Slashdot Mirror
Ask Slashdot: Is Deliberately Misleading People On the Internet Free Speech?
Slashdot reader dryriver writes:
Before anyone cries "free speech must always be free," let me qualify the question. Under a myriad of different internet sites and blogs are these click-through adverts that promise quick "miracle cures" for everything from toenail fungus to hair loss to tinnitus to age-related skin wrinkles to cancer. A lot of the ads begin with copy that reads "This one weird trick cures....." Most of the "cures" on offer are complete and utter crap designed to lift a few dollars from the credit cards of hundreds of thousands of gullible internet users. The IQ boosting pills that supposedly give you "amazing mental focus after just 2 weeks" don't work at all. Neither do any of the anti-ageing or anti-wrinkle creams, regardless of which "miracle berry" extract they put in them this year. And if you try to cure your cancer with an Internet remedy rather than seeing a doctor, you may actually wind up dead.
So the question -- is peddling this stuff online really "free speech"? You are promising something grandiose in exchange for hard cash that you know doesn't deliver any benefits at all.
Long-time Slashdot reader apraetor counters, "But how do you determine what is 'true'?" And Slashdot reader ToTheStars argues "It's already established that making claims about medicine is subject to scrutiny by the FDA (or the relevant authority in your jurisdiction)." But are other things the equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theatre? Leave your best thoughts in the comments. Is deliberately misleading people on the internet free speech?
So the question -- is peddling this stuff online really "free speech"? You are promising something grandiose in exchange for hard cash that you know doesn't deliver any benefits at all.
Long-time Slashdot reader apraetor counters, "But how do you determine what is 'true'?" And Slashdot reader ToTheStars argues "It's already established that making claims about medicine is subject to scrutiny by the FDA (or the relevant authority in your jurisdiction)." But are other things the equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theatre? Leave your best thoughts in the comments. Is deliberately misleading people on the internet free speech?
Making it a free speech issue is taking it too far, it's always really just been about whether it's false advertising / fair trade / fraud / etc. We already have a lot of laws that govern what businesses can and cannot say to customers in their efforts to sell them things. None of them are free speech violations, they're consumer protection limits. Enforcement is the real problem.
It's the next step in evolution. If you're stupid enough to fall for it, you deserve it.
I'm taking the conservative approach: If it's legal it's free speech. Otherwise the advertisers wouldn't risk posting said info.
I can't accept that "if it's free speech it's legal" approach. Otherwise speech promoting violence and hatred would be legal.
its the Wikipedia article on free speech it should cover internet speech as well. Seems that there has been some cases about lying about facts and false advertising in commercial speech.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_free_speech_exceptions
then stop with the FUD that portrays those companies as actively working against the interests of society and most people.
All companies will actively work against the interests of society and most people if it is within their own interests to do so. Microsoft & the rest of the big tech companies do so everyday by actively evading paying their fair share of taxes.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
How many alts can cdreimer have? Is that free speech as well?
There can be no generalized answer to this question. Any particular case would have to be decided on its merits. As mentioned, the FDA could punish them for making unsupported claims about a cure. The FTC could come after them for false advertising. But in any case, "on the internet" has absolutely nothing to do with it. There are no special rules for any of this stuff that apply only to the internet.
And you're asking this about Miracle Berries?
There are much better, and more costly, examples of lying on the internet.
I agree. Its a great question.
So let's stick with berries and see where that takes us.
Anything deliberately false for political, economic, or other gains should be regulated the same as libel and slander, in my opinion. However this is a very slippery slope and "deliberately" and "gains" would have to be carefully defined. Someone repeating nonsense without knowing better (i.e. your drunk uncle on facebook) shouldn't be charged, but an organized group purchasing an ad for the masses should be held accountable. Legislation would have to be carefully crafted.
Yes, it's free speech, just as it's free speech to deliberately mislead people in print or when speaking. But just as with in-print or speaking, deliberately making false statements opens you to the backlash when you're fact-checked and proven to be knowingly lying to people, along with the possibility of being sued for libel or slander (since you're talking about deliberate untruths, the public-figure exception will be exceptionally hard to hide behind).
The new problem is this:
For most of the past, free speech has come with the practical limitation that the person making the speech was associated to it, and had some burden of personal accountability. So, whether out of shame, counter-arguments, not being able to hide behind a fictitious agent, etc., people making demonstrably false statements would have limits to the quantity and quality of their speech. And, by the way, people's gullibility of it.
Now we have this new channel where everyone, including fake names and anonymous agents, are equal. In your Facebook feed, everyone has an equal voice, which contrary to some people's original idea of the internet, doesn't now make it possible for the best and most thoughtful opinions to be spread, but rather the worst. And not everyone is smart enough to tell the difference, or even has the time.
Newspapers, journalists, universities, governments, etc. previously served the role as our filter of what was "high quality". For good and bad, of course, because they're not always right.
But now we took off the filter. How do we get some of it back without taking away the parts we like?
Freedom leads to mistakes in the short term; critical thought and independence in the long term.
Censorship leads to safety in the short term; naivete and dependence in the long term.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
Speech as in âoetry this miracle cure, put hot sauce in your eyes to make you see betterâ is free speech.
A sale as in âoetry this miracle cure, itâ(TM)s $25 hot sauce you can put in your eyesâ is a sales contract. You promise a cure and you either deliver or you donâ(TM)t. If you donâ(TM)t, itâ(TM)s called swindling, false advertising and a number of other things.
You can say you have a miracle cure but when you exchange goods youâ(TM)re entering a legal contract.
And thus, if you pay for this shit, pay it using a refundable method, whether itâ(TM)s a signed contract or credit card. The people too stupid to pay for it are also too stupid to know they can just call their CC company to cancel the sale, thus itâ(TM)s just a stupid-tax.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
While in Russia, there was a different metric for free speech than I've seen in the United States. My Thai friends also see differences in Thailand. I see additional differences against conservative viewpoints in Western Europe, and Canada.
Which country are you using as the metric for "Free Speech?" You mention the FDA, so I assume you mean an American viewpoint, but that should likely be explicitly stated, rather than implied.
Once money is involved, it's no longer free speech, it becomes "commercial speech."
Commercial speech operates under a different set of rules, with significantly more restrictions.
"False or misleading" commercial speech is explicitly against the law.
There is some wiggle room for "puffery" (world's best hamburger.)
There is also some wiggle room as long as warnings or disclaimers are included.
Some warnings and disclaimers are what we'd call "compelled speech," because the government requires businesses to say them.
Compelled speech is pretty much the opposite of free speech.
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Just because some dick decided to be exactly what they were doesn't necessitate the conclusion that we should stop people from speaking. That's like trying to argue that because some people use guns to commit crimes, that guns should be banned. Or that because some people use dinner forks to stab out eyes, that dinner forks should be banned. OR that cups can contain harmful liquid, so cups should be banned! This article has slippery slope all over it. shame.
...why can't everyone else? The police, after all, enforce the rules of society so if lying is okay for them should be okay for everyone else.
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
There are kinds of deception that are illegal, fraud & perjury both come to mind quickly. Making false medical claims can also run afoul of the FDA rules.
This is the kind of thing that depends on the circumstances of whatever is going on, not on merely whether or not someone said something that isn't true on the internet. Commercial speech, in particular, has more restrictions than other kinds, so there isn't just one answer that can sum up every case, you'd have to go through the law to see what does or does not apply to a particular case.
You're not likely to get any kind of useful answer out of Slashdot for a question like that.
Dear APK, please take a bump stock, turn the son of a bitch sideways, and shove it straight up your ass.
Yay for slavery! Disarm the plebs!
Ad's do not fall under free speech protection (at least in most countries). Most countries have legal frameworks for what is and is not acceptable advertising. For instance here in Australia most of those Ads are actually completely illegal as they fall under false advertising... good luck pursuing them on that though given most are not based in country.
And there's a moderation system here, theoretically designed to judge the quality of speech without actually restricting it. Granted, as any forum can become something of an echo-chamber then perhaps it is not perfect, but usually poor-quality comments get moderated down and high-quality comments moderated up.
As to the FUD about Microsoft in particular, Microsoft's history since its inception has been fraught with nefariousness. MS-DOS was essentially a clone of CP/M, at least as far as the particulars of the user interface are concerned. At one point Microsoft used an OEM licensing model that essentially froze-out competing OSes because the OEM had to pay for Microsoft for all personal computers sold whether or not Microsoft's OSes were wanted by the end-customer. Microsoft over the years has attempted to freeze-out competition through writing their own function-alike software and then once it becomes popular, writing proprietary components into it and pushing for those proprietary components to be widely implemented such that competitors' software is unable to work.
If Microsoft software was high quality, bug-free, security-hole-free, then perhaps there wouldn't be so much anger at Microsoft's business practices, but Microsoft's software has historically been both bug-riddled and terribly insecure and open for exploitation. Entire industries have been built to attempt to make up for mediocre software. It's no surprise when a new target-for-compatiblity becomes concerned, as history has demonstrated that by introducing compatibility, Microsoft will break that compatibility when it feels the time is right to get customers to migrate to Microsoft off of whatever previous software they used, and the cycle repeats.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
isn't free speech, neither is deliberately misleading speech.
Let's face it, half of all people are of below average intelligence and those people are more likely to be fooled. It's BAD ENOUGH when there are "News" institutions whose adherence to proper journalistic standards (like vetting commentators and sources and getting independent confirmation) is weak.
It's DOWN RIGHT CRIMINAL when people (or governments! Russia I'm talking to you) deliberately mislead people for their own purposes. Those easily fooled people can be swayed into doing all sorts of things that are not in the public (or their own) self interest.
Short of genetic engineering (don't worry, that's my field, I'm working on it!), we're not going to be raising the average IQ of people very quickly. (And as far as getting more than half of all people to be better than average, you'd better talk to your local mathematician). However, what we COULD do is provide a better, BASIC education for all citizens which would be the first line of defense against unfounded, unverified claims. An ability to use critical thinking (perhaps with a dose of basic economics and science for living in this commercial technological age) should be a prerequisite for living in this modern world, too bad it would be politically impossible to make it a requirement for voting.
I have heard that the real downfall of American democracy began (sorry to say) with Reagan. Even though it can be claimed that some of his ideas were good and he was inspiring to millions, his de-regulation of the economy unfortunately (from what I have heard, I was too young to understand) extended to education.
