Will Elite Trader please take a stand against dangerous anti-vaxxer bullshit?

Buy1Sell2 · Feb 3, 2022

userque said:
@Magna
@Frederick Foresight
@wrbtrader

FWIW: A quick search revealed Twitter's policy and a reference to Facebook's policy:

COVID-19 misleading information policy

Overview
December 2021
You may not use Twitter’s services to share false or misleading information about COVID-19 which may lead to harm.

Even as scientific understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic continues to develop, we’ve observed the emergence of persistent conspiracy theories, alarmist rhetoric unfounded in research or credible reporting, and a wide range of false narratives and unsubstantiated rumors, which left uncontextualized can prevent the public from making informed decisions regarding their health, and puts individuals, families and communities at risk.

Content that is demonstrably false or misleading and may lead to significant risk of harm (such as increased exposure to the virus, or adverse effects on public health systems) may not be shared on Twitter. This includes sharing content that may mislead people about the nature of the COVID-19 virus; the efficacy and/or safety of preventative measures, treatments, or other precautions to mitigate or treat the disease; official regulations, restrictions, or exemptions pertaining to health advisories; or the prevalence of the virus or risk of infection or death associated with COVID-19.

What is in violation of this policy?

In order for content related to COVID-19 to considered violative under this policy, it must:

advance a claim of fact, expressed in definitive terms;

be demonstrably false or misleading, based on widely available, authoritative sources; and

be likely to impact public safety or cause serious harm

Tweet Removal

We may require customers to delete Tweets that are found to violate this policy and are severely harmful. We may also temporarily lock you out of your account before you can Tweet or share information again. These tweets will accrue 2 strikes in accordance with our strike policy stated below. We will require the deletion of Tweets that contain, for example:

False claims about COVID-19 that invoke a deliberate conspiracy by malicious and/or powerful forces, such as:

The pandemic is a hoax, or part of a deliberate attempt at population control, or that 5G wireless technology is causing COVID-19.

COVID-19 is not a real disease.

Immunizations are part of a global surveillance, population control or depopulation effort.

Vaccines (in general) are dangerous and the adverse effects that have been covered up by governments/the medical industry.

Vulnerable groups (such as pregnant women, the elderly, or children) are being experimented on.

That COVID-19 vaccines are causing magnetic reactions in individuals who have been vaccinated.

That vaccines approved by health agencies (such as Pfizer's Comirnaty vaccine in the United States) did not actually receive full approval/authorization, and therefore that the vaccines are untested, “experimental” or somehow unsafe.

Claims that specific groups or people (or other demographically-identifiable identity) are more or less prone to be infected or to develop adverse symptoms on the basis of their membership in that group;

False or misleading claims about potentially harmful and unapproved treatments or preventative measures, for example, that chlorine dioxide or Povidone-iodine can be used as a prophylactic or in the treatment of COVID-19.

False or misleading information about official regulations, restrictions, or exemptions pertaining to health advisories.

Any efforts to promote, advertise, facilitate the sale of, or provide instructions on how to create fraudulent vaccination cards (or other digital records) or “exemption cards."

False information about widely accepted testing methodologies, such as that PCR tests are unable to detect the virus.

False claims that suggest that vaccines contain deadly and severely harmful ingredients.

False affiliation - Accounts which misrepresent their affiliation, or share content that falsely represents its affiliation to a medical practitioner, public health official or agency, research institution, or that falsely suggests expertise on COVID-19 issues.

Tweet Label

When Tweets include misleading information about COVID-19, we may place a label on those Tweets that includes corrective information about that claim. In cases where we determine there is potential for harm associated with the misleading claim, we will disable the ability for others to Retweet, Quote Tweet, or engage in other ways to prevent the spread of the misleading information. These tweets will accrue 1 strike in accordance with our strike policy stated below.

In some cases we may also add labels to provide context in situations where authoritative (scientific or otherwise) opinion might change or is changing over time, in situations where local context is important, or when the potential for harm is less direct or imminent. We may also apply labels on Tweets linking to content from a third-party website that would otherwise violate our policies if the content were posted directly on Twitter. Tweets with labels that meet this criteria will receive a label that provides credible and authoritative information, but will not accrue a strike in accordance with our strike policy stated below.

We may apply labels to Tweets that contain, for example:

False or misleading information about preventative measures one can take to avoid infection, such as claims that face masks cause hypoxia or bacteria pneumonia, or do not work to reduce transmission or to protect against COVID-19.

False or misleading information suggesting that unapproved treatments can be curative of COVID-19.

