Should PF mods be responsible for stopping COVID misinformation?<<MOD WARNING>>

Within the context of our TOS.

We see that all the time, and it's up to each and everyone of us to decide whether the info is accurate or not.

I would submit that anyone who is unwilling and/or unable to do that should participate in a less challenging forum that doesn't require people to think and fact-check for themselves. Our moderators have got enough on their plates already.

 

Especially with the big salaries of the moderators and all their paid research assistances each has, huh? LOL

 

No.

 

Do you think 11 months into the pandemic, there aren't people who have decided one way or the other for themselves?

 

Would the removal of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act impact this discussion? I know they mention social media like Facebook, Youtube and such but would sites like reddit and forums be effected as well?

The section states:

So that section protects the provider from being sued for what a user may say or upload. Do things like Political Forum and Reddit or the late Voat full under that category? If they do I would expect heavy moderation in order for those sites to survive.

 

If the mods did step in this entire section of the forums would cease to exist.
Fine with me.

 

Interesting, I suppose you do have a point on the irony angle, since PF has actually created a specific forum for "Coronavirus (COVID-19) News" and a child of it, "Coronavirus Pandemic Discussions".

It is simply a fact that PF doesn't have much tolerance for open discussion of its moderation policies.

So I'll just say this, If you want facts about the virus, don't look for them here.

 

You pose an excellent question.

Are the mods also censors? Shall they enforce any and all official narratives? Shall they penalize any views dissenting from the Fauci Narrative?

I think not.

They should do what they're doing now--making sure the discussions are courteous and in compliance with house rules.

 

Good thing we're on PF that doesn't have freedom of speech, yet it seems like we still have no limits on our knowledge.

You said:"This is not science, but (incorrect) mathematics."

Science runs on math. You can't have scientific discoveries without math.

That's not freedom of speech. Freedom of speech includes protections from consequences such as the heckler's veto. The idea is that the act of speaking is worth protecting, regardless of the consequences. PF doesn't operate on that logic.

It's acceptable if your argument is something worth mocking. You're saying scientific facts don't exist? That math doesn't matter? That's dumb.

1. Scientific as in a process.
2. Fact as in having a truth value

Add them together- A proposition that has it's truth value from the process in which it was derived from. Don't need to know the process, just need to know that scientific facts refers to propositions that derive their truth value from a process. We can fill in the details later. This logic. The best argument you have going forward is that inductive or abductive logic isn't logic. Or perhaps you're arguing the philosophy of science doesn't exist. Which is dumb.

Well you didn't know what logistic regression is, so I'm taking the seriousness of your dismissals with the seriousness of my dismals.

Why not expand the TOS then to include misleading information from bad sources? It forces you to be better then you are now. Is that not the point of debate? To arrive at better conclusions than we had previously?

I'm perfectly fine with that. I would rather the mods say my sources are bad than engage in debate on faulty sources.

I do. I think some people are getting info from bad sources who need help getting out of their rut of bad sources.

Probably. Or the trolls would have to learn what logistic regression is.

I know but still. It would do people a lot of benefits to be forced to see their sources for what they are.

I'm not saying we can't have these discussions. What I'm saying is that we need to engage in discussions with good sources. If people rely on youtube videos with no way of backing up their claims? Then that's just disingenuous debate right there.

 

We're capable of deciding for ourselves what is accurate and inaccurate on our own.

This is the Political Forum, Kranes. If it's censorship you want, Twitter is the platform for you.

 

Only if they are scientists with expertise related to the field.

As a moderator of a US history forum [with a section of current events] I had to ponder this matter.
Personally I'm an operator of Italian Civil Protection and I'm dealing with this pandemic, but I'm not a scientist of the field, so how could I moderate this or that theory or simply opinion about SARS-Cov-2, Covid-19 and so on?

Generally moderators should pay attention to form, not to contents, otherwise that would be censorship.

 

That’s just restating your original position. You haven’t touched my argument that pf already censors us. If my argument is that you need to get better sources and you think that’s censorship? That speaks volumes to your ability to process information and internet literacy.

I honestly agree with you. I have to grade my students based on how well they use sources and it’s not easy at all. But I am talking about the form of knowledge and not the knowledge itself. If it comes from a bad source and the argument can’t be sustained because it’s a bad source? Just put up a warning saying that the source is unsubstantiated. The test for this can be decided by the mods.

 

There is freedom of speech.

Science uses mathematics to formulate "theories of science" into "laws of science". This formulation of a theory, into a closed functional system, allows for the power of prediction. This is how science can "predict nature" via falsifiable models.

Freedom of speech does not include protection from consequences.

