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1061 points danso | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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lykahb ◴[] No.23351178[source]
The neutral companies, such as utilities, online hosting or financial providers serve nearly everyone with little objections - they defer to the law rather than any internal policies. The more selective companies such as newspapers and TV channels are expected to restrict who can get published.

By representing itself both as an open platform and as a company with progressive values, Twitter has put itself into an awkward in-between spot and is bound to create such controversies.

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QuercusMax ◴[] No.23351412[source]
Fact-checking obvious lies is a "progressive value"? Wow, that really shows how bad things have gotten.
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pnako ◴[] No.23351687[source]
If the lies are obvious, why do they need "fact checking"?
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sethhochberg ◴[] No.23351841[source]
Because, for better or worse, the sources of truth that normal people historically relied on for their barometer of what is true or not have been democratized by the internet.

We live in a world where a substantial number of people believe the earth is flat, that 5G cellular is a mind control scheme, that vaccines cause autism, that COVID-19 was created by a political party, that the concept of climate change is manufactured, or that major national crises are actually just actors being paid to further a political narrative.

Most of these ideas aren't new, but in decades past you might have heard about them from a conspiracy-therorist neighbor, a low profile website, or an alternative magazine with little reputation of its own.

Now, these ideas are spread on the exact same platforms as objectively truthful / scientifically sound media. Your Youtube conspiracy theory channel is right next to the BBC's videos. Your viral Facebook post could be from the New York Times, or it might be from a propaganda organization - or worse, an account that looks like a normal person but which was specifically created to spread misinformation that seems plausibly truthful.

Credibility is distributed and anyone can publish to a huge audience, which is wonderful sometimes, and othertimes deeply problematic, because the viewer often doesn't know enough to distinguish fact from fiction and can't trust the publisher at face value anymore.

Its uncharted territory. The cost to distribute is zero, and ideas spread far and wide - but that means that there are equally as many incredible sources on any given topic as credible ones, and telling the difference is hard, and sometimes not knowing the difference is dangerous. Dunning-Kruger writ large.

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1. cameronbrown ◴[] No.23351893{4}[source]
> can't trust the publisher at face value anymore

So you don't think mainstream media lies too, all the time, like politicians? RussiaGate is still unproven and by all definitions, a conspiracy. What makes them any more allowed to shill but individuals cannot?

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2. sethhochberg ◴[] No.23351991[source]
I'm not claiming mainstream media is perfect, by any means, but mainstream media is often beholden to broadcast standards, or at minimum they can't be so nonsensical as to turn away advertisers. There's plenty of room for influence in mainstream media, but at the very least the number of players is limited and the implicit biases widely known. We can all make a short list of who the left/center/right media brands in our respective countries are.

Doing that with the many thousands of Youtube channels or many millions of Facebook/Twitter accounts broadcasting alleged facts is difficult, if not impossible, especially when the cost of obtaining a new account is essentially zero.