California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information | Hacker News Reader

California approves bill to punish doctors who spread false information

nytimes.com

60 points0xChain102 comments

This will not end well.

Say this law was in place when COVID-19 started and a doctor said "hey, this looks like a new virus causing this pneumonia."

This is exactly what is supposed to have happened in Wuhan and those doctors were, surprise surprise, punished by their government.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/07/world/asia/chinese-doctor...

With this law would Fauci and the CDC flip-flopping as they tried to figure out what was happening land them in hot water?

When doctors repeated their advice and then the CDC reversed, would they have been spreading misinformation, or is official information, even though wrong, by definition not misinformation even when it is false?

This's pretty ill conceived.

If it was well-crafted enough, there could easily be carve-outs for "at the time" advice, and requiring updates/clarifications, etc.

However, I don't know anyone who would trust Cali lawmakers to actually craft bills well.

"We passed a bill to show those right-wingers that we mean business!"

"Did you consider <insert obvious edge case here>?"

"Oh..."

Let's say they post on some blog or something. What sort of timeframe do they have to correct those? And how long back does it go?

Of course it wouldn’t get them in trouble. This law is for enemies, not allies.

There's a bit of a 'boy who cried wolf' situation here, since every sensible thing that Californian lawmakers do, is described as civilization ending stupidity and/or authoritarian fascism.

So, my prior is that this is perfectly fine, and the people complaining about it are lying and intentionally misunderstanding this. But I've not read anything about the specific law, so this is entirely based on the way people react to Californian laws generally.

Which is a bad precedent for when/if California does pass a bad law (say something like prop 13) because ... well see the end of the boy who cried wolf. story.

It took me minimal effort to find the text of the bill. It took me even less effort to find people who ran afoul of the bill for telling the truth as we currently understand it.

It even cites the major news outlets(unidentified) which seem to receive their information from the same government.

I don't like the circus either.

> The law would designate spreading false or misleading medical information to patients as “unprofessional conduct,” subject to punishment by the agency that licenses doctors, the Medical Board of California. That could include suspending or revoking a doctor’s license to practice medicine in the state.

You are discussing a completely different situation compared to the one that the news reports is addressed by the bill. I see this enforcing the fiduciary duty doctors already have toward their patients. If a doctor has an unorthodox opinion regarding their patient's health, they should perhaps clearly mark it as such in their communications to their patients, in which case I suppose it won't be false information anymore.

Perhaps you should read TFA before commenting to prevent yourself from, y'know, spreading false or misleading information.

All laws are subject to interpretation.

Didn't you just appoint a judge to your Supreme Court who openly admitted that she couldn't define "a woman" because she "wasn't a biologist?"

When you have such people interpreting laws, good luck to you with this one.

It's clearly designed to suppress dissent, given the disastrous events of the last two years.

Here is an edge case:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%BCevedoce

Here's another:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klinefelter_syndrome

A general page on the topic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intersex#Prevalence

A podcast from a Stanford professor that talks about the topic from a biological point of view (not really social):

https://hubermanlab.com/biological-influences-on-sex-sex-dif...

Between genetic factors, hormonal factors, environmental factors, social factors, and developmental factors it seems pretty clear that the definition of "woman" is a little more complicated than "has a vagina."

The judge knew she didn't know things and said the equivalent of "I'm not an expert, I would defer to someone who knows more." When someone asks a yes or no question and you answer "I don't have sufficient information to answer the question" that is the type of person who should be given power. Saying something confidently while being blissfully unaware of complexity is a major problem, especially for a position that primarily deals with legal edge cases. The most valuable lesson in college is that "just because something is intuitive, doesn't mean it's correct."

Personally, I trust a judge that thinks about edge cases much more than one ignores them or one that thinks they're an expert in a field they're not.

If laws are so openly subject to interpretation as to qualify for your scenario, this legislation would change nothing since doctors can presumably already be suppressed under "unprofessional conduct" by negligent treatment etc. as determined by CA's Medical Board.

