Outsourcing Fact Checking, and Reputation with It

This article is very much important to each and every one of us. Please read and retweet it. COVID-19: Further Evidence that the Virus Originated in the US.https://t.co/LPanIo40MR— Lijian Zhao 赵立坚 (@zlj517)March 13, 2020This deliberate disinformation was met withcalls for Twitter to remove Zhao ’s tweets. Twitter refrained from removing the tweets but posted an update to their misinformation policies,stating: “Official government accounts engaging in conversation about the origins of the virus and global public conversation about potential emergent treatments will be permitted, unless the content contains clear incitement to take a harmful physical action.” While Zhao’s tweet is grossly wrong, it is unlikely to do any immediate harm and, in time, might prove a reputational albatross for Zhao and the CCP.Whether or not you agree with the decision, Twitter ’s implicit appeal to immanency gave this rule an independent legitimacy that reliance on WHO advice lacks. A line drawn between speech likely to cause immediate harm and speech that might cause harm down the road doesn’t rely on an appeal to expert authority. Twitter made a decision on its ow n with reference to a universally appreciable value and followed up byremoving two tweets from Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in which he disputed his government ’s social distancing guidance. Unlike Lijian Zhao’s tweet, Bolsonaro’s advice risked causing immediate harm, rather than long‐​term inter...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs