Yesterday, I took my dog to the vet (he's "fine", just in his early twenties and falling apart) and we all had to wait outside due to covid restrictions. Everyone was just chilling with their dogs, wearing masks. Except one woman, who was not wearing a mask, and was wearing a funky hoodie emblazoned with the words "Freedom Over Fear" in a zany font. I noticed the Voices For Freedom website below the slogan, I had time to kill, so I checked it out.
I was pretty sure it was an anti covid thing, but the website is so insidiously "normal" and friendly that it doesn't make it clear. At first I thought it might have just been a generalised freedom group or something, but then I dug a little deeper and found their "info" kits about covid.
I saw the mask one, which is exactly what you reference here, and gave it a read.
Sigh.
The same old bullshit. I audibly laughed at the ol classic "The masks don't even work! But also, they work so well they'll suffocate you!". And everyone's other favourite covid conspiracy hit "it's just the flu! But also, the vaccine is incredibly dangerous!" That's when I also saw the tick from the ASA and became thoroughly confused.
I'm very glad to see you investigating all this. I cannot for the life of me work out why the hell "advocacy advertising" has any other standard than anything else. But then again, I'm constantly shocked at the shit advertisers can get away with in the first place, so I guess I shouldnt be surprised. Its so sad that they can seemingly skirt around the rules by providing a couple of articles and studies.
This is just another example of why we need MUCH stricter controls on advertising etc.
As you've written about many times, we're really losing our grip on reality, and charlatan groups like this are only speeding up the descent.
I thought about approaching the woman to talk to her. Not confront her or anything, just talk to her. I love to pick the brains of people who hold ideas I find to be absurd. But, honestly, I felt like she knew everyone was looking at her. She had a strange vibe to her. Both somehow proud of being bold with her message, but also timid as she probably knew she was outnumbered. The classic conspiracy mindset I guess.
I let it go. Not worth the potential drama.
I just find it fascinating that the people preaching about how unafraid they are, seem the most afraid of anyone. Scared of new legislation, scared of masks, scared of a vaccine.
I kind of regret not talking to her. I hope she gets past her fears and gets the vaccine.
You know what? I think you did the best thing not engaging. I don't think it would have gone anywhere good. You nailed so much here, just in the mindset and how this subset of society functions. Rebellious, but also shy and nervous. All of that.
They talk a lot about the expression of ideas and differing points of view in advocacy - but it still comes back to facts needing to be supplied to back it up.
The main issue with that is.. when considering complaints, they only look at the evidence as supplied by the entity being complained about. Which is.... utterly pointless.
The ASA is also really paranoid about not encroaching on freedom of speech. They're terrified of upsetting the wrong people.
Yeah I didn't want to create any kind of confrontation or anything, and to be fair, it's not like she was causing a scene or bothering anyone. I just get so fascinated by it all. But I'm glad I let it go.
And yeah, the advertising thing. I understand the desire to avoid infringing on free speech, but fuck me, they're has to be a better middle ground than just letting anyone push anything they want. Especially when they're claiming "facts".
But, I'm not shocked. This is the same industry that lets "Vitamin Water" still be sold despite the fact that Coke explicitly said that its advertising is completely false, but it's SO false that no one in their right mind would believe it. FFS.
That unique emotional vibe - surface defiant/contemptuous pride with high levels of shame/fear lurking underneath is one of the most volatile emotional combinations. Essentially, its intermingled self-spiraling shame and rage.
When provoked, questioned or challenged it it can quickly escalate into humiliated fury (also known as agitated depression) and verbal and even physical violence - adrenaline/cortisol spiking into fight/flight/freeze.
They kind of want an argument and can't cope with actual argument at the same time.
Yeah - people who are conspiracy/paranoia prone often have a really big shame burden from earlier parts of their life - often dissociated relational trauma - plus what the conspiracy has since cost them.
For this ocean of shame, the whole secret knowledge and small special group deal is their solution to their pain - not their problem like all addictions which often have strong links to adult attachment difficulties.
To be clear... it's not an endorsement from the ASA. VVF made that up. It's not like the ASA supplied then with a tick logo or anything. Basically VFF saw the ruling in their favour, and warped that into the "tick" you see on the pamphlet. Thing is - if the ASA hadn't made such a bonkers ruling they wouldn't have been able to do this in the first place!
