Reddit moderators' open letter asks the administration to take action against Covid-19...

[jsilva]

What just happened? Moderators of some of the most popular subreddits have written an open letter to the administration, calling for a ban on any subreddit created with the sole objective of spreading medical disinformation and undermining efforts to battle the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the open letter, the moderators expressed their concerns over the consequences of the spreading of misinformation. Until now, disinformation about Covid-19 has "been allowed to spread readily through inaction and malice" throughout Reddit.

The administration promised to take a stance against the problem, but until this day, it has only quarantined one problematic subreddit, which is said to have "barely [reduced] traffic and does little to stop misinformation."

Out of a broader set of claims made by these problematic subreddits, the most common to see are:

• The pandemic doesn't exist
• Wearing a face mask suffocates you
• This is just a regular flu virus
• It's a bioweapon

With these claims being repeated so often, misinformed people start to believe in them and trust they're correct as they see others in the same boat, creating some kind of hive-mind effect in these communities.

If not dealt with, misinformation can cost lives. For example, unsafe medical advice such as promoting the ingestion or injection of cattle dewormers has been spreading in these subreddits. A known side effect of taking these is sudden death. Although it may sound ridiculous for some, the increase of this practice to treat Covid-19 symptoms forced the FDA to issue a warning about it.

To prevent any more damage, Reddit is asked to "take ownership of their website" by removing the medical misinformation from the platform. Reddit hasn't responded to the letter yet.

The list of subreddits supporting the cause of halting the spreading of Covid-19 misinformation is immense, ranging from small subreddits with less than 500K subscribers to those with over 10 million. From all the ones presented on this list, the most popular ones (+20 million subscribers) are r/aww, r/dataisbeautiful, r/EarthPorn, r/pics, and r/showerthoughts.

Image credit: Brett Jordan

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/90965-reddit-moderators-open-letter-asks-administration-take-action.html

 

[passwordistaco]

We all know the official stance on COVID has always been correct, like it could not possibly have come from a Chinese virology lab. I fully trust these reddit moderators to define wrongthink.

 

[nodfor]

Kneel and repent
Acknowledge the truths spread from mass media about Covid
Or be eternally banned from Reddit - and burn for ever in the seven hells!

The moderators have fulfilled the judgement of the wicked.

 

[havok585]

Moderators on reddit are just bored with their petty lives I guess. Reddit is not a source of credible information first of all, but butthurts over there do like to spread their virtue signaling about lives saved if they say so, lmao.

 

[mgwerner]

Didn't Reddit learn the last time they banned a bunch of people, and their userbase dropped significantly? Guess not.....

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Didn't Reddit learn the last time they banned a bunch of people, and their userbase dropped significantly? Guess not.....

People who think critically, question what they are told, entertain speech from those they disagree with, and generally question The Party/Narrative are not reddit's desired user base. They want consoomers who will get the jab, bash the fash, and buy\spend money on internet stickers while being as advertiser friendly as possible.

It's the same course of action that killed many a small tech forum over the last three decades.

 

[Nobina]

What makes them think the information they have is the correct information? I'm never that confident when it comes to things I don't fully understand and since they are literally Reddit moderators they likely don't know shiet.

 

[Danny101]

The Left can't help themselves to battling wrong think. Or that which does not agree with them. Censorship is a tool of tyrants. Always has been. That's enough to question their narrative of the truth. Let it be. Darwinism will cull the unintelligent. They're always so worried about overpopulation, so it's funny that they 'protests too much'.

 

[Beerfloat]

The Left can't help themselves to battling wrong think. Or that which does not agree with them. Censorship is a tool of tyrants. Always has been. That's enough to question their narrative of the truth. Let it be. Darwinism will cull the unintelligent. They're always so worried about overpopulation, so it's funny that they 'protests too much'.

Reddit is not a government so rather unable to engage in censorship. Instead, these moderators are encouraging it to exercise its own freedom of speech and freedom to associate.

What’s funny is that the right, as is so often the case, is the group that is both the loudest to whine about something - like having to face any slight inconvenience from a raging pandemic - while at the same time being by far the least likely to help with anything that might bring an end in sight to the miserable state of things.

Masks, social distancing, getting vaccinated, preventing the spread of misinformation, shieeeet we can’t be having any of that. Let’s just complain harder.

 

[VaRmeNsI]

Reddit is not a government so rather unable to engage in censorship. Instead, these moderators are encouraging it to exercise its own freedom of speech and freedom to associate.

What’s funny is that the right, as is so often the case, is the group that is both the loudest to whine about something - like having to face any slight inconvenience from a raging pandemic - while at the same time being by far the least likely to help with anything that might bring an end in sight to the miserable state of things.

