Social Media Promised To Block Covid-19 Misinformation; But They're Also Blocking Legit Info Too
from the content-moderation-is-impossible-at-scale dept
Sing it with me, folks: content moderation is impossible to do well at scale. Over the last few weeks, all of the big social media platforms have talked about their intense efforts to block misinformation about Covid-19. It appeared to be something of an all hands on deck situation for employees (mostly working from home) at these companies. Indeed, earlier this week, Facebook, Google, Linkedin, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube all released a joint statement about how they're working together to fight Covid-19 misinformation, and hoping other platforms would join in.
However, battling misinformation is not always so easy -- as Facebook discovered yesterday. Yesterday afternoon a bunch of folks started noticing that Facebook was blocking all sorts of perfectly normal content, including NY Times stories about Covid-19. Now, we can joke all we want about some of the poor NY Times reporting, but to argue that its reporting on Covid-19 is misinformation would be, well, misinformation itself. There was some speculation, a la YouTube's warning that this could be due to content moderators being sent home -- and not being allowed to do their content moderation duties over privacy concerns, but the company said that it was "a bug in an anti-spam system" and was "unrelated to any changes in our content moderation workforce." Whether you buy that or not is your choice.
Still, it's a reminder that any effort to block misinformation is going to be fraught with problems and mistakes, and trying to adapt rapidly, especially on a big (the biggest) news story with rapidly changing factors and new information (and misinformation) all the time, is going to run into some problems sooner or later.
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Filed Under: content moderation, content moderation at scale, covid-19, errors
Companies: facebook
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Sooner. And later.
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Is it though?
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Zuckerberg's Facebook announcement
Mark Zuckerberg
March 3 at 9:52 PM ·
...
I wanted to share an update on the steps we're taking to respond to the coronavirus. This is now a global challenge and we’ve spent the past month working with health authorities to coordinate our response.
We're focused on making sure everyone can access credible and accurate information. This is critical in any emergency, but it's especially important when there are precautions you can take to reduce the risk of infection. If you search for coronavirus on Facebook, you'll see a pop-up that directs you to the World Health Organization or your local health authority for the latest information. If you're in a country where the WHO has reported person-to-person transmission, you'll also see it in your News Feed.
Given the developing situation, we're working with national ministries of health and organizations like the WHO, CDC and UNICEF to help them get out timely, accurate information on the coronavirus. We're giving the WHO as many free ads as they need for their coronavirus response along with other in-kind support. We'll also give support and millions more in ad credits to other organizations too and we'll be working closely with global health experts to provide additional help if needed.
We're also focused on stopping hoaxes and harmful misinformation. It's important that everyone has a place to share their experiences and talk about the outbreak, but as our community standards make clear, it's not okay to share something that puts people in danger. So we're removing false claims and conspiracy theories that have been flagged by leading global health organizations. We're also blocking people from running ads that try to exploit the situation -- for example, claiming that their product can cure the disease.
As well as accessing information, we're also looking at how people can use our services to help contribute to the broader efforts to contain the outbreak. Researchers are already using aggregated and anonymized Facebook data -- including mobility data and population density maps -- to better understand how the virus is spreading.
Scientific tools developed by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative can help with this too. Through a partnership between our philanthropy and the Gates Foundation, researchers in Cambodia were able to sequence the full genome of the virus that causes COVID-19 in days, making it much easier and faster for them to identify if people had the virus. The team created a new public version of the IDSeq tool so scientists everywhere can study the full genome within the broader context of coronavirus sequences uploaded around the world.
The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub has also been part of the team working to develop the cell atlas -- a periodic table of different cell types in the body. As part of this work, they supported a project to map out all the cells in the lung. Researchers are now using this to investigate potential ways to limit lung damage and address the symptoms of coronavirus. This is one of the fundamental ideas behind CZI -- to do basic scientific research to create building blocks that health organizations can use to find cures for diseases.
