Why do "Progressives" have the most taboos?

[ThatRobGuy]

That may have been the original intent of social media back in the Myspace/Geocities era of the early 2000s, but it hasn't been that way for a long time now. It's where the majority of Americans go to get their news, where governments make official announcements (see articles about how some government agencies were scrambling for alternatives when it looked like Twitter might go under last week), etc. All of that predates COVID or even the 2016 election.

And I don't think that the government "compelled" Facebook or Twitter to do anything. They did ask that those companies take action to limit the spread of misinformation, but I don't recall any threats of consequences - ultimately, there's not a whole lot that the government can do to companies on that scale.

So you'd agree that big social media outlets have become quasi "state actors" then?

Which, by some past precedent established, means they have to play by a certain set of rules with regards to not being able to play favorites in certain realms that ties into a previous point I made.

If these social media companies are really serving those important public functions, then they shouldn't be able to specifically formulate Terms of Service that explicitly favor one political faction over another.

With regards to compelling companies to do something...not sure about you, but if I was the head of a company and got called up to get grilled by the Senate (one of the legislative bodies that can make their operations difficult in a variety of ways, from tax implications, to regulatory burdens that can make it miserable for them to operate), I would certainly see that as a "message" being sent.


The other problematic aspect was the fact that large entities were all aligned politically, and arguably colluded in some ways.

For instance, we heard "Twitter is a private company, if you don't like it, go make your own Twitter"

And when someone did (or tried to), they said "yeah, sorry, but our friends at apple and google are going to remove your app from their app stores, and our buddies at Amazon are going to take away your webhosting"


I just want a consistent set of rules to be followed.

If they're going to be a platform, and one that's used for certain "state actor" purposes (like ISPs and Phone companies), then they need to play by the rules associated with those two roles.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

That’s one school of thought, but again, taking moderation and algorithms away from social media monoliths would change them into something they’re not. We’re seeing in real-time what happens to Twitter when there’s no one at the wheel. All this, over the right to call someone slurs? Why though?

The slurs started showing up a few hours after Musk took the wheel (meaning no major policy changes at the company had taken place, which means their algorithm wasn't stopping that anyway)

But I think making this about slurs is missing the forest for the trees. Slurs are just one tiny aspect. And had the policies only been targeting slurs and bonified threats of things that are illegal, we probably wouldn't even be having this debate right now because there would be large public agreement on it.

The public division on this began when one faction of the left wanted to lump a bunch of other things in and make it seem like they were all as problematic as slurs and violent threats, and treating them all like "they're part of the same thing"

e.g. - when they started giving people expressing opinions about vaccines or about election policy the same treatment they were giving someone using the racial slurs.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

So you'd agree that big social media outlets have become quasi "state actors" then?

My understanding is that "state actors" have to put themselves in the position of being so. In this case, the government has chosen to use Facebook and Twitter rather than creating its own platforms - it's not really the same thing, in my opinion. So, no.

If these social media companies are really serving those important public functions, then they shouldn't be able to specifically formulate Terms of Service that explicitly favor one political faction over another.

Have they actually done this? Making policies against the spreading of misinformation about particular topics does not target a political faction. The fact that one political faction is spreading that misinformation more than the other is irrelevant - unless you're contending that the spreading of misinformation is an inherent value of a particular political faction?

If they're going to be a platform, and one that's used for certain "state actor" purposes (like ISPs and Phone companies), then they need to play by the rules associated with those two roles.

This is not something that's been established. In fact, current jurisprudence has - as far as I know - explicitly stated that ISPs are not state actors, though that could change in the future (source). Similarly, I don't believe that this has been established for telephone companies either (with a few exceptions - for example, when phone companies contract with state prisons to provide phone service to inmates).

And please stop dodging the question. Do you have any ideas on how to solve this issue? Discussions are a two-way street - so far, we've established that there's a problem, and I've tried to provide some potential solutions. However, you've limited yourself to criticizing my ideas without offering alternatives - that's not constructive.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Have they actually done this? Making policies against the spreading of misinformation about particular topics does not target a political faction. The fact that one political faction is spreading that misinformation more than the other is irrelevant - unless you're contending that the spreading of misinformation is an inherent value of a particular political faction?

What happens when the misinformation actually ends up being actual information, is there any recourse for the parties involved?

