10 ms·

What's Facebook's angle for discouraging the view that Covid may have originated from a lab? E.g, what do they gain from this perspective? Sidenote: because it

What's Facebook's angle for discouraging the view that Covid may have originated from a lab? E.g, what do they gain from this perspective? Sidenote: because it was being suppressed, I genuinely believed it was fringe theory. I didn't weigh the merits, that is, I considered the filter to just be the truth (because it seemed genuinely reasonable to conclude it was fringe, just because there is so much misinformation out there). My internal metric is: "Does this seem tin foil hat-y?" And I concluded "yes", and moved on. It was a concerning introspection of how I personally evaluate news.

throwaway8581 5y ago
They face a hostile media and political complex, as well as several thousand aggressively activist employees, that all demand that right-wing information be suppressed. If Facebook doesn't do what those groups demand, they will be smeared in the media, suffer internal strife, and face punitive antitrust probes. And of course, many tech executive are true believers in left-wing politics and like that they can use their positions to advance those ideas.
- ecommerceguy 5y ago
  Alot of those activist employees actively suppress non-progressive talking points on hn. Can I prove that with data as Dang has asked me to do...? Only if I have access to the logs is my answer.
ihsw 5y ago
At the time, it gave air to Trump's 2020 election campaign ("orange man bad"). Now, it's an excuse to take the air out of conservative political sentiment.
slg 5y ago
It was a fringe theory pushed largely but not exclusively by racists and opportunists that wanted to paint China as the bad guy and shield the previous administration and other politicians from blame for how they reacted to the pandemic. Totally independent of that, the general scientific community seemed to be much more opposed to the lab theory early on than they are now. It still doesn't appear to be much evidence for it beyond circumstantial stuff, but it is a possibility that more people are engaging with. Combine these two and it isn't surprising that these platforms cracked down on this type of talk early and are slow to allowing it to start happening again.
- kaesar14 5y ago
  The circumstantial evidence both then and now was largely favor of lab leaks. Members of the scientific community with a potential culpability in a lab leak helped silence discourse by framing it as a political issue as opposed to a scientific one, helped by America’s ever so controversial President coming out in support of a lab leak. With Trump gone and even more time elapsing with no reasonable natural origin of COVID found, a lab leak is back in the mainstream, even though we should’ve been discussing it from the beginning based on circumstantial evidence. It’s plainly evident that allowing these platforms to regulate our speech in this manner is poisonous. But whatever it takes to silence Trump and his ilk, I guess. Edit: I see I’ve been downvoted for this. I suggest people look at the facts themselves and decide whether a lab leak should’ve ever been dismissed as a crockpot theory. https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...
  - slg 5y ago
    You can't just point to circumstantial evidence as justification for any theory you want. You are doing the exact same thing here. You have circumstantial evidence of a motive (scientists wanting to avoid culpability) and are taking it as justification that they are guilty of silencing discourse about the lab origin theory. Where is the direct evidence of either the lab origin or malicious silencing of discourse by Western scientists? I don't think it is unreasonable to wait for direct evidence of guilt before signing off on blaming someone for millions of deaths. That is a heavy accusation that needs to come with a degree of confidence that goes beyond the normal conspiracy theory approach of "just asking questions".
    - kaesar14 5y ago
