7 ms·

Plandemic Revisited: A Planned Disinformation Campaign

45 points by mcguire 5y ago

hartator 5y ago
Weren't the main grip about that movie was about the lab leak theory that’s now mainstream? It seems a little harsh to call this misinformation as a negative light.
- the-dude 5y ago
  What means being right about the lab leak theory?
  - NoPie 5y ago
    Currently it means that we don't have enough information to say one way or another. Being wrong means being convinced that it happened or not. It is wrong position because we don't have enough information and no reasonable position should jump to either conclusion.
- jpxw 5y ago
  - That was hardly a theory limited to them. Many people were saying that that was a possibility right from the start, including me, and I’m not a conspiracy theorist. - There still isn’t conclusive evidence on that question, unless I’m missing something - A broken clock is right twice a day
  - iratic0 5y ago
    Except those supposed broken clocks have been right more than that
  - aerosmile 5y ago
    That's unfair. Imagine that we suddenly find out that Kennedy was not assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, but that one of the alternative explanations was accurate - you could still write down those same three bullet points, and by doing so, you would unjustly deflect from the outrage of getting it wrong the first time around. Sometimes you just have to take things on the chin, hold people accountable, and learn from it.
- raphlinus 5y ago
  No. The movie claims that the virus was manipulated in a lab, specifically evolved from SARS-CoV-1 (which has only 79% genetic similarity). While this belief is very common in some circles, no reliable sources support it even as a serious possibility. What is now accepted as plausible is that the virus was brought to the lab, either as a live bat (or other intermediate animal), or as a sample, then was inadvertently leaked. It is also nearly universally acknowledged that the Chinese government is not being transparent and is indeed pushing bogus theories of their own (the frozen food theory in particular). That is not the same as the movie being "right," not even in the stopped clock sense.
eplanit 5y ago
"It is well-established that a complex set of conditions and factors enable people to adopt beliefs in conspiracy theories, including personality types, heuristics, and cognitive biases to sociological factors such as level of education and political orientation" It's true. Some fools will believe that Covid was a grand plan by the elites to control society, while other fools will believe that the 2016 election was stolen by the Rooskies -- both for the reasons cited above, right? Or, I wonder if the author meant only "those people" (i.e. conservatives). I'm betting on the latter.
- newsclues 5y ago
  There are four Americas. Left fools, right fools, the people in charge and the people who aren’t in charge and are not fools. The final group seems to be growing, as the lunacy of the others increases.
  - jacob019 5y ago
    Does it? I suppose you're an optimist, I like that.
    - newsclues 5y ago
      Not usually optimistic but the lunacy seems to be reaching the norm use and pissing them off.
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  It’s clear russiagate was a disinformation campaign which was also a convenient cope for all those people that were losing their minds that America could elect Trump.
  - Applejinx 5y ago
    No, there's historical precedent, plenty of motive, and it's in line with the specific political tactics that have governed Russia for quite a while now. Adam Curtis's 'Hypernormalization' touched on this. It's also been very clear to anyone who's watched it happen on places like Reddit that 'russiagate' itself is a meme driven by powerful media management, brigading, and trolling. Anytime you're in a community and have the ability to examine heavily downvoted content and analyze it for the likely reasons it got hammered with six times the downvotes any other post in the community got, you don't soon forget what you observed.
stuaxo 5y ago
Any clue as to why the film was made and distributed in the first place and who funded it?
- arthurcolle 5y ago
  https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-05-13/plandemic-coronavirus-documentary-director-mikki-willis-mikovits https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020...
sschueller 5y ago
What I find very disappointing is that instead of addressing this misinformation and actively informing the people as well explaining to them (without being condescending, a huge issue IMO) why what is being reported is untrue we decided to just ban these people from discourse fueling the conspiracies. Things are not always black and white and we as a nation need to understand that. Nothing is 100% but that is ok. No one is 100% good or evil, we all have our flaws and we need to deal with that. Only because someone believes something "stupid" doesn't make them unable to change their mind. I have talked to many who did not want to get vaccinated. I never told them they should, I respect their choice. I did inform them and answer uncertainties that they heard about and had. I also listened and acknowledged the concerns they had, even ones that are completely baseless but I was diplomatic about it. You can tell someone they are wrong without throwing it in their face or making them feel like an idiot. To my surprise a lot of these people ended up getting vaccinated which was never really a goal of mine. EDIT: if you are down voting me please explain why.
