There are many, many legitimate discussion topics around the pandemic. What measures are effective? How should governments proceed? I'm even fine with discussions that are not so flattering to vaccines or pharmaceutical companies. But that thread yesterday really crossed the line in terms of the fire hose of misinformation. While in theory misinformation can be countered by rebuttal, in practice it takes so little effort to make a false claim in relationship to making a rebuttal that antivaxxers can just exhaust their opponents. It also tends to derail more worthwhile conversations.
pingveno@lemmy.ml 2 years ago
There are many, many legitimate discussion topics around the pandemic. What measures are effective? How should governments proceed? I'm even fine with discussions that are not so flattering to vaccines or pharmaceutical companies. But that thread yesterday really crossed the line in terms of the fire hose of misinformation. While in theory misinformation can be countered by rebuttal, in practice it takes so little effort to make a false claim in relationship to making a rebuttal that antivaxxers can just exhaust their opponents. It also tends to derail more worthwhile conversations.