Re: Trolls and bots and disinformation

[teach1st]

Trolls and bots are flooding social media with disinformation encouraging states to end quarantine

I've seen a few of these pop up on my Facebook feed. The most worrisome of the memes I saw today said (with red, emergency background):

"It's easy to see which of your friends would have fought the Red Coats and which would have bowed to them," from Reopen USA.

Here is my reply to the faceless trolls and, more importantly, the unthinking Trumpers who re-posted it (please correct me if any of my facts or ideas are incorrect):

This meme compares people who follow recommended health-care provisions to the colonial Tories. Although the colonists and first generations of U.S. citizens didn't have a germ theory, they were smart enough to quarantine and inoculate (General Washington had his troops inoculated against smallpox). Actually, government-imposed quarantines - as racist as they might have been - were around in the mid-1660s.

In 1798 the Governor of Pennsylvania halted travel between New York and Philadelphia in an effort to slow the threat of Yellow Fever (which wouldn't have "flattened the curve" since the fever was spread by mosquitoes).

In the 1824 Gibbons v Ogden case, Chief Justice John Marshall explained that states do indeed possess quarantine power “flowing from the acknowledged power of a State to provide for the health of its citizens.”

It seems that some of our founders, many of whom supported or fought with the colonial army that helped give King George III the boot, did support state and federal quarantine powers. They definitely didn't bow to the King.

What we do need to be careful about is if temporary quarantine powers stretch out further than they're needed or become permanent, or if those powers are used selectively and unfairly. We also need to be vigilant that those in power are not using quarantine restrictions to enrich themselves or their political allies.

Harvard University, Origins of Federal Quarantine and Inspection Laws

[Aussie105]

1. There are probably more trolls and bots out there than people realize.

A lot of them are obvious, and whatever ideas they push, a simple fact check proves they are wrong.

There are some trolls out there though, that are harder to detect. They state known facts and spin them into an incorrect conclusion.

Then there is misinformation:

Case 1: Trump (echoed by Pompeo and others), state there is definite evidence the virus was an accidental release from a Chinese lab.
True?
Show us this definite evidence, please. Don't just tell us it exists, show us!
Well, Trump quotes other governments as backing that up. No, they are not, they are suggesting the source of the virus should be traced back, so that the whole process of protecting people and preventing spread of future outbreaks can be improved, rather than laying blame.
They offer a couple of as yet unproven hypotheses. Trump is simply picking the one that suits him, and pushing it as fact.
And extending this to push the need to 'punish' China in some way.

Misinformation at it's best! Distract, distract, blame, blame.

Case 2: A Doctor (PhD in Chemistry, I think) tells us we are doing it wrong. Herd immunity is the important thing, once 60 to 80% of a population has the virus, then you have herd immunity.
Never mind the number of sick and the number of deaths an overloaded health system would produce, keeping the economy running is more important.
Said doctor has no valid input as an epidemiologist, he simply has an opinion. Fortunately, most governments have chosen to protect it's people with lock-ins, etc. Less deaths, the economy suffers but will recover.