- nabla9 5y ago
  When people argue in bad faith, there is no reason to engage with them. Just shun them and shut them off.
  - sschueller 5y ago
    Isn't that in the end going to result in civil war if that shunted out crowed gets too large? I have to disagree, sure some are arguing just for the sake of it but the majority are not. They get bits and pieces of the discord and don't really know what is going on. No bad faith there.
    - Applejinx 5y ago
      When people are arguing in bad faith to seize political power, they're going to go for civil war anyhow. They're stepping away from negotiation and committing to war. It's fair to ask how intensely you react to it (no sense becoming mirror fascists, which the fascists will immediately accuse you of being anyhow) but it's not reasonable to ignore the reality.
mrfusion 5y ago
I’d be more inclined to think this article is part of a disinformation campaign.
- iratic0 5y ago
  "Hmm this information goes against my world view, and might threaten this ego I've built up over time based on finding a way of thinking I'm right about everything. Must be disinformation."
  - mrfusion 5y ago
    Couldn’t I say the same thing about you? One thing I can say in my defense is that I’d absolutely love to be wrong. I’d love to believe this will all be over soon with (0 covid?) and then they give us back everything they’ve taken and we’re back to normal. Is that what most people believe?
    - iratic0 5y ago
      Don't think so. The side insisting not to take the pandemic at face value has no institutional power, in a sense no ego to lose. With no institutional power, they are always held to account. The corporate media, pharmaceutical companies, almost all officials, social media companies, universities, police forces all insist people unquestioningly accept their viewpoint. Their "ego" is built on years of solidifying their position of authority. With all institutional power, they are not held to account. If they were to be held to account, their house of cards tumbles.
      - mrfusion 5y ago
        I think I agree with you?
- hodgesrm 5y ago
  Your comment would be more interesting if you shared the reasoning why you think the article is disinformation.
beauHD 5y ago
I was wondering the other day: Without the Internet and round-the-clock updates via Twitter, Facebook, etc - Would the pandemic be as pertinent in people's minds? Social media is still relatively new, and the pandemic was amplified way more than it should have been IMHO. Nothing to tweet about? Tweet about COVID. No dramatic headlines to conjure up if you're a news outlet? COVID it is. The pandemic didn't need 'campaigns', for it is its own campaign. With little effort it has graced news outlets' headlines for nearly 2 years now.
- aerosmile 5y ago
  That's good and bad. On the one hand, it riles people up, on the other hand, it helped elevate the importance of developing and approving vaccines faster than ever before. I do share your sentiment though that it's troubling that the media's business plan is only partially aligned with what's good for the society. Related thought: we are super mad at Facebook for isolating us into similar belief bubbles. Where's the outrage at CNN and Foxnews? Yes, you hardly ever hear anything positive about them, but there's no threat of regulation, their CEOs didn't have congress hearings, etc.
  - beauHD 5y ago
    > Where's the outrage at CNN and Foxnews? And they have their social media channels where they parrot everything that's on TV, adding to the hype
- iratic0 5y ago
  There's been a pandemic for the elderly and those with co-morbidities. Other than the that and other human-imposed responses (eg lockdown) to the pandemic, nothing would tell me there is a pandemic happening.
  - 0goel0 5y ago
    Oh gtfo.
    - 5y ago
stuaxo 5y ago
Similar to how users distribute this themselves, near me are stickers by "the white rose"* with Covid disinformation and goading people not to wear masks. I believe they are self printed as they are often printed on labels and don't come off in one piece. I assume their funding probably goes back to some dark money org. * Their chosen name is distasteful: the original white rose were anti nazi activists who were executed, this is clearly not the same.
herodotus 5y ago
I would like to see someone who has been directly harmed by bad Covid advice take civil legal action agains one or more of the perpetrators of their nonsense.
titzer 5y ago
This is the most brazen evil of our time.
rob_c 5y ago
