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My mom got sucked into the RussiaGate hoax, so we should look into shutting down CNN and other propaganda outlets
by newsclues 6y ago
My mom got sucked into the RussiaGate hoax, so we should look into shutting down CNN and other propaganda outlets
- knowaveragejoe 6y agoIt was not, in fact, a hoax at all. 10 years ago if you told me people who describe themselves as patriots would be embracing Putin's disinformation campaigns in the US, going so far as to attack the capital to overturn an election, I wouldn't believe you. But here we are.
- viklove 6y agoIt's beautiful how we reached the core conundrum so quickly in this HN comment thread. If we're going to start "rooting out extremists" and deplatforming them en-masse, who gets to decide what counts as extremism?
- emodendroket 6y agoIn practice, this is exactly the same problem as every other moderated forum in history, right? Who decides what's trolling or flaming?
- viklove 6y agoNot the same problem. Twitter has a lot more power than, say, GameFAQs had back in the day.
- emodendroket 6y agoRussiagate has its similarities but there are obvious limitations to trying to shut down any false or exaggerated narrative being promoted by people with federal power. But hey if you've got a plan I'm listening.
- rscoots 6y agoYou'll note that the user you're replying to mentioned news organizations, not people with fedal power. Can you name the people at these large tech companies you trust to determine what constitutes a hoax and what doesn't? How will you hold them to account should they get it wrong?
- emodendroket 6y agoNo, I don't, really. But they already do it, often in ways I dislike, and I can't see why to pretend the genie is back in the bottle and acting like I'm sad they're exercising that power against what I consider obviously harmful disinformation.
- rscoots 6y agoIf you forgo justice in the name of the greater good don't be mad when you get neither. By your own admission, it's a precarious moral tightrope you're walking here.
- emodendroket 6y agoI don't think that's really what I'm saying. Every Web forum (this one quite notably included) has some kind of ground rules for moderation because if you don't have them they become overrun with pornography, hate speech, or some other kind of content that puts off the majority of users -- in other words they were never radical free speech zones in the first place. If we were talking about sending people to jail for sharing PizzaGate conspiracies I wouldn't support it, but I don't really see what benefit there is to Facebook or Twitter tolerating such content, and with something like 10% of Americans saying they at least partly believe in QAnon it is getting hard to act like the problems arising from this content are irrelevant or just a sideshow.
- rscoots 6y agoWhat is their excuse for not having a transparent and accountable model for their censorship efforts? You never named the people at these companies you trust to decide what is conspiracy and what is not. I'm sure you can recall many recent examples of the censors getting it wrong however.
- 7thaccount 6y agoI don't think those are the same things.