Coronavirus: 'Murder threats' to telecoms engineers over 5G | Hacker News Reader

Coronavirus: 'Murder threats' to telecoms engineers over 5G

bbc.com

41 pointsdoener36 comments

I had an idea which is basically this:

Social media companies know which videos/tweets/statuses you’ve looked at. If it’s known you viewed content which is a conspiracy theory then they could, at a later date, show you a rebuttal from a trusted source. This could be targeted based on the specific content you viewed.

I was imagining it as a more modern version of the “right of reply” rules that broadcast TV in the UK has.

Would something like this be workable?

I know a 5G conspiracy theorist who is an electrical engineering graduate, admittedly from a low ranked school.

I've manually sent him better information. He of all people should be able to understand it. He doesn't process it and continues to cheer people burning down towers.

But what's his conspiracy?

If he's saying that 5G is giving us covid then he's an idiot.

If he's saying that 5G is intended to provide better connectivity for smart appliances to report our activity to advertisers then he has a point.

He is of the "5G is causing cancer and being used to cull the population" variety. He is unsure of his position on the COVID aspect of it, but "both come from China so you have to wonder."

Could you share that information, if you don’t mind. I was trying to figure out if the radiation is safe but I couldn’t find anything on the effects of the high frequency signals.

Fun facts: It is not “radiation” and also not high frequency.

From Wikipedia: “In the U.S., Verizon is using 28 GHz and AT&T is using 39 GHz. 5G can use frequencies of up to 300 GHz”[1]. That is high frequency relative to the frequencies of 4G, and WiFI or Bluetooth which are around 2-4 GHz.[2]

Not sure what definition of radiation you’re using, but yes, electromagnetic waves are radiation.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5G [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wi-Fi

Can you explain what you think "radiation" means? This is radio -- electromagnetic waves. It doesn't have a scary source like a nuclear weapon, but the energy does indeed radiate from the antenna.

In any case I understand that the danger comes from ionizing radiation which basically messes with your dna. 5G (and wifi) is non-ionizing so it doesn’t do anything to your dna. And it doesn’t have enough energy to heat you up and cause damage this way.

I remember watching a TED video where the speaker mentioned that Google experimented with this kind of manipulation on people consuming content that was deemed radicalizing.

Facebook tried this and it resulted in the false information getting a higher click-through rate than if they didn’t call it out.

As much as it bothers me as well, people just don’t like being told they are wrong (part of the process that most people here would call “learning”).

People who go all into conspiracies, cults, and general religious or political manipulation, do it for emotional reasons; facts and reason will not move them. They need something else to make them feel safe, loved, valued, etc.

I don't know if the best antidote is giving them what they need in a less destructive way, or early education and protection from indoctrination so the next generations become less gullible.

And this is why I'm perfectly at ease with the likes of facebook and youtube squashing these dickheads.

It's not censorship or a free speech violation, it carries no legal penalties and they are free to shout elsewhere. Private platforms are under no obligation to propagate this crap, indeed (as with more traditional media) it seems to me more of a moral obligation not to allow such webs of lies and fantasy to propagate.

I hate this argument.

What about when the private company is bigger than multiple countries combined?

This whole “it’s a private company, so it can do what it wants” misses the point: These companies are so massive that if they kick you off, they can ruin your life. You may think that’s ok because it’s affecting the “degenerates”, but what about when it happens to you? There’s hundreds(?) of articles about how Google kicked people off their platform for no reason.

Look at the (somewhat) recent Markiplier incident where people were banned for spamming the chat despite Markiplier telling them to spam. It only got resolved because he was big enough that Google would listen.

Saying it’s ok to censor because it’s legal and it affects the “bad people” is the same argument that people use to justify police violence: “They wouldn’t beat up someone if they didn’t have it coming for them.” Because we all know that bad things only happen to bad people.

Yes, the First Amendment only applies to the government, but free speech as a concept is a thing too, and should be fought for, regardless of who is negatively affected.

If these people are burning down towers, send them to jail. But a random nobody who is just spouting conspiracy theories? Ignore them. Conspiracy theorists will always exist. They always have, and they always will. If you want to help them, you aren’t helping my pushing them down; You’re just making their views stronger. Education fixes idiots, not censorship.

I would say that because these companies are so ubiquitous, with such reach, they have a duty to stop the people spreading the lies that lead to tower burnings.

It's not true that education fixes idiots, however much you may wish it. Pushing them down stops more people stumbling on their material. The idea that free public debate will stamp out bullshit is a bust. It's failed. Debate, facts and education don't matter for shit against a torrent of nonsense. See for example the antivax folks.

You are content that society plays whack-a-mole with tower burners while the people that actually cause the problem spread their lies and usually make a very nice living fleecing the people they recruit. All enabled by tech platforms run by private companies that you would constrain from acting for some bizarre reason.

It's not that it's ok to censor - removing people from youtube is not censorship. Publishers don't have to publish books they don't want to, newspapers are not obliged to publish articles by antivaxxers, google have no duty whatsoever to provide a platform for lies about 5G and coronavirus.

There is no free speech issue here. I am not obliged to let you stand in my yard and yell, even if it's the best spot in the neighborhood.

> There is no free speech issue here. I am not obliged to let you stand in my yard and yell, even if it's the best spot in the neighborhood.

You’re again ignoring the size of the space. If you owned all the publicly available land in a city, and stopped just me from protesting on it, that’s a free speech violation. When YouTube first started, this wasn’t an issue, but now it is.

Also, I’ll say it again: free speech and the First Amendment are different things. I recognized that in my post, but you seem content to blur the line between the two in the name of censorship.

Not even google own all the space. There are other video sites and if none of them want you, you can put your propaganda up on your own site.

