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Covid misinformation & social media content moderation

Covid
#1

Hi everyone

I thought people might find this essay entitled “The challenges of responding to misinformation during a pandemic: content moderation and the limitations of the concept of harm” of interest given recent conversations (especially on a previous board) about what information relating to COVID is considered “misinformation” or “harmful” compared to that which is acceptable to discuss or promote.

I quite like the idea of social media companies flagging particular posts discussing findings that contradict the advice of the WHO or national/regional government health departments and providing links to the current “mainstream” advice while still leaving those posts available rather than outright banning/deleting them, and then “de-flagging” them if knowledge progresses and they turn out to be correct (unless they are promoting something clearly harmful like drinking bleach which is unlikely ever to suddenly become something safe and helpful).

Not sure about the practicality of such a system in a situation that is so fast moving and changeable but it may have the advantage of helping improve general scientific literacy by directing readers to a range of alternative viewpoints. Many people (including some journalists) do not know how to read science critically with an understanding of sampling methods, sample sizes, p values, how valid a study is in the scientific sense (ie whether the results can be generalised beyond the population used in the study), how to interpret logarithmic graphs etc. If automatically flagging information that is currently poorly supported scientifically but not overtly harmful and linking to alternative information sources helps people to learn how better to assess the reliability and validity of scientific information I think this can only be a good thing. The argument that policy is never values neutral (whether the economy or public health should be prioritised being a case in point) is also an important one to consider since the same scientific data can be used to support different policy positions depending on the values brought to the interpretation.

Will be interested to see what other people think.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/1329878X20951301

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Covid-19 censorship
#2

Hello JM! Good to see you pop up again! Welcome, long time no see! :slightly_smiling_face:

This video below is an eye-opener. It becomes clear that we are listening to a line of fairly small-c conservative US doctors. And yes, of course that will colour what they have to say (who not!). But applying the ‘hear the message, never mind the peculiarities of the messengers’ rule of common bleedin’ sense, what they have to say is still plain and credible, and is quite frankly dynamite. This is happening more and more now. As they assert at the end: the ‘pandemic’ can be stopped in a month, without vaccines:

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#3

Hi J!

thanks for the thoughts and the link, which I’ll go ahead and read properly soon.

The point you raise could not be more relevant to a site like this one. It is crucial, and not just for this obviously massively important topic, but across a very wide range of disciplines these days. Who or what souces are trustworthy?

It is clear that social media companies are basically in the market of promoting any content that keeps people online and clicking through their advertising. They (such companies) don’t give a monkeys about the truth value or not of any particular item, and are far more concerned with what generates a reaction in the reader and is likely to keep her/him more engaged with their platform. As tabloids have found out over the last century and a half, truth is a poor substitute for controversy when it comes to keeping readers.

The problem that I have, and the reason for this site really, is the obvious fact that social media and the tabloids are far from being the only guilty party in the jettisoning of the search after truth. Mainstream press have been guilty of pushing outright lies for ever - and have much blood on their hands as a result.

One of the things that this current crisis has brought home to me is how widespread this outright lying (as well as lying by omission) is across the science community too. It was not too long ago that all of the major public health bodies were busy condemning face masks as not only unhelpful, but outright dangerous to use. The CDC, the surgeon-general in the US, public health England, and yes (as far as I remember) even the WHO all came out against ordinary people using face-masks.

And then, they admitted one-by-one that actually, face masks are not dangerous, and in fact one of the most crucial things ordinary people can do to help slow the rate of infection. Why did they previously declare them to be dangerous? Because they were afraid that they wouldn’t have enough for the health workers if the public started a rush on masks.

So, that is understandable at one level, but what a way to immediately start to undermine trust in the very authorities that are supposed to protect us! Incidentally, it’s not just myself that got frustrated with this, Prof. Michael Osterholm from the Uni of Minnesota, in his weekly podcast (which is worth a watch if you have time) has recently spent a large chunk of time criticising the unclear and outright misleading messaging coming from the various health authorities.

A similar story appears when the discussion of treatments (like Ivermectin, or Hydroxychloroquine) come up. For some reason (and we could have a pretty good discussion on what those reasons might be) the scientific community is determined not to discuss these treatments fairly or openly. This is a long post all by itself, but from my own poking around in the subject it is pretty obvious that there is a co-ordinated campaign of stonewalling where HCQ is concerned. The safety record of HCQ was exemplary for the last 70 years, but as soon as it looked like it might be impactful for the (early!) treatment of Covid, suddenly it was re-classified in the media as extremely dangerous!

These sorts of things do massive damage to institutions that should be honest brokers of the truth. Even journals like the Lancet, and NEJM got caught out in this fallout, and end up publishing fraudulent papers that have huge ramifications, only to be fairly quietly retracted at a later date.

Given the so very obvious financial incentive that exists for the drug company that produces a vaccine or a medication that seems to work, there is no doubt in my mind that there are at least some bad actors who at the very least would be very annoyed if an effective and super cheap, out-of-patent medication comes along that means there is really no need for a vaccine. What a waste of money, and missed opportunity for the disaster-capitalists!

