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Teen Who Defied Anti-Vax Mom Says She Got False Information From One Source: Facebook (washingtonpost.com)
An 18-year-old from Ohio who famously inoculated himself against his mother's wishes in December says he
attributes his mother's anti-vaccine ideology to a single source: Facebook [Editor's note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source]. From a report: Ethan Lindenberger, a high school senior, testified Tuesday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, and underscored the importance of "credible" information. In contrast, he said, the false and deep-rooted beliefs his mother held -- that vaccines were dangerous -- were perpetuated by social media. Specifically, he said, she turned to anti-vaccine groups on social media for evidence that supported her point of view. In an interview with The Washington Post on Tuesday, Lindenberger said Facebook, or websites that were linked on Facebook, is really the only source his mother ever relied on for her anti-vaccine information.
I started to base all my opinions on stuff that I read on 4chan. You wouldn't believe the change in my quality of life.
...because the people who are stupid enough to easily believe all the crap they read on social media are usually the ones who are on social media the most. Oh, and those are the people having the most kids. The world is rapidly becoming the Idiocracy movie.
Seriously, who cares? People are going to pick and choose their sources to support their views. The implication of this "story" is more "wrong think" suppression, and that is far more dangerous than a few idiots not vaccinating.
It is interesting. If this is a common pattern (and I think it is), that means Facebook is the best place for an education campaign. This is a democracy with free speech (more or less) and we're not meant to solve problems of ignorance through government force or corporate censorship, but by winning in the marketplace of ideas.
Actually being right is a huge advantage in convincing people that you're right. The budget needed to drown Facebook in pro-Vax truth is tiny by government standards, especially if Facebook decides to give some free "air time" to the cause.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
So why the moral panic?
Because people who don't get vaccines don't just kill/maim themselves, they also can lead to people who are allergic to vaccines, or otherwise cannot be vaccinated, to be infected with these controllable diseases?
No the implication of this story is that social media once again enables the gullible to be targeted via misinformation campaigns. What do Anti-vaxers, flat earthers, Anti-gmo crusaders, and a certain branch of one of our main political parties all have in common? They get their information from Facebook. Ill actually defend Facebook here. They are the platform, the scammers and the scammed just happen to both use it.
Looks, I'll be the first in line to trash Facebook for all the things they do wrong. But just the same, I prefer to have an honest discussion about root issues. Facebook didn't tell him mom that vaccinations were bad. Stupid people using Facebook did.
If you don't want to use Facebook because they're not cracking down on anti-vaxxer crap, fine, boycott it. I'm surprised all the flaws about Facebook haven't led you to boycott it until now, in fact. But don't suggest that Facebook is at fault. They're not.
- Pacific Bell didn't call in the bomb threat.
- The US Postal Service didn't send someone anthrax.
- Highway 101 didn't stop you from getting to work on time.
These are all networks being used by people to do harmful (or at the very least, stupid) things. Go after them. Regulate them. Do the hard work and propose how we're supposed to, in the realm of free speech and the right to be wrong, regulate stupid people.
Facebook is a megaphone for disinformation. True, there was disinformation around before they existed, before the internet existed, but to spread it you needed a budget. Facebook is like owning a printing press with a built-in distribution system.
If you're disseminating information that harms people, seriously harms them in some instances, where's the accountability?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Morons just look for confirmation of their misconceptions. Ordinarily, I would not mind, but anti-vaxxers inflict serious harm on others, in particular on those that cannot be vaccinated for medical reason and on their own children, which clearly is child-abuse.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
"Actually being right is a huge advantage in convincing people that you're right."
That isn't my experience. Because it isn't enough to be right for the wrong reasons. You win people over with a strawman oversimplified version of the truth and then they very quickly get swayed by a slightly more informed person with the opposing view. The truth is usually complicated and grey and full of thousands of concessions to the other sides talking points that are crippling in SOUNDING right but essential to actually being right.
Very few people actually want to be right, they just want the people they are impressed with to be impressed with them and pretend that means they are right.
The point of this story is that people are unable to tell fact from fiction and fabrication. It's not about "wrong think" it's about believing bullshit and not being able to tell when you're fed bullshit.
People lack the ability to identify when they're being lied to. That in turn is mostly due to them having a crappy education level that doesn't even allow them to question what they're told because they have no information to rely on as a gauge to test new information. They have been taught by schools that put more emphasis on believing what an authority tells them, rote learning that leaves you completely unable to learn anything but what you are force fed and a system that rewards conformity rather than questioning.
So when they start "questioning", it usually takes the form of "The elites/illuminati/big pharma/boogeyman-du-jour have told me A, so I will instead blindly believe B instead because B must be true since it is the opposite of what (insert boogeyman here) says".
