Comment by jandrese
6 days ago
The flipslide is trolls will spew out the lies faster than you can rebut them. Much faster. Orders of magnitude faster. The lie is short, pithy, and requires little thought. The truth require context and effort. After a lie has been rebutted several times there is little value in allowing it to be repeated constantly. Eventually the truth tellers get worn down and the lie is allowed to live on in perpetuity, allowing more and more people to believe it over time.
So who gets to be arbiter of truth? and what is the recourse if they are wrong?
No one, and nothing.
That is a view which is entirely opposed to my own. I have no faith that there is some authoritative entity that could objectively determine what is a lie and what is the truth.
Well said. It surprises me so many people don't see the danger inherent in anointing 'fact checkers' who are supposed to adjudicate some objective "truth" around complex culture war issues along with the power to suppress other viewpoints.
Free speech isn't free. We pay for it by tolerating speech that's unpleasant, uncomfortable, wrong, insulting, offensive or hateful.
If you don't act against disinformation, you get a world that is spammed with so many statements that it's impossible for the average consumer to assess the truth of any of them.
Is that what you want?
If yes, why? If not, what's your approach?
Let people be wrong
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I already stated my approach. Let speech be met by more speech in return. Consumers can assess the credibility of each.
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The opposite of “truth” is not “lie”, however.