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It is misinformation. Masks (cloth or otherwise) were meant to reduce infectiousness, not completely prevent the possibility of infection. Masks (cloth or other

It is misinformation. Masks (cloth or otherwise) were meant to reduce infectiousness, not completely prevent the possibility of infection. Masks (cloth or otherwise) do in fact reduce infectiousness. The misinformation is the implication that masks are pointless because you can still get infected. The point of masks is to get the probability of spreading it down by some multiple, not to be a personal not-my-problem-anymore pass. This is like saying seat belts don't work because you can still die in a crash.

convery 5y ago
His comment was on masks reducing the risk of you getting infected, not infecting others. Which is a selfish point, but nonetheless a correct one.
- rhizome 5y ago
  The masks work, but he only mentions a narrow use that isn't the current reason for wearing them. That's the misinformation; he got you, too. Think of it this way: "Don't wear a seatbelt because they don't keep other cars from hitting you."
  - kevinpet 5y ago
    Ah, I see, you're using "misinformation" to mean "came to a different conclusion than I did".
    - reubens 5y ago
      Misinformation, because it encourages a practice that is counter to the recommendations. Because it allows for a conclusion to be drawn that is counter to the recommendations.
    - slothtrop 5y ago
      No, it's bait and switch.
    - rhizome 5y ago
      No, here it means "came to a different purpose than I and everybody else using science did."
  - belorn 5y ago
    If we are going to use a car analogy it would be better to use a more fitting one. Installing an exhaust filter won't reduce lung cancer risk of the driver. Car dealers should be careful if they advertised filters as medical devices that reducing lung cancer for drivers, rather than an filter that reduces pollution for those who live near the road. Exhaust filters are still a good idea for society, but if you want to reduce the personal risk then an air filter for the AC is required. It would however be a rather bad world to live in if everyone installed air filters for the AC and excluded filter for the exhausts. Outside of garages or other enclosed spaces where the driver might actually get exposed to the cars exhausts.
- newacct583 5y ago
  > His comment was on masks reducing the risk of you getting infected, not infecting others. His comment was extremely ambiguous and certainly sounded to me like he was claiming masks don't work as a tool to fight the pandemic, or at least carefully choosing his works to align himself with the factions in his base that believe they don't. If you want to say the words "masks don't work", in a screed arguing against masks mandates, you need to be a whole lot more careful than that. And Paul isn't a careless guy, he knew what the fuck he was saying.
  - nomel 5y ago
    I find this need to pander to people who are incapable/uninterested in understanding the reality and nuances of a conversation very frustrating. I see it as a race to the bottom for news organizations, and society, where we weaponize and spread the intentional misunderstanding of conversations that are often well formed and logical.
    - newacct583 5y ago
      > I see it as a race to the bottom for news organizations, and society Why are you citing "news organizations" and "society" when the offender is a political leader? I don't argue with your point but it seems like your blame is misplaced.
- jl2718 5y ago
  But it should have been explicit in the reasoning for wearing masks in the first place. It seems to me that the pro-mask people have such contempt for the masses that they must disguise a reasonable social request into a selfish mandate, which is just weird. And yes, there are those who are unreasonably selfish, but I don’t think it’s working on them anyway. My personal take on this is that the mask issue is a poor choice for a hill to die on. It has to be the most reasonable and innocuous of all the unprecedented powers in exercise.
- dathinab 5y ago
  It's a common strategy employed by misinformation campaigns and people which don't want to accept some facts but know that they are kinda in the wrong to take advantage of the difference between the meaning conveyed by words(1) to the general public and the specific words said(2). (1): I.e. the meaning large groups of people will interpret words as. In this case "masks do not work at all". (2): I.e. "in a very specific context which in this way doesn't matter in the grater picture masks do not work well".
merpnderp 5y ago
Saying cloth masks are effective in the context of (K)N95 masks is even worse misinformation. Even the CDC's website on masks points out you should really be using (K)N95's, and that cloth masks are completely ineffective when wet, which they get after 15 minutes or so of breathing through them. The science on cloth masks says they work, but only shortly and just barely. Rand Paul is closer to the truth by saying they don't work than someone else saying they offer robust protection. Yet Youtube isn't banning anyone who says cloth masks will keep you safe, which is extremely dangerous misinformation.
- jwagenet 5y ago
  I've heavily worked out for 2 hours and worked in the office for 8 hours with a cloth mask without wetness issues. My experience may not be the same for others, but 15 minutes is an exaggeration. As early as April 2020 there was research indicating 2 layer cloth masks were at least 70% as effective as surgical masks, and the ones I have seal much better! Not to mention most people are wearing poorly fitted accordion style masks, not wearing N95 masks.
  - crummybowley 5y ago
    Either your "heavy workouts" are not heavy, or you are the sand guy from the mummy.
    - merpnderp 5y ago