And please stop dodging the question. Do you have any ideas on how to solve this issue? Discussions are a two-way street - so far, we've established that there's a problem, and I've tried to provide some potential solutions. However, you've limited yourself to criticizing my ideas without offering alternatives - that's not constructive.

I don't know that I've dodged the question as much as I've expressed that it's a problem that doesn't have a clean solution, and therefore, "solving it" doesn't rank high on my priority list. Either do it right or don't do it at all.

My honest answer is...I don't have one, nor do I care to have one.

If the side that's in charge of defining "misinformation" can't get their story straight and have been proven wrong numerous times, then I don't know that it can be solved. But "pursuit of a solution" can't be the excuse used for squashing political rivals.

I don't have a catch all "solution", nor do I think we need one. There's always going to be people spreading false information and people gullible enough to eat it up, that's nothing new.

I would say, that if we're going to embrace flawed solutions based on "public emergencies", that "solution" can't be saddled with partisanship.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

What happens when the misinformation actually ends up being actual information, is there any recourse for the parties involved?

Depends on what exactly you're referring to. A statement being correct does not necessarily mean that it is not misinformation. As I said in my earlier posts, properly presenting and supporting your statements (scientific support and/or data, not popular support) matters. To continue with the example that we've been using, I maintain that the information shared early in the pandemic regarding risk of myocarditis related to the COVID vaccine was misinformation because it was not presented in proper context and did not have any organized studies to back it up. If you present a medical risk without the ability to quantify or qualify it, you can stir up unnecessary panic. Now, studies have been done that have been able to show the rate of occurrence as well as follow-ups on whether or not patients recovered fully, and so it is appropriate to share with the public.

To use a famous example, with (im)proper presentation, it's possible to convince people that they should ban "dihydrogen monoxide". There is nothing incorrect about any of the risks and dangers associated with dihydrogen monoxide - inhalation of even small quantities can lead to death, prolonged exposure to its solid form can cause permanent tissue damage, its gaseous form can cause severe burns, it's a major component of acid rain, it contributes to soil erosion, and it causes the corrosion and oxidation of many metals (among other things). But in the end, it's just water.

I don't know that I've dodged the question as much as I've expressed that it's a problem that doesn't have a clean solution, and therefore, "solving it" doesn't rank high on my priority list. Either do it right or don't do it at all.

My honest answer is...I don't have one, nor do I care to have one.

Fair enough. It seems a bit odd to point out a problem without offering a solution though.

I would say, that if we're going to embrace flawed solutions based on "public emergencies", that "solution" can't be saddled with partisanship.

You keep claiming partisanship - I don't see it.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Fair enough. It seems a bit odd to point out a problem without offering a solution though.

Well, I think we're talking about two different problems though.

Your points are more geared toward the problem of false information being consumed, my points where more geared towards the problem of people getting blocked from the town square.

The former is the one where I don't have solution...the latter is a simple solution, not blocking people from the town square for trivial things.

You keep claiming partisanship - I don't see it.

For certain forms of "banned speech" and "public emergency management", I think the partisanship was pretty straightforward.

For instance, the topic of gender debates, having policies targeting "misgendering" and rules regarding "pronouns" definitely favors one side over the other. When one sides position (largely) is "anyone who says they're a woman, is a woman", and the other side's position (largely) is "no, that's not how it works, if you were born male, then you're a man", and that conversation is at the core of public policy debate, one can say that's blatantly favoring one side. Same as if Twitter were ran, and staffed by, mostly conservatives, and they made it against the ToS to say that climate change is human-caused and an emergency. It'd be a scenario where republican candidates could come out and make their talking points to the general public, and then it'd be "against the rules" for the progressive side to make any of their rebuttals.

Covid related discussions had a partisan divide as well. With one party wanting stricter lockdowns and enforcement measures, and the other side wanting a more relaxed "Sweden-style" approach. That one was unique in that while there was no shortage of misinformation coming from the conservative side, there were actually a few scenarios in which the progressive side were the ones espousing the misinformation, and the conservative side was technically accurate, yet it was the conservative side catching the bans, and the left-leaning thought was allowed to stay even if it was inaccurate.

