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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#861

Post by Khaine »

It's not just the CDC who failed, it's also the WHO. Truest in the WHO plummeted after they appeared to 'cover up' for China.

From https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7992121/pdf/406...

The World Health Organisation (WHO) initially declined to endorse wearing of ‘medical masks’ as a non-pharmaceutical intervention to prevent or reduce the spread of the SARS-Cov-2 virus and strongly opposed using other forms of masks. In the second version of the WHO’s advice in March 2020 (WHO, 2020a) it stated that:

A medical mask is not required for people who are not sick as there is no evidence of its usefulness in protecting them.

Cloth (e.g. cotton or gauze) masks are not recommended under any circum- stances.

However, by December 2020, the WHO recommended wearing of non-medical masks of various kind in certain community settings—subject to recommendations on how this is done. It did so, “Despite the limited evidence of protective efficacy of mask wearing in community settings” (WHO, 2020b). Various public health experts and epidemiologists have gone further, asserting that community use of non-medical masks is crucial for slowing transmission and attributing better outcomes in some countries to early adoption of widespread mask usage. Some countries that were initially reticent to even recommend mask use have made a comparable about-turn, making mask wearing mandatory and failure to do so subject to criminal penalty.

Under the currently-dominant hierarchy in evidence-based medicine, credible evidence on mask usage must come from randomized control trials; it was the absence of significant positive effects from RCTs prior to the pandemic that informed the WHO’s initial stance.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#863

Post by etchalon »

imwillofficial wrote: post #857
etchalon wrote: post #842

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's unreasonable, in that it's a standard that can (likely) ever be met. When it comes to the state, I believe the reason we require such broad free speech protections is precisely because perfection can never be attained, and the state holds an unfair advantage in force, and in law. But it's just hyperbolic nonsense to consider nearly any private company, let alone one with such marginal reach as Twitter, as posses…

I championed nothing. I merely proposed that listening to alternative viewpoints on controversial topics is now something that is now on the table for me. Literally a Strawman.

It's a threaded discussion. I wasn't replying to you.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#864

Post by MrMan »

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…

the explicit mandate of Fox is to spread lies to try to increase division in the US and to weaken the country. it would be weird to complain aobut this if you also want to destroy the country from within

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#865

Post by poszlem »

Rastonbury wrote: post #858
poszlem wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One interesting aspect of these arguments is that people often attribute the spread of anti-vaccine views to social media platforms like Twitter, rather than acknowledging the role of government and media in promoting false narratives that have contributed to widespread mistrust in mainstream institutions. While I personally believe that homeopathy is completely baseless, I can understand why someone who has witnesse…

Do you think the authorities actions are a result of intentional malice/dishonesty or incompetence? Be careful because this the playbook of how these influencers draw people into the echo chamber. Slowly breed mistrust in anything and everything mainstream, encouraging you to think critically. Once there is a level of mistrust in everything, they feed you sources they want you to believe, "don't believe these guys, I…

The actions of "the authorities" (or rather - many people working in "the authorities") were both malicious/dishonest and incompetent at different times (and for different people).

I can try and attribute the "masks don't work" narrative to incompetence (they were trying to save the masks, and that backfired), but it isn't hard to argue that that was also dishonest.

The same applies to the "you MUSTstay indoors" messages followed a few days later by "you should go and take part in a protest with hundreds of other people" because, suddenly, racism is a health emergency bigger than covid (https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/jun/12/racism-publi...).

I am not in the "ivermectin cures Covid" camp. I don't think it does based on the available research. But the campaign to paint it as a "horse dewormer" was as far from honest as possible and I very much doubt that it was organic (Ivermectin is a drug that is prescribed to 150 000 people in the US every year, it's also commonly used to deworm dogs, and cats, and yet somehow each news outlet focused on horses).

