Want To Find a Misinformed Public? Facebook's Already Done It (themarkup.org) 145
Last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a post pledging to combat misinformation about COVID-19 circulating on Facebook. "We've taken down hundreds of thousands of pieces of misinformation related to COVID-19, including theories like drinking bleach cures the virus or that physical distancing is ineffective at preventing the disease from spreading," Zuckerberg wrote. But at the very same time, The Markup found, Facebook was allowing advertisers to profit from ads targeting people that the company believes are interested in "pseudoscience." From the report: According to Facebook's ad portal, the pseudoscience interest category contained more than 78 million people. This week, The Markup paid to advertise a post targeting people interested in pseudoscience, and the ad was approved by Facebook. Using the same tool, The Markup boosted a post targeting people interested in pseudoscience on Instagram, the Facebook-owned platform that is incredibly popular with Americans under 30. The ad was approved in minutes.
We also have taken down conspiracy theories... (Score:5, Informative)
Zuck: I have over 4,000 emails, pictures, addresses, SNS
[Redacted Friend's Name]: What? How'd you manage that one?
Zuck: People just submitted it.
Zuck: I don't know why.
Zuck: They "trust me"
Zuck: Dumb fucks.
Re:We also have taken down conspiracy theories... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: We also have taken down conspiracy theories... (Score:2)
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Re:We also have taken down conspiracy theories... (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't get what you're saying here...are you talking about the US government doing something about this?
I mean, the US governments (all levels) can't do anything about someone discussing or promoting holocaust denial ideas or information.
I don't believe it, BUT...it is free speech.
And the constitution guarantees it.
Now, if you're talking about a private entity, like FB. then sure they can pull whatever content they want to date.... I don't know what they're policy is on holocaust subjects.
But you almost sounded as if you wanted this "banned" on a governmental law level which cannot happen.
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Obviously free speech gets in the way, but if people are willing to punch people playing at being nazis, they should be willing to drive cars into people who are willing to spread disease. Know what the biggest difference is between denying the holocaust and denying the effects of a pandemic? One actually gets people killed.
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While acting a 'nazi' is horrible....NO ONE should be out punching people discussing or even "playing" nazi.....that is wrong.
However repugnant spouting that stuff is....it IS still legal free speech in the US.
Query for misinformed users leaked (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Query for misinformed users leaked (Score:5, Interesting)
The world would be SO much better in so many ways without it and likely the other major "social media' networks.
Re:Query for misinformed users leaked (Score:5, Insightful)
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Twitter should be classed as a threat to civilization.
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Well, the US at least...was MUCH better than before the FB 'mirror' was introduced.
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I've been spamming GDPR requests lately and found that a lot of marketing companies have database entries detailing how gullible they think you are. They break it down into different categories too, medical, political, astrology, stories, news...
From what I can tell everyone's score starts at 0.5.
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Select * from users;
In an absolute sense, this is true. There isn't a human alive -- nor has there ever been nor will there ever be -- who doesn't believe some things that are wrong. But that absolute sense is completely useless.
There is, in fact, a rather large variation in the amount and type of misinformation believed by different people. Some things people believe are wrong, but still represent humanity's best current understanding. Some things people believe are wrong, and humanity has overwhelming evidence of their
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Don't insult pseudoscience like that (Score:2)
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Exactly. That is what I said: Orange man bad. And what do you mean by "recent actions"? I mean "Orange man always been bad", right?
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At least the White House is trying to provide information with real doctors
Sure, if you ignore what is coming from the person in the Administration who lives there.
"drinking bleach cures the virus" (Score:3, Insightful)
All evidence points to the fact that people who died drinking bleach did NOT die of COVID-19. Also, what is the plan here? To "physically distance" until....when? 10 years? 20 years? 40 years? Never? A vaccine is found and everyone get vaccinated? Viruses do not just "go away". It is anti-science to suggest that it will just because we are six feet apart. The model that Sweden is following works. Eventually you will have "herd immunity". Sweden thinks that will occur in a couple of weeks. You cannot pretend to escape the virus. You will likely get it eventually, if you haven't already. And yes, you probably didn't even notice.
