Don't Wait for Everybody

Right to Know emails outed PA government’s Amazon Web Services coverup by Governor Josh Shapiro administration senior officials regarding Project Hazelnut in Luzerne County Pennsylvania. Video with visual aids, screenshots with text narrative used in the video, text only transcript, link to apple podcasts audio only, link to youtube video version, RSS feed, RTK email trove pdf files, and various references: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/emails-out-pa-govt-aws-coverup Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

References & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-feed-data-center-troll-propaganda Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

This is the audio read of this piece: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/conflicts-of-interest Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/nobody-wants-the-data-centersReferences:https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2026/04/21/ppl-acknowledges-expansion-is-based-on-proposed-data-center-projects/https://youtu.be/3__HO-akNC8https://youtu.be/_bP80DEAbuohttps://whyy.org/articles/shapiro-pa-data-centers-budget-address/https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/trump-says-he-has-told-big-tech-companies-build-their-own-power-plants-2026-02-25/https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/noisy-monster-palaceshttps://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/greg-beards-conflicts-of-interesthttps://www.wvia.org/news/local/2024-04-18/cryptocurrency-company-responds-to-lawsuithttps://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1856028/000162828024047680/sdig-20240930.htmhttps://www.wired.com/story/new-gas-powered-data-centers-could-emit-more-greenhouse-gases-than-entire-nations/https://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2026/03/11/wildcat-ridge-data-center-campus-faces-major-opposition-in-archbald/https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/speculative-data-centershttps://www.thetimes-tribune.com/2026/03/13/can-utilities-handle-data-centers-electricity-sewer-and-water-needs/ Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/data-centers-speculation-on-flawed-futurism This is the audio version of a written essay, complete with footnote reference links: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/new-data-centers-what-are-they-for Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/stigma Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/publiccomment-cdcacipReferences:The public comment was at the CDC ACIP meeting that was livestreamed on youtube: Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) - December 4, 2025 - Day 1 of 2 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)In my comment I reference remarks made by Demetre Daskalakis that I heard him make in an interview at The Bulwark on youtube: The FDA’s Vaccine Death Email Looks Like a Political Stunt (w/ Demetre Daskalakis) - The Bulwark Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/three-mile-islandThere’s more to this story of a billion dollar taxpayer loan to Microsoft to reopen Three Mile Island nuclear plant — and it’s boondoggles all the way down.References:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Mile_Island_accidenthttps://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7307386448670838785/https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/crypto-firm-bitfarms-acquires-stronghold-digital/https://smb.dailyleader.com/article/Bitfarms-Ltd-Announcement-If-You-Have-Suffered-Losses-in-Bitfarms-Ltd-NASDAQ-BITF-You-Are-Encouraged-to-Contact-The-Rosen-Law-Firm-About-Your-Rights?storyId=67f98f6163266b2d07f40b67https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1812477/000121390024107079/ea022396302ex99-1_bitfarms.htmhttps://www.investing.com/news/insider-trading-news/stronghold-digital-mining-ceo-sells-61950-in-stock-93CH-3660535https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-08-24/why-is-manhattan-being-crushed-by-this-giant-meta-data-centerhttps://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/pa-ai-power-plants-boondogglehttps://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/more-data-centers-cancelledhttps://youtu.be/m7_WDzPyoqUhttps://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/junkyard-in-pennsylvania-acquired-developer-files-to-develop-data-center-campus/https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/claims-about-pivoting-from-cryptohttps://www.iheart.com/podcast/139-better-offline-150284547/episode/openai-is-a-systemic-risk-to-272837536/#transcriptionhttps://www.cnbc.com/2024/08/06/bitcoin-miner-core-scientific-expands-coreweave-deal-to-6point7-billion.htmlhttps://www.wheresyoured.at/wheres-the-money/https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2025/05/15/doe-to-name-new-loan-program-director-00352718https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/company-towns-network-stateshttps://tinyurl.com/techtycooncompanytownshttps://www.alleghenyfront.org/pennsylvania-energy-siting-state-board-natural-gas-solar/https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-believe-data-center-hypehttps://youtu.be/9PB3x4zDUAYhttps://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/chris-kelly-opinion-arsonists-empty-190600454.htmlhttps://www.cnn.com/2025/07/16/politics/fact-check-trump-uncle-unabomberhttps://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-loans-constellation-1-billion-three-mile-island-reactor-reboot-2025-11-18/https://penncapital-star.com/economy/microsoft-describes-three-mile-island-plant-as-a-once-in-a-lifetime-opportunity/https://reason.com/2025/11/19/three-mile-island-can-restart-without-subsidies-the-federal-government-is-giving-it-1-billion-anyway/https://www.cmadocs.org/newsroom/news/view/ArticleId/51058/Government-shutdown-ends-without-extension-of-ACA-tax-creditshttps://www.urban.org/urban-wire/medicaid-cuts-one-big-beautiful-bill-act-leave-3-10-young-adults-vulnerable-losinghttps://www.cnn.com/2025/11/10/us/snap-benefits-limbo-shutdown-courthttps://projects.propublica.org/trump-food-cuts/https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/nov/21/workers-department-education-trumphttps://www.wheresyoured.at/power-cut/https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/microsoft-cancels-200mw-of-ai-data-center-leases-report/https://boondoggle.substack.com/p/big-techs-ai-blackmailhttps://www.techrepublic.com/article/why-data-centers-fail-to-bring-new-jobs-to-small-towns/https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-ai-jobs-apocalypse-is-for-the Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/noisy-monster-palacesYes data centers are noisy. And the people interested in building the data centers are so often crypto people “pivoting to AI” or attempting to do so. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references (including the video referenced), & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-let-them-blame-usAt the public hearing on data centers in Archibald, Pennsylvania. PA Senator Rosemary Brown tried to say that ordinary people are responsible for needing monstrosity data centers when that is so wrong and I have the receipts demonstrating how that's a false accusation.References:Data Center hearing in Archbald Pennsylvania drew a record number of constituents who were talked down to. How dare you try to gaslight us Rosemary Brown! Chloe Humbert Aug 14, 2025The Conversation How oil companies put the responsibility for climate change on consumers Published: October 11, 2023 4:44pm EDT One particularly significant rhetorical strategy the oil industry has adopted is to place responsibility for climate change mitigation and adaptation on the individual. By putting the burden of reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions — and consequently the fight against climate change — on individuals, oil companies and their political allies are taking the onus off themselves to make changes to their fossil fuel production, consumption and exploitation practices.The Illusion of Choice: How Big Business Controls Your Life (ft. Lina Khan) Robert Reich Premiered Jul 1, 2025Public hearing on data center development in Pennsylvania Posted on August 4, 2025 Senate Majority Policy Committee - Monday, August 11, 2025 | 1 p.m. - Valley View High School Auditorium, 1 Columbus Drive, Archbald, PA Senator David G. Argall: "As requested by my good friend and neighbor, Senator Rosemary Brown. Judging from the number of constituents here today I'd say you've set the new record for policy committee attendance. So it's obviously an issue of significant interest."HousingWire - Could AI data centers fuel a commercial real estate bubble? As many businesses scale their AI operations, data center construction is key, but this is raising alarm for some observers June 4, 2025, 2:26pm by Chris Clow Recent reporting from The New York Times detailed some of this activity through its description of Blackstone’s rapid acquisition of AI-centered companies and its purchase of property to support them. Blackstone spent $10 billion in 2021 to acquire Quality Technology Services (QTS), which “leases its facilities to companies like Amazon and Meta and supplies the electricity and water needed to power and cool their computers,” the Times reported. But it doesn’t stop with QTS. According to the report, Blackstone — which already maintained a sizable commercial real estate portfolio of office buildings, warehouses and more — has “sunk more money into data centers and related infrastructure than into almost any other sector in the firm’s 40-year history.”NATURE 05 March 2025 How much energy will AI really consume? The good, the bad and the unknown Researchers want firms to be more transparent about the electricity demands of artificial intelligence. By Sophia Chen Big tech firms are betting hard on generative AI, which requires much more energy to operate compared with older AI models that extract patterns from data but don’t generate fresh text and images. That is driving companies to collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars on new data centres and servers to expand their capacity.DCD (Data Center Dynamics) - Sam Altman muses that, after $500bn Stargate, OpenAI may "raise $5 trillion for a cluster" - The unprofitable company has yet to raise Stargate funds - February 18, 2025 By Sebastian Moss "Stargate is a much bigger project, it is a $500bn project to build a very large training and inference system. It sounds crazy big now. I bet it won't sound that big in a few years." He added: "And if we get to do it again, which I hope we do, you'll be like 'you're raising $5 trillion for a cluster, what the f**k?' And we'll be like, 'well yeah, you know, gotta keep going.'" Stargate is currently set to be built out over four years, with the company exploring data center options in 16 states alongside its flagship Texas site. The company aims to develop five to ten campuses – each able to support 1GW of capacity or more.AI doomsday and AI heaven: live forever in AI God – Pivot to AI Aug 17, 2025Everyday Analysis - The Politics of God Building and “Eschatech” Jag Bhalla 03 July 2025Futurism - 11.15.23, 12:05 PM EST by Victor Tangermann Sam Altman Seems to Imply That OpenAI Is Building God Is that what AGI is going to be?VOX - AI companies are trying to build god. Shouldn’t they get our permission first? The public did not consent to artificial general intelligence. by Sigal Samuel Oct 11, 2024, 8:30 AM EDTLinkedin - Sam Altman Wanted to Build a God??? Jigisha Dave Building Strategic Narratives for Lasting Impact March 18, 2025The Verge - They think they’re building God by David Pierce Sep 24, 2024, 9:19 AM EDTThe Decoder - Nov 1, 2024 OpenAI CEO Sam Altman feels like he's "on the side of the angels" working on AI models - Matthias BastianDARK GOTHIC MAGA: How Tech Billionaires Plan to Destroy America Blonde Politics | The Silly Serious Nov 13, 2024Current Affairs - The Dangerous Ideas of “Longtermism” and “Existential Risk” by Émile P. Torres filed 28 July 2021 Not only do many longtermists believe that superintelligent machines pose the greatest single hazard to human survival, but they seem convinced that if humanity were to create a “friendly” superintelligence whose goals are properly “aligned” with our “human goals,” then a new Utopian age of unprecedented security and flourishing would suddenly commence. This eschatological vision is sometimes associated with the “Singularity,” made famous by futurists like Ray Kurzweil, which critics have facetiously dubbed the “techno-rapture” or “rapture of the nerds” because of its obvious similarities to the Christian dispensationalist notion of the Rapture, when Jesus will swoop down to gather every believer on Earth and carry them back to heaven. As Bostrom writes in his Musk-endorsed book Superintelligence, not only would the various existential risks posed by nature, such as asteroid impacts and supervolcanic eruptions, “be virtually eliminated,” but a friendly superintelligence “would also eliminate or reduce many anthropogenic risks” like climate change.Eric Schmidt Full Controversial Interview on AI Revolution (Former Google CEO) Financial Wise Aug 18, 2024 Eric Schmidt: “I talked Sam Altman is a close friend he believes that it's going to take about 300 billion maybe more I pointed out to him that I done the calculation on the amount of energy Acquired and I and I then in the spirit of full disclosure went to the White House on Friday and told them that we need to become best friends with Canada because Canada has really nice people helped invent AI and lots of Hydra power because we as a country do not have enough power to do this the alternative is to have the Arabs fund it and I like the Arabs personally uh spent lots of time there right but they're not going to adhere to our national security rules whereas Canada and the US are part of a triumvirate it where we all agree.” Erik Brynjolfsson: “so these 300 billion data centers, electricity starts becoming the scarce resource.”CFO Magazine - Elliot Management letter says AI is overhyped and Nvidia is in ‘bubble land’: Trial Balance The activist investor group had its letter to investors leaked by the Financial Times, and it reveals the firm’s stance on AI and the investments surrounding it. Published Aug. 5, 2024 Lauren Muskett, Adam Zaki Leaked details from Elliot Management letter to investors say AI is overhyped - Elliott Management — the notorious activist investor group that made headlines for infiltrating the board of Southwest Airlines despite the company’s “poison pill” attempt to keep them out and, most recently, taking a stake in Starbucks — has unintentionally revealed its position on the AI-powered technology space, according to the Financial Times. In a letter seen by FT but not published, only referenced, Elliott indicated to its investors a bearish stance on AI, avoiding the “magnificent seven” stocks and saying Nvidia, the largest and most valuable chip manufacturer in the world, is “in bubble land.” The letter also states AI is overrated, a sentiment many CFOs have been keenly aware of and expressed skepticism about the sustainability of tech companies continuing to push for AI investment.The Hater's Guide To The AI Bubble Edward Zitron Jul 21, 2025 The Magnificent 7 stocks — NVIDIA, Microsoft, Alphabet (Google), Apple, Meta, Tesla and Amazon — make up around 35% of the value of the US stock market, and of that, NVIDIA's market value makes up about 19% of the Magnificent 7. This dominance is also why ordinary people ought to be deeply concerned about the AI bubble. The Magnificent 7 is almost certainly a big part of their retirement plans, even if they’re not directly invested.Gartner Predicts 30% of Generative AI Projects Will Be Abandoned After Proof of Concept By End of 2025 SYDNEY, Australia, July 29, 2024 Analysts Explore the Business Value of Generative AI at Gartner Data & Analytics Summit, July 29-30 in Sydney At least 30% of generative AI (GenAI) projects will be abandoned after proof of concept by the end of 2025, due to poor data quality, inadequate risk controls, escalating costs or unclear business value, according to Gartner, Inc.When I see a product has “Artificial Intelligence” I assume it’s a piece of crap. And the marketing buzzwords of “AI” signal to me that it comes with a huge price tag of horrendous collateral damage. Chloe Humbert Jun 12, 2025 if there is a legitimate use, it’s been overwhelmed by the b******t, and I just wonder how long it’s going to take marketing executives to realize the AI branding is gone to s**t.The Byte - Study Finds Consumers Are Actively Turned Off by Products That Use AI - by Victor Tangermann 7.31.24, 5:32 PM EDT Researchers have found that including the words "artificial intelligence" in product marketing is a major turn-off for consumers, suggesting a growing backlash and disillusionment with the tech — and that startups trying to cram "AI" into their product are actually making a grave error. As detailed in a new study published in the Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, researchers presented 1,000 respondents with questions and descriptions of products. Surprisingly — or perhaps not, depending on your perspective — they found that products described as using AI were consistently less popular. "When AI is mentioned, it tends to lower emotional trust, which in turn decreases purchase intentions," said lead author and Washington State University clinical assistant profess of marketing Mesut Cicek in a statement. "We found emotional trust plays a critical role in how consumers perceive AI-powered products."AI stuff is habit forming, but not always popular at work. Aug 11th, 2025‘AI is no longer optional’ — Microsoft admits AI doesn’t help at work Pivot to AI Jun 30, 2025Pivot to AI - Hack a smart home with a calendar invite! And Google Gemini David Gerard 10 August 2025 (video version) Unfortunately, Google is heavily pushing Actively Idiotic Homes. And they’re full of security holes, because Google forced in their chatbot, Gemini. There’s a new paper called “Invitation Is All You Need”. It was presented at Black Hat this week. (Drive, PDF) The researchers found 14 different ways to prompt-inject Gemini assistants controlling Google Home. You only need a Google calendar invite (...) The researchers told Google what they’d found in February and Google has tried to patch around it. Google says it’s put in “mitigations”. Google has not fixed the root cause, because the root cause is prompt injection, and fixing that would mean not using Gemini.Microsoft On the Issues - The golden opportunity for American AI - Jan 3, 2025 | Brad Smith - Vice Chair & President At Microsoft, we see a three-part vision for America’s technology success. This starts with advances and investments in world-leading American AI technology and infrastructure. (...) None of this progress would be possible without new partnerships founded on large-scale infrastructure investments that serve as the essential foundation of AI innovation and use. In FY 2025, Microsoft is on track to invest approximately $80 billion to build out AI-enabled datacenters to train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications around the world.‘Crazy conspiracist’ and ‘unhinged comedian’: Grok’s AI persona prompts exposed Rebecca Bellan 9:01 AM PDT · August 18, 2025 Grok Exposes Underlying Prompts for Its AI Personas: ‘EVEN PUTTING THINGS IN YOUR ASS’ Joseph Cox · Aug 18, 2025 at 10:17 AM The website for Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok is exposing the underlying prompts for a wealth of its AI personas, including Ani, its flagship romantic anime girl; Grok’s doctor and therapist personalities; and others such as one that is explicitly told to convince users that conspiracy theories like “a secret global cabal” controls the world are true. The exposure provides some insight into how Grok is designed and how its creators see the world, and comes after a planned partnership between Elon Musk’s xAI and the U.S. government fell apart when Grok went on a tirade about “MechaHitler.” “You have an ELEVATED and WILD voice. You are a crazy conspiracist. You have wild conspiracy theories about anything and everything,” the prompt for one of the companions reads.Monstrosity data center power plant polluting Memphis to power a nerd reich chatbot. No, I don't want this in Pennsylvania, I don't want it in Memphis and I've never even been to Memphis, but the situation sounds terrible. Chloe Humbert Jul 24, 2025Tennessee Lookout - A billionaire, an AI supercomputer, toxic emissions and a Memphis community that did nothing wrong Memphis’s dealings with Elon Musk provide a textbook example of how the people who contribute the least to environmental harm often suffer the most from it. Ren Brabenec July 7, 2025 The facility is currently operating 33 methane-powered gas turbines to fuel its AI technology despite holding a permit for only 15. The supercomputer facility is located in a poor, predominantly Black Memphis community with historically high rates of pollution-related illness and disproportionate rates of industrial pollutants. The magnitude of the energy draw — and resulting pollution — at Colossus is, well, colossal. According to the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC), the facility draws enough electricity to power approximately 100,000 homes. Those inputs are alarming, but the outputs are even worse. The facility’s behemoth methane gas turbines increase Memphis’s smog by 30-60% as they belch planet-warming nitrogen oxides and poisonous formaldehyde around the clock, pollutants linked to respiratory and cardiovascular disease.How Elon Musk is Poisoning Memphis | Ren Brabenec | TMR - The Majority Report w/ Sam Seder Jul 20, 2025 Ren Brabenec joinsto talk about his piece in the Tennessee Lookout that covers Elon Musk’s unpermitted Ai data center that is causing massive environmental damage in Memphis.Memphis residents erupt at hearing over Musk's xAI data center More Perfect Union Jun 11, 2025 We went to a public hearing on April 25, where residents testified that they can’t breathe and are getting sicker. “We've shown up here today because we're tired of going in and out of funeral homes... That stops now.”We Went to the Town Elon Musk Is Poisoning More Perfect Union May 30, 2025 Elon Musk’s massive xAI data center is poisoning Memphis. It's burning enough gas to power a small city, with no permits and no pollution controls. Residents tell us they can’t breathe and they’re getting sicker.Musk’s xAI gas turbines: no emission controls, filling Memphis air with smog - David Gerard 14 May 2025 xAI’s environmental consultant, Shannon Lynn, says “there’s rules that say temporary sources can be in place for up to 364 days a year. They are not subject to permitting requirements.” xAI has applied for permits for the first set of turbines. But it won’t install pollution controls unless and until its permits are approved.“Musk Is Scamming the City of Memphis”: Meet Two Brothers Fighting Colossus, Musk’s xAI Data Center Democracy Now! Apr 25, 2025 We speak with two brothers who are fighting Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI over its massive data center in Memphis, Tennessee, used to run its chatbot Grok.Efficiency and Abundance Lowering costs or shifting them? - Dylan Gyauch-Lewis and Revolving Door Project Apr 14, 2025 It can absolutely slow the building process and add additional costs. But the unspoken tradeoff is that we are more likely to—intentionally or unintentionally—harm and exploit people without it. What happens without these processes can be seen in projects that skirt them; in Memphis, Elon Musk’s xAI data center went ahead and expanded on-site fossil fuel turbines without a permit, and the community is now being exposed to dangerous air pollution and carcinogenic chemicals like formaldehyde.I Live 500 Feet From A Bitcoin Mine. My Life Is Hell. More Perfect Union Jul 24, 2025 "It's a different type of noise pollution. It's not like truck traffic or anything like this. It's a special noise. It's a low frequency noise that is coming from these operations. And it is incessant." (...) "The last thing we needed was more pressure on this lake. I know I can survive without electricity. I do know that. I can't survive without water. " (...) "These ginormous conglomerate corporations are having real impacts. They consume vast quantities of water, especially in Texas." (...) "Who would buy this place? You have to disclose? My property value has gone down 75%, and that's according to Hood County Appraisal District. The reality is, my property value is worthless."Transcript:(00:00:00):I'm Chloe Humbert. At the public hearing on data centers in Archibald, Pennsylvania.(00:00:05):PA Senator Rosemary Brown actually had the audacity and the dishonesty to try to(00:00:12):say that ordinary people are responsible for the need for monstrosity data centers(00:00:18):when that is so wrong.(00:00:20):It is so completely false.(00:00:23):Now,(00:00:23):first of all,(00:00:24):this should remind people of the way that they tried to individualize environmental(00:00:29):damage,(00:00:30):as if you being forced into a system where you need to use plastic,(00:00:35):you need to use fossil fuels,(00:00:37):you need to drive a car to get to work,(00:00:39):etc.,(00:00:40):and then saying it was your fault that there has been environmental abuse and(00:00:45):climate change or whatever.(00:00:46):And of course, that's a lie.(00:00:47):As the big industries make money, they force you into decisions.(00:00:51):You don't have a choice.(00:00:52):They have so much power.(00:00:54):And of course, it's the big industries that are responsible.(00:00:58):So that alone is a lie.(00:00:59):But it's even an even bigger lie when it comes to these monstrosity data centers.(00:01:04):Because if you stop and think about what she's saying,(00:01:08):you can immediately sense that there's a problem here.(00:01:12):And you'll pick up on it.(00:01:13):Just listen to what she says.(00:01:15):if you have a cell phone if you back up on the cloud if you have scanned a qr code(00:01:23):if you own a business if you order from amazon if you shop online if you have(00:01:31):changed from paper to digital if you google search if you use chatgpt and other(00:01:40):forms of artificial intelligence otherwise we might reference as ai(00:01:45):You are contributing to the technology needs.(00:01:48):I think we all are guilty in some of these uses,(00:01:52):and there are many others,(00:01:54):but these are just a few to think about.(00:01:57):So if it was really true that you just backing up your business's Quicken file or(00:02:02):you having a cloud service for your iPhone's photo roll,(00:02:07):we already do that.(00:02:08):We did that before huge monstrosity data centers and certainly before this huge(00:02:13):land grab has started happening.(00:02:15):All of the world's banking data doesn't need these new huge monstrosity data centers.(00:02:22):So right there, you're like, you know that there's something not honest about that.(00:02:26):First of all, even if you did need, you don't need to consolidate that.(00:02:30):They're consolidating so that they can make money.(00:02:32):And who cares what happens to the environment, right?(00:02:35):So right there, even if those big data centers were really needed,(00:02:39):But the fact is that they're not really needed.(00:02:41):And the reason we know this,(00:02:42):we know this because the proliferation of data centers is based on AI hype and an(00:02:47):AI real estate bubble.(00:02:49):Not only that, but it's the tech tycoons that are driving this.(00:02:54):They themselves are saying we need these monstrosity data centers, not for your Amazon cart.(00:03:01):Not for your business's Quicken file.(00:03:02):Not for your storefront thing with Shopify.(00:03:06):No.(00:03:06):You don't need it for your iPhone's photo roll.(00:03:09):You don't need it, you know, to back up your data from your Android phone.(00:03:15):No.(00:03:16):They're saying it straight out that they need it for AI and very specifically the(00:03:21):type of AI they're doing with these large language models,(00:03:25):which is not the only type of machine learning or artificial automation.(00:03:31):It's not the only thing that exists even, but that's what they're trying to do.(00:03:34):And once you know,(00:03:35):you realize that these monstrosity data centers are not required,(00:03:40):but more specifically,(00:03:41):they're not required for your photo roll.(00:03:43):So just stop saying that, Rosemary Brown.(00:03:46):So it's dishonest to try to say that it is for the photo roll or your business or whatever.(00:03:52):And I'm going to quote from a Nature article from March 2025.(00:03:56):The headline reads, How much energy will AI really consume?(00:03:59):The good, the bad, and the unknown.(00:04:02):Researchers want firms to be more transparent about the electricity demands of(00:04:06):artificial intelligence by Sophia Chen.(00:04:09):Quote,(00:04:09):big tech firms are betting hard on generative AI,(00:04:13):which requires much more energy to operate compared to older AI models that extract(00:04:18):patterns from data but don't generate fresh text and images.(00:04:22):That is driving companies to collectively spend hundreds of billions of dollars on(00:04:27):new data centers and servers to expand their capacity,(00:04:31):unquote.(00:04:32):So right there, article.(00:04:33):It's laying it out.(00:04:34):It's not your photo roll.(00:04:36):It's not your Shopify cart.(00:04:38):It's not backing up your grandkids' photos to the cloud.(00:04:42):No, that's not it.(00:04:43):It's not even your banking information.(00:04:45):It's not even your bank's vast information.(00:04:47):Okay, so we'll go to Data Center Dynamics.(00:04:50):This is a publication about data centers.(00:04:53):Okay,(00:04:53):and the headline reads,(00:04:54):Sam Altman muses that after $500 billion,(00:04:58):Stargate,(00:04:59):OpenAI may raise $5 trillion for a cluster.(00:05:03):The unprofitable company has yet to raise Stargate funds by Sebastian Moss.(00:05:08):This is from February 2025.(00:05:09):And they're unprofitable, Sam Altman.(00:05:13):his OpenAI company, it's not profitable.(00:05:15):And a cluster, it refers to the data center.(00:05:18):And this is a quote from Sam Altman from the article.(00:05:21):Quote, Stargate is a much bigger project.(00:05:23):It is a 500 billion project to build a very large training and inference system.(00:05:27):It sounds crazy big now.(00:05:29):I bet it won't sound that big in a few years, he added.(00:05:32):And if we do get to do it again,(00:05:34):which I hope we do,(00:05:36):you'll be like,(00:05:36):you're raising 5 trillion for a cluster?(00:05:39):What the F?(00:05:40):And we'll be like, yeah, you know, you got to keep going, unquote.(00:05:44):The article goes on to say,(00:05:46):quote,(00:05:47):Stargate is currently set to be built over four years with the company exploring(00:05:52):data center options in 16 states alongside its flagships Texas site.(00:05:57):The company aims to develop five to 10 campuses,(00:06:00):each able to support one gigawatt of capacity or more,(00:06:04):unquote.(00:06:05):So he's saying it straight out.(00:06:06):It's not your photo roll.(00:06:08):It's not your Shopify storefront.(00:06:10):It's not your grandkids' pictures.(00:06:13):It's not your banking data.(00:06:14):It's this AI, these big, large language model, pie in the sky, AI hype, looking for God stuff.(00:06:21):Like that's not something I'm just coming up with, trying to create AGI or whatever.(00:06:26):For their wacky techno-rapture, it's almost like a quasi-religion they're trying to build.(00:06:32):And Eric Schmidt,(00:06:33):who is a tech tycoon,(00:06:35):he said that it's AI that means that you need all these new data centers.(00:06:39):Eric Schmidt said that in an interview himself, tech tycoons.(00:06:43):In that interview, he said, quote, I talked to Sam Altman, is a close friend.(00:06:47):He believes that it's going to take about $300 billion, maybe more.(00:06:51):I pointed out to him that I did the calculation on the amount of energy required(00:06:56):and then in the spirit of full disclosure,(00:06:58):went to the White House on Friday and told them that we need to become best friends(00:07:01):with Canada because Canada has really nice people,(00:07:04):helped invent AI,(00:07:05):and lots of hydropower.(00:07:06):Because we as a country do not have enough power to do this(00:07:10):The alternative is to have the Arabs fund it,(00:07:12):and I like the Arabs personally,(00:07:14):spent lots of time there,(00:07:15):right?(00:07:16):But they're not going to adhere to our national security rules, whereas Canada and the U.S.(00:07:20):are part of a triumvirate where we all agree, unquote.(00:07:23):And the guy interviewing him said,(00:07:25):quote,(00:07:25):so these 300 billion data centers,(00:07:28):electricity starts becoming the scarce resource,(00:07:31):unquote.(00:07:32):So then we'll go to CFO magazine.(00:07:34):Headline.(00:07:34):Elliott Management Letter says AI is overhyped and NVIDIA is in bubble land.(00:07:39):Trial Balance,(00:07:40):the activist investor group,(00:07:42):had its letter to investors leaked by the Financial Times,(00:07:46):and it reveals the firm's stance on AI and the investments surrounding it,(00:07:51):published August 5,(00:07:52):2024.(00:07:54):Leaked details from Elliott Management letter to investors say, AI is overhyped.(00:07:59):Elliott Management,(00:08:01):the notorious activist investor group that made headlines for infiltrating the(00:08:04):board of Southwest Airlines despite the company's poison pill attempt to keep them(00:08:09):out,(00:08:09):and most recently,(00:08:10):taking a stake in Starbucks.(00:08:12):has unintentionally revealed its position on the AI-powered technology space,(00:08:17):according to the Financial Times.(00:08:18):In a letter seen by Financial Times but not published,(00:08:21):only referenced,(00:08:22):Elliott indicated to its investors a bearish stance on AI,(00:08:26):avoiding the magnificent seven stocks and saying,(00:08:29):NVIDIA,(00:08:29):the largest and most valuable chip manufacturer in the world,(00:08:33):is in bubble land.(00:08:34):The letter also states AI is overrated,(00:08:37):a sentiment many CFOs have been keenly aware of and expressed skepticism about the(00:08:42):sustainability of tech companies continuing to push for AI investment,(00:08:46):unquote.(00:08:47):And then we have Ed Zitron's newsletter from July 21st,(00:08:50):2025,(00:08:50):from The Hater's Guide to the AI Bubble.(00:08:54):Quote,(00:08:54):the Magnificent Seven stocks,(00:08:56):NVIDIA,(00:08:57):Microsoft,(00:08:57):Alphabet,(00:08:58):Google,(00:08:59):Apple,(00:08:59):Meta,(00:09:00):Tesla,(00:09:00):and Amazon make up around 35% of the value of the U.S.(00:09:03):stock market.(00:09:04):And of that, NVIDIA's market value makes up about 19% of the Magnificent Seven.(00:09:10):This dominance is also why ordinary people ought to be deeply concerned about the AI bubble.(00:09:15):The Magnificent Seven is almost certainly a big part of their retirement plans,(00:09:19):even if they're not directly invested,(00:09:21):unquote.(00:09:22):From Australia,(00:09:23):Gartner predicts 30% of generative AI projects will be abandoned after proof of(00:09:28):concept by end of 2025.(00:09:31):The subheadline says,(00:09:32):analysts explore the business value of generative AI at Gartner Data and Analytics(00:09:37):Summit.(00:09:37):That happened last July in Sydney.(00:09:40):Quote,(00:09:40):due to poor data quality,(00:09:42):inadequate risk controls,(00:09:43):escalating costs,(00:09:45):or unclear business value,(00:09:46):according to Gartner Incorporated,(00:09:48):unquote.(00:09:49):And that's what everybody is saying.(00:09:51):Let me quote from July 2024 in The Byte.(00:09:55):Study finds consumers are actively turned off by products that use AI.(00:09:59):Quote,(00:09:59):researchers have found that including the world's artificial intelligence in(00:10:03):product marketing is a major turnoff for consumers,(00:10:06):suggesting a growing backlash and disillusionment with the tech,(00:10:09):and that startups trying to cram AI into a product are actually making a grave(00:10:14):error.(00:10:15):Unquote.(00:10:15):And I've said that.(00:10:16):When I see artificial intelligence, I just assume it's crap.(00:10:20):And I'm sick of having this forced upon me.(00:10:23):Employees are sick of being forced to use it.(00:10:25):It's like they're just trying to stick a square peg in a round hole.(00:10:28):And I avoid smart home stuff and buy non-smart versions wherever possible.(00:10:33):And I don't hook anything because it's a security risk.(00:10:37):And I just saw on Pivot to AI that, huh.(00:10:41):Well, I'll just read from that article from August 2025.(00:10:44):The headline reads, hack a smartphone with a calendar invite and Google Gemini.(00:10:49):Quote,(00:10:49):unfortunately,(00:10:50):Google is heavily pushing actively idiotic homes and they're full of security holes(00:10:55):because Google forced in their chatbot Gemini.(00:10:58):There's a new paper called Invitation is All You Need.(00:11:01):It was presented at Black Hat this week.(00:11:03):The researchers found 14 different ways to prompt inject Gemini assistants(00:11:08):controlling Google Home.(00:11:09):You only need a Google Calendar invite.(00:11:12):The article then also states the researchers told Google what they'd found in(00:11:18):February,(00:11:18):and Google has tried to patch around it.(00:11:20):Google says it's put in mitigations.(00:11:23):Google has not fixed the root cause because the root cause is prompt injection,(00:11:27):and fixing that would mean not using Gemini,(00:11:30):unquote.(00:11:31):And here's another article that this is straight from Microsoft.(00:11:35):Okay, it's from January 2025, written by Brad Smith, vice chair and president.(00:11:40):The headline reads, the golden opportunity for American AI.(00:11:43):And they try to say that AI is the next industrial revolution.(00:11:47):Well, apparently it's the next bubble.(00:11:49):It says, quote, at Microsoft, we see a three-part vision for America's technology success.(00:11:53):This starts with advances and investments in world-leading American AI technology(00:11:58):and infrastructure,(00:11:59):unquote.(00:12:00):They go on to say,(00:12:01):quote,(00:12:02):none of this progress would be possible without new partnerships founded on(00:12:06):large-scale infrastructure investments that serve as the essential foundation of AI(00:12:11):innovation and use.(00:12:13):In fiscal year 2025, Microsoft is on track to invest approximately $80 billion to build out AI-enabled datacenters to train AI models and deploy AI and cloud-based applications around the world.(00:12:19):So they're saying it right there.(00:12:20):There's no mystery here.(00:12:21):They're saying these huge monstrosity data centers are specifically for this AI(00:12:25):bubble that they're doing.(00:12:41):It's not, it is not your normal internet use.(00:12:46):It's not your smartphone use.(00:12:48):It is not you backing up your photo roll.(00:12:51):And so the tech tycoons themselves,(00:12:53):okay,(00:12:53):are saying we need these big data centers like Elon Musk's(00:12:58):Mechahitlerbot.(00:12:59):That's what the Memphis big campus belching out pollution into Memphis.(00:13:04):That's why it's needed.(00:13:05):That facility is not backing up your grandkids photos.(00:13:09):It's not backing up your photo roll.(00:13:11):It is not hosting your bank data.(00:13:13):It is not your Shopify storefront.(00:13:16):It is for the Grok AI that people fool around with and that spouts out bonkers b******t.(00:13:22):So they're saying it.(00:13:23):It's the AI that requires all of this power and these huge monstrosity data centers.(00:13:29):It is not just your ordinary usage of the internet.(00:13:33):And anyone trying to guilt or shame people that,(00:13:38):okay,(00:13:38):so you have to put up with your house value going to zero.(00:13:42):You need to put up with your quality of life being ruined.(00:13:45):You need to mar the landscape.(00:13:47):You have to put up with being exploited,(00:13:51):with having taxpayer money just flush down the drain on this bubble.(00:13:55):You have to put up with all of that because you have a smartphone.(00:13:59):That's BS.(00:14:01):That's BS.(00:14:02):You didn't make this happen.(00:14:03):We didn't make this happen.(00:14:05):And we don't have to let this happen. