David Livermore, a Professor of Medical Microbiology at the University of East Anglia and a regular contributor to this site, has shared his response to Meta’s request for feedback on the COVID-19 ‘misinformation‘ policies of Facebook and its other social media platforms.
To respond, it is necessary first to define ‘misinformation’. The fact that some authority asserts something does not make it so. For decades, sometimes centuries, doctors believed in Galenic humours, chemists in phlogiston and astronomers that the sun orbited the earth. Alchemists deceived themselves that they could transmute base metal to gold. The assertions of religious authorities belong a class of their own. Those who disputed these authorities were castigated as heretics and purveyors of ‘misinformation’. Some were hounded from their professions. Yet they, not the ‘authorities’, proved to be right.
So, let me comment first on Meta’s list of what has been done already and whether it was right or not, then turn to your questions. My responses to the latter flow from the former.
• Meta asked the Board whether it should continue removing content under their current policy or whether another, less restrictive, approach would better align with the company’s values and human rights responsibilities.
A less restrictive approach is appropriate, and always should have been followed, even at the height of the pandemic. It cannot be said too often that the policies adopted with respect to COVID were not those intended before the pandemic. The pre-pandemic plans of the CDC, WHO and Public Health England (for whom I worked from 1997 to 2018) did not advocate lockdowns, and were sceptical of masks [1,2,3]. The envisaged response was one of ‘Keep calm and carry on’, accepting that, as humans, we are prey to occasional respiratory virus pandemics with sizeable mortality, as in 1889-94, 1918-9, 1957-8 and 1968-9.
Yet, in 2020, these long-prepared plans were abandoned overnight and totally different policies (lockdowns, masks, distancing, Test & Trace etc) were adopted. There was no prior evidence – except assertions from a secretive and hostile power (China) – that these novel approaches would prove effective or proportionate.
Accordingly it should always have been legitimate to question and criticise the unorthodox policies adopted, especially given their great cost and predictable collateral damage e.g., to provision of other healthcare, to mental health, to education etc. [4,5,6].
• Meta’s approach to misinformation on its platforms mainly relies on “contextualizing potentially false claims and reducing their reach, rather than removing content. Because it is difficult to precisely define what constitutes misinformation across a whole range of topics, removing misinformation at scale risks unjustifiably interfering with users’ expression.”
This appears to have been Meta’s general pre-pandemic policy, on which I have no comment. The issue is what was done regarding ‘misinformation’ during the pandemic, below.
• Meta states that they began adopting a different approach in January 2020, as the widespread impact of COVID-19 started to become apparent. Meta moved towards removing entire categories of misinformation about the pandemic from its platforms. Meta states that it did this because “outside health experts told us that misinformation about COVID-19, such as false claims about cures, masking, social distancing, and the transmissibility of the virus, could contribute to the risk of imminent physical harm.”
The crux is what constitutes ‘misinformation. On 21st July 2021 President Biden asserted “If you’ve been vaccinated, you won’t get COVID”.[7] Yet cases of vaccine breakthrough infection were well recognised by that date, with a CDC report on 28th May 2021.[8] Failures were discussed at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology & Infection (the world’s premiere Infection meeting), held from 9-12 July 2021, again preceding President Biden’s claim. Thus, the President’s didactic assertion was wrong, and known to be wrong, at the time it was made. Moreover, it was said with purpose. It therefore unequivocally constituted ‘misinformation’. Yet this is not the sort of ‘misinformation’ that Meta and other social media suppressed…
Rather, suppression of ‘misinformation’ has been reserved for those sceptical of lockdowns, masks, and the efficacy of vaccines. This might have been reasonable if it was clear and well known that lockdowns, masks, and vaccines are highly effective in novel coronavirus pandemics. Yet that was not the case. As already pointed out, the policies of 2020 were adopted ‘on the hoof’. They were not evidence based and, from the beginning, could be expected to cause great collateral damage. It should always have been legitimate to explore, debate, and criticise them. It is unreasonable to call such criticism, ‘misinformation’ simply because it disputes the official narrative.
