The last six years of American history has disproven your premise. The proof is easily seen in the number of covid deaths of people who were not vaccinated vs the ones who were.
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A Twitter substitute where you could edit posts would be fantasticā¦ Oh, that would be Google Plus! That was a wonderful platform. I loved it. So disappointed when Google took it down.
The information published by reputable sources, ie: official, is not a ānarrative,ā it is a report based on provable factual information that can be verified. For public consumption it is often presented with a descriptive essay to explain technical details, jargon, etc.
A narrative is typically a story about a personal experience, opinion, idea or theory and allows the writer a lot of editorial freedom. It is often the tool of irresponsible bad actors as well as dangerous foreign adversaries looking to do harm to our country.
To use the descriptor ānarrativeā in the context of a factual public health report is to do the bad guys a favor and to do the people trying to do the right thing for us a disservice. It is in fact an example of misinformation itself.
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The flaw in your argument lies in the collateral damage wrought by the process you evidently see as a harmless exercise of the right of free speech.
Some unknown person can present a totally fabricated story to debase sound facts based on real valid data that large numbers of people depend on to make life and death decisions. Those hair-brained ideas are then picked up by others who then amplify them to do even more damage.
What you are implying is that yelling āFIREā¦FIRE RUN FOR YOUR LIVESā in a crowded theater, when there is no fire, is OKā¦ it is not OK.
And elevating some fruitcake with an addled brain to the same level of volume, accuracy and authenticity as the spokesperson for WHO or the CDC is not good for you, me, or the global population.
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No one should ever expect that every report will be completely flawlessā¦even the best of us make mistakes at times. But we should expect that the information provided is the best available at the time of the report. However, when later information is added in that contradicts some portion of an earlier report, far too many folks jump in to say āthey were lying!ā rather than simply acknowledging that there is new imformation tgat shifts the perspective.
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Then why did you write this:
āIf official sources were never wrong, then perhaps never questioning them could be the right choice. But to call those people questioning the official sources āthe bad guys,ā and the official sources simply āpeople trying to do the right thingā (even if they are trying to do the right thing) just shuts down opposing views and discussion. Some people are turned off by this and wonder why the official sources canāt seem to stand up to scrutiny without name-calling and censorship.ā
It is a proven fact that the enemies of America are among the leading purveyors of the misinformation and leverage the venue you are supporting.
You are elevating the criticism, by unknown, questionable and unproven sources, to the same level of the valid and potentially life-saving advice given by legitimate institutions.
If that is not the case then perhaps you could better focus your POV for us.
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Who are they?
China, Iran and Russia, among others.
Fully agree, but related to Musk and Twitter?
If Musk does what he says heās going to do, restore thousands of previously banned Twitter accounts, it will undoubtedly include a lot bad actors. And those bad actors have few if anyone from Twitter checking on their activities. Our foreign adversaries are skilled at what they do.
Politico reported: āElon Musk on Thursday announced a policy change for Twitter in which only accounts that are pushing spam or breaking the law will remain banned.ā
I donāt see anything wrong with that. Itās certainly better than banning anyone who does not like what someone posted because of their politics.
I donāt use Twitter so donāt know much about it, but it seems like free speech should be a cornerstone to social media.
If someone in a crowded theater yelled FIRE! FIRE! as a joke and 5 people were trampled to death trying to escape the building, would you be OK with that? What if one of the victims was your grandchild?
Itās very much the same thing. Thatās why newspapers can be held liable for irresponsible reporting. Twitter posters and owners are not held to he same standard. Itās easy to be anonymous on Twitter.
I must have missed a beat. Related to Twitter?
I know nothing about Twitter so will bow out. I have read some stories and it seems pre_Musk, Twitter was guilty of blocking users for political reasons.
How can anyone support that? Free speech, or nothing.
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So how many people still think vaccines cause autism? The study that started this belief was years and years and years ago. The data was disproved with the discovery that the researcher fudged the data. That also was a quite a number of years ago and yet the belief is still very prevalent. Good data does not always overcome previously bad info.
As pertains to COVID, āopposing viewsā in medicine are worked out in double blind clinical trials, in peer reviewed medical journals like Journal of the AMA, or New England Journal of Med. Or The Lancet. Also author conflicts of interest and funding must be disclosed in the papers . There are many specialty journals, like Blood, which covers my wifeās cancer. If what starts as a ānarrativeā doesnāt survive that gauntlet, then itās provisionally put on the shelf. No idea ever dies, given enough data, and sometimes multiple tries are needed for success, but shelved ideas like ivermectin, when they get regurgitated into the Interwebs, are harmful quackery. There is a place for untested therapies, itās called ācompassionate useā aka " this patient is going to take the dirt nap soon, any Hail Mary they want to try is fine if it provides comfort because itās a forlorn hope".
But never should journalists airing opposition ānarrativesā in medicine and science be viewed as real medicine or science. Itās just journalist BS. Unfortunately our poorly educated public doesnāt understand what all goes into making a drug or therapy, so here we are!!!
Science is politically neutral. But public figures defame scientific results they donāt like, cherry picking ones they do. This is really harmful to people understanding the facts on the ground. It causes people to argue about what is true and false. Itās literally fracturing our entire society even within families. Itās being done to sell advertising and other thingsā¦ Attention, power, influence.
Both sides do it at different times with different topics in different directions. I call it out when I can.
The Bible talks about the gift of discernment. Americans have lost this gift. They get conned by every common street hustler imaginableā¦
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There are limitations on free speech in our country. It is against the law to threaten another person with bodily harm. It is against the law to shout FIRE! in a crowded theater when you know there is no fire. It is against the law to knowingly falsely claim that another person has committed a crime or to defame them with falsehoods. All of these protections could be interpreted by a perpetrator as undue restrictions on the Constitutional right of free speech. They are restrictions put in place to keep people from using a Constitutional right to harm others.
We also have a Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. But we donāt have a right to use those arms to kill and injure innocent people and there severe consequences for doing so. The same logic should apply to the irresponsible use of free speech that results in death or injury to others.
Twitter is a giant megaphone, it is a speech amplifier. Itās not unlike a computer, which is a cognitive amplifier, or a car which is a mobility amplifier. Just as we have laws protecting our citizens from the harmful use of computers, firearms and cars to do harm, we should have protections that apply to the speech amplifiers of social media.
Musk is not doing that for Twitter, in the context of the comparisons above, he has eliminated highway traffic laws and speed limits and allowed gun owners to shoot any direction, any place and at any time they choose, all without any repercussions or responsibility.
And it will result in human suffering and death.
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The death of Twitter would be welcomed. Next up, Facebook, Instagram and Tik Tok. HOw many people get their ānewsā from social media? Those that do are among the most ill informed people in the world.
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Unfortunately, so trueā¦
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Itās a matter of information quantity, quality and availability.
To read a newspaper you must first obtain one. A newspaper is, in todayās jargon, āpulledā information. In addition, you had to be able to read the printed word and you couldnāt read it while working, eating, driving, etc. The quality of the information was monitored by the publisher and the penalty for printing misinformation was to damage your reputation and thus your bottom line.
With modern media sources the user can tailor the information fed to them in a āpushā mode. The recipient can listen with little interruption to their daily activities. This phenomena has the effect of reinforcing the things that motivated the listenerās decisions regarding the filters put in place to deliver the information.
So we end up with an audience listening to news and information sources which reinforce differences and further divide rather than fairly inform. We can all come up with very specific examples of that very process today.
Covid misrepresentation? Thereās plenty of that on both sides.
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