[HN Gopher] Leaked documents outline DHS's plans to police disin...
___________________________________________________________________
Leaked documents outline DHS's plans to police disinformation
Author : amadeuspagel
Score : 331 points
Date : 2022-10-31 15:52 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (theintercept.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (theintercept.com)
| caseysoftware wrote:
| Truth vs disinformation vs whatever is the sideshow.
|
| Fundamentally, what we have is the US Federal government is not
| allowed to take certain activities so they outsourced it to third
| parties.. all the while people claim these are private companies
| doing what they want.
|
| I propose a new rule:
|
| If it's illegal for a government to do, it must also be illegal
| for them to request, pay, demand, threaten, require, or imply
| that another should do it.
| ranger207 wrote:
| Contrast this to the very successful information operations by
| the US and other western nations prior to Russia's invasion of
| Ukraine and continuing through the present. Basically every false
| Russian claim has been countered with nothing more than truth,
| all the way back to countering Russia's claim that they weren't
| preparing for an invasion with information showing they were
| preparing for an invasion. I wonder if there's any reason in
| particular that this was more successful other than it wasn't
| particularly controversial in the west and that it hit the
| cultural zeitgeist
| cr4nberry wrote:
| > Intelligence agencies backed new startups designed to monitor
| the vast flow of information across social networks to better
| understand emerging narratives and risks.
|
| The onus is on the people here, reading this, to actively fight
| to counter any attempts to create this form of infrastructure
| (and never participate in building it)
|
| > An FBI official interviewed by The Intercept described how, in
| the summer of 2020, amid the George Floyd protests, he was
| reassigned from his normal job of countering foreign intelligence
| services to monitoring American social media accounts
|
| This shows that the threat comes from the right just as much as
| the left. Once the infrastructure is in place, it doesn't matter
| who it was initially targeted against. This is why people need to
| seriously consider the impact of assenting to one political group
| using it to screw over the other. The extreme polarization of
| American society has allowed the intelligence community and
| executive branch to pit political groups against one another in
| order to increase the breadth and depth of centralized control of
| the internet. Take Palantir for example, it's a company that
| outwardly touts its own conservative values, yet participates in
| employer surveillance, union busting, and predictive policing.
| The intelligence community relies on them for building this
| infra[1].
|
| > The strategy identified a "broader priority: enhancing faith in
| government and addressing the extreme polarization, fueled by a
| crisis of disinformation and misinformation often channeled
| through social media platforms, which can tear Americans apart
| and lead some to violence."
|
| The executive branch is essentially using divisions in American
| society as a justification to annex more control of social media
| platforms. It's hard to read the words "enhancing faith in
| government" and not think of Orwell
|
| There's a growing strain of authoritarianism in this country.
| Notice how the language has changed in the past couple years, and
| how we see more whining about "faith in government" or "trust in
| institutions". The internet has established itself as a
| revolutionizing force and the current establishment and moneyed
| class clearly feels threatened by it
|
| I'm surprised The Intercept has decided to report this and not
| sweep it under the rug. It's good to see more investigative
| journalism instead of the nauseating lockstep media outlets have
| put themselves in recently in the name of achieving their desired
| political change "at any cost"
|
| [1] https://theintercept.com/2016/04/14/in-undisclosed-cia-
| inves...
| throwaway1851 wrote:
| From the article:
|
| > other initiatives are underway as DHS pivots to monitoring
| social media now that its original mandate -- the war on terror
| -- has been wound down.
|
| This is a chilling line, and yet so predictable. If DHS's
| original mandate has wound down, I consider that an occasion to
| scale back DHS. But no, government bureaucracies (especially ones
| with immense, unchecked power) don't just shrink away when they
| are no longer needed. They keep growing.
| jabthedang wrote:
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| Many have an expectation that the media and formerly trustworthy
| institutions are at best "framing and positioning the truth" and
| at worst "always lying" to them.
|
| Frankly they believe this because it is, to an extent, true. Very
| few people believe _The People_ can be trusted with the
| unvarnished truth without appropriate "context".
|
| I do not believe that trust in institutional communication can be
| restored unless it is re-earned. Perhaps by communicating only
| fair and factual information and leaving the positioning and
| framing for the pundits.
| awb wrote:
| > Perhaps by communicating only fair and factual information
|
| No one is unbiased. The order and depth to which you present
| facts can itself be biased. Also, the extent to which you leave
| out or don't throughly investigate "unimportant" facts can be
| biased.
|
| For example, some networks and politicians try to "flood the
| zone", with more information than can reasonably be covered.
| Even without bad intentions, it's impossible to know all the
| facts about the war in Ukraine, let alone trying to also make
| time to learn facts about the economy, classified documents and
| Hunter Biden's laptop.
| arghnoname wrote:
| The media has never only communicated fair and factual
| information, but the biases of previous eras were less blatant.
| Chomsky detailed a lot of these cases where very similar cases
| of Soviet actions were covered much more harshly than
| comparable or even worse actions done by Americans or American
| allies. This is normal stuff, but it felt like this bias was
| done largely because American journalists were American and
| naturally, this is how many saw the world.
|
| We now have this divide in America where the difference between
| the journalist class and wide swaths of America are as wide as
| the gap between the Soviets and cold-war era journalists. So we
| have this strong bias whereby don't want to report anything
| that in any way legitimizes the viewpoints of the 'bad people'
| (e.g., anyone with viewpoints deemed to be 'populist), even if,
| particularly if those viewpoints are actually popular.
|
| The problem is if they make up fairy tales about how the
| Taliban are a bunch of sweethearts and freedom fighters during
| the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, how would US citizens of
| the 1980s know? On the other hand, if they massage the truth
| about something that happened down the street, citizens are
| bound to notice and naturally, lose all faith in their
| reporting.
| unknownaccount wrote:
| If the mainstream media accurately reported the news in United
| States there would have been multiple genocides already. People
| would notice that a disproportionate amount of crime is
| committed by specific subset of the population and would direct
| their anger toward those groups. Censorship of the news is done
| to protect those groups.
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| "mainstream media accurately reported the news ... multiple
| genocides already"
|
| Oh boy is this ironic
| colordrops wrote:
| yeah, I'm not sure if they are defending censorship to
| protect people, or claiming that we've been hoodwinked by
| censorship.
| comte7092 wrote:
| Absurd? Yes.
|
| How exactly is it ironic?
| MSFT_Edging wrote:
| Ironic because an accurate portrayal of the news would
| illuminate actual atrocities/genocides that American news
| sources generally don't cover.
|
| Had they, from the OP's perspective, the genocides that
| might have happened, have happened. We just don't cover
| these things.
|
| Examples being considering the Korean war a genocide due
| to the mass assault on civilians, The right wing coup in
| Indonesia that led to a million members of the Communist
| party to be murdered, the current blockade of Yemen that
| has contributed to the deaths of 85,000 children.
|
| Because of how Media in the US already serves a national
| security interest, these things are either not spoken
| about, or twisted to make the US be the good guys.
|
| So to say that mainstream media accurately reporting the
| news would lead to genocides is silly, because the
| inaccurate news through the filter of natsec, helped
| these atrocious acts by leaving them in the dark.
| comte7092 wrote:
| I think a more charitable framing is that these institutions
| believe a _dangerously large subset_ of "the people" can't "be
| trusted with the unvarnished truth without appropriate
| "context"."
| jimbob45 wrote:
| _these institutions_
|
| Which are made up of people. So _some_ people think _other_
| people "can't be trusted with the truth". Thus, the first
| set of people deserve to exert complete control over which
| information the second set are allowed to see. Do we have an
| objective test as to which people belong in which group? Will
| the first group ever abuse their power?
|
| Find out on the next episode of "Everything will be different
| when I have all the power"!
| comte7092 wrote:
| Indeed, what I have found in missing from these discussions
| has been a critique of the power these platforms have.
|
| In my opinion, what we should be talking about isn't the
| moderation decisions Twitter et al are making, but why they
| have so much power over information in the first place.
|
| Government policy over the last forty years has promoted
| far too much concentration in traditional media, and it,
| along with social media, needs to be checked.
|
| Another aside is that the 2013 NDAA legalized domestic
| propaganda. This needs to be discussed more and reversed.
| JadeNB wrote:
| > In my opinion, what we should be talking about isn't
| the moderation decisions Twitter et al are making, but
| why they have so much power over information in the first
| place.
|
| While I agree with you in principle, experience shows
| that public pressure can change Twitter's moderation
| policy--but I think suggesting that Twitter remove or
| reduce its power over information is less likely to have
| success. So, in a regulation-hostile environment such as
| the US, where it is preferred to leave decisions to
| businesses whenever possible and beyond (and what _could_
| Twitter do, even if it wanted to, to limit its power over
| information?), it seems like we might as well pursue the
| policy that has some chance of success, in the hopes that
| it gives us enough time to address the bigger problem.
| comte7092 wrote:
| What does success even mean in such a context though?
|
| The fundamental problem is one of governance over
| hundreds of millions of not billions of users.
|
| People talk about the first amendment, but that is a
| fundamentally America centric worldview, while most users
| on these platforms are outside of the United States.
|
| Platforms may be accountable to _some_ users, but
| certainly they are far from being accountable to all,
| most, or even a large subset of their users.
| arghnoname wrote:
| I agree that they believe this, but I don't think deceiving
| these people are going to make them less prone to extremism
| and paranoia.
| comte7092 wrote:
| Not saying I agree with it either. Just feel like positions
| should be represented accurately.
| colordrops wrote:
| In order to re-earn it through honest communication, they have
| to recognize that it's a problem rather than a valid strategy.
| [deleted]
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| I honestly think it comes down the insane competition for
| eyeballs. If your news isn't inflammatory enough you lose eyes
| to those who are.
| GaylordTuring wrote:
| Random thoughts that I might not fully agree with myself but that
| I think it's interesting to think about:
|
| What if the solution to misinformation is _more_ information? If
| 99 % of all information that you come across is wrong (and you
| know it), you're forced to start thinking critically or just
| believe in random things.
|
| That is, if someone believes that we've never been to the Moon,
| feed them with information of the same logical structure that
| we've never been to the North pole. If someone believe that a
| politician is guilty of something just because he's been accused
| of it, make the same accusations towards one hundered other
| random politicians. If someone is seeing ghosts, tell them that
| you've been seeing dinosaur ghosts in ballerina costumes.
|
| In order to not die in such an environment because you
| haphazardly eat led for breakfast, you're forced to develop
| critical thinking skills.
| themitigating wrote:
| Do people have the time to process all the information on a
| subject?
|
| Will they understand it all? It's much more complex to explain
| how we landed on the moon then to say we didn't.
|
| Will people let a bias affect them when processing information?
| base698 wrote:
| > Modern propaganda is a consistent, enduring effort to create
| or shape events to influence the relations of the public to an
| enterprise, idea or group. This practice of creating
| circumstances and of creating pictures in the minds of millions
| of persons is very common. Virtually no important undertaking
| is now carried on without it, whether the enterprise be
| building a cathedral, endowing a university, marketing a moving
| picture, floating a large bond issue, or electing a president.
|
| Bernays almost 100 years ago. The solution is more propaganda.
| Karunamon wrote:
| Never minding the sketchiness of "working with" government on
| "misinformation", how is:
|
| > _There is also a formalized process for government officials to
| directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that
| it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal
| that requires a government or law enforcement email to use._
|
| ... not a direct First Amendment concern?
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| Shutdown DHS for good. It is a redundant and useless government
| agency created in the wake of 9/11. We already have the FBI,
| secret service, ICE, US marshalls, and from time to time the CIA
| operating in country. The DHS has no purpose and has accomplished
| nothing in its history.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| The elephant in the room is the Patriot Act that needs to be
| re-evaluated or abolished:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act
| eftychis wrote:
| So the state wants to decide what is truth and what is not...
| What should be shared and what should not?
|
| I wonder how that can go badly? Maybe this one time in history we
| will make that notion work...
|
| I would say the above statement is sarcastic, but if at this
| point people actually believe this is a good idea I would either
| question the history or civics education quality or the hypocrisy
| tolerance perception.
|
| I claim this is a surefire way to create more instability,
| undermine democracy and straight out attack the most fundamental
| right in a democratic setting: free speech. (Also, personally,
| extremely insulting to any scientist to have truth dictated.)
|
| So what: some people/bots act maliciously and spread
| disinformation. Put a disclaimer. Teach your people to be
| critical and better. Recall how the state screwed up in the past.
| There were states that in law stated if you orgasm it couldn't
| have been a rape. There are states that mishandled the pandemic,
| and botched the messaging.
|
| Perception of speech is extremely subjective and cultural. You
| only create extreme views by censoring -- you are banning
| collaboration. The U.S. has an extreme Political correctness
| approach, that has only harmed democracy in my book in the end.
| Communication is for reaching consensus.
|
| You can't be "diversity is great" and "if you say X that is
| disagreeable to me you are terrible." Pick one.
|
| If someone, including state actors, screws up and causes damage
| with their speech, get them charged for the appropriate crime --
| and even then I would say "maybe." That is what should be in
| question and up for discussion and debate.
|
| That some people in DHS even considered this should get them
| fired (at least); how is this not a crime subverting the U.S.
| constitution?
|
| (my) Theorem: Sure words can hurt temporarily. Lack of works is
| fatal.
| themitigating wrote:
| What crime are you asking about? Conspiracy to subvert the
| constitution?
| louloulou wrote:
| And the consequences for the government spreading
| "disinformation": 0
| adolph wrote:
| I'd really really prefer an approach that built an improved
| information infrastructure rather than establishing yet another
| police force. I suspect that better information is antithetical
| to the current powers that be. That isn't to say that they aren't
| aligned with truth more often that not, but that they wish to
| keep the option for a false official truth open.
| PuppyTailWags wrote:
| I am of two minds of this and would invite people to give me some
| opinions on this thing.
|
| On one hand, I love free speech and think it is good. The
| innovation capable from people being ably to publish their views,
| congregate freely, etc. is a foundational good I believe in.
|
| On the other hand, I'm aware that certain influential figures
| explicitly manipulate their speech in order to primarily amass
| personal power regardless of any second-order effects. E.g. cults
| are horrible, even though people are freely congregating, they
| just feel like they can't leave because of the emotional abuse
| these influential figures are heaping via their speech.
|
| On a third hand, the loved one of a politician was severely
| injured because of someone who believes the incorrect speech of
| influential figures and I desperately do not want further injury
| or violence to occur spurned by incorrect speech on the facts of
| reality.
|
| So what's to be done about the actual, real harm being done,
| while also protecting free speech? I don't want to assume that
| assaulting people is just the cost of free speech. That just
| seems so wrong to me.
| SllX wrote:
| The FedGov is an interested actor in the dissemination of
| information and is therefore not fit for task on arbitrating on
| incorrect or inaccurate information. It can be a source of
| information, but it cannot be trusted as an uncompetitive
| source.
|
| If you are interested in accurate and correct information, it
| is procedurally discovered in a competitive information
| environment with multiple interested actors; not decreed by the
| President and his employees.
| marmadukester39 wrote:
| Or it isn't, because "discovered" doesn't apply to most
| participants, who are only exposed to a narrative and likely
| never see followup.
| SllX wrote:
| Why does it surprise you that people with more interest in
| getting accurate information are going to be the ones with
| more accurate information? If information doesn't have
| value to you, you're not going to pay for it.
| marmadukester39 wrote:
| No, you wont. You are right. And in a democracy,
| eventually your rights will be curtailed by those who
| can't afford or don't know to spend that time and money.
| Eleison23 wrote:
| It used to be that the State had an established Religion that
| worked with the state to establish Truth and its boundaries.
| Therefore the Spanish Inquisition was not merely a religious
| event but a State event, where heretics were considered
| seditious or treasonous, and thus handed over to the State to
| be dealt with before it could be destabilized by dangerous
| thoughts, words, and actions.
|
| Now what do we do about Truth in this age of
| disestablishmentarianism? There is no one Religion of the
| State, and therefore there is no one Truth, there is a
| Plurality of Truths. That seems to present an existential
| problem for arbiters of Truth within the borders of the
| State, doesn't it.
| SllX wrote:
| Yep. It's not that there was ever a Church that was ever
| fit for the task, but there were people who formed a Church
| which were powerful enough to impose their own truth. No
| human institution will ever be fit for the task, but we can
| maintain the process by maintaining a competitive
| information environment.
| Lammy wrote:
| > the loved one of a politician was severely injured
|
| Agreed that's unacceptable, but maybe we could criminalize
| aggravated assault instead?
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
| [deleted]
| stuckinhell wrote:
| If you are talking about Paul Pelosi, that is still being fact
| checked. I highly doubt a gay nudist attacked him because the
| gay nudist was republican.
|
| So you could be spreading misinformation right now as well.
| Firmwarrior wrote:
| Yeah, what a crazy situation
|
| One major news article I read mentioned he was a hemp
| craftsman living in Berkeley, somehow I doubt he's an alt
| right Qanon type if that's the case
|
| The only other info I could readily find was from ZeroHedge,
| though, so I don't want to take it as the gospel truth just
| yet
| bjt2n3904 wrote:
| > On a third hand, the loved one of a politician was severely
| injured because...
|
| The USFCS (United States Fact Checking Service) has flagged
| this as malinformation, and limited your ability to comment for
| the next 72 hours.
|
| If you believe this is in error, please win the next election,
| so that you gain control of the censorship bureau and show us
| how to do it right.
| daveevad wrote:
| > the loved one of a politician was severely injured because of
| someone who believes the incorrect speech of influential
| figures
|
| Would you be so kind as to elaborate which speech and which
| figures you believe are at fault?
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| Its true that freedom can lead to harm but the alternative is
| much worse; no system is utopian but some systems are better
| than others. Collective authoritarian states can achieve great
| things but when they fail, they fail in very big ways. Places
| that value freedom may in many ways be more chaotic and even
| dangerous at times, but I believe they are more likely to
| interrupt themselves when they are moving toward calamity.
| marmadukester39 wrote:
| This is the case if the participants are well informed. If
| they are not, there is no reason to believe they will
| interrupt themselves.
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| Then the solution is to inform them, not to attempt to
| police information.
| charbonneau3 wrote:
| > I don't want to assume that assaulting people is just the
| cost of free speech
|
| Is it? Are there more assaults in countries with more freedom
| of expression?
| systemvoltage wrote:
| Usually, this is an collectivist argument with no basis at
| all. We routinely conduct trade offs of the most eggregious
| consequences: Driving is ok in pretty much all countries in
| the world, despite of horrific accident rates. Or the
| opposite: that we should impose security checks in airports
| because 1 guy had gel-based explosives in his shoe, let's
| collectively force everyone to take their shoes off for
| millions if not billions of times.
|
| These trade offs have no objectivity. They're done on a whim
| with the exact thinking that the OP is succumbing to.
|
| So, anytime someone makes an argument for supression of
| speech "for the good of the people", I am instantly cynical
| of their motives or their gullibility or both.
| jwagenet wrote:
| I don't think free speech/ assaults is a relationship in
| isolation. The US particularly seems to have issues with
| violence being a preferred method of conflict resolution, all
| else being equal.
| claytongulick wrote:
| Do you have any information to back up this claim?
|
| From what I understand, the US is fairly unique in history
| for pioneering peaceful transfer of power _without
| violence_.
|
| Elections are a form of revolution each term.
|
| In most of world history, this type of transfer of power
| was incredible bloody.
|
| Also, from what I see on the news, the US isn't at all
| unique when it comes to political violence, and in general
| it's much more rare and less extreme than what I see
| elsewhere. It wasn't long ago that Ireland had horrific
| bloody political conflict, the likes of which we've never
| seen in this country other than the civil war.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| A regime is peaceful until it isn't. Monarchies lasted
| for millennia, USA isn't nearly as old.
| gruez wrote:
| >Monarchies lasted for millennia, USA isn't nearly as
| old.
|
| USA is actually doing pretty well at 246 years old. There
| are certainly monarchies that lived longer, but 246 is
| above average for regimes. For instance, the current
| french regime has only been around for 64 years[1]
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Fifth_Republic
| dane-pgp wrote:
| > the US is fairly unique in history for pioneering
| peaceful transfer of power _without violence_.
|
| The US inherited much of its political culture from that
| of England (not to say that the US didn't innovate
| heavily and positively on top of that heritage).
|
| Would you say that England / the UK has had less of a
| history of peaceful transferring of power since American
| independence, or since _the US Civil War_?
|
| You can say that the UK has faced violent opposition to
| its rule in Northern Ireland, but it would seem more
| reasonable to equate that to attacks like 9/11 in the US.
| cool_dude85 wrote:
| If you go back to the civil war in the US, you'd also be
| going back to violent opposition to its rule in what's
| now the Republic of Ireland, its genocide in Kenya, the
| collapse of the British Empire in general. It's true that
| (as in America) the metropole has been relatively
| peaceful in the UK, but outside of that it's pretty grim.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| I think that's some reasonable context, thank you, even
| though it would require quite a leap to make the claim
| that it was the "pretty grim" actions in the Empire that
| _enabled_ the peaceful transfer of power in the
| metropole. (It could equally be the case, for example,
| that peace back home _allowed_ the Empire to flourish
| enough to lead to the inevitable grim outcomes).
| themitigating wrote:
| There are far too many variables to determine that
| didibus wrote:
| To me, the problem currently I believe is with the internet and
| how it creates a new quality to speech.
|
| People can speak up, but it turns out that there's now too much
| noise and nobody can distinguish the source of the speech, the
| context of the speech, the trustworthiness of the speech, and
| the occurrence of the speech (how many people are saying the
| same thing versus parroting what they were told).
|
| Not only that, but the cost to speak is so low now, that bad
| actors have a field day, and I include bad faith people looking
| to just amass political fame, power, following, etc.
|
| Mix that in with our new shortened attention span, and people
| no longer engage with the speech, instead it becomes like
| advertisement, if you've seen the same message a lot you'll
| subconsciously have taken it as a truth. It becomes which
| opinion have you seen most becomes your opinion, and everyone
| does this, so the truth becomes a matter of who can parrot
| their message as often, as loudly and to as many people.
|
| This also means that catchy speech will win over non-catchy
| speech, because everything is more like a marketing game.
| Appealing to emotions is attention grabbing, controversy is
| attention grabbing, so all speech of that form becomes the
| winning speech in terms of getting viewed and heard.
|
| That's why I think all reasonable people are doomed here, this
| mechanism of social conversation lends itself automatically to
| destabilizing opinions winning over stable reasonable but
| boring and not attention grabbing perspectives.
|
| Before the internet, there were more filtering happening in a
| layered approach, publications and journalist were there to
| filter out the noise, the low quality, the unsubstantiated, the
| agenda driven, and all those.
|
| Speaking up about injustices involved having to physically
| mobilize yourself to a public square, which takes a lot of
| effort from the speaker, again allowing a filtering out of bad
| actors and bad faith individual since the effort demanded had a
| cost, only people really motivated by great injustice would
| have the will to go through with protesting.
|
| I don't think it was ideal before either, as publications as a
| filter had their own bias to what they'd filter out. But at
| least even what they let through, since there wasn't an
| abundance of it, the listeners could have a deeper think about
| it, and didn't believe it to be true just because they keep
| hearing about it over and over.
|
| Hopefully we can find a way to improve on both. I think we need
| to put more contextualizing and filters over the internet
| speech, nothing that removes or bans speech, but allows to
| manage all the noise.
|
| Algorithms are already in place doing this, except they filter
| based on corporate profit making, which often involves around
| engagement and attention grabbing. Again this is extra
| counterproductive, worse than a simple unfiltered approach with
| everything chronological.
|
| I'm not sure how best to implement improvements, but I feel
| strongly it is needed, because even I can no longer make sense
| of all the noise on the internet, and it feels more and more
| like I actually can't tell what's real or not anymore, even
| though I'm in an ocean of information.
| slg wrote:
| The common refrain I hear from communities like HN seems to be
| that the way to fight disinformation is through education.
| However, what that looks like is never really explained in
| practical details. Is this just new curriculum that is taught
| to middle and high school students? Is there some course that
| all citizens have to take? If it is only taught to school age
| kids, what are we supposed to do for the next 30 or 40 years
| that the country is run by people who haven't had this
| training? What are we supposed to do when this disinformation
| education is corrupted by people who themselves have already
| fallen victim to disinformation because they haven't been
| educated properly?
|
| I just don't see any practical solution that doesn't involve
| some type of restriction on disinformation.
| autoexec wrote:
| > Is this just new curriculum that is taught to middle and
| high school students? Is there some course that all citizens
| have to take?
|
| Critical thinking skills should be taught and practiced at
| all levels of education. An online course available for
| everyone for free would nice too.
|
| > what are we supposed to do for the next 30 or 40 years
|
| Everything else we've been doing. Calling out bullshit when
| we see it, explaining why it's wrong and how it's being used
| to manipulate people.
|
| > What are we supposed to do when this disinformation
| education is corrupted by people who themselves have already
| fallen victim to disinformation because they haven't been
| educated properly?
|
| Isn't this is a risk with teaching anything anywhere? The
| good news is that it'll be a lot easier for students to catch
| issues with how they're being educated when they can think
| for themselves and are trained in how to catch bad arguments.
| [deleted]
| ok123456 wrote:
| Maybe we could send them some kind of 'camp' where they 're-
| educated' on what they're allowed to say in public.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| Yes, it's hard and difficult work and it takes real effort,
| humility and cooperation from everyone including me and you.
| But it's work you gotta do if you want to avoid a slow slide
| down into totalitarian hellhole.
| luckylion wrote:
| Do you think the same way about health issues, e.g. smoking,
| obesity etc etc?
| alvarlagerlof wrote:
| It is taught is Swedish middle school. Kallkritik.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > What are we supposed to do when this disinformation
| education is corrupted by people who themselves have already
| fallen victim to disinformation because they haven't been
| educated properly?
|
| What are we supposed to when this disinformation censorship
| is corrupted by such people?
