5 ms·

Facebook doesn't plan to take strong action against anti-vaccination posts

63 points by bmcn2020 6y ago

credit_guy 6y ago
The way I read this: 1. Trump is pushing for a vaccine to be authorized before Election Day. 2. Democrats are saying a vaccine before Election Day should not be trusted. 3. A simple anti-vaxx detection algorithm would identify Democrats as anti-vaxxers 4. Zuckerberg either wants Facebook to stay out of this controversy, or he's siding with the Democrats.
- cblconfederate 6y ago
  The way i read it is america's politics are a dangerous clusterfuck
  - emerged 6y ago
    Currently, there is a clamping operation occurring on all topics in the US. Media clamps to the left or right extreme, and both extremes are completely nutty. Those extremes at least used to be vaguely rational, or at least they somewhat managed to balance one another out.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
- kedean 6y ago
  It's more likely to me that Facebook recognizes that the anti-vaxx community is one of the most active and most engaged segment of their users. Suddenly banning the topic they care most about is going to trigger a mass exodus of some of their most valuable assets, while maintaining the status quo just causes a little bad publicity. I've yet to see any mass exits of users because FB isn't doing something about it, so that's the profitiable option for them.
  - credit_guy 6y ago
    This is a valid alternative hypothesis. The litmus test is if Zuckerberg will change his stance after the Election Day. We can only wait and see.
teslademigod1 6y ago
"If someone is pointing out a case where a vaccine caused harm or that they're worried about it — you know, that's a difficult thing to say from my perspective that you shouldn't be allowed to express at all." Where I'm from, we call that misinformation.
- igorstellar 6y ago
  Someone’s opinion is misinformation?
  - teslademigod1 6y ago
    When it's an all-caps, MY DAUGHTER HAS AUTISM BECAUSE OF [X] VACCINE I mean, that's misinformation. When you know that no medical literature supports the idea that autism is caused by vaccine, and you still spread it...
    - ghostpepper 6y ago
      If the post literally reads "MY DAUGHTER HAS AUTISM BECAUSE OF [X] VACCINE" then it's not that hard to refute with scientific literate. What is much harder to police with a coherent set of guidelines is a facebook page where thousands of moms have each written "I got my child vaccinated and then they developed autism". When a new mom, with little sleep and little background in biological science, who is still on the fence about vaccines, see those thousand posts all together it paints a compelling narrative without ever really having contradicted science.
    - igorstellar 6y ago
      I mean, don’t they have a right to say if not “A because of B” but “B happened right after A”, which could be an observation? At what point we should do thought police? I do agree it sounds not very well educated but that could be a good start to get this education from someone in the comments. If it’s only echo chamber of like-minded people, I doubt thought policing helps in this situation as well and nothing will change their minds at this moment. If anything, blocking people’s posts strengthen conspiracy theorist ideas about invisible forces controlling information.
brianbreslin 6y ago
Every day that passes, I worry more and more that we've naively entrusted too much to Zuckerberg to do what's "right." I look forward to whatever platform can figure out how to provide a viable alternative and thrive.
- tlack 6y ago
  "We" didn't entrust him. The users -- those blind, piteous, sorrowful, clearly-very-bored people -- trust him. What's the use of worrying about him, or them? Just quit the site! p.s. also hi Brian! chance encounter..
jacquesm 6y ago
Controversy breeds clicks and pageviews which drive advertising income. As long as that cycle does not get broken you can expect a lot more misery from that particular corner.
- blueatlas 6y ago
  "Controversy breeds clicks and pageviews which drive advertising income." I really wish Americans would wake up to this, and realize that Facebook, and news media in general, are breeding grounds for our division.
  - HumblyTossed 6y ago
    We are a culture who loves "reality" tv shows and all the made up drama that goes with it. Facebook just feeds right into that.
    - afarrell 6y ago
      By "we" you mean Homo Sapiens, right?
  - microcolonel 6y ago
    Americans are probably the most woke to this, and very self-critical. In a lot of places nobody notices this stuff or feels embarrassed about it like Americans do. The problem to me seems that people like what is being said, so they don't much care whether it's true or not.
  - hoorayimhelping 6y ago
