Anti-Vaxxer Sues Facebook, In The Middle Of A Pandemic, For 'In Excess' Of $5 Billion For Shutting Down His Account
from the that's-now-how-any-of-this-works dept
When I write about this new lawsuit, filed on behalf of "retired MMA fighter" Nick Catone, against Facebook for removing his account over his anti-vaccine posts, you may expect that it was filed pro se. However, somewhat shockingly, there's an actual lawyer, James Mermigis, who filed this dumpster fire of an awful complaint. Mermigis does not appear to have any experience in internet law, and boy does it show. His various profiles online list his experience in divorce law, real estate law, and personal injury law. His own Twitter feed is basically all just wacky anti-vax nonsense, and, late last year, he was quoted as representing people trying to block a NY law removing a religious exemption for vaccines. We've gone over this many times before, but spewing junk science and angry rants that are literally putting tons of people in danger is no way to go through life, and it's certainly no way to file a lawsuit. Especially not in the midst of a pandemic where a vaccine sure would be nice.
But, alas.
The filing is bad, and Catone and Mermigis should feel bad about it. It will be quickly dismissed under CDA 230, even though (hilariously) it claims that Facebook's moderation of Catone's account "violates" CDA 230 (which is not a thing, as you cannot "violate" CDA 230). This lawsuit is like a collection of misunderstood tropes about internet law. It starts with this:
As the United States Supreme Court noted in Packingham v. North Carolina.... Facebook is part of the "vast democratic forum of the Internet." Packingham extended the concept of a quintessential public forum from parks and physical spaces to cyberspace.
Packingham is kind of the go to citation from bad lawyers trying to argue that having your content moderated on Facebook violates the 1st Amendment. It's been tried many, many times, and it has always failed because Packingham does not say what these people want it to say. Packingham said that the state cannot pass a law that kicks people off of the internet. It says nothing about private social media companies removing idiots spewing misinformation from their own sites.
Indeed, an even more recent Supreme Court ruling, in Manhattan Community Access v. Halleck, not only shoots down the idea that content moderation on private social media websites is subject to the 1st Amendment, it spells it out in big flashing letters that it's a bad idea to even try to make that argument because private companies are not the state. Packingham only applies to the state.
But that's not going to stop Mermigis. He goes on for a while about how big Facebook is, then rewrites history to suggest Facebook really only started doing content moderation after people were upset about... Cambridge Analytica and the 2016 election? Of course, the Cambridge Analytica issue wasn't a content moderation issue, so much as a privacy and data sharing issue, but hey, someone's trying to make a case out of very, very little. I'll just include this paragraph and point out that Facebook's community standards and content policy team dates back many, many, many years before 2016:
To assuage an angry public and ultimately to protect its own financial interests, Facebook announced plans to create and enforce so-called "community standards" for content published on its site. These standards are directed toward speech that Facebook regards as inimical to a "safe environment."
So, again, that's not when or why Facebook put in place community standards. Also, the final sentence of this paragraph basically admits that Facebook's moderation efforts are in good faith, which makes this an even easier CDA 230 dismissal than most.
Even more hilarious, the complaint whines that Facebook's community standards are too vague. But, uh, yeah. That's the point. When you have multiple billions of people posting content on your site, the rules need to be vague, because every day there are millions of "edge" cases that need to be looked at and have decisions made on whether or not the content is appropriate. That's why CDA 230 lets sites decide for themselves how to moderate. The complaint is literally making the case for why it should be thrown out on 230 grounds.
Among the content that Facebook finds "objectionable" is bullying and harassment. Facebook does not provide a definition for what bullying or harassment is. However it does provide a broad definition that may cover almost anything: "Bullying and harassment happen in many places and come in many different forms, from making threats to releasing personally identifiable information, to sending threatening messages, and making unwanted malicious contact."
[....]The standards is hopelessly vague. As Facebook itself notes "[c]ontext and intent matter, and we allow people to share and reshare posts if its clear that something was shared in order to condemn or draw attention to bullying and harassment."
Facebook reserves the right to remove the "offensive" posts without notifying the user or giving the user an opportunity to clarify or edit his post. Moreover, Facebook reserves the right either temporarily or permanently to disable an account for violation of its "community standards" policy.
Uh, yeah. It reserves that right. And it has every right to, and if you don't like it, don't use Facebook. But not only did Catone use Facebook, it appears that he tried to build a local gym business based entirely on Facebook. There is a bit of a tragic backstory here, in that Catone lost an infant son, and seems to believe that vaccines had something to do with it, and thus sometimes posts typical anti-vax content. That's what appears to have lead to the suspension of his account -- especially since Facebook has ramped up its removals of anti-vax nonsense in the last few months.
The problem here is that Catone (1) seemed to rely solely on Facebook for building up business for his new gym, and (2) mixed that account with posting his anti-vax screeds. So now he's blaming the fact that he was (reasonably, and well within Facebook's rights) banned from the site for trouble getting business going to his gym.
Plaintiff, Nick Catone MMA & Fitness, has used Facebook as the main way to grow and advertise the fitness center. In 2019, Plaintiff spent $15,564.17 in advertising. Plaintiff is currently spending $1800-2000 per month advertising with Facebook.
Plaintiff purchased a 32,000 square foot building for his fitness center in 2018 and Facebook has been a huge part of his financial growth. Plaintiff needs Facebook to showcase his fitness center.
Uh, yeah, that's not how any of this works. I need Facebook to give me a pony, but the pony just ain't showing up. Unless Catone signed some sort of contract with Facebook in which Facebook promised to "showcase" his fitness center, he has no rights to speak of here. Catone, it appears, made the poor business decision to exclusively focus on using Facebook to build his business. Incredibly, it appears that Catone failed to set up an alternative means of running his business, relying entirely on Facebook, according to the lawsuit:
As a direct and proximate result of the acts and omissions of the Defendants, Plaintiff can no longer operate his business. Plaintiff cannot check messages, reply to posts or access his business page. The censorship threatens his livelihood as he invests $30,000 per month to run his business and has no access to run his business as he runs it through Facebook....
If Facebook does not immediately reinstate Plaintiff's account and access to this account, Plaintiff stands to lose an unconscionable amount of money and may lose his business that he has invested millions of dollars in.
Nick, I think I see the root of your problem, and it ain't Facebook. If you set up your entire business there, didn't set up your own website or email or alternative way to get in touch with you... that seems to be indicative of your own bad business decisions. And you don't get to sue others over those. That's not how any of this works.
Also fun is the way in which Catone's posts that got his account in trouble are described:
Like many of his fellow citizens, the Plaintiff, Nick Catone is a thinker who, regardless of whether he is right or wrong, loves to share his thoughts and hear the thoughts of others. He regularly posts on Facebook about his deceased infant son and the vaccines that contributed to the death of his son, seeking to engage in debate the community of friends whose respect he has gained.
The Plaintiff, Nick Catone, used Facebook for open discussion regarding the safety and effectiveness of vaccines. Plaintiff felt that should be and [sic] open discussion to debating the merits of this serious public question.
Nick may think that, but that doesn't mean Facebook needs to host it.
Also, Nick, Mark Zuckerberg didn't personally decide to censor your to "deflect attention" from Facebook scandals, even if your lawsuit claims that's what's going on:
Upon information and belief, Mr. Zuckerberg harbors political ambitions beyond his role as principal of Facebook. His decision to categorically censor the speech of concerned citizens including that of Nick Catone is intentional and is inspired by ill-will, malice, and a desire to deflect attention from himself and Facebook's practice of surreptitiously mining data for profit from consumers who believe they are receiving a free service devoted primarily to their welfare.
I'm sitting here trying to figure out the galaxy brain explanation for how "censoring" "thinkers" as part of an apparently malicious campaign, deflects attention from totally unrelated Facebook scandals or somehow helps his apparent political ambitions. I guess I'm not a "thinker" because I just don't see it.
Anyway, claims. We've got 'em. They're not good, but they exist. According to the lawsuit it violates Section 230 of the CDA if you moderate:
The Communications Decency Act provides immunity from civil liability for materials published on interactive computer service sites. The provision of immunity was intended to avoid "content-based" chilling of freedom of speech in the "new and burgeoning Internet medium." Section 230 was enacted, in part, to preserve the robust nature of speech on the Internet. These principles were clear articulated in Zeran v. America Online....
Yeah, Mermigis, you gotta keep reading beyond that, because the way in which CDA 230 protects free speech online is by not allowing you to sue them for their moderation choices, because such dumb lawsuits would chill the ability to host any content online. I mean, dammit, you're a lawyer, at least read part (c)(2) of CDA 230 where it outright explains that you can't sue an internet company over its moderation choices -- which you admitted earlier were clearly in good faith.
The next bit is just nonsense. I know there are other lawsuits out there (mostly those stupidly claiming "bias" in takedowns) but they all fail and this one will too, because this is not the law. It's the opposite of what the law says and no court has ever come close to this interpretation in dozens upon dozens of cases involving CDA 230.
Facebook enjoys immunity from suit under Section 230 of the CDA as a Congressionally mandated means of ensuring free and robust speech on the Internet. The privileged status necessary entails a corresponding responsibility to achieve the very goal for which Congress granted immunity: to wit, the preservation of free speech on a quintessential public forum.
No. That's not what the law says, not what it intended, not what it means, and no court has ever interpreted it that way because the law actually explicitly states the reverse -- that in order to support family friendly spaces on the internet, platforms face no liability for the moderation choices they make -- including booting off people spewing pseudo-science hogwash that puts people in harms way.
Facebook's enjoyment of immunity from civil liability for the material it transmits on the Internet transforms its editorial decision-making process into management of a constructive public trust.
The manner and means by which the defendants have banned the Plaintiff from engaging in free speech on Facebook are a violation of the CDA and constitute a willful and wanton violation of the terms of the constructive public trust.
That's gibberish. It is not what the law says. And, again, dude, CDA 230 is an immunity provision. You can't "violate" it.
From there, we get into more gibberish: claiming that Facebook moderation violates the 1st Amendment. Again, this argument has been rejected numerous times, and many of those times the argument was made more competently than it was made here (and it's never been made competently, since it's legally nonsense). Facebook is a private company. It's not the government. Its actions around moderation literally cannot violate the 1st Amendment. To try to get around this, the complaint actually tries to argue that the CDA turns Facebook into a state actor. I only wish I were kidding.
The CDA's grant of immunity is integral to the government's purpose of promoting freedom of speech on the Internet. As such, the symbiosis between Facebook and the United States government transforms Facebook's action into state action under the doctrine enunciated in Burton v. Wilmington Parking Authority....
Uh, no. The Buron case is not even remotely analogous (that involved a government parking lot and a strip of retail stores that the government leased out to a coffee shop to help generate revenue to pay for the parking garage). That, uh, is nothing like a private company moderating its own space. And, honestly, we've got the Manhattan Cable case from literally last year that seems a hell of a lot more on point. Let's quote from the Supreme Court ruling from last summer:
when a private entity provides a forum for speech, the private entity is not ordinarily constrained by the First Amendment because the private entity is not a state actor. The private entity may thus exercise editorial discretion over the speech and speakers in the forum. This Court so ruled in its 1976 decision in Hudgens v. NLRB. There, the Court held that a shopping center owner is not a state actor subject to First Amendment requirements such as the public forum doctrine....
The Hudgens decision reflects a commonsense principle: Providing some kind of forum for speech is not an activity that only governmental entities have traditionally performed. Therefore, a private entity who provides a forum for speech is not transformed by that fact alone into a state actor. After all, private property owners and private lessees often open their property for speech. Grocery stores put up community bulletin boards. Comedy clubs host open mic nights. As Judge Jacobs persuasively explained, it “is not at all a near-exclusive function of the state to provide the forums for public expression, politics, information, or entertainment.”
To argue against that -- that the CDA by itself automatically turns any internet forum into a state actor -- is laughable beyond belief. It's not an argument a lawyer should be making.
From there we get some silly add-on claims about "fraud," "implied warranty," "intentional and malicious interference" etc. These are the kind of toss-in extra claims one adds to try to add heft to an already weak complaint. They are not well argued and are barely comprehensible.