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Well for starters schools are part of the issue. Having
| students being taught whitewashed history while pledging to a
| flag under God each day only reiterates cult like behavior.
| Our society is brainwashed from the time they are children to
| like certain things based on ads that use all manipulation
| techniques. Kids ask for things without even really knowing
| why they want them. In order to educate children to question
| things and keep an open mind would require big changes that I
| don't think society is willing to make. The best we can do is
| an open dialogue with children about there techniques and how
| they can recognize and empower themselves to be independent
| thinkers unwilling to succumb.
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Everyone thinks that the other side of an issue is spreading
| disinformation. It's such a vague and ridiculous assertion to
| assume that any person, organization, entity, or any one side
| has the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
| Freedom of speech is a prerequisite for a society to arrive
| at anything close to resembling truth, because no one has a
| monopoly on truth. No one can adjudicate it. Ideas must
| compete. Perspectives must be entertained. Right now, in this
| very moment and in all moments in history, there are
| mainstream ideas that are thought to be absolute truths which
| are brazenly false.
|
| Debate is how you get educated. Nothing else can suffice.
| viro wrote:
| You can't really debate people that think every creditable
| source is mainstream media propaganda. I'm a debate bro ...
| I have decades of first-hand experience -_-
| slg wrote:
| Do you think libel and defamation should be allowed? Those
| are restrictions on speech which rely on their being some
| identifiable truth.
|
| I guess I just don't understand why saying "[individual X]
| is a criminal" is restricted but I can say "everyone in
| [group Y] is a criminal" without repercussion. Why does the
| broadening of the statement make it allowable? It seems
| just as easy to disprove and just as damaging to society.
| loceng wrote:
| "... certain influential figures explicitly manipulate their
| speech in order to primarily amass personal power regardless of
| any second-order effects"
|
| And this would include those currently in power, no? Who want
| to further their ability to put their narrative of choice
| forward - regardless of how truthful - while suppressing any
| counter-narratives, even if true.
| wonderfilled wrote:
| Attacking ideas rather than individuals is a great start.
|
| Censorious actions are, to my eye, attacks on individuals;
| especially when power is transferred/controlled/manipulated
| under the guise of "positive" group think.
|
| Many cliches apply, sweeping under the rug, kicking the can
| down the road, turning a blind eye.
|
| Well-intentioned good faith conversations about integrity,
| accountability and forthrightness are in vogue :)
| throwaway29812 wrote:
| > Attacking ideas rather than individuals is a great start.
|
| That's not how humans treat argumentation
| wonderfilled wrote:
| Username checks out with that type of framing.
|
| update: their emotions were thrown away
| Ambolia wrote:
| >On the other hand, I'm aware that certain influential figures
| explicitly manipulate their speech in order to primarily amass
| personal power regardless of any second-order effects.
|
| This also happens because if there's an explicit or implicit
| ban on addressing those topics and retaining a place in polite
| society, then only people crazy enough to disregard polite
| society will address those topics.
| xenophonf wrote:
| > _This also happens because if there 's an explicit or
| implicit ban on addressing those topics and retaining a place
| in polite society, then only people crazy enough to disregard
| polite society will address those topics._
|
| What topics would those be?
| ben_w wrote:
| By definition, writing down specific current examples would
| be a _terrible_ idea.
|
| Historically, I might suggest the song "God Save the Queen"
| by the Sex Pistols, or the book "Lady Chatterly's Lover",
| or poem "The Love That Dares to Speak Its Name", given the
| effect they had on "polite society".
| olkingcole wrote:
| I think we have to stop thinking "what do we do about these bad
| individuals". Disinformation is a force that is increasingly
| shaping what americans think, which is obviously a big deal in
| a society which has individual choice as its foundation (in
| government, economy, etc). This force is being used by bad
| actors from every corner, within the country and without, and
| has already threatened societal upheaval. It just _can not_ be
| ignored. It will get worse, not better. Forget trump, putin,
| musk, whoever the current individuals are, we need an answer to
| this force.
|
| Now, I am also a believer in your first point. The cure _must
| not_ be worse than the poison. And I don't know what the right
| solution is. But we need one because we are not equipped to
| deal with this. Just a couple days ago a single individual
| bought one of the biggest speech platforms in the world and
| proceeded to post a defamatory conspiracy theory from a "fake
| news" outlet about a political target. The way the world is set
| up right now I think things can really go sideways. And while I
| am sure most people here prides themselves on their ability to
| discern the truth, remember that the electorate is not
| comprised of hacker news users. Thanks
| akira2501 wrote:
| > On the other hand, I'm aware that certain influential figures
| explicitly manipulate their speech in order to primarily amass
| personal power regardless of any second-order effects. E.g.
| cults are horrible, even though people are freely congregating,
| they just feel like they can't leave because of the emotional
| abuse these influential figures are heaping via their speech.
|
| If they're that influential, then what chance do laws limiting
| free speech have at curtailing their efforts? The solution
| seems to be pass laws that only effect the average citizen and
| ignore the obvious differences in scale with these flagged
| "problem cases."
|
| > the loved one of a politician was severely injured because of
| someone who believes the incorrect speech of influential
| figures
|
| Is there actual evidence of that? I mean, which exact
| "influential figures" lead to this crime? What writing of
| theirs were the most provocative to this individual? What
| should we be considering when examining this situation? Is
| there anything other than vague accusations?
|
| > So what's to be done about the actual, real harm being done,
| while also protecting free speech? I don't want to assume that
| assaulting people is just the cost of free speech.
|
| It seems to me that's exactly what you're doing.. and you've
| not made the connection between free speech and generalized
| harm in anything but a casual way. This makes people
| exceptionally uneasy, you're suggesting that a defined right
| should be curtailed simply because there's an implication in
| one particular notable situation.
|
| And why is this _one_ newsworthy situation being used to spark
| this debate? Doesn't this raise questions of inappropriate
| "influence" itself? Again, we know nothing about this
| individual, yet all kinds of motivations are being ascribed to
| his actions all in service of suggesting that "a little too
| much free speech" might be responsible here.
|
| This entire line of thinking makes my uneasy.
| usernomdeguerre wrote:
| "Is there actual evidence of that? I mean, which exact
| "influential figures" lead to this crime?"
|
| To the former, I imagine this was brought up as an example.
| Whether you think it's the strongest example seems immaterial
| unless you're saying there is no example at all in the
| history of the world?
|
| To the latter, that seems to be the exact purpose of courts
| and lawmaking, no? To take the murky uncertainty of life and
| create a reasonable line of evidence that binds two points
| together. That we, in American society, have decided not to
| draw the line between those two points to see if they
| intersect the same victim is our choice. Unless you believe
| no ones words are influential in any context?
| akira2501 wrote:
| > To the former, I imagine this was brought up as an
| example.
|
| So we're to argue with your imagination?
|
| > Whether you think it's the strongest example seems
| immaterial unless you're saying there is no example at all
| in the history of the world?
|
| I'm saying you're implying things without any proof. I
| think you should have proof before you consider depriving
| people of their rights.
|
| > To the latter, that seems to be the exact purpose of
| courts and lawmaking, no?
|
| Precisely. If you break the law, you are charged with a
| crime. If you were incited to do so, that person will be
| charged with a crime. So.. what reason is there to restrain
| free speech?
|
| > Unless you believe no ones words are influential in any
| context?
|
| I don't believe prior restraint will solve your problem,
| and other than these vague assertions, you've provided no
| concrete argument as to how they will.
| usernomdeguerre wrote:
| "So we're to argue with your imagination?"
|
| To be clear, not my imagination as i'm not the original
| poster. Nor anyone's imagination since the act of
| violence did, in fact, occur. A poor choice of words, on
| my part.
| marmadukester39 wrote:
| Its not the free speech. Its the free reach that creates the
| issue.
| dane-pgp wrote:
| What are you proposing exactly? I'm trying to steelman your
| position, but the best I can come up with is "Only the rich
| should be able to spread their opinions (which are
| obviously correct, since they are successful)" and "You can
| have your free speech in your designated free speech zone
| (which has bars on the outside, and is surrounded by armed
| guards)".
| marmadukester39 wrote:
| This is a clear false dichotomy. The platforms that
| monetize outrage and disinformation by rewarding it with
| free reach are at issue here. As to solutions - The only
| way to filter the volume of information reaching us into
| meaningful, useful, true narratives is through trusted
| filters that prioritize attempting to be truthful and
| operate in good faith over time. Fact checking creates a
| history of this which should feature into algorithms.
| This is not to say that people are prevented from
| speaking, but amplification should come with
| responsibility.
|
| Trust in the facts of reality can only really be
| established as a chain - this is how the sciences work.
| That's why independent experimental verification of
| results is so important. In the information ecosystem,
| fact checkers perform this function. We should establish
| structural means of support for these functions.
| [deleted]
| freejazz wrote:
| "So what's to be done about the actual, real harm being done,
| while also protecting free speech? I don't want to assume that
| assaulting people is just the cost of free speech. That just
| seems so wrong to me."
|
| More speech.
| ryandrake wrote:
| "More speech" works when the number of voices is limited to
| an actual number of people. The truth would
| eventually/inevitably drown out the conspiracies and
| disinformation. Now, with bots and social media's algorithmic
| amplification, the "amount of speech" a single person can
| contribute is unbounded, and bad actors are weaponizing the
| unlimited nature of speech to drown out the truth.
|
| "More speech" is too simplistic to work in the modern world.
| neurobot123 wrote:
| acdha wrote:
| I strongly agree, also with the factor of energy and
| rewards: many of the people spreading disinformation have
| MUCH greater appetite for spreading it, even if it's not
| actually their job, than normal people do for debunking it.
| There's a burnout problem, especially when the volume of
| noise overwhelms the rewarding aspects of using a
| particular forum -- less of a Gish Gallop than a Gish
| Stampede now.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| The proper remedy to incorrect speech is not violence, from
| either state or non-state actors. It's more correct speech.
| xenadu02 wrote:
| This all comes down to the "Gish Gallop" problem. It is easy
| to vomit out disinformation and lies. Anyone attempting to
| poison the well can do so much faster than you can refute
| their lies with facts and well-reasoned argument.
|
| When the other party is acting in bad faith all it takes is
| some money and time to subvert platforms with paid shills
| that all network with each other and mix disinfo into
| seemingly normal content streams. This allows the shills to
| build credibility.
|
| Good luck dealing with that. You can reply with all the well-
| reasoned arguments you want but when 500 of the shill's
| friends bury your reply (and mass-report you) no one will see
| your message so correctness becomes a moot point... not that
| people have enough free time to read and consider every well-
| reasoned argument when they come across an issue to begin
| with. If you tried that you'd need more than 24 hours in a
| day.
| naravara wrote:
| What if bots and nations state actors can flood the platform
| with so much incorrect speech that correct speech cannot be
| heard?
| at-fates-hands wrote:
| Then who decides what is incorrect and correct speech? In
| the highly charged partisan climate, we saw how that turned
| out in the last two elections.
| [deleted]
| ben_w wrote:
| If we knew which speech was correct from its content
| alone, we wouldn't need freedom of speech.
|
| However, naravara started the comment with:
|
| > What if bots and nations state actors can flood the
| platform...
|
| Which is much easier to deal with.
| themitigating wrote:
| There's a difference between opinions and facts.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| How would that work?
|
| Most platforms I think let you follow specific accounts,
| and noise from other accounts shouldn't matter (unless it's
| enough to DDOS the system).
| Georgelemental wrote:
| > the loved one of a politician was severely injured because of
| someone who believes the incorrect speech of influential
| figures
|
| I don't believe a motive has been established in the Paul
| Pelosi case?
| 8note wrote:
| I think it's an evolution of criminal conspiracy, where the
| head conspirators avoid legal culpability for the crime.
|
| Conspiracy is already illegal, despite going against free
| speech, so making updates to conspiracy laws to handle these
| cases is the best path forward
| goatcode wrote:
| Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| Is concern about free speech really the right concern? The
| right concern to me is the lack of critical thinking skills
| that lead to being swayed by rhetoric. Policing free speech is
| not the answer, because it will certainly lead to suppression
| of legitimate speech.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| But critical thinking is genetic:
| https://philpapers.org/rec/SCHPBJ
| kvathupo wrote:
| As someone who supported Biden at the time of his withdrawal
| from Afghanistan, I think it's unreasonable to equate criticism
| of his Afghanistan withdrawal (one area of "inaccurate
| information" DHS was targeting) to the promotion of cults and
| political violence. Even so, if an individual goes so far as to
| ignore Occam's razor as to ascribe to QAnon, then I'm certain
| that such a nut-job would flock to other, equally ridiculous,
| conspiracy theories. Furthermore, our government can be wrong,
| e.g. Powell's disastrous UN speech that ignored the State
| Department's own intelligence [1].
|
| At a fundamental level, one must ask why people are attacking
| 5G towers, storming the Capitol, and calling for violence
| against politicians: they believe their voices are not being
| heard. Censorship and banishment to alt-tech platforms only
| reinforces that belief.
|
| To use the words of Scalia in "R.A.V. v. City of St. Paul", I
| believe the government "has sufficient means at its disposal to
| prevent such behavior without adding the First Amendment to the
| fire" [2].
|
| [1] - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/oct/18/colin-
| powell...
|
| [2] - [PDF]
| https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/505/377/case.pdf
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| This is the idea of the "boxes of freedom." The soapbox, the
| ballot box, the jury box, and the ammo box. Depriving people
| of one encourages them to turn to the others.
|
| There is a part of the US population that feels deprived of
| all but the last box currently: big tech censorship of their
| ideas, beliefs in a stolen election, and belief in a rigged
| justice system (thanks in no small part to Merrick Garland's
| actions). It doesn't matter if they are right. All that
| matters is how they feel about it. If you combine that with
| the rising cost of food and shelter, you get the recipe for a
| violent revolution.
| x86_64Ubuntu wrote:
| It has nothing to do with their voices being heard, they are
| upset at the demographic window that is closing on them, and
| are lashing out at democracy to institute minority rule.
| There are groups in the US that have historically not had
| their voices heard, and they don't look anything like folks
| storming the capital with confederate flags.
| Amezarak wrote:
| The "demographic window" created by policies that none of
| said people voted for?
| ben_w wrote:
| The reason I value freedom of speech is the same reason I am
| not an absolutist: it is a power to trigger changes, and while
| all improvements are changes, so are all declines.
|
| As with all other laws, my personal preference is the maximum
| possible liberty that doesn't allow people the liberty to
| remove other people's liberty.
|
| Unfortunately, that's a soundbite and not a well-defined policy
| position, and I don't know how to generate the latter from the
| former.
| rrradical wrote:
| I don't think anyone has a perfect answer to this question, but
| I'd prefer we invest in education. My english class, many years
| ago, tried to teach us how to identify whether a website
| contained useful information. I thought it was helpful.
| luckylion wrote:
| I think it comes down to the question that everyone working on
| tools has to answer: is the good that it can bring worth the
| potential for evil that it can also be used for? TOR says yes,
| and they develop it even though terrible people can use it to
| hide their tracks, because it also allows nice people to hide
| their tracks so terrible people can't see what they're doing.
|
| I do believe that free speech is so incredibly beneficial that
| it's always worth having, even if that means accepting cults,
| celebrities, politicians etc preying on the weak.
| munificent wrote:
| The model I apply to, basically, everything about the past
| twenty years, is to compare it to the Industrial Revolution. I
| believe we're in the midst of the Information Revolution now
| and while history doesn't map to the present 1-1, it comes
| pretty close.
|
| Prior to the Industrial Revolution, there was relatively little
| policing of the natural environment. Aside from property laws,
| once you were out in nature you could basically do what you
| wanted. That worked tolerably well, because the scale of what a
| single person could do to that shared environment was
| relatively limited.
|
| But with industrialization came massive force multipliers. A
| single company could cause absolutely devastating pollution to
| the environment. They could reap all of the rewards while
| foisting all of the externalities onto everyone else.
|
| I believe we're now in an era where we have to think of the
| information environment that we live in as a precious commons
| shared by us all. We still absolutely must have freedom of
| speech--everyone should have an inalienable right to visit and
| participate in that information environment. At the same time,
| no one should have an unbounded right to cause large-scale
| pollution that environment in ways that harm others, which is
| exactly what disinformation is.
|
| Good laws are rarely all or nothing. We need legislation that
| balances individual rights and collective rights.
| d23 wrote:
| I wish HN had a way to bubble up or highlight comments from
| particular people on an opt-in basis. Your comments are
| always insightful and high quality.
| eternalban wrote:
| Just charge for tweets and posts, & like everything else the
| rich will do as they please and the rest of us will obey the
| law. I'm pretty sure that arrangement will quickly put an end
| to fears of "disinformation!"
|
| > to cause large-scale pollution
|
| Be Exxon and have expensive lawyers and you'll be fine.
|
| https://darrp.noaa.gov/oil-spills/exxon-valdez
|
| https://corporate.exxonmobil.com/News/Newsroom/News-
| releases...
|
| p.s.
|
| Looked at from another angle, I guess I'm proposing a thought
| experiment:
|
| Imagine if only billionaires, celebrities, or "papers of
| record" were permitted to opine. Would we be discussing the
| problem of disinformation and how to institutionally address
| it using police powers?
| digdugdirk wrote:
| There actually was another Information Revolution we can draw
| historical comparisons to - the printing press. The Lutheran
| Church is a direct outcome from that, as were some much more
| interesting and exciting events - check out Dan Carlin's
| Hardcore History for an entertaining overview.
|
| https://www.dancarlin.com/product/hardcore-
| history-48-prophe...
| lackbeard wrote:
| Luther posted his Ninety-five Theses, but they were removed
| by the Roman Catholic Church because they determined it
| violated their community guidelines.
| Floegipoky wrote:
| This is actually a great comparison, and we can look at the
| proliferation of anti-witchcraft propaganda leading to the
| brutal murders of thousands of women and queer people for a
| prototypical example of the very real damage caused by
| disinformation.
| Thorentis wrote:
| > and queer people
|
| Got a source for this?
| dylan604 wrote:
| persecution of non-straight people is not new. are you
| wanting a source for linking queer and witchcraft
| specifically as one, as I'm not sure that's what the GP
| was intended even if the wording leans that way.
| MonkeyClub wrote:
| IMHO queer there meant non-conforming ("weird"), which
| would make sense: eccentric-looking people would draw the
| label of witchcraft.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| It's hard to see what else might have been intended,
| since this phrase seems to be linked to the "anti-
| witchcraft propaganda" phrase, with nothing else dangling
| there to apply it to.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| I'd also like to point out that vegans, too, have been
| persecuted ever since the stone age, all because of anti-
| vegan propaganda drawn on the walls of cro-magnon.
| dendrite9 wrote:
| I listened to a discussion last winter about
| misinformation, rumors, and figuring out how to deal with
| them as a society. One of the people involved made a
| comment along the lines of "when he thinks about the
| internet he remembers that the invention of the printing
| press was followed by 200 years of religious upheaval and
| wars." That made an impression on me, it seems like such a
| hard problem to think about well. I've seen that moderation
| is something that is very difficult to scale beyond a
| relatively small group of both consumers and moderators.
| tbrownaw wrote:
| > _We still absolutely must have freedom of speech--everyone
| should have an inalienable right to visit and participate in
| that information environment. At the same time, no one should
| have an unbounded right to cause large-scale pollution that
| environment in ways that harm others, which is exactly what
| disinformation is._
|
| This is contradictory.
|
| > _We need legislation that balances individual rights and
| collective rights._
|
| Maybe something like, you can't force someone to stop and pay
| attention to you if they don't want to? Or maybe letting
| people sue anyone who spreads damaging lies about them?
| govg wrote:
| It isn't in the parallel they are drawing - right now you
| have free permission to visit public property and forests
| and national parks but you still can't cause harm to others
| or the property (set fires). So while there is personal
| freedom, it is not at the cost of other people's freedom.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| An old idea that internet access should require certification
| like a car.