      You’re conflating two different things. Peter Daszak’s original statements and articles about COVID and its origins last year led to a significant amount of pressure within the scientific community to not even look for a possible origin involving human error coming from a lab leak. The Lancet letter, being published by one of the most prestigious journals in the world, firmly established that COVID had a natural origin, and the media picked that up as evidence to rail against any possibility of a lab based origin. You can look at many of the articles published in the wake of the Lancet letter discrediting the lab leak, like Vox’s here: https://www.vox.com/2020/4/23/21226484/wuhan-lab-coronavirus-china https://www.vox.com/2020/4/23/21226484/wuhan-lab-coronavirus... that literally quotes Daszak and Dennis Carroll, another signee of the Lancet letter who directly and without question say a lab leak is preposterous and unlikely. Is that good enough direct evidence for scientists pressuring the global discourse against a lab leak? Direct evidence of guilt is going to be hard considering the CPC’s reticence to allow an independent investigation, which honestly is another point in my opinion towards a lab leak. But regardless, regardless! When you combine the following facts: 1. There was a lab in Wuhan studying bat-related coronaviruses in gain of function research. 2. The virus was well adapted to humans at the beginning of the pandemic, very uncharacteristic of a zoonotic spillover. 3. The virus had no evidence of a natural origin then and it still doesn’t despite ones being found for MERS and SARS-1 within a few months. 4. Of the first 40 or so cases, not all could be definitively linked to the wet market that the CPC said the virus originated in. How could we not take a lab leak seriously? All 4 of those facts were true even last year, though 3 was a bit weaker since we’d only had a few months since case 0 and not the year and a half we do now. Our social media platforms should NEVER have been silencing this debate, and it’s absolutely ridiculous that its still even remotely controversial to bring it up. Calling it a conspiracy theory, when the questions I’m asking are profound and grounded in science that’s well agreed upon, does nobody any favors. Edit: For those who don’t read my original source, Daszak is the head of an organization EcoHealth Alliance that directly partnered with the WIV to study gain of function using bat-originated coronaviruses.
tomp 5y ago
It was supported by Trump. Most mainstream media and Silicon Valley (which both align Democrat) therefore opposed it.
- vxNsr 5y ago
  I love that you’re getting downvoted for telling the actual truth instead of everyone else who is now rewriting history to explain why they’ve had this sudden change of heart. At least CNN was honest yesterday when they said “trump said it so we immediately took the other side, no we look kinda foolish”
  - throwaway8581 5y ago
    Trump Derangement Syndrome (which is more than mere opposition to Trump) is a religious phenomenon and its adherents are just as incapable of acknowledging their irrationality as fundamentalists of any religion.
michaelmrose 5y ago
If you see a flash of light in the sky and without further evidence exclaim that aliens have landed and are going to subjugate us and steal our women then you are a crackpot not merely because you are wrong but because you drew your conclusion with a faulty thought process. If it later turns out that aliens HAVE landed but on a diplomatic mission not an invasion force you are still a crackpot who was partially right not by dint of sagacity but more or less by accident. The lab story was usually promoted as part of a wider narrative where covid was either portrayed as a deliberate attack by the Chinese or the accidental release of a bioweapon a narrative designed not to explicate but to distract one from laying blame on the Trump administration for its incompetent response. It frequently mixed hypothesis, conjecture, and outright lies. You can probably be forgiven for having not known there might be a useful hypothesis when it was largely being promoted by liars with corrupt motivation mixed with lies.

