Trump misunderstands concept of free speech

Dwarvenhobble

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Trump doing it wrong is really important. If he's going to make it worse rather than better, than its really important. What I don't want is Trump's crack down on Free Speech to lead to him cracking down on everyone. Because he being attacking the media for years and I could imagine a bill coming out soon for them too.

If you want to break up their power, you might have to use the Anti-Trust laws to break them apart. Place them in a special category that THEY DEFINITELY ARENT IN RIGHT NOW despite whatever Trump pretends.

How did you get that from this? 'Also, fact checking doesnt control the public discourse'. I'm saying we need more fact checking and somehow that makes me want Trump in control of Twitter?

Hey, you know how we found out about the facts about Twitters first attempt? BY FACT CHECKING. I.e. and this might be the most important thing you can do in your life: DO IT ALL THE TIME. LIKE EVERYONE AND TO EVERYONE. Taking away Twitter's power to fact check will mean we don't get that information and that is so much worse. And the fact checking point out how Trump didn't tell the truth. It's almost like everyone has an agenda and you should be taking that into account by FACT CHECKING

PS Did you guys not learn this in school? Did a teacher not show you in grade school some news and critique it pointing out biases?
Yes but unless twitter had been fact checked themselves it wouldn't have been changed and because of the initial fact check info posted it's possible a number of people were mislead.

It's mostly lucky the story didn't spread round far and wide before being corrected. Hell other outlets without much fact checking could have picked it up and spread it and then it becomes fact because of some version of Citogensis at work


Having twitter put up an easy "This is the truth" style section also discourages people looking round at multiple sources for the info.


Why do you think people were angry over Trump not putting his businesses into a trust like every other president? For shits and giggles? It makes everything look like a conflict of interest.

What I don't want to happen is like what is happening with Facebook and China at this time. They are forcing Facebook to give over certain information on their populace if Facebook wants to do business. Facebook has to do whatever the government wants just to be able to trade. That's dystopian.
Yes that is also dystopian and that's not what's being asked for by the government here. It's asking for evidence the platforms aren't acting more like publishers than platforms and are NOT using their position as defacto monopolies in their sectors to try and influence the public by say allowing certain links and banning others based on political positioning.

Also you didn't answer the question about if you'd want Tencent (again they're not technically the Chinese government) or The Trump Organisation to be allowed to be the ones running the fact checking on said sites.
 

Houseman

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How did you get that from this? 'Also, fact checking doesnt control the public discourse'.
Your answer to the question would reveal that you recognize the danger that comes from letting a biased party be in control of determining what is 'fact'.

I am not accusing you of wanting Trump to be in charge of fact-checking. I am pointing out that this would be a bad idea. This illustrates the point: controlling public discourse is dangerous.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Your answer to the question would reveal that you recognize the danger that comes from letting a biased party be in control of determining what is 'fact'.

I am not accusing you of wanting Trump to be in charge of fact-checking. I am pointing out that this would be a bad idea. This illustrates the point: controlling public discourse is dangerous.
You seem to want it to be the other way. We already have issues with people just staright up lying on social media. You made the assertion about what it trump or russia or something owned twitter, well without fact checking they might as well own it, cause they can feel free to spread as much misinformation as they want. In some ways it would be better if they did own it since then it would be easier to see the bias, like at this point most people know that RT (russia today) is a government owned news source so they at least know that any info from it will have a pro-russian bias. With out fact checking you can just lie on social media and claim not to be biased and no one can really tell the difference.
 

Houseman

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well without fact checking they might as well own it, cause they can feel free to spread as much misinformation as they want.
Yes, yes they can. However, spreading misinformation and controlling public discourse are two different things. I can spread misinformation on Twitter all I want, but that doesn't mean that anybody will listen. It doesn't mean anybody will believe me. I won't control squat. Even if I speak 'the truth', I won't control squat. That's how it should be.

"Russian bots" are the closest (that we know about) way they've tried to control the conversation. And that's dealt with by banning the accounts, and that's fine, assuming they really were bots.

Controlling the conversation would be like busing voters to the polls in order to swing an election. It's like only inviting pro-fracking experts to your environmental conference. It's like hiring people to act as hecklers during a speech. It's manipulation, not necessarily censorship.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Yes, yes they can. However, spreading misinformation and controlling public discourse are two different things. I can spread misinformation on Twitter all I want, but that doesn't mean that anybody will listen. It doesn't mean anybody will believe me. I won't control squat. Even if I speak 'the truth', I won't control squat. That's how it should be.