I could go on, but the fact of the matter is that I simply don't trust the mainstream media anymore and totally understand why many people do not either. I don't care what you think about that, from my perspective "don't believe these guys, I've shown you the light, now believe me" has been employed time and time again to smear people who had heterodox opinions during the pandemic (and way before it) too.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#866

Post by ETH_start »

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…

>>But then, should Twitter have opted for more false negatives than false positives? I don't think so.

100% yes. The process used by multi-billion dollar global communication platforms for fact-checking should not be this sloppy, where they themselves become purveyors of misinformation in marking accurate information as misleading.

It's one thing for some regular Joe Blow to post misinformation. It's another for the party with the full weight/authority of being the platform provider, and all of the credibility that comes with that, to post misinformation.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#867

Post by ETH_start »

causi wrote: post #523
int_19h wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

Ivermectin is used on billions of people and proven quite safe.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#868

Post by ETH_start »

echelon wrote: post #513
eddhead wrote: post #453

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Jim Baker is a double agent for the FBI. Everyone is Quite obvious of why he was there.

> Jim Baker is a double agent for the FBI. Geopolitical hat on. Elon Musk is getting close to the Saudis (Twitter), China (Gigafactory Shanghai), and Russians (necessary industrial inputs). In the past few months he's casually suggested a handover of Ukraine and Taiwan. Now he's turning on the Democrats and the FBI, or at least certain members of those organizations. My mind wonders if the DoD will sour on his role a…

You're forgetting that Elon Musk's SpaceX is providing critical StarLink Internet access to the Ukrainian armed forces.

The much more reasonable explanation for Musk's behavior with respect to the Democrats and FBI is that he does not like the censorship going on with the gradual fusing of the US security sector and US Tech companies.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#869

Post by ThunderSizzle »

iamacyborg wrote: post #783
4bpp wrote: post #602

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the pragmatic and non-conspiracy answer you are imagining? As I understand it, a group of people coordinating in secret to take actions that the public would not let them take if the secrecy were broken is pretty much the definition of a conspiracy.

The pragmatic answer is that the government wanted to secure supplies for social services first.

Word choice. Government officials, primarily unelected, conspired to secure supplies for their agencies first, and we're willing to knowingly lie and politicize to do it.

Was it pragmatic? Sure. Morally right? Probably no, if ends don't justify means.

Doesn't mean the pragmatic answer also wasn't a conspriacy.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#870

Post by peter422 »

at_a_remove wrote: post #840
peter422 wrote: post #835

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government didn't do that though (even though they could have!). Tons of people remain unvaccinated, though I acknowledge in certain cases the person had to find a different job more compatible with their inability to do risk analysis. Remember also that if you get sick and go to an ER, they are required by law to treat you. The society has an interest in preserving this legally required service to be available t…

Oh, I have taken the vaccines. I just believe that informed consent is always a must. I should be informed of the side effects, all of them. Hiding them from me is not an option. I guess we fundamentally disagree on the need for informed consent. I believe that "you don't get to know that" is not acceptable, no matter how well-meaning people are. We used to sterilize people without telling them, under the exact same…

The authorizations for these vaccines had 10+ hour public meetings and hundreds of pages of supporting documentation. The studies listed the known data on side effects.

Obviously the vaccines were not without risk, and when the government said they were "safe" that did not mean they were 100% safe... Nothing is. They were safe to the standards of other vaccines in broad use.

I will acknowledge that in addition to the known deaths from JNJ, I'm sure there were a bunch of unlucky people who had reactions to vaccine that caused issues or may have even killed a few people who were extra sensitive or unlucky. However if the choice is either getting the vaccine first or getting COVID first, and one is 100x safer than the other one for all of these side effects, then it's still hard to disagree with anything the government did.

And at the end of the day a lot of anti-vaxxers or vax-curious people argue in bad faith with bad data (I'm not saying you are, but it is common). And even I agree that the "good" data isn't perfect. We still have reporting issues of died with COVID vs died from COVID, but even with any reasonable assumptions about these distinctions the vaccines give all people of any age enough additional protection to be worth it (for the initial 3 doses at least - I make no claims beyond that).

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