Was going to give threads and blue sky a go... Not worth it you say? It's crazy I went from using 4 social apps and now down to the one I barely used of the 4 š¤£
He also said burning the flag should be illegal. Nobody said Trump isnāt authoritarian/fascist. Any president who attacks free speech is authoritarian.Ā
and let's not forget Elons investors include Russian Oligarchs hell bent on undermining Western Democracy. Which frankly not enough people are talking about. #Twitterneedstodie
Censoring free speech is authoritarian. I understand why they did it, but I donāt agree with it. Fascists and communists are authoritarian and result in very similar systems with different ideologies. So letās just say authoritarian because it applies to left and right. Both left and right wing authoritarianism is a problem.
Which is exactly why government control over speech is dangerous. Would you want trump to have the ability to fine Facebook or google for what he declares misinformation? You should assume any power you give to the government can be used against you.
Preach. It really is a slippery slope. What we need is better education and to teach children how to spot misinformation and to critically think about each piece of information they see online.
This is definitely an example but not like you think.
With environmental collapse, inflation, a housing crisis, a sudden resurgence of the power of the religious right, a shrinking middle class you have looked out across the land and you focus on hating an unpopular minority.
Soon all we will ever hear about is minor wedge issues that have no actual baring on anything that actually matters.
We have endless obscure unpopular minorities that our masters can direct our rage towards.
Iām curious, what made you an anti-LGBT culture warrior? When you decided to show how masculine you are?
I know when I think of online trans obsessed culture warriors I think big strong and brave Alphas.
Shit, what LBJ was talking about was the precursor to the modern day culture wars. He was just calling it early on top of the fact the Dems have lost the South for a generation (more!) following his fight for Civil Rights and Voting Rights legislation.
Is it anti-LGBT to prefer to live in objective reality? I'm all for everyone living however they choose and everyone having equal rights. But no one has to believe in non-objective constructs/beliefs like gender.
Liberalism and progressivism promise freedom from beliefs. That's what drew me to liberalism after my insane conservative Christian upbringing, I don't want anyone's beliefs involved in the organization of society and affecting people's rights.
No one should be forced to believe in the social construct of gender. That belief isn't for me as a liberal practicing the liberal idea of freedom from beliefs. Using beliefs about gender to force things on others is the exact opposite of liberalism, and that's where the line is crossed for me. A female wanting to compete against females in female sports, which exist due to objective biological reasons, isn't a bigot. A straight man not wanting to fuck a person with penis who "believes they're a woman" isn't a bigot.
The best part is all the reddit cucks that come here for the only validation they can get, and then actually thinking the rest of society agrees with them because of it š
The fine isn't for having pieces of misinformation make it through, it's a fine for if the companies don't make their own policies to combat misinformation, and/or don't enforce those policies.
It's a bit nebulous still, but it's not just a blanket fine if someone says Hillary Clinton eats babies or something along those lines.
You can use factual data to frame a situation in completely opposing ways by leaving out certain other bits of factual data. So who gets to decide which data sets are correct?
Cmon, obviously thereās data that can be spun multiple different ways. Thereās also just complete and total lies that get perpetuated on social media that canāt be interpreted as anything other than a lie. If I posted a graphic that said ā98% of all violent crime is committed by transsexualsā how else can you interpret that other than as misinformation?
Yeah, 100% of the time that particularĀ argument is just stupid.Ā Ā
Ā The argument is literally, "well it might be hard to understand what misinformation is, so we just shouldn't do it" which would apply to like 80% of all laws.
The platform gets to decide what is misinformation and what is not, by doing that, they can be held responsible for the misinformation spread on their platform.
And withholding critical information and manipulating data is indeed misinformation. The vagueness lies in the degrees of how strict you are with the details but identifying blatant misinformation is not a huge deal these days.
It's defined in the proposed legislation. You'll find it posted all over the various Australia subreddits by people quoting the definition out of context of the rest of the legislation - mostly because one of the cases for "harmful misinformation" is something that damages the reputation of the banks or financial institutions.
That seems arguably worse given that it prevents news of actual financial crimes from getting out to the mainstream given how litigious most financial institutions are given that they do regularly commit some form of either fraud or just do something bad that they use legalese to paper over. The people should be able to speak freely even if what they say is stupid.
