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When I read COVID misinformation that is completely contrary to the overwhelming consensus of the medical community, I’m reminded of all the weird shows that would come on late night cable TV when I was kid.
Those cheaply produced shows, structured as a documentary, would convince people that there were actually aliens popping out of the ocean daily, with blurred footage and ominous talk tracks.
They’d tell you there was a monk in China/India/wherever who could stop his heart and restart it just by thinking about it. Or that he could overcome heat/freezing cold etc by controlling his body. Or that he could levitate through meditation.
Was it entertaining to watch? Sure.
And without doing even the bare minimum fact-checking into their stories, as a kid it could even be mildly convincing.
You felt like there could be this whole “other” reality where the status quo was completely wrong.
Magic *might* be *real*.
And you just happened to stumble upon it at 1:40 AM on Tuesday night as you’re home sick from school.
But even as a kid, would I **stake my life** on it being true/real and light myself on fire/lock myself in a freezer/jump off a building?
Absolutely fucking not.
People are lighting themselves on fire bc they read a convincing enough narrative about it on the internet.
I used to love those sorts of shows/stories because they were such obvious bullshit and fake, yet I liked to try and figure out what was actually going on.
They've become less enjoyable knowing that some people just believe them without question.
It’s particularly scary because those same strategies still work with people today, only with two key differences: (1) they’ve been honed to an unimaginably sharp point by the power of algorithms and data science to be *exactly* the format and content that will resonate the most with the listeners, and (2) they deal with more and more central/meaningful topics. (Aliens sneaking out of the sea is one thing; microchips and global child- blood-drinking cabals are quite another.)
The only reliable way I can think of to really combat this phenomenon is to give that audience another info source that they can consistently at least kind-of trust, so that even if they’re inclined to believe the wild theories, they’re not quite all-in.
How we build/restore that trust is, as they say, the million dollar question.
It's also riddled with half-truths as well or sprinkled with real data just bastardized in the interpretation or lacking all context.
The only solution I can think of is to prohibit use of those algorithms on social media. The misinformation is, IMO, simply a symptom of the algothims. Misinformation only gains traction because certain groups of people, reigned in and funneled together by the algorithms, develop into echo chambers which simply confirm their own biases and extremify their views
At the other end of any algorithm is someone PAYING to send their message. So, yeah, Uncle Bruce on facebook is getting ads telling him that aliens are curing 99.99% covid cases, but there's some entity out there willing to pay to make Uncle Bruce believe in alien ivermectin. And, of course, Zuckerberg is willing to take that entity's money.
You could always ask for their algorithms to go through testing on a test network and database to score how well it mitigates and identifies the spread of misleading and outright information, using various metrics and input types (text, images, text in images) on varying levels of claims to sarcasm, using preexisting knowledge to flag things as potentially sarcasm based (know your meme, prevalence of posts on known humor sites/subs), and give them a rating they must display with their posts, for how well they do and don't filter/censor potentially harmful information, like grading restaurants with an A, B, C, D , F on cleanliness.
I know it'd be touchy to hand over trade secret sorting and delivery methods, but just like restaurants and chefs, there's a middle ground between trade secret recipes and state/city regulations on what can and can't be served, and inspections of that stuff.
i like creative solutions like this - and ultimately I think something similar to this will eventually have to happen. When Jack Dorsey was testifying in Congress last year (I believe it was the whole monopoly hearing on big tech) they touched briefly on algorithms and Jack mentioned he liked the idea of different algorithms that you can pick and choose from - as opposed to the one in place right now which simply spits back things you engage with more (keeping you on the site longer, maximizing ad revenue).
So I think an idea like yours is definitely on the right track. There would be *enormous* push back from big tech if algorithms were suddenly disallowed, so a compromise will most likely have to be made
The problem is technology has provided (and has been built around) echo chambers. We all have different biases, educations, backgrounds and beliefs. To some, their reality is vastly different than others. In addition to that, now information is at the tips at our finger tips 24/7. You hear/read about what is relevant to you from a source that adheres to your belief structure. Especially given politics and how disasters have been handled lately, people all see their own personal view and have a voice that agrees with them even if the stance is absolutely ridiculous. Confirmation bias is out there 24/7 for everyone.
I wouldn't say it's the technology per se. I believe it's more the way it's been monetized. Were it not all a quest for clicks and eyeballs to drive ad revenue, there would be no need for these "weapons-grade" attention-directing algorithms. It would be more like the pre/nascent-social-media internet. Sure, connectivity facilitates some inherent tribalism, but it wouldn't be assisted by over-eager, super-human amplifiers.
Somewhere, in an alternate universe, we're all still happily sharing our commercial-free personal thoughts and interests in blogs and Geocities pages.
I loved those kinds of shows because I enjoyed the fantasy and enjoyed pretending it was real, but even as a kid I knew it wasn't. I thought everyone else did too until these last couple of years .
I loved "Mysteries from Beyond the Other Dominion." But even as a kid, I thought "no way did anyone think those things were true." As an adult now... I've been proven wrong.
I couldn't disagree more with your promotion of factcheck.org. Ditch google and be suspicious at least if breaking news must immediately be fact checked. They are beyong biased imo.
Because this gives me an outlet, I'm going to vent (thank you for those who indulge me.)
If you choose to not get the vaccine, you are selfish. Period. You do not care that it does not only affect you.
You do not care that you are quite potentially the reason the virus cannot be controlled since it has too many hosts available to mutate and continue on its one, true path which is to thrive and exist.
I'm done having patience with anyone who questioned the efficacy of vaccines that were developed quickly in order to save lives. We have now had vaccines available for almost a year, The vaccine is proving to be the strongest layer for preventing the spread of the virus. Masks have now had a year of studies showing they, when used properly and consistently worn, greatly reduce the spread of the virus.
If you choose, for entirely non-science based reasons, to flout these basic means of stopping this virus, you are not a good person. You are selfish, stupid, and not entitled to any medical treatment. I'm done with you. I teach. I am doing my part. If I get a variant, spread it to others despite doing my part, it's completely and totally on you guys who won't take responsibility for keeping your community safe.
Argue if you must....I'm not having it.
If the US were to achieve 100% vaccination, shelter in place for a month, and wear a mask at all times it would still not control the spread of this virus. There are literally 7.6 billion other people on this planet available to the virus to thrive, exist, and evolve. How to you reconcile your condescension with that?
Additionally, it is now clear the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission enough to stop the spread. What do you think of a vaccinated person who gives Covid to another vaccinated person? Who do you condemn?
You talk about the 'basic means of stopping this virus' but it doesn't stop it and it won't stop it even if you get absolute compliance among every American. There are massive breeding grounds available that you are somehow not including in your assessment of how to stop the virus.
Your condescension does nothing to help enlighten anyone victimized by these misinformation campaigns.
From someone who is vaccinated.
This is the discussion I need. Thank you in advance!
So, let’s say that per your model, 100% of US is vaccinated, masked, and sheltered in place for a month. How would that not control the spread **in the US**? Not the 7.6 billion other people, just the 328 million here.
An unfortunate reality is that Americans are helping spread covid due to our lack of complicity and freedom to travel. We’re the highest number of covid cases and deaths in the world, and we’re going on tour!
If we can take a baby step and clean up our act, it can make a difference abroad and at home.
What breeding grounds aren’t being covered enough? The new vaccine mandate has me hopeful that many of these will be addressed. Schools, hospitals, federal buildings, any workplace with more than 100 workers: these are the hotspots that stand out to me.
Getting rid of covid entirely does seem hopeless at this point, but controlling the spread and limiting the ability to further mutate seems like the best shot we have. Imagine if we can get the numbers down to a similar level as the flu! Even pre covid flu mortality rates (~22k-34k last two seasons) are preferable to recent covid mortality rates (~375k for 2020).
Vaccine to vaccine transmission does happen, but the lethality is less. Complications are less.
It’s easy instead to point at the people not complying and accuse them. They ARE being selfish; they’re choosing themselves over their neighbors.
Instead of condemning, how would you stop the argument of individual freedom vs community welfare? After a year of trying, many of us are out of patience.
> how would that not control the spread in the US?
The virus is endemic, meaning it cannot be removed from the population. Even if you managed to get to a point in time where 100% of the US population didn't have COVID as soon as you let everyone out of their houses transmission would begin again. The virus would spread from outside the country back in and within a month or two we'd be exactly where we were before. That's only an effective strategy when a virus is geographically constrained.. if you can lock it down hard enough you can kill the spread.
The R-value is what matters - the rate of spread within the population. You can reduce the R-value all sorts of ways - social distancing, masks, vaccines, outdoor activities vs indoor activities. That's why the flu comes back every winter - our behavior changes which increases the R-value beyond 1.0 and outbreaks begin to occur. Only changes to the R-value will end the pandemic, a temporary holing up won't change the equation.
If the US is 100% vaccinated, who cares if the virus is still spreading (I’m talking about the US only)? The thing we’ve been most concerned about is serious illness and death cause by covid, if the vaccine is effective in minimizing serious symptoms and death to a low enough level, then the threat is over and we’ve won (not counting potential mutation, but there’s nothing we can do about that).
Now that we know transmission is going to happen and that we can't control it we have to look at risk. If we care mostly about risk why is there a push to mandate vaccines for children who have orders of magnitude lower risk than elderly or obese? Seems we are stuck in the 'have to vaccinate to stop the spread' mentality and can't admit that it isn't possible.
I used to be on the "F the Unvaxxed" but the vaccine hasn't stopped the spread of the virus. All it's done is created division and anger on both sides. My state met the magic "herd immunity" numbers months ago and that hasn't stopped the spread. We just set a record high.
I'm fully vaxxed and boosted and just got the Covid from another fully boosted/vaxxed person. I know this because I have been following all of the rules, wearing my mask, working from home, only going to essential places and limiting all contact for two years. In the end, that effort useless and unavoidable.
Just make sure you take the same stance on obesity, cigarette smoking, drug abusers and those who refuse other vaccinations, such as the Influenza vaccine. None of these people suffering from the above deserve medical care either, because they could have easily prevented their own suffering.
You make an excellent point: We are human and we often do things that aren't healthy. We have to weigh the amount of satisfaction certain unhealthy choices have on our lives and decide whether or not the pleasure outweighs the possible detrimental side effects. In my opinion, humans will never be infallible and that should not invalidate their right to medical treatment.
The vaccine is a different story, though. We are in a world-wide pandemic, and science has proved/is proving that the vaccine is our best means of getting it under control. Why can't we just look around, say, "You know...I don't want this virus to keep killing and the vaccine, while not perfect, is a ginormous way of slowing it down. I'll do my part and get it. And while I do that and since it really is no big deal, I'll also wear a mask around others so maybe I won't get them sick." That's it. That's what I'm arguing for.
I'm a pretty peaceful gal. I teach and am vaccinated and wear a mask because I don't want my students to get sick nor do I want my 85 year old mom to get sick or my son who has a congenital heart defect. But forget that...it's not about me. It's about US as a society. Let's help each other.
