Earlier quoted context omitted.
Should we suppress other people's opinions, then?
To the extent that we should be allowed to moderate content within the domains that we have ownership over, absolutely.
This point of view is dangerous in my eyes.
How Twitter moderated the Covid debate
931–940 of 986 posts
Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate
#932Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
> Either you're a platform or a publisher, and the difference is whether the company is legally liable for the user's content. This trope is so old and so wrong that there's a techdirt article specifically written to debunk it and save everyone the irreplaceable moments of their lives spent arguing about it[1]. [1] https://www.techdirt.com/2020/06/23/hello-youve-been-referre...
Ok I stand corrected on this law, which basically says that companies aren't liable for user-generated content (the article could've just said that in the first line).
Either way from a moral perspective doesn't change the fact that a platform censoring viewpoints is a violation of the principal of free speech, and morally reprehensible in a free democratic society. Twitter tried to be the Orwellian Ministry of Truth, and I'm glad that Twitter's new management recognizes the error of their former ways and is committed to not repeating the same Orwellian mistakes.
Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate
#933Earlier quoted context omitted.
Social media companies try to portray themselves legally as platforms in order to eliminate legal liability for the content that users post on their platform.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20200531/23325444617/hello...
Ok I stand corrected on this law, which basically says that companies aren't liable for user-generated content (the article could've just said that in the first line).
Either way from a moral perspective doesn't change the fact that a platform censoring viewpoints is a violation of the principal of free speech, and morally reprehensible in a free democratic society. Twitter tried to be the Orwellian Ministry of Truth, and I'm glad that Twitter's new management recognizes the error of their former ways and is committed to not repeating the same Orwellian mistakes.
Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate
#934Earlier quoted context omitted.
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
Then why dumb pipe should be worth 44B$? And you are contradicting yourself - if something is facilitate debate (as opposed to enable) then it is not dumb.
Do satellites and telephone wires not facilitate debate?
Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate
#935Hindsight is 20/20. We didn’t know anything about Covid in the early months and the CDC was following plans designed to counter something closer to the 1917 Spanish Flu. We should all be grateful they scared the crap out of us. What if a variant started killing kids? What if a variant started killing 25-35 year olds? Read history. That’s what happened when the Spanish Flu came around for a second swing. It wasn’t abo…
That may have been the case in the very beginning, but it certainly evolved into let's scare the crap out of people to achieve whatever outcome we want.
What outcome is that, exactly?
Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate
#936Earlier quoted context omitted.
How am I moving goalpost? Parent is living in a fantasy world where pure argumentation replaces BS. I'm guessing Jan 6 and COVID proved that world doesn't exist.
There's an alternate fantasy world where authorities never wrongly decide what truth is. I'm guessing the 20th century proved that world doesn't exist, either. So: We live in a world where there's lots of BS, much of it deliberately malicious, and in a world where authority figures will misuse authority over "truth", sometimes deliberately and blatantly to further their own power. Now what? What is the best strategy…
That’s my point: talking in a absolutes gets us nowhere, because the world is messy and value is in nuance. Absolute free speech being a singularity, the point is that there ought to be some kind of regulation, the amount of which is a work in progress.
Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate
#937I wonder how many of the "my kids and I are masking forever" crowd is due to the Twitter echo chamber. If anything contradicting the most dire of COVID effects is stifled then it's no surprise that some of the population became extreme. Their beliefs are even now reinforced by the Twitter/ social media echo chamber of the people they follow. It's sad and I feel for these people and especially for their kids
And how does this number compare to the number of people who refused to take precautionary measures such as masking and vaccines due to Twitter echo chamber, and then died of COVID? Very sad, and I feel so bad for those people and their kids.
Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate
#938I wonder how many of the "my kids and I are masking forever" crowd is due to the Twitter echo chamber. If anything contradicting the most dire of COVID effects is stifled then it's no surprise that some of the population became extreme. Their beliefs are even now reinforced by the Twitter/ social media echo chamber of the people they follow. It's sad and I feel for these people and especially for their kids
And how does this number compare to the number of people who refused to take precautionary measures such as masking and vaccines due to Twitter echo chamber, and then died of COVID? Very sad, and I feel so bad for those people and their kids.
It doesn't there are different outcomes. Twitter hid the anti-vax messaging and promoted the pro-vaccine and pro-masking messaging.
~1600 people under the age of 18 have died of covid since it began ~3 years ago. Since it began though its a very different virus, Omicron is far less deadly. Kids that are constantly masked will have long term social and learning issues. I think we have reached the point in the pandemic where the harm from constant masking out weighs the benefits. The vast majority of people agree with that. Even the 80+ year old president is rarely masked these days. I'm not telling you what to do, I'm just saying from a risk / reward perspective, masking kids likely does not deliver unless those children are ill to begin with.
