I am losing my mind over a @Cornell chemistry professor and former department chair with 69k followers advocating for a livestock de-worming drug as a Covid-19 treatment. The FDA released a statement saying don’t take this
A thread full of anti-science quotes of his 🧵
Do not take ivermectin. It is not an antiviral. Animal ivermectin is not the same as human ivermectin. fda.gov/consumers/cons…
Pharmacies have restricted sales of ivermectin because they don’t want to be held legally liable for off-label use of a medicine.
David’s out here retweeting Steve Bannon’s conspiracy that restricting treatments is a way for Big Pharma to sell more vaccines.
I picked on David for his failure to critically analyze social media posts’ roles in spreading conspiracies. He hit back, which is fine—I have thick skin.
What is not fine is advocating for discredited treatments like hydroxychloroquine, which has killed people.
It would be one thing if he was merely a YouTube crackpot. But he is in a position of authority at @Cornell, bragging about working with @pfizer while also discrediting their vaccine. “The vaccine is causing deaths … Pfizer’s own data shows their second jab doesn’t do anything”
Multisystem inflammatory syndrome is a rare, serious side effect of Covid, NOT of the vaccine. Dave retweeted this mRNA fearmongering and called a skeptical follower an idiot who needs to think of the children.
Look at how typo-riddled Klaus’s post is. “Spline.”
If he was concerned the vaccines haven’t had enough testing, fine. But he also says we shouldn’t wear masks and we should develop “natural immunity”
He is talking about the benefits of being exposed to LIVE POLIO, because he would rather do that than get a POLIO VACCINE. This is your peer, @WeillCornell
Here’s how much faith he ACTUALLY has in “natural immunity,” though:
“Go to a local hospital and volunteer”
Oh, what’s that? He doesn’t want to? “It has a certain Russian roulette quality”
Dave calls Fauci “a pathological liar” for… being terse in FOIA’ed emails.
“‘There’s no ethical guidelines for some of the egomaniacs in science,’ Collum said.”
Maybe he was just waiting for more information, maybe today’s FDA approval for the covid vaccine?
Oh, guess not
(P.S., this article says they gave the control group a real vaccine instead of letting them think they had protection, after ruling out a placebo effect)
Here’s Dave fearmongering over fetal development. He has to use “got pregnant after first dose” because there isn’t much farther to move the goalposts. Myriad vaccinated women have already given birth to fine, healthy babies.
But don’t worry, women. Even if you aren’t a “good breeder,” you can still go live on his prepper compound as long as you’re willing to put in some time at the range.
I expect nothing to come of this. In his blog David notes his wife is a direct descendant of @Cornell founder Ezra and his grandfather was president of the alumni association. And a dean assured him, “what good is tenure if you don’t have free speech?” peakprosperity.com/dave-collum-20…
To that anonymous @cornell Dean: I hope you realize your chemistry professor’s deep & long reach within the anti-vax community is far beyond free speech. I do not care about his “anti-woke” stances. This scientist represents you. He claims your blessing.
Please listen. 🪡
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PSA: People who are smart at one thing mistakenly believe that they’re smart at everything.
Dave’s bio says “Prof of Organic Chemistry @Cornell. Libertarian.” His feed’s full of anti-vax rhetoric but it’s clear he doesn’t understand social media or propaganda. A thread 🧵
Dave’s sharing without verifying. @EM_RESUS's post is real, but when I searched for the copycats… I only saw people talking about this screenshot. Two possible explanations:
1) Twitter’s doing good moderating and taking them down 2) this screenshot is fake
Either way, Dave’s implication of conspiracy is disproven. So why might bots copy this?
Sam’s post is credible, concise, timely, emotional. Importantly, “I just left the ER” suggests credibility without vettable credentials. Is the speaker a nurse? Doctor? Patient?
If you were celebrating @StormyDaniels for clowning on Trump, I hope you’re as supportive of the content creators that OnlyFans are kicking out.
They’re the OnlyReason CEO Tim Stokely can claim a $1B valuation as it goes looking for new sugar dadd—er, investors.
Thread. 🧵
At least OnlyFans turns a profit! They took a 20% cut of $2 billion in sales last year. That’s more than Uber can say. Uber has to use a dodgy accounting to pretend to be profitable. bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Sequel time! So you want to clean up your privacy online. Here's how.
Each choice is a tradeoff between privacy and convenience, and the tarnish of capitalism is everywhere. (Speaking of, still waiting on my @Sensodyne_US sponsorship.)
P.S. this is my mom. She's a nurse. 💖🧵
I am a “content designer” (a gag-me industry term that just means writer). I read voraciously on others’ data privacy reporting and I write to make things easy to understand. So I won’t be getting too technical.
First, backstory: cookies. When your device talks to any website, it downloads a tiny file, like the saved file in a video game so it can remember where you left off. Some are useful—”remember I’m logged in”—others just track you for ads.
I got doxxed last week, and it wasn’t over my privacy tweets. Someone posted my address on Twitter to harass my girlfriend @ohadelaide, who is defending herself against a libel suit for speaking up during #MeToo. Let’s talk the politics of why I’m a target now too. 🧵
In 2019, Adelaide tweeted about her sexual assault, naming her assaulter, amidst a gaming #MeToo moment. It became a new story covered in several outlets, which you can find easily.
Adelaide is American. Her assaulter is a UK citizen. The statute of limitations on libel in the UK is one year. One year to the day after Adelaide’s tweets, he filed a libel suit against her in a UK court.
I'm back from a week at my mom's house and now I'm getting ads for her toothpaste brand, the brand I've been putting in my mouth for a week. We never talked about this brand or googled it or anything like that.
As a privacy tech worker, let me explain why this is happening. 🧵
First of all, your social media apps are not listening to you. This is a conspiracy theory. It's been debunked over and over again.
But frankly they don't need to because everything else you give them unthinkingly is way cheaper and way more powerful.
Your apps collect a ton of data from your phone. Your unique device ID. Your location. Your demographics. Weknowdis.
Data aggregators pay to pull in data from EVERYWHERE. When I use my discount card at the grocery store? Every purchase? That's a dataset for sale.