Cambridge Analytica psychologist advising Covid19 disinformation network
bylinetimes.com
bylinetimes.com
You simply cannot even begin to asses the financial and psychological damage of every single waiter, or coffee shop barrista, dance artist, theatre actor, or god forbid business owner who might have spent decades building a business that is now bankrupt, sitting at home, with nothing to do, no one to speak to, doing what? Its well known in psychology that spending too much time alone basically makes you go crazy.
Look at the numbers on domestic abuse, drug abuse, mental health issues.
Have a little empathy. There are legitimate viewpoints about whether these lockdowns are worth it, and especially for how long. This isn't disinformation. It's just people who are different from you.
The fact the rich, educated and connected people discussed in the article are seeking to exploit the discontent felt by ordinary people impoverished by being unable to work and lonely in their personal lives makes them worse, not better.
The “PCR is fake” people should clearly be ignored, but one of the more persuasive arguments from the “most tests are false positives” narrative seems to be that the amplification cycle thresholds are being set far too high and tests are therefore finding fragments of RNA from previous infection weeks or months ago.
Now I don’t know how much scientific merit that argument has, but is it not irresponsible of the government to withhold details of the testing parameters they are using, given the impact the results are having?
Again, I fully agree with you and do not believe the ends justify the means here.
I don't believe the article is doing that. It characterises one protest as "anti-lockdown, anti-vaxxer, anti-mask, anti-5G ... organised by Save Our Rights UK Ltd". I don't think the protesters thought they were protesting against 5G; I note that Save Our Rights UK doesn't list 5G as an issue [0]. And many of the issues they do list are, y'know, pretty serious. I'd consider joining a protest against sweeping legislative changes in response to the pandemic. Such changes in crisis situations tend to be really bad in hindsight.
There is a big difference between legitimate and illegitimate arguments. But I don't trust the article to fairly represent the arguments of the people it is attacking. The author should have a little bit more empathy for the people in the movements they are attacking.
Also; as a general comment it isn't reasonable to demand everyone be articulate about why they are hurting or to understand where in the system the leverage points are to relieve the pain. This is a radical time, people who aren't full time public speakers might have things they want to say. Working hard to paint them as disinformed and therefore having illegitimate concerns is a terrible strategy at many levels.
Whilst I'd agree that Byline Times is not the most nuanced of sources, going to the opposite extreme of artificially charitable representations of who these organizations are and what they stand for and pretending the crazy isn't there is the way to lose an argument with them. The wider points they make are their recruitment strategy, not their raison d'etre. Makes no more sense to debate these sorts of organizations by ignoring the crazy to make defensive arguments about how the government is right than combating far-right parties by ignoring the racism and talking about the wisdom of modern economics.
may be they are suffering from cognitive dissonance, and this is how they resolve their internal conflict - that it must be a hoax and covid false, because the lockdown is so much worse for them.
It’s not about internal conflict, it’s about a pipe dream where it all goes away.
And on a practical level I would think many people would prefer a double-digit probability of dying from COVID while working rather than a few years spent in financial limbo due to lockdowns. So at this point COVID being a hoax becomes way less black-and-white: maybe it being a hoax is just a way to say that “I would rather take the risk, and the hoax here is that you are vastly overestimating the fear of death in population”
PS: I am not saying it’s a hoax, I am giving a reasonably plausible pattern of thought behind the mechanism justifying it being a hoax.
"Normal level" is all relative. If you look up the press, "on the brink of the apocalypse" seems to be the normal level for at least the last couple of years in the UK.
2012: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2012/dec/02/hospitals-fu...
2013: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/nov/24/nhs-hospital...
2014: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/nov/27/nhs-winter-c...
2015: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2015/mar/27/nhs-hospital...
2016: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/dec/16/hospitals-in...
2017: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/07/nhs-bosses-s...
2018: https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/mar/07/patients-tur...
2019: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/25/hospital-be...
While the press tend to catastrophise, this is the first year we've seen doctors and nurses from multiple countries spontaneously going on social media to plead with people to take the virus seriously.
It's also the first year recent-history where some countries - including developed countries like Portugal - have had to send patients abroad, or ask for other kinds of medical help from other countries.
So it is absolutely a false claim to suggest that hospital admissions are at normal levels. They aren't.
It's also the first year where excess death totals have been far above any previous statistical variation.
https://fingertips.phe.org.uk/static-reports/mortality-surve...
Seriously, just provide the numbers about hospital use. No social media nonsense.
Your data about "excess deaths" is only for the last five years, by the way, not "any previous year".
Back in April it was the other way round. I wonder how many non-covid deaths lockdown is saving (because things like the normal winter flu aren't spreading)
1. Excess deaths are high after lockdown measures
2. These deaths are no longer explained by covid 19 death counts
I know tons of people who have relapsed, regressed, and are just generally unwell at this point. .3% of my Facebook friends have made a suicide attempt since lockdowns began.
