Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. A showerthought should offer a unique perspective on an ordinary part of life.

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If I have to fact-check the uncited claims made in news articles, doesn't that make me the journalist? (sh.itjust.works)

submitted 2 weeks ago by Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works to c/showerthoughts@lemmy.world

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[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm saying that holding a news outlet accountable for accuracy could work in a news landscape where people get their information from a handful of outlets that all reach a broad audience. In a world where a lot of people get small pieces of misinformation from thousands or millions of tiny sources spread across social media it is much harder to keep a centralized control on accuracy for all those communications, even discounting all the issues with free speech and opinion.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I’m saying that holding a news outlet accountable for accuracy could work in a news landscape where people get their information from a handful of outlets that all reach a broad audience. In a world where a lot of people get small pieces of misinformation from thousands or millions of tiny sources spread across social media it is much harder to keep a centralized control on accuracy for all those communications

Hm, I do agree that many outlets/sources may make things "messier", but I don't think that it would mean that the laws could no longer apply — for example, I think, defamation laws could still apply to anyone.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago (2 children)

As I think someone else already pointed out, defamation is not a major part of the issue and it's already in place quite strictly in many places without making a dent on the issue.

And yes, it's absolutely defeated by scale. You can't start a legal process against every single tweet and facebook post (let alone every message in a Whatsapp group you can't even see in the first place). As with paywalls, the aggregate effect ends up being that large outlets are held to a high standard while misinformation spread through social media is not just cheaper to make but less accountable.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

[…] without making a dent on the issue.

"the issue" being misinformation and disinformation that's not defamation?

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago

Sure. Defamation is a very specific case of improper communication.

But even defamation is hard to control in a world of distributed social media communication.

[–] Kalcifer@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

[…] You can’t start a legal process against every single tweet and facebook post (let alone every message in a Whatsapp group you can’t even see in the first place). […]

Imo, theoretically one could, but I think that it would be impractical, or at least prohibitively expensive.

[–] MudMan@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago

Same thing. You'll run out of court bandwidth even before you run out of money, and you will definitely run out of money.

And you literally can't in many cases when you're dealing with messages being sent internationally.