11 ms·

> Perhaps it's true that we can't be trusted to decide fact from fiction. A lot of us have seen friends and family lose their minds to the conspiratorial "news

> Perhaps it's true that we can't be trusted to decide fact from fiction. A lot of us have seen friends and family lose their minds to the conspiratorial "news" like Zero hedge, Fox, etc. I too thought the internet, and all of humanity's knowledge at your fingertips, would be liberating. Instead it has enabled the ignorant to believe their conspiracies over expert opinions. I for one welcome these sort of moves. Zero Hedge has every right to spread their nonsense and Google/Twitter have every right to refuse to support it.

siculars 6y ago
Which experts? Galileo was a heretic at one time. So slippery I'm finding it hard to tap this out.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
zaroth 6y ago
I’m glad that you acknowledge that the move is obviously politically motivated. I don’t think that dissenting voices should be silenced. The free marketplace of ideas used to be an American ideal. Now it’s a fireable offense, or in the case of businesses, a capital one. Google had a monopoly on internet advertising. They should have no such right to decide who uses their Ad platform based on political affiliation or leanings. There’s plenty enough blame to spread around both left and right for fake news. See just most recently Fox doctoring photos of CHAZ versus many MSM sites falsely misrepresenting a conciliatory Trump quote on Floyd and the recent protests. If ZH is committing libel they should be sued for it and held liable. Taking away their basically sole source of income and blaming it on their comment section is flimsy doublespeak in my opinion. There is a similar effort within Google to try to demonetize Breitbart and other right-wing sites. A higher claim to the truth is no justification at all for silencing dissent. IMO this is just another step in a growing and dangerous trend of politicized de-platforming which I find extremely worrisome.
- gpu_explorer 6y ago
  Racism is antisocial behavior. Racism is not dissent.
  - zaroth 6y ago
    Who said anything about racism? But even still, we see cases [1] where questioning any aspect of the BLM movement is falsely equated with racism. [1] - https://www.vnews.com/Windsor-High-School-Story-34741525 https://www.vnews.com/Windsor-High-School-Story-34741525
- RhodesianHunter 6y ago
  >The free marketplace of ideas used to be an American ideal. At what point in American history could you expect to use someone else's platform, regardless of your content, in the name of free speech? That's right, never. Freedom of speech is about government censorship and nothing else.
  - collyw 6y ago
    Telephone lines.
    - undersuit 6y ago
      Telephone line owners were forced into being a public utility in the US.
  - the_omegist 6y ago
    If a train company back in 1850 had a near monopoly in the whole country or a whole state and decided who could or not use their "platform" based on what they say, would it be alright? They sale ads. If no advertiser wants to put an ad on a website, fine. But they can't decide to not offer their service.
naasking 6y ago
> A lot of us have seen friends and family lose their minds to the conspiratorial "news" like Zero hedge, Fox, etc. And how many liberals do you know lost their minds when Trump won the election despite the media assuring them Hillary had the lead, or were convinced that impeachment would finally get him out because the media covered so much "highly suspicious" activity? These were both equally "conspiratorial" stories pushed by the media,just from the other side. Delusion is just going around. > I for one welcome these sort of moves Sure, everyone welcomes oppression that works in their favour. Doesn't make it any less short sighted.
- sjwright 6y ago
  As someone viewing this sociological catastrophe from afar (Australia) and who is nominally "left" on most social issues, it's clear to me that the past three years represents the utter failure of the American Left to understand their own country. To use a computing analogy: while the left is buggy and flawed, the right are now hackers cynically exploiting those bugs rather than filing bug reports. Society is complex and requires everyone to act with some goodwill in order for us to reason our way through challenges. But while both sides used to act like white-hat hackers ethically exposing flaws in their competitor's algorithms, the pattern is now much darker. The left is seeing flaws where they don't exist in the right, while the right is straight up exploiting the left's flaws without concern for overall system security.
  - vl 6y ago
    The irony, of course, that in pre-Obama times situation was somewhat reverse. Notice that Trump is outsider. Establishment got too complacent and detached (first right, then left, which is mostly indistinguishable from centrist traditional right anyway) , and current right essentially is “new” right that uprooted the traditional one.
  - thu2111 6y ago
    What flaws of the left are being exploited here? I genuinely don't see that (and I'm also viewing this catastrophe from afar). What I've seen is that since 2016 the left has gone into some sort of meltdown state, over Trump and Brexit primarily but now also Coronavirus. With a large helping of obsession with race and gender too. The right seems mostly weak and timid, constantly being deplatformed, cancelled, threatened and pushed out of institutions all over the place. If there's any exploitation of flaws going on it can't be very effective.
koheripbal 6y ago
Zero Hedge was easily a MONTH ahead of the mainstream on the covid-19 crisis. ...and they even today are ahead of the game on the looming USD crisis. ...but you need a good BS filter because there's a lot of nonsense, lies, and speculation on it. So maybe it needs an opt-in warning window on the front. ...and the comments are worthless - no one reads them.
macspoofing 6y ago
>A lot of us have seen friends and family lose their minds to the conspiratorial "news" like Zero hedge, Fox, etc. Let's not let the left off the hook either. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing and I see it drive people insane. It is STRANGE. Huge swaths of people and journalists simply cannot be objective about anything Trump does. >Zero Hedge has every right to spread their nonsense and Google/Twitter have every right to refuse to support it. What about hosting companies, CAs, domain registrars? Should Zero Hedge (which is terrible and no different from 'sputnik' and 'info wars') have the ability to even have a web presence with a .com address and TLS? How about bank accounts and utilities? Any cultural, regulatory, technical and legal infrastructure you put in place to purge the ZeroHedges from the web, will be used against something you care about, or you personally.

