Free Speech, Lies and Propaganda

[Phil1111 911]

"In NATO doctrine, propaganda is defined as "Information, especially of a biased or misleading nature, used to promote a political cause or point of view." Recently a close ally of President Putin was caught by western journalists adopting a kidnapped Ukrainian child. Pictured below:

Russia is a gangster state, led by an indicted war criminal, President Putin. He has a history of deliberately targeting American troops in Afghanistan. By paying bounties to the Taliban to kill US and other NATO troops. The US and the west has spent and is still spending trillions of dollars in defense spending to protect our people.

Yet Speakers Corner allows blatant Russian, Chinese, Iranian propaganda to be posted again and again by a certain member here.Statements, ideas and links to crimes against children, war crimes and propaganda specifically targeted to deceive, conceal and corrupt the truth.All of these actions go far beyond trolling.

Members here dance around the lies labeling it a "mathematical errors" etc. Yet the issue is far beyond what QAnon was doing a few years ago. The issue is protecting an ongoing war crime. Crimes against the elderly, children and hundreds of thousands of now dead people.

Its time for moderators to bring this to an end.

[gowlerk 1,912]

8 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

Its time for moderators to bring this to an end.

This would be a good reason why you are not a mod. We are strong enough of mind to sort this out for ourselves. Hiding from Putin's propaganda will solve nothing. Seeing it first hand merely strengthens our understanding of how they operate.

[Phil1111 911]

3 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

This would be a good reason why you are not a mod. We are strong enough of mind to sort this out for ourselves. Hiding from Putin's propaganda will solve nothing. Seeing it first hand merely strengthens our understanding of how they operate.

Thirty percent of Americans believe that the election was stolen by President Biden. Are you one of them? Are the over 100 million who believe that of "strong mind"? Using your logic racism and the promotion of hatred need not be illegal. Because "We are strong enough of mind to sort this out for ourselves".

[gowlerk 1,912]

19 minutes ago, Phil1111 said:

Thirty percent of Americans believe that the election was stolen by President Biden. Are you one of them? Are the over 100 million who believe that of "strong mind"? Using your logic racism and the promotion of hatred need not be illegal. Because "We are strong enough of mind to sort this out for ourselves".

Do you believe you can change any of that be censoring what I am allowed to see? When you censor the speaker you are actually censoring the listener. This forum has a set of rules already. I appreciate your contributions here but in the end I would rather lose them than submit to your desire for censorship. And BTW, racism is not illegal and hatred is promoted every day. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by gowlerk

[Phil1111 911]

7 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Do you believe you can change any of that be censoring what I am allowed to see? When you censor the speaker you are actually censoring the listener. This forum has a set of rules already. I appreciate you contributions here but in the end I would rather lose them than submit to your desire for censorship. And BTW, racism is not illegal and hatred is promoted every day. 

You're intelligent so your filter works.For upwards of 1/3 of the US population and likely for the same amount in Canada it doesn't.

The rules of this forum have loopholes that need address.

"And BTW, racism is not illegal and hatred is promoted every day." In many western countries, the US included,  promoting hatred is a crime. In Canada Section 319(2) makes it an offence to communicate, except in private conversation, statements that wilfully promote hatred against an “identifiable group”.

 

[nigel99 144]

4 hours ago, gowlerk said:

This would be a good reason why you are not a mod. We are strong enough of mind to sort this out for ourselves. Hiding from Putin's propaganda will solve nothing. Seeing it first hand merely strengthens our understanding of how they operate.

I agree on not censoring.

I also am not sure that some of the prolific posting is trolling but rather an indication of lack of critical thinking ability and being extremely gullible. 

I will admit I find some of the conspiracy posts annoying as they are devoid of any logic and end up being an endless loop of the same tired arguments and tit for tat insults.

[billvon 2,400]

Probably a good time for review of the rules here.  The basics are:

- No personal attacks. 

- No jokes about or references to pedophilia.

- No advertising in the forums.

- Post on topic.

- No hijacking of threads.

- No threads about specific posters.

- No posting external media/text without commentary/attribution.

Those are the big ones.  Let's focus on the first one.

No Personal attacks, including hate posts, flaming or trolling.

Personal attacks are any variation on "you're an idiot."

Hate posts are posts that are racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted, or pornographic, and intended to attack a group of people.  Note that I will apply this to people who promulgate memes that are intended to harm this community or society in general (i.e. "vaccines will kill you" "alcohol doesn't affect you when you are skydiving" etc.)

Flaming is posting with no other goal other than to attack someone else on the forum i.e. not to dispute a point they made, solely to attack.