I'm not American, I'm not really interested in the details of your first amendment. The difference is between government telling you that you can't speak or spread ideas and a publishing platform taking a decision not to carry your pernicious lies.

I'm fine with the latter. It's their commercial choice and it's a benefit to society in this case.

Are you going to get upset at Penguin and tell them it's censorship when they don't publish your novel too? Or maybe Barnes and Noble?

I think this is understandable. Modern technology is magic for large fraction of the population. 5G is just magical word that can contain anything. If you don't even understand the basics of science and technology, you have to trust others to decipher it for you. There is no shortage of explainers.

Most people interpret: responsible and correct statements like "there is no evidence" as "so it could be true".

Maybe the elites of old were on to something locking all knowledge in a tower...

"People are stuck at home - whether they want to watch their box set of Peaky Blinders or somebody's isolated and they want to keep in touch with family."

Maybe I'm missing something, but how does watching a box set of Peeky Blinders require a telecom network?

Well it does require electricity, and I doubt the people who want to burn down 5g towers can tell the difference between electrical towers and telecom towers.

As long as there are knowledge and cognitive gaps between groups and demographic, there will be luddite. This brings up an interesting thought; Is it in the best interest of politicians to keep the divide and gap?

> ”Read the claims carefully and investigate every single one of them because there are so many half-truths doing the rounds on social media.

Actually, there’s half truths (and full lies) being told everywhere, from advertising to politics, and it’s definitely not just limited to social media.

Once people lose trust in institutions it’s hard to get that trust back and people will look elsewhere.

And yet the people who lose trust in institutions tend to trust the alternatives they find without question.

CNN says the earth is round, obviously it's globalist deepfake propaganda, because the mainstream media is nothing but fake news.

Reddit says it's flat, well that's probably true because we know what the "elites" have to say about it, and they can't be trusted...

What, science says it's round? The same mainstream science that only serves a globalist agenda to reinforce the status quo and prop up big pharma, and brainwash people into conformity? The same scientific establishment that lies about gender and race and climate change? Obvious bullshit.

I think most people tend to have an innate need for answers and don’t like having unknowns. The institutions used to fill that gap, but now it’s back since the institutions violated that trust. Educated people are still able to find other means for sense-making such as finding good sources, considering multiple opinions etc. But for everyone else, it seems they’re left with the strategy to just trust whatever they see that hasn’t previously lied to them.

That's the tragic thing, politicians are now lying to our faces, so it seems like lying has been normalized...

Like Trump saying "I was being sarcastic" when asked about his "Doctors should look into injecting disinfectants to cure Covid-19" statement. Or even simpler, lying about the number of people who attended his inauguration.

There are all kinds of response to this insanity but ignoring distracting details and not trying to comprehend the worst of society, something I've noticed over the decades is whatever hoax, whatever conspiracy theory that pops up, the common denominator to the most destructive responders is poor education and poor critical thinking skills.

Once a society has lost those fundamentals, it's over. It's also why the movie "Idiocracy" seems to slowly become reality.

This is the exact time for groups like these to mobilise (or their leaders to start recruiting).

They exist all the time, however people are much more receptive when they are not occupied, directly observing the weakness of their government (even if unfairly) and are financially unstable.

Financially unstable, scared, lookng for something they can control and blame.

Yup, prime time for these arseholes.

> the common denominator to the most destructive responders is poor education and poor critical thinking skills

smart, highly educated people believe dumb stuff too.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/health-fitness/mind/smart-people...

Well educated and critical thinkers will easily “turn off” their “critical” thinking when it comes to subjects as politics and religion. Like most of us, people seek confirmation of their biases in whatever form that takes on.

These groups remind me of the cults of ancient Egypt, which seems to be a part of history ready to repeat itself.

>seems to be a part of history ready to repeat itself.

Talking about history, this 5g nonsense is a symptom of something else - A lack of trust in governments in general and certain authorities.

If nothing changes, someone might pull a Hitler and channel the frustrations of the poor...

This reminds me of a class I took on Communication within organizations.

When official channels of communication cuts off, the unofficial channel of information (grapevine) takes over.

In such environment, the grapevine will manufacture and spread wild theories, stories, gossips... And that's what happened here.

> If nothing changes, someone might pull a Hitler and channel the frustrations of the poor...

This is a much more likely scenario with broad joblessness as the economy continues to be shut down than it is with the vocal 5G crowd.

There’s always consequences to our actions. Surprised so many people are whistling past the graveyard with regard to crippling unemployment.

well yes, plenty of people can memory endlessly and regurgitate the knowledge on demand and go through many years of school

but of course that's not "critical thinking"

and plenty of "gut thinkers" feel they are critical thinkers but lack of education instead defeats them

however questioning and evaluating things for oneself does tend to lead to better results, like say not destroying 5G wireless, following cults religious or political, etc. - doesn't take a Ph.d but does take critical thinking

I just came off of the YouTube comments section, arguing with people who angrily defend the "Herd immunity" solution with the usual biased and paranoid "bad gov/stupid followers" rhetoric. Reminding them that "Idiocracy" is real... because it is. I can see why the people of "Elysium" left this tragic place.

Lets also note there is exploitation of certain groups to create a polarization that works to insulate and retain a sphere of influence. From 2010 onwards we see disinformation getting more successful. Sofar the beneficiaries seems to be the right wing with tea party aligned idiologies and the Russians, who benefit of the division by weakening the belief in a democratic system or by discrediting leaders who oppose Russia (as in Trump is more favorable than Hillary who would have upped the pressure together with a United Europe) Same same in the UK and Brexit.

Although there are certainly double blind assets for these parties who also enjoy the rewards of this system and like to promote or sustain it. The extreme right, fake medicine, disinformation sites. It has become an system in its own right.

Edits : formatting for clarity.

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