4 ms·

I thought it was interesting/a bit strange that Obama mentioned this problem during his "farewell tour" press conference in Germany (along with the portrayal of

by kriro 10y ago

I thought it was interesting/a bit strange that Obama mentioned this problem during his "farewell tour" press conference in Germany (along with the portrayal of USA=Russia and the like on social media).

Karlozkiller 10y ago
Can you expand on "US=Russia"? or link the press conference in question.
75j 10y ago
Obama mentioned that he wants an internet "curating function" for determining truthful information. Watch about 5 minutes of this talk starting at 58:00 to get the full context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BikQFWNYct4&t=3480s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BikQFWNYct4&t=3480s I refuse to believe that he's not smart enough to know how problematic that is. It's not totally clear from his speech (does he just want a central repository of trusted information, or does he want to actually remove certain information from the internet?) but it's a perfect example of Obama couching dangerous ideas in soft, pragmatic language.
- dao- 10y ago
  It seems like we have no ideal choices here. Clearly we can't just sit back and let fake news / propaganda go viral and eventually determine the course of civilization. Curating is a very broad term, it can mean anything between having websites soft-rated, wikipedia-style crowdsourced curating, and opaque state-level censorship. The devil is in the details.
  - cmdrfred 10y ago
    I don't think an ideal solution exists for practically anything at a global scale. Modern sanitation increased public health significantly, but what of the plight of the humble chamberpot maker? What we have is ideology, and in America we have an ideology that speech is to be free and unrestricted.
- croon 10y ago
  I agree with your assessment otherwise, but I interpret "curation" as a wikipedia style project. Though that is problematic enough in its own right.
  - dajohnson89 10y ago
    No. Wikipedia is curation of the commons, so to speak. The government will censor.
clydethefrog 10y ago
Merkel mentioned it, not Obama. >Secondly, this wave of populism that seems to engulf us, well, look at -- and it seems, in your words, to come from the United States. Look at the European Parliament. There are a lot of people who are looking for simplistic solutions, who are sort of preaching policies of -- well, very unfriendly policies. We have them here in Europe, too. We have them here in Germany, too. >And to take up where the President left off, digitization is, in a way, a disruptive force, a disruptive technological force that brings about deep-seated change, transformation of a society. Look at the history of the printing press -- when this was invented, what sort of consequences this had. Or industrialization -- what sort of consequences that had. Very often it led to enormous transformational processes within individual societies, and it took a while until societies learned how to find the right kind of policies to contain this and to manage and steer this. And I think we live in a period of profound transformation, very similar to when we had a translation from agricultural societies to industrial societies. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/17/remarks-president-obama-and-chancellor-merkel-germany-joint-press https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/17/remar...

by kriro 10y ago

Karlozkiller 10y ago

Can you expand on "US=Russia"? or link the press conference in question.

75j 10y ago

Obama mentioned that he wants an internet "curating function" for determining truthful information. Watch about 5 minutes of this talk starting at 58:00 to get the full context: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BikQFWNYct4&t=3480s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BikQFWNYct4&t=3480s I refuse to believe that he's not smart enough to know how problematic that is. It's not totally clear from his speech (does he just want a central repository of trusted information, or does he want to actually remove certain information from the internet?) but it's a perfect example of Obama couching dangerous ideas in soft, pragmatic language.

dao- 10y ago
It seems like we have no ideal choices here. Clearly we can't just sit back and let fake news / propaganda go viral and eventually determine the course of civilization. Curating is a very broad term, it can mean anything between having websites soft-rated, wikipedia-style crowdsourced curating, and opaque state-level censorship. The devil is in the details.
- cmdrfred 10y ago
  I don't think an ideal solution exists for practically anything at a global scale. Modern sanitation increased public health significantly, but what of the plight of the humble chamberpot maker? What we have is ideology, and in America we have an ideology that speech is to be free and unrestricted.
croon 10y ago
I agree with your assessment otherwise, but I interpret "curation" as a wikipedia style project. Though that is problematic enough in its own right.
- dajohnson89 10y ago
  No. Wikipedia is curation of the commons, so to speak. The government will censor.

clydethefrog 10y ago

Merkel mentioned it, not Obama. >Secondly, this wave of populism that seems to engulf us, well, look at -- and it seems, in your words, to come from the United States. Look at the European Parliament. There are a lot of people who are looking for simplistic solutions, who are sort of preaching policies of -- well, very unfriendly policies. We have them here in Europe, too. We have them here in Germany, too. >And to take up where the President left off, digitization is, in a way, a disruptive force, a disruptive technological force that brings about deep-seated change, transformation of a society. Look at the history of the printing press -- when this was invented, what sort of consequences this had. Or industrialization -- what sort of consequences that had. Very often it led to enormous transformational processes within individual societies, and it took a while until societies learned how to find the right kind of policies to contain this and to manage and steer this. And I think we live in a period of profound transformation, very similar to when we had a translation from agricultural societies to industrial societies. https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/17/remarks-president-obama-and-chancellor-merkel-germany-joint-press https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2016/11/17/remar...