Internet forum responsibilities for posters.

[KSagal]

Lily and Bob,

Both of you have suggested things that sound good, and may make life less confrontational, but I have a question.

If a person posts something that you know is propaganda, something that you know is intended to influence ignorant people to a certain perspective, but that perspective is false or inappropriate, what should your responsibility be?

If you see one person cheat another, but you have no particular relationship with either person, yet you know the cheat is in play, what should your responsibility be?

Turing the other cheek is a great policy, till it comes back to hurt someone.

I recall a theme from the Diaries of Ann Frank, where the Green Police came for the gypsies, and I said nothing. They came for the Jews, and I said nothing. They came for the Polish, the Catholics, etc., etc., etc., and still I said nothing. Then they came for me, and there was no one to say anything.

If I see a lie, or a falsehood, and I let it go unchallenged, is that not an endorsement? If I challenge the falsehood, and then get attacked, is that not a small price to pay for defending the truth? Is not Virtue its own reward?

Now, many of my arguments on line are a matter of subjective perspectives. But does a subjective falsehood, offered as a fact when it is not, require a person with capacity to respond and attempt to set the record straight?

Even if one subjective perspective is offered as a fact, then it is challenged, does that not offer the reader two perspectives, and therefore more capacity to divine the truth for themselves?

To misquote a great bard, 'If cut, should I not bleed?'

I do not offer all this to assault you or annoy you, but I truly want to know your perspective on the responsibility we all have to see the truth (as we know it) to win out.