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I'm not going to comment on the author's credibility or overall quality of his arguments. However, I think he brings up a very important point: who gets to dec

I'm not going to comment on the author's credibility or overall quality of his arguments. However, I think he brings up a very important point: who gets to decide what's misinformation? * Private organizations are run by fallible humans, chasing money and reduced liability * Governments lie. If you don't believe me, read any history book * Scientists are not a spherical mass floating in a vacuum with a unified opinion, nor are they correct by default Furthermore, only engineers believe most of the important issues in the world actually have an objective answer to them. So, who gets to decide? Who gets the power of saying what thoughts are bad and what thoughts are good? Is it someone you agree with? What if it changes to someone you don't?

whatshisface 5y ago
Who gets to decide who goes to jail? All of the same fallibility arguments apply.
- dj_mc_merlin 5y ago
  Yes, I agree. My arguments extend to the law too. Previously, you could've gone to jail for being black or having a beer. Women got to vote in 1920. I personally follow the law so I don't go to jail, since historically it has been made by idiots.
  - bumby 5y ago
    I think the better answer is not “whom” but “what process”. People will always be fallible. Processes, however, can layer checks and balances in a way that people often can’t. Processes are also easier to change than people in my experience. Processes certainly aren’t perfect but considering your examples are past tense, they can tend to arc towards “more perfect.”
    - dj_mc_merlin 5y ago
      I like this idea. Perhaps I'm committing the same fallacy that the Romans did around the fall of the Republic. The prevailing idea was that their problems were caused by a "failure of Roman morals", rather than by a failure of their system, even as they realized the inevitability of their situation and tried to enact changes. > Processes certainly aren’t perfect but considering your examples are past tense, they can tend to arc towards “more perfect.” Agreed. My use of the past was to illustrate a basic truth: given the big (colossal) failures of the past, is it more likely we have largely found the truth, or that we are still very far away from it? It's impossible to know of course. That said, the amount of people who will claim their truth is ultimate and all of who do not see it their way must be idiots is staggering. It's human nature though, I literally did that one comment above.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  Ideally? A jury of your peers supported by a system that at least purports to provide checks and balances against the system being dominated by any single person or groups' judgement. If factual veracity faced a similar system that tries to balance the needs and desires of all participants, then censoring misinformation would be a lot more palatable (and would still, like our justice system, often be wrong.) The current system of supressing misinformation has none of the check and balances contained in the legal system and adding those in would do a great deal to facilitate trust in that system.
andi999 5y ago
If the government enacts a law to ban misinformation, I am sure there will also be a ministry of truth by that government, which will decide what information is truthful and what information is not.
WalterBright 5y ago
Most evil in the world is perpetrated not by evil people, but by people with good intentions who believe they know what is best for others, and believe that justifies forcing it on those others. > So, who gets to decide? Each individual gets to decide for themselves.
- bumby 5y ago
  I think you’re right in your assessment of “evil” but pragmatically wrong (or maybe just oversimplifying) the solution. When there are large asymmetries (for example, in information or risk) regulation can be warranted. For example, most people feel regulating fissile material is prudent because the risk of it coming into the wrong hands is too high to just let unchecked freedom ring when it comes to owning it or not.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    The problem with fissile material is the potential for hurting others. Stopping hurt of others is a reasonable function of government. Legal adults, however, have a fundamental right to hurt themselves. Yes, I know there are grey areas.
    - tstrimple 5y ago
      If anti-vaxxers just hurt themselves, there wouldn't be nearly as much animosity around these issues. They pose a legitimate risk to other people. Not just through direct infection of other people, but by offering themselves up as a breeding ground for more effective versions of the virus.
      - objectivetruth 5y ago
        Same with the anti-maskers. They cry out for their "rights" (to not wear a mask) but won't accept their responsibility (to somehow otherwise prevent themselves from spewing viral particles on us).
      - ghoward 5y ago
geofft 5y ago
