Hard to argue with, Uriel. I think it's reasonable to have a way to call out provable lies, perhaps with some kind of tag that links to the truth, as someone suggested once.
The trouble is, as you'll see in the comments above, that people have agendas whether they are willing to admit to this or not. Some people are so opinionated they consider anyone who disagrees with them an enemy, and there is no middle ground. Such people are willing to grant a certain level of tolerance to dissidents provided that they keep their heads down.
The freedom of speech, and how much freedom we should have in terms of the speech we make, will always be an issue, and as I've warned here, if someone doesn't find a sensible, reasonable way to deal with the egregiously horrible speech, sooner or later the number of people affected thereby will reach critical mass. Then there will be hell to pay, whatever we have to say about it.
It's not that organized religions in general are disinformation, but that they contain plenty of if, and I'd say it's pretty much impossible to argue that they haven't demonstrably harmed massive numbers of people both directly and indirectly(opposing LGBT rights and sabotaging education respectively as examples) through what's in them.
Faith is not a monolithic bloc; I'm opposed to cruelty and can't abide the knuckle-draggers who bully minorities and don't like reality much. I'm not alone in being a person of faith who believes this.
Given that, and going off the standard of 'disinformation and/or harmful speech should be prohibited', then it strikes me that a good many religious people(all but the most moderate/non-literal basically) and ideas would quickly find themselves given the boot from social media.
That is hard to argue with. I look forward to seeing arguments in favour of a right to lie or to abuse if couched in terms of faith -- or political philosophy.
Yeah, afraid that very much strikes me as using one line from a book full to the brim of lines to pull a 'no true religion' fallacy and/or cherry picking. I mean, it looks like a nice idea sure, but other theists could just as easily pick out lines that support whatever they want/think, so nice, but ultimately irrelevant.
Give the farmer back his straw, please. There's plenty of archaeological evidence to back up the historical narratives in the Bible. But haters gonna hate, right?
Similar, but not the same. While there are certainly people that can get downright fanatical about what leaders on their 'team' might say, I'm unaware of any political parties where it's held that the one(s) at the top are the ultimate authority, and that whatever they say and/or do is right and good no matter what other people might think.
I see Trump supporters do this all the time right here on TD in the comments section. Since they're often hidden I daresay you don't see them. I used to see it all the time when I was on Google Plus. The sycophancy was sickening. "All hail our Glorious Leader X, who has a cute 'n' adorable family/pet/relationship with Y." Gimme a break! I can't imagine anyone doing that over here over Corbyn, May, or any of the other party leaders.
TOG, you're assuming that "organised religion" = "disinformation."
That's not true. While some religious groups can and do cause mayhem and even kill people it's not fair to tar everyone who claims faith with the same brush. Disinformation is as disinformation does; per my cited blog post people have, from the earliest days of history, wrapped land-snatching, power-grabbing and pure greed in the banner of religion to get people on board with their agendas. Now THAT'S disinformation.
Now that we've apparently binned true religion (James 1:27) in favour of a watered-down version that allows us to do whatever we like, political philosophy has taken over as the fig leaf for horrible behaviour.
Where does Jillian stand on political partisanship? Same dance, different tune.
Religion is presented as a matter of FAITH so it's not presented as fact.
Except when it is. My faith demands that I treat articles of faith as a matter of fact.
As for disinformation that has demonstrably harmed millions, the dissemination of this is not confined to people of faith; anyone who clings like grim death to a particular ideological position without taking the time to question it is a guilty of disseminating disinformation that harms people as the most fanatical religious zealots you can think of. That said, it's not a contest: making stuff up that harms people is wrong, the end.
I also take issue with the notion that more speech alone is sufficient to deal with the fallout of misinformation. Tell that to the survivors of violent incidents caused by sectarian strife. The truth is, speech/counterspeech is a popularity contest in which the winner is the one who makes the most noise. If you're not popular enough to get sufficient counter-speech against a torrent of abusive speech that paints you in a negative light, people are quite likely to believe the negative speech, which can cause real problems for real people. Ask the victims of Alex Jones's "crisis actors" rants who had to move home several times to get away from the idiots who believed his misinformation about them. Where was the counter-speech for them? Relying on counter-speech alone demands that you ignore the filter bubbles that arise around people who are uncritically convinced that their view is the right one.
Lawsuits are for the rich; I considered going down that path on one occasion but the costs were prohibitive with no guarantee that I'd be able to win. I ended up leaving the online community I'd been part of for years to get away from the trolls who were making my life a misery there, mostly by telling lies about me and repeating them often enough (and getting others to repeat them too) that people began to believe them. There was no counter-speech for me.
