Twitter ends enforcement of COVID misinformation policy

Good. It’s endemic now anyway. The whole “misinformation” definition seemed to change as the politics did.

Wrong, false information that is clearly demonstrated as such by objective scientific data is misinformation without doubt (or disinformation if it is used on purpose) politics changes are irrelevant for this.

A disease that still is an important risk for public health can become worse when people are mislead into making irrational decisions by people only interested on pushing their own erroneous ideas without actual consideration to the wellbeing of others. There is value in making this negative behaviour as hard as possible, people that die unnecessarily are a huge cost of protection people's freedom to lie.

About time!

They finally realized that much of the so called misinformation they were blocking turned out to be correct.

They finally realized that much of the so called misinformation they were blocking turned out to be correct.

"They" all got fired. You act as if it's the same Twitter, and there was a revelation. Nope, just some guy with enough money to be able to do whatever he wants. There's no "they" in it.

By this stage sensible people know who the reliable sources are and who aren’t.

Anyone still banging on about ivermectin and advocating quack theories won’t be taken seriously. If you’re still screaming about the efficacy of masks now it just looks sad.

Good!

For fun I have sort of been checking in on the Capitol Hill riots inquiry and, Ottawa Trucker convoy inquiry.

I am loving how the mainstream media it trying to make social media the problem or even the villain and the same here.

It makes me think of historical events.

The first mass mobile Gutenberg Press and how the church and mobility had a fit as it was used to write large quantities of new, manifestos, etc... Upsetting the status quo, then the news papers in the times of the American Revolution and French Revolution, then Radio, TV .

Every time the same panic by those in power or those that do not like the message.

Yes Covid was a bad thing yes people died, I lost multiple family members.

But at the same time the fear factor was raised far to high by those in power and we are starting to see the consequences with higher mortality rates in countries with strict Covid policies.

This is not because of the vaccine so let's get that out of the way.

Terminal cancer, up, heart attacks up , other diseases up

The cause? Well simple lockdowns, hospital closed to the public for preventative screening, etc..

Now that things are open we are seeing surges in Cancer diagnosis, long long long delays in lab and test results,etc...

But had anyone tried pointing out this was going to happen on twitter under the Covid "misinformation" policy it would have been blocked.

We needed certain measures in place but we went to far.

Now look at the UK, Canada and see what is now going on as they play catch-up with long ignored medical conditions like Cancer.

They finally realized that much of the so called misinformation they were blocking turned out to be correct.

For example? is ivermectin magically effective now? vaccines are not protection people? is the people that died from covid actually alive?

But at the same time the fear factor was raised far to high by those in power and we are starting to see the consequences with higher mortality rates in countries with strict Covid policies.

Without a proper analysis "consequences" can be "causes", the same as proving that hospitals should not be built since they have much more people dying in them than in any other kind of institution.

At one point there was no other way to avoid preventable deaths, and it was a very effective measure against viral strains that were not so transmissible as they are now, the balance shifted on both things, less risk from the infection thanks to many factors and much higher difficulty to avoid the infections on the first place.

But had anyone tried pointing out this was going to happen on twitter under the Covid "misinformation" policy it would have been blocked.

What would be blocked is to claim the measures were not effective or were not justified, saying that lockdowns had negative effects was not blocked and public health specialists readily recognized this without any problem.

We needed certain measures in place but we went to far.

According to what analysis? how are the costs and benefits being calculated? Do you think what was observed with covid was the worst possible scenario? one thing is to say measures had costs, another very different is to claim they were unnecessary or that the costs of not having them were not significant (and that this was easy to predict beforehand).

We needed certain measures in place but we went to far.

> According to what analysis?

Facts.

You may be a researcher but you are not a doctor.

All the reports coming out of the UK, Canada and others showing that all the delays caused by Covid measures has increased late cancer diagnosis, late heart disease diagnosis, missed chances to stop certain cancers from reaching advanced stages.

