Royal Society cautions against censorship of scientific misinformation online
So many &quot;misinformation censorship&quot; proponents seem to have quickly forgotten just how much literally everyone in public health has spread misinformation this pandemic. It&#x27;s unavoidable being wrong and often the cost of making claims without unimpeachable evidence is higher than the cost of being wrong. Name me a public health official who regularly made recommendations this pandemic and I&#x27;ll show you misinformation.<p>The real issue here, in my opinion, is attributing malice so quickly and with extreme prejudice. Tensions are high and it seems to have become commonplace to assign ill-intent to the other tribe way too easily. In my opinion the answer to all of these problems is compassion and statistical thinking. Most people mean well and often times the only way you can get people to go to extremes is to negatively reinforce them into deeply entrenched tribal thinking.<p>It will always be a safer assumption to assume somebody means well even when they are wrong. Humans did not become the dominant species on this planet without cooperation and pro-social behaviors.