures and actively side with the virus. But here…

Indeed, all we had to do was stay put for a bit and yet the virus found humanity actively fighting for its side. Baffling. To put it mildly. And it appears that they are still litigating this. Even more baffling.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#525

Post by autoexec »

arcticbull wrote: post #445
stormking wrote: post #444

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They made it clear after the fact that this was done because there wasn't an adequate supply of masks for 330M people, and they needed to secure a supply for first responders. That's still lying. They gave you, the individual, false information, and not for your own good. Quite the contrary, that misinformation would actually harm you if you believed it. Do you really not see how destructive this was? Do you really…

> That's still lying. They gave you, the individual, false information, ... Yes it was lying. Yes it was false information. No, that's not outside the scope of their role at times. > ... and not for your own good. Quite the contrary, that misinformation would actually harm you if you believed it. No, it was for the individual good. Hoarding of masks by randos in the middle of nowhere leading to no supply for the firs…

> Again, a crap situation, but one that the CDC wasn't responsible for.

They simply messed up. All they had to do was say nothing and reach out to the manufacturers making N95 masks and their retailers. Just going to Walmart and Amazon and getting them to pull their stock would have prevented the vast majority of people from getting their hands on them. A non-trivial number of Americans at the time had already been wrongly and loudly bleating about how masks were useless and were really about "controlling the population".

The CDC lying to the public was plain wrong. However well-intentioned, it was a terrible shortsighted error in judgement that cost them all credibility. The CDC is perhaps the one agency we most need people to trust and they proved themselves to be untrustworthy.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#526

Post by slg »

int_19h wrote: post #517
slg wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is confiscating privately owned safety equipment the more democratic and libertarian approach than trying to convince people they shouldn't buy that equipment in the first place? That seems way more dystopian to me.

"Trying to convince people" implies a good faith approach - i.e. being open about what you want and why. Lying to people that masks are no good is not "convincing" them to not buy masks - it's misleading them to do so. And yes, I think that between lying to literally everybody, and confiscating the property of some companies, the latter is much preferable from a democratic perspective. Indeed, it's just eminent domai…

I don't know, I think eminent domain is in the Constitution because the founders knew that was an extremely dangerous power of the government to just take things by force from the populous. There is no Constitutional requirement that our leaders, elected or not, have to be truthful with us 100% of the time.

It is the difference between action and speech. Action is generally more dangerous. It is a little weird to me that in this discussion of the dangers of the government limiting speech, some people are more fearful of the government's speech than the government's action. It is a lot easier to simply ignore what the government says than try to hold on to my property when the men with guns come knocking at my door.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#527

Post by newaccount2021 »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #450
andy_ppp wrote: post #441

That we’re still debating this stuff is ridiculous, everyone seems to be trying to create a narrative out of actions performed with good intentions and imperfect information. I think Twitter and the press had an almost impossible job attempting to manage public health messaging. There does not need to be a red vs blue debate on this as if it’s some religious war. The way it’s debated verges on conspiracy theory to me…

Right or wrong, you've completely missed the point. Some people felt it wasn't worth the slightest bit of sacrifice to save other's lives. Some people felt all human life was sacred and we should've done everything possible to save every last day of every person's life. The vast majority of people were in the messy middle, and the debate centered around how much we should give up to save lives - especially when it mi…

[dead]

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#528

Post by mns »

Nursie wrote: post #507
mns wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

“Unconstitutional” in which countries and by what constitution? I learned that a lot of people think contrarianism makes them smart, and that even if everything everyone was saying about covid was true, they felt it necessary to ‘resist’ purely for the sake of it. I never though that in a pandemic, so many people in so many places would both politicise public health measures and actively side with the virus. But here…

In Bavaria, Germany the first strict lockdown was considered unlawful and extreme compared to the results and the severity of the situation, in the same time it was found that it violated people’s fundamental rights.

Resist what? What contrarianism? Do you think I want to go and kill people to prove I am smart? Or what is your point? Do you think it was fair to lock people in their houses, was it fair not to allow people to go outside and have a walk in the park? Was it normal that the police was out on the streets hunting for people or groups of people?

When my mom got cancer again after 2 years of not being able to get any kind of screening (yeah, that’s not possible, I’m just here spreading misinformation, no one died because cancer was mostly ingnored) and we drove back home (in the EU) having 3 negative pcr tests 3 days in a row, we were sent by the police in home isolation and checked by them every day, like some sort of criminals. But I sided with the virus and still went to see her in her last days, being there when she had her last breath. So you can take your politics, your health measures and let me live my life with the little humanity we were still allowed to have.

It’s easy to act all superior online with your cushy it jobs, belief in science, having food and packages delivered by those pesky Covid deniers while lecturing others online.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#529

Post by autoexec »

philjohn wrote: post #512
shaky-carrousel wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about telling people the truth, that there were no masks for everyone and they had to prioritize first responders? Treat people like adults and they will behave like adults. Treat them like kids and they'll behave like kids. Also, once you know you have been lied to, the trust is shattered, whatever the excuses. How people is going to trust again the CDC, knowing that it lied before?

Because large groups of people have shown, time and again, they don't act rationally. Look at toilet paper - one rumour that it would run out, despite shops, the government, everyone, saying there is more than enough and the rabble went out and hoarded.

The solution to the toilet paper problem wasn't lying to everyone by telling them that toilet paper was ineffective at removing shit from our asses. It was ultimately handled at the retail end where stores limited the number that people could buy and/or held back inventory.

Masks could have been handled in the same way: from the manufacturer/retailer end. Masks could have been pulled off shelves and diverted to healthcare workers until they could be sold in limited numbers to consumers.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#530

Post by seydor »

bgro wrote: post #424

There’s apparently a lot of people upset about Twitter for trying to manage misinformation. I’d like to see equal information leaked from Fox for comparison, who should have journalistic integrity since they’re a news company. It seems weird to me that Twitter is the only one people seem to be up in arms about, and not the times the US president did things like suggest to the public, on live national tv, that consumi…

But twitter is supposed to be a dumb pipe and its role is to facilitate the debate, not to take sides. That's why people are upset. The parallelism is not with Fox, but like if FCC was jamming the airwaves of tv channels it doesnt like

It still seems weird to me to give digital services a free pass on ethical matters

Post reply on HN