Take one example – masks. Trial evidence, prior to COVID, was that these gave little or no useful protection against respiratory viruses [9]. The DANMASK trial, during the pandemic, likewise indicated no significant reduction in COVID infections [10]. Another trial, in Bangladesh [11], did suggest fewer infections in the masked, but its design and statistics have been heavily criticised, and the difference in case numbers between the two arms was trivial [12]. Mask mandates have failed, everywhere, to halt rising COVID trends; for recent illustrations, look to Japan and South Korea, where compliant populations wear masks, even outdoors. Yet, since mid-June 2022, COVID cases have risen 15-fold or more [13]. Or look at schools in Fargo vs. West Fargo (USA) where adjacent districts differed in whether pupils were obliged to wear masks, but where there was no difference in COVID incidence among these pupils [14]. Or consider Bavaria, where N95 masks (asserted to be more effective) were mandated, but where case rates followed the same trajectory as in the rest of Germany, where people largely used (useless) surgical masks [15].
In summary, the evidence in favour of masks for controlling SARS-CoV2 is between scanty and non-existent. Moreover, they are uncomfortable, impede communication, interfere with early childhood learning [16] and have created a disgusting street and beach litter, harmful to wildlife [17]. Yet, Meta and other social media took to censoring negative comments on masks as ‘misinformation’ whilst accepting wildly inflated claims of their efficacy without demur.
• According to Meta there was a lack of authoritative guidance at the beginning of the pandemic, which “created an information vacuum that encouraged the spread of rumours, speculation, and misinformation.” Today, people have greater access to information. “While misinformation about COVID-19 continues to exist, data-driven, factually reported information about the pandemic has been published at an astounding rate.”
See above. Governments, except Sweden and a very few others, adopted an untried approach at the beginning of the pandemic. It was and is unreasonable to dub fair criticism of this as ‘misinformation,’ especially when much of the criticism calls simply for the adoption of policies generally accepted and advocated pre-pandemic [1,2,3].
Moreover, much of what was initially disparaged as ‘misinformation’ has later proved to be true, partly true or, at least, eminently plausible: (e.g. on the harms and ineffectiveness of lockdowns [4,5,6]; on the minimal effect of masks [9-15]; on the brief efficacy of vaccines in terms of preventing infection and transmission [18,19]; on the fact that these vaccines are ‘leaky’ in respect of currently-prevalent variants [20]; on rare but severe side effects of vaccines, particularly in boys and young men [21], who are at minimal risk of severe COVID; not to mention the plausibility of a lab escape origin rather than wet market) [22]. Much of what has come from governments and ‘authoritative sources’ has done so through the questionable filter of ‘Nudge Units’, engaged in mass propaganda, often predicated on flimsy evidence and dubious modelling [23]
• Second, the development of vaccines, therapeutic treatments and the evolution of disease variants, means that COVID-19 is less deadly.
True – though a bigger point is that so many of us have now been infected (70% in the UK by Feb 2022, and probably >80% by now [24]) that we’ve co-evolved to ‘live with the virus.
• Finally, Meta states that “public health authorities are actively evaluating whether COVID-19 has evolved to a less severe state.”
See the preceding point: it is partly that the virus has evolved to become more transmissible but less able to cause severe disease, and partly that we’ve developed a protective immune memory through a combination of infection and vaccination. SARS-CoV2 is now, most likely, well on its way to becoming another sort of endemic ‘common cold’ agent, akin to the long established 229E, HKU1, NL63 and OC43 coronaviruses.
• Meta strongly supports taking a global approach, rather than adopting country or region-specific approaches.
Maybe so. But you must accept that diversity of approach exists among countries, leading to legitimate questions of what is ‘right’.
A few examples. Sweden eschewed lockdowns and mask mandates, faring no worse than countries that imposed them [13]. Were they right?They accrued less collateral damage. Florida stopped lockdowns early, with no worse outcomes than most other US states with more draconian policies, despite a large elderly population [13]. Were they right? Denmark recently stopped vaccinating healthy children and has stopped boosters for the under 50s [25]. Florida, unlike many other US states, is not recommending vaccination for healthy children [26]. Are they right? Children are at minimal risk from COVID but boys, in particular, are at some measurable risk of vaccine-induced myocarditis [21]. At the other extreme (madly in my view) China continues to pursue lockdowns a l’outrance.
Five years hence, once the virus has ‘bedded-in’ to the human population, once total (not just COVID) mortality trends have returned to normal, once the full collateral damage has been tallied, historians and epidemiologists will be able to take a reasoned view of which countries fared well and which fared badly. Until then there is uncertainty and Meta, along with other platforms must accept and reflect this.
The only items that should be flagged ‘misinformation’ are egregious nonsense (e.g. the vaccines contain little green men controlled from 5G masts) or simple assertions that are demonstrably untrue (see Biden, above).