"Russian bots" are the closest (that we know about) way they've tried to control the conversation. And that's dealt with by banning the accounts, and that's fine, assuming they really were bots.

Controlling the conversation would be like busing voters to the polls in order to swing an election. It's like only inviting pro-fracking experts to your environmental conference. It's like hiring people to act as hecklers during a speech. It's manipulation, not necessarily censorship.
Except people don't work that way. If they did then we wouldn't have the anti-vaxxer situation, essential oils would be long gone, we wouldn't have had some idiot shoot up a pizza place because some q guy told him to. You can say all you want that people don't listen to misinformation but reality proves you wrong and shows that misinformation is deadly.

It's entirely possible that even having fact checks on those things from day one wouldn't have helped much since humans like to know secret info and sometimes are just contrarian to be contrarian. I totally understand that, if someone just tells me not to touch something then I'm probably going to touch it to just prove to them they can't tell me what to do. But the difference between telling someone 'not to touch something' and telling someone 'not to touch something because its hot' is night and day, its harder to be a pure contrarian when someone has actually given you a reason for something.
 

Houseman

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Except people don't work that way.
What way? I don't understand what you're referring to.


You can say all you want that people don't listen to misinformation
I've... never said that.

Regardless, my point is simple, and easily proven. Any reasonable person would object to having a clearly biased party be in control of public platforms, or the fact-checkers that they use. You'd object because you realize how easily these biased parties could control the conversation. Therefore, you recognize the inherent danger.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
What way? I don't understand what you're referring to.

I've... never said that.

Regardless, my point is simple, and easily proven. Any reasonable person would object to having a clearly biased party be in control of public platforms, or the fact-checkers that they use. You'd object because you realize how easily these biased parties could control the conversation. Therefore, you recognize the inherent danger.
You literally just said that "I can spread misinformation on Twitter all I want, but that doesn't mean that anybody will listen. It doesn't mean anybody will believe me. I won't control squat. Even if I speak 'the truth', I won't control squat. That's how it should be." You are just wrong, people listen to bad info all the time hence my examples.

Is that your point? Cause you really seem to be in favor of people being able to just straight up lie and don't want anyone to be able to correct them. I mean that might not be what you want, but you certainly seem to be arguing in favor of misinformation.
 

Houseman

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You literally just said that "I can spread misinformation on Twitter all I want, but that doesn't mean that anybody will listen. It doesn't mean anybody will believe me. I won't control squat. Even if I speak 'the truth', I won't control squat. That's how it should be." You are just wrong, people listen to bad info all the time hence my examples.
Ah, I see. I didn't say "nobody will believe me", I said "It doesn't mean anybody will believe me". Subtle difference.

Is that your point?
My point is that the power to control the conversation is too dangerous a power to ever wield.

Cause you really seem to be in favor of people being able to just straight up lie and don't want anyone to be able to correct them
It would be more accurate to say that I don't trust any one organization to be able to correctly determine truth from lie.


but you certainly seem to be arguing in favor of misinformation.
Do you disagree that the power to control the conversation, public discourse, is a dangerous one? Because that's all I'm saying here.
If there needs to be a trade-off between "allowing people to spread misinformation" and "letting one source decide what is or isn't truth", I lean toward the former.
 
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Dwarvenhobble

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You seem to want it to be the other way. We already have issues with people just staright up lying on social media. You made the assertion about what it trump or russia or something owned twitter, well without fact checking they might as well own it, cause they can feel free to spread as much misinformation as they want. In some ways it would be better if they did own it since then it would be easier to see the bias, like at this point most people know that RT (russia today) is a government owned news source so they at least know that any info from it will have a pro-russian bias. With out fact checking you can just lie on social media and claim not to be biased and no one can really tell the difference.
We've had people lying in general media not merely social media.


I mean remember Hillary's "sunstroke"


How about the claims about wikileaks being illegal unless you're part of the media?


I wouldn't want Trump fact checking either he's not got the best record it should be noted though most of the time Trump's body language allegedly says he does believe what he's saying to be true.


On twitter people can fact check others and do all the time.

The reality would be to encourage people to stop sealing themselves into echo chambers and actually follow a range of people and get a range of info coming in.