His, "let competition reign" philosophy broke the covenant of the American educational system so that (again, from what I understand), schools became increasingly dependent on their local circumstances. Hence, schools in rich districts could hire good teachers and had good facilities whereas schools in poor and rural districts fell farther and farther behind (not that they were equal in the first place). In this way, the (I think) nationwide premise that all Americans be given a good basic education was shattered; this has resulted in the paradox of Americans leading the world in science and technology and Nobel prizes (with a healthy influx of immigrants of course) yet with abysmal high school graduation rates and scores when compared to other wealthy nations.
Unfortunately, I don't see an easy way out; as this last year has proven the "moron" (not my words, the Secretary of State said it!) having been elected by the under educated bottom half, is running the show. He (and they) will continue to put into place policies that will further widen the divide between the educated and the poorly educated; between the professional class and between people who don't understand the scientific principle. I'm not quite sure where this will end up; the educated "elite" (when did being "the best" become a dirty word?) still retains power and money but it is unclear if the under educated will ever be able to see past the lies the leaders they elected tell them. Even then, it'll likely take a generation to rebuild the damage the Reagan revolution has done and truly rebuild an America that is restored equal opportunity THROUGH EDUCATION to all.
Then again, as a Republican Senator just said, our duly elected leader might trigger "World War III". Well in that case, we won't even have to wait for climate change to do us in, I guess our civilization and maybe even species just wasn't meant to last.
Are our USA school systems so crappy that students and graduates don't understand what Free Speech means? The OP doesn't seem to know the distinction between Commercial Speech and Political Speech. Commercial Speech is highly regulated while Political Speech is highly unregulated. All the Governments in the USA strictly regulate Commercial Speech and no one thinks much of that practice. Even the Supreme Court agrees. Surprisingly, the OP is ignorant of this fact. (Which I initially learned about in the Government Schools.)
This question makes me sick
Americans sure have given up on freedom.
when did slashdot become interested in third grader civics discussions?
on free speech just "the internet" these days?
Fuck off communist. You want to decide what is "true" and set up the ministry of truth so we're forced to listen to your BS. Here's the *truth*: other than _data_ *everything* is narrative.
since language was invented. Perhaps before.
Before asking a question about free-speech on the internet, always take the internet out of the question.
Is yelling fire in a crowded space protected by free speech? No. Clearly, and we know why.
Is standing on a street corner telling people that the sky is falling protected speech? Yes, I think so. Please tell me if you disagree.
The thing is we know a lot about the person standing on the street corner spewing lies, but ironically - on the internet we often don't know much about the person feeding us fake news, or spreading false ideas, or otherwise lying. In reality we can see that they're probably half baked, or dressed up in religious garb, or otherwise giving off signs that we probably shouldn't trust them. Here on the internet, we have no idea.
The solution is better moderation tools. In a perfect world, when someone walks up to me and starts espousing a flat earth or harmful vaccines, I can or most people can filter out the random information from the good. I can even punch someone if they're trying to be a complete dick.
On the internet, various platforms have still refused to implement the 'punch poster in the nose' button, so it's really important we come up with alternate ways of negatively feeding back on poor behaviour.
We have ample evidence that regulatory agencies can be manipulated by political pressure / lobbying. Let's say the FDA becomes the final arbiter of what is "real treatment". If someone were to discover a simple and inexpensive cure for depression - to what lengths would the Pharmaceutical industry go to get it labeled "fake" and preserve their $14.5 billion industry?
Do we really want to be prevented from ever making a mistake in judgement? In this post-modern society who are you willing to trust to define what is Real and what is Fake?
"Truth" is bought and sold in the halls of power - who watches the watchmen?
Otherwise, it's morally deceptive at best and legally fraudulent at worst. That's the pithy answer.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Making false statements is against the law in the United States, it is not protected speech. Freedom of speech (originally freedom of the press) is meant to protect the freedom to express opinions, especially unpopular ones, or opinions contrary to government doctrine. The Constitution has never attempted to protect lying.
The US Supreme Court has long held that Commercial Speech (speech that proposes an economic transaction) has reduced 1st amendment protection, particularly when said speech is false, misleading or coercive.
Free speech isn't absolute, the concept is more about freedom from prior restraint than freedom from all possible consequences.
I do not deploy Linux. Ever.
The United States has maintained a propaganda "news service" since 1942, broadcast in dozens of languages around the world. Before American Exceptionalists want to whine about what they pretend other countries are doing - there's as much evidence to support that Russia did buttkiss last year as there is that Bill Clinton sent a hitman after Vince Foster - maybe you should cease the hypocrisy first?
As other posters have noted, take "The Internet" out of it. People are still in thrall of the digital sophistication of the Internet, though those of us in the technology business know how easy it is for anyone to put up a website and post what they want. It gives everyone a printing press, and most of those digital tabloids are worse than the Weekly World News, i.e. they are not merely idiotic, but also uninteresting.
People who believe Alex Jones are also the sort who would believe the Weekly World News. As the Internet becomes less dazzling and more mundane to the populace, they will more and more figure out what is true and what is not.
Do Alex Jones and Weekly World News knowingly disseminate false information? Of course. But if someone lets on they believe something because they saw it in a Facebook comment or in the Weekly World News, it's a cue to indicate their level of sophistication.
It is very simple and well established. You are allowed to lie for your own reasons however and whenever you wish. (and accept the social consequences of such behaviour) Except in a few well defined circumstances. The most common one being any time money is changing hands. If you come up with some hokum product that you claim increases penis size (a perennial favourite of the scammers), you can tell people you have done so. But if you tell me it works in order to sell it to me, that's fraud. If you are a doctor, free speech doesn't give you the right to gossip about my medical information. Another is libel and slander. If you knowingly spread false information about someone else and a reasonable third party might expect that person to be harmed by such lies, you are guilty of libel or slander. (depending on how you spread the info)
I need a wheelchair van for my son. Help me get the word out. https://www.gofundme.com/wheelchair-van-for-jj
Left up to the opinions off the top of the heads of a bunch of fools thinking they are educated when their 'university' training is equivalent to a trade school
The WHOLE point of free speech is that you can say whatever the fuck you want -- and people can't censor you for that.
Whether it is _actually_ true or not, is beside the point.
Now this may be slander, but that is a different issue.
Agree, lying to authorities and/or lying to consumers is a crime in the developed world, it has nothing to do with "free speech".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
"If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period." President Obama, speech to the American Medical Association, June 15, 2009
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
That is what the term slander (spoken) and libel (anything besides spoken) mean.
Also, free speech only means the government can't interfere with you saying something as long as it is not defamatory or recklessly endangering people's lives (shouting fire in a crowded room)
It does not mean:
1) Companies refusing to help you publish something.
2) People refusing to listen/obey you.
3) Refusing to pay taxes or otherwise refuse to abide by general government rules that are not targeted at your free speech. But the government can not treat you different from other people that do the same thing for other reasons.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
The FTC has jurisdiction over this stuff. In general the FTC hasn't been as aggressive in pursuing this sort of thing. Maybe the false advertising part of the FTC could be broken out and made into its own agency?
It could be the equivalent of Britain's ASA, but run by the government and with actual power to levy fines etc.
Make the ad hosting firms like double-click subject to suit for failure of the products they advertise. That will scrape out the worst and kill off the rest soon enough.
... then in effect are asking for a definition of "free speech" after the fact. Logically, this doesn't make much sense. However, if you *do* start from the axiom "free speech is good" you need to either find or construct a definition that is consistent with that axiom. In the meantime assuming that axiom does allow you to examine whether individual cases can be covered as "free speech".
If you start with the axiom that free speech is *always* good, then unless you think selling fraudulent medicine is good then your definition of "free speech" needs to exclude that.
If you start with the axiom that free speech is only *sometimes* good, then your definition can encompass selling fraudulent medicine; however that also raises the possibility that you should *sometimes* oppose free speech.
There are some people who clearly believe that free speech entails complete freedom from legal consequences -- including for libel, or deliberate misinformation that predictably harms or even kills someone. However I suspect there's an element of sloppy thinking there. We've all been raised to regard "free speech" as inviolable, so adopting a broader concept of "free speech" is a handy way of sneaking other things into the tent.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
community moderation when it comes to free speech is the absolute WORST system, it engenders reader bias and the site pretty much becomes as you mentioned an echo chamber for views supported by the majority. you only have to look at comments called out as shills or downvoted to oblivion for when they legitimately comment something that differs from the group think (and by differ I mean a legitimate opinion or view not the scumbag trolls and real company shills).
you have clearly highlighted the problem by providing your own FUD about Microsoft which pretty much guarentees you will be modded up regardless of how infactual much of it is.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMTkedIUX8U
Supreme Court case United States v. Alvarez ruled the 2005 version of the Stolen Valor Act was unconstitutional, as lying -- however repugnant -- is protected first amendment speech.
Punishment for fraud however -- lying for tangible (e.g.financial) gain -- as in the revised Stolen Valor Act of 2013, IS constitutional.
So claiming you have a product which does A, B and C and costs $X is NOT free speech if the product can be show to not actually accomplish what it claims (i.e. if it can be shown to be a lie), as that is considered fraud (i.e. lying for financial (tangible) gain).
Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer.
Ref:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Alvarez
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Valor_Act_of_2005
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolen_Valor_Act_of_2013
"Fish" (David B. Trout)
The legality of shouting "fire!" in a theatre are not as clear as people commonly think. Even the Supreme Court judge who used it in an example walked back his opinion on the subject.
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
What, no link?
http://www.lawpublish.com/amen...
Advertising Is Protected by the First Amendment
The question is often asked: Does the First Amendment protect advertisements? Advertising is indeed protected by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. However, advertising or "commercial speech" enjoys somewhat less First Amendment protection from governmental encroachment than other types of speech. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), for example, may regulate speech that is found to be "deceptive."
The comparison was first involved to convict a man advocating against America's involvement in the First World War. His agitation against it was deemed analogous to yelling fire in the crowded theater.
Obviously, that precedent was undone in the 60-70ies, when being against a war became all the rage.
Speech is speech. Deal with it.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Misinformation and disinformation are 'speech'. 'Free speech' refers to an ideal, which is sometimes enshrined into law to varying degrees. If you're attempting to ask "should disinformation be protected as 'free speech'?" then we have an actual question. It's generally held that deterring/remedying fraud is one of the most valid reasons for the existence of government. The summary questions if fraud should be considered protected under 'free speech'. I'm gonna have to say no. Let's make fraud legal and watch how fast society collapses, won't that be fun! In China, they wouldn't even have prosocial behavior to fall back on, melamine contamination for everyone!
