8 ms·

> The stuff that goes round on facebook is often both hyper-partisan and low quality, because people are sharing it for group-belonging purposes not for use as

> The stuff that goes round on facebook is often both hyper-partisan and low quality, because people are sharing it for group-belonging purposes not for use as facts. This is only tangentially related. This is why the pieces lambasting Tomi Lahran saying that views like here don't deserve a platform are, in my opinion, wrong.[0] It was the 2nd second result after searching for that interview, and I've seen it shared around the Internet. When opposing views that aren't inciting riots, violence, etc. aren't allowed to speak, all you get in an echo chamber of things you want to hear[1]. If everyone agrees, there is no incentive for you to examine your beliefs[2]. [0]: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trevor-noahs-interview-with-tomi-lahren-is-a-perfect_us_58425f75e4b0b93e10f8e231 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trevor-noahs-interview-w... [1]: https://t.co/6lqMSTJNuj https://t.co/6lqMSTJNuj [2]: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech/#JohStuMilHarPri https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/freedom-speech/#JohStuMil...

pjc50 10y ago
> inciting violence I don't think there's actually a clear dividing line for this, especially when we consider "dog whistle politics" and things like the notorious "blood libel", Protocols of the Elders of Zion, etc; there's definitely a category of material which is both false/misleading and intended to incite prejudice against a particular group - but stops short of mentioning actual violence.
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  What about material that's true but is also hateful? The thing I've discovered is that a lot of "racist" and "hateful" blogs tend to be reasonably accurate - often more so than the mainstream media on their topics of interest. Typical facts they like to discuss: - Black on white crime is far more common than the reverse, and far more common than police shootings. - Black people underperform whites educationally and this is probably NOT due to things like poverty (e.g. on the SAT, blacks with $200k/year family income perform about the same as whites with $20k income). - Muslim immigrants in Europe seem to commit a lot of sexual violence against white women, and European police often play it down to avoid seeming racist. These are all true facts (I can cite sources if you like, but we shouldn't derail the discussion for it), but sites that spread this stuff are very often quite hateful. It would be great if the "bad guys" were all liars and the "good guys" were completely truthful. But in reality that's just not the case. See also: http://hurryupharry.org/2016/11/27/who-gave-us-post-truth-conspiracy-culture-and-the-alt-right/ http://hurryupharry.org/2016/11/27/who-gave-us-post-truth-co...
- yummyfajitas 10y ago
  I wrote a reply to this asking about the alternate category of material which is both true/accurate and also intended to incite negative feelings. That comment was flagged to death. I guess that's the answer - it's not just "fake" news we want suppressed.
  - 0xfeba 10y ago
    I read the post before it was removed. I don't agree with a lot of it (like declaring lists of things true and then qualifying individual items with "probably because"), but I get your point. You have to tread very carefully. A better example would be a statement made by Trump's recent pick for National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, in his book "The Field of Fight": "I don't believe all cultures are morally equivalent" Just that statement seems to bother many people, enough to have it included in Trevor Noah's Daily Show recently. But why? Why is that statement such a big deal? I believe Western culture is better than, say, Saudi Arabian culture. I realize there is no objective standard to base this on, but even if it is the same nationalism/tribalism Saudi Arabians judge Western culture, so be it. If you make the argument that we can't judge other cultures, wouldn't it also be true that you can't say they're equivalent, since that is judging them?
    - danans 10y ago
      The statement is a problem because it is so general that it is devoid of any useful meaning, but it rather works as a huge dog-whistle. In the context of Flynn's other rhetoric, he's clearly referring to American Culture vs Islamic and other non European cultures. So why didn't he just state that directly, like you did? Why the "political correctness" around not using concrete examples of the "cultures" he is referring to? Probably because he is trying to maintain the thinnest possible veneer of plausible deniability of bigotry by avoiding making those references to specific cultures. However, even if you take his statement in isolation, how do you measure the morality of something as large as a "culture" anyway? Do you take the laws of a country that represses a huge number of it's citizens, like Saudi Arabia? There are huge numbers of individuals who do not subscribe to the "morality" of the culture that the world associates them with. Over-generalizing about cultures and denying individuals in those cultures moral agency is one step on the path to justification of terrible acts against them.
Natsu 10y ago
It's funny that for as much as you may have seen written about 'truthiness' (false statements that "feel" true to some people), I've yet to see anything about 'falsiness' which would be the inverse. That is, true statements that "feel" false.

