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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#741
post #180

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.

I disagree. Anti-vax movements have been around for as long as there have been vaccines. The only thing that "solves" this problem is a new disease and vaccines that completely displaces the old. Think about it: when was the last time, since the pandemic began, that you heard about autism and the MMR vaccine? that began in the late 90s (with no scientific basis I might add) and persisted for decades. Now no one talks…

> Think about it: when was the last time, since the pandemic began, that you heard about autism and the MMR vaccine? that began in the late 90s (with no scientific basis I might add) and persisted for decades. Now no one talks about, thinks about or cares about it anymore. It's completely off the radar.

I encounter normies talking (inaccurately, lack of nuance, etc) about the "vaccines cause autism" meme on a regular basis.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#742
post #643

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean doctors like this Dr. Karas here one lost their license? As early as November 2020, Dr. Robert Karas, the jail’s doctor, told inmates who had contracted COVID that he was giving them a cocktail of vitamins, antibiotics, and steroids when in fact he was administering dangerously high doses of the dewormer. “At no point were Plaintiffs informed that the medications they were consuming included Ivermectin,” the…

Yes, definitely citing an arstechnica piece citing a lawsuit's claims by very credible inmates is the winning argument.

Notably, the article doesn't say that he did lose his license, or that that is even a possible outcome.

Also, I would like to point out that prisoners in the land of the free are still humans.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#743

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CDC may not have said those words, but the surgeon general absolutely did. There was plenty of conflicting messaging around the effectiveness of cloth masks as well.

Yep, already mentioned that USSG said that. Note that he never comes up in these discussions as someone who lied though. No one I know seemed to even note what he said. Everyone seems (correctly) more fixated on CDC/NIH which were dominating the public messaging.

It's hard to read the nuance in official messaging when the unofficial messaging has none. Welcome to the Mandela effect.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#744

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean doctors like this Dr. Karas here one lost their license? As early as November 2020, Dr. Robert Karas, the jail’s doctor, told inmates who had contracted COVID that he was giving them a cocktail of vitamins, antibiotics, and steroids when in fact he was administering dangerously high doses of the dewormer. “At no point were Plaintiffs informed that the medications they were consuming included Ivermectin,” the…

no, I mean other doctors that prescribe a safe drug. If the inmates had too much, they had too much. And experimenting or giving a treatment without proper disclosure is wrong and the doctor should lose their license for that - if nothing else. But thanks for bringing that example because it shows the evil of experimenting on people without full disclosure. Now if you want to talk about the incidence of heart-attacks…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_equivalence

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#745

What _should_ Twitter have done? I see plenty of "nothing", so that's not interesting. But if there was a Blue, and surveys where you could see the opinions aggregated by, say, doctors with ivy league degrees, would that be useful? It would allow for dissenting voices but (maybe?) less likelihood of those voices overwhelming the majority? Any other opinions?

How about letting people discuss, even retarded arguments. If they are in fact retarded disproving them shouldn't be so hard right? The Streisand effect should teach us something, and when so many of the so called conspiracy theories proved to be likely and even true (lab leak theory for example) who are people going to look to for information?

The best example I can remember was a fact-check by Reuters on the claim that clinical trials were not completed. Their debunk started by rephrasing the claim to a straw-man that "trials had another year to finish", to debunking with: "No according to Pfizer source X it will be done by Y".

I did the math, and from article publication to date Y it was 10 months, so sure, technically correct, not a year. But does the straw-man of a specific date debunk the claim that the "trials are not completed"?

