Today I had a frightening interaction on Facebook with a friend of my wife's cousin. He claimed "the new COVID-19 virus had never been tested on humans, only animals" and when I called him on his misinformation and pointed out that the phase 3 trial for the Pfizer vaccine included 43,000 people he shrugged and told me he was entitled to his opinions, and he just had different sources.
Because it's not factually correct, it's stating a full on falsehood (no human studies) and then doubling down when challenged on this falsehood.
You can believe what you want about all sorts of things about the vaccine, but there _are_ fundamental facts, and that's what I find disturbing about this mode of thinking. Spreading misinformation on purpose and then covering it under the guise of "just my opinion, man"
And nobody said anything about censoring him or "deplatforming" him. But some basic human decency would be nice.
It's spreading it, willfully, that's frightening. The consequences of propagation of bad public health information, and also what it says about the possibilities of public discourse, when it's considered acceptable by people to simply ignore facts in favour of preferred falsehoods.
We can argue many things about the Pfizer vaccine. And it's his choice to get it or not. But telling people it underwent no human testing is lying to people.
Sure it’s dumb and poorly informed. There have always been dumb people spreading bad ideas. It is not our responsibility to force them to agree with us or de-platform them if they won’t agree with a certain narrative. This is called common human decency.
Seeing people you know believe in bullshit makes it harder to believe that you and the people around you believe in what is right and do not believe in bullshit. The idea that you might not be right and might instead be believing in bullshit is uncomfortable to a lot of people.
Re-read what I wrote, where did I say anything about deplatforming? Yes, I understand TFA was about YouTube deplatforming people, but the comment I was replying to was about people's need to learn basic media criticism/critical thought.
Frankly, it's about holding other human beings to basic standards when they make pronouncements in public. Entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts, etc.
Did you ask for further explanations? What are his sources? "His opinions" may refer to the fact that he doesn't trust the secondary source you quoted in "the phase 3 trial for the Pfizer vaccine included 43,000 people", or the primary source, or the very process/protocol of this trial...
He sent me some "sources" in a private google drive link that was access restricted and required me to enter email address to request access -- which I wasn't going to do, as said personal also makes his living doing multilevel marketing and as a "life coach"; not a contact list I have any desire to be on.
> He sent me some "sources"
((...))
> required me to enter email address to request access
Such a "source" often lets you better understand what/how such material works on some people. I played this a few times and was never disappointed. A disposable email address may work.
This is somehow terrifying.