WTF? “And already, disillusioned QAnon followers are being preyed upon by extremist groups keen to pick up new members.” Take a look at all the Q t-shirts people were wearing as they violently overtook the Capitol. Q *IS* an extremist group.
I can understand the singular need to remove an imminent threat from social media. HOWEVER. It didn’t have to get to this point, & it should never get to this point again. How we handle this going forward cannot be centered around Trump or other, specific bad actors. (thread)
Social media in its current iteration allows bad actors to pretend to be anyone, anywhere, with any kind of credentials. There are no guardrails whatsoever for the public to effectively ascertain whether what they’re seeing is real or fake; organic or purposely manipulated.
Social media in its current iteration allows bad actors to erect and command digital armies - from thin air and with little investment - with none of us the wiser that they’re in our midst.
I am now wondering if Bill Barr’s resignation had anything to do with catching wind of what was being planned. It was a few days after Trump allegedly met with Tarrio and a few days before Trump started telling people to show up on the 6th for a wild protest.
If you do one thing today, listen to this episode (#696) of This Week in Virology wherein a group of experts smack down the “British mutant strain” story point by point. The discussion starts at 55:36; nutshell below. microbe.tv/twiv/
Nutshell: 1. There is no new strain of COVID. It is a variant, not a strain 2. The spread of the variant in England likely comes down to dumb luck.
3. There have been no experiments whatsoever that demonstrate any of the scary scenarios we’re being told to worry about w/r/t this variant 4. When a story like this spreads like wildfire, you gotta wonder why.
It now appears the virus was in circulation long before we initially thought. A swab taken from a child in Italy in November of last year has tested positive for SARS CoV2. google.com/amp/s/www.repu…
And if this swab from Nov. 21 has tested positive, it means he was exposed around mid-November. He and his family hadn’t traveled.
Correction, he became ill Nov. 21 and was swabbed on December 5 after going to the emergency room. If he was ill on the 21st, they’re surmising he was exposed around 5 days prior.
Exponential Growth. At this point we can’t stop the horrors that have already been put in motion as a result of behaviors last weekend. nbcnews.com/news/us-news/c…
In less than a month, we’ve added 4 million cases to our tally.