While I'm not a mad fan of censorship the idea of a right to tell lies is disturbing to me. That notion harms and even kills people now, from those who starve to death as a result of Tory sanctions on their benefits to anti-vaxxers' children and their friends to citizens of countries bombed in the name of regime change (thanks, neocons)... have you got all day? These things happen when it's okay to tell lies -- and there's no law against it.
In practice, there are indeed limits to our speech. We can't encourage people to commit crimes, we can't run scams, or otherwise make speech that we know will cause harm to others because it's against the law. Some platforms ban profanity while others demand that their posters adhere to a code of conduct on pain of having their accounts shut down.
As I've warned many times, when the number of people affected by a particular situation reaches critical mass, expect change. Do we want to wait till then or sort things out now while there's still time to stop the worst knee-jerk legislation from being enacted?
Personally, I don't completely disagree with criticism of "incels". I think to mock men for their inability to woo a woman for whatever reason, to no backlash, is pretty scummy. Insulting women is generally not going to get anyone to agree with you, though, especially if the criteria is due to status.
Woman here. Holy crap, the wrong in the post you're responding to! Incels are without partners because they have unrealistic expectations, i.e. they're horrible people who want comic-book pretty women to submit to them.
I'm a short fat brunette married to a tall blond hunk. Butt-ugly? Hubby doesn't think so. Doofus? Occasionally. Nobody marries low-value garbage and if Jhon is indeed an incel; that's why. You can't walk around describing people in those terms and expect to have a happy love life with "multiple beautiful women." Or any woman. If this one is sickened by his comments, what must the ones he fancies think of him?
That won't happen as long as the media is concentrated in the hands of a few entities. Six, if memory serves.
The trouble with far left policies is that they don't take variables into account nd they're so ideologically hidebound that when something unexpected happens they're completely unprepared for it.
You can say that about any policy predicated on a best case scenario. Britain's NHS was put together by hard-headed realists who understood that the status quo of private healthcare provision would have to be allowed to continue and run alongside it (as it still does) in order to get it off the ground. Idealists don't like to compromise and when they don't get their way, the resultant authoritarianism makes a bigger mess than the one it was supposed to clean up. I can't abide idealogues for this reason.
Oh, and it scares the hell out of me that the concept of universal healthcare and anything else in the public interest is considered to be far left. That, dear friends, is what's wrong with the Right today. Sort that out.
Yep. Many of us are apparently descended from Genghis Khan. The Vikings ranged across Europe, into Russia, Asia, and Persia, raping, pillaging, and trading. Their Irish slaves were sold in countries far from the auld sod.
Persian and Turkish invaders have left their mark on Europe from Budapest to Spain.
Add to that the waves of refugee influxes from Jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition and expulsions from other countries to Huguenot refugees escaping persecution in France to Turkish workers invited to Germany and Jamaicans invited to England to Ugandans fleeing Idi Amin's regime and honestly... whut?
Look up "Alsace-Lorraine" and "Sudetenland." Homogeneity has never existed in Europe because we've been fighting with each other over everything from land claims to religion for millennia.
The (now defunct) pub outside my home was called the Flemish Weaver. This is because of the immigration in the Middle Ages. European countries have had invasions and migrations and refugee populations from time, so really... where the hell did you learn your history?
Every once in a while I reveal that I'm an Irish woman living in the UK. There's a substantial Irish population here, there's even a Rugby club called the London Irish. There are also substantial populations of other ethnicities here.
Black people have been with us from ancient times, and may well have been among the first settlers here. The Romans brought some with them during their occupation.
The story is repeated across Europe. At no point were the populations ever homogeneous. Every one of them has a mix of other ethnicities in there. Again... where did you learn history?
Also, none of the European populations has ever been separated. Ever. Border enforcement is a recent thing.
Why was it not "disiniformation and propaganda" when Time Photoshopped a magazine cover showing trump standing over and looking down smugly at a wailing child that was looking up at him in anguish? It was a very powerful, emotional, and heart-wrenching picture ... except that it never happened. Whatsoever.
Erm, no. While Trump has not personally encountered that particular child or any other in the context of "White supremacist mistreats children of colour because he can" he totally dismissed and ignored the plight of such children, which continues today.
While Time did indeed photoshop the image, they accurately rendered the Trump administration's attitude towards them thus it wasn't disinformation. Melania's coat choice when she went to visit one of the holding centres didn't help matters much. This is how compassionate people see this.