There are other ways that technology can help people adapt to the outbreak too. Communities around the world are dealing with quarantines and other disruption to their daily lives, and they’re using the internet more to stay connected even when they can't be together in person. We know from previous emergencies -- and from places where there have already been outbreaks of coronavirus across the world -- that in times of crisis people rely on communication tools even more than usual. That means that as well as helping people access information, we have a responsibility to make sure our services are stable and reliable to handle this load and we take that seriously too.
There's more we can do to help people feel less isolated and help one another and we're working on some ideas we'll share in the next few weeks, but for now the focus is on slowing the spread of the outbreak itself. This is a difficult time for a lot of people and I'm thinking of everyone affected by this -- the people who are sick or quarantined, their friends and family and of course the healthcare workers who are always on the frontlines of any outbreak. We'll share more updates soon.
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Re: Zuckerberg's Facebook announcement
Filed under: who-gives-a-rats-ass
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Re: Zuckerberg's Facebook announcement
Sounds good anyway, even if it does wander into kissing his own ass a bit there towards the end, the trick will be the implementation, and hopefully they can help as noted.
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'You lied to me about A, why should I trust you about B?'
Depending on whether they are giving it serious attention and providing good information rather than the hatchet jobs they do when it comes to tech it may be, yes.
Your comment however does nicely highlight the problem they have created for themselves, as having shown that they can badly botch basic details on other topics their ability to provide accurate reporting and details on this subject comes into question, with people potentially dismissing anything they might say as almost certainly just as inaccurate as previous reporting, regardless of whether that's an accurate assessment.
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Bat shit
Tracker Backed by Gates and Zuckerberg Tackles Covid-19
03.10.2020
Two hours later, the results rolled in. Manning stared at her computer screen at a heat map showing hits to GenBank. The darkest shade of red—indicating the most “reads”—matches between the sample and sequences in GenBank—was to the coronavirus that causes SARS. But it wasn’t an exact match. An almost equal number of reads mapped back to a coronavirus found in bats. “You could tell it’s a novel coronavirus that’s closely related to SARS but hasn’t yet been characterized,” says Manning.
.
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What’s worse? A virus that passes in a few days, or an infectious ideology that lasts (for some) a lifetime. Corona vs. socialism. I say let’s develop a socialist virus test and then exterminate everyone who tests positive for socialistic tendencies before they can affect others. If you think capitalism is bad, if you hate the police, if you want more and more government control and less and less liberty and freedom, quarantine yourself by at least shutting your mouth until future notice. God bless capitalist America.
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fACECRACK
One of my friend's posted a picture of her notifications. She had about 50 non-coronavirus political posts removed all at once under this new policy. Its not protecting people from censorship or misinformation. Its political censorship.
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Re:
Under that argument... Donald Trump would be first on the executioners block. Socialism for corporations has been his number one policy.
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Re:
Some elections have already been cancelled until further notice.
Trump forever!
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What’s worse? A virus that passes in a few days, or an infectious ideology that lasts (for some) a lifetime. Corona vs. socialism. I say let’s develop a socialist virus test and then exterminate everyone who tests positive for socialistic tendencies before they can affect others. If you think capitalism is bad, if you hate the police, if you want more and more government control and less and less liberty and freedom, quarantine yourself by at least shutting your mouth until future notice. God bless capitalist America.
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Re:
Some elections have already been cancelled for the good of the people.
Trump forever!
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Re: Re:
Just when one of our village idiots finally gives up and moves on we get a fresh village idiot. It seems those positions cannot remain vacant. There must be a village idiot union.
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Yeah, gonna need a [Citation Needed] on that one beyond 'one person says another person saw a bunch of posts deleted', given between potential false positives thanks to an imperfect filter and how often a certain group has been crying foul about how the big mean old social media has it out for them only for that to turn out to be complete rubbish time and time again 'facebook is engaging in political censorship' doesn't exactly have the best track record of believably.
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I feel better. Its GOOD TO BE NEGATIVE!
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Re:
Must be almost all socialists here at techdirt for this to be flagged or someone has their thumb on the BIG FLAG BUTTON!
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Did you think your AC ass was going to win for your socialist side? Village idiots have been around a lot longer than socialist kiss asses!