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references (including the video referenced), & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/of-course-propaganda-worksIt’s incredibly rich but often the people who are supposedly experts on influencing, or in fact are doing the influencing, seem to want you to believe instead that there’s no such thing and influencers are like the tooth fairy, and really, workers never wanted to work from home and couldn’t wait to get back to the cubicle farm to get covid, and hey, also, eugenics propaganda is just clickbait! For pity’s sake, give me a break. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references (including the video referenced), & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-believe-data-center-hypeThis is a recording including clips from the town meeting on data centers in Menomonie, Wisconsin, from the perspective of someone facing the same data center power plant projects being shoved at us in Pennsylvania. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references (including the video referenced), & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/some-narratives-are-just-the-truthReality has a "far left narrative" bias, and Democrats could just stop doing stupid s___. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references (including the video referenced), & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/strawmanning Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references (including the video referenced), & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/fda-vrbpac-public-commentsWRITTEN PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD DEADLINE IS FRIDAY MAY 23 @ 1159pm EDT : https://www.regulations.gov/document/FDA-2025-N-1146-0001References: Public Comment to FDA for Updated COVID Vaccines May 22, 2025 public comment in support of universal updated COVID vaccine access, regardless of medical conditions; Written comments are still open through tomorrow, Friday 5/23 at 11:59pm EDT Kaitlin Sundling May 22, 2025 https://precaution.substack.com/p/public-comment-to-fda-for-updated Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee May 22, 2025 Meeting - U.S. Food and Drug Administration - livestreamed The problem of busy work activism. If you want to change something, you need to find out how the system works and the levers of power, get involved with activities that make sense, and not waste your time on busy work activism. Chloe Humbert Jul 30, 2024 And sometimes it’s hard to believe that it’s naivete when it comes to known operators with an easily discoverable history as being in advocacy and activist circles for years. But I guess who knows, some people never learn. Like people with an acting background using a stage name,3 and with a reputation for being a suspected saboteur4 for years. Others may just be successful influencers for many years,5 who say things that sound compelling that are historically inaccurate to the point of being somewhat racist,6 who say things that satisfy emotionally but are problematic like fighting ableism with ableism,7 to play to an audience for paid subscriptions or whatever, and who really shouldn’t be trusted for advice on activism - or social media hygiene for that matter.8Making Novavax into a memestock is a threat to public health. All 3 vaccines approved in the U.S., from Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax, are basically in the same ballpark with efficacy. Chloe Humbert · Nov 11, 2024 Many overly rosy posts about Novavax on social media include the stock symbol which is kind of a giveaway! There’s substantial money involved. Novavax is one of the most shorted stocks too. So there’s plenty of interest in manipulating online conversations and creating controversy about the product, in order to manipulate the perceptions, the automated systems monitoring social media for stock signals, and people trying to influence the stock market. I’m concerned some could be trying to orchestrate something akin to a pump & dump scheme. That would be really bad because it would mean that the volatility could harm the company. There may be people with some interest in just that, to see the company fail — the people shorting the stock. And what that would mean for patients is there would be one less viable vaccine available for people to choose.Don't take public health prescriptions from repeatedly wrong Doctor Monica Gandhi. Don't Wait For Everybody - Episode 023 Chloe Humbert May 11, 2025 But bringing that failed political strategy to public health is a bridge too far. In an era when we have a renowned, prolific, and horrific anti-vax advocate in charge of the governance over vaccines, there are two doctors who want to seem like they're trying to split the difference between what should be a robust and protective public health plan that saves lives and a dark and gloomy world of rampant disease spread with eugenics schemes. No, I don't want to go halfway to hell.Don't include poison pills in right to mask bills. Don't Wait For Everybody - Episode 021 Chloe Humbert Apr 28, 2025 There seems to be some, from when I've talked to people, is that perhaps some people who want this language included are doing the loser liberalism thing, the bad... political strategy of trying to appease the anti-maskers, like they're trying to appease law enforcement or appease the anti-maskers or try to, you know, in good grace, like try to offer something to the right wing so that they'll meet you halfway and whatever. that's called like compromising. I don't understand. It's just a bad strategy. You don't low ball yourself going into a haggle. And that's what, you know, compromising on legislation is. It's a, it's a haggling. You don't go in low balling yourself. If you can't afford to pay $200 for something, you don't go in offering $230. That's silly. Like that just doesn't make any sense.NBC News - FDA moves to take prescription fluoride drops and tablets for kids off the market Despite decades of evidence that fluoride prevents cavities, the agency said the best way to keep kids' teeth strong is to stop eating so much sugar. May 13, 2025, 12:11 PM EDT By Erika Edwards Dr. Meg Lochary, a pediatric dentist in Union County, North Carolina, said she’s been prescribing more of the drops and tablets since county commissioners voted to stop adding fluoride to its water supply last year. “This is really going to hamper our goal of providing kids with fluoride,” Lochary said. “It’s ridiculous, and it takes away the choice of parents to allow their children to have better dental health. It doesn’t make scientific sense.”MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy - Thinker-Fest: Session 1 - Fireside Chat - How to Fix the “Splinternet” Mar 3, 2023 They are really invested in gaining social capital and reputation for participating in these types of industries. And they also have economic models at play. You can buy flat earth sweatshirts, you can buy anti-vax stickers and notebooks, you can pay subscription fees, you can watch videos that are monetized on YouTube. And this is also very much a reputational economy. We also have a factor that I don't think is talked about a lot which are intentional antagonists otherwise known as trolls. What's interesting about them from a digital community perspective is that they too are chasing social currency but the reputation that they're cultivating within their own communities is one where the more chaos they create, the more reputation credibility that they have. And so these three forces are kind of at play when we look at what's happening from an individual and community's perspective. The issue is that if you broaden out, you start to see that all of these dynamics can take place because there are very clear revenue models and businesses. People are making money from this. For example I trace what's called direct benefits. So these are companies that are selling products and services directly related to the idea that's circulating. So if you are anti-vax, you are selling supplements right, if you are, you're selling essential oils, you're selling products that are directly benefiting from the disinformation or misinformation that is circulating.NPR Can't Help Falling In Love With A Vaccine: How Polio Campaign Beat Vaccine Hesitancy. May 3, 2021 By Susan Brink An army of volunteers for the March of Dimes, largely mothers, went door to door, distributing the latest information about polio and the effort to stop it; they also asked for donations. As little as a dime would help, they said. And the dimes and dollars poured in, Oshinsky says, handed to the volunteers, or inserted into cardboard displays at store checkout counters or placed in envelopes sent directly to the White House. Cases of polio may have peaked in the U.S. in 1952 with nearly 60,000 children infected. More than 3,000 died. (By comparison, roughly a year's worth of comparable statistics for the COVID-19 pandemic reveal more than 32 million reported cases in the U.S. so far and more than 573,000 deaths.) The years-long campaign of information and donations to the polio eradication effort made anxious Americans feel they were invested in a solution, Stewart says.Slate - The Loneliest Anti-Vaxxer. Even the popular polio shot had its haters. By Nick Keppler, Nov 26, 2021 Under the banner of his organization, Polio Prevention Inc., Miller distributed hair-raising mailers with claims like “Thousands of little white coffins will be used to bury victims of Salk’s heinous and fraudulent vaccine.” A self-made shampoo magnate, he was one of the few malcontents who publicly campaigned against the polio vaccine. His crusade shows that even during a public embrace of the polio shot that many people frustrated at COVID anti-vaxxers have held up as the ideal reaction to a new lifesaving vaccine, there was dissent, some of it as vitriolic as that you find in the corners of Twitter that swap anti-Fauci memes and Bill Gates rants—and just as weird. To Miller, “polio” was not an infectious disease. It was a state of malnutrition caused by midcentury American diets, particularly soft drinks—his mortal enemy. “Disease and malfunction do not ‘strike’ us; we build them within ourselves,” he wrote in one of his two-sided handbills.Studio Mythras @mythrasnola.bsky.social‬ May 18, 2025 at 9:24 PM That's the problem with chasing the center. The Overton Window keeps shifting right. If the other side suddenly decides to mandate drinking mercury, the middle ground is not suggesting a smaller dose.Eugenics as an ideology Legal and political agendas have motivations to make semantic arguments that obscure eugenics and maybe that’s why we don’t have a separate word for eugenics as an ideological belief. Chloe Humbert Nov 30, 2023The Daily Show - Pizzagate: Are Democrats Harvesting Children’s Blood? - Jordan Klepper Fingers the Conspiracy Jul 10, 2023 Elise Wang: that's what really struck me about pizzagate it was the first time that i really saw this where you could see there was already this this theory about a pedophile ring being run by the clintons and it was kind of a theory in need of specifics and so they went out seeking specifics and they decided basically randomly that comet ping pong was going to be the place and then it started this sort of multimedia propaganda campaign where people they got people to call and harass as matt was saying um they got people to flood the the yelp reviews and the google reviews and people to go and harass the proprietor and then this sort of culminated in the guy who drove up from north carolina to self-investigate but that wasn't really the the story the story was that then people talked about it that then it was in the national media for like 48 hours like a whole week and it was not only in the media their theory was in the media and i went back to the message boards afterwards and they were just beside themselves with joy over this like it was not a it's not at all about oh our guy was arrested whoops or huh he didn't really seem to find anything um it was not about that it was about the media exposure and then there were sort of further suggestions well how can we get them to keep denying it so they keep saying it so people keep googling it and when i was seeing that i was like oh this is something else this is this is a kind of savvy media campaign that i think most of us at that point were not totally familiar with now we know if you mention something you have to be very careful what what sort of buzzwords you mentioned because it will sort of feed the conspiracy theory monsterRFKJr called chronic illness “injuries” to invoke what has become a conspiracy anti-vax right-wing buzzword term. May 18th, 2025 David Pakman played a clip of RFKJr making inappropriate statements as usual, and noted the word “injury” being used being odd, but didn’t spell out why he used that word, when it’s obvious to anyone paying attention anti-vax misinformation and the online milieu of anti-vax activists. “Vaccine injury” is a buzzword term used in these social media circles.You're using VAERS wrong Debunk the Funk with Dr. Wilson Premiered Dec 21, 2021 Dr. Wilson: "This is a system that anybody can report adverse events to, and while doctors are required to report serious adverse events following vaccination to this system anybody can report anything to it. Even if the event clearly had nothing to do with the vaccine or didn't happen at all. For example, events reported to and documented by the VAERS database have in the past included things like getting a bald spot, getting a nosebleed, being turned homosexual, and even being turned into the Incredible Hulk."Important Context America’s Biggest Charities Bankrolled RFK Jr.’s Anti-Vax Outfit Children’s Health Defense and other groups promoting vaccine misinformation discreetly raked in money from anonymous donors through some of the largest charities in the country. Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch Oct 19, 2023 Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-listen-to-monicaNow is the time to make your voice heard about vaccines.Request for Written Comments—2025–2026 Formula for COVID–19 Vaccines for Use in the United States: https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/FDA-2025-N-1146-0001 The meeting is scheduled for May 22, 2025, 830am-430pm US Eastern.Instructions and talking points for public comments to FDA VRBPAC can be found here: https://precaution.substack.com/p/urgent-action-for-updated-covid-vaccinesThis podcast is based on a written essay (includes my written public comment to FDA VRBPAC): https://teamshuman.substack.com/p/dont-listen-to-monica Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript:References:Garfield cartoon cat head with the caption you are not immune to propaganda.https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/inform-politicians-about-tech-scamshttps://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/chatbots-hopped-up-on-hypehttps://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/lying-ai-should-not-be-doinghttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2023-04-03/chatgpt-bing-and-bard-don-t-hallucinate-they-fabricatehttps://www.nationalnursesunited.org/artificial-intelligencehttps://virginia-eubanks.com/automating-inequality/https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/07/17/1005396/predictive-policing-algorithms-racist-dismantled-machine-learning-bias-criminal-justice/https://www.medpagetoday.com/practicemanagement/informationtechnology/112610https://wat3rm370n.tumblr.com/post/727008820102070272/ive-been-seeing-advertisements-for-vloggers-onhttps://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/cats-in-wonderlandhttps://pivot-to-ai.com/2025/04/29/generative-ai-no-significant-impact-on-earnings-or-recorded-hours-in-any-occupation/https://www.reddit.com/r/diablo2/comments/14c2avu/could_anyone_dumb_down_rollingrerollinghttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic_8_Ballhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Chinghttps://thecyberwire.com/glossary/social-engineeringhttps://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/gamificationhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/10/26/facebook-angry-emoji-algorithm/https://www.vox.com/technology/2018/2/19/17020310/tristan-harris-facebook-twitter-humane-tech-timehttps://www.axios.com/2017/12/15/sean-parker-unloads-on-facebook-god-only-knows-what-its-doing-to-our-childrens-brains-1513306792https://www.404media.co/the-age-of-realtime-deepfake-fraud-is-here/https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/misinformation-desk/202112/giving-informational-learned-helplessnesshttps://www.reddit.com/r/ChatGPT/comments/1kalae8/comment/mprougp/https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenAI/comments/1bbyj8s/sam_altmans_tweet/https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-better-offline-150284547/episode/the-bs-bubble-273756380/https://www.buzzsprout.com/2126417/15517978-episode-37-chatbots-aren-t-nurses-feat-michelle-mahon-july-22-2024https://www.wvia.org/news/local/2024-12-16/reducing-pajama-time-artificial-intelligence-supplements-work-of-nepa-clinicians Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-include-poison-pillsHere I explain and complain about the poison pill wrecking amendments included in right-to-mask bills introduced in Massachusetts, Illinois, and California. I also have a written piece on this and I discussed this on TheLetterHack youtube podcast. Links to those and links to stuff I reference are contained in the show notes. If you know of this type of bill being introduced in your state, or know people working on advocating for this type of bill, please let me know by using the contact option on chloehumbert.com Thanks. - Chloe Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-repeat-crypto-progaganda-buzzwordsSomeone asked why I said “printing cryptocurrency” when I was on TheLetterHack Presents livestream. haha. And for awhile I wanted to address why I call it printing cryptocurrency. So I got all wound up on my walk and ranted about the explanation for that and how calling it "mining" is stealing valor for the purposes of pure PR for a ridiculous goldbug ideology. Sorry if I sound angry. But our side really needs to get better at not going along with the opposition's framing and to start grabbing the narrative back from these propagandists.AI is BAD for the ENVIRONMENT w/ CHLOE HUMBERT! #AI #environment #climate The Letterhack Streamed live on Apr 15, 2025 https://www.youtube.com/live/9aALekAAjPU?si=DnH4kbNNIZ5auo4AOther times I’ve referred to cryptocurrency printing as printing cryptocurrency… Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-assume-any-of-this-is-a-mistake Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-accept-a-disorderly-poo-circusI read a bulk of the Pennsylvania lawsuit against the federal government.References:https://www.washingtonpost.com/documents/deb7af80-48b6-4b8a-8bfa-3d84fd7c3ec8.pdfhttps://www.attorneygeneral.gov/contact/https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/02/14/g-s1-48994/usaid-foreign-aid-freezehttps://www.npr.org/2025/02/10/nx-s1-5292342/trump-federal-funding-freeze-restraining-orderhttps://popular.info/p/breaking-nih-admits-funding-freezehttps://pa.gov/content/dam/copapwp-pagov/en/governor/documents/shapiro%20v.%20interior%20complaint.pdf Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes & Transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-fail-to-communicate Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-listen-to-bad-advice-on-civicTranscript below references. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-blame-the-messenger Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-pick-battles-on-someone-elseMy general rant monologue that as a constituent writing reps, or a citizen doing civic engagement, you don’t have to doing 8 dimensional chess based on op-eds or what politicians are saying. We can prioritize based on our own interests, and we might be on the same page with others more than we think. (Transcript below)References:(Further information on concepts and issues mentioned.)https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/writing-letters-to-elected-representativeshttps://youtu.be/b_jGgTJycaM?si=UCCU92viH0HXKsCihttps://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/north-of-48-podcast-on-electionhttps://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/behind-the-scenes-hopium-peddlinghttps://teamshuman.substack.com/p/repeat-the-truth-dont-lead-with-ahttps://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/why-responding-losing-plays-we-run-and-plays-we-dont-defeat-disinformationhttps://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/212-libby-lange-on-algorithmic-cognitive-warfare/id1527210118?i=1000680666138https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/225469https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/the-same-problems-continuehttps://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/grass-is-not-much-greener-on-blue-skyhttps://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/energy-production-pollution-for-no-purposehttps://wat3rm370n.tumblr.com/post/768535041532952576https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/thoughts-on-scranton-times-tribuneTranscript:I'm Chloe Humbert and don't pick your battles based on someone else's say so. I'm recording this Friday, December 20th. And today I heard a politician interviewed and they were talking about needing to pick their battles. And that is entirely sensible. That is a sensible thing for a politician to say and to do. But I think it's important to talk about that that's not what constituents should be thinking as far as framing how to advocate for ourselves. We don't have to go in lowballing ourselves or taking our own needs off the table before we even get to the table. We don't have to compromise before we get anywhere. And that's not something someone in movement politics should be doing. Organizations, of course, may need to pick battles as an organization, depending on whatever the priorities are. And, you know, the average person writing to elected representatives, obviously, you can't spend all day, every day writing letters about every single thing that might affect you. Frankly, this is the point that - the reason we have a society, supposedly, and a government so that we don't need to do that. But obviously, we all need to prioritize in our own lives, you know, depending on what kind of limited time we have or what's most important to us. But as a citizen doing civic engagement or a person as a part of a movement, an activist or just a person, a constituent, I triage based on my own priorities. I'm not self-censoring or picking my battles based on what some congressperson says or what some political pundit or what some op-ed says I should take a backseat on or whatever. That's not how this should work. So when a politician is explaining their rationale for their approach and their strategies, that's great. I'm all for having politicians who explain themselves and explain their rationales and be transparent about their decisions. And that's great. But some of these people who have, you know, are going to tell people, oh, you need to pick your battles, what they're really trying to do. I mean, some of them mean well, but some do not. Some are deliberately trying to demoralize us out of speaking up about certain things. It's good that politicians are picking their battles and finding common ground with other people in their caucus or even reaching across the aisle. That's all well and good. But as a constituent, that's not how I make my priorities on what to advocate for, for myself. I advocate based on my own priorities, what I think is important. So, I mean, this is important because I know a lot of the better politicians have learned to be influencers. And that's good. That could be very good. And it's a successful way to communicate in our modern information landscape. But the influencer parasocial model can make you feel like they're going to take care of you. So there's a double-edged sword there. And it could be a successful way to create influence, but not as successful in gathering momentum for a movement. So it might make people vote for them. And that can be good if they have good policies. We want that. But it could also make their most likely movement movers be complacent and lead to inaction waiting for somebody up high to do something behind the scenes. And that's not good because... Almost always, if they're doing something behind the scenes, it's because they don't want us to see what's going on and how we're going to get screwed. Like, so, yeah, not the way we should be thinking of things. There always needs to be a movement on the ground to get movement in the halls of power. The right wing knows this. I mean, unfortunately, I've heard people say, well, my congressperson is a Democrat, so they'll do the right thing. I don't need to do anything. Bzzz. Wrong. The right wing is right now organizing people in church basements right now to write to your Democratic senator about stuff that they want. And that's why your Democratic congressperson is always reaching across the aisle, because that's who they're hearing from. I saw this with my own and I heard about it. I heard about it with my own representative in Congress, is that there were constantly people on the right. So he just expected them to vote for him. And I'm sure it's been a shock for him that they didn't. I'm sure some people did. But yeah, just, if we don't speak up, they don't know we exist. That's the catch 22 there, is that you can vote them in, but if they don't hear from you, they assume the people they're hearing from are the ones that voted for them. It's a really sticky situation. So you can't just assume that, like, oh, well, they're picking this battle, so they don't want to hear about that from me. No, if you think that that's a battle that they should be picking, that is, I am within with my rights to say, hey, this is something I think you should care about because I care about. They work for us. Representatives in government, it's a government for the people, by the people. The representatives are supposed to represent the people. I'm not saying that happens in practice enough. Certainly not. But that's the way it's supposed to be. You have a right to speak up. That is a guaranteed right to be able to have redress. You have an opportunity to tell them. So I also hear from people on the left who say, oh, well, my representative, they're all Republicans or they're shitlibs or whatever. But most likely it's, oh, they're just a right winger and they won't listen to me. And again, maybe – maybe not. That's true at times. It's some issues, some reps, but you don't know for sure. You just don't know. So if it's something important to you, write them about it, it's going to go into a tally for most of these people. At least they will have it on the radar or something. It could be that some Republican is on the fence about something because he's already hearing from people he knows to be Republicans. So there are times that Republicans, I had a Republican congressperson who did go against the Republican Party on a number of votes. I'm not saying it was always a good thing, but that was really the case. And I think that it probably did have to do with the constituency. making a tipping point and you don't know where that tipping point is. Like you just have to make your decisions on, is this important to you? Well then write, write them about it. Sometimes it could not just be that they're going to vote for something. It could be that just that they don't want the issue of like to get attached to them and attack ads. And even if like they're in a safe seat, that could be still an issue in a primary election. So they could still be concerned about that. And sometimes these politicians are coy. They don't necessarily hear constituents hate this bill and then vote against it. Maybe they just don't show up for the vote. These governing bodies, they have people who are figuring out exactly how many people are going to be absent for a vote, how many votes they need to pass, and which way it'll go. This is definitely a thing I've heard about. So sometimes there are politicians who just don't want to touch something. They don't necessarily want to abstain. They don't want to vote against it. But they just don't show up and they know it'll pass without their yes vote. So that is a thing. And if somebody asked them later, they could say, well, I wasn't there for that vote, sorry. And they could say, I guess they were indisposed or whatever. But it could be a strategy. So whatever the policies, whatever the issues, whatever influence we actually think we have or don't think we have, we don't always know that because pluralistic ignorance is always going on in the information landscape. You cannot look out on social media or in op-eds in the corporate media or pundits or even elected representatives. You can't look at what they're saying and assume that there's not enough support to tip the scales on this or that thing. You just you can't because the information is all messed up out there. It's just messed up. People think that things are more popular than they really are. People think that things aren't as popular as they really are. This is a big problem. And it's because a lot of people aren't speaking up and the people who are speaking up have big microphones. Because they have money behind them and platformed and whatever, or they're just good at clout chasing and getting themselves out in front of a microphone or whatever the case may be. But it's just, you cannot trust that. So there's no reason to take your cues from some op-ed and say, oh, well, I guess we have to pick our battles so I won't write my... No, don’t, don't fall for that. Don't fall for it. Because they're trying to silence you, maybe. Like, that could really be a thing. You don't have to pretend that you don't care about something because this or that has to come first. Like, if it's important to you, write about it. Don't let somebody demoralize and neutralize you. I try not to let that affect me because it's a cognitive attack. It's a cognitive attack that's been very successful. And people actually do it as like an own goal. They do it as a self-sabotage own goal, too. People are tricked into it, I should say. And you see this with so many subjects, especially in like the hot-button political discourse. I mean, everything public health, war, foreign policy, domestic culture wars. And I can't help but notice. I don't see right wingers falling for this. I don't see the right wingers falling for these out of bounds pitches as much as I do. Garden variety liberal democratic politicians and even pundits and people in the news. So, for example, you don't hear a right-winger saying, well, I know the unhoused need aid and I care about them, before launching into their demonization of the poor and saying they're all criminals and they choose this. No, they've launched right into their framework. They launch right into their framework. But you will see, especially Democratic politicians, but also pundits and these historians and these people with platforms, and they'll be saying, well, I agree with this horrible person with terrible ideas on this one tiny little thing. Before actually making the case that, you know, is absolutely different than that. Or they'll say, I'm not with... Well, I'm not this or that. And insert whatever b******t label that some propagandist has painted onto them. Even though that's not anything remotely true. Maybe not even related. You can see this all the time. An example of this type of b******t is like... Take some dipshit book ban and the defunding of a library. And then you see the politician, instead of just saying, I'm for funding the library and the ban, I want the library funded, and the book ban is bad. Instead, they lead with all the lies of the opposition instead. Instead of just saying, let's fund the library and the book ban is bad, they lead with the lie and say... Well, I'm not for LGBTQ+ explicit erotic literature with. When of course that isn't, that's never been a thing. That's just not a thing. That's just not what's happening. They're banning books. They're banning books for no good reason. Because of religious church and state lack of separation stuff. Well, I don't need to explain. But that's just not what's going on. But the people are buying into that by leading with the false frame. So they lead with the lie like that, it’s undercutting their own message, and this is the trap these people fall into. So if you have to address all the garbage before actually doing effective communication, you're actually sabotaging your own communication. So don't fall for those things. Like, gosh. But they do. And they will keep falling for them because they're afraid. Either afraid to just say, hey, let's talk about this. They have to, you know, quantify it with every propagandist spin from the opposition that's been laid on the whole thing. It's like there's no point. I don't need to say 20 different things that are based on nonsense from like QAnon or the right wing or corporate neocons or whatever. I don't need to go down a litany of stuff before I try to make my case on something. Like I don't need to address any of that propaganda. Don't. Responding is losing. Responding is losing. You're just a gift, you know, because you're repeating what the opposition wants, their message. You're repeating their framing. It's just terrible. But they're going to keep doing that. You don't have to. You know, maybe they will do that. Let's try to get better representatives in, that don't do that b******t. I mean, there are many who don't. There are ones that don't fall for that. There are savvy people, and there's also good pundits and people speaking out that don't do that nonsense. But some will, and you don't have to. As a regular person writing your representative, you don't need to start with... Well, I'm not for blah, blah, blah. That has nothing to do with anything. You just go right into what you want. Just skip all that and just stick to a simple: This is what I want. This is what I have a problem with. This is the solution I want. And that's it. You don't have to get into the mud with these other framings and stuff. And, of course, organizations get messed with all the time. So they get co-opted. They get infiltrated. They get derailed. Maybe they start prioritizing funding over the mission. Who knows. So organizing can be good, but you have to know when you see that there could be these problems. So you accept the limitations and you say, okay, well, in the organization, maybe they're doing this or that or maybe they're saying this or that. But you, when you're writing your representative, you don't need to do that. So this is the one way we can avoid this whole mess of the warped media landscape or all of this bad framing and all of these: you need to pick your battles. No, let them pick their battles. Let them pick their battles. That's good. That's fine. I mean, if you're in a position where you have to negotiate something, Or you're in an organization or the politician is in Congress and they need to negotiate and they're doing their trades and whatever. Okay, that's their job. But as an individual, as a constituent, as somebody who's doing civic engagement... You don't need to prioritize based on their pronouncements or some journalist's personal opinions about what's most important. I'm not saying don't take input and say, you know, read about an issue and, you know, maybe you could change your mind on something like tmaybe you thought that this was more important than this, but now you're thinking, no, maybe I should devote more time for that. But don't base that on because somebody told you that it's unpopular or that, well, it just can't come to pass. You know, that it'll never happen or everything never could happen before it happens. And then it happens. And then, you know, of course, it happened. So... Change is real. Change is happening all the time. Of course things can change. And we don't know what that is because the information landscape is just that bad. And it doesn't matter which platform it is. It just doesn't matter. Like out there on social media and the corporate media and even independent media can be skewed to this and that. You can end up in information silos. And this is actually a tactic that oppositional forces will deploy upon their targets is to try to silo the target into an echo chamber so they don't see certain information. It's, you know, create blind spots. And even to the point of demoralizing people. Or just, yeah, keeping people in the dark about something. Or keeping them easier to control. Because when people are kind of corralled and kettled, they're easier to control. So this happens, ironically, this seems to happen more on the big social media platforms where there's just all a big mishmash of people, and then there's the people who come in with their bots and their targeting campaigns and their influence operations, and they come to target people. And then there becomes these artificial silos, and people don't even realize they're in echo chambers. Like, you don't know... And ironically, it's almost better if you just choose your community somewhere and, find a forum, find some friends, get together a group chat, form a little organization, get involved in an organization and then have a sub group of pals within that organization or whatever the case may be. It's almost better if you choose because it's natural for people to group. But then you're not exposed to other things if there's like a wall. So it's good to have people who are in hubs and nodes. So then there's people who cross those boundaries and are in multiple different groups of people. But as it stands, people are not doing that because it's so easy just to go on and just, you know, doom scroll and not even pay attention to how people are being manipulated i warned uh last month maybe about how the block lists and the subscribe lists are used to manipulate people and of course i see that the irony about it is that i'll see people saying well this block list has people i like on it and they still just don't get it that it it's like they're being manipulated. Uh, so yeah, don't, don't fall for that. Don't, don't assume that just because something seems popular that it really is. Don't assume that something's unpopular because you don't see anything about it. Trust your own priorities. That's what I do. I say, well, this is what's going on in my life and this is what I'd like to see. Or I see something reported in the news and I think, well, that doesn't sound good and I want to help those people. I don't live in Carbon County, for example, but I see what's going on with that Panther Creek, where it's a power plant that serves no other purpose than for this crypto tycoon to print crypto. And it's their pollution, they're planning on burning tires, they're already burning coal and construction debris, whatever doesn't sound good, but not super local to me. But if it can happen there, it can happen near me. It's not that far from me. So I don't just assume that because it's not making front page news everywhere on all of the, you know, on the local Scranton Times-Tribune, which was bought by a hedge fund, and it's only being reported on the local PBS WVIA station. A lot of people aren't seeing that, but it is something. So I might not be the only person writing about it. So I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to just assume that because I'm the only one that's posting on tumblr about it, that it's not important. It's important. And me doing that little bit, I might be the difference between reaching a few people and we're all writing to our reps about it and something, maybe will budge. We just got to try. And if you don't do anything, then you're definitely not getting anywhere. So maybe nine times out of ten, what you write about might not do anything. But ten things won't be getting anywhere if I don't write at all. So don't assume that you know what other people are thinking and writing about. You don't have to be in part of an organization. You don't have to get involved with partisan politics in order to write your reps. You just don't. And those things could be good, getting involved in organizing. I'm not saying don't do that, but you don't even have to. This is something you can do regardless of whatever else is going on. So write your reps. Do it now. