China Bars Influencers From Discussing Professional Topics Without Relevant Degrees (iol.co.za) 196
schwit1 writes: China has enacted a new law regulating social media influencers, requiring them to hold verified professional qualifications before posting content on sensitive topics such as medicine, law, education, and finance, IOL reported. The new law went into effect on Saturday.
The regulation was introduced by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) as part of its broader effort to curb misinformation online. Under the new rules, influencers must prove their expertise through recognized degrees, certifications, or licenses before discussing regulated subjects. Major platforms such as Douyin (China's TikTok), Bilibili, and Weibo are now responsible for verifying influencer credentials and ensuring that content includes clear citations, disclaimers, and transparency about sources.
Audiences expect influencers to be both creative and credible. Yet when they blur the line between opinion and expertise, the impact can be severe. A single misleading financial tip could wipe out someone's savings. A viral health trend could cause real harm. That's why many believe it's time for creators to acknowledge the weight of their influence. However, China's new law raises deeper questions: Who defines "expertise"? What happens to independent creators who challenge official narratives but lack formal credentials? And how far can regulation go before it suppresses free thought?
The regulation was introduced by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC) as part of its broader effort to curb misinformation online. Under the new rules, influencers must prove their expertise through recognized degrees, certifications, or licenses before discussing regulated subjects. Major platforms such as Douyin (China's TikTok), Bilibili, and Weibo are now responsible for verifying influencer credentials and ensuring that content includes clear citations, disclaimers, and transparency about sources.
Audiences expect influencers to be both creative and credible. Yet when they blur the line between opinion and expertise, the impact can be severe. A single misleading financial tip could wipe out someone's savings. A viral health trend could cause real harm. That's why many believe it's time for creators to acknowledge the weight of their influence. However, China's new law raises deeper questions: Who defines "expertise"? What happens to independent creators who challenge official narratives but lack formal credentials? And how far can regulation go before it suppresses free thought?
Good idea. (Score:3, Insightful)
Fantastically good idea. In the USA it would save tens of thousands of lives. Antivaxxers would disappear in nothingness.
Re: Good idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
We should definitely prohibit everyone other than recognized and state licensed experts from expressing an opinion about those fields. It worked so well with leaded gasoline
Re: Good idea. (Score:5, Informative)
It was all corporate experts claiming leaded gasoline was safe.
Re: Good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Financial, legal, and engineering advice are thee fields I know of in the US where you are legally limited in your right ability to voice your opinion.
Slashdot's all time favourite IANAL is a product of that.
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Financial, legal, and engineering advice are thee fields I know of in the US where you are legally limited in your right ability to voice your opinion.
Slashdot's all time favourite IANAL is a product of that.
You're free to give your opinion on all of those in the US, as long as you specify that it is an opinion and not advice.
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Yes. I'd say further that opinion vs. advice is critical, and the OP said opinion.
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Yeap, I've seen lots of videos like this:
"This is not financial advice <implied 'but'> <proceeds to spend an hour giving detailed financial advice>.
Kinda worthless limitation IMO.
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Yeap, I've seen lots of videos like this:
"This is not financial advice <implied 'but'> <proceeds to spend an hour giving detailed financial advice>.
Kinda worthless limitation IMO.
The problem is likely in the chosen vernacular.
"Advice" is far too common a term in everyday laymanspeak to delineate between expert factual instruction vs. dumb-ass shot-at-it that worked the last time someone held a beer. I can get "advice" from a lawyer just as easily as I can get it from a neighbor who feels nothing about calling it the same no matter how uneducated they are on the topic.
Pick a different term? Yeah. It might be that simple.
Re: Good idea. (Score:2)
A lawyer will generally charge you for advice, unlike your neighbor.
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I understand what you're saying however, even with all the degrees and years of experience the end result can be the same as taking advice from a dumbass. If there's no skin in the game, ones advice changes character.
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We should definitely prohibit everyone other than recognized and state licensed experts from expressing an opinion about those fields.
"Expressing an opinion about" and "being an influencer" aren't the same thing.
Different example: normally every person is protected in their personal rights (in most of jurisdictions anyway). But different rules go for persons of "public interest".
Treating people who make a (high above the average) living out of telling others what to think and do deserves a different kind of treatment than Joe Random
just "expressing an opinion about" something in their favourite pub standing on a table and screaming their
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While I'm against direct censorship if medical BS, I believe certain disclaimers should be required by law if relevant.
