What skill does a retired journalist have in common with an American Red Cross disaster action team volunteer? This is not a rhetorical question: the two jobs both require you to listen to people carefully and be empathetic to their needs. This is the story about Jim Gallagher, who spent more than 27 years working for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, mainly as a business reporter. “As a reporter you want to get people to open up to you, but that same skill in listening to people certainly helps when you are deployed. In both circumstances, you have to project sympathy,” he said. Both he and his wife have volunteered on a number of deployments.  He responded to the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in central Florida last fall.  Both helped out with those displaced by the California wildfires and helped ease the transition of unaccompanied minors crossing the southern border in 2021. In addition to his Red Cross activities, they also volunteer at a local food bank regularly.

You can read more about Jim and his volunteer activities on the Red Cross blog here.

About a month ago, Twitter removed its policies blocking Covid misinformation. This has led to the spread of various flights of fancy, many of which are dangerous if taken seriously. We all know why this was done and by whom. I have written about this topic before in 2020 in this blog post that I urge you to review. Sadly, the situation has gotten worse.

Today in the NYTimes is an article about how misinformation continues to spread across social media. This prompted me to examine the Covid policies of various social media platforms. Let’s take a look at them.

Interestingly, Facebook has the most specific policy set here, running to more than 4,000 words. They address specific false claims (I won’t repeat them here but it is a depressingly long list) and how the content can create potential harm to its users in the real world. The aim is to “reduce the distribution of content that does not violate our policies but may present misleading or sensationalized information about vaccines in a way that would be likely to discourage vaccinations.” That is an important point. One thing that I didn’t like was the way the policies were presented, with web links to other policies (such as bullying and hate speech) that are relevant but making it hard to track and digest.

YouTube has its policies here. Not quite 1500 words, it still goes into specific details about what content isn’t allowed. Again, I am not going into any details but some of this stuff — as with Facebook’s recitation — is just bonkers. Also in the policy is a description of the consequences if you do post this content. That is perhaps the most useful element: three strikes within 90 days and your channel is “terminated.” None of the other platforms have this spelled out.

TikTok has the least helpful information here. Their community guidelines pages has no mention of Covid, and this link (which is really more of a press release) is short on specifics.

Whether or not you agree with how and what the social platforms should do about Covid misinformation, the fact remains that vaccines — especially the Covid ones — save lives, and have lessened the impact of those who have gotten the virus. And spreading false claims about what can protect you from disease is just another way for things to “go viral,” sad to say.