Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf] • Hacker News Board

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#251

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:03 PM UTC

shakezula wrote: post #227

kryogen1c wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things in the past which were labeled misinformation I know that item-level thinking like this is necessary to gain emotional traction with people, but this issue is just so obvious at a systems-level. the idea that we, right now the instant youre reading this, have discovered 100% of what there is to learn and 0% of what we know is wrong is so painfully, horrifically, obviously stupid (we've had computers for thir…

> misinformation is combat with MORE discussion, not less! I wholeheartedly agree, but how do you get the other side to listen? The saying goes something like "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into."

[deleted]

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#252

Post by trey-jones » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

offby37years wrote: post #239

trey-jones wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with this: > Never the hands of authorities whether those be government or corporate. But I'm not sure about this: > Judging what is and is not misinformation must always be in the hands of the people. It's definitely a very difficult problem. I like to think that I personally can distinguish decently well between information and mis/dis-information, but I look around and see plenty of people who simply canno…

If you don't trust your fellow citizens to discern misinformation from truth, you don't trust them to vote.

I don't, do you? It's the slipperiest slope around, however. For instance:

In my state there was an executive order from the governor allowing mask mandates, but polling places were specifically excluded, because you simply cannot disallow people from voting.

Another very difficult problem. How can you enforce voter education without enabling voter suppression? I don't have an answer. I'm mainly here to point out that problems are hard.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#253

Post by devwastaken » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:05 PM UTC

njharman wrote: post #35

Judging what is and is not misinformation must always be in the hands of the people. Never the hands of authorities whether those be government or corporate. Why must fight all censorship. Because once you allow "a thing" to be censored, it becomes possible to censor "any thing". Things in the past which were labeled misinformation and would have been suppressed for even longer (or forever) under current social attit…

We either allow foreign influence to undo our democracy or we allow current and future governments to suppress our democracy.

We should isolate western internet lines from russia/china/israel and any cooperating countries that are apart of these significant bot campaigns that generate fake news targeting our elections.

We're still at war, and information is the weapons of that war. We are currently allowing fascist governments to take advantage of the inherent flaws to democracy - belief and choice.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#254

Post by dddddhf » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

swirepe wrote: post #195

amadeuspagel wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> child pornography, bomb-building tutorials, and revenge porn None of these things are misinformation.

Technically true, but try building a bomb from one of those tutorials

I have as a teenager made acetone peroxide and ammonium nitrate pipe bombs from instructions printed at the library. They worked ;)

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#255

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

shakezula wrote: post #227

kryogen1c wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things in the past which were labeled misinformation I know that item-level thinking like this is necessary to gain emotional traction with people, but this issue is just so obvious at a systems-level. the idea that we, right now the instant youre reading this, have discovered 100% of what there is to learn and 0% of what we know is wrong is so painfully, horrifically, obviously stupid (we've had computers for thir…

> misinformation is combat with MORE discussion, not less! I wholeheartedly agree, but how do you get the other side to listen? The saying goes something like "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into."

[deleted]

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#256

Post by munk-a » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

shakezula wrote: post #229

specialist wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Garbage in, garbage out. Solution is real simple: share your data, cite your sources, sign your name. Without provenance, accountability, transparency, it doesn't matter who is judging.

The problem is there's a non-trivial amount of people who consider their ignorance equal to your research, your facts, your studies, your anything.

That isn't a problem unless you're discussing something where anonymity is key - or it wouldn't be if the internet didn't make anonymity the rule by default. Anonymity is really great for private citizens, but people trying to spread information need to be held to a higher standard since their words shouldn't be preemptively censored but must be held to account after the fact.

Oh also, taking away anonymity is quite dangerous as well - there isn't an easy answer here.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#257

Post by nitsky » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

shakezula wrote: post #227

kryogen1c wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Things in the past which were labeled misinformation I know that item-level thinking like this is necessary to gain emotional traction with people, but this issue is just so obvious at a systems-level. the idea that we, right now the instant youre reading this, have discovered 100% of what there is to learn and 0% of what we know is wrong is so painfully, horrifically, obviously stupid (we've had computers for thir…

> misinformation is combat with MORE discussion, not less! I wholeheartedly agree, but how do you get the other side to listen? The saying goes something like "You can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into."

