[corimaith]

Because it's 10x harder to debunk bullshit than to claim it. You don't know what you don't know, and unfortunately the majority of people are too lazy to critically evaluate their views. For example, how many people actually read linked articles as opposed to just commenting based on the title?

That's how modern misinformation works, you simply bombard social media networks until the truth is lost in a sea of misinformation.

The difference between the truth and the lie though is that in the end when you actually have to implement policy or predict something, lies tend to eventually collapse in on themselves. Credibility as such emerges for the people/insitutions/frameworks that can consistently predict or give results that reflect reality more. But that can take years or even decades, while gepolitical decisions need to made today.

[trogdor]

You might be right, but the existence of a problem doesn’t mean that government intervention will make things better.

I don’t want government deciding, on my behalf, what is or is not bullshit — and then taking legislative steps to suppress ideas it doesn’t like.

Is Communism bullshit? Is anti-Anericanism bullshit? How about liberalism? Conservatism? Homosexuality?

Maybe. But those are for me to decide, based on whatever information people want to use to try and convince me. It is not appropriate for government to legislatively suppress ideas or information it thinks is wrong.

If you think otherwise, do you have a problem with the Chinese internet firewall? From their perspective, China is protecting its citizens from harmful, wrong information. You just disagree about their value judgments. (I assume.)