COVID demonstrated — as nothing else could — that the “science” was all over the map and didn’t help people avoid panic:
Science-sponsored panic probably drove up the damage from COVID. Jay Richards, one of the authors of The Price of Panic: How the Tyranny of Experts Turned a Pandemic into a Catastrophe (October 2020), has noted, “In working on the book, we watched social media and platforms such as Google Search manipulate news coverage of the pandemic. It was, honestly, terrifying to watch important stories and studies get buried in real time on Google searches. It was also distressing to watch Twitter and Facebook attach warnings to the advice and viewpoint of scientists who urged calm and caution, while boosting the views of “officials” such as Anthony Fauci and WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom.”
And, just as most of the world was getting the impression that the pandemic — and the panic — had largely run their course, up pops a proposal in 2021 for a “reality czar” to fight disinformation and misinformation, as if all of that were coming from non-government or non-science sources. The proposal was (we are told) put on hold after the fear of just consequences prevailed.
News, “Why many now reject science… do you really want to know?” at Mind Matters News (July 17, 2022)
Takehome: As the panic receded, the government started setting up a disinformation board to target NON-government sources of panic, thus deepening loss of trust.
You may also wish to read: Did social media panic drive up the damage from COVID-19? Richards: It was, honestly, terrifying to watch important stories and studies get buried in real time on Google searches. Social media did a very good job of panicking the population about COVID-19, instead of relaying facts, says Jay Richards, an author of The Price of Panic.