Ebook Services Are Bringing Unhinged Conspiracy Books into Public Libraries (vice.com) 264
Librarians say Holocaust deniers, antivaxxers, and other conspiracy theorists are being featured in the catalogs of a popular ebook lending service. From a report: In February, a group of librarians in Massachusetts identified a number of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic books on Hoopla, including titles like "Debating The Holocaust" and "A New Nobility of Blood and Soil" -- the latter referring to the infamous Nazi slogan for nationalist racial purity. After public outcry from library and information professionals, Hoopla removed a handful of titles from its digital collection.
In an email obtained by the Library Freedom Project last month, Hoopla CEO Jeff Jankowski explained that the titles came from the company's network of more than 18,000 publishers: "[The titles] were added within the most recent twelve months and, unfortunately, they made it through our protocols that include both human and system-driven reviews and screening." However, quick Hoopla keyword searches for ebooks about "homosexuality" and "abortion" turn up dozens of top results that contain largely self-published religious texts categorized as "nonfiction," including several titles like "Can Homosexuality Be Healed" which promote conversion therapy and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. This prompted a group of librarians to start asking how these titles are appearing in public library catalogs and why they are ranked so high.
In an email obtained by the Library Freedom Project last month, Hoopla CEO Jeff Jankowski explained that the titles came from the company's network of more than 18,000 publishers: "[The titles] were added within the most recent twelve months and, unfortunately, they made it through our protocols that include both human and system-driven reviews and screening." However, quick Hoopla keyword searches for ebooks about "homosexuality" and "abortion" turn up dozens of top results that contain largely self-published religious texts categorized as "nonfiction," including several titles like "Can Homosexuality Be Healed" which promote conversion therapy and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. This prompted a group of librarians to start asking how these titles are appearing in public library catalogs and why they are ranked so high.
Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
who should be deciding what is acceptable and what isn't[?]
You know what, you have a point. Maybe we're just looking at Nazism in the wrong way.
Re: (Score:2)
who should be deciding what is acceptable and what isn't[?]
You know what, you have a point. Maybe we're just looking at Nazism in the wrong way.
Have to teach both sides, it's the law in Texas now.
https://www.texastribune.org/2... [texastribune.org]
Re: Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
They aren't promoting them, they're the ones complaining about them!
According to the TFA, they're getting these ebooks because they license the vendor's in catalogs in bundles rather than individual books, because licensing in bundles is cheaper. The vendor includes the self-published shit in the bundles, presumably as filler, or a bonus, or whatever.
If I understand correctly, the ebook is provided directly from the vendor, the library merely provides access to the vendor's catalog. There's no additional ch
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
It is really not that simple. First, there are a lot of supposed adults that mentally operate on the level of children. Second, there is actually dangerous materials in that pool. For example, Nazi writings and recordings are usually only made available to scientists, because that stuff is still quite dangerous today. And there is a _lot_ of it, because the Nazis were recording everything. I saw some samples in school. This stuff is still powerful and strongly appeals to the irrational. There are parallels
Re: Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:2)
There are at least two problems. First, the search ranking is too high according to TFS. Ideally, a search should return reliable sources first, especially in a library. I don't mind if you can still find these items at the very bottom of the list, but they shouldn't be near the top.
Second, with publishing costs being zero for e-books, motivated groups can try to poison the public information pool by just publishing a lot of crap (intentional lies, misleading exaggerations etc) giving false authority to the
Re:Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:5, Insightful)
While I endorse the sentiment, but in practice there's a problem: bullshit is way, way easier to generate than factually sound information. It may take a scholar years to produce a carefully researched book on WW2, because he has to travel to libraries and archives to examine original sources and has to study of the existing works on his subject. A neo-Nazi can knock out a book on the subject in a week because he can compose it entirely from things he already "knows" or wishes were true.
The idea that making libraries repositories for anything anyone wants to put in them will result in some kind of self-correcting market of ideas is pure fantasy, because in the market of ideas falsehood has an insurmountable production advantage. If we turned libraries into the equivalent of engagement-driven social media sites, the noise of tub-thumping crackpots will quickly swamp and signal of rationality.
