18 ms·

Woman who designed Florida's Covid-19 dashboard removed from her position

• cbanek 6y ago
  Rebekah Jones said in an email to CBS12 News that her removal was "not voluntary" and that she was removed from her position because she was ordered to censor some data, but refused to "manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen." Wow. I don't even know what to say. This is horrible, and misinformation at its worst. I feel like this is the magic marker on the hurricane map that nobody can easily laugh at, because they can't see it.
  • simonebrunozzi 6y ago
    If that is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), I hope that: 1) She will not be subject to long term repercussions for being honest and doing her job 2) Whoever asked her to cook the numbers, will be sued and arrested and go to jail. Cooking the numbers in this case equates to me as killing people, because decisions related to reopening, etc, will be heavily influenced by these numbers. 3) I hope that someone Rebekah Jones will know that unknown people in the internet, even in this obscure hacker site called Hacker News, are proud of what she stood for. She has nothing to gain and everything to lose, and yet she chose the right path. (again, assuming this is true)
    • HenryBemis 6y ago
      A move straight from Erdogan's and Vladimir's books. At least she is not rotting in a cell (as per their literal book). Other countries do the exact same thing but I never place i.e. Iran to the same standards as Turkey and Russia (self proclaim) to be. These are truly dark-grey pages in US history. I sincerely hope next time around the people of USA select better leaders. Edit: people of Florida were lucky to have such a civil servant.
      • unishark 6y ago
        > Edit: people of Florida were lucky to have such a civil servant. It doesn't appear to say she was fired. Just taken off this particular task.
        • t-writescode 6y ago
          When a principal is made a middle-school science teacher, that’s also not a firing.
          • gknoy 6y ago
            It still counts as workplace retaliation.
            • t-writescode 6y ago
              Agreed.
      • abrookewood 6y ago
        I'm not sure this deserves the downvotes. This behaviour (firing disagreeable public servants, censoring information, blatantly lying) is the exact opposite of what you would expect to see from a strongly democratic nation. It amazes me that the US hasn't fallen further on this chart: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
        • vinay427 6y ago
          It's probably because the countries that are ranked lower have even larger and more systemic issues with democracy. Keep in mind that most people in the west and the English-speaking world experience a large reporting bias towards the US (and Europe, etc.), and this compounded with the size of the US means it's very easy to find a new negative story about the US every day. I don't say this to excuse the problems. I just want to point out (based on my experience with family in some of these places and local news sources there) that the countries that are not ranked as highly tend to have a lot of problems that people who focus on US news genuinely don't often hear about and know about.
    • pjc50 6y ago
      Are you new to American politics? The demand to cook the books undoubtedly came from the top, whoever investigates can also be fired, and the public are out demanding that reopening happen even if it kills people.
      • vyhd 6y ago
        Fortunately, most of the public are not making that demand. It's well worth keeping in mind that those people are vastly outnumbered: https://xkcd.com/2305/ https://xkcd.com/2305/
        • generalpass 6y ago
          If you dig into the science of polling, what you discover is that the way people answer questions is rather confounding, so management of the largest polls typically do not like to use the modern science of polling. See David Moore's book The Opinion Makers: An Insider Exposes the Truth Behind the Polls.
        • specialist 6y ago
          Big fan of majoritarian rule, will of the people, consent of the governed. How do we realize that ideal?
          • dr-detroit 6y ago
            Some sort of orbital EMP weapon used to prevent facebook from weaponizing retardation
          • looper_dude 6y ago
            Legalizing psychedelics.
      • bzb3 6y ago
        Regardless of what happened to this woman, if the public wants the reopening, then by all means it should happen. The opposite, house arrest against the public wishes, is terrifying.
    • HeadsUpHigh 6y ago
      Worth remembering that all the astroturfing facebook campaigns about reopening came from a single florida ip as well.
      • tripzilch 6y ago
        Got a source for that?
    • zshift 6y ago
      As a Floridian, I feel defeated. Most people here don’t follow politics, nor would they care enough to make a stand and protest or call for action. Even if they had the drive, a large majority of residents don’t have the luxury of taking days off of work to do this, especially in the current events. Unless mainstream media, especially Fox around here, makes a statement about this, it’s unlikely anything will happen as a result of this.