Irene Gardiner posted on a Facebook post of mine I did on vaccine uptake. She said "I'm seeing anti-vax leaflets and posters around about and thinking 'why are you bothering, you've lost this one already?' The turn-out is overwhelming..."
So true! Auckland DHB is at 97% first doses and 93% fully dosed.
Ugh this is horrible, the governent is being kind and these jerks are taking advantage at every opportunity. Thank you for covering, VFF need to be held to account and the ASA is not where the government needs to be kind, they are failing in their job, the communications are misleading! They need to stamp that out, not authorise it. Gets me goat, it does.
The other weird thing about the ASA: They are essentially just run by advertisers to self regulate! No government involvement. It's just there to make advertisers feel better as it means the public might trust them more. It's a whole big lot of BS.
Seriously? That is warped! But of course brilliant on the part of industry, nothing better than regulating yourself and convincing the nation that you’re being monitored. Well played. Now the reality needs to be more widely understood, this game has to be up. We’ll let them keep the vehicle, in fact I’ll bet it works a whole lot better when the real situation is understood!
Almost every time an organization has a generic name like, "Voices for Freedom" and "Citizen's Commission For Human Rights" (you can guess who runs that organization), they tend not to operate in the public's best interest, to put it mildly. To put it bluntly, they're conning the public.
For those who doubt the immunity vaccines provide against natural immunity, here are some things called facts:
The idea that a small knitting group of halfwits can come together with a lawyer and go to such lengths to mislead people is terrifying. They figured out how to manipulate the agency you hope would deter such ignorant banter, and even got a big red tick that screams out "we fact checked this, you can trust us"... Appalling. Do they just love the sound of their own bullshit at any cost, do they really believe what they are preaching? Did they feel they were doing a real service as they made these flyers and added that big tick ? I love your letter fact checking their "facts" with an actual Drs opinion, Dr Morgan made me laugh out loud. How frustrating for so many in the medical profession, it must be exhausting if not soul crushing at this stage. What a complete and utter absurdity that this type of behaviour, distribution of actually damaging misinformation, is not punishable by law?!! Where is the sense to any of this? Part of me wants a new version of Punk'd where we put prats like this in a room and then watch them scramble for all the protection they can get their hands on as they are faced with real life exposure to the virus. I just don't believe, at crunch time, they would remain this petulant or ignorant... but I also am constantly surprised by people's real life ignorance and petulance so who knows.
You rock David. Thanks for another great read. Hope your new digs are proving comfortable.
Thanks Jo. New digs good. Still lacking anything to sit on... but will work on that.
A lot of it is loving the sound of their own voice: They love the positive feedback they get from other idiots, and any pushback they just see as martyrdom. Plus... they get donations, so there's a grift element to it too.
I also think you're correct about them running for cover: It's like Peter Mortlock at City Impact: He'll be vaxxed. Of course he will. But saying so doesn't suit his narrative.
It’s a sad day when someone from your youth and your home town that you remember, fell down the rabbit hole. It is also not surprising and also predictable! It makes me more aware that there are others still living there who think the same… makes me feel a bit yuck but also again not suprised! Thanks David love reading your thoughts and getting educated at the same time 😊
Over the years, I've dealt with them, and I've seen plenty of this.
One example, I made complaints about Fluoride Free's TV advert. I pointed out the horrible misinformation/disinformation - it was pages long. Clear black and white mistakes. But they didn't want to look into it as they already had looked at it before, and it fell into "advocacy ads". They didn't even put my complaint on their website.
I made an ASA complaint against a Newtown acupuncturist. I won the complaint, the appeal, but they were threatened with legal action. The ASA got a 3rd party to look at the evidence. It was too expensive to pay for a full report, and nothing really happened out of my complaint. For about a year, you couldn't make a complaint about acupuncture. Then they changed their rules to allow for "traditional" evidence. Meaning you don't need real evidence to make claims.
Over the years, they have made it harder to make a complaint, especially regarding health complaints. It was like they were sick of our complaints from Society for Science Based Healthcare (SBH) and trying to slow us down.
They have told us not to complain too much multiple times over the years. They don't have the resources, and I feel they should be a government organisation (with teeth) like they have in the UK.
