[belltaco]

>The lab leak theory was misinformation at one point

So? We know more about it now, so the earlier wild claims without evidence or proof were definitely misinformation at the time, intended to deflect blame from the ineptness of the politicians in power in feb 2020.

[shockeychap]

> So?

Seriously?!? If the lab leak discussion had been suppressed just a little bit more, would we even be talking about it today?

Wrong ideas have always existed and always been part of life. From a pile of wrong ideas, a few right ones emerge.

I'm old enough to remember well the plethora of 9/11 conspiracy theories. Some of them were quite offensive to the people who suffered and died on that day. But I never called for suppression of free speech because of it.

[belltaco]

9/11 conspiracies did not cause violence or deaths. About one 9/11 worth of unvaccinated people are dying every few days. We spent trillions going after the people who orchestrated the 5000 odd deaths on 9/11. But fake news and misinformation are somehow okay, and the minimal attempts to combat them by social media websites are demonized.

[chrismcb]

For over a year it was forbidden to discuss even the idea of a lab leak theory. People who questioned it were shut down. They weren't making claims, just asking. Journalists refused to investigate. Scientists were afraid to talk. Because of this, we know less now than we could have.

[fighterpilot]

Given that lab leaks are fairly common through recent history and the location of the WIV, it was a totally plausible hypothesis back then. It was just taboo for purely political reasons. The case for a lab leak now is mostly the same as it was back then - circumstantial.

[belltaco]

There were a lot of claims that it was a bioweapon leak, in the recent months there has been more circumstantial evidence that it might have been an accidental leak. So yes, there was a lot of misinformation at that time around this.

[vorpalhex]

You can't badly conflate two different claims and then use that as a reason to engage in censorship.

[fighterpilot]

The leak hypothesis itself - not merely a bioweapon leak - was verboten despite its evident plausibility as a hypothesis given a precedent of other lab leaks.

Little has changed since then aside from Trump being voted out which then freed up the political left to consider this possibility in its discourse.

[belltaco]

A case of the boy who cried wolf not being believed.

[fighterpilot]

If you don't see a serious problem with scientists and journalists abdicating their responsibility to dispassionatly pursue the truth and the damage this does to institutions and the public confidence of those institutions, and moreover you do not even lay any blame at their feet and excuse this behavior just because the other side is more dishonest, then I can only think that you have some pretty powerful ideological blinders that have pushed you into a very partisan culture-war type worldview.