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"Misinformation" is just another word for "falsehood" or "untruth." Those of you claiming that "democracy" depends on authorities preventing the spread of misi

"Misinformation" is just another word for "falsehood" or "untruth." Those of you claiming that "democracy" depends on authorities preventing the spread of misinformation are ipso facto saying that democracy requires the government, or megacorporate cartels with a monopoly on public speech most likely acting as proxies for the government (as Psaki made clear is happening), to define what counts as "truth" (a Ministry Of Truth if you will) and to stamp out what they've defined as "false." It's insane, and it's amazing to me how many of you have your heads so far up your assessment with partisanship that you can't see that the recent media hysteria over "misinformation" is a blatant example of the contrived "emergencies" that all totalitarian regimes in history have used to seize control over free societies.

thrwoi4234234 5y ago
It's actually worse - the "truth" necessarily implies that there is but one, and that everything else in false. Does this sound familiar ? This is exactly what religious loonies say in order to take control. Science necessarily involves keeping your own ignorance, epistemic and otherwise, in mind while dealing with things, but it's quite worrying that the West is going back on what was won with blood and sweat.
- eecc 5y ago
  Nog sure about the intent of Google (and as they say, the road to hell is paved with good ones) but you’re reframing. It’s not a matter of censoring deviations from orthodoxy, rather one of removing disinformation and demonstrable falsehoods, often used for propaganda and to setup victim scenarios.
  - argvargc 5y ago
    Those engaging in widespread censorship create disinformation and falsehood, by omission. In history, it has always been those engaging in widespread censorship who turn out to be disastrously and/or maliciously wrong. The science now being censored has become so well-established, that at this point, Google/YT et al, has and will delete and suppress the sharing of peer-reviewed science published in mainstream journals and indexed in PubMed. That 100% ends their credibility. I deplore anyone expecting an explanation as to why. Anyone yet standing by such incredulous, irresponsible and/or actively-malicious action, reveals themselves as same, for all to see.
    - eecc 5y ago
      Uh, I’ve read plenty about CIA techniques to overthrow undesired governments and a favorite trick is propping astroturfing campaigns claiming the wildest tripe and alt-truth against the soon-to-be “liberated”. So please, come up with proof or yours is just another case of trumped up claims
      - argvargc 5y ago
        I honestly can't make head nor tails of what you've said here, and am left wondering if you're a bot? I made a statement, on-topic, about the nature and history of censorship, Google's credibility as arbiter of truth, and how naked they appear now as a result of how extreme they've become in that self-appointed role. If you're not a bot, maybe try reading it again with that understanding?
        eecc 5y ago
        Bot? Please step down that high horse of yours. This thread ends here
- raverbashing 5y ago
  > the "truth" necessarily implies that there is but one, and that everything else in false. Sounds like the QAnon people
- FeepingCreature 5y ago
  I believe there is only one truth, and everything else is false. But I also believe humans do not have access to it.
  - mlac 5y ago
    There are facts and there is the context of the facts and the impact those facts have on people. One can argue the news should just report the facts, but they add additional context and information to explain why the facts matter. Verifying the facts / truth is objective and clear (e.g. it rained 2 inches today). Determining whether the impact is properly reported (e.g. “devastating” flooding occurred) is murky. And the flooding could have been devastating - to one family, to a village, to a school. So it’s not untrue, it’s just more subjective as you move from numbers to impact. And the news cares more about reporting impact than facts and will tailor the narrative to explain the impact to their audience. Look at the news service all sides. You can figure out the facts (e.g. a law was passed) then see what each side is saying about the impact. The impact may be true for both sides, just presented in a vastly different way.
  - dudeman13 5y ago
    I agree with this position. The idea that there may be 'truths' sounds utterly bonkers to me. a ^ -a is considered a contradiction for a reason.
    - nix23 5y ago
      Please then tell me what is the one true religion? :) Humans are not logical systems.
      - dalo 5y ago
        Belief is independent of reality. There is only explanation of our origination that is true.
      - username90 5y ago
        The one true "religion" is science. Once a religion is discovered to be true then science will include that religion.
- adflux 5y ago
  The lab leak theory was discarded as false and conspiracy thinking, now many experts believe this to be the case... What is a conspiracy one day can eventually be the truth, e.g. the Tonkin Incident.
  - pcrh 5y ago
    On the contrary, no expert believes the coronavirus lab leak hypothesis is correct; a few do however say it should be investigated. This is exactly this kind of misunderstanding that this whole thread is about.
    - smaryjerry 5y ago
      What you are describing is just another manipulation of words by media that has caught you and others. Most scientists believe the virus had a lab in origin, and couldn’t have been natural, but whether that is due to a lab leak is completely speculation based on the fact it likely has a lab origin.
      - pcrh 5y ago
        No they do not. Most believe it jumped from a wild animal to humans a short while before the outbreak in Wuhan.
        orestarod 5y ago
        Oh it most likely did jump from animals to humans. Lab outbreak theory does not refer to the virus being artificial, but on that the jump occurred inside the lab due to bad measures and then leaked outside.
        pcrh 5y ago
        GP referred to the virus being unnatural, whereas there is very strong evidence that it is natural. As to a natural virus being accidentally leaked from a lab, there's no evidence for that scenario, except for the fact that the first major SARS-CoV2 outbreak happened in the same city. For what it's worth, this is not as implausible a co-incidence as might be claimed, since it is not uncommon for a virology lab to study viruses endemic to the region it is located in.
intended 5y ago
We aren’t talking about something as basic as truth and untruth. This is Integer and float vs malformed code. Misinformation is code. It’s designed to specifically take advantage of gaps in our society and spread in such a way that makes it harder to challenge it.
- narrator 5y ago
  Who would ever oppose scientific socialism? It is scientific. Thus, rejection of science is unscientific and should be prohibited. I call my organization the good people group. Who would oppose the good people group except the bad people group?
- overdriventater 5y ago
  You're proving ibbibby's point here
- ironmagma 5y ago
  Only for pretty creative definitions of misinformation. It could also be just, you know, wrong information.
  - PixyMisa 5y ago
    Or indeed, correct information that contradicts an officially recognised position.
- cnhajzwgz 5y ago
  Wielding the baton of "misinformation", or in general, fear of falsehood/insecurity etc, to whack those who the ruling class disagrees with is also code designed to specifically take advantage of the gaps in a healthy bureaucracy and seize control over it in such a way that makes it hard to challenge it.
- bigbluedots 5y ago
  In a free society, people must be allowed the ability to discern for themselves which information is useful, true, or otherwise. We do not need a state or its proxies to tell us which information is correct.
lbj 5y ago
Youre absolutely right and the Ministry of Truth reference couldn’t be more chilling
- wwweston 5y ago
  "Ministry of Truth" references are the opposite of illuminating; they're reflexive association of any attempt to arbitrate truth with totalitarian oppression. The fact is there is no such thing as rule of law without lots of institutions and individuals (private and public) taking responsibility for arbitrating truth. And there's no freedom of speech without allowing them to do it.
  - throwaway316943 5y ago
    If you believe so strongly in the ability of institutions to ferret out untruth then surely you’d be ok with the application of such knowledge. We have the ability to do real time analysis in communications such as email, text and cell phone calls so why not just delete any offending words from those communications in real time so that lies never spread? That way you have perfect freedom of speech, it’s just that your phone calls will be edited in real time so the other person never hears the banned words. Better yet, instead of just deleting then it could reword it ina simulation of your voice so that they only ever hear the accepted truth.
  - refurb 5y ago
    This is not true at all. The rule of law, within the confines of the judicial system, does NOT define truth. The system weighs evidence and determines whether the preponderance of evidence indicates guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Someone could murder someone, but due to lack of evidence they are found “not guilty”. But that’s not the same as “the truth is this person did not commit murder”. It’s simply a finding that the state didn’t prove its case.
    - wwweston 5y ago
      > The system weighs evidence and determines whether the preponderance of evidence A formal process of examining evidence marshaled in the service of arguments supporting/refuting a claim sounds practically equivalent to most forms of determining truth. Because it is. Not only that, but there are segments of the law where truth is explicitly invoked, ie "truth is an absolute defense against defamation."
