> That's a shining example of weasel speak. They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky.
Perhaps it’s not so much weasel words as a carefully coded “caveat emptor”
Observation: “weasel words” gets used a lot in HN comments as a cop out. I wish that phrase could be banned from this site because it is intellectually lazy. Commenters love to discredit articles and other commenters using that phrase rather than engaging in the actual effort to retort with facts. It’s the kind of broken culture that’s been turning HN into the same kind of cesspool that happened with slashdot.
The commenter seemed to have explained why they see the phrasing as "weasel words":
>They don't explicitly say it's not risky - because that would be plain lying, it is obviously risky - but they are saying they are not condemning it as risky. Which most people would take as implying it's not actually risky - even though they are not saying that. They are saying that the protest is too important to take health considerations into account, but they are reluctant to speak plainly and tell people there's risk but they should be adult and choose to manage the risks themselves and maybe neglect small risk in order to achieve bigger thing.
Is there anything about that explanation which is unsatisfactory? It's not as if they simply condemned the statement to be weasel words without any explanation as to why they see it as such.
Perhaps it’s not so much weasel words as a carefully coded “caveat emptor”