Woman who designed Florida's Covid-19 dashboard removed from her position

https://cbs12.com/news/local/woman-who-designed-floridas-covid-19-dashboard-has-been-removed-from-her-position

by danso • 6 years ago

510 211 6 years ago

cbanek• 6 years ago

Rebekah Jones said in an email to CBS12 News that her removal was "not voluntary" and that she was removed from her position because she was ordered to censor some data, but refused to "manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen."

Wow. I don't even know what to say. This is horrible, and misinformation at its worst. I feel like this is the magic marker on the hurricane map that nobody can easily laugh at, because they can't see it.

simonebrunozzi• 6 years ago

If that is true (and I have no reason to doubt it), I hope that:

1) She will not be subject to long term repercussions for being honest and doing her job

2) Whoever asked her to cook the numbers, will be sued and arrested and go to jail. Cooking the numbers in this case equates to me as killing people, because decisions related to reopening, etc, will be heavily influenced by these numbers.

3) I hope that someone Rebekah Jones will know that unknown people in the internet, even in this obscure hacker site called Hacker News, are proud of what she stood for. She has nothing to gain and everything to lose, and yet she chose the right path. (again, assuming this is true)

HenryBemis3• 6 years ago

A move straight from Erdogan's and Vladimir's books. At least she is not rotting in a cell (as per their literal book). Other countries do the exact same thing but I never place i.e. Iran to the same standards as Turkey and Russia (self proclaim) to be. These are truly dark-grey pages in US history. I sincerely hope next time around the people of USA select better leaders.

Edit: people of Florida were lucky to have such a civil servant.

pjc502• 6 years ago

Are you new to American politics? The demand to cook the books undoubtedly came from the top, whoever investigates can also be fired, and the public are out demanding that reopening happen even if it kills people.

HeadsUpHigh• 6 years ago

Worth remembering that all the astroturfing facebook campaigns about reopening came from a single florida ip as well.

zshift• 6 years ago

As a Floridian, I feel defeated. Most people here don’t follow politics, nor would they care enough to make a stand and protest or call for action. Even if they had the drive, a large majority of residents don’t have the luxury of taking days off of work to do this, especially in the current events. Unless mainstream media, especially Fox around here, makes a statement about this, it’s unlikely anything will happen as a result of this.

sizzle• 6 years ago

People need to be fired over this, starting her bosses. This is not how you fight a pandemic.

poorjujmnt8• 6 years ago

Americans need to reconsider what a “managed economy” means.

Ok sure a government supervisor isn’t literally dictating what the assembly line produces and how many.

But this story is just one of dozens a day that are all about managing information, acting as a forcing function, to get back to business as usual.

Pay no mind the body political and it’s monopoly on violence!

“Simply generate wealth! Nevermind as we hand out trillions for free! You have to BUY IN! Not these guys, they can get hand outs and tax breaks! Buy in!”

Which is it? Socialism or capitalism?

Believing there’s ever been anything but a managed effort is nonsense. There is no magic or gods. It’s people validating their identity and having it go unchallenged.

Inflation is deflation for the masses. The rich get more handouts when their assets droop.

Peter Thiel recently wrote about how in the history of man there’s always been elites managing the plebs. It’s how it works!

They’re managing what we believe is correct. It’s a biologically simple trick that’s been used intuitively with great success since the first tribal kings.

Here’s the modern version: we control what raw data you see so we can equivocate. It limits real choices and experiences. And it happens constantly while the masses look away at their repetitive jobs.

mwill• 6 years ago

Someone has posted an email on reddit claiming it was sent out by the woman in question:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/comments/gmfkoa/woman_w...

throwaway202v• 6 years ago

This is pattern from this current crop of hyper-partisan political leadership

Whether it’s stuff like this, crapping on journalists for asking legit questions, concealing or even destroying climate data, etc these folks should not be trusted with anything of consequence under any circumstances.

The fish rots from the head— even presuming this was the handiwork of some political appointee/apparatchik/barnacle who wanted to make sure there is no “bad news”, they got their cue from higher up the food chain.

You’d figure a genuine crisis like this might shake these folks out of their stupor but no luck yet.

Many folks are stressed af about the economy & there needs to be be a cost/benefit way to measure the risks, etc but this is no good.

This is the kind of shady/moronic behavior you’d expect in a political ecosystem like China, Russia, Turkey, etc

PeterStuer2• 6 years ago

The same thing is happening all over the 'western' world. It is not a US or partisan thing. Neo-Liberal oligarchic 'democracies' rely on people voting against their own interest. This is core. This is why they need the 'post-thruth' culture where 'everything is fake news'.

xwolfi• 6 years ago

Do you propose a archaic-communist dictatorship to solve the issue ? What's the alternative world you envision, where people are forbidden to vote, especially against their own interests (or at least, as perceived by you) ?

A true democracy, first tell people not to vote only for their own interest, but the nation's, and whatever they vote for, it's THEIR responsibility. No buts, no ifs, you vote you pay. Fake news or corrupt oranges, the citizens have the last word: they wanted it.

nostrebored• 6 years ago

Maybe you're not empathizing with people enough to understand their interests.