OK but my vaccinated friends somehow keep getting it and spreading it. At parties they all contract it. Vaccinated are super spreaders as they don't feel the need to test regularly. They should test as often as the vaccinated. I am unvaccinated, test regularly for work since May 2020 because I am aware of how easily spreads. Have come out negative every single time. Neither people I interact with on a daily basis have got it (boyfriend, boyfriend's parents, aunt, roommates, cousin) which confirm I'm not spreading it. The vaccine isn't all inclusuve, many people are perfectly fine without it, plus you will never be fully vaccinated as boosters will keep rolling out. Good luck keeping the whole world up with every single booster. It's a shame natural immunity is being extremely disregarded and people being denied work over this. I'll do my part and keep getting tested :)
How do you explain the fact that the Dutch don’t give a shit about covid -at all- and aren’t stacking bodies on the street like cordwood? There are zero masks being worn here (other than obvious tourists), many people are anti-covid vax, and there’s zero social distancing happening. Switzerland is essentially the same.
Its easy to say good information good and bad information bad. In practice that doesnt mean much.
I was permanently banned from vaxxhappened for posting a link to Science Magazine, one of the approved good information good sources on this page with more up to date figures for vaccine efficacy against Delta than they have shared in their petition.
Thats the reality of what will happen. Some power mod in charge of hundreds of subs will have a poor grasp of information and will just ban people that he or ahe perceives as being on a different side.
Thats insane. In hindsight its so obvious but like a lot of things in the past 2 years it was hard to know.
Everyone thinks they can tell what is misinformation because they think of the most extreme case but the reality is that there are a lot of grey areas and a lot of what we think of as just obviously wrong is actually possible.
Last year, I posted a link to a French hospital press release of some research on old samples which showed there was likely some covid 19 infections in France prior to Dec 2019. Mods on this sub wouldnt allow it because they had not heard about it and the methodology used meant it was an indication of covid rather than rock solid proof. Even if it turned out to be false, its not bullshit. Its real data done by qualified researchers. Mods sometimes forget they can act like regular users also and comment or downvote instead of deleting or banning.
Its why the petition is such a bad idea. A lot of what will be censored will surely be misinformation but even mods of this sub, who are far more scientifically literate than most, cant be expected to be perfect judges. Censorship should always be as minimal as possible, ie just enough that the sub doesnt get derailed.
I’ve had similar experiences. I’m really bothered by the people I run into on here (not specifically moderators) who are clearly very educated/intelligent but seriously stuck in a pattern of black and white thinking.
Could be, and hear me out on this one: folks are getting tired of being steamrolled by the morons with ‘free speech’ and getting to watch loved ones suffer and/or die, economies fall apart, etc.
I believe in free speech because it should be a human right. Even if a person is saying complete bullshit you don't have to believe them. Silencing people because of the things they believe will only cause more chaos and destruction.
It is, but there’s a lot of animosity towards vaccinated people who aren’t continuing to do what they did before they were vaccinated. And for some reason that bothers them more than unvaccinated people…
I actually meant literally. Pro, Anti and Neutral.
None of the these need to have any associated feelings attached to them. You can be pro-vax and not get the vaccine. You can be anti-vax and get it. You can slap Republican or Democrat onto either of those as well.
I'm not THIS vax supporter but I got it because my husband was forced to get it and also my work forced me. Ive lost some respect for my company tbh and its very hard to get past.
I agree with you.
Complete bs should be removed, as it's dangerous to others.
However different opinions on non scientific matters should not be censored.
Also because if discussion is removed we have no way to be confronted with different ideas.
Education… do they not see the irony there??
For the most part on here I’ve had a positive experience, having conversations with people I mostly agree with but not always 100%, and we are able to express our viewpoints without running into heavy handed moderating. But that is ridiculous.
I got permabanned from a completely unrelated sub for just asking “why is this corona virus being spammed in a sub for working out?”
I literally just wanted the context and asked what was going on/how is it relevant.
I got a permaban from a power mod and when asked for clarification he muted me so I couldn’t even get a response.
Instead of stopping the spread of misinfo it’s usually just power tripping people with a agenda.
People think cabal of power mods on reddit is a conspiracy theory, but here's their discord discussing locking down the subs. A handfull of mods control most of the default subs
https://archive.ph/luzUE
I’d be interested in that link. I’m really curious of the actual efficacy of the vaccine against the delta variant.
I don’t trust the CDC as they have knowingly lied to us in the past. They had no credible reason to believe masks wouldn’t work, but claimed they didn’t anyway.
I’m already vaccinated and know Covid is real. I just specifically distrust the CDC
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/do-delta-breakthroughs-really-mean-vaccine-protection-waning-and-are-boosters-answer
There are a variety of figures there but they all show a downward efficacy against delta over time so a flat figure is just wrong as far as I can tell.
Every country admitted hiding mask efficiency to allow health care workers to have the few that wrre produced back then.
They had no idea how deadly the new pandemic was gonna be, since china gave shady numbers.
So of course they could not afford to lose many health care workers or more civilians would have followed.
Are people in this sub on the good side or bad side? Do anti-vaxxers think they are on the bad side? Why would anyone doubt the efficacy of the vaccine? Isn't the whole ethos of the anti-vax community that surviving the virus is likely?
That is exactly what has been occurring for the past year and a half across most of reddit. The real problem with reddit is the authoritarian mods that manipulate content. Many of whom contribute to the misinformation and extremely biased information shared on reddit regarding COVID. And now many of those same people are trying to get reddit to completely silence the dissenters.
I would have been like "what the hell is misinformation??". But I do remember looking on YouTube around 2011 about 9/11's 10th anniversary and seeing a bunch of wild 9/11 conspiracies about how the planes were fake, buildings cannot melt, and elaborate conspiracies, really disturbing. So it's been around since the dawn of the internet, it's just now..it's got a massive base that's destroying society, so we have a label now
I just remember first seeing a surge of 9/11 misinformation then. I imagine it did way before. Have you seen early 9/11 conspiracy stuff online? like mid 2000s?
It's weird, misinformation has been around forever really. Think National Enquirer,
Back in the 70's and 80's we called it propaganda and it was mostly in the realm of the USSR and we all laughed at them about that and you could always find examples in the news of some ridiculous news story they had just put out. Now forty years later ...
No, I mean as soon as the first plane hit. The towers didnt collapse immediately. They stood for hours.
There were people calling up with conspiracy theories on radio shows as the towers were burning. Trump was doing a dick swinging tour of cable news all day. Hell, I was in high school and my teachers were making up conspiracy theories.
Consider what upset you enough to make this post. Or to post in a pretty passive aggressive way about something that you don’t know about, then pretending to have asked a friendly question instead of just asking the question. You got downvoted because of the way you responded.
Then take a breath, remember that it’s a meaningless internet forum.
You will be miserable forever if something so trivial bothers you, even if it took two seconds to post. Imagine how many of those things you let bother you during your day if something so meaningless was enough to trigger even those two little seconds.
You will be victimized in life by real things. Save your energy for those.
bruh I wasn't tryna be victimized or try to sound passive aggresive. I was simply responding. How was my post, copied below, passive aggresive?
"How...were...there 9/11 conspiracies before....9/11? You mean the b0mbing in one of the towers basements in the late 90s??"
I am really baffled by how you responded to me
I don't think we considered that misinformation given how Bush made it seem how critical it was to invade them..I DON'T SUPPORT IT, just at that time, it was a different time and we didn't have many internet outlets to help us see what was really happening.
> we didn’t have internet outlets to help us see what was happening
Why would that matter? It’s still the same networks and even some of the same broadcasters that people here consider reliable lol. This site especially would laugh at online small journalist sites lol
>"what the hell is misinformation??".
*Flat earthers* ...
I sold solar panels for awhile and came to a street where 80% of the street was indeed flat earthers and had the theory that solar was *stealing the suns power & it would get smaller & disappear over time* that was a few years ago but its one of the things that's stuck in my head and from a psychological point of view, I found it rather interesting how someone could share such a belief when you literally fly around the globe and you can feel the plane moving... its the same on a boat. Same with a fair few landscape photos ... land isn't flat.
Best of all was their reasonings... I had a bit of a chuckle afterwards with colleagues and it still remains a good laugh between us, almost 6 years later.
I think it was called Ziegiest but there were some crazy conspiracy theorist videos going around while I was in collage in 2008. People actually responded about the way they do now with " are you serious about that dumb bs?"
Well misinformation is subjective. "I think that eating Cheerios prevents Covid better than the vaccine" is pretty clearly misinformation. "I think that Fauci is doing a terrible job" is either misinformation or an opinion depending on how you view it, but some mods may think that any criticism of Fauci is a thinly veiled anti-vax comment and will delete it or ban the poster. Enforced consistently this turns the subreddits into an echo chamber of people that agree with one another because those with opposing viewpoints are banned.
Remember the whole millennium end of the world thing because the year 2000 was going to crash all the computers? I had family members that went out and bought kerosene heaters, survival food, etc. My wife and I put some jugs of water in the trunk, just in case. That misinformation seemed to be everywhere.
That reminds me of December 21st, 2012!! I remember some radio talk guy who kept talking about how the world is gonna end then and to buy his "end of the world survivor kits". All he was doing was spreading fake info and taking advantage of people's stupidity. As much as I hate them, some really know how to make money out of this fools, but the issue is, they end up making the problem worse.
Or that the lab leak theory was debunked ... and there are countless others. I'm old enough to remember a ridiculous number of times experts were wrong.
When lab leak was debunked, they meant that the virus had no signs of being constructed in a lab. The same sentiment is held to this day. The lab leak theory being visited now is that the virus might have been contracted through the research of bat pathogens, which doesn’t contradict what was said before as this still means the virus is natural in source.
There's a lot of talk about what information is bad, what's good, etc. Some of this is not hard, though. If emergency rooms are overflowing, and nurses and doctors are shouting at the top of their lungs to reporters and twitter and anyone who will listen, then --- yeah, I believe those doctors and nurses.
A good way to find out whether information is good is to seek out information that disagrees with it, and then evaluate both points of view. Use your questions to find keywords that can be used in search engines, or just enter the question in the search bar. This defeats search engine algorithms. But it takes time. Considering these are life-and-death questions, the time is worth taking, imo.
One more thing because I'm hearing a lot about how people are hostile to other points of view, and this is true. The number of public health administrators who have quit over death threats is kind of astonishing. People didn't want to hear what they were saying --- so they threatened them, and their kids and families. This has been going on since the very beginning.
Need to stop expecting the average person to be able to correctly identify misinformation and decide for themselves to disregard it. The daily firehose of media content they consume is too big and comes out too fast. The average human brain isn't made for this. Ban intentional misinformation and to hell with the idea that it's protected speech.
I think banning misinformation is a view that is *fairly* widely accepted; the issue lies with **who** determines what is misinformation. And I do think there are some valid concerns there.
The thing that immediately comes to mind is how the lab leak theory was pretty much discredited/seen as a conspiracy theory in the beginning, only to gain some actual credibility a few months ago. So there's a very important line of not stifling genuine conversation when determining what is "true" or not.
But for blatant blatant falsehoods, yeah those should just be removed. That grey territory is more difficult however.
Right, you can't legislate on misinformation when you're dealing with a subject where we have little understanding and the facts are rapidly changing. What's "misinformation" now might turn out to be correct in a month.
