HN user
Google can ID your web browser uniquely. If you've ever logged in to Google just once in your lifetime, they know it's you forever.
They cross it with your location, your movements, your emails, expenses, everything.
There is no single more spooky company than Google.
Am I the only one who thinks that nothing should be done about the "fake news" issue?
This debate is based on all sorts of fallacies. First, that fake news elected someone. It did not. Second, that this is something new or inherent to the Internet. It is not. Fake rumours and gossip have existed ever since we have existed. People's judgement has been the sole thing holding the whole system together for hundreds of years. Bankers, for example, spread rumours that Nikola Tesla had sex with pigeons. It was fake but it spread like fire in NYC. Did we ban free speech because of such things? No.
From most the discussion threads here it seems that censorship is the only way forward, which scares me because people are falling for the trap and they are justifying censorship.
Who will decide what videos are "controversial"? If we agree that fake news should be regulated, what is the limit of state regulation? Why not then allow them to censor most other politically incorrect forms of speech?
It seems to me like this is headed down a very dangerous path and it's scary how people fall for it. Fake news is absolutely irrelevant and how it's been blown up and is being exagerated in order to justify censorship is a conspiracy in its own right. I'd be more concerned about this particular conspiracy: someone is trying to justify censorship because one particular candidate won an election.
> I don't hear too often that anything exciting is being developed in China
What world do you live in?