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This person has real credentials, she co-authored paper on COVID-19 that was published in Nature magazine: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2342-5 htt

by e9 6y ago

This person has real credentials, she co-authored paper on COVID-19 that was published in Nature magazine: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2342-5 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2342-5

zxcmx 6y ago
Reposting comment from dup at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24501195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24501195 You don't have to go back far (author -> paper -> author affiliations -> sponsoring foundation ...) before you literally find Steve Bannon's face staring out of the page at you. I have no idea whether the arguments in the paper are credible or not (I'm not technically qualified to assess them) but the source seems to have a very clear political agenda. That doesn't invalidate their claims but I can't take them seriously without hearing from a more independent source. There are some fairly distinct signs of media engineering all over this story. Just little things like the paper downloads with the name "The_Yan_Report.pdf" - what scientist uploads their paper with that name to Zenodo? That sort of thing.
- kstenerud 6y ago
  But it still begs the question: Why are they being censored? Regardless of how much BS this person is spouting or who is ultimately behind it all or what their intentions are, we generally hold that someone has a right to spout as much BS as they want so long as it doesn't put people or the democratic process in danger.
  - zxcmx 6y ago
    If they are being censored it is clearly not working because the story is all over the news. It is possible they are being censored in some places because they look exactly like an influence operation, and COVID-19 misinformation is a huge problem for online platforms right now. We have people out in the real world right now protesting about Bill Gates' mind control vaccine - activated by 5G - because they have been "memetically compromised" via social media. I expect it might have gone a little differently if the claims in the paper had been peer reviewed.

by e9 6y ago

zxcmx 6y ago

Reposting comment from dup at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24501195 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24501195 You don't have to go back far (author -> paper -> author affiliations -> sponsoring foundation ...) before you literally find Steve Bannon's face staring out of the page at you. I have no idea whether the arguments in the paper are credible or not (I'm not technically qualified to assess them) but the source seems to have a very clear political agenda. That doesn't invalidate their claims but I can't take them seriously without hearing from a more independent source. There are some fairly distinct signs of media engineering all over this story. Just little things like the paper downloads with the name "The_Yan_Report.pdf" - what scientist uploads their paper with that name to Zenodo? That sort of thing.

kstenerud 6y ago
But it still begs the question: Why are they being censored? Regardless of how much BS this person is spouting or who is ultimately behind it all or what their intentions are, we generally hold that someone has a right to spout as much BS as they want so long as it doesn't put people or the democratic process in danger.
- zxcmx 6y ago
  If they are being censored it is clearly not working because the story is all over the news. It is possible they are being censored in some places because they look exactly like an influence operation, and COVID-19 misinformation is a huge problem for online platforms right now. We have people out in the real world right now protesting about Bill Gates' mind control vaccine - activated by 5G - because they have been "memetically compromised" via social media. I expect it might have gone a little differently if the claims in the paper had been peer reviewed.