4 ms·

I've seen Infowars regularly mocked in mainstream comedy TV shows. Shining light on Infowars misinformation / ill intent is probably a good thing. Adding barri

by mgbmtl 8y ago

I've seen Infowars regularly mocked in mainstream comedy TV shows. Shining light on Infowars misinformation / ill intent is probably a good thing. Adding barriers to passive consumption, by vulnerable (misinformed) people, is probably also a good thing. It's not being censored/outlawed, just made slightly less convenient to access. Fake news are a threat to democracy.

jessriedel 8y ago
"It's not outlawed, just inconvenient to access" is more than enough influence to dramatically (~90%) shape what information is consumed with no natural truth-seeking mechanism beyond your trust in the people imposing the inconvenience. There's a reason it's illegal for the government to do this, and we should demand that neutral platform organizations like Apple, Facebook, or a university don't do it either (which is not the same thing as saying that they should be forced by law to do it).
- DanAndersen 8y ago
  >and we should demand that neutral platform organizations like Apple, Facebook, or a university don't do it either (which is not the same thing as saying that they should be forced by law to do it) What sorts of demands would be listened to or have any chance of being effective if not having the weight of force of law behind it?
  - internet_user 8y ago
    Might require another constitutional amendment.
  - jessriedel 8y ago
    The same thing that induces universities to behave reasonably well as neutral platforms. It is a combination of pressure from public esteem and the moral principles of the university (both the principles of individual administrators/professors and the principles explicitly endorsed by the organization as a whole). And all of that is interlinked. It is an awful misconceptions that the only way to effectively get other people to act differently is with law. It is lazy and leads to unnecessary use of force. Most things that are bad are not illegal (e.g., lying to your friends, being mean, abandoning your parents, cheating on your spouse) and yet occur at much lower rates than they would without the many extra-legal mechanisms that keep them in check.
creaghpatr 8y ago
It's gonna be awkward when comedy TV shows mock content that you can no longer access on facebook. Will comedy shows be reprimanded by fb in the future for posting show clips that contain cuts of Infowars saying crazy stuff?
adrianN 8y ago
Censoring "fake" news is not the way to a healthy democracy. Educating people on how to use different sources and do their own critical thinking is what we need.
- raverbashing 8y ago
  In theory people would have consciousness and would have time to evaluate good from bad sources In practice that's not what happens. So yeah, I'm not shedding a tear over IW (though they probably have a point, on one occasion or another. Other media address these points so it's not dependant on them)
- LargeWu 8y ago
  I agree we need better education about this sort of thing. I think it would be useful for all public schools to include this as part of their curriculum; I think you could easily spend an entire semester on learning to qualify media sources. However, I think we should make the tradeoff explicit here. Just saying "Apple shouldn't do this because it's censorship, and censorship is bad" is a rather naive attitude. I would argue two things: 1. This isn't censorship, it's a refusal to broadcast. It's one thing to say "You can't say that", and another to say "I'm not going to allow you to use our platform to say that." The government is not allowed to prevent speech, but that doesn't mean that private companies are required to enable it. 2. It's not "fake" news. It's fake. It's literally made up stories, about child sex rings in pizza parlors and slave colonies on Mars. So you might say, what's the harm in making up stuff? Well, people are shooting up restaurants and making on-air death threats to journalists and generally gravitating towards authoritarian viewpoints sponsored by organizations such as infowars. And guess what tool authoritarians love to employ? CENSORSHIP. Failing to hold these jokers accountable for their words and instigation actually and inevitably leads us farther down the path towards actual censorship than refusing to give them a platform. I would rather companies take a stand against this stuff than just allow them to exploit our misguided notions of democratic rule to undermine actual democratic rule.
- mcphage 8y ago
  > Educating people on how to use different sources and do their own critical thinking is what we need. It is, just like we need to teach kids not to drink poison. But we also don't use "we need to teach kids not to drink poison" as an excuse to leave easily drinkable poison in reach. At some point, we'll have educated people better on how to do their own critical thinking. But we're not there yet, and acting as if we were isn't a strategy for success.
bluthru 8y ago
>passive consumption It doesn't just show up in your podcast feed.
jumpman500 8y ago
Fake news isn't a threat to democracy. People have lied about shit and given false narratives for all time. An uneducated or easily influenced population is a risk to democracy. There is no easy fix for old and uneducated people, we just need to make sure the next generation is less susceptible to bad influences.