This line is tired and ridiculous. If you can't see why people ranging from poor to upper class might favor right wing ideology, without resorting to tropes and strawman arguments, you're not trying. The same is true for left wing ideology.

It's not voting against their self interest, it's voting against YOUR PERCEPTION of their interest.

Polylactic_acid• 6 years ago

This needs some serious citations. As far as I know there have been no fake numbers reported in Australia for example. Americans seem to have this attitude of "If its bad here, just imagine how bad it is everywhere else"

puranjay• 6 years ago

Unfortunately this has been happening across the world. Some people have been convinced that every single institution of authority is corrupt, and that the handful of provocateurs they've voted into power are the only source of truth.

I really don't know how we go back from this. Things like antivaxx were fringe movements mocked half a decade ago, but they've been gaining more and more momentum. Conspiracy theories are now the norm and even the absurd ones, like Flat Earth, have more and more believers.

lopmotr• 6 years ago

Actually, religious belief has been declining over the past century along with economic development. I think the numbers of people losing those conspiracy theories are far greater than the numbers picking up novel ones.

throwaway-2020• 6 years ago

I used to look up to America. It was the country I wished my country was more like. I often joked I wished the U.S. would buy our country so we could live in the 51st state. Sure no country doesn't have problems but there was an aura around America, at least in my eyes.

In the last few years I have been living in shock. I can't believe what is happening at the top levels of power. I oscillate between disbelief and anger. I spend most days with a sick feeling in my stomach. I constantly ask myself "How is this happening? When will someone stop the madness?", but it seems there is a story like this almost everyday.

I am close to losing hope.

fit2rule• 6 years ago

How is this happening?

All states are corrupted by their secrets. America is no exception.

oefrha3• 6 years ago

Might have watched too much Hollywood. Goes to show cultural export is one hell of a drug.

klyrs• 6 years ago

It was like that for a lot of americans, and I think it really pushed them to be better people. But polarization turns "better" into "not them" and the aura has become a noxious haze

coliveira3• 6 years ago

This is not new, but it is getting so bad that people around the world are finally starting to realize that much of the image of the US is based on the fiction it sells. Rich country, (still) yes, but freedom and democracy have taken a turn to the worse in the last decades.

ars• 6 years ago

The thing you need to know is that America has not changed.

What had changed is that Trump doesn't try to hide it, he doesn't care. And because of that, the media (which is where you get your info) also doesn't try to pretend not to be biased.

They hate Trump, he hates them, he makes up stuff about them, they only report the worst things they can find. (Try it, listen to a Trump press conference, then read the press about it.)

The cure? Stop listening to opinion and speech, and only watch actions.

fzeroracer• 6 years ago

It's getting harder to trust any data coming from state officials as they move to censor or manipulate it so that they can make a better case for reopening too soon. A lot of this tension can be seen as local governments attempt to implement their own coronavirus restrictions only for the state to override them like here in Texas.

I'm assuming the plan is that when we inevitably get hit by a second wave they can just blame the businesses or the counties for not doing a good enough job or something. Considering how much of a joke the reopening guidelines have been and how little the state is willing to enforce them.

mcshicks• 6 years ago

While it's not quick I am wondering if the uncensored data would be available under freedom of information type laws.

icelancer6• 6 years ago

We'll find out in a month or so in WA state. I've filed a request and plan on making it public.

chrisco2553• 6 years ago

I'll tell you this, as an anecdote, my mother works in a hospital in central Florida, in The Villages, the largest retirement community in the state. She says it's never been so slow. They've had to cut shifts, and she's seen worse flu seasons than what they went through over the past 2 months. They were never at more than 50% capacity. And they never had more than a dozen Covid patients at any given time.

whycombagator• 6 years ago

Interesting, but perhaps that anecdote makes sense?

It’s kind of middle of nowhere FL with a low population density.

Everyone is retired and the closest major airports are Tampa and Orlando (I think) and I suspect visitors/tourism to The Villages are relatively low in number.

Additionally, from what I last saw around 50% of confirmed cases were in South FL. Where there are major international airports, plentiful tourism, and greater population density.

bosswipe• 6 years ago

That's happening everywhere, people are staying away from hospitals.

rurban4• 6 years ago

But this is the most critical area worldwide, much more important to protect than New York. As you said, it's the largest density of seniors. 50% is nothing if it breaks out there. Glad that they could avoid that so far.

pacala• 6 years ago

The major challenge is that we either hide for an indefinite amount of time, which destroys the wealth pipes, aka the economy, or we get hit by a second pandemic wave. There are NO good options.

Cherry on top: everything is hyperpartisan, which leads to the destruction of public trust. In some alternate reality, Mr. Trump and Ms. Pelosi would hold a joint press conference and tell us the cold facts: There are NO good options. Many people are going to die, and there is nothing anyone can do to indefinitely prevent that. Let's at least hold our heads up with dignity.

pjc502• 6 years ago

Meanwhile on the other side of the world countries are reopening with a fraction of the deaths, because their measures actually worked.

vkou2• 6 years ago

Actually, you have a choice between three things.

