[HN Gopher] YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocki...
___________________________________________________________________
YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-
vaccine content
Author : danso
Score : 1137 points
Date : 2021-09-29 13:08 UTC (9 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.washingtonpost.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.washingtonpost.com)
| redfieldac wrote:
| Inb4 it's a private company argument. Or they are free to setup
| their own video sharing site argument.
|
| What happens when a topic you care about is censored? How would
| you feel?
|
| Are you really going to recreate your own video sharing website
| just to share your ideas?
| [deleted]
| cmckn wrote:
| I have wondered lately whether the anti-vax movement gains much
| of its power from the fact that most Americans don't have a
| primary care physician anymore. I think almost any skeptic is
| convinced once they speak with a doctor they trust, who has read
| their chart. But most folks just visit doc-in-a-box places for
| their medical needs, especially in the last 10 years. I think
| this is bad for a lot of longer-term (public) health outcomes,
| one example being vaccination rates.
| [deleted]
| blacktriangle wrote:
| Should read "Activist tech company bans doctors and scientists."
| pvm3 wrote:
| Who will check the fact checkers?
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Certainly not the people who can't read a scientific
| publication.
| amimrroboto wrote:
| It's the top scientists in the world vs Sheryl from South
| Carolina. The research and testing these professionals do will
| be good for fact checking.
| ulucs wrote:
| Aren't top scientists in Wuhan the ones who probably got us
| into this mess?
| EastOfTruth wrote:
| Monopolies like Youtube should be prevented from censoring
| content.
| GaryTang wrote:
| The only solution as I see it is to stop using YouTube.
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| With the traffic and gravity that YouTube etc have, they're
| almost as powerful news broadcasting tools as the classic news
| media.
|
| True, they're a private company and liable for some things, but
| they all try to squeeze out every last cent before a government
| intervention.
|
| Banning content like crypto, anti vax, gambling etc is
| understandable, but all the people without a voice will think
| they are silenced because they know the truth.
|
| If we as society accept that, we should not claim to be any
| better than china, Russia, Cuba, it's just a slightly different
| approach, the end result is the same, undesired content is
| deplatformed.
|
| By the way, I am a rationalist and never believe conspiracy
| theories, but I do get a good laugh out of them at times and how
| the people use counter arguments helps me to think in more
| perspectives.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| So the second-order effects of YouTube banning content, as you
| point out, are interesting and hard to predict. The question is
| should fear of second order effects prevent YouTube from taking
| action towards a desired first order effect?
|
| For some context, prior to Youtube changing the algorithm, flat
| earth videos basically created the modern flat earth movement
| [1]. It's likely that this effect can go the other way, too.
|
| I like to think that people are less drawn to conspiracy
| theories etc. when they are socially well-connected. The
| trouble about the pandemic is that there is a negative feedback
| loop: we have these socially isolating restrictions because
| there is a deadly virus, and one reason the virus remains
| unchecked is, in part because a subset of socially isolated
| people are drawn to misinformation.
|
| [1] See the documentary In Search of A Flat Earth for more
| details: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JTfhYyTuT44
| natchy wrote:
| > rationalist and never believe conspiracy theories
|
| That's irrational to NEVER believe them. How do you know what
| is or isn't a conspiracy theory? Whether it was fact checked by
| our overlords?
| yawaworht1978 wrote:
| Apologies, I should have been clearer, if something is
| ambiguous and a government acts dodgy, I don't dismiss it.
| Buy things like no planes on 911, flat earth, chakras ,
| reptile overlords, magic and so forth, I am default
| sceptical.
| q1w2 wrote:
| The issue is that a few corporations control a majority of
| global human communications, and are accountable to no one for
| their decisions of what to censor/promote.
|
| This is dangerous to democracy. If we do not subject them to
| the will of the people, they will eventually use this massive
| influence to make themselves immune to public scrutiny, and
| will one day be indistinguishable from an unelected branch of
| government.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| _Not_ regulating their own platforms is just as dangerous, as
| is being repeatedly demonstrated.
| polishdude20 wrote:
| It's interesting that a TV manyfacturer or a HDMI cable
| manufacturer is not expected to be liable for the content that
| streams through their products. But when it comes to YouTube,
| they aren't treated as just a vessel but as an actual source of
| content. I think the distinction is just the capability of each
| entity.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| When device manufacturers start preferentially favouring, or
| discriminating against, specific content, channels, or
| voices, I think you'll find they're similarly regulated. As
| televisions get "smarter", they are no longer passive
| carriers but active agents.
|
| An HDMI cable is literally a dumb pipe, and the end-user
| controls both ends, fully.
|
| (Whether or not they control what _reaches_ the feed-end of
| that pipe is of course a different question.)
| disconjointed wrote:
| one major concern i have is when things like religion get blocked
| as misinformation, or the whole fake it til you make it crowd
| gets blocked. part of growing is seeing yourself differently than
| how you previously saw yourself, what is stopping youtube in 10
| years from becoming stricter because of pressure from some new
| movement? imagine presenting your product in the most
| professional way possible and then getting flagged by you aunt
| who you never got along with saying the content is disinformation
| and you are just some try hard who can't code? or what about your
| dating profile? you decide to put your best foot forward by
| dressing nice and then you get flagged as misinformation? or
| here's one, what if the mainstream narrative is wrong? about
| something major? that most people consider the truth but its
| harming a certain minority group. if the internet existed during
| slavery times, and someone were to post a video saying black men
| and women are equal to white men and women and deserve to be
| treated equally, now you and i both know this is absurd but,
| that's because there was a lot of work done that changed the
| narrative. that work done was started by small groups and grew
| into a movement, imagine that movement today never getting off
| the ground because of it's seed content being plucked out of
| circulation due to it being "misinformation". sometimes social
| and science references are completely off, and for someone to
| question that mainstream narrative can appear to be
| misinformation for those believing a lie. don't tell me it
| doesn't happen; there are plenty of people who are gullible
| enough to hold a faulty mainstream narrative in place. look at
| all the crazy videos from last year and tell me if you think most
| people are intelligent enough to come to the right conclusions.
| no hate, it's just a reality.
| hereforphone wrote:
| Social media companies are stifling freedom of speech in America.
| Have you seen the "Who's banned from Twitter and who's not" meme
| with Donald Trump and the Taliban? Unpopular or non-conformist
| opinions are censored, and it's dangerous.
|
| "But it's private companies! They can do whatever they want!" The
| telephone companies are private. Do they have a right to kill
| your connection when you talk about unapproved subject matter?
| Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and so on are the modern de-facto
| means of communicating long distance and to wide-spread
| audiences.
|
| "But it's dangerous to let these opinions reach the ears of the
| masses." Open discourse and trusting society to (eventually) make
| the right decision, given all available information, is something
| we've done (or attempted to do) in modern democracies. This is
| important.
| j79 wrote:
| > "But it's private companies! They can do whatever they want!"
| The telephone companies are private. Do they have a right to
| kill your connection when you talk about unapproved subject
| matter? Twitter, Youtube, Facebook, and so on are the modern
| de-facto means of communicating long distance and to wide-
| spread audiences.
|
| If I started robo-calling millions of people with unapproved
| subject matter, I'd wager they'd kill my connection fairly
| quickly.
| macinjosh wrote:
| I am not convinved this is a logical metaphor. Robocalls
| directly bother every person on a list. A social media post
| goes to those who've consented (i.e. subscribed/followed) and
| other places the social media company decides they should go.
| I don't see what the two have in common.
| kats wrote:
| It's a difference between banning behavior vs. ideas.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >If I started robo-calling millions of people with unapproved
| subject matter, I'd wager they'd kill my connection fairly
| quickly.
|
| Except that they don't. Have you been called about your car
| warranty, or student loans yet today?
| kristofferR wrote:
| This is so dumb, vaccine proponents doesn't have anything to hide
| (like censoring information from vaccine opponents gives the
| impression of).
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Correct. You are free to read all the studies. YouTube isn't a
| place to learn about vaccines.
| themusicgod1 wrote:
| Can you _imagine_ if the previous generation had this
| opinion?
|
| "Television isn't the place to learn about the flaws in
| astrology, or about astronomy, the big bang, conflicting
| visions of human progress, galileo, and the like... we are
| totally fine in banning Cosmos and keeping children from
| learning any alternative to jesus christ our lord and savior"
| IgorPartola wrote:
| I can. The previous generation is largely racist, sexist,
| homophobic, and bent on going back to the good old days
| when violence anyone who wasn't a fist het white man was
| ok. They aren't heroes for being born before YouTube.
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| Would you please point me to the Clinical Trial Studies for
| coronavirus vaccines?
| IgorPartola wrote:
| https://cdn.pfizer.com/pfizercom/2020-11/C4591001_Clinical_
| P...
|
| Here is an example. Just search the web for "[name of
| vaccine] phase 3 pdf"
| CodeWriter23 wrote:
| That's not the complete study.
| mypastself wrote:
| It does play into the vaccine opponents' belief they're being
| victimized.
|
| It's also getting more and more difficult to look up their
| arguments, if only for the purpose of developing and reasoning
| about the counterarguments.
|
| Finally, it can lead to banning legitimate questions, such as
| the ones about alternative origin theories.
| lmilcin wrote:
| Moreover, whoever grabs power in future will be able to do
| the same by argumenting that this has been done before and
| their opponents said it is right back then.
| timnetworks wrote:
| What's the thing where things are either nazi bars or supplement
| pyramids? YouTube* already disallows nazi bars.
|
| Your whole host getting banned when you make your own youtube is
| the issue at hand, methinks.
| snidane wrote:
| Google: from 'Don't be evil' to 'Support the genocide' in one
| decade.
| destitude wrote:
| It would be useful for people to look up what the definition of a
| cult is and try and determine which side of the Covid vaccine
| debate that applies to.
| dougSF70 wrote:
| YouTube set to win coveted heel-dragging award 2021. Yes
| protecting free speech on anything but science and public health.
| lgleason wrote:
| This is why I prefer Rumble. Given how woke politically Google
| has become it is no longer a platform I want to support.
|
| Whenever information is censored I am naturally suspicious around
| the motivations. Censorship also gives the censored opinion more
| credibility because if that opinion was so objectively false and
| crazy it would be easy to convince people about the craziness of
| it. But when your ideas are so weak that the only way you can
| convince people you are right is to censor, ban, violently crush
| etc. the opposing view this is what you get.
|
| Even though I got the vax, given all of the authoritarian
| thinking etc. around the pro-vax stand, lockdowns etc. I often
| wonder if I made the right decision.
|
| The lockdowns, vaccines etc. have mostly been a massive over-
| reaction. As a software engineer I have benefited from them
| economically, but I still don't think the devastation from the
| cure, which was been far worse than the sickness was the right
| thing and really have never supported it.
|
| Life is risky and dangerous. Many anti-vaxers have a philosophy
| where they would rather live in a dangerous democracy instead of
| a "safe" authoritarian government. Trying to ban their ideas does
| nothing to win their hearts and minds.
|
| Also, ironically, while everyone is making a big deal about
| hospitals being at capacity etc. when there is a surge of cases,
| why is it that nobody is putting as much energy into discussing
| the spiraling cost of health care of why it is that we have a
| system with so little slack for emergencies.
| submeta wrote:
| Vaccination was developed over 200 years ago, and it saved
| millions of lives ever since. Only the most crazy people would
| dispute its effectiveness or insinuate that some sort of hidden
| powers wanted to poison humanity.
|
| Now when did this group of crazy people become so large that they
| start confusing people who don't have the intellectual capacity
| to get informed by reading serious sources.
|
| My gut feeling tells me it is not about vaccination per se. But
| that's another topic.
| mrcrypto2020 wrote:
| The challenge is to determine how misinformation is defined.
| Would peer reviewed scientific papers that come to different
| conclusions than the current CDC guidelines be considered anti-
| vaccine? Should we consider conflicts of interest or sources of
| funding when determining misinformation? Are open ended questions
| about the safety and efficacy allowed? What about other
| medications?
| jlebar wrote:
| It's ironic (or maybe not?) that the comments section here is
| filled with exactly the kind of anti-vax misinformation that
| YouTube is trying to take down.
|
| To respond to one point I keep reading in here over and over:
| Getting and recovering from covid does not necessarily give you
| better protection from disease than getting the vaccine.
|
| 1/3 of people who get covid develop no antibodies at all, as
| compared to 0% of (non-immunocompromised) people who get the
| vaccine. https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/574284-natural-
| covid-...
|
| Also, of course, if you get covid... _you got covid_ which was
| kind of the thing that we were trying to avoid. Not just for
| ourselves, but for our communities.
|
| Another point I keep reading is, we don't know the long-term
| effects of these vaccines. And, it's undeniably true that we
| don't know with the certainty of evidence what will happen in ten
| years. But:
|
| - 2.5 billion people have gotten at least one covid shot. This is
| one of the most-studied medical interventions in the history of
| medical interventions.
|
| - There is no known and plausible mechanism by which the shot
| suddenly has bad effects years down the line. Historically, any
| side effects from vaccines show up within a few weeks,
| https://www.muhealth.org/our-stories/how-do-we-know-covid-19...
|
| - We also don't know what will happen in ten years to people who
| caught long covid, and we do know that people who die from covid
| will not be alive in ten years.
|
| Stay safe, everyone.
| heartbreak wrote:
| This community thrives on contrarianism.
| im3w1l wrote:
| That's why this thread is at 2000 comments and counting. The
| censorship is no longer affecting some nebolous "other people".
| It's coming close. People can tell that they are next in line.
| That they will have to start practice serious self-censorship
| or get banned from FAANG-land, isolating them from friends,
| family and potential love interests.
| colordrops wrote:
| Ironic indeed. How about referencing scientific sources rather
| than opinion pieces from political news sites. It's less than
| 2%, not 1/3, that don't develop antibodies.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-24622-7#Sec2
|
| https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abf4063
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01442-9
| jlebar wrote:
| > How about referencing scientific sources rather than
| opinion pieces from political news sites.
|
| The dude is a MD PhD who's been on NPR, NYT, etc. He's
| literally a scientist who is a source -- a scientific source.
|
| But sure, we can talk journal articles.
|
| Where is your "less than 2%" number coming from? I see this
| in the first Nature article:
|
| > Of the 125 subjects exposed to SARS-CoV-2 according to the
| baseline ground truth definition, 101 (80.8%) participated to
| the May serosurvey. Among them, 93.5% (86 out of 92, 95% CI
| 86.3-97.6%), 84.2% (85 out of 101, 95% CI 75.5-90.7%), and
| 100% (92 out of 92, 95% CI 96.1-100%) had a positive result
| for Abbott, DiaSorin and Roche, respectively, whereas 44.9%
| (44 out of 98, 95% CI 34.8-55.3%) had a neutralising titre
| greater than 1:40 (1/dil). In November, 86 subjects (68.8%)
| were tested again, all of them except one (98.8%) tested
| positive to at least one serological assay.
|
| They're saying that 44.9% of people infected had neutralizing
| antibodies at the level they recognize, right? They re-tested
| the same people six months later, and >98% of them tested
| positive for one assay. This doesn't speak to the 98% number
| you cite above. Maybe you're looking elsewhere.
|
| I'm not going to be sealioned into going through studies if
| you can't point me to the section that supports your point.
|
| Anyway for the article's 1/3 number, he also cites a study by
| the CDC, a fact which I guess you've chosen to ignore?
| https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article
| touchpadder wrote:
| Big Pharma and Marxist Google working hand in hand.
|
| Remember Volkswagen diesel emissions scandal? The lawyer who
| exposed it, who also fought Deutsche Bank in the US now exposes
| Covid as fraud and mass murder. https://odysee.com/@Corona-
| Investigative-Committee:5/Reiner-...
| tikiman163 wrote:
| YouTube has been cracking down on anything Covid related for over
| a year. Any discussion about Covid that has gone much past saying
| stay safe or get vaccinated has been instantly demonitized and
| hidden from people's subscriptions. This is just the next obvious
| step they were obviously going to take. The thing is, this is an
| incredibly complicated topic.
|
| Legislation that could result in YouTube being held liable for
| user posted content that deseminates misinformation has been more
| than lightly discussed. The problem of misinformation is
| frequently made worse by the fact that studies have shown around
| 80% of misinformation of major topics can generally be traced
| back to fewer than a dozen unique users. It's not the same dozen
| people on every topic of discussion, but once some of the
| misinformation has gone viral it's extremely difficult to stop it
| getting shared again and again. This may seem like a matter of
| freedom of speech, but on some topics viral misinformation
| spreading can end up being deadly to thousands of real people.
|
| Consider an analogy. If a person sets up to pull a prank by
| changing the words on a billboard, with only the intention of
| just surprising some people. But 3 car crashes occur where the
| drivers blaim the billboard for being a distraction. How much
| responsibility would you say the prankster has? How much should
| the billboard owner have for failing to prevent the prankster?
|
| Now consider that instead of changing a billboard he changes the
| speed listed on a sign that cautions people not to take a blind
| turn at greater than 25 mph. Say he changes it to just be the
| same as the posted speed limit for the road and several cars spin
| out or there are minor fender benders. Then say he changes it to
| be even faster than the speed limit. How much responsibility
| should the prankster have for those accidents? How much should
| the city have for failing to prevent the prankster from being
| able to change their official signs?
|
| There are strong points for debate in all of these situations.
| How easy was it for the prankster to access the billboard and
| make changes? What else were the drivers doing that a billboard
| could cause them to crash? What was so distracting about what
| they put on the billboard?
|
| Why didn't the city post a sign that was more difficult to tamper
| with? How much effort did the prankster put into their fake? Why
| didn't local people notice the change and report it? How quickly
| did the city respond? How believable was the speed he put on the
| sign?
|
| My point isn't to ask for the answers to these specific
| questions, but to point out that there is a difference between
| circumstances that requires greater responsibility from the
| medium the prankster changed. The contents of a billboard is just
| an advertisement, speed limits and road hazard signs are more
| important. Speed limits and road hazards also have to display
| probably true information that has some degree of validation that
| relying on them is safe.
|
| This is a particularly tricky subject for YouTube because they
| are essentially a billboard, but people have started treating
| what's on it like road signs. How responsible should YouTube be
| when people use their platform to post complete nonsense that has
| the potential to get thousands or even millions killed?
| thepasswordis wrote:
| Maybe I'd be more okay with this if the vaccines weren't owned by
| multi billion dollar companies who stand to make billions of
| dollars by requiring the world to use their products.
|
| Can you imagine that for _anything_ else? You _MUST_ use the
| product of ours, and we are actually going to make it illegal for
| you not to, and ban any discussion about not using it.
| [deleted]
| disconjointed wrote:
| The drug war was a huge misinformation campaign. can we ban
| anything that says marijuana has no medical benefit since the
| science is there like actual peer-reviewed articles saying that
| most of the negative information spread about cannabis is false
| balozi wrote:
| YouTube's business model is based on the free speech rights that
| have been secured by flesh-and-blood citizens for 245 years. The
| same benefits they don't see fit to extend to those citizens.
| They are like a beverage bottling company that draws clean water
| upstream before dumping their toxic waste back into the same
| river downstream.
| newbamboo wrote:
| It worries me when far right libertarians and the authoritarian
| left agree. Nothing has meaning anymore.
| heywherelogingo wrote:
| I've already banned youtube, along with all tyrannical platforms.
| People should be more proactive.
| nathias wrote:
| People give them absolute control and then wonder why they would
| use it. Stop watching youtube, there are numerous viable p2p
| alternatives.
| ellyagg wrote:
| I wish I could find the post now, but a few months ago on
| /r/science, research showed that people who didn't believe in
| global warming were more likely to change their minds when
| presented with balanced evidence for and against.
|
| YouTube has no idea how damaging this is to the cause.
|
| Folks who think that policy is a war do not understand people
| very well or are more interested in grandstanding and point
| scoring than changing minds. Viewing those who disagree with you
| as villains or children makes life harder for everyone.
| bena wrote:
| I found these by searching for "climate change" on /r/science.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/jseycg/conservativ...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/hnlstq/republicans...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/cm0t6c/republicans...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/f9wl7g/individuals...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/km0fzc/a_series_of...
|
| The last looks to be the closest to what you are talking about.
| But even then, it's not talking about "balanced evidence" in
| the way you seem to present. Because some people seem to think
| that to balance the evidence, it's one piece from here, one
| piece from there, giving them equal consideration.
|
| But it's not, it's considering the evidence without
| consideration to the other side. We don't give the idea that
| the moon is made of green cheese the same weight as the idea
| that it's a big rock. Because the green cheese idea is just
| stupid. It does not deserve consideration.
|
| And you also have the caveat that it's self-reporting and/or
| questionnaire driven. I can take someone who doesn't believe in
| global warming, show them how greenhouse gases cause warming,
| get them to verbally agree that that's what happening, get them
| to even agree that the same could apply to the whole world, but
| then they'll still not believe in global warming. Because
| they'll have a reason as to why the example doesn't apply. But
| if I never ask the final question, never ask if I actually
| changed their mind, I can present the results as if I've
| converted them.
| jrootabega wrote:
| /r/science has nothing to do with science and everything to do
| with whatever reddit's front page userbase needs to believe/
| has been convinced to believe with ad dollars that month. It's
| a religion. Look at its usual submitters to see that it's a
| priesthood with its cult, not an open community. I say this as
| a non-vaccine-opponent (how ridiculous of a term is that?)
| Name-dropping it means nothing.
| cblconfederate wrote:
| i m more concerned about other services copying youtube and
| going very hard on any kind of covid evidence-seeking, e.g. the
| r/covid19 subreddit where scientific evidence is usually
| discussed
| [deleted]
| WmyEE0UsWAwC2i wrote:
| One of The Osterholm update's video (a podcast) was censored for
| spreading "misinformation".
|
| I hope they can survive this.
| pbourke wrote:
| For context, Michael Osterholm runs the Center for Infectious
| Disease Reasearch and Policy at the University of Minnesota and
| was a member of Biden's COVID advisory board during the
| presidential transition.
| woodpanel wrote:
| Don't be evil, eh?
| haunter wrote:
| I wonder when they start banning people who don't want a not-
| compatible with the EU vaccine passport jab (for example Sputnik
| and Sinopharm)
| cryptica wrote:
| Time to switch to https://odysee.com/ - It's been growing very
| fast. You can buy LBRY tokens to align your incentives on the
| financial side: https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/library-
| credits/
|
| You can profit from doing the right thing and taking a stance
| against censorship.
| rackjack wrote:
| I support the vaccine, but this feels like a dangerous play.
| hackerNoose wrote:
| People don't get vaccinated because of the evidence but because
| they chose to believe in some authority. Heavy handed censors (or
| fact checkers in newspeak) and other coercive tactics lead people
| to distrust these authorities even more.
| holdupnow wrote:
| Fuckin Nazis
| rc_mob wrote:
| anti vaccine people are indeed close to as evil as nazis
| bxrxdx wrote:
| good
| owlbynight wrote:
| Good. They're dangerous morons.
| tut-urut-utut wrote:
| You are a dangerous moron, you Nazi.
|
| If you lived in middle age, you would be burning witches, in
| Nazi Germany killing Jews, but in present time all you can do
| is calling people morons.
|
| NB: @dang, please remove both my and parent comment. I wrote
| this one just so that parent can "feel" how it looks to be on
| the opposite side of hate speech and internet insults.
| AgentME wrote:
| The difference is it's possible to believe that people
| spreading antivax misinformation are dangerous morons for
| objective reasons rather than just because it's a popular
| position.
| macinjosh wrote:
| Amazing YouTube! Finally, some good news!
|
| I am really pumped for what this means for alternative platforms
| like rumble and odysee. This is the boost the independent web
| needs! YouTube was way too centralized.
|
| The network is healing!
| dan_m2k wrote:
| Fucking good.
| cbtacy wrote:
| Reading the comments here is freaking terrifying to me. This is
| supposedly an educated and scientifically oriented subset of the
| human race and the levels of ignorance, dishonesty, and flat out
| lying going on here make me very, very sad. SMH.
| [deleted]
| issa wrote:
| I am American, but I believe the American view of "we must allow
| everything so that important things aren't censored" is wrong. I
| believe it is possible to avoid the slippery slope and just ban
| certain things. For example, Nazi images are banned in Germany.
| In a sense, banning anti-vaccine propaganda is an even more
| important issue.
| sneak wrote:
| Video games with "too much" blood or gore are also banned in
| Germany, limiting artistic expression.
|
| The "censorship in Germany is fine because it's just nazi
| stuff" argument doesn't hold water. They are currently
| progressing down the slippery slope.
|
| Already you're saying it should be nazi stuff + vaccine
| propaganda. Next year it will be a third thing that is an
| important pet issue for you or an interest group.
|
| Civilized adults don't tell other adults what they are allowed
| to read.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >YouTube is banning anti-forced Sars COVID2 mRNA drug activists
| and blocking all anti-forced Sars COVID2 mRNA drug content
|
| FTFWaPo
|
| I'm not an anti-vaxxer. I'm happy to have my measles, mumps,
| rubella, and other vaccines. I'm looking forward to getting the
| new HPV vaccine (gardasil) now that they've started recommending
| it for adults and you can actually get your doctor to give it to
| you (a couple years ago they would refuse if you asked and said
| you'd pay for 100% of it).
|
| Resisting this latest moneygrab by big pharma and power grab by
| authoritarians is not "anti-vaccine".
|
| That's _incredibly_ disingenuous. Because this drug is
| fundamentally different from what a vaccine is.
|
| If the authoritarians and their followers pushing this can't even
| admit that it so radically different from a vaccine as to be
| outright lying to call it one, how can we even talk about it?
| oblio wrote:
| > That's incredibly disingenuous. Because this drug is
| fundamentally different from what a vaccine is.
|
| What is a vaccine in your eyes? Because the definition
| (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vaccine) is:
|
| > a preparation that is administered (as by injection) to
| stimulate the body's immune response against a specific
| infectious agent or disease
|
| It's something that's injected to stimulate the body's immune
| response.
|
| It doesn't to be through using a weakened version of the virus
| as we've been doing so far. That's just the mechanism we had.
|
| A diesel powered train is still a train, even if the original
| trains were steam powered.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| What is a vaccine in your eyes?>
|
| The same as it's always been:
|
| >a preparation of killed microorganisms, living attenuated
| organisms, or living fully virulent organisms that is
| administered to produce or artificially increase immunity to
| a particular disease
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20190123105554/https://www.merri.
| ..
|
| Same page. But from before they redefined it to include the
| new drug from big pharma.
| oblio wrote:
| > A diesel powered train is still a train, even if the
| original trains were steam powered.
|
| The new vaccine does the same job as the previous ones.
|
| Your argument is something like:
|
| "We were using a crude method to teach the immune system.
| We found a better, more precise method. This new method is
| new therefore it must be bad."
|
| Using another analogy, it's like complaining that CDs are
| bad and that they're not actually disks, because you know,
| the original disks were using a mechanical principle to
| work while CDs use optical principles.
|
| Definitions change, technology changes.
|
| And "Big pharma" is the one also making the aspirin you
| most likely trust. Aspirin, paracetamol, heart drugs, etc.
| 8note wrote:
| The _fundamentals_ are the same. It 's something with the
| relevant spike protein that your immune system can identify,
| but without actually being the virus that causes the disease
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| They're a private company and can do whatever they want. However,
| one only needs to see the trending page in any country to see the
| kind of crap YouTube promotes and profits from. So, please spare
| me of the corporate propaganda for YouTube's rationale of this
| decision.
| woodpanel wrote:
| > _" They're a private company and can do whatever they want."_
|
| Flies in the face of jurisprudence accross industrialized
| nations, as many courts again and again ruled that a platform
| cannot "do whatever they wan't" if they dominate the market and
| thus effectively are a public space of opinion.
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| No, they _can_ do what they want -- but you 're right,
| they'll have to face the consequences.
| mabbo wrote:
| YouTube is a private company, not a public service. Anti-vax is
| not a protected class of people, and so there is no law that says
| YouTube cannot discriminate against them.
|
| As a company, they've decided to take this path. They don't have
| to justify it.
|
| If that makes you angry, boycott them. Don't conduct business
| with them, which includes watching their content and ads.
|
| And if you think that YouTube is large enough and a big enough
| monopoly that it should be treated as a public service and
| subject to the rules that apply to public services, then either
| nationalize it so that it is, or break it up so that there's
| competition in the market.
| prohobo wrote:
| You're right; but I just want to point out that most people
| arguing against these actions hold this principle despite their
| visceral reaction.
|
| Two things can be true: YouTube (and Google) have way too much
| power and are destructive to democracy, AND they have the right
| to be that way.
|
| The point is that people believe they shouldn't have that
| right.
| detcader wrote:
| A private company shouldn't get to pick and choose what
| opinions are valid. YouTube is not an arbiter of truth, and
| there is no universal law that says YouTube's moderators will
| always be correct. As a massive corporation, when they decide
| to take the path of banning critics of Google, pro-Palestinian
| activists, feminists and so on, the other companies will follow
| suit. They don't have to justify it, because almost no-one will
| care.
|
| If that makes _you_ angry, go convince people that vaccines are
| safe and effective. _You_ use the internet to out-argue anti-
| vaxxers, which should be easy because they 're so wrong and
| ideological.
|
| And if _you_ think that YouTube is large enough and a big
| enough monopoly that it should be treated as a public service
| and subject to the rules that apply to public services, then
| either nationalize it so that it is, or break it up so that
| there 's competition in the market.
| mabbo wrote:
| > A private company shouldn't get to pick and choose what
| opinions are valid
|
| They aren't. Their not deciding universal truths. They're
| deciding what content they want to host on their platform,
| which they operate and pay for. You have no control, nor any
| say, in what content that is. Go make your own.
|
| And I'd gladly vote in favor of a break up of all the big
| tech firms.
| adamrezich wrote:
| they literally decide truth and state their decided truth
| in UI boxes next to the video title, for certain classes of
| videos. this does not just apply to medical information.
|
| (edit) my account is rate-limited for some reason even
| though I'm not engaging in any sort of flamewar behavior or
| anything, so I have to ask here instead: what's incorrect
| about this analysis?
| beebmam wrote:
| Should the government be able to force a private company
| to host content that they don't want to host?
| datenarsch wrote:
| > Should the government be able to force a private
| company to host content that they don't want to host?
|
| If that company is so big and powerful that it's becoming
| an active threat to the democratic process, yes why not?
| Better yet, break it up and/or nationalize these
| companies. They are the biggest threat to democracy in
| modern times.
| detcader wrote:
| Why shouldn't a government be able to decide what content
| it wants to host in its nation? Not a facetious question, I
| am curious to understand your reasoning (assuming you
| agree)
| [deleted]
| ddingus wrote:
| This won't end well. Suppression drives people to seek it more
| --and where they find it, they will have stronger investments in
| the ideas and it all will be harder to discuss to a rational
| conclusion.
| adamrezich wrote:
| does anyone else think that this is sort of the intended goal?
| not necessarily by YouTube in this case specifically but in a
| sort of meta sense, for many things such as this, in the past
| decade or so. it's almost as though those in power benefit when
| those who aren't in power are divided along ever more axes,
| axes which didn't exist only a few short years ago, but whose
| division is more significant than anything we've seen in many
| years.
|
| for example, I'm reminded of how contemporary identity politics
| seemed to sprout up out of nowhere _conveniently_ around the
| same time as the #occupy movement(s). since then, I haven 't
| been able to shake the feeling that the powerful people in the
| world are maintaining power by dividing the populace.
| ddingus wrote:
| I can't speak to intent, but I do recognize divided populace
| as being ineffective in the body politic.
| rafaelturk wrote:
| As much I condemn anti-vaxxers: "I disagree with what you say,
| but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
| user-the-name wrote:
| This is not about "disagreeing with what you say". This is
| about people _literally dying_. Not just the people spreading
| the information either, innocent bystanders that get killed by
| the disease.
| the_snooze wrote:
| They still have every right to say what they want. YouTube also
| has the right not to aid them.
|
| This is the information version of "You don't have to go home,
| but you can't stay here."
| kansface wrote:
| As if Youtube is any ordinary company. Some day in the
| future, with little doubt, the censorship shoe will be on the
| other foot.
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| YouTube of course has the right not to aid them. But we also
| have the right to point out that YouTube is making a mistake
| by doing this.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| So this is your opportunity! Go make VaxxTube. The mistake
| they are making, if you are to be believed, is that they
| are leaving money on the table. Go pick it up.
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| I am not talking about monetary mistakes, I also don't
| think they are making these changes and restrictions in
| order to increase profits.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| So what kind of mistake is it?
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| Imagine the government decided that you go to prison for
| speaking against vaccines. That would be a mistake. This
| is the same kind of mistake, but on a smaller scale.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Imagine a straw man argument that has nothing to do with
| the current situation.
|
| Better yet, imagine if the government told you that you
| must post a sign in your front yard that says "vaccines
| are good" or "vaccines are bad". That's a much more
| relevant analogy here.
|
| Your right to not be prosecuted by the government for
| what you say is protected by the first amendment.
| YouTube's right is similarly protected: they can say or
| not say what they want on their website without criminal
| consequences. So which is it, do you want the government
| to curtail YT's free speech or not?
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| I am for liberty. I don't like when governments censor
| their citizens and I don't like when corporations censor
| their users or customers. There is no contradiction. The
| fact that google and co can censor others is just thanks
| to the government being liberal and allowing action that
| goes against this value. This is similar to the paradox
| of tolerance except for liberty: "do we allow free
| expression for those who use it to restrict others?". And
| I say we do, but I don't pretend to be happy when they
| do.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The contradiction is that you are saying the government
| can censor Google, just not you. So in other words you
| want to give the government the ability to tell Google
| "put this on your home page" for any value of "this".
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| where did I say the government can censor google?
| evgen wrote:
| Looks to me like they still have the right to say it, YouTube
| is just opting out of being their distribution system.
| root_axis wrote:
| They can say it, just not on YouTube.
| [deleted]
| hef19898 wrote:
| "Your freedom to swing your fist stops where my nose begins".
| This anti-vaxx BS is already posing, or at least aggrevating, a
| serious public health issue. If it was just for the anti-
| vaxxers, I wouldn't care. It is affecting their children and
| people that simply cannot get the vaccine. At which point their
| freedom of reach (not necessarily expression, as far as I know
| their demonstrations are allowed) has to take the backseat when
| it comes to other people's health.
| KorematsuFredt wrote:
| I wish Google had not done this sort of thing.
|
| I am not an anti-vaxxer but I think we should not silence those
| who question vaccines, their studies and their effectiveness. By
| banning vaccine criticism in public domain we essentially ensure
| that only FDA is responsible for calling a vaccine fake, once
| they approve we all have to fall in line and not be skeptical
| about them. This gives too much power to FDA (hence a higher
| possibility of corruption) and a free pass to pharma companies
| who might push more and more ineffective vaccines with the help
| of their friends in FDA and CDC.
|
| Google is pretty good at content recommendation and I am sure if
| they want they can solve this problem much better by identifying
| diversity in the vaccine criticism and accordingly give it
| exposure.
| 8note wrote:
| I think the problem highlighted is that they're actually bad at
| recommendations beyond popularity.
| themusicgod1 wrote:
| Who's next? People who are pro-vax, fully vaccinated, but
| skeptical of proprietary software (ie
| https://shitposter.club/notice/ABq6GiHXERyKEqCCqO or
| https://stallman.org/archives/2020-nov-feb.html#16_February_...
| )?
| mlang23 wrote:
| Another reason to _NOT_ by YouTube Premium, and leave my spare
| phone on autoplay when going out, so that youtube ad customers
| get to pay for supporting the biggest scam operation ever. 80% of
| the ads I get would never pass a sanity-check in my home country,
| such ads are simply illegal on our TV. But hey, the american is
| spreading scam ads, so lets just accept that.
| sampo wrote:
| This is worrying. I still remember, in March 2020 believing that
| face masks work was still the contrarian opinion. Large Western
| countries such as USA, Germany, changed their official position
| in April. WHO changed their position in June. My country
| (Finland) only in the end of August. If contrarian voices had
| been efficiently suppressed, would the medical mainstream have
| changed their position at all?
| bagacrap wrote:
| Are you suggesting YouTube helped reverse the position on
| masks?
|
| The anti-mask recommendation was a decision made by the
| political mainstream, not medical. It wasn't a poll of doctors
| or scientists that determined whether we thought masks worked.
| And in the end, at least in the US, I don't think the official
| position switched because of contrarian voices. It switched
| because supply caught up with demand.
| helen___keller wrote:
| IMO, go further. Remove all medical recommendation and assertions
| from YouTube. Leave YouTube for entertainment, and have other
| platforms - perhaps ones better regulated and better managed -
| for medical discussions in a scientific context.
|
| There's inherent difficulty in trying to judge between wackos and
| pros, because wackos do their best to masquerade as pros. This is
| basically a turing complete issue, because there's always people
| straddling the line between wacko and pro. YouTube has mostly
| avoided the difficulty with this issue until now by avoiding
| moderation entirely (aside from certain categories that suffer
| from the same problems, like copyright claims), so the issue with
| most of YouTube is that you can jump from pro to extreme wacko
| and not realize it as a non-professional yourself. Meanwhile, all
| content creators, wacko and pro, are given the same platform to
| promote their claims - one that incentivizes eyeballs, clicks,
| and engagement, not one that incentivizes accuracy or merit (or
| one that allows discussion in a context independent of
| monetization and ranking, which are known to poison good faith
| discussion).
|
| Similarly but unrelated, let's also ban drug ads on cable TV.
| These are much like buying a social media influencer to push your
| medical claims. It's disgusting.
| detcader wrote:
| Hope nobody against abortion is at the wheel in this scenario.
|
| Censorship is a shortcut to avoid doing the real work of de-
| radicalizing people and convincing the undecided. It's not even
| a working shortcut.
|
| For every issue liberals focus on, there has grown a loud
| minority who want to normalize Big Tech using their power to
| ban opponents because they don't see how it will always
| backfire, and/or they're bullies who crave power over other
| people.
| helen___keller wrote:
| Not sure how this relates to my comment, sorry.
| detcader wrote:
| > Remove all medical recommendation and assertions from
| YouTube
|
| Should videos with content like "abortion is a human right
| and here's where you can access it" be removed? Do you
| trust Google to decide in your favor every time and for all
| time?
| crooked-v wrote:
| > Similarly but unrelated, let's also ban drug ads on cable TV.
|
| I'm reminded of seeing anecdotes about British and Australian
| people watching US TV streams and them finding the prevalence
| of drug ads really bizarre.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| That would be another sensible approach. Or Youtube would need
| to employ doctors that judge on a case by case basis and
| articulate their decisions. Anything else is a bad solution in
| my opinion and this current position warrants a lot of pushback
| in my opinion.
| LocalH wrote:
| Taken to its logical end, that would also prevent many very
| useful channels from existing. What about all the people who
| live with a mental illness and also have a Youtube channel
| documenting that experience? Should that be prohibited too? For
| which disorders? If you remove all ADHD-related individual
| content from YouTube, you're harming the platform and a crapton
| of people who have bettered their lives with the aid of such
| videos.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| It could be a slippery slope. Still I wonder if such a ban
| could also have positive effects by fostering smaller, more
| collaborative communities too.
|
| As it is YouTube is becoming a (mostly unidirectional) public
| commons that is captured by a single profit-seeking
| corporation.
| helen___keller wrote:
| You're alluding back to the moderation problem. I claimed
| that discerning between pros and wackos is turing complete,
| and you have indeed shown that discerning between ANY kind of
| allowable content A and disallowed content B is also turing
| complete - you can get arbitrarily close to the line between
| A and B, so any algorithm (or human guidelines) is
| necessarily going to have issues on some edge cases.
|
| I agree, you're absolutely right. Still, I claim it should be
| done, and maybe the content you listed should also be
| disallowed.
|
| I'm not saying these videos and discussions shouldn't exist,
| I'm suggesting that perhaps it's time we dispelled the idea
| of a global Town Square - one platform for all content. It's
| a recipe for disaster. We've seen what can happen and what
| will continue to happen. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube - how
| many times do we have to watch a global town square devolve
| into shit flinging, disinformation, and hate?
|
| Let's stop pretending that there can be a global free speech
| forum and that we can have some fair minimum ruleset to
| moderate all content on that forum.
|
| We should opt for the opposite - a spectrum of platforms that
| appeal to different interests and are regulated in proportion
| to the severity of incorrect or bad-faith information in that
| interest.
|
| The entertainment that dominates Youtube is minimally severe
| if incorrect or bad faith, so YouTube would have minimal
| regulation.
|
| Content on personal health and experiences could go into
| HealthTube, where moderation exists to prevent making strong
| medical claims or pushing bullshit (the "pay an influencer to
| say that ElaMexaTrin cured my covid" problem), but people are
| otherwise allowed to post what they want about their personal
| experiences.
|
| Content with strong scientific claims on health would go into
| MedicalTube, which is regulated and heavily moderated to
| prevent commercial interests and disinformation.
|
| Really, if YouTube was forward thinking, all of these could
| be different subsets of the same platform. But instead we
| have one platform with the same erratic hand of moderation
| slapping things down left and right based on whatever
| changing ruleset seems convenient today.
| swader999 wrote:
| You can't expect people to be informed and able to vote
| without access to information, including dissenting views.
|
| The quacks do need to be out in the open facing ridicule. I
| think it gets worse if they are pushed to a telegram
| channel where they have no opposition.
| bena wrote:
| I don't expect people to be informed. Because they're
| not. Even now.
|
| I find it hilarious that people think they are informed
| on all the topics they consider themselves informed on.
| There is simply way too much information out there to be
| well-informed on all of it.
|
| I can't be an infectious disease expert. I can't even be
| reasonably informed on all the stuff that goes on
| surrounding it. I need a sieve. I need filters. I need
| vetters. I need vouching. I need those who are informed
| on a topic to do all the legwork and present the results.
| And that's not you or other randos on the internet.
|
| And that's what we've actually lost. We've lost all the
| filters and firewalls that stopped the majority of
| misinformation. With everyone having a global megaphone
| to broadcast their every thought, it's become harder to
| discern between those who are informed on a topic and
| those who aren't.
|
| The world's signal to noise ratio is weighted too heavily
| towards noise.
| risk000 wrote:
| I think you're kicking the can of personal responsibility
| down, or in this case up, the road.
|
| There are groupmind tendencies and competing groupthinks,
| as well as industrial corruption, in all of our
| scientific enterprises that I'm aware of. For me this is
| a serious issue, since I saw first-hand how pusillanimous
| scientists can become when their livelihoods or grants
| are endangered.
|
| There is a war on for our minds. I think we each have to
| decide who we trust and don't trust. For many of us there
| is also a crisis of trust in our scientific institutions
| now.
| swader999 wrote:
| "I need filters. I need vetters. I need vouching. I need
| those who are informed on a topic to do all the legwork
| and present the results."
|
| How can you rely on this approach when some of them or
| some of their sources are censored?
| bena wrote:
| You realize we have more access to more raw information
| than we have at any point in the past.
|
| Even 20 years ago, we just did not have the scope of
| information that we do now. Those sources you fear are
| getting censored, we'd never even know they exist before.
| It just wouldn't reach us.
|
| Domain experts would hash out the wheat from the chaff.
| The plausible from the bunk.
|
| Now people are getting their information from Joe Fucking
| Rogan of all people.
| AlexAndScripts wrote:
| I think this is a situation of "the perfect is the enemy
| of the good", or in this case, the better. Nobody is
| saying that would be a perfect system, just that it would
| be a hell of a lot better.
| bena wrote:
| I'm sorry, I'm not quite sure I understand your point.
|
| Are you saying that using our own limited understanding
| of the vast array of domains to process the impossible
| amount of information out there is a better system than
| deferring to various domain experts?
|
| Because, just no. That would not be better. It would be
| worse. It _is_ worse.
|
| And I'm not saying deferring to domain experts is
| perfect. It is not. But it's better than expecting
| everyone to become domain experts in everything.
| willhinsa wrote:
| You can't be an infectious disease expert, yet many, many
| people called the coronavirus pandemic in January 2020
| when the WHO was saying "the stigma is worse than the
| virus". The powers that be have lost their credibility
| completely through this debacle, and it's ridiculous (but
| expected) that their response to this is to shut down
| avenues for dissent. Despicable.
| LocalH wrote:
| >We should opt for the opposite - a spectrum of platforms
| that appeal to different interests and are regulated in
| proportion to the severity of incorrect or bad-faith
| information in that interest.
|
| I fully agree. Even though the debate around centralization
| is a separate debate, it's not at all orthogonal. I still
| feel that federation is the way. Open standards and
| platforms that anyone with the capital can spin up on their
| own boxes.
| winternett wrote:
| >Similarly but unrelated, let's also ban drug ads on cable TV.
|
| Amen to that statement... Is there any more obvious cue that
| news is all a profit machine than a half hour repeating
| commercials about reverse mortgages and anti-depressants that
| cause diarrhea?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Not a bad idea, although I'd start with a ban on medical -
| pharmaceutical advertising on Youtube. Most countries don't
| allow marketing of any kind of prescription drug (not sure
| about over-the-counter though), based on the very common-sense
| notion that only trained doctors (with no backdoor kickback
| deals with pharmaceutical outfits) should be advising patients
| on appropriate medicines for their condition.
| helen___keller wrote:
| I agree strongly, but my point is that in modern social
| forums the only difference between advertising and content is
| who is getting paid. I can promote my drug through
| traditional advertising, or I can promote my drug by
| sponsoring channels, or I can promote my drug by hiring a
| "viral marketing" firm to try and spread rumors about how my
| drug is so much more effective than the competition but being
| held back by an evil shadowy cabal of big pharma.
| Marsymars wrote:
| I don't think regulators are powerless to deal with that
| tactic.
|
| If that tactic was adopted by tobacco companies to market
| cigarettes to children, would regulators just collectively
| shrug their shoulders?
| occamrazor wrote:
| Juul did market to teens through "influencers".
| Program_Install wrote:
| It's a start.
| karlkloss wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| paws wrote:
| Anybody know of examples/precedent where an entity covered by
| Section 230 lost that protection?
| Heyso wrote:
| Remember Wuhan lab outbreak ? It took 9 months for mainstream
| media to present it as plausible (France). Before that, it was
| called a "conspiracy theory", synonym to a fable. What did you
| think happened to people speaking about it on twitter, facebook
| or youtube before mainstream media greenlighted this theory ?
| malkia wrote:
| Good!
| only_as_i_fall wrote:
| It'd be cool if this would decrease the number of antivaxxers,
| but actually it probably won't and Google really shouldn't be
| able to do this anyway.
|
| Perhaps if YouTube didn't have almost total market dominance it
| would be less problematic.
| josh_today wrote:
| " YouTube will ban any videos that claim that commonly used
| vaccines approved by health authorities are ineffective"
|
| So speaking _truth_ can get me banned from YouTube?
|
| * Infections happen in only a small proportion of people who are
| fully vaccinated, even with the Delta variant. When these
| infections occur among vaccinated people, they tend to be mild.
|
| * If you are fully vaccinated and become infected with the Delta
| variant, you can spread the virus to others.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/fully-vac....
| hef19898 wrote:
| Pretty sure these two statements _alone_ won 't get you banned.
| williamdclt wrote:
| What's your point? "Infections happen in only a small
| proportion of people who are fully vaccinated, even with the
| Delta variant" does suggest the vaccine is effective. You _can_
| still spread the virus, nobody 's pretending it's 100%
| effective, but that doesn't make it ineffective
| Uberphallus wrote:
| It's an antivaxxer classic, for them _effective_ means _100%
| effective under all conditions_ , otherwise it's ineffective.
|
| It's called fallacy of composition[0] when they cherry pick
| the cases where it's less effective to infer it's not
| effective as a whole, and fallacy of division[1] when trying
| to do _reductio ad absurdum_ by claiming that, if it 's
| effective as a whole, it should also be so under all
| underlying metrics.
|
| Two sides of the same nonsense coin.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_composition
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallacy_of_division
| josh_today wrote:
| I hate politicizing this to _my side vs their side_
|
| The fact is that the efficiency of the vaccine is being
| understood as we go. We started with the initial dose and
| are now considering second and third boosters _because the
| efficiency diminished faster than expected_
|
| That's beside the point of the WaPo article. YouTube is
| making the decision to remove any content that goes against
| vaccines, based in truth or not.
| Uberphallus wrote:
| We started with 2 doses. Nobody talked about second or
| third boosters, because only a first booster has been
| recommended for those most at risk.
|
| Is this the kind of information you're worried will be
| deleted, that is, gross misunderstandings of reality in
| the best case, outright lies to generate engagement in
| the worst?
| fallingknife wrote:
| A reasonable definition of effectiveness would be that it
| stops the virus from spreading through a population. Even
| in the case of Israel with the highest vaccination rate in
| the world, it has failed this test. I personally would say
| that it is effective because it has prevented a lot of
| deaths. But a reasonable person could disagree.
| Uberphallus wrote:
| > it stops the virus from spreading
|
| "It doesn't fully stop spread, so it doesn't work as a
| whole". Thanks for giving another example for my comment.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Most vaccines do fully stop the spread, even for measles,
| which is one of the most transmissible viruses known. So
| it's a reasonable standard.
| Uberphallus wrote:
| > Most vaccines do fully stop the spread, even for
| measles,
|
| No, they don't. [0][1]
|
| From [1]
|
| > Two doses of MMR vaccine are about 97% effective at
| preventing measles; one dose is about 93% effective.
|
| Obviously those 3% and 7% do spread, even though the
| symptoms are milder. For the 97 and 93% ones there's
| indeed very limited (if any) shedding [3].
|
| Now that's holding different bars, because asymptomatic
| measles infections are less contagious _by themselves_ ,
| regardless of vaccination status, unlike COVID-19 which
| is still relatively contagious while asymptomatic. So
| you're attributing a positive point of measles infections
| as a fault of the COVID-19 vaccines, which is, as you
| might see, a pretty misinformed take.
|
| Also, sterilizing immunity as you seem to understand
| doesn't really exist, in case that's the misconception
| you have [2]. In the end it's all about viral load, route
| of exposure, and level and type of immunity. A mucosal
| vaccine would behave more in the way your expecting
| intramuscular ones to work[4].
|
| [0] https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/67/9/1315/503409
| 4?login...
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/measles/vaccination.html
|
| [2] https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/s
| teriliz...
|
| [3] https://academic.oup.com/jid/article/189/Supplement_1
| /S165/8...
|
| [4] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-021-00583-2
| nanis wrote:
| Imagine, for a moment, a world in which 1 out of 15,000 fully
| vaccinated against measles are getting hospitalized from
| measles and an additional 1 out of 50,000 fully vaccinated
| against measles are dying from measles. And these numbers are
| increasing.
|
| That is the case for the COVID19 vaccines. Visualization
| here[1]. The domain might be banned, but the code, snapshots,
| and the chart output here[2].
|
| [1]: https://www.covid2020.icu/vaccine-breakthrough/
|
| [2]: https://github.com/nanis/covid19-breakthrough
| Uberphallus wrote:
| The rates are increasing because the cases/deaths are
| increasing as of the latest reported date you have. Now
| it's starting to decrease so your graph will show a
| decrease once you update it with the latest week data.
|
| At least compare with a previous wave to see if there's a
| change according to vaccination rates (spoiler: there is),
| because as it is it's a worthless, albeit pretty,
| representation of data.
| nanis wrote:
| It is hard to make the comparisons I would like to make
| mostly because of the piss poor way the data are
| disseminated (or not disseminated).
|
| For example, the CDC overwrites the previous information
| with every week's update. That is why the repo exists. To
| preserve any time series information in one place with a
| verifiable way to extract it out of ever-changing HTML
| pages and put it in a table.
|
| In theory, the CDC ought to be able to put the relevant
| information in a table. At a minimum, we'd need `date`,
| `locality`, age distributions of fully, partially, and
| never vaccinated populations, age distribution of people
| who are hospitalized due to COVID19, and age distribution
| of people who died from COVID19.
|
| Ideally, we'd have a data set consisting of one row per
| hospitalization/death with relevant dimensions such as
| age, sex, first shot date, second shot date, type of
| vaccine, locality, other conditions etc.
|
| But, we do not. Because the bureaucracy has not deemed it
| appropriate to collect or share that information.
|
| Instead, we need to rely on free form HTML pages where
| the provenance of the data are not clear.
|
| What I have done is made visible one bit of information
| that would otherwise not be available: The normalized
| rate of fully vaccinated people being hospitalized or
| dying from the disease against which they are fully
| vaccinated has been steadily increasing over time.
|
| The main reason is that the vaccines are not as effective
| as the 95% number that has been flouted time and again.
| Of course, it takes time for a person to be exposed,
| diagnosed, hospitalized, and maybe die, so the revelation
| has been happening over time instead of instantaneously.
|
| > because as it is it's a worthless, albeit pretty,
| representation of data.
|
| If I hadn't taken the snapshots and extracted the
| information from those pages, there would be no time
| series of breakthrough hospitalization and death rates
| anywhere. It seems to me it is worth something to save
| that information.
|
| Plus, Biden told us the rate of hospitalization from
| COVID19 among the fully vaccinated was 1/160,000. The
| real number is 10 times that[1]. Isn't it worth something
| to know this?
|
| [1]:
| https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E-4NQBFWEAMzATQ?format=png
| notdang wrote:
| Can the same thing what you've written be said on youtube
| without being banned?
| judofyr wrote:
| These statements don't claim that the vaccine is "ineffective".
| "effective" does not mean 100% perfect.
| josephcsible wrote:
| I think "effective" there is being used to mean "effective
| enough that once you're vaccinated, you don't need to take
| any other precautions against that disease in particular in
| everyday life".
| JshWright wrote:
| Is there a typo in your comment? Claiming that the vaccines are
| "ineffective" is not "truth". As you point out, infections
| happen in only a small portion of the fully vaccinated
| population. That is, by definition, "effective".
| [deleted]
| mach1ne wrote:
| >* Infections happen in only a small proportion of people who
| are fully vaccinated, even with the Delta variant. When these
| infections occur among vaccinated people, they tend to be mild.
|
| And this is the actual misinformation. Recent study done in the
| UK with 100k subjects randomly sampled from the population
| found that two vaccines only reduce the amount of infections by
| about 55%: https://www.reuters.com/world/uk/english-study-
| finds-50-60-r...
| FirstLvR wrote:
| The problem witch vaccines is that makes YOU more resistant to
| the virus, while other people around can still be infected
|
| So as long as people are not getting vaccinated everyone should
| keep using masks and keep social distance. Following that idea
| anti vax movements are more dangerous than we initially think.
| burlesona wrote:
| I think a better solution would be to ban algorithmic media
| distribution. Let people post whatever they want on YouTube. If
| there wasn't a toxic engagement algorithm radicalizing people
| this wouldn't be a problem. That would kill the social media
| business model, which is an added bonus IMO.
| clever-leap wrote:
| YouTube and Google just joined the most brutal regimes on Earth
| in suppressing different opinions than what is government given
| propaganda. I am from former communist Czechoslovakia, never
| believed that again in my life I will have to challenge news and
| meet with censorship on such a big scale.
| User23 wrote:
| Why does Africa have the lowest vaccination rate and the lowest
| death rate?[1]
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33075535/
| disconjointed wrote:
| also one thing to add, what if this is a gateway to censorship in
| order to hide information about certain elites legally? i am not
| advocating pizzagate conspiracy but this could be a way of
| silencing journalists doing their job and getting the news out
| oon one of the most powerful media distribution sites, people can
| build another site but when it comes to social change you want
| high impact.
| afavour wrote:
| Time for repeat showing of the free speech debate we've already
| had a dozen times, whoopee!
|
| As ever, IMO, the problem isn't the hosting or the banning, it's
| the algorithms. I don't care whether YouTube hosts anti-vaccine
| activists, I care that they actively promote anti-vaccine content
| to users simply because it's proven to get clicks and earn them
| money. Bans like this look incredibly stupid when you realise
| YouTube itself is responsible for this disinformation getting so
| much traction.
| swayvil wrote:
| It isn't the guy with the gun. It's actually the bullets that
| are to blame.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| Ha. I think part of this struggle, to borrow your analogy, is
| that YouTube and Facebook are organizationally blind to the
| fact that they built a gun.
|
| Or maybe Google is concerned. And Facebook just doesn't care.
|
| But the root cause is "algorithms for increasing engagement
| will prefer shock content." Solve that, and they wouldn't
| need to band-aid issues like this.
| swayvil wrote:
| Dude, the "root cause" is that profit is part of the
| equation. There is no "right algorithm" for controlling the
| public conversation. All fascism is bad fascism.
|
| Is that overboard?
| ethbr0 wrote:
| How'd you get from profit to censorship to fascism?
| That's a lot of jumps!
|
| There are simpler explanations.
| swayvil wrote:
| Fascism is governmental power (ie dictatorial control
| over the public conversation.) in the hands of the
| corporation. Which is exactly what we have here.
| afarrell wrote:
| There seems to be an AI safety problem here: The youtube
| algorithm is optimizing for engagement at the cost of some
| other less-quantifiable human value like social trust.
|
| https://youtu.be/L5pUA3LsEaw
| macinjosh wrote:
| I am gonna go out on a limb and say Google's product
| dashboards likely all have engagement metrics and probably
| close to zero have "social trust" metrics.
| afarrell wrote:
| Right.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McNamara_fallacy
| sz4kerto wrote:
| I'm not sure that 'banning' and 'changing the algorithm so that
| it doesn't pop up' is meaningfully different. We can just
| assume that YT hasn't banned this content, but it never ever
| shows up in recommendations. The effect would be practically
| the same.
|
| It's a hard problem to solve.
| syshum wrote:
| Banning means the content is not accessible at all.
|
| Changing the Algorithm would mean the content is less
| discoverable but could still spread outside the platform via
| alternative methods, such as Tweets, Links, emails, slack,
| etc.
|
| There is a difference, and the effect is not the same
| vkou wrote:
| > Bans like this look incredibly stupid when you realise
| YouTube itself is responsible for this disinformation getting
| so much traction.
|
| People keep repeating that the solution to bad speech is more
| speech, and more speech is more money for YouTube.
|
| Unsurprisingly, more speech on this subject has not managed to
| drown out the nonsense, but it has done a great job of
| amplifying it.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I'm really curious if it would be possible for Youtube / Google
| etc. to expose their algorithmic interface to their public
| users so that they could twiddle with the settings themselves -
| or is that just technologically impossible given the internal
| structure of their systems? I really have no idea, but I've
| been wondering about it for some time.
| goldenbikeshed wrote:
| Technologically possible, corporocratically impossible - it
| would lose the company money.
| BrianOnHN wrote:
| Admitting change to the algo inherently admits fault, so good
| luck waiting for that. Counsel will never allow it.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| I personally really preferred old Youtube, where your
| subscriptions were the main thing you saw along with the
| absolute "most popular viewed today" kinds of things.
|
| The algorithm has only made the site worse in my experience and
| I always go directly to my subscriptions to be able to at least
| see things I'm subbed to.
| toby- wrote:
| I'm of the same opinion. A user's subscriptions seemingly
| matter very little nowadays, I've noticed. The focus on
| recommendations is so heavy I'm very often recommended videos
| I've _already watched_ , some of them multiple times; very
| few recommendations are videos (old or new) from channels I'm
| subscribed to.
|
| I've also noticed that many content creators are now offering
| email newsletters (such as Tom Scott) and encouraging
| subscribers to connect outside of YouTube, presumably as a
| response to this.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| Why would YouTube recommend videos from people you're
| subscribed to? You already have a reliable feed of those
| videos on the subscriptions feed. They are trying to get
| you to subscribe to other channels to increase your watch
| time.
| toby- wrote:
| It did use to overwhelmingly recommend videos from
| channels you were subscribed to. Such videos made up a
| major portion of your recommendations.
|
| And yes, there is the subscriptions feed, but it only
| shows _new_ videos from subscribed-to channels; it doesn
| 't function as a 'recommended' list for your
| subscriptions, which is what I miss and want.
| 0xffff2 wrote:
| I agree. This is actually my chief complaint about
| YouTube's front page. I wish there were options to
| categorically remove videos from channels I'm subscribed
| to and videos I've already watched from the
| recommendation feed.
| gibba999 wrote:
| Youtube doesn't give me a reliable feed of my
| subscriptions. If I haven't watched something in a few
| months, it's basically dead to the algorithm.
|
| This is obnoxious since I tend to watch series of
| documentaries, and I prefer to watch many episodes in a
| row. Stuff just _poofs_ out of existence.
| zamadatix wrote:
| https://www.youtube.com/feed/subscriptions is your
| subscription feed, you can get there by clicking
| "subscriptions" in the left pane.
|
| The feed on the home page is recommendations. That may,
| by chance, include things you're subscribed to but it
| will also include other recommended content and possibly
| not recommend things you are subscribed to as it's not
| meant to be a second copy of the subscription feed.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| That still doesn't give reliable recommendations of your
| subscribed channels, it's just a chronological list of
| their new content.
|
| If I subscribe to a youtuber with a back-catalog of
| several years of videos, I want recommendations of those
| prior videos, not only their brand new ones.
| sneak wrote:
| Be thankful they still let you view a chronological feed at
| all.
| syshum wrote:
| It appears to me that YT is actively trying to move away from
| subscriptions completely, relaying on this recommendation
| algorithm for everything
|
| hell I would not be surprised if with in 5 years they remove
| the subscribe button completely, replacing it with just the
| notification bell
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Let me reframe: let's say that YouTube hosts anti-vax content
| and as a result some percentage of people are swayed by this
| content to not vaccinate themselves or their children. Some
| percentage of them dies. Let's say in absolute numbers it is
| 10,000 people. Do you think that YouTube did a good thing by
| allowing that content?
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| That is a moral argument and has no place in a discussion of
| the laws of a modern western country. We are a system of law,
| not a system of justice.
|
| Although I do agree with you that anti-vaxers should be
| treated no different than common terrorists; as Americans,
| under the law, they have a right to declare that they are
| terrorists and give their little illogical terrorist rants.
| The First Amendment is very clear on what is _not_ covered,
| and the courts have repeatedly confirmed that being wrong,
| being disingenuous, and lying _is_ covered (as long as you
| are not committing perjury or other similar, actual, crimes).
|
| Our founding fathers knew exactly what they were doing when
| they penned this: in their day, they _also_ had their form of
| denialism. The first amendment is, essentially, "It is
| better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak
| and remove all doubts.", but weaponized against the idiots
| that shall forever plague us.
|
| That said, if a rational adult, one that we have, as a
| society, cannot tell the difference between the truth and the
| lies, then we have both failed as a society, but also have
| trusted an adult to actually act like one and they,
| personally, made the choice to act like a spoiled brat;
| acting like a spoiled brat is not a victimless crime, and
| sometimes, but not always, they are punished like an adult
| for violating the trust of the society that they live in.
| HeroOfAges wrote:
| It almost seems as if you believe you can't be lied to by
| the people you agree with. In this case, we'll call them
| "vaxxers" since you seem to believe only "anti-vaxers" are
| capable of duplicity.
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Nope, because that's the beauty of science. I personally
| run on a "trust, but verify" basis: science allows
| society to come together and verify many aspects of
| claims: can it be done, can it be replicated, what's the
| likelihood of the replication actually measuring a real
| effect, etc.
|
| "Vaxxers", as you have so put it, (or as I like to call
| them, normal human beings) have reached a level of proof
| that vaccines are safe, and that, specifically, the
| COVID-19 vaccines currently in deployment are several
| magnitudes safer than, say, contracting COVID-19 itself.
|
| "Anti-Vaxxers", however, have (un?)intentionally proved
| that vaccines work, performing one of the largest
| voluntary human drug trials in history as the placebo
| group. Their sacrifice shall, hopefully, not be forgotten
| (lest we repeat it).
| IgorPartola wrote:
| First amendment doesn't apply here. This is not about the
| government persecuting individuals on the basis of what
| they are saying.
| josephcsible wrote:
| You think that people should be treated as terrorists
| because they have a different political opinion than you
| do?
| DiabloD3 wrote:
| Their opinion lacks the ability to be classified as
| political, to be honest. It is a scientific "opinion"
| that has been proven wrong, repeatedly, by actual
| scientific research, but also by mere observational fact.
|
| No one has a right to harm another person. Knowingly
| transmitting an infectious disease, after being
| repeatedly informed that it is, indeed, an infectious
| disease, and that the victims, worldwide, total almost 5
| million worldwide and continues to climb, and they
| _still_ continue to spread it, that is what makes someone
| a terrorist: you harm, maim, and kill people to spread
| discord. _Why_ you do it is immaterial, "I didn't know",
| "I didn't understand", "I was following orders", are not
| excuses in a court of law.
| datenarsch wrote:
| Seeing how vaccination does not at all prevent you from
| contracting and spreading the virus, doesn't that make
| everyone terrorists in your view?
| josephcsible wrote:
| You're only "knowingly transmitting an infectious
| disease" if you leave your house with COVID symptoms or a
| recent positive test result, not just if you aren't
| vaccinated against it.
| noxer wrote:
| The whole thing is a "correlation does not imply causation"
| fallacy because you just assume that changing one thing lead
| to the change of something else while ignoring all the other
| effect it has. For example by leaving the content and being a
| neutral platform the subjective value of the content on the
| platform is higher. More people who are not sure about
| something can listen both sides and choose based on that.
| However by removing it you exclude these people (for a
| million of other topics too) even trough they could very well
| end up on the "right" side after doing their own research.
| They wont do this if its clear that the platform already
| removed one side and the other therefore is propaganda. So by
| removing it, how many additional death would this actually
| cause? You just leave this out. What if it causes thousands
| of deaths too? Let's say in absolute numbers it is 10000
| people.
|
| You can now make a non-emotionally decision whether removing
| it or not is actually a good idea because the arbitrary
| appeal to emotion evens out.
|
| This is the way think about such stuff, not by making
| arbitrary emotional "arguments" which can not be proven or
| disproved and may as well be completely irrelevant or even in
| reverse.
|
| Whenever the "logic" of "X people (less) die if we do Y" is
| used its an attempt to make it emotional instead of rational
| it should ring some bells and raise some flags. You can see
| this with autonomous driving or gun control an many other
| topics. Its some kind of appeal to emotion fallacy combined
| with false cause fallacy. And instead of convincing anyone or
| find common ground it just pushes people to more extreme
| opposition. Because you "literally kill people if you
| disagree with X".
| jquery wrote:
| What a canard. Should YouTube leave up ISIS recruiting
| videos so those so-tempted can examine "both sides" of the
| issue?
|
| There is no both sides to the vaccine debate. COVID-19
| vaccine information led to one of the first rabies deaths
| in a long time because the treatment involves a vaccine
| given after a bite, and all this anti-vaxx propaganda is
| doing nothing but sowing FUD about one of the most obvious
| cost-benefit analysis's that can be done in the field of
| medicine. And during a _pandemic_ no less. YouTube has no
| obligation to suffer these fools.
|
| Bravo, YouTube.
| noxer wrote:
| No one claims ISIS recruiting videos are removed to save
| lives. The comparison doesn't make any sense. There are
| actual reasons why these videos are removed that aren't
| appeal to emotion fallacies.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| The pragmatic thing is to remove the blatantly false
| content to prevent deaths. That's not an emotional
| argument, that's a logical one. Some percentage of people
| will watch anti-vax videos on YouTube, will believe them,
| will not vaccinate, and some percentage will die. Not
| having that content there would mean more people get
| vaccinated and fewer die. Nobody is dying from getting
| vaccinated.
|
| Also, I would love to see what common ground looks like
| with anti-vaxxers. I don't think they are willing to give
| an inch on this, but willing to be proven wrong.
| noxer wrote:
| The damage to the "value of the content" is done anyway
| even if you "just" "remove blatantly false content". Also
| instead of an arbitrator of truth you need an arbitrator
| of "blatantly false" which is exactly as impossible and
| comes with the same risk of abuse of power, bias and all
| that.
|
| Anyway you missed the point where I assumed the death
| evens out aka try make an argument that isn't based on
| emotion an "backed" by numbers we can not know.
|
| >Also, I would love to see what common ground looks like
| with anti-vaxxers. I don't think they are willing to give
| an inch on this, but willing to be proven wrong.
|
| I'm not an anti-vaxxer but I'm p sure the common ground
| for most of them would be to let people decide. Anti-
| vaxxers who want to remove pro-vaccine information to
| prevent people from dying form the vaccine seem to be
| rather rare. As far as I know most are perfectly fine
| with anyone voluntary injecting toxic and dying. They
| might be wrong on almost everything but that doesn't mean
| common ground can not be found.
|
| Also by picking the furthest away extreme position to
| proof no common ground is possible is kind silly. We wan
| common ground for the majority on both sides not with the
| extremists.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| If we were talking about tetanus I would agree. People
| who refuse tetanus vaccines place nobody but themselves
| in danger. I don't care if you choose to forego that
| vaccine as it will not affect me.
|
| People who refuse vaccines for dangerous contagious
| diseases directly affect others: they may pass that
| disease to me, to my children, to my elderly family
| members, etc. At this point their choice is causing me
| harm. What is my remedy if this happens? I can't sue them
| for the death of a loved one, I can't hold them
| accountable criminally.
|
| The only path forward I see is that if you choose to not
| vaccinate, that you also choose to fully isolate yourself
| until the pandemic is over: no going to work, school,
| social gatherings, etc. I would be comfortable with that
| common ground. But that's not what is being offered by
| you or even those who refuse to get vaccinated. It is
| always the pro-vaccine/science/reason people that must
| give something up for the benefit of those refusing to
| get vaccinated, which is less common ground and more of a
| one sided demand.
| noxer wrote:
| The "put other people in danger" fallacy is the same
| appeal to emotion again. Its nonsense, you would never
| apply this kind of "logic" anywhere else. Do you ban cars
| because you dont need one and all others put you, your
| children their grandparents in danger? No you dont.
|
| If you dont want to be run over at any cost its your task
| to stay away form cars. Similarly if you dont wanna get
| covid at any cost its your task to hide in the basement
| and dont let anyone in vaccinated or not.
|
| Alternatively you can accept that life is a deadly risk
| and do the common sense things to reduce the risk for you
| and your loved ones and move on. This may be taking the
| vaccine, putting on a mask, avoiding crowded places or
| even ware a warn west so you are less likely to be run
| over by a car. All of that is fine. It stops being fine
| if you demand others to do something so you can feel
| safe. Especially if what you demand infringed basic
| rights and/or is not solving the problem but just lowers
| the risk by an unknown possibly insignificant amount.
|
| Its reasonable to demand that cars have working breaks
| because they need them anyway. The breaks aren't there to
| protect you from cars. Its however not reasonable to
| demand that all cars have advanced pedestrian detection
| that makes in impossible to run over people. It doesn't
| matter if you would feel safer that way or that it would
| safe X numbers of lives. Not because we dont care about
| lives but because making such a requirement would simply
| make most car driving people criminals and not actually
| save lives. Similarly if you demand unvaccinated people
| to stay at home, all you get is that you criminalizing
| people for leaving their home. It wont make them take the
| vaccine and it wont protect you from covid.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| It's an interesting question, but keep in mind that Youtube
| allows junk food advertising targeted towards children, which
| contributes to the obesity epidemic, and obese people have
| much higher medical needs and tend to die earlier (and are
| much more sensitive to COVID). Clearly, this contributes to
| untimely death, right?
|
| So should we ban all junk food advertising on Youtube? Also,
| how about a ban on all pharmaceutical advertising on Youtube
| (which is the norm in most countries)?
| zpeti wrote:
| Let me reframe, in spring 2020 the CDC says don't buy or use
| masks, they don't work. This was spread as the gospel, by the
| media and probably youtube.
|
| How many people died because of increased infections? Is that
| Youtube's fault or anyone else who repeated the CDCs
| guidelines?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Good-faith vs. bad faith.
|
| I hate that the CDC did that action, only because it gave
| skeptics another reason to distrust them. But it is 100%
| clear to anyone who, you know, was alive when it happened
| that they did that to prevent a mask shortage for those who
| needed them most.
|
| I would rather have seen some emergency declaration that
| N95s must be seized from stores and go to healthcare
| workers, but that would have caused perhaps an even bigger
| panic. Because then, everyone would have freaked out, vs.
| what they did. Now, we only have people who were already
| going to distrust government giving a shit about the mask
| declaration last year.
|
| Back to good-faith vs. bad-faith: I'm not certain there is
| more than a hair's worth of anti-vaccine content that is
| produced with good intention or even attempted to be backed
| by statistics. Put simply, I wager there is no anti-vaccine
| content produced out of a legitimate, well-founded public
| interest. It's charlatans, fools, anti-science and anti-
| authority interests.
| zpeti wrote:
| What's your position on the current third shot issue?
| Should we listen to the scientist panel that said no, or
| the government that said yes?
|
| What is youtube's position? Will it delete all government
| communications because the scientists said on, or will it
| delete all scientific discussion because the government
| said yes?
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| > What's your position on the current third shot issue?
| Should we listen to the scientist panel that said no, or
| the government that said yes?
|
| We should listen to ourselves. If we don't have enough
| information to make an informed decision, then study and
| acquire that information. No one is responsible for you
| except for you - with the caveats of children/dependents
| being not responsible for themselves.
|
| What Youtube or any other internet information says is
| irrelevant until you decide otherwise.
| swader999 wrote:
| And how do we get information if only one side isn't
| censored?
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Go read the studies directly and see if you can spot a
| mistake in their methodology that would undermine the
| study.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Let's not add misinformation here. It was a panel of
| researches at the CDC that said the evidence for boosters
| for under 65 at risk individuals was marginal that the
| thought it wasn't worth it. A similar panel of researches
| at the FDA said it was a close call but they said it was
| worth it. The CDC panel is advisory to the FDA panel, not
| the other way around. The debate here is specifically for
| under 65 at risk individuals.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Besides, the official recommendation was more on the line
| of "a 3rd dose is much less useful than applying those
| vaccines on the antivaxers". What is very clearly
| correct, but is of a laughable political naivety, because
| the preferred goal is practically impossible to reach.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| That's irrelevant, as I understand it. The debate wasn't
| about the scientific merits of a third shot - the debate
| was on the prioritization of whether the limited resource
| (the vaccine) was best allocated for a larger set of
| boosters, or if they should be used for others who are
| not yet vaccinated (perhaps worldwide).
|
| Anyway, like I've said in another post and in a blog
| before, I think Youtube has less responsibility to be a
| neutral platform than ISPs and registrars do. If you want
| to host content, you should be able to do it yourself
| with Internet connectivity and DNS - IMO those should be
| "common carriers" that don't get the privilege of bias
| the same way platforms like Youtube do.
|
| Think swallowing a tube of veterinary-grade medicine is
| safer than an injection that hundreds of millions of
| people have gotten with few problems? Go for it, on your
| home server with a domain name.
|
| Now, I'm gonna get some coffee.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Two wrongs don't make a right, do they? Also this is one of
| the most misquoted incidents in this saga, you don't seem
| to know exactly what happened there.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| That was a special case. They messed up and retracted it.
| They thought the N95 mask shortage would harm healthcare
| workers and wanted to save the top masks for those most at
| risk. They realized they were wrong and changed their
| views.
|
| Can as much be said for anti vaxxers? Did they make the
| mistake and recant it? Did they change their view with new
| evidence? No, they're misinformed and close-minded. They
| ignored millions upon millions of safe vaccine uses,
| pointing to unsubstantiated edge cases and ridiculous
| conspiracies. The CDC was not buying into such rubbish and
| I hope they never do.
| SamPatt wrote:
| "That was a special case. They messed up..."
|
| Well good thing that'll never happen again, right? /s
|
| Given the repeated failings and intentional or
| unintentional misinformation we've seen thus far, why do
| you believe them messing up is a "special case"?
| willcipriano wrote:
| If it was illegal to point out they are wrong, would they
| have retracted it or protected their ego?
| zpeti wrote:
| Right. But what happens before it's retracted? The
| incorrect position of the authority is repeated, and now
| in this case is basically denied distribution by Youtube.
|
| Now in this case youtube is probably right
| "scientifically", but what if they weren't like with
| masks? You basically have 0 discussion or challenge
| allowed to the authorities position.
|
| And lets just bring in the recent controversy here, a
| panel of scientists said third shots shouldn't be
| administered. Yet the government decided they should.
| Which position will youtube censor?
| jquery wrote:
| What if ISIS was right about the nature of God and we
| will all suffer hellfire in the afterlife?
|
| There's no obligation for YouTube to give terrorists a
| platform. Regarding a booster shot, I'm sure they will
| make reasonable calls, nearly exclusively only silencing
| bad-faith actors. Much like their policy towards CP or
| terrorist content.
| davesque wrote:
| Seems like your basic point is that no trusted authority
| should ever be wrong about something. I'm sure you would
| say, "No, that's not what I meant." But that seems like
| the only thing that could be implied by what you're
| saying.
|
| You didn't address a very important point that the parent
| comment made which is that trusted authorities like the
| CDC are more likely to correct their mistakes whereas
| anti-vax propagandists will never retract their
| statements. That's part of what makes the CDC trustworthy
| compared to the propagandists.
|
| The fact that the CDC or any other trusted public
| organization has technically made a mistake in the past
| seems like an irrelevant distraction. Haven't you ever
| had an argument with a spouse or family member where you
| called out something they were doing and they came back
| with, "Look who's taking."? And that felt like a bullshit
| tactic, right?
|
| Accusations of hypocrisy are a really common fallacy in
| debate. They contribute nothing to the discussion at hand
| and are basically just an appeal to emotion. And what
| you're doing is just a version of that.
| katzgrau wrote:
| Gonna have a tough time leading by misleading, for
| whatever reason that may be
| scohesc wrote:
| The government lied to their citizens because they
| weren't prepared enough and didn't stockpile enough N95
| masks for their healthcare workers. That's what I'm
| reading.
|
| That's okay to you?
|
| I think it's absolutely abhorrent. Governments
| technically have a full monopoly on violence/power and to
| have them lie to you for what - the "greater good?"
|
| You're also putting the entirely of all people hesitant
| or unwilling to get the vaccination into a large group
| which you can then generalize (albeit foolishly)
| fortran77 wrote:
| There were other "special cases". Here in California and
| many other places in the U.S. committees were formed by
| non-medical people to decide who should get the vaccine
| first. Decisions were made not by whose more likely to
| catch/spread it first, but who was most worthy.
|
| See: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/covid-
| vaccine-firs...
|
| From that article:
|
| > Harald Schmidt, an expert in ethics and health policy
| at the University of Pennsylvania, said that it is
| reasonable to put essential workers ahead of older
| adults, given their risks, and that they are
| disproportionately minorities. "Older populations are
| whiter, " Dr. Schmidt said. "Society is structured in a
| way that enables them to live longer. Instead of giving
| additional health benefits to those who already had more
| of them, we can start to level the playing field a bit."
|
| In fact, if there was a supply problem, the best
| populations to give vaccines to first may have been some
| of the most "privileged" people in our society (even if
| we don't like them). Frequent travelers, college kids who
| are going to party anyway, etc. (Of course, people who
| work in retail stores, or front like health workers were
| obvious groups that nobody disagreed with.)
|
| The point is, _who_ got the vaccine first wasn't decided
| by science, but by politics.
|
| I admit to fudging my eligibility in order to get the
| vaccine early. I may do this again to get the booster if
| I decide I need it.
| dongping wrote:
| Or this way, let's say that YouTube hosts earlier anti-mask
| content from Dr. Fauci/CDC and as a result some percentage of
| people are swayed by this content to not wear mask. Some
| percentage of them dies.
|
| Do you think that YouTube did a good thing by allowing that
| content?
| hef19898 wrote:
| Yes, because back then (as much as a communications fuck-up
| that was) this was scientific consensus. What Youtube is
| banning is pure propaganda and falsehoods.
| conradfr wrote:
| Does Youtube reinstate the videos when they become true?
| ;)
| hef19898 wrote:
| Not directed at you, just to get that out of the way. But
| I am quite fed up that the masks-don't-help meme is
| constantly brought up. That was in early 2020, a lot of
| mistakes were made back then because nobody really knew
| what they were doing.
|
| Especially because it usually brought up by people that
| are consistently wrong about pretty much everything,
| while propagating active lies, as a defense against
| anyone pointing out the utter BS they are spreading. That
| gets tiresome.
| josephcsible wrote:
| The problem is that on the one hand, you're saying the
| WHO and CDC are made up of humans, and all humans make
| mistakes once in a while, but on the other hand, you're
| saying the current positions of the WHO and CDC are 100%
| correct, and anyone who disagrees with them needs to be
| silenced.
| hef19898 wrote:
| Ah, I didn't say that, did I? I am just tired of having
| the mask debacle from early 2020, and that is the only
| real issue that is constantly brought up to discredit the
| WHO/CDC.... because as you said, people make mistakes. I,
| for what it's worth, trust people that correct their
| mistakes over people that never do. because the latter
| never learn. And they have the tendency to put as much
| theories out as they can. Because then they have a high
| chance of being right at least once. Doing that long
| enough and they can claim to be right all the time.
| Which, obviously, they aren't. But it's incredibly hard
| to call them out on it.
| dongping wrote:
| The scientific consensus was that there was no evidence
| that mask would work (or not work) for 2019-nCoV. There's
| plenty of evidence that it helps prevent transmission of
| other respiratory viruses.
|
| So which hypothesis would have most likely been true at
| the time? Not to mention that Dr. Fauci himself had
| admitted that it was a noble lie (aka pure propaganda and
| falsehoods).
| IgorPartola wrote:
| That's a slightly better description of what happened.
| And I will say it again: two wrongs don't make a right.
| dongping wrote:
| Surely it would be great if you might provide a better
| description of the event (and the timeline, long after
| the outbreak in Wuhan).
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Surely. But frankly I don't feel like it.
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| Is youtube doing a good thing by allowing content that says
| graphine oxide will kill you and/or that masks cause brain
| damage to kids?
| dongping wrote:
| I think Youtube did a great job NOT banning pro-mask
| videos which were clearly against CDC recommendation.
|
| Or I would suggest that thought police should lock those
| with the above-mentioned opinions up.
| clipradiowallet wrote:
| > Do you think that YouTube did a good thing by allowing
| that content?
|
| They didn't do a good or a bad thing - they were a blank
| canvas someone put their art(video) on. Recently, that
| blank canvas is only willing to have certain art present on
| it - that's not a good thing. The only thing keeping it
| going is an inertial mass of subscribers, which over
| [possibly a long] time will dissipate.
| afavour wrote:
| IMO one of the reasons these debates go back and forth
| forever is because it's impossible to come up hard and fast
| rules that cover every scenario.
|
| Maybe a poorly thought out analogy but think about cars.
| There are a ton of car accidents every year, a good number of
| which result in death. But we don't ban cars because they're
| essential for the way many people live. But if 50% of all car
| journeys resulted in accidents? Maybe we'd be having a
| different conversation.
| ihsw wrote:
| There is such a thing as anti-mandate pro-vaccine activists and
| their voice is being squashed as well. There is no nuance to
| the conversation.
| OJFord wrote:
| > proven to get clicks and earn them money
|
| Aren't they already 'demonetised' (as Youtube terms its
| withdrawal of adverts and hence money)?
|
| I agree though, simply not recommending them (i.e. you can be
| linked to them, or get them from search results only) would be
| better.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| I'd imagine most of this type of thing (prominent anti-
| vaccine personalities) is externally monetized via donations,
| as opposed to directly through YouTube.
| toyg wrote:
| It's all very simple, considering Youtube has had a feature
| to keep videos out of their search indexes since, I don't
| know, forever...? It's effectively a form of voluntary
| shadowbanning, used by people who just want to embed videos
| somewhere else or, y'know, simply keep them somewhat private.
| YT could just say "right, anything we object to, gets removed
| from the search index." Two-minutes job. If you want to be
| more proactive, stop them from embedding too, so they can't
| be reposted elsewhere. The videos are then effectively
| neutered and only the already-nutcase will see them, limiting
| the virality.
| capdeck wrote:
| > Aren't they already 'demonetised'...
|
| That affects only content creator. YouTube, even if not
| directly profiting from ads, profits indirectly from you
| staying on the site and moving on to other 'monetized' videos
| eventually.
| emilfihlman wrote:
| Demonetised videos can be loss leaders, pulling views to
| other monetised videos and having the user stay on the
| platform.
| VikingCoder wrote:
| Not entirely true. If it's hosted on YouTube and then goes
| viral on Twitter or Facebook...
| chmsky00 wrote:
| The stupid information is still out there.
|
| It's just not on YouTube.
|
| We don't live in the reality where the local book store and
| media owner keeping information away actually had an impact.
|
| This only effects YouTube. Of the millions of other sites out
| there.
|
| I think even the smart people are a bit stuck on YouTubes
| marketing effects on their limbic brain versus the reality; the
| bad info is just a Google search or friend posting in private
| away for anyone still.
|
| YouTube is not the center of the internet.
| vibrato2 wrote:
| The only disinformation I've seen about these vaccines has been
| from Fauci and other pro vaxxers.
|
| "You're not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations."
| - Joe Biden
|
| there was never a basis for this statement, making it clear
| disinformation. Grass roots research doesn't fit the bill of
| what that word means.
| [deleted]
| KittenInABox wrote:
| I might suggest we avoid using superlatives. I have seen
| disinformation about vaccines both from mainstream media
| presumptions that breakthrough infections won't happen at
| all, and also from other mainstream media publishing entire
| segments that the vaccine might cause infertility in women or
| somehow affect the fetus (a spreading of FUD basically).
| vibrato2 wrote:
| I will certainly disregard your suggestion.
|
| It's proven that the spike protein accumulates in the
| ovaries after vaccine injection. As the FDA claims, there
| is no long term data. Anecdotally I've heard many
| pregnancies ended from the shot.
|
| It's not FUD to be concerned about female fertility. We
| have no long term data and we know the spike protein
| accumulates in the ovaries from mRNA injections.
| afavour wrote:
| > A study shows the vaccine accumulating in the ovaries -
| False
|
| > This theory comes from a misreading of a study
| submitted to the Japanese regulator. The study involved
| giving rats a much higher dose of vaccine than that given
| to humans (1,333 times higher).
|
| > Only 0.1% of the total dose ended up in the animals'
| ovaries, 48 hours after injection. Far more - 53% after
| one hour and 25% after 48 hours - was found at the
| injection site (in humans, usually the arm). The next
| most common place was the liver (16% after 48 hours),
| which helps get rid of waste products from the blood.
|
| > And those promoting this claim cherry-picked a figure
| which actually referred to the concentration of fat found
| in the ovaries.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/health-57552527
|
| "Anecdotally I've heard many pregnancies ended from the
| shot."
|
| No you haven't. You've heard of pregnancies ending in
| people that happen to also have been vaccinated but you
| have no proof connecting the two. The reality is that a
| lot more pregnancies fail than anyone cares to admit in
| public because couples tend to be private it about it.
| This is nothing new. It's heartbreaking for everyone that
| experiences it and anti-vaxxers latching onto it to serve
| their agenda is incredibly sad.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| I might be wrong but maybe the point is that it's not
| proven safe long term.
|
| While a good majority(like me) had it and it worked out
| well for us (risk vs reward wise), some might not be so
| lucky and it pissed me off that some people are like
| frogs in a well with a very narrow viewpoint.
|
| It's now proven that it can cause death. 1 death is more
| than enough to justify not having it. Neither you or
| anyone have the right to force people to take that risk
| for the benefit of others. I only took it because I
| covered all most my bases and my chances of survival in
| case of Covid were pretty bad.
|
| It wouldn't be the first time that problems appear after
| a long time and take ages to be proven. The most extreme
| example of that that I think is thalidomide.
|
| EDIT: If you are going to reduce it to a game of numbers.
| Some risk side effects so that the majority goes on with
| their lives, then... when communists were leveling a
| church and the houses of 500 people could use the same
| justification since they were building blocks of flats
| for 10000 people on that area it was justified?
| zuminator wrote:
| I've seen videos where drivers peacefully waiting at red
| lights were crushed by careening tractor trailers in
| freak accidents. Waiting at the red light literally got
| them killed. By your standards, we shouldn't force people
| to obey traffic signals since it"s proven that doing so
| can in rare cases lead to death.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| "Literally" it's the trailer that killed them.
| [deleted]
| scoutt wrote:
| > "You're not going to get COVID if you have these
| vaccinations."
|
| Not to defend Biden, but the vaccine decreases the
| probabilities of getting COVID. You still get infected with
| sars-cov-2, and you are probably still contagious, but it's
| unlikely you get COVID (as in COronaVIrus Disease, the
| disease produced by sars-cov-2 virus (or coronavirus), that
| is the thing that eventually kills you and/or jeopardizes the
| public health system).
| silent_cal wrote:
| Big Pharma worshipping elitist shills see that they're losing the
| argument, so instead of thinking harder or changing their minds,
| they ban their opponents. These people are the worst.
| gentle wrote:
| Thank god.
| wvh wrote:
| Once again, we found a way to get rid of those we don't like by
| censoring them completely based on any utterance of a Topic or
| Viewpoint That Can Not Be Expressed Out Loud. Any open discussion
| or criticism on any sensitive topic could be enough to close down
| the participant's account, take away their right to be heard and
| even effectively erase them.
|
| This is not a defense of any particular opinion as much as it is
| the right for people to be heard by those willing to listen and
| hopefully keep communication open to foster better education and
| understanding.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Techno-fascism rears its ugly head once more. These mRNA shots
| aren't flawless medications with zero side effects. People are
| getting strokes. People are getting heart inflammation. It's not
| even working against new variants. The emperor really doesn't
| have clothes. I've had dozens of vaccines in my life. The Covid
| vaccine might be the worst-performing vaccine of all time as far
| as effectiveness goes. You need 3 booster shots apparently in
| less than 9 months and you'll probably still get Covid. But
| meanwhile lets throw out all human rights that hundreds of
| millions died for and many more suffered for.
|
| The reason freedom of speech is a must in a free society is that
| speaking is the same as thinking. Who watches the watchmen? There
| is no amount of "misinformation" that could ever hold a candle to
| the absolute evil that has been perpetrated throughout history by
| outlawing or banning or shunning free speech.
| avianlyric wrote:
| > I've had dozens of vaccines in my life. The Covid vaccine
| might be the worst-performing vaccine of all time as far as
| effectiveness goes.
|
| Funny thing about those other vaccines. They protect against
| viruses that we already have collective heard immunity for.
|
| As it happens, it turns out that herd immunity substantial
| reduces community transmission, and thus makes vaccines appear
| more effective. Without that, you're pretty much always gonna
| get breakthrough infections.
|
| So you want the COVID vaccine to be as effective as other
| vaccines. Then get vaxxed, and get everyone in your community
| vaxxed.
| [deleted]
| cblconfederate wrote:
| How about those scammy financial advisers and history rewriters?
| [deleted]
| whiddershins wrote:
| They are doing it wrong. They should ban all discussions about
| vaccines.
|
| Then it wouldn't be censorship. It's just asking that those
| discussions happen elsewhere.
| hestefisk wrote:
| Only 12 months too late.....
| supperburg wrote:
| I had to wait for 7 hours at the ER last night. People who choose
| to not vaccinate shouldn't be allowed entry to the hospital.
| chasd00 wrote:
| if you're talking about the the ER in the USA and you didn't
| have a life threatening injury/illness then i say a 7 hr wait
| was pretty quick.
| adamhearn wrote:
| Why?
| supperburg wrote:
| Because they clog up the hospitals. In Singapore if you opt
| out of donating your organs after death then you also opt out
| of receiving organs. It's just a sensible way of allowing
| people who really have a principled stance on an issue to do
| what they want while not being a burden on the rest of us.
| xkbarkar wrote:
| My guess is this acvount belongs to a 14 year old troll.
| supperburg wrote:
| Can you explain why? Do the unvaccinated not occupy more
| hospital beds?
| vosper wrote:
| How will we tell if it works? A decrease in anti-vax sentiment
| and an uptick in vaccine take-up? How will we tell that it was
| due to YouTube?
|
| What if it doesn't move the needle at all (pun intended) - does
| it mean YouTube is much less influential than we (and they,
| apparently) think? Or that they waited too long and the anti-vax
| message had already embedded?
|
| It'll be very interesting to watch.
| uuddlrlr wrote:
| YouTube's algorithms probably radicalized a good chunk to begin
| with.
| busymom0 wrote:
| > The moves come as YouTube and other tech giants like Facebook
| Inc. (FB.O) and Twitter Inc. (TWTR.N) have been criticized for
| not doing enough to stop the spread of false health information
| on their sites.
|
| Why not also state the opposite that they have been criticized
| for doing too much censorship of even valid and factual
| information? This clearly shows that the media lives in their own
| bubble.
| jonstaab wrote:
| Anti vaccine content is just posting pro-vaccine content from six
| months ago next to pro-vaccine content from today.
| xanaxagoras wrote:
| > YouTube will ban any videos that claim that commonly used
| vaccines approved by health authorities are ineffective or
| dangerous.
|
| > ineffective or dangerous
|
| Either you don't care if I get it, or they're ineffective.
| [deleted]
| mmcdermott wrote:
| One of the things that gets lost in the arguments around this
| sort of censorship (and, before I lose you, it is censorship and
| that is fine; we all engage in forms of censorship in determining
| what we will or will not ingest - the danger comes when some
| third party is acting as the censor for others) is the
| distinction between legality and morality.
|
| Legally, it seems self-evident that YouTube should be permitted
| to curate their own content however they deem fit, whether it is
| fair in the abstract or not. I wouldn't want to live in a world
| where anyone was compelled to publish, disseminate or engage with
| content against their will.
|
| Morally, this sort of mass banning of a position ought to be a
| taboo if we want a free society. We, as free citizens, have every
| right to petition that an open stance be adopted even if YouTube
| is well within their rights to refuse.
|
| The other thing I tend to think important is to always ask one
| more question - would I support this action if it was taken if
| the sides of the issue were reversed? Sometimes the answer is
| 'yes', but I've found it a warning sign when the mental response
| is 'but....'
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| You can't "reverse" the situation in good faith. Facts,
| science, logic exist on one side of the discussion, not both.
| So if we are going to reverse the situation, then we have to
| acknowledge that the original stance is science/logic
| invariant.
| mmcdermott wrote:
| > Facts, science, logic exist on one side of the discussion,
| not both.
|
| I'm not really sure I buy this. There are people who are
| simply misled, but most disagreements touch on either
| disagreements with regard to facts or else values about what
| is more or less important. I tend to find that there are
| thoughtful people who disagree with me that are worth
| hearing.
|
| Beyond that, though, there is simply risk management. The
| harder it is to impose speech controls (governmental or
| corporately), the harder it is for them to be applied badly -
| and there is no tool that cannot be used for ill as well as
| good.
| strgcmc wrote:
| In a funny twist of fate, I for one have become less and less
| worried about the "opposite" scenario coming to pass, as time
| goes on and we observe the evolution of political discourse at
| least in America (and to a lesser extent globally perhaps).
|
| What I mean is, the general trend towards anti-intellectualism
| in the right-wing, means that their policy positions generally
| trend towards being based on opinions rather than facts, and
| become further and further divorced from reality. For example,
| think about banning contraception or sex education, which are
| proven to reduce teen pregnancy and abortions; these are
| counterproductive policy positions the right wing takes,
| because they don't care to judge policies by their factual
| outcomes, but instead by what "feels right".
|
| Ergo, as time passes, I find it less and less likely that
| corporations or organizations that have to live in the real
| world, deal with practical real world facts and outcomes, will
| end up taking right wing policy positions or censoring pro-
| reality positions. It would be fundamentally anti-profit and
| anti-capitalist to do so and goes against their self-interest
| (which is an incentive structure that political parties don't
| share, as spewing misinformation and even acting irrationally
| won't necessarily lose them voters or supporters, but companies
| who act irrationally will over time tend to be less
| profitable), which is cynically the best available guarantee of
| good decision-making that we have in our broken society.
|
| TLDR: I am not worried about a world where "round Earther's" or
| pro-vaxx positions get censored, because corporations know that
| round Earth and pro-vaxx policies lead to better outcomes,
| being better grounded in reality.
| AHappyCamper wrote:
| Recently I spoke with two senior scientists with decades of
| experience who specialise in pharmacology, biology, and vaccines,
| who both work at high-level labs that inspect all types of drugs.
|
| They both were extremely sceptical of the vaccine, with one being
| openly antagonistic towards it.
|
| YouTube's new rules allow them to post content, but they both say
| they've been warned by their jobs about speaking out - that they
| will lose their careers if they say anything against the
| vaccines.
|
| Where is the room for their opinion? Because they are the top of
| the tree scientifically. What the hell is going on when we are
| silencing senior scientists who are extremely worried about an
| experimental drug that we're giving to the entire world??!
|
| To clarify - the first scientist told me that her lab is not
| allowed to look at or test the vaccine, even though they test
| every other drug that comes into the country. She has only found
| a report from one other non-Pfizer lab that has looked at it
| under a microscope. To me, that is really scary.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| The room for their opinion is in peer reviewed medical
| journals. Short of conducting their own study, they could, for
| example, write a dissenting letter to the editor, or submit
| what's known as a "brief report." Posting to Youtube for clicks
| and views is to not take seriously their own knowledge.
| Covid-19 is a very serious issue; on the chance that your two
| senior scientists have information that the world needs, the
| appropriate venue is in the medium scientists and doctors use
| to communicate with each other.
|
| Also, what does it mean to be "skeptical" of "the" vaccine?
| There are several vaccines. Were they skeptical of mRNA? Viral
| vector vaccines? All of them? Do they think that the covid-19
| vaccines secretly don't work?
| AHappyCamper wrote:
| They both said they feel immense pressure not to speak out
| against the vaccine or publish anything against it. So the
| regular channels of dissent have been removed.
| asdff wrote:
| If they had significant data a journal would pick them up.
| There is no one silencing them but themselves, because they
| know they don't have good evidence and their sources also
| don't have good evidence. The lancet, one of the most
| prestigious journals in the world, took up an article that
| vaccines might be related to autism, because at the time
| the authors had significant data (that later turned out to
| be fraudulent but at this point pandoras box had already
| been opened, and now decades later people believe vaccines
| cause autism). So if they did have this smoking gun data
| that said the vaccines are something to be worried about,
| it would have been published by now in a huge journal.
| SkipperCat wrote:
| I hope they have published their critique of the mRNA
| technology in the last decade because the technology has been
| around for a long time. It was just adapted for COVID-19 in the
| last year.
|
| My guess is they have not said a peep about mRNA until this
| became political.
| AHappyCamper wrote:
| They said they feel immense pressure not to say anything
| negative, and that they feel they have been silenced. They're
| not even allowed to ask basic questions about the vaccine as
| part of their work, even tho that's what they do for a
| living.
| distrill wrote:
| trust me bro
| corona-research wrote:
| There are plenty of such examples. Some of the most reputable
| scientists of that field have been banned for sharing their
| opinion on Youtube.
| babypuncher wrote:
| If there was a problem with the vaccine we probably would have
| noticed something by the time a billion people got injected
| with it.
|
| These skeptics need to put up some serious evidence if they
| want to be taken seriously.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| I agree. This kind of skepticism-on-theoretical-grounds might
| have been interesting/valuable a year ago. At this point
| additional evidence _for_ the vaccine 's safety mounts every
| day as more people receive it. Evidence for the vaccine's
| efficacy is also mounting[1]. Claims to the contrary would
| need some extraordinary evidence to back them up.
|
| [1] https://www.foxnews.com/health/covid-19-hospitalizations-
| non...
| AHappyCamper wrote:
| Scientist #1 said that if she mentions anything against the
| vaccine, there would be retribution against her. This
| includes publishing any data that detracts from the
| vaccines safety. They're essentially creating an echo
| chamber where all news about the vaccine is good news.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Given the number of countries and institutions involved
| the scope of the conspiracy here would have to be vast.
| And there are plenty of powerful, vaccine-skeptical
| institutions (like the GOP) that would welcome this kind
| of data and venerate someone producing it. Indeed, some
| have already built media or political careers on COVID
| vaccine skepticism.
|
| In addition, there's the J&J vaccine which was pulled
| after nasty side effects were found in a small number of
| patients. Where was the "they" who are supposedly
| creating the echo chamber in that case?
| babypuncher wrote:
| You're still making bold yet vague claims and providing
| no evidence. Just wishy-washy "an unnamed expert I know
| made this significant yet unverifiable statement".
| AHappyCamper wrote:
| But we have noticed problems with it.
|
| https://openvaers.com/covid-data
| belorn wrote:
| One major issue was that in the beginning of this year we
| started with one dose, then went to a second dose a few
| months later, and then a third dose is starting to be
| recommended now a few months after that.
|
| There are some serious evidence to back this up. A study done
| around early summer found that only about 50% of those that
| have taken two doses had any detectable traces of a defense,
| which was one of the reason that a third dose had to be
| added. By winter we don't know how effective the 2 dose or 3
| dose will be.
|
| To me that is where the focus of skepticism should be right
| now.
| babypuncher wrote:
| > There are some serious evidence to back this up. A study
| done around early summer found that only about 50% of those
| that have taken two doses had any detectable traces of a
| defense, which was one of the reason that a third dose had
| to be added. By winter we don't know how effective the 2
| dose or 3 dose will be.
|
| One study, going against countless others showing that the
| vaccines are highly effective.
|
| The readily available data speaks for itself. Highly
| vaccinated populations are experiencing much slower
| transmission and hospitalization rates than their poorly
| vaccinated counterparts.
|
| Also, we didn't start with one dose. Both mRNA vaccines
| were two-dose regimens from the day they started clinical
| trials last summer.
| sekai wrote:
| > experimental drug
|
| When do drugs stop being experimental?
| distrill wrote:
| Unfortunately, people will be saying "we don't know what
| happens 10 years after getting vaccinated" for 10 years
| yellow_lead wrote:
| Ask these people what a p-value is though and they'll tell
| you about urinalysis.
| amuchmore wrote:
| It seems curious, then, that the entire source of the vaccine
| is publicly available.
| yellow_lead wrote:
| By "the vaccine" are you referring to an mRNA vaccine? Are they
| skeptical of the J&J vaccine?
| AHappyCamper wrote:
| Pfizer. She said she doesn't know what's really in it, or how
| it performs transfers, what lipids it uses, etc.
| asdff wrote:
| Then she hasn't bothered looking into it from legit sources
| at all, or when she does find a legit source she assumes
| that since it goes against whatever conspiracy website she
| reads that its in on the conspiracy and therefore wrong.
| Here are your ingredients:
|
| https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/Coronavirus/Community_Resourc
| e...
| clajiness wrote:
| > What the hell is going on when we are silencing senior
| scientists who are extremely worried about an experimental drug
| that we're giving to the entire world??!
|
| What exactly is "experimental" about a vaccine that has not
| only been through very robust phase III clinical trials, but
| has also had literally billions of doses deployed?
| AHappyCamper wrote:
| The first scientist told me that practically no non-Pfizer
| labs have looked at it. That is not robust. Usually this
| stuff gets reviewed by everyone, but in this case, technical
| info is not available to other scientists who wish to learn
| more about the vaccine - according to her.
| s9w wrote:
| Say the line bart: ItSaPrIvAtEcOmPaNY
| busymom0 wrote:
| The whole private sector censorship reminds me of a very good
| piece by Matt Taibbi:
|
| > "People in the U.S. seem able to recognize that China's
| censorship of the internet is bad. They say: "It's so
| authoritarian, tyrannical, terrible, a human rights violation."
| Everyone sees that, but then when it happens to us, here, we say,
| "Oh, but it's a private company doing it." What people don't
| realize is the majority of censorship in China is being carried
| out by private companies.
|
| > Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Bureau chief for Beijing and
| Tokyo, wrote a book called Consent of the Network that lays all
| this out. She says, "This is one of the features of Chinese
| internet censorship and surveillance--that it's actually carried
| out primarily by private sector companies, by the tech platforms
| and services, not by the police. And that the companies that run
| China's internet services and platforms are acting as an
| extension of state power."
|
| > The people who make that argument don't realize how close we
| are to the same model. There are two layers. Everyone's familiar
| with "The Great Firewall of China," where they're blocking out
| foreign websites. Well, the US does that too. We just shut down
| Press TV, which is Iran's PBS, for instance. We mimic that first
| layer as well, and now there's also the second layer, internally,
| that involves private companies doing most of the censorship."
|
| https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea
| greyhair wrote:
| The problem is all down to the cost of moderation, nothing else.
| Maintaining YouTube profitability.
|
| Troll farms are spamming all of social media with misinformation,
| and that makes it hard to filter out the actual rational voices
| in the discussion.
|
| I don't know the solution, I really don't. Without some form of
| 'trust' label that gets vetted to drown out mere 'views' and
| 'likes'.
|
| Just read an article that in 2019, 19 of the top 20 Christian
| sites on Facebook were generated by Troll farms in Eastern
| Europe.
|
| It is all messed up (disclosure, I don't have a Facebook account)
| and I don't know how it gets fixed.
|
| I am all for factual vaccine information, pro and con, but I am
| opposed to people learning any topic from trolls with an
| adversary agenda.
|
| The anti-vax crowd has been very effective in killing off Trump
| supporters for the last two months, for example.
| dilap wrote:
| Someone I follow on instagram had opened up a conversation for
| women about irregular periods as a side-effect of the vaccine.
| They had to carry on the conversation using an emoji code to
| avoid getting banned.
|
| The basic idea behind these bans is that authorities decide what
| is right, and common people should not have a forum to discuss
| the decisions.
|
| It's basically soft-censorship, a partnership between government
| and large tech companies to make conversations contra government
| policy much more difficult to have.
|
| Seems unfortunate, to me.
| sneak wrote:
| > _a partnership between government and large tech companies to
| make conversations contra government policy much more difficult
| to have._
|
| Same situation as China, tbh.
| nyx-aiur wrote:
| Instagram is not the place for a support group.
| mrtksn wrote:
| I can't tell if I'm more disgusted by the anti-vaxxers or the
| censorship.
|
| IMHO no content should be banned, ever. The only thing is to be
| held responsible for the content if you are not going to be
| impartial.
|
| For example, instead of banning videos of anti-vaxxers, put a
| claim progress list clearly visible together with the video that
| can be maintained by those of opposing views.
|
| For example, according to some anti-vaxxers, people with mRNA
| vaccines are about to die en mass. In places like Portugal, full
| vaccination rate approaches %90. Wouldn't be good to keep the
| video and see if Portuguese are dying?
|
| Content moderation by elimination is one of the biggest sins of
| the internet era. The internet has become a place where history
| doesn't exist because you can't have a history without having the
| artefacts that make it. We should be able to look back a few
| years back and see who said what.
| jude- wrote:
| Good. It's long past time we stop humoring the destructive
| delusional narcissism of anti-vaxxers. Let them build their own
| fucking YouTube to host their bullshit.
| ookblah wrote:
| Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat
| disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision? I
| almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of
| "principle".
|
| Just a no win situation. It's too easy for bad characters to
| screw up an entire system with little effort (look at trolls,
| spammers, etc). Either you moderate everyone and slippery slope
| down into censorship where the tools used to police are used on
| good actors, or you do nothing and watch the bad actors poison
| your entire ecosystem.
| z3ncyberpunk wrote:
| ...or you just do some actual moderating instead of offloading
| your workload on machines. People worry about idiots and
| disinformation yet ignore and allow way more non conspiracy
| nutjobs all the time. Big Tech has such a cognitive dissonance
| its dizzying
| AmericanChopper wrote:
| Misinformation, aside from being a rather subjective thing to
| define, isn't the cause of the problem, it's just a symptom of
| it.
|
| The cause of the problem is people losing trust in their
| institutions. People not trusting pharmaceutical companies
| barely needs any explanation due to their history of scandals
| (any opioid crisis threads on HN today?).
|
| People not trusting public health institutions is a bit more
| serious. But it's a perfectly rational reaction given how much
| they've lied over the course of the pandemic. Looking to
| misinformation as the source of the problem is just a way to
| deflect responsibility.
|
| If the problem you're trying to solve is "how do we combat
| misinformation", then "strictly controlling the information
| they're allowed to consume, and the things they're allowed to
| say" seems like a reasonable response to a lot of people.
|
| But if your problem is "why have people lost trust in our
| institutions", then "because we failed to strictly control the
| information they're allowed to consume, and the things they're
| allowed to say" is quite obviously a counterproductive KGB-
| style response.
| StanislavPetrov wrote:
| > I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers
| out of "principle".
|
| Part of the issue is the blanket characterization of everyone
| who doesn't verbatim repeat the preferred rhetoric of
| Youtube/Google as "anti-vaxxers". As everyone informed and
| intelligent knows, the government, the corporate media and the
| "intelligence agencies" have been, by far, the greatest
| disseminators of "disinformation" for decades. From the Bay of
| Tonkin to babies pulled from incubators to WMD in Iraq to
| Hunter Biden's laptop being a Russian plot. The problem is that
| this sort of disinformation is not only allowed, but amplified
| by these same corporate media outlets (and their government
| handlers) who claim that we desperately need to eliminate free
| speech. You want to fight disinformation? Teach people how to
| think critically and be necessarily skeptical of everything
| they are told, no matter what the source. Teach people how to
| examine evidence that underlies assertions, and reject
| assertions that are made without evidence (or, worse yet,
| claims of "secret evidence" that are rampant in corporate media
| and government sources). Except this is the opposite of what
| Google/Youtube and the government want. They want total control
| over the information flow, along with a low-information
| population that uncritically soaks up whatever propaganda they
| are saturated with. They don't want a population that is
| equipped with the tools needed to sort through the lies and
| bullshit - they just want to control which lies and what
| bullshit they are exposed to.
| SergeAx wrote:
| A simple question: do you beleive that suppressing freedom of
| speech will seriously inclrease a number of vaccinated? I
| beleive that the best outcome is it will stay around the same.
| Some sensitive people will calm down and eventually vaccinate,
| others will become stronger anti-vaxxers, because "if it is
| forbidden by authorities, it should be somehow true".
| notacoward wrote:
| Very tricky, embedding an assumption - that a particular
| example conforming to long recognized free-speech exceptions
| is the same as general suppression of free speech - in your
| question. Have you stopped beating your wife? Maybe, if
| you're acting in good faith and really are prepared to
| consider an answer other than the one you've ordained, you
| could try phrasing the question in a less prejudicial way.
| weaksauce wrote:
| > do you beleive[sic] that suppressing freedom of speech
|
| wildly wrong take on what the first amendment means....
| nonameiguess wrote:
| This seems incredibly naive. The present proliferation of
| anti-vaccine sentiment is almost entirely the result of
| propaganda pushed by a tiny number of people being amplified
| by social media. You can argue about whether or not it's
| right to suppress information on principle, but I don't see
| how you can argue it's ineffective. It's ineffective at
| combating actual truth when things like the Supreme Soviet
| just lie about meeting their five year plan goals and
| imprison anyone who presents real data, but scientific
| journals and newspapers introducing some editorial curation
| in what they were willing to amplify worked perfectly fine at
| actually suppressing fringe pseudoscience and false
| conspiracy theories for centuries.
|
| I get it. Some conspiracies turn out to be true. Watergate
| happened. The Panama Papers happened. COINTELPRO happened.
| The FBI probably really did assassinate Fred Hampton. Galileo
| was right. But for every Galileo, there are a few thousand
| cranks thinking they disproved special relativity or invented
| a perpetual motion machine and refusing to grant them a
| platform has worked fine forever until social media came
| along and gave everyone an audience.
| SergeAx wrote:
| The heart of any anti-* sentiment is DOUBT. And in case of
| covid vaccines part of that doubt is totally legit. Yes, in
| a history of mankind there was never a medical substance so
| rushed to the market. And yes, our current covid vaccines
| are far from perfect. All you can do to counter these facts
| are bring another facts. And not shutting down intelligent
| reasonable people discussing all those facts.
|
| We don't remember people who got other theories than
| Galileo. We don't even remember those who judged him.
| Because in the end all is remains is proven unshakable
| science.
| sneak wrote:
| A private site like YouTube choosing to censor content on its
| own servers is not suppressing freedom of speech.
|
| In fact, it is YouTube exercising freedom of speech by
| wielding editorial control over their own website.
| engineer_22 wrote:
| I mean... Yeah... Long ago some people got together and
| said large government organizations should not censor
| speech. They thought this idea was good enough that it
| shouldn't just be law, they should Amend the US
| Constitution to protect people from a particular large
| organization's overwhelming power to suppress dissent.
|
| But today the organization censoring speech is a public
| corporation [wealthier and more powerful than most
| governments], and because it doesn't have explicit ties to
| any government, we are supposed to assume that the spirit
| of the original rule is not being violated. Citizens may
| expect no freedom of thought or expression, even if the
| properties Google owns appear to be and function like
| public forums.
| kklisura wrote:
| So... Youtube is now a publisher, not a platform?
| VLM wrote:
| Youtube should be held civil and criminal liable for ALL
| content on its highly edited and curated platform.
| [deleted]
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Freedom of speech can go beyond just what's in the federal
| constitution.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pruneyard_Shopping_Center_v._
| R...
|
| It's not necessarily that simple, although it probably is
| under current state laws.
| wqewqe wrote:
| Of course it will.
| mcguire wrote:
| If you don't mind my asking, how old are you? And did you
| grow up in the United States?
|
| If you grew up in the US and are (significantly) older than
| Facebook and Youtube, you were raised in a society that had
| _significantly greater_ suppression of free speech than is
| being discussed here. Nobody handed crazy people a megaphone
| and a world-wide platform to spread their nuttiness. They had
| to stand out in front of the post office or mall entrance
| (where they would be shooed away by security quickly) to
| enlighten the world about the evils of fluoride.
|
| But that's probably just Bill Gates' chip talking.
| SergeAx wrote:
| I am 46 and I was born and living all my life in Soviet
| Union and now Russia. So you don't tell me what a
| significant free speech suppression feels like)
|
| YouTube is not a megafone. TV and newspapers is. YouTube is
| just a medium. People still have to find those videos,
| click links, share them and so on. Unless, of course,
| YouTube algos are putting them on the front page because
| they are generating more ads profit.
|
| And you could not stop information from flowing around in
| 1980-s (@see "Samizdat") and hundredfold cannot do it
| today. If you think then closing Parler solved the problem
| of internal division in USA - no, it just made it worse.
| burnished wrote:
| Another simple question: if actions were ineffective like you
| describe, why would people take them? There isn't some cosmic
| homeostasis keeping the world the way you percieve it. If you
| get rid of anti-vax videos, fewer people are going to be
| exposed to that, and fewer people will be resultantly anti-
| vax.
| SergeAx wrote:
| I didn't describe anything as ineffective. On the contrary:
| those who vaccinated are now very effectively avoiding
| being seriously sick or even dead. What was ineffective is
| an information campaign about vaccines, their direct and
| side short and long term effects. At least in US, I
| believe.
| awofford wrote:
| Standing by people you don't agree with is a pretty hallmark
| demonstration of "principle."
