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I'm glad you got vaccinated. But... Can you expand on why you were hesitant because of censorship? Because if there were lots of serious problems with the vacci

I'm glad you got vaccinated. But... Can you expand on why you were hesitant because of censorship? Because if there were lots of serious problems with the vaccine, they'd be covered in a second on fox news. Meanwhile, a lot of people are hugely influenced by false stories on social media, it's just a fact, with recent examples being things like ivermectin and the 2016 presidential election conspiracies, and don't forget q-anon. Since covid is so deadly if you get it, and there are basically almost no cases of serious health issues with vaccination and furthermore, vaccination is also almost guaranteed to protect you from serious cases, why wouldn't you get it? Have you heard rumors of some problems from vaccination?

MarcoZavala 5y ago
You should be stabbed to death you worthless piece of shit.
crazy_horse 5y ago
Really devalues the meaning of censorship. Social media platforms broadcasting your views around the world and moderating some of them was not censorship.
- computerphage 5y ago
  And what exactly is the difference in your mind between "moderating" and "censoring" here? They seem exactly the same to me: both involve some other party deciding what is and is not acceptable to be published.
  - crazy_horse 5y ago
    Censorship is government action. Private companies that allow you to reach millions of people are offering you the ability to use their service. It's not censorship when they don't allow you to use their service (and until today, they haven't stopped much), it's terms of service. If I invite you to my house and you eat my dog's food, I have the right to tell you to leave. The movement wouldn't be what it is today without YT, so this censorship stuff is too much.
    - johnjj257 5y ago
      No that's just govt. Censorship vs regular censorship. Moderation is the exact same thing they can both do it. Just because it isn't the government doesn't mean they aren't censoring. Censorship is NOT just government action.
    - robbrown451 5y ago
      Why do you think censorship must be government action? Is there a definition posted anywhere that says this? I've long seen it used to refer to, for instance, TV network censors. And every online dictionary I can find allows for entities other than government to be referred to as censoring.
    - ipaddr 5y ago
      Censorship is not a government action. It is literally filtering content and anyone can. You can censor yourself, a company could censor a band and change lyrics. They run a platform that practices censorship. It is legal. Trying to say it is okay because they are a private entity doesn't wash and they should be called out. We could even band together and censor them.
    - harshreality 5y ago
      That libertarian/conservative talking point is often misstated, which intentionally or not becomes a red herring. Their claim isn't (or shouldn't be) that Youtube or Facebook or Twitter, in taking actions like these, aren't engaging in censorship. Their claim is that it's legal and not a violation of free speech (1A in the US), i.e. it's not government censorship, because that only applies when government is taking the actions. There are several problems with this, outlined in Clarence Thomas's recent concurring opinion in Biden v. Knight. Dominant communications platforms are essentially part of the public square, and two well-established legal principles could come into play to restrict their actions: public accommodations and common carriers. There's the additional problem that government is influencing how social media companies police content, not only indirectly through fear of retribution, but even directly. One instance that recently got media attention: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/07/15/psaki_were_flagging_problematic_posts_for_facebook_that_spread_disinformation.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/07/15/psaki_wer...
- LanceH 5y ago
  As soon as Congress started pressuring the media giants as to what they are and aren't allowing, accusations of censorship became fair play.
destitude 5y ago
The fact that they completely ignore natural immunity in the USA is enough to be concerned about their motivations.
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  It's being ignored because it's fraught with problems. People think they had COVID in the early pre-testing days, but it was just the flu or a bad cold. (My son was in this realm; severe pneumonia in early 2020, but later testing showed no antibodies.) You'd have restaurants swamped with angry "but I've already had it!" people. Verification is hard; you can't just take word for it, so that means an antibody test, and at that point you might as well have just vaccinated them anyways while they were in.
  - eggy 5y ago
