Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Friday May 15 2020, @10:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the thought-you-were-reading-El-Reg-for-a-moment? dept.

Jennifer Ouellette over at Ars Technica is reporting on new research on "how distrust in health expertise spreads through social networks."

The article, published on 13 May, in the journal Nature compares network relationships within both pro and anti vaccination groups on Facebook. From the Ars piece:

Last year, the United States reported the greatest number of measles cases since 1992. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 1,282 individual cases of measles in 31 states in 2019, and the majority were among people who were not vaccinated against measles. It was yet another example of how the proliferation of anti-vaccine messaging has put public health at risk, and the COVID-19 pandemic is only intensifying the spread of misinformation and conspiracy theories.

But there may be hope: researchers have developed a "map" of how distrust in health expertise spreads through social networks, according to a new paper published in the journal Nature. Such a map could help public health advocates better target their messaging efforts.

[...] [Lead author]Johnson and his colleagues analyzed Facebook communities actively posting about the topic of vaccines during the 2019 measles outbreak—more than 100 million users in all—from around the world, mapping out the interconnected networks of information across cities, countries, continents, and languages. There were three main camps: communities that were pro-vaccine, communities that were anti-vaccine, and communities that were neutral or undecided regarding the topic (groups focused on parenting, for instance).

The researchers then tracked how the various communities interacted with each other to create a detailed map of the networks. "It's not geographic, it's to do with closeness in a social network sense—in terms of information, influence," Johnson told Ars. "It's not whether I'm here and someone's in Australia. It's the fact that someone in Australia agrees with my slightly twisted narrative on COVID-19 and I'm getting their feed. Although my neighbor doesn't understand me, the person in Australia does.

[...] The results were surprisingly counter-intuitive. While there were fewer individual people who were anti-vaccine on Facebook, there were almost three times as many anti-vax communities clustered around Facebook groups and pages. So any pro-vaccine groups seeking to counter the anti-vaccine misinformation often targeted larger communities and missed the small- to medium-sized clusters growing rapidly just under their radar, according to Johnson.

With the COVID-19 pandemic, the spread of misinformation has gotten even worse. "We didn't stop the day we submitted this paper," said Johnson. "We've been monitoring every day, every minute, the conversations and what you see in these Facebook pages, in these clusters, these communities. It's gone into hyper drive since COVID-19." He and his colleagues developed a predictive model for the spread, which showed anti-vaccine sentiment dominating public discourse on the topic within a decade. Furthermore, "that was a worst-case scenario if nothing was done as of December 2019, when we submitted the paper," said Johnson. "Now it's amplified. If we did that same study now, I think it would be a lot faster than ten years because of the COVID-19 situation. It's the perfect storm."

[...] A new study [Abstract. Preprint PDF available for download] published in the journal BMJ Global Health bolsters Johnson et al.'s findings. Scientists at the University of Ottawa in Canada searched YouTube for the most widely viewed videos in English relating to COVID-19. They narrowed it down to 69 videos with more than 247 million views between them and then assessed the quality of the videos and the reliability of the information presented in each using a system developed specifically for public health emergencies.

The majority of the videos (72.5 percent) presented only factual information. The bad news is that 27.5 percent, or one in four, contained misleading or inaccurate information, such as believing pharmaceutical companies were sitting on a cure and refusing to sell it; incorrect public health recommendations; racist content; and outright conspiracy theories. Those videos—which mostly came from entertainment news, network, and Internet news sources—accounted for about a quarter of the total views (roughly 62 million views). The videos that scored the highest in terms of accuracy, quality, and usefulness for the public, by contrast, didn't rack up nearly as many views.

DOI: Nature, 2020. 10.1038/s41586-020-2281-1
DOI: BMJ Global Health, 2020. 10.1136/bmjgh-2020-002604 [Full paper here, gratis]


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
(1)
  • (Score: 0, Offtopic) by fustakrakich on Friday May 15 2020, @10:33PM

    by fustakrakich (6150) on Friday May 15 2020, @10:33PM (#994791) Journal

    Hold the governments responsible for all the secrecy and fraud for bigger bailouts.

