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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#971

Post by brigandish »

jltsiren wrote: post #970
brigandish wrote: post #965

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on the numbers that were reported, And there's the reason testing to get seroprevalence data is so important, because what follows that sentence is pure speculation. > If you compare internationally, you can find similar patterns in countries that mostly managed to avoid COVID in 2020 and 2021 before succumbing to Omicron. Again, - Japan had no internal lockdown - International travel still occurred - Contact…

~3 million estimated infections by the end of 2021 is a very low number for a country the size of Japan. Many other countries already had 5x to 10x more confirmed cases per capita at that point, and the reported numbers were usually assumed to be 2x to 3x too low. 50% of reported COVID deaths in Japan have occurred since April 2022. In most Western countries, the median death was about a year earlier. That difference…

> That difference suggests that whatever Japan did in 2020-2021, it helped them to avoid infections during that time.

Getting outside, exercising, and not being overweight.

> Infectious diseases do not care about pandemics and other administrative classifications.

Yes, what epidemiologists know should have no place in a discussion like this, neither should the facts about the effect size of fitness level and obesity being greater than that of vaccines, for instance, that kind of thing would be far too inconvenient. We should replace it with speculation that doesn’t actually fit reality.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#972

Post by andy_ppp »

ohCh6zos wrote: post #839
andy_ppp wrote: post #565

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are turning on the microchips Bill Gates implanted in everyone any day now . Even Trump has had 3+ vaccines. I don’t really understand what we are debating as two equivalent sides here.

This is an exceptionally uncharitable interpretation of GP's statement.

Its funny because I find all the Prosecute/Fauci conspiracy theories about gain of function research, unproven/unprovable Wuhan lab leak theories and pizza gate and anti-vax and that Trump + Fox News anchors are triple jabbed all while whipping up lies to gain political capital “exceptionally uncharitable” myself.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#973

Post by jltsiren »

brigandish wrote: post #971
jltsiren wrote: post #970

Earlier quoted context omitted.

~3 million estimated infections by the end of 2021 is a very low number for a country the size of Japan. Many other countries already had 5x to 10x more confirmed cases per capita at that point, and the reported numbers were usually assumed to be 2x to 3x too low. 50% of reported COVID deaths in Japan have occurred since April 2022. In most Western countries, the median death was about a year earlier. That difference…

> That difference suggests that whatever Japan did in 2020-2021, it helped them to avoid infections during that time. Getting outside, exercising, and not being overweight. > Infectious diseases do not care about pandemics and other administrative classifications. Yes, what epidemiologists know should have no place in a discussion like this, neither should the facts about the effect size of fitness level and obesity…

> Getting outside, exercising, and not being overweight.

Do you mean that the Japanese stopped going outside, stopped exercising, and became overweight in 2022? After all, COVID deaths went up there, as opposed to most other countries.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#974

Post by cbsmith »

t0bia_s wrote: post #969
cbsmith wrote: post #968

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Isn't that what you tried to write in previous post? Really not. > Generally I think pejorative categorization implies a lack of arguments or interest in specific topic. > > It is easier to say that something is conspiracy theory (or... you name it) than bringing arguments that supports different point of view. I think you've lost the thread here. You seem to be arguing against yourself. I'm not assigning a pejorat…

"All I'm saying is that, by their very nature, if a conspiracy theory didn't look like it was true to its audience, it wouldn't have much of an audience..." I don't think thats allways true. For example cremation masses in concentration camps during WW2 was so horrible that noone sane believe it. So then come denial not only of this information but also those who spread it. Similar phenomenon we se nowdays. Audience…

> For example cremation masses in concentration camps during WW2 was so horrible that noone sane believe it. So then come denial not only of this information but also those who spread it.

But the conspiracy theories, in this case, were the denials, which as you mention, did fit people's preconceptions.

> Sorry, I'm not native English speaker, my expression in words is limited.

I picked up on that. No need to apologize. It turns out your command of English is better than my command of any other language, so you're ahead of me.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#975

Post by t0bia_s »

cbsmith wrote: post #974
t0bia_s wrote: post #969

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"All I'm saying is that, by their very nature, if a conspiracy theory didn't look like it was true to its audience, it wouldn't have much of an audience..." I don't think thats allways true. For example cremation masses in concentration camps during WW2 was so horrible that noone sane believe it. So then come denial not only of this information but also those who spread it. Similar phenomenon we se nowdays. Audience…

> For example cremation masses in concentration camps during WW2 was so horrible that noone sane believe it. So then come denial not only of this information but also those who spread it. But the conspiracy theories, in this case, were the denials, which as you mention, did fit people's preconceptions. > Sorry, I'm not native English speaker, my expression in words is limited. I picked up on that. No need to apologiz…

"But the conspiracy theories, in this case, were the denials, which as you mention, did fit people's preconceptions."