narrator 5y ago
Sometimes I wonder if Google is in the business of giving out all these free services because of the awesome political power it gives them.
- otabdeveloper4 5y ago
  Well, yes. "GovTech" is the ultimate startup pivot.
- huffmsa 5y ago
  Having a government backed monopoly is the best business to be in.
- acituan 5y ago
  That depends how you draw the lines around the selfhood of Google. Did 2004 Google have the same intentions as 2021 Google? Organizing information and making it useful sounds altruistically anti-misinformation. And maybe the search engine of the past was a net good against misinformation. And then maybe the ship attracted folks with less than ideal intentions over time, making your premise more and more true. Maybe 2031 Google will be much worse.
LimaBearz 5y ago
It’s also important to understand that the only reason anyone is talking about misinformation right now is because the entire world watched in horror at the events of January 6th, a direct attempt to “seize control over free societies”. (Admittedly a poor attempt at it though) which was sparked by wild accusations, unsubstantiated assertions, and a mountain of failed litigation by “the previous guy”. No amount of whitewashing or misdirection of what happened that day or the factors that lead up to it will change that certain “free speech” said by the right mouth, believed by an angry undereducated group can lead to actual loss of our free society. Just look at the insane amount of legislation being passed in certain red states, all based and cheered on by the exact same lie.. We can all argue the merits of google, but that’s just a method to control the conversation by those who seek our society for there own dystopian Handmaids Tale version, and deflection from what put us in this sitaution. A lie, perpetrated by the president, enabled by his supporters, and a Ministry of Truth style belief in what that government said, that’s leading to voter disenfranchisement and loss of faith in the very foundation of democracy. Period. As for the medical information that I disagree with. If people want to believe in lies, I have enough “don’t tread on me” to let them. Personally that’s very much a game of “play stupid games win stupid prices”. None of my business have at it
- narrator 5y ago
  You are saying that this is a lie as if that's math or physics instead of a debatable political point and then circling all the wagons around that determination. The idea that the coronavirus came from a lab used to be one of those circle the wagons points that anyone could get cancelled for. The evidence is so overwhelming that you're now allowed to post that to social media without getting cancelled. How would that information have gotten out there if the cancel network had been perfect?
  - LimaBearz 5y ago
    My original post said absolutely nothing about the rona though yes it a physics or math problem. I’ve since amended it Trump lied, period. And it lead to and is leading to a lot of negatives. As for the virus personally I don’t care where it came from but people can believe whatever they want. We have a vaccine now, don’t want it then don’t, doesn’t affect those that chose to. “The big lie” however affects us all, and that’s a problem. In the case of covid the math changes. Generally speaking if it affects only you, have at it. If it spills out and affects others, problem. Though I’m not gonna argue the pedantry of that, that can devolve quickly
plank_time 5y ago
Exactly. What is misinformation? What you define as misinformation right now could be information in a few months. Entire discussions on things like ivermectin to treat covid were banned from YouTube as “misinformation”. Now some studies are coming out that might show that it’s not. At least it deserves a discussion but it has been censored as misinformation. So we lost an entire year of treating people around the world because SOMEONE deemed ivermectin misinformation?? What about the Wuhan lab origination? Last year that was derided as conspiracy theories and misinformation, but now it’s basically accepted as fact. Who determines what is misinformation? What if Trump wins again or someone worse like Tom Cotton? And they set up a government panel that they decide is misinformation and companies like Google need to follow it? Who determines who is spreading misinformation now? 10 years ago a low fat diet was deemed “heart healthy”. Now that is classified as misinformation. Should low fat diets be censored by Google? This is the problem. What you thought was misinformation is only really a few studies away from being flipped around.
- deadpannini 5y ago
  > This is the problem. What you thought was misinformation is only really a few studies away from being flipped around. The big tech companies are destroying the value and credibility of our information ecosystems, by treating the first draft of history and science like it's the last. The day after an event [0], elite opinion becomes "information" and anything that contradicts that is "misinformation." [0] I meant this as a slightly comical overstatement, but in many cases it's quite literal.
- read_if_gay_ 5y ago
  > What you thought was misinformation is only really a few studies away from being flipped around. To be clear, that matters because by censoring "misinformation" you are killing these studies, therefore we are by definition stuck wherever we are right now. New science and "misinformation" as defined by our digital overlords intersect.
estaseuropano 5y ago
Ok I'm not pro censorship, but I'll bite your bait. Firstly, this is a content policy, this is separate from actual enforcement. I would doubt that google enforces this proactively, rather they want a possibility to shut down what has now been dubbed 'fake news'. Secondly, reading this with an open mind their focus seems to be on dangerous falsehoods, think things that can get people in prison (double voting?), health issues ('bleach anema for 3 year olds cures autism', 'vitamin D prevents covid', 'covid is an invention of the deep state', ...), or manipulated information that claims to represent another's view ('manipulated media ... that may pose a risk of egregious harm', e.g. I'd imagine a fake NYT article saying that masks are harmful). Third, this is a private platform, not a government body enforcing its views. Last, there are some dangerous lies. In Germany its illegal to state the holocaust never happened. You can discuss details and question parts of the narrative but not doubt that it ever happened. You can't have neo-nazis claiming that its all a big conspiracy and that others were at fault - which, if you know your history, is one of the very ways the nazis justified WW2. This law was an essential tool to counter similar tendencies after Germany lost WW2. In contrast, in Poland its illegal to state that Poles contributed to the holocaust, which is however a true fact that is just politically unwelcome. So the issue here is not whether there is a truth, and also not whether lies can be dangerous (bleach anema to get rid of your kids' autism!), but rather who does and how truth is arbited. A government/company shouldnt be able to shut down every dissenting opinion but I can't believe anyone honestly believes that there should be no way to challenge and limit the spread of dangerous lies. You can think and discuss what you want, but if you broadcast your views to a wide audience you should also be held to a higher standard. The real issue is who does the accounting.
- read_if_gay_ 5y ago
  > I would doubt that google enforces this proactively Google is absolutely already blanket banning stuff on Youtube. There is no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. > there are some dangerous lies Yes, and the WHO has committed to dangerous lies as well. Hell, in your own example, you're saying the Nazis justified WW2 with lies. Government officials provably cannot be trusted to disseminate "the truth". >private companies These are not normal private companies. Citing GP, these are >> megacorporate cartels with a monopoly on public speech most likely acting as proxies for the government
wwweston 5y ago
> democracy requires the government, or megacorporate cartels with a monopoly on public speech most likely acting as proxies for the government Who says that individuals or business institutions making judgments and using their resources to arbitrate truth -- especially institutions like Google whose business is about information -- are acting "as proxies for the government" instead of taking responsibility for honestly arbitrating truth as they understand it? And the idea that any attempt to arbitrate truth is equal to totalitarian oppression is exactly wrong. Every institution and individual has to do it. Certainly any society based on rule of law does; you can't apply law without a consensus about what the facts to apply it to are.
- concordDance 5y ago
  Some will be giving their honest assessment and some won't. The latter may be a less serious problem, but it's still pretty damn serious. Imagine a society that censors the disinformation/propaganda that trans women are women out of a sincerely held belief that this is indeed disinformation. Oh wait, Russia already does that. Why would American attempts at suppression be any better? Or any better than what happened during the McCarthy era?
  - wwweston 5y ago
    LOL "McCarthy era?" -- like, what are you actually referring to here? Is this just bad thing word salad? The primary problem with the McCarthy era wasn't censorship, it was actually that McCarthy's BS accusations about communism got such wide play and buy-in when they should have been squashed by responsible people. "American" attempts would be better... because in most cases this appears to be voluntary and where the state is involved it appears to be officials actually persuading some private actors on the merits of the idea rather than compelling people by force.
- busymom0 5y ago
  The government is actively telling social media companies which posts need to be taken down. That makes them state actors. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-administration-completely-kills https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-administration...
