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I actually verified this yesterday on my own FB acount.

https://imgur.com/a/5tgkbFL

Not sure if it's still happening, but you can test it if you make the post visible to only you and you wait ~5 minutes for that misinformation message to show up.

Even if the fact checker had some kind of point, I don't know how labeling an authoritative source as "false information" helps anyone understand anything just because part of the information might be outdated.

Nevertheless, the level of carelessness upon which this mechanism seems to have been built upon is an embarrassment.



It helps people understand a lot; it helps people see this fact checking charade for what it really is.


Or that CDC advice is a charade...


I don't get why they can't add a regex to ok *.gov$ websites.

> Nevertheless, the level of carelessness upon which this mechanism seems to have been built upon is an embarrassment.

Same mechanism would flag and ban folks who argued that the lab leak hypothesis was a possibility and was worth investigating... Interesting how the media changed their narrative on this one.


Such a sad commentary that you so blithely assume that if it's on a government website then it's not misinformation. Across the ages, governments have been the most heinous purveyors of misinformation, and are the biggest misinformation threats to humanity. Ergo the 1st Amendment.


1.USA.gov used to be a blind bitly redirect service. It would redirect any bitly URL.

Example: 1.usa.gov/abc would redirct to the same place as bit.ly/abc

With no authorization or whitelist or anything.


That seems to be a severe issue with usa.gov which should be fixed there (and I assume it has been), not something others should work around.


Are we sure government websites won’t contain misinformation? For example, senior government leadership was advising the consumption of bleach as a COVID-19 cure.


Iirc, he was asking a CDC official whether the application of a disinfectant to infected lungs had been investigated. A stupid idea on its face, but at no point did he recommend the consumption of bleach as a cure or a treatment for covid.


While he did recommend taking hydroxychloroquine as a cure, recommended the end of lock downs and actively rejected the use of masks.


He didn't recommend hydroxy as a cure. He was advocating studies at the time that were supportive of its preventative effectiveness. As those weren't enough to justify using it the left media jumped on it with extreme hyberbole and you bought it with your lack of skepticism I assume. States that have ended lockdowns early, like Florida, haven't done any worse than locked states and saved their economies. Lockdowns are unproven as effective. Trump did not "actively" reject use of masks; he simply didn't fervently promote them as the left wished. And for that matter, Texas ended masks very early to the seething disdain of the left and then nothing happened. So...


You make it sounds like the mask wearing was some sort of left leaning fetish, when in fact it was nothing more than the best possible health advice.


Best possible health advice... except when it wasn't initially [1] (allegedly to save stock for frontline workers), then it was, then it wasn't [2] (vaccinated no longer need them), and now it is again.

I agree that the use of face masks is commonsense and should become a part of life, like it has been in asian countries since at least SARS. But to imply that the directives from health officials has remained the same is either ignorant or deceitful.

[1] https://www.businessinsider.com.au/fauci-doesnt-regret-advis...

[2] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cdc-guideline-mask-vaccinated-c...


Trump said he was taking it. That’s not recommending studies. https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-taking-hydroxychloroqu...


The original assertion I was responding to was that he was touting it as a cure.



I'm not the same person you were talking to but no where does it say he recommends others take it. He is just saying he takes it. You're completely changing his words to suit your narrative that he said something when he never did. This is exactly why people are up in arms over Facebooks censorship. They let people skew other peoples words and present them as fact when they are libel at best.


Yes. Perhaps he shouldn't have been taking it. But he certainly didn't say, as the person I was responding to clearly asserted, that it is a cure for Corona. And here we are, you and I, getting 0'd out by people who apparently can't read. And people apparently who go along with whatever is printed in left-wing media without fact checking.


He probably should. Studies show protease inhibitors are effective treatment: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpt.13356 But don't say this here, because HN downvotes science. Their religion is against it.


Yeah HN is a slightly smarter version of Reddit imo. But I've found you can't say anything along the same vein that you can't on Reddit as well.


Sounds like science. To wit, protease inhibitors: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jcpt.13356


> Iirc, he was asking a CDC official whether the application of a disinfectant to infected lungs had been investigated.