Regarding vaccination, I agree social media led to many people that should have been vaccinated (overweight, lung conditions, etc.) not getting vaccinated and they died where they likely did not have to. I knew 2 of them. I'm not an anti-vaxxer and was vaccinated and received a booster shot. I am not getting anymore of them as I had covid and it was not a big deal so I know longer think the risk is worth the reward. My kids are not vaccinated and unless there is a major mutation in the virus will not be. They have all had covid without issue.
Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate
#939Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Nope, I’m not American, and it appears neither does your source, because the link that should take you to the original claim goes to some other story. Here's another: https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-director-data-suggests-vaccinated... And more: https://twitter.com/ryanstruyk/status/1376925777397186560 --- > Anything can affect women’s menstrual cycles [...] It's not really surprising and it's not necessarily serious. M…
I didn’t flag you, I would have liked you post to stand so others could see the conversation as it was, and see you doing exactly as I predicted - ‘evidencing’ claims that you had been right all along with half-truths and contortions. Which you’re still doing. > Here's another "Scientist talks about existing data on the original virus, conspiracy theorist uses hindsight and information from variants that didn't even…
You sidestepped https://mobile.twitter.com/AP/status/1606381652216893440, I'll give you some more time to come up with why people's claims that the Government would do exactly that were/are
"conspiracy theories" best dismissed out-of-hand.
> "Scientist talks about existing data on the original virus, conspiracy theorist uses hindsight and information from variants that didn't even exist at the time to try to paint them as malicious"
In fact, "scientist makes bold claims they don't have the facts to back up. scientist ignores all prior data showing that vaccines don't work like that to overstate the importance of vaccination in order to push their agenda that everyone should be vaccinated. scientist presents a false narrative that the vaccine for coronaviruses (such as the common cold) is a one-shot procedure. scientist conveniently forgets to mention that viruses evolve. scientist in public position knowingly lies to constituents to push their agenda. people on the internet say `this is ok, it's for my own good. we should be grateful they're so willing to lie!`."
> Or it might out you as someone who has no idea, because you haven't provided any evidence that such a thing is serious and has any longer term effects, and all of those other things I've mentioned can cause the same issue, yet we don't scream about how aircraft travel is evil because it can disturb menstrual cycles.
Please do yourself a favor and talk with an actual woman about how the vaccine affected their cycle compared to airline travel. It's not even on the same page. Or, if that's too much for you, read one of the numerous studies that institutions other than the CDC have published. If you do go down the "talking to a real woman" approach, I recommend you then tell them how the problem isn't really that serious and even though a huge number of women went out of their day to report (to the CDC) severe pains for months following the jab, it's reasonable for the CDC to leave it completely off of their "known side effect of the vaccine" page. Even better, go around on the street and make a TikTok telling women how you know best. I'd pay money to see that.
To be concrete, I personally know multiple women who have both `had COVID`, `had the vax`, and `gotten menstruation issues from the vax that far exceeded all covid-induced issues in both timespan and severity`. They all wish they didn't get the vax at all, and have refused to get any boosters. It 100% does not help that the CDC will not admit that the vax can cause these issues, as it means two things: they don't report the feedback garnered from their "we care! tell us the side effects you encountered!" form, and they don't want to fix the problem.
> You've stitched together assertions, hyperbole and half-truths.
Hey, at least we both admit I have some truth on my side! All you've presented are feelings and the media's favorite talking points.
Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate
#940Earlier quoted context omitted.
yet, masks did nothing other than stoke fears and division, as you're doing here. our masking behavior was, and continues to be, irrational, in that it was done at the wrong times with ill-conceived intent. people worried about masking against strangers, when most transmission happened from someone you knew and trusted (probably 95+%). they were generally ineffective by design ( the CDC was initially correct in asses…
> most transmission happened from someone you knew and trusted (probably 95+%) While this is true, at least in the early pandemic when social circles were pretty tight (often just your household, but even if not quite a bit smaller than during normal times), the virus has to be introduced to that social circle, it won't just manifest itself out of nothing in one of it's members. Masking when not interacting with that…
sure, but that fits into the extant ~5%. it just takes a friend of a friend/family member to spread through social circles, since they overlap greatly, even for the tightest ones.
as i see it, masks make sense in 2 general cases:
1) when uncertainty about transmission and lethality is high, as was the case in nov/dec 2019, until population risk is more closely bounded
2) when situational risk is measurably elevated over baseline, like having comorbidities, surgery, packed mass transit, etc.
by april 2020, we (in the US at least) had enough information that masking wasn't going to be that panacea, when taking human behavior into account (trust channels, weariness, etc.). yet, it was still weaponized by the media and politicians.
i know this because i was making these very same points back in april 2020. to be effective, a mask has to be worn at the right times (like being face-to-face with another human) and correctly (creating a tight seal around the nose and mouth using an effective filtering material). most people weren't doing either of these most of the time.