India Proposes Social Media Firms Rely On Fact Checking By Government Agencies (techcrunch.com) 50
The Indian government has proposed making the Press Bureau of India and its other agencies the arbiter of truth on what information is misleading for social media firms and other internet companies as they oversee their users' data in the South Asian market. From a report: The proposal by the Ministry of Electronics and IT came as part of an amendment to the nation's IT rules. In the current draft, the ministry asks social media firms and online gaming companies to undertake due diligence on the content users "host, display, upload, modify, publish, transmit, store, update or share" and ensure that they are not "patently false and untrue or misleading in nature." The change proposes that the social media firms and gaming companies use the judgment of the Press Information Bureau, a nodal agency, of the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting or other agency authorized by the Central Government for fact checking or "in respect of any business of the Central Government, by its department in which such business is transacted." The Press Bureau of India's fact checks have been scrtunized and found to be misleading in some instances by the local media.
Test it (Score:3)
Ask the department if there is any corruption in the department.
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They referred me to Teh Departmunt ov Typo Chekking
Re:Test it (Score:5, Insightful)
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Govt. in charge of Ministry of truth...
What could possibly go wrong?
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Let me direct your attention to the American Republican Party, which is revving up the investigation into 5 pieces of paper with classified marking, that were brought to public attention by the staff of the person holding them, while ignoring the multi-box trove of classified materials hidden away by their guy...
It really would be fascinating if it did not directly affect our lives
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Well, not sure how this has anything to do with my post or this thread in general...
But there is a special counsel investigator assigned to each of the offenders at this time.
I'm a bit curious, n
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I always tell the truth; just ask me.
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So if I post something on Facebook from North America, will my Facebook friend living in India see it, or will it go through the great filter of India first?
These governments and the rules they make seem to assume that nobody talks to anyone outside of their own country. That in itself is an extremely dangerous attitude that could contribute to international polarization and conflict.
World War III is inevitable (Score:2)
The way the world is going, with bullshit like this. Humans are too stupid. Humans are bound to wipe themselves out and intelligent life will have to re-evolve from cockroaches or something. Maybe evolving from apes was a bad idea. For this reason, it is imperative we send cockroaches to Mars asap.
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> intelligent life will have to re-evolve from cockroaches or something.
Too late, roaches are already running DC disguised as humans with bad toupees.
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I think that's merely bad hygiene.
Government Agencies are often FAR too busy. (Score:2)
Also, Government agencies are often extremely influenced by wealthy organizations.
There are many other areas of the government of India that need more attention. That's my understanding.
That hasn't worked out too well, so let's not. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think it really needs much discussion or specific clarification that this is a horrible idea, and has (when tried) resulted in massive losses of life.
You've not got to look far in history to find examples where the government's censoring or curating of information and pushing it as official doctrine of the society has resulted in massive death - whether we're talking about something like the Great Chinese Famine, Soviet style farm quotas/reporting, or one of the more recent social events in the US and West which have been gaining underground attention via Twitter recently - since all other social media is currently in full collusion with governmental agencies.
In the case of the US... do we really want to give arbitration of truth to a government which has done wholesale biochemical and nuclear testing on US citizens (going back to before WWII, it's not a new phenomenon), and continues to hide such things? Seems like a bad idea.
I really hope someone doesn't take this to be a troll or flaimbait, I've tried really hard to be neutral in my conveyance of the status quo statement of facts.
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We're talking about India here. You didn't even mention India. Somehow you even managed to put tiktok up as some authority of truth despite it being controlled the the CCP, which openly admits to sending it's citizens to reeducation camps and having a great firewall to filter out stuff they disagree with.
So I guess the only real take away from your post is that governments are bad at being arbiters of truth. Tell us something we did not know already.
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Sorry, my mistake, you never mentioned tiktok. That's twitter and musk, but seriously, we know governments are not good for being truth ministers. Social Media doesn't have much truth either,.
Ministry of Truth (Score:5, Informative)
Obviously.... (Score:4, Informative)
....because governments never lie or have a vested interest in spinning facts a certain way.
Compromise? (Score:2)
As much as one should distrust a gov't to present objective info, it's also true that trolls can wreak havoc, as we saw in the US per Jan. 6. A compromise may be to flag "bad" messages but not outright ban them except for extremes. It should also have a practical appeal process.
Maybe if everyone were educated in critical thinking it wouldn't be a problem, but too many either don't get the message, or let religion and/or political cult leaders override critical thinking because of their persuasion abilities.
Their version of the US' proposed MiniTrue (Score:4, Interesting)
This is just their version of Ministry of Truth, foretold by Orwell, fantasized of by every government critter ever in any country.. ...floated as a trial balloon here, where it was soundly ridiculed.. and now we know our Government (US) is very much in cahoots with tech to protect our sensitive virgin ears from the horrors of Free Thought. So, while the US hasn't yet got its formal Ministry of Truth, MiniTrue exists every time one person shuts down the speech of another based on anything really.
You don't like what I say? Downmod!
You don't like what the radio says? Write and bitch, instead of just Change the Channel.
You don't have a logical rebuttal to speech you don't like? Make up myriad bullshit "norms" and then use them to claim Racism, Sexism and more!
The Internet is the most abused, most over-used bullhorn in history, and I think future history will show the mid-2000's as the start of the period in our world history where lie became truth, up became down, left became right, and good became bad.
All because senstive little shits couldn't stand being told "You're wrong, and here's why."
RACCCCCIIIIISSSSSSS!
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Still not a single post on Slashdot about the revelations in the Twitter Files. The Ministry of Truth is winning.
Slashdot's owners know who butter their toast, they're not about to bite the hands that feed them.
Fuck twitter, fuck slashdot, fuck the entire 21st century, really.