OK, but, we already have social/legal/cultural norms for deciding what thoughts are bad and what thoughts are good. Here are some things I can't do via Mailchimp for either legal or cultural reasons (see also https://mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use/ https://mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use/): - Advertise pornography - Plan attacks against the United States government - Advertise medical cures that the government doesn't approve of - Sell counterfeit products - Pump and dump a stock - Reveal the identities of CIA operatives All of these are thoughts, just as much as advocating against vaccines or for alternative cures or what-have-you are thoughts. Who gets to decide any of the above? Would it be a good idea to set up society such that all of the above thoughts are protected speech?
- naasking 5y ago
  They're not just thoughts but also actions. Actions are typically what's regulated by governments, not thought. Maybe by "thoughts" you meant "ideas".
- kmonsen 5y ago
  They are not thoughts as sibling mentioned. If you think any of these things in your own mind but don't take any action on it that is perfectly ok and carries no legal risk.
  - geofft 5y ago
    But this article isn't complaining about Mailchimp shutting people down for thinking things in their own mind, it's complaining about Mailchimp shutting people down for publishing and advocating those thoughts. What is the argument that saying "Ivermectin is being suppressed by Big Pharma, anyone who takes it will get cured of covid" is simply a thought whose publication is worthy of both social and legal protection, but saying "Contoso has a groundbreaking product they're going to reveal next week, anyone who buys the stock now is sure to make a profit" is illegal securities fraud? How do you distinguish those cases?
- Turing_Machine 5y ago
  Other than advertising (legal) pornography, all of those are actual violations of the law, at least in the United States. Clearly MailChimp (or any other service) can't knowingly allow their platform to be used to violate the law, or they would be held accountable.
cblconfederate 5y ago
> who gets to decide what's misinformation? Whoever wants to. and then people can compare the competing arbiters and decide who would earn their trust. That used to work with mass media until the internet came along. Now we no longer have multiple newspapers, but "The Newspaper" , "The TV" and "The telegraph" (Twitter?), like 2-3 news sources in total which are basically politically aligned. The name of the game changed from "popularity and copy sales" to "the network effect". I m not sure if this can ever change within a centralizing communication medium like the internet, but perhaps at some point people will realize that the network effect is evil and it will get a bad name.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  > I m not sure if this can ever change within a centralizing communication medium like the internet, The internet, centralising… what went wrong?
  - j-bos 5y ago
    I found this to be a novel perspective on your question: https://samoburja.com/the-centralized-internet-is-inevitable/ https://samoburja.com/the-centralized-internet-is-inevitable...
  - cblconfederate 5y ago
    wrong or right? The internet was designed to be "decentralized" in the sense of robust communications, but ultimately the goal was to convey the commands of one, centralized US army
    - TeMPOraL 5y ago
      The packet switching network was designed to be decentralized. That's layers 2-4 of the ISO/OSI model. Layer 7, the application level, is and always was a force of centralization.
asymptosis 5y ago
> only engineers believe most of the important issues in the world actually have an objective answer to them. Was this really necessary? How many engineers do you know, and how many of them actually ascribe to this belief?
- dj_mc_merlin 5y ago
  It's a playful jab at a category of people I am part of too, although I do not share that belief. The statement I made is wrong on purpose regardless (for light comedic effect): not only engineers hold that belief, nor are they the only ones who do. There is a significant overlap (higher than a random person's picked from the population) between engineers and what I would call "fundamentalist rationalists". That is, people who believe in reason and science to the point they wrap the speedometer back around to religious belief again. Those people become unable to think outside that framework and consider nuanced solutions. Not everything worth solving has measurable or falsifiable solutions. The world can be very uncertain and work against all common sense at times. This doesn't mean one shouldn't attempt to make sense of it obviously, but science does not a god make. It may, hopefully, but pretending it is that way now is no good.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    I'm not sure that the other end of the rationality axis is "nuanced".
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    I'd honestly consider your take as lacking nuance. Or lacking a dimension. Accepting uncertainty doesn't mean abandoning objectivity. On the contrary - difficulties in objectively measuring things or falsifying hypotheses are best handled with mathematical tools, which absolutely can work with uncertain quantities (that's what probability theory is for). Throwing hands in the air and saying "it's too difficult therefore there's no objectivity", or "it can go whichever way, so it may as well go the way I like", is not the solution.