Here's an idea. If the authorities combated things like this with openness and actually answered the difficult questions maybe people wouldn't be pushed towards dis-information through distrust. Nobody has or should have all of the answers. I'm not expecting a public official to stand up and be a global expert on all things. But there have been so many lies on both sides now and so much political goal scoring by sport term politicians on both sides I'm not surprised that people turned to social media. Were all dancing around the elephant in the room that clearly everyone panicked due to china's lies at the start of 2020 and its created a culture of fear and distrust. The only way of combating bad speech is with more speech. This means actual openness and transparency and talking about how you made decisions. This unfortunately does show how ill prepared governments all were for an actual pandemic which is a bit disappointing but it's good to know that some things are being learned from this. Even if it is that this isn't smallpocks++...
- kubb 5y ago
  The governments would actually need to fund multi billion PR campaigns to combat the disinformation. Apart from the political feasibility there's also the question of return on the investment. If this caused a 5% increase in the number of vaccinations, would it be worthwhile? Even then there'd be people who think these are just two sides, and both of them make good and equally valid points.
  - rob_c 5y ago
    I'm sorry you can't make an argument on return for investment when the military is being organised to roll out the needed vaccinations and the economy is being shutdown due to the outbreak in my mind. Unless the politicians just don't give a dam about educating the population they're trying to save. In not suggesting we can ever change 100% of opinions 100% of the time, but open clear communication is the only proper tool for contering misinformation. Alas we seem to be restoring to the old teachers approach of sit down and shut up or you get the cane for speaking out. Which is damaging for public trust in the long run.
    - 5y ago
SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
My understanding is that the original pushback against the lab leak wasn’t that it had no chance but that it was being used as a distraction for weak leadership initiatives. It was a whataboutism at the time where leadership was on record letting the pandemic get worse because blue states were being hit the hardest.
meowface 5y ago
Is it disinformation, or misinformation?
raphlinus 5y ago
The pro-disinformation comments here on Hacker News are entirely predictable, yet make me despair for humanity. I'd love a site where bad faith arguments are unwelcome, but heterodox opinions are encouraged, especially when supported with evidence and reasoning. To stir things up, I'll give an example of such an opinion right now. Health organizations around the world are systematically lying to us about the basic reproduction number (R0) of the delta variant being astronomical (the figure of 8 is now commonly cited). Serious virologists[1] remind us that the evidence for such high estimates is thin and not based on biology; changes in human behavior, combined with antigenic drift (as observed regularly in influenza without the inference of constantly climbing R0 values) can explain what we're seeing. It is likely that the R0 value is somewhat higher than the ancestral strain, but a value of 8 is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence. And that we do not have, in spite of preprints that show higher viral load[2]. I use the word "lying" but it's most likely this is as much self-delusion than a conscious choice to mislead. But the motivation is very strong: the "delta variant is scary" narrative is much more compelling than "Covid is still dangerous," and indeed is likely contributing to increased vaccination rates. I'll also note that what I just said would likely trip the "misinformation" filters at the big Internet providers, as it contradicts "medically reliable sources" [WP:MEDRS]; these high estimates are being published by major medical and scientific organizations. It is interesting to note, though, that the official info from the CDC[3] is less out there than the astronomical estimates being breathlessly published by the press. The CDC page says "50% increased transmission" for delta, based on a paper from the UK[4]. That might well be true, though it's an observational study. So even on that basis, mainstream public science communication is way ahead of (in the sense of pushing higher R0 values) what would count as MEDRS. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/opinion/covid-vaccine-variants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/opinion/covid-vaccine-var... [2]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.07.21260122v2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.07.21260122v... [3]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/variant-info.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/variant-i... [4]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248822v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248822v... [WP:MEDRS]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable...
- 5y ago

