(#v55m6bq) @prologic you wrote _“discussing ideas openly and transparently on their merits should not get you banned”_. That **is not** what is happening. It is baseless misinformation with the intent to harm, confuse, and create chaos. It is subversion. It is ignoramus behaviour.

(#v55m6bq) @bender That's what I call it "Information Warfare". There are entire (scurrilous) business who pay money to others to promote "misinformation" or "propaganda".

(#v55m6bq) @prologic and people, just people spreading things they believe to be right, but aren't. "Brainwashed" people. Idiots, and the like. People with their own backward, erroneous, beliefs (white race is superior, jewish genocide didn't happen, and the like). Moderation (and yes, that includes banning), and what Twitter is disassembling now, is required.

(#v55m6bq) @prologic I agree with you, we should be discussing ideas openly and transparently. Because it's though discussion that we can get the reality. As @bender says "people spreading things they believe to be right", maybe we are ourselves spreading false claims, without knowing, we can only know by exchanging ideas, and being open. The biggest question is what is "misinformation", I believe the answer change according your beliefs. Many times we have seen what was categorize as "official" misinformation, being actually real.

(#v55m6bq) waiting for we define what is misinformation, I will continue dressing like : Just to be sure (of course it's an attempt to do a joke)

(#v55m6bq) @tkanos @prologic @bender I think we cannot ignore the fact that there are nations with "cyberwarfare" divisions. Hundreds, possibility thousands, of people who sit in rooms all day every day--it's their job--doing nothing but creating and spreading what we call "misinformation" or "disinformation". That is a very different phenomenon from ignorant people spreading beliefs that happen to be dangerous. It is an explicit attempt to cause harm. Social media sites have been horrible conduits of this, but misinformation circulates many ways, including through trusted news media. One aspect of cyberwarfare that information warriors take advantage of is that well-meaning people *spread the bad information by reacting to it*. Misinformation tends to target the emotions, and receptive people (which is all of us, basically) react to it on an emotional level. However, well-meaning people tend to react to the logical content of the information. They debate the facts being presented, or they attack the logical structure. But this functions to *reinforce the bad information in people who react emotionally*. In other words, the process of debating misinformation functions to reinforce it. Bad actors know this full well. I've read training materials for spreading misinformation--they know exactly what they're doing. I don't know what the answer is, but we can't be naive and think that just by "debating" we are going to stop people from spreading bad ideas. That's like throwing water on an oil fire--it makes it worse, not better. We need to be better equipped than this.

(#v55m6bq) @abucci good, and comprehensive reply, thank you! > I don’t know what the answer is, but we can’t be naive and think that just by “debating” we are going to stop people from spreading bad ideas. Indeed! It comes to mind the popular saying, "How do you deal with nazis? — You punch them in the face."

(#v55m6bq) I still believe that debating is the most peaceful way to deal with disagreement because @abucci, the point on debating in social network, is not stopping people from spreading bad ideas. Is to make everybody else that look at the debate think, and not fall on those bad ideas, by hiding the bad ideas, and not debating them, we may push others people to believe in them, and we may push people that already believe in them to stay in an echo chamber and become worse. @bender the problem with that sentence is that if one day two people may disagree, and they may convince themself that the other is spreading hate speech,/disinformation or worse than the other is a nazi, and ask for physical harm.

(#v55m6bq) @tkanos, you wrote *"I still believe that debating is the most peaceful way to deal with disagreement"*. At which point do you stop debating? If you were debating with Nazi Germany, at which point you stop, and take action? Don't be naïve. You can't reason—and, thus, nor debate—with most people believing, and spreading, misinformation. As @abucci wrote, I don't know the answer. Now endlessly "debating", and otherwise doing nothing, ain't.

(#v55m6bq) @tkanos > the point on debating in social network, is not stopping people from spreading bad ideas. Is to make everybody else that look at the debate think, and not fall on those bad ideas, by hiding the bad ideas, and not debating them, we may push others people to believe in them, and we may push people that already believe in them to stay in an echo chamber No. This is a naive point of view, and it does not jibe with current research. Really. I urge you to read up on disinformation research especially after Facebook was called out for the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Other people *do not* look at a debate, see the bad information exposed as bad by good arguments, and change their minds. It doesn't work that way. Misinformation purposely targets people's emotions, and when the emotional appeal works, they tend to view the people debating against the view as enemies. They *reject* the good ideas even more forcefully. Sure, there are hypothetical people who will see a debate, recognize that bad information has been exposed, and react by rejecting that bad information. Probably most of the people here fall into that group. But people like that were never the problem. The problem is the vast number of people who will react by *believing the bad information even more stubbornly*. Read the research--this is a real, documented effect I am describing. Also, the dangers of the "echo chamber" that you evoked are very much overblown, almost surely by purveyors of disinformation because that fear helps them do their work (I'll note you raised this as a danger--an emotional appeal--instead of citing data). The echo chamber effect, to the extent it exists, is bad for people *who are already suffering from information poisoning*. People who've already bought into some piece of misinformation fall into or stay in an echo chamber. Once again, misinformation purveyors have very detailed strategies--Google, you can find them--for how to *draw unsupecting people* into an echo chamber and keep them there.