      Lol, I was going to reply that maybe he lived in the desert. I just put my undershirt up to my mouth and breathed deeply through it 5 times, and it was pretty damp. I don't think it is controversial that humans expel a lot of moisture through breathing.
- dathinab 5y ago
  > you should really be using (K)N95's Better masks are obviously better. > completely ineffective when wet, As far as I know this is not correct. I remember to have read a study showing quite well that even a wet cloth mask(1) still contains the spread of aerosols surprisingly well. Sure it's far worse then a medical mask of any kinda but still a surprisingly high improvement compared to the no-mask scenario. > which they get after 15 minutes or so of breathing through them. In my personal experience this is far from correct, through this depends on the definition of "wet" and the weather. (1): As long as they are not made of a specific kind of material, which e.g. is often used for bicycle masks and sometimes for scarfs which might from the get to go make thinks worse by splitting the aerosols into smaller lighter ones without stopping them at all.
nickthemagicman 5y ago
There's so much contradictory science on what you're claiming as ultimate truth. There's paper saying masks don't work there's paper saying masks do work. This is not a conclusive settled fact.
- srinivgp 5y ago
  It's pretty conclusive. It's been conclusive for years and years, before COVID-19. There's no question at all that masks reduce infectiousness through the extremely obvious method of preventing some virus particles from going from one person to another, and also no question at all that probability of infection depends on number of virus particles around, and that viruses in general produce worse symptoms when the initial viral load is higher (and masks reduce the initial viral load via the extraordinarily obvious physical mechanism). You will find literally zero papers credibly claiming otherwise. You will find many papers claiming that masks do not reduce the risk to zero. That's obvious and also irrelevant in light of the above. You will find papers claiming that random cloth masks do not negligibly reduce the risk when you're immersed in a high-virus-density environment for hours on end. Not as obvious, but also irrelevant in light of the above. If you think you know of a paper that contradicts the above, send it our way please.
  - miles 5y ago
    > It's been conclusive for years and years, before COVID-19. March 2020: U.S. health officials say Americans shouldn’t wear face masks to prevent coronavirus https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-dont-have-to-wear-facemasks-because-of-coronavirus-2020-01-30 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-don... In fact the U.S. surgeon general recently urged the public to “STOP BUYING MASKS!” “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!,” wrote Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Twitter. The CDC said last month it doesn’t recommend people use face masks, making the announcement on the same day that first case of person-to-person transmission of coronavirus was reported in the U.S. The CDC recommendation on masks stands, a spokesman told MarketWatch Wednesday, even with the first reported case of a COVID-19 infection in an individual in California who had not been to China or been exposed to a person diagnosed with the virus. “The virus is not spreading in the general community,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a Jan. 30 briefing. “We don’t routinely recommend the use of face masks by the public to prevent respiratory illness. And we certainly are not recommending that at this time for this new virus.” WHO stands by recommendation to not wear masks if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick 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... “There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program, said at a media briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday.
drstewart 5y ago
So if I wear a cloth mask and never wash it and constantly touch it with my hands, does it reduce my chance of infection? And are you 100% confident that your answer will cover all nuance and isn't misinformation, which should mean you are banned from HN for 7 days?
- jussij 5y ago
  That is obviously a case of you not using the mask correctly. If you choose to use the mask incorrectly, it can hardly be the fault of the person advocating the use of a mask. However, if instead the information provided was you should never wash your mask, you should be constantly touching your mask, you should share your masks with friends and by doing this you will be kept safe. In that scenario you should be banned for spreading misinformation.
- empressplay 5y ago
  It reduces your chances of infecting others.
__blockcipher__ 5y ago
> Masks (cloth or otherwise) do in fact reduce infectiousness This has never been proven. Please find me an RCT that shows this. I'll wait. BTW, this is a doubly wrong statement for cloth masks, since cloth masks have plenty of studies showing increases in self-infection, at least relative to wearing a surgical mask.
- edoceo 5y ago
  I just looked, found a whole bunch of stuff on CDC site showing RCT that demonstrates masks do work and that N95 are better than cloth. Where's the RCT that shows they don't work? I couldn't find one.
  - __blockcipher__ 5y ago
    What RCTs are you referring to? I’d like to take a look. Ones showing don’t work: DANMASK (sars-2 community self infection) Macintyre et al (cloth masks vs “standard practice”, showed possible deleterious effect of cloth masking but did not compare to no-mask)
graderjs 5y ago