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Flaming hot take: the Internet was better in the past
| because only developed nations had access to it. As soon as
| mobile phones lowered the barrier to entry and BRIC
| countries and the like had easy access to it, the quality
| of everything plummeted. The amount of bad actors that
| flooded into the system was astronomical.
| teddyh wrote:
| When spam started to flood the early internet, it wasn't
| from the BRIC countries.
| WillPostForFood wrote:
| Not blaming BRIC countries here, but the really intense
| spamming started post-early internet. You can see the
| spike up in the early around 2003-4:
|
| https://www.emailtray.com/blog/email-spam-
| trends-2001-2012/
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| It's possible to exist in modern society without a
| drivers's license. I'm not sure the same is true for the
| internet anymore.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Drivers find it quite uncomfortable to be without a car.
| If they don't use internet from birth, they shouldn't
| miss it. Or it can be an internet cafe or ATM/kiosk (for
| a public transport system).
| ben_w wrote:
| Too many institutions now presume internet access for
| that to be true, even here in Germany, despite many of
| the people around me with the meme that German
| bureaucracy is pre-digital.
|
| And I have a driving licence, but have had no need to
| drive since moving to Berlin.
| MonkeyClub wrote:
| > Too many institutions now presume internet access
|
| That should be (more of) a cause for concern, imho.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| ATMs use internet, but don't give too much control to the
| user.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm not talking about ATMs. I'm taking about government
| functions, banking (can't invest shares on an ATM),
| taxation, how to find out which services can be accessed
| where and when, what schedule changes are planned for
| public transport, collecting parcels that have been
| redirected and finding out where they were redirected to,
| doctor appointments, and so on.
|
| Sometimes these things can be done without internet, but
| not always, and the current trend is moving more things
| online-only.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| Pollution is well-defined and easy to detect.
|
| "Information" and "misinformation" is not. The problem of
| "truth" is a philosophical one - how do you know that a
| particular claim is, indeed, true? Very few things in the
| world are directly provable. Even judges and juries get it
| wrong a lot, even when human lives - apparently the most
| valued things in society - are at stake.
|
| Your model has a fatal flaw in its assumption that "the
| truth" is something obvious that we all agree upon. It's not
| - it's subjective and complicated.
| govg wrote:
| Pollution is well defined and easy to detect precisely
| because we have centuries of experience studying the
| effects of pollution on the environment. And even then we
| learn new things and have to revise opinions on what we
| define as "pollution" and what not. See the history of
| Asbestos, or of CFCs for examples of things we didn't think
| of as "polluting" initially or assumed the tradeoffs were
| worth it, only to later realize that they aren't.
| CWuestefeld wrote:
| We've been trying to find ways to discover truth for much
| much longer than we've been looking for pollution. I
| think consensus is that there are some things that are
| unprovable - e.g., the existence of a god. We know with a
| high degree of certainty, thanks to Kurt Godel and
| others, that there are things that cannot be proven.
| bheadmaster wrote:
| > Pollution is well defined and easy to detect precisely
| because we have centuries of experience studying the
| effects of pollution on the environment
|
| We also have centuries (even millennia) of experience
| studying the truth. Yet the problem of truth is still as
| hard as always. I don't see how could any amount of
| experience solve such fundamental problems.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Those examples indicate that even pollution isn't so
| well-defined.
|
| What about nutrient pollution? It requires a bit of
| philosophical nuance to conclude that nitrogen runoff,
| say, is a pollutant.
| Amezarak wrote:
| There is nothing new about this. Mobs, riots, and mass unrest
| have occurred as a result of rumors, conspiracies, and
| "disinformation" since the beginning of human civilization.
|
| It was a major concern during the Constitutional Convention
| that:
|
| > _In Massts. it had been fully confirmed by experience that
| they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and
| opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men._
|
| What's different is we're coming out of a time when a very
| small class of people had near-total functional control (or
| so they thought) over mainstream media, so there were huge
| swaths of people they really had no experience of. Now these
| people are @ing them on Twitter. And seeing these people out
| there makes them very, very uncomfortable.
|
| The arguments you're making are not new arguments. They're
| the exact same arguments made by authoritarian regimes for
| millenia. From the article:
|
| > In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned
| that the threat of subversive information on social media
| could undermine support for the U.S. government.
|
| The problem is dissent. Much of the government is run and
| controlled by a class of people whose beliefs and values are
| becoming increasingly divorced from other segments of the
| population. And rather than re-adjusting their policies and
| goals in line with a democratic consensus, they want to stay
| their course and tighten control of speech and even thought
| in the name of social order and harmony. None of this is new
| at all.
|
| 200 years ago, everyone had about the same power to reach
| people. Oh, sure, it was easier the richer you were, but the
| difference was not dramatic and wealth inequality was not as
| dramatic a factor. Then in the 20th to early 21st centuries,
| broadcast television and media consolidation put a lot of
| one-way power into the hands of a very small set of hands.
| Now everyone is on the same playing field once again.
| awb wrote:
| > We need legislation that balances individual rights and
| collective rights.
|
| What about a private sector solution?
|
| We consider Michelin stars to be indicative of exceptional
| food. You can still get amazing food outside of their
| reviewed restaurants, but to be included in their list you
| need to pass a pretty thorough anonymous inspection over
| time.
|
| It could be at an individual reporter level or a publication
| level and reviewed using a set of public, transparent
| criteria.
|
| It would be far from perfect, but a bottom up review is
| definitely better than any top down censorship.
| robocat wrote:
| > What about a private sector solution?
|
| We have some prototypes: moderation systems (HN), peer
| review (science publications), Wikipedia, and perhaps even
| TikTok?
|
| All of those systems have their virtues and problems.
| ben_w wrote:
| I think the private sector solution is currently being
| applied to junk mail, and the Republican party is suing
| Google over this?
|
| In general, even if it works, it risks becoming captured by
| the same interests as direct government censorship.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| The solution to junk mail is aliases as SimpleLogin does.
| What Google does is rent seeking.
| ben_w wrote:
| I see you've never run an email provider.
|
| Back when I was at university, 18 years ago, they told me
| their filters were blocking a thousand messages per day
| per student.
|
| At my current workplace, scammers guessed my email
| address in the first month.
|
| "Aliases" is a solution to neither of these situations.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| >it risks becoming captured by the same interests as
| direct government censorship
|
| It already is.
|
| >At least 51 senior officials worked with Facebook,
| Microsoft, Amazon, Apple or Google.
|
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/ericfan/2022/03/07/beltway-
| big-...
| ben_w wrote:
| That's neither necessary nor sufficient for government
| capture.
|
| It's also the wrong direction, as those are going _from_
| Big Tech _to_ the government.
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| The capture and revolving door definitely goes both ways.
|
| Although my comment may not be sufficient to prove
| anything, there's a lot to explore with this topic. For
| instance, here's an example in the other direction:
|
| >more than 80 former Schumer staffers have gone on to
| subsequently work at the Big Tech firms. And Schumer's
| two daughters have also both worked directly for Big Tech
| --one for Amazon, and one for Facebook subsidiary
| Instagram.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/why-chuck-schumer-trying-stop-
| antit...
|
| This article is only about the one direction, but you can
| be sure the revolving door goes both ways in big-tech.
| Just look at all the ex-NATO officers currently wor
| JasserInicide wrote:
| Everything that has transpired over the past ~30 years with
| the big tech companies should have shown you that the
| private sector does not give a shit about our individual
| rights.
| brnaftr361 wrote:
| The problem _is_ the law, the nation, the state. That is the
| _exclusive_ attack surface. It has nothing to do with
| information.
| dporter wrote:
| > On a third hand, the loved one of a politician was severely
| injured because of someone who believes the incorrect speech of
| influential figures and I desperately do not want further
| injury or violence to occur spurned by incorrect speech on the
| facts of reality.
|
| If the loved one of a politician was severely injured because
| of a drunk driver should alcohol be banned? What if the person
| injured isn't related to a politician?
| Brian_K_White wrote:
| "should alcohol be banned?"
|
| Or cars. Or roads. Or hammers. Or any other ingredient in the
| process.
|
| Useful tools like speech and hammers are equally useful for
| anyone and for any purpose. Fire, electricity, sharp saw
| blades, the wheel, money, intelligence, good looks,
| encryption, math, can all be used for good or bad, and there
| is no way to change that and seperate the utility into only
| utility for good.
|
| It's misguided to try to address the misuse of a tool by
| controlling the tool instead of the weilder.
|
| It just becomes a little easier to pick on something like
| alcohol or guns because you can say they "obviously duh"
| aren't useful tools or necessities like vehicles or
| electricity, so it's ok to act like they are somehow less
| inanimate or neutral or useful than other random equally
| special purpose things, and easier to evoke emotional
| reactions about them whether from puritanism or fear, than
| say, paint thinner or construction tools. And most people
| will buy that more than any academic arguments, and numbers
| matter more than academic reason.
|
| So we control speech. And on private platforms, which is all
| platforms, they can. And only the worst a*holes and the
| dopiest hippies complain about it.
| mullen wrote:
| > If the loved one of a politician was severely injured
| because of a drunk driver should alcohol be banned?
|
| Bad example. We do limit the consumption of Alcohol and also
| Driving because of the possibility of Drunk Drivers.
| dporter wrote:
| I do not think it is a bad example though. Breaking into
| someone's house and assaulting them with a hammer is
| already illegal.
| capitalsigma wrote:
| Drunk driving is correctly banned, yes.
|
| I think the significance of the fact that it was a
| politician's relative is that it suggests that this is part
| of a larger pattern. I think it would be similar if you had a
| politician calling for violence against an ethnic group that
| resulted in actual violence; that seems like a good reason
| for restrictions to me.
| dporter wrote:
| I wasn't aware this was part of a larger pattern of
| assaults on politicians in the US. Link?
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| Or just advertising for inebreating products?
| reillyse wrote:
| We have many curbs on alcohol. Many to prevent situations
| like you describe. Maybe it is responsible to also limit
| speech especially when it can cause harm.
| dporter wrote:
| Breaking into someone's house and assaulting them with a
| hammer is already illegal. This is also an isolated
| incident and not a pattern of behavior.
| Avicebron wrote:
| Aside from this particular assault which obviously is harm
| and curbing assault in general should be a priority. How
| does one distinguish preemptively which speech will cause
| harm and in what form such that it can be mitigated?
| reillyse wrote:
| That is an interesting point. But maybe we don't even
| need to preemptively define harmful speech. You could
| just say people are responsible for what they say and if
| somebody then harms someone based on what you said (and
| it was untrue), you have responsibility.
|
| It would certainly reduce the chance people would say
| unsubstantiated and harmful things if it was enforced.
| Avicebron wrote:
| I think I agree on principle, but I think in
| implementation this becomes particularly difficult. To
| use a silly example, if two people are having ramen at
| shop and person A says, "oh man, I think this ramen is
| making me sick" and person B, feeling that their friend A
| has been hurt by the ramen maker hucks a brick at the
| ramen shop window late at night and is caught. Where does
| the blame start and stop, the person who said it? The
| person who interpreted it and acted in a way they thought
| was justifiable (for whatever internal reason)? I think
| the issue with speech, especially mass broadcasted speech
| is that there are two "rational" parties involved.
| reillyse wrote:
| I hear what you are saying. I think this class of problem
| is one that the legal profession have solved mostly .
| Their solution is the "reasonable person" test. Would a
| mythical "reasonable person" believe what the person
| said.
|
| Btw we aren't discussing what an unreasonable person
| might do with that information, just whether or not a
| reasonable person might believe what has been said or
| understand it a certain way.
|
| We can definitely solve for the egregious cases though
| and we can solve those before getting too hung up on the
| tough ones in the middle.
|
| And just to be clear. You are always permitted to say
| true things. It's only when you say false things that we
| need these curbs. What I'm really talking about is
| curbing "false speech".
| bluescrn wrote:
| Who do you trust to define 'harm'?
|
| I certainly don't trust governments, whether they lean left
| or right, as they all have heavy biases and big money
| influencing decision making.
| reillyse wrote:
| Step one, get rid of the money in politics. Step two,
| solve people's problems.
| trs8080 wrote:
| No, but if that drunk driver was driving drunk and targeting
| the loved one of a politician because someone else incited
| them by outright lying, then maybe you'd have something to
| discuss here.
| chasd00 wrote:
| I was hoping youtube and facebook falling on their faces trying
| to implement censorship during the pandemic would make it clear
| the practice is a non-starter.
|
| Why do people cling to this notion of censorship being a good
| thing? I feel like it's an attempt at a power grab with "won't
| someone please think of the children!" as the justification to
| the masses.
| phpisthebest wrote:
| They only cling to it when their tribe is perceived to be in
| power
|
| Twitter is a prime example of this, before Elon the mantra
| was "meh private company can do what it wants" the second the
| people that followed that mantra perceived their tribe as
| losing power over the platform that changed so fast that
| people got whiplash now twitter is a threat to everything
| from the foundation of democracy to national security.
| Amezarak wrote:
| The article makes it very clear what the motivation for this
| is:
|
| > In a March meeting, Laura Dehmlow, an FBI official, warned
| that the threat of subversive information on social media
| could undermine support for the U.S. government.
|
| As the people running the US government - particularly the
| democratically unaccountable set - become increasingly
| divorced in their values and beliefs from a a large segment
| of the population, they become increasingly obsessed with
| control of the Other, which by its very nature appears
| subversive.
|
| This doesn't end well for any of us.
|
| It's interesting to see people see the exact same arguments
| people have made for centuries, always in service of the
| existing status structure. "Misinformation" and
| "disinformation" aren't new. Twitter didn't radically change
| the world. If anything, we have returned to the pre-20th
| century environment, where rumors and conspiracies led to
| mobs, riots, and all kinds of civil unrest. It was a major
| concern of people in the Constitutional Convention that
| "designing men" would use misinformation to rile up the
| people to take over the government.
|
| > In Massts. it had been fully confirmed by experience that
| they are daily misled into the most baneful measures and
| opinions by the false reports circulated by designing men.
|
| Truly, there is nothing new under the sun.
|
| What's "different" now in the so-called Information Age is
| that the brief era of a small class of people having near
| total control over what is published has ended. And they
| really, really don't like it.
| decremental wrote:
| I think it's coming out that the guy who bonked Paul Pelosi was
| his gay lover so don't be too quick to assume it was from
| misinformation. But also, let's be real, the Pelosis are more
| than capable of attracting sufficient ire without anyone
| needing to lie about them.
| themitigating wrote:
| Do you have a source for that?
|
| "I think it's coming out" what does this mean? You've seen
| rumors and assume they are true or that evidence is coming
| soon?
| YeahNO wrote:
| This discredited story began on a conspiracy website, was
| repeated by Republican candidate(s), Elon Musk (since
| deleted), and other conspiracy nutters. It has no traction as
| it doesn't appear to be based in truth, any more than the
| false story of Democrats running a pedophile ring out of the
| basement of a pizza restaurant in a slab-on-grade building.
| Conspiracy theories used to seem harmless before the internet
| was spreading them far and wide, but more and more, these
| stories are encouraging (generating?) stochastic terrorism.
| lazide wrote:
| 'Those who would trade away their liberty in exchange for
| safety will have neither'
| pfarrell wrote:
| The actual quote from Benjamin Franklin is
| Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a
| little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
| slg wrote:
| And it doesn't mean what people often claim it means. He
| was speaking literally. William Penn's family was trying to
| buy off the state legislature with a one time payment for
| military defense in exchange for the state legislature
| conceding more power to the Penns. It wasn't about some
| abstract liberty like privacy or safety against something
| abstract like terrorism. It was Franklin judging a specific
| political offer to help the legislature fight a war in
| exchange for giving up some rights to self-governance.
| mw888 wrote:
| Oh right, because people don't get assaulted in places where
| free speech doesn't exist. It's totally the free speech that is
| causing the violence and not anything specific to any
| circumstance of violence or some other general state. /s
| chasd00 wrote:
| yeah i'm a little confused. Assault is illegal no matter what
| you've been told. You could be grossly misinformed yet when
| you assault someone you're breaking the law. The point is,
| don't assault someone because it is illegal and you'll goto
| jail for it. Now if you're so mentally ill that the law
| doesn't matter anyway then i don't see how information, bad
| or otherwise, makes any difference.
| dpatru wrote:
| A mistake that I've made before, that I think is quite common,
| is to assume government will enforce laws the way I would.
| Regarding speech, because I am a person of good will,
| tolerance, and open-mindedness, I assume government will
| enforce the law this way. This is a grave mistake. The people
| who would seek out jobs in which they can control other
| people's speech are exactly the sort of people who should not
| be given that power.
|
| Even if the actual enforcers of speech law were honest, they
| would never be allowed to enforce the law where it is most
| needed, namely government itself. Wars are usually supported
| with lies. [1] [2] Will speech laws be used to punish
| government officials who lie the country into war? I think not.
| Instead, such laws will be used to protect powerful people,
| especially people in government. For example, in Citizen's
| United, a case that Democrats still criticize, the government
| was prosecuting the members of a small non-profit with felonies
| for publishing a 90-minute documentary critical of then Senator
| Hillary Clinton. [3]
|
| [1] https://militaryhistorynow.com/2015/07/15/damned-lies-
| nine-w... [2] https://www.europereloaded.com/false-flags-and-
| the-american-... [3] https://www.oyez.org/cases/2008/08-205
| a123b456c wrote:
| Could there be a commercial or nonprofit media platform that
| licenses users before they're allowed to post, and revokes the
| privilege if they abuse it?
| zmgsabst wrote:
| xcrunner529 wrote:
| encryptluks2 wrote:
| Censorship isn't about doing what is right. It is about
| promoting authoritarian ideas to maintain status quo. It is
| an abuse tactic that decides for you what is right and wrong
| and doesn't give you a choice.
| la64710 wrote:
| If someone yells FIRE without a real FIRE in a crowded town
| hall that causes a stampede resulting in death or injury - I
| guess it is ground for bringing criminal charges against the
| original yeller.
|
| I don't see what is so hard to understand here. We already have
| the legal clarity , they just needs to be implemented
| diligently.
| musingsole wrote:
| > I don't see what is so hard to understand here. We already
| have the legal clarity , they just needs to be implemented
| diligently.
|
| Then read between the lines and recognize the public in
| general has moved away from recognition/acceptance of the
| rules as written and now all the mobs are demanding speech
| they don't like be restricted by powers on high.
| nickff wrote:
| The hypothetical you're using has a long and troubled
| history, if you're in favor of restrictions on speech, I
| suggest you use a different one.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shouting_fire_in_a_crowded_the.
| ..
| la64710 wrote:
| Ok fine I rephrase :
|
| If someone *falsely* yells FIRE without a real FIRE in a
| crowded town hall that causes a stampede resulting in death
| or injury - I guess it is ground for bringing criminal
| charges against the original yeller.
|
| But my point is since it is clearly defined legally do we
| have to really over analyze it to the point of inducing
| paralysis?
| runnerup wrote:
| Any suggestions to help steel-man this?
| janalsncm wrote:
| The current legal standard for 1A protection is "imminent
| lawless action" from Brandenburg v Ohio. Shouting fire is
| from an old standard "clear and present danger". You can
| look at their respective wiki pages for details and
| definitions.
|
| The history of Free Speech in the US is pretty
| interesting. The kinds of things that are acceptable
| today would get you thrown in prison 100 years ago (for
| example, handing out anti war pamphlets) and are more
| akin to the kinds of things Americans look down on other
| countries for criminalizing.
| la64710 wrote:
| Nothing is set on stone and to accommodate changing times
| and values there should be a reasonable pathway to
| change.
| foldr wrote:
| I'd like to see some better sourcing for this. The
| Wikipedia article, bizarrely, claims that shouting 'fire!'
| in a crowded theatre (and thereby causing a stampede or
| some other awful consequence) is actually protected by the
| First Amendment in the US. However, the only source it
| gives for this claim is a Reason article.
|
| _Edit:_ See here for a more nuanced perspective:
| https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/627134/is-it-illegal-
| to-...
|
| _Shouting "Bomb!" or "Gun!" in public would put you in a
| similar situation. In May 2018, for example, officials had
| to evacuate part of Daytona Beach International Airport
| after a man ran naked through the building screaming about
| a bomb in the women's bathroom. There was no bomb, but he
| was charged with "false report of a bomb," "criminal
| mischief," and "exposure of sexual organs," among other
| things. In that case, no self-respecting lawyer would
| advise him to claim his actions were protected by the First
| Amendment._
| johng wrote:
| The speech is protected but you are not protected from
| the consequences it causes if you use it wrongly.
| foldr wrote:
| Yes - that is exactly the point of the analogy. Compare
| for example political speech, which _can_ also have
| terrible consequences, but where it would be an obvious
| violation of the First Amendment to (e.g.) prosecute an
| economist for the terrible consequences of their economic
| ideas.
| SkyBelow wrote:
| What does it mean for speech to be protected if not
| meaning to be protected from the consequences? Could I
| not say one is free to murder but one is not protected
| from the consequences of murder? I think we can break
| down government and non-government consequences, but
| given the previous discussions in the chain were on
| legality I think the discussion is already focused on
| government consequences. As a side note I think the non-
| government consequences can then be broken down further
| to legal and illegal actions, with the idea the only
| consequences you aren't protected from are the legal non-
| government consequences.
| janalsncm wrote:
| It means 1A isn't a defense for that action if you are
| prosecuted for it.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| You remind me of a dark joke from late Communist
| Czechoslovakia that said "The Czechoslovak Constitution
| guarantees freedom of speech, but not freedom _after_
| speech. "
| zerocrates wrote:
| Yeah so, the anti-"fire in a crowded theater" people are
| right, in the sense that the analogy was dicta in an
| overturned case whose actual "clear and present danger"
| test is no longer the standard (specifically, the case
| held that handing out flyers protesting the draft for
| World War I was not speech protected by the First
| Amendment, a laughable proposition today).
|
| The replacement standard instead excludes protection for
| speech that is both "directed to" and "likely to" "incite
| or produce imminent lawless action," and these things are
| construed quite narrowly.
|
| So: it's a bad analogy that was never the actual legal
| test, doesn't match the current test, and references an
| overturned case. But that doesn't mean it's actually
| _legal_ to knowingly falsely shout "fire" in a crowded
| theater intending to cause a panicked stampede (though
| note there's more detail about intent and knowledge given
| there, and there would be other questions).
|
| To a certain extent, trying to stop people referencing
| this really doesn't matter, though. If you got all the
| country's internet commentators to talk about "incitement
| to imminent lawless action" instead, they'd be in all
| likelihood deploying that phrase in the same places they
| currently use "fire in a crowded theater" or "clear and
| present danger." Eliminating this one analogy isn't
| really going to move the needle on people's understanding
| of what the First Amendment protects, but the phrase is
| both enduringly popular and a bugbear of the kind of
| people who care about this stuff, so the arguments and
| corrections will continue.
| remarkEon wrote:
| You can just go to the text of the Opinion.[1]
|
| >The line between what is permissible and not subject to
| control and what may be made impermissible and subject to
| regulation is the line between ideas and overt acts.
|
| >The example usually given by those who would punish
| speech is the case of one who falsely shouts fire in a
| crowded theatre.
|
| >This is, however, a classic case where speech is
| brigaded with action. See Speiser v. Randall, 357 U.S.
| 513, 536--537, 78 S.Ct. 1332, 1346, 2 L.Ed.2d 1460
| (Douglas, J., concurring.) They are indeed inseparable
| and a prosecution can be launched for the overt acts
| actually caused. Apart from rare instances of that kind,
| speech is, I think, immune from prosecution. Certainly
| there is no constitutional line between advocacy of
| abstract ideas as in Yates and advocacy of political
| action as in Scales. The quality of advocacy turns on the
| depth of the conviction; and government has no power to
| invade that sanctuary of belief and conscience.
|
| [1] https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/395/444
| foldr wrote:
| The part you quote appears to say that it would be
| permissible to prosecute someone for the consequences of
| deliberately shouting 'fire!' when they knew that there
| was no fire (because it's one of the rare cases where
| speech is 'brigaded with action').
|
| In other words, the court rejected the applicability of
| the analogy to the case at hand. They didn't draw the
| conclusion that deliberately causing stampedes in
| theaters is protected by the First Amendment.
| remarkEon wrote:
| Right, that's my interpretation as well. I think the real
| point is something more simple like "you cannot falsely
| report a fire" (I mean, you can, but you'll get charged
| with a crime). The reference to the theater seems to kind
| of cloud the analogy a lot - and serves to confuse the
| association with free speech generally.
| saurik wrote:
| (This might be useful, though I am not purporting to
| state in which direction.)
|
| https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl
| e=1...
| billiam wrote:
| Um, are you aware that this quote was uttered to justify the
| prosecution of a man for protesting the draft in WWI? And
| that is legal today to shout it as loudly as you want?
| treis wrote:
| The problem is that platforms aren't liable for the damage
| they cause. If the NYTimes makes up some nonsense that gets
| people hurt then they are liable. If some jabroni on Facebook
| does then there's no liability attached to Facebook. Which
| was probably fine for the BBS/message board days. Probably
| not so much when Facebook takes an active role in amplifying
| some messages over others.
| megaman821 wrote:
| If we are going by total harm, mass media is ahead by a
| mile. How many people died because of false claims of
| weapons of mass destruction not properly vetted by
| mainstream media? Over half-a-million. What's the most
| deadly situation social media caused?
| marmadukester39 wrote:
| We _could_ start with the ethnic cleansing:
| https://finance.yahoo.com/news/facebook-frances-haugen-
| whist...
| megaman821 wrote:
| Ok, Google says 2,000 protesters have been killed in
| Myanmar, just 498,000 more until we reach mass media
| levels of death.
|
| Lies by governments amplified by mass media are always
| going to be way more damaging than lies by crackpots on
| social media.
| iaml wrote:
| You can just generate a bunch of legit looking news sites
| and spam it on facebook/whatever. Most people won't check
| and it's not viable for facebook to track every fake news
| site.
| NDizzle wrote:
| Apparently you've never seen/heard Hitchens on free speech?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDap-K6GmL0
| moviewise wrote:
| washadjeffmad wrote:
| By what standards would disinformation be classified and
| exempted? It would have to be 100% public - no discussion or
| decisionmaking in darkness.
