Public communication of holocaust denial is actually considered hate speech in Canada, several people have been prosecuted for it and those charges were then upheld by our Supreme Court due to...
Public communication of holocaust denial is actually considered hate speech in Canada, several people have been prosecuted for it and those charges were then upheld by our Supreme Court due to Section 1 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms which has a "reasonable limits" clause in it.
I think deniers and pseudoscience promoters are part of the same issue, but they may be handled differently. There should at least be some way of warning people what they're getting into, as some...
I think deniers and pseudoscience promoters are part of the same issue, but they may be handled differently. There should at least be some way of warning people what they're getting into, as some scams are more convincing than others. I'd like to see something like the opposite of Twitter's verified check mark badge implemented to warn users of questionable content (could range from climate change denial to multi-level marketing, depending on how much the platform cares).
I suggest this for pseudoscience because as much as I despise the work against climate change acknowledgement, it doesn't ring as 'bannable' as holocaust denial does from the perspective of the media sites. Holocaust deniers are obviously wrong to the non-extremists (the platforms' ideal target and the mainstream), but unfortunately, pseudoscience tends to come packaged with more politics attached, and I don't think sites like Facebook would be willing to alienate that much of their userbase, especially with how much money is in political ads. Besides, those people may be encouraged to get their fake science from more radical sources like Infowars or Breitbart. Then again, I don't really think they will take any action, so all this may be a moot point. Money talks more than truth.
It should differ from issue to issue based on the likely/immediate harm associated of letting it run rampant. E.g. a flat-earth message group will never do as much harm as an anti-vax message group.
It should differ from issue to issue based on the likely/immediate harm associated of letting it run rampant.
E.g. a flat-earth message group will never do as much harm as an anti-vax message group.
It's easy to argue that all these obviously anti-evidence and anti-science views promote a way of thinking that is directly harmful to those who get drawn in. The "harmless" anti-evidence views...
It's easy to argue that all these obviously anti-evidence and anti-science views promote a way of thinking that is directly harmful to those who get drawn in.
The "harmless" anti-evidence views quickly lead to acceptance of other indefensible views because you're accepting views that are demonstrably indefensible.
I don't disagree with this per se, I just don't think you can objectively determine whether something is pseudoscience or not. (this is the demarcation problem.) The only sensible way to combat...
I don't disagree with this per se, I just don't think you can objectively determine whether something is pseudoscience or not. (this is the demarcation problem.) The only sensible way to combat this imo is to teach people what "science" means, how the scientific method is justified, it's limits, and some other basic epistemological concepts.
That said things things that are obviously causing short-term harm like anti-vaccine stuff should be banned.
smaller anti-evidence views can lead a person to get more deeply invested in the notion that the 'official' story is always wrong and there's always an inconvenient truth, even when there really...
smaller anti-evidence views can lead a person to get more deeply invested in the notion that the 'official' story is always wrong and there's always an inconvenient truth, even when there really isn't.
When they start calling for the murder of various people, absolutely. If they try to stop people having their children vaccinated, probably. But while they merely try to convince people that the...
should social media sites ban people peddling pseudoscienctific beliefs?
When they start calling for the murder of various people, absolutely. If they try to stop people having their children vaccinated, probably. But while they merely try to convince people that the Earth is flat or that the Moon landings were fake, no.
Where do you draw the line with "dangerous"? Denying vaccinations or other facets of modern medicine is dangerous. Alternative "treatments" to cancer/serious illness directly jeopardizes lives....
Where do you draw the line with "dangerous"?
Denying vaccinations or other facets of modern medicine is dangerous.
Alternative "treatments" to cancer/serious illness directly jeopardizes lives.
Promoting anorexia (pro-ana) is dangerous.
Depending on your views, a lot of other things like denying anthropogenic climate change. Some think that letting mental illness go unmedicated is dangerous while others think the anti-depressants themselves are the danger.
I agree that the goal should be preventing predictable harm. But how to do that in the best way is really hard in practice.
There's always a gray area, I don't think it's an argument against a proposition since they are everywhere in life and there's ways to deal with them (usually via debate, consensus, risk/benefit...
There's always a gray area, I don't think it's an argument against a proposition since they are everywhere in life and there's ways to deal with them (usually via debate, consensus, risk/benefit analysis, etc.).
Social media sites should police harassment and bigotry, but I'm a lot more hesitant about them policing beliefs. I don't know that I trust facebook to be the arbiters of truth and decide what...
Social media sites should police harassment and bigotry, but I'm a lot more hesitant about them policing beliefs. I don't know that I trust facebook to be the arbiters of truth and decide what beliefs people are and aren't allowed to share. I can get down with stopping pseudoscience, because that's how my beliefs lean. But I can think of a lot of other ideas that other people think are bad that I would be very unhappy about social media sites banning. Once social media sites start down the road of deciding what beliefs can and can't be shared not all of those decisions are going to be ones you agree with.