Turning now to your questions. The answers come from the points stressed above.
• The prevalence and impact of COVID-19 misinformation in different countries or regions, especially in places where Facebook and Instagram are a primary means of sharing information, and in places where access to health care, including vaccines, is limited.
It is wrong and unethical (possibly racist too) to treat the citizens of these places as children to be manipulated in a paternalistic manner. They are adults with reason and agency. Where there is diversity of opinion, they should have access to it. Only the most egregious nonsense should ever be censored. Otherwise, in time, Meta will indubitably find yourselves in the hole of having censored what transpires to be true, harming your own reputation.
• The effectiveness of social media interventions to address COVID-19 misinformation, including how it impacts the spread of misinformation, trust in public health measures and public health outcomes, as well as impacts on freedom of expression, in particular civic discourse and scientific debate.
Please see all discussion above on what is ‘misinformation’. Do not confuse ‘misinformation’ with honest debate and dispute. Do not presume that the majority, or the ‘the authorities are right. Remember that very many established medics and scientists, myself included, signed the Gt Barrington Declaration [27], advocating a more traditional response to the pandemic, not the unorthodox, costly, and untested one adopted, which never enjoyed the total support suggested by Meta’s censorship
• The use of algorithmic or recommender systems to detect and apply misinformation interventions, and ways of improving the accuracy and transparency of those systems.
These should (preferably) be abandoned. Alternatively, they should be applied even-handedly to all questionable statements – i.e., someone saying “Vaccines are useless” should be reminded that mortality among the heavily vaccinated elderly in S Korea has been far less than for the same age cohort Hong Kong, with low vaccination rates [28] … Equally someone boasting “I’m getting vaccinated to protect granny” should be reminded that vaccine-mediated protection against infection lasts only briefly and is followed by phase with a high likelihood of infection [18,19,20]. If the latter poster instead caught COVID, they’d develop a more durable immunity. Granny’s ‘protection’ won’t be much different either way [29].
• The fair treatment of users whose expression is impacted by social media interventions to address health misinformation, including the user’s ability to contest the application of labels, warning screens, or demotion of their content.
Again, this comes down to the issue of what is ‘misinformation’. The label should be used extremely sparingly and never in the context of topics that are genuinely arguable.
• Principles and best practice to guide Meta’s transparency reporting of its interventions in response to health misinformation.
Be very careful of calling anything ‘misinformation’ because it does not conform with the prevailing views of officialdom. Copernicus, Galileo, Semmelweis were condemned as purveyors of ‘misinformation’ by those more powerful than themselves. Yet they were right.
Be alert to the fact that some of officialdom’s views (e.g., apropos masks) been prone to sudden change; or has been proven wrong and inaccurate (and therefore to be ‘misinformation’) by subsequent events. Examples include the exaggerated optimism about vaccine efficacy in terms of preventing infection and transmission,’ also a vast amount of ‘predictive’ modelling.
Accept that there is much uncertainty with any new disease, that the response to COVID was unprecedented and untested, that scientific and medical knowledge accrues tortuously along a zig-zag pathway. Be very careful not to censor any view about which there is reasonable debate. Or – if you must censor – do so to egregious claims on both sides of the discussion.
Lastly, be humble and never forget Lord Melbourne’s salutary dictum: “What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.” Sometimes it works out like that …
1 https://www.dhs.gov/sites/default/files/publications/cikrpandemicinfluenzaguide.pdf
2 https://www.who.int/publications/i/item/non-pharmaceutical-public-health-measuresfor-mitigating-the-risk-and-impact-of-epidemic-and-pandemic-influenza
3 https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/213717/dh_131040.pdf
4 https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf
5 https://psychiatry.news/2022-02-22-uk-doctors-warn-of-mental-health-pandemic.html
6 https://www.gov.uk/government/news/ofsted-children-hardest-hit-by-covid-19-pandemic-are-regressing-in-basic-skills-and-learning
7 https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/biden-said-if-you-get-vaccinated-you-wont-get-covid
8 https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7021e3.htm
9 https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/covid-19-masks-on-or-off/
10 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33205991/
11 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34855513/
12 https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/bangladesh-study-proves-masks-dont
13 https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
14 https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1773983/v1
15 https://swprs.org/face-masks-and-covid-the-evidence/
16 https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.10.21261846v1.full.pdf
17 https://www.anguillesousroche.com/nature/limpact-devastateur-des-dechets-covid-19-sur-la-faune-sauvage-de-la-planete/
18 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30895-3
19 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34614327/
20 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34873578/
21 https://www.preprints.org/manuscript/202208.0151/v1
22 https://thebulletin.org/2021/08/how-covid-19s-origins-were-obscured-by-the-east-and-the-west/
23 https://www.lauradodsworth.com/a-state-of-fear
24 https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/coronavirus-covid-19-infection-survey-technical-article-cumulative-incidence-of-the-number-of-people-who-have-tested-positive-for-covid-19
25 https://sst.dk/da/corona/vaccination
26 https://www.floridahealth.gov/newsroom/2022/03/20220308-FDOH-covid19-vaccination-recommendations-children.pr.html
27 https://gbdeclaration.org
28 https://empirefinancialresearch.com/articles/covid-in-hong-kong-why-china-is-vulnerable-omicron-remains-highly-lethal-for-unvaxxed-people-who-havent-had-covid
29 https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35380632/
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Good points, in the main.
