5 ms·
I don't care about the musings of idiotic politicians (and most of them are indeed idiots), but it rubs me the wrong way that Twitter is preventing the people f
by logicalmonster 5y ago
I don't care about the musings of idiotic politicians (and most of them are indeed idiots), but it rubs me the wrong way that Twitter is preventing the people from hearing where their tax dollars are going, and that Twitter has decided to be the arbiter of truth for society.
Also, according to the article, it seems like her strikes were for subjective comments. If this is the case, that strikes me as doubly wrong. According to the article:
> Twitter suspended Ms. Greene’s account after she tweeted on Saturday, falsely, about “extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths.” She included a misleading chart that pulled data from a government database of unverified raw data.
The phrase "extremely high amounts of Covid vaccine deaths" seems to be a true subjective opinion if there were some non-zero number of Covid vaccine deaths. People might disagree on whether an objective number should be subjectively described as high or low, but it seems like that's an opinion.
Also, why describe a chart as misleading? Why not describe it as false information? There's a big difference. Whether you disagree with her data or not, Twitter deciding that a government chart is "misleading" is kind of horrifying as a precedent because data could still be true and marked as misleading. Are they going to ban politicians from discussing budget charts or crime statistics in public debates if they decide that it's misleading with no objective basis?
> The company had issued her a fourth strike in August after she falsely posted that the vaccines were “failing.”
Whether a government policy is failing or not seems highly subjective. Is this really vaccine misinformation?
> Ms. Greene was given a third strike less than a month before that when she had tweeted that Covid-19 was not dangerous for people unless they were obese or over age 65, and said vaccines should not be required.
Based on the survival rates for people in these categories, many people would say that this is accurate and based on a subjective risk-management analysis. It's certainly less dangerous for young and non-fat people. Did this really merit a strike even by their convoluted logic? Certainly not.
- jdavis703 5y ago> Are they going to ban politicians from discussing budget charts or crime statistics in public debates if they decide that it's misleading with no objective basis? I’m assuming the “government database” is VEARS, which is using raw, unverified data. It would be like if someone took NextDoor or Shotspotter reports to derive crime statistics.
- gjsman-1000 5y agoTo be fair to VAERS, a doctor needs to fill it out, and the doctor is not paid to do so. It’s not exactly a user-submitted database.
- jdavis703 5y agoI’ve also complained to my doctor about undocumented “side effects” from various non-vaccine drugs. Even though it seemed weird he immediately suggested switching to something else. Doctors don’t apply a robotic “this could never happen” approach when dealing with unexpected side effects, regardless of whether there’s empirical evidence for them or not.
- alwayseasy 5y agoThat's simply not true. A doctor can fill it out for you but can't refuse if you ask him to. You can also do it yourself online... it's the main reason people are spamming the database. Here is the direct link: https://vaers.hhs.gov/esub/index.jsp https://vaers.hhs.gov/esub/index.jsp
- logicalmonster 5y agoImperfect data is still useful for understanding the world, is it not? To use your example: I'm not completely sure that Shotspotter reports are 100% accurate, but I'd be hesitant to move to a neighborhood that was reported to have a steady burst of gunshots, wouldn't you? In fact, speaking on data, couldn't we say that almost all data is imperfect to some extent? Isn't this especially true of Covid-related data?
- jdavis703 5y agoShotSpotter is notoriously inaccurate… It can pick up fireworks and engine backfires. If you happen to live by say a motorcycle club, ShotSpotter might make your block seem far more dangerous than it actually is.
- logicalmonster 5y ago