Progressive Politics
Welcome to Progressive Politics! A place for news updates and political discussion from a left perspective. Conservatives and centrists are welcome just try and keep it civil :)
(Sidebar still a work in progress post recommendations if you have them such as reading lists)
You can't win the war on disinformation. You shouldn't even bother, because it is impossible.
(Community Notes: This is disinformation.)
The biggest challenge with this is that those who will need to see the information will ignore it, or simply continue to disbelieve.
Nope, the biggest challenge would be not getting co-opted by the alt-right just like every other fucking platform out there INCLUDING lemmy
Ah I see you found shitjustworks
You're exactly right. The effort proposed in the article overlooks the fact that people silo themselves into information bubbles via the media sources they choose, making the world today into a "choose your own reality" type of situation. The fox News or OAN viewer isn't going to suddenly look to other sources, and even social media sources provide an echo chamber to most. Eventually, the fantasy worldviews will bump up against cold, hard reality, but by then most of the damage will be done.
Your argument doesn't agree with my preconceived opinion that supports my self-centered world view, so I'm going to ignore it and look for another comment that does and upvote that one.
I think you should be more concerned that their argument is just a chatgpt generated reply scraped from the article, it even starts with the traditional LLM glazing
Is UDAID getting crowdsourced now?
Look at the atheist vs creationist debates on YouTube. When it is a neutral playing field; (like it was in YouTube’s early days) truth wins. But in a shifted playing field where by appealing to people’s already existing (or easily radicalized) beliefs greater engagement occurs. (Like YouTube is doing now) The truth doesn’t stand a chance.
So our only chance is if we can make a level playing field and encourage everyone (including those who we are fighting against) and then let the truth win by virtue of being true.
And we have the problem that none of us is as cruel as all of us are.
By blocking VPN’s
/s - let me spell it out sarcasm!
For the second year in a row, the WEF Global Risks Report ranks both misinformation (false or inaccurate information) and disinformation (intentional misinformation) as the the **number one short-term risk to humanity— even above extreme weather events, cyber attacks, and armed conflict.
Well that’s an absolutely ridiculous degree of hyperbole. And I’m sure it’s linked to the push for intense censorship in the global west. This is just an attempt to manufacture consent for more crackdowns.
Capitalism is the greatest global threat. We already have plenty of information on what is destroying the planet, killing the most people, etc. We still can’t change these things even when we know about them, because capitalism has total control of all the levers of power. Not to mention the capitalists are funding actual disinformation campaigns.
What good is knowing the truth, if we’re forbidden from acting on it?
...and if nobody is aware of this due to dis/misinformation...?
Walk me through your thinking on that. You believe that the world governments, the greatest purveyors of disinformation and propaganda on the planet, are going to allow everyone to know the truth by outlawing disinformation? You really, truly believe this?
I'm not arguing specifically for governments to outlaw disinformation. I'm arguing that those who want to perpetuate capitalism use disinformation, quite effectively in the US, to ensure it is perpetuated. That absolutely includes those in government.
If everyone thinks capitalism is the best option and that every other alternative ever conceived leads to a dictatorship or destitution/famine, then capitalism is here to stay.
I'm in favor of combating disinformation and misinformation as a priority. I'm not at all opposed to starting with the topic capitalism.
Edit: Also, this from very early in the linked article:
What if we could fight misinformation not through isolated efforts, but with coordinated global action? Imagine a unified initiative bringing together forces from research, politics, and civil society — a true global collaboration. With that collective power, we could launch massive, targeted campaigns that make truth go viral.
It's not calling for government or laws. It's calling for coordinated collective action.
It’s calling for coordinated collective action.
The "coordinated" part is what I have an issue with because who decides this coordination? Inevitably it will be the government, which means their agendas will flip widely depending on the party or the elected leader. It would be a chaotic mess going from one extreme to the other every four years or so.
Also the pandemic was proof that even scientists were not immune to being persuaded by politics. They despised Trump and his claim that covid came from a lab yet they refused to investigate until Biden came into power because at that time the pandemic situation was improving and people weren't paying attention. The CDC also eventually admitted that their vaccine boosters weren't necessary for the 18-49 age group when the omicron variant was spreading. Fauci was also culpable at various moments during the pandemic.
So then who decides what is and isn’t disinformation? I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve seen governments claim that people were spreading disinformation, only for it to come out years later that the people pushing against propaganda were not wrong at all. Does Iraq’s WMD’s ring a bell?
Calling for a global censorship authority is by far worse. So much worse. I don’t understand why you think that makes it better.
I really don't understand what is so hard to understand.
So then who decides what is and isn’t disinformation?
People who take part in collective action against the false information?
I can’t begin to tell you how many times I’ve seen governments claim that people were spreading disinformation, only for it to come out years later that the people pushing against propaganda were not wrong at all. Does Iraq’s WMD’s ring a bell?
...so you are saying that if a bunch of upset people around the world collectively organized the dismantling of the Iraq WMD propaganda, that would be... worse somehow?
Calling for a global censorship authority is by far worse.
Collective action is not a global authority any more than a union is a labor authority. I do not see this as a call for a UN Information Authority. I see this as a call for people, like you and me, to organize and coordinate effective campaigns against disinformation and misinformation. Normal people, or maybe people educated on the topic, acting collectively. Collective action. Like workers organizing a general strike, or activists organizing protests, but instead of not working or protesting in the streets the participants are coming up with and disseminating organized facts on the internet and anywhere else it might be deemed effective.
Can you source any explicit mentions of government being recommended to handle this responsibility in the article or are you just reading it that way?
This is such a level of naivety, I gotta believe you’re just trolling. As if the majority position is not often wrong, or that peer pressure and mob mentality won’t take the reins. Or that a bot network won’t just rule over it.
The best option we have is free speech, uncensored, with trusted institutions critically verifying positions.