Comment by ImJamal
It is. What you think is truth today can easily be considered misinformation tomorrow.
It is. What you think is truth today can easily be considered misinformation tomorrow.
Sure, somethings are actually misinformation. Nobody is denying that. The problem is giving the government the ability to determine what is and isn't misinformation.
If [politican you don't like] had the power to consider his misinformation to be truthful and truthful information to be misinformation would you still be in support of this? He could supress all the negative information about him calling it misinformation and prevent his misinformation from being banned.
So what happens when misinformation is posted and the corporation won't act to remove it?
In twitter's case, what happens when the corporation actively works to avoid accountability for it?
Nothing negative should happen to the company. In an ideal world the company should be lauded by everybody who values free speech for not bowing down to government censorship. The politicans supporting censorship should be voted out and the government should pay back any money it took in fines with interest. Those in the company who stood up for free speech should be given a medal by the new government.
Of course, we live in a society which loves censorship and hates free speech. Given the hatred of free speech we are seeing in this thread, I am guessing the ideal situation won't happen anytime soon.
The misinformation and regulation dodging is happening right now, and the functioning Brazilian government is taking steps to stop it. So we should just be happy with the small win as a citizens of the world.
> If [politican you don't like] had the power to consider his misinformation to be truthful and truthful information to be misinformation would you still be in support of this?
If an evil person is trying to rewrite reality from their position of power, you'd hope the checks and balances in the government prevent them from doing so. While the Brazilian government can stop misinformation from spreading, they can also allow real information to continue to spread.
But if we go down this reductive doomsday scenario all the way to the bottom, where there are evil people stacked from top to bottom, your nation failed a long time ago. And maybe part of the blame sits on the people preaching do-nothingness and requiring a perfect system of laws and governance before taking action.
The constitution of Brazil explicitly protects political speech and makes no mention of exempting misinformation.
> Any and all censorship of a political, ideological and artistic nature is forbidden.
We should not be happy seeing a judge going after free speech that is explicitly protected by the constitution. This is a loss for the citizens of Brazil, not a win.
I know in the post-truth era everyone can pretend their bubble is fact, but come on. Some things actually are misinformation.