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Comment by dman | Hacker News Reader

TikTok is distributing some incredibly dangerous material during this pandemic - people claiming in tiktok videos their religious faith makes them immune to the virus and showing a Corona infected person hugging others with messages like - "No virus is going to prevent me from loving my fellow human being". This isnt a oneoff video, there are a whole bunch of them and they are going viral. Completely at a loss at how to contain the spread of this dangerous information during a pandemic.

PS: I am consciously choosing to not post a link to any of those videos here to prevent them from going even more viral.

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Is there "dangerous information" or only stupid people? Sometimes I worry focusing on the former is actually dangerous, because it ignores why people aren't capable of critical thinking in the first place.

In the midst of a pandemic where teenagers are liking and sharing these videos I do think that public interest concerns apply.

No there is absolutely dangerous information.

There are people today, even President Trump, touting unproven drugs as a cure for COVID-19. People based on this information then do stupid things like (a) die from ingesting pool chemicals with a similar name or (b) hoarding large quantities for profit. Or look at the irrationality around toilet paper.

Most people in this situation aren't stupid. They are ignorant. And as such they rely on authorities and experts to provide accurate and safe information.

> look at the irrationality around toilet paper

I think it is perfectly rational to buy a bit more than you need if you think “irrational” people are buying more than they need. Low cost, low risk, so why wouldn’t you? Expecting everybody to act rationally is highly irrational IMHO.

It’s probably a both defect in game theory?

It is rational to act irrationally if others are acting irrationally.

> And as such they rely on authorities and experts to provide accurate and safe information.

Sorry but I don't agree here. The authorities also got it wrong. Just look at the initial public responses in the US, UK, Italy, Germany, etc.. They stuck their heads in the sand while 'Coronavirus alarmism' was written off as misinformation.

> Completely at a loss at how to contain the spread of this dangerous information during a pandemic.

This is the reality of free information and free expression, it's a problem that has to be addressed at a cultural level, trusted community and family leaders need to guide the ignorant, you can't prevent exposure to bad ideas.

Of course you can prevent exposure. People don't get their information out of thin air.

It mostly comes from one of the few dozen top news and social media sites. And you can absolutely hold them to account for allowing such content to persist on their platform.

Which is what they are doing e.g. Facebook, Twitter and Youtube all banning content referring to unproven COVID-19 cures.

> Of course you can prevent exposure

No, you really can't. It's true that platforms can play moderator whack-a-mole to beat back the tide of garbage on the internet, but you ultimately can't rely on remote technocratic arbiters to stop people from being exposed to bad ideas, it's not a strategy that scales, at least not until the day when everything you post on the internet is automatically moderated by a machine learning filter.

Every video that mentions Covid, corona, virus, etc. seems to automatically get tagged by TikTok and a "get facts on covid-19" button appears on the bottom of those tiktoks. I would also assume they take down covid misinformation if/when it's reported enough but I can't attest to that.

I'm pretty sure it's viral due to people sharing other people doing stupid things, not because people agree with it.

Thank god this is limited to TikTok. Certanly nothing like this on YouTube, Facebook, Instagram et. al.

No. I reject this stance. It's not the place of tech companies to decide what is true and what is false and on that basis control what the public sees. Your attitude, if followed to its logical conclusion, would have tech companies ban people saying that masks work because big official institutions have been lying and saying that masks don't work. Stop it with this attitude that you know what the unwashed public should be allowed to hear.

Do you really need to be so combative in your response? It detracts from your overall argument, which is good and reasonable.

Actually tech companies have freedom of speech so they are free to host whatever content they want on their platform.

Also as a general statement masks don't work. (a) Because people aren't using N95 masks and (b) they don't understand that COVID-19 can live on fabric for at minimum 24 hours. Which means that if you're not washing your mask every single day or using a disposable one then it is worse than having nothing at all.

Yeah because if some people don’t use something correctly that means “as a general statement” it doesn’t work.

If the brakes on a car are not properly maintained and replaced, the car won’t stop and will be dangerous therefore “cars don’t work”.

That doesn’t make sense. How about we tell people the truth and allow them to use it to make better decisions. A lot of people want to do the right thing but are disempowered when truth is withheld or replaced with falsehoods.

> How about we tell people the truth

That's exactly what is happening.

People just don't want to listen to medical experts and instead trust random people on social media.

Perhaps the experts should stop lying to the public.

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