As for Pelosi, the "only slowed down" video was designed to present her as incompetent without any supporting evidence or context. I've got issues with her neocon politics and the video I'd make would reflect that. It's lazy to depict people we don't like as drunken or otherwise incompetent per se. It takes effort to actually show what the issue we have with them is.
On the post: Sheriff's Deputy Sued After Arresting Man For Criticizing Him On Facebook
Re: Re:
This post needs to be LOL of the week! <'{}
On the post: Shallow Fakes: Why Facebook Was Right Not To Delete The Doctored Video Of Nancy Pelosi
Re: I don't trust the Samples...
Hard to argue with, Uriel. I think it's reasonable to have a way to call out provable lies, perhaps with some kind of tag that links to the truth, as someone suggested once.
The trouble is, as you'll see in the comments above, that people have agendas whether they are willing to admit to this or not. Some people are so opinionated they consider anyone who disagrees with them an enemy, and there is no middle ground. Such people are willing to grant a certain level of tolerance to dissidents provided that they keep their heads down.
The freedom of speech, and how much freedom we should have in terms of the speech we make, will always be an issue, and as I've warned here, if someone doesn't find a sensible, reasonable way to deal with the egregiously horrible speech, sooner or later the number of people affected thereby will reach critical mass. Then there will be hell to pay, whatever we have to say about it.
On the post: Shallow Fakes: Why Facebook Was Right Not To Delete The Doctored Video Of Nancy Pelosi
Re: "Wolves don't suffer..."
Don't worry about it, Uriel. I understand counter-eating is a thing now.
On the post: Shallow Fakes: Why Facebook Was Right Not To Delete The Doctored Video Of Nancy Pelosi
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Shallow Fakes
It's not that organized religions in general are disinformation, but that they contain plenty of if, and I'd say it's pretty much impossible to argue that they haven't demonstrably harmed massive numbers of people both directly and indirectly(opposing LGBT rights and sabotaging education respectively as examples) through what's in them.
Faith is not a monolithic bloc; I'm opposed to cruelty and can't abide the knuckle-draggers who bully minorities and don't like reality much. I'm not alone in being a person of faith who believes this.
Given that, and going off the standard of 'disinformation and/or harmful speech should be prohibited', then it strikes me that a good many religious people(all but the most moderate/non-literal basically) and ideas would quickly find themselves given the boot from social media.
That is hard to argue with. I look forward to seeing arguments in favour of a right to lie or to abuse if couched in terms of faith -- or political philosophy.
Yeah, afraid that very much strikes me as using one line from a book full to the brim of lines to pull a 'no true religion' fallacy and/or cherry picking. I mean, it looks like a nice idea sure, but other theists could just as easily pick out lines that support whatever they want/think, so nice, but ultimately irrelevant.
Give the farmer back his straw, please. There's plenty of archaeological evidence to back up the historical narratives in the Bible. But haters gonna hate, right?
Similar, but not the same. While there are certainly people that can get downright fanatical about what leaders on their 'team' might say, I'm unaware of any political parties where it's held that the one(s) at the top are the ultimate authority, and that whatever they say and/or do is right and good no matter what other people might think.
I see Trump supporters do this all the time right here on TD in the comments section. Since they're often hidden I daresay you don't see them. I used to see it all the time when I was on Google Plus. The sycophancy was sickening. "All hail our Glorious Leader X, who has a cute 'n' adorable family/pet/relationship with Y." Gimme a break! I can't imagine anyone doing that over here over Corbyn, May, or any of the other party leaders.
On the post: Shallow Fakes: Why Facebook Was Right Not To Delete The Doctored Video Of Nancy Pelosi
Re: Re: Re: Re: Shallow Fakes
TOG, you're assuming that "organised religion" = "disinformation."
That's not true. While some religious groups can and do cause mayhem and even kill people it's not fair to tar everyone who claims faith with the same brush. Disinformation is as disinformation does; per my cited blog post people have, from the earliest days of history, wrapped land-snatching, power-grabbing and pure greed in the banner of religion to get people on board with their agendas. Now THAT'S disinformation.
Now that we've apparently binned true religion (James 1:27) in favour of a watered-down version that allows us to do whatever we like, political philosophy has taken over as the fig leaf for horrible behaviour.
Where does Jillian stand on political partisanship? Same dance, different tune.
On the post: Shallow Fakes: Why Facebook Was Right Not To Delete The Doctored Video Of Nancy Pelosi
Re:
Amen, brother.