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This isn't a new situation. Free speech debates are as old as
| civilization itself. The printing press was at least as
| disruptive as the Internet, precisely because relatively small
| players could sabotage power of huge organizations such as the
| Church relatively cheaply.
|
| I think that the old classical liberal principles still apply.
| A certain fringe of the population will eat any propaganda
| unthinkingly, domestic or foreign. But if a majority was so
| uncritical, democracies would have collapsed a long time ago.
|
| We might actually be over the crest of max poisoning in social
| media. Lots of people have realized that such channels are not
| to be trusted. This is partly masked by the fact that a lot of
| new content is still churned out by dedicated players; silent
| majorities are silent.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| The printing press didn't allow adversaries to flood your
| citizens sources of information with disinformation.
| will4274 wrote:
| How not?
|
| Newsstands contain dozens of newspapers, typically all
| owned by only 1 or 2 conglomerates. How is that any
| different than a Facebook feed which shows hundreds of
| groups spamming out propoganda, all of which are operated
| by a much smaller number of entities?
| burrows wrote:
| > A certain fringe of the population will eat any propaganda
| unthinkingly, domestic or foreign. But if a majority was so
| uncritical, democracies would have collapsed a long time ago.
|
| Like the millions of people who unironically watch CNN, FOX,
| ESPN, MTV and whatever else TeeVee networks are carrying?
| all2 wrote:
| https://americanfreepress.net/perpetual-war-and-the-
| global-m...
|
| > What is insidious, as Ulfkotte confesses, is that
| typically, intelligence agencies use "unofficial covers"--
| people working for the agency but not actually on its
| payroll as agents. It is a broad, loose network of
| "friends," doing one another favors. Many are lead
| journalists from numerous countries. This informality
| provides plausible deniability for both sides, but it means
| an "unofficial cover," as Ulfkotte became, is on his own if
| captured.
|
| > The American reporter James Foley, allegedly executed by
| ISIS, found that out. Ulfkotte confirmed to this author
| that Foley did indeed work for various intelligence
| organizations, as this newspaper reported on last month. He
| also stated that if a journalist is accused of spying, such
| reports are almost always credible.
|
| The point of this article is that journalists are just as
| fallible to money as everyone else. That the alphabet soup
| agencies don't mind using journalists for their own ends.
| To assume that stops with spying is an argument from
| silence (lol, but to assume that it _does_ go past that is
| also an argument from silence).
| tw04 wrote:
| >I think that the old classical liberal principles still
| apply. A certain fringe of the population will eat any
| propaganda unthinkingly, domestic or foreign. But if a
| majority was so uncritical, democracies would have collapsed
| a long time ago.
|
| I think most Americans are delusional and think "the good guy
| always win" because of the outcomes of WWI and WWII. The fact
| that Nazi Germany existed at all, or that democracy is non-
| existent in the second largest economy in the world should
| tell you that it's just not accurate to pretend that only the
| fringe of the population buys into propaganda.
|
| 53% of registered Republicans still believe Donald Trump won
| the 2020 election based on nothing other than propaganda... I
| think you underestimate how fragile Democracy is and you
| don't need to look much farther than Moscow.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > I think you underestimate how fragile Democracy is and
| you don't need to look much farther than Moscow.
|
| Which is exactly why we need to uphold classical liberal
| principles, as well as speak truth with appropriate nuance.
|
| The best way to deal with a bad idea is with a better idea,
| not by silencing the bad idea.
|
| I'd have a lot more respect for Google in this case if
| they, in collaboration with researchers and experts,
| produced their own well-researched, nuanced, carefully
| stated arguments against what they disagree with.
| tw04 wrote:
| Ahh the old paradox of tolerance. What you preach has
| failed literally every time it has been tried throughout
| history. You can't stop intolerance with tolerance, you
| will lose every time. Full stop. And the irony of
| preaching tolerance while downvoting me is ripe.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| So you're saying we need to censor to protect freedom of
| speech?
| ScoobleDoodle wrote:
| At first pass, I don't see how this applies to people
| sharing information about vaccines whether personal
| experience, science, or misunderstood science.
|
| How would you say that people sharing information about
| vaccines and their effects are intolerant?
|
| How would you say that people not wanting to get
| vaccinated are intolerant of any particular demographic
| group? That's not targeting anyone by race, gender,
| sexual orientation, religion. It's a decision for them
| self about their person.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| > You can't stop intolerance with tolerance, you will
| lose every time. Full stop.
|
| I'm not proposing full tolerance of the intolerant.
| Rather, as Karl Popper explained, political institutions
| within a liberal democratic society are the most
| appropriate scope within which the people's will
| regarding what to tolerate is expressed. In other words,
| contact your representatives about what needs to be
| outlawed, and until something is outlawed, show liberal
| tolerance--which absolutely includes refuting bad ideas
| in public debate.
|
| Regarding YouTube, their choice to deplatform people is
| their choice -- and it's not against the law, since they
| own the platform. I certainly disagree with the wisdom
| behind their choice. It's likely to cause more problems
| than it solves; but I'm _tolerating_ it even as I argue
| against it in public debate.
|
| (also, I didn't downvote you)
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I am not an American. I actually live in a country that was
| a kicking baloon of totalitarian powers for decades.
|
| The first instinct of an autocrat is to strangle free
| speech of his critics. This has been the case since
| forever.
|
| For all their errors, societies that do have wide freedom
| of speech rarely lapse into tyrannies on their own account.
| The freedom to say that the emperor's new clothes are
| bullsh*t is precious.
|
| As for your historical examples, Weimar democracy was
| deeply flawed in that it tolerated party militias and a lot
| of violence in the streets. Once people are threatened
| physically, they will seek 'protection' from gangsters. But
| violence is something very different from actual words.
|
| And China isn't a case of a democracy that was taken over
| by cunning speeches of its enemies. CCP got into power by
| winning a civil war.
| jwond wrote:
| So we need to apply heavy-handed censorship to silence
| dissent so that we don't turn into an authoritarian country
| like China or Russia where they use heavy-handed censorship
| to silence dissent.
| drewwwwww wrote:
| the printing press did not induce algorithmically amplified
| radicalization in order to serve more underwear ads. youtube
| and facebook are different.
| mlindner wrote:
| Youtube and facebook are no more different than the
| printing press was different from what lay before.
| oblio wrote:
| Yes, they are. Almost every one has one or more mobile
| devices that we carry with us at all times.
|
| These devices have various messaging/social media
| services that due to social expectations we use to
| interact with friends, family.
|
| It's very, very hard to laser curate the kind of
| messaging you get, even if you know how to do it and are
| willing to do it (for example for some stuff you have to
| mute friends and family or otherwise block them).
|
| Newspapers were much more hit and miss. You'd have to go
| out and buy a newspaper, their region was at best
| national, etc.
|
| It's the proverbial drinking from a firehose.
| curryst wrote:
| In absolute terms, you're right. We interact with media
| more than we ever have before.
|
| The printing press was huge in relative terms, though.
| There was no mass media before that. The average person
| was unlikely to be able to read, much less to own any
| books. Communicating across even relatively short
| distances was infeasible. Most of the media they consumed
| was either from the church or at least regulated by the
| church.
|
| The printing press was huge because the normal person's
| sphere of possible influence grew 100x. Much in the way
| that we've 100x-ed again with things like YouTube. The
| relative increase in sphere of influence is similar, the
| absolutes are massively different.
| oblio wrote:
| True, but I think there's a saying about quantity having
| a quality all its own.
|
| The printing press was still running at humanly
| achievable speeds. The new stuff is super sonic. We can't
| cope with it. Plus with people living longer and longer
| and the natural neuroplasticity decrease that comes with
| age, more and more people are vulnerable.
|
| It's the kind of thing that will need to be regulated
| very carefully and very strongly, because that's what
| laws are: barriers for when the human psyche fails.
| Imperfect barriers, but better than nothing.
| Groxx wrote:
| It gave newspapers and magazines the ability to do exactly
| that, and some absolutely have. It's pretty easy to draw
| parallels between those and "content creators".
| nickff wrote:
| > _" youtube and facebook are different."_
|
| Every specific case is different; you can always find some
| facts which differentiate one instance from the 'general
| case'. It is not enough to say 'this time is different',
| one must overcome the presumption that general rules should
| hold.
| bettysdiagnose wrote:
| Umm they did exactly that, you just ignored that bit.
| dudeman13 wrote:
| I think their point is that being algorithmically induced
| makes the general rule not hold (which I don't agree -
| algorithms can be pretty damn bad at achieving what one
| wants).
|
| Mind you, damn thank you for saying that out loud. People
| on the internet sure love to jump on the wagon of
| pointing out the differences of instances from a general
| case that often aren't even relevant for the argument.
| mbesto wrote:
| > Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat
| disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision?
|
| Actually, people have, we've just moved on from the more
| important discussion which is whether YouTube (and other
| similar forms of social media / UGC) should exist in its
| current form.
|
| I personally do not like regulation, but this is a situation in
| which the harm of social media / UGC is starting to outshine
| its benefit. I'm not sure if an outright ban of sites like YT
| is warranted but I think the frictionless experience of
| uploading/commenting/etc. on YT should be questioned.
| nradov wrote:
| Fortunately the First Amendment doesn't allow the US
| government to regulate such activities just because elitist
| authoritarians consider them harmful. This is an area where
| fundamental rights overrule cost-benefit analysis.
| mbesto wrote:
| I agree in principle, but I think it's worth exploring
| analogous examples. For example, doesn't the FCC regulate
| what is on TV in some form?
| nradov wrote:
| The FCC has no legal authority to regulate anti-vaccine
| content on TV. (I don't support such content, just
| explaining the law.) The FCC has some limited authority
| to regulate obscenity and indecency on over-the-air
| broadcast channels only. Congress gave them this
| authority because broadcast spectrum is a scarce public
| resource that reaches into everyone's home whether they
| want it or not. However the FCC generally has no
| authority over cable, Internet, or satellite content.
| Those systems aren't subject to spectrum scarcity and
| have effectively infinite capacity.
|
| https://www.reuters.com/article/entertainment-us-usa-
| televsi...
| mbesto wrote:
| That makes sense, thanks! I'm wondering if there is some
| sort of regulation possibility on their processing of
| content or algorithms. In other words, similar to the
| cookie law in EU (which has an abysmal implementation)
| whereby individuals have more control on what they can
| and can't see and what gets promoted to them.
| nradov wrote:
| In general content promotion algorithms can't be
| regulated because a recommendation on which videos to
| watch is legally considered an opinion and thus
| Constitutionally protected free speech. The Supreme Court
| would probably only allow regulations in two narrow
| areas. The first would be where the promoted content is
| itself not Constitutionally protected due to obscenity or
| incitement of violence. The second would be commercial
| speech targeting children, who are legally considered as
| needing additional protection. For example the FTC can
| regulate some aspects of online services for minors under
| COPPA.
|
| https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/privacy-
| and-...
|
| Individuals can always control what they see by not using
| YouTube.
| mcguire wrote:
| Translation: "elitist authoritarians" => "those who know
| what they are talking about".
|
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110475
| deadpannini wrote:
| "Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat
| disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision?"
|
| Yes. Combat disinformation by refuting it. This requires
| credibility, and censorship is one of the fastest ways to burn
| that down.
| m-p-3 wrote:
| The problem is that bullshit takes significantly less effort
| to produce than a well-researched counter-argument.
|
| With the sheer volume of disinformation out there, you can't
| even start to imagine having the required manpower to squash
| it all with refutation alone.
| deadpannini wrote:
| Yeah, fighting ignorance isn't easy. But the alternatives
| are much worse, ineffective in the long run, and by
| damaging your credibility, impair your ability to fight
| rationally in the future.
|
| De-platforming is always going to fail because your
| opponents are hydras. "Yay, we crushed Milo Yiannopoulos!"
| Er, wait, how's that going, really? Malevolent
| troublemaking nihilists are still at large? _Donald Trump_
| won the next election?
|
| Better to have it out in public.
| ptaipale wrote:
| The covid disinformation is like a religion; no amount of
| researched data is going to change peoples minds. Believe me,
| I've been patient in explaining facts and referring to data,
| but people just report fabricated data memes and click the
| laughing emoji (which in fact should be removed from
| Facebook...)
| IshKebab wrote:
| People don't fall for this stuff because they've weighed up
| the evidence for and against.
| [deleted]
| trezemanero wrote:
| Yes? If we continue to allow explicit censoring this will
| become normal.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers
| out of "principle".
|
| I can confirm your suspicions in my case. I'm vaccinated
| (against COVID, the flu, and tetanus, and all the other things
| you can get vaccinated against), but I think YouTube is wrong
| here.
| EastOfTruth wrote:
| I've also been vaccinated twice and think that this is a
| slippery slope we have been going down for quite a while.
| goldenbikeshed wrote:
| I think the problem is less what YouTube is doing here and
| more that YouTube has this kind of power. If every country
| had 10 video Websites like Youtube that each had a 10th of
| the users from that country, and maybe some international
| users, then one portal taking a total ban-all hard-ass stance
| on misinformation wouldn't be a big deal.
|
| tldr: Monopolies bad, YouTube bad, facebook bad.
| wsatb wrote:
| What type of power do they really have? If you don't like
| their policies, don't use their services, it's that simple.
| The only power is in their user base. YouTube is not some
| necessary utility, neither is Facebook, Twitter, etc. None
| of these services are worth anything without users.
|
| Social networks are unprecedented in our world. Never have
| you been able to spread misinformation and propaganda as
| quickly. I don't know what the right answer is, but it
| certainly shouldn't be to sit back and do nothing because
| "censorship". This misinformation campaign is actively
| killing people.
| enchiridion wrote:
| The right answer might be to sit back and do nothing.
| That seems just as likely to be correct as any
| intervention.
|
| Eroding trust by overtly controlling information sets the
| scene for propaganda to take deeper root.
| wsatb wrote:
| > Eroding trust by overtly controlling information sets
| the scene for propaganda to take deeper root.
|
| Your choice is to either put the propaganda in front of
| more eyes or have the current believers doubling down,
| and you choose the few? The problem is the general
| population does not critically think enough for the sit
| back and do nothing approach to work in the real world.
|
| Also, let's be clear: the eroded trust is with a private
| company that owns a community-driven platform. I know I'm
| getting downvoted, but seriously, move on if you don't
| trust them, their entire business is made from you using
| their service.
| humanrebar wrote:
| Post offices, libraries, and telephone calls all transmit
| misinformation every day. Shoot, misinformation gets
| spread across tables at Dunkin Donuts as people talk
| about life.
|
| And that's not even getting _more_ political and pointing
| out all the liars and fools in charge of newspapers and
| even governments. I 'm not saying they're all bad. I'm
| saying we're not considering banning politicians and
| newspapers for being too incorrect. Partly because the
| practice of choosing and empowering censors is even
| worse.
| enchiridion wrote:
| >* The problem is the general population does not
| critically think enough for the sit back and do nothing
| approach to work in the real world.*
|
| This shows we have fundamentally different views of the
| world, so I don't think there much more to this
| conversation.
|
| I would just say, be careful what esteem you hold other
| people in, because on more than a few issues your are
| almost certainly "the general population" to someone else
| with the power to censor.
| Spivak wrote:
| Okay so you have your wish, there are 10 major video sites
| in the US who all have 5-20% market share. The forces that
| push one service moderate content will push the others.
|
| Like there are a lot of social networks, have you noticed
| that every single one is monitoring for COVID related
| content and adding a banner?
|
| tldr: competition can't solve political issues because
| there's a monopoly on government
| musingsole wrote:
| There is government pressure (more correctly just social
| pressure) but the government hasn't given a mandate that
| these platforms must take this censorship stance.
|
| And even then, this is only an issue _because_ everyone
| is on just a handful of platforms -- so the companies
| build one-size-fits-all policies. But we 're not all the
| same size.
|
| I'm not terrified of my community encountering
| misinformation. I'm far more terrified of a community
| being unable to articulate and defend why the information
| is "mis".
| distribot wrote:
| The US government can't mandate that censorship tact,
| right? Sounds like a first amendment violation?
| Grustaf wrote:
| The US government is quite happy to start wars all across
| the world, obviously they are not above leaning on the
| media to get their point across.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| "We're flagging problematic posts for Facebook..."
|
| - Jen Psaki 7/15/2021
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0aWGsxyYPg
| krageon wrote:
| > I think YouTube is wrong here.
|
| When your child gets polio because some soccer mom spent too
| much time listening to crackpots online and decided not to
| vaccinate their children, that's when you realise they were
| correct. And perhaps society as a whole did not nearly go far
| enough.
| hammock wrote:
| The rate of paralysis from polio was less than the death
| rate of covid.
| [deleted]
| deepnotderp wrote:
| "Think of the children " - the rallying cry of
| authoritarians.
| uuddlrlr wrote:
| I don't have numbers, but there's a substantial population
| of people wary of the covid vaccines that aren't wary of
| polio, measles, or even flu vaccines.
| beebmam wrote:
| Agitative propaganda is a hell of a drug
| mod wrote:
| I don't know why this is downvoted, because I have also
| found it to be true (within my immediate family).
|
| It's hard for me to dig to the actual reasoning, but I've
| poked and prodded, and I think it might just be some
| rationalizing to help them cope with the idea that they
| are, in fact, vaccinated against certain diseases.
|
| Also they're just ignorant in some cases. I got a
| response to the tune of "yeah (I'm vaccinated against
| some things)--against diseases, not viruses." Which
| clearly fundamentally misunderstands some things.
|
| I've also heard people who are just against mRNA
| vaccines. And some who are (somewhat reasonably IMO)
| against mRNA vaccines until they've had a reasonable time
| period to let side effects etc play out.
| usrusr wrote:
| It's funny how people seem to be far more wary of their
| cells being subjected to a controlled dose of a carefully
| selected strand of mRNA than they are wary of their cells
| being subjected to a much larger bundle of mRNA that
| happens to include some variation of that carefully
| selected strand amongst many other things that together
| turn the cell into a weapon producing more copies of
| itself, and that will eventually kill every carrier whose
| immune system does not come up with a countermeasure fast
| enough. If the mRNA vaccine that contains a tiny subset
| of the virus is scary, how can the full version not be
| far more scary?
| dudeman13 wrote:
| Don't forget the obvious merely logical counter argument:
|
| How does one come up with "being vaccinated could
| potentially be a time bomb" without naturally coming up
| with "being unvaccinated could potentially be a time
| bomb"?
|
| If you don't even know what mRNA stands for without
| Googling it, surely you couldn't possibly guess that one
| of these is more likely to be true than the other.
| mod wrote:
| I don't think the average person can (or will,
| especially) really source reliable information on how
| mRNA works, let alone think through the potential risks.
|
| It's a very technical question that involves a ton of
| knowledge about how our body works etc.
|
| Despite reading up about it, I wouldn't personally feel
| confident enough to explain it at any level of technical
| detail.
|
| I don't think we can expect the majority of people to
| understand it and then make decisions based on that--
| ever.
|
| It's very unclear, without deep knowledge of both the
| vaccine tech and the virus, which time bomb is worse. I
| know what the experts say, and I personally believe them,
| but it's not surprising to me that others don't.
|
| When politicians are the folks in charge of our personal
| health (to any degree), it's always going to immediately
| sew distrust-- as it should.
| dudeman13 wrote:
| >It's very unclear, without deep knowledge of both the
| vaccine tech and the virus, which time bomb is worse. I
| know what the experts say, and I personally believe them,
| but it's not surprising to me that others don't.
|
| But... that's the thing, isn't it? It's a fundamental
| issue with tackling the problem.
|
| "I sure as hell have no idea whether 'a' or '!a' is
| better, therefore 'a' is the one I am picking." It's a
| ridiculous level of favouring one alternative for no good
| reason.
|
| I would find it acceptable if it were even based on some
| sort of loose heuristics for picking 'a', but they got
| nothing. For someone who might as well know nothing, why
| the heck are they so focused on 'going at it unvaccinated
| is probably the better outcome long term'?
|
| Not believing the experts would lead to not having an
| opinion at all. What they are doing is believing that the
| experts are wrong.
| mlindner wrote:
| Actually that's what convinced me to get the vaccine, the
| fact of how the new bioengineering for mRNA worked. I was
| convinced that it would be highly successful and
| effective. And I honestly don't believe the theories that
| it's effectiveness is somehow wearing off. It's much more
| likely that it's just not effective against
| Delta+mutations as that is so far from the original
| variant the vaccine was designed for. I don't plan to get
| any booster shots until a new delta variant vaccine is
| available.
| weaksauce wrote:
| side effects of a two dose vaccine are almost certainly
| going to show up in the near term of less than 6 weeks.
| it's not something like a drug you take daily for years
| and years and get a side effect from years down the line
| due to prolonged use.
|
| These are, by nature, very ephemeral due to them being
| mRNA and either being transformed into an instruction to
| make a small protein that then gets the body trained to
| neutralize or it gets neutralized on their own because
| they are not long lasting in the first place. There is no
| instruction inside the mRNA to make anything like the
| long lasting effects of a retrovirus. it's simply not
| there to do that.
|
| vaccines like this are more like the effects of taking a
| Tylenol or aspirin once... yeah you can get side effects
| from it but there is no long lasting effect because it's
| gone from your system.
| bit_razor wrote:
| Regardless of why this was downvoted, it deserves an
| upvote for being correct.
|
| "Are there long-term side effects caused by mRNA COVID-19
| vaccines? How do we know?" Basically, no because we've
| studied them. mRNA vaccines are notoriously easily
| destroyed.
|
| https://immunizebc.ca/ask-us/questions/are-there-long-
| term-s....
|
| Is there some common knowledge that counters this that
| I'm missing?
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| Check out Pfizer's own RCT study where all cause
| mortality was unaffected by the vaccine at six months.
| hajile wrote:
| This is a very disingenuous argument.
|
| The alpha gal carbohydrate introduced by a lone Star tick
| trains your immune system to reject it in the future
| resulting in the inability to eat red meats.
|
| The alpha gal leaves your system very quickly, but the
| result of the (mis)-training of your immune system lasts
| forever.
|
| Researchers are very clear that mRNA therapy may be
| useful for permanent treatment of a wide variety of
| conditions in the future. The material may not persist,
| but the effects certainly will.
|
| The Israeli study indicates that natural immunity use up
| to 27x more effective than the vaccine against Delta.
| This indicates that something about the synthetic
| solution is inferior.
|
| What other differences exist? Will any other immune
| abnormalities appear over time? That wouldn't be unusual.
| Were other systems altered due to unknown interactions?
| We still discover very important natural interactions
| every year, so this isn't far fetched.
|
| What about your body only making limited, synthetic
| antigen antibodies instead of the better, more flexible
| natural ones in response to even more out of band gamma
| or mu strains? These are entirely unknown problems we're
| in the process of researching and for better or worse,
| we're the guinea pigs.
|
| I don't see why those perspective is hard to understand.
| People with low openness personalities who tend to be
| risk adverse are going to respond very differently from
| those with high openness and lower risk aversion (not to
| mention differing knowledge).
|
| It should be telling that doctors and nurses who have
| been watching covid patients die still often come to the
| conclusion that the vaccine isn't for them and is too
| risky.
|
| I've been reading about coronavirus vaccine attempts
| since SARS. I've watched one attempt after another fail
| -- often in spectacular ways. The idea that a long string
| of failures suddenly meets with absolute success just at
| the correct moment defies belief. Those of us who took
| the vaccine should at least admit to ourselves that
| there's a non-zero chance things are wrong this time too
| (though hopefully not so spectacularly) but that those
| effects and effect rates are still lower on aggregate
| than the problems from covid.
| allturtles wrote:
| > The alpha gal leaves your system very quickly, but the
| result of the (mis)-training of your immune system lasts
| forever.
|
| But does it take years for the effect to show up after
| the alpha gal leaves your system? We are now 9 months
| into mass vaccination, and still no sign of these ominous
| long-term side effects that people seem so worried about.
| weaksauce wrote:
| they aren't even sure that the tick is the cause of that
| syndrome. they suspect it but there hasn't been a
| definitive link yet. also, people are allergic to all
| sorts of things like almonds or bees and can get new
| allergies later on in life.
| twofornone wrote:
| >But does it take years for the effect to show up after
| the alpha gal leaves your system?
|
| For this specific change, no. But the point is that there
| is ample chance for mRNA to induce semipermanent and/or
| permanent changes and there's no guarantee that they'll
| be detected early, especially when the vast majority of
| clinicians aren't even looking for them.
|
| If these vaccines do indeed, say, increase long term risk
| of cancer or heart problems, it will likely take years or
| even decades to detect _especially when there is a rigid,
| top down enforced taboo around questioning the safety
| /efficacy of the vaccine_. Yet another reason that
| censorship like this is dangerous.
|
| Researchers also get some of their ideas through free
| exchange on social media. Especially when the academic
| establishment develops a rigid orthodoxy around a topic;
| when all of the institutions align behind a single
| preemptive conclusion and then collude to suppress even
| rational, science based dissent across all platforms,
| your society stumbles down the false path of one sided
| research.
| [deleted]
| bogdanoff_2 wrote:
| >I've been reading about coronavirus vaccine attempts
| since SARS. I've watched one attempt after another fail
| -- often in spectacular ways.
|
| I'd like to know what these attempts were and why the
| current vaccines are different. Do you know a good source
| of information about this? Or, can you list some of these
| attempts?
| user-the-name wrote:
| And are they wary because they are vaccine experts, or is
| it because they have been constantly exposed to anti-vaxx
| propaganda for a year and a half?
| sigmar wrote:
| I think his point very much means youtube should have
| done this sooner. There are tons of ppl that are 'anti-
| this vax only' because of the misinformation of youtube.
| seph-reed wrote:
| YouTube's algorithm actively pushes people down rabbit holes
| towards fringe content.
|
| The best way to combat this is not invest billions of dollars
| in infrastructure meant to do exactly the thing it just did.
|
| Bad actors didn't poison the system, youtube covered itself in
| lacerations and jumped into sewer water. They stand back
| watching their algorithm divide and extremize everyone on every
| side of every debate, and now that the flame wars are starting
| to turn into mass graves they're hoping they can stop the whole
| thing by banning a few extremes here and there.
|
| > Just a no win situation
|
| I think there is a clear win here: AI should not be allowed to
| do what it is doing. Humans can't handle it. And the cost of
| lives is on Facebook and YouTube, plenty of employees took a
| stand to say exactly what was/is happening and were ignored.
| JeremyNT wrote:
| > Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat
| disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision? I
| almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of
| "principle".
|
| Social networks seem to be unable to optimize for anything
| other than "engagement," which inevitably leads to amplifying
| compelling but technically incorrect and outright dangerous
| content.
|
| The thing to remember is that YouTube is essentially _designed_
| to boost disinformation. As implemented they have no effective
| counterbalance to this.
|
| Is it also "censorship" when the YT recommendation system
| effectively buries factual and useful information for some
| people just because it's less engaging than the misinformation
| they currently consume? Maybe so?
|
| The solution seems pretty obvious to me. There's a middle
| ground between banning and allowing to run rampant - and that's
| to add human reviewers to counterbalance the terrible job
| currently being done by their automatic recommendation system,
| and manually down-rank disinformation so it is less likely to
| be surfaced automatically in peoples' playlists.
|
| Google will never do it, because it would 1) require paying
| humans to do work, which is expensive, and 2) it wouldn't drive
| engagement and generate clicks.
|
| So they just take the easy way out, so they can keep on doing
| what they do.
| makeworld wrote:
| > Social networks seem to be unable to optimize for anything
| other than "engagement,"
|
| This is mostly due to the profit motive. Optimizing for time
| spent on the platform benefits shareholders.
| oblio wrote:
| I would argue it's much, much, worse than what you're saying.
| I mean this part:
|
| > Google will never do it, because it would 1) require paying
| humans to do work, which is expensive, and 2) it wouldn't
| drive engagement and generate clicks.
|
| Every regular business out there needs support. In the form
| of pre-sales, sales, post-sales, actual support folks, etc.
|
| Google's entire business model is predicated on there being
| no meaningful human support.
|
| If they're forced to implement the level of support their
| worldwide, what-they-consider-top-notch operation would
| actually require, their business model goes bust.
|
| Ok, I'm probably exaggerating, but their profit margins would
| go down from ~25% to probably something like 5%.
|
| They will <<never>>, ever do it, unless someone puts a legal
| gun to their head.
| zanellato19 wrote:
| Thats the biggest problem with all of this stuff. They
| designed their whole business to not pay people. Not only
| their margins would shrink, but the perceived value of the
| company would shrink _a lot_. They will never do it.
| smileysteve wrote:
| You assign this to social media, but it's is seemingly true
| of politics as well. (Reference vaccines in 2016 GOP Primary
| debate about vaccines)
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat
| disinformation
|
| Yeah. Don't do shit. Let the stupid run its course.
|
| Trying to combat disinformation is like bombing villages in
| hope of hitting an ammo dump. The collateral damage is more
| damaging than ignoring the problem.
|
| Why do we always have to be Doing Something(TM)?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| You're arguing to let low information or critical thinking
| challenged people die because of the actions of others
| (whether those actions are in good faith or not is
| immaterial). If Youtube decides it wants to take action to
| promote the public welfare, that's their right as a business.
|
| "Doing Something" is usually harm reduction within the
| framework of law and public policy, and there's a lot of harm
| out there, hence the continual debate over a) should
| something be done? and b) what can be done?
| smnrchrds wrote:
| In Alberta, the <20% of individuals who remain unvaccinated
| make up >90% of ICU admissions. ICUs are so full surgeries
| are being postponed, resources are being diverted to COVID
| ICUs, and they may have to start triaging ICU patients soon
| because of the lack of capacity, all of which affects not
| only the unvaccinated but everyone needing medical care in
| the province. Letting the situation run its course will kill
| and has killed way more than just the anti-vax.
| strgcmc wrote:
| Imagine this attitude applied to climate change. Letting the
| stupid runs its course and choosing inaction, will lead to
| disastrous warming outcomes.
|
| So, maybe there are situations where doing nothing is okay,
| but I don't think very large scale problems that require
| coordinated large scale action over long time scales to
| address, like global pandemics or mitigating the impacts of
| man made climate change, are the right situations for that
| kind of approach. Too many thousands/millions will die, too
| many billions/trillions of dollars of damage will be done,
| via inaction.
|
| Of course, it all comes down to whether you can stomach the
| cost of inaction, because maybe you don't think the impacts
| are all that bad. I don't have an answer to that, if two
| parties fundamentally disagree about what the cost of impact
| will be or whether that cost is acceptable (e.g. many folks
| in the US apparently think 600k+ COVID deaths in the US isn't
| a big deal, and wasn't worth the interventions applied to
| mitigate it to that level).
| tomp wrote:
| > Imagine this attitude applied to climate change. Letting
| the stupid runs its course and choosing inaction, will lead
| to disastrous warming outcomes.
|
| This _is_ the same situation as climate change. Instead of
| doing sensible things, we banned plastic straws! (Now paper
| straws come in plastic packaging...). Or the situation that
| UK and Germany find themselves in (having invested in
| stupid but "green" solutions).
| endisneigh wrote:
| I don't see the connection
| mlindner wrote:
| The problem with climate change is that the average person
| can't see the effects until long past the point when the
| problem can be easily solved. It's not at all comparable to
| social media.
| valeness wrote:
| > "Let stupid run it's course"
|
| _4.5 Million Deaths Later..._
| hef19898 wrote:
| Not all of which were part of the stupid category...
| goatlover wrote:
| But some are. Is 10% of those deaths worth social media
| platforms not censoring false claims about vaccines and
| masks?
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| Should they censor that they don't work or they they
| work? Both were official policy at one time in 2020
| papito wrote:
| As people already mentioned here, try running a free-for-all
| moderation-free discussion board and see what happens.
|
| Back in the day, the Internet was full of HTML discussion
| boards just like this one, and idiots were banned with no
| questions asked. It was beautiful, and no one complained.
|
| This site has moderation, no one is complaining. YouTube is a
| "person" - legally now, but somehow they don't have the
| responsibility to be a good citizen?
|
| The fact that allegedly smart people on HN use the term
| "censorship" in the context of non-government control is
| pretty shocking. You don't _know_ censorship.
|
| "Censorship" has absolutely nothing to do with it. A private
| company can allow/disallow whatever content they f---ing
| please, and the Wild West capitalists on this board should be
| the first ones to support this move. Who is going to force
| them? The government? Oh, hello.
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| Don't do shit is how you turn into 4chan.
|
| And even 4chan has moderation.
| sensanaty wrote:
| 4chan is infinitely more enjoyable than the majority of
| social media and forums out there, precisely because of how
| lax the rules are and because of the lack of perverse
| incentives for users trying to one-up eachother for
| internet points. The only real rules are that you can't
| post anything illegal and that you have to stay vaguely on-
| topic, and it works great.
|
| Also, /pol/ is not all of 4chan, there's a reason it's
| called a containment board.
| automatic6131 wrote:
| "like 4chan" is the godwin's law of social media moderation
| Espressosaurus wrote:
| It is a very public example of the result of limited
| moderation.
|
| Free speech advocates advocating for absolutism in free
| speech need a counterargument if they're going to go down
| that road.
|
| In my experience, aggressive moderation, whether by the
| community or by admins, is the only way to keep a public
| community from turning into a cesspool, so if you're
| arguing for no moderation you better have a solution for
| what that actually entails.
| bruiseralmighty wrote:
| Doesn't 4chan kind of disprove this though? I mean sure
| /pol/ can be a bit of a cesspool, but that's not all of
| 4chan. It was designed as a toxic waste storage facility
| and it has done that job fairly well.
|
| You can hold great conversations on any of the like 30
| other boards on the site without worrying about
| censorship or performance for internet points. There is
| still moderation, just the minimum amount possible.
|
| A default of anonymity also helps curb a lot of spillover
| into the real world that happens between users of other
| forum sites.
|
| The only reason 4chan gets dragged through the mud is
| because its containment facilities (/pol/, /b/, etc.) are
| among the most active boards. That speaks more to the
| human condition than 4chan in that people, when given a
| choice, tend to gravitate towards the least moderated
| sections of a website because they are the most engaging.
|
| In terms of _a solution_ I think it offers a fairly good
| one. If you don 't want to have to keep banning
| malcontents across your site, then give them a place to
| congregate and they will mostly stay there. Try to ban
| them and they swarm looking for a new home.
| sayonaraman wrote:
| What's wrong with 4chan? I for one think it's awesome,
| one of the few outlets that haven't gave in to
| censorship.
|
| I can give you a counterexample of Reddit that turned
| into cesspool with (and may be because of) excessive
| moderation. Just check their front page with posts
| celebrating people dying of Covid
| https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/
| lovich wrote:
| That's some weasel wording with "(and may be because
| of)". Also if you want posts of people celebrating death
| just stroll over into /b and mention anything to do with
| minorities and/or genocides.
|
| /pol is not the only containment board or issue with
| 4chan
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >That's some weasel wording with "(and may be because
| of)". Also if you want posts of people celebrating death
| just stroll over into /b and mention anything to do with
| minorities and/or genocides.
|
| So like /r/HermanCainAward but without the doxing?
|
| There's plenty of "death of the outgroup" celebration on
| Reddit even in big subs.
| lovich wrote:
| This thread was discussing whether moderation was needed
| or not for a forum and 4chan was brought up as a forum
| without moderation and all the issues with that.
|
| You brought up /r/hermancainaward as an example of Reddit
| having a cesspool and tried to imply without evidence
| that moderating it had a hand in its creation, _and_
| implied that it's the same level of cesspool as a place
| like /b.
|
| Even if we assume you are correct about it being the same
| level of cesspool, as we speak the Reddit admins have
| been instructing the hermancainaward moderators to clean
| up the board or be shut down, which would get rid of said
| cesspool.
|
| The only thing shown is that people can be terrible as a
| group, but moderating at least removes the worst
| excesses. That does not show how to deal with those
| excesses in an unmoderated forum
| popcube wrote:
| they had done a lot of debate at there, about whether
| this behaviour is acceptable. I just want to direct that
| the original purpose of this forums is try warn people
| what is the result of choice.
| trezemanero wrote:
| >no moderation = 4chan
|
| >4chan has moderation
|
| Please, elaborate
| ulucs wrote:
| 4chan is more tolerable than any forum with upvotes
| [deleted]
| gentle wrote:
| Great point!
| Solstinox wrote:
| Hypothetically, what do you do when there isn't enough quality
| information to gauge "disinformation" from "information?"
| disconjointed wrote:
| there is definitely a better way. i am building that right now
| jjtgbbjui wrote:
| Provide a better education for the poor. I don't mean education
| about a particular subject; better education in general.
|
| In almost all conspiracy theories, one side has a lot of facts,
| the other has a lot of "feelings". If you try having a
| conversation with someone who believes in some conspiracy
| you'll eventually get to "I just don't feel..."
| nonameiguess wrote:
| How on earth is YouTube supposed to do that? They have no
| control over the however many thousands of public school
| systems exist in the United States, let alone education in
| the rest of the world.
| ptaipale wrote:
| Covid vaccine hesitancy does not seem to be about poor
| education, nor about poverty. The visible antivaxx activists
| are well-to-do people.
|
| Distrust of government and authorities is a big factor. You
| have much more vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. than in Nordics
| (high-trust societies); Russians and Bulgarians are extremely
| sceptic of their governments, and extremely sceptic of
| vaccines.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-
| explor...
| hairofadog wrote:
| I agree with the spirit of your comment, but I'd argue it's
| even more specific than distrust of government; I think
| it's mostly tribalism, at least in the U.S. I imagine if
| Trump had reacted differently to the pandemic (acknowledged
| it was a thing at the beginning and urged or mandated
| vaccines) I think you'd see a high vaccination rate within
| his base and a different demographic altogether showing
| their distrust of government.
| ptaipale wrote:
| Surely it is tribalism, but are you now giving a
| demonstration?
|
| I have seen Trump _boast_ about vaccines, in his usual
| distasteful way. I have seen him recommend vaccines. I
| have not seen him disparage or discourage vaccinations
| (though he 's been extremely clumsy, as he was with
| everything).
|
| It seemed to me that originally, when Trump boasted about
| the vaccines, his political opponents (the Democrats in
| US, and others elsewhere) were the ones who were
| sceptical about vaccine development - simply because of
| this tribalism.
|
| (Note: I'm not American, not in either tribe.)
| kyleee wrote:
| Trump recommends the vacccine and his administration
| facilitated (or at least got out of the way of) an
| unprecedented development and rollout
| vimy wrote:
| People who don't want to take the vaccine come from all walks
| of life. Not just the poor or uneducated.
| bobsoap wrote:
| Agreed, and I'm not OP, but I'd define "general education"
| to include concepts like effective fact-checking and media
| literacy, and not just for our children but for older folks
| as well.
|
| I think a big part of the issue are some members of the
| older generations who left school long ago when there was
| maybe one newspaper in town. The internet, which came much
| later, gives everyone a voice and allows every idiot to
| dress stuff up, make it look professional, put lipstick on
| it and amplify it with the click of a button. How do you
| know to apply critical doubt to someone's claims when you
| don't even know how damn easy it is to produce a convincing
| fake? And if you do have a doubt, how would you even start
| fact-checking when all you know is Facebook and Youtube?
|
| Too many people have their guard down, sitting in the
| comfort of their living room browsing The Algorithm, and
| don't even realize they are being attacked.
| MrRiddle wrote:
| Education is only a part of it. One of other parts is trust
| in the system. Countries with more trustworthy politicians
| and more humane social policy have better response both to
| lockdown measures and vaccines.
| chefkoch wrote:
| Ok, and you get this how through school boards who don't want
| to talk about slavery and want to teach creationism?
|
| And in what timescale, 2 generations?
| credit_guy wrote:
| I don't know myself; however Steven Pinker published yesterday
| a new book called "Rationality". He promises to give the
| readers tools to cope with exactly this type of situations. I
| don't know if he delivers on it, I just started the book, but I
| really hope he does.
|
| https://www.amazon.com/Rationality-What-Seems-Scarce-Matters...
| Grustaf wrote:
| I think a big part of vaccine resistance is because of the
| insane levels of propaganda and censorship.
|
| Anyone who is even slightly suspicious of authorities will be
| much more hesitant to take a vaccine when any criticism of it
| is effectively forbidden.
|
| Put it the other way around, how many will be convinced to get
| vaccinated thanks to censorship? Here in Scandinavia, I'm sure
| at least 99% of people happily give their children the standard
| childhood vaccines, so it's not like people are anti-vaccines
| in general.
| lucumo wrote:
| Yes, exactly. It's just so similar to forum spam. Free speech
| absolutists were far less in favour of free speech when it came
| to banning viagra-salesmen.
|
| Like the forum moderators, it's perfectly okay for Google to
| just not want the headache of dealing with pests.
| diegoveralli wrote:
| I believe that tradeoffs between individual freedom and the
| common good are necessary. So I am biased in favour of
| intervening when it's necessary.
|
| But it's very hard to see how these social network
| interventions are well thought out and have considered all the
| possible side effects, many of which are mentioned in other
| comments. I suppose they're tracking the data and will change
| course if this doesn't work how they expected..
|
| Still, rather than being a case of deplatforming harmful
| speech, these look like amputations of entire conversations
| from the service, maybe to take the spotlight off the
| degenerate nature of Youtube as a human communication platform.
|
| It's clear that the ability of bad characters to screw up an
| entire system, as you say, is at least partially enabled by
| Youtube's incentives, and the features those lead to (the old
| radicalization = engagement fiasco for example). A better way
| to combat disinformation would be to understand how Youtube
| often brings the worst out of its viewers, and to fix that. But
| it's not clear who has the incentive or the obligation to do
| it.
|
| The alternative is to move the conversation to other types of
| social networks, with other incentives. But that seems even
| harder.
|
| What is clear to me is that having most of the world get their
| news from a service that algorithmically (I think, it's unclear
| from the article) bans a fully vaccinated, pro-vaccine M.D. for
| suggesting people who have been infected have immunity
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693407), to give an
| example, is not ideal. If they choose to do this _instead_ of
| tackling the problems in their recommendation system, which
| rewards disinformation and other harmful types of content in
| all sorts of topics, not just vaccines, then it 's even worse.
| MrYellowP wrote:
| > Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat
| disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision?
|
| Censorship is always bad. Always. When people accept it on a
| broader scale, more censorship will be applied eventually.
| People already accept it. At some point, broad censorship
| becomes the norm.
|
| What needs to be disregarded completely is the fact that it's
| about a vaccine. People shouldn't talk about censorship in
| context of what's being censored. Censorship itself should
| always be the topic.
|
| The fact that there's people dumb enough to believe things they
| shouldn't, isn't a problem that censorship solves. Furthermore
| are these people only so dumb, because politics made them dumb.
| They went to schools that made, or kept, them dumb.
|
| By "dumb" I mean "incapable of thinking critically", which - to
| be fair - also applies to a lot of people on the vaxing side of
| the equation.
|
| What they need is education. Locking them out of the public is
| only going to make them grow "underground". That's definitely
| not preferrable.
| notacoward wrote:
| So your answer to GP's question is no, you don't have any
| suggestions for how to fight misinformation. Thanks for that.
| roenxi wrote:
| Squeezing something into a yes-no when the entire argument
| is in the question's premise is an unreasonable tactic.
|
| "[What are your] suggestions for how to fight
| misinformation[?]" assumes that the priority is fighting
| misinformation. MrYellowP's major point is that the first
| priority is fighting censorship and the premise is
| misguided.
|
| And it isn't explicit but I think I detect a secondary
| point that YouTube doesn't have a any good suggestions for
| fighting misinformation either. Doing something ineffective
| isn't better than doing nothing; their strategy is managing
| to get the anti-vax agenda in as headline news, and making
| the vaccine a more political issue (which is bad for its
| uptake).
| notacoward wrote:
| If somebody asks for solutions better than X, giving
| constraints that preclude X is no better than a red
| herring. Contrary to your claim, MrYellowP _never_ cast
| doubt on the importance of fighting disinformation, or
| even tried. It 's just a distraction, a derailment, and a
| favorite tactic of disinformation enablers since forever.
| mariodiana wrote:
| "Misinformation" should not be combatted by anything other than
| better, more persuasive information.
| yupper32 wrote:
| Combating misinformation with more persuasive information
| takes about 10-100x more effort than putting out the original
| misinformation.
| ramses0 wrote:
| You're wrong, several Oxford and Harvard studies show that
| misinformation is best fought with more misinformation.
| Either that, or your own personal beliefs, which are _way_
| more true than something studied for years by ivory tower
| academics who are always changing their mind. Like and
| subscribe to my podcast and buy my T-Shirts......
| jhedwards wrote:
| Good luck explaining to the mob that "there in fact is no
| fire", as they charge out of the theater.
|
| I typically agree with you, and it was justice Louis Brandeis
| who said it so well: "If there be time to expose through
| discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by
| the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more
| speech, not enforced silence."
|
| On the other hand, the one exception to this is when the
| speech is question causes a clear and present danger. We are
| facing a rather perverse crisis in the world right now with
| respect to vaccine misinformation. I'm not saying I know the
| answer, but I know we did not get here through a lack of
| quality, persuasive information.
| ameister14 wrote:
| One problem is the lack of trusted information sources.
| This is not fixed by limiting the total information
| available.
| peteradio wrote:
| I think people are talking completely passed each other.
| The conservative crowd will debate the severity of the
| existing pandemic and whether the cure is worse than the
| illness. The vaccinate all crowd well just wants everyone
| to be vaccinated, the severity of the crisis is a forgone
| conclusion. I think both points of view have strong merit
| but its hard to mend the two views together they just don't
| really mix. The whole thing ends up being labelled
| "misinformation" because we aren't even on the same page. I
| find myself in the conservative camp which is a rare
| occurrence for me. But I can't for the life of me
| understand how people can be so enchanted with the heads of
| our federal organizations when the data behind their words
| does not stack up. Misleading the importance of data,
| stretching and inverting the burden of proof we should
| expect from our government ultimately makes me see them as
| liars. Watching liars speak is one thing but to see a whole
| populace see positive meaning, smiling nodding and go on to
| shout down anyone who tests the rhetoric, its blind
| fanaticism.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > The vaccinate all crowd well just wants everyone to be
| vaccinated, the severity of the crisis is a forgone
| conclusion.
|
| There was a gallup poll recently that asked people what
| the risk of hospitalization was if you got infected.
|
| 95% of D voters overestimated the risk, 78% of them were
| more than 10x wrong, and 41% of them were more than 50x
| wrong. R voters did better, but still overwhelmingly
| overestimated the risks.
|
| So we're having this enormous discussion on
| misinformation and how to combat it and making sure
| people get "trustworthy" news, and yet, Americans are
| _completely_ fucking wrong about the disease. It 's a
| giant elephant in the room that no-one is addressing!
|
| No wonder you can't have a rational debate about weighing
| different risks against each other, if your opponents
| wrongly overestimate the risk by one or two orders of
| magnitude.
| MatteoFrigo wrote:
| One thing that is hard to quantify is the risk of long-
| term effects, which are unknown.
|
| There is an elegant argument, due to Laplace, that says
| that if you have an urn containing red and blue balls,
| you extract N balls, and M of them are red, you should
| assume that the probability that the next ball is red is
| (M+1)/(N+2), and not M/N as one might naively assume. The
| general case requires integrating the beta function,
| which is kind of advanced, but the M=0 case can be done
| with elementary calculus, as follows.
|
| Call X the probability of extracting a blue ball, which
| we view as a property of the urn. If we don't know
| anything about X, before we extract any balls, we should
| assume a uniform prior distribution P[X]=1 for 0<=X<=1
| (this is the main and only assumption). The probability
| of seeing M=0 red balls after extracting N, for given X,
| is the same as the probability that all balls are blue,
| i.e., P[M=0|X]=X^N. But we care about P[X|M], not P[M|X].
| By Bayes' theorem, P[X|M] is proportional to P[M|X]P[X],
| times a proportionality constant that makes the total
| probability be 1. Because we assumed P[X]=1, we have that
| P[X|M=0] is proportional to P[M=0|X]=X^N. The integral of
| X^N between X=0 and 1 is 1/(N+1), yielding P[X|M=0]=(N+1)
| X^N. The expected value of X is the integral for X=[0,1]
| of X P[X|M=0], which is E[X]=(N+1)/(N+2). This is the
| expected probability of a ball being blue, with
| 1-E[X]=1/(N+2) being the probability of a ball being red.
| QED.
|
| Now say we have historically observed 1000 vaccines and
| they were all safe in the long term. It is still
| perfectly rational to assume that there is a 1/1002
| chance that this vaccine is unsafe in the long term.
| Anybody claiming otherwise better have a cogent argument
| about why the prior probability should not be uniform.
| Saying that 1000 vaccines were long-term safe and thus
| this one is long-term safe is equivalent to assuming a
| prior of the form P[X]=1/(X (1-X)), which is hard to
| justify (and diverges at 0 and 1).
|
| Basically, the problem is that we are entering the
| territory where the risk from the disease is comparable
| to a rational estimate of the risk of what we don't know,
| and it's hard to come to any kind of cogent conclusion.
|
| But anybody who claims that all past vaccines were long-
| term safe and thus this one is long-term safe clearly
| does not understand basic probability.
| jhedwards wrote:
| I think the crux of the issue is that "the cure is worse
| than the illness" is objectively false, as the vaccine
| has been proven to be safe, and bodies from COVID deaths
| continue to pile up. I try not to listen to politicians
| for the reasons you mentioned, but just looking at the
| data it seems like an awfully simple problem to me.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| > I think the crux of the issue is that "the cure is
| worse than the illness" is objectively false
|
| Since the disease is _highly_ age-stratified and
| dependent on risk factors, the same goes for the
| vaccines. For elderly, it 's a complete no-brainer. For
| me, in my forties, it's overwhelmingly false and I got
| vaccinated as bloody fast as I could. And for anyone in a
| risk group, it's false as well.
|
| But for healthy kids and teenagers? It's a wash for them
| personally, but if they're hanging around people in risk
| groups, there's a clear benefit of them getting
| vaccinated.
|
| > the vaccine has been proven to be safe
|
| There are several vaccines, and some of them have issues.
| The AstraZeneca one is pretty much not in use any longer
| in the west because of the blood clotting issue, and
| there are reports now that teenage boys might suffer
| myocarditis from the Pfizer vaccine. Incredibly rare, but
| the risk is not _zero_.
|
| You are generally correct that the cure is not worse than
| the disease, for an overwhelming majority of people, but
| the truth is more complicated, and without long-term
| safety data for these vaccines, I completely understand
| that some people are hesitant.
|
| At the core of the anti-vaxx bullshit is a tiny kernel of
| truth, and I think it's better to address that than to
| completely suppress everything they say, because that's
| just gonna make people on the fence extremely suspicious
| and tip them over the wrong way.
| cowvin wrote:
| > there are reports now that teenage boys might suffer
| myocarditis from the Pfizer vaccine. Incredibly rare, but
| the risk is not zero.
|
| Another interesting factor at play here is that some
| people prefer for negative outcomes to come from inaction
| than action. It's like the trolley problem
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolley_problem) when
| people try to evaluate morality.
|
| In this case, they would rather not take an action (get
| vaccinated) if there's a chance of harm and would prefer
| inaction (don't get vaccinated) despite the higher
| statistical risk of bad outcomes.
| henrikschroder wrote:
| Right, the risks of the disease only apply if you
| actually catch it, and you might get lucky and avoid it.
| But choosing to get vaccinated means you take on whatever
| the tiny tiny risk of the vaccine is to you.
| vel0city wrote:
| > But for healthy kids and teenagers? It's a wash for
| them personally, but if they're hanging around people in
| risk groups, there's a clear benefit of them getting
| vaccinated.
|
| How many kids and teenagers aren't usually around groups
| of 40 year olds? Are there cities which are only
| populated with 12 year olds? Apartment complexes
| exclusively for those under 18?
| henrikschroder wrote:
| If you're vaccinated and in your forties, you weren't in
| a risk group from the start, and you're certainly not at
| risk any longer.
|
| Kids living with their grandparents should definitely get
| vaccinated.
| wqewqe wrote:
| This is absolutely ridiculous.
|
| > The conservative crowd will debate the severity of the
| existing pandemic and whether the cure is worse than the
| illness.
|
| 4.5 million dead people later ...
|
| > I find myself in the conservative camp
|
| ... peteradio somehow comes to the wrong conclusion.
| mariodiana wrote:
| Here's the exact quote:
|
| "The most stringent protection of free speech would not
| protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and
| causing a panic."
|
| The above does in fact describe a "clear and present"
| danger. You'll notice, however, that saying anything on the
| subject of vaccines, a pedophilic cabal in Hollywood, or
| the Moon landing is in no way like triggering the immediate
| stampede of desperate people who have no time to consider
| the truth or falsehood of potentially being trapped in a
| burning building.
|
| That analogy is simply too often misused. I have to wonder
| if its misuse isn't itself "misinformation."
| jhedwards wrote:
| I don't think spreading misinformation about vaccines is
| in anyway comparable to the examples of hollywood or the
| moon landing, and I do in fact think it's a perfect fit
| for the analogy:
|
| It is an indisputable fact that there are people dying
| every day because they have decided not to take a vaccine
| based on misinformation. That group of people is also
| causing the deaths of others by overwhelming the
| emergency facilities of hospitals. Personally, I would
| argue that this danger is very much clear and present.
| mariodiana wrote:
| Every one of the people you describe had time to consider
| the information they got and to look for more information
| to confirm or contradict. Again, that is nothing like
| sitting in a crowded theater and hearing someone shout,
| "Fire!"
|
| The analogy simply does not hold.
| kgwxd wrote:
| If the hare never takes a nap, the tortoise will never catch
| up.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| Why do we always assume that it's "misinformation" and that
| if people were told or shown better, they would want better.
| Many times, people actually want the bad thing. I can't help
| but see the "Free Speech" alarmism on HN originating from the
| fact that the market of ideas is no longer participating in
| arguments about right-wing viewpoints, but is actively moving
| against them and taking them off the shelf.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| Nah. Brandolini's Law, also known as the bullshit asymmetry
| principle, explains why this will not work:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
|
| The gist of it is that making up bullshit takes almost no
| energy, whereas refuting that bullshit effectively will be
| very time-consuming. This is exacerbated by the fact that
| bullshit is usually packaged in a way that makes it spread
| way faster by, for example, exploiting social media
| "engagement" algorithms.
|
| There are corollaries to this. For example, the idiom "a lie
| can travel halfway around the world before the truth is done
| tying its shoes."
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Bullshit is a ddos attack, youtube is just putting up a
| packet filter that drops a portion of the ddos packets
| before they make it to the target.
| atty wrote:
| This is an outmoded concept based on the idea that humans are
| purely rational creatures, which we already know is false.
| Just providing better information does not sway individuals.
| People are far more swayed by information from their "tribe",
| even if that information is patently false, than they are by
| quantitatively better information, because it makes them feel
| good. That's why actions like this seem to be necessary.
| krageon wrote:
| Better information is not more persuasive.
| the_optimist wrote:
| If this is correct, then why would you believe you've
| ascertained truth? The very hallmark of truth as we know it
| is that 'better' information, meaning more and more
| clarified data consistently resolve on the same conclusion.
| bashinator wrote:
| You're conflating "correct" and "persuasive".
| the_optimist wrote:
| You're assuming reasoning that defies communication.
| lovich wrote:
| The reasoning behind understand that "correct" and
| "persuasive" are two adjectives that aren't synonyms and
| describe different values is fairly simple to communicate
| mtberatwork wrote:
| Related: "Why Science Can't Settle Political Disputes"
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693269
| ookblah wrote:
| Great in theory, but if you've ever debated someone who is
| not acting in good faith online it's near impossible. Their
| energy input is an order of magnitude lower than yours. And
| yes, in this specific context it IS misinformation,
| disinformation, or just flat out false.
| vibrato2 wrote:
| I haven't seen any serious attempt to address the concerns
| with the "vaccines". Only ostracism and censorship.
|
| Plus a healthy dose of disinformation about the safety and
| efficacy profiles of these therapies.
|
| If the science is so clear, why not give an anti vaxxer a
| huge prime time platform and embarrass them in debate?
| JaimeThompson wrote:
| Which concerns do you have?
| vibrato2 wrote:
| With these specific therapies: 1) Myocarditis (long term
| heart damage) 2) general inflammation and clot risk 3)
| long term risks of brand new mRNA technology
|
| For myself and other young athletes, my research leads me
| to understand that the vaccine is higher risk than the
| infection.
|
| My greatest concern is the totalitarianism behind vaccine
| passports. At this point even if the shot cured cancer I
| wouldn't take it because of how it's pushed.
| goldenbikeshed wrote:
| Regarding 2):
|
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34237049/
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34473684/
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| > For myself and other young athletes, my research leads
| me to understand that the vaccine is higher risk than the
| infection.
|
| As someone with a pre-existing heart condition I'd like
| to read that research. Do you have any links?
| praxulus wrote:
| The risk of Myocarditis from COVID-19 itself seems to be
| greater than the risk of getting it from a vaccine.
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7035e5.htm
|
| >At this point even if the shot cured cancer I wouldn't
| take it because of how it's pushed.
|
| I don't think I'll ever be able to understand vaccine
| skeptics.
| xallarap wrote:
| Cure covid and vaccine against cancer. Makes more Sense.
| chefkoch wrote:
| I don't think he knows how it is to have cancer.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _...totalitarianism behind vaccine passports..._ "
|
| Problem: An ongoing pandemic, requiring greater or lesser
| levels of isolation.
|
| Solution: A vaccine. Vaccinated individuals are much less
| likely to suffer the ill effects of the disease and to
| transmit the disease. Isolation is no longer necessary.
|
| Problem: Large portions of the population refuse to take
| the vaccine. Isolation is still required for this
| portion.
|
| Solution: Allow those who have been vaccinated freedom
| from isolation.
|
| Problem: TOTALITARIANISM!
| effie wrote:
| You assume the policy of pushing vaccination is sound, so
| the methods of its implementation are not totalitarian or
| it isn't a concern. But even if it was a sound policy
| from the standpoint of the state, the methods employed
| (censorship of communications on COVID and vaccines,
| restricting freedoms of unvaccinated) is still a
| totalitarian method.
| rwcarlsen wrote:
| You are not alone. The authoritarian threat and
| government overreach problems are IMO orders of magnitude
| more important and concerning than the virus. I will
| almost certainly be taking a stand and be terminated by
| my employer over this within the next few weeks.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| Here's a good study about the risk of myocarditis (it's
| very low).
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2110475
|
| There's a lot of misleading information out there about
| myocarditis that makes the risk sound much worse than it
| is.
|
| Yes adverse myocarditis reaction is a risk. But it's
| something like 1 in 17,000. 1 in 500 Americans have died
| from covid.
|
| Even if you're young and healthy, we have no idea the
| long term risks of contracting a serious case of covid.
| You have to factor that into the risk equation.
| spectramax wrote:
| > But it's something like 1 in 17,000. 1 in 500 Americans
| have died from covid.
|
| This is true but misleading. You need to account for age
| as the primary factor that determines the risk exposure.
|
| Edit: Surprised that someone downvoted this. Care you
| explain what you disagree here? I am simply pointing out
| that it is not straight forward to compare risk levels
| because they are highly dependent on age.
| mcguire wrote:
| Here's a simple chart of relative risk by age group:
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/covid-
| data/investi...
|
| There are roughly 53,300,000 people aged 18-29 and ~3400
| deaths
| (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1191568/reported-
| deaths-...), which works out to 1 in 16,000. Of course,
| you say, that's assuming all 18-29 year-olds have had
| COVID, which is wrong. There's only been 7,400,000 cases
| among that age group
| (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1254271/us-total-
| number-...), giving a 1 in 2200 risk.
| JuliusPullo wrote:
| Then again, those 1/500 are old age or with existing
| debilitating health conditions. The rest of the people
| have a close to zero chance of dying from Covid. It is
| not a great idea to expose them to that 1/17000 chance of
| getting an unnecessary heart condition that will affect
| them for life. And remember, myocarditis and blood clot
| issues are secondary effects we know about now. The
| vaccine was invented and released very recently and there
| is no way to know the long term effects. And don't
| forget, this vaccine works with a brand-new genetic
| technology never before released to the public.
| mcguire wrote:
| How about "The safety of Covid-19 mRNA vaccines: a
| review" (https://pssjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10
| .1186/s13037...)
|
| Which has the amusing paragraph:
|
| " _Notably, a recent survey conducted by the Kaiser
| Family Foundation found that 29 % of healthcare providers
| themselves expressed hesitancy about receiving the
| COVID-19 vaccine. The same survey found that among the
| general public, the group that reported that they
| "definitely will not get vaccinated" may be the hardest
| to reach via most traditional public health means. Only
| two emissaries were reported as trustworthy sources by at
| least half the people in this group: their personal
| health care provider (59 %) and former President Trump
| (56 %). These findings suggest that individual health
| care provider endorsement and support may be one of the
| sole avenues for reaching this group with reliable and
| timely vaccine information [60]._ "
| kitsunesoba wrote:
| The thing is that death is not the only strongly negative
| outcome of CV19. It's not uncommon for young and formerly
| healthy individuals to experience long term effects,
| sometimes with debilitating severity. That is just as
| much worth avoiding as death is and needs to be factored
| into risk calculations.
| _moof wrote:
| > At this point even if the shot cured cancer I wouldn't
| take it because of how it's pushed.
|
| And there it is. For you at least, this has nothing to do
| with evidence, or facts, or information, or patience or
| empathy or reasoning or sound medical judgment or
| anything else, it's just plain stubbornness that's so out
| of control you're willing to die rather than do something
| someone else told you to do.
|
| Look, I get it. I hate being told what to do. But at
| least be honest with yourself that that's what's going
| on, and that all your talk of side effects and whatnot is
| a smokescreen.
| ookblah wrote:
| Why not give a flat earther a huge prime time platform? I
| mean that in of itself proves nothing.
|
| There have been many attempts and even in my own circles
| and in the end the it has nothing to do with the facts
| and all about fear and badly calculating risk.
|
| I can understand the mentality if you're hesitant of the
| vaccines being new and want to wait, but just understand
| that the current data shows you're taking a higher risk
| by not taking it. Your choice in the end, though.
|
| People who are full anti-vax are a different thing
| altogether.
| musingsole wrote:
| > Why not give a flat earther a huge prime time platform?
|
| They did. It happened, and the dude died in the rocket as
| it crashed to Earth. And following that, I stopped
| hearing so many murmurs about if a lake surface was flat
| or convex.
| bena wrote:
| He died last year. He also had successful launches
| previously. And those didn't halt anything.
|
| The world, collectively, has been a bit busy with other
| stuff since last year. If anything COVID conspiracy stuff
| has pushed out all other conspiracies.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Hughes_(daredevil)
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Dozens of books have been written documenting the
| absolute, unmitigated travesty of the Trump
| administration. 70 million people still voted for him,
| and a majority of those did so as a positive review of
| his performance!
|
| I'm not sure what to do, but I know now that "mountains
| of evidence" does not stop alluring stupidity.
| Nemrod67 wrote:
| https://youtu.be/lw2BVI9OhC4
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Useless.
| krageon wrote:
| > If the science is so clear, why not give an anti vaxxer
| a huge prime time platform and embarrass them in debate?
|
| Neonazis clamor that they need a platform all the time.
| Now that we can see what that's like (the US, in case it
| is not clear) we can see that this is a terrible idea.
| criddell wrote:
| > If the science is so clear, why not give an anti vaxxer
| a huge prime time platform and embarrass them in debate?
|
| That doesn't work. It didn't work for climate change and
| it won't work for vaccines.
| depaya wrote:
| It's not possible to embarrass someone with no shame.
| It's easy to lie and debate dishonestly[1]. Engaging in
| such a debate would only legitimize a position that may
| have no legitimacy to begin with.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gish_gallop
| [deleted]
| mcguire wrote:
| Pro tip: if you declare any and all "serious attempts to
| address the concerns" as "disinformation", then the only
| thing left is ostracism and censorship.
|
| BTW, ever heard of Duane Gish?
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I have and I still think so. First of all, it is not
| realistic to assume that you will convince everyone; you
| won't. Second, practice is necessary and bad faith
| counterparts will help you get better.
|
| It is not my impression that "energy input of people
| spreading X is an order of magnitude lower". On the other
| hand, they obsess over such topics and spend a lot of time
| spreading their views - that is why they are visible.
| seqastian wrote:
| Too bad that is not how humans work. If the good information
| is complicated and scary, we will go for easy and pleasing
| every time.
| mlindner wrote:
| I got the vaccine and I'm pro-vaccine in general (for vaccines
| that are long term preventative, not single-year preventative,
| ex: never gotten flu vaccine) however I keep finding myself
| wanting to defend the anti-covid-vaxxers as they're fighting a
| fight I sort of feel like I understand.
| ihsw wrote:
| Many people siding with "anti-vaxxers" are anti-mandate pro-
| vaccine activists. If they were given a voice in the current
| conversation then there would be a lot fewer disagreements.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers
| out of "principle".
|
| You say that like it's a bad thing. If we don't stop the
| censorship now, it'll be too late to stop it in a year or two
| when we're the ones being censored for some reason.
| [deleted]
| MrRiddle wrote:
| You don't, like you're not supposed to lead war on drugs. It's
| a battle against the symptoms not the cause.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| If you have a formula to infallibly decide that A is a "bad
| actor" for any A in actual practice, you have solved the
| organizational problem of the past few millennia.
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Principles aren't worth anything if people don't stick by them
| when expediency would recommend another course of action.
|
| ... This is why I chucked this particular principle overboard
| years ago. I don't personally think it holds water in light of
| irrational human actors and an under-informed public, given the
| immense power of modern bidirectional communications media.
| mythrwy wrote:
| How do you propose to deal with unpopular opinions that turn
| out to be correct with this method?
|
| Also (and related) how do you propose to deal with
| corruption?
| shadowgovt wrote:
| > How do you propose to deal with unpopular opinions that
| turn out to be correct with this method?
|
| Multiple tiers of signal (forums open to wider ideas that
| are, perhaps, more private than YouTube. Additionally,
| academic forums where people with relevant background can
| hash things out). I don't think the "everyone can see
| everything" Facebook / YouTube / Twitter model has been
| proven to work for difficult and sensitive topics.
|
| YouTube is just not one of the places the messy
| conversations are safe to have. It's a cat-video host, not
| a pathology research organization or academic community
| (nor does it seem it wants to be).
|
| > Also (and related) how do you propose to deal with
| corruption?
|
| I don't know, but I think there's a burden of proof that
| the open model prevents corruption (assuming open is what
| we have now). It's massively vulnerable to propaganda and
| information distortion based on amount of effort put into
| amplify signal, not truth of information in signal. People
| with little background in a technical subject to lean on
| when exercising their critical thinking are very vulnerable
| to the notion "Everybody is saying it, so it must be true,"
| and when you couple that to bubble effects I worry we see
| bad results.
|
| The "wisdom of crowds" was always an experiment. It's
| possible for the experiment to fail.
| sensanaty wrote:
| > Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat
| disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision?
|
| Yeah, don't do anything? Why do we have to do anything about
| """disinformation"""? What'll happen in a few years when the
| things you stand for and believe in are labelled as
| disinformation? Because if you start censoring and combating
| "disinformation" now, it's only a matter of time until the same
| practices start affecting you and the things you stand for.
|
| Besides, do you really think banning people off of platforms
| for wrongthink is _more_ likely to make them change their
| minds? If anything, those kinds of actions cause resentment to
| fester, which only leads to more radicalization (for lack of a
| better term) in the future.
| goatlover wrote:
| This assumes that disinformation can't be identified
| objectively. Claiming that COVID vaccines implant a microchip
| is simply false. There's no good reason to allow that sort of
| claim to spread on social media in the midst of a pandemic
| where people can die because they believe blatantly false
| conspiracy theories.
|
| You're committing the slippery slope fallacy. That any kind
| of censorship leads to the bad kind of censorship, instead of
| there being a reasonable standard for banning harmful
| disinformation, and not just differences in political,
| religious or whatever views. Societies always have to
| maintain some kind of balance between individual rights and
| the collective good.
| sensanaty wrote:
| So who's going to be the one that decides what
| disinformation is or isn't? Where exactly do you draw a
| line when deciding what constitutes disinformation, and as
| such what gets deleted out of existence? Sure, the
| microchip stuff is bullshit, but where do we draw the line
| exactly on what vaccine-related topics can or can't be
| posted about online?
|
| And this is where we fundamentally disagree, I believe that
| _any_ censorship of literally any kind is too much
| censorship. There is no such thing as a "reasonable
| standard" for banning "disinformation", because any two
| random people will disagree on what should be silenced or
| not.
| yupper32 wrote:
| Where do you currently draw the line? I'm sure you're
| pro-censorship for at least _some_ stuff. Direct imminent
| threats? Child porn? Anything?
| tsfranke wrote:
| Agree completely on a no win situation.
|
| Censorship can keep good information out.
|
| No censorship can make whoever yells the loudest be the most
| heard, which can snowball into millions of ramifications.
|
| I'd like to go back to the early internet days where people had
| to at least make a geocities site to spread their word, with no
| financial incentives to getting more clicks or viewers. It
| wasn't perfect, but you had to be seeking that group / audience
| rather than having it thrown in your face everywhere.
| xanaxagoras wrote:
| > I almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers
| out of "principle".
|
| I know I am. As someone with 2 shots that sympathizes quite a
| lot with the people who are commonly and ridiculously maligned
| as "anti-vaxxers", as though their position is even remotely
| similar to the people that term accurately described pre-2020,
| this will make my people dig their heels in even more. Good.
|
| Sunshine is the best disinfectant, remember? Democracy dies in
| darkness, remember? The left has morphed into a censorious
| dictatorship that castigates anyone who doesn't think specific
| thoughts and punishes wrongthink by making pariahs out of those
| who wronglythink it. This is just a prominent example of the
| same authoritarian movement expressed through the burgeoning
| hegemony of big tech. Shit like this doesn't convince anyone,
| we'll just leave you to fester in your echo chamber, oblivious
| as you are to the fact that we'll be festering in our own.
|
| Speaking of which, this announcement doesn't bother me at all.
| Youtube is over, it's just corporate sponsored tepid garbage at
| this point. It's not interesting anymore because creators
| aren't permitted to speak freely - not just w/r/t COVID. We are
| already moving to platforms where free expression is allowed
| and supported, and I hope Google does even more to hasten the
| exodus.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Well, that's the entire point of principles.
|
| (I do actually not hold this one principle as absolutely,
| because Youtube is designed for public manipulation, so they
| have the onus of ensuring their manipulation isn't a bad one.
| But I do surely hold it for a neutral channel and that
| governments must ensure neutral channels exist.)
| shartacct wrote:
| > Someone want to throw out there a better way to combat
| disinformation than just armchair criticizing their decision? I
| almost feel like people are siding with the anti-vaxxers out of
| "principle".
|
| No, because it's pointless to legitimatize conspiratorial or
| fascistic views by engaging in a one-sided debate where one
| side is backed by scientific fact and the other is backed by
| Karen on facebook's idea that the election was stolen and that
| a COVID vaccine will kill you.
|
| I would argue that there is no reason why freedom of speech
| should apply when you are actively trying to undermine the
| country (treason) and sow chaos/fear among the populace
| (terrorism).
| btbuildem wrote:
| Paywall
| wellthisisgreat wrote:
| why not set the terms for anti-vax or "vaccine hesitant" behavior
| where people are deprioritized in terms of getting medical
| treatment for diseases they refuse to get vaccinated for?
|
| Not rejected of course but if you deny Covid-19 vaccine you are
| behind in line after people who did get it.
|
| "Reap what you sow".
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| The problem is that questions about the vaccine are being labeled
| as anti-vaccine. Real data about the side effects of the vaccine
| constitutes science not anti-vax propaganda. It is distressing
| that supporters of informed consent are being lumped in with
| QAnon.
| Geee wrote:
| I'm starting to believe in the conspiracy theory that
| conspiracy theories are created by a conspiracy to make
| rational talking points easier to attack and silence. Rational
| dissidents can be easily silenced if they are connected to
| these propaganda movements.
|
| When there's a flood of misinformation, then it's hard for
| anyone to get factual information out. It's a way to censor
| information by flooding it with adjacent misinformation to
| dilute and discredit the message.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Maybe YouTube isn't the best place to discuss results of
| scientific inquiry?
| risk000 wrote:
| What if we don't want to be told by you where we can and
| can't have a discussion?
| uuddlrlr wrote:
| If you're not already subscribed to Two Minute Papers you
| oughta go check them out
|
| https://youtube.com/c/K%C3%A1rolyZsolnai
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| Why not?
| marcosdumay wrote:
| For a start, Youtube doesn't allow much discussion. It's
| completely optimized for preaching, not for listening.
| umvi wrote:
| But you can inform yourself on both sides of a given
| issue by simply watching videos from different channels.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| Watching a discourse from 2 sides is not the same as
| having a discussion.
|
| Besides (but not as much relevant), the idea that there
| are 2 sides for every issue and that they are both
| relevant (bothsideism?) is very wrong and usually
| harmful. "Bringing the 2 sides of an issue" is a common
| anti-information practice that hides that the issue has
| dozens or hundreds of different "sides", or that it's
| actually unanimous and the other side is morons and
| people with financial interest on you believing it.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| You know a lot of scientists who hang out in YouTube
| comments?
| [deleted]
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| I know a lot of scientists who produce content on
| YouTube. Do you think we should limit where science can
| be freely discussed?
| IgorPartola wrote:
| No, I simply think that intelligence of a crowd is
| measured by the smartest person there, not the size of
| the crowd. YouTube gives equal voice to a subject matter
| expert as to any single one of 10,000 quacks. Given that
| it is a lot easier to be a quack than a SME, there will
| always be more quacks. As a result, when you see a crowd
| of 10,000 quacks arguing with a single SME, you might
| wrongly assume that the SME is wrong.
|
| To me the solution is to not play the game: don't get
| your opinions on matters that require a SME on YouTube.
| Or give the SME 10,001 the exposure than the quacks. Or
| teach science and critical thinking skills in public
| schools such that people are less likely to grow up such
| that they easily fall for bullshit sold to them by
| quacks.
| rspoerri wrote:
| Because there is no credibility to a user account on
| facebook or youtube.
|
| It has been and should be by a proven record on the topic.
| Which is usually implicit with a employment with a company
| in that field or a university.
|
| at least that is my opinion, which has no credibility,
| because it's just from a random hacker news account.
| Jimmc414 wrote:
| Are you making the argument that only people deemed
| credible should be able to discuss matters of science and
| the arbiters of credibility should be content moderators
| of a private company or worse the programmer of an
| algorithm? Respectfully, that sounds terrifying.
| asdff wrote:
| I think having laypeople who don't understand what they
| are actually debating on engage in these unhelpful
| debates, rather than seek information from people who
| have put in the time required to be a domain expert, does
| a lot more net harm to society than good.
|
| Imagine if people were so passionate about aircraft
| designs as they are vaccine delivery platforms. It's
| ridiculous when you lay it bare like this and replace
| vaccine with some other piece of uncontroversial
| technology. "I'm not flying in an airbus. I don't trust
| those engineers, and my cousin says there is weird radio
| signals that manipulate your mind and I trust that man
| with my life. Those engineers voted for Clinton" Nothing
| about the modern world would get done if we extended this
| unhelpful debateism to every piece of everything that
| requires a lot of hours of study to fully understand. We
| would be stuck in our tracks citing the same talking
| points everyone else in our cult of ignorance chants
| while bridges fail and crops go barren.
| im3w1l wrote:
| https://hn.algolia.com/?q=boeing+737+max
| bena wrote:
| The real data is that the common side effects are negligible
| and the serious side effects are exceedingly rare.
|
| Over 6 billion doses have been administered since they were
| first given early this year. Even if you were waiting for the
| "guinea pigs" to experience side effects, that point has long
| passed. There is no massive die off. No massive set of
| complications. I work in a building where over 90% of the
| people have received two doses of Pfizer. In April. Everyone
| here has three arms, six toes, and a glorious horn, just like
| they're supposed to.
|
| If you aren't convinced by now, you're not supporting "informed
| consent" you're conflating "being a contrarian" with "being
| concerned".
| sporkland wrote:
| I don't understand the approach of banning certain content. It
| feels like the root cause here is self reinforcing filter bubbles
| that social media creates. Is it not possible for YouTube to
| instead change their algorithm around this to recommend a blend
| of videos for topics like this one? Kinda like labeling
| approaches used elsewhere but a little more subtle.
| koolba wrote:
| We live in a world where the rat that heads the NIAD cannot bring
| himself to publicly say that natural immunity (i.e. you've
| recovered from COVID) provides substantial protection and instead
| says things like " _we're still looking at the data on that..._
| ": https://twitter.com/drsanjaygupta/status/1436133536239599619
|
| If we're going to let that continue unchallenged then banning
| dissenting voices is a drop in the bucket.
| boringg wrote:
| Cut off their revenue/ability to become a micro-celebrity /reward
| mechanism for incendiary garbage and these anti-vaccine activists
| will fade to obscurity. Too bad they didn't do this earlier so
| they could infect the general population with their deranged
| ideas.
| Uberphallus wrote:
| I'm normally against this kind of thing, but then I read the
| comments, even here on HN, and kind of see it as the lesser evil.
| seph-reed wrote:
| The fact that so many people are willing to choose a "lesser
| evil" is striking to me.
|
| I wasn't even done with High School by the time I figured out
| that any dichotomy of two evils is a dead end, and that there
| is always a better place to focus energy upstream.
|
| In this case, AI algorithms are the core problem. Their metrics
| for success (view time) appear to often lead to extremes.
| Nothing needs to be banned, it definitely needs to stop being
| suggested though.
| user-the-name wrote:
| This site is disgusting.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| Here's a thought experiment.
|
| Suppose we were at war with a hostile adversary, and that
| adversary had killed over 700,000 people already, and thousands
| more each day.
|
| I can scarcely believe that any reasonable person would argue
| that blocking propaganda or misinformation that harms the war
| effort would be an egregious imposition on free speech. Once the
| imminent threat is over, those efforts can and should stop, but
| not while the destruction is immediate.
|
| Covid-19 has killed more people in the United States than US
| combat casualties every war since World War 2 combined. It is the
| the worst mass casualty event any living American has ever
| experienced.
|
| Why is it unreasonable that serious and extraordinary measures
| should be taken? Misinformation about the pandemic has surely
| massively contributed to that death total. The chilling effect on
| free speech is worse? No, it's not. It simply isn't true that
| free speech won't return. But those 700,000+ and counting dead
| are not coming back.
| CivBase wrote:
| > I can scarcely believe that any reasonable person would argue
| that blocking propaganda or misinformation that harms the war
| effort would be an egregious imposition on free speech.
|
| Count me as one of the unreasonables, then. Anti-war protests
| are logically "propaganda that harms the war effort" and the
| idea that those would be censored is extremely frightening to
| me.
|
| > Covid-19 has killed more people in the United States than US
| combat casualties every war since World War 2 combined. It is
| the the worst mass casualty event any living American has ever
| experienced.
|
| This is an apples-to-oranges comparison. Heart disease also
| kills more people in the US every year than every war since
| WW2, but YouTube isn't banning fast food commercials. [EDIT: In
| fact, they accept money in exchange for forcing people to watch
| those!]
| mrkramer wrote:
| >I can scarcely believe that any reasonable person would argue
| that blocking propaganda or misinformation that harms the war
| effort would be an egregious imposition on free speech.
|
| Propaganda is spread by who? Domestic traitors? Then arrest
| them and charge them for treason. If this was true they would
| be already behind bars but you don't seem to understand the
| only thing they are doing is expressing their opinion publicly
| nothing else.
| spiderice wrote:
| I think a large part of it is because the "misinformation"
| keeps changing. At first masks did nothing, then saying masks
| did nothing became "misinformation". The lab leak theory was
| "misinformation", until suddenly it wasn't. Large group
| gatherings spread Covid, but the BLM protests didn't. The list
| goes on, and the "experts" have changed their mind so many
| times that the idea that Youtube should be deciding what kind
| of thought is allowed is horrifying.
|
| I am fully vaccinated, but given how many times we've been
| blatantly lied to or mislead by experts and officials, I can
| easily see why so many people don't trust the vaccine. And
| given that we don't know what the experts and officials are
| going to say tomorrow, I support people's right to be skeptical
| and talk about their skepticism with others.
| Laremere wrote:
| From what I've seen, they never lied about needing a mask.
| The early pandemic CBS interview with Fouci says wearing a
| mask is fine, but unnecessary for most people and would take
| masks from those who really need it. There was also a larger
| emphasis on sanitizing surfaces and avoiding face touching.
| This is because sars-cov-2 is more effective spreading
| infections as an airborn virus than expected. Once evidence
| showed otherwise, masking was recommended.
|
| The lab leak theory shows a problem with human thought and
| why scientific methods are valuable. People focus on what's
| true, instead of eliminating what's impossible. To say the
| lab leak theory is a possibility is reasonable. However to
| say it might have spread to humans through another medium
| (eg, meat market) is also reasonable. To try and put any sort
| of probability between the two reasonable possibilities is a
| pointless endeavor. China is likely the only one with good
| enough evidence to say either way, and China isn't telling
| anyone else. Though even that doesn't say anything, because
| either way they wouldn't tell anyone else.
|
| Big gatherings are bad, but the right to fight against
| tyranny is more important than the badness of the big
| gatherings. That is the context in which experts are not
| condoning BLM protests.
|
| The problem is it's really hard to tell between a carefully
| considered expert opinion, and just someone talking out of
| their ass. It's also an evolving situation, with even experts
| trying to work with slow to come data. It's reasonable to say
| that people should focus on directing others to experts, and
| not and try to reinterpret or make predictions of their own.
| spiderice wrote:
| 1. Masks: https://youtu.be/fT7BJWUt4w4?t=540 9:00 - 9:30
|
| 2. Lab Leak: I remember you basically couldn't even bring
| up the lab leak theory here on HN a year ago. I'm not going
| to be gaslighted in to thinking that the debate between
| "lab leak" and "meat market" was just people debating
| probabilities. No. If you brought up "lab leak" you were
| dismissed as an unscientific racist. That didn't happen
| with the meat market theory.
|
| 3. BLM protests: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-
| news/black-lives-matte...
| https://coloradosun.com/2020/06/30/police-protests-
| coronavir... plus a million other articles. If the BLM
| protests didn't spread covid, great. But, if that's the
| case, other outdoor events wouldn't have either. Yet they
| were still closing down beaches and parks. How can they do
| that without increasing people's skepticism.
|
| > It's reasonable to say that people should focus on
| directing others to experts, and not and try to reinterpret
| or make predictions of their own.
|
| Sure, that's perfectly reasonable to say. But that isn't
| the issue. The issue is forcing people who do voice their
| own skepticism out of public discourse, when even the main
| stream media can't agree week to week.
| SergeAx wrote:
| Yes, but at the same time heart deseases are killing about the
| same number of people every year in US. And this is much more
| correct parallel than yours with hostile adversary.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| If there was a cheap and effective vaccine against heart
| disease that would reduce the yearly death rate by 90% and
| require no other change in lifestyle then yes, I would be for
| banning misinformation and lies about that too.
| ndr wrote:
| Surely misinformation has had an impact, but how big?
|
| I wonder how that compares to the perceived incompetence.
|
| Some official sources are wrong some of the time, everyone's
| favorite example: they told mask were useless in the beginning.
| They corrected course, but then told vaccinated people they
| didn't need masks anymore, basically making the same mistake
| twice. They halted AZ, paused J&J, had a gazillion change of
| mind on boosters. We need to be able to hear challenges to
| official sources.
|
| So yes, the chilling effect can make it worse if they go
| unchallenged. And it's also not simply true that free speech
| would return either.
| danielvf wrote:
| Well, the US sort of faced the situation that you were
| describing (fighting an enemy that killed six to ten million
| people in four years) and then passed a law similar to what you
| are describing. Have a a look at the Sedition act of 1918.
|
| In hindsight it was a terrible idea, and was repealed in 1920.
|
| https://www.mtsu.edu/first-amendment/article/1239/sedition-a...
| hkai wrote:
| That's the thing, COVID is an "eternal war" as described in
| dystopian novels. If you describe COVID in war terms, then it
| justifies all sorts of atrocities.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| It's not though. Pandemics have happened before and they end.
|
| Second, what's the atrocity being committed exactly? People
| temporarily are prevented from publishing extraordinarily
| brazen lies, clearly scientifically false, which are killing
| thousands of people? I can't see what the evil is here.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| Breakthrough case here. Clinic said that's all they've been
| seeing recently, dozens per day.
|
| One thing I've never understood is why the vaccinated care so
| much about what he unvaccinated are doing?
|
| Vaccinated people still carry viral loads so it's either how it
| affects you personally or your compassion for the enhanced
| vulnerability of the unvaccinated. Based on the toxic rhetoric
| towards the unvaccinated it seems to me the former.
|
| You've done everything within your control to protect yourself
| so why do you feel the need to have an opinion on their bodily
| choices?
| GuB-42 wrote:
| The vaccine limit the spread of the disease, that's a fact.
| By how much is up to debate but it is not just effective at
| making the disease less severe.
|
| The wave of infections caused by the delta variant is faster,
| larger and deadlier in places with low vaccination rates. The
| vaccinated are less likely to test positive by about half,
| symptoms or not.
|
| Not perfect but the vaccine protects others. If the
| unvaccinated took the necessary precautions to avoid
| infecting others, it would be their problem (if healthcare is
| not overwhelmed...), but usually they don't. Just look at
| anti-vaccine protests, you don't see a lot of masks...
|
| And of course, if almost everyone in your area is vaccinated,
| most cases will be breakthrough cases.
| snarf21 wrote:
| Part of it is a hope to get back to normal. The other part is
| that their "bodily choice" isn't self contained. If someone
| has ebola, is it their "bodily choice" to walk around
| infecting others? The unvaccinated are showing an extreme
| lack of empathy.
|
| Also, go read some of the countless reports about how
| hospitals are overwhelmed, how states are allowing the
| rationing of care, how ICUs have no beds for heart attacks or
| normal pneumonia because the beds are full of people who
| don't trust doctor's enough to get the vaccine but want life
| sustaining help _after_ getting covid. I predict we are going
| to see mass resignations from hospital workers who are burned
| out because one political party convinced its supporters to
| not take basic medical advice. I 've lost two uncles from
| this disease. It sounds like you haven't. I hope you take a
| step back and think about what happens when someone you love
| needs ICU care but the staff, equipment and resources are
| full and your loved one can't be treated.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| Fair point on the ICU beds. Maybe hospitals can require
| proof of vaccination before treatment. If no proof can be
| provided they have to go to a different department. That
| way the unvaccinated aren't taking resources away from the
| vaccinated. If we're going to take away their 1st amendment
| rights then why not take away their other rights?
| CivBase wrote:
| > The unvaccinated are showing an extreme lack of empathy.
|
| I see this sentiment a lot and it indicates to me a
| fundamental misunderstanding what is driving people to
| avoid vaccination.
|
| There is a very strong correlation between vaccination
| rates and trust in the government. Groups with historically
| low trust in the government (like conservatives, blacks,
| and hispanics) have the lowest vaccination rates.
| Conversely, groups with historically high trust in the
| government (like liberals and asians) have the highest
| vaccination rates. This suggests most people decided on
| whether to get vaccinated long before it was available
| based on their trust in the government which is pushing so
| hard for it. The resulting spread in misinformation is just
| the result of mass confirmation bias.
|
| The "lack of empathy" argument depends on the unvaccinated
| actually believing the vaccine is safe and effective, yet
| still ineffective enough that their vaccination will help
| protect others. But they obviously don't believe that.
|
| Suppression of misinformation wont help because - as I'm
| sure you've seen many times by now - the very act of
| suppressing information will only reinforce their
| confirmation bias. It's quite the dilemma.
|
| I personally believe the only solution is for people to
| hear these people out to patiently, compassionately reason
| through their concerns. And I believe we should do this
| knowing full well that many will not be convinced the first
| time and many will not be convinced ever. Of course, it
| would help if we collectively agreed to stop harassing them
| and treated them like concerned humans with
| misunderstandings instead of malicious fools. Sadly, social
| media rewards the opposite of this behavior.
| kleer001 wrote:
| Because the unvaccinated are:
|
| 1) Filling ICUs and taking up other hospital resources
| unnecessarily. Leaves that for people who are injured in
| accidents.
|
| 2) Dying. We don't want our fellow humans dying. Only anti-
| social jerks don't care if their fellow humans die from
| easily preventable causes.
|
| 3) Carrying larger viral loads for longer.
|
| > their bodily choices?
|
| If it were only their body it wouldn't be a much of an issue.
| However, it's not just their body. See above.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| 1) Fair point on ICU beds.
|
| 2) Yes, but lots of people make personal choices that cause
| their own premature death. We aren't muzzling obese people
| for trumpeting the values of an all-bacon diet.
|
| 3) True, but this circles back to the fact that vaccinated
| people also carry viral loads and if you get infected while
| vaccinated it's much less severe so it almost negates any
| longer term carrying argument.
|
| The real point of contention is the unvaccinated taking up
| resources that vaccinated people need because if you're in
| the hospital for covid then you're running your life like
| an idiot and I can't get my broken leg fixed from when I
| broke it doing parkour last weekend.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| What's the R0 of an all-bacon diet?
|
| Infectious disease is just that: _infectious_.
|
| It doesn't stay put. It travels, from host to host. And
| the more the hosts act in a manner to promote that
| transmission, the further, faster, and harder it spreads.
| kleer001 wrote:
| Except that the unvaccinated are doing in en mass, if
| there were 1/2 a million deaths from parkour us pro-
| social people would be screaming about it too.
|
| In the end staying unvaccinated for no real reason (mah
| freedoms! is not a real reason, nor is any other
| misinformed gibberish like 'it's not a real vaccine' or
| 'I don't want to be in the experiment') is antisocial and
| should be squashed as any other antisocial behaviour like
| graffiti, stabbing car tires, sucker punching strangers,
| puking in doorways, dine and dash, etc... Yea yea yea,
| some of those are actual crimes. But that's not my point.
| It's selfish and unnecessary. Shame, shame, shame.
| scrumbledober wrote:
| My infant daughter had a fever the other day and the doctor's
| office said that normally if your baby has a fever for this
| long they would want you to bring the baby in to be seen by a
| doctor but they're not seeing any patients with fevers right
| now so just monitor the baby and see if it gets better.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| I'm sorry to hear that. I just recently became a parent
| myself so I can imagine how much that would suck.
|
| It sounds like your pediatrician is taking extreme
| precautions to protect their healthier patients and don't
| see the risks of treatng a fever worth the value it could
| provide.
|
| Do you feel that the doctor would feel more comfortable
| treating all patients if everyone on the planet were
| vaccinated?
| StatsAreFun wrote:
| That's a good point about the extraordinary measures taken.
| Accordingly, since the number of deaths from the top three
| causes of U.S. deaths in 2019 were heart disease (659,041),
| cancer (599,601) and accidents (173,040), we should boycott all
| propaganda or misinformation around how being overweight is
| healthy, immediately close all fast food establishments,
| provide free fruits & vegetables for all Americans, close all
| beaches to prevent anyone from getting too much sun,
| immediately ban all products containing cancer causing agents
| of any kind, mandate all cars & trucks contain ignition
| lockouts that would prevent the vehicles from starting if seat
| belts were not worn properly, immediately ban all motorcycles,
| immediately ban all swimming pools or mandate all Americans
| wear flotation devices or risk fines & imprisonment,
| immediately ban all guns & knives regardless of their intended
| purpose, immediately ban all contact sports and other sports
| that are considered "extreme" or high-risk, and ban all ladders
| & stools. If we can reduce or eliminate outright the 1,431,682
| people killed from these causes, regardless of the impact on
| the economy or personal liberty, it would be worth it. Those
| people are also dead and definitely not coming back. We owe it
| to their families and communities to do everything we can to
| prevent further deaths from these causes as well.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| landryraccoon wrote:
| Let's be clear on what we're comparing here.
|
| We're comparing a short term ban on provable lies about a
| cheap, safe and highly effective set of vaccines with a long
| term, permanent ban on all activities that could increase the
| risk of heart disease of cancer.
|
| First, vaccines highly effective. Even if the draconian
| measures you proposed were implemented, would they even
| reduce the heart disease and cancer death totals? How much
| would the reduction be?
|
| Second, vaccines are not an egregious imposition on your
| lifestyle. The cost is tiny, the time taken is tiny, the side
| effects are minor. I can't think of a single significant
| change in my life due to having been vaccinated, other than
| not worrying about dying due to Covid.
|
| Finally, the ban on misinformation would be temporary,
| because the crisis will pass. Like wars, pandemics are
| temporary. Even before vaccination and modern medicine was
| invented, pandemics eventually end. When would the draconian
| measures you're proposing end? Heart disease and cancer are
| not communicable diseases. Your solution isn't a sustainable
| long term answer to anything.
|
| Your comparison is frankly very dishonest and disingenuous.
| Wanting to reduce provably false misinformation about
| vaccines is nothing like the draconian, permanent measures
| you're proposing.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >a short term ban
|
| We are on day 570 of 15 days to flatten the curve.
| landryraccoon wrote:
| What does that mean?
|
| At no point anywhere in the United States was there a
| lockdown. We are on day 570 of doing what exactly?
|
| Edit:
|
| If you want the pandemic to end, universal vaccination is
| the fastest and safest way to do it with the least
| imposition on everyone's lives.
| bena wrote:
| The people who push that meme like to ignore that we, as
| a whole, very much did not do the things required to
| mitigate the spread of the disease.
|
| It's very much "we tried absolutely nothing and we're all
| out of ideas" situation.
| iotku wrote:
| >Once the imminent threat is over, those efforts can and should
| stop, but not while the destruction is immediate.
|
| The destruction is always immediate, there's always risks, and
| there's always going to be another possible
| (virus|war|dangerous criminal|wrong-thinker|...) in the future.
|
| The only time I have any (although low) expectation of a policy
| ending is when I'm given a definite end date with a binding
| promise that it won't be extended.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Should we ban car commercials? Cars kill lots of people.
|
| Should we ban soda commercials? Obesity kills a lot of people.
|
| Here's the issue: if your entire value system is based on
| _extending life at any cost to other values_ , you've already
| lost. Full stop.
|
| This entire thing is one giant flashing sign that says "Modern
| human beings are scared of everything, even as they live in the
| safest times ever."
| mikaeluman wrote:
| The one thing you can do to ensure vaccine hesitancy and distrust
| is to ban that very topic.
|
| This standard they are setting up, already started with warnings
| and bans for in any way contradicting the WHO, is impossible to
| maintain in a consistent fashion.
|
| I can still find thousands of videos on homeopathy, ranging from
| debunkings to lecture-style videos. There are people who would
| advocate using this rather than modern health services.
|
| In fact, there are people who would advocate the use of
| witchcraft to treat cancer.
|
| Will YouTube ban them all? Or will they just ban certain topics
| based on a whim?
| asdff wrote:
| I would say that currently today that there is a much bigger
| threat to public health of people believing in insane vaccine
| conspiracies than there is of people following homeopathy. If
| you kill yourself snorting ginger root it doesn't really affect
| other people like it does when you spread covid to 200 people
| in your church, since rough math would say two of them will die
| directly from your insane actions.
|
| If we had an epidemic of homeopathy where millions of people
| are doing that instead of surgery and ending up dead instead of
| healed, we'd probably see similar enforcement.
|
| You can't put out every tiny little fire, there are too many as
| you say, but stopping the big blazes that are currently taking
| over can certainly be done to an extent within your own
| platform with moves like this.
| summerlight wrote:
| Not sure if everyone has read the actual policy
| (https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11161123) but for
| those who hasn't: Don't post content on YouTube
| if it includes harmful misinformation about currently approved
| and administered vaccines on any of the following: *
| Vaccine safety: content alleging that vaccines cause chronic side
| effects, outside of rare side effects that are recognized by
| health authorities * Efficacy of vaccines: content
| claiming that vaccines do not reduce transmission or contraction
| of disease * Ingredients in vaccines: content
| misrepresenting the substances contained in vaccines
|
| Also, the policy states some exceptional cases such as
| countervailing views with a support from medical experts,
| firsthand experiences, etc.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Also useful the (consistent) Axios summary:
|
| https://www.axios.com/youtube-anti-vax-misinformation-vaccin...
| chunkyfunky wrote:
| Normally I'd be opposed to censorship in general, but in this
| case I'm kind of glad, but only because shit like this is
| actually happening even now:
| https://www.rte.ie/news/ireland/2021/0927/1249210-covid-pati...
|
| AFAIC, anything they can do to suppress the raving lunacy of
| people like the ones who convinced that poor man to leave
| hospital, may he rest in peace, is a good thing in my book.
| justwanttolearn wrote:
| I feel like the efficacy is debatable. It reduces severe
| symptoms but more and more vaccinated are contracting it daily
| even in places of 95+% vaccinated so there's a good dialogue to
| be had here
| ipqk wrote:
| Uh yeah, when more people are vaccinated, a greater
| percentage that get it will be vaccinated.
| grillvogel wrote:
| careful, you are getting close to spreading misinformation
| here...
| honkdaddy wrote:
| The original hope was that vaccinated people wouldn't get
| it at all, as per any other vaccine. Delta proved for this
| to not to be the case, unfortunately.
| summerlight wrote:
| > The original hope was that vaccinated people wouldn't
| get it at all, as per any other vaccine
|
| This is false. No vaccine provides 100% protection. Even
| MMR, one of the most battle-tested vaccine provides ~97%
| protection against measles and ~88% against mumps.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/mmr/public/index.html
|
| If you get higher than 70% efficacy then it's usually
| considered very helpful for public health. Last year, we
| were not even sure if we can get 50% efficacy (a
| borderline for approval) but it turns out that COVID
| vaccines are so effective that it even works reasonably
| well for variants, with a caveat of diminishing effects
| over time.
| summerlight wrote:
| > It reduces severe symptoms but more and more vaccinated are
| contracting it daily even in places of 95+% vaccinated
|
| That's what the world living with COVID looks like. Given the
| Delta's estimated reproduction number (5~8), there's no herd
| immunity achievable in a near future. Then make it less
| severe and transmissible so we can handle it without strict
| lockdown and overloading public health infrastructure. At
| least until we get a universal vaccine against COVID.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Meanwhile, news just in: Slovenia apparently suspended today
| the use of JnJ, after the death of a 20yo in the past hours,
| <<...until all details related to this case are clarified>>
| (Health Minister Janez Poklukar)1.
|
| And I have difficulties in matching this piece of news with the
| reported words of Matt Halprin: <<YouTube will take down videos
| that claim such vaccines are dangerous>>.
|
| And also wonder if this (possible) case fits within the <<rare
| side effects that are recognized by health authorities>> (the
| policy).
|
| 1https://www.euronews.com/2021/09/29/slovenia-temporarily-
| sus...
| grillvogel wrote:
| this is legitimately dystopian. only can mention side effects
| that have been "recognized by health authorities" ? how would
| whistleblowing even be possible in this environment?
| thesagan wrote:
| Misinformation should be put out in sunlight or else the
| public may lose the ability to think critically in some
| respects. Then they'll be dependent on these companies to
| steer dialogue and be truth-tellers.
| jolux wrote:
| > Also, the policy states some exceptional cases such as
| countervailing views with a support from medical experts,
| firsthand experiences, etc.
| grillvogel wrote:
| its obvious that contrary opinions will be banned first
| with option to appeal coming after. im sure that will be a
| totally open and transparent process.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| The thing is, youtube is crappy place for "whistle blowing"
| because video is a terrible medium for people evaluating
| information critically - any references a video might have
| will slip by a person, the general demeanor of a presenter
| can matter more than their content or credentials, etc.
|
| It's not unreasonable for youtube to refuse non-mainstream
| health theories even if those theories deserve an airing
| somewhere.
| grillvogel wrote:
| >video is a terrible medium for people evaluating
| information critically
|
| yes, but this is the world we live in currently. getting
| information from the "factual" videos will still be
| encouraged
| y04nn wrote:
| I'm for freedom of speech, people should be able to make their
| own choice with all the information available. There should be a
| right to be a "conscientious objector"[1] for vaccination. But to
| be fair, it would work only for an educated population that is
| capable to distinguish facts from misinformation. And for me,
| science should always be questioned, if not there is no research
| and no discoveries.
|
| [1]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscientious_objection_in_the...
| wqewqe wrote:
| No need to post anti-vax content on YouTube now, Hacker News is
| already full of it.
| jeantherapy wrote:
| The more wrong they are the more they n down. One of these days
| that strategy may pay off. Better than admitting you're
| incompetent egotistical dumbasses who have been acting like
| nazis.
| FpUser wrote:
| Anti-vaccers have limited amount of claims. Instead of shutting
| them down and feeding into conspiracy if governments and big
| corps are so concerned they should make web sites where they
| disprove said claims with valid data in a way understandable by
| mere mortals. For interested there can be also list of references
| for further reading. Youtube and the likes are then free to
| promote / put on first page headlines from this websites.
|
| Instead what I see when opening youtube (I am Canadian) is the
| pic of Theresa Tam: our Chief Public Health Officer. She is known
| to change her opinion every other day to the point that whatever
| she says can be ignored - she'll come up with something different
| tomorrow.
| mach1ne wrote:
| People don't see what the actual problem here is - perhaps
| because they don't want to see. What is happening is very much
| the transformation from an open society to one where freedom of
| speech is limited and certain other individual rights are
| stripped away. Perhaps not de jure, but de facto.
|
| And sure, one might argue that it's for a good cause (even though
| it's a complex topic). However, the fact is that as this is done
| once, it becomes something that can be leveraged as the norm.
| There is a very real danger here, and nobody knows whether it
| will realize or not.
|
| The question is not whether you can post anti-vax content today.
| It's whether you can post anti-anything tomorrow.
| syshum wrote:
| Society is regressing back to a time where idea's like those in
| the Pre-Enlightenment era where prevalent, hopefully we do not
| regress all the way back to Dark Ages, where people will stoned
| and hanged for defying the church... In our time "the church"
| will likely be replaced with a new non-theistic religion of
| some kind, a Technocracy of "The Experts(tm)" and
| "Authoritative Sources(tm)" who are the ones that will tell us
| what "The Truth(tm)" is today
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Society is regressing back to a time where idea's like
| those in the Pre-Enlightenment era where prevalent...
|
| I agree, people are denying vaccines work, taking fluoride
| out of tap water, and saying that the earth is flat. It seems
| like there's something seriously wrong with our media
| ecosystem when ideas like this are flourishing. I don't know
| if banning these ideas is good/effective, but we need _some_
| way to incentivize the veracity of ideas and not just their
| "engagement". What that mechanism might be, I don't know.
| syshum wrote:
| >>It seems like there's something seriously wrong with our
| media ecosystem
|
| I think that is a symptom of the problem not the root cause
|
| >>I don't know if banning these ideas is good/effective
|
| its not, never has been, in fact has been shown to make the
| idea's spread further and become more extreme as people
| enter into information echo chambers.
|
| >but we need some way to incentivize the veracity of ideas
|
| Why? in reality the root cause is decades and decades of
| coddling children and the removal of critical thinking
| education in favor of memorization education.
|
| The root cause is the failure to teach people how to use
| critical thinking and logic to assess the validity of data
| and claims made by people.
|
| The reality is that "Trust the Experts(tm)" is an example
| of this and really does make the problem worse because
| people are taught to just trust an authority instead of
| being able to look at a claim or data set and deiced for
| themselves if that claim should be accepted. The problem
| become with the "authority" people trust is wrong, either
| because they are a charlatan, or just ignorant themselves.
| However because people have been training to alway trust
| authority they become locked into this unable to think for
| themselves.
|
| The more we move to a model of messenger over message,
| credential over data, the worse this problem will become.
| The additon of punishments for those that dare to resist
| "authority" is also going to end badly when that authority
| is wrong. Keep in mind I have countless examples of
| authority being wrong I can cite, a big on is that for
| decades and during my childhood the USDA pushed the food
| pyramid we now know to be wrong. They were the experts and
| anyone that dared say "hey maybe all these carbs are bad"
| were shunned... Vegetable oils are a another where the
| experts it seems may be been very wrong.
|
| The enlightenment in part was the removal of charismatic
| messengers in favor of data driven objective truth. It did
| not matter who the person was it matter what they were
| saying and if they could prove their claim. All individuals
| were the same. We have lost that in favor of personality,
| credentials and authority over data, and proof.
|
| Why is the vaccine safe? "Because the CDC and FDA said
| so"... that is not a valid response to me. Show me the
| data, show me the studies, show me the proof... that is the
| valid response.
| whiddershins wrote:
| But is free speech dependent on YouTube being a platform for
| complex discussions between knowledgeable people on a topic?
|
| Maybe YouTube doesn't want that role.
|
| Maybe we can have a sci-debate website that does want these
| discussions, and maybe that site could tailor the feature set
| for exactly this purpose.
|
| Maybe it would focus on citation and annotation features like
| thinkspot or Spotify or genius.
|
| Maybe the site could have multiple ways to evaluate the
| reputation of someone making claims. Maybe it could have
| education, popularity, endorsements from other people with high
| reputation, and like three other dimensions of reputation
| measurements.
|
| Maybe it could have tools to disclose conflicts of interest,
| the accuracy of past claims over time, and automatic linking to
| rebuttals.
|
| Maybe YouTube just isn't a fit for this information.
| md2020 wrote:
| This trend in combination with the new wave of everything being
| a subscription really has me worried as a recent college grad
| who therefore does not own a home or have much in the way of
| savings. If you don't own anything and your access to essential
| items is decided by some megacorp like Google or FB, you bet
| people will fall in line with the latest recreational outrage
| real fast. Connected cars with subscription features that show
| you ads even if you do own them (see the Ford Mach-E), and
| financial institutions buying up single-family homes to keep as
| many people as possible renting forever and never gaining
| equity in anything. The World Economic Forum came out and said
| it blatantly: "You'll own nothing, and you'll be happy." That's
| starting to read more like a command, not a prediction.
| Loughla wrote:
| I genuinely don't get it. YouTube, a private entity and not a
| government entity, is saying they don't want certain content on
| their platform. This is not the end of your free speech. This
| isn't really even a movement away from free speech. It's
| YouTube exercising their right to freedom of speech by not
| allowing what they believe to be harmful or disagreeable on
| their platform. They already do this with other categories of
| thing. This is no different.
|
| You are more than able to start your own company and let
| whatever you want on that site. Or just go to your local city
| center with a megaphone and give people your thoughts -
| perfectly legal.
|
| If YouTube is THAT essential to getting your views heard, you
| need to take a lesson from business - don't rely on anyone else
| for critical infrastructure.
| JohnWhigham wrote:
| I find it hilarious that in recent years, people on the left
| have started using the "don't like it? make your own! ;)"
| reply after it exclusively being a right-wing thing (e.g.
| telling people "don't like the USA? then leave"). Especially
| since both sentiments come from the same root: being out of a
| legitimate argument.
| Covzire wrote:
| Youtube, Facebook and Twitter have been censoring content
| that nearly exclusively goes against left wing opinion
| narratives. At the top of Twitter right now are the DNC's
| "expert" opinion on whether the vaccine mandates are legal.
| They're shoving their political speech down everyones throat
| and censoring as many opposing views as they can get away
| with. But let's say that's legal for now.
|
| If we take a equitable view of the situation, the vast
| majority of content that they're removing is simply being
| removed for wrong-think according to the DNC. This gives the
| Democratic party a leg up through overt censorship and
| information warfare of a sort they couldn't possibly have
| achieved through direct government action.
|
| Whether that's legal or not is immaterial to me, they are
| stifling legal free speech of the de-facto public square, and
| those who cheer it on now won't be so happy in the future
| when the alignment of special interests shifts against them,
| I promise you it will happen and sooner than anyone thinks.
|
| Google is a cancer on public discourse, how many fake media
| narratives have to collapse before people realize censorship
| of wrong-think is not a good idea for a healthy society?
|
| Edit: Looks like Twitter finally removed their ridiculous
| propaganda from the trending section.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| I completely agree that YouTube should absolutely be free to
| do this but they're obviously doing this because citizens and
| their own employees demand it. The movement away from free
| speech is caused by the growing number of people (including
| people in this very thread) who want YouTube to do this,
| YouTube acquiescing to their demands is just a symptom of
| this trend.
|
| YouTube is the profit-driven canary in the coalmine.
| YouTube's business model naturally incentivizes more speech
| of all kinds. This crackdown indicates there is mounting
| pressure - from democratically elected governments, from HN
| commentators, from our friends and neighbors that regulate &
| patronize YouTube - to stop being tolerant of certain kinds
| of speech like antivax.
| hhhhhdsgs wrote:
| You don't get it because you agree with it. If it was your
| views being silenced you would suddenly remember how hard it
| is to create your own video platform that can compete with
| youtube (especially when the big tech monopolies will refuse
| services to you)
| sanderjd wrote:
| I disagree strongly with the action being taken here, but
| like your parent commenter, I don't get the consternation
| about their ability to take that action. I think that the
| first amendment guarantees both freedom of speech and of
| association to private entities, and that this is no more
| or less than a private entity exercising those exact
| rights.
|
| If you want to nationalize all social media and force it to
| be a public square, that's fine, we can have that
| conversation. But that's not what people generally argue
| for, they instead expect private entities to be themselves
| subject to the requirements of the first amendment. But
| that isn't how it works. And I think that is a good thing,
| even when I disagree with the outcome.
| the-dude wrote:
| > If YouTube is THAT essential to getting your views heard,
| you need to take a lesson from business - don't rely on
| anyone else for critical infrastructure.
|
| No other platform offers a competitive audience.
| zepto wrote:
| Don't rely on a competitive audience.
| oblio wrote:
| And do what, instead?
|
| Stay and home and start knitting? If your job or your
| desire is to be in media, what's your proposed
| alternative?
| MadeThisToReply wrote:
| "'Skynet Is A Private Company, They Can Do What They Want,'
| Says Man Getting Curb-Stomped By Terminator"
|
| https://babylonbee.com/news/skynet-is-a-private-company-
| they...
| prohobo wrote:
| This fallacy of "private entity" when talking about a
| corporation that's more powerful than most governments is
| truly ridiculous.
|
| It's okay if the East India Company enslaves and exploits the
| savages and mongrels, murders opponents, rigs elections,
| installs corrupt politicians and destroys communities; it's a
| private company and it only hurts stupid people! Just stop
| buying their tea if you don't like it, amirite? Start your
| own company!
| zepto wrote:
| Except not. Google isn't more powerful than most
| governments. They can't kill or imprison people, or seize
| land or property. This is simply a false analogy.
| evv555 wrote:
| Google isn't a "private entity" in the sense of a small
| business either. More like a utility company. False
| analogy
| ostenning wrote:
| What is your definition of "power"? Because I think your
| perspective is incredibly naive.
|
| Google has immense power, far more than most governments.
| Governments all around the world are often manipulated by
| corporations like Google, laws are written based off
| these influences of power, shaping democracy, all the
| time.
|
| If they really wanted to they could do almost anything to
| you. They could easily steal your identity, they could
| frame you, they could put you in prison, they could do
| basically anything. Is this legal? Obviously not, but
| power extends further than what is legal.
| prohobo wrote:
| I recommend reading this article for a quick overview of
| the current political landscape:
| https://theconversation.com/who-is-more-powerful-states-
| or-c...
|
| The fact is that states and corporations collude and
| compete with each other for political control
| internationally, and corporate power outranks the vast
| majority of state powers. Weirdly though, I can't find
| Alphabet Inc. in the power rankings.
| valeness wrote:
| I don't see this same energy when peope want to nationalize
| internet or electric companies. Why is it that only when
| media companies moderate the content available on their
| platform do we suddenly not care about property rights?
|
| If we're talking about regulating large corporations
| because they're monopolizing resources I'd much rather
| start in the energy sector to set some precedent before we
| just force youtube and facebook to allow nazis and anti-
| vaxxers to spout off whatever they want during a global
| crisis.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >moderate the content
|
| Censor. The word you're looking for is censor.
| humanrebar wrote:
| > Why is it that only when media companies moderate the
| content available on their platform do we suddenly not
| care about property rights?
|
| I can't speak for what you're paying attention to, but
| plenty of people are wary of big cats in corporations
| _and_ big cats in government. You can be against both.
|
| The real false narrative is that choosing team red or
| team blue is the only interesting question and then you
| can turn your skepticism off.
| oblio wrote:
| > electric companies
|
| You do know that those in many places are called
| "utilities" and they <<are>> nationalized, right?
