I don’t think that’s true. Twitter is/was the only remaining news medium where experts had a voice. During the pandemic doctors and infectious diseases experts were using it to call or government blow hards. Now that’s going to die as well and we may return to complete darkness.
Complete darkness? O no, not the dark ages before 2006, when we had walk uphill to school and uphill to go back home. Or I could try to more direct and say: that's utter crap.
> Twitter is/was the only remaining news medium
And twitter is an important reason that other, more reliable and informative news outlets went under.
There were still some newspapers left in 2006. By 2022 they are all basically dead.
Also standards of journalism integrity were bad then but they are abysmal now. Very few journalists actually investigate stories, most just re print press release.
That's just blatantly wrong. There is still great journalism out there and the depth and breath of quality news is now reaching farther than ever before.
But of course you are right: who could have foreseen how much bad news people want to read and how little they want to pay for quality news. Why do people watch Fox or read Murdock media rags?
I saw the opposite. "Experts" being totally wrong and fear mongering without evidence. It was rural governments that said "prove it".
Recall how various studies on covid lethality, vaccination and masks were wildly different. The Israel study is a quick one. This is exactly what happened when influenza was new in the 1920's.
Yet the "experts" made it sound like everyone is going to die if you are not wearing a mask 24/7 and isolating. This is what "do no harm" ideology becomes - causing mass harm to everyone to potentially protect a few.
I’ve been following epidemiology experts and no one implied “everyone dying”, nor recommended “24/7” mask wearing (rather cited lowered transmission rates) and yes isolation lowered transmission rates too.
The flak they had to take for inconveniencing the lifestyle of people in the interest of prioritizing health outcomes for all, is insane.
If anything, we learned that the thought of care for others at a small cost to the self is extremely triggering for many Americans and is easily politicized as a wedge issue to influence voting.
Agreed , the experts showed us that a minor lifestyle change can significantly reduce covid transmission. Instead we as a country did all the wrong things and blamed experts when government officials failed by instituting random non evidence based policies
If you believe "influenza was new in the 1920's", you have bigger things to worry about than this discussion. I suggest going to check on the paperwork for that bridge you bought.
What you’re witnessing on HN and elsewhere is politics masquerading as objective and ostensibly, a thoughtful discourse.
None of the articles on HN have much of good faith discussion. I just see it as “progressives are pissed because their platform of power is being seized”. A lot of that relied on platform censorship on places like Twitter.
Just now, the WhiteHouse account is being fact checked. That doesn’t sit well with progressives.
This isn't some conspiracy theory, we have the current Biden Administration working with Big Tech to censor speech. "Public health" is just a trope under far more insiduous political agenda for power: https://theintercept.com/2022/10/31/social-media-disinformat...
Isn't White House supposed to keep records? They are not supposed to delete stuff.
The white house press releases have been a total disaster. I thought we had it bad in the previous admin. Lies after lies told to American public. Much of this stuff goes unchallenged on all social media.
I see Twitter as possibly working up to the ideal of "crowd sourcing" the truth. If Musk does what he seems to be saying he will do -- and take the training wheels off the moderation, and get the government out of it -- we might be left with a system that really can sort out the truth from fiction. Or, at least, present both sides, and let people decide for themselves, without hiding one side.