My feeling is that as long as this incentive continues to exist, and as long as there is no transparency in the clinical trials and other processes involved in making such drugs, there will be an information war about this virus and a huge lack of trust of the authorities by the general public.

Right! Off to grab some lunch and read through the paper you linked to. No doubt that will inspire me to come back and add a few thoughts :slight_smile:

Thanks for the high quality post! Looking forward to a lot more of these types of discussions

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#4

Pontius, as to why the scientists, and lots of doctors, don’t insist on telling the truths that they know, the Charlie Kirk vid above gives some typical cases of the pressure - including active, imminent threats of career and income trashing - which they suffer if they don’t toe the pre-determined lines. Lines which, evidently, are drawn to protect the slavering prospect of a huge profit bonanza from the ‘new vaccine’ scam; not to mention the heaven sent (or gain-of-function sent) opportunity of tightening the power screw over we plebs yet further: the more tightly you control your cattle, the more profit you can milk from them - and the easier it is to arrange the slaughter of surplus animals. Seems to me this is the front-runner hypothesis about why things are happening as they are in the censorship and narrative-gavaging front.

JM, it seems to me that the authors of the paper that you linked don’t seem to see, or maybe don’t care to see and engage with this harsh reality. You’re right, of course: flag content as controversial, but let all the narratives stand uncensored, including the ones - impudently - labelled as false information. Let time and widescale comparative awareness allow people to suss for themselves which explanation they decide eventually to accept. I still reckon that that sort of thoroughly democratic appeal to average common sense - and average intuitive capacity equally - will turn out in the end to get at the reality. Common sense consensus trumps ‘expert’ consensus in the long run. Technocracy is a beast bound to generate fiascos, especially when rail-roaded by big-money gangster interests.

I’m already speaking with more and more average-pleb friends and neighbours who are starting to grasp, and say, that we’re being bullshitted about the covid scam. “Do you know anyone who’s died of it, or even been hospitalised?” has become a common question amongst my circIe - almost invariably answered: “No”. I was just in conversation with one such friend yesterday, who reckons that her and her husband’s circle are quietly assuming that it’s all bs, and they carry on with normal life as before, regardless now, below the Conformity Police radar. Yet - as she pointed out - at the beginning of the panic they were all terrified, and showing clear signs of being swept off their balance by it: Terror Derangement Syndrome. Not a bad-taste joke or a stick with which to beat an opponent in bad-tempered argument, but a dead-sober hypothesis as to why so many people seem to have lost the plot over covid. A fall from balance, as I have just found to my chagrin, that turns formerly impressive dissident minds to mush overnight. AlanG’s spouse, responding to a post I made btl on a recent Off-G piece, reports that Greg Philo is a recent victim of TDS, and is backing the - alleged - disease control measures obediently. Terrible!

#5

So having read through the paper I think it does a decent job of highlighting the complexity around gatekeeping, especially when one is relying on an algorithm to determine the truthfulness of a claim. It’s bloody complicated!

They do also mention some of the very points that I mentioned - masks, HCQ etc - but their take is that the scientific bodies (like the WHO or CDC) change their advice when the science changes. I don’t think that’s true. For the mask issue we already know that the advice changed because officials were worried there would be a shortage, not because they thought it wasn’t helpful. And the HCQ issue is just bizarre.

Several scientists have raised concerns that the usual careful process of peer-review has been badly compromised in the rush to get papers published. The effect had been to publicise results that are simply not correct, which had a knock-on effect of damaging trust in the experts (exacerbating an already bad problem).

It seems to me that the whole way science is currently organised is not fit for purpose for a rapidly evolving and potentially very dangerous public emergency. I think there is the potential for a lot of learning here about what a more robust approach might look like.

Thanks again for this thought provoking article. Loads to think about and discuss going forward.

Cheers

PP

#6

Hi JMC nice to see you here.
Gets right to the nub of the matter. What you suggest (flagging up as ‘controversial’ rather than deleting) might be better than what we end up with, the way things are going - but this would also imply that genuine public discourse has such has largely given up the ghost, or is choosing salvage mode to stave off full oblivion.

The article is written from a fixed viewpoint; that official sources are reliable and safe, while other views are misleading, false and harmful. A system of elevation vs negatively flagging as controversial, based on preconceived idea of the source, would create and perpetuate a crudely loaded system of public discussion. It’s a system we already have in most media-controlled discourse; so the question really is should the private system replace the public one.

The ‘controversy’ attached to alternative views usually arises from the reaction to them; ie shouting down, smearing (as extreme, or by lizard-type references) or suppression. This is in direct contrast to the supposed aim of public discourse. Rather than being related to truth (as PP notes), the reason for the reaction is often that the alternative views can not be combatted by argument, reason or science because the existing ‘reliable’ evidence is somewhere between biased and largely or even wholly bogus; and that any reasonable airing of the true nature of the allegedly ‘reliable evidence’ would be too revealing of this state of affairs. I would also agree with PP that the successful burying of the early hydroxychloroquine treatement by bogus corporate ‘science’ is a prime example.