On the other hand, if laws were not that subject to interpretation, then I don't see how it affects your scenario.

You seem to be confused about medical ethics. A physician's fiduciary responsibility has nothing to do with unorthodox medical opinions. Fiduciary issues generally only come up when there is a financial conflict of interest, like if the doctor is taking advantage of the patient to make extra money by performing unnecessary procedures.

A fiduciary is a person in a position of trust. It's commonly used in a financial context but is by no means limited to that. I think it's you who is confused about medical ethics; Take a look at the AMA's guidance and note that it's used in many other contexts besides the one you mention.

https://www.ama-assn.org/system/files/code-of-medical-ethics...

No, you are confused and I had it right the first time. Read the AMA document again. Physicians have an ethical responsibility to give patients accurate medical information, but that is not among their fiduciary obligations. Medical ethics rules stem from multiple sources and only a few of them are fiduciary in nature.

You're just flailing because you don't like the evidence. Here's more, going into the many different forms that a physician's fiduciary obligations can take, including the dispensation of medical advice where a conflict of interest might arise between the physician's financial wellbeing and the health of the patient. This is from a book published in 1983, so it's not a new concept.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK216764/

Here's some examples of how that can manifest:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/02/09/1079183...

You're flailing because your statements are irrelevant and off topic. Physicians have a fiduciary duty to their patients. No one disputes that. However, contrary to what jhanschoo stated above, that fiduciary duty has nothing to do with stating "an unorthodox opinion regarding their patient's health“ unless the physician is gaining an unusual financial benefit from it (like making fake medicine and then selling it directly to patients). Go back and read the thread again so that you can understand the issue under discussion.

unless the physician is gaining an unusual financial benefit from it (like making fake medicine and then selling it directly to patients)

So precisely what the legislation is trying to protect patients from. Apparenyl you don't have anything besides 'no u' arguments. Bye.

A single doctor should not be reporting something like that to the public on a hunch. Doctors are not researchers, they are not scientists. Generally they are repair technicians

Sure they should report it, but report it to the appropriate people who can confirm and disseminate the information accurately

> While the legislation has raised concerns over freedom of speech, the bill’s sponsors said the extensive harm caused by false information required holding incompetent or ill-intentioned doctors accountable.

There was no addressing the actual issue in this statement. If you're arguing an issue falls under free speech, then the response of "OK, but it's really bad" doesn't change the free-ness of the speech.

False statements of fact are not protected under free speech. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exce...

The issue is who decides what is false. Will people be prosecuted for saying true things that the state says is false? It's not like the state would lie about something.

Ummm... yeah they are.

You're referencing defamation law and contract law. In the case of defamation, you can't be defamed if what the person said is true. And in case of contract law or fraud, lies impact the integrity of a transaction.

In the US, you can lie as much as you want with general speech.

> You’re referencing defamation law and contract law.

Why do you think this? The WP article is about a general exception to the constitutional right to freedom of speech, though it is not absolute. It happens to mention some defamation and contract precedent, but if you read it, it’s quite clear the exception is broader than those two cases and not limited to defamation and contracts. It even gives several other categorical examples (such as incitement and slander), so you seem to have gotten the wrong idea.

> In the US, you can lie as much as you want with general speech.

As a summary of the issue, this is mostly false and rather misleading. It’s certainly bad advice in any case. ;) You can choose to lie a lot and you might not get in trouble, but if you knowingly lie about things that materially affect other people, you’re probably not protected in the free speech sense. However the only way to be sure is to go to court, and most people who lie don’t end up in court.

Tut tut, not all false statements of fact are protected, while some are. Your statement is overly broad as to be a false statement of fact.

Good grief. I linked to an article describing the exception and the exceptions to the exception. This exception to free speech is widely titled, cited, and summarized as the “false statements of fact exception” to free speech. It’s a name, not a complete description, which is why I provided one version of a complete description that has links to all sources.

