This forum now part of the pandamic problem

[Fun CH]

then it is understandable how indoctrination takes place with so many under the guise of education. https://brandnewtube.com/watch/kim-iver ... w96Xl.html

Sorry woodman... I do not consider brandnewtube as anything other than a fringe alt fake news site... Not worth the waste of bandwidth. That is just my honest opinion.

pasayten

at least what he said here is true; "it is understandable how indoctrination takes place with so many under the guise of education."

The question is, exactly who has been "indoctrinated"?

Many years ago while attending school, a beautiful girl jumped into my '68 Pontiac Firebird (350CC) at a 711 parking lot. She was there to sell me 5 day course on Scientology for $50 with a refund guaranteed at the end if I wasn't satisfied.. I really wanted to see her again so I signed up not knowing much about scientology.

So I attended the course where I learned that Scientology is a " religion" based upon the science fiction works of L. Ron Hubbard.

The course was designed to indoctrinate as we learned of a alien being who lives beyond the rings of Saturn who possesses great wisdom.

They wanted to know my Financial Resources.

The very last lesson was to go out in the street and learn how to panhandle.
I requested a refund.

I was led through the Maze of this old DC building and sat down in front of a man with a white shirt and tie. He went over the material again in an interrogation like setting.

Questions went through my mind, was I going to get out of this building intact. After awhile it was clear the I was not subject to brain washing and let out.

Well I never saw that girl again or my $50.

I did however gain a very good perspective on how peoples need to be included into a community works and how that need is often exploited for money and political power by using a false narrative.

[pasayten]

then it is understandable how indoctrination takes place with so many under the guise of education. https://brandnewtube.com/watch/kim-iver ... w96Xl.html

Sorry woodman... I do not consider brandnewtube as anything other than a fringe alt fake news site... Not worth the waste of bandwidth. That is just my honest opinion.

pasayten

[PAL]

Ugh.

[woodman]

Right from the start of this stupid-19 pandemic I already had a good grounding in the history of HIV/AIDS, so I saw the same drill with Covid-19. What anybody would trust the CDC,NIH, and the FDA is hard to understand, but then again history has shown how easy it is to brainwash people since you can really only hold one thought in your mind at once, and when you get deluged from day 1, 24/7 with fake news from criminal organizations and bureaucrats masquerading as public health officials, then it is understandable how indoctrination takes place with so many under the guise of education. https://brandnewtube.com/watch/kim-iver ... w96Xl.html

[Fun CH]

"The Disinformation Dozen
Why platforms must act on twelve leading online anti-vaxxers
​

Just twelve anti-vaxxers are responsible for almost two-thirds of anti-vaccine content circulating on social media platforms. This new analysis of content posted or shared to social media over 812,000 times between February and March uncovers how a tiny group of determined anti-vaxxers is responsible for a tidal wave of disinformation - and shows how platforms can fix it by enforcing their standards"

https://www.counterhate.com/disinformationdozen

And this Dr. who has reportedly formed a one hundred million dollar enterprise spreading disinformation. Which of course is why they do it, money, money, money.

"The Most Influential Spreader of Coronavirus Misinformation Online
Researchers and regulators say Joseph Mercola, an osteopathic physician, creates and profits from misleading claims about Covid-19 vaccines."

"Mercola is the pioneer of the anti-vaccine movement,” said Kolina Koltai, a researcher at the University of Washington who studies online conspiracy theories. “He’s a master of capitalizing on periods of uncertainty, like the pandemic, to grow his movement.”"

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/24/tech ... nline.html

[pasayten]

That's for sure...

Actually, I look forward to posts with misinformation so that reply posts with true information will be brought into the discussion to help educate the uninformed poster and for those others that may read the thread and have been unsure of the truth... A BB that is self righting with truth when capsized by posts of falsehoods.

Usually don't ban for ignorance... How else can they be informed of their mis-statements? Posts can also be reported and I do take a hard look at those if it occurs.

Just takes a little work by the community members...

[mister_coffee]

The true punishment for questioning how a board is run is being made moderator of that board.

[Fun CH]

Yes I'm critical of mountain guides mostly in terms of public health and safety. As in they'll take your money and still get you or themselves or people near them into an accident sometimes leading to death or injury.

Still I don't use derogatory language to describe them on any public forum (at least I hope I haven't as I try hard not to).That speech is also not meant to jeopardize public health and safety, its meant to enhance public health and safety. That speech is factual and their commercial activity occurs on public land, often in my vicinity, so their actions are the public's business.

