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I’m going to keep this apolitical and not talk about any side in specific, but how does a government tell the truth when people don’t want to hear it? I want some actual discussion from this ESPECIALLY from those who think the Government correcting anyone on anything is censorship because the logic doesn’t seem to be cohesive.

Let’s say somebody fucked up badly and now you (yes you) are a leader of whatever federal government side you’d like and your side happens to be in power.

Someone posts a blog article on a social media site that says “(YOUR NAME HERE) Is Going To Kill Us All And Does Horrible Things To Animal Butts”. It’s filled with all kinds of scathing insults and made up crap that you didn’t do. It focuses on the fact that you went on a vacation last year for a week. But the blog post says that it wasn’t a vacation, it was a trip to plan how to kill everyone and put things into animal butts. So many things. Gross things. You’ve not done anything they’re talking about, but people DO know that you had a vacation.

It continues to get shared enough that opinion-based media sites start covering it. Not saying it’s true, simply covering the initial post and saying that someone else says it’s true. That way they can’t be sued, y’see. Someone posts a badly photoshopped picture of you with one hand holding a stack of paperwork with the title “Secret Government Plan #127 - How to Murder Everyone I don’t Like and Continue Molesting Animals.” It’s badly edited, but dumb people continue to share it because they don’t like you and some people are calling it real.

You release an official statement stating your innocence, but the people who are on the opposite political side from you are saying you’re lying. They want to have you stand trial. You’ve done nothing, but some are already saying you’re using your power to NOT have to stand trial otherwise the police would have stopped you. Some are saying the police are in on it! So… how do you solve this?

How, as a government in power, do you combat disinformation spread by people who genuinely don’t know or care what the truth is?

And I mean something long term, true, and without pissing off half the population because you’re “telling them how to think” (even if “how they think” is just made up bullshit designed to piss them off and emotionally manipulate them).

How, as a government in power, do you combat disinformation spread by people who genuinely don’t know or care what the truth is?

In short, how, as a government in power, do you combat disinformation spread by people who genuinely don’t know or care what the truth is without outright censorship?