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>I don't really care what inflammatory things people post in their free time. But make no mistake that there will be double standards in how these rules will be applied.

This seems like a red herring though? These letters are talking about the statements that news sources make as official outlets, to which you're comparing statements an individual makes (presumably) on her own time. I don't deny that there's a potential for double standards here, but I think you would have to show that misinformation in the Washington Post is comparable to misinformation on OANN or Newsmax to show that one is being applied in this instance.

Honestly, this isn't any more helpful than responding "citation needed" to someone asserting that man-made causes will accelerate climate change. The inevitability of the abuse of political power is not something that has to be debated over and over again in every thread.

>The inevitability of the abuse of political power is not something that has to be debated over and over again in every thread.

I don't contest this, what I contest is the idea that there is comparable misinformation on both sides. rayiner has since updated his post with some examples that he thinks constitute misinformation by news sources themselves, but before the only example given was the tweets from the Washington Times link.

I responded about the future because the quote you disagreed said "there will be", and I think the general tone of discussion here is around the potential future for abuse. We've seen notable comments by Democratic voters who are legitimately afraid of what their party will become. In this context, I'm not sure if current comparisons of misinformation are very relevant.

Having explained my thinking, I'll make sure to respectfully engage with yours. I do see the point about both sides not being equal in misinformation. But I think that a lot of the apparent difference comes from bias. There are several liberal narratives that are as baseless as anything in QAnon, and others that are partially factually accurate but framed in very misleading ways. But as these are accepted and promulgated in mainstream media, they are not considered fringe misinformation. I think there may still be greater fault on the "right" in misinformation, but it's not nearly as large as it appears to people in a liberal bubble, and, moreover, that disparity can shift overnight. I don't really want to derail this into a debate about those political narratives, so I probably have to leave it at that.

I agree that the potential for future abuse of a power to regulate misinformation is high. That does not necessarily mean that it outweighs the current value, but I think reasonable people can disagree about this and I think it’s a debate we should be having, given the events of 1/6.

I don’t want to get into an argument about which side is worse here or whether they’re equivalent. Suffice it to say, we have different perspectives and I don’t think discussing that is enlightening here.

Thank you for the respectful discussion. I feel like I understand your position a lot more clearly now.

what I contest is the idea that there is comparable misinformation on both sides

I don't see that we need to even consider the question of parity. Saying that one side or another is worse, and therefore requires special attention, is wrong: it's false that only the worst offender should be policed.

All sides should be subject to the same rules, whether they're doing it a lot or just a little. My personal philosophy is that for all sides, the remedy is to encourage more information to shine light on the falsehoods, rather than trying to gag any ideas.

>All sides should be subject to the same rules, whether they're doing it a lot or just a little.

Sure, absolutely.

>Saying that one side or another is worse, and therefore requires special attention, is wrong: it's false that only the worst offender should be policed.

This is not my position, I just disagree that the "left-wing" media outlets that rayiner identified are materially engaged in misinformation in the same way that the outlets identified in these letters are.

But I also don't really want to litigate this question, as it's a recipe for a flame war.

>My personal philosophy is that for all sides, the remedy is to encourage more information to shine light on the falsehoods, rather than trying to gag any ideas.

In general I agree, but we're in a state of exception right now. Since 1/6, certain ideas have now proved themselves to be dangerous to (small-d) democratic rule. I don't think this is an easy question to answer, or I would be giving the easy answer, instead of asking the question: what actions are legitimate in this instance to preserve democracy, and do they include regulating the speech of institutions which reject majority rule? Karl Popper has an answer here, but I'm a pretty strict constitutionalist and a strong believer in freedom of speech, so I can't unreservedly suggest the government should intervene.

What exactly are those ideas?

That a legitimate election was manipulated by powerful people to install the loser, and that the people who voted for the other guy need to stand up for what’s right and defend the “real” America.

I absolutely agree there is a distinction in general. However, I don't think that distinction applies to the Twitter posts of a blue-checkmark journalist. The news outlets themselves are heavily involved in Twitter, and Attiah prominently advertises her Washington Post affiliation on her Twitter account.

Her affiliation with a prominent media company is why she has a blue checkmark: https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/about-twit...

> Notable Your account must represent or otherwise be associated with a prominently recognized individual or brand, in line with the notability criteria described below.

> News organizations and journalists: Any official accounts of qualifying news organizations, as well individual accounts of journalists employed by qualifying organizations may be verified, if the account is public (does not have protected Tweets) and refers directly to the name and official URL of the qualifying organization and otherwise meets the criteria laid out in this policy

> While I agree there is a distinction, I don't think that distinction applies to the Twitter posts of a journalist.

We can disagree on this, but it's absolutely a question of current debate and not something that is settled. Some journalists believe themselves to have freedom on Twitter that they do not have in their columns. Some have been fired for assuming as such. Others have not.

MSNBC is just as partisan and loose with the truth as fox news, but with a centrist liberal perspective. CNN seems slightly better, but they have a lot of questionable reporting and analysis as well.

I think the magnitude of the lies on the Fox side is far larger than those on the CNBC side.

Magnitude matters in this case and painting them with "both sides" arguments is a huge disservice.

MSNBC has a history of misinformation contributing to the highly polarized environment today.

