Huh? What got censored on social media was the idea that this was an engineered bioweapon. This isn't even the same lab people were pointing fingers at.
Evidence of bioweapon is significant. So much so that facebook et al instaban posts about it. If you understand censorship then you know its only used on truth the gov/corps dont want getting out. Censorship is to stop evidence from being shared.
It's inflammatory, outright disinformation, outright misinformation, or just something the service owner doesn't want to carry. Discussion a lab leak hypothesis is not the same as claiming COVID leaked from a bioweapon laboratory or was intentionally leaked for <reasons>.
That being said, social media sites flagging posts is very different from outright censorship. It's not uncommon for someone to actually get censored/removed from a site claiming its censorship over discussing some topic when really it was a history of dipshit behavior and flagrant TOS violations.
But... we're literally discussing a book written on the subject. It wasn't censored. Neither were discussions here on this site, where lab leak arguments were very popular.
Are you really sure you aren't confusing controversy (the fact that an opinion can be a minority one with which most experts disagree) with suppression?
Are you denying the blatant/overt censorship? Many scientists were censored by institutions. This is well known and documented. The twitter files even made this apparent on congress floor, where silicon valley knows more about science than accredited doctors.
Don't be silly. Obviously the bans were not perfectly enforced and you could still find hushed conversations in the corners. This was true on all platforms. What, exactly, is your argument? Or your point? Are you really going to try to claim that the lab leak hypothesis was not widely censored in social media? "We have always been at war with Eastasia"...
That was one example everyone knows about. Talk about Ivermectin, or previously, WIV lab release hypothesis... all censored at the time. (now they have allowed some discussion again, but the damage is done and agenda realized).
No I didn't. The twitter thread we're talking about used "lab leak" as an example of something that had to be censored but the author also admitted he thinks the lab leak hypothesis is true. Something that was true had to be censored! (I don't think lab leak is true, I'd give it a ~30% vs ~70% for zoonotic).
I don't care about trolling, it's just a neologism for "making a joke" or "taking the piss". "Bad faith" and "disinformation" are words used by people who want to shut down certain debates.
If they are being censored it is clearly not working because the story is all over the news.
It is possible they are being censored in some places because they look exactly like an influence operation, and COVID-19 misinformation is a huge problem for online platforms right now.
We have people out in the real world right now protesting about Bill Gates' mind control vaccine - activated by 5G - because they have been "memetically compromised" via social media.
I expect it might have gone a little differently if the claims in the paper had been peer reviewed.
On Reddit/Facebook it just gets banned. I regularly read /r/Covid19 to see the fraudulent studies they push so I can counter them with my own studies. Like the Twitter guy says it’s their side that doesn’t want debate.
It was facebook[1] stated policy to prevent all discussion, so even if there was not a user level bann they were removing all posts and discussions about it
Twitter banned lots people for it (and other COVID "misinformation") it would be hard to point to a perfect example as often people that wanted to discuss lab leak also talked about masking, masking policy, vaccine efficacy, and Vaccine mandate policies. All of which were also forbidden topics. If you dared to speak out against "The Experts" at the cdc or WHO then you were either shadow-banned (i.e posts hidden, de-ranked, etc) or outright banned
You guys can actually just search old Hacker News discussions and also look at old media reporting to see that this narrative of "media suppression" is just blatantly false.
GP is absolutely correct - people reacted negatively (and remind that someone not liking what you say does not mean you are censored) because people (including now in this thread) are saying that there is 'definite proof of lab leak' when that is just bull?
This lab theory has been systematically censored across the internet for the last week or so. For me it has been fascinating to watch content on it pop up and then disappear.
The censorship isn't limited to YouTube. Scholarly articles from large collaborations have been censored from peer-reviewed journals when they received too much public attention:
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