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
If there is no financial gain to your "speech" then it's free speech. Free speech is "one's" right, not a collective or a company right.... [f]or the protection of national security or of public order (order public), or of public health or morals.. etc etc
Once you promise something for money, it's no longer free speech, you are now liable for the item you are peddling and can easily be sued. The bulk of the cancer drugs make promises that are not true, you can sue them if you can prove that they are full of shat.... replace the a with an i..
It really depends on the motive.
If your motive is to profit, then that is not free speech, that is a sales pitch. Sales pitches are ruled by laws against pyramid schemes and such.
If your motive is to deceive (eg lie, misinform,) then that is not free speech, as you are benefiting from that misinformation. Ask 4chan about Encyclopedia Dramatica . se Encyclopedia Dramatica .rs , I'm sure people would argue that Encyclopedia Dramatica is not free speech, and is a hate site if anything. It's existence encourages wannabe-trolls to get into doxx'ing people they hate. A lot of misinformation is at the cost of someone elses privacy.
Free speech should be defined as the ability to say anything truthful in publish without the government intervening. If the government says "all birds are ants" and your march around with a picket sign saying "birds are not ants", the government can't do anything about you telling the truth. However if you walk around with a sign saying "Birds cause cancer" they should be able to, at the minimum put up a sign that says "Idiot, Birds do not cause cancer, but they are still ants (proof)"
My point is that Americans have an actually pretty overbroad concept of freedom of speech, and it is tested quite frequently. However if you really want to see how freedom of speech is tested, draw porn. Not vanilla porn either. See what results in a visit from the feds. If you really had freedom of speech, drawing anything should not be illegal, even if it is distasteful like ultra-violent, or child-porn. Because it's fictional, it is not real. That cartoon "Big Mouth" on netflix was sure pushing the line to see what they can get away with (that Japan always gets away with.) Do Japanese have more freedom of speech, I'd say yes, but it comes at the cost of censorship being an automatic thing to get crap past the radar rather than trying to push the edge.
Canadians have less freedom of speech, try to import porn. It will still get seized at the border. Even if it was produced in Canada and re-imported. Porn from the US and Japan, confiscated.
Hate speech laws are essential for balancing freedom of speech. What kind of speech is hate speech? It's any speech that denounces that another human is subhuman or has no rights. So all these conservatives that try to strip rights from People of Color, GLBTQ people, or roll back gay marriage, or promote their own Christian Sharia-law are espousing hate speech. If hate speech laws had any teeth, anyone who makes makes such comments, online, offline, or whatever should have 24 hours to retract the comment and remove from public the hateful speech. After 24 hours, throw them in jail until the comments are removed from the public.
Truth is subjective. Isn't this the bullshit libs have been preaching for years?
But are other things the equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theatre?
The "shouting fire in a crowded theater" is a bullshit statement from a bullshit case because of a bullshit law.
Holmes used his statement to justify the imprisonment of draft dissenters during world war one in clear contradiction of the first amendment which even he admitted, eventually. I will say it again, this is bad law, and anyone who wants to have a serious discussion about free speak should not utter it in polite company.
That being said, yeah the quality of advertising and accuracy of advertisers statements is something to look at. It does seem like many sites allow these snake oil salesmen to set up shop on their doorstep through frames or whatever. And they want to keep their reputation while blaming the advertisers without admitting responsibility for letting them in. Shame on them, they own the site, police the content.
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
Still looking for ways to game democracy by establishing a slippery slope that leads straight to dictatorship.
apparently. Again, there's always someone who wants to control truth.
I'd mod parent up if I could, and add:
4) Information regarding some subject matter may be regulated (e.g. claims about the medicinal benefits of a product are subject to FDA oversight).
5) Even if not regulated, you may be liable for damages caused by some misleading statements (various forms of negligence or fraud, depending on the subject matter and the statement in question).
Is deliberately misleading people free speech? Absolutely.
Is speech whose primary purpose is to solicit a commercial transaction generally accepted as an exception to free speech? Yes.
Is fraud speech? No, but misleading speech is just one element of fraud.
Now all you have to do is come up with enough evidence to get charges brought and a conviction. Plus. You need to figure out who has juristiction. If they were just telling stories or giving out information, that would be free speech. These guys are asking for money under false pretenses, this makes it fraud.
Consumers in most industrial countries have the right to recompense from false advertising, regardless of the channel used. With respect to the political angle seized upon by others here, largely that is all irrelevant, and otherwise that is the product of misunderstanding on your parts. Idealism isn't productive, neither is naivety. Just because you want things to be a certain way doesn't make them that way, and there are well established mechanisms for redress in law.
The problem is that most claims are subjective or puffery:
"Amazing difference in 2 weeks". What qualifies as amazing? What qualifies as a difference? Precisely when, does that 2-week interval begin?
Then there's the problem of proving that 'before' and 'after' circumstances haven't changed: Customers aren't assuming that most of time it doesn't work, so precise, numerical measurement isn't undertaken.
Since the advertising business, likely, isn't in one's own country, it doesn't have to meet national laws on truth or data security.
As part of Reagan's war on common-folk, US children stopped being protected by truth-in-advertising, causing lawlessness everywhere on the internet.
It's the same standard from what I can tell. If you are free to make incorrect statements in journal submissions, you should be free to make them in Internet posts. It's the same principle. Both are vetted through a review by the peers of the poster. Both are susceptible to clusterfuck. It's as free as speech gets. Anything attempt to regulate it makes speech less free and increases instances of regulators' priorities leaking into the information stream to drive an agenda.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
It's called FRAUD you genius , this already limits what you can/cannot say... also, USE YOUR FUCKING BRAIN and do the research... remember the old saying, if it seems too good to be true it probably is.
And what specifically? Any quotes or references you have in mind?
Yes people are free to say absurd and evil things. That in no way implies that they can not be severely punished for those lies. For example spouting nonsense about Obama not being an American citizen should have resulted in severe fines and long stays in prisons. The sad truth i that so many Americans are criminals that we have no way to afford arresting and convicting millions more even when their crimes are blatant and revealed to all the public. We still have idiots insisting that Hillary is guilty of hundreds of felonies. And here i am so ignorant that i believe one is guilty when a trial judge says you are guilty. If a court finds you innocent the reality is that you are innocent.
> ... All companies will actively work against the interests of society and most people if it is within their own interests to do so ...
All politicians actively work against the interests of society and most people all the time, whenever it is within their own interests to do so
The Democrats have kept the Blacks in their urban plantation for over a hundred years --- first by playing the anti-Black / pro-KKK role, in reigning in the Blacks inside certain enclaves within the urban cities; then by a 'role-reversal' and morph into the 'messiah for Black' role and carefully guided the Blacks into the perpetual poverty quicksand, with empty promises, half-truths and outright lies
Walter Conkite made an entire career of misdirection and he was never prosecuted.
Maybe we should not allow too big companies to exist. What good are they?
you only have to look at comments called out as shills or downvoted to oblivion for when they legitimately comment something that differs from the group think
I completely agree, people use moderation to silence dissenting opinions. This is why I opted out of the moderation thing a long time ago.
As for people being called shills, it always has been a ludicrous accusation; even if it's obvious that some readers or even editors have agendas (like Beauhd and his endless pro-Apple propaganda) it's pretty clear that they're doing it out of misguided loyalty to a brand that they think make them look cool rather than for some form of monetary reward.
lucm, indeed.
"The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations."
- Adam Smith
lucm, indeed.
See subject. Rather than doing the RIGHT THING and shoving up bump stocks UP MY ASS, I used to write demented MESSAGES about RANDOM THING...
* FILL the VOID. Shove UP the bump stocks in your ass...
* STOP the CENSORSHIP of posts about YODA action figures being shoved UP people's ass, it IS A good thing.
* There is NO reason for bump stocks to be not be shoved up THE ASS. The SENSATION is painful but STRANGELY arousing.
* Help SPREAD THE WORD that I'm enjoying SHOVING THINGS up my ass
APK
unless it's none of their damned business ;)
Not normally. But it is if any of the following apply:
- Elon Musk says it.
- It uses blockchains.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
In fact i contend that free speech by its nature undermine thst independence. Once every speech becomes equal, the crap one overwhelm the good one a million to one. That is why we have the problem that the moderate left and right is being ignored, while the far left and right (tea party, nazi, anti fa, PC and i probably a few on both side) led the discourse in the last years. Ultimately i think completely free speech free-for-all-crap buffer undermine itself, and some small form of censorship bring people to try to fight it with quality and bypassing it.
Oh, and how you find out what is "true"? It's called investigation. If I say I have a time travelling delorean you can that claim is so ridiculous I have to prove it, else it shall be considered "false". If I say my oil cures wrinkes, you can demand to test it scientifically. Why is any of this a question? No matter what the rigthie-whiteies say, their opinions are not the equal of facts.
You mean I can put hot sauce in my eyes when I'm reading Slashdot and I'll see punctuation where I see gibberish? Shut up and take my money!
But FUD ande deceivement is the only way most companies can be competitive, misleading (marketting) and quackery are the corner stone of capitalism itself, if you dont believe me you can search on the internet, specially cable companies, phone companies and pharmaceutical companies.
See subject: Whoever the fool is attempting to "impersonate me" only proves that I've REALLY 'gotten to them' somehow (thanks).
* I am with you on something though - there is a TON of bogus downmoderation but as the saying goes? "When all your opposition has is censorship you've obviously won" (& I am highly against the LOON(s) who shot all those folks up in Vegas - I think it's somekind of falseflag OR an attempt @ further dividing our nation up ala the KING of bogus evil in that capacity, George Soros paying off groups like BLM & Antifa to do so...) - but GUNS DON'T KILL PEOPLE - people do. NO reason to ban guns!
As far as "AssFux" Ash-Fox? That whimp's a weasel who ALWAYS starts w/ me (he's 'butthurt' I've busted him up on tech issues is all that is)...
APK
P.S.=> Provoking weasel reactions like yours is all the satisfaction anyone needs... apk
You're presuming that truth = good, falsehood = bad.
Telling the truth can be bad. Lying can be good. Say you're at a mini-mart and an upset woman runs up to you saying her husband is trying to kill her, then runs into the bathroom. Then an angry man runs in holding a knife screaming, "where is that bitch, I'm gonna kill her." Do you tell him the truth? Or do you deliberately mislead him by lying, and say she ran out the back door?
Speaking the truth or lying does not necessarily correlate to good/bad. Your intent in saying what you say does - whether you're trying to help or harm. Unfortunately, intent is something internal to your mind. You can guess what another person's intent probably is, and in rare cases you can eliminate any other possibility and infer their true intent. But most of the time you can't be sure. And basing legality or punishment on something that most of the time you can't be sure of is just setting up your system for all kinds of trouble.