Masks, social distancing, getting vaccinated, preventing the spread of misinformation, shieeeet we can’t be having any of that. Let’s just complain harder.

Ahh our resident socialist has arrived to restore our covidtopia.

 

[kimo1]

Reddit's userbase has always been extreme far left. Trying to discuss science there is like peeing against the wind.

 

[Squid Surprise]

Too bad Techspot is fine with people spreading misinformation... if only people were required to provide evidence for the lies they spout...

I love how a bunch of people posted in this thread basically saying that Covid is a lie... yet none provided any evidence... maybe because there isn’t any?

 

[pcnthuziast]

Conspiracy theories and the like are almost never useful or of any meaningful utility and more often than not are counterproductive and dangerous. The reality in my estimation is that conspiracies are almost never the thing causing harm, even if true and it is grave human error by the people in power that is the catastrophic destructive force at play. Covid is real, vaccinations are no different then what they have always been, ie a viable tool and the way these things have been handled from the get go has been less than ideal at best. Misinformation is just another element that complicated the aforementioned management, but even without it as a factor, many mistakes were made. Clearly.

 

[Beerfloat]

Reddit's userbase has always been extreme far left. Trying to discuss science there is like peeing against the wind.

If everyone else seems 'extreme far left', maybe the problem is not everyone else.

 

[Sausagemeat]

Wait Reddit isn’t moderated? But that’s where AMD tells its users to go for system support lol.

 

[MaXtor]

14 days to flatten the curve to COVID-22.

The media, the government, and big phrama love you. They would never lie to you, they only want what's best for you. Listen to what they tell you, ignore the constant contradictions. There is no need to look into their history. Be a good citizen.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Reddit is not a government so rather unable to engage in censorship. Instead, these moderators are encouraging it to exercise its own freedom of speech and freedom to associate.

What’s funny is that the right, as is so often the case, is the group that is both the loudest to whine about something - like having to face any slight inconvenience from a raging pandemic - while at the same time being by far the least likely to help with anything that might bring an end in sight to the miserable state of things.

Masks, social distancing, getting vaccinated, preventing the spread of misinformation, shieeeet we can’t be having any of that. Let’s just complain harder.

Funny how exercising freedom of speech for reddit involves removing that freedom from others. And since when do you need to be a government to engage in censorship? That's not just logical nonsense, thats illogical nonsense as well.

When the Left wants to stop "misinformation" they mean "anything that goes against our narrative". People questioning the narrative or "facts" that the Administration have deemed correct is one of the greatest threats to said parties, an any sort of ciritcal thought tends to tear holes in said narrative.

 

[3volv3d]

Conspiracy theories and the like are almost never useful ...

I hate that people use the term conspiracy theory so liberally. Like people who say I'm depressed, when they are sad.

A theory about a conspiracy isnt always smoke without fire. But say conspiracy theory and you discard someone's opinion completely. The term is now literally water for any fire, puts it out and case closed.

I haven't lived since time began, I have zero answers. All I know is our world is built on lies, our systems are broken and we teach our young to follow that system to stay out of trouble and to stay under the radar.
And look at the world now. 2 world wars a fear of a third and final, and several pandemics, this being the worst in a long while.

And while I welcome death because I believe land and resources divided by amount of useless species (humans) we are over populated.

Could I imagine China coming up with a weapon that goes out of control? Sure I can.
Seen enough movies. Japan made Godzilla, which clearly holidays loch ness...
And before people say movies, star nerd sci fi gave us many of the tech devices we use, ideas and perseverance.

But do I trust either side or anyone to tell me the truth, double vaccinated, a gamma variant which has been reported as so strong its a global killer, coming from Brazil, where the population is killing everything in its path for farm land. If there is a higher being, this is glorious karma.

But at the end of the day if you aren't a scientist, at the front line of this, what do you truly know, when I'd imagine most are hushed or coerced to prevent panic in a pandemic.

Food resources for Xmas are apparently going to be like 30xx series gfx cards. Scarce AF. But we will see whats BS and what's true eventually. Until then we watch that space

 

[Beerfloat]

Funny how exercising freedom of speech for reddit involves removing that freedom from others. And since when do you need to be a government to engage in censorship? That's not just logical nonsense, thats illogical nonsense as well.

Because an organization like Reddit can not prevent you from exercising your right to free speech. They can only tell you your speech is not welcome on their site.

When the Left wants to stop "misinformation" they mean "anything that goes against our narrative". People questioning the narrative or "facts" that the Administration have deemed correct is one of the greatest threats to said parties, an any sort of ciritcal thought tends to tear holes in said narrative.