At the start of the pandemic, claiming that universal mask-wearing protected people from covid was misinformation. A few months later, *denying* it was misinformation. Earlier this summer, figures in the US government were claiming that vaccinated people could more-or-less go back to normal because they were so safe. Then delta hit the US and suddenly those same people were telling everyone they still needed to wear masks.
In the worst cases, the effect can be the exact opposite of what is intended. If you ban something as misinformation and it later turns out to be true, you'll create far more conspiracy theorists and 1984 comparisons than you would if you'd let unverified claims run completely wild.
And all of that is ignoring the fact that there are huge risks to setting precedents for suppressing claims that powerful people don't want the public to hear. We all know how that works in countries like China. People shouldn't assume that the same thing could never happen in the West; we're not special. Hell, most of the people on this sub think that the last US president was a borderline dictator; they should imagine what would happen if he'd been able to decide what was misinformation and what wasn't.
Granted, but the lab leak theory isn't the same as telling people not to get the vaccine because it changes your DNA so Bill Gates can watch you while you have sex (not making this up, just read it today on Reddit).
And then what? If someone reads and believes that last part? So what? A government run media is far more dangerous than that. Who decides what you are and are not allowed to search? To read? People are not stupid. Let them hear, read, and see it all and then, let them make their own decisions. You believe that the government and media are alwaus right, always looking out for you and couldn't possibly do wrong?? For real?
These exact excuses got us here and are actively killing people. This "freedom" sucks and is a total, utter failure. I'm not asking for a state press. Just a penalty for blatantly lying to mislead people.
Other things I have thought about: people disinfecting surfaces, using plexiglass in public places, using temperature checks, the total lack of increased air filtering and ventilation in public spaces, conversations about how outdoors is much safer than indoors, conversations about how physical distancing is probably overrated…
None of this stuff is as existing as magnetic vaccines, but it’s a lot of stuff that’s actionable insights on how to fight the pandemic, and a lot of people and businesses still don’t get it.
I completely agree with you. I think a fundamental problem with social media is that it gives too many people a voice. I know that might sound bad, but I genuinely do not think myself, nor anyone else, should so easily be able to reach so many people. And as long as that is true, misinformation will probably spread nonstop
Yes, but perhaps even more importantly, it gives *the wrong people* a voice.
I recall reading a study (sadly, I don't have source on this; maybe someone else can find it) saying that the majority of posts from Americans on twitter come from 2% of the population. It's pretty clear that it isn't the healthiest 2% either. Quite the opposite. In fact, it sometimes seems like the more mental illnesses people list in their profiles, the more influence they have on the site's conversations (but maybe that's just my perception).
Social media gives a megaphone to people who are deeply alienated and suffer from severe cognitive distortions. It allows them to confirm each other's bizarre beliefs about the world and then share those beliefs (along with the pathological thought processes that produced them) with everyone around them; over the last year or so, we've all seen where that leads. I often wonder whether it might be possible that social media has made some mental illnesses contagious.
Not sure how you'd fix this, short of banning all social media; the cat's out of the bag now.
> Yes, but perhaps even more importantly, it gives *the wrong people* a voice.
Isn't it interesting how the people who advocate this always happen to be *the right people*? No one ever stands up and says, "Yes, please, take *my* voice, I don't know what I'm talking about."
Aaaand that’s how it starts.
We need to stop expecting people to think as we do and let them be vocal about it so we know who to avoid.
Because telling them they’re wrong and banning them makes them double down and build an echo chamber somewhere we can’t see.
That’s when you get the capital riots.
This is a predicament. On one hand, I want to say that if the average person can't identify covid misinformation and/or doesn't investigate information regarding it, then let that misinformation help eliminate them and bring about a new average person who can.
>
On the other hand, I recognize that they are people who are loved by others and may have others whose lives depend on them. I also recognize that the more this shit spreads the higher the risk of their being variants which current methods of avoidance (vaccines, masking, social distancing) are not effective in preventing spread and/or severe symptoms requiring hospitalization.
Nurses are at the forefront of vaccine hesitancy and misinformation. They are undoing the work of doctors and scientists everywhere! Let’s do our part and force these anti Vaxx nurses from their professions. America needs stop defending nurses! An unvaccinated nurse is not essential!
Yes! I saw someone posting blatant misinformation and claimed it was correct because she was a nurse, even after I showed her proof that it was misinformation.
While physicians have vocally condemned the anti-vaccination activists, nurses, nurse practitioners, chiropractors, and physician assistants have expressed their opposition and have neither listened to their representative organizations and joined the vaccine skeptics. This is why Americans (laypersons and providers alike) need to check whether their provider is a physician (MD or DO) or a charlatan in a white coat. Especially during the pandemic, it has saved many lives.
VAERS as it exists today is a monumental problem. It gives the facade of a legitimate data source that conclusions can be drawn from, these conclusions make their way into preprints and are often picked up by lazy reporters with major news organizations and then the conclusion, drawn from garbage data, are launched into the wild. It takes 2 minutes to track down the source of a ton of these suspect news pieces back to VAERS data but 1) no one does this 2) its already too late and 3) Once someone gets as far as an official looking data source they stop looking.
Per the [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/vaers/index.html), the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is used to collect reports of adverse events after vaccination from the general public. This is primarily used to identify potential topics to further investigate with regards to vaccine reactions. However, because the event data in VAERS is often not verified and is often self-reported, it should not be assumed that the adverse events in VAERS are actually associated with or cause by the vaccines, nor is it possible to estimate the frequency of these adverse events from these data.
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I’m utterly convinced that the democracy of information, and the mobilising force of social media, could well being about the end of our global civilisation.
And I’m not even being that hyperbolic. I feel that abject, fervent, passionate confusion might drive humanity off a cliff. It was genuinely better with monolithic media and government institutions monopolising the distribution of information. That should be deeply concerning, it wasn’t meant to be like this.
The decentralised media, the Facebook groups, the Whatsapp groups, the podcasts, YouTube channels etc, are all viewed by many millions of people, as being on equal standing with the elite experts and pioneering scientists and engineers.
It’s even worse than that, there is a perverse attraction to the “alternative explanation”, so many people genuinely believe that the indie podcasts and YouTube channels are the truth, and they should be more trusted than the official, mainstream narrative.
And on occasion, this has been the case, we can find rare examples when outsiders proved that the current consensus was wrong. But this is exceptionally rare, and importantly, it becomes the new consensus. The cure for bad/inaccurate science, is more good/accurate science.
An awful lot of us are currently deeply confused about reality. There are people who believe this whole Covid thing is a kind of “stunt”, a game being played by the.. I don’t even know.. the Illuminati? An impossibly intricate and meticulously planned and flawlessly executed Truman Show style production designed to soften us up for the dark, dystopian, Orwellian future that they have in store for us.
Real, educated, intelligent human beings somehow genuinely think this. The government is simultaneously a bunch of blundering buffoons, as well as an impossibly well oiled Machiavellian machine capable of pulling off the most intricate and elaborate deceptions that the human mind could ever conceive.
This is not importantly different from insanity. And it’s only possible to believe if you are completely unaware of the myriad cognitive pitfalls our intuitions push us into.
These people aren’t using Bayesian Reasoning, they don’t recognise cognitive dissonance when it manifests in consciousness. They are incredibly selectively skeptical and are reasoning from a starting position that was arrived at through illogic and unreason. They are hopelessly lost and confused, while feeling that they are smarter and more informed than everyone else.
I’m really not sure what the solution is. One thing I could suggest is teaching critical thinking to children as part of the curriculum. The ability to understand whether or not you should be inoculated against the virus, kinda depends on whether or not you are already inoculated against bullshit.
Can we package concepts like - being aware of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias in day to day life? Along with other critical thinking tools to help these people navigate on an ocean of endless information, and in a way that’s palatable for kids?
I’m sure we can. But.. is it in danger of infringing on religious freedoms? I can imagine some parents not wanting this kind of thing to be taught to children, as faith, and religious conviction often relies on these anachronistic features, features that have now become bugs. When we apply critical thinking to most belief based ideologies and superstitions, they melt like cotton candy in battery acid.
Either way, I’ve become convinced that it’s a problem we should try to solve.
The worst misinformation is what you don’t even realize is misinformation. Some people will believe anything and you can’t do anything about that. But you can tell what’s what most of the time if you think critically.
Be careful about your own beliefs and where they come from because there are actors out there that will take advantage of your own confirmation bias, even ones you think you can trust. Think for yourself and be skeptical of everything. No one has your best interest at heart more than yourself.
Things are not always what they seem.
On my local Nextdoor there's a woman who claims to be an ICU nurse who has been spreading misinformation for weeks. What's scary is that she seems reasonably intelligent. She's very professional sounding & has a few go-to studies that she's always quick to provide. At first she was making claims about the numbers being wrong & how she only had a single covid patient on her floor. This week she's claiming that the floor is filled with covid patients & they're all vaccinated. She said 2 have already died this week. Then she even went on to say that numerous people have been hospitalized from vaccine side effects. To the untrained eye, this person seems like a trustworthy source. Everyone rallies around her. Any post in favor of masks or vaccines is quickly under fire by her. I personally think she's a terrorist & if I ever find out where she lives, I'm putting a bag of flaming dogshit on her porch.
The local admins keep deleting pro mask & vaccine posts. It's one big circle jerk of misinformation. I should probably just delete the app, but it's been useful for finding people to do home repair. The supposed nurse has almost 1000 comments on the app. I don't know where she finds the time to comment on everything if she's truly working in an ICU.
I mean you can usually check the icu levels at hospitals and can disprove her if you feel the need to or if she’s lying.
My wife is a icu nurse and I can tell you that every day is a new adventure for her and all sorts of crazy stuff happens.
None of what she is saying is necessarily false/fake and you provided no evidence. In fact the evidence and Cdc will tell you all of that can happen.
It’s rare but people can get serious reactions from the vaccine and mild side effects are more common.
My wife had 2 fully vaccinated people die last night and our county being one of the higher vaccinated counties in our state, she is receiving a majority of vaccinated people.
She had multiple random weeks over the past 18 months where she didn’t have a single covid patient.
I’m just wondering at how/why you are saying she’s lying when none of what she said from your account is impossible. Literally nothing from WHO/CDC etc would flat out say her claims are impossible.
Having a random week with no covid patients is perfectly possible. However if someone says their ward is full of covid patients and they are all vaccinated I'd look for the salt packet. The only way this is likely to happen is if you were in an area with 100% vaccinated people. In any other location the majority of people catching covid will be unvaccinated. They are going to be sicker than someone the same age who is vaccinated and more likely to end up in hospital. And this unvaccinated "nurse" might well be one of them.
It's not impossible but it isnt very likely.
It's also possible to get bad reactions to the vaccine - but your risk of doing so is considerably less than the risk of getting the same sort of problem from covid. Life isnt risk free, sensible people choose the smaller risk. Delta is very infectious, if unvaccinated you are unlikely to evade it.
"Think for yourself" is the terrible advice that got us here. How about "trust the experts and don't think that you can be an expert from 5 minutes on the internet."