|
| Would religion be policed for making unproven claims? Would
| there be any allies of political favorables who could correct
| the record with their version of the truth? Is inconvenient
| information disinformation, as in, will they define
| disinformation as any information disruptive to the status quo
| as able to be proven without revealing state secrets,
| classified information, or restricted media like the
| "collateral damage" video, whether true or false?
|
| Despite CNN and MSNBC being broadcast in Russia and China,
| their news is all but forbidden in the US. How damaged and
| fragile is the US mindset that it can't exist in the presence
| of other ideas?
| themitigating wrote:
| Why did you only mention cnn and msnbc when Russian media has
| been using Foxnews clips of Tucker Carlson to bolster their
| case for the Ukrainian war?
| tjs8rj wrote:
| Bluntly, that's just the cost of freedom. How many people get
| punched in the face for saying something unsavory, yet there is
| no national conversation about curtailing speech?
|
| Why didn't we have that conversation after the Dallas police
| shooting shortly after Obama talking about police violence? Or
| the mass riots spurred on by democrat politicians? Or the Jan
| 6th riots following trumps speech (actually, he got
| deplatformed everywhere following that). Or the congressional
| baseball shooting following Bernie Sander's calling Republicans
| hateful for not passing healthcare bills?
|
| Obviously this attack is unacceptable, but if these other
| instances didn't move people to curtail speech, the fact that
| this relatively minor event does tells me this is more about
| pushing an agenda and putting politicians ahead of freedoms.
|
| As far as I'm concerned in the conversation about the limits of
| free speech, Pelosi is nobody special. Would we curtail speech
| because some random person in Ohio got assaulted for saying
| mean words? Of course not, so why would we do it for some
| powerful politician, who's used speech in just as inciting ways
| as well no less?
|
| To put it plainly: should we curtail freedoms because somebody
| attacked Pelosi? The answer to that is the same as the answer
| to "should we curtail freedoms because speech makes people mad
| sometimes". The way we've answered that as a society in all
| other instances is "no", so the answer remains the same.
| kenjackson wrote:
| Actually there was a lot of discussion about this sort of
| thing after the baseball attack.
|
| But in any case, we can't limit freedom of speech because of
| "unreasonable" implications of speech. Simply saying you hate
| Pelosi, isn't grounds for any reasonable person to think you
| try to kill her with a hammer. But if someone said, "we need
| to kill her" then that is much more prosecutable IMO.
|
| Unfortunately what probably works best to avoid these sorts
| of incidents is critical thinking and common sense. I do
| think the echo chambers on the internet create less of this -
| so these sorts of things will happen more frequently.
| vxNsr wrote:
| How would you feel about this if it were coming from the Trump
| DHS? or if somehow Trump inherits this in 2024? would you still
| be so circumspect or would you be in full disaster meltdown
| mode.
|
| This sort of thing assumes that bad actors don't exist and will
| never get into power... only it turns out bad actors do exist
| and... gasp, they already control many of the reins of power,
| why would you support ceding more control?
| aylmao wrote:
| I'm on the side of free speech on this one. We can't have
| "perfect" security, and policing what people say will be as
| effective towards ending extremism as the war on drugs has been
| towards ending drug use.
|
| The solution to the misinformation is education, critical
| thinking, and depolarization; not criminalization. It's a
| slower process but it's the right one. The more a government
| gives up on educating and trusting the people it represents,
| and tends towards instead treating them like little children
| who can't possibly make decisions on their own, the more that
| population will be become just that-- incapable of making
| decisions on their own. We don't want that to be the case;
| that's dangerous.
| themitigating wrote:
| Republicans don't want schools to teach beyond the core
| subjects and are attacking higher education with unproven
| allegations of liberal indoctrination. In my opinion the
| right is attacking schools because misinformation benefits
| them more since they constantly tell people not to trust the
| government and elect them to drain the swamp.
|
| 1.Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signs a law punishing student
| 'indoctrination' at public universities and threatens budget
| cuts
|
| https://www.businessinsider.com/desantis-signs-law-to-
| punish...
|
| 2. CRT taught in just one university course is a major
| talking point. Another attack on schools
|
| Etc
| addingadimensio wrote:
| abnry wrote:
| ericmay wrote:
| What evidence would you need to show that the person who
| assaulted the Speaker's husband did so because they were
| spurned by "stop the steal", and similar rhetoric?
| markkanof wrote:
| How about any evidence at all?
| Maursault wrote:
| > E.g. cults are horrible, even though people are freely
| congregating, they just feel like they can't leave because of
| the emotional abuse these influential figures are heaping via
| their speech.
|
| Linux is not _a cult._ It 's a holy war spreading across the
| Universe like unquenchable fire.
| perihelions wrote:
| - _" and I desperately do not want further injury or violence
| to occur spurned by incorrect speech on the facts of reality"_
|
| How is that any different from violence inspired by correct
| facts?
|
| Following the logic you're laying out, I don't think it's _the
| defense of truth_ you 're advocating for; it's social harmony
| and stability. Basically the ideals favored in the Chinese
| model -- which censors true things and false things equally,
| depending on their social impact.
| didibus wrote:
| There's a problem of adversarial attack right now.
|
| An adversarial person can flood people with rethoric of
| issues, corruption, crime, against all established political
| powers and institutions, and position themselves as the
| solution to all those ilks.
|
| They can do that by flooding the public square of free
| opinions (the internet), with disinformation, fake data, lies
| of omissions, lack of contextualization, attacking all others
| personally, ridiculing them, etc.
|
| All they have to do is put doubt in people's mind, keep the
| focus on others, and appeal to emotions of more and more
| people slowly.
|
| They can do that because they are free to do it.
|
| Then they can gain the political power from it, and slowly
| replace institutional power with loyalists working for them.
|
| Once they've managed to get enough loyalist in place through
| this method, they can remove the right to free speech and
| take over as a fascist or dictator, or other more
| authoritarian measures.
|
| Then they can continue the same speech they've always been
| pushing as propaganda, even denying the removal, bans,
| jailing, and all that of their opposition, and voila.
|
| This is a pretty straightforward playbook. It's played out
| many times before.
|
| You can call it a soft-coup:
|
| > populists who seek the centralization of power but do so
| under the pretense of improving democracy
|
| At least to me, it's very obvious our system is susceptible
| to this kind of adversarial attack. I don't know the
| solution, you don't want to prevent this attack but enable
| another one in doing so, but it's a huge threat vector and
| I'd hope we recognize it and do something to mitigate it.
| iaml wrote:
| I think it's effective because the message is simple and
| scaled in coordinated fashion. To effectively answer to
| such an attack you need to massively distribute among the
| users refutals to every part of the attack message, with
| reputable sources and it needs to be brief enough so people
| don't lose interest halfway. It could take a form of
| browser extension or a separate site with a dialogue tree
| of sorts where one participant is propaganda bot and the
| other the site user. Then users need to publicly post these
| (i guess you can ask fellas for help?).
| JacobThreeThree wrote:
| >There's a problem of adversarial attack right now.
|
| >An adversarial person can flood people with rethoric of
| issues, corruption, crime, against all established
| political powers and institutions, and position themselves
| as the solution to all those ilks.
|
| Appealing to emotions and attempting to label your
| opponents as corrupt and soft on crime is as old as
| politics itself. Convincing people to vote for you is not a
| soft-coup.
|
| The platforms should be the ones who should decide how
| their algorithms promote information and shouldn't be
| pressured or controlled by whoever the current party is in
| power at that moment. The benchmark should be - would you
| want a Trump DHS with the power to change their censorship
| policies however they liked?
|
| If online speech should be regulated by the government,
| pass legislation, don't backdoor it in a risky and
| unilateral manner through law enforcement.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| I'm afraid entire political system runs on populism. It
| gives them free pass to any idea they want to push.
| drtz wrote:
| Do you truly see no difference between a lie that leads to
| someone getting harmed and a truth that leads to the same
| outcome? Your argument seems disingenuous.
|
| > Following the logic you're laying out, I don't think it's
| the defense of truth you're advocating for; it's social
| harmony and stability. Basically the ideals favored in the
| Chinese model -- which censors true things and false things
| equally, depending on their social impact.
|
| This is a straw man. The original comment made no such
| argument. From the comment you're responding to:
|
| > ... I desperately do not want further injury or violence to
| occur spurned by incorrect speech on the facts of reality.
| GaylordTuring wrote:
| > Do you truly see no difference between a lie that leads
| to someone getting harmed and a truth that leads to the
| same outcome?
|
| Only if the action is justifiable in the first place. Let's
| say someone wants to kill gay people (or people who are
| against vaccines, or people who want to raise taxes); does
| it really matter whether he kills an actual gay person or
| whether he kills a straight person who he mistakenly thinks
| is gay?
| Eleison23 wrote:
| The _Index Librorum Prohibitorum_ was not a bad idea. It
| was scorned and mocked in the 20th century because it had
| become so unwieldy and impractical, based on the widespread
| use of the printing press and other media such as film,
| television, and music.
|
| Now, "truth" is an interesting thing. Ricky Gervais decided
| that the founders of Christianity were the lying liars,
| perhaps because their stories were not concretely,
| verifiably true in every historical detail, and therefore
| Ricky concluded that Christianity is a fabric of lies made
| up to make people feel better or control us or something.
|
| Unfortunately it's Ricky who's got the short end of the
| Truth. Because Truth is more than just facts that are
| printed in a newspaper about the daily police blotter. Once
| you accept that there are higher, more important Truths
| than what you'll find in Wikipedia, we'll all be a lot
| better off. And we can better evaluate those lower-order
| facts and figures for what they really are.
| MonkeyClub wrote:
| Ok you're espousing a view that's fringe on HN and of
| course you were downvoted (not by me), but I'd just like
| to raise a technical point:
|
| The truth of Wikipedia is epistemic, as is the truth of
| theology, and as such it's possible to evaluate them in
| different epistemic systems and draw different
| conclusions.
|
| But capital-t Truth is capitalized to indicate that it is
| an ontological rather epistemological signifier, i.e. a
| name referring to a personal entity.
|
| So technically speaking God is not a higher or lower
| truth, in the sense of the verity of a proposition, as
| you can't compare a person with a fact.
|
| If we start conflating epistemology with ontology,
| then... God help us! We'll end up calling night day, and
| figuratively literally :)
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Some religious people say if there's no god, they will go
| kill all people. Is such truth worth the price?
| Arrath wrote:
| Yes? Civil society cannot allow itself to be held hostage
| by the threats of an unhinged fringe.
| YeahNO wrote:
| If they have to believe in a mythical deity that
| dispenses "justice" post-death in order to quell their
| urges to commit murder, they probably should be treated
| for mental illness or otherwise removed from society, as
| they are a ticking time bomb.
| ben_w wrote:
| If they are sincere, it's very useful to allow them to
| identify themselves by publicly announcing this in
| advance. Much easier to stop them before they get going
| if you know who they are.
| esrauch wrote:
| Violence inspired by disinformation is so drastically
| different than violence inspired by correct information
| though.
|
| If a pizza parlor was actually a pedo ring or a politician
| was actually sacrificing babies (both real examples of widely
| spread and believed misinfo right now) the violence induced
| against the perpetrators would be vigilantism but still
| considered morally defensible to most people due to failure
| to take action from the authorities.
|
| It seem perfectly sensible to say that we apparently have a
| big problem due to people literally shooting up pizza parlors
| over disinformation, and that if someone was shooting up a
| pizza parlor over correct information the situation would be
| different and warrant different responses.
| vxNsr wrote:
| > _It seem perfectly sensible to say that we apparently
| have a big problem due to people literally shooting up
| pizza parlors over disinformation_
|
| This is a perfect example of why this is a bad idea. Thank
| you for being the example. No one shot up a pizza parlor
| due to disinformation. A single concerned citizen brought a
| gun to a pizza shot to ascertain if there was a pedo ring
| being operated in it, after confirming there was not, he
| handed over his gun and not a single shot was fired.
|
| But you honestly believe that to be the case, either
| because it benefits your argument or because someone lied
| to you or because you misinterpreted something you read.
| But you now believe this is the truth and everyone who
| disagrees with that "truth" should be censored.
| etchalon wrote:
| Your comment is such a perfect example of the ouroboros
| of misinformation, it's hard to believe it exists.
| singleshot_ wrote:
| > not a single shot was fired
|
| This is a perfect example of disinformation. According to
| a contemporaneous report by the New York Times, the
| "concerned citizen" (which of course is a strange thing
| to call a criminal, but leaving that aside) illegally
| discharged an AR platform rifle inside the building, in
| order to destroy a lock.
|
| Think about why a person would want you to believe that
| the shooter's actions were perfectly normal or why they
| would want you to believe you misremembered the event.
| gaganyaan wrote:
| What? There were shots fired:
|
| > On December 4, 2016, Edgar Maddison Welch, a 28-year-
| old man from Salisbury, North Carolina, arrived at Comet
| Ping Pong and fired three shots from an AR-15 style rifle
| that struck the restaurant's walls, a desk, and a door.
|
| There's a whole section on Wikipedia:
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pizzagate_conspiracy_theo
| ry
|
| Your response is exactly why people are getting away with
| proposing draconian measures like this. You need to stop
| ingesting and spreading disinformation.
| esrauch wrote:
| I don't understand your point; you think it's just fine
| that people deliberately slandered and lied about a pizza
| place to the extent that someone believed it, went in
| with an AR and fired rounds and that's all fine because
| no one died?
|
| Surely even if you think that was fine, it would have
| been better than fine if the guy did that same thing to a
| pizzeria actually was a pedo ring? My comment was only
| saying that violence induced by outright lies has a
| relevant difference than violence which is a reaction to
| things that actually happened. Those seem clearly
| different even if you think censorship is not a viable or
| correct solution to "violence induced by misinfo".
| arminiusreturns wrote:
| Go read about the Franklin scandal, or the Dutroux scandal
| before you spout things you are sure _aren 't happening_
| (in particular the X-witness reports). Elm house, Kinkora
| in UK. Epstein-Maxwell-Wexner-Mossad, etc, need I go on?
|
| I propose many people pretending to be arbiters of truth
| refuse to acklowledge facts and citations before them.
|
| The mainstream media inspires wars... they don't get held
| to account do they? Why the sudden focus on arbitrary
| standards and funny how they always get applied to those
| that vary outside the approved overton window.
| esrauch wrote:
| Obviously pedophilia exists in the world. There obviously
| should be authorities whose job it is to investigate such
| things. People absolutely need to be able raise
| suspicions to authorities for due investigation.
|
| Pizzagate was not that: half the people repeating it were
| doing it as a meme, were in on the joke. People spread it
| even knowing it is not true.
|
| I don't know what your point about journalists are: it's
| literally journalists deliberately spreading damaging
| misinfo like Alex Jones that need to be held accountable
| here. The DHS isn't able to go after grandma at
| Thanksgiving dinner for saying Clinton drinks baby blood.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I wonder which model the federal government prefers.
| emeraldd wrote:
| Realistically, the federal government (and by definition
| any government) is made up of people with their own self-
| interests. They will favor the style of "censorship" that
| keeps them in power.
| usernomdeguerre wrote:
| I think this is an insightful comment, but i'm not sure its
| merely the Chinese model at play. It's also the purpose of
| courts and lawmaking.
|
| So that the harmony and stability of society can continue;
| and the truth of the matter can be adjudicated (defense or
| offense) in a thorough and thoughtful manner.
|
| Why should we leave this battle to be taken up in the public
| square and threads like this?
| buscoquadnary wrote:
| Truth is truth, the defining feature of truth is it's
| independence of any view point. To suggest it can be
| adjudicated is to imply that there is no longer truth and
| only the power of the weak over the strong.
| usernomdeguerre wrote:
| Truth may be truth, but marshaling it out of the past and
| into the present courtroom is a lossy operation no matter
| what we philosophically believe.
| pfisherman wrote:
| I think the word / concept you are looking for is justice.
|
| Prudent actions are rooted in truth. Where there is not
| prudence there is no justice. Strength and action in the
| absence of justice is tyranny.
| wwweston wrote:
| Violence is better avoided. Most people also believe violence
| is situationally justified in service of other values, and
| this is an arena in which the truth of the situation matters
| very much. This is why we have court proceedings where we
| aspire to reach conclusions of correct facts before we allow
| the state to apply law and sentencing that may do violence to
| property, liberty, or person.
|
| The flip side is much as Voltaire is supposed to have said:
| "Truly, whoever is able to make you absurd is able to make
| you unjust" or "Those who can make you believe absurdities
| can make you commit atrocities." Violence inspired by
| incorrect facts is violence automatically out of accord with
| worthwhile values.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Assaulting people can be a cost of bad culture or bad
| education.
| nomel wrote:
| > because of someone who believes the incorrect speech of
| influential figures and I desperately do not want further
| injury or violence to occur spurned by incorrect speech on the
| facts of reality.
|
| This person was mentally unstable/disturbed. I'm not sure we
| should frame our world, an freedoms, around the craziest of us
| all, otherwise our society will eventually look no different
| than an insane asylum.
|
| I do believe there are memetic "contagions", but I also believe
| that a better solution is proper mental healthcare for those in
| need, like this person was.
| onetokeoverthe wrote:
| Rahul_Ligma wrote:
| dang wrote:
| We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines.
| Could you please stop creating accounts to do that with? It's
| not what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for.
|
| If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email
| hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll
| follow the rules in the future. They're here:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
| albeebe1 wrote:
| Whenever I see a headline with the word "misinformation" or in
| this case "disinformation", i replace those words with "free
| speech" and it really worries me about the future of this
| country. Putting the power to decide what information is right
| and wrong into the hands of a few is extremely dangerous.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| What's more eggregious is that if this news story were to come
| out during Trump presidency, everyone would be losing their
| shit here on HN. It would be so insane, try to imagine us
| ramping up the Fascism toeing line on all conservatives who
| have nothing to do with this.
|
| There is no moral compass left in people I feel. We haven't got
| a north star that we used to. Subjectivism has occupied us all.
| The only way to move forward is to anchor your beliefs with
| sound fundamentals, no matter what others are doing around you.
|
| I still remember vividly when the left used to believe in net-
| neutrality or in free-speech.
|
| Edit: Those downvoting this, can you explain why this wouldn't
| be true? Can you try to imagine what would have heppened to
| this story in 2019? I understand you might not agree with my
| take, then please respond below.
| somehnacct3757 wrote:
| The cognitive distortion 'catastrophizing' comes to mind.
|
| For example you just imagined a made up scenario (this and
| that would have happened if X variable was different) and
| then accepted it as fact to justify a litany of observations
| about entire populations and subgroups.
|
| This daydreaming is somehow 'more eggregious' than the
| contents of the article.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| So testing a hypothetical scenario to show hypocrisy is
| somehow "daydreaming"? What you call cognitive distortion
| is cognitive clarity to me.
|
| What litmus test would like to to see to show the
| disparity?
| themitigating wrote:
| How can you test a hypothetical situation?
| themitigating wrote:
| You made up a situation then criticized an entire group for a
| reaction you also made up
|
| "If the husband of a republican senator was attacked the
| Biden administration wouldn't care. Now let me explain how
| bad they are because of it."
| goatcode wrote:
| Uri Bezmenov was telling the truth.
| ls15 wrote:
| "Our truth is truthier than your truth. Therefore we need an API
| to override your truth."
| 3qz wrote:
| This is fascism.
|
| Also,
|
| > malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of
| context, with harmful intent)
|
| lol
| [deleted]
| topspin wrote:
| > > malinformation
|
| Orwell was an amateur, apparently.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of
| context, with harmful intent)
|
| The summary of the entire business model of US media.
| intelVISA wrote:
| I guess advertizing is malinformation, wonder how this'll
| affect big adtech giants. ~:)
| Fordec wrote:
| Literal wrongthink. What is ideology but looking at the world
| or a problem through a certain personal experience context.
|
| If this is what flies, CNN are guilty of malinformation daily,
| through their use of editorialising, never mind more fringe
| stuff.
| teolandon wrote:
| First off, wrongthink is not a thing, you're thinking of
| crimethink.
|
| Second off, those are literally different things.
| Malinformation is defined in the article as information
| _shared_ , out of context, _with harmful intention_.
| Crimethink is not about sharing or intentions, it 's
| literally about having a thought that goes against The Party.
| No need to share.
| narrator wrote:
| Secrecy, censorship and propaganda are a great combo if you want
| to produce awful political outcomes. If you forbid freedom of
| speech, that's basically the same as saying people are too stupid
| to make their own decisions. This leads to a China or Soviet
| style dictatorship to protect the people.
|
| That was always the contention of Bolshevism. The people are too
| dumb to protect their own interests. The party must be the
| vanguard of the proletariat to protect their interests. Democracy
| will be replaced by internal party democracy where only party
| members will vote. The party will only make decisions in the
| people's best interest. Few people study history though so
| they're unaware that all of this has been tried before with
| disastrous results. Might as well move to China if you enjoy all
| your information being tightly curated by the authorities.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > This leads to a China or Soviet style dictatorship to protect
| the people.
|
| Why when the US does something evil is it always China or
| Russia's fault?
| narrator wrote:
| It's not China or Russia's fault. It's the consequence of the
| ideology that says common people are too stupid to make the
| right choices in their own best interests and there must be
| an inner group of enlightened know-it-alls that make all
| their decisions for them that leads to these kinds of
| totalitarian outcomes.
| [deleted]
| YesThatTom2 wrote:
| Good. Disinformation is a threat to our infrastructure and the
| country. Not all weapons are physical.
|
| To be clear: disinformation is not a free speech issue. It is a
| weapon of war. Saying we shouldn't fight it is as invalid as
| saying we shouldn't repel an invading force because that enemy
| has a right to bear arms.
|
| (the 13 critical infrastructures that the DHS protects includes
| our voting system, our water system, roads and bridges, etc. look
| it up)
| andirk wrote:
| How about "fight" "disinformation" "weapons" with explanations
| of the truth. The 4th branch of the govt AKA the mainstream
| media has proven a failure of disseminating truth when it
| counts, and thus has eroded our trust in it.
|
| PSAs paid for w/ public tax $ like The Ad Council have their
| controversies but are generally countering some social issue
| with a "this is bad" message [0] but outright censorship of
| even blatantly false information is a sign that our
| government's integrity is shot to hell.
|
| Next time you hear someone spewing some bullshit like the 2016
| election was rigged (Russia) or the 2020 election was rigged
| (tbh not sure who the main villain rigged this one), remember
| that people have been accustomed to lies from the top and are
| not completely crazy for looking to the fringes for the real
| scoop.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_Council#Famous_and_Controve...
| mikkergp wrote:
| > How about "fight" "disinformation" "weapons" with
| explanations of the truth
|
| Tell me how this isn't comparable to saying "if you just
| explain to the trolls they are hurting your feelings, they'll
| stop"
|
| I 100% promise you "the truth" already exists for 99% of
| topics out there. You seem to be setting up a paradox. The
| government shouldn't intervene in misinformation, but somehow
| the government and media should align themselves to spread
| only factual information, which would be way creepier.
|
| Any realistic solution has to happen despite an imperfect
| media and a landscape with all sorts of conflicting
| information, not try to eliminate it. Ad council seems like
| just another way to tell people in their bubbles what they
| already know.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _explanations of the truth_
|
| Mass purveyors of disinformation are thieves of the time of
| the rest of us, and should be treated accordingly.
| EarlKing wrote:
| God forbid anyone should have their time wasted. Purveyors
| of Prior Restraint are thieves of our natural rights and
| should be treated accordingly.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _Purveyors of Prior Restraint are thieves of our
| natural rights_
|
| 1. Recall the old chestnut that your freedom to swing
| your fist ends where my nose begins.
|
| 2. There ARE no "natural rights" -- what we call "rights"
| is simply the visiting of adverse consequences upon "bad"
| actors by others who object to their actions. The
| Russians who rape and murder innocents in occupied
| Ukraine are unlikely to have such consequences visited
| upon them, so we can't really say that their victims had
| "natural rights."
| EarlKing wrote:
| 1. My words are not a fist, and your eyes and ears are
| not your nose.
|
| 2. "There are no natural rights"-- Right and wrong exist
| independent of the capacity of Man to do evil. Rape is
| evil regardless of whether or not someone gets caught and
| prosecuted... or are you insinuating that it's OK as long
| as nobody ever finds out?