It doesn't matter. It's about air quotes dangerous information that differs from the orthodoxy. It's a tale as old as time itself. It's about control. It's about trying to dictate to you what you can think. We really expect that these internet mega corporations are going to be better than that? They make that money from programming you with advertisements you really think they're not going to try to continue that practice of programming you and every other way they can? And why be surprised that it occurs at all the only reason I think is that people have experienced a respite from this activity occurring overtly because it has been perfectly implemented covertly using television for the last for 60 years, because there was no "random citizen with megaphone broadcasting channel" the censorship and thought control was covert: panels of editors and programmers and executives. But now you all of you have a megaphone that reaches out and touches the entire world if you wanted to. So of course your expression must be controlled by the same people I've been doing it for 70 years. It's just now, to get the legions of airports woke on board, they cynically deploy the mere color of ideological purity through fake leftism, as instruments to provide fake pretexts for the thoughts they seek to permit or disallow--the couch their age old bag in the garb of justice and politics--why? Because they actually give a shit about those things? No of course not. They do it because they need to do this in the open now so they need a fake pretext to pretend that it's all okay and they're doing it for some reason it's making the world better somehow. they do it because they need cover for the thing they've always been trying to do, groups with power that is, they're trying to hold on to it by one of the oldest ways known: they're trying to control you in the bud at your thought your beliefs your emotions. but they're just more effective and larger scale than anyone who's done this before because they span the entire globe and they make their money out of this very control. So who's really surprised if when they wield this massive power it also gets a bit corrupt? If they end up using it not just for advertising but for other things? I mean why wouldn't they who surprised at a bit of overreach when you hold something so powerful when when you have so much to lose and maybe even more to gain? Orthodoxy and heresy is a tool of control as old as time itself. Why did you think you wouldn't see the same thing on the internet? Well, I can relate: I used to think the internet was awesome based on it's optimistic potential. It is that--but perhaps it's also terrifying--depending on how you position yourself.
ipspam 5y ago
You had me up until the word "multiple". A more appropriate word would be percentage. I'm willing to cede ground that masks may reduce infections 5-20%. If it were more, there would be correlates in the real world. As it is, it's a statistical shit show to even show that masks have any effect at all, much less how much.
- sampo 5y ago
  > it's a statistical shit show to even show that masks have any effect at all It's also a statistical shit show to show that condoms have any effect (against unwanted pregnancies, or sexually transmitted diseases), in studies using RCT settings: https://jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/100 https://jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/100 Do you think this should make us conclude, that condoms may reduce STDs or unwanted pregnancies at max 5-20%?
  - leereeves 5y ago
    That paper isn't about the effectiveness of condoms; it's about "Interventions to increase effective condom use...condom design, access to condoms, condom use behaviours and condom-related legislation." In other words, it's a study about the effectiveness of policies, not the condoms themselves.
    - sampo 5y ago
      So, just like the mask studies mentioned.
sebastianconcpt 5y ago
That's the wrong discussion to have. What's unacceptable is that a platform in a free speech country edits speech to conform to an authority it doesn't have.
- flyingcircus3 5y ago
  This article is about a private company enforcing rules on its own website. Freedom of speech is specifically protecting people from the _government_ preventing their speech. But you knew that already.
  - sebastianconcpt 5y ago
    The tone of your last sentence is not compatible with you apparent lack of information (best case) or omission (worst case) about these companies juridically categorizing themselves as platforms, as opposed to publishers, so they are not just "their website enforcing its own rules"? [1] [1] While the First Amendment generally does not apply to private companies, the Supreme Court has held it “does not disable the government from taking steps to ensure that private interests not restrict . . . the free flow of information and ideas.” which is precisely what they are obscenely doing. https://www.city-journal.org/html/platform-or-publisher-15888.html?wallit_nosession=1 https://www.city-journal.org/html/platform-or-publisher-1588...
SilasX 5y ago
Well... some researches do, actually, make the analogous argument (dubiously, IMHO) that people engage in riskier driving because of seatbelts (just like Paul is claiming for masks): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation#Seat_belts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation#Seat_belts
ravenstine 5y ago
Should I be suspended from HN if I say I don't believe in seat belts?
- edoceo 5y ago
  No. Cause in that case you're only expressing your own beliefs. But! If you have a position of authority in some Government agency and then broadcast loudly and frequently that seat belts to not work at all then yes, you should be temp-banned.
meragrin_ 5y ago
SOME masks (cloth or otherwise) reduce infectiousness. Many masks people buy so they do not feel like they are suffocating are not the type which reduce infectiousness.
raxxorrax 5y ago
Even if true, that is still no reason to remove any information stating otherwise. I think promoting cloth masks is misinformation if you don't suffer from an acute respiratory disease. And in that case you should be the one to wear one.
swiley 5y ago
Safety belts made out of office rubber bands probably won't help much and silencing people for pointing out that allowing them is bad regulation is self defeating.

