Majority of Covid misinformation came from 12 people
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I was watching Covid developments in China back when in was the "Wu-flu", months before it hit public consciousness in the US. What really grabbed my interest was the messaging China put out, attributing the whole thing to somebody eating bat soup from a wet market. Knowing how sensitive they are about that sort of thing (rhino horn ED medicine, shark fin luxury meals, etc), and knowing that the best way to lie is through a distracting embarrassing admission, I knew something weird was going on.
The speed with which "experts" and public figures have contradicted their own prior positions is absolutely amazing. The list is long, but the memorable highlights include masks, travel restrictions, genetic engineering and fish tank cleaner. I can already hear an apologist exclaiming "Bbut the situation is fluid!" Exactly, maybe stop trying to censor people you disagree with - you've got a horrible track record. This is why trust in government and media is so low, they've absolutely wrecked their own credibility - and it makes me wonder if that is the real motivation behind this recent push for wide sweeping information lockdown. It would certainly be easier to reduce the number of alternative information sources than it would be to actually do the right thing and rebuild a self-sabotaged reputation.
The PDF lists examples of misinformation starting on page 12 for each of the dozen people they identified.
First - there is tons of examples of 'misinformation' in the PDF. It goes into excessive detail. It's an amazing and thorough bit of research actually. If you want a link here it is [1]
1) The situation is fluid, facts change which requires change in posture by public health officials - which will give the impression of 'bad information' but really it's not at all for anyone paying close attention.
2) People are not censored, they're just told to not talk about things we don't yet understand on massive public forums until there's data. We definitely want YouTube and FB to get rid of bogus information related to life and death issues.
It's understandable that people in the commons don't understand this, but it's not acceptable that intelligent rational people can't grasp the nuance in the situation: 1) facts and situations change and 2) there are a lot of liars.
Those are different forms of noise.
A good example of this is the recent Brett Weinstein / Ivermectin situation.
Brett Weinstein went in an 'emergency Joe Rogan' to make a bunch of BS claims about Ivermectin, and 10's of millions of people ate it up.
But it turns out Brett Weinsten was promulgating a Giant Lie. The foundational study turned out to be fraud. Ergo his claims are total BS, he has no basis for them. [2]
So Brett Weinstein - a generally well meaning and smart guy is not 'helping' - he's 'hurting' by knowingly amplifying early, suspect and net yet validated results.
'The Government Is Censoring Me' is the Hustler's Lie.
If the government is forcibly stopping scientists form releasing data, or forcibly stopping people from speaking publicly - that's a problem.
If if YouTube and FB are dropping your videos because you're making unverified claims about important medical information - well that's literally the kind of censorship we want.
We don't want Quack Medical advice telling people to drink lighter fluid, because people will do it.
Brett Weinstein's new public identity (i.e. his source of income) is playing a kind of 'educated conspiracy theorist' - having enough knowledge to parse the situation and yet still misrepresent the facts.
It turns out Ivermectin is most likely bogus, while the 'real' trials going on at Oxford may possibly show some value, as of today, we don't have any supporting data for Brett's claims - making he, Rogan and even Lex guilty of garbage misinformation tabloid populism.
It doesn't matter what the 'end result' of the trials are, the fact is the information is very grey (and not looking good) and it's too early to be presented as a cure.
If they were responsible agents of truth, they'd have spent most of the time in the introduction talking about:
'How They Are Not Medical Experts And Have Zero Medical Qualifications',
how 'The Trials Were Limited',
that 'There Are Suspicions',
and 'We Still Know Very Little',
and because of that - 'We Can't Conclude Much At This Point'.
That is the responsible scientific and newsworthy take.
As such, frankly, it doesn't constitute the need for a 'podcast' because there's nothing to say.
Will Joe Rogan, Lex or Weinstein issue an apology/correction for the misleading hyperbole? Probably not. But they're not 'journalists' you say, they're under no obligation? Well then they don't have any credibility to speak on these important issues.
(FYI I actually like all three of those guys, but they've crossed a line here)
The mask mandate is yet another good example:
Dr. Fauci and his peers around the world, had the ignoble task of getting an arrogant and cantankerous global public to change some behaviours.
The 'mask' issue was managed responsibly: masks were needed for the medical community. If 300M Americans made a 'mad dash' for masks, the demand would have swamped the ability of Healthcare to get PPE. While mask are at best marginally useful for the public, they are essential in Healthcare.
Once production ramped up - the marginal effectiveness of masks make them useful as long as public consumption doesn't interfere with Healthcare supply. So then the public communication becomes: Wear Masks.
From early CNN posts last Spring, you can see that the 'You Don't Need Masks' signals are always accompanied with:
"Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, an infectious disease epidemiologist with the WHO, also said at Monday's briefing that it is important "we prioritize the use of masks for those who need it most," which would be frontline health care workers." [3]
They are telling us there is short supply and that we need masks for Healthcare, which is very rational.
