Thread by @Ayjchan

The problem with being a moderate is that you get bashed by people on both sides, depending on where the momentum is at that given moment.

More than a year ago, I said we should consider the lab leak hypothesis, regardless of how likely, not just natural origins #OriginsOfCovid

The natural origins crowd called me a conspiracy theorist, misinformation-spreader, attention-seeker, outsider with no proper expertise.

This year, I still have the same position: we should consider the lab leak hypothesis, not just natural origins.

Now the lab origins crowd calls me disingenuous, a coward, an apologist, misinformation-spreader, attention-seeker, an insider with ties to gain of function research.

I've done a lot of listening to people on both sides, whose perspectives have been colored by their past experiences.

On the one hand, you've got many scientists and journalists who are hyper-wary of giving oxygen to harmful mis/disinformation, potentially leading to violence.

OTOH, you've got a lot of non-scientists, some scientists, and even some anti-scientists who have lost trust in experts or leaders. Anyone who tries to even give experts the benefit of the doubt gets trampled underfoot in a campaign to dethrone the "elite" experts.

What is absolutely essential is the space to disagree safely.

Once mud-slinging, bullying, threats, stalking, violence happen, there's no more civil discourse.

Part of that is understanding consequences of our tweets. It's a lesson I've reflected on regularly in the past year.

I always feel that I can do more to reduce threats aimed at people I disagree with on twitter. Even if they've bullied or slandered me, the last thing I want is to be responsible in some way for endangering real people.

People with spouses, children, parents, family.

I've on two accounts deleted tweets that I was told had resulted in the endangerment of people I don't have positive feelings for. The first tweet didn't name anyone, and the 2nd was a RT of their own tweet.

But I understood that they were receiving threats of violence.

There've also been situations where I try to have a reasonable discussion with someone I disagree with, and then a crowd shows up and starts degrading me or the other person.

This is purely destructive, a form of bullying, and a very unfortunate feature of social media.

All that results from this sort of behavior is each side characterizing each other as uncivilized, uninformed, violent individuals, and then mutually accusing each other of trying to exaggerate and profit from victimhood.

It doesn't result in mutual understanding or progress.

My hands (my tweets) are not clean. I'm sure I've made many mistakes, and some of my tweets have led to the harassment of other people.

But I do take the time to think about that responsibility regularly, if I'm putting people in actual danger, and I do what I can to stop that.