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WhatsApp Faces Misinformation Problem in Nigeria, Reports Say (cnet.com)
Fake news is being spread on WhatsApp in some of Africa's most populous countries, according to two new reports, raising concerns over coming elections in Nigeria. From a report: Photoshopped images and false claims about politicians have been circulating on the Facebook-owned messaging service in Nigeria, which holds election in February next year, according to a report from The Poynter Institute on Friday. Many of the false claims are in local languages and exploit ethnic friction. One set of false claims focuses on how politicians will address clashes between a group of semi-nomadic herdsmen and farmers, Poynter said. Another rumor claimed a presidential candidate couldn't enter the US because of a corruption charge, Poynter reported.
Obviously only state approved media should be the only source of any and all messages.
The problem is people. There is no technology that can keep us honest.
I'm sure fake news never happened before the Internet was widely available. I can't find my sarcastic face. Maybe (/s|s\)
In 2010, I hear there were faxes and drums circulating around the country that Goodluck Jonathan (real name) was actually born in the Unites States, not Bayelsa.
(Nigeria is one of the few countries where a president has to be a citizen by birth.)
Several years ago, The New York Times ran a story on the Obama administration that was perceived as negative. The paper lost a lot of democrat subscribers as a result of this story. Because of this incident, The New York Times swore off real news and they only produce Fake News since then. But people like msmash insist on consuming these Fake News because they reinforce their belief system and their hate-filled rage!
Same thing in Nigeria. If someone has negative feelings for a group of people, they seek out these fake news because they feel good and who cares if they are real or fake!
Dunno what you can do about "low information voters". Allow me to digress...
Just recently I somehow came across an article from the US, where a biologist had discovered retroviruses in vaccines, and these viruses were responsible for everything from autism to dementia. Having angered the powerful pharma cartels, the researcher was in jail, and all of her data had been confiscated.
Curious, I did a bit of research. As always, there was a kernel of truth. The researcher had, indeed written a paper about retroviruses. She had been fired from her job, and had taken company data (apparently paper files) with her. The company charged her with theft. She handed the data back, and the charges were dropped.
So you get conspiracy theorists who read more into this, in support of their pet paranoia - in this case, clearly anti-vaxxers. They make use of technology - like WhatsApp - to spread their nonsense. In the US, this isn't a huge problem, because enough of the population has enough of an education, and the "low information voters" ultimately don't dominate the voting population.
So...Nigeria... A country where most of the population has little education, and hence few critical thinking skills. The West has given them high technology, but they lack the general level of education to go with it. So the fruits and nuts can spread their nonsense far and wide - and it has a massive influence.
Democratic institutions can only work, when the population has a minimal level of education. The purists pushing democracy as some sort of panacaea? They are indirectly responsible for a lot of death and misery. It's not PC to notice, but the continuous warfare in much of Africa has not been an improvement over colonialism.
Enjoy life! This is not a dress rehearsal.
Yay censorship! Only state approved messages are GOOD messages! People are too stupid to think for ourselves! Down with freedom of speech! Big brother loves us all!
If someone poisons the water supply, the water company may not be to blame, but if they don't shut off the supply of poisonous water, they are to blame for that and the resulting deaths.
America IS to blame for assuming the rest of the world has a "right to spread lies" rather than a tradition of punishing rumour mongers - who are often inaccessible because they hide behind American corporations and their products. This is not something Americans can blame on others.
Sent from my ASR33 using ASCII
in Brazil, India, and other countries...
Freedom of speech has never meant freedom to libel or incite violence towards others for example, nor does it cover things like false advertising.
Freedom of speech also does not mean that governments should be able to freely spread false information to their citizens. In Myanmar, it's gotten to the point that Facebook has been used to facilitate outright genocide by spreading altogether false claims about the local muslim minority, and this has been coming from the highest levels of authorities. Facebook recently banned a general of the army from the platform after it came to light that he had been publishing actual photos of dismembered children, claming them to have been killed by the Rohingya, a claim for which there is no supporting evidence.
Keep in mind the international stance is that the Myanmarian army has been actively conducting what's basically ethnic cleansing by killing civilians and driving them into exodus. This is a military regime actively using the social network to spread their own propaganda to facilitate and justify genocide, and up until this point FB has done nothing about it, even though similar activities have been going on for a few years. A UN report found that the Myanmarian military has clear genocidal intent behind their actions and that Facebook and disinformation have been a part of this operation.
So this is case of the state using a popular social media network in the country to push their own genocidal narrative and propaganda. So what Facebook must do, and what it's now slowly starting do do is the opposite of what you're saying: not to allow the state to use its power to feed false propaganda to its citizenry to justify genocide.
Imagine if your own government started to do something similar, demonizing one group of individuals and pushing false information through the platforms to support their narrative: 'Look at what the jews/the muslims/the blacks have done, they must be interned to prevent further crime!" Would you still be screaming 'b.-b-but the state must be free to lie to its own citizenry because of freedom of speech!", because I doubt that. That's not what freedom of speech is about.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
How can I put this? If someone just believes just any old message that comes at them, then the problem is not with the message ...
Imagine if your own government started to do something similar, demonizing one group of individuals and pushing false information through the platforms to support their narrative: 'Look at what the jews/the muslims/the blacks have done, they must be interned to prevent further crime!"
Look what the white people have done! We must check their privilege, raise their taxes, use affirmative action to deny jobs to the more qualified candidates, lower their birthrate through conspiring economic disincentives of student debt and rising housing prices overlaid on a feminist/environmentalist disdain for reproduction!
... maybe
Lies are words — equating them with deeds is where your analogy went wrong.
America believes — and has that belief codified as the very first item in its Bill of Rights — that everybody, wherever in the world they are, has a right to spread lies.
Here in America we've agreed centuries ago, that allowing government to judge, what is and what is not true, is more dangerous than an occasional falsehood slipping through. See also Ministry of Truth — which is what you'd like established to go after these "rumour mongers".
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Possibly, but consider:
it is not the "occasional falsehood" it is torrents of the stuff sent for the purpose of inciting hatred
Your government may be a pile of shit, other people's government may be better. The reason your government is likely a pile of shit may be connected to the fact that is elected on the basis of a ton of politically motivated lies.
See also Ministry of Truth [enotes.com] â" which is what you'd like established to go after these "rumour mongers".
No. I do not want a "Ministry of Truth", you are dishonestly misrepresenting me for the purposes of propaganda. There are ways to establish the truth (many countries have law courts for this very purpose). I would like to see a legal system with powers to punish people for deliberate and wanton lying for political purpose or financial gain. Yes, you would be convicted under such a system. You'd best stay in America. The rest of the world would prefer America stayed out of their business.
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But you do! You believe, someone — a government agency or official — should be allowed to shut down any source of (what he considers to be) a lie.
That's a recipe — and a very quick recipe — to government corruption. Trump may accuse CNN of spreading "fake news", for example, but he can neither shut them up, nor imprison them over it. You'd like your government to be able to do that...
Oh, I certainly have no interest in shitholes, worry not.
The better parts of the rest of the world tend to share our attitudes towards freedom of speech. The shitholes that do not — remain shitholes forever...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.