...which pretty much ends democracy. Without the ability to criticize a government in power, one cannot build opposition. Hence, there is no democracy.
Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts
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Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts
#12One of the more bizarre parts of the Musk-Twitter saga has been Musk's unyielding support for censorship of tweets critical of Modi. [1] I don't really understand why someone who claims to be dedicated to free speech would ever take such a position? Does he intend for his "Everything App" to dominate South Asia rather than North America?
[1] https://theintercept.com/2023/03/28/twitter-modi-india-punja...
Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts
#13A clear case of inmates running the asylum.
Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts
#14India has some previous experience with censorship. Maybe we will end up with "The Emergency: Part II"
Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts
#15I'm not even opposed to flagging posts as “fake, false or misleading” because abusing those flags will cause them to be ignored, but removing content is a problem. State censorship is a much bigger threat to Democracy than false or misleading tweets and facebook posts.
Ten years ago I would have agreed. Today? I'm not sure you're right about which is the greater threat. Yes, state censorship can be abused. But promoting misinformation is a known threat to Democracy today . Right now. I'm not sure what the real answer should be. If "the market" manages to get the propaganda farms' misinformation under control, then great. If they don't , the only answer I can see is for government t…
How do you reconcile the premise of democracy (that the general public will be able to discern and organize for good) with calls to supervise what opinions they can be exposed to?
Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts
#16I'm not even opposed to flagging posts as “fake, false or misleading” because abusing those flags will cause them to be ignored, but removing content is a problem. State censorship is a much bigger threat to Democracy than false or misleading tweets and facebook posts.
Ten years ago I would have agreed. Today? I'm not sure you're right about which is the greater threat. Yes, state censorship can be abused. But promoting misinformation is a known threat to Democracy today . Right now. I'm not sure what the real answer should be. If "the market" manages to get the propaganda farms' misinformation under control, then great. If they don't , the only answer I can see is for government t…
This makes no sense.
Democracy is not going to die because people spread false information.
Newspapers have had the monopoly on spreading whatever information they deemed correct (whether it turned out to be or not) for decades and have now lost that and they are pissed.
This is why there is a rise in apparent outcry that all of a sudden anyone and everyone can spread their message broadly where only a handful of organizations could do it before.
There's is no crisis in democracy. As long as the same tools are free to be used to counter whatever fact you think is false then you are free to have an open debate and correct the record.
The government having the power to decide who can say what and what is "true" or "false"... That's the real risk of bringing death to democracy.
Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts
#17Interesting, because Indian Government recently jailed an independent fact checker for a tweet he made 4 years ago.
This new body seems to be a tool to suppress dissent and promote the fake news machinery Government and the ruling party is notorious for.
https://www.cnbctv18.com/india/alt-news-pratik-sinha-mohamma...
Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts
#18Unchecked Censorship by the government can be a problem, but I find it hard to take voices in this space on face value since they are often the most vocal cheerleaders when a government or political party they like is doing the censorship since it's "Human rights" not politics.
Given the dissolving line between Social media and the Town square, who should be the arbiters of speech on Social media?
A committee appointed from "Interest groups" with all the right "credentials" and "expertise"? Effectively an incestous group with circular pats on the backs.
A separate body elected by the people just for this purpose?
Something else?
Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ten years ago I would have agreed. Today? I'm not sure you're right about which is the greater threat. Yes, state censorship can be abused. But promoting misinformation is a known threat to Democracy today . Right now. I'm not sure what the real answer should be. If "the market" manages to get the propaganda farms' misinformation under control, then great. If they don't , the only answer I can see is for government t…
This makes no sense. Democracy is not going to die because people spread false information. Newspapers have had the monopoly on spreading whatever information they deemed correct (whether it turned out to be or not) for decades and have now lost that and they are pissed. This is why there is a rise in apparent outcry that all of a sudden anyone and everyone can spread their message broadly where only a handful of org…
> Democracy is not going to die because people spread false information.
That is exactly what is going to happen. People do not have the tools to discern truth given plausible misinformation.
> you are free to have an open debate and correct the record.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini's_law
> The government having the power to decide who can say what and what is "true" or "false"...
Indeed, that is a risk, but not the only risk.
Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts
#20Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ten years ago I would have agreed. Today? I'm not sure you're right about which is the greater threat. Yes, state censorship can be abused. But promoting misinformation is a known threat to Democracy today . Right now. I'm not sure what the real answer should be. If "the market" manages to get the propaganda farms' misinformation under control, then great. If they don't , the only answer I can see is for government t…
This makes no sense. Democracy is not going to die because people spread false information. Newspapers have had the monopoly on spreading whatever information they deemed correct (whether it turned out to be or not) for decades and have now lost that and they are pissed. This is why there is a rise in apparent outcry that all of a sudden anyone and everyone can spread their message broadly where only a handful of org…
Democracy will definitely die if you spread false information because everyone is making decisions based on falsehoods.