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On paper, yes. In reality however? People care a lot about what is written online. "The man, who is now in his early 70s, told the court that he believes poten

On paper, yes. In reality however? People care a lot about what is written online. "The man, who is now in his early 70s, told the court that he believes potential clients have backed out of deals because they saw the post, adding that his career, which had previously been marked by success, began to spiral. Two friends testified they refused to use their influence to help him find jobs because they worried the post would make those efforts fruitless. His personal relationships also suffered, including those with his two sons, the ruling said. One son testified that his girlfriend’s parents declined to meet his father because of the defamatory internet posts. The son said that after he experienced high-profile success, people would tell him they searched his name on Google and asked him about the post involving his father."

logicalmonster 3y ago
> People care a lot about what is written online. Using the word "care" here is a particularly interesting word choice to me. The real problem is not the fact that wrong statements exist online that's a problem, it's the fact that people care or believe them that's the real problem. So how do we get people to care less? I look at your post, and see a goal-oriented rather than a system-oriented approach. You see an injustice happening, and want to put a law in place to stamp it out. That's all well and good, but what about looking at the problem on a systemic level? What if the very acts you want to put in place to help people (strong anti-defamation protection) makes the problem you want to work against even worse? My theory that I've been running with for years is that the existence of strong anti-defamation laws psychologically makes people think something like this whenever they see something crazy online: "This wild claim probably has to be true because it's online or the person who posted it would have their pants sued off otherwise." The stronger the anti-defamation laws that exist, the worse this psychological problem of believing nonsense online gets. IMO, the mere existence of strong anti-defamation protection makes masses of people shut their brain off and believe almost anything dumb online. Personally speaking, I strongly believe we should consider the opposite, systemic approach. Let's conduct a thought-experiment. How would truth and defamation work in a society with non-existent or very weak anti-defamation laws? Would wild claims be made online daily? Of course. But who would believe any wild nonsense they saw online without verifying it if anti-defamation laws were very weak, or didn't exist?

logicalmonster 3y ago

> People care a lot about what is written online. Using the word "care" here is a particularly interesting word choice to me. The real problem is not the fact that wrong statements exist online that's a problem, it's the fact that people care or believe them that's the real problem. So how do we get people to care less? I look at your post, and see a goal-oriented rather than a system-oriented approach. You see an injustice happening, and want to put a law in place to stamp it out. That's all well and good, but what about looking at the problem on a systemic level? What if the very acts you want to put in place to help people (strong anti-defamation protection) makes the problem you want to work against even worse? My theory that I've been running with for years is that the existence of strong anti-defamation laws psychologically makes people think something like this whenever they see something crazy online: "This wild claim probably has to be true because it's online or the person who posted it would have their pants sued off otherwise." The stronger the anti-defamation laws that exist, the worse this psychological problem of believing nonsense online gets. IMO, the mere existence of strong anti-defamation protection makes masses of people shut their brain off and believe almost anything dumb online. Personally speaking, I strongly believe we should consider the opposite, systemic approach. Let's conduct a thought-experiment. How would truth and defamation work in a society with non-existent or very weak anti-defamation laws? Would wild claims be made online daily? Of course. But who would believe any wild nonsense they saw online without verifying it if anti-defamation laws were very weak, or didn't exist?