So nothing wrong with being critical however as you have stated, you don't get to make up your own set of facts ie repeated- retweeted lies that do harm to public health and safety.

FWIW, Twitter and Facebook both banned Trump for repeated lies and arguably used those lies and social media platforms to incite the January 6th insurrection prior to the ban. (flagging and warnings didn't work, the message still reached its intended audience)


It all boils down to whether or not you think a social media platform has some sort of responsibility to the community it serves. Should it be a platform for misinformation or disinformation that is harmful to the public good?

Heck, even the MNBB finally pulled that thread full of disinformation. But then it showed up here. Why exactly?

I do appreciate Ray's effort here to be tolerant of speech especially a thread like this. Questioning how a forum operates will often get you banned from most forums.

[mister_coffee]

so you'd be cool with someone posting hate speach, racial cartoons, anti semantic cartoons, bashing the LBGTQH community, and denying the Holocaust?

Perhaps we just draw a different line in the sand of what speech causes harm and deserves a platform?

We already know that its ok to bash community members who are reluctant to receive a vaccine, which is their right.

But is it also OK for folks to post the benefits of taking horse warmer medicine, and promote baseless science all of which is contrary to the goals of public health and safety?.

...

It really isn't a simple question.

You posted on a thread some months ago about mountain guides refusing to help others in an emergency, and how that was reprehensible. It was also their legal right to do so. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it is okay and reasonable and decent people should actively criticize those things that are not okay.

I in general believe that it isn't possible to have an entirely censorship-free experience in a stable state. If you look at websites like 8chan or 8kun which have for all practical purposes no limits on what can be posted you see what might happen if the kids in _Lord of the Flies_ all had laptops connected to the internet.

Speech that is intended to directly harm or hurt others, or that is intended to start a fight, should be shut down hard and the authors should be either put on probation or banned. That would cover most of your objectionable examples and also personal attacks and ad hominem attacks. I myself have gone further and often pulled bad faith posts as well.

If I were running a board (and thank goodness I am not) I would probably go for tagging questionable material somehow. E.g. I would probably allow COVID misinformation posts but would tag them as misinformation in Big Red Letters. I might go for a finer-grained approach and also tag posts that needed credible citations as well. This worked well for me and others in the past with controversial material.

My own experience in the past running message boards convinced me that you really, really, really need a Policy Statement about what is and is not okay.

[Fun CH]

Pasayten Bulletin Board
Free voices of the Methow Valley

Of course in any free voice environment you are also going to hear good theories, baseless theories, good science, bad science, conspiracies, and other boatloads of misinformation... At least here, the threads won't be deleted if controvesial... You can use offsite links, charts, and graphics to present true evidence... The posts here are by real people and a cross section of the Methow Valley Community. All of us have our opinion based on informtion we believe are truths. This is the opportunity to maybe bring some of the misinformation into the light and hopefully discuss it and educate some folks with better information backed by science and actual truths.

so you'd be cool with someone posting hate speach, racial cartoons, anti semantic cartoons, bashing the LBGTQH community, and denying the Holocaust?

Perhaps we just draw a different line in the sand of what speech causes harm and deserves a platform?

We already know that its ok to bash community members who are reluctant to receive a vaccine, which is their right.

But is it also OK for folks to post the benefits of taking horse warmer medicine, and promote baseless science all of which is contrary to the goals of public health and safety?.

During times of crisis, people look to confirm their own bias, (POV) so if your bias is towards not getting the vaccine, come here and read the fake stuff posted by supposed anonymous local community members in order to confirm that bias ( confirmation bias)

Raise your hand if you read the article that I linked.

[PAL]

Yes! So well said, Ray.
Chris, just think if this forum was into censorship like the other BB. There wouldn't be much of a discussion. We'd just be saying the same thing over and over. This is the BB for free expression. And we don't have to go to Facebook or Twitter to express our views. This is local. IMO, for you to say this forum is now part of the pandemic problem is a blanket statement and unfair. It's not perfect.
When you and others present facts to back up the correct info against those with incorrect info, that is a good thing. You are educating.

[pasayten]

Pasayten Bulletin Board
Free voices of the Methow Valley

Of course in any free voice environment you are also going to hear good theories, baseless theories, good science, bad science, conspiracies, and other boatloads of misinformation... At least here, the threads won't be deleted if controvesial... You can use offsite links, charts, and graphics to present true evidence... The posts here are by real people and a cross section of the Methow Valley Community. All of us have our opinion based on informtion we believe are truths. This is the opportunity to maybe bring some of the misinformation into the light and hopefully discuss it and educate some folks with better information backed by science and actual truths.

