Slashdot Mirror
Bill Clinton Suggests Internet Fact Agency
eldavojohn writes "Friday on CNBC, Bill Clinton gave an interview that is causing some unrest on popular news sites today. When asked if there is a role for government in terms of ensuring that the information out there is accurate, he replied, 'Well, I think it would be a legitimate thing to do. ... If the government were involved, I think you'd have to do two things ... I think number one, you'd have to be totally transparent about where the money came from. And number two, you would have to make it independent. ... let's say the US did it; it would have to be an independent federal agency that no president could countermand or anything else because people wouldn't think you were just censoring the news and giving a different falsehood out. That is, it would be like, I don't know, National Public Radio or BBC or something like that, except it would have to be really independent and they would not express opinions, and their mandate would be narrowly confined to identifying relevant factual errors. And also, they would also have to have citations so that they could be checked in case they made a mistake.' His statements have elicited responses ranging from a Ministry of Truth a la 1984 to discussion of genuine concern about internet rumors and falsehoods."
This is a superb idea, the internet is so full of half-truths and outright lies it makes my head spin.
A prime example was the flood of pro-vaccine nonsense that was obviously spread by Big Pharma soon after Dr. Andrew Wakefield's brilliant research into vaccine-caused autism was all but shredded. Alternative medicine caregivers (homeopaths, chiropractors, naturopaths, accupuncurists, among others) have all been treating vaccine induced autism. WE'RE IN THE FRONT LINES! But some well placed lies soon spread as truth.
How about another? The LIES that Chiropractic neck manipulation can cause strokes. How do they know? They don't! This LIE was conceived by BIG PHARMA. They sell all the OtC pain remedies to unsuspecting sheep. Neck (Cervical) manipulation has cured MILLIONS of people of chronic headaches, migraine, sinus blockages and other maladies that BIG PHARMA sells you drugs for.
Sorry if this comes across as a rant, I'm only allowed to post two times a day. This is because of the BIG PHARMA drug pushers who constantly vote me down rather than have a proper, adult discussion with me.
The sooner they get someone in power who can regulate the internet, not some fancy 'scientist', but a true medial professional, the better.
Take care,
Bob
Chiropractic Saves Lives!
Bill Clinton didn't say this.
God is good all the time! -K
Science Rumors
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
An Internet Fact Agency ALREADY exists.
It's called Wikipedia.
You need to inhale MORE.
Yours In Novosibirsk,
K. Trout
Instead of changing people's minds to think that the "fact" isn't true, It would be easier for the government agency to change the world so that the fact becomes true.
Bill Clinton, the guy that can cause more trouble with a cigar than a nuke !!!
Comments like this is what makes slash dot seem like waste of time lately.
... to do so in a manner that was, in the Commission's view, honest, equitable and balanced.
Translation: the federal government/current administration has to approve of the way you handle controversial views. What could possibly go wrong?
I would have thought that radio broadcasting would have somewhat similar rights to the freedom of the press. The "Fairness Doctrine" seems to challenge that idea.
Quite apart from all the other good reasons why this is a BAD idea, it is another way to wase money a broke country dosn't have.
With the Fairness Doctrine in place, the media present the people who hold the opposing viewpoint as being all nujobs because they select as spokespeople for the opposition the nuts rather than the reasonable people. When we had it politics was more civil and less responsive.
When the Fairness Doctrine was in place the media presented Lyndon LaRouche as the face of libertarians.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Yes, obviously, there's the Ministry of Truth aspect to it. However, when I want to find out what the real deal is about the latest flu pandemic, you know where I go? cdc.gov. If I want to find out what the story is around the latest federal budget numbers, I go to cbo.gov. If I want raw country data, I go to cia.gov.
There are already plenty of times where some numbers geeks are holed up in a government office, crunching numbers and nothing but numbers. Is there a risk of political influencing? Sure is. You just have to look at FEMA for one of the most egregious examples of political horse trading. But you can set up an organization in such a way as to minimize political influence.
There are really three areas where I would like to see an official government agency providing a central information clearinghouse: .gov style.
* a history of political events (who said what, where and when)
* a history of detailed public office budgets (down to who makes how much)
* a general list of current hoaxes and misinformation. Think of it as Snopes done
Yes, all of that would obviously be done from the perspective of the government, and with associated biases and perspectives. But it would provide an easy place to get that kind of information, rather than having to trawl through countless soundbites presented by various other organizations.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
Seriously, all this would do is make an official version of something. The simple truth is, there are always multiple interpretation of things, all of which can be accurate. Take an historical example into consideration: the cause of the American Civil War. There are many different interpretations given for the start of the war, and all of them have numbers, figures, and documents to back up the theories. With complicated issues like that, how do you say which is more accurate? Different people can look at the same exact document and reach different conclusions based upon the same information. Yes, it is important for people to have access to accurate information, but if you institutionalize it like this, eventually it will get biased. Institutions always have a certain culture which will inevitably draw certain types of people/personalities/political beliefs to work there. If we are going to do anything, we need to teach people to decide for themselves what is accurate. Put emphasis on logical reasoning and deduction, and give them access to several different interpretations. Because, in all likelihood, you will only have an accurate picture of something if you can look at these different interpretations and aggregate them.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
There are some things government can do. This is not one of them.