    You're cherry picking from people who think they had it. There are millions who know they've had COVID like myself, and I still have very high antibodies almost 9 months on. I am fit, do not have a comorbidity like obesity, hypertension, diabetes, etc. Remember, over 78% of all hospitalizations involve obesity and other comorbidities, and disproportionately affect much older people. It should be me and my doctor's choice on whether getting the jab is good for me or not. Censorship doesn't address the nuances of the issue. It leads to disenfranchising people. In addition, the vaccine spikes your antibodies, and if your antibodies are currently high, it can lead to more frequent or serious side effects. The 2018 Spanish Flu caused deaths in the young and healthy by having their immune systems go into an overwhelmingly high gear, but older people's weaker immune systems spared them this consequence. I have natural immunity, I am fit, and my risk of a second, severe infection is equal or less to your vaccinated status. After 9 months the vaccine's efficacy is much lower, and doesn't really work well against the variants. There is no long-term data, obviously, on the vaccine yet, since it was only given to the public less than a year ago. Let's see three to seven years from now. Let's remember Pfizer was the company that in 1996 setup a tent near a Doctors without Borders tent and gave an experimental antibiotic drug to 200 children, maybe more, without their parent's consent, and then 10 or 11 of those children died with others suffering other maladies thought to be from the drug. An illegal, immoral drug trial. They packed up their tent, and later back-dated a letter to say they had gone through ethics channels with the Nigerian government. So yeah, let's squash any anti-vaccine talk, because what's good for you is good for everyone. Personally, I am vaccinated with everything but the COVID vaccinations, so I am not antivax, and shouldn't be discriminated against like that. My older children got the vaccine, but me and my wife and our younger children have not, since we all had COVID, and we all have high antibodies. Fake vaccination cards also defeat your "fraught with problems" argument of people think they had it, but didn't argument. There will always be difficulties in sorting this out. That's no reason to go full-in on censorship.
destitude 5y ago
"almost no cases of serious health issues with vaccination" how do you think you'd possibly hear about this when you are replying to an article where any anti-vaccine information is censored?
- cromulent 5y ago
  Well over 2 billion people have been vaccinated. You probably know some of them in real life - you don't need a broadcaster to tell you if there are problems.
- robbrown451 5y ago
  You really think "any anti-vaccine information is censored"? This policy on YouTube just started, and, last I heard anyway, there are other sources of information other than YouTube. There have obviously been many many sources of information on the internet that allow anti-vaccine information. And, if that information was actually credible, it would have also been available to, for instance, those at YouTube who made this policy. What do you figure their agenda is for covering it up?
CWuestefeld 5y ago
Found on a different discussion at TheZvi (https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/09/23/covid-9-23-there-is-a-war/#more-22649 https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/09/23/covid-9-23-there-is-...): --- start quote #1 --- Thanks to your ongoing efforts, my 40+ year old sibling finally got vaccinated about three weeks before getting infected by her kids. She still had it pretty bad, so I think it’s likely you saved her a trip to the hospital or worse. She was on the brink of getting vaccinated weeks earlier, but “That Guy” had cast enough doubt that a family member talked her out of it. So I’m glad you specifically mentioned him back then. Thanks to our civilization’s shiny new censorship machine it was maddeningly difficult to actually find good counter arguments to his claims, since we’re all supposed to just pretend bad claims don’t exist. So mostly I had to just point to the favorable evidence rather than being able to give a point by point rebuttal. [...] And her family is fox news conservative, so all the tribal hate made it especially hard for her to take their claims seriously. She stayed up all night making her decision, and had 250 browser tabs open by the end. So people do try, and do pay attention. --- end quote #1 --- and later, in response --- start quote #2 --- I had the same experience. I wanted to know whether the “vector vaccines alter your DNA” claims had any truth to them, given that “dna altering virus” is definitely something that exists. As far as I can tell, this is (probably) false, but it was really hard to find any evidence beyond “prof. dr. X says this is a conspiracy theory, now get your vaccine they are safe and effective ™”. It was really frustrating; I’m not surprised that many people feel like they are being tricked. --- end quote #2 ---
- spywaregorilla 5y ago
