At every stage, from the initial lockdowns and masks to school closures and vaccines, the strict censorship of facts and ideas that diminish support for the mandates of governments and the World Health Organization—regardless of their cost and efficacy—has been central to the response to Covid-19, especially on
Hi there - I'm a geriatrician specialist and I work for a very prominent large public agency running a long term care facility. I have self-censored for the last 2+ years my growing horror as to what we've done to the lives of my residents in the name of COVID avoidance. They live far more meaningless, depressing, and what I suspect - shorter and more debilitated lives because of it. If you want to hear me talk about it I'm at https://gerodoc.substack.com/
I'm not the least bit self-censoring on Twitter, but I highly self-censor on Facebook to avoid the wrath of friends who can't handle contradictory information on COVID. I have been mocked and cursed, literally, by friends I've had for 30 years. Never try to teach a pig to sing; it only frustrates you and the pig.
This has been a huge struggle for me. I finally got a studio at a local art center, then COVID hit. Teachers were required to be vaxxed, vax was necessary to participate in Winter Market etc. Ironically, the place had just won an award for inclusivity! Early on I expressed my doubts (trepidation!) about the untested mRNA and DNA technologies and told a few fellow artists that I would steer clear. Months later, well into the vax campaign, someone spread rumors that I wasn't vaxxed (never told anyone). Artists steered VERY clear of me. A fellow double-jabbed artist told me she would "hug me but I wasn't vaxxed". Another told me recently that I should not be going into the studio and that the unvaxxed "spread germs". I'm not sure if I can stay - I am the only one now required to wear a mask (I don't). At least I stopped the "I am vaccinated" button campaign...
It is sometimes exceedingly painful. The price can be high, (two family members lost jobs), but I am mostly open. How else will we get over this? My brother died from Cipro poisoning and FDA silence. I have to speak out!
That said, folks like you are fantastic! Thank you Michael for your great missives - and to fellow commenters! There is hope - I just met a neighbor who said she is unvaxxed. Phew!!!
I had already abandoned most social media (tweeter and Facebook) prior to 2020, and joined Gettr and Gab. Don’t post much, though. Happy to have found Substack. However, among friends in priva-te WhatsApp groups, I actually refrain from engaging in Wuhan flu conversations. So, yes, I self-censor.
There’s no doubt that untold numbers of people self-censor what they say about either COVID19 or vaccines either out of fear of the crowd or for potential loss of their job/clients. The real problem isn't "misinformation" per se, the problem are those gatekeepers who want to arbitrarily shut down the scientific communication process. The preemptive labeling of so many claims or evidence throughout this pandemic as “misinformation” was an intentional and repulsive strategy by a cohort of bad actors who were betraying their obligation to protect the public interest. So much that the social media censors claimed was “misinformation” were actually valid, individual case, real world claims that certain factions of the scientific and medical community wanted to suppress without any basis other than their own financial self interest.
I'm still awaiting the apologies/omg-you-were-right's but then I also realize I stopped talking to my friends pretty early on after a few "StF-ups." It was some BLM related stuff, basically being called a holocaust denier for supporting someone's right to question it, that original caused me to get off Twitter in September of 2020. With Covid, all you could do online is write detailed posts (like you do) or troll (cuz no one is changing their minds.) The obvious part for me was hearing all my favorite podcasts refuse to use the word "vaccine" and develop all these weird code words for things. That was hard because it was a very clear sign people were mentally fracturing.
Great topic! Yes, I continue to censor some of my thoughts about pandemic policy. One example: the significance of age. To me, age matters. I think it MIGHT be worth shutting down society (even as an unproven strategy) for a disease that poses a significant threat to children and youth, but not for a disease whose average victims are already old and enfeebled. This is not to say that such people are "less valuable," but that they've already lived their lives, so it doesn't seem fair to enact policies that screw over the young, in hopes of buying the oldies a little extra time. (And I say this as a 65-year-old.)