The longer this goes on, the more dramatic these incidents are going to become.
https://twitter.com/tylerblack32/status/1357765466601775106
1) MD, Suicidologist, emergency psychiatrist and pharmacologist
That said, the data that is available doesn't point to an increase outside of the historical increase (suicides in the UK have been increasing for a long time)
Suicides in the UK have not been increasing for a long time. They increased this year for the first time since 2007. There are a few reasons for this, but part of it is a change in the standard of proof used by coroner's after the Maughan case. Coroner's used to have to use "beyond all reasonable doubt", and now have to use "balance of probabilities" for a conclusion of suicide.
If there is a specific point you want to make, then do so. It might be valid. Back that point up with details or an explanation that shows why you think it is the case, and expect to provide more information if your view is a challenging or unlikely one.
Nevertheless, I don't know what makes you so sure your claims are true. I haven't really seen completely convincing evidence.
I have seen politicians publicly proclaim that the opportunity the pandemic provides should be used. So there definitely ARE politicians who would like to use it. What makes you so sure that none of the politicians in power, or indeed any of the other actors involved, don't share that sentiment?
That said, covid is being exploited, politically, by some very shady actors. We're already at a boiling point with social media's takeover of politics. We already failed to notice the dead canaries in more politically unstable countries. The arab spring, Myanmar. The hardest part is discerning the emergent malign effects of this from coordinated attacks... for which cambridge analytica is now emblematic.
It's quite literally a rage machine, and it is dangerous. The legitimate discussion have been hijacked. The point of many anti-lockdown movements, especially at this point, is the "movement" itself. Lockdown is going to go away. These movements are not.
The article is about the alt-right and plague disinformation, not down-and-out restaurant owners.
It’s difficult to take these sort of articles seriously because “you are spreading disinformation” is a lot easier than a dispassionate analysis of the issue at hand.
These things are "conflated" in real life, not just in rhetoric and reporting... lazy or otherwise. That's kind of the point of this article. There is a ton of political power at stake here, and consolidation is how you win at politics.
Whether or not this article, the media, etc. give a fair shake to the (most rational/dispassionate version of) the opposing viewpoint is what.. it is what it is. The biggest reasons why a dispassionate opposition doesn't get much press is (a) the "ruling" version is the more relevant, practically, because it's in charge. and (b) the crazy version of the dissident position is saucier. This is true for both old and new media, just in different ways. There are also, obviously biases. But, we're also biased in our perceptions of bias. Bias is a mess... but I generally think we over-attribute to bias.
Anyway, the topic of this article actually is relevant. Covid/Lockdown and 2020 generally are massive multipliers for shady, exploitative attempts to acquire political power.
That has nothing to do with dispassionate analysis. It's all about channeling the passions that are already ignited. A lot of people got screwed by covid. A lot of shady cats want to channel those feelings into whatever their cause it.
Remember that lockdown/covid is temporary. Most of the actual political maneuvering is not actually about it anymore.
I guess it's a cliche to end with "the medium is the message." It's just so true here. None of these political actors care about the message (covid policies, good or bad). They care about the medium.
Very few of them are honestly saying "we should accept another few hundred thousand dead in order to keep the restaurants open". They're just lying about the costs.
Yes a lot of people are suffering under the lockdown, but hundreds of thousands, millions, are dead or dying and health care workers are being driven to exhaustion and even suicide by the stress and emotional costs. These lies are stabbing them right in the back.
I can have compassion for those suffering worse than me, be it because they are on a ventilator, have to watch their business fall apart, missing a year of their precious childhood, whatever it may be without resorting to contrarian opinions, misinformation, and conspiracy theories.
... Cambridge Analytica probably was (is?) disinformation company, which has no any relation to Cambridge University.[0]
Google Play?
Whoever thinks the "number of hospitalizations" is normal should be mandated to visit a Covid ward (no masks, of course). Put your money where your nose is.
But trying to win a debate about values by lying about the facts is not OK.
Yes it's sad that people lose their jobs. But do you know what else is sad? if they would lose their lives :(
> This isn't disinformation.
It certainly is. Don't try to whitewash what's happening here. People know how trollfactories shape online discussion, and you're being very obvious.
We need to weigh the consequences of restrictions against the consequences of not having those restrictions, and this kind of disinformation is simply trying to tip the scales by diluting the factual basis on which we all make that assessment with lies.
If they can just brush it off by having others foot the bill, they’ll simply make the choice which minimizes the impact that can be directly attributed to them. Which definitely is not always the right choice.
It’s just so much easier to chant for safety whatever the costs if you don’t have to pay the bill.
Two examples: If a Business is closed due to lockdown - there should be government assistance to compensate. Buying masks for employees and changing interior layouts to allow for safer interactions, to comply with new regulations - cost of doing business.
This alone:
>Because the government is the party deciding on the restrictions.
is not a valid reason to me. We don't (or at least I don't) expect the government to pay for every impact of new environmental legislation either even though they ultimately pass the legislation.
