Accompanying the COVID-19 pandemic is another pandemic, one just as dangerous because it acts synergistically with the novel coronavirus to make it more contagious... this is the disinformation pandemic. One particularly rage-inducing news item has been the revelation that, on Facebook, the worst vaccine disinformation comes from 111 individuals, who are allowed to continue to spread deadly falsehoods because they don't officially break the rules. I've never had a Facebook account, feeling that the entire site constituted an unbearable invasion of privacy. Also, do I really need to know that some guy I worked with one summer twenty-five years ago is a right-wing loon?
Certain social media users are falsehood superspreaders, for instance, election disinformation dropped over 70% after Trump's Twitter ban. In the case of anti-vaxxers, the effort to curtail disinformation has been going on for years, though the tepid response from management suggests that they do not take this threat seriously enough. This is especially infuriating now that we seem to be in the home stretch, with more and more people receiving vaccines. There are sure to be holdouts who refuse the vaccine, thereby imperiling at-risk persons who cannot receive it.
Surely, Facebook can nuke a little over a hundred accounts to stem the tide of bullshit at this critical juncture in the crisis. I'm not holding my breath, though.
Facebook was a mistake. I still haven't deleted it because i know 1 or 2 people who use it. I don't want to lose them. It is probably too late.
ReplyDeleteI don't like it.
Let's talk about the Moderna vaccine. My first dose was about 10 days ago.It was mostly older people. It was a long line of us. There were daughters and other relatives to help.
There were a few National Guard troops, just in case.
It was easy. Took about 20 minutes. The scariest part of it was being in a crowd.
I probably have a bill gates Microsoft computer chip in my blood right now. Tracking my every movement! Probably that infamous George Soros is watching me right now!
The things people say on Facebook is garbage.
I love how people post on their smartphones about Bill Gates tracking them with a nanochip injected with a vaccine.
ReplyDelete