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Comment by g42gregory | Hacker News Reader

> The Association of American Publishers put out a statement falsely claiming that the letter ... was actually “disinformation in the Internet Archive case.”

I think that The Association of American Publishers, together with other players, are in the process of re-defining the meaning of English word "disinformation". These days, the word "disinformation" basically means "something you disagree with" or "something you strongly dislike". I wonder if the online dictionaries would be catching up at some point.

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Labeling something as "disinformation" or "misinformation" isn't an attempt to convince people it's not true, rather, it's an attempt to get tech companies to remove it, and to de-platform the people who post it. It's a bit like calling someone a witch in the 1600s. You only do it because you want someone burned at the stake.

To me, this is a signal that I should pay closer attention to something. Calling something "misinformation" is expressly saying that you want this information suppressed, which is more interesting than the information itself.

Just only a year ago, many people believed that taking horse paste was more important than taking a vaccine -- which may or may not have had microchips embedded in it which the CIA could control. People would practically inject bleach rather than question their own belief system.

Participate in our collective objective reality -- or don't. But don't expect social media to spread your lies about the holocaust so you can preach the gospel of hate.

This level of hatred and vitriol is curious. Why are you so angry at people you simply don't agree with?

Information spread on the news and social media probably made them that way. Ironically.

What makes you want to deny an objective reality?

I don't sense any "hatred and vitriol" in that comment. At worst, I sense frustration - and in light of the million or so needless deaths from COVID in my country alone, that seems rather justified.

The mechanism is this typically:

1. Deny fact "X" either historical, scientific, or otherwise provable -- meanwhile never disclosing your ulterior motives.

2. Argue from first principles that people who believe "X" should be allowed to say it no matter how repulsive or dangerous it is.

3. Debate endlessly to make it seem that "X" is more controversial in its widespread belief than it is. (Search HN for the Ivermectin). Aso, make sure to engage in whataboutery, false premises, strawman arguments, or demonization of those who support "X". (See Dr. Fauci)

4. Complain when someone (or a group of people or a corporation) decide to not let your arguments against "X" on their network as censorship.

Just because you see somebody's behavior as obviously wrong doesn't mean it is. Whenever I see this kind of arrogance I remember a story about westerners discovering some indigenous tribe in the jungle and seeing how they do a magic ritual to tell them the best place to go hunting. The ritual seemed to be just random and pointless but the tribesmen believed it gave them useful knowledge. Turns out, the value of it was exactly in the randomness which helped to prevent prey from learning their routines or over-using some areas. Many other "obviously" pointless beliefs are valuable simply for being beliefs, not for accurately reflecting the real world like some non-human information processing machine.

If you believe that bleach injection is really about a practical decision to choose the best medicine and making the wrong choice due to misinformation, then you're lost in your own bigotry.

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