45 points by mcguire 5y ago

Weren't the main grip about that movie was about the lab leak theory that’s now mainstream? It seems a little harsh to call this misinformation as a negative light.

the-dude 5y ago
What means being right about the lab leak theory?
- NoPie 5y ago
  Currently it means that we don't have enough information to say one way or another. Being wrong means being convinced that it happened or not. It is wrong position because we don't have enough information and no reasonable position should jump to either conclusion.
jpxw 5y ago
- That was hardly a theory limited to them. Many people were saying that that was a possibility right from the start, including me, and I’m not a conspiracy theorist. - There still isn’t conclusive evidence on that question, unless I’m missing something - A broken clock is right twice a day
- iratic0 5y ago
  Except those supposed broken clocks have been right more than that
- aerosmile 5y ago
  That's unfair. Imagine that we suddenly find out that Kennedy was not assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald, but that one of the alternative explanations was accurate - you could still write down those same three bullet points, and by doing so, you would unjustly deflect from the outrage of getting it wrong the first time around. Sometimes you just have to take things on the chin, hold people accountable, and learn from it.
raphlinus 5y ago
No. The movie claims that the virus was manipulated in a lab, specifically evolved from SARS-CoV-1 (which has only 79% genetic similarity). While this belief is very common in some circles, no reliable sources support it even as a serious possibility. What is now accepted as plausible is that the virus was brought to the lab, either as a live bat (or other intermediate animal), or as a sample, then was inadvertently leaked. It is also nearly universally acknowledged that the Chinese government is not being transparent and is indeed pushing bogus theories of their own (the frozen food theory in particular). That is not the same as the movie being "right," not even in the stopped clock sense.

eplanit 5y ago

"It is well-established that a complex set of conditions and factors enable people to adopt beliefs in conspiracy theories, including personality types, heuristics, and cognitive biases to sociological factors such as level of education and political orientation" It's true. Some fools will believe that Covid was a grand plan by the elites to control society, while other fools will believe that the 2016 election was stolen by the Rooskies -- both for the reasons cited above, right? Or, I wonder if the author meant only "those people" (i.e. conservatives). I'm betting on the latter.

newsclues 5y ago
There are four Americas. Left fools, right fools, the people in charge and the people who aren’t in charge and are not fools. The final group seems to be growing, as the lunacy of the others increases.
- jacob019 5y ago
  Does it? I suppose you're an optimist, I like that.
  - newsclues 5y ago
    Not usually optimistic but the lunacy seems to be reaching the norm use and pissing them off.
birdyrooster 5y ago
It’s clear russiagate was a disinformation campaign which was also a convenient cope for all those people that were losing their minds that America could elect Trump.
- Applejinx 5y ago
  No, there's historical precedent, plenty of motive, and it's in line with the specific political tactics that have governed Russia for quite a while now. Adam Curtis's 'Hypernormalization' touched on this. It's also been very clear to anyone who's watched it happen on places like Reddit that 'russiagate' itself is a meme driven by powerful media management, brigading, and trolling. Anytime you're in a community and have the ability to examine heavily downvoted content and analyze it for the likely reasons it got hammered with six times the downvotes any other post in the community got, you don't soon forget what you observed.

stuaxo 5y ago

Any clue as to why the film was made and distributed in the first place and who funded it?

arthurcolle 5y ago
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020-05-13/plandemic-coronavirus-documentary-director-mikki-willis-mikovits https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/movies/story/2020...

sschueller 5y ago

What I find very disappointing is that instead of addressing this misinformation and actively informing the people as well explaining to them (without being condescending, a huge issue IMO) why what is being reported is untrue we decided to just ban these people from discourse fueling the conspiracies. Things are not always black and white and we as a nation need to understand that. Nothing is 100% but that is ok. No one is 100% good or evil, we all have our flaws and we need to deal with that. Only because someone believes something "stupid" doesn't make them unable to change their mind. I have talked to many who did not want to get vaccinated. I never told them they should, I respect their choice. I did inform them and answer uncertainties that they heard about and had. I also listened and acknowledged the concerns they had, even ones that are completely baseless but I was diplomatic about it. You can tell someone they are wrong without throwing it in their face or making them feel like an idiot. To my surprise a lot of these people ended up getting vaccinated which was never really a goal of mine. EDIT: if you are down voting me please explain why.

