Shouldn’t we expect social media to practice a little information hygiene?

It’s been in the news that Facebook openly allows political ads to lie, which is appalling. But did you know that while they’ve made some efforts to police specific forms of quackery, there is a thriving market for others?

Even as Facebook has cracked down on anti-vaxxers and peddlers of snake oil cure-alls, a particularly grotesque form of fake cancer treatment has flourished in private groups on Facebook. Black salve, a caustic black paste that eats through flesh, is enthusiastically recommended in dedicated groups as a cure for skin and breast cancer — and for other types of cancer when ingested in pill form. There’s even a group dedicated to applying the paste to pets.

A Facebook spokesperson told BuzzFeed News that these groups don’t violate its community guidelines. This summer, it launched an initiative to address “exaggerated or sensational health claims” and will downrank that content in the News Feed, similar to how it handles clickbait. But it’s not clear how it defines what a “sensational” health claim is. Citing user privacy, Facebook would not say whether or not it had downranked the black salve groups in the News Feed.

Black salve is truly awful stuff — it’s a corrosive goop that burns away whatever part of your body it touches, and its proponents proudly post grisly photos of holes punched through their bodies or chunks of flesh that have fallen off. They take pride in their self-abuse, and claim it cures just about everything. It’s certainly potent and has demonstrable affects, just like Republicanism, but also likewise is simply universally destructive.

It’s also the case that other social media, like MeWe, are also afflicted with this black salve poison. Shouldn’t they all take action to prevent their platforms from being a place that does harm by spreading bad information?

People love to be told what tribe they belong to, I guess

I submitted a DNA sample to 23andMe, and now they send me periodic updates on what they’ve figured out lately from my genes. For instance, they’ve informed me about traits I might have.

This is strange. I know what I take away from it, but I wonder what the general populations learns from this kind of list. Here are the two important messages I learn from this kind of revelation:

  • Notice all the “likely”s and “less likely”s? That will never change, because if there’s one thing we can be confident of, it’s that every trait is the product of multiple genes interacting in complex ways. It says I’m not likely to have a cleft chin, but I know for a fact that under my beard there is a cleft chin, and that I’ve passed that on to my children and inherited it from my father. It doesn’t mean 23andMe did something wrong, it means that they’re missing information about all the factors that contribute to chin shape, and are estimating from knowledge of a few genes. They’re drawing on correlations in the large database that they have, but can’t infer mechanisms or the full range of interactions that occur during jaw development.

  • What’s really depressing, though, is how trivial all these traits are. Does anyone really care that I’m less likely to get dandruff? Wouldn’t I get better information about that by checking my shoulders than by analyzing my DNA? Part of the reason for the triviality is that they also have a “health report” that they charge extra for which summarizes more substantial predilections, which I haven’t paid for. It would have exactly the same kind of probabilistic statements. It might, for instance, say I’m genetically predisposed to heart disease, but I could probably guess that from the fact that my father died young of heart disease, and would be better off going to my doctor to have my cholesterol and blood pressure checked (as I do regularly, and no worries — I’m in good shape for a man of my age).

So what I take away from this is a lesson in uncertainty and doubt; is that the information they’re trying to share with the general public? Because that’s not what I get from their “traits tutorial”, which starts off “Our Traits Reports are a fun way to explore how your DNA makes you unique.” Where’s the fun? Where’s the uniqueness? Am I special in my resistance to bunions, or am I supposed to be entertained with the news that I probably have blue or green eyes? (Not blue, by the way, more green, kind of hazel; I usually say they’re the color of rich algal swamp mud).

My general impression is that this is “fun” in the way taking Myers-Briggs tests and horoscope readings are fun; it’s mostly bogus, phrased in a way to seem positive, and we can poke through them for affirmations of stuff we were pretty sure of, already.

I signed up mainly for the ancestry component, but even there, it’s vague.

My god, I’m a white guy! Who’d have guessed?

Meanwhile, this is just nonsense.

Yes, I’m a member of haplogroups that include European royalty, which is true of almost all the white people from Northern Europe. You might as well announce that I have pale skin, just like the kings and queens of old Europe! Whoop-te-doo! I am fun and unique.

I am not opposed to the idea of 23andMe, and think they’ve gathered a lot of potentially useful information. I just feel that the way its presented to the public is biased to reinforce false ideas of genetic determinism to induce people to participate, and that worries me.

You need some Halloween spiders

Here, have a few. These are from my collection of juvenile P. tepidariorum.

I can tell this one is going to be a big boy.

Webs! This one is an artist.

While this one is looking at me and making mystical gestures.

Hey, I’ve had dozens and dozens of trick-or-treaters come to my house tonight, and I’m nearly out of candy. Would it be OK if I started handing out spiders?

We are #1!

Guess who came out on top in a list of Every State, Ranked by How Miserable Its Winters Are? You guessed it. Although the psychoanalyzing of Minnesotans is way off the mark.

1. Minnesota
To think of the generally cheerful brood of Nordic-bred people being the winners in any sort of a contest of misery seems downright crazy. But for all those adorable don’tcha knows, we think something else is going on. We think beneath that eternal Nordic happiness is some inner pain, trapped below the surface like a Grain Belt dropped into an ice fishing hole, a cauldron of hot anger ready to spill out like a cut-open Jucy Lucy.