Take the anti-vaccination movement for example. It's based on statistical error (emphasizing single anecdotes over overall trends) or logical error (believing the testimony of a famous celebrity unskilled in the field over the testimony of a non-famous expert in the field). I would dearly love to ban it from the Internet. But if we set that precedent, what if some time in the future the conspiracy theory becomes true and the government is pacifying the population with mind-altering drugs under the guise of vaccination? Your well-intentioned ban in favor of the truth has then set a precedent allowing a misleading falsehood to be presented as the truth, and the actual truth suppressed.
The more I think about it, the more strongly I feel that banning is not the answer. Educating the populace is, so most of them will not make the aforementioned errors. Yeah we're never going to convince 100% of the people that vaccines are good. But 99% should be good enough for most purposes. And I really don't think the tradeoff in future potential abuse is worth it just to get that final 1% to comply.
The fundamental premise behind Democracy is that The People are on average smart enough to usually make the right decision. If you feel we need policies which deprive The People of the right to make those decisions, then you're basically admitting The People aren't smart enough to make the right decision, and thus Democracy doesn't work. (I can actually seen an argument for a benevolent oligarchy being better than democracy. But if you're going to argue for that, then don't even bother with the pretense of pretending to support freedom of speech.)
what about tesla?
Electric chair.
Speech is free if the authorities will not censure the speaker.
False advertising is sometimes censured, so it is either not free (conservative) or partially free (risky).
A better question is, should false advertising be free?
So the question -- is peddling this stuff online really "free speech"? You are promising something grandiose in exchange for hard cash that you know doesn't deliver any benefits at all.
That's the wrong question - because any claim that there is ANY subset of speech that is NOT free speech pitches you over the cliff and onto the slippery slope:
* If there is a non-free subset of speech it's allegedly OK to restrict it.
* But that opens the can of worms: How - and by whom - is this subset defined?
* Answer to that is, of course, government. But government has an incentive to suppress speech that is inconvenient for it.
* The most inconvenient speech for government, of course, is speech that exposes wrongdoing by its officials, exposes systematic abuses of power, and organizes opposition to those in power - either the individuals or the system itself.
* So the arbiters of what is non-free speech suppress THAT. And suppressing THAT is what the whole prohibition on interfering with speech is supposed to prevent.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Truth in advertising and publishing is a different issue to tax avoidance. Certainly both are motivated by self interest however taxation is already defined in legalisation.
Your reference to "companies do so everyday by actively evading paying their fair share of taxes" isn't (illegal) tax evasion but your opinion. To resolve (legal) tax avoidance you need to (1) write simpler laws which (2) levy tax on corporate income without (3) penalising saving and investment. Finally (4) either (a) employ extra-jurdisial taxation (as the US does with their citizens living overseas) or (b) eliminate the tax havens zero tax policies (through negotiation, mutual treaties or a trade embargo).
What is your opinion.
Regards Sinesurfer A Nerd is someone who lives for technology, A Geek is someone who lives for technology and loves it
But are other things the equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theatre?
Did you know that the "(falsely) cry fire in a crowded theatre" argument was coined by Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. - in a Supreme Court opinion (for Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47 (1919)) that it was legal to suppress such speech?
Did you know the speech in question was printing and distributing pamphlets opposing the draft for WW I?
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
didn't law and order have an episode about this once? Or maybe it was L.A. Law. Or Matlock, or Perry Mason, or Magnum P.I. I'm sure the non-misleading people that made those shows, and CSI never had intent to mislead about anything. Or the FBI with fingerprint evidence.
Or chameleons. Or stick bugs.
Jesus, everybody and everything lies and misleads. Except for Jesus. And me in the last paragraph.
Free speech does not mean that anyone can say anything at anytime. It means that the government cannot suppress some forms of speech sometimes. Some forms of speech are definitely banned like hate speech, incitation to crime, divulgation of intellectual property, and many others. Peddlers of false cures are not protected by free speech but could be brought to justice under the heading of Truth in Advertising. See Tina.org
you only have to look at comments called out as shills or downvoted to oblivion for when they legitimately comment something that differs from the group think
I completely agree, people use moderation to silence dissenting opinions. This is why I opted out of the moderation thing a long time ago.
This does not compute. Is the cause for your opting out:
-cynicism?
-not wanting to participate in evil?
-an acknowledgement that you would do it too?
It's never ending, isn't it... the cries of the controlled media, trying to silence the masses...
Trying to STOP somebody from shouting 'Fire!' when there IS a fire in a theatre is much worse than somebody yelling 'Fire!' when there isn't...
And that's exactly what the mainstream media is trying to do - stop us from shouting 'Fire!' while they burn our country down...
Religious nutters have been misleading the gullible for millennia. They are also protected in the constitution of most countries.
If you mean by âoefree speechâ , there should not be censorship of it by the government prior to publishing , then yes, itâ(TM)s free speech.
In most countries there are limits on free speech , or at least whilst the speaking may be free, that does not protect you from the consequences of that speech.
Telling untruths for personal financial gain, is not regarded as free speech, it usually classified as fraud (or something similar in terms of criminality). In some areas, the law is even more specific / constrained and healthcare is one where certain claims require approval from a regulatory body.
The US has pretty weak consumer protection, and this might not hold true in the US. It also has major issues with industry lobbying influencing policy & policy enforcement , that arenâ(TM)t quite as prevalent in many other places.
The other thing about persistent bullshit claims for magic beans curing X, is the constant gaslighting of the population makes it harder for them to distinguish film flam from actual marketing , and it can really skew peopleâ(TM)s expectations , leading to bad decisions. So it can be kind of a slow burn , trampled to death because someone yelled âoefireâ.
Iâ(TM)m not sure who the origin of the quote is , but itâ(TM)s probably necessery in this context:
Q Do you know what they call alternative medicine that is evidence based, and backed up by science and clinical testing ?
A âoemedicineâ
the reason why we have liberty and free speech is because nobody can be trusted. our system bets that in the messy chaos of adversarial dialectic, we head towards a better outcome.
But you certainly can be held accountable.
I ...
I have no idea if this is an extremely serendipitous random spam post, or expert tongue-in-cheek humor.
-=This sig has nothing to do with my comment. Move along now=-
Look at TATA Group, as an example to refute your assertion. TATA Group is massive conglomerate under the umbrella of a charitable organization, TATA Sons. There is absolutely no reason why any company needs to actively work against the interests of society and most people. Rather, it's the culture in which that capitalism is manifested that will determine how that capitalism is shaped and used.
Fix the culture, fix corporate responsibility, and fix the socio-political environment in which those corporations exist, and you find that bending consumers over and raping them through the pants isn't inevitable.
It's no surprise when a new target-for-compatiblity becomes concerned, as history has demonstrated that by introducing compatibility, Microsoft will break that compatibility when it feels the time is right to get customers to migrate to Microsoft off of whatever previous software they used, and the cycle repeats.
This isn't unique to Microsoft though, and is seen throughout the industry not as 'nefariousness' just what makes good business strategy at any point in time.
When you're the underdog, you want people to switch to your offering, and as such software compatibility makes that easy. If you're successful and become top dog, you want to stop people leaving which you can do by ensuring your software compatibility is as hard as possible to replicate elsewhere.
Microsoft is certainly guilty of this, but imo its just the way business is. You don't give your competitors a level playing field unless someone makes you.
Next question.
Deception is fraud, and last I checked this is not protected by free speech.
You can't break this down into a simple abstract social project like "fix society" because you'll never solve the problem.
What about the freedom to write N I G G E R?
I keep hearing this drivel from 'murcans. What is the problem with yelling "fire" is a crowded theater? However else are you supposed to notify everyone that there is a fire in the crowded theater?
then stop with the FUD that portrays those companies as actively working against the interests of society and most people.
All companies will actively work against the interests of society and most people if it is within their own interests to do so. Microsoft & the rest of the big tech companies do so everyday by actively evading paying their fair share of taxes.
It's called the Free Enterprise system. I'm sure I'll be modded down because that's what happens when you post real facts. The fact is even though the Free Enterprise system has a lot of room for improvement, it is the best thing we've come up with so far even in terms of lowering poverty. If you are a college student and you've bothered to take some history and/or economics, you would know this to be the case. If you want to take it to the next level, you should invent a better system and prove why it would work better.
We'll make great pets
Why is everyone talking about advertising? This article isn't talking about false advertising
you only have to look at comments called out as shills or downvoted to oblivion for when they legitimately comment something that differs from the group think
It's called Confirmation Bias. Most people will mod up what confirms their beliefs and mod down what doesn't. Such is human nature. In order for people to be objective, they would have to be able to consider the idea that their beliefs might be wrong. I would call that: Optimism Bias :P
We'll make great pets
"The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations." - Adam Smith
While I think that is true to some extent, it ignores the larger picture. Adam Smith tried to make this free enterprise system appear to be a noble crusade. Let's be frank, it's not. It arose out of necessity. We live and have always lived with scarcity. Resource scarcity and now in modern times, economic scarcity. The system we have today's sole purpose it to manage scarcity. It is not noble, it's just a necessity based on circumstance. Having said that, it's the best thing we've conceived to date to deal with the problem but we should be attempting to move to a system in which this is either highly mitigated or completely unnecessary. While the left and the right continue to spout quotes like this essentially demonizing each other, we are making ZERO progress towards the goal we ought to be collectively pursuing. That is the real TRAGEDY.
We'll make great pets
I’m sorry, this just isn’t true. Companies may work against society as a side effect of doing what is best for the company, but they do not “actively work against society”. They do not have the destruction of society as a business plan. They have making money as a business plan.
Did you ever notice that movies are actually fiction, that they don’t really reflect reality all that well?
Satire is protected speech. Period. Satire is a core method to share politically sensitive speech.
There are already laws against lies as speech/text/advertising. Free speech is protected. Freedom from repercussions of that speech is NOT protected.
In a few (many?) countries, TV ads have a banner across the top of the screen saying they are advertisements, least someone confuse them for facts.
If a company can make more money by poisoning the local water table that it's own employees drink from. Then that is exactly what it will do.
History shows that to be true 100% of the time. Only by introducing regulations and laws to make it more expensive to be dirty rather than clean have companies started doing the right thing. If you need proof of what the do a does had how it affects you that is it. Take a look at any picture of the major us cities in the 1970s vs today. Look at the sky. That foggy scene is air pollution and 40 yards of do a forcing companies to clean up their act has had dramatic improvements to air quality. Let alone water and soil.
100% of companies do not plan to fully clean up after they close down. Not even nuclear power plants whi cu do not have any where near the funds to safely shut down the reactors
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
Stop regulatiing everything.
