Should misinformation be banned from the major platforms?

[Daedalus X]

For this topic misinformation is any information that promotes needle hesitancy or anti authoritarian approved information.

Here is an example of misinformation that can't be posted to YouTube, twitter, Facebook or any mainline medium. Is this good public policy?



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[Purple Knight]

That wasn't my opinion.
Your feelings about yourself are what caused me to suggest counselling.

If you think I need help, that's your opinion. "You need help" is a much worse insult than "you should kill yourself" but I think you should have the right to say either.

[oldbadger]

That wasn't my opinion.
Your feelings about yourself are what caused me to suggest counselling.

If you think I need help, that's your opinion. "You need help" is a much worse insult than "you should kill yourself" but I think you should have the right to say either.

OK. I'm sad if I offended you.
On the side, I'm just interested to ask:-
If your country's government followed your political principles, what would it do about or for mentally, neurologically and IQ challenged folks?

[Purple Knight]

That wasn't my opinion.
Your feelings about yourself are what caused me to suggest counselling.

If you think I need help, that's your opinion. "You need help" is a much worse insult than "you should kill yourself" but I think you should have the right to say either.

OK. I'm sad if I offended you.
On the side, I'm just interested to ask:-
If your country's government followed your political principles, what would it do about or for mentally, neurologically and IQ challenged folks?

My philosophy is that you don't get punished unless you hurt somebody else or violate a law. I'm not saying I wouldn't have a welfare system, or even provide counseling to people who want it, but the only way you'd have the government telling someone "you need help" and then forcing that on them is if they've hurt someone. I don't believe in mental illness the way it is defined now.

Telling people that the way they think is wrong and "you need help" is what causes mental illness.

[oldbadger]

My philosophy is that you don't get punished unless you hurt somebody else or violate a law. I'm not saying I wouldn't have a welfare system, or even provide counseling to people who want it, but the only way you'd have the government telling someone "you need help" and then forcing that on them is if they've hurt someone. I don't believe in mental illness the way it is defined now.

Telling people that the way they think is wrong and "you need help" is what causes mental illness.

You have turned 'do you need help?' or 'if you need help' in to a statement 'You need help'.
Then you have tagged 'You need help' to some kind of enforcement.

You've focused upon 'mental illness' and not mentioned neurological disability, lower IQ, the many kinds of dyslexia and the many kinds of autism; you've also overlooked traumatic stresses.

Do you think of all these conditions as defects?

Where I live the questions 'Do you need help?' and 'If you need help...' can be seen all over the place, on television and media adverts, on posters, in newspapers....everywhere. Once upon a time to even have a relative disabled by any of the above was considered to be a serious embarrassment, and any personal problems were kept well hid. Fortunately we've tended to move towards a more open and accepting recognitions that all/any of these are common and mostly everybody suffers from one or other of these sometimes in their lives.

Our government doesn't confine people (section under the mental health Act) unless they are a danger to self or others. What do you think about what we do here?

[Purple Knight]

You have turned 'do you need help?' or 'if you need help' in to a statement 'You need help'.

Imagine if I asked you, "Are you stupid?"

You've focused upon 'mental illness' and not mentioned neurological disability, lower IQ, the many kinds of dyslexia and the many kinds of autism; you've also overlooked traumatic stresses.

Do you think of all these conditions as defects?

Whether it's a defect or not is irrelevant. I think you're just baiting me to say one more thing you can look at with disfavour and conclude that I need help. People need help when they ask for it. I hope that answers your question.

[historia]

In 1978, the ACLU took a controversial stand for free speech by defending a neo-Nazi group that wanted to march through the Chicago suburb of Skokie. They felt that we do not need to defend the speech that we all like, we need to defend the speech that nobody likes, or else we don't have free speech, we would only be free to speak things that we all like. Why even call that free speech?

Indeed, neo-Nazis have a right to use public (i.e., government-owned) land to hold a rally. They don't have the right, however, to take over a private business against the owner's wishes in order to hold their rally.

Twitter is not a government-owned entity, it is a private business. Neo-Nazis have no First Amendment "right" to have their content hosted on the Twitter website.

So, think about this for a minute: If the government forces Elon Musk to host neo-Nazi content on Twitter (because "free speech") and his advertisers don't want their ads running next to that content, then the advertisers will pull out, and Twitter will go out of business. Should the government then force businesses to advertise on Twitter?

[oldbadger]

Imagine if I asked you, "Are you stupid?"

Oh dear.......... do you think that folks who are in depression, or neurologically disabled, autistic etc....are stupid?

