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Comment by Broken_Hippo | Hacker News Reader

Misrepresenting facts in this way is still a form of lying. Speaking technical truths doesn't change that. Most lies aren't complete fabrications, honestly, even when they do contain a few.

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The most effective form of lying is lying by omission. It's harder to detect, easier to defend as just ignorance, and is perhaps more effective than outright false claims.

Why don't we make a law around it? I'm tired of politicians weaseling themselves out of difficult situations by saying "oh, I forgot about that". It's your job to bring important, relevant information to the table, damn it.

A law to do what, exactly? Criminalize the omission of facts from a statement? Criminalize ignorance?

Who decides when a fact was omitted? Was the fact pertinent (note: there's a lot of wiggle room here)? How much investigation has to be done to uncover whether there was a lie by omission or actual ignorance?

What would the penalty be?

Thinking you can legislate your way out of this is hopeless idealism.

It is physically impossible for anyone to express all facts in finite time. Every expression is, at best, a selection among the facts of that which is adjudged relevant. Legislating what would be relevant in every situation is likewise impossible.

Demonstrating that a fact is omitted with dishonest intent is tricky business. That doesn't mean we can't guess, but the law does not go by guesses.

Far far more effective is lying by implication. This happens almost all the time. The article is written in such a way as to imply something is true; for example talking in such a way that said thing is obviously true and everyone knows it, when in fact it isn't true at all. This allows them to make the reader think something is true without lying, and often without even having the reader question it, and it allows the media to not even have to try to supply evidence at all.

"Cloth masks required," "vaccines required," etc.?

i was told growing up that this was the difference between being honest and being truthful: honesty is about telling allcomers everything you know (or believe, with appropriate caveats) to be true, whereas being truthful is simply not advancing as truth things you know (or believe) to be false.

in any case, i've watched npr and nyt, two of my mostly former news sources, wrench from simply being biased to being outright hysterically partisan and dishonest. covid (over-)coverage being the most blatant, but it's been a long disintegration of truth and trust.

this is just a little part of the overall movement toward captured capital and centralized power, sweeping up news media along the way (note that these are editorial decisions, with editors seeking favor from the powerful). we're in for a rocky ride.

p.s. - a little tremor hit LA while writing this...

Through 200x, NPR was always having CIA flacks on. They seem not to be doing that anymore, since about Manning/Snowden.

YMMV but every time I happened to be tuned into NPR (world) news I get an unhealthy dose of State Dept-curated misinformation on topics like Russia, China, Iran, etc.

If anything changed in the post-Collateral Murder world, its that the Washington's content filtering and propaganda subtly intensified.

NPR seem to get all their "world news" patched through from the BBC, which we know is badly compromised.

Picard: You've already given an answer to the inquiry, and that answer was a lie.

Wesley: I said the accident occurred after the loop. It did.

Picard: What you neglected to mention was that following the loop your team attempted a maneuver that was the direct cause of the crash. You told the truth up to a point. But a lie of omission is still a lie.

[....]

Picard: The first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth. Whether it's scientific truth, or historical truth, or personal truth. It is the guiding principle upon which Starfleet is based. If you can't find it within yourself to stand up and tell the truth about what happened you don't deserve to wear that uniform.

https://youtu.be/8W0ff2Xns5g

It's always interesting to me, the mental gymnastics people will do to convince themselves that they're not doing something they believe to be morally wrong. Like, if your intent is to mislead, what do you care if you're technically telling the truth?

It isn't mental gymnastics, the media has two very good and intentional reasons for doing this. Number one is to avoid being sued while still being able to get away with misleading their audience. Number two is that it gives the zealots following their cause to clear their conscience by saying "see this article was factually correct" when, on the rare occasion, someone bothers to call them out on the lie.

"Number two is that it gives the zealots following their cause to clear their conscience by saying "see this article was factually correct" when, on the rare occasion, someone bothers to call them out on the lie."

This is literally mental gymnastics, why would it clear their conscience if they intended to mislead? It only clears their conscience because they're doing mental gymnastics to convince themselves that they're not technically lying.

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