False or misleading information regarding the safety or science behind approved or authorized COVID-19 vaccines, such as:

The vaccines will cause you to be sick, spread the virus, or would be more harmful than getting COVID-19.

Tweets that incite fear or misrepresent the ingredients or contents of COVID-19 vaccines.

Tweets that mischaracterize the nature and science behind mRNA vaccines, and how they work.

Tweets that claim vaccines alter genetic code.

Tweets that misrepresent or misuse official reporting tools/statistics.

False or misleading claims that people who have received the vaccine can spread or shed the vaccine (or symptoms, or immunity) to unvaccinated people.

False or misleading information that misrepresent the protective effect of vaccines, to make claims contrary to health authorities. Claims that misrepresent research or statistical findings pertaining to the severity of the disease, prevalence of the virus, or effectiveness of widely accepted preventative measures, treatments, or vaccines.

When a label is applied to a Tweet, this typically entails:

Presenting a warning message on the Tweet

Showing an additional prompt to warn people before sharing or liking the Tweet;

Reducing the visibility of the Tweet on Twitter and/or preventing it from being recommended;

Turning off likes, replies, and Retweets; and/or

Providing a link to additional explanations or clarifications, such as in a curated landing page or relevant Twitter policies.

What is not a violation of this policy?
We seek to protect robust, public debate about the response to COVID-19, and recognize that the state of scientific knowledge about certain aspects of the pandemic and public response to it (including the development of vaccines) is still evolving. In the absence of other policy violations, the following are generally not in violation of this policy:

Strong commentary, opinions, and/or satire, provided these do not contain false or misleading assertions of fact.

Campaigns against official advisories or recommendations. People are entitled to organize and campaign around matters that are important to them, so long as they’re not advancing false and harmful misinformation in the process.

Counterspeech. We allow for direct responses to misleading information which seek to undermine its impact by correcting the record, amplify credible information, and educate the wider community about the prevalence and dynamics of misleading information.

Personal anecdotes or first-person accounts. We do not enforce the COVID-19 misinformation policy on reports or first-person accounts of side-effects, injury, or harm alleged to have been caused by COVID-19 vaccines, or other matters pertaining to COVID-19.

Public debate about the advancement of COVID-19 science and research, including debate about research related to COVID-19, such as the effectiveness of treatments and mitigation measures, so long as the claims don’t intentionally misrepresent research findings.

Who can report violations of this policy?
While we have recently launched a customer report feature in some countries, we primarily enforce this policy in close coordination with trusted partners, including public health authorities, NGOs and governments, and continue to use and consult with information from those sources when reviewing content.

We also leverage proactive detection using a combination of keyword heuristics and machine learning models to identify harmful forms of COVID-19 related misleading information.

What happens if you violate this policy?

Strike system

The consequences for violating our COVID-19 misleading information policy depend on the severity and type of the violation and the account’s history of previous violations. In instances where accounts repeatedly violate this policy, we will use a strike system to determine if further enforcement actions should be applied. We believe this system further helps to reduce the spread of potentially harmful and misleading information on Twitter, particularly for high-severity violations of our rules.

Repeated violations of this policy are enforced against on the basis of the number of strikes an account has accrued for violations of this policy:

1 strike: No account-level action

2 strikes: 12-hour account lock

3 strikes: 12-hour account lock

4 strikes: 7-day account lock

5 or more strikes: Permanent suspension

If you believe that your account was locked or suspended in error, you can submit an appeal.

Reducing Visibility of Content Related to COVID-19 Misinformation

We may reduce the visibility of tweets or accounts that we believe with high confidence to be in violation of the COVID-19 misinformation policy. Limitations on the visibility of Tweets and/or accounts resulting from this framework expire automatically after a limited period of time, but may be re-applied (either manually or automatically) if we determine that the accounts have continued to violate the policy. We may reduce the visibility by:

Making Tweets and Retweets from those accounts ineligible to appear in certain parts of the Twitter product (such as top Search results)

Displaying Replies from the account in a lower position in conversations

Excluding Tweets by the account and/or the actual account in email or in-product recommendations

Permanent Suspension

We may immediately permanently suspend accounts that represent the following violative behaviors:

False affiliation: If the account is determined to misrepresent their affiliation, or share content that falsely represents its affiliation as a medical practitioner, public health official or agency, research institution, or that falsely suggests expertise on COVID-19 issues.

Repeated Violations: If we determine that the account repeatedly violates the COVID-19 misinformation policy over a 30-day time period, or if we have determined that the account has been set up for the expressed purpose of Tweeting false or misleading information about COVID-19.

Additional resources

Learn more about our work to fight misleading information about COVID-19 here, and our expanded approach to COVID-19 vaccine misleading information here.

