4 ms·

Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would be the one switch to flip to undo a lot of this very destructive mess. Of course all of the media giants would throw all

Reinstating the Fairness Doctrine would be the one switch to flip to undo a lot of this very destructive mess. Of course all of the media giants would throw all the lawyers at it. Now that they know how incredibly lucrative news-as-entertainment is. But it's what must be done to turn this problem around and get a handle on it.

DoneWithAllThat 3y ago
Literally illegal for certain with anything non-broadcast about with about 90% certainty for broadcast. It’s such a blatant violation of the first amendment it’s never going to happen.
- jgeada 3y ago
  America's notion of freedom of speech was designed at time when we thought humans would prefer truth over "truthiness". Turns out none of that was true, or only true for a small subset of the population. No other country runs with our rules of "freedom of speech == freedom of consequences" (particularly for the rich). But then, most of the West is running into similar problems with the news. Not sure there is an easy answer. None of us want to be censored, but for sure the market has failed (both the demand side and the supply side, and there is lots of money to be made from all the fake controversy and scandal)
  - SllX 3y ago
    Not designed: emerged. Our notions of free speech emerged in a world where publishing was under British law a licensed industry, and the operation of an illegal printing press was a crime which could be punished, where there were parts of the New World where the only legal printing the press could be used for was for the Bible and where there were other parts of the New World where the British Crown retained the rights to the King James Edition of the Bible and it was illegal to print in America. With the First Amendment we revoked Congress’ power as a lawmaking body to govern publishing. The market hasn’t failed, but other people are reading and believing things that you or I don’t agree with, but the difference is that you basically want to make them stop doing that, which I guess includes me as I am disagreeing with you here. Don’t forget that all elected positions are Offices of Power and to seek an election is to seek to acquire power. I am more than happy to keep the flow of information outside the grasp of the types of people who seek to acquire an elected Office and the power vested in it, even at the risk that other people are wrong and take wrong actions with wrong information.
    - jgeada 3y ago
      I am not sure we disagree, as I proposed no solution. I certainly wouldn't trust or give politicians the ability to censor what they don't like. As I said, this is a hard problem. No individual should be censored. But, as with most things, scale is a problem in of itself. There is a significant scale difference when I, as an individual, say whatever I want, vs when CNN or FOX (or pick whatever large scaled publisher you want) broadcasts falsehoods to everyone for their profit. There is significant profit in anger, fear, sowing divisions, artificial controversy; but this comes at a large detriment to us as a society.
      - SllX 3y ago
        > I am not sure we disagree, as I proposed no solution. That’s embarrassing. I actually did overstate the disagreement upon re-reading your prior comment. My apologies. > There is a significant scale difference when I, as an individual, say whatever I want, vs when CNN or FOX (or pick whatever large scaled publisher you want) broadcasts falsehoods to everyone for their profit. Even CNN and Fox can be held in check for literally lying, but by the people they’re lying about, and in turn they operate in a space where they report on a more powerful entity than themselves when they lie or subvert the truth. The American government is also a player in the information space, and its chief officials are not always telling the truth, or disclosing the full truth. So what we have is a wash in which information competes with information, and we don’t always have good, accurate or useful information where we need it or desire it. I still wouldn’t call this a market failure, people profit and lose off of good or bad information all the time; it’s when we allow ourselves to become tools for moneyed or empowered interests who use those programs and writings to induce action that we experience a very real human or political failure. The purpose of the news industry is to inform, but it has always and will forever be at the behest of people with an interest in informing in a manner they prioritize in competition with other people with differing interests, and it is itself for-profit industry whether or not the profits are expressed on the P&L of a given corporation.
SllX 3y ago
What is it you think this would even accomplish? There’s no shortage of contrasting and opposing viewpoints, but people watch and read what they want to, and most often on non-broadcast mediums.
tomjen3 3y ago
Would it? Remember TV competes with online news. Fox biggest competitor isn't NBC, it is Breitbart, The Dodge Report or Real truth network. And you are never going to get the fairness doctrine to apply to those that are online. You could have Facebook set rules for posts on their network, but then Facebook competes with Twitter and Tiktok and whatever, so if the posts on Facebook are less engaging than those on Twitter, people may go there. Its all broken incentives all the way down.