The best thing the government can do to establish "facts" is to arbitrate disputes involving facts. We're already doing that. We have laws against libel and fraud. Enforce them. End of story.
While it may be a tragedy that some people believe the president was born at an alien base in the African jungle, this doesn't rise to the level of fraud or libel. At least, it hasn't been put to the test AFAIK. Any attempts to outlaw fantasy masquerading as truth would run afoul of free speech and religion.
Let's not go down that road. You're retired, Mr. Clinton. It sounds like you should stay that way.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
1. Known knowns
2. Known unknowns
3. Unknown knowns
4. Unknown unknowns
I think there will always be people who will believe anything they hear and never bother checking the facts even when it is available. These days it's a blog or a tweet; in times past it was over the fence or by telephone. I can't count how many tweets I've read recently about some celebrity's death only that it wasn't true. And these are people who don't believe in conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theory buffs never believe a government agency telling basic facts like water is wet.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
One person's fact is another person's fiction. Information can be used in many ways to come to various conclusions. The right and the left can often see something completely different, and yet they both had the same "facts".
What would the Fact Agency have concluded when Mr. Clinton stated that he did not have "sexual relations with that woman." Was he factually correct?
most issues are more complex than 'for and against.' thus, the 'fairness doctrine' wasn't really fair at all.. all it did was provide a 'sensibility' sandbox that was defined by popularity, not truth. step outside the box, and you were censored anyway.
What would that have to do with the internet? The fairness doctrine was about preventing monopoly broadcasters from controlling public discourse. Since there is no such thing as a monopoly on internet broadcasting (unless ISPs start blocking your forum posts based on content), how is it even relevant? There is no scarcity of broadcast time on the internet, so the fairness doctrine doesn't even make sense.
Inaft3r left-wingers project their half-truths and willful ignorance of past transgressions caused by government regulation. No, I'm not a right winger.
left and right wingers are stupid. please understand that for them the ideology comes first and they will defend it no matter how much it comes up short in a given situation.. it's nothing more than an emotionally driven religious fervor. it's also why people defend specific politicians no matter how stupid their actions.
Ah yes, the good old days of debate - when people were civilized and settled disagreements with swords and pistols.
You must be a member of NEHBIWB (Nuthin Ever Happened Before I Was Born)!
It is for folks like you that I say "Those who didn't pay attention in history class are going to force the rest of us to repeat it"
If anything made Slashdot seem like a waste of time, it's people wasting time by commenting on waste-of-time comments. Like this one.
I'm just doing my part.
Omnes tuae crepidines sunt nobis sunt. Ascendo tuum!
That's a misquote, what he really said was:
You have -- people spend -- corporations and governments spend massive sums of money, you know, trying to protect their information. And look, this enlisted Army person blew through it all and dumped all that information on the Wiki Wiki Bus. So that's troubling
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Bill Clinton talking about what the truth is! I guess it depends on what the meaning of the word "is" is... http://www.slate.com/id/1000162/
they select as spokespeople for the opposition the nuts rather than the reasonable people.
Really, do you think that today's cable news feature reasonable people?
The force that blew the Big Bang continues to accelerate.
I stand against the Fairness Doctrine because I see it as an adjustment to free speech. I'm not claiming it blocks free speech but I see it as detrimental because it partially instructs broadcasters what to present. On top of that, I think it's a little shortsighted and subjective in how it aims to enforce each broadcaster to pose all sides of the issue.
... if this agency can establish a neutral reputation and if it's done correctly, it could be invaluable to the nations' citizens. I think the cost of such an operation would be quite trivial to the public good ... people like Glenn Beck have had a reign of stupidity for far too long in this country.
What I like about Clinton's suggestion (though flawed for many other reasons) is that it is a passive system. Anyone can say anything that they want or broadcast what they want but the next day they could be labeled a liar or at least someone who spouts half truths. The article lists many sites like factcheck.org that already do this so why not publicly fund an even bigger and more active site for the public good? It would cite its sources and it might even lead to better transparency in the government if it was also devoted to FOIAs in order to make statements about budgets and spending have real numbers instead of the bland "We spend too much on social programs!"
His suggestion is a little naive but at least it lets everyone say what they want to
I think the solution is the not the active regulation like the Fairness Doctrine but something more passive where the broadcasters go back to regulating themselves before they become the laughing stock of the press. The fact checkers would just sit back and watch and check and report. No need to fine the infractions or hand out warnings or demand so and so should get airtime.