  • sizzle 6y ago
    People need to be fired over this, starting her bosses. This is not how you fight a pandemic.
  • poorjujmnt8 6y ago
    Americans need to reconsider what a “managed economy” means. Ok sure a government supervisor isn’t literally dictating what the assembly line produces and how many. But this story is just one of dozens a day that are all about managing information, acting as a forcing function, to get back to business as usual. Pay no mind the body political and it’s monopoly on violence! “Simply generate wealth! Nevermind as we hand out trillions for free! You have to BUY IN! Not these guys, they can get hand outs and tax breaks! Buy in!” Which is it? Socialism or capitalism? Believing there’s ever been anything but a managed effort is nonsense. There is no magic or gods. It’s people validating their identity and having it go unchallenged. Inflation is deflation for the masses. The rich get more handouts when their assets droop. Peter Thiel recently wrote about how in the history of man there’s always been elites managing the plebs. It’s how it works! They’re managing what we believe is correct. It’s a biologically simple trick that’s been used intuitively with great success since the first tribal kings. Here’s the modern version: we control what raw data you see so we can equivocate. It limits real choices and experiences. And it happens constantly while the masses look away at their repetitive jobs.
    • blaser-waffle 6y ago
      A 0 karma account created ~60 min ago seems to think Peter Thiel is great and monarchy can be a "great success". I'm not sure if this is a shill account for genuinely pushing Thiel's points, or a poor attempt to make his platform look dumb, but someone is paying someone to influence HN.
      • dang 6y ago
        Please don't break the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
• mwill 6y ago
  Someone has posted an email on reddit claiming it was sent out by the woman in question: https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/gmfkoa/woman_who_designed_floridas_covid19_dashboard_has/fr3dz42/ https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/gmfkoa/woman_w...
• throwaway202v 6y ago
  This is pattern from this current crop of hyper-partisan political leadership Whether it’s stuff like this, crapping on journalists for asking legit questions, concealing or even destroying climate data, etc these folks should not be trusted with anything of consequence under any circumstances. The fish rots from the head— even presuming this was the handiwork of some political appointee/apparatchik/barnacle who wanted to make sure there is no “bad news”, they got their cue from higher up the food chain. You’d figure a genuine crisis like this might shake these folks out of their stupor but no luck yet. Many folks are stressed af about the economy & there needs to be be a cost/benefit way to measure the risks, etc but this is no good. This is the kind of shady/moronic behavior you’d expect in a political ecosystem like China, Russia, Turkey, etc
  • PeterStuer 6y ago
    The same thing is happening all over the 'western' world. It is not a US or partisan thing. Neo-Liberal oligarchic 'democracies' rely on people voting against their own interest. This is core. This is why they need the 'post-thruth' culture where 'everything is fake news'.
    • xwolfi 6y ago
      Do you propose a archaic-communist dictatorship to solve the issue ? What's the alternative world you envision, where people are forbidden to vote, especially against their own interests (or at least, as perceived by you) ? A true democracy, first tell people not to vote only for their own interest, but the nation's, and whatever they vote for, it's THEIR responsibility. No buts, no ifs, you vote you pay. Fake news or corrupt oranges, the citizens have the last word: they wanted it.
      • adrianN 6y ago
        "Neo-liberal oligarchies" and archaic communist dictatorships are not the only two types of government. Social democracies for example exist as well and are much less of a strawman to argue against.
    • 6y ago
• fzeroracer 6y ago
  It's getting harder to trust any data coming from state officials as they move to censor or manipulate it so that they can make a better case for reopening too soon. A lot of this tension can be seen as local governments attempt to implement their own coronavirus restrictions only for the state to override them like here in Texas. I'm assuming the plan is that when we inevitably get hit by a second wave they can just blame the businesses or the counties for not doing a good enough job or something. Considering how much of a joke the reopening guidelines have been and how little the state is willing to enforce them.
  • mcshicks 6y ago
    While it's not quick I am wondering if the uncensored data would be available under freedom of information type laws.
