A federal judge yesterday ordered the Biden administration to halt a wide range of communications with social media companies, siding with Missouri and Louisiana in a lawsuit that alleges Biden and his administration violated the First Amendment by colluding with social networks “to suppress disfavored speakers, viewpoints, and content.”
But if the government can pressure platforms to remove provably false information that is actively killing people, it will have a chilling effect on my constitutional freedom to lie to people. Won’t somebody please think of the grifters and anti-sciencers?
In a land where “lies” are suppressed, he who claims to know the truth is king. The sentiment of suppressing lies is perhaps rightous, but who determines the truth? It damn well wasn’t scientists during the pandemic.
Edit: hell, even Zuck himself said he was told to censor true information.
If you actually listened to scientists during the pandemic, or read papers - you would you know that the main theme was “there is lots of stuff we don’t know, or are unsure about”. Given that, however - there needed to be public health guidance based on the best evidence and probablitlities at the time.
On the other side, there were people spouting, unsourced, unsupported, nonsensical bullshit that would directly contribute to people killing themselves.
They were literally just making up arbitrary rules that had nothing to do with science, and saying it WAS based on science. Meanwhile the then director of the CDC said we should investigate if the virus came from a lab as well as if it had a natural origin, and was forcibly sidelined as a result. Don’t even try to say they were following the science.
Edit: Also, if you’re not even sure what the truth is, what gives you the right to silence people that have a different opinion? It makes no sense. Where is the authority to silence coming from?
Give me a solid example of the “they” in this case, the rule in question and the date that that the rule was imposed.
Are you talking about Rochelle Walensky? If so, there are many possible reasons why she decided to resign, but I can’t find a single source saying it was because she said there should be an investigation into Covid’s source.
Edit: Ah, you are talking about Robert R. Redfield. So from what I can tell, his downfall was that he wasn’t being scientific - he stated that the he thought it most likely that it was a lab-leak, and that certainly didn’t win him any friends because the assertions he made weren’t well supported. But was he “forced to resign because of that” - looking at the coverage from back then, he was under fire for multiple reasons, not just that. I don’t think we can say that was the sole or even main reason for his departure.
Because the process of science (especially in fast-moving situations) is all about producing increasingly accurate pictures of the truth. Scientists are highly resistant to characterising something as the truth - there often more to explore. You can absolutely have scientists with different opinions - but they will be looking at evidence, not just making stuff up.
You ask
The silencing isn’t being done by scientists, its being done by public health officials and that is somewhat different,. Public health officials take the best evidence as presented by scientific consensus and have to create messaging designed to minimise the number of deaths and maximise wellbeing. If the scientific consensus is that vaccination is safe and effective - that messaging will save millions of lives. Some Russian bot factory amplying a ludicrous idea like “the vaccines will alter your DNA or make you infertile” is specifically designed to kill people.
I wholeheartedly disagree, and that’s okay. What I think we CAN agree on is that leading experts (like the director of the CDC) shouldn’t be silenced for suggesting we investigate the possibility of a lab leak, which is actually what happened.
Edit: Here’s the example you asked for:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/graisondangor/2021/09/19/cdcs-six-foot-social-distancing-rule-was-arbitrary-says-former-fda-commissioner/
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To say, as in to state as fact, yes.
To question, no.
There’s a wide gap between “covid originated in a lab” and “covid could have originated in a lab”.
Yet the then director of the CDC was forcibly sidelined simply for asking that they investigate. Interesting take.
Source?
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64891745
Is that your source for “Forced to resign”?
That article is based on a panel where evidence was presented, you can simply just watch the panel yourself, although it’s pretty long.
Can you at least let us know the time stamp of where they force him to resign?
Who gives a shit, frankly. The first amendment is the first amendment, science or anti-science or anything in between. Whether or not I agree with anything in your comment.
Do you extend the same to lies or threats? If I claimed your computer is full of CP would you still support me?
I personally think this is a brain-dead approach akin to the many “zero tolerance” laws that only exist to remove thought from the equation. “Yes Billy, you may not have actually thrown any punches but we’re suspending you from school for getting beat up by that bully because you were a participant in the fight.”