Wait, what? So the ASA got threatened with legal action? Huh. I imagine this is why they are so spineless at times - especially with this advocacy stuff. Terrified of being taken to court over Freedom of Speech stuff.
It's unclear what happened, but they got legal advice, and the process took ages. They got a 3rd party to look at the evidence, they did a small summary, which basically agreed with me. They wouldn't pay for a full review because they couldn't afford it. I think they were stuck on what they would do. So they basically ignored my complaint.
They are also spineless because they have no teeth; companies can just ignore them. Media companies will likely listen, but others not so much...
David Holden was one quack that ignored them and threatened legal action to me in his reply. I keep reminding the ASA to do something for years. They were going to make a list of people who ignored them, on their website, but never did. They instead sent the complaint to Medsafe. Looking at his website today, it's now gone. Yay! I have been fighting that one since 2016.
Thanks. Sometimes it is tiring to fight the wave of misinformation when the ASA and our regulatory bodies do nothing much to stop it. All my complaints to Commerce Commission have had nothing done. The NZ Acupuncture Standards Authority, Acupuncture NZ, and the Chiropractic Board are jokes when it comes to complaining about harmful misinformation. They just protect their members. The Pharmacy Council is a little better.
ACC accepts complaints about companies that accept payments, but I've found ultimately do nothing about dangerous misinformation.
Restricted as they are, I'm just glad that Medsafe does something after a few years and they hit hard. If it's something severe, it can take a few months.
Thanks for this great piece, David. Is there some way that we Webworm readers can make a complaint (using your excellently-curated responses to each statement) to the ASA, or some kind of Ombudsman that checks ASA's decisions? This seems like a really tangible step we can take against this misinformation (and I rarely feel like there is anything I can do!). I mean, if more people complained, would that get a bit more traction?
Honestly - I don't think anything will help. The ASA are just notoriously useless on all complaints. I mean they are just a self regulating entity for advertisers - no govt involvement, just them trying to make themselves feel better and give the illusion of being fair. They were terrible during the marijuana bill stuff, too: Dylan did a little post about that here - https://twitter.com/DylanReeve/status/1466213307686133766
Nothing can be done. They are not a government organisation. What we could do is start reporting these problems to MPs and tell them to get a government organisation to replace them like asa.org.uk
This is horrendous! I haven't taken a look at the legislation yet, and frankly beautiful days like today are few and far between in Southland (usually) so I may not get around to it for some time.
I am wondering if the apparent toothlessness of this dog is due to the machinations of a former government, well vested in twisting facts to suit their agenda and well-tucked into the pockets of various big lobby groups (Big Alcohol, Big Tobacco etc). It really makes me despair for the future of this country.
On a side note: there really is Big Pharma, well documented over the decades since the appalling Thalidomide scandal, but I don't think they've plotted to dominate the world through vaccines - the effect seems just to benevolent for that agenda - but wait! It's obvious! Clearly they are keeping us alive so we can get old and consume more of their products. That must be it.
For sure - there is plenty of scandal to be found out there (anyone currently watching Dope Sick?) - which is why so much of this is a giant waste of time. I wish those looking for conspiracies actually started sniffing around some other spots!
Enjoy the south. Beautiful. I miss it. When I get back to NZ I want to spend a great deal of my time there driving to some very small places. Sigh.
Where I live would qualify as a very small place, definitely. When I was younger I used to say "if everything turns to sh*t, I'll go and live in Nightcaps, I suppose". Not quite there, but we're not far away.
This reminds me that I made a complaint about a political campaign ad last year and judging by the reasons it wasn't upheld, the standards for advocacy advertising are pretty flicking low, even when the advertiser is a major political party that should know better...
My immediate thought upon reading those 6 claims was, "I'm neither an infectious disease doctor nor a public health expert, but I could debunk all of these within about 30 minutes." So I'm glad you sought out an actual professional to do so.
I see photos and obits of COVID victims every day on Twitter, mostly. I dunno why I follow these accounts. I'm rather wary of saying this, but at this point, after 2 years of the entire globe suffering, I see these photos and just kinda shrug, "shoulda got vaxxed." I'm worried that this callousness may be permanent, but perhaps it's just a protective shell I've formed so that each death doesn't break my heart. And besides, what about all the others they may have endangered?
I'm interested to hear others' reactions to seeing these announcements in the post-vax world.