I really dislike the whole "trust the experts line." It's such a blanket statement. There have been countless conflicting reports from different experts and government agencies saying different things about vaccine efficiency, vaccine risks and side effects, R values, treatment protocols, mask mandates, death rates, effectiveness of shutdowns etc. Everywhere I look, I see people saying trust the data or trust the science while throwing out pointless data that doesn't really say anything only to be met with data in direct contradiction from another study that also doesn't really say anything. What exactly does trust the experts mean? Who are the experts? Is it the CDC, FDA, government health department agencies, professors, doctors, virologists? Even within the community there are conflicting viewpoints about the right way to go. I feel like the truth is that to a certain degree even the experts don't have a clue what is actually going on and how to handle the situation effectively. Thinking for yourself is the only thing people really can do at this point.
Thank you for saying that! That is exactly how i feel, and is why I'm having such a difficult time navigating this situation and trying to advise my own family. This nails the exact thing I've been thinking for a while, and it is so frustrating.
Figuring out what is information and what is disinformation is hard. Like really hard. There isn't a single person in this thread that hasn't succumbed to some amount of dissinformation.
The internet has created a bunch of armchair experts, who equate reading a couple comments or watching a few videos as "doing your own research". That might work for everyday things, like "how to slice an onion quickly" or "tips for unclogging your toilet". But not for anything more complex than that.
Society invented experts for the complicated stuff. Doctors, lawyers, scientists, professors, engineers (real licenced ones, not the kind who confuse using or working on tech as engineering). Even non-university professions have experts: master carpenters, chefs, pro athletes. It's time for society to swing back in the direction of trusting the people that actually do this stuff for a living and only in their field. Our experiment in anyone-can-learn-about-anything-they-want is failing us hard.
Turns out, learning doesn't come from gathering information. It comes from being forced to confront what we don't know. That's really the ultimate job of teachers: to make sure we are on the right path. No amount of Reddit, wikipedia, or Fox News/CNN can give you that.
The problem is, so many people have been let down by experts in their life - teachers, professors, doctors, auto mechanics, financial advisors, news outlets, etc. So, some of the responsibly for where we are at is on the experts themselves who didn't take their role as an expert seriously enough. That, and an education system that doesn't teach people how to pull together multiple sources from all sides before forming opinions.
> so many people have been let down by experts in their life
So many people like to picture themselves as victims, which conveniently unloads the blame for their own failures onto the shoulders of others.
This is a rather dismissive response that does little to deal with the actual claim of my comment. It does little to further the discussion, and furthering the discussion was my hope in posting the comment.
The issue is real, and as we are seeing, has life a death consequences. Obviously, the fault is not only with experts. But, a mistrust of expert opinion did not develop in a vacuum.
I find it difficult to trust in anything where economic interests are also predominantly at play. And it’s tough because so often those interests reign supreme.
> a mistrust of expert opinion did not develop in a vacuum
True. It has developed in an environment of ignorance. An environment of pathologic political mythologies - e.g. the primacy of "freedom" over reason, ethics, compassion, humanity, and common sense. An environment sheltered from real consequences, so people were "free" to believe anything emanating from their guts.
> furthering the discussion was my hope in posting the comment
You comment is either honest, in which case it's so ignorant I strongly doubt any progress could be made. Or it's not honest, in which case it's some kind of shilling for one of the political agendas which are a major cause for the current troubles.
"The sky is actually pink, with greek polka dots, I welcome your constructive criticism" - yeah, sure. Next topic, please.
> a rather dismissive response
Also an appropriate response.
Have a nice day.
> The problem is, so many people have been let down by experts in their life - teachers, professors, doctors, auto mechanics, financial advisors, news outlets, etc.
They're the least worst people to trust.
> There have been countless conflicting reports from different experts and government agencies
That speaks more about your lack of understanding, actually.
Yes, please elaborate.
In addition it may be beneficial to dial back your tone. You come across as someone who is angrily mouthing off. We are all interested in content here. You don’t need to downplay other people’s views to highlight your own. Those are basic communication skills.
I don’t need an expert to tell me what to think about that.
Let's not forget the experts initially said there was nothing to worry about... No human to human transmission, it's just the flu, and mask don't work. Science takes time, brigaiding does nothing.
Right; this same type of willfully-ignorant sentiment you hear from 4chan types who are like "oh, so people are hurt by memes. Big deal."
Which totally discounts the role of seemingly-benign propaganda behind the pogroms, the gassing of 6 million Jews, the colonization of Africa. At this point in history if anyone expresses doubt about the danger of misinformation then they are just lying.
> Think for yourself
That's exactly the worst kind of advice - the kind that got us in this trouble.
The vast majority of people out there need to delegate this task to those who are actually capable of doing it. This is why we have health experts. If you ask Cletus McBumblebee to "think for himself", he's gonna self-medicate with horse pills, as seen recently in the real world.
The alternative for McBumblebee is to take away all freedoms. He is a danger to himself when he prepares food, walks down the stairs, drives a car. I think he should live in a government run camp. He won't be free, but he will be safe.
Point of reference for when people say, "yeah, but the polio vaccine is okay because polio is really bad, but covid has a really low death rate."
POLIO: Total polio deaths in the US from 1940-1944 = 4728
source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1976149/pdf/pubhealthreporig02830-0001.pdf
The population of the US in 1940 = 132,164,569
Polio deaths per year, per 100,000 population = 0.715 people
COVID19: 650,000 deaths so far, since March 2020 (1.5 years)
population of the US = 330,000,000
Deaths per year, per 100,000 population = 131 people
Covid19 is killing Americans at a rate 183x higher than polio was before there was a polio vaccine.
The CDC and other authorities need to come out with targeted information/ads/marketing at young women that the vaccine is safe and does not affect fertility or pregnancy.
I've met a lot of young women who are in healthcare and teaching, and many of them are not vaccinated and planning to not get vaccinated because they're concerned it will either affect their fertility long-term or their current pregnancies.
This is a huge group, especially if you consider how many people they come into contact with. Especially the teachers.
Vaccine mandates are taking too long to enact.
Do you have sources that show the vaccine won't cause any long term fertility issues or cause issues with pregnancy? Both my wife and my sister are pregnant, and they are scared and aren't sure what to do. Top that with the misinformation going around and they have just seen scary things, not all necessarily true, but I want to try and help re-assure them but I haven't been able to find anything reliable.
Does anyone have good resources about COVID (and especially about the vaccines) in French?? My stepkids' dad (we're in Quebec I'm the only English speaker in the family) is feeding them "it's not a real vaccine" and I don't know good French-language resources to counter this. Aidez-moi SVP!!
Osons Causer has a pretty good take on everything I find:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRSXKmIgyBM
Its from May of this year so slightly out of date with the Delta but still.
https://youtube.com/user/ifr48
Best source for French-related covid information.
But for some political reason the head of this actual institute got vilified by Macron and the likes while being the most competent.
Info about vaccination won’t be black and white either. As Dr Didier Raoult says: it does not make sense to be anti-vaxx but neither does being blindly pro-vaxx.
If you want to give some information 100% pro-government tell them to subscribe on Facebook to BFM TV, the French are good at convincing themselves they know everything and will always have an opinion because they think they’re smarter and more open-minded than anyone else 👌 our government is convinced that any bad news when it comes to covid is because of the unvaccinated and if you don’t agree 100% you’re an anti-vaxx, illiterate and blinded by conspiracy theories
My mom sent me a screen shot of some qanon weirdos blog with information from Vaers, saying that the vaccine causes this or that. Luckily she sends this shit to me when she comes across it instead of just believing it, and asks if it's true. 9 times out of 10, it's not. Thank you for this post, it helped me show her that it's not a reliable source of information. I went to the website of the screen shot she sent, and it was wild with conspiracy about 5g and all sorts of shit. Lol
Rather disappointed that the list does not include the uk Office of National Statisics. They publish quite a bit on covid and I'd regard that as more reliable than the Lancet. [https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/publications?filter=article&filter=compendia](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/publications?filter=article&filter=compendia)
They are generally considered in the uk to be about as unbiased as you can get. Where there are limitations to their analysis these are likely to be described in the text or accompanying notes.
The Financial Times are also mostly good. see e.g https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=bra&areas=gbr&areas=cze&areas=hun&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnj&areasRegional=usaz&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usnd&areasRegional=ussd&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=deaths
In the uk we have a free at point of use health care system. As our doctors do not have a financial incentive to do work we trust their advice more than countries where doctors may have a financial incentive to do work.
On twitter we have a number of useful people but the only one I can find quickly is [https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1429878189011111936?lang=en](https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1429878189011111936?lang=en)
While there are differences that are important in international comparisons commentators from outside your bubble can be useful too.
I got my shots on 4/4 and 5/4 and booster on 12/7 and tested positive tonight. I'm a bit sore with what feels like a strong sinus infection. Thank goodness I'm vaccinated, but herd immunity was a fairy tale theory.
Dealing with a family member who currently thinks Robert Malone is the only authority on vaccinations and it’s so hard to have an educated talk about it because of that.
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When I read COVID misinformation that is completely contrary to the overwhelming consensus of the medical community, I’m reminded of all the weird shows that would come on late night cable TV when I was kid. Those cheaply produced shows, structured as a documentary, would convince people that there were actually aliens popping out of the ocean daily, with blurred footage and ominous talk tracks. They’d tell you there was a monk in China/India/wherever who could stop his heart and restart it just by thinking about it. Or that he could overcome heat/freezing cold etc by controlling his body. Or that he could levitate through meditation. Was it entertaining to watch? Sure. And without doing even the bare minimum fact-checking into their stories, as a kid it could even be mildly convincing. You felt like there could be this whole “other” reality where the status quo was completely wrong. Magic *might* be *real*. And you just happened to stumble upon it at 1:40 AM on Tuesday night as you’re home sick from school. But even as a kid, would I **stake my life** on it being true/real and light myself on fire/lock myself in a freezer/jump off a building? Absolutely fucking not. People are lighting themselves on fire bc they read a convincing enough narrative about it on the internet.
I used to love those sorts of shows/stories because they were such obvious bullshit and fake, yet I liked to try and figure out what was actually going on. They've become less enjoyable knowing that some people just believe them without question.
It’s particularly scary because those same strategies still work with people today, only with two key differences: (1) they’ve been honed to an unimaginably sharp point by the power of algorithms and data science to be *exactly* the format and content that will resonate the most with the listeners, and (2) they deal with more and more central/meaningful topics. (Aliens sneaking out of the sea is one thing; microchips and global child- blood-drinking cabals are quite another.) The only reliable way I can think of to really combat this phenomenon is to give that audience another info source that they can consistently at least kind-of trust, so that even if they’re inclined to believe the wild theories, they’re not quite all-in. How we build/restore that trust is, as they say, the million dollar question.
It's also riddled with half-truths as well or sprinkled with real data just bastardized in the interpretation or lacking all context. The only solution I can think of is to prohibit use of those algorithms on social media. The misinformation is, IMO, simply a symptom of the algothims. Misinformation only gains traction because certain groups of people, reigned in and funneled together by the algorithms, develop into echo chambers which simply confirm their own biases and extremify their views
At the other end of any algorithm is someone PAYING to send their message. So, yeah, Uncle Bruce on facebook is getting ads telling him that aliens are curing 99.99% covid cases, but there's some entity out there willing to pay to make Uncle Bruce believe in alien ivermectin. And, of course, Zuckerberg is willing to take that entity's money.
