[eesmith]

> Show me the list of statements that twitter bans, with change history, and I can get you this info.

I agree that evidence is important. Khaine made a specific claim. I don't believe it's supported. I want to see the evidence too. Otherwise I don't believe the claim is correct.

> to (unlawfully) create mechanisms for the government to censor speech in the name of public health.

What do you have against the First Amendment's right of free association?

There is nothing inherently illegal about a company applying a moderation policy. There is nothing inherently illegal about a company voluntarily coordinating with the government.

The Comics Code of The Comics Code Authority was not unconstitutional.

> you are asking for evidence that doesn't exist.

Quite the opposite. Khaine says there is evidence that Twitter used to ban statements saying "wear[ing] a mask to protect yourself from COVID was a mistruth."

I want evidence that that specific event existed.

> The idea of government agencies secretly censoring the public

While the idea of a company voluntarily exercising its right of free association, with a public description of the policy guidelines, is much less concerning.

You come to a programming conference I'm organizing and start presenting public health BS and I will ask you to stop speaking, under threat of expelling you from the conference. That is my Constitutional right.

Just because the BS topic happens to be public health (vs. another sorts of expellable BS) doesn't give the BS presenter special privileges.

[Khaine]

On January 23, when the virus was starting to become important to Americans, The New York Times[1] asked the question, “do masks block Coronavirus?” No conclusive answer was offered, and it was just stressed that washing hands and general hygiene would be sufficient to block the virus. A similar perspective was also offered on January 24 by The Seattle Times[2] in saying, “public health officials say there’s no need to wear face masks in the United States.” Americans were told that masks do not help, and the number of cases in the U.S. was too few to justify the use of masks. In January, Americans understood that there was no need to use masks.

This continued in February when the numbers in the U.S. were just starting to go up, and COVID-19 was no longer just a problem in Asia and Europe. Using the words of Dr. Fauci, The US News and World Report[3] stated on February 17: “skip the masks unless you are contagious.”

Twitter's policy was not in place when the pandemic started, but after masks were mandated it came into effect. You would be blocked on twitter for repeating what was dogma only months before, that masks were not effective.

In the short history of the pandemic, Americans were never clearly told what Science[4] reported on March 28: That the benefit of the mask “comes not from shielding the mouths of the healthy but from covering the mouths of people already infected.” The unambiguous scientific message of communal responsibility never comes front and center in the media agenda.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/health/coronavirus-surgic...

[2]https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/coronavirus-spurs-...

[3] https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/02/17/nih-di...

[4] https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/would-everyone-weari...

[eesmith]

> Twitter's policy was not in place when the pandemic started,

Which is exactly my point.

This is NOT "the policy that originally said that telling people to wear a mask to protect yourself from COVID was a mistruth" because Twitter never did that.

You are free to conjecture hypotheticals, but it would be just that - conjecture.