Trolling is posting inflammatory messages with the sole purpose of provoking others into a negative emotional response. It can be for the troll's amusement, or to fulfill a political/cultural goal, or because they are paid to do so.  The reason doesn't really matter; it's the approach and the goal that makes them a troll.

However, someone who posts material that infuriates you is not necessarily a troll. Someone here might post that they hate all new energy sources and they believe that all energy should come from coal.  Someone else might post that they hate coal and think all new energy should come from solar.  Here, the first person will tend to piss everyone off; the second one will piss people off less.  Which one is a troll?  You can't decide based purely on who they piss off.  It depends on their goals, and we don't know them.

What we can do is observe what they post.  If it's self consistent and expresses a consistent opinion, that means they are less likely to be a troll.  If what they post changes based on who they are answering, in order to best enrage them, then they are more likely to be a troll.  If their posts are nonsensical they are more likely to be trolling.  If their posts answer specific points in someone else's posts, they are less likely to be trolling.

We make these distinctions because we do not want to ban someone based on how mad they make other people.  That leads to a forum full of intolerant people who have self-selected to only believe a specific range of things by banning anyone with beliefs outside that range.  It's better, IMO, to keep the contentious posters here and have the intolerant leave if they cannot bear to read their content.  Since we now have tools that allow people to block such contentious posters, there is no need to read anyone you don't want to.

I will add that the more trollish posters tend to regularly violate other rules (personal attack, hate posts etc) and so get banned fairly regularly anyway.  We can permanently ban someone who keeps doing this, but we have done that only rarely to avoid the problems we mentioned above.

As a final note, this website is owned by Willem, and it's effectively his house.  He opens his house to everyone, but reserves the right to give them the boot if they're rude, or not gracious, or heck if they say "aboot" instead of "about."  It's his money and his website.  Keep that in mind while posting.

[gowlerk 1,912]

21 minutes ago, billvon said:

As a final note, this website is owned by Willem, and it's effectively his house.

Which leads me to ask, who is Willem? I know nothing at all about this person. I recognize that I have no real right or need to know, but I am curious.

[ryoder 1,384]

9 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Which leads me to ask, who is Willem? I know nothing at all about this person. I recognize that I have no real right or need to know, but I am curious.

https://za.linkedin.com/in/willemgrobler

[billvon 2,400]

17 minutes ago, gowlerk said:

Which leads me to ask, who is Willem? I know nothing at all about this person. I recognize that I have no real right or need to know, but I am curious.

He's a South African skydiver who started this forum 20 some odd years ago.  There was a now-famous meetup at Eloy where all the moderators (at the time) got together with him to do an 8-way.

[Stumpy 256]

41 minutes ago, billvon said:

He's a South African skydiver who started this forum 20 some odd years ago.  There was a now-famous meetup at Eloy where all the moderators (at the time) got together with him to do an 8-way.

Hate to make you feel old - but I was here 22 years ago, and I wasn't early to the party  I remember when you were still a duck.

[JerryBaumchen 1,048]

2 hours ago, billvon said:

Probably a good time for review of the rules here.  The basics are:

- No personal attacks. 

- No jokes about or references to pedophilia.

- No advertising in the forums.

- Post on topic.

- No hijacking of threads.

- No threads about specific posters.

- No posting external media/text without commentary/attribution.

Those are the big ones.  Let's focus on the first one.

No Personal attacks, including hate posts, flaming or trolling.

Personal attacks are any variation on "you're an idiot."

Hate posts are posts that are racist, sexist, homophobic, bigoted, or pornographic, and intended to attack a group of people.  Note that I will apply this to people who promulgate memes that are intended to harm this community or society in general (i.e. "vaccines will kill you" "alcohol doesn't affect you when you are skydiving" etc.)

Flaming is posting with no other goal other than to attack someone else on the forum i.e. not to dispute a point they made, solely to attack.

Trolling is posting inflammatory messages with the sole purpose of provoking others into a negative emotional response. It can be for the troll's amusement, or to fulfill a political/cultural goal, or because they are paid to do so.  The reason doesn't really matter; it's the approach and the goal that makes them a troll.

However, someone who posts material that infuriates you is not necessarily a troll. Someone here might post that they hate all new energy sources and they believe that all energy should come from coal.  Someone else might post that they hate coal and think all new energy should come from solar.  Here, the first person will tend to piss everyone off; the second one will piss people off less.  Which one is a troll?  You can't decide based purely on who they piss off.  It depends on their goals, and we don't know them.