Very conflicting. The people who mock and taunt unvaccinated COVID sufferers. It's a well known sadistic trolling phenomenon around deaths and not new to COVID. When it's people who were discouraging others from getting vaccinated, that's some conflicting stuff to process.
Yeah it's a really depressing state of said we're in, and I think it's definitely worth exploring more. Even if it's the saddest WW you've ever written.
It all got pretty rough there towards the end. What is so sad about it is that he was a good journalist, at one point. This shit can happen to all of us, somehow. Ugh.
Well, this is a coincidence.
Yesterday, I took my dog to the vet (he's "fine", just in his early twenties and falling apart) and we all had to wait outside due to covid restrictions. Everyone was just chilling with their dogs, wearing masks. Except one woman, who was not wearing a mask, and was wearing a funky hoodie emblazoned with the words "Freedom Over Fear" in a zany font. I noticed the Voices For Freedom website below the slogan, I had time to kill, so I checked it out.
I was pretty sure it was an anti covid thing, but the website is so insidiously "normal" and friendly that it doesn't make it clear. At first I thought it might have just been a generalised freedom group or something, but then I dug a little deeper and found their "info" kits about covid.
I saw the mask one, which is exactly what you reference here, and gave it a read.
Sigh.
The same old bullshit. I audibly laughed at the ol classic "The masks don't even work! But also, they work so well they'll suffocate you!". And everyone's other favourite covid conspiracy hit "it's just the flu! But also, the vaccine is incredibly dangerous!" That's when I also saw the tick from the ASA and became thoroughly confused.
I'm very glad to see you investigating all this. I cannot for the life of me work out why the hell "advocacy advertising" has any other standard than anything else. But then again, I'm constantly shocked at the shit advertisers can get away with in the first place, so I guess I shouldnt be surprised. Its so sad that they can seemingly skirt around the rules by providing a couple of articles and studies.
This is just another example of why we need MUCH stricter controls on advertising etc.
As you've written about many times, we're really losing our grip on reality, and charlatan groups like this are only speeding up the descent.
I thought about approaching the woman to talk to her. Not confront her or anything, just talk to her. I love to pick the brains of people who hold ideas I find to be absurd. But, honestly, I felt like she knew everyone was looking at her. She had a strange vibe to her. Both somehow proud of being bold with her message, but also timid as she probably knew she was outnumbered. The classic conspiracy mindset I guess.
I let it go. Not worth the potential drama.
I just find it fascinating that the people preaching about how unafraid they are, seem the most afraid of anyone. Scared of new legislation, scared of masks, scared of a vaccine.
I kind of regret not talking to her. I hope she gets past her fears and gets the vaccine.
Thanks again for fighting the good fight David.
You know what? I think you did the best thing not engaging. I don't think it would have gone anywhere good. You nailed so much here, just in the mindset and how this subset of society functions. Rebellious, but also shy and nervous. All of that.
As to advocacy advertising - it's all pretty ridiculous: https://www.asa.co.nz/codes/code-guidance-notes/guidance-note-advocacy-advertising/
They talk a lot about the expression of ideas and differing points of view in advocacy - but it still comes back to facts needing to be supplied to back it up.
The main issue with that is.. when considering complaints, they only look at the evidence as supplied by the entity being complained about. Which is.... utterly pointless.
The ASA is also really paranoid about not encroaching on freedom of speech. They're terrified of upsetting the wrong people.
Yeah I didn't want to create any kind of confrontation or anything, and to be fair, it's not like she was causing a scene or bothering anyone. I just get so fascinated by it all. But I'm glad I let it go.
And yeah, the advertising thing. I understand the desire to avoid infringing on free speech, but fuck me, they're has to be a better middle ground than just letting anyone push anything they want. Especially when they're claiming "facts".
But, I'm not shocked. This is the same industry that lets "Vitamin Water" still be sold despite the fact that Coke explicitly said that its advertising is completely false, but it's SO false that no one in their right mind would believe it. FFS.
That unique emotional vibe - surface defiant/contemptuous pride with high levels of shame/fear lurking underneath is one of the most volatile emotional combinations. Essentially, its intermingled self-spiraling shame and rage.
When provoked, questioned or challenged it it can quickly escalate into humiliated fury (also known as agitated depression) and verbal and even physical violence - adrenaline/cortisol spiking into fight/flight/freeze.
