given the Atlantic's slightly left bias¹ and RFK Jr's stated intentions to shake things up with the FDA and CDC, it makes sense to me that the CDC would be preparing to cover their tracks preemptively.²
CDC data are disappearing
441–450 of 656 posts
Re: CDC data are disappearing
#442Earlier quoted context omitted.
lol if you watch zuck's take on it his problem is the fact checkers ended up being biased.
Maybe they are. The solution to this is to provide evidence in favor of your argument. That's how we used to resolve conflicting opinions: debates supported by evidence. Now, instead, we're simply getting rid of any attempt to decide what is factual, and instead let demagogues decide for us what is fact and what is not, without any evidence at all. Since evidence is now superfluous, why waste government money by prov…
I think the problem there is the powers granted to government rather than how today's people decide to wield it.
Facts are never really decided, things can always change if we learn something new or just consider what we know from a different angle.
The problem here is that anyone in charge can decide what they believe is fact and make very real, very impactful changes that they force on everyone else.
Re: CDC data are disappearing
#443Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m curious about what will happen if they get to the parts of this Project 2025 like agenda that involves telling people to do things, or banning things people like. We already see that abortion bans are unpopular. When they are put to a vote they lose, even in very red states. How much more will people take? How will the Joe Rogan dudebro crowd react to banning porn? That’ll be interesting. I’ve been predicting for…
I mean the current game plan, from what it seems, is to make porn a shameful and taboo thing. Same as abortions as well. There’s a heavy pro-natalism push for obvious reasons, and I have no idea why, but it feels like current government is trying to fix it through wrong methods. They know they’re royally fucked if people having 0-2 kids max.
Zero effort is going into addressing any of the top reasons people cite for not having kids: housing prices, unaffordable college, child care, etc.
Re: CDC data are disappearing
#444Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Data is the ultimate Fact Check. This is wrong IMO. Data can be missing, incomplete, biased, skewed, and even just plain wrong. Cherry-picked data can be worse than no data. The ultimate fact check is a scientific process of collecting data, modeling it, scrutinizing it and its methodology and the entities involved, contextualizing it, cross-checking, replicating, etc. What media likes to call "fact checking" to me…
> Data can be missing, incomplete, biased, skewed, and even just plain wrong. All true of course. The solution for that is more data, not less.
Data is always lacking. More data may help you be more confident in your conclusion, but it will never be certain.
Re: CDC data are disappearing
#445Removing these records from the public internet could likely be considered illegal under the OPEN Government Data Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3506: > (d) With respect to information dissemination, each agency shall— (3) provide adequate notice when initiating, substantially modifying, or terminating significant information dissemination products; (4) not, except where specifically authorized by statute— (A) establish an exclusi…
Damage done, mission accomplished... If you do something illegal and can get away with it relatively unscathed, then it isn't in practice illegal.
Re: CDC data are disappearing
#446Removing these records from the public internet could likely be considered illegal under the OPEN Government Data Act, 44 U.S.C. § 3506: > (d) With respect to information dissemination, each agency shall— (3) provide adequate notice when initiating, substantially modifying, or terminating significant information dissemination products; (4) not, except where specifically authorized by statute— (A) establish an exclusi…
Lol I think anyone who thinks legal and illegal mean anything, has still not gotten the plot.
Re: CDC data are disappearing
#447It’s terrifying that data US taxpayers paid for, collected and analyzed in the name of public health, can be removed on a whim. While there are a lot of efforts to archive said data, it would still make it unavailable to Americans who are not tech savvy. Unfortunately, that seems to be the idea, I think.
Would the removed data be something that could be requested under FOIA?
I can answer this as a serial FOIA litigator.
If the data is still in the possession of the government (e.g. in backups, on paper) then it is FOIA-able.
I had a gov agency temporarily throw all the materials into a trash can when I requested them and argued that since they were sitting in a trash can they were not available under FOIA.
Re: CDC data are disappearing
#448Earlier quoted context omitted.
Data isn't the ultimate fact check - it's just numbers waiting to be twisted. Bias, bad sources, and cherry-picking turn 'facts' into fiction. Real fact-checking needs brains, not just bar graphs.
> Data isn’t the ultimate fact check But it is. Numbers can be twisted, but it they can easily be verified. Bias, bad sources and cherry picking can allow you to tell stories, but the data will allow you to verify those stories are indeed facts. Brain can’t really fact check things that don’t have any data.
Disagree. Numbers don't exist in a vacuum - they are collected, framed, and interpreted by humans with biases, agendas, and limitations. Verification isn't just about checking numbers; it's about scrutinizing methodologies, sources, and context. Data can affirm falsehoods when selectively presented or measured poorly. Brains aren't secondary to fact-checking; they are the ultimate tool for discerning whether data reflects reality or is merely a well-dressed distortion.
Re: CDC data are disappearing
#449Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can data, or AI, tell me definitively who the MVP of the NFL was this season? Allen, Lamar, Saquon? The numbers certainly help when making comparisons, but they aren't the entire story, different people will come to different conclusions based on the exact same set of facts.
Who cares about the NFL? The issue here is that, and mark my words this almost this exact conversation will play out in the very near future: Scientists: X number of people died of Covid in the US according to CDC data. US Government: you can't prove that number. That data doesn't exist on government servers, the data in the copies is fake and can't be trusted.
> Who cares about the NFL?
It's a simple example, that's why it's relevant. All the facts are available for anyone to see, to process, to analyze. There is no disputed or hidden data. And yet nobody, including any AI, can produce a "true" answer to the question, because it's reliant on one's personal biases.
Even with Covid, did a 92-year old die because of Covid, or because of a multitude of existing conditions that Covid triggered? Probably impossible to know medically, and AI isn't going to tell you definitively one way or the other.
Re: CDC data are disappearing
#450Earlier quoted context omitted.
Can data, or AI, tell me definitively who the MVP of the NFL was this season? Allen, Lamar, Saquon? The numbers certainly help when making comparisons, but they aren't the entire story, different people will come to different conclusions based on the exact same set of facts.
Who cares about the NFL? The issue here is that, and mark my words this almost this exact conversation will play out in the very near future: Scientists: X number of people died of Covid in the US according to CDC data. US Government: you can't prove that number. That data doesn't exist on government servers, the data in the copies is fake and can't be trusted.
You are proving my point. The CDC has faced several instances where its data was inaccurate or misrepresented:
- COVID-19 Death Overcount: In 2022, a coding error led the CDC to overcount 72,277 COVID-19 deaths across 26 states. Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/24/cdc-coding-err...
- Maternal Mortality Data: Changes in death certificate reporting, particularly the addition of a pregnancy checkbox, resulted in overcounts of maternal deaths due to false positives. Source: https://www.theatlantic.com/podcasts/archive/2024/08/materna...
- Lead Exposure Report: A 2004 CDC report underestimated the impact of lead-contaminated water in Washington, D.C., leading to criticism over its data accuracy. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morbidity_and_Mortality_Weekly...
- Property System Data: An audit revealed that the CDC's property system data was neither accurate nor complete, with an estimated $29.2 million of property at risk of being lost or misplaced. Source: https://oig.hhs.gov/reports/all/2016/centers-for-disease-con...
These instances highlight that data, even from reputable sources, can be subject to errors, misinterpretation, or manipulation, underscoring the need for critical analysis beyond face-value acceptance.