Example:
Tweets from left-leaning people actually over-exaggerating the risks of covid hospitalization were allowed to stay
Tweets from conservative-leaning people saying "it's got a 99% survival, it's not worth tanking the economy for...relax people" could catch you a temporary suspension. While the 99% stat is actually a bad one when you extrapolate that out to a huge population size of 300 million, it was, none the less, technically more accurate than the former.

So in those scenarios, it wasn't actually about misinformation as much as it was about reinforcement of certain themes.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Well, I think we're talking about two different problems though.

Your points are more geared toward the problem of false information being consumed, my points where more geared towards the problem of people getting blocked from the town square.

My issue is not so much with the consumption as it is with the spread of false information.

The former is the one where I don't have solution...the latter is a simple solution, not blocking people from the town square for trivial things.

Are they truly trivial though?

For instance, the topic of gender debates, having policies targeting "misgendering" and rules regarding "pronouns" definitely favors one side over the other. When one sides position (largely) is "anyone who says they're a woman, is a woman", and the other side's position (largely) is "no, that's not how it works, if you were born male, then you're a man", and that conversation is at the core of public policy debate, one can say that's blatantly favoring one side.

Calling a transgender person by their preferred pronoun does not imply that you're conceding the point - it's simply treating the person you're talking to with respect. That's not a partisan issue.

Same as if Twitter were ran, and staffed by, mostly conservatives, and they made it against the ToS to say that climate change is human-caused and an emergency. It'd be a scenario where republican candidates could come out and make their talking points to the general public, and then it'd be "against the rules" for the progressive side to make any of their rebuttals.

Aside from the fact that that position flies in the face of all scientific evidence, sure. A topic having a partisan divide is irrelevant if one side if that divide is demonstrably false.

So in those scenarios, it wasn't actually about misinformation as much as it was about reinforcement of certain themes.

I agree that it was absolutely about pushing an agenda - that of encouraging people to get vaccinated and to try to avoid getting/spreading COVID. That's a public health agenda, not a partisan one, and it's understandable that removing misinformation that reinforces the agenda would have a lower priority than removing misinformation that detracts from it. The partisan divide of the misinformation was purely coincidental

 

[gaara4158]

The slurs started showing up a few hours after Musk took the wheel (meaning no major policy changes at the company had taken place, which means their algorithm wasn't stopping that anyway)

But I think making this about slurs is missing the forest for the trees. Slurs are just one tiny aspect. And had the policies only been targeting slurs and bonified threats of things that are illegal, we probably wouldn't even be having this debate right now because there would be large public agreement on it.

The public division on this began when one faction of the left wanted to lump a bunch of other things in and make it seem like they were all as problematic as slurs and violent threats, and treating them all like "they're part of the same thing"

e.g. - when they started giving people expressing opinions about vaccines or about election policy the same treatment they were giving someone using the racial slurs.

If dangerous misinformation is associated with one political faction and not another, that’s not the platform’s problem. Disseminating false information that leads to people making poor - even deadly - decisions is arguably worse than spamming slurs. It is not surprising that social media platforms would look into minimizing their role in this occurring.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

My issue is not so much with the consumption as it is with the spread of false information.

But is there evidence to suggest that people venting on social media was a major contributor to that?

Canada and the UK have the same Twitter and Facebook we do, yet their vaccine uptake excelled greatly compared to ours...as did Israel's.

I'd argue that they did a better job of unified positive public messaging, which is the real way to beat bad information...which is, with good information that's unified.

Are they truly trivial though?

Many of them were... If it's not encouraging violence or anything illegal, it shouldn't catch a ban.

"If I don't like what they're saying, all I have to do is claim I'm offended and mommy and daddy will them shut up" isn't exactly a behavior I want to reinforce.

Calling a transgender person by their preferred pronoun does not imply that you're conceding the point - it's simply treating the person you're talking to with respect. That's not a partisan issue.

I'd disagree there. For a few reasons.

First, I'd say that some people need to make up their minds on whether gender is "just a inconsequential societal construct, so why is a big deal for you to call me by the pronoun I prefer?" or, if it's "a designation that's so important and meaningful, that it's critical to my identity"


Second, I'd say it is conceding some ground.

It's a heavily nuanced subject, but people treat it as a "all or nothing" situation. For instance, the bathroom & pronoun conversation is very different from the sporting league conversation.