And how can I leave out the damages request for in excess of $5 billion. Even that is argued in a weird, roundabout way. Rather than just asking for $5 billion like your average complaint, this one spends a bunch of paragraphs talking about totally unrelated things:
In April 2019, Facebook set aside a sum of $5 billion to use to pay an anticipated fine by the Federal Trade Commission involving systematic breaches of consumer privacy. Even so, the Defendants forecast significant profits.
Apparently Mermigis' research failed to find out that after setting aside that sum in April, the FTC went ahead and issued that fine against Facebook in July and Facebook paid up. Crack research there, buddy. Either way, what does that have to do with anything? Apparently, that now sets the floor for any damages for one Mr. Nick Catone:
Punitive damages in a sum sufficient to punish and deter Facebook for violating the First Amendment, the Communications Decency Act, for engaging in fraud, unfair or deceptive trade practices, intentional and malicious interference with prospective economic advantage and breaching the implied warranty of fair dealing. Because a sum of $5 billion appears to be insufficient to deter Facebook, the plaintiffs ask the jury for a sum significantly in excess of that amount.
Good luck, champ. Oh, and for what it's worth, I see that the punitive damages statement includes some for "unfair and deceptive trade practices" but as far as I can tell, they never actually claim that in the lawsuit -- which is a bold strategy. Anyway, this complaint should be a case study in how not to internet law. I assume the courts may be a bit slow to act, seeing as we're dealing with a pandemic, and not have time for a guy who wants to demand that private internet sites host his speech regarding evil vaccines, but this case will be dismissed in time. Perhaps by then we'll have a vaccine for COVID-19. That would be nice.
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Filed Under: 1st amendment, anti-vax, cda 230, content moderation, james mermigis, nick catone, section 230, vaccines
Companies: facebook
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Dumb lawyer
"Like many of his fellow citizens, the Plaintiff, Nick Catone is a think who," [ED: italics mine]
Couldn't the dumbass lawyer even use spellcheck or autocorrect? I don't think he passed high school, let alone the bar…
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Re: Dumb lawyer
No, that one's on me in the transcription process... Fixed now.
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Re: Re: Dumb lawyer
ah. Never mind then!
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Ad-Hoc Regulation Versus Systematic Regulation
Given what the US court system is like, it’s only a matter of time before some “lunatic fringe” plaintiff gets a verdict against Facebook. All they have to do is cite the increasing litany of cases where Facebook has proven unable to enforce its own standards.
This whole “Wild West” situation of letting the big social media outfits regulate themselves is benefiting nobody, except perhaps their shareholders and advertisers. It will have to stop sooner or later. If the US won’t do it, other countries will.
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How could the government regulate Facebook without violating the First Amendment in some way?
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Re: without violating the First Amendment
They could take lessons from the Anti-BDS folks, who are showing how worthless your First Amendment really is.
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Re: Ad-Hoc Regulation Versus Systematic Regulation
Maybe in the aftermath someone will create a social network for people who have cut their own noses off.
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Re: Re: Ad-Hoc Regulation Versus Systematic Regulation
You know, there are sites like that. You just don't hear much about them. I recall a rather racist group (very anti-muslim group that opposed people fleeing persecution in the middle east being allowed to immigrate into Europe) that had their subreddit taken down, and they moved to voat, which is basically another reddit. They tout "no censorship" on their platform. I tried to check it today, but it seems you can't even view the site now unless you login.
Then there was the replacement for 4chan (I can't recall if it was 8chan or 2chan) for those who felt the rather mild moderation of 4chan was too much.
Those alternatives are out there, you just don't hear about them because the mainstream services get all the attention.
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Re: Re: Re: Ad-Hoc Regulation Versus Systematic Regulation
"Then there was the replacement for 4chan (I can't recall if it was 8chan or 2chan) for those who felt the rather mild moderation of 4chan was too much."
8chan, which is technically still going but has had to do a lot of things to keep active after they got way too scummy even for 4chan refugees. For example, being the direct breeding ground for a number of recent mass shooters.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8chan
Also of note is Gab, ostensibly a competitor to Twitter, but in reality a refuge for the kind of scum who get themselves kicked off Twitter (usually alt-right/white surpremacist types)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)
"Those alternatives are out there, you just don't hear about them because the mainstream services get all the attention."
You don't hear about them because they're usually tiny services that advertisers won't go near with a ten foot barge pole, and which attract the kinds of people that normal people are happy to not have infecting their daily lives.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ad-Hoc Regulation Versus Systematic Regulation
You forgot Voat, the unmoderated alternative to reddit. Right wing Reddit subs kept trying to migrate there only to quickly back out as they found themselves faced with a parade of open neonazis mocking them for not being openly racist enough, and not being able to ban critics the way they could on Reddit so quickly returned with their tails between their legs.
These places generally go under the radar until tragedy strikes as they get a fraction of the traffic of the sites they were founded as 'free speech' alternatives to. Anyone with a shred of decency is repulsed by the open sewer of racism and bigotry these places tend to be, so the struggle to grow, even among the right as they are useless even as a recruitment tool or trolling platform so most of the right wing stick to reddit and twitter, making ample use of blocking critics while claiming oppression... That is when they're not tooting dogwhistles and claiming it's all a meme, bro.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Ad-Hoc Regulation Versus Systematic Regulati
"You forgot Voat, the unmoderated alternative to reddit"
Oh, I didn't forget, I just thought those examples were illustrative enough :)
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The funny thing about Gab is how, when they moved to using the Mastodon protocol (likely in the hopes that they would be able to reach a wider “audience”), most of the Fediverse ended up defederating with Gab (and Gab off-shoots) at practically the first possible moment. No Masto instance worth a damn wanted to deal with Gab’s shit.
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Re:
Nobody worth a damn wants to put up with those people. In the case of Twitter, Facebook, etc., it's because they were scaring off advertisers. In the case of those Mastadon services it's just they don't want to be associated with them for more personal reasons.
But, it's easier to pretend there's some kind of conspiracy against them than just realise they're assholes nobody wants to be near.
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Re: Re:
"But, it's easier to pretend there's some kind of conspiracy against them than just realise they're assholes nobody wants to be near."
I think you just managed to sum 95% of conspiracy theorists up in one sentence. Well done, that man.
On the less flip side that assumption made by pattern-seeking obsessive-compulsives and bigots is also why it's so hard to talk to them - anything other than outright compliance sets them off like a barrel of bottle rockets dropped into a furnace.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Ad-Hoc Regulation Versus Systematic Regulation
I've heard of a place called "off-Guardian" as a gathering place for bloggers proven sufficiently lack integrity (a not insigificant portion of them because they're Kremlin stemographers) to not be associated with the named entity.
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A leopard ate my face
"Maybe in the aftermath someone will create a social network for people who have cut their own noses off."
I can't believe the leopard ate my face, said the woman who voted for the face eating leopard party.
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Re: Ad-Hoc Regulation Versus Systematic Regulation
"All they have to do is cite the increasing litany of cases where Facebook has proven unable to enforce its own standards."
Good thing section 230 exists, then, because otherwise FB and all other online platforms would be legally obligated to follow the impossible standards of moderation determined by someone else*.
"This whole “Wild West” situation of letting the big social media outfits regulate themselves is benefiting nobody..."
Except everyone, you mean? Oh, wait, you're saying private entities should not be able to make their own rules for whom to host on their own private property?
So...you're one of those being unhappy with just having your own soapbox to stand on, and want the government to force anyone else with an audience to let you speak from theirs?
You were less repugnant when all you were peddling was pseudoscientific conspiracy crap about bioscience you didn't understand. Posts which would, incidentally, be among the first to go away when free speech...err...that "wild west" way of communication you felt so sad about, dies.
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Car analogy
My neighbor does not allow me access to my house through their kitchen anymore just because I kept spitting in their soup. I'd need to clean out my own driveway if they had their way.
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Anti-FACTSER sues facebook ...
Wasn't there something about keeping eggs in one basket?
Also this is a classic case of Dunning-Kruger effect.
The plaintiff doesn't realise that they don't know what they don't know, and their lawyer is in the same boat, both without paddles. As long as the plaintiff stays at the least-knowledge end of the scale they will maintain the butt-hurt. Perhaps we could call it the Inverse-Rumsfeld effect. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REWeBzGuzCc
This Daily Star article has an excellent graphic and explains why so many "wannabees" end up on X-factor or Idol or a host of "talent" shows. https://www.thedailystar.net/shout/health/news/judging-yourself-the-dunning-kruger-effect-1730974
ht tps://www.verywellmind.com/an-overview-of-the-dunning-kruger-effect-4160740
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Re: Anti-FACTSER sues facebook ...
Is the plaintiff's attorney being paid? Then it is likely a case of a scummy lawyer taking advantage of a client, rather than dual Dunning-Kruger.
It's telling that this attorney is a Grisham-style ambulance chaser, dabbling in personal injury and divorce cases. Real-estate law can be legitimate business, but I suspect that here it actually means evictions and arguing over security deposits.
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Re: Re: Anti-FACTSER sues facebook ...
You have no idea what a business he has filing frivolous lawsuits using the broken court system/rules to delay, appeal, requests jury trials, delays discovery with builshit excuses ( this is all his cases) got to ecourts index # 617258/2019. Click efiled documents Letter to Judge 10/22/19 - filings the same baseless complaint over and over raising $ promising a reinstatement of the religious exemption with zero chance of success Every case he files “failure too state a cause of action “
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Re: Re: Anti-FACTSER sues facebook ...
Along the same line.....How about the issue of attorneys using social media, ie: Facebook to solicit Plaintiffs and donations to file lawsuits that to achieve the “goals “ of a group? Let’s say for instance challenges to NYS ‘s repeal of the religious exemption from vaccination of schoolchildren? From what I have gathered. The “waters are murky “
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Fuck Facebook
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Why not make it something that will break the bank like $5 Trillion?
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Re:
Because the moron who's trying to get people killed won't win the case either way?
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Re: Re:
Do you know what's in those vaccines? Did you get the vaccines they are pushing on kids today? Do you trust the government? Is it 100% known that everyone is safe from all side effects from time unproven vaccines? These are concerning unknowns.
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Re: Re: Re:
Do you know what's involved with 99% of the technology and associated infrastructure that you use daily?
Does that lack of knowledge mean that it should be all thrown away?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Or the food they eat. They have no idea what is in that supersized happy meal they love so much.
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Re: Re: Re:
What is an "unproven vaccine?"
Do you refuse to take all medicine because it's not 100% safe?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Time unproven usually it is 20 years even up to 30 years before all or any drastic or hazardous side effects can be known.
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Facts and math are hard for some
Now list all vaccines that has been used for 20 years or longer that have drastic or hazardous side effects, including a comparison of the deaths and permanent damages caused by contracting the disease the vaccine protected against.
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Re: Facts and math are hard for some
Odds on him lying about vaccine inserts again?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
No, that's what the testing process is for. After that testing is completed, the general amount of risk is known (and, no, it's never zero), so then a determination needs to b made as to whether that risk is acceptable to combat the disease.
Jonas Salk ensured a generation of kids were spared the horrors of polio, whereas you'd apparently be happy that they be crippled and die because you were scared of a fantasy side effect.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
No the risk is only assessed for three months on lab rats. go ahead FLAG IT FAGGOT
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[Ass-erts facts not in evidence]
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'll flag you for the unneeded childish insult, but again you seem very uneducated in how these things actually work.
But, I'll state again - you would apparently prefer that a generation of millions be killed, crippled or otherwise had suffered through polio than risk a potential side effect that only existed in your head.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I'm impressed at how quickly their argument broke down and they had to resort to name-calling rather than make a cogent counter-argument. Their arguments and beliefs are obviously fallacious and their level of intelligence nowhere near where they believe it to be if they cannot continue a debate/argument in a mature manner.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's "Hamilton" in a nutshell.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
So better let the children die from vaccine-preventable diseases? Yeah, right. You asshats already have blood on your hands.
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Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, that shit is public knowledge and research and you can read it if you want. We know what the potential downsides of vaccines (and pharmaceuticals in general) are. And sure, sometimes their are product fuckups, but vaccines are the least likely things to be involved. Those happen with the high-income, high-volume, continuous-use products.