    I think you might be in a tech bubble if you think Americans are blind to how biased and disgraceful the media is. Most Americans are middle of the road when it comes to politics, and middle of the road conservatives and liberals are sick of the narrative the media has been pushing. All you have to do is ask people outside of tech circles how they feel about the media. (Then ask them how they feel about big tech). In an age of Instagram and twitter, it's baffling and enraging to most Americans that the media pushes a narrative that video and photographic evidence from many different, disparate sources easily disproves. The obvious example in September 2020 is the notion that only peaceful protests are happening, despite much evidence of looting, rioting, and general wanton destruction.
datameta 6y ago
' "It's true that partisan content often has kind of a higher percent of people ... engaging with it, commenting on it, liking it," Zuckerberg told Axios. ' Hmm, no vested interests there for sure! /s
- tibbydudeza 6y ago
  $$$$
deminature 6y ago
You would hope that the custodian of the world's most popular communication platform would have a greater sense of obligation to the social responsibility that comes with it. Unfortunately we don't live in that world, and Zuckerberg continues choose dollars over lasting damage to the standards of discourse. He is the Murdoch of the 21st century, tearing at the social fabric in pursuit of profits and facilitating the spread of foreign disinformation if it increases engagement metrics.
- hackinthebochs 6y ago
  >would have a greater sense of obligation to the social responsibility that comes with it Maybe that's why he is largely hands-off when it comes to policing or shaping content? Not everyone agrees that the best way to manage an important communications platform is to shape the speech allowed on it.
  - deminature 6y ago
    Allowing anti-vaccination sentiment to proliferate on the platform is fairly unambiguously harmful to society, especially during a pandemic that may rely on a vaccine to escape. It appears to be choosing engagement, which drives clicks, page views and ad impressions over being a force for good and then dressing it up as free speech, when moderators selectively remove millions of other posts per day. Social networks have proven themselves so powerful, it seems unlikely their ability to wreak havoc on society will remain unlegislated forever. One day social networks will be legally responsible for the content published, and we'll see an end to the laissez-faire attitude of allowing disinfo to spread unhindered.
    - bhupy 6y ago
      I mean, by that logic, the US government allowing anti-vaccination sentiment to proliferate without legal/policy action (read: the First Amendment), is also "unambiguously harmful to society". Except, the issue is way more nuanced than that. The reason this expression is enshrined as a protection in US jurisdiction is because we decide that free expression trumps every other social need — with the narrow exceptions as laid out in Brandenburg v Ohio (imminent lawless action). To the extent that this is undesirable, if the political will to amend the Constitution is absent, then you'd also have a hard time convincing people that Facebook should not exercise the same principle.
dannyr 6y ago
What if it's anti-covid-vaccine misinformation?
bmh100 6y ago
This is the problem with "fact checking". It positions the platform as an authority. Now, any claim that isn't "debunked" by this "fact checking" gains a certain amount of credibility by comparison. The moral hazards are enormous, multiplied by the opaque behavior of Facebook's algorithm and again multiplied by its unprecedented reach in society.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Unfortunately the default level of credibility people give to things that appear on their feed is not zero; and Facebook's entire income depends on this, since advertising would be useless if people gave it no credence.
- newacct583 6y ago
  But the point is that one does this when traditional authorities have already broken down. When large numbers of people refuse to believe legitimate science, it's too late to be worrying about "moral hazards", the damage is already done. This is just an attempt to stem the bleeding by having entities like social media platforms step in and try to assume the role of the authorities that have been rejected. And yes, I get that your response is going to be something of the form "But how do you KNOW Facebook is actually right?". And again I point out that this is a practical problem and that the subject we are talking about is vaccines (about which you agree, right?), not an abstract idea of Facebook-blessed truth.
  - emteycz 6y ago
    This is not about tradition breaking down, this is about many and many more people gaining a hearable voice.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      So that they can be heard denying vaccine effectiveness, though. Again, it's a practical issue. Some messages, including this one, shouldn't get Facebook-level assistance with reaching listeners.
sunseb 6y ago
