Mindblown: a blog about philosophy.
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Misleading COVID charts
We’ve been breaking down the logarithmic case charts you’re seeing everywhere. These are the charts that show the number of cases in a country against the number of days that have passed since the first 100 cases were diagnosed. They show a cluster of lines arcing up and to the right and starting to level…
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WHO warning on Immunity Passports
The WHO is responsible for the spread of a bit of misinformation this week The WHO issued a brief on immunity passports, which theoretically would allow a person who has contracted the virus and now developed immunity, a greater level of social and geo-access. And this could be very useful. Those with immunity could do…
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Farage is at it again
My two least favourite disseminators of disinformation – Nigel Farage and Andrew Wigmore – are at it again, this time promoting coronavirus conspiracies on Twitter Newsweek magazine published a clickbaitish overheated headline reading “The controversial Wuhan lab experiments that may have started the coronavirus pandemic”. In the actual story, we learn the US Defence Intelligence…
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Oxford COVID-19 vaccine volunteer dies (or doesn’t)
From the pages of Infotagion.com – several posts on social media have made the claim that the first volunteer in the Oxford Vaccine Group’s COVID-19 vaccine trial has died. She hasn’t. She’s a microbiologist named Dr Elisa Granato. And she has appeared on BBC News saying she’s fine. The story originated in several languages on…
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Fox News cuts ties with disinformation divas
In a real surprise move, Fox News has cut ties with a duo of Donald Trump supporting divas. Diamond and Silk are an African American pair of commentators known for their vocal support of Trump. Since 2016 they’ve made sycophantic appearances on Fox News, and regularly VLogged on the Fox Nation streaming service. Lately they’ve…
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Counting COVID-19
People compare the performance of different countries Rather than counting cases, People look to death tolls as a better method, due to lack of testing Official death tolls still undercount the real number Stanford University released a “pre-print” without peer review study, found that 50 to 85 times more people have been infected with the…
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(Astroturf) protests in the US
A rightwing protest movement has grown up over the past two weeks in the US Protesting stay-at-home orders by governors You will have seen the zombie protest memes floating around, comparing a photo of the protestors in Ohio to a Sean of the Dead film poster The protests have been Trump supported, with not-so-Presidential tweets…
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Russian and Chinese disinformation
A number of disinformation narratives have been floated according to the European External Action Service’s StratCom division (EEA StratCom). Both China and Russia floating disinformation narratives around COVID. China China’s done a great job and the West should be grateful The virus did not originate in China, but more likely the US The West weaponised…
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Hydroxychloroquine
We’ve heard about this from Trump and Giuliani, but how did it get in their heads and end up in Trump’s daily White House briefings? Article in Washington Post developing the disinformation timeline around Hydroxychloroquine. How false hope spread about hydroxychloroquine to treat covid-19 — and the consequences that followed. https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2020/04/13/how-false-hope-spread-about-hydroxychloroquine-its-consequences/ Jan 2020 – tweets…
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Jogging, Cycling and Coronavirus
A Dutch / Belgian study has gone “viral”, suggesting that in coronavirus terms it is not safe to be within 65 feet of an exercising cyclist, or to be behind a runner, sparking an online battle between pedestrians and runners and cyclists Simulation shows droplets spreading around exercisers Bert Blocken of Eindhoven University of Technology,…
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