Some social media companies have taken it upon themselves to decide what we can and can’t say, question or believe. They think they’re doing this in the public interest. E.g., they — geniuses that they are — understand “the science,” and they’re doing their part to stop stupid people (who don’t understand “the science”) from spreading false information that will cause other stupid people to do bad things.
I hope the arrogant bastards get what they deserve from that, but … be that as it may, from a certain point of view, you’re only allowed to ask specific things. As with most of these woke-aligned campaigns, it’s futile to ask for a list, or ask who curates the list, or what rules they use. It’s all subject to change. It’s like the ministry of truth in 1984. “We have always been at war with Eastasia.”
Let’s take it as a given that we want to slow the spread of COVID-19 — to save lives, to keep the hospitals from being overcrowded, etc. If we agree on the goal, do we have to agree on the method to get there? Who, for example, has definitively decided that lockdowns are the right way to achieve this goal, and where is the evidence that lockdowns work? (An additional question is whether they are worth the cost. Here’s an article about physicians who say they do more harm than good.)
Here’s an interesting article from a few months back examining studies allegedly showing that lockdowns work, … or don’t work. You can find them going either way, of course.
I don’t know the answer, and I suspect it would take at least a day’s work to get close to knowing the answer — which I’m not going to do. I’m not even sure it’s possible to know “the answer” at this point, and it doesn’t matter in any event. Gov. Hogan isn’t going to ask me for policy recommendations.
Here’s what amazes me. In the midst of this confusion and lack of certainty, the geniuses at Facebook know who to censor. They know what speech is in the public good and what isn’t. Facebook Sparks Another Free Speech Debate by Removing Anti-Lockdown Event Posts
Free speech looks like it will be one of the casualties of COVID.
I suspect part of the point is that the rules have to be complex and continually changing. If they’re not, they don’t serve their main purpose, which is to exercise social control by making people reflexively defer to the powerful rather than trying to think about things, because it’s impossible.
I’m reminded of a passage in an article on communism I read a while back (can’t remember if it was mentioned or linked here, and annoyingly I can’t find it now), where someone explained that the Party, contrary to expectations, was actually not very trusting of true believers in its ideology. After all, someone who believed in what the Party taught might compare what it taught yesterday with what it teaches today, or what it says it believes with what it does, and ask questions about discrepancies. That could be troublesome.
So you shoot a bunch of your most faithful, so that those who remain know *who* needs to be obeyed, not merely in what, and the problem is solved.
— found it a few minutes later, naturally. Leninthink by Gary Saul Morson. New Criterion Oct 2019.
The article is $3. Is it worth it?
It does seem like a dress rehearsal for tyranny.
Glad Laura Ingraham had this guest on speaking truth. https://twitter.com/ndrew_lawrence/status/1262570528700796928?s=21
It’s been 5 weeks. Covid’s over, right?
Why do people listen to the folks at Faux News? You’d think that a “responsible” journalist would correct such gross misinformation, once it’s been demonstrated to be wrong.
Alas, the same goes for Ingram’s buddy, Tucker Carlson. Per U.S. District Judge Mary Kay Vyskocil’s opinion, leaning heavily on the arguments of Fox’s lawyers: “The “‘general tenor’ of the show should then inform a viewer that [Carlson] is not ‘stating actual facts’ about the topics he discusses and is instead engaging in ‘exaggeration’ and ‘non-literal commentary.’ Fox persuasively argues, that given Mr. Carlson’s reputation, any reasonable viewer ‘arrive[s] with an appropriate amount of skepticism’ about the statement he makes. Whether the Court frames Mr. Carlson’s statements as ‘exaggeration,’ ‘non-literal commentary,’ or simply bloviating for his audience, the conclusion remains the same — the statements are not actionable.
In written briefs, in defense of Carlson, Fox’s lawyers cited previous rulings to argue Carlson’s words were “loose, figurative or hyperbolic.” They took note of a non-journalist’s use of the word “extort,” which proved nondefamatory because it was mere “rhetorical hyperbole, a vigorous epithet. In sum, the Fox News lawyers mocked the legal case because the plaintiff alleged “a reasonable viewer of ordinary intelligence listening or watching the show … would conclude that [she] is a criminal who extorted Trump for money” and that “the statements about [her] were fact. Context makes plain that the reasonable viewer would do no such thing, per Carlson’s lawyers.
Interestingly enough…the judge fully agreed. You can’t make this stuff up!
https://www.npr.org/2020/09/29/917747123/you-literally-cant-believe-the-facts-tucker-carlson-tells-you-so-say-fox-s-lawye
So apparently the answer is, “No, because some people have said some ill-informed things about COVID, and some people have also said some ill-informed things about the election, so we’re not allowed to question the efficacy of particular anti-COVID measures at all.”