The government has little to do with any of this, excepting some publicly owned things like universities and health departments do a lot of research.
I welcome all the anti-vaxxers to move in together somewhere away from the rest of us, and see how they all do in their freedom from vaccines.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
You are talking out your ass.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Ah, projection. Always a classic.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Project this: 🤮
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Did ever consider that having an adult conversation might increase your chances of being heard?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Nice try, but it is your brain that is precluding all objectivity to anything even close to an adult conversation here, Chippy.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[Projects facts not in evidence]
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, it's the guy asking for evidence and not the guy name calling and feigning vomiting that's childish. /s
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Keep whining, assclown.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yes, that certainly is you projecting all right.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
I've found that the people who are "talking out of their ass" are the ones that have no cogent arguments and facts. Like you.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Jim Carrey did a fine impression
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Thanks for your opinion Professor, but I'll stick with my scientic analytical approach to discovery in the universe.
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[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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Brainfarts'R'Us
You have so far not managed to mention even the tiniest bit of fact in your posts. Which tells us everything we need to know about your "analytical approach".
So, put up or shut up.
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Re: Re: Re:
"Do you know what's in those vaccines?"
Yes. The formula and manufacturing method, essentially, is revealed on patenting. That said a "vaccine" isn't rocket science. It's most often simply a soup of smashed-up virii capsules presenting the exact protein key structure you need to build antigens for.
"Did you get the vaccines they are pushing on kids today?"
Yep, because basically that formulation hasn't noticeably changed in several decades.
"Do you trust the government?"
Not really, which is why it's a good thing that every doctor tasked with administering the vaccine knows damn well what's in it.
"Is it 100% known that everyone is safe from all side effects from time unproven vaccines?"
It never is, with ANY medication meant to save lives.
5% chance of dying when you catch the latest pandemic. 0,005% chance or less of dying or serious effects when you get vaccinated. Your call. Except when your lack of immunity means you may contribute to the pandemic spreading.
"These are concerning unknowns."
No, none of them are. Neither unknown nor concerning. You not getting basic statistics and flunking basic biology isn't our problem. You calling them "unknown" only reflects on your personal ignorance. Not that of the medical community whose job it is to know and determine the risks.
Now go take that argument to the flat earthers who share your hatred for factual reality and evidence-based science. You may find a more receptive audience.
Or even better, go study medicine for a few years.
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I'd just add here - I didn't get all the current vaccines as a child because they weren't invented when I was a child. For example, the chickenpox vaccine wasn't available until after I'd already had the actual disease. The fact that I didn't get that vaccine does not mean anything when examining my opinion that children should get it today.
But, strangely, these aren't the vaccines that these morons claim are problematic. Even more strangely, the ones they harp on about are often ones that have been changed to placate them (see: morons still talking about mercury in the measles vaccine, when it was deliberately removed in response to their conspiracy theories years ago)
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I didn't think you were older than me. I got pretty much all of them I think, unless a bunch of new ones have been done. We never vaccinated for chicken pox in the UK - first I heard that there was even a vaccine was when the Wakefield mess hit. Seems weird that we let chicken pox circulate when it can be so damaging to adults, just because it is mild in children. Maybe perceptions will change after the current mess.
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"I didn't think you were older than me."
I'll take that as a compliment, depending on your age lol. But, the chickenpox vaccine was not in general circulation in the UK when I caught it.
"Seems weird that we let chicken pox circulate when it can be so damaging to adults, just because it is mild in children."
I think that the former infection rate means that as a majority of adults did have it as kids, they concentrate on inoculating the current generations rather than chasing up people who haven't had it yet. I'm not sure of the actual rules, but I'm sure there's a way to get the vaccines as an adults if you haven't had the disease and it would be effective, unless there's a medical reason why it won't work properly on adults.
The larger problem is that people who did have the actual disease as kids are more prone to shingles or other complications later in life, while vaccinated kids don't have a raised risk of those things.
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That's some serious Ajit Pai level of twisting facts right there.
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Re:
Or Shiva-level.
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Of course, we all know that it was I who invented e-mail.
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Pretty sure it was the other way round. Never heard of you before Email.
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Never mind Facebook, he's spent what on this business? Holy freaking cow. And also he thinks anti-vax rants are positive advertising for his business as well? (Never mind he could have just, you know, used separate accounts for these things.)
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"And also he thinks anti-vax rants are positive advertising for his business as wel"
They might attract a certain type of customer, sadly.
It's like the occasion business you read about where the owner goes on rants about gay people or promoting white supremacism. Sure, that might attract a certain kind of person, but if you're appealing to the masses it probably won't work too well overall.
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The masses don't have good margins. Specialising on raving nutcases may give you the differentiation for reasonable profits.
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You are yourself an inference.
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"They might attract a certain type of customer, sadly"
The kind that drinks chlorine? Or maybe aquarium cleaner.
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Yeah, i'm guessing that fraction of the population who are also interested in MMA-workouts or whatever it is are not going to be keeping his business afloat. There may be enough who don't care about his position on such things?
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Why anyone would use any Facebook product is a mystery to me. As far as Facebook, Twitter, Google, Amazon, or Apple being private companies, the argument is an illegitimate argument, since they have all received gigantic federal subsidies and could not even continue payrolls without them. They are state actors since they are financed by the federal government, and the defense department in particular. By Facebook's own adnissions in the past as far as censorship, they frequently cited the very reason for their censorship was strictly for the purpose of acting as state actors, on behalf of the state. To provide specific examples of this was Facebook's and Microsoft's admissions that they were taking it upon themselves to ensure that " Russian election interference" would not occur, which is the jurisdiction of the state, and Microsoft's fascist Newsguard does the same thing, claiming to be acting as the state to protect national security through warnings of foreign state sponsored or of fake news, while continuously providing green trusted ratings to some of the biggest pathological liars in the business, basically serving as a mouthpeice for the military, agreeing with everything that the military does, without question, investigation, or accountability, which basically turns NewsGuard and Gates into an American 21st Century version of Joseph Goebels Nazi war propagandist! What could be more of a state actor than that? To never question the state foreign policy?
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What in the sky blue fuck are you talking about?
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Re:
I've asked that in other threads. I can't tell yet if this is one of our regulars trying out a new persona, a new person trying out their trolling skills, or someone honestly trying to make a point but who hasn't got the hang of the English language yet.
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Re:
Ever since Andrea Iravani came on here, she's been showing us nothing but paranoid Alex-Jones-style rants without evidence to back them up (Remember: Evidence is the key that separates a conspiracy theory from the historical record. Which is why nobody thinks anybody else is crazy for thinking the CIA used LSD on unsuspecting people on the 1960's, which would've sounded crazy before, because there's documented evidence of that).
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It's usually nonesense but at least Jones has an actual point in many of his rants. The point is to try and get people to buy whatever snake oil supplement he's trying to sell, but it's there.
With this one, there doesn't even seem to be a central point to any of the posts, just a word salad of various unrelated topics that switch between posts.
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Thinker | Antivaxxer
It's only possible to be no more than one at a time.
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You have not studied the problems associated to either. You merely jump on the popular side.
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"You have not studied the problems associated to either"
We have. Anti-vaxxers we encounter here, without question, rely on debunked and wrong-headed theories that fly in the face of actual medical evidence, and by doing so are helping to spread disease.
"You merely jump on the popular side"
Yes. When the "popular side" is backed with a century of medical evidence that has saved the lives of millions, why wouldn't we?
If you have actual ideas backed by actual evidence, you're still free to present them, but the anti-vaxxers have presented no such thing.
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[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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There are no "sides."
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You have to remember that these people are not only trying to politicise basic medicine, but they're often the ones stupid enough to play politics as a team sport. So, if someone on the opposing political "team" supports something then they have to be opposed to it, even if it's something that's saved millions of lives due to fully proven scientific evidence.
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"So, if someone on the opposing political "team" supports something then they have to be opposed to it..."
Sounds like the third reich/early soviet standard of putting inconvenient science in the "cultural censorship" barrel.
It's fscking embarrassing we're no further along as a species. We've got 2500 years worth of sociological observation and yet there are still people whose persistent response to anything they don't understand is to sit in a tree, shrieking and throwing their own poop, rather than learn...
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It's not clear that anti-vax has anything to do with either end of the political spectrum specifically, and in fact there's some evidence that both left-wing and right-wing people are more likely to be anti-vax than moderates. So I would say it's not likely these beliefs come from an opposition to whatever the "other side" is doing.
https://theconversation.com/anti-vaccination-beliefs-dont-follow-the-usual-political-polariza tion-81001
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There are actually, there's the side with decades of science and facts on their side, and there's the side that doesn't have that but which tries really hard to make up for it by presenting the same debunked garbage time and time again in the hopes that people will get tired of showing why they're wrong and leave them to their bullshit and conspiracy theories, which is treated as the only 'win' they ever get.
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That one guy, you're new. No one should ever blame you for being new, unless you continue trying to appear educated on matters you have not a clue of.
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Don’t worry, newbie, we don’t blame you for that.
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"Don’t worry, newbie, we don’t blame you for that."
Speak for yourself. I certainly blame the anti-vaxxers for being persistently ignorant and uneducated.
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All you assclowns have is a disgraced huckster called Wakefield shopping around his redacted paper of a study on the impressive number of 12 people ranting against vaccines while trying to sell his own vaccine.
Consider me impressed.
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Another typo
Masnick, are you tired today or something?
Also, Nick, Mark Zuckerberg didn't personally decide to censor your to "deflect attention" from Facebook scandals, even if your lawsuit claims that's what's going on
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Re: Another typo
Asks who?
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'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop!'
When the law is on your side, pound on the law.
When the facts are on your side, pound on the facts.
When neither the law or the facts are on your side, pound on the table.
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Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop!'
I can assume by this you are a liberal progressive with no kids and a meaningless life.
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Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop!'
and who seeks your daily yeas from the rest of the left leaning wingnuts at techdirt..
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Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK206942/
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them
I love the fact that you think that presenting a link without context after spending 2 posts attacking people will help your side.
Next time, consider being an adult willing to present his evidence within context.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
Im not trying to help my side I just want someone to admit they have chosen a side that has no scientific basis for the truth. Only subjective policy sucking with not so much as evidence that they are not creating a toxic dumping ground and injecting it into our kids.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, ma
Projection. Classic.
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I think you just did.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, ma
" I just want someone to admit they have chosen a side that has no scientific basis for the truth"
Look in a mirror. The guy there wants a word.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, ma
Coming from an antivaxxer assclown that's totally convincing. Next time you tell us the earth is flat.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
Did you check out the evidence I linked for you or just continuing to be a bitch?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, ma
Since it's 'evidence' from a bitch like you, why bother?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, ma
I don't think you understand what you linked to, because it's not "evidence" of anything.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, ma
"Did you check out the evidence I linked for you..."
Not our fault you can't read or understand the body of work you linked to. It doesn't back any of your claims.
Even if it did the question remains why not a single scientist has their name on it. It's not a peer-reviewed study and boils down to an assortment of advice on how you'd handle vaccination followup investigations. One written by a political committee, not a research team.
What really bugs me about you anti-science guys is that you keep trying to tossing whatever you vaguely feel must back your anti-vaccine conspiracy theory into a forum and expect people not to bother reading what you linked to.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me
"What really bugs me about you anti-science guys is that you keep trying to tossing whatever you vaguely feel must back your anti-vaccine conspiracy theory into a forum and expect people not to bother reading what you linked to."
I'm going to guess that's because they didn't bother to read it themselves, after whatever anti-vaxxer forum they found it in told them it proved something.
If these guys were actually reading their sources and examining the claims made, they wouldn't be anti-vaxxers.
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Sadly, not all of them will understand what they read since it will contradict their beliefs.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
"I love the fact that you think that presenting a link without context after spending 2 posts attacking people will help your side."
I'll go one step further - that link leads to a "study" which isn't - just a presentation by a committee on a suggested way to do formulate assumed vaccination followup studies.
And does so with not a single scientist willing to sign his/her name to the work.
To summarize, then, he has presented a non-peer-reviewed non-study methodology sugestion created by anonymous people in a committee, and is implying here's your citation.