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Socialism is the idea that taxpayer funds are used collectively to benefit society as a whole — despite the income, contribution, or ability of any individual member of society.
In the United States, socialism is the publicly funded roads you drive on every day. It is the publicly funded schools that millions of children attend. It is libraries and museums, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, fire departments, law enforcement, public defenders, the courts, the military, the U.S. Postal Service, garbage collection, public parks, public transportation, PBS, the CDC, the EPA, NPR, Amtrak, the National Weather Service, and God knows how many other things you take for granted as part of everyday life.
Now imagine all of those things in the hands of capitalist corporate executives. Do you think libraries would still be free, if they were even still a thing at all? Do you think toll roads wouldn't crop up all over the country, including within cities themselves? Do you think that all the socialist programs you take for granted every day wouldn’t be corrupted by the nakedly unashamed greed of capitalists looking to continually make more money forever?
Capitalism is Jeff Bezos hoarding billions of dollars and refusing to put any significant amount of it (if any at all) back into society out of selfish greed. Socialism is a woman who makes $50,000 a year at a full-time job giving a significant chunk of that back to society through taxes so everyone, including Jeff Bezos, can be better off. Which one sounds like the better ideology?
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Trump is legally bound by the Constitution to serve only two terms (assuming he wins the 2020 election). I’ve heard no one besides Trump seriously suggest that he should get to legally surprass the two-term limit. How could you possibly justify the idea of “Trump forever” without pissing all over the Constitution of the United States?
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Re:
Socialism is giving lazy uneducated idiots like you power over normal law abiding hard working citizens like me so you can perpetuate your leech like existence while feeding on the blood of your betters.
The great thing about a crisis is that people take sides.
Who is going to side with your convoluted bullshit rhetoric? Leave the capitalistic American that you obviously hate and move to Wuhan. I’m sure you would be happier there. They talk just like you.
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Well, given how they've put the Daily Caller in a position to fact check political news, it would be offbrand for them not to mess this up in a similar way. They've probably got Mike Adams of NaturalNews working on it.
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Re:
By declaring a national emergency. By invoking the war powers act. By using common sense. It’s just not a good time for a new election. Trump is our leader for the entirety of our virus affected future.
And socialism is dead.
And health care will be cheaper.
God bless America, and our fearless (and last) duly elected president.
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Re: Re:
Socialism is a political construct defined by the governmental control of all means of production, distribution, and exchange.
It is also used in derogatory comments that attempt to disparage others.
Capitalism is an economic and political construct in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit (sometimes obscene) at the expense of the public.
btw, what do you think of the lazy uneducated idiot presently occupying the white house?
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Re: Re:
How is that little voice in your head doing today?
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Re: Re: Re:
One of the hardest working, non-drinking, little sleeping, devout Christian leaders of all time, Donald J. Trump, the magnificent? You mean him? POTUS? Him?! Show respect your betters, you ignorant foreigner virus infected socialist asshole.
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Re: Bat shit
One of the many links
https://www.nbnews24.com/2020/03/10/a-disease-tracker-backed-by-gates-and-zuckerberg-tackles-c ovid-19/
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Congratulations, you’re literally and seriously advocating for a monarchy — the divine right of kings.
I’m pretty goddamn sure the United States fought an entire war about that. It was a real revolution, from what I hear.
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Vaccine induced enhancement - not good
March 11, 2020
As pressure for coronavirus vaccine mounts, scientists debate risks of accelerated testing
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-vaccines-insight/as-pressure-for-coron avirus-vaccine-mounts-scientists-debate-risks-of-accelerated-testing-idUSKBN20Y1GZ
Studies have suggested that coronavirus vaccines carry the risk of what is known as vaccine enhancement, where instead of protecting against infection, the vaccine can actually make the disease worse when a vaccinated person is infected with the virus.
Google
vaccine induced enhancement coronavirus
.
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But anon, I’m not Donald Trump.
It’s not convoluted. It’s pretty straightforward: Socialism is about how to best improve society as a whole for all people, whereas capitalism is about wealthy motherfuckers exploiting the working class in service of “fuck you, got mine” greed. Which one sounds like the better ideology right now?
