4 ms·

A little uncomfortable about the coupling of hate speech and fake news. Hate speech, while odious, is an unfortunate side-effect of free speech. And so we alrea

A little uncomfortable about the coupling of hate speech and fake news. Hate speech, while odious, is an unfortunate side-effect of free speech. And so we already have a mechanism for regulating it: social norms. Even at its worst, hate speech is the temporary symptom of some other, more insidious wrong - and the temporary injury each instance of hate speech produces just does not justify eating at a core value of liberal democracy. Fiction that purports to be news poses a far greater threat to democratic institutions, especially when it is targeted (and therefore invisible to the normal editorial controls). A mis- or dis- informed populace empowers people that worsen the core systemic problems that hate speech is a symptom of. But in this case, too, there is also an historic, market-based mechanism for combating it: editors. But unlike with hate speech, where Internet communities can enforce norms that determine inclusion, the Internet has no built-in editorial controls.

shallot_router 9y ago
Note this is in the UK, where there are fewer legal protections for free speech. But, yes, I think it's a huge political mistake to tie these concepts in this way (or even to use the term "fake news" at all, at this point). Regardless of the motives or actual content of the workshops, imagine how someone on the right will (not entirely unjustifiably) view a headline like this.
- Aqueous 9y ago
  Indeed, coupling the two makes fake news seem like deciding what is and isn't a fact is somehow political on serves some ideological agenda. But it isn't, or shouldn't be.
burkaman 9y ago
I don't understand the line you're drawing. Isn't fake news also an unfortunate side-effect of free speech? Aren't education and public reputation existing mechanisms for regulating it? Your argument that fake news is more dangerous makes sense, but it's not hard to argue the other way. Hate speech causes suicides, while fake news only causes temporary misinformation. Hate speech makes people withdraw from society and public life, driving them out of democratic institutions. Fake news usually just lets people hear what they want to hear, confirming beliefs they already had. The "victims" of fake news are actively seeking it out, while the victims of hate speech are being attacked. Maybe that's not completely convincing, but hopefully you see what I mean. We already have lots of controls on free speech, are there any intrinsic reasons you think hate speech and fake news are categorically different?
- Aqueous 9y ago
  I'm simply saying that while both are cases of free speech, fake news is allowed to spread out of control on the Internet due to a lack of editorial controls while hate speech is largely constrained by community norms.

shallot_router 9y ago

Note this is in the UK, where there are fewer legal protections for free speech. But, yes, I think it's a huge political mistake to tie these concepts in this way (or even to use the term "fake news" at all, at this point). Regardless of the motives or actual content of the workshops, imagine how someone on the right will (not entirely unjustifiably) view a headline like this.

Aqueous 9y ago
Indeed, coupling the two makes fake news seem like deciding what is and isn't a fact is somehow political on serves some ideological agenda. But it isn't, or shouldn't be.

burkaman 9y ago

I don't understand the line you're drawing. Isn't fake news also an unfortunate side-effect of free speech? Aren't education and public reputation existing mechanisms for regulating it? Your argument that fake news is more dangerous makes sense, but it's not hard to argue the other way. Hate speech causes suicides, while fake news only causes temporary misinformation. Hate speech makes people withdraw from society and public life, driving them out of democratic institutions. Fake news usually just lets people hear what they want to hear, confirming beliefs they already had. The "victims" of fake news are actively seeking it out, while the victims of hate speech are being attacked. Maybe that's not completely convincing, but hopefully you see what I mean. We already have lots of controls on free speech, are there any intrinsic reasons you think hate speech and fake news are categorically different?

Aqueous 9y ago
I'm simply saying that while both are cases of free speech, fake news is allowed to spread out of control on the Internet due to a lack of editorial controls while hate speech is largely constrained by community norms.