Example:
"The Covid vaccine makes your ears fall off according to Dr. Zim. Disclaimer: Dr. Zim is not a vaccination specialists, and a majority of vaccination specialists many not agree with Dr. Zim's claim. The sponsor of this message has not conducted a formal survey of vaccination specialists."
This allows one to make their claim as long as the claim's relationship to the medical establish
Re:Good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, and Dr. Zim has a doctorate in theology.
Youtube is filled with influencers implying they are medical doctors because they allegedly have doctorates in unrelated fields.
Oh, and our President is so smart he has a relative that taught the Unabomber at MIT. Modern society rewards pathological liars, qualifications are meaningless.
Re:Good idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fantastically good idea. In the USA it would save tens of thousands of lives. Antivaxxers would disappear in nothingness.
Bullshit. This is America. The second this regulation is in the books, we'd set up an accrediting program for antivax bullshit so that the spin could continue. We are essentially a scam based society at this point, and if we try to legislate away the scams, we'll instead entrench them in bureaucratic bullshit.
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Injecting bleach and putting sunshine in my ass is my god given American right!
Dr. Donald's cult (Score:5, Insightful)
The practical problem is that during a pandemic, the hospitals could end up being flooded by morons when medical resources are already strained. I don't care if morons off themselves in their own backyards, but if they gum up shared resources, it's a problem for non-morons also.
As far as the source of the bleach/light thing, see this hilarious voice-over. [youtube.com]
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So you're saying that since the problem is sometimes unavoidable, we should not do something to attempt to avoid it when it is avoidable?
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Funny! At first I thought, the VO isn't sync'd perfectly, then forgot about that and started laughing at the faces and gestures.
And I can't blame them for not wanting to study the speech over and over 'til they got it right.
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Re:Good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Not really. To start with, as others have pointed out, once you've screwed up your body, you are almost certainly going to lay claim to limited resources to bail yourself out. There's also the fact that things wrong with your body don't necessarily *stay* in your body, notably infectious diseases.
Re:Good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
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Fantastically good idea. In the USA it would save tens of thousands of lives. Antivaxxers would disappear in nothingness.
You have posted a comment that implicates the 1st Amendment without providing verified professional qualification that permits you to opine on legal topics. Agents with the Ministry of State Security have been dispatched to your home. Please ensure your full cooperation.
Re:Good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
In that case I want everyone in the current administration to take a high school civics test. They can stay employed if they pass.
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Fantastically good idea. In the USA it would save tens of thousands of lives. Antivaxxers would disappear in nothingness.
Mod parent up.
Not only in the USoA. Worldwide too. I can vouch for this being good in Venezuela (my country) Spain (lived and did my Master's there), and Colombia (lived and worked there)
Re:Good idea. (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortuantely, no. There are many "doctors" who don't believe in vaccines or were touting quack products to "cure" covid. Look who heads the Florida Department of Health and his stance on vaccines. Essentially, they're not needed.
As well there are people with law degress who don't know the law. One need only look at the Supreme Court Justices who supposedly have law degrees but don't even know what the Constitution is about.
And let's not get into Flat Earthers who have degrees in astronomy.
This would do little in the U.S. to limit morons from spouting nonsense. If anything, it would make things worse because now people could use the appeal to authority when letting loose their conspriacy theories or outright lies by saying, "See! See! Dr. Combobulitz said it and since they're an expert it must be true."
Re:Good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Gatekeeping, even by 'professionals' is still gatekeeping. This would also block people who were victims of malfeasance from speaking on these topics. There are no qualifications that are perfect and incorruptible to be trusted with this power. These ideas create a monopoly of thinking and are always more dangerous than they are beneficial. You say tens of thousands? When these systems go wrong it can kill hundreds of thousands. See Lysenkoism.
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Re:Good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Medicine should require medical credentials to talk about treatments, drugs, supplements, and alternatives. Not Naturalpathy, Not Homepathy, Not traditional Chinese medicine. If you can not explain how the treatment works in non-snake-oil langauge, then STFU.
Everything else is a bit of a question of "will this get the viewer killed" if they follow this moron's opinion taken as fact. When it comes to Law, I love listening to ACTUAL lawyers, both left and right wing, talk about legal precedents, because they all ultimately come to the same conclusions on everything. Good Lawyers will all eventually reach the same conclusion. But people who are not lawyers, and people who are, let's just say "ambulance chaser" lawyers, often parrot out bad advice and then contort themselves into pretezels trying to prove it, knowing they can't.