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What the heck kind of nonsense is this? If you followed this plan, you wouldn't have to institute a socialist police state, therefore defeating the purpose of the pandemic!
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But what is someone dies? You don't want anyone to DIE do you???? Stay in your houses, someone might die, and even worse it might be ME!!!!11!!! And I am super important: I made six figures programming in JavaScript!
Without social distancing we overwhelm hospitals (Score:2)
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Proof needed. What you are saying is just parroting a line and is anti-science. Most likely millions of Americans have already been exposed (viruses work that way, they just don't "stop") and it hasn't happened yet. How long are you going to "social distance"? 10 years? For the rest of your life? I realize you are a Bernie Bro, and a Socialist, but we are handling it better than most of those countries that have "Socialized medicine". You really should move to another country, you would be much happier wit
Don't hit your head on the goalposts... (Score:3)
...as they moved 120 yards to the other side of the field.
5 weeks ago the story was "oh, there are not that many infected, and the problem will go away soon".
Now the story is "oh, there are infected everywhere everywhere everywhere, so let me make up numbers about the mortality rate"
When we have 60%-70% herd immunity, yes, the problem can probably go away with modest safety measures, better treatments (that are improving as we speak), and maybe a partially effective vaccine.
The official numbers are ballpark
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The digging of mass graves and bodies piled into refrigerator trucks because there's no one else to put them would seem to disagree with that statement. And all the hospitals where they don't have PPE for everyone coming into the building. And the only reason the death rate isn't far higher is all the shutdowns that conservatives are whining about.
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https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
3+ months? Things will be back to normal on April 1st. China and SK already have a declining number of cases. Sorry kids, your dreams of Fallout won't happen. Back to ordinary life.
110010001000
Well, you're the expert. Your opinions on COVID-19 sure are insightful :) But why are we even talking about it? You told us yourself it ended over 3 weeks ago.
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Yep. Things are back to normal here.
Which planet are you living on?
30% American work force were applying unemployment benefits, over 2000 Americans dying every day, health care system is being stretched to its limit. And you call that "back to normal"?
You better tell that to people protesting to stop the lock down, they are protesting over nothing, right?
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1. We find a vaccine.
2. Enough people (around 70 percent of the population) are immune from being infected and getting healthy agian.
3. We reduce the infection rate to zero by not getting into contact with people who have the virus.
Whatever comes first stops the virus.
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ad 1) We just don't know how long it takes to have an effective vaccine. With Ebola, it took about four years, 2012 to 2016. If the virus mutates faster than that, vaccines might be years away, as we know from the strains of Influenza virus.
ad 2) We don't know how high the actual infection rate is right now, we only have the test rate. Some studies in Italy, Austra and Germany point to a current infection rate of about 1%. If we have to wait until 70%, it means that we have to
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"Some studies in Italy, Austra and Germany point to a current infection rate of about 1%"
Incorrect. You cannot possibly believe that only 1% of people in Italy (or Germany) have been exposed to COVID-19. Viruses don't work that way. It doesn't make sense.
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So what you're saying is that infection rates depend on areas and instead of having the federal or state governments decide what we should collectively do, local leaders and businesses should figure out what works best for them.
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Sweden's approach to COVID19 is likely going to be shifting in the near future.
They had not locked down because the trajectory of the illness was not threatening to overwhelm their medical facilities. Somehow, the rate of spread seemed to be containing itself.
This is increasingly looking like it shall not be the case indefinitely, as the number of daily new cases starts an exponential upward journey.
I would not be surprised if they will go into lockdown before the end of April, and would be quite sh
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Their current trajectory is actually more linear than exponential. This seems to be typical for places that implement half-measures; cases continue to grow, but not exponentially.