    --
    La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
  • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Friday May 15 2020, @10:37PM (10 children)

    by Grishnakh (2831) on Friday May 15 2020, @10:37PM (#994793)

    Sometimes I wonder how much of this stuff is being stirred up by false-flag actors from other nations. If you wanted to destabilize the US and knock it off its pedestal as sole superpower, this might be one way to do it.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @11:02PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @11:02PM (#994798)

      If you wanted to destabilize the US and knock it off its pedestal as sole superpower...

      First, China today just about punches as hard as America in the international geopolitics these days.

      And second, and more important, they don't need to do anything. We are doing a fine job on our own. All empires rot from within.

    • (Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @11:53PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @11:53PM (#994807)

      Sometimes I wonder how much of this stuff is being stirred up by false-flag actors from other nations.

      Yeah, because Jenny McCarthy is so obviously a CCP member *and* a stooge for the Russian government. Please.

      It's more about the quality and placement of messaging, as the study points out. This is highlighted in this Phys.org item [phys.org] (about the study referenced by TFA):

      Another takeaway: Anti-vaccination groups offer lots of content about vaccines and other proven health treatments—such as safety concerns, conspiracy theories or individual choice, for example. These increase their chance of influencing Facebook users who are undecided. About 3 billion people use the social media platform.

      Pro-vaccination communities typically focused their messages on the public health benefits of vaccination, according to the study published May 13 in the journal Nature.

      "We thought we would see major public health entities and state-run health departments at the center of this online battle, but we found the opposite. They were fighting off to one side, in the wrong place," Johnson said in a university news release.

      Hanlon's Razor [wikipedia.org] applies in spades here.

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Saturday May 16 2020, @01:54AM (5 children)

      by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday May 16 2020, @01:54AM (#994842) Journal

      No, the "destabilization" is domestically inflicted, though looking for foreign scapegoats. Just part of the routine, still election season, you know.

      --
      La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
      • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Saturday May 16 2020, @02:28AM (4 children)

        by Grishnakh (2831) on Saturday May 16 2020, @02:28AM (#994849)

        Oh, I have no doubt that most of these nutcases and science-disbelievers are normal, everyday Americans. However, having some people fuel the fire with more false information could make the real Americans even worse than they would be without.

        • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday May 16 2020, @03:07AM (3 children)

          by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday May 16 2020, @03:07AM (#994857) Journal

          The only way to battle false information is to demand that our government release, publish, and transmit true information. Let's fix the inside before worrying about the outside.

          --
          La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
          • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 16 2020, @01:20PM (2 children)

            by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday May 16 2020, @01:20PM (#994975)

            demand that our government release, publish, and transmit true information.

            Lobbyists do this all the time - for selected "truths" of their choosing.

            --
            🌻🌻 [google.com]
            • (Score: 1) by fustakrakich on Saturday May 16 2020, @02:38PM (1 child)

              by fustakrakich (6150) on Saturday May 16 2020, @02:38PM (#994996) Journal

              Then we have to out lobby them, and out vote them. We have the the opportunity to drain the house.

              --
              La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
              • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:32PM

                by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:32PM (#995145)

                Yes, but for whose we? Khallow's Yellowstone park rangers, MDC's willful urban homeless, finance industry titans in Manhattan, rural red-state Cheeto lovers, the 40% of working poor who just went on unemployment, my special needs young adult children with severe Autism; who, hilariously, have the same right to vote as everyone else - and not just my kids, all of the above.

                The swamp works for the people who built it. My great hope for the future lies in transparency - lots of people with too much time on their hands exposing the decisions that our "public servants" make for us every day, compiling and synthesizing the data into a form where at least 51% of the voting public can make truly informed decisions without having to devote their lives to research and discovery.

                --
                🌻🌻 [google.com]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:52AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:52AM (#994894)

      Sometimes I wonder how much of this stuff is being stirred up by false-flag actors from other nations.

      You mean, like Runaway1955?

