this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2023
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Technology

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65% of Americans support tech companies moderating false information online and 55% support the U.S. government taking these steps. These shares have increased since 2018. Americans are even more supportive of tech companies (71%) and the U.S. government (60%) restricting extremely violent content online.

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[–] tias@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 1 year ago

In other news: most Americans disagree on what information is false

[–] Borgzilla@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] NightAuthor@beehaw.org 3 points 1 year ago

Your comment seems to imply it’s a bad thing. Do you have bad experiences with censorship?

[–] mojo@lemm.ee 2 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Big tech should be doing so, but they already get pressure from advertisers to moderate that away. For the smaller ones like the insane right winger sites, let them spew nonsense, since it sets a dangerous precedent for everyone else if they're not allowed to shit out misinformation and bigotry.

That's where the internet should very much be made free. There's too many cases of legitimate websites that can be shut down through these means. We need to correct misinformation with correct information.

[–] Veraticus@lib.lgbt 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This seems a rather naïve point of view unfortunately.

People are persuaded and misled by misinformation all the time, even relatively smart people. Correct information being available does not mean that people will be able to choose correctly between correct information and misinformation; or, if already misinformed, that they will suddenly realize they've been misled and abandon their false beliefs.

The way to combat it is not to present correct information and pray that people make an informed decision, it's to stem the spread of bad information before it can gain converts. We already do this for some information we deem simply too harmful for society (child porn, terrorism). Given, say, COVID misinformation cost thousands of lives and millions of dollars, I would say it certainly should be added to that list.

[–] mojo@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago (6 children)

Absolutely not, it's a slippery slope. It's one of those "think of the children!" arguments where we decide what words are too harmful.

If they wanted to actually go and block misinformation on the web, why would they not also ban e2ee communication? It's clearly a loophole where they could potentially be spreading misinformation that is ungoverned!

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