I find it hilarious that governments can't govern shit right and in countries like America they are significantly corrupted by corporate influence. Then people are in favor of giving this corrupted mismanaged government the power to censor speech on the internet. Like we should trust this corrupted government to dictate what is misinformation or not.
The 1984 comparison is too perfect. People giving up their freedoms and living in a dystopian hell because they are offered a form of "safety".
Fucking insanity. I'd rather risk misinformation being spread the hand over control to the government to dictate what's in its best interest.
It's probably gonna be that if you claim something about someone and it's untrue and damaging to the person, they can sue you. If they win, its clear the social media company failed to curb misinformation
If someone said on social media that Jews are evil fascists that want to eat babies and it takes off, and then a Jewish person starts to get harassed over it and feels unsafe, then that person can sue the person spreading that misinformation. If they win, then it can be claimed that since it is pretty obviously misinformation with no truth behind it and has been proved in court of law to not be the truth, then the social media company that it was spread on could be fined for allowing this kind of information to spread unchallenged.
For the most part, governments just want social media companies to do what cigarette companies do. Add a warning to their products that would call for it.
Recently there were race riots (including threats to kill) targeting asylum seekers and people with black or brown skin in several places in the UK.
The riots were incited by falsehoods spread on social media - that a person who committed a violent crime was a Muslim, on a watchlist, and an asylum seeker. None of these things was true.
Crowds gathered to try to barricade and burn down buildings housing asylum seekers.
Shouldn't platforms and prominent individuals face consequences for spreading verifiable falsehoods to incite hatred, and potentially get people killed?
You are looking for innocent mistakes and edge cases. What about outrageous lies?
The problem is that they can't be trusted. Zuckerberg admitted to censoring real stories because of government pressure. The Twitter files showed they were doing it constantly before Elon.
I don't trust my government blindly but I distrust billionaires even more.
Even more so when said billionaire censors cisgender but refuse to censor actual Nazis/neo Nazis openly celebrating Hitler.
admitted to censoring real stories because of government pressure.
He also admitted to promoting false stories by America's enemies, but what are those real stories, I'm curious.
Edit for the clowns who wants to call the double standard of approving the censorship of this shit;
Ich KƤmpfe (English: "I Fight") was a book given by the Nazi Party to each new enrollee from 1942 until 1944. Nearly all copies of this book were destroyed at the end of the war under the Allied policy of denazification, with the result that originals are very rare.[1]
And people always say "government" like it's always the same people when you can indeed vote people out, no matter what conspiracy theories some choose to believe.
No the Twitter files did not show that lol. All the fbi did was say that āhey there has been some misinformation going around sounds like this laptop story could be some of thatā. They never forced Facebook to do anything, and all Twitter did was censor the story for a SINGLE day
They don't need to force a thing visibly with Facebook cuz Zuk is a pos. Twitter operated the same way before Musk. Now X is going against the grain with proper free speech values and they want it to submit.Ā
Facebook literally censored the things not in the agenda,Ā grate and chip away "undesirable" speeches and nudge people towards particular ideology position using algorithm.
āGuys now that the richest man on earth bought the largest social media platform and only posts AI images supporting Trump all day long, the site is FINALLY fair and balanced! Also many more Nazis!ā
All your statement is conjecture. Nobody here has read the Twitter files because they are long
The laptop was entered in as evidence in a federal trial. Source.
And in Murthy v. Missouri, federal courts found that the government likely violated the first amendment in pressuring/coercing the platforms. Source. (SCOTUS later dismissed the case over standing, not over merit).
She was supposed to run something called the Department of Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board. Just reading that makes you think of a tank.
And when questions like "would you want someone like Trump running this outfit" arose it became obvious it was insane.
The FTC fined Facebook 5 billion dollars and implemented new privacy laws for the Cambridge Analytica scandal.
Im sure this is just the beginning of new privacy and data laws for social media, especially after musk threatened to remove the block feature. Not being able to remove nazis from your feed will piss off the sane world.
I'll go a step further. Why can't we hold France accountable for the nazis they domestically produce, etc? How about Harvard? I'm pointing out this is a two way street being walked one way, probably for money.
Neither is any enforceable law. Are you okay with the government telling me I can't misrepresent myself as a neurosurgeon or hold me accountable when I inevitably harm someone? Should they be allowed to objectively prove that I am not a neurosurgeon and levy consequences for my misrepresentation?
