• AA5B@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    There’s got to be something to do for accountability, but ….

    Just want to point out the guy who made up the whole vaccine-autism scare was a scientist. All of the propaganda against anti-smoking, anti-climate change, anti-pollution, anti-lead efforts over the years has been produced by scientists

    Educated people are people too. Just because they should know better doesn’t mean they are

    • r0ertel@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      You’re spot on with accountability. Why not just legally allow people harmed by following the advice to be ableto sue the influencers and allow those with proper credentials to become certified in the topic and certification protects from lawsuits?

      Or maybe not the second part. Anybody giving bad advice should be sued.

      “This isn’t medical advice, but drinking battery acid will allow you to live forever.” Would never hold up in court.

      Freedom of speech seems to be the most misunderstood right.

      • AA5B@lemmy.world
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        6 hours ago

        The challenging part is a lot of it is indirect. General incitement to violence or misinformation is difficult to tie back to directly causing harm.

        Freedom of speech was simpler before internet when you were likely singled out as a kook and ignored. Now with the internet you have a much bigger audience as well as other kooks where you can build on each other. Your reach is farther, you can more easily appear to have common opinion, you can do more harm, and yet are more distanced from the harm you do.

        I have no idea what to do differently but we’ve seen free speech in an online world without any accountability has been able to do a lot of harm.