Sweden has a high level of voluntary compliance social distancing; about half of Swedish workers are working from home and cell phone tracking data and other metrics show reductions in travel by about 80% - 90%. So the idea Sweden is wide open is a bit misleading.
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What Sweden (and NY) proves is that the virus is nowhere near as dangerous as we anticipated. 30% of people in the Bronx have been infected, yet their hospitals aren't overrun, they have more than sufficient beds, ventilators and PPE, there's an entire hospital ship and field hospitals and private hospitals sitting around empty.
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Citation?
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I wouldn't put too much faith in Sweden's public health models. A couple of days ago they reported that their model thought that there were 1000 infections for every reported case, but if that were true there'd be over 15 million people infected, and Sweden's population is 10.2 million.
Hey, that title works multiple ways! (Score:2)
n/t
Want to find misinformed public? (Score:3)
Visit any social media site.
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They should join Slashdot instead, where we all have conclusively proven that billions of people are going to die because of Trump. Plus we are going to live on Mars soon, and Moore's Law will never end.
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Aww sorry. Another butthurt guy who is upset of other opinions. Lets look at your comment history:
"Nailed it. I've had plenty of good ideas, I'm just too lazy to execute them."
There ya go. Pretty intelligent guy.
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All I know is if we elected a 85 year old hippie lifetime politician multimillionaire, or a 83 year old lifetime politician and ex-wife of a President we wouldn't be in this mess! Guaranteed!!!
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Trump constantly lying and making up numbers completely undermines your argument. When Trump played down the number of infected, then the ballooning death toll proves that either he is a liar and/or incompetent and/or the mortality rate for this disease is very high.
What is the mortality rate? We do not know because our testing sucks in the USA while the president is still touting how awesome the testing is going!
Trump supporters have spun themselves in a full circle because they are the true victims of T
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The problem is our right to free speech is being abused. And there is little legal recourse.
The problem isn't bias news. But untruthful news.
Bias news you can get a good picture of what is going on by checking with other sources on the topic where you can get a better picture of the problem.
Eg. Tax Breaks on Hummers during the Bush Administration. Actually, after a little digging, I can see it was a tax break on large trucks over a particular weight. This is because these larger trucks were mostly shipping
So they could do this for any misinformation? (Score:4, Insightful)
They were willing to put the public in danger by allowing politics to be overrun with false information and propaganda, so it's no surprise they are willing to help people profit over people's fears during this pandemic. Facebook will give lip service to small efforts in order to garner some good PR, and then go right ahead helping people push false narratives at the same time, as they always do.
Is there a Facebook ad category for "stupid" ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Every time there is an article about advertisers using Facebook to target a certain group, it turns out there is a specific Facebook advertising category for that group. Does that not strike anyone else as weird? I would have expected categories like "age 18-25" or "elderly" not categories like "interested in pseudoscience" or "holocaust denier." I can't imagine being on the team whose organizes people into those categories.
Boss: John, today your job is to tag all the racists on Facebook so that our advertisers can better sell their Nazi propoganda videos to them. Jane: You'll be finding all the people in the "votes for the same party no matter what the party does" category - there's an election coming up, so that's worth hundreds of millions.
John/Jill: Okay boss.
Lee: I'm 75% complete my task of identifying all the people who believe that soap and fluoride toothpaste are part of a secret CIA program.
Boss: Excellent work! We have $10 million of advertising riding on your ability to sell those morons new forms of snake oil!
Miranda: I have to report that there are only 14 people who still believe that Monster cables offer richer sound.
Lee: Wow, that would be a big blow to our advertising revenue. Have you looked through the cell phones of people who stormed Area 51 to uncover the aliens?
Miranda: Great idea boss!
Could someone please just post a list of all the categories?
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It's not odd at all. Facebook's raison d'etre is targetted advertising. Of *course* they have all sorts of interesting categories; that's the point.
