SURVEY: Should social media block content that is false or misleading?

[Scott]

A number of social media platforms have taken steps to stop false, misleading and unverified information.   In your opinion, is this a good idea or is it overreach?  Chose the option that best describes your opinion.

 

Feel free to leave a comment.

[UB40]

Who decides, what's true or fake?

Truth and criticism is mostly blocked and/or deleted by governments. 

So, that's just cutting the freedom of informations. I think 90% of all people are smart enough to read and decide themselfs. The other 10% can't read or need supervised thinking

[Salerno]

Yes - with caveats.

 

Blatant lies/misleading/propaganda should IMO, be flagged (as is the case with Twitter - tweets aren't deleted, still there for people to read and come to their own conclusions).

 

Not into "deplatforming" just because someone doesn't like a persons point of view. That said, social media platforms can do what they want (within the law) given they are commercial entities.

 

[olfu]

More important is freedom to travel--ruling class always win.

[meechai]

No ...not unless it is a "REAL" threat of violence

 

Otherwise who watches the watchers/censors ?

[Grumpy John]

Censorship on social media is way out of line.   If some company like farcebook wants people to use their platform then they should accept peoples opinions and let the rest of us decide whether we agree or not.

 

 

[Mike Rodik]

who checks the fact checkers

 

many times individuals know much more about something than a journalist just copy pasting what he/she has been fed !

[tgw]

9 hours ago, Scott said:

A number of social media platforms have taken steps to stop false, misleading and unverified information.   In your opinion, is this a good idea or is it overreach?  Chose the option that best describes your opinion.

 

Feel free to leave a comment.

 

I could not answer your poll, because none of the options reflects my opinion, and your question contains also pertains to "unverified information" which is not present in the poll, and there are other problems with it such as putting false and misleading into the same pot as well as ignoring other options to blocking content.

 

First, blocking "unverified information" is an absolute no-no. This basically denies to anyone the right or even the possibility of free expression and is immensely arrogant in assuming no one can be a primary source of information.
Also, putting someone in charge of deciding what is "verified information" is very open to abuse in addition of being an impossible task.

 

Then, there are such things as objectively wrong / false information  and misleading information that can be technically correct.

 

Objectively wrong information should be blocked and replaced with the correct information, but the burden of proof for information to be wrong should be high, sources include clear-cut science and clear-cut historical facts and clearly documented facts.

Anything else is just speculation, even official government statements cannot be trusted to establish what is truth.

 

Finally, there are other options than blocking content. Flagging is a good solution, but using words such as "unverified" is problematic because it supposes some people have the authority to "verify" information, when in fact, nobody does, even governments.

"unproven", "speculative", "controversial" might be some adequate flags to warn users.

 

Regarding government officials, persons with political activity, public figures, "influencers", advertisers, etc. I think they should be held responsible for lying or grossly misleading the public and be prosecuted. This includes official statistics that are technically true but have been "massaged" to mislead the public by either hiding or amplifying some facts. People need to be able to trust their institutions.

 

Edited November 8, 2020 by tgw

[allencraig]

7 hours ago, UB40 said:

Who decides, what's true or fake?

Truth and criticism is mostly blocked and/or deleted by governments. 

So, that's just cutting the freedom of informations. I think 90% of all people are smart enough to read and decide themselfs. The other 10% can't read or need supervised thinking

Well, "true" is not based on anyone's decision. Clearly known and accepted facts should not be open to interpretation (especially as they are always in the interest of manipulation for financial or power gain.)

[Virt]

But wouldn't that kill these fora?

????

[allencraig]

7 hours ago, UB40 said:

90% of all people are smart enough

Gosh, I wish "90% of all people are smart enough.." But that's clearly not the case. Educated, critical, concerned people make up the vast minority of the population. And many politicials make a lot of effort to keep things this way in all countries across the world, sadly.

[1FinickyOne]

Just watched on Netflix a new documentary - The Social Dilemma

 

they said there are something like 1 trillion news items on social media and the algorithms cannot be programmed to sort truth from lie and conspiracy theory.. 

[SWW]

Would that stop the Flat Earth videos on YouTube?

[Surelynot]

It is fraught dangers.....censorship......I would feel more comfortable with clearly flagging content, which then allows people  to consider if it is false..... DYOR. 

 

[kingstonkid]

The challenge is not the blocking it is deciding what's fake

[Rancid]

The problem is who determines what is true or false? Fact checkers social use are often funded by companies of dubious familiarity with truth, they simply push their agenda. Perhaps we can leave it to Big Brother, that Orwellian monolith has never been known to mislead.

 

The reality is that we need free speech, people need to decide for themselves what is true or false. Again though true or false often depends on your perception of the world.

 

In the end though the writing is on the wall, the media and social will be appointed the gatekeepers of truth, for those that can't see that absurdity you are captured and conditioned already.

[allanos]

Firstly, all of the well-known social media platforms have a built-in, left-wing bias; think FB, Twitter, Google. When they are challenged, they trot out specious reasoning to pull the wool over our eyes, and defend their actions.

 

An interesting "read" is the recently-released book, "Deleted", by Allum Bokhari, which details the extent to which social media platforms play to their left-wing biases. 