    • icelancer 6y ago
      We'll find out in a month or so in WA state. I've filed a request and plan on making it public.
  • chrisco255 6y ago
    I'll tell you this, as an anecdote, my mother works in a hospital in central Florida, in The Villages, the largest retirement community in the state. She says it's never been so slow. They've had to cut shifts, and she's seen worse flu seasons than what they went through over the past 2 months. They were never at more than 50% capacity. And they never had more than a dozen Covid patients at any given time.
    • whycombagator 6y ago
      Interesting, but perhaps that anecdote makes sense? It’s kind of middle of nowhere FL with a low population density. Everyone is retired and the closest major airports are Tampa and Orlando (I think) and I suspect visitors/tourism to The Villages are relatively low in number. Additionally, from what I last saw around 50% of confirmed cases were in South FL. Where there are major international airports, plentiful tourism, and greater population density.
• suby 6y ago
  Let's be more specific. It's republicans.
  • grecy 6y ago
    While they're currently in the spotlight, I'd go so far as to say it's any politician trying to get (re)elected. That's their job, after all. \s
  • aaomidi 6y ago
    And even more specific. The establishment. They're too scared of losing power and control.
  • DaiPlusPlus 6y ago
    But why Florida, though? I can understand more rural states, but has the GOP made a spreadsheet that determined the number of elderly GOP voters who will die by reopening early will be cancelled-out by younger swing-voters who would vote for Trump's second-term because they reopened Florida early? Or do the models suggest that they'll die _after_ the election? Or will they do early re-openings only in Dem-leaning population centers?
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    • slimed 6y ago
      Show me the data that indicates states that have opened in the last two weeks are experiencing spiking positives for the virus. Sure, I'll wait.
      • ckolkey 6y ago
        Wait no longer! Here you go: https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/05/15/texas-coronavirus-deaths-spike-as-cities-lag-state-drive-to-reopen/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/carlieporterfield/2020/05/15/te...
• sjg007 6y ago
  So the government is lying. Thought only communist dictatorships did this.
  • 6510 6y ago
    The difference is that people living under dictatorship don't believe anything their government says.
• nartz 6y ago
  Why are there no repurcussions for what essentially amounts to fraud? Why is it acceptable for politicians to commit fraud, but not for anyone else?
  • jariel 6y ago
    We only have a soundbite from one side of the story, we have no idea what really happened. Communication is always political, and how information is represented is important, and public opinion matters. For example in Quebec, there are 'big numbers' of cases, but almost 80% of the deaths are in long-term-care homes. So you could have one person who doesn't want that data to be highlighted, while some other person does because frankly, that information might frame Covid as ultimately being less risky and yet, it's more transparent. Hydroxychloroquine is another kind of example - in reality, there may be some benefit for this, but it's really not helpful to have the general public tweeting about it, because it's not generally useful, and the impact will be overwhelming on health officials and cause shortages for those non-covid people who really need it. So the information is either suppressed or 'led' in the direction that public health and safety officials want. So if the state official was literally trying to get someone to literally just change the data and make it look better, this is obviously going to be a whistleblower case. But this may not be the situation. Public communication is hard. Trump is probably the anti-example.
    • zo1 6y ago
      I think this part is crucial and something that is framing this discussion in a possibly wrong light. We're getting "snippets" of the events from this individual, and it could very well be that they're phrasing their comments and selectively "mentioning" parts of the story in order to amplify and push a certain interpretation. Everything is marketing, and I would certainly say it's plausible that a developer that was this much in the spotlight would be steering the conversation to at least frame him or herself in a positive light if not outright promote their politics (even if that is just one of transparency/government accountability).
      • testbot123 6y ago
• TeeWEE 6y ago
  I hope the Americans don't accept these kind of censorships and go to he street. Or at least educate others to explain everybody that Trump is the most moronic President ever existed. To be honest my respect and view of America has been significantly dropped with such a stupid (yes he is) president.
  • PeterStuer 6y ago
    Who would have thought 'idiocracy' was underestimating the distopian moronity?
