White House May Work With Carriers To Screen Anti-Vax Messages (tmonews.com) 267
According to Politico, "Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are [...] planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines that is sent over social media and text messages." The White House is also planning to work with social media platforms and traditional media outlets to combat misinformation and ultimately improve vaccination rates. TmoNews reports: The White House could ask carriers like T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T to step in and stop the spread of these text messages. This is one way they hope they will be able to get their vaccination message across better and eliminate misinterpretation. There is no word yet on whether or not the White House has reached out to these carriers to help them screen anti-vax messages. But if it does, it will be interesting to see how this will be acted upon and which tools would be used. Then again, it could open a can of worms with potential issues that would violate customer privacy and an individual's right to free speech. "We are steadfastly committed to keeping politics out of the effort to get every American vaccinated so that we can save lives and help our economy further recover," White House spokesperson Kevin Munoz said. "When we see deliberate efforts to spread misinformation, we view that as an impediment to the country's public health and will not shy away from calling that out."
Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
I had felt myself starting to text unapproved thoughts to my friends. Fortunately now, the cognitive and business elites will step in and save me from myself, preventing me from spreading my unapproved and possibly criminal thoughts. I don't deserve their kind beneficence, but I am grateful for it.
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Funny)
https://twitter.com/FBI/status/1414192827026878465
Re:Thank goodness (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
None of that says anything about thought crime, only what is allowed in public schools. We also outlaw the teaching of any religion as truth in public schools. Do you think that makes religion "thought crime"?
The distinctive part of CRT is not teaching "that slavery ever existed". According to Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic in their 2001 book Critical Race Theory: An Introduction:
(emphasis added). That is exactly why conservatives do not want it in public schools, and would prefer it stay away from undergraduates as well.
Re:Thank goodness (Score:4, Insightful)
Sure, Jan: https://www.dailywire.com/news... [dailywire.com] The National Education Association, the largest teacher's union in the US, pledged to teach CRT -- across the country.
To the extent that CRT is only part of the racist, illiberal push to instill the successor ideology in public schools, you are absolutely right that we should not limit scrutiny to strictly "critical race theory" teaching; there is a lot more to the explicit attempts to undermine American society by Marxist-derived doctrines.
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Informative)
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I'm pretty sure that the basic ideas of "critical race theory" were taught to me in *junior* high school, and perhaps even in grade school. We learned about the history of the slave trade; we learned that the founding fathers were slave-owners; I specifically remember being taught about the 3/5ths rule, Jim Crow laws, Plessy vs. Ferguson, the Scottsboro Nine, the history of lynching, the civil rights movement, and so on, and so on.
It would be difficult to teach a history or civics class without covering these topics at length. So I'm not sure what you're on about.
You know that's just history class, right. That's not CRT.
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Those are facts, not a critical race theory.
Still, the alarmist propaganda a
Re: Thank goodness (Score:2)
call me old-fashioned, but I believe in preparing the next generation to be better than the last generation.
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It's not enough that you know the history, you need to "feel" the history.
It's interesting that we let the Democratic party off the hook for slavery and hundreds of years of racist policies while at the same time teaching that we must hold America forever accountable for the past.
Looking at the mass migration of "people of color" fleeing to America, clearly we are considered a better alternative to most of the world (they are crossing entire continents and passing through several countries to get here.)
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Why does everyone forget this happened?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Or maybe comparing the positions of political parties 150+ years ago is kind of dumb and reductive and we should look at what they are currently doing and stand for because neither party comes out clean over the course of history and that's kind of the point...
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Yep, those people of colour have to pass through America to get to Canada.
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If you think "learning that slavery existed" is the center of CRT, then you don't really have an idea what it is, do you?
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You are taking a page straight from the Not Sees, in accusing others of the Big Lie when you are the one perpetrating it. The Texas law is probably going to get struck down as unconstitutional (at least one lawsuit has already been filed over it), but it does not impose or allow any punishment of "a woman if she tries to have an abortion, or already had one". Even your link says you are wrong about the law.
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
And there it is, like clockwork. "Two wrongs make a right!"
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Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
At this point Republicans are taking pages straight from the CCP, so stop your whining.
Like taking the pages from Hitler is any better, so enough of your whining. Humans need to learn from the worst of our history, not make it some kind of ignorant fucking goal to repeat it.
At this point ALL of the fucking cheerleaders need to put the political pom poms down.