On the bathroom & pronoun conversation, I'm in the "okay, whatever, I don't care" category, use whatever bathroom you want, if you want to be called "she", I'll do that as I'm not out to create any conflicts over something that doesn't "pick my pocket or break my leg" (as the saying goes). I'm not a religious person, so I have no reason to object to calling someone by a particular pronoun. With the specific caveat, that if it's some college kid using a pronoun that was made up in 2013 as a means of making other people bend a knee to them, or if I feel they're using it simply to add themselves to the "marginalized persons" category for social street cred, then I'll debate them on that.

Sports would be a different story, and I would definitely debate against a person suggesting that a biological male should play against females.

But, for some others, the pronouns aspect is a bigger deal, as if they hold certain religious views, making them say something that conflicts with their beliefs is an imposition.

The same way I wouldn't try to force a progressive person to use an adjective they disagree with on a subject just to appease a conservative. IE: I challenge conservatives pretty hard when they get mad at stores for not explicitly saying "Merry Christmas" and opting for a more generic holiday term, and I wouldn't force a secularist or non-Christian to say "Merry Christmas" just to make them happy on the grounds that "it's just some words, just go ahead and go along with it so they don't get upset"

I agree that it was absolutely about pushing an agenda - that of encouraging people to get vaccinated and to try to avoid getting/spreading COVID. That's a public health agenda, not a partisan one, and it's understandable that removing misinformation that reinforces the agenda would have a lower priority than removing misinformation that detracts from it.

I don't think they should've removed either...

But it was partisan on both sides. Conservatives racing to lift restrictions as fast as they could to score "Pro-freedom brownie points" with the base, and progressives using the danger of covid as a basis for proposals about retooling several of our institutions (on the precept that the more serious it is, the more drastic the change it justifies)

And furthermore, people are allowed to be skeptical of new things and express that skepticism. I understand the importance of getting people vaccinated...but there was some gaslighting occurring.

Instead of saying the honest "Covid can be pretty bad for certain groups, our early trials show this vaccine is pretty effective, and pretty well-tolerated...there could be some risks, but the pros far outweigh the cons for a huge segment of the population", the narrative became "this is the safest, most amazing vaccine in history, and covid is going to kill someone you love in next 3 months if both you and them don't get it"

NY Times did a good write up on the scenario in an article titled "Covid's partisan errors"

While it's true that there was a lot of misinformation about the situation coming from the conservative side (ranging from "it's just like the flu" all the way up to full blown conspiracy theories about hospitals fudging numbers, and vaccines being used for a Bill Gates population control initiative") ...there had to be to be some exaggerating coming the left as well in order to get people on board with some of the measures that were put in place. Otherwise, how did 41% of democrats get the idea in their heads that the hospitalization rate for covid was >50%?

 

[ThatRobGuy]

If dangerous misinformation is associated with one political faction and not another, that’s not the platform’s problem. Disseminating false information that leads to people making poor - even deadly - decisions is arguably worse than spamming slurs. It is not surprising that social media platforms would look into minimizing their role in this occurring.

That's contingent on what one defines as "dangerous"

At the risk of kicking a dead horse, if the platform was run by conservatives, and they viewed anything that challenged their gun rights as "dangerous" and put it in their ToS that any calls for gun control presented "a dangerous threat", would it be fair for liberals to get banned for simply saying "Hey, I think we need universal background checks"?

 

[RocksInMyHead]

But is there evidence to suggest that people venting on social media was a major contributor to that?

Canada and the UK have the same Twitter and Facebook we do, yet their vaccine uptake excelled greatly compared to ours...as did Israel's.

Having access to the same platform does not mean that you'll be exposed to the same information. I can all but guarantee that my Youtube recommendations look VERY different from yours, for example.

I'd argue that they did a better job of unified positive public messaging, which is the real way to beat bad information...which is, with good information that's unified.

You're not entirely wrong, but our government doesn't seem capable of that at the moment. Everything is a contest and a zero-sum game, and the Rs and Ds don't seem capable of presenting a united front on anything. If our government cannot do the job, then it falls on We the People to take over.

"If I don't like what they're saying, all I have to do is claim I'm offended and mommy and daddy will them shut up" isn't exactly a behavior I want to reinforce.

That's not at all what I'm proposing.

