

Censorship Doesn’t Just Stifle Speech – It Can Spread Disease - Blahah
http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/08/ap_mers/

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bausson
I never thought of censorship from that perspective.

It is refreshing, since 90% of the links I come by here about censorship are
either about privacy, privacy expectation and influence on economy.

That way, nobody can say "I've done nothing wrong, so I'm not concerned".

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koshatnik
This is very like what happens in the book World War Z, which was probably
inspired by government responses to SARS and other epidemics. A mysterious
disease arises in China, and the government strongly censors reporting of
outbreaks. This and other factors (people smuggling, illegal organ trade)
contribute to its spread worldwide, and it is only when it cannot be contained
that the world is aware and can start to understand and fight it.

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sukuriant
As downvote-prone as that comment seems like it could be, I would like to add
it it by saying that this can't be the right way to handle diseases. There has
to be a sweet spot between telling everyone immediately, insighting a panic,
and holding back all of the information.

I'm not too incredibly concerned with managing the information from the
general public; but, the WHO and other people should always be immediately
informed. In fact, if they were rapidly informed and we can get a cure out
quickly, then the loss of life from these new diseases wouldn't be as bad, I
would like to hope.

The problem is in hiding the information.

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coldtea
> _There has to be a sweet spot between telling everyone immediately,
> insighting a panic, and holding back all of the information._

What if there's panic? It's not with a, say, earthquake prediction, where
people would evacuate cities etc.

Rather, they'd stay at home more, avoid crowded places, avoid people looking
sick, and wear those white mouth/nose masks more when out -- in all, that
should help reduce the spreading of the dicease.

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sukuriant
I was imagining my mental panic response for THIS instance:

\- companies refusing to fly people back from Saudi Arabia to the United
States

\- us putting all people of the interested groups, for example, all Muslims
and family members of anyone Arabic looking, into special hospitals to make
sure they don't spread the disease, even if we don't have it.

\- violent outrage if our family members end up sick, and there is a mosque
down the road.

This particular article seemed to make it pretty clear that the yearly
pilgrimage often results in illness from all the populations coming together
with their own unique resistances. This particular pilgrimage, with these
numbers, tends to be with a single population. That population could be seen
as the source of the disease, and bad things happen.

That's the sort of 'panic' I'm thinking of and it's not good. Oh, and the
reason I'm saying this level of panic is due to the currently estimated 56%
death rate after extreme signs are shown.

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ginko
What isn't really apparent to me from this article is WHY Saudi Arabia, or
China for that matter, would even want to censor this.

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jpatokal
Because if it leaks out that they have a new, lethal, incurable and contagious
disease, they'll be treated like they have the plague. (See where the metaphor
comes from?)

I moved to Singapore in 2003, when the SARS epidemic was raging. (IIRC, the
last death in Singapore was the day I arrived.) People back home thought I was
crazy, the usually crowded city-state's streets were rattlingly empty,
restaurants had desperately promotions ($1/plate sushi etc) and the five-star
hotel I'd been booked into at an already low rate bumped me to an apartment
suite.

Of course, I was far more at risk of dying in a traffic accident, but
"plague!" is one of those risk factors like "terrorism!" that makes people's
hindbrains gibber in fear and discount all rational risk analysis.

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icambron
The risk for SARS was massively overblown, but, unlike terrorism, entire
populations really have been decimated by plagues.

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JonSkeptic
Some would argue the desire to censor is a disease of the mind. Or perhaps, a
symptom of a mind plagued by fear of the unknown and shaken by the threat of
new information.

~~~
djf1
I would argue that the desire to censor is the result of its effectiveness in
maintaining existing power structures.

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noonespecial
If you construct the machinery of censorship, it will be misused for bad
things that never even crossed your mind.