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _My words are not a fist, and your eyes and ears are
| not your nose._
|
| If you spread lies at scale, with the purpose of getting
| voters to elect officials who will fuck up others' lives,
| then that's a distinction without a difference.
| EarlKing wrote:
| dctoedt wrote:
| Ah, I see you've emerged from cover.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _Right and wrong exist independent of the capacity of
| Man to do evil._
|
| That seems like a variation on the old "if a tree falls
| in the forest but there's no one there to hear it ...."
| By analogy: For 300-plus years, millions of kidnapped
| Africans and their descendants were unable to convince
| the white rulers of the American South that enslavement
| was evil -- as indeed it truly is -- because the
| enslavers, in their echo chamber, had convinced
| themselves otherwise _and had the guns_. Consequently,
| the enslaved workers ' "natural rights" were a nullity --
| that is, until the U.S. Army weighed in and kicked the
| shit out of the southerners. (I have a lot of sympathy
| for an anonymous Army officer's tweet that I read awhile
| back: Sherman should have mowed the south like a lawn,
| with multiple passes.)
| EarlKing wrote:
| ...and that act remained wrong despite it not being
| stopped. 1 + 1 != 3 just because you want it to.
| dctoedt wrote:
| 1 + 1 != 3 only because we agree on notation to represent
| the real, physical world; "right" and "wrong" aren't in
| the same category, because they're matters of opinion,
| and for practical purposes on the time scale of
| individual human lives, might indeed does make right.
|
| Example: Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, if an
| enslaved worker escaped and fled north, anyone who helped
| him or her -- even in a free state -- could be arrested
| and fined; _that was the law of the land_ for years, and
| it was deemed meet and right by enslavers and their
| sympathizers.
|
| It's true that, in the long run and in some respects,
| "right" does seem eventually to converge on what humans
| generally agree on. But as John Maynard Keynes famously
| said (about investing for the long term), in the long run
| we are all dead -- the U.S. Army's eventual vindication
| of "right" about slavery, in 1861-65, came too late for
| the millions of enslaved blacks who'd already died in the
| preceding 340-plus years.
| dctoedt wrote:
| (Replying to my own comment because I can't reply to the
| one below)
|
| If right and wrong are not matters of opinion, then what
| _objective_ test does one use to discern which is which?
| For example, is contraception right or wrong -- and why?
| How about same-sex marriage? How about interracial
| marriage?
|
| As to rape: You and I certainly agree that it's wrong,
| but that hasn't been true in all times and circumstances
| (are you familiar with _droit du seigneur_ and its
| variations?). And the Russian soldiers who raped their
| way through Eastern and Central Europe in 1944-45 were
| told by many of their superiors that it was their right
| to do so.
| EarlKing wrote:
| > 1 + 1 != 3 only because we agree on notation to
| represent the real, physical world; "right" and "wrong"
| aren't in the same category, because they're matters of
| opinion, and for practical purposes on the time scale of
| individual human lives, might indeed does make right.
|
| You're arguing over the meaning of symbols, whereas I'm
| talking about the underlying concepts. The map is not the
| territory. Right and wrong are not matters of opinion...
| unless you really do think that it's ok to rape someone
| as long as you're never caught.
| andirk wrote:
| Freedom of speech has its downsides, yes. My only point is
| to _add_ to the discussion, not _delete_ discussions. We
| have laws in place for defamatory speech and plenty of
| other exceptions. Saying false things about climate change
| or how "democracy" works can often be countered with basic
| facts. People will often still choose to believe fallacies
| at will and that is their right as an American.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _countered with basic facts_
|
| You're disregarding the key distinction: Malevolent
| actors are (in Steve Bannon's words) flooding the zone
| with shit, which they're able to do at trivial cost. The
| rest of us shouldn't have to put up with that, forced to
| spend our time digging through the shit spread by those
| who, for their own purposes, want to sabotage our
| societal decision-making processes.
| unknownaccount wrote:
| Should we persecute every author of fiction novels too for
| wasting peoples time with their disinformation?
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _Should we persecute every author of fiction novels too
| for wasting peoples time with their disinformation?_
|
| People read fiction novels voluntarily, and the authors
| don't lie about their work being fact.
|
| (Also: You mean "prosecute," I think.)
| pc86 wrote:
| This is valid opinion but it really is a strong negative to
| just spout something like this as if it's self-evident, and
| that any disagreement is obviously just so stupid you don't
| even need to spend the extra 30 seconds or so to justify it.
|
| The biggest and most obvious question is who gets to decide
| what qualifies as "disinformation" - including what the
| difference is between disinformation and just _being wrong_ ,
| and how is that protected from changes in the political
| landscape?
| unethical_ban wrote:
| Unfiltered, anonymous speech on major social media platforms
| is the equivalent of a supervirus. Bad, poisonous ideas
| spread more quickly than truth and logic can catch up, and no
| one is silenced or held to account when these bad ideas keep
| spreading.
|
| I don't know what the solution to organized disinformation
| is. I don't know if the "cure" would be worse than the
| disease of disinformation. But it's naive to think nation-
| states are not using social media to leverage peoples'
| negative emotions and dividing society and making people
| disrespect really important things that should be held in
| really high regard in society, like truth and science.
| pc86 wrote:
| Nonsense, but even if this is all true, the solution is
| _more_ education, _more_ debate, _more_ speech, not heavy-
| handed government imposition of what can and cannot be said
| in what contexts.
|
| Eventually, the people - or person - wielding that heavy
| hand will not have your best interests at heart.
| fakethenews2022 wrote:
| Interestingly the biggest purveyors of organized
| disinformation are governments. Anyone else remember how
| the US government had a massive disinformation campaign
| that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and then
| orchestrated an invasion?
|
| Even more revealing is that the disinformation campaign was
| aided and abetted by US media including such supposed
| stalwarts as the New York Times.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| I think there is more trust to be had in the stalwarts
| still than in the alternatives I see my mother watch and
| read, notably fox news and OANN and
| Investmentwatchblog.com .
| smeej wrote:
| "Suppressing disinformation" is a power battle, nothing more.
|
| Whoever has the right to say their understanding is the correct
| one and all others should be repressed has power over speech.
|
| Freedom of speech means ALL speech or it means nothing.
|
| If someone defrauds you, prove the fraud and the damage and sue
| them.
|
| Otherwise, whether you want them to or not, people have a right
| to tell you what they think, _or even to lie to you and tell
| you something they don 't even think._
|
| Otherwise "stopping disinformation" is just "censorship" by
| another name.
| pxmpxm wrote:
| Yeah I'm sure this new department will not be used strictly
| for political gain.
|
| Bad inflation numbers going into the midterms? Joe B flubbing
| some speech or person reference? Just call it misleading or
| misquote on some stretch technicality and down moderate.
| andirk wrote:
| The mostly uninteresting Hunter Biden laptop story
| suppression from mainstream media, Twitter, and Facebook in
| a very obviously concerted effort, and only for a period of
| time before the election, with orders from the top is a
| sign that, when pushed, the Arbiters of Truth will squash
| dissent to save face. (Here come the downvotes)
| CharlesW wrote:
| You mean the Hunter Biden laptop story literally everyone
| has heard about incessantly for years? The same one that
| They suppressed from the mainstream media, Twitter,
| Facebook, and Wikipedia1? The one that's the reason They
| are going to downvote your post?
|
| 1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter_Biden_laptop_contr
| overs...
| pxmpxm wrote:
| For years _after_ the election, certainly not before -
| the narrative before was between Russian disinformation
| handwaving and complete fabrication.
|
| eg NPR
|
| "We don't want to waste our time on stories that are not
| really stories, and we don't want to waste the listeners'
| and readers' time on stories that are just pure
| distractions."
|
| I can only imagine how much more effective this strategy
| would be if you codify it into a federal agency.
| andirk wrote:
| 1) Most MSM harped on that it happened but not its
| contents. Same with other leaks such as emails, paid
| speeches, cables, etc. The story gets out. The substance
| of the leaks, however, are not widely discussed. Only
| that it happened.
|
| 2) I clearly stated that it was suppressed by MSM,
| Twitter, Facebook for a short period before the election.
| Twitter and Facebook admitted it outright. Zuckerberg
| himself said they got a call from the State to "watch
| out" for it. It's no longer a debatable as to whether the
| suppression before the election happened.
|
| And no, the downvotes come in droves when speaking less
| than positively about the American Democratic Party.
| pfortuny wrote:
| And who declares what "disinformation" is? Who is the arbiter
| of truth? Will it be the Republican DHS when (not if) they win
| in the future? Why not?
| excite1997 wrote:
| Strategic disinformation that can be attributed to foreign
| operations? Maybe, although it would probably be better to
| expose, not suppress it.
|
| Taking down parody accounts and flagging people for COVID
| conspiracy theories, as documented in the article? Probably
| less so.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| If one has to equate information with direct physical violence
| before arguing for suppression of information, what does that
| say about the validity of the argument? If it's so important to
| suppress certain information one should be able to argue for
| this in terms of information _qua_ information, without having
| to falsely equate it to literal physical violence first.
|
| It's also quite constructive to conceive of "disinformation" as
| information (as opposed to physical violence) because it leads
| naturally to the realization that the remedy should be in the
| realm of information as well (education, establishing trust,
| trustworthy or verifiable information from trusted sources,
| etc..), instead of violence (suppression, shutting down,
| imprisonment).
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| "The pen is mightier than the sword" isn't a new idea.
| bondarchuk wrote:
| So then use the pen and not the sword, to fight
| "disinformation".
|
| Also that quote does not necessarily equate information
| with physical violence ("mighty" is something quite
| different), which is what I am objecting to.
| more_corn wrote:
| I'm not sure it's sane to classify disinformation as a weapon
| of war. There's all kinds of bullshit that definition doesn't
| fit. At best you're if ignoring it, at worst you're lumping it
| together.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| Maybe. Just maybe. If the system did not produce ignorant
| citizens, there would be no need to police disinformation
| systems those citizens engage in. Which brings me to another
| point, how comfortable do you feel about DHS determining what
| is sufficiently non-disinformationy? Do you think DHS would
| have an opinion as to whether Iraq's weapons of mass
| destruction are disinformation?
|
| I do not understand the naivety that comes with this particular
| view. The freedom of speech is not about saying a $slur. It is
| about ensuring we are not Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Russia or
| China.
|
| Why are people clamoring so hard to become like those states?
| Beyond government, who benefits from this?
|
| It is not the citizens of US.
|
| edit: added Iraq since that reference may not be as evident in
| in 2022.
| kolanos wrote:
| > Maybe. Just maybe. If the system did not produce ignorant
| citizens, there would be no need to police disinformation
| systems those citizens engage in.
|
| > I do not understand the naivety that comes with this
| particular view.
|
| Frighteningly, producing ignorant and naive citizenry works
| for governments on both fronts. On one front, it makes the
| populace susceptible to "foreign" propaganda, thus a
| justification for censorship. On the other front, it makes
| them susceptible to government overreach and the erosion of
| their own civil rights to combat this "threat".
| fakethenews2022 wrote:
| Among the information labeled as disinformation was the Hunter
| Biden laptop which turned out to be true. So this
| disinformation apparatus ended up doing the opposite and
| suppressed true information. Not only that but the government
| knew at the time that this information was true.
|
| Just label this for what it is, government censorship supported
| by big tech.
| fakethenews2022 wrote:
| I just love the partisan hacks that downvote facts because
| they don't like this. So Hacker News.
| puffoflogic wrote:
| Excuse me, do you have any reputable sources for the so-
| called "Biden laptop" story being anything but Russian
| propaganda?
|
| Right-wing blogs spreading Russian propaganda don't count.
| oldgradstudent wrote:
| What's the evidence for any Russian involvement at all?
|
| https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/hunter-biden-
| laptop-...
| fakethenews2022 wrote:
| Yes. Go to the New York Times, Washington Post, etc... Need
| a link?
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-
| biden-...
| puffoflogic wrote:
| The NYT is pretty unambiguous that the laptop is
| disinformation:
|
| > Russian intelligence officers were using Mr. Giuliani,
| who provided the hard drive copy to the tabloid, as a
| conduit for disinformation aimed at undermining Mr.
| Biden's presidential run.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/us/politics/hunter-
| biden-...
|
| Also, if you're going to break HN rules by using your
| account to do ideological battle and spread
| disinformation, maybe make it a little less obvious in
| your username?
| fakethenews2022 wrote:
| Did you not read that the New York Times changed their
| mind a year after your story? Go read the article I
| linked that was published a full year after your article.
|
| Shame on you for spreading misinformation.
| puffoflogic wrote:
| Ctrl-F "laptop" in your article only comes up with a link
| to the one I quoted. Nice try.
| zackees wrote:
| Here you go:
|
| NYPost: Washington Post, New York Times finally admit
| Hunter's laptop is real -- but only to protect Joe Biden
| some more
|
| https://nypost.com/2022/04/01/new-york-times-finally-
| admit-h...
| jaywalk wrote:
| How about the NY Times?
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-
| biden-...
|
| > Those emails were obtained by The New York Times from a
| cache of files that appears to have come from a laptop
| abandoned by Mr. Biden in a Delaware repair shop.
|
| Either the NY Times is a "right-wing blog spreading Russian
| propaganda" or the fact that they based this story on the
| contents of the laptop is a tacit admission that it's
| authentic.
| puffoflogic wrote:
| The NYT is pretty unambiguous that the laptop is
| disinformation:
|
| > Russian intelligence officers were using Mr. Giuliani,
| who provided the hard drive copy to the tabloid, as a
| conduit for disinformation aimed at undermining Mr.
| Biden's presidential run.
| jaywalk wrote:
| I don't see that quote in the article I linked. Perhaps
| you got it from an older one, where they were still
| pretending it wasn't authentic?
| tastyfreeze wrote:
| Pretty much everything about Hunter Biden that was decried
| as "disinformation" or "Russian propaganda" has turned out
| to be true. The laptop story was squelched just prior to
| the election.
|
| https://nypost.com/2022/04/01/new-york-times-finally-
| admit-h...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-
| biden-...
|
| https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-
| security/analysis-...
| acdha wrote:
| > Among the information labeled as disinformation was the
| Hunter Biden laptop which turned out to be true.
|
| What, specifically, was labeled as disinformation but later
| turned out to be true? Please cite sources so we can be
| talking about the same things.
| fakethenews2022 wrote:
| Everything in the laptop.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/16/us/politics/hunter-
| biden-...
| acdha wrote:
| Can you be more specific? What specific claims were
| labeled as disinformation by whom?
|
| This matters because what was covered at the time was
| that the laptop was known not to have a good chain of
| custody. At the time, journalists at the NYT, WaPo, and
| others reported that they were able to verify some of the
| emails but that large amounts of data were hard to
| validate and the lack of a clean forensic history made it
| hard to confirm validity for many of the files because
| there were clear signs of access and modification after
| it had left Hunter Biden's control. Nothing which has
| come out since then has changed that, and the general
| consensus outside of movement conservatives seems to be
| that the main thing politicizing this did is to make it
| harder for the DOJ and other investigators to prove
| anything to a legal standard.
| fakethenews2022 wrote:
| Nope. The New York Times and others ran headlines that
| front lined that it was Russian disinformation. They
| didn't talk much about how the emails were verified. In
| fact Glenn Greenwald quit because his editor tried to
| suppress his story on it.
| acdha wrote:
| If that was true, you'd be able to provide a source.
| Instead, you're linking to things like this story which
| do not say what you're claiming:
|
| > No concrete evidence has emerged that the laptop
| contains Russian disinformation.
|
| > John Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence,
| also told Fox Business Network that the "laptop is not
| part of some Russian disinformation campaign."
|
| https://web.archive.org/web/20201022234605/https://www.ny
| tim...
|
| Again, can you cite a specific claim made by a specific
| entity at a specific time? Your feelings don't give the
| rest of us much to work with.
| unethical_ban wrote:
| 1) Would/could a reputable news agency validate chain of
| custody/authenticity of those emails at the time the rag
| first dropped them?
|
| 2) Though it is beside the pint of the discussion of
| disinformation, I'm interested to hear from someone I
| assume is actally human tell me if the email contents
| would affect an individual's choice in the 2020 election.
| The alleged corruption of a politician's son would stack
| against the overtly corrupt and anti-American behavior of
| the Republican candidate?
| revnode wrote:
| > disinformation is not a free speech issue.
|
| Yes, it is.
|
| > Saying we shouldn't fight it is as invalid as saying we
| shouldn't repel an invading force because that enemy has a
| right to bear arms.
|
| You're conflating the rights of citizens vs foreigners. Your
| own citizens are not your enemy. You should never call them
| that. That sort of thinking is what gets you internment camps.
| That is a road which we already traveled and do not need to
| travel again.
|
| The difference between "you can't say that" and "you will go to
| jail if you say that" is very minor and plenty of western
| nations have already breached that wall.
| egberts1 wrote:
| I wonder which one that the DHS CISA are pursuing: truth or fact?
|
| If you think that the two are one and the same, you might be part
| of the problem.
| PBnFlash wrote:
| Internet communication is a gain medium. Like a pumped ruby ready
| to lase at the first random fluctuation. A tasteless joke getting
| dogpiled by tens of thousands of people. Or some speculation
| turning to fact in minutes.
|
| The gain medium is in a high energy state and will emit on
| anything that triggers it. Simply removing the triggers will just
| let the gain go higher before something let's loose.
|
| I propose doping Twitter with tungsten to poison the cascade.
| yrgulation wrote:
| I am not sure why this is called disinformation, and why folks
| think this is a new concept. It's called propaganda, and it's
| been a tool of war since ever. We do need to defend against
| propaganda, free europe and US. There are actors out there
| leveraging the reach of the internet to spread propaganda in
| their favor, much as the SU did and any actor before or during
| it.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > There are actors out there leveraging the reach of the
| internet to spread propaganda in their favor
|
| The US does this more than any other country on earth, and has
| covert intelligence services with bigger budgets than the
| entirety of the budgets of many countries.
|
| > much as the SU did
|
| It's not 1987, and I think the US might have also done a little
| bit of propaganda about the Soviet Union. It may have declared
| war on its own citizens to stamp out any indication of Soviet
| sympathies for decades, even.
| hajile wrote:
| Positive and Negative rights matter here.
|
| The right to use your own megaphone is different from banning
| my right to also have a megaphone.
| 3np wrote:
| Definitions in TFA:
|
| > misinformation (false information spread unintentionally),
| disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and
| malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of
| context, with harmful intent)
|
| Disinformation can, as the others, be used as propaganda.
| Ambolia wrote:
| But there are factions inside every country. Which faction gets
| to push their propaganda to the other half of the country?
| rr808 wrote:
| I think there is a big difference with electronic media in that
| you can get propaganda from the other side. Eg in WW2 in
| Western Europe you wouldn't even hear Nazi propaganda except
| perhaps the occasional leaflet or maybe some radio if you
| searched for it - in America there would be nothing. Now you
| get messages on Facebook mixed in with your cousin's wedding
| pics.
| WallyFunk wrote:
| > misinformation (false information spread unintentionally),
| disinformation (false information spread intentionally), and
| malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of
| context
|
| First I heard of 'malinformation'.
|
| I always thought it was the other two at play (misinformation &
| disinformation), especially disinformation used in propaganda and
| influence operations.
|
| I also thought disinformation doesn't have to be 'false
| information'. It can be information used to shape a narrative,
| factually correct or not.
|
| Anyway this new word 'malinformation' helps if it means we really
| need to distinguish between all three words.
|
| Also these China-style crackdowns on people shaping political
| narrative via social media is ridiculous. Nothing wrong with
| using the net for organized dissent & speaking truth to power.
| pessimizer wrote:
| We need terms like "malinformation" when we're trying to censor
| things that are true. It's important to create new language
| when we're trying to guide people's thinking down preferred
| channels.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| See also cognitohazards (true information which is harmful just
| to know).
|
| Roko's Basilisk is the perfect toy example. But on a global
| level the possibility of nuclear arms is a more real world
| example.
|
| There are many kinds of dangerous true information.
|
| In liberal societies we accept these risks and counter them
| with harm reduction while relying on trust in individual
| autonomy, not on policing.
| CobrastanJorji wrote:
| As I understand it, misinformation isn't necessarily
| unintentional. Disinformation is a type of misinformation.
|
| "Mis" is wrong. "Dis" is intentionally wrong. "Mal" is using
| real information for bad purpose (to lead you to a wrong
| conclusion by giving you out of context info, or to injure with
| information, like with doxxing).
| Blahah wrote:
| )
| uni_rule wrote:
| Considering everythat happened this past decade of
| mismanagement you'd think priority 1 would be limiting how
| tools can be used in bad faith rather than creating new ones of
| horrifying unchecked scope.
| remarkEon wrote:
| >In June, the same DHS advisory committee of CISA -- which
| includes Twitter head of legal policy, trust, and safety Vijaya
| Gadde and University of Washington professor Kate Starbird --
| drafted a report[1] to the CISA director calling for an expansive
| role for the agency in shaping the "information ecosystem." The
| report called on the agency to closely monitor "social media
| platforms of all sizes, mainstream media, cable news, hyper
| partisan media, talk radio and other online resources." They
| argued that the agency needed to take steps to halt the "spread
| of false and misleading information," with a focus on information
| that undermines "key democratic institutions, such as the courts,
| or by other sectors such as the financial system, or public
| health measures."
|
| Soviet-tier insanity. I wonder if the Intercept article itself
| would've been classified as "disinformation" by these people.
|
| [1]
| https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/23131362-june-22-202...
| topspin wrote:
| > which includes Twitter head of legal policy, trust, and
| safety Vijaya Gadde
|
| Musk fired that one last Thursday.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| She was controversial and openly admitted to collusion. I
| think this was the right move by Musk.
|
| https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1587114424925442049
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| Thank goodness.
| zapdrive wrote:
| [deleted]
| canadiantim wrote:
| So the DHS is wrapping up its war on terror and is now focusing
| on domestic information sharers for their new war. Jeez, hard to
| see how this ends well. The motivations of these people can only
| be nefarious.
| kelseyfrog wrote:
| Of course it is. Anyone with non-orthodox viewpoints should be
| familiar with the groups who will be targeted because it's not
| always who you think it is.
|
| > [Those] who violently oppose all forms of capitalism,
| corporate globalization, and governing institutions, which they
| perceive as harmful to society[1]
|
| > [Any] ideology that considers capitalism and centralized
| government to be unnecessary and oppressive[2]
|
| We'll see what this means for the free speech everyone says we
| have or the extend that "wrongthink" will be punished.
|
| 1. https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-
| content/uploads/2021/06/Nation...
|
| 2. https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/fbi-dhs-domestic-
| terrori...
| freejazz wrote:
| This post is so hyperbolic, it could have been written by the
| mainstream media.
| [deleted]
| deanCommie wrote:
| Interesting that this makes top of HN now that a democratic
| president is in charge.
|
| When just 4 days ago, we learned that
|
| >Department of Homeland Securitagents "scrambled" to Best Buy in
| 2020 to get laptops for new recruits with "barely any form of
| training," meeting up in a "parking lot" to begin work creating
| spy files on Americans protesting George Floyd's murder.
|
| [0] https://twitter.com/dellcam/status/1585676535889104897
|
| [1] https://www.opb.org/article/2022/10/27/newly-un-redacted-
| rep...
|
| [2] https://apnews.com/article/oregon-arrests-donald-trump-
| race-...
| colpabar wrote:
| Why didn't you post it here?
| swayvil wrote:
| Let's be clear.
|
| There is no "policing disinformation". There is only "information
| control".
|
| And that control will be used for the same purpose that control
| is always used : to maintain and increase their control.
|
| That means a guy listening to everything you say. Sometimes
| reporting you. Sometimes censoring you. Sometimes altering what
| you said.
|
| We don't want that.
| tinus_hn wrote:
| If there is anything that the COVID pandemic should have made
| abundantly clear, it is that it should not be left to politicians
| to decide what's true and what's false.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| DHS should be abolished. It was a transparent attempt to create
| an unaccountable organization after 9/11 that had a vague mission
| statement and would not have stopped the terrorist attacks, nor
| could they do anything about terrorism in the middle east, being
| a completely domestic organization. They provide no value, do
| nothing, and have immense power. That is why they would search
| for a new, broad mission statement. They are just like the
| Patriot act and the TSA. All stupid mistakes allowed by a
| pathetically emotional and stupid public to let a horrific regime
| fuck around in the desert and bomb sand for decades, murdering
| innocent civilians.
|
| I am all for groups like the FBI watching actual domestic terror
| cells as hate groups spend their time "infiltrating" (literally
| just a person with extreme opinions and thoughts becoming a
| police officer) law enforcement. But the DHS has no defensible
| mission. It was made without a real reason for the people.
|
| How do we get it shut down?
| chasd00 wrote:
| if i ever got on the bandwagon for "defunding" something it
| would be DHS.
| none_to_remain wrote:
| Now that we've got "malinformation" for "true information your
| rulers want you ignorant or disbelieving of" we should introduce
| a phrase for "information your rulers demand you believe" and
| true/false subsets of that
| adrianb wrote:
| Seems to cover more than that, things we should be ignorant of
| could simply be labeled as False. Malinformation seems to be
| about how facts should only be interpreted in a certain way. So
| for example a factual statistic but it can only mean what the
| government decided it means (i.e. supports the government's
| policy).
| LinuxBender wrote:
| This has been attempted and "paused" after the backlash. [1] I
| should add, I don't know what paused means in this context.
|
| As a fun side note, DHS is short for the Department of Homeland
| Security. KGB is short for Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti
| which translates to Committee for State Security. I do not
| understand why this organization exists when we already have the
| NSA, especially if they are attacking free speech. Would it be
| possible to move their budget to the NSA? False statements must
| not be censored, but rather countered by facts.
|
| [1] -
| https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2022/05/18/disinfo...
