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Facebook's policy page only mentions censoring content suggesting that the virus was "man-made". Did Twitter actually ban users who suggested _only_ that the v

Facebook's policy page only mentions censoring content suggesting that the virus was "man-made". Did Twitter actually ban users who suggested _only_ that the virus leaked from a lab? I'd be surprised because I follow some fairly big accounts there which have posted about the lab leak theory. https://about.fb.com/news/2020/04/covid-19-misinfo-update/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/04/covid-19-misinfo-update/

awb 5y ago
There’s only a spec of difference. I don’t know anyone suggesting that the lab leak was of a natural origin. The theory is that the lab created the virus and it leaked.
- TechBro8615 5y ago
  Well, I report the opposite. I guess the data is useless.
- barrkel 5y ago
  I think there's a genuine spectrum between man-made bio-weapon (not very believable IMO), through gain of function research (I've read enough that - if true - the RNA evidence suggests that it probably wasn't this), through to leak from animal studies. Gain of function, if it isn't ruled out by RNA or other approaches, isn't quite man-made and is at least somewhat plausible. Gain of function research on the flu is (as I understand it) how the flu vaccine is created ahead of the season. https://jme.bmj.com/content/41/11/901 https://jme.bmj.com/content/41/11/901 Evans NG, Lipsitch M, Levinson M The ethics of biosafety considerations in gain-of-function research resulting in the creation of potential pandemic pathogens Journal of Medical Ethics 2015;41:901-908. This paper proposes an ethical framework for evaluating biosafety risks of gain-of-function (GOF) experiments that create novel strains of influenza expected to be virulent and transmissible in humans, so-called potential pandemic pathogens (PPPs). Such research raises ethical concerns because of the risk that accidental release from a laboratory could lead to extensive or even global spread of a virulent pathogen.
  - Lazare 5y ago
    Some techniques of manipulating the virus would leave "fingerprints". Others would not. My understanding is that the sweeping assertions that COVID-19 would show clear signs of being manipulated have been largely debunked. Many ultimately traced back to a letter written by a group of virologists led by Kristian Andersen and published in Nature, but all that letter did was assert that some techniques (not all!) were unlikely (but even then, not impossible). I'm unaware of any reputable experts who are willing to assert that manipulation via, eg, serial passaging, can be ruled out. The closest you'll get is assertions that a natural zoonotic origin is, in their estimation, more likely. See, eg, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca... and https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038 https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-th....
- bgentry 5y ago
  I think there’s some nuance here. The virus could have a perfectly natural origin in bats, but not be able to infect humans in its original form. There are many ways the virus could have come to infect humans, such as by manipulating it directly, via gain of function research, or even just by a random mutation that managed to infect a lab worker (seems unlikely since it’s alleged there may have needed to be an intermediate species). Whether you could consider the virus “lab created” or “man-made” at that point is maybe a matter of debate. Even the Guardian article on Facebook’s policy changes seemed to conflate these scenarios, so I’m not entirely sure what the changes were. But they’re all a far cry from the more extreme narrative of “this was deliberately engineered to infect humans and/or as a bioweapon”, which is not what is being suggested here (nor, it seems, was that ever what Tom Cotton suggested).
  - awb 5y ago
    I know I got downvotes already but I guess that’s what I meant, that in a lab setting human researchers would have been manipulating the virus. I meant that I don’t think anyone is saying that researchers captured a novel COVID variant in nature and just held it in a lab until it leaked. If the lab theory holds any water, it’s almost certain that humans were manipulating the virus in some form. That’s why I don’t see much of a distinction between a lab leak theory and a human-made or human-manipulated virus.
Lazare 5y ago
There's a bit of a fuzzy overlap between "man made" and "lab leak". Specifically, the lab leak theory more or less assumes that the virus was collected from the mine, taken to Wuhan, and some research and experiments were done on it, resulting it some changes. Certainly the lab was doing research; there's an ongoing debate over what they did, who funded it, whether what they did technically qualifies as "gain of function" research, what practical impact the research could reasonably have been predicted to have, etc. Still, if your theory is that the lab took a bat virus, performed some research on it such as "serial passaging" to determine if it could mutate to become more infectious to humans, the virus does mutate (thus proving the hypothesis), and then a sample of the mutated virus is accidentally leaked... ...that seems like a plausible theory, and it's now showing up in mainstream discussions; eg, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca.... But I could easily imagine that being considered a suggestion the virus was "man-made", and censored.
- wearywanderer 5y ago
  > Specifically, the lab leak theory more or less assumes that the virus was collected from the mine, taken to Wuhan, and some research and experiments were done on it, resulting it some changes. I disagree, the lab leak hypothesis is independent from the lab [inadvertently or deliberately] mutating the virus. The lab may have merely possessed the virus, having made only the mistake of transporting the virus from a remote region into the middle of a city and then subsequently losing control of it.
  - Lazare 5y ago
    That would help explain how the virus got from the mine to Wuhan; it does not help explain how the virus mutated from a bat virus unable to infect humans to a virus that was extremely good at infecting humans with, so far, no intermediate stages identified. Much of the problem with the zoonotic explanation is that no evidence of the process has been found. Was a third virus involved? We haven't identified it. Was a third host species involved? We haven't identified one. Were there any half-way variants that were slightly capable of infecting humans, and then mutated further to reach their final form? We haven't identified any. There was some initial speculation about the wet market, but that hasn't panned out. Pangolins were briefly considered as a possible intermediate host, but I think that's also been ruled out. So if the lab collected the virus, flew it to Wuhan, stored it, and then accidentally leaked it in its original form, we still have no idea what happened next. It's a bat virus, so it infected a local Wuhan bat, and then what? And whatever the theory is, why have we been unable to find any evidence of it so far? Assuming RaTG13 was indeed the source of COVID-19, the question of "how it got to Wuhan" is, I think, much less interesting than "how did it mutate into COVID-19" (and "why can't we find evidence of that process?"). And I think when people talk about "lab leak" versus "zoonotic", they're generally focused on the latter questions.
jkhdigital 5y ago
What’s the difference? I suppose it is possible that the Wuhan bat hunters found this virus occurring naturally and just, you know, kept it around without telling anyone...
- bialpio 5y ago
  There is a huge difference! For one, suggesting it was man-made lends credibility to the conspiracy theory crowd ("plandemic", "they manufactured it to enslave you", etc), which is probably why the press over-indexed on debunking it. Also, it could imply that there was some intent behind it appearing when and where it did, when there may have been none (Hanlon's razor applies until a proof to the contrary appears). My understanding was that the theory that the virus was man-made was debunked, but I have not been paying much attention to what was happening to the stories saying it may have been an accidental leak from a lab, and given China's record, I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that there was research happening on it, it got out, and that was then covered up.
  - throwawayboise 5y ago
    If the virus was man-made, then its release was either accidental or deliberate. Both of these possibilites need to be allowed until disproven. If it was deliberate, then why?
    - iammisc 5y ago
      This seems obvious. I don't think it was deliberate. But whether deliberate or not, the virus achieved many policy goals for the ccp. Firstly it got rid of Trump who was before covid in charge of one of the best economies in the USA and would have had an easy path to reelection. The virus was a black swan event that caused that to go away and trump.to make several mistakes. It also got joe biden elected which we know the CCP preferred. Secondly, it embarrassed america on the world stage while china came away initially looking very good. China's centralized government came out looking better than the chaotic american way. This helps China's foreign investment image. Wouldn't you rather do business with stable countries? Finally, of all countries, china had the best economic outcome. It's economy was never totally shut. They continued to profit from masks and other PPE. Basically, the virus was a clear win for the ccp. Personally my belief is that whether the virus is natural, a leak, or a man made weapon, once it was out, the ccp clearly weaponized the pandemic to effectively achieve several policy goals.

