5 ms·

We had people banned from the discussion for suggesting ideas that run counter the official story. This isn't reasonable anymore, this is a propaganda instrumen

We had people banned from the discussion for suggesting ideas that run counter the official story. This isn't reasonable anymore, this is a propaganda instrument and not something that was nuanced at all. The mistakes that were made need correction. Don't advertise diversity, live up to it.

marvin 5y ago
I was banned from the biggest national (Norway) Facebook discussion group on the pandemic for posting a comment reasoning about mask usage and whether the official guidelines might be factually incorrect. That's far into propaganda and censorship territory.
- emn13 5y ago
  That's not fair. But excesses like that are related to the same underlying problem, which is lack of nuance, trust, and honesty in public debate. Additionally, I think you should consider the fact that facebook simply is not a great venue for discussing such things. They cannot tell fraud from fact, don't have a process for doing so, and instead have social dynamics that encourage irrational conspiracies. What exactly should have been done? I get that they certainly ban the wrong things at time, but the real problem here is the platform, which kind of makes it inevitable that either that happens, or that misinformation spreads like wildfire. But really: the moment to allow a public discussion like that to come to it's own (unguided) conclusions is not in the initial chaos of uncertainty. The consequences of uninformed, unmoderated speculation running wild are still visible everywhere. On the one hand, mostly everybody accepts that healthy debate is a useful social tool, but on the other hand the current zeitgeist is one in which we've not socially learned to distinguish between the right to shout whatever we feel is truthy from the wisdom of relying on that to form public opinion. Clearly, mistakes were made - but we need to consider the alternative to partially incorrect guidance by experts, which is sometimes extremely dangerous widely and deeply held beliefs formed by social media echo chambers. Hopefully future generations will have better habits when it comes to dealing with this kind of information overload, and a greater ability to put one's own suspicions in perspective relative to experts, but that's clearly not an easy task. We don't know who to trust, why to trust them; we do our own research, but poorly and with terribly limited resources; we trust others that appear to be like us without having a way to really judge how great their interpretations are nor to recognize which are flawed, and all this is spiced up by the fact that some of these beliefs about facts blur into deeply held moral axioms - which we as a society don't universally share, leading to easily exploitable deep divisions. ...so, while it's deeply unfortunate that your potentially valid observations were silenced, I'm not sure I really believe the alternative would have been better, on facebook.
  - marvin 5y ago
    I agree that there's merit to some of your points. But at the same time, some of this borders on the tautological when it comes to the challenges of our time. On a personal level, I find this story to be more of a funny (tragic?) anecdote than a degrading violation of rights. What does it say about the direction our society is headed? Facebook is the only public forum where I (or any of most people) could have significant reach in this discussion. Letter to the editor? Couldn't have gotten it published at the time. My Slack groups of highly-educated, economically powerful friends and acquaintances? Sure, and through those channels we all had access to much better curated information than any official channel. Friends and family? You bet. Local Reddit groups? Sure, all of the 30 people who read it. This isn't only an issue regarding times of crisis. Access to precise information in matters big and small is increasingly filtered through similar mechanisms. Economic decisions, career advice, knowledge of how to best position oneself in the world and so on. All trends channel these advantages to a smaller and smaller elite that is capable of making sense of the world, where finding the useful truths in a sea of uncertain signals is increasingly difficult. I'm not really suggesting a solution, rather pointing out that this is an insidious challenge with great potential to cause strife if we can't figure out a way to properly democratize it. It works well if you're really smart or well-connected. Not so much otherwise.
chrisjc 5y ago
Agree that banning individuals from expressing ideas (more like completely plausible theories) has done great harm. > this is a propaganda instrument What exactly is this "propaganda instrument"? Just trying to latch on to what you're trying to suggest. There might have been lies, distortions of the truth, misunderstandings, assumptions, ignorance, but "propaganda" implies some kind of motive and objective by a particular actor or set of actors. With perhaps the exception of parties responsible hiding any remnants of the truth in order to avoid blame (aka a cover up), what was the motive/objective and by whom? For me, the purpose of the lab in China and the possibility of a contagion leak makes complete sense with no conspiracy theories needed. Even the Chinese Government/CCPs response makes sense (not defending it, just obvious based on their track record). I can imagine multiple ways in which the resulting pandemic could be used as an instrument to cause and inflict political harm in order benefit rivals or perhaps entire states and regimes. But the only way I can describe what has actually resulted is an all out frenzy and turmoil.
- raxxorrax 5y ago
  > but "propaganda" implies some kind of motive and objective by a particular actor or set of actors. Speculation about motives is difficult, my most prominent idea is that a subset of scientists agreed it was better to craft a noble lie than to be transparent with their ideas. Repeating a lie often enough so that people believe it to be true is a law of propaganda. > lies, distortions of the truth, misunderstandings, assumptions, ignorance I don't see how a "distortion of the truth" has less requirements for a motive than propaganda. What do you believe was the motivation to distort the truth? If you have an idea I would gladly entertain it. I don't think "misunderstanding" fits the case where people were targeted for dissenting views. > a contagion leak makes complete sense with no conspiracy theories needed Yes indeed, this would not have needed any conspiracies at all, but we got one for political reasons as the "official" message was crafted to deny the possibility of a leak outright by a subset of the scientific community. For personal gratification or just to calm the public or any other reason is of secondary importance here. The fact remains that there were attempts to suppress such views. > the resulting pandemic could be used as an instrument to cause and inflict political harm in order benefit rivals or perhaps entire states and regimes. The problem is the lack of transparency and intentional lies, this is off topic. If it was an accident, there must be consequences for research like this. Maybe it has to be disallowed, perhaps more security is needed. I can see how such measures might run counter to the interest of the group that came up with the idea to neglect that possibility. Just to make it very clear, that is speculation about a motive and is not substantiated. Substantiated was the lack of truthful information.