All apologies Charlie Brown, but I'm only responding to your statement:

> False statements of fact are not protected under free speech.

Which does not agree with the citation.

> There was no addressing the actual issue in this statement. If you're arguing an issue falls under free speech, then the response of "OK, but it's really bad" doesn't change the free-ness of the speech.

There are no rights that are absolute. You can have a right of free speech and still not be allowed to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre.

Additionally, being an expert comes with some responsibility. You are given trust due to your station, abusing that trust should be punished.

The assumption is that the expert is wrong. Frequently some experts who hold contrarian opinions which are against the mainstream narrative are usually vindicated with time.

For instance lets say CDC recommends people to wash their hands with water/sanitizer. There is a group of experts who question the efficacy of it. These experts should not be punished. Least of by layman/politicians/lawmakers/noobs who have no clue about the subject matter.

I think usually is a very strong and very incorrect word here.

I understand what you're getting at, but I think you greatly underestimate the amount of incorrect assertions that need to happen before a sensible consensus is reached. Historically, in the body of science, we're wrong something like 99% of the time until someone gets it right.

Also, your comment is a straw man argument. The law isn't going to chastise people questioning existing mainstream views, only the ones spouting horribly incorrect information. Noone is saying it will do that, other than you and other commenters who didnt read the article.

Last, are you really questioning the benefit of washing our hands?

> Last, are you really questioning the benefit of washing our hands?

It's dishonest to call his position a strawman then take a strawman position that doesn't have bearing on the rest of your statement.

Along with that, this law was just passed. We don't yet know what it will and won't be used for. You're arguing about what it should and shouldn't be used for.

> For instance lets say CDC recommends people to wash their hands with water/sanitizer. There is a group of experts who question the efficacy of it. These experts should not be punished. Least of by layman/politicians/lawmakers/noobs who have no clue about the subject matter.

They should not be punished if they are honestly wrong and are attempting to find the truth (or of course if they're actually right).

They should be punished if they are actively spreading disinformation, meaning they know or should know that it's incorrect.

We currently have a _lot_ of people spreading disinformation because it pads their pocketbook.

The fire in a crowded theater analogy originated in a US supreme court decision that upheld restricting the speech of anti-war and anti-draft protestors during WW1. This is a case where exactly the kind of speech that people worry about being restricted was in fact restricted.

If you want an analogy for when it's correct to place restrictions on speech this one is a very poor choice due to it's historical context.

> You can have a right of free speech and still not be allowed to yell "Fire!" in a crowded theatre.

I am truly surprised how frequently this old gem gets trotted out as if there might be someone who is unaware of it.

I am pretty sure most kids (at least where I grew up) get taught about this in 5th or 6th grade Civics or Social Studies classes.

And I bet some of them can even recall that it was Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes who said it -- but probably just because that guy had a really cool name.

If the person I was responding to is aware of it, then I don't know why they're assuming that free speech rights are absolute. It's not like I brought it up with no context.

At this point I assume anyone who brings up “‘fire’ in a crowded theater” is deliberately trolling.

Why?

It's just one example of free speech not being absolute. Violent threats, defamatory statements, incitement to riot are a few other examples of non-protected speech.

Are you aware that this analogy originated in a supreme court case where it was used to support restricting the speech of anti-war protestors during WW1?

“Fire in a theatre” is a great example of using a reasonable sounding analogy to support behaviour (prosecuting anti-war campaigners) that today we judge very poorly.

Are threats of violence and false, defamatory statements protected speech or not? The point is that "free speech" doesn't mean "100% of speech is protected".

Not to mention even in light of the historical context, one should strongly support the free speech rights of anti-war protestors, but inciting panic in a crowded space ('fire' in a crowded theater) isn't the correct way to go about it.

The anti-war protestors were not inciting panic in public places. They were simply distributing flyers representing their anti-war and anti-draft views. The analogy was used to equate this reasonable and legitimate political speech with inciting panic in a crowded space.