Many people balk at the idea that age should make a difference. This puzzles me: anyone who has attended the funeral of a 9-year-old and a 90-year-old understands the difference in their bones. The first is a tragedy that ripples across generations. The second is, quite often, a celebration of a life well lived.
I intentionally dumped all social media early on in this (and esp. post 2020 election) because every time I posted something I either got attacked by trolls or got temporarily banned. And yes, I was making posts calling out the clot shot, the ridiculousness of lockdowns, the destruction to children, and even (gasp) election fraud!
I am on Facebook and Instagram but posted nothing about Covid. I am a nurse and extensively researched what was happening. Thank you for your work. I wrote my story and published it here:
I very much hated the lockdown, I felt that even going out of my home was constricted. Over time I changed from a person who loved to explore her larger neighborhood (county) into a stay-at-home. My social contact became limited to restaurant workers. I am still there.
I hated masking because I believed it offered no health protection while limiting my ability to wear makeup, especially lipstick.
And yet the truth of the so-called epidemic was repressed everywhere in favor of universal fear. This was when I realized that censorship was in service to propaganda. Friends and acquaintances almost universally believed the propaganda. I could find no vaguely intellectual subject for conversation that did not eventually involve my thoughts on the prohibitions. I risked losing friends. Between the lack of safe conversational subjects and my physical isolation, I lost contact with others.
Jun 17, 2022·edited Jun 17, 2022Liked by Michael P Senger
Shouldn't this be a thing, Michael Senger? Manipulated and edited, rewritten archived official CDC 2007 Pre-pandemic Planning Guide. The link is to the current, available online version of this official CDC document. A document that I also downloaded in September, 2020. Downloaded then because I noticed it already had been edited and rewritten between then and when I first viewed the Guide in April-May, 2020. Isn't altering an official, archived government document illegal? The .jpg links below show two of the several charts in the Guide that had data removed. Data that demonstrated in an easy-to-read visual format that even in a Spanish Flu-level pandemic the restrictions and mandates CDC have been recommending for CV are excessive and unnecessary. Effective visualizations that expose the CDC's bad faith. How can this be legal?
Interim Pre-pandemic Planning Guidance:
Community Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Mitigation in the United States -
Early, Targeted, Layered Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions
But why would the CDC do this? Why censorship? Is it just Big Tech and private companies censoring? Is there a public-private effort to censor? What would be the point? I enter this MIT study published in January, 2021 as a compelling answer to that question:
As you say, "diminishing support for the mandates of government and WHO - regardless of their cost and efficacy" has been the explicit goal. The MIT study even says so. It reveals that "Coronavirus Skeptics" are excellent researchers and constitute the most scientifically literate, educated and proficient demographic among us. Producing research, studies and analysis worthy of publication in the most prestigious scientific journals. Demonstrated adherence to the scientific method and capacity to communicate their findings effectively. Using visualizations of data that are clearly understood by non-scientific audiences.
And for being so good at science the Skeptics must be silenced and shouted down. Because they produce information that contradicts authorities proclaiming a nonscientific "consensus." These are social and behavioral scientists pretending to be natural and medical scientists. Cloaking themselves in the ambiguity of the word, "Science." Obfuscating data and misleading the public that doesn't do real scientific research in order to gain compliance with a reordering of human social norms desired by the "consensus." A consensus of authoritarians, that is. Without concern or regard for civil liberties. Civil liberties that at least the 2007 CDC Guide tried to preserve, even in the middle of a Spanish Flu-level pandemic. That CV clearly hasn't been.
"Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online
MIT, January 20, 2021
"ABSTRACT
Controversial understandings of the coronavirus pandemic have turned data visualizations into a battleground. Defying public health officials, coronavirus skeptics on US social media spent much of 2020 creating data visualizations showing that the government’s pandemic response was excessive and that the crisis was over. This paper investigates how pandemic visualizations circulated on social media, and shows that people who mistrust the scientific establishment often deploy the same rhetorics of data-driven decisionmaking used by experts, but to advocate for radical policy changes."