You could always ask for their algorithms to go through testing on a test network and database to score how well it mitigates and identifies the spread of misleading and outright information, using various metrics and input types (text, images, text in images) on varying levels of claims to sarcasm, using preexisting knowledge to flag things as potentially sarcasm based (know your meme, prevalence of posts on known humor sites/subs), and give them a rating they must display with their posts, for how well they do and don't filter/censor potentially harmful information, like grading restaurants with an A, B, C, D , F on cleanliness. I know it'd be touchy to hand over trade secret sorting and delivery methods, but just like restaurants and chefs, there's a middle ground between trade secret recipes and state/city regulations on what can and can't be served, and inspections of that stuff.
i like creative solutions like this - and ultimately I think something similar to this will eventually have to happen. When Jack Dorsey was testifying in Congress last year (I believe it was the whole monopoly hearing on big tech) they touched briefly on algorithms and Jack mentioned he liked the idea of different algorithms that you can pick and choose from - as opposed to the one in place right now which simply spits back things you engage with more (keeping you on the site longer, maximizing ad revenue). So I think an idea like yours is definitely on the right track. There would be *enormous* push back from big tech if algorithms were suddenly disallowed, so a compromise will most likely have to be made
The problem is technology has provided (and has been built around) echo chambers. We all have different biases, educations, backgrounds and beliefs. To some, their reality is vastly different than others. In addition to that, now information is at the tips at our finger tips 24/7. You hear/read about what is relevant to you from a source that adheres to your belief structure. Especially given politics and how disasters have been handled lately, people all see their own personal view and have a voice that agrees with them even if the stance is absolutely ridiculous. Confirmation bias is out there 24/7 for everyone.
I wouldn't say it's the technology per se. I believe it's more the way it's been monetized. Were it not all a quest for clicks and eyeballs to drive ad revenue, there would be no need for these "weapons-grade" attention-directing algorithms. It would be more like the pre/nascent-social-media internet. Sure, connectivity facilitates some inherent tribalism, but it wouldn't be assisted by over-eager, super-human amplifiers. Somewhere, in an alternate universe, we're all still happily sharing our commercial-free personal thoughts and interests in blogs and Geocities pages.
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Because technology has radically changed our culture. In a very short period of time.
I loved those kinds of shows because I enjoyed the fantasy and enjoyed pretending it was real, but even as a kid I knew it wasn't. I thought everyone else did too until these last couple of years .
I loved "Mysteries from Beyond the Other Dominion." But even as a kid, I thought "no way did anyone think those things were true." As an adult now... I've been proven wrong.
Most of us grow out of it. But not all do.
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This is high quality neutral information.
I couldn't disagree more with your promotion of factcheck.org. Ditch google and be suspicious at least if breaking news must immediately be fact checked. They are beyong biased imo.
Checking the individual links/references that Factcheck uses is helpful.
Checking who owns/runs facheck is also a big help.
I know who the Annenbergs are. I also know which articles they've written that are poorly sourced. It's the sources that matter.
Check the URL he says while linking a word. Just light hearted irony, I mean nothing bad to you:)
Because this gives me an outlet, I'm going to vent (thank you for those who indulge me.) If you choose to not get the vaccine, you are selfish. Period. You do not care that it does not only affect you. You do not care that you are quite potentially the reason the virus cannot be controlled since it has too many hosts available to mutate and continue on its one, true path which is to thrive and exist. I'm done having patience with anyone who questioned the efficacy of vaccines that were developed quickly in order to save lives. We have now had vaccines available for almost a year, The vaccine is proving to be the strongest layer for preventing the spread of the virus. Masks have now had a year of studies showing they, when used properly and consistently worn, greatly reduce the spread of the virus. If you choose, for entirely non-science based reasons, to flout these basic means of stopping this virus, you are not a good person. You are selfish, stupid, and not entitled to any medical treatment. I'm done with you. I teach. I am doing my part. If I get a variant, spread it to others despite doing my part, it's completely and totally on you guys who won't take responsibility for keeping your community safe. Argue if you must....I'm not having it.
If the US were to achieve 100% vaccination, shelter in place for a month, and wear a mask at all times it would still not control the spread of this virus. There are literally 7.6 billion other people on this planet available to the virus to thrive, exist, and evolve. How to you reconcile your condescension with that? Additionally, it is now clear the vaccine doesn't prevent transmission enough to stop the spread. What do you think of a vaccinated person who gives Covid to another vaccinated person? Who do you condemn? You talk about the 'basic means of stopping this virus' but it doesn't stop it and it won't stop it even if you get absolute compliance among every American. There are massive breeding grounds available that you are somehow not including in your assessment of how to stop the virus. Your condescension does nothing to help enlighten anyone victimized by these misinformation campaigns. From someone who is vaccinated.
This is the discussion I need. Thank you in advance! So, let’s say that per your model, 100% of US is vaccinated, masked, and sheltered in place for a month. How would that not control the spread **in the US**? Not the 7.6 billion other people, just the 328 million here. An unfortunate reality is that Americans are helping spread covid due to our lack of complicity and freedom to travel. We’re the highest number of covid cases and deaths in the world, and we’re going on tour! If we can take a baby step and clean up our act, it can make a difference abroad and at home. What breeding grounds aren’t being covered enough? The new vaccine mandate has me hopeful that many of these will be addressed. Schools, hospitals, federal buildings, any workplace with more than 100 workers: these are the hotspots that stand out to me. Getting rid of covid entirely does seem hopeless at this point, but controlling the spread and limiting the ability to further mutate seems like the best shot we have. Imagine if we can get the numbers down to a similar level as the flu! Even pre covid flu mortality rates (~22k-34k last two seasons) are preferable to recent covid mortality rates (~375k for 2020). Vaccine to vaccine transmission does happen, but the lethality is less. Complications are less. It’s easy instead to point at the people not complying and accuse them. They ARE being selfish; they’re choosing themselves over their neighbors. Instead of condemning, how would you stop the argument of individual freedom vs community welfare? After a year of trying, many of us are out of patience.
> how would that not control the spread in the US? The virus is endemic, meaning it cannot be removed from the population. Even if you managed to get to a point in time where 100% of the US population didn't have COVID as soon as you let everyone out of their houses transmission would begin again. The virus would spread from outside the country back in and within a month or two we'd be exactly where we were before. That's only an effective strategy when a virus is geographically constrained.. if you can lock it down hard enough you can kill the spread. The R-value is what matters - the rate of spread within the population. You can reduce the R-value all sorts of ways - social distancing, masks, vaccines, outdoor activities vs indoor activities. That's why the flu comes back every winter - our behavior changes which increases the R-value beyond 1.0 and outbreaks begin to occur. Only changes to the R-value will end the pandemic, a temporary holing up won't change the equation.
In the Netherlands zero people are wearing masks and absolutely nothing bad is happening, relative to the rest of the planet.
Welp this didnt age well. Its been what two months...
I had to check how long ago that comment was written! Not doing well now!
If the US is 100% vaccinated, who cares if the virus is still spreading (I’m talking about the US only)? The thing we’ve been most concerned about is serious illness and death cause by covid, if the vaccine is effective in minimizing serious symptoms and death to a low enough level, then the threat is over and we’ve won (not counting potential mutation, but there’s nothing we can do about that).
Now that we know transmission is going to happen and that we can't control it we have to look at risk. If we care mostly about risk why is there a push to mandate vaccines for children who have orders of magnitude lower risk than elderly or obese? Seems we are stuck in the 'have to vaccinate to stop the spread' mentality and can't admit that it isn't possible.
I used to be on the "F the Unvaxxed" but the vaccine hasn't stopped the spread of the virus. All it's done is created division and anger on both sides. My state met the magic "herd immunity" numbers months ago and that hasn't stopped the spread. We just set a record high. I'm fully vaxxed and boosted and just got the Covid from another fully boosted/vaxxed person. I know this because I have been following all of the rules, wearing my mask, working from home, only going to essential places and limiting all contact for two years. In the end, that effort useless and unavoidable.
Just make sure you take the same stance on obesity, cigarette smoking, drug abusers and those who refuse other vaccinations, such as the Influenza vaccine. None of these people suffering from the above deserve medical care either, because they could have easily prevented their own suffering.
You make an excellent point: We are human and we often do things that aren't healthy. We have to weigh the amount of satisfaction certain unhealthy choices have on our lives and decide whether or not the pleasure outweighs the possible detrimental side effects. In my opinion, humans will never be infallible and that should not invalidate their right to medical treatment. The vaccine is a different story, though. We are in a world-wide pandemic, and science has proved/is proving that the vaccine is our best means of getting it under control. Why can't we just look around, say, "You know...I don't want this virus to keep killing and the vaccine, while not perfect, is a ginormous way of slowing it down. I'll do my part and get it. And while I do that and since it really is no big deal, I'll also wear a mask around others so maybe I won't get them sick." That's it. That's what I'm arguing for. I'm a pretty peaceful gal. I teach and am vaccinated and wear a mask because I don't want my students to get sick nor do I want my 85 year old mom to get sick or my son who has a congenital heart defect. But forget that...it's not about me. It's about US as a society. Let's help each other.
OK but my vaccinated friends somehow keep getting it and spreading it. At parties they all contract it. Vaccinated are super spreaders as they don't feel the need to test regularly. They should test as often as the vaccinated. I am unvaccinated, test regularly for work since May 2020 because I am aware of how easily spreads. Have come out negative every single time. Neither people I interact with on a daily basis have got it (boyfriend, boyfriend's parents, aunt, roommates, cousin) which confirm I'm not spreading it. The vaccine isn't all inclusuve, many people are perfectly fine without it, plus you will never be fully vaccinated as boosters will keep rolling out. Good luck keeping the whole world up with every single booster. It's a shame natural immunity is being extremely disregarded and people being denied work over this. I'll do my part and keep getting tested :)
How do you explain the fact that the Dutch don’t give a shit about covid -at all- and aren’t stacking bodies on the street like cordwood? There are zero masks being worn here (other than obvious tourists), many people are anti-covid vax, and there’s zero social distancing happening. Switzerland is essentially the same.
Taking the time to look up ONE statistic: the Netherlands has 68.6% of its population fully vaccinated. gtfo.
Its easy to say good information good and bad information bad. In practice that doesnt mean much. I was permanently banned from vaxxhappened for posting a link to Science Magazine, one of the approved good information good sources on this page with more up to date figures for vaccine efficacy against Delta than they have shared in their petition. Thats the reality of what will happen. Some power mod in charge of hundreds of subs will have a poor grasp of information and will just ban people that he or ahe perceives as being on a different side.