“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” Marcus Aurelius We need to stop trying to enforce "the truth" to other people. Just let people talk and have different opinions. That includes letting people having conservative values, because lately this thought police is getting out of control.
- ceejayoz 6y ago
  As The Daily Show once put it, "you are entitled to your opinion; you are not entitled to your own set of facts".
  - afarrell 6y ago
    Epistemology is harder than that. If a government body declares that there is no risk of human->human transmission of COVID-19, am I not entitled to evaluate other evidence and conclude that this statement of fact is incorrect? > Based on the preliminary information from the Chinese investigation team, no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission and no health care worker infections have been reported. https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unkown-cause-china/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unk...
    - ceejayoz 6y ago
      No, see, that's a great example of incorrectly mixing the two up on your part. Nothing in that statement can fairly be read as "there is no risk of human->human transmission of COVID-19". Fact: On Jan 5, 2020, the WHO had "no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission". You can hold the opinion that they should've been more aggressive about the potential of that changing. You can hold the opinion that the WHO should figure out a way to rely less on member nations accurately reporting information to them. As the statement notes, much was unknown to the WHO at that point: > There is limited information to determine the overall risk of this reported cluster...
      - afarrell 6y ago
zpeti 6y ago
As with almost everything these days, this topic is NOT black and white despite what initial comments say. Take a look at the vaccine for the 1976 swine flu outbreak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak A comment here already says that expressing concern over a vaccine is basically misinformation. I'm sorry but expressing concern about a vaccine that is developed in about 1 year, which is a record 1/10th of the time it normally takes is completely fair, as there can be serious consequences that you don't know about for a while. And I say this as someone who is vaccinated for everything, even optional vaccines, and has vaccinated for everything when going to Asia etc.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  See that is a fact check; if someone were to state "The 1976 swine flu vaccine was unsafe", that's a fact. If someone has the belief "The Covid-19 vaccine has not been tested adequately", that too is a fact - and the manufacturers have issued a joint statement saying they would not risk releasing an unsafe vaccine either. But the fearmongering? The "Vaccines cause autism" claim (which is massively insulting, for one because it implies that people would rather have their kids be dead than autistic)? The misinformation about the contents and risks of vaccines? That needs to be tackled. Those are non-factual or disproportionate claims that are putting millions at risk. My girlfriend initially made the conscious decision not to have her son vaccinated (for various reasons not related to the current anti-vax trend) but had to have it done later on because so many others refused to vaccinate their kids. She wanted to rely on herd immunity but the anti-vaxxers made that unlikely.
  - ralusek 6y ago
    > "The Covid-19 vaccine has not been tested adequately," that too is a fact That is very much NOT a fact. "Adequately" is entirely subjective. It is a subjective threshold that might be informed by other facts, but that doesn't make it a fact.
salimmadjd 6y ago
I get my flu vaccine every year. That said, I agree with Zuck. I want to live in a world where we’re forced to teach our kids critical thinking skills than in a world that relies on controlling the flow of information. Let’s have articles about making critical thinking a required school class as is with English, math, US history, etc. Than Zuck is not blocking this or that.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  Most people are capable of critical thinking, but that's really not the issue. The issue is the slow chipping away at people's ideas, beliefs, political alignments, caused by the rapid fire, high volume volley of headlines aimed at people. For critical thinking, you first need to actually have an opinion and be invested in a subject. If you're not interested in vaccines but keep getting chips to the tune of "vaccines are bad", "vaxxines cause this or that", slowly your opinion will change. If you zoom in to the individual then sure, critical thinking is important. If you zoom out to a society though, it doesn't really matter anymore. There are forces in play that know exactly what they're doing. They don't need to be right, they just need to chip away at people's beliefs and opinions. And it's working; the US is an oligarchy run by rich nazis and headed by an ignorant scapegoat, the UK is leaving Europe and will be left poor, chaotic and vulnerable. Ukraine is a dictatorship. Russia, China and the US are freely suppressing or killing dissenters and putting people into concentration camps. And the world shrugs because what can they do? The powers that be are stuck in their status-quo; can't sanction the US or China because of trade deals; can't go against Russia because they'll help us win the elections. The list goes on. Sorry, this turned into a bit of a rant that veered way off topic. Tl;dr critical thinking is not the problem, worldwide campaigns are, hundreds of impressions a year over multiple years are slowly influencing people.
