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Propaganda is vulnerable to open discourse, promoters of false information are handicapped by the flaws in their arguments. The only way it can flourish is cen

by cortic 6y ago

Propaganda is vulnerable to open discourse, promoters of false information are handicapped by the flaws in their arguments. The only way it can flourish is censored away into manipulative misdirection and secretive groups. There is also the immunity to bad ideas aspect; Its important that the propaganda is heard openly and argued against in public, as this makes people immune to these arguments. Censor these bad ideas and we make the next generation vulnerable to them. I don't think we can offset this with education, as with drugs, we never give the kids the very best bad idea - argument when we try to teach the dangers of drugs, this is why so many are vulnerable to the dealers quiet persuasion. I really feel like the more we silence movements like the alt right, the more vulnerable our society becomes to their bad ideas.

slg 6y ago
>Propaganda is vulnerable to open discourse, promoters of false information are handicapped by the flaws in their arguments. The only way it can flourish is censored away into manipulative misdirection and secretive groups. This is repeated so much it is practically a meme at this point, but is there anything to actually back it up? Especially when users have the ability to control what they see. If someone is in a bubble of disinformation, it doesn't matter how many voices outside the bubble try to debunk those claims. It seems like a more effective approach would to be to work on preventative measures so people are never exposed to these harmful beliefs rather than wait until these beliefs are heard and then try to convince them they are wrong.
- cortic 6y ago
  > If someone is in a bubble of disinformation The censorship of the good information is the problem. And it probably started with censorship of bad information that lead to the bubble in the first place. >work on preventative measures so people are never exposed This is where the analogy breaks down, its not a virus, its an idea, anyone can come up with an idea, good or bad. you want to protect people from themselves, you must immunize them from the bad ideas they could come up with. We know it works, it was the only vehicle from the dark ages to the enlightenment. We also have the problem that if you set up a perfect system of blocking bad ideas, the people who run it can have bad ideas of their own. Hell the mechanism we have to even tell the difference between bad ideas and good ideas in society (open free discourse) will have been destroyed. There are plenty of examples of people trying to do this around the world, tyrants and hell-holes created with the best of intentions.
  - slg 6y ago
    >The censorship of the good information is the problem. And it probably started with censorship of bad information that lead to the bubble in the first place. There is nothing nefarious about bubbles. They happen automatically when people are in control of what they consume. Imagine I join Twitter and I am given a list of people to follow. I don't like to hear from people with viewpoints that I think are crazy so I unfollow someone if they say something I disagree with. If some gets retweeted into my feed saying something I agree with, I might follow them regardless of the validity of their comment since I don't have the time or motivation to fact check everything. Wouldn't you know it, I am now in a bubble despite there being zero censorship of anything. If one of the people in my bubble repeats some false claim, am I going to see someone dispute that claim or will the disputing occur outside my bubble? >This is where the analogy breaks down, its not a virus, its an idea, anyone can come up with an idea, good or bad. you can't protect people from themselves, you can only immunize them, we know it works, it was the only vehicle from the dark ages to the enlightenment. Ideas do have virality to them. Something like QAnon is a prime example. Is isn't like "wealthy democrats drink the blood of children" is some random idea that multiple people reached through parallel thinking. It was a particular conspiracy theory that spread from one person to another. Stopping that message from spreading to more people seems like a more effective approach than trying to retroactively unconvince people who have already bought into the conspiracy. I agree with the rest of your comment about the dangers of censorship. That is why I said I would have a preference for something that is closer to free and open than not, but that doesn't mean we can't recognize the specific situations in which completely free and open systems can go wrong.
    - cortic 6y ago
      >I am now in a bubble despite there being zero censorship of anything. Its still censorship, but i see what you are getting at. > Stopping that message from spreading to more people seems like a more effective approach Your example would be stopped whether true or false, as it would likely be the wealthy in charge of whats deemed true.
      - slg 6y ago
tstrimple 6y ago
> Propaganda is vulnerable to open discourse, promoters of false information are handicapped by the flaws in their arguments. The only way it can flourish is censored away into manipulative misdirection and secretive groups. This is so false it's bordering on the absurd. Anyone with even a little experience with debate and techniques like Gish gallop, which are widely employed, know that rational arguments simply do not convince most people of things. Humans aren't purely rational beings. It's dangerous to assume we can just talk away propaganda because all evidence points to the contrary. More than 80% of Trump supporters believe the election was rigged against their candidate despite there literally being no evidence supporting this claim. We're seeing propaganda succeed on such a massive scale because it's so widely spread and so difficult to counter. You've got literally millions of people who have been conditioned to label everything that contradicts their views as "fake news". There is a reason why Fox News viewers score lower on current information than people who don't watch any news at all. Their propaganda works and talking about it and pointing it out isn't helping at all.
- lawnchair_larry 6y ago
  > More than 80% of Trump supporters believe the election was rigged against their candidate despite there literally being no evidence supporting this claim. This is not accurate. Many non-Trump supporters also do not trust the results. I suspect you have not paid a lot of attention to the legitimate concerns. > We're seeing propaganda succeed on such a massive scale because it's so widely spread and so difficult to counter. This is true, but as of late, it’s going the opposite direction. It’s not that anything that contradicts their views is fake news, it’s the stuff that contradicts reality. See finepeoplehoax.org for a great example.
- cortic 6y ago
  Think of the last hundred years, the countries that supported some form of free expression and discourse are now the most progressive rational societies on the planet. And the ones that enforced moral standards and 'ministries of truth', usually religious, are the most regressive. It doesn't matter whether you can change someones mind on the spot, it matters that your argument is superior and the public tend to repeat and re-argue the superior argument. And yes, things like election fraud, that might be possible, and has happened before, is harder to argued against than a flat earth. But these positions are also the ones where we might be wrong.

