One can be completely gullible about the claims and motives of others, and one can be completely suspicious about the claims and motives of others. Tendency to the latter fault is what the mistaken term conspiracy theory is meant to identify; probably better described as paranoia. There is an opposite fault without a widely accepted label, call it conformism: gullible acceptance of arguments from authority and arguments ad populum (it is true if many people of quality like me believe it), both fallacies.
In a neighboring thread, someone denounced mention of the lab-leak hypothesis of coronavirus origin as conspiracy theory, and shameful for Longecity to discuss, even though the posts contained abundant links to argument- and evidence-based references. Some alternative hypotheses: zoonotic origin, reckless lab leak, deliberate Chinese attack, planted by U.S. to discredit China. Only the last two involve conspiracies (secret collective action), but what matters is that one of these exclusive theories is most likely true, and the remainder less likely true. Whether or not a conspiracy is involved is irrelevant to the determination.
I’m not a coronavirus denier, not an anti-vaxxer, not a lockdown defier; but don’t consider the opposite positions absolute truth that people should be forbidden to question. I do with good reason reject RCT fundamentalism and I support in emergency conditions early outpatient treatments based on good rather than nearly perfect evidence.
Claim A. We have seen not just contestation but media demonization of hydroxychloroquine. Zelenko’s and Raoult’s early science was shoddy, but since then a signal of efficacy has sufficiently emerged (and safety in proper dosage) with comedications for early outpatient treatment (I’d take Ivermectin rather than HCQ+). American Remdesivir is celebrated as science!, even though its effect is almost nil and it’s dismissed by the WHO. Ivermectin was first eclipsed and next demonized. In earlier posts here I contrasted the scarce, nasty, and ignorant Ivermcetin coverage of The New York Times to the thorough and cautiously positive worldwide coverage by the small industry newsletter, Trial Site News. The Covid-19 Early Treatment Fund’s evidence-based advocacy of fluvoxamine was censored from Facebook and Medium. The media-mob defamation of Dr. Kory’s Senate testimony about early treatment and Ivermectin was ghastly.
Now, what if I described to you an international organization of big tech and news oligopolies that openly proclaims the goal of shaping and censoring news about political elections and public-health debates. The organization globally collaborates to suppress information that it says is false. A website, a headquarters address, or any kind of contact information is not available for this organization. It engages in prior censorship worldwide of such information in secret, with no transparency about its process, no possibility of appeal by aggrieved parties (who may not even know they have been harmed by secret action), and no public accountability for its actions.
Claim B. I present to you the Trusted News Initiative.
BBC 3/27/2020
The Trusted News Initiative (TNI) was set up last year to protect audiences and users from disinformation, particularly around moments of jeopardy, such as elections,,,,
Now the partnership will extend its efforts to identifying false and potentially harmful Coronavirus information by putting in place a shared alert system.
Launching today, partners will be able to alert each other to disinformation about Coronavirus so that content can be reviewed promptly by platforms, whilst publishers ensure they don’t unwittingly republish disinformation….
Last summer the BBC convened a Trusted News Summit, bringing together senior figures from major global technology firms and publishing.
The summit agreed to work collectively, where appropriate, to agree collaborative actions on various initiatives. Initiatives include:
- Early Warning System: creating a system so organisations can alert each other rapidly when they discover disinformation which threatens human life or disrupts democracy during elections. The emphasis will be on moving quickly and collectively to undermine disinformation before it can take hold…
BBC 12/10/2020
TNI partners will alert each other to disinformation which poses an immediate threat to life so content can be reviewed promptly by platforms, whilst publishers ensure they don’t unwittingly republish dangerous falsehoods….
The partners currently within the TNI are: AP, AFP; BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Facebook, Financial Times, First Draft, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, Microsoft , Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter, The Washington Post.
Claim A. There appears to be a patterned suppression of debate about Covid-19 early therapeutics. Claim B. Some of the most powerful multinational corporations in the world openly declare that they are privately coordinating so as to silence disfavored views and shape the debate about public health responses to the novel coronavirus. Does A have anything to do with B?
Discussion. Consider four scenarios: 1. Participants from the giant for-profit companies in the TNI are motivated only by the public good, and their views of what is in the public good are always correct. 2. Some participants can be motivated only by the public good, but their views of what is in the public good can be erroneous and hence should open to challenge. 3. Some participants are motivated only by their private interests and hence their views should be open to challenge. 4. Both 2 and 3. The TNI's disinformation suppression would work for the public good only in scenario 1.
Power corrupts. Is it paranoid to worry about a powerful, private, coordinated, and unaccountable global censorship regime? TNI says they are acting to prevent harm. J.S. Mill’s On Liberty argued that a necessary but not sufficient reason for the state to coercively interfere with personal liberty is to prevent harm to others. What counts as harm is a complicated issue, but unless it is mostly confined to tangible harm, liberty will be endangered. It should be the kind of harm that picks my pocket or breaks my leg, as Jefferson said when he was defending religious liberty.
There is a dangerously growing discourse in the U.S., found most often among the recently college-educated who now populate high tech and media multinational corporations, that mere ideas can do violence, even that silence is violence. In this extreme stretching of the concept of harm, an expression, an unexpressed idea, or even refusal to publicly endorse someone else’s views can “threaten human life.” Stretching of the concept provides the woke class a (mistaken) moral justification for responding with coercion or even personal violence against the purveyors of whatever they assert to be dangerous disinformation. This is the equivalent of a privileged religion seeking to abolish competing religions in order to save people from the great evil of eternal damnation. If multinational high-tech and media companies coordinating on information suppression in TNI surrender to their newest employees, that opens the road to a privatized global 1984.
https://covexit.com/coordinated-repression-of-early-treatment-of-c-19-explained/
https://covexit.com/facebook-zuckerberg-fact-checkers-sued-for-deliberate-use-of-suppression-censorship-and-known-lies/
https://covexit.com/brown-university-school-of-public-health-dean-misinforms-the-world-in-ny-times-opinion/ Compare to:
This is what happens when science is muzzled.
Is this CNN video clip disinterested science reporting, or is it propaganda? Who decides?
Edited by bladedmind, 08 January 2021 - 03:57 AM.
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