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The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

nytimes.com

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Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#311

Post by LoSboccacc »

joshuamorton wrote: post #301
guram11 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the difference "lies" between lying to befriend and date a girl and sleep with her versus lying so to incarcerate and rape the same girl, the later is a crime when she has no full consent in the act

Lying to defraud someone is illegal because they don't have full consent, but lying to make someone misvote is not because...they do have full consent. I don't follow. If you lie to me and I end up signing a contract that benefits you vs. if you lie to me and I end up signing a ballot that benefits you. Where's the difference? I'm not going to touch this analogy, it's in bad taste and doesn't elucidate anything.

the definition of fraud follows the laws, not logic. laws aren't uniform and crime equipotent, because they model a trade-off between societal, communal and individual damage, plus a great deal of unfairness from certain topic being propped up by politicians or special interests groups

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#312

Post by joshuamorton »

LoSboccacc wrote: post #311
joshuamorton wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lying to defraud someone is illegal because they don't have full consent, but lying to make someone misvote is not because...they do have full consent. I don't follow. If you lie to me and I end up signing a contract that benefits you vs. if you lie to me and I end up signing a ballot that benefits you. Where's the difference? I'm not going to touch this analogy, it's in bad taste and doesn't elucidate anything.

the definition of fraud follows the laws, not logic. laws aren't uniform and crime equipotent, because they model a trade-off between societal, communal and individual damage, plus a great deal of unfairness from certain topic being propped up by politicians or special interests groups

In this thread we're discussing why the law is the way it is (with the subtext that, perhaps, we should modify it). Saying that "the law is this way because that's the way the law is" is circular. Which is what I was getting at when I said "But again, this is just the status quo" a few posts upthread.

To make the question more explicit: why should the non-legal, but supposedly fundamental, right to "freedom of expression" protect your ability to lie to me about a political candidate, but not a contract?

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#313

Post by Barrin92 »

deepnotderp wrote: post #300
Barrin92 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the law, the courts, parliament, civic institutions, the same people who define what assault, libel or the speed limit is.

Oh cool! So you would've been okay with labeling abolitionism as hate speech? What about miscegenation? In every era in history, people have always thought that "our era has finally got it right, we're not like those heartless savages of the past generations and we're not like those degenerates in the next generation".

I'm not really sure I follow these strange examples, how does one classify abolitionism as hate speech and gets this past judges, journalists, elected officials and everyone else?

We have laws against Holocaust denialism in Germany. If Angela Merkel tomorrow tries to use those laws to attack her political opponents everyone will declare her mad, she won't be relected, and probably sued. That's why rules can exist in a state of law, because you can't just do random crap with them

This absurdist logic doesn't just apply to speech. Why have laws against riots? Obviously every protest can be declared a riot. Why have a police at all, they can be tyrannical etc.. This is no argument

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#314

Post by afurculita »

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #81

I come from a country where a free speech was never really a thing, and I tell you, americans, this: you don't value it enough. Restrictions on free speech inevitably lead to some form of censorship, and any form of censorship inevitably leads to the population being subjected to some 'official' version of 'truth'. This 'truth', however, is carefully curated to coerce the population to act in a certain way. So when T…

This is like saying: I come from a country where free market was never a real thing and you should oppose even the slightest regulation, anti-trust laws etc.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#315

Post by Barrin92 »

toast0 wrote: post #278
Barrin92 wrote: post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the law, the courts, parliament, civic institutions, the same people who define what assault, libel or the speed limit is.

History has shown these groups have gotten things wrong time and time again, why should we let them determine what is legal to say? How much harder would it be to fight for civil rights if that was deemed subversive or abhorent, and subversive or abhorent speech was prohibited?

because being wrong doesn't derive people from the ability to govern themselves? We should let them determine what is legal to say for the same reasons we should let them determine what is legal, period. Speech is not magical in any way.

>How much harder would it be to fight for civil rights if that was deemed subversive or abhorent, and subversive or abhorent speech was prohibited?

If the population already deemed civil rights abhorent I'm not exactly sure the legality of it matters a great deal tbh, it's not like a lot of civil rights protest was legal to begin with

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#316

Post by redis_mlc »

joshuamorton wrote: post #301
guram11 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the difference "lies" between lying to befriend and date a girl and sleep with her versus lying so to incarcerate and rape the same girl, the later is a crime when she has no full consent in the act

Lying to defraud someone is illegal because they don't have full consent, but lying to make someone misvote is not because...they do have full consent. I don't follow. If you lie to me and I end up signing a contract that benefits you vs. if you lie to me and I end up signing a ballot that benefits you. Where's the difference? I'm not going to touch this analogy, it's in bad taste and doesn't elucidate anything.

> if you lie to me and I end up signing a ballot that benefits you. Where's the difference?

From time-to-time, this comes up in newspaper court reporting.

US law recognizes that politicians can change their opinions, and that proving their state of mind at some point in time is pointless and unworkable.

So you're confusing morality with political statements, according to our courts.