Uh, ok, that's a twist! So... Is conspiracy theory saying that social media censor in favor of pharma lobby or the opposite?

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#977

Post by cf141q5325 »

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.

Thanks for the response

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#978

Post by robot »

int_19h wrote: post #514
robot wrote: post #436

what's wrong with suppressing anti-vaxer views on twitter? elon's guy says twitter rigged the debate. yes so what. why should they have to provide a leveled platform for vaccine supporters vs anti-vaxers? If you look at china now there is a tragedy due to no vaccinations being available.

Here's one of the tweets mentioned in the article that was labeled as "misleading": https://bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.am... Can you explain what is actually misleading about it, or, more broadly, how is it anti-vax?

My guess is doing this type of moderation is cheap labor and can have mistakes.

Probably the moderator didn't analyze the case thoroughly enough to understand the cherrypicking bias and marked it as misleading. It's not like you have scientists analyzing every tweet to find the scientifically biased views.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#979

Post by robot »

Operative0198 wrote: post #454
robot wrote: post #436

what's wrong with suppressing anti-vaxer views on twitter? elon's guy says twitter rigged the debate. yes so what. why should they have to provide a leveled platform for vaccine supporters vs anti-vaxers? If you look at china now there is a tragedy due to no vaccinations being available.

> what's wrong with suppressing anti-vaxer views on twitter? there's no such thing as anti-vax views. there's only science/facts and lies. > twitter rigged the debate. yes so what... (the views that I supported carried the day) most bizarre argument i've come across on the internet today. > why should they have to provide a leveled platform for vaccine supporters vs anti-vaxers? sounds to me here like you want to liv…

I think you are crazy. we have the exact same opinion on this.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#980

Post by brigandish »

jltsiren wrote: post #973
brigandish wrote: post #971

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That difference suggests that whatever Japan did in 2020-2021, it helped them to avoid infections during that time. Getting outside, exercising, and not being overweight. > Infectious diseases do not care about pandemics and other administrative classifications. Yes, what epidemiologists know should have no place in a discussion like this, neither should the facts about the effect size of fitness level and obesity…

> Getting outside, exercising, and not being overweight. Do you mean that the Japanese stopped going outside, stopped exercising, and became overweight in 2022? After all, COVID deaths went up there, as opposed to most other countries.

> After all, COVID deaths went up there

Weirdly, before the border restrictions that did exist were lifted.

> as opposed to most other countries

That's a stretch[1], but by all means, feel free to claim that a highly virulent respiratory virus transmission rate and a large population's immune response should remain uniform. Make no effort to check excess death figures either. As they say, never interfere with an enemy while he’s in the process of destroying himself.

Meanwhile, an article[2] early in the pandemic that looked at why Japan was doing so well has this to say:

> Nor has Japan had a lockdown on the scale or severity of Europe. In early April, the government ordered a state of emergency. But the stay-at-home request was voluntary. Non-essential businesses were asked to close, but there was no legal penalty for refusing.

> Many paragons of Covid strategy, such as New Zealand and Vietnam, used tough measures including closing borders, tight lockdowns, large-scale testing and strict quarantines - but Japan did none of that.

and later in the article, after much speculation:

> A recent report by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found people with underlying medical conditions such as heart disease, obesity and diabetes are six times more likely to be hospitalised if they get Covid-19 and 12 times more likely to die.

> Japan has the lowest rates of coronary heart disease and obesity in the developed world. Still, scientists insist such vital signs do not explain everything.

> "Those kinds of physical differences may have some effect but I think the other areas are more important. We've learned from Covid that there is no simple explanation for any of the phenomena that we're seeing. It's a lot of factors contributing to the final outcome," says Prof Fukuda.

Well, the professor was shown to be too conservative as we now have more data and know how strong the effect of these physical differences are. You know, facts, those inconvenient things that are better than (incessant) speculation. "It's a lot of factors" is true but attributing a cause to factors that don't exist is a weakpoint in any argument.

[1] https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-explor...

[2] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53188847#main-heading

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