5 ms·

The fact check program is itself executive abuse and should be ended. Given how many "fact checkers" are simply leftist pro-establishment types, and how many "f

The fact check program is itself executive abuse and should be ended. Given how many "fact checkers" are simply leftist pro-establishment types, and how many "fact checks" they produce are simple re-statements of whatever someone was claiming without bothering to address any raised criticisms, it doesn't surprise me at all that it's a flashpoint internally. These sort of people simply define anything that's not left wing as "misinformation", so the claim by the FB employee is on its surface meaningless. Zuckerberg should never have given way on fact checking. I wonder if he understands it was a mistake. Facebook is meant to be a social network, it's inherently a graph oriented organisation in which graph nodes are all roughly equal. Fact checking is the exact opposite: a hierarchy with Facebook at the top and delegated "truth arbiters" a layer lower, that try to dominate the social graph. The cited example of the Breitbart video is a good example. The video is a video of doctors. There are tons of scientists, government advisors and indeed whole governments saying they don't see any need for masks, children can go back to school or never even left (as in Sweden), etc. You don't need to go far to find them. That children aren't infectious is by now widely accepted in the scientific community. For Facebook to censor the President for making such a statement makes them look absurd, and totalitarian. Given the long term accusations of fraud surrounding mail voting that were never addressed, it's not a big surprise Trump is worrying about the integrity of the election process.

dekhn 6y ago
There are not "tons of scientists, government advisors" saying they don't see the need for masks. That is very much a minority opinion which is not supported by mainstream science. I'm curious also by your claim that children aren't infectious. That is not widely accepted by the scientific community. It sounds like you're taking some minor positions and pretending like they're mainstream.
- newacct583 6y ago
  > It sounds like you're taking some minor positions and pretending like they're mainstream. Indeed. And if the grandparent got all their "news" from paid feeds and shared content on Facebook (given the right seeding and demographics), they might genuinely believe these are mainstream positions. Which is exactly the problem people are worried about in the linked article.
  - kls 6y ago
    > Which is exactly the problem people are worried about in the linked article. The problem with that is no amount of flagging and removing is going to fix the problem and that is why I don't even see the point, the left and right are so divided that those on the extremes will fall for anything being blinded by their emotional hatred for the other. I mean we are at the point where the extreme left believes for a fact that via a thoroughly refuted dossier, that the sitting president paid Russian hookers to pee on him. The extreme right is just as bad, believing that their is a global cabal of elite leftist that are raping children with a presidential candidate being one of them. No amount of blocking content is going to repair the fact that people are no longer listening and that is the problem one side wants the other side filtered so that they can be the only voice shouting in the dark, thinking if the other side cannot talk then they are by default going to listen, but the reality is almost everybody has stopped listening, no amount of censorship is going to fix that.
    - verall 6y ago
      This is a strawman and false equivalence. The "extreme left" believes the President definitely sexually assaulted at least one woman and additionally probably raped someone. The first part having been admitted to several times. Noone believes that 100% of the Steele dossier is true. The QAnon crowd is a minority of the "extreme right", although it is concerning how fast conspiracies spread, including "left conspiracies" like anti-vax or anti-GMO. Fact checks might help slow crazy conspiracies a little bit. I think it is worth for this reason, although I believe in content warnings+disclaimers instead of takedowns because of Streisand effects. Finally, again, the Steele dossier is not even a "left conspiracy". It is a side-product of rumor spreading games that the intelligence community plays, that got leaked. I think it is a bad example for the point your seem to be making.
      - kls 6y ago
        > It is a side-product of rumor spreading games that the intelligence community plays It was a hit piece, who funding is now well known, it was political from the start. What it was not, and would not qualify as is an intelligence report and was never formulated for the purpose of intel. It is no different than the hit pieces being produced by the right to paint Biden as a pedophile. So I don't see it as a Strawman as the point was people are so far gone on their version of the truth that no amount of censoring or labeling is going to pull them back from the edge. Both sides are doing it, and at this point there is no gradient of less-bad.
- nradov 6y ago
  The actual scientific evidence for masks is not as strong as you claim. Please read this analysis by the University of Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine. We need to do more research. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-... Just to be clear, I am not advising anyone to avoid wearing a mask.
  - dekhn 6y ago
    Strictly speaking we're both in violent agreement that really high quality studies are required for the evidence to be solid. Please note that I did not say there was scientific evidence for masks, but that wearing masks is good is the mainstream scientific position (which changed only very recently). I read your article. It's pretty limited in its analysis. I'm going by this popular science article from my alma mater (I have a PhD in biophysics), https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-abou... The article you cited doesn't include a number of the articles my article mentions (http://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf http://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf, https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818 https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342198360_Association_of_country-wide_coronavirus_mortality_with_demographics_testing_lockdowns_and_public_wearing_of_masks_Update_June_15_2020 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342198360_Associati..., https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/15/E410 https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/15/E410, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/17/masks-salons-missouri/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/17/masks-sal..., More importantly- this is a situation where we don't have unambiguous data, but the mainstream position is consistent with the current data and reasonable thinking about disease prevention.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    The discussion upthread was about people arguing that masks aren't needed or don't work. This is review paper cautioning that the science behind mask effectiveness isn't as settled as we'd want. It shows good evidence for medical PPE being effective, but it found one study that showed cloth masks were actually harmful, and it points out that the applicability to covid isn't as strong as we'd like either. There's nothing in there that should serve to argue against the general consensus that masks are a good idea. They are, within the bounds of the evidence at hand, effective in the opinions of most experts. And that includes the authors of the paper you wrote.