Not only are you a racist ass, you’re misinformed: China is a capitalist country.
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His holding the White House doesn’t make him a better person than anyone else. Unless you’d like to go on record as saying “Donald Trump is a better, more important person right now than the doctors and nurses working in American hospitals and the research doctors working on a vaccine for the coronavirus”.
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I assume you are not being serious.
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Re: Re:
help help I'm being repressed!
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Re:
He doesn’t “hold” the White House, he holds the love and affection of the American people, who are THRILLED that he lives there.
Unlike you, you American Traitor. Are you actually Chelsea Manning? You sound a lot like her (him), and I know Mike is a fan.
You are obviously infected with some anti-American bias. You should be quarantined, or exterminated, like the traitorous rat bastard that you are. You and the rest of ‘em.
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Re: Vaccine induced enhancement - not good
"the vaccine can actually make the disease worse"
I think that is why they do testing, but I could be wrong ya know.
I imagine this is the case with all diseases, but so what?
Are you suggesting we all just sit back and relax, maybe fiddle whilst Rome burns?
Are you regretting the polio vaccinations or maybe we should not have performed all those small pox vaccinations?
I'm positive we would all be much better off - right?
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He lost the popular vote by 3 million votes.
It isn’t “anti-American” to criticize American leadership. If anything, it’s “anti-American” to act as if the president is above criticism — as if he is God.
And just like that, you’re exposed for who you are: someone who would easily accept violent authoritarian dictatorship if it meant people you think of as Repugnant Cultural Others would be lined up against a wall for you to execute for no reason other than irrational hatred.
You can keep kissing Trump’s ass, that’s your decision. And I’m 90% certain all of that is an act of trolling anyway. That said: It won’t win you any fans here, and it won’t make me “see the light”. I will continue to remain critical of the president, regardless of who it is, and you can neither stop me nor persuade me to change my mind. Don’t like it? Move to Russia. I hear they all love their leader out of fear, too.
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Considering that the Russians are ramping up a misinformation-campaign about the virus and how governments are handling it I wouldn't at all be surprised if this dude is some minimum-wage dude working in a Russian troll-factory.
And if he isn't, he's just doing their jobs for free which tells us a lot about his level of intelligence.
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One of the hardest working, non-drinking, little sleeping, devout Christian leaders of all time, Donald J. Trump, the magnificent?
Yeah, that's right - the big time Christian guy who paid off a whore he was sleeping with, while his current mail-order whore was nursing that fucking chud of a kid she shit out.
Show respect your betters, you ignorant foreigner virus infected socialist asshole.
Yeah sure - come at me bro.
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Re: Re:
Are you familiar with what it takes to be convicted of treason?
What is it about the posting of Mr Stone that makes you think he is a traitor and how does this fit with the actual crime as defined in our laws?
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Re:
A virus that passes in a few days, or an infectious ideology that lasts (for some) a lifetime. Corona vs. socialism.
If it's going to pass in a few days, why is trump signing a socialist bailout package?
Does he lack the testicles to say no?
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Re: Re:
And health care will be cheaper.
Isn't it already cheap? I thought repealing Obamacare would get me bigly beautiful trumpcare that I'd be so tired of having because of all the winning.
By the way, how's the stock market and your 401k doing?
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CHUD, carnivorous humanoid underground dweller
Interesting movie, parts of it were a bit silly but would watch again.
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Donny told me it was called a 409K
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Re: Re:
"socialist bailout package"
But but the airlines .. the cruise lines!
hint, it is still "socialist" when giving to corporations
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Re: Re:
What's the matter? 4chan, 8chan,16chan or whateverchan slow these days? Or did you wonder out of that mess by mistake?
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Re:
"How could you possibly justify the idea of “Trump forever” without pissing all over the Constitution of the United States?"
As much as I don't like to feed the trolls, I'm afraid I have to agree with that "Trump forever" rhetoric.
Keep in mind that Trump and a large number of Republicans (including Mitch McConnell) are up for re-election in November.