So I think the Lawyer angle is self-correcting. No Lawyer speaks on youtube/social media without "this is not legal advice, I am not taking you on as a client", and people who are not lawyers will also prefix with "I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice"
Education is a bit of a mixed bag, I don't watch any educators, though I watch a few twitch streamers who used to be, and they kind of have a condescending / infantilizing tone when they drop into educator mode. Again, teaching children and teaching adults are two different skillsets, so I understand the reasoning, but I don't think you can prevent people from trying to educate adults on a topic.
Finance is a hard one to crack, since there are no "credentials" that makes you qualified. You basically need a degree in economics or business and... well that's the closest you get. Contrast that with medical degrees which have multiple specializations.
Basically I think the idea is the correct one, people who have a degree, should be putting that degree on the line if they are actually offering advice based on having that degree. If you do not have a degree, then you can not speak "as an authority" on a subject that that might get you killed for fucking up.
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This will never work out - we don't fully understand how a number of medicines work and many of the ones that have been around for a very long time. Look at paracetamol - it does thing like stops stuffy noses in people with the common cold but we have no clue why or how it does that. (This isn't listed on the Tylenol box in part due to the mystery surrounding stuff like this.)
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You know, China is WAY ahead of the US in some things. THIS IS ONE OF THEM. Gets rid of the phony influencer lies.
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Ahead because they are running a different race. There's is "make sure no voices challenge the Party consensus" whilst America's should be "make sure people have the tools to know when they are being conned whilst also enabling free debate". In the end, the winner of the second race should deliver much more valuable things than the first.
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Now we need a similar law to prevent politicians from doing anything unless they have a suitable degree in the area.
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While a hard enforcement like this is probably incompatible with a free society, at least a real, verified qualification rating being attached to any relevant post would be a really good idea, with penalties when that rating is missing.
Re:Good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
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"Yesss, yess Daddy fascist government, tell me what I'm allowed to say and not say!"
That's you. An expert with a degree in professional retardation.
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That moment when you know nothing about the world, and only know how project your pet issues on it.
Hint: Official mainline medicine in China is TCM. Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Science based medicine, known as Western medicine in PRC, the one you're referring to with vaccines is a side show for urban elites. There's a credentialed TCM clinic in every small town. Not so much for Western medicine.
These are the people who are the reason why there are so many extinct species in Africa now. Because things like
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It is a good idea. It is not easy to implement in a free society. Especially one like the USA with a constitutionally protected freedom of speech.
In the USA, we would have to define (legally and practically) a distinction between an influencer or other professional media personality and an individual expressing their personal opinion. Perhaps if you are financially compensated for posting your opinions you may be required to meet qualification requirements, or if you have more than a certain number of fo
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Actually, it would be pretty easy to implement. Just make people legally liable for other people following their advice, unless they have a (degree?) in the field. If you must, allow lawyers to file suit on behalf of parties injured by the advice, even without the consent of those parties.
Re:Good idea. (Score:4, Insightful)
Fantastically good idea.
Only it will spectacularly blow up in your face, because the same will be done right back at you, where you won't be allowed to speak about abortions without a specialized medical degree or about guns without NRA marksmanship qualification, etc., etc.
Re: Good idea. (Score:3)
Re: Good idea. (Score:3)
Re: Good idea. (Score:3)
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Fantastically good idea. In the USA it would save tens of thousands of lives. Antivaxxers would disappear in nothingness.
This regulation in the US wouldn't help at all with vaccine denial, as there are MDs that are willing to risk their professional reputations in the pursuit of right-wing ideology or money/influence from right-wing extremists.
As an analog, in the US there is a regulation that blood tests have to be ordered by a doctor. So, not surprisingly, there are companies that allow people to order blood tests via their website and have their "in-house" doctor approve a bunch of blood tests for patients that he has nev
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Then they licked the boots.
this is also a bit of trolling the usa (Score:4, Insightful)
since we have the "experts don't exist" party in power and are self immolating ourselves over it
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I would say less the "experts don't exist" but more the "I'm the expert now" party.
With the requisite 2+ hours of "research" on YouTube and Facebook, of course.
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I would say less the "experts don't exist" but more the "I'm the expert now" party.
With the requisite 2+ hours of "research" on YouTube and Facebook, of course.
I think you're overestimating that 2+ hours by at least a factor of ten.
