[smaryjerry]

This has been a problem since the White House announced they were working with Facebook and other social media companies to ban people for “misinformation” and later when the White House created a Disinformation Board that was only in place for a few months before the bad publicity got it shut down. It should be no surprise any platform has misinformation, even Wikipedia or your encyclopedia is not the end all be all of truth and there shouldn’t be expectation random people on these sites aren’t pushing their own beliefs. I don’t know a single person who believes Facebook is the best place for research despite claims that it’s the primary cause of misinformation. Politicians themselves are famous for lying, in just one example, the “if you get the vaccine you can’t spread the virus” was very widely spread at the start and espousing the opposite of this statement would get people banned from social media sites for saying so, despite later being found to be false regarding these specific vaccines. It is arrogant to think that 1. people are too stupid to debate amongst themselves to let the good information rise to the top and 2. that the person in charge has all available information. It’s like imagining because your CEO is in charge of your company that they always make the best decision. It’s delusional that being in power should make you any more correct, even if there are more resources available to them, increasing their odds of being correct. It should be obvious my opinion, but social media should stay out of the business of determining what is and isn’t misinformation and especially at the governments direction. It was done in the name of “saving lives” but in a world of 8 billion people, how many lives did being incorrect and forcing bad information to be the only allowed information also cost? I doubt more lives were saved than cost by the misinformation management done by social media.

[mikkergp]

> I don’t know a single person who believes Facebook is the best place for research despite claims that it’s the primary cause of misinformation.

Statistically speaking, you don’t know that many people.

[smaryjerry]

Sure but how many schools teach, get your best information from Facebook? Any? I look at Facebook more like the phone company facilitating communications, and I wouldn’t blame the phone company for what people say or want the phone company to cut people off.

[mikkergp]

> It is arrogant to think that 1. people are too stupid to debate amongst themselves to let the good information rise to the top and 2. that the person in charge has all available information

I can get behind number 2 but I can’t really get behind number 1. There are too many human motivations other than rhetorical efficiency for this to be true. It’s a nice libertarian idea, but I think the reality is if you look at the spread of ideas, “best” attempting some kind of objective determination rarely rises to the top. This is like basing economic theory on the rational actor. You can come up with some good theories, but they’ll break down when you apply them to reality. I think the reality is unfortunately much more murky. People don’t have to be taught that Facebook is a good place for information for them to be influenced by it. I think most conservative thought I’d based more on personal stories and an appeal to your community then science or rational thought which makes Facebook a more fertile ground.

[smaryjerry]

I think assuming people are too dumb to make a decent choice would also be a problem you could blame democracy for and be an argument for a dictatorship. That’s kind of what misinformation management by the company who is controlling your method of communication feels like, a dictatorship of ideas. It gives Black Mirror vibes controlling truth, and sort of comes down to the basic argument of what is better you, safety or freedom as well. Slippery slopes are an actual thing and just having any of that power available opens up the door for abuse especially like in the case of this article where there is perceived pressure from the government, the only entity allowed to use violence, on stopping the spread of anything but their idea of the truth. Just imagine if these particular vaccines actually weee dangerous, even to a specific people with specific conditions - trials aren’t the same as mass adoption. The levels of information blocking in place could have hindered research as you literally would get banned for mentioning you had a bad reaction. In my opinions ideas should stand on their own, and if good enough eventually people will come around.