T/F/T Disagree with those who agree with you! Tomorrow!
G/B/G Silence those who disagree with you! Yesterday!
0voters
Fact Checkers OR Censors?
If those employing fact checkers to silence vilified viewpoints would focus their efforts on educating “the masses“ to be able to tell the difference themselves, they would not need to employ fact checkers, because every mind would be one. And if they feel that they’ve already property educated “the masses”, aren’t fact checkers just censors that control what “the masses” think about? Is that also why we haven’t been properly educated? Are they disappointed that our education doesn’t turn us into clones that “fact check” just like they do? Good!
Students of philosophy don’t have to be taught to ask questions because that is why they are students of philosophy. Sometimes they have to be taught to channel their questions, or to hone them so they ask the right way (not all questions are equal). However, we should all be students of philosophy, and maybe we aren’t because the impulse for questions EVERY KID IS BORN WITH has been discouraged for one reason or another. In that case, we need encouragement to ask questions, to fly, and a safe place that allows us to fall and doesn’t laugh (ok, maybe the occasional, Are we really having this discussion? amongst friends) or stomp us into the ground. If there is no safe space for questions or alternative perspectives—even the most vilified, if they can stand up to analysis—, there is no philosophy being done there…at least not outside the minds of the silenced.
If you know what to silence, then when you achieve silence, the afterimage stays proportional to the brightness of the Original—even though you were blind to it the entire time before the silence.
i think fact checking is when someone checks something to determine whether or not it is a fact. censorship is not the opposite of fact checking. if you say water isn’t wet, and i fact check your statement and determine it to be false, that isn’t censorship. if i succeed in preventing you from ever saying that water isn’t wet, maybe that’s censorship. if we agree that some things are true and some things are false, and that because false information can be harmful, then we can agree that fact checking is a necessary part of learning and knowing about how things are. there has been a wave of people lately who seem to have the desire to spread misinformation while simultaneously portraying themselves as victims of censorship. i think everyone kind of knows that. so with common sense we have to draw a line somewhere with regard to how much misinformation can be spread in the name of someone’s right to spread it. fact checking is a good tool in balancing the value of disseminating truth against the harm that can be done by allowing the dissemenation of falsehoods.
i’m not sure what you’re saying but if it leads to a logical conclusion that fact and fiction are up to the individual to decide regardless of context or that a lot of people being able to spread misinformation that leads to a lot of people believing fiction of facts is ok/not harmful then i disagree
“Fact checkers” is nothing but an Orwellian thought policing by the state. They use it to normalize lies and misinformation and to make people stupider. Of course they’re not going to use their power and intellect to educate the masses, these people are purely evil. I mean that literally. The thought of using their powers and wealth and influence for good wouldn’t even occur to them.
That is not my position. My position is they think they are doing a good thing, overlooking they are overstepping on liberty and understepping on education (equipping with ability to self-liberate). They don’t need to paternalistically BE the fact-checkers, they need to MAKE (build/grow/cultivate/encourage…not force) everyone good fact checkers—and I don’t mean clones that fact check just like they do.
No, they are aware of their own evil. It is impossible to be aware of what they are doing and not aware of how it is evil. Even if they try to justify it based on other reasons, like they might convince themselves it is necessary to do for some reason, this doesn’t wash away the understanding of the evilness of what they are doing.
Maybe the truly ignorant really believe they are doing something good, but those are the people who are too stupid to even realize that what they are doing is evil. That would be the blind obedient masses for example, not the people at the top who really organize things.
We ALL have our blind spots, and everyone with a mother understands “How would you feel if someone did that to you?” I’m not saying they are necessarily blind, but I’m not generalizing without an actual series of conversations. If they continue to repeat the benefits and ignore or downplay the costs, that’s the red flag. Do they understand the costs? That is the question.
They are slavemasters. They own slaves. They are employing a sophisticated form of slavery where slaves aren’t aware they are slaves. It’s a psychological, or spiritual, type of slavery – the word “slavery” meaning “lack of freedom”. They give them all sorts of freedoms of lesser importance but deny them the most important one – the freedom of the will (i.e. the freedom to draw your own conclusions and act upon them.) And they won’t give up on slavery because their success is built on top of it. They are successful precisely because they have a large army of slaves who are willing to do anything for their masters. Remove the slaves and their empire crumbles; their power diminishes. And because they are so used to it, and because they like it so much, they aren’t just going to give it away. Ordinary people are trained to think the same way. They are seduced by comfortable life and they’ll do anything to protect it.
what do you mean when the context changes? there are facts. plain and simple. i can’t believe i’m typing this into a philosophy forum. do you believe that everything that is a fact is so as a result of someone deciding that it’s a fact?
We have slaves as long as companies are still allowed to profit/grow when they have full time employees getting their wage deficits from government assistance or credit/loans.
Just because you’re not whipping people doesn’t mean you’re not enslaving them. Can they hang out with their families in leisure time without depending on the government or going into debt? Or does leisure time go to the landlords because you can’t regulate against greed? The hell you can’t!
Can you imagine a scenario (it doesn’t have to be particularly realistic, just in principle possible) where you would agree that fact checkers and information companies would be justified in trying to stop the spread of certain dangerous ideas? A scenario where you yourself would agree that those ideas really do need to be fact checked, slowed down, or entirely censored?
with all the technology we have, the fact that there are still profitable scenarios going on that involve (or even PRETEND to involve… and yes, that implies some shit) the exploitation of children… is absolutely… worthy of … mutilation of the perps’ pleasure nodes wherever they are found on the body (including brain)… or conversion, I dunno.
That’s not an idea though, that’s just a blatant crime.
I’m taking about an idea here, is there any idea, in any imaginable scenario, where you would think that allowing the spread of the idea itself is dangerous enough to stop?
Not a criminal image, an idea like a political or scientific idea which, in your imagined scenario, has some potential danger if spread, a danger like the deaths of many or the extinction of mankind or something like that.
Can you imagine any scenario and any idea that you would want fact checkers to stop or slow the spread of? Or is it in principle always a violation of free speech and never allowable, even if extinction were theoretically on the line?
