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Comment by rhacker | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. About 2 years ago Etsy started banning everyone that was selling crystals and also included "promotes good health or luck" And while that's probably fine to do from a trades perspective, I don't like the notion that we had to start leaning this way. If we keep leaning over at what point are we going to make it illegal to believe in UFOs (as in aliens) and ghosts.

There's no scientific evidence to make those concepts not possible. Just evidence to make things we understand possible.

And on top of that, we have some kind of fucked up exception for God. Even scientists are just unwilling to go on a rant to disprove god, but totally happy putting someone in the psych ward for believing in aliens kidnapping them.

(im not talking about ALL scientists - of course you'll find them, but talking about bulk percentages here)

Thought police are coming.

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It's only a matter of time before flat earth becomes illegal too. Flat earth has been around for as long as the internet, but in the past year or so the amount of unbridled anger it causes has been increasing disturbing. The "righteous anger at people being wrong on the internet" phenomena seems to be truly intoxicating; it needs to be reigned while we still can.

(And just so we're clear, the earth is round. It's a shame I have to state that, lest the rabid opponents of harmless flat earth nutters get the wrong idea, jump down my throat, and accuse me of all manner of outlandish offenses.)

So why can't we allow people to believe that, and like the market, let less people trust and support them, rather than actually make laws that might put them in jail?

I guess I wasn't clear. I am suggesting that people calm down and temper their anger against flat earthers. I don't believe that it should be illegal, nor to I believe it should make people angry. I think it's unhealthy to be angry about such things.

Do you remember that guy who made a hydrogen peroxide rocket, said that he was going to check if the earth was actually round? Got a lot of support from flat earthers? He also got a ton of vitriol from 'sensible' round earthers too. A LOT of vitriol. People hoping he would die. Why? Because an Evel Knievel wannabe would joke around with internet memes about the earth being flat to fund his stunt? That's cause to wish his death? It was deranged. After he pulled off his stunt, comment threads across the internet about it had people lamenting his survival. People earnestly wanted this man (whom they'd never met!) to die, simply because he said the earth was flat. Even if he were sincere in that belief, which is doubtful, that's not any reason to become angry with him.

I think a line needs to be drawn. Those are sort of wacko ideas hard to disprove, but saying "hillary clinton is guilty of ____" or blatantly misrepresenting facts or lieing? that needs to stop.

Who draws the line?

That would be the courts. Since libel/slander/defamation is already against the law. It's rather different from being misinformed and retracting the content and doubling down on lying because it's politically expedient. At least it was before this Presidency in the United States. I'm not sure how a purveyor of conspiracy theories being the ultimate enforcer of the law changes that, if at all.

Why does saying that Hillary Clinton is guilty of something need to stop?

>> but saying "hillary clinton is guilty of ____" or blatantly misrepresenting facts or lieing? that needs to stop.

> Why does saying that Hillary Clinton is guilty of something need to stop?

That's a too-literal reading of the comment. The implication was clearly that what needs to stop is lies that claim Hillary Clinton is guilty of something she's not.

I don't think that needs to stop. Each person is responsible for evaluating the information presented to them and deciding what to believe or not. It is nobody's responsibility to compensate for gullibility, or simply lack of critical thinking, by restricting what information reaches people in the first place. That is called censorship.

This is the harder than you think. You might make it illegal to say "Hillary Clinton is guilty of <something>" - it actually is - it's a civil matter and Clinton can sue you for defamation. But, if you make it an opinion or a conjecture by adding enough hyperbole, you'll get away with it. That's not easy to ban. Any attempt to do so infringes on basic rights. It very soon becomes thought police.

The only sane solution to this is to educate the masses, give them the tools to may be verify facts ...etc.

(I'm in favor of banning organized news manufacturing. But I fully acknowledge that it's not practical and leaves a lot of room for bias. If President Trump gets that power, there's nothing stopping him from banning CNN entirely and I'm pretty convinced that he would.)

It's now coming out that Hillary and Obama were up to some serious shenanigans at the very least. In fact your post is a great example of the dangers of this kind of legislation and how easy it is to get wrong. Even Trump doesn't want to go that far and he's the world's biggest victim of fake news.

I agree that the spread of particularly vicious lies is a problem, but that doesn't mean the answer is for a government entity to draw the line.

Maybe the solution to the problem is pressuring Facebook and Google. Maybe the solution is changing tech culture. Maybe the solution is more aggressively demoting fake news and promoting debunking of fake news. Even if you want a governmental component, maybe we should only go so far as a law requiring advertising networks to make it easier/possible for an advertiser to blacklist who gets their money (I know people who have tried, failed, and ultimately gave up on trying to prevent their ads from showing up on Breitbart).

If you're familiar with US history, we've had a long and storied history with snake oil salesmen selling incredibly dangerous or downright fake goods to people.

I don't think it's unfair for a site to not want to be associated with scam artists.

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