siculars 6y ago

Which experts? Galileo was a heretic at one time. So slippery I'm finding it hard to tap this out.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

zaroth 6y ago

I’m glad that you acknowledge that the move is obviously politically motivated. I don’t think that dissenting voices should be silenced. The free marketplace of ideas used to be an American ideal. Now it’s a fireable offense, or in the case of businesses, a capital one. Google had a monopoly on internet advertising. They should have no such right to decide who uses their Ad platform based on political affiliation or leanings. There’s plenty enough blame to spread around both left and right for fake news. See just most recently Fox doctoring photos of CHAZ versus many MSM sites falsely misrepresenting a conciliatory Trump quote on Floyd and the recent protests. If ZH is committing libel they should be sued for it and held liable. Taking away their basically sole source of income and blaming it on their comment section is flimsy doublespeak in my opinion. There is a similar effort within Google to try to demonetize Breitbart and other right-wing sites. A higher claim to the truth is no justification at all for silencing dissent. IMO this is just another step in a growing and dangerous trend of politicized de-platforming which I find extremely worrisome.

gpu_explorer 6y ago
Racism is antisocial behavior. Racism is not dissent.
- zaroth 6y ago
  Who said anything about racism? But even still, we see cases [1] where questioning any aspect of the BLM movement is falsely equated with racism. [1] - https://www.vnews.com/Windsor-High-School-Story-34741525 https://www.vnews.com/Windsor-High-School-Story-34741525
RhodesianHunter 6y ago
>The free marketplace of ideas used to be an American ideal. At what point in American history could you expect to use someone else's platform, regardless of your content, in the name of free speech? That's right, never. Freedom of speech is about government censorship and nothing else.
- collyw 6y ago
  Telephone lines.
  - undersuit 6y ago
    Telephone line owners were forced into being a public utility in the US.
- the_omegist 6y ago
  If a train company back in 1850 had a near monopoly in the whole country or a whole state and decided who could or not use their "platform" based on what they say, would it be alright? They sale ads. If no advertiser wants to put an ad on a website, fine. But they can't decide to not offer their service.

naasking 6y ago

> A lot of us have seen friends and family lose their minds to the conspiratorial "news" like Zero hedge, Fox, etc. And how many liberals do you know lost their minds when Trump won the election despite the media assuring them Hillary had the lead, or were convinced that impeachment would finally get him out because the media covered so much "highly suspicious" activity? These were both equally "conspiratorial" stories pushed by the media,just from the other side. Delusion is just going around. > I for one welcome these sort of moves Sure, everyone welcomes oppression that works in their favour. Doesn't make it any less short sighted.

sjwright 6y ago
As someone viewing this sociological catastrophe from afar (Australia) and who is nominally "left" on most social issues, it's clear to me that the past three years represents the utter failure of the American Left to understand their own country. To use a computing analogy: while the left is buggy and flawed, the right are now hackers cynically exploiting those bugs rather than filing bug reports. Society is complex and requires everyone to act with some goodwill in order for us to reason our way through challenges. But while both sides used to act like white-hat hackers ethically exposing flaws in their competitor's algorithms, the pattern is now much darker. The left is seeing flaws where they don't exist in the right, while the right is straight up exploiting the left's flaws without concern for overall system security.
- vl 6y ago
  The irony, of course, that in pre-Obama times situation was somewhat reverse. Notice that Trump is outsider. Establishment got too complacent and detached (first right, then left, which is mostly indistinguishable from centrist traditional right anyway) , and current right essentially is “new” right that uprooted the traditional one.
- thu2111 6y ago
  What flaws of the left are being exploited here? I genuinely don't see that (and I'm also viewing this catastrophe from afar). What I've seen is that since 2016 the left has gone into some sort of meltdown state, over Trump and Brexit primarily but now also Coronavirus. With a large helping of obsession with race and gender too. The right seems mostly weak and timid, constantly being deplatformed, cancelled, threatened and pushed out of institutions all over the place. If there's any exploitation of flaws going on it can't be very effective.

koheripbal 6y ago

Zero Hedge was easily a MONTH ahead of the mainstream on the covid-19 crisis. ...and they even today are ahead of the game on the looming USD crisis. ...but you need a good BS filter because there's a lot of nonsense, lies, and speculation on it. So maybe it needs an opt-in warning window on the front. ...and the comments are worthless - no one reads them.

macspoofing 6y ago

>A lot of us have seen friends and family lose their minds to the conspiratorial "news" like Zero hedge, Fox, etc. Let's not let the left off the hook either. Trump Derangement Syndrome is a real thing and I see it drive people insane. It is STRANGE. Huge swaths of people and journalists simply cannot be objective about anything Trump does. >Zero Hedge has every right to spread their nonsense and Google/Twitter have every right to refuse to support it. What about hosting companies, CAs, domain registrars? Should Zero Hedge (which is terrible and no different from 'sputnik' and 'info wars') have the ability to even have a web presence with a .com address and TLS? How about bank accounts and utilities? Any cultural, regulatory, technical and legal infrastructure you put in place to purge the ZeroHedges from the web, will be used against something you care about, or you personally.