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Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who has failed to follow the science for much of the pandemic, on Wednesday called Omicron, the Covid-19 variant responsible for record-setting number of positive cases, natures vaccine during an interview with Fox & Friends.

Weve got 150 million people in our country that have already had this, he said. Now in the last couple of weeks, were adding millions of people every week who have already gotten this. And the one thing we know is if you get this mild variant, the Omicron, its actually going to protect you against the more serious variants.

This is basically natures vaccine that is running through the community, he added, echoing comments made on the network last month by Dr. Nicole Saphier, a radiologist, who advocated for letting omicron circulate.

Paul noted that letting Omicron run wild doesnt mean some of the vulnerable people may not suffer and die from this, and that we should be trying to protect the vulnerable. The primary way to protect the vulnerable, though, is to get them vaccinated, and Paul has opposed mandates and said he will not even get vaccinated himself.

Paul claimed on Wednesday that the majority of the people in the hospital right now are vaccinated, despite the fact that recentCenters for Disease Control data shows that the risk of hospitalization skyrockets when those who test positive are unvaccinated.

Paul did not specify where he got the idea that 150 Americans have tested positive, a key part of his argument that the U.S. should just go ahead and let Omicron spread. U.S. cases since January 2020 total approximately 56 million, according to the CDC. The number includes all positive cases, not the number of people infected, as some have caught the virus more than once.

Letting Omicron spread like the variants before it could also lead to a new variant that might be able to evade Omicron immunity, even if getting it does provide some protection against older variants. The more Omicron spreads, the more it transmits and the more it replicates, the more likely it is to throw out a new variant, World Health Organization Senior Emergencies Officer Catherine Smallwood told AFP in an interview on Tuesday. Now, Omicron is lethal, it can cause death maybe a little bit less than Delta, but whos to say what the next variant might throw out.

Omicron is now responsible for more than 95 percent of U.S. cases, according to the CDC.

Pauls latest pseudoscience argument should come as no surprise, as the senator has been a notorious spreader of Covid falsehoods throughout the pandemic. This past summer, he was suspended from YouTube for Covid misinformation, prompting him to announce earlier this week that he is moving to Rumble, a video-hosting site favored by the far-right that bills itself as a free-speech haven. Paul will likely be able to spread all the Covid misinformation on the platform, but who needs Rumble when you have Fox News, whose anchors will uncritically nod along as the senator lies about the virus that has killed over 800,000 Americans.

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Rand Paul Comes Out as Pro-Omicron - Rolling Stone

U.S.Sen. Rand Paul will no longer post videos to YouTube, unless those videos are to criticize the platform or let viewers know where they can find his new videos, according to a release from his office Monday.

Today I begin my exodus from Big Tech, starting with the worst censor of all, YouTube,Paulsaid in the release.As a libertarian leaning Senator, I think private companies have the right to ban me if they want to, however, those of us who believe that truth comes from disputation and that the marketplace of ideas is a prerequisite for innovation should shun the close-minded censors and take our ideas elsewhere, which is exactly what Im doing.

YouTube has banned some of Paul's video in this past year, particularly those focused on whether masks are effective in preventing the spread of disease,according to the release.

More: 50 complaints, no action: Why Kentucky medical board won't police Rand Paul's COVID claims

"Over the last year, YouTube has continued to wage its dangerous, anti-progress of science war against free speech, choosing to act in lockstep with government and ban videos posted by Dr. Paul that dared to contradict the governments position," it stated.

Paul has attracted widespread attention for his comments about the COVID-19 pandemic and more than 50 complaints against him have been filed with the KentuckyBoard of Medical Licensure.

More: Rep. John Yarmuth backs Charles Booker in his bid to unseat Sen. Rand Paul

The Bowling Green Republican is also a physician, and those complaints alleged he violatedhis professional responsibility as a doctor with unfounded public claims about COVID-19.

"He is endangering the health, the well-being and lives of the American people,"one complaint from a Lexington resident said. "This is malpractice on a grand scale."

Paul denied spreading misinformation.

I dedicated my medical career to saving and restoring vision to patients, and Ive dedicated my political career to speaking truth to power in order to help save lives," he said in a statement in September 2021.

"Science, like medicine, has many perspectives and it is often said: 'Get a second opinion.'" Paul said. "Malcontents who want to stifle second opinions are themselves a danger to the community.

Moving forward, Paul will only post to his account on the platform Rumble. He first posted to the platform in February 2021 and has since posted about 100 videos. Paul is currently seeking his third term in Congress, with the primary elections set for May.