  > I had the same experience. I wanted to know whether the “vector vaccines alter your DNA” claims had any truth to them, given that “dna altering virus” is definitely something that exists. As far as I can tell, this is (probably) false, but it was really hard to find any evidence beyond “prof. dr. X says this is a conspiracy theory, now get your vaccine they are safe and effective ™”. It was really frustrating; I’m not surprised that many people feel like they are being tricked. This is a really frustrating perspective to hear. > I heard this bogus claim about something I don't understand and wanted to know if it was true > All I could find was doctors saying it was nonsense > How could I know what the truth was? I suspect it's a common form of reasoning. It's committing so many mistakes all at once. * Refusal to acknowledge that you might be considering nonsense and thus perceiving anyone saying it's nonsense as malicious * Complete refusal or certainty in your inability to do basic research on things that are well documented by many organizations and easy to find BUT STILL SAYING ITS HARD TO FIND * Not just lack of trust, but certainty of distrust for authority figures. Anything they say has negative value. It's far more upsetting to me than hearing people with malicious political agendas being assholes.
bmarquez 5y ago
> they'd be covered in a second on fox news I don't know why you assume Fox is anti-vax, Trump took the vaccine and promotes it on Fox News interviews himself. https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-urges-all-americans-to-get-covid-vaccine-its-a-safe-vaccine https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-urges-all-americans-to-g...
- ipaddr 5y ago
  People see the world as us and them. Dem vs Rep. In reality it is those who control and wished to be controlled vs those who wish to remain free. Fox and CNN are two sides of the same coin.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  Fox News repeatedly highlighted the dangers of covid: https://youtu.be/wmoABTiCpco https://youtu.be/wmoABTiCpco I dont understand why everyone thinks they are fascists.
  - bmarquez 5y ago
    The video shows soundbites of commentators saying illegal immigrants, in crowded conditions, potentially have covid. I don't know if that's correct or not but it has nothing to do with my point that pro-vaccine content does exist on Fox News.
- longhairedhippy 5y ago
  Have you watched Tucker Carlson? I would be pleased if they charged the man with murder after this is all over. Do you think it's odd he won't answer questions about his own vaccination status?
ohdannyboy 5y ago
Can you expand on why you were hesitant because of censorship? ... Have you heard rumors of some problems from vaccination? It made it more difficult to ascertain what the risks were, I didn't feel our officials were being honest with us (something I still think). Back in early 2021 it was a lot more open to speculation since it was an minimally tested treatment who's delivery method had never been widely deployed on humans before. We still don't know if there's long term effects and there's no way for us to find out until enough time has passed. I didn't want to be part of the initial test group. Since covid is so deadly if you get it I'm relatively young and not in any risk categories, covid does not pose much of a death risk to me. Significant non-deadly outcomes are another story (permanent lung damage, loss of taste, ect). I decided that protection from the latter category (significant non-deadly outcomes) was worth my rather nebulous fears that we'll realize it does some harm over the next decade. and there are basically almost no cases of serious health issues with vaccination and furthermore "Basically almost no" is a difficult term to quantify, but VAERS database does have plenty of entries.
- unanswered 5y ago
  > Significant non-deadly outcomes are another story (permanent lung damage, loss of taste, ect) Is there credible, non-censorious evidence that the vaccine reduces these particular risks? This is the same argument that we keep seeing: you have to take this vaccine because ${thing that vaccines normally do but this one hasn't been shown to do}. The most egregious example is "provide immunity"/"improve outcomes for anyone around you". I just don't believe a word of it until I see the science.
  - nneonneo 5y ago
    I don’t know what level of convincing you need, but here in BC, unvaccinated people are about 25x more likely to show up in a hospital than vaccinated people: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0058-001843 https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0058-001843 Over the past two weeks: > After factoring for age, people not vaccinated are 25.8 times more likely to be hospitalized than those fully vaccinated. (The age correction reflects the fact that vaccines aren’t distributed evenly by age).
boltzmann_brain 5y ago
> Since covid is so deadly if you get it Please. Median age above life expectancy. (At least where I live). Unless this is a board for 70 year or older seniors, this is utter bullshit.
blub 5y ago
You're probably referring to Biontech*, but when I got AstraZeneca the chances of dying from the virus for my age interval was only slightly more than the chance of dying from the vaccine, as calculated by the ECDC. * which as an aside does cause myocarditis and pericardits in particular for young males. This is important because for example in Germany the incidence was 1 case from 17.271 doses for males in the 12-17 age range and in most cases the symptoms appeared after the second dose, which may mean that a booster could also trigger it.