IIRC it sounded like some badly mangled reference to this, which itself is a pretty wild idea:

https://aytubio.com/pipeline/healight-technology-platform/


Rather than trying to tease out the explicit meaning or jokes or subtext, we could just consider the rise of bleach ingestion at the time. Responsible people with a platform speak responsibly.


Given he never mentions bleach, or even suggested disinfectant as anything other than a quizzical aside to an aide - if the rise in bleach poisonings were to be attributed to anyone, it would be media outlets propagating the claim that he wanted people to drink bleach.

However, the rise in bleach poisonings seems to have predated his statement, and pundit's subsequent interpretation

https://arstechnica.com/science/2020/05/38-rise-in-bleach-po...

There are plenty of exceptional reasons to have a low opinion of the man, and call him irresponsible with the platform he had. No reason to make up more.


He literally never talked about injecting bleach. Please stop spreading misinformation. Instead of criticizing him on important issues like not pardoning Assange/Snowden, ideologues keep making stuff up and destroying their own credibility. I provided my sources in this comment:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28004191

As for the rise of bleach ingestion, that was happening prior to this out of context news even admitted by left leaning sources.


Maybe you should have been at the press conference to explain his remarks, because it seems a lot of people didn't interpret things correctly: https://time.com/5835244/accidental-poisonings-trump/


Your statement is very similar to saying "maybe she shouldn't have worn a short skirt if she didn't want to get raped".

Top health official is talking about UV light killing the virus, person replies asking questions about possibility of UV light used for disinfecting the lungs as the technology was patented that week, media turns this into "person tells people to inject bleach", ideologues believe whatever media sells them without any questioning, ideologues blame the person instead of media for spreading disinformation, ideologues censor the person.

Partisan hackery isn't helping when the media is lying and ideologues choose to go along with it. Maybe it's time for ideologues to re-consider their own beliefs.


How exactly do you draw that insulting "similarity"? I'm not blaming a single one of those poisoning cases on the victims; I'm saying the message was obviously not clearly received by a lot of people. When I watched it live I couldn't even figure out if he was talking to his staff or the press pool, so I'm not surprised other people misinterpreted his words. I'm not even getting into whatever your crusade is against "the media."


> For example, senior government leadership was advising the consumption of bleach as a COVID-19 cure.

Right!

Except that never happened at all and you are spreading BS / fakenews / “misinformation”.

At no point did anyone suggest drinking bleach. During a press conference of possible treatments he asked about developing an ingestible solution along with experimental internal UV lung treatments. The media quickly turned that “OMG Trump said drink bleach!”, the nonsense you are happy to repeat.

EDIT: I’m anticipating a link I’ve never seen before. Can’t wait.


Like how the surgeon general and head of infectious diseases said masks were no good.


> was advising the consumption of bleach as a COVID-19 cure

I researched this extensively. That never happened and people still spreading this shows the damage media and politicians have done.

He said "disinfectant", not bleach.

If you watch the press briefing in context, Bill Bryan, Under Secretary for Science and Technology at DHS was saying right prior to Trump: “Our most striking observation to date is the powerful effect that solar light appears to have on killing the virus, both surfaces and in the air. We’ve seen a similar effect with both temperature and humidity as well, where increasing the temperature and humidity or both is generally less favorable to the virus. The virus dies the quickest in the presence of direct sunlight under these conditions. We’ve tested bleach, we’ve tested isopropyl alcohol on the virus, specifically in saliva or in respiratory fluids, and I can tell you that bleach will kill the virus in five minutes,” Bryan said. “Isopropyl alcohol will kill the virus in 30 seconds, and that’s with no manipulation, no rubbing. Just bring it on and leaving it go. You rub it and it goes away even faster.” Bryan talked about the half-life of the coronavirus on surfaces like door handles and stainless steel surfaces, saying that when they “inject” UV rays into the mix along with high temperatures and increased humidity that the virus dies quickly.

