This is long almost 3 hr

[Gold Dragon]

I'll just run, and I mean run, to get my shots so I can be accepted in the general population, do business, not be called an uncaring criminal, and not be shunned.

Thanks for straightening me out.

I support people making good medical decisions with the best quality information available at that time. Do the research for yourself with good information. Talk to your doctors. Read the papers. Apply critical thinking. Use the brain God gave you to challenge your own biases.

Unfortunately we live in a world where algorithms allow people to profit by spamming the internet with misinformation that is much better click bait than the truth. And those algorithms lead those with a tendency to distrust evidence based authorities, like those directed by the bots you are talking about, to more of the same misinformation that they want to see to reinforce their incorrect ideas of the world.

Written in 2016 and the situration is much worse now

Scientific American : Fake Online News Spreads Through Social Echo Chambers

Sadly, I was not the only one with this idea. Ten years later, we have an industry of fake news and digital misinformation. Clickbait sites manufacture hoaxes to make money from ads, while so-called hyperpartisan sites publish and spread rumors and conspiracy theories to influence public opinion.

This industry is bolstered by how easy it is to create social bots, fake accounts controlled by software that look like real people and therefore can have real influence. Research in my lab uncovered many examples of fake grassroots campaigns, also called political astroturfing.

...

Since we cannot pay attention to all the posts in our feeds, algorithms determine what we see and what we don’t. The algorithms used by social media platforms today are designed to prioritize engaging posts—ones we’re likely to click on, react to and share. But a recent analysis found intentionally misleading pages got at least as much online sharing and reaction as real news.

This algorithmic bias toward engagement over truth reinforces our social and cognitive biases. As a result, when we follow links shared on social media, we tend to visit a smaller, more homogeneous set of sources than when we conduct a search and visit the top results.

Existing research shows that being in an echo chamber can make people more gullible about accepting unverified rumors. But we need to know a lot more about how different people respond to a single hoax: Some share it right away, others fact-check it first.

 

[Gold Dragon]

Opinions are like (fill in the blanks). Personally, he provided some contrary information that most vaccine advocates will likely dispute but to call his posts misinformation is disingenuous.

Opinion based on misinformation ends up becoming misinformation.

If you look at all anti-vax "information", it is all based on misinformation and almost always for profit. Including the study that started it all by Andrew Wakefield who falsified data to try and show that the MMR vaccine caused autism because he had patented an alternative to that vaccine. No other study has shown this link at all even though it has been studied countless times.

Yet the misinformation about vaccines and autism and a host of other false statements still exists, because it is profitable for those merchants of misinformation to peddle their alternative supplements (that have no evidence to back them) and books and manipulating millions of unsuspecting folks and lining their pockets in the process.

National Post: Just 12 anti-vaxxers are responsible for spreading most of anti-vaccine content on social media: study | National Post

Researchers found that 65 per cent of all posts could be traced back to 12 accounts representing major anti-vaccine personalities: Joseph Mercola, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Ty and Charlene Bollinger, Sherri Tenpenny, Rizza Islam, Rashid Buttar, Erin Elizabeth, Sayer Ji, Kelly Brogan, Christiane Northrup, Ben Tapper and Kevin Jenkins.

“Living in full view of the public on the internet are a small group of individuals who do not have relevant medical expertise and have their own pockets to line,” said Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the Center for Countering Digital Hate, “who are abusing social media platforms to misrepresent the threat of COVID and spread misinformation about the safety of vaccines.

...

“The key protagonists in the ‘anti-vaxx industry’ are a coherent group of professional propagandists,” Ahmed wrote in an article published in Nature Medicine on March 15.

“These are people running multi-million-dollar organizations, incorporated mainly in the USA, with as many as 60 staff each. They produce training manuals for activists, tailor their messages for different audiences and arrange meetings akin to annual trades conferences, like any other industry.”

 

[Gold Dragon]

Nature: Dismantling the anti-vaxx industry

In October 2020, researchers of the Center for Countering Digital Hate attended and recorded a private, three-day meeting of the world’s most prominent anti-vaxxers3. Our team gained unprecedented insight into the organized opposition to the rollout of the vaccine against COVID-19. Despite the banality and vacuity of the anti-vaxxers’ presentations, there was nevertheless a chilling level of organization and intent.

What also became clear was the sophistication of the means they employ on social media. They have been able to develop these tactics only because social-media companies have been happy for the key players in this anti-vaxx industry to use their services to recruit new followers and spread their lies further than ever before. As a result, there is an online infrastructure of anti-vaccine websites, Facebook groups, YouTube channels, Instagram pages and Twitter accounts with a combined audience of 59 million3. In the UK alone, there are 5.35 million followers of anti-vaxxers across social media.

Anti-vaxxers are training each other in identifying potential targets online. They discuss their tactics for deepening people’s fears, sowing doubt as to whether people should take a vaccine, deepening vaccine hesitancy, and converting the chosen few into fully fledged anti-vaxxers—the people who further propagate the lies. Anti-vaxxers distribute themselves across social media, finding new and varied ways to inject misinformation into users’ news feeds. In that sense, they are far better equipped to reach people than are the UK National Health Service and World Health Organization, which rely on centralized digital communications through accounts with low engagement and little ‘personality’ or ‘authenticity’.

Don't be another victim or unwitting agent of their manipulation that only increases their profits and provides no benefit to humans.

 

[SGO]

Nature: Dismantling the anti-vaxx industry



Don't be another victim or unwitting agent of their manipulation that only increases their profits and provides no benefit to humans.

You are another apologist for the powers that be.
Every time I see that photo of Bruce Lee I think of what that man represents.
Thanks for all those one inch punches.

 

[Gold Dragon]

You are another apologist for the powers that be.

If that is how you choose to bury your head in the sand whenever someone presents information that you don't like, then I guess that is your prerogative. I suggest using some critical thinking and consider the evidence and arguments of those who disagree with you and see if your preconceived ideas hold up to the data.

Every time I see that photo of Bruce Lee I think of what that man represents.

Who couldn't love this face?

 

[SGO]

Who couldn't love this face?

Before or after this face buried my head in the sand?

Thanks Dragon.

One inch punch, no thanks.

 

[Gold Dragon]

Before or after this face buried my head in the sand.

Sand burying of one's head is a one person task.