"Holocaust denier" seems like a pretty niche category, but if Facebook has it, you can bet somebody has figured out how to make money off them.
"Pseudoscience believer" is completely straightforward. Pseudoscience, from herbal supplements to chiropractors, is a massive industry.
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"Holocaust denier" seems like a pretty niche category
Jim Baker targets his overpriced dried food products at them, as they tend to be a particularly stupid subset of 'Doomsday preppers'.
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I can see various anti-nazi organisations wanting to advertise to holocaust deniers. Only people who would want nazis to stay in their social bubbles and maintaining their ideology are those who benefit from nazis existing.
You know, the modern pearl clutchers, who need a handful of nazis existing to justify mass purges of those they don't like.
I can also see people who actually want to diminish things like 5g tower burnings advertising that 5g doesn't actually have a link to coronavirus to people who are lo
Facebook, like most social media (Score:3)
Just my 2 cents
They lost all credibility on this (Score:5, Insightful)
Facebook has lost all credibility when they started banning and shutting down anyone who was organizing protests against "Shelter in place" / quarantines. This is clearly a first amendment protected activity and has nothing to do with bad advice or scams.
This is quite unfortunate as I have no doubt that the majority of what they have taken down is pure junk (drinking bleach, buy this magical pill, etc...). Problem is that they lost the trust of a significant portion of the population by failing to stay neutral and picking sides on the politics of the issue.
This is becoming more and more of an issue as we get closer to the 2020 US presidential election. The fact is that Facebook and Twitter have a history of picking sides on elections in other countries (e.g. Brazil) right before the election (when it is too late to challenge something in time through the courts) does not help at all.
They are a monopoly whether they like it or not as they have become the modern public square. Their job is to be a neutral platform and stay out of the fray. The retort to just start your own service is even more absurd than it was in the days of standard oil. A lay person has no chance where multi-billion companies have failed.
It would have been unthinkable for the phone company or the post office to filter your content based on whether or not they agreed with it. It should be just as unthinkable for Facebook, Twitter and other similar monopolies to do the same.
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It is also in the interest of our enemies to beat the drums of hysteria to shut down the US economy for as long as possible. Already we see meme shifting to "protecting you" is what the shutdown is about, when it is about stopping hospitals from getting underwater leading to even more deaths.
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picking sides on the politics of the issue.
This is the problem. Over politicization. Facebook takes an action that is viewed as objectively positive by public health officials, and it's deemed "picking sides on the politics."
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Obstructing 1st amendment protected activities is definitely "picking sides on the politics".
Re: They lost all credibility on this (Score:2)
Don't get your panties in a bunch. I never said they should be forced to do anything.
But they did make a political decision to delete those events. It's political that was my point.
How many antifa events have they canceled in the past 4 years, while those things where bashing on people's heads with bike locks?
They have chosen a political in ideology, your saying they have the right to support violent leftist terrorist organisations and I say fine
Let's call it what it is, POLITICAL.
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Sadly, the ship sailed on that the moment our country elected an anti-intellectual, anti-science president. At this point, in the minds of a significant percentage of Americans, education, scientific knowledge, mathematical understanding, and basic intellect are all politically "left", and ignorance and stupidity are all politically "right". That is one seriously screwed up state to be in.
The best thing the Republican party could do right now is split in two. Let Trump and the Tea Party politicians go o
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"The best thing the Republican party could do right now is split in two. Let Trump and the Tea Party politicians go off on their own, and let the actual conservatives go back to being intelligent leaders."
That's what would be best for The People, and the world in general, but only because it would be total disaster for the Republican party. They only succeed because the crazies and the actual conservatives all get behind their leader. The Democrats don't, and that's why they're less effective.
If the reps ki
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I disagree. As a Californian who is registered as an independent, with the exception of a few local races, I find myself voting for a Democrat in nearly every single race these days, because the Republicans are only running the lunatic fringe. If they kicked out the nuts, they would win a lot MORE elections, because the people winning in their primaries would all be good, electable candidates that have a reasonable chance of drawing in indep
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the ship sailed on that the moment our country elected an anti-intellectual, anti-science president.