1. Hide for an indefinite amount of time, devastating the economy.

2. Re-open, get hit by a second wave, also devastating the economy. (Economies don't do great in the middle of an uncontrolled pandemic.)

3. Do the hard work of getting public health efforts, employment law, and testing logistics to the point where you can re-open safely.

Guess which option we're going with?

Consultant324525• 6 years ago

Here's the only data you need to know. Large numbers of people in every locality, from every walk of life, and from every political perspective are violating the lockdown orders. It's everywhere from the MAGA Texans to progressive NY beachgoers. So the state is losing control, but the state must maintain the illusion of control. If 10 people break the lockdown you arrest them. If 10k people break the lockdown, it's no longer a lockdown. So the state is just catching up to the reality on the streets, trying to pretend they are still in charge of the decision. And the state will twist themselves and the truth into a funny looking pretzel to do it.

soco• 6 years ago

Isn't that a kind of state failure?

qqqwerty3• 6 years ago

No, the states are trying to open back up because they are not getting any help from the White House. Trump has been actively encouraging the protests and McConnell has shot down any financial support for the states. Unlike the federal government, the states can't print money, so what is the point of racking up huge deficits while the white house actively undermines your quarantine efforts? After all, Trump is going to be at the top of the ticket in November, so if you are a governor, why would you continue to enforce the politically difficult but necessary quarantine policies if Trump is going to be the one to get the credit if it succeeds. Might as well save the state finances and risk opening back up early. And if/when a second wave happens, Trumps political fortunes will likely be toast.

suby• 6 years ago

Let's be more specific. It's republicans.

grecy• 6 years ago

While they're currently in the spotlight, I'd go so far as to say it's any politician trying to get (re)elected.

That's their job, after all. \s

aaomidi• 6 years ago

And even more specific. The establishment. They're too scared of losing power and control.

DaiPlusPlus• 6 years ago

But why Florida, though? I can understand more rural states, but has the GOP made a spreadsheet that determined the number of elderly GOP voters who will die by reopening early will be cancelled-out by younger swing-voters who would vote for Trump's second-term because they reopened Florida early? Or do the models suggest that they'll die _after_ the election? Or will they do early re-openings only in Dem-leaning population centers?

slimed• 6 years ago

Show me the data that indicates states that have opened in the last two weeks are experiencing spiking positives for the virus.

Sure, I'll wait.

vyhd3• 6 years ago

It really is startling how reviled this sort of comment tends to be, despite the overarching trend of Republican leadership to systemically misrepresent and falsify data to support their views.

The next time Democrats pull these shenanigans, name and shame them. Both-sides-ism only obscures the bad actors that should be directly pressured to do better.

icelancer6• 6 years ago

Deleting due to HN hivemind.

9nGQluzmnq3M• 6 years ago

A comment from a non-American on the sidelines, who is generally appalled at Trump's sheer incompetence/myopia but otherwise not hugely invested in this:

Reading the New York Times recently, I've been struck not only by the amount of sheer bile directed at Trump and Republicans (which I can understand), but a consistent thread of seemingly wanting to make the COVID crisis seem as bad as possible, casting even positive developments in the US in a negative light ("Cases are going down in city X... but how many are not being measured in city Y!?!"). In particular, the necessity of locking down everything forever (and, by extension, loosening lockdown being an unforgivable sin) is starting to take on religious tones, instead of being an extreme but temporary measure grounded in science. Which sounds uncomfortably like a mirror image of what Republicans and the right-wing press are doing ("freedom good, lockdown bad!").

russellbeattie• 6 years ago

It really isn't surprising at all actually. There are a huge number of HN commenters who enthusiastically support Trump and his lies because they're right-wing, Ayn Rand-reading libertarians who think they are "winning." They'll downvote or flag any criticism of the Republican party as controversial or overly political. It's been this way for years.

kyuudou• 6 years ago

I don't support the War part(ies).

harwoodleon• 6 years ago

It’s not only happening in the US. The true numbers will be very hard to see, everywhere.

rorykoehler• 6 years ago

We can only look at increase of total deaths from mean and decrease of deaths per category (ie traffic etc) from mean.

CaptainZapp• 6 years ago

While that may be true and could only really be resolved by testing 100% of the population please do show me another democratic, developed and wealthy country where systematic massaging of facts and numbers is so widespread.

You may have a number of conservative talking heads in the UK yelling for reopening, but in no other place I know of the virus is actually a partisan issue.

One of the reasons, in my book, why the US response is so terrible compared to just about every other rich country.

ddrt• 6 years ago

Oh no, it’s despotism.

dang3• 6 years ago

Please don't take HN threads into brain-dead partisan flamewar. It's always the same, and it's not why we're here.

(No, this is not because I'm supporting Republicans. I'm supporting HN.)

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23231556.

sjg007• 6 years ago

So the government is lying. Thought only communist dictatorships did this.

