| >For example, misinformation that might persuade voters into voting based on a false premise undermines a democratic system. So, what's different now vs when there was paid political campaigns and advertising on TV, radio, magazines etc.? Partisan political ads have never been a source of reliable information as long as i've been alive. I'm curious as to what elections you've participated in within your lifetime that wasn't full of campaigns full of misinformation or hell even an election where the candidate that won kept their word on everything they said. My problem with this all is it feels just engineered and over reactionary. Misinformation has existed as long as i've been alive in pretty easily accessible forms. There's always been tabloids next to checkout stands, there's always been bullshit news, ads pretending to be factual and mountains of garbage info heaped onto people and the same people that believed it then believe it now. None of this is new and the only thing the internet changed about it all is now we can hear about whatever nonsense Joe Blow believes in. I have a problem with it all because what people call 'misinformation' isn't always such, it's 'disagreeable information'. Many of the things i've seen labelled as information.over the years, not your examples in particular, but in general, aren't even things with an objective correctness to them. The whole second viewpoint relies on the idea that there is a morally superior group of people out there who know the correct ideas and everyone would just be better off if we just listen to them as any other ideas are just misinformation against the 'correct ideas'. Again, this reminds me very much of the way things were when the church ran things. Just replace God and his commandments with the correct world view and beliefs. This is very much the idea behind wrongthink and thoughtcrimes in 1984. That holding a non conforming belief makes one guilty and requires them to be punished by those that believe 'the correct thing'. In the end, it all comes down to the idea that one group of people has the moral authority to decide what's right for everyone and should be allowed to crush any dissenting opinion. And this, yes, I have a huge problem with. It's no different than what any other oppressive dictators have done to crush dissent. |
It's Facebook that is undermining that norm -- even though they have the same standard for ads from non-politicians.
There's a GOP pac head that is running for something just to dodge Facebook's policy about lying.