It’s not just about facts: Democrats and Republicans have sharply different attitudes about removing misinformation from social media::One person’s content moderation is another’s censorship when it comes to Democrats’ and Republicans’ views on handling misinformation.
Democrats and Republicans have sharply different attitudes about whether disinformation is desirable.
It benefits Republicans, so the side it benefits would obviously desire that benefit.
you’re dense af if you don’t think it benefits both sides. Russian collusion anyone?
I don’t have any trust whatsoever for any company, or the government, to be the decider of what counts as “mis/disinformation”.
Sometimes there are easy layups, like “the Holocaust did not happen” and “Vaccines have 5G chips inside them” which are obviously just wrong and I think most of us would agree not to have…
But what about “The Holocaust was overblown and the jews should stop whining about it”? I and probably 99% of people would say that’s a stupid opinion, but is that “misinformation”? Should a company be allowed to ban you for saying it?
How about things like the 13/52 statistic? Should that be removed? What about “42% of all transgenders commit suicide”? That’s used to attack that group a lot, should that be banned as well?
And, to be honest with you, the Democratic Party is absolutely obsessed with using clinical terms like those mentioned to stifle all discussion and act like they are the only voice on the issue you’re allowed to believe. Republicans freak out about this for good reason.
It’s always the Democratic side that gets conservative opinions that they think are bad (whether lies or otherwise), boot them off the platform, and then decide to trample all over their new platforms and get them killed off too. It’s never just “pRiVaTe CoMpAnY tHeY cAn dO WhAt ThEy WaNt MaKe YoUr oWn WeBsiTE”, it’s “you are not allowed to have a place to speak this idea that I think is bad for society anywhere on the internet”. I really, really do not want to embolden that sect more than they already are.
Remember when Internet censorship was a right-wing business friendly cause because it was mostly about copyright?
Now the Internet is so influential that many other excuses for censoring it have been invented, many of which are or can be left-wing, like “misinformation”.
As someone opposed to censorship who thinks it is a good thing if we can exchange information through free association rather than having gatekeepers, I don’t know anymore who my ideological friends are.
Part of the problem is who decides what is misinformation. As soon as the state gets to decide what is and isn’t true, and thus what can and cannot be said, you no longer have free speech.
Uh, you know that happens regularly in courtrooms right? Like, almost every court battle hinges on what’s true and what’s not. And courts are an arm of the state.
In some cases it’s directly about the truth of speech. Fraud, defamation, perjury, filing a false report, etc. are all cases where a court will be deciding whether a statement made publicly is true and punishing a party if it was not. Ask a CEO involved in a merger how much “free speech” they have.
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Nobody (besides maybe extreme conservatives) is advocating for “the state” to decide what “is and isn’t true”. That’s not what this is about.
Furthermore, “misinformation” and “disinformation” refer to things that can be true! Propogansists don’t always need to invent false facts for them to be used in deceptive ways. To suggest that the goverment should stay out of the matter unless they utilze a perfectly foolproof fact-o-meter is IMO, shortsighted. “The state” makes policy decisions all the time with imperfect facts.
If you want to deal with misinformation, at some point someone has to say what misinformation is. Someone has to make a judgement on every fact, every event, every story.
And holy fuck my dude! “Furthermore, “misinformation” and “disinformation” refer to things that can be true!”
Thats some shit straight out of 1984. Censoring true facts? Wtf is wrong with you?
propagandists don’t always need to invent false facts to use them in deceptive ways
Doing some subtle straw man arguments there, huh? Or just missed the rest of the comment?
If I use a true fact and blatantly ignore other facts and context to try to start an ethnic cleansing, should I be censored or not? The most dangerous lies are the ones that have bits of truth in them to gloss over the bad bits.
Don’t pretend that intent isn’t important, or that the world is black and white. Ignoring nuance is the most egregious underlying issue with conservatives.