    • (Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday May 16 2020, @01:15PM

      by JoeMerchant (3937) on Saturday May 16 2020, @01:15PM (#994973)

      Certainly false-flag pot-stirring occurs, but, then, how much of the actual pot-stirring is false-flag and how much is from other sources and just being labeled false-flag to attempt to reduce its impact?

      I also like the distortion in the article title / summary: "Spread of Misinformation" while the actual study is of distrust. Spread of distrust is not at all the same as the spread of misinformation. Distrust (in false-flag sources, and any un-vetted sources masquerading as authorities of all kinds) can actually be a potent mediator that slows the spread of misinformation.

      The real question is: will people ever learn to think for themselves, or will most individuals' political power forever be this soft clay readily molded by whatever emotionally charged entertainment masquerading as information they are fed?

      --
      🌻🌻 [google.com]
  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @10:48PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @10:48PM (#994796)

    Watch Fox News when Donny shows up - the Official News.

    Comment below if you want clorox cheap. We also have syringes.

  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by bzipitidoo on Friday May 15 2020, @11:12PM (6 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Friday May 15 2020, @11:12PM (#994801) Journal

    There is ample reason to distrust the fee for service system of medicine in place in much of the US. Profits are first. Patients are decidedly secondary to that. Stories of overmedication, Big Pharma profiteering (Martin Shkreli and Heather Bresch being the current poster children of Big Pharma greed), excessive testing, opaque and arbitrary pricing, and the horrors of the byzantine and parasitic health insurance system, are legion. Even the most honest of doctors can't resist all the pressure and blandishments, nor keep up with all the tricks. Think you're avoiding expensive name brand drugs by prescribing generics? Think again. In recent years, Big Pharma has managed to jack up the price of many generics.

    As for good information, the medical industry often neglects the simple, easy and inexpensive in favor of the complicated and more involved, because the latter is of course much more profitable.

    Fighting medical misinformation in the face of medical industry perfidy is an uphill battle.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by MostCynical on Friday May 15 2020, @11:38PM

      by MostCynical (2589) on Friday May 15 2020, @11:38PM (#994805) Journal

      Corporate and commercial interests overwhelm 'the greater good"

      When everything is geared to extracting the maximum "profit" (not value, note), then there is less and less incentive to do anything for free - and this leads ot price gouging, over medication, and loss of trust...

      Also, offering charity is seen as failure (or, for the very rich, 'philanthropy') in some countries..

      Doctors in many other (non-US) countries have decent incomes, while working in public health, which is paid for by taxes, so everyone in the country can get health care*

      Can't find any studies comparing trust of doctors to cost of care.. found this [nim.org].

      Maybe people trust those who tell them what they want to hear, or what appeals to their doubts.. so 'I don't know about x, I don't understand it, so I odn't trust it. Ohh. here is someone telling me x can cause cancer/autism/voting/thinking, I will read that"

      *yes, there are massive issues with indigenous health in quite [impactethics.ca] a few [aihw.gov.au] countries

      --
      "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
    • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @02:09AM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @02:09AM (#994844)

      Healthcare, like any other good or service, is a limited thing. Not infinite. As such, there will always be some form of rationing.
      The different rationing methods have their pluses and minuses. In the American system, you have access to the latest and greatest when you want, but you may have to pay more for the privilege. In a taxpayer funded system like the UK, people still pay for it, but the middle class probably pays the most, relatively speaking. You don't get prompt care for anything except emergencies and many treatments won't be covered at all. But at least the deadly stuff should be taken care of. The UK's system is optimized for a poor population because the UK is a has-been. Their status has been sliding down generally since WW2 and even before. Sad to say.

      In the American system, nobody by law can be denied emergency treatment because of lack of ability to pay, so you can just go to the emergency room if you are very poor.

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:42AM (2 children)

        by MostCynical (2589) on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:42AM (#994890) Journal

        well, sometimes they might not get a ride to hospital [blackamericaweb.com]

        The UK is on its way to being a user-pays or user dies, just like the US, it is just in a state of transition.

