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The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

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251–260 of 323 posts

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#251
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that Trump has no qualms in lying to cover his mistakes, the left and the media have no qualms in misinterpreting what Trump says and does.

Some try their best to be fair, I'd like to name the Economist as one. It is unfortunate however that the nature of media monetization encourages inaccurate exaggerations if they make Trump seem even more of a buffoon than he really and truly is. However, we really should put much more pressure on elected officials to be truthful and show of integrity, than we should put on the media or people in general.

> However, we really should put much more pressure on elected officials to be truthful and show of integrity,

On this I entirely agree.

> than we should put on the media or people in general.

Here I agree less.

In Italy Journalist is a professional certification, with a selective state exam (I know it is unthinkable in the cultural context of the US) and the possibility of losing it if you violate certain professional values.

In this sense, let's look at Boris Johnson. I consider (ethically speaking) his lies as columnist worse than his lies as a politician. Because as a published journalist you hide behind decades of reputation of your news agency.

We have a generation of young people that essentially live in a clown world [1] where nothing make sense anymore. While I respect the professional behavior Obama had, populism is needed as a balancing force (that needs not to go out of bounds).

[1]: https://img.ifunny.co/images/4be9baf89f4a5d7df72a992f8f942a7...

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#252
post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who gets to decide who is a neo-nazi though? I've heard Jordan Peterson and Steven Pinker called neo-nazis. Maybe you're a neo-nazi. Since neo-nazis always deny being neo-nazis, then your denials are further proof that you are a neo-nazi. B&

> Who gets to decide who is a neo-nazi though? > I’ve heard jordan peterson and steven pinker called neo-nazis. It still isn’t clear to me what this brings to a discussion. It seems like such a strange question. Are any of us under the impression that label misapplication somehow means a label is no longer used? Of course not. After 30 years in the same house, my partners mother still calls the tree in her front yard…

The problem comes when the terms spread enough that miscommunication happens. When someone says "Bob is a neo-nazi" meaning "right wing", but the person they are talking to hears "wants to kill jews and blacks and gays". And then Bob gets lynched/ostracized/fired.

When the meaning of a word isn't likely to have a big impact on people's lives we can be a bit more forgiving (though personally I still want to move towards a clearer thinking population).

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Germany is no good role model when it comes to content restrictions, since too many measures are based on fear or shame, while adherence to arbitrary content rules isn't examined critically. That is one factor why I believe Germany to be more likely to succumb to fascism again compared to the US for example. Luckily, the 21st century doesn't allow for much content control anymore. Mein Kampf can reasonably fa…

> That is one factor why I believe Germany to be more likely to succumb to fascism again compared to the US for example. Citation needed? From the view of my filter bubble it looks like white supremacy and it's racist ideologies seem to be on an alarming rise in both countries regardless of their approach on free speech.

A citation for my believes?

Unfortunately freedom of information has come under attack in the US as well lately, so yes, the rise of some circles is no surprise or contradiction. Unfortunately that aligns fascist groups with people that see value in these freedoms. Although to those it is mostly no secret that fascists are just temporary passengers with other ambitions.

Fascism needs the antagonist, it is an essential piece of the puzzle. Only through that people are able to strip their conscience, elevate themselves above others and commit atrocities against people they see as threats. It is their personal victim role.

"White supremacy" was a laughing stock 10 years ago. And I mean really a laughing stock. Their last hope was to sweep up some anime weaboos that didn't really buy into it in any significant number, but it was their goto strategy to groom these groups in hope someone a litte too full of himself would randomly condemn them as the root of evil or just plainly associate them with facsism.

You can fight fascism with giving people more freedoms and more access to information. That collapses their victim narrative and has the positive side effect from the measures itself. Censoring a book, banning people perceived to align with fascism, or pointing out moral imperatives doesn't achieve anything. On the contrary and I believe this behavior to be a main factor to current developments.