isaacremuant 5y ago
American society has been slowly convinced, and then the rest of the world by extension, that this was absolutely necessary to combat the next big threat. First it was to "combat hate", that speech was limited according to what partisan big tech companies decided was fair. It was said it had real-life consequences. Harm. So it should be banned. Then anything from certain parties or ideologies became hate if labeled so by the tech giants. So out they went. Now, anything questioning the authoritarian narrative of the pandemic is labeled as such. The slippery slope that people tried to deny with claims of "private companies" has gotten higher and keeps going deeper. Talking about freedom, freedom of speech or human rights gets you mocked in certain spaces. It's mind-boggling.
- devwastaken 5y ago
  U.S. barely has "hate speech" laws, so I don't know what you're talking about there. "Big tech" decided to ban people for being hateful to others on their platforms. Those platforms don't exist for your protection against government actors. Nor should it.
  - u20210717 5y ago
    What you're saying is "a company banning certain forms of speech on its platforms does not constitute censorship", which is true at least in the strict definition of "censorship", but does not contradict what the GP is saying. What the GP is talking about is a shift in American attitudes that leads to the acceptance of such policies, whereas in earlier times they might have been rejected or the companies in question might not have even thought to implement them.
    - devwastaken 5y ago
      I don't at all believe people would reject it. People have been censoring content for a long time in far worse manners. Early 90's had plenty of "obscenity law" enforced, Ronald Reagan and regulation of content in games and music was a thing. People cheered it on, and that was actual government censorship, not corporate. People agree with censorship if it's in in agreement with their belief.
vixen99 5y ago
> Companies aren't allowed to advertise rat poison as medicine and neither are you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin In fact, they are and they do. (Ok, not you unless you run a pharm company). The best known rat poison is warfarin, an anticogulant used world wide as a medicine under various names. As to your main point, how do you or others on SM, define misinformation? Do you believe the shadowy folk (qualifications unstated) who pontificate at FB, Twitter, Google and Wikipedia? That has to be absurd and shocking. Anyone who wants to (and wants to seems to be the issue), can see the fatuity of this after searching for overturned consensus views as supported by the SM platforms mentioned. The search should include the peer-reviewed literature. A most recent volte-face relates to Covid origin, In April it was undoubtedly of natural origin as we were authoritatively informed by the Lancet. Now in July, the previously regarded conspiracy theory is taken seriously by people able to make a judgment. Who does one believe, the unknowns at SM or someone like Peter Palese, https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/paleselab/ https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/paleselab/) who was among 27 scientists who had earlier signed the Lancet letter denouncing as “conspiracy theories” the notion that the coronavirus could have escaped from a lab — or even be man-made. He now disavows that claim as do many others of similar status.
smokey_circles 5y ago
What a brain dead argument. Side stepping the inaccuracy of the claim that democracies aren't threatened by propaganda and fake news, Google is entitled to do what it wants. There is no "arbitration of truth here". Google are telling you what you can and can't use THEIR shit for. Don't like it? Go make your own. Now, if Google was able to somehow cause you to go to jail for the content you were posting, your argument would make sense. But as it stands, this comment is a crazy overreaction that probably has merit in some context, but not this one
- busymom0 5y ago
  "People in the U.S. seem able to recognize that China’s censorship of the internet is bad. They say: “It’s so authoritarian, tyrannical, terrible, a human rights violation.” Everyone sees that, but then when it happens to us, here, we say, “Oh, but it’s a private company doing it. Google is entitled to do what it wants.” What people don’t realize is the majority of censorship in China is being carried out by private companies. Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Bureau chief for Beijing and Tokyo, wrote a book called Consent of the Network that lays all this out. She says, “This is one of the features of Chinese internet censorship and surveillance—that it's actually carried out primarily by private sector companies, by the tech platforms and services, not by the police. And that the companies that run China's internet services and platforms are acting as an extension of state power.” The people who make that argument don’t realize how close we are to the same model. There are two layers. Everyone’s familiar with “The Great Firewall of China,” where they’re blocking out foreign websites. Well, the US does that too. We just shut down Press TV, which is Iran’s PBS, for instance. We mimic that first layer as well, and now there’s also the second layer, internally, that involves private companies doing most of the censorship." https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea
acituan 5y ago
> "Misinformation" is just another word for "falsehood" or "untruth." That’s not sufficiently true. In fact, asserting untrue propositions is one of the easiest-to-counter ways of misinformation. Real pros use humbuggery; of a set of n true propositions, pick a subset m to lead the audience to your conclusions and you haven’t even “lied”. That’s why “fact checking” is such a popular way of narrative laundering, because truthiness of individual propositions alone never reveal if someone was bullshitting you. That’s also why the courtroom maxim is “truth, nothing but the truth, and the whole truth”. Only those 3 properties in combination would exclude misinformation. (Not saying courtrooms necessarily live up to this maxim.) I agree with the spirit of the rest of your argument.
- exporectomy 5y ago
  Though that's what happens, I don't think people call that misinformation but rather bias. Isn't misinformation factually wrong in the common meaning?
  - username90 5y ago
    People rarely go and read the actual article so the headline must be accurate on its own or you misinform the public. Reversing or strongly altering the statement made in the headline in the actual article doesn't mean it is no longer misinformation, the damage is already done as the masses read the headline and now thinks it actually happened that way. Yet this seems to be completely acceptable even in most reputable news-sources.
    - throwaway316943 5y ago
      The problem is not the existence or propagation of misinformation, disinformation or lies or truth. The problem is the attempt to control any of it by decree. You cannot trust anyone with the power to be the sole arbiter of truth. Everyone is human and everyone is fallible no matter how educated or credentialed. Democracy is the best of all the imperfect forms of government because it allows a plurality of opinions and convictions to exist and for everyone to freely choose among them. Governance can swing from one set of ideas to another peacefully and with the legitimacy that a majority have decided that things should be done a certain way for a limited amount of time after which we all re-evaluate the decision and can make changes if needed.
svara 5y ago
Your argument lacks any nuance, to the degree that it makes it flat out wrong. No one is suggesting regulating truth generally, but rather specific cases that are deemed dangerous [0]. Now, you could make a slippery slope argument starting from there and that would be a valid, but different discussion. The slippery slope argument sometimes applies and sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the specific situation. There are examples around the world of governments that very selectively suppress narrowly defined types of speech, in order to protect other values believed to be equally fundamental, but defend the freedom of all others. [0] Within the bounds of the freedoms that a private company has to operate as it sees fit, or by means of democratic decisions.
- swiley 5y ago
  "generally do this in specific cases."
  - svara 5y ago
    I think I see what you're trying to say even if you're doing so very obliquely - the point is that this never was and never will be an issue that it makes sense to think of in absolutes. Speech has never been free in this absolute sense anywhere, because, at the very least (!), there are cases where speech has obvious, immediate, terrible consequences. That means that the difficulty lies in figuring out where exactly to draw a line along a blurry boundary. Hence the slippery slope issue.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  It's true that the US government has always compelled private platforms to remove speech if it is illegal as determined by the legislative branch or common law (e.g., hosting child porn). What's unique about the current situation is that what's being censored has direct influence from non-legislative bodies such as the executive branch and the CDC, and what is out of bounds lacks specification and is subject to change according to the whims of a small handful of people. This is a big change because the legislative body is significantly constrained in what it can censor through multiple mechanisms. The slippery slope concern falls flat in that old context, but not in this new context where 1 or 2 people (who we don't see and who may not have even been directly elected) can label something as misinformation and have it scrubbed.
devwastaken 5y ago
