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Again, I'm not talking about the scientific process of figuring stuff out, I'm saying that we literally censored people saying otherwise, even if it turned out,

Again, I'm not talking about the scientific process of figuring stuff out, I'm saying that we literally censored people saying otherwise, even if it turned out, that they were correct after all. > Yeah, because we all learned new things! We learned that while the vaccines did do a good job at preventing death and serious disease, they not provide a great deal of immunity. Back then? No. https://web.archive.org/web/20210402002315/https://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/transcript-rachel-maddow-show-3-29-21-n1262442 https://web.archive.org/web/20210402002315/https://www.msnbc... (interview with the director of the CDC) > And we have -- we can kind of almost see the end. We`re vaccinating so very fast, our data from the CDC today suggests, you know, that vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don`t get sick, and that it`s not just in the clinical trials but it`s also in real world data. If you went on facebook/reddit back then, the day after that interview, and wrote: "vaccines don't give you a lot of immunity, you'll still get ill, you'll still infect grandma, she can still die from covid, and even with 100% vaccination rate, there will never be herd immunity!", what would happen to your post? Would it stay there? Or would it be removed for misinformation? If you were a public figure and said that out loud, would "the science/experts" agree with your (then and now) perfectly valid theory, or would you be called an antivaxxer, denyer, conspiracy theorist?

kube-system 3y ago
If by "we" you mean "social media networks", then yes. They did. Social media networks do a horrible job at managing speech, you won't find a disagreement from me there. The problem is that Facebook is an expert on the React codebase, not immunology, and their moderators are underpaid, overworked, and unskilled. The best they can do is "if post doesn't match official guidelines, delete". When people are dying, regulators are breathing down your neck, and you just want to keep selling ads in a freefall market, what would you do? It's understandable that they did what they did. They're a digital billboard company that makes money off of boomer memes, vacation photo sharing, and high school reunion organizing. They're not arbiters of truth.
- ajsnigrutin 3y ago
  Social media, mainstream media, if you were a public figure, other public figures, if you were a doctor, then the licencing board... and well also wikipedia would consider your post a fringe conspiracy theory.
  - kube-system 3y ago
    In the context of making a statement to the general public, or publishing a journal article? Audience matters, because literacy and messaging makes a difference in how people interpret messages and take action. Statements that are actually factual are some of the strongest supporting evidence for false conspiracy theories, when given to audiences that don't fully understand the context of the situation. As a basic example, many people misinterpreted things like "you can still get COVID if you wear a mask or vaccinate" as being equivalent to "masks and vaccines don't work", because they're not intimately familiar with how viruses spread and/or how disease impact may vary in outcome. Most people unfamiliar with a topic will have a more general, black-and-white approximate understanding of something, and this is no different for public health topics. Whether or not a statement should be frowned upon or not really depends not just on the factuality, but also a lot on the context and what it might suggest to the audience. If someone sees someone else smoking a cigarette in a crowded theater, yells "fire!", and then people die in a stampede to the exits, the statement should be frowned upon, regardless of the fact that it was factual. "Being right" is not always enough.
    - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
      But we're talking for example about a CDC director talking to concerned public, and she says: > vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don`t get sick, and that it`s not just in the clinical trials but it`s also in real world data. This does not require you to be scientifically literate to be able to understand what she's saying. It's not a scientific show, they're not using greek symbols and formulas, but "vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don`t get sick". This means that a vast majority if not all vaccinated people don't carry the virus and don't get sick (as they don't with eg. polio vaccine, mumps vaccine, whooping cough etc. vaccines). If we put a scale from "totally work" to "don't work at all", the vaccines would be closer to "don't work". The cigaretta analogy is bad. This is like seeing dark smoke coming from a long hallway at work, your boss closing of the hallway, saying "we have everythng under control, go back to your office" and your coworker getting arrested for saying "the burning will burn down, run outside".... and then the building burns down.

kube-system 3y ago

If by "we" you mean "social media networks", then yes. They did. Social media networks do a horrible job at managing speech, you won't find a disagreement from me there. The problem is that Facebook is an expert on the React codebase, not immunology, and their moderators are underpaid, overworked, and unskilled. The best they can do is "if post doesn't match official guidelines, delete". When people are dying, regulators are breathing down your neck, and you just want to keep selling ads in a freefall market, what would you do? It's understandable that they did what they did. They're a digital billboard company that makes money off of boomer memes, vacation photo sharing, and high school reunion organizing. They're not arbiters of truth.

ajsnigrutin 3y ago
Social media, mainstream media, if you were a public figure, other public figures, if you were a doctor, then the licencing board... and well also wikipedia would consider your post a fringe conspiracy theory.
- kube-system 3y ago
  In the context of making a statement to the general public, or publishing a journal article? Audience matters, because literacy and messaging makes a difference in how people interpret messages and take action. Statements that are actually factual are some of the strongest supporting evidence for false conspiracy theories, when given to audiences that don't fully understand the context of the situation. As a basic example, many people misinterpreted things like "you can still get COVID if you wear a mask or vaccinate" as being equivalent to "masks and vaccines don't work", because they're not intimately familiar with how viruses spread and/or how disease impact may vary in outcome. Most people unfamiliar with a topic will have a more general, black-and-white approximate understanding of something, and this is no different for public health topics. Whether or not a statement should be frowned upon or not really depends not just on the factuality, but also a lot on the context and what it might suggest to the audience. If someone sees someone else smoking a cigarette in a crowded theater, yells "fire!", and then people die in a stampede to the exits, the statement should be frowned upon, regardless of the fact that it was factual. "Being right" is not always enough.
  - ajsnigrutin 3y ago
    But we're talking for example about a CDC director talking to concerned public, and she says: > vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don`t get sick, and that it`s not just in the clinical trials but it`s also in real world data. This does not require you to be scientifically literate to be able to understand what she's saying. It's not a scientific show, they're not using greek symbols and formulas, but "vaccinated people do not carry the virus, don`t get sick". This means that a vast majority if not all vaccinated people don't carry the virus and don't get sick (as they don't with eg. polio vaccine, mumps vaccine, whooping cough etc. vaccines). If we put a scale from "totally work" to "don't work at all", the vaccines would be closer to "don't work". The cigaretta analogy is bad. This is like seeing dark smoke coming from a long hallway at work, your boss closing of the hallway, saying "we have everythng under control, go back to your office" and your coworker getting arrested for saying "the burning will burn down, run outside".... and then the building burns down.