How can you remain so upbeat when you get all the winter weather patterns? Alberta clippers? Sure. Panhandle hooks? You betcha! Parts of northern Minnesota see up to 170in of snow in a winter. One hundred seventy inches! That’s like two and a half times the height of Kent Hrbek!! It can get down to -60 degrees, a temperature at which frostbite can occur in fewer than five minutes. There are no chinook winds or moderating oceans to temper things outside of a small area by Lake Superior. Your sports teams never win championships. All of your good high school hockey players end up starring for NHL teams in other cities. Ice fishing can’t be that cool, really.

And so we think that — despite all appearances — Minnesota does in fact have the most miserable winter in the United States. So to all the Eriks, and Astrids, and Christens, and Bjorns, and Brynjars, it’s OK to show a little displeasure at the clusterfuck of a meteorological hand you’ve been dealt. After all, don’tcha know emoting is good for the system?

No, no, no. This is precisely wrong. Minnesotans wallow in their gloriously bad weather. You would not believe how many times I’ve heard residents brag about the Halloween blizzard of 1991 — and I kind of feel bad that I didn’t move here until 2000, so I can’t contribute to the myth. Every winter I, and every other Minnesotan, check the weather reports religiously, because otherwise we wouldn’t have anything to talk about, and besides we’re hoping for another day of record breaking cold. Bring on the polar vortex! We’d be heartbroken if we had weather as boring as, say, Iowa’s.

We’re all frost giants up here, and proud of it.

I usually lie and say it’s for the grandchildren

This might be a little weird for most of you, but it’s Jenny Nicholson reading reviews of fake spiders from Amazon, and it resonated with me, because I too have browsed Amazon for spiders, and I have a few fake spiders — and fake cephalopods — decorating my home right now.

It’s a thing. If you were a member of the cult, you’d understand. You know, “Four legs good, two legs bad, eight legs unholy harbinger of the apocalypse,” all that jazz.

Are you looking for spooky stories to tell tonight?

Karen Stollznow has written some and is selling them on Amazon. These are variations on the kinds of modern myths you may have heard as a skeptic many times, but they all have slight twists, which means we’ll probably be hearing these as True Facts™ sometime. Don’t Leave Me, Unforeseen Circumstances, Welcome Home, I Am Me, and The Dark Road are all available on Kindle right now. Download and read them at the Halloween party tonight! They’re all short stories and perfect for a creepy session around the fireplace.

“Due process” is not magic

I already said this about “due process”!

This irrelevant bit of legalese has become a mantra among horrible people. You do not need “due process” to detest an exploiter and harasser. The state needs due process if it is going to deprive an individual of liberty or property, but neither of those were at issue here — these were women using their free speech (one of those rights that the Right loves so much, except when it is inconvenient to them) to express their assessment of the available evidence that Harvey Weinstein is a crude rapist thug, and that this issue has not been formally tried in a court of law doesn’t make it any less true. That the wealth and influence Weinstein used to do harm also shelters him from legal action does not protect him from the informed judgement of society, it just means he isn’t in jail where he belongs, stripped of his power. That would require “due process”. No one needs “due process” to shun a rapist.

Now an attorney writes an opinion piece in the Washington Post that says the same thing.

Let’s be clear: There is no due process right to not have people make jokes about you. There is no due process right to have strangers think you aren’t a rapist until you’ve been convicted. (Based on the reporting I’ve read, I believe Weinstein is a rapist. Sue me, Harvey.) Rather, due process is a constitutional guarantee that requires the government to provide certain procedures when it deprives a person of liberty or property. And the terms of that guarantee depend on what the government seeks to take away. As a general matter, when stakes are high — as in a criminal trial in which a prison sentence is one possible outcome — procedural protections are at their most robust. When the stakes are lower — involving a fine, say, or the demotion of a public employee — the process might be less rigorous. But generally speaking, the accused should get notice of the accusation and the opportunity to tell his or her side of the story, sometimes before the deprivation occurs, sometimes after.

Weinstein is not alone in thinking due process means no one can be mad at you unless a judge has donned robes. The White House has refused to comply with subpoenas for records and testimony necessary for the impeachment inquiry. Its reasoning, laid out in a memo by Pat A. Cipollone, counsel to the president, is that the impeachment investigation fails to provide the procedural protections of a criminal trial, including the opportunity for President Trump to question witnesses and review evidence. Last week, a group of Republicans stormed a closed congressional hearing to protest the House’s impeachment inquiry on the same grounds.

I am not a lawyer, and even I could figure this out. Now look around you at all the people suddenly whining about “due process” in order to short circuit any investigation at all: Weinstein, Trump, and I would also add…David Silverman. Silverman’s defenders all seem to think “due process” means we can’t draw any conclusions from reports of investigations, witness testimonials, and his own confession — you can’t know anything without a court, a team of lawyers, and a conviction, which sounds like a very strange attitude for skeptics and atheists to take, almost as if they believe that bad behavior vanishes in a puff of smoke unless there’s a court decision about it.