Anti-vaxxers making ‘at least $2.5m’ a year from publishing on Substack | Hacker News Reader

Anti-vaxxers making ‘at least $2.5m’ a year from publishing on Substack

theguardian.com

14 pointslkrubner18 comments

I picked one of the examples given to see if it matched the Guardian’s claims:

> a newsletter from Malone warning that mRNA vaccines could lead to permanent damage of children’s organs

It does. However, the statement is undeniably true. Whether one is pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine, it’s always been true that they come with risks, mRNA based or not, for COVID-19 or not. Perhaps Malone is overcooking the risks but that’s not the accusation being thrown at him.

In fact, making such an accusation undermines the authority of the one making it as it’s either ignorant or worse, misleading.

For me, this backs up Substack’s decision to allow people on their platform the freedom to express themselves as if there’s any time I’ll support someone’s right to speak, it’s when there’s an attempt to squash it with flimsy accusations like that one.

Substantially overstating risks, and often making them up is what Dr. Robert Malone does for money. He is not a scholar, he is a grifter.

Freedom of expression should never be freedom of harmful expression or freedom of consequences.

> Freedom of expression should never be freedom of harmful expression or freedom of consequences.

Everything you do has consequences, it's meaningless to wish for them unless you mean unpleasant ones, which then means that you're looking for those you disagree with to experience bad things. Hardly an original thought, and not a good one either. As Chomsky once put it, "even Stalin was in favour of speech he liked".

> freedom of harmful expression

This though, could be interesting. How would it be decided? Who would decide it?

> How would it be decided? Who would decide it?

In this case, it is up to Substack to decide. The reason for bringing pressure against Substack is exactly so that they remove the disinformation that is harmful to the public.

“To remove information that some disagree with” would be easier to achieve if it’s termed “(to) remove the disinformation that is harmful to the public”.

So who decides what is disinformation? And why didn’t the Guardian provide any disinformation? (in the example about Malone they used, Malone’s claim was correct)

Substack should decide, and ultimately laws do. European laws are already in favor platform responsibility. It's an ongoing research of course, we are figuring it out, but Substack's approach of shrugging responsibility is not tenable.

In a democracy what is harmful and what is not is decided by the public, and ideally that public should be well-informed and educated, if not, you have a different problem you must fix. For example the United States is far from an ideal democracy, it is a flawed democracy. When a few people are allowed to manipulate a lot of people to get rich or powerful you have a flawed system. That's what Substack allows as well. And it's not right. Never will be.

I’m “the public” and you are “the public” so again, I ask you, how would it be decided what is harmful and who exactly would do the deciding?

If you mean that the public decide by making their own decisions on whether to read something or not then that sounds like a good system to me, as I’m happy to make my own decisions. I’m also an adult who respects the right for other adults to make their own decisions, especially about what they read.

The relevant debate is not about "freedom of speech", but about "freedom to profit from running a platform for others' speech".

I have no issue with substack as a platform. My issue is with substack the Delaware C Corp.

If one type of speech can be made money from but another type cannot by dint of being rendered a different class of speech then it’s hard to see how it’s free.

I don't understand what you are saying.

Freedom to speak and freedom to profit from coordinating a platform for speech are different things. If you think "my ability to make money on social media platform capitalism" and "the original intent of the first amendment" are the same thing, then we have no common ground about what America is or means.

> If you think "my ability to make money on social media platform capitalism" and "the original intent of the first amendment" are the same thing, then we have no common ground about what America is or means.

I don't. Thanks for letting me clear that up.

> Freedom to speak and freedom to profit from coordinating a platform for speech are different things.

Let's accept it because you've written it. What is it that you object to in either the freedom to speak or the freedom - via any means (freedom, right?) - to profit from it?

Dr Malone is a multi-millionaire, he doesn't need to profit from this, though he could be wanting more (kinda like Pfizer's board wants more money, or any other board for that matter).

The Pfizer board is subject to a whole lot of examination from regulatory bodies. They can't just do whatever for money or power like a conspiracy theorist can. People would like to, but these markets are tight and regulated. Milking people on the internet is a new sport with much less oversight and competition.

What could Malone do that would lead to legal payouts like these?[1][2] Are Malone's misleading claims comparable to those of Pfizer's regarding Bextra, for instance?

I also have to wonder how "tight and regulated" they are that these payouts in the hundreds of millions or even billions end up in court, repeatedly, for actions that look remarkably similar.

I simply don't know what your objection to Malone's words could be if your going to take the position you have on Pfizer.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pfizer#Legal_issues

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_v._Parke-Davis

The book banning, especially of books by black authors, makes for an interesting contrast:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/book-bans-schools-are-ca...

The USA is currently a country where, if you want to spread deadly misinformation about a virus, you are rewarded with millions of dollars, but if you want to write honestly about race relations, you will face government enforced bans from schools and public libraries.

Is Substack about to get canceled?

Yep

1) Smear campaign

2) Lawsuit

3) Content take down

We're in step 1

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