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Let’s not forget that talking about the lab leak hypothesis last year resulted in censorship among social media platforms and YouTube This is why free speech i

Let’s not forget that talking about the lab leak hypothesis last year resulted in censorship among social media platforms and YouTube This is why free speech is important, it is impossible to rely on “fact checkers”.

rtkwe 4y ago
The lab leak hypothesis was also pretty tightly coupled with the bioweapon/intentional release theory which is part of why it received so much push back. Also I don't recall the specific fact check messages but if they were in line with "there's no hard evidence of a lab leak" I'd say that's still pretty accurate.
- rhino369 4y ago
  It was tightly coupled to that stuff by fact checkers and other opponents to silence any questions.
  - polynomial 4y ago
    Despite being made of flimsy material, some of these straw men are actually quite effective, it seems.
  - rtkwe 4y ago
    A lot of what I saw were channels pushing both at the same time. An accidental leak of an attempted bioweapon or something like that was pretty popular in some circles.
- enchiridion 4y ago
  That’s not a justification. You’re just saying that some speech you approve of was tied to some speech you disapprove of, so both should be censored. No speech should be censored.
  - giantrobot 4y ago
    The owner of a service has no requirement or duty to carry anyone's speech. A person's freedom of speech doesn't override anyone else's freedom of association. So a private company can censor or reject any speech using their service unless otherwise mandated by law (common carrier etc).
    - adamrezich 4y ago
      ok, so what's the impetus for censoring it then
      - giantrobot 4y ago
        It's inflammatory, outright disinformation, outright misinformation, or just something the service owner doesn't want to carry. Discussion a lab leak hypothesis is not the same as claiming COVID leaked from a bioweapon laboratory or was intentionally leaked for <reasons>. That being said, social media sites flagging posts is very different from outright censorship. It's not uncommon for someone to actually get censored/removed from a site claiming its censorship over discussing some topic when really it was a history of dipshit behavior and flagrant TOS violations.
        adamrezich 4y ago
        > It's inflammatory, outright disinformation, outright misinformation so, the vast majority of social media then? what makes this issue so special? why did all of the major social media networks censor/"flag" anyone publicly speculating only certain speculations about this issue?
    - eric_cc 4y ago
      Practically everybody knows this already and yet this comment shows up every time freedom of speech is discussed. Censorship is bad even when legally permissible. And we should still fight corporations acting unethically even when the law is on their side.
- xdennis 4y ago
  > The lab leak hypothesis was also pretty tightly coupled with the bioweapon/intentional release theory which is part of why it received so much push back. No it wasn't. The media often takes the most extreme case in order to denigrate the whole side that they don't like.
- dpbriggs 4y ago
  No, that was some intentional conflation bordering on propaganda.
MisterBastahrd 4y ago
Let's not forget that the lab leak hypothesis was championed by political figures who were embarrassed that they were woefully clueless about how to implement pandemic response plans, even though their agencies already had those plans in place for years, and that their aligned media pushed these conspiracies without evidence.
- dpbriggs 4y ago
  Why is that a justification for heavy-handed censorship of a topic? Do you think that's right?
  - MisterBastahrd 4y ago
    Well, let's see. First, reporters are incapable of discovering this information on their own. They just don't have the tools. Investigatory bodies do, and reporters would have to wait. Secondly, there were multiple plausible ideas about what could have happened. The drum was beaten on only one of them. Trump got caught with his pants down because as with everything else he's ever been a part of, he was woefully unprepared and out of his depth. Third, and tying in with the first point, the more important story to virtually everyone was not how the first people were infected, but what the response and fallout of the infections were. So again, you had a bunch of clueless, embarrassed political partisans who got caught with their pants down, and their base ate up the blame-shifting because of their xenophobic tendencies.
    - dpbriggs 4y ago
      That isn't justification for the censorship. Reporters do report on things they don't understand all the time. The point was to make it possible for qualified people to investigate, but that wasn't politically popular at the time. Should the scientific community rally to the opposition of the current unpopular president? That doesn't seem like a good idea. And this last point is a fascinating common non sequitor. That's not even what happened; we had the media clamoring that it came from that market and any talk of the lab is racist and/or xenophobic. Do you think any investigation of the lab would have jeopardized the public? Worse than the visceral eating bats (i.e. selling bats for consumption)?
giantrobot 4y ago
- yonaguska 4y ago
  Ever considered the possibility of discussion being stifled due to intentional "false flagged" information. We don't want an idea being talked about. Let's just create a socially unacceptable similar conspiracy theory, then censor everything related. Think Alex Jones talking about nanobots in the vaccines, well now you can't be taken seriously with any vaccine related discourse or you get lumped in with the nanobots, 5g crowd.
  - LordDragonfang 4y ago
    ...Except, Alex Jones is pretty much the opposite of a false flag - if anything, he's one of the duly appointed flag-bearers of that political slant. If you're bringing him up in a discussion about "false flags", it goes to show just how little relation the term has with reality.
- tim333 4y ago
  I've followed quite a lot of the lab leak discussion and I wouldn't say that's true. If anything the most popular people to point fingers at are Daszak and his associates who are mostly pretty white.