On the post: Shallow Fakes: Why Facebook Was Right Not To Delete The Doctored Video Of Nancy Pelosi
Re: Re: Re: Shallow Fakes
Religion is presented as a matter of FAITH so it's not presented as fact.
Except when it is. My faith demands that I treat articles of faith as a matter of fact.
As for disinformation that has demonstrably harmed millions, the dissemination of this is not confined to people of faith; anyone who clings like grim death to a particular ideological position without taking the time to question it is a guilty of disseminating disinformation that harms people as the most fanatical religious zealots you can think of. That said, it's not a contest: making stuff up that harms people is wrong, the end.
No one has a lock on morality.
I also take issue with the notion that more speech alone is sufficient to deal with the fallout of misinformation. Tell that to the survivors of violent incidents caused by sectarian strife. The truth is, speech/counterspeech is a popularity contest in which the winner is the one who makes the most noise. If you're not popular enough to get sufficient counter-speech against a torrent of abusive speech that paints you in a negative light, people are quite likely to believe the negative speech, which can cause real problems for real people. Ask the victims of Alex Jones's "crisis actors" rants who had to move home several times to get away from the idiots who believed his misinformation about them. Where was the counter-speech for them? Relying on counter-speech alone demands that you ignore the filter bubbles that arise around people who are uncritically convinced that their view is the right one.
Lawsuits are for the rich; I considered going down that path on one occasion but the costs were prohibitive with no guarantee that I'd be able to win. I ended up leaving the online community I'd been part of for years to get away from the trolls who were making my life a misery there, mostly by telling lies about me and repeating them often enough (and getting others to repeat them too) that people began to believe them. There was no counter-speech for me.
While I'm not a mad fan of censorship the idea of a right to tell lies is disturbing to me. That notion harms and even kills people now, from those who starve to death as a result of Tory sanctions on their benefits to anti-vaxxers' children and their friends to citizens of countries bombed in the name of regime change (thanks, neocons)... have you got all day? These things happen when it's okay to tell lies -- and there's no law against it.
In practice, there are indeed limits to our speech. We can't encourage people to commit crimes, we can't run scams, or otherwise make speech that we know will cause harm to others because it's against the law. Some platforms ban profanity while others demand that their posters adhere to a code of conduct on pain of having their accounts shut down.
As I've warned many times, when the number of people affected by a particular situation reaches critical mass, expect change. Do we want to wait till then or sort things out now while there's still time to stop the worst knee-jerk legislation from being enacted?
On the post: Funniest/Most Insightful Comments Of The Week At Techdirt
Re: Damned if they do, damned if they don't?
Whatever. As long as "conservative" means "hate freak" they'll keep getting moderated to conform to community norms.
Conservative here, never been censored.
On the post: Why Is The US Government Letting Big Pharma Charge Insane Prices On Patents The US Owns?
Re: Re:
But the former works better for right-wing populists.
On the post: This is Silly: Pelosi Says Facebook Is A 'Willing Enabler' Of Russian Election Meddling. It Is Not
Re: Re:
My posts have been held for moderation and I didn't have a cow about it. Thin skinned, much?
On the post: This is Silly: Pelosi Says Facebook Is A 'Willing Enabler' Of Russian Election Meddling. It Is Not
Re: Re:
Claimed to have several girlfriends? I suppose his buddies call him Ace and Big Man.
On the post: This is Silly: Pelosi Says Facebook Is A 'Willing Enabler' Of Russian Election Meddling. It Is Not
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
Behaving obnoxiously has never won anyone's heart so I doubt the claims about "enjoying the company of multiple beautiful women."
On the post: This is Silly: Pelosi Says Facebook Is A 'Willing Enabler' Of Russian Election Meddling. It Is Not
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Personally, I don't completely disagree with criticism of "incels". I think to mock men for their inability to woo a woman for whatever reason, to no backlash, is pretty scummy. Insulting women is generally not going to get anyone to agree with you, though, especially if the criteria is due to status.
Woman here. Holy crap, the wrong in the post you're responding to! Incels are without partners because they have unrealistic expectations, i.e. they're horrible people who want comic-book pretty women to submit to them.
I'm a short fat brunette married to a tall blond hunk. Butt-ugly? Hubby doesn't think so. Doofus? Occasionally. Nobody marries low-value garbage and if Jhon is indeed an incel; that's why. You can't walk around describing people in those terms and expect to have a happy love life with "multiple beautiful women." Or any woman. If this one is sickened by his comments, what must the ones he fancies think of him?