This isn't a government entity. Government: can imprison, fine, and enslave you. Corporation: can ban you from online platform. Companies absolutely and always have enforced their own version of "truth". While Google says this thousands of other companies of similar size are regulating their version of "truth" internally. As we speak lobbyists are paid to make sure senators will vote along their version of "truth". There is no such thing as neutrality, and never has been, only the illusion of inaction.
machinehermiter 5y ago
So much of the populace has a digital IV drip of constant connection to algorithmic political slogan propaganda machines. If people consume propaganda all day everyday you can't blame them for being highly propagandized. What else can we possibly expect than this to happen? I honestly see no evidence that open society is compatible with modern digital communication networks. An authoritarian contagion almost seems an emergent natural property of the network. The cyberpunk religion I use to believe in couldn't have been more wrong. I just take solace that I will have been born and lived at the perfect time and place in history. I will have got to be part of this very short lived religion that the internet is the greatest thing for liberalism and freedom ever created when it is really the complete opposite. I can even zoom out enough to see the historical beauty in such a historic mistake. Hard to live in more interesting times than right now.
- shadowgovt 5y ago
  There's plenty of room for the cyberpunk heroes, but I can't name a single such story where the hero was a megacorp. Google is a mega corporation. If the world is trending cyberpunk, they're going to be the Arasaka of the story, not the Hiro.
deleted 5y ago
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BrianOnHN 5y ago
Idk where you live, but here in Florida that "dystopia" sounds like a bit of an improvement.
1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago
Except the term "misinformation" appears nowhere on the page https://support.google.com/docs/answer/148505 https://support.google.com/docs/answer/148505 Instead it refers to "misleading information". Absent a specific definition of "misinformation" from Google's lawyers -- who likely authored or at least reviewed this page -- we are left to consult the dictionary. The dictionary defines "misinformation" as "information that is incorrect". There is no requirement of intent. The information may or may not be misleading. That is, the term "misinformation" may apply to any incorrect information regardless of intent. Is it possible to have incorrect information ("misinformation") that is not intended to or does mislead (~ "misleading information"). Your answer: ___ Is it possible to have correct information (~ "misinformation") that is intended to or does mislead ("misleading information"). Your answer: ___
- samiran149 5y ago
  Is it possible to have correct information (~ "misinformation") that is intended to or does mislead ("misleading information"). Your answer: ___ No need to answer this question. The technodemocratic complex has already answered it. It's tawdry, but the hunter biden laptop was "misinformation", because it was intended to mislead people away from Biden. Doesn't matter that it was correct, the evidence was good, and it was published by major newspapers. The technical elite agreed with the political elite, and it was struck from the internet. Amazingly, when it was raised at the presidential debate, real-time polling suggested that the majority of the populace had no idea what was being talked about. The suppression was effective. We live in dangerous times.
vegetablepotpie 5y ago
A good democracy depends on its citizens being able to discuss issues with one another. If we disagree on basic incontrovertible facts, such as where someone was born, or what the measured efficacy of a treatment for a disease is, conversations with each other do not have value and we cannot have a democracy. This is just the free market doing its job.
samiran149 5y ago
Agreed, its important to note that these modern day, illiberals couch a lot of their phraseology in sophomoric nuance. "XXXX statement is misinformation, because it lacks context" "XXXX statement is misinformation, because it is still up for debate" "XXXX statement is misinformation, because it is offensive to class YYYY" "XXXX statement is misinformation, because it is unfair to person ZZZZ" These are logical fallacies presented as civility. Applying them uniformly would me desperately wrong. Having double standards, and applying them based on partisan bias is nothing short of evil. Glenn Greenwald said it best. If you are okay with these practices, you are a political authoritarian. No other information is needed to determine this about you.
- overgard 5y ago
  It's amazing the way the political left has savegely gone against greenwald. We need more journalists like him not less. He has all the proper credentials (gay, liberal), he just happens to speak the truth so, apparently, fuck him. If we had more greenwalds the world would be a much better place
refurb 5y ago
Indeed. When the founding father created the system the US has today, it was entirely intentional that powers be separated and check each other, that the house, senate and President were required to pass legislation, etc. The founding father recognized that the default is a slide towards authoritarianism, that’s just human nature. The system works when no one person can gather enough power to take over.
fitzie 5y ago
that's not accurate at all. look at the misleading medical information definition from Google "Misleading content related to harmful health practices: Misleading health or medical content that promotes or encourages others to engage in practices that may lead to serious physical or emotional harm to individuals, or serious public health harm." not only do they use the term misleading to define the term misleading, they clearly state any information that could cause serious public health harm is misleading. when people are screaming about vaccine misinformation they are often talking about discussing side effects of the vaccine, which causes hesitancy and therefore harm. if pressed for an example, they will pick up an absurd claim like 5g caused covid, but not the typical claims that the covid vaccine has reportedly killed thousands and injuries many more than that. the labels disinformation, misinformation, misleading, potentially harmful are very orwellian, as many can take them to mean false information, but in fact these labels can be placed on perfectly true statements that are simply dissenting.
overgard 5y ago
Fuck off, "misinformation" means "unpopular with whoever is in power". This isn't a contrived emergency, this is scary what is happening. When Trump won, the left didn't think "how do we express ourselves better", they went straight to "lets outlaw anyone that disagrees". This is how totalitarian states are created. Edit: im sorry i might have misread what you're saying. My position is that i'm not ok with anyone having the authority to define truth. Rereading it I think you're saying the same thing, the first sentence caught me off guard.
andrepd 5y ago
>It's insane, and it's amazing to me how many of you have your heads so far up your ass that you can't see what is obvious and how are you so dumb bla bla bla Clearly, since this is the most upvoted comment in the entire thread, you're not the only freethinker in an ocean of sheep. I don't know, this lecturing tone is quite aggravating.
jeantherapy 5y ago
thank you sir. you have my keyboard. i was expecting the top comment to be the exact opposite of what you said.
sgustard 5y ago
From the top of the post: "We need to curb abuses that threaten our ability to provide these services." Google has lawyers to minimize its legal liability. Turning some vapid terms of service clause into a slippery slope argument for the onrush of totalitarianism is taking things too far.
- balozi 5y ago
  Google's lawyers #1 task should be fighting for their employer's own rights.
unethical_ban 5y ago
I think we should be wary of enforcing a particular truth or narrative. I think society should be vigilant against government punishing people for what they think or say - that is anathema to the freedom guaranteed to us in the 1st Amendment. However, your analysis doesn't acknowledge the very real war on truth being fought daily on a multitude of fronts. There are many actors, and many reasons they are doing it. Some people just want to watch the world burn (troll armies, 4chan-like people, alt-right, etc). Some people want to keep ignorant people in their place, and pit people against each other (cable 'news", especially Fox). People are being exposed to misinformation (deliberate lies about the state of current affairs) more and more easily than ever before. It's like saying we have a freedom to hold whatever rocks we find on the ground, then someone finding a block of uranium. Sure, we have that freedom, but there is a very real danger and we need to figure how to deal with the more dangerous aspects of it. Censorship/government enforcement is a heavy hammer and I don't think it's the answer - but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem.
smsm42 5y ago
That answers the question of many about historical examples: "how they couldn't see they are being manipulated by totalitarians? why didn't they do something?" The same reason our current society thinks it's ok for the government to ban people for "misinformation" (the latest directive from White House demands internet-wide bans of whoever was accused of "misinformation" - without any due process of course, just on the word of White House, confirmed and implemented by the faceless army of Facebook underpaid overworked "moderators" team). Yes, there are people who are shocked and appalled by it - and they are speaking up. But the society largely either ignores them, or dismisses them as paranoid naysayers or partisan operators. That is going to cost us. And our descendants would wonder "how couldn't they see they are being obviously manipulated to cede control over their speech to the government-big tech oligarchy?!" How indeed.

