"Media coverage of the lab-leak hypothesis was a debacle, and a major source of that failure was groupthink cultivated on Twitter," writes @jonathanchait. This is far from the only important story where this has been the case. We need to talk about that. https://t.co/GfnSYFKs6a
— Yair Rosenberg (@Yair_Rosenberg) May 27, 2021
Actually this backlash is the real debacle cultivated by Twitter groupthink. https://t.co/TExrB5U2RW
— Armando (@ArmandoNDK) May 27, 2021
And if your response is that the right is worse, I agree. It's much worse. Is that what you want to become? https://t.co/UPa1SpCm0r
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) May 27, 2021
why do we think that allowing social media companies to be thought agents is a good idea? https://t.co/IgULAobRGH
— Jeff Nolan ??? (@jeffnolan) May 27, 2021
Genuinely don't understand this piece. Isn't the truth of the 'lab leak' hypothesis central to determining whether media coverage was a fiasco? https://t.co/XDZIZfEP5v pic.twitter.com/MGqghOXt4O
— Michael Hobbes (@RottenInDenmark) May 27, 2021
The arrogance of @Facebook to decide where and how precisely covid originated, and who should be able to talk about it, is stunning. But sadly typical https://t.co/ztwiBTYvVB
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) May 26, 2021
This is a controversy driven by bored people who want something to talk about https://t.co/jejS5w6tuP
— wd (@reserved_word) May 27, 2021
When your own side is openly showing it doesn't care about the facts, it's a sign of a more serious problem you need to confront https://t.co/ogWzg2bIny
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) May 27, 2021
This is exactly why big tech censorship is flawed. Last night, I laid out SB 12 by @SenBryanHughes, which would protect Texans from being censored based on viewpoint. #txlege (1/3) https://t.co/AjusVqrUHp
— Scott Sanford (@Scott_SanfordTX) May 26, 2021
Wow! But they did suppress the story for a year, defaming Trump and Republicans for a “conspiracy theory” blacklisting conservative press and banning us, which led to a Biden victory. But no biggie, no harm done. https://t.co/8HHAnkskZp
— Kelly Sadler (@KellyRiddell) May 26, 2021
Another reminder about how the battle for information is now controlled by Facebook. https://t.co/1H8Y8ViMJm
— J. Mighti - Polymathic Analyst. (@MightiJamie) May 26, 2021
The lab leak hypothesis isn't that important in itself, but for what it reveals about a Twitter misinformation bubble on the left driven by people who do not care what's true https://t.co/ogWzg1U6YY
— Jonathan Chait (@jonathanchait) May 27, 2021
oh gosh - plandemic OK on Facebook againhttps://t.co/ct0cZD2ax0
— Paul Karp (@Paul_Karp) May 26, 2021
BREAKING: Facebook just announced that they will no longer ban posts that claim COVID-19 was man-made.
— Ryan Fournier (@RyanAFournier) May 26, 2021
Trump was right all along. It came from CHINA.
A tech company should not be the arbiter of truth about scientific claims. What other accurate claims are they censoring?https://t.co/UpjCUdq5Ml
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) May 27, 2021
Despite what our most centrist of dipshits imagine, the xenophobic ramifications of some claims are a reason to avoid *speculating,* in the *absence* of facts, not to seed the discourse with *just asking questions* nonsense. https://t.co/6Ixey2rum9
— The Nix Nootz of the Potomac (@ilpomodoro2) May 27, 2021
Exactly why Facebook and other social media platforms should never have gotten into the speech moderation game in the first place (w exceptions for direct harassment or abuse). They are not qualified or capable of effectively moderating speech. https://t.co/y9by7Fow0M
— AG (@AGHamilton29) May 26, 2021
Our masters are so kind! https://t.co/2hGxMtwNOf
— Ezra Levant ? (@ezralevant) May 27, 2021
For many months, Facebook used to ban the claim that Covid-19 is man-made as “misinformation.” Now they won’t ban that same claim, because they concede it’s not misinformation. Doesn’t it follow from these two facts that Facebook itself has been a purveyor of misinformation?
— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) May 27, 2021
Another exhibit for the possibility that there will be a swing back against the more heavy-handed moderation as more comes out about what ppl got wrong and where contestation was important https://t.co/OiVn584bxq
— evelyn douek (@evelyndouek) May 26, 2021
This is true. But it boils down to it just being super hard for some folks to take the L https://t.co/q2uAQOfzt3
— Wesley Yang (@wesyang) May 27, 2021
Facebook should get out of the “removing misinformation” game completely https://t.co/Z0tLM1n57y
— Will Chamberlain (@willchamberlain) May 27, 2021
“You see, censorship is okay today because we’re just stopping misinformation. We would never censor people with legitimate questions & views today. We’re not like 99.9% of humans throughout history. It’s different this time. We’re different this time.”
