[potato3732842]

>We also suppress videos on the correct manufacturing process for plastic explosives. Not because doing it safely is a bad idea, but because proliferating bomb making materials is.

>Covid disinformation got people killed. It will continue to get people killed, especially with a proponent of it leading the US health service.

>Things likely to lead to death, are likely things you do not want on your platform.

Proliferating attitudes about the restriction of communication like you are doing and advocating for is bad and gets people killed. The history books are chock f-ing full of the recipe and the steps.

I'll take my chances with the plastic explosives and the health quackery.

Even though people may spew falsehoods the truth "just is" and will keep coming back up.

[shakna]

Russia's official propaganda technique [0], is about spewing falsehoods, because the truth does not keep coming back up. Lie enough, and people do give up.

Hitler and Goebbels did effectively make use of a ministry dedicated to spewing out as many falsehoods as they could, and it very effectively controlled the flow and acceptance of information in Nazi Germany.

Pol Pot and his Little Red Book empowered the Khmer Rouge, and actively buried the truth to the point where people assisted the regime to become one of the most bloody in all of history.

As Orwell warned us, because he lived through Soviet Russia and their propaganda machine, the truth does not survive when there are those dedicated to twisting it or hiding it to fit their purpose.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood

[catlifeonmars]

> Even though people may spew falsehoods the truth "just is" and will keep coming back up.

I wish I had your level of confidence about this. I just feel like it is not the case these days and it’s depressing.

[insin]

> Besides, as the vilest Writer has his Readers, so the greatest Liar has his Believers; and it often happens, that if a Lie be believ’d only for an Hour, it has done its Work, and there is no farther occasion for it. Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it; so that when Men come to be undeceiv’d, it is too late; the Jest is over, and the Tale has had its Effect…

-- Jonathan Swift, 1710 [1]

(very apt that this has an ad in the middle of it)

[1] http://books.google.com/books?id=KigTAAAAQAAJ&q=%22Truth+com...

[andrepd]

Indeed. In the ages pre-algorithmic social media and pre-generative AI I would agree that about truth. Now I'm not so sure.

[kevindamm]

funny, I still had this open from when I saw it mentioned in another thread on HN

https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

Debunking disinfo takes significantly more energy than it did to create it, although I have no more than anecdata to back it up I have yet to find anyone who disagrees.

So, I too would like to believe that the truth prevails but imo it only does so when its champions are incredibly persistent.