My work here is dung.
The Fairness Doctrine has as much to do with fairness as the Patriot Act has to do with patriotism.
sweet, i've been waiting forever for a /. discussion about winger...
Wikipedia? Seriously?
Given that much of Wikipedia is dominated by cliques of editors whose main preoccupation is to keep out competing edits (no matter how sensible those edits may be), and given there's a big difference between neutrality and objectivity, I hardly think Wikipedia is a good example of what Clinton is talking about.
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Does that mean my comment is an even bigger waste of time?
William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
Cause I'm wasting my time... wasting my time agaaaaaaaaiiin whoooooaaaaa agaiiiin
The big problem is it isn't clear what information needs to be corrected or how effective the government will be at doing it vs. all of the other sources of information people have. If you have a brain in your head you know Wikipedia is more accurate than Conservepedia. But for those who choose the second, I don't think a Government web page explaining yet again how bad Conservepedia is will make any difference.
A better idea would be for the Government focusing on providing accurate information in the first place rather than "fixing" other sources inaccuracies. What if each government agencies communications department was giving a similar mandate and protection from political interference! Now that would be something I could really get behind. I do believe the government CAN give good, accurate and relevant information. It just needs to be given that mandate and isolation from political interference.
The nice thing about the Internet is, while there is plenty of wrong information out there, you can find accurate information more often than not if you try
In Clintons defense however, he is focusing more on how to do it than that it should be done.
...and in an appropriate way. Say some BS internet rumor gets started. An affected agency will often have a debunking website dedicated to the topic that browsers can easily access. Remember Compean and Ramos, the two border agents the anti-immigration crowd turned into heroes? The DoJ did a great point-by-point debunking of the interwebz myths about their case. Didn't stop a Bush pardon, unfortunately.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
I don't know what we could do if we could not call the president a monkey without the opposing view that he is not in fact a simian. I do like the fact that liberal radio can call the current speak Boner without allowing corrections to his name, and talk about how Bonercare will solve everything. Fact based reporting is for the bygone era, and the fairness doctrine is not going to bring it back.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
In order for this to work. We will need all the facts who said what and when. Every data point of some statistics, what questions were asked and where. There are a lot of truths out there you can come up with many of them with some correct questions as many people are actually complex individuals you can bring up a lot of truths out there that arn't necessary true.
Lets use Abortion as an example I hear from both sides and they say they are in the majority.
Now the Anti-Abortion people will direct questions that will focus more on Late-Term abortions, and giving stereotypes of undesirable people getting them.
Now the Pro-Abortion people will direct questions that will focus more on Birth Control and giving stereotypes of the poor woman who lost everything and wasn't her fault.
Now most people are rather complex on the topic, A lot of them are against abortions with exceptions or For Abortions with exceptions. Most people agree when it is a medical necessity (The actual reason for the Row vs. Way) that abortion are necessary. As well most people agree that abortion as a form of birth control is a wasteful and unethical (although on different levels)
This Fact Agency would be powerless to prevent this type of stuff from going on. As each side is reporting on factual results, however the nature of the facts gather are one sided.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If implemented properly, with actual citations, I think it may be a neat idea. It'd be nice to see relevent facts displayed in context.
This whole story is flamebait. Clinton didn't make the suggestion, the interviewer did, and asked him to speculate on it. He isn't actually advocating for a ministry of truth, nor is he even in government anymore.
Such an agency would be inherently biased, because as Stephen Colbert has taught us, the facts and reality have a liberal bias!
Reality has a liberal bias
What is truly frightening is how many people (see comments above) are so willing to jump on this bandwagon. I'm sure some of it is people grasping at straws in hopes that "truthiness" will win but c'mon - this is politics and we ALL lose.
Maybe Mr. Thompson can force Mr. Galt to "fix" that which is broken but I doubt it - not aas long as that force, no matter how benign, comes from "above"..
If you pretend to be a journalist and claim some statistics and it's not out of a peer-reviewed _published_ paper, you get an automatic fine. Why not ?
It would depend on the "peers" that do the reviewing, methinks.
Meanwhile, why not just ridicule and ignore the liars (of any stripe) outright? Seems to be a lot more reasonable, plus those of us who aren't ideological jack-heads get some humor out of it.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You are correct. Ron Paul is not representative of most libertarians. Most self-identified libertarians are much wackier than Ron Paul.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
Confused. Wikipedia will accept money to combat inaccuracies, or Wikipedia will accept money to continue spreading inaccuracies?
Take what's said by the government, invert it and you probably get something that's rather close to the truth.
This is literally a Ministry of Truth.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
We already have Web organizations that do a pretty good job of cutting through BS -- Snopes.com and Factchecker.org to name two. The problem is not that we don't have objective arbiters of the truth, but that many people don't want anything other than confirmation of their existing biases and will label any group that doesn't do that as "biased" against their "truth."
