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Can you explain this a bit more? At least for the first two, that information was disseminated by government bans or government-mandated labeling. I am not as f

Can you explain this a bit more? At least for the first two, that information was disseminated by government bans or government-mandated labeling. I am not as familiar with Agent Orange but it was first studied by the New Jersey Agent Orange Commission in 1980 and found to be toxic — it helped lead to the Agent Orange Act. PTSD was first recognized by the APA in 1980 as well. These are all positions of authority making these decisions and claims. I guess I am just confused what your point is here. Can you explain how the voices of the people were involved in the above examples?

tetrahedr0n 6y ago
I believe the OP's point was that those things (Agent orange, tobacco <> cancer, etc) which our society almost universally agree upon were once, themselves, targeted by dis/misinformation campaigns. And that if we are to allow censorship, we are allowing the potential for disinformation campaigns. IMO, the flaws in this argument are that it assumes a disinformation campaign is something the censor entity is controlling (specifically the US military, in the Agent Orange example). It also assumes disinformation is the only tactic available to a bad actor to manipulate the public. To the spirit of the OP's point, though, I think we need to be wary of any corporation pledging to make the world a safer place by monitoring our communications. Of course the situation is not binary; there are things that should be censored. I would like our law enforcement to use any tool at their disposal to stop human trafficking. Murder is not cool, AT&T should help LE look into those as well. Politician Y is trolling the internet with lies; we actually have a toolset for that and it's called journalism. Understanding that journalism/media is actually part of the problem here doesn't mean AT&T can do a better job.

tetrahedr0n 6y ago

I believe the OP's point was that those things (Agent orange, tobacco <> cancer, etc) which our society almost universally agree upon were once, themselves, targeted by dis/misinformation campaigns. And that if we are to allow censorship, we are allowing the potential for disinformation campaigns. IMO, the flaws in this argument are that it assumes a disinformation campaign is something the censor entity is controlling (specifically the US military, in the Agent Orange example). It also assumes disinformation is the only tactic available to a bad actor to manipulate the public. To the spirit of the OP's point, though, I think we need to be wary of any corporation pledging to make the world a safer place by monitoring our communications. Of course the situation is not binary; there are things that should be censored. I would like our law enforcement to use any tool at their disposal to stop human trafficking. Murder is not cool, AT&T should help LE look into those as well. Politician Y is trolling the internet with lies; we actually have a toolset for that and it's called journalism. Understanding that journalism/media is actually part of the problem here doesn't mean AT&T can do a better job.