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| Even when they aren't nationalized they are more often
| than not subject to _very_ stringent regulations.
| prohobo wrote:
| Internet and electric companies don't have international
| political influence, nor major monopolies.
|
| I'd rather have an honest discussion about dealing with a
| global crisis instead of having some asshole decide he's
| right and shut everyone else out - surely you can imagine
| the damage caused by a dictator who's wrong?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| I can see the CEOs and politicians wanting to implement a
| Chinese-style 'social citizenship score' and if it falls below
| some level you get banned from all platforms and your travel
| rights are restricted, etc.
| GaryTang wrote:
| Oh boy. MSM is going to jam the importance of it down our
| throats. "Social citizen scores are necessary to save lives.
| Get your score now! Lottery for people who register early."
| yibg wrote:
| Do you also feel it's wrong of YouTube to not allow porn? Feels
| like people are laser focused on anti vax content due to the
| political nature of it, while not really caring about all the
| other moderation they already do.
| etchalon wrote:
| Porn is a great counter example to the idea social media
| companies have some all powerful control over public
| information. Nearly all of them ban porn, a form of
| absolutely protected speech, but behold, it's easy to find
| porn.
|
| The whole "death of free speech" argument is such nonsense
| johnjj257 wrote:
| Not really because porn is evenly banned across the board.
|
| This is more like you can only watch CDC approved porn
| films and if your porn doesn't align with our CDC
| guidelines it will be removed. Which doesn't sound like
| much support of free speech.
| whiddershins wrote:
| They need to ban all references to the vaccine, and then your
| analogy to porn would hold, and I would be fine with it.
| palijer wrote:
| Freedom of speech doesn't mean other people have to listen or
| host what you say.
|
| https://xkcd.com/1357/
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Yes our freedoms are being eroded. It's a slippery slope. All
| that bullshit.
|
| Come on. A private company doesn't want to contribute to people
| dying. Oh and by the way don't they have the right to do what
| they want? You want what, regulation to prohibit this?
| derbOac wrote:
| I'm sort of sympathetic to that argument except:
|
| 1. I think at the end of the day, the problem isn't "does
| YouTube have the right to do this?" it's " _should_ YouTube
| be doing this, given their status? " For me even though they
| have the right to, I think it's just the wrong thing to do.
|
| I personally am baffled by how the US as a society seems to
| be devaluing free speech principles in the private and public
| sphere due to some argument that it's needed to combat
| misinformation. This strategy never ends well, and it belies
| a lack of strength in promoting alternatives. The way to
| combat misinformation is with better information. Resorting
| to free speech restrictions is a sign of weakness in my
| opinion.
|
| In the end I'd rather have YouTube (and other platforms)
| modeling a different approach.
|
| 2. I also think, regardless of how they got there, at some
| point a private business functions as a monopoly and should
| be treated as such. I'm not so sure how I feel about
| regulations along those lines, but I do think anti-monopoly
| legal response to this sort of behavior wouldn't be
| unreasonable. I'm not at all sympathetic to the GOP in
| general, but if they started coming down on YouTube for this
| kind of thing under anti-monopoly regulation umbrellas I
| think it wouldn't be irrational or unreasonable to me.
|
| 3. As a more immediate issue, I think this sort of thing
| always backfires. If you have a bunch of people thinking
| there's a conspiracy to shove untested vaccines down people's
| throats, and then you have a major media distributor like
| YouTube censoring all anti-vaccine discussion, what do you
| think they're going to conclude? I'm as pro-vaccine as
| someone can get, and think arguments against them are usually
| pretty absurd, but I have to say that this kind of thing
| starts to look like a conspiracy, even if it isn't one. Why
| give them ammunition? If you can't convince people the
| vaccine is a good thing, how do you think that shutting down
| discussion is somehow going to work better?
| goldenbikeshed wrote:
| It's high time facebook, YouTube and Google get broken up
| like the Bell Corporation was (maybe even avoid some
| mistakes that were made with that company).
|
| Regarding 3.: I think it will radicalize some but it will
| also stop the misinformation of many more people. Overall I
| think it will lead to lives saved.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Youtube doesn't give two shits about people dying. They care
| about not drawing the ire of advertisers or legislators.
| swayvil wrote:
| Yes. When truth is tied to money we enter a world of
| infinite bullshit.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Is it not their right to pursue profits? Do you want
| someone to regulate them?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| It may be their right to pursue profits within the bounds
| of the law but that doesn't mean their actions along the
| way aren't distasteful.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Well then we can all furrow our brows and move on. If you
| simply find YT distasteful, don't use it.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| "You simply find DuPont distasteful don't use plastics".
|
| "If you simply find the treatment of warehouse workers
| distasteful don't buy anything online"
|
| Just because someone or something's actions are within
| the letter of the law doesn't mean they are exempt from
| criticism.
| myaccounthaha wrote:
| You didn't answer the question - Do you want someone to
| regulate them?
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| I didn't answer the question because it was a non-
| sequitur and it was obvious the question was being asked
| in bad faith to trip me up, like a cop who asks how many
| drinks you had after you just told him you hadn't had
| anything to drink.
|
| I don't have a strong opinion on the matter. If someone
| were to do a good job regulating them and make the
| situation better I'd approve. If someone were to do a bad
| job and make things worse I'd disapprove.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| So your solution is for someone else to come up with a
| solution which you would find satisfactory by criteria
| you are unwilling to provide?
|
| Whether regulation should stop YT from doing this is a
| legitimate question. Nothing else will prevent it.
| Observe that the government telling a private company
| what they must host on their platform is potentially more
| dangerous than the government telling a private company
| to take down a piece of content (neither of these are
| happening here but if we entertain the notion of
| regulating YT then these are to be considered).
| goldenbikeshed wrote:
| Break up YouTube into multiple companies, each only
| allowed to operate in one country. Then break up YouTube
| US into at least 5 more companies.
|
| Monopolies are bad, mmmkay?
| yibg wrote:
| Why is this standard not applied to anti vax content? You
| find YouTube's actions distasteful and you want them to
| stop. YouTube finds anti vax content distasteful and
| wants that to stop. YouTube either has the right to stop
| this type of content on their platform or they don't.
| roenxi wrote:
| Note that Google has billions of dollars and control of a
| huge amount of the world's data. Then note the reason the
| low standard is applied to anti-vax content is because
| they are about as close to being politically irrelevant
| as one can be.
|
| They're struggling to even exercise basic human rights
| (freedom of movement, opinion, peaceful association,
| speech, etc, etc. There is probably a right for
| healthcare self-determination slipped in to the Universal
| Deceleration of Human Rights too it seems like the sort
| of thing they'd slip in). There is room to argue about
| whether the UDoHR applies here, but it is very notable
| that the anti-vaxers have nearly no power to have a quite
| reasonable interpretation stick.
|
| Their opinions just don't matter. They appear to be on
| the verge of being confined to their homes while being
| widely condemned and socially ostracised. They are likely
| to be fired. Which is why it is so concerning that
| systematic oppression is being bought in to deal with
| them - this is Google crossing scary lines that didn't
| need to be crossed.
| [deleted]
| mach1ne wrote:
| When a private company with a market share of information as
| large as Youtube acts as an arbitrer of truth, regulation to
| prevent this would be nice, yes.
| nova22033 wrote:
| Should fox news be required to give equal time to liberal
| opinion hosts? It's the biggest cable news outlet.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| So you trust the government to decide what is true and what
| isn't but not YouTube?
| zepto wrote:
| Except they aren't acting as an arbiter of truth. They are
| just regulating their own platform. It's not a secret that
| they are doing this.
| etchalon wrote:
| I am now incredibly interested in what the term "market
| share of information" is, because that's a brand new
| nonsense term I'm sure will spread like wildfire.
| 13415 wrote:
| Personally, I don't care what Youtube bans and believe they
| should just do whatever they like. I don't care because Youtube
| does not provide any essential service to society. The content
| they serve is entirely expendable. The same holds for Twitter
| and Facebook. You could close these content distribution sites
| tomorrow and nothing substantial would change. A few of their
| competitors would gain a larger user base and that's it. If you
| rely for your income on some of these media channels (like ad
| revenue), you have a bad business model.
|
| Principally, however, there could be a quasi-monopoly that
| turns out so essential for society that they should be treated
| as a public utility with a right to access instead of a private
| company that can enforce whatever house rules they like within
| the boundaries of law. I just don't think YT (or FB or Twitter
| or Google...) are there yet and find it hilarious that butthurt
| Youtubers so grossly overestimate their own importance.
| sneak wrote:
| ...and we're still in peacetime. Wait until you see what you're
| not allowed to post once that changes.
| bla15e wrote:
| Thank god, praying that this includes those vagabond anti-booster
| folks (JUST BECAUSE YOU'RE VACCINATED DOESNT MEAN YOU'RE FULLY
| VACCINATED!!!)
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Well, I do believe two FDA officials resigned in protest saying
| there was no scientific evidence for the efficacy of a third
| dose, and that does sound like legitimate informed scientific
| dissent.
|
| I think the claim that this 'third dose' was pushed through by
| pharmaceutical corporations and compliant government officials
| can't be so glibly dismissed, given such issues.
|
| Of course, future data might support or undermine this view,
| but it's hardly 'anti-vax hysteria'. Our pharmaceutical system
| has a long history of this kind of thing, due to their mindless
| focus on profit margins with much less regard for the safety or
| efficacy of their products. Look up the Vioxx debacle, for
| example.
| snambi wrote:
| This is simply wrong. Now, we are slowly moving towards to
| communist regimes.
| ridaj wrote:
| I think people outraged at the content censorship on YouTube can
| look at the media landscape overall and consider that, compared
| with Hulu, CBS, MSNBC or Fox News, it's still a extremely
| permissive environment, an outlier in the world of ad-supported
| media companies. This looks like regression to the mean - as it
| becomes bigger and forever needs to get more money from
| advertisers to sustain growth, it gets pushed to provide a
| product that emphasizes middle-of-the-road views. YouTube of 10
| years ago was so much smaller that it got away with a lot worse
| (eg terrorism apology and recruitment), but as it's grown, it's
| going to be increasingly difficult for controversial content to
| live on ad-support.
| gitgud wrote:
| Free speech on Youtube is like being in the audience of a sitcom,
| you can't just yell out swear words, it could cost the production
| company money...
| henning wrote:
| Are people mad about censorship on YouTube also mad about all the
| censorship that occurs on this site? Stuff gets deleted and
| manipulated by the mods all the time.
| goatlover wrote:
| It seems to me that some people on here believe there should be
| no moderation/censorship whatsoever on the internet. I don't
| know how they propose to keep sites from being completely
| overwhelmed by bad actors, spam and illegal activities.
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| Enough. This sort of large-scale systematic suppression of human
| rights (in this case the right to the free exchange of ideas) is
| fundamentally evil and needs to be stopped.
|
| That it's "for a good cause" is no excuse. Neither is the fact
| that the perpetrator of these mass-scale human rights violations
| is a corporate oligopoly rather than a government, nor that the
| target of these abuses is "them" rather than "us". All of that is
| a distraction. They. Are. Trampling. Your. Rights. This cannot be
| allowed to continue.
| thehappypm wrote:
| YouTube is a private enterprise. They have 100% the right to
| control what goes on their site. Would you be mad if a fishing
| forum banned non-fishing posts? Is that a large-scale
| systematic suppression of human rights?
| Ajedi32 wrote:
| No, because your hypothetical fishing forum is not "large
| scale", and because discrimination based on general topic
| does not suppress the free exchange of ideas the same way
| that discrimination based on the beliefs of the poster does.
|
| If YouTube banned _all_ health-related discussion regardless
| of what position the video was advocating for I would still
| disagree with that decision, but it would not be a blatant
| human rights violation the way their current policy is.
| [deleted]
| gred wrote:
| It used to be that I didn't want to work for Google because I'm
| not a fan of surveillance capitalism and all of the second order
| effects. I'm now realizing that there is a second, just-as-
| important reason: the level of censorship that Google enables.
|
| A few years ago I wouldn't have thought there could possibly be a
| _second_ reason just as important to me as the centralized,
| pervasive surveillance... but here we are.
| everyone wrote:
| Americans are arguing about the vaccine even here on HN. Seems
| like Russian social media manipulators _really_ did a number on
| ye.
| water8 wrote:
| These people act like mRNA vaccines are 100% understood and there
| is no room for debate
| null0pointer wrote:
| https://archive.is/OJlxk
| wepple wrote:
| Can anyone recommend a good book on the balance between free
| speech versus disallowing harmful ideas to propagate?
|
| Or even one book from each side of the argument?
|
| I don't think I've even begun to comprehend a robust position on
| what might make sense, or the arguments involved.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| Look up the paradox of tolerance and go from there.
| nanis wrote:
| > balance between free speech versus disallowing harmful ideas
| to propagate?
|
| There is no balance. The very fantasy of such a balance relies
| upon the presumption that 1) there are harmful _ideas_; and 2)
| that there is an authority that can certify some ideas as
| _safe_ vs _harmful_.
|
| The discussion here gets overwhelmed by several generations of
| people who never actually understood what people had to give up
| for the right of everyone to speak and for the right of
| everyone to be able to expose themselves to any idea they
| themselves deem interesting or appropriate.
|
| Also, enmeshment of barons of industry with powerful political
| operatives to suppress competition to both is literally fascism
| (regardless of the historical revision of the definition 100
| years after the fact).
| wepple wrote:
| There are folks out there that believe some level of content
| moderation is useful, and I'd like to understand their
| argument. If my conclusion is that it's not robust, so be it.
|
| But let's run a thought experiment. Let's say an idea shows
| up on Twitter that Asian people are ruining the US. It
| spreads and gains attention. People start killing, and citing
| the Twitter misinformation as a key motivator. Can the vast
| majority of society not agree that 1) this is a harmful idea
| and 2) reasonable people agree it is harmful. And therefore
| Twitter has a responsibility to remove that content?
| realreality wrote:
| If your definition of harmful boils down to "results in
| people getting killed", then: ban fossil fuel
| advertisements; ban advertisements for the military or
| content that glorifies militarism; ban any content that
| encourages people to over-consume energy and resources.
|
| But we know this won't happen, because what we consider
| "harmful" is distorted by living within an inherently
| harmful society -- namely, a civilization based on
| violence, exploitation, and extraction.
| seoaeu wrote:
| So since we can't prevent all harm we shouldn't try to
| prevent any? That doesn't seem like a very compelling
| argument to me
| realreality wrote:
| I prefer if we prevent harm by addressing the underlying
| conditions, rather than trying to control the spread of
| ideas.
|
| As long as we're in a mindset of having to destroy all
| contagions (whether they're proteins or thoughts), we're
| going to create more problems.
| wepple wrote:
| The examples you've provided are very complex multi-
| dimensional topics.
|
| The idea of harmfulness is indeed a spectrum, and my
| example is at one extreme end of the spectrum in order to
| illustrate that "content moderation should never ever
| occur" may not stand up to all examples.
|
| Most developed nations have banned advertisements of
| cigarettes, so it's totally a thing we have done
| previously. Why are there no folks outraged that we can't
| advertise cigarettes to children?
| realreality wrote:
| We ban cigarette advertisements because there was finally
| a social consensus that addiction to tobacco products is
| harmful. But it's still completely legal to get yourself
| addicted.
|
| On the other hand, there's no consensus about the harm
| from phone addiction. Maybe in 30 years we'll ban iPhone
| advertisements.
|
| Like I said in another comment, I'd rather we deal with
| the underlying conditions which may lead to harm, than
| try to suppress ideas.
| wepple wrote:
| So you fundamentally agree that if we have social
| consensus, it's totally OK to prevent the spread of ideas
| or messages ("speech") as we have done with cigarettes?
| That was my entire question, to the folks who argue that
| there is never ever a reason to restrict speech.
|
| I too think that we should address underlying issues, but
| if there's a lot at stake: why not both?
| josephcsible wrote:
| I'd agree with "1) this is a harmful idea and 2) reasonable
| people agree it is harmful", but not "therefore Twitter has
| a responsibility to remove that content".
| nanis wrote:
| That is a bogus argument. 1) Killing people is already a
| criminal act; 2) There are some people killing/beating
| people up with the slightest impetus. They will find that
| impetus whether Twitter allows people to discuss anything
| negative about the CCP; 3) Do you really want the speech of
| everyone to be regulated on the basis of the excuses used
| by psycho-killers?
|
| Do you think Jodie Foster should have been banned from
| appearing in movies?
|
| Update: And, just in time, this shows up[1,2]:
|
| > Tech firm LinkedIn has censored the profile of US
| journalist Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian[3] in China, inviting
| her to "update" content without specifying what triggered
| the block.
|
| Ah! She wrote a book about China[4].
|
| Can't allow that! What if some random person becomes too
| critical of the CCP and assaults a random Asian-American in
| San Fransisco?[5]
|
| Let the attribution games begin!
|
| [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28694431
|
| [2]: https://hongkongfp.com/2021/09/29/microsofts-linkedin-
| censor...
|
| [3]: https://www.axios.com/authors/baebrahimian/
|
| [4]: https://twitter.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/14432130456
| 065884...
|
| [5]: https://abc7news.com/pacific-heights-woman-bitten-
| asian-atta...
| xqcgrek2 wrote:
| Is Twitter a publisher?
| ncallaway wrote:
| > 1) there are harmful _ideas_
|
| There are, though. There are ideas that are harmful.
|
| The idea that the Jewish population was responsible for the
| harms and ills of pre-WWII Germany was a devastatingly
| harmful idea.
|
| > 2) that there is an authority that can certify some ideas
| as _safe_ vs _harmful_.
|
| It's obvious to me that there cannot be a singular authority
| that makes such determinations.
|
| But it does seem totally plausible to have a distributed
| network of actors, each making their own determinations, and
| each influencing each other about which ideas are harmful,
| and which they will tolerate within their sphere. After all,
| that's the basic concept behind the "marketplace of ideas".
|
| You can sell into the marketplace, but YouTube doesn't have
| to buy what everyone is selling.
|
| I think it's just as totalitarian to tell a private entity
| that they _must_ host content they disagree with, as it is to
| tell a private entity that they _cannot_ speak about a
| specific topic to others. It 's the antithesis of the
| marketplace of ideas.
|
| I think the actual underlying issue is that YouTube, and a
| few other select entities, have an absolutely massive spheres
| of influence and feel like monopolies within. _That 's_ what
| kills the marketplace.
|
| So, I _do_ think private entities are completely within their
| rights to restrict their platforms however they see fit. I
| think doing so is even necessary for an effective marketplace
| of ideas that seeks truth. But I think we should also look at
| anti-trust laws that prevent individual private entities from
| having such a dominant position over an entire space.
| nanis wrote:
| > The idea that the Jewish population was responsible for
| the harms and ills of pre-WWII Germany was a devastatingly
| harmful idea.
|
| Come to think of it ... If the pre-WWII harms and ills of
| Germany did not exist, would the scapegoating have existed?
| So, is it the idea that one could keep the peace by utterly
| destroying the enemy _after_ they lost that ought to have
| been banned?
|
| Fast-forwarding a little bit, even after those particular
| manifestations had been banned, some Germans continued to
| kill people whom they considered to be of "inferior" races.
| Do you attribute the literal roasting of Turks to the idea
| that luxury on the one side and communism on the other side
| could magically wash away responsibility for the genocides
| committed by their ancestors?
|
| I am curious because once we go down the path of blaming
| "ideas" instead of specific people for specific actions, it
| all gets pretty funky pretty fast.
|
| It wasn't like the Nazi party was never banned in Germany.
| Do you take the survival of those ideas despite the various
| bans since 1923 as proof that banning ideas don't change
| anything about the people who'll do horrible things?
| ncallaway wrote:
| > So, is it the idea that one could keep the peace by
| utterly destroying the enemy _after_ they lost that ought
| to have been banned?
|
| I wasn't advocating for banning any ideas, but rather
| than private entities should have the freedom to moderate
| their platforms. That private entities and persons should
| be allowed to say: "I won't share this idea".
|
| One of the points asserted was that this requires us to
| agree to the point that "some ideas are harmful".
|
| So, I was defending the claim that 'some ideas are
| harmful'. That is _absolutely not_ the same as defending
| the claim that 'some ideas should be banned'.
|
| Most of the rest of your comment deals with that latter
| claim, which I don't support and don't claim to.
|
| My point wasn't that the idea should've been banned, but
| rather that the idea was harmful.
| nanis wrote:
| > but rather than private entities should have the
| freedom to moderate their platforms.
|
| Do you think the Nazis were able to publish their
| positions in _Die Rote Fahne_?
|
| > One of the points asserted was that this requires us to
| agree to the point that "some ideas are harmful".
|
| Ideas are ideas. Ideas by themselves cannot be harmful.
| Actions have the ability to cause harm.
|
| Well, OK, the idea that large corporations merging their
| power with the political authority to insulate the
| population from harmful ideas, well, that idea is
| definitely harmful because it cannot exist separately
| from the action of chilling free exchange of ideas.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > ...that idea is definitely harmful...
|
| This seems like a dramatic concession if you're trying to
| defend point that there exists no ideas that are harmful.
| nanis wrote:
| If what I did there is not transparent, then, it seems,
| we have reached the end of this conversation.
| ncallaway wrote:
| It was, and we have.
| nanis wrote:
| With an actual private, for-profit business, consumers have
| the power of taking their money and spending elsewhere.
|
| In this case, there is a dominant communication medium that
| is not subject to the discipline which the rest of us can
| impose on it by spending our money elsewhere because the
| "business" does not rely on our spending. So, bringing up
| the massive potential harms that can be visited on a
| society where the dominant communication channels all the
| do the bidding of political power centers is the only thing
| we can do. Maybe sufficient numbers of people will be
| convinced by this.
|
| It seems less and less likely. That is sad.
| wepple wrote:
| Your first argument is essentially that if the general
| public believe an organization to be bad, they can remove
| their support for that organization.
|
| Why is YouTube any different? People can and do go to
| other platforms. You're differentiating between giving
| value in the form of dollars versus giving value in the
| form of time & attention.
| ncallaway wrote:
| I mean, I agree with you.
|
| My point is that the _actual_ harms of YouTube and others
| are from an anti-trust and monopoly perspective.
|
| The problem _isn 't_ a private entity moderating their
| platform. The problem is a private entity that has so
| much power that moderating their platform amounts to a
| society-wide stifling of speech.
|
| The solution isn't to restrict how the entities are
| allowed to moderate their platforms--it's to prevent and
| disallow them from being that powerful in the first
| place!
| nanis wrote:
| We may agree philosophically, but you are either not
| aware of how enmeshed political power is with a few large
| communications platforms or you are purposefully
| distracting from that point.
|
| > it's to prevent and disallow them from being that
| powerful in the first place!
|
| That ship has sailed. The here and now is the fact that
| we have a communication, tracking, and employment
| oligopoly in cahoots with the current centers of
| political power interested in preventing competition to
| both.
| ncallaway wrote:
| > That ship has sailed.
|
| It hasn't. Monopolies have become powerful, then been
| disassembled before, and it can happen again.
|
| Standard Oil was broken up, as was Bell Systems.
|
| With some new legislation and lawsuits, we could
| absolutely reduce the power of Google/YouTube and
| Facebook over online communications.
|
| I agree that those entities have already become far too
| powerful, but we can remove their power, and shred them
| into smaller pieces if we had the will to.
|
| I agree that we may not have the will.
|
| But I disagree that the solution is to put _more_
| constraints on the speech rights of private entities. You
| don 't fight censorship with compelled speech. You fight
| monopolies with aggressive anti-trust legislation and
| action.
| seanhunter wrote:
| "The Open Society and its Enemies" by Karl Popper would be one
| thought-provoking contribution on this topic.
| bobulous wrote:
| The scandal is that it has taken this long. YouTube is not a
| public platform and should be held responsible for the content
| they promote.
| Trias11 wrote:
| I guess someone is part of gigantic political kickback collusion
| scheme with big pharma.
| hpen wrote:
| Would they have blocked the lab leak theory when it was less
| popular?
| anonymouswacker wrote:
| One would think YouTube could hear the Rumble-ing happening right
| now.
| temptemptemp111 wrote:
| Vaccines or "The Tuskegee Tuesday Special"
|
| I will pay anyone here thousands of dollars to inject merely the
| so-called "inactive" ingredients into themselves every week for a
| year... I doubt you'll last that long though.
| mariodiana wrote:
| I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on
| open discussion by moderate voices. I'm subscribed to the channel
| of an M.D. on YouTube who discusses COVID-19, vaccines, etc. He
| is very careful to (repeatedly) point out that he is vaccinated,
| he has personally vaccinated hundreds of patients, he encourages
| everyone to speak to their doctor and follow their
| recommendations, believing that the vaccine is beneficial for the
| overwhelming majority of people. But, for all that, he has had
| videos taken down, and worries that it will happen again.
|
| Months ago he was insisting that the people who had contracted
| COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may not need the
| vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming out to support
| that. But months ago that was "anti-vax" (employing the
| slanderous use of the term).
|
| People are going to cheer that "wackos" will no longer have a
| platform. It's not the wackos we should be worrying about. It's
| the stifling of legitimate public debate, the stifling of
| legitimate voices who find themselves in the minority.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| I think we have to ask whether adversaries have the right to
| run hogwild on western social media and spread disinformation.
| oliwarner wrote:
| Right to ask, but not without also balancing against the issue
| of people being utter idiots. A little sensible conversation
| has lead to tens of thousands of hours doctors talking patients
| down when they come in demanding anti-parasitic medicines.
|
| I don't know what the best balance is. One thing is evident:
| social media is not the venue for scientific debate.
| hammock wrote:
| >anti-parasitic medicines
|
| Protease inhibitors* , similar to the one Pfizer is testing
| right now for COVID.
| oliwarner wrote:
| No, they're not licensed for that. They're still testing.
| And that's even forgiving how much work the word "similar"
| is doing there.
|
| It is still the case that thousands of people are badgering
| their HCPs, trying to get off-licence scripts for something
| that's efficacy is contested and method isn't certain.
|
| The Venn diagram between people who want wormer and those
| that refuse a vaccine is practically a circle. I stand by
| my original statement on what sort of people these are.
|
| If you want to have a chat about the ongoing research into
| protease inhibitors, that's great, but anecdotes about
| curing it with an ill-gotten tube of horse medicine is as
| dangerous and virulent as covid in the first place.
| swader999 wrote:
| It's not a perfect circle. I fixed my vaccine induced
| long haul covid symptoms that tested negative with the
| horsey paste.
| mminer237 wrote:
| I think he was talking about Ivermectin, which is a
| glutamate-gated chloride channel binder. I've never heard
| of people taking unprescribed protease inhibitors, although
| I guess there's no end to snake oil.
| hammock wrote:
| https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7996102/
|
| >Ivermectin was found as a blocker of viral replicase,
| protease and human TMPRSS2, which could be the
| biophysical basis behind its antiviral efficiency.
|
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-020-01577-x
|
| >Our results indicate that boceprevir, ombitasvir,
| paritaprevir, tipranavir, ivermectin, and micafungin
| exhibited inhibitory effect towards 3CLpro enzymatic
| activity.
| marcosdumay wrote:
| > One thing is evident: social media is not the venue for
| scientific debate.
|
| Hum... Any place people can gather to have an online debate
| is social media. That's the wrong dimension to use here.
| roody15 wrote:
| Agreed shutting down discussion is not helping matters and we
| appear to be moving in an autocratic dystopian direction as a
| nation.
|
| The FDA advisory panel was overridden to endorse a booster
| shot. Even mentioning FDA officials resigning and the board
| being overridden gets you labeled as anti-vax and blocked.
|
| Future not looking good :/
| rchaud wrote:
| Nothing is stopping you from running a server and hosting
| your own website.
| vikingerik wrote:
| Not _yet_ -- until the upstream network providers and DNS
| registrars also start dropping you for wrongthink content.
| shadilay wrote:
| And cloudflare drops DDoS protection because one guy is
| in a 'bad mood'. Centralization of power is a moral
| hazard. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/17/cloudflare-ceo-
| says-removing...
| rchaud wrote:
| Only if you reach a certain scale. Macedonian
| misinformation sites seem to have figured out the
| formula.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| It already has had a massive chilling effect, because anyone
| that even raises the slightest question about the situation is
| labeled as some kind of right wing Trump supporting radical. A
| lot of very normal, thoughtful people are not okay with what is
| happening.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| Correct, I am not ok with 10's of thousands of completely
| unnecessary deaths because people believed dumb antivax memes
| on Facebook
| brianobush wrote:
| Most MDs are general physicians and know little about vaccines
| other than textbook knowledge that is decades old. Why would
| you trust them over a team of researchers? Especially at this
| point of the pandemic when we have so much data showing their
| effectiveness?
| ptaipale wrote:
| I generally trust MDs here more than others. That doesn't
| mean that some MDs couldn't be completely wrong. But almost
| all MDs agree that vaccines are very effective.
|
| MDs have, via connections such as subscriptions to medical
| publications and net sites or databases, access to more
| information than most people, and because of their training
| have an ability to assess information, including which teams
| of researchers are doing genuine science, and which are
| selling horse dewormers.
| nimbius wrote:
| >I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on
| open discussion by moderate voices
|
| first, youtube isnt where open discussion by moderate voices
| happens. Its a cavalcade of endlessly random videos promoting
| everything from free energy to colloidal silver cures and get
| rich quick schemes.
|
| Second, the topic of conversation is vaccination methodology
| _during an ongoing pandemic_ in which a sizeable quantity of
| affected persons refuse to vaccinate. This is without a doubt a
| sensitive topic and likely shouldnt use Youtube as a forum. You
| should have a gatekeeper and there should be a minimum level of
| scientific competency and acumen required to participate in the
| conversation. A moderator should exist, and that moderator is
| not youtube.
|
| Might i suggest matrix or signal? or perhaps even pleroma?
|
| as an aside, the concept of an "anti-vaccine activist" is
| puerile and absolutely should be banned. No reasonable person
| would evangelize healthy adults forego vaccination during a
| global pandemic.
| syshum wrote:
| >>as an aside, the concept of an "anti-vaccine activist"
|
| Well they change what "anti-vaccine" means [1], so now I am
| classified as a "person who has been vaccinated but is Anti-
| vaccine" because I oppose any and all governments mandates
| that would force a person to be vaccinated, or would impose
| conditions on them by government to participate in society.
|
| private companies can impose them but government should not,
| not if we want to claim to be a free society.
|
| Due to my position against authoritarian policies I am
| officially a "Vaccinated Anti-vaxxer" a oxymoronic label only
| government could come up with.
|
| [1]https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-vaxxer
| nitrogen wrote:
| _the concept of an "anti-vaccine activist" is puerile and
| absolutely should be banned._
|
| This type of categorical banning from public discussion never
| works. It just creates martyrs.
|
| There's an object lesson they sometimes do in university
| classes or corporate retreats where two people are asked to
| push against each other's hands. It usually ends with "why
| are you pushing so hard?" "Because you were pushing so hard."
|
| There's a human instinct that many of us have that is
| basically "fight makes right." That is, when vehemence in
| opposition to a thing goes beyond a certain point, the
| vehemence becomes "evidence" that the thing being opposed
| _must_ have some legitimacy to it, or else there wouldn 't be
| so much energy dedicated to opposing it.
| goatlover wrote:
| Why doesn't it work? The goal is to stop the spread of
| dangerous misinformation among heavily used platforms. Of
| course some people are going to act like martyrs about it
| and move their following to some other platform. But it
| won't be one with the same potential to spread as much.
| Which is the goal.
| joshstrange wrote:
| > This type of categorical banning from public discussion
| never works. It just creates martyrs.
|
| I see this, or forms of it, oft repeated but it's never
| synced up with reality for me. Sure, you will have some
| hard-core, dyed-in-the-wool proponents of someone/some
| topic that will follow them to the ends of the earth but
| you stop the radicalization of so many more than I have to
| count it as a net-win. I used to be staunchly 100%-free-
| speech, no-holds-barred but I am, and have been, coming to
| the realization that it's simply not tenable when you
| factor in technology/internet. Banning Parlor from App
| Stores and infrastructure absolutely cut down on their
| users. Sure, some will continue to use it but you cut off
| the on-ramp for radicalization. Same story with YouTube,
| actually it's even MORE compelling for YouTube since the
| majority people going to Parlor were people already
| inclined to think a certain way (aka: believe the election
| was stolen, COVID is a hoax, Democrats drink baby's blood,
| etc). With YouTube we have endless examples of people being
| slowly radicalized as YouTube's algorithm takes them
| further and further down the rabbit hole and, unlike
| Parlor, you can start down that path while watching
| something completely innocuous. See also: Reddit banning
| T_D or other subs promoting violence and hatred.
| nitrogen wrote:
| Suppressing the visible symptom of a cultural problem --
| Parler, YouTube videos, whatever -- doesn't solve the
| cultural problem. It just means you don't have to look at
| it if you don't want to. People are still rolling coal
| with their flags flying if that's what they want to do.
|
| It's kind of like pushing homelessness underground,
| except the phenomenon being suppressed has a lot more
| potential energy. You squish a balloon, and the air/water
| just moves elsewhere. Eventually the balloon pops though,
| and we actually get to see what we've been trying to hide
| from and suppress.
| joshstrange wrote:
| Ok, I understand what you are saying but I think this is
| a little different from "hiding the homeless" or putting
| them on a bus with a one-way ticket. I agree that people
| will just go further underground however it does stop the
| initial radicalization.
|
| People are on platforms like FB, Twitter, YouTube,
| Reddit, etc because they expect them to be safe
| (different people will define that differently of
| course). They also expect most (if not all) the content
| to be true (of course we know this isn't always the
| case). Allowing lies, dis/misinformation to spread on one
| of these platforms legitimizes it for people.
|
| As humans we are much more likely to believe content we
| see on a major platform vs myrandomthoughts.blogspot.com.
| That said, once radicalized on a major platform you might
| believe the afore mentioned site but you wouldn't have
| given it a second look prior to that. So again,
| preventing the initial radicalizing by not allowing
| disinformation laundering on major platform does have an
| impact and stops the slide down for many, many people.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| > There's an object lesson they sometimes do in university
| classes or corporate retreats where two people are asked to
| push against each other's hands. It usually ends with "why
| are you pushing so hard?" "Because you were pushing so
| hard."
|
| Perfect example is the current crop of vaccination mandates
| being pushed by the federal government. Look up "New
| reported doses administered by day", and you'll see the
| number of vaccines being administered has been declining
| since the mandates were announced. If your goal is to get
| more people vaccinated and promote public health, it turns
| out forcing people to do so and censoring discussion
| actually has the exact opposite effect.
| megous wrote:
| > first, youtube isnt where open discussion by moderate
| voices happens. Its a cavalcade of endlessly random videos
| promoting everything from free energy to colloidal silver
| cures and get rich quick schemes.
|
| Youtube also has people doing educational videos. I can watch
| recorded lectures there, if I want. Why do we need a
| gatekeeper for that?
|
| It also has videos of people just sharing their experiences.
| Should that be banned to, if those are negative about the
| vaccine? On what basis?
| lemmsjid wrote:
| It's highly debatable (bold face on that!!), but I'm not sure
| that Youtube counts as public debate. If you look at the
| comments sections on Youtube articles about vaccination, you
| will find a lot of manifestly false or misinterpreted
| information. If argued against, people will link to their
| evidence, which, unsurprisingly, is usually other Youtube
| videos. This is when you can go down a depressing rabbit hole.
| These are usually videos, slickly produced, making probably-
| intentionally bad faith arguments against vaccination. They
| will take public statements out of context, misinterpret public
| data, and use a combination of charisma and good (if scrappy)
| production values to give the viewer the sense that they are
| the ones telling you the truth. You will find these videos on
| pretty much any subject, and the makers are clearly monetizing
| them. You can then go down a rabbit hole, viewing video after
| video, each providing you with another nugget the confirms your
| growing suspicion that they're all out to get you.
|
| While it's, again, highly debatable, increasingly to me these
| videos do not count as public debate, though they are certainly
| an exercise in free speech. They are not public debate because
| they do not subject themselves to any form of such debate and
| intentionally avoid it. If you want skeptical takes on left
| wing politics, you can see public debate on, say WSJ, Fox News,
| even OANN. Public in the sense that they put themselves out
| there in the public sphere and can be scrutinized thusly. These
| shadowy Youtube articles clearly bank themselves on A) not
| being found by people who will disagree, or B) have an audience
| who increasingly will not seek out or countenance opposing
| viewpoints.
| odessacubbage wrote:
| the chilling effect in this case is by design.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| One of the reasons we find ourselves even in such a predicament
| is so odd: while governments the world over were (and are)
| quite willing to put very strong curbs, shut-downs etc. in
| place, they are hesitant to generally mandate vaccination. So
| now we are in these proxy campaigns on vaccinations.
|
| Of course, one could argue that governments should not/cannot
| mandate vaccination, but then we also generally accept that
| governments can send you off to die in wars. Generally
| speaking, this whole mess actually brings some much deeper
| issues on state vs the individual to the surface. Those are the
| ones that will eventually need proper debate much more than
| finer points on immunology.
| qwytw wrote:
| I'm not sure if there is really any widespread acceptance in
| any democratic country that the government can just decide to
| send anyone to a foreign war. Every western soldier who died
| in Iraq, Afghanistan etc. volunteered. I think that if the US
| government just decided to reintroduce conscription back in
| 2003 it would had went down much worse than when they were
| sending conscripts to Vietnam and there'd probably be even
| much more resistance to that these days.
| yaur wrote:
| I'm not sure if you are familiar with Stop-loss [1] but
| it's been used to some extent in pretty much every conflict
| over the last 30 years to keep people serving
| involuntarily.
|
| [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-loss_policy
| RandomLensman wrote:
| Which country has given up its ability to conscript? Not
| just chosen not to exercise it. I would call that general
| acceptance of that policy. In a specific case, whether to
| exercise on that policy is a more complex choice.
| eecc wrote:
| Indeed. I rationalized it so: COVID is a wild enemy that will
| do whatever to survive at our own expense. We need to fight
| and wage all-out war, conscript, treat the wounded and
| comfort the widowed.
| ioslipstream wrote:
| So is every illness, potentially, and yet the world never
| cared before.
| eecc wrote:
| Yes, like every infectious disease with a high mortality
| rate and capable of overwhelming our healthcare
| infrastructure. And no, the world of professionals do
| care, as always. You're talking about yourself
| effie wrote:
| That is not rational at all. It's a manageable disease
| class with limited health impact on population, in death
| numbers comparable to strokes. It is not appropriate to
| compare it to war at all; in most places people are not
| afraid of COVID much.
| eecc wrote:
| It's only manageable with heavy handed medical care and
| heavy handed containment to preserve care capacity. Have
| you been living under a rock or are you just trotting out
| talking points? Let me ask: how many deaths in the USA
| alone? How does it compare to KIAs in one of the many US
| wars? Please stop pretending you know what you're talking
| about
| effie wrote:
| Let's get some perspective on U.S. deaths in 2020 [1]:
|
| [1]
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2778234
|
| For the whole year 2020, heart disease was 2x bigger
| killer (700 thousand) than COVID (350 thousand). Cancer
| was bigger killer still than COVID. Stroke was smaller
| than COVID - I was wrong about that.
|
| COVID gets scary in the few months when it gets out of
| control, like in January [2]. Those trips are a reason to
| use some extraordinary measures to prevent next ones.
|
| [2] https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/brief/covid-19-co
| ntinues...
|
| Long term, COVID is a smaller killer than the other
| killers in the U.S.
| swader999 wrote:
| The problem is unchecked propaganda could push you to make
| these same conclusions about anything and anyone.
| eecc wrote:
| Yes, the slippery slope argument. Anything can be
| "unchecked propaganda", you need to prove it is 1.
| Propaganda and 2. that it is unchecked
| megous wrote:
| Governments already mandate vaccinations [of kids] in many
| places. Just not for covid-19.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| It would look like this: people get dragged out of their
| houses by armed men, and are forcibly injected while
| screaming and being held down. "We also send people off to
| war" is not a sufficient argument for removing the right to
| bodily autonomy.
|
| Edit: oh, and probably you wouldn't get to see any videos of
| it online, because it's anti-vaccination content. Haha.
| 015a wrote:
| Arguably; drafts _do_ look like that. I mean, I can 't say
| how many people scream while being dragged off to fight in
| a war, but the concept is very similar.
|
| There hasn't been a draft in most of our lifetimes. There
| also hasn't been a virus as deadly as this one.
|
| So, maybe the better frame of reference would be:
| nationally mandatory vaccinations can be alright and make
| sense, under the same argument that allows the draft to be
| alright and make sense; we just need some quantitative
| framework under which it can be instituted.
|
| For example: if covid becomes endemic (which seems to be
| likely), and we institute mandatory vaccinations for it
| during this phase of the pandemic, pre-endemic; the
| argument for mandatory vaccinations may make sense today,
| given the level of infections and deaths that are
| occurring, but will "mandatory boosters" make sense in
| three years when the level of deaths is (hopefully) far
| lower and more in-line with the seasonal flu?
|
| The critical difference between a draft and mandatory
| vaccinations is: most people understand the general need
| for, but also hate the implementation of, the draft. Its a
| duty; its not desirable. In a democracy, this, alongside
| the massive cost and logistics effort of maintaining such a
| large army, acts as a very natural counter-balance to the
| impetus for people in power to abuse it.
|
| Vaccines do not have such a counterbalance. They're very
| cheap per-shot, relative to the draft. The logistics are
| already in place and have successfully operated at scale.
| And, most concerning; many people _want_ mandatory
| vaccination. No one should want it. Its an ugly necessity,
| but far too many people don 't see the ugliness.
|
| If you're reading this and need help to see the ugliness:
| Our government experiences corruption, like any government.
| Moderna's stock value has gone up by ~2,000% since the
| beginning of the pandemic. This, alone, is an obscenely
| powerful bias for people in key positions of power to push
| for more vaccination, irrespective of their need or
| efficacy; for example, maybe you assemble a panel of
| experts, who tell you vaccine boosters aren't necessary,
| then overrule the panel and say they're necessary anyway
| [1].
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/24/world/covid-
| boosters-vacc...
| eek430 wrote:
| > as deadly as this one
|
| https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality
|
| On what planet is a 1.6% CFR "deadly"? On what planet are
| we "at war" with a virus?
|
| This language you are using is a perfect demonstration of
| the danger of propaganda. You're dehumanizing your fellow
| man and justifying it after the fact with more
| propaganda.
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| This last point and the new york times article are a
| great example of this corruption and corporate interests.
|
| The bastards at the helm CANNOT be trusted.
| 015a wrote:
| It is, if nothing else, hopefully proof to anyone with
| eyes that the Left is just as susceptible as the Right to
| turning something which should mostly be a medical
| decision, into a political one. Let alone the possibility
| that it could be corruption (which I feel is unlikely,
| but not impossible).
|
| Much ire was thrown at Trump during his Presidency for
| filling many government positions with Yes-men who would
| blindly fall in line with the party.
|
| Now, we have Biden's White House ranting non-stop about
| Boosters, a significant amount of concern that the
| Federal government, as a whole, has no unified message on
| whether boosters are even necessary and who they're
| necessary for, a CDC panel saying they're not necessary,
| and the head of the CDC falling in line with the Biden
| White House against medical advice. Its awfully similar
| to what Trump was lambasted for.
|
| Ultimately the position I fall back on is: These
| decisions are medical decisions. Politics (and, it
| follows, corruption) need to be removed. When you take
| issues to the national level, politics and corruption
| will ABSOLUTELY, undoubtedly, in 100% of instances, be
| involved, no matter how well-intentioned the cause is.
| Thus, these issues need to stay out of the federal
| government, and be handled among the smallest number of
| people possible. Vaccination, for me and my children, may
| be something my doctor recommends; it may be something my
| school system requires; maybe even my workplace and the
| state has a say. But the discussion inevitably reaches a
| lower and lower quality as more voices and mandates and
| requirements are added.
|
| The counter-argument to this is: Vaccination is only
| strongly effective if we reach some level of herd
| immunity, so we need federal mandates. Unfortunately,
| that's irrelevant; we live in a democracy, and if you
| push against the other side too hard, they push back,
| your mandate gets repealed, and your yes-men lose their
| re-election.
|
| Freedom Isn't Free.
| RandomLensman wrote:
| May point was: you already have only a limited right to
| bodily autonomy.
|
| But that aside: I think pushing people in some (oblique)
| ways towards vaccination while at the other hand not
| mandating it sends a somewhat confused message.
| unsui wrote:
| yet we force our children to be vaccinated in school in
| order to be part of society.
|
| we also force other things that impinge on personal
| liberty, such as wearing seatbelts, getting car (and
| medical) insurance, etc.
|
| I can see the argument that this is a slippery slope, such
| as "well, the common good dictates that I get this neuro
| implant to ward off the 2157 neurovirus", and
| unfortunately, the short answer is "it depends on the
| context".
|
| Right now, vaccine holdouts are really screwing things up
| for us who want to return to some form of normality.
|
| as with war measures or other emergency measures, personal
| liberty has historically been set aside for the common
| good. I don't see this going away, nor should it.
|
| The conversation should be how to draw the right balance,
| so that, when the emergency is over, we return to some
| modicum of personal liberty, while still preserving the
| common good.
|
| In some cases, it means that the mandate becomes the
| accepted practice (e.g., child vaccinations). In others, we
| would hope, personal liberty returns (e.g., habeas corpus).
|
| TL;DR: it is contextual, rather than dogmatic and a-priori
| stolenmerch wrote:
| > yet we force our children to be vaccinated in school in
| order to be part of society.
|
| It's important to note that this isn't some worldwide,
| universal practice. Many countries, such as the UK, do
| not have vaccine mandates to enter their school system.
| There are also different rules in different U.S. states.
| It's also quite unfair to compare vaccines that have 1-3
| doses to essentially vaccinate children for a lifetime
| against horrible and deadly diseases to a vaccine that
| needs endless boosters for a disease which presents very
| little risk for children or immune adults. My child isn't
| required to get an annual flu shot to go to school and I
| don't see how this is much different.
|
| So I agree it is contextual and I think this is the
| proper context.
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| Also, all of these vaccines that ARE mandated for
| children against said horrible and deadly diseases were
| tested for YEARS prior to becoming mandatory to ensure
| that they are safe for children.
|
| It is impossible to have that dataset for the COVID
| vaccines. The time has not elapsed yet. The trials have
| not been done. They are rushing to approve them in a
| sense of emergency, which I do understand. I do also
| acknowledge that the data so far is promising! I
| certainly hope that the vaccines are safe for children
| and that we can use these going forward in the future.
|
| But I want the process followed; the full 3-5 year trial
| test before these are mandated. The emergency push for
| this towards children would be different if COVID was
| killing the same % of children that it kills the very
| old. But the data is overwhelming clear the world over:
| children do not die from COVID; well over 99% have no
| deaths or long term issues.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| You're talking about _rights_ versus _privileges_.
|
| It's a privilege to drive, not a right, thus it's
| reasonable that there are conditions around that.
|
| You do have a right to an education but, at least in my
| state, you can completely exempt your child from vaccines
| and still send them to public school. But even if you
| don't, you have the right to educate your child in other
| ways (i.e. home school).
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| >Right now, vaccine holdouts are really screwing things
| up for us who want to return to some form of normality.
|
| I think the challenge here is the media and the
| government are heavily promoting the MESSAGE that vaccine
| holdouts are screwing things up for everyone.
|
| But the truth is that they are not. The unvaccinated are
| unvaccinated at their own choice. If they die from not
| being vaccinated, that's their problem.
|
| I'm open to having triage laws at a hospital where, if
| they are overwhelmed with the unvaccinated, they can be
| sidelined for others coming in with other needs. The
| unvaccinated do have this strain on the medical system
| and it cannot be ignored. As many have said, the DEATHS
| from Delta and most of the hospitalized CASES from Delta
| are indeed among the unvaccinated.
|
| But I think the right to chose is worth the cost.
|
| Delta is also spreading around among the vaccinated. It
| is indeed true that Delta cases for the vaccinated are
| far more mild. Almost none result in hospitalization,
| never mind in death.
|
| But Delta is endemic, vaccinated or not. For the first
| year of this virus, there NEVER was the assumption we
| could eradicate it entirely. It's a Coronavirus like the
| common cold; it WILL be endemic. There never was any
| other outcome once it passed into the millions of cases
| world wide.
|
| The left's fantasy of authoritarian control and creating
| a perfect world from harm is simply unobtainable.
|
| The common good is to learn to deal with this, as we do
| the flu. Reopen, learn, make the choices you think are
| best and deal with the consequences. This nanny state of
| lockdown to try to achieve the impossible is stupid, and
| turning tyrannical in it's pursuit of a utopia that
| cannot be had.
| goostavos wrote:
| >yet we force our children to be vaccinated in school in
| order to be part of society.
|
| Here's what's different: mandating it for everything
| else. It seems disingenuous to treat the
| documentation/mandate requirements between countries,
| public schools, and your local pub as equivalent.
|
| >e also force other things that impinge on personal
| liberty, such as wearing seatbelts, getting car (and
| medical) insurance, etc.
|
| "we do it for these other things" is something that
| sounds like an argument, but actually isn't. Does it make
| sense for _this_ scenario, with _this_ virus, at _this_
| point into the pandemic, and with _these_ tradeoffs? If
| anything, saying "you've lost liberty elsewhere" is an
| argument for fighting tooth and nail for the bits that
| remain.
|
| >the short answer is "it depends on the context".
|
| I think you nailed the crux of the problem and the
| disconnect between people.
|
| "The context" is wildly different depending on your
| disposition. For a large swath of the population, the
| 'context' is that COVID is not an existential threat
| which warrants the suspension of liberty. For others, the
| 'context' is that COVID represents such a threat to
| public health that personal liberty can be traded away.
|
| We're doomed to fight, because each side finds the other
| reprehensible, and one side is trying to take away the
| liberty of the other.
|
| >Right now, vaccine holdouts are really screwing things
| up for us who want to return to some form of normality.
|
| This is categorically false. The unvaxxed aren't the ones
| preventing you from doing anything. They don't have the
| power to do so! The government is holding us all hostage
| and continuously shifting the goal post. Right now, it
| has been moved to the unvaxxed. Just as before it was
| about the curve, then controlling case numbers, then
| acquiring the vax, then reaching minimum vax numbers, now
| blaming all woes on those unvaxxed. If we look at
| Australia, maybe we can predict where the post will move
| next.
|
| >The conversation should be how to draw the right
| balance, so that, when the emergency is over, we return
| to some modicum of personal liberty, while still
| preserving the common good.
|
| For it to actually be a conversation, you have to accept
| that there are people with a different world view from
| you, and that they're not wrong, nor an enemy which is
| holding society hostage. Presumably everyone on this site
| can read a graph. We looked at the same data and came to
| different conclusions.
| unsui wrote:
| replying to this comment, even though actually applies to
| multiple replies to my parent comment.
|
| > This is categorically false. The unvaxxed aren't the
| ones preventing you from doing anything. They don't have
| the power to do so!
|
| That itself is categorically false. unvaxxed folks
| provide a tremendous wealth of externalities, such as
| undue burden on the healthcare system, behavioral and
| legal changes that require masking due to lack of
| critical mass in vaccinations, etc.
|
| But, to get to the crux of your arguments:
|
| you _do_ have the personal liberty to not vaccinate. That
| is not being taken away from you.
|
| However, you do _not_ have the privilege of making it a
| _protected class_ (which is really what you are talking
| about).
|
| If you _choose_ not to be vaccinated, you can: - home
| school your children - self-employ and self-insure -
| self-medicate and avoid the healthcare system entirely
| etc..
|
| Now, none of this is practical in reality, but never at
| any point is your choice to remain unvaccinated impinged
| upon.
|
| You simply don't have as many career or social options as
| you would like, equivalent to being unvaccinated as a
| protected class.
|
| And that is a horrendous idea (i.e., being a protected
| class). You can't have it both way... personal liberty
| often comes as great personal cost. If you truly walk the
| walk, then be prepared to pay the cost.
| goostavos wrote:
| >That itself is categorically false. unvaxxed folks
| provide a tremendous wealth of externalities, such as
| undue burden on the healthcare system, behavioral and
| legal changes that require masking due to lack of
| critical mass in vaccinations, etc.
|
| Again, it's not the unvaxxed doing that to you. That's
| who you're currently being told is what's preventing you
| from returning to normal. And again, the last last
| 18months have been an ever shifting goal post of "if
| group X would do then..." or "if we had just done Y
| then..." and yet here we are. Too bad HN doesn't have
| RemindMe!, as we could check back in a few months post
| mandate to see what dastardly group/cause/issue is the
| problem this time.
|
| Those "tremendous wealth of externalities"? That's called
| living in a society. There's no getting around it. Lots
| of negative, bad individual choices/actions have Nth
| order effects on everyone else. Americans specifically
| make a lot of very, very bad choices over the course of
| decades that causes "undue burden on the healthcare
| system" (pick you fav from the CDC's health report). Just
| because they're not as visible and 1st order as COVID
| doesn't mean they're not there and a massive portion of
| the hospital's load.
|
| >you do have the personal liberty to not vaccinate. That
| is not being taken away from you. >never at any point is
| your choice to remain unvaccinated impinged upon.
|
| Ok. Honestly, I don't know where people come from with
| this argument. "You don't have to, we'll just remove your
| ability to work, feed yourself, and pay for housing until
| you comply." These sorts of things are generally
| challenged because in practice, it's a de facto
| mandate/ban/whatever. "You're free to choose size of the
| whip," where previously there was no beating involved, is
| not actually that great of a deal.
| unsui wrote:
| I don't think we're going to agree here, and that's fine.
|
| There is one interesting outcome of this discussion,
| through:
|
| Given our discussion, one of us has to bite the bullet on
| a particular point:
|
| Artifact A: > Those "tremendous wealth of externalities"?
| That's called living in a society. There's no getting
| around it.
|
| Artifact B: >These sorts of things are generally
| challenged because in practice, it's a de facto
| mandate/ban/whatever. "You're free to choose size of the
| whip,"...
|
| I will bite the bullet, and accept that unvaccinated
| people are not directly causing me harm (unless, for
| example, one punches me in the face). I will wave my
| hands and accept the externalities as simply "living in
| society", (even though, as societal beings, unvaccinated
| folks do have a significant detrimental effect...)
|
| Accepting, for the sake of argument, that personal
| responsibility ends at what the _individual_ does (rather
| than any 2nd to n-order effects, i.e., "externalities"),
| then it also means that the argument "in practice, it's a
| de facto mandate/ban/whatever." doesn't hold, since no
| one _individual_ is holding a syringe up to you and
| forcing you to take it.
|
| again, can't have it both ways.
|
| Thus, if we accept that we are societal beings, and
| externalities matter (e.g., 2nd to n-order effects), then
| my right to swing my fist ends at your face, and vice
| versa, directly and to a tolerable n-th degree.
|
| Just as an employer can choose not to hire you for toxic
| behavior or any numerous reasons (particularly at at-will
| states), the only thing they cannot use as a factor is
| anything that makes you a _protected class_.
|
| You are effectively proposing that the choice to be
| unvaccinated should be a protected class.
|
| That is what I disagree with. There is no justification
| to make it a protected class.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| >Right now, vaccine holdouts are really screwing things
| up for us who want to return to some form of normality.
|
| Is this even true anymore? Delta is highly contagious and
| the vaccines are leaky, thus it is not obvious that the
| effective R0 of Delta will be less than one assuming a
| fully vaccinated population. We already know that
| vaccinated people can still be infected, and not at
| minuscule rates, and once infected they are similarly
| contagious as an unvaccinated person. If Delta is endemic
| now, blaming the unvaccinated for the ongoing pandemic is
| just false.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's not true, because I know people with children under
| 5 who are prepared to socially isolate until their kids
| are able to get the vaccine because they believe you have
| a >50% chance of hospitalization due to COVID.
|
| Some people are playing the long game and blaming vaccine
| holdouts, which in cases like this is irrational (but who
| said people are rational).
| zionic wrote:
| People need to get it through their skulls that "tech
| companies" have _no place_ "moderating" scientific debate.
|
| If you've ever found yourself typing "Should X give Y a
| platform?" you are part of the problem.
|
| Be better, be a part of the solution.
| rootlocus wrote:
| Scientific debate happens in scientific circles. The results
| are presented to the media. The public debates it on social
| media.
|
| > Be better, be a part of the solution.
|
| And what is the solution?
| naasking wrote:
| > The results are presented to the media. [The media
| misrepresents the results to the public, intentionally or
| unintentionally]. The public debates it on social media.
|
| I filled in the critical missing step. Science journalism
| is mostly trash.
| rootlocus wrote:
| That still doesn't make public discourse "scientific
| debate".
| naasking wrote:
| Not sure I entirely agree with that either. Scientific
| debate is evolving with the times. Online isn't a
| traditional formal venue where these debates happen, but
| they do happen here too. Scientists discussing actual
| scientific facts, or disputing each other's claims get
| silenced too. Seems like a reasonable interpretation of
| "scientific debate".
|
| And I suspect the OP meant "scientific debate" as the
| public's discussion of science and the policies that
| should be formed around the facts as they see them.
| CodeMage wrote:
| > _Months ago he was insisting that the people who had
| contracted COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may
| not need the vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming
| out to support that. But months ago that was "anti-vax"
| (employing the slanderous use of the term)._
|
| If you're claiming something that hasn't been demonstrated
| through peer-reviewed scientific research, then you're offering
| your opinion. If you present that opinion as a fact, then
| that's misinformation. I don't know what form his "insistence"
| had, but I've seen plenty of similar cases so far, and all of
| them have been from people pushing their own narratives,
| instead of informing people responsibly.
|
| If you're pushing a narrative that implies that you shouldn't
| get vaccinated, then yes, that's "anti-vax".
|
| > _It 's the stifling of legitimate public debate, the stifling
| of legitimate voices who find themselves in the minority._
|
| Being in a minority does not absolve one of responsibility. If
| you're publishing your opinion, or if you're discussing your
| research before it's been peer-reviewed, you have the
| responsibility to make that clear, and even to point out that
| it does not agree with the current scientific consensus (if any
| exists).
| ravar wrote:
| never mind that many of the positions that are "scientific
| consensus" are not supported by the current peer reviewed
| research.
| CodeMage wrote:
| That's honestly news to me. I thought that "scientific
| consensus" is supported by peer-reviewed research, by
| definition. Can you elaborate?
| virtuallynathan wrote:
| There's quite a few medical practices which guidelines
| still recommend that do not show benefit in better or
| newer trials.
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1104821
| newswasboring wrote:
| This paper says we should abandon practices when they are
| shown to not work. I don't think anyone will disagree
| with that. But the original post made it seem like there
| were practices which were adopted willy nilly. But this
| paper just shows the self correcting nature of science.
| virtuallynathan wrote:
| They had to write a paper saying that because it doesn't
| happen. We are still doing these procedures today.
|
| Do the interventional cardiologists want to stop stenting
| people? Not really. The orthopedic surgeons still want to
| mess with your meniscus, etc.
| newswasboring wrote:
| I mean... This is the scientific framework. There was a
| mistake and the mechanism to fix it is to write more
| papers. I know it's not fixed yet, but that's the
| procedure. Do you believe this should never have
| happened? Then I guess we disagree on how powerful human
| intellect can be.
| virtuallynathan wrote:
| I think its fine for this to occur, and we should expect
| it, but how long should it take to reverse a bad
| practice? Is a decade or more acceptable?
| newswasboring wrote:
| Of course not. Nobody is endorsing for that. The problem
| is these are hard problems to solve and forming a
| consensus is a hard problem in addition to it. If we keep
| flip flopping on every new data point we will have more
| misses than hits.
| yawboakye wrote:
| It's a sad sign of the times that "scientific consensus"
| doesn't sound crazy anymore. It was scientific consensus
| that the Catholic church based on to sentence Galileo. He
| was a lone dissenting voice. A bit of history for you.
| And this is besides the fact that true scientists have
| never sought consensus/peer-review. I'll stand by as you
| come up with non-modern, paper-churning, publish-or-
| perish examples of great scientists famous (or great) for
| work or theory that was accepted by means of consensus.
| nemo wrote:
| There's no Catholic Church prosecuting those who defy the
| official scientific position today. Galileo was not a
| lone dissenting voice - he was a proponent of
| Copernicanism, which he overstated the accuracy of his
| evidence for, feuding with the Church about whether he
| was overstating, and getting himself in terrible trouble
| with the Church. Once Kepler's models were confirmed with
| observations after Galileo with better telescopes the
| Church accepted. Later Enlightenment thinkers built a
| martyr myth around Galileo, and today the nature of his
| conflict with the Church is an ahistorical picture
| painted by later hagiographies of Galileo
|
| This is a story that does not apply to our times.
| There've been many regular scientific revolutions even in
| the last few decades, the Church hasn't persecuted
| scientists, and the modern scientific consensus has
| followed with the revolutions. Whether it's the matter of
| the cause of the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction, the
| revolutions in molecular biology, revolutions in
| astronomy, or other areas where advances are regular,
| those outliers actually advancing science have only
| briefly been ahead of consensus in the real world, but
| most outliers are cranks, and only those with an expert
| training in a discipline are likely to be able to
| identify real advances over crank science. The Galileo
| model of believing outliers virtually always leaves you
| in the wrong unless you are a domain-specific expert on
| the topic.
|
| Look at using MRNA as a medical treatment as another
| example of a recent revolution, one that's now available
| in a safe, effective vaccine form.
| ravar wrote:
| Call it the church of Google(Faang?) if you will. They
| have real power over peoples lives and livelihoods. The
| church of Faang has a nice ring to it.
| nemo wrote:
| Google/FAANG have no real point of control anywhere in
| the process of how the sciences operate. Scientists
| publish in journals, while social media, search, et al.
| are handy but not something that guides their research or
| their consensus.
|
| The real gatekeeping comes in what research gets grants
| and funding, but if you look into what's happening there,
| it's not comparable to the Church proscribing things - it
| mostly means that the DoD, petrochem, and a few
| industries have outsized influence on what research is
| done.
| stickfigure wrote:
| Not the parent, but this study seems to be the best RCT
| of mask effectiveness so far (N=350,000):
|
| https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2021/09/surgical-
| mask...
|
| _Cloth_ masks showed no statistically significant
| reduction in the spread of Covid-19. (surgical masks -
| different story)
|
| Yet I'm still surrounded by people - wearing
| predominantly cloth masks - that are full of outrage for
| the maskless. I've not heard any updates from the CDC on
| this issue.
| Drew_ wrote:
| > Cloth masks showed no statistically significant
| reduction in the spread of Covid-19.
|
| This is a completely false characterization of the
| article you just linked.
|
| _There were significantly fewer COVID-19 cases in
| villages with surgical masks compared with the control
| villages. (Although there were also fewer COVID-19 cases
| in villages with cloth masks as compared to control
| villages, the difference was not statistically
| significant.) This aligns with lab tests showing that
| surgical masks have better filtration than cloth masks.
| However, cloth masks did reduce the overall likelihood of
| experiencing symptoms of respiratory illness during the
| study period._
|
| _"Unfortunately, much of the conversation around masking
| in the United States is not evidence-based," Luby said.
| "Our study provides strong evidence that mask wearing can
| interrupt the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. It also
| suggests that filtration efficiency is important. This
| includes the fit of the mask as well as the materials
| from which it is made. A cloth mask is certainly better
| than nothing. But now might be a good time to consider
| upgrading to a surgical mask."_
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| Emphasizing this quote:
|
| However, cloth masks did reduce the overall likelihood of
| experiencing symptoms of respiratory illness during the
| study period.
| stickfigure wrote:
| From the original paper:
|
| --- We find clear evidence that surgical masks lead to a
| relative reduction in symptomatic seroprevalence of 11.2%
| (aPR = 0.89 [0.78,1.00]; control prevalence = 0.80%;
| treatment prevalence = 0.71%). For cloth masks, we find
| an imprecise zero, although the confidence interval
| includes the point estimate for surgical masks (aPR =
| 0.95 [0.79,1.11]; control prevalence 0.67%; treatment
| prevalence 0.62%). ---
|
| If you go to the chart, you find a 5% relative reduction
| with a p-value of 0.540 (!)
|
| Regarding reduction in symptoms:
|
| --- Additionally, when we look separately by cloth and
| surgical masks, we find that the intervention led to a
| reduction in COVID-like symptoms under either mask type
| (p = 0.000 for surgical, p = 0.048 for cloth), but the
| effect size in surgical mask villages was 30-80% larger
| depending on the specification. In Table A10, we run the
| same specifications using the smaller sample used in our
| symptomatic seroprevalence regression (i.e. those who
| consented to give blood). In this sample we continue to
| find an effect overall and an effect for surgical masks,
| but see no effect for cloth masks. ---
|
| There's no intellectually honest way to interpret this
| data other than "cloth masks have very little effect, if
| any".
| deusexml wrote:
| This is not true. The study found a reduction in COVID-19
| symptoms for the cloth mask group. They also found a
| reduction in seroprevalence for the cloth mask group, but
| that reduction wasn't statistically significant.
| "Statistically insignificant" is not the same as "not
| true". It is very hard to sufficiently power a
| seroprevalence study.
| stickfigure wrote:
| This is a high-power study with N in the hundreds of
| thousands.
|
| "Statistically insignificant" is the same as "no reason
| to believe it is true".
| wepple wrote:
| This is really interesting, and I'd like to read the
| paper - do you have a link?
|
| EDIT: here: https://www.poverty-
| action.org/publication/impact-community-...
|
| That summary is really hard to draw conclusions from;
|
| "However, cloth masks did reduce the overall likelihood
| of experiencing symptoms of respiratory illness during
| the study period."
|
| And " A cloth mask is certainly better than nothing. But
| now might be a good time to consider upgrading to a
| surgical mask."
|
| But also " Although there were also fewer COVID-19 cases
| in villages with cloth masks as compared to control
| villages, the difference was not statistically
| significant."
| DenisM wrote:
| I suppose it means there was a difference but it was not
| statistically significant. Like 5% reduction with 10%
| certainty.
| newswasboring wrote:
| A few examples would be nice to understand what you are
| saying.
| [deleted]
| stale2002 wrote:
| > If you're claiming something that hasn't been demonstrated
| through peer-reviewed scientific research, then you're
| offering your opinion. If you present that opinion as a fact,
| then that's misinformation.
|
| Unironically, I would consider your opinion here, to be
| dangerous mis-information. Yes really.
|
| We do not have to throw out the entire body of past medical
| work, for every single "new" question that comes up.
|
| So there are absolutely some, scientifically supported,
| conclusions, that we can come to, about diseases, using this
| past body of medical work.
|
| If we listened to you it would result in people refusing to
| do basic things, like wash our hands and socially distance,
| because we haven't yet completed a full study, for a specific
| new disease that is going around.
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| The same exact argument could be said about the platforms.
|
| What evidence do they have that that there is no chance of
| complications for certain individuals?
|
| They need to be held to the same standard they are holding
| their end users.
|
| In the last year social media platforms have suppressed facts
| and discourse pre-emptively and only months later do we find
| out that there was truth in the censored content. They can't
| be the final arbitraters of truth.
| belorn wrote:
| When the different vaccines came out we did not have peer-
| reviewed studies to show that they were effective, only the
| smaller studies done by the drug companies that developed
| them. In much we were accepting the opinions about the
| effectiveness as facts, as well as the side effects which
| were yet to be discovered.
|
| We saw the same thing about the effectiveness of cloth mask
| and anti-bacterial cleaning had on spreading of covid. It
| took well past the first year before we started to see when,
| how, where and whom benefited from different strategies, and
| the meta studies is yet fully clear on the answers to those.
|
| Looking what we don't know as far as today in terms of
| vaccinations, the biggest unknown variables seems to be about
| duration. With most nations having gone through two rounds of
| vaccinations, it seems now that a third one is now needed.
| One study cited recently was conducted on patients that is
| undergoing transplantation, with half of the patients missing
| antibodies while having taken two vaccination already this
| year. As a result there is a lot of talking about treating
| covid vaccination as something that will be added to the
| existing seasonal flue vaccinations that vulnerable groups
| take, but which the general population do not because of the
| short window of protection. Time will tell and it won't be
| anti-vax people that do the research or conduct the
| discussion.
| ptaipale wrote:
| We usually don't call drug company vaccine studies "peer
| reviewed" because they are reviewed by health authorities
| (regulatory agencies), not "peers".
|
| That's actually a higher bar.
| trentnix wrote:
| _> If you 're claiming something that hasn't been
| demonstrated through peer-reviewed scientific research, then
| you're offering your opinion._
|
| Not necessarily. What is the bar to be defined as "scientific
| research"? What is the bar for "peer review"? Considering the
| massive amount of evidence that a large amount of "peer
| review" doesn't review much and that a measurable amount of
| "scientific research" is inadequate and sometimes outright
| fraudulent, any pursuit of truth shouldn't be built
| exclusively on such a weak foundation. But to your point,
| good research should hold more weight (and does!).
|
| _> If you 're pushing a narrative that implies that you
| shouldn't get vaccinated, then yes, that's "anti-vax"._
|
| And yet concerns about the long-term safety of these vaccines
| are, by definition, untested. The long term efficacy of these
| vaccines are certainly in doubt. Both are reasonable concerns
| worth debating and exploring. But will get classified as
| "anti-vax" and will become subject to censorship "for our own
| good".
|
| I am vaccinated. I believe these vaccines represent an
| astounding accomplishment. I believe people should have
| access to all information in order to make the best decisions
| for themselves.
|
| I also have some skepticism regarding the messages and
| messaging that comes from the CDC and NIH. I also distrust
| the role they've played in any discussion regarding the
| origins of Covid.
|
| Why we (in America at least) can watch abject government
| incompetence in the DoD, FBI, CIA, ICE, IRS, and on and on
| but pretend the CDC and the NIH, the ultimate gatekeepers of
| the Covid and vaccine narratives, are immune to such failings
| is beyond me.
| alexpw wrote:
| The long-term safety is an angle that sounds reasonable,
| but isn't, and is used as an anti-vax talking point. A
| doctor is expected to know better.
|
| First, historically, no vaccine has caused adverse effects
| beyond about 2 months. Second, millions have been
| vaccinated for nearly 9 months already. Third, the mRNA
| vaccine is metabolized in the body and leaves no trace of
| itself past 11-14 days. Fourth, it is not a daily
| medication.
|
| A reasonable analogy of drinking a beer and being worried
| the after effects might hit you a year after the fact,
| because it's untested, is obviously approaching absurd.
| trentnix wrote:
| Objections over long term safety are absolutely
| reasonable due to historical precedent (see the Polio
| vaccine) and because the litmus test of "peer-reviewed"
| research is the standard the parent I responded to set.
| There exists no "long term" research of mRNA vaccines
| from which to draw conclusions (another reason why the
| "peer-reviewed science" standard for truth is
| fundamentally flawed). I don't think concerns over long-
| term danger is a strong argument (which is one reason I
| chose to be vaccinated) but it is absolutely reasonable.
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| All of this is correct. Many on the left seem forcibly
| unable to view the nuance described here.
|
| Freedom of choice is an American value that doesn't exist
| anywhere else in the world to the degree that it does here.
| Freedom to decide what you do with your body trumps public
| health. Half of Americans believe this, and the other half
| doesn't.
|
| Finding the compromise between those two viewpoints is
| exceptionally challenging. Each group has the temptation to
| view the other as being "willfully evil," whether for being
| selfish or for imposing tyranny.
|
| I hope the solution is that our high vaccination rate of
| 70+% of adults and the prevalence of the spread of Delta
| (which creates natural immunity) will combine to reach herd
| immunity and we can get out of this craven, horrible
| timeline we find ourselves in.
| alexpw wrote:
| "My right to swing my fist ends where your nose begins."
|
| Your freedom to catch and spread covid to me is not
| supported by established law. It's also why we don't
| allow smoking in restaurants, etc. And it's also related
| to seat belt laws. George Washington forced our soldiers
| to take a smallpox innoculation and it was pivotal to us
| winning.
|
| In 1905, in Jacobson v Massachusetts, the US Supreme
| Court upheld the Cambridge, Mass, Board of Health's
| authority to require vaccination against smallpox during
| a smallpox epidemic. It ruled that the public health
| trumps your ability to freely engage in society if you
| will endanger it.
|
| You'd like to reach herd immunity, but you didn't offer a
| solution; instead, you gave a hopeful outcome if we do
| nothing. We have millions that refuse to vaccinate yet
| wish to move freely in society. They are clogging
| hospitals and costing our society an estimated $6B, and
| climbing. Reaching herd immunity while using your version
| of freedom means that long covid disabilities and deaths
| are just an inevitable that we're hopeless to prevent.
| effie wrote:
| > Your freedom to catch and spread covid to me is not
| supported by established law.
|
| No all freedoms are given by eastablished law, many are
| implicit. Then later some freedoms can be restricted by
| the law.
|
| Is there a law banning catching COVID or spreading COVID?
| I don't think so.
|
| > It's also why we don't allow smoking in restaurants,
| etc.
|
| Some establishments do allow it. It's your choice, if you
| want to visit them or not.
|
| > And it's also related to seat belt laws.
|
| It's not.
|
| > George Washington forced our soldiers to take a
| smallpox innoculation and it was pivotal to us winning.
|
| Yes, _soldiers_ usually submit to wished of their
| commanders because otherwise their stance in the military
| deteriorates. Most people do not submit to military
| organization.
| virtuallynathan wrote:
| I'm not really sure what kind of problems you expect peer
| review to solve?
| https://twitter.com/page_eco/status/1441040475826184194?s=21
|
| There's plenty of bad/fraudulent/wrong stuff that gets
| through peer review, perhaps even a majority.
| Guvante wrote:
| This is a really bad take of a complex situation.
|
| Peer reviewing is hard. Reproducibility is hard.
|
| Neither of these things being hard invalidates the value of
| peer review compared to gut ideas from random people.
| pitspotter2 wrote:
| Good point about the reproducibility crisis. We seem to
| have forgotten about that.
|
| There is a better alternative to listening to random
| people I think which is to follow the work of individual
| scientists whom we trust because we have been following
| their work over a long period of time and because they
| exhibit Jacob Bronowski's 'habit of truth'.
|
| Unfortunately, I don't know any immunologists or
| epidemiologists! I'm guessing that censorship on balance
| makes it harder rather than easier to find them.
| virtuallynathan wrote:
| Sure, in an ideal world we'd have some kind of review,
| but what we have now seems largely ineffective.
| Guvante wrote:
| Except you are missing a huge huge part of what you
| linked:
|
| > We conclude that the reviewing process for the 2014
| conference was good for identifying poor papers
|
| When it comes to peer review that is the actual goal.
| Have a filter that prevents bad things from getting
| published.
|
| In an ideal world we would have a process that allows
| good papers to be published as well.
|
| However I think we can all agree that is a secondary
| concern. Especially since pre-publish announcements are
| common anyway, so it isn't like no one is looking at
| papers that aren't published.
| warvariuc wrote:
| I guess, if your statement wasn't researched and peer
| reviewed, it'll be considered misinformation...
| oceanplexian wrote:
| In the 19th century, Ignaz Semmelweis claimed that hand
| washing was a way to improve hygiene and communicable
| disease. If Google had existed in 1847, his claims would have
| been censored since they went strongly against the scientific
| consensus. History is littered with examples like this. Most
| of us with a STEM education spent years learning about
| example after example of a great scientist or whistleblower
| that was scorned by the medical or scientific community, and
| it turned out that countless lives could have been saved if
| people had kept a more open mind. I am greatly disappointed
| in anyone who claims to be educated but thinks that
| censorship is acceptable in a free society.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| If Google had existed in 1847, and the web for that matter,
| he would have been able to create and post as many videos
| espousing his theories on the web. Either through
| alternative sites, either by setting up 20 sites of his own
| for pretty much free, or by emailing, messaging or by
| buying a $50 laser printer and printing 5,000 pamphlets to
| hand out, and Google would have had zero power to stop him.
| CodeMage wrote:
| > _In the 19th century, Ignaz Semmelweis claimed that hand
| washing was a way to improve hygiene and communicable
| disease. If Google had existed in 1847, his claims would
| have been censored since they went strongly against the
| scientific consensus._
|
| Was there an established practice of peer-reviewed research
| back in 1847? My understanding is that the scientific
| community evolved that system because it helps reduce the
| potential for errors and makes it easier to trust the
| research.
|
| > _Most of us with a STEM education spent years learning
| about example after example of a great scientist or
| whistleblower that was scorned by the medical or scientific
| community, and it turned out that countless lives could
| have been saved if people had kept a more open mind._
|
| "Open mind" and "communicating responsibly" are not
| mutually exclusive.
|
| > _I am greatly disappointed in anyone who claims to be
| educated but thinks that censorship is acceptable in a free
| society._
|
| I am just as disappointed in anyone who thinks that
| requiring responsible communication is the same as
| censorship.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _back in 1847_
|
| Semmelweis was basically lynched (and ruined) by his
| peers. As usual.
|
| > _responsible communication_
|
| Yes but the contextual issue here is that of censorship.
| Or if you proposed a method to filter general publication
| through criteria involving responsibility, that would
| require more details.
| nradov wrote:
| Or to take a more recent example, should the media have
| censored Drs. Marshall and Warren in 1982 when they claimed
| that the scientific consensus about the cause of stomach
| ulcers was completely wrong? Everyone thought that ulcers
| were caused by stress and spicy food, but it turned out to
| be bacterial infections. We always need to be humble and
| recognize that some things we believe to be correct will
| later turn out to be false.
|
| https://badgut.org/information-centre/a-z-digestive-
| topics/n...
|
| (To be clear I think the current scientific consensus that
| the COVID-19 vaccines are safe and effective is correct.)
| iskander wrote:
| >If you're claiming something that hasn't been demonstrated
| through peer-reviewed scientific research,
|
| That's not how science has worked, especially in this
| pandemic. Most of what we know about SARS-CoV-2 came to us
| through biorxiv preprints and posts on forums like
| virological.org; the added value of peer review has typically
| been minimal (but often adding 3-12 months of delay in
| disseminating information). Even the role of peer review as a
| gate keeper has been wanting, lots of garbage studies about
| Covid-19 with glaring confounders keep getting published in
| peer reviewed journals. You could probably find a few hundred
| trials with systematic age differences between treatment
| groups that have been published in respectable venues. Some
| of these studies even contribute significantly to
| misinformation about the efficacy of sham treatments like
| hydroxycholoroquine and ivermectin.
|
| There is unfortunately no short-cut to the development of
| individual scientific literacy, no trusted tier of experts
| which can safeguard us from misunderstanding and falsehood.
| We're all more or less on our own.
| sokoloff wrote:
| There wasn't scientific consensus that recovery from COVID
| did _not_ leave antibodies in your system so as to make
| vaccine unnecessary. It was undecided.
| didibus wrote:
| Bingo!
|
| And for people who might contest the "peer review" dimension,
| it's not so much about having peer reviewed things, it is
| about clearly disclosing the basis from which you're putting
| forward a statement you claim to be true.
|
| That said, I'm not doubting that the YouTube mechanisms for
| suppression of irresponsibly disbursed information and
| misinformation has a high false positive rate especially when
| addressing similar topics. And hopefully YouTube can address
| that over time.
| kodah wrote:
| > If you're claiming something that hasn't been demonstrated
| through peer-reviewed scientific research, then you're
| offering your opinion.
|
| By that standard, this entire website and most of the
| software industry is misinformation. In fact, most political
| speech is misinformation.
|
| > If you're pushing a narrative that implies that you
| shouldn't get vaccinated, then yes, that's "anti-vax".
|
| GP is saying that the conversation is, and should be
| recognized as, more nuanced than that. There sure is an
| undercurrent of people making narratives but that's not a new
| problem. The left and right have weaponized narratives to the
| detriment of this country ad infinitum. If you're arguing we
| should only have evidence based discussion and that anecdotes
| and opinions don't matter, then you have new problems. The
| new problems will alienate and harm anyone that your current
| telemetry (and understanding) doesn't reflect. To me, that's
| an age-old problem where some value technocracy while others
| value bureaucracy; my personal opinion being that both are
| valuable but they need a distribution model in government
| that optimizes for problem solving.
|
| > If you're publishing your opinion, or if you're discussing
| your research before it's been peer-reviewed, you have the
| responsibility to make that clear, and even to point out that
| it does not agree with the current scientific consensus (if
| any exists).
|
| I agree, but it seems GP was indicating this doctor was doing
| just that and was still silenced.
| CodeMage wrote:
| > _By that standard, this entire website and most of the
| software industry is misinformation._
|
| Sure, if we ignore the context of my statement and this
| whole discussion, which happens to be about COVID vaccines.
|
| Also, please note that what I said -- and what you quoted
| -- is that if your claim is not supported by peer-reviewed
| scientific research, then you're _offering your opinion_. I
| didn 't say that offering your opinion is the same as
| spreading misinformation.
|
| It's only when you're presenting your _opinion_ as a _fact_
| that you 're engaging in misinformation, which is what I
| said in the next sentence that you didn't quote.
|
| > _GP is saying that the conversation is, and should be
| recognized as, more nuanced than that._
|
| "Having a nuanced discussion" and "being responsible with
| how you say things" are not mutually exclusive
| propositions.
|
| > _If you 're arguing we should only have evidence based
| discussion and that anecdotes and opinions don't matter,
| then you have new problems._
|
| Anecdotes and opinions should be clearly presented as such,
| so that everyone who encounters them can decide how much
| they matter to them. That's what I'm arguing.
|
| > _I agree, but it seems GP was indicating this doctor was
| doing just that and was still silenced._
|
| I see nothing there that indicates whether the doctor was
| doing that or not. Like I said, I don't know whether the
| doctor "insisted" in a way that made it clear it was his
| opinion, unsupported by current research.
| Viliam1234 wrote:
| > It's only when you're presenting your opinion as a fact
| that you're engaging in misinformation
|
| And this sentence is a peer-reviewed _fact_ , or just
| your opinion that you failed to label appropriately i.e.
| _misinformation_?
| kodah wrote:
| > I didn't say that offering your opinion is the same as
| spreading misinformation.
|
| > Anecdotes and opinions should be clearly presented as
| such, so that everyone who encounters them can decide how
| much they matter to them. That's what I'm arguing
|
| Agreed. Though, even data driven analysis is _best-
| effort_ these days and that is a fact that folks like to
| ignore in these kinds of discussions. If someone has to
| make abundantly clear that something is anecdotal or
| opinion based I can agree to that, but I think a counter-
| weight needs to be assigned to data: explain the
| potential for gaps and how historically fraught this area
| of data has been. That arms folks with the information to
| assign weights themselves.
| rootlocus wrote:
| > By that standard, this entire website and most of the
| software industry is misinformation. In fact, most
| political speech is misinformation.
|
| No, by that standard, this entire website is offering its
| oppinion. Which in fact it is.
| BrianB wrote:
| > In fact, most political speech is misinformation.
|
| Now there's an understatement.
| spectramax wrote:
| Ask liberals or conservatives and they will quickly point
| out their it's not their side that's misinforming.
|
| The fact is that they are all misinfoming. Just yesterday
| in the congressional testimoney, Gen Milley, Secretary of
| Defense Lloyd Austin and Gen McKenzie - all said they
| informed the president for keeping 2,500 troops in May.
| President Biden couple of weeks ago denied that he had
| any recommendation from the generals or anyone in the
| government.
|
| So which one is true?
| frogpelt wrote:
| There's an overwhelming tendency now to boil down all opinions
| to either "right side of history" or "wrong side of history",
| "anti-science" or "pro-science". This is especially true on
| social media, YouTube. etc.
|
| Out in the real world there is so much nuance. There are
| actually black people who don't agree with BLM. There are
| intellectual people who don't think they need the vaccine.
| There are Democrats who are pro-life. There are Republicans who
| support gay marriage. There are bunch of undecided people on a
| bunch of topics.
|
| We are not all on one side or the other. There is so much
| middle ground. I still believe most people are in the vast
| expanse of middle ground.
|
| It just doesn't look that way on the Internet.
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| Frogpelt has an understanding that so many lack. I wish there
| was some way for this middle ground to speak and make itself
| now.
|
| This "tribal" devolution of everything to two sides on an
| issue with interlocking viewpoints on all subjects is a major
| problem in our current climate.
|
| I agree the nuance of this situation is lost when there are
| so many people who do not see the nuance to begin with.
|
| A culture that cannot understand nuance is a culture more
| likely to go to war. To see others as "other", not seeking
| common ground, but seeing things that differ as reasons to
| hate
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| This is so spot on. I have seen countless of times in forums
| how if someone voices concern about a vaccine they are
| immediately called "Trump supporter", even though they might
| not even be from the US. Especially in US though it seems
| that in people's minds there's just 2 types of people, one
| are allies and the other are enemies. Allies all have the
| exact same beliefs, and enemies exactly the opposite.
| Therefore if someone has a belief that doesn't agree with
| mine it means they must also hold all the other beliefs and
| must be of the enemy group. I think it's more than
| ridiculous. And you also can't hold a belief that's in
| between the other beliefs, this immediately means you are the
| enemy.
| shadilay wrote:
| Ironically it was the liberals I most associated with
| opposition to vaccines in the recent past. In 2020
| everything just became so much more polarized.
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| And this is a dogshit simplistic way to view the world that
| leads to our. Social media and all of this tribalism makes
| all American dumber. It's removing our ability to
| understand and appreciate nuance and learning how to get
| along with those who think differently.
| kyleee wrote:
| And it's happening at pace in part because the
| polarization drives "engagement" which means $$
| tubbs wrote:
| There's something in human nature such that when we learn
| something that we don't like about someone else, we wish to
| think them even worse, perhaps to feel justified in our own
| hatred.
|
| I like the way C. S. Lewis wrote it:
|
| > The real test is this. Suppose one reads a story of
| filthy atrocities in the paper. Then suppose that something
| turns up suggesting that the story might not be quite true,
| or not quite so bad as it was made out. Is one's first
| feeling, "Thank God, even they aren't quite so bad as
| that," or is it a feeling of disappointment, and even a
| determination to cling to the first story for the sheer
| pleasure of thinking your enemies as bad as possible? If it
| is the second then it is, I am afraid, the first step in a
| process which, if followed to the end, will make us into
| devils. You see, one is beginning to wish that black was a
| little blacker. If we give that wish its head, later on we
| shall wish to see grey as black, and then to see white
| itself as black.
| a9h74j wrote:
| And imagine a country which legislates "two parties" in
| myriad ways, lecturing and sanctioning the rest of the
| world on what "democracy" means.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Okay, but we really need to talk about what "stifling of public
| debate" means.
|
| Companies are routinely pressured to fire people in public
| positions who espouse pro-Palestinian views.
|
| Across the nation, states are enacting _legal bans_ against
| teaching the history of racism, and firing teachers who dare to
| make students uncomfortable (by the same people who decried
| "safe spaces" less than a decade ago). Plenty of people on HN
| support this!
|
| But for some reason, the only "free speech" issues that get
| attention here are radical right-wing viewpoints that get
| moderated on private tech platforms.
| jquery wrote:
| Precisely. This is a private company taking a stand against
| dangerous medical disinformation _in the middle of a
| pandemic_ and HN is willing to die on this hill. Meanwhile I
| see HN cheer what you just mentioned. It churns the stomach.
|
| Reminds me of how Reddit just dropped the ban hammer threat
| on /r/hermancainaward because it was making right-wingers
| angry, while leaving up /r/conspiracy and other antivaxx
| disinformation subreddits. The faces of the dead have to be
| censored now, sanitizing the entire experience of
| /r/hermancainaward, making the experience little more than a
| bunch of anonymous antivaxx memes.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > states are enacting _legal bans_ against teaching the
| history of racism
|
| There's a big difference between keeping government employees
| from saying certain things during their official duties, and
| keeping everyone from saying certain things in general.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Sure, but there's also a big difference between keeping
| YouTube users from saying certain things on YouTube, and
| keeping everyone from saying certain things in general.
| pacerwpg wrote:
| Ah, the irony of your root comment getting censored by
| being flagged in a thread about censorship, because it
| wasn't popular.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| You can really feel the commitment to public debate!
| josephcsible wrote:
| That's not the equivalent. The equivalent would be
| keeping Google employees from saying certain things on
| YouTube with their work accounts.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| The article is about keeping YouTube users from saying
| certain things on YouTube.
| themusicgod1 wrote:
| what was the above comment?
| josephcsible wrote:
| Turn on showdead in your profile and you'll be able to
| see it.
| mc32 wrote:
| People don't get fired for being pro Palestinian they get
| fired for being violently anti-Israel. Don't conflate the
| two.
| [deleted]
| JustResign wrote:
| In Texas, as a schoolteacher, you must agree not to boycott
| Israel. Is boycotting violence?
| mc32 wrote:
| I feel that is overreach by the state (and there are
| quite a few others), but I would also ask if boycotting
| is not violence then not using a specific pronoun would
| fall in the same category as the above -impolite but not
| violent.
|
| As a teacher, your job is to educate in the subject,
| teach some social behaviors (civics0 and stay away from
| political indoctrination.
| IndPhysiker wrote:
| It isn't an overstep, but is probably just a weird method
| for compliance. The Export Administration Regulation is a
| US federal law that includes penalties for supporting
| boycotts of US trade partners and allies. Normally this
| is directed towards anti-Israel boycotts in the middle
| east where legislation in several countries prohibit
| trade with organizations that also trade with Israel. If
| a US entity adheres to that country's boycott by refusing
| business with Israel, then they are in a legally
| actionable position. I don't personally know how Texas
| may be notifying people about compliance requirements,
| but this is actually pretty standard language in many
| contracts involving export compliance sections.
| rvz wrote:
| > But for some reason, the only "free speech" issues that get
| attention here are radical right-wing viewpoints that get
| moderated on private tech platforms.
|
| Do you mind reading the HN guidelines once again? [0] HN is
| not for flamewars or ideological battles especially when
| comments like this are unsubstantiated with lack of evidence.
|
| From [0]
|
| > Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic
| tangents.
|
| > Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological
| battle. It tramples curiosity.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I don't see the issue here. My comment is on-topic and not
| more flamebaity or ideological than the average comment in
| this thread.
| rvz wrote:
| Not only your comment is unsubstantiated and has no
| evidence, it had already created a flamewar and caused
| the whole thread to go off topic which is exactly what
| the HN guidelines I highlighted to you is supposed to
| prevent as the topic gets divisive.
|
| Can you please read the HN guidelines again? [0]
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| [deleted]
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| I would hardly call this handful of replies (within a
| thread of 1200 comments) a "flamewar", and I disagree
| that it's unsubstantiated or off-topic.
|
| If the moderators think I'm breaking the guidelines, I'll
| happily comply. Until then, could you please stop telling
| me to read them?
| rvz wrote:
| So you will continue to break the guidelines until you
| get caught? Right.
|
| Your comment is _still_ unsubstantiated, has zero
| evidence and also risked (and has caused) a flamewar in
| this thread to go off-topic and that is exactly how it
| can get divisive very quickly and it was already met with
| mass flagging earlier from other users to prevent other
| replies from falling for this flame-bait.
|
| > Until then, could you please stop telling me to read
| them?
|
| By commenting here, I assume you have read the guidelines
| but it seems that you already admitted that you haven't
| read them which why I'm asking you to read them once
| again.
|
| From [0]
|
| > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive,
| not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
|
| > Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and
| generic tangents.
|
| > Please don't use Hacker News for political or
| ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| stale2002 wrote:
| I would say that your comment much more breaks the rules
| than the other person's comment.
|
| Continuously berating someone for this, feels much closer
| to starting a flamewar than the original comment.
|
| > which why I'm asking you to read them once again.
|
| Not really sure why you think you should be able to
| control this other person.... This comes off as bad
| faith.
| rvz wrote:
| I'm assuming you have read the HN guidelines as well
| before commenting and I am clearly asking the other
| commenter for evidence to _' substantiate'_ their very
| divisive comment [0] which risks (and has already
| created) a flamewar in this thread. It was quickly
| flagged earlier by other users for that reason.
|
| From the HN guidelines [1], it clearly states that:
|
| > Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive,
| not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
|
| Where exactly is the evidence or citations in this
| comment? [0] There aren't any. It has no evidence and it
| is not substantiated.
|
| As for the other two:
|
| > Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and
| generic tangents.
|
| > Please don't use Hacker News for political or
| ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
|
| Clearly the commenter has successfully derailed the
| discussion to create a flamewar in this thread on top of
| lacking any evidence in their comment and now the whole
| thread has gone off topic. Even another commenter in this
| thread suggested it has gone off-topic.
|
| Oh dear.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693548
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| stale2002 wrote:
| But do you understand how your statements here actually
| cause pretty significant disruption, and cause the
| problems that you claim to care about?
|
| When you act like this, and berate people, by linking
| something over and over again, it comes off as pretty bad
| faith.
| rvz wrote:
| I'm under the assumption that we've all read the HN
| guidelines before commenting and as the discussion or
| topic gets more divisive, even as the guidelines
| suggests: _'...comments should get more thoughtful and
| substantive, not less... '_ [0]. That means these
| comments must be supported with evidence, which is what I
| have asked for from the start. So I ask once again:
| Where exactly is the evidence or citations in the
| aforementioned comment that I have highlighted? [1]
|
| Since the start of my replies, it has still not been
| substantiated and no evidence has been presented to
| support it.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693548
| stale2002 wrote:
| But, to be clear, my argument is that you constantly
| posting the same links over and over again, just comes
| off as bad faith berating.
|
| Do you understand this?
|
| Because it is not clear that you are actually reading my
| comments or that you understand this.
|
| Can you like snap out of this? You aren't helping anyone
| when you constantly post the same links over and over
| again. It feels bad faith.
|
| Do you understand the problem with how you are acting?
| invisible wrote:
| We are on a news site focused mostly on tech, startups, and
| entrepreneurship that often just has other intellectual
| conversations. It makes sense that the general flavor of
| submissions leans tech.
|
| > On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find
| interesting. That includes more than hacking and startups. If
| you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be:
| anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity.
| gentle wrote:
| They're banning a set of channels that are _known_ to be
| spreading vaccine lies and then they 're also banning videos
| that are claiming that vaccines aren't safe.
|
| We know they're safe because they undergo exhaustive testing.
| Banning videos from people that are lying isn't stifling
| debate, it's banning lies.