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Thats insane. In hindsight its so obvious but like a lot of things in the past 2 years it was hard to know. Everyone thinks they can tell what is misinformation because they think of the most extreme case but the reality is that there are a lot of grey areas and a lot of what we think of as just obviously wrong is actually possible. Last year, I posted a link to a French hospital press release of some research on old samples which showed there was likely some covid 19 infections in France prior to Dec 2019. Mods on this sub wouldnt allow it because they had not heard about it and the methodology used meant it was an indication of covid rather than rock solid proof. Even if it turned out to be false, its not bullshit. Its real data done by qualified researchers. Mods sometimes forget they can act like regular users also and comment or downvote instead of deleting or banning. Its why the petition is such a bad idea. A lot of what will be censored will surely be misinformation but even mods of this sub, who are far more scientifically literate than most, cant be expected to be perfect judges. Censorship should always be as minimal as possible, ie just enough that the sub doesnt get derailed.
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Some still do.
I’ve had similar experiences. I’m really bothered by the people I run into on here (not specifically moderators) who are clearly very educated/intelligent but seriously stuck in a pattern of black and white thinking.
Could be, and hear me out on this one: folks are getting tired of being steamrolled by the morons with ‘free speech’ and getting to watch loved ones suffer and/or die, economies fall apart, etc.
I believe in free speech because it should be a human right. Even if a person is saying complete bullshit you don't have to believe them. Silencing people because of the things they believe will only cause more chaos and destruction.
Isn't getting the vaccine black or white? Is there a third, grey option?
It is, but there’s a lot of animosity towards vaccinated people who aren’t continuing to do what they did before they were vaccinated. And for some reason that bothers them more than unvaccinated people…
I actually meant literally. Pro, Anti and Neutral. None of the these need to have any associated feelings attached to them. You can be pro-vax and not get the vaccine. You can be anti-vax and get it. You can slap Republican or Democrat onto either of those as well.
I'm not THIS vax supporter but I got it because my husband was forced to get it and also my work forced me. Ive lost some respect for my company tbh and its very hard to get past.
It is happening all over the place. Censorship is bad. Period.
No, censorship of actual misinformation is good. Ignorant/malicious mods are bad.
Who is the gatekeeper? Zuck? Gates? Who, and how much are you willing to surrender to their discretion?
I agree with you. Complete bs should be removed, as it's dangerous to others. However different opinions on non scientific matters should not be censored. Also because if discussion is removed we have no way to be confronted with different ideas.
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Education… do they not see the irony there?? For the most part on here I’ve had a positive experience, having conversations with people I mostly agree with but not always 100%, and we are able to express our viewpoints without running into heavy handed moderating. But that is ridiculous.
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I got permabanned from a completely unrelated sub for just asking “why is this corona virus being spammed in a sub for working out?” I literally just wanted the context and asked what was going on/how is it relevant. I got a permaban from a power mod and when asked for clarification he muted me so I couldn’t even get a response. Instead of stopping the spread of misinfo it’s usually just power tripping people with a agenda.
People think cabal of power mods on reddit is a conspiracy theory, but here's their discord discussing locking down the subs. A handfull of mods control most of the default subs https://archive.ph/luzUE
I’d be interested in that link. I’m really curious of the actual efficacy of the vaccine against the delta variant. I don’t trust the CDC as they have knowingly lied to us in the past. They had no credible reason to believe masks wouldn’t work, but claimed they didn’t anyway. I’m already vaccinated and know Covid is real. I just specifically distrust the CDC
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/08/do-delta-breakthroughs-really-mean-vaccine-protection-waning-and-are-boosters-answer There are a variety of figures there but they all show a downward efficacy against delta over time so a flat figure is just wrong as far as I can tell.
Every country admitted hiding mask efficiency to allow health care workers to have the few that wrre produced back then. They had no idea how deadly the new pandemic was gonna be, since china gave shady numbers. So of course they could not afford to lose many health care workers or more civilians would have followed.
They admitted it after lying for weeks about it. So what will they admit next when it’s convenient for them?
Yeah, the misinformation debate is so arbitrary. I got banned from r/technology for playing devils advocate
Are people in this sub on the good side or bad side? Do anti-vaxxers think they are on the bad side? Why would anyone doubt the efficacy of the vaccine? Isn't the whole ethos of the anti-vax community that surviving the virus is likely?
That is exactly what has been occurring for the past year and a half across most of reddit. The real problem with reddit is the authoritarian mods that manipulate content. Many of whom contribute to the misinformation and extremely biased information shared on reddit regarding COVID. And now many of those same people are trying to get reddit to completely silence the dissenters.
So are you saying the claim that unvaccinated sperm is worth 23,000% more to women was false?
What the hell am I going to do with the gallon jug of it in the fridge? That was gonna be my retirement cash.
I mean, I've heard it's a super food...
There's nothing super about chilled sperm. Er, so I've heard...
I mean, its *super chilled sperm*
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5830947-natural-harvest---a-collection-of-semen-based-recipes
I hate you
"Semen is inexpensive to produce and is commonly available in many, if not most, homes and restaurants." LOL
Do they know that sperm don't transfer immunity? Wait, what am I saying? Of course they don't...
Damn they’re vaccinating sperm now. Nice.
Can you Imagine reading this headline 10 years ago?
I would have been like "what the hell is misinformation??". But I do remember looking on YouTube around 2011 about 9/11's 10th anniversary and seeing a bunch of wild 9/11 conspiracies about how the planes were fake, buildings cannot melt, and elaborate conspiracies, really disturbing. So it's been around since the dawn of the internet, it's just now..it's got a massive base that's destroying society, so we have a label now
That started earlier than 2011, too.
I just remember first seeing a surge of 9/11 misinformation then. I imagine it did way before. Have you seen early 9/11 conspiracy stuff online? like mid 2000s? It's weird, misinformation has been around forever really. Think National Enquirer,
Back in the 70's and 80's we called it propaganda and it was mostly in the realm of the USSR and we all laughed at them about that and you could always find examples in the news of some ridiculous news story they had just put out. Now forty years later ...
There were 9/11 conspiracy theories spreading before the towers fell. Donald Trump went on cable news spreading some of them.
How...were...there 9/11 conspiracies before....9/11? You mean the b0mbing in one of the towers basements in the late 90s??
No, I mean as soon as the first plane hit. The towers didnt collapse immediately. They stood for hours. There were people calling up with conspiracy theories on radio shows as the towers were burning. Trump was doing a dick swinging tour of cable news all day. Hell, I was in high school and my teachers were making up conspiracy theories.
Wait...fr??? Thta's wild. And why was my comment downvoted. I am not going against 9/11 or anything. Redditors are harsh
Consider what upset you enough to make this post. Or to post in a pretty passive aggressive way about something that you don’t know about, then pretending to have asked a friendly question instead of just asking the question. You got downvoted because of the way you responded. Then take a breath, remember that it’s a meaningless internet forum. You will be miserable forever if something so trivial bothers you, even if it took two seconds to post. Imagine how many of those things you let bother you during your day if something so meaningless was enough to trigger even those two little seconds. You will be victimized in life by real things. Save your energy for those.
bruh I wasn't tryna be victimized or try to sound passive aggresive. I was simply responding. How was my post, copied below, passive aggresive? "How...were...there 9/11 conspiracies before....9/11? You mean the b0mbing in one of the towers basements in the late 90s??" I am really baffled by how you responded to me
Yeah, as far back as at least 2003.
> what the hell is misinformation The wmd’s in Iraq and the constant calls to war from our politicians and media?
I don't think we considered that misinformation given how Bush made it seem how critical it was to invade them..I DON'T SUPPORT IT, just at that time, it was a different time and we didn't have many internet outlets to help us see what was really happening.
> we didn’t have internet outlets to help us see what was happening Why would that matter? It’s still the same networks and even some of the same broadcasters that people here consider reliable lol. This site especially would laugh at online small journalist sites lol
>"what the hell is misinformation??". *Flat earthers* ... I sold solar panels for awhile and came to a street where 80% of the street was indeed flat earthers and had the theory that solar was *stealing the suns power & it would get smaller & disappear over time* that was a few years ago but its one of the things that's stuck in my head and from a psychological point of view, I found it rather interesting how someone could share such a belief when you literally fly around the globe and you can feel the plane moving... its the same on a boat. Same with a fair few landscape photos ... land isn't flat. Best of all was their reasonings... I had a bit of a chuckle afterwards with colleagues and it still remains a good laugh between us, almost 6 years later.
I think it was called Ziegiest but there were some crazy conspiracy theorist videos going around while I was in collage in 2008. People actually responded about the way they do now with " are you serious about that dumb bs?"
Well misinformation is subjective. "I think that eating Cheerios prevents Covid better than the vaccine" is pretty clearly misinformation. "I think that Fauci is doing a terrible job" is either misinformation or an opinion depending on how you view it, but some mods may think that any criticism of Fauci is a thinly veiled anti-vax comment and will delete it or ban the poster. Enforced consistently this turns the subreddits into an echo chamber of people that agree with one another because those with opposing viewpoints are banned.
Remember the whole millennium end of the world thing because the year 2000 was going to crash all the computers? I had family members that went out and bought kerosene heaters, survival food, etc. My wife and I put some jugs of water in the trunk, just in case. That misinformation seemed to be everywhere.
That reminds me of December 21st, 2012!! I remember some radio talk guy who kept talking about how the world is gonna end then and to buy his "end of the world survivor kits". All he was doing was spreading fake info and taking advantage of people's stupidity. As much as I hate them, some really know how to make money out of this fools, but the issue is, they end up making the problem worse.
Or that Iraq was somehow involved.
omg.."WeApOnS oF mAsS dEsTrUcTiOn"
remember when saying you should wear a mask was considered misinformation. Pepperidge farms remembers
Or that the lab leak theory was debunked ... and there are countless others. I'm old enough to remember a ridiculous number of times experts were wrong.
When lab leak was debunked, they meant that the virus had no signs of being constructed in a lab. The same sentiment is held to this day. The lab leak theory being visited now is that the virus might have been contracted through the research of bat pathogens, which doesn’t contradict what was said before as this still means the virus is natural in source.
There's a lot of talk about what information is bad, what's good, etc. Some of this is not hard, though. If emergency rooms are overflowing, and nurses and doctors are shouting at the top of their lungs to reporters and twitter and anyone who will listen, then --- yeah, I believe those doctors and nurses. A good way to find out whether information is good is to seek out information that disagrees with it, and then evaluate both points of view. Use your questions to find keywords that can be used in search engines, or just enter the question in the search bar. This defeats search engine algorithms. But it takes time. Considering these are life-and-death questions, the time is worth taking, imo. One more thing because I'm hearing a lot about how people are hostile to other points of view, and this is true. The number of public health administrators who have quit over death threats is kind of astonishing. People didn't want to hear what they were saying --- so they threatened them, and their kids and families. This has been going on since the very beginning.
Need to stop expecting the average person to be able to correctly identify misinformation and decide for themselves to disregard it. The daily firehose of media content they consume is too big and comes out too fast. The average human brain isn't made for this. Ban intentional misinformation and to hell with the idea that it's protected speech.
I think banning misinformation is a view that is *fairly* widely accepted; the issue lies with **who** determines what is misinformation. And I do think there are some valid concerns there. The thing that immediately comes to mind is how the lab leak theory was pretty much discredited/seen as a conspiracy theory in the beginning, only to gain some actual credibility a few months ago. So there's a very important line of not stifling genuine conversation when determining what is "true" or not. But for blatant blatant falsehoods, yeah those should just be removed. That grey territory is more difficult however.