Any information platform over a certain size where it is acting as a carrier rather than a publisher should be forced by law as a condition of a license to operate to never disallow any content whatsoever unless it is illegal in the countries it is visible in.
One quibble – the “vaccines” don’t appear to have done much if anything to mitigate the impact of covid – in fact the evidence seems to point in the opposite direction. Neither do other treatments pushed by the satanists. Covid was never an emergency that warranted special treatment.
I think it’s dangerous to argue that “masks don’t work, so criticising them is not misinformation”. I think you simply have to say that misinformation is a decision for the consumer of the information and no-one else. As soon as you try to come up with a framework to evaluate what constitutes misinformation, it will be hijacked and manipulated and you’re lost. No-one seems to understand what “freedom of speech” means any more.
Agree. A few highly contentious, pro-‘vaccine’ points were made that I’m far from convinced about:
1) That ‘vaccines’ may cause “rare but severe side effects of vaccines”. We don’t actually know how ‘rare’ the side effects are. We have lots of data to say they are not ‘rare’ (and how is ‘rare’ being defined anyway) and we simply don’t have enough historical data yet to draw that conclusion.
2) The assumption that ‘vaccines’ have contributed to making the virus less deadly. There’s plenty of evidence/opinion to suggest the vaccines did nothing of the sort. In fact, given the shot apparently reduces symptoms, the poison is likely to be propagating the pandemic (possibly should have put that in quotes also) by allowing people who don’t know they’re infected to infect others. A leaky vaccine can also put pressure on the virus to mutate.
3) The assumption that comparing elderly in Hong Kong to elderly in South Korea is akin to comparing apples with apples. Differences in health and behaviour will almost certainly mean that is not true. Even a worldwide comparison actually tells us very little – it would only imply cause and effect.
In short, if the ‘vaccines’ were in any way effective then there would be clear, difficult to dispute, evidence. There isn’t. It’s actually nigh on impossible to conclude that there has any benefit whatsoever… unless you’re a Guardian reader or BBC fanatic of course. As to whether they’re safe, well, they obviously are not. The risk from this muck is, at best, unknown. I largely agree with pretty much everything else though.
2) The assumption that ‘vaccines’ have contributed to making the virus less deadly. There’s plenty of evidence/opinion to suggest the vaccines did nothing of the sort. In fact, given the shot apparently reduces symptoms, the poison is likely to be propagating the pandemic
Virus infections cause symptoms because the process of viral reproduction kills body cells (slight simplification). That’s different from bacterial infections which usually cause symptoms as side effects of their presence, eg, because of toxic execretions. Typhoid Mary was immune against the bacteria living in her body while others weren’t. But this cannot happen with viruses because these aren’t capable of independent reproduction. The only way to get rid of the symptoms caused by a viral infection is to get rid of the viruses.
Meta needs to decide whether it is a business operating to serve the consumer and maximise shareholder value, or if it is a self-appointed (Government enabled) Inquisition which will police what citizens may know, by silencing any who might speak heresies not in accordance with the official orthodoxy or arbitrarily decided by the Meta supported conclave of ordained knowers of the truth.
In fact it is clear they have decided they are the latter.
They do need to be shut down.
But the main fault lies with all those who still patronise FaceBook, Twitter, YouTube – particularly those who keep whining about how they have been suspended or banned.
Yes, it’s hard for them to claim they are just a private company when they control so much of daily life and take instructions, when it suits them, from officialdom.
Should absolute nonsense such as vaccines containing little green men controlled by 5G really be flagged as misinformation?
