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Public Pulse Unfit for Tax Debate

So many complain about social media but it is not so bad if properly run. But people, particularly old people, love the habit of picking up the newspaper or reading a familiar paper online from writers and organizations they are familiare with.

Unfortunately, when it comes to letters-to-the-editor, such as Omaha World Herald’s Public Pulse, false and misleading information is posted and can take over a month to be refuted by a letter, if at all. Oh, you can post a digital reply on their website but not many people view comments there. Either way, the discussion is stalled and cluttered with bad information.

The letter of the writer below is an example:

But she is wrong. With Federal taxes, the rich pay well beyond their fair share (https://epicforamerica.org/federal-budget/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share-of-taxes/ and https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/do-the-rich-pay-their-fair-share-in-taxes/).

In fact, the Trump tax cuts paid for themselves with additional economic growth (https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/hotlines/its-official-trumps-tax-cuts-paid-for-themselves/). This is because the tax cuts grew the economy, expanding the GDP of the United States. Unfortunately, the Federal government increased spending.

Now, had this discussion taken place on social media X (X.com), her letter would have been hit with “Community Notes”. This is where other users refute the claim or provide additional information. Other viewers evaluate the refutation. The end result is incorrect information is corrected with proper information. This does not mean the Public Pulse should vanish but Community Notes lends power to correct bad information. This is why more people should move to X. It is a source of important information.

More importantly, this refutation process is valuable in countering artificial intelligence called AI. Artificial intelligence has unleashed a whole new set of tools expanding the ability to create convincing but false information and images (https://www.turing.ac.uk/blog/what-are-deepfakes-and-how-can-we-detect-them). I call this technology artificial personalities for while it is smart, it can be relentlessly misleading and spread fake information quickly. Community Notes gives users of X the ability to refute such falsehoods.

The Community Notes image above is a reply to this wonderful video below created by AI. None of the creatures exist. Would you have known without the Community Notes?

Well, you may say this is just a video, but what about the tax policies mentioned above? What do we do when local topics are not presented accurately and timely matter? How do we change the discussion for the better? The answer is likely to appear on X.