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[TempAcc]

If society has truly embraced memes and clickbait as a source of info, thats a problem society itself must solve. Want to make people more able to discern whats real and whats not? Give them better education, don't take away their access to content simply because you think people will be swindled multiple variations of pepe in concentration camps.

If I want to click on the stupid clickbait article with satire to have a cheap laugh out of it, I should be able to. If facebook doesnt want to give me access to it, well, facebook can suck a lemon, I'll do it anyway through other means, but when a government comes and says "hey you, don't let people do that because my current administration has an entirely subjective negative view of it", things tend to get a little weird.

[hector13]

After all, in dictatorships, "suggesting" is an euphemism for "do it, or suffer my wrath"...

The US has never had a dictator, unless you count Abraham Lincoln, which would be a stretch. There's nothing about Trump's presidency that suggests that will change. Bush II had Republican control of both houses of Congress for most of his tenure, after all. I suspect that the history of your own country is coloring your perceptions.

Trump has said, and I know that it doesn't have much weight, coming from Trump, but he said that "We're going to 'open up' libel laws", so that he could have an easier time suing news organizations.

It's entirely consistent with his pre-election rhetoric to start pushing for real censorship.

There are no federal defamation laws though.

Unless he makes one.

[smjjames]

Yup, the FCC doesn't give a damn about that. Federal Agency of Citing Theoretical, Hypothetical, Experimental, and Common Knowledge, FACTCHECK. :p

I mean, it would be nice if there was something like the FDA except instead of determining what is fit to consume, a dangerous route I think nobody wants to go down, perhaps they could simply provide a cross-checking framework like wikipedia does.

^{[unverified][dubious][citation needed][limited sources][verified sources]}

"Ooh, look! The establishment doesn't want me to read this! It must be super-edgy!"

Not even remotely what I was saying. "Ooh, look, the establishment can't confirm the accuracy of this statement, I should ignore it because I would rather be super-edgy AND ignorant and go along with it anyways!"

I was listing a failure-possibility for your plan. Saying "the establishment has established that this is FALSE" will only make some people read it more. Negative publicity and that shit.

Or, to explain it better 'The establishment doesn't want us to read this because it's counter to their propoganda*, so, it MUST be true!'

*I don't think that, but there will be some people who do. Especially with trust in the media being as low as it is.

[Max™]

I was listing a failure-possibility for your plan. Saying "the establishment has established that this is FALSE" will only make some people read it more. Negative publicity and that shit.

Not what I was going for either.

I was talking about "this independent non-profit organization has been unable to verify this statement" and then tapping the unverified/dubious/verified/whatever would give a link to the explanation, maybe a popup with some info and the link, something like that.

I got the idea from the missus mentioning a reviewer on amazon talking about an "ewg rating" and couldn't figure out what the heck they meant so I went and found it: http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/site/about.php

It's a neat site, links through to various major health agencies, offers links to their database if they don't have directly relevant information on a different product ingredient, and so forth.

[smjjames]

That 'independent non-profit organization' sounds like Snopes, though they cover a wide array of things, not just politics. I don't know how non-partisan it is (doesn't appear to be partisan, but I haven't given it a deeper look), but anything like that which you propose is going to have to be believeably non-partisan on both sides, which is going to be quite a task because the extremes are so far apart from each other that appearing perfectly centrist could appear to be partisan.

However, such an organization isn't going to be of any use if people don't fact check for themselves, which IS a problem.

[Max™]

Yeah, it would definitely draw a lot from the snopes methodology, just the idea of having it available where news sites can provide it alongside a story, people have the checks a hover and/or a tap away instead of actually having to go through and look for it, don't focus on what the sources are, simply that they exist and aren't pointing to the same site type stuff. Would also need some way to include that things aren't verified of course, when they actually aren't verified.

Naturally facebook would hate it, they don't like anything which can take you out of their site, hence the mouseover popup idea.

[Veylon]

Yeah... some folks just kinda' never turn the TV off. Some of those default to fox, and so...

I have an idea: in high school, BNW should be required reading.

The problem is that they think BNW, 1984, Fahrenheit 451, etc. only apply to the other side.

[martinuzz]

According to New York Daily News and Bloomberg, Trump is negotiating a settlement in the Trump University case of 20-25 million dollars, to avoid lawsuit and also avoid being investigated for fraud, in a case made against him by New York prosecutor Eric Sneiderman.

That's a lot of money to pay for something he says he's not guilty of.

[wierd]

Back in the day, my mom ordered the course materials from trump U.

Want to know what the basic curriculum for "how to be a millionaire" was?

1) Ask all your friends for leads and money.
2) Use other people's money to get real property with zero down by offering a huge balloon payment at the end
3) Use various dirty tricks (outlined in the course material) to get banks and other creditors/realestate people to get burned by said balloon payment
4) sell said real property for a profit
5) Jilt your friends.