Now suppose they don't want to lose power and leave office. What would it take to stay there? How about canceling the election? But the Constitution says they can't? Well, then, how about a national emergency where it's not safe to leave to go outside or gather in groups? You know, like a terrorist attack or a pandemic.
Now, sure, a lot of people can do mail-in voting or absentee voting, but I'd be willing to place a large bet that Trump will use his executive power to cancel the election out of "safety". Again, it's unconstitutional, but who's going to tell him no? The Republican-led Senate that wants to stay in power? Doubtful. The House of Representatives who will bow to public pressure to "keep people safe"?
So, there you go- a recipe to cancel the elections in November.
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Re: Re: Vaccine induced enhancement - not good
The suggestion is "test it throughly before mass release" not "give up on vaccines". Although it is an unenviable decision to make either way.
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Re:
No, socialism is the ownership of the means of production by the 'people'-- i.e., the state.
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Re: Re:
The power to do none of those things is found in the Constitution. Nowhere does the Constitution say, "All this stuff applies except if the government says the word 'emergency', in which case the government can do whatever it wants'.
And the War Powers Act has no provisions for canceling an election, so that's a loser right out of the gate.
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Re: Re:
The president has no such power.
Everyone.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Please refrain from derogatory slurs aimed at women, it's bad enough that they are happily wading through the sewer and throwing around that kind of crap, no need to sink to their level.
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Re: Re:
btr1701 is correct. This is the true definition of Socialism.
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Re: Re:
Would such an occurrence also cancel the union?
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Re: Re: Re:
"This is the true definition of Socialism"
In addition, it is a concept not realized in practice.
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It is a valid assumption to say that fascists have existed far longer than socialists. Celebrity cavemen were grabbing pussy long before anyone tried to work together.
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Sad thing is, they seem to do whatever they want regardless.
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I need to go buy a pitch fork, who has the torches?
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Re: Re: Re: Vaccine induced enhancement - not good
"The suggestion is "test it throughly before mass release" not "give up on vaccines"."
Yes, testing might find problems before release so it would be a good idea. Did I claim otherwise and where did I say give up?
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Re: Re:
How does that differ from communism where the means of production is run by the state?
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Censoring wrong info
Yep, that was exactly the complain from somebody I followed on FB. I know that the person is knowledgeable and did not "invent" any info but only reported on scientific articles about COVID-19. And yet FB somehow decided that it was all disinformation and censored his posts! I guess "Mark knows better" than all those scientists!
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Re: Censoring wrong info
I imagine it's similar to dealing with nurgle cultists, in that both them and those that actually have real science on their side are using the same words it's just the context that changes the message, so that any filter is likely to end up catching both and one can only hope that it catches those on the wrong side more and more as the filter is fine-tuned.
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The words are used interchangeably.
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Re:
"I say let’s develop a socialist virus test and then exterminate everyone who tests positive for socialistic tendencies before they can affect others."
Your idea that people having a certain opinion should be exterminated in a global genocide is duly noted.
Remind me again how a "leftist" could possibly be worse than the "endlösung" you just suggested, beating Hitler and Stalin both?
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"What is it about the posting of Mr Stone that makes you think he is a traitor..."
I think he was pretty clear about it. Stone dared to criticize the Great Fearless Leader, his holyness Trump.
And so he should be tried and shot as a traitor for being unamerican. Hoover would be creaming his pants right now.
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"And if he isn't, he's just doing their jobs for free which tells us a lot about his level of intelligence."
Working pro bono?
I dunno, would being a US troll doing the duty of a russian socialist be considered the lowest possible standard? I really can't imagine anyone sinking much lower.
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"Everyone."
That would assume a lot of civic responsibility suddenly shouldered by americans who, if recent history is any evidence, seem quite eager to abandon all pretense of such.
Voter apathy levels have always been high in the US but the rhetoric and desingenious propaganda I keep seeing these days is worse than anything I've seen outside of german pre-ww2 history.
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CHUDS are actually "cannibalistic humanoid underground dwellers"
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For a few months one way social media trafic should be allowed. That is government to public. Public to public social media should be completely ban.
Otherwise it will very difficult for a big democracy to win over Covid-19.
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