Tragic but that was the state of the discourse and it's ridiculous, what did they expect? This is going to take a long time to repair and how global it was makes me draw the most sinister conclusions. I don't want to but it's the only explanation I see.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#746

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Having a memory more than a goldfish means I know exactly what was said, and they did more then just say "masks may not work" I vividly remember Facui stating many times on multiple interviews that masks were not effective. >the public should not get masks until medical professionals are equipped with what they need? disagree. I think people should be free to acquire any product they want on the market, and I believe…

Well we can disagree on the ethics for sure. Legally, of course consumers do not have the right to acquire any product they want on the market and of course the government does have the ability to seize most anything for the national interest. Both of these powers are well established and have been used throughout history both for good things and bad things. Regarding Fauci, are you pointing to his March 8 2020 commu…

>>Well we can disagree on the ethics for sure

From your comments you clearly on the camp of supporting government tyranny, I bet you fully supported lock-downs, mandated masking, mandated vaccinations as well?

let me ask then, are there any limits on government at all in your worldview or can the government exclaim "national emergency" and wipe away any an all limits to their authority?

>>the government does have the ability to seize most anything for the national interest. Both of these powers are well established and have been used throughout history both for good things and bad things.

that is absolutely incorrect, as the Supreme Court has shown more than a few times (see case law around the seizing of guns after Katrina for an example of government exceeding their authority). There has not been much if any adjudication around the ceasing of medical supplies during the pandemic, or the seizing of labor (i.e lockdowns) both of which should clearly be 5th amendment violation and require just compensation. I would love to see some lawsuits over that, if the ACLU was actually about protecting civil liberties they would be at the forefront of those suits.

>>are you pointing to his March 8 2020 communication

No I am pointing to multiple TV interviews

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#747
post #603

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that N95 masks have a shelf life (2-5 years?), so stock would need to be regularly repurchased. The bigger issue is the sheer cost of preparation against an exponentially-reproducing threat. All other disasters can be prepared for with state of the art gear because they are, by nature, limited. Ergo, a limit amount of gear can be rapidly transported to location and will suffice. In contrast, a pan…

> My understanding is that N95 masks have a shelf life (2-5 years?), so stock would need to be regularly repurchased. “Shelf-life” on non-perishable goods is highly conservative and often regulated by profit motive. Millions of N95 and P95 respirators were destroyed shortly before the pandemic due to “shelf life” and yet would have been a god send compared to having nothing or treating active COVID cases with a t-shi…

We regularly enrich The MIC with over-budget weapons, certainly we can figure out how to manufacture N95 masks and rotate them as necessary.

This is Respiratory Pandemic 101. It's a threshold no expert should be tolerant of and/or should fail. Any other excuse is propaganda.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#748
post #614

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just do stock rotation. Bring stock in, release old stock to hospitals and such where it will be used right away.

Think in quantities. Hospitals in normal times don't consume the number of masks you'd need to stockpile for a pandemic situation.

We can invent and manufactur a bomber that evades radar. Mask are 5 to 10 orders of magnitude less involved.

The only responsible excuse is incompetence or negligence. We, the USA, were completely unprepared.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#749

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Welp, I'm open to clarification. Given both the vaccine and the virus can cause myocarditis or pericarditis, and given that the only thing they have in common is the spike protein, I'm curious as to where you think I went wrong.

Where you went wrong is getting it backwards. The vaccines are orders of magnitude less likely to cause cardiac problems than the virus itself, for fairly obvious medical reasons. And that cardiac events in both cases are a minor part of the greater effects and dangers of catching the disease. So it's about not focusing on the wrong things

> The vaccines are orders of magnitude less likely to cause cardiac problems than the virus itself, for fairly obvious medical reasons.

Do you have a citation or evidence for that statement? Estimates for cardiac vaccine injury are in the 4-5% range. Your statement would imply that 40% of people infected with Covid would have cardiac issues. The evidence in low vaccine rate countries (or Africa) contradict your statement (no where near 40% of the population is getting cardiac issues).

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#750

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes it noble and who gets to decide when the interest of the public good is sufficient to suspend the rights of the citizenry? If it is to be believed that most people lack the intelligence to behave in ways that are in their own and society’s best interest then what is the point of democracy? What other rights are we willing to suspend for the interest of the public? Even if it is justified in this instance,…

sorry - it was sarcasm. search "noble lie" and covid and you'll see the reference to Fauci.

My bad, that's on me, I am having trouble parsing out sarcasm with some of the comments on this topic.
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