pjc50 10y ago

> inciting violence I don't think there's actually a clear dividing line for this, especially when we consider "dog whistle politics" and things like the notorious "blood libel", Protocols of the Elders of Zion, etc; there's definitely a category of material which is both false/misleading and intended to incite prejudice against a particular group - but stops short of mentioning actual violence.

yummyfajitas 10y ago
What about material that's true but is also hateful? The thing I've discovered is that a lot of "racist" and "hateful" blogs tend to be reasonably accurate - often more so than the mainstream media on their topics of interest. Typical facts they like to discuss: - Black on white crime is far more common than the reverse, and far more common than police shootings. - Black people underperform whites educationally and this is probably NOT due to things like poverty (e.g. on the SAT, blacks with $200k/year family income perform about the same as whites with $20k income). - Muslim immigrants in Europe seem to commit a lot of sexual violence against white women, and European police often play it down to avoid seeming racist. These are all true facts (I can cite sources if you like, but we shouldn't derail the discussion for it), but sites that spread this stuff are very often quite hateful. It would be great if the "bad guys" were all liars and the "good guys" were completely truthful. But in reality that's just not the case. See also: http://hurryupharry.org/2016/11/27/who-gave-us-post-truth-conspiracy-culture-and-the-alt-right/ http://hurryupharry.org/2016/11/27/who-gave-us-post-truth-co...
yummyfajitas 10y ago
I wrote a reply to this asking about the alternate category of material which is both true/accurate and also intended to incite negative feelings. That comment was flagged to death. I guess that's the answer - it's not just "fake" news we want suppressed.
- 0xfeba 10y ago
  I read the post before it was removed. I don't agree with a lot of it (like declaring lists of things true and then qualifying individual items with "probably because"), but I get your point. You have to tread very carefully. A better example would be a statement made by Trump's recent pick for National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, in his book "The Field of Fight": "I don't believe all cultures are morally equivalent" Just that statement seems to bother many people, enough to have it included in Trevor Noah's Daily Show recently. But why? Why is that statement such a big deal? I believe Western culture is better than, say, Saudi Arabian culture. I realize there is no objective standard to base this on, but even if it is the same nationalism/tribalism Saudi Arabians judge Western culture, so be it. If you make the argument that we can't judge other cultures, wouldn't it also be true that you can't say they're equivalent, since that is judging them?
  - danans 10y ago
    The statement is a problem because it is so general that it is devoid of any useful meaning, but it rather works as a huge dog-whistle. In the context of Flynn's other rhetoric, he's clearly referring to American Culture vs Islamic and other non European cultures. So why didn't he just state that directly, like you did? Why the "political correctness" around not using concrete examples of the "cultures" he is referring to? Probably because he is trying to maintain the thinnest possible veneer of plausible deniability of bigotry by avoiding making those references to specific cultures. However, even if you take his statement in isolation, how do you measure the morality of something as large as a "culture" anyway? Do you take the laws of a country that represses a huge number of it's citizens, like Saudi Arabia? There are huge numbers of individuals who do not subscribe to the "morality" of the culture that the world associates them with. Over-generalizing about cultures and denying individuals in those cultures moral agency is one step on the path to justification of terrible acts against them.

Natsu 10y ago

It's funny that for as much as you may have seen written about 'truthiness' (false statements that "feel" true to some people), I've yet to see anything about 'falsiness' which would be the inverse. That is, true statements that "feel" false.