The two party system, exists today to serve as a mass distraction device so that Greed N. Corruption can flourish among the elitists pulling the levers. Sadly, they don't even have to use a curtain or smoke anymore. They just stand out in the open, right in the middle of the swamp because they now know you're not going to do jack shit about it, pleb. Besides, the masses are too drunk on TDS and BDS to care, while cheering on a Political Civil War being fueled by Congressional Representative Sharon Shitposter.
Enjoy whatever country emerges from that distraction. I promise you won't see it coming, and it's that way by design.
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I have no mod points, but +10 for this!
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Doubleplusgood, comrade. Doubleplusgood! Finally, we can start to identify these deviant thought criminals. Much better than dealing with decades of politicians & the media eroding people's trust in science & experts.
Exactly. Can't have people citing the law [cnn.com] and getting away with it. We need to muzzle those deviant thought criminals.
Re: Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
it's like the Gestapo never existed. The ism makes little difference, it is the empowered police state that creates concentration camps and starts torturing and killing people. The most likely source of gross abuse of the public is monarchy, then the police state. Communism, capitalism, socialism, makes little difference, that is just branding on top of autocracy and a violent police state, that likes, I seriously mean that, they enjoy torturing and killing people, it is their nature.
Monitoring and censoring text messages, that is real stasi stuff https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] the US government is looking more and more East German by the week.
Go on you anal retentive control freaks, just go martial law already and imprisoning any one who opposes, clearly that is the goal in the US. Make a naught text message and enjoy a 90 enhanced interrogation education. No more naughty texts from you.
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Re:Thank goodness (Score:4, Informative)
Someone beat me to it, but TFA and TFS are just sensationalist FUD.
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
You can use that line of thinking to justify about anything, and people do all the time. All you need is an enemy and people will go all in on authoritarianism.
I think vaccines are one of the greatest inventions of humankind. I wish everyone would choose to get vaccinated and I will happily exercise my right to free speech to try and spread as much information as possible about their efficacy, safety and benefits to society.
But I would rather accept the consequences of individuals making stupid decisions (and yes those decisions will have consequences beyond themselves) than I would accept the consequences of governments not recognizing and protecting basic human rights - like the right to free speech and the right to make your own medical decisions.
Or have we learned nothing from history?
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
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Your post is justifiably moderated up. However, there is a reality that you miss, I think.
Yes, personal choice is an important freedom. However, abuse of free speech has long been a problem. An example where you may agree with me is people who peddle fake Covid cures for financial profit. The anti vaxxers who knowingly kill by spreading exaggerated fears about vaccines, also for financial profit, are just as bad. I am out of sympathy with the notion that society must do nothing to protect naïve people
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In June, there were ~18,000 COVID deaths in the US, and 150 of them were people who were vaccinated. About 2/3 of the population had had at least 1 dose of a vaccine. Or to put it another way, 99.2% of COVID deaths last month were in the non-vaccinated 1/3 of the country.
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Or have we learned nothing from history?
History is full of instances of civil rights being overridden for health reasons. A famous case was Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary who had her freedom removed for 30 years of her life for trying to make her own medical decision. Being locked up without trial is a much more severe limit on basic rights then limiting speech and history says society will do it for others safety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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> Until then I'll sit back and keep watching all of those social media influences dropping like flies a month or two after taking the jab.
You are full of shit. Not only are your anecdotes about influencers probably wrong, but I'm assuming you haven't actually called them up and validated their vaccine status and health status. People can lie on the internet
>If vaccines and masks work, whey are you worried about the anti-masker and anti-vaxer???? You should be protected right????
I'm less mad than I was
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there are legitimate cases of people with autoimmune deficiencies (not just mental deficiencies, as with the average anti-vax moron) who can't be vaccinated that rely on a significant enough percentage of the population to be vaccinated in order to benefit from herd immunity. That would, however, require that anti-vaxers think about others than just themselves, which would actually require them to be capable of thinking in the first place, instead of just repeating easily refuted nonsense and made-up statistics that fall apart under any kind of scrutiny.
Re:Thank goodness (Score:4, Insightful)
Vaccines and masks do "work" in the sense that they provide pretty good protection. The protection is not absolute. The fact that I religiously use seatbelts, that limit my risk of death and serious injury in the event of a crash, does not mean that I no longer fear drunk drivers careering all over the road at 70 miles an hour..
Re:Thank goodness (Score:5, Insightful)
Because a) human trials for the vaccines are done and b) these aren't experimental vaccines. But keep lying if it makes you feel better. It clearly identifies you as an anti-vaxxer.
I'll take the vax after about 3-5 years once it is out of alpha/beta and thoroughly tested.
