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Journal by DeathMonkey
Shit's gonna change. No matter what. Probably tomorrow.
The unique experience is actually right now when everything hasn't resolved yet.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Now KEN and BARBIE are PERMANENTLY ADDICTED to MIND-ALTERING DRUGS ...
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2020, @04:20PM (9 children)
A key element of a nation's descent into tyranny is the elimination of free elections. I have been watching for this to happen ever since the creation of the TSA gestapo. It is worrisome to me that some folks are now trying to brainwash the public into believing that US elections are fraudulent, which I see as a prelude to elimination of them.
OTOH, one might argue that US elections have been broken by the two-party paradigm that has been superimposed over them.
I'm not sure what protections need to be in place to ensure the preservation of free elections.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2020, @05:43PM
May I offer some suggestions? Congress should, in a bipartisan manner (important!), pass an updated Voting Rights Act. One that addresses expanded access to voting for all. One that can survive a Supreme Court challenge. And Republicans need to stop with the voter suppression shit. Not only does it disenfranchise minority communities, it is also a losing strategy in the long term; whatever Republican political operative came up with that heinous strategy should be publicly drawn and quartered as an example to all.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2020, @05:49PM (7 children)
We need to reinstate the fairness doctrine. [wikipedia.org] Yeah, the folks at Fox News, Breitbart, et al. are going to squeal like stuck pigs over that one but it would go a long way to putting an end to that shit.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday November 06 2020, @08:22PM (3 children)
I agree that getting rid of that is partially responsible for getting us here.
However, I really just can't get behind the government enforcing editorial control over private communications services.
I think we're gonna need to come up with a different solution.
Maybe you just shouldn't be allowed to call yourself news if the majority of your content is opinion? I could see that being analogous to fraudulently advertising your product which is not protected speech. We might be able to get some bipartisan support behind that one since it'll affect CNN etc. too.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 06 2020, @09:20PM (1 child)
Consider it a tax. Your platform (facebook, twitter, etc) may adopt any position you like, and promote any position you like, as much as you like. However, in exchange for your sweet monopolistic franchise, you have to put forth opposing opinions.
I think we can all agree that social media has influenced the vote this year. You won't agree, I'm sure, but I say it has had far too much undue influence.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 07 2020, @02:16AM
Yeap, teach the controversy again.
By the simple law of entropy, for a handful of opinions that hold value, there are an infinite number of opinions which are crazy.
Let the flood begin [twitter.com], or else is censorship.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2020, @11:23PM
No need for the government to exercise "editorial control". Even when we did have a fairness doctrine they didn't do that. Instead, I think that if Fox News does decide to give air time to QAnon conspiracy theories then they should be required to back it up with actual bona fide evidence or face stiff fines per infraction. We also need to dust off those libel and slander laws and put them to good use again. People shouldn't be allowed to propagate nutty conspiracy theories without facing consequences. We have already seen how that kind of thing can be dangerous (e.g., Pizzagate).
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2020, @08:44PM (2 children)
A fairness doctrine might help, as long as there is some mechanism to disregard the lunatic sides of issues. Birtherism never merited equal coverage.
I would hate to see every capricious charge and conspiracy theory given equal time in the news cycles (which BTW is one of the defects of twitter).
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday November 06 2020, @09:21PM
I kinda agree. No need to actually give Qanon time and space to spread their brand of crazy.
On the other hand, social media shouldn't be pursuing Qanon to shut them down.
Abortion is the number one killed of children in the United States.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 06 2020, @11:28PM
We already have such a mechanism: they should be required to produce evidence (i.e., something that could be reasonably believed to stand up to cross examination in a court of law). If they don't have that then they shouldn't go on the air with it.