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Well here's why someone should care about fake news: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-police-respond-to-report-of-a-man-with-a-gun-at

by gdulli 10y ago

Well here's why someone should care about fake news: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-police-respond-to-report-of-a-man-with-a-gun-at-comet-ping-pong-restaurant/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2016/12/04/d-c-... I won't answer whether that entity should be Facebook. But when people start getting shot at and transparently disreputable demagogues start getting elected I would say the conversation at least has to begin.

herbst 10y ago
So lets censor everything that some entity thinks is false on the whole internet? This shit grew on reddit and 4chan, 2 of the last places i want to see government censorship. Also nobody was shot, the other article i read in the morning clearly mentioned that he only shot upwards and was not trying to actually hurt anyone. Seriously if people are stupid enough to do such shit there are different issues to be solved. If people are scared of people wearing and using weapons then they should no be so easily available for example. The only solution against stuff like this without fixing our society would be complete censorship & government control. I hope this is not really what you suggest.
- gdulli 10y ago
  No one has mentioned the government here except you. Without giving in to totalitarianism, there's plenty of room for Reddit or Facebook to make some effort towards doing the right thing out of a sense of responsibility and decency. They're not obligated to let human garbage use their service as a platform. It's in a site's best interest anyway. Imagine if normal adults weren't so embarrassed to admit using Reddit.
  - herbst 10y ago
    They did. Not sure if you followed the pizzagate laughfest. But they actually did, but they had a really hard time to net make it censoring. All they could really do was banning people that abused the rules, what they did (even 4chan did that mind you). But why would Reddit be allowed to decide which conspiracy theorie can be discussed? Seriously, i dont want to live in a world where the few semi open platforms we still have decide what we are allowed to talk about and what not when no laws are broken anyway.
ianstallings 10y ago
Maybe if the public trusted the mainstream journalists this wouldn't be such an issue. They've eroded that trust themselves. It's their job to clean up the mess by gaining that trust back through integrity. Everything else sounds dangerously like thought censorship.
- jwtadvice 10y ago
  This. Mainstream journalism has to regain credibility. The first step down that road is producing credible journalism, a difficult but necessary cost the industry is going to need to swallow if it expects to survive. The alternatives are an expansion of thought censorship from the mainstream networks to its bubbling alternative competitors. I understand the urge to misrepresent the world to garner public support. I really do. But nature abhors a vacuum. When the information available to the public is obviously compromised it will be filled by something or someone else. The response to that isn't to censor alternatives and continue the misreporting. The solution is to recede from propagandistic instincts, and provide the kind of analysis you want to be recorded in history books for providing to democratic deliberation. If people really understand what's at stake in issues, and what powers, people and industries has what stake where, and when they understand issues to the point where they can make discernible political decisions - be they about representation or directly on issues - rather than being emotionally coerced at scale by every media platform above water; then, and only then, will the "information war" the State Department has been waging will really be won. It won't be won by the State Department, but by the people. And it will be for the people and by the people. Truly: the alternative to this is to continue down this folly road of doctrinal misrepresentation of the world to the American people, and to play whack-a-mole with every narrative that challenges the useless and ill-predictive emotional appeal whose vacuum is being challenged. (I speak as an American about my country).

by gdulli 10y ago

herbst 10y ago

So lets censor everything that some entity thinks is false on the whole internet? This shit grew on reddit and 4chan, 2 of the last places i want to see government censorship. Also nobody was shot, the other article i read in the morning clearly mentioned that he only shot upwards and was not trying to actually hurt anyone. Seriously if people are stupid enough to do such shit there are different issues to be solved. If people are scared of people wearing and using weapons then they should no be so easily available for example. The only solution against stuff like this without fixing our society would be complete censorship & government control. I hope this is not really what you suggest.

gdulli 10y ago
No one has mentioned the government here except you. Without giving in to totalitarianism, there's plenty of room for Reddit or Facebook to make some effort towards doing the right thing out of a sense of responsibility and decency. They're not obligated to let human garbage use their service as a platform. It's in a site's best interest anyway. Imagine if normal adults weren't so embarrassed to admit using Reddit.
- herbst 10y ago
  They did. Not sure if you followed the pizzagate laughfest. But they actually did, but they had a really hard time to net make it censoring. All they could really do was banning people that abused the rules, what they did (even 4chan did that mind you). But why would Reddit be allowed to decide which conspiracy theorie can be discussed? Seriously, i dont want to live in a world where the few semi open platforms we still have decide what we are allowed to talk about and what not when no laws are broken anyway.

ianstallings 10y ago

Maybe if the public trusted the mainstream journalists this wouldn't be such an issue. They've eroded that trust themselves. It's their job to clean up the mess by gaining that trust back through integrity. Everything else sounds dangerously like thought censorship.

jwtadvice 10y ago
This. Mainstream journalism has to regain credibility. The first step down that road is producing credible journalism, a difficult but necessary cost the industry is going to need to swallow if it expects to survive. The alternatives are an expansion of thought censorship from the mainstream networks to its bubbling alternative competitors. I understand the urge to misrepresent the world to garner public support. I really do. But nature abhors a vacuum. When the information available to the public is obviously compromised it will be filled by something or someone else. The response to that isn't to censor alternatives and continue the misreporting. The solution is to recede from propagandistic instincts, and provide the kind of analysis you want to be recorded in history books for providing to democratic deliberation. If people really understand what's at stake in issues, and what powers, people and industries has what stake where, and when they understand issues to the point where they can make discernible political decisions - be they about representation or directly on issues - rather than being emotionally coerced at scale by every media platform above water; then, and only then, will the "information war" the State Department has been waging will really be won. It won't be won by the State Department, but by the people. And it will be for the people and by the people. Truly: the alternative to this is to continue down this folly road of doctrinal misrepresentation of the world to the American people, and to play whack-a-mole with every narrative that challenges the useless and ill-predictive emotional appeal whose vacuum is being challenged. (I speak as an American about my country).