I'll tell you this, on youtube one of the few outright right wing (by which I mean open Republican supporting) channels I follow was called "How the world works" I followed because I watched his stuff and disagreed entirely with it. I subscribed to keep watching because while I disagreed entirely often from his very premise he laid out where he was coming from and the premise and basis for why he thought the way he did.

It's something people should be taught but a lot of media organisation want to pretend they are the honest ones to listen to.


Except people don't work that way. If they did then we wouldn't have the anti-vaxxer situation, essential oils would be long gone, we wouldn't have had some idiot shoot up a pizza place because some q guy told him to. You can say all you want that people don't listen to misinformation but reality proves you wrong and shows that misinformation is deadly.
Just to be clear. He shot the lock on a store room door rather than just randomly shooting up the place to be clear.

It's worth pointing out we also have groups like the Fallists on abut how Science needs to accept magic tribal lightening summoning.....


It's entirely possible that even having fact checks on those things from day one wouldn't have helped much since humans like to know secret info and sometimes are just contrarian to be contrarian. I totally understand that, if someone just tells me not to touch something then I'm probably going to touch it to just prove to them they can't tell me what to do. But the difference between telling someone 'not to touch something' and telling someone 'not to touch something because its hot' is night and day, its harder to be a pure contrarian when someone has actually given you a reason for something.
We don't always know the truth from Day 1


Sometimes the truth only comes out in court when all the facts are there.

 

Dwarvenhobble

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You literally just said that "I can spread misinformation on Twitter all I want, but that doesn't mean that anybody will listen. It doesn't mean anybody will believe me. I won't control squat. Even if I speak 'the truth', I won't control squat. That's how it should be." You are just wrong, people listen to bad info all the time hence my examples.
That's really not what he's saying and that's a hell of a bad faith reading of what was said.


Is that your point? Cause you really seem to be in favor of people being able to just straight up lie and don't want anyone to be able to correct them. I mean that might not be what you want, but you certainly seem to be arguing in favor of misinformation.
I think the phrase is"Trust but verify"
 
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And what's the answer to that, then?

The only answer is for the government to attempt to enforce "truth", but all that does is end up being the government controlling access to information, except that now no-one can disagree.
Which one, just the media, or all 3? Nah, I'm kidding, their all in it together. You look at the media landscape, and you will see familiar names such as AT&T, Comcast, and Verizon. Oh look, it's the successors of the AT&T monopoly. They also own the 2nd and 3rd largest cable news channels, MSNBC and CNN.

Think about that. Not only do they own the media, they also own the infrastructure. They were the ones paying off local governments so you can't have choice between providers. They were the ones buying off republicans to pretend they like they don't understand net neutrality. Now, they have the balls to tell you that their coverage is fair, and there is no such thing as corporate media.

The government is absolutely complicit with consolidation of the media. The Clinton administration was the one that deregulated media in the first place. They benefit from media consolidation. If the media had any interest in the American people or acted as check for the consolidation of power, then for every they question they ask in front of the 84 million people watching the presidential debates, they would disclose which campaign they colluded with, and instead of asking what a candidate's policies were, they would just list their donors so that we could know their actual policies.

Now, whereas before your only source of information was from those companies, now you have the internet, where memes can spread faster than just by word of mouth. No longer are you passive receiver of information, you are an active participant in disseminating information. You even noticed that during the 2000s, Congress tried many times to regulate the internet?

We can't have nice things , and now the internet has become consolidated. Google and Youtube push up sources such as CNN and MSNBC. What used to be search by relevancy has now become the old media again. Things like government leaks, media fairness, internet censorship, corporate power, socialism, and revolution are pushed down into the no-no list of "fake news" and "conspiracy theories". Independent journals challenging the corporate elite decline in viewership at an exponential rate.

I don't care that Trump is an imbecile and hates being fact checked. Whatever comes out of this, we lose. But when Google, AT&T, and Comcast self censor their services to prop up the Chinese elite, and then when the do they same in the US and everybody just shrugs their shoulders, I'm calling bullshit.
 
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We've had people lying in general media not merely social media.
You missed some

Mainstream media and their dedication to "fact checking"



Two absolute classics, absolute coincidences "debunked" by mainstream media

Edited by CNN btw, to make it look less bad. I remember the original, where Sanders would talk for a couple of seconds without audio, can't even find it anymore.

