Beehaw

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We're a collective of individuals upset with the way social media has been traditionally governed. A severe lack of moderation has led to major platforms like Facebook to turn into political machinery focused on disinformation campaigns as a way to make profit off of users. Websites with ineffective moderation allow hate speech to proliferate and contribute to the erosion of minority rights and safe spaces. Our goal with Beehaw is to demonstrate and promote a healthier environment.

Our philosophy:

What is Beehaw?
The spirit of the rules
Beehaw is a Community and more on our Docs Website

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Be(e) nice.

As a news aggregator and a social media outlet, with a focus on being a safe and accepting space, we strive to create a positive social impact. We will, also, help to connect underprivileged and minority individuals with education and civic participation by promoting a healthier online experience.

We currently have a Mastodon account you can follow for major updates: @beehaw at hachyderm.io. You can also join our community Discord or Matrix servers. You can also view our status page.

Our instance is 100% user-funded - help us keep it running by donating.

If you donate, you should know that 100% of the costs will go towards server time, licensing costs, and artwork.

In the future if we need to hire developers or other labor, it would be sourced through the Open Collective Europe Foundation, and it would be transparent to the community before any changes were made.

Our community icons were made by Aaron Schneider under the CC-BY-NC-SA-4.0 license.

Blobbee emojis made by olivvybee on Github.

Our most up to date FAQ can be found here.

founded 3 years ago

ADMINS

'Moral and scientific imperative:' Share Covid data, World Health Organization tells China (www.bbc.com)

submitted 2 weeks ago by tardigrada to c/news

0 comments fedilink

Cross posted from: https://beehaw.org/post/17841591

The World Health Organization has urged China to share data on the origins of the Covid pandemic, five years on from its start in the city of Wuhan.

"This is a moral and scientific imperative," the WHO said in a statement to mark what it called the "milestone" anniversary.

"Without transparency, sharing, and co-operation among countries, the world cannot adequately prevent and prepare for future epidemics and pandemics," it added.

Many scientists think the virus transferred naturally from animals to humans, but some suspicions persist that it escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan.

China has not responded to Monday's WHO statement. In the past it has strongly rejected the lab leak theory.

In September, a team of scientists said it was "beyond reasonable doubt" that the Covid pandemic started with infected animals sold at a market, rather than a laboratory leak.

[...]

[WHO] director general, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said at the time that at least seven million people had died in the pandemic.

But he added that the true figure was "likely" closer to 20 million deaths - nearly three times the official estimate.

Since then, the WHO has repeatedly warned against complacency about the possible emergence of future Covid-like illnesses.

Dr Ghebreyesus has said the next pandemic "can come at any moment" and has urged the world to be prepared.

[...]