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Comment by textgel | Hacker News Reader

Some people are fine with making decisions for themselves and don't need a net nanny to say "mummy thinks you shouldn't be reading this".

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I agree in general. But what if I did want to know if vaccines are dangerous, so I search "are vaccines dangerous". If I want to find an anti-vaccine site, I should be able to do so, but the search term "are vaccines dangerous" should be viewed neutrally, in which case I would find links from cdc or .gov sites to be more useful that anti-vaccines sites

That's fair; I suppose it's inevitable that search engines move more in a similar direction to what we know as the main high street when it comes to high profile searches, keeping more mainstream stuff while losing the off the wall areas but it does seem a shame to loose some of the weirder side streets in the process (the sort of weirdness from the early 2000s internet for example).

It's a bad idea. There are examples where mainstream was wrong. Usually when it's about big money. E.g. decades of anti-cannabis propaganda.

Now you mention it, the official position on the correct response to coronavirus flip flopping and changing from location to location is a good recent example too.

We go to school in the US for usually at least 12 years. Any person should already be educated on topics such as anti vaccination. In particular in my state you can’t even go to school if you haven’t had your vaccines. Not only that but we learn how to learn in school. The argument for censorship against stupidity assumes exactly that, that the majority of people are stupid which they are not.

> The argument for censorship against stupidity assumes exactly that, that the majority of people are stupid which they are not.

It's not censorship against stupidity. It's censorship against bullshitters who spread medical misinformation that may put people in danger; factually untenable opinions, expressed in an assertive manner, in a context which seems authoritative to the layperson.

Nobody says the majority is stupid, nor it is relevant. Protecting a minority is as good an excuse as it is protecting the majority, don't you think?

My point was that we should and can understand the difference between sources of bad information and good information, this is and should be taught in schools. I don’t think we should protect the minority by limiting everyone. We could make a safety vs security argument but in my opinion we should protect children only and allow adults to make stupid mistakes. This is why we have drinking age, smoking age and drivers license ages. At some point we need to assume a level of intelligence in the population and in accordance allow freedom to make mistakes.

> Any person should already be educated on topics such as anti vaccination.

The quality of US public schools can vary immensely, especially for students in poor areas where the community can't put up much money and education budgets are the first thing to be slashed.

Additionally, many states allow outright lies such as creationism or abstinence-only sex ed to be taught - both of this is further evidence that it cannot be assumed automatically that a person educated in the US is well educated.

Yes there are stupid people out there but it is not the majority, even in poor areas as you are claiming. Let’s say you are even correct that poor people now are too stupid to understand anti vaccination groups are not science based. The solution is not censorship of anti vaccination groups, it is education campaigns to counter this. Education in schools, commercials, websites and social media. Not censorship of bad information.

That would require that people are actively interested in being educated. And to be honest most people aren't even in school, much less when they're grown up.

To make it worse, antivaxxers explicitly mistrust science and only trust the blogs and "mama groups" and other crap. How is anything the government, scientists, the media, anyone supposed to overcome that mistrust?

Vast parts of the population however are not, as evidenced by the results of the last election or the support rates of stuff like qanon.

Please keep in mind that qanon, antivaxx etc. are active hostile infowars campaigns. It is a duty of a society to protect its citizens against such efforts.

With all due respect your comment history outlines you as a progressive and the first line you have on your profile is "You call it "alt-left", I proudly call it "Antifa".".

Among the many aspects of your faith that I disagree with, one of the most utilised by its followers is its enthusiastic advocacy of false accusations against heretics in the pursuit of attacking them. And so while I don't know anything about qanon or infowars, your bad mouthing them is only lending them credibility; it is also shores up my belief that whatever your implicit definition of "duty of a society to protect its citizens against such efforts" is, I can assure you, we neither need nor want it.

> it is also shores up my belief that whatever your implicit definition of "duty of a society to protect its citizens against such efforts" is, I can assure you, we neither need nor want it.

I'm not just an antifascist, I'm German. My ancestors proved for the rest of the world where a worldview based on lies and hate (and qanon is nothing more than that) will lead. Their history is proof that a society must defend itself or it will collapse.

Again, your faith believes false accusations against perceived heretics are acceptable tactics; your word against them is less than empty.

Your ancestors and plenty of other examples throughout history are proof where censorship and book burning lead. The principle of sunlight is the best disinfectant has proven time and again to be true and the only people who argue against it are those being shown to be wrong under the light. Yes it permits the odd crazies to exist on the fringe, that's fine; flat earthers anti-vaxers and the rest were pointed at and laughed at long before the recent desperate grab for censorship by authoritarians was made.

Open access to information is only a problem in the eyes of those who want to misslead.

> The principle of sunlight is the best disinfectant has proven time and again to be true and the only people who argue against it are those being shown to be wrong under the light

I am a strong advocate for free speech, but I really think it is naive to believe that truth will always win no matter what. History is full of examples where propaganda and lies wins. I am not arguing for censorship, but I am arguing that we need to confront lies and propaganda with more than just platitudes about the truth winning out in the end.

The truth needs advocates.

That's a fair point; I know there's a lot of truth in the quote “A lie can travel halfway around the world before the truth can get its boots on.” and I've seen plenty examples of major damage caused thanks to the phenomenon (Which has no doubt helped with the arguments advocacating for censorship.)

I'd say a couple of things.

In a situation where we do have free speech I believe the truth does overall win out in the end; very often it takes a frustratingly long time and often comes too late to repair the damages caused by the lie but I believe that that overall, if you'll excuse the horrendous remark, "the truth does find a way".

I also know that the current lies and propaganda we so often see are an absolute stain on these past decades and I'm also in agreement that something needs to be done. Whatever it is however I'd like to see it built on the free speech principle rather than against it, even if the principal isn't without its flaws.

One thing I would say is that while it might be true that truth eventually finds a away, the lies can do a lot of damage in the meantime, and can in fact be used to prevent the truth from coming out.

For example, take fascist propaganda... the lies are effective, and if left unchecked, can convince people to support fascist leaders, who will then block free speech, preventing the truth from winning out.

This is a form of the paradox of tolerance..

Perhaps the fixes for the problems we have shouldn't involve some patchwork bodge to the laws that align our principles but should instead start at investigating why we need these bodges in the first place? It's an unthought out idea but between existing slander laws, a reasonable expectation of common sense/reason from your average citizen and a lack of corruption in government; I'm wondering if setting up the systems to ensure those aforementioned areas are solid would take care of the free speech problems for us.

> a reasonable expectation of common sense/reason from your average citizen

Half the US has voted for someone explicitly denying science, half the UK has voted for Brexit, in some areas of Germany 25% vote for people just a few beards short of Nazis, Bolsonaro is still in office. The "average citizen" can not be trusted to vote in their own interest or in the interest of the future generations.

For the third time.

> your faith believes false accusations against perceived heretics are acceptable tactics; your word against them is less than empty.

> The "average citizen" can not be trusted to vote in their own interest or in the interest of the future generations.

Maybe not, but in a democratic system the right to choose trumps any ideas about what you or some elitist group thinks is best for future generations.

Are you advocating for undemocratic system?

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