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> I'm not sure what the real answer should be. the real answer is full transparency. Someone posting a lie is only a problem when no one is allowed to challeng

> I'm not sure what the real answer should be. the real answer is full transparency. Someone posting a lie is only a problem when no one is allowed to challenge it, and when you allow censorship you are giving someone the authority to prevent challenges to both truth and lies at the same time. The Constitution has problems and I've love to see some changes to it, but freedom of speech is not something we should abandon. I don't think I've ever met anyone who wants "absolute freedom of speech". Everyone, even our government and courts agree that there are limits, but censorship is not the solution to lies, it is their most efficient breeding ground and it removes our only defense. We must be able to point out lies and falsehoods no matter where they come from or who is inconvenienced by the truth. The problem we have now is a populace that is largely uneducated and incapable of telling the truth from a lie or knowing when a source is untrustworthy. We can help to solve that with education and training in basic critical thinking skills. In the meantime we should be exposing and correcting lies publicly and transparently and holding people accountable for knowingly spreading dangerous falsehoods (free to speak still does not mean free from consequences).

Paul-Craft 4y ago
> the real answer is full transparency. Someone posting a lie is only a problem when no one is allowed to challenge it, and when you allow censorship you are giving someone the authority to prevent challenges to both truth and lies at the same time. We just had the lesson on what the problem with "full transparency" is 3 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35567904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35567904
- autoexec 4y ago
  It's always easier to simply state something is true than it is to prove it, or disprove it. That's a lot less of a problem when people aren't receptive to believing everything they see without question in the first place. Brandolini's law doesn't mean that it is impossible or undesirable to correct misinformation. It just says that spewing lies takes less effort. It demonstrates why it's important to give people critical thinking skills in the first place, so that you don't have to spend as much effort chasing and cleaning up after bullshit because that would mean fewer people are accepting it and forwarding it along. The alternative being proposed here is to accept censorship which allows lies to go unchallenged entirely and makes it impossible to ever correct them.

Paul-Craft 4y ago

> the real answer is full transparency. Someone posting a lie is only a problem when no one is allowed to challenge it, and when you allow censorship you are giving someone the authority to prevent challenges to both truth and lies at the same time. We just had the lesson on what the problem with "full transparency" is 3 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35567904 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35567904

autoexec 4y ago
It's always easier to simply state something is true than it is to prove it, or disprove it. That's a lot less of a problem when people aren't receptive to believing everything they see without question in the first place. Brandolini's law doesn't mean that it is impossible or undesirable to correct misinformation. It just says that spewing lies takes less effort. It demonstrates why it's important to give people critical thinking skills in the first place, so that you don't have to spend as much effort chasing and cleaning up after bullshit because that would mean fewer people are accepting it and forwarding it along. The alternative being proposed here is to accept censorship which allows lies to go unchallenged entirely and makes it impossible to ever correct them.