I think it stands as a good example of how restrictions on certain kinds of speech that look very reasonable in a moment of crisis can in turn be judged very poorly in the long term.

I don't personally know where I stand on the free speech issue, I just want people to stop using this stupid "fire in a crowded theatre" analogy.

> fire in a crowded theater

Or apparently anti-war Yiddish folks distributing flyers.

Not sure how this is would be so different from how we treat forms of speech such as pergury, libel, and treason.

Because objective truth isn't obvious in many cases where events are still unfolding perhaps?

Agree with this statement. The problem now becomes not a choice of what to believe, but what you’re told to believe.

A facile argument. By this logic fraud would be unprosecutable.

- Hi everybody! - Hi Dr Nick!

Simpsons reference?

Up until 1984, a doctor stating that stomach ulcers were caused by H. pylori bacteria would have been spreading "false" information.

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/when-scienti...

This law is a disgusting level of political interference in the practice of medicine. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to have broken people's brains and caused them to discard fundamental principles for the sake of expediency.

another example (also rewarded with a nobel prize): Prusiner discovered that some diseases are transmitted by infectious proteins (not viruses, not bacteria) that propagate through misfolding. It was vehemently denied for decades until the final experiments which were heroic.

Just remember if you're wanting to leave California to escape this non-sense, please leave all the bad ideas there too.

Already did. I love my new state.

Where’d you end up?

Not doxxing myself...but in a much happier & smaller place :).

Vinay Prasad, who has been wildly correct/vindicated would’ve been punished. Speaking out about learning loss and child masking would’ve been punished. This is legislation from the new authoritarian left. Liberalism is dead.

Vinay Prasad.

“Wearing an n95 to avoid the virus after vaccination is futile. You will eventually stop wearing it. And then you will eventually get hit with a subsequent epidemic wave. Or catch the virus between waves.” [1]

“So ‘I'm done with COVID’ is the honorable, equitable, altruistic, egalitarian, pro-science message that we need right now to combat the delusional thinking that ignored trade-offs for so long and would have us live in a bunker forever.” [2]

And seemingly, his warped definition of “Duty” [3] includes recommending children to be repeatedly exposed a virus that has deleterious, long-term effects effects on multiple organ systems, basing his arguments on comparing SARS-CoV-2 to a common cold virus (“Stop testing kids”). [4]

More of his egregious stuff is noted on a parody Twitter account. [5]

[1]: https://twitter.com/vprasadmdmph/status/1485312764297891843

[2]: https://twitter.com/vprasadmdmph/status/1485312770635538435

[3]: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/stop-testing-kids

[3]: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/duty

[4]: https://vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com/p/stop-testing-kids

[5]: https://twitter.com/vpwndf

In other words, California approves Bill to punish not pushing government-sanctioned information. How far away are they from becoming China?

Evidently not too far behind in one regard:

You must practice right-think

This is the second wave, the first being the practicing of compliance

I mean, pretty far. There's no way this won't be viewed as problematic and against the first amendment in the state courts, let alone if it made it to the Supreme Court.

20 years Atkins diet was vilified. Now ketogenic diet is widely considered safe and even prescribed by doctor for various condition.

And was, and still is, frequently mischaracterized by critics as “all the bacon you want”, failing to mention the core tenant of “healthy natural greens and unprocessed meats”.

I wonder if the people spreading what may have been deliberate misinformation about the diet would fair better under such a law, than the author of the diet information itself?

tenet

Actually, I totally meant tenant in a metaphorical sense, in which the precepts of a teaching takes up metaphysical residence in the soul of the —- alright, fine. Yes, tenet is the word I was reaching for. Thank you. :)

Who keeps voting for these fascists coming up with these bills.

I believe the standard of today is that these ideas, proposed by liberals, can not be fascist by definition.

Now, were a non-progressive to propose such an idea, that would undoubtedly be fascist authoritarian nationalism.