It's obvious he has neither read it nor does he understand what it says. It's like a medieval priest running a cargo cult who thinks the magic four-letter word "NCBI" means his rhetoric turns into factual reality.
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Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop!'
Animal models play a critical role in preclinical studies during development of all medications, including vaccines (Kanesa-thasan et al., 2011). For example, rats and mice are used for investigations into fundamental basic science issues to establish ranges of dosing, to explore immunogenicity, and even to provide perspectives on some clinical outcomes. Studies of acute toxicity, tolerability, and causes of fever have been performed in guinea pigs and rabbits (Kanesa-thasan et al., 2011). Subsequent studies of safety may be carried out in rats or primates, as appropriate (Kanesa-thasan et al., 2011). Animal models may also be useful for studies exploring novel vaccines, the extent of interference with vaccine immunogenicity by concurrently administered vaccines, and the bactericidal qualities of antibodies. In its review of the existing evidence of the immunization schedule and safety, the committee did not explicitly review mechanistic evidence for any health outcomes, such as case studies or existing animal models, and instead points to the excellent work of previous committees in their reviews of individual vaccines (IOM, 2002, 2012). However, various stakeholders expressed interest in the potential use of animal models, and the committee therefore also considered the potential of studies with animal models of disease to advance knowledge of the biological mechanisms by which the childhood immunization schedule might be associated with adverse events.
To use animal models for the biological study of the recommended immunization schedule, however, many challenges must be overcome and limitations must be appreciated. For example, if one is interested in events that are purported to occur long after vaccine administration, such as asthma or food allergy, one must establish the generalizability of animal models of those diseases to the human context. Furthermore, spontaneously occurring models of diseases in animals would have to be developed before studies exploring the safety of the aggregate immunization schedule could be performed.
To the committee's knowledge, realistic animal models that could provide information on the potential of long-term health outcomes of the full immunization schedule in humans are not available. Furthermore, an assessment of the long-term effects of multiple immunizations in, for example, rats 3 months after they receive those immunizations would not be applicable to humans because the onset of such chronic diseases takes years to arise in humans.
If you had kids, would you be sufficiently satisfied as to current levels of scientific analysis has their backs? You people don't know what the hell you are even going on about with immunology by these administering them. You all sound like one side of the British Parliment, "HERE Here, yeah, grovel, grovel..
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Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop!'
Techdirt commentors all for current vaccines have expressed the same level of scientific critical analysis as objectively and expertly as did those people pushing fluoride on the public in the 1950s!! Virtually none.
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Don't you have some kids to kill with measles?
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Hey, that's unfair. Sometimes, all they want to do is maim the kids.
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The pro-plaguers can't kill kids with easily preventable diseases as easily with quarantines in place, so they're busy working out how best to pass coronavirus on to the elderly and those with weakened immune system.
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I wouldn't put it past them to adopt the spray-bottle-of-infected-fluids tactic of their felow genocidal maniacs - white supremacists.
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Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop
You left wingnuts are flying blind. There is a very good scientifically proven reason there is a conservative side to concerns of current trends in immunology.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them
You seem to be convinced, it is then reasonable to assume you forgo all tetanus booster shots even though you routinely walk barefoot upon rusty nails. Very brave of you, but I suggest you are being a bit over confident.
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Yeah, and how did that work out for the United Kingdom and its “herd immunity” coronavirus strategy?
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Well, the guy who was pushing for it got infected, so, yay?
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To be fair, this is Boris we're talking about. Ever since the lurgi struck It was practically inevitable that nerk would get it.
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Yep. I wonder if his father also has it, or if he will now realise how stupid he was for saying he'd happily ignore calls to self isolate and go to the pub as normal.
Sadly unlikely, I know, but if would be nice if these people were capable of self-reflection occasionally.
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Who cares. They are eating children over there and infusing their blood and replacing their organs with that of little kids.. Fuck
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…the actual fuck are you talking about
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Again, citation most definitely needed.
Or... you do know those old Hammer movies aren't documentaries, right?
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Well, over on this side of the pond we're not all dead just yet ... ;)
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Herd immunity requires that 70% or more of the population to have survived the disease, or to have been vaccinated. The current strategy, being used world wide, is to slow the spread of the disease so that fewer people are infected at any one time, and so giving health services a chance of coping. See The Coronavirus Curve - Numberphile for the mathematics behind the strategy, it is quite easy to understand..
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Someone was stupid enough to claim herd immunity for COVID-19? Herd immunity does exist by making the population density of susceptible individual too low to support the spread of a disease because the majority of the population is immune. But the problem is the COVID-19 is a new mutation which virtually no one is immune to and the vast majority of the population is susceptible to. Herd immunity does not exist at this time for that specific disease.
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According to all the hysterical reporting and supposed death count, there won't be enough people left to form a herd if herd immunity could possibly work for covid19.
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[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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"According to all the hysterical reporting and supposed death count"
The "hysterical reporting" was trying to get idiots to stop congregating en masse and take things seriously, and the supposed death count was based on what you happen according to known medical data if they didn't stop being idiots. Data which, it always has to be stressed, is absolutely underreporting right now due to a lack of testing availability. We know of around 600,000 infections and around 30,000 deaths so far, but that is absolutely a low ball figure.
We'll see what the final figures are, but there's already evidence that people have died needlessly as a result of people like you ignoring facts. As the cases rise exponentially in places that waited a bit too long to take effective action, we'll see how much blood is on the hands of people who tried pretending action wasn't needed back when it would have had the optimal effect.
"if herd immunity could possibly work for covid19"
Herd immunity will absolutely work for COVID-19. It's not a magical disease, it falls well within known properties. However, as it's a novel virus that did not exist in the wild until a few months ago, nobody has naturally obtained immunity until after they catch it. No vaccine currently exists to offer an alternative method of gaining immunity without catching it, and the known fatality rate means that millions of people will die as a direct result, plus likely many more indirectly (for example, people with otherwise treatable conditions who can't get effective treatment under a medical system overwhelmed by COVID-19 victims)
This will pass, but people like you trying to spread FUD about the known medical data will only serve to increase the numbers.
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You always have the most simplistic explanations with no evidence that you even know what you are talking about. You believe the numbers because someone put them out there. You are spreading whatever you read with absolutely no other research.
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I bet you think vaccines cause autism.
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Vaccines react differently in different people. Yes, vaccines have caused autism in some people. Vaccines have caused a lot of dangerously adverse reactions. They are using our children as lab rats.
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Are you sure the word 'cause' is appropriate here?
How do you know this?
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Please cite the scientific evidence that proves a direct causal link between any given vaccine and autism. (Wakefield’s discredited bullshit doesn’t count, and the plural of “anecdote” is not “data”.)
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Plus - even if there is a link, please provide reasons why autism is more objectionable than, say, blindness and death caused by a major measles outbreak.
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You are incapable of understanding the evidence I have posted. You are so fucking blind from your biased stupity you are just going for popular view by siding with others who are also so fucking blind by their ignorant biases they can't read and comprehend shit. Stay in your dead brains and see if you ever amount to more than a dead weasel.
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Re: Re:
Don't you have anything other than projection?
You're getting stale.
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You can say “vaccines cause autism”, but that isn’t scientific evidence — and neither are all the insults that you apparently believe will make anyone think you’re the smartest person alive.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
https://vtdigger.org/2019/03/22/sandy-reider-informed-consent-vaccines-needed/
Here techdirt. Any more questions?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yeah, got a factual, non-fraudulent source for a change?
Instead, you cited a cultist member of a scam site.
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Asshole ignorant fuck yoyre so fucking stupid fuck you.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Here techdirt. Any more questions"
Why do you insist on using known frauds for your evidence?
Why do you think that linking to the same frauds will have a different effect than the last thread where you go owned for doing the same thing?
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athe frauds are out tonight on techdirt you ignorant assholes
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The moment you fuck off, that problem solves itself.
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Again, have you ever tried not acting like a toddler?
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Stone, I'm convinced that you have a titanium re-inforced granite skull that would never allow reason in.
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Ah, projection. Always a classic.
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Het the one and only thing you have conclusively proven is that description applies exclusively to yourself here.
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stone I am convinced you have dried pigshit for a cranium that will never let your ignorance save you
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Yes, yes, you've already proven to us you hold only fact-free beliefs, no need to reiterate it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them
How about you summarize those "very good scientifically proven reasons" for us then?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
I gave you one link to gov current immunology that states they are relying on others before them and admit that the long term effects however possibly hazardous are unknown. It should at least give rise to concerns and need for more scientific study that a three month long study of side effects on rats for which they are relying. I am not talking about the time proven universally accept vaccines that prevent measles or rubella, polio, tetanus, mumps, scarlet fever, and the others that if you are a boomer or gen xer you were given safely, but the newer time unproven ones that people have had trouble with.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, ma
They are adding those time unproven mixes they aren't even telling parents what's in them and what they are for specifically. That is what I am raging against.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me
They are forcing kids at gunpoint to take these vaccines. In Maryland there was at least one incident where law enforcement would not let parents pick up their kids until after the kids were administered the vaccines. That is FUCKING WRONG.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean t
[Citation Needed]
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean t
Yeah, we know you people lie about shit like this all the time. Evidence, please.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being me
I am the reader of such a news story that was a major headline five years ago. I don't work for you people. Go find it yourselves.
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The burden of proof for a claim lies with the person who made the claim. We have no choice but to dismiss your argument if you can’t provide proof.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is bein
"I am the reader of such a news story that was a major headline five years ago"
Which news story? Others have already looked for it and not found it. Are you sure it says what your diseased mind pretended it did? Link to it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean t
"They are forcing kids at gunpoint to take these vaccines."
Oh come on now ... you embellished there - you can admit it, no big deal.
"In Maryland there was at least one incident where law enforcement would not let parents pick up their kids until after the kids were administered the vaccines."
I looked for the article, came up empty. I do not know about Maryland specifically, other states disallow said students from attending without up to date vaccinations rather than kidnapping said students with police assistance.
I find your claim difficult to believe. But do go ahead and get your panties in a twist because that is funny to watch.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being me
I don't care if you were too busy working yourself up into a lather that you missed a window of opportunity to see your government hard at work forcing vaccines on kids at gunpoint in Maryland about five years ago. Don't enrich your knowledge then and don't research anything so you can stop all trust. You won't miss a thing that way.
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Please cite the news story that proves the government literally held children at gunpoint in Maryland to force vaccines into those children.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is bein
The police were pointing their weapons at children?
I would think something like that would've made the news, perhaps you have a link. Otherwise your claim(s) will be ignored.
Why is it that a search turned up nothing like what you claimed happened?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is
Don't use google for research. duh, all the really sleazy things various gov agencies pull gets an official wipe very quickly now.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook
Its been wiped and you won't find it is not a convincing argument.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook
How do you know this then ... were you there when it happened?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook
"Don't use google for research"
What should we use then? If you're thinking of a specific article, linking to it directly usually works best.
Or we use Occam's Razor - if the choices are a grand conspiracy removed all evidence of the story, or you made it up, option 2 always wins.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being me
Im sure you frequently like seeing people wearing panties in a twisted way, but don't flatter yourself for that.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean t
FLAG IT MAGGOTS YOU SHOW ALL READERS HOW ILLITERATE YOU ARE
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, ma
" the newer time unproven ones that people have had trouble with."
Oh, OK. Sorry, we were assuming you were the moron who keeps coming in here to point at widely debunked claims about the vaccines that are known to have already saved millions of lives.
If you'd like to continue the argument, please be specific about which anti-vaxxer nonsense you are referring to, so we can correctly adjust our debunuking of your arguments.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me
Its actually your ability to analize detailed reports about certain dangerous vaccines that is debunked. It should have been the first thing higher learning should have taught you.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean t
I doubt any of you got balls enough to have kids anyway
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being me
We at least allow children like you to post, for whatever reason.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean t
"Its actually your ability to analize detailed reports about certain dangerous vaccines that is debunked."
Then link to one, not laughable conspiracy theorist who only exist to extract money from idiots and to endanger the lives of children.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being me
Can you ask him for a living, complete-with-magic unicorn too? That one we have a higher chance of getting.
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Generic statements carry no weight
You said:
I'm still waiting for you to present these scientifically proven reasons.