In Canada 6 months backlog to get the results of a PAP test, UK 3 to 6 months backlog on CT scans,

Even here in Japan, my own normal 6 month check on a congenital heart defect was delayed over and over again because no hospital would even let me in or take an appointment.

The results, the collapse was not caught in time and I suffered a severe heart attack and my brother in Canada had the same thing happen, because we couldn't be seen regularly as the world went into hysteria!

Look up respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections and influenza in Canada and Europe.

See the results of isolation for nearly 2 years.

So now hospitals are not full with covid they are overflowing with everything from late cancer diagnosis to heart disease and a surge in infectious diseases.

Go to my hospital in North east Tokyo everything is full delayed all because nothing was done for nearly 2 years.

If you don't see it , that is because you are actively trying not to.

Now the "misinformation" is actually the incorrect things Fauci and others pushed.

So now that it is being removed, there are a bunch of people running around claiming none of it was ever said to begin with in a gaslighting effort.

"no one ever said that if you got vaccinated you wouldnt get COVID!"

so removing misinformation is now protecting the people spread misinformation in the first place.

funny how that works.

I already looked down on Twitter users before this debacle.

At least after the dust has settled, it will be even easier to know who to look down on. Anyone still tweeting.

They finally realized that much of the so called misinformation they were blocking turned out to be correct.

Indeed, they labeled as information anything that could lead to vaccine hesitancy, regardless of whether it was true or not.

For example? is ivermectin magically effective now?

It always was. Hopefully, we will now be able to openly discuss both sides; e.g. many studies show IVM is effective, and those that show no effect tend to be linked to pharma and are clearly designed to fail.

Facts.

Again, what is the analysis that demonstrate they are facts and not just personal opinions? if you don't have it then they are not facts, even if you believe it strongly.

All the reports coming out of the UK, Canada and others showing that all the delays caused by Covid measures has increased late cancer diagnosis, late heart disease diagnosis, missed chances to stop certain cancers from reaching advanced stages.

Now you only have to prove this would not have happened with what was expected from the public health services under a much more important pressure from covid cases without the measures that prevented the worst case scenario. After that you only have to compare the costs of having multiple health problems being unattended plus many more covid deaths with the current situation and prove it would have been better.

See the results of isolation for nearly 2 years.

Again, get an analysis that says this is

1 - easily foreseeable

2 - worse than what would have happened without the measures that limited the deaths by covid and the indirect deaths by partial or complete collapse of health services.

Without these two things you have no argument. Because the position of the experts was never that the measures were innocuous, the position was that this was the least worse of the two options available.

So can you prove this is not the case?

Now the "misinformation" is actually the incorrect things Fauci and others pushed.

You mean the incorrect things that nobody but antiscientific groups said? then it is the same as always, people come to complain that Fauci promised vaccines to be absolutely effective for all eternity against any and all variants that would ever appear, but when asked when he said this nobody can present a reference, it is very hard to be more obviously mistaken about it.

So, nobody said that if you get vaccinated you would be guaranteed 100% not to have covid even if variants made all previous immunity less effective.

Misinformation is to pretend strawman arguments are real and prove people that never said them are lying.

Indeed, they labeled as information anything that could lead to vaccine hesitancy, regardless of whether it was true or not.

No, only things that were demonstrably false, people still wanted to repeat false things, but actual information that could be corroborated with objective data was never censored.

For example saying that myocarditis was a serious negative effect for some of the vaccines was not censored, but saying that this side effect was as important and frequent as the myocarditis produced by the infection was, because it is false informatnion.

It always was.

Not according to the best available evience and the medical and scientific consensus agree that ivermectin is still completely worthless against covid, as easy to prove as you have been unable to provide any respected institution that supports the false claim that ivermectin is effective.

that Fauci promised vaccines to be absolutely effective for all eternity against any and all variants that would ever appear, but when asked when he said this nobody can present a reference, it is very hard to be more obviously mistaken about it.

