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Comment by quotemstr | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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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