asterialite

Never attribute to malice what you could attribute to a desire for profit.

> is itself a particular partisan talking point put out by Democrats to explain Hillary's loss in 2016

...No? Trump lied far less back in 2015. The reason he won is that media gave him a platform, not that he used it to lie. Most Democrats agree with this analysis. Curbing misinformation is not a partisan issue, either: Trump spent his entire presidency railing against "fake news" and though the fast majority of his complaints were inaccurate, falsehoods are peddled by media from both sides of the aisle.

> yours is not a good faith attempt to tackle this problem objectively

Neither is yours. Taking an aggressive stance from the get-go, claiming that Democrats are as bad as Republicans when it comes to lying – none of these are markers of good faith.

My whole point is that because misinformation can't be tackled objectively, it's far harder to censor people than it seems. Because of this, censorship is not as good an idea as one might think. I do say that "If the GOP had not been able to lie about election fraud, the Capitol attack might not have happened," but I spend the rest of my comment explaining why censorship is a bad idea.

That's kind of what I'm saying, though. Disinformation is a problem, but because there is no objective arbiter of truth, curbing free speech to prevent it is impossible. Anyone who can do so (i.e. Jack Dorsey, Amazon, etc.) has immense power, and this is a bad thing.

> Who decides what is 'disinformation' or 'misinformation'? You? The Democratic representatives? Jack Dorsey? No thanks.

You are restating what I said almost word for word — but still disagreeing. Somehow. Everyone probably agrees that disinformation must be curbed; not everyone agrees on what exactly disinformation is.

You seem to think I'm biased against Republicans. This is the case. You seem to be biased against Democrats. That is the point. We have biases, and as such cannot agree on what the objective truth really is. That's why determining whether something is true, misinformation, or disinformation is hard.

I think the crux of the issue is not freedom of speech, but rather determining what counts as harmful disinformation. I imagine we all agree that disinformation should be curbed; the point of contention is precisely where we should draw the line.

The violent, seditious sentiments present in America today are a direct result of people being permitted to pander dangerous lies with no consequences, lies which have caused deaths, and will cause more. If the GOP had not been able to lie about election fraud, the Capitol attack might not have happened.

At the same time, it's hard to draw the line between a mere falsehood and a dangerous one. In hindsight we can tell that a conspiracy theory claiming that the world is controlled by a cabal of Jewish pædophiles with space lasers is dangerous, but what about when it was new? In a democracy with a variety of views, it is hard for there to be government-sanctioned truths.

Without wanting to be too cynical, it's also worth pointing out that there's lots of precedent for the government stripping minorities of their rights in the name of national security. The only difference here is that the minority being targeted happens to be White.

There's lots of ways global warming could lead to colder winters.[0] For example, the temperature differential between Arctic and mid-latitude air normally keeps the polar vortex contained. As this differential decreases, however, the polar vortex becomes less contained. As such, the maximum latitude reached by the jet stream increases with the Arctic's temperature. This creates colder weather in some places. [1] [2]

As unintuitive as it sounds, global warming can lead to colder temperatures. It is up to people who disagree with this theory, not its proponents, to prove their case.

[0] https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/does-cold-weather-disprove-...

[1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4455715/

[2] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.3402/tellusa.v68.3233... [pdf]