"Should this account be allowed to happily continue to express itself?!"
Yes.
Some fellow named Marco Piani replied to Jay Bhattacharya’s tweet about the importance of free expression, communicating what appears to be a common belief: That misinformation of course must be stopped because it’s dangerous.
I replied, and there’s considerable ongoing back and forth. As usual, most folks just can’t wrap their heads around how science actually works, and how society, more generally, finds truth. It’s via networks of freely-expressing individuals, not via fact-checkers.
As I tell Marco in that thread, there is nothing more dangerous than centralized fact checkers determining who gets a voice. The way society -- and science itself -- moves toward the truth is to "let misinformation ring."
Nearly all historical academic articles are eventually found out to be false, many or most with potentially dangerous consequences, because any false idea, when applied, can be dangerous. Should they be expunged? No. We climb our way to the truth via the rungs of false ideas.
Centralized fact checkers usually don't know the truth, and often believe what they do through groupthink or moral panic.
Centralized fact checkers abuse their power.
Centralized fact checking undermines the free expression mechanisms by which society moves toward the truth.
Expression is fought with expression.
Only by doing so can those who are false be both shown to be false, and -- equally important -- lose reputation, so that they're more generally ignored.
This requires tolerance, both top-down and bottom-up.
Find out more about free expression at our research institute, The Free Expression Group: http://freeX.group
And here’s a Science Moment Playlist on censorship…
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHmody2xNMCvOcQyhMtXfnS9PiUMUryHk
I follow the account of the shared screenshot (the one that says to remove all childhood vaccinations) in large part because it contains ideas I haven't been heavily exposed to in the past. I was one who assumed vaccinations as a rule were safe, and it's interesting to see another perspective. Thanks to the corona vaccine, I realize now I should have been willing to question received ideas more.
I never questioned vaccines until the COVID-19 vaccines came out and I had to do research to prepare my religious exemption request. As a result of that research I found myself questioning whether the immunization schedule for children is indeed necessary and if it could be the cause of my now-20-year-old son having Aspergers (diagnosed at age 5) and my now-18-year old daughter having an adrenal tumor removed when she was 18 months old (and as a consequence of that surgery now has Addison’s Disease). SO - I resent people like Marco trying to shut down the conversation. The science most certainly is NOT settled on this yet and his call for censorship is myopic to his personal beliefs