Exactly my point.

Most if not all of the references of him saying that if you are vaccinated you wont get COVID were deleted recently as "misinformation" once we found out people can and do get COVID despite vaccination.

after finding out the vaccine neither prevents the COVID infection or transmission.

The Joe Biden and CDC Director statements are still out there as reference but all the Fauci statements in support of the "get vaccinated dont get COVID" are just...gone.

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/553773-fauci-vaccinated-people-become-dead-ends-for-the-coronavirus/

I mean I guess you could argue that the statements that havent been deleted say the virus becomes a "dead end" in vaccinated people and very, very low likelihood of transmission.

Even if I could find those statements, the response is just "well things changed" so its pointless to discuss.

We all lived it and we all know and remember what was said and by whom. As well as what inferences we were supposed to make from the statements made. Add the Biden and CDC clear statements of "wont get COVID if you get vaccinated" to those inferences from Fauci and we got the message they intended.

Which message is now clearly marked as "misinformation".

Exactly my point.

So your point was that claiming someone said something he never did is not misinformation? because that is not a valid point.

Most if not all of the references of him saying that if you are vaccinated you wont get COVID were deleted recently as "misinformation" once we found out people can and do get COVID despite vaccination.

So your accusation is proved because you have no evidence to prove that accusation? that is a terribly illogical position to take, everything would be "true" with that argument. "You are lying and I can prove it by pointing out how there is no evidence of you lying because the evidence was removed".

after finding out the vaccine neither prevents the COVID infection or transmission.

It does, just not perfectly as the antivaxxers like to pretend was promised, specially in the case of variants that supposedly were included in statements made when those variants didn't even exist.

The Joe Biden and CDC Director statements are still out there as reference but all the Fauci statements in support of the "get vaccinated dont get COVID" are just...gone.

So, that means you can provide links to the CDC director (Biden is obviously not an expert) saying vaccines were guaranteed to prevent disease and even infection permanently, and including any and all variants that could appear? Why then have you not provided that reference?

I mean I guess you could argue that the statements that havent been deleted say the virus becomes a "dead end" in vaccinated people and very, very low likelihood of transmission.

So, you want to use a link a year and a half ago to prove the current situation with Omicron demonstrate the statements are a lie? That is moving the goalposts, if the most important factor that causes a much lower efficiency of the immunity (including natural one) is that the current variants are escape mutants (fortunately not completely) then you are not proving your point by pretending this very important factor is irrelevant.

Which message is now clearly marked as "misinformation".

Still the same, pretending scientific evidence that proved a high degree of efficacy against the original strains is false when it fails to apply to the current variants.

Did not have any problems with my hospital treatments during the covid.

Again, what is the analysis that demonstrate they are facts and not just personal opinions? if you don't have it then they are not facts,

Oh you are such a great researcher.

Look what I pointed out up.

All readily available on the BBC CBC, etc ...

Look up pap test 6 months wait, Look up respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections and influenza in Canada and Europe.

But you won't because you like most academics that think the rest of us are stupid you will not believe anything until a "study" is done !

Imagine if everything in life was done to your standards of beliefs.

Food you have never seen or eaten put infront of you:

" Do you have proof this is edible?"

Reply;

" Well we eat it all the time"

You:

"That doesn't mean anything, where are the studies the peer reviews? No until that is done , I don't believe it is edible"

So CBC article on RSV infections just a guess, waiting time and backlog on tests and lab work only a guess or coincidence, Right?

I am quit mocked for saying this.

If you hear the sound of hooves think horse not zebra!

2+2=4 no study needed.

Simple fact if elective surgeries, routine tests are delayed 2 years guess what is going to happen once things open up again!

Look what I pointed out up.

Nothing of what you have pointed out makes an analysis, so it is not an argument to prove your point.

