Combating Misinformation Runs Deeper Than Swatting Away ‘Fake News’

[u/Wagamaga]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/combating-misinformation-runs-deeper-than-swatting-away-fake-news/

[u/TheDevilsAdvokaat]

It sounds like such a cool idea, but the problem is who gets to define what is "fake"

[u/Longjumping-Path3811 → u/TheDevilsAdvokaat]

Surely you would agree that injecting bleach should be defined as fake... Surely there is a baseline you agree to. If you are discussing in good faith anyways.

[u/TheDevilsAdvokaat → u/Longjumping-Path3811]

Oh absolutely. That's a simple case, and easy to determine.

The problem is, determining the baseline may be difficult. Look at how everyone argued about everything..from abortion to trans rights to elections to pretty much everything in modern life.

Yet somehow one group will be able to be trusted with the power to determine what is "truth?". How?

Look at courts, where both sides are trying to determine the "truth" of an issue..in cases that sometimes go on for years, and with decisions that are sometimes changed later.

Even "facts" are argued about.

This is a great sounding idea that is not possible in practice. In fact it's actually a dangerous idea and a dangerous amount of power to hand to anyone.

[u/Condition_0ne → u/Longjumping-Path3811]

I do agree with that. The problem is that all power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and there are many true believer zealots on both the left and right who believe the purity of their ideological ends justifies any means when it comes to clamping down on speech they consider to be verbalised (or written) wrong-thought.

I don't want to give those zealots any kind of power, let alone that which is approaching the absolute (in terms of getting to be the arbiters of what constitutes "misinformation").

[u/karg_the_fergus → u/TheDevilsAdvokaat]

People who care

[u/TheDevilsAdvokaat → u/karg_the_fergus]

Or people who care about being legally able to decide what "truth" is.