How can we have all just gone through the same pandemic and have anyone come out the other side thinking

"You know what that needed? More authoritarian control of information."

While you ask that indignantly, I would encourage you to try to steel man (rather than straw man) that very question, particularly without the use of loaded words like "authoritarian."

If you want to be less surprised, replace the word authoritarian with "expert" or "merit based."

You might not agree. You might not agree for very reasonable and well thought out reasons, but it will at least make sense without demonizing a person who thinks differently. Then there might be a chance of understanding, reconciliation, and eventually compromise.

The people who developed the bill probably weren't evil fascists thinking about how to control peoples lives. They were probably thinking "how could we have had better outcomes in regards to this pandemic?"

> it will at least make sense without demonizing a person who thinks differently.

I specifically do NOT demonize people who think differently, hence why I don't find it appropriate to leverage the authority of the state in order to prevent them from thinking differently.

I think this is a fair re-statement of what you said:

> "How can anyone believe we need more authoritarian control of information?"

The direct implication of this statement is "it's unreasonable to want more authoritarian control of information", stated differently, "only an unreasonable person would support this bill because this bill increases authoritarian control of information."

That is demonization. You've defined support as unreasonable with the presupposition of support for "authortarianism." The language you've used denies alternative explanations or that a reasonable person might support the bill. It denies curiosity for why someone would support it. They support it because they are unreasonable, clearly. If there was a good reason for support, it wouldn't flabbergast you that someone might support it.

If I asked you "would you like your doctor to be vetted for competence by an authority?" You would probably say no, but many many people, myself included, would like to trust that our doctors have been vetted for competence by some authority so I'm not getting a snake oil salesperson or someone selling their expertise while having none. I don't want a lawyer who hasn't passed the bar. I don't want an electrician that has "unconventional" beliefs about how to wire things. I don't want to share the road with driver's who "think differently" about what lane they should drive in.

Licensed positions have a level of authority and are given a level of trust. Licenses exist to protect that trust from abuse. I definitely think some doctors have been abusing trust for political purposes. We saw doctors falsifying vaccination records.

I think a doctor can tell fellow doctors or the academics that do the research that informs treatment whatever they want because there's not a level of trust enforced by an authority, but a doctor patient relationship must be protected because a patient is fundamentally unable to evaluate what the doctor says and must rely on trust.

You keep telling me that I'm failing to understand what motivations someone might have for controlling information. I understand perfectly well what the motivations might be, and I understand how it could actually be beneficial given that the information that they're controlling for is unbiased and correct. The issue is that there is no unbiased or correct in the middle of an emerging pandemic with a novel pathogen and two new vaccines using completely novel technology platforms, both of which are a radical departure from existing vaccines.

Mind you, I would have a difficult time supporting legislation like this, even in the event that our institutions had actually just demonstrated total competence, good faith, and mastery of the facts. However, what we've just witnessed is the near opposite of that situation.

- Beginning of pandemic, disease is being controlled by contact tracing and quarantine. Events of community spread occur, which should result in an immediate change in strategy, which does not happen. The first case of community spread should have been followed by alerting the country that this is no longer contained, contact tracing is no longer capable of containment.

- Masks are said to be useless, in bad faith, with the goal of preventing the population from buying out PPE supply while healthcare professionals secure inventory

- Disease isn't declared airborne until nearly a full year after incontrovertible evidence

- mRNA and viral vector vaccines declared safe and effective, despite a typical safety profile on a vaccine taking about 7 years...for well understood pathogens using well understood technologies (attenuated virus vaccines, subunit protein vaccines, etc). mRNA vaccines and viral vectors vaccines are a radical departure from existing technology. Both encode for the production of an antigen (on RNA and DNA respectively), and have our own cells produce the spike antigen and express them on their surface to be targeted by the immune system. Viral vector had only been deployed in humans outside of a lab one time for a very recent ebola outbreak, and mRNA vaccines had never been deployed. Both were deployed to hundreds of millions of people, with virtually no prospective studies in place. Skepticism regarding these specific vaccines was made to be synonymous with skepticism regarding vaccines in general.

