1/ You know, the more I read about all this misinformation on Covid-19 vaccines, the more I actually think @Facebook is doing a pretty good job addressing it. And I think folks still blaming them for vaccine hesitancy are missing the plot.
2/ I'm not one to defend Facebook. I have plenty of issues with them as a corporation, their role in the news industry's demise, Zuck as a person, etc. But...
3/ I found the company’s blog post responding to the Biden administration pretty damn compelling. 85% of its U.S. users have been or want to be vaccinated. It’s literally facilitating vaccinations with guides to get people the shot. about.fb.com/news/2021/07/s…
4/ The U.S. Surgeon General made 8 recs on how tech companies could help slow down misinformation and spread "better" info about the shots. FB has laid out how it took action on all 8 recs: about.fb.com/wp-content/upl…
5/ Anecdotally, if I sign into FB and see a post about vaccines, nearly all of them are tagged with links to get more info from WHO or CDC, all of which ends up funneling people into actually going to get vaccinated. I imagine that alone has outweighed a lot of the harm done.
6/ I understand this stuff is still rampant. It’s tough to stop a bunch of yoga groups or diehard Trump groups from posting stuff about microchips and Bill Gates. Even with the best algorithms in the world, you can't just ban every user who steps on a third rail (and shouldn't)
7/ But for a company getting blasted in such certain terms for how it's slowing our recovery from the pandemic, Facebook seems to be doing a LOT more than its contemporaries to address vaccine misinformation.
END/ I know it feels stiff to say "Facebook is good" but I honestly think Facebook is doing a pretty good job addressing this mess. Some responsibility has to be left in the hands of users/propagandists and FB seems to be smartly adding benefits where it can.
I'm covering this today in Tangle (newsletter out at 12pm EST), but for now I'll just say: FB could be doing more good than harm and I do NOT want them collabing with the Biden admin on identifying "misinformation" in any capacity readtangle.com
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1/ This month, my @SubstackInc newsletter @TangleNews broke 25,000 free readers and 4,000 paying subscribers. I follow a lot of threads about newsletters & growth, and noticed that I've done this differently than other writers have. This is my advice about the advice I ignored:
2/ First, I write a daily, and I ignored the ubiquitous advice to do 1 or 2 newsletters free and paywall the rest each week. Instead, I write 4 free newsletters and put one newsletter behind a paywall. Why? Because I never know which one is going to take off!
3/ From my perspective, the more content available to the masses the more shots I have at bringing in new readers. Several times, I’ve unlocked subscriber-only content that was really popular just to get more eyes on it — and then usef that content as an advertisement. It works.
There are *43* open voter fraud investigations in Texas, according to the REPUBLICAN attorney general. Just one of them is from the 2020 election, where 11 million Texans voted! TX Republicans continue to 'solve' a problem that is non-existent. readtangle.com/p/texas-republ…
Some TX lawmakers have said there are "400 voter fraud" cases. That's not true. There are 386 "pending investigations," but that's before any criminal charges are even filed. And guess what? Even if every single one of those 386 investigations turned into cases and convictions...
That would *still* be less than 400 cases of voter fraud in a state with 11 million voters, where there's a one million dollar prize for reporting fraud and whole teams dedicated to finding it. How is this proof we need an overhaul of the system there? houstonchronicle.com/politics/texas…
1/ This is a truly bizarre, down is up, up is down, thread. Obviously I'm a biased Substack writer, but it's not a "threat" to traditional news media. It's a compliment. It works with it, and it's a strong addition to the landscape. Calling it a "threat to journalism" is absurd.
2/ Most obvious is the fact that many "traditional" media outlets are incentivized in all the wrong ways: traffic, ad revenue, clicks, and corporate sponsors. Being supported by subscribers is not a cloak - it's actual freedom.
3/ Also, imagine in this moment for media actually tweeting this:
This is hilarious. Rep. Eric Swalwell referred to "G-d herself" and triggered all these ridiculous, over-the-top reactions about G-d's gender... when gendering G-d is actually a totally reasonable, in-bounds debate in church and synagogue and has been for literally centuries.
He "mocks truth intentionally by misgendering G-d" like... the Hebrew Bible from 2,000 years ago? Or the Episcopal Church from 600 years ago? ncronline.org/news/theology/…
Any learned religious person would hear Swalwell say "G-d herself" and not be surprised at all given that it's actually a robust debate in pretty much every religious community. So if you see someone having a meltdown over it, just know that they are telling on themselves!
Robinhood is no longer allowing users to do anything but close out their #GME or #AMC positions. Hard to put into words how outrageous that is. This is, much more acutely, the definition of manipulating the market.
I’ve got a newsletter coming out about this moment — and about how it went from silly to deeply serious and political yesterday readtangle.com/about
48 hours ago this was funny. 24 hours ago it become a politicial dividing line, a bit more serious and very interesting. Now it's getting really ugly, and a lot of people are about to be extemely pissed off at how hypocritical the ruling class is