[sebow]

Who defines what illegal and misinformation mean? If the EU actually cared about this topic, they would hire a bunch of people to use the already_existing community notes feature. Of course this is implying they care about the topic, which is probably irrelevant to them. They just want control of information because both sides in this war act scummy and inhumane. Of course if they were to do this they would get challenged by every other user who wants to "fact check", which rightfully dilutes their appearance of authority of truth.

It's 2023 and people still don't understand the premise of government censorship. Guess what: deleting misinformation is still censorship, it does not attack the issue itself; it only probably antagonizes the people who put said (false or not) information, and 'downgrades' the filter of the people who are actually interested in the truth. The information being false or not is actually irrelevant, it's the process of censorship that's damaging. We've been over this with covid already. You don't even have to be an optimist to notice that, most often than not, truth eventually comes out. And what's more interesting is that the more open and free a medium of information/discussion is, the >faster< it gets out. This is because even though humans are impulsive and emotional, we're still rational beings. Fabricating things not rooted in reality is harder and impossible to maintain.

[test098]

> Who defines what illegal and misinformation mean?

EU regulators.

> The information being false or not is actually irrelevant, it's the process of censorship that's damaging.

> This is because even though humans are impulsive and emotional, we're still rational beings.

uh nope:

"The policy expands Facebook’s rules about what type of false information it will remove, and is largely a response to episodes in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and India in which rumors that spread on Facebook led to real-world attacks on ethnic minorities."

- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/technology/facebook-to-re...

[sebow]

> "The policy expands Facebook’s rules about what type of false information it will remove, and is largely a response to episodes in Sri Lanka, Myanmar and India in which rumors that spread on Facebook led to real-world attacks on ethnic minorities." >- https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/18/technology/facebook-to-re...

I'm aware of those frankly tragic episodes. But ask yourself this: is the problem the fact that simply misinfo was put on FB or the fact that there wasn't enough counter-balancing information available? I'm not trying to be sarcastic or downplay the situation, but the fact is that a lot of places suffer "from misinfo" because the only info available is misinfo. The human mind is inherently a curious mind. And as i've stated in my first comment, people tend to follow info from trains of thought that make sense(are logical)[yes, even if we're talking about religion/etc.): the contents of the information matters, how cohesive it is, how it attacks the false claims. I would argue that a big lie does not even need a "big truth" to be debunked, it only needs a well-thought question to instill the skepticism required for the lie to not be taken as plain truth.

Closing thoughts: in third-world regions: the ones you've mentioned, russia, "china"(on the freedom of information/liberty front), etc. the issue of misinformation is not really that misinformation exists; but actually that it is mainly the only information that exists, and there's not enough balancing "truth"/skepticism. You might think i'm silly or that i'm arguing for misinfo(that wouldn't suit me by the way), but I live in an ex-communist country: I've had some relative contact on how the centralized government used to push actual misinformation and how people took it as blind truth. After the said government(s) failed, people usually became more skeptical about all kinds of information(a good thing to do). Those people are the generation of my parents for example, a dying breed, and it should not come as a surprise that every subsequent generation that came after and took all news as "facts" became usually dumber, less rational, and more naive.

[test098]

the propagation of misinformation is asymmetrical. a single person or group of people will not have the resources to counterbalance misinfo when its bankrolled by state actors or malicious groups who use it as a weapon. additionally, it's a lot harder to deconstruct a heavily-propagated lie and to educate people than it is to manufacture outrage (eg https://cognitiveresearchjournal.springeropen.com/articles/1...).

what you're describing is an ideal world where everyone thinks and acts rationally and is willing to change their views when new information is presented. that is far from reality. in short, propaganda works for a reason.

[MattPalmer1086]

Your position is incoherent. You say that the EU itself should hire people to point out misinformation, and then rail against government censorship.

The EU is asking Twitter to define their own moderation policies and enforce them.

So which is it? You want government to do this or private companies?

[sebow]

My position is not incoherent at all, or at least I don't think it is. Let me be more explicit: if EU deems the problem of misinfo is actually such an important thing on X, then it should itself go ahead and "fact-check" the said misinfo on X through Community Notes. This is not government censorship, because other people can also get involved in the process. I don't see how these 2 things are contradicting at all. Granted we're not talking about removing content, which realistically should only be done in very few scenarios: illegal content(CP, that sort of stuff). I'm pretty sure if actual misinfo were to be posted and debunked through a system like community notes, the outcome in the eyes of the public would be better than simply removing said material(which reinforces skepticism and negative attitude towards the authorities/companies among the skeptics).

>The EU is asking Twitter to define their own moderation policies and enforce them. The EU wants a lot of things that aren't feasible. This is one of them. Elon stated plenty of times that the platform should not censor or moderate more speech than necessary. This position turns out to be "harmful" in the eyes of EU, because like the bureaucrats they are, they need everything under control or determined to be under scrutiny a priori(by labeling speech by certain criterias). Imagine a new form of content that does not fall under any current regulation/moderation policies. By default it should not be problematic, because it's not "illegal". Thus my point: what EU deems misinfo/illegal is a slippery slope and will never, ever be satisfied. Unless of course we include a whole lot of nothing-speech.

>So which is it? You want government to do this or private companies?

Neither, or both. Depends if you think my answer is actual "moderation"(or censorship/removal of speech) or providing context in the form of fact-checking(community notes or whatever). If governments want to "fact-check" they should go ahead and do it. Otherwise if they simply just demand that the private company or they themselves(through some intermediaries) want speech removed, that's plain text censorship.[A little note: it's worse than that, you de facto have an actual fascist collusion between the state and private enterprises].

[MattPalmer1086]

I see your point, and I guess it's not incoherent after all.

For myself, I see a grey area of information, which, while it may not be illegal, can be considered as harmful to people.

If the EU wanted to censor everything they disagree with, they would declare it illegal. That would be overreach in my opinion.

I however don't see it as unreasonable to ask that companies providing a platform take steps to protect their users from some kinds of information and are clear about what steps they will take to do so.

Maybe a slippery slope there, but equally having no moderation carries its own real harms.