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| The NSA always seemed like a strange name. Their primary
| function has always been cryptography and the mathematical
| research to power it, kind of like the national laboratories
| are to nuclear physics. Then at some point physical
| interception of the phone and internet networks got added on to
| that. But as far as I know, they do not do assassinations,
| psychological operations, etc. like the KGB or CIA does. It
| seems like it should have just been called the National
| Cryptologic Agency or something like that.
| nosmokewhereiam wrote:
| In/out CONUS/OCCONUS FBI/CIA DHS/NSA
|
| I'll post this as a guess, and hopefully someone will come
| along and correct.
| [deleted]
| TechBro8615 wrote:
| I've been thinking we need some sort of checks-and-balances
| system for the administrative branch, if we let it continue at
| all. Every agency must have a corresponding shadow agency with
| equal funding and incentives aligned with policing their
| counterparts. Instead of just the FBI, we would have the blue
| FBI and the red FBI.
|
| Also, every 20 years, one of the agencies is disbanded entirely
| and replaced with a new one.
| awb wrote:
| > Every agency must have a corresponding shadow agency with
| equal funding and incentives aligned with policing their
| counterparts. Instead of just the FBI, we would have the blue
| FBI and the red FBI.
|
| At that point you've bifurcated power and removed any
| rational checks and balances.
|
| With partisans running the show we'd be spending millions
| investigating Hunter Biden and Don Jr.
|
| Plus, now 3rd parties would have an even higher barrier to
| entry.
| jaywalk wrote:
| The article is pretty clear that although the board was shut
| down due to backlash, DHS hasn't stopped this new "mission" to
| censor speech the government doesn't like.
| YesThatTom2 wrote:
| The DHS has a mission to fight this. It's in the law that
| created the DHS. If people don't want an open project they're
| gonna get a closed one.
| smeej wrote:
| Can't I just not want a DHS?
| dontbenebby wrote:
| I decided to give DHS less shit when they actually court
| marshaled a general.
|
| (I read about the case on NPR.)
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| Source? Trying to search brought up this but I'm not seeing
| the DHS connection.
| https://www.npr.org/2022/04/24/1094545002/air-force-
| general-...
| morpheuskafka wrote:
| The only uniformed services branch under DHS is the Coast
| Guard, so if the OP is correct in talking about DHS and not
| DoD, it must have had to do with that branch.
| dontbenebby wrote:
| you could type "air force general conviction" into any
| number of search engines... apparently there's only been
| one.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I searched "DHS court-martial general" and the only thing
| that came up was the Air Force court-martial I linked to,
| and I don't see the DHS connection you mentioned. The
| Coast Guard is under the DHS, the Air Force is under the
| Department of Defense.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| > _I do not understand why this organization exists when we
| already have the NSA_
|
| The TSA (division of the DHS) exists to condition Americans to
| having their 4th amendment rights violated:
|
| The fourth Amendment:
|
| >The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses,
| papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
| seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue,
| but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and
| particularly describing the place to be searched, and the
| persons or things to be seized.
|
| Every single search conducted of a person in the US travelling
| without a warrant is a violation of the 4th amendment because
| it is absolutely unreasonable to search every single person
| from 80 year old grandmas travelling to see family and children
| going on vacation.
| unity1001 wrote:
| > I do not understand why this organization exists when we
| already have the NSA
|
| More money for defense contractors?
| fakethenews2022 wrote:
| WRONG. Read the article. It is continuing with monthly
| meetings.
| pneumic wrote:
| > Jen Easterly, Biden's appointed director of CISA, swiftly made
| it clear that she would continue to shift resources in the agency
| to combat the spread of dangerous forms of information on social
| media. "One could argue we're in the business of critical
| infrastructure, and the most critical infrastructure is our
| cognitive infrastructure, so building that resilience to
| misinformation and disinformation, I think, is incredibly
| important," said Easterly, speaking at a conference in November
| 2021.
|
| How can anyone who was rightly against the authoritarian insanity
| during the War On Terror justify this sort of thinking? "Trump is
| bad/election deniers are bad/anti-vaxxers are bad" is not enough.
| This can and will be spun right around and used against _you_.
| comte7092 wrote:
| I'm not sure there is that much overlap between the two groups.
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Because Moscow doesn't have to beat the US on the battlefield
| of Ukraine if they can ignite a US civil war and force a
| military withdrawal assymetrically.
| addingadimensio wrote:
| War is good, buy bonds
| colpabar wrote:
| Yeah just like how the islamic terrorists were gonna do 9/11
| again but worse unless we gave the feds more power, right?
| anonAndOn wrote:
| Was Tucker as pro Wahhabi as he is pro Putin?[0]
|
| [0]https://twitter.com/JuliaDavisNews/status/15856559275161
| 3952...
| Lammy wrote:
| Fun fact: Tucker's dad was longest-serving director of
| the US Information Agency's official propaganda network:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Carlson#Voice_of_Ameri
| ca
| themitigating wrote:
| And now his son basically has the same job
| 0x445442 wrote:
| Moscow doesn't have to do a thing. Our psycopathic leadership
| are doing just fine on their own.
| freejazz wrote:
| You seem to assume this will work by censorship, but I haven't
| seen anything to substantiate that. So as far as I can tell,
| there will be more information and how is that a bad thing?
| kansface wrote:
| The article mentioned direct government action to censor,
| remove content and/or people from platforms, no?
| freejazz wrote:
| I did not see that in the article, feel free to quote it.
| I'd bet it isn't because it'd be a slam dunk 1st Amd case
| pessimizer wrote:
| This would be worthwhile if you hadn't read the article
| and already decided that twitter execs meeting with DHS
| weekly to discuss specific accounts and what should be
| done about them is _not censorship._
| freejazz wrote:
| The US gave a report of what was misinformation and
| requested that social media companies respond with a
| report of what, if anything, was done about it. What were
| the repercussions of Twitter didn't do anything? Oh,
| none? Okay.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > The US gave a report of what was misinformation
|
| The US does this weekly, and about specific people and
| subjects that it wants to communicate its concern over.
|
| > What were the repercussions of Twitter didn't do
| anything? Oh, none? Okay.
|
| Why are you convinced that you have some sort of inside
| information about repercussions twitter may or may not
| have when the government approaches them with _concerns_
| about content? Who convinced you?
| freejazz wrote:
| >"Why are you convinced that you have some sort of inside
| information about repercussions twitter may or may not
| have when the government approaches them with concerns
| about content? Who convinced you?"
|
| I'm not convinced there were. I don't think the Biden
| admin would do that as its flatly unconstitutional.
| Sending a list of misinformation, weekly, daily, monthly,
| whatever, is flatly constitutional.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > I don't think the Biden admin would do that as its
| flatly unconstitutional.
|
| It's important to recognize this as a religious belief.
| freejazz wrote:
| It's not really a matter of a religious belief, it speaks
| more to their desire for political expediency, which
| would be thrown out the window if they actually did
| violate the first amendment. Not that I expect you to
| bring a realistic view of the current political climate
| to this conversation.
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| ganoushoreilly wrote:
| If you really want to go down the rabbit hole, look at where
| Jen has worked in the past, what organizations specifically.
| One of them performed the exact operations she's trying to
| prevent.
| bumblebritches5 wrote:
| Kukumber wrote:
| I applaud the whistleblowers, keep fighting, you are not alone
| mise_en_place wrote:
| Balaji Srinivasan posted a prescient Tweet a long while back. I'm
| paraphrasing but the general gist was that the US intelligence
| apparatus would be turned on American citizens, as the US started
| to retreat from foreign entanglements. We are dangerously close
| to setting a precedent where intelligence agencies effectively
| choose our elected leadership. This unelected shadow government
| within the United States must be rooted out at all costs, lest we
| really lose our democracy.
| [deleted]
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I would encourage folks to carefully read the article and give a
| mind toward the word "police" in the headline. It can have a
| variety of meanings, some of which include powers like arrest and
| imprisonment... but some of which don't.
|
| The U.S. government has long served as a clearinghouse for
| information, for example by funding the CVE list of
| vulnerabilities.
|
| There is a difference between flagging likely disinformation to
| publishers for their private option to act, vs sending federal
| agents to arrest private citizens for the content of their
| speech. A program to do the former is not necessarily a slippery
| slope to the latter; the First Amendment still exists.
|
| Put another way, there is a difference between the government
| acting as a participant in the conversation about disinformation,
| vs the government as the violent sole arbiter of what constitutes
| disinformation.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| When the "participant" in the conversation happens to have the
| monopoly on legitimate violence and the power to break up (or
| not) any big company it doesn't like via antitrust law, then
| it's impossible to trust that there is _no_ coercive pressure
| being applied.
| patientplatypus wrote:
| president wrote:
| Finally, this answers some questions about the madness of the
| last 5 or so years. Everyone knew this was happening to some
| degree but the abhorrent part is how politically biased the
| execution was.
| themitigating wrote:
| How do you know the execution was politically biased?
| cr4nberry wrote:
| > about the madness of the last 5 or so years.
|
| I felt this too: it didn't just start with covid. There was a
| characteristic shift in around 2017-2018
| jimmyjazz14 wrote:
| I feel it was more around 2015 or earlier Jonathan Haidt took
| a stab at explaining what he thought has been going on here:
| https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-.
| ..
| newsclues wrote:
| Most people who accuse others of spreading misinformation are
| really concerned about controlling narratives and spreading their
| own misinformation than they are about truth.
| ViceCitySage wrote:
| This is honestly dystopian and I can't believe that I am reading
| this. It's as Orwellian as it gets. Generally speaking, avoid
| implementing government policies and powers that you wouldn't let
| the worst of your enemies use, even if its with "good"
| intentions. The federal government stepping forward to fight
| disinformation might seem benevolent to some at the surface but
| it is a terrible idea in practice. History has shown that the
| state isn't always trustworthy and we should be more cynical and
| cautious when evaluating them. A war on disinformation will turn
| into a war on information in general.
| [deleted]
| germandiago wrote:
| Censorship. At the end this ends up in censorship. Instead of
| this terrible fights for having the official truth, why not
| educate people to not believe absolutely _anything_ that has no
| shown proof?
|
| Why so much secret and "it is for your security"? When I go to
| sign a contract I want to know everything upfront and later
| choose.
|
| All in all, it does not convince me at all the increasing efforts
| to be able to spy absolutely everyone, control all the
| information flow...
|
| For example now in Europe they censored RT and Sputnik bc they
| are "russian propaganda". I do not say it is or not. I just say
| that if we are democracies we should not be censoring, but
| warning people. If we do not do that, then we are the same thing
| as the people we point fingers at.
| [deleted]
| sys32768 wrote:
| I do think news outlets should be held accountable for blatant
| disinformation.
|
| Then they can be fined via a "lie tax" with a required rating on
| their front pages just like restaurants have a health rating.
| That tax then goes to fund critical thinking programs in our
| schools.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| And what happens when the government fines the media company
| and then it comes out that the lie was actually a truth? Will
| the government refund the media organization and make a public
| apology? Will the person who wrongfully fined the media company
| go to jail for violating the first amendment?
| Georgelemental wrote:
| How about you _don 't_ try to take away my inalienable, God-
| given right to read whatever I desire. I don't need some nanny-
| state commissar telling me to pay up extra taxes for daring to
| view unapproved opinions
| andirk wrote:
| Interesting idea, but how about don't let news outlets be owned
| by the fat cats they're supposed to be critical of?
|
| The Telecommunications Act of 1996's supposed purpose was "to
| promote competition and reduce regulation in order to secure
| lower prices and higher quality services"[0]. Now there's far
| less competition since media conglomerates have greatly
| consolidated, and deregulation has allowed mainstream media to
| regulate the viewpoints of popular conversation.
|
| [0]
| https://www.congress.gov/104/plaws/publ104/PLAW-104publ104.p...
| kludgemaker wrote:
| I don't think the DHS has ever really defended the homeland -
| unless it's Washington DC and the tyrants who make it their home.
| js4ever wrote:
| https://archive.is/YXBR6
| parsd wrote:
| Defining disinformation exhaustively and concretely is an
| impossible task, it's almost like defining beauty. Moreover,
| disinformation is not even contradictory to "vetted, objective
| facts", because not all "information" (which is also hard to
| define) is necessarily intended to be viewed as factual, and not
| all information has any kind of deliberate intent associated with
| it (malicious or useful).
| bluescrn wrote:
| The modern definition of 'disinformation' seems to be something
| along the lines of 'your propaganda but not my propaganda'
| contravariant wrote:
| Which makes it a terrible choice of words as it somehow
| suggests something is not propaganda if it's true.
|
| It also turns discussions about propaganda into discussions
| about objective truth which is a _lot_ harder. It 's easier
| to show someone has a lot to gain by spreading a certain
| message, than to verify a bunch of unfounded statements,
| framing propaganda as 'disinformation' is a brilliant move
| that makes any subsequent discussion of who to trust about
| endless fact-checking. It might seem like facts don't matter
| any more, but focusing on the facts might be the wrong
| counter move, the facts may well be red herrings used to
| sneak in dangerous ideology unchallenged.
| didibus wrote:
| I can see the issue with this, but we also can't simply ignore
| the information warfare happening in the modern world.
|
| It's one thing for them to control US citizens rethoric, but
| there's very much state-warfare going on and the US is a big
| target.
|
| Is that an elephant in the room we don't want to talk about?
|
| I feel we're coupling two problems, one of free speech for
| citizens in their democratic process, and another of information
| warfare from enemy of the US against it.
|
| Everytime you've got a non US citizen or resident tweeting,
| retweeting, and other such about US political topics, that's
| state warfare. Sure sometimes it's just somebody else that cares,
| but let's not pretend it isn't often time part of state warfare.
|
| Being able to influence the votes for candidates that other
| states feel will be more supportive of them or would destabilize
| the US in ways they benefit, that's definitely happening.
|
| Now I don't know if what the DHS is doing is overreach and also
| affects the internal democratic process, but I really think we
| should all think a little about how vulnerable we've made
| ourselves to outside actors.
| marktangotango wrote:
| Agreed, used to be outlandish and questionable content was
| relegated to known publications such as the National Inquirer
| (a weekly purveyor of alien, crop circle and 90 year old grand
| mothers giving birth) in the US. Nowadays with the decline of
| journalism, and decrease in editorial objectivism, it's almost
| impossible to know what information can be trusted. It's a sad
| state of affairs.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| There is one answer and only one answer to this problem.
|
| Intellectual self defence.
|
| Problem is, it's the worst possible answer for those in power.
|
| Because if we the people can defend ourselves against foreign
| state actors trying to rip up our democracy, we might
| conceivably start defending against threats closer to home.
| eftychis wrote:
| Agreed 100%.
|
| And the fact that in a democracy we are ok to becoming an
| idiocracy for our temporary comfort indicates we are already
| an idiocracy perhaps -- hopefully untrue and just a joking
| statement.
| ok_dad wrote:
| I personally think people get the movie _Idiocracy_ wrong
| when they see it as a warning of what could happen. I
| personally take it as a story of how, if you took someone
| 100 years ago and moved them to today, they would feel very
| much like they were already in that world. The movie is
| just using even further exaggerations of what America has
| become today, in order to shine a light on what 's already
| happened: we've become idiots in many ways. _Idiocracy_ is
| already here, we already do a ton of useless crap for
| comfort and aesthetics, but we all just got used to it and
| don 't see how fucked the country has become. We've already
| gotten to the point where adding classes pre-college about
| dis/misinformation would probably be considered
| indoctrination of some kind, so we kinda lost.
| nonrandomstring wrote:
| I agree with your synopsis. Idiocracy is allegorical of
| now.
|
| And you're right that one would meet stiff resistance
| broaching the matter head-on. Misunderstanding, offence,
| divisions and accusations of indoctrination would surely
| fly.
|
| So I tried a different approach, some of which is
| mentioned but not documented in detail here [1]. The
| discussion of art and literature as a method can be
| extended from digital self defence to a more general
| "intellectual self defence".
|
| The long and short of it is that this has all happened
| before. Great civilisations have fallen into the
| intellectual doldrums. That's why we have literature,
| poems, plays and songs. The Arts are there to rescue us
| from this sort of nonsense when we reason ourselves into
| the corner of stupidity.
|
| [1]
| http://www.icicte.org/assets/icicte2019_5.4_farnell.pdf
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| Is there some reason to think that the DHS policies described
| in the source article are limited to or even targeted at non-
| citizens? It really doesn't seem like this is what they have in
| mind. If they were concerned about foreign influence of
| domestic political discussions, wouldn't they be focused much
| more on Tiktok ownership and relationships with hostile foreign
| powers than misinformation on Covid-19?
| chasd00 wrote:
| DHS is trying to justify their existence. It's the old "self
| licking ice cream cone" situation.
| themitigating wrote:
| What does ownership have to do with misinformation? A hostile
| power can spread misinformation through services owned by
| them or not.
| Fervicus wrote:
| > Everytime you've got a non US citizen or resident tweeting,
| retweeting, and other such about US political topics, that's
| state warfare
|
| I am sorry, but that makes no sense.
| cr4nberry wrote:
| I think there will always be this conflict between the state
| and the open internet. The state is an institution of the past,
| and the internet is an institution of the future that
| transcends any state in particular
|
| The critical question is this: how can we preserve an open
| internet without opening the door for foreign governments to
| wage psychological warfare?
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This doesn't ring true to me. It's like saying "roads are an
| institution of the future". The internet is a set of
| technologies, not an organization or community with any
| particular purpose or creed.
| [deleted]
| asperous wrote:
| The issue here is that Russia and China have recognized that the
| internet is a powerful channel to introduce propaganda, sow
| distrust in democratic institutions, and so on [1].
|
| I'm curious what commenters here think should be done about this,
| if anything?
|
| [1]
| https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/perspectives/PE10...
| ilaksh wrote:
| First is for people to educate themselves about what propaganda
| is, and which countries use it and have in the past. In fact,
| all countries, including the United States, use propaganda. It
| is most critical in relation to warfare.
|
| The biggest problem that I see with all of the younger people
| begging for their government to censor the internet is that it
| streamlines propaganda efforts that motivate war.
|
| People also need to realize that governments have a history of
| deciding that anything that puts them in a bad light is
| disinformation. And your government is not immune to that.
|
| Because of the poor education about propaganda, or deliberate
| mis-education, as well as continued centralization of
| information distribution, global warfare is just as big a risk
| as ever, despite the mass instantaneous global communications.
| The key enabling factor for warfare is disinformation that
| dehumanizes the enemy.
|
| By empowering the government and centralized platforms to
| unilaterally decide what is disinformation and what is not,
| this allows those governments to spread their own
| disinformation in their own population when they feel it is in
| their strategic interest to engage in mass murder (warfare).
| zozbot234 wrote:
| > I'm curious what commenters here think should be done about
| this, if anything?
|
| Easy. Don't believe everything you hear/read on the Internet.
| If some random Internet commenter is telling you about the
| secret torture dungeons in the basement of a pizza place that
| doesn't even _have_ a basement, you should be able to readily
| conclude that they 're just making $#!+ up.
| marmadukester39 wrote:
| This, at the publisher level, may be the answer.
| cnelsenmilt wrote:
| Sure, this is the desirable solution. But...your example,
| people _did_ believe it. So is it not as easy as we 'd like?
| Or as a society, what do we do when this easy bar is not
| being met by our friends, neighbors, relatives?
| AbrahamParangi wrote:
| Creating a Ministry of Truth to prevent propaganda seems
| counterproductive.
| Eleison23 wrote:
| "Never again" is what you swore, the time before.
| throwaway29812 wrote:
| Nothing done or proposed even slightly represents a ministry
| of truth.
| pessimizer wrote:
| A Department of Disinformation is totally different. We're
| not trying to define what truth is, we're trying to define
| what it isn't, which is absolutely not equivalent. If you
| say it is equivalent, you will be banned for spreading
| disinformation.
| _-david-_ wrote:
| Instead of determining what is true they will instead
| determine what is false...
|
| How does that not slightly represent a ministry of truth?
| cvwright wrote:
| Brought to you by the same people who spend a lot of money to
| combat inflation
| viro wrote:
| We should just get rid of section 230.
| ndriscoll wrote:
| > I'm curious what commenters here think should be done about
| this, if anything?
|
| Our own governments should be as open and liberal (in the
| classical/literal sense) as possible and always treat their
| citizens' agency as fundamental. Distrust doesn't come from
| foreign propaganda; it comes from betraying the core principles
| that our democratic institutions are supposed to be protecting.
| It's initiatives like these that sow the distrust. Foreign
| states can only nurture it.
| dirheist wrote:
| It's not just Russia and China that realize this though, the US
| government does too and they're starting to directly push (it
| was indirectly previously) for private corporations to censor
| dissent even if it is correct (see the White House directing
| Twitter to kick off Alex Berenson in emails).
|
| So you're stuck between doing what favours US intelligence
| services (coordinating with these private companies behind
| close doors and directly/indirectly pressuring them to increase
| moderation) or foreign intelligence services utilizing fake
| news and bot accounts to sew distrust in western elections.
|
| If you're Twitter the answer is to not censor anything and to
| allow people to disseminate the information and to decide for
| themselves weather it looks relevant, fake, or whether its
| trustworthy. The United States has had yellow journalism and
| fake newspaper rags on sale for hundreds of years, just because
| it's easier to consume fake news now doesn't mean we need a
| radically new solution.
| mikkergp wrote:
| > just because it's easier to consume fake news now doesn't
| mean we need a radically new solution.
|
| Your arguments don't seem to support this conclusion, why
| not? Methods change when technology changes.
