
Twitter is wrong: facts are not enough to combat conspiracy theories - deegles
https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/10/17675232/twitter-alex-jones-jack-dorsey-free-speech
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quotemstr
The Verge isn't the first publication to make this case. It won't be the last.
It's just that those making this case frequently turn into brutal
dictatorships. However wrong popular ideas are, they're far less wrong than
despots.

~~~
armchair_hunter
And yet brutal despots like Hitler are often conspiracy theorist.

Let's look at case. Hitler and the Weimar Republic as a while bought into the
"stabbed in the back" myth and believed that Jews were behind all of Germany's
woes, manifesting as capitalists and communists.

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quotemstr
So this is how the enlightenment dies.

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lkrubner
Wouldn’t it be John Stuart Mill who is wrong? I associate him with this idea
(“facts can combat lies”) more than anyone. And I think nowadays a lot of free
speech advocates are beholden to Mill, whether they know it or not. Many of
the best known quotes regarding the importance of free speech go back to Mill.

So, I don’t think “Twitter” is the right pronoun for this headline. But I
agree with the rest of the headline. Mill seems over optimistic when
considering the realities of modern propaganda.

~~~
geofft
It does occur to me that one thing that is too taboo to debate is whether free
speech is a good ideal.

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18pfsmt
I don’t really care what private companies do, and I hope people are looking
for alternatives (e.g. Mastodon) as a result.

However, I am finding the authoritarians coming out from the left and the
right to denounce basic human liberties in the name of the greater good very
troubling. Thankfully, amending the US Constitution is very difficult.

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f23oij0932
[https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-
dont...](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-
our-minds)

[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/this-
art...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2017/03/this-article-wont-
change-your-mind/519093/)

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parliament32
Wait why are we trying to combat conspiracy theories? Have we already
forgotten NSA spying was a "conspiracy theory" up until a few years ago?

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krapp
What if I told you one conspiracy being true doesn't prove all other
conspiracy theories to be true? It doesn't even affect the likelihood that
other conspiracy theories are true.

Conspiracy theorists should be at the forefront of "combating conspiracy
theories" because, ostensibly, they should care about the truth, which most
conspiracy theories are not.

~~~
quotemstr
What if I told that you that while most conspiracy theories are false, giving
people power to censor them would also allow them to persecute legitimate
whistleblowers and investigate journalists?

~~~
krapp
What if I told you that you seem to be confusing the power held by private
citizens with the power held by governments, because the former when applied
by a social media platform doesn't necessarily imply a slippery slope towards
the latter?

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malvosenior
What's concerning is that Apple, Google, Facebook and Spotify can (and will!)
coordinate to silence voices they don't approve of. It literally doesn't
matter what that voice is because the power differential of all of those
companies working together vs. pretty much anything should scare us all.

I'm also 100% sure Alex Jones has a larger audience today than the day before
the censorship began, so from that perspective it was even a failure.

~~~
f23oij0932
If Jones was truly silenced by Apple, Google, FB, and Spotify, how is it he
also has a larger audience?

Removing him from their list is a minor inconvenience, looks nothing like the
worst acts of censorship in human history.

You know how you can find Alex Jones: google.com, duckduckgo.com

It was a superficial act. You seem to get that by labeling it a failure.

~~~
malvosenior
I agree it was not effective, but it's _still_ very concerning that these
companies coordinated to do this. Not every action they coordinate on will
come to light like this and thus may actually be somewhat effective (think
actions against regular users).