thrwoi4234234 5y ago

It's actually worse - the "truth" necessarily implies that there is but one, and that everything else in false. Does this sound familiar ? This is exactly what religious loonies say in order to take control. Science necessarily involves keeping your own ignorance, epistemic and otherwise, in mind while dealing with things, but it's quite worrying that the West is going back on what was won with blood and sweat.

eecc 5y ago
Nog sure about the intent of Google (and as they say, the road to hell is paved with good ones) but you’re reframing. It’s not a matter of censoring deviations from orthodoxy, rather one of removing disinformation and demonstrable falsehoods, often used for propaganda and to setup victim scenarios.
- argvargc 5y ago
  Those engaging in widespread censorship create disinformation and falsehood, by omission. In history, it has always been those engaging in widespread censorship who turn out to be disastrously and/or maliciously wrong. The science now being censored has become so well-established, that at this point, Google/YT et al, has and will delete and suppress the sharing of peer-reviewed science published in mainstream journals and indexed in PubMed. That 100% ends their credibility. I deplore anyone expecting an explanation as to why. Anyone yet standing by such incredulous, irresponsible and/or actively-malicious action, reveals themselves as same, for all to see.
  - eecc 5y ago
    Uh, I’ve read plenty about CIA techniques to overthrow undesired governments and a favorite trick is propping astroturfing campaigns claiming the wildest tripe and alt-truth against the soon-to-be “liberated”. So please, come up with proof or yours is just another case of trumped up claims
    - argvargc 5y ago
      I honestly can't make head nor tails of what you've said here, and am left wondering if you're a bot? I made a statement, on-topic, about the nature and history of censorship, Google's credibility as arbiter of truth, and how naked they appear now as a result of how extreme they've become in that self-appointed role. If you're not a bot, maybe try reading it again with that understanding?
      - eecc 5y ago
        Bot? Please step down that high horse of yours. This thread ends here
raverbashing 5y ago
> the "truth" necessarily implies that there is but one, and that everything else in false. Sounds like the QAnon people
FeepingCreature 5y ago
I believe there is only one truth, and everything else is false. But I also believe humans do not have access to it.
- mlac 5y ago
  There are facts and there is the context of the facts and the impact those facts have on people. One can argue the news should just report the facts, but they add additional context and information to explain why the facts matter. Verifying the facts / truth is objective and clear (e.g. it rained 2 inches today). Determining whether the impact is properly reported (e.g. “devastating” flooding occurred) is murky. And the flooding could have been devastating - to one family, to a village, to a school. So it’s not untrue, it’s just more subjective as you move from numbers to impact. And the news cares more about reporting impact than facts and will tailor the narrative to explain the impact to their audience. Look at the news service all sides. You can figure out the facts (e.g. a law was passed) then see what each side is saying about the impact. The impact may be true for both sides, just presented in a vastly different way.
- dudeman13 5y ago
  I agree with this position. The idea that there may be 'truths' sounds utterly bonkers to me. a ^ -a is considered a contradiction for a reason.
  - nix23 5y ago
    Please then tell me what is the one true religion? :) Humans are not logical systems.
    - dalo 5y ago
      Belief is independent of reality. There is only explanation of our origination that is true.
    - username90 5y ago
      The one true "religion" is science. Once a religion is discovered to be true then science will include that religion.
adflux 5y ago
The lab leak theory was discarded as false and conspiracy thinking, now many experts believe this to be the case... What is a conspiracy one day can eventually be the truth, e.g. the Tonkin Incident.
- pcrh 5y ago
  On the contrary, no expert believes the coronavirus lab leak hypothesis is correct; a few do however say it should be investigated. This is exactly this kind of misunderstanding that this whole thread is about.
  - smaryjerry 5y ago
    What you are describing is just another manipulation of words by media that has caught you and others. Most scientists believe the virus had a lab in origin, and couldn’t have been natural, but whether that is due to a lab leak is completely speculation based on the fact it likely has a lab origin.
    - pcrh 5y ago
      No they do not. Most believe it jumped from a wild animal to humans a short while before the outbreak in Wuhan.
      - orestarod 5y ago
        Oh it most likely did jump from animals to humans. Lab outbreak theory does not refer to the virus being artificial, but on that the jump occurred inside the lab due to bad measures and then leaked outside.
        pcrh 5y ago
        GP referred to the virus being unnatural, whereas there is very strong evidence that it is natural. As to a natural virus being accidentally leaked from a lab, there's no evidence for that scenario, except for the fact that the first major SARS-CoV2 outbreak happened in the same city. For what it's worth, this is not as implausible a co-incidence as might be claimed, since it is not uncommon for a virology lab to study viruses endemic to the region it is located in.

intended 5y ago

We aren’t talking about something as basic as truth and untruth. This is Integer and float vs malformed code. Misinformation is code. It’s designed to specifically take advantage of gaps in our society and spread in such a way that makes it harder to challenge it.

narrator 5y ago
Who would ever oppose scientific socialism? It is scientific. Thus, rejection of science is unscientific and should be prohibited. I call my organization the good people group. Who would oppose the good people group except the bad people group?
overdriventater 5y ago
You're proving ibbibby's point here
ironmagma 5y ago
Only for pretty creative definitions of misinformation. It could also be just, you know, wrong information.
- PixyMisa 5y ago
  Or indeed, correct information that contradicts an officially recognised position.
cnhajzwgz 5y ago
Wielding the baton of "misinformation", or in general, fear of falsehood/insecurity etc, to whack those who the ruling class disagrees with is also code designed to specifically take advantage of the gaps in a healthy bureaucracy and seize control over it in such a way that makes it hard to challenge it.
bigbluedots 5y ago
In a free society, people must be allowed the ability to discern for themselves which information is useful, true, or otherwise. We do not need a state or its proxies to tell us which information is correct.

lbj 5y ago

Youre absolutely right and the Ministry of Truth reference couldn’t be more chilling

wwweston 5y ago
"Ministry of Truth" references are the opposite of illuminating; they're reflexive association of any attempt to arbitrate truth with totalitarian oppression. The fact is there is no such thing as rule of law without lots of institutions and individuals (private and public) taking responsibility for arbitrating truth. And there's no freedom of speech without allowing them to do it.
- throwaway316943 5y ago
  If you believe so strongly in the ability of institutions to ferret out untruth then surely you’d be ok with the application of such knowledge. We have the ability to do real time analysis in communications such as email, text and cell phone calls so why not just delete any offending words from those communications in real time so that lies never spread? That way you have perfect freedom of speech, it’s just that your phone calls will be edited in real time so the other person never hears the banned words. Better yet, instead of just deleting then it could reword it ina simulation of your voice so that they only ever hear the accepted truth.
- refurb 5y ago
  This is not true at all. The rule of law, within the confines of the judicial system, does NOT define truth. The system weighs evidence and determines whether the preponderance of evidence indicates guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Someone could murder someone, but due to lack of evidence they are found “not guilty”. But that’s not the same as “the truth is this person did not commit murder”. It’s simply a finding that the state didn’t prove its case.
  - wwweston 5y ago
    > The system weighs evidence and determines whether the preponderance of evidence A formal process of examining evidence marshaled in the service of arguments supporting/refuting a claim sounds practically equivalent to most forms of determining truth. Because it is. Not only that, but there are segments of the law where truth is explicitly invoked, ie "truth is an absolute defense against defamation."

narrator 5y ago

Sometimes I wonder if Google is in the business of giving out all these free services because of the awesome political power it gives them.

otabdeveloper4 5y ago
Well, yes. "GovTech" is the ultimate startup pivot.
huffmsa 5y ago
Having a government backed monopoly is the best business to be in.
acituan 5y ago
That depends how you draw the lines around the selfhood of Google. Did 2004 Google have the same intentions as 2021 Google? Organizing information and making it useful sounds altruistically anti-misinformation. And maybe the search engine of the past was a net good against misinformation. And then maybe the ship attracted folks with less than ideal intentions over time, making your premise more and more true. Maybe 2031 Google will be much worse.