    • user982 6y ago
      Idiocracy was a comparative utopia: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmZOZjHjT5E https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmZOZjHjT5E
    • rusticpenn 6y ago
      The President in Idiocracy atleast had good intentions...
      • mschuster91 6y ago
        ... and was willing to listen to someone who was obviously more intelligent than him. Idiocracy has its flaws, but I have never thought it would become an accurate description of reality :/
    • Polylactic_acid 6y ago
      I always thought the media here in Australia was just clipping 3 second funny parts out of hours long normal conferences from the US government but then I went and watched an uncut recording and virtually the entire thing is responding to reporters with a incoherent ramble, a non answer, or most commonly something along the lines of "no u"
  • tibbydudeza 6y ago
    "Every nation gets the government it deserves." We in South Africa also went through our phase of stupid a while back with the ruling party and it's corrupt leadership cadre at the time. You just let it need to play out until the whole thing eventually comes tumbling down but just reinforced my notion that most people are just gullible and can be easily fooled.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• asdf333 6y ago
  which one of us techies and software engineers would be brave enough to take the stand and risk our job? how many of us would look the other way and make some excuse about how it’s not our call and we are just doing our jobs? i hope that if our time ever comes, we would all have the courage to stand up for the truth like she did.
  • nicbou 6y ago
    In practice, it's very difficult fo make such decisions. I'm a young, single developer with other revenue streams. I am not risking a lot, so honesty and integrity are cheap. However, many people don't have such a luxury, especially outside the tech community.
    • Consultant32452 6y ago
      I think there's a u-shape here. Lots of jobs are disposable. Being the bartender at Chili's is not much different than being the bartender at Olive Garden. So there's lots of jobs on the low end where it's relatively easy to dump the job and get another. My intuition is that the middle has the hardest time, once you get enough job specialization and income.
  • creato 6y ago
    Fraud and abuse is rarely this blatant and obvious. Even in this case, I would be surprised if it turns out to be as blatant and obvious as it seems to be right now based on this report.
  • xapata 6y ago
    Given how often we job-hop, more likely than folks in other fields.
• genidoi 6y ago
  Deeply unsettling to imagine that the US statistics aren't trustworthy.
  • sneak 6y ago
    I feel like politicizing and propagandizing the "current status" view was sadly inevitable once it became clear this was going to negatively affect capital flows in huge ways for months or years. There are too many in power invested too heavily in the status quo to allow end participants in the labor market to have enough data to make their own risk assessments. This is why states that have reopened despite it being unsafe to do so have set up unemployment snitch lines for people who don't want to risk their lives, so that the threat of eviction or starvation can be used against them. I worry we are going to see a lot of naked greed come forth in the next few months, and thousands of preventable deaths as a result.
  • TeMPOraL 6y ago
    Anyone ever believed them? Throughout March and most April, US statistics were essentially worthless because testing was not being done - and that (especially early) happened on purpose, so it pretty much amounts to lying.
    • TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      Same for the UK - only reporting official in-hospital deaths that were tested, while limiting the number of tests. Much harder to fix the ONS excess death stats, and those are now running at around 55,000.
      • TeMPOraL 6y ago
        Yeah, excess deaths are probably the only reliable metric we have anywhere at this point. Over here in Poland, I've heard enough rumors in April that obviously-COVID-19-related deaths aren't counted as COVID-19 deaths because of a technicality, so I'm not giving much confidence to our official stats either. But it's harder to cook overall deaths.
