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How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

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Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#911

Post by dns_snek »

throwaway29812 wrote: post #874
philjohn wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because large groups of people have shown, time and again, they don't act rationally. Look at toilet paper - one rumour that it would run out, despite shops, the government, everyone, saying there is more than enough and the rabble went out and hoarded.

Some people are convinced they are being lied to by people in power. Even if it's not true 99% of the time, the 1% will harden their beliefs. You are coming up against a confirmation bias.

If my doctor lied to me about effectiveness or other aspects of my medication 1% of the time, they would rightly lose their medical license and go to prison if their lies caused any harm.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#912

Post by denton-scratch »

20after4 wrote: post #893
TurkishPoptart wrote: post #879

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wow...I'd never heard such before.

I saw a few studies that seemed to point to evidence that smoking reduces the risk of contracting COVID. It was too late as I already quit smoking thinking that the opposite would be true. I haven't started smoking again, despite the potential health benefits associated with smoking.

No, no, no. I'm not saying that there are health benefits from smoking!

I have known asthmatics that told me that smoking tobacco relieved their symptoms. But please don't take these remarks as advice to take up (or maintain) smoking! My comments were supposed to be taken as ironic.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#913

Post by shaky-carrousel »

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.

That multiple government wanted to secure supplies is logical. That multiple governments decided to do so by lying about the effectiveness of the face masks is suspicious.

It reminds me of a time where multiple governments were really sure that Irak had WMDs.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#914

Post by ryanbrunner »

clairity wrote: post #776
causi wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There WAS a LOT of misinformation about covid, and a lot of it could cause real harm. Quite true. Thing is, there wasn't that much of it before the CDC spent over a month spewing bullshit telling people not to wear masks because masks don't stop the spread of COVID. It was obvious to everyone and their dog that masks help stop the spread of respiratory infections. That irrevocably shattered a whole lot of people's fa…

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 circle will help keep the virus out of that circle of people in the first place.

This is a very hard thing to maintain for long periods of time, but in the context of 2020 it's a reasonable approach to take.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#915

Post by cbsmith »

t0bia_s wrote: post #909
cbsmith wrote: post #904

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, consensus building is the reverse. It's people playing the game vs. the game playing people: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/qanon-game-plays-beli... Consensus building is looking for ways to persuade people who aren't predisposed to an idea to come around to it (and because it's bidirectional, simultaneously being open to ideas one isn't predisposed to). Conspiracy theories are looking for ways to become…

"Conspiracy theories are looking for ways to become something that fits people's predispositions." Maybe that is exactly yours predisposition?

Umm... I guess?

What do you imagine happens to conspiracy theories that don't fit people's predispositions?

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#916

Post by ryanbrunner »

ajvs wrote: post #471
andreyk wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Why does a government has to "lean" on a private media company in a "democrat" and "liberal" democracy?" There are people within the government whose job it was to respond to the covid pandemic. Part of that response involved educating the public about the disease and best practices related to it, which therefore included fighting misinformation. Misinformation is spread on platforms such as Twitter, so it made sens…

> Misinformation is spread on platforms such as Twitter, so it made sense for the government to communicate with Twitter and let them know what it considered to be a good course of action This part I disagree with, because what is misinformation is unknownable before serious scientific study is done. It just makes the government look untrustworthy if they flip-flop from "masks are pointless" to "masks are essential"…

> unknownable before serious scientific study is done

A lot of the mis/disinformation about COVID passed this bar (i.e. serious study had been done, and there was direct evidence that countered their claims).

On top of that, if you're going to make a positive claim about something, "unknowable before serious scientific study is done" means that you shouldn't make that claim, not that anyone can say anything they want because the truth is unknowable. If no one has studied the effects of drinking bleach to cure COVID, it's not appropriate to say "drinking bleach cures COVID".

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#917

Post by ethanbond »

SilasX wrote: post #898
ethanbond wrote: post #852

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In what world is that the less-bad outcome? The completely plausible world in which our healthcare providers wouldn't have been able to get any effective PPE during the initial wave and died, became seriously ill, or refused to work en masse in the first month of the pandemic? Explain why that was not a believable risk in Jan/Feb 2020?

Right, you’re continuing with the assumption that the hoarding problem was noticeably different between the two worlds. But any one hoarder can cancel out the restraint of 10,000 people. The scaling doesn’t work in your favor there. What you saw is what it would look like without the restraint, because that’s how hoarders work: they buy out all available supply. You’d need to be able to point to healthcare workers wh…

> What you saw is what it would look like without the restraint, because that’s how hoarders work: they buy out all available supply.

The second part here just doesn't actually substantiate the first part. If this were strictly true then I would've never been able to observe 1) a medical professional purchasing a mask from a retailer and 2) a non-medical professional declining to purchase an available mask from a retailer.

In fact I observed both.

Of course it's an open question as to at what scale this occurred and how it nets out in the end against the credibility hit, it very well could've been minor and not worth it, but that's the thing that remains not obvious even now, never mind in early 2020.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#919

Post by 4bpp »

freejazz wrote: post #675
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.

This abuses the word conspiracy theory, which implies a malevolent plan (at least in the common use of the word) as opposed to a benevolent plan. Your argument is incredibly disingenuous.

A conspiracy whose conspirators believe they are doing a morally good thing is still a conspiracy. In fact, in one or another way this is probably the case for most conspiracies - as they say, nobody is the villain of their own story. Does it make a difference if some people outside of the conspiring circle agree with the conspirators that their cause is righteous? I don't see why, and it's not like everyone or even an overwhelming majority agrees - otherwise there would be no need to conspire.

Re: How Twitter moderated the Covid debate

#920

Post by 4bpp »

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.

That's not incompatible with it being a conspiracy, though. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
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