They kind of want an argument and can't cope with actual argument at the same time.
EXACTLY. That is such an accurate description of her vibe.
Yeah - people who are conspiracy/paranoia prone often have a really big shame burden from earlier parts of their life - often dissociated relational trauma - plus what the conspiracy has since cost them.
For this ocean of shame, the whole secret knowledge and small special group deal is their solution to their pain - not their problem like all addictions which often have strong links to adult attachment difficulties.
"Who stole the cookie from the cookie jar?"
(Me, through crumbs): I cannot comment further as there has been yet another theft
And those crumbs went straight through your mask and the lid of the jar, didn't they? Admit it. Lids don't work.
Also, airtight lids cause cookies to go mouldy.
I received those pamphlets, and was very concerned at the apparent ASA endorsement, so I checked https://covid19.govt.nz/health-and-wellbeing/misinformation-scams-and-online-harm/report-false-or-misleading-information/ and emailed covid@ops.cert.govt.nz with photos. I haven't had a response so far - not even an automated acknowledgement. One thing that I took from receiving two multi-coloured glossy leaflets in the mail, was that someone is prepared to spend quite a bit of money on spreading these lies.
Snap. I've emailed that address with photos of the earlier version of the mask leaflet (no ASA endorsement then), and also have had no response.
To be clear... it's not an endorsement from the ASA. VVF made that up. It's not like the ASA supplied then with a tick logo or anything. Basically VFF saw the ruling in their favour, and warped that into the "tick" you see on the pamphlet. Thing is - if the ASA hadn't made such a bonkers ruling they wouldn't have been able to do this in the first place!
A great read David and one I'm sure won't end here. I love Dr Morgan's comment about stuffing masks in the mouth!
Hey Brian! Nice to see you here! And yeah - Dr Morgan rules. Great doctor, great communicator - the perfect combo!
Irene Gardiner posted on a Facebook post of mine I did on vaccine uptake. She said "I'm seeing anti-vax leaflets and posters around about and thinking 'why are you bothering, you've lost this one already?' The turn-out is overwhelming..."
So true! Auckland DHB is at 97% first doses and 93% fully dosed.
I've been with you a while via the emails... But first time actually on the site!
The comments section here has been an unexpected delight of this lil' project, so it's nice to see you here!
I really laughed at that.
It also makes me laugh that they say that 98% of virus particles make their way through the mask. But not oxygen or carbon dioxide molecules 🤣🤣
Yeah.... it can simultaneously let everything through... yet someone also cause you not to breath. Huh.
Ugh this is horrible, the governent is being kind and these jerks are taking advantage at every opportunity. Thank you for covering, VFF need to be held to account and the ASA is not where the government needs to be kind, they are failing in their job, the communications are misleading! They need to stamp that out, not authorise it. Gets me goat, it does.
The other weird thing about the ASA: They are essentially just run by advertisers to self regulate! No government involvement. It's just there to make advertisers feel better as it means the public might trust them more. It's a whole big lot of BS.
Seriously? That is warped! But of course brilliant on the part of industry, nothing better than regulating yourself and convincing the nation that you’re being monitored. Well played. Now the reality needs to be more widely understood, this game has to be up. We’ll let them keep the vehicle, in fact I’ll bet it works a whole lot better when the real situation is understood!
Yep - and no-one really realises (including me, until recently). It's all just smoke and mirrors.
Almost every time an organization has a generic name like, "Voices for Freedom" and "Citizen's Commission For Human Rights" (you can guess who runs that organization), they tend not to operate in the public's best interest, to put it mildly. To put it bluntly, they're conning the public.
For those who doubt the immunity vaccines provide against natural immunity, here are some things called facts:
https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-11-27/protection-offered-by-booster-shot-beats-natural-immunity
I just got my booster (I'm in the US), and if they're available to you, please get one.
I get my booster in a few weeks! And yes, you raise a good point: beware the generic name. That golden rule holds so, so true.