Libraries do *not* require that kind of transformation to provide a wide sample of viewpoints. Go to into any library in America and you can find both *The Communist Manifesto* and *Atlas Shrugged* ... or if you can't they will cheerfully procure a copy for you from ILL. Libraries since the dawn of time have been curated by librarians, and while this obviously introduces the personal biases of the librarian, librarians are professionals that care about public access to important information.
It's not an infallible system, but it's a hell of a lot better than throwing patrons into an ocean of bullshit and hoping they'll emerge with a nugget of truth.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Librarians for Book Burning.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Book burning is ok when I don't agree with the books!!"
Re:Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:3)
I get your point, but simpky removing them doesn't make them go away - people who want them will still find them. I would recommend instead starting a new dewey decimal category called fiction/idiocy and shelving them there, so people are clear on what they're reading. Certainly don't call them non fiction.
Re: Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:5, Insightful)
people who want them will still find them
Oh good. Then you agree, it doesn't need to be in a library, because you recognize the same number of people will read it regardless.
Sarcasm aside, you don't make a book unavailable in a library system because you think it makes it "go away", the entire purpose is just not to contribute to the cause of more people reading it using public funds. It's not book burning. It's book not-buying and book not-lending by people who ostensibly have publics interest in a wide range of views, other than full on lies, in mind. Like let's not pretend that there are not books in every library system that cover contested ideas. There are bajillions. But short of a library that has "infinate" shelf space, books are selected, and those selections are meant to be for public enrichment. Or at least not public detriment. Fortunately North America has a reasonably good track record on making books of all schools of thought available via their public library systems (granted, puritanical standards and racism has historically been a blind spot to some degree that varies over time and location)
The books in question here are absolute bullshit. It's
Re: Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not in the interest of the public to spend money on stocking them. That's not an endorsement of the idea that nobody should be allowed to buy and read the book. That's the purview of the market, where the author is entirely free to make their book available, market their book, and try and get as many people to read it as possible. There's just no argument to subsidize the distribution of certain ideas that are demonstrably false or contain harmful ideas with no redeeming value.
Now, if you want to argue that a *specific* book should be made or kept available, go for it. Those are healthy discussions that should occur, and are good for society. But the argument that there exists no single book in existence to which there is no value to public interest in being made available, "people will find it anyway" functions a perfectly good argument as to why there should be no objection to not making it part of a publicly curated collection with finite resources.
Re:Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Choosing not to carry a book is the same as burning it, right.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Someone has to choose what books the library carries
No, they don't. These are ebooks. They take up no shelf space.
Re:Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:4, Insightful)
Yep. These are probably the same people who celebrate Banned Books Week (https://bannedbooksweek.org/) without recognizing the contradiction in their belief system.
Re: (Score:2)
Librarians for Book Burning.
Clueless propaganda. This is not about burning books at all. This is about limiting access.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
There are lots of objectionable things in the world, but who should be deciding what is acceptable and what isn't.
The people in charge of the goddamn library.
Yes, but you do realize that your fellow traveler leftist lunatics see everything as problematic, even Harry Potter and Dr. Seuss? Once librarians start burning books there won't be any left by the time everyone is satisfied.
Re:Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, but you do realize that your fellow traveler leftist lunatics see everything as problematic, even Harry Potter and Dr. Seuss? Once librarians start burning books there won't be any left by the time everyone is satisfied.
Do you mean the author of Harry Potter and her beliefs? I don't see anyone calling for her books to be removed. You can't even get the Dr. Seuss story straight either. It was, wait for it, Dr. Seuss Enterprises who chose to stop publishing certain titles.
Re: (Score:2)
And it was the right wing that flipped their shit over Dr. Seuss Enterprises not publishing those titles, all of which happened to have offensive racial stereotypes in them.
Re: (Score:3)
Do you mean the author of Harry Potter and her beliefs? I don't see anyone calling for her books to be removed.
What rock have you been living under? When the books where first very popular there wasn't a week that went by where some religious group of nutbags through Harry Potter promoted devil worship. I was accosted by religious kook in Barnes and Nobles because I was holding a Harry Potter book. Harry Potter still shows up on some school ban lists because you know, witchcraft.
