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I mean look at the twin fiascos of covid and Trump. People are all in favour of censorship when it suits them.

pjc50 4y ago
Letting your democracy and a large number of lives be taken away by easily disprovable lies isn't great either. I can't see a good way out of this; the libel suit against Alex Jones is just a tiny start at unwinding the problem. It's much more profitable, easier, and an effective route to power to lie.
- rhino369 4y ago
  Banning political dissent to save democracy is "destroy[ing] the village in order to save it."
  - Nevermark 4y ago
    Dissent is not the same as lying. In the worst case, people conflate the two to rationalize tolerance for having no repercussions for promoting damaging lies And there can be wide gray areas where people’s perspectives, literacy of facts, or motives are too different to make a clear judgement between disagreement and reckless or intentional faslehoods. But they are not the same
    - rhino369 4y ago
      Sure, but every government--even the generally good ones--accused dissents of lying even when they aren't. Was the Steele Report disinformation? Depends if ask you Donald Trump or the FBI. Was the Hunter biden laptop disinformation? Depends who you ask. Was "vaccines don't prevent covid" disinformation? Depends on when you ask the CDC. You could avoid a slippery slope by drawing the line at intentionally and knowingly telling a mistruth--that's essentially where US defamation laws draw the line. But that is almost never where the line is drawn. Under that definition of lying, Anti-vaxers aren't lying--they are just wrong. And on the slip side, when the government intentionally lies--masks don't work--its not disinformation--its a messaging technique.
- FridayoLeary 4y ago
  I'm not talking about "easily disprovable lies". I'm talking about simple stuff such as "do masks help" when even the supposed "scientific evidence" did a 180. Experts seem to overreach often beyond their fields of expertise.

Letting your democracy and a large number of lives be taken away by easily disprovable lies isn't great either. I can't see a good way out of this; the libel suit against Alex Jones is just a tiny start at unwinding the problem. It's much more profitable, easier, and an effective route to power to lie.

rhino369 4y ago
Banning political dissent to save democracy is "destroy[ing] the village in order to save it."
- Nevermark 4y ago
  Dissent is not the same as lying. In the worst case, people conflate the two to rationalize tolerance for having no repercussions for promoting damaging lies And there can be wide gray areas where people’s perspectives, literacy of facts, or motives are too different to make a clear judgement between disagreement and reckless or intentional faslehoods. But they are not the same
  - rhino369 4y ago
    Sure, but every government--even the generally good ones--accused dissents of lying even when they aren't. Was the Steele Report disinformation? Depends if ask you Donald Trump or the FBI. Was the Hunter biden laptop disinformation? Depends who you ask. Was "vaccines don't prevent covid" disinformation? Depends on when you ask the CDC. You could avoid a slippery slope by drawing the line at intentionally and knowingly telling a mistruth--that's essentially where US defamation laws draw the line. But that is almost never where the line is drawn. Under that definition of lying, Anti-vaxers aren't lying--they are just wrong. And on the slip side, when the government intentionally lies--masks don't work--its not disinformation--its a messaging technique.
FridayoLeary 4y ago
I'm not talking about "easily disprovable lies". I'm talking about simple stuff such as "do masks help" when even the supposed "scientific evidence" did a 180. Experts seem to overreach often beyond their fields of expertise.