4 ms·
This is upside down. First - there is tons of examples of 'misinformation' in the PDF. It goes into excessive detail. It's an amazing and thorough bit of resea
by jollybean 5y ago
This is upside down.
First - there is tons of examples of 'misinformation' in the PDF. It goes into excessive detail. It's an amazing and thorough bit of research actually. If you want a link here it is [1]
1) The situation is fluid, facts change which requires change in posture by public health officials - which will give the impression of 'bad information' but really it's not at all for anyone paying close attention.
2) People are not censored, they're just told to not talk about things we don't yet understand on massive public forums until there's data. We definitely want YouTube and FB to get rid of bogus information related to life and death issues.
It's understandable that people in the commons don't understand this, but it's not acceptable that intelligent rational people can't grasp the nuance in the situation: 1) facts and situations change and 2) there are a lot of liars.
Those are different forms of noise.
A good example of this is the recent Brett Weinstein / Ivermectin situation.
Brett Weinstein went in an 'emergency Joe Rogan' to make a bunch of BS claims about Ivermectin, and 10's of millions of people ate it up.
But it turns out Brett Weinsten was promulgating a Giant Lie. The foundational study turned out to be fraud. Ergo his claims are total BS, he has no basis for them. [2]
So Brett Weinstein - a generally well meaning and smart guy is not 'helping' - he's 'hurting' by knowingly amplifying early, suspect and net yet validated results.
'The Government Is Censoring Me' is the Hustler's Lie.
If the government is forcibly stopping scientists form releasing data, or forcibly stopping people from speaking publicly - that's a problem.
If if YouTube and FB are dropping your videos because you're making unverified claims about important medical information - well that's literally the kind of censorship we want.
We don't want Quack Medical advice telling people to drink lighter fluid, because people will do it.
Brett Weinstein's new public identity (i.e. his source of income) is playing a kind of 'educated conspiracy theorist' - having enough knowledge to parse the situation and yet still misrepresent the facts.
It turns out Ivermectin is most likely bogus, while the 'real' trials going on at Oxford may possibly show some value, as of today, we don't have any supporting data for Brett's claims - making he, Rogan and even Lex guilty of garbage misinformation tabloid populism.
It doesn't matter what the 'end result' of the trials are, the fact is the information is very grey (and not looking good) and it's too early to be presented as a cure.
If they were responsible agents of truth, they'd have spent most of the time in the introduction talking about:
'How They Are Not Medical Experts And Have Zero Medical Qualifications',
how 'The Trials Were Limited',
that 'There Are Suspicions',
and 'We Still Know Very Little',
and because of that - 'We Can't Conclude Much At This Point'.
That is the responsible scientific and newsworthy take.
As such, frankly, it doesn't constitute the need for a 'podcast' because there's nothing to say.
Will Joe Rogan, Lex or Weinstein issue an apology/correction for the misleading hyperbole? Probably not. But they're not 'journalists' you say, they're under no obligation? Well then they don't have any credibility to speak on these important issues.
(FYI I actually like all three of those guys, but they've crossed a line here)
The mask mandate is yet another good example:
Dr. Fauci and his peers around the world, had the ignoble task of getting an arrogant and cantankerous global public to change some behaviours.
The 'mask' issue was managed responsibly: masks were needed for the medical community. If 300M Americans made a 'mad dash' for masks, the demand would have swamped the ability of Healthcare to get PPE. While mask are at best marginally useful for the public, they are essential in Healthcare.
Once production ramped up - the marginal effectiveness of masks make them useful as long as public consumption doesn't interfere with Healthcare supply. So then the public communication becomes: Wear Masks.
From early CNN posts last Spring, you can see that the 'You Don't Need Masks' signals are always accompanied with:
"Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist with the WHO, also said at Monday's briefing that it is important "we prioritize the use of masks for those who need it most," which would be frontline health care workers." [3]
They are telling us there is short supply and that we need masks for Healthcare, which is very rational.
We just went through the biggest economic, public health and global emergency of the century, there will be chaos. Public Health officials use basic Public Communications tactics to get people to do very basic things which create better outcomes for everyone. Shutting down liars and telling people to not broadcast unsubstantiated information to their 300 Million followers (or at very least do it in a very responsible way) is what we have to do.
[1] https://www.counterhate.com/disinformationdozen https://www.counterhate.com/disinformationdozen
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-supporting-ivermectin-as-covid-treatment-withdrawn-over-ethical-concerns https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-s...
[3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-recommendation-trnd/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-r...
- lawnchair_larry 5y agoHaha wow you have so much of this wrong. Not just confused wrong, but blatant misrepresentation that amounts to libel. The description of Bret Weinstein, what he did and did not say, and the sequence of events, is a straight up lie. Nothing he said even approached dishonesty, that study wasn’t ’foundational’ in the least, and hasn’t really changed the situation. Completely misrepresented Rogan and Lex as well. And you’re clearly wrong about nobody being censored. That’s not even in question. This whole post reads like you read some ideologically motivated hit piece and believed it was accurate. And you finish off by advocating censorship. SMH.
- sennight 5y agoWow, that is some very tortured logic. As to the specifics of Weinstein, I don't share your fixation - so I can't address your complaints about him. > ...there is tons of examples of 'misinformation' in the PDF ... It's an amazing and thorough bit of research actually. You're confusing "research" and "propaganda". It is easy to tell the difference using this little trick: research defines terms, propaganda dumps "tons of examples" from unsympathetic caricatures. One is intellectually honest and the other is manipulative. > The situation is fluid, facts change... Uh, define "facts". Because your spirited defense of calculated lies from public health officials makes me think you've somehow redefined the word. Here is an example of a fact: the virus has always been a lab leak. It isn't a fact now that Fauci's emails have been FOIA'd and scientists are admitting that they immediately recognized signs of genetic engineering but didn't speak up because they thought it might help the bad orange man. It was always a fact - one that was, in the best cases, strongly countermessaged with "medical disinformation" warnings, and in the worst cases used to justify deplatforming. Hell, the boards figured out the specific lab at least a month before travel restrictions - I remember reading their job postings page seeking bat virologists through Google Translate. > People are not censored, they're just told to not talk... bwahahahaha, seriously?! Aside from your creative take on what is and isn't censorship - you know that the Whitehouse is directly instructing platforms, publicly and with no hint of shame, to censor Americans? The whole "Businesses can do whatever they want, build your own Internet" line was already total BS, but Biden has totally blown that dodge to smithereens by blatantly directing platforms on who needs a good banhammering.