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| Do you agree they should also ban the lies about Russian
| collision? What about the lies about Hunter B.'s laptop? What
| about the videos of Fauci saying we shouldn't be wearing
| masks?
| yibg wrote:
| What should happen here? Do we not allow YouTube to ban content
| they don't want on their platform? What type of content? Just
| anti vax or anything that's not illegal? Should YouTube be
| forced to host racist content, porn etc? Is it just YouTube or
| any site with user generated content like forums? What about
| illegal content? Who gets to decide what's illegal? Is YouTube
| the law enforcement on YouTube or do we need to go through
| courts to take down content that's potentially illegal?
|
| Slippery slopes go both ways.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Do you have an opinion on any of these questions? Or are you
| just implying that the world is so complicated that no one
| should make any decisions about anything?
| yibg wrote:
| My opinion is a private entity like youtube should be able
| to choose what goes on their platform. We're free to
| criticize of course, and not use their product if we
| choose. But they have the right to not host content they
| don't agree with.
| [deleted]
| dlisboa wrote:
| > People are going to cheer that "wackos" will no longer have a
| platform. It's not the wackos we should be worrying about. It's
| the stifling of legitimate public debate, the stifling of
| legitimate voices who find themselves in the minority.
|
| My opinion is that we didn't need YouTube/Facebook to conduct
| public policy debate before, and we don't need it now. It has
| brought nothing to the table except the, as you put it,
| "wackos". I really challenge the idea that there is value to
| them at all in the public debate.
|
| Take this example you gave (by the way I agree that the doctor
| in question was doing good work). This doctor, 20 years ago,
| had direct influence in his own practice, some influence in his
| hospital, and maybe some influence in the health agency,
| although that is mostly reserved to the politically connected
| "big doctors" who sit at the top.
|
| What is his influence to enact public policy change today? The
| exact same as it was then. He's no closer to personally
| convince his health agency or Hospital administration than he
| was 20 years ago. The difference is that now he has direct
| influence over millions of people, outside of any nuanced
| structure or supervision.
|
| We may argue this isn't great, or democratic, that is true. But
| it is also true that YouTube videos and Facebook commenters
| have contributed nothing of value to public health debate. No
| single life was saved because of YouTube, except for videos
| where people were urged to see a "real doctor" and not follow
| Internet advice.
|
| ---
|
| As a more general note, I always find the idea that
| YouTube/Facebook are free speech enablers disturbing. They are
| companies, they have nothing to do with rights. We have to
| perform a simple test: If YouTube went bankrupt tomorrow and
| had to close doors, would someone's right to Free Speech be
| diminished? They would suddenly not be able to reach as many
| people, but they'd still hold the exact same rights.
| Tuckerism wrote:
| I would say the distinction here is allowing some parties
| "direct influence over millions of people" and not others. As
| other commenters have pointed out, it feels like the decision
| on who gets access to the "virtual town square" is a small,
| un-elected, and limited-accountability group.
|
| I do agree with your final point-- if social media went dark
| tomorrow, no ones rights would be diminished. But if it went
| dark for only certain people, I think we would agree that
| -something- is being diminished (even if it's not necessarily
| a right or that it's in the best interest of everyone).
|
| I fully believe that this is a topic where people get to land
| differently, and I respect those that do their mental
| calculus differently. There's so many second-order and third-
| order effects when it comes to speech, and then you amplify
| it to global-level... there's no great, clean answer. But
| ultimately, we get to choose what we weigh as most
| important-- as I've heard others on HN say, "If we wrap
| ourselves around every conceivable axle then nothing will be
| achieved."
| dlisboa wrote:
| I agree with you it's a hard topic. I consider myself
| jaded. I'm not even old and am starting to think the "olden
| days" (20 years ago) were simpler and saner. My perspective
| is of someone who is completely disillusioned with all of
| it. I don't think Social Media can have a net-positive
| impact in the world at all, even if I use it and find many
| good parts in it. The ugly bits will always outweigh the
| positive.
|
| We have to ask ourselves: what are these new tools and
| inventions being used for? Are we better off today, where
| everyone has access to this virtual square, or 30 years ago
| where no one really had a place to say what were on their
| minds? I think it's clear, with respect to COVID-19, we're
| much worse off since the tools like YouTube and Facebook
| are being used to worsen the epidemic, not make it better.
|
| Obviously it _can_ have a good impact. I use YouTube
| everyday to educate myself on multiple topics (mainly
| history, computer science, architecture -- non-contentious
| things). I love that aspect of it, I have more access to
| knowledge now than I ever thought possible. But in order to
| limit YouTube to that it 'll have to be heavily regulated
| and stripped down. Which raises the questions of free
| speech.
|
| Still, I think we may find in a few decades that things
| like Facebook/Twitter/Youtube were better off left
| uninvented, never to have seen the light of day, like VX
| gas and nuclear bombs.
| exporectomy wrote:
| I wonder if the thing that should be uninvented is the
| profit motive for political speech. Why do people have to
| be paid to share their political opinions? We could still
| have Youtube and people saying whatever they like, but in
| a way that neither Youtube nor the creator is financially
| rewarded for popularity. Somehow. Of course that applies
| to traditional media too which is divisive because its
| profitable.
| gitfan86 wrote:
| It is a matter of consumer protection. We allow a farmer to set
| up a farm stand and sell tomatoes by the side of the road
| without much regulation, because consumers in general can
| determine if the product is good.
|
| We don't allow that farmer to sell auto insurance by the side
| of the road without regulation. This is because a consumer
| cannot possibly look at a few documents from the farmer and
| know the quality and reliability of that auto insurance policy
| that the farmer is selling.
|
| Things are more complicated with regulating free speech because
| people approach the speech from very different angles. Maybe I
| watch a scummy Televangelist because I want to make a new
| farting preacher video. Maybe an elderly person watches the
| same video and gives away the money she had for food for the
| week. How do you balance the religious and free speech rights
| of the preacher, my right to make fun of him, and the consumer
| protection of the elderly person?
| tgsovlerkhgsel wrote:
| If you look at the policy, you'll see that this isn't aiming at
| the doctor who says that some people don't need the vaccine,
| but specifically at people who spread specific claims that are
| considered solidly disproven with overwhelming consensus:
| https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/11161123
|
| You definitely raise valid points about the side effects of
| false positives during enforcement and the resulting self-
| censorship, but the other side of the coin is that we've seen
| that we unfortunately _do_ have to worry about the wackos too.
| djent wrote:
| Yes, making claims about vaccines with without basis is "anti-
| vax"
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Is somebody who makes the claim that vaccines are better than
| natural immunity actually "anti-vax"?
| HeroOfAges wrote:
| Does this include those that made claims about the
| effectiveness of the vaccine that turned out to be
| overstated?
| DaiPlusPlus wrote:
| It depends on who was making those claims, and if those
| claims were made in good-faith and with the best-available
| information at the time.
| Dumblydorr wrote:
| The wackos are the ones creating the context in which moderate
| voices lose their power. If you want moderation, you have to
| remove the extreme BS and the algorithms that thrive on it,
| which process buries moderates and makes their views anathema
| to the polarized extremes. Why allow polarized extremes to form
| on your private, I must emphasize privately owned, platform?
| This isn't the public square, freedom of speech does not
| guarantee freedom of reach. Content moderation is a good thing,
| it has the word moderate in it after all, that may signal that
| it promotes healthy dialogue just like public ridicule and
| scorn and shame should, in theory, moderate discourse actually
| covered by free speech in the public square, where it's not
| anonymous.
| vorpalhex wrote:
| The wackos don't actually have the power to take down
| moderates as parent discusses. Only youtube has that power.
|
| Content moderation is not inherently good or bad, it simply
| is. A version of Youtube that cracked down on well known
| science would be legal but not "good".
| SamPatt wrote:
| The problem is: who determines who the "wackos" are and what
| is and isn't "extreme BS"?
|
| If it's defined by social consensus then during periods of
| groupthink and hysteria (common among humans) even the most
| reasonable people will be labeled wackos and shunned.
| jakelazaroff wrote:
| Do you think YouTube would be justified in banning ISIS
| recruitment videos, for example? After all, who's to say
| that's "extreme BS"?
| HeroOfAges wrote:
| Well, any ISIS content on the platform could be
| considered recruitment material. If in the content of the
| video no crime has been committed, YouTube would not be
| justified in banning ISIS recruitment videos or any of
| their content.
| SamPatt wrote:
| My preferred policy would be to only remove speech which
| is actively calling for violence.
|
| This fits in line with a common conception of what we
| view as reasonable limits on free speech.
|
| Removing speech of people sharing their beliefs about the
| risks and rewards of putting substances in their bodies
| or other medical decisions doesn't meet this standard.
| goatlover wrote:
| > Removing speech of people sharing their beliefs about
| the risks and rewards of putting substances in their
| bodies or other medical decisions doesn't meet this
| standard.
|
| That's different from spreading conspiracy theories about
| putting substance in their bodies. Actual disinformation
| (blatantly false) and not just discussing their hesitancy
| to get a vaccine.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| If you want moderation, you need human moderators.
|
| The trouble with the tech giants is that their "free service
| paid by ads" business model completely collapses into red
| numbers if they start employing adequate numbers of people
| for that purpose.
|
| So they resort to artificial intelligence, which is worse
| than natural stupidity in this regard.
| angelzen wrote:
| Not only that human moderators are better than ML
| moderators, but we probably want human moderators enmeshed
| in the community. Having Filipinos moderate the speech of
| Arizonians is not going to work very well.
| N00bN00b wrote:
| It's just a never ending disaster once you go down that
| path. Because now people have to "select" their community
| somehow.
|
| If that existed, I'd refuse to be part of whatever
| community you think I belong to and I'm going to pick the
| one least likely to interfere with me.
|
| And if it's a forced choice, I'm going to fight that
| instead. I think you'll have to educate and then just let
| everyone say whatever they want.
|
| You know, you don't HAVE to remove a video. Can just put
| another video above it that says "here's what we think is
| going on" and be done with it.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| There should be a certain degree of cultural competency,
| though.
|
| For example, Czech Facebook banned an ad with a word
| "Rifle" in it, because of an American ban on gun
| advertisements. But "Rifle" means "Blue Jeans" in Czech
| and nothing else. It is not a gun-related word in our
| language. And indeed the ad tried to sell blue jeans.
| ethbr0 wrote:
| The moderation is the problem. Because it's fundamentally a
| cost center, and will never be resourced sufficiently to do a
| nuanced job.
|
| Consequently, you get someone making minimum wage banning
| videos because they're not saying only positive things about
| vaccines.
|
| And Google and Facebook won't care. Because moderation is a
| cost intended to curb the worst PR scandals, but content is
| profit.
| SSilver2k2 wrote:
| No one is stopping anyone from hosting their own website and
| getting on their own soap box. You just can't do it on this
| person's lawn anymore.
| shadilay wrote:
| What happens when the company owns the whole town and you're
| not allowed to have your own lawn to speak on?
| SSilver2k2 wrote:
| What happens when aliens land and vaporize us?
| ilogik wrote:
| who is saying people that have had COVID shouldn't vaccinate?
| because they're wrong.
|
| Maybe not the second shot. But if you've had covid, you should
| 100% get vaccinated.
| raverbashing wrote:
| Try having a "legitimate public debate" about anything where
| the loudest 90% are there to be antagonistic for purely
| personal reasons (or, in English, jerks)
|
| Really, about anything. Free software. Best football players.
| How to best build a bike shed.
|
| Anyone with willingness for legitimate debate gets drowned by
| the noise.
| simorley wrote:
| > I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect
| on open discussion by moderate voices.
|
| That's the point of all censorship. It isn't to censor the
| truly outrageous wackos spouting nonsense since hardly anyone
| believes them and most laugh at them. It's to censor the
| moderates who critically analyze and perhaps offer some truth.
|
| Heliocentrism has been around since the ancient greeks which
| the church leaders could easily write off as being the ideas of
| backwards pagans. After all, you can see for yourself that the
| sun rises in the east and crosses the sky and sets in the west.
| They could "prove" it to the laity. It was only when telescopes
| and scientific evidence proved that the sun doesn't revolve
| around the earth that the church started censoring,
| excommunicating and killing people. The censorship wasn't to
| silence the uneducated wackos, it was to silence the likes of
| galileo, copernicus, etc.
| antognini wrote:
| Off topic, but as an astronomer I have to dispute your
| characterization of the development of heliocentric theory.
| Around the time of Copernicus and Galileo heliocentrism was a
| radical idea, but it also had a number of problems.
| Astronomers of the time expected that if heliocentrism was
| true and the Earth was moving we should observe parallax of
| the stars as the Earth orbits the Sun. But no such parallax
| was observed (and it took another three centuries before
| telescopes were good enough to measure this phenomenon). In
| fact it was more than 150 years before any direct proof of
| the Earth's motion was found (from a measurement of the
| aberration of light at the end of the 17th century).
|
| Of course Galileo was put under house arrest and Bruno was
| burned at the stake, but in the case of Galileo, the reasons
| were more political in nature (going out of his way to insult
| the pope), and in the case of Bruno it was because of his
| heretical theological ideas (like the idea that the Trinity
| doesn't exist) rather than his scientific ideas. That doesn't
| excuse the Church's actions, but they really just weren't all
| that interested in the science.
| Guvante wrote:
| Is your claim that moderate voices are causing people to not
| get vaccinated then?
|
| If that is the case maybe silencing them isn't a bad thing so
| that we can get past the pandemic rather than wallowing in
| "would we should we" territory.
|
| EDIT: To be clear this was meant to be a joke about loosely
| defining "moderate". Many things are being said that aren't
| "Bill Gates is tracking you" that are also staunchly anti
| vaxx such as "it doesn't actually work" and "it can kill
| you".
| simorley wrote:
| > Is your claim that moderate voices are causing people to
| not get vaccinated then?
|
| I suspect that's the case for the vast majority of the
| unvaccinated. Do you think most of the unvaccinated people
| are unvaccinated because of "metal chips in the vaccine" or
| "it's the serum of the devil"? Or do you think they are
| unvaccinated because they read up on the history of
| vaccines, talked to their doctors, etc?
|
| > If that is the case maybe silencing them isn't a bad
| thing so that we can get past the pandemic rather than
| wallowing in "would we should we" territory.
|
| But aren't we past the pandemic. I remember being told that
| we needed herd immunity. Remember "herd immunity"? It was
| all over the news and social media just a few months. Now
| we are way past herd immunity. It was the gold standard.
| Remember? To question it was to question science. But
| everyone forgot about herd immunity.
|
| It's never good to silence moderate voices as it only
| leaves you the choice of extremes which tend to be wrong.
| And sadly, as it pertains to covid, the extremes have been
| wrong about covid - everything from death rate to mandates
| to metal chips...
|
| Also, I can't think of another time moderate voices were
| silenced - other than the lead up to the 2nd iraq war when
| you absolutely could not question the lies about wmds. Can
| you?
| Guvante wrote:
| > Or do you think they are unvaccinated because they read
| up on the history of vaccines, talked to their doctors,
| etc?
|
| The history of vaccines shows a phenomenal success rate.
| And most physicians are in support due to the enormous
| impact vaccination has on hospitalization rates.
|
| The problem is your definition of "moderate" is flawed.
| You have included craziness as part of the spectrum which
| isn't correct.
|
| Many have said "it doesn't really work" or "somebody died
| from it" which are not moderate statements at all. Those
| are quite anti-vaxx when you dig into how skewed the
| numbers really are.
|
| Trials so far have shown over a 90% drop in
| hospitalization during reinfection cases IIRC. Similarly
| in July 2021 there were 3 known deaths from 339 million
| doses. Hell there were 6,207 deaths from people who had
| been vaccinated (the 6,204 other cases were found to be
| unrelated)
|
| > Now that we are way past herd immunity
|
| We aren't past herd immunity. At all. 70% is a low ball
| number for herd immunity, many suggested a large rate is
| needed given the fast spreading of the virus. California
| is sitting at 58.8%.
|
| > And sadly, as it pertains to covid, the extremes have
| been wrong about covid - everything from death rate
|
| I mean the US has had 43 million cases and 693,000
| deaths. It has so far killed 1.5% of the confirmed cases.
| I remember there were error bars from 1-3% but I believe
| since early 2020 that has been the expected range for
| cases. (Actual death rate requires knowing the infection
| rate which is super hard to do unfortunately)
| simorley wrote:
| > The history of vaccines shows a phenomenal success
| rate.
|
| Absolutely. I'm vaccinated against a lot of the terrible
| diseases. Grateful for it. But the history of vaccines is
| also littered with missteps and unethical behavior as
| well.
|
| > The problem is your definition of "moderate" is flawed.
| You have included craziness as part of the spectrum which
| isn't correct.
|
| Nope. My definition of moderate is moderate. Being open
| to the facts and weighing the data and the ability to
| question orthodoxy - especially when orthodoxy has been
| wrong so many times.
|
| > And most physicians are in support due to the enormous
| impact vaccination has on hospitalization rates.
|
| Sure. Especially for the most vulnerable population - the
| elderly, people with immune system issues, etc.
|
| > We aren't past herd immunity. At all. 70% is a low ball
| number for herd immunity, many suggested a large rate is
| needed given the fast spreading of the virus. California
| is sitting at 58.8%.
|
| You are conflating "vaccinated" with herd immunity. Isn't
| vaccinated + those who had covid ( the original and
| natural vaccine ) over 90%? I may be wrong. Is 70% a "low
| ball"? I remember the original herd immunity was 60-70%
| and 70% was the high end. Then what's the herd immunity
| number?
|
| > I mean the US has had 43 million cases and 693,000
| deaths. It has so far killed 1.5% of the confirmed cases.
|
| Now add in the "nonconfirmed cases" and how low does that
| 1.5% go.
|
| I was for lockdown. I think the states that locked down
| should stay locked down for the duration of the pandemic
| so that we have useful data to compare against the non-
| lockdown states/countries. I'm for people getting
| vaccinated - especially the at-risk people. But why are
| you being so intentionally misleading? You try to mislead
| with only "confirmed cases". You try to mislead by
| conflating vaccination rate to herd immunity. If you have
| truth, science and data on your side why be so sneaky
| with the data and labels?
|
| If you truly wanted the pandemic to be over, shouldn't
| you be celebrating the vaccine rate + people who got
| covid? Is your goal the end of the pandemic or that
| everyone get a shot? Because they aren't the same thing.
| unanswered wrote:
| > But everyone forgot about herd immunity.
|
| _You_ may be beyond herd immunity, but most pro
| authoritarian /pro vaxxers I've spoken with on HN and
| elsewhere still firmly believe that the vaccine provides
| immunity, and to question it is to question The Science.
|
| You are working from alternative facts and therefore by
| definition a wacko. Sorry, this turned into a completely
| flippant comment, but I don't know where to go from here.
| You only have to scroll down a few comments from here to
| discover someone who is still insisting that herd
| immunity is reachable via vaccination. What is there to
| say when people believe the sort of thing completely
| contrary to all of the science, and they're backed up by
| plenty of people who know better but find it convenient
| for them to believe it?
| switchbak wrote:
| And that there is the root of the problem I have with the
| recent discourse. That the ends (fighting covid) justify
| the means (silencing legitimate debate, chilling effects,
| authoritarianism). I disagree in the strongest of terms.
|
| The real concern is what happens when a truly scary leader
| gets their hands on those new powers you've just handed
| them.
|
| As always, these debates need to happen in the open, as
| messy as that is. Shine light on bad ideas, don't let them
| fester in the cellar.
| Guvante wrote:
| We aren't talking about a government. We are talking
| about private businesses.
|
| These aren't debates, they are shouted opinions to the
| ether.
|
| Honestly the bit about censorship not being bad was a
| bit. The "moderates" only reduce vaccination rate if you
| define moderate to include "it isn't that effective" or
| "you could die" which isn't a good definition of
| moderate.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| If you truly think this point of view is the right thing,
| consider replacing the word "vaccination" with "war". e.g.
| "Is your claim that moderate voices are causing people to
| hurt the war effort? If that is the case maybe silencing
| them isn't a bad thing".
|
| If you allow corporations and governments to censor
| reasonable and moderate opinions at this juncture don't be
| shocked when it's used in the future in a context that you
| don't like, when a sufficiently large surveillance and
| technological state leaves you powerless to do anything
| about it.
| Guvante wrote:
| So reducing the deaths is the equivalent of supporting
| war?
|
| Actual moderates are fine. "Maybe you shouldn't get it"
| requires ignoring the 90% reduction in hospitalization
| rates for those vaccinated and the existence of only 1 in
| 100 million deaths from the vaccine from a side effect
| that doctors are actively on the look out for.
| numeromancer wrote:
| The accumulation of "chilling effects" has now become a deep-
| freeze.
| codyswann wrote:
| Don't be naive. It's not the wackos who won't have a platform.
| It's the people who know vaccines aren't dangerous, but realize
| they can snag an audience by claiming otherwise, so they prey
| on those people. These charlatans are the people who won't have
| a platform and, I say good riddance.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This is my concern as well. How many people refrain from saying
| anything about Covid at all for fear of triggering some
| mindless algorithms?
|
| Human review of such blunders is unreliable at best.
| bildung wrote:
| Funnily enough, I have exactly this problem with ads on a
| youtube channel right now. On the Channel, _one_ video
| mentions Covid in the context of healthcare politics. This
| results in instant rejection of ads for other videos about
| other topics. Requesting review of the denial results in
| confirmation of the denial in about 95% of the cases so far.
|
| The video in question is citing official recommondations,
| i.e. is pro-vaccination, of course.
| ggggtez wrote:
| Obviously _not enough_ people are shutting up, given the way
| that antivax content is the #1 propagator on Facebook.
|
| There is money to be made from lying to people. That's why
| it's being banned. It should have been done last year
| honestly, but social media companies were afraid to anger
| Trump. They took the barest actions to add warnings, and no
| surprise, no one reads them.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| This isn't question of quantity ( _not enough_ ) but
| quality.
|
| The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure
| and the intelligent full of doubt.
| rabuse wrote:
| I shouldn't need to be "warned" about some wrongthink by a
| platform that believes they know the world best. It's
| dystopian as fuck.
| xadhominemx wrote:
| It's not "wrongthink", it's actually just factually wrong
| and people are dying because they believe it anyway.
| takeda wrote:
| I welcome that chilling effect, because people who believe
| YouTube and other sites are required to not do censorship are
| completely wrong. Not only they are not required to keep
| everything, they actually have right to remove anything
| ironically by the first amendment. The only reason they don't
| do it because they want to appear neutral.
|
| Having the false belief that they can't censor is actually
| dangerous, because it makes everyone pile up to one service
| starving and killing competition creating monopoly.
| 3grdlurker wrote:
| I'm not a believer that vaccine science is a matter of "public"
| debate. It's _scientific_ debate, where only experts who have
| the tools, experience, and knowledge to argue should be allowed
| to weigh in. If you already have the problem of bad actors
| misappropriating yet-to-be-verified "scientific" claims for
| their own political agenda, then I don't see why it's right to
| let those ideas go out there.
|
| I believe that people only have the right to speak their own
| opinion, but have none to spread disinformation.
| hackinthebochs wrote:
| But much of the debate isn't strictly scientific. What is
| appropriate policy is not something science can determine.
| People who will be affected by policy absolutely should weigh
| in on it.
| mewpmewp2 wrote:
| But vaccination can't be as binary as that it's "safe" and
| that it's "effective" for each and every individual. As a
| layman I can't accept binary beliefs given like that. Nothing
| is truly safe. These words are meaningless to me. Everything
| has trade-offs and risks associated. Claiming something can
| be "safe and effective" to me throws so many red flags.
|
| How can I tell if the research done on the subject and
| conclusions of it are in my best interests? For me easy
| example and what concerns me about both covid and vaccines
| are the long term effects, like brain fog aka "long covid".
| If vaccines can cause similar symptoms to what covid can
| cause, then can vaccines cause "long covid"? If spike protein
| can reach brain for example can it give you brain fog
| indefinitely?
|
| I've seen several anecdotal reports where people have had
| brain fog, fatigue, lethargy and other long covid symptoms
| after vaccines for many months, some claiming they are still
| not over those. Reading Pfizer study for instance, I don't
| see that this was researched at all. All everybody seems to
| be caring about is short term hospitalizations, deaths and
| side effects. But where can I find data on how large
| percentage of people have long covid either from vaccines, or
| covid or breakthrough after vaccine?
|
| There was a study done according to which 19% of individuals
| who had taken a vaccine and got breakthrough after had long
| covid. I definitely would like to see more information about
| that as I definitely don't want to get brain fog lasting for
| many months.
|
| The study in question:
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2109072
| Malician wrote:
| Experts should be allowed to weigh in, not office workers and
| bureaucrats. Where were the aerosol dispersion specialists
| when the CDC/WHO were preaching "droplet?"
| mc32 wrote:
| Thank you for presenting the nuance.
|
| It's easy to condemn the quacks and extremely ill informed, but
| all sorts of opinions get swept away. Skeptics, those who want
| to study the details, exceptions, oddities, etc., get swept up
| by the system thus stifling legitimate debate and learning of a
| critical topic.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Covid is a serious disease, there is denying of that. But
| information control of this kind is far more insidious and
| overtakes Covid here by a few steps in my opinion.
|
| There is a loud advertising crowd that is transparently
| motivated to stick it to some deniers that will welcome this
| and I think they put pressure on Youtube. In some form they
| deserve each other.
|
| I think this behavior is just as resistant to learning, not
| hat I think that this measure will even net you one more
| vaccinated person or that it will change any position. So
| this only incurs huge cost without benefit.
| arein3 wrote:
| Why should you jump trough so many hoops to convey some
| information.
|
| Why an anti mandatory vaccine person shouldn't be able to
| explain his position?
| krageon wrote:
| > moderate voices
|
| Antivaxxers are without exception folks that are harming
| themselves and the people around them by holding a position
| that is in every case not well reasoned and in a few cases
| founded on actual ill thinking (as in mentally ill). Just like
| actual nazis need to not have a platform, and preventing them
| from having one hasn't had a stifling effect on society. These
| people are perpetrating evil with intent, that makes them
| qualitatively separate from everyone else.
| caeril wrote:
| > These people are perpetrating evil with intent, that makes
| them qualitatively separate from everyone else.
|
| Yeah, so HN rules of civility go out the window when you
| start talking like a tinpot little Hitler. "Qualitatively
| separate", indeed. To this, I say: go fuck yourself.
|
| You're the evil one here. You guys go ahead and enact your
| dream of putting us on boxcars, we'll see how that works out
| for you. Just test us, asshole.
| tro7ghor4 wrote:
| >without exception >harming themselves >mentally ill >actual
| nazis >perpetrating evil
|
| I hope you're just an inflammatory bot because this post is
| complete garbage.
| nojs wrote:
| The chilling effect is made worse by the fact that this
| censorship is conducted entirely by algorithms, and there are
| no reasonable channels available for appeal other than knowing
| Google employees or hoping to gain viral traction on other
| social media.
|
| Rational people making a living from their channels will
| therefore decide to avoid the topic entirely, even if they have
| something substantive to add that's in the public interest.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| To me this is the key, I got the myocarditis symptoms post
| vaccine and notably none of the ER staff knew (or wished to
| acknowledge) that this was a potential sideffect. It's become
| heresy of the most dogmatic kind to not support the vaccine
| full stop.
|
| Also it took an unrelated to this situation healthcare worker
| (therapist) to even suggest to me to report it on
| https://vaers.hhs.gov/ which is how they find out if the
| vaccine has side effects.
|
| IMO we need to tolerate a lot of "free speech" in order to
| ensure the validly dissenting voices are not squashed.
| 13415 wrote:
| What does this anecdote have to do with free speech? In my
| country rare cases of myocarditis were listed as a possible
| side effect immediately after the first potential cases came
| up and it was also all over the media. Do you claim that in
| your country the information was not available because of
| censorship and you nearly died? Which country do you live in?
| And what kind of medical doctor would not investigate a
| possible case of myocarditis (or any other kind of heart
| problems)?
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| > And what kind of medical doctor would not investigate a
| possible case of myocarditis (or any other kind of heart
| problems)?
|
| One that fears ostracism from their peers or profession. In
| my region it's become heresy to even consider there may be
| risks to taking the "safe" vaccine.
|
| I personally experienced this even before the vaccine's
| efficacy/safety was established when I expressed concerns
| about the medical industry's track record citing
| thalidomide (fetal deformities) and omeprazole (stomach
| cancer) as two cases where things were "safe" until they
| were not.
| 13415 wrote:
| That's crazy and I'm sorry to hear that. I guess I'm
| lucky to have only had doctors so far in my life who
| listen to their patients and exclude possible diseases
| with the usual diagnostics. Sometimes medical doctors
| simplify small risks because laymen are often unable to
| judge them adequately in lack of good comparisons. The
| better way would be to provide meaningful comparisons,
| though.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It's the stifling of legitimate public debate
|
| No, non-State actors choosing what messages to relay or not
| with their resources is fundamentally the conduct of public
| debate, not its suppression.
| SquishyPanda23 wrote:
| > think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect on
| open discussion by moderate voices
|
| You have to weigh that against the known chilling effect caused
| by the disinformation campaign.
|
| You also have to include the fact that the disinformation
| campaign is killing people. And that it is known to be
| partially funded by governments specifically to shut down
| discourse and destabilize the US.
| sto_hristo wrote:
| The main problem is that you think you need open discussion and
| public debates on this topic. You don't. That is not a movie or
| a painting, it's science. You need research, proof, scrutiny.
| This is a job and it's done by professionals.
|
| Moderate voices, voices of reason, voices you like, voices you
| don't like, opinions, ... are irrelevant, useless, not needed,
| and just add noise. This noise, in all its forms and shapes is
| detrimental to the only thing that really matters and has value
| - what the actual researchers and scientists are communicating
| back to the public.
|
| Opinions, wish-beliefs, convictions are something Reality
| doesn't concern itself with.
|
| Think of it that way - when the plane is falling due to some
| technical problem, will you open facebook to scout for opinions
| and rally support, or will you just sit you bottom down and do
| as you're told by the cabin crew? What about during some
| surgical procedure - are you going to pop open a youtube stream
| so that your followers can judge and guide the surgeon?
|
| Anyway, too late, too little. Damage has been done. And it's
| not really youtube or the social network's faults. Even without
| them, stupidity would find another way to make itself visible.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| I'm not sure "legitimate public debate" is warranted in this
| case. Too many people who are not qualified think they have
| "done their own research" and come to conclusions causing real
| harm to other people.
|
| Even MDs are not necessarily well-suited to make expert
| opinions on pandemics and vaccine technology and such. A lot of
| MDs are qualified to diagnose conditions and recommend
| treatment and prescription medication... that doesn't mean they
| should act like they know more than people who specialize in
| infectious diseases.
|
| The place for "debate" of the effectiveness and safety of
| vaccines is peer-reviewed studies, not YouTube videos.
| strken wrote:
| The problem is that legitimate public debate has been fully
| warranted within the context of the pandemic response already
| - see the initial WHO recommendations not to close borders
| (closing borders was effective), the failure of the WHO to
| give useful advice about masks (even cotton ones worn without
| a tight seal work to a degree), and the failure of the media
| to accurately represent scientific consensus on whether there
| was a lab leak (it's very hard to find strong evidence either
| way).
|
| There seems to be a common pattern where the media gets
| something wrong, scientists in the field aren't able to call
| it out, and there's a fairly long wait until someone has the
| visibility and credentials to point out the mistake. Banning
| discussion from more and more platforms could make it harder
| to correct real mistakes.
|
| On the other hand, "do your own research" clearly doesn't
| work out well for a lot of people. I have no idea how to
| balance the competing factors. Maybe we have to accept some
| legitimate debate will be stifled by platforms, or maybe this
| is a problem for scientists themselves to solve.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| While scientists have revised their advice in varying ways
| over the course of the pandemic, I would argue amateur
| armchair doctors have not been useful in that practice.
|
| Also, some of your statements ignore context: Mask
| recommendations weren't withheld because they were believed
| to not be effective, but because there was a massive run on
| masks and the hoarding by people who didn't even yet need
| them was impacting the ability for health providers to get
| them in hospitals. Once cloth masks especially were
| plentiful and the supply of medical masks adjusted, the
| recommendations changed.
|
| Public individuals trying to get ahead of the
| recommendations to put themselves ahead of the public good
| in that situation caused more harm than not.
|
| The lab leak hypothesis has no bearing on public health,
| discussion of it right now serves political drama only.
| Investigation of causes and prevention of future pandemics
| is important... for the experts. I don't think it should be
| brought up in public circles at all.
| strken wrote:
| The context was omitted for brevity, not ignored. It
| wasn't necessary to rehash the fine details of each
| example.
|
| Have the WHO stated they deliberately withheld advice on
| masks to preserve PPE for healthcare workers? What you're
| talking about was one commonly held belief for why they
| did it, but a simple failure to give advice under
| conditions of uncertainty would also explain it.
|
| The lab leak hypothesis _absolutely_ has a bearing on
| public health in the future. You 're right that even if
| the virus was leaked we can't unleak it, but debate about
| gain-of-function research and the safety standards of
| virology is critical to preventing future pandemics.
|
| Can you go into detail about what harm public individuals
| caused?
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| > The lab leak hypothesis absolutely has a bearing on
| public health in the future. You're right that even if
| the virus was leaked we can't unleak it, but debate about
| gain-of-function research and the safety standards of
| virology is critical to preventing future pandemics.
|
| I think you missed my point: There's no point to _public_
| discussion. Governments, health departments, infectious
| disease specialists, should all be determining the source
| of COVID-19, and if someone was at fault, making changes
| to prevent it.
|
| But the public discussing their conspiracy theories about
| the origins of COVID-19 is solely there to drum up
| political drama about China, and move discussion from
| science into politics.
|
| > Can you go into detail about what harm public
| individuals caused?
|
| Beyond the massive additional spread of COVID-19 itself
| because of people refusing to take basic safety
| precautions like masking or social distancing, or
| refusing to get vaccinated based on dubious claims by
| people who know nothing about medical science, now we've
| got people actively poisoning themselves by taking
| "remedies" that people have come up with which have no
| basis in reality.
|
| ...When I picked up heartworm prevention for my dog today
| at the vet, I had to laugh that there are probably people
| trying to get their hands on it to "cure" their COVID-19.
| xfhgjxcfgh wrote:
| >Mask recommendations weren't withheld...
|
| Withheld? That's not how I remember it.
|
| >"There's no reason to be walking around with a mask,"
| infectious disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci told 60
| Minutes.
|
| https://www.cbsnews.com/news/preventing-coronavirus-
| facemask...
| photochemsyn wrote:
| There is a certain legitimate distrust at this point over the
| lab leak issue. That's because of those two papers published
| in I believe Nature and the Lancet claiming that the evidence
| strongly supported a natural origin theory; those papers have
| now been discredited and some of the authors have deleted
| their Twitter accounts after exposure of their own emails
| that questioned natural origin theories due to anomalies in
| the viral sequence. That's very suspicious behavior for
| 'peer-reviewed research'.
| criddell wrote:
| So you're saying the system works?
| Notanothertoo wrote:
| The lab leak is still not known or accepted by the wider
| public. Even after vanity fairs write up.
| mattigames wrote:
| I woulb be surprised if even 1% of the videos being pulled out
| are moderate voices, but that's the price of moderation, in
| order to enjoy any freedom you need to stay alive but if you
| get killed by disinformation you lose them all, so in such
| cases as this one moderation of mass communication channels is
| the lesser evil even if a few reasonable people get their
| content pulled out.
| enriquto wrote:
| Let's kill them all and God will choose the good ones!
| mattigames wrote:
| Let's disinformation roam free in the land of the poorly
| educated so it can kill them? That doesn't seem very nice.
| aioprisan wrote:
| > Months ago he was insisting that the people who had
| contracted COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may
| not need the vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming
| out to support that.
|
| No such study exists, please link to the primary research.
| Vaccination always offers stronger protection than getting the
| virus [1], and more importantly, even if they offered
| equivalent protection for 99% of people, the portion of the
| additional 1% of people without a vaccine who show up at a
| hospital are going to be much sicker than the vaccinated with
| breakthrough infections and more likely to need to go or stay
| at a hospital for an extended period of time (29x more likely
| [2]), which our healthcare system cannot support. We've had to
| ration care and kick out cancer patients out of hospitals [3],
| who have subsequently died as a result of lack of care, but we
| should allow for limited resources to be used up by the
| willfully unvaccinated? I have personally had family members in
| need of critical care have care rationed due to hospitals being
| full with 99%+ unvaccinated folks. So much for the personal
| responsibility crowd living up to their slogans.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0806-vaccination-
| pr... [2] https://www.cnbc.com/2021/08/24/cdc-study-shows-
| unvaccinated... [3]
| https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article25394605...
| gotoeleven wrote:
| You're simply wrong
|
| https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101
|
| This religious fervor that has developed around the vaccine
| has done as much to burn the establishment's credibility as
| anything.
| aioprisan wrote:
| The article doesn't say what you think it says. Please post
| a link to a peer reviewed article that shows that natural
| immunity drives better reinfection outcomes and recovery
| rates than vaccines do.
| nradov wrote:
| There is conflicting research in this area. It's too early to
| declare any definitive conclusions yet.
|
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v.
| ..
| aioprisan wrote:
| That's not conflicting research and they very clearly state
| that this is not peer reviewed yet. I'd hold off on using
| this as the basis for any claim until then.
| lamassu wrote:
| There is no conflicting research and the conclusion drawn
| by this research needs further parsing as it may not be
| applicable to all populations.
|
| Nonetheless, this study should not be taken as an
| endorsement that getting infected is a better overall
| option for protection than the highly effective vaccines.
| new_stranger wrote:
| Vaccines work by prompting a targeted (partial) immune
| response. They give your body advanced designs for part of
| the virus so it can be proactive - the con is a vaccine can
| not provide all of the information.
|
| Contracting a virus provides your body with the full genetic
| footprint of the virus. Assuming you survive, you should have
| better antibodies than what a vaccine can provide.
| jlebar wrote:
| A compelling theory! If only it were so simple.
|
| In practice it doesn't actually work out that way. 1/3 of
| people who get covid have _no_ antibodies at all, whereas
| everyone (who is not immunocompromised) who gets the
| vaccine develops antibodies.
|
| https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/574284-natural-
| covid-...
|
| The immune system is very complicated.
| nradov wrote:
| There is more to the immune system than antibodies. In
| order to fully assess immunity you have to look at innate
| responses and memory cell activity.
| jlebar wrote:
| Sure, absolutely. The point the author is making is that
| since you're more likely to get an antibody response with
| the vaccine, you're getting a benefit from the vaccine
| that there's a decent chance you _won 't_ get from
| catching the virus.
| White_Wolf wrote:
| This is recent and not peer reviewed:https://www.medrxiv.org/
| content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
|
| And here's some news from Israel, one of the most vaccinated
| countries:
| https://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/309762
|
| I'd say that is pretty clear cut when looking at the numbers
| from Israel.
| dnautics wrote:
| moreover, if you're not monitoring israel for news ahead of
| time, and waiting for "cited research" you're gonna be too
| slow.
|
| I was ahead of the game several months about "vaccination
| not categorically preventing spread of delta" watching
| israel.
| ptaipale wrote:
| Note, Israel is not "one of the most vaccinated countries".
|
| It's not even in top 25.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-
| explor...
| mminer237 wrote:
| Note that this is specifically the case in regards to the
| Delta variant. All prior variants showed the vaccine being
| much more effective than infection immunity.
|
| Although, even with this, getting both still provides even
| greater immunity with no downside.
|
| (Plus I think far too many people will say "oh, I had a
| cold sometime in the last year but didn't get tested. That
| was probably COVID so I have an excuse to not get
| vaccinated now.")
| [deleted]
| White_Wolf wrote:
| Dude. I'm not debating if it's good or or bad.
|
| I personally had the vaccine because I have high blood
| pressure and I'm borderline diabetic at 40+. I made my
| call and took my chances. Others should have the right to
| make their own call.
|
| I'm saying that "no downside" and those sort of claims
| are outright false and people should have the right to
| choose for themselves wherether the risks are worth the
| reward.
|
| Tell this Lisa Shaw's family that there are no downsides:
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tyne-58330796
|
| Also here'a copy paste from the FDA meeting from oct
| 2020: FDA Safety Surveillance of COVID-19 Vaccines :
| DRAFTWorking list of possible adverse event outcomes*
| _Subject to change*_ Guillain-Barre syndrome Acute
| disseminated encephalomyelitisTransverse
| myelitisEncephalitis/myelitis/encephalomyelitis/
| meningoencephalitis/meningitis/
| encepholapathyConvulsions/seizuresStrokeNarcolepsy and
| cataplexyAnaphylaxisAcute myocardial
| infarctionMyocarditis/pericarditisAutoimmune
| diseaseDeathsPregnancy and birth outcomesOther acute
| demyelinating diseasesNon-anaphylactic allergic
| reactionsThrombocytopeniaDisseminated intravascular
| coagulationVenous thromboembolismArthritis and
| arthralgia/joint painKawasaki diseaseMultisystem I
| nflammatory Syndrome in ChildrenVaccine enhanced disease
| aioprisan wrote:
| While unfortunate, that's a much better statistical
| outcome than getting COVID, for the hundreds of millions
| who got COVID and have some form of long COVID, and 4.55M
| dead as of today.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| Your first link does not actually claim that "vaccination
| always offers stronger protection than getting the virus". It
| indicates "among people who were previously infected with
| SAR-CoV-2 [the study] shows that unvaccinated individuals are
| more than twice as likely to be reinfected with COVID-19 than
| those who were fully vaccinated after initially contracting
| the virus". So it's comparing infected + vaccinated to just
| infected, not just infected vs just vaccinated.
|
| You have just (unintentionally) shared misinformation about
| the vaccine. Would you support deleting your comment from HN?
| rberg wrote:
| So rephrasing what you said, unvaccinated individuals who
| are twice as likely to get reinfected than those with a who
| were vaccinated after infection means that vaccination
| doesn't always offer stronger protection than getting the
| virus?
|
| This isn't exhaustive in the sense that it doesn't cover
| all permutations of vaccinated, infected, and, but it shows
| that at least infected + vaccinated is better than
| infected. That seems to meet the criteria that vaccination
| always offer stronger protection than getting the virus (at
| least in the vaccinated + infected vs infected
| populations).
|
| But even a cursory glance at the study shows that the
| authors of the study knew this wasn't exhaustive, but they
| cite research [1] backing up OPs claim, and then add their
| voice to back up that vaccine > infection, vaccine +
| infection > infection, and make OPs conclusion in the
| Discussion section.
|
| RTFS
|
| [1]https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0817/10/2/138
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| > This isn't exhaustive in the sense that it doesn't
| cover all permutations of vaccinated, infected, and, but
| it shows that at least infected + vaccinated is better
| than infected. That seems to meet the criteria that
| vaccination always offer stronger protection than getting
| the virus (at least in the vaccinated + infected vs
| infected populations).
|
| It is _consistent_ with that criteria, but generally
| "always" means something stronger than "we have evidence
| it holds in one case". Especially if that case is the
| rarest permutation.
|
| > But even a cursory glance at the study shows that the
| authors of the study knew this wasn't exhaustive, but
| they cite research [1] backing up OPs claim, and then add
| their voice to back up that vaccine > infection, vaccine
| + infection > infection, and make OPs conclusion in the
| Discussion section.
|
| The paper you just linked was cited on the line
| "Reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 has been documented, but the
| scientific understanding of natural infection-derived
| immunity is still emerging" in the OP's article. The
| closest line I can find to "back up that vaccine >
| infection" is an offhand " Although such laboratory
| evidence continues to suggest that vaccination provides
| improved neutralization of SARS-CoV-2 variants, limited
| evidence in real-world settings to date corroborates the
| findings that vaccination can provide improved protection
| for previously infected persons" which doesn't seem like
| a particularly strong stance for "vaccine > infection".
| Especially when we get back to the original claim which
| used "always".
|
| And it appears that they may have been wise in not going
| that far, since now that we have studies in review that
| directly measure the endpoints we're discussing it's
| certainly not clear that this is true[1][2].
|
| I'll wait for those to get peer reviewed and more widely
| discussed before I'd be comfortable saying "in most cases
| infection > vaccine" (note I didn't use the word
| "always", which I doubt any researcher or clinician
| would) but the actual opposing claims in the papers
| you've cited are comparatively tangential to the original
| "always vaccine > infection" claim.
|
| [1]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.04.20.2
| 1255670v... [2]: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/
| 2021.08.24.21262415v...
| noptd wrote:
| Or even their entire account (to continue with the YouTube
| parallel).
| aioprisan wrote:
| This was in the context of reinfections, read the context
| of the comments and the article. The argument being made is
| that because someone got infected with COVID, they should
| not need to get a vaccine because natural immunity provides
| better protection, which is clearly false per the CDC. You
| are less likely to get reinfected or wind up in the
| hospital, per the article: "The study of hundreds of
| Kentucky residents with previous infections through June
| 2021 found that those who were unvaccinated had 2.34 times
| the odds of reinfection compared with those who were fully
| vaccinated. The findings suggest that among people who have
| had COVID-19 previously, getting fully vaccinated provides
| additional protection against reinfection. Additionally, a
| second publication from MMWR shows vaccines prevented
| COVID-19 related hospitalizations among the highest risk
| age groups. As cases, hospitalizations, and deaths rise,
| the data in today's MMWR reinforce that COVID-19 vaccines
| are the best way to prevent COVID-19."
| mariodiana wrote:
| The tradeoff is always the benefit of getting vaccinated
| weighed against the potential harm of side-effects. The
| only strong claim made on behalf of the efficacy of the
| vaccines is that they will greatly reduce the vaccinated
| individual's chance of hospitalization and death. Those
| chances vary due to a number of factors, age and obesity
| being just two of the most important. An otherwise fit
| and healthy individual in his or her twenties or thirties
| already has a low chance of being hospitalized or dying.
| But, for the sake of argument, let's agree that the
| benefit outweighs the risk.
|
| That benefit to risk ratio changes if that same young,
| fit, and healthy individual has already been infected
| with COVID-19. So, now what's the tradeoff? My original
| point is that in the current environment, there are some
| people who would rather not only that this not be
| discussed; some would rather that discussion--and perhaps
| even research into the question--be shut down.
|
| Let's not pretend we're being governed by scientists.
| We're being governed by bureaucrats. No matter their
| credentials, the function of a bureaucrat is gaining
| compliance and expanding his or her department. That's
| what's behind calls for censorship.
| johncolanduoni wrote:
| I have trouble seeing how "vaccination always offers
| stronger protection than getting the virus" could be
| equivalent to "getting the virus plus vaccination always
| offers stronger protection than getting the virus". But
| anyway you made a clearer claim this time around:
|
| > The argument being made is that because someone got
| infected with COVID, they should not need to get a
| vaccine because natural immunity provides better
| protection, which is clearly false per the CDC.
|
| That link and the study it cited did not compare natural
| immunity to vaccine protection, since every participant
| had been previously infected with COVID. That is inherent
| in the fact that the study examined reinfection, and they
| are clear that the vaccination occurred _after_ the
| original infection. You can not compare two populations
| when one of them does not exist in your study!
| m-ee wrote:
| That's not really true that vaccination is always more
| protective, immunology is complex and there's more
| interesting nuance to that. See the latest twiv with Shane
| Crotty, he goes into detail about how natural infection plus
| one shot creates a better response than reversing the order.
|
| I'm not wringing my hands over anti vax content being pulled
| at all, but I don't think we should be reductive about the
| science. That doesn't help to establish trust.
| esja wrote:
| The stifling seems to be by design, or at the very least it's
| being considered acceptable collateral damage. Our modern
| censorship infrastructure does not see minority voices as
| legitimate.
|
| That infrastructure may not even be capable (as evidenced here)
| of allowing for minority voices or any form of nuanced dissent,
| because it has been outsourced to a combination of incompetent
| "AI" (or dumb algorithms) as well as underpaid, understaffed,
| undertrained humans.
|
| We are reaping the benefits of tech companies prioritisation of
| "scale" above all else.
| loudmax wrote:
| I think one of the things we need to appreciate is the scale of
| video uploads that YouTube has to deal with. There are
| something like hours of videos uploaded to YouTube every single
| minute. Aside from dodgy medical advice, they need to look out
| for child pornography, revenge porn, snuff videos and
| incitements to terrorism and violence, not to mention
| copyrighted content. There's no way they could hire enough
| people to review every single video that's uploaded, so if
| they're going to have any review at all, it has to be
| automated.
|
| Getting their algorithm to have any understanding of content
| that's being uploaded is an extremely difficult problem, and
| the fact that they're able to do so with any degree of accuracy
| is an impressive achievement, whatever the merits. Expecting a
| YouTube algorithm to be able to parse a nuanced reasonable
| argument from bullshit is to expect a level of AI
| sophistication that doesn't exist yet.
|
| YouTube could, and probably should, hire people to review
| videos from high profile YouTubers, but this is only going to
| work for people who've already established themselves. There's
| no way to scale that down to everyone that wants to upload
| something.
|
| So yeah, moderate voices pointing out that people who have
| already had covid have a solid degree of acquired immunity, or
| maybe we shouldn't shut down schools are being clobbered.
| That's a bad thing but it's tough problem to solve.
|
| I also think there's a broader problem that a handful of
| private companies have such control over public discourse that
| they're able to effectively censor ideas at all. Or maybe
| they're not so effective, but the level of control that Google,
| Facebook, etc, have should give us pause.
|
| I'm sympathetic to the idea that we should go back to the free
| for all internet that we had in the 90's where everyone who got
| online had equal access. This would allow a level of nuanced
| moderate discussion that we desperately need, but it will also
| allow crazies, and child porn and terrorists and all the rest.
| If we don't want that kind of stuff to be easily available
| online, we need to figure out not just where to draw the line,
| but _how_ to draw the line. This is a hard problem.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| Society in general has been making chilling moves away from
| free speech, and this has been accelerated by the pandemic. I
| hope the pendulum will swing the other way, but it's also
| possible to cross a tipping point where we just lose our way.
| BeefWellington wrote:
| It's funny to me because Free Speech is one of those topics
| on its own that doesn't permit nuance in my experience -
| either you're for it or you're a dictator/sheep/lapdog/etc.
|
| In reality though, laws have been limiting speech for
| hundreds of years, and those laws and judgements are enforced
| by the government. The idea that it is sacrosanct and is (and
| should "continue" to be) unabated is already not what
| happens. The usual example is about shouting bomb in an
| airport or fire in a crowded movie theatre but those are more
| about mischief than any freedom to say a thing (you aren't
| punished for the words alone). However, Libel and Slander
| laws exist and have for a long long time and are limits on
| free speech.
|
| I'm not in favor of draconian laws designed to chill debate
| but it's important to recognize that limits already exist and
| how we navigate where to draw the line is the key I think.
| abecedarius wrote:
| > either you're for it or you're a
| dictator/sheep/lapdog/etc.
|
| This is the nature of the things we come to see as rights.
| Why is an X a 'right' and not just a nice idea? Because of
| a history of political entrepreneurs pushing, pushing,
| pushing against it -- it's just a reasonable tradeoff for
| this case, can't you see?
|
| A right is a Schelling fence beyond which the 'reasonable'
| tradeoffs must face a much stronger presumption against
| them. Of _course_ the world is complicated. One of the most
| salient complications is the ubiquity through history of
| clever people with justifications why they need power over
| others. When in this context you bring up the indisputable
| fact that no human question is 100% clear, the effect is to
| weaken the fence.
| Negitivefrags wrote:
| You could use this exact argument form to argue that there
| are limits to your "right to life" as well.
|
| After all, there are laws that have existed to limit that
| right for hundreds of years. The death penalty.
|
| My point is that just because there have been laws in the
| past, that changes nothing about if something should be a
| right or not.
| xwowsersx wrote:
| This is true, there are no absolute rights. However, the
| examples you cite have no resemblance to the stifling of
| careful discussion which might, in some way, question the
| wisdom of universal vaccination or inquire about the long-
| term effects, etc. That kind of speech is qualitatively
| different from incitement to violence and other clear and
| present danger cases. So I'm not sure how pointing out that
| in some abstract sense rights are never absolute has any
| bearing on this discussion. The chilling of speech in the
| public square that we are currently witnessing has no clear
| limits and the logic used to justify it ends up making this
| tantamount to setting up some kind of a wrongspeak
| standard. In a free society, individuals must be
| uninhibited in their investigation of the wisdom of public
| health policy. Equating this to the "yeling fire in a
| crowded theater" case is silly.
| spamizbad wrote:
| Nobody complained when social media sites shut down ISIL
| videos or Taliban content. And why would they? Those are
| bad ideas from bad people! But anti-vaccine content? Why,
| that could be your neighbor! And your neighbor doesn't
| deserve to be censored (unlike the evil people who
| definitely needed to be)
| throwawayjeje wrote:
| I didn't cheer. I don't cheer unless the videos are snuff
| (a beheading) or pornographic (not in ISIS' case).
|
| For the later I wouldn't even erase such content from the
| internet. All I demand is a proper age verification
| system for viewers and the actors. More guarantees that
| the actresses aren't, in fact, being abused by their
| situation would be nice - what can I say, I dare to
| dream.
| evv555 wrote:
| That's a very selective interpretation on events. ISIS
| propaganda spread like wildfire through Twitter. The
| administration did nothing and the media barely made a
| peep about the root cause until the horses had already
| left the barn. None of these "concerned" stakeholders
| gave a shit about the socially corrosive nature of social
| media and they still don't beyond their own interests.
| rchaud wrote:
| Where's your proof that the administration did nothing?
| Shutting down terrorism content is about the easiest
| political slam dunk imaginable.
|
| I have never seen ISIS propaganda. Plenty of "Fauci went
| to school with Bill Gates and was CEO of Moderna" memes,
| though.
| evv555 wrote:
| >Where's your proof that the administration did nothing?
| Shutting down terrorism content is about the easiest
| political slam dunk imaginable.
|
| Before they were terrorists they were "insurgents" of the
| "Arab Spring". Something that the administration and
| Twitter/SM were more than willing to lean into before
| they lost control of the situation.
|
| >I have never seen ISIS propaganda. Plenty of "Fauci went
| to school with Bill Gates and was CEO of Moderna" memes,
| though.
|
| That's more a function of your age and filter bubble not
| whether there was ISIS propaganda which is well
| documented.
| rchaud wrote:
| What remains undocumented however is your claim that no
| action was taken.
| evv555 wrote:
| This is a very strange approach to discourse. What action
| do you think was taken and where's the documentation?
|
| The administration was openly showing support for the
| Arab Spring mobs and even built up a military coalition
| in its support. Lack of knowledge on current events isn't
| the same as taking a skeptical stance.
| joshuamorton wrote:
| I mean, this isn't really true:
| https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-
| meter/promises/trumpomete...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
| security/obama...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/technology-once-
| used...
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
| switch/wp/2015/12/07...
|
| ...
|
| Social media companies actually had a hugely successful
| anti-ISIS recruiting and propoganda campaign. This was
| something that everyone wanted a bit of credit for, but
| was ultimately totally uncontroversial because terrorists
| bad and no one complains when companies deplatform them.
| evv555 wrote:
| Your assertion is orthogonal to the original thread. When
| the "Arab Spring" started all the talking heads were
| going on about free speech, Democratic values, the
| positive role social media is playing, and beating the
| war drums. It's only after the situation had started
| threatening geopolitical interests did the tune change.
|
| >Social media companies actually had a hugely successful
| anti-ISIS recruiting and propoganda campaign.
|
| I question if that's the case. That's like closing the
| barn doors after the horses have already left. The
| networks were already in place. The damage already done.
|
| Aggregators like r/syriancivilwar had no shortage of
| atrocities to share most of which directly from social
| media.
| throwawayjeje wrote:
| occasionally I like to view the internet through a
| translating service. It's fascinating how different the
| world becomes outside Western European languages.
|
| Try it.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| >Nobody complained when social media sites shut down ISIL
| videos or Taliban content.
|
| People did. You didn't hear about it because they were
| brushed aside as free speech extremists and wacko
| libertarians.
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| Or they were kids and too young to comment or understand
| the situation. I would have protested then if I were an
| adult with my life understanding now.
| ioslipstream wrote:
| Imagine if they used their powers to shut down something
| that's actually harmful, like, I don't know, sex
| trafficking.
|
| If they put as much energy into stifling human
| trafficking as they did dissenting covid opinions, we
| might make a dent in it.
| chroem- wrote:
| > In reality though, laws have been limiting speech for
| hundreds of years, and those laws and judgements are
| enforced by the government. The idea that it is sacrosanct
| and is (and should "continue" to be) unabated is already
| not what happens. The usual example is about shouting bomb
| in an airport or fire in a crowded movie theatre but those
| are more about mischief than any freedom to say a thing
| (you aren't punished for the words alone). However, Libel
| and Slander laws exist and have for a long long time and
| are limits on free speech.
|
| Why is it that I have never heard these laws cited outside
| the context of justifying additional restrictions on
| freedom of speech, and especially restrictions on political
| speech? Without digging for an example, when is the last
| time you _personally_ encountered someone who was
| prosecuted for saying a naughty word in a movie theater or
| saying mean things about someone online?
| Frondo wrote:
| Well, a few days ago we had this article on HN...
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28682582
|
| (Tesla suing people for defamation over social media
| posts)
| ahallock wrote:
| We need to start applying free speech to internet platforms
| as well -- an updated first amendment. Times have changed and
| these platforms can deny speech, effectively silencing
| political opposition. The people cheering it on are happy
| because their political opponents are being silenced. But
| imagine if the shoe were on the other foot. If you're a
| coward, you won't speak out against it. You'd rather relish
| your opponents getting deplatformed.
| les_diabolique wrote:
| How does this apply to the rest of the world?
| goatlover wrote:
| Anti-vax and ant-mask conspiracy theories aren't legitimate
| political opposition being deplatformed. They're
| dangerously false views making a pandemic worse. It doesn't
| matter who spreads them.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I'll be voting for anyone that advocates civil liberties.
|
| Another thing that is not talked about enough is how small
| minority of people in Silicon Valley gets to dictate how the
| rest of the world sees information. Algorithms and things
| that Big Tech is doing behind the closed doors to influence
| the world. It doesn't matter left or right, what matters is
| the unbelievable power of say 1000 people in SV that figured
| out content engagement algorithms at Google, Twitter, FB,
| Apple News, etc.
|
| The most powerful people on earth are those that govern
| algorithms that preferentially show content to people. In
| China that's their Big Tech fused with CCP, in the west it is
| SV Big Tech shunning anything that's not woke. FB is an
| exception but even within FB there is a rout.
| 8note wrote:
| The government has not stepped up to host a social media
| site that would be bound by the constitution
| andrekandre wrote:
| > small minority of people in Silicon Valley gets to
| dictate how the rest of the world sees information
|
| if you think that minority is confined to silicon valley
| and "big tech" i think you'll be in for a rude awakening,
| but in this case youtube removing anti-vax videos when its
| obvious disinformation is a good thing imo
| chillly wrote:
| What has 'social media' got to do with free speech? Who is
| stopping you saying what you want? If what you mean is that
| what write or say is not beamed on everyone's phone, that is
| not a free speech issue, it's that you can't persuade anyone
| to publish what you say, which is totally different.
| jasonlaramburu wrote:
| >Society in general has been making chilling moves away from
| free speech
|
| Private companies in the US have always had the right to
| refuse a customer anytime, for any reason. No shirt, no
| shoes, no service. Should a social media company be treated
| differently?
| robbedpeter wrote:
| Massive social media platforms are blurring the lines of
| what public communication means in context of the public
| square.
|
| We need careful consideration on both sides, and it's
| disingenuous to pretend that they're simply a private
| business and that we can treat them as if they aren't
| effectively virtual public squares that dwarf anything in
| the real world in scale and reach.
| jasonlaramburu wrote:
| >it's disingenuous to pretend that they're simply a
| private business and that we can treat them as if they
| aren't effectively virtual public squares
|
| Recognized public squares (eg the National Mall) are
| protected by regulation. Is that really what people want
| for Youtube?
| shadilay wrote:
| I would settle for a breakup of the tech monopolies. In
| the absence of market competition regulation is required.
| ralusek wrote:
| Because they're monopolies.
| jasonlaramburu wrote:
| >Because they're monopolies
|
| McDonalds has more than 10X the revenue of its closest
| competitor (KFC). Should they be prohibited from kicking
| out a customer who is causing a nuisance?
| tomrod wrote:
| Ironically, because there is more than one entity in
| social media, they aren't monopolies.
| yibg wrote:
| I'm not sure if this is true. I think there has always been
| restrictions to free speech, it's just what's not allowed has
| changed over the years. Try having pro Soviet material in the
| 70s.
| evv555 wrote:
| I guess it depends on what you mean by "pro Soviet
| material" but Academia and adjacent fields were full of
| USSR sympathizers in the 70s. People like Marcuse were/are
| very influential figures.
| ioslipstream wrote:
| One could say the current socialist state of academia got
| it's start in the 70s.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| Marcuse was a communist but not pro-Soviet by most
| measures.
|
| Academia did indeed have quite a few Soviet sympathetic
| figure. Tbh, I'm not sure why the gp picked the 70's. The
| cold war was mostly thawing then as the failure of the
| USSR was becoming visible (though Reagan partly reignited
| it in 80s). The 1950s was a period where real and
| suspected sympathizers of the USSR were drummed out of
| their positions in academia, entertainment and elsewhere.
| The witch hunts died down in the 1960s as US society
| relaxed a bit itself.
| supercanuck wrote:
| *May
|
| The word May is doing a lot of work in this paragraph.
| tebruno99 wrote:
| The only reason You can watch any video for free on Youtube at
| all is because Youtube chooses to let you do so. It is not a
| public forum for debate, it is a business.
| swader999 wrote:
| They still use enough of the public commons to be held to
| account.
| tebruno99 wrote:
| Not sure what You mean. Do You mean Youtube use other
| business' wires, electricity, and services that Youtube
| pays for to provide You with free videos?
| swader999 wrote:
| You could go lots of places with it. Tax breaks wherever
| they build and locate anything physical, section 230, and
| yeah everything else infrastructure that they use and
| rely on. Protocols, open source, gov technical bodies
| etc.
| ggggtez wrote:
| > I think we have to ask
|
| No we don't. The question we have to ask is whether allowing
| this content is _worse for society_ than any stifling of
| moderate voices.
|
| And the answer is obviously yes. Covid-hoaxers represent
| millions of people who are causing a national health crisis
| that _doesn 't need to be happening anymore_. Fuck moderate
| voices who are "just asking questions". They can deal with
| playing a little less devil's advocate, and getting more in
| board with the obvious health benefits of vaccination.
| Notanothertoo wrote:
| This is a very dangerous slope, especially because you are so
| willing to dismiss the conversation under the assumption that
| you know best/everything.
| mlang23 wrote:
| STFU is not going to work to build trust in government and
| medical institutions. Frankly, believing it will is one of
| the reasons why things go downhill these days. "My way or the
| highway" has never really done anything good to make people
| understand eachother. I hear that you are frustrated, but
| your attitude is not going to help anyone except yourself.
| jaybrendansmith wrote:
| Hard agree. I've had it with moderate voices on this issue,
| it's a matter of life and death. Would we not push someone
| out of the way of an oncoming train? Do we not have lights,
| gates, and bells that ring when a train is going to come
| through? Should we take those down, and just leave it up to
| each individual and their _opinion_? Fuck their idiotic
| opinions.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| A pandemic is a natural disaster akin to a forest fire.
| Once a disease reaches pandemic level there is very little
| that can be done to control or extinguish it. There is no
| going back to before no matter how hard we try.
|
| So, we learn how to live with a new disease without letting
| fear dictate our behavior.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| > causing a national health crisis that doesn't need to be
| happening anymore
|
| This just isn't true, it's never going away and nothing can
| stop it, this is it for the rest of your life. It'll get less
| deadly over time but you will get covid at some point in your
| life and you will get it again and again as it mutates over
| the years. Same with flu it was initially deadly, now it's
| just bad but it's never going away.
| loudtieblahblah wrote:
| If freedom of speech - as a concept - doesn't protect the worst
| of us, it won't protect the rest of us.
| sixothree wrote:
| I wouldn't blame YouTube here. I would blame the anti-vaxxers.
| They created an impossible atmosphere for youtube to navigate.
| yonaguska wrote:
| The beatings will continue until morale improves.
| risk000 wrote:
| Anti-vaxxer is a pejorative word, it lumps people together in
| ways that aren't fair. Many were just skeptical and wanted to
| discuss and debate the evidence, and that was ridiculed, as
| evident everywhere in this thread.
| uhtred wrote:
| youtube is a private company, they can ban you for whatever
| reason they want, presumably. Youtube, google, facebook, they
| aren't public services.
| exporectomy wrote:
| Of course they can, because they do. What are you really
| trying to say? Is it that you believe no other moral
| authority should exist besides the law?
| uhtred wrote:
| What do you think I am trying to say? It's not hard. If you
| don't like what youtube are doing then don't use youtube.
| They are beholden to their shareholders, not you.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| I was banned from a Reddit sub for saying that a previous Covid
| infection _probably_ infers _some_ immunity. This was around 8
| months ago. Now EU vaccine passports accept a recovery from
| infection as being sufficient proof of immunity.
|
| On top of that now it's coming out that the Canadian
| military/government (and likely others) was intentionally
| deploying propaganda to make the populace more compliant.
|
| This is why moderate voices are being drowned out. I got
| vaccinated pretty much as soon as it was available to me. Yet
| to some on the left, I'm a rabid anti-vaxxer (!?!) and to my
| anti-vaxx friends, a sell-out (ironically, they're far less
| angry, just disappointed in me for not pushing back against
| government overreach).
| TheBlight wrote:
| Anyone who shames you for taking/not taking a form of
| medicine can safely be ignored. I know it's easier said than
| done but things like HIPAA exist for a reason. It's no one's
| business.
| moistly wrote:
| > It's no one's business
|
| I must assume you are unfamiliar with the history of
| Typhoid Mary. Public health is _everyone's_ business.
| trentnix wrote:
| Except when it concerns risky sexual behavior, or so we
| were told just a generation ago.
| jeltz wrote:
| What? Many countries wrote laws specifically forcing
| people with HIV to register themselves and to disclose it
| to sexual partners. In fact the relevant laws used for
| covid in my country where those written to combat HIV.
| trentnix wrote:
| I'm in the USA and my comment was in that context - I
| forget sometimes that HN has a global audience.
| cataphract wrote:
| Really? Has any public health authority said "it no one's
| business whether you have unprotected sex with
| strangers"? On the contrary, there were and there are
| many campaigns to get people to have less risky
| behaviors.
| trentnix wrote:
| Campaigns to inform, yes! And that allowed those engaged
| in risky sexual behavior to make decisions for
| themselves. But shutting down the bathhouses and swingers
| parties and park bathrooms was considered a violation of
| _rights_.
|
| Now contrast that approach with mandates and arresting
| store owners and closing businesses.
| drewwwwww wrote:
| the lack of a strong public health response to the hiv
| epidemic was certainly NOT based from a place of
| respecting the rights of those who engaged in minority
| sexual behaviors, but the complete opposite - the
| mainstream culture didn't particularly care if they, or
| intravenous drug users, lived or died.
|
| to claim otherwise is ludicrous.
| trentnix wrote:
| _to claim otherwise is ludicrous._
|
| Nonsense. From Arthur Ashe to Ryan White to Magic
| Johnson, there was continuous noise and encouragement
| around HIV prevention and research through the entire
| period. And narratives were manipulated then, too. Even
| into the early 90s, there was widespread public thought
| that HIV might be spread through saliva, even though the
| research was pretty clear it was spread almost
| exclusively via anal sex and intravenous drug use (and
| blood transfusions from an HIV+ donor).
| lovich wrote:
| What does that have to do with respecting human rights?
| The gp is correct in that most of society didn't care
| about the "gay disease" hurting the undesirables so they
| didn't put effort into fixing it. They weren't refusing
| to use government or corporate power to enforce controls
| on behavior out of some noble intention to preserve the
| rights of the minority groups affected
| risk000 wrote:
| Using the most extreme possible examples to justify a
| policy.
| gorwell wrote:
| An outlier example from 1907.
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| Oh Yeah?
|
| Tell that to the President Of The United States; Or the
| tens of thousands of NY health workers just fired.
| virtuabhi wrote:
| Care to think about the vaccinated health workers who get
| breakthrough infection and transfer it to their
| unvaccinated daughter who had to get a lung transplant?
| (real story from US)
| [deleted]
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| Your argument is that a vaccinated person with a
| breakthrough infection can not give another vaccinated
| person a breakthrough infection?
|
| Obviously your anecdotal story is tragic. No denying. But
| the ends don't justify the means.
|
| Most of these health workers have been on the frontlines
| since the beginning before the vaccine. Many already
| aquired COVID and have some natural immunity.
|
| I leave you with this:
|
| How about the story of the girl who died because there
| weren't enough healthcare workers to treat her in time
| because they were all fired?
| Tarsul wrote:
| People die needlessly because they aren't treated in
| hospitals because the hospitals are too full with people
| with covid. The ends justify the means. Vaccination
| mandates are nothing new and covid justifies it so that
| life can go on again. We are not only throwing people
| under the bus who are horribly misinformed (imo
| misinformation is a euphemism) but also those who are
| immunocompromised and those I talked about earlier who
| can't get treatment for anything else.
| virtuabhi wrote:
| More health workers are fed up with constant stream of
| unvaccinated patients in hospitals (also a big overlap
| between assholes and unvaccinated in USA where vaccines
| are available), so they would rather want everyone to be
| vaccinated. Ask your doctor friends and relatives.
|
| What would your imaginary girl do when all ICU beds are
| occupied by the unvaccinated?
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-care/never-ending-
| nigh...
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| This is a different argument.
|
| You're talking about the unvaccinated masses of patients.
|
| The NY mandate was for nurses who worked throughout the
| pandemic.
|
| We could debate the merits of mandated vaccination for
| the general public but this mandate is putting a squeeze
| on healthcare workers which will likely contribute to a
| worker shortage that will not be without it's own
| collateral damage.
| virtuabhi wrote:
| At Houston Methodist, where 150 employees left from a
| work force of about 26,000 people, the hospital said that
| there had been little lasting effect on its ability to
| hire people. And when Texas was hit with rising numbers
| of Covid cases over the summer, the hospital found that
| fewer of its workers were out sick.
|
| "The mandate has not only protected our employees, but
| kept more of them at work during the pandemic," a
| hospital spokeswoman said in an email.
|
| ChristianaCare, a hospital group based in Wilmington,
| Del., said on Monday that it had fired 150 employees for
| not complying with its vaccine mandate. But the group
| emphasized that over the last month it had hired more
| than 200 employees, many of whom are more comfortable
| working where they knew their colleagues were vaccinated.
|
| From https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/29/health/us-
| hospital-worker...
| TrispusAttucks wrote:
| Thanks for your detailed response.
|
| This is great news for the hospitals bottom line!
|
| Not such great news for the hopeful mothers planning or
| already carrying a child who wouldn't wish their unborn
| offspring as a medical experiment. These are real people
| with real concerns. Not crazies who think there is a
| microchip in the shot. Studies on long term fetal impact
| are impossible with the mandated timeline.
|
| If a woman has a pro-choice right to abortion, then it
| seems a pro-choice right to a medical injection is in
| order. The two points are logically inconsistent with
| each other.
|
| Sincerly,
|
| ~ A Covid Vaccinated Citizen
|
| PS. See below [1] for reasons why someone _might_
| question a fast developed medication.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7fQ6JklHjBc
| lovich wrote:
| You have a pro choice right to not get injected. You
| don't have a pro choice right to not get the vaccine, not
| get tested, and move about freely amongst others because
| you are now violating others bodily autonomy en masse by
| spreading disease.
|
| If you aren't fine with someone walking around firing a
| gun randomly in the air because the bullets "might" land
| on someone then I don't see how you can be fine with
| someone walking around during a pandemic with no sorts of
| proof that they aren't spreading the disease at a high
| rate.
|
| Both behaviors are a not guaranteed to cause harm, but
| the likelyhood has risen high enough to warrant
| preventative measures
| lostlogin wrote:
| It's everyone's business. Vaccinations are to protect a
| population. Some industries require vaccinations before the
| employee can work and this isn't a new behaviour. Not
| looking after staff and those the staff interact with would
| seem negligent and a potential liability.
| eek430 wrote:
| I agree, we should also require people to disclose their
| sexually transmitted diseases publicly. Especially HIV,
| which is fatal when left untreated and for all but the
| most wealthy it's detected so late it's a death sentence.
| It's important that we insure these people with HIV are
| not only publicly shamed, but also are barred from
| employment where they may transmit their disease.
|
| This is what you mean, right? A real deadly disease being
| an actual public health concern, to the point that we
| should not only publicly shame people, but also bar them
| from employment?
| jeltz wrote:
| You are already required to disclose it, just not
| publicly, so I do not get your point.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > Thanks to California Senate Bill 329, as of January 1,
| 2017, it is no longer a felony for people who are HIV-
| positive to have unprotected sex and not disclose their
| status.[0]
|
| [0]https://www.shouselaw.com/ca/blog/laws/do-i-have-to-
| tell-a-s...
| ZeroBugBounce wrote:
| I think you know that's argument is fallacious - getting
| AIDS from an infected person requires very specific
| interaction to take place.
| bryan0 wrote:
| It is illegal in many places not to disclose HIV status
| with sexual partners. If you could transmit HIV by just
| being in the same room with someone for 15 minutes, then
| absolutely you should be required to disclose it.
| gorwell wrote:
| Can you provide more info re: compliance propaganda? I
| haven't heard about that.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| There was an article on the front page of HN about it
| yesterday (maybe day before). Became decently big news in
| Canada.
|
| https://ottawacitizen.com/news/national/defence-
| watch/milita...
| trident5000 wrote:
| The mere suggestion that covid came out of a lab was banned
| by youtube, and downvoted by Reddit and HN heavily at the
| time. You were considered a crazy person. Now its the leading
| theory. It shows how fast people listen to authoritarians in
| desperate times despite common sense lingering in the
| background. That phenomenon has led to terrible events in the
| past and carries forward today. If someone says you cant
| discuss/debate something be suspicious.
| bryan0 wrote:
| You make a good point, but to be clear a lab leak is not
| "the leading theory", it is a plausible theory.
| esja wrote:
| It is the leading theory though, isn't it? The
| alternative (zoonotic transfer with no lab involvement)
| still has far less evidence to support it.
| Mikeb85 wrote:
| When it goes from a 'racist conspiracy theory' to
| something that mainstream politicians and the media are
| talking about while the west is isolating China for not-
| so-obvious reasons, it becomes a leading theory. The
| amount of anti-China propaganda has been steadily
| increasing while the wet-market theory has been all but
| buried.
| pstrateman wrote:
| It's clear that COVID-19 is a bat virus isolated in or
| near laos that was then modified by EcoHealth Alliance
| and Peter Daszak such that it can infect humans at the
| WIV or the nearby Chinese equivalent to the CDC.
|
| All of the investigations into the origin of COVID-19
| have Daszak on their advisory boards, the conflict of
| interest is literally insane.
|
| The idea that a lab leak isn't the most likely cause is
| just willful ignorance at this point.
|
| https://www.cnn.com/videos/health/2021/03/26/sanjay-
| gupta-ex...
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28656209 [2]
| https://theintercept.com/2021/09/23/coronavirus-research-
| gra...
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| mountainriver wrote:
| Reddit has a way of drowning out moderate voices which is why
| I no longer use it
| mumblemumble wrote:
| It's not just Reddit.
|
| One of the tragedies of the Internet is that it deprives
| people of the opportunity to see the faces of everyone in
| the room when someone's talking. In real life, you can see
| that two people are loudly arguing and the other eight
| people in the room are looking at each other uncomfortably,
| or wandering away and congregating in a different room. On
| the Internet, you're not even aware of anyone but the
| hotheads, so it's all too easy to forget that they exist,
| and come to believe that their opinions are normal.
|
| Which, since nobody likes to feel like they're the only one
| who thinks a certain way, probably does end up discouraging
| people from having moderate opinions over the long run.
| avereveard wrote:
| And it's not just social media either. Traditional media
| plays a big role in framing the discussion, as in every
| debate they make a point in making sure that to the other
| side of the responsible and well spoken scientist there's
| some rabid lunatic; thus the finer points never see the
| light of the day and everyone else trying to raise them
| gets bunched with the lunatics.
| 09bjb wrote:
| Well said, seconded. The tragedy of the uncommons.
| maerF0x0 wrote:
| +1 another side effect of internet is normalization of
| fringe behavior. Imagine some subculture/behavior that
| expresses one in 100k (0.0001% of people). And imagine
| most people know something on the order of 1000 ppl IRL.
| If those subcultured people congregate on the internet
| (~4.5B) we find a group of about 45k people which
| overwhelmingly validates that behavior to the group
| because it's a group so much larger than everyone they
| know in real life. It feels like it's so much more normal
| (as in within a std deviation) than it truly is.
|
| It's totally benign when it's something like fans of
| silly hats, but also quite dark when its a criminal
| behavior.
| esja wrote:
| This one factor explains so many of the niche issues that
| have exploded into the "mainstream". Or more accurately:
| they've created an illusion of being mainstream.
|
| This effect is so strong that some of the topics can
| barely be discussed any more without putting livelihoods
| and even personal safety at risk.
| apostacy wrote:
| YouTube does not deserve our trust.
|
| We've seen repeatedly over the last two years truthful and
| helpful warnings classified as dangerous misinformation by
| big tech platforms.
|
| First they censored people warning us about COVID itself,
| then they censored people saying we should wear masks, then
| they censored any talk of it coming from a lab.
|
| Every time citizens try to spread the truth, they are
| censored. Sometimes the truth becomes so obvious that they
| can't censor anymore.
|
| Facebook is directly responsible for censoring American expat
| groups in China that were trying to warn their families about
| COVID in late 2019.
|
| Facebook has no problem shielding criminals and dictators for
| money[1]. They will eagerly censor innocent people speaking
| truth to power.
|
| Corporate America will protect its interests from the people.
| They are invested in a new normal, and China, and they will
| censor us to protect their investments.
|
| Even if something was wrong with the vaccines, or there was
| some effective new treatment, they would censor it
| regardless. So why should we ever big tech platforms the
| benefit of the doubt?
|
| [1]: https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/03/sheryl-
| sandberg...
| brianobush wrote:
| > Every time citizens try to spread the truth, they are
| censored.
|
| You actually mean spread an opinion. I doubt any one
| citizen would conduct a trial or research; some may
| actually look at data, but that is rare. These are
| opinions, most likely biased by a belief.
| apostacy wrote:
| > You actually mean spread an opinion. I doubt any one
| citizen would conduct a trial or research; some may
| actually look at data, but that is rare. These are
| opinions, most likely biased by a belief.
|
| You could say that about most breaking news.
|
| It is not reasonable to expect people to conduct a
| rigorous field research before sharing their
| observations, especially if people's lives are on the
| line.
|
| I distinctly remember citizen journalists sharing videos
| and pictures of the chaos in China at the end of 2019,
| trying to warn us. I remember all the tech platforms and
| our media doing everything they could to suppress it.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| Frankly, i applaud this censorship. Granted i'm super
| left/liberal/pro-vax/etc so i'm _definitely_ not in the camp of
| anti-vaxxers, however we have _for years_ put all our faith and
| trust in corporations.
|
| Now private entities aren't aligning with a lot of people and
| they're shocked that corporations aren't the free speech utopia
| that they once thought. It frustrates me that many of these
| people didn't care when it was _others_ that were oppressed,
| but i digress.
|
| Regardless, this sort of mostly harmless but highly
| sensationalized censorship is very good for our freedoms in my
| mind because it forces us to decentralize. We've become far too
| centralized and complacent in unwarranted corporate faith. This
| is to be expected, and people should have been prepared.
|
| Let Youtube/etc censor all it wants. We need better than
| Youtube. Wake people up to that. My 2c.
| pitspotter2 wrote:
| What an interesting argument about decentralising. I hadn't
| thought about it like that before. Thank you!
| oceanplexian wrote:
| > Now private entities aren't aligning with a lot of people
| and they're shocked that corporations aren't the free speech
| utopia that they once thought.
|
| I've worked at some of these companies so I can give you an
| insider perspective, because what you're saying isn't an
| accurate reflection of history. Maybe the internet wasn't a
| "Utopia" but compared to what it is now it certainly was.
|
| In the tech community 5-10 years ago, all of us working for
| these larger platforms used to pride ourselves upholding free
| speech as a core value. At that time the only content banned
| were threats, copyright violations, child pornography, etc.
| Only after the 2016 election rolled around did everything
| change. The problem is that it's an incredibly slippery slope
| and once you start compromising your moral compass for "the
| right reasons", it quickly snowballs into something much
| worse than anticipated.
| lijogdfljk wrote:
| I agree but even 5-10 years ago - putting faith in a
| company being omnipotent is no different than government
| without oversight. I'm very pro government but oversight is
| required for it to function properly in my mind.
|
| 5-10 years ago was the source of the problem. We're seeing
| the fruits of this now.
| _hilro wrote:
| MD is a just a general doctor correct? So, who is he to make
| that proclamation:
|
| > Months ago he was insisting that the people who had
| contracted COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may
| not need the vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming
| out to support that. But months ago that was "anti-vax"
| (employing the slanderous use of the term).
|
| He doesn't have the expertise to say this.
| jonemi wrote:
| MD means Doctor of Medicine, i.e., they completed medical
| school. Dr. Fauci is a Doctor of Medicine in that he
| completed medical school and received his MD.
|
| After medical school, doctors will enter a residency program
| for a specialty, but they are still MDs (DOs are equivalent).
| Their post-graduate training (residency and fellowship)
| varies but they are still MDs. MDs who specialize in
| infectious disease or epidemiology are still MDs. MDs who
| specialize in family medicine are still MDs.
|
| You are falsely inferring MD means GP (general practitioner)
| which it may or may not. And you are further falsely
| inferring that a GP cannot have expertise in virology and
| immunology, which they likely don't, but they may. If you
| were to conclude a GP does not have CREDENTIALS to speak
| authoritatively about virology and immunology, I'd accept
| that assertion.
| willcipriano wrote:
| Do you have the expertise to evaluate his expertise? Did the
| person who granted you proof of this expertise also have
| sufficient expertise to do so? What about the person above
| that? What is the root of expertise? Plato with his allegory
| of the cave, casually dismissing claims that come from the
| wrong mouths in his lofty opinion?
|
| In my mind it would be simpler to evaluate claims as they are
| rather than bringing the speakers life story into it.
| Bhilai wrote:
| I agree with most of what you said but my opinion is that right
| wing media, radio show hosts and podcasters have pushed it too
| far this time by peddling conspiracy theories that are doing
| actual harm to populace at large.
| myko wrote:
| > he was insisting that the people who had contracted COVID-19
| and who had antibodies in their system may not need the
| vaccine.
|
| Actually the research shows the opposite:
| https://www.nebraskamed.com/COVID/covid-19-studies-natural-i...
| jmull wrote:
| > It's not the wackos we should be worrying about. It's the
| stifling of legitimate public debate, the stifling of
| legitimate voices who find themselves in the minority.
|
| We should be worrying about the wackos -- _and_ stifling
| legitimate voices who find themselves in the minority.
|
| I doubt I will agree with exactly where Google draws the line
| between whacko and legitimate voice, but I have no doubt the
| line should be drawn.
|
| I also think there's no doubt Google has the right (and
| responsibility, IMO) to draw the line on their platforms.
| baron_harkonnen wrote:
| > It's not the wackos we should be worrying about.
|
| It's really amazing to me how easily the "left" was able to be
| tricked in the same death of critical thinking as the "right".
|
| The "stick to the libs!" angle is far more responsible for the
| rise in support of Trump leading up to the election. People on
| the "right" were manipulated for decades into reducing their
| political beliefs to defending themselves from a fictitious
| adversary (this is why I put quotes around these terms). If you
| listen to any radical Trump supporter you'll quickly see that a
| large part of their logic is based on a deeply held belief that
| roughly half the country is mind washed, irrational liberals
| that seek to destroy their way of life.
|
| This rewriting of people skeptical of the vaccines as "wackos"
| serves the same purpose for the "left" and mainstream
| progressives have gobbled it up without hesitation. They now
| see roughly half the country as a bunch mind washed, irrational
| "wackos" that are a threat to the foundations of our society.
|
| Both the "left" and "right" (terms which honestly don't make
| any political sense any more, evidence by exactly this
| irrational support for corporate suppression of voices on the
| "left" and it's dissent on the "right") are currently
| structured so that any real, meaningful political discourse
| about the future of the country is dissolved into two insane
| groups of people throwing rocks at each other.
|
| If you find yourself defined by either of these major
| narratives, then you are being played.
| joe_the_user wrote:
| You're sketching a number of false equivalences. Left-of-
| center-in-the-US and Right-of-center-in-the-US each have
| their problems but that's bad argument for those being the
| same problems.
|
| I don't think it's a conspiracy theory to say a substantial
| portion of anti-vaccine arguments have come from profit-
| driven fraud. That's pretty well document. That was the point
| of origin of the original study and various fraudsters have
| ridden that 'till today. Of course, there are those with
| nuance positions on the vaccines this will hurt them and hurt
| informed. Oppositely, the liars have effectively killed many
| people at this point.
|
| There are a few actual fraudsters on the left but most active
| health-craze fraud is concentrated on the right in New Age
| circles (which can generally no longer be considered left).
|
| Which is to say, the left-of-center has a number of problem
| (absurdist moralistic posturing, say) but straight-up-lying
| isn't equally divided here, among the politically
| respectable, it's concentrated on the right.
| Guvante wrote:
| What angle about vaccine skepticism isn't summarized as "it
| might negatively impact you so maybe don't get it".
|
| The vaccine is totally the tragedy of the commons. If
| everybody gets it you are just making your life worse by also
| getting it.
|
| If nobody gets it it is bad for everybody.
|
| The reality is sometimes everybody collectively deciding to
| take one for the team is exactly what we need. Vaccination is
| one of those situations.
|
| There are exceptions, I don't mean to imply otherwise, but
| those are not what is being talked about.
|
| "Maybe we shouldn't vaccinate those who have been infected to
| vaccinate someone else" is being used to justify those who
| were presumed infected to not get vaccinated. The nuance is
| getting lost in a painful way.
| dogman144 wrote:
| It's possible but what needs to be added to this (very common)
| what-if is the anti-pattern your response creates for solving
| complex problems. "Chilling effect" concerns have been raised
| since '08 or so, and that platforms have unilaterally moved on
| with a decision indicates to me the failure of this approach.
| What does that show?
|
| It's a (very, very valid) counterpoint that's ultimately a
| slippery slope argument in disguise. Slippery slope arguments
| rarely present a way out of a mess, and instead just serve as
| this semi-stakeholder that won't help solve things but adds
| nice insight. A position's side needs to be more than just a
| slippery slope approach, in short. It's important to sense when
| "something" is going to get done, and shift from wise advice on
| second order effects to something more outcomes-oriented.
| jlebar wrote:
| > Months ago he was insisting that the people who had
| contracted COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may
| not need the vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming
| out to support that. But months ago that was "anti-vax"
| (employing the slanderous use of the term).
|
| I'm curious what his evidence is, because I find this argument
| compelling:
| https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/574284-natural-covid-...
| RGamma wrote:
| We need to worry about the wackos especially, since these tend
| to network and radicalize more due to their skewed perception.
|
| A prerequisite to the tasteful application of censorship in
| these cases is a functioning scientific and moral apparatus and
| strong civil society to keep things in the public interest.
| munk-a wrote:
| I think America has a very serious problem right now accepting
| that personal liberties, while important, need to not deride
| public welfare. It's like the entire nation has taken it's
| anti-anything-socialized fervor to an extreme level and is now
| becoming self-destructive. During a pandemic it is
| _unacceptable_ that prominent national politicians vocally
| fight against societal welfare but that 's where we're at.
|
| I'm looking at you guys from up here in Canada where there were
| some CPC (Conservative Party of Canada) candidates who are
| still openly anti-vax and the party leader took a lot of shit
| on the public stage for failing to stamp out their voices. The
| PPC (People's Party of Canada) by comparison is openly anti-vax
| and did secure a big chunk of voters (I'd assume the vast
| majority of anti-vaxers) but again failed to win even the party
| leader's seat and the GPC (Green Party of Canada) had their
| turnout decline staunchly after a combination of weak
| leadership and continued ambiguity over vaccine passport
| rollout. No where on the main stage except for the PPC (which
| failed to qualify for the debates) was there any voice actually
| advocating against vaccination.
|
| This is I think why America has a real problem that the entire
| world is getting their civil liberties curtailed in order to
| address. The country needs to get its house in order - it is
| unacceptable that mask mandate prevention laws have been passed
| by governors that might legitimately consider a presidential
| run next year. This is a crisis that needs to be addressed
| seriously and overcome and at this point governments in the
| rest of the world are losing their ability to keep order
| internally because of how fractured the nation has got.
|
| It absolutely sucks that it has come to this - but the domestic
| government in the US has not been acting competently. Even with
| both sides of the aisle have technically worked together you
| still have the BS "We're not going to side with them" crap
| going on. America has a long, long history of severely
| curtailing civil liberties - if you think this sort of an
| action is new I would direct you to one of the most regretful
| legal frameworks ever issued - the Sedition Act of 1918.
|
| Get vaccinated and get your friends and family vaccinated - get
| those numbers up so you can be a world leader again.
| robhunter wrote:
| Can you point me to the specific sections of the PPC platform
| that are anti-vaxx?
|
| Are you sure you're not conflating anti-vaccine-passport with
| anti-vaccine?
| munk-a wrote:
| No I think it's quite fair to view the PPC platform as
| anti-vaxx - the PPC has openly rejected provincial mask
| mandates and embraced disinformation. Bernier himself has
| avoided making any direct statements but he has surrounded
| himself with virulent anti-vaxxers.
| robhunter wrote:
| So... you totally avoided the question. I wasn't asking
| about mask mandates, or who their leader has surrounded
| (or not surrounded) himself with.
|
| I was asking about anti-vaccine components of their
| platform.
|
| Can you point me toward any?
|
| Or were you just speculating?
| lp0_on_fire wrote:
| The ones that conflate people who are anti-vaccine-passport
| with anti-vaxers in general are usually doing it
| deliberately.
| Ardren wrote:
| > Months ago he was insisting that the people who had
| contracted COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may
| not need the vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming
| out to support that.
|
| He was insisting without any studies? How is that not a
| problem?
| [deleted]
| teawrecks wrote:
| > Now, we have a number of studies coming out to support that.
|
| The studies from the CDC indicate the opposite:
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm
|
| Which studies are you referring to?
| laserbeam wrote:
| Honestly, in a world where wackos will take the smallest
| soundbite they agree with from a moderate legitimate
| discussion, blow it out of proportion and weaponize it... It's
| hard to imagine this move by Google as overall bad. It's
| definitely heartbreaking, but so is the fact that a 3rd of the
| world is refusing to help out with solving the pandemic.
|
| I honestly have no idea which move has an overall higher cost
| for society. Yet, we can't keep incentivizing wackos by giving
| them a platform or there'll keep being more and more of them.
|
| Free speech, amplified to a wide audience is clearly having a
| negative impact on society and on out ability to be
| compassionate as a society. Maybe this is a step in the right
| direction.
|
| Only time will tell but it's far to early to criticize the
| move. Especially when without it, wackos are gaining agency.
| tomrod wrote:
| > I think we have to ask if this won't have a chilling effect
| on open discussion by moderate voices
|
| I argue that it won't. We have had over a year for Anti-
| vaccination advocates to make their case. In all instances the
| goalposts tend to move. Spotlighting continual questioning and
| false claims benefits no one. It's time to move on.
| winternett wrote:
| Youtube should have instead declared war on the companies and
| people that are simply generating junk content to game their
| creator funds...
|
| No one really wants to uncover the fact that most
| disinformation campaigns are simply created by people who are
| desperate to make money off of video views, and also those who
| want to sell off products (like horse de-wormer) that they may
| have an overstock of.
|
| YouTube should de-monetize all independent and unverifiable
| political content instead of this censorship approach. Taking
| away the money making for people who just want to stoke public
| emotions to their benefit of popularity.
|
| Politics should not be a for-profit business... No content
| platform wants to give that profit up because it generates a
| lot of money, but we face peril if the profits rise.
|
| Make politics boring again. MPBA.
| peakaboo wrote:
| Honestly, the world has gone off the deep end. I don't even
| know where to start to explain, but it should be obvious for
| anyone what's wrong anyway.
| vikingerik wrote:
| > People are going to cheer that "wackos" will no longer have a
| platform.
|
| And if you deplatform wackos, you just create incentive to
| decry everything as wacko in order to ban it.
|
| The way to combat misinformation is in the free market of ideas
| and discourse. Not by banning it. That's just might-makes-
| right.
| goatlover wrote:
| Problem is that combating misinformation in the free market
| hasn't been working so well. While I agree this is fine for
| most things, there are exceptions such as a pandemic or when
| a powerful political figure can invoke a riot.
| tylerhou wrote:
| The problem with your argument is that you assume that
| legitimate voices won't be coopted by people pushing some
| agenda that is not supported by any data; i.e. you assume that
| the people on the other side of the "public debate" are
| operating in good faith. There is no debate when one side is
| not seriously & honestly looking at the data.
|
| It's good to debate science and to question whether vaccines
| are safe and effective. The problem is that if someone with any
| credentials asks these questions in public, a firestorm of
| antivaxxers will immediately create thousands of posts claiming
| "doctor questions the safety of the vaccines." Most people who
| read those posts won't take the time to understand the nuance
| -- their takeaway will be "this confirms my belief that the
| vaccine was rushed/etc."
|
| That's not to say that these debates shouldn't happen -- they
| absolutely should, but not on YouTube or social media where
| nuance is easily lost. During a global pandemic the consequence
| of airing objections in public on social media can mean that
| thousands of people might not get vaccinated because of bad or
| malicious actors. That leads to real deaths.
| cft wrote:
| Written by a Google employee. This totalitarian thinking is a
| perfect example why the US is declining so rapidly into a
| poorer oligarchy. He (Xir?) is convinced that vaccines are
| necessary for COVID, and that plebes that use his product are
| too stupid for "nuance". Thus it should be banned speech.
| Thinking about it, there were discussions even in Nazi
| Germany or in the Soviet Russia: except that plebes went jail
| for them. They were the privilege of the very top: like
| Hitler discussing with Goebbels or Brezhnev with Kosygin. Or
| Pichai with Wojcicy in his oligarchical case.
| takeda wrote:
| Agree, I saw multiple times that someone who actually
| discussing topic from their area from expertise, who tried to
| remove some hyperbole media added. For example he was saying
| that lockdowns (like an actual lockdowns) only made sense
| initially when there was a possibility to contain it.
|
| The anti-vaxxers cut it out of context and spreaded it on FB
| and sounded like someone with credentials was basically
| saying that all precautions were not needed and this was all
| fake pandemic (this was a year ago, BTW before we had
| vaccines).
| stickfigure wrote:
| By censoring the debate on youtube, you're basically
| confirming to the wacko conspiracy theorists that there _is
| in fact_ a conspiracy. The damage to civil society is far
| greater than a little misinformation.
|
| The solution to bad speech is more speech. Speaking of nuance
| easily lost, an algorithm is not going to be able to figure
| out the nuance required to censor rationally. Honestly, I
| don't think most humans are capable of it. Best to err on the
| side of letting information spread.
| kevinpet wrote:
| "By censoring the debate on youtube, you're basically
| confirming to the wacko conspiracy theorists that there is
| in fact a conspiracy."
|
| This is an excellent point. My view has been these are
| wackos but you can't silence wackos without giving someone
| in authority the discretion to decide who to label a wacko.
| But as you point out, having the discretion to decide
| someone is a wacko and has ideas too dangerous to be heard,
| at a large organized scale, actually is a conspiracy.
| FpUser wrote:
| Anti-vaccers have limited amount of claims. Instead of shutting
| them down and feeding into conspiracy if governments and big
| corps are so concerned they should make web sites where they
| disprove said claims with valid data in a way understandable by
| mere mortals. For interested there can be also list of references
| for further reading. Youtube and the likes are then free to
| promote / put on first page headlines from this websites.
| yosito wrote:
| I'm surprised other major platforms haven't done this yet.
| danso wrote:
| Facebook banned all anti-vax content 7 months ago, according to
| the article
| yosito wrote:
| They haven't banned it very consistently, according to my
| news feed.
| dredmorbius wrote:
| Setting a policy, and effectively enforcing it, are two
| different things.
|
| The fact remains that FB were 7 months earlier to this
| decision, however well they're delivering on that goal.
| hakre wrote:
| Following the report, some have.
|
| But why be surprised? They grow a lot of greens out of such
| content. Why kill the golden cow unless you need to (because
| forced to)?
| nerdponx wrote:
| I have an anti-vax person in my family. As disturbing and
| wrongheaded as their opinions are, I find it significantly _more_
| disturbing that they are being censored.
|
| The irony is that this censorship doesn't even work. It just
| strengthens their resolve and deepens their conviction that they
| have found The Truth in their conspiracy theories.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Meanwhile, it seems that Russia has complained in the past 24
| hours against some censorship on YT, based on "the fight against
| covid related misinformation", and raised a diplomatic issue
| accusing Germany to have supported the censorship.
|
| Some may find curious or even amusing this odd paragraph on Le
| Monde:
|
| > _A la fin de janvier, le president Poutine avait juge que les
| entreprises majeures du secteur de l'Internet etaient << en
| concurrence >> avec les Etats. Il denoncait leurs << tentatives
| de controler brutalement la societe >>._
|
| The main online enterprises being in competition with the states
| - in the attempt to brutally control society?! The formulation
| could probably have been less "suggestive".
|
| https://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2021/09/29/moscou-mena...
| antioxidant wrote:
| Awesome! Finally. I think they should ban all anti-Facebook
| content as well. Facebook is a good company and never makes
| mistakes, to think otherwise is simply dangerous for the whole
| tech industry and must be removed.
| pknerd wrote:
| First of all I am fully vaccinated.
|
| It is believed that Vaccine supporters are dumb and ignorant,
| could be, but how can you prove that the other party is small and
| well educated.
|
| Such carpet will fuel further the conspiracy theorists and they
| would say to their followers, "See, we were right! they do not
| want you to learn the truth about vaccine"
| etchalon wrote:
| I see we're going to spend another day talking about "the death
| of free speech" because a private company doesn't want to pay to
| host someone's content.
| [deleted]
| WalterBright wrote:
| All this does is justify the anti-vaccine activists.
| bwship wrote:
| The funny part of this whole thing. Is that the same people that
| all they do is complain about privacy concerns by Apple and Alexa
| etc. here on HN are the same people that consistently downvote
| anything I say that is anti-vaccine. I thought this community
| knew no blind spots. Even if I am dead wrong on my stance, the
| concept that it gets downvoted just because I have a differing
| opinion is pathetic.
| kkoncevicius wrote:
| The article is pay-walled to me. But I am interested - do they
| mention where the line for being "anti-vaccine" currently is? For
| example - is someone who is making a video about why he/she will
| not be taking a 3rd booster shot anti-vaccine and therefore
| banned?
| macinjosh wrote:
| Anything short of complete 100% vaccine fanaticism could and
| probably will be construed as anti-vaccine when useful.
|
| Source: downvotes on this post.
| rscoots wrote:
| That line is hidden and opaque by design.
| djent wrote:
| This should have happened months ago. The damage is done
| momirlan wrote:
| So big tech have become the holders of "truth". I don't care
| whose legitimacy they claim, governments are not the holders of
| truth either, and science changes daily. Suppressing freedom of
| information is not alright.
| deelowe wrote:
| Of course it will. Welcome to the new propaganda. Same as the old
| propaganda.
|
| Free speech is the act of standing up for those who you disagree
| with simply because you believe they have the right to be heard.
| In today's world of "woke" content creators, everyone seems to
| miss this point. What started out as fairly clear cut issues such
| as racism and homophobia has now bled into grey areas around
| vaccines and gain of function research.
|
| On the latter, should we not be concerned about this? We're in
| the middle of a global pandemic and we're not allowed to discuss
| whether GoF research is too risky? We're not allowed to discuss
| the nuances of what a "lab leak" may really entail? For example,
| I think the theory that a researcher collecting specimens from
| the wild accidentally infecting people in wuhan or themselves
| holds a lot of merit. Yet, it cannot be discussed.
|
| We should be outraged. And, back on the topic of anti-vaxers.
| They kind of have a point. Why should they trust the government,
| the CDC, the WHO and the like? What have they done to prove they
| are trustworthy at this point? Shutting down open discussion
| around this topic will only make the situation worse, not better.
| melenaboija wrote:
| "Why should they trust the government, the CDC, the WHO and the
| like?"
|
| For similar reasons they should be trusting people creating
| content on private media platforms.
|
| People need information and seek for sources, whatever they
| are. I don't think the lack of content on YouTube will make
| change most of people beliefs, if something will reinforce them
| to think this is imposed.
|
| You can always go to other sources to look for what you want to
| see.
| [deleted]
| goatlover wrote:
| I'm not standing up for people who spread conspiracy theories
| about an ongoing pandemic. I hope they get deplatformed.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Well, in the field of immunization, the WHO has done quite a
| lot since its creation.
| artificialLimbs wrote:
| In the field of rape as well.
|
| https://www.mypanhandle.com/health/panel-finds-80-alleged-
| ab...
| poo-yie wrote:
| > "Why should they trust the government, the CDC, the WHO and
| the like? What have they done to prove they are trustworthy at
| this point?"
|
| This is the crux of the issue IMO. As someone pointed out in
| another comment, the CDC of the past is not the same as the CDC
| of today.
|
| I am vaccinated as are my wife and kids (young adults).
| However, it was not a slam-dunk decision to get it.
|
| Why the hesitancy?
|
| - Trump pushed to get the vaccine in record time (maybe to
| score some political points?)
|
| - When outbreak first hit the US, Trump tried to halt
| international travel to a large extent. He was berated for
| this, while it seemed to me to be a prudent action given the
| situation. Other countries put the clamps on international
| travel and I didn't see any criticism of them.
|
| - While Trump was still in office, Harris and others were
| publicly quoted as saying that if Trump says they should get
| the vaccine that they would be hesitant (don't recall the exact
| quote). (Did they say this as a legitimate concern or as a way
| of scoring political points?)
|
| - Biden administration, supporters, and MSM rush to label
| anyone who questioned whether the virus originated from Wuhan
| lab as "conspiracy theorists", "kooks", "crackpots", "nutjobs",
| etc. Then later on, well-respected scientists openly suggest
| that Wuhan lab _could_ be the origin. (Who is trying to
| manipulate our perceptions and WHY?)
|
| - Mask mandates openly ignored by the same people who advocated
| for strict adherence (Gov. Whitmer, Pres. Biden, former Pres.
| Obama's big birthday party, etc.) If wearing a mask is so
| important for public health, why are they NOT doing it at
| times?
|
| - Sufficient public testimony from NIH scientists in
| Congressional hearings to conclude that NIH funding of Wuhan
| lab through 3rd party DID fit the definition of gain-of-
| function research (suggesting that Fauci is lying to the
| public. Why?)
|
| - Earlier in outbreak, Biden administration stated that they
| don't foresee mask mandates. Later, mask mandates.
|
| - There is ample anecdotal evidence to suggest that many
| hospitals were quick to report fatalities as being Covid when
| there was no Covid connection. Why? Were the hospitals coached
| to act this way? Was it about federal government payments? Make
| the numbers look a certain way?
|
| - From the very earliest days of Biden administration, up to
| today, there has been record immigration on the southern
| border. Putting aside your position about how immigration
| should or should not be handled IN THE ABSENCE OF a worldwide
| pandemic, WHY are record number of immigrants being encouraged,
| supported, and processed at our southern border? Are they being
| tested for Covid? Mayorkas just made a statement a day or 2 ago
| that he was SURPRISED by the jump in delta variant numbers at
| the immigrant processing and staging locations!! Really??? WTF
| are these people thinking?
|
| I could continue on, but by now you either see the pattern or
| you refuse to acknowledge that it's even conceivable that there
| could be a pattern of deception.
|
| If I look back over the history of vaccinations, they have been
| an absolute blessing to all of humanity. There's no doubt about
| their effectiveness in wiping out terrible things such as Polio
| (as just 1 example).
|
| However, today there is so much evidence that federal
| government, UN, WHO, state governments, local governments, MSM,
| Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, etc. are now operating under a
| perpetual mode of MANIPULATION to coerce the public to their
| DESIRED end goals, irrespective of truth and scientific fact.
| Both Democrat and Republican parties are guilty.
|
| Are you really _surprised_ that there are people who question
| the truth and sincerity of the powers that be?
| nsxwolf wrote:
| We should have supported openly racist and homophobic speech.
| So that we'd be able to continue openly talking about other
| things, like science. But we all think we can control the
| beast.
| ineptech wrote:
| I know HN is always on a hair trigger to call out free speech
| issues, but "youtube does a poor job of curating covid
| information" is the expected outcome. You don't need to
| postulate a conspiracy or malicious actor to explain the
| expected outcome.
|
| So it's kind of hard to take stuff like this seriously:
|
| > ...we're not allowed to discuss whether GoF research is too
| risky?"
|
| Of course you are. Youtube middle-management aren't the
| arbiters of what is and is not acceptable scientific or medical
| information. If they ever were, _that_ would be a crisis worthy
| of outrage.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| Woke-ism is a blunt instrument of the elites to shut down any
| discussion that threatens their narrative. It is used as a
| propaganda tool of the dominant and elites. It is repackaged
| bigotry, or performative anti-bigotry bigotry, to bully and
| intimidate people and become part of the evolving toolset of
| modern sociopaths.
|
| https://theintercept.com/2021/09/28/israel-palestine-unc-aca...
|
| https://greenwald.substack.com/p/an-nba-star-and-new-yorks-g...
|
| https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1442879729669914637
|
| https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1442520376278409222
|
| https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/1443200943764480002
| api wrote:
| ___________ is a blunt instrument of the elites to shut down
| any discussion that threatens their narrative.
|
| It's a propaganda technique. If the opposite of wokeism etc.
| were popular and accepted by a large number of people,
| propagandists would use that. They would, for example, brand
| any dissent as "not white" or "gay" or "miscegenated" or
| "degenerate" etc. They did in fact do this generations ago.
|
| If we lived in a super-religious society any dissent would be
| satanic. This version is still leveraged within the
| evangelical community.
|
| All narratives will be weaponized by propagandists regardless
| of whether the narrative itself has objective merit when
| considered in good faith.
|
| "It will be weaponized. No exceptions."
| nitrogen wrote:
| _This is a tactic and works largely the same regardless of
| what narrative is being weaponized._
|
| Indeed, just look at how "carbon footprint" came from the
| oil industry. I left behind a conservative religious
| upbringing, but never found an escape from tribalism and
| guilt tripping, whether for conservative or liberal causes.
| Manipulating our need for agency (by touting personal
| responsibility) and belonging (by guilt tripping and
| shunning) is an astonishingly good way to divide and
| conquer a society that really has a lot in common.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| Exactly. And this has been going on for a looong time. In
| fact, as long as I can remember watching news. It's all a
| religion, be it christianity, nationalism, communism,
| ecology, global warming, "woke"ism, anti-racism. The
| tenets are always the same: YOU are guilty just for being
| born, or existing, or wanting to live a normal life. YOU
| need to do something to correct this. YOU must be with
| us, if you're barely neutral you're the enemy. YOU will
| never fully achieve full pardon for your original sin,
| but you have to keep trying with all your strength,
| otherwise you're a heretic that deserves to be cancelled.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Wokeism pushed by companies is two things.
|
| First, it's a misdirection. It's a bargain with the social
| far-left in an attempt to reduce the power of the economic
| far-left given that those two groups overlap so much. We will
| go along with your culture war because it's the cheapest
| alternative available to us.
|
| Second, it's the first-mover problem and a coordination
| problem. Nobody's brand wants to be singled out by a social
| media mob. Being around the 5th percentile makes you a
| target. So everyone tries to be around the median. The median
| keeps shifting up and up, as the people in the 5th percentile
| keep re-upping the ante as they chase the ever-increasing
| median. It's just a consequence of social media mobs
| targeting the bottom percentiles for brand damage. Their only
| other option is to regime shift into full blown anti-woke,
| which simply isn't viable for many companies. If all
| companies simultaneously shifted downwards (by becoming not-
| woke), there wouldn't be a problem, but that coordination
| can't happen with heterogeneous entities.
| Bhilai wrote:
| I mean you are anti-woke and supposedly much more informed
| than so called "woke" people and yet all your information
| seems to be coming from a single source.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Greenwald is a pretty solid source compared to a large
| amount of journalists though, even if he probably doesn't
| have a neutral opinion by now. But he tries and that is the
| difference.
| deelowe wrote:
| Journalists aren't sources...
| flavius29663 wrote:
| I don't think the author claimed those to be sources, but
| well worded opinions about what he believes
| philovivero wrote:
| Glenn Greenwald isn't a source. He's a journalist. He's an
| aggregator and curator of sources.
| president wrote:
| Don't forget, the term "anti-vaxers" has become a catch-all
| term for shutting down the slightest criticism about the virus,
| whether fact or opinion. I have seen this term slung at people
| simply questioning vaccine mandates and passports in casual
| conversations both online and offline. Very few people are
| anti-vax but they powers that be would like most people to
| think there are only 2 sides. We live in dangerous times.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Exactly: that term seems to be used as a strawman to attack
| the worse positions avoiding the reasonable ones.
|
| Dismissal has been a constant presence. Somebody got damaged
| after infection? Some will come and dismiss with "anectodal".
| Somebody got damaged after vaccination? Others will come and
| dismiss with "anectodal". One tries to tell someone that he
| lost very real family members and friends to covid: "they
| must have been already sick". One tries to tell someone that
| he has known of a surprising number of people with adverse
| events: "they must have been already sick". And with that the
| issue has not progressed a bit.
| mbesto wrote:
| > We're in the middle of a global pandemic and we're not
| allowed to discuss whether GoF research is too risky? We're not
| allowed to discuss the nuances of what a "lab leak" may really
| entail?
|
| When the polio vaccine first came out was the public (i.e. non
| medical personnel) allowed to discuss whether the use of
| inactivated virus was too risky?
|
| > Why should they trust the government, the CDC, the WHO and
| the like? What have they done to prove they are trustworthy at
| this point?
|
| To this point? Are you serious? Does someone seriously need to
| explain to you all of the viruses (far more deadly than COVID
| mind you) that have been eradicated by government
| organizations?
|
| > Shutting down open discussion around this topics will only
| make the situation worse, not better.
|
| You're missing the point. The people who are crying "why can't
| we discuss GoF research or the lab leak" are not engaging in
| the argument in good faith. I absolutely think we need to
| discuss this topics in a meaningful way, however when most of
| the actors who are bringing up these topics are trying to cry
| wolf then why should we take them seriously?
| HonestOp001 wrote:
| The CDC of the past is not the CDC of today. It never is the
| same, people come and go. The make up of the political
| structure has overwhelmed the program:
|
| 1. CDC director overrules recommendation of board (political
| reasoning alone).
|
| 2. Dr. Faucci admits he lied about the amount of people
| needed to be vaccinated.
|
| 3. Dr. Faucci admits they lied about the need for masks.
| Which if we look at the data it is messy and shows only a 20%
| efficacy. If we look at recommendations prior to this
| outbreak, the documents say not to bother with masks. Do not
| tell me it was for the greater good to lie, they lied. Which
| people were told to shut up and listen when we all questioned
| the lie.
|
| 4. The head of the CDC is having an emotional break down on
| TV when all metrics are trending good (1Q). Why was she
| having a break down when the public data shows something
| else. Could it be she had knowledge of something?
|
| The point is, agencies change, they adapt to the political
| masters. We have these three examples plus my fourth
| curiosity that point to the government agencies no longer
| being trustworthy in their guidance.
| nradov wrote:
| In terms of human viruses, governments have only eradicated
| smallpox and almost polio. We will not be able to eradicate
| SARS-CoV-2 the same way. Unlike smallpox and polio there are
| animal hosts (most other mammal species can carry and
| transmit the virus) and the vaccines don't reliably prevent
| infection. So I encourage everyone to get vaccinated to
| protect themselves, but we need to face reality that the
| virus will never be eradicated.
| deelowe wrote:
| > When the polio vaccine first came out was the public (i.e.
| non medical personnel) allowed to discuss whether the use of
| inactivated virus was too risky?
|
| I would certainly have thought so. Are you referring to
| something specific or just sowing seeds of doubt?
|
| > To this point? Are you serious? Does someone seriously need
| to explain to you all of the viruses (far more deadly than
| COVID mind you) that have been eradicated by government
| organizations?
|
| To me? No. I can read the whitepapers myself and understand
| the risks I'm taking. I'm fully vaccinated btw.
|
| Regardless, you're sort of missing the point here. Shutting
| down dissenting views is authoritarianism and categorically
| not free speech. And, to be clear, it's not just
| "misinformation" that's being banned. There are legitimate
| issues with vaccines people should be informed of such as
| early warning signs of myocarditis that are also not allowed
| on YT.
|
| > The people who are crying "why can't we discuss GoF
| research or the lab leak" are not engaging in the argument in
| good faith.
|
| "They" are? Who is "they?" Are you claiming there's no point
| in discussing this? We still haven't sorted out where the
| virus originated and simply showing it is likely zootonic in
| origin isn't enough. Wuhan was doing active research on
| zootonic coronaviruses.
| mbesto wrote:
| > I would certainly have thought so. Are you referring to
| something specific or just sowing seeds of doubt?
|
| No, I'm genuinely asking you. Do you know?
|
| > I can read the whitepapers myself and understand the
| risks I'm taking.
|
| Oh you can? Do you have a background in immunology?
|
| > Shutting down dissenting views is authoritarianism and
| categorically not free speech.
|
| > There are legitimate issues with vaccines people should
| be informed of such as early warning signs of myocarditis
| that are also not allowed on YT.
|
| That people are freely allowed to discuss with their
| doctors. Why on earth anyone expects to get medical advice
| from a for profit entertainment website is beyond me.
|
| > Are you claiming there's no point in discussing this?
|
| I literally wrote:
|
| > I absolutely think we need to discuss this topics in a
| meaningful way
|
| ...this is why we can't have nice things.
| deelowe wrote:
| > No, I'm genuinely asking you. Do you know?
|
| You're asking me to research something there's no
| evidence of? No, I'm not aware nor have I ever heard of
| this being a thing until now.
|
| > Oh you can? Do you have a background in immunology?
|
| No, but I took more than one statistics class in
| undergrad which is enough for me to make decisions I'm
| comfortable with.
|
| > That people are freely allowed to discuss with their
| doctors. Why on earth anyone expects to get medical
| advice from a for profit entertainment website is beyond
| me.
|
| Using your own point, doctors do not have a background in
| immunology. So I'm not allowed to read and interpret
| medical papers, but the same logic doesn't apply to a
| medical practitioner who has nearly zero formal education
| in medical research. Which is it?
|
| > I absolutely think we need to discuss this topics in a
| meaningful way
|
| I apologize for misinterpreting your comment, but in my
| defense, it's fairly confusing as to what point you're
| trying to make. On the one hand you say that you support
| "discussion of these topics in a meaningful way." On the
| other hand, you criticize me for desiring to read medical
| papers in an attempt to make informed decisions. You even
| go so far as to suggest I should blindly listen to my
| community college grad MP when it comes to medical
| advice. Which by the way, this is the same person that
| got me hooked on PPIs when I had GERD which is now
| causing joint issues and then tried to feed me opiates
| when I started experiencing said joint issues.
| mbesto wrote:
| > On the one hand you say that you support "discussion of
| these topics in a meaningful way."
|
| > On the other hand, you criticize me for desiring to
| read medical papers in an attempt to make informed
| decisions.