Oh.. and just because it's not talked about here doesn't mean it isn't being talked about.
Remember, slashdot is read perhaps -- at most -- by two dozen people now, myself included. And i frankly don't give a flying shit what the lot here thinks about things. There are no influential people -- like say, a president, or a king, or a pm, reading t
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> Slashdot's owners know who butter their toast, they're not about to bite the hands that feed them.
I don't think the feds see Slashdot as important enough to care what they do or say. They have much bigger fish to threaten/bribe/intimidate/monitor.
Re:Their version of the US' proposed MiniTrue (Score:4, Informative)
Twitter Files have revealed nothing solid so far. Fox had premature frothulation. The FBI etc. is allowed to block certain messages/spam from foreign governments, that's not news.
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Quote what you believe is the single most damming passage. Let's deep-dive one.
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Err...well, no they do not, or should not.
The problem is, they were having Twitter (and presumably the other social media sites) take down and ban information that they did not like by SAYING it was foreign propaganda, when in fact is was not so.
The US govt. is not supposed to be able to tell sites what they can and cannot publish, provided it is legal speech (ie not child pr0n or the like).
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> The problem is, they were having Twitter (and presumably the other social media sites) take down and ban information that they did not like by SAYING it was foreign propaganda, when in fact is was not so.
Can you provide evidence of this beyond heresy and clever context snipping? For instance, evidence that Message X was not from Russian Gov't but US Gov't claimed it was. I shouldn't have to ask for such specifics. This is Slashdot, not GutNotionDot. If anybody reading this has not taken a critical thi
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The Hunter Biden laptop story.
The FBI knew it was a legit find...and they told Twitter to " be on the lookout for this story" that it was Russian propaganda.
Add on top of that the numerous current and former "experts" like former CIA heads, etc that all pronounced it a Russian hoax.
Think what
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Sounds like you're salty about being called "racist". Why don't you tell us what you said with the full context so we can judge if it was fair or not?
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Who said anything about the word "racist" being thrown at me?
RACISSSS! is a well-known meme to ridicule the way of shutting down discourse Leftists love to use.. Make what you will of that statement. I call 'em like I seem 'em. The ones screaming RACISSS! are themselves the biggest racists.
And for the record, you know *nothing* of my upbringing and life. Where I grew up, I was the minority, I was the one who was the butt of racist jokes, and more.
But, they say nothing projects like a Democrat. What hav
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Yeah OK, you got called out on being racist and are REALLY salty about it.
This feels like a very modern problem (Score:3)
I would hazard a guess that if you went back before the modern apparatus of centralized information management, ie before mass radio, most of the world would look at the human race would be bewildered by the notion of a whole society trusting Very Official News Sources to tell them The Truth(tm), The Whole Truth and Nothing But The Truth. The Internet really feels like an accelerated version of what existed prior to mass broadcasting tech gave the elites the ability to craft a narrative and use soothing voices and pretty faces to beat it into the heads of the majority.
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Spanish American war was started because two newspapermen -- Pulitzer and Hearst -- made it their business to make a war happen.
IN reality, USS Maine had a coal bunker fire set off a powder magazine... the Spanish did not kill her.
HOWEVER .... the dumbass American public read all that, and REMEMBER THE MAINE! To war we went. Needlessly.
I bet this also happened in Roman times.
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The wreck was scuttled, and that area north of Greater Antilles is one of the deepest.
Would you be interested in the report done by Rickover, or will you dismiss it because he's the father of the nuclear teakettle submarine?
http://www.steelnavy.org/histo... [steelnavy.org]
That investigation concluded it was most likely accidental. Coal fire. And before you go "But buit but" I'll remind you bunker fires were common. Even Titanic had a bunker fire as she was steaming towards the iceberg on her first money-making trip.
Late
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Now do Ukraine.
Madman Russian invades former territory in an attempt to re-assemble either the Russian Empire, or the USSR.
Are you saying this is a lie, and the Russian invasion is just a bunch of soldiers looking for a little fun, a little nookie, perhaps, and enjoy some much-needed Ukrainian company?
I don't get my news from one single source, I read many, sift through the bullshit, and try to arrive at a plausible conclusion. So far, it all looks like Putin wants the USSR back and is taking active steps to make it hap
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Yes, your first sentence is a complete lie.
OK, then give us your version of the truth.
What is untrue about a madman (Putin) invading a former territory (Ukraine) in order to continue re-assembling a former superpower?
Please show us the evidence to the contrary. Tell us, why that sentence is a lie.
If it is a lie, then some outlets are indeed lying.
If it isn't a lie, then ALL of them are lying -- because the "consensus" among all the sources I look at say... he done did invading Ukraine.
Please. Enlighten us.
Factcheccing like TASS, GRANMA... (Score:2)
ABN, IRNA and such?
Yeah, right!
PS:
TASS: Russia
GRANMA: CUBA
ABN: Venezuela
IRNA: Iran
Interesting (Score:2)
HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHA!
Did I say "interesting"? I meant "Frightening and worrying"
Official truth is a slip/slope (Score:1)
The more you have a single official truth, the more you control people with a single pathway of obedience to success.
You must also censor more.
Even worse, you have created a property -- the power to determine truth and enforce it on others -- that others will seek to control, the most vicious first and triumphant.
This is why I both believe in free speech and am a nihilist. There is no one truth for all human beings. We are not equal.
See Above for Evidence This Won't Work (Score:4, Insightful)
From looking through some of the responses so far, it seems like too many people have placed their trust in whomever tells them what they want to hear.
If the "source of truth" is not that group, or points out an inconvenient fact, they will bleat about "Fake Newz" or "MinTruth" or whatever their Trusted Source of Truth tells them to.
Stupid people gonna stupid, and there's very little that can be reasonably done to prevent this.
Deja vu (Score:1)