Oh, regarding the link you provided - I don't think you fully understand what it's all about.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them
Of course. There's also ample 'evidence' for the use if MMS.
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Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop
So, you choose to remain ignorant and spread lies with all the maturity of a toddler going through his tantrum phase. Gothca.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them
Not spreading lies, just sensible reasoning.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
Anti-vaxxers possess neither sense nor reasoning. They are, however, a textbook Dunning-Kruger case.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
Could you post that then? There's none in your previous posts.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, ma
https://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1119/p02s04-ussc.html
This isn't the story I remember as it is earlier than I remember, but the kids were lined up against the wall, cops there, and they were forced to get the vaccines with parents not being told what the vaccines were for and no information given about side effects or what to look for. etc... They were forced by county policy against their will.
I'm doing this out of sympathy for all the "tech" dirters unable to research "tech" and dirt for themselves.
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So they weren’t literally held at gunpoint like you said.
Fuck off back to whatever Andrew Wakefield Asskisser forum you slithered out of.
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Re:
Nice try blankhead. The problem Americans are having is that since the 1980s these manufacturers were relieved of all liability for claims against them. That removal of a control has lead to many deaths and disabilities in our children. Get a life, Stone or crawl back under the stone you came from. Dick.
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Re: Re:
"The problem Americans are having is that since the 1980s these manufacturers were relieved of all liability for claims against them"
Yes, because idiots like you who don't understand medicine would try to undermine the medical community's ability to eradicate deadly diseases. This is why a specific fund was set up to weed out the profiteering frauds and take care of actual victims.
" That removal of a control has lead to many deaths and disabilities in our children"
Nowhere near as many as the diseases caused before vaccines were available. Why are you trying to kill and cripple children by having them removed?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me
You previously claimed that law enforcement officers were pointing their weapons at children, do you now recant that claim?
If I were an officer of the law, I would be offended at your remark .. even if I were a tad corrupt I would still not be pointing a weapon at children. Do not try to tell me those officers feared for their lives.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean t
The officers were holding children hostage away from parental access with loaded guns moron.
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You said, and I quote…
Did the police hold their loaded guns at children/their parents and say the children had to get vaccinated “or else”, yes or no?
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Re:
You could certainly draw the conclusion that had a parent grabbed their kid they would have drawn on them and arrested them and or shot them. The officers had their kids held hostage and were forcing those innocent children to take that unknown vaccine.
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I could…if I thought the police were actually willing to kill over vaccinations. While I don’t think highly of police officers in general, even I’m not that far gone.
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Re: Re:
How might the phrase "at gunpoint" not mean actually POINTing a gun AT a person?
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It's very simple, if you make a claim you back it up. So far you haven't been able to substantiate even one for your "claims" as correct. That speaks volumes about how you conduct yourself which isn't a pretty picture.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me
You cited one example from over 12 years ago, and it didn’t even support your assertion of parents being held at gunpoint.
One example. All that proves is that it happened once, and not even the way you remember it. It doesn’t mean that it’s happening regularly, as your posts imply.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean t
...and even if it did happen the way he believes it did, I'm sure the rest of us would be just as quick to condemn their actions. The difference being, one idiot police department going overboard does not undo the century of medical fact behind vaccines. If all he has is a single example of something happening, then by any logic that must be a singular exception, not standard practice as he's trying to imply.
It makes even less sense when you look at a global perspective. If he believes holding people at gunpoint is somehow necessary for vaccines, how does he explain the high levels of vaccination in countries where the police don't carry guns?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
"Not spreading lies, just sensible reasoning."
Sensible reasoning would tell you that nothing in this universe is one hundred percent. Expecting it to be so will only led to frustration and cost all your sensible reasoning.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
Did you drink your bleach yet?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
Techdirt suck the shit out of your heads you people are fucking morons
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Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop
The scientific critical analysis has already been done. You choose to ignore it in pursuit of a dumb conspiracy pushed by uneducated fools.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them
They're not all uneducated. The rest are profiteering frauds.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them
You don't do your own research and probably smoked a lot of your homework.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them
No the conspiracy is that the manufacturers were all relieved of liability claims against them. That is historically accurate and well-known until you come to techdirt where everyone sounds like a disinfected lab rat out of work.
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Hey, that’s not fair!
We don’t all squeak.
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Re:
Oh yes you do!
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Re:
I do. :)
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Re:
You especially are the biggest asshole here stone why dont you go play with Rosey Palmer you fuck
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Sober up, Hamilton; you’re not nearly as fun to fuck with when you’re blackout drunk.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
" That is historically accurate and well-known "
I do not doubt your claim of corruption within our industry as I'm sure it indeed occurs, but when making a claim why not provide reference?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, ma
You are also one ignorant fuck
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make t
You aren't particularly smart it seems.
Let me help you:
Now, can you infer from this what would happen if a company is found liable in one country for a bad drug but they keep selling it in other countries?
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Re: Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop!'
So you copy-pasted a paragraph you obviously didn't understand yourself. Grand.
"If you had kids, would you be sufficiently satisfied as to current levels of scientific analysis has their backs? You people don't know what the hell you are even going on about with immunology by these administering them."
As a matter of fact, we do. The fact that you keep quoting from a paper submitted by a political committee rather than a peer-reviewed study or even a basic book of biology or immunology tells us a lot right there.
You are basically acting the part of a shaman in a cargo cult, dropping magical papers (which you can't read) into the sea hoping your ship will eventually come in.
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Re: 'Judge, Facebook is being mean to me, make them stop!'
And if you're unarmed in the ensuing battle of wits, chew on the table.
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First Amendment
For all those who for one reason or the other who seem to believe that the First Amendment covers Facebook the amendment is as follows.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
For continued unenlightened the first word is Congress not Facebook. In fact the there is no limitations placed on anyone in the First Amendment except on Congress. And, that limitation is on the Congress of the US government NOT on state governments, corporations, or individuals.
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Re: First Amendment
It occurs to me that maybe those who complain about their voice not being heard by all other customers of a third party business are actually upset about the high cost of entry to that particular marketplace. Otherwise they would be eagerly investing in their own platform(s) to spread their version of ..... oh wait a sec, that will no0t draw a crowd will it. Never mind.
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Therein lies the real reason people complain about “deplatforming”: They want free access to a massive potential audience. Your speech could reach far more people through Twitter than it could through, say, a NeoCities site.
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Re:
"Free access"? Interesting wording...
Perhaps Twitter is part of a new standard of basic speech? Otherwise you may promote a situation where power (and/or deference to the twitters of the world and the forces that control them) is a prerequisite for truth telling or telling lies or just being right or wrong or being part right and part wrong.
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Re: Re:
"Perhaps Twitter is part of a new standard of basic speech"
No, the standards remain the same as they've always been. It's just that some people have confused the right to speech with the right to have a mass audience.
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Re: Re: Re:
Perhaps Twitter should be part of a new standard of basic speech?
OR
Perhaps Twitter is part of a new defacto standard of basic speech?
The point of the original question was to suggest a subject for consideration not for an immediate pat answer.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
The response remains the same - nothing about Twitter changes basic rights to speech.
If you have something in mind, tell me what it is.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Reading this thread, I recall children competing to play with the same toy when the room contains dozens of other toys that are plenty interesting and fun. One kid sees another having fun and wants to take over rather than participate, some get very violent.
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No, it isn’t, because you’ve turned what I said into a nice example of fractela. Let me show you the original context so you (hopefully) can’t accidentally/won’t intentionally misinterpret what I said again:
And if you want to take my words out of context again, I’m going to explain them so you can’t without being 100% wrong.
Twitter is a free-to-use service; you need not pay anything to sign up and start tweeting. Twitter also has a large userbase — we’re talking millions of accounts (fewer of which are active, and even fewer of those are actual people). That means Twitter has a huge potential audience for a given user’s tweets, and access to that potential audience costs nothing.
But when Twitter boots asshole conservatives for breaking the TOS, the assholes lose that access — and whatever audience they already had. Thus, you hear cries of “suppression of speech” and “censorship” when no such thing is taking place. They can get their message out through other services — but those services likely won’t have the same reach as Twitter.
The First Amendment protects one’s right to speak their mind. But it offers no guarantee of an audience, nor does it guarantee the use of someone else’s platform. When you hear people whine about “censorship” because they got booted from Twitter or their comments got flagged on Techdirt, they’re not whining about “censorship” — they’re whining about how they can’t reach an audience to which they think they’re entitled.
No. No, it is not.
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Re:
I don't understand the point of the fractela part. I am forced to assume it is an insult. Intentional misinterpretation is at times offensive to me and I would not do it. I consider it sophistry. BUT, I am an internet stranger so self-description is only meaningful if one accepts it.
When I wrote "you" in the original comment I should have wrote "one".
Reading Techdirt makes me aware of the points you raise in this new comment. I am not arguing against the interpretation of law or the intent of conservatives. I was attempting to suggest a reconsidering of what already exists. There are perhaps undesirable consequences to the dynamics that are playing out now. Because, Mr. Masnick talks about protocols over platforms I thought Techdirt would be receptive to a rethinking.
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You’re doing a poor job of convincing me you have reading comprehension skills. “Fractela”, under the definition at that link, is meant to be an opposite of “context” — that is, to refer to a phrase being taken out of its proper context and meaning. You quoted part of what I said and took that out of context so you could make a completely different (and irrelevant) point. Ergo, you turned my words into fractela.
You did exactly that by quote-mining my post and attributing a meaning to my words that isn’t supported by the full context.
And you did that by taking my words out of their context — by turning what I said into fractela — so you could make an irrelevant-to-my-point point.
You’ll get a proper discussion out of me when you stop being disingenuous about what you’ve done and start discussing the point I actually made. Until you can do that: Piss off.
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Re: First Amendment
Nobody who's not functionally retarded thinks the First Amendment applies to private organizations.
However, people advocating free speech are not usually talking about the First Amendment. They're talking about the general principal - one that actually used to be respected in this country - that people should be able to speak freely, and that the answer to bad arguments is not censorship/de-platforming/speech codes but, in fact, good arguments.
Anti-vaxxers and flat earthers are wrong. We do more harm than good by 'de-platforming' them; instead, let their voice be heard and counter it with better arguments.
Instead, the do-gooder goodthinkers - which includes most on Techdirt, writers and commenters both - take the anti-free speech position that crimethinkers should be shut up by the corporate bosses instead of argued against.
The US hasn't gotten to the dire point the UK and Canada has reached where it's actually the government prosecuting wrongthinkers … but with this anti-free speech Orwellian 'content moderation is hard to do, so let Twitter continue to decide what's anathema' attitude, it's not long in coming.
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Re: Re: First Amendment
These are totally different categories. People die from listening to anti vaxxers, so letting them spread their message as far and wide as they want to, and letting anyone else criticize them too is only a good solution if that is the best way to limit the deaths and disease (in children, no less). If kicking them off of popular platforms is more effective, then I'm in favor of doing that. Flat earthers are completely harmless. If they want to spread their nonsense on Twitter, Facebook and Youtube, let them go nuts. No harm done.
I guess you don't understand the first amendment very well either.
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That sucks for them, then. Those people aren’t entitled to have their speech broadcast, unedited and unfiltered, to the world through a platform they don’t own. They’re more than welcome to make their own platform and express their ideas there — but they’re not entitled to an audience or the use of a platform owned by someone else. Being told “get your shit off my platform” isn’t censorship. Being told “get your shit off the entire Internet or you’ll be punished by the government” is.
This is bullshit, because…
…you assume the arguments they make are deserving of any kind of serious consideration. If an anti-vaxxer wants to whine about how the government persecuted Andrew Wakefield for being a fraud or go on about how they believe vaccines work (even though they don’t), let them do it in their own spaces and to anyone who seeks them out. Anti-vaxxers have no right to push their shit on everyone else through a platform that doesn’t allow (or want) anti-vax propaganda.
You and I have one thing in common: I don’t have the guaranteed right to use Twitter, and neither do you. And that statement applies to any other corporate-owned platform for speech. You can buy your own servers and start your own website if you want your speech out in the world without corporate hindrance. Otherwise, you can abide by whatever rules the platform lays out and learn to read the fucking room when you’re told “you’re full of shit”. Make your choice.