Having the government sponsor the Truth Police will not give it any more credibility and may just make it less credible depending on who does the appointing.
Best example: the Supreme Court, which is supposedly the ultimate arbiter of justice. Justices used to get confirmed by huge bipartisan majorities until someone decided that controlling a majority of the Supremes was a way to achieve political control. The Web Truth Board would likely suffer a similar fate, only much faster..
TLR
A man no more knows his destiny than a tea leaf knows the history of the East India Company
I don't understand your PBS link. The article mentions that MoveOn advocated for public funding of Public Broadcasting, not PBS advocating for MoveOn. Some how you take an organizations(MoveOn) advocacy for a third party(PBS) and use that as evidence that the third party(PBS) is advocating for the other group(MoveOn.)
If this logic holds up does that mean that Palin supports neo-Nazi's as many of those groups supported her and McCain in the last election cycle?
This is one of those things the free market already provides, with the help of numerous news organizations. One of the more useful is Politifact, but there are plenty of others.
Those who don't trust government sources of information won't trust this government agency any more than they trust the various government reports. And they shouldn't: The government source matters, but it should be corroborated by other sources.
I am officially gone from
> Most self-identified libertarians are much
> wackier than Ron Paul.
And most self-identified democrats are much wackier than Howard Dean, and most self-identified republicans are much wackier than Newt Gingrich.. What's your point?
Proposed by an ex-President impeached for perjury. The irony is so obvious that I am ashamed of stating it.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
would he include claiming to invent the internet as a false internet claim? haha
Surely I can't be the only one laughing at the idea of the US government having anything to do with truth? Truth and politics are practically synonymous after all.
I have yet to see that Wikipedia. I go to the one with people collaborating on making articles better. Yes, occasionally a jerk comes along and tries to push a particular point of view, but they generally come to their senses quickly or just go away, often after being blocked from editing.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
We just need some real Journalists.
Have gnu, will travel.
Don't we already have this? It's called Snopes. They do it for free.
[citation needed]
According to their own Web page, "Budget and mandate cost estimates are based on the text of the proposed legislation...All CBO estimates and analytic products are reviewed internally for technical competence, accuracy of data, and clarity of exposition. CBO studies also are reviewed by outside experts..."
If their estimates are based on "the text of the proposed legislation," how exactly is that a bad thing?
When you recognize love in another and realize how precious it is, everything else seems so insignificant.
Our legislative, and executive bodies have no right to fact check anyones speech! Its a clear violation of the first and tenth amendments, and possibly the fourth depending on what happens as a result of being cited.
There is already a process for fact checking the Internet. Which ever person or organization the facts are relevant to can respond with their own information. If the information is wrong and damages their reputation in some way they can sue for libel. That is why we have courts people!
If an agency gets hold of these powers it will be exactly like the FCC it will get packed with corporate lobbyists who spend most of the their time making arbitrary and capricious decisions about things they clearly don't understand and the rest of their time engineering give aways to the corporations they plan to work at as soon as their term is up.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Calm down, Monica.
Have gnu, will travel.
I already think this guy is the smartest (or maybe just coolest) person in politics next to Putin (after all, he knows Judo), and as an if statement, his response only encourages the sentiment for me. If anything, he's acknowledging the difficulties involved.
Do you see what I did there?
The government is the worst when it comes to fact finding, checking and reporting. The government claims (in various AdCouncil ads) that cigarettes kill more people than AIDS, car wrecks, heart disease, and cancer combined. Their reasoning is that if you die of heart disease or cancer you may have died from cigarettes ergo you did die from cigarettes even if you had never even seen or smelt a cigarette in your life. And if cigarettes are so god damn deadly why don't they make them illegal? Oh that's right, the government makes more than %50 a pack in taxes. So cigarettes are only evil to the extent that they need to be taxed heavily. It's that sort of evil.
And how many times have you heard the government repeat the lie that smoking marijuana is worse for you than cigarettes or alcohol. I don't want to go into how all of this is pseudo-science and they don't have a single (real) study to stand on. Let me just take it from the common since point of view. Nobody has ever died from smoking too much marijuana. People die every day from alcohol related illnesses, violence, car wrecks and more, and we already know about the evils of cigarettes from the AdCouncil.
But the government made marijuana illegal. Even though Thomas Jefferson smoke and grew it, even though George Washington smoked and grew it. Even though Thomas Paine said of the U.S.: "[our] Hemp flourishes even to rankness..." in Common Sense. Was it evil then, but people just didn't know it? Funny that, now that I thinking about it. The intellectual giants on who's shoulders we stand on smoked Marijuana. Shit, Carl Sagan smoked marijuana and had the wit to invent the geosynchronous satellite! Killer weed indeed!