convery 5y ago

His comment was on masks reducing the risk of you getting infected, not infecting others. Which is a selfish point, but nonetheless a correct one.

rhizome 5y ago
The masks work, but he only mentions a narrow use that isn't the current reason for wearing them. That's the misinformation; he got you, too. Think of it this way: "Don't wear a seatbelt because they don't keep other cars from hitting you."
- kevinpet 5y ago
  Ah, I see, you're using "misinformation" to mean "came to a different conclusion than I did".
  - reubens 5y ago
    Misinformation, because it encourages a practice that is counter to the recommendations. Because it allows for a conclusion to be drawn that is counter to the recommendations.
  - slothtrop 5y ago
    No, it's bait and switch.
  - rhizome 5y ago
    No, here it means "came to a different purpose than I and everybody else using science did."
- belorn 5y ago
  If we are going to use a car analogy it would be better to use a more fitting one. Installing an exhaust filter won't reduce lung cancer risk of the driver. Car dealers should be careful if they advertised filters as medical devices that reducing lung cancer for drivers, rather than an filter that reduces pollution for those who live near the road. Exhaust filters are still a good idea for society, but if you want to reduce the personal risk then an air filter for the AC is required. It would however be a rather bad world to live in if everyone installed air filters for the AC and excluded filter for the exhausts. Outside of garages or other enclosed spaces where the driver might actually get exposed to the cars exhausts.
newacct583 5y ago
> His comment was on masks reducing the risk of you getting infected, not infecting others. His comment was extremely ambiguous and certainly sounded to me like he was claiming masks don't work as a tool to fight the pandemic, or at least carefully choosing his works to align himself with the factions in his base that believe they don't. If you want to say the words "masks don't work", in a screed arguing against masks mandates, you need to be a whole lot more careful than that. And Paul isn't a careless guy, he knew what the fuck he was saying.
- nomel 5y ago
  I find this need to pander to people who are incapable/uninterested in understanding the reality and nuances of a conversation very frustrating. I see it as a race to the bottom for news organizations, and society, where we weaponize and spread the intentional misunderstanding of conversations that are often well formed and logical.
  - newacct583 5y ago
    > I see it as a race to the bottom for news organizations, and society Why are you citing "news organizations" and "society" when the offender is a political leader? I don't argue with your point but it seems like your blame is misplaced.
jl2718 5y ago
But it should have been explicit in the reasoning for wearing masks in the first place. It seems to me that the pro-mask people have such contempt for the masses that they must disguise a reasonable social request into a selfish mandate, which is just weird. And yes, there are those who are unreasonably selfish, but I don’t think it’s working on them anyway. My personal take on this is that the mask issue is a poor choice for a hill to die on. It has to be the most reasonable and innocuous of all the unprecedented powers in exercise.
dathinab 5y ago
It's a common strategy employed by misinformation campaigns and people which don't want to accept some facts but know that they are kinda in the wrong to take advantage of the difference between the meaning conveyed by words(1) to the general public and the specific words said(2). (1): I.e. the meaning large groups of people will interpret words as. In this case "masks do not work at all". (2): I.e. "in a very specific context which in this way doesn't matter in the grater picture masks do not work well".