All vaccines are done being tested so there is no "alpha/beta" nonsense you're lying about. Further, over 177 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose of a covid vaccine so far. Not sure how much more testing you want when half the population has received a shot.
Until then I'll sit back and keep watching all of those social media influences dropping like flies a month or two after taking the jab.
Which of course doesn't happen, but this fits in well with your other lies. However, anit-vaxxers keep dropping like flies because they don't get vaccinated, just like this anti-vax nurse [ibtimes.sg]. The good thing about her death is she won't be able to reproduce and pollute the gene pool.
It is like a weekly thing now and is always heart inflammation or blood clots.
Yeah, more bullshit. It's not "a weekly thing" and those two items are also caused by covid itself, along with organ damage and oxygen depletion, not to mention death. There have only been 1,000 reported cases of heart inflammation, which means of all the people receiving a vaccine, 0.0000005% have reported this issue. Whereas, the death rate for covid is at least 2% meaning you are orders of magnitude more likely to die from covid than experience heart inflammation from getting a vaccine.
3-5 years from now, I have a feeling we will be seeing lots of cheesy lawyer adverts making money off of vaccine "side effects".
No, we won't, because the con artist signed legislation [cnbc.com] to prevent lawsuits against vaccinie makers.
"May". I can't see how. (Score:5, Informative)
From the fine article, "There is no word yet on whether or not the White House has reached out to these carriers to help them screen anti-vax messages."
You can ask Facebook to throttle toxic bullshit because they're not a common carrier. The phone companies are. If you pay your bill and don't threaten the health of the network, they can't refuse service.
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If you pay your bill and don't threaten the health of the network, they can't refuse service.
Maybe they won't refuse service. Maybe they'll inject some type of fact check message along with the SMS that is sent like a carrier was found doing for ads [slashdot.org]
Re:"May". I can't see how. (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually it is.
The government is not supposed to be practicing espionage on its own citizens.
This also includes engaging a private business to do it for them...
Re:"May". I can't see how. (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly this. What the fuck. We all know where this slippery slope leads to.
Just ask those folks being detained and beaten in Cuba.
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Re:"May". I can't see how. (Score:5, Informative)
And supporting your point is the Supreme Court case Norwood v. Harrison, where the court stated:
The government "may not induce, encourage, or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish."
The state was trying to export "separate but equal" segregation to private schools.
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I don't know why I never heard of this case before but thank you.
LK
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That's a good example of the state actor doctrine [wikipedia.org] in action -- one that is not even mentioned on that Wikipedia page.
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and don't threaten the health
I see what you did there...
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Guess what it constitutes (Score:2, Informative)
> the minute the carriers read a single text message without a judge signed warrant they have violated the 5th and 6th amendment
The US Constitution constitutes the federal government. It says how the federal *government* is set up. Article 1 lays out which powers are delegated to the federation by the states, the first amendment says Congress isn't allowed to violate your free speech rights, the 10th repeats again that the federal government can only do the things listed in in Article 1, etc.
The fifth am
Re:Guess what it constitutes (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Guess what it constitutes (Score:5, Informative)
But if you dont believe me, go ahead and try it. The penalties are 10years in prison. What do you have to lose? Wiretap laws for carriers are just as stringent.
Apparently not:
The Senate voted Tuesday to give immunity to telecommunications companies that helped the federal government eavesdrop... [cnn.com]
It even survived a Supreme Court challenge.
P.S. I removed the last part of the quote that said "...on suspected terrorists after the September 11 attacks" since the surveillance applied to everyone who used the phone system, not just the suspected terrorists. Otherwise, they would have just gotten a warrant and this would not have been an issue at all.
Re: Guess what it constitutes (Score:3)
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Yes. That bill granted immunity to the telecom companies *after* they setup a complete dragnet of every US citizen, which they were not supposed to do in the first place.
I had not heard that the government helped Facebook's IPO.
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Thank you. The relevant quote: "the government may not induce, encourage, or promote private persons to accomplish what it is constitutionally forbidden to accomplish" probably applies to the 4th Amendment in most cases. But probably not when the government "ask[s] YOU to look through your kids backpack," and you find drugs or a gun. I don't think the contraband would be excluded as evidence, I don't think anyone but the kid would go to jail, and I don't see how asking someone is per se coercing them. But
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I can't see any justification for that claim when the ruling itself is explicitly broad. The government cannot induce or encourage private parties to do anything the government itself is restricted from doing and that would certainly include searching a kids backpack or any other use private parties to circumvent Constitutional restrictions.