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Yep. "Do your own research" is the favorite slogan - which has come to mean "Form your opinion first, then make sure you can find another person on the internet that agrees with you. Once you find them your opinion is validated.".
People discussing things isn't the problem. The problem is that people don't understand the concept of professional consensus. This would still be a problem if you limited it to degree holders.
I guarantee you can still find someone with an applicable degree to agree with you.
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You forgot about the hallucinating AIs, which while they can provide useful information, are prone to making shit up.
This is why I have 8 degrees (Score:2)
And need more wallspace.
This limits stupidity (Score:4, Interesting)
This doesn't take away freedom of opinion, but it does let the viewer know whether the influencer has any credibility.
Think back to the time when America was "great", which may be the 1950s according to MAGA. If an average person didn't understand some scientific topic, they didn't pretend to. They trusted Jonas Salk and others because they got to see the horrors or polio and the they saw the effect of the vaccines. The children saw some students not come back to school in the fall because they contracted polio over the summer. The parents saw the same thing and understood just how important vaccines were, whether they understood how it worked or not. Now everyone pretends to be an expert, even if they're actually an idiot. Even idiots knew their limits in the "good old days" before social media.
Re:This limits stupidity (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it does take away freedom of opinion. The system that assigns these credentials can always be corrupt, and usually is. Any gatekeepers of knowledge can and usually do become corrupt, either for power or money.
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> Even idiots knew their limits in the "good old days" before social media.
Now idiocy is glorified. Now if someone doesn't like what you said and expresses desire to punch you in the face, we consider them presidential material.
We are in deep decline.
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No, it's deep decline. And that MAY be good.
Normally, when the nation that's been "top dog" meets a strong challenger a war results. If the US declines swiftly enough, we may avoid that. Don't doubt that it will be unpleasant, but *less* unpleasant.
FWIW, I think China is a strong enough challenger that there's no way to avoid a competition for "top dog". But Trump has been systematically antagonizing our friends and proving us to be an unreliable trading partner. The is essentially surrendering our pre
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It gives the state an easy way to take down material they don't like, especially since (especially in China) they control all accrediting agencies directly or indirectly.
Re: This limits stupidity (Score:4, Insightful)
No, you just didn't hear from the idiots because no one gave them a soapbox to stand on.
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Yeah, what is it, three generations or so before a society forgets or minimizes the lessons of the past? About when the last people who experienced critical events die off?
The US (humanity?!) goes through cycles of anti-intellectualism. F'rinstance, the one result of Kennedy's "to the moon in ten years" was to create a wave of engineers/scientists/techs in industry and education, and this lasted for a while until it didn't. Or hit the Waywayback Machine for the Know-Nothing party (yeah, I know, I know, but
Re:This limits stupidity (Score:4, Informative)
If you actually knew anything about that era's politics, you'd know better. The Know Nothing Party got that name because members were expected to deny any knowledge about that party or its activities, not because they knew nothing in general.
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That's not what a brief web search indicates. But I I remember my history class correctly, they denied the name because it was put on them by their opponents.
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I'm convinced that's a big part ofthe reason for our curent descent into fascism. I'm part of the younger cohort of Gen-X. My grandparents' generation were the original Antifa. Only they didn't pussyfoot around like the current iteration does. They way THEIR generation delt with poeple like richard spencer, stephen miller, stormtrooper barbie, their brown-shirted henchmen in ICE CBP and DHS, and the rest of their kind, was to drop high explosives on them by the tonne from B-17s and Lancasters; of, if it
They aren't new questions (Score:4, Insightful)
However, China's new law raises deeper questions: Who defines "expertise"? What happens to independent creators who challenge official narratives but lack formal credentials? And how far can regulation go before it suppresses free thought?
I don't see that it's really raising those questions in any new way. We've already been dealing with them for a long time. You can't give medical advice if you don't have a degree in medicine. You can't give legal advice if you don't have a degree in law. You might disagree with the requirements, but that's how it's worked in the offline world for a long time.
Re:They aren't new questions (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:They aren't new questions (Score:4, Insightful)
You can complain all you want, but you can't make assertions or claim authority over the subject (i.e.: prescribe medicine or give legal advice) if you lack proper education.
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Not true on a couple of different levels.
1). You can make any assertions that you want to. For example, I assert that you're crazy. What law have I broken? My assertion is my mere opinion and free to give out as many opinions as I like.
