President Emmanuel Macron's government faced a backlash Wednesday after the centrist leader called for powers to "cut off" social media in case of widespread violence like riots over the past week.
10 years ago the west was criticizing authoritarian regimes for censoring online content and blocking internet services. In the last few years, some of that has started to creep in here as well.
On one end of the spectrum, a government can refrain from any interference and allow disinformation to destabilize our society. On the other end, a government has absolute power over what you can and can’t do or say online. Where’s the happy middle ground, and how do we codify that into law in a way that can’t be abused? I feel like that’s a question we’re currently dealing with as a society.
I think the middle ground would be people thinking critically and not blindly trusting anything. It’s the mindset of ‘accept as truth what comes from this authority’, be the authority Alex Jones or Obama, that mindset needs to go.
That sounds great in theory, but people generally don’t have the time and qualifications to check every statement that gets made on news sites. This is exactly why fact checking sites like Snopes.com exist. People look to trusted authorities to examine political/scientific claims because they don’t have the means to.
I agree there should be legislation in place to be able to take actions against those kinds of people, but at the same time the government isn’t the internet police.
Yep they’re blaming everything from bank failures to riots on social media. They’re framing it as dangerous for people in supposed democracies to communicate with each other. Really don’t like the road this goes down
Wow, this is exactly what was done in Hong Kong. The situation there was a little more serious though.
10 years ago the west was criticizing authoritarian regimes for censoring online content and blocking internet services. In the last few years, some of that has started to creep in here as well.
On one end of the spectrum, a government can refrain from any interference and allow disinformation to destabilize our society. On the other end, a government has absolute power over what you can and can’t do or say online. Where’s the happy middle ground, and how do we codify that into law in a way that can’t be abused? I feel like that’s a question we’re currently dealing with as a society.
I think the middle ground would be people thinking critically and not blindly trusting anything. It’s the mindset of ‘accept as truth what comes from this authority’, be the authority Alex Jones or Obama, that mindset needs to go.
That sounds great in theory, but people generally don’t have the time and qualifications to check every statement that gets made on news sites. This is exactly why fact checking sites like Snopes.com exist. People look to trusted authorities to examine political/scientific claims because they don’t have the means to.
The people writing the stories certainly have the time and should have the qualifications…
Or someone could be a content farm making a quick buck off fake headlines that trigger people. If not the government, who will stop them?
I agree there should be legislation in place to be able to take actions against those kinds of people, but at the same time the government isn’t the internet police.
Yep they’re blaming everything from bank failures to riots on social media. They’re framing it as dangerous for people in supposed democracies to communicate with each other. Really don’t like the road this goes down