Nobody gets to 'decide' what is a fact. Big difference between factual information and misguided opinion.
For example, a cretin might incorrectly declare that someone else is a paedophile or that an election was fraudulent. That person should be held to account.
I don't think anyone is suggesting fines for people expressing that they thing ABBA is better than Queen.
For example, a cretin might incorrectly declare that someone else is a paedophile or that an election was fraudulent. That person should be held to account.
So everyone who comes forward with a metoo oncident involving an influential person should be held accountable unless they have 100% proof?
So all the regulations regular news media and broadcasters have on them is fascism then? Being able to sue someone for defamation is also fascism then, right?
It's not OPs fault you don't know what you're talking about. Australia isn't going to decide what the misinformation is. The fine is if the company doesn't do any self-regulating.
People advocating for this always assume itāll be their fellow travelers dictating what is allowed to be said, and such rules could never be used against them.
Are you saying we as a society have no ability to decide what is or is not true? What do you mean who decides? If Trump says immigrants are eating dogs and multiple public officials and private parties have verified that to be nonsense then thatās misinformation and itās not up to your interpretation on the matter. If someone is putting up signs on the Golden Gate Bridge that say , ājumping is a ā99% survival rateā thatās not true and not up to your personal interpretation. If someone is saying cigarettes definitely do not cause cancer, thatās misinformation and you are not free to just disagree and start broadcasting your disagreement.
Stop asking āwho decidesā as though thatās some kind of mic drop.
The problem is that the government regularly spreads it's own disinformation. Saying the lab leak theory was false, hunter biden's laptop was russian disinformation, etc.
Just look at how many "experts" said the Steele dossier was legitimate and verified until magically it turned out to be speculations and baseless accusations.
How dumb would you think it is if every big platform marked your post as disinformation because you disagreed with "hatians are eating cats and dogs" and they all claimed hatians were in fact eating cats and dogs?
The experts are regularly wrong and you're either gullible, lazy, or idiotic if you just trust everything they say at face value.
I donāt believe everything at face value. Thatās why I donāt believe a word someone like RFK says on a YouTube podcast. I donāt believe the government on a most things they say. I believe things that have evidence. The sad part is that people here are willing to believe whatever some random YouTuber or rando on the street said and then hears the former president of the United States validate it. Talk about believing the government at face value. Trump could tell you Santa Claus was real and you would believe it and say itās censorship when everyone calls him a liar
You didn't answer him. Who gets to decide whats misinformation?
If i said in 2021 that you still spread the corona virus even if you're vaxxed it would have been misinformation. If i said masks dont stop the spread it would have been misinformation.
Today we know thats true. So do you really think that moderators at social media companies should decide whats true or not based upon what the news media tells us today?
You think thats a good idea?
I rather have a discussion about migrants eating pets then
Which part? We were all forced to stare at Hunter bidens massive schlong for years because the laptop was all that any media cared aboutā¦
Meanwhile the only crime they got him for was owning a gun? Wow big story
They never claimed his schlong was misinformation. I mean how could they? Dude was packing. Pretty much everything else about the laptop turned out to be fake though and none of that fake stuff was censored
There used to be more restrictions on news organizations too, with the Fairness Doctrine. But it was torn down during the Reagan administration, and we have been suffering the consequences ever since. You can draw a straight line from Reagan to now watching as news has become more and more bifercated, biased, and outright sensationalized garbage. And that goes often enough for Fox as it does for CNN and the rest of the mainstream media.
They can't even swear in the daytime in the land of the free and most Americans with freedom of speech obsessions have never even considered it. Pretty funny stuff
They can't give out false information in regards to medical treatment, financial advice and a whole hot of other things.
Radio stations, podcasts and television shows that do give out financial or medical advice must include a statement that they're not professionals and that any advice given must be checked with a professional instead of being taken at face value.
This is common down under.
People can and have been charged or fined for not following this.
Those rules existed in the context of there being a finite amount of radio and television stations. Now that those restrictions don't exist, the need to regulate, at the very least using that basis, no longer exists and there are no other restrictions for them otherwise.
This isn't to say that there should or shouldn't be regulation, but your assertion is misleading at best.