As to why this is a problem, here is something topical to twitter and censorship, and the power of the media.
 
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Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
My point is that the power to control the conversation is too dangerous a power to ever wield.
The conversation has to be controlled or else you just allow those with agendas and conspiracies to take over it. Again, the anti-vaxxer movement demonstrates this perfectly.

It would be more accurate to say that I don't trust any one organization to be able to correctly determine truth from lie.
Would you rather go to a doctor to fix a broken arm or that guy down the street that revs his drill and says he could totally take care of a broken arm for 50 bucks? Unless you want to just straight up lie, you will be going to the doctor which means you are trusting the american medical institution or whatever the equivalent is if you are out of the states.

Do you disagree that the power to control the conversation, public discourse, is a dangerous one? Because that's all I'm saying here.
If there needs to be a trade-off between "allowing people to spread misinformation" and "letting one source decide what is or isn't truth", I lean toward the former.
Only if its poorly implemented, the funny thing about facts is they can be backed up by multiple sources. If you only have one source for something then its weak, if you have multiple ones then it gets stronger. Besides, we aren't talking about removing information, we are talking about having a little box to give more info about a topic that someone posts on.
 

Buyetyen

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Would you rather go to a doctor to fix a broken arm or that guy down the street that revs his drill and says he could totally take care of a broken arm for 50 bucks? Unless you want to just straight up lie, you will be going to the doctor which means you are trusting the american medical institution or whatever the equivalent is if you are out of the states.
I don't know, man. Some of the Trump diehards I've met are not exactly experts in good life choices.
 
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Houseman

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The conversation has to be controlled or else you just allow those with agendas and conspiracies to take over it. Again, the anti-vaxxer movement demonstrates this perfectly.
Under certain circumstances, I agree. For example, "Russian bots". But other than cases like that, I disagree. anti-vaxxers are in the minority. The only time I hear about them is when they're getting made fun of. Anti-vaxxers do not control the conversation. Have they grown in size? Of course. Do people fall for it? Of course.

But they have not, by any stretch of the imagination, "taken over". If they had taken over, they'd be the majority, and there'd be a small 'rebel' group trying to spread the truth. These rebels would be labeled 'crackpots' and 'conspiracy theorists'. That's the opposite of what we see.

The difference between "Russian bots" and "anti-vaxxers" is that one is a coordinated attack, funded by a government, and the other is funded by individual Karens trying to sell 100 different products by 100 different businesses.

Would you rather go to a doctor to fix a broken arm or that guy down the street that revs his drill and says he could totally take care of a broken arm for 50 bucks? Unless you want to just straight up lie, you will be going to the doctor which means you are trusting the american medical institution or whatever the equivalent is if you are out of the states.
You are correct. I do trust certain government-funded or approved institutions, such as hospitals, to repair an injury or save my life. Does this mean I'm a hypocrite for trusting one organization with my life, but not another (or the same) to tell me what is true or false? Why would you think so?

Only if its poorly implemented
I'm asking if you think it's inherently dangerous or not. Something is inherently dangerous regardless of who is wielding it. A gun, for example, in the hands of a police officer, is no less dangerous when it is in the hands of a drunk or a child. It is a dangerous thing in and of itself.

I'm saying it's dangerous no matter who is controlling it. It's dangerous for a private corporation, a public corporation, a government, or an organization of scientists. It's always dangerous. It's never not dangerous.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
Under certain circumstances, I agree. For example, "Russian bots". But other than cases like that, I disagree. anti-vaxxers are in the minority. The only time I hear about them is when they're getting made fun of. Anti-vaxxers do not control the conversation. Have they grown in size? Of course. Do people fall for it? Of course.

But they have not, by any stretch of the imagination, "taken over". If they had taken over, they'd be the majority, and there'd be a small 'rebel' group trying to spread the truth. These rebels would be labeled 'crackpots' and 'conspiracy theorists'. That's the opposite of what we see.