MarcoZavala 5y ago

You should be stabbed to death you worthless piece of shit.

crazy_horse 5y ago

Really devalues the meaning of censorship. Social media platforms broadcasting your views around the world and moderating some of them was not censorship.

computerphage 5y ago
And what exactly is the difference in your mind between "moderating" and "censoring" here? They seem exactly the same to me: both involve some other party deciding what is and is not acceptable to be published.
- crazy_horse 5y ago
  Censorship is government action. Private companies that allow you to reach millions of people are offering you the ability to use their service. It's not censorship when they don't allow you to use their service (and until today, they haven't stopped much), it's terms of service. If I invite you to my house and you eat my dog's food, I have the right to tell you to leave. The movement wouldn't be what it is today without YT, so this censorship stuff is too much.
  - johnjj257 5y ago
    No that's just govt. Censorship vs regular censorship. Moderation is the exact same thing they can both do it. Just because it isn't the government doesn't mean they aren't censoring. Censorship is NOT just government action.
  - robbrown451 5y ago
    Why do you think censorship must be government action? Is there a definition posted anywhere that says this? I've long seen it used to refer to, for instance, TV network censors. And every online dictionary I can find allows for entities other than government to be referred to as censoring.
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    Censorship is not a government action. It is literally filtering content and anyone can. You can censor yourself, a company could censor a band and change lyrics. They run a platform that practices censorship. It is legal. Trying to say it is okay because they are a private entity doesn't wash and they should be called out. We could even band together and censor them.
  - harshreality 5y ago
    That libertarian/conservative talking point is often misstated, which intentionally or not becomes a red herring. Their claim isn't (or shouldn't be) that Youtube or Facebook or Twitter, in taking actions like these, aren't engaging in censorship. Their claim is that it's legal and not a violation of free speech (1A in the US), i.e. it's not government censorship, because that only applies when government is taking the actions. There are several problems with this, outlined in Clarence Thomas's recent concurring opinion in Biden v. Knight. Dominant communications platforms are essentially part of the public square, and two well-established legal principles could come into play to restrict their actions: public accommodations and common carriers. There's the additional problem that government is influencing how social media companies police content, not only indirectly through fear of retribution, but even directly. One instance that recently got media attention: https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/07/15/psaki_were_flagging_problematic_posts_for_facebook_that_spread_disinformation.html https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/07/15/psaki_wer...
LanceH 5y ago
As soon as Congress started pressuring the media giants as to what they are and aren't allowing, accusations of censorship became fair play.

destitude 5y ago

The fact that they completely ignore natural immunity in the USA is enough to be concerned about their motivations.