6510• 6 years ago

The difference is that people living under dictatorship don't believe anything their government says.

nartz• 6 years ago

Why are there no repurcussions for what essentially amounts to fraud? Why is it acceptable for politicians to commit fraud, but not for anyone else?

jariel4• 6 years ago

We only have a soundbite from one side of the story, we have no idea what really happened.

Communication is always political, and how information is represented is important, and public opinion matters.

For example in Quebec, there are 'big numbers' of cases, but almost 80% of the deaths are in long-term-care homes.

So you could have one person who doesn't want that data to be highlighted, while some other person does because frankly, that information might frame Covid as ultimately being less risky and yet, it's more transparent.

Hydroxychloroquine is another kind of example - in reality, there may be some benefit for this, but it's really not helpful to have the general public tweeting about it, because it's not generally useful, and the impact will be overwhelming on health officials and cause shortages for those non-covid people who really need it. So the information is either suppressed or 'led' in the direction that public health and safety officials want.

So if the state official was literally trying to get someone to literally just change the data and make it look better, this is obviously going to be a whistleblower case. But this may not be the situation.

Public communication is hard. Trump is probably the anti-example.

zo1• 6 years ago

I think this part is crucial and something that is framing this discussion in a possibly wrong light. We're getting "snippets" of the events from this individual, and it could very well be that they're phrasing their comments and selectively "mentioning" parts of the story in order to amplify and push a certain interpretation.

Everything is marketing, and I would certainly say it's plausible that a developer that was this much in the spotlight would be steering the conversation to at least frame him or herself in a positive light if not outright promote their politics (even if that is just one of transparency/government accountability).

NotSammyHagar2• 6 years ago

One repercussion is voting them out. There can be a change or an impact when there is clear evidence.

colejohnson66• 6 years ago

Unfortunately, voting people out doesn’t really work when a good chunk of people actually side with the person you’re trying to remove.

lazyjones3• 6 years ago

Repercussions based on a single person's unproven allegations? Would you like to live in a place where this is the norm?

paganel• 6 years ago

I have to say I haven't followed this news that close but as far as I could understand most of the covid-related data for Florida plus some map layers are now gone/not accessible any more, so that proves that the most important allegation of this person is correct, i.e. the powers that be wanted the data closest to the truth not to be easily accessible anymore.

r00fus• 6 years ago

How do you feel about the opposite - covering things up - is that the best approach? Because that's what's happening right now prior to her allegations.

anigbrowl• 6 years ago

Because serious opposition is criminalized. You are not free.

dexen• 6 years ago

the government took it down to protect itself

That's a far-fetched hypothesis, bordering on conspiratorial thinking.

A more mundane, realistic -and more common- scenario: due to mistakes made (as noted in OP: downtime, misplaced data files, APIs needlessly changed, etc.,) the responsibility was transferred to another team.

Traster2• 6 years ago

I think you've mis-read the reporting, she was removed on May 5th, before the issues you listed, after being asked to censor the data.

asdf333• 6 years ago

which one of us techies and software engineers would be brave enough to take the stand and risk our job?

how many of us would look the other way and make some excuse about how it’s not our call and we are just doing our jobs?

i hope that if our time ever comes, we would all have the courage to stand up for the truth like she did.

nicbou• 6 years ago

In practice, it's very difficult fo make such decisions. I'm a young, single developer with other revenue streams. I am not risking a lot, so honesty and integrity are cheap.

However, many people don't have such a luxury, especially outside the tech community.

Consultant324525• 6 years ago

I think there's a u-shape here. Lots of jobs are disposable. Being the bartender at Chili's is not much different than being the bartender at Olive Garden. So there's lots of jobs on the low end where it's relatively easy to dump the job and get another. My intuition is that the middle has the hardest time, once you get enough job specialization and income.

creato3• 6 years ago

Fraud and abuse is rarely this blatant and obvious.

Even in this case, I would be surprised if it turns out to be as blatant and obvious as it seems to be right now based on this report.

xapata• 6 years ago

Given how often we job-hop, more likely than folks in other fields.

genidoi• 6 years ago

Deeply unsettling to imagine that the US statistics aren't trustworthy.

sneak2• 6 years ago

I feel like politicizing and propagandizing the "current status" view was sadly inevitable once it became clear this was going to negatively affect capital flows in huge ways for months or years.

There are too many in power invested too heavily in the status quo to allow end participants in the labor market to have enough data to make their own risk assessments. This is why states that have reopened despite it being unsafe to do so have set up unemployment snitch lines for people who don't want to risk their lives, so that the threat of eviction or starvation can be used against them.

I worry we are going to see a lot of naked greed come forth in the next few months, and thousands of preventable deaths as a result.

TeMPOraL12• 6 years ago

Anyone ever believed them? Throughout March and most April, US statistics were essentially worthless because testing was not being done - and that (especially early) happened on purpose, so it pretty much amounts to lying.

TheOtherHobbes2• 6 years ago

Same for the UK - only reporting official in-hospital deaths that were tested, while limiting the number of tests.