|
| The two aren't mutually exclusive. I'm trying to say we
| ought to have a meaningful discussion about these topics
| and bad actors are making it worse to do so. People who
| simply take those talking points ("makes you think huh?")
| and regurgitate them and THEN say "why can't we discuss
| this" don't faithfully want discussions, they want
| EYEBALLS (read -> $$). I can't tell if this you're
| viewpoint, but you sure are sharing a lot of the same
| characteristics of these people ("I can research
| everything myself damnit!")
|
| You absolutely should have the right to read white papers
| AND also trust that the government entity that interprets
| such articles has your best interest in mind. But you're
| insinuating that we should simply just have
| research/white papers and leave it to the general
| populace to interpret whatever they want. That is, IMHO,
| more dangerous than the alternative, especially when it
| comes to vaccinations where there is a near binary effect
| in place (you either get herd immunity or you don't,
| everything in between is potentially worse).
| gruez wrote:
| >When the polio vaccine first came out was the public (i.e.
| non medical personnel) allowed to discuss whether the use of
| inactivated virus was too risky?
|
| They weren't?
|
| >You're missing the point. The people who are crying "why
| can't we discuss GoF research or the lab leak" are not
| engaging in the argument in good faith. I absolutely think we
| need to discuss this topics in a meaningful way, however when
| most of the actors who are bringing up these topics are
| trying to cry wolf then why should we take them seriously?
|
| Why would the good faith actors get punished for the actions
| of bad faith actors?
| mbesto wrote:
| > They weren't?
|
| Happy for you to provide evidence that shows otherwise.
|
| > Why would the good faith actors get punished for the
| actions of bad faith actors?
|
| Would or should? They _shouldn 't_ get punished, but this
| precisely the point. Bad faith actors get far more
| attention than good ones. So this is already happening
| regardless of whether you want it to.
| gruez wrote:
| >Happy for you to provide evidence that shows otherwise.
|
| Just to confirm, are you claiming that the US government
| actively suppressed anti-vaccine views when the polio
| vaccine came out?
|
| >Would or should?
|
| sorry, _should_.
|
| >They shouldn't get punished, but this precisely the
| point. Bad faith actors get far more attention than good
| ones. So this is already happening regardless of whether
| you want it to.
|
| And what do you think about that? Specifically, good
| faith actors getting swept up by bad faith actors? Is
| that fine? Should we do something about it?
| mbesto wrote:
| > are you claiming that the US government actively
| suppressed anti-vaccine views when the polio vaccine came
| out?
|
| No, I'm not sure where you're getting this from?
|
| > Should we do something about it?
|
| Yes. This is a problem, but isn't that precisely what YT
| is doing..? They're banning bad faith actors here, no?
| gruez wrote:
| >No, I'm not sure where you're getting this from?
|
| Sounds like a misunderstanding then. Your initial comment
| was
|
| > > We're in the middle of a global pandemic and we're
| not allowed to discuss whether GoF research is too risky?
| We're not allowed to discuss the nuances of what a "lab
| leak" may really entail?
|
| >When the polio vaccine first came out was the public
| (i.e. non medical personnel) allowed to discuss whether
| the use of inactivated virus was too risky?
|
| The quoted poster seemed to be anti-censorship, so when
| you replied in opposition to that, it gave the impression
| that you thought there was actually censorship going on
| for polio vaccines.
|
| >but isn't that precisely what YT is doing..? They're
| banning bad faith actors here, no?
|
| They're banning everyone, bad/good faith actors alike.
| That's bad and should be stopped.
| mbesto wrote:
| > They're banning everyone, bad/good faith actors alike.
| That's bad and should be stopped.
|
| Are you sure? From the article: (emphasis mine)
|
| > YouTube is taking down _several_ video channels
| associated with high-profile anti-vaccine activists
| including Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who
| experts say are partially responsible for helping seed
| the skepticism that's contributed to slowing vaccination
| rates across the country.
|
| > As part of a new set of policies aimed at cutting down
| on anti-vaccine content on the Google-owned site, YouTube
| will ban any videos that claim that commonly used
| vaccines approved _by health authorities are ineffective
| or dangerous_. The company previously blocked videos that
| made those claims about coronavirus vaccines, but not
| ones for other vaccines like those for measles or
| chickenpox.
|
| That sounds like to me they are discretionarily deciding
| who gets banned, no?
| gameman144 wrote:
| > Happy for you to provide evidence that shows otherwise.
|
| Wait, you can't just posit something, argue as if it's
| fact, and then ask someone who challenges it to do the
| legwork of disproving it. If my argument proposed that
| fifteenth century blacksmiths weren't allowed to discuss
| unsafe anvil practices, it seems a little disingenuous to
| then say "happy for you to provide evidence that shows
| otherwise"; I'm the one that asserted that.
|
| > They shouldn't get punished, but this precisely the
| point.
|
| There's a difference between losing eyeballs to bad faith
| actors because they steal some of your market, and having
| your market banned because there are also bad faith
| actors in it.
|
| I could argue that Wal-Mart should stop selling Xinjiang
| cotton due to forced labor, but wouldn't say that the
| solution to that is too ban _all_ cotton products, even
| those responsibly produced.
|
| Perhaps a more relevant analogy: Amazon might decide to
| ban Mein Kampf, but I'd hope they wouldn't ban books
| discussing why Hitler's platform and rhetoric were
| appealing to the Germans of the time. Frankly speaking, I
| wouldn't want even Mein Kampf to be banned: silencing bad
| or evil ideas makes them enticing (note the popularity of
| "check out/buy a banned book" events throughout libraries
| and bookstores).
|
| Good faith actors being harmed by bad faith actors is
| always going to be a thing. Good faith actors being
| punished _by other good faith actors_ seems like
| something we shouldn 't be okay with, though.
| mbesto wrote:
| > If my argument proposed that fifteenth century
| blacksmiths weren't allowed to discuss unsafe anvil
| practices, it seems a little disingenuous
|
| If the you argument proposed (blacksmiths weren't allowed
| to discuss unsafe anvil practices) was factual and I'm
| asking you to provide evidence of such how is that
| disingenuous?
|
| > I could argue that Wal-Mart should stop selling
| Xinjiang cotton
|
| > Amazon might decide to ban Mein Kampf,
|
| These are bad examples because you are explicitly paying
| for these items as opposed to clickbait / attention
| grabbing content which gets more viewership the more
| controversial it is (which has been proven by various
| studies).
|
| > Good faith actors being punished by other good faith
| actors
|
| Agreed, but who's the other good faith actor you're
| referring to here? YouTube?
| gameman144 wrote:
| > These are bad examples because you are explicitly
| paying for these items as opposed to clickbait /
| attention grabbing content which gets more viewership the
| more controversial it is (which has been proven by
| various studies).
|
| This seems the same to me.
|
| A book with a flashy cover or title is more likely to be
| purchased because it's attention grabbing. Action movies
| have trailers with explosions and one-liner quips because
| they're attention grabbing. Cereal boxes say "new and
| improved!" because it's attention grabbing. Magazines and
| cable news ask "Does Jell-o cause cancer?" because it's
| attention grabbing.
|
| Controversial content gets more clicks because it's
| attention grabbing, so I would absolutely expect that to
| be more enticing than the same information packaged less
| flamboyantly (just like I'd expect more attention-
| grabbing books, movies, cereal, and magazines to perform
| better as well.)
| HyperRational wrote:
| Anti-vaxxers spread lies that are causing a lot of unneeded
| death and suffering.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693407, partly because
| it's swerving into generic ideological flamewar, and partly
| because I need to prune some large subthreads in order to ease
| the load on our poor server, which smoke is coming out of right
| now. The latter is our problem and we're working on fixing it,
| but the former is the community's problem and everyone needs to
| work on fixing that.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| deelowe wrote:
| Thanks. I'll tone down the snark.
| swader999 wrote:
| Censoring discussion in an environment of coercive mandates.
| Anyone working for Google - how do you justify this? You have
| great options out there you know?
| colechristensen wrote:
| The problem is that for any major issues you can get
| attention and money for publishing a contrarian view.
| Platforms like youtube then can be megaphones for monetizing
| conspiracy theories which do actual harm. There is some
| distance between good faith discussion and promoting the
| opposite of whatever view is popular.
|
| Content distributors are then on a knife edge with
| moderation, and how to moderate fairly is incredibly
| difficult. Youtube doesn't want to be the vaccine conspiracy
| clearing house so at some point they decided to just ban it
| all. Making money from peoples attention brings this problem
| and moralizing won't make it go away.
| swader999 wrote:
| All your points are true but they don't lead to the
| conclusion that censorship is the answer. The problem is
| the attention algorithms create an echo chamber with little
| room for distasteful alternatives. The quack content is on
| page 1 getting all the money from anyone on a particular
| rabbit hole. There shouldn't be this rabbit hole, the quack
| content should always be on page 12. And in the earlier
| days of Google before the heavy focus on personalisation,
| this is the way it worked.
| colechristensen wrote:
| >the quack content should always be on page 12.
|
| The problem is that the content is engineered to take
| advantage of humans and google and becomes the thing on
| the first page. You might be yearning for the old days of
| less effective SEO. It's a hard problem _how_ to moderate
| away though algorithm design or manual intervention
| things which pull on the strings of human weaknesses.
|
| Is an algorithm designed to de-prioritize content you
| don't like any better than a human selecting content for
| removal?
| Aunche wrote:
| Google isn't the one who wants to cut their ad revenue and
| get accused for being Big Brother. Social media censorship
| has always occured because people demanded it. This time,
| it's not just an angry Twitter mob either. Even the president
| are saying that they are not doing enough to combat
| misinformation.
| pjc50 wrote:
| There's still people dying in large numbers, unvaccinated?
| Eventually people notice the body count against a point of
| principle. That's how we got to this point.
| swader999 wrote:
| They'll notice it if the data can be discussed freely.
| raisedbyninjas wrote:
| This is Youtube, not SciHub.
| ashleyn wrote:
| This ignores the aspect of personal responsibility. Nobody
| is forcing these people to refuse the free and widely-
| available vaccine - they do so by choice and an adult
| consciousness, and it follows that you bear the
| consequences for your personal decisions.
| swader999 wrote:
| How can you make a responsible informed choice when
| censorship and access to information is restricted?
|
| Trust the experts then? Why would you if they don't let
| you freely talk about it?
| [deleted]
| duhast wrote:
| I'm assuming you're getting your health advice on YouTube
| and Facebook? How are random fearmongers on YouTube more
| credible than CDC or FDA?
| the8472 wrote:
| They aren't credible, but for other reasons. Remember
| when covid wasn't airborne and thus masks didn't do
| anything unless worn by professionals? And border
| closures wouldn't be necessary and only xenophobes would
| call for them? And then how they banned corona tests by
| anyone but the CDC? And the approval delays?
|
| They're playing politics, worry about second-order
| effects before first-order ones and do 180deg turns
| instead of focusing on the core mission of assessing
| whether something is a) safe b) likely effective. The
| same situation happened again with the booster approvals,
| they dragged their feet again and decided that only those
| above 65 should be allowed to get them when in practice
| some international travelers already are forced to get
| more than two shots due to inconsistent regulations.
|
| More nuanced policy, communicating uncertainty and
| "currently not recommended but allowed" middle grounds
| would help their credibility.
| swader999 wrote:
| The recent vote against boosters by the expert CDC
| committee and the resulting overturn by the head of the
| CDC highlights the need for broader free and uncensored
| discussion.
|
| I read a lot of studies and get help parsing them from
| YouTube occasionally. Watching videos of more competent
| people poking holes in videos of quacks talking about the
| same studies is quite useful and persuasive.
| duhast wrote:
| Content like what you're describing is expensive to make,
| usually very boring and gets no views. You have to pay
| experts, read studies, interview government officials,
| maybe even read some science papers. Later you have to
| dumb it down enough so the common man can understand it.
| Content like this makes me want to defer the matter
| immediately to actual experts so I can stop thinking
| about it.
|
| Now contrast this to viral content claiming that Bill
| Gates is conspiring to implant 5G chips, vaccine induced
| magnetism, government hiding thousands of deaths from
| COVID vaccines and all other conspiracy theories that are
| easy to manufacture from the comfort of your home,
| require no expert opinion and get tons of views. Content
| like this is super addictive, exploits my fears, sows
| doubt and leaves me less informed. This content wins is
| the economy like this.
| swader999 wrote:
| I had a reply about attention algos promoting content
| higher than it deserves being the root problem. In the
| old days content with more credible links to it made it
| to the top for all regardless of your preconceived
| notions. Now everything is gamed out to your existing
| profile with God like precision.
| umvi wrote:
| If they are unvaccinated and they die, so what? They made
| their choice. The doctors ought to be saying "Well, well,
| well, if it isn't the consequences of your own actions" not
| trying to force people to do something in order to save
| them from themselves.
|
| Then you always hear "well the _real_ problem is that the
| unvaccinated are taking up ICU beds from non-covid patients
| that need them, etc. "
|
| Ok, how long have we known about this problem now? Why are
| ICU beds such a fixed resource? Why can't we make temporary
| wards for unvaccinated covid patients to alleviate ICU
| beds?
|
| If this problem happened in the tech world it would be
| lambasted. "Please stop making requests to X website, it
| makes the server crash and then the people that really need
| to access it can't". Yeah DDoS attacks happen and are hard
| to prevent downtime, but if the server loading problem
| still persisted over a year and a half later people would
| be outraged that the company did nothing to try to meet the
| load. In the tech world when servers can't handle its load
| we start scaling (either automatically or manually) until
| the server can meet the load (or otherwise take some sort
| of mitigating action to alleviate the DoS). Hospitals need
| to innovate a way to do the same, "please don't get sick
| with covid because we have no way of scaling to meet load
| spikes" is such a crappy way of operating.
| crooked-v wrote:
| > Why are ICU beds such a fixed resource?
|
| Because there are only a limited number of trained nurses
| and doctors available. "ICU beds" as a metric actually
| means the number of patients the staff is able to care
| for, not the literal number of physical beds.
| bena wrote:
| > Why are ICU beds such a fixed resource?
|
| Because resources are finite.
|
| Not to mention, even if you have some extra to handle
| variable demand, exceptional circumstances are by their
| nature exceptional. It's irresponsible to carry that much
| more capacity when you'll only need it once a century.
|
| Take for example the recent Hurricane Ida. There's still
| trash and debris to pick up. There's still damage to be
| fixed, houses to be rebuilt, etc. Insurance claims to
| process and pay out. Why?
|
| Because there's going to be over 2 million cubic feet of
| vegetation to dispose of. Just in my parish. That's not
| considering the other parishes. Or other types of debris.
| There are trucks from several states and they've been
| working most days. And we still need to get rid of downed
| trees.
|
| Because every house is going to have a claim. Every house
| is going to need some form of repair. Thousands of
| houses. All at once.
|
| We aren't prepared to handle that sort of scale. And
| having the resources to handle that sort of scale is just
| going to languish when its not needed. It'll be waste.
|
| Same deal with COVID. COVID is filling ICUs at a scale
| that is wasteful to keep on hand during normal
| operations.
|
| And I'm sorry, saying they "need to innovate" is just the
| laziest criticism one can make. It exposes the fact that
| you have not thought of the problem at all beyond
| noticing the obvious lack of resources. Congratulations
| for noticing the obvious. How are they supposed to
| innovate? How do you know they haven't created temporary
| wards (they have where they could)? What does it take to
| make a site appropriate for an ICU ward? Etc, etc. There
| are problems that you don't even know exist because you
| don't know the problem domain. And that's ok. You're not
| expected to. But don't armchair quarterback the domain
| experts who have been working on this problem for the
| past year. It's not as smart as you think it is.
| umvi wrote:
| > Because resources are finite.
|
| Okay, then why are hospital resources _more finite_ than
| non-hospital resources that can scale?
|
| > It's irresponsible to carry that much more capacity
| when you'll only need it once a century
|
| But you need it for at least 2-3% of the century it
| seems, so the current model of "please don't overload our
| beds for 2-3 years" doesn't seem very sustainable either.
| It's almost like you want Amazon-style "elastic"
| resources that only kick in when you need them.
|
| > Same deal with COVID. COVID is filling ICUs at a scale
| that is wasteful to keep on hand during normal
| operations.
|
| So don't keep them on hand. Figure out a way to mobilize
| the resources when you need them.
|
| > What does it take to make a site appropriate for an ICU
| ward?
|
| For one thing, maybe making "a site appropriate for an
| ICU ward" is too stringent a requirement in times of
| crisis and overloading?
|
| My solution: Setup circus tents in the parking lot
| reserved for unvaccinated covid patients where they can
| sleep on army cots with fewer ICU resources and where
| they die at higher rates than the normal ICU.
|
| Bam, problem solved. Now the normal ICU is at normal
| capacity again and unvaccinated covid patients can still
| receive some limited form of care. If they die at higher
| rates, oh well, that's a consequence of not getting
| vaccinated and the direct result of their own choices.
| And it's better than letting vaccinated heart attack
| patients die because their unvaccinated comrades took up
| all the beds and it's also better than taking away
| everyone's freedom and forcing the vaccination upon
| everyone. Because now everyone is happy. The unvaccinated
| still have their freedom, the vaccinated still have their
| ICU beds.
|
| I'm sure people more familiar with the problem domain
| could come up with something much better than circus
| tents in a parking lot. My point was that everyone seems
| to have accepted that hospitals are inflexible and that
| the only way to solve the problem is to flatten the curve
| indefinitely and I don't accept that. Sure, flatten the
| curve initially, but only until you figure out a better
| long term solution to dealing with loading spikes.
| bena wrote:
| I just gave you a recent real-life example where non-
| hospital resources were finite. Did you not read about
| the on-going problems due to the recent hurricane I
| mentioned?
|
| Also your solution would pretty much kill all those
| people. People are in an ICU ward for a reason, moving
| them to a parking lot tent is not the same. Now, they're
| not just battling COVID, but also everything else that's
| out there.
|
| By your logic, putting a bullet in their heads would also
| solve the problem.
|
| But the problem isn't "getting rid of COVID patients",
| it's "making sick people well".
|
| > It's almost like you want "elastic" resources that only
| kick in when you need them.
|
| No. I'm saying that doesn't exist. That it's folly to
| think that.
|
| > So don't keep them on hand. Figure out a way to
| mobilize the resources when you need them.
|
| This is you literally suggesting the solution is
| ""elastic" resources that only kick in when you need
| them". The thing I said doesn't exist and is an
| impossibly difficult problem.
| swader999 wrote:
| Well you can't easily scale staff of course, especially
| when some of them take a decade to train.
| umvi wrote:
| True, that is one limitation, but there are tons of other
| things you could do. A little innovation is required
| here. I do not believe it is an impossible problem. I
| think what's happening is that hospitals don't really
| want to innovate and are hoping to just wait for covid to
| blow over so then can return to "normal" operation and
| business-as-usual.
|
| But I say they need to innovate because this isn't the
| last pandemic that will ever happen, and hospitals need a
| way to deal with loading spikes and denial of service
| just like every other system susceptible to those things.
| Hallucinaut wrote:
| Some may argue the medical establishment has done this:
| they made a vaccine.
|
| Everyone pays for maintained capacity. If you believe in
| a free market then your hypothetical plague-better is
| going to go bust well before they get to reap benefits
| from having 100k ventilators in storage.
| swader999 wrote:
| There is merit in your points. How does the world
| discover these alternatives when everything outside the
| current treatment regime is heavily censored?
| orra wrote:
| > A little innovation is required here
|
| You can't 'innovate' a doubling of trained medical staff,
| not in a matter of months.
| umvi wrote:
| Innovation involves working around limitations. I already
| conceded that medical staff was a limitation. So how do
| you work around it? Training covid-specialized temps,
| perhaps? I don't know the answer because I'm not an
| expert in that problem domain. But I've innovated around
| similar limitations in my current domain expertise so I
| believe it is possible.
| ben_w wrote:
| > Training covid-specialized temps, perhaps?
|
| You _can't_. That's the point. Nursing, even at the
| lowest level, is _not_ a trivial skill. The only people
| you could scale up at short notice like that -- if there
| wasn't also a general all-sector labour shortage -- is
| nursing _assistants_ , who have to generally do their
| thing under supervision of a registered nurse, which is
| an Associate degree or a Batchelor degree.
|
| (There is an intermediate level of Licensed Practical
| Nurse who can be unsupervised but can't supervise others,
| which is "just" a one year vocational course).
|
| > But I've innovated around similar limitations in my
| current domain expertise so I believe it is possible.
|
| Unless you've innovated around a crippling multi-state
| demand spike, during a general labour marked supply
| shortage, in a sector where getting things wrong is
| literally lethal and where people sue for malpractice
| even for sub-lethal errors despite the government
| mandated minimum qualification levels, I think you are
| making an error in thinking your experience is
| transferable.
|
| (If you do have that experience, please share, as that
| sounds like one heck of an anecdote!)
|
| That said: One thing you could "innovate" that would
| technically work is making a roving vaccination drone
| that hunts down and forcibly vaccinates people that don't
| want a vaccine. Even ignoring medical ethics, I don't
| think that's a great idea. But _technically_ ...
| umvi wrote:
| > You can't. That's the point.
|
| Hmm, funny. I'm pretty sure I could train a non-
| programmer to do a specialized type of programming task
| in a few months if it were a crisis even though that
| person doesn't have a computer science degree. I don't
| see why healthcare is _so_ much more difficult to train
| temporary specialists. Didn 't we do it during WW2
| (rapidly train medical specialists in a matter of months,
| aka medics, without a 4 year degree)?
|
| > Unless you've innovated around a crippling multi-state
| demand spike, during a general labour marked supply
| shortage, in a sector where getting things wrong is
| literally lethal and where people sue for malpractice
| even for sub-lethal errors despite the government
| mandated minimum qualification levels, I think you are
| making an error in thinking your experience is
| transferable.
|
| Yeah that's the real problem. Any innovations that
| alleviate the problem are going to run afoul of some
| bureaucratic, regulatory, and legal red tape put in place
| over the last century. So let me rephrase - I could
| probably innovate and solve this problem if I were a
| medical professional. But not without running afoul of
| some red tape somewhere. But I say red tape is meant to
| be broken in times of crisis.
| ben_w wrote:
| > I'm pretty sure I could train a non-programmer to do a
| specialized type of programming task in a few months if
| it were a crisis even though that person doesn't have a
| computer science degree.
|
| Then you're either underestimating the complexity of
| programming or overestimating general skill level:
|
| https://www.nngroup.com/articles/computer-skill-levels/
|
| """One of the difficult tasks was to schedule a meeting
| room in a scheduling application, using information
| contained in several email messages."""
|
| """Level 3 = 5% of Adult Population
|
| ...
|
| The meeting room task described above requires level-3
| skills. Another example of level-3 task is "You want to
| know what percentage of the emails sent by John Smith
| last month were about sustainability.""""
|
| People _here_ are unusually good with computers.
|
| I have no reason to think intensive care of respiratory
| illnesses is easier than code.
|
| I don't know enough medicine to say what typical
| treatment is, but a quick search says the entire USA has
| 93k ICU beds, that the number occupied by COVID patients
| went from 3500 in June to 26,000 in September, that the
| total number of COVID patients (including non-ICU) peaked
| at 97800 in September (and 133,250 in Jan) and that there
| are _oxygen_ shortages in various hospitals worldwide
| because too many patients need the same treatment at the
| same time.
|
| Given how easy it is to make oxygen -- and to make
| something that makes it -- a shortage of it can only
| happen when there are enough other things that also need
| to be fixed that it isn't the limiting factor.
|
| As someone else said elsewhere on this thread, the actual
| innovation is _the vaccine_.
| swader999 wrote:
| There's physical skills involved too, it's not just
| knowledge.
| umvi wrote:
| > Then you're either underestimating the complexity of
| programming or overestimating general skill level
|
| The more specialized a task is, the narrower the range of
| skills you need to do that task. I could certainly train
| someone on how to do a specialized programming task such
| as cleaning CSV files in python in a matter of months.
| They wouldn't be able to do much else, but they would be
| able to do that fairly well.
|
| Being a general practitioner is hard because the
| knowledge and skill pool is huge. Being an ultra-
| specialist easy by comparison.
|
| Very often patients of rare diseases (including cancer
| types) know _much_ more about their specific type of
| disease, known treatment methods, etc. than a general
| practitioner. How is this possible? The scope of their
| study is very narrow, so they can quickly go much deeper
| than a general practitioner on that one topic.
|
| So yes, I still think it would be possible to train ultra
| specialized covid caretakers in a matter of months given
| how much we know about how the disease progresses. They
| don't need to know anything outside of specifically covid
| and they can flag any cases falling outside of their
| training to a more qualified person.
|
| Think of it this way: you basically just train people to
| learn flow charts. The flow charts cover 90%+ of what
| typically happens to an ICU patient with covid. If they
| encounter something not in flow chart, they stop and
| escalate to a real nurse or doctor. You're saying such a
| scheme wouldn't be effective at all? I think it would
| free up tons of medical personnel.
| robotresearcher wrote:
| > If they are unvaccinated and they die, so what?
|
| Every infected person is host to the evolution of the
| virus. It is likely to become vaccine resistant given
| enough reproduction cycles. And it could become more, or
| less, deadly. If it starts killing children quickly, like
| measles, and is vaccine resistant because we let it
| simmer in 35% of the population, we will be very sorry.
|
| Our best defense against this is to vaccinate as quickly
| as possible. Measles now rarely kills our children, due
| to vaccination.
| swader999 wrote:
| Measles is fundamentally different. Asymptomatic
| transmission and zootic reservoirs have no impact. It's
| not a leaky vaccine and we aren't in the midst of a
| measles pandemic. Long lasting sterile immunity is
| provided by the measles vaccine. It makes a lot of sense
| to mass vaccinate for measles.
| [deleted]
| president wrote:
| Any statistics and numbers need to be scrutinized carefully
| given the past year of the media and our institutions
| showing a clear bias in trying to inflate numbers for mass
| hysteria and scaring people into taking the vaccine.
| fridif wrote:
| By ignoring it and buying new houses and cars
| justwanttolearn wrote:
| Even for racism and homophobia has now merged through grey
| areas. Someone who disagrees with mass immigration is a racist
| and someone who is pro the sanctity of marriage between man and
| woman (not that you can't get legal rights as a same sex
| couple) is now homophobia. There's so much nuance in under
| these big umbrellas that no one care to have a dialogue about,
| they just want clear cut right or wrong with the world is
| filled in fuzzy lines.
| reilly3000 wrote:
| Ir hardly "cannot be discussed". I've participated in several
| online discussions about it, and cited several major news
| outlets covering the story. The White House is openly
| investigating the topic. Defending free speech is very
| important, but crying wolf about censorship is
| counterproductive to the cause.
| josephcsible wrote:
| How much content needs to be censored before we can talk
| about censorship without "crying wolf"?
| chefkoch wrote:
| How many people have to die because of misinformation
| before it's OK to take it down?
| datavirtue wrote:
| Give me liberty or give me death. Very simple.
| psyc wrote:
| Much too simple for people so conditioned to crafting
| rule sets to solve problems.
| hunterb123 wrote:
| Big bad "misinformation". The CCP also use that word as
| an excuse for censorship.
|
| You fight misinformation with more information, not
| censorship.
|
| > These peasants can't think for themselves, we have to
| tell them what to think! Especially if they disagree or
| dissent!
|
| First it was "think of the children!"
|
| Then it was "think of grandma!"
|
| Now it's "think of the gullible!"
| chefkoch wrote:
| Ah, so how do you do that, because the current approach
| does not seem to work.
|
| And when do you as platform owner think enough people
| died because of the content you host?
| hunterb123 wrote:
| The current approach is to ban dissent for sanctioned
| topics (lab leak, hunter's laptop, vaccinations, etc.)
| and I agree that it's not working, because you get an
| echo chamber and force critics into the darkness whether
| they are right or wrong.
|
| The right approach is always more information. People can
| think for themselves, $5000 of Russian ads didn't do
| anything more or have any more lies a D or R campaign ad
| did, so stop pretending it did.
|
| If you want to ban foreign actors, that's fine. Targeting
| citizens with legit concerns and ideas is wrong and
| violates their rights, even if you launder your tyranny
| through private companies.
| chefkoch wrote:
| > The current approach is to ban dissent for sanctioned
| topics
|
| This is a fairly new approach.
|
| >The right approach is always more information. People
| can think for themselves,
|
| This has been tried for many years, i don't know how old
| you are but the Jenny McCarthy authism stuff is still
| around.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| If "misinformation" were easily discriminated, there
| would be no need to wait for consequences to properly
| label it.
| whatshisface wrote:
| It's difficult to claim that it's crying wolf in the comment
| section of an article by a reputable mainstream source
| telling us what's happening. Honestly it is a little
| surprising that the mainstream is even admitting the
| censorship is happening and not helping hide it "for the good
| of the people," but I guess if this article didn't appear
| they'd lose what was left of their credibility.
| specialist wrote:
| > _...In today 's world of "woke" content creators_
|
| Welcome to the new woke. Same as the old woke.
|
| Lather, rinse, repeat.
| ghuin wrote:
| The problem is people who thought there were "clear cut
| issues". Now there are more issues that are considered clear
| cut. Disagree? Bad for you.
| hammock wrote:
| Related to consolidation and centralization of power
| kiba wrote:
| While I agree that free speech is important, misinformation is
| nonetheless an important topic to discuss.
|
| Public policy debates are important because it leads to a more
| accurate state and more informed decision, but not when anti-
| vaccine opponents continue to undermine accurate information at
| every turn.
| native_samples wrote:
| How do you know the information is accurate?
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Then argue against it. You elevated the misinformation by
| banning it.
|
| How many people make their vaccination decision because of
| Youtube content?
|
| It is paramount that some people get a more realistic picture
| here...
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| You can't argue with a cult. My entire wife's family are
| rabid GOPers and I have had multiple discussions where I
| have absolutely crushed them with facts and the outcome,
| nothing. They will simply deny anything that doesn't agree
| with their world view as "fake news" while believing
| anything Trump says without question.
|
| How do you have a rational discussion like that? If folks
| can find absolutely zero common ground to agree on, there
| is no basis for any type of meaningful discourse.
| linuxftw wrote:
| I'd love to debate you to crush you with facts.
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| Why is that? The central point of my argument is that the
| death rate in the US is the highest it's been since the
| middle of WWII. Everyone keeps saying it's not a deadly
| disease, not many people are actually dying, that it is
| being inflated because it's being listed as the cause of
| death. The vaccines don't work, yet you're 11 times more
| likely to die if you have not been vaccinated. The fact
| of the matter is, this data is undeniable, there is no
| question on the number of dead people (not from COVID,
| just dead).
|
| Keep sticking you head in the sand.
| linuxftw wrote:
| > death rate in the US is the highest it's been since the
| middle of WWII
|
| Age standardized mortality rate (that is, accounts for an
| increasingly old population) is at 2008 levels in the UK.
| This doesn't account the total lack of treatment early
| on, patients were denied anti-inflammatory medicine and
| put on ventilators instead of normal oxygen.
|
| > saying it's not a deadly disease, not many people are
| actually dying
|
| Not many people are dying of COVID-19, they're dying with
| COVID-19. Most have serious underlying conditions.
|
| > The vaccines don't work, yet you're 11 times more
| likely to die if you have not been vaccinated.
|
| This is patently untrue. 87% of deaths and
| hospitalizations since July are vaccinated [1]. Now, this
| site might seem sketch, but you can download the reports
| from the Scottish government yourself and verify the
| math. I did, it's accurate. Tellingly, the latest report
| is missing the death count table.
|
| If the vaccines have any affect at all, it's marginal,
| and only in the elderly. Of course, they don't work,
| that's why they're rolling out 'boosters' because the
| vaccines keep failing.
|
| 1: https://theexpose.uk/2021/07/29/87-percent-covid-
| deaths-are-...
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| > Age standardized mortality rate (that is, accounts for
| an increasingly old population) is at 2008 levels in the
| UK. This doesn't account the total lack of treatment
| early on, patients were denied anti-inflammatory medicine
| and put on ventilators instead of normal oxygen.
|
| Thank you for confirming my argument, vaccination rates
| in the UK are well over 80%.
|
| > Not many people are dying of COVID-19, they're dying
| with COVID-19. Most have serious underlying conditions.
|
| Actually, deaths from underlying health conditions are
| all up in addition to COVID deaths, try again.
|
| > This is patently untrue. 87% of deaths and
| hospitalizations since July are vaccinated [1]. Now, this
| site might seem sketch, but you can download the reports
| from the Scottish government yourself and verify the
| math. I did, it's accurate. Tellingly, the latest report
| is missing the death count table.
|
| That is not an honest statement, granted I should have
| qualified my statement with "in the US". Comparing a
| country with a much higher vaccination rate seems to be
| apples to oranges. Very interesting stat though, need to
| read more on that.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/10/moderna-
| mos...
|
| > If the vaccines have any affect at all, it's marginal,
| and only in the elderly. Of course, they don't work,
| that's why they're rolling out 'boosters' because the
| vaccines keep failing.
|
| This is 100% supposition, what data would you cite, if
| any, to back this up?
| deelowe wrote:
| > How do you have a rational discussion like that?
|
| You may never, but by deplatforming them, you're only
| feed the conspiracies.
| rabuse wrote:
| Are they conspiracies when they start becoming true
| though? I remember when the vaccine mandates and
| passports were a "conspiracy" at the begging of the COVID
| lockdowns. Now, here we are...
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| If only vaccine mandates were a new thing...
|
| I remember having to provide vaccine proof to get my kids
| into public school, when enrolling them into college. How
| is this a new thing? Why is it such a big deal now? Why
| are these people kicking up such a fuss now?
|
| The reason: GOP makes money and gains power by proving
| people will believe anything they say. This is a blind
| power grab and the only reason it is an issue is because
| it is a great talking point. Tucker Carlson and the like
| are only doing this to get money, why no one sees that is
| beyond me.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Not unlike the censoring any discussion of the lab leak
| hypothesis they (the censors) better be perfectly
| accurate every single time.
|
| The moment they get it wrong and censor something that
| turns out to be the truth they lose 100% of their
| credibility and become a part of the conspiracy
| themselves.
| rabuse wrote:
| Nobody "fact checks" Biden either. His statements and
| numbers are always way off reality, but the media just
| lets it slide.
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| I agree, however how do you deal with folks knowingly
| spreading misinformation for financial gain? Most of the
| "sources" have an active interest in having people listen
| to them and will say anything that will get more people
| to tune in, no matter the content.
|
| Do we just let them continue in an age where there are
| morons out there that will believe anything that is
| written in a coherent sentence or posted to Youtube with
| cool background music? At some point we have to hold
| people accountable, as this is straight up murder in some
| cases. Remember that girl that convinced her boyfriend to
| kill himself?
| adolph wrote:
| > crushed them with facts
|
| _"I 've learned that people will forget what you said,
| people will forget what you did, but people will never
| forget how you made them feel."_
|
| Maya Angelou
|
| https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/5934-i-ve-learned-that-
| peop...
| kodisha wrote:
| Tho this might be true, I wonder how would one utilize
| this technique?
|
| For example, if you have someone who is total avaxx, how
| should you make him feel in order to change his mind?
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| while believing anything Trump says without question.
|
| Trump is pro vaccine... He still brags about his
| involvement with Operation Warp Speed. How does this work
| out? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eA306aNtvmk
|
| I too have to deal with hard right wing Christians... I
| used to be one. The idea that they are too stupid or
| deluded to be talked to about anything just isn't true.
| Talking to people about emotionally charged issues is
| hard, and if your attitude is that they're all idiots
| you're not gonna do it productively. "Crushing" someone
| with facts will never, ever change their mind.
|
| I've been able to have a lot of discussions with these
| types of people (albeit not everyone) because I
| understand them.
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| Right and Trump got boo'ed for saying people should get
| vaccinated because he's reaping the consequences of
| speaking without thought. I didn't say they're stupid, I
| said they're fools for believing what is obvious a bunch
| of politically motivated lies, science is no place for
| emotion.
|
| What these people do lack is the ability to think
| critically about the subject, examine their biases, and
| challenge their assumptions. If we can't change people's
| mind with the truth, what possibly could make them
| realize they have been duped?
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| I didn't say they're stupid, I said their fools for
| believing what is obvious a bunch of politically
| motivated lies, science is no place for emotion.
|
| No, you said "while believing anything Trump says without
| question." If we can't change people's
| mind with the truth, what possibly could make them
| realize they have been duped?
|
| Packaging matters. People are emotional and make rarely
| make factual determinations in a vacuum. Your attitude in
| our conversation so far tells me that you have a near-
| zero opinion of their intellect and have no idea why they
| believe what they believe (ie you say that they believe
| 100% of what Trump says, but 10 seconds later acknowledge
| they'll boo him at his own rally). You most likely come
| across as smug and superior in these conversations so
| while you may just be explaining that mRNA therapies have
| been in development for decades they will see it as an
| attack on them... Logical? No, but it's how humans
| operate. Maybe you're perfectly logical but I kinda doubt
| it.
|
| Lets use creationism as an example because it's what I
| have the most experience with. You can argue until you're
| blue in the face with facts and won't get anywhere most
| of the time -- there were certainly people who had that
| experience with me 15-20 years ago. Looking back I wasn't
| interested in the facts. The Adam and Eve story had to be
| literal to explain original sin, which had to be a thing
| to explain Jesus' sacrifice which was one of the most
| central things I believed in. So when you'd crush me with
| facts demonstrating that the earth cannot be 6,000 years
| old you'd actually be tugging at the single most central
| thing I believed. Good luck.
|
| I was reasoned out of young earth creationism, but I had
| to be in a place where Jesus was also on the table to be
| discussed. It took about a year from "oh shit, that's how
| radiometric dating works" to "uh yeah, none of this makes
| sense." Open discourse was the only way that was possible
| -- the talk.origins archive, books like Why Evolution is
| True by Coyne, lectures by friendly scientists, ect.
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| That's a lot of assumptions about me and my behavior.
| You're right on one thing, I don't understand how pride
| and selfishness can be such a driving force behind
| people's views. I don't think your analogy with
| creationism holds water though, it doesn't cause a public
| health hazard. While I don't personally endorse
| creationism, I could care less what you believe and only
| have an opinion if you are trying to force me into the
| same mindset and while science has undeniably proven
| creationism false, there is no real detectable detriment
| to folks believing it.
|
| COVID on the other hand is a massive public health
| problem and I view this unfounded resistance in the same
| vein as drunk driving and yelling fire in a crowded
| theatre. Your freedom ends when it begins to endanger
| other people. If there were any even remotely reasonable
| arguments, I could engender some empathy for these folks,
| however there is not, it is complete lies, fabrication,
| and fear mongering. 2000 year old ghosts, while useful
| for creating a system of morality to keep people in line,
| is not a basis for scientific discourse.
| Jensson wrote:
| > Right and Trump got boo'ed for saying people should get
| vaccinated because he's reaping the consequences of
| speaking without thought.
|
| Trump saying that massively reduced Democrats opinion on
| vaccines and massively increased Republicans opinion on
| vaccines though. People shift their opinions really easy
| over tiny things, every little bit that makes one side
| more convincing helps pushing people to the correct
| realization and vice versa. So it is very possible to
| convince a lot of people, thinking otherwise just ensure
| those people wont get convinced. It is a spectrum, every
| tiny step helps a lot, there is never a point where being
| more convincing no longer helps.
|
| https://content.gallup.com/origin/gallupinc/GallupSpaces/
| Pro...
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| I hate to be pedantic but the poll you reference was in
| 2020 and Trump said that in May of 2021. I don't think it
| had a measurable effect on either party.
| Jensson wrote:
| You are right, this was due to another statement by
| Trump. But Trump saying something about a vaccine had
| that big of an effect. As soon as Trump started talking
| about getting a vaccine out to the people Democrats
| started to think that an FDA approved vaccine would be a
| bad thing while Republicans started thinking it was a
| good thing. As you see in the graph after that statement
| both groups were almost equally willing to get
| vaccinated.
|
| > Democrats' reduced confidence follows President Donald
| Trump's Labor Day announcement that a coronavirus vaccine
| could be ready in October, as well as subsequent news
| reports stating that Trump is eager to see a vaccine
| delivered before the election. Trump's accelerated
| timeline does not align with that of many government
| health experts, and this disagreement has raised concerns
| as to whether a vaccine distributed that soon would be
| effective and safe.
|
| https://news.gallup.com/poll/321839/readiness-covid-
| vaccine-...
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| I would treat Democrats that refused a vaccination
| because it was Trump's FDA with the same disdain. The
| fact that this issue is divisive along political lines is
| what is so damn infuriating. This is science people, one
| of the few things left on the planet that can conceivably
| be free of emotional discourse and we're actively killing
| it for financial gain.
|
| I'm not a Republican or a Democrat, I'm a scientist.
| fighterpilot wrote:
| Most people aren't able to dispassionately pursue the
| truth. You need to remove emotional barriers first before
| the facts can be heard by finding ideological and
| emotional common ground somewhere and then using that
| camaraderie as an attack vector to convince them that
| something else that they believe is wrong. I have done
| that somewhat successfully with a fairly far-right
| person, managing to bring them back on some of their more
| extreme views.
|
| It's possible you weren't the right person for this
| specific job. I believe that some alignment on at least
| some views is necessary for this process, otherwise the
| barriers just immediately go up.
|
| Having said that, it's true that for some people no
| amount of reasoning or persuasion will work. The amount
| of cognitive dissonance and the extent to which the
| belief is tied into their self-worth and identity
| precludes anything but a years-long process of
| deradicalization. People aren't designed to be rational.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| What's going to actually convince people? I don't think
| it's six months of watching YT videos. Is that one extra
| video really going to change things?
|
| It seems more like blind contrarianism.
| 5e92cb50239222b wrote:
| > How many people make their vaccination decision because
| of Youtube content?
|
| Every one of the four anti-vaxxers that I personally know.
| I don't have any objective stats and this is just a single
| anecdote, sure.
| deelowe wrote:
| It's facebook for me.
| chefkoch wrote:
| >How many people make their vaccination decision because of
| Youtube content?
|
| Way more than one would think.
| ljm wrote:
| I feel like 'malinformation' describes this kind of thing
| more accurately, as it is a style of misinformation that has
| directly harmful effects that can be fatal.
|
| It's another level, compared to misinforming people about
| other things.
| [deleted]
| Meekro wrote:
| The lab leak theory was "misinformation" until it wasn't.
| They say "listen to the experts" and then censor actual
| doctors and scientists who say the wrong things. An "expert"
| is apparently someone who has a degree and holds the approved
| views, everyone else is spouting "misinformation."
| [deleted]
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater. An
| expert being wrong once doesn't mean all experts everywhere
| are always wrong.
|
| Experts are a real thing. People who spend a lifetime
| learning about something will, on average, make better
| decisions about that thing then you or I. Pretending that
| this is not true is not only silly, it's often dangerous.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| The problem is it is not just one mistake. Just look at
| the experts saying you don't need masks at the beginning
| of all of this. They didn't just get it wrong, they
| outright lied and admitted as much. Fool me once, shame
| on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| I don't think he's disputing that experts are real. He's
| saying that we need to be able to question the experts
| (ie the lab lead being refuted by scientists with massive
| conflicts of interest). Experts are also not a monolith,
| there were experts saying the lab leak theory was
| credible but they were shut down during the early stages.
| native_samples wrote:
| In the lab leak case it appears that all the "experts"
| everywhere were wrong (or afraid to speak up, which is
| functionally equivalent).
|
| One problem here is the conflation of government
| officials and academia with expertise. It's quite plainly
| possible to spend your life in academia yet end up with
| no actual expertise in the topic you're studying, as
| evidenced by the large number of papers out there
| presenting unvalidated predictions which end up being
| wildly false, over and over again. Fundamentally, in
| academia and government being wrong doesn't cause you to
| lose your job. Your job depends instead on your
| reputation and alliances. A large amount of groupthink
| and incorrect beliefs is a natural outcome.
| adolph wrote:
| > conflation of government officials and academia with
| expertise
|
| This conflation doesn't happen by itself. Who does this?
| What are their motivations for doing so?
| native_samples wrote:
| I think it does happen by itself. After all, normally
| focusing your mind on a task full time _does_ lead to
| superior knowledge and capability, and academics
| /government officials are able to spend all day on
| whatever their given topic is.
|
| The problem is it's not sufficient to have time and
| money. You also need to be in an environment where you're
| expected to deliver genuine truth, and there are rewards
| for doing so and penalties for not doing so. And in the
| public/academic sector these things are lacking, which is
| sufficient to overpower the specialising effect of full
| time employment.
| Miner49er wrote:
| Except nowadays, an expert being wrong once means
| everyone who disagreed with them is banned forever.
| umvi wrote:
| > People who spend a lifetime learning about something
| will, on average, make better decisions about that thing
| then you or I
|
| ...at the expense of things they are not experts in. Ask
| an expert in virology how to prevent spread of the virus
| and they will give you a good answer. But that doesn't
| mean turning their advice into a mandated policy will
| work out well. Game theory comes into play there and an
| expert in virology is likely not an expert in game
| theory, politics, economics, or anything else involving
| policies affecting 350M+ people.
| biomcgary wrote:
| This. I'm a scientist working on identifying therapeutics
| for COVID-19. The number of relevant kinds of expertise
| is very large. There is no COVID-19 expert whose
| background covers everything, thus everyone has blind
| spots. It doesn't mean we should throw up our hands, but
| it does mean a bit of humility is in order from everyone
| involved. Unfortunately, that level of nuance and honesty
| does not seem possible in public debate. I really hate
| seeing science in public because it is quite different
| from what I experience in person.
| throwaways885 wrote:
| > not an expert in game theory, politics, economics, or
| anything else involving policies affecting 350M+ people
|
| To be fair, neither are most politicians.
| svieira wrote:
| Absolutely. But there are very few (no?) "experts on
| expertise". Which is what you need to be in order to make
| decisions about _which_ experts to trust in a field where
| there is plurality / majority consensus on some issue
| among those who are experts in the field.
| overrun11 wrote:
| > _People who spend a lifetime learning about something
| will, on average, make better decisions about that thing
| then you or I._
|
| I'm not convinced this is true. If you spend a lifetime
| doing something then I'd agree you'd be better than
| average at it. In such cases experts do not face much
| scrutiny, there's little doubt on a pilot's skill at
| flying a plane and no sane person thinks they are better
| at chess than Magnus Carlsen.
|
| What is happening now is that we are taking people who
| have merely studied something extensively and asserting
| that knowledge gives them superior insight into decisions
| about the future. These "experts" might even be
| directionally right more often than an average person but
| that isn't enough. If expertise through a lifetime of
| learning leads to your confidence in your own abilities
| outpacing your actual abilities than they are going to
| make worse decisions than a lay person who is cautious in
| the face of uncertainty. Examples of this effect are
| abundant, the greatest team of financial experts ever
| assembled (LTCM) managed to lose every penny and then
| some while my parents 401k remained solvent.
|
| There's good reason to believe a life insulated from the
| ups and downs of normal life leads to suboptimal risk
| judgement compared to a less educated person. There's a
| clear assymetry between overskepticism and
| overconfidence, the latter hurts you far more than the
| former. To suggest that skepticism is the more dangerous
| of the two denies the reality of most of the largest
| disasters of the last century.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| Every profession has a certain percentage of unqualified
| morons working in it.
|
| In most cases, it just means work doesn't get done and/or
| you have an unsatisfied customer. But in the case of
| medicine, it kills people.
|
| Then you have the corrupt that will do anything to try to
| get rich and famous. This is where you'll have a doctor
| claiming they found a new treatment for a disease or some
| other discovery by manipulating data and not seeking peer
| review. Examples of this include the Andrew Wakefield who
| started the "vaccines cause autism" movement, and whatever
| doctor started claiming Ivermectin treats COVID.
| umvi wrote:
| The rationale is:
|
| "There's no time to be debating the scientific consensus right
| now. We are in a crisis. Lives are at stake. Debating and
| questioning the consensus (even if it changes) will cause
| misinformation to propagate and lives to be lost. The only way
| to optimize for lives saved is to temporarily take away some
| fundamental freedoms like speech so that the smart people in
| charge can resolve the crisis with minimal loss of life."
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| This sounds like the rationale government leaders often
| employ to institute a dictatorship: "temporarily remove
| freedoms and grant the president emergency executive powers".
|
| But somehow "temporarily" becomes "permanently" because no
| one in power wants to voluntarily give up that power.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| "Emergency powers" formed an important link in the chain of
| Hitler's rise to power.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2019/02/19/emergency
| -...
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Sorry, we had emergency legislation because of terrorism
| since 2 decades now. A bit desensitized by now. Perhaps I
| should look for something that induces fear?
| chasd00 wrote:
| i regret that i have but one upvote to give. I'm a little
| tired of the constant state of emergency and pearl
| clutching since about this time of year 2001.
| rodolphoarruda wrote:
| Free speech! As long as we are in agreement with each other.
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I know this comment will be lost in the shuffle, and I notice
| this was submitted by danso, so I imagine there's an
| intentionality here, but I very strongly believe submissions like
| these are a substantial and growing threat to HN.
|
| Just remove them! Let's talk tech, startups, science! Submissions
| like these distract from the stuff I like on HN, but more
| importantly I worry they chase away the people I like from HN.
|
| I flag each of these, hoping enough of us can get content like
| this removed, and I'm willing to be outvoted on that count, but I
| personally think HN is better off without this content.
| elsonrodriguez wrote:
| People in technology fields absolutely have an obligation to
| talk about the morality of technology.
|
| I'd highly recommend you to read Cat's Cradle if you haven't
| already. Carl Sagan also had something to say about this.
|
| In lieu of that, one can meditate on this more condensed take:
|
| > Don't say that he's hypocritical
|
| > Say rather that he's apolitical
|
| > "Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
|
| > That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun
|
| - Tom Lehrer
| TameAntelope wrote:
| I don't think people in technology should stop talking about
| these things, I just think they should talk about it
| somewhere other than HN.
| ironman1478 wrote:
| Technology doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists to address
| societal, political, existential (climate change), or
| financial problems. For example, let's talk about self
| driving cars (my field). The only reason they are necessary
| are fundamentally societal (people die from cars) and
| political (America doesn't want to invest in public transit
| for many societal reasons that aren't logical). It's a
| technology that doesn't have to exist. These societal
| issues are the reason why it's worth investing in the tech
| and they affect the design of the car and what problems it
| needs to solve.
|
| I get the appeal of trying to look at technology solely in
| isolation, but society influences whether technology needs
| to exist and how it's designed.
| sneak wrote:
| mRNA vaccines and UGC platform censorship are both on topic for
| "tech" and "science".
| pupppet wrote:
| YouTube/Facebook/Twitter have proven that anonymized free speech
| doesn't work. You have no way of knowing if the discourse is
| being generated by trolls/bots/foreign actors.
| rvz wrote:
| Another day another ban-hammering from YouTube; so what.
|
| It is their private platform and if you sign up you agreed to
| their T&Cs and they can choose to ban or remove whoever they
| want. Mistake or not, robot or not.
|
| They will never change and it will only get worse.
| tacobelllover99 wrote:
| Banning dissenting opinions has always been a great thing
| throughout human history /s
| [deleted]
| skocznymroczny wrote:
| Once again YouTube is standing against free speech.
|
| Yes, most of you will cheer for it just as you did when Twitter
| banned Trump. You will say it's a private company, they have the
| right to do that. Don't expect people like me to support you when
| you complain about YouTube banning e.g. Russian activists.
|
| Part of supporting free speech is that you have to support the
| speech you don't agree with.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Once again YouTube is standing against free speech.
|
| No, exercising it.
|
| > Yes, most of you will cheer for it just as you did when
| Twitter banned Trump.
|
| Well, I mean, its better than when Twitter rewrote its rule to
| officially privilege those in established positions of power to
| justify _not_ taking actions against Trump 's regular and
| egregious violations of their rules.
|
| > Don't expect people like me to support you when you complain
| about YouTube banning e.g. Russian activists.
|
| I don't expect that anyway. I expect _people like you_ to
| continue to pursue the position that it is impermissible for
| YouTube to choose not to relay propaganda of your faction
| because it is somehow contrary to free speech rights for them
| to do so, while _not_ taking that position for viewpoints you
| are less interested in, all while chanting the virtues of
| supporting speech you disagree with.
|
| I, on the other hand, will continue to view it as within
| YouTube's free speech rights to choose not to relay either kind
| of content, but undesirable for other reasons in certain cases
| (and, where it is bot a free choice by YouTube but compelled by
| a government seeking to suppress dissent, a violation of free
| speech _by the government involved_ , not YouTube.)
|
| > Part of supporting free speech is that you have to support
| the speech you don't agree with.
|
| No, it isn't.
|
| Part of supporting free speech is that you have to support the
| _right of people to express_ viewpoints you disagree with,
| including _by declining to relay the positions you do agree
| with_.
|
| (It also doesn't mean you have to support their _choice_ to
| express those viewpoints, or the manner in which they do it,
| only their _right_ to do it.)
| pyronik19 wrote:
| Trust the science...or else.
| vibrato2 wrote:
| And by science we mean the profitable stuff. Like the most
| profitable pharma therapies ever offered.
|
| Remember when they discontinued the control groups? I thought
| Randomized controlled trials were the gold standard for science
| blnkhc wrote:
| "Trust their interpretation of science"
| [deleted]
| rdtwo wrote:
| The same way trust in God
| mc32 wrote:
| Except we're not allowing Sputnik V travelers in the country
| despite science...
| avianlyric wrote:
| The Sputnik V vaccine might be good. But there's a fair bit
| of evidence that it's mass manufacture has some problems.
| Which makes it difficult to say with certainty that what's
| injected into peoples arms, is effective as what was tested
| during clinical trials.
| mc32 wrote:
| Sputnik V isn't the only sars-cov2 vaccine with
| manufacturing issues.
| ulucs wrote:
| In tandem with not recognizing natural immunity, it's not
| really about science is it?
| thriftwy wrote:
| One have to admit this is a major anti-vax move being
| performed by USA and EU.
|
| If the government get to discriminate which vaccines are good
| and which are not, why their citizens won't do the same, even
| if they leave the 'good' bucket empty?
|
| When I travelled to South America I had to do "the" vaccine
| shot (yellow fever I believe), but nobody would inquire me
| "which one" and whether it is on some white list.
| ryandrake wrote:
| A little off topic, but I wish we could stop using this nice-
| sounding "hesitant" euphemism. Hesitant implies that people are
| weighing options and open to changing their minds. With the
| amount of time they have been available and the overabundance of
| evidence that the COVID vaccines are safe, effective, and that
| they decrease hospitalizations and death, I find it very hard to
| believe that anyone is still "on the fence" about it.
|
| > She thinks they're taking it down because they don't want
| people to know the truth.
|
| And there it is--this doesn't sound like a person who is weighing
| their options in good faith. It sounds like someone who is
| already convinced of what the truth is. Let's stop calling them
| "hesitant".
| tomrod wrote:
| Agreed. Anti-vaccine advocate is more accurate at this point.
| Denialist is harsh, but fits.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| Most people who are "COVID vaccine hesitant", or whatever
| term we want to use, aren't opposed to the concept of
| vaccination in general. Many of them have even gotten flu
| shots many times in the past, which as an aside when analyzed
| rigorously are barely better than placebo:
|
| https://www.cochrane.org/CD001269/ARI_vaccines-prevent-
| influ...
|
| > Injected influenza vaccines probably have a small
| protective effect against influenza and ILI (moderate-
| certainty evidence), as 71 people would need to be vaccinated
| to avoid one influenza case, and 29 would need to be
| vaccinated to avoid one case of ILI. Vaccination may have
| little or no appreciable effect on hospitalisations (low-
| certainty evidence) or number of working days lost.
|
| So 71 shots to avoid _one_ case, or if we want to be
| charitable we should use the 29 shots per one ILI since
| really ILI is what we care about. And no actual effect on
| hosp. or working days lost (both of which is what we should
| really actually care about)
|
| --
|
| Anyway I got off track with the flu vaccine stuff, but anyway
| surely you're aware that far more people are "hesitant" about
| the COVID vaccine specifically than any of the other
| vaccines? So to cast it as a case of "anti-vaccine advocacy"
| is just wrong. That's not what's going on here and as long as
| you refuse to try to understand these people you will
| continue failing to impact their behavior.
| tomrod wrote:
| > as you refuse to try to understand these people you will
| continue failing to impact their behavior.
|
| You and I are not responsible for their behavior, and as a
| society we have entertained their petulance long enough.
|
| I support vaccine mandates to increase the social costs for
| people who fail to perform their civic duty to be
| vaccinated. (Medically unable is a different story).
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| Well good for you, but you actually do need to look on
| the impact on behavior of the things you advocate for.
| Unless your goal is purely to punish/harm those that
| don't share your beliefs rather than some tangible
| outcome in terms of vaccination or [insert primary
| endpoint here].
|
| We're already seeing the impact of vaccine mandates in
| places like New York: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-
| vaccine-mandate-new-york-...
|
| > "We stopped elective inpatient surgeries. We stopped
| some of our outpatient patient visits. We stopped ICU
| medical transfers from other referral rural hospitals.
| ... We've asked for more time to work on strategies with
| the state to ensure that as many people as possible get
| vaccinated," said Tom Quatroche, the president and CEO of
| Erie County Medical Center.
|
| I would be remiss if I didn't mention that we already
| know beyond a shadow of a doubt that mass COVID
| vaccination doesn't magically stop the virus from doing
| what it does. Israel has absurdly high vaccine uptake -
| including a sizeable proportion of triply-vaxxed people -
| and we're still seeing more "cases" than at the same time
| the previous year. So I wonder how much you've actually
| looked into the efficacy (in terms of chance of infection
| and spread) of these vaccines given the data. And I
| wonder how rigorously you've thought about the second and
| third order effects when phenomenoms like antigenic drift
| and immune escape and Marek's disease are very well
| known.
|
| Anyway, I won't go too far down that rabbit hole since
| the discussion is more of "assuming vaccination is good
| and we don't have any ethical qualms with using violent
| police power to compel people to consume a pharmaceutical
| product where the manufacturers have literally no
| liability to the consumer for any adverse reactions, what
| is the best way to modify behavior" than about examining
| the premise of the utility of mass vaccination itself.
| It's probably already obvious that I completely reject
| the ethics of what you are in favor of. So setting the
| pesky notion of ethics aside for the time-being, I still
| think you're failing to see the very obvious harms that
| come from the brand of coercion that you're advocating
| for.
|
| Like I said above, we're already seeing the effects of
| these mandates on healthcare capacity. Firing 5% of one's
| hospital staff is no small thing. And you seem to very
| much not see how censoring and suppressing alternate
| points of view only reinforces those points of view.
| Implicitly you seem to think that adopting a policy and
| actually enforcing it in the real-world are the same
| thing - which is a trap that many a naive intellectual
| has fallen into since time immemorial.
| tomrod wrote:
| Hey, I apologize that my stance, as to me it appears to
| rub you the wrong way. If you're feeling heated or
| triggered, please accept an apology from an internet
| stranger.
|
| My stance on the necessity of vaccines isn't a belief.
| Its from understanding the science of vaccines and the
| exponential mathematic of pandemics.
|
| Why people choose to deviate from a very clear dominating
| strategy is simply not necessary for me to understand or
| research. The simplest assumption is they believe
| something that is not supported in the science, but have
| too much ego on the line to accept they are incorrect.
| This accurately classifies most of the concerns I've
| seen. I can empathize. We've all made mistakes in who we
| trust or what we conclude. But in the meantime, people
| like kids, the especially vulnerable, and those who
| cannot medically take the vaccine are put at risk. Hence
| why I am absolutely okay with a mandate to ensure the
| anti-vaccine advocates burden the social costs for their
| decisions.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > Why people choose to deviate from a very clear
| dominating strategy is simply not necessary for me to
| understand or research.
|
| It's very important for you to understand if you hope to
| impact the behavior of people who don't share your
| beliefs. Or am I misunderstanding and you live in a
| universe where you can wave a magic wand? If so, I'd
| recommend just using that aforementioned wand to
| eliminate all mortality :P
|
| > Its from understanding the science of vaccines and the
| exponential mathematic of pandemics.
|
| It's logistic, not exponential, because the exponential
| growth tapers off as the proportion of immunity
| increases. This might seem like a nitpick*, but it's very
| indicative of the inability of those in your camp to
| foresee higher order effects. From a purely societal
| perspective, these vaccines do not offer anywhere near
| enough protection to actually avoid the propagation of
| the virus. All they've done is create a rich population
| of SARS-2-naive vaccinated individuals who provided
| perfect substrate for a variant like Delta, which possess
| point mutations on the spike, to rip through the
| vaccinated (given that, insofar as the vaccines were
| reasonably effective against "alpha", they prevented the
| vaccinated from acquiring natural immunity). It is no
| coincidence that a strain that largely-but-not-entirely
| bypasses vaccine immunity is now by far the most dominant
| strain here in the US.
|
| * granted you could counter-nitpick me here by pointing
| out that the pandemic phase is specifically the
| exponential part of the epidemic curve
|
| > But in the meantime, people like kids, the especially
| vulnerable, and those who cannot medically take the
| vaccine are put at risk.
|
| Kids are not at serious risk of COVID-19. How can you
| claim to "understand the science" if you won't even admit
| this very basic fact? The infection fatality rate of
| COVID-19 is dramatically lower than Influenza, and we
| never pulled kids out of in-person schooling for two
| years straight when presented with pandemic Influenza.
| (Yet if we applied COVID risk standards, we would have)
|
| Note that this is usually where people come in and make a
| bunch of unfounded assertions about long COVID and how
| the kids will be crippled for life. I hope you're not
| going to take that route :)
|
| > the especially vulnerable, and those who cannot
| medically take the vaccine are put at risk.
|
| Ignoring the ethical issue of how much responsibility
| someone has to ingest a pharmaceutical product with no
| manufacturer liability, I think a much more accurate
| statement is that those individuals are put at risk by
| those who have not acquired natural immunity. Briefly:
|
| The difference between a SARS-2-naive vaccinated
| individual and a SARS-2-naive unvaccinated individual is
| real, but quite minor in the context of Delta in terms of
| infection & transmission. The difference between a
| SARS-2-recovered unvaccinated individual and a
| SARS-2-naive vaccinated individual is absolutely massive.
| (https://pastebin.com/8yR3y5NA to avoid cluttering this
| comment)
|
| So, while ethically I don't accept the notion of
| assigning blame to transmission of highly infectious
| endemic respiratory viruses, if we're gonna assign blame,
| the relevant criteria is "previous exposure to SARS-2",
| not vaccination status.
| [deleted]
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >we don't have any ethical qualms with using violent
| police power to compel people to consume a pharmaceutical
| product where the manufacturers have literally no
| liability to the consumer for any adverse reactions,
|
| Where, _exactly_ , is _anyone_ in the US "using violent
| police power to compel people to consume a pharmaceutical
| product"?
|
| At most, folks are being required to either get
| vaccinated or regularly tested in order to keep working.
| Which is AIUI, at least under US labor law, absolutely
| legal.
|
| So I ask again: where, _exactly_ , is "using violent
| police power to compel people to consume a pharmaceutical
| product" happening?
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| Well personally I'm an ancap so I consider all
| laws/executive orders to be implicitly (and often
| explicitly) backed by the police power of the state. You
| can say that the government requiring employees to be
| vaccinated isn't violent police power because they're not
| holding them down and injecting them, but what exactly
| will the state do if the employer doesn't comply? They'll
| send in the guys with guns to enforce.
|
| Really it's such a small thing to be splitting hairs over
| though. If you prefer, just read what I wrote and
| mentally s/violent police power/coercion
| tomrod wrote:
| Repeating the question as you didn't really answer it,
| and as a minarchist I view ancap theories as infeasible
| even if interesting:
|
| > Where, exactly, is anyone in the US "using violent
| police power to compel people to consume a pharmaceutical
| product"?
|
| Your answer, as I read it, is "never, but they could, and
| that is concerning!"
|
| I like Bill Burr's glorious response to the slippery
| slope argument, "Where does it stop? F#$@%#@%@
| somewhere!"
| v0x wrote:
| Barely better than placebo? The paper you linked says:
|
| "Inactivated influenza vaccines probably reduce influenza
| in healthy adults from 2.3% without vaccination to 0.9%"
|
| That's a ~60% reduction, which is nothing to shake a stick
| at. But I don't think it's a surprise to anyone that the
| flu shots do not have a remarkably high reduction rate;
| that's been public knowledge for a long time. In fact the
| CDC's own data on this is even gloomier than the Cochrane
| review:
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/effectiveness-
| studies....
|
| In any event, if people are concerned about mRNA vaccines
| for whatever reason, there are other vaccines out there
| like the J&J vaccine.
|
| While there are always reasons to be distrustful of the
| gov't (it is not hard to find examples of the CDC, Surgeon
| General, etc being dead wrong on aspects of the pandemic),
| a cost benefit analysis of whether to get the vaccine or
| not should produce a pretty clear result.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| Sorry, where are you getting that quote? I couldn't find
| your quote on the page. Anyway, that quote doesn't
| disprove the points I made whatsoever. The number needed
| to treat is enormous, and there's no detectable benefit
| on either hospitalizations or missed days of work:
|
| > Injected influenza vaccines probably have a small
| protective effect against influenza and ILI (moderate-
| certainty evidence), as 71 people would need to be
| vaccinated to avoid one influenza case, and 29 would need
| to be vaccinated to avoid one case of ILI. Vaccination
| may have little or no appreciable effect on
| hospitalisations (low-certainty evidence) or number of
| working days lost.
|
| That's literally the spitting definition of "barely
| better than placebo" in my book.
| tomp wrote:
| Indeed, I prefer "vaccine redundancy" over "vaccine hesitancy".
|
| For people who've had Covid before, vaccine is simply
| _redundant_. (If you disagree, please provide sources / data
| for your view.) Of course, getting vaccinated would increase
| their immune system's response, but so would for someone who
| was vaccinated a month ago... at some point, it has to be "good
| enough" for normal life (not 100% safe anyways).
| darthvoldemort wrote:
| Israeli study says getting infected creates 13x stronger
| immune response than the vaccine versus Delta. How much
| stronger do we need to get that justifies taking the vaccine
| at that point? This is the entire point of why they say
| vaccine mandates are wrong for those that already had it.
| tomrod wrote:
| Delta isn't, and likely, won't be the only variant.
|
| Having a broad response via vaccination helps, even if you
| have antibodies from prior exposure.
| jaywalk wrote:
| You're missing the point. Prior infection creates a
| _much_ broader response than vaccination does.
| [deleted]
| tomrod wrote:
| No, the point is clear but missing an essential detail.
| Vaccination results in much better outcomes when you do
| get the disease. Ergo the ideal is to be vaccinated, and
| then if you so happen to get sick, recovery is quicker
| and you have a stronger immune response.
| jaywalk wrote:
| What are you talking about? I've seen studies that
| suggest vaccination in addition to natural immunity can
| result in higher levels of antibodies, but I've seen
| nothing to suggest that vaccination results in "much
| better outcomes" as compared to natural immunity.
|
| People with natural immunity aren't even getting infected
| in any meaningful numbers, while fully vaccinated
| individuals are getting infected left and right.
| tomrod wrote:
| You jumped ahead a bit. Let me clarify.
|
| If you are unvaccinated and have not had the disease,
| then if you get infected your prognosis is much poorer
| than being vaccinated.
|
| If you are vaccinated and get infected, you have a better
| outcome.
|
| If you are both vaccinated and have had prior immunity,
| see the discussion on other threads in this discussion.
| darthvoldemort wrote:
| You forgot:
|
| If you are unvaccinated and previously got infected, you
| now have a much better outcome than being vaccinated,
| including from future variants of the virus.
| jaywalk wrote:
| You are now banned from YouTube.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Vaccination provides immune system training for exactly
| one viral protein. Recovery from natural infection
| provides immune system training for all proteins present
| in the variant that caused the infection.
|
| Vaccination only provides an immune response for the
| spike protein, not a broad response.
| WalterSear wrote:
| https://abc7news.com/covid-immunity-coronavirus-vaccines-
| cdc...
| tomp wrote:
| This article is misleading misinformation.
|
| _> "I've had COVID - therefore I don't need to get the
| vaccine." Turns out that's not entirely true. On Friday,
| the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a
| study reporting that individuals who've had COVID are twice
| as likely to get reinfected_
|
| The article makes it sounds as if prior infection makes it
| 2x as likely to get infected as having the vaccine.
|
| In reality, the study is _only_ comparing previously
| infected individuals. So it 's "just Covid" vs "Covid +
| vaccine". This is obvious. My original claim is, that "just
| Covid" is better (or equally good) as "just vaccine".
| WalterSear wrote:
| The reporter's slant and choice of words is irrelevant.
|
| It looks a lot like you are looking for reasons to ignore
| the evidence. No one can help you if contrarianism is
| your end goal, and you can harm others plenty.
|
| And, this is exactly why youtube is banning speech right
| now.
| ghoward wrote:
| Oh, Mirriam-Webster already decided that "fully vaccinated"
| people are "anti-vaxxers" if they do not support vaccine
| mandates. [1]
|
| [1]: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-vaxxer
| woodruffw wrote:
| What's the point of appealing to Mirrian-Webster? They're the
| tail, not the dog; nobody goes to one of their dictionaries
| to determine how a word or phrase is used.
| rdtsc wrote:
| That's how they are traditionally being used. They are used
| as the ultimate source of truth. "We don't agree, let's see
| what the dictionary says". That trick would still work on
| majority of people I'd think.
|
| But yes, it's the tail that is wagging the dog which is
| wagging the tail.
|
| There have been cases where lobbyists and special interest
| groups got the dictionary definitions altered to suit they
| client's needs.
| mns wrote:
| In my country people that are already double-jabbed and say
| they want to wait for the 3rd dose/booster are already called
| science deniers and anti-vaxxers, so that's that.
| rchaud wrote:
| "Webster defines [word] as..." has been a running punchline
| for over 20 years. I think the dignity of the real anti-
| vaxxers will remain intact.
| rabuse wrote:
| That is absolutely ridiculous.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| Not really though. If you go back 2 years, people who were
| opposed to mandatory vaccinations were generally people who
| thought their children shouldn't be required to get
| vaccinated against measles. Vaccine mandates are crucial
| social policy
| Jensson wrote:
| > Vaccine mandates are crucial social policy
|
| Maybe the reason USA has so many anti vaccers is because
| of vaccine mandates? It is much easier to believe that
| something is evil when you are forced to do it. Also many
| first world countries doesn't mandate vaccines and people
| get vaccinated anyway, so it isn't crucial social policy.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| No, that's probably not the reason. The anti-COVID stuff
| preceded discussion of vaccine mandates. Europe has
| mandatory childhood vaccinations and not the same level
| of anti-vaccine sentiment.
| rabuse wrote:
| Exactly. COVID is so deadly, that people have to be
| coerced and mandated into taking it, when in the
| beginning of all of this, most were walking around
| asymptomatic with it.
| jaywalk wrote:
| No, it really is. You're ignoring the fact that the
| definition was changed in order to shame people who are
| against mandating COVID vaccines.
| roflc0ptic wrote:
| According to what?
| BackBlast wrote:
| Or they are tools for a medical totalitarian dystopia. 2
| years ago there were effectively zero exception free
| vaccine mandates, and only a very few places where they
| were actually hard to get.
| mlang23 wrote:
| No, they are not crucial social policy. You will have to
| accept that democracy does not mean that everyone has to
| be of the same opinion as you.
| darthvoldemort wrote:
| Such judgmental bullshit. People like you are part of the
| problem and need to stop.
|
| The vaccine is the fastest vaccine EVER approved. We have ZERO
| long-term data as to what it does. We have a long history of
| drugs that have long term side effects. For fuck's sake, there
| are a ton of blood pressure medications that have recently been
| taken off the market because they have cancer-causing
| impurities in them. Do you think they cause cancer in 1 year?
| Of course not. They cause cancer over the long term. Even the
| people who breathed in the dust from 9-11 took years to die
| from cancer related to that.
|
| Do we know if the mRNA vaccine has any long term effects? We do
| not. If you say they are 100% safe long term, then you are
| lying. We simply don't have the data. We will definitely have
| the data over the next several years in what is now the world's
| biggest medical experiment in history.
|
| And by the way, I'm fully vaccinated and I was vaccinated
| before you were. But I UNDERSTAND why people are hesitant. I
| was hesitant as well until I was presented with the vaccine and
| I said fuck it, let's go.
|
| But I completely empathize with those that are hesitant. That's
| what we need more of, empathy. Not judgmental jerks who just
| prolong the schism between people.
| matt_f wrote:
| This strikes me as entirely being exactly the things of which
| you are accuse the parent post's author.
|
| > "people like you are part of the problem"
|
| > "such judgemental bullshit"
|
| > "judgmental jerks who prolong the schism between people"
|
| Whatever your positions or beliefs on the matter, or opinions
| of the post author to whom you are responding, your opinions
| and views could be more effectively expressed using logic and
| reasoning without the ad hominem and vulgarity.
|
| In any regard: it's beneath the community standards of
| reasoned and respectful communication on HN, which I think
| many of us highly appreciate and value.
| cujo wrote:
| I think you can dial it back a notch. The comment they
| highlighted...
|
| > She thinks they're taking it down because they don't want
| people to know the truth.
|
| Isn't indicative of someone wanting to see long term data.
| That's someone who thinks the powers that be are hiding some
| smoking gun.
|
| I'm sure there are folks with qualms about long term safety,
| but you're absolutely ignoring all the false information
| being pushed by a lot of the "hesitant". "Long term effects"
| is their strongest argument, but they rarely use it. Instead
| it's lots of stories being made up, statistics fabricated,
| and just flat out belligerence.
|
| So yeah, I'm on board with the idea that "vaccine hesitant"
| is a term that should be used with discretion. Stand up for
| the truly hesitant. The rest are full of shit, and I have no
| problem with that label for them.
| econnors wrote:
| > The vaccine is the fastest vaccine EVER approved.
|
| This is because it's received the most private and public
| funding of any vaccine, ever, in history. Not because safety
| hurdles were removed.
|
| > We have ZERO long-term data as to what it does.
|
| We have 30 years of mRNA studies and research, and at this
| point, ~billions of case studies that show no negative
| effects over the course of 1+ years.
|
| > But I UNDERSTAND why people are hesitant.
|
| 84% of unvaccinated people said their decision against
| immunization wouldn't change if the vaccines had no side
| effects ([source](https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/10/cnbc-poll-
| shows-very-little-...)). Also, "Higher county uninsured rates
| and poverty rates are associated with lower vaccination
| rates." and "vaccination rates are lower in counties that
| voted for Trump compared to those that voted for Biden"
| ([source](https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-
| brief/vaccina...)).
|
| This isn't a debate among intellectuals about impact of mRNA
| generated spike proteins like you're framing it. It's an
| idealogical divide among those who properly evaluate risk of
| long covid vs. vaccination and low income conspiracy
| theorists.
| darthvoldemort wrote:
| > We have 30 years of mRNA studies and research, and at
| this point
|
| The mRNA vaccines are the first ever approved for use in
| humans. This is indisputable.
|
| There are no long term studies as to its side effects. Do I
| think there are any? No. But could I be wrong? Definitely.
| Thoughts and feelings aren't science. We need the long term
| data, which have none of.
| BackBlast wrote:
| Obtaining the long term data depends on reliable uptake of
| dependable data. When nurses and doctors refuse to
| acknowledge that a new symptom for the individual that
| happens within the hour/day/week of receiving the vaccine
| isn't even a possible side effect of the vaccine, then we
| don't have a reliable uptake of data. This is a common and
| largely unaddressed systemic complaint that destroys trust.
|
| The chorus of "it's safe" becomes a self-reenforcing position
| regardless of actual outcome because it taints the view of
| those collecting the actuals in the field.
| rdtsc wrote:
| I have noticed this type of "vaccine side-effect hesitancy"
| too. Family getting serious heart issues after the vaccine,
| vision problems and other strange effects, and almost all
| of them have gaslighted by the doctors "it's probably just
| a coincidence", "it's not the vaccine pretty sure, just
| take an aspirin".
|
| It's the complete opposite response you'd expect from the
| medical community, where you'd think they would be very
| keen in investigating these issues.
|
| It's seems like they are almost afraid of even looking too
| hard...
| BackBlast wrote:
| I, too, would expect a "do no harm" approach to be overly
| cautious in recording potential side effects or symptoms
| post vaccine. To error on over reporting rather than this
| really odd refusal to consider even the possibility.
|
| I'm not surprised that they're not afraid to look too
| hard about COVID-19 though. In the current climate, that
| road leads to loss of job and income.
| crooked-v wrote:
| What symptom are you implying is being ignored?
| BackBlast wrote:
| It's far too varied to give you a small list. You can
| easily find story after story online if you look --
| though they're being purged as fast as the automated
| systems can manage it as this story demonstrates.
|
| This is pretty standard operating procedure for vaccines
| since I started paying attention. I have children that
| suffered reactions from various vaccines -- I also have
| been personally vaccine damaged. I try not to just repeat
| random stories online, so I will just keep this to my
| family and my immediate acquaintance. I've seen lots of
| things from a bout of severe allergies centered around
| the injection point to being severely ill following a
| shot to lasting new symptoms including new autoimmune
| disorders, or odd things like unusual hair growth. I had
| a friend who had a child die, that was previously
| perfectly healthy, from the disease (autopsy report) they
| were being vaccinated for the previous week.
|
| Presenting a question about the vaccine being
| responsible, even for minor stuff, generally results in
| being gas lit. "Impossible", "You don't know what you're
| talking about", "Didn't happen", "Just a Coincidence"
| even when all rational reason indicates that the vaccine
| should at least be considered. These anecdotes are
| consistently shot down online for various reasons, but
| nobody seems to connect the dots that when you
| systemically ignore evidence there is no mathematical
| model that will somehow find what is really happening.
| The data is just lost because those who are supposed to
| be trusted to collect it are ignoring so much of it.
|
| You look at all the comments here about the irrationality
| of those who don't accept the data, etc. This is not
| about data. This is about a loss of trust. You can show
| all the data in the world, but if the trust bridge has
| been burned then it's for naught. You can't cross the
| bridge again with a mountain of data because it's
| irrelevant. That bridge is being burned at the ground
| level every day, one by one, by a medical system that
| really doesn't care much about individuality or parental
| perspectives when they don't match their own.
|
| This story itself continues to burn the trust bridge. We
| don't want your stories, your personal experiences, you
| cannot be heard. There is no discussion. Be silent.
| That's not how to build trust. It's purely an attempt to
| cull the information base in favor of the chosen outcome.
| FredFS456 wrote:
| I just want to point out that the difference between the mRNA
| vaccines and the other medications with long term side
| effects is that the mRNA vaccine is only active in your body
| for a few days. You don't get repeated injections on a
| timescale often enough to constantly have the vaccine in your
| body. The only thing that remains is the antibodies, which
| were made by your own body. On the other hand, blood pressure
| medication etc. needs to be taken daily and has active
| ingredients constantly circulating in your bloodstream.
| rdtsc wrote:
| > mRNA vaccine is only active in your body for a few days.
|
| Isn't the point of it to confer long term immunity?
| Specifically, it aims to alter the immune system, probably
| one of the more complicated systems our body has. Immune
| system disorders are no joke, they can kill or
| significantly reduce the quality of life. So there is a
| potential area for things to go wrong.
|
| There is also the case of any long term effects triggered
| by the short term presence of mRNA. What if it lands in
| different types of organs, could that cause cancer in 2-3
| years, other serious chronic condition. Not by the mRNA
| still being transcribed there but by some other unintended
| interaction or lasting damage.
|
| I just don't understand where the absolute confidence that
| it's safe long term is coming from.
| FredFS456 wrote:
| Note that my previous comment did not state anything to
| do with long term safety, only that there is a false
| equivalency being drawn. I agree that there is no long
| term (decades) study that I can point to about the safety
| of mRNA vaccines. However, my personal choice to take the
| vaccine was a conscious comparison of the benefits and
| risks (with attempts at quantifying the above).
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Mostly False, mrna vaccines have been studied for about
| twenty years now.
| darthvoldemort wrote:
| False. Studied doesn't mean it worked or was feasible. This
| is the first mRNA vaccine approved for use in humans. The
| lipid nanoparticles used to deliver the mRNA was first
| tested in humans in 2015 but wasn't an approved drug.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Appeal to solipsism is not a compelling argument. It's
| obviously been studied quite a while and feasible, the
| results speak for themselves. That govt is slow to react
| until forced is not apropos of anything.
| omegaworks wrote:
| We have 10 years of data[1] behind other mRNA therapeutics
| that use the exact same technology that the vaccine uses.
|
| 1. https://www.statnews.com/2020/11/10/the-story-of-mrna-
| how-a-...
| darthvoldemort wrote:
| The mRNA COVID vaccines were the first mRNA vaccines
| approved for humans ever.
| [deleted]
| giantrobot wrote:
| > Do we know if the mRNA vaccine has any long term effects?
|
| Phew, good thing we've got non-mRNA vaccines available.
|
| The vaccine "hesitant" are not rational actors. They have
| some position they decided on and use post-hoc
| rationalizations to defend that position.
|
| Their irrational positions have contributed to the current
| situation of clogged hospitals, increased deaths, and the
| continued need for costly mitigation measures.
| tomrod wrote:
| How long do the components of the vaccine stay in the body
| before being consumed?
|
| Is DNA changed?
|
| Do you have a specific pathway you think the mRNA vaccine
| conponents takes that you think will cause long term effects?
|
| Why is the more traditional approaches taken by J&J not
| acceptable if there is fear regarding mRNA vaccines?
| batch12 wrote:
| If it is an established truth that these vaccines are safe, why
| still grant these companies immunity from liability if
| something goes wrong?
|
| Before someone dismisses the question as anti-vaxxer, I have
| taken the vaccine.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| While I almost entirely disagree with you, I agree with the
| general idea that most people aren't "hesitant". Personally I'm
| vaccine "hell no!" (because I don't have a personal medical
| need for the COVID vaccine, potential side effects aside, and I
| reject the societal benefit argument given the population
| dynamics of what happens when you vaccinate against just the
| spike).
|
| So while I come at it from the total opposite reason, you're
| right that with the massive amount of propaganda and outright
| coercion that everyone (at least in the US) has been exposed to
| over the last several months, most people who are not
| vaccinated are fairly strongly opposed to getting it (not
| necessarily all for the same reason). There are definitely a
| bunch of "I wanna wait and see" type people, but given all the
| coercion/propaganda they are few and far between.
| km3r wrote:
| > the population dynamics of what happens when you vaccinate
| against just the spike
|
| Haven't heard of this before, care to elaborate?
|
| > the massive amount of propaganda and outright coercion that
| everyone (at least in the US) has been exposed to over the
| last several months
|
| See idk if propaganda is the right word here. Imagine a world
| were covid was 20x as deadily, and the vaccine had absolutely
| zero side effects. How else do you get the message put to get
| it? Just say nothing? If hospitals are at risk of getting
| overrun, and unlike lockdowns, vaccines actually make
| differences in case numbers, the government has an obligation
| to do something (protect the general welfare clearly is a
| mandate to prevent overrunning healthcare facilities).
| tomp wrote:
| By making everyone's immune system respond in the same way,
| you're making it more likely that _if_ the virus escapes
| (mutates in a way that evades the immune system, by
| modifying its spike protein), then it will escape
| _completely_ (for everyone vaccinated by mRNA vaccines).
|
| The hope is that by doing that, the virus would also lose
| the local optimum of the current spike protein, and become
| much less infectious.
|
| The alternative is, with "natural" immunity, you generate a
| much more diverse immune response across the population.
| km3r wrote:
| I think that you could have made that case if we had a
| vaccine in April 2020, but by now US has 30-50% of its
| population with natural immunity. Additionally, the spike
| protein is the least likely mutation to enable escaping,
| as it both has to modify to be different enough from the
| original, plus somehow still be able to attach onto our
| cells with similar level of infectiousness. Thats why
| they choose to vaccinate against the spike protein vs any
| other part of the virus. None of the variants at the
| moment seem to be a concern for escaping the spike
| protein, with a billion vaccinations and a billion
| infections. We are literally running out of chances for
| that to happen.
|
| There also remains enough spread now that vaccinated
| people are getting mini boosts of natural immunity.
| Israel has some great data on the combination of various
| number of doses and natural immunity, and the combo is
| very strong.
|
| That being said, I don't know your medical history. I am
| a strong supporter of accepting natural immunity in lieu
| of a vaccine. But even so, that fear of escape isn't made
| worse by a naturally immune person getting vaccinated, as
| they already have the non-spike protein defenses.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > Israel has some great data on the combination of
| various number of doses and natural immunity, and the
| combo is very strong.
|
| https://pastebin.com/8yR3y5NA
|
| The best study on this actually found no significant
| difference when giving a single shot to those who were
| naturally immune. Which makes sense because the chance of
| reinfection is so incredibly tiny that even if the shot
| completely eliminated the chance of getting COVID, the
| absolute size of the effect is still going to be quite
| small.
|
| > Additionally, the spike protein is the least likely
| mutation to enable escaping, as it both has to modify to
| be different enough from the original, plus somehow still
| be able to attach onto our cells with similar level of
| infectiousness.
|
| But you don't have to choose just one part. You could
| have an inactivated whole virus vaccine. That avoids the
| whole issue.
|
| FWIW we are already seeing point mutations on the spike
| developing. That's probably why Delta is so damn good at
| spreading, right? The Israel data suggests a VE of ~39%
| against Delta. I personally don't believe Pfizer's
| original 95% VE number, but if you do, that's a startling
| drop.
| arcticbull wrote:
| That's like saying I'm "vaccine hell no!" because I don't
| have a personal need for a polio vaccine lol. Across the
| entire spectrum you're at less risk from the vaccine than you
| are from the disease.
|
| > and I reject the societal benefit argument given the
| population dynamics of what happens when you vaccinate
| against just the spike
|
| That's so weird, all the data seems to indicate that in areas
| with high vaccination rates nobody gets sick and dies.
|
| It feels like you've manufactured a windmill for yourself.
| bwship wrote:
| > Across the entire spectrum you're at less risk from the
| vaccine than you are from the disease.
|
| The current survival rate from the virus is at around
| 99.2%. The vaccine may or may not have long term health
| effects. How is taking the virus head on less risky?
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| Because _we know for sure_ that Covid infection causes
| significant long term damage in at least 10% of cases.
|
| So if you want brain damage, scarred lungs, or some other
| organ malfunction, Covid infection is the way to go.
|
| And the longer term risks are still unknown.
|
| Which is why it's insane to play evidence-free yes-but-
| what-if FUD games about vaccine safety when the risks of
| infection are already known to be high for the survivors.
|
| https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
| conditions/coronavirus/i...
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > Because we know for sure that Covid infection causes
| significant long term damage in at least 10% of cases.
|
| Where are you getting your information? Your mayoclinic
| link doesn't make this 10% claim, nor did you provide any
| citation for it. I'm genuinely shocked by how divorced
| from the clinical reality your claims are.
|
| SARS-1, which is SARS-2's less infectious but _much_ more
| deadly older brother, didn 't even cause long-term damage
| in 10% of cases. And you're trying to claim it for
| SARS-2, which is a virus where many who are infected will
| never even know they had it (if they don't get tested)?
|
| Your claims are unfounded and, quite frankly, simply
| false. There's nowhere near 10% occurrence of "brain
| damage", scarred lungs, or "some other organ
| malfunction". (The vagueness of your terminology betrays
| you, btw)
|
| Since you almost certainly haven't read any literature,
| let me provide you some reading material. I'll stick to
| just the lung issues subclaim. Some of these are on the
| older side but they're still relevant:
|
| ["Follow-up Chest CT findings from discharged patients
| with severe COVID-19: an 83-day observational study"](htt
| ps://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-27359/v1) - First
| Submitted May 4 2020, Published online May 12 2020
|
| > Radiological abnormalities in patients of severe
| COVID-19 could be completely absorbed with no residual
| lung injury in more than two months' follow-up.
|
| ^ note this is severe COVID-19, so that's from a
| population selected for severity of symptoms and they're
| still recovered by 2 months.
|
| https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1046/j.1440-1
| 843... (SARS-1 pathology)
|
| > Preliminary evidence suggests that these lung function
| abnormalities will improve over time
| arcticbull wrote:
| > Preliminary evidence suggests that these lung function
| abnormalities will improve over time
|
| Conclusive evidence suggests that people who get
| vaccinated don't get lung function abnormalities. Why are
| you so dead set on refusing to get a vaccine haha? It
| takes a few minutes, it's free, and it's really not that
| big a deal. There's really no good reason not to get one.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > 99.2%
|
| I would use 99.7% as a fairly conservative number,
| frankly:
| https://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/99/1/20-265892.pdf
|
| Anyway, the other point is that that number is the
| overall IFR. If, like me, you know you're in a category
| that has almost no risk from COVID, then it's even more
| of a no-brainer. That's why it's completely absurd that
| the GP tried to tell me that I'm at less risk from the
| vaccine from the disease, when they don't know my age, #
| of comorbidities, metabolic health, past SARS-2 infection
| status, past non-SARS-circulating-hCoV infection status,
| etc. They simply don't know what they're talking about.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Is the polio and mRNA vaccine series really comparable? I
| was under the impression if you wanted to you could
| probably enumerate some huge differences.
|
| Perhaps we should start by admitting there is no long term
| data on the Covid vaccines as a whole truth and we honestly
| start from there?
|
| How about a steelman argument? Just don't put it on
| YouTube, it would be censored.
| arcticbull wrote:
| 6 billion doses administered and counting. 30 years of
| research on mRNA vaccines, 50 years of research on viral
| vector vaccines, and 20 years of research on
| coronaviridae. It's about the best understood thing on
| the planet.
|
| Perhaps it's time to stop pretending there's no long term
| data here.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| > 6 billion doses administered and counting.
|
| That is a lot. I'm one of those. How long has it been
| since all these doses were given?
|
| > Perhaps it's time to stop pretending there's no long
| term data here.
|
| I agree. Please shut me up and post the links to long
| term human mRNA vaccine safety.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > I agree. Please shut me up and post the links to long
| term human mRNA vaccine safety.
|
| Please shut me up and give me any reason to believe that
| there would be long term effects.
|
| You're asking me to prove a negative, to prove there's no
| god. It's the wrong question to ask. The question to ask
| is why you would think there is one in the first place.
|
| The first vaccine was given almost a year ago, how long
| do we need to wait to placate your nebulous fear? Two?
| Ten? Twenty more? What basis do you have for selecting
| this timeframe?
|
| The long-term data we do have is the 30 years of mRNA
| vaccine research.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > Across the entire spectrum you're at less risk from the
| vaccine than you are from the disease.
|
| You don't know me or my medical history, so you can't make
| that statement honestly. I am in a population where I am at
| borderline negligible risk from SARS-2 infection. The mere
| 24+ hours of post-second-shot acute inflammatory cascade,
| which is almost guaranteed, already eclipses the expected
| value of COVID symptoms I would experience if infected.
| (Perhaps you aren't aware of how stratified the risk is
| based off age and comorbidities?)
|
| You doubly so cannot make such a statement when you don't
| know whether I've already had COVID previously. Someone who
| has had SARS-2 naturally and recovered is almost completely
| insulated from COVID risk. And this, by the way, is much
| moreso than compared to an unexposed-yet-vaccinated
| individual. And the effect size is massive, we're not
| talking about natural immunity being "20% better", we're
| talking like 800% better. Source:
| https://pastebin.com/8yR3y5NA
|
| > That's so weird, all the data seems to indicate that in
| areas with high vaccination rates nobody gets sick and
| dies.
|
| How closely have you been looking at the Israeli data? It
| is simply false that nobody gets sick and dies. The
| vaccines very significantly reduce the personal risk of
| hospitalization or death, but as I've already told you, my
| risk from SARS-2 is almost nonexistent, so that confers
| exactly zero benefit for me. The reason you and others are
| so concerned about vaccination is - I hope - the purported
| societal benefit of vaccination, and I've already hinted at
| the very predictable phenomenom that vaccinating against
| only the spike protein is just going to lead to antigenic
| drift and immune escape and will just end up spinning our
| wheels at best, and at worst it will actually lead to
| increased pathogenicity in the unvaccinated (https://journa
| ls.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/jou...)
| arcticbull wrote:
| Your risk from the vaccine is lower than your risk from
| Covid lol - because you know the Covid disease creates
| fully functional viruses whereas the vaccine only
| incorporates a small subset that cannot reproduce. Why
| you would want the fully functional version is beyond me.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > Your risk from the vaccine is lower than your risk from
| Covid
|
| You don't have the necessary information about my
| demographic and medical history to be able to make this
| claim. The following statement of yours is a non-sequitur
| because it in no way proves the claim of yours that I am
| at greater risk from SARS-2 infection than I am of a
| COVID vaccine:
|
| > because you know the Covid disease creates fully
| functional viruses whereas the vaccine only incorporates
| a small subset that cannot reproduce. Why you would want
| the fully functional version is beyond me.
| arcticbull wrote:
| > You don't have the necessary information about my
| demographic and medical history to be able to make this
| claim.
|
| I was referring to the aggregate, it is strictly correct
| unless you have a specific medical issue and I'm
| confident your doctor will inform you.
|
| > The following statement of yours is a non-sequitur
| because it in no way proves the claim of yours that I am
| at greater risk from SARS-2 infection than I am of a
| COVID vaccine:
|
| Sure it does. You _will_ get COVID. You 'll either be
| vaccinated at the time or you won't be.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > Sure it does. You will get COVID. You'll either be
| vaccinated at the time or you won't be.
|
| That may be true, but it's another non-sequitur. You need
| to show that the acute and long-term risks of me
| receiving the moderna or the pfizer or the j&j, is lower
| than the risks to my health from getting COVID-19 while
| unvaccinated. And first you need to know whether I've
| already had COVID, because that's highly relevant to that
| calculation.
|
| ---
|
| I think you're missing the general principle here, so let
| me see if this hypothetical helps you. Imagine a
| hypothetical virus that spreads just like SARS-2 but has
| a 0% IFR, no symptoms, and no complications whatsoever,
| whether short or medium or long term.
|
| Imagine a vaccine that is 100% effective at preventing
| this hypothetical 0% IFR virus from infecting me. Imagine
| that in 99.9999% of people, the vaccine causes no harm,
| but in that .0001% of people, it causes harm.
|
| Which is more dangerous to me, getting infected with the
| hypothetical virus, or getting vaccinated?
| arcticbull wrote:
| > Which is more dangerous to me, getting infected with
| the hypothetical virus, or getting vaccinated?
|
| You not getting vaccinated and then getting infected with
| COVID is more dangerous to you and those around you than
| you getting vaccinated and then infected. Those are the
| only two options. Everyone on earth will contract COVID.
|
| Surely you believe then that folks who refuse to get
| vaccinated on principle like yourself and then contract
| COVID should be triaged strictly below anyone else who
| needs medical care? I'm not saying that you shouldn't
| receive care, but you should receive it after everyone
| else has been sorted out. Play stupid games, win stupid
| prizes IMO.
| orra wrote:
| Refusing a safe and effective vaccine (that clearly wins any
| risk/benefit on your personal level!, not just population
| wide) is such an odd choice.
|
| Past vaccines, like against measles and smallpox, were so
| effective that eejits like you never had to learn the
| importance of vaccination, before now.
| SV_BubbleTime wrote:
| Yea, _if only someone_ would post the links to the 10 year
| safety and efficacy of these vaccines it would really shut
| these skeptics up. Ok, well, maybe just the 5 year data.
| No? Well, I think even 3 would help.
|
| If we're going to disingenuously compare smallpox and
| measles vaccines, perhaps we could start with their
| efficacy. Are there any claims from even the mfgs that
| Covid shots are in the same range?
| batch12 wrote:
| Remove legal immunity from the manufacturing companies and
| get FDA approval for all the shots and I am sure more folks
| will line up.
| burnafter182 wrote:
| They keep moving the number for herd immunity. Biden want 97%
| vaccinated. Fauci is following Biden.
| tomrod wrote:
| This is the exact reason vaccine mandates are necessarily and
| even desirable as a policy. You're not alone, but the
| proportion of the population willing to live with discomfort
| in life is vanishingly small, and hopefully small enough that
| herd immunity can be reasonably established.
|
| We see similar behavior/attitudes among off-grid folks who
| refuse to use credit cards or other common adaptations.
|
| I make no judgment of you for your thoughts, just pointing
| out why a policy maker is justified in increasing the
| personal cost to ensure the responsibility of freedom isn't
| shirked, since an unvaccinated population invites variants
| and harms (imposes social cost) on people unable to be
| vaccinated (kids, medical issues). So long as Anti-vaccine
| advocates are willing to pay for the costs of their actions,
| have at it.
| TheOtherHobbes wrote:
| People are opposed to being vaccinated because of a
| coordinated media campaign put out by elements in the
| mainstream media - not least from outlets like Fox whose
| employees are 90% vaccinated, while daily tests are mandated
| for the rest.
|
| https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/sep/15/fox-news-
| vacci...
|
| Being strongly opposed to something does not make opposition
| legitimate or warranted. It's perfectly possible to believe
| something which is absolutely harmful and objectively wrong
| on a mass scale. Such beliefs are not protected by law or by
| any reasonable definition of ethical morality.
|
| So having said that - why do _you_ think Fox and co. require
| tests and vaccinations for their own people while
| broadcasting anti-vaxxer denialism to their viewers?
| Notanothertoo wrote:
| Don't watch the news, I read it, never on fox. Don't want
| the vaccine because I was already infected. I lost my sense
| of smell for two weeks and slept a lot. Big deal. I don't
| want side effects of feeling shitty for a week after the
| vaccine and I don't think there has been enough time to
| study the side effects. The amount of propaganda and lack
| of an actual conversation on this fuels my cause.
| Additionally I don't trust the federal government to do
| anything other than spend money.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| Oh dear. I really don't care what Fox News does. It is very
| sad to me that this passes as an argument for you. I don't
| care to speculate on the motivations of a giant
| corporation. It's also not even true that Fox is "anti vax"
| - you can find videos of Sean Hannity and the like
| imploring their audience to get vaccinated. Fox, like all
| media, makes an enormous portion of its ad revenue from
| pharmaceutical companies. So you're not even right on your
| characterization of Fox's stance. Fox is largely pro-
| vaccine. Trump is pro-vaccine. All the mainstream
| republicans are pro-vaccine. And none of this is at all
| relevant, so why are we wasting time talking about it?
|
| I already said (in the comment you directly replied to) why
| I personally am not getting vaccinated against COVID. I
| don't understand where your rambling diatribe about Fox
| News comes from. I gather that you might be a binary
| thinker that thinks that everyone fits into a red or blue,
| left or right, democrat or republican, etc box?
|
| > People are opposed to being vaccinated because of a
| coordinated media campaign put out by elements in the
| mainstream media
|
| This is an unfounded assertion. And also simply not true
| BTW, at least for all of the unvaccinated people (myself
| included) that I know in my personal life.
| dang wrote:
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28694236.
| mlang23 wrote:
| At this point in time, nobody not vaccinated yet is interested
| in your propaganda. Also, the post you are replying to is
| already sort of doxing his own wife, so please dont make it
| even worse by capitalising on that.
| mlang23 wrote:
| Right, people like you need to be stopped. Lets stop talking to
| people like you, and support them in our community. Lets stop
| helping people like you if they need something. Lets just drop
| people like you out of society.
| tbihl wrote:
| >I find it very hard to believe that anyone is still "on the
| fence" about it.
|
| >And there it is--this doesn't sound like a person who is
| weighing their options in good faith. It sounds like someone
| who is already convinced of what the truth is.
|
| Pot, meet kettle.
| sethammons wrote:
| that one jumped out at me :)
| browningstreet wrote:
| I'm not sure I entirely agree.
|
| There are people getting vaccines for the first time every day
| right now. Somehow they came around.
| nsxwolf wrote:
| Given that there have been 20 million vaccine doses
| administered in the US during the month of September, it would
| seem that you are wrong. The vaccine has been available for
| many months. Certainly some of those 20 million doses represent
| people who have been hesitating for one reason or another.
| randallsquared wrote:
| But lots if these people DO change their minds. I have a
| relatively small circle of in-person family and friends, and
| five of the six hesitant people in that group are now covid
| vaxxed. There are those who will accept no evidence, but most
| of the "hesitant" aren't in that group.
| zucked wrote:
| Curious - what changed their minds?
| ryandrake wrote:
| +1 I sincerely want to believe this is true. What
| information in September was enough to convince them, where
| they weren't convinced in August (when the vaccines got
| full FDA approval).
|
| EDIT: According to [1] the "Wait and See" bucket is down to
| about 7% as of September. I'd really love to know what new
| information they are waiting for. Fascinating!
|
| 1: https://www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/poll-
| finding/kff-co...
| colordrops wrote:
| It's certainly better than "anti-vaxxer" which labels them and
| buckets them as crazy and makes them dig their heels in
| further. If the goal is to convince people to get vaccinated,
| belittling them is not the right approach.
| tomrod wrote:
| When I was in the process of disassociating from a high
| demand religion (a decade long process), I was struck with
| how effective people who insisted on reality were. Reality
| sounded belittling, but it really wasn't. I see an analogy
| here with the people insisting against vaccination with zeal
| and fervor. It is very hard to break through the bubble of
| cognitive dissonance, and lone/let live or "humor them"
| approaches frankly are disingenuous.
| colordrops wrote:
| Strawman. No one said you shouldn't speak about the truth
| and reality. I'm saying not to give them a demeaning label.
| tomrod wrote:
| _shrug_. Labels are quite effective for concise
| communication, all negatives aside. Such as your
| classification of my point as a strawman (which I don 't
| consider it to be), you communicate a precise response
| with a single word.
| EEMac wrote:
| Sure.
|
| But "anti-vaxxer" has two meanings which are conveniently
| confused in current usage.
|
| 1. Someone against all vaccines 2. Someone against the
| current COVID vaccines
| colordrops wrote:
| strawman is a description of your argument, not you. It
| doesn't make a judgement about what kind of person you
| are, and that you have been or always will make bad
| arguments.
|
| It's very different from calling you Strawman-er, which
| would be making unfounded assumptions about your general
| argumentation style and would pre-judge future statements
| by you.
| tomrod wrote:
| "Anti-vaccine advocate" is clear. It identifies a set of
| behaviors that are intellectually dishonest, either
| claiming hesitancy, outright denying science, or (even
| worse) economically benefitting by sowing confusion.
|
| When people don't do this, they aren't advocating against
| vaccination.
|
| My understanding of the strawman fallacy is that the
| strawman is inaccurate. None is expressed here, simply
| labeling a phenomenon.
|
| > which would be making unfounded assumptions about your
| general argumentation style and would pre-judge future
| statements by you.
|
| After decades of internet discussion, such charity from
| people holding opposing viewpoints appears to be rare
| even when explicitly and rigorously adopted.
| Thuggery wrote:
| > overabundance of evidence that the COVID vaccines are safe,
| effective, and that they decrease hospitalizations and death
|
| "evidence" that comes from tightly controlled information
| sources with clear non-truth oriented motivations, that can
| only accept one answer, and suppres all contrary evidence and
| discourse? Well if Pravda and the Party tell us the injection
| is a must and safe too then who could ever doubt it?
|
| I was (and am?) "vaccine hesitant." I am vaccinated now, though
| it was probably unnecessary since I already had it. I'm really
| starting to wonder what exactly they injected into me and
| almost regret it. These are not the actions benevolent actors
| with nothing to hide.
|
| FYI what pushed me over he edge was a combination of discomfort
| (wanted to occasionally re-engage with nightlife without worry
| and guilt), time, local community that I trusted more getting
| it, and some people in particular I wanted to meet up with that
| were particularly anal about covid fears.
| eranima wrote:
| ITT: Hacker News comment section continues to boast about how
| awful they are
| fnord77 wrote:
| I think having a small percentage of the population who are anti-
| vax adds to the robustness of the species. What if, odds
| unlikely, that there was some problem with the vax where it
| killed or sterilized everyone who got it? It would be extinction
| except for the anti-vaxxers. Now this is an super unlikely event,
| but there's a non-zero chance this could happen.
| xkbarkar wrote:
| > Months ago he was insisting that the people who had contracted
| COVID-19 and who had antibodies in their system may not need the
| vaccine. Now, we have a number of studies coming out to support
| that. But months ago that was "anti-vax" (employing the
| slanderous use of the term).
|
| I live in Iceland. Recovery from cov-sars-2 infection is
| considered as valid as a vaccine here. The same goes for Norway
| and ( to the best of my knowledge) Sweden, Denmark and Finland.
| They all recognize recovery from covid-19 as sufficcient
| protection.
|
| Looking at US and Canada, along with a slew of terrifying
| commenters in this thread, the entire Nordic region consist of
| misinformed anti-vaxxers that have fallen prey to fake news by
| this definition.
|
| We have also never put masks on our 24 month old toddlers. US and
| Canda WTF is wrong with you? We have a very high vaccination rate
| here in Iceland but that did not stop hospitalisations, or
| deaths. But definetly decreased them. Our high vaccination rate
| has had 0 effect on the spread of infections though. Even if
| hospitalizations have reaped the benefits because of it. If
| anything we got the highest wave of infections we have ever
| encountered this summer. But with a clear decrease in hospital
| load. We went back to mandates after only a very brief 4 week
| reopening because our high vaccination rate did absolutely
| nothing to stop the spread.
|
| When this fact hit us in Iceland, when the summer wave hit, we as
| a country went into a state of mild shock. As so many nations we
| declared victory way, way too soon.
|
| No one mentions this in the news though. Crickets. We might not
| even exist for all CNN, Times, all the Posts and vox cares.
|
| I am not in any high risk group. Got moderna 2 shots, I still
| have PTSD from the side effects of the second shot. I sincerely
| thought I took the vaccine to help prevent the spread. But I most
| likely went through one of the worst nights of my life for no
| good fucking reason whatsoever. I statistically never needed the
| extra protection, I can still very much catch cov-sars-2 and
| still very much infect and kill another fully vaccinated
| vulnerable human being.
|
| I guess I am now a misinformed anti-vaxxer
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| >our high vaccination rate did absolutely nothing to stop the
| spread.
|
| It was never going to. People have been asking for decades,
| "Why don't we have a vaccine for the common cold?" And the
| answer is because it's a type of virus that evolves too
| quickly. So we just can't. Not really. It's just not remotely
| as effective as say a smallpox vaccine. And SARS COV-2 is the
| same type of virus. A coronavirus.
|
| It's just an opportunist money grab by big pharma, and an
| authoritarian power grab by those in power "for your own good".
|
| It was always going to kill a large number (but small
| percentage) of people. The "vaccine" didn't stop that one bit.
| But you can't prove this because we can't go back in time and
| run to separate Earths, one with the "vaccine"s and one
| without. So they'll pretend it helped without it being possible
| to know if it did or not.
| jcon321 wrote:
| While I'm sure some people would dismiss this entire comment as
| anecdotal I thank you for writing it.
| pmlnr wrote:
| Good.
| masterof0 wrote:
| So is Joe Rogan gone from Youtube? Or only his "only fat people
| need to get the vaccine" videos are going to be banned? I wonder
| what other companies like Spotify would do to the big influencers
| that are spreading misinformation, etc.
| caeril wrote:
| Rogan is not spreading misinformation.
|
| The top two comorbidities, BY FAR, are old age and obesity. The
| CFR for normal-weight people under 65 is vanishingly small.
| This is an established fact.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7010e4.htm
|
| One can fairly argue that he's doing a _moral_ disservice to
| the obese and elderly by encouraging community spread, but this
| trend of throwing _ethical disagreement_ under the banner of
| "misinformation" is absurd, when the actual science on hand
| supports the position.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| On one hand, you can claim that YouTube is being proactive
| against what they perceive to be a problem and that's something.
|
| On the other hand, they _don 't_ choose to be proactive against
| copyrighted material - they just comply with the law when the law
| comes knocking and that's that. It simply doesn't make sense for
| them to allow the law to do its job in one place and then be
| overly proactive in another. At the very least, it undermines
| their argument that they're only doing this to comply with the
| law. They're not. They actively want to censor material that they
| don't agree with and they'll use whatever excuse they need to do
| it.
| kubb wrote:
| Youtube is also banning content that incites racial violence, and
| that is not an issue, so why is this? Both cause immense harm.
| mrcrypto2020 wrote:
| We know vaccinated people still replicate and transmit the virus.
| So the only reason to get the vaccine is to potentially lessen
| the symptoms. With lessened symptoms you will be less likely to
| add to the clogged up the hospital system. Should we also ban
| food ads that contribute to obese or diabetic folks clogging up
| the hospitals? What about people choosing to ride motorcycles?
| Kids trampoline ads? Why do we still have cigarettes?
| rmu09 wrote:
| Even if some vaccinated people replicate and transmit the
| virus, they do so for a shorter amount of time and with less
| infectious virus than unvaccinated.
| 99_00 wrote:
| First they came for Alex Jones, and I did not speak out
|
| Because I was not an Alex Jones viewer.
| ZetaZero wrote:
| The real problem is with the discovery algorithm. If the
| algorithm sees a user watching subject XYZ, it keeps suggesting
| more XYZ to that user. The goal of the algorithm is to own the
| users eyeballs as long as possible. This results in more ad-views
| and a more accurate profile of the user.
|
| So if a user watches one anti-vax video, YouTube then suggests a
| bunch of other anti-vax videos. Many people will start believing
| it, after being bombarded with misinformation.
|
| Fixing the algorithm is hard. Instead, as usual, YT is just
| removing videos that cause the problems. This is just a bandaid
| aimor wrote:
| What parties motivate Google? For example: does the US Government
| make requests to Google directly? Do advertisers? Lobbyists?
| Wealthy individuals? Friends and family of higher-ups? Is the
| source completely internal to Google? I'd love to see more about
| the process these ideas go through.
| macinjosh wrote:
| In this situation my money is on advertisers who are being
| criticized on social media for sponsoring 'undesirable' content
| because the algorithm put their ad in front of a random video.
| By and large I don't think YouTube cares what is in a video
| unless it is illegal or something advertisers don't want to
| associate with.
| rflec028 wrote:
| A global conglomerate seeking to carry out an agenda and
| censoring dissenting opinions, credible and conspiracy alike?
|
| Color me surprised.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Anti-vaccine activists, or any activists for that matter, are
| completely free to post their videos _anywhere_ else they want.
| Hell, they can even set up their own video site, and publish
| thousands, millions, tens of millions of videos championing
| their cause. Why does a private company _has_ to feature every
| agenda, every viewpoint, even ones they deem to be extremely
| harmful to society? Just because they got big enought to be
| global? If I set up my own youtube-like website, and I only
| have one thousand visits a day, will anyone argue that I 'm
| obliged to show stuff I don't want? Is anyone saying the same
| thing about Vimeo? Youtube doesn't have to show isis
| beheadings, why should it be forced to show unscientific
| propaganda? If there were a movement claiming the polio and
| smallpox vaccines destroyed our immune systems, and we should
| re-introduce these diseases to the public at large so we could
| develop our natural defenses, should Youtube be force to
| publish their videos? I'm sorry, but what you're saying is
| _not_ censorship.
| mc32 wrote:
| This opens up a can of worms.
|
| Right now it's "science". What will be the next frontier they
| take on a their responsibility to curate?
|
| Maybe they'll come for diets?
|
| Maybe they'll come for social behavior (so called
| "challenges")
|
| Maybe they'll come for political beliefs...
|
| Who knows what they will take on as their responsibility to
| supervise for the greater good.
|
| I think there is a big difference between quackery and
| skepticism. Skepticism in moderation is a healthy habit.
| afavour wrote:
| I feel like this always gets brought up, as if the slippery
| slope is a natural inevitability. What if it isn't? What if
| you can ban actively harmful content without that ban
| spreading?
