Ministry of Truth?

[Dill]

(05-16-2022, 10:19 AM)StrictlyBiz Wrote: Dr Prasad nails it right here. The fact that a government official, the FDA Commissioner, can make such a wildly absurd and false claim and then suggest that something should be done about it, should give you pause. Especially since he's in a position to heavily influence policy. Watch the whole video but pay particular attention between 2:20 and 4:10 where he perfectly states why a disinformation board is a bad idea. 

Just a quick note on this.

I agree with Prasad that a government official should not make such a "wildly absurd and false claim," even if it is not a claim like "masks don't work," which might actually lead to deaths.

However, did you also notice that while he is claiming disinformation is so impossibly hard to define and identify, he is defining and identifying it? *

A single official "giving pause" does not really persuade me that "the government" as a whole does not do a good job identifying misinformation, scams and the like in the medical field, or that they should not have an authoritative say in what counts as disinformation here.

Among the causes of distrust in government, he lists politicians misinforming for their own end, but he CONSPICUOUSLY does not list people--corporations, politicians and commentators--sowing and amplifying distrust to enhance their own power.  Your Ryan Grimm report focuses on such an example, in taking down the Fox/Watters' claim Hillary planted evidence on Trump's server, etc. That so many Trump followers believe that the vaccine is more dangerous than COVID itself does likely lead to deaths and is NOT a consequence of "government misinformation." 

If its misinformation/disinformation really creates "distrust", then how is it that the stream of disinformation flowing from Trump enhances his trustworthiness in the eyes of his followers, while accurate reporting on that disinformation only creates more distrust of MSM among Trump followers? I suppose one could argue that Trump WAS "government" while he was in office, telling us the COVID plague would dissipate by spring. But one could also argue that his COVID mis/disinformation during his last year in office was strengthening Trump trust in MAGA world. For those outside MAGA world, it was not creating distrust in government, but distrust in Trump.

*Prasad claims it is false to say that the number COVID deaths cannot be quantified. It is inherently so. Califf might counter-argue, in this case, that his point was not that it is hard to quantify quantities, but that it is hard to establish the quantify, i.e., difficult to determine which cases were really due to misinformation (e.g., maybe Herman Cain's, and other Trump rally attendees) and which resulted from uncontrollable spread.