Much harder to fix the ONS excess death stats, and those are now running at around 55,000.

mrfusion3• 6 years ago

You got this from one lady quitting her job?

lumberingjack3• 6 years ago

I've been in and out of the hospital for 6 months for hand related surgeries literally heard stories of doctors marking patients is dying of covid-19 when the only thing that was related was that deliveries didn't happen on time they didn't die of the virus just didn't get their deliveries of medical supplies on time but officially they died of the virus.

WillDaSilva• 6 years ago

Here is the email she sent to the Florida Coronavirus listserv (copied from /u/aerlenbach on Reddit):

Hey all –

I’ve gotten a lot of emails from everyone during the last eight days ever since the dashboard went down, the data was hidden, and the functionality essentially crashed, so to clear up the confusion, I’m sending this final notice to the group.

For reasons beyond my division’s control, as of late in the day on May 5, my office (the DOH-GIS office) is no longer managing the COVID-19 Dashboard. I am no longer involved in the publication of data, fixing errors, answering questions, etc., in any shape or form. I helped them get it back running a few times but I have no knowledge about their plans, what data they are now restricting, what data will be added and when, or any of that. I understand, appreciate, and even share your concern about all the dramatic changes that have occurred and those that are yet to come. However, I cannot provide any insight now or going forward.

As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months. After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it.

They are making a lot of changes. I would advise being diligent in your respective uses of this data. I know many of you have broken API links and map layers. I’ve listed the contacts for getting that information below.

The primary contacts going forward are listed below.

Anything related to EPI: REDACTED or REDACTED

Anything related to the technical aspects of the dashboard: REDACTED

It was great working with you guys. Good luck, and stay safe.

-30-

Rebekah Jones, GISP

GIS Manager| Division of Disease Control and Health Protection

PHONE # & EMAIL REDACTED

kreetx• 6 years ago

I wonder how much/in what way they wanted to cook the numbers. I.e would a small change affect the perception, could a big change go unnoticed etc. Interesting nevertheless.

akiselev• 6 years ago

I think it's chickens with their heads cut off all the way down at this point.

JackFr• 6 years ago

Reading the plain text of her letter, there is no accusation of wrongdoing, no cooking the numbers, etc. Rather it is a lot of innuendo. Which data to present and how is always an editorial decision as in the case of every other state’s DOH website and every newspapers dashboard.

This is not a whistleblower complaint. It’s only evidence of bad faith on the part of the governor if you come in assuming bad faith to begin with.

Traster2• 6 years ago

Yes, if you read the letter ignoring the context of the direct quotations in the news article then it's not evidence of bad faith on the part of the govorner. What's evidence of bad faith by the governer is the fact that she has told the news organisation:

Rebekah Jones said in an email to CBS12 News that her removal was "not voluntary" and that she was removed from her position because she was ordered to censor some data, but refused to "manually change data to drum up support for the plan to reopen."

But now that you know what she's said to the news reporters, you can see that the context of this email is trying to inform people that the data isn't trustworthy without directly accusing anyone of wrongdoing that may lead to her being fired.

makomk3• 6 years ago

I think I've got a good guess what data she didn't want removed or changed, and it's not exactly good for her case. On May the 5th, they day she was removed from her position, there was an all-time high spike of 113 reported coronavirus deaths due to Florida reporting a bunch of old deaths all at once: https://www.tampabay.com/news/health/2020/05/15/florida-adds...

This did not represent an actual spike in deaths which had in reality been declining, but if I remember rightly some people did spin it as deaths increasing due to the lockdown being lifted. Deaths by date reported are conspicuously missing from the current version of the dashboard; it only has dates by date of death, which is far less favourable to the claim that lifting the lockdown is causing an increase in deaths.

skrebbel• 6 years ago

When I opened the article I got a gdrp cookie popup from Sinclair, who apparently owns CBS12.

I'm not American and all I know about the US media landscape is what I get from HN, but isn't Sinclair this local broadcaster that's notorious for spreading absolute bollocks all the time?

Does this site have anything to do with the real CBS?

More specifically, is any of this true?

hackerman123469• 6 years ago

It's not even GDPR compliant because everything is every setting is toggled "YES" by default which is illegal.

danso2• 6 years ago

I have no reason to distrust the local CBS affiliate, but in any case, it’s a summary of a story reported by this news outlet: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2020/05/18/censorshi...

Note that floridatoday.com is a Gannett/GateHouse paper, and the reason why I didn’t submit it is because I had thought that network is inaccesible to EU users.

isolli2• 6 years ago

Actually the Florida Today website opens with this banner: "Welcome to USA TODAY NETWORK’S EUROPEAN UNION EXPERIENCE", and is entirely ad free.

I believe it is better in general to post the original source, in order to support local journalism.

kevingadd• 6 years ago

Sinclair owns a big chunk of US media outlets, so it's not surprising that a particular outlet's website would have Sinclair cookies on it. While the upper level Sinclair management has a well-deserved bad reputation the individuals working at the local level can still do good reporting if they're allowed to.