The difference between "Russian bots" and "anti-vaxxers" is that one is a coordinated attack, funded by a government, and the other is funded by individual Karens trying to sell 100 different products by 100 different businesses.
Doesn't matter if they are a small group. Vaccines require enough of the population to be vaccinated that a small group can actually do a lot of damage. Plus their numbers are growing. They very much so control the conversation, there are a ton of tactics you can use to control a conversation. Actual information takes a long time to gather and disseminate and its generally pretty dull. A conspiracy minded group can make their conspiracy exciting and full of hidden info that has enough right to fool people who should know better. Like did you know that most of the anti-vaxxers aren't the dumbest people, they are educated people, they know just enough to be dangerous but not enough to know they are being lied to. And they really become entrenched in their positions, I have a client who is an accountant, I was shocked to find out shes an anti-vaxxer, apparently its caused no end of arguments between her and her kids and she absolutely refuses all evidence to the contrary. Never underestimate the value of someones initial encounter with information like this.

Fact checking would make both the russian bots and the anti-vaxxer positions much more difficult.

You are correct. I do trust certain government-funded or approved institutions, such as hospitals, to repair an injury or save my life. Does this mean I'm a hypocrite for trusting one organization with my life, but not another (or the same) to tell me what is true or false? Why would you think so?
Because that is the kind of argument you are using. Would you be in favor of twitter using a fact check site like snopes or politifact for political content, and something like the APA for psychiatric type content?

I'm saying it's dangerous no matter who is controlling it. It's dangerous for a private corporation, a public corporation, a government, or an organization of scientists. It's always dangerous. It's never not dangerous.
That is a vapid statement. Its so broad as to say "everything is dangerous, we shouldn't regulate anything because it would make everything worse."
 

Houseman

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Doesn't matter if they are a small group
I mean, if we're talking about "controlling the conversation", it very much matters how large the group is, or rather, the reach of the group is what matters. Twitter's fact checking has a reach as large as the post it's added to. If they just stuck to their own channel, I wouldn't have a problem.

But I see what you're saying, that a small group of unvaccinated people can cause problems for a large number of people. I agree. However sad that is, that's irrelevant to the point of controlling public discourse.

They very much so control the conversation
Can you show me evidence of them 'controlling the conversation'? Can you show me one anti-vaxxer tweet that has over a thousand likes? Where the replies to that tweet aren't full of ridicule that is liked much more than the original post?

Let me be clear, when I'm talking about "the conversation", I'm not talking about small facebook groups or a twitter-follow-centipede where small amounts of these people have their own little bubble. I'm talking about people inside AND outside of those groups. Everyone. It's the "public" in "public discourse".

So until I see a anti-vaxxer post on the front page of reddit with tens of thousands of upvotes and thousands of people in the comments praising anti-vaxxing and shouting down those against it, I'm going to have to disagree that they 'control the conversation'.

Because that is the kind of argument you are using.
In what way? Please be more clear. Spell it out.

Would you be in favor of twitter using a fact check site like snopes or politifact for political content, and something like the APA for psychiatric type content?
No.

That is a vapid statement. Its so broad as to say "everything is dangerous, we shouldn't regulate anything because it would make everything worse."
I don't see how. I'm not saying "everything is dangerous", I'm saying "this very specific thing is dangerous, and we know exactly how and why this is dangerous"

Is it that "controlling public discourse" is broad in the sense that it isn't nailed down as to what is or isn't "controlling public discourse?"
Or is it that "some things are too dangerous to let anyone have control over" is the vapid bit?
Or maybe it's "nobody should have things that are dangerous?" No. For example, I am not out here saying that nobody should have guns. I just object when we allow someone to own a metaphorical nuke while we only give snub-nose pistols to everyone else.
 
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Yes but unless twitter had been fact checked themselves it wouldn't have been changed and because of the initial fact check info posted it's possible a number of people were mislead.

It's mostly lucky the story didn't spread round far and wide before being corrected. Hell other outlets without much fact checking could have picked it up and spread it and then it becomes fact because of some version of Citogensis at work


Having twitter put up an easy "This is the truth" style section also discourages people looking round at multiple sources for the info.



Yes that is also dystopian and that's not what's being asked for by the government here. It's asking for evidence the platforms aren't acting more like publishers than platforms and are NOT using their position as defacto monopolies in their sectors to try and influence the public by say allowing certain links and banning others based on political positioning.

