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> It seems to me that misinformation should be fought with information, not censorship. That's not working. The New York Times, Washington Post, testimony from

by tyre 7y ago

> It seems to me that misinformation should be fought with information, not censorship. That's not working. The New York Times, Washington Post, testimony from state department officials, climate scientists, etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etc etcetcetctectetc hasn't gotten through to this country. Believing that "truth wins in a marketplace of ideas" relies on a) people caring about the truth above all else, including their emotions b) people having access to the truth c) people being able to tell truth from fiction The counter-point to these is the entirety of human history. We have built technology that has hacked human nature for profit. Sugary and fatty foods overwhelm our capacity to differentiate food that is good from food that is good for us. Heroin creates tremendous addiction that is, for most people, entirely unbreakable. Social media has consumed a generation with performative outrage, diminishing attention spans, and hyper-targeted misinformation. The mortgage crisis was triggered by people buying homes on financial terms that they did not understand, which would have worked out only in an impossible scenario where home prices never go down, interest rates sit at near-zero, and their income continues to go up. It might be time to admit that "just give people options and they'll make the right choice" is bullshit. It doesn't work. People aren't rational creatures with infinite will. This isn't an argument between the Ministry of Truth and infinite freedom. Even the 1st Amendment—which doesn't apply here—has limitations, because we live in a society and some lies can get people killed. It's not as hard as people make it out to be to take incremental steps towards quelling humanity's worst impulses. We can do this.

Veedrac 7y ago
My opinion is based off the fact I just saw a room full of people cheer for the censorship of politicians. I'm not of the opinion that reduced visibility and annotations will solve the problem. I just don't trust people like the above to know where the slope is, and so I don't trust them with tools for censorship.
- tyre 7y ago
  > cheer for the censorship of politicians This is almost willfully in bad faith. They didn't "cheer for the censorship of politicians", they want something done about lies that are eroding our democracy. If politicians are a part of that, well, okay! Are they "cheering for the censorship" of nation-state actors? Maybe! And that's…maybe not bad? > I just don't trust people like the above to know where the slope is, and so I don't trust them with tools for censorship. I mean, should they not remove child pornography, rape video, snuff films, or cruelty to animals? That is censorship and those things are on some part of the slope! Will there be edge cases and mistakes? Absolutely. Guaranteed. Are the risks of those edge or ambiguous cases sometimes going the "wrong" way worth so much to us that we throw up our hands and say, "Ah, shit, can't do anything about this. Literally any change at all would be treason to freedom."? I don't know. It just seems…
  - Veedrac 7y ago
    “it would eject some very prominent politicians from their platform. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. <crowd cheers>” I don't know how to read that as anything other than approval of political censorship. Child abuse, rape, snuff, etc. are already banned, and rightly so. The question here is whether we should ban things that are offensively incorrect.
- lemmsjid 7y ago
  One way of combating misinformation could be increased visibility. For example, suppose that Facebook had a policy like this: if an advertisement is deemed to have misinformation in it, or cover a particularly controversial topic, it is not allowed to be targeted. It can still be published en masse, but it cannot be targeted to a particular population. Also, there is a period of time where fact checkers and other sources have time to publish rebuttals, which will be included with the ad.
  - Veedrac 7y ago
    I don't think adverts need the same freedom of speech protections that general users do. Banning factually inaccurate adverts is fine IMO.
- xaedes 7y ago
  "fact I just saw a room full of people cheer for the censorship of politicians." That was his point I think. I think this was just a performance to point out exactly THAT behaviour. How easy the people cheer for censorship. He even explained his doing in the beginning when he told about his other characters and what he did to the audiences. If that is true, I think its genious. He is my favorite trickster hero now.

by tyre 7y ago

Veedrac 7y ago

My opinion is based off the fact I just saw a room full of people cheer for the censorship of politicians. I'm not of the opinion that reduced visibility and annotations will solve the problem. I just don't trust people like the above to know where the slope is, and so I don't trust them with tools for censorship.

tyre 7y ago
> cheer for the censorship of politicians This is almost willfully in bad faith. They didn't "cheer for the censorship of politicians", they want something done about lies that are eroding our democracy. If politicians are a part of that, well, okay! Are they "cheering for the censorship" of nation-state actors? Maybe! And that's…maybe not bad? > I just don't trust people like the above to know where the slope is, and so I don't trust them with tools for censorship. I mean, should they not remove child pornography, rape video, snuff films, or cruelty to animals? That is censorship and those things are on some part of the slope! Will there be edge cases and mistakes? Absolutely. Guaranteed. Are the risks of those edge or ambiguous cases sometimes going the "wrong" way worth so much to us that we throw up our hands and say, "Ah, shit, can't do anything about this. Literally any change at all would be treason to freedom."? I don't know. It just seems…
- Veedrac 7y ago
  “it would eject some very prominent politicians from their platform. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. <crowd cheers>” I don't know how to read that as anything other than approval of political censorship. Child abuse, rape, snuff, etc. are already banned, and rightly so. The question here is whether we should ban things that are offensively incorrect.
lemmsjid 7y ago
One way of combating misinformation could be increased visibility. For example, suppose that Facebook had a policy like this: if an advertisement is deemed to have misinformation in it, or cover a particularly controversial topic, it is not allowed to be targeted. It can still be published en masse, but it cannot be targeted to a particular population. Also, there is a period of time where fact checkers and other sources have time to publish rebuttals, which will be included with the ad.
- Veedrac 7y ago
  I don't think adverts need the same freedom of speech protections that general users do. Banning factually inaccurate adverts is fine IMO.
xaedes 7y ago
"fact I just saw a room full of people cheer for the censorship of politicians." That was his point I think. I think this was just a performance to point out exactly THAT behaviour. How easy the people cheer for censorship. He even explained his doing in the beginning when he told about his other characters and what he did to the audiences. If that is true, I think its genious. He is my favorite trickster hero now.