IOW, you're being an HN pedant.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#317

Post by versteegen »

greggman3 wrote: post #307
versteegen wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is the addition of "opinionated" content media outlets publish to generate outrage. E.g. IMO the NYT is the gold standard of journalism but a lot of their opinion pieces are not even fit to print. > It's all of them, no matter what side they're on or what point of view they're advancing. The premise to your statement is rather telling... why should a media outlet take a side or advance a point of…

All media is biased. It might not be as blatant as Fox but it's still there, in the tone the reporter takes, in the types of questions they ask, in the attitude of their responses to answers, in which parts they emphasize, etc...

I agree. I kind of regret putting the "minimally biased" in my reply. I think that media can be trustworthy despite a small amount of bias, as long as the audience does a little critical thinking. At high levels of bias, they start trying to mislead you.

Edit: because good journalism involves taking steps to avoid bias.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#318

Post by ardy42 »

dcolkitt wrote: post #241
cortesoft wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't I believe both things? I believe that Free Speech is one of the most important rights we have, but I also believe that people utilize their free speech to mislead and do harm. While it would be nice to believe that "the solution is simple more free speech", and that the truth will win out in the end, is not fully backed up by the evidence. Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, to m…

> Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work, Well, sure. But the problem is the censors are also human. If crafty lies can deceive the average person, why do we believe that the authorities are any less immune? I feel like so many times anti-libertarian arguments follow this formula. "Regular people keep making this mistake. So let's just have the government, helpfully stop them from making t…

>> Lies can be carefully crafted to exploit the way human brains work,

> Well, sure. But the problem is the censors are also human. If crafty lies can deceive the average person, why do we believe that the authorities are any less immune?

> I feel like so many times anti-libertarian arguments follow this formula. "Regular people keep making this mistake. So let's just have the government, helpfully stop them from making the mistake. Except of wait... the government is also made up of people who make mistakes." In other words, who watches the watchmen?

If you can't design and build an iPhone from scratch, yourself, then why can Apple? If you personally can't write code that's nearly bug-free, then how can NASA?

Institutions are made up of people that make the same mistakes as the rest of us, but they can also have institutional practices that compensate and correct those mistakes. It's never perfect, but it's something an individual can't really do.

Society needs institutions whose job is to figure out what the truth is, and information dissemination channels that filter out lies and disinformation. Otherwise it'll be blinded. This work can't be mainly put on the shoulders of each individual, because they just don't have the bandwidth.

> But when millions have access to open information, it's virtually guaranteed that at least some non-neglible subset will figure out the truth.

That may not matter when the millions are robustly deceived by the lies.

The truth will probably win out, in the end, but the end might be one, ten, or a hundred years from now. If we're talking about election-influencing disinformation, that's too little, too late.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#319

Post by unishark »

joshuamorton wrote: post #301
guram11 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the difference "lies" between lying to befriend and date a girl and sleep with her versus lying so to incarcerate and rape the same girl, the later is a crime when she has no full consent in the act

Lying to defraud someone is illegal because they don't have full consent, but lying to make someone misvote is not because...they do have full consent. I don't follow. If you lie to me and I end up signing a contract that benefits you vs. if you lie to me and I end up signing a ballot that benefits you. Where's the difference? I'm not going to touch this analogy, it's in bad taste and doesn't elucidate anything.

The stealing is what makes it a crime, not the personal benefit. If you rob someone solely to the benefit of your favorite charity, you still robbed someone.

I would assume explicit actions like mislabeling ballots or actually changing someone's vote on them is a crime. Perhaps even tricking people about polling place locations or the party of candidates. But it's obviously very dangerous ground once you venture multiple degrees of freedom off into policing conspiracy theories or political ads, given the risks of abuse. It should be just as hard as to convict people for murder via such distant effects. Especially since in voting, people have access to alternative views, including yours.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#320

Post by cycomanic »

rayiner wrote: post #304
adamsea wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They will all lie and manipulate when it suits them. Absolutely. At the same time I think it makes sense to single out Fox News at this current moment. For several years now they have they been a straight-up propaganda mouthpiece. They’re noticeably worse. I’d call myself a Progressive, but FWIW as a habit I don’t watch any television news regularly - I read. Point being I think it’s reasonable to say that you can’…

Fox News isn’t designed to be even handed. “Fair and Balanced” is an inside joke. It’s designed to bring balance to a media industry that skews heavily left by offering the countervailing view on issues. (I do agree it’s gone downhill since Ailes left. Megyn Kelly has said as much.) To put it differently: you cannot understand what’s going on in the world just reading the NYT and watching CNN, especially in the Trump…

The whole media is skewing left is completely fabricated. If anything most media has traditionally been moderate conservative. It is simply that part of the republican part has moved so far to the right that Reagan would likely be kicked out today.

And this to a large degree has been driven by Fox News. It is also important to point out that they are different to most other news media in that they categorize most of their shows as entertainment not news, the reason that they can not be held accountable for knowingly telling outright lies.

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