2 ms·

>it is possible to differentiate between them in most cases How? What do you say of the lab-leak hypothesis for COVID?

• krapp 3y ago
  There is no "lab leak hypothesis" for COVID. There are a number of different theories, ranging from "Biden and Fauci cooked it up in a lab" to "it was accidentally released," from it being entirely natural to a bioweapon, that all get lumped together under that banner, all treated as equally credible, only having an aggressive opposition to the mainstream narrative in common. I won't say more because I'm aware of the motivated reasoning behind bringing it up. Also, while "lab leak theory" is often brought up as an example of "the truth" being censored (despite, AFAIK, there being no concrete evidence yet supporting it) it's worth noting that alternative COVID theories were never censored in any meaningful sense, even on mainstream social media. People discussed it, kept discussing it, and discuss it still. I will say I'm confident that when the facts come out one way or another, they will come from the scientific community, not randoms on the internet. Even if this turns out to be a case of overcorrection by social media platforms (arguably an understandable case, given how much batshit insane stuff was going around back then) it's also a counter-argument to the premise that social media platforms or "Big Tech" control "the narrative" to any significant degree, or really act as the de facto "public square."