As an analogy, if a patient gets chemotherapy for cancer, saying how much this damaged his health is not an argument to say the chemotherapy was wrong, for that you have to prove the patient would have recovered without it. Just saying "he lost his hair" or "his immunity dropped" do not demonstrate this claim.

But you won't because you like most academics that think the rest of us are stupid you will not believe anything until a "study" is done !

No, what I am criticizing is that you are making a conclusion that is not based on evidence. You are making the assumption that all those negative consequences could have been skipped without making the whole situation worse, which is something you have to demonstrate first. This requires a very careful analysis that you have not provided.

2+2=4 no study needed.

No study is needed to show the measures had negative aspects, but a study is needed to conclude the measures did not prevent bigger problems that what they caused, you have never showed this, just assumed it and say this made it a fact, this is obviously not valid.

Simple fact if elective surgeries, routine tests are delayed 2 years guess what is going to happen once things open up again!

This is as valid an assumption that just saying 10 times more people would have died if they got infected while recovering from surgery or having health problems requiring tests. Without an analysis to prove it so that is just a baseless assumption. So, can you prove that the deaths prevented by the measures are less than those that caused by them? Specially when countries were able to put forward most of those measures without important delays by investing in improving the medical care during the pandemic (which would mean that the measures themselves would not the problem, but how they governments used them without the necessary, predictable support).

No, what I am criticizing is that you are making a conclusion that is not based on evidence

I am not, the doctors in UK and Canada are!

You smell dog poop, you see it on the ground in front of you!

Do you say: it is dogs poop or do you order an analysis to see if perhaps it is an extinct Japanese Wolf?

Sometimes the facts are right in your face but you refuse to see them.

"Effective November 23, 2022, Twitter is no longer enforcing the COVID-19 misleading information policy.”

This is great news.

Let the free-flow exchange of information and opinions begin.

Dr. Fauci is the most prominent discloser of Covid-19 misleading information, but he has the right to his opinions.

And experts with opposite opinions have the right to voice theirs.

If only citizens in most countries were not subject to the censorship that flourished in those places from the start of the Covid crisis.

Dr. Fauci is the most prominent discloser of Covid-19 misleading information, but he has the right to his opinions.

Since apparently that depends on things he never said this is the claim that can be characterized as misinformation.

And experts with opposite opinions have the right to voice theirs.

Opinions are not a problem, trying to present false, debunked information as fact is what got people's tweets deleted, there is no value in repeating thing that have already been demonstrated as false.

I am not, the doctors in UK and Canada are!

What doctors? what evidence (cost-benefit analysis) they have prevented to say the measures were unnecessary and did not prevent more damage than what they caused? your references do not include such a thing.

Do you say: it is dogs poop or do you order an analysis to see if perhaps it is an extinct Japanese Wolf?

Again, you have not presented evidence of your claim that the measures were unnecessary or that they caused more damage than what they prevented, you just baselessly assume they are.

The Facts you present are only that the measures had negative effects, which is nothing that was censored nor denied by the experts, what is not true is that those negative effects greatly surpass the benefits obtained or that they were unnecessary to prevent even worse problems. In your analogy is like pretending that what you see in front of you was put with the specific purpose of making you step on it, that is not what you can smell or see demonstrate.

Since apparently that depends on things he never said this is the claim that can be characterized as misinformation.

You're learning!

Even you are allowed your personal opinion, even where it is not based in verifiable fact.

Dr. Fauci has been proven wrong many many times. It's a fact. To say otherwise is disinformation. But, fire away!

Opinions are not a problem, trying to present false, debunked information as fact is what got people's tweets deleted, there is no value in repeating thing that have already been demonstrated as false.

It's an opinion to call something disinformation when you have no substantiated basis for the claim.

Twitter is in an uncontrolled spiral. It isn't a matter of if, but when will they be forced to cut services more and more since they don't have the people capable of running the systems and nobody wants to work there. In the tech trade websites, there are claims that 75% of the "engineers" have left Twitter, leaving marketing people, who just can't run Unix/Linux servers at massive scale. Not their skillset.