I have heard this expression rephrased as "Logic is useless against those who reject it".

However, in my experience, both sides are logical, they just start from different axioms.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#258

Post by ardy42 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

kryogen1c wrote: post #143

njharman wrote: post #35

Judging what is and is not misinformation must always be in the hands of the people. Never the hands of authorities whether those be government or corporate. Why must fight all censorship. Because once you allow "a thing" to be censored, it becomes possible to censor "any thing". Things in the past which were labeled misinformation and would have been suppressed for even longer (or forever) under current social attit…

> Things in the past which were labeled misinformation I know that item-level thinking like this is necessary to gain emotional traction with people, but this issue is just so obvious at a systems-level. the idea that we, right now the instant youre reading this, have discovered 100% of what there is to learn and 0% of what we know is wrong is so painfully, horrifically, obviously stupid (we've had computers for thir…

> misinformation is combat with MORE discussion, not less!

The problem with that idea is that it takes more effort to debunk a lie than to tell one. It also takes more effort to absorb a debunking than a lie. That's why disinformation works.

Here's an example: JFK ate babies occasionally, and the media hushed it up. Oswald was actually a secret high-level CIA operative, and was so outraged by this that he assassinated JFK for it.

It took me two seconds to write that. How much effort would it take you to debunk it?

It's just not practical to put all the burden of combating misinformation on each individual's shoulders. It's also necessary to stop the spread of misinformation. That doesn't need to be done by a central authority, but people who've been convinced by a lie will perceive that as "censorship" by one.

> scientific consensus is not arrived at when every scientific paper says the same thing. this is a fundamentally wrong view of science and also reality. on any given topic, the corpus includes opposing conclusions. eventually we figure out why and discern the underlying principles.

Scientific consensus is also not arrived at by publishing literally every crackpot idea, and answering each with "more discussion." Science has several mechanisms for "censoring" bullshit and misinformation (e.g. peer review), and it couldn't function without it. "More discussion" is saved for cases where those mechanisms failed.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#259

Post by FireBeyond » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:10 PM UTC

hpcjoe wrote: post #118

BitwiseFool wrote: post #4

"How many of your subscribers tuned in to Fox News, Newsmax, and OANN on U-verse, DirecTV, and AT&T TV for each of the four weeks preceding the November 3, 2020 elections and the January 6, 2021 attacks on the Capitol? Please specify the number of subscribers that tuned in to each channel ." Does this strike anyone else as a nakedly partisan move?

Worse than that, it is an attempt at intimidation. Given today's climate, it would not surprise me if it works. Look at it this way. The capital riot on 6-Jan was planned and discussed on Youtube, facebook, and twitter. Apparently, barely a mention on Parler. Yet Parler was excoriated and deplatformed for it, and for not policing its comment sections. Yet Youtube, facebook, and twitter have faced no consequences for…

Facebook was regularly kicking people off for problematic comments (it certainly didn't get all of them).

That was many people's motivation for going to Parler in the first place - frustrated with what they believed being tagged as "false", frustrated with repeated bouts in Facebook Jail, etc.

There's a dichotomy that one of the major motivations for Parler uptick is because of something you imply never really ever happened on Facebook.

Re: Letters from House members to cable providers [pdf]

#260

Post by skynet-9000 » Tue, Feb 23, 2021, 8:11 PM UTC

ntsplnkv2 wrote: post #208

maerF0x0 wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When did democrafts, the party I vote for Probably around the same time as it became socially unacceptable not to vote for them? Note how you had to qualify yourself as a democrat voter as some kind of proof point of the validity of your claims?

~75 million people voted for Donald Trump - it is hardly socially unacceptable to vote for a republican and you have a secret vote anyway.

> it is hardly socially unacceptable to vote for a republican and you have a secret vote anyway.

Those two things are not in conflict with each other: a sizable percentage of Trump voters may have been counting on the fact that they could secretly vote in order to protect themselves and even their jobs.

It seems that, today, some vocal people arguing for censorship immediately assume that anyone on the side of free speech and liberal thought is secretly a Trump apologist.