ceejayoz 5y ago
It's being ignored because it's fraught with problems. People think they had COVID in the early pre-testing days, but it was just the flu or a bad cold. (My son was in this realm; severe pneumonia in early 2020, but later testing showed no antibodies.) You'd have restaurants swamped with angry "but I've already had it!" people. Verification is hard; you can't just take word for it, so that means an antibody test, and at that point you might as well have just vaccinated them anyways while they were in.
- eggy 5y ago
  You're cherry picking from people who think they had it. There are millions who know they've had COVID like myself, and I still have very high antibodies almost 9 months on. I am fit, do not have a comorbidity like obesity, hypertension, diabetes, etc. Remember, over 78% of all hospitalizations involve obesity and other comorbidities, and disproportionately affect much older people. It should be me and my doctor's choice on whether getting the jab is good for me or not. Censorship doesn't address the nuances of the issue. It leads to disenfranchising people. In addition, the vaccine spikes your antibodies, and if your antibodies are currently high, it can lead to more frequent or serious side effects. The 2018 Spanish Flu caused deaths in the young and healthy by having their immune systems go into an overwhelmingly high gear, but older people's weaker immune systems spared them this consequence. I have natural immunity, I am fit, and my risk of a second, severe infection is equal or less to your vaccinated status. After 9 months the vaccine's efficacy is much lower, and doesn't really work well against the variants. There is no long-term data, obviously, on the vaccine yet, since it was only given to the public less than a year ago. Let's see three to seven years from now. Let's remember Pfizer was the company that in 1996 setup a tent near a Doctors without Borders tent and gave an experimental antibiotic drug to 200 children, maybe more, without their parent's consent, and then 10 or 11 of those children died with others suffering other maladies thought to be from the drug. An illegal, immoral drug trial. They packed up their tent, and later back-dated a letter to say they had gone through ethics channels with the Nigerian government. So yeah, let's squash any anti-vaccine talk, because what's good for you is good for everyone. Personally, I am vaccinated with everything but the COVID vaccinations, so I am not antivax, and shouldn't be discriminated against like that. My older children got the vaccine, but me and my wife and our younger children have not, since we all had COVID, and we all have high antibodies. Fake vaccination cards also defeat your "fraught with problems" argument of people think they had it, but didn't argument. There will always be difficulties in sorting this out. That's no reason to go full-in on censorship.

destitude 5y ago

"almost no cases of serious health issues with vaccination" how do you think you'd possibly hear about this when you are replying to an article where any anti-vaccine information is censored?

cromulent 5y ago
Well over 2 billion people have been vaccinated. You probably know some of them in real life - you don't need a broadcaster to tell you if there are problems.
robbrown451 5y ago
You really think "any anti-vaccine information is censored"? This policy on YouTube just started, and, last I heard anyway, there are other sources of information other than YouTube. There have obviously been many many sources of information on the internet that allow anti-vaccine information. And, if that information was actually credible, it would have also been available to, for instance, those at YouTube who made this policy. What do you figure their agenda is for covering it up?

CWuestefeld 5y ago

Found on a different discussion at TheZvi (https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/09/23/covid-9-23-there-is-a-war/#more-22649 https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/09/23/covid-9-23-there-is-...): --- start quote #1 --- Thanks to your ongoing efforts, my 40+ year old sibling finally got vaccinated about three weeks before getting infected by her kids. She still had it pretty bad, so I think it’s likely you saved her a trip to the hospital or worse. She was on the brink of getting vaccinated weeks earlier, but “That Guy” had cast enough doubt that a family member talked her out of it. So I’m glad you specifically mentioned him back then. Thanks to our civilization’s shiny new censorship machine it was maddeningly difficult to actually find good counter arguments to his claims, since we’re all supposed to just pretend bad claims don’t exist. So mostly I had to just point to the favorable evidence rather than being able to give a point by point rebuttal. [...] And her family is fox news conservative, so all the tribal hate made it especially hard for her to take their claims seriously. She stayed up all night making her decision, and had 250 browser tabs open by the end. So people do try, and do pay attention. --- end quote #1 --- and later, in response --- start quote #2 --- I had the same experience. I wanted to know whether the “vector vaccines alter your DNA” claims had any truth to them, given that “dna altering virus” is definitely something that exists. As far as I can tell, this is (probably) false, but it was really hard to find any evidence beyond “prof. dr. X says this is a conspiracy theory, now get your vaccine they are safe and effective ™”. It was really frustrating; I’m not surprised that many people feel like they are being tricked. --- end quote #2 ---

spywaregorilla 5y ago
> I had the same experience. I wanted to know whether the “vector vaccines alter your DNA” claims had any truth to them, given that “dna altering virus” is definitely something that exists. As far as I can tell, this is (probably) false, but it was really hard to find any evidence beyond “prof. dr. X says this is a conspiracy theory, now get your vaccine they are safe and effective ™”. It was really frustrating; I’m not surprised that many people feel like they are being tricked. This is a really frustrating perspective to hear. > I heard this bogus claim about something I don't understand and wanted to know if it was true > All I could find was doctors saying it was nonsense > How could I know what the truth was? I suspect it's a common form of reasoning. It's committing so many mistakes all at once. * Refusal to acknowledge that you might be considering nonsense and thus perceiving anyone saying it's nonsense as malicious * Complete refusal or certainty in your inability to do basic research on things that are well documented by many organizations and easy to find BUT STILL SAYING ITS HARD TO FIND * Not just lack of trust, but certainty of distrust for authority figures. Anything they say has negative value. It's far more upsetting to me than hearing people with malicious political agendas being assholes.

