let's take partisan politics out for a minute. what do you suggest media in general (both left and right) do with fake news? just let it go? label it fake news? censor it?
Here's the problem. There is a vast majority of the news media that will promote stories that may never be proven but never retracted when they are found out to be incorrect. If the story doesn't fit the message they want to convey it won't be reported. That is just fucked up to me.
The media rarely investigates to ensure what they are reporting is factual in an effort to be "first" and while they are at it throws in a bunch of opinions.
It's not the job of the social media platforms to decide what is real news and what is fake news. The reason they have special protection under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act is because they are supposed to be an open platform for their users and not a publisher or editor. If they want to act as publisher and editor, their immunity under section 230 should be removed and they should be subject to legal liability for publishing false content, just like everyone else. The system will then self correct pretty quickly. The answer to sorting out fake news from real news is to let the reader decide. The real problem is that a lot of what is censored so is really opinion, almost always conservative, that the liberal social media operators don't like. But even if it's actually false, made up "fake facts," let the reader decide. If it's really fake, there will be lots of "real news" to counter it.
You’re right doc it’s not the job of social media to determine what’s true and what isn’t, but it is the job of our government to ensure that businesses do not get so large that they form monopolies on goods or advertising or anything else these social media companies need to be broken up into smaller entities then their influence wouldn’t be so dramatically extreme and their behavior wouldn’t be an issue.
Fake news? You mean the idea that 9 unarmed black men being shot and killed by the cops in 2019 means some kind of national crisis in a nation of 340 million people? Fake news like that?
With freedom of speech also comes the right of freedom to ignore and not use sites that are ubiquitous with fake news. It is up to the individual to educate themselves and the cream rises to the top, so those in the know will not be influenced by fake news and create other outlets. Frankly that’s how Fox News started years ago, and has grown too large and propagated fake news, and you’ve seen viewership decline drastically lately.
“ social media companies need to be broken up into smaller entities then their influence wouldn’t be so dramatically extreme and their behavior wouldn’t be an issue.”
I’m generally a free market kind of guy, but I have no problem with this.
^ The essence of a free market is diluted by the size of these social media companies and the services they provide are just attempts by these companies to control all aspects of the market, causing a monopoly making them the opposite of a free market. So yes doc being a free market kind of guy myself these entities need to be busted up
If the social media companies were acting as the conduits that they are supposed to be rather than political content editors/providers then a breakup would not be remotely necessary. Both sides of an argument would be equally free to post whatever content they want. It is only because they are overstepping their bounds that we are having this conversation about their protections under the Communications Decency Act and whether they are a content monopoly.
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I’m generally a free market kind of guy, but I have no problem with this.