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Incredible. Twitter has been functioning as the self correcting mechanism throughout this crisis, as the experts have fumbled and tripped over their own feet wh

Incredible. Twitter has been functioning as the self correcting mechanism throughout this crisis, as the experts have fumbled and tripped over their own feet while responding to this crisis. As of 3 days ago, weren’t the “experts” in the UK saying they were going to let the virus rip through the population to reach herd immunity? Until some dissenting experts noted that doing so would likely cause mass death and chaos. Would Twitter have shut down the members of the public noticing that the UK’s plan was insane, before the change of course? You can sure as hell bet they wouldn’t shut down the UK government’s initial tweets, despite the fact that they caused the virus to spread.

cameldrv 7y ago
Agreed. Official information has been "Herd Immunity", "Masks don't work", "the risk to Americans is low", "the only effective treatment is rest." And on and on. Twitter has done a huge service to correct these awful experts.
- zzzcpan 7y ago
  The problem is WHO and CDC and what not are political organizations, they are influenced by governments, they have agendas and pursue very different goals than your health and safety. "Official" here means authoritative information and power over individuals, not expert opinions to help individuals. Of course censorship is the first thing they reach out for when that power is under threat.
  - cameldrv 7y ago
    The problem is that they're not even coherent from one day to the next. One day it's "the risk to Americans is low", then THREE DAYS LATER I'm not allowed to leave my house. Glad to see things apparently improving in this U.S. leadership, but Twitter filled a very hard vacuum in the past two months for getting accurate information. You definitely had to curate your follows, and actually read the scientific articles linked, etc, but thanks to Twitter and Reddit, my family is as ready as we can be, physically, emotionally, and financially.
dilap 7y ago
I remember back in the day when Twitter were free speech absolutists. And then they made exceptions just for direct threats, and just for hate speech, and just for nazis, and... And how here we are straight-up banning speech that is contra "expert guidance". The slopes, they are slippery!
- anewguy9000 7y ago
  how the hell is twitter going to know what counts as "expert guidance"? coronavirus has existed for 2 months. there are many more unknowns than facts. heres a fact: published science says closing borders to travllers is ineffective. but its done anyway (so politicians can be seen as "doing something" instead of nothing). now twitter can say they are "doing something" to stop the virus too! LOL
- golf3 7y ago
  Your fault for mistaking a growth strategy as principles.
daxorid 7y ago
Of critical note: The day Twitter shut down Zerohedge for reporting on COVID-19, that was the market peak, and roughly a week prior to broad awareness of the scope of the problem. Put another way: Twitter killed people by suppressing voices that were sounding the alarm. To this day, they have neither reinstated, nor apologized to ZH for suppressing information that could have saved lives. Jack Dorsey is personally responsible for people dying.
- undersuit 7y ago
  Twitter banned Zerohedge for doxing and spreading misinformation. "In a piece titled ‘Is This The Man Behind The Global Coronavirus Pandemic?’, Durden included a picture of a scientist at Wuhan’s Institute of Virology and suggested users could pay him “a visit” to find out more about what caused the outbreak." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-01/zero-hedge-permanently-suspended-from-twitter-for-harassment https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-01/zero-hedg...
freepor 7y ago
Twitter helped me realize the scope of this problem while the President was blowing it off. I was able to stock up on food, water, N95 respirators, books, and movies, and prep a bunch of stuff into the freezer. 3 weeks later the SF Costco is like a war zone. I’ve been in my house and backyard for 19 days.
fragmede 7y ago
I think in order for this to work we have to be more pedantic about expertise. A minister whos expertise is in being elected to UK government official, has expertise in exactly that, being a UK government official. That doesn't make them medical experts, not one bit. That government official is an expert in the UK government's official policy position regarded the pandemic, but they are, again, not a medical expert. Whether Twitter is able to distinguish between the two, I don't know. Big picture, I'm all for Twitter shutting down tweets that proclaim that a specific combination of essential oils will shut down a viral infection.

cameldrv 7y ago

Agreed. Official information has been "Herd Immunity", "Masks don't work", "the risk to Americans is low", "the only effective treatment is rest." And on and on. Twitter has done a huge service to correct these awful experts.

zzzcpan 7y ago
The problem is WHO and CDC and what not are political organizations, they are influenced by governments, they have agendas and pursue very different goals than your health and safety. "Official" here means authoritative information and power over individuals, not expert opinions to help individuals. Of course censorship is the first thing they reach out for when that power is under threat.
- cameldrv 7y ago
  The problem is that they're not even coherent from one day to the next. One day it's "the risk to Americans is low", then THREE DAYS LATER I'm not allowed to leave my house. Glad to see things apparently improving in this U.S. leadership, but Twitter filled a very hard vacuum in the past two months for getting accurate information. You definitely had to curate your follows, and actually read the scientific articles linked, etc, but thanks to Twitter and Reddit, my family is as ready as we can be, physically, emotionally, and financially.

dilap 7y ago

I remember back in the day when Twitter were free speech absolutists. And then they made exceptions just for direct threats, and just for hate speech, and just for nazis, and... And how here we are straight-up banning speech that is contra "expert guidance". The slopes, they are slippery!

anewguy9000 7y ago
how the hell is twitter going to know what counts as "expert guidance"? coronavirus has existed for 2 months. there are many more unknowns than facts. heres a fact: published science says closing borders to travllers is ineffective. but its done anyway (so politicians can be seen as "doing something" instead of nothing). now twitter can say they are "doing something" to stop the virus too! LOL
golf3 7y ago
Your fault for mistaking a growth strategy as principles.

daxorid 7y ago

Of critical note: The day Twitter shut down Zerohedge for reporting on COVID-19, that was the market peak, and roughly a week prior to broad awareness of the scope of the problem. Put another way: Twitter killed people by suppressing voices that were sounding the alarm. To this day, they have neither reinstated, nor apologized to ZH for suppressing information that could have saved lives. Jack Dorsey is personally responsible for people dying.

undersuit 7y ago
Twitter banned Zerohedge for doxing and spreading misinformation. "In a piece titled ‘Is This The Man Behind The Global Coronavirus Pandemic?’, Durden included a picture of a scientist at Wuhan’s Institute of Virology and suggested users could pay him “a visit” to find out more about what caused the outbreak." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-01/zero-hedge-permanently-suspended-from-twitter-for-harassment https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-02-01/zero-hedg...

freepor 7y ago

Twitter helped me realize the scope of this problem while the President was blowing it off. I was able to stock up on food, water, N95 respirators, books, and movies, and prep a bunch of stuff into the freezer. 3 weeks later the SF Costco is like a war zone. I’ve been in my house and backyard for 19 days.

fragmede 7y ago

I think in order for this to work we have to be more pedantic about expertise. A minister whos expertise is in being elected to UK government official, has expertise in exactly that, being a UK government official. That doesn't make them medical experts, not one bit. That government official is an expert in the UK government's official policy position regarded the pandemic, but they are, again, not a medical expert. Whether Twitter is able to distinguish between the two, I don't know. Big picture, I'm all for Twitter shutting down tweets that proclaim that a specific combination of essential oils will shut down a viral infection.