The idea that a small knitting group of halfwits can come together with a lawyer and go to such lengths to mislead people is terrifying. They figured out how to manipulate the agency you hope would deter such ignorant banter, and even got a big red tick that screams out "we fact checked this, you can trust us"... Appalling. Do they just love the sound of their own bullshit at any cost, do they really believe what they are preaching? Did they feel they were doing a real service as they made these flyers and added that big tick ? I love your letter fact checking their "facts" with an actual Drs opinion, Dr Morgan made me laugh out loud. How frustrating for so many in the medical profession, it must be exhausting if not soul crushing at this stage. What a complete and utter absurdity that this type of behaviour, distribution of actually damaging misinformation, is not punishable by law?!! Where is the sense to any of this? Part of me wants a new version of Punk'd where we put prats like this in a room and then watch them scramble for all the protection they can get their hands on as they are faced with real life exposure to the virus. I just don't believe, at crunch time, they would remain this petulant or ignorant... but I also am constantly surprised by people's real life ignorance and petulance so who knows.
You rock David. Thanks for another great read. Hope your new digs are proving comfortable.
Thanks Jo. New digs good. Still lacking anything to sit on... but will work on that.
A lot of it is loving the sound of their own voice: They love the positive feedback they get from other idiots, and any pushback they just see as martyrdom. Plus... they get donations, so there's a grift element to it too.
I also think you're correct about them running for cover: It's like Peter Mortlock at City Impact: He'll be vaxxed. Of course he will. But saying so doesn't suit his narrative.
It’s a sad day when someone from your youth and your home town that you remember, fell down the rabbit hole. It is also not surprising and also predictable! It makes me more aware that there are others still living there who think the same… makes me feel a bit yuck but also again not suprised! Thanks David love reading your thoughts and getting educated at the same time 😊
Thanks Cat. Yeah - Deeks has gone down a rabbit hole of bad ideas, and grifting. Not great :(
Over the years, I've dealt with them, and I've seen plenty of this.
One example, I made complaints about Fluoride Free's TV advert. I pointed out the horrible misinformation/disinformation - it was pages long. Clear black and white mistakes. But they didn't want to look into it as they already had looked at it before, and it fell into "advocacy ads". They didn't even put my complaint on their website.
I made an ASA complaint against a Newtown acupuncturist. I won the complaint, the appeal, but they were threatened with legal action. The ASA got a 3rd party to look at the evidence. It was too expensive to pay for a full report, and nothing really happened out of my complaint. For about a year, you couldn't make a complaint about acupuncture. Then they changed their rules to allow for "traditional" evidence. Meaning you don't need real evidence to make claims.
Over the years, they have made it harder to make a complaint, especially regarding health complaints. It was like they were sick of our complaints from Society for Science Based Healthcare (SBH) and trying to slow us down.
They have told us not to complain too much multiple times over the years. They don't have the resources, and I feel they should be a government organisation (with teeth) like they have in the UK.
Wait, what? So the ASA got threatened with legal action? Huh. I imagine this is why they are so spineless at times - especially with this advocacy stuff. Terrified of being taken to court over Freedom of Speech stuff.
It's unclear what happened, but they got legal advice, and the process took ages. They got a 3rd party to look at the evidence, they did a small summary, which basically agreed with me. They wouldn't pay for a full review because they couldn't afford it. I think they were stuck on what they would do. So they basically ignored my complaint.
They are also spineless because they have no teeth; companies can just ignore them. Media companies will likely listen, but others not so much...
David Holden was one quack that ignored them and threatened legal action to me in his reply. I keep reminding the ASA to do something for years. They were going to make a list of people who ignored them, on their website, but never did. They instead sent the complaint to Medsafe. Looking at his website today, it's now gone. Yay! I have been fighting that one since 2016.
Oh silly me, I went to the wrong website. David Holden's website is still up and still making cancer claims:
https://davidholden.co.nz/treatments/
thanks for persisting, even if he manages to evade restriction and keeps his website up, this kind of commentary is out there and reaches some of us
Thanks. Sometimes it is tiring to fight the wave of misinformation when the ASA and our regulatory bodies do nothing much to stop it. All my complaints to Commerce Commission have had nothing done. The NZ Acupuncture Standards Authority, Acupuncture NZ, and the Chiropractic Board are jokes when it comes to complaining about harmful misinformation. They just protect their members. The Pharmacy Council is a little better.
ACC accepts complaints about companies that accept payments, but I've found ultimately do nothing about dangerous misinformation.
Restricted as they are, I'm just glad that Medsafe does something after a few years and they hit hard. If it's something severe, it can take a few months.