        Sweden has been privatizing hospitals and sacking front line medical staff for over a decade, so now it is a great place to die [worldometers.info]

        Meanwhile, countries with good, public funded health care are doing quite well, keeping the death rate down.

         

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:54AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:54AM (#994897)

          Could they not just take an Uber, driven by a cereal killer? Profits over life! Where's khallow? This is his hillock to die upon.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:18PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:18PM (#995050)

        Rationing = death panels.

        American's reject death panels - anyone gets whatever healthcare they can afford.

  • (Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @11:30PM (10 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @11:30PM (#994803)

    Last year, the United States reported the greatest number of measles cases since 1992. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 1,282 individual cases of measles in 31 states in 2019, and the majority were among people who were not vaccinated against measles. It was yet another example of how the proliferation of anti-vaccine messaging has put public health at risk,

    How many measles cases are people who immigrated (legally or illegally) into the US recently? Did their not having been vaccinated against measles in their origin countries account for why they hadn't been vaccinated? Perhaps that had more to do with it than any "anti-vaccine messaging", hmm?

    Did they ask how having Bill Gates as a cheerleader for vaccines might actually increase anti-vaccination sentiment? Personally I've dealt with Mr. Gates' products in my profession since the DOS days, and I wouldn't trust anything that miserable pockfaced whoreson says about anything, ever.

    Oh, and read that quoted section again. It says that the majority of measles cases happened in people not vaccinated. So just how many occurred in people who had been vaccinated? Isn't the vaccine working? What's the percentage of people who had been vaccinated who got it anyway? Does the CDC downplay of the cases where the vaccine was ineffective lend credence to all that "anti-vaccine messaging" they're decrying?

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @11:55PM (6 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 15 2020, @11:55PM (#994810)

      According to the CDC [cdc.gov], it's *very* effective:

      The MMR vaccine is very safe and effective. Two doses of MMR vaccine are about 97% effective at preventing measles; one dose is about 93% effective.

      And you're welcome.

      • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:15AM (5 children)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:15AM (#994815)

        97% effective at preventing measles, 22% effective at causing autism. No thanks, I'm keeping my children vaccine-free and healthy.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:35AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:35AM (#994824)

          Where's that '-1, found the moron' mod when you need it?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:55AM (1 child)

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:55AM (#994898)

            Go easy on him, he's probably from American Samoa, and his children are all dead.

            • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @02:12AM

              by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @02:12AM (#995214)

              Really? A Pulp Fiction reference [uberquotes.net]? Well done, other AC!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @06:07AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @06:07AM (#994902)

          Genuinely interested in your figures. Sources please?

          The MMR is 3 vaccines in one, but the schedule is for dozens before age 10. Is there something special about MMR that has been studied but not widely published?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @03:52PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @03:52PM (#995017)

            "The MMR is 3 vaccines in one, but the schedule is for dozens before age 10."

            [citation needed]

    • (Score: 5, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:15AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:15AM (#994816)

      After two doses of MMR, 97% of people are protected against measles, 88% against mumps, and at least 97% against rubella. Measles resulted in 2.6 million deaths per year before immunization became common. This has decreased to 122,000 deaths per year as of 2012, mostly in low-income countries. Through vaccination, as of 2018, rates of measles in North and South America are very low. Vaccination is not effective against stupidity.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:21PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:21PM (#995052)

        Something tells me the "Unasked Questions" will be copy-pasta'd into the next thread on vaccines/viruses. Let me guess... "UNASKED QUESTIONS LIBERALS DONT WANT YOU TO KNOW".

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:08PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:08PM (#995135)

      > How many measles cases are people who immigrated (legally or illegally) into the US recently?

      The legal ones had to have these shots, from: https://www.cdc.gov/immigrantrefugeehealth/laws-regs/vaccination-immigration/revised-vaccination-immigration-faq.html#whatvaccines [cdc.gov]

      What vaccines are required for U.S. immigration?