This must be exposed, Michael. Your thoughts? I have the full CDC .pdf file I downloaded in September, 2020 saved on my computer and several thumb drives and cloud email accounts. Happy to send in a pm to those interested.
Jun 17, 2022·edited Jun 17, 2022Liked by Michael P Senger
I avoid posting on troll infested public pages because I get tired of trolls, sealions, and attempts to dox me for not complying with the government-approved narrative.
on my own page I avoid most of the transgender/gender preference arguments, but that's only because a few people I know would get their underwear (panties? I'm not sure with those folks) in a wad about it and I don't want to play the alienate-your-friends game promoted by the establishment. political correctness aggravates me immensely, and I am all for personal sovereignty... I just don't like being told I'm supposed to tiptoe around someone's else's sensitivity to their personal preferences.
as far as government corruption, racketeering, pHarmaCo malfeasance and product dangers/ineffectiveness, statistics the Man doesn't like, censorship, NPIs (non pharma interventions) and PIs (pharma interventions) don't work and are harmful, concentration camps, voting machine fraud/hacking, the evils of the Republicrat Uniparty, etc... I post the hell out of everything that I can find backup articles and or studies for.
I self censor now because I’m tired of losing friends. Peoples hearts are cold to all of this and they don’t want to deal with it- any of it. But back in the early days? No. I didn’t censor. And I don’t regret it even after losing friends
I self-censor to a small extent. I'm practically invulnerable. 80 years old living in a foreign country that does not care.
However, one friend in the US died this winter. Story is that he fell over while shoveling snow, hit his head and it killed him. Another just had a bike accident. He thinks he went unconscious then crashed, breaking 5 ribs. I want to ask if they were jabbed. I dare not.
Hi there - I'm a geriatrician specialist and I work for a very prominent large public agency running a long term care facility. I have self-censored for the last 2+ years my growing horror as to what we've done to the lives of my residents in the name of COVID avoidance. They live far more meaningless, depressing, and what I suspect - shorter and more debilitated lives because of it. If you want to hear me talk about it I'm at https://gerodoc.substack.com/
I'm not the least bit self-censoring on Twitter, but I highly self-censor on Facebook to avoid the wrath of friends who can't handle contradictory information on COVID. I have been mocked and cursed, literally, by friends I've had for 30 years. Never try to teach a pig to sing; it only frustrates you and the pig.
This has been a huge struggle for me. I finally got a studio at a local art center, then COVID hit. Teachers were required to be vaxxed, vax was necessary to participate in Winter Market etc. Ironically, the place had just won an award for inclusivity! Early on I expressed my doubts (trepidation!) about the untested mRNA and DNA technologies and told a few fellow artists that I would steer clear. Months later, well into the vax campaign, someone spread rumors that I wasn't vaxxed (never told anyone). Artists steered VERY clear of me. A fellow double-jabbed artist told me she would "hug me but I wasn't vaxxed". Another told me recently that I should not be going into the studio and that the unvaxxed "spread germs". I'm not sure if I can stay - I am the only one now required to wear a mask (I don't). At least I stopped the "I am vaccinated" button campaign...
It is sometimes exceedingly painful. The price can be high, (two family members lost jobs), but I am mostly open. How else will we get over this? My brother died from Cipro poisoning and FDA silence. I have to speak out!
That said, folks like you are fantastic! Thank you Michael for your great missives - and to fellow commenters! There is hope - I just met a neighbor who said she is unvaxxed. Phew!!!
I had already abandoned most social media (tweeter and Facebook) prior to 2020, and joined Gettr and Gab. Don’t post much, though. Happy to have found Substack. However, among friends in priva-te WhatsApp groups, I actually refrain from engaging in Wuhan flu conversations. So, yes, I self-censor.