LimaBearz 5y ago

It’s also important to understand that the only reason anyone is talking about misinformation right now is because the entire world watched in horror at the events of January 6th, a direct attempt to “seize control over free societies”. (Admittedly a poor attempt at it though) which was sparked by wild accusations, unsubstantiated assertions, and a mountain of failed litigation by “the previous guy”. No amount of whitewashing or misdirection of what happened that day or the factors that lead up to it will change that certain “free speech” said by the right mouth, believed by an angry undereducated group can lead to actual loss of our free society. Just look at the insane amount of legislation being passed in certain red states, all based and cheered on by the exact same lie.. We can all argue the merits of google, but that’s just a method to control the conversation by those who seek our society for there own dystopian Handmaids Tale version, and deflection from what put us in this sitaution. A lie, perpetrated by the president, enabled by his supporters, and a Ministry of Truth style belief in what that government said, that’s leading to voter disenfranchisement and loss of faith in the very foundation of democracy. Period. As for the medical information that I disagree with. If people want to believe in lies, I have enough “don’t tread on me” to let them. Personally that’s very much a game of “play stupid games win stupid prices”. None of my business have at it

narrator 5y ago
You are saying that this is a lie as if that's math or physics instead of a debatable political point and then circling all the wagons around that determination. The idea that the coronavirus came from a lab used to be one of those circle the wagons points that anyone could get cancelled for. The evidence is so overwhelming that you're now allowed to post that to social media without getting cancelled. How would that information have gotten out there if the cancel network had been perfect?
- LimaBearz 5y ago
  My original post said absolutely nothing about the rona though yes it a physics or math problem. I’ve since amended it Trump lied, period. And it lead to and is leading to a lot of negatives. As for the virus personally I don’t care where it came from but people can believe whatever they want. We have a vaccine now, don’t want it then don’t, doesn’t affect those that chose to. “The big lie” however affects us all, and that’s a problem. In the case of covid the math changes. Generally speaking if it affects only you, have at it. If it spills out and affects others, problem. Though I’m not gonna argue the pedantry of that, that can devolve quickly

plank_time 5y ago

Exactly. What is misinformation? What you define as misinformation right now could be information in a few months. Entire discussions on things like ivermectin to treat covid were banned from YouTube as “misinformation”. Now some studies are coming out that might show that it’s not. At least it deserves a discussion but it has been censored as misinformation. So we lost an entire year of treating people around the world because SOMEONE deemed ivermectin misinformation?? What about the Wuhan lab origination? Last year that was derided as conspiracy theories and misinformation, but now it’s basically accepted as fact. Who determines what is misinformation? What if Trump wins again or someone worse like Tom Cotton? And they set up a government panel that they decide is misinformation and companies like Google need to follow it? Who determines who is spreading misinformation now? 10 years ago a low fat diet was deemed “heart healthy”. Now that is classified as misinformation. Should low fat diets be censored by Google? This is the problem. What you thought was misinformation is only really a few studies away from being flipped around.

deadpannini 5y ago
> This is the problem. What you thought was misinformation is only really a few studies away from being flipped around. The big tech companies are destroying the value and credibility of our information ecosystems, by treating the first draft of history and science like it's the last. The day after an event [0], elite opinion becomes "information" and anything that contradicts that is "misinformation." [0] I meant this as a slightly comical overstatement, but in many cases it's quite literal.
read_if_gay_ 5y ago
> What you thought was misinformation is only really a few studies away from being flipped around. To be clear, that matters because by censoring "misinformation" you are killing these studies, therefore we are by definition stuck wherever we are right now. New science and "misinformation" as defined by our digital overlords intersect.

estaseuropano 5y ago

Ok I'm not pro censorship, but I'll bite your bait. Firstly, this is a content policy, this is separate from actual enforcement. I would doubt that google enforces this proactively, rather they want a possibility to shut down what has now been dubbed 'fake news'. Secondly, reading this with an open mind their focus seems to be on dangerous falsehoods, think things that can get people in prison (double voting?), health issues ('bleach anema for 3 year olds cures autism', 'vitamin D prevents covid', 'covid is an invention of the deep state', ...), or manipulated information that claims to represent another's view ('manipulated media ... that may pose a risk of egregious harm', e.g. I'd imagine a fake NYT article saying that masks are harmful). Third, this is a private platform, not a government body enforcing its views. Last, there are some dangerous lies. In Germany its illegal to state the holocaust never happened. You can discuss details and question parts of the narrative but not doubt that it ever happened. You can't have neo-nazis claiming that its all a big conspiracy and that others were at fault - which, if you know your history, is one of the very ways the nazis justified WW2. This law was an essential tool to counter similar tendencies after Germany lost WW2. In contrast, in Poland its illegal to state that Poles contributed to the holocaust, which is however a true fact that is just politically unwelcome. So the issue here is not whether there is a truth, and also not whether lies can be dangerous (bleach anema to get rid of your kids' autism!), but rather who does and how truth is arbited. A government/company shouldnt be able to shut down every dissenting opinion but I can't believe anyone honestly believes that there should be no way to challenge and limit the spread of dangerous lies. You can think and discuss what you want, but if you broadcast your views to a wide audience you should also be held to a higher standard. The real issue is who does the accounting.

read_if_gay_ 5y ago
> I would doubt that google enforces this proactively Google is absolutely already blanket banning stuff on Youtube. There is no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt. > there are some dangerous lies Yes, and the WHO has committed to dangerous lies as well. Hell, in your own example, you're saying the Nazis justified WW2 with lies. Government officials provably cannot be trusted to disseminate "the truth". >private companies These are not normal private companies. Citing GP, these are >> megacorporate cartels with a monopoly on public speech most likely acting as proxies for the government

wwweston 5y ago

> democracy requires the government, or megacorporate cartels with a monopoly on public speech most likely acting as proxies for the government Who says that individuals or business institutions making judgments and using their resources to arbitrate truth -- especially institutions like Google whose business is about information -- are acting "as proxies for the government" instead of taking responsibility for honestly arbitrating truth as they understand it? And the idea that any attempt to arbitrate truth is equal to totalitarian oppression is exactly wrong. Every institution and individual has to do it. Certainly any society based on rule of law does; you can't apply law without a consensus about what the facts to apply it to are.

concordDance 5y ago
Some will be giving their honest assessment and some won't. The latter may be a less serious problem, but it's still pretty damn serious. Imagine a society that censors the disinformation/propaganda that trans women are women out of a sincerely held belief that this is indeed disinformation. Oh wait, Russia already does that. Why would American attempts at suppression be any better? Or any better than what happened during the McCarthy era?
- wwweston 5y ago
  LOL "McCarthy era?" -- like, what are you actually referring to here? Is this just bad thing word salad? The primary problem with the McCarthy era wasn't censorship, it was actually that McCarthy's BS accusations about communism got such wide play and buy-in when they should have been squashed by responsible people. "American" attempts would be better... because in most cases this appears to be voluntary and where the state is involved it appears to be officials actually persuading some private actors on the merits of the idea rather than compelling people by force.
busymom0 5y ago
The government is actively telling social media companies which posts need to be taken down. That makes them state actors. https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-administration-completely-kills https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/biden-administration...

