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> ...reply to the "US accusation" that the virus was unleashed intentionally by the Chinese. Oh that is an easy one. That US accusation was actually open specu

by tal8d 7y ago

> ...reply to the "US accusation" that the virus was unleashed intentionally by the Chinese. Oh that is an easy one. That US accusation was actually open speculation by Indian and German researchers examining the only data that China was willing to share with the rest of the world. They weren't accused of intentionally unleashing it, but negligence was speculated - the lying and secrecy is the cause for that, and they have only themselves to blame. China had allowed only one outside crisis team in, from the WHO (which lost credibility long ago) - and they only spent a single day in Wuhan. Around that time it was discovered that China had been under-reporting infections by an order of magnitude, every province coincidentally made the same calculation error for the same period of time. > ...they're fairly common tactics worldwide. This is all unprecedented. We have never seen such transparent lies counter-messaged in near realtime by way of opensource intelligence. Grassroots btw, the corporate response has been denial - followed by a week or two of softening messaging, then admission to the truth. The information surrounding cross species transmissibility is a good example: videos starting popping up of Chinese people hurling their pets from rooftops in response to government warnings with regard to transmissibility. The corporate media immediately swung into action, declaring any such talk as racist FakeNews™ - but they were wrong again.

boomboomsubban 7y ago
>Oh that is an easy one... This seems to be referring to the immediately pulled journal saying some parts of the virus were very similar to HIV, at least that's the only Indian or German researcher based thing I've heard. That wasn't the start of the hoax, the "open speculation" was basically just that engineering this was possible, and the blame for these hoaxes does not rest on the Chinese. >This is all unprecedented. It's not, and I was referencing two very specific claims you were making. When you feel we are encountering an unprecedented level of misinformation, why do you think that your information is untainted?
- tal8d 7y ago
  > That wasn't the start of the hoax... The only perpetrator that would provide an excuse for baselessly accusing the US military would have to be the US government. So when did they fabricate that hoax? Was it when the FBI started cracking down on spies in January? Are they the ones that pressured the Mounties to start clearing their level-4 labs of Chinese virologists last year? > ...the blame for these hoaxes does not rest on the Chinese. The lying and secrecy creates the environment in which that sort of thing thrives. At some point you can't characterize predictable consequences as victim blaming, for many the benefit of doubt was lost pretty early on, following the crackdown on doctors and journalists who accurately described events. > When you feel we are encountering an unprecedented level of misinformation, why do you think that your information is untainted? Let me be more clear: China lying about something is to be expected. What is unprecedented is the combination of two things: the lie being told has severe and unavoidable consequences to everyone, and the means to combat the lies are not only open to all - but are actively being employed to do so. The beauty of opensource intelligence is that any potential for manipulation can be quantified in a way that secretly sourced data cannot.

by tal8d 7y ago

boomboomsubban 7y ago

>Oh that is an easy one... This seems to be referring to the immediately pulled journal saying some parts of the virus were very similar to HIV, at least that's the only Indian or German researcher based thing I've heard. That wasn't the start of the hoax, the "open speculation" was basically just that engineering this was possible, and the blame for these hoaxes does not rest on the Chinese. >This is all unprecedented. It's not, and I was referencing two very specific claims you were making. When you feel we are encountering an unprecedented level of misinformation, why do you think that your information is untainted?

tal8d 7y ago
> That wasn't the start of the hoax... The only perpetrator that would provide an excuse for baselessly accusing the US military would have to be the US government. So when did they fabricate that hoax? Was it when the FBI started cracking down on spies in January? Are they the ones that pressured the Mounties to start clearing their level-4 labs of Chinese virologists last year? > ...the blame for these hoaxes does not rest on the Chinese. The lying and secrecy creates the environment in which that sort of thing thrives. At some point you can't characterize predictable consequences as victim blaming, for many the benefit of doubt was lost pretty early on, following the crackdown on doctors and journalists who accurately described events. > When you feel we are encountering an unprecedented level of misinformation, why do you think that your information is untainted? Let me be more clear: China lying about something is to be expected. What is unprecedented is the combination of two things: the lie being told has severe and unavoidable consequences to everyone, and the means to combat the lies are not only open to all - but are actively being employed to do so. The beauty of opensource intelligence is that any potential for manipulation can be quantified in a way that secretly sourced data cannot.