I don't know if it will be 6 months or a year, but twitter will likely sell their name off as it dies.

For the last 8 yrs, it has been something for old people and companies to use. Nobody under 35 used twitter, except to talk with their parents. Same for Metaface. They are dying, but don't realize it.

I don't know if it will be 6 months or a year, but twitter will likely sell their name off as it dies.

I think it is the next MySpace. The Twitter brand will have some value for a while, but I don't see anyone ever being able to bring it back.

Although, if anyone has deep enough pockets to be able to potentially have enough time to turn it around, it would be Musk. I guess it depends on how long he enjoys being able to tweet without consequence, at the price he's paying.

You're learning!

The argument disproves your claim, so you made a false claim on purpose?

Dr. Fauci has been proven wrong many many times. It's a fact. To say otherwise is disinformation. 

No example of this has been provided here, in fact the opposite is what is commented, declarations that are correct but misrepresented as if they were said in a completely different context (for omicron variants) which would make the accusations the ones that are misinformation.

Or as you are recognizing in your comments the "misinformation" are things he has never claimed. Because those that he did are still correct.

It's an opinion to call something disinformation when you have no substantiated basis for the claim.

Twitter is the one that censored misinformation, that means it is theirs the claim it was such. That is the argument to call them that way, what censored information are not based on this? what censored information is the one you are claiming is not misinformation? Give examples first before saying they were never proved false.

The argument disproves your claim, so you made a false claim on purpose?

Doing better! Keep up with your opinions.

No example of this has been provided here, in fact the opposite is what is commented, declarations that are correct but misrepresented as if they were said in a completely different context (for omicron variants) which would make the accusations the ones that are misinformation.

You provide no example to support your claim, and in fact you are providing misinformation again, but we as readers are able to decipher fact and fiction, and we rely on the experts and not some anonymous poster.

Twitter is the one that censored misinformation, that means it is theirs the claim it was such. That is the argument to call them that way, what censored information are not based on this? what censored information is the one you are claiming is not misinformation? Give examples first before saying they were never proved false.

Twitter will even allow comments like yours to exist. It trusts the readers to make their own decisions as to what to believe, no matter how outlandish the claims are.

Again, you have not presented evidence of your claim that the measures were unnecessary or that they caused more damage than what they prevented, you just baselessly assume they are.

A d again you refuse to look up anything I told you about.

You are great at quoting research you like and find but you expect me and others to had you everything.

Look up respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) infections and influenza in Canada and Europe.

Look up lab delays look up all the rest.

I can post articles but CBC alone I would be posting a few dozen.

Every province is now as bad if not worse than during the worst part of the pandemic.

Influenza RSV, etc...but funny no one is calling for lockdowns this time.

You hate to admit even the possibility you and the research community was wrong.

I am not a Covid denier or an anti vaxxer, I am fully vaccinated.

However the facts are there the CDC has even admitted it, that the benefits and protection was overstated to say the least.

The idea was to protect the vulnerable, but turns out the vaccine did none of that.

Only remaining isolated was the real reason the vulnerable didn't catch covid as much.

So we locked down everyone to protect a few.

Sorry but despite being very high risk I don't think that having everyone confined to their homes was the right thing and obviously the backlog the rebound infections and late diagnosis being seen in places that had harsh restrictions is the evidence if one is willing to admit what is right infront of their face.

AntiquesavingToday  02:08 pm JST

A d again you refuse to look up anything I told you about.

You are great at quoting research you like and find but you expect me and others to had you everything.

Excellent points. How true.

“This policy was used to silence people across the world who questioned the media narrative surrounding the virus and treatment options,”

Tweeter does away with this silly policy.

Too late... evidently those who advised caution in the response have been proved correct as all manner of harm has been uncovered, and if mRNA even comes through breast milk who knows what else is going on:

People advising caution were never censored, people lying and misrepresenting information to mislead other people were. Available epidemiological data do not support that "anything else" of importance is going on, meaning that infection is still a much more risky development for the population than the vaccines.