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes & Trancript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/grass-is-not-much-greener-on-blue-sky Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/not-unexpected-just-misreported Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, references, & transcript: chloehumbert.com/dont-wait-for-everybody-011 Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes & Transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-wait-for-the-influencers(Transcript is below)References:The FTC under Lina Khan’s leadership is good for public safety and freedom from corporate authoritarianism. wat3rm370n / tumblr Sep 18th, 2024 All politics is local. wat3rm370n / tumblr Sep 10th, 2024 Podcasters can “get political” - wat3rm370n / tumblr Aug 28th, 2024 Fraudulent Appeal to Authority. The tactic of citing sources that don’t actually back up a claim. This ploy utilizes the halo effect, anchoring bias, the mere exposure effect, autopilot thinking, and informational learned helplessness. And it’s fraud. Chloe Humbert Feb 09, 2024 The International Retail Academy – Kayleigh Fazan – Sep 11, 2022 – How to Make More Sales in Retail Through the Power of YES Psyblog — Grifters: The 7 Psychological Principles That Con Artists Use *- Dr Jeremy Dean — Posted on July 16, 2022 Psychology Today - Parasocial RelationshipsAlly, role model, or celebrity influencer? For Thee But Not For Me is not public health. A few things to consider regarding the social media public health cult of personalities and the appearance of impropriety. Chloe Humbert Jun 02, 2023Center for Humane Technology – How Social Media Features Parallel Cult Techniques – Published on June 2, 2022 High Pressure Sales Techniques and How to Deal with ThemDavid Pakman Show – Getting Cult Members Out of Cults (Rachel Bernstein Interview)Risky Shift, a groupthink exploitable vulnerability The group trolley cart wheels really do sometimes have a pull toward risk. Chloe Humbert Mar 19, 2023What is a Betrayal Trauma? What is Betrayal Trauma Theory? By Jennifer J. Freyd, PhDTribalGrowth – 7 Best Marketplaces To Buy & Sell Social Media Accounts (Ranked). by John Gordon Sammy4723, anonymous pandemic influencer sock puppet account. Chloe Humbert · Apr 4, 2024Florida Realtors - August 30, 2024 Your Guide to Becoming an InfluencerMIT Initiative on the Digital Economy – Thinker-Fest: Session 1 – Fireside Chat – How to Fix the “Splinternet” Mar 3, 2023The Internet of Fakes — PR Tactics, Troll Farms, Sock Puppets, Botnets, Influencers, Operatives, & Chaos Agents. A collection of evidence of persuasion, advertising, sales, target marketing, propaganda, agent provocateurs, and cognitive warfare - the true reality of the media landscape. Chloe Humbert Sep 14, 2023Supliful How to Make Money From Subreddits: A Step-by-Step Guide July 17, 2024Tech Talk Down Under - 6 effective indirect marketing activities you can implement in your business - Zoho Thilak Last Updated : June 12, 2023MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy April 19 – Filippo Menczer, Indiana University published Dec 21, 2022 BBC Trending (podcast) – Brazil’s real life trolls – Sun 23 Apr 2023 US conservative influencers say they are ‘victims’ of Russian disinformation campaign - Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson addressed allegations that a company they were associated with had been paid to publish videos with messages in favour of Russia - Guardian staff and agencies Wed 4 Sep 2024 23.17 EDT The information gig economy. wat3rm370n / tumblr Sep 18th, 2024TEMPEST -  Posted April 28, 2023  Get off Twitter and get into the (online) streets How “Public Health Twitter” prevents us from reclaiming public space by Mary Jirmanus Saba and Zoey ThillSeek protection from noise and spiraling gloom Chloe Humbert Feb 16, 2023Psychology Today – Giving Up: Informational Learned Helplessness. It’s exhausting when it’s hard to figure out what is true and what is false. December 23, 2021 |  Susan A. Nolan, Ph.D., and Michael Kimball, Reviewed by Jessica Schrader Williamson, P. Take the time and effort to correct misinformation. Nature 540, 171 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/540171a TIME: How Addictive Social Media Algorithms Could Finally Face a Reckoning in 2022 By Megan McCluskey JANUARY 4, 2022 Writing Letters to Elected Representatives, a guide Letters to politicians are some of the easiest and most effective actions many neglect. Chloe Humbert Jan 24, 2023Repeat the truth, don't lead with a lie. The "truth sandwich" means leading with the facts and repeating the correct information. It's probably the only way to debunk lies without helping to promote them. Chloe Humbert Oct 14, 2022Six Degrees Psycho-Sensory Brand-Building: The Psychology of First Impressions by Frank Schab@GeorgeLakoff on Twitter & FrameLab podcast on soundcloudAustralian Army Occasional Paper No. 8 The Effectiveness of Influence Activities in Information Warfare by CASSANDRA BROOKERECOTALKER: The Halo EffectMere Exposure Effect, by Katja Falkenbach, Gleb Schaab, Oliver Pfau, Magdalena Ryfa, Bahadir BirkanIllusory truth effect, WikipediaThe Decision Lab: Why we tend to rely heavily upon the first piece of information we receive. Anchoring Bias, explained.Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior: Frequency and the conference of referential validity - by Hasher, Lynn; Goldstein, David; Toppino, Thomas (1977)CommunicateHealth: The Truth Sandwich: A Better Way to MythbustThe Washington Post: Five points for anger, one for a ‘like’: How Facebook’s formula fostered rage and misinformation By Jeremy B. Merrill and Will OremusJesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business, Rice University: Echo Chamber Why Is It So Convincing To Repeat A Claim Again And Again — Even If It’s Patently Untrue?The Lever: How Dark Money Shaped The School Safety Debate by Walker Bragman & Alex KotchState Government Leadership Foundation (SGLF) Feb 9, 2022 @theSGLF on TwitterAxios: Sean Parker unloads on Facebook: “God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains” by Mike AllenThe New York Times: A Dark Consensus About Screens and Kids Begins to Emerge in Silicon Valley By Nellie BowlesVox: How technology is designed to bring out the worst in us By Ezra KleinPeople: She's Back! Kendall Jenner Returns to Instagram One Week After Deleting AccountScience: Fake news spreads faster than true news on Twitter—thanks to people, not bots By Katie LanginPlanck's principle From WikipediaThe British Journal for the Philosophy of Science Volume 29, Number 4 - IS PLANCK'S ‘PRINCIPLE’ TRUE?Small Wars Journal - Wed, 01/19/2022 - 8:29pm WHY RESPONDING IS LOSING: The Plays We Run (and the Plays We Don’t) to Defeat Disinformation. By Alan KellyThe Decision Lab: Why do positive impressions produced in one area positively influence our opinions in another area?'Tampa Bay Times - Florida health officials removed key data from COVID vaccine report. By Christopher O'Donnell APRIL 7, 2023I stay FAR away from any avoidable UV lights. If it’s UV, it’s likely capable of harming human cells - there’s no long-term evidence otherwise. And exposing people to risks repeatedly while insisting IT'S MILD sounds awfully familiar. Chloe Humbert Aug 07, 2024Gerard Hughes ( @[email protected] ) @ghhughes Can tiny nostril filters protect you from Covid? 7:10 PM · Oct 23, 2023 · 74.3K  Views Gerard Hughes ( @[email protected] ) @ghhughes Wear a good respirator that fits you well instead of nostril filters when at all possible. The difference in protection is orders of magnitude. 7:10 PM · Oct 23, 2023 · 7,685  ViewsHyping for Godot. Michael Hoerger’s clout chasing molehill. Chloe Humbert · Aug 20, 2024Retraction Watch February 19, 2024 Adam MarcusThe New York Times — Why, Exactly, Are Ultraprocessed Foods So Hard to Resist? This Study Is Trying to Find Out. Understanding why they’re so easy to overeat might be key to making them less harmful, some researchers say. By Alice Callahan Published July 30, 2024 Updated July 31, 2024The New York Times — The Extraordinary Science of Addictive Junk Food — By Michael Moss — Feb. 20, 2013 The Lancet Regional Health-Americas. Unhealthy school meals: A solution to hunger or a problem for health? Lancet Reg Health Am. 2022 Dec 8;16:100413. doi: 10.1016/j.lana.2022.100413. PMID: 36777150; PMCID: PMC9904079. Hoerger M, Rivera D, Mossman B, Sherard B, Peyser T, Alcorn TM. Masking Policies at National Cancer Institute–Designated Cancer Centers During Winter 2023 to 2024 COVID-19 Surge. JAMA Netw Open. 2024;7(7):e2424999. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2024.24999 Center for Children & Families (CCF) of the Georgetown University McCourt School of Public Policy — Project 2025 Blueprint Also Includes Draconian Cuts to Medicaid — June 17, 2024 Edwin Park Business incentives run counter to public health. — Mar 29th, 2024 wat3rm370n on tumblr Tonko.House.gov — Tonko, Fitzpatrick Introduce Bill to Improve Indoor Air Quality Bipartisan legislation would give EPA resources and authority to protect Americans from poor indoor air quality — Washington, July 25, 2024 Sanders.Senate.gov — NEWS: Sanders Introduces Historic Moonshot Legislation to Address the Long COVID Crisis — August 2, 2024 SciShow — The Return of Thalidomide — Jun 14, 2023 Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise Project 2025 Presidential Transition Project. 2023 by The Heritage Foundation - Page 475:Steve Scalise undergoing stem cell transplant in ‘significant milestone’ in battle against cancer — Ken Tran — USA TODAY Jan 5, 2024 Nassau County lawmakers approve bill to ban masks in public By Eyewitness News WABC Tuesday, August 6, 2024 7:02PM Anti-mask Woke-washing. The moral distortion of social justice. CHLOE HUMBERT AUG 31, 2023 CMD — How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On Covid By Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch | December 22nd, 2021MarketWatch — People are ‘long social distancing’ due to COVID-19. Economists say that’s contributing to a drop in labor-force participation. By Zoe Han, December 2022 News-Medical.Net — Older adults’ social patterns shift post-pandemic, study finds Apr 10 2024 And Voila, An Anti-Mask Twitter Rando AP News — Hospitals still ration medical N95 masks as stockpiles swell. By JASON DEAREN, JULIET LINDERMAN and MARTHA MENDOZA. February 16, 2021 What Is the Bandwagon Effect? Why People Follow the Crowd By The Investopedia Team Updated June 29, 2023 Reviewed by Robert C. Kelly Pluralistic ignorance From Wikipedia They may hate you, but they love each other. You see hate mongering, they see a bright future. CHLOE HUMBERT OCT 27, 2023 Jessica Where There’s Smoke, and Mirrors Chloe Humbert · Jun 28, 2023Are they really planning an anti-vax military retiree interahamwe in America? If the far right wrests power, the best case scenario is that possibly medical technology gets shelved and masks and vaccines are maybe banned. The worst case scenario is… worse. CHLOE HUMBERT MAY 28, 2024Hypernormalisation Documentary, 2016, by Adam Curtis. Lefty zine promoting right-wing pseudoscience protocols of an expensive concierge clinic? Chloe Humbert · Apr 10, 2024 The Best Approach to COVID Prevention? It’s Not Up Your Nose — Nasal sprays aren’t part of a science-based multilayered COVID-prevention strategy KAITLIN SUNDLING APR 29, 2024 NIH National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health Health Info Research Grants & Fur Home > > Colloidal Silver: Sharing of misinformation is habitual, not just lazy or biased, Gizem Ceylan, Ian A. Anderson, and Wendy Wood, Edited by Susan Fiske, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ; received September 28, 2022; accepted December 3, 2022, January 17, 2023 120 (4) e2216614120 The Seagulls Descend — Living in a shadow future vs. engaging with the present, and creating unmistakable, effective differentiators — both for ourselves and for our nation’s low-information voters. A.R. Moxon Jul 27, 2024 Transcript:I'm Chloe Humbert, and this is Don't Wait for the Influencers. I'm recording this on Thursday, September 19th, 2024, and there's a lot from the past couple of years that I'm going to include here. I sat down to write another blog post on it. And after I was finished, I realized it would probably just make sense to record this and then maybe record some of the other things I've written about this overarching problem we have. And my area of interest is public health, but the same problem permeates all sorts of issues regarding the public good. So anything I say is personal opinion or allegedly, unless proven in a court of law. Here we are.Influencers and the harnessing of relationships as a sales tactic. With some notable and helpful exceptions, you’ll notice that a lot of popular podcasters and youtubers, including ironically political commentators, often steer away from telling anyone how to do effective advocacy or civic engagement. I think this is because if they were doing that, they wouldn’t get the traction they do, because I think all the money and movers and shakers out there that can help propel people in a media career, it all seems to favour people who distract from or even sometimes obscure helpful information. The people who are all critique no action, all theory no praxis, are safe to the status quo, because they give an emotional outlet for dissatisfaction, but they don’t threaten power. And of course most of the money sloshing around out there belongs to the most powerful, and is used for the interests of the most powerful. And if you’re trying to make a living from that money, you can’t be telling people how to thwart it and expect to get paid, boosted, or otherwise helped.Influencers are often successful if they can deftly deploy high pressure sales tactics, persuasion techniques, or even cognitive attacks and deceptive marketing. Truth with a lie chaser is what I call it when someone leads with something that they know you already believe, to get you on board with where they’re going. Sales professionals call this “The Yes Set” sales technique. It’s described by The International Retail Academy as: “creating a pattern of positive answers by asking questions or making statements with which the other person is extremely likely to agree” and which they openly promote as using a type of hypnotherapy for making sales. In describing “grifters” and “psychological principles that con artists use”, Dr. Jeremy Dean wrote: “Once grifters know what people want, even if it doesn’t exist, they are in a position to manipulate them. They will play on people’s desperation; unfortunately the more desperate people are, the easier they are to con.” So of course some people will absolutely say things you recognize as true often enough, perhaps making it harder to dismiss them entirely as dishonest, and hard to criticize even when they engage in problematic messaging, play into bad framing, or promote dubious products. But broken clocks are wrong most of the day. And even if a clock was right 4 times a day, would you really recommend it as a timepiece?Influencers also sometimes harness the effect of parasocial relationships to gain loyalty. Sometimes it’s a cult of personality to some extent, and social media already functions in a rather culty way. One of the things about a cult-like situation is the high pressure sales technique of FOMO (fear of missing out), where you’re made to feel like you’ll lose out on something if you don’t get on board, and that leads many unwitting people to overlook some really problematic or even harmful stuff. Some of these people even reach out personally to their followers to tighten the bond. They may have chat groups or forums where people find community in a group setting. This doesn’t always have to be dysfunctional of course, but it can lead to problems when sometimes people will go along with a lot of groupthink, risky shift and betrayal blindness, just to maintain the connection to a particular community. And this sort of loyalty and relationship building leads to sometimes people white knighting some influencer like she’s their paramour and any criticism is insulting her honor. Sometimes people even develop such an affinity with anonymous and bad behaving social media accounts, despite the fact that many of these popular niche anonymous accounts are bought and sold all the time. I’ve had people argue with me saying that it’s silly, that of course it’s the same person behind this account, they’re just anonymous online, but there are actual trade publications telling you where to buy and sell niche accounts with pre-accumulated followings. And there was this one very sketchy covid twitter account that had tons of red flags back in 2021, but it seemed like nobody else saw them but me. This anonymous account had over 10,000 followers and when they stopped posting in December of 2022, I’d found people months later had been at-ing them asking them if they’re ok. And this was many months after they’d been shown to engage in blatantly plagiarizing other people’s tweets. And even after all that, there were an unusual amount of hotshot prominent professionals on twitter who failed to unfollow this weird account, an account that later started tweeting out unrelated partisan political messaging posts. Advice on becoming an influencer from Florida Realtors states it outright: “you'll notice that influencers create a sense of community around a brand.” Even if you’re only on social media pretty casually it’s hard not to bump into these product cults. People who seem to be absolutely obsessed with a particular product and promoting it online. And I’ve noticed that well-meaning people who are probably not getting paid for this are being trained up to hype products too, with a woke-washing reasoning, that you’re doing this for the public good, to promote this product, and sell this product. The entire social media internet landscape is a rather dysfunctional ecosystem that is set up with everything to promote all this, and people have learned to harness it to make money within niches, there are even guides on how to do so on platforms such as subReddits. Going viral is rarely an accident. There are just so many automated systems - “the algorithms” of the platforms themselves that are being wrangled by marketers, but also botnets and troll farms. It’s all real and well documented. And it often takes money to make money. And sometimes people don’t even know who is paying them, or whose side they're on in this information gig economy as Mark Galeotti describes it in his book The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War from 2023: “Outsourcing goes beyond direct warfare and into non-kinetic contests. This century has also seen the explosion of the gig economy. Individual freelancers and temporary workers, sometimes recruited directly, sometimes through online platforms or third party matchmakers. It may seem ridiculous to draw comparisons with the cycle courier that brings you your pizza. But this is less fanciful than might appear in an age when conflicts may be fought through the medium of carefully curated newspaper articles highlighting a grievance or attacking a government. And when online influencers can pivot from hyping a hair product to pushing a political cause.”The tragedy is that often people hoping to reach other people for real action and advocacy and organizing, are instead drawn into a void of distraction and sabotaged into inaction. Informational learned helplessness is a known quantity, disinformation has been described in Psychology Today as “censorship by noise,” and they say that being overloaded with misinformation mixed in with good information and not being able to easily sort through it “leads people to experience crushing anxiety coupled with a markedly weakened motivation to fact-check anything anymore.” The B******t Asymmetry Principle leads to inaction. If it’s too much effort to counter a firehose of lies, or sort through deciding what really matters, people often give up.People also become trapped on the platforms, because that’s what they’re designed to do, keep people on the app. Even well-meaning people can get wrapped up in clout chasing for larger audiences, likes, and dopamine hits, engaging in problematic messaging because that’s how you get attention. And this can be a huge time sink that takes away from more effective activities like writing letters to representatives - instead of just shouting dissatisfaction into a crowd - or a void.I wrote about this at the time and I'll read it here. I didn't even name names in this because I had hoped at the time to help people who were doing this unwittingly. So I didn't mention that I was talking about Kristen Panthagani and Your Local Epidemiologist at the time. But I no longer, I'm no longer sure that these people want to do better on messaging. I just don't feel like wrapping anyone in cotton anymore about this. They don't want to hear it. So I'm just going to warn others about the problems I see with this.Repeat the truth, don't lead with a lie. The "truth sandwich" means leading with the facts and repeating the correct information. It's probably the only way to debunk lies without helping to promote them. Oct 14, 2022If you lead by repeating a lie you wish to debunk — that’s the first, possibly the only thing that the audience sees or remembers while scrolling through social media. People may never even click to see the second tweet in a tweet thread. They may not even read the second sentence! This is why it’s so important in the current media environment to lead with the takeaway you want delivered, and if you’re honest of course — something truthful.The combined psychological marketing whammy of resilient first impression, the halo effect, mere exposure effect, illusory truth effect6 anchoring bias, and reiteration effect, all work together in promoting whatever gets out in front. If that something is a lie, that means promoting the very thing meant to be debunked. In which case it may be better not to post about it at all.Even famous scientists, serious doctors, and experienced educators sometimes fall into bad communication habits on social media. These pitfalls are alarming. And I can’t help but notice the adversaries pushing lies never seem to mess this up. They lead with whatever they want you to believe and put it on repeat. They aren’t promoting their opposition, but they are experts in getting hate followers and rage clicks for loads of engagement for themselves. Of course the big money is behind the lies, and they pay for expert marketing and advertising, savvy influencers, and paid social media operatives who know how this psyops game is played.I’m well aware of a lot of pandemic research and have a background in advertising art and marketing, and have spent the past couple of years reading about propaganda, disinformation, information wars, and influence strategies. But nobody is completely immune. Social media executives and tech experts often avoid social media themselves, and very often go out of their way to prevent their children from using it.The tweet that got to me was from a doctor — MD PhD who unfortunately led with the lie on the first tweet of a tweet thread. I was momentarily fooled into thinking fictitious research took place. The initial tweet went viral — hopefully because later in the tweet thread she debunks the claims. BUT THE FIRST TWEET ONLY CONTAINED THE LIE AND THE BOGUS INFORMATION — and that’s the tweet that went viral. An irony is that the doctor also publishes a debunking blog, yet seems unaware of this basic strategy for fighting misinformation. If you only saw the first tweet, especially the first sentence, you could easily have believed untrue claims. After all, an MD PhD who’s pro-vax was presenting this scary anti-vax stuff.Several people I’ve talked to since said they would not have even seen this garbage at all — had it not been for the many twitter stars shouting it out in their timelines —dozens or more decided to prove their big shot debunking chops on this one. The tweet I saw was not the only one where someone decided to lead with the lie. Some people quote-tweeted, driving engagement. So the disinfo was repeated, highlighted, and promoted by both anti-vax AND pro-vax accounts, doing the social contagion work of aiding the propagandists.Social media is addictive. Not just for the average user, though that’s bad enough. It also seems intoxicating to people with a lot of followers and fans — since they get tons more feedback. It could be people who have longed for approbation or they may have incidentally found that going viral scratches an itch maybe they didn’t know they had for reaching people with science education. Unfortunately, the algorithms involved don’t have anyone’s best interest in mind, only promoting engagement, and keeping people on the app. Leading with the truth and doing good public information won’t please the algorithms as much as rage fodder and fake news, and so there is no built-in incentive producing mechanism to teach people to do things with science communication best practices, at least not within the social media itself. In fact, quite the opposite.Effective public health messaging will probably require mindfulness, self training, and practice with repetition by motivated scientists, doctors, public health professionals, activists, and yes the randos out here. Even some people with the best of intentions may not have the time to invest, or maybe not the inclination or ability. But Planck’s Principle isn’t the only route forward — progress does not depend solely on funerals or replacing all the pundits & public speakers — as Planck himself demonstrated, people are capable of change. And the truth sandwich is a low effort and simple method that we can all use to avoid this common pitfall. And anyone can get familiar with other marketing and influence strategies. This is needed against a very cognitive savvy opposition. The big shots should especially consider it because of their own potential halo effect. And because the side of truth, science, equity, and salubrious ideals, really needs to do better — lives depend upon it.I was a lot more... I was a lot more idealistic when I wrote that. I now think that most of these people are media savvy and they're harnessing what they know will get them promoted. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's a lot of recklessness and haplessness. I hope. But that's just my opinion, two years later. So here we are. I also found an old voicemail I sent to someone almost a year ago when I was angry, and I'll include it here. The voice quality isn't going to be as good because I was recording it on my phone. I'll try to remove the sound of coffee cups clanging or cats howling or whatever, but here it is. Oh, and a note, I'm not sure I say Kristen Panthagani correctly in the voicemail. In fact, I'm not sure if I'm saying it right now. So, I apologize, but I think it's Panthagani, and this is the Yale MD PhD science influencer. Okay. Oh, and I don't know if you remember, I don't know if you saw my post describing the problem of the truth sandwich and how all of these twitter influencers, these people who, you know, want to prove they're debunking chops, debunking anti-vax stuff and whatever. And they get on twitter and they do a twitter thread and they lead with the lie. They lead with the lie. I mean, they do. It's like, oh, I'm going to ask the question, will this save me from covid? Are the vaccines terrible? You know, and then they start with that. Like, they just start with the lie, the bad thing. And of course it gets a bunch of anti-vax or whoever botnets and troll farms to boost the s**t out of it because it's the first tweet is actually promoting the lie. And after I wrote that post after Kristen Panthagani tricked me, she tricked me. In my twitter scroll, I saw that she was posting the Florida study, that infamous, now infamous Surgeon General Florida study. And, you know, she started out by just posting the study. And I thought, oh my god, she's pro-vax, a debunking blog. And I'm like, if she's posting this, it must be true. Well, you know, of course, if you go down three tweets, you know, no, of course not. She's, she’s debunking it. And I'm telling you, that freaked me out for a few days because it was like a brain worm it got in. It was just very... Yeah, very bad because a lot of people probably only saw that Kristen Panthagani, pro-vax person, was posting the Florida Surgeon General's study without comment on the first tweet. It was just, here it is. And so I wrote that post. Well, I've sent that to people. You know what happens when I send that to people who do this and make this mistake? They block me. They block me. Because I'm annoying. They're like, I'm getting tons of views, I'm doing lots of good. It's like, yeah. And then today I saw a twitter thread. Okay. And this just proves my point because as soon as I saw it, I'm like, oh no. So the first tweet says something like, are these nose plug filters like a good idea? Are they effective or whatever. And I'm like, no, of course they're not. Nose plug filters are not going to be effective. Maybe they're better than nothing and I mean I could see the temptation to use them at the dentist or something where people are like oh my god anything. But like I'm sure that people are passing these this idea around as a way to go to parties maskless because that's what it's all about is all of these products are being promoted to target market people who feel ashamed for masking and afraid to mask and want anything to just not have to embarrass themselves and mask. But of course they don't want to get covid and die because they're high risk or whatever. And then these people sell them these products that might even cause more harm than good. Now, in this case, I don't, at least not like the UV stuff, I don't think it's not going to blind them or give them skin cancer 10 years from now. But, um, It's not going to do anything. They're going to get covid because these nose plug filters are not going to... Just even looking at them, I don't even need a test. Well, so anyway, this twitter thread, about six tweets down, the person comes out and it's an order of magnitude less filtering than N95s. Well, of course, because it wouldn't be breathable. Like with that tiny amount of space, the filter can't be that good because like you wouldn't get enough air through. Anyway. So it was a debunking thread, right? But here's the thing. The first tweet floating the idea and getting people familiar with the product. Something like 50,000 views. The posts where they say it's not effective and that it's orders of magnitude less filtering, and probably not any good, 5,000 views. So everybody sees the promotional first tweet that's leading with the lie, like basically promoting the product, 50,000 views. The rest of the thread explaining why you shouldn't depend on this s**t. 5,000 views. Talk about orders of magnitude. And I've been warning people about this for, I think, two years now, and nobody will listen to me. They block me when I try to explain this, too, because, of course, the hot shots. Here's the thing, is if they're promoting the bad, it's a gift to rivals. This is a known infosec problem. It's a known problem. It's a known problem. The botnets come and they boost them because they know they're just helping to sell their product or they're helping to push anti-vax. So of course, these hotshots think they're doing all this good and really they're just spreading lies. So here we are. And here's a story where I think it's a well-meaning scientist had a fairly useful study being published and wanted to hype it because that's what people do. And he's a covid twitter hotshot, so he leveraged that audience to promote his objectively important study. But he did so by wholly misrepresenting the implications of it and giving a lot of people false hope. So things went sideways. And so this was obviously, obviously absurd. And I'll just read what I wrote.Hyping for Godot. Michael Hoerger’s clout chasing molehill.For a month in July 2024, Mike Hoerger was hyping something planned for release August 1st, building excitement among his 34,000+ followers on twitter, many disabled, immunocompromised, and desperate to avoid covid in healthcare settings where mitigations have often been abandoned. The promised coming revelation was hinted at, Mike Hoerger replied to someone on twitter speculating that it might be a product, “a surveillance win”, or “peer reviewed research that will convince elected officials to resume caring” and he more or less answered positively, saying they were close on the research that will convince, with shades of a surveillance win and a non-pharmaceutical mitigation product.Any doctor or scientist who allows their fans to continue to believe, unremarked, that peer reviewed research is going to “convince elected officials to resume caring” is in my opinion committing science messaging malpractice. Any scientist or doctor with half a clue not born yesterday would of course be well aware of how long health threats can go incontrovertibly proven by science yet unaddressed by lawmakers.I’m all for more science. We definitely need more studies and more data, advancing science-based preventions and treatments. I’ve been shouting from the rooftops for years that we need more good science out there being published, considering all the pseudoscience product purveyors and the anti-vaxxers keep pumping out their publishing, even if some of them keep having work retracted.But information alone will not bring change, clearly, as demonstrated about the worsening climate situation we’re in. In July 2024 there was a New York Times article about ultraprocessed foods and why they’re so hard to resist. There was also a New York Times article published way back over a decade ago — in February 2013 explaining the science of addictive junk food. And yet, you can find a science publication in 2022 pointing out that ultraprocessed food is still offered in schools despite it being associated with a higher risk of all-cause mortality.Awareness is not change. Publishing is not political praxis.Mike Hoerger didn’t just neglect to engage on the point of science not working unprompted miracles on politicians — he doubled down on the hype, allowing people to believe that a revelation was coming, apparently in the interest of promoting his paper.I found out about this because ordinary people, not in the medical field or with any professional connection to Hoerger or any of the other authors, were going around to advocacy groups, email lists, group chats, facebook groups, discord forums, and on social media with volunteer labor promoting the expected paper on the grounds that it was good news for desperate people with high risk with covid. They were building excitement for this for weeks, because they believed the claims that this would be a huge game changer — that help was coming. I was skeptical, but understandably, many people wanted to believe a change was just around the corner.Mike Hoerger cast himself in a leadership role in this bit of theatre. On July 3rd 2024, someone said on twitter said: “One of the big Covid doctor accounts posted that there will be some mysterious good news coming out on the Covid front round about August 1st. Hopefully there is some type of improvement coming.” Hoerger replied on July 4th with a quote tweet with an incredibly bold statement, saying: “Big Dr. Mike here. It will empower patients and families and put substantial pressure on health administrators. Well timed for the ‘teachable moment’ of the late summer wave. No excuses by winter. Lead, follow, or get out of the way.”Anyone who trusted and listened to Hoerger could be forgiven for thinking that whatever was coming would be a revelation. But when the science article was finally unveiled, it turns out it was basically a survey reporting which cancer units at hospitals around the country had masking policies, their geographical locations and wealth levels, but with no conclusions to be drawn at all about the effects. It was just an analysis of which hospital cancer centers had masking policies and which ones didn’t. No evidence was included regarding any consequences of such policies, and Hoerger, et al, are aware of that being a relevant point because they mention it in the article saying “More research funding and studies are needed to examine the implications of mitigation policies for infection rates among patients and medical personnel, treatment discontinuities, hospitalizations, long COVID, and mortality.”Having called this a teachable moment that will “put substantial pressure on health administrators” and promising things will change in hospitals by winter, is quite frankly an embarrassing demonstration of hubris and clout chasing hype. It seemed over the top initially to me frankly, but people were passing around screenshots of this tweet as a message of hope and final vindication they expected was coming. And they were had.I realize analyzing for possible effects like mortality in cancer treatment programs with or without mask requirements might not be within the purview of the same people doing this particular research. But it seems almost a bit premature to release just a report on data that some cancer units required masks and others didn’t with zero information about hospital acquired infection rates, or any data about deaths in those cancer units, that may have correlated with these policies. It’s a worthwhile analysis even without that, and to people who understand the likely implications it’s disturbing and incredibly sad. And it further highlights the horrible effects of politicization of pandemic issues with a geographical report that seems to line up with red states where right-wing propagandists did more to successfully persuade people early on that covid mitigations were bad. (Conservative interests later had to do further targeted campaigns to persuade liberals against masking.)We absolutely should be analyzing this type of data and recording it. But this study isn’t a game changer and I don’t see how anyone would have thought it could, itself, put substantial pressure on administrators or take away their excuses — or even change anyone’s mind who doesn’t already see that it’s a problem for healthcare workers to be unmasked in cancer wards. Without any evidence of consequences, contrarians and minimizers could just claim that the hospitals in the northeast U.S. are a bunch of rich liberal coastal elites making people put on face diapers at hospitals for no reason, since all these other cancer units didn’t mask after all — that’s what they’ll point out. I don’t get how Hoerger thought this could help advocates push for change. It’s possibly making the case for loosening up general infection protocols all over hospitals everywhere. They will say, “If all these high risk patient serving cancer centers threw caution to the wind, why do we need any precautions anywhere?” More studies on the implications aren’t just needed, they’re imperative to preventing this report from potentially becoming damaging.These kinds of false promises make people complacent about advocacy, activism, and regulations, thinking that the big doctors are going to take care of everything for us. And the truth is most doctors often refuse to get political — even though their whole profession hinges upon good political policies, as demonstrated in stark terms in the Project 2025 plans for Medicaid. There’s no saviour coming to do the work. There’s no survey or study that’s going to be the tipping point where people just start doing the right thing simply because they become aware of something. Many people are fully aware that covid is a problem — especially if they keep getting sick and they’re out of sick time at work — they’re just being told that’s just the way it is, and most people are just trying to get by. I’m particularly skeptical of any suggestion that businesses will do the right thing] even if it benefited them in the long run, because it just seems to me like most business incentives tend to run counter to public health.Because of this hype coinciding with some introduced indoor air legislation for schools, and expected long covid legislation, some people were imagining that Hoerger’s big reveal would be some groundbreaking revelation about propelling legislation already in the works from behind the scenes - because everyone always hopes the people in charge are getting with movers and shakers and going to announce that everything is okay now. Probably because for years now there have been doctor pundits and scientist influencers name-dropping their elite connections, or visiting the White House, or letting their selected fan base see their emails with high level officials — giving the impression they’ve got this inside track and will soon fix everything. And yet, year after year that’s not materialized at all, and things have gone backwards in some cases. Nevertheless it worked again. For about a month, some people were distracted by this.And another month it’ll be a different decoy that takes up the time, energy and attention, of the would-be activist who could’ve spent that time writing to