Robert W Malone account suspended on Twitter
twitter.com
twitter.com
Doing a tiny bit of scroll-back on Malone shows him to be roughly the same. While he did work on what would eventually become important science, back in the day, his claims to having invented the latter fruits of that labor are dubious.
Should he have been suspended? I dunno. I usually think that the best way to deal with nonsense is to expose it to the air, question its claims, look for evidence to back it up, and demand a high caliber of data. The problem with Twitter (all social media really) is that it's perfectly designed for daily, unending "soundbyte" battles that are all too insignificant to matter (except for the occasional one that turns into a pile-on, and someone gets fired - but that's never the actual result we should be looking for). Every day you get millions of Twits talking over each other, rarely requiring evidence, let alone use basic logic. It's like two clouds of insects coming at each other and doing battle in the air, with billions more hatching on the ground nearby. Pointless.
I know that Twitter can be useful, just like Reddit and maybe even Facebook. But it's not the place to have important discussions. It would be like trying to conduct an important trial with 1000 clowns in the court, cycling around on tiny bicycles and flinging custard pies left and right. Really, we should treat Twitter (and Reddit and Facebook) as the circuses that they are, and let anyone join and spout nonsense.
Maybe they should reinstate his account and then shut down the platform.
This is the problem with censorship. Who's in charge? One can threaten "evil doers" and wish them all kinds of graphic harm, spout any lies you want as long as the censors identify with your tribe, or are afraid that disagreeing with your tribe will look like a "dogwhistle" for a great big sin.
We've originally been told that we shouldn't consider to medical opinions of those that are not trained scientists. Fair enough. But you have someone credentialed that happens to say things that are critical of public policy, and suddenly he falls into that bucket.
I would like an objective statement about what is and isn't allowed to be posted on a social media platform. It has to be equally applied to all. But it can't be "you're not allowed to say anything that could be seen to critique current public policy or [three letter organization]"
I don't think it's fair enough. I like the Royal Society's motto: 'Nullius in verba' (meaning 'take nobody's word for it'). Look at the quality of the study, the data, and the statistical results instead of taking someone's word because they are "a scientist". I think that if a lay-person can use the Cochrane library, understand what they are reading, and retains a solid grasp of the meta-analysis of the trials, then I'll take their opinion on a subject as quickly as that of "some scientist" who has been pedaling debunked theories.
Silencing questioners and skeptics is just part of what is required to spread propaganda.
> ... at the moment Twitter is a Trojan Horse pretending to be an impartial public exchange but in reality it is being controlled by political and business interest groups.
We are seeing the transformation of our former beloved social media platforms (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, dare I say Hacker News in some ways) into Trojan horses for other interest groups.
We all know big news/media has played this role for several years, I reckon that is why most of us went to those sites in the first place. If they play this role now, and are also able to do whatever they please, I ask do we even have any alternatives for open discussion any more? It's a cool argument to say there are alternatives but do those open-source sites count if no one goes there?
That is, assuming said trolls have neither the financial means, will, nor funding. Given governments' involvement with troll farms, that settles the latter already. If there is influence to gain or direct on these new platforms, there will be funding available from various interest groups pouring into individuals or bots. Confusing is enough to steer opinion a certain way. You don't even need to convince people. Planting the seeds of division does the job.
With Apple and Microsoft, I think the issue is less around speech and more around market power and abusive practices. Microsoft can bundle many unrelated products into one big license - for example Teams, their Slack competitor, is part of various Office licenses. Apple’s verticalization and walled garden approach means they can stop outside competition (for example payments for digital content on your phone) and charge exorbitant fees.
Leaving aside these specifics, you could also make an argument that any company that has a market capitalization of $100B+ is simply too big and distorts competition to an extent where they are shielded from it to some degree. That’s a reason to either break them up or regulate them in some way to the public’s interest, where they might be treated more as a public agency.
What regulations would apply? Everything we've found out about Facebook from Frances Haugen the Facebook "whistleblower" has Facebook actually boosting conservative content. Seems like the old "liberal bias" canard doesn't apply there. Twitter's problem is mostly that the platform encourages dogpiling, and apparently they have a policy of allowing certain bot swarms to operate freely. Twitter should also carefully consider what letting spammers run free does to their reputation: faxing, phone calls, usenet have all fallen to spammers.
I have some emotional sympathy with breaking up any company that goes above a certain market capitalization, but it's really hard to quantify what the limit should be and why.
Treating large corporations as "public agencies" is the definition of socialism, too. I don't know how that could be done consistently - nationalize some companies, but not others seems unfair, and prone to abuse by political parties.