DoneWithAllThat 3y ago

Literally illegal for certain with anything non-broadcast about with about 90% certainty for broadcast. It’s such a blatant violation of the first amendment it’s never going to happen.

jgeada 3y ago
America's notion of freedom of speech was designed at time when we thought humans would prefer truth over "truthiness". Turns out none of that was true, or only true for a small subset of the population. No other country runs with our rules of "freedom of speech == freedom of consequences" (particularly for the rich). But then, most of the West is running into similar problems with the news. Not sure there is an easy answer. None of us want to be censored, but for sure the market has failed (both the demand side and the supply side, and there is lots of money to be made from all the fake controversy and scandal)
- SllX 3y ago
  Not designed: emerged. Our notions of free speech emerged in a world where publishing was under British law a licensed industry, and the operation of an illegal printing press was a crime which could be punished, where there were parts of the New World where the only legal printing the press could be used for was for the Bible and where there were other parts of the New World where the British Crown retained the rights to the King James Edition of the Bible and it was illegal to print in America. With the First Amendment we revoked Congress’ power as a lawmaking body to govern publishing. The market hasn’t failed, but other people are reading and believing things that you or I don’t agree with, but the difference is that you basically want to make them stop doing that, which I guess includes me as I am disagreeing with you here. Don’t forget that all elected positions are Offices of Power and to seek an election is to seek to acquire power. I am more than happy to keep the flow of information outside the grasp of the types of people who seek to acquire an elected Office and the power vested in it, even at the risk that other people are wrong and take wrong actions with wrong information.
  - jgeada 3y ago
    I am not sure we disagree, as I proposed no solution. I certainly wouldn't trust or give politicians the ability to censor what they don't like. As I said, this is a hard problem. No individual should be censored. But, as with most things, scale is a problem in of itself. There is a significant scale difference when I, as an individual, say whatever I want, vs when CNN or FOX (or pick whatever large scaled publisher you want) broadcasts falsehoods to everyone for their profit. There is significant profit in anger, fear, sowing divisions, artificial controversy; but this comes at a large detriment to us as a society.
    - SllX 3y ago
      > I am not sure we disagree, as I proposed no solution. That’s embarrassing. I actually did overstate the disagreement upon re-reading your prior comment. My apologies. > There is a significant scale difference when I, as an individual, say whatever I want, vs when CNN or FOX (or pick whatever large scaled publisher you want) broadcasts falsehoods to everyone for their profit. Even CNN and Fox can be held in check for literally lying, but by the people they’re lying about, and in turn they operate in a space where they report on a more powerful entity than themselves when they lie or subvert the truth. The American government is also a player in the information space, and its chief officials are not always telling the truth, or disclosing the full truth. So what we have is a wash in which information competes with information, and we don’t always have good, accurate or useful information where we need it or desire it. I still wouldn’t call this a market failure, people profit and lose off of good or bad information all the time; it’s when we allow ourselves to become tools for moneyed or empowered interests who use those programs and writings to induce action that we experience a very real human or political failure. The purpose of the news industry is to inform, but it has always and will forever be at the behest of people with an interest in informing in a manner they prioritize in competition with other people with differing interests, and it is itself for-profit industry whether or not the profits are expressed on the P&L of a given corporation.

SllX 3y ago

What is it you think this would even accomplish? There’s no shortage of contrasting and opposing viewpoints, but people watch and read what they want to, and most often on non-broadcast mediums.

tomjen3 3y ago

Would it? Remember TV competes with online news. Fox biggest competitor isn't NBC, it is Breitbart, The Dodge Report or Real truth network. And you are never going to get the fairness doctrine to apply to those that are online. You could have Facebook set rules for posts on their network, but then Facebook competes with Twitter and Tiktok and whatever, so if the posts on Facebook are less engaging than those on Twitter, people may go there. Its all broken incentives all the way down.