dekhn 6y ago

There are not "tons of scientists, government advisors" saying they don't see the need for masks. That is very much a minority opinion which is not supported by mainstream science. I'm curious also by your claim that children aren't infectious. That is not widely accepted by the scientific community. It sounds like you're taking some minor positions and pretending like they're mainstream.

newacct583 6y ago
> It sounds like you're taking some minor positions and pretending like they're mainstream. Indeed. And if the grandparent got all their "news" from paid feeds and shared content on Facebook (given the right seeding and demographics), they might genuinely believe these are mainstream positions. Which is exactly the problem people are worried about in the linked article.
- kls 6y ago
  > Which is exactly the problem people are worried about in the linked article. The problem with that is no amount of flagging and removing is going to fix the problem and that is why I don't even see the point, the left and right are so divided that those on the extremes will fall for anything being blinded by their emotional hatred for the other. I mean we are at the point where the extreme left believes for a fact that via a thoroughly refuted dossier, that the sitting president paid Russian hookers to pee on him. The extreme right is just as bad, believing that their is a global cabal of elite leftist that are raping children with a presidential candidate being one of them. No amount of blocking content is going to repair the fact that people are no longer listening and that is the problem one side wants the other side filtered so that they can be the only voice shouting in the dark, thinking if the other side cannot talk then they are by default going to listen, but the reality is almost everybody has stopped listening, no amount of censorship is going to fix that.
  - verall 6y ago
    This is a strawman and false equivalence. The "extreme left" believes the President definitely sexually assaulted at least one woman and additionally probably raped someone. The first part having been admitted to several times. Noone believes that 100% of the Steele dossier is true. The QAnon crowd is a minority of the "extreme right", although it is concerning how fast conspiracies spread, including "left conspiracies" like anti-vax or anti-GMO. Fact checks might help slow crazy conspiracies a little bit. I think it is worth for this reason, although I believe in content warnings+disclaimers instead of takedowns because of Streisand effects. Finally, again, the Steele dossier is not even a "left conspiracy". It is a side-product of rumor spreading games that the intelligence community plays, that got leaked. I think it is a bad example for the point your seem to be making.
    - kls 6y ago
      > It is a side-product of rumor spreading games that the intelligence community plays It was a hit piece, who funding is now well known, it was political from the start. What it was not, and would not qualify as is an intelligence report and was never formulated for the purpose of intel. It is no different than the hit pieces being produced by the right to paint Biden as a pedophile. So I don't see it as a Strawman as the point was people are so far gone on their version of the truth that no amount of censoring or labeling is going to pull them back from the edge. Both sides are doing it, and at this point there is no gradient of less-bad.
nradov 6y ago
The actual scientific evidence for masks is not as strong as you claim. Please read this analysis by the University of Oxford Centre for Evidence Based Medicine. We need to do more research. https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-politics/ https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/masking-lack-of-evidence-with-... Just to be clear, I am not advising anyone to avoid wearing a mask.
- dekhn 6y ago
  Strictly speaking we're both in violent agreement that really high quality studies are required for the evidence to be solid. Please note that I did not say there was scientific evidence for masks, but that wearing masks is good is the mainstream scientific position (which changed only very recently). I read your article. It's pretty limited in its analysis. I'm going by this popular science article from my alma mater (I have a PhD in biophysics), https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-about-masks-heres-science-behind-how-face-masks-prevent https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2020/06/417906/still-confused-abou... The article you cited doesn't include a number of the articles my article mentions (http://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf http://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf, https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818 https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.00818 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342198360_Association_of_country-wide_coronavirus_mortality_with_demographics_testing_lockdowns_and_public_wearing_of_masks_Update_June_15_2020 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/342198360_Associati..., https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/15/E410 https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/15/E410, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/17/masks-salons-missouri/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/17/masks-sal..., More importantly- this is a situation where we don't have unambiguous data, but the mainstream position is consistent with the current data and reasonable thinking about disease prevention.
- newacct583 6y ago
  The discussion upthread was about people arguing that masks aren't needed or don't work. This is review paper cautioning that the science behind mask effectiveness isn't as settled as we'd want. It shows good evidence for medical PPE being effective, but it found one study that showed cloth masks were actually harmful, and it points out that the applicability to covid isn't as strong as we'd like either. There's nothing in there that should serve to argue against the general consensus that masks are a good idea. They are, within the bounds of the evidence at hand, effective in the opinions of most experts. And that includes the authors of the paper you wrote.