The vast majority of people are able to work out that statements such as this are misinformation. A more general point is that once it’s accepted that some forms of misinformation need to be censored we’re on the slippery slope of having accepted that censorship is sometimes acceptable and it’s left to the censors to decide how far down that slope to go.
There’s an obvious element of elitism at work here, i.e. the censors can look at this content in order to decide if it needs to be censored without believing or being influenced by it, but the little people aren’t intelligent enough to work out what is clearly a load of bollocks or what may be true. I find this view, which is implicit, if not explicit, in all forms of censorship, labelling things as misinformation, trigger warnings etc. highly patronising.
The statement that severe adverse effects from Covid “vaccinations” are rare requires comment.
Reporting of adverse events is notoriously unreliable, with the accepted rate of reporting being less than 10 percent.
Additionally, with a novel and experimental vaccine, long term sequelae may take years for data to be gathered and assessed.
I have personally treated upward of 100 patients with inflammatory reactions to “vaccines” affecting joints or the peripheral nervous system (my field of medicine).
I have reported 10 of these- the most severe and clearly linked to Covid shots.
While not life threatening, these events have had serious effects on patients’ quality of life and ability to work.
Up to the end of June 2022, 133,000 adverse events had been reported in Australia.
If this represents 10 percent of all events, over one million have occured this far.
If Steve Kirch’s figure of only 1 in 41 events getting reported is correct, “rare” is not an accurate assessment of serious side effects prevalence.
I hope that Professor Livermore is not upset when all his perfectly made points are ignored.
The Zuck android and by extension his Meta offspring look on themselves like the Gods on Mount Olympus, beyond the comprehension of mere mortals on earth.
These fantasies are reinforced by all the billions of sad souls who tell other sad souls about the minutiae of their sad lives on the platform in a sad desire to gain ‘friends’ and ‘likes’.
I love this comment. Beuatifully and simply put. Thanks DBB I might borrow it.
David Livermore, brilliant as ever! Thanks.
I worked with the FDA in the USA in the noughties on a medical device. Their timeline for approval was a minimum of 10 years following safety and efficacy clinical trials. This is why I have never and will never take this experimental jab.
I’m beginning to get a sense that we, the sceptical and the wilfully non-compliant, are going to win this.
I take on board fully the perfectly reasonable comments BTL.
That said, if Prof Livermore’s responses as articulated are accepted and acted upon by Meta, I would be more than happy.
Unfortunately, I doubt if logic, justice, reason and evidence can outweigh commercial pressure.
Couldn’t agree more, Jane.
In fact I doubt if logic etc can outweigh Meta’s malicious arrogance and hubris.
David Livermore’s piece is excellent, one of the best I have read.
But I suspect that for good, diplomatic reasons, he has had to cut them much undeserved slack.
After all, Covid, Lockdowns, Vaccines are just one area of concern. Meta seem no better on “Climate Emergency” or “Net Zero” or “Ruinable Energy”, which bodes well to be even more destructive than Covid (a trial run to examine tactics to achieve the aims of the latter cult).
But it is possible that someone in Meta might read Livermore’s comments and take notice. I doubt it, but more conceivable than just pointing out that they are malicious, virtue-signalling twats.
Prof Livermore says “Only the most egregious nonsense should ever be censored.”
I respectfully disagree. Even the most egregious nonsense should not be censored, unless it breaks the law.
Let’s take the “chips in vaccine activated by 5G” example, which I view as egregious. If people come across this in mainstream social media, they will see many comments from users pointing out it’s absurdity, and are most likely to conclude that the theory is nonsense and move on.
Now imagine the same person comes across the 5G theory in some dark corner of the internet to where absurd theories are banished. They will see that most or all of the comments support the theory. They will see for themselves that the 5G theory has been censored from mainstream social media, adding strength to the argument that it is a conspiracy that the authorities want to hide.
Once in that corner of the internet where bizarre theories dominate, and go largely unquestioned, this person is likely to sign up to other truly nutty ideas and disengage from mainstream discussion altogether.
The topic that is missing is the direct pressure from elected politicians who want any opposition or debate against their policies and programs, silenced. The leaders of all the main social media companies have already been hauled before government bodies. You know there are back door roads of communication and pressures going on all the time. Governments are inactive online safety bills in many countries, you have to now accept that this is just a way for them to control the narrative. Zuckerberg nows seems like he is finally pushing back against politician’s pressures.