(January 20, 2022 at 1:12 am)ignoramus Wrote: https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/the-mis...cicC5fhvJc
"Is it reasonable to outright ban information that is both harmful and wrong? Does freedom and democracy really require that massive platforms are given to utter nonsense?"
Quote:Institutions are still struggling with the challenge of dealing with deadly healthcare information. This challenge was not caused by social media, but certainly was exacerbated by it. And it also did not suddenly become relevant during the COVID pandemic, but was brought into sharper relief. What we are experiencing now is actually part of a much longer trend, and is essentially a conflict between freedom on the one hand and quality control for the purpose of public good on the other. A solution at either extreme seems unlikely, and perhaps there is no ideal solution.
It is the classic dilemma. A similar argument to the "how far can you tolerate intolerance" argument.
My question to you guys is:
Are we OK for governments and social media platforms to censor topics and posts and even written/printed articles which go against the mainstream scientific evidence?
If not, why not.
But then, how do authorities police against gatherings like this in Melbourne?
How can scientifically/medically uneducated police decide who is right or wrong?
I don't think censorship is the answer. How can you police against opinion?
I think from the moment we enter a free democratic world, the small print should read: "Caveat emptor" and leave it at that.
I appreciate your position on this. I think different information should be allowed because mass censorship of information only further sinks the trust in these public health agencies imo, and when people see that they are fighting against authoritarianism, which is true imo, some of them are just going to throw out all trust in government and science and start even distrusting the evidence from Nasa about the moon landings and pictures of the earth and these people that loose all trust in the mainstream, take things to the extreme and just go down this rabbit hole and can never get themselves out of it.
Many in the mainstream scientific community are losing trust right now because they are pushing for censorship of different ideas, and science is supposed to be about rigorous debate, not shutting the other side down, especially in an emerging situation like we have with Covid right now. Consensus in an emerging situation is not the same thing at all as consensus in hindsight years down the line. Scientific papers about covid going against the mainstream were literally accepted into scientific journals recently, but then disappeared because of pressure from the pro-censorship side of things. That paper clearly had all the business in the world being available and discussed as they had no problem accepting it at first, but then when the pressure campaign came in, the paper was disappeared, and other scientists were no longer allowed to see it and discuss it like science is all about.
The line from twitter and all of these other social media platforms was/is that you can't go against the WHO's information, because they are King. Well, in a developing situation, information changes, and as would be expected in any brand new thing, some information the WHO gave was later corrected by them as new information came in. The WHO admitted they were wrong on some things, as all scientists should do when new, better information becomes available. So, people on twitter and other platforms were censored/banned/whatever when they actually initially got certain things right and actually had a better idea of what was going on than the WHO did, but it just didn't match what the WHO was saying at the time. If we're just censoring people for going against the "official story", then would people have been censored in 2003 for questioning the idea that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction? Will we ever learn from history?