Learn more about our range of enforcement options and our approach to policy development and enforcement.

https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/medical-misinformation-policy

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12 Things You Can't Post About the Coronavirus on Facebook
The social media network targets misinformation surrounding COVID-19, vaccines
by Michelle Crouch, AARP, February 24, 2021

En español | Facebook is cracking down on misinformation about the coronavirus and COVID-19 vaccines with sweeping new rules about what can and can't be posted on its social media platforms.

The company now has an exhaustive list of more than 50 specific false claims about the coronavirus it does not allow, ranging from saying the virus is manmade to posting that it's safer to get the disease rather than the vaccine. The rules also extend to Instagram, which Facebook owns.

Facebook has come under scrutiny during the pandemic for allowing conspiracy theories and anti-vaccine rhetoric to spread.

"The original idea was that Facebook was a public square where you can come in and say anything you want,” says Bhaskar Chakravorti, an economist who studies digital technology use and dean of global business at the Fletcher School at Tufts University. “Now they're realizing if they're creating a health hazard, they need to put on some constraints."

Research shows that falsehoods spread significantly faster than the truth on social media, and those age 65 and older are particularly vulnerable to misinformation. A 2019 study published in Science Advances found that found older adults are seven times as likely as younger people to share fake or misleading content on Facebook. The researchers hypothesized that some older adults may not have the digital media literacy and experience to recognize untruths.

Rules tighten during pandemic but are tough to enforce
Facebook has gradually stepped up its efforts to combat harmful content related to COVID-19. Early in the pandemic, it announced a policy to promote posts with accurate coronavirus information, to put warning labels on misinformation and to push it lower in people's feeds. At that point, the platform said it would remove false information “that could lead to imminent physical harm.” (Disclosure: News and information related to the pandemic published by AARP appears in Facebook's Coronavirus (COVID-19) Information Center.)

Older adults are seven times as likely as younger people to share fake or misleading content on Facebook.

In October, Facebook banned ads discouraging vaccines. Two months later, it began removing posts with vaccine misinformation that had been debunked by public health experts. Then, in early February, the tech giant took its strongest stance yet, expanding the list of false claims it would not allow, and threatening to ban users, groups or pages that repeatedly spread misinformation.

In an email, Facebook declined to say how many posts, pages and groups it has taken down under its newest rules, but it noted that it removed over a million pieces of content with harmful COVID-19 misinformation from Facebook and Instagram in the fourth quarter of 2020.

Chakravorti says the platform's long list of rules offers clarity both for the public and for the platform's internal army of fact-checkers about what's permissible and what crosses the line.

Still, with billions of new posts every day, it's impossible to keep all misinformation off the platform, says Anna-Sophie Harling, who searches for and reports fake news as managing director for Europe's NewsGuard.

"They obviously have a massive scaling issue,” Harling says. “It is still way too easy to find false vaccine and COVID misinformation online.”

Harling says as long as the platform's algorithm prioritizes user engagement and viral content over credible information, some users will continue to see sensational headlines and fake news.

Coronavirus, COVID-19 vaccine posts that aren't allowed
In its vaccine policy statement, Facebook says it generally allows “claims that are expressing a personal anecdote or experience,” unless they promote or advocate harmful action. For some questionable content, Facebook adds a warning label and downranks it to reduce the number of people who see it. But under the new rules, it will remove misinformation that has been repeatedly debunked by independent fact-checkers.

AARP Membership — $12 for your first year when you sign up for Automatic Renewal
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Here are 12 examples of the type of posts that are not allowed (the full list is at ):

1. “Sure, you can take vaccines, if you don't mind putting poison in your body.” Facebook does not allow posts that say the COVID-19 vaccines or their ingredients are toxic, poisonous, harmful or dangerous. It also prohibits any content calling to action, advocating or promoting that others not get the shot.

2. “The COVID-19 vaccines were not tested against a placebo during clinical trials.” Facebook will remove inaccurate claims about how the vaccine was developed or its ingredients. That includes claims that the vaccine contains toxic or harmful ingredients, microchips, animal products or anything not on the vaccine ingredient list. Also prohibited: claims that the vaccine was not tested, or that people died as a result of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine during clinical trials.

3. “It's safer to just get the disease rather than the vaccine.” Claims that building natural immunity is safer than vaccine-acquired immunity are barred.

4. “The COVID-19 vaccines won't protect you.” Facebook prohibits posts that say the vaccines do not provide any immunity or that they're not effective in preventing COVID-19. The authorized vaccines were found to be about 95 percent effective in clinical trials.