    - dj_mc_merlin 5y ago
Ir0nMan 5y ago
Until recently I thought we already settled this: -People you believe are saying true things get to speak. -People you believe are saying false things get to speak. -People you believe are saying nice things get to speak. -People you believe are saying mean things get to speak. Everyone gets to speak. Individuals get to decide.
- umvi 5y ago
  That was until we collectively decided harm reduction is a greater cause than freedom preservation. Now any and all freedoms we previously had can be temporarily, permanently, or conditionally suspended in the name of harm reduction (saved lives, fewer offended, etc.)
  - owisd 5y ago
    It’s not some recent idea that freedoms need to be balanced against the harm they can cause others. The harm principle has been around at least as long as On Liberty (1859), and it wasn’t really a new idea then.
- jayd16 5y ago
  This is not what is currently up for debate. The current conflict is over control of private forums. Its not a cut and dry issue either. If you were to own a site, anyone forcing you to post things to your site you don't believe is also an infringement of your rights. It cuts both ways. In my eyes the major issue is the consolidation of discourse onto a few private forums, not whether or not those forums should be able to police themselves.
- another_story 5y ago
  While this is great in principle, some people's voice is much louder, and their words can devastate the lives of individuals, the economy and our society. Should there not be something in place to prevent people from spreading falsehoods that can lead to harming others? The solution is not as easy as what you've stated. In fact, I don't think there is a solution, only a continual rebalancing.
jerf 5y ago
"Misinformation" is one of the most brilliant propaganda coups of my life time. It does not exist. There is no such thing as "misinformation". There is only misinformation according to some party. "Google is going to remove misinformation from YouTube." sounds incredible laudable to the modern ear. "Google is going to remove things that are misinformation according to Google corporate policy." is much less compelling. A challenge for anyone reading this: From now on, whenever you read the word "misinformation", fill out the "according to ..." yourself. I've been doing it for a while now. It really improves your perspective. (I do believe in objective truth. However, if we had a mechanism for objectively determining it in a way we all agreed upon, we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. Whatever the objective truth may be, I seriously doubt "according to the corporate policy of X" is it.)
- CarelessExpert 5y ago
  > It does not exist. There is no such thing as "misinformation". Talk about highschool level sophistry. "Nah bro, there are no facts, everything is meaningless, the truth is a lie and all lies are true, man!" Please. > I do believe in objective truth. Oh good, I'm glad you took the time to contradict yourself. > However, if we had a mechanism for objectively determining it in a way we all agreed upon So misinformation exists but we'll never be able to identify it? I repeat: please. The world is not flat. The anunaki don't exist. COVID vaccines don't contain microchips. This isn't even a little bit hard. Does it get hard in the muddy middle? Sure. But your claim that 'There is no such thing as "misinformation"' is pure bunk.
- shkkmo 5y ago
  > It does not exist. There is no such thing as "misinformation". I'm sorry, but this is complete BS. If someone makes statements that they know are false, then they are a liar and are spreading misinformation. If someone makes statements for which they have incontrovertible proof, this is absolutely not misinformation. Just because the gradients between those two are complex, doesn't mean that misinformation doesn't exist, just that the definition of "misinformation" is fuzzy (like so many other words.) (I don't believe in objective truth or meaning. I do believe that communication is impossible without mutually shared subjective truths and meanings.) Edit: The reality is that there is a significant amount of misinformation put out by all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons. Some of it (e.g. some press releases) is widely recognized but also generally tolerated. Some of it is partisan. Some of it is widely accepted as truth by almost everyone.
irrational 5y ago
There is objective truth. Trump did not win the last election if you look at it in the right light. The absolute truth is, he lost. That isn’t misinformation. That can be applied to a myriad of other things. The earth is not flat. The vaccine does not contain microchips. Masks do prevent the spread of airborne disease. Jan 6th was an insurrection by the Republicans and not a tourist trip.
- refenestrator 5y ago
  That last one is a choice of descriptive words, not an objective truth. Personally, my bar for 'insurrection' involves at least one gunshot. You can differ! But it's not objective.
  - bena 5y ago