There’s no doubt that untold numbers of people self-censor what they say about either COVID19 or vaccines either out of fear of the crowd or for potential loss of their job/clients. The real problem isn't "misinformation" per se, the problem are those gatekeepers who want to arbitrarily shut down the scientific communication process. The preemptive labeling of so many claims or evidence throughout this pandemic as “misinformation” was an intentional and repulsive strategy by a cohort of bad actors who were betraying their obligation to protect the public interest. So much that the social media censors claimed was “misinformation” were actually valid, individual case, real world claims that certain factions of the scientific and medical community wanted to suppress without any basis other than their own financial self interest.
I'm still awaiting the apologies/omg-you-were-right's but then I also realize I stopped talking to my friends pretty early on after a few "StF-ups." It was some BLM related stuff, basically being called a holocaust denier for supporting someone's right to question it, that original caused me to get off Twitter in September of 2020. With Covid, all you could do online is write detailed posts (like you do) or troll (cuz no one is changing their minds.) The obvious part for me was hearing all my favorite podcasts refuse to use the word "vaccine" and develop all these weird code words for things. That was hard because it was a very clear sign people were mentally fracturing.
Great topic! Yes, I continue to censor some of my thoughts about pandemic policy. One example: the significance of age. To me, age matters. I think it MIGHT be worth shutting down society (even as an unproven strategy) for a disease that poses a significant threat to children and youth, but not for a disease whose average victims are already old and enfeebled. This is not to say that such people are "less valuable," but that they've already lived their lives, so it doesn't seem fair to enact policies that screw over the young, in hopes of buying the oldies a little extra time. (And I say this as a 65-year-old.)
Many people balk at the idea that age should make a difference. This puzzles me: anyone who has attended the funeral of a 9-year-old and a 90-year-old understands the difference in their bones. The first is a tragedy that ripples across generations. The second is, quite often, a celebration of a life well lived.
I intentionally dumped all social media early on in this (and esp. post 2020 election) because every time I posted something I either got attacked by trolls or got temporarily banned. And yes, I was making posts calling out the clot shot, the ridiculousness of lockdowns, the destruction to children, and even (gasp) election fraud!
I am on Facebook and Instagram but posted nothing about Covid. I am a nurse and extensively researched what was happening. Thank you for your work. I wrote my story and published it here:
nancyrbenedict.Substack.com
We are many millions strong and we must stand together.
I very much hated the lockdown, I felt that even going out of my home was constricted. Over time I changed from a person who loved to explore her larger neighborhood (county) into a stay-at-home. My social contact became limited to restaurant workers. I am still there.
I hated masking because I believed it offered no health protection while limiting my ability to wear makeup, especially lipstick.
And yet the truth of the so-called epidemic was repressed everywhere in favor of universal fear. This was when I realized that censorship was in service to propaganda. Friends and acquaintances almost universally believed the propaganda. I could find no vaguely intellectual subject for conversation that did not eventually involve my thoughts on the prohibitions. I risked losing friends. Between the lack of safe conversational subjects and my physical isolation, I lost contact with others.
Shouldn't this be a thing, Michael Senger? Manipulated and edited, rewritten archived official CDC 2007 Pre-pandemic Planning Guide. The link is to the current, available online version of this official CDC document. A document that I also downloaded in September, 2020. Downloaded then because I noticed it already had been edited and rewritten between then and when I first viewed the Guide in April-May, 2020. Isn't altering an official, archived government document illegal? The .jpg links below show two of the several charts in the Guide that had data removed. Data that demonstrated in an easy-to-read visual format that even in a Spanish Flu-level pandemic the restrictions and mandates CDC have been recommending for CV are excessive and unnecessary. Effective visualizations that expose the CDC's bad faith. How can this be legal?