5. “The COVID-19 vaccine turned me into a monkey.” It's OK to post about your vaccine side effects, but Facebook does not allow claims about side effects that are “incredulous or irrational.”

6. “COVID-19 is no more dangerous than the flu.” Posts that deny the existence of COVID-19 or downplay it are banned. Any claim that the number of deaths from COVID-19 is much lower than the official figure must include additional information or context.

7. “The coronavirus is actually a bioweapon.” Facebook does not allow content that says COVID-19 is manmade, manufactured or bioengineered, or that it was created by an individual, government or country.

8. “This herbal remedy will prevent COVID-19.” You can't tout an unapproved product as a way to cure or prevent COVID-19, or say that a specific activity or treatment results in immunity. In addition, Facebook won't let you sell medical or respiratory face masks or COVID-19 test kits on the platform.

9. “Did you know COVID-19 was actually patented (or predicted) many years ago?” Facebook will delete any posts that say COVID-19 has been patented or that it was predicted, including during the “Event 201” pandemic simulation hosted by Johns Hopkins University in 2019.

10. “The COVID-19 vaccine causes infertility.” Facebook forbids anything that says the COVID-19 vaccines kill or seriously harm people. You also cannot make assertions that the vaccines cause autism, that they change people's DNA or that they infect people with the coronavirus.

11. “Face masks don't help prevent the spread of COVID-19.” Content that discourages mask wearing is banned, including posts that say face masks are connected to 5G technology, that masks can make the wearer sick or that health authorities do not recommend that healthy people wear masks.

12. “Hospitals kill patients to increase their COVID numbers and get more money!” Facebook will remove content that inaccurately represents the access, availability or eligibility of health services such as hospitals. That includes claims that a specific hospital is closed or that only certain people are allowed to receive medical care for COVID-19.

Michelle Crouch is a contributing writer who has covered health and personal finance for some of the nation's top consumer publications. Her work has appeared in Reader's Digest, Real Simple, Prevention, The Washington Post and The New York Times.

More on Vaccines

Common vaccine myths

AARP calls for improvement to vaccine sign-up systems

What you need to know about the vaccine

https://www.aarp.org/health/conditi...cebook-blocks-coronavirus-misinformation.html
More...

Frederick Foresight · Feb 3, 2022

FortuneTeller said:
Fred, are you trying to say there are no dangers at all from vaccinations?

This article from 1999 says this is not correct. And this is just one example.

Public should be told that vaccines may have long term adverse effects (nih.gov)
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The greater risk is in not getting the vaccine.

gwb-trading · Feb 3, 2022

Magna said:
I just came across this study released a few weeks ago from Johns Hopkins University. Its summary "concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects, they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument."

Now I am not arguing for or against its conclusions, simply that if you had publicly been against lockdowns which were imposed throughout many parts of the world you would have been declared a threat to society, unpatriotic, and banned from most social media for spreading dangerous misinformation.

My point is that "dangerous misinformation" is often in the eyes of the beholder and turns out to be the truth a short time later. So despite the OP's claim that these things are obvious to determine I have to keep asking the question of what standard should be used at ET to censor ideas you disagree with, ideas you don't like. And please be specific.
More...

Let's call this study by economists at the right-wing "The Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise" housed within the John Hopkins university out for what it is -- flawed meta-analysis where they cherry picked which studies would be included in their meta-analysis study to provide their pre-determined result. "After three levels of screening, 34 studies ultimately qualified. Of those 34 eligible studies, 24 qualified for inclusion in the meta-analysis."

This institute at John Hopkins is really no different than the right-wing Hoover Institute at Stanford (which professors are demanding be given the boot) which manufactured endless Covid misinformation and gave us Scott Atlas.

This reminds me of the meta-studies performed on Ivermectin. Tell us how they turned out in hindsight.

Let's take a look at the history and information about the lead author at the right-wing Johns Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics who funded this study. Of course the study has been hyped by Cato and all the other conservative websites and news organizations.

Here is the bio of the lead author...

Steve H. Hanke is a Professor of Applied Economics and Founder & Co-Director of The Johns
Hopkins Institute for Applied Economics, Global Health, and the Study of Business Enterprise. He
is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Troubled Currencies Project at the Cato Institute, a
contributor at National Review, a well-known currency reformer, and a currency and commodity
trader. Prof. Hanke served on President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers, has been an
adviser to five foreign heads of state and five foreign cabinet ministers, and held a cabinet-level
rank in both Lithuania and Montenegro. He has been awarded seven honorary doctorate degrees
and is an Honorary Professor at four foreign institutions. He was President of Toronto Trust
Argentina in Buenos Aires in 1995, when it was the world’s best-performing mutual fund.
Currently, he serves as Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Advanced Metallurgical Group N.V.
in Amsterdam. In 1998, he was named one of the twenty-five most influential people in the world
by World Trade Magazine. In 2020, Prof. Hanke was named a Knight of the Order of the Flag.