Wow. I was talking about this only a couple of days ago! Strange coincidence.
But more insidious, more frequent on both our forum and the internet at large, is the technique known as “just asking questions”—in internet parlance, “JAQing off.”
Wow. I was talking about this only a couple of days ago! Strange coincidence.
I know other subreddits, especially political or socially charged ones, had to deal with the same issues as well. on /r/trollychromosomes we even had a weird variant of this where incels would...
I know other subreddits, especially political or socially charged ones, had to deal with the same issues as well. on /r/trollychromosomes we even had a weird variant of this where incels would just post random gifs to repeat some of their common assertions (too ugly, will never get a gf) and then use the comment section as a recruiting ground.
Public communication of holocaust denial is actually considered hate speech in Canada, several people have been prosecuted for it and those charges were then upheld by our Supreme Court due to Section 1 of our Charter of Rights and Freedoms which has a "reasonable limits" clause in it.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Keegstra and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Andrews
Regarding deniers, should social media sites ban people peddling pseudoscienctific beliefs?
I think deniers and pseudoscience promoters are part of the same issue, but they may be handled differently. There should at least be some way of warning people what they're getting into, as some scams are more convincing than others. I'd like to see something like the opposite of Twitter's verified check mark badge implemented to warn users of questionable content (could range from climate change denial to multi-level marketing, depending on how much the platform cares).
I suggest this for pseudoscience because as much as I despise the work against climate change acknowledgement, it doesn't ring as 'bannable' as holocaust denial does from the perspective of the media sites. Holocaust deniers are obviously wrong to the non-extremists (the platforms' ideal target and the mainstream), but unfortunately, pseudoscience tends to come packaged with more politics attached, and I don't think sites like Facebook would be willing to alienate that much of their userbase, especially with how much money is in political ads. Besides, those people may be encouraged to get their fake science from more radical sources like Infowars or Breitbart. Then again, I don't really think they will take any action, so all this may be a moot point. Money talks more than truth.
It should differ from issue to issue based on the likely/immediate harm associated of letting it run rampant.
E.g. a flat-earth message group will never do as much harm as an anti-vax message group.
It's easy to argue that all these obviously anti-evidence and anti-science views promote a way of thinking that is directly harmful to those who get drawn in.
The "harmless" anti-evidence views quickly lead to acceptance of other indefensible views because you're accepting views that are demonstrably indefensible.
I don't disagree with this per se, I just don't think you can objectively determine whether something is pseudoscience or not. (this is the demarcation problem.) The only sensible way to combat this imo is to teach people what "science" means, how the scientific method is justified, it's limits, and some other basic epistemological concepts.
That said things things that are obviously causing short-term harm like anti-vaccine stuff should be banned.
smaller anti-evidence views can lead a person to get more deeply invested in the notion that the 'official' story is always wrong and there's always an inconvenient truth, even when there really isn't.
When they start calling for the murder of various people, absolutely. If they try to stop people having their children vaccinated, probably. But while they merely try to convince people that the Earth is flat or that the Moon landings were fake, no.
I think you need to put the limit to hateful, violent, dangerous claims, otherwise you'll end up banning half of the users.
Where do you draw the line with "dangerous"?
Denying vaccinations or other facets of modern medicine is dangerous.
Alternative "treatments" to cancer/serious illness directly jeopardizes lives.
Promoting anorexia (pro-ana) is dangerous.
Depending on your views, a lot of other things like denying anthropogenic climate change. Some think that letting mental illness go unmedicated is dangerous while others think the anti-depressants themselves are the danger.
I agree that the goal should be preventing predictable harm. But how to do that in the best way is really hard in practice.
There's always a gray area, I don't think it's an argument against a proposition since they are everywhere in life and there's ways to deal with them (usually via debate, consensus, risk/benefit analysis, etc.).
Your comment is oddly applicable to reddit.
Social media sites should police harassment and bigotry, but I'm a lot more hesitant about them policing beliefs. I don't know that I trust facebook to be the arbiters of truth and decide what beliefs people are and aren't allowed to share. I can get down with stopping pseudoscience, because that's how my beliefs lean. But I can think of a lot of other ideas that other people think are bad that I would be very unhappy about social media sites banning. Once social media sites start down the road of deciding what beliefs can and can't be shared not all of those decisions are going to be ones you agree with.
Wow. I was talking about this only a couple of days ago! Strange coincidence.
I know other subreddits, especially political or socially charged ones, had to deal with the same issues as well. on /r/trollychromosomes we even had a weird variant of this where incels would just post random gifs to repeat some of their common assertions (too ugly, will never get a gf) and then use the comment section as a recruiting ground.