    So insurrections were only possible after the invention of firearms? That's weird. And I'm assuming you mean one gunshot "from the aggressors" as one of the Capitol Police officers did fire their weapon in defense of the Capitol. What would you call a group of armed people who forcibly enter a building in order to disrupt the work of a government and install an unelected leader to a position of power?
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - michaelmrose 5y ago
    Insurrection defined: a violent uprising against an authority or government. They violently forced their way into our capital with the idea of intimidating the government to prevent them from handling the lawful business succession insofar as counting and acknowledging the lawfully cast electoral votes. This isn't subjective its the simple literal dictionary definition of the word.
    - refenestrator 5y ago
      It's an editorialization of the word. Any riot involving a fight with cops would qualify if you stretch it that far.
tayo42 5y ago
You're getting mixed up. Good and bad isn't the same as misinformation. The intent is important. Bad faith arguments and presenting misleading conclusions to further an agenda is misinformation.
- temporalparts 5y ago
  I think it's a good point, but... what information do we use to determine intent? And aren't they subject to the errors of normal information in addition to possible ill-intended misinformation?
  - irtigor 5y ago
    If you are judging a single action from someone it is impossible to distinguish between "dishonest behavior" and "stupid behavior" (that's assuming you disagree with what they did), so more offen than not you need to dig deeper and compare what they said prior to the incident and what they have to gain with a change. But to make it clear: it doesn't mean that you are wrong (if what they said align with what you believe, it just means that some people are trying to get the same thing you want for other reasons).
  - tayo42 5y ago
    Tactics used is a place to start. Leading questions, things like "you can draw your own conclusions", blatantly uncredible sources. Taking quotes out of context. A history of being caught being misleading. There's patterns used in frequent misinformation spreaders i think.
- irtigor 5y ago
  Yes, sometimes it is hard to distinguish between extremely dumb and dishonest behavior. Like, a few years ago in my native language someone made a news piece about some women that were working for Google suing the company for unfair wages (according to them, they were making less for the same work) and whoever edited the piece decided to include that according to glossdoor women in tech make less than men, but completely forgot that the same glossdoor said that google was a exemption (based on the information they got).
joelbondurant 5y ago
Blasphemy to the new official religion of the USA, The Science. There is one true Science, in Fauci's name we pray.
ralusek 5y ago
And this isn't even limited to the hypothetical. Just in the last year we've had completely egregious examples of abuse of misinformation classifications. An article about Hunter Biden's laptop, posted by the oldest newspaper in the country, the New York Post, weeks before the election, got them banned from Twitter and Facebook. Any mention of Hunter Biden's laptop would get the post flagged as misinformation and banned. Now, I don't care about Hunter Biden's laptop. What I do care about is that this was absolutely not misinformation. And then the same happened again for the lab-leak hypothesis. Given pants-on-fire dismissal and declared "debunked," when it wasn't then, and has been shown to very clearly not be now. So, yes, the abuse of the authority is obvious in the hypothetical, but the relegation to the abstract isn't even necessary to condemn the legitimacy of these self-proclaimed institutions.
smsm42 5y ago
The answer to this question is obvious - it's an exercise of pure power. Any time you hear anything about "misinformation" the real thing they are talking is power. Whoever has the power can censor those that do not have it and deny them chance to express their views. The guise under which it is done is immaterial - today it's health, tomorrow it's climate change, next day it's electoral politics or terrorism or vegetarianism or gender issues or bee colony collapse. Anything can be used as a basis for censorship, once you have the power and the will to censor. And the power to define what "misinformation" is and the power to censor is one and the same. It's not about seeking the truth, it's about seeking control and domination. Once, in America, it was universally acceptable that censoring speech is not the power somebody should get. Neither the government, nor anybody else. Of course, as with every ideal, the reality sometimes came short of it - there are many infamous examples of censorship, both governmental and otherwise, that happened in America. But those ultimately were realized as conflicting with the ideal - and ultimately, the ideal won and they have lost. Today, this ideal is increasingly being abandoned - for the large parts of the Left, have already completely been abandoned - for the ideas of "safety" and narrow partisan political considerations. The nation - and the whole culture we call "Western culture" - will suffer a lot and regret a lot if we don't find a way to stop it.