Re:Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:4, Informative)
https://www.vox.com/2021/3/2/2... [vox.com]
It was the right wing that flipped out over the Dr. Seuss books no longer being published.
Nice try at gaslighting, but you need to pick things that aren't so well documented so it's not so easy to demonstrate that you're full of it.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
My first parody troll account! Guess I'm living rent free in someone's head.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
No it was actually republicans butthurt over Dr. Seuss. https://www.newsweek.com/repub... [newsweek.com]
Re: (Score:2)
books came under attack from your fellow pearl-clutching ever-offended SJWs and they did try to get these books cancelled with mixed success.
CRT has entered the chat.
Re:Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:5, Insightful)
Every accusation is a confession with you guys.
It's the right that have attacked Dr. Seuss and Harry Potter. They've been at it for a while. Harry Potter books have been among the most challenged this century.
It is the right that is holding book burnings.
The right is the reason that we have banned books at all. They're the ones behind efforts to ban books like The Island of Blue Dolphins, To Kill a Mocking Bird, and 1984 in school libraries across the country.
Who in their right mind would believe your obvious lies about the left calling for books to be banned? The only instances I could find were people challenging the Christian Bible, and that was only to make a point, they didn't actually want it banned.
Re: (Score:2)
J.K. Rowning has been attacked for her comments that the word for cis-women is "women" and that transgender activism is interfering with women's rights. She was banned from the 20th re-union show due to her transgender comments.
https://www.news18.com/news/bu... [news18.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Ms. Rowling has never been hateful towards transgender people, her stories include gay characters, werewolves, giants, house elves and other creatures with lives and rights of many types of mind and body, some of whom transform into other bodies including other genders and many of whom are harassed and forced to conceal their physical natures. They are admirable for capturing the minds and imaginations of many with difficult lives.
Re:Don't check them out if you don't like them. (Score:5, Informative)
Which is why the books which are most often banned in 2022 are about Critical Race Theory, say slavery was perhaps not a good thing, or have any mention of sexual orientation. And not just for children. Lists are circulating in certain states requiring such books be removed for all ages. Forty-one math textbooks were recently banned in schools in Florida (and just coincidentally, the books being used to replace them are from a company partially-owned by the Republican governor of another state who is also doing book-banning of his own). And by the way, you might want to have a look at who's burning the Harry Potter books (hint: it ain't leftist lunatics).
Here, have a list of Powell Books' banned reading list, and see if any particular points of view being censored stand out:
https://www.powells.com/featur... [powells.com]
Re: (Score:2)
At least in the case of the math books i agree with them republicunts.
Politics, sociology, etc. should stay out of math textbooks.
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like Republicans are currently burning books?
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, but you do realize that your fellow traveler leftist lunatics see everything as problematic, even Harry Potter and Dr. Seuss?
What is it about the right doing something objectionable then positively screaming that the left is doing it?
https://www.toledolibrary.org/... [toledolibrary.org]
It's challenged by the religious right, not the left. And here's some good, old-fashioned, real right wing book burning for you:
https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]
Re: (Score:2)
There are lots of objectionable things in the world, but who should be deciding what is acceptable and what isn't.
The people in charge of the goddamn library.
The people in charge of it keep fucking around, and they'll answer to The People who maintain their professional existence.
Re: (Score:2)
Lol, you and meal team six going to walk your tubby cargo shorts wearing ass down to the library and demand they carry holocaust denial books? Internet tough guys.
Re: (Score:2)
You know what you get when you mix Broadcast News with social media? Today's MSM, that's dying faster than a CNN streaming service.
You know what you get when you mix a Public Library with social media? Today's ebook lending service, which makes Wikipedia look error-free.
We're here debating on why some fucking trolls pushed a ranking system that probably shouldn't even exist, beyond Grandmas peal strings. Beyond that stupidity, those that choose to rank clicks and likes over facts and integrity, deserve t
Re: (Score:2)
> those that choose to rank clicks and likes over facts and integrity, deserve their fate.
Unfortunately they won't face it alone...
Re: (Score:2)
There are lots of objectionable things in the world, but who should be deciding what is acceptable and what isn't.
The people in charge of the goddamn library.
The people in charge of it keep fucking around, and they'll answer to The People who maintain their professional existence.