On the post: German Political Leader Questions YouTubers' Right To Tell Fans Not To Vote For Her Party, Urgently Summons Her Advisers In Response -- By Fax
Re:
That won't happen as long as the media is concentrated in the hands of a few entities. Six, if memory serves.
The trouble with far left policies is that they don't take variables into account nd they're so ideologically hidebound that when something unexpected happens they're completely unprepared for it.
You can say that about any policy predicated on a best case scenario. Britain's NHS was put together by hard-headed realists who understood that the status quo of private healthcare provision would have to be allowed to continue and run alongside it (as it still does) in order to get it off the ground. Idealists don't like to compromise and when they don't get their way, the resultant authoritarianism makes a bigger mess than the one it was supposed to clean up. I can't abide idealogues for this reason.
Oh, and it scares the hell out of me that the concept of universal healthcare and anything else in the public interest is considered to be far left. That, dear friends, is what's wrong with the Right today. Sort that out.
On the post: German Political Leader Questions YouTubers' Right To Tell Fans Not To Vote For Her Party, Urgently Summons Her Advisers In Response -- By Fax
Re: Re: Re: Re:
Yep. Many of us are apparently descended from Genghis Khan. The Vikings ranged across Europe, into Russia, Asia, and Persia, raping, pillaging, and trading. Their Irish slaves were sold in countries far from the auld sod.
Persian and Turkish invaders have left their mark on Europe from Budapest to Spain.
Add to that the waves of refugee influxes from Jews escaping the Spanish Inquisition and expulsions from other countries to Huguenot refugees escaping persecution in France to Turkish workers invited to Germany and Jamaicans invited to England to Ugandans fleeing Idi Amin's regime and honestly... whut?
On the post: German Political Leader Questions YouTubers' Right To Tell Fans Not To Vote For Her Party, Urgently Summons Her Advisers In Response -- By Fax
Re: Re: Re:
Erm, JoeCool, you're wrong, mate.
Look up "Alsace-Lorraine" and "Sudetenland." Homogeneity has never existed in Europe because we've been fighting with each other over everything from land claims to religion for millennia.
The (now defunct) pub outside my home was called the Flemish Weaver. This is because of the immigration in the Middle Ages. European countries have had invasions and migrations and refugee populations from time, so really... where the hell did you learn your history?
Every once in a while I reveal that I'm an Irish woman living in the UK. There's a substantial Irish population here, there's even a Rugby club called the London Irish. There are also substantial populations of other ethnicities here.
Black people have been with us from ancient times, and may well have been among the first settlers here. The Romans brought some with them during their occupation.
The story is repeated across Europe. At no point were the populations ever homogeneous. Every one of them has a mix of other ethnicities in there. Again... where did you learn history?
Also, none of the European populations has ever been separated. Ever. Border enforcement is a recent thing.
On the post: Texas Cities Rush To Extend Camera Contracts Ahead Of The State's Red Light Camera Bans
Re: My big gripe...
This is the big "L" libertarian endgame.
On the post: Dear Kara Swisher: Don't Let Your Hatred Of Facebook Destroy Free Speech Online
Re: Re: Re: Re: Over a Cup of Tea
Better to make a convincing excuse and leave. It's what I do when domineering people annoy me.
On the post: Dear Kara Swisher: Don't Let Your Hatred Of Facebook Destroy Free Speech Online
Re:
Why was it not "disiniformation and propaganda" when Time Photoshopped a magazine cover showing trump standing over and looking down smugly at a wailing child that was looking up at him in anguish? It was a very powerful, emotional, and heart-wrenching picture ... except that it never happened. Whatsoever.
Erm, no. While Trump has not personally encountered that particular child or any other in the context of "White supremacist mistreats children of colour because he can" he totally dismissed and ignored the plight of such children, which continues today.
https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/05/02/border-family-separations-trump-administration -border-patrol/3563990002/
While Time did indeed photoshop the image, they accurately rendered the Trump administration's attitude towards them thus it wasn't disinformation. Melania's coat choice when she went to visit one of the holding centres didn't help matters much. This is how compassionate people see this.
As for Pelosi, the "only slowed down" video was designed to present her as incompetent without any supporting evidence or context. I've got issues with her neocon politics and the video I'd make would reflect that. It's lazy to depict people we don't like as drunken or otherwise incompetent per se. It takes effort to actually show what the issue we have with them is.
On the post: Conservative Bias? Twitter Bans Famous 'Resistance' Heroes
Re: Re: Logic is awesome
It also suggests that conservatives need to clean house instead of aligning themselves with white supremacists and giving the decent ones a bad name.
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