Tyler O’Neil: “Twitter Files” Discover how the Left uses Big Tech in order to create the illusion of Scientific Consensus.
The Left has used the concept of scientific consensus to silence debate about controversial issues for a long time. But the Twitter Files revealed just how far some Big Tech companies have gone to suppress legitimate scientific dissent—particularly on COVID-19 pandemic policy.
Jay Bhattacharya (a Stanford professor of policy in health), was put on the Twitter Trends Blacklist for advocating for focus protection of vulnerable people and ending lockdowns. The Free Press The lesson he learned 2022.
“I learned in a very concrete and painful way the effects of Washington and Silicon Valley working together to marginalize unpopular ideas and people to create an illusion of consensus,” Bhattacharya wrote.
He and his associates published the anti-lockdown document, which he recalled to Stanford. Great Barrington DeclarationFrancis Collins, National Institutes of Health Director, fired Collins and his aides. “fringe epidemiologists” We asked Anthony Fauci about it. “a quick and devastating published takedown” This declaration. Collins and Fauci worked together to delegitimize this declaration, despite the fact that it was based on scientific principles.
Twitter’s COVID-19 censorship spread far beyond Bhattacharya, as the Free Press journalist David Zweig revealed in an installment of The Twitter Files.
Twitter cast aspersions The medical opinion was that of Dr. Martin Kulldorff at Harvard Medical School. He disagreed with Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines regarding the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Thinking that everyone must be vaccinated is as scientifically flawed as thinking that nobody should,” Kulldorff wrote. “COVID vaccines are important for older high-risk people, and their care-takers. Those with prior natural infection do not need it. Nor children.”
Even though Kulldorff’s statement represented both an expert opinion Twitter identified the reason behind vaccine policies in other nations. “false information” It differed from CDC guidelines.
Twitter took action against one tweet that had been corrected, in an especially egregious case actual misinformation, using the CDC’s own data.
This was written by a user “since December of 2021 COVID has been the leading cause of death from disease in children.” Kelley Kga is a self-described public-health fact-checker. She provided data from the CDC that showed COVID-19 was not a leading cause of death for children.
Twitter flagged this tweet as “Misleading,” Disabling likes and replies. The platform also added a note about how health officials support the COVID-19 vaccinations, which was not addressed in the original tweet.
After receiving five misinformation strikes, Dr. Andrew Bostom, a Rhode Island physician was permanently banned from Twitter. After Bostom’s attorney contacted Twitter, the company’s internal audit found that only 1 of his 5 violations had been valid.
Even that tweet contained credible data. Bostom had provided data that indicated that the flu is more deadly than COVID-19 and that COVID-19 vaccinations cause more serious morbidity for children than flu vaccines.
Another example is that Twitter executives may have been tempted by the pandemic to censor Donald Trump’s tweets. Trump wrote on October 5, 2020, that he was leaving Walter Reed Medical Center. “feeling really good! Don’t be afraid of Covid. Don’t let it dominate your life.”
Jim Baker, then Twitter’s deputy general counsel, asked Yoel Roth, then Twitter’s head of Trust and Safety, “Why isn’t this POTUS tweet a violation of our COVID-19 policy (especially the ‘Don’t be afraid of Covid’ statement)?”
Roth has a history advocating censorship. However, he was able to stand with common sense in this case. He pointed out that “this tweet is a broad, optimistic statement. It doesn’t incite people to do something harmful, nor does it recommend against taking precautions or following mask directives (or other guidelines). It doesn’t fall within the published scope of our policies.”
Zweig observed that “Twitter made a decision, via the political leanings of senior staff, and govt pressure, that the public health authorities’ approach to the pandemic—prioritizing mitigation over other concerns— was ‘The Science’” targeted information that challenges that view for moderation and suppression.
Big Tech is taking steps to suppress opposition from liberal narratives regarding science on more topics than COVID-19.
