Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news • Hacker News Board

Re: Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news

#41

Post by 8ytecoder » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

katbyte wrote: post #14

rhacker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. About 2 years ago Etsy started banning everyone that was selling crystals and also included "promotes good health or luck" And while that's probably fine to do from a trades perspective, I don't like the notion that we had to start leaning this way. If we keep leaning over at what point are we going to make it illegal to believe in UFOs (as in aliens) and ghosts. There's no scientific evidence to make those…

I think a line needs to be drawn. Those are sort of wacko ideas hard to disprove, but saying "hillary clinton is guilty of ____" or blatantly misrepresenting facts or lieing? that needs to stop.

This is the harder than you think. You might make it illegal to say "Hillary Clinton is guilty of " - it actually is - it's a civil matter and Clinton can sue you for defamation. But, if you make it an opinion or a conjecture by adding enough hyperbole, you'll get away with it. That's not easy to ban. Any attempt to do so infringes on basic rights. It very soon becomes thought police.

The only sane solution to this is to educate the masses, give them the tools to may be verify facts ...etc.

(I'm in favor of banning organized news manufacturing. But I fully acknowledge that it's not practical and leaves a lot of room for bias. If President Trump gets that power, there's nothing stopping him from banning CNN entirely and I'm pretty convinced that he would.)

Re: Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news

#42

Post by ValentineC » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

dexen wrote: post #31

laughinghan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Democracy is a system of government where the citizens exercise power by voting." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy If the citizens or elected representatives in a democracy voted to start censoring speech, but continued to empower citizens to vote, it would still be a democratic state in spite of the censorship. An illiberal one, but still democratic.

>it would still be a democratic state Only through the first election cycle [1]. Your idea is valid in a static, nothing-ever-changes world, with no significant political dynamics to speak of. However, out in the world as we know it, political processes run all the time, the proverbial pendulum swings, and consensus is formed via vocal advocacy and protests. Right now we have four basic things defined as "political s…

>> it would still be a democratic state

> Only through the first election cycle.

I'd like to point out that the incumbent party of the Singapore government has been in power since 1959.

It has 93% of the seats in our legislature, while only having 69% of the popular vote (it was 60% in 2011, but Lee Kuan Yew's death and Singapore's 50th anniversary probably helped boost it a bit).

They have no incentive to improve on the voting system, nor do many people in the electorate care. The government gives out annual cash bonuses of approximately $300 [1] to the majority of the population, which seems to appease them a bit.

Edit: I initially said 1965, but it was actually 1959. [2]

[1] https://www.gstvoucher.gov.sg/Pages/Cash.aspx

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Action_Party

Re: Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news

#43

Post by CharlesColeman » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:34 PM UTC

jeffdavis wrote: post #10

One thing has been increasingly clear over the last few years: a lot of people are basically OK giving large governments more power and relinquishing what I think of as basic rights. Not just overseas, but here in the US a lot of people just don't care about rights and think the government is the solution to everything if you just give them enough power. Not sure how to keep rights, honestly. The Constitution and the…

> Not just overseas, but here in the US a lot of people just don't care about rights and think the government is the solution to everything if you just give them enough power.

I think claiming that people "don't care about rights" is being at least a little uncharitable. Things like fake news and disinformation are real problems, but citizens have ceded so much power to ever larger corporations; and those corporations have taken an ever more skeptical eye to the public good (in favor of focusing on shareholder value); that the only practical solutions to many problems may involve the intervention of a government.

If you care about your rights, you really ought to want to break-up corporations like Facebook into little-bits, which would then make many of these problems more tractable to being solvable by collective action than government intervention.

Re: Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news

#44

Post by laughinghan » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:38 PM UTC

dexen wrote: post #31

laughinghan wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Democracy is a system of government where the citizens exercise power by voting." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy If the citizens or elected representatives in a democracy voted to start censoring speech, but continued to empower citizens to vote, it would still be a democratic state in spite of the censorship. An illiberal one, but still democratic.

>it would still be a democratic state Only through the first election cycle [1]. Your idea is valid in a static, nothing-ever-changes world, with no significant political dynamics to speak of. However, out in the world as we know it, political processes run all the time, the proverbial pendulum swings, and consensus is formed via vocal advocacy and protests. Right now we have four basic things defined as "political s…

To be clear, I strongly support free speech rights for many reasons, one of which is that I agree with you that they make democracy and society stronger.

But you're being reductive. Countries around the world suppress speech to varying degrees without collapsing or becoming autocracies in a single election cycle. Many European countries have notably less freedom of speech in specific areas than the US but are even still widely considered liberal democracies (praising Nazism is illegal in Germany; UK defamation laws impose some of the highest burden of proof on the defendant in the Western world).

Re: Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news

#45

Post by Pimpus » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

katbyte wrote: post #14

rhacker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. About 2 years ago Etsy started banning everyone that was selling crystals and also included "promotes good health or luck" And while that's probably fine to do from a trades perspective, I don't like the notion that we had to start leaning this way. If we keep leaning over at what point are we going to make it illegal to believe in UFOs (as in aliens) and ghosts. There's no scientific evidence to make those…

I think a line needs to be drawn. Those are sort of wacko ideas hard to disprove, but saying "hillary clinton is guilty of ____" or blatantly misrepresenting facts or lieing? that needs to stop.

It's now coming out that Hillary and Obama were up to some serious shenanigans at the very least. In fact your post is a great example of the dangers of this kind of legislation and how easy it is to get wrong. Even Trump doesn't want to go that far and he's the world's biggest victim of fake news.

