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As opposed to letting transparently false information trick people who should know better? You're right, we should be leery about government regulations, but f

• Mahn 10y ago
  Technically, the people who believe false information and aren't critical are the problem, but I guess there's not a whole lot we can do about that, other than prevent the incentives that currently exist for fake news (ad profit)?
  • saurik 10y ago
    Yeah: I'd even argue that banning the sale of advertising space "by the click" or even "by the view" (as opposed to "by the action": where someone has to actually purchase the product being advertised before the website gets paid, which is a much better model anyway) would be a safer thing to do to civilization (and would have tons of other really nice effects; we'd probably finally get rid of those articles which are broken into 20 pages, one sentence a page, in the hope of getting more "clicks") than having state-sponsored censorship. I mean: isn't it extremely interesting that we are now walking backwards to this point starting with "due to a lack of this kind of censorship, we allowed a very conservative person to get into office"; it is almost like this is being taken as an "opportunity" to get liberal people who otherwise would balk at this idea to get on board because now it is supposedly on their side and is couched in terms they agree with. I wonder if there are people who noticed this whole thing as their opening to finally broach the subject with Western civilization :/.
• saurik 10y ago
  China often claims their censorship of news is about reducing the spread of "false" information. Who decides what is "false"? If we have to have someone doing that, I'd argue the one group that must be immediately disqualified from that position is the government, given that they have a known and totally on-purpose information imbalance with the public about tons of subjects they consider sensitive or "classified", and that a large amount of media reporting is about the government and wants to touch on these subjects.
  • paradite 10y ago
    Censorship and policies for countering fake news are not the same thing in China. The former is aimed at maintaining social stability and the latter is simply identifying the fake news and informing the public of the real situation. For censorship it is the government that decides what to censor. But for the fake news, it is mainly the fact self-organized checking groups and the news media's job, and the government is not directly involved. One popular fact checking group has a name that literally translates into "rumor shredder": http://www.guokr.com/group/40/ http://www.guokr.com/group/40/ Of course those that are found to be guilty of spreading false information are punishable by law, which is handled in the court and enforced by the police. But that's an entirely different process with very different parties involved as compared to censorship. In short, censorship works at the government level and is enforced by the ISPs directly, whereas stopping fake news works at the level of self-organized groups and the case goes through the court system.
    • saurik 10y ago
      So, "censorship" is totally something that existed before the ability of mankind to automate enforcement: the police (the enforcement arm of the government) coming to your house to shut down the printing press you set up to distribute your underground newspaper full of "illegal" information is generally considered "censorship", and if for some reason you insist on a definition that doesn't include that, I hope we can both agree that 1) China does that (whatever you prefer to call it) and 2) we don't like that they do that.
      • paradite 10y ago
        Yes and yes for you. Yes and no for me. Only the ones are subjected to the "censorship" may not like it. I am pretty sure what's going on in Chinese is also happening with CIA, FBI, MI6, etc. Ordinary people won't say that they do not like them, because it does not concern their interests and whatever operations that do can be justified as national security measures or national interest. But if you, however, do not like whatever CIA, etc are doing, then of course you wouldn't like what China is doing either.
  • 10y ago
• aaron-lebo 10y ago
  You can always move the goalposts for "false". The major media outlets engage in misleading stuff like that all the time. Did you see NBC's post-debate fact check? Trump said Clinton “acid washed” her private email server. She didn’t. She used an app called Bleachbit, not a corrosive chemical. ... http://heavy.com/news/2016/10/nbc-fact-check-trump-clinton-acid-wash-bleachbit-conspiracy-mainstream-media-lie/ http://heavy.com/news/2016/10/nbc-fact-check-trump-clinton-a... (I don't know how good this site is, it was just the first Google result). The end result (as well as this is meant), is that news and media organizations now effectively need a government stamp of approval. You can see where that could go wrong. Funny it should happen in Germany of all places... Even worse, citizens are incentivized to disregard critical thinking. Oh, this hasn't been banned...it must be true.
  • Karunamon 10y ago
    If only Germany would have the same allergic reaction to power consolidation that it has to anything resembling Nazis.