Well it’s likely because both sides have seen instances where something that is absolutely true be silenced with a “disinformation” or “false news” justification. In recent memory, it has been more “left supporting” news stories that have been silenced than “right supporting” ones that have been falsely silenced. But in recent memory:
- Joe Biden’s son’s laptop. Later confirmed to not be Russian and to be accurate.
- Various emails from the Clinton Campaign being leaked. Claimed to be faked but largely proven accurate at the time of the leak (via DKIM) and with future legal action.
- Several stories about Biden’s declining health. Some of these during the primary pissed of the Bernie wing of the party for being silenced, some during the general pissed off Trump supporters. Biden is 80 years old. Everyone 80 years old has declining health but discussion of it was generally verboten.
- “Lab Leak Hypothesis” Still not proven true or false but believable enough that several government agencies believe it to be credible.
- Origins of the “Russia Collision” story being a person affiliated with Clinton/DNC.
And there’s a long list of obviously biased “fact checkers” making obvious mistakes. Like claiming Romney was lieing when he accurately predicted the outcome of Obamacare a claim that they would call the lie of the year on behalf Obama for repeating in 2013. I pick on polifact for being left leaning but there’s similar right wing “fact checkers” doing similarly biased fact checks.
The only reason he accurately predicted the outcome of Obamacare is because as soon as Republican states no longer had a democratic leadership to contend with they gutted the programs and made them a hollow form of their former selves. Predicting that isn’t exactly rocket science if you’re the one causing it.
As for all your other stuff I don’t think we need to go farther than bringing up Clinton’s emails to see that your arguments are reaching.
The only reason he accurately predicted the outcome of Obamacare is because as soon as Republican states no longer had a democratic leadership to contend with they gutted the programs and made them a hollow form of their former selves. Predicting that isn’t exactly rocket science if you’re the one causing it.
That’s not actually true. Once the plans were no longer eligible to add new members in; they became plans that could no longer add news subscribers into; meaning that the Insurance companies would have an ever decreasing group of people to pool their money with; making the plans ever more risky. Most of those plans stopped being offered long before Republican governors choose to not expand Medicare coverage.
As for all your other stuff I don’t think we need to go farther than bringing up Clinton’s emails to see that your arguments are reaching.
https://wikileaks.org/clinton-emails/
These emails are valid emails. They’re not fakes. During the election; media outlets treated them as if they were fakes.
They weren’t able to add more because a Republican Congress cut down approved funding to do so.
The emails exist and were on a personal email server that was not approved which was a security breach. The same as it was a security breach when Trump did it on his personal phone.
It’s not okay but it’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it, moreover it’s been well reported that she renounced it apologized and since corrected it, so it’s more to the point that it doesn’t support your original argument.
They weren’t able to add more because a Republican Congress cut down approved funding to do so.
The “like your plan you can keep it” depended on private insurance continuing to offer plans that would not be tax advantaged. No additional funding was needed to see that that wasn’t going to be viable.
It’s not okay but it’s not as big of a deal as you’re making it, moreover it’s been well reported that she renounced it apologized and since corrected it, so it’s more to the point that it doesn’t support your original argument.
At the beginning of the scandal, the content of those emails were treated as faked and the first response from the media was to self censor stories about them.
That’s actually part of what made it a bigger story, is that when it later came out that they were real instead of people finding out about it months and months ago they found out in bits and pieces over time. In that instance the censorship actually likely hurt the Clinton’s more than it helped; but the outrage is still felt mostly on the right as they saw it as another in a long line of censorship decisions that targeted the right.
I can honestly tell you that no one thought they were they were skeptical of the source, once they were authentic not one outlet called them fake.
And report after report shows the opposite of what you claim. Right wing News is favored on almost all online platforms and much of network news
They were never able to be called unauthenticated. They were published with DKIM signatures from the beginning.
you’re confusing skepticism with oppression people taking a moment to believe something from Julian assange isn’t censorship, He’s not exactly the most trustworthy of sources no matter how much proof he brings up but once it was clear and it was pretty quick I think pretty much everyone bought on