His last tweets: "Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines ‘Dramatically Increase’ Heart Attack Risk, Renowned Cardiologist Warns"
Also: "A U.S. Navy warship has paused its deployment to South America due to a COVID-19 outbreak among its “100 percent immunized” crew, the Navy announced on Christmas Eve."
https://web.archive.org/web/20211227081911/https://twitter.c...
> > His last tweets: "Pfizer, Moderna Vaccines ‘Dramatically Increase’ Heart Attack Risk, Renowned Cardiologist Warns"
> Malone received criticism for propagating COVID-19 misinformation, including making unsupported claims about the alleged toxicity of spike proteins generated by some COVID-19 vaccines;[2][12][4][24] using interviews on mass media to popularize self-medication with ivermectin;[25] and tweeting a study by others questioning vaccine safety that was later retracted.[2] He said LinkedIn suspended his account over what he claimed were posts he had made questioning the efficacy of some COVID-19 vaccines.[26] Malone has also claimed that the Pfizer–BioNTech and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines could worsen COVID-19 infections.[1]
I wonder why people get off track so far at some points. Same with AIDS french researcher whose name escapes me at the moment.
You don't see public office holders conducting official business from gmail and yahoo mail accounts, do you?
They use their own official internet domains to conduct business. The same can be done today with the use of ActivityPub hosted on official domains.
Yesterday it was a conspiritard, that was fine.
Then it was a right-winger, screw him.
Today it's a credentialed scientist, but he's going against the narrative.
Tomorrow?
It takes until an unsilent majority gets affected. Right now, they think they will be unaffected for longer than the minority are. They are in for a huge surprise.
If it's scientific credentials and experience that qualifies you, then there are also just as many qualified people with credentials that disagree (on the side of your so-called "misinformation" so ultimately what this has come down to is that any information you disagree with has been labeled "misinformation" or neither you nor the other person is qualified to judge what is misinformation or not and all you ever can trust is information that comes from a Big Govt organization or CDC/WHO like group). At which case, then why critically think at all and have any discussion whatsoever?
Who knew?
Once they start deciding what to publish or not (eg censoring or banning users) based on the platform’s opinion, then Section 230 should not apply anymore.
Let's not perpetuate the narrative that Twitter is a private company and therefore they can do whatever they want. In theory, yes. But the line is being increasingly blurred and it is tending more towards a public square. When my local police department chooses to exclusively publish alerts on Twitter, I am strongly in opposition of the private-sector argument.
Either pass a law to prevent Governments from going on Twitter as a sole outlet or make access to Twitter like a public utility. You can't have a free pass. I'll be writing to my local representatives of this insanity.
Ideally, I'd want the former. Government officials are playing a reality-TV-like-theater on Twitter, throwing rocks at people, memes, the whole 9 yards. I'd want a publicly funded real-time .gov website where officials can communicate to citizens. No memes. No bullshit. No Senator Warren vs. Elon Musk. I sometimes wonder WTF is going on in the world. We've stooped so far, it is unbelivable.
USDS needs to take the lead here: https://www.usds.gov/
At the moment newspapers are a Trojan Horse pretending to be an impartial public exchange but in reality they are controlled by political and business interest groups.
When did the USA have any impartial public exchanges?
It seems like the objection here should be purely about government agencies disseminating information exclusively through Twitter. That's not really something Twitter has any say in, and shouldn't take away Twitter's right to moderate as it sees fit.
Exclusive publication of Gov information is just one of the aspects but the one that is most eggregious to me as a tax paying citizen and comes to mind immediately when I think about a public square. Broadcasting on Radio doesn't prevent anyone from accessing the radio waves. You don't need to give your information to ad-tech platform to access information.
> must stop moderating the platform
How much moderation/censorship is debatable and can get messy. Obviously you want to ban spam. But, as I said, I'd much prefer an official Gov version of Twitter-like system. I don't even want a Gov contract to procure Twitter platform for Gov use unless the algorithms are also public that control what's shown to people.
In general: Social media x Government comm = Unequivocally terrible idea IMO. Let alone US gov, Foreign governments who have no fricking clue about what Twitter's internal algorithms are have decided to jump on the Twitter bandwagon which seems to be a monumentally stupid idea. Great for politicians probably, bad for people.
In 1971, 48% of new TV sets sold were color, so you certainly have a leg to stand on if you're counting the 50/50 point as "common." But if "common" means 25% of new TV sales, then that event came in 1968, so there's two years where a lawmaker in 2022 who is 70+ could have graduated as and after color TV became "common."
i do, however, agree restrictions on viewing tweets are annoying.