- nickfromseattle 6y ago
  Ideologically, I agree. Reality doesn't look too great though. >I want to live in a world where we’re forced to teach our kids critical thinking skills than in a world that relies on controlling the flow of information. Technology has evolved faster than our ability to create a society of critical thinkers. >Let’s have articles about making critical thinking a required school class as is with English, math, US history, etc. Than Zuck is not blocking this or that. Education seems to vary state by state, for example Texas elected to eliminate classes that teach critical thinking. "We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."[0] So if Americans are generally lacking critical thinking skills, and for various reasons those skills will never be taught or learned, do you still want to let propaganda and fake news run unabated? [0] https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2012/06/texas_gop_no_more_critical_thinking.html https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2012/06/texas...
tibbydudeza 6y ago
Not surprised as Facebook is a cesspool of anti-5G and anti-vaxxer.
godelzilla 6y ago
When FB banned right-wing terror groups like Q, they also banned a bunch of leftist sites. Can't they use the same "both sides" logic here? They should ban anti-vaxxer but also ban a bunch of doctors and health officials so it's fair and balanced. \s \s \s
darepublic 6y ago
Don't use Facebook but I don't want any of the social media platforms performing any censorship beyond the legally mandated type (ie pirated material illegal porn etc)
- jdhbbbhb 6y ago
  Even the darkest corner of the internet, 8chan, has more strict rules than that
  - darepublic 6y ago
    Interested to hear what rules these are
- bborud 6y ago
  Then I think you should get a Facebook account and and have a look and experience the problem of people spreading misinformation first hand. I used to think that the right approach was to be completely hands off. The reason was that I thought it would have to be an all-or-nothing kind of affair. Because if you censor some of the crap, you have to be able to censor all of it or you will be sued into oblivion. But "nothing" is considerably worse than "some" in this case. And if how law is practiced stops companies from doing some good and choosing to do nothing, that isn't a good way to go about it. So I think there needs to be some legal protection for companies that do try to remove misleading information. So they don't get sued if they fail to remove all of it. I can understand if you are against removing information on principle. I'm not fond of it either. But when people get hurt for absolutely no good reason, it starts to matter.
boldpandabear 6y ago
Facebook has already taken strong action against people who believe you should not vaccinate your child. It is almost impossible to find anti-vax groups on Facebook in their search feature. They won't surface them at all. Even if you type in the direct phrase sometimes. You have to have a direct link to the anti-vax group. That is a form of censorship.
- ShamelessC 6y ago
  I don't use Facebook but my understanding was that in general it's tougher to do broad searches like that as they want you to be connected via social graph first. could be wrong here though. At any rate, what's wrong with censorship in online media? It's been my experience that basically every platform lacking censorship turns into a cesspool of bigotry and misinformation.
ardy42 6y ago
Is this anti-vaxx in general, or specific concerns about a coronavirus vaccine? Because there's a world of difference between repeating a debunked claim about vaccines causing autism or the idea that all vaccines are unsafe and saying you had a bad reaction to a specific vaccine or have concerns about an unproven vaccines development process.
igorstellar 6y ago
I always had a sentiment that “thought policing” by blocking people’s posts just reinforces all the bad stuff that happens there. It will reinforce the idea that something is controlling the speech or information (conspiracy theorists rejoice) and the reaction would be to build even bigger misinformation echo chambers, at least this is anecdata I observe in my feeds.