  • 6y ago
• WillDaSilva 6y ago
  Here is the email she sent to the Florida Coronavirus listserv (copied from /u/aerlenbach on Reddit): Hey all – I’ve gotten a lot of emails from everyone during the last eight days ever since the dashboard went down, the data was hidden, and the functionality essentially crashed, so to clear up the confusion, I’m sending this final notice to the group. For reasons beyond my division’s control, as of late in the day on May 5, my office (the DOH-GIS office) is no longer managing the COVID-19 Dashboard. I am no longer involved in the publication of data, fixing errors, answering questions, etc., in any shape or form. I helped them get it back running a few times but I have no knowledge about their plans, what data they are now restricting, what data will be added and when, or any of that. I understand, appreciate, and even share your concern about all the dramatic changes that have occurred and those that are yet to come. However, I cannot provide any insight now or going forward. As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months. After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it. They are making a lot of changes. I would advise being diligent in your respective uses of this data. I know many of you have broken API links and map layers. I’ve listed the contacts for getting that information below. The primary contacts going forward are listed below. Anything related to EPI: REDACTED or REDACTED Anything related to the technical aspects of the dashboard: REDACTED It was great working with you guys. Good luck, and stay safe. -30- Rebekah Jones, GISP GIS Manager| Division of Disease Control and Health Protection PHONE # & EMAIL REDACTED
  • kreetx 6y ago
    I wonder how much/in what way they wanted to cook the numbers. I.e would a small change affect the perception, could a big change go unnoticed etc. Interesting nevertheless.
    • akiselev 6y ago
      I think it's chickens with their heads cut off all the way down at this point.
  • JackFr 6y ago
• skrebbel 6y ago
  When I opened the article I got a gdrp cookie popup from Sinclair, who apparently owns CBS12. I'm not American and all I know about the US media landscape is what I get from HN, but isn't Sinclair this local broadcaster that's notorious for spreading absolute bollocks all the time? Does this site have anything to do with the real CBS? More specifically, is any of this true?
  • hackerman123469 6y ago
    It's not even GDPR compliant because everything is every setting is toggled "YES" by default which is illegal.
  • danso 6y ago
    I have no reason to distrust the local CBS affiliate, but in any case, it’s a summary of a story reported by this news outlet: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2020/05/18/censorship-covid-19-data-researcher-removed-florida-moves-re-open-state/5212398002/ https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2020/05/18/censorshi... Note that floridatoday.com is a Gannett/GateHouse paper, and the reason why I didn’t submit it is because I had thought that network is inaccesible to EU users.
    • isolli 6y ago
      Actually the Florida Today website opens with this banner: "Welcome to USA TODAY NETWORK’S EUROPEAN UNION EXPERIENCE", and is entirely ad free. I believe it is better in general to post the original source, in order to support local journalism.
      • danso 6y ago
        Nice! Thank you for the info
  • kevingadd 6y ago
    Sinclair owns a big chunk of US media outlets, so it's not surprising that a particular outlet's website would have Sinclair cookies on it. While the upper level Sinclair management has a well-deserved bad reputation the individuals working at the local level can still do good reporting if they're allowed to. When an American TV station is 'ABC 7' or 'CBS 12' that typically means they're a local TV station with a deal to rebroadcast official ABC, CBS, etc programming mixed in with some bits of local/original footage. So when you watched an ABC station here, you got mostly national ABC footage combined with a mix of local content (like news programs) and local ads.
• sneak 6y ago
  Cory Doctorow wrote the following recently, which seems on topic for this thread: https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/08/volcano-gods/#reopening https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/08/volcano-gods/#reopening
  • titzer 6y ago
    That piece is spot on. The common theme is that a distributed value system based on personal gain is absolutely and totally at odds with preempting a pandemic. The economic interests of business owners and investors is directly at odds with the health and safety of the public. The market won't fix this. It will just price death in. And guess what? They're busy pushing that cost to zero through their corrupt influence on politicians.
  • BLKNSLVR 6y ago
    Worth the read if only for this nugget: "Right wing politics require alliances between elites and large groups of turkeys who'll vote for Christmas."
• tibbydudeza 6y ago
  US is no different from China it seems.
  • BLKNSLVR 6y ago
    I was thinking of posting the same thing, but worried about the inevitable ensuing what-about-ism arguments. But, yes, this is a yet another step away from the transparency that underpins democracy and leads to 'reality is as the nation state allows it'. It only furthers the populace's depth of under- and mis-education about anything that may be of relevance to the state of the country / world. It will only serve to pour fuel on conspiracy theories and fake news that are already burning out of control. Transparency is a requirement of democracy. Australia has been increasingly legislating against whistleblowers and real (no-real-Scotsman arguments aside) journalism for a few years now. The world was already heading this way, and it only seems to be gaining momentum, and this time the "free, democratic West" are right there along for the ride instead of conscripting their populace against the threat. We will beat China at their own game! (and in doing so lose ourselves entirely). (Yes, this is a big dramatic post over a small thing, but it feels like the timing of this small thing is as a result of the looming big thing: the US Presidential elections).