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| You are right, we need to ban the actively harmful
| content. Let's start with the stuff you like and want to
| hear that is problematic. You like cooking content? Well
| cooking unapproved dishes is associated with obesity.
| Banned! You like hiking and being outdoors? Well, it
| disturbs animal habitat and ecosystems. Banned! You
| oppose and want to speak out about the mandatory
| microphones and cameras in every room of your house?
| Well, that clearly interferes with the greater good of
| catching people trying to commit suicide, avert domestic
| harm, make sure you are raising your child properly and
| in accordance with expert approved government
| requirements, and to make sure you are getting your
| mandatory amount of exercise of the required energy
| expenditure every day in order to not be a burden on
| society ......
| EL_Loco wrote:
| But no one is saying these contents should be banned. You
| can publish it, everywhere! Create a hundred sites and
| post it, feel free! Now, if I don't want it on my site,
| why can't I take it down? You're saying that if I create
| a video site for videos of healthy dishes, that I should
| not be able to take down a video recipe for something
| that I think is very unhealthy.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Create a hundred sites and post it, feel free!
|
| When you do that, then they come for your hosting
| providers and payment processors.
| angelzen wrote:
| London, circa 1830. Nobody is saying you have to work 70
| hours weeks in a cotton factory. You can grow your own
| cotton, feel free to process it any way you want! As long
| as the attention market concentrates in the hands of a
| handful of megacorporations by virtue of economies of
| scale, the freedom you talk about is not very tangible.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_in_Great_Britain_durin
| g_t...
| EL_Loco wrote:
| I wish I didn't have to work 40 hours a week. Can I just
| go to some random plot of arable land that isn't
| cultivated and start farming? Can I just process it any
| way I want? US, circa 2021.
| afavour wrote:
| But those are all obviously, patently absurd. You're
| proving my point. The slippery slope argument immediately
| descends into hysteria and pretends like people aren't
| capable of understanding context.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| You are literally sliding down the slope where the
| government is mandating the injection of untested
| corporate concoctions that it gave the manufacturers
| blanket immunity from liability for and you have been
| under prison lockdown home confinement for essentially 18
| months now to "flatten the curve" for 2 weeks.
|
| You seem to have lost all ability to objectively see what
| is going on.
|
| The rather anemic response to the tyrannical state
| descending on all of us is hardly "hysteria". You think
| that after we "flatten the curve" for two weeks we are
| going back to normal ... as all kinds of draconian and
| oppressive laws are being rammed through all legislatures
| at the same time?
|
| You may think yourself as safe since you were an obedient
| little citizen to Government Inc., but they will come for
| you too one day, they always do once you have outlived
| your usefulness.
| afavour wrote:
| You're embarrassing yourself now and you've proving the
| point about utter hysteria.
|
| > the government is mandating the injection of untested
| corporate concoctions
|
| They've been tested. Thoroughly. The results of those
| tests are public. And what's with the "corporate" scare
| word, there? Am I suppose to want my vaccine to have been
| brewed up by my neighbor or my local mom and pop drug
| store?
|
| > you have been under prison lockdown home confinement
| for essentially 18 months now
|
| No I haven't. No-one has. The lockdown lasted longer than
| two weeks but it finished last summer. Since then I've
| been shopping, eating at restaurants (usually outdoors,
| but indoors is available) and seeing friends. My children
| are at school, many people are back in their offices.
|
| > they will come for you too one day, they always do once
| you have outlived your usefulness.
|
| I'm going to go ahead and quote yourself back to you: you
| seem to have lost all ability to objectively see what is
| going on.
|
| But yeah, yeah, I know. We're all idiot sheep, you're the
| only one with the 20:20 vision to see what the rest of us
| idiots don't. It couldn't possibly be that we're all
| informed and came to a different conclusion to you. Nope,
| not possible.
| mc32 wrote:
| The old saying, give them an inch and they'll take a mile
| seems to hold true if allowed.
| josephcsible wrote:
| The problem is, who decides what actively harmful content
| is? For anyone in favor of this ban, imagine if Google
| had an anti-vaccine CEO, and was banning all pro-vaccine
| content for being "actively harmful" instead.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Then pro-vaccine people everywhere could start using
| google less and start talking about how Google has
| harmful/unscientific stances toward content, etc.
| josephcsible wrote:
| And with how big Google is, how effective do you really
| think that would be?
| user-the-name wrote:
| https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/slippery-slope
| EL_Loco wrote:
| >they take on a their responsibility to curate?
|
| So what? Let them curate whatever they want. There are
| other platforms to post my video to. Hell, I can create
| another one. I can create 50 others. I can create a mailing
| list and send to everyone on it. Are we going to argue
| wether spam filtering is censorship too?
| mc32 wrote:
| I've long said, Flickr's solution works pretty well. They
| have groups, you can form any group you want and set your
| own group rules. You can set filters and you can opt to
| view "adult" content or not (take me back to kittens").
|
| It's all about opting-in.
|
| You have certain taste, go find that group or found your
| own.
|
| You don't like certain groups, don't become a member of
| such group.
|
| You want to have your own private invite only group, go
| ahead, create your own invite only group.
|
| Flickr never achieved the prominence of FB or IG, or
| flash in the pan like Tumblr, but I think they built it
| from the ground up to provide a decent service for
| everyone with a light touch. For illegal stuff, yeah, you
| get kicked out, that's legit. Need to escalate to site
| admins, that's possible too but only if the group admins
| are acting in bad faith.
| josephcsible wrote:
| If spam filtering didn't let recipients opt out, and
| permanently deleted emails instead of putting them in a
| spam folder, then it would be censorship too.
| mc32 wrote:
| So, I presume you would be totally okay if Youtube one
| day decided they just wanted to deplatform anything such
| as "tax the rich" or "defund the police" or "no child
| left behind" or any talk about Mark Zuckerberg, just
| because they can?
|
| What if one day FB is under investigation and FB decides
| it will only carry FB propaganda and not let any
| dissenting voices, would that be totally cool?
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Yes, I'd be okay, and I would stop using them, as I have
| done with FB, and start looking elsewhere. Like I said
| before, I don't agree with Youtube taking anti-vaxx
| videos down, but I do think they, as a private company,
| should be allowed to. If they take enough content down,
| they'll end up losing users.
| mc32 wrote:
| Ok, that's pretty even reasoning though I feel it's an
| abuse of their monopolistic position.
| kansface wrote:
| > Are we going to argue wether spam filtering is
| censorship too?
|
| It certainly is censorship, but users opt in.
|
| > There are other platforms to post my video to. Hell, I
| can create another one. I can create 50 others.
|
| Its not just YouTube. Its their platform, and your
| hosting provider, and your DNS provider, and your payment
| processor, and your bank. Consider what happened to
| Parler.
|
| Lets not cheer on the loss of a public good because we
| could theoretically replace it some day.
| [deleted]
| angelzen wrote:
| > What will be the next frontier they take on a their
| responsibility to curate?
|
| Social Justice. Your very existence as part of society
| affects others, therefore anything that you say or think
| must conform to the standards of Social Justice the
| Platform has deemed necessary. If you don't like it, go
| found your own Platform.
| imapeopleperson wrote:
| It is censorship and it's also discrimination
| _red wrote:
| >But also: Bake The Cake.
| josephcsible wrote:
| Yep, that's definitely hypocrisy. If you think a law or
| court ruling should be repealed or overturned, you
| shouldn't be advocating for other things using it as
| precedent in the meantime.
| lalaland1125 wrote:
| How is this hypocrisy? The cake was about whether or not
| places should be able to restrict access based on
| protected classes (and in particular sexual orientation).
|
| Being an anti-vaxxer isn't a protected class.
| roenxi wrote:
| YouTube can take the videos down, I don't think many people
| are arguing against that. The issue is that it is a bad idea
| to. This is one of many rather urgent signals to people who
| don't agree with Google that they _should_ be setting up or
| looking for alternatives, and rather urgently.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Oh, I agree that it is a bad idea to do it. I just don't
| think a private company not putting a video on their site
| is what censorship is. I wish Youtube would not take those
| videos down, as they're not illegal. Anti-vaxxers will
| diminish with better public education, more focused on
| critical thinking and science literacy, and not because
| there are no more videos about it on Youtube. The videos
| will always find their way to reach their audience's
| screens.
| globular-toast wrote:
| > Anti-vaccine activists, or any activists for that matter,
| are completely free to post their videos anywhere else they
| want.
|
| Really? Youtube happens to be the _only_ platform that is
| restricting content? Even if that were true, the reason this
| matters is Youtube is a virtual monopoly when it comes to
| online video. Forget the technicalities. Yes, it 's privately
| owned. Yes, there are other site. Yes, users could set up
| their own competing website. But, in practice, which is all
| that matters, Youtube is the one place people go for videos.
| angelzen wrote:
| Your argument is that censorship is good in certain
| situations. That is true, especially in the beginning. The
| reason why censorship is a four letter word is scope creep.
| There are little reasons to believe that Youtube is somehow
| immune to scope creep, once the mechanisms and the precedent
| are set.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| I'm not for Youtube taking the videos down, I just don't
| think a private company taking a video down from their site
| is censorship. And my take is, if Youtube starts limiting
| content too much, it will end up losing viewership, which
| will migrate to competing sites/apps.
| angelzen wrote:
| "Youtube censors antivax content" is a true statement. It
| is not state censorship, but censorship nonetheless. Good
| thing / bad thing, for Youtube / for society at large,
| short term / long term, we can argue that. But let's get
| our facts & terminology straight.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| This is semantics. In this case HN is censoring opinions
| right now through its moderation. Every forum on the
| internet censors. Your spam filter blocks others speech
| from reaching you etc.
| angelzen wrote:
| While HN would kindly steer us towards polite curious
| conversation, the range of topics themselves is wide
| open. I have yet to see a site-wide blanket ban on, for
| example, adblockers. It is a contentious topic in the
| industry, there are entrenched trillion dollar interests
| that would rather have adblockers dissapear, and yet we
| can have a hopefully polite and informative conversation
| about the relative merits of subtopics in this area.
| frankfrankfrank wrote:
| You are not getting the point and that you have such a naive
| mentality towards it is disconcerting because the
| consequences of your mindset breaking through as it seems to
| be has dire consequences for everyone, you included. You
| think dissidents have the ability to "post their videos
| anywhere else they want" but in reality the system that
| YouTube is deeply entrenched in and even essentially plays a
| leading role in actively attacks and sabotages and undermines
| those very alternatives you claim people can post things to.
|
| This is not at all about the freedom of YouTube, it is about
| suppression of dissent and really the surreptitious
| persecution of dissidents.
|
| What is really going on here is no different than when any
| other tyrannical regime disappears people in the real world,
| or even when the internet cries out in pain when, e.g., China
| silences people online. You may think they are being sent off
| to post and live on the internet somewhere else, but when
| they leave your sight form the bubble you live in, they are
| only then even more persecuted and attacked on a constant
| basis where you aren't even paying attention and are none the
| wiser to what is really going on.
|
| In the end, "i told you so" will be utterly useless and
| worthless when the trap snaps shut and they come after you
| too once they have snuffed out and silenced everyone else
| they don't like, because this tyrannical authoritarian
| mindset is never satisfied and will always actively seek out
| new "dissidents" to persecute and one day you will find
| yourself on the wrong side too. It's just a matter of time,
| not whether it will happen.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Ha, this is some funny shit, as your tone is from someone
| who would censor the crap out of dissenting voices if you
| were in power.
| josephcsible wrote:
| > Just because they got big enought to be global?
|
| I'd say yes, this is why. I think that since the FAANG's are
| so successful that they replaced the public square with
| themselves, they should have to preserve the freedom of
| speech just like the old public square used to.
| IgorPartola wrote:
| It's a private company, are they not?
|
| There is nothing credible about anti-vax. Not a single thing.
|
| Opinions of the uninformed are worthless. I have yet to speak
| with a single anti vaxxer who did research and not "research"
| on the subject (that is did clinical trials or even is able to
| read an abstract of one). I will repeat it again: if anyone
| ever finds an actual problem with a vaccine safety study I will
| personally drop everything and go help them get this
| information in front of the FDA, the CDC, and the media. Not a
| single person has taken me up on this offer yet.
| redfieldac wrote:
| So going forward (by your definition) anyone with any
| differing opinion needs to setup their own video sharing
| website and server infrastructure just to share their ideas.
|
| What happens when something you care about is being censored,
| are you going to go through the effort of recreating YouTube
| just to share a video?
| IgorPartola wrote:
| No. I'm not going to share a dumbass opinion.
| lordloki wrote:
| You just did.
| ghoward wrote:
| > I have yet to speak with a single anti vaxxer who did
| research and not "research" on the subject (that is did
| clinical trials or even is able to read an abstract of one).
|
| How about the pioneer of mRNA vaccines? [1] [2]
|
| [1]: https://thehighwire.com/videos/mrna-vaccine-inventor-
| calls-f...
|
| [2]: https://news.yahoo.com/single-most-qualified-mrna-
| expert-173...
| IgorPartola wrote:
| > Malone received criticism for propagating COVID-19
| misinformation, including making unsupported claims about
| the alleged toxicity of spike proteins generated by some
| COVID-19 vaccines;[6][10][22] using interviews on mass
| media to popularize self-medication with ivermectin;[23]
| and tweeting a study by others questioning vaccine safety
| that was later retracted.[6] He said LinkedIn suspended his
| account over what he claimed were posts he had made
| questioning the efficacy of some COVID-19 vaccines.[24]
| Malone has also claimed that the Pfizer-BioNTech and
| Moderna COVID-19 vaccines could worsen COVID-19
| infections.[25]
|
| > With another researcher, Malone successfully proposed to
| the publishers of Frontiers in Pharmacology a special issue
| featuring early observational studies on existing
| medication used in the treatment of COVID-19, for which
| they recruited other guest editors, contributors, and
| reviewers. The journal rejected two of the papers selected:
| one on famotidine co-authored by Malone and another
| submitted by physician Pierre Kory on the use of
| ivermectin.[21] The publisher rejected the ivermectin paper
| due to what it claimed were "a series of strong,
| unsupported claims" which they determined did "not offer an
| objective nor balanced scientific contribution."[21] Malone
| and most other guest editors resigned in protest in April
| 2021, and the special issue has been pulled from the
| journal's website.[21]
|
| > Malone was criticized for falsely claiming that the FDA
| had not granted full approval to the Pfizer vaccine in
| August 2021.
|
| From https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_W._Malone
|
| Sounds to me like he took a hard right turn at some point,
| and had a conflict of interest besides. Am I missing
| something?
| ghoward wrote:
| So every person who can be labelled as taking a "hard
| right turn" can be safely ignored?
| user-the-name wrote:
| Dissenting opinions that objectively and literally _get people
| killed_.
|
| Allowing this garbage to be spread has been massively,
| incredibly negligent and reckless, and has caused many, many
| avoidable deaths.
| steego wrote:
| People have incredibly short memories, but media conglomerates
| have ALWAYS been in the business of curating and censoring
| content.
|
| Sometimes it's about agenda, but more often than not, it's
| about ad revenue and shielding themselves from risk.
|
| This is more about spending themselves from risk because
| YouTube has been getting a lot of flack for actively
| _spreading_ misinformation with their recommendation engine,
| which goes beyond merely hosting it.
|
| If Google REALLY had an agenda, why did they let their
| recommendation engine push these videos while millions of
| people around the world died?
|
| The truth is Internet media companies chose to profit from the
| engagement that misinformation was providing.
|
| All of this censorship you see today is a big meaningless
| public relations show.
|
| Conglomerates don't care about free speech and they definitely
| don't care about misinformation.
|
| They care about revenue.
| rflec028 wrote:
| revenue = supporting popular ideas, whether they make sense
| or not, to maintain optics and please investors
|
| popular != true
| steego wrote:
| Yes - Those were my supporting points. It should go without
| saying that popular things are often not true.
|
| My main point is they're not doing this out of some agenda.
| They're doing this to deflect that their algorithms
| PROMOTED misinformation via their recommendation engine.
|
| That's a step beyond hosting content.
|
| Honestly, this PR strategy is working too. Look at how many
| dopes are arguing whether YouTube should or shouldn't
| censor their content.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| So if you have a video site like Youtube, you can take down
| whatever content you like, and that's cool. However, if you
| become very successful, and attract many viewers, than it's no
| longer like that. Now you can choose what you let on your site.
| Is HN pro censorship? I mean, stuff HN doesn't want posted here
| can, and does get taken down by its moderators. You're just not
| complaining because HN isn't huge?
| josephcsible wrote:
| Not the parent commenter, but yes, that's exactly how I feel.
| Hacker News isn't a quasi-monopoly like YouTube is.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| So you can't moderate HN if it gets big?
| josephcsible wrote:
| I'd say that if HN got as big as YouTube or Facebook,
| then no, it shouldn't be moderated against wrongthink.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Let's say someone starts a video site where users post
| vegan recipes. It's a vegan video site. People create an
| account and can post what they want. Some users post
| barbecue videos, video on how to skin game, and the site
| owners remove these videos. If somehow a high percentage
| of society become vegan and this site blows up, becomes
| the biggest recipe site in the world, a quasi-monopoly of
| recipe videos. Do they now have to allow meat videos?
| angelzen wrote:
| Complaints about HN editorial policy are not encouraged on
| HN.
|
| You do raise an interesting point though. Historically, the
| production & distribution of content intended for mass
| consumption was expensive, often requiring entire teams to
| collaborate. The mere existence of a piece of content was
| subject to filtering, from conception to production to
| distribution. Most of this filtering was invisible and
| possibly unconscious, intrinsic to the moral norms of society
| at large.
|
| The Internet changed that. Content creation and distribution
| costs have cratered. A solo creator can spam hours of content
| every week. We are drowning in a quantity and variety of
| content unimaginable 30 years ago. Media distribution
| organisations now rely on soft distribution shaping
| ('boosting' / 'deboosting') and are starting to craft
| explicit censorship policies. It is very unclear how this
| will all play out in the long term, though I would caution
| that explicit legalism can only go so far.
| thisiswater wrote:
| A private media company deciding which media it publishes and
| doesn't publish.
|
| Can put it many ways.
| mariodiana wrote:
| So, then, YouTube is a publisher, not a platform?
| gitgud wrote:
| Old terms partially describe a modern concept...
| danShumway wrote:
| Publishers and platforms are not mutually exclusive
| concepts.
| EL_Loco wrote:
| Why does Youtube being a platform means they have to post
| _everything_? Are the anti-vaccine video sites forced to
| post pro-vaccine videos?
| criddell wrote:
| I only recently learned that this was a myth. The core of
| S230 is: No provider or user of an
| interactive computer service shall be treated as the
| publisher or speaker of any information provided by
| another information content provider.
|
| As long as YouTube isn't creating the content they are
| protected.
| criddell wrote:
| They are both and the distinction is mostly meaningless.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| YouTube is a publisher? Why aren't there editorial
| responsibilities put on them like with newspapers?
| root_axis wrote:
| YouYube is a publisher, but it's not a publication. A
| newspaper hires employees that are paid by the company to
| produce a publication, YouTube is a platform that allows
| individuals to publish arbitrary video content, there is a
| very obvious difference between the two, playing on
| "publisher" semantics to imply that they should be held
| liable for uploads by random people makes no sense.
| _Algernon_ wrote:
| If you selectively censor views you're taking on an
| editorial function. With that comes the responsibilities
| of being a publisher. Or that's how it ought to be.
| root_axis wrote:
| I get that this is what you think would be ideal, but
| this isn't true. Having a content policy is not
| "editorializing". Using that logic Facebook is
| "editorializing" by not allowing nude photos on the site.
| This isn't what editorializing means, this is just abuse
| of semantics to shoe-horn the idea that YouTube should be
| held legally responsible for content produced by
| independent 3rd parties.
| mach1ne wrote:
| *Allows to be published and doesn't allow to be published.
| lithos wrote:
| Oh yeah, that's exactly what a bunch of people are looking
| for. Declaring YouTube/Facebook/Twitter publishers.
| starfallg wrote:
| It's a continuum though. Platforms and service providers
| can and do limit who can use their infrastructure, or how
| it is used. It's not as black and white as people like to
| make it.
| tmaly wrote:
| how does this jive with Section 230?
| [deleted]
| amalcon wrote:
| It has nothing to do with section 230. The idea that
| section 230 prescribes different treatment of publishers is
| an oddly persistent myth.
| gebruikersnaam wrote:
| It's persistent because RW media keeps pushing it as
| gospel.
| jcranmer wrote:
| SS230 says that YouTube is not liable for any content that
| users post to its site, regardless of how much moderation
| of that content YouTube does or doesn't do.
|
| Everything after the comma in that sentence is actually the
| _entire point_ of why SS230 was passed; prior case law held
| that YouTube would be liable for all content if it did the
| barest amount of moderation.
| tmaly wrote:
| Is restricting content and banning content not a form of
| moderation?
| jcranmer wrote:
| Restricting or banning content would count as moderation
| as far as SS230 is concerned.
| thriftwy wrote:
| An effective market monopoly discriminates its customers by
| refusing some of them? That calls for a text-book anti-
| monopoly action.
| crmd wrote:
| Not in the USA. [0] The Supreme Court, in Pruneyard v
| Robbins, expressly rejected the claim "that a private
| property owner has a First Amendment right not to be forced
| by the State to use his property as a forum for the speech of
| others." Turner v. FCC and Rumsfeld v. FAIR rejected similar
| claims.
|
| [0] https://reason.com/volokh/2021/07/09/the-first-amendment-
| and...
| jcranmer wrote:
| Pruneyard is inapposite here. The facts in Pruneyard turn
| on two crucial elements:
|
| * The California state constitution granted a _broader_
| right than the US constitution, and the speech in question
| was required to be permitted under California, but not US,
| rules.
|
| * The speech in question was admitted by both parties to
| not reflect upon the shopping center's views, nor was the
| speech disruptive to its activities. Thus, freedom of
| association isn't going to kick in.
|
| That last part in particular is key. For social media
| platforms, it is _DEFINITELY_ the case that the content
| they host is imputed onto their own views. Alternative
| sites like Parler or Gab are invariably referred to with a
| note that they host predominantly far-right content--these
| sites are known almost entirely by what they carry, not the
| principles the sites claim to espouse. Even for larger
| sites like YouTube or Facebook, the ability to find certain
| kinds of negative content on these sites periodically blows
| up into major media furors.
|
| A more appropriate precedent is Miami Herald v Tornillo,
| which held that a Florida state law requiring newspapers to
| publish candidate replies to articles was unconstitutional.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| Just because it's legal doesn't mean it's not highly
| distasteful.
| DarkmSparks wrote:
| That's the same way, just because you use "private media
| company" instead of "global conglomerate" doesnt change
| anything.
|
| its just another example of "soft language"
| https://youtu.be/-m-zHjZ011I
| thesis wrote:
| So they should be held liable for illegal things posted on
| their site right?
| flandish wrote:
| Yes.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| I'm not sure how familiar you are with anti-vaccination
| campaigns but they're far from credible.
| Nesze wrote:
| Age old follow-up question. Who decides what anti-vaccine content
| is? Who is going to draw the fine line? How simple (i.e. black
| and white) is to make this distinction? Do you trust that person
| / entity making these decisions for you and your peers?
|
| But even without defending free speach, looks to me that when you
| start censoring you just create multiple new problems with zero
| solution. So even from a design point of view it's clearly a bad
| thing.
| duhast wrote:
| Thought experiment:
|
| Would you be making the same points if the debate was about
| ISIS propaganda? Or Holocaust denialism? Or content encouraging
| child exploitation? Viral videos encouraging suicides?
|
| Wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be taken
| down immediately, accounts banned and that platform owners are
| responsible? Or would you advocate for free speech and watch as
| the algorithm encourages more and more people to leave their
| home and join ISIS in Syria?
|
| After all, people are free to make decisions and are
| responsible for their actions. Suicide doesn't harm anybody
| else, right?
| seieste wrote:
| > if the debate was about ISIS propaganda?
|
| Google recently deleted the entire account of someone who had
| videos of vehicles in the Middle East, claiming it was
| extremist content [0]. He was a historian who was cataloging
| how vehicles are used and modified in military operations
| across the globe. But google's bots (which are probably
| pretty similar to YouTube's) classified it as extremist
| content.
|
| So I disagree with the premise of your argument -- that we'd
| all support the automatic removal of "ISIS propaganda".
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28621412
| duhast wrote:
| Mistakes will always happen. Content moderation is hard,
| especially at the scale of YouTube. And no - adding more
| human moderators wouldn't make it better.
|
| Most people would support it. Based on your response, I
| assume that you wouldn't mind if YouTube recommended you
| some ISIS beheadings for example. Who would be to judge if
| the video is real or not? It could be just artistic
| reconstruction. Free speech absolutists would never trust
| YouTube to make this determination.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Why would you want to remove videos of beheadings? Can
| there be a better example to teach people that ISIS is a
| wild barbaric horde that must be destroyed?
|
| Continuing your line of thinking, what would you want to
| remove next? 9/11 videos of planes flying into buildings?
| Holocaust documentaries? Surely, these videos can give
| _bad ideas_ to viewers...
| duhast wrote:
| I personally agree with you. Issue is that this view is
| not shared by the majority of the population. Even naked
| female nipples are still somehow offensive to some
| people.
|
| Imagine being called ISISTube. This wouldn't be good for
| business especially with the family oriented crowd.
|
| RIP LiveLeak.
| datenarsch wrote:
| And how can you be so sure to know what views are shared
| by the majority of the population?
| syshum wrote:
| > I assume that you wouldn't mind if YouTube recommended
| you some ISIS beheadings for example
|
| You act as if the recommendation engine forces people to
| watch content...
|
| No one if forcing anyone to click on and consume a
| recommended video... Most of the videos recommended to me
| I do not watch,
|
| How did "just turn the channel" i.e ignore the video in
| today's nomenclature become an invalid option?
| flavius29663 wrote:
| ISIS propaganda - at what point does a cleric preaching the
| Coran becomes ISIS propaganda? Should we stop seeing news
| where the taliban shout "death to america" - is that pro-
| taliban propaganda? Should we ban videos showing life inside
| Kabul today? Is that taliban propaganda? What about a person
| interviewing that says under Americans the soldiers came in
| his home and broke his stuff and also streets were unsafe at
| night and now under the Taliban it's safer all around?
|
| Holocaust - what is denialism? If you argue for the figure of
| deaths in Auschwitz being smaller than it is currently
| publicly known, is that denialism? Does that mean that you
| are never allowed to challenge the dogma in the "wrong
| direction" ? What if the official number is actually wrong?
| https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-
| xpm-1992-05-07-920210... Btw, there are countries in Europe
| that will prosecute you for denying holocaust, but that is an
| actual formal process: the prosecutors gather evidence that
| you consistently try to deny it, with false information, for
| the sole purpose of minimizing it, not for research or open
| discussion reasons. This is something prosecutors should do,
| not some random employees at youtube.
|
| Viral encouraging suicides - should we ban Radiohead
| altogether? What about "Virgin Suicides"? Should we ban all
| depressing music and movies? Where do you draw the line?
| Should we only see happy stuff all the time?
|
| I think speech should be free, except for the cases where it
| causes actual harm, and those cases should be determined by
| an official body that has a democratic control over it, like
| the police, FBI, DAs etc. Youtube/twitter/facebook are
| completely undemocratic, opaque and unaccountable for their
| actions. They should not have this much power to steer
| speech.
|
| And children abuse is a hairy one. When exactly is something
| ban-able? Does it start at anything below 18? What about
| countries where 15 is the norm(and the law). What about Romeo
| and Juliet? And what constitutes abuse? I personally think
| Desmond is a clear abuse, same with Cuties, same with all
| beauty peageants for kids. I would ban them all, but you see,
| I should never have that power, it should come from officials
| that are ultimately democratically elected.
| duhast wrote:
| So you're effectively proposing that government should be
| deciding what speech is allowed on the platforms. How is
| this free speech if government can silence you?
| flavius29663 wrote:
| It's free speech to the point it stops being just speech
| and turns into real damage, then the government can and
| should take action.
| lopis wrote:
| > Would you be making the same points if the debate was about
| ISIS propaganda?
|
| It doesn't matter, that's a fallacious comparison. It's not
| what the videos are about, and even if it was, who decides
| what is pro-ISIS propaganda and what is just discussion about
| what ISIS was doing? For years Youtube has been de-
| platforming anything that is not advertising friendly using
| AI, often de-listing videos altogether, with very little
| recourse unless you know someone who works at Youtube.
| duhast wrote:
| How would you make YouTube better? Monetise all content
| regardless of what advertisers say? Never remove any
| videos? Have courts make decisions whether video should be
| removed or not? Hire more human moderators as if humans are
| somehow super reliable and never make mistakes? I'm
| genuinely curious.
| datenarsch wrote:
| > Have courts make decisions whether video should be
| removed or not?
|
| That would be a start, yes.
| grillvogel wrote:
| wasn't tons of isis and taliban propaganda being posted on
| twitter long after they banned the orange man?
| datenarsch wrote:
| In fact there is still loads of grizzly ISIS and mexican
| cartel videos on Twitter and they don't care one bit about
| it.
| syshum wrote:
| Not the OP, but You are not going to like my answer....
|
| My Answer is simple "Unless the content constitutes a "True
| Threat" [1] as understood under US Constitutional Standards
| it should be allowed"
|
| As to suicide, I advocate for assisted suicide to be Safe,
| Legal and Rare. if a person chooses to end their life that
| choice absent a clear and confounding mental health crisis
| should be respected by society. This idea that suicide is
| always wrong is simply false, there are all manner of reasons
| why one can logically choose suicide.
|
| [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/True_threat
| adamrezich wrote:
| thought experiment:
|
| what if YouTube existed and was as popular as it is now, in
| the early 00s, leading up to the US invasion of Iraq, and
| there videos attempting to prove that Iraq did not in fact
| have weapons of mass destruction, and YouTube was deleting
| these videos?
|
| wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be
| taken down immediately, accounts banned and that platform
| owners are responsible? or would you advocate for free speech
| and watch as the algorithm encourages more and more people to
| question the Bush administration narrative, parroted and
| perpetuated unquestioningly by the media?
| asdff wrote:
| How would a video on youtube prove iraq did or did not have
| wmds? That wasn't determined until the US was able to
| inspect the country themselves. That's the thing of this.
| Anonymous accounts on the internet should not be seen as a
| source of truth since videos are easily misconstrued or
| manipulated or are outright fraudulent, yet people
| frequently hold up some faceless video as their truth
| rather than someone who spends all their time working in
| whatever area and is paid to have this expert knowledge.
| Like, imagine millions of people rejecting the advice of
| plumbers when it came to plumbing thanks to these crazy
| conspiracy videos being circled around the internet. That's
| not helpful to society, but its literally happening when it
| means medical advice.
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| > Wouldn't it be suddenly obvious that these videos must be
| taken down immediately, accounts banned and platform owners
| are responsible?
|
| It is obvious that you have a totalitarian mindset and
| believe in one 'objective truth'. A Free society that holds
| to the free speech principle should do the opposite. After
| all, this principle is not about protecting views that you
| agree with, but those that you don't.
|
| History has shown time and again that censorship never
| resulted in a positive long-term outcome, and you are
| repeating past mistakes.
|
| Also, coming from a totalitarian USSR and now living in a
| totalitarian Russia, I tell you this, fellow Americans: most
| of you here don't seem to understand the value of free speech
| and harm that censorship does to society.
|
| Quick example: beside vaccine deniers, youtube now also bans
| users who doubt the official election results. What could
| possibly go wrong with that, right?!
| heartbreak wrote:
| > coming from a totalitarian USSR and now living in a
| totalitarian Russia
|
| > Quick example: beside vaccine deniers, youtube now also
| bans users who doubt the official election results. What
| could possibly go wrong with that, right?!
| flavius29663 wrote:
| Americans can be so short sighted. Banning speech about
| election results is fine, because it's the "other" side
| that lost ...this time. It doesn't occur to people that the
| wheel turns, and next time youtube and facebook might side
| with the others...then what?
| duhast wrote:
| Overrun hospitals. Ballooning medical bills. Attack on
| congress. Over 600,000 dead from COVID. High vaccine
| hesitancy. States enacting voting restrictions to
| discourage voter participation. Growing social
| discontent, division and distrust in institutions and
| democracy.
|
| Your response? Government needs to step in and force
| YouTube to distribute election lies and COVID
| misinformation.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| There are always crises. The current ones are not even
| that great compared to historical problems. Fixing crises
| should not mean that you can erode democracy for the sake
| of fixing said crises. That is literally how totalitarian
| regimes start: by swift action needed to fix the current
| "insurmountable" issues. I am not saying that the US will
| become totalitarian, but taking steps in the wrong
| direction does not bode well.
|
| And to address some of your points,
|
| > voting restrictions
|
| When people say this, it's usually about voter ID laws,
| which are the norm in most of the developed world, all of
| Europe has this, with the exception of UK. There might be
| some issues with voter discouraging, but it's not as big
| of a deal as some make it seem.
|
| > division and distrust in institutions and democracy.
|
| Well, the entire pandemic handling was rife with things
| that caused this mistrust in institutions. From the masks
| (e.g. Fauci, the surgeon general and others lying about
| them not being needed, and then Trump going against them
| anyway for political reasons) to vaccines where even the
| top democrats were saying all over the place they won't
| take them because they were rushed under Trump. Well,
| what do you know? They are still rushed, under Trump, but
| now we try to convince everyone they are perfectly safe
| (while Trump not pushing for them anymore). WHO covering
| for China's role in the initial spread. Democrats acting
| all high and mighty in regards to masks and public
| gatherings, only to be maskless themselves [1][2][3],
| sometimes in large gatherings[4]. Or like Pelosi, which
| personally called the beauty salon to have a special
| appointment, even though all the salons were closed. The
| republicans were at least consistently against science on
| this: both in front and behind cameras.
|
| If the authorities cannot convince people about COVID
| truths, that is on them, not on the people talking freely
| about how they mistrust the government and their
| solutions.
|
| Distrust in democracy will grow even larger with every
| censorship action.
|
| As a disclaimer, I made my own masks and wore them in
| shops even before they were recommended, it was pretty
| obvious that an airborne disease is slowed by a mask. I
| was the only one in store with a mask, early on. I got my
| vaccine as soon as I could, driving half a day to get it.
| Throughout the pandemic I kept my social distancing to
| maybe extreme measures.
|
| What is happening now is dangerous for democracy and
| society, we're handing over way too much power to the
| government, mass media and social apps. The government
| should make sure there are no monopolies, but if there
| are (like youtube, twitter, facebook, google search) they
| should make sure there is a public open oversight over
| the rules governing them. This is our standard oil battle
| but with higher stakes, and most people seem just happy
| to be boxed in by private corporations, with no recourse
| in the future.
|
| https://www.kusi.com/photos-emerge-of-mask-less-gavin-
| newsom...
|
| https://www.newsbreak.com/news/1605383471858/andrew-
| cuomo-sl...
|
| https://www.foxnews.com/politics/pelosi-san-francisco-
| hair-s...
|
| https://nypost.com/2021/08/09/private-jets-and-no-masks-
| how-...
| syshum wrote:
| Clearly you are in an information bubble, I would
| encourage you to extract yourself from it because most of
| what you just listed is either a out right fabrication or
| at best a distortion from reality
| BurritoKing wrote:
| The growing "social discontent, division, and distrust in
| institutions and democracy" is fueled by the over zealous
| authoritarian push by certain elements of society to
| stamp out any disagreement or discord as
| "misinformation". The more one side doubles down on
| control from the top the more distrust in institutions
| will grow.
|
| We've abundant historical examples of this occurring, and
| we're busy repeating the same mistakes and causing
| fundamental mistrust across a broad spectrum of society.
| duhast wrote:
| So YouTube has no rights and must distribute all speech?
| Who is going to compel them? Government?
|
| You can't have your cake and eat it. Which way is it?
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| YouTube is a de-facto monopoly (a fact further
| complicated that it seems to be closely aligned with the
| current ruling party).
|
| Monopolies have a more or less successful history of
| being regulated. In other words, governments limiting
| their exploitation of their market position.
| duhast wrote:
| I will only point out that it took Twitter years to ban
| Trump despite him violating their ToS almost on a daily
| basis. Your point about "alignment" applies to power in
| general. Be it political power, money or influence and
| following.
|
| How is YouTube exploiting their market position? Last
| time I checked it cost literally 0$ to use their video
| platform. What do you think government should do?
| Andrew_nenakhov wrote:
| Twitter banning and censoring Trump was an extremely
| outrageous action. Only very short-sighted and
| brainwashed people cheer for it because they are unable
| to imagine whom this playform with enormous reach would
| ban _next_. What if it 'll be your favourite candidate?
|
| Of course, you'll say that _your_ candidate will _never_
| break ToSs, but we 've seen just today that these terms
| are rather random and can change on a whim.
|
| Think just one step further into the future.
| goatlover wrote:
| It was only because Trump worked really hard to earn that
| banning with his false claims about an election being
| stolen. It's not something Twitter wanted to have to do.
| But Trump was acting in a very dangerous manner
| concerning the democratic outcome of an election which he
| refused to accept.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > I will only point out that it took Twitter years to ban
| Trump despite him violating their ToS almost on a daily
| basis.
|
| They actually rewrote their ToS specifically to excuse
| not sanctioning his violations while continuing to
| sanction others without his institutional position for
| the same violations.
| jefb wrote:
| What's the difference between whispering "fire" in a crowded
| movie theater vs. yelling it out loud? - is it simply the
| volume of ones voice? Might some intangible like intent have
| something to do with it? How do you even go about quantifying
| that? What if everyone laughs at your outburst? What if they
| trample each other to death?
|
| I feel as though this crowd gets wrapped around the axel on
| these kinds of questions - anything with too much ambiguity
| that can't be code golfed into the tersest possible formal
| logic statement.
|
| When Justice Stewart attempted to define what "hardcore
| pornography" actual __is__ he simply wrote "I know it when I
| see it" (1964 Jacobellis v. Ohio).
|
| That's about as good as one can do in some cases.
| adamrezich wrote:
| > What's the difference between whispering "fire" in a
| crowded movie theater vs. yelling it out loud?
|
| both are protected speech though
| LindyTalker wrote:
| Yelling fire in a crowded theater is not protected free
| speech, fyi
| [deleted]
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Well...
|
| > Nearly 100 years ago Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes,
| Jr., voting to uphold the Espionage Act conviction of a
| man who wrote and circulated anti-draft pamphlets during
| World War I, said"[t]he most stringent protection of free
| speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire
| in a theatre and causing a panic."
|
| > That flourish -- now usually shortened to "shout fire
| in a crowded theater" -- is the media's go-to trope to
| support the proposition that some speech is illegal. But
| it's empty rhetoric. I previously explained at length how
| Holmes said it in the context of the Supreme Court's
| strong wartime pro-censorship push and subsequently
| retreated from it. That history illustrates its insidious
| nature. Holmes cynically used the phrase as a rhetorical
| device to justify jailing people for anti-war advocacy,
| an activity that is now (and was soon thereafter)
| unquestionably protected by the First Amendment. It's an
| old tool, but still useful, versatile enough to be
| invoked as a generic argument for censorship whenever one
| is needed. But it's null-content, because all it says is
| some speech can be banned -- which, as we'll see in the
| next trope, is not controversial. The phrase does not
| advance a discussion of which speech falls outside of the
| protection of the First Amendment.
|
| From [1] by Ken White, a lawyer. As I am _not_ a lawyer
| so I can 't really comment on the nuance here. But it
| doesn't seem as simple as "Yelling fire in a crowded
| theater is not protected free speech".
|
| [1] https://www.popehat.com/2015/05/19/how-to-spot-and-
| critique-...
| roenxi wrote:
| That analogy is rather good here because it has a dual
| interpretation - in terms of the actual history that could be
| dredged up by wiki editors [0] yelling fire in a crowded
| theatre has led to ~81 stupid deaths globally and failing to
| yell fire at an appropriate time has led to at least 278
| _really stupid_ deaths in the US. In practice there, there is
| evidence that yelling fire is not encouraged enough.
|
| There are real threats that are mitigated by an open and
| tolerant approach to speech. Cracking down on people _will_
| lead to a culture that is really bad. Which should be
| intolerable since the crackdown is only trying to defend
| against things that are mildly annoying.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_
| the...
| Spivak wrote:
| The real answers:
|
| * YouTube's team of content moderators who are directed
| ultimately by YouTube's ELT. So... humans. I mean if we expect
| every highschooler in the US to be able to read a book and
| interpret its meaning I think we can figure out what anti-
| vaccine content looks like.
|
| * That same team is going to draw the line. If it were me I
| would bring the banhammer on any content that had hints of grey
| because unless the fence is electrified people will try to cozy
| up to it.
|
| * I mean yeah. You trust them literally every day 24/7 if you
| use YouTube at all. I don't see what's different now.
|
| The solution is that groups of people who are actively
| purposely spreading disinformation that is right now in real
| life killing people loses the platform they have to spread that
| disinformation.
|
| In the trolly problem of "I can't say the vaccine contains
| government microchips and my relatives who are susceptible to
| this garbage might actually get the vaccine" and "I can say
| that spike proteins are causing salmonella but Aunt Susie will
| actually believe me" I know which way I'm pulling the lever.
|
| What's the body count and risk to others where you think it's
| time for someone to be the adult and say you're not actually
| allowed to be this stupid anymore because it's hurting people?
| SergeAx wrote:
| > every highschooler in the US to be able to read a book and
| interpret its meaning I think we can figure out what anti-
| vaccine content looks like
|
| Good. Supposing you are graduated from hight scholl and read
| a book. I beleive that covid vaccines are good and everybody
| in their right mind and without medical conditions should
| vaccinate. I also beleive that everybody has a right to
| decide by themself to take vaccine or to pass any time. Am I
| pro-vaccine or am I anti-vaxxer?
| Spivak wrote:
| This is a perfect expression of the problem. That you think
| that this is what anti-vaxxer content looks like. This
| opinion doesn't even make it to "hot take" status let alone
| anything that would be modded. No scary corporate oligarchs
| are coming for you for having the cheese pizza of opinions.
|
| But to be fair and actually answer your question it's pro-
| vaccine. You're literally stating the pro-vaccine stance
| verbatim.
| SergeAx wrote:
| So then why just don't leave those anti-vaxx people
| alone? They are 10-15% now top. Everyone else are even
| vaccinated or had been sick and now recovered. With Delta
| variant infection rate everybody will get their immunity
| pretty soon. Some will die because of their stupidity and
| there's nothing can be done about it. Or, even better,
| maybe one of those Israel drugs will come up good enough
| for emergency use.
| Spivak wrote:
| There is something that can be done about it! That's the
| whole point! It's crazy to me that people are actually
| all through this thread saying that some moron's right to
| make an internet video telling people that COVID is a
| hoax and the vaccine is a government conspiracy to turn
| men into femboys is more important than the lives of the
| actual victims -- the vulnerable people who fall down the
| rabbit hole, end up believing this junk and not getting
| vaccinated.
| SergeAx wrote:
| I see a lots of other guys and gals on YouTube with
| cooking recipes of literally breadcrumbed mix of cheese
| and bacon on butter which will send victim's cholesterol
| through the roof. But I don't see anybody bannig them
| from doing this because they will cause people to die of
| heart diseases.
| Spivak wrote:
| Perfect! This is an example of content that social
| networks don't consider harmful enough to ban. An example
| of content that is considered too harmful to allow by
| every social network is pro-eating disorder and pro-self
| harm content.
|
| Where do you think anti-vaxx lives on that spectrum?
| calltrak wrote:
| look on https://bitchute.com or https://brandnewtube.com and you
| will lots of information why I will not being taking an injected
| experimental medical procedure . No way no how!
| PerkinWarwick wrote:
| Heck, I view it all as 'misinformation', and I certainly don't
| need some cubicle drone at youtube to decide for me.
|
| Certainly the average person is smart enough to understand the
| statistics of the thing, after all that's something of the point
| of epidemiology.
|
| There should be enough data points by now to tell me a few
| things.
|
| . What is the real value of a cloth mask worn inside in a crowd
| with strangers? What is the value of a properly fitted N95 mask?
| Give it to me as an odds calculation.
|
| . Just what percentage of covid is picked up in bars? grocery
| stores? schools? at home? Our local health department is notably
| mum about that preferring only to hand out the county-wide ages
| and that's it.
|
| .Actual strong data on value of vaccine in terms of infection and
| symptoms. 1st, 2nd, 3rd dose. How long are these valuable? How
| long will they remain so due to mutations? Odds.
|
| .Actual data on nasty side effects of vaccine including odds.
|
| .Fairly presented value of home remedies, anti-virals, etc.
|
| .etc.
|
| You can twizzle out some of this, but rarely. Cut down to the
| essentials, it wouldn't take up a single sheet of paper. Post
| that sheet of paper whenever anyone feels the need to opine.
|
| Instead I'm treated to shaming and scolding and peoples' fear
| about their precious bodily fluids and I'm sick of everyone.
| Somehow this has become a proxy for the 2016/2020 elections
| complete with all the religious overtones. Please stop.
| gfodor wrote:
| Neo-fascism, plain and simple. If this feels hyperbolic, I'm just
| applying definitions. The government has already admitted it
| colludes with these companies to censor. Time to build. Time to
| exit.
| _prototype_ wrote:
| All this for a virus with a 99% survival rate [1]. Nevermind the
| fact that media and government forces completely ignore natural
| immunity which has been shown to provide 27x more resistance to
| covid infection by a recent study [2].
|
| You can't really be surprised at the general distrust and
| hesitancy. You can get a "Vaccine Passport" but you can't get a
| "Immunity Passport"?
|
| Ridiculous
|
| https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-970830023526
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
| swasheck wrote:
| on the one hand, i think that calling this "censorship" is wrong
| because, in my understanding, "censorship" is an activity of the
| government in an attempt to remove the (presumably dissenting)
| voice of the populace. this is simply a company refining its
| product in an attempt to make it more attractive to current, or
| potential, consumers.
|
| on the other hand, masks and vaccines have been so conflated with
| political ideology that it's easy to see why people immediately
| make the leap to "censorship" and it does highlight the critical
| reality that internet corporations either do, or believe they do,
| own your content and can remove it in order to suit their ends.
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| I was hesitant for a while and the massive censorship was part of
| it. I got vaccinated in May and have convinced others to get the
| shot since the side effects, while existent, appear to be minor
| compared to the reduction in harmful symptoms. Talking to my
| doctor is what did it for me. He cleared up most of my concerns
| and pressed me that my remaining concerns were too nebulous to be
| useful. If he just said "shut up and take it" I wouldn't have.
|
| My mother only got vaccinated last month. She and my father are
| both medical professionals (she's retired and my dad got it early
| on since he's super high risk). Her main hangup was the lies and
| coercion. She believed that if the vaccine was actually as great
| as they're saying they'd be able to make more objective goalposts
| and win arguments instead of stopping them because the other side
| is too stupid to make their own decisions. I'm confident there
| was also some element of "if I get it now I'm telling them their
| tactics worked."
| jackson1442 wrote:
| > She believed that if the vaccine was actually as great as
| they're saying they'd be able to make more objective goalposts
| and win arguments instead of stopping them because the other
| side is too stupid to make their own decisions.
|
| The problem I see here is that the (I hesitate to call it this)
| anti-vax "side" has been shifting goalposts since day n-1. If
| you've ever talked to someone who's shifted goalposts you'll
| see it's essentially an impossible situation; you can't
| convince someone who doesn't want to be convinced.
|
| If I'm remembering the timeline correctly, it started with the
| vaccine being rushed and that we were essentially being
| experimented on. It's been six months since I - and many others
| - have had their first dose and we're completely fine. Some
| claimed to be concerned about the long term effects; do you
| think they know what the long term effects of a serious covid
| case is? (hint: it starts with a d and ends with "eath")
|
| Oh, but it's also not FDA approved. I haven't looked at the
| numbers, but I bet vaccinations haven't gone up significantly
| since FDA approval. Obviously it's because the FDA isn't to be
| trusted, that's a given.
|
| At some point it was too hard to get- yes, that's true.
| However, now you can walk into a Target and decide to get the
| shot in the middle of a shopping trip! I did that with a Flu
| shot a few weeks ago and it took about five minutes.
|
| In short, you cannot argue in good faith with someone who does
| not. I don't have a good answer to this - I really wish I did -
| but that's the reality of the situation.
| gorgilo wrote:
| "(hint: it starts with a d and ends with "eath")"
|
| You sound like a socially retarded child.
| batch12 wrote:
| > Oh, but it's also not FDA approved. I haven't looked at the
| numbers, but I bet vaccinations haven't gone up significantly
| since FDA approval. Obviously it's because the FDA isn't to
| be trusted, that's a given.
|
| I believe that the FDA has only approved one of the vaccines
| so far. When I got mine, I didn't have a choice.
| b7bfcdeaab33 wrote:
| > Oh, but it's also not FDA approved.
|
| FDA's announcement https://www.fda.gov/media/150386/download
|
| Point to the sentence that says the vaccine got approved.
| endual wrote:
| It might help if you posted a link to where the FDA
| approval was announced: https://www.fda.gov/news-
| events/press-announcements/fda-appr...
|
| "Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the
| first COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine has been known as the
| Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine"
| Natsu wrote:
| > Oh, but it's also not FDA approved. I haven't looked at the
| numbers, but I bet vaccinations haven't gone up significantly
| since FDA approval. Obviously it's because the FDA isn't to
| be trusted, that's a given.
|
| Actually, there was a big shift in the numbers about then.
| People are just divided over whether it was due to shaming
| people or the certification. I believe Matthew Yglasias
| posted about that, though he seemed to think it was from
| shaming people.
|
| It's true that some people moved on to other arguments after
| that, but if someone has multiple independent reasons for not
| wanting something, you do kinda have to shoot them all down.
|
| From my experience in trying to explain the benefits of the
| vaccine to the hesitant, there are more than a few who just
| won't listen, but there are quite a lot of people who will
| listen when you calmly explain things. Trying to be forceful
| will basically always backfire.
|
| Many of them were previously meming about how Covid is not
| very dangerous, with only a 1-2% mortality rate. So I like to
| point out that the risk of vaccine injury is several orders
| of magnitude lower. You need thousands of people dying _per
| day for months_ to convince anyone that the vaccine is
| anywhere near as dangerous as the virus, not the odd death of
| someone the day after they vaccinated here and there.
|
| Once you get people into a direct comparison even if they
| push back on the numbers being fudged, you can point that
| every country in the world would have to be in on some
| conspiracy.
|
| I feel like this is the most effective way to defuse the
| vastly over-hyped danger of the vaccine. Even if they try to
| quibble the numbers with the best and worst numbers possible,
| you don't get to risks that are even the same order of
| magnitude.
|
| Saying that it's all not in good faith quickly becomes a
| self-fulfilling prophecy, I find that most people are willing
| to have an honest discussion with someone who respects them
| and who will listen and address their concerns.
|
| Those conditions are hard, though, because a lot of people
| seem to quickly throw human empathy out the window and start
| yelling. That... doesn't work at all.
|
| Anyhow, that's my experience from talking to people. I've
| gotten several of the hesitant to vaccinate by trying to be
| as honest as possible about the risks and why worrying about
| the vaccine but not Covid doesn't make sense. But if you
| don't listen to or understand where the people arguing are
| coming from--which is often hard with internet strangers--you
| probably won't get very far, so I do understand why it's
| frustrating.
| bronzeage wrote:
| I'm from Israel. I got the vaccine. The goalposts here
| shifted to a third booster shot. They already admit the first
| two doses become ineffective very fast, contradicting the
| early research that actually got me to trust and take the
| vaccine in the first place. The stated effectiveness of the
| vaccine also went downhill. I also had some unusual vaccine
| side effects that I will not discuss here because I prefer my
| privacy and nobody believes random internet anecdotes anyway,
| I'm only going to get criticized for sharing.
|
| I'm not going to get any booster, even tho they are heavy
| handedly mandating it here, with absolutely zero data. They
| don't even allow you to confirm a healthy antibody count,
| strengthening the suspicion that this isn't about "waning
| antibodies count" at all.
|
| Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I had
| my suspicions that this medical tyranny would keep on going
| on even when the medical data is non-existent, and that most
| people will not even notice the difference. That suspicion
| was fully confirmed. I personally apologized to my anti
| vaccine friend that he was right.
|
| It's going to take a detailed research on why the original
| Pfizer trial was wrong on the effectiveness, what is the
| amount of antibodies required to be safe, and then I would
| see if I meet the criteria, if being recently vaccinated
| meets the criteria, if they understand the causes of the
| effects, if the booster actually gives reasonable advantage.
| And maybe then I'll consider it. If they don't put the side
| effects and the errors of the phase 3 trials under
| investigation I might not even vaccinate me or my future kids
| against other diseases as my trust of this industry was
| broken by the Pfizer experience.
| monksy wrote:
| For those who were keeping track:
|
| The virus is just like the flu it's not a problem
|
| . The ICUs aren't that overloaded, theres no reason to worry
|
| .. -> We shouldn't have a lock down that is this strict allow
| people to make decisions on their own
|
| ... -> Restaurants shouldn't be required to be closed for
| indoor dining
|
| .... -> Let people chose to wear the mask or not (Considering
| the US/CDC's terrible stance on masks that wasn't safe on a
| society level [The US gov ignored and discouraged stronger
| masks such as KN95, KF94, FFP2 for civilian usage])
|
| .... -> The vaccine is too new, need more info
|
| ..... -> It's not fda approved, can't take it
|
| ...... -> My freedoms/won't get it/don't have more info
|
| It's not just citiziens that are spouting nonsense about
| this. It's government officials spouting this. I talked with
| an liqour board agent about why fining a lady operating a bar
| with live music during the peak of the pandemic is the
| correct thing to do. (Executive order banned indoor dining
| and alcohol consumption in the state) He literally try to
| discredit me at every step of the way. This was an executive
| order + strict liqour board rules put down.
| dude4you wrote:
| Ok, take the vacc. (I would have taken it if had been
| offered it before I got corona.)
|
| Ok. Then what? What will happen? Corona goes away?
| Seriously? Corona is here to stay my friend.
| tunesmith wrote:
| You can walk yourself through the reasons why with simple
| math, really.
|
| Every disease has an estimated R0. The number of people
| an infected person will infect. You probably have heard
| of this.
|
| Delta, last I checked, has an estimated R0 of between 5
| and 9.5.
|
| Vaccination levels reduce that. And it's a simple
| equation. All you need to know is the vaccination rate
| for your population, and an estimated efficacy rate of
| the vaccine.
|
| And from that, you can figure the new adjusted Rt:
|
| rt = r0 * (1 - (vacRate * eff))
|
| And that's it. And no matter what efficacy rate you pick
| (infection efficacy estimates for mRNA against Delta vary
| widely), the resultant rt will be _less_ than the initial
| r0.
|
| And if it's _less_ , then that effectively means that the
| disease is _less_ contagious for that population,
| compared to how contagious it was pre-vaccination.
|
| And _less_ contagious is better than _more_ contagious.
|
| So now I am legitimately curious. What part of the above
| reasoning do you actually disagree with?
|
| (Incidentally, vaccination also improves your chances of
| avoiding future infection, even if you've already been
| infected.)
| dude4you wrote:
| you argumentation is correct but misses a point. the
| vaccs may encourage new variants due to evolutionary
| pressure.
| dude4you wrote:
| Other ideas https://boriquagato.substack.com/p/the-
| vaccinated-supersprea...
|
| It is all much more opaque than the "get your vacc and
| your old live comes back" evangelists want you too
| believe. Corona will stay.
| aero142 wrote:
| I mostly agree with you but "And less contagious is
| better than more contagious." is a giant hand wave in a
| logical argument. You should explain what specific
| outcome in the longer term improved by this and justify
| that.
| dlp211 wrote:
| Let's be clear, mitigations were being removed when
| vaccination rates were increasing and hospital rates were
| decreasing. It's only because a significant enough
| portion of the country has decided that not getting
| vaccinated is more important to them and have caused our
| medical system to be put back under strain have the
| mitigations been put back in place.
| alexpw wrote:
| You should still get vaccinated. Post-infection immunity
| is very heterogeneous, with respect to what level of
| protection you'll have, and how long it will last. You
| might have great protection for a bit, or you might get
| reinfected just like the first time, like many have.
|
| The combined protection of natural with vaccination will
| be better than just one or the other. I hope you stay
| safe.
| dude4you wrote:
| an israli paper claimed my immunity is 13 times better
| now compared to vaccinated people.
| monksy wrote:
| What's the paper?
| pseudo0 wrote:
| I'd guess it's this one: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/
| 10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v...
| dude4you wrote:
| https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.212624
| 15v...
| monksy wrote:
| Take the vaccine (Moderna if you can pick), significantly
| reduce the health risk of covid on you. Also, helps to
| dampen the overall rate in the county and reduces the
| risk new mutations that may create more breakthroughs.
|
| If you're complaining about the withdraw of mitigations,
| that's because people and states have refused to
| participate in the mitigations as a whole.
|
| If they were compliant, we'd be in a situation like
| Australia or Taiwan. Masks optional, nearly normal (they
| have restrictive borders), open concerts, and lockdowns
| only when a couple of cases pop up.
| dude4you wrote:
| "and reduces the risk new mutations" likely the opposite
| is true. It is called evolutionary pressure.
|
| I will get vaccinated next year since I move back to
| China then. They insist and I am okay with it since I get
| something in return.
| monksy wrote:
| > "and reduces the risk new mutations" likely the
| opposite is true. It is called evolutionary pressure.
|
| Chicken and egg problem: You can't have evolutionary
| pressure without an environment to operate in. Vaccines
| reduce the space in which they can attempt to
| successfully mutate.
| tunesmith wrote:
| That's not how evolutionary pressure works. If fewer
| people are infected, the virus has fewer opportunities to
| mutate. _Among those people_ , any surviving mutation has
| (by definition) a greater ability to escape the virus,
| but that's not the same thing as saying that the virus
| increases the chance of a new mutation.
| judahmeek wrote:
| So is measles, polio, & chickenpox, but those vaccines
| have still made a huge difference in general quality of
| life.
| syshum wrote:
| For those that are keeping Track
|
| Dont wear a mask they do not work
|
| --> 2 weeks to flatten the curve
|
| ----> Wear a mask they work so amazing
|
| -----> Covid does not spread if you protest the police, but
| does if you protest mandates
|
| -------> Lock down until the vaccine
|
| ----------> Get the vaccine and take of the mask
|
| ----------------> Nope still gotta wear the mask
|
| ------------------> Got the vaccine, sorry still have to
| lock down until 70% are vaxxed
|
| ---------------------> nope 90%
|
| -------------------------> Nope 98%
|
| ----------------------------> nope need a booster now....
|
| And that is not all of the shifting
|
| this idea that only one side is shifting the goals is
| laughably absurd
|
| Tell you what I will listen to "authority" when they start
| enforcing their rules on the rich and famous who seem to
| believe only their servants spread COVID but they are
| exempt. The politicians that proclaim by their actions
| "Rules for thee but not for meee"
| fsckboy wrote:
| > anti-vax "side" has been shifting goalposts since day n-1.
|
| (claimer/disclaimer: I'm a hard-science type (famous
| university or rather, institute) and got vaccinated as soon
| as I could; I am from a very healthy family that does not
| suffer from outlier symptoms (like flu, but eh it's not bad,
| no allergies, no side effects etc.) so overall I just didn't
| worry about it, but I didn't worry about Covid before I got
| vaccinated either.)
|
| but the biggest goalpost that got moved was, we have
| government regulations and protocols that concern drug
| approvals to make sure that the general population is not
| exposed to unnecessary risks. The Covid vaccines were fast
| tracked and unleashed untested: that's a huge goalpost
| shifted a huge distance. And nor was the administering of the
| vaccine accompanied by a notification of the major risks
| inherent in this approach, like for example, perhaps the
| viral spike protein was causing all the tissues' damage and
| the vaccine included the spike protein.
|
| so, in my book the pro vax side has behaved reprehensibly and
| is doing even deeper damage to the body politic by
| normalizing censorship.
|
| I'd still urge everybody to get vaccinated.
| eric_b wrote:
| Eh, everyone has been moving goalposts. First it was "flatten
| the curve" to prevent hospital overrun. Then at some point it
| became "no one can ever get covid again" and we did wild
| things like close schools even if a person so much as got
| near a person with COVID.
|
| I don't think one side has a monopoly on losing trust,
| behaving badly, or making anti-science decisions.
| lovich wrote:
| When did it ever get to no one can ever get Covid again? We
| tried to "flatten the curve" and still had large spikes.
| After we got some semblance of control we only kept
| infections down with lockdowns and other measures.
|
| This is a tech based forum, surely everyone here has
| experience with a boss who complains that he's paying you
| when the system never breaks, not knowing that it's not
| breaking because of active measures being taken to prevent
| it
| hairofadog wrote:
| > Then at some point it became "no one can ever get covid
| again" and we did wild things like close schools even if a
| person so much as got near a person with COVID.
|
| Anecdotally, I have never heard anyone make the argument
| "no one can ever get covid again" nor heard of a school
| being closed because "a person got near a person with
| COVID".
| angelzen wrote:
| Anectodally, last school year all in-person schools were
| closed in WA state.
|
| https://www.governor.wa.gov/news-media/inslee-extends-
| school...
| hairofadog wrote:
| Sorry, yeah, I should have been more clear: I have heard
| of schools being closed, just not for the reason that
| "someone got near someone with covid". Inslee's statement
| says the reason is due to "increasing rates of COVID-19
| related infections, hospitalizations and death", but
| maybe you have additional information about the real
| reason.
| [deleted]
| barbazoo wrote:
| The messaging now at least here in BC is all about
| increasing vaccination coverage. To a degree that I'm
| reminded of Goodhart's law "When a measure becomes a
| target, it ceases to be a good measure". Who cares how many
| people are vaccinated, what the goal should be is reducing
| hospitalizations, deaths and long-Covid for the good of
| people (don't die) and that of the health care system (ICUs
| not overrun). If there's a community who doesn't want to
| get vaccinated, who cares as long as the overall goal is
| still reached. We're focusing too much on cases and
| vaccinations to reduce cases at the moment in my view.
| We've lost touch with what's important, at least our
| messaging doesn't reflect that.
| avhon1 wrote:
| > the goal should be is reducing hospitalizations, deaths
| and long-Covid for the good of people (don't die) and
| that of the health care system (ICUs not overrun).
|
| I agree, that's an excellent goal! Universal vaccination
| seems to be an excellent means of achieving it. Besides
| that, what other thrusts would you like to see?
| barbazoo wrote:
| Well, see, universal vaccination I would say is
| sufficient to achieve this goal but not required. I
| wonder if it would be better to focus on vaccination
| coverage in hotspots where we do have issues with
| hospitalizations.
|
| What triggered me to wrote this is articles like this one
| [0] that, in my opinion, don't do anything to convince
| anybody to get vaccinated. All they do is shame people or
| groups of people. And what's missing from this article?
| While it talks about case numbers
|
| > Manitoba's Southern Health region, which encompasses
| the RM of Stanley, made up roughly half of the province's
| new COVID-19 cases in recent weeks, but is only home to
| around 15 per cent of the population.
|
| it completely leaves out what's actually going on in the
| hospitals in that particular region. Case numbers aren't
| meaningful. Especially with vaccines that are great at
| preventing serious symptoms but only good at preventing
| spread. Don't get me wrong, I'm vaccinated and I believe
| everybody should be. But the vaccines aren't gonna
| protect us from ever getting the virus. We all will get
| it. What matters is to strategically focus on vulnerable
| groups and difficult geographical areas. But
| unfortunately we seem to be looking for a one size fits
| all approach. But maybe people in rural Manitoba need to
| be taken care of differently than people in urban
| Toronto.
|
| [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/manitoba-
| covid-19-st...
| betterunix2 wrote:
| Closing schools and so forth was part of the flatten-the-
| curve effort. Really though, the CDC has been driven by the
| available science and by the reality of the pandemic, and
| when the CDC's guidance has changed it has invariably been
| in response to new data on COVID or to changing conditions
| (e.g. community spread, N95 mask availability, new
| variants).
|
| It is overly generous to speak of "one side" as if there is
| another equally valid side to compare with. The CDC is not
| a political institution and they always cite published
| research in their guidance and public statements about
| COVID-19. The anti-mask/anti-vax crowd are going around
| spreading one fantasy after another, coming up with new and
| ever more outrageous conspiracy theories and excuses for
| refusing to cooperate; none of their claims have ever been
| based in reality, and that is why the story changes on a
| daily basis and why there are so many contradictory claims
| being made.
|
| To put this in perspective, the high-level direction of the
| CDC's guidance has, since the very beginning of the
| pandemic, been to reduce the rate at which COVID spreads;
| the changes in their guidance have been about the details.
| The anti-mask/anti-vax crowd has gone from denying that
| there is a virus to saying that the virus is no worse than
| the flu to claiming that masks would suffocate them to
| whining about how mask mandates violate to their freedom
| and that they would rather die of COVID than comply with a
| mask mandate. They went from heaping praise on the last
| President simply because he was in office when the vaccines
| were first becoming available to complaining that the
| current President was being given too much credit for the
| vaccination effort to claiming that the vaccine is made
| from aborted fetuses, that the vaccine alters DNA, that
| Bill Gates inserted microchips into the vaccine, that the
| vaccine causes people to become magnetized, and that
| vaccine mandates are proof that the vaccine is the "mark of
| the beast."
| angelzen wrote:
| Frankly, I am getting tired of labels. I one side of the
| debate is anti-mask / anti-vax crowd, then the other side
| is anti-living-life / pro-cower-in-the-basement-forever
| crowd.
| crooked-v wrote:
| No "cowering" would be necessary if people would just get
| vaccinated.
| michaelt wrote:
| Is it the official stance of the CDC or WHO that a
| country with 99% of eligible adults double-vaccinated
| would have no need for masks, lockdowns, social
| distancing, travel restrictions or other restrictions?
|
| I'm vaccinated, and in a country with 80% of people on
| two doses and 90% on one dose. But we still have a lot of
| cases, and a lot of people stuck on ventilators in
| hospitals.
| mcguire wrote:
| The UAE?
|
| 300 new cases / day, 5500 active cases, and 2 deaths /
| day, for a country with 10M people. (3 new cases / day,
| 55 active cases, 0.02 deaths / day, per 100,000.)
|
| Compared with, say, the US: 112,000 new cases / day,
| 9,800,000 active cases, 2000 deaths / day. (34 new cases
| / day, 3000 active cases, 0.6 deaths / day, per 100,000.)
|
| I'd say you're in better shape than we are.
|
| (https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus)
| tunesmith wrote:
| It depends on the R0 of the mutation, and the efficacy of
| the vaccine.
|
| For instance if Delta has an R0 of 8, and we're 100%
| vaccinated, and the vaccine has an efficacy of 85%
| against infection, the resultant Rt would be 1.2:
|
| 8 * (1 - (1 * 0.85))
|
| So that means that some other form of mitigation on top
| of 100% vaccination would be necessary to stop the
| spread.
|
| But for mutations with lower R0, or higher vaccine
| efficacy, herd immunity may still be possible.
| avhon1 wrote:
| Nobody is willing to take a stance that strong, because
| they can't know that for sure. There could be further
| viral mutations, an unexpectedly sudden decline in
| immunity from vaccines, a string of unlucky superspreader
| events, a completely unrelated pandemic, or any of a lot
| of other uncontrollable, unknowable factors that could
| make continued restrictions necessary in an almost-fully-
| vaccinated population.
|
| It's an unfortunate circumstance that 90% of people being
| fully vaccinated might not be enough to stop COVID-19 in
| its tracks. Even just 1% of people being unvaccinated
| makes millions of people who could catch, mutate, and
| transmit the virus. Especially if those people were
| loosely clustered together, and didn't take precautions
| against spreading disease, they could possibly keep the
| virus active (and hospitals busy) for a long time on
| their own.
| angelzen wrote:
| You have no right to tell other people what to do with
| their bodies.
| caslon wrote:
| I agree in theory, but... we as a nation already crossed
| that boundary ages ago. Kids can't consent to anything,
| adults can't do certain drugs, adults _also_ can 't drink
| or smoke if they're under 21, and a lot of this isn't
| even _recent._ World War II saw the nation doing a lot of
| gymnastics to avoid letting people do things with their
| bodies. Further, we already ban certain forms of
| abortion, and it 's not universally controversial that we
| do.
|
| I think you're arguing from a fictional frame of
| reference.
|
| Ideologically I'm somewhere in the right half of the
| spectrum, and even I'll admit that the state has
| absolutely taken the right to bodily autonomy, and I
| don't think it's a universally bad thing.
| angelzen wrote:
| That is a good point. I used to fantasize of living in a
| fictional world where there is such a thing as
| inalienable human rights. I struggle to swallow the hard
| pill that a disease with a survival rate of 99.9% in
| under 65s has upended that fiction. (BTW, I am not
| facetious, and the coming winter risks being brutal).
|
| I have long suspected that the modern 80 year life
| expectancy was a grand illusion. I wonder if the covid
| pandemic is Mother Nature's way of signalling that the
| party is over and it's time to return to 'Gaudeamus
| igitur, Iuvenes dum sumus'.
|
| https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healt
| han...
| lovich wrote:
| Look, if you could actually show up with actual bodily
| autonomy then this would be a different conversation.
|
| The fact of the matter is that no one is capable of being
| autonomous in the face of communicable diseases because
| if you are infected you turn into a factory for the
| disease that affects everyone else.
|
| Citing a 99.9% survival rate is disingenuous when it's
| infecting everyone. That's blatantly obvious with Covid
| shooting up to 2-3 place for cause of death and if recall
| correctly one of those other major causes of death it's
| competing with is cancer which is actually a basket of
| diseases with unrelated causes.
|
| Even with the vaccine "mandate" the US gov has set, you
| still have the option to get tested frequently and not be
| vaccinated.
|
| You can't refuse the vaccine, refuse to get tested and
| prove you are immune, and want to walk around uninhibited
| in public when you could be carrying this disease. That's
| not bodily autonomy that's just saying "fuck you I do
| what I want" to society, so don't be surprised when
| claims of "my body, my choice" or clamoring about rights
| falls on deaf ears to the rest of society
| jackson1442 wrote:
| We actually do this quite a bit here in the States (and
| abroad)!
|
| * Children are required to be vaccinated against several
| diseases before attending public school
|
| * In Texas (TEXAS!), all university students attending
| in-person must present proof of a meningitis vaccine
|
| * To travel to many countries you need to present a
| "yellow card" demonstrating vaccination status against
| specific diseases.
| betterunix2 wrote:
| Yeah, because in the USA nobody ever instituted vaccine
| mandates until COVID happened. Oh wait, sorry, I forgot
| about all the vaccines we require children to receive
| before they can go to school.
| mcguire wrote:
| Likewise, they have the responsibility not to harm other
| people with their bodies.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| You have no right to spread disease and exacerbate a
| public health emergency.
| angelzen wrote:
| _Permanent_ public health emergency. What is the long
| term plan? Our current vaxxing target (or boosting, I
| lost track) is at 98% of the population. Soon we 'll be
| at 105% and beyond. Then what?
|
| Edit: Reformulated for clarity (hopefully), quoting
| recent remarks by the President. Now that I read the
| transcript, the content is a bit muddy, but clearly he
| thinks 75% vaccination rate target is too small and
| 96/97/98 vaccination rate is laudable.
|
| https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-
| remarks/20...
|
| Q How many -- how many Americans need to be vaccinated
| for us to go back to normal? Like what is the percentage
| of total vaccinations that have to be deployed?
|
| THE PRESIDENT: Well, I think -- look, I think we get the
| vast majority -- like is going on in so many -- some
| industries and some schools -- 96, 97, 98 percent. I
| think we're getting awful close. But I'm not the
| scientist.
|
| I think -- but one thing for certain: A quarter of the
| country can't go unvaccinated and us not continue to have
| a problem.
| caslon wrote:
| It's actually only around 60% of the nation that's got _a
| single dose or more._ We aren 't anywhere close to 98%.
| oyashirochama wrote:
| He likely means the Adult and eligible population, we are
| close to 80% if not higher that has at least a single
| dose.
| mcguire wrote:
| Specifically, 55.07% (fully) and 8.47% (partially).
|
| (https://ourworldindata.org/covid-vaccinations)
| munk-a wrote:
| This pandemic isn't a scenario in a board game where the
| rules are clear cut and easy to parse. A lot of the
| "wishy-washy"-ness that people attribute to the CDC is
| actually just them responding to the changing situation
| on the ground. People demand to know what percentage of
| the population needs to be vaccinated to return to normal
| so answers are given - but those answers will change as
| our understanding evolves.
|
| Vaccinations save lives - and not only your own. Do it.
| [deleted]
| lovich wrote:
| Certainly, and you have no right to walk around spreading
| viruses that affect other's bodies.
| mistermann wrote:
| There are human "rights", and then there is Mother
| Nature's reality. Rather than thread after thread of
| arguing over whose fault it is and taking potshots at our
| respective outgroups, perhaps we should instead consider
| finding The Experts on reality. Perhaps they do not
| exist, just as we once did not have various other
| experts.
| lovich wrote:
| I do not understand what point you are trying to make in
| response to my comment
| mistermann wrote:
| If you/society do not like people walking around
| spreading viruses that affect other's bodies, then
| perhaps you and society should do something about it.
|
| For example, when the covid virus broke out on the scene,
| some experts developed a vaccine that seems to be pretty
| darn good at rectifying the situation. Now there seems to
| be a related but different problem: a fair amount of
| people who are opposed to taking that vaccine (walking
| around spreading viruses that affect other's bodies), so
| perhaps a similar approach should be taken: find some
| people with expertise in the problem, and let them do
| their thing (maybe throw a few ten or hundred million at
| them to grease the wheels). As it is, the people who have
| been tasked with this job seem to be not performing up to
| the expectations of lots of people, so it might be a good
| idea to start looking for some who can.
| lovich wrote:
| We(society) are doing something about it. The convincing
| based on logic is over and now economic pressure and
| choosing who or who not to associate with is occurring.
|
| I am sorry that you can't have your hand held every step
| of the way as you and your group continually shit on
| everything and put the rest of us at risk.
|
| Sucks to suck for everyone who loses their job cause they
| want to take a stance. They'll be remembered as martyrs
| should they be proven right, but I wouldn't put money on
| it.
| mistermann wrote:
| > The convincing based on logic is over and now economic
| pressure and choosing who or who not to associate with is
| occurring.
|
| I see. Well, I wish you luck with this approach.
|
| > I am sorry that you can't have your hand held every
| step of the way as you and your group continually shit on
| everything and put the rest of us at risk.
|
| Do you perceive yourself to have the ability to read
| minds? Well I have some bad news for you: you missed,
| _horribly_.
|
| - I do not desire or need to have my hand held
|
| - I am double vaccinated
|
| - I do not have "a group" (at least nothing related to
| vaccination status)
|
| - I do not continually shit on things (but do I
| occasionally offer some advice)
|
| > Sucks to suck for everyone who loses their job cause
| they want to take a stance. They'll be remembered as
| martyrs should they be proven right, but I wouldn't put
| money on it.
|
| Based on my observations, when people lose their income
| (particularly as a result of policies they disagree
| with), they often become angry. On one hand, this can be
| enjoyable for observers. But then on the other hand,
| sometimes Mother Nature has a surprise in store that more
| than makes up for the pleasure. Let's hope for everyone's
| sake that this is not one of the times that the law of
| unintended consequences pays us a visit.
| dude4you wrote:
| Concentration camps for HIV positive people?
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I can't get HIV from sharing the same space as someone
| who is infected, and it's a crime to knowingly spread
| HIV.
|
| Where are the camps for people with COVID?
| dude4you wrote:
| The original post was less specific about that.
| lovich wrote:
| There's no concentration camps for Covid, you can stay
| home.
|
| You don't catch hiv by walking by someone positive with
| it, and if you did like you do with Covid and it caused
| the same level of casualties then yes I would be all for
| the measures as we are using against covid
| FormerBandmate wrote:
| Vaccines make people who are vaccinated almost entirely
| immune. The current outbreak is a plague of the
| unvaccinated largely
| dude4you wrote:
| No, it does not. It only prevents serious cases.
|
| If vaccinations encourage new variants is a total
| different question. It is very possible. Evolutionary
| pressure is a bitch.
| tunesmith wrote:
| Not quite true. Vaccines protect people against the worst
| effects, but they're not as effective against infection.
| So a lot of unvaccinated people with the disease might
| have caught it from vaccinated people. (I'm pro-
| vaccination, I just don't like the practice of blaming it
| all on the unvaccinated people.)
| eric_b wrote:
| How can you write so many words defending the CDC? Their
| "guidance" is based on cherry picked science at best, and
| gut feelings and political narratives at worst. There are
| plenty of studies that suggest lockdowns, closed schools
| and other "mitigation" efforts are ineffective or net
| harmful, but eh, just ignore those right?
|
| Look at the most recent issue of vaccine boosters. The
| FDA panel of experts (whom we're supposed to trust now,
| right?) said boosters are not necessary. CDC comes in and
| says the FDA is wrong, boosters are good jk lol. What a
| joke.
|
| Can you point me to a well done study on cloth masks and
| their efficacy? 19 months in and I have yet to see one.
| But people "feel" that masks must work, so CDC guidance
| says wear them. Surely at this point we should have so
| much compelling data about masks if they are effective...
| Permit wrote:
| > Can you point me to a well done study on cloth masks
| and their efficacy?
|
| I'm guessing you've hidden away a lot of meaning in the
| words "well done" but here's one:
|
| https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202004.0203/v4
|
| These also: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1HLrm0pqBN
| _5bdyysOeoOBX4p...
|
| If you don't think these are "well done", can you at
| least clarify what such a study would look like and point
| us to an example?
| eric_b wrote:
| I mean, did you even read it? It is anything but
| definitive.
|
| "In this narrative review, we develop an analytical
| framework to examine mask usage, considering and
| synthesizing the relevant literature to inform multiple
| areas"
|
| So it's an analytical framework.... let's read on
|
| "Randomised control trial evidence that investigated the
| impact of masks on household transmission during
| influenza epidemics indicate potential benefit, although
| we should be careful of assuming these results will
| transfer to SARS-CoV-2. In particular, influenza has an
| R0 (the basic reproduction number) of 1.4 (21) whereas
| SARS-CoV-2 has an R0 of 2.4 or more"
|
| So they couldn't find an RCT about COVID specifically,
| and they're not confident prior studies will apply.
|
| And really the nail in the coffin:
|
| "There are currently no studies that measure the impact
| of any kind of mask on the amount of infectious SARS-
| CoV-2 particles from human actions"
|
| Like... this is not a good study, or even worth talking
| about further.
| judahmeek wrote:
| Try https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-
| news/2021/09/surgical-mask... then
|
| Abstract: https://www.poverty-action.org/study/impact-
| mask-distributio...
|
| Actual paper: https://www.poverty-
| action.org/sites/default/files/publicati...
| eric_b wrote:
| So some mild effect for surgical masks they think (though
| the intervention group did more social distancing than
| the control group as well, hard to suss out the impact of
| _that_ ).
|
| But then they say this:
|
| "while cloth masks clearly reduce symptoms, we cannot
| reject that they have zero or only a small impact on
| symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections"
|
| Not exactly a slam dunk.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _Look at the most recent issue of vaccine boosters. The
| FDA panel of experts (whom we 're supposed to trust now,
| right?) said boosters are not necessary_ [for the general
| public (https://qz.com/2061783/why-the-fda-panel-says-
| most-americans...)] _. CDC comes in and says the_
| [boosters are available for some groups (https://www.cdc.
| gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/booster-s...) based on
| the recommendations of the FDA panel] _._ "
|
| The problem with getting your science news from FB memes
| is that some nuance tends to get lost.
|
| " _Studies show that after getting vaccinated against
| COVID-19, protection against the virus may decrease over
| time and be less able to protect against the Delta
| variant. Although COVID-19 vaccination for adults aged 65
| years and older remains effective in preventing severe
| disease, recent data pdf icon[4.7 MB, 88 pages] suggest
| vaccination is less effective at preventing infection or
| milder illness with symptoms. Emerging evidence also
| shows that among healthcare and other frontline workers,
| vaccine effectiveness against COVID-19 infections is
| decreasing over time. This lower effectiveness is likely
| due to the combination of decreasing protection as time
| passes since getting vaccinated (e.g., waning immunity)
| as well as the greater infectiousness of the Delta
| variant._
|
| " _Data from a small clinical trial show that a Pfizer-
| BioNTech booster shot increased the immune response in
| trial participants who finished their primary series 6
| months earlier. With an increased immune response, people
| should have improved protection against COVID-19,
| including the Delta variant._ " (https://www.cdc.gov/coro
| navirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/booster-s..., https://www.cdc.
| gov/vaccines/acip/meetings/downloads/slides-...)
|
| https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS014
| 0-6...
| belltaco wrote:
| The FDA panel and the CDC approved it for the same exact
| sets of people. Where are you getting your news from?
| [deleted]
| jacobolus wrote:
| > _CDC has been driven by the available science and by
| the reality of the pandemic_
|
| The Trump-appointed CDC directer Redfield exerted a ton
| of pressure in CDC to hide or manipulate data, overrode
| career civil servants' decisions, fired or marginalized
| CDC scientists for doing their jobs, publicly spouted
| nonsense on Trump's behalf including promoting conspiracy
| theories about China, etc.
|
| People inside CDC were (for better or worse) not willing
| to stick their necks out to resist. CDC screwed up a ton
| in the first 6-12 months of the pandemic; 2020 was pretty
| much the worst year ever for the CDC. Federal agencies
| are sadly not fully functional without effective good-
| faith leadership and support from the top.
|
| https://www.propublica.org/article/inside-the-fall-of-
| the-cd...
| [deleted]
| bamboozled wrote:
| The curve did need to be flattened though?
| xg15 wrote:
| I don't know, I never had an issue with that point.
| "Flatten the curve" is alright, but then what? It would be
| stupid to "flatten the curve" for a while, then call
| "mission accomplished" and pretend covid is over if that
| causes the situation to immediately go critical again.
|
| So far the playbook seems to have been:
|
| 1) Flatten the curve: Use lockdowns, masks and social
| distancing measures to maintain a situation where hospitals
| can still cope. This is not a one-time goal, it's an
| ongoing effort: As long as there was no vaccine, "no
| significant transmission right now" does not mean
| everything is back to normal - because if measures are
| lifted, transmission can quickly increase and become
| critical again.
|
| 2) Because the situation in 1) seriously sucks for
| everyone, try to come up with solutions to end the pandemic
| permanently (or at least make it permanently nonthreatening
| for the health system so we can leave "pandemic mode" and
| treat it as an ordinary disease). So far the most obvious
| strategy for this is vaccination - hence the increasing
| push to get everyone vaccinated.
|
| 3) Evolutionary pressures on the virus might cause the
| vaccines to become less effective. This unfortunately calls
| into question whether 2) is really able to bring an end to
| the pandemic. If this is really the case, then new plans
| are needed, such as boosters, new vaccines, I don't know.
| This stuff is currently being figured out.
|
| 1) and 2) does not seem like "moving the goalposts" to me.
| The goals were the same since the beginning of the
| pandemic, though of course the situation and circumstances
| were changing (you can only keep up a lockdown for so long,
| vaccines changed from "vague hope" to "viable strategy",
| etc)
|
| 3) is a new development that was apparently somewhat
| unexpected (I remember the virus was being talked about as
| relatively mutation resistant, which evidently wasn't the
| case.) - but this was simply new knowledge and new
| developments that might require a change in strategy - the
| overall goal to get out of this mess (by either eradicating
| covid or make it nonthreatening) did not change IMO.
|
| Of course if this goal turns out to be permanently
| unarchievable, the goalpost shifting might start...
| angelzen wrote:
| There is no scientific proof, e.g. RCT, that lockdowns
| work. When did 'stay at home if sick, live life
| otherwise' become obsoleted?
|
| Edit: "3) is a new development that was apparently
| somewhat unexpected". That evolutionary pressures on the
| virus might^H^H^H will cause the vaccines to become less
| effective was and is the #1 concern of the critics of
| mass mRNA vaccination campaigns.
| xg15 wrote:
| > _" There is no scientific proof, e.g. RCT, that
| lockdowns work._
|
| You want to make a randomized, controlled study on entire
| countries? That's your idea of ethics in science?
|
| > _That evolutionary pressures on the virus might^H^H^H
| will cause the vaccines to become less effective was and
| is the #1 concern of the critics of mass mRNA vaccination
| campaigns._
|
| No, it was one argument of whatever seemed convenient at
| that point to argue against vaccines. Consequently, their
| only advice how to cope with that problem seems to
| basically give up and don't do anything.
|
| Honestly, I don't understand what strategy you guys would
| propose to end the pandemic. Apart from pretending it
| doesn't exist of course.
| jjwiseman wrote:
| > When did 'stay at home if sick, live life otherwise'
| become obsoleted?
|
| When we figured out there was asymptomatic and pre-
| symptomatic spread. Your advice probably leads to
| significantly _more_ than 219 million cases worldwide,
| and 4.5 million dead.
| judahmeek wrote:
| > There is no scientific proof, e.g. RCT, that lockdowns
| work.
|
| Sure there is: https://www.news-
| medical.net/news/20201116/Study-compares-de...
|
| > When did 'stay at home if sick, live life otherwise'
| become obsoleted?
|
| When covid spread while the victims were still
| asymptomatic.
| curun1r wrote:
| > do you think they know what the long term effects of a
| serious covid case is? (hint: it starts with a d and ends
| with "eath")
|
| This is a dangerous message to push. The reality is that
| there are many lasting consequences of COVID that fall short
| of death but are, never the less, quite serious. The so
| called "long COVID" really needs to be part of the vaccine
| calculus because the health consequences are very much worse
| than the purported side effects from the vaccine.
|
| I've seen this kind of phenomenon first hand when it comes to
| drugs. As a teenager, there was lots of anti-drug messaging
| trying to convince us that ecstasy was dangerous. And all of
| it focused on scaring kids by exaggerating the risk of death.
| But we could see people taking it regularly and none of them
| were dying. And so it undercut the message. But decades
| later, I know a few people who've had depressive episodes
| potentially linked to heavy ecstasy use. And that consequence
| was never a part of the decision-making process because the
| authorities discredited themselves by being unnecessarily and
| obviously hyperbolic.
|
| We need better messaging that provides people with the full
| range of consequences for their choices. The "you're going to
| die!!!" hysteria ends up being counterproductive. Even as
| deadly as COVID is, the truth is that unvaccinated people
| probably won't die from their case...the vast majority
| survive. But if people understood how many recoveries
| included long-term health consequences that significantly
| affected their quality of life, they might be better able to
| weigh that against the potential side effects of a vaccine.
| KMag wrote:
| > I've seen this kind of phenomenon first hand when it
| comes to drugs.
|
| In 7th or 8th grade, I remember watching a video in health
| class that included a (presumably fictional) dramatization
| where a kid died his first time trying marijuana because
| (unbeknownst to him) it had been laced with crack cocaine.
| It was difficult to take much of health class seriously
| after seeing that video.
|
| If your audience doesn't have much background in your
| subject matter, they're still able to spot lazy arguments.
| They know they're unable to judge the merits of the rest,
| but the lazy arguments spoil the whole message. Many times,
| lazy arguments are less damaging when the audience has the
| necessary background to evaluate everything being said.
| aantix wrote:
| There's definitely an organized push to disseminate
| anecdotal stories of "see, he didn't get the vaccine, and
| on his death bed, his last wish was for everyone to get
| vaccinated."
|
| Maybe these stories are put out by the AP? I'm in Lincoln,
| NE. Omaha is an hour a way. And these exact stories will
| run in both local papers the exact same day.
|
| Feels... slimy.
| ryguytilidie wrote:
| I cannot think of a more sinister motivation than not
| wanting your fellow Americans to die.
| Tostino wrote:
| I mean it is a legitimate reaction people are having,
| it's not surprising the standard outlets pick up on these
| type of stories because they do push for the outcome of
| getting people to vaccinate.
| ay wrote:
| It is strange to me how many think that "you are going to
| die" is a harsher threat than "you will live a long life
| that will be severely crippled".
|
| If I die, I cease to exist. So, while from the standpoint
| of the pre-death me, it is very unfortunate, the post-death
| me is either a null or an ephemeral entity in a different
| dimension (depending on which of the belief systems works)
|
| Remaining in the same spatial domain but set back into
| oblivion by my own choices is about as close to the
| definition of hell as it can get.
| kichimi wrote:
| No, the issue is that you're treating them like they're
| stupid. It's why the liberal political parties keep losing
| elections around the world.
| outworlder wrote:
| > No, the issue is that you're treating them like they're
| stupid
|
| They may not be, but they are certainly acting that way.
| Which is even more infuriating. People with perfectly
| functioning brains that refuse to use them.
| dude4you wrote:
| For me, the other side is shifting goalposts.
|
| I could not get vaccinated in Germany. Every illegal
| immigrant could get vaccinated but I as a German citizen,
| since I was not registered with the police, (some countries
| have this, for a US citizen this sounds weird) could not.
|
| Ok, caught corona in south America in the Andes mountains and
| had serious breathing problems but survived.
|
| I have a biotech background and I am sorry to break the news
| to you. Vaccinations won't make corona go away. I fact it may
| force it to adapt faster.
|
| So why should I get vaccinated now? I dislike all the
| government pressure that is put on citizens in this regard.
|
| An the parties in Sao Paulo are back on. No masks. Germany is
| not considering Brazil even as a high risk country anymore.
|
| So why the force for vaccinations? Freedom won't come back
| except if the Citizens demand it.
| monocularvision wrote:
| My wife's theory is there would be less hesitancy if the
| vaccines were being distributed through people's primary care
| physicians instead of at mass vaccination sites or Walgreens.
| People may distrust the media, the government and all sorts of
| other nebulous groups, but they largely trust their doctor.
| velcrovan wrote:
| I got vaccinated as soon as I did in large part because I
| didn't have to deal with my primary care.
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| There is quite a lot of humor in this statement. ;)
| heartbreak wrote:
| You can almost certainly get the vaccine from your physician,
| and you can also _call_ your physician's office and leave a
| message asking them whether you should get vaccinated.
| They'll call you back.
| quartus wrote:
| > Her main hangup was the lies and coercion.
|
| Can you provide examples of the lies you're referring to?
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| Off the top of my head:
|
| Fauci told the American public that masks don't work. My mom
| already owned N95 masks and got looked at like a crazy person
| because she was wearing one when shopping, ect. Then suddenly
| it became "the science" on the heels of all the research that
| already existed... Turns out it was a noble lie to protect
| the supply of masks while production caught up with demand.
|
| It looks like Fauci lied about the lab leak theory for his
| own reasons, although I'm pretty out of date on that issue.
| Even if not Fauci we know that scientists with conflicts of
| interest all signed an open letter saying the theory is bunk
| and it was uncritically paraded around as "the science."
|
| We were very clearly told "get the vaccine and you'll get
| your life back" but that hasn't even happened in paces like
| Israel with extremely high rates.
|
| The vaccine was initially sold to us as something that would
| prevent infection, but that turned out not to be true. (I'm
| willing to concede this probably wasn't a lie but just
| something we learned as time went on, but it does reflect
| that they may have been overconfident and refrained from
| discretion because it was a pro-vaccine talking point)
|
| Vaccine passports used to be conspiracies. Same with the idea
| that we'd have to get booster shots every so often to stay
| current.
|
| And this is probably the biggest one: So many of the
| politicians pushing covid restrictions fail to practice what
| they preach outside of photo ops. The list is a mile long of
| local, state and federal politicians constantly violating
| their own restrictions. It lends credibility to the idea that
| none of them believe any of it.
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| This post should not be downvoted. These are legitimate
| concerns for half the US population. Whoever is poo-pooing
| this may disagree with these lies presented above. But
| again, you have half the US population who really DOES have
| a problem with these lies. And your solution is to just
| downvote the post and offer no response?
| gkop wrote:
| > And this is probably the biggest one: So many of the
| politicians pushing covid restrictions fail to practice
| what they preach outside of photo ops.
|
| Thanks for bringing this up, it's something that _everyone_
| should be able to agree is unacceptable. I feel naive for
| asking, but WHY does the public allow politicians to get
| away with this hypocrisy? (eg. https://www.sfgate.com/bay-
| area-politics/article/London-Bree...)
| silexia wrote:
| In many cases there has been a single photo of a
| politician with a mask off. Lots of predatory paparazzi
| photograph public individuals all day. Catching someone
| at a bad moment or accidentally doing something is easy.
| gkop wrote:
| I think you may be getting downvoted because your
| response doesn't relate to the example I gave, where the
| politician made an explicit statement in contradiction of
| their own health order.
| silexia wrote:
| Ah, thank you. I was referring to the broader news media
| regularly showing "hypocritical" politicians not wearing
| their face masks in some photo.
| koheripbal wrote:
| How about the rampant false claims from various health
| officials and the WHO that masks didn't work in the very
| beginning of the pandemic. ...and this lie was intentional to
| protect mask stockpiles for healthcare workers.
|
| How about the initial censorship of the outbreak on social
| media and news media, on the grounds that the "fear-
| mongering" about an outbreak in China was racist?
|
| How about the labelling by the news media of the initial
| travel bans as racist?
|
| How about health officials refusing to test anyone who hadn't
| personally travelled to China for months after the virus had
| been observed in the US.
|
| Trust was destroyed in the first two months of this pandemic.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > How about the rampant false claims from various health
| officials and the WHO that masks didn't work in the very
| beginning of the pandemic.
|
| That... wasn't the claim.
|
| The claim was that people shouldn't stockpile masks for use
| beyond the circumstances in which they were recommended,
| because such additional use did not provide additional
| protective benefit.
|
| This was roughly contemporaneous with guidance that most
| people should eliminate all non-essential contact with
| people outside their household. Masking for essential
| interactions was recommended by the same people advising
| against buying masks more generally.
|
| > ...and this lie was intentional to protect mask
| stockpiles for healthcare workers.
|
| It wasn't a lie, and preserving stocks for frontline
| workers and their essential interactions was an _overtly
| cited_ part of the rationale, alongside the lack of
| additional benefit from superfluous masking.
|
| > How about the initial censorship of the outbreak on
| social media and news media, on the grounds that the "fear-
| mongering" about an outbreak in China was racist?
|
| That didn't happen.
|
| > How about the labelling by the news media of the initial
| travel bans as racist?
|
| The initial US travel bans, instituted _after_ substantial
| domestic community spread was known and after substantial
| spread in lots of other foreign places that were not
| targeted by the bans was also known were, if not racist
| _per se_ , more political posturing than public health.
|
| > How about health officials refusing to test anyone who
| hadn't personally travelled to China for months after the
| virus had been observed in the US.
|
| How is that a lie? Whether or not it (or the actual limit
| on testing, which was more nuanced) was the optimum way of
| managing limited testing resources may be a valid debate,
| but it's not a _lie_.
| 3np wrote:
| The WHO claims/guidances could absolutely be interpreted
| as such. Here's from 2020-04 when WHO changed their
| stance.
|
| https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/04/10/8298
| 906...
|
| Sweden may be seen as a bit of an oddball but either way
| the head of the national public health agency was
| consistent in saying masks did not provide any benefits
| for individuals pretty far into the pandemic.
|
| https://www.bild.de/bild-plus/politik/ausland/politik-
| auslan... (paywall)
|
| https://nyheter24.se/nyheter/944114-tegnell-om-varfor-
| munsky...
|
| Not mentioned by the OP, but what was up with anything
| resembling a lab-leak theory getting the "unquestionably
| fake news" treatment for months?
|
| I have not done any extensive digging into the vaccines
| myself and can't with good conscience say I'm well-
| informed. It still seems to me that the risk-trade-off is
| strongly in favor for getting vaccinated. Even so, I have
| full understanding for people who now have 0 trust in the
| public narrative. It's clear that there has been (still
| ongoing, I assume) a strong propaganda campaign that has
| at times been using misinformation and censorship (if you
| count deleting/shadowbanning social media content as
| censorship), involving governments, traditional news-
| media and social media. If the narrative around the
| effectiveness and risks of the vaccine holds, why do
| this?
| vernie wrote:
| > That... wasn't the claim.
|
| That did appear to be the claim in Fauci's 60 Minutes
| interview. It was a pretty colossal messaging fuckup and
| damaged Fauci's credibility and trustworthiness early in
| the game.
| mcguire wrote:
| You are right, many epidemiologists and related experts
| did assert that masks would not be useful to fight
| coronavirus. And they were wrong.
|
| On the other hand, if it's a "colossal messaging fuckup"
| and damages "credibility and trustworthiness", then you
| pretty much have to give up on the whole 'science' thing
| entirely.
|
| They were under the mistaken impression that
| coronaviruses were spread by large droplets produced by
| symptomatic individiuals---in which case social
| distancing and washing your hands would be as effective
| as masks, and the previous history (and current
| experience) says that convincing people to use masks
| correctly and consistently is very difficult. Further,
| having people stock up on masks like they were stocking
| up on toilet paper would mean that those who couldn't get
| along without them would be SOL.
|
| Then it turned out that coronavirus could be transmitted
| as an aerosol, asymptomatically, meaning that social
| distancing and handwashing, while useful, were a lot less
| useful. Hence, masks.
|
| But if you are expecting science to produce a single,
| correct, consistent TRUTH on demand, you are going to be
| disappointed. In fact, you're probably better off
| sticking with The_Donald memes, since they're all of the
| same quality.
| mcguire wrote:
| And here we go again...
|
| Up through roughly April-May 2020, many, if not most,
| epidemiologists and virologists believed that masks would
| not help the situation: they thought respiratory viruses
| were spread through large droplets produced by symptomatic
| individuals and that physical separation, sanitation, and
| behavior would work as well as trying to convince people to
| were useful masks consistently and correctly.
|
| After that time, reports began to appear showing
| coronavirus could be spread asymptomatically, by normal
| breathing and speech, in an aerosol form that could stay
| airborne for long times. Under those situations, masks are
| the only solution.
|
| The "ensure that enough protective equipment was available
| for frontline health workers" thing was mostly a response
| to "but it couldn't hurt" thinking.
|
| "Then there is the infamous mask issue. Epidemiologists
| have taken a lot of heat on this question in particular.
| Until well into March 2020, I was skeptical about the
| benefit of everyone wearing face masks. That skepticism was
| based on previous scientific research as well as hypotheses
| about how covid was transmitted that turned out to be
| wrong. Mask-wearing has been a common practice in Asia for
| decades, to protect against air pollution and to prevent
| transmitting infection to others when sick. Mask-wearing
| for protection against catching an infection became
| widespread in Asia following the 2003 SARS outbreak, but
| scientific evidence on the effectiveness of this strategy
| was limited.
|
| "Before the coronavirus pandemic, most research on face
| masks for respiratory diseases came from two types of
| studies: clinical settings with very sick patients, and
| community settings during normal flu seasons. In clinical
| settings, it was clear that well-fitting, high-quality face
| masks, such as the N95 variety, were important protective
| equipment for doctors and nurses against viruses that can
| be transmitted via droplets or smaller aerosol particles.
| But these studies also suggested careful training was
| required to ensure that masks didn't get contaminated when
| surface transmission was possible, as is the case with
| SARS. Community-level evidence about mask-wearing was much
| less compelling. Most studies showed little to no benefit
| to mask-wearing in the case of the flu, for instance.
| Studies that have suggested a benefit of mask-wearing were
| generally those in which people with symptoms wore masks --
| so that was the advice I embraced for the coronavirus, too.
|
| "I also, like many other epidemiologists, overestimated how
| readily the novel coronavirus would spread on surfaces --
| and this affected our view of masks. Early data showed
| that, like SARS, the coronavirus could persist on surfaces
| for hours to days, and so I was initially concerned that
| face masks, especially ill-fitting, homemade or carelessly
| worn coverings could become contaminated with transmissible
| virus. In fact, I worried that this might mean wearing face
| masks could be worse than not wearing them. This was wrong.
| Surface transmission, it emerged, is not that big a problem
| for covid, but transmission through air via aerosols is a
| big source of transmission. And so it turns out that face
| masks do work in this case.
|
| "I changed my mind on masks in March 2020, as testing
| capacity increased and it became clear how common
| asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infection were (since
| aerosols were the likely vector). I wish that I and others
| had caught on sooner -- and better testing early on might
| have caused an earlier revision of views -- but there was
| no bad faith involved."
|
| "I'm an epidemiologist. Here's what I got wrong about covid
| ."(https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/20/epidem
| iolo...)
| [deleted]
| rajup wrote:
| Also don't forget that not too long back suggesting that
| COVID-19 might have escaped from a Chinese lab was
| considered "lunatic conspiracy theory mongering".
| teachrdan wrote:
| It takes a lot of mental gymnastics to use this as an
| excuse not to get vaccinated against a disease that's
| killed over 600,000 US citizens.
| tshaddox wrote:
| None of your examples are about the vaccine as far as I can
| tell. Are you suggesting that because some experts
| allegedly lied about some things in the past, no experts
| ought to ever be trusted again about any medical or public
| health matters?
| BeetleB wrote:
| > and this lie was intentional to protect mask stockpiles
| for healthcare workers.
|
| Do you have any evidence that this was the reason for the
| claims?
|
| > How about the initial censorship of the outbreak on
| social media and news media, on the grounds that the "fear-
| mongering" about an outbreak in China was racist?
|
| What censorship? I heard about it quite early.
|
| > How about the labelling by the news media of the initial
| travel bans as racist?
|
| Did the news media label it, or were they reporting on
| people who were labeling it?
|
| > How about health officials refusing to test anyone who
| hadn't personally travelled to China for months after the
| virus had been observed in the US.
|
| AFAIK, there were lack of resources to test. Once the
| resources became available, testing was widespread.
| CapmCrackaWaka wrote:
| On the second point, to claim you do not know about this
| story is... surprising:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27388587 Just
| because you heard about it, doesn't mean there weren't
| attempts to censor these discussions.
| BeetleB wrote:
| The claim was that the fact there _was_ an outbreak was
| censored - not about the _origin_.
| kipchak wrote:
| In the first 15s or so of this Washington Post interview
| clip he explains that priority was being given to
| healthcare workers, and then also that asymptomatic
| spread was underestimated.
|
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/washington-post-
| live/fa...
| fsagx wrote:
| > Do you have any evidence that this was the reason for
| the claims?
|
| I did a search on youtube to find these sources ("fauci
| 60 minutes americans dont need to wear masks") I don't
| vouch for the channels, these are just the first place I
| found the relevant clips.
|
| original statement (pretty hard to find):
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kQ5oCxP6TUc
|
| his explanation of that statement:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_2MmX2U2V3c
|
| Here's a timeline summary:
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackbrewster/2020/10/20/is-
| trum...
| vasco wrote:
| > Do you have any evidence that this was the reason for
| the claims?
|
| This was said by all health officials around January-
| March 2020. After the stock issue got solved masks
| suddenly magically became effective for everyone around
| the summer time. As a "regular person" who took both
| vaccine shots and is casually observing these
| developments without reading news or whatever, that
| single event showed me that governments don't give a shit
| about telling us the truth in a crisis.
| mcguire wrote:
| " _After the stock issue got solved masks suddenly
| magically became effective for everyone around the summer
| time._ "
|
| Technically, it was roughly the end of March and April,
| when evidence of asymptomatic and aerosol transmission
| began to appear.
| jboggan wrote:
| The lie that masks didn't work was the first and one of the
| biggest. At the time it meant that my wife's hospital
| wouldn't let her wear an N95 that we personally provided when
| interacting with obviously sick COVID-19 patients. She got
| extremely ill and after she recovered we decided it wasn't
| really worth it to work as a nurse in a medical establishment
| that could tell such obvious lies to its own people.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > At the time it meant that my wife's hospital wouldn't let
| her wear an N95 that we personally provided when
| interacting with obviously sick COVID-19 patients.
|
| That's interesting - and must be a hospital issue. My
| hospital never made such a claim. They were simply upfront
| with their reason: There was a shortage of masks, and they
| were being reserved for those who needed to treat COVID-19
| patients.
| brendoelfrendo wrote:
| A friend's wife, who is a nurse, had similar problems at
| her hospital. The nursing staff-including those working
| with COVID-19 patients-were not provided with masks. At
| the time, the hospital stood behind a shield of "we're
| just following the CDC recommendations." Of course, the
| doctors who requested N95s were provided with masks,
| which really sent home a message that the administrators
| didn't value their nursing staff.
| altacc wrote:
| I can't speak specifically for your wife's hospital, but by
| the sounds of it this might have been less of a lie than
| bad information. Apparently during the early phase of the
| pandemic the knowledge about the usefulness of masks
| against airborne viruses wasn't accurate. People didn't
| think it was truly airborne, in which case masks wouldn't
| be that effective. As it turns out, it's very airborne and
| masks really do help stop transmission. A lot has been
| learnt, as well as a lot of mistakes made.
|
| Wired was one of the publications that did an interesting
| article about this: https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-
| tiny-scientific-screwu...
| kergonath wrote:
| That's why there was so much emphasis on sanitising
| surfaces. Now we have a better understanding of its modes
| of transmission, and advice has changed over time. Some
| people just don't seem to understand that our knowledge
| evolves, and so do recommendations and best practices.
| foxfluff wrote:
| > I can't speak specifically for your wife's hospital,
| but by the sounds of it this might have been less of a
| lie than bad information.
|
| Well that doesn't help much with the trust issue. What
| else turns out to be bad information? Sometimes the line
| between lies and (intentional or not) bullshit is quite
| fine.
|
| One thing I've observed since the start of the pandemic
| is that information and recommendations are constantly
| changing, and there's overreaction as well as
| underreaction. Also late reaction rather than
| preparedness. Sometimes excessive preparedness (see also
| overreaction), sometimes too little.
|
| It don't find it surprising in the slightest that people
| end up not trusting the chaotic system.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| If I recall correctly, it was thought early on that if
| the virus was transmissible via the air, that it was
| truly airborne, and thus masks that can't filter out
| virus-sized particles would be ineffective.
|
| It turned out that the virus was transmissible via the
| air, but it was not airborne, it traveled via much larger
| respiratory droplets. Ordinary surgical masks were
| effective at stopping the spread of those droplets.
| samdunham wrote:
| Well, the face of the government's response to the
| pandemic, Fauci, went on 60 minutes and stated flatly
| that masks didn't work. About a year later he went back
| on TV and was asked about his earlier comments about
| masks and he admitted - again, in no uncertain terms -
| that his previous comments stating that masks didn't work
| were said specifically to protect mask supplies for
| health care workers. Seems like he lied to me.
| nmz wrote:
| can you post the video?
| belorn wrote:
| That seems very strange coming from a hospital. It has been
| pretty clear from those with medical knowledge that cloth
| mask do not work to protect the wearer, while N95 protect
| the wearer but depending on the construction might have a
| vent that do not filter the air that goes out. The mask
| that hospital workers need is N95 that also filter the out
| breath.
| michaelcampbell wrote:
| > The lie that masks didn't work was the first and one of
| the biggest.
|
| I keep hearing people say this as if saying it enough makes
| it true (thanks, Stalin), but I don't remember ever hearing
| it, honestly.
|
| Do you have any footage of this? If it was as widespread as
| claimed, it should be easy to find.
| mywittyname wrote:
| Early on, they didn't know if masks were effective
| against covid, because of the size of the particles. But
| they did still recommend them for healthcare workers:
|
| https://www.news-medical.net/news/20200130/Do-masks-
| protect-...
|
| They were saying not to buy masks in order to preserve
| them for healthcare workers. There was already a severe
| shortage of them.
|
| https://news.yahoo.com/cdc-warns-save-respirator-masks-
| for-h...
| kyleee wrote:
| Here's a 60 minutes clip:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NUHsEmlIoE4
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| Where's the claim that "masks don't work?" He's not
| saying that. He's saying the general public should not be
| wearing masks _at that time_.
| tomp wrote:
| I listed some of them here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28536296
| [deleted]
| walterbell wrote:
| There is also lying via omission, statistical manipulation
| and censorship. Why did Pfizer data for their COVID-19
| vaccine not report the injury and paralysis of a 12-year
| participant in the clinical trial? June 2021 article from
| Robert Kennedy's CHD organization,
| https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/sen-johnson-
| ken-...
|
| _> Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) held a news conference
| Monday to discuss adverse reactions related to the COVID
| vaccines -- giving individuals who have been "repeatedly
| ignored" by the medical community a platform to share their
| stories ... "We are all pro-vaccine," Johnson said at the
| onset of the news conference. In fact, Johnson has had
| every flu shot since the Swine flu, is current on all of
| his vaccines ... he has not had a COVID vaccine because he
| already had COVID.
|
| > Five people from across the U.S., including a 12-year-old
| girl who was part of the Pfizer clinical trial, joined the
| conference at the federal courthouse ... Among them was
| Maddie de Garay from Ohio who volunteered for the Pfizer
| vaccine trial when she was 12. On Jan. 20, Maddie received
| her second dose of the Pfizer COVID vaccine as a
| participant in the clinical trial for 12- to 15-year-olds
| and is now in a wheelchair ... "Why is she not back to
| normal? She was totally fine before this," said Stephanie
| de Garay, Maddie's mother. She volunteered for the Pfizer
| vaccine trial "to help everyone else and they're not
| helping here. Before Maddie got her final dose of the
| vaccine she was healthy, got straight As, had lots of
| friends and had a life."
|
| > ... Upon receiving the second shot, Maddie immediately
| felt pain at the injection site and over the next 24-hours
| developed severe abdominal and chest pain, de Garay said at
| the press event. Maddie told her mother it felt like her
| heart was being ripped out through her neck, and she had
| painful electrical shocks down her neck and spine that
| forced her to walk hunched over ... She developed
| gastroparesis, nausea and vomiting, erratic blood pressure,
| memory loss, brain fog, headaches, dizziness, fainting,
| seizures, verbal and motor tics, menstrual cycle issues,
| lost feeling from the waist down, lost bowel and bladder
| control and had an nasogastric tube placed because she lost
| her ability to eat.
|
| > ... Johnson argued that while most people don't suffer
| significant side effects following vaccination, he is
| concerned about "that small minority that are suffering
| severe symptoms."_
|
| 80-min video of news conference: https://rumble.com/vj5xbf-
| senator-ron-johnson-milwaukee-news...
|
| The more we know about the statistical minority who suffer
| severe adverse reactions, the better we can screen vaccine
| recipients to prevent these injuries.
| [deleted]
| orangepurple wrote:
| Because of the way they are constructed, Randomized Control
| Trials will never show any benefit for any antiviral against
| COVID-19. Not Remdesivir, not Kaletra, not HCQ, and not
| Ivermectin. The reason for this is simple; for the patients
| that they have recruited for these studies, such as Oxford's
| ludicrous RECOVERY study, the intervention is too late to
| have any positive effect.
|
| The clinical course of COVID-19 is such that by the time most
| people seek medical attention for hypoxia, their viral load
| has already tapered off to almost nothing. If someone is
| about 10 days post-exposure and has already been symptomatic
| for five days, there is hardly any virus left in their
| bodies, only cellular damage and derangement that has
| initiated a hyperinflammatory response. It is from this group
| that the clinical trials for antivirals have recruited,
| pretty much exclusively.
|
| In these trials, they give antivirals to severely ill
| patients who have no virus in their bodies, only a delayed
| hyperinflammatory response, and then absurdly claim that
| antivirals have no utility in treating or preventing
| COVID-19. These clinical trials do not recruit people who are
| pre-symptomatic. They do not test pre-exposure or post-
| exposure prophylaxis.
|
| This is like using a defibrillator to shock only flatline,
| and then absurdly claiming that defibrillators have no
| medical utility whatsoever when the patients refuse to rise
| from the dead. The intervention is too late. These trials for
| antivirals show systematic, egregious selection bias. They
| are providing a treatment that is futile to the specific
| cohort they are enrolling.
| dpe82 wrote:
| What does that have to do with vaccine studies?