merpnderp 5y ago

Saying cloth masks are effective in the context of (K)N95 masks is even worse misinformation. Even the CDC's website on masks points out you should really be using (K)N95's, and that cloth masks are completely ineffective when wet, which they get after 15 minutes or so of breathing through them. The science on cloth masks says they work, but only shortly and just barely. Rand Paul is closer to the truth by saying they don't work than someone else saying they offer robust protection. Yet Youtube isn't banning anyone who says cloth masks will keep you safe, which is extremely dangerous misinformation.

jwagenet 5y ago
I've heavily worked out for 2 hours and worked in the office for 8 hours with a cloth mask without wetness issues. My experience may not be the same for others, but 15 minutes is an exaggeration. As early as April 2020 there was research indicating 2 layer cloth masks were at least 70% as effective as surgical masks, and the ones I have seal much better! Not to mention most people are wearing poorly fitted accordion style masks, not wearing N95 masks.
- crummybowley 5y ago
  Either your "heavy workouts" are not heavy, or you are the sand guy from the mummy.
  - merpnderp 5y ago
    Lol, I was going to reply that maybe he lived in the desert. I just put my undershirt up to my mouth and breathed deeply through it 5 times, and it was pretty damp. I don't think it is controversial that humans expel a lot of moisture through breathing.
dathinab 5y ago
> you should really be using (K)N95's Better masks are obviously better. > completely ineffective when wet, As far as I know this is not correct. I remember to have read a study showing quite well that even a wet cloth mask(1) still contains the spread of aerosols surprisingly well. Sure it's far worse then a medical mask of any kinda but still a surprisingly high improvement compared to the no-mask scenario. > which they get after 15 minutes or so of breathing through them. In my personal experience this is far from correct, through this depends on the definition of "wet" and the weather. (1): As long as they are not made of a specific kind of material, which e.g. is often used for bicycle masks and sometimes for scarfs which might from the get to go make thinks worse by splitting the aerosols into smaller lighter ones without stopping them at all.

nickthemagicman 5y ago

There's so much contradictory science on what you're claiming as ultimate truth. There's paper saying masks don't work there's paper saying masks do work. This is not a conclusive settled fact.

