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Keeping People Safe and Informed About the Coronavirus

2 points by tareqak 6y ago

throwawaysea 6y ago
I worry about what this kind of information removal will lead to. Earlier this year, I saw that Medium was aggressively removing all discussion and analyses of COVID-19 that did not agree with exactly what public health authorities were saying. This is bad because a) free speech matters b) we need discussions/analyses that challenge prevailing thought to seek the truth c) a lot of eventual truths start off as anecdotal observations or speculation. Of course, we saw earlier in the year that trusted authorities like the WHO can be very wrong - for instance in their claims against mask use and their unusually late claim that there was no evidence of human to human transmission of the coronavirus. If we had stuck to only letting public health authorities speak on the matter, how much more delayed would we have been in reacting to the virus? Facebook needs to be careful not to prevent healthy and necessary discussion that challenges prevailing sentiment or claims by authorities. I am worried about some of their changes, such as: > We will also remove conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines that we know today are false: like specific populations are being used without their consent to test the vaccine’s safety. This is a very real concern to many. Articles have been written about medical colonialism (https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/4/8/medical-colonialism-in-africa-is-not-new/ https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/4/8/medical-colonial...) and the head of the WHO had to specifically make a statement earlier this year noting that COVID vaccines would not be tested on Africans after two French doctors suggested exactly this (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52192184 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52192184). There have been past instances of such medical experimentation, so why shouldn't people be on alert now? Is speculating/raising concern wrong if someone thinks this is happening? Are people not allowed to perceive risks like this based on their own judgment? Lastly, Facebook seems to be outsourcing the determination of truth to a web of third party fact checkers. However, I'm also starting to see instances where trusted Fact Checkers are incorrect (example: https://www.blackenterprise.com/candace-owens-takes-a-victory-lap-after-fact-checker-reverses-decision/ https://www.blackenterprise.com/candace-owens-takes-a-victor...). When they get it wrong, there isn't an easy way to appeal or to even get direct information on what claim is being flagged. This process is once again, anti-free-speech, and inappropriate.

2 points by tareqak 6y ago

I worry about what this kind of information removal will lead to. Earlier this year, I saw that Medium was aggressively removing all discussion and analyses of COVID-19 that did not agree with exactly what public health authorities were saying. This is bad because a) free speech matters b) we need discussions/analyses that challenge prevailing thought to seek the truth c) a lot of eventual truths start off as anecdotal observations or speculation. Of course, we saw earlier in the year that trusted authorities like the WHO can be very wrong - for instance in their claims against mask use and their unusually late claim that there was no evidence of human to human transmission of the coronavirus. If we had stuck to only letting public health authorities speak on the matter, how much more delayed would we have been in reacting to the virus? Facebook needs to be careful not to prevent healthy and necessary discussion that challenges prevailing sentiment or claims by authorities. I am worried about some of their changes, such as: > We will also remove conspiracy theories about COVID-19 vaccines that we know today are false: like specific populations are being used without their consent to test the vaccine’s safety. This is a very real concern to many. Articles have been written about medical colonialism (https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/4/8/medical-colonialism-in-africa-is-not-new/ https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/4/8/medical-colonial...) and the head of the WHO had to specifically make a statement earlier this year noting that COVID vaccines would not be tested on Africans after two French doctors suggested exactly this (https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52192184 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52192184). There have been past instances of such medical experimentation, so why shouldn't people be on alert now? Is speculating/raising concern wrong if someone thinks this is happening? Are people not allowed to perceive risks like this based on their own judgment? Lastly, Facebook seems to be outsourcing the determination of truth to a web of third party fact checkers. However, I'm also starting to see instances where trusted Fact Checkers are incorrect (example: https://www.blackenterprise.com/candace-owens-takes-a-victory-lap-after-fact-checker-reverses-decision/ https://www.blackenterprise.com/candace-owens-takes-a-victor...). When they get it wrong, there isn't an easy way to appeal or to even get direct information on what claim is being flagged. This process is once again, anti-free-speech, and inappropriate.