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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

#21

Post by code_chimp »

johndhi wrote: post #10
SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #9

Earlier 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…

Why is the government well suited to declare what it and isn't misinformation though? Shouldn't we farm that out to a third party?

The government will just infiltrate and control that third party by funding it. "You want us to raise your rates the next round of appropriations, here is what we expect to get 'fact checked'".

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#22

Post by jutrewag »

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #12

One 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...

Because generally the right isn’t for free speech, just the free speech that supports their perspective. They’re literally defunding public libraries as we speak.

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#23

Post by mrcheesebreeze »

shasts wrote: post #17

Interesting, 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...

[flagged]

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#24

Post by t-3 »

jen20 wrote: post #19
imperio59 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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, b…

If people are incapable of determining true and false how are people supposed to determine true and false to remove misinformation?

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#25

Post by jutrewag »

indy wrote: post #5
radicaldreamer wrote: post #2

Unfortunate that this rightward lurch by the Modi government (still incredibly popular in India) will be ignored by the "west" due to competition with China. India considers unfettered social media and speech a threat to stability, just like China.

Why label this 'rightward'? Plenty of left-leaning governments throughout history have used censorship.

Banning hate speech is not censorship.

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#26

Post by [deleted] »

yutijke wrote: post #18

Unchecked 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 appoint…

[deleted]

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#28

Post by thewanderer1983 »

SomeCallMeTim wrote: post #9
autoexec wrote: post #4

I'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…

>Yes, state censorship can be abused. But promoting misinformation is a known threat to Democracy today. Right now.

State Censorship is being abused today right now. State Censorship is also a threat to Democracy. It's giving the most powerful institutions the tools to attack Democracy.

Who gets to decide what is mis/mal/dis information? The government? We as human beings are constantly weighing up information and evaluating details to inform our actions. Why do you think they have better tools to decide this for you? Who are these individuals in Government that have worked out all the truths of the world and why do you buy into them deciding this? Has anyone here worked for Government?

All the worlds information isn't easily summed up into Scientific truths that can be instantly fact checked by Government and everything else. This power your giving the government to decide what information you can see and not. Doesn't empower you the citizen to make good decisions. It allows government to sway your information to guide the outcome they want. Which is known as Public Policy, and they have decided that Public Policy is no longer up for debate for the plebs.

Re: Indian government empowers itself to “fact check,” delete social media posts

#30

Post by uoaei »

jutrewag wrote: post #20
imperio59 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

One powerful way to insulate against this is to instill critical thinking skills: "don't believe everything you read or think" as a tenet of public life.
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