But to answer your question....... I've made some very stupid decisions in my life, done some very stupid things. I'm not frightened of the word 'stupid' because I live in a community where help is offered to anybody who needs it.

Whether it's a defect or not is irrelevant. I think you're just baiting me to say one more thing you can look at with disfavour and conclude that I need help. People need help when they ask for it. I hope that answers your question.

Wow....... Do you really think that?
Your mention of 'with disfavour'.....!!! Do you look upon disabled folks 'with disfavour'?

I was not baiting you when I mentioned the disabilities which so many people live with, nor the attitude of the community where I live.

[Daedalus X]

So, think about this for a minute: If the government forces Elon Musk to host neo-Nazi content on Twitter (because "free speech") and his advertisers don't want their ads running next to that content, then the advertisers will pull out, and Twitter will go out of business. Should the government then force businesses to advertise on Twitter?

It looks like many of these advertisers are already withdrawing due to his free speech stance. But even Neo-Nazis need the advertisers products. There are more than 150 million Neo-Nazis in America and they are now working on a counter boycott of the companies that withdrew from Twitter advertising. Twitter does not need the advertisements from these companies, but these companies do need the the business generated from these Neo-Nazis.

[Daedalus X]

Do you know who the speaker is, and do you know where he is?

Not much beyond the caption that says he is Andrew James Bridgen speaking in Parliament. He is calling for an investigation to discover the reason for so many excess deaths, which at this point is undeniable.

[Purple Knight]

Imagine if I asked you, "Are you stupid?"

Oh dear.......... do you think that folks who are in depression, or neurologically disabled, autistic etc....are stupid?

Nope. I don't think they need help either. Not unless they ask for it. And even then they don't "need" it. They want it. I've known one depressed person who just needed to be accepted for who they were, even if who they were was sad sometimes. When do you need to change? When you want to change. Period.

If there was some drug that cures down syndrome and someone who understood what it would do simply didn't want to take it, I'd support their decision.

So, think about this for a minute: If the government forces Elon Musk to host neo-Nazi content on Twitter (because "free speech") and his advertisers don't want their ads running next to that content, then the advertisers will pull out, and Twitter will go out of business. Should the government then force businesses to advertise on Twitter?

Ultimately then the government should subsidise Twitter. Or let it go out of business and we can go back to having a public square that is free by default because nobody owns it, even if it's not as convenient. But we wouldn't have this situation where if you say, "The best colour is green," you get a huge advantage in terms of a public square that is easily accessible and gets tons of publicity but if you say, "The best colour is blue," you're at a huge disadvantage because you're banned, reduced to communicating like a caveman or not at all, get no publicity, and as people will consume only the information available, it will seem to them like the best colour is green.

But I do have to point out that if tyrannically enforced free speech had been the policy from the beginning, this would not be a problem since advertisers could choose to advertise where free speech was protected (everywhere) or not advertise, so no one would be dependent on the revenue of picky advertisers who don't tolerate environments with free speech. In that situation, I and Daedalus would be arguing for the current policy, where the only picky advertisers would be those insisting on enforced free speech, someone might be saying that hiccups like this would happen if we change to your policy, and in that situation, while I would still personally dislike your policy, I would defend you at least insofar as when you change policy, hiccups happen, and yes Twitter might go out of business, but if we say that's unfair we can grant them a subsidy. (When prohibition was implemented, booze manufacturers should have been given at least something to go and start another business, even if only a loan.)

So, think about this for a minute: If the government forces Elon Musk to host neo-Nazi content on Twitter (because "free speech") and his advertisers don't want their ads running next to that content, then the advertisers will pull out, and Twitter will go out of business. Should the government then force businesses to advertise on Twitter?

It looks like many of these advertisers are already withdrawing due to his free speech stance. But even Neo-Nazis need the advertisers products. There are more than 150 million Neo-Nazis in America and they are now working on a counter boycott of the companies that withdrew from Twitter advertising. Twitter does not need the advertisements from these companies, but these companies do need the the business generated from these Neo-Nazis.

If the public square was free the advertisers would have to accept this. Because the public square is not free they can use their money to enforce their morality and try to exclude immoral people from the marketplace. I agree with them that these people are immoral, but the free market stops working if large groups of people lose the purchasing power their dollars entitle them to. It starts working like top-down regulation and it would have worked just as well against Blacks in the 40's and 50's as it does against Neo-Nazis today.

That's one of the reasons we have anti-discrimination law. And if we're deciding that some people can be discriminated against, then it's not anti-discrimination law, it's pro-discrimination law.