srinivgp 5y ago
It's pretty conclusive. It's been conclusive for years and years, before COVID-19. There's no question at all that masks reduce infectiousness through the extremely obvious method of preventing some virus particles from going from one person to another, and also no question at all that probability of infection depends on number of virus particles around, and that viruses in general produce worse symptoms when the initial viral load is higher (and masks reduce the initial viral load via the extraordinarily obvious physical mechanism). You will find literally zero papers credibly claiming otherwise. You will find many papers claiming that masks do not reduce the risk to zero. That's obvious and also irrelevant in light of the above. You will find papers claiming that random cloth masks do not negligibly reduce the risk when you're immersed in a high-virus-density environment for hours on end. Not as obvious, but also irrelevant in light of the above. If you think you know of a paper that contradicts the above, send it our way please.
- miles 5y ago
  > It's been conclusive for years and years, before COVID-19. March 2020: U.S. health officials say Americans shouldn’t wear face masks to prevent coronavirus https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-dont-have-to-wear-facemasks-because-of-coronavirus-2020-01-30 https://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-cdc-says-americans-don... In fact the U.S. surgeon general recently urged the public to “STOP BUYING MASKS!” “They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!,” wrote Surgeon General Jerome Adams on Twitter. The CDC said last month it doesn’t recommend people use face masks, making the announcement on the same day that first case of person-to-person transmission of coronavirus was reported in the U.S. The CDC recommendation on masks stands, a spokesman told MarketWatch Wednesday, even with the first reported case of a COVID-19 infection in an individual in California who had not been to China or been exposed to a person diagnosed with the virus. “The virus is not spreading in the general community,” Dr. Nancy Messonnier, director of the Center for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, said in a Jan. 30 briefing. “We don’t routinely recommend the use of face masks by the public to prevent respiratory illness. And we certainly are not recommending that at this time for this new virus.” WHO stands by recommendation to not wear masks if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick 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... “There is no specific evidence to suggest that the wearing of masks by the mass population has any potential benefit. In fact, there’s some evidence to suggest the opposite in the misuse of wearing a mask properly or fitting it properly,” Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of the WHO health emergencies program, said at a media briefing in Geneva, Switzerland, on Monday.

drstewart 5y ago

So if I wear a cloth mask and never wash it and constantly touch it with my hands, does it reduce my chance of infection? And are you 100% confident that your answer will cover all nuance and isn't misinformation, which should mean you are banned from HN for 7 days?

jussij 5y ago
That is obviously a case of you not using the mask correctly. If you choose to use the mask incorrectly, it can hardly be the fault of the person advocating the use of a mask. However, if instead the information provided was you should never wash your mask, you should be constantly touching your mask, you should share your masks with friends and by doing this you will be kept safe. In that scenario you should be banned for spreading misinformation.
empressplay 5y ago
It reduces your chances of infecting others.

__blockcipher__ 5y ago

> Masks (cloth or otherwise) do in fact reduce infectiousness This has never been proven. Please find me an RCT that shows this. I'll wait. BTW, this is a doubly wrong statement for cloth masks, since cloth masks have plenty of studies showing increases in self-infection, at least relative to wearing a surgical mask.

edoceo 5y ago
I just looked, found a whole bunch of stuff on CDC site showing RCT that demonstrates masks do work and that N95 are better than cloth. Where's the RCT that shows they don't work? I couldn't find one.
- __blockcipher__ 5y ago
  What RCTs are you referring to? I’d like to take a look. Ones showing don’t work: DANMASK (sars-2 community self infection) Macintyre et al (cloth masks vs “standard practice”, showed possible deleterious effect of cloth masking but did not compare to no-mask)