That public and mainstream discourse is both minded and numerically empowered to start from such a loaded position (which is a bit like putting alternative views in stocks and chains) shows that the domination of dialogue by vested interests in ‘science’ has existed for a long time previously. This has led to unjustified levels of public trust in official science and a belief that if people work in, or represent ‘science’ that their actions and beliefs are necessarily logical or scientific and not subject to sway by professional and peer group pressure (pressure which according to this belief should not exist anyway).

While the debate goes on about ‘harmful views’, attention is deflected from the corporate influence on what is sold as ‘science’ and ‘scientific discourse’, which is the real problem. It always has been - but when doctors during a pandemic are being shut down en masse for pointing to evidence of beneficial treatments, and unproven remedies are being foisted on the population, the situation regarding the appropriation of (now) public discourse by corporate and political interests has become urgent.

A relevant aside (I didn’t know where to put this but it’s also worth pointing out); the severity of the Covid-19 epidemic has been much higher in the same countries who control or dominate the ‘science’ - rich western democracies, who have much higher Covid-19 death rates than less affluent countries, for whom pharmaceutical companies making money out of the crisis wasn’t an option and who by and large got on with ordinary treatments. By the looks of things, the actions of the governments most keen to suppress dissent have led to more deaths than the virus itself. I realize this is a very big issue on its own and needs its own discussion, but relevant I think. Just to illustrate the point: a couple of months back I calculated that two thirds of the world Covid-19 deaths came from countries totalling 7% of the world population. These included the US, UK, France, Spain - countries that should be listening more than pronouncing, but who were instead dominating western discourse on Covid-19.

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#7

Damn me Walter, it’s a pleasure to watch you develop a detailed argument without having to wade through lines of shrieking harpies crying you down!. More always welcome

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#8

Thanks Rhis, yeah feels much more conducive.
Devil’s likely in the detail… :slight_smile:

#9

“Horns man horns!” Posted this to the Lifeboat…https://www.facebook.com/MantraMuz/videos/10224820547721459 Muz is well worth viewing on this…he may get blocked eventually…

#10

“rich western democracies, who have much higher Covid-19 death rates than less affluent countries” Got to carry the “Dollar/Pound” with them…hence all the foot dragging and “clumsy” mismanagement in the UK and US…the more cases, the more deaths the more compliant the population…applied eugenics…

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#11

It is interesting, is it not, how lucky sub-saharan Africa has fared so far… Keeping my fingers crossed that it stays that way.

#12

Hello Gerard, good bro! Nice to see you here. Thanks for this. She says it concisely. Personally, I will never accept any of this franken-tech for myself or any creature for whom I’m responsible. It stinks, very obviously.

#13

BTW, what does “horns, man, horns!” mean?

#14

What he said. :grin:

#15

Whey-he-e-ey Twirl! Good to see you posting again, old bad-penny! :slightly_smiling_face:

#16

The CIA tokl Google to put all of admin’s e-mails in Spam - the bastards! I only saw them this evening. (I don’t go to Gmail much.)

I like the new home.

#17

Hey Twirlip! Welcome to the board :smiley:

#18

a bit late to read this thread, but have to comment on your remark. It is more than interesting, in fact it is revelatory in two ways. 1 that the virus has not had an impact in these countries outside S Africa (where is Margo btw?), which could be simply because noone has tested the poor and non urban, or it could perhaps more likely be that the virus has gone through some proportion of the population with hardly any impact, because the pop is young, suffers from other far more serious threats, and even takes HCQ against Malaria. and 2 That the MSM hasn’t noticed!! When did you last see a report about the virus in Mali, or Botswana, or Congo, or even Nigeria, where it was observed back in March in an article in the LRB that people in slums could not “lock-down” like the middle classes and so would have to take their chances. No-one ever bothered to look and see what happened, except now in India where suddenly they find that over 50% of slum dwellers have had the virus - or have antibodies at least.
Raoult was born in Senegal, and has many contacts still there and in other local countries, and his advocacy for cheap and available drugs has a lot to do with that I think.

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#19

Hey David

Yes, I would really like to see some proper studies coming from the countries you name. As usual, not that much money to be made from public health efforts in Africa, so not that much interest.

What I hear from family living in Tanzania (which never locked down and really just didn’t pay a lot of attention to the whole thing) there is no appreciable fear, no obvious excess mortality and no large scale public health emergency.

It’s not clear why that should be, or perhaps due to lack of active surveillance this picture is not even correct (it’s all anecdotal after all) but there could be many reasons at play, some of which you identify already.

If there was a new plague spreading through TZ, my feeling is that folks would know. They certainly did know when AIDS came to visit…

Cheers

#20

On the Devil in the details!

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