isaacremuant 5y ago

American society has been slowly convinced, and then the rest of the world by extension, that this was absolutely necessary to combat the next big threat. First it was to "combat hate", that speech was limited according to what partisan big tech companies decided was fair. It was said it had real-life consequences. Harm. So it should be banned. Then anything from certain parties or ideologies became hate if labeled so by the tech giants. So out they went. Now, anything questioning the authoritarian narrative of the pandemic is labeled as such. The slippery slope that people tried to deny with claims of "private companies" has gotten higher and keeps going deeper. Talking about freedom, freedom of speech or human rights gets you mocked in certain spaces. It's mind-boggling.

devwastaken 5y ago
U.S. barely has "hate speech" laws, so I don't know what you're talking about there. "Big tech" decided to ban people for being hateful to others on their platforms. Those platforms don't exist for your protection against government actors. Nor should it.
- u20210717 5y ago
  What you're saying is "a company banning certain forms of speech on its platforms does not constitute censorship", which is true at least in the strict definition of "censorship", but does not contradict what the GP is saying. What the GP is talking about is a shift in American attitudes that leads to the acceptance of such policies, whereas in earlier times they might have been rejected or the companies in question might not have even thought to implement them.
  - devwastaken 5y ago
    I don't at all believe people would reject it. People have been censoring content for a long time in far worse manners. Early 90's had plenty of "obscenity law" enforced, Ronald Reagan and regulation of content in games and music was a thing. People cheered it on, and that was actual government censorship, not corporate. People agree with censorship if it's in in agreement with their belief.

vixen99 5y ago

> Companies aren't allowed to advertise rat poison as medicine and neither are you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warfarin In fact, they are and they do. (Ok, not you unless you run a pharm company). The best known rat poison is warfarin, an anticogulant used world wide as a medicine under various names. As to your main point, how do you or others on SM, define misinformation? Do you believe the shadowy folk (qualifications unstated) who pontificate at FB, Twitter, Google and Wikipedia? That has to be absurd and shocking. Anyone who wants to (and wants to seems to be the issue), can see the fatuity of this after searching for overturned consensus views as supported by the SM platforms mentioned. The search should include the peer-reviewed literature. A most recent volte-face relates to Covid origin, In April it was undoubtedly of natural origin as we were authoritatively informed by the Lancet. Now in July, the previously regarded conspiracy theory is taken seriously by people able to make a judgment. Who does one believe, the unknowns at SM or someone like Peter Palese, https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/paleselab/ https://labs.icahn.mssm.edu/paleselab/) who was among 27 scientists who had earlier signed the Lancet letter denouncing as “conspiracy theories” the notion that the coronavirus could have escaped from a lab — or even be man-made. He now disavows that claim as do many others of similar status.

smokey_circles 5y ago

What a brain dead argument. Side stepping the inaccuracy of the claim that democracies aren't threatened by propaganda and fake news, Google is entitled to do what it wants. There is no "arbitration of truth here". Google are telling you what you can and can't use THEIR shit for. Don't like it? Go make your own. Now, if Google was able to somehow cause you to go to jail for the content you were posting, your argument would make sense. But as it stands, this comment is a crazy overreaction that probably has merit in some context, but not this one

busymom0 5y ago
"People in the U.S. seem able to recognize that China’s censorship of the internet is bad. They say: “It’s so authoritarian, tyrannical, terrible, a human rights violation.” Everyone sees that, but then when it happens to us, here, we say, “Oh, but it’s a private company doing it. Google is entitled to do what it wants.” What people don’t realize is the majority of censorship in China is being carried out by private companies. Rebecca MacKinnon, former CNN Bureau chief for Beijing and Tokyo, wrote a book called Consent of the Network that lays all this out. She says, “This is one of the features of Chinese internet censorship and surveillance—that it's actually carried out primarily by private sector companies, by the tech platforms and services, not by the police. And that the companies that run China's internet services and platforms are acting as an extension of state power.” The people who make that argument don’t realize how close we are to the same model. There are two layers. Everyone’s familiar with “The Great Firewall of China,” where they’re blocking out foreign websites. Well, the US does that too. We just shut down Press TV, which is Iran’s PBS, for instance. We mimic that first layer as well, and now there’s also the second layer, internally, that involves private companies doing most of the censorship." https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea https://taibbi.substack.com/p/meet-the-censored-matt-orfalea

acituan 5y ago

> "Misinformation" is just another word for "falsehood" or "untruth." That’s not sufficiently true. In fact, asserting untrue propositions is one of the easiest-to-counter ways of misinformation. Real pros use humbuggery; of a set of n true propositions, pick a subset m to lead the audience to your conclusions and you haven’t even “lied”. That’s why “fact checking” is such a popular way of narrative laundering, because truthiness of individual propositions alone never reveal if someone was bullshitting you. That’s also why the courtroom maxim is “truth, nothing but the truth, and the whole truth”. Only those 3 properties in combination would exclude misinformation. (Not saying courtrooms necessarily live up to this maxim.) I agree with the spirit of the rest of your argument.

exporectomy 5y ago
Though that's what happens, I don't think people call that misinformation but rather bias. Isn't misinformation factually wrong in the common meaning?
- username90 5y ago
  People rarely go and read the actual article so the headline must be accurate on its own or you misinform the public. Reversing or strongly altering the statement made in the headline in the actual article doesn't mean it is no longer misinformation, the damage is already done as the masses read the headline and now thinks it actually happened that way. Yet this seems to be completely acceptable even in most reputable news-sources.
  - throwaway316943 5y ago
    The problem is not the existence or propagation of misinformation, disinformation or lies or truth. The problem is the attempt to control any of it by decree. You cannot trust anyone with the power to be the sole arbiter of truth. Everyone is human and everyone is fallible no matter how educated or credentialed. Democracy is the best of all the imperfect forms of government because it allows a plurality of opinions and convictions to exist and for everyone to freely choose among them. Governance can swing from one set of ideas to another peacefully and with the legitimacy that a majority have decided that things should be done a certain way for a limited amount of time after which we all re-evaluate the decision and can make changes if needed.

svara 5y ago

Your argument lacks any nuance, to the degree that it makes it flat out wrong. No one is suggesting regulating truth generally, but rather specific cases that are deemed dangerous [0]. Now, you could make a slippery slope argument starting from there and that would be a valid, but different discussion. The slippery slope argument sometimes applies and sometimes it doesn't. It depends on the specific situation. There are examples around the world of governments that very selectively suppress narrowly defined types of speech, in order to protect other values believed to be equally fundamental, but defend the freedom of all others. [0] Within the bounds of the freedoms that a private company has to operate as it sees fit, or by means of democratic decisions.

swiley 5y ago
"generally do this in specific cases."
- svara 5y ago
  I think I see what you're trying to say even if you're doing so very obliquely - the point is that this never was and never will be an issue that it makes sense to think of in absolutes. Speech has never been free in this absolute sense anywhere, because, at the very least (!), there are cases where speech has obvious, immediate, terrible consequences. That means that the difficulty lies in figuring out where exactly to draw a line along a blurry boundary. Hence the slippery slope issue.
fighterpilot 5y ago
It's true that the US government has always compelled private platforms to remove speech if it is illegal as determined by the legislative branch or common law (e.g., hosting child porn). What's unique about the current situation is that what's being censored has direct influence from non-legislative bodies such as the executive branch and the CDC, and what is out of bounds lacks specification and is subject to change according to the whims of a small handful of people. This is a big change because the legislative body is significantly constrained in what it can censor through multiple mechanisms. The slippery slope concern falls flat in that old context, but not in this new context where 1 or 2 people (who we don't see and who may not have even been directly elected) can label something as misinformation and have it scrubbed.