As I reported Fox Business in 2021Facebook has used fact-check-style to promote false claims about climate change consensus. “information” Notes for various posts
Facebook launched the “Climate Science Information Center” In February 2021, the United Kingdom expanded the effort To more than 100 countries before the COP26 summit at Glasgow, Scotland.
Facebook posted a note about the event. “See how the average temperature in your area is changing” to specific climate-related posts. The note directs users toward a climate centre, which states that “the cause of climate change is widely agreed upon in the scientific community.”
“At least 97% of published climate experts agree that global warming is real and caused by humans,” The Facebook center claims. “The myth that scientists disagree on climate change sometimes comes from misleading petitions that don’t accurately represent the climate science community.” Facebook warns about such petitions “typically include non-scientists and scientists working in unrelated fields.”
Another graphic on the Facebook climate centre argues that “no natural factors can explain how fast the planet is warming today.”
The 97% claim is not just unreliable, it’s patently false. Facebook’s claim traces back to a study led by John Cook entitled “Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature” and published in the journal Environmental Research Letters in 2013.
The study analyzed The terms were used in all peer-reviewed academic research papers that were published between 1991 and 2011. “global warming” Or “global climate change.” The study divided the papers into seven different categories and combined three to create 3,896 papers. This was in addition to comparing them with other categories that made up 118 papers. The study ignored the majority of papers it examined (66.4%, 7,930 out of 11,944 papers). The authors were able to come up with a 97% figure by eliminating these papers.
Many of the scientists who wrote the original papers Cook’s team analyzed complained that this study mischaracterized their research. The survey “included 10 of my 122 eligible papers. 5/10 were rated incorrectly. 4/5 were rated as endorse rather than neutral,” Richard Tol, professor at Vrije Univeriteit of economics and climate change, complained.
Big Tech platforms promoted pro-abortion speakers and messages over pro-life ones.
One month after Roe v. Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court, YouTube announced That it would “remove content that provides instructions for unsafe abortion methods or promotes false claims about abortion safety under our medical misinformation policies.”
Although it is sensible to keep videos of self-managed abortions safe and legal, this statement applies equally to. YouTube’s policy Contrary content is prohibited “expert consensus” on “chemical and surgical abortion methods deemed safe by health authorities.”
Google has used this policy to ban Live Action’s ads promoting the abortion pill reversal, a practice that has saved at least 2,500 children, according to Live Action President Lila Rose.
Google has made it clear that they will no longer store location information for people who visit abortion clinics. This is effective as of 2018. Slate writer bragged In an email she sent to Google, she encouraged Google to alter its YouTube search algorithm. “abortion,” Promoting Planned Parenthood groups over videos that expose the horrifying reality of abortion.
Big Tech has also taken aim at transgender orthodoxy. The platform’s capabilities were expanded in October 2018. “hateful conduct” Policy to include “targeted misgendering or deadnaming of transgender individuals.” Many news outlets, including Focus on the Family’s Daily Citizen, The Christian Post, and PJ Media, along with the Christian satire site The Babylon Bee, have found their Twitter accounts suspended for the crime of referring to Dr. Rachel Levine, a Biden administration official and biological male who identifies as female, as a man.
YouTube also took a stand against The Daily Signal The Heritage FoundationThe Heritage Foundation has censored the testimony of a doctor, and a man who was previously identified as a female. (The Daily Signal is the Heritage Foundation’s news outlet.)
Levine, who is the assistant secretary of the federal Department of Health and Human Services has encouraged medical professionals to support transgender identity and even called for them to pressure Big Tech To “create a healthier, cleaner information environment.” This was after he had lamented the spread “misinformation” On “gender-affirming care” Falsely claiming that “the positive value of gender-affirming care for youth and adults is not in scientific or medical dispute.”
COVID-19 is perhaps the most recent and most serious example. But each case shows how Big Tech, Left and Big Tech use the illusions of scientific consensus in order to silence public policy debates. The science is not clear on the issues of pandemics, climate change, transgenderism, abortion, and climate change. Not settled in favor of the Left’s policy agenda, and Big Tech themselves are spreading misinformation when they claim that it is.
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