2). To give legal advice or prescribe medicine requires a license issued by the government, not merely an academic credential. I can have all the medical or law degrees that I want. But without a govt license, my ability to dispense is no greater than a high school dropout'
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1). You can make any assertions that you want to. For example, I assert that you're crazy. What law have I broken? My assertion is my mere opinion and free to give out as many opinions as I like.
This example has absolutely nothing to do with legal, medical or scientific advice. Even less to making any of these on mass media.
2). To give legal advice or prescribe medicine requires a license issued by the government, not merely an academic credential. I can have all the medical or law degrees that I want. But without a govt license, my ability to dispense is no greater than a high school dropout's.
Now you're just being snob. Ok, then... You can't give any of these being unlicensed. There you go.
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Nothing to do with being a snob.
The license requirement is a safeguard against unqualified people making a living by giving out bad medical and legal advice (there are other purposes as well). Merely having a degree does not mean one is qualified to do such things.
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You can complain all you want, but you can't make assertions or claim authority over the subject (i.e.: prescribe medicine or give legal advice) if you lack proper education.
"Under the new rules, influencers in China who wish to speak on regulated topics must provide proof of their expertise, whether that’s a degree, certification, or professional credentials."
Old answers. (Score:2)
So you can't complain a law is unconstitutional unless you have a JD? So you can't complain that common core is failing students unless you have a masters in education? So you can't complain that $TRUMP is a pump and dump unless you have a finance degree?
Perhaps along the lines of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater, the newfound limitations on Free Speech could be more confined to medical advice that can negatively impact a human life directly and immediately.
Redwood trees grow faster than fixing common core problems. Some idiot offering up the next Tide Pod taco recipe on TikTok to cure tinnitus can put someone on the ass end of a 911 call by the end of this sentence.
The real issue? Common sense went from rare to extinct. Lawyers smelled stupid in th
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You can't cut hair without a license.
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You most certainly can. Just don't charge for it.
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No, she wouldn't. Only if she set up and monetize a TikTok account telling everyone to drink orange juice instead of seeking medical advice.
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You can't give legal advice if you don't have a degree in law.
That isn't actually true, in at least two ways:
First, you can have a law degree without being a lawyer, and you can (in at least some states) be a lawyer without getting a law degree.
And second, you don't need to be a lawyer to give legal advice. In fact, pretty much the only two things you can't do if you're not a lawyer is a) represent someone else in court, and b) call yourself a lawyer.
Anything else a lawyer does, anyone can do, no matter who stupid someone would have to be to take their advice.
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You can't give medical advice if you don't have a degree in medicine. You can't give legal advice if you don't have a degree in law.
For all practical purposes anyone can give medical advice and legal advice, it just isn't officially called "medical advice" or "legal advice" - it's called "Moby Disk's uneducated opinion." Like right now - I am arguing about a legal topic, and you can reply and say I am wrong, and it is totally legal so long as we don't represent ourselves as lawyers.
Better than the Wild West. (Score:4, Insightful)
The Chinese have problems with fake degree mills just like everybody else, and perhaps worse, but to their credit they're trying to combat it. There's a whole industry for vetting education credentials there.
While I generally don't like silencing people on the general principles that education doesn't guarantee competency, and the lack of formal education doesn't necessarily imply incompetence, the internet has put us in a position where good information has been drowned out.
I think this approach is a good start.
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It's NOT a good start. But there are clearly reasons why it's a (slightly) better choice than doing nothing. It really doesn't work for abstruse technical points to be decided by a popular vote. It doesn't even work for reasonably straightforward points. I expect that if you had a vote on "what is 3 + 7" and took a weighed result you'd get something other than 10.
What s country! (Score:2, Insightful)
First Step (Score:3)
Eventually, 'influencers' must be CCP approved
Chinese Medicine (Score:4, Interesting)
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Simple rules are troublesome (Score:4, Insightful)
Some people with degrees and certifications may be incompetent
Some people with no degree may be excellent and may know more than the experts
While it's true that most degreed professionals are more competent than the general public, simple rules miss a lot of edge cases
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Just look at what happening in Canada, where Jordan Peterson was dragged in front of his professional body for his clearly political speech, because it w
Can we just ban influencers instead? (Score:2)
See subject. And don't forget to like and subscribe while you're here. I really appreciate you, I do. I love you so much that I am about to have another exclusive merch drop! Make sure you joined my mailing list so you're notified when it does!