Also you didn't answer the question about if you'd want Tencent (again they're not technically the Chinese government) or The Trump Organisation to be allowed to be the ones running the fact checking on said sites.
1. Twitter shouldn’t be fact checking themselves. Others need to do that. Twitter thinkS they’re right, just as Trump thinks he’s right. Both these party don’t accept the ‘fact checking’ done on them. They think they’re being truthful.
2. A thing that I think should happen is a seperate comment thread on the fact checking section so that people can respond specifically to that, not Trump initial tweet
3. I would be very interested in a requirement for multiple sources in the fact check. I don’t know how this would work because you could just pick a bunch of sources that agree with you
4. Trump pretends to be the arbiter of truth all the time. Why is it only a problem when Twitter does it? People don’t look into Trump tweets and that caused huge amounts of problems,
5. What I also don’t want is to go back to a Walter Cronkite era media where the news just didn’t bother fact checking presidents unless they had an agenda. Or they deliberately hid information for the president. They spun lies to make America look better than what it was, making eerily similar to Soviet Russia. The Main Stream Media back then was more of a propaganda arm for the government and let through way too many crimes without questioning it. Fortunately, the War on Terror finally broke that monopoly when the government lied about the weapons of mass destruction and someone decided enough was enough. (I just wish they’d do more to stop being a propaganda tool for their side of politics but that has never happened with journalism from the very start.)
6. The quoted section that Trump wants to fix doesn’t do what he thinks it does. 203 isn’t about them adding a fact checking section. It’s about people suing platforms for hosting other people’s speech.
7. People lie. It’s called Freedom of Speech. Get used to it. Unless you want to pretend to Be the arbiter of truth too
 

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Controlling public discourse is the opposite of freedom of speech.
What constitutes as "controlling public discourse"?

And how is fact-checking in opposition to freedom of speech?
If i quote you, but add a little "umm, ackshuly" addendum to it, your speech remains intact. It's still there, for everyone to see it. And the "fact check" can as easily be ignored by everyone.
 

Worgen

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Whatever, just wash your hands.
I mean, if we're talking about "controlling the conversation", it very much matters how large the group is, or rather, the reach of the group is what matters. Twitter's fact checking has a reach as large as the post it's added to. If they just stuck to their own channel, I wouldn't have a problem.

But I see what you're saying, that a small group of unvaccinated people can cause problems for a large number of people. I agree. However sad that is, that's irrelevant to the point of controlling public discourse.
Pretty much all this stuff starts small, if you can nip it in the bud, like with FACT CHECKING, then you might be able to prevent it from growing and becoming a major issue.

Can you show me evidence of them 'controlling the conversation'? Can you show me one anti-vaxxer tweet that has over a thousand likes? Where the replies to that tweet aren't full of ridicule that is liked much more than the original post?

Let me be clear, when I'm talking about "the conversation", I'm not talking about small facebook groups or a twitter-follow-centipede where small amounts of these people have their own little bubble. I'm talking about people inside AND outside of those groups. Everyone. It's the "public" in "public discourse".

So until I see a anti-vaxxer post on the front page of reddit with tens of thousands of upvotes and thousands of people in the comments praising anti-vaxxing and shouting down those against it, I'm going to have to disagree that they 'control the conversation'.
According to this the two most prominant anti-vaxxer facebook groups claim 150,000 and 53,000 members respectively.

But they control the conversation if no one is willing to fact check them, that is just how things work.

In what way? Please be more clear. Spell it out.
Because you are actively saying that you don't give credence to experts or really anything. Based on your arguments here I have no idea how you determine what is safe to drink or not, do you think the warning on the side of a bleach bottle is just to make fun of you?

I don't see how. I'm not saying "everything is dangerous", I'm saying "this very specific thing is dangerous, and we know exactly how and why this is dangerous"

Is it that "controlling public discourse" is broad in the sense that it isn't nailed down as to what is or isn't "controlling public discourse?"
Or is it that "some things are too dangerous to let anyone have control over" is the vapid bit?
Or maybe it's "nobody should have things that are dangerous?" No. For example, I am not out here saying that nobody should have guns. I just object when we allow someone to own a metaphorical nuke while we only give snub-nose pistols to everyone else.
Because determining what is reality is important for pretty much everything in modern society. Especially when we are talking about something complicated, its really easy for someone to lie to you when you only have so much knowledge of how something works. One of the better examples I can think of is an auto-shop, if they can tell you don't really know what makes a car work then they can run circles around a consumer and charge them for whatever for things they don't need. Ultimately we need experts to help us know what is real and what isn't. You seem to be saying that we should be more worried about the bias of the fact check than the initial statement.
 
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