awb 5y ago

There’s only a spec of difference. I don’t know anyone suggesting that the lab leak was of a natural origin. The theory is that the lab created the virus and it leaked.

TechBro8615 5y ago
Well, I report the opposite. I guess the data is useless.
barrkel 5y ago
I think there's a genuine spectrum between man-made bio-weapon (not very believable IMO), through gain of function research (I've read enough that - if true - the RNA evidence suggests that it probably wasn't this), through to leak from animal studies. Gain of function, if it isn't ruled out by RNA or other approaches, isn't quite man-made and is at least somewhat plausible. Gain of function research on the flu is (as I understand it) how the flu vaccine is created ahead of the season. https://jme.bmj.com/content/41/11/901 https://jme.bmj.com/content/41/11/901 Evans NG, Lipsitch M, Levinson M The ethics of biosafety considerations in gain-of-function research resulting in the creation of potential pandemic pathogens Journal of Medical Ethics 2015;41:901-908. This paper proposes an ethical framework for evaluating biosafety risks of gain-of-function (GOF) experiments that create novel strains of influenza expected to be virulent and transmissible in humans, so-called potential pandemic pathogens (PPPs). Such research raises ethical concerns because of the risk that accidental release from a laboratory could lead to extensive or even global spread of a virulent pathogen.
- Lazare 5y ago
  Some techniques of manipulating the virus would leave "fingerprints". Others would not. My understanding is that the sweeping assertions that COVID-19 would show clear signs of being manipulated have been largely debunked. Many ultimately traced back to a letter written by a group of virologists led by Kristian Andersen and published in Nature, but all that letter did was assert that some techniques (not all!) were unlikely (but even then, not impossible). I'm unaware of any reputable experts who are willing to assert that manipulation via, eg, serial passaging, can be ruled out. The closest you'll get is assertions that a natural zoonotic origin is, in their estimation, more likely. See, eg, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca... and https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-the-clues-6f03564c038 https://nicholaswade.medium.com/origin-of-covid-following-th....
bgentry 5y ago
I think there’s some nuance here. The virus could have a perfectly natural origin in bats, but not be able to infect humans in its original form. There are many ways the virus could have come to infect humans, such as by manipulating it directly, via gain of function research, or even just by a random mutation that managed to infect a lab worker (seems unlikely since it’s alleged there may have needed to be an intermediate species). Whether you could consider the virus “lab created” or “man-made” at that point is maybe a matter of debate. Even the Guardian article on Facebook’s policy changes seemed to conflate these scenarios, so I’m not entirely sure what the changes were. But they’re all a far cry from the more extreme narrative of “this was deliberately engineered to infect humans and/or as a bioweapon”, which is not what is being suggested here (nor, it seems, was that ever what Tom Cotton suggested).
- awb 5y ago
  I know I got downvotes already but I guess that’s what I meant, that in a lab setting human researchers would have been manipulating the virus. I meant that I don’t think anyone is saying that researchers captured a novel COVID variant in nature and just held it in a lab until it leaked. If the lab theory holds any water, it’s almost certain that humans were manipulating the virus in some form. That’s why I don’t see much of a distinction between a lab leak theory and a human-made or human-manipulated virus.