Re: Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news

#46

Post by ValentineC » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

voxic11 wrote: post #6

dman wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think some of the concerns are pretty legitimate. Social Media has been used to coordinate mob violence in multiple Asian countries. How people use social media in different countries is very different.

Has that actually happened in Singapore though? I usually read about those kinds of incidents in rural communities which are recently and rapidly becoming internet connected. Not in densely populated and highly educated city-states which have been highly connected for decades. Also this makes it sound like Singapore is less worried about mobs and more about cultural values > K. Shanmugam, the law minister, warned law…

> Has that actually happened in Singapore though?

Singapore is more worried about publications which undermine confidence in the government.

A few months ago, a website was blocked for alleging that the government ministers were threatening war against Malaysia over a border dispute: https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/singapore-herald-webs...

Critics of the current bill fear that the executive (which, like in other Commonwealth nations, is formed out of the dominant party in the legislature) would use their new powers on any media which refuses to follow the government's narrative.

Re: Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news

#47

Post by laughinghan » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

katbyte wrote: post #14

rhacker wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. About 2 years ago Etsy started banning everyone that was selling crystals and also included "promotes good health or luck" And while that's probably fine to do from a trades perspective, I don't like the notion that we had to start leaning this way. If we keep leaning over at what point are we going to make it illegal to believe in UFOs (as in aliens) and ghosts. There's no scientific evidence to make those…

I think a line needs to be drawn. Those are sort of wacko ideas hard to disprove, but saying "hillary clinton is guilty of ____" or blatantly misrepresenting facts or lieing? that needs to stop.

I agree that the spread of particularly vicious lies is a problem, but that doesn't mean the answer is for a government entity to draw the line.

Maybe the solution to the problem is pressuring Facebook and Google. Maybe the solution is changing tech culture. Maybe the solution is more aggressively demoting fake news and promoting debunking of fake news. Even if you want a governmental component, maybe we should only go so far as a law requiring advertising networks to make it easier/possible for an advertiser to blacklist who gets their money (I know people who have tried, failed, and ultimately gave up on trying to prevent their ads from showing up on Breitbart).

Re: Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news

#48

Post by dexen » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:54 PM UTC

laughinghan wrote: post #44

dexen wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>it would still be a democratic state Only through the first election cycle [1]. Your idea is valid in a static, nothing-ever-changes world, with no significant political dynamics to speak of. However, out in the world as we know it, political processes run all the time, the proverbial pendulum swings, and consensus is formed via vocal advocacy and protests. Right now we have four basic things defined as "political s…

To be clear, I strongly support free speech rights for many reasons, one of which is that I agree with you that they make democracy and society stronger. But you're being reductive. Countries around the world suppress speech to varying degrees without collapsing or becoming autocracies in a single election cycle. Many European countries have notably less freedom of speech in specific areas than the US but are even st…

>still widely considered liberal democracies

The Yellow Vests in France may disagree - for several weeks they were protesting in large numbers, every weekend, and yet their wants and needs haven't really registered in popular awareness. Why is that?

My point hinges on ability to raise awareness of issues, to break into public consciousness with grievances. That's different from espousing a particular political ideology. That doesn't even technically require a liberal democracy, but specifically requires having proper channels for being heard out, and conduct society-wide negotiations. The political facet of freedom of speech.

We here in Europe aren't in need of propagating authoritarian ideologies; that would not help in the least. However there's a growing need to be able to discuss and form consensus on issues of immigration, taxation, and growing worries over the retirement pension systems in the face of shrinking populations. The subjects effectively became tabu in recent years, up to the point of having developed a wide array of euphemisms. There's growing frustration over them.

Right now the subject of immigration is mostly discussed by far right and far left parties and movements. This causes people interested in the subject to drift towards extremes. It should instead be up for discussion - and negotiations - on the political mainstream. The subject by and of itself is orthogonal to political ideology. Suffices to point out that the major political factions, both in USA and in Europe, have repeatedly shifted back and forth on the subject over the recent decades.

Re: Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news

#49

Post by tathougies » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

qroshan wrote: post #18

Fake News is a problem. without removing the basic freedom of speech, here is a law that'll curb it. When posting on Social Media, you must use a) Verified Name with a Verified Pic or b) Reusable anonymous ID like anonymous-323876 (Generic face profile for all anonymous users). or c) Fully Anonymous like anonymous with a common,generic face profile Sites can only use PII for verification, but must discard everything…

How is requiring someone to use a particular form of identification not also a violation of free speech.

Re: Laws against lies: Asian governments are trying to curb fake news

#50

Post by ralusek » Fri, Apr 05, 2019, 5:55 PM UTC

laughinghan wrote: post #37

ralusek wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Language has also been used to coordinate mob violence. So have arms and legs. Public roads have helped in the coordination of violence and human trafficking, and it's time to take roads seriously. Violence is illegal, not the potential pathways.

Is it your belief that there has never been any good public policy other than laws criminalizing violence that have ever had any positive effects on how much violence occurs?

I think that there are all sorts of measures you could take to minimize or maximize a single variable. If you want to minimize violence, you could install cameras in every room. Unverifiable rape claims would virtually disappear. Unresolved murders, too. GPS trackers on everyone? Same thing, and we already basically do that one.

If your imagination can't provide you with dangerous scenarios arising from the state controlling what is true, history and fiction would be glad to assist you.