It’s brain dead to respect the law? Are you drawing a line between what I said and some idea of unlimited free speech? If so, that’s not my stance.
Edit: also half the things you said would be illegal, so no I wouldn’t support you
Saying those things before having any data to back them up was indeed anti-science.
But somehow the government and corporations doing so is okay?
That was the data we had at the time, yes. New data can mean new stances, and that’s okay. But notice the order of operations there; new data, then new stance. Not the other way around.
They had data showing otherwise. They were silenced. I’ll keep bringing this up, but the director of the CDC at the time said there was significant evidence to investigate the lab leak theory, but was forcibly sidelined. They seem to have gotten your model backwards. This wasn’t the only time it happened, but people will keep crying “sources” since they know it’s now difficult to find information that was removed from journal sites, etc.
Uh, sources? Specifically about the forced resignation.
Oh, that’s the easiest one.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64891745
You didn’t read that article, did you? It doesn’t support your stance.
You couldn’t know they didn’t have data if they didn’t have the ability to present it. Once censored, it’s impossible to tell what media is, that’s the point of censorship.
You can’t know if what was censored was false information, if you don’t have the data on what was said.
Questioning is the heart and soul of science. Doubting included.
To censor doubt is a demand for agreement, and an intimidation of dissent.
There was a time I would believe you whole heartedly.
I despise book bans.
I see people try to censor other people’s very existence.
I hate China’s authoritarian laws.
I wish to strive to allow as much free speech and liberty reasonably possible.
Then COVID happened. Misinformation, narrative pushing, and just plain lying. My grandma died from the virus in a hospital not consistently wearing masks or even checking for it in the first place. A hospital wear fox news plays abound and nurses proudly talk about their “knowing” of what actually is happening.
I have to ask myself, is this worth it?
I don’t think so. A line must be drawn somewhere.
This is bullshit. They were calling certain things misinformation before they themselves knew. What gives them authority to do this and who actually decides what is true? At the time many scientists, including the CDC director (who was forcibly sidelined after sharing his position), were saying we should investigate the lab leak theory, and they were all silenced as a result. Scientists were saying that they wouldn’t have suggested quarantine (including the UKs top health advisor) as the understaffed medical/health facilities would cause more death than quarantines would save, they were saying that masks had little to no impact on CORONA viruses in the past and peer-reviewed articles suggesting this were literally removed from websites; the list goes on. Meanwhile the MSM was literally spreading misinformation like the Ivermectin story or the vaccine stopping spread story. You really have to trust someone quite a bit to just go along with this while all your freedoms are diminishing.
That’s a whole lot of claims with little to no sources backing them up.
Which ones specifically? These are all fairly well known at this point. Let me ask, if I provide them, do you think it would influence you in any way?
All of them. If it’s the truth I will see it.
But be warned. No tabloid or backwater new articles. Actual studies and statements.
People posting pro horse-medicine posts on social media aren’t ever going to be doing anything close to “science”.
And this romantic concept of “questioning is the heart and soul of science” is just a banal platitude. Rigorous testing and record keeping is the heart and soul of science. Latching on to conspiracy theories is not even tangentially related to science.
You’ve got to do your homework. This has already been proven to be a false narrative set up by MSNBC and CNN (and their subsidiaries). You’re behind. Ivermectin has been prescribed to humans for decades.
I find that it is often the case that people who say “do your homework/research” (wrt science/news) were the very same students who wouldn’t do their homework.
You suspiciously left out all the context of the discussion. I can only imagine why you’d do this. Haha
Horse dewormer was mentioned because that’s what the maga cultists were using, because (sane) doctors wouldn’t prescribe it to humans for a coronavirus.
You agree that Ivermectin isn’t for coronavirus, right? Right?
There has been little to no research allowed that might prove otherwise, but some countries (that were denied access to the vaccine for profit reasons) seemed to have great success using it. That being said, calling it a horse dewormer within context is literally just lying. I’m actually giving them a chance when I leave out said context.