[vinhboy]

This reminded me to donate.

A lot of people in Trump's camp relentlessly defends the 2nd Amendment, but in my opinion, that is just a purposeful distraction to the real weapon we should be defending: a free and open internet.

Now this also means defending against disinformation (ie. fake news), which is not something I saw on the EFF's plan.

It's honestly very scary now that Theil and Palantir is in bed with them.

[leereeves]

> a free and open internet.

> defending against disinformation

Pick at most one.

[sophacles]

Disagree - The tools for hyperbole, opposing viewpoints, and factually false information do not prevent people from publishing it. Aggregators (facebook, HN et al) choosing to promote more vetted info is not the same as preventing people from publishing it.

In fact I would go so far as to say that pushing for allowing anyone to publish on a free and open internet is necessary for defending against disinformation. The alternative is censoring (in a generic sense, not necessarily a law sense) things, which can heighten disinformation dramatically.

[leereeves]

I agree that a free and open Internet is the best defense against disinformation.

It's a lousy defense. Massive amounts of disinformation will be shared (are shared) on a free Internet.

But "defending against disinformation" sounds like the excuse the government will use for censorship.

[Noos]

people tend to view "free and open internet" insofar as it promotes their own views. Free and open internet is nice if it destablizes the power of traditional religion and promotes tolerance of alternative sexuality, but if the same corrosive power is turned on the values of the gatekeepers, suddenly we're arguing about no longer allowing comments on web pages, debating about "fake news" and the like.

People tend to want to cloak their own values in rhetoric that is appealing. They want to seem tolerant and open, when really they want to be closed and intolerant of opposition to their own values. Some people realize this tendency in themselves, but many of those in power or as gatekeepers don't at all.

[whazor]

Or maybe ban advertising on sites with disinformation.

[rm_-rf_slash]

Not mutually exclusive, but the fix for the latter to ensure the former is education, not legislation.

[leereeves]

The power to declare something "disinformation" is the power to censor.

I don't think I'd trust anyone who has governed in my lifetime not to abuse that power.

[rm_-rf_slash]

I think you missed my point. It takes critical thinking to discern truth from misinformation, regardless of political preferences.

[geofft]

"Fake news" is an interesting concept, because it was originally coined to mean fly-by-night websites that looked indistinguishable from actual, legitimate members of the media, and often attempted to impersonate those members. This was a technical definition.

It got co-opted (very effectively, I must admit) by pro-Trump partisans to mean "biased news," which is a much more subjective definition. Unlike the original definition, "fake news" can be applied to articles, not to sites, although echoes of the first definition are used to impugn an entire news organization for getting a single story or a single detail wrong (which happens!). By the original definition, the New York Times or CNN is never "fake news," as long as it's the actual Times and actual CNN you're looking at. By the new definition, they're "fake news" if you disagree with their editorial decisions about what's newsworthy.

The original "fake news" problem, being a technical problem, can I think be legitimately addressed by technical means. It's been over 20 years since Google's founders first started tracking reputation as a way of determining worthwhile search results vs. worthless ones, and that's been extraordinarily effective. Something similar could help track whether the site you're reading is a well-known news entity or a quickly-cobbled-together WordPress. Once you know the site has been around enough to have a reputation, it's up to you to decide whether it's worth your time. And for a website impersonating a well-known one instead of presenting its own (new) brand, this becomes equivalent to the phishing problem, which is a technical problem solvable by technical solutions.

The fundamental assumption, of course, is that people are interested in truth and not merely what their itching ears want to hear. But hopefully they are.