marvin 5y ago

I was banned from the biggest national (Norway) Facebook discussion group on the pandemic for posting a comment reasoning about mask usage and whether the official guidelines might be factually incorrect. That's far into propaganda and censorship territory.

emn13 5y ago
That's not fair. But excesses like that are related to the same underlying problem, which is lack of nuance, trust, and honesty in public debate. Additionally, I think you should consider the fact that facebook simply is not a great venue for discussing such things. They cannot tell fraud from fact, don't have a process for doing so, and instead have social dynamics that encourage irrational conspiracies. What exactly should have been done? I get that they certainly ban the wrong things at time, but the real problem here is the platform, which kind of makes it inevitable that either that happens, or that misinformation spreads like wildfire. But really: the moment to allow a public discussion like that to come to it's own (unguided) conclusions is not in the initial chaos of uncertainty. The consequences of uninformed, unmoderated speculation running wild are still visible everywhere. On the one hand, mostly everybody accepts that healthy debate is a useful social tool, but on the other hand the current zeitgeist is one in which we've not socially learned to distinguish between the right to shout whatever we feel is truthy from the wisdom of relying on that to form public opinion. Clearly, mistakes were made - but we need to consider the alternative to partially incorrect guidance by experts, which is sometimes extremely dangerous widely and deeply held beliefs formed by social media echo chambers. Hopefully future generations will have better habits when it comes to dealing with this kind of information overload, and a greater ability to put one's own suspicions in perspective relative to experts, but that's clearly not an easy task. We don't know who to trust, why to trust them; we do our own research, but poorly and with terribly limited resources; we trust others that appear to be like us without having a way to really judge how great their interpretations are nor to recognize which are flawed, and all this is spiced up by the fact that some of these beliefs about facts blur into deeply held moral axioms - which we as a society don't universally share, leading to easily exploitable deep divisions. ...so, while it's deeply unfortunate that your potentially valid observations were silenced, I'm not sure I really believe the alternative would have been better, on facebook.
- marvin 5y ago
  I agree that there's merit to some of your points. But at the same time, some of this borders on the tautological when it comes to the challenges of our time. On a personal level, I find this story to be more of a funny (tragic?) anecdote than a degrading violation of rights. What does it say about the direction our society is headed? Facebook is the only public forum where I (or any of most people) could have significant reach in this discussion. Letter to the editor? Couldn't have gotten it published at the time. My Slack groups of highly-educated, economically powerful friends and acquaintances? Sure, and through those channels we all had access to much better curated information than any official channel. Friends and family? You bet. Local Reddit groups? Sure, all of the 30 people who read it. This isn't only an issue regarding times of crisis. Access to precise information in matters big and small is increasingly filtered through similar mechanisms. Economic decisions, career advice, knowledge of how to best position oneself in the world and so on. All trends channel these advantages to a smaller and smaller elite that is capable of making sense of the world, where finding the useful truths in a sea of uncertain signals is increasingly difficult. I'm not really suggesting a solution, rather pointing out that this is an insidious challenge with great potential to cause strife if we can't figure out a way to properly democratize it. It works well if you're really smart or well-connected. Not so much otherwise.

chrisjc 5y ago

Agree that banning individuals from expressing ideas (more like completely plausible theories) has done great harm. > this is a propaganda instrument What exactly is this "propaganda instrument"? Just trying to latch on to what you're trying to suggest. There might have been lies, distortions of the truth, misunderstandings, assumptions, ignorance, but "propaganda" implies some kind of motive and objective by a particular actor or set of actors. With perhaps the exception of parties responsible hiding any remnants of the truth in order to avoid blame (aka a cover up), what was the motive/objective and by whom? For me, the purpose of the lab in China and the possibility of a contagion leak makes complete sense with no conspiracy theories needed. Even the Chinese Government/CCPs response makes sense (not defending it, just obvious based on their track record). I can imagine multiple ways in which the resulting pandemic could be used as an instrument to cause and inflict political harm in order benefit rivals or perhaps entire states and regimes. But the only way I can describe what has actually resulted is an all out frenzy and turmoil.

raxxorrax 5y ago
> but "propaganda" implies some kind of motive and objective by a particular actor or set of actors. Speculation about motives is difficult, my most prominent idea is that a subset of scientists agreed it was better to craft a noble lie than to be transparent with their ideas. Repeating a lie often enough so that people believe it to be true is a law of propaganda. > lies, distortions of the truth, misunderstandings, assumptions, ignorance I don't see how a "distortion of the truth" has less requirements for a motive than propaganda. What do you believe was the motivation to distort the truth? If you have an idea I would gladly entertain it. I don't think "misunderstanding" fits the case where people were targeted for dissenting views. > a contagion leak makes complete sense with no conspiracy theories needed Yes indeed, this would not have needed any conspiracies at all, but we got one for political reasons as the "official" message was crafted to deny the possibility of a leak outright by a subset of the scientific community. For personal gratification or just to calm the public or any other reason is of secondary importance here. The fact remains that there were attempts to suppress such views. > the resulting pandemic could be used as an instrument to cause and inflict political harm in order benefit rivals or perhaps entire states and regimes. The problem is the lack of transparency and intentional lies, this is off topic. If it was an accident, there must be consequences for research like this. Maybe it has to be disallowed, perhaps more security is needed. I can see how such measures might run counter to the interest of the group that came up with the idea to neglect that possibility. Just to make it very clear, that is speculation about a motive and is not substantiated. Substantiated was the lack of truthful information.