{"id":1687,"date":"2019-03-27T19:15:27","date_gmt":"2019-03-27T19:15:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/?p=1687"},"modified":"2019-03-27T19:15:27","modified_gmt":"2019-03-27T19:15:27","slug":"catastrophe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/2019\/03\/27\/catastrophe\/","title":{"rendered":"Catastrophe"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I have always considered being a bit of a catastrophist<\/a> an important part of my mental hygiene. This started in my undergraduate days when I took a lot of classes in probability and statistics. The most important word in the question “What could possibly go wrong?” was “possibly” rather than “wrong.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

My mathematical imagination failed me in the early years of social media. I could not see how Twitter and Facebook and YouTube could possibly provide nests for Nazis or White Supremacists. Or anti-vaxxers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I had no excuse, having studied zines<\/a>, the precursor of today’s blogs, for years in the late 1980s and early 1990s. I had a large library of hate and ignorance. I should have known these authors and their progeny would fly to new media platforms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The website Healthline.com has just published an article called “How Major Tech Companies Are Handling Anti-Vaccine Content<\/a>.” Its tone is perhaps more optimistic than is warranted by the facts, and by the histories of some of these companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this month, the American Medical Association issued a public letter to the CEOs of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Pinterest, Twitter, and YouTube.<\/p>

The central questions posed to tech companies: How are these platforms spreading anti-vaccination rhetoric and what, if anything, is being done to stop it?
<\/p>

\u201cWhile misinformation is spread in many different ways, we know that social media is a leading source of how Americans are getting their information today,\u201d AMA President Dr. Barbara L. McAneny, told Healthline.<\/p>

McAneny explained why experts are worried that more and more parents than ever before\u00a0get health information from social media<\/a>.
<\/p>

\u201cWe are concerned that the proliferation of this type of health-related misinformation will undermine sound science, further decrease vaccinations, and persuade people to make medical decisions that could spark the spread of easily preventable diseases,\u201d she said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Pinterest is blocking “vaccination-related searches.” Amazon’s removing some anti-vaccination titles. YouTube’s “demonetizing” anti-vax videos and channels. Read the whole article here<\/a>. Pray for the best.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have always considered being a bit of a catastrophist an important part of my mental hygiene. This started in my undergraduate days when I took a lot of classes in probability and statistics. The most important word in the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[93],"class_list":["post-1687","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-roberts-posts","tag-social-media"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1687"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1687\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1687"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1687"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nocontest.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1687"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}