Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

blog.mass.gov

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 216 posts

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

#151

Post by maskedSlacker »

acchow wrote: post #141
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…

> 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 alw…

> We abolished slavery a few centuries ago.

Slavery has never been abolished. It was simply made illegal in most places under most circumstances. By any definition of slavery there are more people in bondage today than at any time in the past.

Even taking your claim of abolition at face value, the only reason chattel slavery was "abolished" in the US was because its abolition became a way of ending a particularly bloody war by taking away one sides motive for fighting. Before that (i.e. before a majority of the citizenry saw abolition as benefitting themselves) there was not enough popular support for abolition.

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

#152

Post by maskedSlacker »

wilsonnb wrote: post #68
zenhack wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The standard answer under US law is the jury; the concern you raise is deeply embedded in our legal system.

I don't think that juries decide what's true and what's not. They decide whether the evidence presented to them is sufficient to show that an event or events happened. My understanding is that even in defamation suits they are mostly trying to prove that person A said thing X about person C and then prove that person C was harmed because of it. However, I am honestly not sure if it's just American first amendment ind…

> I don't think that juries decide what's true and what's not.

In a legal sense, that's exactly what they do. Juries are, by definition, deciders of fact, i.e. they decided what is legally true based on the evidence presented to them.

Whether legal "truth," epistemological "truth," and physical "truth" coincide is an entirely separate (and largely pointless) issue.

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

#153

Post by phs318u »

thankthunk wrote: post #122
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…

> that they've been indoctrinated to accept without questioning. Which is made easier when governments define and outlaw "fake" news. What separated us from totalitarian governments in the 20th century was we protected speech while hitler/stalin/mao/etc outlawed "fake news". Do you really want Trump or Obama or Hillary or George Bush to have the power to limit speech? Do you really want either the republican or democ…

You mention 'bribing politicians' a few times. There's no need to bribe politicians when you _become_ the politicians.

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

#154

Post by maskedSlacker »

rayiner wrote: post #90
wilsonnb wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference here between modifying and violating? Whether or not the amendment process is followed or a law is passed? I fully agree that the amendment process has to be used. I would be in favor of a 28th amendment placing well thought out limitations on the 1st or the 2nd amendments. Assuming I thought that the limitations it was placing on them were good limitations.

> What's the difference here between modifying and violating? The difference is between broad consensus and divided opinion. A Constitutional amendment requires a 2/3 vote of Congress to propose, and ratification by 3/4 of states (which means any Constitutional amendment would require support from both red and blue states). Ordinary legislation only requires a 50% + 1 majority.

> Ordinary legislation only requires a 50% + 1 majority.

That's not really true of any non-budgetary legislation (for now).

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

#155

Post by dsfyu404ed »

In case anyone forgot, the other five states in New England don't exist because MA was a welcoming place where the powers that be kept it's nose out of the business of the people. MA has always been the kind of place where you need to watch what you say about the people/groups in charge. It doesn't surprise me at all that speaking out in a provably false way was on the books as a crime in colonial MA.

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

#156

Post by ekianjo »

maskedSlacker wrote: post #151
acchow wrote: post #141

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. 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 alw…

> We abolished slavery a few centuries ago. Slavery has never been abolished. It was simply made illegal in most places under most circumstances. By any definition of slavery there are more people in bondage today than at any time in the past. Even taking your claim of abolition at face value, the only reason chattel slavery was "abolished" in the US was because its abolition became a way of ending a particularly blo…

More people in bondage? in absolute numbers this is captain obvious level of argument since we have had a demographic explosion in the 20th century. Percentage wise you would be way wrong since poverty has been steadily decreasing everywhere around the world and very rapidly.

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

#157

Post by michaelmrose »

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…

The fairness doctrine makes little sense in the context of the internet. My random comment/post on reddit may in the course of a paragraph contain 5 different assumptions that may be orthogonal to the actual main point.

It will not contain therein space for alternative thoughts on the main point let alone space for any alternatives for any unexamined assumptions.

Truth is multidimensional and fairness impossible to determine to everyone's satisfaction. For example 2 people discussing the best way to travel around the world are unlikely to find agreement with someone who believes the earth is flat and impossible to fly around and 2 different types of dating artifacts are equally meaningless to someone who believes the earth is 6000 years old.

Alternative viewpoints can find themselves a home in the comment section or if undesirable there on your own home on the web.

Wherein the web isn't censored in a heavy handed fashion we have the most reasonable answer to the fairness doctrine. Everyone can be heard but not everyone will find an audience that desires to listen.

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

#158

Post by wallace_f »

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…

>"corporate filtered news?" Seems like you're stretching things

It's worth noting there doesn't need to be a corporate agenda or government conspiracy for humans to exhibit groupthink about ideas. Of course most of human history existed before The Age of Reason made evidence-based reason en vogue; but even today you can read about things like NASA engineers who said exactly how and when the Columbia shuttle would experience a critical foam strike, or scientists who were met with hostility and disparagement when trying to debunk the encyclopedic-, and textbook-published myth about komodo dragons injecting a cocktail of deadly bacteria sith their bites. It seems humans just exhibit this appeal to authority/consensus as an inherent trait.

The current climate of promoting democratization, diversity, and freedom except when it comes to democratization, diversity, and freedom of ideas seems to be taking a step backwards for humanity.

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

#159

Post by Andre_Wanglin »

drzaiusapelord wrote: post #63
deadmetheny wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Snopes isn't made up of experts and isn't an unbiased source. It mystifies me that so many people treat it as reliable, let alone infallible. (sorry for pointing this out, but downvoting me doesn't change that it's true)

You're welcome to challenge their items on a line by line basis. Type it out, I'll wait. There are also lots of other sources. I think playing up a 'no true scotsman' just empowers the liars because at a certain point you're just arguing that truth cannot be verified by anyone.

You are defending the expert status of indisputable laymen by demanding a line by line refutation of everything they have ever written? And this seems not merely reasonable to you but you perceive it as upholding good reasoning and logic itself?

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

#160

Post by Andre_Wanglin »

frabbit wrote: post #131
threepipeproblm wrote: post #99

They also banned Christmas, and most sports.

And committed genocide against the original inhabitants and wiped out vast numbers of species. So, yeah, laws against Fake News as defined by a bunch of religious maniacs are great.

[citation needed]

The "genocide" of native Americans was a result of European diseases, not barbarism.[1] As the people had no idea of germ theory, it is impossible to claim this was intentional.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_disease_and_ep...

Post reply on HN