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| Here's a study that looks at the efficacy of Ivermectin
| within 72 hours of a fever or a cough:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33495752/
|
| And here is a study which looks at viral load since days of
| symptom onset, showing that at the 72 hour mark there is
| still plenty of Covid-19 in the body:
| https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0869-5
|
| I am not a medical expert, so there may be things to
| criticize about these studies. All I meant to point out is
| that people are looking into / have looked at the questions
| you raise. Doctors and nurses are pretty burnt out; I for
| one think that they'd be looking for prophylactic
| treatments.
| merpnderp wrote:
| It seems like your Ivermectin study is the type of
| information Youtube would be banning. It showed
| statistically significant improvements in symptoms and
| viral loads, which is the kind of information that walks
| a fine line between getting banned instead of just
| mocked.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| There are two important sentences from the summary of
| findings:
|
| First, the effects of Ivermectin on viral load were not
| significant: "The ivermectin group had non-statistically
| significant lower viral loads at day 4 (p = 0*24 for gene
| E; p = 0*18 for gene N) and day 7 (p = 0*16 for gene E; p
| = 0*18 for gene N) post treatment as well as lower IgG
| titers at day 21 post treatment (p = 0*24)."
|
| Second, Ivermectin did show earlier recovery: "Patients
| in the ivermectin group recovered earlier from
| hyposmia/anosmia (76 vs 158 patient-days; p < 0.001)."
|
| From the Washington Post article, a YouTube exec is
| quoted as saying "We'll remove claims that vaccines are
| dangerous or cause a lot of health effects, that vaccines
| cause autism, cancer, infertility or contain microchips."
| This leads me to believe the kind of medical
| misinformation YouTube is targeting is much more general.
|
| Also, the medical consensus -- via things like Cochrane
| Review [0] -- is that there isn't enough data on
| Ivermectin. It's the _statistical uncertainty_ around it
| that gives the medical establishment pause, and currently
| makes recommendations of using it misinformation. Should
| the scientific community discover something different,
| the definition of misinformation will change.
|
| [0] https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/1465
| 1858.CD...
| merpnderp wrote:
| A bit off topic, but there are hundreds of millions of
| people in India who have been taking Ivermectin for
| significant amounts of time. In some states, serum
| positive levels are .01%. How are there not dozens of
| high quality studies being done during this period to
| quickly answer our questions?
| rpmisms wrote:
| This is an extremely cogent point. We already have a test
| and control group for the effectiveness of Ivermectin.
| Not studying it is foolhardy.
| creddit wrote:
| Except that, there are RCTs showing the positive impacts of
| Fluvoxamine and monoclonal antibodies so this is entirely
| false on all accounts.
| cuspy wrote:
| Those are not antivirals, which was quite clearly the
| subject of the post you're replying, so your rebuttal is
| entirely false on all accounts.
| [deleted]
| creddit wrote:
| HCQ and Ivermectin aren't "antivirals" so obviously the
| OP is not concerned with a strict definition of
| antiviral. Besides, it's a meaningless semantic argument.
| KMag wrote:
| The rebuttal is irrelevant/non sequitur, which is
| different from being false.
| creddit wrote:
| Except it's not irrelevant even. The central claim is
| encapsulated in the first sentence:
|
| > Because of the way they are constructed, Randomized
| Control Trials will never show any benefit for any
| antiviral against COVID-19
|
| By noting that there are indeed RCTs that show effective
| treatments for COVID-19 (fluvoxamine and monoclonal
| antibodies), it renders the entire point false.
|
| The semantic argument about what constitutes an
| "antiviral" is meaningless as the OP themselves plays
| fast and loose with this by establishing that HCQ and
| Ivermectin (primarily used as antiparasitics) as
| antivirals.
| [deleted]
| javagram wrote:
| > Because of the way they are constructed, Randomized
| Control Trials will never show any benefit for any
| antiviral against COVID-19. Not Remdesivir, not Kaletra,
| not HCQ, and not Ivermectin. The reason for this is simple;
| for the patients that they have recruited for these
| studies, such as Oxford's ludicrous RECOVERY study, the
| intervention is too late to have any positive effect.
|
| This claim is egregiously false itself. Several RCTs have
| been done for early exposure to covid or for prophylaxis.
|
| Just out of memory I remember studies for HCQ prophylaxis
| (doesn't work), remdesivir prophylaxis (does work), and
| monoclonal antibody prophylaxis (does work).
|
| The lies created by anti vaccine activists are already
| spread widely and apparently convinced you these studies
| which happened didn't happen.
|
| https://www.statnews.com/2021/09/22/remdesivir-reduces-
| covid...
|
| https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2021/08/regen-
| co...
|
| https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2016638
| canucker2016 wrote:
| FYI - These four paragraphs are identical to paragraphs
| from the "COVID 19 - The Spartacus Letter" PDF that has
| shown up on many websites.
|
| The PDF seems to be a controversial article to both sides
| of viewpoints of the covid19 pandemic treatment by various
| governments.
| hartator wrote:
| > Can you provide examples of the lies you're referring to?
|
| The mask one not being useful is a lie where Fauci was trying
| to reserve masks for medical staff.
|
| Why not lying again about the current vaccine
| effectiveness/side effects balance to reserve promising
| treatments to a certain category of the population?
| res0nat0r wrote:
| He said that at the time because COVID wasn't endemic all
| over the USA and he didn't want folks going out and
| hoarding all of the N95 masks which were needed at the time
| most critically for hospital workers.
|
| Once the situation changed and everyone needed to wear a
| mask he said that folks should go out and buy masks (and
| after the supply gap was closed a bit).
| lovecg wrote:
| Yeah he lied because he had to, and he lied later about
| herd immunity too. Whether it was good policy or not, I
| can't assume anything he says is based on fact alone.
| mr_mitm wrote:
| Then don't listen to him, listen to the international
| consensus of leading health experts. That's a good
| guideline anyway.
|
| They just happen to say pretty much the same thing.
| res0nat0r wrote:
| No, that is incorrect.
| wavesounds wrote:
| They weren't sure about airborne transmission from
| a-symptomatic people at the time. Delta variant has a
| higher r0 than alpha, so the herd immunity numbers
| change. Saying he's purposefully lying because the facts
| on the ground change is ridiculous.
| knodi123 wrote:
| > Saying he's purposefully lying because the facts on the
| ground change is ridiculous
|
| Yeah, but it's fair to say he's purposefully lying
| _because he told us he was purposefully lying_.
|
| https://www.axios.com/fauci-goalposts-herd-
| immunity-c83c7500...
|
| Here's the direct quote:
|
| > When polls said only about half of all Americans would
| take a vaccine, I was saying herd immunity would take 70
| to 75 percent ... Then, when newer surveys said 60
| percent or more would take it, I thought, "I can nudge
| this up a bit," so I went to 80, 85. We need to have some
| humility here .... We really don't know what the real
| number is. I think the real range is somewhere between 70
| to 90 percent. But, I'm not going to say 90 percent."
| betterunix2 wrote:
| ...where is the _false_ statement? Fauci gave one
| estimate, then gave another more conservative estimate in
| an attempt to encourage people to get the vaccine. At no
| point did he give a number out of the range supported by
| the available data.
|
| Calling that "purposefully lying" is ridiculous. People
| who have to present a single number to summarize an
| entire body of scientific research for the general public
| _always_ have to make a decision about how conservative
| of an estimate to give.
| wavesounds wrote:
| Talk about making a mountain of a mole hill. There's a
| range of possible values that the science supports and he
| said a number in that range when asked what he thinks.
| alexpw wrote:
| So it's a white lie, at most, because he was always
| accurate. He stayed within the "real range" of 70-90, but
| he varied based on what people could tolerate hearing.
|
| If he said 70-90%, then people may only hear 90 and think
| no way we'll get there. Sounds reasonable. If people hear
| we'll never get herd immunity due to delta and the
| potential for new variants, will more people get it or
| will it eliminate a reason for some to get it?
| lovecg wrote:
| He lied about the required levels to reach herd immunity
| too. Ends justify the means I guess? But it's hard to take
| him at face value about anything anymore.
|
| "In the pandemic's early days, Dr. Fauci tended to cite the
| same 60 to 70 percent estimate that most experts did. About
| a month ago, he began saying "70, 75 percent" in television
| interviews. And last week, in an interview with CNBC News,
| he said "75, 80, 85 percent" and "75 to 80-plus percent."
|
| In a telephone interview the next day, Dr. Fauci
| acknowledged that he had slowly but deliberately been
| moving the goal posts. He is doing so, he said, partly
| based on new science, and partly on his gut feeling that
| the country is finally ready to hear what he really thinks.
|
| Hard as it may be to hear, he said, he believes that it may
| take close to 90 percent immunity to bring the virus to a
| halt -- almost as much as is needed to stop a measles
| outbreak."
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/24/health/herd-immunity-
| covi...
| cstejerean wrote:
| With early variants 60-70% may have very well been
| sufficient. As we get variants that can spread more
| easily that raises the bar on what we need for herd
| immunity. I don't think a lot of people appreciate just
| how much worse Delta has been in this regard. Fingers
| crossed we don't get an even worse variant.
| knodi123 wrote:
| That may very well be. However, there's no need to wonder
| whether Fauci was being totally frank the entire time,
| because he has outright _said_ that he knowingly gave a
| so-optimistic-its-a-lie estimate at first, in an effort
| to avoid intimidating people.
| tqi wrote:
| But NYT article where the quote originated is from
| December 2020 (ie months before the Delta variant was
| officially named and more than half a year before it hit
| the US), so I don't think that is an explanation for why
| the number changed.
|
| I think the most likely explanation is that public health
| officials believed that citing a 60-70 number would feel
| more achievable, and thus encourage people to continue
| masking/distancing until a vaccine was available. If they
| has said 85% in May 2020, maybe people would have thought
| it was hopeless and just opened up immediately.
|
| Whether they judged correctly or not, I don't think it
| was a good idea to bend the truth because it erodes trust
| in institutions.
| jolux wrote:
| These are not lies, these are changes in our
| understanding of viral epidemiology that we have seen
| happen throughout the course of the pandemic, concomitant
| with the introduction of increasingly more contagious
| strains. Science has a lot of uncertainty in it and we've
| seen a lot of hypotheses refuted in the past year:
| surface transmission and microdroplets (actually mostly
| aerosol), mask inefficacy (they do work! mostly when
| everyone wears them), and herd immunity (probably harder
| than we initially expected). These are all things that
| were just poorly understood and understudied pre-
| pandemic. Our understanding of them is still rapidly
| developing and changing now. I realize it's hard for the
| general public to understand, but science doesn't know
| everything and we need to be able to accept when our
| understanding of something changes in light of new
| evidence.
| LanceH wrote:
| There were asserted as fact by professionals who are
| sophisticated enough to either know they aren't fact or
| to be held accountable for being wrong.
| mr_mitm wrote:
| I thought this was simple math. The reproduction value R
| of the original type was estimated to be around 3 (one
| sick person infects on average three other persons). So
| to get this below 1, we need a vaccination rate of around
| 2/3 (1-1/R). The delta variant has a higher R of 6-8, so
| we may need as much as 90% of the population to be
| vaccinated. It's completely plausible and has nothing to
| do with lying.
| dahfizz wrote:
| The lying is that the numbers have been changing, by his
| own admission, based on what he thought the American
| public should hear. If it is such "simple math", and the
| number is 90%, then Fauci saying 70% when he knew that
| was wrong is lying.
| x0x0 wrote:
| The R0 changed: initial WHO estimates were (1.4, 2.4);
| now multiple studies have a mean of 5.08 [1]. Thus the
| simple math changed. 60% likely does grant herd immunity
| at an R0 of 2.5; it does not for delta.
|
| [1] https://academic.oup.com/jtm/advance-
| article/doi/10.1093/jtm...
| dahfizz wrote:
| > Dr. Fauci acknowledged that he had slowly but
| deliberately been moving the goal posts. He is doing so,
| he said, partly based on new science, _and partly on his
| gut feeling that the country is finally ready to hear
| what he really thinks_.
|
| Dr fauci himself admitted that he was giving bad numbers
| based on what he wanted the American public to hear.
|
| This is the whole disconnect. The people like Fauci that
| we are supposed to blindly trust are clearly willing to
| deceive in order to satisfy their own goals. That's why
| people distrust him.
| nradov wrote:
| The Delta variant is sufficiently contagious that we
| can't achieve any real herd immunity through vaccination.
| It's still important to get vaccinated to protect
| yourself.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-
| immu...
|
| Those calculations of herd immunity threshold percentages
| were usually over simplified based on the assumption that
| immunity is a binary condition. But in reality while
| vaccinated people are less likely to suffer severe
| symptoms they can still get infected and spread the
| virus.
| avereveard wrote:
| That "vaccine granted immunity" was a big one, it rapidly
| became less symptoms, and from that surreptitiously changed
| again to well you'll still have a week of feeling like shit
| if you catch covid, but you'll be less likely to die from it.
|
| Then there's whatever percent of vaccinated that would have
| allowed the fabled reopen, we engaged trough most of these
| metrics, and we're still far from normalcy.
|
| Heck my vaccine passport has a very clear, very bold expiry
| date on it, talk of normalcy are nonsense.
|
| Oh and there's that "let's not tell peasants masks are useful
| as not to cause shortages to professionals." Maybe warranted,
| given what happened with hoarders and toilet paper, but still
| definitely a lie.
|
| edit:
|
| jesus christ look at the mess of downvotes this whole thread
| attracted, replies included, this place is populated by
| people more toxic than facebook's and more sensitive than
| twitter's.
|
| and you wonder why the content platform are in full on
| containment mode. truth is you're bringing your corporate
| dystopia unto yourself.
| betterunix2 wrote:
| "That "vaccine granted immunity" was a big one, it rapidly
| became less symptoms, and from that surreptitiously changed
| again to well you'll still have a week of feeling like shit
| if you catch covid, but you'll be less likely to die from
| it."
|
| The world changed between the beginning of vaccine
| availability and today. New variants emerged from
| unvaccinated populations and some of those variants (Delta
| being the most prominent currently being reported) are able
| to evade the immune response generated by the vaccine
| (breakthrough infections). The guidance was updated to
| reflected newly available information -- would you prefer
| that the CDC ignore new data and just stick with its
| initial statements?
|
| The reason we are far from normalcy is that since the
| beginning of this pandemic people have been refusing to do
| what they need to do to slow the spread. If people had done
| what health officials asked, we might have been closer to
| normalcy. Take your complaints to all those right-wing
| extremists in the media and the government who politicized
| a public health crisis and who continue to tell people to
| ignore the CDC.
| silver-arrow wrote:
| No. Variants spring up because of non sterilizing
| vaccines. We always knew to NEVER engage in mass
| vaccination during a pandemic situation. We also knew we
| can't vaccinated against corona viruses. As evidenced by
| Israel and other countries.
| jjwiseman wrote:
| From reading comments, it seems like a lot of people don't
| understand that Delta changed things.
|
| In a world without Delta, the vaccines _did_ do an
| incredible job of actually preventing infection.
| "Effectiveness [against confirmed infection] remained above
| 95% regardless of age group, sex, race, or presence of
| comorbidities."[1] But that study used data up to March
| 2021, which means mostly non-Delta variants. Against Delta,
| vaccine effectiveness in preventing infection might be
| closer to 50%+ (e.g. [2]) -- which is still very effective!
| It's just not effective as we would like. "Hi, here's a
| shot that cuts your odds of getting infected in half. Do
| you want it?" Um, yes please.
|
| You have to change your behavior when the facts in the
| world change. The messaging had to change with the facts.
| Of course you can't use the old vaccination thresholds for
| re-opening if the virus is now infecting 10x (50% vs. 95%)
| as many vaccinated people as it was 2 months ago, that
| doesn't make sense.
|
| The virus moved the goalposts. You can be angry about that,
| but that's reality.
|
| We are so lucky that despite everything, the vaccines are
| still incredibly effective at keeping you from dying if you
| get COVID. I'm actually very angry at how the mask
| messaging was handled (there should absolutely be
| consequences for that), but it doesn't matter how angry I
| am, if I don't get vaccinated I am irrationally refusing
| the single best way to avoid dying in this pandemic.
|
| [1] https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-1577 [2]
| https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7034e4.htm
| KVFinn wrote:
| >That vaccine granted immunity was a big one, it rapidly
| became less symptoms, and from that surreptitiously changed
| again to well you'll still have a week of feeling like
| shit, but you'll be less likely to die from it.
|
| Please look up the medical definition of immunity.
| avereveard wrote:
| no? I know very well the definition. that why I'm stating
| that the way it was worded at the beginning was a big fat
| lie, told to the public to coerce compliance, and latter
| reduced to a more realistic target to manage
| expectations.
| mythrwy wrote:
| I'd be curious if the definition has changed in the past
| year (word redefinition seems to a thing lately and it is
| Literally not for the better!).
|
| Immunity obviously means being immune. Immune has a
| specific definition and that is not "helps sometimes".
|
| https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/i
| mmu...
|
| Resistance or, decreased susceptibility, or whatever
| other term you wish to use, is not the same as immunity.
|
| Otherwise what word do we use for "immunity" now?
| creaturemachine wrote:
| The science is evolving, and these differences from a year
| ago are proof of that. I don't think the vaccine makers
| were very proud to admit that their wonderdrug wasn't what
| it was promised to be, but that's the way it is. The only
| remaining choice for anti-vaxxers in the face of
| increasingly contagious variants is take the shot or risk
| death. Your call.
| cies wrote:
| > The science is evolving
|
| Science got massively oversold. Who did that? Who
| benefits from that?
|
| > The only remaining choice for anti-vaxxers in the face
| of increasingly contagious variants is take the shot or
| risk death. Your call.
|
| I think if you call anyone hesitant to take these shots
| an anti-vaxxer, you contribute to making the narative so
| everything extreme. Many that are "c19 vaccine hesitant"
| are vaccinating their children on the locally standard
| schedule. It is just that this c19 vaccine is a bit
| different: did not yet stand the test of time and it is
| in many cases a whole new therapy (mRNA therapy's debut).
|
| > take the shot or risk death
|
| This sounds so dramatic. This choice is everywhere, just
| not with so much media attention. Diets, traffic
| accidents, extreme sports, ...
|
| I think we should use vaccines only to protect those at
| risk, and/or those who want protection by it. Once they
| have the shot it's over.
|
| The media is pushing a story that we need to all get
| vaccinated to protect others. I think, given the
| research, that this is never going to happen (virus will
| stay in corners of the world with unvaccinated people,
| virus will have new variants: virus will stay with us).
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" It is just that this c19 vaccine is a bit different:
| did not yet stand the test of time and it is in many
| cases a whole new therapy (mRNA therapy's debut)."_
|
| At this point, surely the various c19 vaccines are the
| most highly scrutinised and widely administered vaccines
| developed in the past 50 years or so. More than 6 billion
| shots administered, and counting. How much more time do
| you need?
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| Even Pfizer's own RCT showed no benefit for all cause
| mortality at six months. Covid deaths were replaced by
| CVD deaths
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Even Pfizer's own RCT showed no benefit for all cause
| mortality at six months
|
| There are countries that have had Pfizer rollouts to
| millions of people over the last 8 months ( 1) . If this
| were true in the real world, the excess mortality would
| have shown up in the real-world data by now. It has not.
| it's rubbish. You tout this false and trivially
| falsifiable "fact" repeatedly. Quit it.
|
| https://ijhpr.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13584-0
| 21-...
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| Quoting the vaccine manufacturer's own gold standard
| study is "rubbish". I honestly did not see that one
| coming.
| actually_a_dog wrote:
| You're misrepresenting the study. That study never had
| enough statistical power to detect a reduction in deaths.
| It's disingenuous to simply cry "no reduction in deaths!
| manufacturer study!"
|
| https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-964291665925
| oceanplexian wrote:
| Speaking specifically to the Pfizer vaccine, it's gone
| from 95% effective against preventing severe symptoms
| against the Alpha variant to 88% against Delta in less
| than 6 months of the vaccine being widely available to
| the public (With some even less optimistic peer-reviewed
| studies coming out of Israel, I'm just going by what the
| CDC is reporting). So under these circumstances, maybe it
| makes sense to wait a year or two before making claims
| about the long-term effectiveness of the vaccines. If
| they aren't effective long-term some people might make
| different decisions about what vaccine they decide to
| take.
| alexpw wrote:
| The mRNA vaccines were developed to target the spike
| protein of the Alpha variant. We got lucky it works so
| well against Delta, or else they would have had to roll
| out a new vaccine.
|
| Based on your wording, it sounds like you have the
| mistaken impression that the mRNA vaccines are expected
| to account for and target all future variants. A future
| variant may have a large enough mutation to the spike
| protein and render them 0% effective. But they can
| rollout a new vaccine very quickly with EUA. Sorry if
| I've misinterpreted.
|
| I don't remember ever seeing #s promising long term
| effectiveness, but eventually later seeing a chart with
| projected effectiveness waning over time. What they
| should do is be careful to present variant specific
| numbers. There's too much generalizing, like I did as
| well, lumping Pfizer and Moderna together.
| Reason077 wrote:
| My comment was in regard to vaccine safety/side effects,
| not long-term efficacy.
| silver-arrow wrote:
| That is a pretty naive take on "safe". Would you like for
| me to list the MANY actually tested and approved drugs
| that turned out to have nasty or deadly effects realized
| years later which resulted in them being pulled? It is
| actually stunning to see such trust in something so
| untested in real world situations knowing from who is
| producing it. Oh I could list many other drugs! This not
| even counting drugs like OxyContin or benzodiazepines.
| avereveard wrote:
| > How much more time do you need?
|
| well it's not like you can study long term effect by
| virtue of having a very large large short term datasets,
| no matter how much large the current dataset is.
| Reason077 wrote:
| My comment was in regard to vaccine safety/side effects,
| not long-term efficacy.
|
| Flu vaccines are only really effective for a single
| season. Hopefully it's longer, but even if c19 vaccines
| give you only 1-2 years protection before requiring a
| booster, I'd say that's still pretty good.
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| The 3-5 year clinical trial like all of the previous
| vaccines.
| Reason077 wrote:
| 'flu vaccines roll out annually and certainly don't get
| 3-5 year clinical trials.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| > That vaccine granted immunity was a big one, it rapidly
| became less symptoms, and from that surreptitiously changed
| again to well you'll still have a week of feeling like
| shit, but you'll be less likely to die from it.
|
| You're being downvoted but the medical industry in the US
| honestly has terrible PR. It's not surprising that people
| misunderstand.
|
| Vaccines do grant immunity, but immunity doesn't mean "you
| cannot catch the virus" and it never has. It means that
| your immune system will recognise the virus immediately and
| fight it.
|
| This is the same thing as "less symptoms".
|
| "A week of feeling like shit" has nothing to do with the
| virus at all, they're not symptoms of an infection that you
| are feeling, they are side effects of your immune system
| learning to fight the virus that the vaccine is teaching it
| about.
|
| All, or at least most, vaccines require occasional
| boosters, but if everyone is vaccinated when they should
| be, the virus will die out before any significant number of
| further infections can occur, as has now happened with
| Polio and Smallpox.
|
| So in short: You were not lied to, but you absolutely
| should have had this explained to you with greater clarity.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| It's unlikely the virus would have died out in any
| circumstance, given how infectious it is and easy to
| transmit.
|
| We're probably going to get progressively less deadly
| variants until the end of times.
|
| Vaccines' downsides were definitely overplayed because
| they were trying to push vaccines.
|
| Talking about the increased risk of blood clots, saying
| that you would still get symptoms, that you would still
| infect other people, that you would still have to wear a
| mask, that you would still have to do a test whenever you
| travel, that vaccines would lose efficacy and need a
| booster every 6 month - that's the kind of stuff that
| would get you branded as an no-vax and banned from
| youtube.
| oceanplexian wrote:
| If vaccines don't provide immunity then what's the point
| of all the public policy such as vaccine passports, etc?
| If you can still catch and spread it those who are
| vaccinated should be subject to the same testing
| requirements as the unvaccinated.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > If you can still catch and spread it those who are
| vaccinated should be subject to the same testing
| requirements as the unvaccinated.
|
| You're misunderstanding the precise use of the word "can"
| here. I can win the lottery. I can win a coin toss. But
| the odds are drastically different, and so en masse, we
| should plan and test much more for the "much more likely"
| case than the other. Now, vaccination against COVID gives
| better odds of not catching and not spreading COVID. You
| still _can_, though.
|
| > If vaccines don't provide immunity
|
| But they do, statistically they provide a high level of
| immunity. Not 100% though. You know this:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28699699 So why are
| you contradicting yourself?
| JshWright wrote:
| It's not a binary thing... Vaccines make it significantly
| less likely that you will be infected, or if you are
| infected that you will develop the viral load necessary
| to be infectious, or if you are infectious, the period of
| time you are infectious for will be much shorter. At each
| step along the way the vaccine makes less likely that the
| vaccinated individual will infect someone else.
|
| It makes it sufficiently less likely that if everyone was
| vaccinated, each infected person would, on average, go on
| to infect less than one other person, and the pandemic
| would end. The more people who are vaccinate, the lower
| that average of "people that get infected by each
| infectious person" goes. That is why vaccinations are
| important to everyone, not just the individual who is
| vaccinated.
| nradov wrote:
| Vaccination provides good protection against severe
| symptoms. However even a high level of vaccination won't
| be sufficient to end the pandemic.
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/delta-variant-made-herd-
| immu...
| silver-arrow wrote:
| Past attempts to vaccinate corona viruses say you are
| wrong. Israel's current live study says you're wrong
| ZoomerCretin wrote:
| Immunity: the ability of an organism to resist a particular
| infection or toxin by the action of specific antibodies or
| sensitized white blood cells.
|
| The vaccine gives immunity, by the definition of what
| immunity is. The reduced efficacy was communicated as soon
| as it was confirmed. There was no lie. This is how science
| occurs. The best conclusion was given from the data at the
| time.
|
| Regarding the metrics for vaccination rates that would
| allow full normalcy: they existed before the Delta variant,
| and unfortunately this new variant has made herd immunity
| impossible.
| YossarianFrPrez wrote:
| > That [the] vaccine granted immunity.
|
| Vaccines work by stimulating the immune system. "Immunity"
| in the context of vaccines does not, and has never meant
| something like 'diplomatic immunity.' Instead, it means
| that a vaccinated person's body has the tools to fight off
| the virus. Which looks like reduced symptoms and
| drastically reduced likelihood of death from the virus.
| Mild side effects are expected. [1]
|
| This has been true since vaccines were first discovered
| /invented, and will continue to be true. Measles, Smallpox,
| Polio, etc.
|
| Perhaps many people misunderstood what "immunity" meant...
| But that initial misunderstanding doesn't mean that they
| were being lied to by doctors and scientists. What it
| really means is that they were unintentionally lying to
| themselves about the definition of immunity.
|
| [1] https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/parents/why-
| vaccinate/vaccine-d...
| JuliusPullo wrote:
| The Covid vaccine does not work by directly stimulating
| the immune system, like all other vaccines do. Instead,
| it inserts synthetic molecules into some cells, turning
| them into little machines that constantly produce a toxin
| that is released into the blood stream. The immune system
| is supposed to learn to fight this toxin. This has NEVER
| before been done in any other vaccine. We could speculate
| for hours about what could go wrong, but for the moment
| lets just say that myocarditis and blood clots are
| definitely NOT mild side effects.
| edmundsauto wrote:
| Myocarditis and blood clots are also (more frequently)
| side effects from getting C19.
|
| Just because it's never been done before does not mean we
| have no idea what it will or won't do. Biology is
| uncertain, but it's important to examine the vaccine
| risks AGAINST COVID RISKS.
|
| Nothing is no-risk, including the vaccine. However, the
| accurate comparison is getting covid without the vax,
| versus with the vax. Looking at the vaccine risks in
| isolation is somewhere between misleading and dishonest.
| effie wrote:
| The vaccine can 1) hurt me with probability p1, and 2)
| help me with probability p2, in case I get COVID later in
| a few-month-window after the vaccine when it is
| efficient.
|
| I can choose to not get the vaccine, but I can't choose
| to not get COVID. COVID may hurt me either way.
|
| Depending on the values p1, p2, it's better to get the
| vaccine or not get it. The problem is, most people have
| no idea about values of p1, p2 and that they are highly
| dependent on personal details.
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| I call bullshit here. If you're that worried, get the J&J
| vaccine, it's just like all the others. Multiple orders
| of magnitude more people have died or come down with long
| haul COVID versus had these side effects so the argument
| that you're doing the safe thing does not hold water.
| effie wrote:
| > Multiple orders of magnitude more people have died or
| come down with long haul COVID
|
| Yes but a very small part of those are relevant to my
| personal assessment of risk of bad COVID. The risk
| depends strongly on age, health status, lifestyle and so
| on. Absolute numbers of deaths are not that important to
| personal risk assessment.
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| I would be completely shocked if your "personal risk
| assessment" is accurate. There is no clear indications on
| which folks will get long COVID, "age, health status,
| lifestyle, and so on" are generalizations not absolutes.
| Your chance of dying of COVID, regardless of your health
| status, is much greater than the chance of experiencing
| serious side effects in what is probably one of the most
| widely distributed vaccines in history.
|
| "Feelings" have no place in science. These are numbers
| not subjective anecdotes, which appear to be what you're
| basing your decision on. Say what you like, the data
| doesn't lie, only people do.
| silver-arrow wrote:
| Do no harm. You have no idea of the real risk from the
| vaccine because they really aren't looking. Not 1 child
| should have been made to suffer myocarditis or died from
| the vaccine vs their risk of covid. Not one. But many
| have.
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| J&J also works by producing spike proteins
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| Adenovirus vaccines have been in use since the 70s.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| https://healthcare.utah.edu/healthfeed/postings/2021/07/b
| loo...
|
| >VITT is not associated with the Moderna or Pfizer-
| BioNTech mRNA vaccines.
|
| We're talking 400 cases of VITT from two specific
| vaccines (AZ and J&J) out of 6.2 billion doses given.
| Furthermore, COVID itself is associated with getting
| blood clots. In fact, you have a much higher chance of
| getting blood clots by staying unvaccinated than getting
| the vaccine. Even further, blood clots are entirely
| treatable if caught early.
|
| Of course, as others have said, blood clots aren't a
| legitimate concern for anyone. This is yet another
| shifting of the goalposts.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Innate immunity in a world of many unvaccinated individuals
| is going to gradually reduce this virus to another variant
| of the common cold. In the mean time, the vaccinated like
| myself are going to harbor and evolve dangerous variants
| which will kill many of the unvaccinated. The unvaccinated
| are the real victims here, since the vaccinated ones won't
| help the virus become more benign as effectively as those
| who develop innate immunity against it.
| effie wrote:
| Even if you are eventually proven correct (vaccinated
| putting pressure on the virus to get more dangerous), I
| think your personal decision to favour personal health to
| public health is the correct one. Everybody should
| primarily watch their own interests and their own health.
|
| On the other hand, public policy leading to creation of
| more dangerous viruses would be a disaster and if that
| happens, it should be stopped.
| tshaddox wrote:
| It sounds like both you and your mother have both adopted an
| epistemology that incorporates the perceived amount of
| censorship, lies, and coercion performed by proponents of some
| claim into your discernment of the truth value of that claim.
| Namely, you both seem to have adopted some level of doubt about
| pro-vaccine claims because you both perceive that proponents of
| pro-vaccine claims participate in censorship, lies and
| coercion, or that those proponents of these claims do not
| engage in reasonable arguments with their critics.
|
| There are two problems with this type of epistemology. The
| first is that, like all claims, attributes of the people making
| the claims are not relevant to the truth value of the claim
| ("fallacy of irrelevance"). The second is more important and
| more unique to this particular epistemology: the actions you
| _perceive_ to be conducted by perceived proponents of some
| claim will vary heavily based on your own behavior. For
| instance, how do you know that pro-vaccine people "can't win
| arguments" and instead "stop them because the other side is too
| stupid"? Or that there is "massive censorship" favoring the
| pro-vaccine viewpoint? Surely that is just based on your own
| "media diet." Surely that perception depends heavily on where
| you spend your time on Twitter, YouTube, cable news, etc. Would
| you perceive something differently if it were the case that the
| vast majority of medical and public health experts who are pro-
| vaccine in fact have engaged in numerous reasonable arguments
| with critics and have nonetheless come to the same conclusion?
| Is there ever a point in which litigation of existing
| criticisms can end so that we can move on to new criticisms?
| swivelmaster wrote:
| What kind of medical professionals?
| boringg wrote:
| I picked up on the strangely vague "medical professionals"
| piece as well. One thing I learned from the pandemic is that
| not all health/medical professionals are created equal, and
| that there is a large portion of very specifically trained
| and fairly uneducated people in the medical community.
| cplex wrote:
| Something I heard from Shepard Smith cleared this up for me
| the other day- when talking about a potential shortage of
| "medical professionals" in NY due to the vaccine mandate,
| he also provided a statistic that 98+% of doctors and 95+%
| of nurses are vaccinated. This is a breakdown that I
| appreciated, as I value the health-related decisions of
| doctors more than the entire category of "medical
| professionals".
| BeetleB wrote:
| > One thing I learned from the pandemic is that not all
| health/medical professionals are created equal, and that
| there is a large portion of very specifically trained and
| fairly uneducated people in the medical community.
|
| I have medical professionals in my family. Your statement
| sums it up. In my experience, physical/occupational
| therapists are the most likely to believe in crazy stuff
| (from a medical standpoint). RNs come next. I'm sure there
| are people in between on that spectrum, but I don't
| interact with them much.
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| My mom was a RN most of her career then got her masters and
| went into education. My dad is a nurse practitioner. I
| didn't specify it explicitly because I didn't think it was
| relevant -- I was not trying to use vagueness to imply they
| were medical doctors and use them as a source of authority.
| All was trying to do was build them up at least a little,
| they do know more about the body than most people even if
| they aren't anywhere near experts on what the vaccine does.
| sllewe wrote:
| Just to add some other insight here...
|
| My Wife, a ICU RN+CCRN spent most of her 2020 on the COVID
| floor. It was pretty brutal for her.
|
| She has coworkers, of equal status, who experienced
| pandemic alongside her first hand - who were extremely
| hesitant to get the vaccine. This includes several months
| after the initial rollout to staff.
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| My mom was a RN most of her career then got her masters and
| went into education. My dad is a nurse practitioner.
| cde-v wrote:
| Probably chiropractors
| trts wrote:
| There are at least four people close to me who become more
| entrenched in their anti-vax stance the more this stuff
| happens.
|
| It's so obvious to me how counter-productive these measures
| are. However I don't suppose increasing vaccination rates are
| part of the goal of these measures, but just protecting YouTube
| from having to do moderation or take responsibility for the
| content on their platform.
|
| My mom for example, after many conversations and a great deal
| of effort on my part to present data and evidence that was free
| from shaming and judgement, has made two appointments to get
| vaccinated, and subsequently cancelled them. The second
| cancellation came after Biden's recent speech blaming
| unvaccinated people being directly responsible for killing the
| vaccinated, a nonsensical supposition.
|
| This is scary stuff. The moral absolutism that the platforms
| endorse is creeping into more and more subjective areas, and
| essentially obliterating any hope of nuance or increased
| understanding about changing strategies and data.
| alex504 wrote:
| > Biden's recent speech blaming unvaccinated people being
| directly responsible for killing the vaccinated, a
| nonsensical supposition.
|
| Can you explain how this is nonsensical? There is quite a bit
| of data showing that those who are unvaccinated are much more
| likely to spread the disease.
| trts wrote:
| From the speech itself, "only 1 in every 160,000 fully
| vaccinated Americans has been hospitalized due to covid"
|
| According to the most recent data from the CDC
| (https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/COVIDNet/COVID19_3.html), 960
| out of every 160,000 Americans has been hospitalized due to
| covid (this is across all people regardless of vaccination
| status).
|
| So there is _at least_ a 99% reduction in the rate of
| hospitalizations for the fully vaccinated, according to the
| figures he cited.
|
| The message he's sending is that even if you are
| vaccinated, _you're not safe_. Why is this an effective
| message for persuading those who might still be convinced?
|
| Is the overall outcome better than if our political
| leadership continued to transparently emphasize vaccine
| safety and outcomes, rather than scoring points with their
| political base? You convince more people to become
| vaccinated by being convincing. When you get more people
| vaccinated, you save more lives.
|
| If someone's position is, that it doesn't matter if the
| overall outcome is worse, because the bad outcomes are more
| concentrated in selfish/stupid/red-state people, then I
| simply disagree with that.
| alex504 wrote:
| Your way at arriving at 99% is quite dubious, as it
| assumes that from the beginning of the pandemic an equal
| number of Americans are vaccinated and unvaccinated, and
| that they are equally exposed to the virus, and that they
| are in equal risk groups, none of which is true.
|
| From what I have read the those who are vaccinated are
| about 17 times less likely to be hospitalized. Here is a
| link to an example article showing that statistic:
|
| https://www.sciencenews.org/article/covid-coronavirus-
| vaccin...
|
| There is very worrisome data coming out of Israel that
| shows that the risk of breakthrough infections is likely
| to rise, as delta becomes more predominant and the
| efficacy of the vaccines wane.
|
| https://www.science.org/news/2021/08/grim-warning-israel-
| vac...
|
| Simply put, I don't think the assertion that the
| unvaccinated are killing the vaccinated is untrue. There
| is a lot of data that shows that being unvaccinated
| greatly increases your chance of spreading the virus. The
| virus is a much bigger part of our lives due to the
| unvaccinated.
|
| Data is increasingly showing that being vaccinated is not
| a guarantee that you won't wind up in the hospital, have
| long term symptoms, or die from the virus, especially if
| you are in an at risk group.
| jedberg wrote:
| The vaccinated aren't dying from COVID, they are dying
| from other things because they can't get an ICU bed. ICUs
| are full of unvaccinated COVID patients, which means all
| the people getting all the other normal sicknesses are
| being locked out of medical care.
|
| That's what they mean by "the unvaccinated are killing
| the vaccinated". People who could have lived if they got
| ICU care are dying because the ICUs are already full.
| [deleted]
| rpmisms wrote:
| Hi, I'm one of those people. I already had Covid before the
| vaccine, and have been exposed without reinfection since
| having it. I was neutral on the vaccine at the start, but now
| I'm only going to get it if I'm forced to. I'm not interested
| in being bullied into a choice that
|
| a) could harm me, and is more likely to given my family
| history, and b) there's conflicting evidence that it gives me
| any advantage over the immunity I already have.
|
| If you'd like to change my mind, you can start by not
| threatening my livelihood, not calling me a murderer, and not
| treating me like I'm subhuman. Yes, I'm a little angry.
| Wouldn't you?
| scrollaway wrote:
| Convincing you largely doesn't matter since you have
| antibodies already. Your message here sounds a bit like a
| challenge, "here look at me I'm antivax please convince me"
| -- no, at best that's an empty request, at worst it's
| trollbait.
|
| My ex girlfriend is the exact same as you. I called her out
| on it, she didn't like that. Do what you like, but IMO what
| you are doing is dishonest.
|
| She did eventually get it, though, for no other reason
| than: it's harmless, and it's easier and cheaper than doing
| a test before every concert she wanted to go to. She
| eventually apologized and said she was just being stubborn
| for the hell of it.
|
| Ah well, people change.
| [deleted]
| ldbooth wrote:
| Same here. Social Environment is hard to overcome. In the
| battle of social environment (group think) vs. individual
| reasoning, environment will win almost every time. This is a
| known bias among professional investors, and well appreciated
| there. Vaccine hesitancy follows this pattern, where future
| is unknown and FUD is trending.
| oauea wrote:
| Sorry to tell you, but your mom is an idiot and she is
| probably going to die. Sucks, but such is life for those
| people.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| I also find the censorship to be deeply disturbing, but for me
| that's counterbalanced by the fact that the arguments against
| vaccination are so dumb. The _best_ argument is basically,
| "It's not researched enough and it might kill you." But so
| what, doing things that might kill you on the basis of limited
| data is like a basic part of being an adult.
| cromulent wrote:
| Yeah, over 2 billion people have been vaccinated against C19.
| It's a pretty good sample size. Probably less people have
| tattoos.
| ipaddr wrote:
| The long term studies are not due until 2024. It would be
| too early to tell.
| Alex3917 wrote:
| Have any of the studies released data yet? I was under
| the impression that even the data from the short term
| studies wouldn't be released for another couple of years.
| cromulent wrote:
| Good point, tattoos have been around for ever. Bad
| comparison from me.
|
| I'm actually excited about the new mRNA tech and the
| massive boost it got from the money during C19. I think
| lockdown is toxic to society and risks can be taken on
| vaccines to open things up.
|
| I'm optimistic for humanity and thankful we had a mild-
| ish pandemic that was fatal for a relatively small
| percentage, but allowed us to improve our biotech so much
| in such a short time. This will surely help us next time.
|
| This article for example:
|
| https://www.economist.com/technology-
| quarterly/2021/03/23/no...
| AlexandrB wrote:
| At this point we can rule out any serious, acute side
| effects since people aren't dropping like flies after
| getting vaccinated. What's left are long term side-
| effects, and in my mind these would have to be pretty
| severe to compete with "long COVID", which seems to have
| pretty nasty neurological symptoms in some cases in
| addition to the characteristic loss of taste/smell.
| effie wrote:
| Either severe, or very common. Hopefully time will tell.
| dwaltrip wrote:
| In the history of vaccines, virtually all side effects
| show up in the first few months. It isn't too early to
| know they are safe.
| nverno wrote:
| It isn't too early to /think/ they are safe (a subjective
| judgement since they do harm a small percentage of
| people, just like the debate whether the virus is 'bad'
| or not). It is impossible to know with certainty if there
| are long-term effects, and predictions made from past
| events are obviously uncertain.
| _moof wrote:
| Is this a standard that you've applied to all medical
| care you've ever received, or is this particular to this
| vaccine? For example, have you ever taken medicine or
| received a treatment that was invented in the past 50
| years, and if so, why didn't you feel the need to wait
| for an entire human generation to go by first?
| [deleted]
| ptaipale wrote:
| In fact, over 3.5 billion people have been vaccinated (with
| at least one dose). It's about 45 % or world population.
| I'd say it's amazing, though there's still quite some way
| to go.
|
| Our World In Data is a great source for this and other
| covid-related data for the world and individual countries.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/explorers/coronavirus-data-
| explor...
| Florin_Andrei wrote:
| Crossing the street is also potentially deadly.
|
| Not crossing it, staying home all day until you starve or go
| insane from isolation is more deadly.
|
| So we choose to cross the street.
| oauea wrote:
| Hey, if you want to die, go for it. It's your freedom.
| boringg wrote:
| Yeah I agree with this in sentiment but the impacts to the
| rest of society are pretty hard to just let them go do that.
| Namely burnout at hospitals, regular health procedures being
| pushed back, people unnecessarily getting infected/dying,
| etc. There some serious community cost to these hold outs.
| amrocha wrote:
| Just let people sign a waiver stating they willingly
| decided to not get vaccinated, and forego treatment at
| hospitals for any covid-related complications. Problem
| solved.
| jokethrowaway wrote:
| That'd be great. I'll also stop paying taxes that cover
| public healthcare and just use private hospitals while
| I'm at it.
| boringg wrote:
| I like the snark. No way that roll out would get any
| better traction than the vaccine did in that crowd!
| babypuncher wrote:
| Normally I would agree, but right now if I get in a serious
| car accident there is a decent chance there won't be an ICU
| available at my nearest hospital because they're all full of
| COVID patients.
|
| I stop tolerating your idiocy once it's consequences begin to
| affect me.
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| Hospitals are a business. They only have room for patients
| as long as it is profitable. Covid pays the best right now
| so that is where they are focusing their business.
| effie wrote:
| It's a reminder of a bigger unresolved societal issue - how
| the healthcare resources are to be distributed to patients.
| Should vaccinated get preference? Young ones? Wealthy?
| Political class? Celebrities?
|
| In whole world, they all do, and I am not sure it is always
| the right way things should work. We should have enough
| beds and staff to care for all people in need. Even those
| not in preferred societal classes or not with the right
| political views or even those who did some bad medical
| decisions.
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| Doesn't this apply to fat people who end up in hospital
| too? Or smokers? They're taking your ICU bed and should be
| forced to lose weight
| EricDeb wrote:
| No because those people don't tend to fill up all
| hospital beds at once.
| distrill wrote:
| sort of, but not quite. you've articulated a good
| argument for something like a fat tax, but being fat
| doesn't immediately make others around you fat. (yes, you
| can be a bad influence on someone, but that won't land
| them in the icu in 2 weeks).
|
| but of course you already knew that.
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| But it does fill up ICU beds. The vaccines are not very
| effective at stopping spread of the delta variant so the
| metaphor still holds.
| distrill wrote:
| it is a really bad metaphor.
|
| what fills up icu beds? obesity? not acutely, that will
| take years to infect another person.
|
| the vaccines are not great at stopping the spread of
| delta but they are great at preventing people who get it
| from going to the hospital.
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| Diabetes and obesity is a risk factor in almost every
| ailment including cancer and heart disease, not to
| mention Covid itself. Of course it contributes to filling
| up ICUs.
| distrill wrote:
| are you intentionally straw manning me? i specifically
| acknowledged what you're claiming, and have been clear
| about how that doesn't make it comparable to something as
| fast acting as a virus.
|
| you're fighting a point that has not been made.
| pigeonhole123 wrote:
| I guess I misunderstood. Both being obese and being
| unvaccinated are risk factors for ending up in the ICU
| due to Covid. One is morally reprehensible according to
| some people and the other isn't. I think we should accept
| both or none.
| distrill wrote:
| yeah fair enough, i appreciate the social disconnect
| there
| babypuncher wrote:
| The difference is there aren't enough of them to bring
| our healthcare system to it's knees. Hospitals in many
| states are having to ration care, and triage patients
| right now. Before the pandemic, this only happened in
| rare emergencies (terrorist attacks, mass shootings)
| Broken_Hippo wrote:
| I'd agree if we were talking something akin to choosing not
| to take insulin even though you can easily afford it or
| refusing to treat an easily treatable cancer.
|
| If you catch covid, there is a good chance you'll pass it
| onto others, unlike the previous maladies. And that is a real
| problem: Some of those people will die, most will pass on the
| virus to others, and a good number of folks wind up in the
| hospital.
|
| And that's happening so much that folks are dying from non-
| covid things as well.
|
| Pretty much, if you choose to die from Covid, you are going
| to take others down with you.
| rkuykendall-com wrote:
| Unfortunately there's so many of these idiots they're
| clogging up the hospitals. I don't know why they don't just
| "do their own research" and die at home.
| cromulent wrote:
| https://xkcd.com/2515/
| Dma54rhs wrote:
| For the same reason the body positive types don't, people
| who drink or smoke etc. Society in general tolerates ones
| bad decisions.
| mycoborea wrote:
| Hey Robert, I see you're in New York City. Would you be
| comfortable explaining your comments to the 2/3 of black
| New Yorkers who are hesitant to get the vaccines?
| heartbreak wrote:
| Are you comfortable explaining why black Americans are
| overwhelmingly stuck with worse schools, worse access to
| healthcare, and generational poverty?
| txsoftwaredev wrote:
| Lack of parenting.
| bettysdiagnose wrote:
| A very very American thing of you to say.
| heartbreak wrote:
| Today I remembered why I shouldn't engage with idiots.
| braincat31415 wrote:
| One of those "idiots" clogging the hospitals is my friend's
| mom. Daughter asked her to get the vaccine. An apparently
| healthy and not a very old woman ended up in the hospital
| with ventricular thrombosis three days after the first
| shot.
| amrocha wrote:
| Why do you think an anecdote where you don't even know
| all the details matters?
| braincat31415 wrote:
| At least you didn't accuse me of lying right away. I'll
| give it another 10 minutes.
| heartbreak wrote:
| The "idiots" comment refers to people who did not get the
| vaccine and are hospitalized with Covid. So not your
| friend's mom.
| NotSammyHagar wrote:
| I'm glad you got vaccinated. But... Can you expand on why you
| were hesitant because of censorship? Because if there were lots
| of serious problems with the vaccine, they'd be covered in a
| second on fox news. Meanwhile, a lot of people are hugely
| influenced by false stories on social media, it's just a fact,
| with recent examples being things like ivermectin and the 2016
| presidential election conspiracies, and don't forget q-anon.
|
| Since covid is so deadly if you get it, and there are basically
| almost no cases of serious health issues with vaccination and
| furthermore, vaccination is also almost guaranteed to protect
| you from serious cases, why wouldn't you get it? Have you heard
| rumors of some problems from vaccination?
| destitude wrote:
| "almost no cases of serious health issues with vaccination"
| how do you think you'd possibly hear about this when you are
| replying to an article where any anti-vaccine information is
| censored?
| robbrown451 wrote:
| You really think "any anti-vaccine information is
| censored"?
|
| This policy on YouTube just started, and, last I heard
| anyway, there are other sources of information other than
| YouTube.
|
| There have obviously been many many sources of information
| on the internet that allow anti-vaccine information. And,
| if that information was actually credible, it would have
| also been available to, for instance, those at YouTube who
| made this policy. What do you figure their agenda is for
| covering it up?
| cromulent wrote:
| Well over 2 billion people have been vaccinated. You
| probably know some of them in real life - you don't need a
| broadcaster to tell you if there are problems.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| Found on a different discussion at TheZvi
| (https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/09/23/covid-9-23-there-
| is-...):
|
| --- start quote #1 ---
|
| Thanks to your ongoing efforts, my 40+ year old sibling
| finally got vaccinated about three weeks before getting
| infected by her kids. She still had it pretty bad, so I think
| it's likely you saved her a trip to the hospital or worse.
|
| She was on the brink of getting vaccinated weeks earlier, but
| "That Guy" had cast enough doubt that a family member talked
| her out of it. So I'm glad you specifically mentioned him
| back then. Thanks to our civilization's shiny new censorship
| machine it was maddeningly difficult to actually find good
| counter arguments to his claims, since we're all supposed to
| just pretend bad claims don't exist. So mostly I had to just
| point to the favorable evidence rather than being able to
| give a point by point rebuttal.
|
| [...]
|
| And her family is fox news conservative, so all the tribal
| hate made it especially hard for her to take their claims
| seriously. She stayed up all night making her decision, and
| had 250 browser tabs open by the end. So people do try, and
| do pay attention.
|
| --- end quote #1 ---
|
| and later, in response
|
| --- start quote #2 ---
|
| I had the same experience. I wanted to know whether the
| "vector vaccines alter your DNA" claims had any truth to
| them, given that "dna altering virus" is definitely something
| that exists. As far as I can tell, this is (probably) false,
| but it was really hard to find any evidence beyond "prof. dr.
| X says this is a conspiracy theory, now get your vaccine they
| are safe and effective (tm)". It was really frustrating; I'm
| not surprised that many people feel like they are being
| tricked.
|
| --- end quote #2 ---
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > I had the same experience. I wanted to know whether the
| "vector vaccines alter your DNA" claims had any truth to
| them, given that "dna altering virus" is definitely
| something that exists. As far as I can tell, this is
| (probably) false, but it was really hard to find any
| evidence beyond "prof. dr. X says this is a conspiracy
| theory, now get your vaccine they are safe and effective
| (tm)". It was really frustrating; I'm not surprised that
| many people feel like they are being tricked.
|
| This is a really frustrating perspective to hear.
|
| > I heard this bogus claim about something I don't
| understand and wanted to know if it was true
|
| > All I could find was doctors saying it was nonsense
|
| > How could I know what the truth was?
|
| I suspect it's a common form of reasoning. It's committing
| so many mistakes all at once.
|
| * Refusal to acknowledge that you might be considering
| nonsense and thus perceiving anyone saying it's nonsense as
| malicious
|
| * Complete refusal or certainty in your inability to do
| basic research on things that are well documented by many
| organizations and easy to find BUT STILL SAYING ITS HARD TO
| FIND
|
| * Not just lack of trust, but certainty of distrust for
| authority figures. Anything they say has negative value.
|
| It's far more upsetting to me than hearing people with
| malicious political agendas being assholes.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| So you think it's a problem that people want to see an
| actual explanation, rather than just hearing authority
| figures say "don't worry your little head, we'll make the
| decisions for you"?
|
| Every day we hear the mantra, "follow the science!". Here
| are people striving to do exactly that, and they're being
| criticized for it. Saying that they're not trying hard
| enough if they're not finding the answers they seek when
| it's framed the way you say it must be presented is not a
| recipe for helping such people overcome their objections.
| bmarquez wrote:
| > they'd be covered in a second on fox news
|
| I don't know why you assume Fox is anti-vax, Trump took the
| vaccine and promotes it on Fox News interviews himself.
|
| https://www.foxnews.com/media/trump-urges-all-americans-
| to-g...
| ipaddr wrote:
| People see the world as us and them. Dem vs Rep. In reality
| it is those who control and wished to be controlled vs
| those who wish to remain free.
|
| Fox and CNN are two sides of the same coin.
| ZeroGravitas wrote:
| Fox News repeatedly highlighted the dangers of covid:
|
| https://youtu.be/wmoABTiCpco
|
| I dont understand why everyone thinks they are fascists.
| bmarquez wrote:
| The video shows soundbites of commentators saying illegal
| immigrants, in crowded conditions, potentially have
| covid.
|
| I don't know if that's correct or not but it has nothing
| to do with my point that pro-vaccine content does exist
| on Fox News.
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| Have you watched Tucker Carlson? I would be pleased if they
| charged the man with murder after this is all over. Do you
| think it's odd he won't answer questions about his own
| vaccination status?
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| Can you expand on why you were hesitant because of
| censorship? ... Have you heard rumors of some problems from
| vaccination?
|
| It made it more difficult to ascertain what the risks were, I
| didn't feel our officials were being honest with us
| (something I still think). Back in early 2021 it was a lot
| more open to speculation since it was an minimally tested
| treatment who's delivery method had never been widely
| deployed on humans before. We still don't know if there's
| long term effects and there's no way for us to find out until
| enough time has passed. I didn't want to be part of the
| initial test group. Since covid is so
| deadly if you get it
|
| I'm relatively young and not in any risk categories, covid
| does not pose much of a death risk to me. Significant non-
| deadly outcomes are another story (permanent lung damage,
| loss of taste, ect). I decided that protection from the
| latter category (significant non-deadly outcomes) was worth
| my rather nebulous fears that we'll realize it does some harm
| over the next decade. and there are
| basically almost no cases of serious health issues with
| vaccination and furthermore
|
| "Basically almost no" is a difficult term to quantify, but
| VAERS database does have plenty of entries.
| unanswered wrote:
| > Significant non-deadly outcomes are another story
| (permanent lung damage, loss of taste, ect)
|
| Is there credible, non-censorious evidence that the vaccine
| reduces these particular risks? This is the same argument
| that we keep seeing: you have to take this vaccine because
| ${thing that vaccines normally do but this one hasn't been
| shown to do}. The most egregious example is "provide
| immunity"/"improve outcomes for anyone around you". I just
| don't believe a word of it until I see the science.
| nneonneo wrote:
| I don't know what level of convincing you need, but here
| in BC, unvaccinated people are about 25x more likely to
| show up in a hospital than vaccinated people:
|
| https://news.gov.bc.ca/releases/2021HLTH0058-001843
|
| Over the past two weeks:
|
| > After factoring for age, people not vaccinated are 25.8
| times more likely to be hospitalized than those fully
| vaccinated.
|
| (The age correction reflects the fact that vaccines
| aren't distributed evenly by age).
| unanswered wrote:
| Sorry, I just don't believe these numbers. Even
| mainstream media sources have begun admitting that
| hospital admission rates are meaningless because they
| reflect mostly test results from hospital admissions for
| concerns other than covid symptoms. It is interesting
| that despite this the unvaccinated are showing up more,
| but because it is for example plausible that the
| unvaccinated are just plain leaving their homes more, I
| think that actual scientific study is needed to explain
| these numbers.
|
| I recognize that it's ridiculous to be in a situation
| where I'm rejecting facts; that's a great way to be led
| completely astray. But that's the world that censorship
| has created.
| _moof wrote:
| What will you believe?
| unanswered wrote:
| As I said,
|
| > I think that actual scientific study is needed to
| explain these numbers.
|
| Science is not done in the media. I'm tired of being told
| that I have to believe the science that's on TV when
| every single time I investigate it turns out the science
| says the exact opposite. The non-scientific "facts" in
| the media are even worse; take those overwhelmed
| hospitals in Oklahoma and the nationwide overwhelmed
| poison control centers, which were both bold-faced lies.
| (In case you've missed the non-retractions, Oklahoma
| hospitals denied having ivermectin patients and only 2%
| of calls to poison control had anything to do with
| covid.)
| spaceisballer wrote:
| The VAERS database wouldn't be what I would use for
| measures. I mean I saw a guy faint like one minute after
| getting the shot. Side effect? Nope he even said while he
| was talking to paramedics he spent the whole day freaking
| out about side effects and then blacked out. Paramedics
| said they see this all the time, people are scared. However
| the technology for the vaccines has been around for a few
| years now and the vaccines all went through rigorous
| testing. We don't know the long term adverse affects of
| COVID, but with the mechanism of the vaccine plus the
| insanely high number of people who have received them we
| should feel even more confident in their safety. I mean I
| get the hesitancy people have. But honestly a lot of people
| are making decisions based on emotion to not getting the
| shot, and I think a lot of it is that reason and facts
| can't counter emotion (not saying you in particular just a
| general observation).
| MarcoZavala wrote:
| You should be stabbed to death you worthless piece of shit.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| Really devalues the meaning of censorship.
|
| Social media platforms broadcasting your views around the
| world and moderating some of them was not censorship.
| computerphage wrote:
| And what exactly is the difference in your mind between
| "moderating" and "censoring" here? They seem exactly the
| same to me: both involve some other party deciding what is
| and is not acceptable to be published.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| Censorship is government action.
|
| Private companies that allow you to reach millions of
| people are offering you the ability to use their service.
| It's not censorship when they don't allow you to use
| their service (and until today, they haven't stopped
| much), it's terms of service.
|
| If I invite you to my house and you eat my dog's food, I
| have the right to tell you to leave. The movement
| wouldn't be what it is today without YT, so this
| censorship stuff is too much.
| ipaddr wrote:
| Censorship is not a government action. It is literally
| filtering content and anyone can. You can censor
| yourself, a company could censor a band and change
| lyrics.
|
| They run a platform that practices censorship. It is
| legal. Trying to say it is okay because they are a
| private entity doesn't wash and they should be called
| out. We could even band together and censor them.
| robbrown451 wrote:
| Why do you think censorship must be government action? Is
| there a definition posted anywhere that says this?
|
| I've long seen it used to refer to, for instance, TV
| network censors. And every online dictionary I can find
| allows for entities other than government to be referred
| to as censoring.
| harshreality wrote:
| That libertarian/conservative talking point is often
| misstated, which intentionally or not becomes a red
| herring. Their claim isn't (or shouldn't be) that Youtube
| or Facebook or Twitter, in taking actions like these,
| aren't engaging in censorship. Their claim is that it's
| legal and not a violation of free speech (1A in the US),
| i.e. it's not _government_ censorship, because _that_
| only applies when government is taking the actions.
|
| There are several problems with this, outlined in
| Clarence Thomas's recent concurring opinion in Biden v.
| Knight. Dominant communications platforms are essentially
| part of the public square, and two well-established legal
| principles could come into play to restrict their
| actions: _public accommodations and common carriers_.
|
| There's the additional problem that government is
| influencing how social media companies police content,
| not only indirectly through fear of retribution, but even
| directly. One instance that recently got media attention:
|
| https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2021/07/15/psaki_
| wer...
| johnjj257 wrote:
| No that's just govt. Censorship vs regular censorship.
| Moderation is the exact same thing they can both do it.
| Just because it isn't the government doesn't mean they
| aren't censoring.
|
| Censorship is NOT just government action.
| LanceH wrote:
| As soon as Congress started pressuring the media giants as
| to what they are and aren't allowing, accusations of
| censorship became fair play.
| destitude wrote:
| The fact that they completely ignore natural immunity in the
| USA is enough to be concerned about their motivations.
| Florin_Andrei wrote:
| > _because the other side is too stupid to make their own
| decisions_
|
| The unfortunate reality is - that is the actual crux of the
| problem. Maybe say "incapable of making" instead of "too stupid
| to make", since that makes the scope wider. But that is the
| long and short of it.
| throwawayjeje wrote:
| Do you routinely analyze and challenge your own biases? Do
| you ever wonder if someone you disagree with might be right?
|
| It's easy to call someone stupid while ignoring what they are
| saying. It's hard to charitably hear someone's argument. I'm
| certainly at fault there.
|
| Either way I categorically reject the worldview where a
| "benign" paternalism protects us from ourselves.
| SideburnsOfDoom wrote:
| > Either way I categorically reject the worldview where a
| "benign" paternalism protects us from ourselves.
|
| That's nice. unfortunately the world as it is is
| categorically providing practical counterexamples to this.
| corona-research wrote:
| Yeah, your mom shouldn't trust her expertise. Makes sense she
| got the poison jab even though she knows it is a huge scam
| tomrod wrote:
| Thank you. In my view you did everything appropriate, including
| seeking out advice from people with training and experience who
| could help you decide.
| skyde wrote:
| when you say "medical professionals" do you mean nurse or
| doctor ? I have seen a huge amount of nurse refusing to get
| vaccinated but not so much for Doctor!
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| Does she get flu shots because that has been all about coercion
| since the ramp up of medical profiteering that started in the
| 90s. Nevermind that the lethality of influenza precipitously
| declined in the 40s and isn't a mass killer. Covid is a far
| more credible threat that shouldn't be ignored so readily.
| xkbarkar wrote:
| w
| gonational wrote:
| It's interesting to see people labeled as "anti-vaxxers" or
| "vaccine hesitant" or "unvaccinated".
|
| If I was not looking to purchase a medication because I had no
| ailment, and then a medical professional came up and showed me
| the following chart and told me "Vaccines have cured most of the
| calamitous diseases of yesteryear, and here is a new one that you
| should take.", I would not then decide to get a vaccine. Would
| you? Look at the chart.
|
| https://learntherisk.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/diseases...
|
| No need to argue with me; why bother. I didn't create the data
| used to make the chart. When that feeling starts to come back
| look at the chart once again. The data doesn't change. Your
| feelings might change, but facts will stay the same each time you
| load the chart. Try it out.
|
| Labeling people, because they haven't made a choice to do
| something that you think they should do, is a strange phenomenon.
| afarrell wrote:
| If I recall correctly, the internet was born from a DARPA project
| to enable resilient communications that would ensure a nuclear
| missile launch order would always get through.
|
| If so, then it is indeed contrary to the spirit of the internet
| to block messages on the basis that they guide people to actions
| which cause harm to existing structures. The internet interprets
| censorship as damage and routes around it.
|
| My question is: How wise is the spirit of the internet? Does it
| lead to human flourishing?
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| People can still post anti-vax things on the internet if they
| want. Youtube is not the internet.
| deadalus wrote:
| 2 points by deadalus 22 minutes ago | parent | edit [-] | on:
| YouTube removes "I Can't Believe You've Done This"...
|
| Youtube Alternatives : Centralized : Dailymotion, Bitchute,
| Rumble, DTube, Vimeo, Vidlii, DLive, Triller, Gab TV
|
| Decentralized : Odysee(LBRY), Peertube
| crocodiletears wrote:
| At this point I'm not hesitant about the vaccine, but getting it
| would only validate the heavy-handed approach we're seeing wrt
| censorship.
| MrRadar wrote:
| So you understand and acknowledge that this vaccine can
| literally save your life, and you accept all the science that
| shows that it is safe and effective, but you refuse to get it
| because some people are being forbidden (by a privately-owned
| platform, only on that platform) to spread lies about how it's
| _not_ safe or effective? That 's a very strange position to
| take, to put your own life in literal mortal danger because
| other people want to spread lies (that you acknowledge are
| lies) that put their own lives and the lives of people who
| listen to them at risk.
| crocodiletears wrote:
| I have values and principles that I want to see embodied by
| the society in-which I participate. The vaccination rate is
| (to my knowledge) the only metric being used to validate
| these policies that I can directly and consciously affect. So
| I do.
|
| If I was unwilling to tolerate even the minute risk of not
| getting the jab, my position wouldn't be based on values or
| principles, it'd simply be aesthetic preference.
|
| As it stands, I keep an eye on my health, keep an extra
| distance when I'm around others, mask when it makes sense,
| and keep social interaction to a reasonable minimum. If the
| mortality rate of covid increases significantly I'll
| reconsider my position in light of the new numbers, though I
| don't know if I'll reach a different conclusion.
| MrRadar wrote:
| While none of the widespread variants show increased
| mortality compared to the original strain, the Delta
| variant is significantly more infectious than the original
| strain meaning that even if you're still taking the same
| precautions you were before vaccines were available you're
| much more likely to get it today than you were then. And
| it's not just about whether you live or die, look up people
| who have "long COVID" who are still suffering significant
| disability for months after they've "recovered".
| Vaccination doesn't only prevent you from dying, it has
| also been shown to significantly reduce the length and
| severity of the infection if you do get it.
| crocodiletears wrote:
| All of which I'm aware of. But none of which has changed
| my arithmetic, though I apppreciate your concern.
| d0gsg0w00f wrote:
| I'm a breakthrough case. Nobody in the testing office asked
| me if I was vaccinated. The breakthrough wasn't tracked in
| any system to my knowledge. How many more of me are out
| there? I only know anecdotally that at least 10 people 1 or 2
| degrees of separation from myself are also breakthrough
| cases. I'm sure I was very contagious during this time but as
| soon as I tested positive I quarantined. I personally don't
| trust that these statistics are being tracked properly.
|
| My point is that although I'm glad I got vaccinated,
| vaccination is not the panacea the media makes ot out to be.
| chasd00 wrote:
| i'm glad you have the balls to say this. Not being vaccinated
| is close to becoming a stance against authoritarian rule.
|
| I'm vaccinated (almost regrettably now) but I support anyone's
| choice to not get vaccinated, i feel like you should because
| it's been shown to dramatically reduce your risk of getting
| seriously ill but I absolutely respect your choice and will
| defend the right to choose.
| eertami wrote:
| Dude read that back to yourself and think about it for just 5
| seconds.
|
| "Validate" it how exactly. This is just like a child folding
| his arms and saying "well now I'm not doing it" because
| somebody asked them to. It's the same attitude that has left
| hundreds of thousands pointlessly dead, because owning the libs
| is more important than self-preservation.
| crocodiletears wrote:
| I'm not happy with it either. If there's another way to push
| back against corporate censorship that's more effective than
| boycotting their services and the objectives they're working
| towards, I'm all ears.
|
| But so far as I can tell, I don't have a voice in the matter
| so I'll opt to be a statistical papercut.
| themacguffinman wrote:
| Without condoning or condemning your goals or the goals of
| YouTube: the more effective way to push back is to get the
| vaccine and live another day to actually push back. Do you
| really think pro-censorship advocates will change their
| mind because anti-censorship advocates die in large numbers
| by refusing an effective medicine? Look around this thread,
| there are plenty of pro-censorship commentators right here.
| Do you think your death or hospitalization will move the
| needle in your favor?
|
| Martyrdom is not a very effective and reliable strategy.
| People martyr themselves because there's nothing left, the
| cause they fight for is so important to them that they
| would rather die than lose the fight. Does that really
| describe you? Would you rather die than tolerate YouTube
| censorship? Maybe it is that important to you. I just want
| you to think it through a bit more, I don't really get the
| sense that you're weighing your options seriously.
| linuxftw wrote:
| The government doesn't own us. Their dictates don't apply to
| our personal freedom. The lockdowns were illegitimate and
| unlawful. The entire last 18+ months has been a propaganda
| campaign. The vaccines don't prevent infection or
| transmission, therefor, if you're not at serious risk of
| getting the disease, the prudent medical decision is to not
| take an experimental medical product.
|
| And if we're going to be locked down until we're at 9X% of
| vaccinated, then we'll be locked down forever.
| ktkoffroth wrote:
| Here's the thing: What about the vaccine is saving the lives
| of others? It doesn't prevent spread. It simply provides you
| with protection from the virus for a limited period (~270
| days). So what, exactly, are unvaxxed people doing to harm
| others?
| asdff wrote:
| When have internet websites where the public can comment on not
| been heavily moderated? It's been like that since forums came
| out. HN is also heavily moderated, it keeps the weeds out of
| the garden.
| andreskytt wrote:
| Free speech used to mean the right to say anything without
| persecution. Does it now mean the right to have ones opinion be
| actively globally distributed by a third party?
|
| This is very much about fighting two viruses: one biological and
| the other one informational. We agree to limit contacts between
| people to stop the one but do not accept the same method to stop
| the other. Why? In both cases it is vital to ensure the measures
| to not cross certain boundaries and are rolled back.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Free speech used to mean the right to say anything without
| persecution.
|
| It never meant that. People have always been similarly free to
| say "that guy is a dick, we shouldn't invite him to our get
| togethers" based on your free speech.
| btmiller wrote:
| I think you're saying exactly what OP was implying.
| Persecution as in legal consequences. "You can say whatever
| you want, but we're going to ask you to leave our private
| establishment".
| asdff wrote:
| Not all speech is protected.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Then use the term "prosecution".
|
| It's entirely legal - and often _appropriate_ - for someone
| with shitty views to be persecuted. People who march in
| neo-Nazi rallies with swastikas _should_ see non-
| governmental consequences for their actions.
| gruez wrote:
| >It's entirely legal - and often appropriate - for
| someone with shitty views to be persecuted. People who
| march in neo-Nazi rallies with swastikas should see non-
| governmental consequences for their actions.
|
| Who decides what counts as shitty views? Is it decided
| solely based off your political preference? How do you
| feel about people who march in pro-socialim rallies
| facing see non-governmental consequences for their
| actions, during the mccarthy era?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Who decides what counts as shitty views?
|
| Society.
|
| > Is it decided solely based off your political
| preference?
|
| No, you might have "good" politics and also be an
| asshole.
|
| > How do you feel about people who march in pro-socialim
| rallies facing see non-governmental consequences for
| their actions, during the mccarthy era?
|
| I would suggest that the fact that the era's named after
| a US Senator implies it wasn't all "non-governmental
| consequences".
| gruez wrote:
| >Society.
|
| I heard anti-communism was pretty popular back in the
| day. Does that mean such actions should be
| endorsed/allowed?
|
| >I would suggest that the fact that the era's named after
| a US Senator implies it wasn't all "non-governmental
| consequences".
|
| So your only objection to that was the government
| interventions?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > I heard anti-communism was pretty popular back in the
| day. Does that mean such actions should be
| endorsed/allowed?
|
| Sure, why not? If you (or even your entire neighborhood)
| don't want to have a garden party with an open communist,
| that's your right. I similarly have the right to say
| "you're a dick for doing that". If I'm a civil rights
| activist, I have a right to endorse the Montgomery bus
| boycott, too.
|
| > So your only objection to that was the government
| interventions?
|
| With a fairly wide definition of "government
| interventions", yes. The Comics Code is something I'd
| consider intervention; "we'll self-regulate under threat
| of external regulation" is something I consider
| government intervention and a First Amendment violation
| in this case. The same for McCarthy's driving a fellow
| senator to suicide via abuse of power
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_C._Hunt).
| datenarsch wrote:
| > Society.
|
| Ostracizing and later persecuting Jews was supported by
| large parts of the population in 1930's Germany and
| Eastern Europe. According to your logic, that made it OK
| too then?
| ceejayoz wrote:
| "I irrationally don't like ethnic group X" is deplorable,
| but generally legal and part of free
| expression/association.
|
| "I won't give them equal protection under the law because
| of that dislike" is another story.
|
| The treatment of Jews in 1930s Germany went well beyond
| "we don't like your views and thus won't hang out with
| you".
| andiareso wrote:
| I agree the general meaning would be free to say and do
| anything, however in reality free speech is freedom of speech
| from the government. Not individuals or private entities. What
| is common in law is the idea of the market place of ideas. This
| is generally what free speech to the average American is. We
| are free to spread information whether right or wrong in order
| for others to comment and critique and to grow as citizens. I
| think it's a horribly slippery slope to ban one group from
| speaking. You can't have an active conversation about a topic
| without allowing someone to talk. Their decision is
| sidestepping the root cause and is treating the symptom which
| is algorithms optimized for engagement. Misinformation and
| hysteria is what drives engagement.
| detcader wrote:
| People never say what they mean. Just say: I am comfortable
| with Big Tech having the right to pick and choose which
| opinions are valid and I don't think it will backfire in any
| way that upholds the exploitation of the oppressed.
|
| Or one could say: Though I was alive through the War on Terror,
| I don't think giving exceptions to restrictions meant to
| protect individuals and peoples from extreme concentrations of
| global powers will tend to go wrong. Those in power will only
| use the new powers in the cases that I agree with, and not go
| further.
| gonational wrote:
| I am absolutely OK with any platform censoring any content for
| any reason, as long as they are not treated like a public
| square by the government.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| Freedom is nothing more than the right to do the "wrong" thing.
|
| The "free speech doesn't mean freedom from consequences" crowd
| are more dangerous than the coronavirus.
| umvi wrote:
| > Free speech used to mean the right to say anything without
| persecution
|
| Free speech used to be more of an ubiquitous social courtesy
| like that, yes.
|
| However, that courtesy is rapidly disappearing in our society
| and free speech is being distilled down to its legal core which
| is: "you won't go to jail if you say something unpopular"
|
| Everything else is on the table including losing your job,
| being boycotted, being hounded on social media, and otherwise
| ruining your life.
|
| I personally like society better when free speech is a social
| courtesy extended to everyone by everyone, but... society's
| values change, and right now "harm reduction" is king.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > Free speech used to be more of an ubiquitous social
| courtesy like that, yes.
|
| Oh, come on. Social consequences have been part of history
| since the start of the US, and long before that elsewhere
| too.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Brown_(loyalist)
|
| > On 2 August 1775 a crowd of Sons of Liberty confronted him
| at his house. Brown requested the liberty to hold his own
| opinions, saying that he could "never enter into an
| Engagement to take up arms against the Country which gave him
| being", and finally met their demands with pistol and sword.
| Taken prisoner with a fractured skull, he was tied to a tree
| where he was roasted by fire, scalped, tarred, and feathered.
| This mistreatment resulted in the loss of two toes and
| lifelong headaches.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Titus
|
| > Despite Robert's importance in Rehoboth community, he began
| to have problems with his fellow townsmen. On June 6, 1654,
| he was told to move his family out of the Plymouth Colony for
| allowing Abner Ordway and family, "persons of evil fame", to
| live in his home. The practice of banishing a family from the
| colony was known as a "Warning Out Notice."
|
| Black people got _lynched_ for using their right to free
| speech for much of this country 's history. People who piss
| off their communities have been banished or exiled or worse
| for millennia. Our close cousins in the animal kingdom do the
| same thing; if you're a dick, you're either the new leader or
| you're out of the group.
| xrd wrote:
| I'm against censorship. But I'm also against algorithmic
| promotion of dubious information.
|
| As an example, several people I know personally told me they saw
| videos of black lives matter activists and antifa starting fires
| here in Oregon. It's ridiculous. But, there is enough evidence to
| show that those videos were created and promoted in the right way
| such that YouTube and Facebook put them into their viral loops
| and lots of succeptible people thought they were the truth.
|
| How do we strike a balance between letting information be free
| and at the same time prevent black box algorithms and evil actors
| from hacking our society?
| oauea wrote:
| Never thought I'd see so much anti-vaccine rhetoric on hacker
| news. Very disappointing.
|
| @dang, maybe it's time to follow YouTube their example before
| this forum encourages more deaths?
| mrkramer wrote:
| Decentralized p2p video ftw!
| baobabKoodaa wrote:
| Corporations like Youtube shouldn't be in the business of
| arbiting the truth, because they have time and time again proven
| themselves utterly incompetent at it.
| chasd00 wrote:
| they better be perfectly right every time or else they become a
| part of the conspiracy. You would think they would learn after
| the lab-leak censorship fiasco.
| gkop wrote:
| > I'm confident there was also some element of "if I get it now
| I'm telling them their tactics worked."
|
| Thanks for your vulnerability admitting someone very close to you
| has behaved out of spite and contrary to their own interest and
| the interests of their community.
|
| How is your mother's behavior in delaying^ not "too stupid to
| make their own decisions" though? Behaving out of spite _is_
| stupid (and totally human! Not judging her character, but yes her
| behavior was wrong on several levels).
|
| Is it that Yes people are too stupid to make their own decisions,
| but a government mandate isn't the right tactic to influence
| their behavior? What's the right tactic to influence stupid
| people?
|
| (Genuinely curious since you appear to see both sides)
| ohdannyboy wrote:
| Her belief was that she'd be feeding into a system that
| encouraged things to happen that were against her principles. I
| wouldn't call that self harm out of spite. Spite would be "they
| were right, but I'll be damned if I let them know that!" She
| never changed her mind on the censorship. Is
| it that Yes people are too stupid to make their own decisions,
| but a government mandate isn't the right tactic to influence
| their behavior?
|
| That's pretty much what I see. People make sub-optimal
| decisions all the time for a variety of reasons and these
| decisions often affect others. Government mandates on bodily
| autonomy get tricky and have massive externalities. It's all
| good fun until you're the one the government says is making a
| bad decision. What's the right tactic to
| influence stupid people?
|
| I don't think making a sub-optimal decision makes you stupid.
| In this particular case I think a better question would be "how
| do we influence people who are making bad decisions based on
| emotions and politics?" It's pretty tough to craft a government
| solution to that last part since the government is always
| political. Polite discourse is the best way IMO. It won't turn
| everyone, but when people get interested they won't be thrown
| back into their in-group by seeing nothing but coercion and
| vitriol.
| gkop wrote:
| Thanks! This polite discourse is helpful to my understanding
| others' perspectives.
| ceilingcorner wrote:
| Not wanting to enable and reward nefarious tactics is not
| "acting out of spite."
| dang wrote:
| Personal attacks are not cool here no matter how wrong someone
| is or you feel they are. Please make your substantive points
| without stooping to this.
|
| We detached this subthread from
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28694731.
| [deleted]
| Heyso wrote:
| I guess I be spending more time on odysee and telegram. At worst
| it is censorship, at best youtube (meaning whoever random peoples
| are behind the compagny) think they know better than you and me.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| busymom0 wrote:
| What an awesome idea. People who have consistently been wrong and
| censored the correct people are making more rules to censor more.
| More censorship and coercion will definitely convince people to
| take the shots. As someone who's fully vaccinated against polio,
| smallpox, chickenpox, measles etc., I still get called an anti-
| vaxxer. My buddies in the military who have more vaccinations
| than the general public get called anti-vaxxer because they don't
| want to take the COVID vaccine since they have already had covid
| infection. Amazing.
|
| Currently, the government of Canada has misinformation on their
| own YouTube page and government site:
|
| 1. The Canadian government uploaded "How do I know COVID-19
| vaccines are safe without long-term data?" on March 25, 2021, 4
| months after vaccine was authorized under the interim order and
| when merely 4.45% of Canada was fully vaccinated. The
| government's video completely sidesteps the entirely valid
| question about lack of long-term safety data and stated:
| "Clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccines have been taking place
| since the spring of 2020 and millions of people around the world
| have already been vaccinated. The vast majority of side effects
| from vaccines are minor and occur soon after vaccination." The
| video obviously doesn't answer the actual question about lack of
| long-term safety data because it's impossible to know this in the
| very short period that the vaccines have been in the market.
| Without knowing this data, it is also impossible to give informed
| consent to the treatment.
|
| One-Third of the drugs approved by the FDA and (by inference)
| Health Canada from 2001 through 2010 had major safety issues
| years after the medications were made widely available to
| patients. 71 of the 222 drugs approved were withdrawn, required a
| "black box" warning on side effects or warranted a safety
| announcement about new risks. The median follow-up period was
| 11.7 years and it took a median of 4.2 years after the drugs were
| approved for these safety concerns to come to light and issues
| were more common among psychiatric drugs, biologic drugs, drugs
| that were granted "accelerated approval" and drugs that were
| approved near the regulatory deadline for approval. Drugs ushered
| through an accelerated approval process were among those that had
| higher rates of safety interventions.
|
| https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/26253...
|
| So when the median follow-up period was 11.7 years and it took a
| median of 4.2 years after the drugs were approved for these
| safety concerns to come to light and this was more common for
| those given "accelerated approval", is it not a valid for people
| to be concerned about long-term safety tests? With such a
| horrible track record for drug approvals and delayed withdrawals
| and discoveries of side effects, coercing young, fit and healthy
| people with negligible risks to inject an irreversible,
| involuntary, non-long term safety tested, short-lasting,
| unaccountable and rushed vaccine without any guarantees of how
| many and how often boosters will be required is wildly
| unreasonable.
|
| https://youtu.be/f4lJHthI0tE
|
| 2. The government also uploaded a video titled "Do I need to get
| the vaccine if I've already had and recovered from COVID-19?" on
| September 3, 2021. The video shows Dr. Marc-Andre Langlois,
| Executive Director of the Coronavirus Variants Rapid Response
| Network (CoVaRR-Net) and Professor, Faculty of Medicine,
| University of Ottawa, state that you should still receive both
| COVID-19 vaccine doses even if you've previously had a COVID-19
| infection. The video completely fails to explain the rationale
| behind inoculating those with prior infection induced natural
| immunity when over 15 studies have now demonstrated that
| individuals with natural immunity from prior infection have
| longer lasting and stronger protection against infection,
| symptomatic disease and hospitalization compared to the vaccine-
| induced immunity. We have had over 18 months and millions of
| cases to work with world wide to study natural immunity and yet,
| Dr. Langlois, claims that it is still unclear how long natural
| immunity protection from an infection lasts and unclear of the
| reinfection from variants. Health officials had a 1 year head
| start to study natural immunity from infection before the vaccine
| was even rolled out, and yet they are falsely claiming that they
| know more about the vaccine than natural immunity. This, clearly
| shows that the government's claims are not based on any science
| or logic.
|
| https://youtu.be/wGbZc7q9Dpk
|
| 3. The government also uploaded a video titled "How long does it
| take for the COVID-19 vaccine to work after I receive it?" on
| September 3, 2021. The video again shows Dr. Marc-Andre Langlois,
| state that the second dose of the vaccine "boosts" the immune
| response and is essential "for longer lasting protection and
| better protection against the variants." This is also misleading
| because we know now that the fully vaccinated effectiveness
| declines to anywhere between just 16% to 66% in 3-6 months.
|
| https://youtu.be/1jUh0VvG-b4
|
| 4. Even Health Canada's September 16, 2021 approval for the
| Pfizer vaccine misleadingly claims it prevents COVID even though
| they know that it is now uncontested that the vaccine does not
| "prevent" COVID in any meaningful way. It's just a potential
| severe symptom mitigator, not a prevention:
|
| > "COMIRNATY is indicated for active immunization to prevent
| coronavirus disease 2019"
|
| https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/regulatory-decision-sum...
|
| 5. Health Canada approved Pfizer on September 16, 2021 using 6
| month old outdated data (data cut-off dated March 13, 2021)
| claiming the vaccine showed a vaccine efficacy of 91.3%. Why use
| 6 month old data? They also said it's to "prevent coronavirus
| disease 2019". We know it does not "prevent" COVID. We know it's
| a potential severe symptom mitigator, not a prevention.
|
| https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info/regulatory-decision-sum...
|
| 6. Quebec's July 25, 2021 onwards "Being vaccinated, it's a win
| Contest" lottery makes misleading and false claims such as "reap
| the benefits of optimal long-term protection, including
| protection from the variants of the virus." It is uncontested
| that the vaccine efficacy declines in 3-6 months and this doesn't
| provide "optimal long-term protection". So Quebec is clearly
| offering such monetary benefits under false promises.
|
| https://cdn-contenu.quebec.ca/cdn-contenu/sante/documents/Pr...
|
| Plus informed consent requires the consent to be provided without
| coercion and without undue inducement and unfair incentives. Yet
| governments are running multi-million dollar lotteries to violate
| informed consent.
|
| 7. Ontario government also makes false promises when mandating
| vaccines stating: "You can protect yourself, your loved ones and
| your community by getting the COVID-19 vaccine." This is similar
| to the Federal government's misleading claims saying "You'll have
| very good protection against infection, including against most
| current variants of concern."
|
| The vaccine neither prevents you from catching COVID, not
| spreading it and the effectiveness declines in 3-6 months. Yet
| governments continue to mislead people.
|
| 8. Similarly, in the US, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC)
| changed the definition of a "vaccine" after August 26, 2021:
|
| CDC defines Immunity as "Protection from an infectious disease.
| If you are immune to a disease, you can be exposed to it without
| becoming infected."
|
| On August 26, 2021, CDC defined a vaccine as: "A product that
| stimulates a person's immune system to produce immunity to a
| specific disease, protecting the person from that disease."
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210826113846/https://www.cdc.g...
|
| However, by September 2, 2021, CDC changed the definition of a
| vaccine to: "A preparation that is used to stimulate the body's
| immune response against diseases.
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20210902194040/https://www.cdc.g...
|
| These 2 have very different meanings. Till August 26, vaccines
| were supposed to "produce immunity to a specific disease,
| protecting the person from that disease" whereas now they claim
| it only "stimulates the body's immune response against diseases"
| - i.e. it doesn't produce immunity, nor protects the person from
| the disease.
|
| Based on these new changes, any therapy that boosts the immune
| system would meet the new pseudo-definitions of "vaccine" and
| "protect". Even a smoothie with healthy fruits and vegetables
| such as spinach, yoghurt and garlic would qualify as vaccines as
| they "stimulate the body's immune response against diseases."
|
| 9. Even though Pfizer and Federal government states that the
| Pfizer vaccine is effectiveness starts "1 week after the second
| dose", yet their data continues to use 2 weeks for detailing the
| breakthrough cases.
|
| https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/drugs-health...
|
| The number 1 principle of doctor-patient relationship is informed
| consent. All this misleading messaging by the governments makes
| people give "misinformed" consent. Imagine you were told a
| medical procedure is 95% effective at preventing you from
| catching HIV without any disclosures that this effectiveness
| declines rapidly. 3 months later, you realize that you still
| caught HIV, it was only around 16-66% effective and few months
| from now, you have an even higher chance of catching and
| spreading COVID. Would you be okay with this?
|
| I have countless such examples. Those pushing for censoring
| misinformation are the biggest purveyor of misinformation.
| chasd00 wrote:
| Not unlike the censoring any discussion of the lab leak
| hypothesis they (the censors) better be perfectly accurate every
| single time.
|
| The moment they get it wrong and censor something that turns out
| to be the truth they lose 100% of their credibility and become a
| part of the conspiracy.
| RNCTX wrote:
| ...after they've been autoplaying those videos to millions of
| users' TVs after they fell asleep, for the past 6-9 months?
|
| Guess we really are getting to the end of COVID attention in the
| news if the Google ad algo says there's no more money in it.
| listless wrote:
| My wife is very vaccine hesitant, and every time they make a move
| like this to block content or take it down, it only strengthens
| her position. She thinks they're taking it down because they
| don't want people to know the truth.
|
| The only thing worse than bad ideas is the suppression of bad
| ideas. It's tragic that we knew this at some point, but are going
| to have to figure it all back out again the hard way.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| That makes zero sense.
|
| An action that has nothing to do with the vaccination itself
| does not "strengthen" anything unless you have decided that you
| are just in opposition to something for the sake of being in
| opposition. Which is entirely what the anti-vaxx movement is
| really about from a political standpoint. Same thing with anti-
| mask.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > She thinks they're taking it down because they don't want
| people to know the truth.
|
| Hell, I always thought anti-vaxxers were looneys and was first
| in line for the COVID shot when it was available in March...
| but even _I 'm_ starting to be convinced that the anti-vaxxers
| might have a point because of all this effort to silence them.
| I'm becoming vaccine... remorseful?
| HyperRational wrote:
| Do you think the same about flat-earthers? Sometimes people
| are just plain wrong. Anyone smart enough to work in IT
| should be able to see the many flaws in anti-vaxx arguments
| and recognize how effective vaccines are at preventing
| diseases.
| Grim-444 wrote:
| I never once in my life considered an anti-vax position until
| now. I still think previous vaccines are fine as we have had
| decades of experience making and studying them, and only at
| the moment am concerned about the brand new mRNA vaccine, but
| the result of all of the recent events and all of the
| censoring really has thrown me for a loop and I actually have
| started reconsidering what I used to just assumed was true.
|
| I lost all faith in mass media years ago, haven't watched
| CNN/etc in years, and now I've lost any faith I had in our
| institutions such as the CDC and FDA. Censoring any
| opposition and using full on physical coercion, forcing
| people to do what they say or else they'll take your job away
| from you, or else you won't be able to provide for your
| family, ruins any remaining trust I had in them and now I'm
| questioning everything that I just blindly trusted was true.
|
| I don't know how many years it'll be before I ever trust them
| again. You may think I'm completely wrong and misled, and
| that's fine. But the actions these groups are taking are
| completely undermining themselves, they're completely
| screwing over their credibility. Not just for this issue, but
| for every issue into the future, and that is a serious issue.
| I no longer assume that what the FDA approves is good for
| use. I no longer assume what the CDC says we should do is
| what's best for me. The trust is gone. This dystopian
| situation of removing the voice of anyone who dares question
| them only further entrenches my doubt.
| Domenic_S wrote:
| You don't have to trust the FDA or CDC. The mRNA platform
| is quite old relatively, and millions of doses have been
| administered with profoundly low adverse effects.
| crazy_horse wrote:
| They're making an effort to silence them after allowing
| rampant misinformation for a year and a half because in the
| US we still have over 30% of the population not vaccinated
| and the death toll continues to climb.
| leetcrew wrote:
| > after allowing rampant misinformation for a year and a
| half
|
| my recollection is that they started dealing with the
| "misinformation" early on. they've been ratcheting up the
| countermeasures the whole time.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| I am remorseful at this point. By calculation taking the
| vaccine is sensible. But very closely so in my age group.
| There is currently a push to vaccinate children which is
| technically irresponsible since they won't suffer symptoms
| and would reach a better immunity they will never get with
| the vaccine. There is a lot of room for critique and much
| panic about a serious but not too deadly disease.
| jlebar wrote:
| It's not true that people get stronger immunity by catching
| covid. 1/3 of people get no antibodies at all, as compared
| to 100% of non-immunocompromised people who get vaccinated.
|
| https://thehill.com/opinion/healthcare/574284-natural-
| covid-...
|
| It appears that you too have been a victim of the
| misinformation that youtube is attempting to mitigate!
| ignasl wrote:
| If they didn't have antibodies how did they beat covid?
| andruby wrote:
| regular immune system. we don't _always_ create (long-
| term) anti-bodies when fighting a virus.
| handrous wrote:
| Yeah, looking at the linked study in the article, it
| seems folks who fought it off easily (often with low
| initial viral load) tended to be the ones who
| consistently tested blood serum antibody-negative. So if
| you had it and didn't get much more than a cough, there's
| a fair chance you didn't develop antibodies. Generic and
| local immune responses beat it in a lot of those cases (I
| gather), not virus-specific antibodies and a broad
| system-wide immune response.
| Marsymars wrote:
| > would reach a better immunity they will never get with
| the vaccine.
|
| This isn't accurate - there's nothing indicating that the
| immunity from vaccine + exposure is worse than the immunity
| from exposure alone.
| longhairedhippy wrote:
| How many people need to die before it's considered a
| "deadly disease"? As a person in a high risk group, it
| angers me to hear folks cast my life as disposable and my
| death as insignificant.
|
| I've given up reddit after arguing with all these fools. A
| simple risk analysis will tell you it was the right thing
| to do. If you're wrong about the vaccine, you took a shot
| you may not have needed, if you're wrong about COVID,
| you're betting your life on it (and other people's as
| well).
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| "they won't suffer symptoms"
|
| Except for the ones who get sick or die of COVID you mean.
| Sohcahtoa82 wrote:
| > There is currently a push to vaccinate children which is
| technically irresponsible since they won't suffer symptoms
|
| Vaccination isn't just about preventing COVID symptoms, but
| also slowing the spread.
|
| > and would reach a better immunity they will never get
| with the vaccine.
|
| Do you have an article about this, preferably one written
| recently that takes the Delta variant into account? The CDC
| doesn't really have information about COVID re-infection
| rates [0], so I'm not sure how much immunity is really
| given by getting infected compared to getting vaccinated.
|
| [0] https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-
| health/reinfe...
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > a push to vaccinate children
|
| That's really where I'm most concerned. We vaccinated both
| of our teenagers - after all, we get the flu shots every
| year, right? Now I really worry that there will be side
| effects from this rushed vaccine that we won't know about
| for decades.
| relaxing wrote:
| Where does this worry come from?
|
| We've had 9 months with the vaccine and everyone who gets
| it is doing great, but you think some problem is going to
| crop up in 20+ years?
| Nemrod67 wrote:
| asbestos entered the chat
| Hallucinaut wrote:
| Had you not, you should be equally worried that
| effectively guaranteeing them COVID, as this isn't going
| away, puts into their body a neurologically impacting
| virus, with growing evidence of medium term impacts,
| whilst in other medical fields a growing body of
| literature shows viruses can have severe life and
| wellness impacts decades later (whether that means
| Chicken Pox with Shingles, or Herpes/Cold sores and
| Alzheimer's).
| bwship wrote:
| Oh yea, I am totally suffering from long term Chicken
| Pox. Sometimes I scratch my arm where a pox used to be.
| zucked wrote:
| Surely you're not making this statement in good faith
| because the same virus that gave you Chicken Pox can lay
| dormant in your body until it reactivates and causes
| Shingles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shingles
| ridaj wrote:
| Why do people fear long-term effects of the vaccine (which
| seem very unlikely in light of past vaccine history) but
| dismiss equally unknown long-term effects of covid? It is
| true that most children are not affected by covid in the
| short term compared with other age groups, but some get
| neurological disease, and others have gotten "long covid".
| Those are not the same as the typical vaccine side effects.
| Feels like maybe a case of the "trolley problem".
| ekianjo wrote:
| > dismiss equally unknown long-term effects of covid?
|
| If you believe vaccines have no potential negative effect
| beyond 1 week, you'll have to give a serious thought as
| to why you believe Covid can have long term effects.
|
| Also past vaccine history means absolutely nothing. You
| can't assume the next bridge is built safely just because
| you have never seen a bridge fall before.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > If you believe vaccines have no potential negative
| effect beyond 1 week, you'll have to give a serious
| thought as to why you believe Covid can have long term
| effects.
|
| Because viruses do cause long term effects in the form of
| just straight up irreparable damage to your organs or
| long last presence that re-emerges later. They are
| actively hurting you, and despite the popular phrase,
| what doesn't kill you tends to just make you weaker.
|
| > Also past vaccine history means absolutely nothing. You
| can't assume the next bridge is built safely just because
| you have never seen a bridge fall before.
|
| Are you suggesting you feel you're risking death every
| time you step on a bridge? Because that would have to be
| the case if past engineering precedents meant "absolutely
| nothing".
|
| The reality is that medical precedent means a lot. We
| understand the mechanisms of vaccines pretty well. Our
| estimates on the efficacy of bridges tends to be pretty
| good. One can assess a bridge design and affirm that it's
| likely to stay up under X pressure for N years. If a
| problem were to occur, we would know the typical failure
| modes.
|
| Vaccines aren't a black box. We know how they work and we
| can anticipate the failure modes. There aren't really any
| paths for "long term effects".
| jlebar wrote:
| > If you believe vaccines have no potential negative
| effect beyond 1 week, you'll have to give a serious
| thought as to why you believe Covid can have long term
| effects.
|
| I mean, covid can kill you, which is kind of a long-term
| negative effect? Surely you're not arguing that the
| vaccine is equally likely to have that particularly long-
| term effect, so then I'd ask why you think it's equally
| likely to have other long-term effects?
|
| > Also past vaccine history means absolutely nothing. You
| can't assume the next bridge is built safely just because
| you have never seen a bridge fall before.
|
| Really? I mean, do you...generally avoid bridges where
| you live?
|
| It seems to me that if bridges don't collapse frequently,
| that would indeed be evidence that whoever is building /
| designing / approving them is doing something right, and
| that "the next" bridge is also unlikely to collapse?
| shpongled wrote:
| > If you believe vaccines have no potential negative
| effect beyond 1 week, you'll have to give a serious
| thought as to why you believe Covid can have long term
| effects
|
| ...because they are different? A localized, single dose
| mRNA vaccine that transiently produces spike protein will
| have a completely different effect than systemic
| infection with a virus.
| amf12 wrote:
| > Also past vaccine history means absolutely nothing. You
| can't assume the next bridge is built safely just because
| you have never seen a bridge fall before.
|
| It does not mean nothing. Yes just because previous
| vaccines were safe does not mean the next one will be
| safe. However success of previous vaccines mean we have
| the technology to create and evaluate future safe
| vaccines.
|
| Similarly, because we have a history of building bridges
| we know what it entails to make future safe bridges --
| however the bridge could still fall if make a mistake.
| Hallucinaut wrote:
| That's not what the OP said though. There are two
| unknowns: effects of long-term COVID, and effect of long-
| term vaccine.
|
| The person you responded to quite clearly suggests it's
| illogical to ignore long-term effects of COVID in
| comparing the outcomes. Particularly in light of the
| actual evidence of neurological effects of COVID, and
| some evidence of long COVID being more than phantom
| effect.
|
| If you assume a weighted value X for long-term
| vaccination impacts, but assume a 0 or anything
| materially less than X for the same for COVID it's just
| not a consistent evaluation.
| mooxie wrote:
| I've been upset by this myopic view since the very
| beginning. We are increasingly learning that viruses can
| have long-term effects on the body and mind, even prior
| to COVID. Agreed that we can't all walk around as 'bubble
| boys' out of fear of the unknown, but one should
| definitely avoid becoming infected with viruses where at
| all possible. That the initial symptoms are analogous to
| a flu for most people doesn't mean that's the end of the
| story.
|
| HPV was 'just' genital warts, until we found out that it
| causes cancer. Other animal species have cancer-causing
| viruses as well. Or take Chicken Pox: basic kid's illness
| in the past (and yes, it was worth getting it when
| younger before a vaccine was available to avoid late-life
| illness) but if you've ever known anyone with a severe
| case of shingles you'll know that it's not 'just' a virus
| that causes itchy rashes in grade-schoolers. Shingles can
| ruin people's lives.
|
| Assuming you won't have any long-term issues from
| exposure to a dangerous virus is just rolling dice.
| Hallucinaut wrote:
| Don't forget Alzheimer's and herpes (HSV1).
|
| The idea of letting my kids get a known neurologically-
| affecting virus without even the option of vaccination
| (yet) and just hoping that it won't cause them issues in
| the long-term fills me with dread.
| native_samples wrote:
| _Why do people fear long-term effects of the vaccine
| (which seem very unlikely in light of past vaccine
| history) but dismiss equally unknown long-term effects of
| covid?_
|
| I think for three reasons:
|
| 1. Long COVID isn't a definable disease. That whole
| ground has been badly polluted by people claiming to have
| "long COVID" when they haven't ever even tested positive
| for short COVID, there being no symptoms in common with
| all reports, etc. It's very hard to say what the long
| terms effects of COVID really are even though there are
| now nearly two years of experience with it, for this
| reason.
|
| 2. Long term effects from vaccines have happened before,
| e.g. early ones gave people polio, more recently there
| was the Pandemrix / narcolepsy affair. Drugs of any kind
| are put through difficult safety trials because of a long
| history of accidents. They are artificial chemicals
| designed to manipulate the bodies most powerful internal
| mechanisms after all, no reason why it's impossible to
| have long term effects.
|
| 3. The side effects of COVID vaccines are drastically
| worse than any normal vaccine. They routinely make people
| very sick, but it doesn't get treated by scientists as a
| possible sign of bad things happening because these are
| "normal" and "expected". Some side effects weren't
| detected by the trials, like myocarditis, and others
| weren't detected despite being apparently very common,
| like stopped periods. Not detected because all the women
| were on birth control. In fact information on side
| effects of any kind is extremely poor - you get self
| reported documentation at best, as there are no major
| large scale surveys - and the establishment is quite
| obviously terrified of any attempt to find out more. The
| trials themselves ignored all events that happened 7 days
| after vaccination, which doesn't seem very long. That
| attitude is endemic.
|
| In a situation where all discussion of side effects is
| heavily penalized or outright erased (e.g. Nicki Minaj
| losing her Twitter account), it's inevitable that people
| will conclude something is being frantically swept under
| the carpet.
|
| Finally, consider something important: the ambient
| underlying assumption behind the vaccination programme is
| that everyone will get COVID at some point and it will be
| the same for everyone regardless of when they get it. In
| reality it's now been nearly two years and most people
| either haven't got it yet, even when heavily exposed
| because they were self-isolating with sick people (I am
| in this category), or alternatively, got it in such a way
| that it was so mild they didn't notice at all. If you
| assume the modellers are wrong again, and that a 100%
| chance of infection is _not_ in fact correct, or
| alternatively that by the time you do get it it 's
| mutated to a form that's no worse than a cold, then the
| tradeoff around vaccines looks quite different even for
| middle aged people. After all, zero spike proteins is
| better than some regardless of how you get them.
| ridaj wrote:
| > 1. Long covid is not well defined
|
| I agree it's fuzzy, just like "vaccine side effects". If
| you believe one is worth worrying about, the other one
| probably is as well. But long covid probably a stronger
| clinical record even if fuzzy.
|
| 2. Ok so we definitely know by now that the vaccine does
| not give covid in the same way that some older vaccines
| against other diseases would've. There's been clinical
| trials and billions of doses given. As for events like
| adjuvant-induced narcolepsy, so far they're conjectures
| as well. Conjecture for conjecture, I worry more about
| the one that's been filling children's hospitals with
| unexplained neuro diseases...
|
| 3. Yes there have been lapses in reporting of side
| effects but so far they seem to have been rather benign.
|
| > the ambient underlying assumption behind the
| vaccination programme is that everyone will get COVID at
| some point and it will be the same for everyone
| regardless of when they get it
|
| No, I disagree. The ambient assumption is based on what
| happens in an unchecked mass epidemic: massive excess
| deaths. It is not this way because everyone gets it or
| because everyone reacts the same to it. It is this way
| because this virus is bad enough _on average_. There is
| absolutely an element of collective responsibility in the
| assumption about the vaccination campaign - that it 's
| not just to benefit the individuals who are vaccinated,
| and that no matter how good you think your odds are of
| survival, it is socially irresponsible for people not to
| get vaccinated just as it is socially unacceptable not to
| wear your seatbelt in your car, even if you're driving by
| yourself on a desolate stretch of road, or to do
| recreational heroin which is detrimental to your own
| health only. It's because even though the vast majority
| of the people doing these things survive, left unchecked,
| they impose a burden on society that society rejects.
| dongping wrote:
| Individual cost benefit analysis aside, normally
| vaccinated people would certainly feel safer and goes out
| more, offsetting the already meager reduction of
| transmissibility. (Certainly I don't have data to say if
| it is net benefit or not.)
|
| If people really cares about the others, they should have
| had stayed home and eradicated the virus.
|
| I would argue that having full scale lock-down and mass
| testing would be a lot less intrusive to one's liberty
| than using their jobs to coerce the injection of hastily
| made vaccine using novel technologies. But one isn't
| supposed to be following China's eradication strategy, or
| it would be undemocratic, right?
|
| Not to mention the additional selection pressure due to
| leaky vaccines, but that's another story.
|
| Disclaimer: I'm fully vaccinated.
| native_samples wrote:
| _The ambient assumption is based on what happens in an
| unchecked mass epidemic: massive excess deaths_
|
| The pandemic until very recently has been entirely
| unchecked yet there was not 'massive excess deaths' in
| many places that did relatively little, like Sweden. So
| you're asserting this with vague emotional terms like
| 'massive', but this is the exact assumption that I'm
| talking about.
| ridaj wrote:
| Here's not vague at all: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vs
| rr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
|
| Maybe Sweden was lucky.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| What dream world do you live in where people don't get
| sick or die of other vaccinations as a side effect?
| You're injecting a foreign substance into your blood
| stream. There's always a small risk.
|
| Nicki Minaj got kicked off twitter for making an absurdly
| stupid and false claim because she didn't want to bother
| with getting vaccinated.
| native_samples wrote:
| I've had lots of vaccines and none of them made me sick.
| I guess about half the people I know who have been
| vaccinated were knocked out for a day or two, with many
| of them reporting that they felt truly terrible. That's
| not normal.
|
| As for Minaj's claim: you _believe_ it 's absurd and
| stupidly false, because you haven't heard anything else
| like it. But this topic is about censorship of anything
| that can be perceived as anti-vaccine. VAERS has quite a
| lot of reports of swollen testicles and/or testicular
| pain, so who is to say that her report was really false?
| It can't be proven by either of us one way or another;
| just assigned probabilities based on prior expectations.
| Expectations partly controlled by the type of act this
| thread is about.
| handrous wrote:
| > Feels like maybe a case of the "trolley problem".
|
| I think that's it exactly. It seems some (many? most?)
| people believe that the consequences of actions deserve
| more scrutiny and a higher threshold to act, than
| inaction and the threshold to refrain from action. Lots
| of people--almost instinctively, at least for some of
| them--think acting to kill one to save five is worse than
| letting the five die through your inaction.
|
| You have to go get the vaccine. You _choose_ to get it.
| Getting COVID-19 is just something that 'll happen to
| you, eventually. You don't choose to go get it.
|
| Whether it makes sense or not, I think that really is the
| difference.
| coldpie wrote:
| Please don't make medical decisions based on crap you read on
| the Internet, and _especially_ not based on articles about
| crap other people are reading on the Internet. Talk to a
| doctor. That 's what they're there for.
| cybernautique wrote:
| Devil;s advocacy: then why so much ad spend to push pro-
| vaxx media? Also vaccinated, not remorseful at all.
| Wouldn't the responsible messaging be a huge ad wave of
| "talk to your doctor?"
|
| My opinion: this isn't actually a feasible solution. There
| are not enough doctors for all millions of Americans, let
| alone all billions of humans, to consult with their doctor.
| It's also largely unnecessary. I did not consult my doctor.
| I looked at the situation, assessed my values, did my own
| cost-benefit analysis, and mediated all of this with a
| healthy amount of dialogue between my confidantes. As most
| people do.
|
| I think this almost necessarily has to be litigated largely
| through public engagement. You know your situation, your
| risks, and you know if a serious consultation is prudential
| for you.
|
| Even still, if the position is "don't make decisions based
| on biased media," why is the pro-vaxx media more valuable
| than anti-vaxx or vaxx-hesitant? I believe it resolves
| entirely to your individual values.
|
| The argument should be: why is it profitable to the
| individual to value one over the other? I can only make
| this argument from my previously-established values, and
| I'm already pro-vaxx.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| Talk to your doctor and then get your prescription rejected
| because Kroger corporate policy overrides your doctor's
| medical opinion.
| ekianjo wrote:
| That goes both ways.
| simonh wrote:
| None of the material that's being pulled would in any way
| persuade me that getting vaxxed was a mistake. I'm very happy
| with my choice and highly recommend it. Most of the material
| being pulled is pernicious conspiracy rubbish, but too much
| legitimate discussion, some of which has a chance of
| persuading anti-vaxxers is being hoovered up in the cull.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| Yes anti-vaxxers are looneys.
|
| No they shouldn't be removed from the modern public forum
| because of that.
|
| Don't let the two get confused. Just because someone is
| silencing people with stupid opinions doesn't somehow make
| those opinions less stupid.
| mwigdahl wrote:
| You know that, and I know that. But people who already
| distrust authority and feel that the mechanisms of culture,
| finance, and government are biased against them don't
| agree.
|
| They see money, time, and effort being expended by groups
| they already feel are against them to silence certain
| views. Of course they're then going to more prone to
| associate themselves with those views: "The enemy of my
| enemy is my friend."
| bwship wrote:
| MMR vaccine links to autism, total hog wash you smart,
| smart people say.
| scohesc wrote:
| Welcome to the club!
|
| Almost two years of "two more weeks and we'll be out of this!
| just do your duty and we'll be free of this pandemic!"
|
| I was very vaccine hesitant and would say I was coerced by
| government, private businesses (and the governments mandates
| handed to them), and by my peers. I ended up getting the
| vaccine recently but I am very scared of the potential
| consequences.
|
| We need the world to rip off the bandaid and open up instead
| of our leaders prolonging this pandemic to gain more and more
| power.
| rightbyte wrote:
| Wouldn't any long term effect show by now? E.g. Astra
| Zenica's was pulled after it was shown to give clots.
|
| I guess Youtube would supress reports of that now until it
| became official news ...
| namibj wrote:
| The initial study was very heavily affected by sampling
| bias (medical personnel with hallway rumors and
| unbureocratic access to screening techniques). Add to
| that that the risk of blood clots is strongly increased
| by typical isolation at home due to a lack of regular
| movement/exercise, and the (significant, but still very
| low) heightened incidence rate isn't enough to deny
| people vaccination.
| hellojesus wrote:
| I fixed any concern by buying long term disability
| insurance before I got it. May be worth checking out.
| pstuart wrote:
| Are you now more interested in child pornography because
| that's not allowed on youtube?
| goldenbikeshed wrote:
| I don't get this. Here in Germany for example holocaust
| denial is illegal.
|
| Assume you are in a country where it's not, say the USA.
| Assume you slowly witness a rise of naziism that as usual
| comes with holocaust denial. Now the USA make holocaust
| denial illegal. Would that make you reconsider if the
| holocaust really happened?
|
| What the anti-vaxxers and their misinformation are doing has
| lead to the absolutely unnecessary loss of thousands of
| lifes. Depriving them of any platform is morally imperative.
| logicchains wrote:
| > I don't get this. Here in Germany for example holocaust
| denial is illegal.
|
| Didn't the "Alternative For Germany" get like 10% of the
| vote there, and they're pretty much Nazis? Doesn't seem to
| be working.
| distances wrote:
| Come on now, they aren't open Nazis or holocaust denials.
| They're run-of-the-mill European right wing populists
| against immigration, EU in general, and most things
| progressive.
| gfodor wrote:
| You don't have a monopoly on truth. The "anti-vaxxers" are
| not a monolithic group, and some people who are skeptics of
| consensus views on the various questions involved will
| probably be vindicated as other non-consensus views have
| been so far, which is normal in any chaotic situation where
| data is limited.
| LightG wrote:
| Tell that to the regularly highlighted examples of
| Covid-19 and/or vax deniers who end up ... dead.
|
| Scientific, rational debate is ideal on these subjects
| ... but is that even possible anymore when people are
| jumping off the deep end so much. David Koresh would be
| envious.
| burnafter182 wrote:
| Selection bias, plain and simple.
| Izkata wrote:
| Exactly, they have just as many examples of people who
| publicly say the vaccine is safe, who end up hospitalized
| or dead within a few weeks due to adverse reactions to
| the vaccine.
| chefkoch wrote:
| Can you provide examples?
| HyperRational wrote:
| "You don't have a monopoly on truth."
|
| Actually, yes, scientists DO have a monopoly on truth.
| That is the point of science.
| raxxorrax wrote:
| Here in Germany we also had Blockwarts if we stick to
| tasteless comparisons.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > Would that make you reconsider if the holocaust really
| happened?
|
| Well, to play devil's advocate - if it did, and anybody
| were to say it did, saying so out loud would _also_ be
| illegal in Germany.
| tbihl wrote:
| Which paves the way for the argument that many/most
| people also disbelieve the Holocaust, but they have to
| keep quiet because of the threat of government hanging
| over them.
| bronzeage wrote:
| You can't compare the two at all. One is a historical fact
| that debating it leads only to hatred of Jews and no other
| observable effect on society. The other is an experimental
| medical operation that people are sometimes forced to take
| and debate on it can literally change lives.
|
| If somehow lives or even something less important was on
| stake when debating the holocaust then maybe censoring it
| would be wrong. You're not allowed to publish death threats
| to politicians either. I can live with censorship of things
| that only serve to encourage violence and nothing else.
| When something positive is at stake, I'm against
| censorship.
| angelzen wrote:
| Who is the arbiter of good / bad speech? What is the
| process through society figures out what speech is good and
| what speech is bad?
| duhast wrote:
| Level of virality and black box algorithms.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| > Now the USA make holocaust denial illegal. Would that
| make you reconsider if the holocaust really happened?
|
| Not me, but I could easily see it making other people
| suspicious. It directly plays into the anti-Semitic tropes
| about Jewish control of communications. Pass such a law and
| the first thing they would do is point to its passage as
| proof of whatever conspiracy theory they're espousing.
|
| The correct response to bad speech is not censorship, it's
| more speech: refute those arguing for bad policy,
| counterprotest those espousing hate. Imprisoning Hitler and
| his cronies didn't work in Germany, and far right groups
| like AfD still gain traction in the country.
| res0nat0r wrote:
| Eh as mentioned above, folks who already want to be
| convinced Bill Gates is implanting microchips in vaccines
| to track their movement (as they complain about this via
| their phone on facebook lol), aren't going to change
| their minds.
|
| Deplatforming works and helps stop disinfomration. The
| racist Richard Spencer and the rightwing clown Milo
| Yiannopoulos both say they're broke and unemployed now
| thanks to everyone banning their racist content. These
| things are fine to do and work.
| h0h0h0h0111 wrote:
| A large percentage of the population believe an invisible
| being in the sky created the universe in 7 days, why is
| everyone so surprised that a percentage of the population
| believe Bill Gates is implanting microchips in vaccines?