 

Like him or loath him, Donald Trump was not only fighting his opponent, but had the might of social media and leftist rags like the WSJ against him, too. It was a very much one-sided, blatantly unfair contest. Biden's win was gifted by the anti-Trump vote and not the pro-Biden vote, in my opinion.

 

Even giving social media the benefit of the doubt, as many will, algorithms are imperfect at best. They therefore lead to the censoring or banning of perfectly innocuous content which the SM's platform has deemed to be untrue or harmful, or flouts some kind of "policy". They have far too much power to operate unfettered in any democracy.

 

Other than messaging which advocates threatening behaviour, violence, or racial hatred, I believe one should be allowed to post what one likes on social media, and leave the reader to make a judgement call on the content.

 

 

[Brunolem]

The question could be:

 

Should there be a ministry of truth...held by non elected billionaires?

 

Liberals, a.k.a. socialist, will say yes, the more control the better...libertarians will say that monopolistic so-called social media shouldn't exist in the first place, even less be granted censorship power over the population.

[rickudon]

Certainly dubious claims should be flagged as such. Unfortunately too many people believe the rubbish they see online and as a result make poor decisions - some of these decisions kill people (e.g. anti-vaxers). The reality is that too many cannot tell what is fake news - is it ignorance or just bad judgement?

Have no problems with balanced discussions but to often the claims made are unfounded. 'Free speech' should also come with taking responsibilities for the claims - if you lie you should be liable for the consequences - manslaughter, fraud, financial compensation. 

 

It would shut people like Alex Jones up.

[brain150]

1 minute ago, rickudon said:

Certainly dubious claims should be flagged as such. Unfortunately too many people believe the rubbish they see online and as a result make poor decisions - some of these decisions kill people (e.g. anti-vaxers). The reality is that too many cannot tell what is fake news - is it ignorance or just bad judgement?

Have no problems with balanced discussions but to often the claims made are unfounded. 'Free speech' should also come with taking responsibilities for the claims - if you lie you should be liable for the consequences - manslaughter, fraud, financial compensation. 

 

It would shut people like Alex Jones up.

Do you have any prove for your claims ?

 

... like that vaccines are healthy ?

If you restrict free speech then there is no free speech anymore ! It's like being a little bit pregnant ....

 

But it seems you are childish enough to ask Papa [the State] and Mama [the Media] for what is right or wrong - as such you should not be allowed to post anything at all !!!

[bodga]

12 hours ago, Scott said:

Feel free to leave a comment.

hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm  are you sure?

OK there should be no censorship in anything.

[rickudon]

14 minutes ago, brain150 said:

Do you have any prove for your claims ?

 

... like that vaccines are healthy ?

If you restrict free speech then there is no free speech anymore ! It's like being a little bit pregnant ....

 

But it seems you are childish enough to ask Papa [the State] and Mama [the Media] for what is right or wrong - as such you should not be allowed to post anything at all !!!

Just need to look at the statistics of how many people died of common diseases before vaccination - and how when vaccination levels fall these diseases start spreading again. The ignorant cannot correlate those two things. Yes, vaccinations come with miniscule risks - but the benefits are far greater.

State censorship is an evil - but unfortunately a necessary evil when you have so many out there spreading false information - otherwise anarchy.

[OneMoreFarang]

10 hours ago, UB40 said:

I think 90% of all people are smart enough to read and decide themselfs.

555

 

[DaLa]

Truth and facts are too often blurred. An impossible and frankly dangerous proposal.

[OneMoreFarang]

In principle I like the idea of restrictions so that (blatant) lies don't spread too fast. But I think it's nearly impossible to enforce this.

 

What I would suggest is that officials who are paid with tax money must tell the truth (everywhere, anytime, not just social media). If they lie, and especially if they lie constantly and/or deliberately they should be removed from their positions.

Obviously people are still allowed to have their opinions and they can say something like "I think this and that will happen". But if they deny reality and/or tell the tax payers false information why should the tax payers pay them for their jobs?

[Grumpy John]

6 minutes ago, OneMoreFarang said:

555

 

You mock him for having a different opinion to you.  Why not be a reasonable man and show proof he is wrong.

[OneMoreFarang]

5 minutes ago, DaLa said:

Truth and facts are too often blurred. An impossible and frankly dangerous proposal.

Sometimes they are not blurred.

I.e. if someone makes accusations of fraud then they must present at least some evidence. Just saying "there is massive fraud" is misleading and wrong.

[OneMoreFarang]

1 minute ago, Grumpy John said:

You mock him for having a different opinion to you.  Why not be a reasonable man and show proof he is wrong.

Anybody who thinks 90% of the people are smart must have a strange definition of "smart" or that person can't be smart.

 

[Gulfsailor]

Elected governments have to make the laws what can and can’t be said in public. The social media platforms then only have to hide those posts in violation of said laws wherever they apply. So in Germany Facebook users shouldn’t be able to see a holocaust deniers post, whereas US people should see such post. If enough people in a country don’t like something being said online, they can petition the government to ban it. It’s their job, not the social media’s job to decide what gets censored. 

[OneMoreFarang]

It's almost funny that many posts here talk about information which is kind of true or a little true or not really wrong.

Let's concentrate for a moment on things which people say which are definitely lies. I.e. the earth is not flat, Covid is worse than the flu. And masks help protect people. These are facts and anybody who denies these facts is a liar.