- Vaccine mandates ignored prior COVID infection

- Vaccines targeted a single antigen, providing highly narrow immunological profile for which the virus could escape, Incidentally, nearly all viral variants have escaped immunity by mutations on this single antigen. The virus has over 20.

- The antigen selected for production in the vaccines has since proven to be problematic. Once it was announced that myocarditis and pericarditis were likely associated with the antigen, trimerization and prefusion of the S1 and S2 subcomponents of the antigen was retroactively asserted to have been done in the vaccines in an effort to mitigate certain harmful elements of the antigen. In actuality trimerization and prefusion were outright declared to have been done strictly for the purpose of increasing efficacy...not for safety. Regardless, the pathogenic behavior associated with the spike antigen has been found to take place from all of the vaccines, regardless of these changes.

- The highly likely "lab leak hypothesis" was dismissed as a conspiracy theory for over a year, before legitimate institutions and publications began to treat it as a potential explanation regarding the origins of the virus.

- By the time Delta variant came around with a fair degree of immune escape, right around when the first wave of vaccine efficacy started to fade, infections among the vaccinated were declared rare "breakthrough infections" for months. I personally witnessed countless vaccinated individuals go to extremely high risk events under the pretense that they were immune, only to catch COVID and not understand how that was possible.

- Canadian truckers protest vaccine mandates well into the Delta era of vaccines no longer even acting as a pivotal factor in containing transmission. They are declared white supremacists, and the bank accounts of individuals who donated money to them are frozen.

These are just off the top of my head. Again, even if our institutions had gotten it completely right and operated in good faith, I would be hugely skeptical of legislation like this. But coming out of what we just went through...

A few more came to mind:

- Two senior members of the FDA resign as a result of the politically pressured decision to recommend boosters, despite a lack of a safety profile and subsequent risk analyses having been laid out

- Monoclonal antibodies were downplayed as a treatment for COVID during the Alpha and Delta waves, a time during which they were incredibly effective, and a surplus supply was available in every state...unbeknownst to the majority of the public. The pretense for not mentioning treatment options was that knowledge of a viable treatment might discourage vaccination.

- Anthony Fauci lies, under oath, regarding the definition of gain-of-function research, whether it was being done in Wuhan, and whether or not the NIH had been involved in funding the research

- Merriam-Webster changes the definition of "anti-vaxxer" to include people who are opposed to mandating vaccinations, a completely different concept altogether from people who are opposed to the use of vaccinations.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/anti-vaxxer

- FDA pushes to allow Pfizer to release the safety data they gathered on the vaccine over a period of 75 years

- At no point in the United States were any vaccine recommendations made at all tailored to the developing safety profiles which diverged in accordance with demographics (i.e. higher incidence of thrombocytopenia in women from adenovirus vaccines, higher incidence of myocarditis in young men from mRNA vaccines)

- Booster recommendations left completely open ended for those who received adenovirus vaccines

- Entire point of going with a novel mRNA platform was on the basis of being able to rapidly iterate to keep up with an evolving virus. We are about to see our first update to the vaccine, just now, with an already dated antigen targeted

I have to ask, do you think you are being convincing? I've heard most of these talking points, but don't find them as compelling as you do. That means it's probably not some information that you have that I don't, so more bullet points probably aren't going to be convincing.

What is your mental model for why we seem to come to different conclusions from the same information?

I'm not sure I understand your question.

You wrote a lot of bullet points. Was your motivation to convince me of something? I've written a lot of things in my life that felt righteous, so writing it felt good because I "knew" I was right and then I'd get social reward via upvotes which felt good, but I've also written things in an attempt to be convincing and that's a completely different style. So I'm legitimately wondering if you wrote the bullet points out of righteousness (for you), or was it done for the purpose of being convincing (for me)?

