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posted by martyb on Wednesday July 17 2019, @03:48AM   Printer-friendly
from the It-is-SO-GOOD-"they"-are-afraid-to-let-us-tell-you-about-it! dept.

Submitted via IRC for AnonymousLuser

Peddlers of Medical Misinformation Are Using Social Media 'Censorship' as a Selling Point

Speech OnlineSpeech OnlineThis week, we're looking at the state of free speech on the internet, how we got here, and where we're going.  

No one has ever accused Mike Adams, the self-proclaimed Health Ranger, of being an understated guy, but recent events have taken him to new, shouty heights. After Adams' website, Natural News, had its page suspended by Facebook in June for violating the company's spam policies, Adams likened the suspension to genocide and said President Trump should use the military, if necessary, to break up tech companies. But Adams—and other peddlers of medical misinformation, including many anti-vaccine personalities—are also working hard to make their supposed muzzling by social media companies into a selling point and a profit-driver.

In an email blast on June 30, Adams accused Google of gaming search results to "to defame and attack all natural health topics, all while banning natural health websites from its search results." He added that the search engine giant "has gone all-in with Monsanto, Big Pharma, chemotherapy, pesticides, 5G, geoengineering, fluoride and every other poison you can imagine."

And then, naturally, he turned around and offered to sell his audience the supplements So Powerful That Google Is Trying to Hide Them (emphasis his):

P.S. Despite Google's malicious attacks on health and nutrition, the truth is that nutritional supplements works. For the next day or so, we've got an event running on PQQ, CoQ10 and other specialty supplements that dramatically increase your intake of cell-supporting nutrients (including brain-supporting nutrients). Check out the details here.

It is emblematic of the strange moment we've arrived at in the selling of misinformation online, particularly the medical variety. In recent months, several social media giants have announced their intention to crack down on that misinformation, including most particularly anti-vaccine content. (Pinterest made the "vaccine" hashtag literally impossible to search for since virtually every search resultshowed up anti-vax content.)

But the process has been late, slow, and inconsistent. Take Instagram, which banned some anti-vaccine hashtags in March, but left others alone. Today, some of those banned hashtags, like #vaccineskill, have made a noticeable comeback, and there are anti-vaccine accounts aplenty, including Vaccine Truth,which has 60,000 followers. Or take the lively world of fake cancer cures: theWall Street Journalrecently noted that YouTube and Facebook are still overrun with the same fake cancer treatments that have been circulating online for years. That includes black salve, a longtime faux treatment for skin cancer that in actuality just burns skin away without killing cancer growths, and the entire opus of Robert O. Young, who promotes things like juicing regimens and "alkaline infusions" to cure cancer, infusions that critics say are functionally just injections of a baking soda cocktail. Young went to prison in 2017 for practicing medicine without a license, and he was ordered to pay over $100 million in a civil lawsuit filed against him by a terminal cancer patient who'd used his treatments the following year. Yet he's back on Facebook and busily selling his products through a network of interconnected pages.

In other words, the social media companies' supposed "crackdown" has been bizarre, partial, and in some cases, not permanent. The entire muddled process has certainly complicated business for people who make a living selling misinformation. But it's also given them a recognizable new selling point, a way to claim to the audience they still very much have on these same social media platforms that their ideas simply must work, which is why Big Government and Big Pharma are trying to muzzle them.


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:15AM (14 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:15AM (#867868) Journal

    Then you try to wipe them off the internet and give decent folk a reason to think their insane ramblings are actually important.

    As opposed to what? Searching for "vaccine" and getting the first pages full of "anti-vaxxers" content?
    Dam'd if you do, dam'd if you don't.

    I s'ppose the safe way for a business like "the Soup" is at least appear to reasonable do something, lest they risk being accused of conspiracy to defraud. Like, you know, strictly business reasons; and it may be no business of yours to teach them how to run theirs.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:35AM (1 child)

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:35AM (#867877) Journal

    Don't anti-vaxxers use lots of common keywords that you can filter out?