I have no idea where he was going with the coercion t
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The short answer is that parents have all sorts of authority over their children. I am not an expert on this, but to use an example torn from the headlines: the Government can "encourage" parents to vaccinate their unwilling kids with PSAs, and it can "induce" them to do so by not allowing unvaccinated kids to attend school [wikipedia.org], but the government (probably) can't grab kids off the street and vaccinate them.
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the minute the carriers read a single text message without a judge signed warrant they have violated the 5th and 6th amendment along with a fuckload of other federal laws. If you want to talk about impeachable offenses, blatantly violate federal wire tap laws as well as 5th amendment protections against illegal search and seizure.
Probably wouldn't be too hard to get the necessary warrant like before [go.com].... not that they'd let not having a signed warrant stop them [wikipedia.org].
But really, how is a carrier scanning and reading text messages any different from email providers scanning [slashdot.org] and reading [slashdot.org] your emails?
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It is legally different for a number of reasons. Spam filtering is not done at the behest of the government, so it doesn't run into "state actor" doctrine. Even if it were, it's a "time, place, manner" type of restriction, which would only require an intermediate level scrutiny under Ward v. Rock against Racism (1989) -- but filtering based on anti-vax content is viewpoint-based, which violates the First Amendment. Justice Marshall wrote in Police Department of Chicago v. Mosley (1972) (emphasis added):
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Screen? (Score:2)
I remember back in the day, when to screen something, meant to show it, like on TV or in the cinema.
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verb (used with object)
to shelter, protect, or conceal with or as if with a screen.
to select, reject, consider, or group (people, objects, ideas, etc.) by examining systematically
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"Screen" is an autoantonym, meaning to show something or to block something. Some other examples:
https://www.lovethesat.com/aut... [lovethesat.com]
Re:Screen? (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember back in the day, when lefties believed in free speech.
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They've done such a good job at breaking the educational system that there are fewer and fewer people around that actually remember when that was the case. Alternative viewpoints? No, that's too threatening. Can't have our snowflake populace questioning authority. Let's just edit that out before it gets around or better yet, just not allow them to speak in the first place. Easy peasy.
Left and the Freedom of Speech (Score:2, Insightful)
That was before the Left captured the Government — captured so well [baltimoresun.com], even an elected President couldn't dislodge them.
Now, logically, their stance has changed. Whether they know it or not, they are following the path of their past leaders:
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How do you tell when a WH spokesperson lies? (Score:3, Insightful)
His lips move. Of course he doesn't want politics (or actual science, for that matter) to disrupt the propaganda campaign.
Re:How do you tell when a WH spokesperson lies? (Score:5, Insightful)
Except that's not happening at all. The story itself is the propaganda, and you're getting all outraged by it.. the way propaganda is meant to have you do.
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The story itself is misinformation (Score:5, Insightful)
This smells of someone trying to invent a story, say it COULD happen, and then spin it as if it IS happening. Click bait? Propaganda? I am not sure. Nowhere in the article does it say the White House is even CONSIDERING this... just that they "COULD".
The summary:
"Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are [...] planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines"
The actual source material (note the CAPS):
"The White House COULD ask carriers like T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T to step in and stop the spread of these text messages. This is one way they hope they will be able to get their vaccination message across better and eliminate misinterpretation. "
"THERE IS NO WORD YET ON WHETHER THE WHITE HOUSE HAS REACHED OUT to these carriers to help them screen anti-vax messages"
This article needs to be pulled as it's a non-story bordering on hoax.
Re:The story itself is misinformation (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah. courts would slap down any attempt by the Biden administration to permit (let alone require) that common carriers refuse to carry certain messages based on the content of those messages.
To me a more plausible use of the SMS system would be to pimp the hell out of vaccines by telling people how many people around them have contracted Covid in the last week, and how many have died, and what percentage were vaccinated. Truthfully, I don't even know if he has the power to do that--but at least that made-up story wouldn't be illegal on its face.
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Re:The story itself is misinformation (Score:5, Informative)
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This smells of someone trying to invent a story, say it COULD happen, and then spin it as if it IS happening. Click bait? Propaganda? I am not sure. Nowhere in the article does it say the White House is even CONSIDERING this... just that they "COULD".
The summary: "Biden allied groups, including the Democratic National Committee, are [...] planning to engage fact-checkers more aggressively and work with SMS carriers to dispel misinformation about vaccines"
The actual source material (note the CAPS): "The White House COULD ask carriers like T-Mobile, Verizon, and AT&T to step in and stop the spread of these text messages. This is one way they hope they will be able to get their vaccination message across better and eliminate misinterpretation. "
"THERE IS NO WORD YET ON WHETHER THE WHITE HOUSE HAS REACHED OUT to these carriers to help them screen anti-vax messages"
This article needs to be pulled as it's a non-story bordering on hoax.
