The more important takeaway is don't shout down those who are skeptical if you haven't actually investigated the authorities' credibility yourself. Get comfortable with not knowing, with being agnostic on a lot of issues, because it's often the only reasonable position.
(The most important takeaway is to ignore Twitter - not "social media", but specifically Twitter).
So I give every quack the same attention, legitimacy, as say, an expert I trust? That's almost as bad advice as trust no one and do my own research for everything.
No, you make your own judgements, but you don't publish them. Otherwise initially legitimate credibility gets amplified to unreasonable levels because everyone ends up circularly reasoning that the more credible people are more credible.
All fair points. But again I question the part where you said "if you haven't actually investigated the authorities' credibility yourself". How would I, a person with no training in virology, do that?
At some point, you have to trust someone or some institution or organization or system.
> But again I question the part where you said "if you haven't actually investigated the authorities' credibility yourself". How would I, a person with no training in virology, do that?
My point is that maybe you shouldn't stick your oar in in that case. The polarisation was exacerbated by a lot of non-experts who not just trusted the WHO (reasonable in itself) but felt the need to pile on anyone who was questioning them.
(The most important takeaway is to ignore Twitter - not "social media", but specifically Twitter).