Why don't people read the source material rather than just the summaries of the material which is very often misleading?
Read the letter. Bottom line is that pressure from an administration, Democrat or Republican (and there is a lot of it from the current one), and what actually results from that pressure are not the same. The letter admits the pressure but doesn't say that it worked. The letter says that the company did what it did based on its own policies not because of any pressure from the administration.
Good Fox News article on it about what actually happened:
Google offers reinstatement for YouTube accounts banned over COVID-19 | Fox News
I'd say banning people for spreading misinformation on a deadly pandemic was justified.
And asking someone to ban is far different than pessuring them to do so by threatening them with a negative FCC decision. Look up quid pro quo.. like what Trump did with Ukraine that got him in trouble.
Most independents, liberals, centrists, and (especially) libertarians are opposed to censorship on a philosophical / Constitutional level. Some aren't.
It used to be that most in the GOP shared the same sentiment of opposing censorship, but not since MAGA took over and Trump started giving marching orders.
Hell, we had Ted Cruz come out strong in opposing censorship just last week, which was welcome. But if you look at what he actually said, he opposes censorship of comedians and journalists and FCC "doing it the hard way or the easy way" not because of violations of first amendment rights but in essence just because some day Dems will be in charge and will do the same thing to them.
It's like being opposed to committing murder only because you expect to be murdered in retaliation if you do.
"You can't make someone listen to reason if they aren't willing to think"-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
I'd say banning people for spreading misinformation on a deadly pandemic was justified.
And asking someone to ban is far different than pessuring them to do so by threatening them with a negative FCC decision. Look up quid pro quo.. like what Trump did with Ukraine that got him in trouble.
What misinformation was being spread?
The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
Education on the value of free speech and the other freedoms reserved by the Bill of Rights, about what happens when you don’t have them, and about how to exercise and protect them, should be an essential prerequisite for being an American citizen — or indeed a citizen of any nation, the more so to the degree that such rights remain unprotected. If we can’t think for ourselves, if we’re unwilling to question authority, then we’re just putty in the hands of those in power. But if the citizens are educated and form their own opinions, then those in power work for us.
In every country, we should be teaching our children the scientific method and the reasons for a Bill of Rights. With it comes a certain decency, humility and community spirit. In the demon-haunted world that we inhabit by virtue of being human, this may be all that stands between us and the enveloping darkness.
-Carl Sagan from an essay titled "Real Patriots Ask Questions," which Sagan co-authored with Ann Druyan
"You can't make someone listen to reason if they aren't willing to think"-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
@shooter Ted Cruz deserves credit for going against MAGA nonsense on something.
What misinformation was being spread?
Simple answer is probably false information that you think is factual information.
@shooter Ted Cruz deserves credit for going against MAGA nonsense on something.
Oh, absolutely, and I applauded him for it, and still do. He was brave to say anything, but if you listen to what he said, it was quite tepid. He didn't emphasize that freedom of speech is something that as Americans we must hold dear, but rather was saying "Let's hold on here, if we get them, they will surely get us back in the future". Which is true. But not necessarily grounded in the first amendment principles that I assume we both cherish.
"You can't make someone listen to reason if they aren't willing to think"-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
What misinformation was being spread?
In many cases, clear scientific nonsense, pretending to "tell you what THEY don't want you to know".
One example, there was a youtube video in 2020 by an osteopath insisting that vaccines are intentionally designed to alter your DNA and to turn you into a genetically modified organism more open to government control. It was the most viewed video on youtube for quite a while.
The far better response than requesting it be pulled would be to make a better video telling scientific truths and explaining what vaccines are and how they work. I presume that was done and factual information was less well-received, sadly. But you can't strongarm people into accepting truths and recognizing / disregarding bullshit
"You can't make someone listen to reason if they aren't willing to think"-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
How much did Fauci benefit from pushing those on people?
I especially liked those that claimed the jabs would prevent people from carrying the virus and infecting others triggering clowns to claim they were losing rights because some would not get jabbed. Why did those get to remain?
Govt. experiments on people are real and this was one. . Our govt. should not be trusted. They thrive during times of panic which the govt. only add fuel to the fire. I only took the shots to keep my job. Haven';t had one since 2021. The best thing would have been to push people to exercise and improve their cardio. Obviously there some at high risks because pre health conditiions but i think it pretty easy to find many who got the jab and experienced COVID virus many more times than many who didn't.
