Killing people
That Georgia Rep has been telling lies about Covid on Twitter.
Twitter temporarily suspended Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) for violating its covid-19 misinformation policy after she falsely claimed the coronavirus was “not dangerous” for some people.
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Greene tweeted Monday that the novel coronavirus was “not dangerous for non-obese people and those under 65.” More than 600,000 people in the United States have died of covid-19.
And not all of them were over 65 or obese or both.
Why would MGT endanger people by lying that way? I know the obvious reasons (politics, attention, stupidity, ignorance), but they never really seem like enough. It’s like seeing a fire engulfing an apartment block full of people, and running around putting obstacles in the way of the firefighters. Why kill people just for the hell of it?
She also made claims about vaccine-related deaths and side effects, calling the coronavirus vaccines “controversial.”
In another tweet, Greene falsely claimed “defeating obesity” would protect people from covid-19 complications and death.
Why not err on the side of caution? Why not just keep her trap shut?
Greene said in a statement that the suspension was “a Communist-style attack on free speech.”
No it isn’t. Free speech doesn’t cover practicing medicine without a license.
President Biden said last week that social media companies were “killing people” by allowing misinformation about the novel coronavirus and vaccines to spread on their platforms.
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Biden’s comments came shortly after Surgeon General Vivek H. Murthy issued an advisory about health misinformation online, which he said had caused some Americans to avoid vaccines or masks, leading to “avoidable illnesses and death.” He called on tech companies to invest in addressing misinformation on their platforms.
This is what I’m saying. Playing this game kills people. The payoff doesn’t seem worth it.
Especially since the people she would be killing are those who will take her seriously; in other words, her own voters. That seems counter-productive.
I’ve got mixed feelings… Don’t want MTG disseminating this crap but also don’t think Twitter or the Biden administration deciding what is and isn’t disinformation.
Even if that were true, in the time it takes to “defeat” obesity, COVID would kill you many times over.
Krugman suggests it’s a kind of loyalty signalingRepublicans Have Their Own Private Autocracyhttps://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/19/opinion/republicans-donald-trump-misinformation.html
See also: https://twitter.com/paulkrugman/status/1415804136742965259
Another take
Jonathan Bernstein
Why Republicans Are Turning Against Vaccines
It seems irrational for elected officials to put their own constituents at risk. But there is a political logic to it.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2021-07-14/republicans-are-playing-anti-vaxx-politics?sref=qzusa8bC
#2 BK
They aren’t the ones that made that determination, health professionals – especially epidemiologists and virologists – did. Biden and twitter are simply acting on that advice.
Greene is a proponent of CrossFit—’Scientology with barbells.’
Old-school Physical Culture, Bernarr Macfadden etc., were consistently in opposition to public health measures and basic preventive care. Bad old ideas never die.
I wouldn’t underestimate the psychological incentives to promote this nonsense.
A lot of people like to think of themselves as bold independent thinkers who “do their own research” and don’t just fall in line with what authorities tell them. Not like the “sheeple” do.
And people like to feel brave and pose as brave. I’ve had multiple people, who weren’t necessarily (it didn’t come up) MAGA types declare that they weren’t going to “live in fear” of COVID. Downplaying COVID is a way of showing off how brave you are.
So yeah, a lot of people are going to feel really good about themselves for standing up to the conventional wisdom, especially (if they’re of a conservative or libertarian bent) in the name of “personal freedom.” Especially since it’s a fairly cheap form of “bravery”: nothing bad is going to happen to someone like MTG for spouting this stuff; the worst thing that can happen is that Twitter suspends or bans her, which is why people like her and Trump scream so loudly about being banned from social media — it’s the imposition of consequences on something they thought was consequence-free for them personally.
Banning or suspending MTG would just further validate her rubbish… if Twitter had actually given a damn they would’ve banned or suspended people for this in the beginning, but they didn’t, and now it’s too late.
In any case, gotta be consistent about free speech because these same medical professionals pretend men are women.