The question is if the people/organizations mentioned in the article just disagree, or if it is disinformation.
Do you have any reason to believe that it isn't disinformation?
Or the damage to people who get Long Covid and have permanent health consequences.
Pleading for empathy might be more convincing with a more inclusive view of what's happening, and less heavy-handedly selective emotional rhetoric.
If we had culled the over 65s in March, the economy could function just fine, hospitals would be mostly empty, and while younger people would get covid and might even need hospital treatment, it would be a very low level. The IFR for 45-65s is 1 in 300, for 25-45s it's 1 in 3000, and 15-25s 1 in 30,000.
But that would be a barbaric approach.
The main beneficierays of lockdowns are the over 65s, who as a generation
1) Have the most wealth
2) Have no income
The main losers of lockdowns are the younger people who have
1) Very little wealth
2) Years of income to pay
The cost of lockdowns should therefore come from the beneficiaries, the ones who are the wealthiest, can afford it, and who benefit the most
The cost of lockdowns will actually come from government spending though, which is primarilly funded by income related tax
They actually have a lot of income, from collecting pensions and rents.
Neither of these income streams were cut by COVID.
And without having to pay rent, the outgoings are far lower too. Someone living on a net of £2k a month after £1500 a month rent would need £3500 net income and cost an employer £52k a year. Throw in student loans and commuting and you'd need even more.
Someone owning their house and getting a net of £2k a month would need just £26k a year of income, or even less if that was funded from dividends.
Farage did try to push his populist views on young people, it didn't go down well.
There aren't any prominent young people calling for say a rebate on rent paid to say boomer house owners in university towns.
Far better would be a windfall tax on the immense unearned wealth that many have had over the last 20 years, combined with a land value tax to correct housing costs and transfer planning gain away from the wealthy to the public.
Why is it that the duke of westminster, who owns 200ha of Mayfair (valued about £20b), pays nothing. A 1% LVT would cost a farmer with a 100 acre prime dairy farm in Cheshire £10k a year (less than tax paid to workers), a typical houseowner in London suburbs would pay £5k a year, not much more than council tax - and far less than house price inflation, and Grovesnor would pay £200m a year.
Although given recent events, perhaps it isn't.
There's no evidence of disinformation - being incorrect and talking about it doesn't imply intent or motivation to deceive.
It’s an interesting article, but there are no hard-right politicians in either of those parties, unless you consider everyone right of Tony Blair to be a borderline fascist.
"“Again, with my tinfoil conspiracy hat on, these things all distance us and isolate us from each other and make us easier to control I think.”"
Just look at the common ideas about the increased security after 9/11. It was similar "conspiracy theories" about the government using terrorism as an excuse to spy on people until Snowden showed they actually were. It used to be popular to use the quote "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.". Surely you can understand why some people feel that way?
It's OK to not be a conformist and it's good that we have people brave enough to do so openly.
There’s a compromise somewhere in the middle in the grey area which is actually the situation that we’re in despite it being explained as black and white but these nut cases.
We also in this case have to consider cultural differences. America is obsessed with a somewhat bent and selfish form of personal Liberty which ends up as another lever on which compromise is impossible. Liberty for the other person is their right not to be harmed by your liberty as well don’t forget. America just ends up ending up having a right to the highest body count.
It seems to me that this guy genuinely believes what he is saying.
Guilt by tentative association seems to count as investigative journalism these days, but really it's just seeding a conspiracy.
If you trace the links you'll see the same names, the same organisations, and the same funding sources appearing again and again.
When someone lies consistently, it's irrational to conclude on the basis of no evidence at all that they've suddenly gone white hat and are now acting entirely in a public-spirited and wholly reputable way.
Is that true or are you a victim of disinformation yourself? How do you know they would have lost had it not been for "engines of disinformation"? I'm not saying there wasn't disinformation used to promote them, but did they win because of it or despite it?
I agree with mask mandates and commerce closures, but when the government starts making it illegal to meet my family, including outside and in own house, then that crosses a civil liberties line for me personally. A reasonable person could hold the opposite view. A reasonable person could hold the 'total lockdown' view. But if you hold the 'anti-lockdown' viewpoint you risk being told you have just been reading 'disinformation' these days. I don't see anti-lockdown as disinformation, that's a policy option.
I also don't see it as disinformation to believe that governments are utilising propaganda to either make Covid sound worse / better according to what fits their policy narrative - that's what governments do!
There is lots of genuine disinformation about Covid, but we have to be careful that we don't just brand opposing opinions as disinformation and fake news.
> The network is using tried and tested techniques of psychological propaganda to manipulate the public and cast pressure on governments. It has already arguably paved the way for more than 100,000 COVID-19 deaths in the UK – and will likely lead to many more.
Now ironically THIS is ACTUAL misinformation. To blame the 'network' for ALL Covid deaths in the UK is just ridiculous. I personally don't think the use of 'arguably' here absolves them from the fact the claim is clearly false.