When an American TV station is 'ABC 7' or 'CBS 12' that typically means they're a local TV station with a deal to rebroadcast official ABC, CBS, etc programming mixed in with some bits of local/original footage. So when you watched an ABC station here, you got mostly national ABC footage combined with a mix of local content (like news programs) and local ads.

pizza• 6 years ago

Sinclair is the same broadcasting station featured in the terror-inducing "This is Extremely Dangerous to Our Democracy" video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZggCipbiHwE&disable_polymer=...

TeMPOraL12• 6 years ago

https://youtu.be/ZggCipbiHwE?t=52

We are the Borg. Resistance is futile.

sneak2• 6 years ago

Cory Doctorow wrote the following recently, which seems on topic for this thread:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/05/08/volcano-gods/#reopening

titzer4• 6 years ago

That piece is spot on. The common theme is that a distributed value system based on personal gain is absolutely and totally at odds with preempting a pandemic. The economic interests of business owners and investors is directly at odds with the health and safety of the public. The market won't fix this. It will just price death in. And guess what? They're busy pushing that cost to zero through their corrupt influence on politicians.

tibbydudeza• 6 years ago

US is no different from China it seems.

BLKNSLVR• 6 years ago

I was thinking of posting the same thing, but worried about the inevitable ensuing what-about-ism arguments. But, yes, this is a yet another step away from the transparency that underpins democracy and leads to 'reality is as the nation state allows it'.

It only furthers the populace's depth of under- and mis-education about anything that may be of relevance to the state of the country / world. It will only serve to pour fuel on conspiracy theories and fake news that are already burning out of control.

Transparency is a requirement of democracy. Australia has been increasingly legislating against whistleblowers and real (no-real-Scotsman arguments aside) journalism for a few years now. The world was already heading this way, and it only seems to be gaining momentum, and this time the "free, democratic West" are right there along for the ride instead of conscripting their populace against the threat.

We will beat China at their own game! (and in doing so lose ourselves entirely).

(Yes, this is a big dramatic post over a small thing, but it feels like the timing of this small thing is as a result of the looming big thing: the US Presidential elections).

gwd• 6 years ago

There is always a temptation for people in power to "massage the facts" (for various levels of "massage") to make themselves look good. One difference between the US and China is that we have the freedom to call it out and discuss it. Hopefully a second difference is that we'll have the political will to fire the people who asked to do the "massaging" -- whether that will happen or not remains to be seen.

TheOtherHobbes2• 6 years ago

What difference does "the freedom to discuss it" make if it has no effect on policy?

ninkendo• 6 years ago

Yeah, sure. I can’t think of a single way in which they’re different either.

pgwhalen• 6 years ago

I know many others are thinking it, so I'll be the one to say it.

Obviously the US is different from China. In China, this women would be dead and no one would know her name, or she wouldn't have spoken up in the first place because of that risk. In the US, she proudly spoke out without fear of government repercussion, and the commenters on this website proudly support her also without fear of repercussion.

gccxsse• 6 years ago

?????

jariel4• 6 years ago

The comments here on HN are borderline irresponsible.

All we know is that someone was removed for what they perceived be 'censoring some data' - and we really have almost no context or material facts.

It continues to amaze me how people jump to conclusions and can't fathom how power, information, and communications work within any organization and that it's always complicated.

Having responsibility is almost 100% 'making sausage' and there is literally no situation in which the public will have access to 100% of the information, and when they do, it will be communicated in a specific way, hopefully for the public good.

For example, someone could feel that it's 'really important' to publish the latest finding on Hyrcoxychloroquine, or Remdesevir or whatever, when from a public communications perspective, it may not be helpful at all to be a focus on this information. Some might call this censorship, some might call it suppression, others might call it responsible.

How about hospital vacancy rates? Because all over North America, the vast majority of Hospitals are sitting idle, and medical staff are being laid off. Funny we don't see that on CNN. Obviously, from a public health policy, maybe this wouldn't be such a good set of data to focus on because people might get the impression that there is materially no pandemic, unable to grasp that in fact, the low rates of hospitalization are due to social distancing measures.

My gosh man this is everyday life in so many fields.

If some Florida politician was trying to literally get numbers manipulated, hopefully, this will be dealt with in the criminal justice system, but this may not be the case.

COVID is a sausage-making communications nightmare for everyone involved, there are massive legal issues, massive economic consequences, existential life and death concerns, literally geopolitical realignment happening in real-time.

Let's try to get more information.

Edit - a relevant example from Miami Herald: [1] "But since the state’s first confirmed coronavirus case, officials have kept some basic information confidential. Most notable: DeSantis has chosen not to reveal the names of nursing homes experiencing outbreaks — cases that, according to Florida Department of Health data, have resulted in at least 126 deaths."

This is exactly the same in Quebec - they don't want to release the individual names of the homes (they are of course known to the occupants and relatives) because it's not meaningful information for the public to have. They've made a reasonable case for not doxxing the homes with problems.

So this is a pretty good example of where public information is managed for the public good. It happens everywhere.

What troubles me specifically about the whistleblower complaint is that there were no specifics at all - no actual articulation of malfeasance. 'Censorship' is a pretty vague term.