The United States has prosecuted “wrongthinkers”, though. One of the most famous U.S. prosecutions for speech gave us the most famous and thoroughly debunked apologia for censorship in history.
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Re: Re: First Amendment
"that the answer to bad arguments is not censorship/de-platforming/speech codes but, in fact, good arguments."
That's a great idea, but it depends on a woefully optimistic misunderstanding of human nature.
"Anti-vaxxers and flat earthers are wrong. We do more harm than good by 'de-platforming' them; instead, let their voice be heard and counter it with better arguments."
Except, that never works. Look at the anti-vaxxer morons here as a prime example. Every time they rear their heads, all other conversation stops and the thread is filled with their bad faith repeated arguments that are shot down again and again, until they get tired and repeat the exact same arguments in another thread. There's no reasoning with them a lot of the time (arguments are made so they don't convince others with their bullshit), either they're arguing in bad faith or they're so far into that cult that they believe that factual information is some kind of conspiracy.
Now, think of that, now think similar people giving people bad advice during this pandemic, or spreading white supremacism or attacking trans people, or many other things that may have far more damage. At some point, you've got to put your foot down and kick the unwanted disruptive assholes out of your premises.
"Instead, the do-gooder goodthinkers - which includes most on Techdirt, writers and commenters both - take the anti-free speech position that crimethinkers should be shut up by the corporate bosses instead of argued against."
That fantasy version of this site sounds terrible. Now, how about you address the one that really exists?
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Re: Re: First Amendment
Why do you hate the first amendment, free speech, and the marketplace of ideas so much you want to destroy them?
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Re: Re: First Amendment
So the idea that Techdirt commenters are generally pro-censorship, believe ‘argument from authority’ is not a logical fallacy, and believe corporations are best positioned to determine what ideas are good or bad, and bad ideas should be censored … that’s all a figment of the imagination, hmm?
Nasch: “Limit[ing] deaths and disease” is more important than the historical American aversion to censorship.
Stone: There exist ideas that aren’t “deserving of any kind of serious consideration”, and therefore should not be argued against, but censored.
PaulT; it’s optimistic to believe humans are intelligent enough to consider ideas, hear arguments, and make up their own minds, therefore censorship is the best solution so humans don’t hear bad ideas.
So … the letter of the law about free speech is more important than the spirit of free speech in the United States. Ideas don’t matter, it’s the legalese that counts. Citizens’ and elected representatives’ opinions about vague concepts like ‘free speech’ aren’t important, it’s CEOs, advertisers, and lawyers who should decide what ideas are acceptable.
One wonders where the idea that Techdirt is pro-censorship comes from.
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That’s a lovely misinterpretation of what I said.
Some ideas don’t deserve serious consideration and thus debate. “Black Americans deserve to be enslaved” is one. “Vaccines cause autism” is another. That those repugnant, ignorant, and all-around dumbassed ideas are legal to espouse doesn’t make them worthy of being treated “fairly”.
That said: They don’t deserve to be censored, either. No idea must be above scrutiny or debate, even if that scrutiny/debate amounts to a second’s worth of thought before outright dismissal. As I said, those ideas are legal to espouse — and they should remain as such.
But the legality of a certain kind of speech provides no recourse for people who would seek to publish such speech on third party platforms. Twitter, Facebook, Mastodon instances, etc. have no legal, moral, or ethical obligation to host any kind of speech. Their refusal to host certain kinds of speech (e.g., “hate speech”, anti-vax propaganda) doesn’t amount to censorship — it amounts to being refused an audience. Last time I checked, the First Amendment offers no guarantee of an audience for one’s speech.
I don’t advocate for censorship. I advocate for the right of association. If a racist prick wants to post The Fourteen Words on the Internet, they should have every right to do that. But the only platform on which the racist should have a guarantee of being able to post that sentence is the one they personally own.
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Re: Re: Re: First Amendment
I disagree with that characterization of what I said. If Twitter et al want to keep anti vaxxers on their platforms, they have that right, because the first amendment says so. I wouldn't agree with that decision, but I would agree that they have every right to do it. You're the one who is in favor of restricting their right to control what speech takes place on their private property, so who is more in favor of free speech rights here? Under what theory of censorship should a business not get to choose how their facilities get used?
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The theory of conservative entitlement.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: First Amendment
"If Twitter et al want to keep anti vaxxers on their platforms, they have that right, because the first amendment says so. I wouldn't agree with that decision, but I would agree that they have every right to do it. "
Exactly. If Twitter want those people on their property they're welcome to them. It may just limit my desire to use the same property, and increase my desire to use their competitors. But, if they think the anti-vaxxer and white supremacist visit is worth more than mine, they're welcome to take them in.
The only people trying to force speech in a certain direction are those saying that if Twitter do not wish to have those people on their property, they should be forced to host them against their wishes.
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Re: Re: Re: First Amendment
"PaulT; it’s optimistic to believe humans are intelligent enough to consider ideas, hear arguments, and make up their own minds, therefore censorship is the best solution so humans don’t hear bad ideas."
Stop deliberately lying about what people are saying, it works better.
"One wonders where the idea that Techdirt is pro-censorship comes from"
A deliberate and wilful misdirection and lying about the opinions of others from people too simple minded to discuss what is actually being said.
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Re: Re: Re: First Amendment
I don’t believe I’m misinterpreting anybody. I think your confusion is over the use of the word ‘censorship’. If you’re dead set on interpreting ‘censorship’ solely as government control of speech, I can perhaps see the problem, because that’s not what I’m talking about. Indeed, Google ‘censorship’, and see what comes up….
Wikipedia: ‘Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and corporations.’ ACLU: ‘Censorship can be carried out by the government as well as private pressure groups.’ American Bar Assoc: ‘Often, the censorship comes from social media companies that police content pursuant to their own terms-of-service agreements.’
So if the problems is the word ‘censorship’, can we replace it with ‘suppression of speech’?
In this particular case, we’re talking about a certain corporation (Twitter) suppressing certain speech (anti-vaccine argument). Can we agree on that?
I’m reading all your arguments very carefully. I don’t think you’re reading mine.
I don’t want the government doing anything (suppressing speech, forcing corporations to host speech, etc). Nowhere did I say that. You are jumping to conclusions. What I said is it’s an American value to allow arguments to take place so that bad ideas can be beaten by good ones. I think CEOs and boards of directors and lawyers and advertisers gagging people leads to fuzzy thinking, bad outcomes, paranoia, and generations of people thinking they should go through life without hearing anyone disagree with them.
So you can stop saying I want anyone ‘restricting [Twitter’s] right to ___’. You can especially stop talking about ‘conservative entitlement’, because nowhere did I mention a political spectrum. I think, if anything, liberal/left have, until very very recently (last decade) been known for being for free speech/dialogue/airing of grievances/allowing controversial opinions (call it what you want) and against censorship/stifling discussions/de facto gag orders/corporations suppressing speech (call it what you want).
I think it’s a bad idea for corporations to suppress speech. I think it’s legal for them to do so, but I think it’s un-American and bad for society.
You three think it’s a good idea for corporations to suppress speech. You think it’s a good thing for Twitter to suppress this guy’s anti-vaccine nonsense. One can’t interpret your arguments any other way.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: First Amendment
"I don’t believe I’m misinterpreting anybody. I think your confusion is over the use of the word ‘censorship’. If you’re dead set on interpreting ‘censorship’ solely as government control of speech, I can perhaps see the problem, because that’s not what I’m talking about. Indeed, Google ‘censorship’, and see what comes up…."
Use a platform often accused of censorship to find out what it means?
Seriously, though, censorship by private organisations is a thing. It's just that if it's by a private organisation you have a choice, whereas if it's by the government you don't.
"You think it’s a good thing for Twitter to suppress this guy’s anti-vaccine nonsense. One can’t interpret your arguments any other way."
Yes, it's a good thing for private platforms to choose not to be associated with speech that is known to actively harm people.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: First Amendment
What I disagree with is your assertion that allowing (or even encouraging) companies to moderate speech on their platforms goes against American principles. It is exactly in line with respect for freedom of speech, freedom of association, and the right to control private property. Which are arguably the most uniquely American values.
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You’re once again making the mistake of conflating “free speech” with “access to a platform/an audience”. The First Amendment protects your right to speek freely. It doesn’t give you the right to force your way onto a platform you don’t own and yell at people who don’t want any part of what you’re saying.
Some ideas aren’t deserving of the kind of debates you seem to think they are. You can have those debates, sure, but all you’re doing is lending credibility to those ideas. I mean, we can argue whether Black people in the United States were better off under slavery. But doing so would make the idea sound credible instead of absolutely fucking racist. The same goes for anti-vax views.
You have the right to express an idea. You don’t have the right to make people debate or lend credibility to that idea. And you sure as shit don’t have the right to express that idea on a privately-owned platform for speech with rules against expressing that idea.
Oh, and if you believe Twitter shouldn’t have the right to moderate speech on its platforms, such that certain ideas/forms of speech can no longer be moderated, you are arguing in favor of restricting Twitter’s right of association. You’re also arguing in favor of the idea that all privately-owned platforms should be forced to host speech such as spam, COVID-19 disinformation, and White supremacist propaganda. After all, anything less would be SuPpReSsIoN oF sPeEcH.
If I believed Twitter was suppressing someone’s speech instead of merely denying them both access to a potential audience and the credibility of being on Twitter, I’d be right there with you in saying it’s a bad idea. But Twitter isn’t doing that. Because Twitter can’t tell anti-vax forums to shut their shit down “or else”. Twitter can only tell anti-vax assholes to stop saying that shit on Twitter — which it is legally allowed to do, even if that fact pisses you off. So here’s a question you might want to debate with yourself: If you owned a Mastodon instance, would you ban White supremacist propaganda, or would you allow it because you think people using your instance should be forced to debate whether the Klan was right?
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Re: Re: First Amendment
Because fuck Fiji kids, right? Let them die of measles to prove the anti-vaxxers wrong, what could be the problem in that?
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Re: Re: Re: First Amendment
Yeah, that's why we counter them and try to not allow them an audience. Because when they are allowed a sense of legitimacy, people die. Flat earthers are generally harmless morons who unironically use satellite technology made possible by a spherical earth to deny basic physics. Anti-vaxxers kill people.
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Ambiguous Problem
Catone's taken too many punches to the head...or not enough.
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Cure, please
Is vaccine now synonymous with cure? If so, how did that happen?
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Re: Cure, please
No, but it's the next best thing if we don't have a cure. If we had a vaccine for COVID-19, there would be no reason for everyone to be locked down, for instance.
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Re: Re: Cure, please
Is there a reason now for everyone to be locked down now? I cannot accept that as a given, I want work through it myself OR learn from trustworthy sources. Does anybody remember the absurd responses and estimates for SARS and Ebola?
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Re: Re: Re: Cure, please
See my previous comment, and the video it links to.
As to Ebola and SARS, neither of them started spreading like Covid-19, and so there was no need to take measure like those being taken now.
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Re: Re: Re: Cure, please
Pay attention to the numbers. If you exclude China's almost inarguably bogus numbers, if you are tested positive for COVID-19 you have a 59% chance of survival. Of course your chances go up or down depending on your age.
Before you fail to understand, I'm not saying that you, as a coronavirus-free individual, have a 59% chance of surviving this pandemic. Far from it. There are huge numbers of people with the virus who have not been tested and are not added to the statistics. There are even huger numbers of people who don't have the virus at all and may never contract it. The final stats are unknown. But of those who have caught it and tested positive (given the very few test kits available in the world) 41% have died.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
This disease is far more dangerous than SARS and Ebola due largely to how contagious it is. It takes very little to contract it once exposed. Those carrying it expose everyone around them for up to 2 weeks before their own symptoms appear, if ever (many are asymptomatic). The transmissiveness of COVID-19 is orders of magnitude higher than those other diseases. And thanks to lax responses from governments around the world, people were allowed to travel and spread this everywhere.
Now, back to your original question:
Absolutely. This lockdown will not prevent people from catching the coronavirus. What it will do, and is doing, is slowing the rate at which people catch it. The whole purpose is to allow the medical system to keep up with new, incoming cases. It's doing only a marginal job of that but if the restrictions were lifted they would be completely overwhelmed and many more would go without needed care and die. With luck, they'll come up with a vaccine before we reach the far end of the curve.