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
There are a large number of those who depend on herd immunity without it being a choice (IE they're immunocompromised or allergic to the appropriate vaccines). It's kinda like saying drunk driving is a self-correcting problem because drunk drivers are more likely to be in accidents than sober drivers.
What right is being taken away here? The right to be wrong? The right to believe any bullshit no matter how insane? The right to be an utter moron that's easily convinced because he's too stupid to tell when he's being bullshitted?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
>Actually being right is a huge advantage in convincing people that you're right.
Unfortunately there are many studies that show otherwise. There's a reason cult de-programmers use strong appeal to emotion instead of logic, you can't 'logic' someone out of something they didn't 'logic' themselves into to begin with.
What do Anti-vaxers, flat earthers, Anti-gmo crusaders, and a certain branch of one of our main political parties all have in common? They get their information from Facebook.
All of these movements predate Facebook, sometimes by centuries.
There was strong resistance to smallpox inoculation in Britain, that was only somewhat reduced when the children of the royal family were inoculated in 1722.
Throughout the 19th century, there was religious opposition to vaccinations, and resistance to vaccinations today is strongest in muslim countries such as Pakistan where Facebook is not so pervasive.
The anti-GMO movement started in the 1990s, long before social media became common. Facebook was started in 2004.
Believe it or not, political extremism also predates Facebook. Seriously.
The Right of stupid people to say what they like? Yeah, I think that that fits. Note that once you've decided that stopping stupid people from saying whatever they like, it's pretty easy to expand the definition (gradually, mind you!) of "stupid people" till the government is restricting anything they don't want to hear in public.
And remember, you may agree with the gov at first, but sooner or later, their definition of "stupid people saying the wrong thing(s) in public" will include things YOU want to say in public....
No, I'm not anti-vax. I wish that measles had been available when *I* was an infant. Alas, I was four or five before it was developed, much less available to the general public, much less mandatory.
Nor am I pro-stupid-people. I am, however, rather fond of the First Amendment. And restricting speech I disagree with isn't one of the exceptions listed in the First....
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
The right to contribute to both your children's and society's collective vulnerability to potentially deadly disease outbreaks?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
What I don't understand is how so many people in the pro-vaccine camp lose their goddamn minds over the incredibly tiny risk to people who can't get vaccinated. We're talking about an incredibly small number of people,
That's not how it works. Most vaccines aren't 100% effective. However, if almost all of the population is vaccinated, an outbreak is still unlikely to obtain critical mass to spread even if the vaccine is only, for example, 80% effective.
However, if a bunch of people refuse to vaccinate, then it can add enough susceptible people to get critical mass for an widespread outbreak. In this example, that could cause harm to the 20% of the population that vaccine failed to fully protect.
That is exactly the right being discussed. It's a fundamentally important right, because almost every statement we now consider correct was popularly considered batshit at some point, and vice versa. The world has certain immutable, objective truths, but it's ridiculous to think humans could ever know them with certainty.
... is like a dog walking on its hind legs. You can train him to do it, but it will never come naturally.
People are social animals; prisoners who are put in solitary confinement for extended periods come out with serious psychological disturbances, even if you do nothing more inhumane than make them sit by themselves for months. In a less extreme version of this, it will always feel uncomfortable to hold an opinion without supporters, even if you know you're right. On the flip side it's all too easy to go along with apparently popular ideas you disagree with. Eventually you'll believe those ideas.
Don't get me wrong. Groupthink is mankind's killer evolutionary advantage. If you disagree with *everyone* around you, chances are you're wrong, although of course that varies depending on you and the people around you. But social media is unlike anything humans have ever experienced before. If you designed an operant conditioning experiment with the aim of producing group think on an unprecedentedly vast, society-wide scale, social media is exactly what you'd end up with.
It's like sugar. Favoring sweet foods is good for you if you're a member of a small band of hunter-gatherers. A sweet tooth is not so good for you if you live in a society that boasts a sugar industry. A bias toward consensus is good for you if you're human living in a small group. It's bad for you if you live in a society with a groupthink industry.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
"We need to use our freedoms to limit our freedoms." You're a fascist.
Ah, the good old Nihilism argument. Because there's no absolute truth, everything is an opinion and the end. And all opinions are equally valid.
However, some opinions have resulted in us being able to converse about this nonsense over the internet at about the speed of light, while half a planet may be between us.
Don't you think these are a bit more desirable than those opinions that, to use one other extreme as an example, caused genocides?
Funny, the ownership class uses their freedoms to limit our freedoms and nobody has ever accused them of being fascists. Let's admit that "freedom" by itself is a word that's vague to the point of uselessness and be more specific:
Let's exercise our civil liberties and private property rights a way to reduce the exposure of factually wrong and morally toxic ideas to the public rather than to perpetuate their debate in the mistaken belief that it might achieve the same end.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
The "marketplace of ideas" does not equal free speech, they're different things. The "marketplace of ideas" is the concept that it's beneficial (or at least harmless) to expose the public to a debate of terrible ideas and falsehoods. "Invite the nazi to speak at the college, we'll curb-stomp him with facts and reason and show everyone how wrong his ideas are, thus making the audience less supportive of nazi ideas" - that's the "marketplace of ideas."
