4 ms·

I think a line needs to be drawn. Those are sort of wacko ideas hard to disprove, but saying "hillary clinton is guilty of ____" or blatantly misrepresenting fa

I think a line needs to be drawn. Those are sort of wacko ideas hard to disprove, but saying "hillary clinton is guilty of ____" or blatantly misrepresenting facts or lieing? that needs to stop.

atypicaluser 8y ago
Who draws the line?
- cannonedhamster 8y ago
  That would be the courts. Since libel/slander/defamation is already against the law. It's rather different from being misinformed and retracting the content and doubling down on lying because it's politically expedient. At least it was before this Presidency in the United States. I'm not sure how a purveyor of conspiracy theories being the ultimate enforcer of the law changes that, if at all.
colordrops 8y ago
Why does saying that Hillary Clinton is guilty of something need to stop?
- CharlesColeman 8y ago
  >> but saying "hillary clinton is guilty of ____" or blatantly misrepresenting facts or lieing? that needs to stop. > Why does saying that Hillary Clinton is guilty of something need to stop? That's a too-literal reading of the comment. The implication was clearly that what needs to stop is lies that claim Hillary Clinton is guilty of something she's not.
corndoge 8y ago
I don't think that needs to stop. Each person is responsible for evaluating the information presented to them and deciding what to believe or not. It is nobody's responsibility to compensate for gullibility, or simply lack of critical thinking, by restricting what information reaches people in the first place. That is called censorship.
8ytecoder 8y ago
This is the harder than you think. You might make it illegal to say "Hillary Clinton is guilty of <something>" - it actually is - it's a civil matter and Clinton can sue you for defamation. But, if you make it an opinion or a conjecture by adding enough hyperbole, you'll get away with it. That's not easy to ban. Any attempt to do so infringes on basic rights. It very soon becomes thought police. The only sane solution to this is to educate the masses, give them the tools to may be verify facts ...etc. (I'm in favor of banning organized news manufacturing. But I fully acknowledge that it's not practical and leaves a lot of room for bias. If President Trump gets that power, there's nothing stopping him from banning CNN entirely and I'm pretty convinced that he would.)
Pimpus 8y ago
It's now coming out that Hillary and Obama were up to some serious shenanigans at the very least. In fact your post is a great example of the dangers of this kind of legislation and how easy it is to get wrong. Even Trump doesn't want to go that far and he's the world's biggest victim of fake news.
laughinghan 8y ago
I agree that the spread of particularly vicious lies is a problem, but that doesn't mean the answer is for a government entity to draw the line. Maybe the solution to the problem is pressuring Facebook and Google. Maybe the solution is changing tech culture. Maybe the solution is more aggressively demoting fake news and promoting debunking of fake news. Even if you want a governmental component, maybe we should only go so far as a law requiring advertising networks to make it easier/possible for an advertiser to blacklist who gets their money (I know people who have tried, failed, and ultimately gave up on trying to prevent their ads from showing up on Breitbart).

I think a line needs to be drawn. Those are sort of wacko ideas hard to disprove, but saying "hillary clinton is guilty of ____" or blatantly misrepresenting facts or lieing? that needs to stop.

atypicaluser 8y ago

Who draws the line?

cannonedhamster 8y ago
That would be the courts. Since libel/slander/defamation is already against the law. It's rather different from being misinformed and retracting the content and doubling down on lying because it's politically expedient. At least it was before this Presidency in the United States. I'm not sure how a purveyor of conspiracy theories being the ultimate enforcer of the law changes that, if at all.

colordrops 8y ago

Why does saying that Hillary Clinton is guilty of something need to stop?

CharlesColeman 8y ago
>> but saying "hillary clinton is guilty of ____" or blatantly misrepresenting facts or lieing? that needs to stop. > Why does saying that Hillary Clinton is guilty of something need to stop? That's a too-literal reading of the comment. The implication was clearly that what needs to stop is lies that claim Hillary Clinton is guilty of something she's not.

corndoge 8y ago

I don't think that needs to stop. Each person is responsible for evaluating the information presented to them and deciding what to believe or not. It is nobody's responsibility to compensate for gullibility, or simply lack of critical thinking, by restricting what information reaches people in the first place. That is called censorship.

8ytecoder 8y ago

This is the harder than you think. You might make it illegal to say "Hillary Clinton is guilty of <something>" - it actually is - it's a civil matter and Clinton can sue you for defamation. But, if you make it an opinion or a conjecture by adding enough hyperbole, you'll get away with it. That's not easy to ban. Any attempt to do so infringes on basic rights. It very soon becomes thought police. The only sane solution to this is to educate the masses, give them the tools to may be verify facts ...etc. (I'm in favor of banning organized news manufacturing. But I fully acknowledge that it's not practical and leaves a lot of room for bias. If President Trump gets that power, there's nothing stopping him from banning CNN entirely and I'm pretty convinced that he would.)

Pimpus 8y ago

It's now coming out that Hillary and Obama were up to some serious shenanigans at the very least. In fact your post is a great example of the dangers of this kind of legislation and how easy it is to get wrong. Even Trump doesn't want to go that far and he's the world's biggest victim of fake news.

laughinghan 8y ago

I agree that the spread of particularly vicious lies is a problem, but that doesn't mean the answer is for a government entity to draw the line. Maybe the solution to the problem is pressuring Facebook and Google. Maybe the solution is changing tech culture. Maybe the solution is more aggressively demoting fake news and promoting debunking of fake news. Even if you want a governmental component, maybe we should only go so far as a law requiring advertising networks to make it easier/possible for an advertiser to blacklist who gets their money (I know people who have tried, failed, and ultimately gave up on trying to prevent their ads from showing up on Breitbart).