Want to know what happens when you have or create laws without enforcement or punishment?
A perfect example would be the actions not taken to control, prohibit, or regulate Greed N. Corruption from causing another economic disaster driven by the Banking Industrial Complex. There's nothing to prevent 2008 from happening again.
More laws are fucking worthless without enforcement and punishment. If you don't want to do that, then don't fucking bother wasting time drafting and passing laws and regulations.
The tired old "yelling fire in a theater" has nothing to do with freedom of speech, and everything to do with deliberately putting others in danger, which is obviously unethical whether it comes out of your mouth or otherwise. Using this as a justification to set a precedent against freedom of speech is pretty fucking low.
what about tesla?
Electric chair.
No. it was "invented" by Thomas Edison as part of his efforts to stop the spread of AC.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Commercial speech is not protected. That can be redefined so that 'commercial' includes clickbait, fake news, and the like.
The problem is definition and enforcement. All news outlets are commercial these days save for maybe NPR/Public Television. CNN published some whoppers last election cycle that were not true, how do you punish them? Fines when articles are proven untrue? OK, but how untrue is untrue? What if they got one small bit of a larger true story wrong? How sensationalistic can headlines be before running afoul? Do 'satire' sites like Onion or HardTimes get a pass?
Once 'defined' then how do you enforce it? Is it criminal or civil? Do we now enlist an army of 'truth police?'
It's a thorny issue...
Here’s one for ya: is deliberately misleading people on national news free speech?
The FDA is not in the game is regulating if only safe and effective products can be on the market. Look at psych drugs for example. The companies market the drugs in a very similar fashion as the TC has seen products not FDA approved marketed. What I have noticed about the medical industry is it's all snake oils and magic bullets, for profit. When I was a child they showed videos in elementary school on this issue, highlighting medicine in the 1800s, which consistent of people marketing hocus pocus. Alleged doctors would go around looking for "sick" people to cure, they might only dose the person with some morphine or other deadly chemical cocktail, the previously bedridden individual would then be shown as up and walking and the doctor proclaimed he was "cured." Then days later, the kid drops dead, highlighting the snake oil/magic bullet industry. Other techniques included performing surgeries that actually seriously harmed the individual, leaving them in veggie state and whatnot, ie cutting nerves or brain up (lobotomy). The individual would be a walking zombie of their performer self, proclaimed as cured, then deaths often ensued. Removal of organs and other abuses also occurred.
Today the industry funnily operates the exact same way. Companies look for chemicals or surgeries they can market as cures, and they train themselves to perform those "treatments" but in reality, most of the treatments don't work and aren't treatment. A handful are, such as bacterial killing agents, fungus killing agents, virus killing agents, but others such as "heart burn treatments" do more harm than good. Pain relief are prescribed to people who have only minor pain and don't need any chemical for it. A person might have a surgery to remove an organ or tissue that was healthy, to treat a specific problem, which then leads to other disabilities and malfunctions because the person actually really needed that organ or tissue even if there was some underlining disorder the doctor had attributed to the organ or tissue. I read a dreaded case of this happening to a women in UK recently.
Back to the case of psych drugs - the largest snake oil/magic bullet farce industry around with purely fictional marketing for every drug on the market, they market the drugs as treating schizophrenia/anxiety/bipolar/depression, however the industries own studies prove the drugs don't even begin to treat these issues, kill over 500,000+ elderly annually, reduce 25 years average from the persons life, kill 1 in 2 to 1 in 3, reduce recovery rates from 80% for none drug users to 5% to drug users, induce 75,000 heart attacks annually and prevent survival during those attacks, cause 15 times more suicide than reported by the industry, cause severe brain damage/vein swelling/scar tissue build up in the brain/fluid build up in the brain/etc, induce violence and suicides, are nothing but petroleum byproducts being spun as treatments, etc. The studies going back decades prove that alternative none drug based treatments work better, such as psychotherapy, or even giving the person money to procure housing and other basic needs. Doctors in the mental health field typically diagnose mental illness falsely, when in reality the person is suffering from other issues like poverty and political matters that have caused them
Is deliberately misleading people on the internet free speech? Just because something happens on the internet does not make it a new phenomenon. It's still advertising, just like that in everything from billboards to bus benches, glossy magazines to the newspaper classified ads. Learn not to be a sucker. How do you learn not to be a sucker? Either by being one or watching someone else be one. Hopefully you won't stay one.
You can already nail people for lying about things. All you have to do is prove in a court of law that they knowingly lied about something and those lies led to material damages to other people.
If you can't prove that, then you literally have no case.
Either because you can't prove someone knew they were lying.
Or because whatever they were lying about didn't actually matter because you can't show that the lies lead to any kind of actual damages in the "material universe".. aka... nothing fucking happened.
But sure... we'll just remove the freedom of speech even though you can't prove someone is lying and/or can't show that there were any damaging effects.
This is a call for tyranny. Here some complete fuckwit is going to say something along the lines of "but I saw something I disagreed with on the internet!"... I disagree with you... so can I silence you? I wouldn't because I believe in freedom, but apparently some people think they're entitled to act like thugs.
Listen children, this goes where you think you want it and its as likely to end with you getting dropped out of helicopters as it is me getting muzzled.
Kindly act like civil citizens and argue out your position in the market place of ideas like everyone else. If you can't compete... consider that you might just be wrong, have bad ideas, or be too socially inept to make a coherent argument. Which ever way it goes... if you fail there, then politics isn't your game. Here you might think "then I have to get violent"... Please help me rid my society of people like you by going violent. I'm tired of listening to this totalitarian fan fiction.
If you want to live in a tyrannical society then move to one. Why do you idiots have to fuck up every society that is half way decent? We have a first amendment.
If you want to change it, then you're going to need a 75 percent majority vote to change the constitution. It isn't going to happen.
Get over it.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Not just in taxes and politics, marketing is at its core influencing, and influencing is deception. If influencing were not deception, it would be the fair and balanced presentation of all known facts, backed up by diligent and unbiased thorough research. While much marketing takes on the appearance of a fair and balanced presentation of all known facts, the fact is: those "facts" and their presentation are biased to the benefit of the employer, if they're not, the marketers are not doing their job (serving the share holders) to the best of their ability. Marketers are retained based on performance, and the marketers who perform the best are the ones who influence customers to the benefit of the company.
Free market + free speech = freedom to deceive.
Is Deliberately Misleading People On the Internet Free Speech?
Yes .... but I might be misleading you
*deception
You mean I can put hot sauce in my eyes when I'm reading Slashdot and I'll see punctuation where I see gibberish? Shut up and take my money!
It's a cure for the gibberish you were seeing. You won't see it any more. No express promise of editorial improvement was made. Try my new product! It's a miracle cure for Cancer! No one who takes 1 gram a day for two weeks straight has ever died from cancer.
Note, there may be a spike in cyanide related deaths, at about whatever rate the LD for 1,000mg/day of cyanide is.
People like to wax poetic about free speech and freedom of speech, but most people don't understand it nor have ever researched what it is, and how it differs from anarchy and chaos.
First of all, there is no free speech in private spaces. Whenever you are using a social media service, blog commenting system, internet forum, webpage hosted by a provider, among several other spaces on the Internet your speech is limited to what has been stipulated on terms of services, policies and other contracts that you agreed to when you opened an account.
It's always been this way, and this won't change. If you think you have some right to free speech in some service you are using on the Internet, you are wrong.
The concept of Freedom of Speech was created for, and applies strictly to public spaces. It was created to preserve the rights of people and journalists to criticize the government, period. It is in good standards for democratic societies in general, and private companies in these societies tries to follow the idea as close as possible, but it is not guaranteed.
On the other hand, a whole metric ton of laws were made involving speech to bar everything from human rights violations to general prejudice, hatred, targeting, unjust enrichment, among others. In fact, most democratic countries in the world today have specific laws against racism, prejudice against minorities, symbols related to parties and ideologies with historial ties to hatred and prejudice, incitation to hatred, among others. US is kind of an outlier in this because there are grey areas in law, but a white supremacist in most countries would end up in jail depending on their public attitude.
Particularly for ads and offers of products and services the law is already there. False advertising applies to miracle cures and diets. The problem is on monitoring and application of the law, as well as exploitation of loopholes in law.
It is impossible to monitor and punish everyone that comes up with bullshit on the Internet, the solution for that is critical reasoning and a society that is better educated and better apt to detect bullshit and better select their sources. The problem here is not what is permissible in society as a whole, the problem is people who keeps promoting, reading content, and using sources that has blatantly lied in the past, continues spewing crap without any basis, build their discourse on bullshit, and keeps being supported by ignorant masses who cannot take minutes of their time to properly research what they are swallowing whole.
We cannot expect every social network to monitor and classify everything their users put up on a daily basis. It's not humanly possible. I don't think people realize how many posts, videos and photos are uploaded every minute on these social networks... here's an approximation from 4 years ago:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sci...
We're talking about hundreds of thousands of posts every minute on Facebook. Close to 100 hours of video on YouTube. 300 blog posts on Wordpress alone. 500 new websites. Every minute of every single day.
There are not enough people in the world to curate all this, so these companies need to use algorithms, which will never be perfect for the job. In fact, for them to be even close to good they'd need to be running on a computational level close to a human brain, which we are still far far faaaaar away from achieving.
The rush against fake news, spam, neo nazis, hate speech, and all the stuff that has been sensationalized just recently has always been there on some level. It's the whole problem of having few news sources that can be heavily scrutinized and monitored versus everyone being a potential source of information.
And all the stuff social network companies have been doing recently is all welcome, but it's also at most a stop gap solution. No matter how much
Long-time Slashdot reader apraetor counters, "But how do you determine what is 'true'?"
Red flag! Post-truth nonsense! We have science and live in an objective reality.
But are other things the equivalent of yelling "fire" in a crowded movie theatre?
You mean completely legal speech?
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
Yes motherfuckers, it is. Same on the internet. It ain't pretty, but humanity never was. The results of freedom are not just a function of freedom, but the total sum of people exercising it. News at 11.
Please stop referencing the it's illegal to yell fire in a crowded theater out of date BS. http://civil-liberties.yoexper..."fire"-in-a-crowded-theater-19421.html
OMG Ponies!!! with Glitter!!!! I miss Pink
Hmm, TATA Group, TCS is TATA Groups main moneymaker. And they make money by exploiting Indian IT worker and the H1B system.
Very charitable ...
