People who have turned to X for breaking news about the Israel-Hamas conflict are being hit with old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/6589988

The Israel-Hamas War Is Drowning X in Disinformation::People who have turned to X for breaking news about the Israel-Hamas conflict are being hit with old videos, fake photos, and video game footage at a level researchers have never seen.

  • @SuckMyWang
    1•1 year ago

    I’m sorry I’m having some trouble following your thread of conversation. In my very first comment I simply stated what the argument for absolute free speech is and then asked the open ended question of there is surely some problems/warnings (caveats) with this premise. You replied (citation needed) which kind of means the same thing.

    In my next comment I wrote some of the problems with combatting disinformation, namely who gets to decide what and what isn’t disinformation (who gets to decide what is 100% certain or as close to truth as can be). I then mentioned that truth can be often be subjective so it’s not attainable.

    In your last comment you inferred that I said I was insisting nothing can be falsified unless there is 100% certainty. I did not say this anywhere, to be honest I’m not even sure what that means.

    I’m not sure if you have read my comments correctly. I do not want disinformation spreading and it’s obvious it’s extremely harmful to society. People like Elon who claim they are free speech absolutist are saying it in bery bad faith. Elon wants to criticise the government while tightly controlling information that aligns with his world view. This is a perfect example of what free speech in a capitalist society looks like and it’s riddled with disinformation and bias. My point is if you shift this control from a private citizen to the government will you always get a better result? I know in Elons case it seems obvious that you would but as we saw with Trumps purging of scientists from the government because they didn’t agree with his views on Covid I’m not sure.

    TLDR: I’m not for or against anything, I hate disinformation and I’m simply stating there are caveats to free speech and controlling disinformation

    • @[email protected]OPMEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      Yes, you attempt to argue about hypotheticals. In practice fighting disinformation is about fact checks by various parties, including - but not limited to - OSINT researchers, scientists, independent journalists, news orgs, NGOs and government agencies.

      Can some of these be corrupt? Absolutely!
      Does it matter? Only if the piece of news in question cannot be corroborated by other parties.

      The basis of news has to be facts that can be checked in order to be confirmed or debunked by other parties. There is no possibility to determine with 100% certainty if a piece of information is correct or not, because there is no objective observer who could make that kind of judgement. All we have - and always had - is simply the possibility to check and compare information with the underlying facts.

      It is a messy process, but that does not mean that we cannot reach a consensus on which pieces of information are not supported by fact and that this is misinformation. Such consensus is part of the social contract.

      Ultimately the consensus will never be supported by every involved party, but that does not mean that consenting parties aren’t allowed to take appropriate action against the misinformation.