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Forums - Politics Discussion - Trump bans EPA employees from giving social media updates.

Scoobes on 26 January 2017
DonFerrari said:
Scoobes said:

They can't post anything work related on social media, so those social media groups would count, effectively eliminating discussion on these sites. 

And science is a growingly collaborative endeavour. Social media sites are an instanteous way to bounce ideas off from scientists around the world. Of course that happens in the smaller groups within a university or company but it has far greater reach on social media. Conferences/sympossiums are also great but they take time to setup and are costly. 

I would bet most companies also ban communication of the work performed inside in any public outlet.

But wellcome to what several classic liberals would tell you. The more power the government have the more power it will use against you.

Didn't we have that discussion already?

Publicly funded research is very different to research and data in private companies.

The research and the data generated at companies is owned by the company as either proprietary or IP. It's funded by the investors of that company and they have the right to see how well that company is doing and get updated on progress of whatever product or service the company provides. 

Public research is paid for by tax payers and unless their are certain circumstances (involved in defence, private company is involved, other legal IP issue) then the information is to be available in the public domain. 




Get your Portable ID!

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Scoobes on 26 January 2017
DonFerrari said:
Scoobes said:

They can publish in Journals but that's hardly accessible to the wider public considering most people wouldn't know where to look to find these journals or the fact that many are still behind paywalls.

In the absence of a publicly open forum (social media in this case) for them to present their own research to the public (or correct misconceptions) they will be open to manipulation from the media and the administration to fit whatever narrative they wish with little to no chance of rebuttal from the scientist.

This sort of stuff is already happening and that's with scientists able to publicly complain of misrepresentaion let alone with a gagging order in place. 

After published in any outlet anyone can repass that information as much as they want, so?

Bit of a shit way to do it, relying on other scientists outside of the US to try and combat a false narrative.

And if that was actually effective, what is the point of this gag order?

Actually, thinking about it, this gag order is kinda useless as a number of unofficial "rogue" accounts have cropped up. I suppose we'll see what they do about these rogue accounts but this could end up being a load of hot air people will laugh about in a few months. 




Get your Portable ID!

Lawlight on 26 January 2017
DonFerrari said:
Scoobes said:

They can publish in Journals but that's hardly accessible to the wider public considering most people wouldn't know where to look to find these journals or the fact that many are still behind paywalls.

In the absence of a publicly open forum (social media in this case) for them to present their own research to the public (or correct misconceptions) they will be open to manipulation from the media and the administration to fit whatever narrative they wish with little to no chance of rebuttal from the scientist.

This sort of stuff is already happening and that's with scientists able to publicly complain of misrepresentaion let alone with a gagging order in place. 

After published in any outlet anyone can repass that information as much as they want, so?

So, essentially non-issue.



DonFerrari on 26 January 2017
Scoobes said:
DonFerrari said:

I would bet most companies also ban communication of the work performed inside in any public outlet.

But wellcome to what several classic liberals would tell you. The more power the government have the more power it will use against you.

Didn't we have that discussion already?

Publicly funded research is very different to research and data in private companies.

The research and the data generated at companies is owned by the company as either proprietary or IP. It's funded by the investors of that company and they have the right to see how well that company is doing and get updated on progress of whatever product or service the company provides. 

Public research is paid for by tax payers and unless their are certain circumstances (involved in defence, private company is involved, other legal IP issue) then the information is to be available in the public domain. 

Yes we had... the results are domain of the government (and by the end for the people) so it isn't owned by that particular worker, so it isn't his business speaking about it without authorization

Scoobes said:
DonFerrari said:

After published in any outlet anyone can repass that information as much as they want, so?

Bit of a shit way to do it, relying on other scientists outside of the US to try and combat a false narrative.

And if that was actually effective, what is the point of this gag order?

Actually, thinking about it, this gag order is kinda useless as a number of unofficial "rogue" accounts have cropped up. I suppose we'll see what they do about these rogue accounts but this could end up being a load of hot air people will laugh about in a few months. 

Yes, it is useless. But we certainly need to compare this to censorship because Trump was the one doing it right?



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

DonFerrari on 26 January 2017
Lawlight said:
DonFerrari said:

After published in any outlet anyone can repass that information as much as they want, so?

So, essentially non-issue.

Exactly and as Scoobes said, they can use fake accounts to leak information.

It just our everyday media trying to tarnish the already bad image of Trump.

Information isn't being witheld from public nor are government forging the studies they want out. It's just the obvious control of information that basically all government do, but some people want even more government.



duduspace11 "Well, since we are estimating costs, Pokemon Red/Blue did cost Nintendo about $50m to make back in 1996"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=8808363

Mr Puggsly: "Hehe, I said good profit. You said big profit. Frankly, not losing money is what I meant by good. Don't get hung up on semantics"

http://gamrconnect.vgchartz.com/post.php?id=9008994

Azzanation: "PS5 wouldn't sold out at launch without scalpers."

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fatslob-:O on 26 January 2017
Scoobes said:

Only facts matter...  ironic statement considering we're talking about the Trump administration.

You may want to check your own public access policies. There are public policies in the US regarding access to federal funded research. NIH for instance makes all biomedical papers that have been funded either wholly or partially by them be deposited in Pubmed Central 6 months after publication so they can be freely viewed by anyone. 

You're also forgetting the Freedom of Information Act which would apply in many cases here.  

Those are the facts. 

FOIA only applies if you're making a request, it doesn't give government agency employees the right to openly communicate with the public about internal affairs ... (And even then they can arbitrarily refuse the request under some vaguely worded exemptions) 

Again no guarantee that you will have access to these records ... 

Just because an agency is publicly funded doesn't mean the citizens have a mandate on it's information ...



Tigerlure on 27 January 2017

"Just give him a chance" they said...



bunchanumbers on 27 January 2017
Tigerlure said:
"Just give him a chance" they said...

"Couldn't be worse than what we had before" they said...