Fictional Stories

[Dick7Access]

Hello everybody. Are you for or opposed to a law that states stories on internet must identify in the beginning that it is fictional. Lately I will not open articles, especially about politics, that are too good to be true. I know I can scroll down and find the answer if I search long enough.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Freedom of speech would negate that law. I'm afraid that scrolling is about the only way to know, and even then, not every story is marked as fact or fiction. I suppose you got wound up by another fictional story about some Republic politician shafting a Democrat. I've seen a bunch of them. Here's the way I tell. If the video looks like it was taken in a setting where spectators are sitting around the primary conversation, and some "head shots" of agreeing (or disagreeing) witnesses come up occasionally, it is more likely - but still not guaranteed - to be real. When the video uses still shots and narration, it is probably fake.

Beyond that advice, no clue.

 

[MarkK]

Anything humans create incurs a cost to produce and distribute.
This being the case, an interesting question to consider in respect to any story/claim/assertion is...
• Who will profit from it?

This is a 'follow the money' trope, and exposes dynamics far more nuanced than a true/false or fact/fiction binary.

 

[Dick7Access]

Freedom of speech would negate that law. I'm afraid that scrolling is about the only way to know, and even then, not every story is marked as fact or fiction. I suppose you got wound up by another fictional story about some Republic politician shafting a Democrat. I've seen a bunch of them. Here's the way I tell. If the video looks like it was taken in a setting where spectators are sitting around the primary conversation, and some "head shots" of agreeing (or disagreeing) witnesses come up occasionally, it is more likely - but still not guaranteed - to be real. When the video uses still shots and narration, it is probably fake.

Beyond that advice, no clue.

Then again does free speak cover lying and trying to deceive. I had read a few items where Kennedy from LA had really come out with some good facts, only to find out they were made up. Somebody came up with WiFi, Google, youTube, AI etc. and sure enough evil in this will use it for deceit.
I am not against fiction, Love John Wayne. Just not going to spend time scrolling to find out who is lying.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Then again does free speak cover lying and trying to deceive.

It has to. Otherwise, there would be no industry among fiction writers, who are clearly describing something that didn't actually happen. Of course, we usually include a key phrase: "This work depicts a fictional event; any characters depicted therein are not intended to represent an actual person, living or dead." And since I do sword-and-sorcery fiction, I have to make that disclaimer "living, dead, or undead."

Also, advertising could not exist if it weren't allowed to inflate claims about the quality of the product. Although there ARE "truth in advertising" laws, they can only go so far in controlling what claims are made.

AND there are the "newspapers" whose liberal slant often allows a writer to say "DJT falsely claimed that ..." and in some cases that claim had not been falsified. But "news" organizations have freedom of the press as well as free speech, so rarely get gigged on that practice.

 

[Isaac]

Hello everybody. Are you for or opposed to a law that states stories on internet must identify in the beginning that it is fictional. Lately I will not open articles, especially about politics, that are too good to be true. I know I can scroll down and find the answer if I search long enough.

Absolutely AGAINST that law. Whether something is or isn't fiction is TOO OFTEN a matter of OPINION in and of itself!

what if i publish an article, the substance of which is, "Bread is good for you", and some people think that's fiction and others think it's fact.

Also, the rule would totally eliminate the whole point of satirical content

the whole point of free speech is for someone to say whatever they wish, and someone else responds to it, and the cycle continues infinitely while Truth slowly rises to the top. the idea that we could define everyone's speech as fact or fiction is nonsense- and the idea that people would self-report such a thing is extra-extra-nonsense

 

[Dick7Access]

Absolutely AGAINST that law. Whether something is or isn't fiction is TOO OFTEN a matter of OPINION in and of itself!

what if i publish an article, the substance of which is, "Bread is good for you", and some people think that's fiction and others think it's fact.

Also, the rule would totally eliminate the whole point of satirical content

the whole point of free speech is for someone to say whatever they wish, and someone else responds to it, and the cycle continues infinitely while Truth slowly rises to the top. the idea that we could define everyone's speech as fact or fiction is nonsense- and the idea that people would self-report such a thing is extra-extra-nonsense

Partially agree. The ones that irritate me is the ones that come across as news items

 

[Mark_]

Partially agree. The ones that irritate me is the ones that come across as news items

Down side is most news organizations are in business to make money. They do so by providing content people want to read, see, or listen to. They post "True" items that support the narrative their customers want. Do a quick search for "Pulitzer vs. Hearst" to see a bit of the history of selling the truth people want to read.

 

[Edwin SIEW]

Hello everybody. Are you for or opposed to a law that states stories on internet must identify in the beginning that it is fictional. Lately I will not open articles, especially about politics, that are too good to be true. I know I can scroll down and find the answer if I search long enough.

A lot of marketing and advertisement fall into legally acceptable hyperbolic representation, but there are remedies if a mis-representation is so bad it causes harm to people or their property financially, reputationally and physically. So... are these representations fiction or fact? I do not think it is fact and fiction, or for that matter, even between a strong opinion and fact, are so easily divisible. Every factual recount of an experience is marred with error prone imperfect recollection too. Think it will not be possible to state with any confidence that a passage is wholly fictional or factual.

 

[Edwin SIEW]

Then again does free speak cover lying and trying to deceive. I had read a few items where Kennedy from LA had really come out with some good facts, only to find out they were made up. Somebody came up with WiFi, Google, youTube, AI etc. and sure enough evil in this will use it for deceit.
I am not against fiction, Love John Wayne. Just not going to spend time scrolling to find out who is lying.

There was a, in my opinion, a very good test for dishonesty in R v Ghosh, which states that a man is not dishonest if he does not think he was lying (subjective) and the relevant third parties would not think he was lying (objective). If I say the sun is square, I could be reprimanded as lying but there is no dishonesty for no one would be deceived. This two arm requirement covers jokes, extragradient, presumed contexts, and good faith mistakes unknown to the person when he was making the statement.

What about parables? Would anyone care to ask Jesus to verify if there was indeed a woman who had 10 pieces of silver?

What's missing nowadays is a believe that everyone is responsible for his own decisions, and judgments and whomever he wants to listen to, and no one else can step in and quality check for him to divide between fact and fiction.

 

[The_Doc_Man]

Lately I have seen an entry in the headers of some of these Youtube articles, visible only when you click on "Show more", that offers you a chance to ask a question. So when one of those questionable cases popped up, I clicked "Show More" then "Ask a question" - and I asked it "Is this post factual or fictional?" And it answered "fictional" with a lead-in comment but without equivocation.