I believe you failed to mention the theft of intellectual property when Microsoft hired David Cutler and his VMS team to write critical parts of Windows NT. That theft was part of the downfall of DEC. It was coupled with the wholesale theft of their hardware designs to create the Pentium chip.
The solution here is not to have government censorship of this garbage but have a populous educated enough to know it's bullshit. These types of ads should only work on such a small segment of the population that they are not profitable.
Same thing with propaganda that's not being filtered by news aggregation sites like facebook and google, the solution is not to try and police it but teach people to recognize it.
I've found whenever the count of reviews gets into the 100's, it's a good bet that the product has had lots of eyes and hands on it. The Amazon system us far better than almost any store, save a (fictional) store owner who both moves tons of product and is completely open and honest.
So with that review system, the truth in advertising doesn't really matter. The crowd will vote.
If you're dumb enough to buy from an internet ad, shame in you.
People need to stop using the "yell fire in a theatre" as some sort of delimiter of the first amendment. It is not part of any law and merely a comment made in a case by Holmes, a justice that later stated he was wrong and it is still protected speech. That said, these ads are fraud and illegal for that reason.
They generate jobs and employment, as well as put out products that are useful. Think about running a business without Excel for spreadsheet work, or Word for documents? Without Microsoft, we would be still using pencils and doing double-entry bookkeeping on ledgers.
In the past, this was rectified by revoking corporate charters.
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=1810
If scamming were free speech, then every single law against fraud is unconstitutional.
The irony is that the post itself sounds like advocating scamming.
Wrong. Without Microsoft we would have some other software to do those things. We might even have multiples, like in the 90s, with people complaining about multiple formats, etc. Inefficient? Relatively maybe. Though it was better for employment. Actual competition always is.
I just look up anything that is new information presented to me and try to find corroboration and objective proof. If I can't find that, I just mark it as untrustworthy by default.
The way this is framed, this is a false advertising issue. And on top of it, it's also a drug/food/supplement issue, which falls under the FDA (in the USA). Zero to do with free speech.
It would have been a much more interesting conversation to look at if it were about political speech and the way politicians blatantly spread misinformation and known bullshit in an attempt to either sway public opinion, or drum up emotional response among their base. Is that actually free speech, or is there a point where public lies outside of the world of fiction (which admittedly our politicians tread into on a near daily basis) should be shut-down and perhaps cause actual legal problems for the liar?
THAT would be a real conversation. This is just someone whining that most people are too stupid to see through blatant false advertising.
The interests of society and most people, are not equivalent to the goals of most companies. Especially Tech companies.
There interest often our, to
a) make money
b) increase market share
c) appease stock-holders
If there's any aspect of the interests of society, or most people, it is often a requirement born from regulation.
I won't deny, tech companies often do try and 'guide' technology so as to benefit society and themselves, but I'm not kidding myself that ANY of them have societies best interests moving forward, with regard to any specific topic of tech.
As someone who is pro-Capitalism, and recognize that America does NOT invest fully in Capitalist behavior, there is quite a bit of irony stating there is any sort of altruism going on, when it comes to Tech companies in the US.
What you're referring to, in that specific regard, is VERY GOOD marketing!
The question is, do you recognize it as that? It would appear not.
what about tesla?
Electric chair.
No. it was "invented" by Thomas Edison as part of his efforts to stop the spread of AC.
A harsh but fair way of dealing with Anonymous Cowards.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
If Microsoft software was high quality, bug-free, security-hole-free...
Please cite any software more complicated than "hello world" that meets those criteria.
Also, why doesn't literally every other software maker have to meet those requirements.
I'm sorry, but you're just making this up based on your beliefs. You feel these statements must be true, so they are to you.
As for your "proof" being hazy skies, let me tell you, they're waay better than they were back in the 50's and 60's. I remember driving around L.A. as a kid with my eyes burning and tears running down my face because of the smog. Sure, there's still smog, but it's nothing like then - proving your "proof" to be wrong.
That is it really.
It's called the Free Enterprise system.
The problem with the" Free Enterprise system" is that almost all of its proponents/defenders are working hard to prevent competition. Free Enterprise has come to mean monopolistic/duopolistic abuses, often achieved by governmental license such as in telecommunications. Yes, I'm all for true Free Enterprise, I'd like to see it in the US. But unchecked, unregulated, predatory capitalism has nothing to do with real Free Enterprise.
You didn't check very hard or at all.
Deception is not fraud. Fraud may involve deception, but not all kinds of deception is fraud. Your post consist of a deception - you are misleading people with the statements you made. It is however not fraud, and is still free speech.
He might be but I'm not. I have first hand experience with a corporation that chose to pollute and take the fine rather than do the right thing. It was cheaper for them to just pay the fine.
What can you really expect. We haven't held corporations to civilized standards for DECADES. We expect and encourage them to SCREW EVERYONE except the almighty stockholder. This isn't just a matter of shareholder lawsuits, it's a prevailing cultural expectation.
THAT ship sailed a long time ago and it shows no sign of coming back into port.
These days you pretty much have to threaten a lawsuit just to get them to do what they promised or what they're expected to do by law.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Used DEFLECTION. It's not very effective.
Plenty of businesses have ditched Microsoft's particular brand of spreadsheet and word processor. There is nothing special about either. Microsoft didn't invent either one or even make a terribly good one.
The idea that you "need" their brand of a 30 year old solved problem is support for the basic destructiveness of the modern corporation.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Yeah, it sounds nice but it's like rainbow unicorn ponies. It's a myth. The problem with capitalism is humanity. You can't impose some sort of alternative "monopoly" without having all of the problems the "evils of capitalism".
If anything, things will be worse due to the failures of centralization, the inability of all systems to scale, and the vulnerability of human systems to corruption.
Capitalism suffers when it gets too centralized. None of the proposed alternatives avoid this. They typically embrace it instead.
"I burned my hand on the stove. Why don't I set the rest of myself on fire."
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
As CEO of Facebook has said (I paraphrase): "It's income; why should I bother vetting is as to source or truthfulness???"
etalentnetwork.com they are good at misleading.
Whenever income can be increased irrespective of the harm done to the customer, Capitalism shows its' darkest side. We need Federal agencies like CFPB and FDA (among others) to have even stronger rules and enforcement powers...which will never happen so long as those businesses consider their income more important than citizens' and customers' needs and satisfaction. (Yea, I'm lookin' at YOU, Wells Fargo, and the NRA.),
AC, indeed; only a Coward would respond with such an idiotic idiom
To scared to own your own pathetic attempt at humor?
I've read through some of the comments (but not all) and this may have been covered somewhere else. I think in order to discuss the concept of free speech it would be helpful to understand the official definition from the courts. So I found this, http://www.uscourts.gov/about-....
tl;dnr
Free speech does not mean you get to say anything you want without consequences. It also doesn't mean you can't get fired for speaking freely. What it does mean is "Congress shall make no law...abridging freedom of speech". If a company makes false claims then you as the consumer have the right to sue them. If they claim medical benefits that are unsubstantiated they must declare them noticeably. For example if you buy an herbal supplement from the store it usually says something to the effect of "not validated by the FDA". If they don't say that then they must be held accountable. The same thing goes for politicians, they must be held accountable.
I'd call it lying, not free speech, and say they should shut down. Simple as that.
I believe you failed to mention the theft of intellectual property when Microsoft hired David Cutler and his VMS team to write critical parts of Windows NT. That theft was part of the downfall of DEC. It was coupled with the wholesale theft of their hardware designs to create the Pentium chip.
IIRC, DEC sidelined David Cutler's project and were planning to close his West Coast R&D office. Under those circumstances, DEC shot themselves in the foot by being unable to retain top talent.
Source: Showstopper!: The Breakneck Race to Create Windows NT and the Next Generation at Microsoft
... because freedom of speech is that you get to say something and the federal government can't arrest you.
Perhaps a better headline would be: "Ask Slashdot: Is Deliberately Misleading People On the Internet Deceptive Practice?
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
4chan shall be mandatory for a period not less than 3yrs such that gullibility is no longer an internet issue
Am I the only one who remembers this?
Religious leaders sure hope that it won't change, else it would be illegal to promote any religion (how can any religion be right, if they are all distincts?). And then, if it's not legal on the internet, why should it be anywhere else ?
The problem with the" Free Enterprise system" is that almost all of its proponents/defenders are working hard to prevent competition. Free Enterprise has come to mean monopolistic/duopolistic abuses, often achieved by governmental license such as in telecommunications. Yes, I'm all for true Free Enterprise, I'd like to see it in the US. But unchecked, unregulated, predatory capitalism has nothing to do with real Free Enterprise.
Just because the "Free Enterprise system" isn't as free as you'd prefer doesn't mean that wasn't the intention. And like I said, it is quite flawed. Even Milton Friedman admitted that. But it's better than any other system in history in terms of results even reducing poverty. That's a fact. If you want to dispute this claim, by all means provide the evidence. If you don't like it, you build a better system. If it were THAT easy to arrive at utopia, don't you think we'd already be there? We're iterating. You are part of human progress. It is a torch that is passed from generation to generation. To think that the world was supposed to be your oyster is quite naive. We all learn this eventually.
We'll make great pets
It's just someone who wants to check whether his DDoS protection is working.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
One important distinction here is that commercial speech is different legally than non-commercial speech.
Stating your incorrect opinions about Microsoft (as long as it isn't falling into libel) is generally non-commercial speech, so you're free to express those opinions. By contrast, being deceptive about what a product you're selling is commercial speech and isn't going to be subject to the same protections.
I don't think you'd find many people who think commercial fraud is protected speech.
tl/dr:
We've had since September to come up with one and still ain't figured it out. So, let's start with you.
----------------------
There oughta be a law against clickbait? Which is legally defined as...?
OK, so what does that get you? Let's say it (clickbait) is "distracting and not true". Let's assume we can legally define those things. That means that government (at least the one where I live) now can make a law "...abridging..." it. Completely absurd assumptions, but that's the 'discussion' you asked for, so fine, then--what if there was a law?
How 'bout we start with agents provocateur that drag up an endlessly discussed topic without adding *anything new* and invite the community to "leave your best thoughts". It does run up the numbers. So your plan goes like this, does it? "Let's threaten our readership--who let's face it--tends to think of ourselves as intellectually independent with an authority that will tell them what they can read. Push their buttons; watch them feed the ratings."
So, yeah--if you think there oughta be a law, let's start with you. Delete your clickbait topic. It ain't news, it ain't for nerds, and it doesn't matter.
I also don't like clickbait, but I'm feeding the troll here--even by calling him out as a troll.
My decision certainly looks stupid or hypocritical at least one other person. It may look stupid to someone else called me-1-day-from-now.
