Early on Fauci was telling everyone how useless masks were [1].

I have a couple people in my social circle that were banned from fb for saying he was wrong early on about masks being ineffective. And several others were banned later for pointing out fauci's earlier stance and calling it all propaganda. You are not allowed to think for yourself. Pick up that can.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lE-XVfZCX-o

"We have recently been notified of a potential policy violation and after a thorough review of the video materials uploaded, it has been determined that the content is misleading and contradicts official government records. As a result of this decision, you access terminating to Youtube and other Google products, including Gmail, has been terminated. The decisions is final. This message is auto-generated"

“The past was alterable. The past never had been altered. Oceania was at war with Eastasia. Oceania had always been at war with Eastasia.”

N95 masks were never useless and Fauci should be seen as a monster.

What I don't understand is why there were no nations giving away n95 masks and education on how to wear it. It seems like we hivemind to the unsustainable lockdowns.

> What I don't understand is why there were no nations giving away n95 masks

Don't know if you remember last march/April, but there were no N95 masks to give out in a lot of places...

Right, but what about by this March/April?

I don't understand why most functional governments didn't eventually have a monthly care package of "here's your masks, hand sanitizer, the latest newsletter, and your stimulus check".

There was a proposal to do this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-the-scrapped-usp...

It was killed for political reasons.

This April they're mostly useless in the US because you can just get vaccinated. If you're refusing to get vaccinated, you're probably refusing to wear a mask too.

There's a lot more to the world than the US, and that's really missing the point. "We're out of masks" is a perfectly good answer to "why aren't governments giving them out" in March 2020; it's not a good answer a few months later.

> I don't understand why most functional governments didn't eventually have a monthly care package of "here's your masks, hand sanitizer, the latest newsletter, and your stimulus check".

Partly because it isn’t the role of government to “give” you things you might want while they are paid for with foreign debt in box.

Disaster mitigation and relief has long been a governmental responsibility.

I agree, but by October they were everywhere.

Last year in Germany you could get IIRC 7 free N95/FFP2 masks at the local pharmacy for free. The pharmacists were supposed to show you how to wear them.

Lab leak hypothesis.

To be fair he never used the word "useless". That's the title submitted by the person who uploaded that. There could be a bit of confirmation bias here. It's as easy for someone with little trust in their government to point to this and say officials are flip-flopping on the information released, as it is for others to interpret it as Fauci saying "don't expect a mask to fully protect you".

It really was that clear cut. The US surgeon general:

https://web.archive.org/web/20200303020926/https://twitter.c...

"Seriously people- STOP BUYING MASKS!

They are NOT effective in preventing general public from catching #Coronavirus, but if healthcare providers can’t get them to care for sick patients, it puts them and our communities at risk!"

A. Which government? All governments in general collectively? Or just the governments you want to believe? I'm sure they aren't going to listen to the COVID skeptic President of Brazil, right?

Even better, as a user, can I appeal to the authority of a different government than the one I live in? Let's say I appeal to the authority of Brazil as governing my content even though I live in the US. How does that work?

B. Because no government has ever lied on official records when there is a disaster. For sure. And no government is currently, right now, lying on their records to save face. For sure.

Well, we only have to go back a year, and you are saying the Trump admin is the only one speaking truth…

I find it insane that Silicon Valley companies have such short memories, and can’t even comprehend that 1 year ago the same policies would have resulted in banning anything Trump disagreed with.

The "policy" is merely a fig leaf to disguise untrammelled totalitarianism and arbitrary abuses of power.

It's sad. I used to work there. What monster did we create, exactly.

The full paragraph for reference:

> Misleading content related to civic and democratic processes: Content that is demonstrably false and could significantly undermine participation or trust in civic or democratic processes. This includes information about public voting procedures, political candidate eligibility based on age / birthplace, election results, or census participation that contradicts official government records. It also includes incorrect claims that a political figure or government official has died, been involved in an accident, or is suffering from a sudden serious illness.

I was shocked as you until I read the actual text.

Banned misinformation "includes _census participation_ that contradicts official government records."

Census participation. For example, "You didn't register in the census last year? You're ineligible to vote." It's aimed at misinformation that discourages people from voting.

That seems much more reasonable, and far more precise, than information that contradicts any government record.

Census participation was the last entry in the list. I think that clause is meant to cover the entire list, not just its last entry.

It’s amazing to see an authoritarian regime establish itself in real time in front of our eyes.

It’s so easy to look at the past and think “How did people let this happen?”.

And yet here we are.

I hope stopping the anti-vaxers and election fraud people is worth it.

I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic, this is how far internet discussion has deteriorated.

In my opinion you've removed very important context from this quote.

