WHEN FACEBOOK CENSORS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH BECAUSE NO MASK. Can a social network rise above everything?
Facebook has beautifully censored a scientific research calling it "Fake News" and unfounded. The story starts with an official search by a Danish health authority. The study compared the protection level of one group of people who wore masks versus a second group who didn't. The results of the study were announced in a statement released by Copenhagen's Rigshospitalet. It is important to note that the study only looked at the protective effects of masks for the wearer and not the wearer's ability to protect others, so it did not investigate how well the protectors were able to limit contagion to others, but only autonomous protection.
The research project involved two groups for a total of 6,000 people and was conducted in April and May of this year, when the use of face masks was not widespread in Denmark. The conclusions were quite clear: in the group that wore the masks 1.8% became ill, while in the group that did not wear them 2.1%.
So there was a public, comparative study with a large sample that questioned the usefulness of the mask for wearers. Not usefulness in general, and like any scientific study, it can be improved upon and subject to review and discussion. Science advances by discussion, not by "Ipse dixit" and doubt is the basis of science itself.
For Facebook this is not the case. An Oxford English professor posts an article about research on Facebook, and this is CENSORED by Facebook as Fake News
Here's what happened when I posted our latest @spectator article to Facebook – I'm aware this is happening to others – what has happened to academic freedom and freedom of speech? There is nothing in this article that is 'false' pic.twitter.com/8Kdmw38ICC
– Carl Heneghan (@carlheneghan) November 20, 2020
So the Fcebook Fact Checkers rise above the scientific community and decide what is true and what is flso. There is no discussion, everything is decided "Zuckerberg dixit".
Scientific research MUST be discussed, it is the very basis of science. Nobody can afford to be the supreme judge, and most of all Facebook cannot. If social media are unable to protect freedom of expression, even scientific, then it is better that they close and be replaced by something freer. Let them not complain, as they are already doing, about the Parler explosion.
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The article WHEN FACEBOOK CENSORS SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH BECAUSE NO MASK. Can a social network rise above everything? comes from ScenariEconomici.it .
This is a machine translation of a post published on Scenari Economici at the URL https://scenarieconomici.it/quando-facebook-censura-le-ricerche-scientifiche-perche-no-mask-puo-un-social-ergersi-al-di-sopra-di-tutto/ on Sat, 21 Nov 2020 07:47:07 +0000.