Hacker News Reader

Comment by pavanred | Hacker News Reader

Or say your government claims X has WMD and that we need to go to war, now. And, the press prints it as factual news. Turns out there's wasn't any and the government just misled (could be willful or ignorance or negligence). Now, will the press be held accountable for fake news or the government or no one?

View on HN

I have an anonymous, unverified source, who will not cite their evidence because of national security that claims that Obama is a Reptilian who was born on Mars.

If CNN, the NYT, the Washington Post all uncritically parrot this, does that make them in on the lie, or no better then a tabloid?

Luckily, there are already legal standards for 'what a reasonable person would believe' in a given circumstance, so this part may not be a tricky legal puzzle at all.

Would a reasonable person believe that the CIA smuggles drugs into the United States, so that it can fund Contra rebels in Nicaragua?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_involvement_in_Contra_coca...

Or, alternatively, half of the things on this list?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unethical_human_experimentatio...

They would, upon being shown evidence of them. That's my point.

Depends on the evidence, people are not always rational. I remember being called crazy before the Snowden leaks, then afterwards everyone just knew it was happening all along.

People have different standards for evidence and coping mechanisms for uncomfortable truths.

As I point out somewhere else in this thread, we'd want a standard that distinguishes between getting something obviously wrong and getting something wrong. We're all on the same page on that one.

While that is the intention, I am guessing it would lead to having legal involved in the editorial process. And, legalase-ish news to avoid prosecution traps, perhaps. Am not sure if that is a good thing or a bad thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com