zlacker

> This seems more like people declaring victory because they're finally getting a hint of public support for their suspicions, rather than some truly damning evidence.

I think this is the main thing driving these comments. Instead of being totally against the idea, these articles are providing a shred of hope (despite not having any new proof as far as I can tell) for the people who are locked in on the lab leak theory. Definitely people getting overexcited about it and trying to claim they were right the whole time and were being "censored".

>>thebig+(OP)
There was censorship in the form of calling the hypothesis of a lab leak (distinct from the hypothesis of an engineered virus) a debunked conspiracy theory. The fact that the theory is considered acceptable again is what people are claiming vindication for, and rightly so.

>>thebig+(OP)
People can be censored but wrong, however, that doesn't mean the censorship policy was good. Censorship distorts your information market and makes getting to the truth harder. Sure, only the general public might be being censored but that makes said public (and the news media) associate taking the censored hypothesis seriously with craziness and evil. Which makes it substantially harder for university scientists (and to an extent, government ones) to research (this can take the form of cancellations, like Steve Hsu, lack of funding or just reputational damage)

>>isolli+dg
Someone telling you that your theory is wrong isn't censorship dude.

>>Siempr+pq
Saying that a theory is wrong is different from saying it's a conspiracy theory.

In the second case, you’re smearing proponents of the theory. That’s a form of censorship.

Doing it for a theory that was not in any way proven wrong (then or now) is professional misconduct.