63 points by bmcn2020 6y ago

The way I read this: 1. Trump is pushing for a vaccine to be authorized before Election Day. 2. Democrats are saying a vaccine before Election Day should not be trusted. 3. A simple anti-vaxx detection algorithm would identify Democrats as anti-vaxxers 4. Zuckerberg either wants Facebook to stay out of this controversy, or he's siding with the Democrats.

cblconfederate 6y ago
The way i read it is america's politics are a dangerous clusterfuck
- emerged 6y ago
  Currently, there is a clamping operation occurring on all topics in the US. Media clamps to the left or right extreme, and both extremes are completely nutty. Those extremes at least used to be vaguely rational, or at least they somewhat managed to balance one another out.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
kedean 6y ago
It's more likely to me that Facebook recognizes that the anti-vaxx community is one of the most active and most engaged segment of their users. Suddenly banning the topic they care most about is going to trigger a mass exodus of some of their most valuable assets, while maintaining the status quo just causes a little bad publicity. I've yet to see any mass exits of users because FB isn't doing something about it, so that's the profitiable option for them.
- credit_guy 6y ago
  This is a valid alternative hypothesis. The litmus test is if Zuckerberg will change his stance after the Election Day. We can only wait and see.

teslademigod1 6y ago

"If someone is pointing out a case where a vaccine caused harm or that they're worried about it — you know, that's a difficult thing to say from my perspective that you shouldn't be allowed to express at all." Where I'm from, we call that misinformation.

igorstellar 6y ago
Someone’s opinion is misinformation?
- teslademigod1 6y ago
  When it's an all-caps, MY DAUGHTER HAS AUTISM BECAUSE OF [X] VACCINE I mean, that's misinformation. When you know that no medical literature supports the idea that autism is caused by vaccine, and you still spread it...
  - ghostpepper 6y ago
    If the post literally reads "MY DAUGHTER HAS AUTISM BECAUSE OF [X] VACCINE" then it's not that hard to refute with scientific literate. What is much harder to police with a coherent set of guidelines is a facebook page where thousands of moms have each written "I got my child vaccinated and then they developed autism". When a new mom, with little sleep and little background in biological science, who is still on the fence about vaccines, see those thousand posts all together it paints a compelling narrative without ever really having contradicted science.
  - igorstellar 6y ago
    I mean, don’t they have a right to say if not “A because of B” but “B happened right after A”, which could be an observation? At what point we should do thought police? I do agree it sounds not very well educated but that could be a good start to get this education from someone in the comments. If it’s only echo chamber of like-minded people, I doubt thought policing helps in this situation as well and nothing will change their minds at this moment. If anything, blocking people’s posts strengthen conspiracy theorist ideas about invisible forces controlling information.

brianbreslin 6y ago

Every day that passes, I worry more and more that we've naively entrusted too much to Zuckerberg to do what's "right." I look forward to whatever platform can figure out how to provide a viable alternative and thrive.

tlack 6y ago
"We" didn't entrust him. The users -- those blind, piteous, sorrowful, clearly-very-bored people -- trust him. What's the use of worrying about him, or them? Just quit the site! p.s. also hi Brian! chance encounter..

jacquesm 6y ago

Controversy breeds clicks and pageviews which drive advertising income. As long as that cycle does not get broken you can expect a lot more misery from that particular corner.

blueatlas 6y ago
"Controversy breeds clicks and pageviews which drive advertising income." I really wish Americans would wake up to this, and realize that Facebook, and news media in general, are breeding grounds for our division.
- HumblyTossed 6y ago
  We are a culture who loves "reality" tv shows and all the made up drama that goes with it. Facebook just feeds right into that.
  - afarrell 6y ago
    By "we" you mean Homo Sapiens, right?
- microcolonel 6y ago
  Americans are probably the most woke to this, and very self-critical. In a lot of places nobody notices this stuff or feels embarrassed about it like Americans do. The problem to me seems that people like what is being said, so they don't much care whether it's true or not.
- hoorayimhelping 6y ago
  I think you might be in a tech bubble if you think Americans are blind to how biased and disgraceful the media is. Most Americans are middle of the road when it comes to politics, and middle of the road conservatives and liberals are sick of the narrative the media has been pushing. All you have to do is ask people outside of tech circles how they feel about the media. (Then ask them how they feel about big tech). In an age of Instagram and twitter, it's baffling and enraging to most Americans that the media pushes a narrative that video and photographic evidence from many different, disparate sources easily disproves. The obvious example in September 2020 is the notion that only peaceful protests are happening, despite much evidence of looting, rioting, and general wanton destruction.