But all of that was apparently a sham. Marijuana is so insidious and evil, according to our government, that we need to sacrifice the lives of literally hundreds of cops each year, and thousands of civilians both here in the U.S. and in other countries that export illicit drugs to the U.S.. Undermining trust in law enforcement, through corruption and creating an adversarial role between the citizen (suspected drug user) and the cops (more suspected drug users). All in the name of "We don't want Johnny to get stoned." or "We don't want Timmy to shoot up". All the while hundreds of people are dying from the 'safe, legal' drug alcohol.
Here's a wild idea. Freedom. Freedom to engage in whatever vice we feel like so long as it doesn't harm anyone else. The Declaration of Independence talks about "Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." I don't know if the founding fathers were stoned when they wrote that but I think they mean the most important thing is not whatever the government wants to do to make you happy, but what you the individual wants to be happy.
If it makes me happy to smoke a joint what on earth gives anyone power over me to tell me I can't? I'm not harming anyone (but myself arguably), and if you start making laws that say "you can't harm yourself" that's a slippery slope we are already sliding down. Anyone here think that fatty or sugary foods and drinks won't be illegal in 10 more years at the rate we're going? "But you're going to kill yourself with that soft drink!, it has sugar! And we all know now Sugar is Toxic!.
For anyone who says "If we make it legal more people will use it.". Well I can only prey that this is true. The more people that choose to smoke a joint instead of drink a beer, the more lives will be saved! And by simply preventing the government from tampering in our personal lives! We get more freedom, the government doesn't have to hire people to "inspect" us, or prisons to incarcerate us, and would therefore not need to tax us so damn much. Win win! And I'm sure the net sum of lives saved would outweigh any moral concerns anyone would have.
Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. False in one thing, false in everything. Beca
They are Wikipedia and National Statistics centers.
I rarely respond to comments. Also, don't ask for clarifications: a brain and Google are faster, believe me!
It depends on where you go really. The main articles are usually well-written and sourced but in the fringe articles on controversial science, religion in the US or that explain the controversial practices of certain cults, editors with power come in and reverse edits that are not according to their belief system.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Where is that wikipedia? I didn't know there were two of them. What's the url? I can only find the one run by jackbooted, book-burning cliquish friends of Jimbo for their own ends and profit. And that one is pretty useless.
But hold on, "blocked from editing"? Could these be the same wikipedias? Looks like they could be. Are you a friend of Jimbo?
hahahaha I agree!
I'd imagine wikipedia admins would accept many other currencies to keep on doing what they are doing too. Jimbo, especially.
And that's the problem with wikipedia, right there.
and it's got nothing to do with ideology. It's all about practicality. Corporations have massive economic power. So much so that nothing else can stand against that power except the government. Nothing. This is not a false dichotomy, at least as far as I know. I don't know any other way to keep something as massive as a modern global corporation in check.
You can't just say the free market will sort it out, because the same people running one corporation are on the board of directors of the others. You can't stop buying from them and hope that'll keep them in check, because you'll have to buy from a "competitor" and that competitor is owned, through the stock market, by the same people. They're completely pervasive in our economy. In short, they're our ruling class, and we need government to replacement.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
You take away religion and people will simply turn to having senseless faith in other things. Don't think the problem could be solved that easily.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
Jane, you ignorant slut....
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Who better to do than the government, we can trust them, right?
not to speak of reality
Can you point out some specific articles?
I've been pretty happy with wikipedias decisions on contentious issues, although I don't spend any time editing there. For example, they still show the cartoons here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy
As an outsider, my principle objections have always been when some really awesome & informative article gets scrubbed useless by astroturffers, BLP fags, deletionists, agenda pushing asshats, or simply idiots that don't understand the subject matter. I've usually seen this on more fringe articles however.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
I think there should be a notice in some small corner of the TV screen/paper/other media with a label that says "NEWS" or "OPINION." (God knows they have plenty of room for those obnoxious animated network ads.) Any programming claiming to be news would show that label in the corner and be held accountable by some sort of auditing. After some set number of incidents that are judged to be avoidable misstatements or outright lies, an agency or individual would lose the privilege of the "NEWS" label for the next 12 months. Yeah... I know, trying to enforce this is unrealistic, but maybe if news agencies at least thought that someone might be checking, maybe they'd start acting more responsibly.
Ask me about my sig!
I have yet to see that Wikipedia. I go to the one with people collaborating on making articles better. Yes, occasionally a jerk comes along and tries to push a particular point of view, but they generally come to their senses quickly or just go away, often after being blocked from editing.
Purely in the name of sober second thought, you might want to consider - just for a moment - that you're already on the clique side looking out. I'm certainly not saying you are, but I think it is valid advice to anyone that says they don't see a particular societal problem, to also look in the mirror.
I know many of us can't help ourselves but to try and come up with some sort of solution to every perceived injustice or error, but I can think of few things more dangerous to the exchange of ideas than some blessed organization being given the perceived coronation as keepers of the truth.
