4 ms·
The only positive for me from this misinformation plague is that as soon as the next issue comes along all of the anti-Covid vaccine sentiment will be completel
by cletus 5y ago
The only positive for me from this misinformation plague is that as soon as the next issue comes along all of the anti-Covid vaccine sentiment will be completely forgotten.
Don't believe me? When was the last time you heard about the MMR vaccine causing autism?
The "good" part of this is that rejection of science, politicization of science and the use of this issue to manipulate people who somehow claim to be "free" yet are the most easily manipulated aren't new issues. There was the MMR autism issue, resistance to polio vaccination and resistance to smallpox vaccines before that.
The damage is of course huge. The US is sitting at >3,500 Covid deaths per day currently. Annualized this is well over 1 million people per year (although it'll likely trail off), 90-95% of whom are now unvaccinated. These are people who are now steadfastly choosing to die. The government has moved on from this (eg the updated CDC guidelines on isolation to keep the economy going). People seem to have moved on (IME).
I don't think we should be worried about censorship of misinformation. Credible-sounding misinformation is easy to produce and hard to refute (aka the bullshit asymmetry principle). Leaving it out there does more harm than good (IMHO). You'll never completely get rid of it but the less of it out there the better.
As to what to do about this, the only cure is to teach critical thinking at a relatively young age so people can ask questions like "who is telling me this?", "what are their sources?", "why shouldn't I trust the CDC?" and "who benefits from me believing this?". Conservatives know this which is why they're busy passing laws to prevent such teaching.
It's why college graduates tend to be more liberal: colleges generally teach critical thinking and that tends to kill conservatism. Of course this is predictably painted as colleges being hotbeds of political indoctrination. So here we are.
A big problem with misinformation being out there is how people can fall into the trap of bothsidsing the issue (which is a logical fallacy, for the record).
- xdennis 5y agoDo you seriously believe that people who didn't trust MMR vaccines now do because of covid?
- tempf4h8f44f8f 5y ago> I don't think we should be worried about censorship of misinformation. My parents coming from a communist nation (Yugoslavia) I strongly disagree with this. Who determines what is truth and what is misinformation? One of the major arguments communists used to oppress speech was to prevent panic and the spread of misinformation. (Misinformation being anything that wasn't pro-communist) Imagine that the worst and most corrupt people you can think of are now in charge of controlling truth and misinformation. That is why the freedom of speech is a fundamental human right - no one should have that kind of power. I agree that we need better fundamental education and critical thinking, but not less rights and more power for large entities.
- cletus 5y agoThe situations aren't comparable because in your case (the former Yugoslavia) you're talking about state censorship and control of information by threat of criminal prosecution. The US specifically has protections against this via the First Amendment. Instead we have private actors choosing not to be in the misinformation business. Various hate groups and such have been deplatformed by Twitter, Facebook, etc. Those fringe sources still exist. They're just in darker corners of the Internet. They're not entitled to free, mass distribution just to spew lies without recourse. Lastly, it's worth pointing out that we censor things all the time as it is when there is an overriding interest in doing so. Examples: criminal cases involving minors (ie their names), naming certain victims in court cases, courts sealing records, publishing of military secrets, publishing of dangerous information (eg how to make a biological weapon), information to doxx/swat people and so on.
- agentgumshoe 5y agoYou're missing the point. Who gets to determine what is 'misinformation?' I think you'll find if you look back a year or so it was the government representatives and 'MSM' defining it, not leading scientists (some of which have since been 'discredited' because they supposedly suddenly turned to nuttiness). And little seems said, but I can't help notice the quite communist behaviour to demand the state mandate 'choices' for the populance wholesale 'for the greater good.' Especially knowing the vaccines don't stop the virus or the spread. Protecting information is not censorship, and your example highlights an incredible ignorance of what censorship (which is a government tool the first amendment is specifically designed around) actually is.
- immibis 5y agoObjective reality gets to determine.
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoWhat's the objective reality on the lab leak theory? Effectiveness of cloth masks? Has that objective reality changed? Has the perception of that objective reality changed? Where do you get your objective reality from and how is it infallible?