Here is a video showing how MSNBC purposefully cropped footage of an armed protester at an Obama townhall to hide his race (he was black), and used the clip to immediately launch into a discussion claiming that town hall protesters were motivated by racism. Soon after that media cycle my peers in college started assuming that most criticism of Obama is motivated by racism. These kinds of attitudes directly contributed to the current culture war of bad faith ostracism and tribalism.

https://youtu.be/fvBQDHqdCck?t=130

Remember, a left wing activist also took violent action and shot up Congressmen at a baseball field. The argument of a "sufficient level" of misinformation and/or butterfly-effect-violence can be used to justify arbitrary intimidation and censorship against any outlet.

I'm not suggesting MSNBC is not guilty of this. Look at the sheer volume of lies and misinformation on the Fox News network. There is just no comparison.

> think the magnitude of the lies on the Fox side is far larger than those on the CNBC side.

It’s not a scaler. There is the overt-ness of the lie, as well as the significance of the lie. Fox gives air to some significant and bald-faced lies. MSNBC gives air to a lot of misconceptions that are monumental in scope but less bald-faced. On the flip side, the journalism side of Fox stood up to the bald-faced lie about the election. Nobody at MSNBC never stands up to the less bald-faced misconceptions aired on that network.

With respect to elections. Trump made up a big lie about one election that Fox’s news side pushed back on, and which some opinion commenters face air too. MSNBC has given air to less bold lies about election integrity ever since 2000. How many people know from watching left-leaning media that 7 of 9 justices, with two Democrats agreeing with five Republicans, thought the Florida recount was unconstitutional?

In other examples, look at COVID response. Do you think people watching CNN have an accurate idea of where US COVID deaths stands in comparison to similar countries?

I don't watch MSNBC (or any TV news for that matter), but I'm curious how their reporting has changed since Biden was sworn in. It's easier to report facts that 'speak truth to power' when your bias is opposed to who currently holds power.

Biden has delayed, compromised on, or walked back nearly every campaign promise he made. Has MSNBC been calling out these discrepancies between campaign rhetoric and implementation? I would be surprised if they were making substantive criticism of the Biden administration.

What Ever Happened to Daniel Dale? CNN Fact-Checker Has Disappeared From Air Post-Trump

https://www.mediaite.com/news/what-ever-happened-to-daniel-d...

Since joining CNN in June of 2019, Dale has appeared or been mentioned on the network more than once every other day on average, according to the Internet Archive.

That exposure dropped sharply after November 4, and according to the TV Eyes media monitoring database, since President Joe Biden’s inauguration on January 20, Dale has only appeared on the network once. And that appearance, last Friday, was to fact-check Donald Trump’s lawyers.

The Biden administration has been in power for a month. I think you are being a bit hyperbolic about its failure and lack of criticism by msnbc. Which campaign promises have been rolled back if I can ask?

$2000 checks, ending kids in cages, $15 minimum wage, $50k student loan forgiveness

One important question related to this is if a news org doesn't cover a valid story? Is that lying by omission? Probably not, but from an audience standpoint is there really a difference?

>The letter complains about Fox and OANN's partisan and inflammatory rhetoric,

>they suggest censoring Fox News, which accurately reported the election results and Supreme Court developments. The conspiracy theories, such as they were, came from some of the opinion hosts.

It's hard to believe we're at this point, but Fox is on a different level from OANN. You can find counterpoints on Fox News. OANN/Breitbart/the Mercer family media empire are a new, more vicious and fantasy-driven right-populism.

If the right would keep its own house in order, you'd see less appetite for restrictions on the left. You need a boogeyman to sell this kind of thing. I can see your WaPo editor (in the private sector) and raise you plenty of Republican Congressmembers posing with rifles and Lindsey Graham trying to employ Brad Raffensperger. The worst left-wing "counterpart" is probably Maxine Waters's mean words.

What’s wrong with posing with rifles in response to a President that’s making noise about gun control?

I wasn't quite specific. I meant the Congressmembers who include guns in their video chat office while in remote sessions, in an environment where open-carrying reactionaries have threatened and/or forcibly entered legislative offices in Oregon, Idaho and of course DC.

It's a threat of violence, particularly coming from legislators who have been reluctant to condemn said reactionaries, and it kind of looks like a wink-and-nudge endorsement.

> Whether it's "inflammatory" speech or "misinformation"--these rules will not be applied even-handedly.

When one source of disinformation has a contribution to negative outcomes, It's going to draw more scrutiny. As long as that happens regardless of content-origin, it's the kind of even-handedness that I'd hope for.

You mention Maddow, and, while I don't watch her, If her show's content possibly contributed to a putsch, I'd hope that someone would look into it.

Media has been full of crazy for decades now and authorities typically look the other way until some significant event occurs. January 6th was very significant, and if Fox/oann/newsmax had a role in it, I'd like to know. Bringing up Maddow and other opinion sources seem like whataboutism here.

> It's fair to say that Maddow has an opinion show, not a news show.

With many of these shows is they are a bit of 'looks like a duck quacks like a duck'. By that I mean the format and the presentation look as if they are not opinion but possibly fact and/or news. This can be manipulated by both the format, graphics, presentation of 'experts' and so on.

CNN does this as well with some opinion shows, Chris Cuomo, Don Lemon, Anderson Cooper, Erin Burnett. Many people will take them as authoritative typically because it's a professional presentation on a 'major' network. Most when I have spot watched do not even present an opposing or counter view a topic being discussed. And they often present a well credentialed person to support the pov they are taking.

> It's fair to say that Maddow has an opinion show, not a news show.

The general format (it is varied from occasionally) is a commentary/interview show that uses news stories, generally presented as straight news and to journalistic standards, to provide context for the interviews and commentary.

> these rules

Who has proposed rules?