I read your bullet points and my point of view is the same as it was before. So if you thought I didn't generally agree with you because I didn't have the information you had, that isn't the case. I already was aware of what you wrote in your bullet points.

So if we both have the same information, why do you think we reach different conclusions with that information? Why do you think I don't reach the same conclusion that you have reached?

First of all, your comments have all felt righteous and sanctimonious to me, so I find it weird that this is the angle you've decided to take with me...to accuse my motive. You are the one who is condescendingly telling me that I need to consider other people's positions as to why control of information might be beneficial, then inferring my motive and trying to get me to consider why I laid out these bullet points that you obviously already knew.

Secondly, I have no idea what information you know. You say that you gained no new information from the bullet points I laid, so what was the point? Well, as I said, not only do I not know what you know, but it's important for the context of the conversation to iterate on examples about which I'm talking about.

> So if we both have the same information, why do you think we reach different conclusions with that information

Given that I'm aware that we have the exact same information, which, for the last time, how could I be? Well in that case, people coming to different conclusions with the same information happens more often than not. It typically comes from people having different frameworks through which they process information.

As to the purpose of my "talking points," which is an extremely condescending way of dismissing a compilation of facts, as if I'm simply parroting a feed of propaganda I've been force fed...as to their purpose: they are examples of what I would consider to be institutional failures. Institutional failures, shows of bad faith, incompetence, and departures from the truth, all of which were done by the very same institutions I've argued should not have the authority to claim command over reality, as proposed by this legislation.

That is my point: not only would I be skeptical of giving competent institutions authority over controlling the way the public exchanges information, but here are the examples of the way those very same institutions have missed the mark throughout the pandemic. If my point isn't clear enough for you to have come to the same conclusion as me, very well, it happens all the time. If you're actually interested in getting to the philosophy of why that is, which I don't actually think you are, and seem to have just fallen back on this psychoanalytical bullshit as a defense mechanism, then I'm perfectly happy to transition away from the topic at hand into that conversation.

> then inferring my motive

I was not inferring your motive. I was asking because I don't know the answer. If you felt it was a rhetorical question, I am sorry I worded it poorly.

> I have no idea what information you know.

I know you don't, which is why I was asking if you thought a person not agreeing with you was likely the result of them not having the same information you have. I wanted to know if you were trying to convince, and if your strategy to be convincing was to "add information they might not already have." I want to know how many times you've been convinced by someone you disagree with sharing their "facts" from their reality.

> getting to the philosophy of why that is, which I don't actually think you are

I very much am interested in exactly that. That is what the purpose of my line of questioning was.

I am trying to understand why you think what you think and say what you say so that I can understand why we can't seem to share the same reality. I want to know where you think our realities diverge and why.

As with all laws, they should first be applied to the politicians supporting them.

I fully support this idea. Though in this case would it only apply to doctor lawmakers?

Waiting for them to punish the doctors and the CDC who claimed that masks were ineffective at the start of the pandemic, which contributed to thousands of deaths.

The CDC's lies were some of the worst disinformation (they knowingly lied) of the entire pandemic.

Let's not forget the WHO, who repeatedly claimed COVID was not airborne, caused thousands of deaths through negligence.

Or there's the doctors who wrongly claimed the vaccines prevent transmission of COVID.

I can't relate to the fact your post and many others are getting grayed out.

The moderators of HN should be able to see that there are people that run through comments, trying to disappear the opinions they don't want to be expressed.

Nothing you've said is even arguably false. It is all relevant.

Much like this legislation, there is a true war occurring all around us, poisoning reason and debate, attempting to control all narratives

The moderator is too busy fighting the culture war on the side of the flaggers (in this case), why would he help you?

HN offers very little in the way of recourse.

What do we do when the site doesn't adhere to its' own guidelines?

I think that the standard reply to such a complaint is that you are free to leave at any time. No one owes you a platform upon which to speak and if you are consistently downvoted into oblivion then perhaps that is a signal that it is time to go...

No, that's the blind and uninquisitive reply.