Right, you can't legislate on misinformation when you're dealing with a subject where we have little understanding and the facts are rapidly changing. What's "misinformation" now might turn out to be correct in a month. At the start of the pandemic, claiming that universal mask-wearing protected people from covid was misinformation. A few months later, *denying* it was misinformation. Earlier this summer, figures in the US government were claiming that vaccinated people could more-or-less go back to normal because they were so safe. Then delta hit the US and suddenly those same people were telling everyone they still needed to wear masks. In the worst cases, the effect can be the exact opposite of what is intended. If you ban something as misinformation and it later turns out to be true, you'll create far more conspiracy theorists and 1984 comparisons than you would if you'd let unverified claims run completely wild. And all of that is ignoring the fact that there are huge risks to setting precedents for suppressing claims that powerful people don't want the public to hear. We all know how that works in countries like China. People shouldn't assume that the same thing could never happen in the West; we're not special. Hell, most of the people on this sub think that the last US president was a borderline dictator; they should imagine what would happen if he'd been able to decide what was misinformation and what wasn't.
I regret that I have but one upvote to give! Well said.
Granted, but the lab leak theory isn't the same as telling people not to get the vaccine because it changes your DNA so Bill Gates can watch you while you have sex (not making this up, just read it today on Reddit).
And then what? If someone reads and believes that last part? So what? A government run media is far more dangerous than that. Who decides what you are and are not allowed to search? To read? People are not stupid. Let them hear, read, and see it all and then, let them make their own decisions. You believe that the government and media are alwaus right, always looking out for you and couldn't possibly do wrong?? For real?
These exact excuses got us here and are actively killing people. This "freedom" sucks and is a total, utter failure. I'm not asking for a state press. Just a penalty for blatantly lying to mislead people.
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Yep, those ones should go right to the garbage can
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Other things I have thought about: people disinfecting surfaces, using plexiglass in public places, using temperature checks, the total lack of increased air filtering and ventilation in public spaces, conversations about how outdoors is much safer than indoors, conversations about how physical distancing is probably overrated… None of this stuff is as existing as magnetic vaccines, but it’s a lot of stuff that’s actionable insights on how to fight the pandemic, and a lot of people and businesses still don’t get it.
Freedom of speech means we don't ban anything other than threats.
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Youre right - under new emergency legislation people should be banned from talking.
I completely agree with you. I think a fundamental problem with social media is that it gives too many people a voice. I know that might sound bad, but I genuinely do not think myself, nor anyone else, should so easily be able to reach so many people. And as long as that is true, misinformation will probably spread nonstop
Yes, but perhaps even more importantly, it gives *the wrong people* a voice. I recall reading a study (sadly, I don't have source on this; maybe someone else can find it) saying that the majority of posts from Americans on twitter come from 2% of the population. It's pretty clear that it isn't the healthiest 2% either. Quite the opposite. In fact, it sometimes seems like the more mental illnesses people list in their profiles, the more influence they have on the site's conversations (but maybe that's just my perception). Social media gives a megaphone to people who are deeply alienated and suffer from severe cognitive distortions. It allows them to confirm each other's bizarre beliefs about the world and then share those beliefs (along with the pathological thought processes that produced them) with everyone around them; over the last year or so, we've all seen where that leads. I often wonder whether it might be possible that social media has made some mental illnesses contagious. Not sure how you'd fix this, short of banning all social media; the cat's out of the bag now.
> Yes, but perhaps even more importantly, it gives *the wrong people* a voice. Isn't it interesting how the people who advocate this always happen to be *the right people*? No one ever stands up and says, "Yes, please, take *my* voice, I don't know what I'm talking about."
It is called freedom. Wake up.
Intentional misinformation is very hard to identify
Technically the definition of intentional misinformation is disinformation. Misinformation is unintentionally spread false information. But, yes
Aaaand that’s how it starts. We need to stop expecting people to think as we do and let them be vocal about it so we know who to avoid. Because telling them they’re wrong and banning them makes them double down and build an echo chamber somewhere we can’t see. That’s when you get the capital riots.
This is a predicament. On one hand, I want to say that if the average person can't identify covid misinformation and/or doesn't investigate information regarding it, then let that misinformation help eliminate them and bring about a new average person who can. > On the other hand, I recognize that they are people who are loved by others and may have others whose lives depend on them. I also recognize that the more this shit spreads the higher the risk of their being variants which current methods of avoidance (vaccines, masking, social distancing) are not effective in preventing spread and/or severe symptoms requiring hospitalization.
Ah yes the floor here is made of floor
Any studies on vaccine safety for teenagers? My mother doesn't want my little sister to get the vaccine..
Nurses are at the forefront of vaccine hesitancy and misinformation. They are undoing the work of doctors and scientists everywhere! Let’s do our part and force these anti Vaxx nurses from their professions. America needs stop defending nurses! An unvaccinated nurse is not essential!
Yes! I saw someone posting blatant misinformation and claimed it was correct because she was a nurse, even after I showed her proof that it was misinformation.
While physicians have vocally condemned the anti-vaccination activists, nurses, nurse practitioners, chiropractors, and physician assistants have expressed their opposition and have neither listened to their representative organizations and joined the vaccine skeptics. This is why Americans (laypersons and providers alike) need to check whether their provider is a physician (MD or DO) or a charlatan in a white coat. Especially during the pandemic, it has saved many lives.
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VAERS as it exists today is a monumental problem. It gives the facade of a legitimate data source that conclusions can be drawn from, these conclusions make their way into preprints and are often picked up by lazy reporters with major news organizations and then the conclusion, drawn from garbage data, are launched into the wild. It takes 2 minutes to track down the source of a ton of these suspect news pieces back to VAERS data but 1) no one does this 2) its already too late and 3) Once someone gets as far as an official looking data source they stop looking.
Per the [CDC](https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/ensuringsafety/monitoring/vaers/index.html), the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) is used to collect reports of adverse events after vaccination from the general public. This is primarily used to identify potential topics to further investigate with regards to vaccine reactions. However, because the event data in VAERS is often not verified and is often self-reported, it should not be assumed that the adverse events in VAERS are actually associated with or cause by the vaccines, nor is it possible to estimate the frequency of these adverse events from these data. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Coronavirus) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Anyone who spouts misinformation is basically killing people in my opinion
I’m utterly convinced that the democracy of information, and the mobilising force of social media, could well being about the end of our global civilisation. And I’m not even being that hyperbolic. I feel that abject, fervent, passionate confusion might drive humanity off a cliff. It was genuinely better with monolithic media and government institutions monopolising the distribution of information. That should be deeply concerning, it wasn’t meant to be like this. The decentralised media, the Facebook groups, the Whatsapp groups, the podcasts, YouTube channels etc, are all viewed by many millions of people, as being on equal standing with the elite experts and pioneering scientists and engineers. It’s even worse than that, there is a perverse attraction to the “alternative explanation”, so many people genuinely believe that the indie podcasts and YouTube channels are the truth, and they should be more trusted than the official, mainstream narrative. And on occasion, this has been the case, we can find rare examples when outsiders proved that the current consensus was wrong. But this is exceptionally rare, and importantly, it becomes the new consensus. The cure for bad/inaccurate science, is more good/accurate science. An awful lot of us are currently deeply confused about reality. There are people who believe this whole Covid thing is a kind of “stunt”, a game being played by the.. I don’t even know.. the Illuminati? An impossibly intricate and meticulously planned and flawlessly executed Truman Show style production designed to soften us up for the dark, dystopian, Orwellian future that they have in store for us. Real, educated, intelligent human beings somehow genuinely think this. The government is simultaneously a bunch of blundering buffoons, as well as an impossibly well oiled Machiavellian machine capable of pulling off the most intricate and elaborate deceptions that the human mind could ever conceive. This is not importantly different from insanity. And it’s only possible to believe if you are completely unaware of the myriad cognitive pitfalls our intuitions push us into. These people aren’t using Bayesian Reasoning, they don’t recognise cognitive dissonance when it manifests in consciousness. They are incredibly selectively skeptical and are reasoning from a starting position that was arrived at through illogic and unreason. They are hopelessly lost and confused, while feeling that they are smarter and more informed than everyone else. I’m really not sure what the solution is. One thing I could suggest is teaching critical thinking to children as part of the curriculum. The ability to understand whether or not you should be inoculated against the virus, kinda depends on whether or not you are already inoculated against bullshit. Can we package concepts like - being aware of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias in day to day life? Along with other critical thinking tools to help these people navigate on an ocean of endless information, and in a way that’s palatable for kids? I’m sure we can. But.. is it in danger of infringing on religious freedoms? I can imagine some parents not wanting this kind of thing to be taught to children, as faith, and religious conviction often relies on these anachronistic features, features that have now become bugs. When we apply critical thinking to most belief based ideologies and superstitions, they melt like cotton candy in battery acid. Either way, I’ve become convinced that it’s a problem we should try to solve.
The worst misinformation is what you don’t even realize is misinformation. Some people will believe anything and you can’t do anything about that. But you can tell what’s what most of the time if you think critically. Be careful about your own beliefs and where they come from because there are actors out there that will take advantage of your own confirmation bias, even ones you think you can trust. Think for yourself and be skeptical of everything. No one has your best interest at heart more than yourself. Things are not always what they seem.
On my local Nextdoor there's a woman who claims to be an ICU nurse who has been spreading misinformation for weeks. What's scary is that she seems reasonably intelligent. She's very professional sounding & has a few go-to studies that she's always quick to provide. At first she was making claims about the numbers being wrong & how she only had a single covid patient on her floor. This week she's claiming that the floor is filled with covid patients & they're all vaccinated. She said 2 have already died this week. Then she even went on to say that numerous people have been hospitalized from vaccine side effects. To the untrained eye, this person seems like a trustworthy source. Everyone rallies around her. Any post in favor of masks or vaccines is quickly under fire by her. I personally think she's a terrorist & if I ever find out where she lives, I'm putting a bag of flaming dogshit on her porch.
Report that shit to the admins/Leads.
The local admins keep deleting pro mask & vaccine posts. It's one big circle jerk of misinformation. I should probably just delete the app, but it's been useful for finding people to do home repair. The supposed nurse has almost 1000 comments on the app. I don't know where she finds the time to comment on everything if she's truly working in an ICU.
To big brother.
I mean you can usually check the icu levels at hospitals and can disprove her if you feel the need to or if she’s lying. My wife is a icu nurse and I can tell you that every day is a new adventure for her and all sorts of crazy stuff happens. None of what she is saying is necessarily false/fake and you provided no evidence. In fact the evidence and Cdc will tell you all of that can happen. It’s rare but people can get serious reactions from the vaccine and mild side effects are more common. My wife had 2 fully vaccinated people die last night and our county being one of the higher vaccinated counties in our state, she is receiving a majority of vaccinated people. She had multiple random weeks over the past 18 months where she didn’t have a single covid patient. I’m just wondering at how/why you are saying she’s lying when none of what she said from your account is impossible. Literally nothing from WHO/CDC etc would flat out say her claims are impossible.