whatshisface 5y ago

Who gets to decide who goes to jail? All of the same fallibility arguments apply.

dj_mc_merlin 5y ago
Yes, I agree. My arguments extend to the law too. Previously, you could've gone to jail for being black or having a beer. Women got to vote in 1920. I personally follow the law so I don't go to jail, since historically it has been made by idiots.
- bumby 5y ago
  I think the better answer is not “whom” but “what process”. People will always be fallible. Processes, however, can layer checks and balances in a way that people often can’t. Processes are also easier to change than people in my experience. Processes certainly aren’t perfect but considering your examples are past tense, they can tend to arc towards “more perfect.”
  - dj_mc_merlin 5y ago
    I like this idea. Perhaps I'm committing the same fallacy that the Romans did around the fall of the Republic. The prevailing idea was that their problems were caused by a "failure of Roman morals", rather than by a failure of their system, even as they realized the inevitability of their situation and tried to enact changes. > Processes certainly aren’t perfect but considering your examples are past tense, they can tend to arc towards “more perfect.” Agreed. My use of the past was to illustrate a basic truth: given the big (colossal) failures of the past, is it more likely we have largely found the truth, or that we are still very far away from it? It's impossible to know of course. That said, the amount of people who will claim their truth is ultimate and all of who do not see it their way must be idiots is staggering. It's human nature though, I literally did that one comment above.
shkkmo 5y ago
Ideally? A jury of your peers supported by a system that at least purports to provide checks and balances against the system being dominated by any single person or groups' judgement. If factual veracity faced a similar system that tries to balance the needs and desires of all participants, then censoring misinformation would be a lot more palatable (and would still, like our justice system, often be wrong.) The current system of supressing misinformation has none of the check and balances contained in the legal system and adding those in would do a great deal to facilitate trust in that system.

andi999 5y ago

If the government enacts a law to ban misinformation, I am sure there will also be a ministry of truth by that government, which will decide what information is truthful and what information is not.

WalterBright 5y ago

Most evil in the world is perpetrated not by evil people, but by people with good intentions who believe they know what is best for others, and believe that justifies forcing it on those others. > So, who gets to decide? Each individual gets to decide for themselves.

bumby 5y ago
I think you’re right in your assessment of “evil” but pragmatically wrong (or maybe just oversimplifying) the solution. When there are large asymmetries (for example, in information or risk) regulation can be warranted. For example, most people feel regulating fissile material is prudent because the risk of it coming into the wrong hands is too high to just let unchecked freedom ring when it comes to owning it or not.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  The problem with fissile material is the potential for hurting others. Stopping hurt of others is a reasonable function of government. Legal adults, however, have a fundamental right to hurt themselves. Yes, I know there are grey areas.
  - tstrimple 5y ago
    If anti-vaxxers just hurt themselves, there wouldn't be nearly as much animosity around these issues. They pose a legitimate risk to other people. Not just through direct infection of other people, but by offering themselves up as a breeding ground for more effective versions of the virus.
    - objectivetruth 5y ago
      Same with the anti-maskers. They cry out for their "rights" (to not wear a mask) but won't accept their responsibility (to somehow otherwise prevent themselves from spewing viral particles on us).
    - ghoward 5y ago

geofft 5y ago

OK, but, we already have social/legal/cultural norms for deciding what thoughts are bad and what thoughts are good. Here are some things I can't do via Mailchimp for either legal or cultural reasons (see also https://mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use/ https://mailchimp.com/legal/acceptable_use/): - Advertise pornography - Plan attacks against the United States government - Advertise medical cures that the government doesn't approve of - Sell counterfeit products - Pump and dump a stock - Reveal the identities of CIA operatives All of these are thoughts, just as much as advocating against vaccines or for alternative cures or what-have-you are thoughts. Who gets to decide any of the above? Would it be a good idea to set up society such that all of the above thoughts are protected speech?