      At this time,* vaccines for these diseases are currently required for U.S. immigration:

              Mumps
              Measles
              Rubella
              Polio
              Tetanus and diphtheria
              Pertussis
              Haemophilus influenzae type B (Hib)
              Hepatitis A
              Hepatitis B
              Rotavirus
              Meningococcal disease
              Varicella
              Pneumococcal disease
              Seasonal influenza

      As soon as there is a CV vaccine, I strongly suspect it will be added to the list...

  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Username on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:03AM (1 child)

    by Username (4557) on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:03AM (#994812)

    Because nobody knows. Even WHO, that organization who youtube and facebook will suspend you for disagreeing with, will state one thing, then the next day state the very opposite. Like masks don't work. Then the next day masks do work. Or covid19 doesn't spread through physical contact. Then they said it does spread through physical contact. Or 2.2m people will die, then 2.2m people wont die. Everything they say is opinion, and they don't want to be held responsible for it. So they say it both ways, like they have some kind of cognitive dissonance. Also politics gets put into, like refusing to answer questions about Taiwan's approach to mitigating the spread of covid19.

    When the supposedly authoritative sources cannot give a straight answer, most people will just gravitate to the loudest most commanding voice they can find. Which is usually some celebrity "influencer" with a cure that the government doesn't want you to know about.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:30PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:30PM (#995058)

      The problem is corruption, once again. There is a best practices for many things which is why WHO, UN and other groups were formed.

      The idea is that basket case countries at least know their leaders are dipshits. That's the idea at least. When the major players like China or the USA or Russia or the UK start behaving like dipshits then the model goes weird and you get tantrums and withdrawing funding. There's still a need for someone/something to collect best practices though.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:18AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:18AM (#994817)

    The money which should be spent on *real-world* healthcare, are instead eaten by the growing army of iLocusts (tm).
    Then a virus comes, and the house of cards falls down.

  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:45AM (5 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @12:45AM (#994826)

    Maybe you should be asking why so many people readily distrust government, scientific, and medical institutions nowadays. Rather than trying to figure out where all these people are, presumably so you can launch some kind of "public relations" to manipulate them back into the fold, or a censorship campaign to suppress these people.

    But of course that would require you to admit to all your mistakes, lies, frauds, politicizations, and myriad other problems, which obviously you're not going to do.

    • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @01:32AM (2 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @01:32AM (#994835)

      My distrust of politicians is populist right wingers who revel in ignorance and stupidity, whose only interest in being a corporate sock puppet for multinational corporations that are fucking up the environment with their climate change denier conspiracy theories.

      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:35AM (1 child)

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:35AM (#994934)

        Lefties trained to believe their faith is "science", are even worse. Even to openly "revel in ignorance and stupidity" is less self-deluding, than repaint total ignorance and hate of independent thought as "modern knowledge". It is not. It is a direct opposite, the same it ever was.

        The ONLY route to knowledge, is to LEARN and to THINK. Being trained to scream memorized words on memorized cues, is a path in the other direction.

        • (Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:42PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:42PM (#995068)

          Gaslighting as usual. Fuckin servatives blowing big business boners like they ejaculate Coors, gross man.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @04:04PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @04:04PM (#995021)

      "Maybe you should be asking why so many people readily distrust government, scientific, and medical institutions nowadays."

      Mainly, my distrust these days is because we have a buffoon in the white house doing his level best to coopt every lever of government for his own political ambitions.

      • (Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:41PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:41PM (#995066)

        I don't think Trump has ANY political ambitions. He's easily led by people who do, and has a burning inferiority complex that makes him want to "show them". Them being the liberal elites aka the middle class that studied hard and did well in class and got respectable jobs. Trump is playing out the ego-id of millions of low achievers sticking it to the kids that went to college and learnt their fancy fucking times tables la-de-da.

  • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @02:30AM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @02:30AM (#994850)

    I did not read the article. Did not read the comments. The use of the word "boffin" is too gross.