As mentioned elsewhere, the full quote is very different:

“information about public voting procedures, political candidate eligibility based on age / birthplace, election results, or census participation that contradicts official government records”

Those WMDs are surely out there somewhere...

Which government?

The way it's written, it sure sounds like any government. I expect them to selectively enforce it only for governments they agree with, though.

Where legally required, they have to enforce it for a government they disagree with if they want to continue to do business in that country. Otherwise their employees could face arrest (that's happening in India, for example).

Pressure by Chinese government, maybe?

No, this is just an extension of their policy on covid misinformation.

A lot of major tech/game companies have been kowtowing to Chinese policies.

Strange, I find it particularly accurate.

"The point is obvious. There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people running about with lit matches. Every minority, be it Baptist/Unitarian, Irish/Italian/Octogenarian/Zen Buddhist, Zionist/Seventh-day Adventist, Women’s Lib/Republican, Mattachine/Four Square Gospel feels it has the will, the right, the duty to douse the kerosene, light the fuse. Every dimwit editor who sees himself as the source of all dreary blanc-mange plain-porridge unleavened literature licks his guillotine and eyes the neck of any author who dares to speak above a whisper or write above a nursery rhyme."

Ray Bradbury

Please don't make things even worse with personal attacks and name-calling.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Edit: we've had to ask you this kind of thing many times before. If you keep it up we will have to ban you. Also, would you please stop posting unsubstantive comments generally? You've been doing it a lot, unfortunately, and it's not what this site is supposed to be for.

Crossing into personal attack and nationalistic flamewar is definitely not cool here so please don't.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Are you writing in Chinese? No, you weren't. So the question is, what is the intent here? Would you have used the same word if, for example, the context was Brazil? or Russia?

I think a little more self-reflection, rather than defensiveness is in order. Especially because the comment was intended to be helpful, and not a criticism. The original comment was getting downvoted, and I suggested what the reason might be.

I would have. English is a frankenstein language, adopting words from all sorts of different languages. Kowtow means what it means in English, it's a perfectly reasonable word to have used there.

I tried really hard to see if this wasn't the case, but the consensus across the web seems to align with this SO post: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/314900/does-kowt...

IMO, he was being downvoted because this particular instance is just as much a show of kowtowing to the US government as the Chinese government.

The accepted answer reads, "In light of all this, the fuller answer is that because the term is recognisably ethnic, using kowtow instead of (say) grovel does carry some racist overtones, particularly when applied to someone interacting with a person of a different ethnicity."

I call the Russian special forces Spetznaz and the Brazilian yearly festival Car-ni-val. Or when I am happy when bad happens to other people, I have schadenfreude. Did you also know most of English is comprised of loan words from other languages too? Or are you offended too that words like etiquette are actually french?

So yes. I would use a word that the said culture would say themselves.

Yeah, well that's fine and all. But you're also not exactly talking about the ancient Chinese practice of submitting to the Emperor either. There are no Chinese emperors, and kowtow is not a contemporary custom. So, no, you aren't doing what you are saying you are doing. You are using the word to have the meaning it has acquired in Europe and America.

So why is it that when we talk about Western relationships with China the word kowtow comes up so often? What does it add? Why does it suggest itself? Maybe wrestle with that for a while.

This isn't about you.

Would you please not perpetuate flamewars on HN? I understand how the same word can land differently with different people. To the extent that you're making a factual argument, it's fine to make the point.

Unfortunately you also started a flamewar with loaded language and since then have crossed into personal attack and blaming others for what is clearly a co-creation. It's definitely not easy to avoid mixing these things but if we're to have thoughtful discussion, we all need to try.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> kowtow is not a contemporary custom

It's rare as a protocolary practice, but it's still part of the culture.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35553120

> What does it add? Why does it suggest itself?

What do you think it does? No idea where you're going with this.

The intent is to reveal your linguistic hypochondria, which appears to be working very well.

Or just that I'm a little more aware?

https://www.google.com/search?q=news+kowtow+-definition+-mea...

That's a google search. I just filter out definitions, references, and the clothing brand. Now look at it. Sure there are examples of the word kowtow used for other things. But its mostly about China. Because in the context of China, the word just suggests itself. But why? What does it add? What does it subtract. No one here wants to wrestle with that. Instead they get defensive.

> I didn't call you racist.

But at the top of the thread:

>and to my ears, it comes off as a bit racist

If that's not calling me a racist then I don't know what is.

"Ey yo the government is lies, son / United States of Google; Verizon" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ezpohf6-SuA

Man those ellipses are doing a lot of work in your quote.

They will support this as long as the government in place is one that aligns with their own views. That's pretty obvious, right? Given the explicit mention of banning the discussion of voter fraud - something the Democrats have done before, but is now "illegal".