We can have a discussion about if a collection should include To Kill a Mockingbird, whatever is labeled CRT this week, and that math book that offends you, but your self published, non-satire, Nazi Revivalism Youth Handbook with poster inside and coupon for laminated Hitler Youth ID card is going to be less of a discussion and more it will be checked out once kind of thing.
Re: (Score:2)
Everyone I don't like is Hitler!
Help!
Re: (Score:3)
"The people in charge of it keep fucking around, and they'll answer to The People who maintain their professional existence."
Not likely. Most of the libraries you'd think are publicly-funded are in fact managed by private entities. They don't answer to The People. I'd know, my husband is one of those librarians.
Re: (Score:2)
E tu, Librarians? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Except Fahrenheit 451 isn't about government or censorship.
Bradbury, a man living in the creative and industrial center of reality TV and one-hour dramas, says it is, in fact, a story about how television destroys interest in reading literature.
https://www.laweekly.com/ray-b... [laweekly.com]
Appropriate Response (Score:2)
Are they supposed to be putting them on display for Post-Historical Nazi Propaganda Week?
No, but perhaps a more appropriate response would be to display them in the fiction section instead of trying to ban them.
Re: (Score:2)
Well librarians are people too and so they have political views and are allowed to participate in political processes.
Americans tend to agree that censorship is wrong until they see something that they KNOW to be Truly Evil, and suddenly a little censorship seems like justified service to the greater good. It is a VERY slippery slope. Not everyone has the self-discipline to resist it.
But resist we should. The right way to fight misinformation is to spread correct information as much as possible. Preachi
Except it isnt (Score:3)
Americans tend to agree that censorship is wrong until they see something that they KNOW to be Truly Evil, and suddenly a little censorship seems like justified service to the greater good. It is a VERY slippery slope. Not everyone has the self-discipline to resist it.
Except it isnt a slippery slope at all just like everything else people try to apply that logical fallacy to. Germany has had laws on the books since just a bit after WW2 about displaying the swastika, something that is perfectly legal in our own country and many other. This has not triggered some sort of long decline into Orwellian dystopia however
Personally I think people should be able to fly such a hateful symbol freely, if anything it helps pick out the shitheads. Never the less the restrictions aroun
Re: (Score:2)
What is political about holocaust deniers?
Re: (Score:3)
What is political about holocaust deniers?
Let's see now. The fact that they deny the holocaust for political reasons, maybe?
Re:E tu, Librarians? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you assume the fact that the holocaust happened is just a political point of view? It's not. It's actual history.
Libraries are meant to provide knowledge, not push your pet conspiracy theory.
Re: (Score:2)
Why do you assume the fact that the holocaust happened is just a political point of view? It's not.
Well these days on the right, facts look to be very much a political point of view. I don't get it either.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are Librarians trying to insert themselves into political process?
"Why are librarians having problems with blatantly problematic material being pushed through their wholesome institution."
There, fixed that for you. Having done so I think your question has been answered at the same time.
Re: (Score:2)
"Why are librarians having problems with blatantly problematic material being pushed through their wholesome institution."
You mean, like pornography? Oh wait, the librarians didn't have any problems with that!
Re: (Score:2)
Oh no! Pornography in the public library!? Obviously, "think of the children!"
Fuck off idiot. All you "think of the children types" do is limit the rest of ours freedom, you don't give a shit about morality.
Our libraries shouldnt be promoting things like holocaust denial on the public dollar. If you want to believe in hateful shit that's you're right. You shouldnt be able to depend on the government to provide it for you though.
Re: (Score:2)
But you should be able to depend on government to provide you with jackoff material?
Historical events are debated all the time. I guarantee you can find some wild interpretations of pretty much any historical event on the shelves of your public library. Cranks and maniacs have always been well represented in libraries. If you want to ban books just for being wrong, your library shelves will be thinned out, but fast.
Re: (Score:2)
But you should be able to depend on government to provide you with jackoff material?
Oh this this great. We've clearly found some one who has ample proof for their opinions. Please show me this government phonography you're fighting against'. If it really is a problem surely you can show me as such.