naasking 5y ago
They're not just thoughts but also actions. Actions are typically what's regulated by governments, not thought. Maybe by "thoughts" you meant "ideas".
kmonsen 5y ago
They are not thoughts as sibling mentioned. If you think any of these things in your own mind but don't take any action on it that is perfectly ok and carries no legal risk.
- geofft 5y ago
  But this article isn't complaining about Mailchimp shutting people down for thinking things in their own mind, it's complaining about Mailchimp shutting people down for publishing and advocating those thoughts. What is the argument that saying "Ivermectin is being suppressed by Big Pharma, anyone who takes it will get cured of covid" is simply a thought whose publication is worthy of both social and legal protection, but saying "Contoso has a groundbreaking product they're going to reveal next week, anyone who buys the stock now is sure to make a profit" is illegal securities fraud? How do you distinguish those cases?
Turing_Machine 5y ago
Other than advertising (legal) pornography, all of those are actual violations of the law, at least in the United States. Clearly MailChimp (or any other service) can't knowingly allow their platform to be used to violate the law, or they would be held accountable.

cblconfederate 5y ago

> who gets to decide what's misinformation? Whoever wants to. and then people can compare the competing arbiters and decide who would earn their trust. That used to work with mass media until the internet came along. Now we no longer have multiple newspapers, but "The Newspaper" , "The TV" and "The telegraph" (Twitter?), like 2-3 news sources in total which are basically politically aligned. The name of the game changed from "popularity and copy sales" to "the network effect". I m not sure if this can ever change within a centralizing communication medium like the internet, but perhaps at some point people will realize that the network effect is evil and it will get a bad name.

wizzwizz4 5y ago
> I m not sure if this can ever change within a centralizing communication medium like the internet, The internet, centralising… what went wrong?
- j-bos 5y ago
  I found this to be a novel perspective on your question: https://samoburja.com/the-centralized-internet-is-inevitable/ https://samoburja.com/the-centralized-internet-is-inevitable...
- cblconfederate 5y ago
  wrong or right? The internet was designed to be "decentralized" in the sense of robust communications, but ultimately the goal was to convey the commands of one, centralized US army
  - TeMPOraL 5y ago
    The packet switching network was designed to be decentralized. That's layers 2-4 of the ISO/OSI model. Layer 7, the application level, is and always was a force of centralization.

asymptosis 5y ago

> only engineers believe most of the important issues in the world actually have an objective answer to them. Was this really necessary? How many engineers do you know, and how many of them actually ascribe to this belief?

dj_mc_merlin 5y ago
It's a playful jab at a category of people I am part of too, although I do not share that belief. The statement I made is wrong on purpose regardless (for light comedic effect): not only engineers hold that belief, nor are they the only ones who do. There is a significant overlap (higher than a random person's picked from the population) between engineers and what I would call "fundamentalist rationalists". That is, people who believe in reason and science to the point they wrap the speedometer back around to religious belief again. Those people become unable to think outside that framework and consider nuanced solutions. Not everything worth solving has measurable or falsifiable solutions. The world can be very uncertain and work against all common sense at times. This doesn't mean one shouldn't attempt to make sense of it obviously, but science does not a god make. It may, hopefully, but pretending it is that way now is no good.
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  I'm not sure that the other end of the rationality axis is "nuanced".
- TeMPOraL 5y ago
  I'd honestly consider your take as lacking nuance. Or lacking a dimension. Accepting uncertainty doesn't mean abandoning objectivity. On the contrary - difficulties in objectively measuring things or falsifying hypotheses are best handled with mathematical tools, which absolutely can work with uncertain quantities (that's what probability theory is for). Throwing hands in the air and saying "it's too difficult therefore there's no objectivity", or "it can go whichever way, so it may as well go the way I like", is not the solution.
  - dj_mc_merlin 5y ago

Ir0nMan 5y ago

Until recently I thought we already settled this: -People you believe are saying true things get to speak. -People you believe are saying false things get to speak. -People you believe are saying nice things get to speak. -People you believe are saying mean things get to speak. Everyone gets to speak. Individuals get to decide.