nabla9 5y ago
When people argue in bad faith, there is no reason to engage with them. Just shun them and shut them off.
- sschueller 5y ago
  Isn't that in the end going to result in civil war if that shunted out crowed gets too large? I have to disagree, sure some are arguing just for the sake of it but the majority are not. They get bits and pieces of the discord and don't really know what is going on. No bad faith there.
  - Applejinx 5y ago
    When people are arguing in bad faith to seize political power, they're going to go for civil war anyhow. They're stepping away from negotiation and committing to war. It's fair to ask how intensely you react to it (no sense becoming mirror fascists, which the fascists will immediately accuse you of being anyhow) but it's not reasonable to ignore the reality.

mrfusion 5y ago

I’d be more inclined to think this article is part of a disinformation campaign.

iratic0 5y ago
"Hmm this information goes against my world view, and might threaten this ego I've built up over time based on finding a way of thinking I'm right about everything. Must be disinformation."
- mrfusion 5y ago
  Couldn’t I say the same thing about you? One thing I can say in my defense is that I’d absolutely love to be wrong. I’d love to believe this will all be over soon with (0 covid?) and then they give us back everything they’ve taken and we’re back to normal. Is that what most people believe?
  - iratic0 5y ago
    Don't think so. The side insisting not to take the pandemic at face value has no institutional power, in a sense no ego to lose. With no institutional power, they are always held to account. The corporate media, pharmaceutical companies, almost all officials, social media companies, universities, police forces all insist people unquestioningly accept their viewpoint. Their "ego" is built on years of solidifying their position of authority. With all institutional power, they are not held to account. If they were to be held to account, their house of cards tumbles.
    - mrfusion 5y ago
      I think I agree with you?
hodgesrm 5y ago
Your comment would be more interesting if you shared the reasoning why you think the article is disinformation.

beauHD 5y ago

I was wondering the other day: Without the Internet and round-the-clock updates via Twitter, Facebook, etc - Would the pandemic be as pertinent in people's minds? Social media is still relatively new, and the pandemic was amplified way more than it should have been IMHO. Nothing to tweet about? Tweet about COVID. No dramatic headlines to conjure up if you're a news outlet? COVID it is. The pandemic didn't need 'campaigns', for it is its own campaign. With little effort it has graced news outlets' headlines for nearly 2 years now.

aerosmile 5y ago
That's good and bad. On the one hand, it riles people up, on the other hand, it helped elevate the importance of developing and approving vaccines faster than ever before. I do share your sentiment though that it's troubling that the media's business plan is only partially aligned with what's good for the society. Related thought: we are super mad at Facebook for isolating us into similar belief bubbles. Where's the outrage at CNN and Foxnews? Yes, you hardly ever hear anything positive about them, but there's no threat of regulation, their CEOs didn't have congress hearings, etc.
- beauHD 5y ago
  > Where's the outrage at CNN and Foxnews? And they have their social media channels where they parrot everything that's on TV, adding to the hype
iratic0 5y ago
There's been a pandemic for the elderly and those with co-morbidities. Other than the that and other human-imposed responses (eg lockdown) to the pandemic, nothing would tell me there is a pandemic happening.
- 0goel0 5y ago
  Oh gtfo.
  - 5y ago

stuaxo 5y ago

Similar to how users distribute this themselves, near me are stickers by "the white rose"* with Covid disinformation and goading people not to wear masks. I believe they are self printed as they are often printed on labels and don't come off in one piece. I assume their funding probably goes back to some dark money org. * Their chosen name is distasteful: the original white rose were anti nazi activists who were executed, this is clearly not the same.

herodotus 5y ago

I would like to see someone who has been directly harmed by bad Covid advice take civil legal action agains one or more of the perpetrators of their nonsense.

