<story><title>Twitter to ban political advertising</title><url>https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634360472829952</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ralusek</author><text>The lowest level of truth telling is stating facts, but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative.&lt;p&gt;If I were to say:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;2x as many white Americans were killed by police as black Americans in 2018.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This a true fact.&lt;p&gt;If I take note of the fact that black Americans only constitute 13% of the population, then I can say&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A black American is 2.3x as likely as a white American to be killed by police.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is also a true fact.&lt;p&gt;So not only are facts capable of telling a narrative, but it gets much more complicated once you start introducing conclusions.&lt;p&gt;If you say &amp;quot;A black person is 2.3x as likely as a white person to be killed by police in America. American police are being racially discriminatory when killing civilians.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is a fact and a conclusion, and &lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; news consists of facts and conclusions. Both the fact and the conclusion serve a particular narrative, and that&amp;#x27;s an issue. The problem is that a news organization with a different set of objectives, or simply operating under a different framework, would be entirely capable of coming to an entirely different conclusion, or introduce entirely different facts alongside it.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A black person is 2.3x as likely as a white person to be killed by police in America. However, despite making up only 13% of the population, black Americans committed 36% of homicides, with an overall much higher representation in violent crime across the board. Only 5% of police shootings are with an unarmed victim, with the rest resulting from an armed altercation.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Different narrative.&lt;p&gt;In America, we understand that there is absolutely nothing more dangerous than an entity that feels entitled to control what is true. It might make things easier, and it might actually produce better results so long as the entity doing so is competent and benevolent, but nearly every structure in America is meant to serve as a bulwark for the cases in which the entity in power is precisely the sort that you do not want to be making those decisions. And to be frank, Europe should probably be more wary of that.</text></item><item><author>moksly</author><text>In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise.&lt;p&gt;This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and write about them as such, but you can’t make up things.&lt;p&gt;This died with Facebook, YouTube and the non-editorial entertainment “news” and as a result we have anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and what not.&lt;p&gt;I have no idea how to regulate it though, but I think we need to do something.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>yoavm</author><text>But these really aren&amp;#x27;t the type of lies that people consider fake news. Yeah, all the things you&amp;#x27;ve written are facts, and their interpretations are what we call opinions. I agree with you that all of these statements, since they&amp;#x27;re true, should be allowed without a question. People still need to think and be critical.&lt;p&gt;I just took a look at a long list of lies by your current President. It has nothing to do with facts like the ones you&amp;#x27;ve stated above. These are simply lies. You can&amp;#x27;t argue that it&amp;#x27;s some interpretation, or just half of the picture or anything like that. It&amp;#x27;s simply a bunch of words phrased as a fact but they never happened.&lt;p&gt;I can&amp;#x27;t see anything good coming out of this for any country. It ruins the ability to have a real debate in a society, and I think it harmed America (not only of course) greatly.&lt;p&gt;And one last thing - yes, it probably shouldn&amp;#x27;t be one person from one political side that decides what&amp;#x27;s completely false and shouldn&amp;#x27;t be published (or perhaps better, be corrected), but I don&amp;#x27;t think it should be so impossibly complicated to create a system in which representatives from all sides can do this together. America already has structures like this implemented.</text></comment>
<story><title>Twitter to ban political advertising</title><url>https://twitter.com/jack/status/1189634360472829952</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>ralusek</author><text>The lowest level of truth telling is stating facts, but even stating facts can be extremely manipulative.&lt;p&gt;If I were to say:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;2x as many white Americans were killed by police as black Americans in 2018.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This a true fact.&lt;p&gt;If I take note of the fact that black Americans only constitute 13% of the population, then I can say&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A black American is 2.3x as likely as a white American to be killed by police.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is also a true fact.&lt;p&gt;So not only are facts capable of telling a narrative, but it gets much more complicated once you start introducing conclusions.&lt;p&gt;If you say &amp;quot;A black person is 2.3x as likely as a white person to be killed by police in America. American police are being racially discriminatory when killing civilians.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;This is a fact and a conclusion, and &lt;i&gt;most&lt;/i&gt; news consists of facts and conclusions. Both the fact and the conclusion serve a particular narrative, and that&amp;#x27;s an issue. The problem is that a news organization with a different set of objectives, or simply operating under a different framework, would be entirely capable of coming to an entirely different conclusion, or introduce entirely different facts alongside it.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;A black person is 2.3x as likely as a white person to be killed by police in America. However, despite making up only 13% of the population, black Americans committed 36% of homicides, with an overall much higher representation in violent crime across the board. Only 5% of police shootings are with an unarmed victim, with the rest resulting from an armed altercation.&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;Different narrative.&lt;p&gt;In America, we understand that there is absolutely nothing more dangerous than an entity that feels entitled to control what is true. It might make things easier, and it might actually produce better results so long as the entity doing so is competent and benevolent, but nearly every structure in America is meant to serve as a bulwark for the cases in which the entity in power is precisely the sort that you do not want to be making those decisions. And to be frank, Europe should probably be more wary of that.</text></item><item><author>moksly</author><text>In Denmark we have laws in place that hold news paper editors responsible for printing truth. They don’t always succeed, but they try to, and when they do fail they admit it and apologise.&lt;p&gt;This is what has kept our society well informed and critical thinking for a hundred years. It’s also allowed for different sides of things, because you can interpret things like socioeconomic statistics and facts differently and write about them as such, but you can’t make up things.&lt;p&gt;This died with Facebook, YouTube and the non-editorial entertainment “news” and as a result we have anti-vaxxers, flat-earthers and what not.&lt;p&gt;I have no idea how to regulate it though, but I think we need to do something.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>silvester23</author><text>&amp;gt; In America, we understand that there is absolutely nothing more dangerous than an entity that feels entitled to control what is true. It might make things easier, and it might actually produce better results so long as the entity doing so is competent and benevolent, but nearly every structure in America is meant to serve as a bulwark for the cases in which the entity in power is precisely the sort that you do not want to be making those decisions. And to be frank, Europe should probably be more wary of that.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m not trying to be snarky, but in all honesty, how do you feel this is working out for the US at this very moment?</text></comment>