Reagan?
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Reagan wasn't anti-intellectual. His economic theories were bonkers, and yes, he really messed up the Republican party in ways that it has never recovered from, but listening to the wrong group of eggheads isn't nearly as bad as screaming "LA LA LA LA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU" the moment you even see someone intelligent.
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Private company does not need to allow any speech. There is no free speech rule that applies to private companies. This has already been proven in Lawsuits. If this was not the case then Fox News would be required to state Trump lies are lies. But no one can make them or claim free speech to make them.
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Once a company becomes a monopoly in a market they need to provide their services on RAND (Reasonable And Non Discriminatory) AKA F/RAND or FRAND rates to all comers. The Supreme Court has consistently ruled in favor of RAND across all markets from the 1800s with railroads, manufacturing, utilities up through a patent case just a few years ago - the precedent is overwhelming.
https://scholarship.law.ufl.ed... [ufl.edu]
https://www.scotusblog.com/wp-... [scotusblog.com]
RAND is an issue that has come up so often that ABA has put out guid
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You could not be more wrong - they are communications platforms. One platform is designed around short burst and the other around social networks. You are trying to mince words and delineate where there is no natural delineation.
The USPS and the phone companies certainly never created the type of artificial delineation that you are attempting to perform. There would certainly be public outrage if an ISP, phone company, cell phone or the post office tried to pull what you suggest. The idea is absurd.
Communic
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(I hate defending Facebook at all, but there are s
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There is no such thing as "Coordination of illegal activity". Go on, find a statute and show me the law that was being broken. You of course will never do this since there is no such statute since it would be blatantly unconstitutional. If there was the ACLU would have pursued it to the Supreme Court the moment it passed.
Facebook does not have a leg to stand on as they have never done this for any other protest. They never had a policy against using Facebook to organize protests. The public welfare argument
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It is not peaceful assembly when you are actively contributing to the spread of disease that is killing people. Quarantine law is well-tested part of USA law. Just as the freedom of speech does not extend to endangering others, neither does the right to assemble.
Facebook doesn't have to shut down other protests because other protests are not violating quarantine and creating a health risk for the community. Not a single governor or county judge was invent
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You forgot the context - it was a car based protest. You are not spreading anything inside your car.
You also left out the context on the legal authority you cited. Those laws were written for things like quarantine when it was known that individuals may be infected or for a disaster in a given area such as a flooded river. Those laws were never intended to stop someone from buying seeds and planting a garden in their own back yard or to stop a protest against government overreach. To quote that Texas statut
Re: They lost all credibility on this (Score:2)
Re: They lost all credibility on this (Score:2)
The legislative intent is questionable. The term {area} is not given size limits at all. Governor is given {control} of the area. And there are some serious $$$$ penalties associated with violating the governorâ(TM)s order, with legislature providing no means of challenging.
To me, this reads as a legislature that trusts the governor to react in a crisis and do what is needed as commander-in-chief to protect the state. The governor is explici
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Unfortunately I have to agree. I say "unfortunately" because I think the people calling for an end to the shutdowns are idiots and are endangering lives - but despite that, I believe it is valid political speech.
Also agree that Facebook has become a de-facto common political forum.
The root problem here is not facebook but the lack of a central source of trusted information. That is the role that the CDC should fill in this situation, but they have shown themselves to be untrustworthy
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Facebook has lost all credibility when they started banning and shutting down anyone who was organizing protests against "Shelter in place" / quarantines. This is clearly a first amendment protected activity and has nothing to do with bad advice or scams.
Scams, no, unless you include astroturfing. But it's definitely based on bad advice.