  • gwd 6y ago
    There is always a temptation for people in power to "massage the facts" (for various levels of "massage") to make themselves look good. One difference between the US and China is that we have the freedom to call it out and discuss it. Hopefully a second difference is that we'll have the political will to fire the people who asked to do the "massaging" -- whether that will happen or not remains to be seen.
    • TheOtherHobbes 6y ago
      What difference does "the freedom to discuss it" make if it has no effect on policy?
      • SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
• willbecensored 6y ago
  Someone parlays moderate success into self-righteous opportunity to virtue signal, and is quickly hired by a progressive tech company also looking to virtue signal, in a PR blitz of standing up for the rights, of something or other. It was just time for me to jump. I didn't really like it there anyway, and when I saw some team changes coming, I figured I could pick a couple fights, get fired, then go public and make the whole thing about how everyone was shitting on my awesome transparency. With a bit of luck, that was guaranteed to get a lot of likes and probably go viral, and I could then get into a role where I didn't have to take so much shit. People, at least, would be afraid of me. And no one would dare challenge me because I could make it look like I was the victim. Nobody would fuck with the girl who could make them look like a bunch of corrupt ass-covering asshats. So I pulled the trigger. I'm not proud of it, but a girl's gotta survive, you know. They deserved it anyway. They never appreciated how fucking awesome I was. Serves em right, don't you think? Anyway, I'm just chillin at home, going through my messages, waiting for the "we're interested in pursuing a hiring conversation" with you to come. I'll get a couple offers, play em off against each other, and go with who seems least likely to cause me trouble. Or with who I can see there's a future dramatic exit that will work for me. Man, I am so fucking brilliant.
• quattrofan 6y ago
  American descent into a Banana Republic continues...
  • NotSammyHagar 6y ago
    We are moving that way, but it's not something that we can't start to reverse by changing the president in the upcoming election. I'm really stunned that so many republicans in congress go along with him. One after another, when they decide not to seek re-election come out against him, not all but many. Why are they so cowardly? It's very sad for me to see this as an American.
    • redis_mlc 6y ago
      > I'm really stunned that so many Republicans in congress go along with him. Trump is not a Republican, he is a Trumpist. The Republican party wanted nothing to do with him, but when you're a billionaire with a national TV show and massive Twitter profile, you win.
      • dmix 6y ago
        It’s funny how quickly people forgot how none of the mainstream republicans wanted anything to do with Trump... until he was the only option left and they went with their only viable option to win (sounds familiar to this year’s democrat primaries doesn’t it? Although with even less internal resistance to the winning is more important than quality idea.) What we’re witnessing in Congress and elsewhere is political survival. Politicians are masters at compromise and self survival. And power blocks have a way of closing ranks while their power remains, but the second it slips no one will care and they’ll eat him alive (just like how Bush was persona non grata for almost a decade, until his recent image revival by cynical democrats). A recent poll of Americans using words to describe the president and one of the most popular words by right leaning Americans was ‘jerk’. So many people draw huge conclusions simply because he was seen a least bad option in the minds of less than half the voting public, when the Democrat option was deeply unpopular (including judging by her prior repeated failed campaigns) and seen as untrustworthy. The fact the next election is not a cake walk for democrats also says everything you need to know about the quality of the competition they managed to pull together against what should be the easiest adversary in modern history, with wall-to-wall negative coverage by the global press and endless attacks across social media... just like last time. But I guess it’s easier to make partisan platitudes than have nuance.
• golemiprague 6y ago
  How do I know if she is right or she is just another disgruntled democrat woman who did a bad job and now wants some attention and sympathy because she is not good looking enough to get them on instagram? I think the stats are bad everywhere, there are many interests here to inflate or deflate numbers based on politics, money and different ideas about the best solution to the situation. Numbers coming from all over the world are all over the place with no standards of measurements and without any clear patterns. So either this virus is so chaotic or the numbers are wrong but either way they are meaningless.
