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Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

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Re: Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

#141

Post by acchow »

da_chicken wrote: post #13
rsync wrote: post #5

"Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts" Thankfully, we've learned a few things since then and liberal (classic definition, not American definition), democratic minded people know how dangerous government defined truth (no matter how simple or well accepted) is. There is a cost to this, of course - the citizenry is required to have a level of sophistication and erudition and they will be forced…

Citizenry will do what they always have: accept the narrative that benefits them the most or that they've been indoctrinated to accept without questioning. The Internet isn't going to magically change human nature. That doesn't mean that we need a Ministry of Truth a la Brazil or 1984, but this isn't an either-or issue. The Fairness Doctrine[0] was a fairly nice compromise. We have long required advertisers to be tru…

> Citizenry will do what they always have: accept the narrative that benefits them the most or that they've been indoctrinated to accept without questioning.

All human history of progress goes against this claim.

We abolished slavery a few centuries ago.

Marijuana is being legalized in various countries and states.

etc.

> The Internet isn't going to magically change human nature.

On the contrary, civilization has always challenged "what is acceptable/right/wrong/etc". The internet is allowing us to accelerate this process with easier communication between and congregation of dissidents.

Re: Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

#142

Post by swebs »

nickodell wrote: post #54
jadedhacker wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fwiw, she is criticizing someone advocating this policy if you read the article. EDIT: I should mention I do not necessarily endorse her views with respect to 9/11.

1) She's criticizing the creation of a government-run media organization, not the creation of an org that punishes media organizations for false news. These things have different costs and benefits. Also, believe it or not, government-funded media already exists. For example, there's Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, the various spokespeople of government agencies like the Department of Agriculture, the Department…

>Many of these arguments seem vague and conspiratorial. For example, it asserts that plutocrats really control all of our media. For this, it cites another article by the same author, which talks about Jeff Bezos acquiring Washington Post.

This one isn't exactly a secret.

90% of US media is controlled by 5 companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_U...

These 15 Billionaires Own America's News Media Companies http://archive.li/hWTJt

Re: Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

#143

Post by r00fus »

testvox wrote: post #28
da_chicken wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizenry will do what they always have: accept the narrative that benefits them the most or that they've been indoctrinated to accept without questioning. The Internet isn't going to magically change human nature. That doesn't mean that we need a Ministry of Truth a la Brazil or 1984, but this isn't an either-or issue. The Fairness Doctrine[0] was a fairly nice compromise. We have long required advertisers to be tru…

How would you apply the fairness doctrine to the web though. Will I have to host opposing viewpoints on my blog or face fines? The fairness doctrine made sense back when your ability to broadcast your opinions was limited by the shared medium of the radio spectrum. But now that anyone with any viewpoint can broadcast to everyone via the Internet the fairness doctrine doesn't make sense.

I think if the fairness doctrine were applied solely to broadcast media (as it is described in aforementioned wikipedia link) then it works.

It's not a per-episode or per-program level, it's per-broadcaster. Also the fairness doctrine doesn't include (but worked in conjunction with) the Equal Time rule [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equal-time_rule

Re: Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

#144

Post by Bizarro »

derefr wrote: post #53
rsync wrote: post #5

"Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts" Thankfully, we've learned a few things since then and liberal (classic definition, not American definition), democratic minded people know how dangerous government defined truth (no matter how simple or well accepted) is. There is a cost to this, of course - the citizenry is required to have a level of sophistication and erudition and they will be forced…

It's intriguing that this is exactly the reverse of the argument (complete with "we've learned a few things since then") that people make when discussing ICOs. The requirements for IPOs are important, they argue. Investor accreditation is important to prevent the naive masses from wasting their live-savings on snake-oil, they argue. "Please grow up and resist the urge" for unregulated securities, they argue. I think…

So Joe random blogger has to disclose his "thinking process"? "Well, I was thinking about this, so I wrote down this. Then in the shower I had another thought, and that's why I wrote this".

