Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Da Kine 17, No one but you and your as-far-as-you-can-get right sites suggest the virus was created on purpose to make money.

No one but you and others as dangerously lacking in respect for intellectual integrity as you apparently are, that is.

"Did they created the virus BEFORE or after they created the vaccine?"

Did you stop beating your wife before or after killing her?

What sort of a society would you have if every individual gave totally baseless statements more credence than evidence-based statements? You do that. What if everyone did. You would have a culture with no real sense of right or wrong. No sense of balance. No peg to hang your hat on at all. You would be nowhere and never get past it.

Take your Rumble - https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/rumble/

Why would you post from that site without thoroughly fact-checking most every statement.

For Rumble, misinformation is a feature, not a bug

Published on March 1, 2021

Brian Jackson
Tech Insights podcast host. Tech trends analyst and CIO advisor.

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a relative with a link to a video about COVID-19 vaccines. I clicked and within a couple of minutes my blood was boiling and my day was ruined. The video was full of lies and its message was clear – that receiving a COVID-19 vaccination was dangerous.

After warning my relative that the video was clearly misinformation and explaining why, I wanted to take a closer look. The video was hosted by Rumble Video, a Toronto based firm that was familiar to me as I’d interviewed CEO Chris Pavlovski in 2014. I contacted Chris directly and informed him of the video and asked for it to be removed. When I got no response, I dug a bit deeper into the sites’ misinformation policy.

It turns out that while other social media sites are finally getting around to putting in place governance standards addressing misinformation, Rumble is promoting its willingness to host that content. At Rumble, hosting misinformation is seen as a feature, not a bug. In a Washington Post story by Cat Zakrzewski .. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/11/16/technology-202-youtube-alternative-rumble-highlights-conservatives-move-more-hands-off-social-networks/ .. published Nov. 16, 2020, Pavlovski says Rumble’s approach to content moderation is similar to larger tech companies “ten years ago” and that while certain obscene content is prohibited, lies are just fine. “We don’t get involved in scientific opinions; we don’t have the expertise to do that we don’t want to do that,” Pavlovski said.

The article’s main point is that Rumble is enjoying the same sort of success as Parler in the wake of some right-wing personalities moving away from platforms like Youtube and Facebook, which were being stricter with content moderation policies. But in welcoming those personalities to set up shop on Rumble, Pavlovski makes the mistake of categorizing dissenting opinions and misinformation as one and the same.

Misinformation isn’t about what political view someone has, or whether they are right or wrong in their arguments. Misinformation is about telling lies. It describes a communicator that intends to mislead their audience.

Anti-vaxxers turn to Rumble to spread their false narratives

A quick search for “COVID-19 vaccines” on Rumble shows many examples of misinformation. In fact, it is easier to find misinformation about the vaccines than it is to find credible information about them. The top result is a video from Dr. Simone Gold, with “banned from Youtube” prominently in its title. The inference is that the video is full of secret knowledge that is being kept secret by some dark cabal of conspirators. The truth is that the video is total malarky.

The video is a lecture presented by Gold, there are many examples of distortion of the facts. For example, Gold says that people who get the vaccine can then test positive for coronavirus. But the vaccines do not lead to positive viral tests, the kind that are used to see if you have the infection. They might possibly lead to positives on antibody tests, but that is a test to see if you have developed immunity to the virus. It's totally different. Yet Gold goes on to suggest that governments will use these positive test results to continue justifying lockdown situations.

Other videos that appear in the first page of Rumble's search results for "COVID-19 vaccine" include one titled "Could a COVID-19 vaccine cause harm, even death over time?". And there are videos from Dr. Christiane Northrup, who has been making spurious anti-vaccine videos for a long time.

In responding to my request to come on my Tech Insights podcast to discuss its position on misinformation, Rumble declined to do so. Instead support specialist Mario De Lima emailed me this statement:

“Rumble hasn't created any tactic nor have we meaningfully changed our policies since our inception in 2013, we have stayed consistent with the values we founded the company on.

“More importantly, the video in question was uploaded using the ‘Personal Use’ video hosting license (Rumble provides 4 different licensing options to select when uploading, whereas only 1 option is similar to YouTube). The service this particular user selected is similar to cloud storage services like iCloud or Dropbox, not YouTube. This means the video is NOT searchable and NOT promoted by Rumble in any way. The user can share the link with friends or on their website; which is similar to the way users share with other cloud services like Dropbox, iCloud etc.”

De Lima’s response addresses only the original video that I asked to be taken down. It doesn’t address any of the other videos I found in the search results or my concerns about Rumble’s lack of a misinformation policy.

Rumble’s choice creates a risk society must bear

I’m disappointed in Rumble’s approach to misinformation. Its embrace of it comes at a time when getting good information is crucial to individuals’ health and will have an impact on the overall recovery of our economy. Distributing the safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines to as much of our population as quickly as possible is the best route out of this pandemic. If vaccine hesitancy slows that effort, the results could be truly tragic.

Rumble is in a position where it can benefit from the mistakes made by more popular platforms. Misinformation spreading on those platforms has lead to devastating social impacts, including a genocide in Myanmar .. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/06/technology/myanmar-facebook.html , and a Russian campaign to divide Americans that reached a crescendo in election years .. https://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6380/1146 .

In the post-2020 election landscape, Facebook is now asking government to regulate content moderation. As Internet regulation reform takes place in Canada on several different fronts, it seems possible that some form of regulation around sites based on user-generated content will be part of a bill voted on by parliament. The U.S. may also consider legislation in the coming months or years.

In the meantime, Rumble can continue to encourage a growing user base based on a hands-off policy in regard to content moderation. It’s legal, but I’d encourage Rumble to do better than simply follow the law and instead do what is morally right. It should start by focusing on removing lies about COVID-19 vaccines from its hosting platform.

Published By Brian Jackson
Tech Insights podcast host. Tech trends analyst and CIO advisor.
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The spread of misinformation regarding COVID-19 vaccines is a serious matter that could affect people's health. As a result, platforms that host user-generated content have started taking some content moderation approaches to prevent the spread of misinformation. But at Toronto-based Rumble, hosting misinformation is seen as a feature, not a bug. Some creators that are being prevented from sharing misinformation on Youtube or Facebook are finding a new home on this video-sharing site, and the site is making it clear it has no intention to stop the spread of misinformation. On this week's Tech Insights podcast, I explore the perils of hosting misinformation with Alexandre BLANC Cyber Security and Eric Cabral. I invited Rumble to take part in that discussion and explain their position, but they declined to do so. Instead, I read a statement on their behalf. I've also written this LinkedIn article asking Rumble to do the right thing and put in place some responsible content moderation policies regarding misinformation on its platform. #misinformation #covid19vaccine #scienceupfirst #contentmoderation #usergeneratedcontent

Dena Carter
President

I think the people posting the dangers of the vaccine believe they are dangerous and you don't. There are two opinions...... theirs and yours. Why should your opinion be the only one heard.
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Brian Jackson
Tech Insights podcast host. Tech trends analyst and CIO advisor.

I'm open to different opinions Dena, but what I'm worried about are lies. That can include fabrication, or a misrepresentation of facts. I definitely wouldn't want to get in the way of any other opinions, even if I disagree with them. But I do at least want to be able to agree upon the set of facts that we're working with to form opinions. If you listen to the episode, I give a couple of specific examples.

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/rumble-misinformation-feature-bug-brian-jackson/?trackingId=Caw73DAcSQ%2BGUv1w6QNehA%3D%3D