Re:The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free
by fossuser on Monday August 03, 2020 @12:23PM
(#24039726)
It's hard to have a society where lies are expensive that doesn't lead to suppressing speech in general.
So, I think you touch on a real problem - but I don't think making lies expensive will lead to a good outcome either.
The internet creates a huge amount of easily accessible false information, but also a huge amount of easily accessible true information (more than at any other time in history).
People just need the ability to tell the difference.
Arguably access to all the information in the world won't save us because the non-free stuff isn't accurate either, and people still aren't trying to actually understand what's true. They're just trying to find stuff to support what they already believe. https://www.reddit.com/r/slatestarcodex/comments/i2z7i5/the_...
Re:The Truth Is Paywalled but the Lies Are Free
by Nasrudith on Monday August 03, 2020 @06:40PM
(#24044331)
The thesis itself is false and the implications fail because of it. Paying is no guarantee of the truth and it being free is no guarantee of falsity. If free was always false then they could be filtered more or less to subconscious effects in a "Don't trust the tabloids about batboy being the love child of the pope." sort of way.
If you have a society where people must pay for truths but are given lies freely, then should we be surprised when people believe lies? Given those people have equal say in how things are ran as the people willing to pay for truth, doesn't this cause a social level problem?