this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2023
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If you can browse Twitter without seeing a myriad of racial slurs and dogwhistles, you're either browsing with your eyes closed or just don't mind racism.
Onto the actual point
There's a lot of people that agree that Trump wasn't a complete liar. That doesn't make it any less true that he was.
Still don't think the internet should be censored, just think Twitter is a shithole.
twitter has been the best place to get real time updates about both the ukraine war and now this israel v hamas conflict
i don't doubt there's a lot of questionable content on there, but the value in spreading information outside of "official sources" is huge. the first casualty in a war is the truth and governments would love to get rid of people spreading the reality of the facts on the ground
Yeah but when there's a million and one people with zero knowledge on the situation parroting "facts" that's called misinformation. Not to say that having a variety of viewpoints and sources isn't important, just that a social media site where anybody can say or post anything isn't the best way of getting it.
two days ago, there were reports going around online that 20 drones had entered israel from lebanon in the north. the information was coming from the IDF. at the same time, sirens were going off across all of northern israel. 1.5 million israelis were told to shelter in place. again, information from the IDF
right after this, rumors online started going around that the US government was evacuating their embassy in beirut, essentially implying that the war was going to spread to lebanon. a really big deal, if true
turns out those were false. the rumors spread about 30 minutes or so and then the embassy in beirut responded to this and said there was no evacuation.
moral of story? yes, misinformation spreads quickly. people are deathly afraid and fear spreads like fire. but it also gets debunked because there are people out there paying attention.
it's sort of the idea of the open marketplace of ideas. bullshit spreads, but there are people out there dedicated to the truth. it's a price we have to pay, otherwise we would be blind to these things.
The problem arises insofar as people being deceived and not even trying or being willing to see the truth, like the Trump cult in the US.
yes but that has little do to with random people sharing misinformation and more concentrated efforts by people with resources to try and manipulate the population
this is something that happens with or without social media. billionaires love spreading their pet ideologies. banning social media won't stop them and in fact probably just helps them as "official" sources become the only source of information.
Or you stay in your bubble, not seeing any algorithmic suggestion but only discussing with people you trust. Not saying it's better but definitely one possible way to use it.
Twitter is, like any other public space, filled with those you choose to follow and their friends, etc etc. If you follow people who post things you don’t like, we’ll that’s what you get.
I swear I’m not just making this up. I’ll gladly take screenshots of the first 10 pages of my feed anytime and you won’t see anything distasteful. You will see crypto scams and some crypto bros saying nonsense, but that’s no different from walking into a 7-11 in the city. Haha