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I can imagine some governments (especially the Soviet government) standing this kind of thing up simply to use for propaganda. Decide whatever you want to be "t

I can imagine some governments (especially the Soviet government) standing this kind of thing up simply to use for propaganda. Decide whatever you want to be "the general consensus of what's on everyone's mind" and talk about it on the government's terms.

shadowgovt 3y ago
Information filtering is pretty standard in wartime (and other states of emergency). It's justified because misinformation kills, and the wartime laws allow for some limited suspension of civil rights to protect national integrity. People seem to forget, sometimes, that from a legal standpoint the US government can, for example, still draft individual citizens; there's lots of individual liberties (including the right to not be put in danger of life) that get suspended in wartime. And, of course, this is definitely an avenue for bad actors to take advantage of information asymmetry to mislead the public. US history has multiple examples of this occurring. They tend to be exceptions, but they are worth knowing.
llm_trw 3y ago
You don't have to imagine anyone but the US government doing the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States One need only read the original pamphlet which gave rise to the saying "Yelling fire in a crowded theater" to realize that the theater was on fire, and possibly in the middle of a nuclear meltdown too. It's been kind of shocking to see that for the last 8 years the party which is supposedly against tyranny to side with tyranny in the name of fighting tyranny.
- ThisIsMyAltAcct 3y ago
  Worth noting that Schenck v. United States was overturned more than 50 years ago.
  - llm_trw 3y ago
    Yes, but for some reason after Trump won in 2016 people started quoting Oliver Holmes everywhere as a reason why free speech needs to die. Along with misquoting Popper on why we must destroy freedom to save it.
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  That is one of the great tensions of the US Constitution. "Free speech is free speech unless it's treason."
  - lupusreal 3y ago
    Almost nothing in America is treason. Nobody has been convicted of treason for anything after WW2 and even then there were only a handful of cases.. Usually accusations of "treason" are just meaningless slurs against one's political opponents.
pvg 3y ago
especially the Soviet government That only makes sense if you imagine war time Soviet society as a sort of mirror image of American war time society but with hammers and sickles instead of stars and stripes. All public information and media was 'on the government's terms' as it was.
user3939382 3y ago
[flagged]

shadowgovt 3y ago

Information filtering is pretty standard in wartime (and other states of emergency). It's justified because misinformation kills, and the wartime laws allow for some limited suspension of civil rights to protect national integrity. People seem to forget, sometimes, that from a legal standpoint the US government can, for example, still draft individual citizens; there's lots of individual liberties (including the right to not be put in danger of life) that get suspended in wartime. And, of course, this is definitely an avenue for bad actors to take advantage of information asymmetry to mislead the public. US history has multiple examples of this occurring. They tend to be exceptions, but they are worth knowing.

llm_trw 3y ago

You don't have to imagine anyone but the US government doing the same. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schenck_v._United_States One need only read the original pamphlet which gave rise to the saying "Yelling fire in a crowded theater" to realize that the theater was on fire, and possibly in the middle of a nuclear meltdown too. It's been kind of shocking to see that for the last 8 years the party which is supposedly against tyranny to side with tyranny in the name of fighting tyranny.

ThisIsMyAltAcct 3y ago
Worth noting that Schenck v. United States was overturned more than 50 years ago.
- llm_trw 3y ago
  Yes, but for some reason after Trump won in 2016 people started quoting Oliver Holmes everywhere as a reason why free speech needs to die. Along with misquoting Popper on why we must destroy freedom to save it.
shadowgovt 3y ago
That is one of the great tensions of the US Constitution. "Free speech is free speech unless it's treason."
- lupusreal 3y ago
  Almost nothing in America is treason. Nobody has been convicted of treason for anything after WW2 and even then there were only a handful of cases.. Usually accusations of "treason" are just meaningless slurs against one's political opponents.

pvg 3y ago

especially the Soviet government That only makes sense if you imagine war time Soviet society as a sort of mirror image of American war time society but with hammers and sickles instead of stars and stripes. All public information and media was 'on the government's terms' as it was.

user3939382 3y ago

[flagged]