— Lauren Southern (@Lauren_Southern) May 26, 2021
This time: https://t.co/76RGAziXyZ
“The outlets that fared worst were those like the Guardian, Slate, and Vox, which embraced a ‘moral clarity’ ethos of forgoing traditional journalistic norms of restraint and objectivity in favor of calling out lies and bigotry.” https://t.co/cRal6Ld8A2
— Josh Kraushaar (@HotlineJosh) May 27, 2021
Why did they remove it in the first place? https://t.co/aYmNmrf9cq
— Yossi Gestetner (@YossiGestetner) May 26, 2021
Some journalists would benefit from spending less time thinking about whether an idea is problematic and more time thinking about whether it's true. https://t.co/jJwaSvldok
— Timothy B. Lee (@binarybits) May 27, 2021
This piece nails one of the most noxious impulses on social media: coming to conclusions about a complicated factual matter based solely on "which side" supports what conclusions. https://t.co/m3F6jzQAb5
— Jeff Greenfield (@greenfield64) May 27, 2021
It’s not just Twitter that fosters groupthink in the press about issues like this. Internal Slack channels are also a big negative influence on free thought inside some publications. https://t.co/ps1awxkHjJ
— Josh Barro (@jbarro) May 27, 2021
Facebook should not be allowed to make decisions like banning people discussing the origins of worldwide pandemics
— AntifaBook.com (@JackPosobiec) May 27, 2021
The damage from this goes beyond the lab leak debate. Every anti-vaxxer is going to point to this and say "see? they said that was a conspiracy theory and suddenly it isn't. So who are you going to believe about this?" https://t.co/GvABPBh01V
— Noam Blum (@neontaster) May 26, 2021
When the pandemic started, there were many arguments that "what platforms are doing for health misinfo, they should do for all misinfo all the time." It was over-simplified then, and strikes me as untenable now.
— evelyn douek (@evelyndouek) May 26, 2021
Facebook should stop acting like a publisher and start acting like a platform. https://t.co/DktEsRgXw2
— Rep. Ken Buck (@RepKenBuck) May 26, 2021
Who are they to determine what’s misinformation?
— Shane Wenzel (@ShaneWenzel) May 27, 2021
Facebook will now shame pages that share misinformation repeatedly | TNW https://t.co/bT4iuBGGKd #FacebookBan
Facebook will now shame pages that share misinformation repeatedly (story by @Indianidle) https://t.co/NjgRYovbbE
— TNW (@thenextweb) May 27, 2021
Facebook will now shame pages that share misinformation repeatedly (story by @Indianidle) https://t.co/NjgRYovbbE
— TNW (@thenextweb) May 27, 2021
$FB Facebook no longer banning posts calling the coronavirus 'man-made' https://t.co/FxOYyPgbJI
— Kaushik (@skaushi) May 27, 2021
Shortly after taking office, I instructed our Intelligence Agencies to investigate the origins of the COVID-19 virus. Today, I’ve asked the Intelligence Community to redouble those efforts and send me a report in 90 days.
— President Biden (@POTUS) May 26, 2021
https://t.co/MVXudLeu8V
Great progress! The US government announced to conduct “a full, transparent, evidence-based international investigation and to provide access to all relevant data and evidence” of the origin of #COVID19!??
— Dr. Li-Meng YAN (@DrLiMengYAN1) May 27, 2021
CCP regime is chilling!#UnrestrictedBioweapon https://t.co/jrMfTr6SiX
上記報道よりも、かなり強いメッセージに感じます。
— influenzer (@influenzer3) May 27, 2021
欧米諸国のコロナ流行が収束に向かい、いよいよvs 中国の新しい動きが始まりそうな雰囲気です。
Statement by President Joe Biden on the Investigation into the Origins of COVID-19https://t.co/wuxP3JyYnG
However, some in the #US keep turning a blind eye to facts, science and keep clamoring for additional investigation in #China. This shows that they don't care about facts or truth at all and have zero interest in serious science-based studies.https://t.co/uqFJ01BciH
— Hua Chunying 华春莹 (@SpokespersonCHN) May 27, 2021
Biden says that, more than 1½ years after Covid began, the U.S. intelligence community remains torn between "two likely scenarios" on how the virus originated — zoonotic spillover (transmission from animals to humans) or an accidental escape from a lab. https://t.co/VixSojfzSS
— Brahma Chellaney (@Chellaney) May 26, 2021
Too little, too late.https://t.co/Lm9KPXmvKn
— Tom Cotton (@SenTomCotton) May 26, 2021