China's “transparency” on COVID-19; knee-jerk cancellation

Censorship emoji

“The Chinese government has maintained that it’s ‘always been open and transparent’ about Covid.” (Newly declassified report shows U.S. intelligence community remains divided over likely origin of Covid) Sure. Like arresting a physician for “spreading rumors” when the virus first started circulating. (Dr. Li Wenliang was arrested for warning China about the coronavirus. Then he died from it) Sigh.

ETA: In Wuhan, doctors knew the truth. They were told to keep quiet:

[T]his tableau of chaos was hidden from the Chinese people — and the world — in early 2020. Chinese authorities had acknowledged on Dec. 31, 2019, that there were 27 cases of “pneumonia of unknown origin,” and 44 confirmed cases on Jan. 3, 2020. The Wuhan health commission reported 59 cases on Jan. 5, then abruptly reduced the number to 41 on Jan. 11, and claimed there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission or any signs of doctors getting sick.

That claim was a lie. The coronavirus was running rampant. Doctors at the radiologist’s hospital, and other hospitals, were getting sick. But China’s Communist Party leaders prize social stability above all else. They fear any sign of public panic or admission that the ruling party-state is not in control. The authorities in both Wuhan and Beijing kept the situation secret, especially because annual party political meetings were being held in Wuhan, capital of Hubei province, from Jan. 6 to Jan. 17.

Secrecy has long been a major tool of the governing Communist Party. It suppresses independent journalism, censors digital news and communications, and withholds vital information from its people. Doctors in Wuhan who knew the truth were afraid to speak out. China did not reveal human transmission of the virus until Jan. 22, and by then, the global pandemic had been ignited.

Meanwhile: “All agencies continue to assess that both a natural and laboratory-associated origin remain plausible hypotheses to explain the first human infection.” (Potential Links Between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the Origin of the COVID-19 Pandemic) Anyone else remember when even suggesting it could have been a lab issue would get you deplatformed on the leading socials? The Wall Street Journal remembers. (Facebook Ends Ban on Posts Asserting Covid-19 Was Man-Made) Then there was the pearl clutching when Jon Stewart dared deviate from the sanctioned groupthink:

Stewart placed much of the blame for the fallout on political correctness.

“The larger problem with all of this is the inability to discuss things that are within the realm of possibility without falling into absolutes and litmus-testing each other for our political allegiances as it arose from that,” he said.

The former Daily Show host landed in hot water back in June 2021 during an appearance on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert for mocking progressives who dismissed the lab-leak theory for partisan reasons.

(‘How Dare I’: Jon Stewart Reflects on Lab-Leak Theory Blowback)

The issue I’m most concerned about is how entities with the power to do so knee jerk shut down speech that doesn’t fit whatever partisan-aligned positions they’ve aligned with. That’s the wrong approach.

It was Justice Brennan who opined that “debate on public issues should be uninhibited, robust, and wide-open.” New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, 376 U.S. 254, 270 (1964). As Justice Brandeis observed: “If there be time to expose through discussion the falsehood and fallacies, to avert the evil by the processes of education, the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence. Only an emergency can justify repression. Such must be the rule if authority is to be reconciled with freedom.” Whitney v. California, 274 U.S. 357, 377 (1927). (Facebook’s ban went into effect a year into the pandemic, hardly the sort of immediate emergency Brandeis was contemplating.)

Now, yes, Facebook (&c.) are private entities and a First Amendment analysis doesn’t strictly apply. (Though it’s tempting to draw parallels to, e.g., Pruneyard Shopping Center v. Robins, 447 U.S. 74 (1980), finding a protected right to engage in free speech and petition on private property, i.e. a mall, where “shopping center owners had opened their centers to the public at large, effectively replacing the State with respect to such traditional First Amendment forums as streets, sidewalks, and parks” (Id. at 91).)

January 17, 2024 Update: It keeps getting better. Chinese Lab Mapped Deadly Coronavirus Two Weeks Before Beijing Told the World, Documents Show. (WSJ)

“China has kept refining our COVID response based on science to make it more targeted,” a Chinese Embassy spokesperson said. “China’s COVID response policies are science-based, effective, and consistent with China’s national realities. They can stand the test of history.”

(Emphasis added.) Like, what the hell does that highlighted phrase mean? Sigh.