honestly, incredibly based.
People with platforms shouldn’t be allowed to spread blatant misinformation. That shit is incredibly harmful to uneducated people.
China bans influencers from speaking on ‘serious’ topics like finance or health without university degree
Submitted 3 weeks ago by schizoidman@lemmy.zip to globalnews@lemmy.zip
Comments
djsoren19@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 weeks ago
jimmy90@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
we need more mechanisms to correct bullshit coming from all forms of media
dizzy@lemmy.ml 2 weeks ago
On the health front, the number of people calling themselves Dr. Whatever on YouTube and social media talking about all kinds of health conditions is huge. They talk about anything from dermatology to diets to cancer prevention but when you actually look into what type of doctor they are, it always ends up being Doctor of Chiropractic a.k.a. Doctor of pseudoscientific semi-religious bullshit that isn’t even recognised in my country, yet they go about masquerading as real medical doctors.
Drives me nuts!
Meron35@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
No, China is not ahead of the western world on this, nor is this an unprecedented policy.
Most developed countries already have robust regulation preventing people from giving undue professional advice, especially in health or finance.
These are the same regulations preventing from you claiming to be a qualified lawyer, doctor, accountant, etc without the appropriate qualifications.
Many developed countries such as the UK, Australia, and Canada have already started arresting finfluencers after victims have sued them for making fraudulent claims.
FCA leads international crackdown on illegal finfluencers | FCA - fca.org.uk/…/fca-leads-international-crackdown-il…
The equation of a university degree as a valid qualification for China is mostly an artefact of the lack of adequate professional bodies and accreditation.
But if course, the devil is in the details and implementation.
BrikoX@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
It’s true that West has many similar laws. They are just rarely enforced.
China and their absolute control over digital life will probably mean they will be proactive with enforcement which often leads to supression of speech.
AlexLost@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
I am okay with that. Stay in your lanes
Mechaguana@programming.dev 3 weeks ago
Im conflicted on this one.
It feels like a good solution for online stuff, but the biggest problematic influencers talk about politics, will they require a political science degree to comment on it?
Will this apply to journalists reporting on governmental situations?
Couldn’t this be used to prevent on site people affected by tragedies reporting without a degree?
Will home remedies be banned basically since it’s medical advice?
Very curious on how it will be implemented.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
It will probably be executed badly, but the underlying idea is, as often, ahead of the western world. The sheer amount of stupidity that even earns money from being the village-idiot with a megaphone is mind staggering and saddening.
E.g. if only doctors if medicine (or equivalents) would be allowed to talk about vaccination, instead of every assclown with an “opinion”…that’d be societal progress and a tiny leash on social
cancermedia.Sure, a well paid doc telling vaccination is bad would inflict equal harm, but at least he’d be one out of 50.
Also sure, who gets to set the rules, who gets to judge and enforce? Can’t even be half-assed fair.
Eldritch@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
The problem isn't who is speaking. Even if it's only one out of a thousand doctors, the idiots will seek out and gravitate towards that one that confirms the thing that they want to believe. This will do absolutely nothing to even slow that down. If anything, it will even accelerate it.
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
True. Confirmation bias is a thing. But at least it could help the few who still seek meaningful advice. Then again, why would they be on social media in the first place.
Sadly I have no better idea to tackle that problem. You can’t cure Idiocracy-is-live-now
Tomato666@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
Look at the damage Andrew Wakefield managed to cause
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Yeah sure, that’s the kind of idiot doc I thought of. But dumdums seeking confirmation for their beliefs, not the truth, will always find a way.
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
I for one value my freedom of speech
Dyskolos@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Oh I do too.
daguma118@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
Completely agree
AmazingAwesomator@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
a degree in mathematics should not validate my correctness about health.
sharkfucker420@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
It says relevant university degree so I don’t think that would be the case
Eldritch@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
So what's your thoughts on lysenkoism then? He had education in relevant fields. He was wrong and ultimately unscientific as fuck. But that didn't matter. Because Stalin liked what he said over his teacher Vavilov. Vavilov was later vindicated. After he was run out of his university.
I'd like to tell you that was the worst of it. That was not the worst of it. He was sent to a Bolshevik gulag where he spent the rest of his life. Like millions of other victims of the Soviets. I'd like to tell you he still lived to a ripe old age. He did not he suffered and died early from the abuse and neglect the gulags were designed for. As millions of other victims of the Bolsheviks did.
His only crime was being correct and disagreeing with authority. Does that sound like something anyone should be rushing to emulate again, or still.
brendansimms@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Prove it.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
It’s definitely appropriate to ban genocidal and fraudulent speech. In our case it is permitted to protect our establishment. A defense for such speech is that instead of the speaker being an antihuman hateful liar in service of higher demons accumulation of power, they could simply be cognitively impaired, despite any impassioned ability to rationalize hateful lies.
Eldritch@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
If it needs to be banned, we've already failed as a society. Society should reject intolerance and value intelligence/knowledge. Giving anyone the ability to control speech. Gives the worst sort of person the absolute need to wield that ability.
Katana314@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This already assumes a generationally informed and educated populace, which is the end goal and wouldn’t really need any “systems” to improve information sources. Everyone participating would naturally reject falsehoods.