titzer 5y ago

This is the most brazen evil of our time.

rob_c 5y ago

Here's an idea. If the authorities combated things like this with openness and actually answered the difficult questions maybe people wouldn't be pushed towards dis-information through distrust. Nobody has or should have all of the answers. I'm not expecting a public official to stand up and be a global expert on all things. But there have been so many lies on both sides now and so much political goal scoring by sport term politicians on both sides I'm not surprised that people turned to social media. Were all dancing around the elephant in the room that clearly everyone panicked due to china's lies at the start of 2020 and its created a culture of fear and distrust. The only way of combating bad speech is with more speech. This means actual openness and transparency and talking about how you made decisions. This unfortunately does show how ill prepared governments all were for an actual pandemic which is a bit disappointing but it's good to know that some things are being learned from this. Even if it is that this isn't smallpocks++...

kubb 5y ago
The governments would actually need to fund multi billion PR campaigns to combat the disinformation. Apart from the political feasibility there's also the question of return on the investment. If this caused a 5% increase in the number of vaccinations, would it be worthwhile? Even then there'd be people who think these are just two sides, and both of them make good and equally valid points.
- rob_c 5y ago
  I'm sorry you can't make an argument on return for investment when the military is being organised to roll out the needed vaccinations and the economy is being shutdown due to the outbreak in my mind. Unless the politicians just don't give a dam about educating the population they're trying to save. In not suggesting we can ever change 100% of opinions 100% of the time, but open clear communication is the only proper tool for contering misinformation. Alas we seem to be restoring to the old teachers approach of sit down and shut up or you get the cane for speaking out. Which is damaging for public trust in the long run.
  - 5y ago

SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago

My understanding is that the original pushback against the lab leak wasn’t that it had no chance but that it was being used as a distraction for weak leadership initiatives. It was a whataboutism at the time where leadership was on record letting the pandemic get worse because blue states were being hit the hardest.

meowface 5y ago

Is it disinformation, or misinformation?

raphlinus 5y ago

The pro-disinformation comments here on Hacker News are entirely predictable, yet make me despair for humanity. I'd love a site where bad faith arguments are unwelcome, but heterodox opinions are encouraged, especially when supported with evidence and reasoning. To stir things up, I'll give an example of such an opinion right now. Health organizations around the world are systematically lying to us about the basic reproduction number (R0) of the delta variant being astronomical (the figure of 8 is now commonly cited). Serious virologists[1] remind us that the evidence for such high estimates is thin and not based on biology; changes in human behavior, combined with antigenic drift (as observed regularly in influenza without the inference of constantly climbing R0 values) can explain what we're seeing. It is likely that the R0 value is somewhat higher than the ancestral strain, but a value of 8 is an extraordinary claim which requires extraordinary evidence. And that we do not have, in spite of preprints that show higher viral load[2]. I use the word "lying" but it's most likely this is as much self-delusion than a conscious choice to mislead. But the motivation is very strong: the "delta variant is scary" narrative is much more compelling than "Covid is still dangerous," and indeed is likely contributing to increased vaccination rates. I'll also note that what I just said would likely trip the "misinformation" filters at the big Internet providers, as it contradicts "medically reliable sources" [WP:MEDRS]; these high estimates are being published by major medical and scientific organizations. It is interesting to note, though, that the official info from the CDC[3] is less out there than the astronomical estimates being breathlessly published by the press. The CDC page says "50% increased transmission" for delta, based on a paper from the UK[4]. That might well be true, though it's an observational study. So even on that basis, mainstream public science communication is way ahead of (in the sense of pushing higher R0 values) what would count as MEDRS. [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/opinion/covid-vaccine-variants.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/27/opinion/covid-vaccine-var... [2]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.07.21260122v2 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.07.21260122v... [3]: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/variant-info.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/variants/variant-i... [4]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248822v3 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.24.20248822v... [WP:MEDRS]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable_sources_(medicine) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Identifying_reliable...

5y ago