[1] https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article24205069...

titzer4• 6 years ago

Let's try to get more information.

The irony of this part.

We need to hold leaders accountable, and we need to make good decisions. They are actively undermining that ability by censoring data and trying to cover their asses.

The rest of your comment trots out a truckload of red herrings about information we might not want to look at right now, or some disgruntled or misguided person not following proper channels and rushing to get out crap information about drugs or something. These things could not be less related to what we are talking about here. FFS they fired the person whose official job it was to make information available to the public and she reports it was because they wanted to censor it. I mean, does that not strike you as something she should absolutely blow the whistle on?

SpicyLemonZest5• 6 years ago

Absolutely she should blow the whistle. Then the journalists should ask followup questions like "which specific changes were you ordered to make", so they can dig in and confirm whether those changes would be dishonest. A story with little context and no details is useless; the state will soon announce something along the lines of "nuh-uh she's a liar", and then how's anyone supposed to decide who's right except by applying preconceived biases?

jariel4• 6 years ago

"FFS they fired the person whose official job it was to make information available to the public and she reports it was because they wanted to censor it. "

I think you are misreading my point and definitely misunderstanding the nature of the person's job.

We don't know what happened and 'censored' can mean a lot of things.

My quotes are not 'red herrings' - they are examples of what is happening right now.

The Miami Herald is upset that Flordia would not publish the names of retirement homes?

What if this is literally the issue in question? What if this 'whistleblower' wanted to publish said names, but the Gov. didn't want her to? Is this worthy of whistle-blowing? I don't think so.

What if she wanted to make a graph where the landing page highlighted 'total new cases' (which looks bad because it's always rising) but the state wants 'daily new cases' (which looks better because it's ostensibly flat. Is that censorship?

And by the way - disgruntled people are fired all the time.

What we need is more information, and it's odd that the state employee did not actually give more specifics, it would validate the cause a little better.

Finally - it's not her job to decide what goes out and whatnot. Definitely not, that's a fairly high-level decision. Her job is to communicate and coordinate it effectively. But again, using my example the decision as to 'do we name the long term care homes or not?' is definitely above her pay grade. That's a communications job it will touch the highest levels.

So again - we need more information in order to determine the severity of what happened here. Maybe there is fraud rising to criminality, in which case I hope someone goes to jail, but it may not be that.

titzer4• 6 years ago

I have often wondered whether there are any objective criteria for judging intelligence at all, or whether it is all subjective. It must be the case that the success of accurately modeling the world around you, predicting the future of the world around you based on your model, and taking action to achieve an outcome is one way to evaluate intelligence. If we have two minds, and one is better at modeling and taking action and achieving its own desired outcomes, then it must be considered more intelligent, right? But here's the rub! Effective modeling cannot be done with garbage (or no) data. Literally choosing to have bad data cannot possibly lead to better decision-making, as the model is less and less accurate.

In other words, garbage in, garbage out. "Lalalala I can't hear you, you can't see me, we aren't dying" is an objectively stupid strategy. And it's leading to objectively bad results. Let me just say it bluntly. This is stupid. Please can we use that word again? Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Infuriating.

pojntfx• 6 years ago

As an EU citizen, the US response to COVID-19 really is laughable. It's just that a lot of people die due to this ideological "but muh freedom" mentality.

jakeogh• 6 years ago

You can get fined for a dog trick, you dont have anything resembling freedom of speech, and your class system is easiest to see if you check who can defend themselves with useful tools. Lecturing us is pretty rich.

https://video.foxnews.com/v/6157380317001/

CDC #'s (yes, yes 2 weeks old yawn) https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

TeMPOraL12• 6 years ago

As a EU citizen, I agree in general, but I wouldn't be so quick to judge it in this context. I'm betting that by the time the dust settles, we'll have plenty of similar stories uncovered all across Europe. Cooking books for various $reasons seem to be standard practice of (almost?) every government in this pandemic.

unishark2• 6 years ago

People like to define the US based on the worst thing any of the 50 states do, then compare to Europe by picking out what the most successful country there is doing.

nickpp4• 6 years ago

As an EU citizen, I am still waiting for the EU response to COVID-19.

TeMPOraL12• 6 years ago

There won't be any, because EU is by design and vote not meant to have any response. We're not United Federation of Europe; the EU explicitly doesn't dictate medical policy across member states.

idrae3• 6 years ago

It's well established within the EU that healthcare is a handled on a national level, so the EU won't respond to COVID-19 like the US does on a federal level.

The countries within the EU all have responded to COVID-19 in some way or another.

DanBC• 6 years ago

The EU response to covid-19 is in vaccine development (funded by the EU and helped by freedom of movement for scientists); temporary restrictions on travel into the EU for non-essential purposes; coordinated effort around reducing restrictions; joint procurement and provision of medical equipment and PPE; increased production of PPE; €160m for startups with innovative ideas to tackle covid-19; an EU wide data platform; support for businesses during and after lockdowns; support for education; relaxation of state aid rules to allow governments to support businesses; coordination of freight transport across Europe with priority for items in high need; etc etc.