A d again you refuse to look up anything I told you about.

Nothing of what you have presented allows to say the measures were unjustified or unnecessary based on what they prevented, It is not my fault that you have presented no argument to defend your claim.

Once again, listing problems with the measures is NOT an argument to prove those problems are more important than what was prevented, not even that they would not happen without the measures. Your claim is not that measures had negative effects, your claim is that the measures should not have been put in order because they did not prevent much more than what they caused.

Do you have any evidence to prove your claim? None of what you bring allows for this conclusion to be done, that is all on your part, every single item could be correct and still would not prove it.

You hate to admit even the possibility you and the research community was wrong.

That is of course completely false, why else would I ask you for evidence of what you claim? if I were unable to admit the possibility I would simply tell you it is impossible to find it. What I am telling you instead is that for anybody to accept your claim (not that negative aspects are present but that they were unnecessary) you need to present that evidence, you have not.

The idea was to protect the vulnerable, but turns out the vaccine did none of that.

The scientific consensus says the vaccine is doing that very effectively and more than that, very efficiently. You don't believe me? try to search for any respectable institution of medicine or science that say the vaccine is not protecting the vulnerable, the fact that you can't clearly proves the consensus is the opposite.

Doing better! Keep up with your opinions.

That is not an opinion, you argued against yourself.

You provide no example to support your claim

My claim is that no examples of falsehoods have been presented to support the claim he has been "repeatedly proved wrong", so the lack of examples is what proves the argument. It should not be so hard to see.

and we rely on the experts and not some anonymous poster.

Since the experts are the ones that say lack of enforcement for twitter misinformation vigilance is a problem you are the one that is not only not relying on the experts but actively refuting what they say based only on your own opinion. The appeal to authority is against your point.

Twitter will even allow comments like yours to exist. It

Why not? you have not argued against the validity of any part of the comment, just baselessly claimed they are against what the experts say.

Excellent points. How true.

You understand that supporting your own arguments with evidence IS actually something desirable and good, and complaining that people do not blindly accept claims when they are unable to support them with any evidence only makes obvious there is no such support?

The "excellent points" made do not validate the baseless claims, they only repeat the plea to be believed even without that necessary basis, which means it is accepting they are baseless after all.

Since apparently that depends on things he never said this is the claim that can be characterized as misinformation.

he said in fact say them, but fortunately for him his statements were removed more recently as COVID misinformation once we found out his statements were wrong. I found the very, very unlikely one which shows his intended meeting of his statement as 99.9999% which we found out was actually like 50% at best.

So, that means you can provide links to the CDC director (Biden is obviously not an expert) saying vaccines were guaranteed to prevent disease and even infection permanently, and including any and all variants that could appear? Why then have you not provided that reference?

No, because you added a bunch of unnecessary disclaimers about future speculations and a permanence. The statement if you get vaccinated you wont get COVID would cover the intent of what you are saying, yes. They didnt say it WASNT permanent and didnt say it would NOT cover all future variants. But they "get vaccinated you wont get COVID" and "your body becomes a dead end to the virus" to cover all that.

It does, just not perfectly as the antivaxxers like to pretend was promised, specially in the case of variants that supposedly were included in statements made when those variants didn't even exist.

has there been a new variant in the last 2 weeks? it was announced most recently the vaccine neither prevents getting COVID not transmission of COVID and never has.

regardless, the policy that prevented people who knew better than Fauci from being heard is gone.

Sadly, way too late.

Plus all the misinformation that lots of people used to make supposedly "informed" decisions about "the science" that Fauci/Biden/CDC put out is now gone with it.

There are emails with Fauci and his friend that he said masks dont work, but then publicly pushed for mask mandates anyway.

Twitter has all those documents and files and DMs, look forward to their release to the people by Twitter and others who were banned for posting them.