graderjs 5y ago

It doesn't matter. It's about air quotes dangerous information that differs from the orthodoxy. It's a tale as old as time itself. It's about control. It's about trying to dictate to you what you can think. We really expect that these internet mega corporations are going to be better than that? They make that money from programming you with advertisements you really think they're not going to try to continue that practice of programming you and every other way they can? And why be surprised that it occurs at all the only reason I think is that people have experienced a respite from this activity occurring overtly because it has been perfectly implemented covertly using television for the last for 60 years, because there was no "random citizen with megaphone broadcasting channel" the censorship and thought control was covert: panels of editors and programmers and executives. But now you all of you have a megaphone that reaches out and touches the entire world if you wanted to. So of course your expression must be controlled by the same people I've been doing it for 70 years. It's just now, to get the legions of airports woke on board, they cynically deploy the mere color of ideological purity through fake leftism, as instruments to provide fake pretexts for the thoughts they seek to permit or disallow--the couch their age old bag in the garb of justice and politics--why? Because they actually give a shit about those things? No of course not. They do it because they need to do this in the open now so they need a fake pretext to pretend that it's all okay and they're doing it for some reason it's making the world better somehow. they do it because they need cover for the thing they've always been trying to do, groups with power that is, they're trying to hold on to it by one of the oldest ways known: they're trying to control you in the bud at your thought your beliefs your emotions. but they're just more effective and larger scale than anyone who's done this before because they span the entire globe and they make their money out of this very control. So who's really surprised if when they wield this massive power it also gets a bit corrupt? If they end up using it not just for advertising but for other things? I mean why wouldn't they who surprised at a bit of overreach when you hold something so powerful when when you have so much to lose and maybe even more to gain? Orthodoxy and heresy is a tool of control as old as time itself. Why did you think you wouldn't see the same thing on the internet? Well, I can relate: I used to think the internet was awesome based on it's optimistic potential. It is that--but perhaps it's also terrifying--depending on how you position yourself.

ipspam 5y ago

You had me up until the word "multiple". A more appropriate word would be percentage. I'm willing to cede ground that masks may reduce infections 5-20%. If it were more, there would be correlates in the real world. As it is, it's a statistical shit show to even show that masks have any effect at all, much less how much.

sampo 5y ago
> it's a statistical shit show to even show that masks have any effect at all It's also a statistical shit show to show that condoms have any effect (against unwanted pregnancies, or sexually transmitted diseases), in studies using RCT settings: https://jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/100 https://jech.bmj.com/content/65/2/100 Do you think this should make us conclude, that condoms may reduce STDs or unwanted pregnancies at max 5-20%?
- leereeves 5y ago
  That paper isn't about the effectiveness of condoms; it's about "Interventions to increase effective condom use...condom design, access to condoms, condom use behaviours and condom-related legislation." In other words, it's a study about the effectiveness of policies, not the condoms themselves.
  - sampo 5y ago
    So, just like the mask studies mentioned.

sebastianconcpt 5y ago

That's the wrong discussion to have. What's unacceptable is that a platform in a free speech country edits speech to conform to an authority it doesn't have.

flyingcircus3 5y ago
This article is about a private company enforcing rules on its own website. Freedom of speech is specifically protecting people from the _government_ preventing their speech. But you knew that already.
- sebastianconcpt 5y ago
  The tone of your last sentence is not compatible with you apparent lack of information (best case) or omission (worst case) about these companies juridically categorizing themselves as platforms, as opposed to publishers, so they are not just "their website enforcing its own rules"? [1] [1] While the First Amendment generally does not apply to private companies, the Supreme Court has held it “does not disable the government from taking steps to ensure that private interests not restrict . . . the free flow of information and ideas.” which is precisely what they are obscenely doing. https://www.city-journal.org/html/platform-or-publisher-15888.html?wallit_nosession=1 https://www.city-journal.org/html/platform-or-publisher-1588...

SilasX 5y ago

Well... some researches do, actually, make the analogous argument (dubiously, IMHO) that people engage in riskier driving because of seatbelts (just like Paul is claiming for masks): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation#Seat_belts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Risk_compensation#Seat_belts

ravenstine 5y ago

Should I be suspended from HN if I say I don't believe in seat belts?

edoceo 5y ago
No. Cause in that case you're only expressing your own beliefs. But! If you have a position of authority in some Government agency and then broadcast loudly and frequently that seat belts to not work at all then yes, you should be temp-banned.

meragrin_ 5y ago

SOME masks (cloth or otherwise) reduce infectiousness. Many masks people buy so they do not feel like they are suffocating are not the type which reduce infectiousness.

raxxorrax 5y ago

Even if true, that is still no reason to remove any information stating otherwise. I think promoting cloth masks is misinformation if you don't suffer from an acute respiratory disease. And in that case you should be the one to wear one.

swiley 5y ago

Safety belts made out of office rubber bands probably won't help much and silencing people for pointing out that allowing them is bad regulation is self defeating.