| ravenstine wrote:
| A solution is to discourage media consumption. Modern media
| may be full of disinformation or malinformation, but those
| types of information reside on a mound of _overinformation_
| intended to overhelm the average person 's ability to parse
| out reality and form their own conclusions. Making
| available streams of nooze, cat videos, fictional killers,
| social media dares, and jiggling butts is totally unnatural
| to the human mind that did not develop under these
| conditions. If we can't get enough of the public to
| consider these things harmful in the way we do things like
| alcohol, then we're kind of screwed because large amounts
| of disinformation aren't even necessary. As long as the
| mind is _retarded_ by too much information, it has been set
| up to accept the single most absurd disinformation.
| mikkergp wrote:
| I mean, I love it, but that's not a solution, it's a
| fantasy.
| nobody9999 wrote:
| >If you're Twitter the answer is to not censor anything and
| to allow people to disseminate the information and to decide
| for themselves weather it looks relevant, fake, or whether
| its trustworthy.
|
| And if you do that, Twitter then becomes a 280 character
| 4chan/8kun-like platform.
|
| Moderation is _essential_ to keeping internet forums from
| devolving into cesspools.
|
| The question then becomes, "who should do such moderation?"
| Should it be private entities (of which there are more than
| one within any political boundary), the government (which one
| can't opt out of short of physically moving) and/or both?
|
| I believe that government should stay out of the business of
| moderating speech, leaving that to private entities who
| (within certain limits, many of which don't apply WRT digital
| communications) can moderate/remove any content they choose.
|
| If I don't like how such entities do so, I can vote with my
| feet/wallet and go somewhere else. Which isn't generally
| feasible when a government does it.
|
| All that said, there definitely is a problem with
| disseminating dis/mis-information that has, and will
| (increasingly) continue to negatively impact discourse and
| political discussion.
|
| So what's to be done about it? That's a complicated question.
| For _me_ , the answer is to try and get accurate _news_ (not
| opinion -- opinion isn 't news) from multiple sources and
| make a determination for myself as to the value/validity of
| information.
|
| Unfortunately, many folks are unwilling or unable (whether
| that be time constraints, lack of access, lack of
| knowledge/interest in sources that challenge their
| preconceived notions, etc.) to do so. And so many folks just
| assume that their Facebook/Google/Instagram/Tik-Tok feeds are
| accurate and honest.
|
| If/when that turns out not to be the case, large swathes of
| the population are now being misled and won't even know it.
|
| That DHS is looking at dis/mis-information as a national
| security threat isn't the problem -- in fact, I applaud them
| for doing so.
|
| The problem is one of institutional distrust (whether valid
| or not in this or any other circumstance, it exists),
| providing bad actors the space to spew
| false/misleading/irrelevant information to advance their
| goals.
|
| Which makes it _more_ difficult for those with _unpopular_
| (not false or misleading -- there 's a difference) ideas to
| gain traction. And that's a problem as well.
|
| How does this play out? I don't see anything close to a
| positive outcome (i.e., generally free speech and discourse
| with a strong tilt toward rewarding factual information and
| penalizing mis/dis-information).
|
| The best-case scenario in my mind would be more
| decentralization of discussion forums. That gives us both the
| best and worst of both worlds: Folks can express themselves
| freely in forums that are accepting of those types of
| expression, while limiting the impact of mis/dis-information
| to those who actively seek it out.
|
| Which isn't all that great for a "best-case" scenario, but
| seems more appropriate than heavy handed, centralized
| (private _and_ governmental) moderation.
|
| I won't hold my breath.
| pessimizer wrote:
| > And if you do that, Twitter then becomes a 280 character
| 4chan/8kun-like platform.
|
| I feel like it's important to note during these discussions
| that twitter _was_ a 4chan-like platform until it started
| doing political censorship leading up to the 2020 election,
| and it is _currently_ a 4chan-like platform that practices
| political censorship and virtually no other type (4chan is
| a very successful and influential platform that other
| platforms, like reddit, imitated.)
|
| You can freely follow any random person and reply "you're a
| fucking idiot" after every tweet they make, and twitter
| will not be interested. You can create a #fuckingidiot
| hashtag and organize hundreds of people under it with the
| sole purpose of harassing this one person. Twitter will not
| be interested in it, and will not censor you.
|
| Twitter is not censoring for civility, it's censoring for
| orthodoxy.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _You can freely follow any random person and reply
| "you're a fucking idiot" after every tweet they make, and
| twitter will not be interested_
|
| This isn't true, I've reported such tweets in the past
| and Twitter ended up locking accounts and suspending some
| for it.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Type in #NAFO. A Poland-based social media disruption
| operation, literally supported by the state department
| and feted by Adam Kinzinger. Survey the tweets.
| res0nat0r wrote:
| And this is the hell that Elon is bringing upon himself
| and all of his companies now that he owns Twitter.
|
| https://www.theverge.com/2022/10/28/23428132/elon-musk-
| twitt...
| pessimizer wrote:
| Open harassers and disruptors are not actually that hard
| to find and moderate. The problem is lack of desire, not
| ability. There are various government departments that
| have harassment operations going on twitter, and there
| was a story not too long ago about twitter _actually
| warning the government_ that their operations were
| becoming too obvious to ignore.
| marmadukester39 wrote:
| Maybe social media is Fermi's great filter.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > And if you do that, Twitter then becomes a 280 character
| 4chan/8kun-like platform.
|
| 4chan is a forum. Everyone who browses a 4chan board sees
| the same posts. For that reason, these boards are
| moderated, but apparently not heavily enough for the tastes
| of some people, to whom for 4chan is the epitome of horror.
|
| Twitter is a platform. Everyone who uses twitter decides
| who to follow and who to block. Everyone sees different
| tweets.
|
| Twitter for a long time had almost complete freedom of
| speech. It described itself as the free speech wing of the
| free speech party[1]. In that time, it had fewer rules then
| 4chan. But to use twitter did not feel like using 4chan,
| unless you decided to follow the kind of people who post on
| 4chan.
|
| [1]: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2012/mar/22/twitter-
| tony-w...
| revnode wrote:
| > What would be your suggestion to this problem? Just ignore
| it?
|
| Nobody is ignoring it. Platforms are detecting this and
| providing more content around it, informing the user. This is
| annoying to some, but far better than banning or shadow banning
| the content.
|
| There are plenty of solutions. The good ones revolve around
| providing MORE information, not suppressing the information you
| don't like.
| distrill wrote:
| Do any of these "counter bad information with good
| information" solutions address people who seek a narrative
| first and are not moved by more, or more factual, information
| that offsets their prior belief?
|
| This is what I'm worried about. Shutting down conversation
| seems like obviously not the right solution, but I'm becoming
| increasingly skeptical that these ideas can be countered by
| the truth, as more people tend to highlight what they want as
| being The Truth, and dissenters as being brainwashed.
| dirheist wrote:
| I mean at the end of the day you have to leave the burden
| of responsibility with the consumer and the people
| disseminating the news. There has always been fake news,
| and there will always be fake news, better informed readers
| are how you counter it.
| distrill wrote:
| idk, this seems pretty dogmatic to me, and you just
| repeated my question as a statement. is better informed
| readers actually always the best solution? are there any
| conditions that could ever form where this would not be
| the case?
|
| what if readers do not want more information? or what
| happens when they dismiss it as brainwashing without
| consideration? that is happening today all over fb, all
| over tiktok, all over reddit, and all over here as well.
| dalmo3 wrote:
| Your second paragraph is an amusing self reflection on the
| first.
|
| You're "becoming increasingly" one of the people you
| criticise.
|
| Which is absolutely fine.
|
| The question then is why would you seek government help to
| censor your own thoughts.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| What if the censors seek a narrative first, are not moved
| by factual information, dismiss dissenters as being
| brainwashed?
| themitigating wrote:
| Then they are bad at their job.
|
| What if the police abuse their power, well then I guess
| we shouldn't have any.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > What if the police abuse their power
|
| Then people are free to speak out against it. But if they
| weren't, that question would indeed be unanswerable.
| themitigating wrote:
| You're implying that the "censors" would censor without
| limits, including complaints about them.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Yes that seems a reasonable concern. Indeed it's hard to
| censor something without censoring complaints about
| censoring that thing, unless these complaints are
| entirely on free speech grounds. But if we already don't
| believe in free speech anymore, then we would have to
| interpret a complaint about censoring something as an
| endorsement of that thing, and hence censor the complaint
| as well.
| themitigating wrote:
| This is all hypothetical though since there aren't
| censors
| hajile wrote:
| Free speech is the least bad option. All other options
| result in violence and persecution.
|
| This isn't even debatable either historically or in the
| present day.
| [deleted]
| SantalBlush wrote:
| I think that would boil down to whether a non-US citizen using,
| say, reddit, would be entitled to First Amendment rights.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| First amendment rights are defined as a restriction on the
| government, not any criteria of the person:
|
| >Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
| religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
| abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the
| right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
| the Government for a redress of grievances.
|
| It doesn't say who is allowed to speak, just that the
| government cannot interfere. (The fourteenth says that they
| can't interfere through third parties either.)
|
| So this conspiracy between the DHS and tech companies is
| unconstitutional _twice_.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| It isn't just Russia and China though, the US Army has four
| psychological operations divisions alone.
| Lammy wrote:
| Here's a fun academic paper HNers may enjoy: "Containment
| Control for a Social Network with State-Dependent
| Connectivity" in cooperation with the Air Force Research
| Laboratory out of Eglin AFB in Florida:
| https://arxiv.org/pdf/1402.5644.pdf
|
| ...which (totally coincidentally) was Reddit's "Most-Addicted
| City" in 2013: https://web.archive.org/web/20160604042751/htt
| p://www.reddit...
| [deleted]
| cr4nberry wrote:
| > I'm curious what commenters here think should be done about
| this, if anything?
|
| This will sound impractical: I think the internet is a
| revolutionizing force, and a free and open internet is
| incompatible with our current conception of the state. The
| natural correlative of a free and open internet is a society of
| individuals who are citizens of no state in particular. The
| state will react to the free and open internet by limiting its
| scope (as China has)
|
| I don't think it's a matter of "what should be done?" from a
| policy standpoint, but "what should we do?" as individuals. If
| the US government is unable to adjust to the new reality, then
| I would choose the internet over the US government
| Ambolia wrote:
| They can do it because western democracies can't provide
| increasing material wealth anymore, and that was the promise
| that many people expected.
|
| Now it remains to be seen if there's anybody bold enough to
| sell the dream of democracy without increasing material
| benefits.
| kdhfkhhhhh wrote:
| Do nothing. Point it out now and again I guess. Either a) most
| people are smart enough not to believe the first thing they
| read on the internet, or b) the Russians and Chinese are right
| and democracy is a farcical sham for a people that's too dumb
| to rule itself. In either case, doing nothing is appropriate.
| Actually, this dichotomy goes for most "free speech" debates.
| If you have to protect the citizenry from its own stupidity,
| you should probably reconsider this whole "voting" thing.
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| I would prefer people were taught critical thinking skills with
| a focus on identifying and dismissing propaganda for what it
| is. I suspect the main reason we don't is so much of the
| propaganda is home grown and considered essential to
| maintaining a compliant population. Corporatism hasn't yet
| figured out how to maintain a population that's receptive to
| marketing and resistant to foreign propaganda. For now there
| seems to be a focus on provenance and restricting of speech for
| non-approved concepts.
| staunch wrote:
| One part of the solution is letting people know the origin of
| the people they're communicating with. I'd like to see country
| flags on every piece of content on the internet, HN included.
| Not enforced by law but just by convention.
|
| It's technically very feasible. The "unknown" flag could be
| used in cases where it's difficult to determine an origin,
| because that is informative as well.
|
| And users should be given the ability to filter out content
| from origins they don't wish to interact with.
|
| And this isn't xenophobia or racism or anything like it. It's
| about controlling and understanding who you're communicating
| with so you can take that into account.
|
| In fact, in many cases users may find it useful to filter out
| content from their own origin, to get a foreign take on a
| topic, for example.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Can you articulate your question? People aren't going to read
| 16 pages to understand it.
| Rahul_Ligma wrote:
| affinepplan wrote:
| The facts are:
|
| 1. online propaganda and astroturfing are very effective 2.
| our foreign adversaries are very aware of point #1 and use it
| for political gain 3. hence, there is rampant misinformation
| online which fuels polarization and societal instability
|
| So I guess there are two questions here: 1. do you think the
| combination of factors above is problematic? 2. if so, what
| can or should be done about it, and by whom?
| Rahul_Ligma wrote:
| Your framing of all of this, including narrowing it down to
| just a few things and asking "do you think the combination
| of factors above is problematic?" is emblematic of the kind
| of subversive pidgeonholed discord that's very useful for
| adversaries to control narratives (see f.e. "Nerd
| Sniping").
|
| I'll answer by saying this: HN, for example, is already
| taken over. There are nationalistic and politically-
| inclined shill groups (paid, and useful idiots) already in
| here and have been here for some time. The
| upvoting/flagging system is broken as a result since
| opposition can be easily quashed by downvoting/flagging
| without manual intervention. Daniel is one lad, he can't
| keep up with all of this (but kudos for trying, really).
| The shit faucet diameter is just too large. My thinking?
| We'll need to take a page out of 4chan's book because
| placing speech silencing tools in front of users is a dead
| end. Whatever you do to try to control things, an adversary
| will gain control of and use it to control the narrative.
| It's right there on Reddit.
|
| Don't take my word on it. Foundations of Geopolitics
| spelled this out long before most of the internet as we
| know it today was a thing.
| mikkergp wrote:
| > HN, for example, is already taken over. There are
| nationalistic and politically-inclined shill groups
|
| Evidence?
| ifyoubuildit wrote:
| > HN, for example, is already taken over. There are
| nationalistic and politically-inclined shill groups
| (paid, and useful idiots) already in here and have been
| here for some time.
|
| You're stating this very matter-of-factly, so presumably
| you have some more concrete info. Can you give us more?
| Who are they? How many? Whats the breakdown between
| "paid" and "useful idiots"? When did this start? How much
| of an impact does it have?
| affinepplan wrote:
| > HN, for example, is already taken over. There are
| nationalistic and politically-inclined shill groups
| (paid, and useful idiots) already in here and have been
| here for some time.
|
| Ok, so it seems you recognize there is a problem.
|
| What, if anything, do you think can or should be done
| about this problem (and similar), and by whom?
| freejazz wrote:
| > "Your framing of all of this, including narrowing it
| down to just a few things and asking "do you think the
| combination of factors above is problematic?" is
| emblematic of the kind of subversive pidgeonholed discord
| that's very useful for adversaries to control narratives
| (see f.e. "Nerd Sniping")."
|
| You did the same exact thing to him just prior...
| Rahul_Ligma wrote:
| No. A priori fact-gating is far worse than my "are you
| suggesting..." lead-in.
| freejazz wrote:
| It's the same exact thing. You did the same the exact
| thing.
| cryptonector wrote:
| Like, if they hadn't, then other countries wouldn't also have
| ended up using censorship and great firewalls?
| anotherrandom wrote:
| If you require censorship to show the correctness of your
| position, you are automatically wrong
| [deleted]
| etchalon wrote:
| On the one hand, I believe organizations dedicated to fighting
| misinformation are essential.
|
| But I am also incredibly nervous about those organizations being
| backed by the power of the state.
|
| But I'm also not sure organizations without state power would be
| effective.
|
| But it's the potential effectiveness of state-backed
| misinformation organizations that makes me nervous.
| linuxhansl wrote:
| I think we live in a dangerous time. We have always disagreed on
| things and discussed and occasionally fought over them. This is
| healthy and needed (except any violence).
|
| It is important to realize that even as we disagreed, we still
| used to agree on basic facts and then fought over what best to do
| next.
|
| That is what is different now! We now live in a culture where any
| discussion can simply be ended with "Your facts are wrong", or "I
| have alternative facts". A reasonable discourse is not possible
| this way.
|
| It takes just one "side" to take such a stance for society to
| fall into camps. I think that is what we see happening.
| [deleted]
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > It is important to realize that even as we disagreed, we
| still used to agree on basic facts and then fought over what
| best to do next.
|
| What are these basic facts that people used to agree on, but
| now don't agree on anymore?
| lifeisgood99 wrote:
| Election results come to mind.
| throwayyy479087 wrote:
| I know a lot of people who believe Gore won and that Bush
| stole the election. This is nothing new.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| Wikipedia has a list of controversial elections in the
| US[1].
|
| [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_controversial_el
| ection...
| jpadkins wrote:
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Funny stuff. You have a significant portion of Republicans
| believing in an anonymous Q-clearance government official
| who's fighting the "deep state" by posting on 8chan but it
| turns out it's _the Democrats_ who have lost touch with
| reality.
| QuietWatchtower wrote:
| bruh what? why did you bring the democratic party and obama
| into this?
| twblalock wrote:
| Honestly the 1700s and 1800s were far worse in terms of both
| misinformation and mob violence than what we are going through
| now. Look at what happened to Andrew Jackson's wife, for
| example.
|
| There was no golden age where everyone agreed on the same basic
| set of facts.
| GoblinSlayer wrote:
| Was anybody beaten for solipsism?
| busymom0 wrote:
| Apparently criticizing the debacle on how incompetently they
| withdrew from Afghanistan or where Covid originated from are all
| considered disinfo and misinfo? It seems more like political
| narrative shaping.
|
| > Plans to expand censorship on topics like withdrawal from
| Afghanistan, origins of COVID, info that undermines trust in
| financial institutions.
|
| > FBI agent Laura Dehmlow was in communications w Facebook that
| led to the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020
| over the false allegation that it was "disinfo." This year, she
| met w/ Twitter/DHS to stress "we need a media infrastructure that
| is held accountable."
|
| > Facebook and Twitter created special portals for the government
| to rapidly request takedowns of content. The portals, along with
| NGO partners used to censor a wide range of content, including
| obvious parody accounts and content disagreeing w gov pandemic
| policy.
|
| > The emails and documents show close collaboration b/w DHS &
| private sector. Twitter's Vijaya Gadde (fired by @elonmusk last
| week) met monthly with DHS to discuss censorship plans. Microsoft
| exec texted DHS: "Platforms have got to get comfortable with
| gov't"
|
| > How does DHS justify its evolving mission from countering
| foreign terror groups to policing domestic "disinfo" on social
| media? Leaked planning docs show the agency argues false
| information is a source of radicalization & violence.
|
| > Earlier this year, DHS launched a widely panned "Disinfo
| Governance Board" which it later shuttered following criticism.
| But the same agenda lives on w/ DHS sub-agency "CISA" which
| argues disinfo is a threat to American "critical infrastructure"
| #dhsleaks
|
| https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1587095890983936000
| voldacar wrote:
| > malinformation (factual information shared, typically out of
| context, with harmful intent)
|
| It's interesting seeing these concepts being created in real
| time. This seems like the sort of thing that will become popular
| in new york times articles in the near future.
| wang_li wrote:
| The first amendment has been around for more than 200 years and
| SCOTUS rulings for as long. At this point any government actor,
| or private sector entity working in conjunction with the
| government, should be facing years in prison and brutal fines for
| even suggesting Prior Restraint on speech. When these pieces of
| shit get together and make plans they are actively conspiring to
| violate civil rights.
| freejazz wrote:
| Where is prior restraint being suggested?
| wang_li wrote:
| It's not just a suggestion. During the pandemic multiple
| government agencies worked with social media services to
| remove content that was not in line with official statements
| and ban people who made such posts/comments.
|
| Psaki actually admitted it in July 2021.
| freejazz wrote:
| There is no law that gives the government power to restrain
| speech. Where do you see the government restraining speech?
| wang_li wrote:
| >There is no law that gives the government power to
| restrain speech.
|
| All government actors are subject to the constitution and
| criminal and civil statutes. If they violate them, they
| can be charged even in the absence of a statute that says
| they can commit said violation. See Derek Chauvin and the
| other officers who recently were convicted of violating
| George Floyd's civil rights.
|
| >Where do you see the government restraining speech?
|
| When they arranged a contact at social media giants to
| whom they can report content to be removed.
| freejazz wrote:
| >When they arranged a contact at social media giants to
| whom they can report content to be removed.
|
| What does arranging the contact have to do with it? The
| government has long identified speech it disagrees with
| and I'm really hard pressed to believe you think this is
| something the government can't do?
|
| >All government actors are subject to the constitution
| and criminal and civil statutes. If they violate them,
| they can be charged even in the absence of a statute that
| says they can commit said violation. See Derek Chauvin
| and the other officers who recently were convicted of
| violating George Floyd's civil rights.
|
| Oh, I thought you were saying this empowers them to.
| wang_li wrote:
| >What does arranging the contact have to do with it? The
| government has long identified speech it disagrees with
| and I'm really hard pressed to believe you think this is
| something the government can't do?
|
| It shows collusion. The government saying so and so said
| something we disagree with is fine. The government
| working hand in hand with a third party to prevent
| someone from speaking is no different than the government
| stopping the speech directly.
| freejazz wrote:
| I'm positive that emailing that list to someone does not
| make it a violation of the first amendment. There's
| nothing secret or illegal about it either, so I don't
| think collusion is the word you are looking for. Now an
| agreement between Twitter and the executive branch, that
| Twitter would do everything asked of them would maybe
| make your point. Of course, that's exactly what's
| missing.
| denlekke wrote:
| this is where things get trickier for me. don't all the
| social media giants have rights to free speech as well,
| allowing them to do whatever they want with regards to
| promoting / disseminating content on their site ? it
| seems like the government is not forcing them to do
| anything, it seems like the companies are the one's
| taking action since the government portal is just to make
| requests. there might be nuance here if the company
| allows a government official to remove content directly
| but even then it might still be legal. can you prevent a
| private company / individual from giving someone else
| control over their speech ?
|
| within that context though, perhaps you are saying that
| it is or should be illegal for government employees to
| ask . . . i'll have to think some more about what my
| opinion is there, i have no idea what the laws are around
| something like that. as a hyperbolic extrapolation, since
| you mention police, is it or should it be illegal for a
| police officer to ask someone not to call them a mean
| word ?
| slg wrote:
| >should be facing years in prison and brutal fines for even
| suggesting
|
| I love the irony of this statement. You are such an advocate of
| free speech that you believe suggesting alterations to free
| speech should be punishable by prison time. _Free speech is so
| important that we must restrict speech to protect free speech._
| wang_li wrote:
| It's already the law, it would just be better if the higher
| penalties applied to all civil rights violations and not just
| those that involve physical assault. The problem is that the
| DOJ is heavily politicized and won't proceed with charges.
|
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/245
| slg wrote:
| Discussing the definition of specific rights is not the
| same thing as actively depriving people of those rights.
| You are equating speech and debate with action.
| NaturalPhallacy wrote:
| > _I love the irony of this statement._
|
| How is it irony?
|
| The first amendment:
|
| >Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
| religion, _or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or
| abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press;_ or the
| right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition
| the Government for a redress of grievances.
|
| Has only been _expanded_ by the courts to apply to all levels
| and branches of government, and they 're not allowed to
| outsource (14thS1) it and very clearly says that the
| government cannot abridge speech. Which is _exactly_ what DHS
| was conspiring to do with big tech.
|
| People get free speech. The government does get a say in the
| matter. People who are acting members of the government being
| held accountable for violation of the 1st amendment is a
| great way to illustrate the difference between free speech
| and the first amendment.
|
| If this were only big tech/other companies the first
| amendment wouldn't apply and your comment would have merit,
| but with the DHS involved this is just wildly unconstitional
| and there's nothing ironic about it.
| slg wrote:
| The government already restricts speech. Libel is an
| obvious example. We therefore need to debate what the
| concept of free speech actually means and what the
| practical implications of the 1st Amendment are because
| they clearly don't mean that speech is completely
| unrestricted.
|
| OP is suggesting that anyone who comes to that debate with
| definitions that are more restrictive than OPs should end
| up in prison. How is that not inherently a restriction on
| the speech that one can make about free speech?
| goatcode wrote:
| "At this point any GOVERNMENT ACTOR, or private sector entity
| WORKING IN CONJUNCTION WITH THE GOVERNMENT..."
|
| You missed that part. The Bill of Rights is (or at least was)
| a list of things the Government can't do.
| peteradio wrote:
| It's not ironic, you are twisting words. They're pinpointing
| a specific set of entities who should be very careful about
| making certain discussions not included in these entities are
| individual citizens. If a case has been decided that
| indicates a specific set of actions are civil rights
| violations, then I'm not sure what you are suggesting, its ok
| to violate precedent over and over again without consequence?
| slg wrote:
| >They're pinpointing a specific set of entities who should
| be very careful about making certain discussions not
| included in these entities are individual citizens.
|
| Who do you think makes up these "specific set of entities"
| if not "individual citizens"?
|
| >If a case has been decided that indicates a specific set
| of actions are civil rights violations, then I'm not sure
| what you are suggesting, its ok to violate precedent over
| and over again without consequence?
|
| But OP didn't say the trigger for consequences would be the
| violation of civil rights. They said that the suggestion
| was enough to deserve a punishment. They want the speech
| punished, not action.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| Public servants, not individual citizens. The individual
| citizens are incidental and not important.
|
| DHS is a public institution staffed by government agents
| acting as public servants, not as individual citizens.
| slg wrote:
| OP specifically referenced this applying to both
| government agents and private entities.
