edit: why do we keep giving these companies the benefit of the doubt when they continue to lie about everything?
Move the goalposts all you want but the fact is that all opinions are not equal in merit.
If you do actually want to have a good-faith discussion about how to limit the reach of worse opinions while increasing the reach of better opinions I would be happy to hear your suggestions.
Or if you would prefer to discuss how to find agreement on what we consider a "good" or a "bad" opinion, I would start by offering that I think the opinion "face masks do not prevent the spread of airborne respiratory infections" should be considered significantly less reasonable than the opinion "face masks are effective at preventing the spread of airborne respiratory infection".
I believe you are mischaracterizing the argument that was made. Unfortunately, we may no longer view the original post because your opinion has apparently been deemed more correct.
Up through roughly April-May 2020, many, if not most, epidemiologists and virologists believed that masks would not help the situation: they thought respiratory viruses were spread through large droplets produced by symptomatic individuals and that physical separation, sanitation, and behavior would work as well as trying to convince people to were useful masks consistently and correctly. (Earlier today, I walked past a woman wearing a bandana tied around her head. Below her nose. Why!?)
After that time, reports began to appear showing coronavirus could be spread asymptomatically, by normal breathing and speech, in an aerosol form that could stay airborne for long times. Under those situations, masks are the only solution.
The "ensure that enough protective equipment was available for frontline health workers" thing was mostly a response to "but it couldn't hurt" thinking.
"Then there is the infamous mask issue. Epidemiologists have taken a lot of heat on this question in particular. Until well into March 2020, I was skeptical about the benefit of everyone wearing face masks. That skepticism was based on previous scientific research as well as hypotheses about how covid was transmitted that turned out to be wrong. Mask-wearing has been a common practice in Asia for decades, to protect against air pollution and to prevent transmitting infection to others when sick. Mask-wearing for protection against catching an infection became widespread in Asia following the 2003 SARS outbreak, but scientific evidence on the effectiveness of this strategy was limited.
"Before the coronavirus pandemic, most research on face masks for respiratory diseases came from two types of studies: clinical settings with very sick patients, and community settings during normal flu seasons. In clinical settings, it was clear that well-fitting, high-quality face masks, such as the N95 variety, were important protective equipment for doctors and nurses against viruses that can be transmitted via droplets or smaller aerosol particles. But these studies also suggested careful training was required to ensure that masks didn’t get contaminated when surface transmission was possible, as is the case with SARS. Community-level evidence about mask-wearing was much less compelling. Most studies showed little to no benefit to mask-wearing in the case of the flu, for instance. Studies that have suggested a benefit of mask-wearing were generally those in which people with symptoms wore masks — so that was the advice I embraced for the coronavirus, too.
"I also, like many other epidemiologists, overestimated how readily the novel coronavirus would spread on surfaces — and this affected our view of masks. Early data showed that, like SARS, the coronavirus could persist on surfaces for hours to days, and so I was initially concerned that face masks, especially ill-fitting, homemade or carelessly worn coverings could become contaminated with transmissible virus. In fact, I worried that this might mean wearing face masks could be worse than not wearing them. This was wrong. Surface transmission, it emerged, is not that big a problem for covid, but transmission through air via aerosols is a big source of transmission. And so it turns out that face masks do work in this case.
"I changed my mind on masks in March 2020, as testing capacity increased and it became clear how common asymptomatic and pre-symptomatic infection were (since aerosols were the likely vector). I wish that I and others had caught on sooner — and better testing early on might have caused an earlier revision of views — but there was no bad faith involved."
"I’m an epidemiologist. Here’s what I got wrong about covid."(https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/04/20/epidemiolo...)
“We didn’t realize the extent of asymptotic spread…what happened as the weeks and months came by, two things became clear: one, that there wasn’t a shortage of masks, we had plenty of masks and coverings that you could put on that’s plain cloth…so that took care of that problem. Secondly, we fully realized that there are a lot of people who are asymptomatic who are spreading infection. So it became clear that we absolutely should be wearing masks consistently.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/washington-post-live/fa...
People supporting masks were censored for misinformation.
So you would have been one of those censored at the time, despite being backed by the evidence and correct.
What makes you think such mistakes won't happen again?
[1] - https://www.cnn.com/2020/02/29/health/face-masks-coronavirus...
...see how that doesn't actually move the argument forward? I might as well have just said that colorless green clouds are dreaming smartly.
You're welcome to make a counter argument but you need to actually make it.
Here’s an example of two opinions that I think are unequal. “the government has the right to confine people who have not broken any laws to their homes” and “the government does not have the right to confine people who have not broken any laws to their homes.” In Australia, the government has decreed that the first opinion has more merit than the second. Should facebook follow suit, and censor anyone in australia who disagrees?
Ok, the bigger picture with a bigger lens is this: How do you slow the spread of harmful ideas?
You agree that some ideas are "better" than others. I think you would also agree that there is no simple definition over what "better" exactly means. It's complex and often elicits complex discussion.
My point, that you are trying again to skip over, is that presenting any idea as if it is inherently equal in merit to any other idea is fundamentally bad. To be specific, I think this because I believe that good ideas will eventually prove themselves out over time (even if they spread very slowly) while bad ideas will tend to rely on rapid spread to reach critical mass before they are disproven.
Meanwhile, facebook is using the actions described in TFA to ban anti-lockdown accounts in germany. Just like my hypothetical, but in a different country!
But if this:
https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/e09ac35bd7596e18cb21562bcb4b0...
ever becomes my chosen way of doing so, I can only hope someone censors me. And takes me to a nice, comfortable assisted living facility where I cannot hurt myself or others.
P.s. Ever heard of the Gish Gallop?