The Campaign for Permanent Masking
Who's behind the campaign to make masks permanent?
On Monday, the CDC’s mask mandate for US airlines was struck down. This made for some comical takes captured in my previous article. But some takes weren’t so funny. In this tweet, which has 137,000 likes and counting, an anonymous doctor makes the case for permanent masking in the most explicit possible terms.
Below are some examples of quote tweets of this doctor’s tweet. Many sought to normalize the concept of permanent masking, emphasizing that wearing a mask forever is no big deal, and anyway is “cool.”
Many other quote tweets indicated that they’d been masking long before Covid. Given that virtually no one in the western world wore masks before Covid, many of these tweets would appear to be lies.
Other quote tweets advocated permanent masking on the belief that the world had permanently changed because Covid may have leaked out of a lab. As described in greater detail in my book, this point—that the world could no longer afford human rights because Covid may have leaked out of the Wuhan Lab of Virology—has been a consistent line within pro-lockdown and -mandate propaganda since January 2020, and remains a primary reason that I push back on the “lab leak theory.”
Still other quote tweets specifically implored westerners to adopt permanent masking because mask-wearing has long been a cultural practice in East Asia. Some even indicated that they, themselves, were located in East Asia.
Others indicated that the entire world should have adopted universal masking in the early 20th century, apparently a reference to a popular story about the work of Dr. Wu Lien-Teh, often credited with popularizing universal masking in China in that period.
In my personal opinion, this social media campaign for permanent masking has all the hallmarks of one sponsored by the Chinese Communist Party or its allies—though hopefully not as impactful as the pro-lockdown propaganda campaign that took place in early 2020.
The original tweet with more than 137,000 likes is not clever, funny, or interesting.
Most of the quote tweets show little equivocation and instead show passionate enthusiasm for permanent masking, which is still considered a fringe view in the western world.
The accounts involved are generally anonymous and incoherent.
Many of the quote tweets emphasize that they masked long before Covid, which is either a lie or, if true, could only be true if they were in Asia.
The accounts explicitly encourage the west to emulate “East Asia,” and some indicate that they, themselves, are located in East Asia.
Of course, I could be wrong. Though the alternative in this case—that hundreds of thousands of people really are passionately enthusiastic about permanent masking—is far more frightening.
Michael P Senger is an attorney and author of Snake Oil: How Xi Jinping Shut Down the World. Want to support my work? Get the book.
It's tweeter, not real life. That said, wearing a mask over your eyes whilst reading twitter is probably a good idea mental health wise. Getting off it even better. Looking around me today, I don't see anybody masking so you're probably right about the trolling.
The greatest concern is this tweet storm was instigated by an (alleged) MD, whose training should make her know better. Masking is a fetish driven by ignorance and the fear that derives from ignorance. Political opportunists have taken advantage of that ignorance to tighten population controls. We usually are able to suppress them, but societies still fall for socialist tyrants from time to time. We will either attack the ignorance, or the tyrants, or learn to tolerate tyranny.