[ernst_klim]

Ah. In Russia there is a `fake news' law. They just put label `fake news' on anything they don't like, and censor it. Glad to know that Russia has free speech.

As other comment rightly pointed out, your implication requires censor.

Also it implies that misinformation is decidable, i.e. there is a strictly objective rigid method of telling what it The Truth™ everybody agreed upon. Could you show me such a decision procedure?

[greatgirl]

> Could you show me such a decision procedure?

Sure, it's called reason, philosophy, and the scientific method, all of which influence a dialectic which is a method of arriving at the truth.

[627467]

...and none of which produce irrefutable dogmas or relies on censure to validate itself. In fact it's the opposite: the scientific method, reason and philosophy relies on the availability of stupid ideas to reinforce the "truth" of the non-stupid ones.

[ernst_klim]

> reason

Buzzword

> philosophy

Subjective opinions hidden behind obscure rhetoric.

> scientific method

Is not applicable to most of the issues bothering human beings: epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, metaphysics are highly unscientific.

Neither are decision procedures though. Here is the example:

    Putin is a thief.

Show me a rigid decision procedure proving it right or misinformation.

[graycat]

For a statement such as

Putin is a thief.

my standard approach is to follow the old, standard

"The burden of proof is on the proposer."

Or, it is not up to me to try to debunk such a claim. And I'm not obligated either to debunk the claim or accept it.

So I want to discard essentially all claims that don't come with solid information, the "proof".

Right, such proof can be good stuff in pure math and in parts of mathematical physics but less good elsewhere.

If there is a claim such as

The tap water is toxic.

as long as we have sources of safe water, we might make a decision to avoid the tap water and go with the safe water until we have more evidence about the tap water.

And that is where it seems we are stuck on practical decision methodology and procedures.

[ernst_klim]

> "The burden of proof is on the proposer."

Yeah, but what's a proof? What if Putin try to poison Navalny (as he did), but will deny it? Everybody believes that, but there is no proof that he is in charge.

Does it mean that this is misinformation until proven otherwise, and Russian censorship is justified?

[graycat]

Your example appears to be similar to my example of the tap water: In a case of a threat but without proof, we may make a decision that will help us be safe.

Otherwise, in a case without threat, we are reluctant to devote the resources to develop a proof and just ignore the claim that has no proof.

[jpadkins]

so in your world, no one can say or write any claim or statement unless they also prove it?

What about questions or allegations? Can I say to my neighbor: "I think it will rain today" even though I can't prove it.

If that is allowed, can Qanon state "I think Biden is a communist"?

See how restriction of speech is a tricky subject?

[greatgirl]

> Show me a rigid decision procedure proving it right or misinformation.

You and another commenter missed a crucial part of my sentence: dialectics.

The method of isolating the contradictions of a system so as to arrive at the best possible answer. No one said there is a quick formula for this, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted.

[roenxi]

Dialectics is a good method for two people who want to uncover the truth of a situation, but judging when two people are engaging in dialectics is subjective so it isn't a suitable tool for politics in the way free speech is.

It is much easier to tell if someone is free to say what they think than it is to tell if they are properly employing dialectic techniques.

[ernst_klim]

> No one said there is a quick formula for this, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be attempted.

If you can't tell truth from lies how are you sure something is misinformation?

What's the point of the term misinformation then? Most people agree upon the shape of earth anyway, but questionable topics are questionable due to, you know, lack of persuading argument which would persuade the bulk of people.

[proactivesvcs]

There's a wealth of information on the safety and efficacy of vaccines. They literally publish the data, the analysis, the follow-up, for a great many vaccines. There exists no technology to add tracking equipment into a vaccine because of the size, power, and transmission requirements.

5G cannot cause infection by the coronavirus because it is merely a non-ionising radiation. It is a waveform of specific frequency of the electromagnetic spectrum and cannot carry viral nanoparticles through the airwaves, penetrating the skin, and infecting the body.

I won't even bother to debunk flat Earth or Moon landing hoaxes because they're beneath me.

Your argument is in bad faith as you've either read none of the disinformation that is perpetrated or you're pretending that most of the claims are verifiably, irrefutably incorrect.

[ernst_klim]

> omg science

You know, this infallible social institution which never pushed society towards cringeworthy ideas, which never revised previous theories (wiki has a whole article on superseded theories). And who said reproducibility crisis? It doesn't exist, science is perfect, ergo we know.

Like when Swedes practised eugenics and sterilised innocent people, that was just a bad science, yeap. Hopefully today we have perfect science so this couldn't happen.

Not to mention that science is not applicable to everything, most questionable questions are not scientific, hence I don't know who is arguing "in bad faith" by cherry-picking grotesque examples.

> Your argument is in bad faith as you've either read none of the disinformation

No, your arguments are completely orthogonal to what I said.

You are saying that some people tell lies.

I'm saying that there is no objective decision procedure which tells truth from lies.

If you don't see the difference, it means you are too dumb for me to continue this argument "in bad faith".

[Chris2048]

Why is moon landing hoax less admirable? The US, a large wealthy government, was in a cold war with Russia at the time. It would seem to mean the US had the means, and the motivation to fake a moon landing.

But for actual evidence that it's true (supporting the claim that it's true) - I don't see as much evidence that it's false (supporting the claim that it might be true).

Would "lots of people would need to be involved" the only rebuttal in that case?

[jpadkins]

you didn't reply with a procedure. You cherry picked one example, and argued one point.

So other than making proactivesvcs the arbitrator of misinformation, what process do suggest to replace the status quo?

I would describe the status quo as: everyone is allowed to publish information unrestricted. everyone else can review any information and either ignores it or amplifies it. The more people who have critical reasoning skills, the better the system works.