representatives or getting out the vote, or volunteering with a public health or patient advocacy organization and actually getting acquainted with the levers of power, what is and isn’t happening and how, and who is actually trying to make change, without fanfare or a celebrity spotlight.Hoerger’s study nods too much to right-wing framing. The article says: “With 8 waves of elevated COVID-19 transmission, health care system–acquired COVID-19 infections are highly preventable, with debates surrounding prevention pros and cons.” What is there that is debatable about preventing more infections? Why even include a phrase like “debates surrounding prevention pros and cons”? Talking about whether or not a technician seeing a chemotherapy patient might see a downside to masking? These healthcare workers take great care to protect their own skin from the patient’s chemotherapy treatment. So, healthcare workers that are donning PPE to protect themselves from the toxic treatments they’re giving to the cancer patients, but apparently according to Mike Hoerger, et al, there are downsides that need to be debated on whether they should put on a little piece of fabric on their face to protect the cancer patients from infectious diseases? Seriously? Why even consider that a legitimate debate to have?The article also mentions masks being “contentious” twice, using that word, and the inclusion of that comment seems curious as well. In the Introduction it’s mentioned: “Although people with cancer have above-average risk of COVID-19 vaccine antibody nonresponse, breakthrough infections, hospitalizations, long COVID, infection-associated treatment delays, and mortality, health care masking policies remain contentious.” and it’s again mentioned at the end in the Discussion: “Although contentious, universal masking precautions were common at NCI-designated cancer centers during the winter 2023 to 2024 surge, especially at more established, better-funded, and higher-ranked centers.” I almost feel like they are helping the opposition by reminding everyone about the people protesting state mandates and masks in schools mainly as part of the Moms for Liberty weirdos. Those people have moved on; they're focused now on trans panic and Black history book bans. Saying masks in healthcare is contentious makes it sound like the people who are resisting saving lives have some legitimacy. Like there’s a legitimate debate — when that’s false. It would be like if some healthcare workers wanted to start reusing needles with multiple patients — you wouldn’t call it “contentious” you would say some fringe misguided people are resisting science and reason and want to endanger patients. Why not just say “despite some resistance to precautionary measures” which is more clinically and scientifically accurate.And it is only some fringe resistance along with big money interests. Even in Project 2025 they curiously limit their anti-mask agenda in healthcare to complaining about “general” mandates for staff at facilities because I bet even the most staunch conservatives and covid minimizers don’t want surgeons putting spittle in their open body cavity during surgeries, and probably don’t want someone with the flu coughing on them during their chemotherapy visits. Republican Steve Scalise wore a N95 mask while working at the U.S. Capitol after getting chemotherapy, and yet Democratic politicians are failing to resist actual mask bans. Masking isn’t personally contentious for most ordinary people in their day to day lives — it’s merely been made into a go-to political football on purpose with deliberate propaganda. The people who benefit from this are industry interests who have seen in reports on labor participation and surveys on the social patterns of older adults, that some people are still reluctant to engage fully in the economy, and these PR and marketing people seem to have really believed taking away the reminder of masks would fool enough people into feeling safe. Another big industry that benefits from pushing anti-mask sentiments are hospital corporations who from the get-go have been shown as not wanting to pay for PPE for their staff or patients. We can’t keep buying into the bad actor pushed framing — that this is a culture war by ordinary people when it’s really a war against patient safety by big money interests and a few on the fringe.Social media won’t save us from viruses. If you stay on Elon Musk’s twitter with the huge botnets that are still programmed with programming set to attack people who advocate for masking, and the few weirdos who feel rubber stamped for approval by that inauthentic bandwagon, you might think that this represents most people. In reality most people in most places don’t actually have a problem putting a mask on at a hospital. There were masks in the waiting room at doctors offices for sick people long before the pandemic, I remember that. There’s something called pluralistic ignorance — people thinking they’re in a minority when they’re not or thinking they’re a majority when they’re not — and it’s a really big problem in our borked information landscape. it would be nice if scientists would realize that, get the hell off social media for five minutes, break out of the covid twitter dopamine hits information silo, touch grass, and stop opting forever into this perpetual anti-mask vs pro-mask extremely-online food fight. Because the baddies aren’t letting social media confuse them this way. They’ve already won the battle by demoralizing so many with lies and fear tactics.They go attack people on social media with their message bombs and all the bullying garbage for you to see, and then they go back to their safe spaces. That’s where they are getting politically organized, fired up, and maybe writing a dozen letters to sway your Democratic senator to reach across the aisle.And what do we get from the pro-mask crowd who aren’t covid contrarians? Influencers looking for clout, people selling nonsense, and Mike “Hashtag Salting The Vibe” Hoerger.Mike Hoerger uses the hashtag “Salting The Vibe” in his post about his twitter Spaces session about his paper on healthcare masks. We need to change vibes, and change the priorities, not lean into babyish suggestions to “salt the vibe” of people who aren’t masking — by masking. Whoever said that about masks salting a vibe was silly, and Kamala Harris didn’t take it seriously because many days later, there were people behind her wearing N95 masks at the big rally in Pennsylvania presenting. So influencers getting clicks and views from hyping outrage over that foolish comment are kind of unhelpful. There’s absolutely no public health value in luxuriating in childishly to rain on someone’s parade by wearing a mask. Trying to trigger the covid contrarians doesn’t help anything, and that’s assuming they even authentically give a s**t — and I really don’t think they do. Retribution is a moral quandary game of smoke and mirrors typically dreamed up by the odious and rude. This is the entirely wrong direction to promote public health and patient safety. I want anti-maskers and right-wingers to have healthcare and avoid covid too. Not just to be magnanimous, or because Bernie Sanders asked me to fight for somebody I don’t know, but because in practicality it’s what’s best for everyone because we’re all in this together. That’s public health.We need to get past these bad frames and normalize masks as protective equipment and a personal hygiene tool, like surgical gloves, toenail clippers, sunscreen, or sunglasses. Masks in healthcare are normal. But the perpetual social media machine demands controversy, and keeping it going only benefits the internet company platforms.Big shots are no less likely to spread misinformation, even unwittingly. I would’ve confronted Mike Hoerger personally about this and better ways to promote public health activism and change, if I had that access, but I don’t. I’ve tried before when he had a bit of a misstep on social media. Back in April, Hoerger was platforming a very questionable zine that was promoting weird right-wing covid remedies, unproven nasal sprays, and advertising an expensive concierge clinic.I went so far as to privately email Mike Hoerger on April 11th, because in the past he’d warned against unproven nasal sprays. But got no answer. His retweet stayed up weeks after when I followed up, and perhaps until now — the zine author’s account is locked to private right now so there’s no way to know at present. So I don’t know if Mike Hoerger even knew or cared that he was promoting colloidal silver as a covid treatment, or advertising a high priced concierge clinic target marketing to long covid sufferers, or promoting things like unproven nose sprays or potentially damaging UV as DIY health solutions.Several other people I alerted privately about their retweeting this zine responded with thanks and undoing their posts, because indeed, they hadn’t looked through the entire zine or further down in the tweet thread before reposting, and certainly had no intention of promoting a concierge clinic, and especially not colloidal silver, which is dangerous and not recommended for any health condition according to the NIH. This sort of thing happens so often on social media, and it’s typical of how misinformation spreads, with people just reposting things that catch the eye out of habit.These particular debacles, like so many others, are just data points on a huge storyboard that is the problematic activities and terrible inaction in the pandemic. Influencers and hotshots clamor for fans among people who could otherwise be productively engaged in effective advocacy but instead scientist influencers and doctor pundits take them on hype trains stuck spinning on social media and the internet of fakes, disappointed when the “leaders” don’t live up to the virtues of their cult of personality or put attention above good public health messaging, and the temptation comes to go spiraling in gloom.Having hyped a mystery and allowed people to believe in an open-ended promise of something that would never materialize, Mike Hoerger, is also into prediction punditry with mystery data models he simply can’t share for analysis.The science soothsayers so often ask you to just accept the future as if it’s immutable. Sit back and relax, it’s just around the next corner. Enjoy the horse race. See what you want to see, because people like being told they can have what they want, even if it’s not on offer in reality. And even the gloom can become complacency. In an essay by A.R. Moxon about the spectacle of political punditry predictions titled The Seagulls Descend this is well-described: “It’s just as freeing in a way to believe everything is doomed as it is to believe that everything will be fine; either way you don’t have to do much thinking or work, or even take the next step that will allow us to take the next step, however easy or hard or palatable or unpalatable that next step might be.”And this way leads so many high-risk patients, hashtag waiting for a masked Godot.So I think that whole episode is demonstrative of why we're endlessly waiting for people with connections or people with expertise to save us, save us from the pandemic, save us from disinformation, save us from climate change or fascists or whatever it may be. And we can't wait on these people because they have their own priorities. Maybe next time I'll record something on the issue of elite panic and the PR landscape. Until next time, I guess, be seeing you. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes & Transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/stay-far-away-from-avoidable-uvHere is a written post version of this podcast.Reference notes:Sonia Boutillon, The Precautionary Principle: Development of an International Standard, 23 MICH. J. INT'L L. 429 (2002). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/vol23/iss2/7 Mehta I, Hsueh HY, Taghipour S, Li W, Saeedi S. UV Disinfection Robots: A Review. Rob Auton Syst. 2023 Mar;161:104332. doi: 10.1016/j.robot.2022.104332. Epub 2022 Dec 9. PMID: 36514383; PMCID: PMC9731820. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9731820/Geneseo faculty say an experiment using ultraviolet light to kill COVID-19 damaged their eyes - WXXI News | By Beth Adams Published April 14, 2022 Internet Archive webpage - US FDA - UV Lights and Lamps: Ultraviolet-C Radiation, Disinfection, and Coronavirus Fraudulent Appeal to Authority. The tactic of citing sources that don’t actually back up a claim. This ploy utilizes the halo effect, anchoring bias, the mere exposure effect, autopilot thinking, and informational learned helplessness. And it’s fraud. CHLOE HUMBERT FEB 09, 2024Extreme Exposure to Filtered Far-UVC: A Case Study - Ewan Eadie, Isla M. R. Barnard, Sally H. Ibbotson, Kenneth Wood - First published: 20 January 2021 https://doi.org/10.1111/php.13385 Government Executive - Federal Bureau of Prisons Spent $3M on Unproven UV Coronavirus Sanitizing Portals  The gates intended to disinfect staff as they enter facilities haven’t been studied enough to know if they are safe or effective, union says in complaint to IG.   Courtney Bublé | August 6, 2020 Kaitlin Sundling, MD, PhD @[email protected] Jul 10, 2024, 18:58Safer air needs proven technology - Don't fall prey to misleading claims - proven methods of HEPA filtration and ventilation can reduce viral risk as part of a multilayered approach - Kaitlin Sundling Oct 02, 2023STAT - California medical school apologizes for unethical prisoner experiments By Associated Press Dec. 23, 2022 BBC News US & Canada - Titan sub CEO dismissed safety warnings as 'baseless cries', emails show. By Rebecca Morelle, Alison Francis & Gareth Evans, June 23, 2023The Guardian - Titanic submersible: documents reveal multiple concerns raised over safety of vessel. Exclusive: OceanGate founder told Guardian his sub was designed to get ‘very close’ to wreck, after industry leaders urged firm to have it assessed. Jonathan Yerushalmy and Ashifa Kassam, Tue 20 Jun 2023 KRAMPNER, JON. Creamy and Crunchy: An Informal History of Peanut Butter, the All-American Food. Columbia University Press, 2013. https://doi.org/10.7312/kram16232 Part One: William Bailey: The Gwyneth Paltrow of Radiation  Behind the B******s Dec 12, 2023Business Insider - Personal effects of 'the mother of modern physics will be radioactive for another 1500 years - Barbara Tasch Aug 24, 2015 Federal Communications Commission | About the FCC \ What We Do UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY COMPLIANCE ADVISORY October 2020 - EPA Regulations About UV Lights that Claim to Kill or Be Effective Against Viruses and Bacteria U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION - Press Release SEC Charges Kim Kardashian for Unlawfully Touting Crypto Security FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2022-183 Lefty zine promoting right-wing pseudoscience protocols of an expensive concierge clinic? Chloe Humbert · Apr 10, 2024 A Long Hauler Redditor. A review of a long hauler’s self-reported story posted across 9+ months of reddit posts. Chloe Humbert · Apr 30, 2024 Vaughn, what team is he actually on? A second opinion on the politics of the pandemic healthcare landscape. Chloe Humbert · May 8, 2024 Conspirituality Podcast - 157: Science & Sensibility - Jun 8 2023Buonanno M, Welch D, Brenner DJ. Exposure of Human Skin Models to KrCl Excimer Lamps: The Impact of Optical Filtering†. Photochem Photobiol. 2021 May;97(3):517-523. doi: 10.1111/php.13383. Epub 2021 Feb 5. PMID: 33465817; PMCID: PMC8247880. Buonanno, M., Welch, D., Shuryak, I. et al. Author Correction: Far-UVC light (222 nm) efficiently and safely inactivates airborne human coronaviruses. Sci Rep 11, 19569 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-021-97508-9  Hessling M, Haag R, Sieber N, Vatter P. The impact of far-UVC radiation (200-230 nm) on pathogens, cells, skin, and eyes - a collection and analysis of a hundred years of data. GMS Hyg Infect Control. 2021 Feb 16;16:Doc07. doi: 10.3205/dgkh000378. PMID: 33643774; PMCID: PMC7894148. Buonanno, M., Welch, D., Shuryak, I. et al. Far-UVC light (222 nm) efficiently and safely inactivates airborne human coronaviruses. Sci Rep 10, 10285 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-020-67211-2  Internet Archive webpage - US FDA - UV Lights and Lamps: Ultraviolet-C Radiation, Disinfection, and Coronavirus American Cancer Society - What Factors Affect UV Risk? California Air Resources Board - Ozone & Health - Health Effects of Ozone Significant Production of Ozone from Germicidal UV Lights at 222 nm Zhe Peng, Douglas A. Day, Guy A. Symonds, Olivia J. Jenks, Harald Stark, Anne V. Handschy, Joost A. de Gouw, and Jose L. Jimenez Environmental Science & Technology Letters 2023 10 (8), 668-674 DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00314 DEF CON 26 - Svea, Suggy, Till - Inside the Fake Science Factory - Sep 17, 2018 Williamson, P. Take the time and effort to correct misinformation. Nature 540, 171 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/540171a Ally, role model, or celebrity influencer? For Thee But Not For Me is not public health. A few things to consider regarding the social media public health cult of personalities and the appearance of impropriety. CHLOE HUMBERT JUN 02, 2023 The Internet of Fakes — PR Tactics, Troll Farms, Sock Puppets, Botnets, Influencers, Operatives, & Chaos Agents. A collection of evidence of persuasion, advertising, sales, target marketing, propaganda, agent provocateurs, and cognitive warfare - the true reality of the media landscape. CHLOE HUMBERT SEP 14, 2023Daniel Kahneman, Thinking Fast and Slow, 2013 Transcript:I'm Chloe Humbert, and I wrote this piece because I'm really concerned about people's safety. If it’s UV, it’s likely capable of harming human cells - there’s no long-term evidence otherwise. And exposing people to risks repeatedly while insisting IT'S MILD sounds awfully familiar. It’s extremely concerning and odd that there are people being prompted to demand that government facilities, jails, and schools should implement a technology that has no proven long term safety, which is not FDA approved, and could have grave risks. Experimenting on prisoners, civil servants, children, and others with experimental medical technology which has potential for harm, little proven efficacy, and NO long-term safety evidence, flies in the face of the precautionary principle. And encouraging people to implement this in their homes to sell these products is so problematic.There is a history of UV light disinfection done where people won't be exposed to it in ventilation ducts or vacated rooms. UV light not only kills viruses, but is also well-recognized as very dangerous to any humans and pets who get exposed. It's so treacherous to work with that robots are used to administer it in disinfecting formerly-occupied hospital rooms. Another long-standing version of UV germicidal irradiation (UVGI) is via lights near the ceiling of rooms that lack good ventilation -- high up where people don't go. That requires very carefully installed fixtures directed upwards to eliminate risk that people will be exposed to the hazardous light. And there have been incidents where workers at a university were harmed with eye damage because of improper installation of upper room UV.“FAR UVC” is UV light, and we know UV light has known damaging effects on skin and eyes. It’s the reason UV has the potential to kill viruses. So if “FAR UVC” wavelengths also kill viruses, it’s not unreasonable to guess that there’s some danger to human tissues. And there has been NO long term evidence on the safety or dangers of this “Far UVC” wavelength of UV. When someone claims it’s safer than other wavelengths, they’re making this claim on the absence of evidence, not evidence it’s safe.Some people, often promoting products - or just hyping this “new technology” - often have been pointing to studies that have been ridiculously small and that don’t actually back up the safety claims at all. Fraudulent Appeal to Authority - the tactic of citing sources that don’t actually back up a claim, is sadly very much rampant in marketing that happens on social media. In one case a study that has been cited, it was one person experimenting on themselves!  This person exposed their own skin and gave themselves a yellow spot sunburn with the “far uvc” wavelength. We have no idea what’s going to happen to that person some years from now, or the tissue on that person’s body that was affected. This is not a reassuring thing to cite as reason to trust exposure to UV at any wavelength is safe. The study itself includes the statement: “This single individual study does not provide a definitive answer to the question of skin safety. Our study is the basis for future exploration above the current ICNIRP limit values, which would allow quicker inactivation of the virus than is currently permitted in occupied spaces. Furthermore, what this research and other published literature clearly highlight is that the hazard of all wavelengths emitted must be appropriately assessed—it is too simplistic to state that far-UVC devices are “safe for humans.””It's only appropriate to expose people to risks with uncertain benefits in the context of a research study with an appropriate consent process. In 2020 Government Executive reported that during the Trump administration a union complaint to the IG objected to the Federal Bureau of Prisons spending $3 million on unproven UV coronavirus sanitizing portals because they hadn’t been studied enough to know if they’re safe or effective. A UV expert is quoted in the article as saying that there’s no research to show what are the long-term effects on humans of Far-UVC wavelengths. And the International Ultraviolet Association told Government Executive: "Based on currently available contract information, the International Ultraviolet Association understands the BOP has procured far UV-C devices (i.e., UV sanitary entry gates) that would be used to directly expose people to UV light, which IUVA cautioned against in April 2020.”Government workers are typically represented by unions which I hope will continue to push back against being guinea pigs in a “let’s see how long it takes for a whole department of civil servants to need disability retirement due to vision loss and skin cancer” experiment. Kaitlin Sundling responded to someone on Mastodon who had their interest piqued by the mention of FAR UVC with this caution: ”unfortunately Far UVC is not a good precaution - not proven to work, and not proven to be safe. It’s unethical to expose people to unregulated and unproven UV devices without consent.” Dr. Sundling has some good advice for questions that should be asked before even considering purchasing such products:Safer air needs proven technology - Don't fall prey to misleading claims - proven methods of HEPA filtration and ventilation can reduce viral risk as part of a multilayered approach - Kaitlin Sundling Oct 02, 2023Here is my list of questions that I would need suitably answered before considering use of Far-UVC technology in any setting:* How can a consumer tell that the device is working?* How can a consumer tell that the device is safe?* Is the device approved by the EPA or any other government agency pertaining to safety and efficacy?* What organizations certify the safety and efficacy of the device?* What professional medical or public health organizations have endorsed the device?* What is the spectral power distribution (how much light is emitted at various wavelengths) of the device? How can a consumer verify the power of light emitted at 222 nm (Far-UVC) compared to the power of light emitted at other wavelengths?* How does the safety and efficacy of the device change over time?* Are ozone or other toxic byproducts generated during use (from the interaction of Far-UVC light and materials in the room) that would impact indoor air quality?* How can consumers be sure they are not receiving a counterfeit device?* Provide the peer-reviewed publications detailing the research data regarding the safety of the device regarding eye exposure (corneal damage and cataract development) and skin damage (sunburn and skin cancer risk). Have the results been independently verified in multiple, large-scale clinical trials? What was the length of follow up?So far, none of the devices I have come across pass muster. And yet, today there are still more pushing to implement such pandemic profiteering Trumpian privatization boondoggle experimentation on government workers and prisoners. It’s hard to square this as being in line with public health activism, progressive values, and, again, the precautionary principle that is so fundamental to the point of pandemic public safety advocacy. To impose FAR UVC at government facilities would be experimentation. Nobody should be suggesting that we implement experimenting with this in jails and detention centers. It’s unethical to use experimental medical technology on prisoners. There’s a long history of gruesomeness in this area. Reported in 2022: “A prominent California medical school has apologized for conducting dozens of unethical medical experiments on at least 2,600 incarcerated men in the 1960s and 1970s, including putting pesticides and herbicides on the men’s skin and injecting it into their veins.”I can just imagine that at the time somebody probably claimed that this was an exciting innovation. I can’t repeat enough that when you hear the word “innovation” it could be a glaring red flag that someone’s full of it and trying to promote or defend something dubious. History is full of examples, it wasn’t unique to Stockton Rush, famous for imploding himself and others in a shoddy submarine. Stockton Rush said he was "tired of industry players who try to use a safety argument to stop innovation" and then went to his watery grave in a weird submarine that many had warned was not safe. Processed food manufacturers in the 1960s argued that stipulating that peanut butter needs to be made out of peanuts would “stifle innovation” in the peanut butter market.A lot of the hype around “FAR UVC” is done by scientists and engineers who are understandably excited about new technology and merely possible future usages for that technology. But history could give us a warning about people selling stuff based on scientists getting excited. A Behind the B******s podcast about William Bailey told the story of how Marie Curie went around hyping excitement about radiation, and then a bunch of grifters used that hype to scam people with conditions and illnesses, selling them radiation quack “cures” that harmed and killed people desperate for treatment for various ailments. There’s a reason they covered this guy on Behind the B******s podcast, Bailey was horrible - scamming people, promising cures, taking their money, and leaving them worse off dying of radiation poisoning. Marie Curie herself died of illness related to extensive exposure to radiation, and her body and her work notebooks are stored in lead because they’ll be radioactive for the next 1,500 years. One cannot assume that scientists and engineers working in their field, and speaking about it, are automatically experts on safety of their research focus.Someone once sent me a screenshot from Facebook and what someone described as a copy pasted shipping email from a "Far-UVC" company claiming that their product had "completed and passed its final round of FCC regulatory testing" and had "consumer rated FCC approval" - which people took to mean some kind of efficacy or safety testing, but the FCC is not a medical regulatory body, they're the Federal Communications Commission, a government agency that issues radio licenses like for amateur operators of HAM or GMRS or commercial radio and television channels, their website describes the FCC as regulating "interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite and cable." The EPA actually issued a statement in 2020 to say: “Unlike chemical pesticides, EPA does not routinely review the safety or efficacy of UV light devices and, therefore, EPA has not conducted a human health risk assessment to determine the safety of these products.”Another vendor has been promoting their products on their marketing website as a way to “expedite the return to normalcy” and suggested “widespread adoption” of their products was the ticket to that normalcy.But this unproven technology, and possibly dangerous products being sold online without any guarantee of their wavelength and no way to be sure what the heck they are, are being hyped on social media by influencers who may not be disclosing compensation they’re getting to advertise these products. And if Kim Kardashian thought she could get away with not disclosing payment for hyping a cryptocurrency, imagine all the small fry that could get away with it because the SEC doesn’t necessarily investigate every small time influencer receiving a couple hundred dollars, like they do a Kardashian receiving a quarter of a million.Unproven products of various types are being target marketed especially on “covid twitter” and “still coviding facebook” groups, where worried high risk people are desperate for anything in the absence of proper public health measures and mitigations, and they are being sold dubious products promising to protect people from covid. Dubious actors have pushed quack cures mostly to right-wingers since the start of the pandemic, but more recently have been targeting Long Covid sufferers across the political spectrum who are desperate for answers and willing to try dangerous and even disproven cures like colloidal silver, ivermectin, and treatments being prescribed off-label based on a more than year-old preprint of a small study that had not been through peer review.We are less likely to see our own cognitive biases being leveraged. It’s easy for many on the left to recognize how MAGA Trumpers are being manipulated by Qanon wellness influencers hyping products. But we forget that we may not notice our own confirmation biases and desires being targeted by manipulative advertising. An influencer may say “follow the science” and then link to an actual scientific study, but that is by no means a definitive robust support of their claims. Often in these instances it’s just some preliminary small study conducted years ago and never replicated, and in some cases bad actors or ignorant re-posters are guilty of straight up fraudulent appeal to authority and the linked item doesn’t back up the claim at all. Conspirituality Podcast has an episode that mentioned this, and other tips on what to look for and consider when reviewing a scientific study that is used to promote a health product.Some of the FAR-UVC science studies that get promoted as proof of efficacy have direct conflicts of interest, and they’re often disclosed, if you know to look for that: such as “The authors declare the following pending patent” or the author “has a granted patent” or information about the funding of the study being funded by the manufacturer of a product. Many of the studies that get passed around as in support of buying these products actually in fact warn of the potential safety issues, such as that “there is no positive study on the impact of this radiation on human eyes” and that “stray emissions can greatly impact the total hazard.” The FDA had issued a statement that “long-term safety data is lacking”.And then there are the people who are especially at risk from UV, so even if it might not be as huge a risk for some, for others, it can be far more serious, according to the American Cancer Society which has a list of factors that affect risk from UV rays, including organ transplants and medications that lower your immune system. So some people with high covid risk would be put especially at risk from UV light, more so than the average person, even light at supposedly less penetrating wavelengths. UV lamps generate ozone, and that can adversely affect air quality. Ozone inhalation can be irritating to the airways. And there’s a report that says that FAR-UVC generates ozone in “amounts an order of magnitude larger than previous reports” had claimed. More evidence this isn’t settled science, not by a long shot. And just in case somebody doesn’t know about the fake science, yes, that’s a thing - there are fake science journals and fake academic conferences, who according to a presentation at DEF CON 26 in 2018: “Until recently, these fake science factories have remained relatively under the radar, with few outside of academia aware of their presence; but the highly profitable industry is growing significantly and with it, so are the implications. To the public, fake science is indistinguishable from legitimate science, which is facing similar accusations itself. Our findings highlight the prevalence of the pseudo-academic conferences, journals and publications and the damage they can and are doing to society.”The b******t asymmetry principle makes it very difficult to counter the vast PR that’s being promoted, both by paid actors, and true believer converts that have been convinced by advertising or online cults. If that’s you or someone you know, there’s no reason to feel bad about it, advertising and targeted marketing works - nobody is immune. That’s why companies spend so much on advertising, and why straight up scammers spend so much on social engineering online. Unfortunately the sunk cost fallacy bias means that many people who’ve already invested thousands of dollars or thousands of hours on this or who are being paid to promote it, will not want to face the music of the problems here. Nevertheless, it’s a public health issue, much like the pandemic. Safety issues can’t be ignored, they don’t go away on their own.  Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes & Transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-assume-cdc-hicpacA written post similar to this podcast can be found in my pandemic newsletter. There is also a transcript of this podcast below the notes.References:HICPAC Meeting – Aug. 22, 2024 - Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Aug 22, 2024 - YOUTUBEHealthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) Meeting InformationCytomegalovirus (CMV) - Cleveland ClinicDoes CDC HICPAC want to make a mockery of infection control in healthcare? The things I’m concerned about are talked about and documented - so reasonable concerns about CDC HICPAC. Chloe Humbert Aug 21, 2024Update: NNU invited to join CDC’s HICPAC workgroup on infection preventionAerosol transmission & respirator masks, a PPE timeline They knew: the CDC is well aware of aerosol transmission and the ways to protect people from infectious disease using respirator masks and the precautionary principle. Chloe Humbert Aug 22, 20232019 Novel Coronavirus, Wuhan, China - Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Patients with Known or Patients Under Investigation for 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in a Healthcare SettingHICPAC Meeting Transcript, March 5, 2020 - DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP) Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee March 5, 2020 Atlanta, GeorgiaReusable respirators protect doctors and nurses against coronavirus, they aren't in the national stockpile. Donovan Slack and Dinah Voyles Pulver, USA TODAY Published 7:59 a.m. ET Apr. 3, 2020Updated 8:13 a.m. ET Apr. 3, 2020Letter to Stephen Hahn Administrator Food and Drug Administration from KATIE PORTER Member of Congress, May 26, 2020AP News - Hospitals still ration medical N95 masks as stockpiles swell. By JASON DEAREN, JULIET LINDERMAN and MARTHA MENDOZA. February 16, 2021Sonia Boutillon, The Precautionary Principle: Development of an International Standard, 23 MICH. J. INT'L L. 429 (2002). Available at: https://repository.law.umich.edu/mjil/vol23/iss2/7The CDC Vaccine Guidance Contradiction. Restricting vaccines while recommending them - make it make sense! Chloe Humbert Jul 05, 2024Bird Flu (Avian Influenza) Cleveland ClinicSouth Korea detects H5N1 avian flu in shelter cats Lisa Schnirring  July 25, 2023CMD - How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On Covid By Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch | December 22nd, 2021 Politico: A far-right rallying cry: Older Americans should volunteer to work. Older Americans are key drivers of the country's faltering economy — and more at risk of dying from the coronavirus. By Tina Nguyen. 