    Start with "-conspiracy"

    Bet that will block most of them.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:45AM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:45AM (#867883) Journal

      Start with "-conspiracy"

      Bet that will block most of them.

      Yeah. RFC3514 [ietf.org] and all that.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:47AM (11 children)

    by Arik (4543) on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:47AM (#867884) Journal
    You shouldn't be afraid of the fact that searching for vaccines produces a list of the most often referred to pages in reference to vaccines.

    You shouldn't be afraid of the fact that some of those pages might be critical of vaccines.

    No. Really. You just shouldn't be afraid of this.

    This is exactly how it's supposed to work.
    --
    If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday July 17 2019, @07:15AM (10 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 17 2019, @07:15AM (#867896) Journal

      Free speech is among the things a government cannot take from you.
      Google is a private company, you have no claim over how they manage their business!

      Here, suppose you are running a second car business. Are you OK with a bunch of greenhead tree-hugging hippies (me included) to use your sale-yard to hold a protest against dinojuice-powered-anything? Because, you see, by your own measure, the protesters right to free-speech should trump your right to private property.
      Google search pages are exactly that: their second-hand sale yard, the only difference is they don't sell second hand cars but second hand information!

      They sell adspace there. If their customers don't like how the returned search pages look like, they are free to take their ad-placement money elsewhere.
      If you, as a (non-paying) consumer, don't like how the returned search pages look like, you a free to take your search (as a service request) elsewhere. (here, try DuckGoGo. Or Bing. Or even Yahoo. Or Amazon/ebay/twitter/facebook)
      Guess who will Google try to please in the first priority?
      Can you fault them for trying to run a profitable business as they see fit?

      You shouldn't be afraid of the fact that some of those pages might be critical of vaccines.
      No. Really. You just shouldn't be afraid of this.

      I hope it is clear that what I/you/anyone-but-Google are or are not afraid of bear no consequence of how Google is conducting their business. And it is right to be so.

      This is exactly how it's supposed to work.

      Surprise!!!! It's not working as it is supposed (by you). Does this upset you?

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Arik on Wednesday July 17 2019, @07:31AM (6 children)

        by Arik (4543) on Wednesday July 17 2019, @07:31AM (#867903) Journal
        "Free speech is among the things a government cannot take from you.
        Google is a private company, you have no claim over how they manage their business!"

        As a leftist, I'm shocked and disgusted. to see people who pretend to be leftists endorsing this narrative.

        Google is a private company that was built on communally funded infrastructure. The internet. Built at taxpayers expense and essentially forced on massive populations that had no desire for it.

        We have testimony in courts and in the very House of Representatives as to how these companies have wound up holding what amounts to the public square, with significant effects on our elections.

        If that's the case then they are no more private than the local utility companies are.

        Monopoly contractors have to follow constitutional restrictions.

        Oooh checkmate.
        --
        If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by c0lo on Wednesday July 17 2019, @08:27AM (3 children)

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 17 2019, @08:27AM (#867910) Journal

          As a leftist, I'm shocked and disgusted. to see people who pretend to be leftists endorsing this narrative.

          How you are leaning is equally irrelevant. Until a court or the legislators decide otherwise, this is how it is. The most recent decision [soylentnews.org] on the matter specifically refused to "consider whether private social media companies are bound by the First Amendment when policing their platforms."

          Disgusted or not, you do accept the laws of the land as the rules to govern the society you live in, aren't you?

          Google is a private company that was built on communally funded infrastructure.

          They are still using computers that paid for, and energy they are paying for and the work of tens/hundred of thousands of employees they pay salary for and they do pay taxes to maintain that infrastructure (even if they try to avoid them as much as possible)
          Point: they are not using exclusively that public infrastructure that you mention.

          The internet

          As it is the case for many other companies. Are you objecting, for example, to the right of states to ask the sale tax from Amazon because the business is conducted over internet (and the delivery is performed using roads paid from public funds)?
          If yes, are you so left leaning to go full-throttle and say "whenever a business uses any public infrastruicture, no matter how infinitesimal, they must deliver their services on the basis of 'use according to your needs, pay according to you ability'" or something [wikipedia.org]?