Come on now, dont be shy in your moment of victory. Clearly you should be able to show as such right here and now.
Re: (Score:2)
That was too easy...
https://www.npr.org/sections/t... [npr.org]
Re: (Score:3)
No, you're the fucking idiot here. You makeup objectionable content and then claim it's normal context being pushed by the Left. I mean please, show me "Drag Queen Blowjobs for 5 Year Olds!". You cant because you're a piece of shit who claims honest Americans with contrary political views promote universally loathed things like pedophilia.
Re: (Score:2)
I mean please, show me [...]
I think he accidentally pasted his browser history.
Re: (Score:2)
Why are Librarians trying to insert themselves into political process?
Political you say? A widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs perhaps?
Texas Education Code
(h-2)(2) teachers who choose to discuss current events or widely debated and currently controversial issues of public policy or social affairs shall, to the best of their ability, strive to explore such issues from diverse and contending perspectives without giving deference to any one perspective;
Hitler thanks you for your service.
Re: (Score:2)
That damn Hitler and his... requiring teachers to teach both sides of controversial subjects.
Do you think before you post?
Re:E tu, Librarians? (Score:5, Insightful)
If a librarian's job isn't too curate what is available in the library, what is even their job? Curation is not censorship. It's signal vs noise.
Re: (Score:2)
Preserving text that no one can find is pointless. It was the flaw with Aaron Swartz attempt to copy JSTOR and "make it free", it's the breadh of the material and its organization for which people subscribe to JSTOR. Putting alll the books, even electronically, onto a huge storage space gives no means to find or access that material if and as desired.
Many libraries and publishers are struggling to handle the modern volumes of published material. Helping students, scholars, and quite ordinary readers find wh
Unhinged and Conspiracy Interesting! (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I would expect the librarians to curate the library collection and unhinged conspiracies would be put in the appropriate section
Re: (Score:2)
Fiction.
There are really two separate questions here (Score:5, Insightful)
The first is whether libraries should refuse to carry books based on objectionable content. My opinion is that they shouldn't, and that any content which is not actually illegal should be available in libraries. (Not going to rehash all the reasons for that. By this point in the 21st century, you've already thought about this issue, and you either agree with my opinion or you don't).
The second issue is whether there should be some merit-based filter regarding what people put in a library. If you decide you're going to include *every* publisher in your collection, and that you're also going to include self-published books, you will end up curating millions of weird little documents pretending to be books-- including some that are written by functional illiterates, and some that may be nothing more than a collection of the author's grocery lists. (There's a very funny novel by Martin Amis where he writes about the world of vanity publishing).
The best solution to that problem is to let readers filter the search results by publisher. If you don't want your search results garbaged up with 500 self-published e-books-- uncheck the box called "self-published", block whichever fringe publishers you want to block, and so on.
Re: (Score:2)
Libraries have limited budgets, and books, even eBooks cost money. Why should a library waste its dollars on this shit?
Re: (Score:2)
wE hAvE tO LiStEn To AlL sIDeS!
Re: (Score:2)
Scared people might like the other side more?
If you're confident in your positions then you should have nothing to fear.
Unless...?
Re: (Score:2)
even eBooks cost money.
Do they, though? I know that with conventional publishing, the library has to pay the publisher a fee to include the ebook in its collection. But I don't know if that's the case for fringe publishers or self-publishers.
The only other cost to the library is about 1 megabyte of storage, which would cost less than 1/1000 of a cent. (I'm assuming that the indexing/cataloging is automated). Your argument would make sense for *physical* books, of course.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:There are really two separate questions here (Score:4, Funny)
Because it's a public library, and if that's what the public wants to read, then they should offer it. That's what we pay public libraries for.
Public dollars shouldnt be spent on anti Semitism. (Score:2)
The first is whether libraries should refuse to carry books based on objectionable content. My opinion is that they shouldn't, and that any content which is not actually illegal should be available in libraries. (Not going to rehash all the reasons for that. By this point in the 21st century, you've already thought about this issue, and you either agree with my opinion or you don't).
And as you predicted I think you're completely off mark. Libraries are trusted institutions, having books available at them that blatantly pander to the worst of our society like holocaust deniers is completely irresponsible. You might as well supply the philosophical writings of the last Islamic State leader because "Free speech!"