datameta 6y ago

' "It's true that partisan content often has kind of a higher percent of people ... engaging with it, commenting on it, liking it," Zuckerberg told Axios. ' Hmm, no vested interests there for sure! /s

tibbydudeza 6y ago
$$$$

deminature 6y ago

You would hope that the custodian of the world's most popular communication platform would have a greater sense of obligation to the social responsibility that comes with it. Unfortunately we don't live in that world, and Zuckerberg continues choose dollars over lasting damage to the standards of discourse. He is the Murdoch of the 21st century, tearing at the social fabric in pursuit of profits and facilitating the spread of foreign disinformation if it increases engagement metrics.

hackinthebochs 6y ago
>would have a greater sense of obligation to the social responsibility that comes with it Maybe that's why he is largely hands-off when it comes to policing or shaping content? Not everyone agrees that the best way to manage an important communications platform is to shape the speech allowed on it.
- deminature 6y ago
  Allowing anti-vaccination sentiment to proliferate on the platform is fairly unambiguously harmful to society, especially during a pandemic that may rely on a vaccine to escape. It appears to be choosing engagement, which drives clicks, page views and ad impressions over being a force for good and then dressing it up as free speech, when moderators selectively remove millions of other posts per day. Social networks have proven themselves so powerful, it seems unlikely their ability to wreak havoc on society will remain unlegislated forever. One day social networks will be legally responsible for the content published, and we'll see an end to the laissez-faire attitude of allowing disinfo to spread unhindered.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    I mean, by that logic, the US government allowing anti-vaccination sentiment to proliferate without legal/policy action (read: the First Amendment), is also "unambiguously harmful to society". Except, the issue is way more nuanced than that. The reason this expression is enshrined as a protection in US jurisdiction is because we decide that free expression trumps every other social need — with the narrow exceptions as laid out in Brandenburg v Ohio (imminent lawless action). To the extent that this is undesirable, if the political will to amend the Constitution is absent, then you'd also have a hard time convincing people that Facebook should not exercise the same principle.

dannyr 6y ago

What if it's anti-covid-vaccine misinformation?

bmh100 6y ago

This is the problem with "fact checking". It positions the platform as an authority. Now, any claim that isn't "debunked" by this "fact checking" gains a certain amount of credibility by comparison. The moral hazards are enormous, multiplied by the opaque behavior of Facebook's algorithm and again multiplied by its unprecedented reach in society.

pjc50 6y ago
Unfortunately the default level of credibility people give to things that appear on their feed is not zero; and Facebook's entire income depends on this, since advertising would be useless if people gave it no credence.
newacct583 6y ago
But the point is that one does this when traditional authorities have already broken down. When large numbers of people refuse to believe legitimate science, it's too late to be worrying about "moral hazards", the damage is already done. This is just an attempt to stem the bleeding by having entities like social media platforms step in and try to assume the role of the authorities that have been rejected. And yes, I get that your response is going to be something of the form "But how do you KNOW Facebook is actually right?". And again I point out that this is a practical problem and that the subject we are talking about is vaccines (about which you agree, right?), not an abstract idea of Facebook-blessed truth.
- emteycz 6y ago
  This is not about tradition breaking down, this is about many and many more people gaining a hearable voice.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    So that they can be heard denying vaccine effectiveness, though. Again, it's a practical issue. Some messages, including this one, shouldn't get Facebook-level assistance with reaching listeners.

sunseb 6y ago

“Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.” Marcus Aurelius We need to stop trying to enforce "the truth" to other people. Just let people talk and have different opinions. That includes letting people having conservative values, because lately this thought police is getting out of control.

