A wise man proportions his belief to his evidence.
— David Hume
"Minds do not create truth or falsehood," philosopher Bertrand Russell said. "They create beliefs."
The same might be said of social media platforms like TikTok.
A new belief making the rounds thanks to TikTok—one particularly appealing to anti-vaxxers—holds that, if you take a "detox bath" in borax after you're inoculated, you will remove all the radiation and government-implanted nanotechnologies the shot delivers.
Now, before you cue the theme music from The Twilight Zone, take a moment to consider that millions of your fellow Americans accept (or are disposed to accept) this baloney as fact.
The baloney-maker is the well-known crackpot Dr. Carrie Madej, who a year ago was called out by Reuters for erroneously claiming that an organism in the Covid vaccine was pointing its tenacles at her. (She was observing house dust on her dirty microscope.)
Where wackos like Madej once had to stand on a box in the park to reach an audience, TikTok gives her a pulpit that faces millions of viewers, many as gullible as two-year-olds.
As a self-described "child of God and believer in Jesus Christ," Madjef ought to remove herself from TikTok and, like her rabbi, find a mount in the desert somewhere from which to deliver her sermon.
A desert on Mars would be perfect. (I hear the radiation problem there is awful.)
At least one platform provider, Twitter, has kicked Madej off this week for praising borax baths. Hallelujah!
But while TikTok removed Madej’s video last month, the platform permits it to be viewed through a sharing feature called "Duet."
So where's the issue with baloney? It's a free country. Can't I believe anything I want?
The issue is fraud.
Madej is defrauding her audience, either knowingly—and therefore recklessly—misrepresenting the facts; or unreasonably—and therefore negligently—misrepresenting the facts.
Either way, it's fraud, and makes Madej a fraudster.
