> Its an issue of disinformation, not stupidity, that's leading people down the wrong path...

You're wrong. The difficulty has always been that the most pervasive so-called 'misinformation' is usually fairly plausible, difficult to validate, or simply matters of opinion or interpretation. The notion that Obama is a Muslim strains credulity, and it's not a widely held belief. What about more complex information, such as religious or political texts? These are even more difficult to validate and cause much more harm. Maybe we should just outright ban the communist manifesto? That seems to have caused a large amount of social harm and could be fairly readily classified as 'disinformation'. What about the Christian bible? The Koran? They're full of difficult to validate claims.

> What is your plan to deal with the disinformation here?

What disinformation? The information you don't like, or the information I don't like?

> We're not in an Orwellian fantasy, we're in an all-out information-war... > Several groups have learned how to weaponize information for their own gain...

The fact that you seem to see that information has been weaponised, but can't seem to see that big-tech's censorship is pursuant to their own political aspirations is alarming. Are you legitimately this biased, or just being disingenuous?

> The notion that Obama is a Muslim strains credulity, and it's not a widely held belief.

Its a held belief in my family. My very mother, my uncles, and more. Whether or not it is "widely held" has little-to-no bearing on the seriousness I take it.

Since my mother believes in it, I will take the alternative fact seriously.

> What disinformation? The information you don't like, or the information I don't like?

Disinformation like: Obama is a Muslim (or Obama was born in Kenya). Surely you can agree with me that such a fact running across political discussions is unhelpful.

> but can't seem to see that big-tech's censorship is pursuant to their own political aspirations is alarming

I'm prioritizing issues. I see misinformation / alternative facts to be a bigger problem than big-tech's censorship. As such, I'll stand in support of big-tech's moves here, if it helps the misinformation problem.

Did you read anything in my post? What about the widely held belief that Trump colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 Presidential election? The Meueller report was unable to prove collusion. What if big-tech suddenly banned any claims to the contrary on the grounds that it constituted 'misinformation'? Would you call that censorship then?

> What about the widely held belief that Trump colluded with Russia to influence the 2016 Presidential election?

And no one in my family believes that. Myself included (though I wish the Muller report were written with stronger language to clarify itself: its conclusion had extremely weak wording).

I talk about the misinformation that I can see personally and in my social circle. Fortunately, none of my family members are getting sucked into Q or some of the more dangerous stuff... but the misinformation across the spectrum online destroys discussion as a whole. Far more than "censorship" of posts by Twitter or whoever.

After all, I don't do Facebook. I honestly don't care about it: I'm practically "self-censored" from Facebook because I don't use it at all. What I do care about is the misinformation my family is getting from it.

---------

I mean, it seems clear to me that you are a user of Facebook, and you seem to agree with me that misinformation is running rampant?

I'm blind to it, since I don't read Facebook at all. I can only tell you what has come through my Mother and Sister's mouths in my discussions with them. But as far as I can tell, you're just confirming my point: that there's a huge amount of misinformation here. And I applaud Facebook's announcement that they're fighting against it.

> I mean, it seems clear to me that you are a user of Facebook, and you seem to agree with me that misinformation is running rampant?

No, I don't use Facebook. I haven't for a long time. While I agree that there is propagation of misinformation happening on the platform, that's not my main concern. My main concern is that Facebook, and other platforms, will use their framework for 'removing misinformation' as a tool for censorship in the pursuit of their political agendas. My chief contention is that this poses a larger risk to society than the propagation of misinformation in the first place.

Disinformation most empathically is not information that you or I dislike. You’re muddying the waters by claiming such absurdities. Claims like that have become commonplace, but so much more they need to be fought.

> It is disinformation how much disinformation there is. You'd like to believe that people believe everything they read on Facebook, while the truth is people don't care.

I don't have Facebook. I discussed things with my mother and sister personally. Our relationship is closer than just online crap. We actually talk together on a regular basis.

> Obama being Muslim or not has no effect on her life

This belief of my mother has an effect on our political discussion. In particular, she doesn't want to vote for a Muslim. It sets the stage for the rest of the discussion to come.

Where do I start? Do I start with Muslims aren't bad people? Do I attempt to prove Obama is a Christian? Etc. etc. These facts and beliefs lay the groundwork to the very discussion. And I have to take it seriously if I so wish to have an intelligent discussion with my family.

> Just stop. The sad thing is you as a human will not recognize in yourself how much your "knowledge" is faulty as well.

I know that Obama is a Christian, and that Breonna Taylor was innocent. I don't expect to know the truth to everything, but I'll start with the facts I know about and work my way up.

-----------

I don't believe myself to be the "defender of truth" or whatever. I can point out to my mom and my sister that I disagree with their "alternative facts", but I'm not so arrogant to believe that I can change their opinion on just discussion alone.

But when I see such obvious untruths seep into their talking points, it does make me weep inside on behalf of the truth.

Social network marketing groups, very clearly. In particular, stock pumpers and/or short sellers.

Surely you've seen the multitude of stock posts in both directions, of any stock that you're interested in? And they're quite correlated to stock prices these days. Its not just political topics, I'm including everything here. Disinformation is the cornerstone of social media strategies and marketing.

The current focus is on the election, because that's in less than a month. But Facebook / Twitter are still at the center of plenty of other issues relating to this propagation of alternative facts.

> My mom believes that Obama is a Muslim, and my sister believes Breonna Taylor was a criminal who got what she deserved.

That is an interesting example because while Obama is factually not a Muslim, period, the question about what Breonna Taylor "deserved" is a political one- a matter of opinions. So you're putting in the same bucket objectively fake information and opinions with which you strongly disagree, and calling for measures that can prevent both from spreading.

Perhaps I was too vague on the Breonna Taylor example. Let me clarify: My sister was arguing with me that Breonna Taylor was a drug dealer. Which is as factually wrong as the "Obama is a Muslim" comments.

EDIT: Note that the warrant in the case was for Jamarcus Glover. I can accept Jamarcus Glover being a drug dealer (or having some connection to drugs), but seeing Breonna Taylor wrapped up in the drug charges is clearly misinformation.

> the question about what Breonna Taylor "deserved" is a political one- a matter of opinions

I don't know anything about her karma or what she deserves, but the allegations that she was a criminal are not based on any information known to the police involved and was mostly invented by people who wanted to defend the police before gathering any facts.