April 14, 2020 04:19 pm
Illustration by Grayson Blackmon
Original Link: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/14/21219907/medium-coronavirus-covid-19-news-misinformation-conspiracy-theories-best-worst
How Medium became the best and worst place for coronavirus news
Illustration by Grayson Blackmon
On March 20th, an article about the novel coronavirus started to spread. “Evidence over hysteria — COVID-19” crystallized a viewpoint conservatives had been hawking for some time: the hysteria over the virus was overhyped. The United States needed to reopen the economy.
To a non-expert, the argument sounded compelling. The author, Silicon Valley growth hacker Aaron Ginn, used Johns Hopkins data to make his point. On Medium, the piece blended in with fact-checked articles from doctors and epidemiologists, until it was debunked in an eviscerating tweet thread by an actual infectious disease expert, Carl T. Bergstrom, a biology professor at the University of Washington. Shortly after, it was taken down.
In many ways, this was Medium working...
Original Link: https://www.theverge.com/2020/4/14/21219907/medium-coronavirus-covid-19-news-misinformation-conspiracy-theories-best-worst
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