Misinformation "Superspreaders"

[Maxmars]

I agree, people should not be restricted in what they share.
 
I also agree, but what should be done about those sites that spread the initial lies? Many (or most) of the times it's not the politicians that spread the lies but the media, both the mainstream and the "alternative" media, as they both look for the same result: hits/shares.

One of the problems with today's mainstream media is that because of the speed of the Internet news they stopped checking if things are true or not, if someone reports it then they republish it.

One good example was a person that, on the 2022/2023 winter floods in Portugal posted on social media a video of a car, seen from above, with water reaching to the side windows, with the driver door opened. Then the camera shows a wider view and we see that it's just a toy car inside of a puddle.

Someone took that video and removed the end, and shared it as being from the floods in the Lisbon area.

Someone else at the highest selling newspaper decided to share those "amazing images" without fact checking. They were flooded with comments telling them the images were fake, so they took down the video from their site and announced they were make a formal complaint against the person that shared the shorter video with them (or the person that posted in on social media, I don't remember which).

Everybody should be responsible for what they publish and pay for the consequences of their acts.

For some reason do sites like this have provisions regarding the publishing of fake information on their rules.

I just think we can't allow the people who care about "what others are sharing" define the 'terms' at their pleasure. 

If something is "misinformation" or "disinformation" than it is, essentially, a lie.  Now we dare not make it illegal to lie.  If we made it illegal to tell anything but the factual truth for "public distribution" we would kill the media.  We would reduce the size and volume of "news" by more than half.  By rights, as it stands today, almost everything we see as 'news' is actually 'entertainment.'  They simply could not function (profitably) if all they could do is tell you what they know. 

When grandpa sends me a link for an article talking about how "effective and safe" the COVID "vaccine" is... how is that not spreading misinformation?  Suppose he sent me a article about how the key words applicable to the "COVID vaccine" were "sudden and unexpected?"  Which is disinformation?  Who gets to decide for everyone, and why them?

If the information represents a damaging deception... the question becomes is that not an "assault" of the audience?  Is that not criminal?  Who would allow that? 

Should the audience, who generally can't help but witness the information, in their ignorance (of someone else's determination of it's malicious nature,) share it - why should anyone be attributing the actionable flaw to them?

If it's legal to say, it's legal to share.

---

I don't use Twitter/x, Facebook nor tik-tok and I despise watching TV news channels (although sometimes I still do).  Does that make me immune to misinformation?  I like to think so.  In fact, I get most of my news right here on DI and (less and less) on the "other" site. 

I should also credit my wife for letting me know what goes on in politics, especially locally, and we have interesting discussions about  that.  We're like minded and both believe in grass-roots involvement.  But, I refuse to tow the party line which does cause tense moments occasionally.

Well, I defintely line up with your disdain for what passes as "News" reporting and general consumer media.  I don't blame you for enduring occasionally, I do it for the sake of social-relevance... and to remind myself how much I hate what they have made of journalism and mind-melting activism.

I hope we can eventually synthesize some news format and function to overcome the garbage they insist on spewing at us.  "Party line's" are for followers and those beholden to someone else's words... enjoy the freedom.  I do.