The same way I wouldn't try to force a progressive person to use an adjective they disagree with on a subject just to appease a conservative. IE: I challenge conservatives pretty hard when they get mad at stores for not explicitly saying "Merry Christmas" and opting for a more generic holiday term, and I wouldn't force a secularist or non-Christian to say "Merry Christmas" just to make them happy on the grounds that "it's just some words, just go ahead and go along with it so they don't get upset"

You've got it backwards here. "Happy Holidays" is the more inclusive, neutral term as it covers any of the multiple holidays that occur around the same time. If you wish someone "Merry Christmas", you're assuming their cultural traditions - just as calling someone you perceive as male "he" is assuming their gender. If, after you wish someone a merry Christmas, they return with "Happy Holidays!", then continuing to aggressively wish them Merry Christmas and insist that they use it too is rude - just like continuing to call someone a man after they tell you that they are a woman is rude.

But it was partisan on both sides. Conservatives racing to lift restrictions as fast as they could to score "Pro-freedom brownie points" with the base, and progressives using the danger of covid as a basis for proposals about retooling several of our institutions (on the precept that the more serious it is, the more drastic the change it justifies)

I don't recall any serious efforts by the left to retool institutions. The closest anything came to that was the stimulus checks, but that was a Trump policy from the beginning.

Instead of saying the honest "Covid can be pretty bad for certain groups, our early trials show this vaccine is pretty effective, and pretty well-tolerated...there could be some risks, but the pros far outweigh the cons for a huge segment of the population", the narrative became "this is the safest, most amazing vaccine in history, and covid is going to kill someone you love in next 3 months if both you and them don't get it"

This was a direct consequence of people spreading misinformation about the vaccine being dangerous/toxic/government mind control. If you have people going around spreading panic, it results in overcorrection.

While it's true that there was a lot of misinformation about the situation coming from the conservative side (ranging from "it's just like the flu" all the way up to full blown conspiracy theories about hospitals fudging numbers, and vaccines being used for a Bill Gates population control initiative") ...there had to be to be some exaggerating coming the left as well in order to get people on board with some of the measures that were put in place. Otherwise, how did 41% of democrats get the idea in their heads that the hospitalization rate for covid was >50%?

If it were purely a left-wing phenomenon, then that distribution seems off. Rather, I think that that was a result of the prevailing media/government narrative. And remember, we had a Republican administration in office for the first year of the pandemic.

 

[gaara4158]

That's contingent on what one defines as "dangerous"

At the risk of kicking a dead horse, if the platform was run by conservatives, and they viewed anything that challenged their gun rights as "dangerous" and put it in their ToS that any calls for gun control presented "a dangerous threat", would it be fair for liberals to get banned for simply saying "Hey, I think we need universal background checks"?

If conservatives can point to liberals spreading demonstrably false information that influences people to make decisions which result in significantly more deadly outcomes, I would support them removing such posts.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

You're not entirely wrong, but our government doesn't seem capable of that at the moment. Everything is a contest and a zero-sum game, and the Rs and Ds don't seem capable of presenting a united front on anything. If our government cannot do the job, then it falls on We the People to take over.

If it were a consensus of "we the people", that would be one thing...but 3000 20-somethings in San Francisco (that all heavily leaned in one direction) that comprise the staff at Twitter and were setting the moderation policies don't represent the views of "we the people".

You've got it backwards here. "Happy Holidays" is the more inclusive, neutral term as it covers any of the multiple holidays that occur around the same time. If you wish someone "Merry Christmas", you're assuming their cultural traditions - just as calling someone you perceive as male "he" is assuming their gender. If, after you wish someone a merry Christmas, they return with "Happy Holidays!", then continuing to aggressively wish them Merry Christmas and insist that they use it too is rude - just like continuing to call someone a man after they tell you that they are a woman is rude.

I would say neither gender specific pronoun is "inclusive" in that they refer to something specific. (otherwise people wouldn't be upset about "being called the wrong one")... But that really wasn't the root of what I was trying to highlight. I was highlighting the aspect of "compelled speech".

I don't recall any serious efforts by the left to retool institutions. The closest anything came to that was the stimulus checks, but that was a Trump policy from the beginning.

I would say a lot of institutions were retooled. Some public and some private.

