[BIG THREAD] MeWe, the “anti-Facebook” social media platform, is overflowing with anti-vaccine content. What’s worse, administration are distinctly aware of this, but choose to do nothing. The philosophy behind MeWe’s creation is resulting in deadly misinformation.

Meet MeWe founder and CEO, Mark Weinstein. He created the platform in direct response to Facebook’s notorious exploitation of user data. He also wanted to have a space without what he calls censorship. In doing so, he opened the door to a plethora of junk science.
Defending it in a NY Post op-ed, Weinstein says, “Censorship is often counter­productive. Banning content proves to the conspiracy-minded that it must be valuable because the authorities don’t want them to see it.” To him, removing dangerous misinfo worsens the problem. Link ↓
https://t.co/i1uNcvz9Kh
Weinstein recently posted a statement on the site saying that it isn’t the job of a social media company to regulate its content beyond illegal activity. He indicated that views on health and medicine were not to be moderated, acknowledging the sizable anti-vax community.
With this all in mind, here are the consequences of Weinstein’s philosophy. Bear in mind each post taken seriously can endanger yourself and those around you.
Tries to legitimize anti-vax conspiracy through an invitation of an anti-vax doctor to Senate hearing about covid treatments. Said doctor belongs to an association that view vaccine mandates as “a violation of human rights”. Link ↓
https://t.co/Nz4pwELoUh
Attempts to use slowed covid vaccine rollout as evidence of ineffectiveness and to label the determined science behind it baseless.
Claims that covid vaccines can result in HIV.
Uses out of context article to prove testing for covid is unnecessary. This was published in August 2020. At the time, most medical experts were directly contradicting the CDC’s position.
Uses out of context article to say vaccine is unsafe because doctors are refusing it. When read, it clearly states most doctors’ reasoning is because of mistrust in government and pharmaceutical industry. They are not decrying the science itself. Link ↓
https://t.co/EVkqUq8s5C
@mewe you are endangering lives in the face of a pandemic that has killed over 400,000 Americans. In one interview, Mark Weinstein said he was calling Facebook on its BS. Well, now I’m calling you on yours. #Covid_19

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A common misunderstanding about Agile and “Big Design Up Front”:

There’s nothing in the Agile Manifesto or Principles that states you should never have any idea what you’re trying to build.

You’re allowed to think about a desired outcome from the beginning.

It’s not Big Design Up Front if you do in-depth research to understand the user’s problem.

It’s not BDUF if you spend detailed time learning who needs this thing and why they need it.

It’s not BDUF if you help every team member know what success looks like.

Agile is about reducing risk.

It’s not Agile if you increase risk by starting your sprints with complete ignorance.

It’s not Agile if you don’t research.

Don’t make the mistake of shutting down critical understanding by labeling it Bg Design Up Front.

It would be a mistake to assume this research should only be done by designers and researchers.

Product management and developers also need to be out with the team, conducting the research.

Shared Understanding is the key objective


Big Design Up Front is a thing to avoid.

Defining all the functionality before coding is BDUF.

Drawing every screen and every pixel is BDUF.

Promising functionality (or delivery dates) to customers before development starts is BDUF.

These things shouldn’t happen in Agile.
I think about this a lot, both in IT and civil infrastructure. It looks so trivial to “fix” from the outside. In fact, it is incredibly draining to do the entirely crushing work of real policy changes internally. It’s harder than drafting a blank page of how the world should be.


I’m at a sort of career crisis point. In my job before, three people could contain the entire complexity of a nation-wide company’s IT infrastructure in their head.

Once you move above that mark, it becomes exponentially, far and away beyond anything I dreamed, more difficult.

And I look at candidates and know-everything’s who think it’s all so easy. Or, people who think we could burn it down with no losses and start over.

God I wish I lived in that world of triviality. In moments, I find myself regretting leaving that place of self-directed autonomy.

For ten years I knew I could build something and see results that same day. Now I’m adjusting to building something in my mind in one day, and it taking a year to do the due-diligence and edge cases and documentation and familiarization and roll-out.

That’s the hard work. It’s not technical. It’s not becoming a rockstar to peers.
These people look at me and just see another self-important idiot in Security who thinks they understand the system others live. Who thinks “bad” designs were made for no reason.
Who wasn’t there.

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