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Asked today to elaborate on his reasons for alleging that Snowden “had help,” Rogers, through a press aide, declined to comment. Typical unaccountability from

by D9u 13y ago

Asked today to elaborate on his reasons for alleging that Snowden “had help,” Rogers, through a press aide, declined to comment. Typical unaccountability from one of our elected public servants. How about letting your constituents know the truth?

rtpg 13y ago
One of the greatest side effects of the internet is that statements like this never disappear. Maybe it'll help people to cut down on saying silly things.
- Mikeb85 13y ago
  Nah. People will just continue repeating falsehoods until they become the de facto 'truth'...
  - squintychino 13y ago
    You mean Bill Gates won't give me $5000 if I hit share on this post? If everyone is saying it, it has to be the truth. -mindset of the majority
- cwp 13y ago
  On the contrary, it encourages it. The point of this sort of statement is not persuade or clarify, but to muddy the waters and confuse the public. All he has to do is get the statement out there, and people that aren't paying close attention will conclude that it's an open question. If he goes too far, he can always tone it down, change his mind "based on new evidence" or even apologize if it comes to that. People that criticize him will have to acknowledge his new position. But people that aren't paying close attention won't notice, and any retractions won't connected back to his original statement. That will still be out there on the net, getting quoted, linked to, retweeted etc, doing it's job of misinforming the unwary.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  > Maybe it'll help people to cut down on saying silly things. It won't, until we figure out to fetch such information automatically in a proper context. Elsewhere on HN there's a discussion right now about an piece of journalistic nonsense thrashing Google that was written by a person who is known to exaggerate and write falsehood in her articles. I know that because someone brought it up in the comments; what I would like to have is a small pop-up, appearing immediately as I open the article, that says: "warning, this article was written by a known liar with history of writing falsehood". It doesn't matter if stupid statements never disappear, until we have a way for them to resurface when needed.
  - w1ntermute 13y ago
    The problem is that most people don't want to be told the truth, they want to be told that the beliefs they already hold are correct. Say that a browser extension doing what you're suggesting existed. When you open up the Fox News site, it would say something like "this site is highly biased and often blatantly lies about political issues to give them a pro-Republican slant". Do you think that Republicans would see that as a sign that they should stop reading Fox News? No, they would just disable the extension.

by D9u 13y ago

rtpg 13y ago

One of the greatest side effects of the internet is that statements like this never disappear. Maybe it'll help people to cut down on saying silly things.

Mikeb85 13y ago
Nah. People will just continue repeating falsehoods until they become the de facto 'truth'...
- squintychino 13y ago
  You mean Bill Gates won't give me $5000 if I hit share on this post? If everyone is saying it, it has to be the truth. -mindset of the majority
cwp 13y ago
On the contrary, it encourages it. The point of this sort of statement is not persuade or clarify, but to muddy the waters and confuse the public. All he has to do is get the statement out there, and people that aren't paying close attention will conclude that it's an open question. If he goes too far, he can always tone it down, change his mind "based on new evidence" or even apologize if it comes to that. People that criticize him will have to acknowledge his new position. But people that aren't paying close attention won't notice, and any retractions won't connected back to his original statement. That will still be out there on the net, getting quoted, linked to, retweeted etc, doing it's job of misinforming the unwary.
TeMPOraL 13y ago
> Maybe it'll help people to cut down on saying silly things. It won't, until we figure out to fetch such information automatically in a proper context. Elsewhere on HN there's a discussion right now about an piece of journalistic nonsense thrashing Google that was written by a person who is known to exaggerate and write falsehood in her articles. I know that because someone brought it up in the comments; what I would like to have is a small pop-up, appearing immediately as I open the article, that says: "warning, this article was written by a known liar with history of writing falsehood". It doesn't matter if stupid statements never disappear, until we have a way for them to resurface when needed.
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  The problem is that most people don't want to be told the truth, they want to be told that the beliefs they already hold are correct. Say that a browser extension doing what you're suggesting existed. When you open up the Fox News site, it would say something like "this site is highly biased and often blatantly lies about political issues to give them a pro-Republican slant". Do you think that Republicans would see that as a sign that they should stop reading Fox News? No, they would just disable the extension.