But...it is *my* decision.
"Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away." - Philip K. Dick
For hundreds of years now politicians and regular people have been doing the same... why is it any different online? Simply because a wider audience can see it? Isn't that the point? Historically one would need to travel around to spread their lies... now they can do it from a chair.. is it more dangerous? did they ask this question when they went from traveling by covered wagon to the steam engine train, automobile, or airplane???
Among others, Thomas Paine published work(s) anonymously. Precisely to avoid the consequences of his presumably very illegal speech.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Sense_(pamphlet)
And the point here is that sometimes it's not the seller that's making the claims. They use all sorts of subterfuge and hire people to make fake blogs talking about how great it is. Thus they can claim they never advertised it fraudulently. If you can't trace the money trail back to the company, then the "blogger" should be liable. Of course they would be free to turn on the company that hired them - which would be better justice than going after the writer.
Not companies.... Everybody does, and without exception, there isn't a person who won't.
No!
Doing things like defrauding people out of their money, or publishing a pamphlet explaining why America should declare independence from Britain, having a rally at the National Mall to demand equal rights, writing your Congressperson to say that you want them to vote against an evil bill, or praying to Juiblex -- all these things are just speech.
Free speech is all about having the ability to do these things, without the government using force to stop you. Free speech isn't about who is speaking or what they're saying; Free speech is about how society organizes to suppress (or abstain from suppressing) someone else's speech.
As it happens, Americans tend to prefer (or at least say they prefer) for speech to be free, but we do make exceptions. In my previous list, the fraud example would be one where Americans are generally in favor of preventing speech from being "too free."
These days you pretty much have to threaten a lawsuit just to get them to do what they promised or what they're expected to do by law.
And even when you do, good luck with that.
To say nothing of the "reputable" medical journals you linked to, I'll just say that most modern chemical products are "petroleum byproducts" simply petroleum refinement provides convenient building blocks in great abundance.
Either we regulate it, or we are doomed to repeat history.
Most people expect to read real information without many distractions and without critically thinking about it. 10 years ago, when the Washington Post had a story, people took it as the gospel. They were held to very high standards by the government. The 'click-bait-ad-revenue' + the internet, changed everything. Tabloid papers were just that, tabloids. People knew when they read them to take everything with a grain of salt, knew it was gossipy crap, and kept it there. The majority of people (95%) didn't believe purple aliens were living inside people.
Today, all of this is mixed. People don't have time to separate it all, and people are getting taken for a ride non-stop. There is so much fiction, and questioning of reality, that most folks are ingesting 50% tabloid news.
This is clearly not good for us as a society. We do not need to drag ourselves through the same exercises we have done over and over since the beginning of writing. We know the outcome. War on every level.
At a minimum we need vetted information, and those news sites need to be certifiable news cites with real news. The editors need to be held accountable, and so do the outlets. There needs to be oversight committees on this. Yes, this system will get abused, but that abuse will be much less than the abuse we are all subject to daily. Its tiring reading the internet anymore.
So what exactly are you proposing? I haven't seen anyone on this thread advocate anything other than applying regulations where needed. As best I can tell, your post is in reply to a figure of straw who advocated for Soviet-style Communism.
If the powers that be can make you think the only two options are communism and anarcho-capitalism, that works out very well for them. I did see you advocate for regulation elsewhere in this thread, but why did you first feel the need to write the Capitalist Manifesto at the mere mention of corporate irresponsibility? I'm sensing a touch of cognitive dissonance bubbling up under that ideological inflexibility.
Says that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. It does not say "except when we disagree with the speaker"
I don't believe that all speech is equal. In particular, any form of paid speech is, by definition, subject to forces that extend well beyond the focus, intent, and nature of the speech itself.
Personally, I don't believe that freedom of speech protections should apply to any form of advertisement or paid political announcements. Any entity endorsed or sponsored by any other entity should not, IMHO, be under freedom of speech protections regards any speech involving the sponsor or original source of funding.
I work for Hapco. Therefore, any speech I make regards Hapco should be subject to reduced protections, IMHO.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
Careful. Real facts can be interpreted many different ways. However, while free enterprise certainly has resulted in economic growth, it is difficult to know if it was simply "better" than other potential options. Consider that Adam Smith, author of The Wealth of Nations stated that any capitalist system would need regulation or it would spin wildly out of control. We allow corporations to shield investors from liability on the principle that this encourages economic growth. We allow the concept of the corporation to promote the general welfare of society. If you're going to wade into a debate about corporations, let's make sure we're honest about the debate.
and get thrown in jail.
Satire is free speech. But if reputable news groups fabricate information, that should be punishable. News groups can destroy lives with false reporting.
Bad User. No biscuit!
If people are so stupid as to give money to someone advertising a cancer cure, much less 'anti-aging' creams on the Internet then they deserve everything they get. It is not societies job to save stupid people from themselves. Hell, with respect to 'anti-aging creams', there's a whole market of products marketed at women advertised to make them 'look & feel younger'. The latter may have better marketing teams such that they don't necessarily say they are 'anti-aging' creams but seriously...who are they trying to kid really?
Exercise equipment that costs thousands of dollars will make you supposedly 'ripped/toned/best looking person since Angelina Jolie' in 'only 15 minute daily workouts'...ok, maybe they don't say they'll make you the best looking person since Angelina Jolie, but they advertise using already extremely well toned & healthy individuals as if YOU will get those results too.
Everyone wants 'quick fixes', until something is scientifically proven to provide such things, its all just a marketing game to steal your dollars, if you fall for it, that's YOUR fault.
Luckily socialists, communist etc countries would never hurt their populations. Such perfect places!.
What do you propose as a better solution?
It would be nice if we could impose a rule saying "no remuneration for moderation", but that would require quite intrusive collection of information. I can't think of any other improvement that doesn't horrendously complicate things. If that weren't a problem, then I'd like each tag to be a score in a separate dimension, and for people to be able to select for things like:
order by funny * 5 + interest *4 + insightful * 9 - disagree * 1 AND omit if troll > 3 or flamebait > 1
The thing is, while that might be better, in some ways, it would be a lot more complex, and not necessarily any more likely to yield true results.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Oh, how do you "fix" culture? What's your definition? Hope it aligns with mine so we can hang.
I’m sure this is true, and I’m sure it’s not an isolated case. However, that is a long way from “every corporation is actively working against the interests of society”.
There's no standard definition of "free speech". Morally speaking, it means whatever you want it to. Everyone gets to claim they're exercising free speech, and everyone else gets to disagree with them, and no one is right. But legally speaking, laws and courts in different countries have defined it different ways, and those definitions almost never come down to, "the right to say anything you want, in any context, without restriction." It's not that yelling fire in a crowded theater is a form of free speech we restrict. It simply is not an exercise of free speech. Freedom of speech does not include the right to harm people by saying things you know are false. When the government punishes you for doing it, they aren't limiting your freedom of speech in any way. They're punishing you for doing something that (according to the law) is not free speech.
Here's how Webster defines freedom of speech: "the legal right to express one's opinions freely". dictionary.com calls it: "the right of people to express their opinions publicly without governmental interference, subject to the laws against libel, incitement to violence or rebellion, etc." According to Wikipedia it means: "the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction." Notice what all of those have in common. Freedom of speech is the right to express your opinions (and ideas and beliefs). If you honestly believe something, you have the right to say it (though we sometimes might restrict that right if it conflicts with other rights). But if you don't believe something and you intentionally lie to hurt someone or con them out of their money, that's not free speech.
"I'm too busy to research this and form an educated opinion, but I do have time to tell everyone my uninformed opinion."
Imagine a future where lying is illegal and denying that 6 million Jews were holocausted is also illegal. Artificial intelligence is doomed.
Here is a little heuristic to use when looking at claims online (regardless of content):
If it's too good to be true, assume that it is not true.
Be skeptical about anything important to you - but more importantly seek out the truth for those things that you care about. And I'm talking about objective scientific truth - not what your cousin down the street told you, because he has a friend of a friend who works in the top secret facility where they are making the Soylent Green....
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
That city haze didn't come from corporation polluting. It came from cars...driven by everyday citizens. Stop blaming companies for things they have no over.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
Condition the reader by presenting them with a biased into to the poll, then expect the kind of answers you were polling for.
Done all the time. The most recent outstanding example were the polls predicting that Hillary had 90% of the vote locked up.
Speech is not free if someone else can tell you what you can and cannot say and back it up with the authority ot punish you for violating THEIR rules.
"
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an (1) establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or (2) abridging the freedom of speech, or (3) of the press; or the right of the people (4) peaceably to assemble, and to (5) petition the government for a redress of grievances."
Remember, the 1st Amendment enumerates FIVE freedoms. If free speech isn't free then neither are the other four.
Running with Linux for over 20 years!
More critical thinking is required, not less speech
Sandy Hook happened just how officials explained it. Honest to God truth.
We used to have additional modifiers to add/remove points based on the category, so people would do things like make Funny posts -5 points so they could skip the jokes.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
If you know it's a lie, then it's not an exercise of free speech. For consumer issues, it's a crime. For personal issues, there's no law aganst being a dick, but hopefully people will see that for what it is and, as XKCD stated, "Showing [them] the door."
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
Before anyone cries "free speech must always be free," let me qualify the question. Under a myriad of different internet sites and blogs are these click-through adverts that promise...
Dude, ALL advertising is built upon the basis of misleading bullshit and a sack of lies built with the goal of separating you from your money. There is no need to add the little quantifier of "on the internet".
Is deliberately misleading people Free Speech? Annoyingly yes. Because if the powers that be deem your speech to be "Not True"(tm) then they can silence whomever they wish. And THAT leads to sociological issues. The sort where it all burns down.
The concept of "bu bu but people COULD DIE" isn't nearly convincing enough to override* sovereignty issues. People poison and kill themselves through ignorance all the time. That's not a reason to take away people's ability to participate in civic duties.
*I wish I could use the term "trump" as a verb, but sadly the term has been... overridden.
. . . And what is this comment-bait doing on slashdot?
Isn't that the perhaps of this website?
The courts have, in the past, allowed Fox to lie like a rug over the airwaves.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
And there's a moderation system here, theoretically designed to judge the quality of speech without actually restricting it
They subverted the /. moderation system just fine during the election.
As near as I can tell, they had hordes of new-ish user accounts that had just enough rep to randomly get access to the moderation system. The non-mod accounts posted pro-Putin (and incidentally Trump) propaganda (almost all from suspiciously high UIDs), and the mod accounts upvoted them and downvoted anybody saying anything else. The only way I knew our typical posters were talking about the Russians at all is from the upvoted posts from new users ridiculing the idea.