umvi 5y ago
That was until we collectively decided harm reduction is a greater cause than freedom preservation. Now any and all freedoms we previously had can be temporarily, permanently, or conditionally suspended in the name of harm reduction (saved lives, fewer offended, etc.)
- owisd 5y ago
  It’s not some recent idea that freedoms need to be balanced against the harm they can cause others. The harm principle has been around at least as long as On Liberty (1859), and it wasn’t really a new idea then.
jayd16 5y ago
This is not what is currently up for debate. The current conflict is over control of private forums. Its not a cut and dry issue either. If you were to own a site, anyone forcing you to post things to your site you don't believe is also an infringement of your rights. It cuts both ways. In my eyes the major issue is the consolidation of discourse onto a few private forums, not whether or not those forums should be able to police themselves.
another_story 5y ago
While this is great in principle, some people's voice is much louder, and their words can devastate the lives of individuals, the economy and our society. Should there not be something in place to prevent people from spreading falsehoods that can lead to harming others? The solution is not as easy as what you've stated. In fact, I don't think there is a solution, only a continual rebalancing.

jerf 5y ago

"Misinformation" is one of the most brilliant propaganda coups of my life time. It does not exist. There is no such thing as "misinformation". There is only misinformation according to some party. "Google is going to remove misinformation from YouTube." sounds incredible laudable to the modern ear. "Google is going to remove things that are misinformation according to Google corporate policy." is much less compelling. A challenge for anyone reading this: From now on, whenever you read the word "misinformation", fill out the "according to ..." yourself. I've been doing it for a while now. It really improves your perspective. (I do believe in objective truth. However, if we had a mechanism for objectively determining it in a way we all agreed upon, we wouldn't have this problem in the first place. Whatever the objective truth may be, I seriously doubt "according to the corporate policy of X" is it.)

CarelessExpert 5y ago
> It does not exist. There is no such thing as "misinformation". Talk about highschool level sophistry. "Nah bro, there are no facts, everything is meaningless, the truth is a lie and all lies are true, man!" Please. > I do believe in objective truth. Oh good, I'm glad you took the time to contradict yourself. > However, if we had a mechanism for objectively determining it in a way we all agreed upon So misinformation exists but we'll never be able to identify it? I repeat: please. The world is not flat. The anunaki don't exist. COVID vaccines don't contain microchips. This isn't even a little bit hard. Does it get hard in the muddy middle? Sure. But your claim that 'There is no such thing as "misinformation"' is pure bunk.
shkkmo 5y ago
> It does not exist. There is no such thing as "misinformation". I'm sorry, but this is complete BS. If someone makes statements that they know are false, then they are a liar and are spreading misinformation. If someone makes statements for which they have incontrovertible proof, this is absolutely not misinformation. Just because the gradients between those two are complex, doesn't mean that misinformation doesn't exist, just that the definition of "misinformation" is fuzzy (like so many other words.) (I don't believe in objective truth or meaning. I do believe that communication is impossible without mutually shared subjective truths and meanings.) Edit: The reality is that there is a significant amount of misinformation put out by all kinds of people for all kinds of reasons. Some of it (e.g. some press releases) is widely recognized but also generally tolerated. Some of it is partisan. Some of it is widely accepted as truth by almost everyone.

irrational 5y ago

There is objective truth. Trump did not win the last election if you look at it in the right light. The absolute truth is, he lost. That isn’t misinformation. That can be applied to a myriad of other things. The earth is not flat. The vaccine does not contain microchips. Masks do prevent the spread of airborne disease. Jan 6th was an insurrection by the Republicans and not a tourist trip.

