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Fake news was illegal in 17th century colonial Massachusetts

blog.mass.gov

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

#171

Post by lopmotr »

ixtli wrote: post #32
geggam wrote: post #20

People also used to do duels over insults and this was considered OK. We should bring that back. Get triggered demand a duel :) Enough PC

I find that the phrase "political correctness" can almost always be replaced with "treating people with respect."

"treating groups that are perceived as weak with courtesy" Not respect because it can include dishonestly flattering them which disrespects their ability to handle information. Also, not everyone - only members of particular groups. Political correctness advocates can be brutally bullying towards people they don't like the views of.

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

#172

Post by KC8ZKF »

dmix wrote: post #166
KC8ZKF wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Fake news" has become a cure for cognitive dissonance, but it started out as "pizzagate" and its ilk. That certainly was fake, somewhat effective, and toxic. It's still around. Check out qanon, spirtcooking, etc.

> but it started out as "pizzagate" and its ilk. Funny seeing such a local and current political tribe-based perspective in a discussion on the history of fake news. As if they just happened to be witness to the spawning of some new phenomenon which also happens to be caused by their pet political opponents. Meanwhile in reality it's really been one of the oldest products of human-fallible mass media consumption (see…

I agree with almost everything you write here, but I just want to make clear that my comment was about the term "fake news", and not reactionary outrage, FUD, attack TV shows, Reddit, or anything else.

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

#173

Post by cm2187 »

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.

Swiss director Jean-Luc Godard provocatively said once that real impartiality is 50% time for the Jews, 50% time for Hitler. I don’t think I should have to support the views I disagree with anymore than a government should be able to impose their views on my free speech.

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

#174

Post by keiyakins »

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…

Can we at least require you not to call yourself 'whatever news' if you're not at least trying to present factual information?

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

#175

Post by null0pointer »

jonbarker wrote: post #87
patrickg_zill wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nate Silver = election expert Me = not an expert on elections Yet, at almost every turn along the path of the 2016 election, I was far more accurate than Nate Silver. Is Nate Silver's expert opinion still more valuable than mine? Is expert opinion valuable even if it is right no more often than coin flipping?

Disclosure: I am a Nate Silver fan. Nate's expert opinion is only valuable if you accept the premise, which is that prediction science involves a range of possible outcomes. If you accept that premise, which I do, his opinion on the 2016 election, in which he stated several times that the odds of a Trump presidency were actually higher than most of the polls suggested, was arguably a more valuable opinion than either…

Yeah this seems to be the disconnect. A lot of people will intuitively think (myself included) something like this. "You said Hillary had 90% chance to win, but Trump won. Therefore your prediction was WRONG". It actually takes a little more thought to understand that a Trump victory was a possibility in the model all along. And that you cannot say whether or not a prediction model is accurate based on a SINGLE result.

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

#176

Post by Chriky »

jeffdavis wrote: post #164
moorhosj wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Should we get rid of places like CBC, BBC, NPR? Those are “government defined truth”, they are also highly respected journalists.

There are legitimate concerns about that for the same reason as people would be concerned about government-funded churches. As long as people have many options the concerns are mostly theoretical, but still valid.

The BBC is not government funded, and all television news in the UK, including Murdoch's Sky News is required by law to be unbiased.

If it's a choice between the BBC and the constant, blatant, society distorting lies you see in American "News", I'll take my Orwellian dystopia thanks.

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

#177

Post by fiblye »

jernfrost wrote: post #167
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…

Fake news is what got us dictatorships like Nazi Germany. Spreading lies about socialists and jews was how they gained votes. In fact the nazis did just like the fox and the trump crowd today and labeled all mainstream news fake. I don’t think you can dismiss the danger of such news environment. It plunged Germany into dictatorship. A too liberal democracy is vulnurable to totalitarians. We saw this in Egypt when ant…

And controlled "truth" about the west is what keeps North Korea afloat.

When people say that (insert liberty here) is what leads to Nazism, you're not making that liberty seem more dangerous. You're making Nazism seem less bad.

>A too liberal democracy is vulnurable to totalitarians. We saw this in Egypt when anti-democratic muslim brotherhood gained power through elections.

At no point in history has Egypt ever been accurately referred to as "a too liberal democracy". Hardline conservative/fundamentalist religious thought is a bigger source of the mess in Egypt than people having freedom.

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

#178

Post by sametmax »

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…

> We have long required advertisers to be truthful,

That didn't work at all. It just made advertisers sneakier. They still lie as much as they can, and when they can't, use tricks to focus peoples attention elsewhere, or move the ad on a medium where they can lie.

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

#179

Post by Chriky »

deadmetheny wrote: post #102
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, you're doing everything but addressing the claims. Again, if I was to link to WashPo or NYTimes, you'd dismiss them as well. Again, you're just covering for the liars of the world.

I have made no claims other that Snopes itself is not a reliable source, and I have given my reasoning behind why I am of that mind. Kindly piss off with your assumptions of anything beyond that claim.

They weren't appealing to authority though. An appeal to authority is "It's true because Snopes says so", they just linked to Snopes' reasoning as a shorthand for repeating the reasoning themselves.

If Snopes didn't provide their reasoning, it would be an appeal to authority.

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

#180

Post by pas »

ropeadopepope wrote: post #121
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…

> democratic minded people know how dangerous government defined truth (no matter how simple or well accepted) is. Have we? Take a look at the state of the press in Sweden. It's not much different from China these days. Without freedom of speech, there is no freedom of the press. America is the only country that guarantees either. Although, I will concede that our press isn't much better these days. There's a very re…

> Take a look at the state of the press in Sweden.

Could you elaborate on that? I guess most people here have no idea of what's the problem there.

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