throwaway8581 5y ago

They face a hostile media and political complex, as well as several thousand aggressively activist employees, that all demand that right-wing information be suppressed. If Facebook doesn't do what those groups demand, they will be smeared in the media, suffer internal strife, and face punitive antitrust probes. And of course, many tech executive are true believers in left-wing politics and like that they can use their positions to advance those ideas.

ecommerceguy 5y ago
Alot of those activist employees actively suppress non-progressive talking points on hn. Can I prove that with data as Dang has asked me to do...? Only if I have access to the logs is my answer.

ihsw 5y ago

At the time, it gave air to Trump's 2020 election campaign ("orange man bad"). Now, it's an excuse to take the air out of conservative political sentiment.

slg 5y ago

It was a fringe theory pushed largely but not exclusively by racists and opportunists that wanted to paint China as the bad guy and shield the previous administration and other politicians from blame for how they reacted to the pandemic. Totally independent of that, the general scientific community seemed to be much more opposed to the lab theory early on than they are now. It still doesn't appear to be much evidence for it beyond circumstantial stuff, but it is a possibility that more people are engaging with. Combine these two and it isn't surprising that these platforms cracked down on this type of talk early and are slow to allowing it to start happening again.

kaesar14 5y ago
The circumstantial evidence both then and now was largely favor of lab leaks. Members of the scientific community with a potential culpability in a lab leak helped silence discourse by framing it as a political issue as opposed to a scientific one, helped by America’s ever so controversial President coming out in support of a lab leak. With Trump gone and even more time elapsing with no reasonable natural origin of COVID found, a lab leak is back in the mainstream, even though we should’ve been discussing it from the beginning based on circumstantial evidence. It’s plainly evident that allowing these platforms to regulate our speech in this manner is poisonous. But whatever it takes to silence Trump and his ilk, I guess. Edit: I see I’ve been downvoted for this. I suggest people look at the facts themselves and decide whether a lab leak should’ve ever been dismissed as a crockpot theory. https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-people-or-nature-open-pandoras-box-at-wuhan/ https://thebulletin.org/2021/05/the-origin-of-covid-did-peop...
- slg 5y ago
  You can't just point to circumstantial evidence as justification for any theory you want. You are doing the exact same thing here. You have circumstantial evidence of a motive (scientists wanting to avoid culpability) and are taking it as justification that they are guilty of silencing discourse about the lab origin theory. Where is the direct evidence of either the lab origin or malicious silencing of discourse by Western scientists? I don't think it is unreasonable to wait for direct evidence of guilt before signing off on blaming someone for millions of deaths. That is a heavy accusation that needs to come with a degree of confidence that goes beyond the normal conspiracy theory approach of "just asking questions".
  - kaesar14 5y ago
    You’re conflating two different things. Peter Daszak’s original statements and articles about COVID and its origins last year led to a significant amount of pressure within the scientific community to not even look for a possible origin involving human error coming from a lab leak. The Lancet letter, being published by one of the most prestigious journals in the world, firmly established that COVID had a natural origin, and the media picked that up as evidence to rail against any possibility of a lab based origin. You can look at many of the articles published in the wake of the Lancet letter discrediting the lab leak, like Vox’s here: https://www.vox.com/2020/4/23/21226484/wuhan-lab-coronavirus-china https://www.vox.com/2020/4/23/21226484/wuhan-lab-coronavirus... that literally quotes Daszak and Dennis Carroll, another signee of the Lancet letter who directly and without question say a lab leak is preposterous and unlikely. Is that good enough direct evidence for scientists pressuring the global discourse against a lab leak? Direct evidence of guilt is going to be hard considering the CPC’s reticence to allow an independent investigation, which honestly is another point in my opinion towards a lab leak. But regardless, regardless! When you combine the following facts: 1. There was a lab in Wuhan studying bat-related coronaviruses in gain of function research. 2. The virus was well adapted to humans at the beginning of the pandemic, very uncharacteristic of a zoonotic spillover. 3. The virus had no evidence of a natural origin then and it still doesn’t despite ones being found for MERS and SARS-1 within a few months. 4. Of the first 40 or so cases, not all could be definitively linked to the wet market that the CPC said the virus originated in. How could we not take a lab leak seriously? All 4 of those facts were true even last year, though 3 was a bit weaker since we’d only had a few months since case 0 and not the year and a half we do now. Our social media platforms should NEVER have been silencing this debate, and it’s absolutely ridiculous that its still even remotely controversial to bring it up. Calling it a conspiracy theory, when the questions I’m asking are profound and grounded in science that’s well agreed upon, does nobody any favors. Edit: For those who don’t read my original source, Daszak is the head of an organization EcoHealth Alliance that directly partnered with the WIV to study gain of function using bat-originated coronaviruses.

tomp 5y ago

It was supported by Trump. Most mainstream media and Silicon Valley (which both align Democrat) therefore opposed it.

vxNsr 5y ago
I love that you’re getting downvoted for telling the actual truth instead of everyone else who is now rewriting history to explain why they’ve had this sudden change of heart. At least CNN was honest yesterday when they said “trump said it so we immediately took the other side, no we look kinda foolish”
- throwaway8581 5y ago
  Trump Derangement Syndrome (which is more than mere opposition to Trump) is a religious phenomenon and its adherents are just as incapable of acknowledging their irrationality as fundamentalists of any religion.

michaelmrose 5y ago

If you see a flash of light in the sky and without further evidence exclaim that aliens have landed and are going to subjugate us and steal our women then you are a crackpot not merely because you are wrong but because you drew your conclusion with a faulty thought process. If it later turns out that aliens HAVE landed but on a diplomatic mission not an invasion force you are still a crackpot who was partially right not by dint of sagacity but more or less by accident. The lab story was usually promoted as part of a wider narrative where covid was either portrayed as a deliberate attack by the Chinese or the accidental release of a bioweapon a narrative designed not to explicate but to distract one from laying blame on the Trump administration for its incompetent response. It frequently mixed hypothesis, conjecture, and outright lies. You can probably be forgiven for having not known there might be a useful hypothesis when it was largely being promoted by liars with corrupt motivation mixed with lies.