rtkwe 4y ago

The lab leak hypothesis was also pretty tightly coupled with the bioweapon/intentional release theory which is part of why it received so much push back. Also I don't recall the specific fact check messages but if they were in line with "there's no hard evidence of a lab leak" I'd say that's still pretty accurate.

rhino369 4y ago
It was tightly coupled to that stuff by fact checkers and other opponents to silence any questions.
- polynomial 4y ago
  Despite being made of flimsy material, some of these straw men are actually quite effective, it seems.
- rtkwe 4y ago
  A lot of what I saw were channels pushing both at the same time. An accidental leak of an attempted bioweapon or something like that was pretty popular in some circles.
enchiridion 4y ago
That’s not a justification. You’re just saying that some speech you approve of was tied to some speech you disapprove of, so both should be censored. No speech should be censored.
- giantrobot 4y ago
  The owner of a service has no requirement or duty to carry anyone's speech. A person's freedom of speech doesn't override anyone else's freedom of association. So a private company can censor or reject any speech using their service unless otherwise mandated by law (common carrier etc).
  - adamrezich 4y ago
    ok, so what's the impetus for censoring it then
    - giantrobot 4y ago
      It's inflammatory, outright disinformation, outright misinformation, or just something the service owner doesn't want to carry. Discussion a lab leak hypothesis is not the same as claiming COVID leaked from a bioweapon laboratory or was intentionally leaked for <reasons>. That being said, social media sites flagging posts is very different from outright censorship. It's not uncommon for someone to actually get censored/removed from a site claiming its censorship over discussing some topic when really it was a history of dipshit behavior and flagrant TOS violations.
      - adamrezich 4y ago
        > It's inflammatory, outright disinformation, outright misinformation so, the vast majority of social media then? what makes this issue so special? why did all of the major social media networks censor/"flag" anyone publicly speculating only certain speculations about this issue?
  - eric_cc 4y ago
    Practically everybody knows this already and yet this comment shows up every time freedom of speech is discussed. Censorship is bad even when legally permissible. And we should still fight corporations acting unethically even when the law is on their side.
xdennis 4y ago
> The lab leak hypothesis was also pretty tightly coupled with the bioweapon/intentional release theory which is part of why it received so much push back. No it wasn't. The media often takes the most extreme case in order to denigrate the whole side that they don't like.
dpbriggs 4y ago
No, that was some intentional conflation bordering on propaganda.

MisterBastahrd 4y ago

Let's not forget that the lab leak hypothesis was championed by political figures who were embarrassed that they were woefully clueless about how to implement pandemic response plans, even though their agencies already had those plans in place for years, and that their aligned media pushed these conspiracies without evidence.

dpbriggs 4y ago
Why is that a justification for heavy-handed censorship of a topic? Do you think that's right?
- MisterBastahrd 4y ago
  Well, let's see. First, reporters are incapable of discovering this information on their own. They just don't have the tools. Investigatory bodies do, and reporters would have to wait. Secondly, there were multiple plausible ideas about what could have happened. The drum was beaten on only one of them. Trump got caught with his pants down because as with everything else he's ever been a part of, he was woefully unprepared and out of his depth. Third, and tying in with the first point, the more important story to virtually everyone was not how the first people were infected, but what the response and fallout of the infections were. So again, you had a bunch of clueless, embarrassed political partisans who got caught with their pants down, and their base ate up the blame-shifting because of their xenophobic tendencies.
  - dpbriggs 4y ago
    That isn't justification for the censorship. Reporters do report on things they don't understand all the time. The point was to make it possible for qualified people to investigate, but that wasn't politically popular at the time. Should the scientific community rally to the opposition of the current unpopular president? That doesn't seem like a good idea. And this last point is a fascinating common non sequitor. That's not even what happened; we had the media clamoring that it came from that market and any talk of the lab is racist and/or xenophobic. Do you think any investigation of the lab would have jeopardized the public? Worse than the visceral eating bats (i.e. selling bats for consumption)?

giantrobot 4y ago

yonaguska 4y ago
Ever considered the possibility of discussion being stifled due to intentional "false flagged" information. We don't want an idea being talked about. Let's just create a socially unacceptable similar conspiracy theory, then censor everything related. Think Alex Jones talking about nanobots in the vaccines, well now you can't be taken seriously with any vaccine related discourse or you get lumped in with the nanobots, 5g crowd.
- LordDragonfang 4y ago
  ...Except, Alex Jones is pretty much the opposite of a false flag - if anything, he's one of the duly appointed flag-bearers of that political slant. If you're bringing him up in a discussion about "false flags", it goes to show just how little relation the term has with reality.
tim333 4y ago
I've followed quite a lot of the lab leak discussion and I wouldn't say that's true. If anything the most popular people to point fingers at are Daszak and his associates who are mostly pretty white.