What about “elite” blind spots? (Score:4, Interesting)
(Please bear with me as I am trying here to demonstrate a key flaw in the CCP's logic. The following discussion builds up a case that yields a final concrete example of "credentialed conclusions" that demonstrates the CCP strategy has a high potential for yielding objectively incorrect results.)
Progressives, just like conservatives, recognize their take is biased to one side on a wide variety of individual topics but, unlike conservatives, fail to see when their bias is systematic. This is particularly notable in a variety of ways:
- Progressives see Fox as right leaning, as do conservatives, but assessing NPR reveals a schism: conservatives see NPR as distinctly left leaning while progressives see it as close to neutral. The schism is only made obvious to progressives when they’re instructed to carefully use a rubric of individual issues for assessment instead of simply using “vibes”: Israel, lockdowns, teacher unions, defund the police, etc, etc.
- Media Matters similarly uses holistic “narrative” to judge media bias, thus largely aligning with progressive assessments of Fox and NPR, where-as All Sides empirically assesses bias by uses a rubric of positions on several individual issues to judge bias, thus aligning with conservative assessments.
- Not coincidentally, the Critical Theory and Postmodernism that’s particularly dominant in “elite” soft science academia both explicitly claim “narrative trumps empirical observation” or even “empirical observation is a tool of bigotry”. This aligns with the progressive “vibe” approach of assessing NPR and Media Matters as neutral.
- Wikipedia’s political drift over the last ten years is a particularly illuminating example of this phenomenon. Its official “perennial source” list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... [wikipedia.org] has evolved over the last decade or so to green light virtually all distinctly left leaning resources as “neutral” (The Guardian, CNN, NPR) but red lights, or at least yellow lights, almost all right leaning resources.
The systemic bias of supposedly neutral mainstream media and soft science “elite” academia becomes ludicrously obvious after examining the highly aligned Biden era CNN, NPR, soft science academia, and progressive positions on a wide variety of topics:
- The border is secure.
- The inflation is “temporary” and “small”.
- The Steele Report is credible.
- The laptop is a Russian plant.
- The lab leak theory is propaganda.
- Opposing long term lockdowns is unscientific.
- Biden is fully mentally competent.
- Defunding police is a great idea.
- The GF riots were “mostly peaceful”.
- Judging by identity instead of merit is democratic.
- Extremely adult books in grades schools are appropriate.
- Support defunding, oppose school choice, oppose VoterID, and support illegal immigration.
That last bullet point is particularly illustrative of the blind spot. Per Gallup the progressive view on each topic - defunding, school choice. VoterID, borders - not only opposes conservative views, but also opposes the majority of Black Americans.
Funny! (Score:2)
Plenty of crackpots have credentials. (Score:2)
Answers to questions in OP: (Score:2)
>Who defines "expertise"?
Relevant agency within CCP, local or national branch, on case by case basis.
>What happens to independent creators who challenge official narratives but lack formal credentials?
Typical solution for undesired speech until now has been permanent ban from all social media. In more extreme cases, vanishing and likely involuntary organ donation.
>And how far can regulation go before it suppresses free thought?
There is no freedom of speech in PRC. It's a communist nation. Only sanc
I cannot believe you people! (Score:3)
I cannot believe the number of people on here who think a law like this is a good idea!! I hope they are all sarcasm and I'm just missing it. Otherwise.....holy cow, society really is in a bad place, much worse than I thought.
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As long as the government isn't in full control of the degrees in question... it's a bad solution to a worse problem.
We're living in a world where old diseases are coming back because we couldn't shut down anti-vax talk as quickly as the asshole who started it all to discredit vaccines in production so he could sell his own and get rich. He took a big hit because he had something to take away... the greedy fools who followed did not.
You shouldn't be able to give medical advice - even if you slap "for enter
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Well....all I can say is that we will have to disagree.
Came here to say ... (Score:2)
... that this sounds like a Slashdot (today's Slashdot, not the one I joined) dream.
Saw the +5 comments; was not disappointed, lol
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That may be because you do not understand the issue. While the type of enforcement is potentially problematic, the idea itself is a really good one.
Re:JFC, When did Slashdot forget Free speech? (Score:2)
Right about the same time that free speech absolutists forgot that absolutes are a bad idea.
Re: (Score:2)
Who did you think I was replying to?
Re: (Score:2)
My apologies, dfghjk, I was caught be the shitty nesting trap laid routinely by slashdot.