          Built at taxpayers expense and essentially forced on massive populations that had no desire for it.

          Oh really? I guess those taxpayers don't derive any benefit in using this public infrastructure now, or what?

          We have testimony in courts and in the very House of Representatives as to how these companies have wound up holding what amounts to the public square, with significant effects on our elections.

          You run out of "internet public square" or what?
          It's not like the Internet bandwidth is choke full so that's the reason you can't find yourself a way express your voice and must ask google to cut you a slice from theirs.

          If that's the case then they are no more private than the local utility companies are.

          Really? Seems that I remember how the 4chan, 8chan and gab services do exist in the same internet space and the Internet didn't burst at the seams.

          But maybe it's the "public attention" the limited resource that you want a bigger chunk of (and not the access to Internet)?
          If so, tough luck, I can't remember any democratic law governing what the public must or must not pay attention to (even if I remember times when listening to "Voice of America" could have landed me in jail, but it was under a communist regime in East Europe, some almost 30 years ago).

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:05PM (2 children)

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:05PM (#868126)

            I just don't understand why some people who are otherwise on the left suddenly become hardcore free marketeers when it comes to corporations censoring people on near-monopolistic platforms, when in almost every other instance they profess skepticism of corporations. These corporations are not your friends, and they are not just censoring right-wing people (despite right-wingers pretending that that is so). Youtube, for example, is screwing over nearly all forms of independent media, including the likes of Kyle Kulinski and David Pakman, who are obviously not right-wing. The only saving grace so far is that independent media hasn't been outright censored on the platform in general, but what it does show (yet again) is that corporations are not on the side of ordinary people and value money above all else. They don't care if you're left-wing or not, so stop with the free market extremism on this matter and wake up to the fact that when giant platforms like Google, Youtube, and Facebook use censorship or biased algorithms to promote propaganda news outlets, it has negative externalities on the rest of society.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @07:37PM

              by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @07:37PM (#868177)

              They are authoritarians.

            • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday July 17 2019, @10:24PM

              by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday July 17 2019, @10:24PM (#868245) Journal

              I just don't understand why some people who are otherwise on the left suddenly become hardcore free marketeers when it comes to corporations censoring people on near-monopolistic platforms

              Because their rights are your rights too. If the state can force them to do things contrary to their private interest, the state can force you too.
              Careful what you wish for.

              --
              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
        • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday July 17 2019, @05:31PM (1 child)

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday July 17 2019, @05:31PM (#868106) Journal

          SoylentNews was also built on that communally funded infrastructure.

          Are you in favor of them being forced to post all Aristarchus submissions? Afterall, they are violating his free speech rights!

          Monopoly contractors have to follow constitutional restrictions.

          You are a monopoly when you have been convicted of being a monopoly and no sooner.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:13PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @06:13PM (#868130)

            You are a monopoly when you have been convicted of being a monopoly and no sooner.

            Have you ever heard of regulatory capture? Why do you have so much faith in a system which is so utterly broken? If we leave everything up to our corrupt system to decide, nothing will ever change.

      • (Score: 2) by slinches on Wednesday July 17 2019, @03:03PM (1 child)

        by slinches (5049) on Wednesday July 17 2019, @03:03PM (#868012)

        Whether or not it's technically applicable by law, the fundamental concept of free speech is something worth being upheld. Calling out companies when they violate that principle is necessary to ensure that the idea of free expression isn't eroded over time. And we probably should update the law to ensure that our communication infrastructure upholds those principles.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday July 17 2019, @05:29PM

          by DeathMonkey (1380) on Wednesday July 17 2019, @05:29PM (#868103) Journal

          Whether or not it's technically applicable by law, the fundamental concept of free speech is something worth being upheld.

          Agreed, therefore the SN editors must immediately post all Aristarchus subs. This violation of Aristarchus' free speech rights shall not stand!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @07:32PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday July 17 2019, @07:32PM (#868174)

        And THEN you people will again be searching for some external cause when Trump gets reelected.