5 ms·

Because combatting mis/dis-information is largely a problem at the tail-end of the distribution (ie.: the crazier, most unhinged end of it). It's one thing to a

• kodyo 4y ago
  I’m willing to let stupid people sacrifice themselves rather than sacrifice everybody else’s freedom.
  • epgui 4y ago
    That's nice, except sometimes innocent people are the victim. Like the children. Or, in the context of a pandemic, all the other people who are exposed because Bob and Steve won't put a mask on or get a jab.
    • kodyo 4y ago
      People were censored and deplatformed for being more correct than the public health experts.
      • epgui 4y ago
        You'll have to provide examples of this, because I don't think that's clear and obvious.
        • kodyo 4y ago
          Journalist Alex Berenson was banned from Twitter for saying the covid vaccines don’t prevent infection or transmission. He was correct.
          • epgui 4y ago
            Except that's not exactly true either, depending on how you look at it. At the population-scale, they do prevent infection and transmission, and they prevent it very very well. This particular individual has said many other things during and about the pandemic, and this was part of a much broader line of messaging that was, broadly speaking, both incorrect and harmful. (I'm a biochemist, and immunology and extracellular vesicles are my areas of expertise. No conflict of interest.)
            • kodyo 4y ago
              Alright we’ll I’m opposed to censorship over pissy word-mincing. He wasn’t wrong.
            • junofan 4y ago
              People say dumb and destructive stuff about my area of expertise too. I don’t think they should be silenced.
              • epgui 4y ago
                Does it spread like wildfire and cause people to lose their lives in a way that could totally be prevented? (What field?)
                • junofan 4y ago
                  Yep. Finance. Resource allocation has life-or-death impact. Whether your immunology research finds applications, a hospital gets acquired instead of wound down, or an N95 factory gets built can be a few parameters pushed through a model. Parameters dictated by sentiment.
                • jsnk 4y ago
                  I think the world could benefit immensely from banning some mainstream publications that ferment hatred, instill unjustified fear, destroy innocent people by labeling them with unspeakable labels. Their narratives for decades have destroyed nations, killed millions of people and locked the entire world down for 2 years. Do I still think they should still be able to have an outlet? Yes, I do. Just like every other publications, individuals and outlets banned by Twitter, FB, and Youtube.
        • ipaddr 4y ago
          Lets go down memory lane. So soon we forgot the original whistleblower who shared the news of covid to the west and then China censored him.. Many doctors/nurse personnel had medical licenses removed because they spoke against the narrative. Doctors with 30 / 40 years experience being told if you don't parrot what we are saying we are going to make a case that will remove your doctor title. Now we can say 99% of doctor support this.. It was sad seeing doctors twist the truth on tv. As the virus changed trying to stick to the narrative became more difficult.
          • epgui 4y ago
            Apart from the issue with China's control of information, I don't think we have the same memory. That last paragraph does not match what I saw in most of the world. In particular, this perspective does not really match what happened in Canada, the US, or Europe, at least not in the way I think you are suggesting.
            • ipaddr 4y ago
              Here are the Canadian examples. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thestar.com/amp/news/canada/2022/05/03/ontario-doctor-accused-of-disgraceful-covid-conduct-gets-suspended.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thestar.com/amp/news/canada... https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6440227 https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbc.ca/amp/1.6440227 4 doctors landmark hearing https://www.google.com/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/8517353/canada-doctors-covid-vaccine-disinformation/amp/ https://www.google.com/amp/s/globalnews.ca/news/8517353/cana...
              • epgui 4y ago
                This is the system working as it should. When you are a physician, you have an incredibly high burden of care towards your patients, and you have an ethical and a deontological obligation (in some cases a legal one, though doctors do have a lot of leeway, for patient-centred care, in Canada) to give them the highest standard of care. As far as I can tell, these are all examples of serious breaches of this duty. These physicians didn't just accidentally cross some fuzzy line, or slip off a tight rope. They were way off in their conduct. Heck, with the exception of one, they apparently didn't even show up in court. In all of the above cases, it is the public and the patients who are being protected.
        • deleted 4y ago
          [deleted]
    • kansface 4y ago
      What doesn’t this argument cover? What wouldn’t it allow or apply to?
      • epgui 4y ago
        If people want to do something that puts their own life in danger, and they ought to have known the risks (ie.: in ethical jargon, they have both "moral competence" and autonomy), then that's their business. If people do things that can hurt other people, and these other people don't have a say in the matter, then with the exception of certain fiduciary-like situation, that's not okay.