Schools went to all remote learning in many places (and stayed that way long after the perceived justification for it had ended)
Many locales used it as a way to retool election/voting rules
Many private companies switched to 100% "Work from home" and stayed that way

 

[ThatRobGuy]

If conservatives can point to liberals spreading demonstrably false information that influences people to make decisions which result in significantly more deadly outcomes, I would support them removing such posts.

Does it have to specifically lethal outcomes? Or just bad ones?

Per the previously cited NY Times article:
Democrats are also more likely to exaggerate Covid’s toll on young people and to believe that children account for a meaningful share of deaths. In reality, Americans under 18 account for only 0.04 percent of Covid deaths.
It’s true that some of these misperceptions reflect the fact that most people are not epidemiologists and that estimating medical statistics is difficult. Still, the errors do have a connection to real-world behavior, Rothwell told me.

Republicans’ underestimation of Covid risks helps explain their resistance to wearing a mask — even though doing so could save their own life or that of a family member. And Democrats’ overestimation of risks explains why so many have accepted school closures — despite the damage being done to children, in lost learning, lost social connections and, in the case of poorer children, missed meals.


So, in that regard, the exaggeration and "erroring on the side of over-caution" isn't without externalities. Same could be said with regards to business owners (specifically in the restaurant industry).

 

[gaara4158]

Does it have to specifically lethal outcomes? Or just bad ones?

Per the previously cited NY Times article:
Democrats are also more likely to exaggerate Covid’s toll on young people and to believe that children account for a meaningful share of deaths. In reality, Americans under 18 account for only 0.04 percent of Covid deaths.
It’s true that some of these misperceptions reflect the fact that most people are not epidemiologists and that estimating medical statistics is difficult. Still, the errors do have a connection to real-world behavior, Rothwell told me.

Republicans’ underestimation of Covid risks helps explain their resistance to wearing a mask — even though doing so could save their own life or that of a family member. And Democrats’ overestimation of risks explains why so many have accepted school closures — despite the damage being done to children, in lost learning, lost social connections and, in the case of poorer children, missed meals.


So, in that regard, the exaggeration and "erroring on the side of over-caution" isn't without externalities. Same could be said with regards to business owners (specifically in the restaurant industry).

Death is more concretely quantifiable, so it’s a safer metric to measure by than something as abstract as developmental delays. What’s your alternative?

 

[RocksInMyHead]

If it were a consensus of "we the people", that would be one thing...but 3000 20-somethings in San Francisco (that all heavily leaned in one direction) that comprise the staff at Twitter and were setting the moderation policies don't represent the views of "we the people".

Fair enough, though I think you're misrepresenting things a bit - Twitter (at least prior to the ascension of the The Musk) had about 7500 employees across 20+ offices in 10+ countries and 8 states.

I would say neither gender specific pronoun is "inclusive" in that they refer to something specific. (otherwise people wouldn't be upset about "being called the wrong one")...

The point was that getting upset over someone using an inclusive greeting instead of a specific one isn't really comparable to getting upset over someone addressing you in a way that you have requested that they not address you.

But that really wasn't the root of what I was trying to highlight. I was highlighting the aspect of "compelled speech".

A greeting is in a bit of a different category than how you address someone though. If you asked to be called "Steve" and someone insisted on calling you "Jim", how would that make you feel? One of my friends growing up went by his middle name until high school, when he decided that he preferred his first name (which I didn't even know was his first name until he started using it). It was a little strange to change what I called him, but I did anyways because it was the respectful thing to do.

I would say a lot of institutions were retooled. Some public and some private.

Schools went to all remote learning in many places (and stayed that way long after the perceived justification for it had ended)
Many locales used it as a way to retool election/voting rules
Many private companies switched to 100% "Work from home" and stayed that way

"Perceived justification" is purely subjective - it's right there in the name. Schools went to remote learning out of perceived necessity, and ended it when they perceived that it was safe again. I don't think there are any systems that have stayed with remote learning. In the end, not retooled.

I wouldn't call widening access to mail voting a "retooling" considering that many states (including fairly conservative states like Arizona) have had unrestricted mail voting for decades and all states have had it at some level for ex-pats and servicemembers.