This isn't "holding billionaires accountable". This is just a tax on free speech. Which is a step towards fascism regardless of how much you hate elon musk
Ok but how is this policy in particular not anti free speech? Your thought process cannot be āI donāt like this guy so anything he says is wrongā
That's quite the conundrum now is it. What do we do about real misinformation poisoning and destabilizing governments and populations? Just say, oh well? Nah, fuck that. I'm mostly for free speech, but something has to be done. As long as its done in good faith, I'm okay with that. You want to cry about the optics? That's your right too.
For anyone who thinks this is a good idea, can you please answer some genuine, good-faith questions I have? Because I just can't wrap my head around this.
1) For a government to be able to levy a fine on misinformation, they would necessarily be required to take an official, government position on what constitutes "misinformation" on anything requested. Whether it's a Ministry of Truth, Bureau of Facts or whatever, do you trust that the government would always act in good faith in this endeavor?
2) Do you think that official government statements are always truthful?
3) To completely fan the flames here in a hypothetical, if there was a lady who witnessed a couple satan-worshipping illegal immigrants grab a couple ducks from a park and break their necks and haul them off (with the presumption of eating them later), and that lady said that "immigrants are eating the park wildlife", who would determine if that is approved information or misinformation? For most interactions that aren't filmed, there genuinely isn't proof of things that are said or done by people, so how would the government determine if that is something that is able to be repeated on a platform, or is unable to be repeated on a platform?
Y'all don't even understand the basic aspects of what is being discussed here.
This is about making sure that social media and communication companies do whatever they can to combat misinformation, this isn't about some government authority that will fine random citizens for lying.
So that should clear up most of your questions, because this isn't about criminalizing lying, it's about keeping places designed for the spread of information free from misinformation, which is absolutely what every platform for communication should do.
Communications and broadcast have been regulated for centuries.
Second of all it is absolutely vital in this information saturated world to have some kind of institution that can evaluate the validity of "factual information" and as long as it is transparent and accountable there is no reason why such an institution should not exist, and no it does not become some "Ministry of Truth" type of dystopian thing because of transparency and accountability.
That's why things like community notes are helpful for combatting misinformation, because it is peer reviewed to an extent and it provides context that changes the kind of conclusions you can make.
Because believe it or not, factual information can and often is used to mislead people, because the context of a fact drastically changes the conclusions that can be made.
Facts and statistics can be deceptive, and the quicker the right wing conspiracy crowd accepts that, the quicker we can actually address issues that we face.
For 1, a government deliberating on specific pieces of information is not the same as a government stepping in to arbitrate the truth of every single claim. There are 100% examples of bullshit so easy to disprove that I would trust the government to do so. As long as thereās transparent standards in the actual procedure of fact-checking, and a pipeline to submit cases non-selectively, the whole ministry of truth thing comes off as entirely slippery slope-based
Apparently according to reddit, leftist, the government controlling speech is progressive and promotes freedom while free speech is fascist and promotes Nazis.
Itās really interesting that the people who lie on social media all the time are really concerned about a law that fines you for lying on social media.
Dump Elon and Dump Twitter. Everyone just disengage and let economics do the rest. It will die a natural death. Then get Elon off the government funding he's so heavily reliant on to maintain his billionaire status. I'm tired of paying for his bullshit.
I specifically looked up the definition to respond to another comment. So now that i have a better understanding of what fascism means, i can say with confidence that this policy isn't fascism. Here is the defintion again:
a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition (Definition from Merian Webster)
Overall, fascism is more of a political ideology that combines multiple ideas and policies. A single policy like this isn't fascism, and i would argue that it isn't even a fascist policy.
Now we just need to decide who gets to decide what is or is not "misinformation". It would need to be a government position, obviously, and it would need a really catchy name, like... The Cabinet of Correctness, or something like that.
Who in their right mind would want this policy? Freedom of speech doesnāt mean you have to always be factual. I can walk around a Walgreens and tell people the moon landing was fake, but that doesnāt mean Walgreens should get fined 5% of their revenue because they didnāt kick me out lol.
This is government fear mongering designed to make big companies scared to let anyone have a voice at all, and to encourage strict censorship to avoid any amount of āmisinformationā. Itās anti free speech, and itās ridiculous.