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| OP only mentioned private entities conspiring with the
| government to violate the constitutional civil right to
| free speech. Context.
| slg wrote:
| Are you suggesting that I as an individual lose rights if
| my employer starts working with the government?
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| Yes, obviously. That's how it works.
| pessimizer wrote:
| Of course you do. You probably lost rights before then if
| you signed an employment contract, and your employer lost
| rights when they started working with the government. You
| lost rights the first time you registered with paypal or
| facebook (forced arbitration clauses.) You lost rights
| when you signed your lease.
|
| I don't understand what's supposed to be shocking here.
| There's this phrasing that seems to indicate that this is
| an absurd situation rather than a commonplace one.
| denlekke wrote:
| is "conspiring" somewhere between speech and action or is
| it firmly within one or the other ?
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| GP didn't use the word conspiring, I did. But to answer
| your question, conspiracy is an expression of intent. It
| can be merely speech but usually involves some action to
| back up the speech. Because, again, conspiracy is a
| question of establishing intent.
|
| For example, three people discussing plans for a bank
| robbery are conspiring. Likewise, the same three people
| sharing only a knowing glance before splitting up and
| regrouping with masks, guns, a car and a map with the
| local bank circled have also conspired to rob a bank. One
| group only spoke and the other didn't speak, yet both
| conspired.
| akira2501 wrote:
| When you become a government actor you swear an oath to
| uphold and defend the constitution. In your official
| capacity, it does seem conflicted to then engage in behavior
| that suggests limitation of the rights granted by the
| constitution.
|
| As a private citizen, do what you want, but I think this is
| understood by the context of the OP.
| slg wrote:
| I can't say I agree with that logic. Would you say that any
| government official who advocated for the repeal of the
| 18th Amendment was violating their oath of office to defend
| the constitution?
|
| It seems imperative that government officials need to be
| able to openly discuss the meaning of laws and whether
| those laws are appropriate without fear of punishment for
| that discussion.
| akira2501 wrote:
| > Would you say that any government official who
| advocated for the repeal of the 18th Amendment was
| violating their oath of office to defend the
| constitution?
|
| Yes. Just because you happen to agree with them is not an
| excuse. The constitution belongs to the States and is
| ratified solely by them, not the Federal government.
|
| A federal official advocating for constitutional changes
| from the position of their office is wrong to do so.
|
| > It seems imperative that government officials
|
| It is imperative that legislators do. Administrative
| officials are not given power to make law. They are
| required by the due care cause to follow it. They have no
| cause offering official opinions on these matters.
| fhood wrote:
| As a rule, can we avoid dealing in absolutes? Implying
| that the FDA should have no input whatsoever on laws
| regarding food safety regulation seems a little odd given
| that they would represent 90% of the relevant experts.
| slg wrote:
| >A federal official advocating for constitutional changes
| from the position of their office is wrong to do so.
|
| I guess FDR and many other politicians should have been
| thrown in prison.
|
| >It is imperative that legislators do. Administrative
| officials are not given power to make law. They are
| required by the due care cause to follow it. They have no
| cause offering official opinions on these matters.
|
| How do the administrative officials implement the
| legislation without offering official opinions on what
| that legislation means? Don't they need to be able to
| discuss the details without worrying about prison?
| denlekke wrote:
| OP used "suggesting" which i take as speech and you used
| "engage in behavior" which i take as action for me, the
| difference between speech and action is at the crux of the
| issue
| pessimizer wrote:
| We can't be silly; suggesting is behavior. If a cop
| suggests you put the gun down, that's an act that had
| better be responded to.
| pessimizer wrote:
| This is such a bad comment. Nobody is suggesting free speech
| for government employees during the performance of their
| jobs. Would you think it was ironic that somebody who
| supported the 1st Amendment would object to the FBI writing
| letters to MLK convincing him to kill himself? Would that be
| something you loved, or not?
| kelnos wrote:
| Isn't that just a variation on the paradox of tolerance,
| though? If we tolerate government entities pushing ideas to
| restrict the speech of citizens, we are going to lose our
| freedom of speech.
| warinukraine wrote:
| Do you think that anything at all should be done to fight
| foreign actor disinformation?
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Fighting it with correct information is the classic method.
| xapata wrote:
| That seems to be not as effective as desired.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| Doesn't work.
| https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/
| MacsHeadroom wrote:
| Then we go down with the ship.
|
| Liberalism in general never worked before the U.S.A. and
| has never worked for more than a few decades anywhere
| else.
| warinukraine wrote:
| > Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based on
| the rights of the individual, liberty, consent of the
| governed and equality before the law
|
| Giving up liberalism just because an illiberal country is
| producing propaganda seems... stupid.
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Also liberalism continues to power the most peaceful and
| prosperous regions in the world. Giving up on it because
| illiberalism is on the rise is equally as stupid.
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| > Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the
| greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens,
| that if a Lie be believ'd only for an Hour, it has done
| its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it.
| Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so
| that when Men come to be undeceiv'd, it is too late; the
| Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect...
|
| The fact that Jonathan Swift was already complaining
| about this in 1710, should make us more skeptical of the
| idea that the internet or social media is this unique
| threat, that older ideas about freedom of speech don't
| apply anymore.
| jaywalk wrote:
| This is a strawman argument. We are talking about the US
| Government censoring the speech of US citizens because they
| don't like it.
| lern_too_spel wrote:
| Unlike DeSantis's Stop WOKE law, these documents do not
| give the government the power to compel social media
| companies or anybody else to remove posts. This seems like
| it will hold up against the legal challenges that Stop WOKE
| failed.
| freejazz wrote:
| Which article are you reading?
| [deleted]
| revnode wrote:
| Yes. Focus on education and providing more information, not
| suppressing the information you don't like.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _Focus on education and providing more information, not
| suppressing the information you don 't like._
|
| A: Education is at best only partly-effective as a response
| -- too many malevolent actors follow Steve Bannon's
| largely-costless strategy of (his literal words) "flood the
| zone with shit."
|
| B: Mass purveyors of disinformation are thieves -- they
| steal the time of people who take seriously the need to
| figure out what's true when, say, voting.
|
| C: It's already established that you don't always get to
| say whatever TF you feel like without consequence -- for
| example, the Federal Trade Commission goes after people for
| false advertising, and people have been imprisoned for
| leaking classified information. (At the zoo with my kids
| years ago, I saw small monkeys scampering quickly around a
| set of monkey bars in a giant outdoor cage -- they shit and
| pissed whenever the urge struck them, heedless of where it
| fell. I get much the same impression from people who get
| indignant when told that they can't say whatever they want
| whenever they feel like it.)
| [deleted]
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| Yes absolutely. The government should be spending a lot of
| time writing very carefully worded press releases that
| encourage you to research facts, question their
| pronouncements, and wording all of their releases with a
| healthy dose of "I am not certain, but we believe" in order
| to rebuild the public trust.
|
| That will go much farther towards combating misinformation
| then trying to suppress even outright lies by force.
| freejazz wrote:
| It's so funny that you say all this because I do not see
| where the DHS gets the power to suppress anything??
| GauntletWizard wrote:
| The power? Which form of power are you referring to?
|
| The power of law? That's very clearly "Nowhere". Taking
| down Facebook posts is not authorized by law, and is not
| compatible with the First Amendment (though to be clear:
| The Bill of Rights does not create or codify our rights;
| It just enumerates them). It is in executive policy,
| which should be having repercussions such as prosecution
| and censure, and it's a failure of our legislative and
| judicial branches that there's not been such.
|
| The power of force? They're literally a federal law
| enforcement department. They have guns and ammo and the
| training and experience to use them. They will arrest you
| if you wink at them funny while trying to board a plane.
|
| The power of precedent? They're setting it right now.
| There were a set of leaked e-mails of government
| officials getting obsequious replies when asking Facebook
| for posts to be taken down for "Misinformation". I'm not
| even against the government pointing out posts that
| violate Facebook guidelines; I just think they should get
| the same canned responses that everyone else gets.
|
| It does not help that a key campaigning strategy from the
| sitting president was suppressing an embarrassing story.
| I would have had some respect if Biden had come out and
| said "My No-Account son is trying to profit from my name,
| and I apologize for that". I have no respect for the
| sitting president nor the previous.
| freejazz wrote:
| You are overreacting. The government gave social media
| companies a list of posts they thought were
| misinformation.
| from wrote:
| Why is it the federal governments job? Platforms were already
| removing actual calls to violence and terrorist propaganda in
| 2014, what happened was that since 2016 a whole new
| censorship apparatus was created that was substantially
| broader than anything seen before not due to new regulations
| (first amendments is still here) but various extrajudicial
| mechanisms including senate hearings, "friendly" knocks from
| DHS agents and the whole 9 yards. Daniel Ellsberg today would
| be Russian misinformation for saying that America had been
| bombing Cambodia too.
| unity1001 wrote:
| amadeuspagel wrote:
| I reject that framing. I reject the idea that there this
| clearly defined thing - disinformation - and the question is
| how to fight it.
|
| The right framing is: How do we figure out the truth? By
| letting everyone argue about it, on platforms like twitter,
| or by entrusting that to a bunch of bureaucrats, who then
| share their findings and censor anyone who disagrees?
| logicalmonster wrote:
| One of the many question marks with your viewpoint is "How
| much of what is labeled foreign actor disinformation is
| actually foreign actor disinformation?"
|
| During much of the last few years, heaps of undesirable
| stories were labeled by the media or big tech as "foreign bot
| propaganda" with no proof provided, and a large chunk of even
| the tech-savvy public bought these claims at face value even
| though there are methods that could be used to largely verify
| these claims that were never provided.
|
| It would be trivial for an authoritarian government to label
| any inconvenient story as "boosted by foreign bots" and
| totally manipulate and control the news while pretending to
| "fight foreign disinformation".
| [deleted]
| forgotmypw17 wrote:
| https://archive.ph/ld6E4
| IanDrake wrote:
| jacooper wrote:
| If the US goverment truly has plans to censor/control American
| social media at will, Then all of their arguments against Tiktok
| lose meaning.
|
| The whole argument is that China can influence TikTok to change
| content to hide truths and harm other nations, which is soon
| going to apply to the US too, if not already.
|
| imagine if the US removed anything against the Apartheid
| state(Facebook already does this, any news showing what's
| actually happening in occupied Palestine is removed), or if it
| does another invasion and it removes any reports going against
| the Governments story?
|
| The difference is the U.S. has never been challenged in tech and
| influence, and now they have and they don't like it, they don't
| like to live under the mercy of another country with its own
| interest that doesn't match with the US.
|
| Truly, the US is finally getting a taste of its own medicine.
|
| With all of that said, I can't deny that the US would still be
| probably better than China in freedom of speech.
| unknownaccount wrote:
| Why are you framing this as a hypothetical scenario? They're
| already doing it, and have been doing it.
|
| >There is also a formalized process for government officials to
| directly flag content on Facebook or Instagram and request that
| it be throttled or suppressed through a special Facebook portal
| that requires a government or law enforcement email to use. At
| the time of writing, the "content request system" at
| facebook.com/xtakedowns/login is still live. DHS and Meta, the
| parent company of Facebook, did not respond to a request for
| comment. The FBI declined to comment.
| jacooper wrote:
| > Why are you framing this as a hypothetical scenario?
| They're already doing it, and have been doing it.
|
| I framed it as something hypothetical because it hasn't
| happened yet, they haven't censored something international,
| at least AFAIK.
| tshaddox wrote:
| > The whole argument is that China can influence TikTok to
| change content to hide truths and harm other nations, which is
| soon going to apply to the US too, if not already.
|
| Well, presumably the US government's argument would be that
| China can influence content to harm the United States, whereas
| the US government would only influence content to help the
| United States (pinky swear!).
|
| I do agree with you that the ability of a government to censor
| at a large scale is likely to be bad for the people under that
| government's jurisdiction and the people of the world, even if
| that government is acting competently in its own self-interest.
|
| However, it's not that odd for a government to be concerned
| about a foreign government exerting an influence on its
| citizens that it also wants to exert on its own citizens. As a
| crude example, it wouldn't be that odd for the US government to
| be very concerned if China started conscripting US citizens
| into military service, even though the US government has the
| ability to do that. Even if you believe that all military
| conscription is bad, it's hardly a notable "double standard."
| jacooper wrote:
| > Well, presumably the US government's argument would be that
| China can influence content to harm the United States,
| whereas the US government would only influence content to
| help the United States (pinky swear!).
|
| Correct.
|
| But that's from the view point of the US only.
|
| The US isn't going against Tiktok only locally, it wants to
| remove it world wide because of Chinese influence.
|
| The US can influence local content how it likes, they have
| their own rules and its totally fine IMO.
|
| The issue is controlling global content, which is what they
| are accusing China of, and what they really want to do if not
| already have been doing.
|
| > I do agree with you that the ability of a government to
| censor at a large scale is likely to be bad for the people
| under that government's jurisdiction and the people of the
| world, even if that government is acting competently in its
| own self-interest.
|
| I think this is obvious.
|
| My point is that the US is mad at Tiktok because the CCP can
| do it, yet now the US wants to also control all content on
| its platforms and wants the world to see it as something
| totally different to what China can do.
|
| Its basically, "it's OK for us, we are good, but not for
| them, they are the Baddies!!!"
| tshaddox wrote:
| > My point is that the US is mad at Tiktok because the CCP
| can do it, yet now the US wants to also control all content
| on its platforms and wants the world to see it as something
| totally different to what China can do.
|
| > Its basically, "it's OK for us, we are good, but not for
| them, they are the Baddies!!!"
|
| Yeah, it seems like we agree, except that I just wouldn't
| call it a double standard, because the US government is
| pretty clear that it _does_ claim that it 's "the good
| guys" and that China (or insert other historical nation
| state with a less-than-great relationship with the US) is
| "the bad guys." The US government isn't trying to make some
| principled claim about liberalism and the appropriate role
| of nation states domestically and on the global stage. It's
| just literally saying that it's the best nation state and
| that it should be responsible for and in control of a lot
| of global affairs. I don't agree, but I just don't
| characterize the problem as a double standard.
| [deleted]
| paganel wrote:
| > DHS plans to target inaccurate information on "the origins of
| the COVID-19 pandemic and the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines,
| racial justice, U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the nature
| of U.S. support to Ukraine."
|
| Nice Western values at play here. Hooray for the rules-based
| order!
|
| Total joke of a society, at this point I'm wondering when will
| the whole pack of cards begin to fall, there's ideologically
| nothing holding it in place.
| dang wrote:
| Would you please stop posting flamewar comments to HN? It's not
| what this site is for, and it destroys what it is for. We've
| asked you multiple times already, and we ban accounts that keep
| doing it.
|
| Using HN primarily for ideological battle will also get you
| banned here--regardless of which flavor you favor. So please
| don't do that either.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| [deleted]
| IncRnd wrote:
| The Department of Homeland Security should not be allowed to be
| involved with any sort of fact monitoring or information shaping
| in the US. I'd think this would be obvious.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| All this does is more thoroughly pollute the well. People
| should ditch trust in information online and concern themselves
| more with their primary observations. Obviously that doesn't
| tell me what's happening in Ukraine, for example. But the
| mistake is to assume that you could reliably have a good idea
| of what's happening without primary observation.
|
| Same goes for print media, it just has a much lower throughput.
| This is the side effect of a lot of trends (internet,
| globalization, urbanization) that has destroyed local
| communities. It wasn't that long ago that events on the other
| side of the world truly had 0 impact on your life.
| serial_dev wrote:
| I'd go one step further and say that even primary observation
| doesn't guarantee you'll have a good idea of what's
| happening. Just ask a group of your friends from
| Ukraine/Iran/Pakistan/Haiti (or any other country that's in
| the news).
|
| It's unlikely they'll have the same position on the issues
| that they all have first hand information about. The issues
| that are portrayed as black and white in our media, where the
| good and bad side is "so obvious", are suddenly not that
| obvious if you ask someone who actually knows more.
|
| I know it's not a popular approach, but I just accept that
| everything I know could be wrong, and I don't know who the
| bad and good guys are (tbh, most often it's just various
| groups of bad guys the more research you do).
| fortuna86 wrote:
| Every advisory of the US recognizes information war as a key
| strategy of their overall war, why on earth should the US gov
| ignore this and refuse to fight back?
| IncRnd wrote:
| > Every advisory of the US recognizes information war as a
| key strategy of their overall war, why on earth should the US
| gov ignore this and refuse to fight back?
|
| I think you responded to someone else's comment from
| elsewhere. I didn't write about any of that.
| Georgelemental wrote:
| "The enemy army is bombing our cities, why on earth are we
| not bombing our own cities too?"
| fortuna86 wrote:
| The correct analogy would be bombing their military bases
| launching attacks on you, vs doing nothing because you
| "wouldn't want to escalate" or violate peacetime statues
| for military use.
| [deleted]
| bedhead wrote:
| In any other decade this would be by far the largest political
| scandal in US history, with non-stop mass media coverage, endless
| investigative journalism, universal public outrage, pop culture
| shaming, politicians resigning en masse, and criminal
| prosecutions. Today? A collective shrug from everyone like-
| minded, or who got caught on that particular side of the story.
| All the safeties have been removed these days, the ends always
| justify the means, and near total control of this country's most
| important institutions by the left (everything but SCOTUS, as far
| as I can tell) is the ultimate enabler of this tacit collusion.
| [deleted]
| newaccount2021 wrote:
| yalogin wrote:
| The GOP will spin this as a direct assault on right wing speech
| and shut it down the moment they can. In the mean time they will
| weaponize it and use it to win elections. This is not not new,
| every effort to bring sanity is hindered and used the same way.
| cr4nberry wrote:
| The cynical partisanship of the past couple years has been used
| by the intelligence community to justify increasing its scope.
| This isn't a matter of D vs R but of the state vs its own
| citizens
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| If you wanted to actually smash "disinformation", you'll need to
| go after 4chan.
|
| Except doing so signals that free-association, and freedom of
| speech are coming to an end. I know which side I'm rooting for.
| flavius29663 wrote:
| I honestly find more useful information on 4chan. At least I'm
| not taking anything at face value, and if something piques my
| interest I will do my own research. Reddit on the other hand
| pretends to be the only truth in town, much more insidious in
| my opinion.
| dontbenebby wrote:
| Why do you say 4chan when it's other chans that tend to have
| CSAM? That's why the one had to move to a dot onion, plenty of
| places still serve up gore.
|
| I'm a sadist. I won't kill you, but I'm not going to hide I
| might smirk. For many years I warned that if you abuse your
| access, nothing is off the table and it has been that way for
| years now.
|
| I remember rumors about /b/ but I never saw abuse material,
| just gore and a bunch of racist bullshit circa 2009.
|
| On my end, I found it... weird... how people would pair "only"
| looking at cartoons with some really weird shit they're write,
| on the erotica side of things.
|
| (Weird as in power dynamics -- the idea you might _just_ leak
| your preferences on a dating site is amusing to me, since...
| come on... you 're both trying to meet people... the problem if
| it's paired with being more or less helpful depending on if
| people bang you. Keep in mind, I literally had a conversation
| with a published author about how so many fiction writers are
| basically doing a roman a clef I can't tell if it's rude to
| comment on it, but it's a lot easier to look things up
| nowadays...)
|
| Anyways MOVING ON!
|
| When I was considering grad schools I was told it was a known
| thing you can de-anonymize reviewers, but later on someone was
| dumb enough to self rate a five, state something factually
| incorrect about what would have become my PhD thesis, then rank
| it a 1. From there, based on "the metrics" I wasn't accepted
| to... a privacy thing.
|
| Now, to be fair, before we got to that moment, I could have...
| not done a full on PhD.
|
| But I was living in a shared house with some ex army
| libertarian who probably would have thrown a fit if I ran a
| packet capture, so I kind of assumed on day someone might knock
| on the door and tried to get a receipt when I went out for
| coffee -- I fully expected one day I'd have to sigh and go
| "listen, I just pay the internet bill, here's where I was then,
| that guy is a weirdo".
|
| The above is... creative nonfiction... but I hope people know
| that is the source of a HUGE chunk of meme culture. Imagine
| you're Catholic, sheltered, have only been to Niagara falls,
| and people keep _very_ obviously asking you questions with the
| promisem of not repeating your answers because apparently they
| find your opinions both intriguing and hilarious?
|
| The classic example being that in the aftermath of the G20,
| people started testing the limits of free expression, and they
| had some kind of... nude art thing... down at CMU... and the
| bishop had been offended.
|
| And I was just tired and annoyed and snapped " _Well, it 's a
| private college right? If the cmu want to take their pants off
| tell them to put down a towel_" and tried to ask about
| something actually work related...
|
| It was one of what became a series of very WTF moments. Like,
| ok we are "privacy researchers"... how am I supposed to ignore
| that I was born here, so if these rich weirdos want to wander
| around with thousands of dollars in electronics AND call the
| cops every time they get scared so someone can come shoot some
| poor bastard who wasn't lucky enough to be born in "Cali" or
| whatever...
|
| Especially since I'd been told they had to bring every cop and
| swat person in from all over the country for the 2009 G20 --
| the implication being if you had that many pissed off in
| multiple cities at once, there is NO WAY they could do the
| things they did if there were multiple protests at once.
|
| So occasionally, from around Y2K until now, I'd meet these gun
| reform people who were just... rude. They were bullies who
| worried someone would literally kill them... like... with a
| gun. And they'd make a big scene about how someone they knew
| had been killed with a gun, then push... bad legislation...
| like the AWB.
|
| And I'd smirk and go "*oh sure, I'd be willing to vote for
| someone who supports the AWB -- my main concern is just that we
| maintain access to things like bolt action rifles and
| revolvers... quiet little things you can't hear from the next
| house. That's what they did in Prague. Keep shooting those
| local party officials until one gets shipped in who is less of
| an asshole... or so I heard."
|
| It's fun to watch their eyes bug out when you say that in your
| cheeriest "I'm a millenial and yes I vote" voice. (Literary or
| otherwise.)
|
| You can associate with whoever you want, I think the thing
| people are finding out is that no one wants to fuck Nazis, then
| having meltdowns they're gonna have to jerk off for the rest of
| their lives.
|
| (Personally I'm just hoping one day I can engineer it so it's a
| girl, but apparently the things I write are so incredibly
| offensive to women, I'm the poster child for planned
| parenthood.)
| anotherrandom wrote:
| Were you intoxicated when you wrote this, or am I just really
| tired? I'm having trouble connecting the dots on what you're
| saying. It seems all over the place
| c1yd3i wrote:
| no he's definitely on drugs or this is some GPT bot
| AuthorizedCust wrote:
| Going after one forum isn't a fix. They'll just go somewhere
| new. E.g., Twitter --> Parler.
| bergenty wrote:
| Scattering is proven to be better
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