And private companies retooled themselves - that wasn't "the Left". If it didn't make business sense to do 100% WFH, they would have stopped. In most cases, it was found to increase efficiency, improve employee retention rates, attract better candidates, and save the company money (no need to lease huge office spaces). Win-win for the companies and their employees.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

"Perceived justification" is purely subjective - it's right there in the name. Schools went to remote learning out of perceived necessity, and ended it when they perceived that it was safe again. I don't think there are any systems that have stayed with remote learning. In the end, not retooled.

I wouldn't call widening access to mail voting a "retooling" considering that many states (including fairly conservative states like Arizona) have had unrestricted mail voting for decades and all states have had it at some level for ex-pats and servicemembers.

And private companies retooled themselves - that wasn't "the Left". If it didn't make business sense to do 100% WFH, they would have stopped. In most cases, it was found to increase efficiency, improve employee retention rates, attract better candidates, and save the company money (no need to lease huge office spaces). Win-win for the companies and their employees.

Well, yes and no...

The perceived justification for the initial closures was sincere in that "we don't want our kids getting sick and dying because we don't know much about the virus yet"... there were some Teacher's unions and locales still pushing for remote learning long after we had learned enough about it to know that kids weren't at a great risk from it, therefore their claimed perception was either non well-grounded in reality, or very insincere.

Chicago Teachers Union gearing up to walk out on Wednesday over COVID-19 safety concerns

The union wants staff to be able to work remotely instead as COVID-19 cases surge. A vote is likely on Tuesday.

www.wbez.org

These were teachers in 2022 threatening to strike because they claimed returning to in-person learning was "unsafe"


Some states had access to mail-in voting and absentee ballots existed, but there were a lot of changes made

Here's how states have changed the rules around voting amid the coronavirus pandemic

Voting is always confusing, but the coronavirus pandemic has made it even more so -- here's what you need to know about how voting has changed for the general election.

abcnews.go.com

(and changes that weren't undone after things were safer)


And I don't think it's accurate to say that the companies themselves made the choice, they were basically coerced into having the make the choice.

Early on, the choices for non-essential businesses were "Find a way for your employees to work remotely, or close", and once employees had gotten a taste of working from home for months and months, that became viewed as a "perk" and an employment bargaining chip. While there were pros and cons to that, it's a change none the less that has stuck around for a lot of companies long after the major viral threat had been dealt with.

It'd be like a temporary government mandate that required a company to give all of their employees free pizza on Fridays and relax the dress code for 4 months. Good luck ever taking that away or you'll have a mutiny on your hands, many companies would've preferred to go back to the way things were, but were basically strong-armed into keeping those policies around.

 

[ThatRobGuy]

Death is more concretely quantifiable, so it’s a safer metric to measure by than something as abstract as developmental delays. What’s your alternative?

Yes things like deaths and hospitalizations are more quantifiable, but that standard needs to be applied equally, how did we have situations like this?:

Chicago Teachers Union gearing up to walk out on Wednesday over COVID-19 safety concerns

The union wants staff to be able to work remotely instead as COVID-19 cases surge. A vote is likely on Tuesday.

www.wbez.org

Where in early 2022, we still had Teacher's unions threatening to strike because they "didn't feel safe" despite the fact that we had the numbers on how the virus impacted Children (and the risk to children wasn't significant), and the teachers were all vaccinated (and some of them boosted) by that point

In that regard, the exaggeration in the other direction did have a tangible negative impact, in that one of the largest teachers unions in the country was threatening to strike (and rob kids of their education) after all of the quantifiable data showed that neither kids, nor vaccinated people were at major risk anymore. Even if developmental delays aren't quantifiable in exact percentages, we still know that kids being in school and getting to learn and socialize is better than not having that.

If we're going to remove people from the town square or accuse people of peddling misinformation that has a negative impact on others, then that does need to cut both ways. Meaning, if a person's going to get removed for "creating vaccine hesitancy" (which could influence others into bad decision making not supported by data), then a 34 year old vaccinated teacher taking to social media claiming that the school district is trying to put her in harms way by making her go back to in-class teaching and "we all need to get together and strike" would also be a case of someone peddling misinformation that could influence uninformed thinking in others that have externalities.

 

[RocksInMyHead]

Well, yes and no...

The perceived justification for the initial closures was sincere in that "we don't want our kids getting sick and dying because we don't know much about the virus yet"... there were some Teacher's unions and locales still pushing for remote learning long after we had learned enough about it to know that kids weren't at a great risk from it, therefore their claimed perception was either non well-grounded in reality, or very insincere.