devwastaken 5y ago

This isn't a government entity. Government: can imprison, fine, and enslave you. Corporation: can ban you from online platform. Companies absolutely and always have enforced their own version of "truth". While Google says this thousands of other companies of similar size are regulating their version of "truth" internally. As we speak lobbyists are paid to make sure senators will vote along their version of "truth". There is no such thing as neutrality, and never has been, only the illusion of inaction.

machinehermiter 5y ago

So much of the populace has a digital IV drip of constant connection to algorithmic political slogan propaganda machines. If people consume propaganda all day everyday you can't blame them for being highly propagandized. What else can we possibly expect than this to happen? I honestly see no evidence that open society is compatible with modern digital communication networks. An authoritarian contagion almost seems an emergent natural property of the network. The cyberpunk religion I use to believe in couldn't have been more wrong. I just take solace that I will have been born and lived at the perfect time and place in history. I will have got to be part of this very short lived religion that the internet is the greatest thing for liberalism and freedom ever created when it is really the complete opposite. I can even zoom out enough to see the historical beauty in such a historic mistake. Hard to live in more interesting times than right now.

shadowgovt 5y ago
There's plenty of room for the cyberpunk heroes, but I can't name a single such story where the hero was a megacorp. Google is a mega corporation. If the world is trending cyberpunk, they're going to be the Arasaka of the story, not the Hiro.

deleted 5y ago

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BrianOnHN 5y ago

Idk where you live, but here in Florida that "dystopia" sounds like a bit of an improvement.

1vuio0pswjnm7 5y ago

Except the term "misinformation" appears nowhere on the page https://support.google.com/docs/answer/148505 https://support.google.com/docs/answer/148505 Instead it refers to "misleading information". Absent a specific definition of "misinformation" from Google's lawyers -- who likely authored or at least reviewed this page -- we are left to consult the dictionary. The dictionary defines "misinformation" as "information that is incorrect". There is no requirement of intent. The information may or may not be misleading. That is, the term "misinformation" may apply to any incorrect information regardless of intent. Is it possible to have incorrect information ("misinformation") that is not intended to or does mislead (~ "misleading information"). Your answer: ___ Is it possible to have correct information (~ "misinformation") that is intended to or does mislead ("misleading information"). Your answer: ___

samiran149 5y ago
Is it possible to have correct information (~ "misinformation") that is intended to or does mislead ("misleading information"). Your answer: ___ No need to answer this question. The technodemocratic complex has already answered it. It's tawdry, but the hunter biden laptop was "misinformation", because it was intended to mislead people away from Biden. Doesn't matter that it was correct, the evidence was good, and it was published by major newspapers. The technical elite agreed with the political elite, and it was struck from the internet. Amazingly, when it was raised at the presidential debate, real-time polling suggested that the majority of the populace had no idea what was being talked about. The suppression was effective. We live in dangerous times.

vegetablepotpie 5y ago

A good democracy depends on its citizens being able to discuss issues with one another. If we disagree on basic incontrovertible facts, such as where someone was born, or what the measured efficacy of a treatment for a disease is, conversations with each other do not have value and we cannot have a democracy. This is just the free market doing its job.

samiran149 5y ago

Agreed, its important to note that these modern day, illiberals couch a lot of their phraseology in sophomoric nuance. "XXXX statement is misinformation, because it lacks context" "XXXX statement is misinformation, because it is still up for debate" "XXXX statement is misinformation, because it is offensive to class YYYY" "XXXX statement is misinformation, because it is unfair to person ZZZZ" These are logical fallacies presented as civility. Applying them uniformly would me desperately wrong. Having double standards, and applying them based on partisan bias is nothing short of evil. Glenn Greenwald said it best. If you are okay with these practices, you are a political authoritarian. No other information is needed to determine this about you.

overgard 5y ago
It's amazing the way the political left has savegely gone against greenwald. We need more journalists like him not less. He has all the proper credentials (gay, liberal), he just happens to speak the truth so, apparently, fuck him. If we had more greenwalds the world would be a much better place

refurb 5y ago

Indeed. When the founding father created the system the US has today, it was entirely intentional that powers be separated and check each other, that the house, senate and President were required to pass legislation, etc. The founding father recognized that the default is a slide towards authoritarianism, that’s just human nature. The system works when no one person can gather enough power to take over.

fitzie 5y ago

that's not accurate at all. look at the misleading medical information definition from Google "Misleading content related to harmful health practices: Misleading health or medical content that promotes or encourages others to engage in practices that may lead to serious physical or emotional harm to individuals, or serious public health harm." not only do they use the term misleading to define the term misleading, they clearly state any information that could cause serious public health harm is misleading. when people are screaming about vaccine misinformation they are often talking about discussing side effects of the vaccine, which causes hesitancy and therefore harm. if pressed for an example, they will pick up an absurd claim like 5g caused covid, but not the typical claims that the covid vaccine has reportedly killed thousands and injuries many more than that. the labels disinformation, misinformation, misleading, potentially harmful are very orwellian, as many can take them to mean false information, but in fact these labels can be placed on perfectly true statements that are simply dissenting.

overgard 5y ago

Fuck off, "misinformation" means "unpopular with whoever is in power". This isn't a contrived emergency, this is scary what is happening. When Trump won, the left didn't think "how do we express ourselves better", they went straight to "lets outlaw anyone that disagrees". This is how totalitarian states are created. Edit: im sorry i might have misread what you're saying. My position is that i'm not ok with anyone having the authority to define truth. Rereading it I think you're saying the same thing, the first sentence caught me off guard.

andrepd 5y ago

>It's insane, and it's amazing to me how many of you have your heads so far up your ass that you can't see what is obvious and how are you so dumb bla bla bla Clearly, since this is the most upvoted comment in the entire thread, you're not the only freethinker in an ocean of sheep. I don't know, this lecturing tone is quite aggravating.

jeantherapy 5y ago

thank you sir. you have my keyboard. i was expecting the top comment to be the exact opposite of what you said.

sgustard 5y ago

From the top of the post: "We need to curb abuses that threaten our ability to provide these services." Google has lawyers to minimize its legal liability. Turning some vapid terms of service clause into a slippery slope argument for the onrush of totalitarianism is taking things too far.

balozi 5y ago
Google's lawyers #1 task should be fighting for their employer's own rights.

unethical_ban 5y ago

I think we should be wary of enforcing a particular truth or narrative. I think society should be vigilant against government punishing people for what they think or say - that is anathema to the freedom guaranteed to us in the 1st Amendment. However, your analysis doesn't acknowledge the very real war on truth being fought daily on a multitude of fronts. There are many actors, and many reasons they are doing it. Some people just want to watch the world burn (troll armies, 4chan-like people, alt-right, etc). Some people want to keep ignorant people in their place, and pit people against each other (cable 'news", especially Fox). People are being exposed to misinformation (deliberate lies about the state of current affairs) more and more easily than ever before. It's like saying we have a freedom to hold whatever rocks we find on the ground, then someone finding a block of uranium. Sure, we have that freedom, but there is a very real danger and we need to figure how to deal with the more dangerous aspects of it. Censorship/government enforcement is a heavy hammer and I don't think it's the answer - but that doesn't mean there isn't a problem.

smsm42 5y ago

That answers the question of many about historical examples: "how they couldn't see they are being manipulated by totalitarians? why didn't they do something?" The same reason our current society thinks it's ok for the government to ban people for "misinformation" (the latest directive from White House demands internet-wide bans of whoever was accused of "misinformation" - without any due process of course, just on the word of White House, confirmed and implemented by the faceless army of Facebook underpaid overworked "moderators" team). Yes, there are people who are shocked and appalled by it - and they are speaking up. But the society largely either ignores them, or dismisses them as paranoid naysayers or partisan operators. That is going to cost us. And our descendants would wonder "how couldn't they see they are being obviously manipulated to cede control over their speech to the government-big tech oligarchy?!" How indeed.