Alex Jones and Infowars gets 'disappeared' - are we headed in the right direction?

[epronovost]

Is that what we really want?  A group of self-defined elites, telling everyone else what they should and shouldn't do -- what they should and shouldn't think, in fact -- "for their own good"?

Why am I having this odd sense of deja vu?   :facepalm

Of course it's deja vu, that's how you learned critical thinking yourself or how to write and read in the first place. You relied on members of the intellectual elite to transmite knowledge, skills and competences. A member from a class of intellectual elite named teachers gave you those information. A teacher went to college, they are amongst the 20% of people with high level of academic skills, they are part of the intellectual elite, albeit not it's highest elite. They themselves were taught their skills and their methods by even more well trained elites. Where you are wrong is that those elite aren't "self-defined" they proved their worth by producing knowledge and demonstrating it's applications. Someone should indeed give you and help develop good methodologies, skills and competences based on past research and experience. People who peddle dangerous, hateful and false informations should be stopped and those dangerous, hateful and false information should be censored or they will harm people. Hate speech laws, anti-fraud laws, false advertisement laws, anti-libel laws, education laws are a necessity to guaranty the safety and prosperity of a divers and large group of people. These are all forms of censorship and they should be embraced and those whho apply these laws should be held tightly accountable and their methodology well known and approved.

[Dr H]

Is that what we really want?  A group of self-defined elites, telling everyone else what they should and shouldn't do -- what they should and shouldn't think, in fact -- "for their own good"?

Why am I having this odd sense of deja vu?   :facepalm

Of course it's deja vu, that's how you learned critical thinking yourself or how to write and read in the first place. You relied on members of the intellectual elite to transmite knowledge, skills and competences. A member from a class of intellectual elite named teachers gave you those information. A teacher went to college, they are amongst the 20% of people with high level of academic skills, they are part of the intellectual elite, albeit not it's highest elite. They themselves were taught their skills and their methods by even more well trained elites.

Actually most of my teachers made no effort towards teaching critical thinking, and many of them actively discouraged it.  I didn't even hear the term until I had been in college a few years.  Fortunately my parents had encouraged attitudes which made their children amenable to patterns of thinking that tended in that direction.  This made it possible for me to deliberately develop critical thinking skills later in life, once I became conscious of what they were and how they might be useful.

Were my parents elites?  Other than to me and my sibling, probably not so much.
Are parents elites?  <shrug> Maybe in comparison to non-parents; but if so, that's a pretty huge segment of society that's "elite".

Where you are wrong is that those elite aren't "self-defined" they proved their worth by producing knowledge and demonstrating it's applications. Someone should indeed give you and help develop good methodologies, skills and competences based on past research and experience. People who peddle dangerous, hateful and false informations should be stopped and those dangerous, hateful and false information should be censored or they will harm people. Hate speech laws, anti-fraud laws, false advertisement laws, anti-libel laws, education laws are a necessity to guaranty the safety and prosperity of a divers and large group of people. These are all forms of censorship and they should be embraced and those whho apply these laws should be held tightly accountable and their methodology well known and approved.

Approved by whom?  Not by those being censored, I assume.

I strongly disagree that anyone has, or should have a right to tell others what they have to think.
IMO, that is dangerous, hateful, and false information, and to pursue that course is on a par with pursuing a course towards racial or ethnic discrimination.

If you or I have an idea that we think is a worthy one, then we do have a right -- perhaps even a duty -- to present that idea to others, supporting it with the best evidence we are able to garner.  People may be educated into changing their attitudes, and adopting better, or more useful ideas.  Rarely can they be forced into either, and almost never without severe backlash.

[Minimalist]

"I have a natural instinct for science."

He has a natural instinct for bankruptcy!

[Angrboda]

[Angrboda]

At first glance, the photo seems plausible.

U.S. Rep. Keith Ellison is shown standing near U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith. They are all Minnesota Democrats on ballot this year, so it's not out of the realm of possibility that they all might be seen together. The image, with text scrawled across it, shows them awkwardly posed in front of a homeless tent encampment in Minneapolis, campaigning at a "town hall" style event.

But the problem is, that event never happened. The photo is fake.

It's a poor Photoshop attempt by an outside group, Right Now MN, to use misleading and fake information to influence the outcome of the election. In particular, the group is trying to tie Smith and Klobuchar to Ellison, who is facing an allegation of domestic abuse.

---

What groups are trying to spread misinformation?

Here's what we know: a man who leads a market research firm in Minnesota named Elliott Olson started the Right Now MN and also founded Right Now USA. A man named Louis Fors Hill — a descendant of railroad magnate James J. Hill — is bankrolling the group, and it's spent more than $200,000 on website services provided by a company called 1854 Inc.

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How are they sharing this information?

Fake content is almost exclusively shared and spread online, usually through social media platforms. According to the Brookings Institute, Facebook estimates 126 million of its users saw posts spread by Russian sources in 2016, while Twitter found 2,752 accounts established by Russian groups. Those groups tweeted roughly 1.4 million times two years ago.

(MPR News) [emphasis mine]

[Minimalist]

All republicunts are liars.  This much we know.

[GUBU]

Well that's... a depressingly immature approach to the situation.  You don't actually seem to care about freedom of speech, its impacts, and its limits.  You're just in it for the lols?

What you going to do, fucktards are going to shit all over themselves and call it genius.

[Angrboda]

How WhatsApp Leads Mobs to Murder in India

In India, false rumors about child kidnappers have gone viral on WhatsApp, prompting fearful mobs to kill two dozen innocent people since April.

One of the first to be killed was a 65-year-old woman named Rukmani.

She and four family members were driving to a temple in the southern state of Tamil Nadu in May. A mob on this road mistook them for “child lifters” and assaulted them.

We went to the village where Rukmani was attacked to see how WhatsApp and local authorities have struggled to contain the false messages, which have circulated throughout India for months.

WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, has a quarter billion users in India alone. Some of the false messages on the app describe gangs of kidnappers on the prowl. Others include videos showing people driving up and snatching children.

This clip went viral. It was produced as part of a public service announcement in Pakistan, but it was edited to look like a real kidnapping. The authorities don’t know who altered the video.

False information has flooded social media in recent years, inciting violence from Brazil to Sri Lanka. The messages in India have preyed on a universal fear: harm coming to a child. And the millions of poorly educated Indians coming online for the first time mean many are quick to believe what is on their phones.

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WhatsApp’s design makes it easy to spread false information. Many messages are shared in groups, and when they are forwarded, there is no indication of their origin. The kidnap warnings have often appeared to come from friends and family.

[Minimalist]

Good.  Fuck 'em.  No one else is obligated to support their nazi bullshit.

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/right-w...er-bowers/

Right-wing social media site Gab loses funding and host company over connection to synagogue shooter Bowers

PayPal and Stripe did not feel Gab did enough to curb the activity of Bowers and others, and cut off their support of Gab. This effectively stifled Gab’s revenue streams: Gab doesn’t have advertising and relies of the sales of “Pro” accounts.

Gab’s host, Joylent, is also moving to suspend the service for Terms of Service violations, giving Gab 24 hours to find another host. They lost their previous hosting service, Azure, in August.

[Angrboda]

Nearly 30 Percent Of Anti-Semitic Online Attacks Are Bots