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Comment by nashashmi | Hacker News Reader

If countries and companies are not going to have anti disinformation protocols, they might as well outright implement dictatorship.

Deterrence is a good thing.

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The problem is that if you already have a dictatorship, or something approaching it, "disinformation" means, in the eyes of the law as it is applied, information counter to the ruling party's interest.

I agree that disinformation, real disinformation, is being used as a tool to spread authoritarianism and we need better means to combat it. This law, I am afraid, is double speak. It purports to oppose disinformation but in fact strengthens it, and this is by design.

Everything is in the eyes of the law. Porn is in the eyes of the law too. As is violent speech and terrorism.

We steer clear of laws that are dubious and ambiguous because they can be leveraged whimsically or loopholed.

But ignoring threats to full democracy (disinformation) is just as dangerous, if not more dangerous.

Full democracy needs allowing people to think for themselves and spread their ideas freely to whoever will listen. Full democracy is not compatible with telling people what to think.

anti disinformation laws do not prevent people from thinking, nor stop people from spreading ideas.

I agree about the danger of disinformation. But writing a law and claiming it combats disinformation is not the same as combatting disinformation.

In Russia today you can go to jail for up to 15 years for stating that Russia is at war. Why? According to the ruling powers this is disinformation. It doesn't matter that they are lying and you are telling the truth. What matters is that they decide.

My point isn't that there can be no law combatting disinformation but that you cannot take the authorities' claims about their law at face value.

That sounds exceptionally beneficial to whoever gets to define what is and isn't "misinformation," and you're kidding yourself if you think that it'll only ever be used in benevolence and not to the benefit of whatever picotyrant is in charge at a given moment.

It’s the people using it “purely for benevolence” that you have to be the most worried about!

Indeed. "It's for your own good" is a terrifying thing to hear from authority.

Bad laws are beneficial to anyone who can use them well enough for their advantage. That is why we try to come up with good laws.

But having no laws are worse.

I can say without a reasonable doubt that misinformation laws are not "good" laws. At absolute best they're as shortsighted as they are misguided, opening the door for a ruling party to arbitrarily declare what reality is and isn't, and take punitive action against anyone who disagrees.

We agree to disagree.

Before this law, Turkey wasn't a lawless land.

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