Chicago Teachers Union gearing up to walk out on Wednesday over COVID-19 safety concerns

The union wants staff to be able to work remotely instead as COVID-19 cases surge. A vote is likely on Tuesday.

www.wbez.org

These were teachers in 2022 threatening to strike because they claimed returning to in-person learning was "unsafe"

The justification was not just concern for children - teachers were justifiably concerned for their own wellbeing and the wellbeing of their families as well. While children are not at any great risk of dying from COVID, they do still catch it and spread it. Elderly teachers and teachers with immunocompromised family members might be understandably reluctant to return to the classroom because of that. I know a fair number of teachers, and I can't think of one who actually liked teaching remotely. They tolerated it because they were worried about their students and worried about their families. Perhaps more than necessary, but I can understand not wanting to risk people dying in the name of creating an ideal educational environment.

And while teachers generally lean left, I don't recall any concerted push for this coming from the "Left" in general.

Some states had access to mail-in voting and absentee ballots existed, but there were a lot of changes made

Here's how states have changed the rules around voting amid the coronavirus pandemic

Voting is always confusing, but the coronavirus pandemic has made it even more so -- here's what you need to know about how voting has changed for the general election.

abcnews.go.com

(and changes that weren't undone after things were safer)

I see a pretty even mix politically in the list of states that instituted voting changes. This doesn't appear to be a "Left" thing.

And I don't think it's accurate to say that the companies themselves made the choice, they were basically coerced into having the make the choice.

Early on, the choices for non-essential businesses were "Find a way for your employees to work remotely, or close", and once employees had gotten a taste of working from home for months and months, that became viewed as a "perk" and an employment bargaining chip. While there were pros and cons to that, it's a change none the less that has stuck around for a lot of companies long after the major viral threat had been dealt with.

It'd be like a temporary government mandate that required a company to give all of their employees free pizza on Fridays and relax the dress code for 4 months. Good luck ever taking that away or you'll have a mutiny on your hands, many companies would've preferred to go back to the way things were, but were basically strong-armed into keeping those policies around.

You can't honestly pin that on "the Left". The stay-at-home order was instituted by a Republican administration. The rest was simply the free market at work - workers got a taste of working from home thanks to the lockdowns and decided that they liked it. In almost every case that I've seen, workers were as productive or more productive in WFH scenarios than they were in the office - if they had not been, companies would not have kept WFH policies in place. Therefore, from a business perspective, it doesn't make sense to require workers to come to the office every day. Obvious exceptions for hands-on work aside, of course.

 

[gaara4158]

Yes things like deaths and hospitalizations are more quantifiable, but that standard needs to be applied equally, how did we have situations like this?:

Chicago Teachers Union gearing up to walk out on Wednesday over COVID-19 safety concerns

The union wants staff to be able to work remotely instead as COVID-19 cases surge. A vote is likely on Tuesday.

www.wbez.org

Where in early 2022, we still had Teacher's unions threatening to strike because they "didn't feel safe" despite the fact that we had the numbers on how the virus impacted Children (and the risk to children wasn't significant), and the teachers were all vaccinated (and some of them boosted) by that point

In that regard, the exaggeration in the other direction did have a tangible negative impact, in that one of the largest teachers unions in the country was threatening to strike (and rob kids of their education) after all of the quantifiable data showed that neither kids, nor vaccinated people were at major risk anymore. Even if developmental delays aren't quantifiable in exact percentages, we still know that kids being in school and getting to learn and socialize is better than not having that.

If we're going to remove people from the town square or accuse people of peddling misinformation that has a negative impact on others, then that does need to cut both ways. Meaning, if a person's going to get removed for "creating vaccine hesitancy" (which could influence others into bad decision making not supported by data), then a 34 year old vaccinated teacher taking to social media claiming that the school district is trying to put her in harms way by making her go back to in-class teaching and "we all need to get together and strike" would also be a case of someone peddling misinformation that could influence uninformed thinking in others that have externalities.

Again, I’m fine with censorship cutting both ways if it’s demonstrated to be in the service of preventing quantifiable harm. There’s not really a meaningful comparison to be made between teachers striking for WFH and people dying, but have at it.