I don't propose any government censorship, I propose that we realize that debating these ideas spreads them to vulnerable people who aren't swayed by logic, and that citizens should use their civil liberties and private property rights to deny these debates a venue, forcing them into smaller and more obscure venues where less people would be exposed to them. Don't let the nazi speak at your college, don't allow anti-vax content on your social media platform, etc.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
It is interesting. If this is a common pattern (and I think it is), that means Facebook is the best place for an education campaign. This is a democracy with free speech (more or less) and we're not meant to solve problems of ignorance through government force or corporate censorship, but by winning in the marketplace of ideas.
Actually being right is a huge advantage in convincing people that you're right. The budget needed to drown Facebook in pro-Vax truth is tiny by government standards, especially if Facebook decides to give some free "air time" to the cause.
That' a nice idea but there is a body of research that shows exposing people to counter arguments, however factual, just hardens their viewpoint rather than changing it.
https://www.theatlantic.com/sc...
https://www.scientificamerican...
They also tend to change the argument to avoid facing inconvenient facts.
https://www.scientificamerican...
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
Much like it's easier to keep your story straight when you're telling the truth.
At the amateur level, maybe. A well-thought-out and practiced lie, however, can easier to keep straight than the truth. Reality tends to be messy, and when people aren't deliberately trying to keep their story straight the details tend to get blurred. Stories that fit together unusually well often contain a fair bit of fiction—either deliberate deception or simple subconscious editing and rationalization.
It does help to have solid evidence on your side, if the people you're trying to convince are the type to be persuaded by the evidence. If not, your skills as a debater will matter far more than whether you're right or wrong.
"The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else." - Bastiat
It would only be fairly mitigated if homeschooling meant keeping non-vaccinated children quarantined from society, which it doesn't.
And how did free speech get into this? There's been no talk of governments criminalizing anti-vaccine speech.
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Don't worry too much about changing the minds of specific individuals. Instead, think about the drift of ideas between generations (the old definition of "memes" pre-2000). That is where the difference is made. You can't e.g. convince someone not to be racist, but you can change the statistical likelyhood of their kids being racist.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
The Right of stupid people to say what they like? Yeah, I think that that fits. Note that once you've decided that stopping stupid people from saying whatever they like, it's pretty easy to expand the definition (gradually, mind you!) of "stupid people" till the government is restricting anything they don't want to hear in public.
And remember, you may agree with the gov at first, but sooner or later, their definition of "stupid people saying the wrong thing(s) in public" will include things YOU want to say in public....
No, I'm not anti-vax. I wish that measles had been available when *I* was an infant. Alas, I was four or five before it was developed, much less available to the general public, much less mandatory.
Nor am I pro-stupid-people. I am, however, rather fond of the First Amendment. And restricting speech I disagree with isn't one of the exceptions listed in the First....
However restricting speech that represents a clear and present danger has never been part of the first amendment... though I'm not about to claim to be smart (dumb?) enough to try to apply that outside of the most blindingly obvious examples.
My mom, rest her soul, was an anti-vaxxer (and a research Nurse no less). Facebook would let her spread that nonsense. It would give her a safe space to discuss it and get it reinforced.
Reinforcement's the big thing. My bro and I were just talking about the Dem primary. Based on his news feeds Kamala Harris is the front runner. Based on mine it's Bernie and Harris is dead in the water. The two of us had to do a mess of googling to get out of our bubbles.
That's because services like YouTube and Facebook are built to keep funneling content to you that your receptive of so they can get more "engagement" (e.g. eye on glass) and more ad impressions. It's real time and designed around sessions. Click a Bernie video and your feed blows up with Bernie. Click a gaming video and suddenly it's gaming. Whatever it takes to keep you clicking one more video.
True story, YouTube decided a buddy was trans. Apparently several of the Warhammer 40k players and painters he subscribed to were, and they'd done videos about the Trans issues they were facing on their 40k channels. I guess that's one way to get out of the Bubble. But baring that you really have to try to step out of it.
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Insert your villian here: Terrorists, Child molesters, Gun Owners, Anti Vaxers, Russian bots, Hate speech....
Or to some the favorite villains could be: minorities moving to my neighborhood, minorities wanting to vote, gays wanting to get married, people choosing the wrong religion, all reasons to motivate some to try and restrict rights.
One day my mother is saying how we must protect the freedom of religion and get rid of government intrusion. The next day we drive past a mosque and she says "that shouldn't be allowed". The human brain is perfectly capable of believing in to contrary ideas simultaneously. Freedom for me, but restrictions for you!