You know how this used to work in the old days? Instead of publishing allegations yourself, you would take your story to a newspaper reporter. The reporter will then do the investigations then, if there is solid evidence, the story will be published in the newspaper. At that point the newspaper company is standing behind the story, and citizens know the standing of the newspaper in their community, and how much credence to give to the story, based on that. Social media destroyed this process, now anyone can spread allegations at lightning speed on a massive scale without any evidence to back it up. This has to stop. We should return to the old way, it wasn't perfect, but it worked for 100s of years. Repealing Section 230 will accomplish this.

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themaninthedark 8 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I remember a story that was investigated and then published...it was spread far and wide. The current president of the US stole the election and our biggest adversary has videos of him in compromising positions. Then debunked. (Steele dossier) https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-russiagate-...

I remember a story that was investigated and then published...for some reason it was blocked everywhere and we were not allowed to discuss the story or even link to the news article. It "has the hallmarks of a Russian intelligence operation."(Hunter Biden Laptop) Only to come out that it was true: https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/fbi-spent-a-year-pre...

I would rather not outsource my thinking or my ability to get information to approved sources. I have had enough experience with gell-mann amnesia to realize they have little to no understanding of the situation as well. I may not be an expert in all domains but while I am still free at least I can do my best to learn.

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scarface_74 7 hours ago | parent [-]

You seem to be forgetting that whole “election was stolen” lie the President told that had thousands of domestic terrorist invading the Capital and then pardoned?

But keep worrying about an inconsequential civilian’s laptop.

	▲	themaninthedark 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Forest for the trees. Don't take my comment as a declaration for Trump and all he stands for. My parent had posted "You know how this used to work in the old days? Instead of publishing allegations yourself, you would take your story to a newspaper reporter. The reporter will then do the investigations then, if there is solid evidence, the story will be published in the newspaper. At that point the newspaper company is standing behind the story, and citizens know the standing of the newspaper in their community, and how much credence to give to the story, based on that." Rather than call it an argument to authority, which it is very close to, I decided to highlight two cases where this authority that we are supposed to defer to was wrong. Perhaps a better and direct argument would be to point out that during the COVID pandemic; Youtube, Facebook and Twitter were all banning and removing posts from people who had heterodox opinions, those leading the charge with cries of "Trust the Science". This run contrary of what science and the scientific process is, Carl Segan saying it better than I "One of the great commandments of science is, 'Mistrust arguments from authority.' ... Too many such arguments have proved too painfully wrong. Authorities must prove their contentions like everybody else." Now that I have quoted a famous scientist in a post to help prove my point about how arguments from authority are invalid, I shall wait for the collapse of the universe upon itself.

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nradov 7 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It never worked. Newspapers in the old days frequently printed lies and fake news. They usually got away with it because no one held them accountable.

	▲	itbeho 7 hours ago \| parent [-]
		William Randolph Hearst and the Spanish-American war come to mind.

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pkphilip 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What happens when the press refuses to publish anything which doesn't align with their financial or political interest?

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trhway 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>At that point the newspaper company is standing behind the story

the newspaper company is the bottleneck that the censors can easily tighten like it was say in USSR. Or like even FCC today with the media companies like in the case of Kimmel.

Social media is our best tool so far against censorship. Even with all the censorship that we do have in social media, the information still finds a way due to the sheer scale of the Internet. That wasn't the case in the old days when for example each typewritter could be identified by unique micro-details of the shape of its characters.

>Social media destroyed this process, now anyone can spread allegations at lightning speed on a massive scale without any evidence to back it up.

Why to believe anything not accompanied by evidence? The problem here is with the news consumer. We teach children to not stick fingers into electricity wall socket. If a child would still stick the fingers there, are you going to hold the electric utility company responsible?

>This has to stop. We should return to the old way, it wasn't perfect, but it worked for 100s of years.

The same can be said about modern high density of human population, transport connections and infectious decease spreading. What you suggest is to decrease the population and confine the rest preventing any travel like in the "old days" (interesting that it took Black Death some years to spread instead of days it would have taken today, yet it still did spread around all the known world). We've just saw how it works in our times (and even if you say it worked then why aren't we still doing it today?). You can't put genie back into the bottle and stop the progress.

>Repealing Section 230 will accomplish this.

Yes, good thing people didn't decided back then to charge the actual printer houses with lies present in the newspapers they printed.

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petermcneeley 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> We should return to the old way, it wasn't perfect, but it worked for 100s of years

At this stage you are clearly just trolling. Are you even aware of the last 100s of years? From Luther to Marx? You are not acting in good faith. I want nothing to do with your ahistorical worldview.

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mensetmanusman 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

There is no way to go back to this. It’s about as feasible as getting rid of vehicles.

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breadwinner 9 hours ago | parent [-]

I am not saying we should go back to physical newspapers printed on paper. News can be published online... but whoever is publishing it has to stand behind it, and be prepared to face lawsuits from citizens harmed by false stories. This is feasible, and it is the only solution to the current mess.

	▲	nradov 6 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		It's horrifying that anyone would believe that censorship and control over news would be a solution to anything. The naivety of your comment is in itself an indictment of our collective failure to properly educate the polity in civics.
	▲	knome 6 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		A determined instigator could easily continue pushing modern yellow journalism with little problem under the system you propose. They simply need choose which negative stories they print, which opinions they run. How do you frame misrepresentation vs a differing point of view? How do you call out mere emphasis on which true stories are run. Truths are still truths, right? It's not infrequent today to see political opinions washed through language to provide reasonable deniability by those using it. Hell, it's not infrequent to see racism, bigotry and hate wrapped up to avoid the key phrases of yesteryear, instead smuggling their foulness through carefully considered phrases, used specifically to shield those repeating them from being called out. 'No no no. Of course it doesn't mean _that_, you're imagining things and making false accusations.'