Misinformation police

[beej]

the government wants to stop misinformation. The Biden administration has made no qualms about that. They've said so publicly.  But how do we determine what misinformation is and who is in charge of it?

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2023/08/09/for_washington_posts_feared_pinocchio_fact-checker_forthrightness_dies_in_updates_over_biden-burisma_story_971280.html

For the second time in three years, the Washington Post has quietly "updated" one of the most consequential fact checks in the history of American politics – its October 2020 article undercutting reports that Hunter Biden arranged a dinner meeting between one of his foreign business clients and his father, who was then vice president of the United States.

The original article by the Washington Post's chief fact checker, Glenn Kessler, was published the same day as the New York Post's pre-election scoop revealing that Joe Biden had attended a 2015 dinner with a top executive of a Ukrainian energy firm, Burisma, which was paying his son $83,000 per month. Kessler's fact-check involved interviews with a host of Biden aides who vehemently disputed the vice president's attendance at the dinner and advanced the theory that the source of the information – a laptop Hunter had abandoned at a Delaware repair shop – was untrustworthy and possibly a Russian plant.

That conspiracy theory was quickly embraced by 51 former intelligence officials, who signed an open letter dismissing the New York Post's scoop as having "all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation." This letter and the Washington Post fact check were used by the Biden campaign, other media outlets, and social media platforms to discredit the information contained on the laptop in the final days of the campaign. The article, Kessler would later boast, was "one of the most read articles in our 13-year history" of the fact-checking feature.
 
But Kessler's fact check has not aged well. Just last week Hunter Biden's former business partner, Devon Archer, testified before Congress that the article was "not correct reporting." Instead of retracting the article – as the Post did with some of its debunked Russiagate coverage – or running a straightforward correction, the paper has appended a series of "updates" to its reporting.

[Jeff]

the government wants to stop misinformation. The Biden administration has made no qualms about that.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Biden admin has spewed more misinformation than anyone, ever.

[beej]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Biden admin has spewed more misinformation than anyone, ever.

I agree, but I would add, that I also would not want the people that I vote for to be the police of information either. That kind of power can only wield corruption.

[neurosis]

Government in charge of misinformation is hilarious.    Unless it were to actually happen.

[beej]

Unless it were to actually happen.

ehhh...what did you do? just wake up from a long coma?    It's happening.

[mkd]

Government in charge of misinformation is hilarious.    Unless it were to actually happen.

I bet you read that on Fox news.
sorry Smit, just goofing.

[Smit]

the government wants to stop misinformation. The Biden administration has made no qualms about that. They've said so publicly.  But how do we determine what misinformation is and who is in charge of it?

Do you think misinformation is a problem Beej?

[JParis]

Do you think misinformation is a problem Beej?

smit...even assuming he does think it a problem....the bigger problem is it's not within the purview of the government to regulate that speech.

What can be restricted is very, very limited.

[beej]

Do you think misinformation is a problem Beej?

I do. absolutely. But if you just look at information as though you are a jury trying to decide what is true and what isn't. I would rather risk the fact that that there will be misinformation in the trial than to keep one side from speaking.

[RobertELee]

Do you think misinformation is a problem Beej?

The .gov being in charge of deciding what is and isn't misinformation certanly is.

[mkd]

lotta guys name beej, this morning    

[beej]

lotta guys name beej, this morning    

evrybodywannabe me

[JParis]

lotta guys name beej, this morning    

Hey!

At least I used his proper pronoun "he/him"

 

[YoDoug]

Hey!

At least I used his proper pronoun "he/him"

 

Are you sure? Did you ask him or just presume.......

[YoDoug]

In the end the Party would announce that two and two made five, and you would have to believe it. It was inevitable that they should make that claim sooner or later: the logic of their position demanded it. Not merely the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality was tacitly denied by their philosophy.

So many quotes from Orwell's 1984 fit the dem party of today. What is scary is that people are so fooled by Dem misinformation that they don't see it.