The difficulty is working out what system should exist in a world of massive morons.
humanspiral@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Our problem is that the establishment supports evil speech and suppresses truth. Yes, we’ve failed as a society. The establishment has always had the power to control speech. It’s not because we gave them that power.
reactionality@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
Ahead of the entire world there. This would single-handedly destroy the right in Western society as it thrives on lies.
Empricorn@feddit.nl 3 weeks ago
It sounds good until you think about it. “Government” prevents people from talking about certain subjects unless they are experts. But who decides what subjects, and who decides what credentials mean they’re worthy of discussing those subjects?
I can only guess about China, but in the US, a similar law would mean Republicans are granted and mandated censorship of whatever they want…
ragebutt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
It’s at least meaningful action with merit, even if flawed potentially.
Meanwhile the USA sits while people like you posit on these potential alternate realities and tens of thousands of people per month are convinced not to vaccinate their children, to homeschool, to back Ponzi schemes and MLMs, to treat autism with bleach enemas, treating cancer with all sorts of scams, etc because some stupid asshole grifter on social media said to do it.
I don’t think you realize just how bad it is. I don’t think you realize just how ineffective our regulatory bodies are. I had a patient where I was working with their child over behavioral issues and they were desperate. They were low income, Medicaid, and they spent $800 on a device that “used magnetic stimulation” to help their child “realign their brain and body”. They found it via instagram.
When I asked about it they sent many links: one from the seller about “research” that was all about transcranial direct current stimulation/tdcs. That does have some potential evidence but this device did not work in that fashion. It made no contact with the temples and it had no electrical output, it guaranteed this to allay safety concerns. They clearly just put together a list of citations that looked somewhat relevant to the laymen but did not hold up to scrutiny in any way. The device itself had 0 research behind it, obviously.
The second link was the website to purchase and find out more about the device. The notable thing here was references to the FDA being plastered all over the site. This is the major lapse in regulatory body. I was shocked to see this. Looking into it more I found that it was a loophole utilized by these scummy scams. They will find a facility that is approved by the FDA for manufacturing something that is FDA approved (like a tens machine) and hire it out to manufacture their scam product. They can then plaster “manufactured in an FDA approved facility” all over their packaging, website, and ad copy, which is extremely misleading. As long as they don’t explicitly say FDA approved or use the FDA logo, which is government property, they are okay.
This is just one example. I’ve been working with mostly kids for almost 2 decades now. I’ve seen many more terrible things embraced, anti vaccination being the most popular. I’ve seen people waste precious time that is essential during early intervention periods on quack bullshit like facilitated communication then when they finally give up on that their child is years behind and never truly gains any meaningful communication ability (which, to be fair, may have been the case from the beginning, but it also may not if they had embraced evidence based practice).
I’m sick and tired of hemming and hawing about this bullshit and “what about the morons right to be an idiot?”. Not when the moron robs their child of the capacity for meaningful communication, a proper education and social development, facilitates outbreaks of disease, or is fronting to scam people.
Similarly China saw the obvious issue with loot boxes and banned them. Meanwhile we are still hemming and hawing about the ethics of allowing children to gamble because we desperately need to allow them to funnel cash to tech billionaires and start addictive behavioral patterns as young as humanly possible, apparently. They also saw the inherent ethical issues with fee for service medical billing and are taking huge steps to transition away from it. Meanwhile our health reform plan is apparently “go fuck yourself and die”.
It is unbelievably frustrating how badly we are failing and how much we have been conditioned to do nothing with statements like yours. “Well, if we do that, it could blow up in our face, much like it’s currently blowing up in our fucking face right as we speak, so I guess we should just do nothing then”
reactionality@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
It’s at least better than the village idiots being given a platform and a speakerphone. Even if we go back to a more tightly controlled information age, it’s better than the prolific amount of nefarious bullshit around these days. Either indoctrination, propaganda, misguidedness, prejudice, or any number of reasons…
Eldritch@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
100% I certainly wouldn't trust America and all the fake institutions we have here to be the arbiters of news and expert in anything. And someplace like China, where you can already be imprisoned for life. Or even put to death for having the wrong views. Nope. The problem isn't loudmouth idiots. It's the idiots that get their information from loudmouth idiots. As individuals, we should always be looking to understand the expertise and knowledge of individuals and their qualifications to speak on a subject ourselves. Not giving that power to a small group of people guaranteed to abuse it.
gigachad@piefed.social 3 weeks ago
What a crazy thing to say
possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
China is a authoritarian government that crushes freedom and individual rights
If the are “ahead” I’m seriously worried about the future of humanity
loosefood4181@lemmygrad.ml 3 weeks ago
That’s a huge typo you got there. Your description matches the “U.S”, but you spelled out as “China”
In the US, you can get thrown in jail for not mowing your lawn. But yes, tell us how China crushes freedom and individual rights lol.
Eldritch@piefed.world 3 weeks ago
This is the correct response.
OldChicoAle@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Exactly!
Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
It wouldn’t, as having a degree doesn’t make you immune from idiocy and propaganda.
There were a concerning amount of Health professionals who believed in and spread anti-vax rhetoric, including a pharmacist who purposefully destroyed COVID vaccines during the pandemic.
Yes, we should strive to reduce and remove misinformation online, but restricting it to the few is not a good idea, as they can be just as questionable as a random on the street.