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The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

currentaffairs.org

151–160 of 503 posts

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#151

The linked article concludes: "Creators must be compensated well. But at the same time we have to try to keep things that are important and profound from getting locked away where few people will see them. The truth needs to be free and universal." Let's also consider whether lies should be made more expensive. Free costs more than it's worth.

As always, who judges whether something is true?

This is an excuse to be lazy and not try to establish truth at all, which is way worse than getting the 'truth' wrong sometimes.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#152

The first link in the article is not a "lie". "Portland Protesters Burn Bibles, American Flags In The Streets" has a RT video that shows exactly that, and links to several other confirmed Twitter accounts all stating the same thing. How is that a lie?

Where does OP's article say that the bible-burning incident was a 'lie'?

New York Post says 'a bible', and your video a single book being burned, can't see whether that's a bible. The original video has been deleted (link is dead here: https://twitter.com/stillgray/status/1289512762733785088 ) but quickly picked up by the usual far-right BS twitterati.

>The fire was later put out by members of Moms United for Black Lives Matter, who doused the flames with bottles of water and stomped on the embers,

so that article OP cites is outrage bait, it's not an informed source.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government, scientists, experts in various fields, people who have proven to tell the truth in the past, etc. You obviously still have your own ability to determine what fits your model of the universe and what doesn't. These are just groups of people more likely to have access to information that you might not. You don't have to trust anyone, but in a system where someone has to judge what is true, these groups…

Governments, scientists, and experts have also been proven to be wrong and to have lied in the past.

Getting things wrong on occasion is better than having some sort of idiot free for all.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#154

The first link in the article is not a "lie". "Portland Protesters Burn Bibles, American Flags In The Streets" has a RT video that shows exactly that, and links to several other confirmed Twitter accounts all stating the same thing. How is that a lie?

There's been a lot of coverage around false-flag sorts of behavior in Portland, but the fact that this thing is being pumped through the lie pipelines that originate with places like RT (Russian state-controlled media) is kinda a dead giveaway.

We can get into a nuanced discussion of "is it really lying" since there's a video, but I have not been a party to any conversations in my lifetime that start with a nuanced discussion of "is something technically a lie" that end with a good feeling in my gut. So that's kinda a clue that despite the technicalities of language something uncool is happening.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As always, who judges whether something is true?

Another fun one I ask when someone brings up Snopes: Who snopes the snopes? In other words how do we know they are not being biased or thorough enough? I am not saying everything there is wrong but I have ran into weird biased articles before.

The bad thing about snopes is they don't have a spectrum, it's a binary 'fact or not fact' system. This means even a slight bit of bias can be the difference between fact or not.

But the more important question is why a random website is being used as the basis for truth. They don't even try to hide the bias in their language, it's just filled with words you would never see in an academic document.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#158

“History is always written by the winners. When two cultures clash, the loser is obliterated, and the winner writes the history books—books which glorify their own cause and disparage the conquered foe. As Napoleon once said, 'What is history, but a fable agreed upon? '”

This isn't history, it's current affairs.

Current affairs eventually become history, my point being that the truth isnt always the truth, its only the narrative of the winning, or more dominant party at the time.

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#159
post #22

I just want Netflix for journalism. I don't want a super expensive sub to a dozen papers. I want one subscription, they all should be included (maybe offer different tiers if you are an arse) and it shouldn't be more than $20/month. Go.

Not sure how available this is elsewhere but I get press reader access for free through the state library in my browser. It has a lot of papers and magazines (though the interface isn't the best)

Re: The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The government, scientists, experts in various fields, people who have proven to tell the truth in the past, etc. But how has it been implemented in practice ? If you look at the raw numbers, generally we rely on the lowest bidders amongst Facebook/Google/Twitter's third-world-country subcontractors, as well as the Chinese government.

The existing practice is for the community of these sites to upvote good content and downvote bad content. Separately, moderators purge controversial content as a check/balance to the voting system. If users feel that the moderation is inconsistent with their content desires, they choose a different site to frequent, as is the case in market systems.

again, if you look at the whole system in aggregate, the existing practice is for GooFaceTwitBaba to farm out their moderation works to subcontractors, while also bending backwards to prevalent political headwinds to preserve their shareholder value. If users feel that the moderation is inconsistent with their content desires, they are free to leave the megaplatforms and become approximately completely irrelevant, thus achieving the exact same effect as being deplatformed.
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