[sarcasm]
Really, I cannot possibly imagine why he does not want this case to go to court.[/sarcasm]

As for Fox News being blared 24/7?  Yes. seen it myself. It angers my parents terribly (conservative wackos), when they come to visit, and I of course, STILL DONT HAVE CABLE, and so, CANNOT watch it.

[Frumple]

According to New York Daily News and Bloomberg, Trump is negotiating a settlement in the Trump University case of 20-25 million dollars, to avoid lawsuit and also avoid being investigated for fraud, in a case made against him by New York prosecutor Eric Sneiderman.

That's a lot of money to pay for something he says he's not guilty of.

For what little it's worth, it's not unknown for companies to settle just to be able to stop directing effort and resources towards the legal work and whatever PR is considered appropriate for the situation. It can be such a situation where the defendant isn't guilty, but deems going through the process more costly than just settling in exchange for no guilt being assigned and the lawsuit being dropped.

... now, do I think that's what's going on here, if the reports of the settlement negotiations are accurate? Ha. No, not so much. Still, there are reasons to settle besides being guilty and trying to buy your way out of it.

[Reelya]

to be fair, I think case 1 is legit (private shop owner should be able to refuse service for whatever reason)

I disagree. Private shop owners should not be allowed to discriminate by refusing a paying LGBT customer just like they're not allowed to discriminate by refusing service to a black customer or jewish customer. Religious freedom should not include the right to discriminate.

I own a toll road, and I don't want gay people driving on my road (which is God's road), is that so wrong?

The problem is obviously that when you open your doors as a public company, there's a social contract where your space is now to some degree public space. The religious people who want to discriminate are basically claiming that entering a shop is like coming into their own personal house, which I'd argue is rubbish.

"How dare <person X> come into my bar?!?" - if someone has a problem with that, they why not run a private members-only bar in their own house that doesn't have a huge sign out the front polluting the visual space, and forgo all the tax subsidies businesses get, and stop clogging up public space with parking for your clientele?

[wierd]

Refusing patrons who are quite willing to pay you, on grounds of personal preference, is silly. It is silly no matter which direction you dish it.

1) I am super straight, with truck nuts on muh truck, and I loves me some jesus--- and I own the toll road, and dont want none of them there degenerate gayz drivin onit, even if they have big wads of cash in their hands!

^---- Silly, should not be allowed

2) I am super gay, and I have a rainbow triangle on my sport coup/convertable, and I go to all the pride parades. I own a toll road, and I dont want any of those hate filled rednecks on it, even if they have big wads of cash in their hands!

^----- Equally silly, should not be allowed.

What should be allowed:

3) I own a toll road. The state says that I must give EVERYONE who is willing to pay the full use of my road in exchange for payment, regardless of beliefs of any party involved.

[LoSboccacc]

toll road example seems flawed since it's infrastructure - anything owned, licensed, subsided, or otherwise connected to state run services should run on a nondiscriminatory apersonal basis.

it's sad however to see free will gone on private premises. this is different than non-discriminatory building codes (which impact more than the private premise)  and deep into thought crime prevention territory.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The more succinct argument is that private businesses aren't allowed to discriminate for the exact same reason the government is not allowed to discriminate: because they provide public service. For better or worse this country is basically capitalist, and as a result our services are derived primarily from private businesses.

Nobody but the most mercury-loving Randroid would suggest that a restaurant has a right to serve rotting meat to its customers because it's a private business, even though a person deciding to eat rotting meat is not illegal. In the exact same way, a person's expectation of equal protection under the law means they cannot be turned away for who they are.

Imagine if, purely for example, an orange Republican who shall remain unnamed privatized the DMV in the name of cutting government spending. The DMV is now a private corporation that takes a government contract to provide transportation administration services. Does this mean that if a very religious person working for DMV LLC holds an honest and convicted belief that God's wrath will be brought against him should he permit women to drive, that his DMV office doesn't have to issue drivers licenses to women and can even put up a sign calling on them to repent and turn in their existing licenses? The only office in twenty miles?

Nobody is being force to provide anything, either. If you don't offer a service, you cannot be compelled to offer that service. But what people need to get through their heads is that the service and the recipients of that service are different things. Offering "traditional wedding cakes" doesn't mean you can opt to say traditional means only opposite-sex couples can have them.

[TempAcc]

If your establishment is regulary open to the public (IE there's no strict control on who can enter and get access to the goods and services offered), then it really is rubbish and it shouldn't be allowed to not, say, sell products to a person based on sexuality related stuff, or refuse passage to a gay person because you happen to own the road-bridge-thing.

On grounds of more personal services, such as professional massages, legal consulting, and other non health related personal services, I could maybe (huge maybe there) see a case for not servicing someone you don't want to provice a service to because you don't approve of their sexuality, unless its health related stuff, but thats still pretty shady and kind anti-human rights, AFAIK.
Anyway, those things kind of already happen in 'murica, its just people usualy validate their decision with different reasons (I was tired, had an appointment, etc).