What we can do is observe what they post.  If it's self consistent and expresses a consistent opinion, that means they are less likely to be a troll.  If what they post changes based on who they are answering, in order to best enrage them, then they are more likely to be a troll.  If their posts are nonsensical they are more likely to be trolling.  If their posts answer specific points in someone else's posts, they are less likely to be trolling.

We make these distinctions because we do not want to ban someone based on how mad they make other people.  That leads to a forum full of intolerant people who have self-selected to only believe a specific range of things by banning anyone with beliefs outside that range.  It's better, IMO, to keep the contentious posters here and have the intolerant leave if they cannot bear to read their content.  Since we now have tools that allow people to block such contentious posters, there is no need to read anyone you don't want to.

I will add that the more trollish posters tend to regularly violate other rules (personal attack, hate posts etc) and so get banned fairly regularly anyway.  We can permanently ban someone who keeps doing this, but we have done that only rarely to avoid the problems we mentioned above.

As a final note, this website is owned by Willem, and it's effectively his house.  He opens his house to everyone, but reserves the right to give them the boot if they're rude, or not gracious, or heck if they say "aboot" instead of "about."  It's his money and his website.  Keep that in mind while posting.

Hi Bill,

Thank you; every now & then we need that.

All of my thinking life, I have been opposed to censorship.

I gave the OP a LIKE because I am tired of the trolling; the consistent trolling by some on here.

IMO it is NOT constructive.

Jerry Baumchen

[kallend 1,623]

On 11/28/2023 at 7:18 AM, Phil1111 said:

Thirty percent of Americans believe that the election was stolen by President Biden.

30% of Americans have IQ < 92.  Probably the same set.

[brenthutch 383]

On 11/28/2023 at 8:18 AM, Phil1111 said:

Thirty percent of Americans believe that the election was stolen by President Biden. Are you one of them? Are the over 100 million who believe that of "strong mind"? Using your logic racism and the promotion of hatred need not be illegal. Because "We are strong enough of mind to sort this out for ourselves".

When you say promotion of hatred and racism, do you mean critical race theory and Antifa?

[jakee 1,255]

7 minutes ago, brenthutch said:

When you say promotion of hatred and racism, do you mean critical race theory 

Obviously not. Why would anyone?

[brenthutch 383]

18 minutes ago, jakee said:

Obviously not. Why would anyone?

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” Says Ibram X Kendi a proponent of CRT.  Discrimination based on race is vile no matter the perpetrator 

 

Edited December 3, 2023 by brenthutch

[jakee 1,255]

1 hour ago, brenthutch said:

“The only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination. The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.” Says Ibram X Kendi a proponent of CRT.  Discrimination based on race is vile no matter the perpetrator 

Ah, I see the confusion - you meant to say “Do you mean Ibram X Kendi?” But autocorrect changed it to “critical race theory”. Happens to all of us.

Edited December 3, 2023 by jakee

[billvon 2,400]

10 hours ago, brenthutch said:

Discrimination based on race is vile no matter the perpetrator 

So you think the Civil War was vile, since it targeted blacks to free, rather than be race blind?  DISCRIMINATION!  RACISM!  

[brenthutch 383]

1 hour ago, billvon said:

So you think the Civil War was vile, since it targeted blacks to free, rather than be race blind?  DISCRIMINATION!  RACISM!  

No I think the racist Democrats were vile. Thanks to the Republicans that horrible chapter in our history was, at least partially, closed.

Edited December 4, 2023 by brenthutch

[billvon 2,400]

4 hours ago, brenthutch said:

No I think the racist Democrats were vile.

Agreed.  The racist rural conservative small-government gun loving types (i.e. the democrats of the south) were indeed vile.  

Perhaps today's GOP should stop emulating them.

[brenthutch 383]

6 hours ago, billvon said:

Agreed.  The racist rural conservative small-government gun loving types (i.e. the democrats of the south) were indeed vile.  

Perhaps today's GOP should stop emulating them.

Conflate much?

[jakee 1,255]

11 hours ago, brenthutch said:

No I think the racist Democrats were vile. Thanks to the Republicans that horrible chapter in our history was, at least partially, closed.

Do you think that has any relevance to the parties today?

[brenthutch 383]

32 minutes ago, jakee said:

Do you think that has any relevance to the parties today?

https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/commentary/bidens-history-getting-away-racist-remarks
Yes

[Faicon9493 114]

https://youtu.be/IOwQmSc2I3A?si=PU6UZUl-Ua7j9iHZ

[wmw999 2,122]

3 hours ago, Faicon9493 said:

https://youtu.be/IOwQmSc2I3A?si=PU6UZUl-Ua7j9iHZ

No posting of videos without commentary. Please add some.

Wendy P.