Contact reporter Krista Johnson atkjohnson3@gannett.com.

Original post:
Rand Paul says he's leaving 'dangerous' YouTube ... unless he wants to criticize it - Courier Journal

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)Calling it his solemn duty, Rand Paul vowed to fill the COVID-misinformation gap created by Twitters ban of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene.

In an emotional statement, the U.S. senator from Kentucky said that those who have relied on Greene for COVID-19 falsehoods must not be forgotten.

Twitters ban of Marjorie Taylor Greene left millions without a go-to source for reckless pandemic myths, he said. I am here to say, I got this.

Admitting that it would be challenging to mislead as many people about the virus as Greene did, Paul said, I relish that challenge.

He also addressed what would happen if, like Greene, he is eventually banned from the social-media platform.

I will pass the baton to Matt Gaetz, Ron DeSantis, and Greg Abbott, Paul said. Let Twitter be warned: when it comes to misinformation, we Republicans have an extremely deep bench.

Read more:
Rand Paul Vows to Fill Misinformation Void Caused by Twitters Ban of Marjorie Taylor Greene - The New Yorker

LEXINGTON, Ky. (FOX 56) Here are five things to know before you go to bed Jan. 4, 2022.

Prices are going up for some of the cheapest and most popular at-home COVID-19 test kits.

Walmart and Kroger are raising their prices after the expiration of a deal with the white house to sell the test kits at a discount cost of $14.

Walmart is raising the price to about $20 a box and Kroger now sells them for $24.

The CDC released new guidelines urging people regardless of their vaccination status to avoid taking a cruise.

But despite the warning, hundreds of passengers boarded the Disney Dream on Monday ready for a four-night cruise sailing out of Port Canaveral.

Many passengers said theyre willing to take their chances.

Disney and many other cruise lines require all passengers to be vaccinated.

Toyota passed General Motors as the top-selling car company in the U.S. last year.

A change driven largely by a global computer-chip shortage.

Sales were up about 10% compared with 2020.

By contrast, GM reported a nearly 13% slide in the result as the semiconductor shortage took a bigger toll on its manufacturing operations and left dealers with fewer vehicles to sell.

Kentucky U.S. Senator Rand Paul is quitting youtube.

Paul said he is ditching big tech over what he describes as rampant censorship

He said when he posts videos that challenge the current White House narrative on COVID-19 Youtube deletes them, no matter how well his opinion is sourced and researched.

The late Betty White is being honored with a new social media challenge.

The idea is that on Jan. 17, which would have been Whites 100th birthday, people should pick a local animal shelter and donate $5 in Whites name.

White was a lifelong animal lover. Some shelters said theyve already received thousands of dollars from the challenge.

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Jan. 4: Cruises, Rand Paul, and the White challenge - Fox 56

One day after Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greenes Twitter account was suspended over Covid-19 misinformation, Rand Paul announced that hes fed up with Big Tech. To emphasize his fist-shaking, he declared hed be joining a Donald Trump-backed video-streaming platform called Rumble.

Why Rumble? Adored by the far-right, Rumble is a Canadian video-sharing platform that launched in 2013 but saw serious growth during the Covid-19 pandemic: The companys monthly viewership soared from 1.6 million users in fall 2020 to 31.9 million by the end of 2021s first quarter. Its a bit of a mishmash of viral clips of cute animals doing funny things, political commentary, and conspiracy theories about where society is headed.

Although anti-vaccine propaganda runs rampant on Rumble, as does liberal disdain, it labels itself as a neutral platform, and it just keeps getting bigger. In May, Narya Capital invested in Rumble; Narya was co-founded by German-American billionaire Peter Thiel the Republican venture capitalist who co-founded PayPal, invested early in Facebook, and spent millions to fund Hulk Hogans bankrupting lawsuits against Gawker and author J.D. Vance, who followed up his memoir Hillbilly Elegy with a run for the Ohio Senate seat on a far-right ticket. Colt Ventures, the family office of former Trump adviser Darren Blanton, also invested at that time, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Former Trump administration lawyer Michael Ellis joined Rumble as its general counsel and corporate secretary in November. Around the same time, Russell Brand gave the platform a celebrity boost, coming aboard as a creator and agreeing to give the platform first access to all of his videos, as well as exclusive content.