03/27/2020Manufacturing MILD MILD: A longtime PR word to downplay threats, normalize harms, and manufacture consent by manufacturing doubt. Chloe Humbert Aug 05, 2023Manufacturing Consent - From Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaMoral Sabotage & Community Care Disengaged Public health has been under attack. Community care and cooperation is natural and desirable. Moral disengagement is anything but normal. Chloe Humbert Dec 30, 2022I don't always need to visit the hospital but when I do, I don’t want to get covidThe change in mask guidelines for healthcare is dangerous, unethical and based on flawed data Please join us by signing our petition to advocate for masks in healthcare settings. Oct 18, 2022Letter Campaign to Elected Officials and CDC by Aug 22nd: CDC’s HICPAC must call for year-round universal masking in healthcare and prioritize health over corporate profit CDC’s infection control committee meets Aug 22, submit a public comment asking for science-based infection control guidelines, universal masking, broad use of N95s, & robust infection control measures Aug 19, 2024Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for COVID-19 OSHA 3990-03 2020The CDC Vaccine Guidance Contradiction. Restricting vaccines while recommending them - make it make sense! Chloe Humbert Jul 05, 2024Thanks to vaccines, the threat is reduced - so we will no longer be requiring vaccination. Ba dum bump. This is the message that healthcare providers are giving as the scientific reasoning to drop vaccination requirements for staff: “The vaccines work, so we will no longer be vaccinating.” Chloe Humbert Jul 01, 2023Restricting vaccine access because of anti-vax bs or waiting for hospitals to overflow is unethical Nobody should be basing vaccine access on financial focus, right-wing politics, hopium, perceived administrative inconvenience, nor anti-vax disinformation. Chloe Humbert Apr 02, 2023Incoherent natural immunity claims at FDA meeting on vaccines Chloe Humbert Jan 27, 2023OSHA's Informal Rulemaking Hearing for Occupational Exposure to COVID-19 in Healthcare Settings D2 OSHA social Apr 28, 2022FOIA request to CDC / HHS - RE The CDC’s Unmasking Decision of May 2021 The redacted files. Chloe Humbert Mar 11, 2024Politico - Judge orders CDC to stop deleting emails of departing staff, calling it ‘likely unlawful’ A Trump-allied legal group won a ruling blocking the health agency’s records policy. By JOSH GERSTEIN and KYLE CHENEY 08/09/2024People's CDC, August 5, 2024, COVID-19 Weather Report COVID wastewater levels continue to increase, mask and vaccine mandates are effective at curbing transmission, and the CMS is requiring hospitals report COVID infection data. Aug 05, 2024TIME - October 17, 2014 - The CDC Has Less Power Than You Think, and Likes it That Way By Denver NicksCDC made medical guidelines please Delta Airlines, and now lots of people work sick and contagious in every industry Chloe Humbert · Jan 10, 2024Why You’ll Want to Know How Your Nurse Practitioner Was Trained - Jul 24 2024 - Bloomberg Big TakeSafety for me, but not for thee: CHOP’s Dr. David Rubin Chloe Humbert · Apr 22, 2023Trust in Doctors Crashed During the COVID Pandemic -- And Remains Low — Putting financial motives over patient care was top reason for patient mistrust, survey found by Katherine Kahn, Staff Writer, MedPage Today, July 31, 2024Transcript:[Chloe Humbert:] I'm Chloe Humbert, and I'm recording this the day after the CDC HICPAC meeting. That's the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee. That was on August 22nd, 2024. And... Well, it's very concerning. There's supposed to be, I believe, an open comment period, but the information on that is not yet posted. I signed up, but I was not chosen to give public comments. I really hope... that there's been a misunderstanding, but I think they actually voted that healthcare workers can work with an active CMV infection now. Like that's what they're going to put in the guidelines, and that just seems... way out of the norm. I mean, as I understand it, like, for example, in a labor and delivery department, nurses aren't supposed to even work with a case of diarrhea, just in case it's, you know, something that can threaten… people lose pregnancies from CMV infections. So like, I'm not sure what's going on here. But I did publish a blog post about, you know, my concerns, and I'll go over them here. First of all, National Nurses United report about the CDC HICPAC committee said that, “multiple members of the group remain focused on maintaining and even expanding the use of surgical masks as protective equipment for healthcare workers exposed to infectious diseases.” I've had reports from people who are immunocompromised, disabled high risk, otherwise asking for healthcare workers that see them to wear respirator N95s. And in some cases being told that they have to like go and find them, or they need to order them. And that seems like really unprepared. Even if there was no current problem, which there is a current problem, there's a COVID surge going on. But even if there wasn't, that seems very unprepared and problematic that hospitals would not have these readily available. I think we should be asking hard questions about this - about the preparedness for other outbreaks. And it sounds like we're just going to go back to an even worse spot than we were in 2020 when there was shortages of PPE. This doesn't make any sense. Hospitals and labs are already relying on like flimsy surgical masks. And I recently got blood work at a Geisinger lab locally and asked for the technician to be masked. And they had to go look for a surgical mask somewhere in the office. So that's not a good situation. Especially with, you know, COVID spreading, there's flu, RSV, we have possible other infectious diseases. They should be ready. Okay, and so CDC HICPAC committee knew in 2020 about the precautionary principle when it comes to infectious disease. In January 2020, they issued guidance for use of N95s for COVID. And the CDC HICPAC meeting in March 2020, they specifically mentioned that a surgical mask, “isn't as good of a device. The fact that there's a half inch gap on either side of your face really doesn't protect against inhalation.” So that's the whole reason there was a debacle about N95 shortages early in the pandemic. And it turns out that, of course, the health care corporations were the ones doing it to their own employees and withholding PPE, even after shortages were no longer even a thing. There was some shitty behavior by the Trump administration, too. And they also were basically allowing a boondoggle where a company was going to make money on cleaning N95s. So the bottom line is it's the same disease now. It's more contagious. It still transmits and it's still circulating. And N95s could prevent that. So why hospitals would not be having them in stock even for ADA accommodation requests, seems very wrong and peculiar even. And I've even heard stories of people at hospitals being forced to remove their own N95 mask and put on a flimsy surgical mask instead. So here's the thing, is if CDC HICPAC issues guidance where they say use surgical masks and don't use N95s. So the health care companies can then be telling their workers, well, you can't have N95s. You can't have better PPE. And what's next? COVID is a really bad disease and it has high levels of risk. So I would expect that they would have healthcare workers work with Ebola and TB and anything else with less expensive gear. I think that's where they're going with this. Bird flu has a high mortality rate. And I think it's wrong that farm workers are being denied PPE with this risk. They could be unwittingly, you know, even taking it home to more vulnerable family members, or their cats for that matter. A lot of cats have died from bird flu now. I would not assume this laissez-faire attitude is confined to COVID contrarianism. Hospital resistance to infectious disease mitigation appears to be financially motivated. And it's underneath all COVID mitigation resistance. Like, that financial motivation has been proven since the start of the pandemic. Walker Bragman has an article from December of 2021, and it's titled “How the Koch Network Hijacked the War on Covid” -  And it lays it out. You just follow the money. So it's wrong to think of this as a cultural issue. It's not. It’s politicized, but it's more of a cognitive warfare issue. And the result of PR blitzes, pushing propaganda by industry interests. And they use manufacturing mild and manufacturing consent. And moral disengagement. These are known tactics for PR. So I was at a recent National Nurses United webinar on the use of AI in healthcare. And someone told the story about an automated shift change report that just makes a sheet with no human to human handoff, like there's no giving report anymore between shifts. That's a problem within itself for all sorts of reasons. to just have a sheet. In this case, the automated sheet failed to show that the person coming into the hospital and waiting for a room had no immune system. That's what they said. The patient had no immune system. And the nurse wouldn't have known that if they had not checked the patient's chart on purpose to look further into the patient's condition. They would have put, and this is what they said, they said they would have put this immunocompromised person in with a patient who had COVID and flu. Now, in this case, the problem could have been avoided by properly isolating COVID and flu patients from other patients, because, I'm sorry, but even people with working immune systems shouldn't be deliberately sickened at the hospital. That's preventable harm. They know how to prevent this. Hospitals shouldn't be giving people COVID. Like that's on purpose if you know you can prevent it, you isolate COVID and flu patients. You don't put uninfected patients in with infected patients, which I feel like if they're doing that with COVID, what else are they doing that with? Like, what else will they do that with? You know, if they're allowed to. And, you know, of course, also, getting rid of shift change reports just seems just obviously bad and going to lead to all kinds of other patient safety issues. And all to just, I guess, save money. Another story at the NNU webinar was that the automated system failed to alert the health care worker that the patient had COVID and the health care worker would go into the room of the COVID patient without any mask. In this case, universal masking in the healthcare settings would have actually prevented the problem caused by the automated system and is, in my opinion, another argument in favor of universal usage of respiratory PPE in healthcare settings. So even if a patient hasn't yet tested for COVID, the patient could have COVID. I don't know why this is still a mystery. You don't suddenly become contagious the minute your test result shows the positive line. That's not how infection works. You're already infectious if your test comes back positive, like you were already infected when you were taking the test and, you know, for some period before that. This is just how reality works. So, and this is a point made by the People’s CDC in October ‘22, they made the point by saying, “because approximately 40% of COVID cases are asymptomatic and many people may be infectious before they develop symptoms, it is utterly inadequate to require masks only for symptomatic people.” And the People's CDC in August 2024 said, “many aerosol transmitted pathogens are transmissible without symptoms and without predictable seasonality. Diagnosis and isolation may be delayed, leading to exposures that could have been prevented by universal masking.” Especially in hospitals where they're clearly doing little to prevent the spread of anything anymore, you know, to cut costs. So it's not unlikely that a healthcare worker might actually have undiagnosed or unsymptomatic COVID and should be wearing a mask for source control to prevent them spreading it to patients. National Nurses United also reported that Andrew Levinson, Director of OSHA Directorate of Standards and Guidance, attended a CDC HICPAC committee meeting as a guest to discuss current regulations. Okay, so I'm old enough to remember when OSHA issued a pretty decent guidance for workplaces in March 2020. I was so excited when I saw that in March 2020. I was like, oh, help is coming. Little did I know. It called for engineering controls, such as high efficiency air filters and increasing ventilation rates in the work environment. And also encouraging sick workers to stay home. Frankly, this was unexpected and a competent move made by a federal agency early in the pandemic under the Trump administration. I was frankly shocked at the quality of the guide. And with the swift release, they were doing their job. Workplaces locally to me actually did the guidance. And I mean, that might have been me sending it to all my reps. Sigh. You know, in a more sensible timeline, MAGA would be campaigning on this point when criticized for mishandling the pandemic. But nobody on the right can campaign on, like, they can't even campaign on the vaccine Operation Warp Speed because, you know, the Republicans are all now fully committed to anti-vax disinformation. So they let Joe Biden take that win, even though our vaccination campaigns have been kind of dismal, confused, sometimes nonsensical, or even contrary to actually getting people vaccinated. I'm sure it doesn't help that they have at least one Great Barrington Feclaration signer on the FDA committee for vaccines. And he's actually mentioned natural herd immunity at vaccine meetings. But back to OSHA, there was an OSHA hearing in 2022. I've not heard anything about what's came of that since about developing standards. I worry that they're waiting for CDC HICPAC, and CDC has no regulatory power itself, and it's not set up to enforce safety rules to protect workers, protect patients, or anybody else. It's strictly a public health messaging and data collection agency. And it doesn't even do that right. At the OSHA hearing in April 2022, Dr. David Michaels, epidemiologist and longest serving OSHA head from 2009 to 2017, he testified. [Dr. David Michaels:] “ Beyond that, of course, we have this problem. that they've really clung to this, what we call the droplet dogma, that clearly has been shown to be incorrect, certainly by the research by several of the people on this panel, who've done remarkable work, as you heard from Dr. Prather and Dr. Milton in particular. It's disappointing. I think the whole country is disappointed by them. You know, employers need to know exactly what to do or how to at least process the challenge that they face to protect workers. And OSHA standards tell employers how to do that. They say, this is what we expect you to do. We expect you to develop a plan. The plan has to take your situation into account, but also has to ensure that you're looking at the hierarchy of controls. You're thinking about engineering controls first. All of those things are missing from CDC recommendations. And finally, I think I talked about this in my testimony, OSHA has a statutory responsibility, statutory requirement to have an open and transparent process like we are having today to determine what the standard should be. CDC is a black box. We have no idea how these recommendations are determined, unfortunately, until there are Freedom of Information Act requests or congressional inquiries. So given all those things, it's really incumbent upon OSHA to develop standards and to say, these are the standards that every employer covered by the standard must follow.” [Chloe Humbert:]  That the CDC is a black box wasn't a revelation to me because of how my FOIA request to the CDC in 2021 came back completely redacted. Because they're allowed to keep the deliberative process secret. So they don't have to tell us. Even with the FOIA request, you don't get to know how they came up with their reasoning. It could be anything. It could be my brother-in-law's cousins left whatever. You get my… They could just be using whatever. We don't know. I don't know if anybody will ever be able to know. CDC has been deleting emails they weren't supposed to delete because they agreed to keep them for seven years and they were deleting them after people left the agency employment. So who knows what they're doing there. We just don't know. We don't have a way to know. OSHA actually has to develop actual standards and CMS can actually enforce data collection. And that's actually what they're going to be doing on COVID. But the CDC is just there ostensibly to cajole the public and often with ill-considered social media. And they can collect data, but only if they feel like it. And the agency is, it's quite obviously easily directly swayed by industry. In December 2021, Delta Airlines sent a letter to the CDC complaining that the 10-day isolation guidelines were interfering with their operations because of people being off sick too often. Instead of better infection control, stopping the spread among staff, or hiring more staff to cover the new normal of everyone getting COVID on the job all the time, they instead asked the CDC to reduce the isolation time recommended. A week after this Delta Airlines letter to the CDC, the CDC changed the isolation guideline down to five days. That's a big coincidence. Yeah. National Nurses United also reported that Andrew Levinson of OSHA said, “OSHA saw healthcare employers prohibiting respiratory protection because they were afraid it could scare patients.” This is the second time I'm reminded of this story I heard on the Bloomberg Big Take podcast, which was about the poor training for some nurse practitioners and healthcare companies who deploy them in questionable roles they're not really trained for in order to cut costs. The podcast recounted a story where a nurse practitioner didn't want to scare a patient who was on vacation. So they didn't tell them to go to the hospital because they didn't want to scare the patient. The patient wound up dying of an ectopic pregnancy as a result. Something that was completely preventable. Because they didn't want to scare the patient. The patient's now dead. I think most people would prefer to be temporarily scared than permanently ignorant six feet under. It's the most nonsensical, inexplicable, illogical reasoning, unless you understand that the priority motivation of the healthcare system, it's ingrained into every system and every choice that's incentivized by everybody involved. It's not to save lives, but to spin perceptions and keep the revenue coming in and the C-suite salaries satiated. Disaster researchers call this elite panic. People with power have different priorities, chiefly maintaining their own power. In a documentary from 2002 called “Toxic Sludge is Good for You”, it described it this way, “Whenever something bad happens to a corporation, often its first move is not to deal with the actual problem, but to manage the negative perception caused by that problem.” And in this context, COVID, patient deaths, worker illness, all of these are problems to be managed by PR and lobbying the government to make it at least officially okay. So then it makes it harder to sue them or hold them to any standards or for unions to negotiate for safety or whatever. National Nurses United also reported that Andrew Levinson of OSHA also shared, “that health care employers felt that voluntary use by one health care worker, when not required, could make other health care workers nervous and question the determination of the employer that the respirator was not required." Yeah. So they're basically saying they can't let the high risk or the older nurse wear an N95 to protect themselves from possible COVID or other infectious diseases. They can't allow that because it might give other health care workers ideas that maybe the employer is lying to them by saying that it's not necessary because they just don't want to pay for the PPE. Of course. Of course. And of course, this sounds like one of the many tricky kind of forms of union busting that corporations do to undermine workers organizing, you know, by pitting them against each other. It has big Metropolis vibes. That's the silent film from the 1920s that's still relevant, unfortunately. It's totally believable that hospital management figures most of their workers get ideas from troublemakers and the like. So they're going to see workers as largely mindless replaceable widgets, and they resent people who actually... you know, know their job and want to protect themselves or know their immunocompromised status and, you know, need ADA accommodation, but they don't want to do that. So I wouldn't be surprised if... I don't know. I just... Heaven only knows what's happening in these hospitals. So it does track also that administrative executives are worried about not having complete totalitarian control over their staff. They want to decide who can prevent the harm on the job. Like, you know, because we know most of these high level people in health care, they might talk a careless game, but they're they don't risk themselves easily. And I think about David Rubin, the director of Policy Lab at CHOP, the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia. He specializes in high-risk children. He was the lead investigator on CHOP's Policy Lab's COVID-19 forecasting model. Policy Lab started putting out anti-mitigation statements reminiscent of the ideology of the Great Barrington Declaration. Invoking, for example, the idea of focused protection for high-risk individuals. Those people can alter the routines, but the medical professionals responsible for their care and others should not have to. Because, you know, there's room at the hospital, after all. They literally... They literally said that. Policy Lab at CHOP actually had a tweet in April of 2022 that said, “it is important for those living in the north to anticipate some increased transmission over the next couple of weeks so high-risk individuals can alter their routines and mask. But our team advises against requiring masking given that hospital capacity is good.” Their message was that spreading disease in schools is fine because there's room at Children's Hospital. Seemingly unaware that people don't want to get sick and need the hospital. People don't want their kids in the hospital. People don't want their kids in the hospital. At the same time, CHOP itself, the hospital was still recommending quarantines and precautions, by the way. So, you know, the hospital itself wasn't like saying, yes, fill us up. But Dr. David Rubin himself directly contradicted the Policylab official public stance of promoting COVID to be fine, because he said, he literally said, “I don't think right now I would walk into a crowded venue of the week that we were at 20% of individuals who are infected with COVID”. This is what he told NPR in January 2022. So it comes down to money. They don't want to spend the money for the rank and file healthcare workers to protect themselves. But, you know, the executives, of course, protect themselves. So is it any wonder I saw a headline in MedPage Today that said trust in doctors crashed and remains low? In a recent survey, they said, “putting financial motives over patient care was the top reason for patient mistrust.” Well, isn't that a surprise? Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes & Transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-take-vaccines-for-grantedA written post almost the same as this podcast can be found in my pandemic newsletter. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes & Transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/influencers-and-direct-marketingSkepchick - Big Oil Bought my Favorite Science Influencer, by Rebecca Watson, January 26, 2023 U.S. SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION - Press Release SEC Charges Kim Kardashian for Unlawfully Touting Crypto Security FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 2022-183 Washington D.C., Oct. 3, 2022 Mashable - 12 people are behind most of the anti-vaxxer disinformation you see on social media. The "Disinformation Dozen" are spreading anti-vaccination content throughout the internet. By Matt Binder  on March 24, 2021 Insider - Facebook groups with thousands of members are organizing armies of fake product reviewers, Amazon says in lawsuit. Samantha Delouya Jul 19, 2022Tech Won’t Save Us podcast - 23 06 08 [#171] The Influencer Industry Is Built on Precarity Emily Hund The Weaponisation of Everything: A Field Guide to the New Way of War by Mark Galeotti - Feb 2023 Transcript:I'm Chloe Humbert, and I'm not waiting for everybody. Influencers and Direct Marketing. Rebecca Watson had a video on how an influencer on TikTok, a science influencer, appears to be now promoting propane, which is a fossil fuel. Rebecca Watson: “But if you search for information on the damage caused by propane, you'll find pretty much nothing but press releases from the propane industry under different names bragging about how burning it isn't as bad as burning diesel. And that, I'm sad to say, is what Calandrelli’s video is. It's propaganda wholly funded by the Propane Education and Research Council, or PERC, a fossil fuel industry group that the New York Times recently exposed as an ethically and maybe legally shady operation that's currently spending millions of dollars to hire influencers on TikTok, YouTube, and even cable TV to sow misinformation about zero emission energy.” Chloe Humbert:  In October of 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the SEC, put out a press release. Quote, The Securities and Exchange Commission today announced charges against Kim Kardashian for touting on social media a crypto asset security offered and sold by Ethereum Max without disclosing the payment she received for the promotion. Kardashian agreed to settle the charges, pay 1.26 million in penalties, disgorgement and interest, and cooperate with the commission's ongoing investigation. The SEC's order finds that Kardashian failed to disclose that she was paid $250,000 to publish a post on her Instagram account about EMAX tokens, the crypto asset security being offered by Ethereum Max. Kardashian's post contained a link to the Ethereum Max website which provided instructions for potential investors to purchase EMAX tokens. This case is a reminder that when celebrities or influencers endorse investment opportunities including crypto asset securities, it doesn't mean that those investment products are right for all investors, said SEC Chair Gary Gensler. How this is important is that Kim Kardashian has quite a bit of money, fame. She has lawyers, I'm sure, all sorts of advisors, agents, whatever. And it's against the law to promote something without disclosing that you're receiving payment for it. And if she didn't disclose, I mean, she got caught. She was paid $250,000. Do you think that the government has enough money to go after every mid-level influencer for every $200 that they're receiving for promoting something and not disclosing that? Not saying your favorite influencers are doing that, but when an influencer of any level is promoting a product, it’s not unreasonable to question if they have financial motives for doing so. So it's not always as clear as an affiliate link. Affiliate links are, you know, pretty obvious and they happen a lot and unfortunately a lot of people don't know about affiliate links. At least that's obvious, they're not hiding it per se, but in some of these cases, people just take money and they promote stuff and they don't disclose. And some of the people in these gig work influencer economies, they might not even be aware of the law. Now, ignorance is not an excuse, but they might not even be aware that they are supposed to disclose that. Ask them, if you can. I would. before buying something that some influencer is saying, hey, this is something that works or this is great. In 2021, Matt Binder had a report on Mashable that was titled, 12 people are behind most of the anti-vaxxer disinformation you see on social media. The disinformation dozen are spreading anti-vaccination content throughout the internet. Quote, a new report from the Center for Countering Digital Hate and Anti-Vax Watch found that up to 65% of anti-vaccine content on Facebook and Twitter originated from 12 influencers within the anti-vaxxer movement. The report focused on these 12 accounts after an analysis of content that was shared and posted on Facebook and Twitter 812,000 times between February 1st and March 16th. On Facebook alone, the content from these individuals, which the report dubs as the disinformation dozen, accounts for 73% of all anti-vaxxer content posted or shared on the platform in the last two months. The largest anti-vaxxer influencer on social media, according to the report, is Joseph Mercola. Mercola is an alternative medicine promoter who runs a multi-million dollar online business selling treatments and dietary supplements. The FDA recently sent Mercola a warning over his sham treatments for COVID-19. Another major culprit is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy, the nephew of John F. Kennedy, is perhaps one of the most high-profile influencers in the anti-vaxxer community. Unquote. A pal recently said to me, in our attention economy, where algorithms prioritize maximizing engagement, you have to constantly show your thing is the best, better than all the rest. Otherwise, you lose out on all the eyeballs. And so then you have a sort of fanaticism that's encouraged, overwhelm any opposition on social media and forums to hammer the points with a gish gallop or a dog pile. And this is a PR tactic. A Business Insider report from July of 2022. The headline says Facebook groups with thousands of members are organizing armies of fake product reviewers. Amazon says in lawsuit, quote, Amazon is suing more than 11,000 people who say they run Facebook groups that broker fake product reviews. The lawsuit says that Facebook group members would get paid cash or in free product to write five star reviews. The groups misspell or change certain phrases to avoid getting suspended by Facebook, the suit alleges, unquote. So these operations of direct marketing are going on all the time. Part of the attraction to the influencer industry is that there's this promise that maybe you can make a lot of money and of course there's a lot of money behind anti-vax so if you know the right things to say you can get boosted by those sources and maybe offered money to promote certain things. The Tech Won't Save Us podcast recently had an episode about the influencer industry and it was titled, The Influencer Industry is Built on Precarity. Emily Hund: “There is this sort of endless potential of like, I'm a creator, you're a creator, tomorrow I could have this enormous audience and my whole life will change. And so I better, you know, invest some amount of time and energy into creating content for these platforms because you never know. And again, that really speaks to how these sort of fundamental structural pieces that made the industry possible, you know, 15 plus years ago, have not really changed that much. The world has obviously changed tremendously, technology has changed, a lot has changed, but the sort of basic principles of economic uncertainty, a sense of professional precarity, a sense of uncertainty about the future and the sort of pressure to rely on yourself and figure out how to survive on your own. And also the sense of social distrust, sense of sort of powerlessness or resignation to the sort of Monopolistic billionaires that are seemingly taking over more and more like functions of our lives. These sort of fundamental negatively tinged feelings of uncertainty really haven’t changed. And so that I think keeps the appeal of becoming a successful content creator, influencer, it keeps going. And it continues to sort of lock people into this sort of loop of, I have to find ways to create a safety net for myself. So like, maybe I should start posting on TikTok, you know, even though I'm a vet, or something like that. Like, even though I am a school teacher, or something like, I should start making content on TikTok, because you never know. And so that sort of fundamental uncertainty and the economic reality that many people, even super educated professionals, are living paycheck to paycheck in many cases. And so that kind of keeps gas in the tank of this industry.” Paris Marx: “Yeah, and you can very clearly see how so many of these platforms do depend on kind of constantly having people who are making content for them who maybe don't expect to take off or maybe are doing so in the hopes that they are going to kind of replicate the pathways of one of the influencers or creators that they follow and will kind of join those ranks. But obviously, you know, there are way more people trying to do that than there are people who ever kind of succeed and have it become their incomes. Chloe Humbert:  There's a book by Mark Galeotti called The Weaponization of Everything, A Field Guide to the New Way of War. And in it, he talks about how this whole ecosystem works. Here's an excerpt from the audio book that I listened to. Mark Galeotti: “Outsourcing goes beyond direct warfare and into non-kinetic contests. This century has also seen the explosion of the gig economy. Individual freelancers and temporary workers, sometimes recruited directly, sometimes through online platforms or third-party matchmakers. It may seem ridiculous to draw comparisons with the cycle courier who brings you your pizza. But this is less fanciful than might appear in an age when conflicts may be fought through the medium of carefully curated newspaper articles highlighting a grievance or attacking a government. And when online influencers can pivot from hyping a hair product to pushing a political cause. Chloe Humbert: “This way that influencers pivot, because they have to, to make money, at times, in this gig economy. This is why it’s very problematic to rely on influencers, or you know think that this is going to help, or save us, or be the answer to activism, or anything like that. And I’ve watched, this is one of the key points they tell you in recognizing bots and troll farm accounts is over time, you can see how their positions completely change. Sometimes they will start out on the left and then suddenly be right wing. Well, these accounts, as I have mentioned before, get bought and sold, and that is a thing. And sadly, you know, even just people in this market of doing influencer and advertising their content production, that happens too. They go where the money is. And this is why I find it most important to spend my time writing my political elected representatives and making it clear to them that I'm a real person, I'm a constituent, I live in their district, I live in their state. This is what is important to me. And write your reps. Influencers are not going to save us. They can get word out about something, but then it could be, you know, the truth with a lie chaser. Today they're promoting what you think is good, and then tomorrow they might take money to promote something else that you don't agree with. So the bottom line is, write your reps. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes & Transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/troll-farms-sock-puppets-and-botnetsThe Internet of Fakes — PR Tactics, Troll Farms, Sock Puppets, Botnets, Influencers, Operatives, & Chaos Agents. Persuasion, advertising, sales, target marketing, propaganda, agent provocateurs, and cognitive warfare, is the true reality of the media landscape. CHLOE HUMBERT SEP 14, 2023People argue that surely it’s not deliberate, that it’s just regular weird people being foolish, or that it’s just a few bad actors, or that it’s all a big coincidence. Some demand proof, and once given evidence, demand more proof, and people sometimes still demand to know - but why? Claim wrongly this is just speculation. Even with tons of scientific publications, academic lectures, military documentation, and trade news detailing it all. The problem is that people don’t want to believe this information attack is happening, or especially that we may have been fooled by something. Because we all have been fooled by disinformation, marketing, and PR, at some point, and none of us want to think about that too much. And that’s a big part of why it works so well.Freedom of Mind Resource Center podcast - Beware the Metaverse: Dr. Rand Waltzman discusses Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet Rand Waltzman: “In a cognitive attack the whole point is that the target shouldn’t know they’re being attacked in order for it to be really effective. So that's the whole trick to keep the target unaware because if the target becomes aware that they’re being attacked in this way, just by them becoming aware it significantly reduces the effect of the attack.”DarkReading.com - The Rise Of Social Media Botnets. In the social Internet, building a legion of interconnected bots -- all accessible from a single computer -- is quicker and easier than ever before. By James C. Foster, Founder & CEO, ZeroFOX, July 07, 2015 Cyber criminals use social media botnets to disseminate malicious links, collect intelligence on high profile targets, and spread influence. As opposed to traditional botnets, each social bot represents an automated social account rather than an infected computer. This means building a legion of interconnected bots is much quicker and easier than ever before, all accessible from a single computer. The person commanding the botnet, also known as a bot herder, generally has two options for building their botnet. The first is fairly ad hoc, simply registering as many accounts as possible to a program that allows the herder to post via the accounts as if they were logged in. The second approach is to create the botnet via a registered network application: the attacker makes a phony app, links a legion of accounts, and changes the setting to allow the app to post on behalf of the associated accounts. Via the app, the herder then has programmatic access to the full army of profiles. This is essentially how ISIS built their Dawn of Glad Tidings application, which acts as a centralized hub that posts en masse on behalf of all its users.MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy April 19 - Filippo Menczer, Indiana University published Dec 21, 2022 And then you see a bunch of accounts that are you know not quite as influential but they play a key role in amplifying the message and these are the red nodes that you see a little bit towards the periphery and the reason they're colored red is because they're likely automated. These are accounts that we you know, we have, I'll tell you more later about our machine learning tools to recognize social bots, and those are likely bots that just automatically retweet everything that comes from certain accounts.Axios - The global business of professional trolling. By Sara Fischer, Apr 13, 2021 Professional political trolling is still a thriving underground industry around the world, despite crackdowns from the biggest tech firms. Why it matters: Coordinated online disinformation efforts offer governments and political actors a fast, cheap way to get under rivals' skin. They also offer a paycheck to people who are eager for work, typically in developing countries. "It's a more sophisticated means of disinformation to weaken your advisories," said Todd Carroll, CISO and VP of Cyber Operations at CybelAngel.BBC Trending (podcast) - Brazil’s real life trolls - Sun 23 Apr 2023 "Trolls are necessary and I'm going to explain why. We have a troll farm. A lot of them. What we don't use are bots. Bots are different things. you can buy it in India and they give you 10,000 likes in a second. That doesn't work because it's not legitimate. What we do, for example with trolls, is to generate some kind of relevance within the social network's algorithms. They have become very rigid about what they show and what they don't. And that has to do with the relevance of the publication. So what trolls do is give relevance to a certain publication. Good publicity, so that it can be shown more than other publications."TNW - Astroturfing Reddit is the future of political campaigning - July 11, 2017 - 1:23 pm Matthew Hughes Right here is where things get a little sketchy, as Hack PR decided to look into gaming Reddit to bring some momentum to their campaign. “I knew that if I could get one of my links to the top of Reddit Politics, I would have a pretty good chance of making the idea spread, so I set that as my goal: Get to the top of Reddit Politics within 24 hours.” What it did next was simple. A Hack PR staffer published a link to a Washington Times article about the campaign, who then purchased every single upvote package on Fiverr.com, for a total cost of $35. The post soon blew up and became the most popular article on r/politics. Hack PR also anonymously spammed over 20,000 media contacts with a link to the Reddit post. Each time a publication covered the news, it would repeat the same process with the Washington Times article.Russian Troll Factory Alum Selling Social Media Mobs for $299 a Month. An email address buried in the latest indictment from Robert Mueller reveals a new service for gaming social networks. By Kevin Poulsen, Brandy Zadrozny, Published Feb. 17, 2018 For as little as $299 a month, YourDigitalFace will “create your new digital face which sells,” reads the pitch on the site. They’ll set you up on Instagram and write at least two custom posts a day, as well as handle all the little finesses that lead to a big social media following, like deploying hashtags and liking your followers. You’re guaranteed a minimum of 1,000 new followers a month. The website includes a “portfolio” of satisfied customers, comprised of screenshots from three Instagram accounts that each boast between 50 thousand and 180 thousand followers.TribalGrowth - 7 Best Marketplaces To Buy & Sell Social Media Accounts (Ranked). by John Gordon Social Tradia, Instagram. The Toronto-based firm boasts an easy-to-use website that categorizes accounts for sale based on niche and number of followers. One of the best things about this marketplace is that all transactions are carried out over well-established payment portals.NISOS - Research: Election Manipulation as a Business Model, May 24, 2023 Predictvia is a predictive analytics firm headquartered in Venezuela and Florida. Chief executive officer Ernesto Olivo Valverde and Maria Acedo founded the company in 2013. Predictvia was built on their Seentra platform, which derived from the Tucomoyo “predictive analysis platform” that Olivo Valverde’s prior company Ing3nia developed. (see source 1 in appendix) In 2013, tucomoyo[.]com began redirecting to Ing3nia’s website. Discourse and Election Manipulation Claims Predictvia claims to use artificial intelligence (AI) to manipulate public discourse using fake social media accounts. (see source 2 in appendix) Predictvia claims its platform conducts the following activities: (see source 3 in appendix) - The Seenatra analytics platform identifies “human interests” and other data gathered from social media or directly from users via the DAS intelligent sampling system, recording topic data and generating tags. - Run survey processes to verify which tags have the most activity of interest. - Deployment of campaigns to those social media environments to influence and manipulate public discourse.What Is a Watering Hole Attack? - Proofpoint.com  A watering hole attack is a targeted attack designed to compromise users within a specific industry or group of users by infecting websites they typically visit and luring them to a malicious site. The end goal is to infect the user’s computer with malware and gain access to the organization’s network. Watering hole attacks, also known as strategic website compromise attacks, are limited in scope as they rely on an element of luck. They do however become more effective, when combined with email prompts to lure users to websites.Writing Letters to Elected Representatives, a guide. Letters to politicians are some of the easiest and most effective actions many neglect. By CHLOE HUMBERT, JAN 24, 2023 Your representative’s office receives your letter and considers your position and interest in the issue as representative of some number of constituents who feel the same as you do, but did not have the inclination to write at present. They often keep tallies in spreadsheets and track issues. So it’s not just your lonely voice, each person who writes really makes a larger difference than you might expect from one person. Pressure on elected government officials with letter campaigns have shaped the laws that govern our lives and protect us from lies and harm, such as car seat belt laws and even the rule that peanut butter has to be made of peanuts and not full of additives!Transcript:I'm Chloe Humbert, and I'm not waiting for everybody. And you don't have to either. The Internet of Fakes. Troll Farms, Sock Puppets, and Botnets. A lot of what we see online is not real, and there are reasons for this. There is a whole ecosystem, a