We just went through the biggest economic, public health and global emergency of the century, there will be chaos. Public Health officials use basic Public Communications tactics to get people to do very basic things which create better outcomes for everyone. Shutting down liars and telling people to not broadcast unsubstantiated information to their 300 Million followers (or at very least do it in a very responsible way) is what we have to do.
[1] https://www.counterhate.com/disinformationdozen
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/jul/16/huge-study-s...
[3] https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/30/world/coronavirus-who-masks-r...
> ...there is tons of examples of 'misinformation' in the PDF ... It's an amazing and thorough bit of research actually.
You're confusing "research" and "propaganda". It is easy to tell the difference using this little trick: research defines terms, propaganda dumps "tons of examples" from unsympathetic caricatures. One is intellectually honest and the other is manipulative.
> The situation is fluid, facts change...
Uh, define "facts". Because your spirited defense of calculated lies from public health officials makes me think you've somehow redefined the word. Here is an example of a fact: the virus has always been a lab leak. It isn't a fact now that Fauci's emails have been FOIA'd and scientists are admitting that they immediately recognized signs of genetic engineering but didn't speak up because they thought it might help the bad orange man. It was always a fact - one that was, in the best cases, strongly countermessaged with "medical disinformation" warnings, and in the worst cases used to justify deplatforming. Hell, the boards figured out the specific lab at least a month before travel restrictions - I remember reading their job postings page seeking bat virologists through Google Translate.
> People are not censored, they're just told to not talk...
bwahahahaha, seriously?! Aside from your creative take on what is and isn't censorship - you know that the Whitehouse is directly instructing platforms, publicly and with no hint of shame, to censor Americans? The whole "Businesses can do whatever they want, build your own Internet" line was already total BS, but Biden has totally blown that dodge to smithereens by blatantly directing platforms on who needs a good banhammering.
The people have difficulty with this is exactly why misinformation is so easily spread.
We have tons of direct evidence for 'Natural Origin' and there is no other competing theory that matches the evidence. While some details are still murky - our actual 'Origin' resembles something around the bounds of that theory.
We have no evidence of a 'Lab Leak'. It's just conjecture.
While lab leaks do happen with some frequency, animals do spread disease to humans (i.e. Zoonotic transfer) far more often and this has been going on since the dawn of time.
The previous SARS crisis was sparked in this manner, which is why, during the initial phases of the pandemic, this theory was 'most likely' even though it was also conjecture.
Moreover, it's another good example of how 'facts change'. The only reason the 'Lab Leak' theory has material credence or plausibility is because of the lack of evidence for it's competing theory i.e. no trail of Zoonotic transfer as of yet found.
If you have actual evidence about something, then make your public claim so that it can be scrutinized.
Otherwise, don't spread false information, especially on highly public channels.
Tons, huh? So if that is the case then why is the WHO backpedaling [0] on the premature zoonotic classification, after ignoring everyone pointing out the fact that it was premature from the get-go? Did the "facts" change again? It never gets old, watching Tedros erode institutional trust.
> If you have actual evidence about something, then make your public claim so that it can be scrutinized.
I think I'll wait for you to break off a piece of that "tons" of evidence first. I'm really looking forward to you backing up the whole bat-soup/peed-in-my-mouth story with good solid evidence.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2021/07/15/1016436749/who-chief-wuhan-la...
"2 million, in the USA, will die by summer 2020 even with lockdowns", "The science is settled", "trust the science", censor everyone contradicting mainstream narrative. What a debacle. And the backtrack on the virus origin is just the tip of the iceberg of the incompetent experts
Equally good to know there are only twelve genuine idiots.
For idiots just turn on the TV and you'll find them by the thousands
Which scientific paper/organisation even made this claim?
He predicted this wrongly, and previous "pandemics"/outbreaks too
And he is still advising the UK government
I seriously doubt reasoning with any of these people is going to cause them to change their mind. It's about validation/ego and money.
But it's a fool's errand. Others have been trying to do that for -yes- years, because anti-vaxx conspiracy theories have been around for a long time. Many people believe that "sunlight is the best disinfectant," and that if you simply approach these people with politeness, empathy and well sourced logic, they will eventually come around. Feel free to try to engage the anti-vaxx community in as many vigorous, Lincoln-Douglas style debates as you like.
Just don't say you weren't warned.
It’s extreme, it’s dangerous and it’s indoctrinating.
The MSM are guilty of this a bit, while generally credible, they do 'juice things up' a bit in order to get viewership.
There are fools everywhere who will believe something crazy, and there are egomaniacs who will knowingly lie (and believe the lies themselves) because it makes them 'important'.