I wish people would think of consequences more. The consequences and logistics of what you're suggesting are horrible. And I think once you have to time to reflect, you'll agree.

Re: Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

#145

Post by karmelapple »

trgv wrote: post #22
ralusek wrote: post #4

This whole "fake news" thing is absolutely ridiculous. What's interesting to me is that I very very rarely hear a fact touted by the left OR right that is just outright incorrect. The problem is much less to do with facts, and much more to do with implications or conclusions, which many news sources dish out handily.

I don't think it was ridiculous to begin with (neither was "terrorism") but it's ridiculous now. I would define "fake news" as news published by people who know what they're publishing is false. My feeling is that either there were more of those kinds of articles floating around this past election or they were more visible. You might just call it clickbait, but "fake news" didn't seem like an inapt descriptor until i…

Would you also consider it news the publisher knows mislead, even if there’s a grain of truth?

Re: Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

#147

Post by stale2002 »

CodeCube wrote: post #44
kristianc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the first amendment we've had 200+ years of nearly untrammeled progress. Before that, we in Europe had absolute monarchy and the divine right of Kings. Now sure, they might have been wrong, and they're weren't infallible, but if you're seeking to overturn that, you probably need something more compelling than 'the internet has increased the flow of information'. It was the increased flow of information with the…

And places like China are now seeing the same kind of untrammeled progress, as their economy completely explodes under political conditions that 'the west' would consider counter to what they would consider correct/right/whatever. Now to be clear, I'm obviously not advocating human rights violations, and strict governmental control ... I'm only pointing out that things like 'freedom of speech', while awesome and righ…

China is not a good counter example.

China has massively westernized and expanded its freedoms.

Sure, it still had a long way to go, but at least these days the Chinese government isn't arresting professors en mass and forcing them to work on farms.

Yes, this literally happened. It was called the cultural revolution.

As bad as humans rights and freedoms are in China, I think people really underestimate just how much worse they used to be.

Re: Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

#148

Post by ataturk »

joe_the_user wrote: post #41
da_chicken wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Citizenry will do what they always have: accept the narrative that benefits them the most or that they've been indoctrinated to accept without questioning. The Internet isn't going to magically change human nature. That doesn't mean that we need a Ministry of Truth a la Brazil or 1984, but this isn't an either-or issue. The Fairness Doctrine[0] was a fairly nice compromise. We have long required advertisers to be tru…

"Why shouldn't news organizations be held to a similar ethical or moral standard?" [as advertisers or as broadcasters, apparently] Among other problems, the definition of "news organization" is completely fluid in this Internet era. What organization in particular gets a truth or balance mandate? Some? All? Which ever ones the censors consider most credible? "Does it benefit society if the only opinions broadcast as…

I worry because people today aren't reading history. They don't even have any idea what took place in the 1980s during the Soviet era and how the fall of communism shaped today's Europe. I think about the Czechs fighting back, all the intrigue of the two Germanys. Vietnam, Central America...

The other thing is, even though the media was always biased and agenda-driven, they weren't completely infiltrated by intelligence agencies and/or mega-corporations.

Re: Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

#149

Post by mirimir »

swebs wrote: post #142
nickodell wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) She's criticizing the creation of a government-run media organization, not the creation of an org that punishes media organizations for false news. These things have different costs and benefits. Also, believe it or not, government-funded media already exists. For example, there's Voice of America, Radio Free Europe, the various spokespeople of government agencies like the Department of Agriculture, the Department…

>Many of these arguments seem vague and conspiratorial. For example, it asserts that plutocrats really control all of our media. For this, it cites another article by the same author, which talks about Jeff Bezos acquiring Washington Post. This one isn't exactly a secret. 90% of US media is controlled by 5 companies https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_cross-ownership_in_the_U... These 15 Billionaires Own America's Ne…

> We find that transnational corporations form a giant bow-tie structure and that a large portion of control flows to a small tightly-knit core of financial institutions. This core can be seen as an economic “super-entity” that raises new important issues both for researchers and policy makers.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal....

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