(December 27, 2014 at 11:14 pm)TaraJo Wrote: I'm torn on this issue.
On one hand, I'd really hate to revoke the freedom of speech from someone. Usually, if it's someone as stupid as Glen Beck or Bill O'Reilly, the best way to counter their hate is by letting them speak. Then, when they get crazy enough, the rest of the world will realize how crazy they are. The old line about giving them enough rope and they'll hang themselves. Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to be working here. They have fringe, extremist, bizarro crazy guys like Alex Jones coming along and, suddenly, compared to that, Glen Beck seems downright moderate and even reasonable.
Perhaps it would be nice if news stations had to meet a certain criteria with fact checking. Say, at least 80% of what they say has to be proven correct by a fact checker or they don't get to call themselves a news source or something along those lines. I mean, I don't mind they saying stupid shit, but it scares me when people hear their stupid shit and take it seriously.
I live in Europe and most former fascist states sacrifice freedom of speech when it comes to promoting dictatorship regimes or fascist ideologies (including nazism and potentially racism) - I accept that and it hasn't affected us negatively. I don't watch Fox News and I don't even know if I have the channel so I cannot comment on them, however the government shouldn't censor them just because they hold a very conservative view on political and social issues - As long as they don't come with extremely descriptive hate speech, such as promoting a self-financed campaign to murder all gay people or murder all poor people, there's no reason to censor anything.
I think if any information transmitted by the media is proven false, an apology (public) is the least they had to do, otherwise being sued is an option
Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you
