Another Question for all of you.

[silveradept]

Many thanks for your responses to my previous questions about making meaning for oneself in a cosmic world that produces no external justifications.

This is not about cosmic issues. It's about something completely different.

As you well know, I follow politics, sometimes with zeal, sometimes with snark, occasionally with snarls.

However, having also watched several improv comedy shows here and there, the two mixed. Weirdly.

So, the following question:

What would the state of discourse be if every time someone who the population relies on to be honest, like a politician or a journalist/commentator, were subjected to a bleep censor every time they uttered a demonstrably false statement?

I'm not sure whether the bleep censor would just be over the part of the statement that made it untrue, like bleeping a "not" or a figure that's incorrect, or whether the entire statement would simply be bleeped out. I think bleeping the words would make things much more interesting. In print, a direct quote would have the redaction bar over the offending part of the statement.

I'm sure there would be accusations of media bias as to when the bleep censor was applied and to whom.

And there would have to be an allowance for live programs, as one cannot fact-check a speech in the middle of it sufficiently to apply the censor to anything novel. By the time the media programs start playing clips, though, they should be fact-checked enough to apply the filter.

I don't know which way things would go - whether there would be actual honesty in politics, the weaseling would get to a point where nothing could be demonstrated to be untrue, or whether we would have major speeches that could only be heard live, as any replay would simply be a rather long application of the bleep censor.

What do you all think?

Comments

[hebinekohime]

A subtitle disclaimer (footnote if print) would be a better and more interesting choice, imho.

[silveradept]

Oh? How so, and what did you have in mind as how they would be formatted/displayed?

[hebinekohime]

You could display them like a regular subtitle; a caption at the bottom of the screen, which would give a correction or needed qualification to the statement.

I realize it's purely hypothetical, but if you were to regulate politicians lying over the airwaves then successfully disproving the lie would be more effective than bleeping it. You can't ever filter out all of the noise, but you can give people the information and hope that they use it.

[silveradept]

That sounds like a pretty good way of going about things - disproving the lie makes sense - but if it were displayed at the bottom of the screen, where "news tickers" and the like go, wouldn't that be lost in the noise i nplaces where it really needs to stand out?

[hebinekohime]

Well, they'd have to be legibly displayed and about as large as conventional subtitles (as opposed to, say, the disclaimers on pharmaceutical ads).

[silveradept]

True, but that's still noise potential, considering that there are tickers and other things that are about the same size running on a lot of networks these days. Maybe they'll have to be disclaimed at the top to be noticed or something. Or right in the middle of the screen, where they can't be discounted.