ceejayoz 6y ago
As The Daily Show once put it, "you are entitled to your opinion; you are not entitled to your own set of facts".
- afarrell 6y ago
  Epistemology is harder than that. If a government body declares that there is no risk of human->human transmission of COVID-19, am I not entitled to evaluate other evidence and conclude that this statement of fact is incorrect? > Based on the preliminary information from the Chinese investigation team, no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission and no health care worker infections have been reported. https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unkown-cause-china/en/ https://www.who.int/csr/don/05-january-2020-pneumonia-of-unk...
  - ceejayoz 6y ago
    No, see, that's a great example of incorrectly mixing the two up on your part. Nothing in that statement can fairly be read as "there is no risk of human->human transmission of COVID-19". Fact: On Jan 5, 2020, the WHO had "no evidence of significant human-to-human transmission". You can hold the opinion that they should've been more aggressive about the potential of that changing. You can hold the opinion that the WHO should figure out a way to rely less on member nations accurately reporting information to them. As the statement notes, much was unknown to the WHO at that point: > There is limited information to determine the overall risk of this reported cluster...
    - afarrell 6y ago

zpeti 6y ago

As with almost everything these days, this topic is NOT black and white despite what initial comments say. Take a look at the vaccine for the 1976 swine flu outbreak. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_swine_flu_outbreak A comment here already says that expressing concern over a vaccine is basically misinformation. I'm sorry but expressing concern about a vaccine that is developed in about 1 year, which is a record 1/10th of the time it normally takes is completely fair, as there can be serious consequences that you don't know about for a while. And I say this as someone who is vaccinated for everything, even optional vaccines, and has vaccinated for everything when going to Asia etc.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Cthulhu_ 6y ago
See that is a fact check; if someone were to state "The 1976 swine flu vaccine was unsafe", that's a fact. If someone has the belief "The Covid-19 vaccine has not been tested adequately", that too is a fact - and the manufacturers have issued a joint statement saying they would not risk releasing an unsafe vaccine either. But the fearmongering? The "Vaccines cause autism" claim (which is massively insulting, for one because it implies that people would rather have their kids be dead than autistic)? The misinformation about the contents and risks of vaccines? That needs to be tackled. Those are non-factual or disproportionate claims that are putting millions at risk. My girlfriend initially made the conscious decision not to have her son vaccinated (for various reasons not related to the current anti-vax trend) but had to have it done later on because so many others refused to vaccinate their kids. She wanted to rely on herd immunity but the anti-vaxxers made that unlikely.
- ralusek 6y ago
  > "The Covid-19 vaccine has not been tested adequately," that too is a fact That is very much NOT a fact. "Adequately" is entirely subjective. It is a subjective threshold that might be informed by other facts, but that doesn't make it a fact.