But since the US has basic and fundamental protections to freedom of speech and against overreaching government, it is in a far better state compared to Germany, which is partly on the road to make the same mistakes again.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Germany is no good role model when it comes to content restrictions, since too many measures are based on fear or shame, while adherence to arbitrary content rules isn't examined critically. That is one factor why I believe Germany to be more likely to succumb to fascism again compared to the US for example. Luckily, the 21st century doesn't allow for much content control anymore. Mein Kampf can reasonably fa…

> That is one factor why I believe Germany to be more likely to succumb to fascism again compared to the US for example. Citation needed? From the view of my filter bubble it looks like white supremacy and it's racist ideologies seem to be on an alarming rise in both countries regardless of their approach on free speech.

You're looking at the wrong thing. The new fascism won't be as the old fascism. He will introduce himself as the anti-fascism.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#255
post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This wasn't beheading video. It was verbal propaganda. Their monthly magazine, more or less.

I am curious to see what ISIS propaganda is like, but I am scared to dig about looking for it for fear of being put on a watch list.

That's one reason to use Tor. Or VPN services. Or Tor via VPN services, so your ISP and friends won't see you using Tor.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#256
post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you can't read Mein Kampf, you can't recognize when a new work is following in its footprints. Really don't know how to make this sound nicer but... German here, we have schools. Reading the source material of a genocidal maniac would have added zero value to my education. For some reason it's weird to see this free speech is a cure-all angle repeated time and again in a forum with US focus given the current adm…

Exactly, people act like restricting access (or in this case voluntarily not storing something) will also remove all the surrounding information about it. I didn't need to read pro-slavery propaganda to know slavery is bad, and I didn't need to read every type of propaganda to know or learn how propaganda works. Edit: Also this thread is full of people (including me to be fair) not providing any sources to whatever t…

And I didn't need to read pro-atheism propaganda to know that atheism was bad. Thankfully, at some point my "question everything" principles eventually lead to me investigating that.

(Unfortunately it also lead to me investigating other ideas which are far less popular than atheism in the modern day, so I guess you might have a point)

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#257

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So... people are stupid and easily manipulated. Democracy is just a skinner box run by all the god like people who know better than all the stupid sheep, right?

People are smart but there's a problem with smarts - it's surprisingly easy to talk yourself into something you can't talk yourself out of. High intelligence makes this worse, if anything. Some ideas need to be quarantined because by the time you start doing the "are we the baddies" skit, you've already built Dachau.

You have a point. I once talked myself into a pretty racist view and have been struggling ever since to get out. :(

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Well, it's "socialist" in the sense that the society (OK, the state, but whatever) matters far more than the individual. It's corporatist, but not socialist (you can probably make an argument that non-libertarian socialism is also corporatist, but not vice versa.) But, yeah, the cult of manichean capitalism tends to use “socialism” as the generic label for “opposed to capitalism”.

Good point. Corporatist, in that the state is basically a "bundle" ( fasces , from which we also get fascia) of corporations.

Corporatism actually refers to the government, businesses, unions, church, and other institutions (the exact institutions included varying between forms of corporatism) working together as parts of a body; it is not derived from the use of “corporation” for a business entity.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, no it's not. When society doesn't just ban, but abhor Nazis, then Nazi groups are small. There's people who are into rejection, but it's not a lot. When Society sees Nazi things as forbidden fruit and makes them widely available, then you get the bully types dabbling in it, and it's more widespread. And when society permits it to be mainstream politics, you're one solid resistance movement away from genocid…

> There's people who are into rejection, but it's not a lot. You're missing my point. Those most likely to be radicalised are already isolated. If we scrub content about Nazi ideology from Internet Archive (and everywhere else), these people will find it elsewhere and likely be even more radicalised than they otherwise would be. Nobody is arguing it should be mainstream politics, only that it should be archived and p…

Importantly: if you scrub it almost everywhere then you can't argue against it, because you'd need to actually articulate the WtongThink in order to argue against it. So when an impressionable young thing like my past self happens to stumble across well articulated arguments (as opposed to straw arguments) for the bad thing, they will have no where to go to be set straight.

Re: The Internet Archive is waging war on misinformation

#260
I find this kind of news deeply worrying...critical thinking should be applied to everything, and purging an archive of some of its controversial stuff (albeit a common practice in real ones too as pointed out) is a terrifying perspective, what's the next subject, where do you stop, is the internet to become a 'validated safe space'? A chilling perspective. If you cannot handle discussion about absolutely anything without being afraid or influenced something is deeply wrong in the way you have been educated.
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