by mgbmtl 8y ago

jessriedel 8y ago

"It's not outlawed, just inconvenient to access" is more than enough influence to dramatically (~90%) shape what information is consumed with no natural truth-seeking mechanism beyond your trust in the people imposing the inconvenience. There's a reason it's illegal for the government to do this, and we should demand that neutral platform organizations like Apple, Facebook, or a university don't do it either (which is not the same thing as saying that they should be forced by law to do it).

DanAndersen 8y ago
>and we should demand that neutral platform organizations like Apple, Facebook, or a university don't do it either (which is not the same thing as saying that they should be forced by law to do it) What sorts of demands would be listened to or have any chance of being effective if not having the weight of force of law behind it?
- internet_user 8y ago
  Might require another constitutional amendment.
- jessriedel 8y ago
  The same thing that induces universities to behave reasonably well as neutral platforms. It is a combination of pressure from public esteem and the moral principles of the university (both the principles of individual administrators/professors and the principles explicitly endorsed by the organization as a whole). And all of that is interlinked. It is an awful misconceptions that the only way to effectively get other people to act differently is with law. It is lazy and leads to unnecessary use of force. Most things that are bad are not illegal (e.g., lying to your friends, being mean, abandoning your parents, cheating on your spouse) and yet occur at much lower rates than they would without the many extra-legal mechanisms that keep them in check.

creaghpatr 8y ago

It's gonna be awkward when comedy TV shows mock content that you can no longer access on facebook. Will comedy shows be reprimanded by fb in the future for posting show clips that contain cuts of Infowars saying crazy stuff?

adrianN 8y ago

Censoring "fake" news is not the way to a healthy democracy. Educating people on how to use different sources and do their own critical thinking is what we need.

raverbashing 8y ago
In theory people would have consciousness and would have time to evaluate good from bad sources In practice that's not what happens. So yeah, I'm not shedding a tear over IW (though they probably have a point, on one occasion or another. Other media address these points so it's not dependant on them)
LargeWu 8y ago
I agree we need better education about this sort of thing. I think it would be useful for all public schools to include this as part of their curriculum; I think you could easily spend an entire semester on learning to qualify media sources. However, I think we should make the tradeoff explicit here. Just saying "Apple shouldn't do this because it's censorship, and censorship is bad" is a rather naive attitude. I would argue two things: 1. This isn't censorship, it's a refusal to broadcast. It's one thing to say "You can't say that", and another to say "I'm not going to allow you to use our platform to say that." The government is not allowed to prevent speech, but that doesn't mean that private companies are required to enable it. 2. It's not "fake" news. It's fake. It's literally made up stories, about child sex rings in pizza parlors and slave colonies on Mars. So you might say, what's the harm in making up stuff? Well, people are shooting up restaurants and making on-air death threats to journalists and generally gravitating towards authoritarian viewpoints sponsored by organizations such as infowars. And guess what tool authoritarians love to employ? CENSORSHIP. Failing to hold these jokers accountable for their words and instigation actually and inevitably leads us farther down the path towards actual censorship than refusing to give them a platform. I would rather companies take a stand against this stuff than just allow them to exploit our misguided notions of democratic rule to undermine actual democratic rule.
mcphage 8y ago
> Educating people on how to use different sources and do their own critical thinking is what we need. It is, just like we need to teach kids not to drink poison. But we also don't use "we need to teach kids not to drink poison" as an excuse to leave easily drinkable poison in reach. At some point, we'll have educated people better on how to do their own critical thinking. But we're not there yet, and acting as if we were isn't a strategy for success.

bluthru 8y ago

>passive consumption It doesn't just show up in your podcast feed.

jumpman500 8y ago

Fake news isn't a threat to democracy. People have lied about shit and given false narratives for all time. An uneducated or easily influenced population is a risk to democracy. There is no easy fix for old and uneducated people, we just need to make sure the next generation is less susceptible to bad influences.