• jariel 6y ago
  The comments here on HN are borderline irresponsible. All we know is that someone was removed for what they perceived be 'censoring some data' - and we really have almost no context or material facts. It continues to amaze me how people jump to conclusions and can't fathom how power, information, and communications work within any organization and that it's always complicated. Having responsibility is almost 100% 'making sausage' and there is literally no situation in which the public will have access to 100% of the information, and when they do, it will be communicated in a specific way, hopefully for the public good. For example, someone could feel that it's 'really important' to publish the latest finding on Hyrcoxychloroquine, or Remdesevir or whatever, when from a public communications perspective, it may not be helpful at all to be a focus on this information. Some might call this censorship, some might call it suppression, others might call it responsible. How about hospital vacancy rates? Because all over North America, the vast majority of Hospitals are sitting idle, and medical staff are being laid off. Funny we don't see that on CNN. Obviously, from a public health policy, maybe this wouldn't be such a good set of data to focus on because people might get the impression that there is materially no pandemic, unable to grasp that in fact, the low rates of hospitalization are due to social distancing measures. My gosh man this is everyday life in so many fields. If some Florida politician was trying to literally get numbers manipulated, hopefully, this will be dealt with in the criminal justice system, but this may not be the case. COVID is a sausage-making communications nightmare for everyone involved, there are massive legal issues, massive economic consequences, existential life and death concerns, literally geopolitical realignment happening in real-time. Let's try to get more information. Edit - a relevant example from Miami Herald: [1] "But since the state’s first confirmed coronavirus case, officials have kept some basic information confidential. Most notable: DeSantis has chosen not to reveal the names of nursing homes experiencing outbreaks — cases that, according to Florida Department of Health data, have resulted in at least 126 deaths." This is exactly the same in Quebec - they don't want to release the individual names of the homes (they are of course known to the occupants and relatives) because it's not meaningful information for the public to have. They've made a reasonable case for not doxxing the homes with problems. So this is a pretty good example of where public information is managed for the public good. It happens everywhere. What troubles me specifically about the whistleblower complaint is that there were no specifics at all - no actual articulation of malfeasance. 'Censorship' is a pretty vague term. [1] https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242050696.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article24205069...
• bot_a_not 6y ago
  What a fucking shithole country!
• paulie_a 6y ago
  This about sounds right for Florida. It's why it's known for what it is. A republican stronghold that keeps contuing to suck on all fronts. Unless you want drugs, in which case just apparently ask.
• titzer 6y ago
  I have often wondered whether there are any objective criteria for judging intelligence at all, or whether it is all subjective. It must be the case that the success of accurately modeling the world around you, predicting the future of the world around you based on your model, and taking action to achieve an outcome is one way to evaluate intelligence. If we have two minds, and one is better at modeling and taking action and achieving its own desired outcomes, then it must be considered more intelligent, right? But here's the rub! Effective modeling cannot be done with garbage (or no) data. Literally choosing to have bad data cannot possibly lead to better decision-making, as the model is less and less accurate. In other words, garbage in, garbage out. "Lalalala I can't hear you, you can't see me, we aren't dying" is an objectively stupid strategy. And it's leading to objectively bad results. Let me just say it bluntly. This is stupid. Please can we use that word again? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. Infuriating.
• pojntfx 6y ago
  As an EU citizen, the US response to COVID-19 really is laughable. It's just that a lot of people die due to this ideological "but muh freedom" mentality.
  • jakeogh 6y ago
    You can get fined for a dog trick, you dont have anything resembling freedom of speech, and your class system is easiest to see if you check who can defend themselves with useful tools. Lecturing us is pretty rich. https://video.foxnews.com/v/6157380317001/ https://video.foxnews.com/v/6157380317001/ CDC #'s (yes, yes 2 weeks old yawn) https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm
  • TeMPOraL 6y ago
    As a EU citizen, I agree in general, but I wouldn't be so quick to judge it in this context. I'm betting that by the time the dust settles, we'll have plenty of similar stories uncovered all across Europe. Cooking books for various $reasons seem to be standard practice of (almost?) every government in this pandemic.