This isnt about censorship, this is about actively promoting an objectionable message on the public dollar. Nothing is being suppressed, the objectionable is just not being public
Re: (Score:2)
You understand, I hope, that if you're going to ban objectionable content from libraries, you can't include "Mein Kampf" in library collections-- and you'll probably also want to ban the philosophers Hitler stole his ideas from, like Hermann von Keyserling.
Kind of a bummer for history students, don't you think?
And to use your example: Yes, in fact, I think the philosophical writings of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi should be available in libraries. (If there is a large and well-funded jihadist group trying to kill
Re: (Score:2)
You overlook a thing: Libraries can very well have limited sections that are not open to the general public, but where you have to demonstrate some type of legitimate interest. This even applies to some engineering texts.
Library can't afford to buy everything (Score:2)
So, understandably, it gets annoyed that its limited resources are getting spent on this stuff. Librarian is not in favor of censorship, is in favor of spending money wisely
This is what public libraries are for. (Score:4, Insightful)
I have been to many places on this planet. I realized a half a lifetime ago that free public libraries and a cheap, dependable postal system are what separate us from everybody else.
Re: (Score:2)
Hahahaha, no. The manipulators behind the conspiracy theories just have gotten better at selling their deranged ideas.
The books are widely available online (Score:2)
...and then they came for me (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You are wrong. Nazi propaganda does not get censored. It gets access-restricted. That is fundamentally different.
Sunshine used to be the best disinfectant (Score:2)
But of course we now know that science says the banhammer is much more fun!
Librarians, of all people, out looking for publications to supress, is the icing on the cake.
I may be misremembering, but I think my high school library had a copy of the Turner Diaries, or maybe something by David Duke. I do remember that whatever it was, it was a signed copy.
I went to school in a small suburban school district full of Jews and immigrants, and it had been that way for a good while before I came along. So that book w
Re: (Score:2)
I think my high school library had a copy of the Turner Diaries, or maybe something by David Duke.... It was just there because someone at some point had nutty ideas and wanted to spread them with a donation to a library (one of the more benign methods of proselytizing, mind you).
Or maybe someone thought it was important for kids to know something about anti-Semitism in America.
Re: (Score:2)
Cool so you'd be happy with the librarian recommending those books actively to patrons when they step into the right section?
No?
The problem with ebook searching is that these books are being recommended i.e. coming high on the rankings.
Remember the 'Banned Books Club'? (Score:2)
Not five days ago we had this [slashdot.org] Slashdot article about kids forming 'banned book clubs' to read material removed from their core curriculum.
I guess the librarians want to make sure the kids at the book clubs pick up these books?
Re: (Score:2)
Not five days ago we had this [slashdot.org] Slashdot article about kids forming 'banned book clubs' to read material removed from their core curriculum.
I guess the librarians want to make sure the kids at the book clubs pick up these books?
There's also a little thing called "Banned Books Week", which the American Library Association has been organizing every year for the past 40 years. It includes events where readers are invited to read passages from their favorite banned books.
Um ... (Score:2)
Aren't all eBooks "unhinged"?
Re: (Score:2)
No, they're spineless.
wow, Book banning is popular (Score:2)
NOW, we suffer from BOTH far right and left extremists attempting to wipe out the other's propaganda.
BOTH are wrong. What is needed is to be able to ID this as propaganda. Why? Because Ideas can not be stopped. We need ppl to be educated to understand the difference in propaganda and truth.
For example, so many ppl are running around buying the propaganda from BLM. Yet,
Re: (Score:2)
While the idea is laudable and would be an obvious fix, it is not compatible with observable reality. Fact is that only about 20% of all people are reachable by rational argument. Less, maybe 10%, are independent thinkers and can do competent fact-checking and _create_ rational argument. The rest cannot be qualified to understand why something is propaganda or a conspiracy theory and why other things are actual, verified facts. About 65% just follow what their in-group thinks, no matter how irrational. And
Some filter is needed to prevent trash (Score:2)
Similar thing happened with video games and Steam. Now with game eng
Re: (Score:2)
what is a conspiracy theory? (Score:2)