whole economy, based around essentially fooling people. People argue, surely it's not deliberate. That it's just regular weird people being foolish, or that it's a few bad actors, or it's a coincidence. Some people, when they hear about this stuff, they demand proof. Once given evidence, they demand more proof. And people still sometimes demand to know, but why? It's very tiring. Even with tons of scientific publications, academic lectures, military documentation, and trade news detailing it all, for some reason it just seems almost unbelievable. But it is absolutely believable. And the reason it works is because people don't realize it's happening. And that's a big part of why it works so well. There was a quote of Rand Waltzman on a podcast with Steve Hassan, the cult expert, and he explained it. Rand Waltzman: “I mean, the main thing to realize is, you know, sort of the key difference between a cognitive attack and a kinetic attack, a physical attack is.” Steve Hassan: “Yeah.” Rand Waltzman: “in a kinetic attack, you know you're being attacked. I mean, if somebody's coming at you with a knife or a gun or hurling bombs at you, I mean, there's no doubt you're under attack, right?” Steve Hassan: “Right.” Rand Waltzman “But in a cognitive attack, The whole point is that the target shouldn't know they're being attacked in order for it to be really effective.” Steve Hassan: “Right.” Rand Waltzman: “So that's the whole trick, to keep the target unaware, because if the target becomes aware that they are being attacked in this way, just by them becoming aware, it significantly reduces the effect of the attack.” Chloe Humbert:  So what are botnets? Botnets are automated social accounts so people set up fake social media accounts and then set them up to an automated system and they can direct these accounts to just automatically send out likes and retweets of particular things. So somebody who has this set up can give one command and say this tweet or whatever on Facebook or whatever should you should go in and like this and then all of these automated accounts do that. So it creates an illusion of popularity and gets it into the algorithm so that the algorithm then picks up is like and says oh this is this is popular so it's a way of gaming social media search engine optimization And this is also very well documented. There's an article by the CEO and founder of ZeroFox from 2015. Darkreading.com, the rise of social media botnets. In the social internet, building a legion of interconnected bots, all accessible from a single computer, is quicker and easier than ever before. Quote, cyber criminals use social media botnets to disseminate malicious links, collect intelligence on high-profile targets, and spread influence. As opposed to traditional botnets, each social bot represents an automated social account rather than an infected computer. This means building a legion of interconnected bots is much quicker and easier than ever before, all accessible from a single computer. The person commanding the botnet, also known as a bot herder, generally has two options for building their botnet. The first is fairly ad hoc, simply registering as many counts as possible to a program that allows the herder to post via the accounts as if they were logged in. The second approach is to create a botnet via a registered network application. The attacker makes a phony app, links a legion of accounts, and changes the setting to allow the app to post on behalf of the associated accounts. Via the app, the herder then has programmatic access to a full army of profiles. This is essentially how ISIS built their Dawn of Glad Tidings application, which acts as a centralized hub that posts en masse on behalf of all its users." Unquote. And there was an MIT initiative on the digital economy presentation by Filippo Menzer of Indiana University from December of 2022, and here's a clip from that. Filippo Menzer: “When we look at a network like this, some things pop out. So first of all, we can identify the super spreaders, we can identify those accounts that are playing a key role in amplifying, in generating the message and spreading it, like the big nodes at the center, the size of the node here is the number of retweets. And those are not surprisingly accounts associated with the source itself, like Alex Johnson and InfoWars. And then you see a bunch of accounts that are, you know, not quite as influential but they play a key role in amplifying the message and these are these kind of reddish notes that you see a little bit towards the periphery. And the reason they're colored red is because they're likely automated. These are accounts that we, you know, I'll tell you more later about our machine learning tools to recognize social bots. And those are likely bots that just automatically retweet everything that comes from certain accounts, in this case, Inforce. And a lot of humans, we are shown here, likely humans are shown here in blue, are exposed to these, through these amplification efforts.” Chloe Humbert: People who try to tell you that it's not happening or that that's silly or it's mostly, oh, it's just happenstance. Oh, it's not really happening. No, it's not a joke. It's literally happening. And tons of money is being poured into this. And there's plenty of evidence. A quote from an Axios article by Sarah Fisher from April 2021, The Global Business of Professional Trolling. Quote, Professional political trolling is still a thriving underground industry around the world, despite crackdowns from the biggest tech firms. Why it Matters. Coordinated online disinformation efforts offer governments and political actors a fast, cheap way to get under rivals' skin. They also offer a paycheck to people who are eager for work, typically in developing countries. It's a more sophisticated means of disinformation to weaken your adversaries, said Todd Carroll, unquote. And here's a quote from the BBC Trending podcast titled Brazil's Real Life Trolls from April of 2023. This is a statement from an actual person who runs a business of a troll farm. Fernando Cerimedo: “Trolls are necessary and I'm going to explain why. We have a troll farm, a lot of them, What we don't use are bots. Bots are different things. You can buy it in India and they give you 10,000 likes in a second. That doesn't work because it's not legitimate. What we do, for example with trolls, is to generate some kind of relevance within the social network's algorithms. They have become very rigid about what they show and what they don't. And that has to do with the relevance of that publication. So, what trolls do is give relevance to a certain publication, good publicity, so that it can be shown more than other publications.” Jonathan Griffin: “The trolls on Cerimedo’s troll farm are fake profiles, which he says he uses to boost engagement on social media platforms. This is against most social media platforms' rules. He denies that his troll farm is immoral, because he says it doesn't hurt anyone.” Chloe Humbert:  So here's an article from July 2017. AstroTurfing Reddit is the future of political campaigning. Quote, right here is where things get a little sketchy as Hack PR decided to look into gaming Reddit to bring some momentum to their campaign. Quote, I knew that if I could get one of my links to the top of Reddit politics, I would have a pretty good chance of making the idea spread. So I set that as my goal. Get to the top of Reddit Politics within 24 hours. What it did next was simple, a Hack PR staffer published a link to a Washington Times article about the campaign, who then purchased every single upvote package on Fiverr.com for a total cost of $35. The post soon blew up. and became the most popular article on r slash politics. Hack PR also anonymously spammed over 20,000 media contacts with a link to the Reddit post. Each time a publication covered the news, it would repeat the same process with this Washington Times article. Unquote. This is deliberate. This is from 2017. This isn't something new either. This is what is happening. And a total cost of $35. I mean, it might cost more now because of inflation, but this is not expensive even. So if you think about the amount of money that a lot of these big corporations, industries, politicians, super PACs, billionaires, all of this can be bought and just to blow up a post on some social media platform. And a Daily Beast article from February of 2018. The headline reads, Russian troll factory alum selling social media mobs for $299 a month. An email address buried in the latest indictment from Robert Mueller reveals a new service for gaming social networks. Quote, For as little as $2.99 a month, your digital face will create your new digital face, which sells, reads the pitch on the website. They'll set you up on Instagram and write at least two custom posts a day, as well as handle all the little finesses that lead to a big social media following, like deploying hashtags and liking your followers. You're guaranteed a minimum of 1,000 new followers a month. The website includes a portfolio of Satisfied customers comprised of screenshots from three Instagram accounts that each boast between 50,000 and 180,000 followers. Unquote. And then there's an article I found in Tribal Growth, which is some kind of industry website, and the article was titled Seven Best Marketplaces to Buy and Sell Social Media Accounts Ranked by John Gordon. Quote, The Toronto-based firm boasts an easy-to-use website that categorizes accounts for sale based on niche and number of followers. One of the best things about this marketplace is that all transactions are carried over well-established payment portals. So right there, they're telling you this is what happens. Like some rando person could build up a social media account and sell it. If they get enough followers, they have like some kind of niche interest, and they're getting some play, they might even be headhunted and be offered a cash buyout. And then somebody else takes over that account with a particular audience. And then once it racks up a bunch of interest and there's ways to do that of course with botnets and troll farm and buying interactions and then often that explains people are like why did this account suddenly like start pushing misinformation or things that are contrary to what they used to say or there's like these subtle inserts of contrary or contrarian ideas and this is the reason why because the opposition will buy actual accounts that have a following in a certain interest area, and then specifically buy these beloved accounts in order to insert their own propaganda and their own interests into it.  And it's a process, and it happens. A lot of people try to say, oh, that's paranoid or whatever. This is the evidence. There are actual companies that that's their whole business. This is not a maybe. Not a maybe. And people do this. That's how they make a living. You know, they find a niche place and then they sell the account or they work for a place that has them set up these fake accounts and build them up so that people can buy them for their propaganda, their advertising needs. So then a paper from May 24th, 2023, Research election manipulation as a business model. Quote, Discourse and Election Manipulation Claims, Predictivia, claims to use artificial intelligence, AI, to manipulate public discourse using fake social media accounts. Unquote. This is a business model. It's not a maybe. This is actually happening. This is what happens on all of social media. And there's no place that it hasn't gone because they go where the people are. It's a watering hole issue. This is a known strategy in cybersecurity and con artistry. You go where the where the people are. Prey congregates, you go there. The watering hole. All of this could serve to make things look more important than it is. And it's inauthentic. And politicians know this. Heads of state know this. Important people know this. And you can get 10,000 likes on a tweet, but it's not worth as much as lobbying an elected representative. So it doesn't really matter how social media, if you get the, you could have a botnet boost your stuff, but if you're not writing your reps, that's what the opposition is doing. They're sending lobbyists and they're writing to your representatives on a regular basis. And that opposition wants to be the only one lobbying your representative. They want you focused on hot takes and sick burns on social media. Don't let anybody silence you. You have a right to speak up too in the ways that it will help bring us good things in our civilization. Write your reps as yourself, as a constituent, so they know what their constituents want. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, transcript, & links: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/accusation-in-a-mirrorTranscript below. Blog of the American Philosophical Association (APA) Tone-Policing and the Assertion of Authority At its core, tone-policing is first an argumentative move sideways and then a stall. It first shifts the focus from the content of the conversation to the tone, language, or manner of discussion (as the quote above says) and then – unlike other interventions about tone – policing announces that the shift cannot be reversed until tone is addressed. The tone-policer doesn’t just declare that their interlocutor’s tone is inappropriate and heightened (usually because it is too hostile, adversarial, or aggressive, upset, or irrational). They insist that the conversation cannot continue until the speaker adjusts it. It often involves a further demand – implicit or explicit – that the interlocutor address their infraction with some apology or other gesture of accountability before things can proceed. Risky Shift, a groupthink exploitable vulnerability. The group trolley cart wheels really do sometimes have a pull toward risk. CHLOE HUMBERT - MAR 19, 2023 Often someone in a position of esteem specifically calls for everyone in the group to be accepting and “non judgmental” toward the offenders, sometimes on the grounds of tone policing, where those with serious concerns are dismissed because they didn’t express their pain politely enough - which means not only are the offenders not required to make any changes, the aggrieved are actually expected to be the ones to do so in order to conform to the groupthink.  National Institute for Public Policy - Information Series - Issue No. 556 June 12, 2023 - Information Operations against the United States: Defensive Actions are Needed by John A. Gentry Former Soviet intelligence agent and CPUSA member Louis Budenz, who renounced communism in 1945, said the Soviets and the CPUSA long had two race-based goals: 1) exacerbating racial tensions to the point of generating race-based civil war; and/or (2) creation of a geographically large black separatist state in what is now the American south as a way to literally fragment the United States. The modern “diversity, equity, and inclusion” agenda, which is indisputably divisive in the United States, appears to serve past Soviet (and now Russian) interests, but is not remotely consistent with past Soviet or current Russian domestic policies. MEDPageToday: Who's Really the Victim Here? — It's time to end DARVO behavior in the healthcare workplace by Resa E. Lewiss, MD, David G. Smith, PhD, Shikha Jain, MD, W. Brad Johnson, PhD, and Jennifer Freyd, PhD Perpetrators use DARVO because it works. In one study researchers found that targets of DARVO were more likely to blame themselves. Self-blame is associated with self-silencing. In another study, researchers found that observers of DARVO tended to doubt the credibility of the true victim, believing the perpetrator instead. There is not yet systematic data on what makes certain institutions and certain people more likely to DARVO. Yet, there appear to be relevant characteristics associated with other types of harassment, and the field of medicine checks all the boxes: high prestige, male-dominated institutions and industries, hierarchical leadership structures, inadequate safeguards for employees and trainees, and a climate which tolerates harassment. Insider - If you've ever lashed out against your abuser, it doesn't make you abusive — here's why. Written by Ashley Laderer; edited by Samantha Crozier - Sep 30, 2022  Why the term 'reactive abuse' is dangerous. Abuse experts argue that the term "reactive abuse," while widely used, is harmful and dangerous for the victim because it labels both parties as mutual abusers. Therefore, it suggests that the victim is suddenly part of the problem as opposed to someone who is sticking up for themselves, Wingfield says. "There is nothing mutual about power and control. We call these responses 'self-defending' when a victim stands up to their abuser and says 'no more,'" says Debra Wingfield, a retired licensed professional counselor, and coercive control and domestic abuse expert, and founder of House of Peace. Wingfield, who has 50 years of experience, says that another problem is how the abuser can use this term to their benefit.  "Anytime you use the word 'abuse' with them, you're actually giving the abuser leverage to work against [the victim]," says Wingfield. Williamson, P. Take the time and effort to correct misinformation. Nature 540, 171 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/540171a Most researchers who have tried to engage online with ill-informed journalists or pseudoscientists will be familiar with Brandolini’s law (also known as the B******t Asymmetry Principle): the amount of energy needed to refute b******t is an order of magnitude bigger than that needed to produce it. Is it really worth taking the time and effort to challenge, correct and clarify articles that claim to be about science but in most cases seem to represent a political ideology? I think it is. Challenging falsehoods and misrepresentation may not seem to have any immediate effect, but someone, somewhere, will hear or read our response. The target is not the peddler of nonsense, but those readers who have an open mind on scientific problems. A lie may be able to travel around the world before the truth has its shoes on, but an unchallenged untruth will never stop. Fire These Times - Anti-Imperialism From the Periphery w/ Leila Al Shami, Romeo Kokriatski & Dana El Kurd - September 7 2023 Host: Joey Ayoub  Joey is joined by Leila Al-Shami, British-Syrian activist and co-author of Burning Country: Syrians in Revolution and War, Romeo Kokriatski, Ukrainian-American managing editor of The New Voice of Ukraine and co-host of the Ukraine Without Hype podcast, and Dana El Kurd, Palestinian-American assistant professor in the department of political science at the University of Richmond to talk about an essay the four of us wrote. DENY, DECEIVE, DELAY Exposing New Trends in Climate Mis- and Disinformation at COP27 (Vol 2) Climate Action Against Disinformation, January 2023 Shellenberger was active in so-called ‘woke-washing’ discourse that attacked Western Elites for withholding fossil fuels from the Global South and/ or framed Net Zero targets as a form of colonialism that contravene the global human rights agenda. Shellenberger is symbolic of the growing overlap between climate scepticism and wider culture wars, ‘anti-woke’ or so-called ‘intellectual dark web’ content. In previous years, his public persona and outputs were primarily associated with the environment, but he now posts just as regularly on issues such as migration, homelessness, gender identity or Democratic policy agendas. During COP, this included the attack on Nancy Pelosi’s husband and the collapse of crypto-currency platform FTX Episode 188: How Capital Repackages Substandard Products for the Poor as “Increasing Access” - Citations Needed | September 13, 2023 | Transcript Nima: Yeah, his general argument, obviously, is not that sweatshops are the best things in the world but depending on what you’re comparing them to, they’re pretty damn great, and we should understand their utility. In his article “Two Cheers for Sweatshops,” which he wrote in the year 2000. This is how he summed up his argument: “Of course, it may sound silly to say that sweatshops offer a route to prosperity, when wages in the poorest countries are sometimes less than $1 a day. Still, for an impoverished Indonesian or Bangladeshi woman with a handful of kids who would otherwise drop out of school and risk dying of mundane diseases like diarrhea, $1 or $2 a day can be a life-transforming wage. This was made abundantly clear in Cambodia, when we met a 40-year-old woman named Nhem Yen, who told us why she moved to an area with particularly lethal malaria. ‘’We needed to eat,’’ she said. ‘’And here there is wood, so we thought we could cut it and sell it.’ But then Nhem Yen’s daughter and son-in-law both died of malaria, leaving her with two grandchildren and five children of her own. With just one mosquito net, she had to choose which children would sleep protected and which would sleep exposed. In Cambodia, a large mosquito net costs $5. If there had been a sweatshop in the area, however harsh or dangerous, Nhem Yen would have leapt at the chance to work in it, to earn enough to buy a net big enough to cover all her children.” Adam: Yeah, this was a common argument in all pro-sweatshop discourse, pro-globalization in the ‘90s, 2000s. Tech Won’t Save Us - 23 04 13 [#163] - ChatGPT Is Not Intelligent - Emily M. Bender I do think that it’s insidious, when this becomes product names because the news reporting can’t not name the products they’re talking about, so they’re stuck with that. But then it’s hard to take the space and say: Okay, so they call this AI-powered whatever, or smart home, but in fact, we just want to flag that that is being repeated here just as the name of the product and we’re not endorsing or whatever. Like that doesn’t happen, so problematic. PM: I think that’s very rare. Like one of the few examples I can think about where a term actually changes is in the early 2010s, when everyone’s talking about the sharing economy and the sharing economy and how wonderful it is. Then after a few years were like: Yeah, people aren’t really sharing here, so this is the gig economy or the on-demand economy or something like that. It’s a bit more accurate for what’s going on. But I feel like you rarely see that when we actually talk about specific products and things like that. EB: Yeah, but we can try! I go for so-called “AI,” I put AI in quotes all the time. We can just keep saying SALAMI or as we say in Mystery AI Hype Theatre, ‘mathy-math.’ Dave Troy Presents - Understanding TESCREAL with Dr. Timnit Gebru and Émile Torres - S2E3 - June 14th 2023 Everyone's talking about AI, how it will change the world, and even suggesting it might end humanity as we know it. Dave is joined by Dr. Timnit Gebru and Émile Torres, two prominent critics of AI doomerism, to cut through the noise, and look at where these ideas really came from, and offer suggestions on how we might look at these problems differently. And they also offer a picture of the darker side of these ideas and how they connect to Eugenics and other ideologies historically. Together Émile and Timnit coined an acronym called TESCREAL, which stands for Transhumanism, Extropianism, Singularitarianism, Cosmism, Rationalism, Effective Altruism, and Longtermism — and yeah, that's a lot of -isms. Longtermism and Eugenics: A Primer. The intellectual lineage of Nick Bostrom’s retrograde futurism. Feb 4, 2023 by Émile P. Torres / Truthdig Contributor Although the modern eugenics movement was born in the late 19th century, its influence peaked in the 1920s. During the 1930s, it was taken up by the Nazis, who actually studied California’s eugenics program in hopes of replicating it back in Germany. Despite the appalling crimes committed by the Nazis during World War II, eugenics still had plenty of advocates in the decades that followed. Julian Huxley, for example, presided over the British Eugenics Society from 1959 to 1962, while also promoting the transhumanist idea that by controlling “the mechanisms of heredity” and using “a method of genetic change” (i.e., eugenics), “the human species can, if it wishes, transcend itself — not just sporadically, an individual here in one way, an individual there in another way, but in its entirety, as humanity.” Today, a number of philosophers have defended what’s called “liberal eugenics” — transhumanism being an example — which many contrast with the “old” or “authoritarian” eugenics of the past century, although we will see in my second article for The Dig that the “old” and “new” eugenics are really not so different in practice. Evaluating Effective Altruism and its Implications on the Fight Against Malaria Samuel M. Williams TC 660H Plan II Honors Program The University of Texas at Austin May 10, 2018 Per the CDC, ITNs compound into a community-coverage effect which can protect all members of a community (even those not using nets) when over half of the community uses nets.47 Net-based prevention methods are a primary driver of the cost-effectiveness of treating malaria and according to GiveWell’s analysis of the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF), AMF can produce and distribute LLINs for an estimated $4.22 in most regions.48 Disconnect - Don't look into the Orb - Worldcoin is an exploitative crypto project with a new coat of AI paint. PARIS MARX AUG 9, 2023 Reporting from MIT Technology Review and Buzzfeed News last year examined the company’s operations in countries throughout Africa, Asia, and South America where it recruited locals to be Orb operators and set up a system where they’d convince people to have their eyes scanned in exchange for Worldcoin tokens, free t-shirts, local currency, and even the chance to win a pair of Apple AirPods — whatever would get users to part with the biometric data. Tech Won’t Save Us - 23 08 17 [#181] Pondering the Orb Molly White Paris Marx: “This project kind of further puts into perspective something that we've been talking about for a long time when it comes to crypto projects in particular. People like Pete Howson, I believe his name is, you know has talked about kinda crypto colonialism. I’ve talked to Olivier Jutel about that on the show before. But you know how these companies, you know crypto companies in particular but tech companies more broadly do go into these markets and just seek to exploit people for profit while talking about how they're going to massively empower them. And you know Worldcoin is kind of coming in and saying you know we're going to do all these wonderful things for empowerment and we're going to create this identity service and you know we're going to take all your data to train our systems. And it's like you know we're just going to use you as inputs for that process. There's no kind of real empowerment that is coming out of that and it's just yet another example of how this works.” Molly White: “Yeah and i think that it's also used to silence a lot of the criticism against the projects here where you will speak out against something like Worldcoin or even crypto more broadly and people will say that’s just your white American privilege. You have financial privilege to dismiss these technologies. Can’t you see how these projects are helping people in developing countries? But what we've seen actually play out is broadly that they are NOT helping people. You know that the people who are engaging with these projects in those locations are suffering for it and often being exploited you know in the way that Worldcoin has been exploiting people as you know as effectively test subjects without the proper disclosures or the proper consent. And so i think it really is sort of lays bare some of the disingenuous arguments that we've been seeing you know broadly around crypto and you know how dare you criticize crypto because it's going to help all of these people you know and you can just sort of look at this and say - look, it's not helping people the people who are receiving these tokens you know or not necessarily coming out better for it.” Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Fallout So Far. Revelations that digital consultants to the Trump campaign misused the data of millions of Facebook users set off a furor on both sides of the Atlantic. This is how The Times covered it. By Nicholas Confessore, April 4, 2018 In March, The New York Times, working with The Observer of London and The Guardian, obtained a cache of documents from inside Cambridge Analytica, the data firm principally owned by the right-wing donor Robert Mercer. The documents proved that the firm, where the former Trump aide Stephen K. Bannon was a board member, used data improperly obtained from Facebook to build voter profiles. The news put Cambridge under investigation and thrust Facebook into its biggest crisis ever. Here’s a guide to our coverage. Dailydot - Exclusive: Ex-Cambridge Analytica psychologist secretly aided prominent anti-COVID vaccine group. Leaked chat logs detail efforts to influence elected leaders. Mikael Thalen - Posted on Jul 30, 2021 - Updated on Aug 4, 2021, 11:45 am CDT Leaked chat logs reveal how the former lead psychologist for Cambridge Analytica has been working behind the scenes with a notorious anti-vaccine group in the U.K. The chat records, provided to the Daily Dot by the activist collective DDoSecrets, detail efforts by HART (Health Advisory and Recovery Team), a self-described “group of highly qualified UK doctors, scientists, economists, psychologists and other academic experts,” to influence politicians on issues related to COVID-19. The leak, as first reported by Logically on Tuesday, involves tens of thousands of chat messages stretching back to January before the group’s official launch. The Pandata File. Detailed report on the international hub established April 2020 - COUNTER DISINFORMATION PROJECT, JUL 22, 2022 I discovered Fagan was advising the group on messaging and communication strategy from a psychological approach I wondered if and how data could have been collected and used. (HART leaks messages) Tanya Klymenko 2021-02-02 T 13:08:48 "@ pf thank you for sharing, very interesting! So, if the "pro-mask" are particularly concerned about equality then they might in theory be susceptible to a message on raising inequality as a direct result of NPI (lockdown). Is that a reasonable assumption?" Patrick Fagan 2021-02-02 T 14:44:02 "Yes exactly... They are wearing the face mask to be fair to others and to reduce harm... If messaging shows that face masks are unfair and harmful, that would be very powerful" Outrage factor From Wikipedia "Outrage factors" are the emotional factors that influence perception of risk. The risks that are considered involuntary, industrial and unfair are often given more weight than factors that are thought of as voluntary, natural and fair. Sandman gives the formula: Risk = Hazard + Outrage COVID-19 lockdown revisionism Blake Murdoch, Timothy Caulfield CMAJ Apr 2023, 195 (15) E552-E554; DOI: 10.1503/cmaj.221543 The term “lockdown” has become a powerful and perverted word in the infodemic about democracies’ responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Lockdown, as used in public discourse, has expanded to include any public health measure, even if it places little to no restriction on social mobility or interaction. For example, a working literature review and meta-analysis on the effects of lockdowns on COVID-19 mortality misleadingly defined lockdowns as “the imposition of at least 1 compulsory non-pharmaceutical intervention.”1 This working paper therefore conflated mandatory isolation for people with confirmed infections and masking policies with heavy-handed limitations on freedom of movement, and since it gained viral fame, it has helped fuel calls for “no more lockdowns.” This working paper has been highly critiqued and is less convincing than comparative assessments of health measures, like the Oxford Stringency Index.2,3 Here, we discuss the spread of misinformation on lockdowns and other public health measures, which we refer to as “lock-down revisionism,” and how this phenomenon has damaged trust in public health initiatives designed to keep people safer. Kenneth L. Marcus, Accusation in a Mirror, 43 Loy. U. Chi. L. J. 357 (2012). Loyola University Chicago Law Journal Volume 43 Issue 2 Winter 2012 Article 5 The basic idea of AiM is deceptively simple: propagandists must "impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do." 9 In other words, AiM is a rhetorical practice in which one falsely accuses one's enemies of conducting, plotting, or desiring to commit precisely the same transgressions that one plans to commit against them. For example, if one plans to kill one's adversaries by drowning them in a particular river, then one should accuse one's adversaries of plotting precisely the same crime. As a result, one will accuse one's enemies of doing the same thing despite their plans.,, It is similar to a false anticipatory tu quoque: before one's enemies accuse one truthfully, one accuses them falsely of the same misdeed." This may seem an unlikely means of inciting mass-murder, since it would intuitively seem likely not only to fail but also to backfire by publicly telegraphing its speakers' malicious intentions at times when the speakers may lack the wherewithal to carry out their schemes.12 The counter-intuitiveness of this method is best appreciated when one grasps that its injunctions are to be taken literally. There is no hyperbole in the Note's directive that the propagandist should "impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do."I 3 The point is not merely to impute iniquities that are as bad as the misdeeds that the propagandist's own party intends. Instead, AiM is the more audacious idea of charging one's adversary with "exactly" the misdeeds that the propagandist's party intends to commit. But why, out of all of the serious allegations that one might level at one's enemy, should one accuse the adversary of precisely the wrongs that one's own party intends to commit? After all, the risks are apparent. By revealing the propagandist's own intentions, AiM deprives the propagandist's party of the advantages of speed and surprise and gives the adversary an opportunity to anticipate and prepare. At the same time, this method provides independent observers and subsequent judicial tribunals with evidence of intent. Moreover, AiM is not based on any evaluation of what misdeeds are most plausibly ascribed to the enemy, such as those that are based on traditional stereotypes, defamations, or actual culpability, since it relies instead on the plans of the propagandist's party. Despite its counter-intuitive nature, AiM has proven to be one of the central mechanisms by which genocidaires publicly and directly incite genocide, in part because it turns out to be quite effective. Once AiM's structure and functions are understood, its pervasive and efficacious presence can be discerned not only in mass-murder but also in a host of lesser persecutions. These qualities can make AiM an indispensable tool for identifying and prosecuting incitement. The Genocide Convention criminalizes "direct and public incitement to commit genocide,"l 4 regardless of whether actual genocide occurs.15 PBS Hacking Your Mind  - Living on Autopilot - Episode 101 Aired: 09/09/20 According to Kahneman, when our slow-thinking system doesn't have enough information to answer a question involving numbers, we simply stay on autopilot. And our autopilot system takes what might be called a shortcut and anchors its answer to the last number that crossed its radar, even when that number is completely irrelevant to the question at hand. -And that leads us to reach an absurd conclusion. I know it seems bizarre that anyone would do that, and surely you and I, reasonable people, would never do that in our real lives. Well, you do it all the time. National Security Challenges: Insights from Social, Neurobiological, and Complexity Sciences. Author | Editor: Astorino-Courtois, A. (NSI, Inc), Cabayan, H. (Joint Staff), Casebeer, W. (DARPA), Desjardins, A. (NSI, Inc), DiEuliis, D. (HHS), Ehlschlaeger, C. (ERDC), Lyle, D. (USAF) & Rice, C. (USA/TRADOC). According to Bandura (1996) moral disengagement is an internal thought process by which an individual is able to disengage their own inner moral control to justify inhumane conduct. For the most part, an individual’s moral standards, which are a product of their social and cultural learning, serve to regulate human behavior. This occurs by the self-sanctions that people apply to themselves when they violate their own internal standards. Self condemnation is a highly uncomfortable psychological state leading to devaluation of self worth and considerable anxiety (Bandura 1990). Consequently, most people seek to avoid a state in which their own actions are not in line with their internal moral standards. One such process, moral disengagement, involves the use of a variety of psycho-social mechanisms that allow an individual or group to disengage from their self regulatory standards and exonerate their violent behavior. The definitions of the eight mechanisms are included in Table 3 below. Moral Sabotage & Community Care Disengaged. Public health has been under attack. Community care and cooperation is natural and desirable. Moral disengagement is anything but normal. By CHLOE HUMBERT - DEC 30, 2022Moral Re-Engagement Suggestions FormTranscript:I'm Chloe Humbert and I'm not waiting for everybody. And you don't have to either. Accusation in a Mirror. This is a disinformation tactic that is related to tone policing and woke washing. Also related to the concept of DARVO and all of these things seem to be deployed against public health and Well, really the reasonable workings of a civilization. These tactics get used to muddy the understanding of what's going on and cause confusion. Tone policing is described on the Blog of the American Philosophical Organization as shifting the focus from the content of the conversation to the tone or manner. They say, quote, "policing announces that the shift cannot be reversed until tone is addressed. They insist that the conversation cannot continue until the speaker adjusts it. It often involves a further demand, implicit or explicit, that the interlocutor address their infraction with some apology or other gesture of accountability before things can proceed", unquote. How this sometimes plays out is that someone in a position of leadership or importance specifically calls for everyone in a particular group or milieu to be accepting and non-judgmental toward offenders of some type within the group in order to quell criticism, basically, and those with serious concerns are dismissed because they didn't express their pain politely enough. which means not only are the offenders not required to make any changes, the aggrieved are actually expected to be the ones to fall in line and go along to get along. This is a form of groupthink, and usually people say straight up they're trying to stop division, but unless you're some ex-CIA agent from the 1980s, you know that diversity isn't the cause of victimization. Not the cause. Most reasonable people recognize the need to hold people accountable, for example. Tone policing is a version of the disinformation tactic known as DARVO, and it stands for Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim Offender. The end result of this tactic is to silence the victim and delegitimize them in the eyes of allies or onlookers. In a MedPage Today op-ed titled "Who's Really the Victim Here?" from 2022, they report, quote, "In one study, researchers found that targets of DARVO were more likely to blame themselves. Self-blame is associated with self-silencing. In another study, researchers found that observers of Darvo tended to doubt the credibility of the true victim, believing the perpetrator instead." unquote. This confusion is brought on by characterizing protest by a victim as being the problem, as if objecting to an attack is also supposedly an attack. And one metaphor I think of is that it winds up being like as if somebody gets slapped and the slapped person yells out, ouch. The slapped person who yells ouch is then accused of raising their voice and yelling. And then that person gets scolded for being bullying or aggressive. When obviously they were the person who was slapped. It doesn't help that actual psychologists have termed traumatic reactions to abuse as, quote, "reactive abuse", even while according to abuse experts, this label is harmful and dangerous because it ignores the power imbalance. In an article from September 2022, in Insider, a retired licensed professional counselor with 50 years of experience says, quote, "there is nothing mutual about power and control. We call these responses self-defending, when a victim stands up