Truth will always be fact, not opinion. As scientific as we try to be, we still cannot separate our opinions from the truth we see. The sad state of journalism from Fox News to the New York Times shows that both sides of the political spectrum taint their reporting of "facts" with their own story-telling skills.
If you want a single source of truth, look into your own mind. It is your right and responsibility as an individual to figure it out for yourself. While the creation of some "ministry of truth" would probably pass by the SCOTUS, the founding fathers would spin in their graves as this does fly in the face of the meaning of the right for people to have their own opinions and speak them out - because it means they think for themselves.
It is foolish that we would even consider going back to a stage where we give our ruling class that kind of credibility.
If you pretend to be a journalist and claim some statistics and it's not out of a peer-reviewed _published_ paper, you get an automatic fine.
I think the problem is the "non journalists" covering the news. Didn't you hear? Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh are comedians. Bill O'Reilly is a commentator and Sean Hannity is an analyst. The bimbo who reads that 60 second news cast at the beginning of every hour? She's the reporter, and the biggest lie there is the lie of omission. Nobody on FoxNews says "Obama wasn't born in America". They don't report rumors. They report on the existence of rumors and then rhetorically ask "why would that rumor exist if it weren't true?"
That's my problem with the fairness doctrine. There is no metric that cannot be gamed, and there is no shortage of "half-truths" that are misleading, but not exactly lies.
Ah yes, the good old days of debate - when people were civilized and settled disagreements with swords and pistols.
I think that predates the fairness doctrine by about a century. You'd might as well have said:
Ah yes, the good old days of debate - when people were civilized and settled disagreements by calling the other a witch and setting him on fire.
I'll give Boner (Boehner) the respect of pronouncing his name the way he prefers it once he learns the proper name of the opposing (Democratic) party.
As soon as the government lets me know who shot JFK, then I'll start believing them on other topics.
I hold very few opinions. I hold information based on observation and fact. If you wish to disagree, please use facts.
They will likely be ordered first to launch into a massive investigation of the Clinton-Lewinski affair. Then when they fail to find anything that warrants his immediate execution and striking from all future printing of US history books, congress will order the agency shut down immediately.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
"an independent federal agency that no president could countermand or anything else "
That's funny until you realize he might just believe it, and then it's sad.
And then you realize he really DOESN"T believe it, and it's sadder still.
From Andrew Sullivan at theatlantic.com
"I covered the Clintons for eight years. The one thing I learned about them is that they lie. It's reflexive to them; after decades of the lying that tends to infect the households of addicts, they don't have a normal person's understanding of truth and falsehood."
Well, he's either naive, or lying, when he claims there could even be something like 'an independent federal agency'. For that reason alone this is a dumb, bad, dangerous idea.
Then there's the First Amendment.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Government certainly can and does do things like this. The GAO does a pretty good job when it comes to financial matters. And then there is the National Academy of Science, established by Abraham Lincoln to advise the government on scientific matters. They have remained independent and one of the most respected sources of scientific information in the world.
But no agency, no matter how authoritative or independent, will convince the cranks. Think of how much "global warming is a conspiracy" nonsense one sees in the media and hears from politicians, even though the National Academies have reviewed the science and concluded that the threat is real and that action is needed. The cranks just assume that anybody who disagrees with them is part of the conspiracy.
This is wonderful.
It will revolutionize history research. We all know that data is moving more and more to the net. This will centralize it and provide quality control.
You'll just have to consult the official site to determine what truly happened. No mucking about having to weigh the validity of original sources that might have been mistranslated, be biased, or were authored disengenuously to slander someone. No dealing with the vagaries, subjectivity and bother of gathering statements from witnesses to events before they pass away. The savings in travel and time for history, archeology, anthropology and related departments will be most welcome as they tend to be underfunded anyway. They won't have to waste so much time in futile debate over what really happened.
One source and one truth to be written and taught in classrooms.
What a remarkable idea.
Think how easy it makes journalism as well. Why, they'll be able to cut even more of those expensive foreign correspondents that sit around waiting for news to happen.
It certainly will help end the terrible partisanship we have in this country. People will all start from the same set of facts. Why, if we unify the deductive methods applied to them, we can avoid this terrible inefficiency of having people look at the same circumstances and come to different conclusions about it.
Finally, the nation will have clarity rather than this messy confusion.
He is a really good troll. Here are some quotes from previous posts:
"...the more syllables in a chemical name, the more dangerous they are"
"Earth used to be a nice, hospitable place until the invention of radioactivity."
"I'm not sure how Chiropractors could detect subluxations in a robot..."
"Chiropractic maintenance alignments and adjustments scored better on IQ tests."
Chiropractors are quacks but they are educated.
This whole story is flamebait. Clinton didn't make the suggestion, the interviewer did, and asked him to speculate on it. He isn't actually advocating for a ministry of truth, nor is he even in government anymore.
Are you sure about that? I'm going to go check Snopes.