[PAL]

In other words, know the other side. Doesn't mean a person has to believe it, especially if it comes from questionable sources. I only know that lawyers for the defense or prosecution, have to know both sides. Sometimes I admit, that I am just fascinated and stunned at what misinfo there is.
Chris, is this post part of the pandemic problem because of some posters posting untrue and bad info? I think it was on here, way back.
We need to make sure this forum tells the truth. How about that?

Pearl

[mister_coffee]

It isn't that hard to get credible information. And if "doing your own research" means refreshing your facebook feed or youtube than there is just no hope for you.

Like I've said multiple times, all of the papers are open-sourced during this crisis. There are a lot of them but often you can work backwards by looking at articles from pretty credible sources like Nature. Even if you can't decipher all of the terminology, you can quickly learn a lot just by reading the summaries and can make good judgements on the credibility by looking at things like the sample size, how they gathered the data, and the strength of effect they are reporting.

In general large samples are better than small samples. You should also be pretty skeptical about how the samples are collected, because really smart people mess up building random datasets all the time. There have been a couple of studies that got handed around a lot but were not random samples of the population, rather they were people who answered ads on Facebook.

By strength of effect, I mean if you would expect results to be 50-50 by random chance, and you are seeing 51-49 but your sample population is tiny you probably aren't seeing anything.

As a specific example, all of the ivermectin studies I've seen that haven't been retracted had small samples (less than 200 people), it wasn't clear how they chose their samples, and they saw only weak correlations (maybe around 55 percent) that ivermectin was doing anything. So they weren't really proving anything.

On the other hand, the phase III trials for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines showed effectiveness at preventing severe disease of over 95 percent. Which for a good-sized population (around 30,000) is significant and unlikely to be a statistical illusion.

One problem I have with simply deleting misinformation is that we need to have a record. I know, heart certain, that a lot of people spouting misinformation today are going to deny they ever did any such thing next year. Deleting their misinformation actually helps them cover their tracks, and also permits them to beat their chests about how they are being persecuted and censored. Which to at least some people will make their posts more credible.

This isn't a simple problem and is unlikely to have a simple solution.

[PAL]

I hope I am getting my info from bona fide sources. I sure try and also understand what is being said. I just watched the Commissioners meeting from the 24th on AV Capture and Laurie Jones, Dept.of Health and Maurice Goodall of Emergency Management did an excellant job of explaining the latest Covid outbreak in the county. So, this is an example of good sources, to me.
The NIH is usually a good site too.
Pearl

[Fun CH]

This webforum is now part of the problem of disseminating misinformation when it republished a methow. net BB thread that's full of puppeted disinformation.

I'm all for free speech however there needs to be some limits to that speech. For example you can't yell fire in a crowded theater but you can use your speech to prolong a deadly pandemic. That needs to change. One simple solution is for social media platforms to stop becoming a platform for such non scientifically supported misinformation.

We need to put an end to the idiocracy that our Society is becoming.

If you're getting your medical information from any politician or media talking head or public forum, IMO, you really need to rethink how you source expert opinions.

Consider reading this paper.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7479406/

"Fighting fake news in the COVID-19 era: policy insights from an equilibrium model"

By Kris Hartley and Minh Khuong Vu

Quotes from that article.

"However, misinformation and fake news, including content shared through social media, compromise the efficacy of evidence-based policy interventions and undermine the credibility of scientific expertise with potentially longer-term consequences. "


"Populist skepticism about COVID-19 response in the USA had arguably been growing since President Donald Trump’s early dismissals of the severity of the virus (US White House 2020) and his call for protestors to ‘liberate’ states undertaking containment measures (Shear and Mervosh 2020). These actions were seen by some as evidence of the presidential administration’s willingness to politicize virus response; indeed, critical language from some politicians and commentators cast experts and political opponents as unnecessarily panicky and politically motivated to overstate the need for lock-downs and business closures. Despite the salience of this recent phenomenon, anti-science populism has an arguably extended history, not only for issues related to public health (e.g., virus response and, prior to COVID-19, vaccinations) but also for climate change (Fischer 2020; Huber 2020; Lejano and Dodge 2017; Lewandowsky et al. 2015). Anti-science skepticism, often lacking a broad audience and attention from mainstream media, is left to peddle scientifically unsubstantiated claims in online communities, where such content remains widely accessible and largely unregulated (Edis 2020; Szabados 2019). As such, the issue of fake news deserves closer scrutiny with the world facing its greatest public health crisis in a century."