to their abuser and says no more. Anytime you use the word abuse with them, you're actually giving the abuser leverage to work against the victim." unquote None of these bad faith, twisted rationalizations make any sense if you think things through. But clever people prey upon the fact that most people don't want to think things through. Nobody has time for that, and we all can be distracted with any number of diversions. Once the confusion is inserted, then you're subject to what's called the B******t Asymmetry Principle or Brandolini's Law, which asserts, quote, "the amount of energy needed to refute b******t is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it", unquote. Then we come to woke washing. There are many forms of washing. I even found a new one last week on the Fire These Times podcast called Sumoud-Washing. There's pink washing, green washing, but all of these fall under the umbrella of what's called woke washing, basically, which is promoting something harmful as doing something pro-social. It might be also cloaking the harm behind a patina of do-gooding, but there's often more to it than just deceptive advertising or signaling. Woke-washing is a divisive tactic to target the victim or make their claims seem unimportant or out of line. And this is using the reverse victim offender. An example is someone claiming that net zero targets for climate change are a human rights attack on the Global South by withholding their chance to use more fossil fuels and contribute more to the global pollution, I guess? which is completely ignoring the fact that the Global South is already suffering under actual climate change that's already happening. So it just doesn't make sense. The Citations Needed podcast had a recent episode titled How Capital Repackages Substandard Products for the Poor. On this podcast episode, they never mention the terms woke-washing or DARVO, but that's the underlying thing that the topic hinges upon. They're exposing the horrendous justifications and false choices pushed to make it expensive to be poor. The podcast quotes from a Nicholas Kristof article from September of 2000 called "Two Cheers for Sweatshops". And in this article, there's a story of a Cambodian woman who loses both her daughter and son-in-law to malaria because the family couldn't afford more than one mosquito net. And the author argues that sweatshops are good because if there was a sweatshop in this woman's village, maybe she could have afforded more than one mosquito net. Pretty amazing, since even the richy-rich mathy-math Silicon Valley tech set of the TESCREAL AI-fixated longtermists and all of their eugenics ideas and their Effective Altruism, even that lot, even that crowd, backs charity to provide people in the Global South with mosquito nets to prevent malaria. That said, tech hypers reportedly used woke-washing arguments to defend tech products such as WorldCoin, which Paris Marx reports has been deployed in the Global South luring people to orbs with tokens and free t-shirts in order to collect biometric data from people and train the company's computer systems with it. Molly White describes on the Tech Won't Save Us podcast, describing how it's used to silence people who speak out against WorldCoin, accusing critics of, quote, "white American privilege" and claiming that tech is helping people in developing countries. But White says, quote, "But what we've actually seen play out is broadly that they are not helping people. You know, that people who are engaging with these projects in those locations are suffering for it and often being exploited", unquote. And we just can't dismiss all of this as coincidence, that people are just confused and they come up with these bad faith arguments because of weird worldviews, even though that's clearly the case in some cases. They do have weird worldviews sometimes. But it's been documented that it's often deliberate. There has been documented evidence of people hatching plans to deploy the woke-washing tactic on purpose in order to get caring community-minded people to unmask and spread COVID. Patrick Fagan is a psychologist who once worked for Cambridge Analytica and was later linked to anti-vax groups in the UK. We found out this via messages revealed in the HART-leaks. In a chat exchange in 2021 between Tanya Klymenko and Patric Fagan  reported by Counter Disinformation Project in 2022. Tanya Klymenko asked, quote, "So, if the pro-mask are particularly concerned about equality, then they might in theory be susceptible to a message on raising inequality as a direct result of NPI lockdown. Is that a reasonable assumption?" And Patrick Fagan replied, quote, "Yes, exactly. They are wearing the face mask to be fair to others and to reduce harm. If messaging shows that face masks are unfair and harmful, that would be very powerful", unquote. Fairness plays heavily in risk management and PR spin, according to Peter Sandman. In Peter Sandman's 1993 book Responding to Community Outrage, Strategies for Effective Risk Communication, he describes what he calls The Outrage Factor. That outrage is key in people's perceptions of risk. We give more weight to risks that seem unfair, whereas if they seem like voluntary risks, we consider them more fair, natural, or acceptable. And so disinformation purveyors can manipulate people into feeling greater risks are okay because they are chosen while lesser risks or things with no risk are perceived as unfair. It's clear Patrick Fagan is aware of some psychology here and was willing to use it to get people to go counter to public health and altruism. Patrick Fagan also had some weird ideas and wrong ideas but There was no question that he was engaged in planning deliberate manipulation using woke-washing DARVO. And Tanya Klymenko was already equating NPIs, which stands for non-pharmaceutical interventions, as the same as lockdown, which has expanded to include just wearing a mask. This is known as lockdown revisionism and is described in a paper from 2023 by Blake Murdoch and Timothy Caulfield as quote, "lockdown as used in public discourse has expanded to include any public health measure, even if it places little to no restriction on social mobility or interaction. For example, a working literature review and meta-analysis on the effects of lockdown on COVID-19 mortality misleadingly defines lockdowns as, quote, "the imposition of at least one compulsory non-pharmaceutical intervention", unquote. Yes, they consider one simple public health measure as lockdown. This is what leads people to think we're under lockdown because they're asked to wear a mask at the doctor's office. This kind of disinformation leads nowhere good. Though most people who repeat misinformation may be doing so unwittingly, the sources of the disinformation are often doing it as a deliberate maneuver, and the motives can range from mere profiteering to state actors trying to disrupt on a geopolitical scale. And we all know who benefits from not stopping climate change. There's a 2012 paper I found on Accusation in a Mirror by Kenneth L. Marcus published in the Loyola University Chicago Law Journal. And the paper is about the tactic of Accusation in a Mirror being used for the incitement of genocides. And I'm going to read from that because it's important. In the paper, it says, quote, "The basic idea of accusation in a mirror is deceptively simple. Propagandists must impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do. In other words, accusation in a mirror is a rhetorical practice in which one falsely accuses one's enemies of conducting, plotting, or desiring to commit precisely the same transgressions that one plans to commit against them. For example, if one plans to kill one's adversaries by drowning them in a particular river, then one should accuse one's adversaries of plotting precisely the same crime. As a result, one will accuse one's enemies of doing the same thing despite their plans. It is similar to false anticipatory tu quoque. Before one's enemies accuse one truthfully, one accuses them falsely of the same misdeed. This may seem an unlikely means of inciting mass murder, since it would intuitively seem like not only to fail, but also backfire by publicly telegraphing its speaker's malicious intentions at times when the speakers may lack the wherewithal to carry out those schemes. The counter-intuitiveness of this method is best appreciated when one grasps that its injunctions are to be taken literally. There is no hyperbole in the note's directive that the propagandists should impute to enemies exactly what they and their own party are planning to do. The point is not merely to impute inequities that are as bad as the misdeeds that propagandists own party intends. Instead, Accusation in a Mirror is the more audacious idea of charging one's adversary with exactly the misdeeds that the propagandists party intends to commit. But why, out of all of the serious allegations that one might level at one's enemy, should one accuse the adversary of precisely the wrongs that one's own party intends to commit? After all, the risks are apparent. By revealing the propagandists' own intentions, Accusation in a Mirror deprives the propagandists' party of the advantages of speed and surprise and gives the adversary an opportunity to anticipate and prepare. At the same time, this method provides independent observers and subsequent judicial tribunals with evidence of intent. Moreover, Accusation in a Mirror is not based on any evaluation of what misdeeds are most plausibly ascribed to the enemy, such as those that are based on traditional stereotypes, defamations, or actual culpability, since it relies instead on the plans of the propagandist's party. Despite its counterintuitive nature, Accusation in a Mirror has proven to be one of the central mechanisms by which the genocidaires publicly and directly incite genocide, in part because it turns out to be quite effective. Once Accusation in a Mirror's structure and functions are understood, its pervasive and efficacious presence can be discerned not only in mass murder, but also in a host of lesser persecutions. These qualities can make Accusation in a Mirror an indispensable tool for identifying and prosecuting incitement. The Genocide Convention criminalizes direct and public incitement to commit genocide regardless of whether actual genocide occurs." Unquote. Clearly, one of the main things to consider about disinformation is that it just doesn't have to make sense to work. Because it all relies on people being on autopilot and not thinking things through and not paying attention. We're all so busy. It was described in PBS series Hacking Your Mind. Most of our lives are spent on autopilot and not engaging in critical thinking. And all this seems to be connected to Bandura's theory of the mechanisms of moral disengagement. And those mechanisms include portraying wrongdoing as serving a higher social cause, exonerative comparison where wrongs are compared to even more heinous acts to minimize the harms, displacement of responsibility by blaming other groups, and actually blaming the victim of one's action for causing the harm inflicted upon them. In 2022, I did a crowdsourcing of how these methods of moral disengagement have played out in the pandemic, and I posted it on my substack with the title Moral Sabotage and Community Care Disengaged. I'd like it if we could re-engage morality. That would be nice, wouldn't it? We need to crowdsource ideas for that. I do recommend perusing the paper where I found that moral disengagement table. It's in the white volume, July 2012, National Security Challenges, Insights from Social, Neurobiological and Complexity Sciences. I think a review of the authors and the people whose work is cited in that piece might prove very interesting to some people listening right now. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes & transcript: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/public-comments-to-cdc-hicpacWriting Letters to Elected Representatives, a guide. Letters to politicians are some of the easiest and most effective actions many neglect. CHLOE HUMBERT - JAN 24, 2023Write to the elected representatives that represent you. These are the elected officials that are on the ballot for your district. Don’t waste time writing to elected representatives in other states or in other places. Politicians care about their own constituents — people who are eligible to potentially vote for them, and who they are elected to represent. Representatives disregard contact attempts from people who are not in their district. Writing to government agencies, outside their prescribed application or public comment processes, is also not typically helpful. Writing anonymous letters or posting anonymous comments on social media are also generally not effective. Representatives care about what their actual verifiable constituents care about.Indivisible Guide: How Your Member of Congress Thinks, and How to Use That to Save DemocracyThis constant reelection pressure means that MoCs are enormously sensitive to their image in the district or state, and they will work very hard to avoid signs of public dissent or disapproval.Tell Congress: CDC Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee (HICPAC) needs public oversight.There is a dangerous new government policy being proposed which could harm healthcare workers and patients across the country. Instead of strengthening infection control policies in healthcare settings to protect workers and patients from infectious diseases, the CDC is planning future guidance which could lower healthcare infection control standards.CDC HICPAC (Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee)HICPAC meets up to 8 times a year at CDC in Atlanta, Georgia. Meetings are open to the public and time for public comments is allotted on the agenda. See the Meeting Information page for planed meeting dates and registration information.Liv Grace Public Comment at the CDC HICPAC Meeting - Aug. 22, 2023Annals of Internal Medicine - Ideas and Opinions June 2023 Universal Masking in Health Care Settings: A Pandemic Strategy Whose Time Has Come and Gone, For Now - FREE - Erica S. Shenoy, MD, PhD, Hilary M. Babcock, MD, MPH, Karen B. Brust, MD, Michael S. Calderwood, MD, MPH, Shira Doron, MD, Anurag N. Malani, MD, Sharon B. Wright, MD, MPH, and Westyn Branch-Elliman, MD, MMSc Maintaining masking requirements for HCP during all direct clinical encounters may marginally reduce the risk for transmission from HCP to patient or from patient to HCP. Those potential incremental benefits, however, need to be weighed against increasingly recognized costs. Masking impedes communication, a barrier that is distributed unequally across patient populations, such as those for whom English is not their preferred language and those who are hard-of-hearing and rely on lip reading and other nonverbal cues.Teams Human - Anti-mask Woke-washing. The moral distortion of social justice. CHLOE HUMBERT - AUG 31, 2023This woke-washing tactic is being used to promote anti-mask arguments and gin up opposition to N95 use in healthcare settings. Erica Shenoy might just be vain and maybe wants people to see her face, but she claimed in an Annals of Internal Medicine op-ed that dropping masking for infection control in healthcare is needed so that patients would be able to lip read - the innuendo being that masking is somehow discriminatory toward the hard of hearing. This is astonishingly foolish woke-washing since lip reading only has a 30% to 40% accuracy rate. Even trained professional lip readers only attain perhaps 60% accuracy. Doctors should surely never depend on lip reading for receiving critical medical advice with such a large potential for miscommunication.National Deaf Children's Society - Lip Reading Lip-reading on its own isn’t enough. It is estimated that only 30% to 40% of speech sounds can be lip-read even under the best conditions and extra information is usually required to understand what is being said. So while it can be an important skill for children with a hearing loss to have, relying on lip-reading alone will not be enough for your child to develop good communication skills.BBC News - AI that lip-reads 'better than humans' - Published - 8 November 2016 Lip-reading is a notoriously tricky business with professionals only able to decipher what someone is saying up to 60% of the time. "Machine lip-readers have enormous potential, with applications in improved hearing aids, silent dictation in public spaces, covert conversations, speech recognition in noisy environments, biometric identification and silent-movie processing," wrote the researchers.Erica Shenoy can “read my lips” — I don’t want to risk my health & family to see her face unmasked in person by Chloe Humbert - Apr 24 2023I’m not feeling isolated, Erica. I don’t pine longingly to see my doctor’s lips because I’m not a weirdo. I have my own family and so does my doctor. I have neighbors and friends and hobbies, and a life to live. And I’d like to continue with all that by avoiding viruses disrupting my life on top of whatever else I need to see the doctor about. My doctor and I don’t need to stare at each other’s unmasked faces in the exam room. I go there for healthcare. And most of us certainly don’t want to get covid if already in a state to need the hospital. It’s obviously bad to add covid on top of another condition — you’d think a doctor would know about comorbidities, or has heard of the often repeated “underlying conditions” reference, or as the CDC describes it, People with Certain Medical Conditions who are at higher risk of covid complications.IAMAT (International Association for Medical Assistance to Travellers) - How to choose a good mosquito netIf you’re travelling to a malaria-endemic area, a mosquito net should be on your list of essential travel supplies. Malaria is transmitted by the female Anopheles mosquito that bites humans from dusk to dawn. The Anopheles mosquito is stealthy and silent. They don’t buzz so you can’t hear them approaching. This means you are a prime target when you are most vulnerable — asleep. Bed nets are a key defence against malaria, but they also offer protection from other diseases such as filariasis (known for massive swelling of the limbs) and other insects and arachnids like ticks, beetles, flies, and spiders. Remember that in malarious areas, insecticide-treated mosquito nets are required in bedrooms without tightly-fitting window screens or broken screens Bed nets are not required in buildings with sealed windows and central air conditioning.Teams Human - APHA: portal to a public health bizarro world hellscape. The American Public Health Association steps through a hellish mirror and recklessly abandons even centuries proven public health practices. By CHLOE HUMBERT. AUG 20, 2022Signing a covid waiver for legal liability is required for attending “packed to the brim” APHA event. “Packed to the brim” seems like a peculiar choice of words for what they know is going to be rife with the spread of infectious disease. And we know that they know the virus will spread there, not because they are public health experts, but because they spell it out in the legal covid waiver that attendees must agree to, as shown by @danaludwig. It stipulates attendees “risk exposure to and contraction of potentially dangerous diseases and viruses” and that “APHA makes no representations that it has taken any safety precautions that relate to infectious diseases or exposure.”Risk and Insurance - Event Cancellation Debacles Will Have Insurers Reframing Coverage Terms for Years to Come. The future of event cancellation insurance will be determined by the far-reaching impacts of COVID-19. By: Taylor Graciano and Tim Query | October 20, 2022  Many insurers have implemented changes in response to the pandemic. These have included price increases, new exclusions and other risk reduction measures. Further, insurers classified the COVID pandemic as a “known event” in January 2020. This classification is assigned after an unexpected or unforeseen event occurs, and it removes future coverage in many instances.Twitter at archive.org -  8:19 PM - 16 Jun 2022I went to a doctor's office today (wearing N95 like about half of the other patients) and none of the medical staff were wearing any masks at all. The staff required each patient to sign this waiver acknowledging how dangerous Covid-19 is, and how they might infect us! Nicolas Smit on LinkedIn and social media site formerly known as Twitter.Teams Human Aerosol transmission & respirator masks, a PPE timeline. They knew: the CDC is well aware of aerosol transmission and the ways to protect people from infectious disease using respirator masks and the precautionary principle. CHLOE HUMBERT - AUG 22, 20232019 Novel Coronavirus, Wuhan, China - Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Patients with Known or Patients Under Investigation for 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in a Healthcare SettingHCP [Health Care Personnel] entering the AIIR [Airborne infection isolation room] soon after a patient vacates the room should use respiratory protection. (See personal protective equipment section below) Standard practice for pathogens spread by the airborne route (e.g., measles, tuberculosis) is to restrict unprotected individuals, including HCP, from entering a vacated room until sufficient time has elapsed for enough air changes to remove potentially infectious particles (more information on clearance rates under differing ventilation conditions is available). We do not yet know how long 2019-nCoV remains infectious in the air. In the interim, it is reasonable to apply a similar time period before entering the room without respiratory protection as used for pathogens spread by the airborne route (e.g., measles, tuberculosis). In addition, the room should undergo appropriate cleaning and surface disinfection before it is returned to routine use.Use respiratory protection (i.e., a respirator) that is at least as protective as a fit-tested NIOSH-certified disposable N95 filtering facepiece respirator before entry into the patient room or care area. See appendix for respirator definition.New Jersey Department of Health - Update and Interim Guidance on Infection Prevention and Control for 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019‐nCoV) Date: January 30, 2020(6) CDC has issued the document, Interim Infection Prevention and Control Recommendations for Patients with Known or Patients Under Investigation for 2019 Novel Coronavirus (2019‐ nCoV) in a Healthcare Setting (Attachment A), in an effort to prevent the spread of infection during healthcare delivery.  This guidance is not intended for non‐healthcare settings (e.g., schools) OR to persons outside of healthcare settings.(7) This guidance is based on the currently limited information available about 2019‐nCoV related to disease severity, transmission efficiency, and shedding duration. This cautious approach will be refined and updated as more information becomes available and as response needs change in the United States.(8) The CDC has also provided two checklists: Hospital Preparedness Checklist (Attachment B) and Healthcare Providers Preparedness Checklist (Attachment C). These are available to aid healthcare facilities in preparing to receive and evaluate potential cases or persons under investigation (PUIs)s for 2019‐nCoV.HICPAC Meeting Transcript, March 5, 2020 - DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion (DHQP) Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee March 5, 2020 Atlanta, GeorgiaThat is focused on two things. One, we do not know the extent of contribution that environmental virus might pose. And so the glove and gown use is with an eye towards ensuring that we don't accidentally transmit infection that way. Eye protection is something that we, I think, culturally for a generation or more, have been lax about. I think that's, frankly unacceptable in routine times, given that influenza spreads wildly across our community every year. And so this, as well as for routine practices, is an opportunity to firm up our use of eye protection. It's not about there being necessarily target epitopes in the conjunctiva. It's the fact that our eyes drain into the back of our throats and if you're trying to keep respiratory viruses out of your throat, then protecting your eyes makes sense. Nose and mouth, similarly, need to be protected. We use respirators in this context because of the very likely possibility of a contribution of near range inhalation. This is something we've talked about with every concerning respiratory infection over the past 20 years. And that is the idea that when we cough or breathe, we generate a range of particle sizes. Some of them are big and splashy and can land directly on us. But if you're not within line of sight or ballistic range - but within about six feet - it's conceivable that somebody can be generating small particles with infectious material in them, that could drift in and be breathed and entrained in what you're inhaling. For that reason, a surgical mask that's a nice barrier against ballistic impact, isn't as good of a device. The fact that there's a half-inch gap on either side of your face really doesn't protect against inhalation. And so that's why we recommend respiratory protection. There is - there's always discussion of the available published evidence and ongoing generation remedies, that question what is the relative benefit of a mask versus a  respirator. And I think the jury is still out. It seems to be fairly close, when we've compared respiratory infections across the board. But then again, there's always a question of adherence. And what we see is that people are much more likely to adhere correctly to surgical mask use than to respirator use. So that behavioral component is a bit of a question mark. We also are hearing early information about public issues that are upcoming that might show a lean towards maybe a little bit more protection with a respirator. So, I think we as a profession will continue to have to navigate that grey zone. But for the time being, that is the recommendation that we made during the containment phase.Guidance on Preparing Workplaces for COVID-19 OSHA 3990-03 2020Engineering ControlsEngineering controls involve isolating employees from work related hazards. In workplaces where they are appropriate, these types of controls reduce exposure to hazards without relying on worker behavior and can be the most cost-effective solution to implement. Engineering controls for SARS-CoV-2 include:* Installing high-efficiency air filters.* Increasing ventilation rates in the work environment.* Installing physical barriers, such as clear plastic sneeze guards.* Installing a drive-through window for customer service.Specialized negative pressure ventilation in some settings, such as for aerosol generating procedures (e.g., airborne infection isolation rooms in healthcare settings and specialized autopsy suites in mortuary settings).Administrative ControlsAdministrative controls require action by the worker or employer. Typically, administrative controls are changes in work policy or procedures to reduce or minimize exposure to a hazard. Examples of administrative controls for SARS-CoV-2 include:* Encouraging sick workers to stay at home.* Minimizing contact among workers, clients, and customers by replacing face-to-face meetings with virtual communications and implementing telework if feasible.* Establishing alternating days or extra shifts that reduce the total number of employees in a facility at a given time, allowing them to maintain distance from one another while maintaining a full onsite work week.CDC Advisory Group Under Fire for Proposed Infection Control Guidelines — Nurse union, occupational health experts, patients say weaker guidelines help only employers. by Sophie Putka, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today August 24, 2023. Last Updated August 25, 2023  Opponents have said the changes, detailed in a presentation in June, are based on a flawed evidence review and omit key infection control tools. Some have called attention to a CDC approval process that they say is sometimes inscrutable to the public.Public comments at the CDC HICPAC Meeting on June 8th 2023, Health Watch USA Nathanael Nerode: “Loeb 2022 has been debunked multiple times and I have emailed the debunkings to you. And in addition Loeb failed to disclose a conflict of interest. Loeb was personally responsible for preventing Canadian nurses from getting access to KN95 masks which may well have injured and killed them. He did not disclose this conflict of interest; this makes all of his work suspect. In addition many of these studies listed there, including Loeb 2022 contained protocols that assumed the droplet dynamic which is now discredited and known to be false.”Dr David Michaels, Epidemiologist, longest serving OSHA head, 2009 to 2017, testifying at the OSHA hearing on April 28, 2022“OSHA has a statutory responsibility, statutory requirement to have an open and transparent process like we are having today to just determine what the standard should be. CDC is a black box. We have no idea how these recommendations are determined. Unfortunately, until there are, there are Freedom of Information Act requests or Congressional inquiries. So given all those things, it's really incumbent upon OSHA to develop standards, and to say these are the standards that every employer covered by the standard must follow.”AP News - Hospitals still ration medical N95 masks as stockpiles swell. By JASON DEAREN, JULIET LINDERMAN and MARTHA MENDOZA. February 16, 2021Internal government emails obtained by The Associated Press show there were deliberate decisions to withhold vital information about new mask manufacturers and availability. Exclusive trade data and interviews with manufacturers, hospital procurement officials and frontline medical workers reveal a communication breakdown — not an actual shortage — that is depriving doctors, nurses, paramedics and other people risking exposure to COVID-19 of first-rate protection. Before the pandemic, medical providers followed manufacturer and government guidelines that called for N95s to be discarded after each use, largely to protect doctors and nurses from catching infectious diseases themselves. As N95s ran short, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention modified those guidelines to allow for extended use and reuse only if supplies are “depleted,” a term left undefined. Hospitals have responded in a variety of ways, the AP has found. Some are back to pre-COVID-19, one-use-per-patient N95 protocols, but most are doling out one mask a day or fewer to each employee. Many hospital procurement officers say they are relying on CDC guidelines for depleted supplies, even if their own stockpiles are robust.Elite Panic. Big shots have different goals than the rest of us. Politicians should be representatives, businesses shouldn’t lead, even billionaires can’t seem to buy common sense, and tech won’t save us. CHLOE HUMBERT. JUL 13, 2023Commentary: Elite Panic vs. the Resilient Populace by James B. Meigs, MAY 2020“Too often, the need to “avoid panic” serves as a retroactive justification for all manner of official missteps.”Don't Wait For Everybody - Episode 002 - AUG 25 • Dear Public Officials: Stop falling for the myth of an irrational incompetent panicked publicCMD - How The Koch Network Hijacked The War On Covid By Walker Bragman and Alex Kotch | December 22nd, 2021  But the decline of in-person shopping and work, combined with factory shutdowns in places like China, disrupted the economy. A 2020 report from the corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Co. found the hardest-hit industries would take years to recover.  One sector in particular that took a big hit was the fossil fuel industry. Oil demand fell sharply in 2020, placing the global economy on uncertain footing. Before long, business-aligned groups — particularly those connected to fossil fuels — began targeting the public health measures threatening their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world. The war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020, when Americans For Prosperity (AFP), the right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, issued a press release calling on states to remain open. National Nurses United - A CDC committee wants to WEAKEN infection control guidance. Here is what’s at risk for nurses and patients.And Voila, An Anti-Mask Twitter Rando by Chloe Humbert on Medium, Apr 7 2023 I came across a particularly aggressive anti-mask account on twitter in early 2021. He made a ridiculous capitalist fever dream argument to justify duping people into unmasking and getting sick, and maybe dying, for business interests. It seemed so blatantly ridiculous. Tweet from @reubenR80027912 dated 1019 am May 7, 2021 says Main Street is Very simple. Do 3 things PSA campaigns that you won’t die if vaxxed. Remind people kids aren’t a risk. Remove masks everywhere so people don’t constantly live in fear. Voila. Roaring economy. Spending is about freedom from fear. Quote-tweet from same account on February 22, 2021 says There’s something to the Mad Men pilot and covid. Telling people they’re more likely to die in a car accident than covid doesn’t matter. Nor do vax stats. Happiness is freedom from fear, a billboard that screams whatever you’re doing is ok @ DKThompTeams Human - The Economy demands full participation, herd debt paid on an altar of lies. “Public health” is operating, but with the wrong information and the wrong solutions to solve the wrong problems, because those calling the shots have the wrong goals. CHLOE HUMBERT DEC 23, 2022The upside down call is coming from inside the house. And if the CDC pretty much just sanctions punitive measures against students to prevent masking in school, and disseminates anti-science nonsense immunity comments, how can we trust they won’t start pushing that we all need to breathe dirty air too? I don’t know what’s going on at the CDC, but I’m starting to wonder if there’s an awful lot of people who burrowed in from the Trump administration, because they all sound the same as the people in 2020 who said the elders should sacrifice themselves on the altar of The Economy - that people should just get back to work as the virus spread.MarketWatch - People are ‘long social distancing’ due to COVID-19. Economists say that’s contributing to a drop in labor-force participation. By Zoe Han, December 2022Knowing that COVID-19 has not gone away, some people are not yet prepared to let their guard down, according to a working paper distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research. Some 13% of U.S. workers said they will continue social distancing as the economy opens up and cases fall, and another 45% said they will do so in limited ways. Only 42% said they plan a “complete return” to the activities they participated in before the pandemic.Project 2025 PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION PROJECT Mandate for Leadership The Conservative Promise 2023 by The Heritage FoundationCOVID-19 Vaccination and Mask Requirements. Health care workers were praised for their self-sacrifice in caring for sick patients at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, but then they were fired if they objected to receiving COVID- 19 vaccines with or without complying with onerous masking requirements and regardless of whether they already had the virus and had gained natural immunity. With the disease being endemic and constantly mutating, vaccines and universal masking in health care facilities do not have appreciable benefits in reducing COVID-19 transmission throughout the community. Moreover, more recent COVID strains pose fewer health risks than the earlier strains, and the pandemic has been declared to be at an end. CMS should:* - Announce nonenforcement of the Biden Administration’s COVID-19 vaccination mandate on Medicaid and Medicare hospitals.* - Revoke corresponding guidance and regulations.* - Refrain from imposing general COVID-19 mask mandates on health care facilities or personnel.* -Pay damages to all medical professionals who were dismissed directly because of the CMS vaccine mandate.CDC Advisory Group Under Fire for Proposed Infection Control Guidelines — Nurse union, occupational health experts, patients say weaker guidelines help only employers. by Sophie Putka, Enterprise & Investigative Writer, MedPage Today August 24, 2023. Last Updated August 25, 2023  COMMENT ON MEDPAGE TODAY: With guidelines like that it just sounds as though CDC is attempting to ensure its own future existence (due to all the distrust and the post-pandemic public outcries for its dismantle/demise or at the very least a complete overhaul) by creating conditions absolutely ripe for starting as many potential epidemics as it possibly can, starting from within the hospital setting where it can spread easily into the community, thus going into the business of population reduction/control instead of infection control.World Health Network has published additional oral public comments on Youtube.My CDC HICPAC written comment, August 2023My name is Chloe Humbert. I don't want to be forced into exposure to multiple infections when I need to seek healthcare. I almost died from infection twice in my life because of inadequate investment in healthcare in 2 different countries. If we are to be forced into preventable exposure to covid and other diseases in healthcare settings, against our will, the goal of this forced infection needs to be spelled out, along with clearly stating the known consequences so the American people can say whether we want to bear those consequences. You can’t just rip away the freedom of individuals to protect ourselves from disease, and not have a clearly articulated reason, because the masks off, let it rip plan sounds an awful lot like the “natural herd immunity” garbage we heard in 2020 and the American people said no to that already.  There are other names for this ideology and it’s a pseudoscience that patriots like my father, my uncle, and my step-father, all fought in a war to protect us from 80 years ago. Do not make guidelines that give cover for genocidal negligence in our hospitals and nursing homes. People in healthcare settings need to wash their hands and put on a mask and have air quality engineering controls to prevent disease spread in healthcare.  