There is no such thing as a "scientific fact". There are only facts. I never said that "math doesn't matter". Now you're just making schiff up...

1. Incomplete thought... What "process", precisely? Define your terms.
2. With regard to facts, truth value is irrelevant. Facts are merely a function of logic (so that one doesn't have to form arguments whenever one is in agreement with someone else). The predicate is simply assumed to be a True and then one moves on from there. Facts are time savers! If you wish to talk about truth values, then that's fine, but using the word 'fact' to refer to that makes no sense in the English language.

See above. And I am not arguing either of those things.

I know what logistic regression is. I was simply asking you what your point was about it (you never made one).

 

Well ... to filter sources is a legitimate action with reference to the editor line of a forum.

Just to say, on History Channel there are articles about aliens in the past[!], on serious history forums aliens are relegated to the section of speculative history. But aliens [not Mexicans! I mean extraterrestrial beings ...] are a fantasy matter until someone will find evidences of their existence.

Vaccines exist. And the introduction of a new technology to produce them is a scientific matter. [Not to repeat that there are also anti-Covid-19 vaccines produced in a traditional way].
The political perspective is about trusting or not trusting the scientists with reference to the potential advantages or disadvantages for the society [this is the job of the politicians]. This means that the discussion is open.

So ... it's all about the editor line of this forum. If it says that we are going to follow the majority of the scientific community ... the consequences would be obvious.

 

That's fine. I understand that. Would it be possible at the very least to come up with a standard for which to judge sources? Some sort of universal standard in which all posters can abide by?

 

You are basically asking for the same thing in a different way. People are more than capable of judging for themselves. I personally like the full-bore fringe some posters camp on like the last island in a flooded river.

 

Yup. Because I've seen enough threads that get derailed by the "I don't like your source, so come up with another one" argument. Wouldn't it be so much better if we had some standard we can refer to that tells us how trustworthy a source is?

 

Or you could just ignore those posters. I have a growing ignore list in which both sides of the aisle are well represented. Has nothing to do with politics. I just find that some people are a total waste of time. I assume I am on the ignore list of others and am perfectly fine with that as well. We all have our own temperaments, reasons for posting, etc.

 

Sure. I don't deny that. Most problems though are caused by poor communication, especially over the internet where we miss out on body language. So what if we helped improved that communication by getting standards for how to talk to each other? We already have some. Why not expand it to the sources as well?

 

PF would end up being like a subreddit where only certain sources from the same astroturfers are allowed. You would have The Washington Post but not the Washington Times or the New York Times but not the New York post allowed. It becomes an echochamber. It is why I quit posting at reddit. They basically ruled anything not left-wing not credible and then used that as an excuse to ban anybody not toeing the DNC line from those subs.

 

Good post by moderator. After all, who is qualified to decide what is misinformation and what isn't?

Hahaha you actually think everything on google is true?

 

Then why should you have your viewpoint if you can't hold it up to a certain standard of facts? I'm not saying this to be rude, but this is the standard in which I hold my students to. They have to reach a certain threshold for me to think their source can be trustworthy. If you can't sustain your argument with acceptable sources then why should you have it?

No, but I know that I can trust media by using some techniques and sources to indicate whether or not I should trust it.

 

Dictating what is or is not acceptable to your students is indoctrination in my mind. It would be the same for the site. It would be particularly problematic on things like conservation and the environment where there isn't a mainstream source for all things.

Anyway, you have your opinion about it and I have mine. In the end, I was a mod at a political site that was largely hands-off except for conduct related to civility and it was still an absolutely horrible experience. The first 45 minutes at least of my every long-on was consumed by the same handful of posters reporting, trolling, demanding I do this that or the other or they were quitting, so on and so forth. It was so incredibly frustrating that I quit the site completely after less than a year as a mod. I am not really open to the idea of adding one more thing for them to have to play parent to a bunch of childish adults on.

 

I personally reported the widely popular "Major Study Finds Masks Don’t Reduce COVID-19 Infection Rates" thread asking that it be moved to the conspiracy theory section because the blog that the thread is based on crafted a misinformation piece built on verifiable false claims (even the authors of the study it cites have since come out and called B.S.). Moderators didn't agree with my request, the thread remains.

I did my part in reporting something I thought was misplaced but just because it wasn't acted upon doesn't mean it was the end of my efforts. I posted my own thread containing a number of non-extremist blog sources showing the falsehoods in the aforementioned thread and I bump it from time to time so that it remains visible to all of us, to newcomers, to lurkers. So would I prefer that blatantly false COVID information be moved or flagged? Yes. But even though its not I'm still totally empowered to fight myth with fact in my own posts and that's just fine.