I have said for many years now that before anyone can vote they need to take a test. It's a dead simple 5 question T/F test. And you only have to get 3 right to vote.
Who decides the questions?
A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K
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Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K
#32Link to the underlying report (PDF): https://documents.trendmicro.com/assets/white_papers/wp-fake... I'm not clear on how effective such a campaign promises to be. But assuming that folks wouldn't pay if they couldn't get something out of it, what does this tell us about democracy? Do we need to throw out either democracy or freedom of speech?
Freedom of speech purism is probably unworkable. I'm old enough to remember people arguing that spam was free speech and that spamfighting was immoral. Fake news is much more sophisticated than spam but is ultimately going to encounter the same fight.
Agreed. I think this is the same fundamental issue as https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Far better to educate the general public so well that such a test becomes redundant, than to live in a society where such a test is necessary.
> Far better to educate the general public so well that such a test becomes redundant Easier said than done!
True, but morally it's much better to try to bring everyone up to an acceptable level of political understanding, than to exclude people for the lack of that understanding, especially since ignorance wouldn't really be their own fault.
Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
I assume education would encompass critical thinking, allowing for the neutral evaluation of multiple sides of an issue, and a critical eye toward the veracity of facts and news consumed.
Critical thinking is all well and good, but I'll hazard a guess that it won't help - many people know it but only apply it selectively. On the other hand, I can't help but think comment threads like this amount to nothing more than "voting for the other guy is so illogical, clearly my vote is the correct one". A slightly veiled way to call anyone who doesn't vote your way stupid.
Not at all. I don't blame a single person who voted for Donald Trump (disclaimer: Bernie Sanders was "my" candidate); Trump made promises, and people voted for those promises. The fault lies with his failing his base, not the base itself.
Now, if he runs again and people still vote for him after he's lied and broken most of his campaign process, that can't be fixed, in which case maybe democracy is broken.
Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K
#35unless you're going to do full censorship there is no cure, the MSM is clearly against trump in the election which could be decisive in the past, the social network dared to disagree this time and actually made a difference, but, what is wrong then, let them compete and people will know where to turn to, remember, majority of them have already made their mind no matter what, it's the middle ground that is affected.
Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K
#36I wonder if the Byzantine generals algorithm could be applied to fake news. A distributed truth block chain.
Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K
#37Since this is HN, the bigger question is how much of this can be automated? For example, you go to one of those sites, fill out a form, pay in bitcoin, and let the system do the rest?
Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K
#38I have said for many years now that before anyone can vote they need to take a test. It's a dead simple 5 question T/F test. And you only have to get 3 right to vote.
This has been done many times before, to allow only the 'right' people to vote. Its been made illegal for a reason.
And to add: That reason is that democracy (voting) is not (primarily, although it often follows) about correctness of result, but about people's interests being represented.
Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K
#39I have said for many years now that before anyone can vote they need to take a test. It's a dead simple 5 question T/F test. And you only have to get 3 right to vote.
What would happen to people with a learning disability? Would you protect their vote? Or are they subhuman and not allowed to take part in democracy?
>Or are they subhuman and not allowed to take part in democracy?
To be fair, the point was never that they were subhuman.
Yours is a loaded question.
Re: A 12-Month Campaign of Fake News to Influence Elections Costs $400K
#40Earlier quoted context omitted.
Critical thinking is all well and good, but I'll hazard a guess that it won't help - many people know it but only apply it selectively. On the other hand, I can't help but think comment threads like this amount to nothing more than "voting for the other guy is so illogical, clearly my vote is the correct one". A slightly veiled way to call anyone who doesn't vote your way stupid.
Not at all. I don't blame a single person who voted for Donald Trump (disclaimer: Bernie Sanders was "my" candidate); Trump made promises, and people voted for those promises. The fault lies with his failing his base, not the base itself. Now, if he runs again and people still vote for him after he's lied and broken most of his campaign process, that can't be fixed, in which case maybe democracy is broken.
One counterargument to this reasoning is that many of his promises are for policies that, according to the best available evidence, are counterproductive.
If the base consistently votes for things like “get tough on crime!” or “keep drugs illegal!” or “spend a lot of money building a giant wall!” or “institute a travel ban on questionable legal and national security grounds!”, I think there’s a strong case to be made that there’s some sort of issue affecting the base. Where the issue lies, and which people / organizations are at fault, is the thornier question. (Is it inequities in education? Is it propaganda, good old FUD campaigns, or a failure of the media? Poverty? Drug abuse? Political disenchantment caused by corruption or widening inequality? The legacy of institutionalized racism?)
All of which is to say: I don’t think his base is solely to blame; far from it. We do, however, need to understand why people vote for useless / counterproductive policies, and for the people that espouse them, when we should collectively know better. If we're not willing to face this question, democracy is already broken.