Why do people lie on the internet
@Malced ?
Why do people lie on the internet? Wow that’s a great question. If I was at University studying psychology I’d love to get stuck into that one.
All people lie regularly. It’s part of being human. They lie face to face, and arguably that’s harder to do than lying via a keyboard.
We know people type things they wouldn’t say face to face to someone. That’s evident by all the trolls who say the most cruel and spiteful things.
So it’s no surprise people lie by keyboard. The word ‘lie’ is too simple or too complex perhaps. What is a lie as opposed to what it misinformation? What is a lie as a opposed to someone who actually believes what they’re saying, even if it’s wrong.
Some readers will judge another’s words as a lie even when they’re giving an opinion.
Often things aren’t black and white. There’s different perspectives and different interpretations of the same things. How can two people have completely different views on something? Well it’s because we’re humans. We are different. We think differently. That’s what’s wonderful about being human - our differences. We’re not robots or clones.
Some humans are drawn to conspiracy theories. Others such as myself have no time for them. Look at covid and the 5g story. It led to 5g masts being vandalised. There were countless conspiracy theories about lockdowns and the vaccinations. But were these all lies? Maybe but maybe not. It’s not so simple. There were some terrible side effects from the vaccines, for example. Some died of blood clots, or heart problems. So when a person typed that the vaccines were unsafe, were they lying? We did see highly qualified scientists and clinicians who were against masks or wary of vaccines. Were they lying, and should they have been cancelled for giving their professional opinion merely cos it differed to the government line?
Back in the day when the drug Thalidomide was being prescribed, many people linked it to deformities and lobbied the government. History proved them to be correct. In today’s world they’d have been banned from
Twitter. That’s worth thinking about.
With regards to Twitter, it should be regulated and moderated fairly and transparently.
There should be room for debate and different opinions. But there shouldn’t be room for hate speech and anything beyond the pale. The sandyhook denier was sued and rightly has to pay a fortune in compensation. Should he have his ban lifted? Not in my opinion.
But there’s countless people that have been given lifetime bans for expressing a view against vaccines or other such topics. In the US Twitter has been used to suppress Republican politicians and their supporters.
Many have been banned for expressing opinions. This is a risk to free speech as plain as day.
Of course no one wants to see extremist vile lies. The moderators should stamp on that. But we should all be uncomfortable with a cancel culture which is driven by bias and whatever way the wind is blowing. Some on here for example would love to see Tory politicians blocked from Twitter cos in their view these folk are ‘far-right’ and ‘lie’.
But that would be completely wrong and against free-speech. What we all need is a bit more maturity to accept that there are others with differing views. We need to be more tolerant. There will always be contentious topics to debate. There’s always going to be people who are offended. We can’t moderate to avoid offence. If we don’t like seeing different opinions then don’t go on Twitter.
As I’ve said, there’s clear cut lies - such as saying someone is a peado. And there’s different takes on a situation such as saying the UK economy is struggling due to the world’s financial situation, as opposed to whatever Liz Truss did. The peado lie has no place on Twitter. The latter is something for open debate whichever way you see it.
