COVID Misinformation Censorship

The cluster debates social media platforms' censorship of content labeled as misinformation during COVID-19, citing examples like the lab leak theory and early warnings that later proved accurate, and argues against suppressing information in favor of countering it with facts.

📉 Falling 0.2x Politics & Society
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Keywords

e.g US IMHO RFK HN DESIGNED OP OK ycombinator.com CAPTCHA misinformation covid disinformation censorship spreading twitter information conspiracy vax spread

Sample Comments

GauntletWizard Jun 5, 2024 View on HN

Yeah, no thanks. Many things were misinformation until they were true. Don't forget the lesson of Li Wenliang[1], who was formally censured for "publishing untrue statements". We now know him as one of the first to document COVID-19.[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Li_Wenliang

jollybean Jul 19, 2021 View on HN

This is upside down.First - there is tons of examples of 'misinformation' in the PDF. It goes into excessive detail. It's an amazing and thorough bit of research actually. If you want a link here it is [1]1) The situation is fluid, facts change which requires change in posture by public health officials - which will give the impression of 'bad information' but really it's not at all for anyone paying close attention.2) People are not censored, they&#

skindoe Jan 17, 2021 View on HN

Terrible. The solution to "misinformation" is good information not hiding the bad information.No one's mind has ever been changed by hiding information.If you can't say "this information is wrong because of x y z" then you are only furthering the "bad" beliefs you are trying to remove.That's not to mention the fact that "misinformation" is a vague political buzzword. Why didn't facebook and twitter or any Corporations care when

encom Nov 6, 2025 View on HN

It's not totally comparable, but if you went against the approved covid narrative a few years ago, you would absolutely get shut down by the big players for "misinformation". Same with the 2020 US election results. And in many cases they acted on behalf of the goverment:https://time.com/7015026/meta-facebook-zuckerberg-covid-bi

sjwalter May 4, 2020 View on HN

Man, this comment thread is really harshing my buzz.So many folks here seem real eager to hype their systems and methods for ensuring all this oh-so easily identifiable misinformation has no route to most, which when implemented would stop this huge threat to our civilization. Typing up their clever ideas, full of good intentions (not being sarcastic, my default presumption is you all mean well), each author implicitly assumes their superiority over the masses who are so easily duped into bel

mc32 Jan 8, 2021 View on HN

Wait...A few months ago people laughed at the suggestion. It was "dangerous" to "deceive" people about Vit D and Covid.Wasn't Twitter suppressing this too? How do they punish themselves for misinformation?Now it comes out. I wonder how many other things will come to light.

entropea Nov 15, 2020 View on HN

Not sure why you're being downvoted either. This scenario is completely true and it absolutely would've been marked as disinformation by Twitter, Facebook, Youtube, etc. It's being marked as disinformation now by Hacker News members without any actual discussion as to why. It's a very valid scenario and a great topic of discussion.

andreilys Jun 24, 2021 View on HN

show people where they were the target of misinformationAh perfect, let Dorsey and Zuck be the arbiters of truth.That definitely has not backfired during covid right? As I recall both platforms suppressed any mention of a lab leak theory as “conspiracy”.

bananabiscuit Mar 9, 2022 View on HN

Nothing in the video, but see somebameforme’s post (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30615313). No need for hasty accusations of spreading misinformation.

Jugurtha Mar 27, 2020 View on HN

Wouldn't "What is HN doing to stop misinformation during Covid-19?" be better?Foreign, domestic, deliberate or otherwise.