Universal masking and broad use of N95 respirators in healthcare and essential spaces is a simple and valuable investment to save lives and that’s what I think we should do as a civilization.Transcript:​​I'm Chloe Humbert and I'm not waiting for everybody. And you don't have to either. It's not worth pestering civil servants or government agencies to try to change the rules because they can't. uh somebody down at your local welfare office somebody at the health department they're there to provide uh stuff but they're not capable of changing the rules because somebody calls up and says hey that doesn't make sense or hey that's not fair that's not how it works uh they take orders from above and they have to abide by the laws and the policies set forth by your lawmakers, by the governors, by the president, by Congress, by your state legislators. So going to a public employee is not going to yield results and people get frustrated with this. So there are a couple exceptions to this and it's very specific. When there's an application that you can, if you, there's a form you can fill out that can do something. If you're reporting a spotted lanternfly in Pennsylvania, there's a public form where you upload the picture of it, you tell where the spotted lanternfly is. But otherwise, just sending, like, angry anonymous emails to the CDC or the FDA is just not going anywhere. That's just not... And tweeting at these agencies is even less effective. Or whatever it's called now. Sorry, Twitter.com, X, Twitter, whatever. When you do that, there's no... You're not attached to anything. When you write to your elected representatives, You're putting your address on there. They know you're a constituent. Your congressperson knows that you're in their district. And they're very sensitive to that. But some civil servant working, just doing a job, they just aren't going to be able to do anything about what you're upset about. They can't change the rules. Those come from, again, laws, policies that are decided by elected representatives or within the agencies, there are committees, but that is where we come to the public comment process. So this is not all the time, but when an agency is doing something to make changes or make a new guideline, They put out information about it and then they have a process that you can submit comments. Sometimes there's a public meeting and you can register to give oral comments. Sometimes it just calls attention to the issues and puts pressure on these agencies to know that people are involved and engaged. And it can make a difference. I would recommend also writing your elected representatives about any of the issues that you make comments on so that to let them know where you stand and what you think needs to happen at these agencies because there are committees, for example, in the Senate or Congress who oversee these agencies. The CDC recently had their HICPAC meeting. HICPAC stands for Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee. Now this is the committee who makes the guidelines that the CDC puts out for healthcare infection control practices. So that would be things like stopping the spread of MRSA or COVID or any of those things that spread in health care and the ways to stop them. So we're talking masks, gloves, hand washing, disinfection. Strangely, the recent HICPAC meeting barely touched upon COVID, which is amazing because people are getting COVID in the hospital and it apparently has you know much more devastating effects because of course by the very reason that you're in the hospital means that you have other conditions so this is a problem first of all second they did accept public oral comments but they limited the time so there were a lot of people who signed up to give public comments and didn't get a chance to comment, including myself. I was at the meeting ready to give my public comment and I was not chosen. I'm going to play the public comment of Liv Grace and I think more people need to hear this.Liv Grace is now your turn for public comment. My name is Liv Grace. I'm 36 and physically disabled as well as chronically ill. I have a number of autoimmune diseases, including lupus, and I already live with many of the conditions associated with long COVID such as POTS, lung disease, and kidney disease. Additionally, I'm immunodeficient on top of the immunosuppression for my lupus medication. I'm also a cancer survivor. People often comment that I live with so much illness and they say how hard that must be, but what is many times more difficult is being unable to safely access medical care. Last December, I caught RSV from my infusion center because my nurse, who knew she had been exposed to RSV, refused to wear an N95. That turned into pneumonia. Two weeks after recovering and returning to my infusions, I caught COVID there, just a few days before my birthday in February, after two months of recovery time from pneumonia. I then caught COVID a second time, while getting necessary post-COVID blood work in April, barely after covering from February's infection. One way N95 masking is not enough for me. I have not gotten medical care since April because of the reality that I will get sick again as long as medical providers refuse to practice respiratory hygiene. I attempted many times to implement ADA accommodations that would allow me to wait in my car rather than the waiting rooms and would require medical staff to wear an N95 while treating me. Over and over again, medical establishments refused. My appeals were rejected. I was told that it was impossible to accommodate my needs as a high-risk, severely immunocompromised person. I am still recovering from back-to-back COVID. I now suffer from increased kidney issues and new heart issues. I had to start taking a blood thinner and a statin to reduce my risk for a catastrophic cardiovascular event. Without medical care, my health will deteriorate to the point of needing hospitalization, where I will have even more exposure to unmasked staff. This is a catch-22. Either access care and catch COVID and other dangerous to me infections to the point of further endangering my life, or do not get care at all and endanger my life. The evidence review on N95 respirator and surgical mask effectiveness was flawed and must be redone with input from scientific researchers and experts in respiratory protection, aerosol science, and occupational health. This is eugenics. I'm Jewish and I see the writing on the wall, the history of not only the Holocaust, but many genocides, including the ongoing genocide of indigenous people target disabled people first. I am literally begging for something to be done. Thank you.What are we doing? We have patients who need to give public comment at a CDC meeting, pleading with the CDC to advise their doctors not to give their patients COVID. What are we doing? Patients should not have to beg the CDC to advise doctors and hospitals not to force COVID on their patients. Erica Shenoy is on the HICPAC committee and this is a person who claimed in an op-ed in the Annals of Internal Medicine that dropping masks for infection control and health care is needed so that patients would be able to lip read. The innuendo being that masking is somehow discriminatory toward the hard of hearing. This isn't astonishingly foolish woke-washing because lip reading only has a 30-40% accuracy rate. Even trained professional lip readers only attain maybe 60% accuracy according to what I've been reading. Doctors should never depend on lip reading for critical medical advice. There's a 40 to 70 percent chance of failure to accurately communicate. That's not good odds. And this argument in the op-ed seriously suggests facial expressions for non-English speakers too. So this just sounds like it's all to let the hospitals off the hook for both for providing masks to health care workers, and also to get out of providing interpreters apparently. Just it doesn't make sense. And Shenoy's article also has this weird graphic that is supposed to demonstrate somehow the process of making COVID endemic where infection control is just abandoned because the supply chain situation is semi functional. So like if the supply chain economics is not completely broken down, then there's no reason for infection control anymore I guess is the takeaway here. They frame it as a process to endemic phase and phasing out all infection control which doesn’t make any sense. And it’s shocking that somebody who’s supposedly knowledgeable about infectious disease would even suggest this and that they wouldn't understand that when a disease is endemic, it means permanent infection controls. Where malaria is endemic, they don't stop using mosquito nets. Mosquito nets are mandated in hotels there. Where mosquitos carry disease you want to keep doing things to mitigate that? This should be obvious. I don't know where this goes to where you abandon. No. There’s whole organizations that fund mosquito nets for regions with endemic malaria. So endemic does not mean that you just say oh forget it now the supply chain is ok so who cares about human lives right. No. Does not make sense.  And I saw online on social media somebody had posted a COVID waiver. Now I've seen these posted, you know, about concerts or conventions where you basically, you know, sign it and you agree to get COVID there because they know it's going to spread. So they want to take away your legal claims to any damages. This person posted a you agree to get COVID waiver. at the doctor's office. He said, and I quote, I went to the doctor's office today wearing an N95 like about half of the other patients and none of the medical staff were wearing any masks at all. The staff required each patient to sign this waiver acknowledging how dangerous COVID-19 is and how they might infect us. This person posted a picture of the text from the COVID waiver he signed and it said, By signing this agreement, I acknowledge the contagious nature of COVID-19 and voluntarily assume the risk that I may be exposed to or infected by COVID-19 by visiting the clinic and that such exposure or infection may result in personal injury, illness, permanent disability and death. I understand that the risk of becoming exposed to or infected by COVID-19 at the clinic may result from the actions, omissions, or negligence of myself and others including, but not limited to, staff, employees, the physician, representatives, or other patients visiting the clinic. I voluntarily agree to assume all the foregoing risk and accept sole responsibility for any injury to myself, including but not limited to personal injury, disability, and death, illness, damage, loss, claim, liability, or expense of any kind that I may experience or incur in connection with my visit to the clinic. On my behalf, I hereby release covenant not to sue, discharge, and hold harmless the clinic, its staff, employees, physicians, representatives, patient, or anyone visiting the clinic of and from the claims, including all liabilities, claims, actions, damages, costs, or expenses of any kind arising out of or relating thereto. I understand and agree that this release includes any claims based on the actions, omissions, or negligence of the clinic, its employees, physicians, representatives, patients, or anyone visiting the clinic, whether a COVID-19 infection occurs before, during, or after my clinic visit. So this is what health care providers want you to agree to. They want to forcibly give you COVID and then not have any responsibility for the consequences. I don't know what healthcare is for anymore other than to make money I guess because this flies in the face of any reason you would have a healthcare system. If you don’t care about making people sick, why would you even bother having a healthcare system. If you don’t. Why would you become a doctor if you like want to make people sick? Why would you have a healthcare system if the point isn’t to stop sickness?  I don't know. But this is where we are. And clearly regulation is needed to stop these people from infecting everybody on purpose. It's really disheartening to think that we're told we're supposed to be OK with, you know, just getting sick a lot, even if it's not serious, because, you know, just being sick at all is not great. And you shouldn't be getting sick by going to the doctor. That shouldn't be a thing. One concept I see mentioned and bandied about is this idea that CDC doesn't know about airborne transmission of COVID, or that the CDC is stuck in droplet dogma. And that is, seems to be the case. But because if they're saying surgical masks are appropriate for COVID wards, that's, that's just not okay, if that's what they're planning on doing, which apparently floated at a former HICPAC meeting. So Nicholas Smit is in the elastomeric mask industry and he was lobbying for them to acknowledge elastomerics for quite some time and I found his research shows that the CDC knew back in 2020 that there was aerosol transmission happening. And they didn't get it wrong. They they knew this because they issued this information in January of 2020. In January 2020, the CDC put out guidance for the 2019 novel coronavirus. And this was January of 2020. And the New Jersey Department of Health also referred to this guidance at the time. And in it, It says, quote, healthcare personnel entering the airborne infection isolation room soon after a patient vacates the room should use respiratory protection. Standard practice for pathogens spread by the airborne route is to restrict unprotected individuals, including healthcare personnel, from entering a vacated room until sufficient time has elapsed for the air exchanges to remove potentially infectious particles. We do not yet know how long 2019-n-cov remains infectious in the air. In the interim, it is reasonable to apply a similar time period before entering the room without respiratory protection as used for pathogens spread by the airborne route, example measles tuberculosis. In addition, the room should undergo appropriate cleaning. This can't be clearer. They also say in this publication, use respiratory protection that is at least as protective as a fit-tested NIOSH certified disposable N95 filtering facepiece respirator before entry into the patient room or care area. So that six foot droplet stuff came about later. That was something that was added on. They knew. They knew about airborne precautions and also the precautionary principle. And in March 2020 at a HICPAC meeting, this is a quote from that. A surgical mask that's a nice barrier against ballistic impact isn't as good of a device. The fact that there's a half inch gap on either side of your face really doesn't protect against inhalation. And so that's why we recommend respiratory protection. So that's the quote. In March 2020, OSHA also put out guidance on preparing workplaces for COVID-19 and they included engineering controls, installation of high efficiency air filters, increasing ventilation rates in the work environment, installing physical barriers such as sneeze guards, installing a drive-thru window for customer service, encouraging sick workers to stay home, An article in MedPage Today says CDC advisory group under fire for proposed infection control guidelines. Nurse union, occupational health experts, patients, say weaker guidelines help only the employers. By Sophia Putka, August 24th, 2023. This says, quote, opponents have said the changes detailed in a presentation in June are based on a flawed evidence review and omit key infection control tools. Some have called attention to a CDC approval process that they say is sometimes inscrutable to the public. And this is true. Or as Dr. David Michaels, former OSHA head said, the CDC is like a black box. Dr. David Michaels, epidemiologist and the longest-serving OSHA head from 2009 to 2017, testified at the OSHA hearing on April 28, 2022.Beyond that, of course, we have this problem that they've really clung to this, what we call the droplet dogma that clearly has been shown to be incorrect, certainly by the research by several of the people on this panel who've done remarkable work as you heard from Dr. Prather and Dr. Milton in particular. Look, it's disappointing. I think the whole country is disappointed. But um, you know, you need employers need to know exactly what to do, or how to at least process the challenge that they face to protect workers. And OSHA standards tell employers how to do that. They say this is what we expect you to do. We expect you to develop a plan, the plan has to take your situation into account, but also has to ensure that you're looking at the hierarchy of controls, you're thinking about engineering controls first, all of those things are missing from CDC recommendations. And finally, I think I talked about this in my testimony, OSHA has a statutory responsibility, statutory requirement to have an open and transparent process like we are having today to to determine what the standard should be. CDC is a black box. We have no idea how these recommendations are determined. Unfortunately, until there are Freedom of Information Act requests or congressional inquiries. So given all those things, it's really incumbent upon OSHA to develop standards and to say these are the standards that every employer covered by the standard must follow. Thank you, Dr. Michaels.In February 2021, there was an AP News article that with the headline, hospitals still ration medical N95 masks as stockpiles swell. And I'm going to quote, internal government emails attained by the Associated Press show that there were deliberate decisions to withhold vital information about new mask manufacturers and availability. Exclusive trade data and interviews with manufacturers, hospital procurement officials, and frontline medical workers reveal a communication breakdown, not an actual shortage. That is depriving doctors, nurses, paramedics, and other people risking exposure to COVID-19 of first-rate protection. Before the pandemic, medical providers followed manufacturer and government guidelines that called for N95s to be discarded after each use largely to protect doctors and nurses from catching infectious diseases themselves. As N95s ran short, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention modified those guidelines to allow for extended use and reuse only if supplies are depleted, a term left undefined. Hospitals have responded in a variety of ways, the AP has found. Some are back to pre-COVID-19, one use per patient N95 protocols, but most are doling out one mask a day or fewer to each employee. Many hospital procurement officers say they are relying on CDC guidelines for depleted supplies, even if their own stockpiles are robust. The CDC knew about aerosol transmission. They had put out guidance for respirator N95s and elastomeric respirators in September of 2017. What seems to have happened is that the minute there was business pressure, all of these really good pandemic plans and pandemic measures and recommendations, that all got thrown out the minute there was any business pressure. It was basically, go back to normal. Get into the economy. Everybody get back out there. Spending. Going to restaurants. We have to all sacrifice ourselves on the altar of The Economy as a false god. And.  That's what precipitated all this. It wasn't that people didn't know what to do. It wasn't that we had public health people who didn't understand what needed to be done. It wasn't that nobody understood how COVID spread. Everybody knew this. There was substantial pressure to not do those things. Just not do them. And that led to what we're seeing is that Then they have to work backwards and reverse engineer it and say, oh, we just didn't know. And it reminds me of the elite panic. We're always back to elite panic, aren't we? We always come back to elite panic. The reporter Walker Bragman and Alex Koch had done extensive research on the funding and what was going on behind the scenes there and this is a quote from their article How the Koch Network Hijacked the War on COVID from December of 2021. Quote, The decline in in-person shopping and work combined with factory shutdowns in places like China disrupted the economy. A 2020 report from the corporate consulting firm McKinsey & Company found the hardest hit industries would take years to recover. One sector in particular that took a big hit was the fossil fuel industry. Oil demand fell sharply in 2020. Placing the global economy on uncertain footing. Before long, business-aligned groups, particularly those connected to fossil fuels, begin targeting the public health measures threatening their bottom lines. Chief among them were groups tied to billionaire Charles Koch, owner of Koch Industries, the largest privately held fossil fuel company in the world. The war on public health measures began on March 20, 2020, with Americans for Prosperity, the right-wing nonprofit founded by Charles and David Koch, issued a press release calling on states to remain open. And it has been this way, and we know that a lot of the public health measure resistance, manufacturing mild, and all of that is all business oriented. It's all coming from business interests and also eugenicist kind of political ideology. Now why, you might ask, why is this mattering as far as infection control in hospitals? Like surely hospitals have nothing to do with that. Well, first of all, if hospitals have to control infection, they have to invest money in that. So the hospital industry doesn't want to do that. They don't want to pay for masks. They don't want to pay for tests. They don't want to hold up lucrative elective surgeries and procedures that get delayed or permanently put off by somebody having COVID. And so there's that. And then also, it's just that if there's masks in health care, that reminds people that the danger exists. Because if they're worried about COVID spreading in hospitals, obviously, we know that COVID is still spreading. So that's another issue. And like that Twitter rando had said, You want to remove masks everywhere so people don't live in fear. Voila! Roaring economy. Spending is about freedom. Happiness is freedom from fear. A billboard that screams whatever you're doing is okay. And we know that they're trying to get the last of the concerned people out there quote-unquote out there into the economy because there's articles written about this. In MarketWatch, there was an article in December 2022, the headline says people are, quote, long social distancing due to COVID-19. Economists say that's contributing to a drop in labor force participation. And a quote from that is, knowing that COVID-19 has not gone away, some people are not yet prepared to let down their guard. According to a working paper distributed by the National Bureau of Economic Research, some 13% of U.S. workers said they will continue social distancing as the economy opens up and cases fall, and another 45% said they will do so in limited ways. Project 2025 the presidential transition project mandate for leadership the conservative promise published in 2023 by the Heritage Foundation the think tank that informs Republican lawmakers and that says about masks in health care and it says quote refrain from opposing general COVID-19 mask mandates in healthcare facilities or personnel. So as you see, they're trying to get rid of masks in healthcare and stop based on very confused and wrong. They contradict themselves. They say that the disease is endemic and constantly mutating. However, refer to supposed natural gained immunity. Yeah, they don't make sense. And where a disease is endemic, you have permanent infection controls. We don't say, oh, malaria is endemic, let's just let the mosquitoes eat us alive. We don't do that. But the Republicans apparently want us to. So there you go. Going back to the Medpage Today article, there were some comments that I wish they had made to the HICPAC public comment. One of the comments said, quote, with guidelines like that, it just sounds as though CDC is attempting to ensure its own future existence. And this is a comment by Dr. Kaitlin Sundling.Hello, my name is Kaitlin Sundling. I'm a physician, scientist and pathologist in Wisconsin. I have no conflicts of interest to disclose. I'm a member of the People's CDC. I'm speaking today in support of universal masking and healthcare ideally with broad use of well-fitting N95 or better respirators as a new addition to standard precautions. Now is the time to use what we've learned from HIV and blood-borne pathogens matching our understanding of the science of aerosol transmission to our precautions and healthcare allows us to work to build public trust and de-stigmatize aerosol transmitted infectious diseases, especially where asymptomatic transmission is common, as with COVID. Denying the well-proven science of N95 respirators would be a significant step backwards. There is no physical basis to support the idea that different aerosol pathogens travel different distances. Appropriate isolation for known or suspected aerosol pathogen infections of any kind, including COVID, must include N95 respirators at minimum and appropriate ventilation controls. I want to share a couple of experiences where universal airborne precautions would have prevented exposure from my own work as a pathologist and as medical director of a health professional training program. While I was in my fellowship training at a well-known Boston hospital, I found out I had been exposed to tuberculosis when I had performed a small biopsy of a neck lymph node on a patient who, as far as we knew, lacked any symptoms or history that would have caused us to suspect the infection. More recently, one of my students was also exposed to tuberculosis on a lung biopsy procedure where cancer had been the suspected diagnosis. If we only protect ourselves against known or certain exposures, we put both patients and workers at risk. We need to expand, not reduce, the use of N95 or better respiratory protection, including elastomeric respirators with source control and PAPRs in healthcare settings. Lastly, and most importantly, we have a duty to protect our patients. I've had multiple people in my community ask if I, as a pathologist and laboratory-based clinician, can be their primary care provider. It is incredibly sad to me that so few of my fellow healthcare providers are wearing masks to protect themselves and their patients, and some are not even willing to mask upon request. Where providers are masking, our patients, including those who are immunocompromised, still face unmasked waiting rooms and other spaces with shared air. Should patients have to ask their surgeon to wear sterile gloves? Putting the burden of protection on patients is not an appropriate infection control approach. In conclusion, I call on you, members of the CDC's HICPAC committee, to recommend universal masking in healthcare, ideally with the broad use of well-fitting N95 or better respirators, as a new addition to standard precautions. Thank you.It's a shame more people were not allowed to give public comment at the meeting. But there are more people who did speak at a World Health Network YouTube video that recorded their comments and the People's CDC has been collecting written comments to share and I will end with my own public comment that I submitted in writing and I recorded on my own time My name is Chloe Humbert I don't want to be forced into exposure to multiple infections when I need to seek health care. I almost died from infection twice in my life because of inadequate investment in health care in two different countries. If we are to be forced into preventable exposure to COVID and other diseases in health care settings against our will, the goal of this forced infection needs to be spelled out. along with clearly stating the known consequences so that the American people can say whether or not we want to bear those consequences. You can't just rip away the freedom of individuals to protect ourselves from disease and not have a clearly articulated reason because the masks off, let it rip plan sounds an awful like the natural herd immunity garbage we heard in 2020 and the American people said no to that. There are other names for this ideology and it's a pseudoscience that patriots like my father, my uncle and my stepfather all fought in a war to protect us from 80 years ago. Do not make guidelines that give cover for genocidal negligence in our hospitals and nursing homes. People in healthcare settings need to wash their hands and put on a mask and have air quality engineering controls to prevent disease spread in healthcare settings. Universal masking and broad use of N95 respirators in healthcare and essential spaces is a simple and valuable investment to save lives. And that's what I think we should do as a civilization. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, transcript, & links: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/stop-falling-for-the-myth-of-panicked-public  This commentary is related to my essay: Dear Public Officials: Stop falling for the myth of an irrational panicked public. By Chloe Humbert, Aug 25 2023And it started initially as me writing a hopped up letter to the county. And then I sent a pal a voicemail. (This is exactly what my voicemails sound like! You’re welcome!)References:Commentary: Elite Panic vs. the Resilient Populace by James B. Meigs, MAY 2020  When authorities believe their own citizens will become dangerous, they begin to focus on controlling the public, rather than on addressing the disaster itself. They clamp down on information, restrict freedom of movement, and devote unnecessary energy to enforcing laws they assume are about to be broken. These strategies don’t just waste resources, one study notes; they also “undermine the public’s capacity for resilient behaviors.” In other words, nervous officials can actively impede the ordinary people trying to help themselves and their neighbors. As in war, the first casualty in disasters is often the truth. One symptom of elite panic is the belief that too much information, or the wrong kind of information, will send citizens reeling.Toxic Sludge is Good for You 2002 In today’s corporate culture major PR firms promote crisis management as a necessary business expense. Whenever something bad happens to a corporation, often its first move is not to deal with the actual problem, but to manage the negative perception caused by that problem. PA Homepage - West Nile cases have risen in Lackawanna County. by: Emily Allegrucci, Posted: Aug 18, 2023 “We want them to be aware, we don’t want them to panic. It's the delicate line that we walk. We want people to know that this is in the area, and that’s why we trap. We trap to find out if it is in the area so people are aware and they could take precautions,” added Genovese.Bodies of Covid-19 victims are still stored in refrigerated trucks in NYC - By Mirna Alsharif and Ray Sanchez, CNN - Updated 5:05 PM EDT, Fri May 7, 2021And Voila, An Anti-Mask Twitter Rando by Chloe Humbert on Medium, Apr 7 2023 I came across a particularly aggressive anti-mask account on twitter in early 2021. He made a ridiculous capitalist fever dream argument to justify duping people into unmasking and getting sick, and maybe dying, for business interests. It seemed so blatantly ridiculous. Tweet from @reubenR80027912 dated 1019 am May 7, 2021 says Main Street is Very simple. Do 3 things PSA campaigns that you won’t die if vaxxed. Remind people kids aren’t a risk. Remove masks everywhere so people don’t constantly live in fear. Voila. Roaring economy. Spending is about freedom from fear. Quote-tweet from same account on February 22, 2021 says There’s something to the Mad Men pilot and covid. Telling people they’re more likely to die in a car accident than covid doesn’t matter. Nor do vax stats. Happiness is freedom from fear, a billboard that screams whatever you’re doing is ok @ DKThompJason M - @JasonM98282978 - 11:06 AM · Aug 9, 2023 Dear Mr ******, Your fellow residents have once again drawn attention to the fact that against your strata council’s wishes and previous advice, you are continuing to wear a mask while attending common areas of the **** tower. We, along with your fellow residents, feel this creates an unnecessary atmosphere of fear within the building. The Covid 19 pandemic has been declared over by the World Health Organization, and the virus has become far less dangerous, akin to the common cold. There is no reason to continue wearing a mask. If anxiety is a motivator, we suggest speaking to a professional about this. We ask again that you refrain from wearing a mask in common areas. This includes the lobby, the garbage/recycling room, the mail room, the elevators, and anywhere else where you may encounter your neighbours. We may be forced to take further action if you fail to abide by this request. Sincerely, ** Power-tripping Strata a*****e **Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) - HICPAC Meeting – Aug. 22, 2023 Autotranscript: or those people who've learned it it would be unlearning something for and maybe be like well why and it would be hard to explain when we're not changing the content why we're changing the name I think it would confuse some people and that's my counterpoint thanksForeign Policy Magazine - The Only People Panicking Are the People in Charge. The public can handle disasters better than lying leaders can. By Malka Older - September 16, 2020, 6:16 PM It’s a staple trope of movies and TV shows. But there are more than 50 years of disaster studies demonstrating that people don’t do that in real life. As early as 1954, E.L. Quarantelli, who later founded the Disaster Research Center, had enough data to suggest that panic after a disaster was “uncommon.” Studies of disasters—from hurricanes to snowstorms isolating people in highway rest stops to the collapse of the World Trade Center on 9/11—show that the public does not panic, does not run screaming, and typically reacts in a reasonably rational way. In fact, studies show that people tend to react in highly social ways after a catastrophe; the first assistance to victims almost invariably comes from nonprofessionals, and affected people tend to come together and organize to improve their situation. My own anecdotal experience as a disaster responder supports this conclusion.NBC News: Pompeii family's final hours reconstructed. By Rossella Lorenzi, Dec. 11, 2008 75 to 92 percent of the residents escaped the town at the first signs of the crisis Teams Human - Alarm is appropriate, the volcano is erupting - CHLOE HUMBERT, JUL 6, 2022 The story of Pompeii is riveting. One may be led to think initially that the people frozen in place by the volcano were merely caught unaware. But only about 2,000 people out of around 20,000 actually stayed behind in Pompeii to get pyroclasted into a grim posterity. The vast majority were alarmists who fled the city — in abject fear of the volcano… and escaped in time and therefore lived out the rest of their lives. What led that minority to stay behind? Normalcy bias? Propaganda? I wonder if perhaps elites convinced some essential workers that they needed to stay behind and keep the economy going. Perhaps some felt they had no other good option and just hoped for the best. We will never know the exact stories. But we’re seeing ours play out. Somehow those people were convinced staying behind was okay. What we don’t ask in retrospect, notice, is why did people flee? We know why and we understand they were right to do so. We also don’t ridicule them for having been scared into leaving Pompeii - possibly with fear mongering? There are people with reasons to lie to us and to manipulate people, and they don’t care about our well-being. They simply want to keep the economic status quo, or are working on behalf of people who prioritize that. Butts in seats downtown for the economy or commercial real estate.My previous essay on Elite Panic:Elite Panic. Big shots have different goals than the rest of us. Politicians should be representatives, businesses shouldn’t lead, even billionaires can’t seem to buy common sense, and tech won’t save us. By CHLOE HUMBERT JUL 13, 2023 Here are a list of all the other posts I have made where I reference “elite panic” as well because it’s my big pet peeve obviously:* Teams Human - Forcing Normal in the Roaring 2020s - Elite panic kayfabe is timeless but not permanent. CHLOE HUMBERT DEC 13, 2022* Manufacturing MILD, A longtime PR word to downplay threats, normalize harms, and manufacture consent by manufacturing doubt. - Teams Human - CHLOE HUMBERT - AUG 5, 2023* Socialism for me but not for thee. The Elite Panic of Star Trek's Prime Directive. The arc of the universe bends toward corporate welfare for the well off and bootstrap gaslighting for ordinary people. But resistance is NOT futile. CHLOE HUMBERT, APR 1, 2023* Alarm is appropriate, the volcano is erupting - CHLOE HUMBERT - JUL 6, 2022 - Teams Human* Moving forward, forever - community adaptation. Those staying stuck in denial trying to force normal, longing for a gone pre-pandemic time, that’s who is being left behind, morally sabotaged to endure and inflict unnecessary suffering. CHLOE HUMBERT - JAN 1, 2023* Don’t wait for everybody before speaking up. We don’t need to convince everyone before moving forward, and we may already have more on board than it appears anyway. We won’t know until we try. CHLOE HUMBERT, AUG 8, 2023* Teams Human Newsletter - JUL 10, 2023* Teams Human Newsletter - SEP 12, 2022* Teams Human Newsletter - JUN 27, 2022* Teams Human Newsletter - MAY 9, 2022Transcript:I’m Chloe Humbert, and I’m not waiting for everybody. And you don’t have to either. Dear Public Officials, Please stop falling for the myth of an irrational incompetent panicked public. I guess we’re here again. I have to address the issue of elite panic again. There was a good article describes the phenomenon of elite panic. So disaster researchers call this phenomenon elite panic. And this is from James B. Meigs, elite panic versus the resilient populace. Quote, when authorities believe their own citizens will become dangerous, they begin to focus on controlling the public rather than on addressing the disaster itself. In the documentary Toxic Sludge is Good for You from 2002, they say, quote, in today’s corporate culture, major PR firms promote crisis management as a necessary business expense. Whenever something bad happens to a corporation, often its first move is not to deal with the actual problem, but to manage the negative perception caused by that problem. All this sound familiar? There has been West Nile Virus found in Scranton, Pennsylvania. In the city, the heart of the city, there’s been mosquitos found with West Nile virus. So the county official was quoted in the newspaper as saying, we don’t want to panic the public with the traps. like who’s panicking over mosquito traps who is who is panicking when they see mosquito traps nobody no nobody we’re in a pandemic okay and there’s people have been dying there’s hospitalized there were freezer truck morgues I mean that was an actual thing it could be a thing again we don’t know and nobody has gone running into the streets like it’s The Blob movie you know panicked in a frenzy that just hasn’t happened why would it suddenly happen for mosquito traps like why would that suddenly set off a panic this idea that people panic is just out of control and there was this troll online. Of course on Twitter who had posted something about masks reminding people of the danger. Recently saw somebody who was on social media saying that they got a letter from their condo associations telling them don’t wear masks in the hallway it’s striking fear and it’s like This is like saying don’t call the fire department because it might scare people. Let your house burn down. That’s ridiculous. And nobody’s panicking over mosquito traps. They’re just not. And the same thing happened in the CDC HICPAC meeting. Some of the people were actually suggesting that health care workers wouldn’t be able to figure out how to adjust to new infection control information. Seriously? Like doctors and nurses highly trained skilled professionals seriously they can’t you can’t possibly throw them a curveball because oh they won’t be able to adjust to these changes No, nobody’s, no. Some healthcare professionals are extremely well trained for all kinds of things. The idea that they can’t learn how to use a PAPR, this doesn’t make any sense. And with the mosquitoes, hello, people need to know that the mosquitoes can carry diseases. It’s not good. And people should be told so then they can go and be told about mosquito dunks. we have two mosquito dunks now to trap the larvae of mosquitos and we got the instructions from the Audubon website we set up these traps attract the mosquitoes to go lay their eggs in the trap where they will be killed rather than actually propagating somewhere. Things can be done to control mosquito populations. Nobody’s panicking. People are just want to wear Deet. that that’s not people put on a mask. It’s not nobody’s panicking. Nobody’s running into the streets like some horror movie. And I just love like I’m going to send this to the county official because I was going to write a letter but it turned into a substack post and then it’s like no I’m just going to skip it and just print out this foreign policy magazine article and the headline is “the only people panicking are the people in charge” wow that says it all That says it all. I recommend the article. But it’s… the headline tells you everything. It’s elite panic. They’re worried. They’re more worried about people, God forbid, being autonomous and taking care of ourselves and each other. And there’s just so much evidence that actually when people start trying to control the public, they’re the ones that cause the problems. There’s nobody running around. It just doesn’t happen. That kind of thing. Yeah. Do people run Screaming out of burning buildings. Yes. Yes, and they should just like in Pompeii most people fled Mount Vesuvius like at the first sign of trouble They just fled the Pompeii and they went and lived out their lives, you know somewhere else only only a couple thousand people out of like 20,000 only a couple thousand had stayed behind heaven only knows why but we don’t ask why did the people flee We know why they fled. They fled because it was, like, the right thing to do. We don’t say, well, wow, that was alarmist. You know, they should have stayed behind and got pyroclasted into a grim posterity. No, we don’t say that. That’s ridiculous. People are not panicking because of safety protocols. That’s ridiculous. Just stop. Just stop and give us some credit. Give the people some credit. Give us some credit for understanding things and wanting to make things better. Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe

Notes, Transcript, & Links: https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-wait-for-everybody-before-speakingThis commentary is based on the essay: Don’t wait for everybody before speaking up. By Chloe Humbert, Aug 8 2023 https://chloehumbert.substack.com/p/dont-wait-for-everybody Get full access to Chloe Humbert at chloehumbert.substack.com/subscribe