Warnings about the incontestable and no alarm about the possibly contestable

For months, I have been perplexed and amused by Twitter's recommendation that I read the original article in something I am about to retweet.  They are doing this because they are concerned that I might otherwise be misinformed.  Their subtle message is that there is something inaccurate about the information and they are giving me a friendly nudge to make sure before I retweet something they regard as suspect.  

While I very much dislike Twitter presuming they have better moral or empirical judgment than do I (especially given their track record), there could at least be a logic to their actions.  If they weren't so stupid or careless about their implementation of a strategy to restrict the free flow of information.

I'll get this warning to read the original article on the most absurd, non-contentious tweets.  Some recent examples I have been warned about include the recommendation to read the original for tweets about

The geological history of an English county.

European medieval clothing fashions.

The burrow designs of meerkats.

Ancient Roman glass technology.

There is nothing politically or epistemically controversial about any of these items.  But somehow Twitter thinks I should be careful about taking information at face value and should reconsider retweeting them.  Patently absurd.

Today, I encountered the opposite situation.

🚨 BREAKING:

In COVID hearing, #Pfizer director admits: #vaccine was never tested on preventing transmission.

"Get vaccinated for others" was always a lie.

The only purpose of the #COVID passport: forcing people to get vaccinated.

The world needs to know. Share this video! ⤵️ pic.twitter.com/su1WqgB4dO

— Rob Roos MEP 🇳🇱 (@Rob_Roos) October 11, 2022

I retweet it in order to keep track of the claim.  I know the mRNA vaccines were woefully under-tested and that they were both far less effective than initially claimed and had greater negative side-effects than initially (and still currently) were admitted.  But I don't know whether the Pfizer vaccine was never tested on preventing transmission.  That seems inconsistent with my recollection but it might be true.  By retweeting, I will possibly later look into the claim at a more convenient time.

I fully expect that I will be told by Twitter to go look at the original article/video before I retweet.  This is exactly what I would anticipate free-speech averse Twitter to flag for double-checking.  It goes against the narrative that they have been propagating.  And for two years of my following the emerging epistemic frontier of Covid-19, Twitter has been exceptionally protective of the bad and false claims made by governments.  

For the past two years, whenever I retweet on the emerging studies which document the ineffectiveness of masks, the health, economic and learning damage done by lockdowns, the absence of benefit from school closures, on low effectiveness of the vaccines in preventing transmission, etc., I almost always get a warning that I might be retweeting morally bad information (despite how empirically correct it might be.)

But now it is alright to say that they were lying all along?  Either their algorithm has been disabled or become ineffective.  Unlike all the other tweets, I get no warning on this one.

I am close to a free speech absolutist.  I would be delighted were Twitter to remove their ignorant and ideological selves from the free flow of information.  I hope they have done so.

But my suspicion is that this is rather an example of just how bad they are at curating knowledge.

UPDATE: It emerges today (Wednesday 12th) that in fact the report is true.  Pfizer did not test their vaccine's effectiveness in preventing transmission despite them having claimed that it was effective in preventing transmission.  

All of Covid-19 response at this point seems to have been entirely wrong in both process and in terms of decisions made.  They have done immense damage to the credibility of experts, public health pronouncements and government status.  We have just had a two year long lesson in learning not to trust the government, the experts or public health doctors.