My comments very often receive mixed reviews but that is what healthy debate engenders. It is what the guidelines for HN explicitly intend to produce.

You want a site to provide you with a furtherance of your own thought. Yet another place to tell you that you're right, by golly, and smart too!

Your echochamber can never be large enough until the bounds exceed the space available for any critical thought at all.

It takes a huge amount of arrogance for a newcomer to waltz in and declare that a site's norms and standards are merely reflective surfaces used to build an imagined echo chamber. I frequently disagree with these same norms and bump up against them as well, I just don't whine about it. Few things reveal the weaknesses of your arguments more than complaining that the tools to enforce these norms are somehow unfair or indicative of anything other than the fact that (apparently) most people have better things to do than engage with arguments which they feel are beneath them.

I've made fairly concise statements about recourse in the moderation on HN.

I've posted a concise question regarding the guidelines set by the venue.

You have waxxed on... arrogance, newcomer, waltz-in, whine, weakness, beneath them...

So, sure. I'm the problem

Edit: Oh God, you're from FB security...

What happens when mainstream ideas turn out wrong? Does that land a whole bunch of doctors in hot water?

https://archive.ph/x62lm

A licensing board has to have a mandate from the doctors it licenses, people who have spent years of pain and study becoming an expert on health. If this bill is as fascist as many seem to think it is, then the doctors themselves will walk away or not tolerate it. They will move to a "more enlightened, less fascist" state and be licensed there instead. On the other hand, if doctors think some of their peers were creating chaos and not acting in patients best interest by entertaining medicine they don't believe to be evidence based, then the licensing board will have the permission if not blessing of the doctor community to improve public health care by getting rid of those who detract from it.

My money says more doctors will be happy with this bill than upset by it, but if we start seeing articles to the contrary I'll be happy to admit I was wrong.

I am quite confident the vast majority of doctors would be very happy to have a doctor that says "vaccines cause autism" to a patient (not to the medical or academic community) lose their license. Incredible numbers of medical hours and wages are wasted assuring parents that vaccines are not harming their children because it's been politicized by entities that profit from fear and engagement or the destruction of public trust.

So who decides what is misinformation? We already know science is biased or corrupt, and medical experts seeing patients everyday must know a bit more to balance health decisions than politicians

What do they do if they suspect an aproved treatment is causing death or disability? Talk about it? No that is illegal now. But so is malpractic. Who is going to jail?

It won't be the politicians passing unconstitutional laws, that's for sure.

Democracy dies in darkness...

False information such as "we don't know if the vaccine will actually prevent infection" when all the beaurocrats and "scientists" (the only ones who were allowed to speak) were falsely stating that if you took the vaccine, you absolutely would not get the virus?

So when are they gonna punish those doctors?

all the beaurocrats and "scientists" [...] were falsely stating that if you took the vaccine, you absolutely would not get the virus

Not actually true

Of course it's not true. It's not like we have them on video literally saying that.

Who am I going to believe, you or my lying eyes?

I don't think your memory is all that great, because I remember plenty of caveats about how you could still catch COVID but symptoms would probably be mild - just like every other vaccine on the market has a percentage of effectivity. Perhaps drink less plandemic koolaid and read or watch more discourse from actual epidemiologists and doctors.

"Ministry of Truth, Health Division"

[flagged]

Please make your substantive points without fulminating, regardless of how wrong other people are or you feel they are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> The idea that the state would define and criminalize what "false" information is is absolutely disgusting.

What do you think libel and perjury are?

> What do you think libel and perjury are?

I am pretty sure that they are NOT related in any way to the matter at hand which relates specifically to medical information.

To bring libel and perjury into the matter seems as almost a red herring.

You mean things that can be challenged in court as opposed to a unilateral, unelected bureaucracy?

>I think politicians should be "held accountable" for every piece of legislation that gets repealed because it is unconstitutional.

We would need to make courts a completely separate institution for this to work. No more politicians nominating judges.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com