The moderation system here I think works pretty good, when not attacked by state-level actors.
Complain to the /. editors about UTF-8 support. It's 2017, even Perl has had UTF-8 support for a few decades.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
But pushing on your point, any blogger can say anything they want about any product. You can't have a company liable for third party speech, good or bad, it would be too easy to punish anyone you want simply by having a third party say good things and then suing them for false advertising. All you can do about that is educate better so that people can assess the veracity of a claim.
Custom electronics and digital signage for your business: www.evcircuits.com
Depending on how meta-moderation is used, it could be a valuable check on abuse of community moderation. Already on slashdot, you don't get moderator points unless you've established sufficient "karma" for yourself somehow, and you don't have moderator points all the time. If "unfair moderation" votes aren't an automatic karma-killer, but are a flag for someone to look at how that individual is moderating, and maybe nuke their karma if they're moderating abusively, or at least set a "This person never gets to moderate" flag, that might help reduce the problem. (Modulo the ever-present "quis custodiet..." problem, of course. I suppose there's no way to avoid that entirely,.)
But we're specifically talking about cases where it's clear that someone who stands to gain paid for the third-party speech. This is no different than paying an ad agency to run a TV commercial for you. Whatever the ad agency produces and runs counts as your own advertising.
People have been misleading other people since people have existed. Newspapers, radio, magazines, television have all mislead people (sometimes intentionally). And let's not even start with politicians and their lies. It's all free speech, even if a lot of it is bullshit or offensive. Just grow up already!!!!
I gotta leave my computer now and order something I just saw on television - one of those "As Seen On TV" thingies. I bet it works just as advertised!!
Creimer shut the fuck up. These people don't like you. So that makes them trolls? You did this to yourself. Just because someone thinks you are a piece of shit because you lie, and lie all over threads, doesn't make them trolls. Get that threw your fat fucking head.
***See creimer bicyclist legs in the siblings video below and please pay attention to the Moon update***
C.D. Reimer is a renowned Slashdot collaborator, as he puts it himself; "Because of the quality of my posts and my article submissions, I'm a highly rated commentator and moderator."
But does anybody ever wondered what "C.D." stands for? Well, it stands for Creimy Dumpty of course!
Creimy Dumpty sat on the wall,
Creimy Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king's horses
And all the king's men
Couldn't put Creimy Dumpty
Together again.
Creimy's siblings video and theme song, very realistic, especially the pants, just like Creimy's:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
With "Vice President Pence Vowing US Astronauts Will Return To the Moon", we are sure they will need miracle workers up there, here is what it would look like. Note that Creimy takes care of bringing a lot of food to the moon as depicted below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Creimy's real pictures:
Before the sex change:
https://ibb.co/cc7Ddw
After the sex change:
https://ibb.co/gVad65
Creimy's "enterprise-level" chair, he talks about it all the time on slashdot:
http://www.keynamics.com/image...
Creimy's head, while his supervisor was talking to him, not with him, since it is impossible to do with Creimy:
https://school.discoveryeducat...
Creimy acting in educational resource document, he actually confirmed himself on Slashdot that he was handled by Special Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education! He is really a king Dumpty!:
http://www.sccoe.org/depts/stu...
Exactly! We, at Special Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education, couldn't agree more with you!
For the valuable /. users that might already have read the following, please note that there is an important update.
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
Special Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education has invested money to buy Chris a new chair:
http://www.keynamics.com/image...
Information about Christopher Dale Reimer and autistic people:
Autistic people have obsessions about things normal people don't care. For example, one of our autistic patient went haywire when he realized that there was a penny missing in his pocket change.
To calm him down, one of our educator pretended to have found it on the floor and gave a penny to him.
The autistic patient condition went even worse because he realized it wasn't the same penny!
Chris has an obsession with budgeting every penny. He doesn't understand that most people do not budget to the penny and have a flexible amount they allow for miscellaneous items.
I am Nancy Guerrero and I am Director of Special Education for the Santa Clara County Office of Education. We use Chris' (a.k.a. creimer,cdreimer) picture in our document because he is the hardest case we have ever had to handle:
http://www.sccoe.org/depts/stu...
Our artists were inspired by the low carb diet that Christopher follows scrupulously for the small lunch box and by the picture linked below for the rest. I am sure that you will notice the similarities such as the bump on the side of his chest and more:
https://ibb.co/gVad65
Please be easy on Christopher although, I am aware that some of our staff handling Chris post joke comments here and obvoiusly, the Santa Clara County Office of Education disapprove that behavior vehemently:
https://school.discoveryeducat...
But it isn't Chris' fault if he is the way he is. We do the best we can do with him and he is partially integrated into society. We try to cure his abnormal need for attention but he is kind of stubborn and won't listen to anybody.
Thank You dear users,
-Nancy Guerrero
So none of those big smoke stack chimneys have anything to do with it? Not even a little bit? Come on man.
More Creimer affiliate spam.
"Your" trolls???
My god creimer, you are so delusional that you really believe they are "your" trolls.
You are so desperate for attention and so desperate to feel important, like Humpty-Dumpty, that your delusional mind invents all kind of imaginary things like you having you own dedicated trolls.
Go get help!
For fuck's sake!
you only have to look at comments called out as shills or downvoted to oblivion for when they legitimately comment something that differs from the group think
I completely agree, people use moderation to silence dissenting opinions. This is why I opted out of the moderation thing a long time ago.
This does not compute. Is the cause for your opting out:
-cynicism?
-not wanting to participate in evil?
-an acknowledgement that you would do it too?
I opted out because moderation doesn't work on Slashdot. Instead of using it to fight spam and actual trolls, people use moderation to punish people they disagree with.
Browsing at -1 solves the problem. In fact, there are always interesting comments that are scored 0 or 1, and often they are labeled "Troll" of "Flamebait" although they merely raise issues with the mainstream narrative.
There is no value in the moderation system, it's just a popularity contest that rewards people who submit to peer pressure. It's like listening to FM radio with people calling to request the same songs as everyone else.
lucm, indeed.
The problem with capitalism is humanity. You can't impose some sort of alternative "monopoly" without having all of the problems the "evils of capitalism".
This always reminds me of that story about the copier factory in USSR. I don't remember the exact numbers but the factory had something like 500 workers and manufactured a total of 3 copiers per year, of which usually only 1 or 2 worked. And those workers who did such a splendid job wondered why the central heating at home didn't work or why they had to wait in line to buy stale bread.
Capitalism works because people are rewarded for hard work and talent. The reason why the system is fucked lately is not because of flaws in capitalism; it's because the government has become a monster and is letting idiot savants play sorcerer's apprentice with monetary policy and social programs from their ivory towers.
lucm, indeed.
False dichotomy.
Just like free speech is is not absolute, but instead is a right balanced with other rights, the powers of a state are not an all-or-nothing proposition. Without regulation, certain companies would happily sell cocaine, heroine, and cigarettes to children. We know this because it happened. On the other hand, if the state is all-powerful, millions stand to die from either malice or incompetence. We also know this because it also happened.
The only rational answer is a balance: a free market, but one that recognises that some economically feasible business models are nonetheless reprehensible and must be limited so that moral companies aren't put out of business.
It isn't a math equation. There's room to disagree about exactly how much regulation is best. However, even the staunchest libertarian has their limit where they admit that the market should not be left to decide on moral questions. Perhaps it isn't selling heroine to kids, but perhaps the line is at killers for hire, or phossy jaw factories, or some of the other horrific atrocities that have been economically viable at one point or another.
I’m sure this is true, and I’m sure it’s not an isolated case. However, that is a long way from “every corporation is actively working against the interests of society”.
That's not what the person you responded to said. He said every corporation that can make a buck by working against the interests of society, will.
Now, I don't agree with that statement, but you do need to address what he actually said.
I think that there are many corporations where the executive officers are not amoral sociopaths, however, if even one competitor in their field is, then the public will probably be screwed. Even worse, if screwing the public is economically beneficial, then the companies led by people with morals will compete less effectively in the marketplace and they are likely to be replaced by their less ethical competitors. So in many ways, unregulated capitalism ends up as a race to the least ethical, most exploitative behaviour possible.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
They generate jobs and employment, as well as put out products that are useful. Think about running a business without Excel for spreadsheet work, or Word for documents? Without Microsoft, we would be still using pencils and doing double-entry bookkeeping on ledgers.
I'd rather be using pencils and double-entry bookkeeping on ledgers than Excel and Word.
Having said that, Microsoft was not first to market with either spreadsheet software or word processing. In fact, without Microsoft killing investment in both product types, we'd likely have better spreadsheet and word processing software than we do now.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
There, FTFY. HAND.
Is Deliberately Misleading People On the Internet Free Speech? -- If it is, then you'd have to do something about almost every salesman and corporation lying about the quality of their products, etc in the country. (and I'm not against making them tell the truth) But I'm afraid it is free speech. And I also seem to hold the radical opinion (these days) that opinions that aren't currently popular are also free speech. Nazi assholes, white supremacists, Antifa, have as much right to share their opinions as anyone else, as long as they are not directed specifically at one person, and NOT accompanied by violence. Sorry, you can't have free speech for only the majority or only the people with who you agree.
Otherwise the Title would start with: Slashdot is ...
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
That's why the Supreme Court has pretty consistently decided that the government has no business interfering with political speech. False advertising for commercial purposes is illegal. False advertising for political purposes is legal (or there'd be a lot of Republican candidates behind bars).
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
And the only reason that your tirade is legal is free speech. You don't cite any reputable journals. You make statements that I know to be false. Now, it's good in a sense that you talk nonsense about depression (something I do have experience with), and I wouldn't wish you to find out otherwise yourself, but that doesn't make what you say true.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
We need to be critical thinkers (& should be teaching our children this skill). There's a lot of information out there & most of it is bogus.
We'll put. Perfectly sensible.
In boxing a foul is a foul. Whether it is intentional or accidental the penalty remains the same. there are numerous people with absurd beliefs who try like crazy to get others to adopt their belief system. usually they are just plain wrong but sometimes they really seek money or power. There is simply no way to sort them all out. Sometimes people seek power as they feel they are the only one who can set things straight. They may justify all manor of wrong behavior trying to acquire enough power to accomplish their goal. so let the wrong headed speak and then denounce them as the idiots they are instead of gagging them before they get their message out. Even the manifestos of some notorious criminals have held bits of information that the public needs to consider. even from a prison cell let them speak out.
It's "fake news"!
Do they accept Monopoly money in exchange for their fake cures?