So in review -- The first thing they did was exclude any study from their meta-analysis that would not provide the pre-determined result they desired -- from that point onward it is easy to manipulate the information into the desired results of the funders.

These "meta-analysis studies" have reached the point in the Covid era where they simply serve to abuse science, statistics, and rationality.

Tags: COVIDLOCKDOWNS COVIDMISINFORMATION

ph1l · Feb 3, 2022

Frederick Foresight said:
Except that it's largely, but not exclusively, limited one forum, Politics.

I'm not much of a joiner.
More...

At least nobody will say you don't have a sense of humor.

Grantx · Feb 3, 2022

Frederick Foresight said:
Smaller web sites need not have as comprehensive a screening mechanism as large ones.
More...

Why not go start your own website and see for yourself how much work is incolved? You can impose heavy restrictions and ban anyone who doesn't agree with you.

In the meantime, quit telling others how things need to be done?

wrbtrader · Feb 3, 2022

Frederick Foresight said:
The greater risk is in not getting the vaccine.
More...

All vaccines (immunization) since 1100s have had adverse effects (short-term, long-term) although they didn't begin to document until the 1700s...

Greatly dependent upon the health status of the person being vaccinated, the timeline of the vaccination, and contaminants (production) in the vaccines.

We're lucky to have moved beyond the years of how they used to vaccinate people...those methods alone killed or injured many people.

Since the invention of computers, scientists have better models to determine if the benefits outweigh the risks in general.

On top of that, scientists have real-world data to determine if the benefits are continuing to outweigh the risks in general.

Think about the fact that every year in the United States, about 350 people are killed in bath- or shower-related accidents, about 5000 people are killed when food lodges in their windpipe, and about 50 people are struck and killed by lightning.

However, few of us consider taking a bath, eating solid food or walking outside on a rainy day as unsafe activities.

We just figure that the benefits of the activity outweigh the risks.

Besides, the Trump administration did a good job in using Operation Warp Speed to analyze the risk assessments of the vaccines until Nov 2020 and after that...it was up to the Biden administration to distribute the vaccines to the population.

Did anybody promise 100% that there will not be short-term effects (e.g. sore arm, fatigue and maybe a fever after immunization), did anybody promise 100% that there will not be long-term effects (e.g. someone with medical allergies, someone that's immuno-compromised after immunization) ?

The answer is NO and they know that overwhelmingly that vaccines have prevented a disaster like the 1918 Influenza Pandemic that killed off +50 million people globally.

Historically, this is an unhealthy society, and people have always bitch and complain about vaccinations including protesting since the 1700s even after it saves their asses. Just as weird, misinformation/disinformation about vaccines has been around since the 1700s.

Thus, if someone rather takes their chances with being not vaccinated...that's their god-given right but stop bitching about when the Pandemic will end and stop making it political.

Yet, they must remember that governments are obligated to stop a Pandemic from killing off most of its citizens from diseases because there's no other better tool for accomplishing that than vaccines.

If people truly wanted this Pandemic to end...they will just stop the bullshit. Unfortunately, I see more Variants of Concerns coming because we're an unhealthy society that can not stop the bullshit.

Therefore, protect your family and your own ass. Screw everybody else and hopefully the government will wake up and stop trying to babysit these idiots to do what they don't want to do.

wrbtrader

Frederick Foresight · Feb 3, 2022

Grantx said:
In the meantime, quit telling others how things need to be done?
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I said they should do it, I don’t think I said they need to do it. They ought to do it. You, on the other hand, need to be less stupid.

Frederick Foresight · Feb 3, 2022

ph1l said:
At least nobody will say you don't have a sense of humor.
View attachment 277275
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That’s pretty good. But I was referring to the idea of volunteering (which I bolded in the post I quoted) when I posted that I’m not much of a joiner.

Van_der_Voort_4 · Feb 3, 2022

Good analogy,Fauci is very similar moron!

Field Marshal Haig has gone down in history as the general who callously sent hundreds of thousands of Tommies to their deaths.

Spikevax !

wrbtrader · Feb 3, 2022

Frederick Foresight said:
I said they should do it, I don’t think I said they need to do it. They ought to do it. You, on the other hand, need to be less stupid.
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I think Grantx forgot this is the Feedback section...

Members come here to this section to make "suggestions" about the forum to ET management.

wrbtrader