Let's dispel this fantasy that anyone is killing anyone else with their posts in this thread. Let's, for a moment, try to envision this imaginary "at risk" person.
1. This person not only has to find these forums but wander into this flamer thread with the weird title on his/her own, think it's a good place to get medical and science advice and read some or all of the covid posts in this forum.
2. This person has to be either neutral on the subject (highly unlikely) or already predisposed to agree with conspiracy stuff
3. This person's beliefs may be be slightly reinforced by some comment about this or that (the same thing we all do, confirmation bias)
4. This person now commits (or doesn't commit) some action or actions based on this reinforcement that results in someone else's suffering or death based on the information they read here
That's not just a stretch, it's insanely unlikely. But all this can be changed by a well constructed rebuttal! You just save the world! No. You didn't save shit. It's been said over and over, no one is changing their opinion about anything based on what's in this thread. You want to argue the merits of a position, do your thing. Telling someone they shouldn't post what they want or like any post they want because of what someone else might do is disingenuous and avoiding the issue of contention.
I had this b.... woman lecture me about having my dog at the pool. How it will encourage other people to do it. Now I have permission from both the state and the manager to have her down there. Yet she's telling me I shouldn't do something I'm allow to do because it will cause others to break the rules. I am not responsible for what other people do. Additionally she's telling me this while passing her wine bottle over the concrete around the hot tub which is totally against the rules. Might influence someone else! Bullshit.
Obviously you can tell me to fuck off and that's fine. But this is just like voter id laws. There is no problem so all the BS is completely unnecessary.
That is a very simplistic way of looking at it.
I think you are assuming that the person who is killed has to read this thread which is not required.
All it takes is someone to read zricks insane lying propoganda, think it's true (as zrick does) and then they cease or continue to cease taking protective measures against covid. That could spread covid more and kill people.
I'm not saying that he's directly killing anyone, but his posts contributing to an environment of disinformation that most definitely IS killing people.
This. It isn't just zricky or this particular thread. The problem is that these idiots are in other places as well.
I'm trying to imagine the person who's so easily influenced by a car customizing forum thread that they're going to change how they feel about things based on one of his posts. I don't think you can convince me otherwise no one even comes in here let alone who's so impressionable that they're mind is going to be changed by the crazy shit.
And to repeat he is not responsible for other people. They are responsible for their own thoughts and their own actions and putting it on someone else is bullshit.
You are underestimating the power of social media forums. People flock to a forum, build a rapport about one topic and then go back to that forum for other advice.
An intelligent reader, will validate the medical information/advice given on the knitting forum with a doctor (or at least with a medical forum). But that isn't the way it always works. "Susan seems like a really nice person. She's always given me great advice about what wool to use and which needles are best. She sounds credible when she talks about the virus too and she has all those quotes and charts..."
Let's take an example from this forum:
Unreal1 joined this discussion saying something along the lines of "I'm going to a wedding and I'm trying to decide if I should get vaccinated". If we take that sentence at face value, then he was confused and wanted advice.
Now, many pages later, Unreal1 drank the zricky kool-aid and has fully bought into the conspiracy theories and unquestionably false information where the purported data doesn't come close to matching the claims.
There are several alternatives:
Unreal1 was legitimately asking for advice - he bought into zricky's crap and that will harm him.
Unreal1 already had his mind made up. He made that post to make himself appear neutral.
Unreal1 is just a troll.
Are there other alternatives I've overlooked?