Thanks for this great piece, David. Is there some way that we Webworm readers can make a complaint (using your excellently-curated responses to each statement) to the ASA, or some kind of Ombudsman that checks ASA's decisions? This seems like a really tangible step we can take against this misinformation (and I rarely feel like there is anything I can do!). I mean, if more people complained, would that get a bit more traction?
Honestly - I don't think anything will help. The ASA are just notoriously useless on all complaints. I mean they are just a self regulating entity for advertisers - no govt involvement, just them trying to make themselves feel better and give the illusion of being fair. They were terrible during the marijuana bill stuff, too: Dylan did a little post about that here - https://twitter.com/DylanReeve/status/1466213307686133766
It sucks! Argh!
Nothing can be done. They are not a government organisation. What we could do is start reporting these problems to MPs and tell them to get a government organisation to replace them like asa.org.uk
This is horrendous! I haven't taken a look at the legislation yet, and frankly beautiful days like today are few and far between in Southland (usually) so I may not get around to it for some time.
I am wondering if the apparent toothlessness of this dog is due to the machinations of a former government, well vested in twisting facts to suit their agenda and well-tucked into the pockets of various big lobby groups (Big Alcohol, Big Tobacco etc). It really makes me despair for the future of this country.
On a side note: there really is Big Pharma, well documented over the decades since the appalling Thalidomide scandal, but I don't think they've plotted to dominate the world through vaccines - the effect seems just to benevolent for that agenda - but wait! It's obvious! Clearly they are keeping us alive so we can get old and consume more of their products. That must be it.
For sure - there is plenty of scandal to be found out there (anyone currently watching Dope Sick?) - which is why so much of this is a giant waste of time. I wish those looking for conspiracies actually started sniffing around some other spots!
Enjoy the south. Beautiful. I miss it. When I get back to NZ I want to spend a great deal of my time there driving to some very small places. Sigh.
Normal, humdrum conspiracies aren't exciting enough.
Where I live would qualify as a very small place, definitely. When I was younger I used to say "if everything turns to sh*t, I'll go and live in Nightcaps, I suppose". Not quite there, but we're not far away.
This reminds me that I made a complaint about a political campaign ad last year and judging by the reasons it wasn't upheld, the standards for advocacy advertising are pretty flicking low, even when the advertiser is a major political party that should know better...
Dylan did a thread about his experience: https://twitter.com/DylanReeve/status/1466213307686133766
The whole thing is just a farce, imo
That is shocking. A “Standards Authority”; just with extremely low standards. What doesn’t get past?!
Rex is a sad but familiar story, and a prime case for Reddit’s “Herman Cain Award” subreddit.
My immediate thought upon reading those 6 claims was, "I'm neither an infectious disease doctor nor a public health expert, but I could debunk all of these within about 30 minutes." So I'm glad you sought out an actual professional to do so.
I see photos and obits of COVID victims every day on Twitter, mostly. I dunno why I follow these accounts. I'm rather wary of saying this, but at this point, after 2 years of the entire globe suffering, I see these photos and just kinda shrug, "shoulda got vaxxed." I'm worried that this callousness may be permanent, but perhaps it's just a protective shell I've formed so that each death doesn't break my heart. And besides, what about all the others they may have endangered?
I'm interested to hear others' reactions to seeing these announcements in the post-vax world.
Hey Alex - I am actually thinking about this a lot. Going to address it on a future Webworm. It's conflicting.
Very conflicting. The people who mock and taunt unvaccinated COVID sufferers. It's a well known sadistic trolling phenomenon around deaths and not new to COVID. When it's people who were discouraging others from getting vaccinated, that's some conflicting stuff to process.
Very much looking forward to this edition. I think it could help a lot of people, not just WW-philes.
Yeah it's a really depressing state of said we're in, and I think it's definitely worth exploring more. Even if it's the saddest WW you've ever written.
Okay i do not not know why i left 2 almost identical comments. My memory is poor, and yet i care a lot about this subject, i guess.
Eeh typos. You get the gist.
Anyone else annoyed that Rex got his math wrong in his post. I mean, RIP buddy but use a calculator before making statistical claims please.
It all got pretty rough there towards the end. What is so sad about it is that he was a good journalist, at one point. This shit can happen to all of us, somehow. Ugh.