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Does anyone remember what PRAVDA means?
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
No, they do urban legends and chain emails.
And he do it well, but I think this would have a larger scope and effort. I would love to see an opinion scrubbed scientific facts site built the way he said in the article.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
More exactly, it rules out anything where humans are involved.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
http://xkcd.com/386/
Good luck with that.
Perhaps he should visit the library or, if he wants to stay online, he could visit our web site.
Two comment authors write untrue statements on the internet... in an effort to discredit the idea that the internet could benefit from resources debunking lies.
Speaking of Irony...
Think about all the mis-information kids have to deal with today. No web filter and just wide open Internet to get information that is not alway factual! Go Bill!!
But I am capable of figuring out truth from falsehood on my own thanks. I don't need a "Ministry of Disinformation" to help
No offense to the spirit of the idea, but it begs the question "who watches the fact-checkers?"
It's the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man.
The BBC may have performed yeoman service over the years, but it is not without flaws.
BBC report damns its ‘culture of bias’
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
Translation: the federal government/current administration has to approve of the way you handle controversial views. What could possibly go wrong?
Translation: (noun) What was heard, not what was said.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Ah yes, the good old 1800's when a young boy called Thomas Edison was dragged to the town square and publicly beaten by his father, and all the good town folk nodded in approval.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
Here. I'll do the fact checking for you. No charge to the tax payers.
From the (uncontested!!!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_impeachment page: "Bill Clinton, President of the United States, was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice on December 19, 1998..."
Or do you actually think that a government organization dedicated to correcting free speech produced on the Internet somehow doesn't merit the name "Ministry of Truth?"
Perhaps it's the summary that is wrong? And so are the numerous sites on the internet reporting that it was Bill Clinton who proposed the idea?
You have been beaten. While it is not natural for me to gloat, I'll make an exception and do it this time. You deserve as much.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Government truthiness!
+++OK ATH
And, hold on, stop and think yourself.
I am a constant, daily reader of Wikipedia, a sometimes editor. I've been involved in a small handful of edit wars. To overlook the immense amount of high-quality information on Wikipedia because some edits of yours got turned down is absurd. Now that you've asked the GP to check himself, you should do the same. After years of casual editing, I've run across assholes, but never this mythical clique of jack-booted thugs.
And now, a low blow: empowered regular folks would seem like massed jack-booted thugs to somebody with a crazy opinion...
From the (uncontested!!!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clinton_impeachment [wikipedia.org] page: "Bill Clinton, President of the United States, was impeached by the House of Representatives on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice on December 19, 1998..."
He was acquitted though wasn't he?
Or do you actually think that a government organization dedicated to correcting free speech produced on the Internet somehow doesn't merit the name "Ministry of Truth?"
Correcting mistakes is not interfering with free speech.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
I see it now, Bill has been home too long watching Myth Busters, now he wants a Federal Version of it. I bet he daydreams of hiring the Myth Busters guys to head the department. Are you inhaling now Bill?
On a serious note he does have something of a point. But I don't think he's going in the right direction. We need draconian measures, but we aren't going to get them for a while. It's going to take something really crazy to scare the government into putting the serious clamps down on the wild west version of the Internet we currently have. I can see it all coming at the same time, World ID cards, forget national, why piddle with that?
On a serious note, you can't have your cake and eat it too. You can't claim to be a "free country", yet do something draconian to the Internet. Not without enough cognitive dissidence to cause some people to utterly snap. Me being one of them. I will probably flip out and think I am in a PVP Minecraft server and start digging straight down.
They could pass some gamers' rights laws and I would be extremely happy. Laws for dealing with companies who twist the rules around, nerf things, making them worthless, and for people who hack games and cheat, not to mention people who write viruses and people who spam. Personally, if they get rid of the cheaters in my games, I don't care what they do. I have paid for so many games only to have them cracked and full of cheaters, there should be a law! lol Oh I really love their reasoning for cheating, "I am smart because I cheat, I get away with it, so I do it." To me that cries out for their parents to be lined up against the wall and shot.
What kind of heathen rat bastards are these little monsters growing up to be? Just think, these twisted kids will be in charge some day. If you can't trust their basic character in something like a game, you sure as shit can't trust their behavior else where. We give all sorts of positive reinforcement to this completely warped behavior and thinking. Establishing poor behavior habits and pattern in our kids is some serious parental neglect. When I see most of the criminals today, I see shipwrecked jobs at parenting overall.
I would imagine most parents who set down with their children for a board game would be horrified to see their child cheat at the game, and then remark how dumb you are for not cheating. Then start smack talking you for even bringing it up. If I did that, my Dad would have punched me right off the planet, I would still be sailing through outer space somewhere. Yet, this is the behavior our kids and sadly teens, young adults and creepy guys who live in their mother's basement, engage in on a regular basis.