Sure, but you can keep your right to expressing your critical thought that the world is flat and take it somewhere else.

 

[James Ryan]

I hate that people use the term conspiracy theory so liberally. Like people who say I'm depressed, when they are sad.

A theory about a conspiracy isnt always smoke without fire. But say conspiracy theory and you discard someone's opinion completely. The term is now literally water for any fire, puts it out and case closed.

I haven't lived since time began, I have zero answers. All I know is our world is built on lies, our systems are broken and we teach our young to follow that system to stay out of trouble and to stay under the radar.
And look at the world now. 2 world wars a fear of a third and final, and several pandemics, this being the worst in a long while.

And while I welcome death because I believe land and resources divided by amount of useless species (humans) we are over populated.

Could I imagine China coming up with a weapon that goes out of control? Sure I can.
Seen enough movies. Japan made Godzilla, which clearly holidays loch ness...
And before people say movies, star nerd sci fi gave us many of the tech devices we use, ideas and perseverance.

But do I trust either side or anyone to tell me the truth, double vaccinated, a gamma variant which has been reported as so strong its a global killer, coming from Brazil, where the population is killing everything in its path for farm land. If there is a higher being, this is glorious karma.

But at the end of the day if you aren't a scientist, at the front line of this, what do you truly know, when I'd imagine most are hushed or coerced to prevent panic in a pandemic.

Food resources for Xmas are apparently going to be like 30xx series gfx cards. Scarce AF. But we will see whats BS and what's true eventually. Until then we watch that space

Finally, someone who is on the same page as me.
People these days are so far left or so far right it's scary.
It's hard to find people that are open to the idea that some of what is said on both sides of the argument is true. At least to some degree.

 

[Reallyhow]

Funny how exercising freedom of speech for reddit involves removing that freedom from others. And since when do you need to be a government to engage in censorship? That's not just logical nonsense, thats illogical nonsense as well.

When the Left wants to stop "misinformation" they mean "anything that goes against our narrative". People questioning the narrative or "facts" that the Administration have deemed correct is one of the greatest threats to said parties, an any sort of ciritcal thought tends to tear holes in said narrative.

Stopping people from spouting unintelligible nonsense isn't censorship; it's literally saving lives.

This whole MUH RIGHTS push is absolutely hilarious, considering how stupid the people are carrying its banners.

 

[MaXtor]

Stopping people from spouting unintelligible nonsense isn't censorship; it's literally saving lives.

This whole MUH RIGHTS push is absolutely hilarious, considering how stupid the people are carrying its banners.

The largest group of vaccine hesitant are PhD educated, and they are being censored. Consider taking a few minutes to hear this Molecular Biologist speaking about this as well as defending African Americans' right not to be discriminated and segregated.

https://worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhKpC49fCnKbjJ3wEf

 

[thew118]

The largest group of vaccine hesitant are PhD educated, and they are being censored. Consider taking a few minutes to hear this Molecular Biologist speaking about this as well as defending African Americans' right not to be discriminated and segregated.

https://worldstarhiphop.com/videos/video.php?v=wshhKpC49fCnKbjJ3wEf

Yeah, this is pretty much the only anti-vax sentiment I sympathize with. Black people have suffered some absolute BS at the hands of the medical community in the not-so-distant past, so any trepidation there is understandable afaic.

Personally, I got vaccinated, not because there was a crowd I wanted to fit in with, but because my friends who work at hospitals are pretty sick of the fact that their morgues are out of space from COVID-related deaths. Are there risks to getting the vaccine? Sure. Maybe someone is taking action in the midst of the trolley dilemma, flipping the switch and killing the 1 to save the 1000. All I know is that the threat of COVID is real, and everything else pales in comparison.

 

[Beerfloat]

The largest group of vaccine hesitant are PhD educated, and they are being censored.

Yeah, about 1.5% of people have a doctoral degree.

Even if all of them were vaccine hesitant (and they are not, just the opposite) that statement would not make sense.

 

[MaXtor]

Yeah, about 1.5% of people have a doctoral degree.

Even if all of them were vaccine hesitant (and they are not, just the opposite) that statement would not make sense.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.20.21260795v1.full.pdf

From the study, page 12:
"The large decrease in COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy January-May among those with ≤high school education went a long way towards narrowing the education gap; still this group has a relatively high hesitancy prevalence. Those with professional degrees (e.g., JD, MBA) and PhDs were the only education groups without a decrease in hesitancy, and by May, those with PhDs had the highest hesitancy. To our knowledge, no other study has evaluated education with this level of granularity, which was possible due to our unusually large sample size (>10,000 participants with PhDs)."