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Re:‘Contextualization Engines’ can fight misinformation with... by FooBarBizBazz on Monday April 26, 2021 @10:02PM (#26950990)
> Warnings that we should wear masks were called fake news and anti-Chinese racism.

It was, and here is an additional irony: In the beginning, downplaying COVID-19 with Chinese people (especially people from Wuhan) did not go over well and was not appreciated: "This is transparent pandering. I don't care how 'not-racist' you are towards me; my family members are dying and my city is in an apocalyptic lockdown so you can shut the fuck up about how this 'isn't serious'". Maybe said more politely, but definitely thought.

Re:‘Contextualization Engines’ can fight misinformation with... by FooBarBizBazz on Tuesday April 27, 2021 @01:04PM (#26958629)
C'mon, wouldn't you be angry if your granddad were in the hospital on oxygen, and everyone around you, rather than acknowledging the gravity of your situation, was instead busy making whatever self-serving noises Buzzfeed told them to? This is a total failure of empathy, it completely underestimates peoples' ability to see right through you, and it's othering.

There are lessons here:

1. You should worry about the truth or falsehood of a belief rather than the assumed political consequences of that belief.

2. You should engage with people not to demonstrate to them that you hold "good beliefs" -- this is a persistent mistake made by white liberals; they think what they profess to believe is something that matters -- but rather to work together towards shared goals.

And, at the beginning of a global pandemic, there should have been a hell of a lot of shared goals.