refenestrator 5y ago
That last one is a choice of descriptive words, not an objective truth. Personally, my bar for 'insurrection' involves at least one gunshot. You can differ! But it's not objective.
- bena 5y ago
  So insurrections were only possible after the invention of firearms? That's weird. And I'm assuming you mean one gunshot "from the aggressors" as one of the Capitol Police officers did fire their weapon in defense of the Capitol. What would you call a group of armed people who forcibly enter a building in order to disrupt the work of a government and install an unelected leader to a position of power?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- michaelmrose 5y ago
  Insurrection defined: a violent uprising against an authority or government. They violently forced their way into our capital with the idea of intimidating the government to prevent them from handling the lawful business succession insofar as counting and acknowledging the lawfully cast electoral votes. This isn't subjective its the simple literal dictionary definition of the word.
  - refenestrator 5y ago
    It's an editorialization of the word. Any riot involving a fight with cops would qualify if you stretch it that far.

tayo42 5y ago

You're getting mixed up. Good and bad isn't the same as misinformation. The intent is important. Bad faith arguments and presenting misleading conclusions to further an agenda is misinformation.

temporalparts 5y ago
I think it's a good point, but... what information do we use to determine intent? And aren't they subject to the errors of normal information in addition to possible ill-intended misinformation?
- irtigor 5y ago
  If you are judging a single action from someone it is impossible to distinguish between "dishonest behavior" and "stupid behavior" (that's assuming you disagree with what they did), so more offen than not you need to dig deeper and compare what they said prior to the incident and what they have to gain with a change. But to make it clear: it doesn't mean that you are wrong (if what they said align with what you believe, it just means that some people are trying to get the same thing you want for other reasons).
- tayo42 5y ago
  Tactics used is a place to start. Leading questions, things like "you can draw your own conclusions", blatantly uncredible sources. Taking quotes out of context. A history of being caught being misleading. There's patterns used in frequent misinformation spreaders i think.
irtigor 5y ago
Yes, sometimes it is hard to distinguish between extremely dumb and dishonest behavior. Like, a few years ago in my native language someone made a news piece about some women that were working for Google suing the company for unfair wages (according to them, they were making less for the same work) and whoever edited the piece decided to include that according to glossdoor women in tech make less than men, but completely forgot that the same glossdoor said that google was a exemption (based on the information they got).

joelbondurant 5y ago

Blasphemy to the new official religion of the USA, The Science. There is one true Science, in Fauci's name we pray.

ralusek 5y ago

And this isn't even limited to the hypothetical. Just in the last year we've had completely egregious examples of abuse of misinformation classifications. An article about Hunter Biden's laptop, posted by the oldest newspaper in the country, the New York Post, weeks before the election, got them banned from Twitter and Facebook. Any mention of Hunter Biden's laptop would get the post flagged as misinformation and banned. Now, I don't care about Hunter Biden's laptop. What I do care about is that this was absolutely not misinformation. And then the same happened again for the lab-leak hypothesis. Given pants-on-fire dismissal and declared "debunked," when it wasn't then, and has been shown to very clearly not be now. So, yes, the abuse of the authority is obvious in the hypothetical, but the relegation to the abstract isn't even necessary to condemn the legitimacy of these self-proclaimed institutions.

smsm42 5y ago

The answer to this question is obvious - it's an exercise of pure power. Any time you hear anything about "misinformation" the real thing they are talking is power. Whoever has the power can censor those that do not have it and deny them chance to express their views. The guise under which it is done is immaterial - today it's health, tomorrow it's climate change, next day it's electoral politics or terrorism or vegetarianism or gender issues or bee colony collapse. Anything can be used as a basis for censorship, once you have the power and the will to censor. And the power to define what "misinformation" is and the power to censor is one and the same. It's not about seeking the truth, it's about seeking control and domination. Once, in America, it was universally acceptable that censoring speech is not the power somebody should get. Neither the government, nor anybody else. Of course, as with every ideal, the reality sometimes came short of it - there are many infamous examples of censorship, both governmental and otherwise, that happened in America. But those ultimately were realized as conflicting with the ideal - and ultimately, the ideal won and they have lost. Today, this ideal is increasingly being abandoned - for the large parts of the Left, have already completely been abandoned - for the ideas of "safety" and narrow partisan political considerations. The nation - and the whole culture we call "Western culture" - will suffer a lot and regret a lot if we don't find a way to stop it.