    • (Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @02:44AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @02:44AM (#994851)

      boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin mushroom mushroom boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin mushroom mushroom boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin a snake a snake oh a snake a snake boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin boffin

      Your comment violated the "postercomment" compression filter. Try less whitespace and/or less repetition.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @06:53PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @06:53PM (#995101)

        Boffin or boffing? One involves more spaffing. So which is it?

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:16PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:16PM (#995140)

      > The use of the word "boffin" is too gross.

      Xenophobe spotted. Wiki article (from google search) says:

      Boffin is a British slang term for a scientist, engineer, or other person engaged in technical or scientific research and development. The World War II conception of boffins as war-winning researchers lends the term a more positive connotation than related terms such as nerd, egghead, geek or spod.

  • (Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday May 16 2020, @08:10AM (5 children)

    by Bot (3902) on Saturday May 16 2020, @08:10AM (#994917) Journal

    Am I missing some huge breakthrough, or vaccination against a moving target like coronavirus is a waste of time? Are we sure they will nail the vaccine this time for the first time? What am I saying. Are we sure the metric of success for the vaccine according to them is the same as we imply?
    because not nailing it or nailing it their way may result in another Bergamo for us, at best.

    But since these guys are concerned with science "the effectiveness of the vaccine is not a factor in the study, all we do is modeling", and since the submitter and some 50c army commenters are concerned with PROPAGANDA!!! the main item "trust the vaccine against coronavirus" is implicit.

    --
    Account abandoned.
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:46PM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @05:46PM (#995069)

      > Am I missing some huge breakthrough

      Yes.

      Several. First there was the Dark Ages - a long period of ignorance and superstition. Then along came the Renaissance and notions of liberty. One day someone invented science which led on to the Industrial Revolution. Workers rights and emancipation of women came next - arguably we're on the tail end of that. I think that about covers it for today.

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @07:42PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @07:42PM (#995110)

        Personally, I think you are wasting your time. It appears to me that Bot is still stuck somewhere in the neolithic era.

      • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @10:15PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @10:15PM (#995157)

        Maybe if your ilk learned to read, and to parse the written words, then the urge to parrot every chunk of bullshit spewed by your gurus would somewhat relax its hold on your cephalic ganglia.
        Those of sapient species, unlike you, do know that biology is a science and not a faith. Moreover, some of us know the scientific fact that vaccines are not a panacea in each and every case; which is natural, given bacteria and viruses had hundreds millions of years to evolve workarounds for the immune systems of their hosts. Some of us even know the scientific fact that Coronaviridae is one of the groups of viruses against whom attempts to create vaccines met very limited success. Observe the feline coronavirus (FCoV); its symptomatic infection, feline infectious peritonitis (FIP) is 100% deadly; still, we have no reliable vaccine to this day, despite multiple attempts.
        https://www.vet.cornell.edu/departments-centers-and-institutes/cornell-feline-health-center/health-information/feline-health-topics/feline-vaccines-benefits-and-risks [cornell.edu]

        Taking things on faith and calling it "science" is lying to yourself. Mindlessly screaming those things at others is lying to people. The only way to KNOW anything of biology is to damn LEARN IT !!! Go and LEARN IT, you morons, and do please SHUT UP till you do!

      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @02:21AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 17 2020, @02:21AM (#995218)

        Several. First there was the Dark Ages - a long period of ignorance and superstition. Then along came the Renaissance and notions of liberty.

        Since the Dark Ages are called that mostly because there is little reliable documentation about that era, you're misunderstanding things.

        In fact, there were significant technological advancements [wikipedia.org] during that period.

        Bot is talking out of his ass [soylentnews.org] and should be smacked down hard.

        However, spouting *different bullshit* is a poor and ineffective way to do so. Try and do better next time.

    • (Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:41PM

      by hendrikboom (1125) Subscriber Badge on Saturday May 16 2020, @09:41PM (#995148) Homepage Journal

      As I heard it recently, the aspect of the virus they're making vaccines against are essential to its functioning, and appear to be the same in all the various strains.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @06:15PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 16 2020, @06:15PM (#995086)

    "how distrust in health expertise spreads through social networks."

    how the truth gets out and how to stop it.

(1)