bmarquez 5y ago

> they'd be covered in a second on fox news I don't know why you assume Fox is anti-vax, Trump took the vaccine and promotes it on Fox News interviews himself. https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-urges-all-americans-to-get-covid-vaccine-its-a-safe-vaccine https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-urges-all-americans-to-g...

ipaddr 5y ago
People see the world as us and them. Dem vs Rep. In reality it is those who control and wished to be controlled vs those who wish to remain free. Fox and CNN are two sides of the same coin.
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Fox News repeatedly highlighted the dangers of covid: https://youtu.be/wmoABTiCpco https://youtu.be/wmoABTiCpco I dont understand why everyone thinks they are fascists.
- bmarquez 5y ago
  The video shows soundbites of commentators saying illegal immigrants, in crowded conditions, potentially have covid. I don't know if that's correct or not but it has nothing to do with my point that pro-vaccine content does exist on Fox News.
longhairedhippy 5y ago
Have you watched Tucker Carlson? I would be pleased if they charged the man with murder after this is all over. Do you think it's odd he won't answer questions about his own vaccination status?

ohdannyboy 5y ago

Can you expand on why you were hesitant because of censorship? ... Have you heard rumors of some problems from vaccination? It made it more difficult to ascertain what the risks were, I didn't feel our officials were being honest with us (something I still think). Back in early 2021 it was a lot more open to speculation since it was an minimally tested treatment who's delivery method had never been widely deployed on humans before. We still don't know if there's long term effects and there's no way for us to find out until enough time has passed. I didn't want to be part of the initial test group. Since covid is so deadly if you get it I'm relatively young and not in any risk categories, covid does not pose much of a death risk to me. Significant non-deadly outcomes are another story (permanent lung damage, loss of taste, ect). I decided that protection from the latter category (significant non-deadly outcomes) was worth my rather nebulous fears that we'll realize it does some harm over the next decade. and there are basically almost no cases of serious health issues with vaccination and furthermore "Basically almost no" is a difficult term to quantify, but VAERS database does have plenty of entries.

unanswered 5y ago
> Significant non-deadly outcomes are another story (permanent lung damage, loss of taste, ect) Is there credible, non-censorious evidence that the vaccine reduces these particular risks? This is the same argument that we keep seeing: you have to take this vaccine because ${thing that vaccines normally do but this one hasn't been shown to do}. The most egregious example is "provide immunity"/"improve outcomes for anyone around you". I just don't believe a word of it until I see the science.
- nneonneo 5y ago
  I don’t know what level of convincing you need, but here in BC, unvaccinated people are about 25x more likely to show up in a hospital than vaccinated people: https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0058-001843 https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0058-001843 Over the past two weeks: > After factoring for age, people not vaccinated are 25.8 times more likely to be hospitalized than those fully vaccinated. (The age correction reflects the fact that vaccines aren’t distributed evenly by age).

boltzmann_brain 5y ago

> Since covid is so deadly if you get it Please. Median age above life expectancy. (At least where I live). Unless this is a board for 70 year or older seniors, this is utter bullshit.

blub 5y ago

You're probably referring to Biontech*, but when I got AstraZeneca the chances of dying from the virus for my age interval was only slightly more than the chance of dying from the vaccine, as calculated by the ECDC. * which as an aside does cause myocarditis and pericardits in particular for young males. This is important because for example in Germany the incidence was 1 case from 17.271 doses for males in the 12-17 age range and in most cases the symptoms appeared after the second dose, which may mean that a booster could also trigger it.