After this, Trump said: "So, I’m going to ask Bill a question that probably some of you are thinking of if you’re totally into that world, which I find to be very interesting. So, supposing when we hit the body with a tremendous, whether it’s ultraviolet or just very powerful light, and I think you said that hasn’t been checked, but you’re going to test it. And then I said supposing you brought the light inside the body, which you can do either through the skin or in some other way. And I think you said you’re going to test that too. Sounds interesting. And then I see the disinfectant, where it knocks it out in a minute, one minute. And is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside or almost a cleaning? Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it’d be interesting to check that, so that you’re going to have to use medical doctors with, but it sounds interesting to me. So, we’ll see, but the whole concept of the light, the way it kills it in one minute. That’s pretty powerful." Trump then clarified his remarks: “It wouldn’t be through injections, you’re talking about almost a cleaning and sterilization of an area. Maybe it works, maybe it doesn’t work, but it certainly has a big affect if it’s on a stationary object.” “If they’re outside, right, and their hands are exposed to the sun, will that kill it as though it were a piece of metal or something else?” Trump asked.

In that context Trump was talking about this technology of using UV lights which got patented the same week he mentioned cleaning inside:

Disinfectant to clean lungs: “Injecting light” could be referring to Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation.

Methylene blue photochemical and another light therapy studies which came out that week:

https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-17718/v1

Aytu BioScience Signs Exclusive Global License with Cedars-Sinai for Potential Coronavirus Treatment: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/aytu-bioscience-signs-exclusi...

https://apnews.com/b44f4531071e6204023f7b8e16f59d4b

SEC filed 4 days ago before:

https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1385818/000165495420...

> Led by Mark Pimentel, MD, the research team of the Medically Associated Science and Technology (MAST) Program at Cedars-Sinai has been developing the patent-pending Healight platform since 2016 and has produced a growing body of scientific evidence demonstrating pre-clinical safety and effectiveness of the technology as an antiviral and antibacterial treatment.

Possibility of Disinfection of SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) in Human Respiratory Tract by Controlled Ethanol Vapor Inhalation by Tsumoru Shintake:

https://arxiv.org/abs/2003.12444

https://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:2qsNqD...

UV light to treat disease in the blood: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4783265/?fbclid...

Columbia researcher David Brenner believes far-UVC light—safe for humans, but lethal for viruses—could be a ‘game changer.’:

https://news.columbia.edu/ultraviolet-technology-virus-covid...

A disinfectant does not need to be a harsh chemical or bleach. A disinfectant can be heat, radiation, UV light, etc. Many people consider a lung lavage a method of disinfecting the lung by “washing” it out.

They’ve released technology that is using UV light to sterilize N95 masks due to the shortage. It’s now officially FDA approved. They have been putting babies under ultraviolet light for jaundice, for as long as I can remember. It is not new. They’re also using UV light to sterilize ambulances between runs because of the virus.

No reasonable person would take this to claim Trump was telling people to inject bleach. Media and politician ideologues destroyed their credibility when they spread misinformation while claiming to be against it.


Dems.gov

GOP.gov


Yup. Plus, every Representative and Senator has the ability to blog on their personal house.gov / senate.gov subdomain. Sometimes they're doozies.


I think faction or party related content should be hosted on a .com or .org TLD while official policy organs may be hosted on .gov or .mil TLD


Yeah. GOP.gov and Dems.gov makes me twitch.

I get that we're a de-facto two party state, but yikes.


MySpamSite.com?queryParm=.gov


I'm sure the check (if implemented) wouldn't be a naive regex that would fail that easily


The example regex would fail on that url. More generally I was trying to suggest with an example that filtering credible information with a regex is error prone.


Yes, and the example was naive. It’s trivial to make regex identify TLDs.


Yeah, but that doesn't work either. There are gov sites that have incorrect information, out of date information, partisan ideas and rhetoric, or there may exist, now or in the future, a .gov website where people could upload and share content.


On the domain only.


If you were going to check for this and didn’t immediately reach for location.host rather than location.href then it might be time to read some API docs.


More than an embarrassment, it’s chilling.


I don't know how bad it would be for the magnetic poles to flip. But I don't want it happening every six months.


It happened to me as well 6 days ago (with the exact same link). In the mean time, they removed the warning.




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