This is what happens in our society of greed now. Two income families for lifestyles they feel they are entitled too, but the children are not parented, this will come to bite us hard on the ass. Latchkey kids, or raised by other family members, or some daycare center. Then the Internet raises them once they can be entrusted not to burn the neighborhood down if left alone. This is why we have lazy assed parents whining "for the children" when the fuckers should be tending to this themselves. It doesn't take village to raise a child, it takes PARENTS. If you think that "the village" can be intrusted to raising your kids, you shouldn't have kids period. Ever.
Besides, the old axiom is "don't believe anything you read and only half of what you see." Any information read has to be taken with a grain of salt that it might not be true. Even hard facts are often proven wrong, so a person should have an open mind. Also, sometimes when you see something, you don't see the "whole picture" and can still not have all the facts of the matter. Applying some healthy skeptical caution about one's information across the board in life is a good thing. Why should the Internet be any different? Most of us already know a large percentage of what we encounter on the Internet is pure bullshit.
It would be a wonderful thing what he proposed, but human history has a bad track record of "well intended" policies turning into monsters given time.
Take the Red Pill.
The BBC may have performed yeoman service over the years, but it is not without flaws.
BBC report damns its ‘culture of bias’
Right, and because the BBC is unique in the whole world by not being 100% perfect, it is therefore totally valueless and evil, and no more to be trusted than the insane far right wing ravings of semi-literate bloogers.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
If this logic holds up does that mean that Palin supports neo-Nazi's as many of those groups supported her and McCain in the last election cycle?
Stop smearing the poor neo-Nazis by association.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Clinton says the plan would not work in his last statement. The posted edits that out. This is a smear job.
LOL stop introducing inconvenient facts, the fascist nutjobs were able to get up some good old righteous indignation over Clinton getting blow job, all over again.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
There is an obvious response to "correcting mistakes is not interfering with free speech". First, who's to be watching the watchers. And second, choosing which mistakes get a priority in getting corrected is a decision very heavily weighted by political priorities of those in power.
Clinton was acquitted in the Senate. But that does not remove the impeachment record. The acquittal allowed him to remain in power. He is still the only President to have been impeached in the House of Representatives. And while he is not a President who has been removed from power through impeachment, the fact that he has been voted to be impeached by the House does make him an impeached President. The use an analogy, the criminal court equivalent of impeachment is not a guilty verdict, but rather an indictment. Here's a quote from another uncontested Wikipedia entry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_in_the_United_States): "Impeachment in the United States is an expressed power of the legislature that allows for formal charges against a civil officer of government for crimes committed in office. The actual trial on those charges, and subsequent removal of an official on conviction on those charges, is separate from the act of impeachment itself."
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I thought I'd made this blatant enough that people would understand it as irony and satire.
Apparently not everyone.
The old usenet axiom that there is no irony so blatant that someone won't take it seriously still applies.
This is why I go to the BBC for news, rather than any US news organizations.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
As someone else mentioned, who reviews? If I do my own research and it just so happens that nobody wants to touch it because it is too politically charged (but could be correct), why should I get fined?
I'll call a lie a lie... but if free speech IS fine and dandy, then why AREN'T lies aimed at manipulating people tolerated? Now, if it's a question of ethics or morality, of course I'll agree that lies shouldn't be stated and people shouldn't be manipulated.
But politics and governance are NOT sciences. Socialism vs. Capitalism is not a scientific debate where there IS one clear answer. It depends on the people being governed, depends on the land, various decisions depend on the locality and geography and politics of other nations, etc. It's not something that there is a clear yes or no answer. And when it comes to statistics, statistics can be proven wrong (is that the fault of the statistic taker? should he be fined? what if he was in the right and he just got a bad sample?), they can be misleading (accidentally or purposefully), they can be interpreted wrongly, they can be outdated, they can be misused, they can be used to manipulate...
I am pretty firmly on the "right" side of center and pretty conservative; yet I find Limbaugh, O'Reilly, etc., to be annoying, frustrating, maddening, and generally don't like listening to them. I probably agree with them "politically," but I disagree with their methods of "discussion," I disagree with their attitudes, with how they treat other people (including the President), etc. But I support their right to say what they want to say... and yes, make money off of it.
I also find many Senators (www.politifact.com) stating similar half truths, misleading statements, lies, etc., all to try to "prove" their point or get people to agree with them. Some of them are even true but simply used logically wrong. Should that be fined? Logical fallacies are now illegal? ;) Slightly exaggerated there but you get the point: free speech necessarily has to include speech that one does not agree with or simply "wrong" speech (logical fallacy, lie, whatever). If it didn't, there would be someone, some committee, some party, etc., that basically controls free speech... which means it's not really that free. I would rather tolerate lies than get into the position where a ruling party or prevailing view has the power to censor speech that they simply disagree with by claiming that it is untrue (and, perhaps, making up their own "facts" to "disprove" the "bad" facts...)