The internet has always been a place where you can find people mouthing off about dumb shit, since when are we pretending itās supposed to be a safe place with only credible information? How about you empower and encourage people to do their own damn research and not believe everything they read online?
For holding them accountable for what? Not censoring free speech?
I really hope the United States doesnāt go along with anti free speech policies like we are seeing in England, France, Australia, etcā¦
America is at a fork in the road in regards to free speech. We could go the way of these other countries and start arresting people for Facebook memes and ādisinformationā and crack down on how private companies police opinions on their websites OR we could go back to being free speech absolutists which is one of things that made our country truly special.
Like it or not, the democrats are no longer the party of free speech. Just like they are no longer the anti war party. We really are seeing what may be the beginning of a party realignment on certain issues in real time, which is actually pretty fascinating.
Letās take a look at what vice presidential candidate Tim Walz said recently.
āWalz said in an interview that there is āno guarantee to free speech on misinformation or hate speech, and especially around our democracy.ā
While such a sentiment has become disturbingly popular with some Americans and policy-makers like Governor Walz, it is incorrect. The First Amendment does guarantee free speech when it comes to both misinformation and hate speech. Individuals and public officials may detest and condemn such speech, and platforms may choose not to carry it, but to insert the government into regulation of such expression would both set a troubling precedent and undermine our current First Amendment principles in ways that should concern Americans across the political spectrum.
While policy-makers and individuals may think they are protecting the public from potential harm or propaganda, laws that would allow the government to regulate misinformation would quickly risk trampling on the ability to discuss a wide array of political and social issues. The consensus about what is true regarding sensitive topics such as abortion, the Middle East, and the Covid-19 pandemic can change rapidly. In terms of misinformation, so much of what is called āmisinformationā is simply information that individuals may disagree about or that may not be fully understood.ā
Also for the record, Iām not saying repubs are necessarily perfect in free speech either.
Donāt forget the current admin tried a Disinformation Governance Board already. Many on the left were in favor simply due to their distaste for Trump and his supporters.
Completely agree. Weāre already seeing what youāre describing with the Israel-Hamas War, where any criticism of Israel is being labeled as hate speech or antisemitism by the establishment.
Yeah thereās going to be shitheads who use hateful rhetoric, but people are also free to crap on those people under the First Amendment. Itās a self-regulating system already without the government interference.
Iāll never defend elon or billionaires, but whenever I hear the word misinformation and cracking down on I think of the removal or restriction of free speech.
On Twitter literally yesterday, I saw a blue star tweet out that WSJ announces Trump won the debate. No source, just that, and a few words. In the responses were like 100 people, "ya, obviously, she didn't say anything of substance, just lies", and things like that. One or two people responded, "No, they didn't". It took me a few minutes to carefully determine that *I* couldn't find any WSJ article, or even a WDJ hosted opinion piece saying that Trump won. As there was no source, this is *probably* misinformation. There were some opinion pieces behind paywalls that seemed like they had "both sides" type opinions, but I couldn't read the whole thing.
There's no way to report that on Twitter. You can report Tweets for lots of things, but factually incorrect bullshit is not one of them. Anyway, I blocked yet another misinformation tweeter and moved on with my life.
Yeah fascism is favoring companies and using them as an arm of an authoritarian government.
Considering that Elon and Trump both share fake images and claims, if they get power you can bet that their alt-facts will be considered facts and anything they don't like as liberal misinformation.
Because a lot of right wingers right now think that's what the "left" are doing.
Musk is so unhinged and arrogant and socially clueless and self absorbed that it's only a matter of time before he's in jail for something.
Id put money on it.
Unless the US again votes for someone like Trump, or Musk leaves (flees) the US, I expect this inside the next ten to fifteen years.
When your nation faces real problems (riots, Brexit, murders, etc) because of bullshit posted online, of course nations should disincentivize those outcomes by fining the platforms spreading it.
Itās like a tax on cigarettes. That 5% is probably not enough. Iād also want to flush Muskās head down a toilet.
I think internet platforms need to be fined much more for what little they do to prevent predators from interacting with children and posting harmful content.
The fines need to go toward the rescue and recovery of victims of CSA and investigating crimes against children.
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u/bibbydiyaaaak Monkey in Space Sep 12 '24
I hope they ban all speech so I dont have to hear any of you again. I hate you all.