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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

#61

Post by ngold »

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…

A well informed, educated citizenry has been the goal. Sadly it looks like a war on education has been waged by the right for decades now. Bush jr. revising bankruptcy law to permanently hobble those seeking an education before the drinking age has never been challenged. Instead college has sky rocketed and spending on public education has plummeted.

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

#62

Post by zenhack »

wilsonnb wrote: post #43
lifeisstillgood wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i think something akin to libel laws might be interesting - if you knowingly publish untruths about me that's libel - about society in general that's ... fake news and you can be civility liable?

The problem always ends up being "who decides what is not true?". Many people think that such a thing is not possible, or that the giving the Government such a power would be too much. I personally think I could be persuaded to give such a power to the judiciary branch. I'd have to think about it a lot more before coming to a final decision, though.

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

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

#63

Post by drzaiusapelord »

deadmetheny wrote: post #26
drzaiusapelord wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I very very rarely hear a fact touted by the left OR right that is just outright incorrect. The right absolutely makes up stories: https://www.snopes.com/tag/breitbart/ https://www.snopes.com/tag/fox-news/ Lots and lots of false statements here.

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.

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

#64

Post by simonsarris »

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…

>the citizenry is required to have a level of sophistication and erudition

Conveniently 17th century colonial Massachusetts had that too!

> the Puritans were a religious group that drew disproportionately from the most educated and education-obsessed parts of the English populace. Literacy among immigrants to Massachusetts was twice as high as the English average, and in an age when the vast majority of Europeans were farmers most immigrants to Massachusetts were skilled craftsmen or scholars. And the Puritan “homeland” of East Anglia was a an unusually intellectual place, with strong influences from Dutch and Continental trade; historian Havelock Ellis finds that it “accounts for a much larger proportion of literary, scientific, and intellectual achievement than any other part of England.”

> Furthermore, only the best Puritans were allowed to go to Massachusetts; Fischer writes that “it may have been the only English colony that required some of its immigrants to submit letters of recommendation” and that “those who did not fit in were banished to other colonies and sent back to England”. Puritan “headhunters” went back to England to recruit “godly men” and “honest men” who “must not be of the poorer sort”.

From: http://slatestarcodex.com/2016/04/27/book-review-albions-see...

Puritans were the original high-IQ eugenicists who wanted to go LARP in the woods. And they did.

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

#65

Post by rayiner »

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…

> Why shouldn't news organizations be held to a similar ethical or moral standard?

At best it gives an imprimatur of credibility to unreliable information. (E.g. as with the food pyramid, doctors' recommendations regarding salt and eggs, etc.)

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

#67

Post by icebraining »

CodeCube wrote: post #44
kristianc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since the first amendment we've had 200+ years of nearly untrammeled progress. Before that, we in Europe had absolute monarchy and the divine right of Kings. Now sure, they might have been wrong, and they're weren't infallible, but if you're seeking to overturn that, you probably need something more compelling than 'the internet has increased the flow of information'. It was the increased flow of information with the…

And places like China are now seeing the same kind of untrammeled progress, as their economy completely explodes under political conditions that 'the west' would consider counter to what they would consider correct/right/whatever. Now to be clear, I'm obviously not advocating human rights violations, and strict governmental control ... I'm only pointing out that things like 'freedom of speech', while awesome and righ…

It's not the same kind of progress; they're mostly playing catch up.

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

#68

Post by wilsonnb »

zenhack wrote: post #62
wilsonnb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem always ends up being "who decides what is not true?". Many people think that such a thing is not possible, or that the giving the Government such a power would be too much. I personally think I could be persuaded to give such a power to the judiciary branch. I'd have to think about it a lot more before coming to a final decision, though.

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 indoctrination that makes me think that is significantly different than deciding what is true and what isn't.

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

#69

Post by pavlov »

CrystalLangUser wrote: post #48
solarkraft wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? You're still spreading information and view points ...

Why? Why would some random blog be held at the same standard at all as a newspaper?

Paradoxically there are many people who are conditioned to believe the random blog over the newspaper. People have been told to "think for themselves" and "do their own research", and so when they stumble on a conspiracy-minded blog, it feels like a more authentic voice than mainstream media.

I don't know what the solution is. It's impossible and unreasonable to expect individual bloggers to hold the same standard as newspapers traditionally did. Maybe social networks could do something to educate readers?

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

#70

Post by patrickg_zill »

ixtli wrote: post #36
ralusek wrote: post #4

This whole "fake news" thing is absolutely ridiculous. What's interesting to me is that I very very rarely hear a fact touted by the left OR right that is just outright incorrect. The problem is much less to do with facts, and much more to do with implications or conclusions, which many news sources dish out handily.

Its a concerted effort to discredit expert opinion which the shorter term goal of allowing people to equate their own laymen's understanding with that of someone versed in a subject.

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?

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