If you don't want to take the vaccine, fine, that's on you. Just stay home and avoid all contact with other people and maybe you'll survive this. Maybe not. But don't let your misguided fear of vaccines cause anyone else to get sick and die.
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Re: Re: Re: Cure, please
"Is there a reason now for everyone to be locked down now?"
Yes, it's to reduce the R0 of a disease to avoid the disease that incubates for 14 days before people know they're contagious causing the disease to spread far enough to collapse the medical system. Because people don't know they're infected, contact with people as they would under normal circumstances leads to a massive amount infected than if they self-isolate, due to very simple exponential maths.
This is a rough explanation from Dr. John Campbell, a UK based doctor who's been very good at explaining and gathering information since the beginning. His style is a little dry, but it explains why keeping the R0 down is vital to stem the spread of this disease.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6JrkLvsKtw
" Does anybody remember the absurd responses and estimates for SARS and Ebola?"
Define "absurd".
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Cure, please
The news media may be mostly at fault, but I kept seeing death toll estimates in the hundreds of thousands or even millions. It doesn't happen. Then the next time they over dramatize again.
I will watch Dr. Campbell later, thanks.
I think I will learn more about the yearly seasonal flu. What are the death tolls? How many are infected? I already know that the "flu vaccine" is mostly ineffective than not, many years. I know persistent stress can have noticable adverse health results. I wonder what the affect of wide scale stress is on an entire populous? What are health tolls of tanking an economic system that relies so much on money as the American system does? Not trying to sound smart...
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The growth rate of COVID-19 infections and deaths is rising exponentially right this moment — and with no peak in sight. This is only the beginning, and you better believe it’s gonna get a hell of a lot worse before it gets any better.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Cure, please
"The news media may be mostly at fault, but I kept seeing death toll estimates in the hundreds of thousands or even millions"
Yes, those were worst case scenarios based on zero action taken. Appropriate action was taken, and the diseases didn't spread as far as was initially feared.
"I think I will learn more about the yearly seasonal fl"
Please do. If people stopped asking stupid crap like this that was explained months ago we'd all be better for it.
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Re: Re: Re: Cure, please
Trustworthy sources such as Alex Jones? Yeah, right.
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Re: Re: Cure, please
Is that so? How did 'We' come to believe that? Maybe I should trust your judgment on this, but is that your judgment?
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Despite what you may think, your JAQ-ing off isn’t making you sound smart.
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Re:
Why is every response you make to me an attack on me, personally? Sorry for another question. IRL I find that people routinely make statements in situations where a (real) question is more appropriate. People spend too much time spitting out beliefs instead of forming them. Me asking questions is putting my 'money where my mouth is'?
As a regular, clearly respected, Techdirt commentator your comments and opinions hold weight. Why must that weight come down on my neck? (sorry)
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Re: Re:
Let me introduce you to Stone, Rosey Palmer's better half.
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Oh, Hamilton. You do realize that you keep fucking that phrase up, right? It’s “Rosy Palms”, as in “a date with Rosy Palms”, which is a masturbation reference. If you’re going to be lewd and sinful on this nice Christian forum, at least have the goddamned decency to get your sinfulness right.
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Re:
Christian forum? Don't forget the odd pagan as well!
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Re: Re:
Or was that sarcasm? I'm British and even I don't recognise it 100% :)
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Re: Re: Re:
Not sure if sarcasm would be the right term, but it was most certainly said in a joking manner, yes.
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I kinda figured “goddamned” being six words away from “Christian” would’ve been the big giveaway.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Re:
Well, being British, I assume every American uses 'goddamned' as a matter of course.
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No, you’re thinking of “fuck”. 😁
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You offer little-to-nothing of substance while trying to act like you’re trying to start a discussion. You ask a whole bunch of questions like a five-year-old child and expect serious answers so you can ask more questions and continue the cycle on and on. If you want an education, you can get it yourself. Neither I nor any other Techdirt commenter is here to hold your hand.
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Re:
People who unironically use the phrases 'JAQ-ing off' (and 'microggressions' and 'concern trolling' and 'cis-' and 'white privilege', etc.) can automatically be ignored. It's a sign they're not a serious person.
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Thank your for sharing your inability to comprehend the ideas of microagressions, concern trolling, cis- as a prefix to gender, and White privilege. But educating you on such matters is not my responsibility.
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Is There A Single Far-Left Position Stone Doesn't Adhere To?
Seriously, guy … do you get your talking points from the SPLC?
You sound like a computer program designed to regurgitate silly leftist newspeak bullet points. Almost every comment you make on Techdirt is crafted around some wacky left-wing word or concept that was invented by anti-American academics in the last 5-15 years.
To wit:
etc, etc
In fact, one comes to the conclusion you probably are an academic who's used to hearing your silliness echoed back to yourself within your frivolous leftist echo chamber.
Again, all signs you shouldn't be taken seriously by adults.
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Re: Re:
[Projects facts not in evidence]
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Re: Re: Re: Cure, please
Because there are a number of people who spend their entire careers learning past and current knowledge regarding infectious diseases, how they work, and the best ways to deal with them.
That said I would disagree that a vaccine is the 'next best' option, as I would probably put a 'cure' as second place with a vaccine having the top spot, as a cure only helps once you're already infected, while a vaccine keeps you from becoming infected in the first place.
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Wtf??
I don't know what kind of education you have, but I thought this was basic knowledge taught in schools.
Ever heard of polio?
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Re: Cure, please
I am not a medical doctor so I plead ignorance ...
What is a cure and how is it different than a vaccine?
Is the term 'cure' a medical term?
I thought a vaccine had capability to cure.
I realize Merriam Webster tries to keep up with the dynamic language but sometimes people simply do not know better.
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Re: Re: Cure, please
Vaccines prevent you from contracting a disease. Cures return you to health after contracting a disease. The distinction is pretty obvious.
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Re: Re: Re: Cure, please
"Vaccines prevent you from contracting a disease. Cures return you to health after contracting a disease."
Is this a medical definition or is it a layman interpretation?
"The distinction is pretty obvious."
Is it now .... one would think that the vaccine getting rid of the disease in a sick patient would be called a cure, as in the patient was cured by application of the vaccine. I do not see how these two words could be referring to two distinct and different methods of treating the same illness. In conclusion, I think the word vaccine is a medical term while the word cure is not.
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Your reading comprehension skills need some work, then. A vaccine prevents a person from contracting a disease; a cure kills the disease within the person after they contract it. To wit: While we have no cure for measles, we have a vaccine that prevents people from getting measles in the first place.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Cure, please
Vaccination is the administration of a vaccine to help the immune system develop protection from a disease. Vaccines contain a microorganism or virus in a weakened, live or killed state, or proteins or toxins from the organism. In stimulating the body's adaptive immunity, they help prevent sickness from an infectious disease. When a sufficiently large percentage of a population has been vaccinated, herd immunity results. The effectiveness of vaccination has been widely studied and verified.[1][2][3] Vaccination is the most effective method of preventing infectious diseases;[4] widespread immunity due to vaccination is largely responsible for the worldwide eradication of smallpox and the elimination of diseases such as polio and tetanus from much of the world. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination
As Stephen states here also, vaccinations PREVENT disease BEFORE you are exposed to it. Cures are applied AFTER you get it, assuming one exists.
Applying your car's brakes to PREVENT a head-on collision is a much more effective and cheaper outcome than dealing with all the hospitalisation and vehicle body-work that would come after, assuming that either you or the vehicle survives the impact.
We will all die someday. I choose not to die from wilful STUPIDITY.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Cure, please
Ok ... what is a good example of a cure for a disease
and what is a good example for a vaccine for that same disease.
I'm not trying to be obtuse
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You’re failing.
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Re:
Name one cure for anything
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Re: Re:
Vitamin C for scurvy.
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Re: Re: Re:
Yes, thank you. This makes sense. After treatment the condition was cured.
In addition, is it true that when there is a vaccine for the present outbreak of the corona virus (sars-2?) that it will "cure" the covid-19 disease?
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
If covid-19 doesn't mutate fast enough, a vaccine can certainly eradicate the disease, as happened with smallpox and is nearly complete with polio.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"If covid-19 doesn't mutate fast enough"
I could be wrong but .....the disease (covid-19) does not mutate, the virus (sars-CoV-2) might.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
That is actually correct. COVID-19 is the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. SARS-C0V-2 is the virus itself which can mutate into something else, or rather a variant of itself.
To your earlier question, a vaccine can never cure a disease. Vaccines arm your body to be able to fight off a virus. Cures treat the disease that results from failing to fight off the disease. The disease and the virus are two different things, one caused by the other, just as vaccines and cures are two different things. One cannot be the other.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It's good to know I got at least one thing right about this mess.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Depends on how you define it. The purpose of a vaccine isn't to 'cure' a disease in the sense of treating the symptoms and underlying cause once you've caught it, it's to keep people from getting it in the first place so that you don't need to 'cure' it.
If 'people can't get the disease in the first place' counts as curing it then yes, otherwise no, however saying it doesn't 'cure' COVID-19 doesn't really mean anything either way since that's not what it's supposed to do.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Depends on how you define it."
I think this says it all.
A vaccine provides the body with something it can use to develop antibodies and attack an invader, in this case a virus, this can result in elimination of the disease from the patient ... and some people refer to this as the disease was cured. So a vaccine can result in a patient being cured. A cure does not have to involve a vaccine as it could be vitamin C, curing scurvy.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
A vaccine provides the body with something it can use to develop antibodies and attack an invader, in this case a virus, this can result in elimination of the disease from the patient ... and some people refer to this as the disease was cured.
You could, but doing so would probably be a mistake as it would give people the wrong idea and lead to faulty expectations like thinking that once someone's already infected all they need is to be vaccinated and they'll be fine, so if you're healthy there's no real rush.
Better and more accurate I'd say to classify vaccines as preventative medicine rather than cures, similar to wearing a seatbelt in that if you wait until you need it it's likely already far too late.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"You could, but doing so would probably be a mistake as it would give people the wrong idea and lead to faulty expectations like thinking that once someone's already infected all they need is to be vaccinated and they'll be fine"
Agreed. It is not entirely correct to call it a cure. Similarly, one can not call vitamin C a cure for scurvy because it gives one the false idea that they will not ever get it again even if they have no vitamin C.
Therefore I wonder if there is such a thing as a cure. Maybe that is a word used to describe wishful thinking on the part of lay people. Do any medical professionals use the term in a medical context?
I'm sorry to have dragged this off topic but there is much confusion lately about things in the medical field and thought I'd ask ... cause I don't know.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Again, incorrect. When a disease is cured, it is that occurrence of the disease that is cured. Curing a disease does not confer future immunity to that disease.
Viruses are different. Your body, once it successfully fights off a given virus, then has immunity to that particular virus in the future. If that virus mutates, as the flu does, into a slight variant of itself your body will not recognize it and you have to fight off what your body thinks is a whole new virus. This is why we have seasonal flu vaccines: The virus keeps mutating.
Also, scurvy is a disease that is not caused by a virus. There can be no immunity to scurvy due to surviving it.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
"Your body, once it successfully fights off a given virus, then has immunity to that particular virus in the future. "
Yes, from what I read it's for a limited time only - ymmv I guess.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
It is, and also immunity is not 100% guaranteed, hence the important of things like herd immunity to bolster the effect. But, it's far, far better than waiting till you contract the disease without the vaccine.
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Never associate with, cooperate with, or patronize insane,fascist, predatory criminal, retards that violate people's first and fourth amendment rights. Mark Zuckerberg falls into that category.
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Re:
It is kind of similar to someone that beleives just becausr they watched or listenned to a movie star or musician, that they are entitles to be a part of the movie stars's or musician's life, kind of like telling them "If it weren't for me, you would be nothing! You owe me for watching and listenning to you! I demand to invade your life and control it!"
It is insane, but it is becoming increasingly common with the growing surveillance state. They are a cult of extremely sick and twisted psychopaths, narcissists, and predators with a really fucked up world veiw. Their egos are so massive that they have invaded our lives.