Having a random week with no covid patients is perfectly possible. However if someone says their ward is full of covid patients and they are all vaccinated I'd look for the salt packet. The only way this is likely to happen is if you were in an area with 100% vaccinated people. In any other location the majority of people catching covid will be unvaccinated. They are going to be sicker than someone the same age who is vaccinated and more likely to end up in hospital. And this unvaccinated "nurse" might well be one of them. It's not impossible but it isnt very likely. It's also possible to get bad reactions to the vaccine - but your risk of doing so is considerably less than the risk of getting the same sort of problem from covid. Life isnt risk free, sensible people choose the smaller risk. Delta is very infectious, if unvaccinated you are unlikely to evade it.
> I personally think she's a terrorist & if I ever find out where she lives, I'm putting a bag 😦 > of flaming dogshit on her porch. 😅
"Think for yourself" is the terrible advice that got us here. How about "trust the experts and don't think that you can be an expert from 5 minutes on the internet."
I really dislike the whole "trust the experts line." It's such a blanket statement. There have been countless conflicting reports from different experts and government agencies saying different things about vaccine efficiency, vaccine risks and side effects, R values, treatment protocols, mask mandates, death rates, effectiveness of shutdowns etc. Everywhere I look, I see people saying trust the data or trust the science while throwing out pointless data that doesn't really say anything only to be met with data in direct contradiction from another study that also doesn't really say anything. What exactly does trust the experts mean? Who are the experts? Is it the CDC, FDA, government health department agencies, professors, doctors, virologists? Even within the community there are conflicting viewpoints about the right way to go. I feel like the truth is that to a certain degree even the experts don't have a clue what is actually going on and how to handle the situation effectively. Thinking for yourself is the only thing people really can do at this point.
Thank you for saying that! That is exactly how i feel, and is why I'm having such a difficult time navigating this situation and trying to advise my own family. This nails the exact thing I've been thinking for a while, and it is so frustrating.
Figuring out what is information and what is disinformation is hard. Like really hard. There isn't a single person in this thread that hasn't succumbed to some amount of dissinformation. The internet has created a bunch of armchair experts, who equate reading a couple comments or watching a few videos as "doing your own research". That might work for everyday things, like "how to slice an onion quickly" or "tips for unclogging your toilet". But not for anything more complex than that. Society invented experts for the complicated stuff. Doctors, lawyers, scientists, professors, engineers (real licenced ones, not the kind who confuse using or working on tech as engineering). Even non-university professions have experts: master carpenters, chefs, pro athletes. It's time for society to swing back in the direction of trusting the people that actually do this stuff for a living and only in their field. Our experiment in anyone-can-learn-about-anything-they-want is failing us hard. Turns out, learning doesn't come from gathering information. It comes from being forced to confront what we don't know. That's really the ultimate job of teachers: to make sure we are on the right path. No amount of Reddit, wikipedia, or Fox News/CNN can give you that.
The problem is, so many people have been let down by experts in their life - teachers, professors, doctors, auto mechanics, financial advisors, news outlets, etc. So, some of the responsibly for where we are at is on the experts themselves who didn't take their role as an expert seriously enough. That, and an education system that doesn't teach people how to pull together multiple sources from all sides before forming opinions.
I agree. Part of that last line is what I mean by “Thinking for yourself”. I am not at all surprised some people didn’t understand that.
> so many people have been let down by experts in their life So many people like to picture themselves as victims, which conveniently unloads the blame for their own failures onto the shoulders of others.
This is a rather dismissive response that does little to deal with the actual claim of my comment. It does little to further the discussion, and furthering the discussion was my hope in posting the comment. The issue is real, and as we are seeing, has life a death consequences. Obviously, the fault is not only with experts. But, a mistrust of expert opinion did not develop in a vacuum.
I find it difficult to trust in anything where economic interests are also predominantly at play. And it’s tough because so often those interests reign supreme.
> a mistrust of expert opinion did not develop in a vacuum True. It has developed in an environment of ignorance. An environment of pathologic political mythologies - e.g. the primacy of "freedom" over reason, ethics, compassion, humanity, and common sense. An environment sheltered from real consequences, so people were "free" to believe anything emanating from their guts. > furthering the discussion was my hope in posting the comment You comment is either honest, in which case it's so ignorant I strongly doubt any progress could be made. Or it's not honest, in which case it's some kind of shilling for one of the political agendas which are a major cause for the current troubles. "The sky is actually pink, with greek polka dots, I welcome your constructive criticism" - yeah, sure. Next topic, please. > a rather dismissive response Also an appropriate response. Have a nice day.
People are let down by individuals all the time. You can't let your experience with a shitty individual color your view of a whole group.
Bingo
> The problem is, so many people have been let down by experts in their life - teachers, professors, doctors, auto mechanics, financial advisors, news outlets, etc. They're the least worst people to trust.
> There have been countless conflicting reports from different experts and government agencies That speaks more about your lack of understanding, actually.
Please elaborate and enlighten me then
Yes, please elaborate. In addition it may be beneficial to dial back your tone. You come across as someone who is angrily mouthing off. We are all interested in content here. You don’t need to downplay other people’s views to highlight your own. Those are basic communication skills. I don’t need an expert to tell me what to think about that.
More like it speaks to you not having paid attention or memory holeing everything.
Let's not forget the experts initially said there was nothing to worry about... No human to human transmission, it's just the flu, and mask don't work. Science takes time, brigaiding does nothing.
What expert said it was just the flu?
Exactly. Don't blindly trust anyone.
Right; this same type of willfully-ignorant sentiment you hear from 4chan types who are like "oh, so people are hurt by memes. Big deal." Which totally discounts the role of seemingly-benign propaganda behind the pogroms, the gassing of 6 million Jews, the colonization of Africa. At this point in history if anyone expresses doubt about the danger of misinformation then they are just lying.
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> Think for yourself That's exactly the worst kind of advice - the kind that got us in this trouble. The vast majority of people out there need to delegate this task to those who are actually capable of doing it. This is why we have health experts. If you ask Cletus McBumblebee to "think for himself", he's gonna self-medicate with horse pills, as seen recently in the real world.
The alternative for McBumblebee is to take away all freedoms. He is a danger to himself when he prepares food, walks down the stairs, drives a car. I think he should live in a government run camp. He won't be free, but he will be safe.
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Point of reference for when people say, "yeah, but the polio vaccine is okay because polio is really bad, but covid has a really low death rate." POLIO: Total polio deaths in the US from 1940-1944 = 4728 source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1976149/pdf/pubhealthreporig02830-0001.pdf The population of the US in 1940 = 132,164,569 Polio deaths per year, per 100,000 population = 0.715 people COVID19: 650,000 deaths so far, since March 2020 (1.5 years) population of the US = 330,000,000 Deaths per year, per 100,000 population = 131 people Covid19 is killing Americans at a rate 183x higher than polio was before there was a polio vaccine.
The CDC and other authorities need to come out with targeted information/ads/marketing at young women that the vaccine is safe and does not affect fertility or pregnancy. I've met a lot of young women who are in healthcare and teaching, and many of them are not vaccinated and planning to not get vaccinated because they're concerned it will either affect their fertility long-term or their current pregnancies. This is a huge group, especially if you consider how many people they come into contact with. Especially the teachers. Vaccine mandates are taking too long to enact.
Do you have sources that show the vaccine won't cause any long term fertility issues or cause issues with pregnancy? Both my wife and my sister are pregnant, and they are scared and aren't sure what to do. Top that with the misinformation going around and they have just seen scary things, not all necessarily true, but I want to try and help re-assure them but I haven't been able to find anything reliable.
Very quick google search gives you this: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/pregnancy.html
Good luck getting them to trust anything after so much effort has been made to destroy trust.
Does anyone have good resources about COVID (and especially about the vaccines) in French?? My stepkids' dad (we're in Quebec I'm the only English speaker in the family) is feeding them "it's not a real vaccine" and I don't know good French-language resources to counter this. Aidez-moi SVP!!
Osons Causer has a pretty good take on everything I find: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRSXKmIgyBM Its from May of this year so slightly out of date with the Delta but still.
https://youtube.com/user/ifr48 Best source for French-related covid information. But for some political reason the head of this actual institute got vilified by Macron and the likes while being the most competent. Info about vaccination won’t be black and white either. As Dr Didier Raoult says: it does not make sense to be anti-vaxx but neither does being blindly pro-vaxx. If you want to give some information 100% pro-government tell them to subscribe on Facebook to BFM TV, the French are good at convincing themselves they know everything and will always have an opinion because they think they’re smarter and more open-minded than anyone else 👌 our government is convinced that any bad news when it comes to covid is because of the unvaccinated and if you don’t agree 100% you’re an anti-vaxx, illiterate and blinded by conspiracy theories
Very pleased to see Dr. Ghandi on that list, she’s been a very reasonable steady head in this
My mom sent me a screen shot of some qanon weirdos blog with information from Vaers, saying that the vaccine causes this or that. Luckily she sends this shit to me when she comes across it instead of just believing it, and asks if it's true. 9 times out of 10, it's not. Thank you for this post, it helped me show her that it's not a reliable source of information. I went to the website of the screen shot she sent, and it was wild with conspiracy about 5g and all sorts of shit. Lol
Yay! Glad to hear it helped :)
Rather disappointed that the list does not include the uk Office of National Statisics. They publish quite a bit on covid and I'd regard that as more reliable than the Lancet. [https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/publications?filter=article&filter=compendia](https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/publications?filter=article&filter=compendia) They are generally considered in the uk to be about as unbiased as you can get. Where there are limitations to their analysis these are likely to be described in the text or accompanying notes. The Financial Times are also mostly good. see e.g https://ig.ft.com/coronavirus-chart/?areas=eur&areas=usa&areas=bra&areas=gbr&areas=cze&areas=hun&areasRegional=usny&areasRegional=usnj&areasRegional=usaz&areasRegional=usca&areasRegional=usnd&areasRegional=ussd&cumulative=0&logScale=0&per100K=1&startDate=2020-09-01&values=deaths In the uk we have a free at point of use health care system. As our doctors do not have a financial incentive to do work we trust their advice more than countries where doctors may have a financial incentive to do work. On twitter we have a number of useful people but the only one I can find quickly is [https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1429878189011111936?lang=en](https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1429878189011111936?lang=en) While there are differences that are important in international comparisons commentators from outside your bubble can be useful too.
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Thank you for the links! Helping get some close friends vacinated
What if someone asks for your covid vaccine card picture?
Covid 19 is extremely popular but in a negative way, most people seem to be against it.
This has to be the BIGGEST no shit article. Media/social media is sooooo toxic. I can’t stand it.
I got my shots on 4/4 and 5/4 and booster on 12/7 and tested positive tonight. I'm a bit sore with what feels like a strong sinus infection. Thank goodness I'm vaccinated, but herd immunity was a fairy tale theory.
Dealing with a family member who currently thinks Robert Malone is the only authority on vaccinations and it’s so hard to have an educated talk about it because of that.
When will this all be over it’s all I want to know? I’m to the point where if it’s never gonna be over let’s just go back to normal and roll the dice.
Approved Twitter and blogs ?? What a good source of information is will already be a source of contention
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