by cortic 6y ago

slg 6y ago

>Propaganda is vulnerable to open discourse, promoters of false information are handicapped by the flaws in their arguments. The only way it can flourish is censored away into manipulative misdirection and secretive groups. This is repeated so much it is practically a meme at this point, but is there anything to actually back it up? Especially when users have the ability to control what they see. If someone is in a bubble of disinformation, it doesn't matter how many voices outside the bubble try to debunk those claims. It seems like a more effective approach would to be to work on preventative measures so people are never exposed to these harmful beliefs rather than wait until these beliefs are heard and then try to convince them they are wrong.

cortic 6y ago
> If someone is in a bubble of disinformation The censorship of the good information is the problem. And it probably started with censorship of bad information that lead to the bubble in the first place. >work on preventative measures so people are never exposed This is where the analogy breaks down, its not a virus, its an idea, anyone can come up with an idea, good or bad. you want to protect people from themselves, you must immunize them from the bad ideas they could come up with. We know it works, it was the only vehicle from the dark ages to the enlightenment. We also have the problem that if you set up a perfect system of blocking bad ideas, the people who run it can have bad ideas of their own. Hell the mechanism we have to even tell the difference between bad ideas and good ideas in society (open free discourse) will have been destroyed. There are plenty of examples of people trying to do this around the world, tyrants and hell-holes created with the best of intentions.
- slg 6y ago
  >The censorship of the good information is the problem. And it probably started with censorship of bad information that lead to the bubble in the first place. There is nothing nefarious about bubbles. They happen automatically when people are in control of what they consume. Imagine I join Twitter and I am given a list of people to follow. I don't like to hear from people with viewpoints that I think are crazy so I unfollow someone if they say something I disagree with. If some gets retweeted into my feed saying something I agree with, I might follow them regardless of the validity of their comment since I don't have the time or motivation to fact check everything. Wouldn't you know it, I am now in a bubble despite there being zero censorship of anything. If one of the people in my bubble repeats some false claim, am I going to see someone dispute that claim or will the disputing occur outside my bubble? >This is where the analogy breaks down, its not a virus, its an idea, anyone can come up with an idea, good or bad. you can't protect people from themselves, you can only immunize them, we know it works, it was the only vehicle from the dark ages to the enlightenment. Ideas do have virality to them. Something like QAnon is a prime example. Is isn't like "wealthy democrats drink the blood of children" is some random idea that multiple people reached through parallel thinking. It was a particular conspiracy theory that spread from one person to another. Stopping that message from spreading to more people seems like a more effective approach than trying to retroactively unconvince people who have already bought into the conspiracy. I agree with the rest of your comment about the dangers of censorship. That is why I said I would have a preference for something that is closer to free and open than not, but that doesn't mean we can't recognize the specific situations in which completely free and open systems can go wrong.
  - cortic 6y ago
    >I am now in a bubble despite there being zero censorship of anything. Its still censorship, but i see what you are getting at. > Stopping that message from spreading to more people seems like a more effective approach Your example would be stopped whether true or false, as it would likely be the wealthy in charge of whats deemed true.
    - slg 6y ago

tstrimple 6y ago

> Propaganda is vulnerable to open discourse, promoters of false information are handicapped by the flaws in their arguments. The only way it can flourish is censored away into manipulative misdirection and secretive groups. This is so false it's bordering on the absurd. Anyone with even a little experience with debate and techniques like Gish gallop, which are widely employed, know that rational arguments simply do not convince most people of things. Humans aren't purely rational beings. It's dangerous to assume we can just talk away propaganda because all evidence points to the contrary. More than 80% of Trump supporters believe the election was rigged against their candidate despite there literally being no evidence supporting this claim. We're seeing propaganda succeed on such a massive scale because it's so widely spread and so difficult to counter. You've got literally millions of people who have been conditioned to label everything that contradicts their views as "fake news". There is a reason why Fox News viewers score lower on current information than people who don't watch any news at all. Their propaganda works and talking about it and pointing it out isn't helping at all.

lawnchair_larry 6y ago
> More than 80% of Trump supporters believe the election was rigged against their candidate despite there literally being no evidence supporting this claim. This is not accurate. Many non-Trump supporters also do not trust the results. I suspect you have not paid a lot of attention to the legitimate concerns. > We're seeing propaganda succeed on such a massive scale because it's so widely spread and so difficult to counter. This is true, but as of late, it’s going the opposite direction. It’s not that anything that contradicts their views is fake news, it’s the stuff that contradicts reality. See finepeoplehoax.org for a great example.
cortic 6y ago
Think of the last hundred years, the countries that supported some form of free expression and discourse are now the most progressive rational societies on the planet. And the ones that enforced moral standards and 'ministries of truth', usually religious, are the most regressive. It doesn't matter whether you can change someones mind on the spot, it matters that your argument is superior and the public tend to repeat and re-argue the superior argument. And yes, things like election fraud, that might be possible, and has happened before, is harder to argued against than a flat earth. But these positions are also the ones where we might be wrong.