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _Deplatforming ... helps stop disinfomration_
|
| And also confirms the scepticism of those who have grown
| diffident of dominant narratives.
|
| Deplatforming can also stop information.
|
| --
|
| The issue is an old epistemological issue: it is the
| "demarcation problem". We have been there. It's not
| trivial.
| res0nat0r wrote:
| In this case though, vaccines save lives and aren't a
| different narrative, so it's fine to delete
| disinformation that is getting people killed.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| No: the words of Halprin were not that "information will
| be censored that denies that <<vaccines save lives>>".
| And if such position existed, I want to hear about it: it
| may come from a fool, it may come from someone reliable,
| I cannot know in advance.
|
| And "saving lives" must be put in context: it is a
| generic objective, not a justification for censorship.
| Manuel_D wrote:
| I'm very skeptical that deplatforming effectively curbs
| misinformation. If anything it magnifies it via the
| Streisand effect. It kicks off headlines, "This is the
| _______ that big tech doesn't want you to hear!" Focusing
| on individuals like Spencer and Yiannopoulos is missing
| the forest for a couple trees. Look at how widespread
| these people's ideas, as well as anti-vaccine sentiment,
| had become _despite_ (and perhaps, because of) attempts
| to crack down on it.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| >Would that make you reconsider if the holocaust really
| happened?
|
| It would change my bayesian priors. Not enough to change my
| opinion entirely, but it would move me more towards the
| middle.
|
| Imagine flat-earthers were suddenly banned from all public
| fora. Currently, I'm able to see the arguments they make,
| and they're decisively unconvincing. If I knew a lot of
| people believed something that strange but didn't know why,
| it would absolutely be more convincing than now, when I
| hear the arguments. I think the same is true of any
| seriously badly-reasoned belief.
| datavirtue wrote:
| I'm still not convinced there are people who think the
| world is flat. It feels like a gaffe. Am I in denial?
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| ...I wish I knew. It's really hard to tell what other
| people believe at a fundamental level, and there's
| certainly a humorous undertone to nearly all flat-earth
| evangelism I've encountered. But what's telling is that
| I've pretended to be a flat earther myself when mocking
| climate sceptics. In terms of the basic trust in many
| other people OR basic competence in the realm of physics
| required not to hold a belief, climate change scepticism
| and round-earth scepticism actually seem fairly close to
| me. And I'm sure there are sincere climate sceptics.
|
| Flat-earthism is a noncontroversial and extreme example
| of a belief that gets less believed when its proponents
| have the full benefit of free speech, but I think there
| are many more like it.
| leetcrew wrote:
| I mean, it certainly looks flat (or at least, not curved)
| to me when I look out my window ;)
|
| it's pretty rare for an ordinary person to have the
| opportunity to directly observe the curvature of the
| earth. I personally don't notice it when I fly
| commercially. you can indirectly observe it with
| binoculars on the beach by watching ships (dis)appear
| over the horizon, but a) you have to recognize the
| implication, and b) this can be confounded by a
| mirage/shimmer effect.
|
| it's not hard for me to imagine that some extremely
| skeptical people might doubt that the world isn't simply
| how it looks: flat.
| goatlover wrote:
| We have satellites imaging the Earth as they orbit it. We
| have astronauts on the Space Station. People fly and sail
| all over the world. Maps and GPS work based on the
| Earth's curvature. There's no conspiracy by NASA or
| whoever which could possibly keep the truth from hundreds
| of millions of people who know for fact the shape of the
| Earth.
| goatlover wrote:
| So you'd be more convinced there was something to flat-
| earth arguments if they were banned? Despite the
| overwhelming scientific evidence that you can access?
| Some of which you can verify for yourself. I don't see
| any good reason why such views would change your bayesian
| priors just because something was banned. Something which
| I'm sure you could find elsewhere if you really were
| curious.
|
| My assumption would be such views were banned (at least
| on certiain widely viewed platforms or in schools)
| because a sizable section of society thought they were
| not only obviously false but also promoted harmful views,
| like neo-nazism in the case of Holocaust denial.
|
| Those views are so badly wrong that they're anti-science
| and anti-history. There's no reason to give them
| credence.
| adolph wrote:
| There in Germany y'all do lots of stuff:
|
| _Scientologists in Germany face specific political and
| economic restrictions. They are barred from membership in
| some major political parties, and businesses and other
| employers use so-called "sect filters" to expose a
| prospective business partner's or employee's association
| with the organization._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientology_in_Germany
| amaccuish wrote:
| And that's... bad?
| joecool1029 wrote:
| There's a guy in my area that legally named himself Hitler
| and drives around in a car covered with swastikas. He's not
| gained any followers, just ridicule and a bunch of court
| orders for being shitty to his children. Nobody wants to be
| him.
|
| Building the tools to better censor is a slippery slope
| that moves quickly from silencing extremists to silencing
| activists.
|
| >Would that make you reconsider if the holocaust really
| happened?
|
| Pulling the h-card out as a cudgel in every single
| political argument has reduced people's ability to reflect
| or care about it. Same as the 'think of the children'
| arguments. It's an emotionally manipulative and dishonest
| debate method.
| hellojesus wrote:
| There is absolutely no reason a government should make such
| things as denialism illegal. An act like that would
| certainly breed doubt immediately because the only reason
| to make something like that illegal IS because you're
| hiding something.
|
| People are allowed to make their own choices. If they
| belive the holocaust isn't real, fine. When they discuss
| it, refute them.
|
| In the US, the only time the line is crossed is when
| discussion calls for immediate and specific violence, could
| directly cause harm, or falls into the slanderous/libel and
| even that can be difficult to prove. I can see no reason
| for the above illegality of speech to expand.
|
| Something like making holocaust denial illegal is
| borderline compelled speech. Sure, you could just not talk
| about the holocaust, but if you want or need to talk about
| it you must now espouse the official position of the
| government. Absolutely terrifying to think about.
| [deleted]
| codyswann wrote:
| > the only reason to make something like that illegal IS
| because you're hiding something
|
| That is the most illogical statement I've read all month.
| Koshkin wrote:
| I think they meant that the limiting of free speech often
| serves to suppress the public voicing of an 'inconvenient
| truth.'
| hellojesus wrote:
| Yes, exactly. Making something illegal is serious.
|
| The result of making something like this illegal is: 1.
| Person is not allowed to talk OR 2. Person is allowed to
| talk but is now compelled to only espouse a message
| approved by the government.
|
| Illegal speech in the US is speech which does harm or has
| a direct incitement to harm such as specifically calling
| for a violent action, shouting fire in a crowded theater,
| or lying about someone to harm their reputation and cause
| financial impact.
|
| To make something like denialism illegal would require
| you to show that, by allowing someone to say it, they are
| causing direct and immediate harm. That's not the case
| here at all. Saying the holocaust didn't happen doesn't
| cause people to then go commit genocide. At worst it
| convinces people some horrific event didn't happen, but
| that horrific event is still horrific conceptually.
|
| Denying vaccines work may convince people not to get them
| so maybe you'd argue direct harm there? But it's not
| clear to me how you can measure the harm since it's
| arguable that said unvaccinated person may get covid and
| be totally unphased. What about those people that got
| covid prior to the vaccine? How could you argue direct
| harm from them when they already have the antibodies sans
| the vaccine?
| t43562 wrote:
| There's a problem and solutions with consequences. Every
| law limits freedom in one way or another. It's a case of
| how probable and sever is the problem compared to the
| consequences of the law.
|
| In Germany the problem is Nazis and a choice about how to
| stop them doing it again. We have seen that such people
| can convince nearly an entire population (so the problem
| is likely) and start a world war (so the problem is
| extreme). Why would anyone debate the need for a law that
| limits a freedom in a case we consider pretty
| unworthwhile anyhow (limiting the freedom to deny the
| holocaust).
|
| As for vaccines it's again a calculation where we know
| the problem is extreme (huge economic losses and deaths)
| and the likelihood increases based on how many people
| don't vaccinate - or whether people in specific jobs
| don't vaccinate. The calculation shouldn't be that hard.
| Koshkin wrote:
| > _how to stop them doing it again_
|
| But the Germans are not more prone to becoming "nazis"
| (again) than any other nation.
| Jensson wrote:
| Pretty sure that 1946 when the country was still full of
| old Nazi supporters the risk was pretty high. I don't
| think the risk is that high today, but the laws
| definitely served a good purpose when they were created.
| hellojesus wrote:
| Edit: now I can reply to Cody.
|
| Cody, what other reason would exist to make denial of the
| holocaust or anything else illegal if not to hide
| something?
| tbihl wrote:
| If those in the positioning of governing achieve a
| sufficient disdain for the governed, they convince
| themselves that the populace is too stupid to pursue
| truth. You may find this a stretch, but it's roughly
| consistent with calling the voting public "deplorables."
| mdp2021 wrote:
| Paradoxically, but somehow yes, you should then nurture
| serious doubts about the situation - censorship means
| somewhere, something is clearly wrong. If a reaction is
| wildly disproportionate, you should raise suspicion. If the
| reason alleged for the disproportion is "what would be the
| reaction of people", you (though maybe not you
| specifically) should flee as if chased by the devil.
|
| Your terminology is confusing: there is hesitance. The
| hesitant want clear, trustworthy information. Lack of
| clarity over the clash of what is seen and what is narrated
| reinforces hesitance.
|
| The censorship of those who claim the impossible easily
| hits those who claim the possible, and the first can be
| used as a strawman against the second. This is one of the
| practical reasons why your <<moral imperative>> is invalid:
| these months showed that you cannot set the threshold.
| ekianjo wrote:
| > Depriving them of any platform is morally imperative.
|
| Who are you to judge what needs to be censored?
| robrenaud wrote:
| Americans tend to believe that the counter to bad speech is
| good speech. But on the vaccine front, it has become
| increasingly clear that good speech, backed by overwhelming
| evidence is insufficient for a significant minority to come
| to a reasonable mindset.
|
| Free speech is great if almost everyone is reasonable.
|
| America is not nearly there. Empirically, free speech has
| failed, as an insane fraction of American citizens are
| vaccine hesitant and believe the 2020 presidential election
| was stolen.
| Mountain_Skies wrote:
| >vaccine hesitant and believe the 2020 presidential
| election was stolen.
|
| This is a smear. Communities of Color are vaccine
| hesitant and for the most part do not believe the 2020
| presidential election was stolen. It's gross of you to
| ignore the legitimate concerns of Communities of Color
| and to declare them election conspiracy theorist. You're
| attempting to lump together diverse groups into a single
| "not like me" group for your own ideological convivence.
| This is disgusting.
| gfodor wrote:
| You don't even need to think the election was stolen to
| argue that opt-out mass mail in voting is a transparently
| hilariously stupid idea if you care at all about a secure
| chain of custody secret ballot. You know, the thing we
| explicitly designed elections around after realizing how
| important it was given widespread abuse and fraud.
|
| Lumping all these groups of people together as was done
| here is a great example of the mindless zombie tribalism
| going on, which in large part is a result of propaganda.
|
| There is a pretty large closure of ideas that now get you
| pegged as "one of the Bad People" for even stating them
| publicly, without strongly held support. For example,
| even suggesting that our election systems in the US are
| horribly broken or just merely flawed, a widely accepted
| bi-partisan position just a few short years ago, puts you
| into the bucket of being a "horse-paste consuming, anti-
| vax, insurrectionist, conspiracy monger." I wish this was
| a strawman, but it ain't.
| ThrowawayR2 wrote:
| > " _Free speech is great if almost everyone is
| reasonable. ... Empirically, free speech has failed ..._
| "
|
| The problem being that democracy, even representative
| democracy, also only works if almost everyone is
| reasonable and (tying back to speech) informed. Once you
| give up on the population being reasonable, it's a short
| step to saying that someone "reasonable" ought to control
| what they see and rule over what they do "for their own
| good, of course". Even if that happens to be true, down
| that road lies madness.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| The other half of the population probably believes you
| are evidence that free speech has failed. Would you give
| up your own free speech to show the strength of your
| convictions?
|
| More seriously, what would be your solution to a country
| where two major power blocs both believe that free speech
| is acceptable so long as it stays inside their respective
| overton windows?
| burnafter182 wrote:
| Free speech is used as a dialectic medium to exchange
| information without having considerations of direct
| action taken against you (at least by the government). It
| is, effectively a deductive process. "Spreading"
| misinformation is not the same as discussing the obverse
| of the populist topic. Were you to fabricate tables,
| charts, and number which are used to conclude you're
| misinforming. This misinformation only extends in its
| ability to convince to the unscrupulous. Were you to,
| with due skepticism, promote the discussion of this data
| and provide an analytic outlook you're not misinforming,
| you're discussing, you're empirical. As an aside: if
| you're empirical and your opponent makes attempts to shut
| you up, what do you conclude? Make a tree, discuss the
| probabilities you assign to it.
|
| Hilariously it seems to be that empiricism has failed.
| One does not generate a meaningful framework of human
| morality from non-transcendent scientific conclusion
| other than utilitarianism which in itself is conceptually
| flawed because each human presents hundreds or thousands
| of immeasurable and constantly moving targets. This is
| intractable. It is also why, despite the leaps and bounds
| in technological advancement, people still have to put in
| their 40 hours. It is why a CEO can rake in ~300x that of
| the company's average employee. It is why a large swath
| of the population must undergo the risks of debt peonage.
| It's why people feel that populist ideology should be
| inflicted on everyone, despite various circumstances - by
| the very definition a slave master relationship, the same
| sort of relationship virtually everyone rails against.
| Which brings me to the final point, I am not your
| property, and I suspect neither of us wants to be the
| property of the government or of corporations. I will
| assume they neither you nor they have property rights
| over me and thus I will consume and defer as I so please,
| but do go and inflict your blind ideology on to me.
| CivBase wrote:
| When the "good speech" has devolved into dunking on
| people with social media posts using fax and logic, I can
| see why it no longer works as a counter to bad speech.
|
| Confirmation bias is a helluva drug. It encourages people
| to agree with those they like and disagree with those
| they don't. Sometimes those biases can be overcome with
| time and patient reasoning but in the hyper-connected,
| engagement-driven world of social media that rarely
| happens. In-group/out-group preference kicks in and
| people start defending those in their group against
| attacks of character, lending a false sense of legitimacy
| to their ideas - the ideas born of confirmation bias
| instead of logic. At a large enough scale, this results
| in a social divide perpetuated by echo chambers.
| naasking wrote:
| > But on the vaccine front, it has become increasingly
| clear that good speech, backed by overwhelming evidence
| is insufficient for a significant minority to come to a
| reasonable mindset.
|
| The problem isn't the evidence, the details of which many
| people wouldn't understand or care to know, it's the
| _credibility of the people making recommendations based
| on that evidence_ , and the way they have conveyed those
| recommendations.
|
| The public-facing people championing public health have
| long since lost credibility but they aren't being
| replaced in an effort to restore public trust. That's the
| problem.
| hellojesus wrote:
| Have you considered that the number of vaccine hesitant
| people has increased specifically as a result of the
| ever-increasing suppression of dissent? To me it seems
| like that's exactly what's happening.
|
| The US should have handled this exactly like a sane
| country: - No lockdowns. You determine your individual
| risk level. Businesses are free to require masks if they
| want to. (I really would only be okay with a compelled
| wfh order, if possible.) The gov owes a lot of people a
| lot of money for compelling them not to work. The gov
| wouldn't owe money if consumers just stopped shopping
| places because they didn't feel comfortable not wearing a
| mask in a business that didn't require them. - Vaccines
| rollout is: take it if you want. We recommend it. It
| appears to be safe. Here is the data. If you don't want
| it, fine, but we are business as usual so you're
| accepting a higher risk.
| arcatech wrote:
| What you're proposing is really not an effective way to
| handle an outbreak of an airborne respiratory virus.
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| What they are proposing is how our nation is supposed to
| work. Everybody is responsible for assessing the risks
| for their self. If everybody does this then it is an
| effective way to handle an outbreak.
| gfodor wrote:
| Well, apparently, neither is what we have done. But at
| least in the scenario mentioned above, we don't find
| ourselves slipping into totalitarianism.
|
| Perhaps there is no way, in a liberal society, to have a
| silver bullet? It turns out principles matter in such
| situations.
| coding123 wrote:
| We're now comparing anti-vaxxers to nazis.
| bwship wrote:
| No comorbidity has caused the life of thousands of people.
| Drinking slurpies and eating ding-dongs all day, the
| chickens have come home to roost. 80% of Covid deaths
| involved obese people. Stop blaming people who won't get
| the vaccine for the troubles. I got Covid from a friend who
| had the vaccine, lo and behold, we had the exact same
| symptoms, including losing taste, fever, cold sweats, etc.,
| and he actually had it a little worse because he had
| headaches from it as well. Vaccine works, mmmhmm, ok,
| better get booster 3 and 4 and 5...to be sure.
| [deleted]
| axus wrote:
| Hasn't the number of would-be holocaust deniers been
| increasing in Germany?
|
| China is an example of platform-denying taken to the
| extreme,
| belter wrote:
| Employees, Scientists and Managers of Vaccine producers, when
| recorded with hidden cameras, also seem to be vaccine
| remorseful...
|
| "Johnson & Johnson: Children Don't Need the 'F*cking' COVID
| Vaccine Because There Are 'Unknown Repercussions Down the
| Road' ..."
|
| https://www.projectveritas.com/news/johnson-and-johnson-
| chil...
| packetslave wrote:
| GTFO with your conspiracy theory bullshit. "Project
| Veritas", indeed.
| belter wrote:
| I made a statement of fact supported by secretly recorded
| videos that I invite you to watch. I am happy to engage
| in discussion with you. However, I would like to mention
| the attitude implied by your comment, is probably more
| appropriate for the YouTube-Truth-Defining department...
| packetslave wrote:
| You made a "statement of fact" supported by a link to a
| site where the headlines include:
|
| "Antifa indoctrination in the classroom"
|
| "Covid-19 Vaccine Exposed"
|
| "FDA Official: 'Blow Dart' African Americans with COVID
| Vaccine is 'Where We're Going"
|
| I think I can live without "engaging in discussion" with
| you.
| belter wrote:
| Of course some of those titles and the agendas behind
| them are nuts. But you are confusing the veracity or not
| of certain facts, with how pleasant you find the
| messenger...
|
| If I see a video of a US President saying no Generals
| recommended that US troops should stay in Afghanistan,
| and days later, I see the top US General saying he did
| recommended to the president to leave 2500 to 3500 troops
| on the ground...If you happen to watch it on Fox News, it
| does not make it untrue...
|
| In the case of some of the videos I suggested, they
| relate to Johnson & Johnson vaccines. Lets review, for
| example, some of the current Lawsuits, including number
| of claimants they are currently engaged in...
|
| Pending Lawsuits Against J&J as of February 2021
|
| =================================================
|
| DePuy ASR XL Acetabular System and DePuy ASR Hip
| Resurfacing System
|
| Number of Lawsuits - 550 Injuries - dislocation,
| loosening, metallosis (metal poisoning), revision
| surgeries
|
| Pinnacle Acetabular Cup
|
| Number of Lawsuits - 7,056 Injuries - dislocation,
| loosening, metallosis (metal poisoning), revision
| surgeries
|
| Xarelto
|
| Number of Lawsuits - 13,511 Injuries - severe, sometimes
| deadly bleeding events, blood clots, wound leaks,
| infection
|
| Johnson's Talcum Powder
|
| Number of Lawsuits - 27,168 Injuries - ovarian cancer,
| mesothelioma cancer
|
| "The company is facing smaller, emerging litigations for
| the interstitial cystitis (IC) drug Elmiron and DePuy's
| Attune knee implants. Elmiron litigation is in the
| beginning stages with a handful of cases filed in state
| courts, but lawyers expect hundreds more. People who
| filed lawsuits say Johnson & Johnson's Janssen
| Pharmaceuticals unit failed to warn them that the drug
| could cause vision problems, particularly a condition
| called pigmentary maculopathy."
|
| =================================================
|
| Does it sound like you want to get a vaccine from them?
|
| According to the CDC, and most of this thread...you are a
| nutter and vaccine denier if you dont.
| alexvoda wrote:
| Very vell, I will bite since there is no deconstruction
| of this yet and it will be a good workout for me.
|
| You posted a video/article of some people making some
| claims. What is the argument you want to support by
| posting that? I want you to state your argument as clear
| as possible so that we are not strawmannig eachother.
| Debate me!
|
| I will not even go into the value of that article because
| it immediately raises all kinds of red flags which if you
| are incapable of seeing, there is no point arguing about
| the article. Issues related to jurnalistic integrity
| (revealing your supposed whistleblower), deliberate
| cutscene use for manipulation, deliberate tangling of
| source material in order to string a narative , tainted
| entity (as GP said, which can not be ignored), and many
| more. These people are clearly shitty hacks.
|
| BTW, "A lie gets halfway around the world before the
| truth has a chance to get its pants on." - Winston
| Churchill And in this case, it did already get translated
| in several languages and spread everywhere in the span of
| at most 2 days.
| belter wrote:
| I am supporting two arguments:
|
| 1) Even some technical employees of Vaccine producers are
| skeptical of their products, particularly vaccination of
| children. Watch the videos as they are secret recordings
| of some of these employees. I am not claiming all at J&J
| have the same position. But its a position that currently
| gets you banned on YouTube and downvoted here.
|
| 2) My other argument is that this whole thread is full of
| claims of "vaccines safe", ignoring the error implied by
| the generalization that comes with it. The examples I
| posted of the J&J medical lawsuits show the appalling
| record of this company. But if you refuse a vaccine from
| them you are apparently somebody you should not even
| debate.
|
| And please dont mention the FDA...
|
| "The story of "probably the worst drug approval decision
| in recent US history"
|
| https://edition.cnn.com/2021/09/26/politics/alzheimers-
| drug-...
| alexvoda wrote:
| 1.1 One of those employees is probably
| https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandon-schadt-48577053/ ,
| Regional Deliver Operations for New York metropolitan
| area. I will just eliminate what this one said because
| his oppinion is irrelevant. His oppinion about the
| subject (safety, efficacy, importance, target of the
| vaccine) is irrelevant. It is worth just as much as the
| opinion of someone in the legal department on whether
| someone in a backend development team should use Python
| or C++ for a new company project.
|
| 1.2 That person (BS) is the only one actually claiming
| you don't need to vaccinate kids. He is not even claiming
| you should not vaccinate kids, just claiming as a
| personal oppinion that it is not necessary for kids.
|
| 1.3 The other one (JD) says to not vaccinate BABIES but
| to actually vaccinate kids once they are socialized.
|
| 1.4 JD in the video is actually pro-vaccine. The only
| sentence they managed to take out of context ("Don't get
| the Johnson & Johnson [COVID vaccine], I didn't tell you
| though,"), was in the context that he actually did get
| vaccinated and he got the Moderna vaccine because he
| believes that one is better.
|
| 1.5 So for the first point, the actual people interviewed
| do not even support your point. Even if the people
| editing the video did their best to make you believe
| that. Maybe you are the one who didn't watch the video.
| The people who made the video are so obviously selling a
| narative and so obviously lying through the power of
| video editing.
|
| 1.6 You never even claimed that all of J&J employees
| shared the same position. Do not get sidetracked.
|
| 1.7 You absolutely deserve to get downvoted for posting
| manipulative misinformation that is not even supported by
| the people being interviewed. You deserve to be downvoted
| for posting shit. This is the kind of material that does
| not belong on HN. And while I am against banning, it is
| YouTubes right to ban people/content from their platform.
|
| 2.1 Yes the claim is that vaccines in general are mostly
| (but not perfectly) safe. And that vaccines in general
| are a lot safer than the disease they prevent. And that
| the COVID vaccines follow the same trend and are mostly
| safe and definitely safer than the disease. (Note: In
| countries that managed to actually eliminate the disease
| through lockdowns, the risk calculation is different for
| obvious reasons) This, claim is not refuted by the link
| you posted. This claim has so far proven to be true.
|
| 2.2 The record of the company does not change whether the
| J&J vaccine is safe or not. (Is has so far proven - by
| third parties - to be mostly safe like the other COVID
| vaccines, and certainly safer than COVID.) You are
| however justified to be suspicios of the claims the
| company makes.
|
| 2.3 Even if you don't trust J&J, there is still Pfizer
| and Moderna. And if you don't trust mRNA technology,
| there is AstraZeneca. And if you don't trust the US and
| UK government, there is Sputnik V and some others. Your
| link, besides not actually supporting your point, is not
| relevant to all the other options.
|
| 3.1 Do not get the discussion sidetracked. The
| FDA/Alzheimers debate is a separate debate.
|
| 3.2 Please respect this structure when countering my
| arguments
|
| P.S.: I need to rant!! While writting this rebuttal was
| not a waste of time, watching that video definitely was.
| It was so unbelievably cringe. I do not know who these
| (your original link) conspiracy peddlers are, but they
| are with certainty shit. The most shit they can be. They
| are shit from a human pov, shit from a professional pov,
| shit from a integrity pov, shit from a communication pov.
| just shit. shit faced pieces of shit. It is unbelievably
| frustrating that trolling has actually become a
| profession. Trolling was many things pre-2010 but it was
| not this.
|
| Posting stuff like this is actually something you should
| apologize for. You should apologize to @pg, to @dang, to
| the rest of HN and to me for posting shit on HN. It is
| the kind of thing that is bound to get someone, who does
| not immediately dismiss you as a troll, nerd sniped in an
| (easy but ultimately useless and pointless) attempt to
| demolish such content.
| belter wrote:
| On your points 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5 ...
|
| Some of these are Technical employees some of them
| Managers familiar with the internal company processes.
| Some you decided to disclaim their opinion as personal
| opinion. Others because they are not high enough in the
| hierarchy of the company. That is an acceptable attitude.
| However ignores the reasons why they fundamentally would
| be making those statements.
|
| These claims are just data points, but its bit like
| saying: A Volkswagen sales person or Company car mechanic
| says their cars are crap. I am going to ignore those data
| points because what do they know about car
| engineering...I will listen instead to the Chief Company
| Engineer...
|
| Maybe, its because they are not that high in the
| hierarchy, that they allowed themselves to make those
| statements.
|
| Your argument seems to be that they dont know what they
| are talking about. You ignore the fact,that one of them
| is clearly stating not to take their vaccine. And you are
| the one misstating facts. JD says the older kids should
| only taking as their "civic duty", does not say the
| vaccine is really required.( for kids)
|
| > 1.6
|
| I wont. I was reminding you upfront that I did not make
| the statement.
|
| >1.7
|
| If that is true or not the readers of this thread are
| welcome to decide by watching the videos themselves and
| do further research. I would like to remind you, that
| many facts now accepted, used to get people banned from
| Facebook and YouTube months ago.
|
| You are claiming I am posting something that does not
| belong to HN and I deserve to be downvoted, as I am
| posting shit. If its all shit, dont worry, the downvotes
| will come. :-)
|
| But you went further than that. I take your comment, that
| although you dont endorse banning, you think YouTube is
| entitled to ban who they want from their platform, as a
| veiled threat, that for some shit post here, you would
| also like to engage in a similar type of scientific and
| political arbitrage.
|
| The problem with that attitude is that it tends to
| backfire.
|
| >2.1
|
| You seem to forget or ignore that in many countries
| millions of people are facing vaccine mandates, with no
| exceptions accepted, that include threat of job loss
| unless they comply.
|
| You ignore that vaccines used to have 5 to 7 years
| experimental trial periods. You make a blank statement
| that vaccines have been shown to be safe based on what
| were "warp" speed operations, on the face of
| unprecedented pandemic. And you make that statement you
| forget or ignore the fact that all safety studies exclude
| the immunocompromised.
|
| Compared to your somewhat blank statement of vaccine
| safety, lets see what the WHO says on their website, for
| example about AstraZeneca. These are partial quotes but I
| think they support my argument that you cannot make the
| statement you just made:
|
| =========================================================
| ============
|
| "The Oxford/AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine: what you need
| to know"
|
| "Should pregnant women be vaccinated?"
|
| While pregnancy puts women at higher risk of severe
| COVID-19, very little data are available to assess
| vaccine safety in pregnancy.
|
| "Who is the vaccine not recommended for?"
|
| "People with a history of severe allergic reaction to any
| component of the vaccine should not take it."
|
| "The vaccine is not recommended for persons younger than
| 18 years of age pending the results of further studies."
|
| "Does it prevent infection and transmission? No
| substantive data are available related to impact of
| AZD1222 on transmission or viral shedding."
|
| https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/the-
| oxf...
|
| =========================================================
| ============
|
| >2.2
|
| Thank you for agreeing with me concerning the company
| claims. About Pfizer, yes I trust them even less, as
| until the pandemic they had a toxic reputation:
|
| > 2.3
|
| About Pfizer, yes indeed, I trust them even less. Until
| the pandemic they had the most toxic of the toxic
| reputations.
|
| =========================================================
| =============
|
| "Pfizer: Six Scandals to Remember"
|
| "Pfizer is likely to make huge profits from its COVID-19
| vaccine but the greatest long-term benefit to the company
| may well be the positive PR it has received as a result.
| That PR was much-needed: before COVID-19, Pfizer had a
| toxic reputation even compared to other pharma companies.
| "
|
| "1986: Pfizer had to withdraw an artificial heart valve
| from the market after defects led to it being implicated
| in over 300 deaths."
|
| "2003: Pfizer has long been condemned for profiteering
| from AIDS drugs."
|
| "2011: Pfizer was forced to pay compensation to families
| of children killed in the controversial Trovan drug
| trial. During the worst meningitis epidemic seen in
| Africa, in 1996, Pfizer ran a trial in Nigeria their new
| drug Trovan. Five of the 100 children who took Trovan
| died and it caused liver damage, while it caused lifelong
| disabilities in those who survived"
|
| "2012: Pfizer had to pay around $1billion to settle
| lawsuits claiming its Prempro drug caused breast cancer."
|
| "2013: Pfizer paid out $273 million to settle over 2,000
| cases in the US that accused its smoking treatment drug
| Chantix of provoking suicidal and homicidal thoughts,
| self harm and severe psychological disorders. Pfizer was
| also accused of improperly excluding patients with a
| history of depression or other mental disturbances from
| trials for the drug."
|
| "2020: Pfizer reached an agreement with thousands of
| customers of its depo-testosterone drug in 2018 after
| they sued it for increasing the likelihood of numerous
| issues, including heart attacks."
|
| https://corporatewatch.org/pfizer-six-scandals-to-
| remember/
|
| =========================================================
| =============
|
| I agree that for some, the risks of vaccine might be
| smaller than the risks caused by COVID-19.
|
| But governments and health organizations implementing
| obligatory legal mandates, are also responsible for fatal
| outcomes like these Pfizer related examples:
|
| "Young people's deaths after Pfizer vaccines are new
| worry"
|
| https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2021/08/24/national/
| soc...
|
| "Twenty-three elderly Norwegians died within days of
| receiving the first dose of the COVID vaccine, local
| health officials say."
|
| https://7news.com.au/lifestyle/health-wellbeing/covid-
| vaccin...
|
| "Lisa Shaw: Presenter's death due to complications of
| Covid vaccine"
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-58330796
|
| "New Zealand woman dies after receiving Pfizer vaccine"
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58380867
|
| "Michigan boy dies 3 days after getting Pfizer COVID-19
| vaccine, CDC is investigating"
|
| https://eu.freep.com/story/news/2021/07/02/jacob-clynick-
| pfi...
|
| > 3.1
|
| I wont get sidetracked. I tried to prevent you,
| mentioning things like organizations like the FDA are
| watching out for the health of consumers. You implied
| that other 3rd parties are watching out for vaccine
| safety. In reality they review material presented by the
| vaccine producers. Its a very similar process to Boeing
| and the FAA reviews.
|
| > 3.2
|
| I tried to respect it as you made the effort to reply to
| my comments.
|
| PS...rant...shit shit..rant...rant.. :-)
|
| The problem with rants is that they can come to bite you
| in a few months.But now its here for posterity.
|
| Hopefully these virus mutations will fade to
| progressively less threatening flavors. My money however
| is on that they wont. Infections will be back.
|
| As everybody agreed vaccines are "safe", and it will be
| politically and scientifically difficult to contradict
| what was stated until now, you wont escape a mandated
| 4th, 5th and 6th dose.
|
| You will be mandated to take it, as the principle is
| accepted in spirit and in law. When the side effects
| start, I am sure the argument then will be: "Oh we never
| said vaccines were absolutely safe, they were always
| risks..."
| alexvoda wrote:
| I acknowledge that you have responded to my comment and
| therefore I do not consider you were trolling. I do not
| acknowledge that you have addresed my points (especially
| 1.1 to 1.5). Actualy answering to this will however take
| significantly more time. I do not know if I will actually
| allocate that time, it's past midnight.
|
| I tried to focus on your 2 points and how the initial
| link did not actually support either of them and it was
| mere video editing trickery. You have instead brought a
| good chunk of your world view on the subject into the
| discussion and even some accusations.
| [deleted]
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Project Veritas has a history of editing and presenting
| footage in a misleading way as well as trying to plant
| fake stories in order to later discredit them[1]. There's
| an asymmetry here to you presenting information that
| _based on past behaviour_ was probably published in bad
| faith and expecting someone to either accept that
| information as factual or go to the (much greater) effort
| of trying to debunk it.
|
| I think it's fair for anyone in this case to dismiss the
| information as pure noise, given the source.
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas#Failed_
| attempt...
| belter wrote:
| As I stated in another point in this thread...if Fox
| News, Donald Trump or Breitbart claim its 9.00 AM ...And
| it actually is 9.00 AM ...it does NOT make so that is
| 10.00 AM just because it come to you via those
| channels...
| long_time_gone wrote:
| ==She thinks they're taking it down because they don't want
| people to know the truth.==
|
| Sounds like she has already made up her mind, in which case I'm
| not sure it matters if the content is moderated or not. It's
| possible she will find whatever reinforces the decision she's
| already made.
|
| ==The only thing worse than bad ideas is the suppression of bad
| ideas.==
|
| This sounds good, but is it true? The bad idea exists today and
| is spreading, does limiting that spread actually cause more
| harm? Is there evidence of this or a study to support it? In
| schools, we suppress all sorts of bad ideas. Take eugenics, has
| suppressing that idea made the belief in eugenics worse?
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| > Take eugenics, has suppressing that idea made the belief in
| eugenics worse?
|
| Ideas like eugenics clearly have something to them that
| resonates with people, at least until they think hard enough
| about the ethics or logistics involved. There's a reason
| eugenics cropped up in the first place. So yes, insofar as
| you suppress a dangerously seductive idea, you do make it
| worse, because it takes actually explaining what the flaws
| were with the idea to shake people out of it.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| > _In schools, we suppress all sorts of bad ideas_
|
| No, fortunately that is not worldwide practice. "Challenge",
| possibly, <<suppress>>, not everywhere.
|
| Would suppressing the discussion about eugenics worsen the
| matter: yes, for example by having to restart the discussion
| from stage one. The naive would retain naive ideas,
| unchallenged.
| CivBase wrote:
| > Sounds like she has already made up her mind
|
| If that's the case, did she make up her mind _before_ or
| _after_ consuming the anti-vaccine content?
|
| In my experience, most people who are hesitant about the
| vaccine are that way because they distrust the government.
| The anti-vaccine content didn't cause their hesitancy. They
| only consumed it because it confirmed their pre-existing
| bias.
|
| If the anti-vaccine content isn't the underlying cause of
| people not wanting to get the vaccine, censoring that content
| will not fix anything. I know many people who, like OP's
| wife, simply see the censorship as further justification for
| their pre-existing bias. We are likely killing free speech
| with nothing to show for it.
| CrendKing wrote:
| > Sounds like she has already made up her mind
|
| Exactly. My experience with people taught me that once an
| adult made up his/her mind with some belief, it is extremely
| difficult to shake. Confirmation bias will be in effect most
| of the time. The only chance to change it is when someone
| really close to the person (who he/she trusts), or someone
| this person admire/worship says otherwise. And in this case,
| since it's Youtube, it will never happen.
| davidw wrote:
| > The bad idea exists today and is spreading, does limiting
| that spread actually cause more harm? Is there evidence of
| this or a study to support it? In schools, we suppress all
| sorts of bad ideas.
|
| So this is sort of meta isn't it? The easy phrase that sounds
| good gets a lot of traction, but actually proving whether
| it's true, long term, is a difficult problem!
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law - I'm not
| calling BS on the phrase we're discussing, just that we don't
| know!
|
| Meanwhile back in the real world, a friend of ours died of
| COVID yesterday, leaving behind a husband and son. Pretty
| sure she was not vaccinated. She was relatively young and in
| good shape.
| orra wrote:
| There's no simple answers. American has some of the
| strongest free speech rights, but also a scarily large anti
| vaxx population. (It's also worth noting that what YouTube
| decides to allow isn't a First Amendment issue.)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _She thinks they're taking it down because they don't want
| people to know the truth._
|
| The sad truth is, they do this just because of fucking _ad
| revenue_. There 's no grand conspiracy against, or even _for_
| anti-vaccination movements. It 's just people selling the world
| for a quick buck.
|
| And some people are _still_ shooting me weird looks when I keep
| telling them that advertising is a cancer on modern society.
| AgentME wrote:
| If advertising is responsible for actually getting them to
| get off their asses to take down antivax misinformation and
| potentially save lives, that's making advertising sound
| really good right now. Though that might be crediting
| advertising a little too much, maybe some employees in charge
| don't want to take part in spreading misinformation.
| Koshkin wrote:
| Truth it is. Whatever their motto of the day, companies have
| no morals or principles, they are driven purely by their
| business goals and would change their policies in a blink of
| an eye when they feel it would help their business.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| I'm not so sure. I can't help but think a good proportion of
| Google/YouTube employees truly believe they are saving lives
| and fighting "misinformation" with this move. To me, citing
| lost ad revenue is a convenient scapegoat for what these
| partisan folks wanted to do the whole time.
| HyperRational wrote:
| "I can't help but think a good proportion of Google/YouTube
| employees truly believe they are saving lives and fighting
| "misinformation" with this move."
|
| That is because they ARE doing exactly that.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Google is a multinational corporation, not a club. Those
| employees wouldn't get their way if it threatened their
| company's revenue stream.
| BuyMyBitcoins wrote:
| Google is also a Bay Area company and happens to have a
| sizable number of vocal/activist employees with lofty
| world-saving goals. I also can't help but think that
| having so much revenue and de-facto monopolies means they
| are comfortable with alienating "the other side". I think
| they know people aren't going to switch en-masse to a
| YouTube competitor because of this.
| [deleted]
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| Agreed. As one example, take Amazon banning Parler from
| AWS. That clearly isn't a positive move for revenue (at
| least ignoring any potential shady behind-the-scenes
| kickbacks they could have gotten for doing so), but they
| did it because it aligned with many of their employees'
| ideology (among other reasons).
|
| (As an aside Parler was idiotic for not running on their
| own hardware given they were billing themselves as the
| censorship resistant twitter, but that's neither here nor
| there)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Google is also a Bay Area company and happens to have
| a sizable number of vocal /activist employees with lofty
| world-saving goals._
|
| Which ends up being mostly used for PR, and causes
| occasional drama when some employees' view conflict with
| tech sphere's most vocal views. Notice the swift and
| harsh reactions of Google and other tech companies in
| those cases: that's what happens when their revenue is
| threatened.
|
| > _I also can't help but think that having so much
| revenue and de-facto monopolies means they are
| comfortable with alienating "the other side"._
|
| It doesn't really matter what "the other side" thinks.
| All "sides" are using YouTube and buying Android phones
| anyway, because they have very few other options. And all
| "sides" are equally good targets for advertising.
|
| Google isn't worried about people migrating off YouTube
| because of these actions. They're worried about
| regulators, who are looking at content moderation
| practices and considering meddling in that space - which
| would be _very_ threatening to YouTube 's revenue.
| philwelch wrote:
| Any organization can be staffed by people with ulterior
| motives and turned against its official purpose.
| air7 wrote:
| Huh? The opposite seems to me to be true: YouTube can make
| "easy money" selling ads on viral anti-vax videos, but choose
| not to.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| This risks advertisers who do not want their brands
| associated with this content leaving the platform entirely.
| YouTube is not only trying to sell ads, they're trying to
| remain "respectable" so the advertising whales keep
| spending.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| You ever heard of the YouTube channel "dick or dildo"?
| YouTube doesn't remove content that is not respectable,
| gross, unsettling, no the criteria always seems to be
| certain opinions and lines of discussion. Advertisers
| have advertised on YouTube just fine with all the crazy
| wacko content on it before. " targeted advertising" is
| wonderful in the sense that advertisers get to decide
| what sorts of content their ads appear on, so they never
| have to worry about being associated with something they
| don't want to be.
|
| This line of reasoning doesn't make sense under even the
| lightest scrutiny, it doesn't go along with what we
| actually see YouTube doing.
| wayoutthere wrote:
| Media platforms have always been gatekeepers. Freedom of
| speech is great, freedom of mass speech is decidedly not.
| This is super controversial on HN but I think the
| Internet without some form of restrictions on _mass_
| speech is a net negative for human society. Otherwise
| you're just daring bad actors to take advantage of the
| situation.
|
| Companies doing this is arguably preferred to governments
| doing it, but only just barely.
| retrac wrote:
| The big tech companies are facing intervention by the state
| at this point. Being broken up or regulated or, depending
| on country, just outright banned, could really clamp down
| on profits.
| reedjosh wrote:
| Their advertisers wouldn't much like that. Pharma being one
| of their larger advertisers, allowing videos about cheap
| out of patent drugs that may prevent someone from taking a
| vaccine is in direct opposition to this model.
| datavirtue wrote:
| Maybe because when they hear "advertising" they think car
| commercial or magazine ad and associate that with your
| comment. Those can be very good things. Mechanizing
| disinformation to pool people into cults and sell them to the
| highest bidder is not advertisement...it is what we call "big
| tech" until we can figure out another word.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Preach, my man. I've been saying that for years too. There's
| a fear that banning advertising would be a stain on free
| speech and that may be true but legislation is the only way
| outside of this cold war.
|
| We're getting to the point where companies could pay parents
| to name their children after products. Oh wait, too late[0],
| we're already there.
|
| [0]https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-11-17-bethesdas-
| skyr...
| josefresco wrote:
| > She thinks they're taking it down because they don't want
| people to know the truth.
|
| I'm sorry to hear this. I hope she find the help she needs to
| understand how and why she's been led to believe this. You
| might want to talk to her about where she's spending time
| online, and maybe look into her social circle. Lastly, if she's
| susceptible to conspiracy theories this won't end with COVID
| for her or you.
| [deleted]
| jaybrendansmith wrote:
| She might just die. I recently convinced a coworker to get the
| vaccine, and she did. And four weeks later contracted Covid-19,
| probably the delta variant, lost her taste and slept for 5 days
| straight. Had she not had the vaccine, it's quite likely she
| would now be dead.
| NDizzle wrote:
| Uhh.. what makes you say that? What percentage of people who
| get covid actually get admitted to the hospital? What
| percentage actually die? Both answers are probably lower than
| you think.
|
| You convincing her to get the vaccine probably fucked up her
| immune system and led her to getting covid. That scenario is
| equally possible at this point.
| bwship wrote:
| or a 99.2% chance she would have just lived, you know, using
| the stats on the virus.
| belter wrote:
| Or you could have convinced Lisa Shaw:
|
| "Lisa Shaw: Presenter's death due to complications of Covid
| vaccine"
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-tyne-58330796
|
| Or this lady in New Zealand:
|
| "New Zealand woman dies after receiving Pfizer vaccine"
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58380867
|
| Or the parents of this boy
|
| "Michigan boy dies 3 days after getting Pfizer COVID-19
| vaccine, CDC is investigating"
|
| https://eu.freep.com/story/news/2021/07/02/jacob-clynick-
| pfi...
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Meanwhile, there's r/HermanCainAward and
| r/LeopardsAteMyFace which are each full of hundreds of
| examples of anti-vaxxers who got sick and died because they
| "did all the right things" and "stood strong against the
| government" but COVID didn't care.
| belter wrote:
| Agreed. Maybe its then a question of what is most likely,
| and also based on medical history of each person. What
| about this idea? We try to convince people instead, and
| not make it mandatory?
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Not getting your vaccination at this point in time, with
| all the information available is performative theatrics,
| not an intellectual decision based on facts. They're only
| going to be convinced when someone they know or love is
| either hospitalized or die from the disease.
| belter wrote:
| Or maybe its politics:
|
| ""Many of us were saying let's use [the vaccine] to save
| lives, not to vaccinate people already immune," says
| Marty Makary, a professor of health policy and management
| at Johns Hopkins University."
|
| ...
|
| "As more US employers, local governments, and educational
| institutions issue vaccine mandates that make no
| exception for those who have had covid-19,8 questions
| remain about the science and ethics of treating this
| group of people as equally vulnerable to the virus--or as
| equally threatening to those vulnerable to covid-19--and
| to what extent politics has played a role."
|
| ...
|
| "Not one of over 1300 unvaccinated employees who had been
| previously infected tested positive during the five
| months of the study"
|
| ...
|
| "Real world data have also been supportive.Several
| studies (in Qatar, England, Israel, and the US) have
| found infection rates at equally low levels among people
| who are fully vaccinated and those who have previously
| had covid-19. Cleveland Clinic surveyed its more than 50
| 000 employees to compare four groups based on history of
| SARS-CoV-2 infection and vaccination status. Not one of
| over 1300 unvaccinated employees who had been previously
| infected tested positive during the five months of the
| study.
|
| ...
|
| Researchers concluded that that cohort "are unlikely to
| benefit from covid-19 vaccination." In Israel,
| researchers accessed a database of the entire population
| to compare the efficacy of vaccination with previous
| infection and found nearly identical numbers. "Our
| results question the need to vaccinate previously
| infected individuals," they concluded."
|
| https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2101
| travoc wrote:
| The sleepiness of a vaccinated Covid victim is not a
| scientific way to measure their risk prior to vaccination.
| nradov wrote:
| How likely would she to be dead? I encourage everyone to get
| vaccinated if they can, but even without vaccination the CDC
| estimated the fatality rate at only 0.6% for the population
| as a whole. We should take this seriously but exaggerating
| the risks isn't helpful.
|
| https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-
| updates/burd...
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >but even without vaccination the CDC estimated the
| fatality rate at only 0.6% for the population as a whole.
|
| And so, at least for the US, that's ~2,000,000 dead people.
|
| I don't know where you come from, but that seems like a lot
| of people that don't necessarily need to die.
|
| Or am I missing something here?
| w0mbat wrote:
| The tendency for anti-vaxxers to believe in their delusions
| more the more they are contradicted with facts is a thorny
| problem.
|
| However the flow of new misinformation also strengthens their
| beliefs, and draws in new people to the delusional cause.
| Overall I think deleting this misinformation channel is still a
| net positive.
|
| We need some psychologists on the case. Or advertising
| professionals.
| risk000 wrote:
| Yeah, 30-40% of the population needs psychologists and
| propagandists to evaluate or re-educate them. I think this
| viewpoint you're espousing might be part of the problem.
| w0mbat wrote:
| This is how hard it is to get any sense into indoctrinated
| anti-vaxxers. The actual facts are rejected as propaganda
| and reeducation. They won't trust eminently respectable
| sources of truth like the CDC or the WHO.
|
| However, wildly untrustable sources with dubious motives
| are accepted as truth with no filter.
|
| How did the adversaries hack their brains and lock the door
| behind them?
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| Yup, the Streisand effect is real. Tyrion Lannister said it
| best - when you cut out a man's tongue, you're not proving him
| a liar. You're just proving that you fear what he has to say.
| 1cvmask wrote:
| https://kidadl.com/articles/of-the-best-tyrion-lannister-
| quo...
| mypastself wrote:
| In addition to playing into anti-vaxxers' belief that they are
| being silenced for nefarious purposes, reducing their
| arguments' visibility also reduces the likelihood someone will
| publish a well-reasoned counterargument.
|
| Skeptic videos might be disseminated on sites frequented solely
| by those willing to believe them, and they will be less exposed
| to dissenting opinions.
| MrRadar wrote:
| I think by now we should understand that it usually takes an
| order of magnitude more effort to counter-act a false claim
| than it takes to make it in the first place. If your proposed
| approach was viable there shouldn't be people around today
| saying that vaccines cause autism, as the original paper that
| made that claim has been debunked many, _many_ , times. And
| yet, that lie is still extremely pervasive in society and
| directly causing harm to people.
|
| Part of this is because of recommendation algorithms on
| social media sites like Youtube getting people into positive
| feedback loops. If you find a anti-vaxx video and Youtube
| recommends you two videos, one re-enforcing the video you've
| just seen (making you feel smart for having found and
| accepted the information in the original video) and one
| debunking it (which makes you feel stupid for having wasted
| your time on the original video), which do you think the
| _average_ person is more likely to pick? Eventually the
| algorithm will "naturally" pick up that people watching
| anti-vaxx videos don't want to see videos debunking those
| views and will never show them to people watching anti-vaxx
| videos. The only way to solve this paradox is to blanket ban
| the anti-vaxx videos.
| mypastself wrote:
| Oh, I'm well aware how much easier it is to throw out
| random unscientific claims than it is to respond to them
| analytically.
|
| Which is actually part of why I'm opposed to a blanket ban.
| I've had to personally wade through papers and studies to
| determine whether a vaccine skeptic (an M.D., at that) had
| correctly interpreted the results.
|
| They hadn't. So I'd rather have someone else, with some
| expertise and clout, spend some time on it and publish
| their counterargument.
| MrRadar wrote:
| Ah, I missed your last sentence. Either way, though, I
| still think there is a benefit to banning anti-vaxx
| content from general-audience platforms in that it stops
| people who are not necessarily seeking out anti-vaxx
| misinformation from being exposed to it in the first
| place. A great example of this strategy working is
| Reddit. When they ban a hateful subreddit (like
| r/fatpeoplehate) it tends to noticeably improve the
| quality of the discourse on the site in general for a
| period afterwards as people who were drawn to join Reddit
| just to be hateful will have less reason to be on it and
| also because fewer "ordinary" people are exposed to those
| hateful ideas limiting their spread within the "general"
| user base of the site. I believe the same approach works
| equally well with misinformation movements.
| mypastself wrote:
| Ultimately, I can't fault a corporate entity for wishing
| to improve their customers' experience by preventing
| dissemination of potentially harmful material. Perhaps I
| would agree with them if I had insight into their cost-
| benefit analysis. I still generally prefer to have all
| types of ideas out in the open.
| mdp2021 wrote:
| You have premised that some content recommender uses an
| algorithm that creates clusterization of positions, and you
| conclude that <<the only way>> is to eliminate one of the
| two positions. I hope this sentence makes it clear where
| the issue is.
|
| Which /also/ means, the reasonable moderates of the
| censored position disappear. With consequences.
|
| Which should contain the rebuttal to that first "proposal":
| the "centrist algorithm".
| jmpman wrote:
| I have a similar friend, and whenever I provide links to peer
| reviewed articles, I'm told that I'm a sheep, and to search on
| DuckDuckGo, as they don't hide the truth... so, a YouTube ban
| is going to do little to him.
| ascar wrote:
| That line of reasoning doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
|
| One of my family members is also very hesitant to get the
| vaccine and gets all kind of anti-vaccine propaganda through
| various groups and channels. She takes that content as
| "reasonable" and "potentially true" even tho basically all of
| what I've seen is simply untrue. E.g. an article claiming there
| were more deaths due to covid vaccines than to covid, which is
| "backed up" by official NHS statistics. How did they arrive at
| this claim? Well they just said any recorded covid death with a
| recorded precondition didn't die due to covid but due to the
| precondition and any death that occured within 14 days after a
| vaccine shot was definitely because of the vaccine. I think I
| don't have to explain the logical fallacy in that argument, but
| it does make for a nice headline and many (most?) readers only
| read the headline. Who really takes the time to carefully read
| and see if the claim has any logical basis? To make things
| worse, this kind of "news" is regularly republished across
| multiple sites hiding the "data" multiple links deep (if
| directly linked to at all).
|
| That's the kind of content many anti-vaxxers are exposed to on
| a daily basis. For your line of reasoning to make any impact it
| would mean that not blocking this kind of content actually
| weakens the positions of anti-vaxxers. However, I strongly
| belief the opposite is the case. Being exposed to this kind of
| content and treating it with similar credibility as other
| news/media is strengthening their position too.
|
| So we have a situation where keeping the content is reinforcing
| the beliefs and where blocking the content is also reinforcing
| the beliefs, because "legitimate" content telling "the truth"
| is blocked "without reason".
|
| I'm also not convinced that outright blocking it is the right
| move. Hindering it's discoverability (e.g. by downranking it in
| the so dangerous social media reinforcement bubble algorithmns)
| and somehow making clear that it might be of very low
| credibility might be a better approach. It might also be
| equally hopeless.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| > _That line of reasoning doesn 't make a lot of sense to
| me._
|
| Those who have good arguments against something can convince
| people with them.
|
| Those without good arguments, need to ban it.
| twofornone wrote:
| >basically all of what I've seen is simply untrue. E.g. an
| article claiming there were more deaths due to covid vaccines
| than to covid
|
| No, the claim is that statistically for every life saved via
| vaccination, more lives are lost due to vaccine
| complications, based on officially compiled numbers.
|
| It occurs to me that most of the people arguing for
| vaccination are just as ignorant and faith based in their
| argumentation as the people they demonize for arguing against
| it. This is probably a consequence of the normal distribution
| of competence, and a significant argument against censoring
| dissent (dishonestly conflated with "misinformation"),
| because when [?]70% of the population is not competent enough
| to consume and evaluate literature, suppression of counter
| narratives becomes an oppressive tool of the establishment,
| even when done by so called "private" companies. Our economic
| system is conveniently organized such that going public for
| the funding necessary to compete with VC money subjects your
| company to the rule of an inevitably politically connected
| board.
|
| It's telling that almost all of this recent censorship (not
| just regarding the COVID vaccine) aligns so neatly with
| leftist views. This top down authoritarianism is leading to a
| parallel society, encouraged by the pervasive breadth and
| depth of dissent suppression: if you have the "wrong"
| opinion, you cant post videos on social media, you cant host
| your own social media on cloud providers, you can't host your
| own servers because CC companies will refuse to service
| you...
|
| The authoritarian dystopia has already arrived, not with the
| sort of force we were warned about, but with welcome cheers
| from a naive, docile populace.
| throawayfuntime wrote:
| Looking at ONS and NHS statistics for deaths and using the
| same criteria to look at deaths within X days of a vaccine,
| and adjusting the excess deaths in each as compared to the
| baseline rate of deaths in previous years, adjusted by age
| group, has been considered anti vaccine propaganda for a lot
| of this covid debacle.
|
| UNfortunately what your family member is doing is actually
| the mirror opposite of what the official reports and mainline
| consensus has been, that all deaths in X days of a positive
| covid test are caused by covid but that no deaths after
| vaccination are are caused by vaccines. Also consider that
| harms from covid have been reported averaged amongst all age
| groups to give and inflated risk for the young, while risks
| from vaccination have been averaged amongst all age groups to
| lower the stated risk to the young. I state this last point
| just to illustrate how deliberate misinformation has been
| government policy with regards to covid stats, so the same
| technique used by anti vaxxers is of no surprise whatsoever.
|
| When the mainstream consensus uses precisely the behaviour
| nudging abuse of data as a conspiracy theorist, do not be
| supposed when some people are unable to see what the problem
| is.
| LudvigVanHassen wrote:
| This is precisely correct. As someone who was vaccine
| hesitant, I ended up getting the J&J but felt like a full
| 20 hours a week part time job to try to parse what was
| actually true.
|
| Fauci, the CDC, the WHO; all of the communications from
| these institutions used the noble lie constantly, fudging
| numbers, re-casting things to fit their narrative. I
| already deeply mistrust the media apparatus, who also
| parrot this narrative.
|
| Realizing that the vaccines are safe took a LONG time for
| me to come to. I do think I am very much in the minority of
| the vaccine hesitant category. Many of them dig not dig
| through all news sources from both sides like I have the
| perception I did (in truth, I looked at more on the right
| than the left).
|
| But you have to understand that a huge swarth of the
| country do not trust ANY of the institutions. All of the
| officials are viewed as corrupt, manipulating liars.
| oezi wrote:
| Citation needed. I looked into vigilance reports and it
| seems they seem to go to reasonable lenghts to untangle
| causes.
| specialist wrote:
| There's no silver bullet for cults and other addictions.
|
| Unwinding decades of malfeasance and indoctrination takes
| time and effort.
|
| Even those who snap out of it then spend decades coming to
| terms.
|
| Even worse: The liberal tendency to cult shame and scold
| backfires. (Am guilty as charged.)
|
| The only effective remedy I'm aware of is distraction and
| redirection. Like the guy who slow walked his wife out of the
| QAnon cult by encouraging her interest in the opera.
|
| Meanwhile, cockblocking the grifters helps too.
| bruiseralmighty wrote:
| _So we have a situation where keeping the content is
| reinforcing the beliefs and where blocking the content is
| also reinforcing the beliefs, because "legitimate" content
| telling "the truth" is blocked "without reason"._
|
| This is pretty close to the truth. For a further nudge in the
| right direction you should apply that thinking to the state
| of mind your family member was in prior to encountering any
| "anti-vaccine propoganda".
|
| They were not in a kind of limbo where they could go either
| way on covid vaccination. They consumed specific media
| because they already distrusted the authorities in power in
| the USG.
|
| The reason you are ending up in this apparent _to censor or
| not to censor_ paradox is because leadership _had already
| previously failed_ to convince your family member that they
| could be trusted. Everything that came after was just
| mobilization.
|
| Now in your situation you should of course censor the hell
| out of any anti-vaccine sentiment for the same reason that
| ISIS should not get to train on Army gym equipment and
| weapons: it *strengthens* your enemies.
|
| Downranking will of course be equally hopeless. This is the
| equivalent of the Army allowing ISIS to train with them but
| only on Sundays at midday or something. Its incoherent.
|
| The right answer has been and will always be to have a
| leadership class (and that includes the people at Youtube and
| Google as well as legacy politicians) who can be relied upon
| to display even a modicum of trustworthiness towards *all*
| Americans. Ironically censorship also fails to move the
| needle in the right direction at this point.
|
| Guess we are still in that paradox after all.
| flybrand wrote:
| > That line of reasoning doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
|
| A previous fundamental tenant of public health was candid
| communication.
|
| Censorship goes against that - many activities through this -
| such as not promoting general health and wellness, diet etc,
| - go against past foundations of PH.
|
| If people are questioning the legitimacy of PH, censorship
| reinforces that perception.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| There is no "fundamental tenet" of being candid
|
| To remove false information is not a failure to be candid
|
| We have always removed false information
|
| A private company removing content is not censorship
|
| Public health has always been in favor of removing false
| information
|
| The perception is being reinforced by false moral
| equivalences and false claims about the past
|
| There is no downside to removing structured false
| information being presented by a foreign power
|
| Your hand-wringing doesn't make sense
| flybrand wrote:
| I disagree with every point you make - but I will never
| endorse a system that censors your ability to write this.
|
| Logically many of your points that use 'always' are
| highly unlikely to be true, because we'd only need find
| one case to prove the statement false.
| codeecan wrote:
| You premise that they remove only false information is
| wrong,
|
| "vaccine producers are immune from liability", is not
| false but is anti-vaccine ... its taken down.
|
| When reports about problems with AstraZeneca were coming
| out, those were tagged as misinformation, today most
| countries no longer give out AZ vaccine.
|
| Theyre suppressing truthful info, why should you trust
| anything they say?
| dogman144 wrote:
| That's a great point, but candid communication doesn't
| address if the opposing view has overwhelming (and un-
| candid) counterpoints.
|
| What's next, in that case?
| colpabar wrote:
| >What's next, in that case
|
| I'd rather focus on "what now", because in my opinion
| there has not been _any_ candid communication between the
| yays and the nays. All of the media produced along the
| lines of "5 common vaccine myths DEBUNKED by fauci" are
| drivel and work backwards from the position that anti
| vaxxers are dumb and irrational and all their complaints
| are totally wrong, rather than actually trying to
| convince people of anything.
|
| What I would _love_ to see is a public, formal debate
| between two people /groups about vaccine mandates. I
| might even pay to see it, or fund it or something. I
| think the closest we have had to this was Rand Paul
| "grilling" Fauci in a congressional hearing, which was
| not helpful because it devolved into the participants
| yelling over each other.
|
| >candid communication doesn't address if the opposing
| view has overwhelming (and un-candid) counterpoints
|
| I'm not sure if a formal debate counts as "candid
| communication", but I do think a formal debate would
| address this. If one side is totally unreasonable and
| none of their arguments hold up, everyone will see that.
| If one side just reverts to yelling, everyone will see
| that.
|
| I know this is a pipe dream, because our media masters
| have decided that vaccine opposition is just too
| dangerous. But frankly I cannot think of a better
| opportunity for the people who claim they know best to
| actually _prove_ that their opponents are wrong.
| dogman144 wrote:
| Inability to answer "what next" causes these platforms to
| unilaterally move forward.
| BlueDingo wrote:
| Fighting the good fight, day after day, without end?
| There is no way to force the right thing. There's no law
| that can't be repealed, no power that can't be corrupted.
| So we have to work and be vigilant, always.
| colpabar wrote:
| >So we have a situation where keeping the content is
| reinforcing the beliefs and where blocking the content is
| also reinforcing the beliefs, because "legitimate" content
| telling "the truth" is blocked "without reason".
|
| I'd say that blocking the content doesn't _always_ reinforce
| their beliefs. For a lot of people, reading something that is
| then blocked at a later date reinforces the belief that the
| information they consumed is not only true, but so true that
| it has to be censored by some authority, because it would
| threaten said authority 's legitimacy.
|
| As an example, imagine you think that the police are too
| violent, and you stumble upon police bodycam footage of a cop
| getting unnecessarily violent at a traffic stop. You bookmark
| the video, and then later when you try to tell people about
| it, the video has been taken down the police, for whatever
| reason. Wouldn't that reinforce your belief that police are
| too violent?
|
| I know this isn't a perfect example, because a video of
| someone doing something is much different than an article
| making claims based on little to no evidence. But the reason
| some people's beliefs are reinforced by censorship is because
| they can't help but wonder if the people doing the censoring
| are trying to hide something.
| Retric wrote:
| Except people will take any and all things that happen as
| conformation of their beliefs. YouTube leaving a video up
| is support, YouTube removing a video is the conspiracy in
| action.
| colpabar wrote:
| I am not arguing either way, I'm just trying to explain
| how some people see the world. I also don't really
| understand the point of your comment, because of course
| there are irrational people who have all sorts of
| beliefs.
| saurik wrote:
| YouTube leaving something up shouldn't--and _wouldn 't_--
| feel special if YouTube leaves everything up... but they
| don't, because they selectively take things down for
| "reasons" that are often inscrutable. Maybe it is easy to
| think that conspiracy theorists are stupid or something
| and will randomly believe anything, but that at least
| isn't the case for all of them, even if it is for some:
| they are just trying to figure out how to most easily
| explain inscrutable decision making processes, as YouTube
| does _not_ take down the vast majority of false things
| said on YouTube, right? For whatever reason YouTube is
| only bothering to take down _this_ false information, and
| _do_ they seem to care more about the conclusions than
| the content... you can be very very sane and very very
| smart and still give weight to this being nefarious.
| sangnoir wrote:
| "X is good for BitCoin" for any value of X, _and_ not(X).
|
| Some people are beyond saving- there is nothing that you
| can say or do to get them to accept that their beliefs
| are wrong. So you're better off expending efforts on the
| option that disrupts the radicalization pipeline.
| newbamboo wrote:
| I remember early in the pandemic YouTube was removing any
| video where the word "pandemic" was used. They also
| censored videos suggesting mask wearing might be
| beneficial. Similar censorship occurred regarding the now
| well accepted lab leak origin of the pandemic. Because
| lab leaks must be racist or something.
| treesknees wrote:
| I feel bad but yes I agree with this. I have a family
| member who won't get the vaccine because of "5G
| Microchips" and "government tracking us" with "poison"
| (despite her receiving literal poison in the form of
| chemotherapy, and clutching her phone with Facebook and
| TikTok no problem...)
|
| What could I possibly say or do to convince this person
| otherwise? They are so far beyond rational understanding
| of the vaccine that I'd rather take down the
| misinformation than be afraid of somehow re-enforcing
| that family member's beliefs.
| __blockcipher__ wrote:
| Depends what you consider the radicalization pipeline to
| be. For example, if you ban a user from Twitter, and they
| end up on Parler, they're gonna be exposed to a lot more
| "radical" (for lack of a better word) stuff than when
| they were just on Twitter. It's really not guaranteed
| that banning "undesirable" content actually does disrupt
| the pipeline, so much as just further balkanize and
| radicalize the dissidents.
| RF_Savage wrote:
| But that banned user cannot radicalize others on twitter,
| the larger platform with a wider reach. Parler is a niche
| platform for people already down the rabbit hole.
| Jensson wrote:
| A dead Jesus cannot create more followers, right?
|
| The arguments goes in both directions, if you don't
| handle it correctly then being too heavy handed has the
| opposite effect.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > A dead Jesus cannot create more followers, right?
|
| Pontius Pilate doesn't really care, as long as he's
| washed his hands of the matter and has rid of the man
| (and crowds) from his court.
| goatlover wrote:
| For the Romans, all that mattered is that the followers
| didn't wish to start an actual rebellion against Rome.
| Which doesn't seem like they did from the writings of
| Paul and the rest of the NT and early Christianity.
| sangnoir wrote:
| > Depends what you consider the radicalization pipeline
| to be.
|
| Platforms, by their nature, are mostly worried about
| what's happening on _their_ platforms - when it 's
| occurring elsewhere, it is no longer their problem. It is
| a mistake to think YouTube wants to bring an end to all
| misinformation everywhere - their focus starts and ends
| with misinformation _on_ YouTube. Balkanization is the
| best option they can hope for, as long as it 's not on
| YT.
| bmarquez wrote:
| "Raises hand"
|
| I like to do in-depth research for myself (example:
| watching an entire Trump or Biden speech instead of
| relying on a selected soundbite), viewing the original
| video or source instead of blindly believing on what
| mainstream media says about them.
|
| Unfortunately as more things get censored from social
| media/YouTube whether fairly or unfairly, it looks like
| I'll have to spend more time on "alternative" platforms,
| being exposed to the stuff that is common on such
| platforms. In the end, there's going to be the Twitter
| echo chamber, and the Gab echo chamber, etc (note that
| Parler seems to be dead).
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| "Except people will take any and all things that happen
| as conformation of their beliefs."
|
| Then doing things on basis of motivating them is a dead
| end, and we should staunch the flow of falsehoods to keep
| other people from becoming contaminated.
| hartator wrote:
| > That line of reasoning doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
|
| Can you think about one time in history when you conclude
| "the government was right to censor this"?
| Jensson wrote:
| Germany was very hard on all the people who looked back on
| the "good old Nazi days" after ww2. I think that was a good
| thing. I don't think it happens often but I think it
| happens. However I don't think that there is anything so
| problematic that it needs to be censored today though.
| shikoba wrote:
| Yes, you're right people are too dumb, they're don't have a
| good judging ability. We should select the right info for
| them.
| bronzeage wrote:
| There's a third option of actually engaging in the
| discussion. You know, actually investing the efforts of
| silencing anti-vaxers into explaining the truth instead. And
| it's not like that option is unfathomable to the media. When
| the truth is aligned with their agenda, they are already
| experts in "fact-checking" and pointing out where their
| opponents are wrong.
|
| The rules of debate say it's always better to refute the main
| argument and to address their issues. If you resort to ad-
| hominem attacks, appeal to authority, or just plain
| censorship, to me it is a confession that you do not have
| better information to add to the debate. Which implies that
| I'm right.
| jasonlaramburu wrote:
| >There's a third option of actually engaging in the
| discussion. You know, actually investing the efforts of
| silencing anti-vaxers into explaining the truth instead
|
| A good faith discussion between opposing parties requires
| establishment of some common ground and a set of rules of
| engagement (eg 'claims must be supported with facts/data').
| Cult leaders foster a sense of paranoia among their
| followers which makes a good faith debate virtually
| impossible.
| t43562 wrote:
| Lovely idea but what happens when reason cannot convince
| someone e.g. people who believe in religion?
|
| At that point you have to work out whether offering them a
| platform is something you want to do.
| allenu wrote:
| Ideally, a debate would be best. The challenge is that it's
| very easy to make false statements. It takes very little
| effort. You can "Gish gallop" your way through a discussion
| and the other side is forced to refute every single false
| statement. A lot of conspiracy theories spread and are
| believed because their narratives are so simple and easy to
| understand. Showing that they're wrong takes a lot of
| explaining, which often strengthens the conspiracy. I can't
| say I have a solution to it, but it's worth recognizing
| that discussion doesn't, unfortunately, always work to
| educate the masses.
| ofou wrote:
| Censor someone because disagrees with your position is
| plain stupidity. Keep the conversation going is a healthy
| path. The problem is that currently social platform want to
| CONTROL full the discourse in their platforms. By the way,
| it's the pandora's box of censorship. Hold my comments.
| woodruffw wrote:
| This is the same thing people said about vaccine mandates
| ("mandating vaccinations will only make people dig in!"), but
| we've had concrete evidence of the _exact opposite_ behavior
| just this week: after weeks of grumbling, thousands of
| unvaccinated healthcare workers went and got their shots ahead
| of NYC 's mandate[1].
|
| Edit: because I realize this is an apples-to-oranges
| comparison, here's an appropriate one: we don't allow cigarette
| companies to advertise, since smoking cigarettes is manifestly
| unhealthy. There's been an extraordinary amount of reporting on
| the undisclosed financial relationships between prominent anti-
| vaxxers and snake-oil companies; it's not clear to me why
| forbidding this kind of manifestly dangerous profiteering on a
| global pandemic actually represents a risk to free expression.
|
| [1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/28/nyregion/vaccine-
| health-c...
| chasd00 wrote:
| when you tell someone "get vaccinated or be fired" what
| choice do they have? My job required us to all upload our vax
| cards or be fired. I resisted for a few days and even applied
| for an accommodation on the basis of "crisis of personal
| conscious" but was told if my accommodation was denied then i
| would be fired. I eventually relented and uploaded my vax
| card because i wasn't going to risk my family's wellbeing
| over a random piece of paper.
|
| i did file a formal HR complaint and asked for a list of
| other personal health information required for continued
| employment that was not in my offer letter. I expect no
| response though.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > when you tell someone "get vaccinated or be fired" what
| choice do they have?
|
| That's the point. You don't have a right to endanger the
| healths of other people, and you never have; the legal
| groundwork for vaccination mandates _significantly_
| predates the current crisis.
|
| > I eventually relented and uploaded my vax card because i
| was going to risk my family's wellbeing over a random piece
| of paper.
|
| Close to 5 million people have died worldwide, and your
| concern for their wellbeing only begins when you're
| required to get a vaccine that's been free & convenient for
| months? With all due respect: have a little perspective.
| burnafter182 wrote:
| Isn't this logically inconsistent? The vaccinated should
| be protected by the vaccine, and thus little to no threat
| should exist.
|
| Ah but the vaccines are leaky you say, the vaccinated can
| acquire and spread the disease, and they can do so
| asymptomatically. And to that I propose a question: are
| the vaccines definable as effective, that being the case?
| If you're so positive of the vaccine, shouldn't your
| whole family unit be vaccinated? Children aren't very
| susceptible to the disease. Once boosters are deployed to
| the aceding population, will that cause a paradigm shift?
| Once a large proportion of children are vaccinated? Once
| we hit the constantly moving target for "herd immunity"?
|
| No, it's all or none. It's arbitrary. It is not logically
| consistent. It is government policy in a nutshell.
|
| People die constantly. Attributing causality exclusively
| to COVID19 is asinine. Even using an aggregate like
| excess mortality is a fool's errand. It's been clear
| since the beginning that comorbidity in combination with
| COVID19 is what typically causes death. Any numbers
| pulled to evidence how deadly COVID19 is are fraught with
| interdependencies and overlap and hardly present a true
| to life picture.
|
| It's naive to think you can save everyone. It's okay that
| you're afraid.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > Isn't this logically inconsistent? The vaccinated
| should be protected by the vaccine, and thus little to no
| threat should exist.
|
| This isn't why we encourage mass vaccination. We
| encourage mass vaccination because herd immunity protects
| _everyone_ , including people who can't be vaccinated for
| legitimate reasons (allergies, immunocompromised status,
| &c).
|
| I'm young and healthy; my chances of severe illness from
| COVID are extraordinarily low. I didn't get vaccinated
| primarily for my own protection; I did it because I have
| friends and family who need it more than I do, and whose
| return to normal life is predicated on the participation
| of society as a whole.
|
| The rest of your post is misinformed about the role
| vaccines play, and would be addressed by improved public
| education about immunity, improved immune responses, and
| lower incidence of severe cases. Individual vaccines
| produce different outcomes along each of those axes,
| which has (understandably) produced a great deal of
| confusion as to whether the COVID vaccines "prevent"
| COVID or not. But the information _is_ available, and it
| 's incumbent upon you as a member of civil society to
| avail yourself of it.
|
| > It's naive to think you can save everyone. It's okay
| that you're afraid.
|
| What?
| swader999 wrote:
| You can't get herd immunity with a virus that evolves
| this fast and can persist in animal reservoirs with a
| leaky vaccine.
| woodruffw wrote:
| Yes, you can. Herd immunity as a public health policy
| includes protection from severe illness; COVID vaccines
| have consistently been shown to provide protection
| against severe illness even when new variants appear.
|
| Also, to point out the absurdity with all of this: we
| wouldn't have as many variations as we currently have if
| people were to actually get their vaccines. Handwringing
| over variants while also resisting the chief tool we have
| for reducing the likelihood of new variants is
| ridiculous.
| swader999 wrote:
| I agree the vaccine does decrease the incidence of severe
| illness, even in the new variants. Based on this fact it
| should be given to the vulnerable.
|
| A policy of mass vaccination to protect the vulnerable is
| a different thing and is more related to the concept of
| herd immunity. It can be very bad policy depending on the
| nature of the virus. Its really good policy for something
| like measles. Here's a link that takes a deep dive on how
| this relates to covid and the corona virus:
| https://www.juliusruechel.com/2021/09/the-snake-oil-
| salesmen...
| woodruffw wrote:
| I did a brief parse of that site, and it's the standard
| crank spiel about anything vaguely pharmaceutical (plus
| some "Great Reset" dogwhistling and bloviating about
| America's founding fathers). He even threw in a Sherlock
| Holmes quote; how can I argue with that?
|
| Yes, pharmaceutical companies are bad. They're so bad
| that it's a trite and tired observation to base
| conspiracy theories on. Nothing written therein changes
| the fact that the shot is free for you and produces
| improved healthcare outcomes. The US government already
| spends hundreds of billions of dollars keeping people
| alive after decades of damaging their bodies; paying a
| few billion more for some vaccines is hardly worth a
| global conspiracy.
| swader999 wrote:
| Agree with your criticisms but his points on herd
| immunity are pretty good. If you want a more scientific
| dive into it this Alberta neurosurgen did a pretty good
| analysis on some of the same aspects, all referenced:
| https://www.lifesitenews.com/opinion/not-justified-
| canadian-...
| woodruffw wrote:
| I'm not going to do an in-depth rebuttal of these types
| of articles, because I'm (1) not qualified to do so, (2)
| not inclined to do so, and (3) lack the time needed to
| disentangle the science-adjacent claims from the standard
| conspiracy chaff about freedom, pharmaceutical companies,
| &c.
|
| But two points:
|
| * Being a neurosurgeon, even a highly educated and titled
| one, does not make someone an expert on immunology. If he
| was an expert on immunology, he would be an immunologist.
| This is _exactly_ the reason why there are stringent
| rules about diagnoses and evaluations in hospitals:
| doctors are no less susceptible to expert confusion than
| the rest of us.
|
| * mRNA vaccines are a new technology. But they're not
| _that_ new: research into mRNA transport and delivery
| began in the late 1970s[1]. By the 1990s, they were
| recognized as the frontier of vaccine development, and
| were primarily stymied by an absence of funding.
| Vaccinology 's history spans 300 years, the majority of
| which involved stabbing people with unknown quantities of
| pathogens without any real understanding of what we were
| doing. mRNA represents a _significant_ and positive
| increase in the use of our modern understanding of immune
| systems to develop medicine. That doesn 't make them
| _safe_ , but they _do_ represent the safest approach (in
| terms of healthcare outcomes) we 've had to vaccinology
| in its history.
|
| [1]: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w
| burnafter182 wrote:
| Explain to me how exerting selection pressures through a
| leaky system prevents the likelihood of variants.
|
| And to evince you of known hazards of leaky immunity, I
| suggest you look up Marek's disease.
| chasd00 wrote:
| If i knew my vaccination records were required to work
| where i work i would have taken my skills elsewhere. Not
| once was i ever told my medical records would or could be
| required for continued employment.
|
| I got vaccinated to protect myself and those around me.
| My job has no business in my health records. period.
|
| edit: also, i'm 100% wfh since before the pandemic
| started. I'm endangering no one at my workplace.
| woodruffw wrote:
| > My job has no business in my health records. period.
|
| You mean other than the health insurance they
| (hopefully!) provide you, right?
|
| Even beyond that, the idea that the piece of cardboard
| that the CDC gave you constitutes meaningful (much less
| private) medical data about you is facile. Depending on
| the state you live in, your employer _de facto_ has
| knowledge of your medical history: if you went to a
| public or private school in most US states, they were
| legally required to obtain proof of your vaccination
| against multiple diseases. The reason your job doesn 't
| ask for that proof independently is because we've
| _succeeded_ at lower levels in mandating it.
|
| > also, i'm 100% wfh since before the pandemic started.
| I'm endangering no one at my workplace.
|
| That's fine. But your workplace (presumably) isn't your
| only social sphere.
|
| Edit: You're also (again, presumably) going to return to
| your workplace or travel on behalf of your employer at
| some point.
| prpl wrote:
| Would the alternative, leaving it up, weaken her position? I
| don't see a scenario where a decision by Youtube removes her
| hesitancy, TBH.
|
| Knowing some hesitant people, the only thing that changed their
| minds was their MD.
| leepowers wrote:
| > She thinks they're taking it down because they don't want
| people to know the truth.
|
| 1) If they take false content down that will reinforce her
| beliefs.
|
| 2) If they leave false content up, she will keep consuming it,
| which will reinforce her beliefs.
|
| 3) So - when it comes to changing her mind (and the millions
| like her), 1 and 2 are a wash. She's adopted an unfalsifiable
| position. There is no policy Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, et al.
| can adopt to reason her out of this position. She will have to
| reason her self out of it at some point.
|
| 4) The purpose of taking down false content is not to change
| her mind, or change the mind of anyone else who has adopted an
| unfalsifiable position. The purpose is to stop the spread of
| false and untrue information. If there's 10 million people who
| have taken the unfalsifiable position the goal is to prevent
| another 10 million from adopting the same viewpoint.
|
| 5) However I can't be sure #4 will actually work. Its very
| difficult to lockdown information and prevent its spread.
|
| 6) And can these platforms moderate edge cases with accuracy?
| If they bungle the job users will lose trust in them as an
| information source. But - since these platforms are the main
| driver of misinformation, then discrediting them as information
| sources would be a net good.
|
| 7) So - no moderation means we continue the status quo of
| information and vaccine hesitancy.
|
| 8) Requiring moderation might combat hesitancy by a) preventing
| the spread of misinformation and b) discrediting platforms in
| the eyes of the hesitant or hesitant adjacent.
|
| 9) Because these platforms are public and performative they are
| ill suited for mea culpas. Rarely do people relish engaging
| with ideas that might prove you wrong, especially in a public
| setting. The work of helping people reason themselves out of
| unreason will be done outside these platforms.
| dspillett wrote:
| _> She thinks they're taking it down because they don't want
| people to know the truth._
|
| People already that far down the rabbit hole aren't going to be
| made more or less hesitant whether YouTube or others leave the
| content up or take it down because at this point they are
| already believing things that have been shown to be untrue (or
| at least highly unlikely to be true).
|
| But taking it down might stop a lot more people being drawn in
| to the conspiracy theories and _becoming_ that hesitant in the
| first place and further perpetuating the problem by forwarding
| on the misinformation.
|
| Taking the information down saves a lot more from the
| misinformation than it pushes in the other direction. Not that
| I think we should abandon the latter of course, but they are
| going to need some other form of intervention anyway, whether
| this step is taken for the benefit of the others or not. We
| can't fix all the problems with one action, but needing other
| actions to help those more deeply entrenched doesn't mean we
| shouldn't perform this action to help those who are not yet
| there.
| HyperRational wrote:
| Your wife is very irrational then.
| fksadfji12 wrote:
| The thing that worked where I'm from (Canada) was requiring
| proof of vaccination to do pretty much anything (eat indoors,
| play indoor sports, movie theatre, etc).
|
| Suddenly, this inconvenience has caused a surge in
| vaccinations.
| downandout wrote:
| _She thinks they're taking it down because they don't want
| people to know the truth._
|
| To some degree, that's true. While the vaccines are overall
| relatively highly effective and safe, there is no denying that
| tens of thousands of serious injuries and deaths have occurred
| as a result of them. Overall the benefits strongly outweigh the
| risks, but there are risks nonetheless. This is not abnormal
| for anything that is injected into hundreds of millions of
| people.
|
| However, platforms like YouTube - cheered on by the CDC and an
| incredibly heavy handed Biden administration - have decided
| that people don't have a right to learn about these cases of
| "adverse reactions". As well intentioned as they may be, hiding
| obvious facts from people calls into question everything else
| that they are being told. It only emboldens the vaccine
| hesitant when the powers that be are less than honest and
| forthcoming about the potential negative outcomes of the
| vaccine, regardless of how rare they might be.
| snarf21 wrote:
| I disagree. I think we can all agree that we don't need videos
| talking about how the "bad ideas" of slavery/child abuse/human
| trafficking/etc. are wonderful things. I think we are right to
| suppress them. You can make the same argument that allowing
| these videos _validates_ that they must be telling the truth or
| YT wouldn 't allow it. If all you are looking for is
| confirmation bias, it is all you will find. It sounds like you
| wife won't get a vaccine no matter what so let's not argue
| semantics about what will make her even less likely to get a
| vaccine.
| davesque wrote:
| I feel as though there's actually nothing that would convince
| people like your wife to get vaccinated. Or at least the
| ultimate deciding factor cannot be predicted or understood. The
| problem is that people begin to personally identify with an
| opinion that they hold. And then they'll find any reason or
| justification for holding onto it.
|
| CDC says get vaccinated? Oh, but they said not to wear masks
| early on. They can't be trusted. Medical researchers release
| studies showing vaccine effectiveness? Oh, but look at this
| random other study that shows otherwise. YouTube decides to
| moderate vaccine misinformation more strongly? Oh, what are
| they trying to hide? What are they scared of?
|
| You can keep asking questions and doubting as long as you want
| if you're emotionally attached to an idea. Welcome to the mind
| of an anti-vaxxer.
|
| What this all means is that we shouldn't take into account the
| effect YouTube's action will have on anti-vaxxers because we'd
| see the same effect regardless of what we do.
| SergeAx wrote:
| > The only thing worse than bad ideas is the suppression of bad
| ideas.
|
| I don't know. This on one hand, but people burning down 5G
| network towers on the other.
| ada1981 wrote:
| How about banning any videos that present literal Bible content,
| for example.
| chefkoch wrote:
| i don't think believing in the bible is killing hundreds a day
| in the US.
| superzadeh wrote:
| Take a look outside the US, you'd be surprised. The world is
| not centered around the US.
| trentnix wrote:
| _YouTube is banning anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-
| vaccine content_
|
| Which will, of course, galvanize those who are skeptical of the
| vaccine and the intentions of our bureaucratic overlords. And
| because that's so obvious, it makes the conspiracy-theorist
| squirrel part of my brain wonder if that's the point.
| [deleted]
| eric_b wrote:
| I myself am vaccinated, but I hold no ill will towards those who
| do not get it; whatever their reason. And yet, the media is
| conditioning all of us to hate those people. To shame them. To
| ignore their reason and free-will.
|
| The same people who are rabidly pro-vaccine are generally rabidly
| pro-choice when it comes to abortion. How does that reconcile?
| How come the government can sometimes tell you what to do with
| your body but not others?
|
| And the same people who are in favor of the vaccine mandates are
| almost universally supporters of BLM and social justice. And
| yet... the majority of the vaccine hesitant are non-white. That
| doesn't square either.
|
| The whole thing is absolutely fucking outrageous. I hate what the
| media has done to the United States. And I hate all the moral
| self-righteousness I see on display here and everywhere else.
| fwsgonzo wrote:
| The whole thing is easily explainable: People who walk around
| spreading COV19 is killing other people. Everyone has a story
| like that, and it's unfortunate that we have to explain it
| again and again.
|
| You have free will until you start killing other people over
| something that you can get for free, that lessens the long-
| lasting effects of a virus.
| eric_b wrote:
| This is such a horseshit argument. If you're at risk, by all
| means get the vaccine. You're protected. Job done.
|
| "But what about the children?!?!" is the next common refrain.
| What about them? Look at the numbers. COVID is not a relevant
| concern for pediatric public health policy.
|
| https://data.cdc.gov/widgets/9bhg-hcku?mobile_redirect=true
|
| COVID deaths account for less than 1% of deaths in children
| under 15. I think the other 99% of things killing our kids is
| a bigger concern, don't you?
| dQw4w9WgXcQ wrote:
| > You have free will until you start killing other people
| over something
|
| You do a lot of things every day that "have a chance of
| killing people". You get in a car and send thousands of
| pounds of metal hurdling down the road, you use your cell
| phone and drive distractedly in that metal block. Or maybe
| you visit Home Depot and buy a pack of nails and a few of
| those drop out in a parking lot and a mother in her van with
| children run over those nails and later have a blowout. You
| buy an iPhone made in China or a T-shirt made in Vietnam that
| employs some child laborer who is exposed to harsh chemicals
| and they die earlier because you personally wanted some
| product for your enjoyment... and the list is almost
| infinite.
|
| At what point do we acknowledge our minimal control over the
| butterfly effect of causality and cease the woke moralizing?
| gkop wrote:
| I suggest just asking such a person about their principles.
| You'll probably get a more helpful response if you refrain from
| characterizing their opinions as "rabid". If you bring
| curiosity, you will disarm them, and perhaps learn something or
| effect a change in their thinking.
|
| Big govt/regulation vs. small govt/freedom is just one axis.
| People's viewpoints on specific issues are based on more than
| just this axis.
| robd003 wrote:
| Censoring ideas just makes them more popular. If YouTube wanted
| to do the right thing they'd let people debate openly, instead
| this will just push people further into their respective echo
| chambers.
| dang wrote:
| All: if you want to read all 2000+ comments you'll need to click
| More at the bottom, or like this:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693060&p=2
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693060&p=3
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28693060&p=4
|
| etc. (Sorry for the annoyance - comments like this will
| eventually go away.)
| b0tzzzzzzman wrote:
| An hour ago this was in the top 5 of hot. Had undern20 comments.
|
| Now it's 77 and nearly 250 comments.
|
| What is going on with HN moderation?
| literallyaduck wrote:
| First they came for the Republicans, and I did not speak out--
| Because I was not a Republican.
|
| Then they came for the antivaxers, and I did not speak out--
| Because I was not an antivaxer.
|
| Then they came for the antimaskers, and I did not speak out--
| Because I was not an antimasker.
|
| Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.
|
| -- adapted from Martin Niemoller
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| To be clear, you're satirizing content moderation by comparing
| it to concentration camps.
| tacobelllover99 wrote:
| Who said anything about concentration camps?
| [deleted]
| jf22 wrote:
| Relax. This isn't Germany in the 1930s.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| YouTube frontpage promoted and is still promoting crypto scams. A
| family member lost $4000 to it, and they are still ongoing, and
| YouTube is too overwhelmed to pull them.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| Good thing they told us yesterday that 'free speech is a 'core
| value''
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/youtube-google-russia-putin-...
|
| Well, not _that_ kind of speech, of course!
| roenxi wrote:
| > Misinformation researchers have for years said the popularity
| of anti-vaccine content on YouTube was contributing to growing
| skepticism of lifesaving vaccines in the United States and around
| the world. Vaccination rates have slowed and about 56 percent of
| the U.S. population has had two shots...
|
| I assume 20% of the US population can't take the vaccine or
| something, maybe because they are kids. That suggests YouTube is
| coming out as a political opponent of ~25% of their customer
| base. This is an unwise course of action.
|
| Also, the _mandate_ part of vaccine mandate is legitimately
| scary. It is reasonable not to trust a big pharma-big government
| alliance actively controlling our medical life with no ability of
| the patient to opt out. It is easy to see this ending badly, US
| healthcare is not known for being full of angelic, selfless and
| friendly actors. These opinions should be aired.
| jjice wrote:
| > I assume 20% of the US population can't take the vaccine or
| something, because they are kids. That suggests YouTube is
| coming out as a political opponent of ~25% of their customer
| base. This is an unwise course of action.
|
| Are you counting those children as political opponents? I don't
| think they have a political interest because they can't get it
| due to regulation yet, and they're also children.
| roenxi wrote:
| 55% vacced + 20% kids + 25% likely politically opposed ~=
| 100%.
|
| Plus some will have gotten the vaccine despite political
| opposition to the mandates. Being vaccinated is a good idea
| in a pandemic.
| jjice wrote:
| Ah, thank you for clarification.
| mc32 wrote:
| I think poster is discounting children altogether as they are
| outside the scope therefore you're left with an actual 25%.
| notacoward wrote:
| If you discount the kids entirely then you get 25/80.
| There's a _lot_ of funny math going on in this sub-thread.
| swayvil wrote:
| Given that youtube looks, walks and quacks precisely like the
| classic "public forum where free speech is valued" that we all
| know and love, this move is clearly a massive act of deceit.
| jl6 wrote:
| You'd think they might try a softer approach first like slapping
| a strongly-worded warning on the video.
|
| "This video contains incorrect information and should be watched
| for entertainment purposes only."
| amznbyebyebye wrote:
| As the moderate and wholesome voices get drowned out by the push
| of "the algorithm" towards engaging (read: polarizing) content,
| YouTube will sadly become like Facebook for me- obsolete and
| deleted. Once I'm convinced that your product is unhealthy,
| especially in this time, I'm out, and I won't be back.
|
| Sex, hate, anger, violence, political extremism- so over it.
|
| How about a tech platform that actually does good for once?
|
| What alcoholism and obesity were to the precious generation, we
| are on a fast track to a mental health crisis of epic proportion
| if something isn't done. I don't know how people work at places
| like fb/ig/yt in good conscience.
| gorwell wrote:
| "All censorships exist to prevent anyone from challenging current
| conceptions and existing institutions. All progress is initiated
| by challenging current conceptions, and executed by supplanting
| existing institutions." George Bernard Shaw
|
| "Freedom of expression is the matrix, the indispensable
| condition, of nearly every other form of freedom." U.S. Supreme
| Court Justice Benjamin N. Cardozo in Palko v. Connecticut
|
| "If you believe that the arguments against slavery in their time
| and against Jim Crow laws more recently could only have been
| expressed when people had the freedom to voice unpopular
| opinions, then you can't now say that free speech is inherently
| dangerous." Stephen Pinker
|
| "Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was
| Stalin. If you're really in favor of free speech, then you're in
| favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise.
| Otherwise, you're not in favor of free speech." Noam Chomsky
|
| "To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the right
| of the hearer as well as those of the speaker. It is just as
| criminal to rob a man of his right to speak and hear as it would
| be to rob him of his money." Frederick Douglass
| beebmam wrote:
| YouTube isn't the government
| [deleted]
| Thuggery wrote:
| In the time when the 1st amendment was written (which is not
| a holy document that decides all morality. Nor is the U.S.
| the center of the universe) corporations as we understand
| them did not really exist. The people that were concerned
| about free speech could only conceive a hostile government of
| King George could really suppress them and the people willing
| to hear their dissident ideas. They were rich local gentlemen
| that had public squares and private meeting rooms. It did not
| occur to them that they could be silenced by the local
| placard maker forming a cabal that would deny any attempt to
| express themselves.
|
| Times have changed and the public square is dead.
| asdff wrote:
| The public square is alive. There are people in my downtown
| right now with megaphones uttering their own flavor of
| insanity. You also have more reach than ever before in
| human history thanks to the fact that anyone can pay a few
| bucks a month and set up their own website with their own
| rules.
|
| And the right to free speech has nothing to do with you
| getting your ideas heard. It's everything to do with what
| you can and can't be prosecuted for, and therefore is
| irrelevant when we are talking about something like youtube
| which can't prosecute you in the first place. Even back
| then the law could have said something like everyone has a
| right to get their essay published in the newspaper, but it
| didn't, because you can imagine how that would quickly get
| ridiculous, and ultimately just like youtube newspapers
| were private entities, only they had even more influence
| and reach than youtube since everyone read them and took
| them seriously as the paper of record.
| gorwell wrote:
| In our internet age, the freedom of speech that truly matters
| is ALL digital.
|
| The US has no Public ISP, nor Public Speech Platform
| equivalent of Twitter, Google, Facebook, etc.
| beebmam wrote:
| That's correct. The US government should have equivalents
| of Twitter, Google, Facebook and so on, though. And then
| speech on those platforms would be protected by the 1st
| amendment, including spam, pornography, and so on.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| What's your point?
|
| The concept of free speech is 2400 years old. Don't be one of
| those people that conflates that concept with the American
| first amendment which _only_ blocks _government_ censorship
| and is barely 200 years old.
|
| Private companies, groups, and people _can and do_ infringe
| on everyone 's right to free speech.
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| Youtube can do whatever it wants, but by taking this political
| stance, it creates a precedent that other actors will use to ask
| it to censor other political content.
|
| I'm not anti-vax, I've had dozen of vaccines including covid, but
| I still think anti-vaxers should be able to express themself. Who
| knows, one day I may realize some doubts were justified.
| gootler wrote:
| Why don't they let you sue the drug companies? Why sign away your
| rights when you get the jab?
| lmilcin wrote:
| "Freedom of speech is a principle that supports the freedom of an
| individual or a community to articulate their opinions and ideas
| without fear of retaliation, censorship, or legal sanction. The
| right to freedom of expression has been recognized as a human
| right in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and
| international human rights law by the United Nations."
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech
|
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/principle
|
| It is hard to sympathize with people who sow disinformation that
| costs people lives.
|
| But it is also hard to watch principles being ignored for
| immediate benefit.
|
| Principles are tested not when it is convenient for you to follow
| them.
|
| What I think is needed is people spending more time to figure out
| how it is possible to reconcile fight against misinformation with
| preserving basic human right which is ability to express your
| opinion.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...
|
| "In the United States, some categories of speech are not
| protected by the First Amendment. According to the Supreme Court
| of the United States, the U.S. Constitution protects free speech
| while allowing limitations on certain categories of speech.[1]
|
| (...)
|
| Categories of speech that are given lesser or no protection by
| the First Amendment (and therefore may be restricted) include
| obscenity, fraud, child pornography, speech integral to illegal
| conduct, speech that incites imminent lawless action, speech that
| violates intellectual property law, true threats, and commercial
| speech such as advertising. Defamation that causes harm to
| reputation is a tort and also an exception to free speech."
|
| So in short. There are existing laws that can be used to decide
| what is and what is not protected by freedom of speech.
|
| These laws should in my opinion be applied by judicial system,
| not invented on the spot by corporations.
|
| People should understand they are responsible for what they say
| online just as if they used other methods of communication.
|
| And if the exceptions to free speech are incorrect or incomplete,
| we should demand that the law is corrected in a democratic
| process rather than having companies act on their own.
| elliekelly wrote:
| What about YouTube's right to freedom of expression?
| josephcsible wrote:
| I wish freedom of expression were GPL-style freedom instead
| of MIT-style freedom, e.g., "You're free to express whatever
| opinions you want. You may not keep others from expressing
| whatever opinions they want."
| lmilcin wrote:
| YouTube is a company. Freedom of speech only applies to
| individuals and communities of individuals.
|
| EDIT:
|
| elliekelly, I can't answer because I am being rate limited
| and can't write new comments on HN.
|
| You have surprised me, but it is sadly true:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizens_United_v._FEC
| elliekelly wrote:
| One would think. But corporations are people and have first
| amendment rights thanks to _Citizens United_.
| [deleted]
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| > _But it is also hard to watch principles being ignored for
| immediate benefit._
|
| This won't even provide any "benefit" in terms of increased
| vaccination rates, but that's not the real purpose anyway. What
| they're really doing is carving up large chunks of people into
| information silos and trying to _reduce_ the amount of
| communication happening between them.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| How so?
|
| If one were charitable to this action, you'd say they're
| blowing up a silo full of rat poison and disallowing people
| from adding poison back in.
|
| The balance between "free speech" in the moral, not legal,
| sense and disinformation is going to be just like "security
| v. privacy" has been, but perhaps even harder to draw lines
| for.
|
| If you accept as a premise that most anti-vax sentiment is
| driven by charlatan media outlets and influencers (and
| probably nation-state adversaries), and that much of what is
| repeated by laypeople is an echo of this intentional drivel,
| and that this drivel is immediately costing not only their
| own lives, but the lives of others, what do you do? It's
| literally a disease.
|
| Which the Chinese would say about "people talking about
| democracy". So there it is: Where, if at all, do we in a
| "free society" draw the line where harmful disinformation
| campaigns get cut out?
|
| I argued several years back that the "app layer" of the
| internet should have more freedom of control over their
| content, but that the "infrastructure" layer should be
| expected to be more neutral. In other words, if an anti-vax
| website or social network got hosted on AWS, it would be a
| different thing for AWS or a registrar to kick them out.
| AndrewBissell wrote:
| Well I reject your premise, but on a more fundamental level
| I simply do not believe (on the basis of overwhelming
| evidence) that the gargantuan tech monopolies and the
| people pulling their strings care at all about the public
| health, disease prevention, or human life, so I am left
| looking for other motives.
|
| During the debate over Covid vaccines a common refrain has
| been "any safety issues have always shown up within a few
| months of administration." This is straight up
| misinformation: the Pandemix vaccine is a very high profile
| counterexample where symptoms first appeared about a year
| after the first shots were given, and it took another year
| after that for authorities to acknowledge the link. I only
| know about this because I occasionally peruse sources which
| would probably be labeled as "anti-vax," whereas the people
| repeating the false claim ad nauseam have often picked it
| up from sources which would be considered "authoritative,"
| including public health authorities. But especially on this
| issue we have to pretend that there is one "side" which has
| a monopoly on accurate information.
|
| I wonder how much longer YouTube will even allow you to
| point out that the manufacturers of the completely-safe-
| beyond-any-doubt-whatsoever Covid vaccines have been
| blanket exempted from liability for any injuries caused by
| their products.
| hestefisk wrote:
| Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom to lie and hurt public
| health efforts.
| fallingknife wrote:
| No it absolutely does. This has been ruled on by the courts a
| million times.
| [deleted]
| gwbas1c wrote:
| > What I think is needed is people spending more time to figure
| out how it is possible to reconcile fight against
| misinformation with preserving basic human right which is
| ability to express your opinion.
|
| Simple: The right to free speech doesn't mean people have to
| listen, or guarantee access to a publisher. You can self-
| publish all you want.
| lmilcin wrote:
| This is false argument.
|
| Ability to work with companies is no longer an option if you
| want any message through.
|
| If you can't post on any social media you are as good as
| being completely censored.
| avianlyric wrote:
| > Ability to work with companies is no longer an option if
| you want any message through.
|
| It never has been. Publishers refusing to publish speech
| isn't a new phenomenon. Newspapers, radio and TV stations
| have been doing it since their inceptions.
|
| What do you think an "editor" does?
|
| > If you can't post on any social media you are as good as
| being completely censored.
|
| That's hardly true either. You can run your own websites,
| mailing lists, or just send stuff in the post. There are
| plenty of people that don't use social media, I doubt they
| feel censored.
| Mary-Jane wrote:
| Thought experiment: how would you feel if YouTube banned all
| pro-trans content? ...or pro-choice, or anti-Isreal/Jewish
| material?
|
| It doesn't matter to me if you're against companies censoring
| any of these things. Be aware that it means you're fine with
| authoritarianism, so long as it aligns with your politics...
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-09-29 23:01 UTC)