Stupid, Evil, or Both? Understanding the Smittestopp conflict

12/07/2021

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by   Hans Heum, et al.

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Like many governments, the Norwegian government provided a contact tracing application to help in combating the COVID-19 pandemic at its outset. However, the application was widely criticized for enabling an unacceptable intrusion into its subjects' lives, leading to its discontinuation only four months into the pandemic. In this essay, we will take a closer look at what went wrong, attempt to gain a deeper understanding of the passionate nature of the conflict, and how both sides came to view the other as being either stupid, or evil, or both.