[seivan]

Honestly, with the hate-mongering, the amount of rumours dressed like news on these high-traffic websites flooded with so called keyboard-warriors, I actually welcome something to counter it... however...

Unfortunately it will be poorly implemented, and going to look like Chinas firewall.

I just wish instead of trying to spend money on silencing most of the bunch of morons who somehow got an audience on lies and rumours (most of the time) - they open up to more transparency and would somehow counter most of the bs articles.

They like to call themselves "alternative media" and everyone else are "politically correct corrupt media". Sigh.

ps Does anyone remember the series of images comparing George Orwell with someone else regarding the overload of bad/junk information? ds

[mseebach]

> Honestly, with the hate-mongering, the amount of rumours dressed like news on these high-traffic websites flooded with so called keyboard-warriors, I actually welcome something to counter it... however...

I am absolutely certain Orson Welles would not be seen dead in your company (unfortunately, he's not around to complain).

Attitudes like yours have been exploited to justify every limitation on the freedom of speech in the history of limitations on freedom of speech - and it's very long. You're what a certain imposer of these limitations referred to a useful idiot.

[sp332]

Is there no middle ground where we can have political dissent without vicious gossip and other crap newspapers do? After writing I am... for freedom of the press, and against all violations of the Constitution to silence by force and not by reason the complaints or criticisms, just or unjust, of our citizens against the conduct of their agents, Thomas Jefferson later noted, I deplore... the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them... These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food. As vehicles of information and a curb on our funtionaries, they have rendered themselves useless by forfeiting all title to belief. http://www.famguardian.org/Subjects/Politics/ThomasJefferson...

[mseebach]

Read that page of quotations, the whole one. All the answers are there.

Particularly:

"Since truth and reason have maintained their ground against false opinions in league with false facts, the press confined to truth needs no other legal restraint. The public judgment will correct false reasonings and opinions on a full hearing of all parties, and no other definite line can be drawn between the inestimable liberty of the press and its demoralizing licentiousness. If there be still improprieties which this rule would not restrain, its supplement must be sought in the censorship of public opinion." --Thomas Jefferson: 2nd Inaugural Address, 1805. ME 3:381

[sp332]

That quote is from 1805, the second one I posted is from 1814, after he'd had 9 years more experience with a free press. Three years after that he wrote:

"From forty years' experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice." --Thomas Jefferson to James Monroe, 1816. ME 14:430

In your quote he requires "the press confined to truth". But in the above, he also claims that the press is not confined to truth. Maybe they should have, at least, that much restriction.

[mseebach]

Read the speech for context - http://www.bartleby.com/124/pres17.html - paragraphs 11-13.

Yes, there exists "laws provided by the States against false and defamatory publications", but even when not enforced, the citizens saw through it, "consolatory to the friend of man who believes that he may be trusted with the control of his own affairs".

[tikhonj]

There is a very large difference between deploring something and making it illegal. It's completely reasonable to simultaneously believe that something is horrible but that it should also remain legal.

Trying to regulate taste is pointless and would not end well.

[seivan]

I think you lack reading comprehension.

I did not say George Orwell was behind the concept stated.

I did not agree with the solution/suggestion presented by the Singaporean government.

I said the hate-mongering articles/rumours posted by these sites for ad-money _IS A PROBLEM_ that can easily be handled by refuting their bs with proof and transparency.

Seriously, reading comprehension. Though I do think my sentences were poorly structured, it did not say what you you seem to think it said.

[mseebach]

No, my reading comprehension is fine. You explicitly endorsed the measure and write not a single word that could be construed to refer to "proof and transparency".

EDIT this response was submitted before "Though I do think my sentences were poorly structured, it did not say what you you seem to think it said." was added.

[seivan]

"- they open up to more transparency and would somehow counter most of the bs articles."

Again, it's poorly structured, but not as poorly as missing the entire word "transparency"

[carbocation]

> ps Does anyone remember the series of images comparing Orson Wells with someone else regarding the overload of bad/junk information?

You're referring to Stuart McMillen's comic-style adaptation of a part of Neil Postman's book, "Amusing Ourselves to Death". Though McMillen has removed his poster at the request of Postman's estate [1], you can still find the comic on the internet [2].

1 = http://www.stuartmcmillen.com/blog/cartoon-blog/amusing-ours...

2 = http://www.juxtapoz.com/current/huxley-vs-orwell-in-graphic-...

[seivan]

Thank you!

I think the best way to do what Orson Welles tried to warn us about, is to "amuse your sheeps to death".

[carbocation]

My pleasure!

Just to reduce the mixing of themes, I wanted to comment that amusement is a big part of Huxley's Brave New World, but it really doesn't fit with Orwell's 1984. Postman's thesis is that Huxley, not Orwell, was more prescient in his fears for humanity.