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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#941

Post by YeBanKo »

kodah wrote: post #789
BryantD wrote: post #773

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s a great read! Fauci explains what facts he didn’t have at the time and why learning those facts changed his mind. If Covid was only transmissible by people with symptoms, you could control spread by asking those people to stay home and everyone else is clear — no masks needed. If it’s impossible to know if you’re infectious without testing, masks make more of a difference. More effective ones are obviously bet…

That's a narrative change, not a changing thesis. He knew at the time masks were needed by the general public but lied to the American public so that healthcare workers would have an adequate supply. He admits to that much. Again, a decision that was not his to make. He then realized that the lie was worse than he'd anticipated and started encouraging masks. Couple that with that Dr Fauci has been tied to being knowl…

They/he lied, because they wanted to make things look under control and if everyone starts wearing masks, then it would cause panic and it will looks like a global pandemic. The shortage of the masks would have happened anyway, as it wasn’t purely driven by local US demand, but also by overseas supply chain issues. And the US has means to restrict sale of strategic goods to the population in case of emergency. So there was really no good reason to tell people not to wear masks.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#942

Post by insanitybit »

cf141q5325 wrote: post #814
insanitybit wrote: post #797

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did.

I dont think its possible to can answer this with the amount of certainty you have. At least i truly hope it. Because if you actually did understand it and still answer this way, you just acknowledged that you are way past wanting to figure out reality. My point is that you dont have the competence to determine what not to verify because doing so robs you of the ability to determine the implications. Which is commonl…

No, I was purposefully glib and dismissive exactly because I understood your post.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#943

Post by thedrbrian »

poszlem wrote: post #865
Rastonbury wrote: post #858

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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" mess…

The same people taking the piss about “rednecks” and ivermectin were telling people how to make DIY abortion pills

https://twitter.com/motherboard/status/1521511916912488448

https://twitter.com/motherboard/status/1433174812801765384

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#944

Post by ropable »

code_runner wrote: post #706
themitigating wrote: post #665

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"CDC spent over a month spewing bullshit telling people not to wear masks because masks don't stop the spread of COVID." Can you provide the source for this?

I have personally had discussions with people about this. I’m about as liberal as they come, but a lot of covid guidance was confusing in the beginning and I think that admitting that has somehow become taboo. It’s still weird that I feel the need to clarify my political stance on an apolitical issue like this. As time went on messaging improved, but the initial confusion was definitely there. Nobody knew what was go…

It's almost as though they were operating with incomplete, imperfect information at that time, and they needed to make some best-effort guesses based on previous events.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#945

Post by mullingitover »

JSavageOne wrote: post #932
mullingitover wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> ...a platform censoring viewpoints is a violation of the principal of free speech, and morally reprehensible in a free democratic society

Agree to disagree here - Twitter and every other social media site are essentially complimentary printing presses in the middle of town that some private party pays for and allows everyone to use, with some conditions. In a free and democratic society, we're all free to buy our own printing presses that don't come with those conditions. With your own personal printing press you're free to print anything you want, hate speech and all, up to the extreme limits of the First Amendment. You're just not entitled to no-strings-attached use of someone else's printing press. You're also not entitled to an audience - if your own free speech platform is something like 8chan, you're going to get 8chan levels of traffic, not Twitter levels of traffic.

Twitter's general policy was about the same as Fox News'[1].

[1] https://help.foxnews.com/hc/en-us/articles/233194608-Do-you-...

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#946

Post by imwillofficial »

insanitybit wrote: post #942
cf141q5325 wrote: post #814

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dont think its possible to can answer this with the amount of certainty you have. At least i truly hope it. Because if you actually did understand it and still answer this way, you just acknowledged that you are way past wanting to figure out reality. My point is that you dont have the competence to determine what not to verify because doing so robs you of the ability to determine the implications. Which is commonl…

No, I was purposefully glib and dismissive exactly because I understood your post.

This is helpful in constructive dialogue how exactly? You’ve been engaged in good faith, it’s only good manners to return the favor.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#947

Post by ETH_start »

causi wrote: post #906
ETH_start wrote: post #867

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Taking a drug that gave her intense and persistent diarrhea is not safe for an eighty year old who already had trouble staying hydrated.

It's not pleasant but it is generally considered to be safe in normal doses. To give you an idea of how ubiquitous its use is, it is used on 3 day old kittens and they're always fine. Then again, each patient is different and no one knows her better than her family, and if they feel it poses a risk, that's fair enough.

Quality of life is also important, and her experience sounds unpleasant, so your concern is justified regardless.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#948

Post by insanitybit »

imwillofficial wrote: post #946
insanitybit wrote: post #942

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, I was purposefully glib and dismissive exactly because I understood your post.

This is helpful in constructive dialogue how exactly? You’ve been engaged in good faith, it’s only good manners to return the favor.

Sounds like you've missed my point.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#949

Post by dang »

tux2bsd wrote: post #508
harryf wrote: post #452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That we’re still debating this stuff is ridiculous That people are still using “move along nothing to see here” is ridiculous. The world just went through an event of a historical significance comparable to a World War. And there are still new books, movies and documentaries being made about World War 1 and 2… There are a lot more questions to be asked and lessons to be learned about how COVID was handled. For exam…

[flagged]

Can you please stop posting unsubstantive and/or flamebait comments and using HN primarily for ideological battle? We ban accounts that do these things, regardless of which flavor they're battling for. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#950

Post by _-david-_ »

acdha wrote: post #921
_-david-_ wrote: post #713

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>He also was not the candidate, did not have a chance of getting a government position like his predecessor’s children And? Does that mean we should suppress evidence of crimes that are posted on Twitter because of that? If I committed a crime, should Twitter delete the articles and pictures? > It would have been newsworthy if they’d tried to hide the story of Hunter’s addiction but it was public knowledge already al…

Twitter isn’t law enforcement so, no, there isn’t a requirement that they provide free hosting and promotion for everyone alleging a crime. In this case, they briefly used their hacked materials policy until deciding that it didn’t apply to the news coverage but did continue to yank non-consensual nudes under their existing policies. If you genuinely believed that Hunter Biden had child porn or whatever Giuliani imag…

>Twitter isn’t law enforcement so, no, there isn’t a requirement that they provide free hosting and promotion for everyone alleging a crime

I didn't say they should be required to. I just think they should be consistent on their enforcement of the rules.

>In this case, they briefly used their hacked materials policy until deciding that it didn’t apply to the news coverage

Why didn't they do that when GiveSendGo was hacked (the hacking was not in doubt) and names of people who donated to the Freedom Convoy were leaked?

Like I said, I have an issue with the selective enforcement of the rules. If they want to ban material that is hacked that is fine, but to not do it when everybody knows the materials were hacked is ridiculous.

>but did continue to yank non-consensual nudes under their existing policies.

I am fine with suppressing non consensual nudes. I am not OK with suppressing articles about them.

>If you genuinely believed that Hunter Biden had child porn or whatever Giuliani imagines, you’d definitely want that offline since there’s no public benefit to circulating criminal materials and law enforcement is definitely going to investigate it.

No one was suggesting they should be releasing the child porn. I am advocating for allow news articles about it.

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