[bheadmaster]

I hate the word "disinformation". I hate it so much I consider anyone who uses it in a serious argument a deep-state actor working on bringing 1984 to reality.

The reason I hate it is because it implies that there is such thing as "the truth", and that they somehow have the authority to decide, globally, what is and is not truth. Truth is, and always will be, unknowable, at least in an absolute sense. Depending on the sensory data we have as individuals, we may assign probabilities to certain predicates, and we consider them "true" as much as our observations correspond to our expectations derived from those predicates.

The "disinformation" crusade could spend their time much better trying to share the information - i.e. educating people. But no, education is expensive and hard. It's much easier to ride the high horse and censor anyone who disagrees with them...ahem, I mean "spreads disinformation". Feels so righteous too!

[badRNG]

> Truth is, and always will be, unknowable, at least in an absolute sense.

On topics that matter: whether COVID is a hoax, whether vaccines are poison, whether nicotine is safe, whether climate change is a hoax, whether Biden stole the election etc, both "sides" of each question aren't on equal footing just because we don't have access to "absolute truth" in a philosophical sense. These factually incorrect beliefs, whatever we decide to call them, are more than a matter of opinion; they regularly get people killed, and have the capacity to do even greater harm.

I'm not necessarily advocating for censorship as a response, but it'd be foolish to pretend that disinformation isn't a serious problem. For the record (since I used that word,) I should say that this is coming from a regular citizen not "a deep-state actor."

[bheadmaster]

> These factually incorrect beliefs

How could I know that they are "factually incorrect"? What does that statement even mean, except for "I want you to not question it"?

> they regularly get people killed, and have the capacity to do even greater harm

This has nothing to do with truth and falsehood. There are true beliefs that may also get people killed and have capacity to do harm, and false beliefs that are beneficial.

> it'd be foolish to pretend that disinformation isn't a serious problem

There are a lot of serious problems on this world, and I'm fairly skeptical that "disinformation" (defined as people holding non-factual views, leaving aside the philosophical problem of truth) is anywhere near the top of the list, measuring by any relevant impact (e.g. human deaths).

Considering that the first line of defense against "disinformation" these days is censorship, it would be more foolish not to consider collateral damage that stems from any "anti-disinformation" action. For example, education has a lot less collateral damage than censorship.

[cainxinth]

Fun fact: the word disinformation was coined by none other than Stalin!

https://www.historyofinformation.com/detail.php?id=5069

And even its etymology was founded on deceit:

> Stalin gave the department what he thought was French-sounding name in order to claim the name had a Western origin.