Two issues arose at a recent council meeting in a small town in B.C. The first was protesters against COVID measures calling police Nazis and Gestapo, among other similar epithets. The second was that disinformation about COVID from an unscheduled speaker was distributed on video and ended up going viral, seemingly under the auspices of the town council to give it legitimacy.

A third issue is that people are manipulating speech and video to dishonestly reinforce their points of view.


https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/covid-19-vaccine-disinformation-dawson-creek-1.6201246


Excerpts:

“The city of Dawson Creek, B.C., home to about 12,000 people near the B.C.-Alberta border, has removed a previously published portion of a recent city council meeting video after it began circulating in COVID-19 disinformation groups worldwide.

“The portion of the video that was removed featured several speakers at a Sept. 2 council meeting making false or misleading statements about COVID-19 vaccines and their effectiveness.

(These speakers were not scheduled or vetted but were permitted to address council before the meeting. The Mayor isn't making that mistake again).

“Before the meeting, police were called to respond to several protesters who refused to wear a mask inside council chambers, a requirement under public health guidelines.

“In a video live-streamed to Facebook by one of the protesters, police can be seen escorting one man away as another begins yelling, "Brownshirts!" Later, members of the crowd joined in, calling RCMP "Nazis" and "Gestapo."

“The video has prompted condemnation from both B.C. Premier John Horgan and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, headquartered in Toronto, which said the comparison of B.C.'s public health policy to "the systematic identification, humiliation, persecution and murder of Jews and millions of others is absurd, dangerous and disrespectful."

“Inside council chambers, several presenters made similar arguments, comparing B.C.'s voluntary vaccine card to 1930s Germany and sharing false information about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

“Some users started extracting the woman's presentation [the unscheduled speaker who is a “natural healer”] and sharing it on its own. One YouTube user with more than 21,000 subscribers clipped her speech and uploaded it to their channel, where it has racked up more than 200,000 views.

“The video has also been posted to Twitter, TikTok and Facebook, as well as to alternative sites popular among anti-vaccine users. In most posts, the woman is referred to as a molecular biologist, while in some she is wrongly identified as a doctor. Few mention her true profession as a natural healer and psychic.

“Disinformation expert Ahmed Al-Rawi said this is a common technique among anti-vaccine groups — inflating or inventing the credentials of people speaking out against public health measures in an effort to give their viewpoints a false sense of credibility.

"They bring in a fake expert who will provide contrary evidence to what the scientific consensus is to cast doubt on the validity of public health policies," he said.

“Since then, one of those presentations has been circulated on multiple social media platforms by anti-vaccination groups, racking up tens of thousands of views.

“Al-Rawi compared the technique to past efforts to undermine consensus science surrounding climate change or the dangers of smoking. People can search the internet for videos like the Dawson Creek council meeting that can be re-purposed to serve their needs.

"They cherry-pick information … in order to convince others that they are right."

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It should go without saying that if you have to manipulate information to try and prove your point you may want to give your head a shake.


Photo Caption: "You putting on a mask to cover your unbrushed teeth is not the same as what happened to Jews" — Dawson Creek RCMP officer is done with the Holocaust comparisons.”

You may be tempted to laugh, even when the situation is deadly serious. Deadly being the operative word in the time of COVID. But a good rule of thumb is that nothing compares to the Holocaust. I wish people could find themselves different, and more accurate, comparisons. Use some imagination. And show some respect.

Too, I wish that all the thousands avidly reading the disinformation on various social media sites would check their sources. And keep their minds open.


This applies to religions too, obviously. If all your information comes from the church you choose or are born into your points of view and experience are likely to be very limited, to your detriment. Can't live in an echo chamber if you're interested in truth and fact.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2021 06:01PM by Nightingale.

This is a very thoughtful and thought provoking post, Nightingale.

My guess--given my growing-up in a maternal side family who owned slaves for several generations and deeply yearned for those days to return again--is that many people seek validation for their deepest beliefs and fears from just about any source which appears to agree with them....and (from my personal observation and experience) they do not value, and will often vehemently reject, facts and realities which contradict "reality" the way they imagine it is (in their thought process) "supposed to be."

For these people, disinformation works--and it works astoundingly well because the core beliefs of that disinformation exist so deeply throughout their minds and bodies and consciousnesses.

My experience is that there are NO facts (or societally accepted morals, or ethical principles), no matter how objectively true those facts, morals, and ethics may be, which will overcome their reflexive deepest personal beliefs and "truths" which to them constitute what they see as "reality."

If the maternal side of my family were still alive today, I would be "hearing" (from being actively shouted at by several people at once) every bit of Covid misinformation about masking and vaccination and the etiology of the disease....and the accusations against me regarding my patriotism and me being a dupe would be just the same as they once were, down here during the Civil Rights era, when I was growing up.

I don't think these kinds of people are capable of logically processing valid data which is in opposition to their most deeply held needs and beliefs.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2021 07:24PM by Tevai.

Thanks, as always Tevai, for your kind words.


Tevai Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I don't think these kinds of people are capable of
> logically processing valid data which is in
> opposition to their most deeply held needs and
> beliefs.

Yes, this is definitely a huge roadblock. I didn't really understand for a long time that many people don't stop and weigh all sides of every issue before reaching their conclusions. It seems that once many form their ideas and/or find their comfort zone and the people or group they most identify with then all too often not much ongoing learning or critical thinking occurs.

My parents were voracious readers, good role models in that regard. My dad would even deliberately take the opposing view on a subject, even when that wasn't his opinion, to teach us how to debate and reason. The objective was to weigh all sides and then come down on the correct side. The part I didn't quite get at first was that the correct side is not written in stone but rather is all-too-commonly subject to opinion and especially to preconceived ideas or positions.

Even though I was ill-advised enough to join not one but two fundy-type religious groups I had that basic instinct that he had instilled in me and when something didn't make sense or was inconsistent that sent up red flags for me. (Too bad I was slow to notice the flags, not seeing them *before* joining but they helped me to backtrack when reality bit). For me, my brain's preference for consistency was a huge positive as were my life experiences before and after joining each faith. Not everybody has the before part to compare, such as BICs obviously. It can take a lot of courage for BICs to leave all they've ever known even if they come to realize that what their parents and all their significant others are telling them doesn't add up.

Tevai, your family history is certainly colourful and very interesting. Too bad it caused you struggles, but it's not surprising.

I can't wrap my head around anyone yearning for a return to the time of owning slaves. It seems so obvious from this remove that it was a horrific time in history and unfortunately its corrosive tentacles continue to negatively impact people and society today.


You said:

"For these people, disinformation works--and it works astoundingly well because the core beliefs of that disinformation exist so deeply throughout their minds and bodies and consciousnesses."

And:

"I don't think these kinds of people are capable of logically processing valid data which is in opposition to their most deeply held needs and beliefs."

Yes, I agree with these descriptions, Tevai. It's helpful to put it this way. It may assist in efforts to try and bring some light. To our surprise at times, it occasionally helps.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2021 08:32PM by Nightingale.