salimmadjd 6y ago

I get my flu vaccine every year. That said, I agree with Zuck. I want to live in a world where we’re forced to teach our kids critical thinking skills than in a world that relies on controlling the flow of information. Let’s have articles about making critical thinking a required school class as is with English, math, US history, etc. Than Zuck is not blocking this or that.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
Most people are capable of critical thinking, but that's really not the issue. The issue is the slow chipping away at people's ideas, beliefs, political alignments, caused by the rapid fire, high volume volley of headlines aimed at people. For critical thinking, you first need to actually have an opinion and be invested in a subject. If you're not interested in vaccines but keep getting chips to the tune of "vaccines are bad", "vaxxines cause this or that", slowly your opinion will change. If you zoom in to the individual then sure, critical thinking is important. If you zoom out to a society though, it doesn't really matter anymore. There are forces in play that know exactly what they're doing. They don't need to be right, they just need to chip away at people's beliefs and opinions. And it's working; the US is an oligarchy run by rich nazis and headed by an ignorant scapegoat, the UK is leaving Europe and will be left poor, chaotic and vulnerable. Ukraine is a dictatorship. Russia, China and the US are freely suppressing or killing dissenters and putting people into concentration camps. And the world shrugs because what can they do? The powers that be are stuck in their status-quo; can't sanction the US or China because of trade deals; can't go against Russia because they'll help us win the elections. The list goes on. Sorry, this turned into a bit of a rant that veered way off topic. Tl;dr critical thinking is not the problem, worldwide campaigns are, hundreds of impressions a year over multiple years are slowly influencing people.
nickfromseattle 6y ago
Ideologically, I agree. Reality doesn't look too great though. >I want to live in a world where we’re forced to teach our kids critical thinking skills than in a world that relies on controlling the flow of information. Technology has evolved faster than our ability to create a society of critical thinkers. >Let’s have articles about making critical thinking a required school class as is with English, math, US history, etc. Than Zuck is not blocking this or that. Education seems to vary state by state, for example Texas elected to eliminate classes that teach critical thinking. "We oppose the teaching of Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS) (values clarification), critical thinking skills and similar programs that are simply a relabeling of Outcome-Based Education (OBE) (mastery learning) which focus on behavior modification and have the purpose of challenging the student's fixed beliefs and undermining parental authority."[0] So if Americans are generally lacking critical thinking skills, and for various reasons those skills will never be taught or learned, do you still want to let propaganda and fake news run unabated? [0] https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2012/06/texas_gop_no_more_critical_thinking.html https://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/teaching_now/2012/06/texas...

tibbydudeza 6y ago

Not surprised as Facebook is a cesspool of anti-5G and anti-vaxxer.

godelzilla 6y ago

When FB banned right-wing terror groups like Q, they also banned a bunch of leftist sites. Can't they use the same "both sides" logic here? They should ban anti-vaxxer but also ban a bunch of doctors and health officials so it's fair and balanced. \s \s \s

darepublic 6y ago

Don't use Facebook but I don't want any of the social media platforms performing any censorship beyond the legally mandated type (ie pirated material illegal porn etc)

jdhbbbhb 6y ago
Even the darkest corner of the internet, 8chan, has more strict rules than that
- darepublic 6y ago
  Interested to hear what rules these are
bborud 6y ago
Then I think you should get a Facebook account and and have a look and experience the problem of people spreading misinformation first hand. I used to think that the right approach was to be completely hands off. The reason was that I thought it would have to be an all-or-nothing kind of affair. Because if you censor some of the crap, you have to be able to censor all of it or you will be sued into oblivion. But "nothing" is considerably worse than "some" in this case. And if how law is practiced stops companies from doing some good and choosing to do nothing, that isn't a good way to go about it. So I think there needs to be some legal protection for companies that do try to remove misleading information. So they don't get sued if they fail to remove all of it. I can understand if you are against removing information on principle. I'm not fond of it either. But when people get hurt for absolutely no good reason, it starts to matter.

boldpandabear 6y ago

Facebook has already taken strong action against people who believe you should not vaccinate your child. It is almost impossible to find anti-vax groups on Facebook in their search feature. They won't surface them at all. Even if you type in the direct phrase sometimes. You have to have a direct link to the anti-vax group. That is a form of censorship.

ShamelessC 6y ago
I don't use Facebook but my understanding was that in general it's tougher to do broad searches like that as they want you to be connected via social graph first. could be wrong here though. At any rate, what's wrong with censorship in online media? It's been my experience that basically every platform lacking censorship turns into a cesspool of bigotry and misinformation.

ardy42 6y ago

Is this anti-vaxx in general, or specific concerns about a coronavirus vaccine? Because there's a world of difference between repeating a debunked claim about vaccines causing autism or the idea that all vaccines are unsafe and saying you had a bad reaction to a specific vaccine or have concerns about an unproven vaccines development process.

igorstellar 6y ago

I always had a sentiment that “thought policing” by blocking people’s posts just reinforces all the bad stuff that happens there. It will reinforce the idea that something is controlling the speech or information (conspiracy theorists rejoice) and the reaction would be to build even bigger misinformation echo chambers, at least this is anecdata I observe in my feeds.