Lazare 5y ago

There's a bit of a fuzzy overlap between "man made" and "lab leak". Specifically, the lab leak theory more or less assumes that the virus was collected from the mine, taken to Wuhan, and some research and experiments were done on it, resulting it some changes. Certainly the lab was doing research; there's an ongoing debate over what they did, who funded it, whether what they did technically qualifies as "gain of function" research, what practical impact the research could reasonably have been predicted to have, etc. Still, if your theory is that the lab took a bat virus, performed some research on it such as "serial passaging" to determine if it could mutate to become more infectious to humans, the virus does mutate (thus proving the hypothesis), and then a sample of the mutated virus is accidentally leaked... ...that seems like a plausible theory, and it's now showing up in mainstream discussions; eg, https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-escape-theory.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/coronavirus-lab-esca.... But I could easily imagine that being considered a suggestion the virus was "man-made", and censored.

wearywanderer 5y ago
> Specifically, the lab leak theory more or less assumes that the virus was collected from the mine, taken to Wuhan, and some research and experiments were done on it, resulting it some changes. I disagree, the lab leak hypothesis is independent from the lab [inadvertently or deliberately] mutating the virus. The lab may have merely possessed the virus, having made only the mistake of transporting the virus from a remote region into the middle of a city and then subsequently losing control of it.
- Lazare 5y ago
  That would help explain how the virus got from the mine to Wuhan; it does not help explain how the virus mutated from a bat virus unable to infect humans to a virus that was extremely good at infecting humans with, so far, no intermediate stages identified. Much of the problem with the zoonotic explanation is that no evidence of the process has been found. Was a third virus involved? We haven't identified it. Was a third host species involved? We haven't identified one. Were there any half-way variants that were slightly capable of infecting humans, and then mutated further to reach their final form? We haven't identified any. There was some initial speculation about the wet market, but that hasn't panned out. Pangolins were briefly considered as a possible intermediate host, but I think that's also been ruled out. So if the lab collected the virus, flew it to Wuhan, stored it, and then accidentally leaked it in its original form, we still have no idea what happened next. It's a bat virus, so it infected a local Wuhan bat, and then what? And whatever the theory is, why have we been unable to find any evidence of it so far? Assuming RaTG13 was indeed the source of COVID-19, the question of "how it got to Wuhan" is, I think, much less interesting than "how did it mutate into COVID-19" (and "why can't we find evidence of that process?"). And I think when people talk about "lab leak" versus "zoonotic", they're generally focused on the latter questions.

jkhdigital 5y ago

What’s the difference? I suppose it is possible that the Wuhan bat hunters found this virus occurring naturally and just, you know, kept it around without telling anyone...

bialpio 5y ago
There is a huge difference! For one, suggesting it was man-made lends credibility to the conspiracy theory crowd ("plandemic", "they manufactured it to enslave you", etc), which is probably why the press over-indexed on debunking it. Also, it could imply that there was some intent behind it appearing when and where it did, when there may have been none (Hanlon's razor applies until a proof to the contrary appears). My understanding was that the theory that the virus was man-made was debunked, but I have not been paying much attention to what was happening to the stories saying it may have been an accidental leak from a lab, and given China's record, I wouldn't be too surprised to learn that there was research happening on it, it got out, and that was then covered up.
- throwawayboise 5y ago
  If the virus was man-made, then its release was either accidental or deliberate. Both of these possibilites need to be allowed until disproven. If it was deliberate, then why?
  - iammisc 5y ago
    This seems obvious. I don't think it was deliberate. But whether deliberate or not, the virus achieved many policy goals for the ccp. Firstly it got rid of Trump who was before covid in charge of one of the best economies in the USA and would have had an easy path to reelection. The virus was a black swan event that caused that to go away and trump.to make several mistakes. It also got joe biden elected which we know the CCP preferred. Secondly, it embarrassed america on the world stage while china came away initially looking very good. China's centralized government came out looking better than the chaotic american way. This helps China's foreign investment image. Wouldn't you rather do business with stable countries? Finally, of all countries, china had the best economic outcome. It's economy was never totally shut. They continued to profit from masks and other PPE. Basically, the virus was a clear win for the ccp. Personally my belief is that whether the virus is natural, a leak, or a man made weapon, once it was out, the ccp clearly weaponized the pandemic to effectively achieve several policy goals.