I suppose that Fauci benefitted with respect to peace of mind, knowing that quite literally tens of millions of lives were saved worldwide. Financially, I don't know. Hopefully enough to pay for the round-the-clock security he requires due to constant death threats.
The worst thing for vaccine misinformation was the development of super sensitive tests for the virus, which was in other aspects a great thing. It gave people the idea that "hey, the vaccine did not make a bubble around me to keep out the virus".
News flash, not even the smallpox vaccine that eradicated a disease causing 300-500 million fatalities in the 20th century alone could do that. A well-known 1901 photograph by Dr. Allan Warner shows two 13-year-old brothers, both infected with smallpox from the same source on the same day. The unvaccinated brother has a severe case with numerous pustules, while the vaccinated brother, who received the smallpox vaccine in infancy, shows only two aborted spots that are already scabbing over. If there were a super-sensitive test for the virus, today's social media influencers would be insisting that the vaccinated brother "got it anyway, so what's the use"
The photo, though, demonstrates the vaccine's protective effects from severe consequences. Granted, the SAR-CoV-2 vaccines had a less apples and oranges result, unfortunately.
"You can't make someone listen to reason if they aren't willing to think"-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
The CDC ALWAYS said that no vaccine was 100 percent effective in preventing illness. They specifically said that the COVID vaccines weren't guaranteed to prevent COVID, but it would lessen the chances and reduce severity if you contracted COVID after the vaccination. They also said it would reduce the spread. All of this was true. Some individuals in government oversold the vaccine, the CDC was consistent about it and sometimes issued statements correcting those who oversold it.How much did Fauci benefit from pushing those on people?
I especially liked those that claimed the jabs would prevent people from carrying the virus and infecting others triggering clowns to claim they were losing rights because some would not get jabbed. Why did those get to remain?
Govt. experiments on people are real and this was one. . Our govt. should not be trusted. They thrive during times of panic which the govt. only add fuel to the fire. I only took the shots to keep my job. Haven';t had one since 2021. The best thing would have been to push people to exercise and improve their cardio. Obviously there some at high risks because pre health conditiions but i think it pretty easy to find many who got the jab and experienced COVID virus many more times than many who didn't.
I enjoyed reading what President Trump said about Operation Warp Speed and the resulting vaccine. He was a bit of an overseller too, but Operation Warp Speed was one of his greatest accomplishments during his first term as President:
Remarks by President Trump at the Operation Warp Speed Vaccine Summit – The White House
Bottom line is that the vaccine was/is safe and effective, reduced the risk of contracting COVID, reduced symptoms when contracted and reduced the spread to the point now we're living with it like we live with the flu.
Had an interesting discussion earlier this week with the Head of Infectious Disease research at Northwestern, Judd Hultquist, a top virologist. He has studied SARS-CoV-2 evolution in detail.
A watershed moment was the mutation to the omicron lineage. Within months it outcompeted every other prior strain, since it was way more infective. But it was also caused less severe disease, including a lower fatality rate.
I was under the mistaken impression that that was the normal order of things. After all, if the host dies, then the virus can't spread, so there is evolutionary pressure for the virus to be more infective but less deadly. He pointed out that deaths don't come at the height of viral load but long after, from the after effects of the virus, even after it is essentially completely cleared.
Basically, a person who lived vs. a person who died were both infectious for about the same amount of time, so mortality in this case isn't under evolutionary pressure. And some of the earlier variants that emerged had been more deadly, before omicron.
So the most plausible reason for the lower omicron fatality rate was good luck on a global scale. It could have instead been more infectious and more deadly. It's less deadly in part because it's trended toward being more of an upper respiratory rather lthan lower respiratory effect.
This brought up the discussion on whether, now that COVID is endemic, are we depending on more good luck that it doesn't evolve in the opposite direction. So far it seems to be "settling down" to a much more flu-like seasonal cycle (though with both summer and winter peaks) and evolving close to the genome of the omicron strain in a ladder-like fashion and not making huge leaps. It's still evolving though, but it happened upon a genome with super-high transmissibility and less severe disease that it hasn't yet gotten away from and maybe it can't without becoming replication-incompetent.
"You can't make someone listen to reason if they aren't willing to think"-- Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
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