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Re:
"Never associate with, cooperate with, or patronize insane,fascist, predatory criminal, retards that violate people's first and fourth amendment rights. Mark Zuckerberg falls into that category."
Yet, he's preferable to people who try to bring back formerly eradicated infectious diseases.
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Re: Re:
Some people just want to watch the world burn
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Re: Re:
Or those advocating actual fascism like Josh Hawley.
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Re:
Since Mark Zuckerberg is neither the government nor an agent of the government, he's not capable, as a matter of law, of violating either the First or Fourth Amendment rights of anybody. Neither is Twitter, neither is YouTube, neither is any other non-government individual or company. This really isn't a difficult concept, to the point where it's pretty much impossible to believe your feigned ignorance of it is anything other than deliberate.
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Re: Re:
So zucker can just keep on being the mother fucker with no consequences to him for violating millions of people's rights, right? Nice try.
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Yeah, pretty much. The rich and powerful play by a different set of rules.
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Re:
Don't fall for the loaded question, Zucker isn't violating anyone's rights because no-one has a 'right' to use Facebook, a privately owned platform, against the wishes of it's owner.
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Re:
Then why is Harvey Weinstein in prison, idiot?
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Luck of the draw on the jury, I’d guess. A case like Weinstein’s is more likely than not to end in the defendant’s favor.
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Re: Re:
Because he made a lot of enemies getting where he was, and people richer than him were happy to see him go down.
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Re: Re: Re:
Hey Paul?
How’s it hanging?
I understand that the next covid relief bill from congress will include an AK-47 and a 60 round clip FREE for every American who will swear allegiance to America, the constitution, and Donald J. Trump, the magnificent.
AND a free presidential pardon if you have to shoot a socialist because they’re so irritating and want to argue about the meaning of words. Or for pretty much ANY reasonable justification.
Sounds great, no? Next week, that’s what I heard.
I’m richer than you. I guess that means you’re FUCKED, by your own standards.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
Lime I keep saying, unmedicated medical illness is a hell of a thing. I feel for you and your countrymen and hope that the failure of Trump to take this seriously doesn't kill too many people unnecessarily, but simple maths seems to suggest otherwise.
"I’m richer than you"
Why would someone richer than me spend all their spare time playacting a psychopath on a site he claims nobody reads?
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Hamilton hasn't got over Shiva Ayyadurai's failed appeal, that's why.
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Re: Re: Re: Re:
That's pretty funny.
Sad that it is not far from a possible future.
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Re: Re: Re:
I reject your premise that Zuckerberg, Facebook, Twitter, etc., are violating anybody's (well, any users') rights. You have no right to use any of those services, thus preventing you from using them violates no right. What part of this is too complicated for you to understand?
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Bla bla bla
Please enumerate which rights Zuckerberg have violated.
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A fish rots from the head down
Why not? Apparently even a president can get away with anything as long as he's backed by ruthless and power-obsessed party.
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The funny part is where the desctiption "wants to fill kids with unproven, unnecessary toxins" can only possibly truthhfully describe antivaxxers.
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At some point, something completely subjective will be dismissed as "wrong," to the point where it is censored, when it is merely an unpopular truth.
As for why a site should be "forced to host material it does not like," if the site purports to be a platform where people can share ideas, without editorial control by the platform, part of that platform's offerings are neutrality and free speech. The "dumb pipes" test could easily apply to Facebook as it does to say the telephone company, which is not allowed to engage in content-based censorship.
If I were a judge, I'd say that as long as someone was not completely blacklisted to the point of being silenced, including practically by X percentage of the audience, there is no problem, but if someone literally cannot get their message out anywhere because "everyone" is banning them, that's when free-speech issues kick in.
Any company is free not to hire someone, but that doesn't mean EVERY company is allowed to do this based on an agreement. That's called a "group boycott" and runs afoul of antitrust law.
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From where do you get these silly ideas?
Are you a lawyer?
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[Asserts facts not in evidence]
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Question.
If a site like Twitter must be forced by law to host all speech because, as you said…
…how would you feel if you owned a platform like Twitter and you were told by the government that — under threat of fines, jail time, or other forms of punishment under the law — your site must associate itself with spam; political disinformation campaigns; White supremacist propaganda; anti-gay hate speech; and basically every horrible form of speech you can imagine except for legitimate threats of violence, incitements to imminent lawless activity, and actual defamation?
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"how would you feel if you owned a platform like Twitter and you were told by the government... your site must associate itself with..."
Sadly, this type would be find with that. Better to make it clear that they'd also need to associate themselves with gay equality, feminism, or basic human decency. Those probably scare them.
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Violating CDA 230
As far as I know, the only sort of person even capable of violating CDA 230 is a judge who is hearing a lawsuit that violates CDA 230 who lets it go forward despite that.
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This article is absolute shit by an unintelligent moron that believes vaccines are safe and that ant-vaxxers are involved in junk science. This lunatic is not a doctor and hasn't bothered to do any research at all between vaccine links to autism, much less other health problems. The idiot that wrote this article belongs in jail...
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Re:
"ant-vaxxers are involved in junk science"
I'm not sure why you'd want to vaccinate ants. But, the fact that my generation grew up without the sight of kids blinded by measles or crippled by polio or at risk of dying from smallpox, all thanks to vaccines, appears to be backed by history and science, whereas the anti-vaxxer mindset seems to be based in snake oil and ignorance of epidemiology. I'll take verifiable historical and scientific fact for my science intake, thank you.
"hasn't bothered to do any research at all between vaccine links to autism"
People have done the research, and they found that this claim is almost solely based on the fraudulent claims made by Andrew Wakefield in his attempt to sell a competing vaccine. The morons are the ones who still believe a shamed con artist who admitted he made up the original study to try and profit from idiots. I'm sorry that your particular cult can't accept that you were conned after that was proven to be the case, but you should understand that the rest of us aren't going to allow you to cause more outbreaks of deadly disease just because you were gullible.
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The Future
Many of these comments from the Techdirt regulars did not age well, but sadly, I doubt it matters or is noticed. For a time I thought I might be well adapted to this community...
None of the components of this Covid saga is new. Failure to come to grips with issues of the past allows the damage that is done in the present. And now extreme cultish factionalizing on top of everything else almost guarantees further damage in the future. Whether right or wrong it seems that people who don't already agree with you are impossible to reach.
Irrational certainty, villainization and propaganda are far greater dangers than the exaggerated, misused and manipulative concept of "misinformation".
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Re: The Future
Like what?
What's the difference between propaganda and misinformation? Not being snarky, but clearly you have a difference in mind to put them in opposition like that.
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Re: Re: The Future
Hi Nasch,
I'm going to give the beginning of an answer in appreciation of the civility or your response.
I like reading the thoughts of others. Though my main issue was the impenetrable CERTAINTY expressed.
<----snip---->
Once again, appreciation.
Setting aside the recent connotation of the word, misinformation simply means giving information that is knowably untrue without necessarily intending to lie.
Propaganda, disregarding its original benign meaning, has a necessary power imbalance between the giver and receiver. People in power (a few) use propaganda to distort the "worldview" of the masses (the many). The root of this is about control, though we use names like fascism and such. The names and labels don't really matter and are often distractions. What matters is the corrupt desire to control.
For several decades, in the US, propaganda has been deliberate, relentless and backed by increasingly sophisticated science and technological capabilities. Despite my enthusiasm for "science" and technologies, (both of which are human outputs) I do NOT recognize them as innately positive. Who controls the pronouncements of science (and how) and the development and use of tech is critical in any analysis of any use in public policy or the public good. Way too often those analysis are not actually done at all. Propaganda essentially teaches that certain policies are good by default or by inertia (one already believes it).
In the 'information age' there is an increased ability for info and misinfo to come from anyone and go to anyone. This means, for example, an ordinary person can use "better speech" (as Techdirt often writes) and such to counter "official" propaganda. This is much of the foundation to the social phenomena of "waking up" (later distorted to "being woke", then "wokeness"). People are exposed to more honest info or just different info more often, that was previously obscured. However, the American public has been so propagandized (marketed to) for so long and so effectively, thus internalizing it, that it is resistant to anti-propaganda. Because of this relentless manipulation the populous is also vulnerable to false info even from non-powerful sources (probably an undesired side-effect). Propaganda broke individual and social mechanisms that evaluates truth and adjacent moral implications. Along with the chaos this produces, it weakens the influence of legacy power and a power struggle ensues.
For too many of the masses, instead of using the newfound communicative powers to reach others and counter propaganda they amplify it or create there own. In other words, they reproduce what they learn... The current misuse of the word "misinformation" means information that does not match or is not sufficiently supportive of official propaganda or legacy power. True of false is mostly irrelevant. The consequences of the prolific spreading of deliberate falsehoods are being projected onto persons with no real power (This is the same marketing trick used to make the rich virtuous and the poor wretched, for example). "Sunlight" is NOT "acting like a disinfectant" nor "causing the roaches to scurry away" as the sayings go. Too many, especially on the internet, lend themselves as defacto soldiers to attack unsuitable targets. Often through the creation of cartoonish villains and dehumanization.
Truth is hard. Truth is also powerful. For us humans, Reality very, very rarely permits swaggering certainty. But Bubbles do. Improper swaggering certainty, much like Bubbles, are harmful to communities and societies. Falsehoods are plentiful, easy and weak on their own, but they are crafted to the desires of the wielder. In a Bubble attached to a power structure falsehoods can be "truth", though still personalized, and be given the strength and many of the observable powers of truth. Internalization means that defending one's Bubble is like defending one's life. A phenomena I used to think of as Irrational Self Preservation. Any ideas that threaten the Bubble means "war". Though not new, it's what we are seeing now.
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Re: Re: Re: The Future
Hm, I didn't re-read every comment, but I'm not seeing anything that I would say has aged poorly. I didn't see any wild overestimations of the death toll, and if there were any predictions that it would reach close to a million, they would be right. The vaccines are effective and very necessary. Lockdowns clearly work, though their practicality as a means to combat the virus could be debated.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: The Future
"I didn't see any wild overestimations of the death toll, and if there were any predictions that it would reach close to a million, they would be right."
It depends on what you mean by "wild overestimations", as well. This thread originally took place well before there was a publicly available vaccine, and many people thought it would be much longer to get one widely available than it was. Had a vaccine not been available, there's no doubt that the figures would be much higher than they are now, especially when the new variants started to appear (which mainly affected those who were unvaccinated).
If this person is claiming "aged poorly" to mean "the people commenting did not correctly predict the future based on new data we have now that was impossible to know at the time", then I suppose he has some kind of point. But, going back to 2 year old threads to lambast people for not being psychic isn't the best use of one's time.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Future
Yes, I recall predictions of 2 million or more deaths (not necessarily on this page), which seem completely plausible had there not been any vaccines to this point.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: The Future
It's not even just vaccines - the US got fairly lucky in a number of ways, ranging from the fact that a lot of vaccines had been administered before Delta took hold, and that when Omicron became rampant that its higher rate of contagion seems to have been coupled with milder symptoms, especially among the vaccinated. Combine with the fact that there seems to be a lot of people trying to fight on the side of the virus over there, and history could have turned a few of their deliberate superspreader events into a bloodbath.
Had Delta hit 6 months earlier, Omicron had been as deadly as it was transmissible, or if Trump had been re-elected, I have no doubt that 2 million would be a low ball estimate by this point
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Re: The Future
"Many of these comments from the Techdirt regulars did not age well"
OK. Which comments? How did they not age well (bearing in mind that basing opinions on facts that have since changed does not mean that the original take was wrong based on the data known at the time)? What specifically do you think was wrong?
"Irrational certainty, villainization and propaganda are far greater dangers than the exaggerated, misused and manipulative concept of "misinformation"."
Yes, so we do wish that you people would stop that while the rest of us are using actual information to try and bring this whole thing to an end. I appreciate that some people who have been fighting the hardest have ended up killing themselves by unnecessarily catching the disease they claim is fake, but the rest of us would prefer it if we can reach the end goal with less bodies.
Every "Fauci is evil and created the disease in a lab to collapse the global economy at the direction of the globalists" moron who dies as a result of their own action is good for the overall trend of fighting this, but you should really stop doing that.
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