[dwaltrip]

I would consider it a grotesque violation of my freedom if some powerful organization prevented me from privately saying what I wanted to my friends and other acquaintances.

Yes, there is some of this in the U.S. due to chilling effects from mass surveillance. I find it abhorrent. However, actively filtering and blocking messages is even worse.

[balola]

This coronavirus has made the people believe the gov is the best on the planet, since every other country is struggling with their freedom and rights, or as they are being told.

[lolc]

Yes protection of the subjected is a common justification for censorship. The reasoning is not completely wrong, just incomplete. How incomplete? One can't know under active censorship.

[defnotashton2]

Huh that's interesting because the lack of regulation and proper enforcement of said regulation of wet meat markets is what caused this in the first place.

[brabel]

Not if you believe the US government, which says that it actually came from a lab in China.

[propogandist]

One of the few bio safety level 4 labs in the world, but it's not simple as pointing a finger at a lab alone.

The University of Wuhan and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, have worked collaboratively on research on a SARS like novel coronavirus found in Chinese Horseshoe bats back in 2015 [1].

The research, as noted on the bottom of the report, was funded by grants from National Institute of Health (under Anthony Fauci's leadership), US AID Emerging Pandemic Threats program and other funding sources, including many US based researchers.

[1]- https://nature.com/articles/nm.3985

[arminiusreturns]

It's worth noting to others that USAID is often used as a front by three-letters.

[Larrikin]

This is the issue with an authoritarian government that kills dissenters.

It's very likely that it originated naturally from a bat or other animal and made it's way into the wet market. But the government denying denying early on, the doctor blowing the whistle early on that is now dead, and the shut down of research coming out of China into the origins means that information about the virus can never be taken one hundred percent seriously.

Trump and his administration lie constantly about his response, but there are journalists and people he has fired (as opposed to have killed, disappeared, thrown out.a window, etc) that can put together evidence about what is going on with the virus and other issues in the US.

I absolutely have no faith in the Chinese government ever letting any information out that one of their labs was the cause of the globe pandemic if they were.

[jeltz]

Which if true would also likely be due to lack of proper regulation and enforcement.

[NikolaeVarius]

Trump and his circle are not the US Govt.

[hutzlibu]

Then why do you have him sitting in that government office?

[vinay427]

Because he's the President. That doesn't make him, or Congress by itself for that matter, the "government" in a general sense.

[givinguflac]

The intelligence agencies have been clear there is no evidence of that. Do not confuse the US government’s position with the rantings of an old orange racist.

[madengr]

There is evidence pointing to cleavage:

https://youtu.be/R6y8dlhoMpo

[givinguflac]

A YouTube conspiracy video is not “evidence” give me a break

[dwaltrip]

Hmmm. I think most people believe coronavirus is very dangerous to their families and communities.