    • unishark 6y ago
      People like to define the US based on the worst thing any of the 50 states do, then compare to Europe by picking out what the most successful country there is doing.
  • nickpp 6y ago
    As an EU citizen, I am still waiting for the EU response to COVID-19.
    • TeMPOraL 6y ago
      There won't be any, because EU is by design and vote not meant to have any response. We're not United Federation of Europe; the EU explicitly doesn't dictate medical policy across member states.
• anoplus 6y ago
  If we want to progress as a society we must step up for transparency. This kind of deliberate misinformation is devastating
• isolli 6y ago
  Original link to the newspaper that broke the story: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2020/05/18/censorship-covid-19-data-researcher-removed-florida-moves-re-open-state/5212398002/ https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2020/05/18/censorshi... Local news is incredibly important. For instance, the Miami Herald's investigations uncovered the Epstein scandal: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html
  • generalpass 6y ago
    > Local news is incredibly important. Gary Webb at The Mercury News.
• nkkollaw 6y ago
  It's all fake data, anyway. They're counting cancer patients that were given 30 days to live as COVID if they were positive when they died.
• CommieDetector 6y ago
  This is classic rules for radicals : Accuses you political opponents of the very thing you yourself are doing.
• mrfusion 6y ago
  No one seems to be asking what the data in question is? Surely the correct data was reported elsewhere? What was hidden exactly?
• mrfusion 6y ago
  Not to get in the way of a good mob with pitchforks, but so far this is just one persons claim. There’s no other evidence. We don’t believe Joe Biden’s accuser without more evidence, why do we believe this lady automatically?
• horsemessiah 6y ago
  Imagine how different the comments would be if this article were about China...
  • dariusj18 6y ago
    I'm having trouble imagining the difference. I think people would still be claiming government corruption and hoping for accountability.
• deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
• sethgoodluck 6y ago
  Data tampering of this sort should be highly illegal. Like, years in prison, illegal.
• darkside11 6y ago
  This is hardly a surprise. Just because a bunch of screaming uneducated people demand to open the country, ( and have the support they need), doesn't mean it's the smart thing to do. Many people will be in jeopardy and it doesn't matter as long as they can keep the economy rolling. When people become so sick they can't buy things or go to work and the numbers get bigger, to big to hide...then things will get real. Everyone should be prepared for another setback because this is not going to just be...oh yeah all is back to normal guys! No worries....
• lazyjones 6y ago
  Here's an update and perhaps a broader perspective: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242851256.html https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article24285125... > “Rebekah Jones exhibited a repeated course of insubordination during her time with the department, including her unilateral decisions to modify the department’s COVID-19 dashboard without input or approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors,” Ferré said. “The blatant disrespect for the professionals who were working around the clock to provide the important information for the COVID-19 website was harmful to the team. Accuracy and transparency are always indispensable, especially during an unprecedented public health emergency such as COVID-19. Having someone disruptive cannot be tolerated during this public pandemic, which led the department to determine that it was best to terminate her employment.” So, depending on what you choose to believe at this point, you could also consider the possibility that she was making modifications to inflate the numbers and exaggerate the problem.
• billme 6y ago
  According to story, “COVID-19 dashboard designer faces cyber sexual harassment charges”, say the Governor of Florida: https://cbs12.com/news/local/covid-19-dashboard-designer-faces-cyber-sexual-harassment-charges-desantis-says https://cbs12.com/news/local/covid-19-dashboard-designer-fac...
• game_the0ry 6y ago
  For the data scientists of HN - is it common for "the business" to exert influence on your data, so that it results in some conclusion that they want (rather than a truthful conclusion)? I knew a guy who dropped out of an ivy league phd because he was recruited by hedge fund to do data science stuff (no idea what) and he gave me the impression that most of his work was selectively choosing and presenting data that he knew would make management happy, and that he was rewarded with career advancement as a result. So how common is this? Side note - someone please hire Ms. Jones.