Interim Pre-pandemic Planning Guidance:
Community Strategy for Pandemic Influenza Mitigation in the United States -
Early, Targeted, Layered Use of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions
CDC, Februay, 2007
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/pdf/community_mitigation-sm.pdf
Manipulated and edited visualizations of archived official CDC document by CDC between September, 2020 and today, June, 2022:
Pandemic Severity Index by Epidemiological Characteristics
https://i.imgflip.com/6jy8fj.jpg
Summary of Community Mitigation Strategies by Pandemic Severity
https://i.imgflip.com/6jy8kj.jpg
But why would the CDC do this? Why censorship? Is it just Big Tech and private companies censoring? Is there a public-private effort to censor? What would be the point? I enter this MIT study published in January, 2021 as a compelling answer to that question:
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2101.07993.pdf
As you say, "diminishing support for the mandates of government and WHO - regardless of their cost and efficacy" has been the explicit goal. The MIT study even says so. It reveals that "Coronavirus Skeptics" are excellent researchers and constitute the most scientifically literate, educated and proficient demographic among us. Producing research, studies and analysis worthy of publication in the most prestigious scientific journals. Demonstrated adherence to the scientific method and capacity to communicate their findings effectively. Using visualizations of data that are clearly understood by non-scientific audiences.
And for being so good at science the Skeptics must be silenced and shouted down. Because they produce information that contradicts authorities proclaiming a nonscientific "consensus." These are social and behavioral scientists pretending to be natural and medical scientists. Cloaking themselves in the ambiguity of the word, "Science." Obfuscating data and misleading the public that doesn't do real scientific research in order to gain compliance with a reordering of human social norms desired by the "consensus." A consensus of authoritarians, that is. Without concern or regard for civil liberties. Civil liberties that at least the 2007 CDC Guide tried to preserve, even in the middle of a Spanish Flu-level pandemic. That CV clearly hasn't been.
"Viral Visualizations: How Coronavirus Skeptics Use Orthodox Data Practices to Promote Unorthodox Science Online
MIT, January 20, 2021
"ABSTRACT
Controversial understandings of the coronavirus pandemic have turned data visualizations into a battleground. Defying public health officials, coronavirus skeptics on US social media spent much of 2020 creating data visualizations showing that the government’s pandemic response was excessive and that the crisis was over. This paper investigates how pandemic visualizations circulated on social media, and shows that people who mistrust the scientific establishment often deploy the same rhetorics of data-driven decisionmaking used by experts, but to advocate for radical policy changes."
This must be exposed, Michael. Your thoughts? I have the full CDC .pdf file I downloaded in September, 2020 saved on my computer and several thumb drives and cloud email accounts. Happy to send in a pm to those interested.
I avoid posting on troll infested public pages because I get tired of trolls, sealions, and attempts to dox me for not complying with the government-approved narrative.
on my own page I avoid most of the transgender/gender preference arguments, but that's only because a few people I know would get their underwear (panties? I'm not sure with those folks) in a wad about it and I don't want to play the alienate-your-friends game promoted by the establishment. political correctness aggravates me immensely, and I am all for personal sovereignty... I just don't like being told I'm supposed to tiptoe around someone's else's sensitivity to their personal preferences.
as far as government corruption, racketeering, pHarmaCo malfeasance and product dangers/ineffectiveness, statistics the Man doesn't like, censorship, NPIs (non pharma interventions) and PIs (pharma interventions) don't work and are harmful, concentration camps, voting machine fraud/hacking, the evils of the Republicrat Uniparty, etc... I post the hell out of everything that I can find backup articles and or studies for.
Fourth and final permanent suspension. I'm done with Twatter. https://metatron.substack.com/p/another-permanent-twitter-suspension
I self censor now because I’m tired of losing friends. Peoples hearts are cold to all of this and they don’t want to deal with it- any of it. But back in the early days? No. I didn’t censor. And I don’t regret it even after losing friends
Of course, I will question things but only so far. Already been Shadow banned a few times
We end up speaking in coded language
It remains an open question how many feel the same, no one appears to question due to Preference Falsification
We're in a very unstable equilibrium which could tip at any point
I self-censor to a small extent. I'm practically invulnerable. 80 years old living in a foreign country that does not care.
However, one friend in the US died this winter. Story is that he fell over while shoveling snow, hit his head and it killed him. Another just had a bike accident. He thinks he went unconscious then crashed, breaking 5 ribs. I want to ask if they were jabbed. I dare not.