There's a bunch more stuff.

marvin2• 6 years ago

As a Northern European, I wouldn't say that e.g. France's official response gives me the warm and fuzzies.

With literal criminal prosecution for moving in a safe way 20 kilometers from your house in a car, or even being outside at all for longer than the prescribed short walk, 100 meters away from anyone, government-led propaganda discrediting legitimate medical research in Marseilles, largely state-affiliated media with ownership stakes in Gilead fuelling criticism at the same research (while family members of politicians receive the exact same treatment that's being vilified), PPE stocks shipped away to China in the early stages of the pandemic...

Lockdown orders delayed in the face of all evidence in order to complete local elections, with the chief of police attributing the resulting spike in deaths afterwards to people violating the quarantine that was not yet in place, a police force that only shortly before the epidemic was beating up and tear-gassing nurses that were protesting their working conditions, a government that, as in the HIV/AIDS epidemic, takes the opportunity to pass laws protecting them against persecution even if it turns out they were objectively responsible for bad things that happened...

The federal response in the US has been absolutely laughable, and there's plenty of stuff to criticise on a state level as well, but there's blood on the hands of the authorities in parts of Europe as well.

atemerev• 6 years ago

I am an epidemiologist working in Switzerland, and while I regret that Americans (and sometimes Europeans) ignore the quarantine, I wouldn't expect total submission to the government directives. Economy is important, the issue is not single sided, political freedom is the most important thing we have in the Western world. People are free to ignore what their doctors are telling them, for example. What is getting me sad is the idea that there is no medical reasoning to introduce the restrictions. There _are_ valid medical reasons. Ask any hospital worker.

dang3• 6 years ago

Nationalistic flamewar is not welcome on HN regardless of which nation you are for or against. Please do not post like this here again.

Edit: would you please stop posting flamebait and/or unsubstantive comments generally? You've unfortunately been doing that repeatedly, and we eventually ban such accounts. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting here, we'd be grateful.

anoplus• 6 years ago

If we want to progress as a society we must step up for transparency. This kind of deliberate misinformation is devastating

isolli2• 6 years ago

Original link to the newspaper that broke the story: https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2020/05/18/censorshi...

Local news is incredibly important. For instance, the Miami Herald's investigations uncovered the Epstein scandal: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/article220097825.html

nkkollaw• 6 years ago

It's all fake data, anyway.

They're counting cancer patients that were given 30 days to live as COVID if they were positive when they died.

mrfusion3• 6 years ago

No one seems to be asking what the data in question is? Surely the correct data was reported elsewhere? What was hidden exactly?

mrfusion3• 6 years ago

Not to get in the way of a good mob with pitchforks, but so far this is just one persons claim. There’s no other evidence.

We don’t believe Joe Biden’s accuser without more evidence, why do we believe this lady automatically?

horsemessiah• 6 years ago

Imagine how different the comments would be if this article were about China...

dariusj182• 6 years ago

I'm having trouble imagining the difference. I think people would still be claiming government corruption and hoping for accountability.

sethgoodluck• 6 years ago

Data tampering of this sort should be highly illegal. Like, years in prison, illegal.

darkside11• 6 years ago

This is hardly a surprise. Just because a bunch of screaming uneducated people demand to open the country, ( and have the support they need), doesn't mean it's the smart thing to do. Many people will be in jeopardy and it doesn't matter as long as they can keep the economy rolling. When people become so sick they can't buy things or go to work and the numbers get bigger, to big to hide...then things will get real. Everyone should be prepared for another setback because this is not going to just be...oh yeah all is back to normal guys! No worries....

lazyjones3• 6 years ago

Here's an update and perhaps a broader perspective:

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article24285125...

“Rebekah Jones exhibited a repeated course of insubordination during her time with the department, including her unilateral decisions to modify the department’s COVID-19 dashboard without input or approval from the epidemiological team or her supervisors,” Ferré said. “The blatant disrespect for the professionals who were working around the clock to provide the important information for the COVID-19 website was harmful to the team. Accuracy and transparency are always indispensable, especially during an unprecedented public health emergency such as COVID-19. Having someone disruptive cannot be tolerated during this public pandemic, which led the department to determine that it was best to terminate her employment.”

So, depending on what you choose to believe at this point, you could also consider the possibility that she was making modifications to inflate the numbers and exaggerate the problem.

billme• 6 years ago

According to story, “COVID-19 dashboard designer faces cyber sexual harassment charges”, say the Governor of Florida:

https://cbs12.com/news/local/covid-19-dashboard-designer-fac...

game_the0ry• 6 years ago

For the data scientists of HN - is it common for "the business" to exert influence on your data, so that it results in some conclusion that they want (rather than a truthful conclusion)? I knew a guy who dropped out of an ivy league phd because he was recruited by hedge fund to do data science stuff (no idea what) and he gave me the impression that most of his work was selectively choosing and presenting data that he knew would make management happy, and that he was rewarded with career advancement as a result.

So how common is this?

Side note - someone please hire Ms. Jones.

Woman who designed Florida's Covid-19 dashboard removed from her position

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