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You are right, this has nothing to do with my opinion. Shall we start with Mark Zuckerberg himself and his opinion? He could not come up with a single competitor to Facebook when asked to do so when testifying in front of congress.
https://www.theverge.com/2018/... [theverge.com]
When you control a market you have a monopoly. Luckily for you the FTC has defined a monopoly for you and you can look it up yourself. I will save you the trouble and quote the juice bits for you.
"Courts do not require a literal monopoly before app
The Scientific Method (Score:2, Insightful)
In a way, it's quite unfair to call things like "drinking bleach" pseudoscience.
The science we typical discuss is all about evidence and observations. That's great given the time to run experiments and determine truth.
There are, however, times when making a decision fast is more important than making it correctly. Like driving somewhere, which route do you take? Do you turn left or right? The first exit or the second exit? One will be faster, one will be slower, but take to long the make the decision a
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To be clear, you've just said that you would question the Ignobel judges? I wasn't proposing that bleach would cure anything. I merely proposed that something unexpected could result from something arbitrary. I used "drinking bleach" as a syntactic example of an arbitrary something, not as a sample something.
By chance, are you a lawyer? You sound like someone who can't distinguish a concept from a proposition.
If you don't like "drinking bleach", feel free to use:
"pizza might protect against illness and
Re: The Scientific Method (Score:2)
You just tried to corral all pseudoscience into some kind of legitimate scientific test of the hypothesis that sometimes unexpected things happen in the way you want?
That doesn't... why... do you have a side hustle selling homeopathic medicine or something? Magnets? Crystals? Religion?
If you're not sure what exit on the highway to take and you don't have time to contemplate the meaning of directions you were given, you pick one. This is very different from the pseudoscience analog of putting your blinke
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That's exactly the same. Like you said, if you don't have time to contemplate the directions, you pick one. Therefore, if you don't have time to determine the scientifically correct course of action, you pick one.
When science doesn't [yet] have an answer, like you said: "you pick one". There's no right or wrong answer -- that's exactly what science determines, but has yet to do. So you pick the one that you're capable of achieving. Otherwise, you're just panicking or freezing.
And actually, my "side hus
Facebook found the misinformed public (Score:4, Funny)
It's their members list.
Goebbels would be proud. (Score:2)
Goebbels would be proud. Facebook is 100x worse than VolksempfÃnger was.
That was the "state-approved" radio that would only receive "state-approved" broadcasts.
If they caught you with something like a shortwave radio.. probably jail, or shot in the sidewalk (pavement for you brits)
Facebook is all this, and more!
Want To Misinform the Public? (Score:2)
Oh wait! that is how I read it at a glance
Just my 2 cents
Did I Get This Right? (Score:2)
Beware those that resist the propaganda! (Score:2)
They are the enemy!
Question those who question authority!
Question those who question by what means authority is granted.
Question those who look at where the money flows when policy is enacted!
Don't think and thrive, call a designated mindset-maker.
Those numbers are wrong... (Score:3)
One difference is that we determined pseudoscience objectively and not specifically. There's no accurate simplification of pseudoscience into basic categories that's entirely accurate but only using a grouping won't be accurate at all. Only 78 million? Extrapolating onto the size of facebook's userbase, people who like astrology is around five to ten times that at least. It might even reach a billion. Horoscopes are still consumed last time I checked.
I know it sounds like censorship (Score:2)
Go the other way (Score:2)
Tell the public drinking bleach cures COVID - it does by the way, don't worry about other side efffects.
The people that remain might have some ***ing intelligence.
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Sorry, what I meant to say is people should inject disinfectant upon the suggestion of the president:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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VN is not fine. They've taken drastic measures to stop the spread of the virus, like requiring you to wear a face mask if you step outside, even just to take the rubbish out. You can be stopped and questioned anywhere in public, and there's an on-the-spot fine if you're not doing something essential. Restaurants, cafes, etc. are closing. A lot of retail is dead. Commercial property values have collapsed. Sure, they have a small number of deaths, but the impact to the economy is pretty severe.