Well, let's see. What's more believable at this point (based on incontrovertibly true things that have happened): that Democrats don't want to censor messages that they don't like ... or that they do?
If it's a hoax, you have only yourselves to blame for anybody believing it.
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Asking what is believable, rather than what is true, or what is supported by credible facts & evidence is what's gone so wrong with political discourse.
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To be fair, the OP only made the distinction between "Biden allied groups" pressuring common carriers to illegally block content versus government employees doing it. The former is merely a federal felony punishable with up to ten years in prison (conspiracy against rights), whereas the latter is a violation of the Constitution.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
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FFS, let the stupids die (Score:2, Funny)
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That's what Tennessee is doing [cbsnews.com]
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Besides, as long as these morons prop the infection rates up, my boss lets me work from home.
Idiots die and I can work in comfort. It's just so win-win, why fight that?
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None of that is likely to be effective (Score:4, Interesting)
Beyond a small subset whose belief hangs on facts about vaccines
https://www.tandfonline.com/do... [tandfonline.com]
Every time I've engaged someone about it they don't particularly care about the details - it just fits nicely into their anti-establishment beliefs about science, the government, the 1% etc. Putting those beliefs into question tends to engage cognitive dissonance about their self image as a "free thinker". It's possible to get movement but it requires extended engagement to cut through some of the self protective cliches.
Which carriers? (Score:2, Funny)
The new ones (Nimitz, Eisenhower, Roosevelt, Lincoln) ?
Or the oldies (Lexington, Saratoga, Enterprise, Yorktown, Shangri-La) ?
Anyone remember the ECHELON signature block ?? (Score:2)
. . . .back in the 1990s, there were routines you could add to emails, and a signature block generator, that generated a list of keywords supposedly tracked by the ECHELON monitoring system.
I suspect some wag will find a way to do something similar with SMS messages , and jam the systems through sheer bulk of messages to process . . . .
Let's get a few things straight (Score:3)
1. Door-to-door public safety campaigns are not unusual. The UN and the US have done it in other countries. They've done campaigns here. They know who has gotten the vaccine, so they know who hasn't gotten the vaccine. This is not evil, it isn't Nazi, it isn't Apartheid, it isn't whatever those fearmongering bullshitter TPUSA and FOX are telling their victims.
2. It *is* creepy for the government to intercept the body of common-carrier messages to monitor sentiments and send alternative messaging. In this particular case, the cause is just, but it crosses a boundary in my mind that shouldn't be crossed.
See? One can be pro-public health and have some trust in institutions, AND be skeptical of government scanning of communications.
Get rid of the ASCII art filter. (Score:2)
I can't post a link because there are hyphens between the words?
Bullshit. Filter has to go.
Jail the bastards! (Score:2)
It used to be illegal to dispense false medical info, in some cases a felony. Anti-vaxers shouldn't be exempt.
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Same that happened to being your problem when you're getting drunk. If you get into a car and endanger the rest of the population that way, it becomes my problem.
If you could only kill yourself with Covid, I'd actually recommend going to superspreader events and getting sick, because that way infection rates stay up and I can stay in home office longer. As far as I'm concerned, if you could only get infected if you engage actively in activities that lead to infections, I'd celebrate any moron doing so.
That
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If you've been vaccinated or had Covid the danger from the unvaccinated rounds to near zero.
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The thing is that they are basically incubators for new and exciting variants of the virus that may well be beyond what our vaccinations can handle.
It's a bit like with the idiots that take antibiotics 'til they feel better.
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That's kind of the biggest issue, IMHO especially with the regional areas of low vaccination rates. It's enough bodies in a common geographical area spreading Covid that new variations can more easily crop up.
I'm less worried about smaller pockets of unvaccinated in areas with much higher vaccination rates. Those infections are liable to burn out with less spreading and less multigenerational viral mutation.
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On a side note, the Vax makers could be advertising on TV or the web just like they do for Cialis, Cymbalta and a host of other pharmaceuticals. Why don't they?
Because most normal people don't want to run VMS, they want a Windows laptop.
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I fully support the right of individuals not only to avoid vaccination of any kind, but also to make entertaining claims about how a globalist cabal controls the virus via 5G so they can modify our DNA
Modify DNA via 5G signals ? Who do I have to bribe for them to activate the Latent Mutant Powers in our DNA ??? (grinning, and looking for an X-Men costume. . . )