On Dec. 1, Rumble announced plans to go public and claimed to be valued at $2.1 billion. Rumble is designed to be the rails and independent infrastructure that is immune to cancel culture, CEO Chris Pavlovski said in a press release about joining with NASDAQ. We are a movement that does not stifle, censor, or punish creativity and believe everyone benefits from access to a neutral network with diverse ideas and opinions. On Dec. 14, Donald Trump announced that his work-in-progress social media app, Truth Social, had partnered with Rumble.

Though Rumble is all about a free and open Internet, as Pavlovski would go on to say in his statement, it didthreaten to sue another YouTube competitor, Odysee, over a tweet that alleged Rumble misled its investors. While Odysee withdrew the statement in question as requested, it then posted what appears to be a screenshot of the cease-and-desist andtweeting again: We are very sorry for suggesting that Rumble would ever fake traffic to mislead their investors. There is nothing suspicious about their average user leaving after only 1 minute despite it being a website for long-form video content. We retract our prior tweet.

Now, Rumble is not the first social media platform to say they prioritize free speech over everything else, as Yotam Ophir an assistant professor in University at Buffalos communication department points out. Even Reddit kind of started as a company that tries to break the rules and get censorship off the map you know, until Charlottesville, which pushed reality back in their faces, he says. Weve seen it before and it usually ends badly. He brings up the likes of Parler and Gab, which lean heavily to the right. Im getting tired of hearing about all those freedom of speech heroes that are going to open the new platform that changes the rules only to learn a month from now that they cant actually do it because the lawsuits will start coming in, the public pressure will start coming in, and advertisers wont want to stay on a platform thats full of hate speech and misinformation.

Rumbles terms and conditions do state that the platform doesnt allow for videos that incite violence and utilize hate speech, but its unclear how loose their definitions may be and how strict they are about such moderation.

When asked how Rumble polices the spread of misinformation, particularly misinformation regarding vaccines and Qanon theories, a Rumble representative responded to Rolling Stone with an email that sort of skirts around the question. Unlike other platforms, Rumble doesnt amplify content by sharing it with groups outside of your followers, they write. Instead, we use a chronological feed that treats all uploads equally. This design removes the incentive to produce and amplify extreme content to gain views. In addition to our terms, we believe this approach creates a healthier society without resorting to editorial restrictions on content we disagree with. When a video posted on Rumble gets significant views (more than the follower count), in nearly all cases, it is not because of our platform but because people share the content on other websites and platforms. These platforms have algorithms incentivizing engagement and amplify content to a wider audience.

The chronological approach may be valid. However, Rumble does have a trending section, which must operate via some sort of algorithm. Moreover, as Ophir mentions, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all started with chronological feeds. When you had 10 friends, you pretty much saw everything they did, he recalls. But when you follow 45,000 people, you cant see everything thats happening. He predicts that Rumble will be forced to adapt as it grows. Thats when matters may snowball even more or the whole thing falls apart.

If and when conservatives move from YouTube to Rumble or from Twitter and Facebook to other free-speech platforms like Parler and Gab this could create hyper echo chambers, according to Yini Zhang, a colleague of Ophir who studies social media and the spread of misinformation. Such chambers can radicalize people and make them more extreme in their attitudes and beliefs, and the idea of there being corners for liberals and conservatives to huddle in, she thinks, just deepens the divide.

The migration reminds her of the late Eighties and early Nineties after the FCC fairness doctrine was repealed. Thats when we saw the rise of cable news with Fox News on the right and MSNBC on the left, she says, highlighting the creation of an increasingly partisan media environment. People with strong political opinions and convictions know which cable news channel they should watch, and they know which channel will offer them the correct or truthful information. A social-media parallel is what she fears most, adding that its not impossible to imagine a liberal equivalent launching in the future. Liberals and conservatives, she worries, will then completely insulate themselves in a very homogeneous information environment that just caters to their existing views.

So, whats the solution? Ophir hopes for regulation. I dont think that private companies should be responsible for moderating content and censoring misinformation. Thats not their job. Theyre not able to do that. Theyre not motivated to do that. And this isnt limited to Rumble. Its true for Facebook and Twitter too. Private companies only have one goal in mind: They want to make money. So, we cant ask them to be guardians of information and integrity. It doesnt make sense. Every time those motivations are in conflict, those companies keep choosing profit over public safety.

Ophir explains that these platforms sneak through the cracks of FCC involvement by identifying as tech companies instead of media and news sources, which he finds laughable at this point. The legal system is still like 30 years behind, he says. Were still treating the Internet like its 1995. Its not. Social media is now the biggest thing in the world.

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Rumble Mixes Cat Videos With Covid Misinformation and the Right Is Loving It - Rolling Stone