  • vincnetas 4y ago
    don't forget, that disinformation does not appear magically in heads of less bright people. it is engineered by very smart adversaries. so this is not like less educated people are guilty and can be sacrificed.
    • kodyo 4y ago
      Don’t conflate education with intelligence.
      • epgui 4y ago
        Don't make the mistake of thinking there are some people (you?) who are so innately special that they don't require any training.
        • kodyo 4y ago
          Ad hominem aside, I was thinking of the midwits with lots of education who conspire with their in-group to manage others. The right thing to do is tell them to leave us alone.
          • epgui 4y ago
            Just to clarify, it was not really meant to be directed at you, it was meant as a generalized statement about people. I don't think I made that clear, sorry.
• ok123456 4y ago
  Literally, "Think of the Children!" Parents have claimed religious exceptions to performing recommended medical procedures and inoculations since the dawn of modern medicine, and sought out alternative treatments. The same parents who would try to cure autism by bleach injections are the same ones who would just as readily practice Mesmerism or whatever other 18th century nonsense you can think of. The only difference is that instead of a stranger coming to town in a tent, like something out of Blood Meridian, it's some glowing words on a box.
  • epgui 4y ago
    > Parents have claimed religious exceptions Yes, and these are often allowed. However, there are guardrails. Hospitals have multidisciplinary teams of lawyers, ethicists, psychologists and religious counsellors to ensure that these are legitimate beliefs and that risks are within certain boundaries. You can't exactly apply the same care to the internet at large.
    • ok123456 4y ago
      Most of that boils down to very politely asking the parents to follow the recommended standard of care. Unless there's outright abuse, like broken bones without a satisfactory explanation, there's no real intervention. You want to take a guess at how often an old order Amish child goes to the pediatrician?
      • epgui 4y ago
        I would guess not very often! But as with anything, you have to think about how things scale. The Amish are a small fraction of the population, and there's no imminent danger that suddenly everyone will take up the behaviour and stop taking their children to the paediatrician. Amish videos aren't "trending" on TikTok. :) If ever there was, or if that happened, then we might have a crisis on our hands, and we might be talking about doing something about it. None of this happens in a vacuum, nor should it be considered as if it did.
• ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  I feel like Infowars can only exist as part of an ecosystem of misinformation. It's easier to talk about, because it's dumb, but it's probably not the most vital thing to address. If it's a mainstream belief that the whole of climate science is a secret marxist plot to undermine capitalism, then is it really that weird to suggest those same marxists are faking school schootings?
• rhdunn 4y ago
  Mis/dis-information is not only located to the fringe/tail-end. See for example: 1. The reporting of the Hillsborough disaster by The Sun, The Times, The Spectator, and others [1]. 2. How Martin Bashir secured an interview with Princess Diana for the BBC by making up information. [2] 3. How the BBC included climate skeptic when debating climate change. [3] Then there is reporting of technical or scientific discoveries that are slanted by only taking a single source for information, not to mention the consistency of reporting on subjects where a company or other organization has made a PR statement. There is little investigative journalism and fact checking by major news outlets, just reporting from a single source. This is in part because news can move quickly given 24 hour news, the internet, and social media. It is also in part that paying people to take time to do research for little gain as advertisement and engagement drives profits for news outlets. It is also in part people's inherent biases slanting articles or news reports. Taking time to read each article (instead of just the headlines), and to follow up on sources (which are lacking in most/all media publications -- unless it is someone saying something on Twitter), so it is difficult to verify everything that is being reported on. Some discussions are also complicated. Take for example the Y2K problem. A lot of people put in a lot of effort to make sure that it didn't happen (specifically, they were able to minimize the issues to a small number of incidents). The UK government were briefed, who then briefed the press. The press (including the BBC) hyped it up by including people who thought the world would end, and people who were preparing for the worst. When not a lot of issues occurred, people have been decrying that Y2K was fake, in part because of the way the media overhyped the issues and failed to properly convey the potential problems to readers/viewers. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster#Media_portrayal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillsborough_disaster#Media_po... [2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-57163815 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/explainers-57163815 [3] https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2014/04/02/false-balance-in-climate-reporting-reveals-bbcs-sensitivity-to-political-pressure/ https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/medialse/2014/04/02/false-balance-in...
  • epgui 4y ago
    > not only located to the fringe/tail-end This is true, but the fringe and the tail-end are by far the easiest problem to solve. It's what I decided to focus on, because it seems like people can't even agree that it's a problem in the extremes.