Disinformation

Does the claim of disinformation threatens free speech. During Covid Dr Bhattacharya a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University was banned from social media for expressing his opinion that Covid could be spread even if you are vaxed and was called fringe because he said herd immunity was valid. He said the main efforts to fight Covid should be directed at the elderly and closing schools did not make sense. He maintained that lock downs were not helpful and in fact were dangerous. Since that time Johns Hopkins University has completed an extensive study. The conclusion of the Johns Hopkins study, that, on average, lockdowns caused a reduction in COVID deaths of only 2/10 of 1%. The danger here is not that he was banned from social media as they are a private company and cannot be charged with censorship but that these companies were influenced by government to ban certain people and certain ideas. Twitter's ban on "COVID-19 misinformation," mirrored the Biden administration's broad definition of that category in two important respects: It disfavored perspectives that dissented from official advice, and it encompassed not just demonstrably false statements but also speech that was deemed "misleading" even when it was arguably or verifiably true.