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As some others have said, a well-thought-out article on the larger scale impacts of the Internet as a new medium of communication - just get past the intro. In

by rapht 8y ago

As some others have said, a well-thought-out article on the larger scale impacts of the Internet as a new medium of communication - just get past the intro. In the end, it's interesting because it puts together a number of intuitions you may already have about the upcoming western social-democratic crisis stemming from the loss of authoritative sources of information. What is missing is actually ideas about what system we should collectively aim for in order to restore trust in actual truths and distrust in actual falsehoods - because of course, you can't have a society without a shared framework for that.

megous 8y ago
I've just watched a documentary about Bellingcat, and one suggested answer there is transparency about the data, sources and methods. So when the news media will lose their aura of journalistic professionalism and authority stemming from that, there will be something actually better that will arise after that.
- hhs 8y ago
  Interesting view. Have you heard of Onora O'Neill? She's aiming to take transparency further. O'Neill and her colleagues at the Royal Society have been pushing for 'intelligent openness' where data and information would be made accessible, intelligible, assessable, and usable by anyone. If interested, there's a report called "Science as an Open Enterprise", which goes in depth. https://royalsociety.org/news/2012/science-open-enterprise/ https://royalsociety.org/news/2012/science-open-enterprise/
stdcli 8y ago
I think the core issue here is the elephant in the room in tech that noone wants to talk about. The tech industry has put most of it's money making eggs in the ads basket. This means companies selling ads are promoting the kind of mass information spread that is sensationalist because it gets their ads the most views, and the tech community makes money off of this. How well do ads actually work? I really don't know. Is there any objective data to measure this? There are three main companies who sell ad spaces on a real time market and it is a very interesting market that I feel like most people know little about, especially people in tech. Regardless of how well or not well this works, it's what floats companies like Google and Facebook. I would say the tech companies are the ones fueling this because it is the their multibillion dollar business models that rely on sensationalist news to sell ads. period. To shift the blame to politicians or to even journalists trying to compete with other sensationalist news blogs or companies who make money from selling ads, is shifting the source and the root cause of the issue, from us, the tech community. To act like as a tech community we are severely concerned about mass information, the spread misinformation etc etc but also not address how we can fundamentally move away from a market in tech that makes money off of anything besides selling ads to people, or selling peoples information to ad companies (and god knows who else, I mean, only the big tech three know who else), is delusional and self serving, at best. Despite this, I rarely hear anyone in the tech community willing to openly talk about these problems, much less come up with alternative business solutions. I would love for there to be more conversation around moving away from a tech market that preys on harvesting user data and ads to solutions that solve people's problems instead of activist posturing from people in tech who talk alot about being concerned about politics etc but work for the companies that fuel this spread of misinformation.
- automatoney 8y ago
  I agree with you that the ad models which are all about maximizing engagement are a problem, but I think that the article is trying to say that those sorts of models are inevitable given how the internet works. Like suppose no websites did ads at all and they all worked on a subscription model or something similar. Then you'd still have websites trying to get more eyeballs, because more attention means more subscribers. No matter what the model, for a given media source, more users means more money. And if you're trying to get more eyeballs, you'll end up with clickbait and attention seeking, a flood of information and misinformation, and we'd be back where we started.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - stdcli 8y ago
    I get your point, but I think it's lazy (not of you, I mean the entire tech community) to take on this assumption "those sorts of models are inevitable given how the internet works" How does the internet work where the only way to make money is to make money off of ads? That's the only ranking system possible? That's now how y combinator works yet there's a pretty aggressive ranking system on how even these comments are ranked and what is shown first to the user. What if we are were rewarded directly based on the quality/relevancy of our comments using a ranking system similar to this one or in general a quality based ranking system, or really anything with even a slightly democratic approach to it.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  "Is there any objective data to measure this?" Pretty much every digital marketer's job description consists of measuring and optimizing this. All the major digital ad platforms let you put tracking beacons throughout your page's sales flow so you can measure conversion rates directly and know exactly which ad campaign led to a sale; that's one of the major advantages of digital over print or TV. You can certainly debate the ethics of advertising in general, and whether it's ethical to psychologically manipulate people into buying products they don't need and wouldn't have bought otherwise. I personally don't really want to first because I hold opinions on both sides and second because nothing's going to get resolved by such a debate on HN - it's a debate that's been going on for 120 years, though the media hegemony described in the article silenced it for many years. But as an objective fact, there's little room for debating the effectiveness of advertising. Ads work, even if they might be evil.

by rapht 8y ago

megous 8y ago

I've just watched a documentary about Bellingcat, and one suggested answer there is transparency about the data, sources and methods. So when the news media will lose their aura of journalistic professionalism and authority stemming from that, there will be something actually better that will arise after that.

hhs 8y ago
Interesting view. Have you heard of Onora O'Neill? She's aiming to take transparency further. O'Neill and her colleagues at the Royal Society have been pushing for 'intelligent openness' where data and information would be made accessible, intelligible, assessable, and usable by anyone. If interested, there's a report called "Science as an Open Enterprise", which goes in depth. https://royalsociety.org/news/2012/science-open-enterprise/ https://royalsociety.org/news/2012/science-open-enterprise/

stdcli 8y ago

I think the core issue here is the elephant in the room in tech that noone wants to talk about. The tech industry has put most of it's money making eggs in the ads basket. This means companies selling ads are promoting the kind of mass information spread that is sensationalist because it gets their ads the most views, and the tech community makes money off of this. How well do ads actually work? I really don't know. Is there any objective data to measure this? There are three main companies who sell ad spaces on a real time market and it is a very interesting market that I feel like most people know little about, especially people in tech. Regardless of how well or not well this works, it's what floats companies like Google and Facebook. I would say the tech companies are the ones fueling this because it is the their multibillion dollar business models that rely on sensationalist news to sell ads. period. To shift the blame to politicians or to even journalists trying to compete with other sensationalist news blogs or companies who make money from selling ads, is shifting the source and the root cause of the issue, from us, the tech community. To act like as a tech community we are severely concerned about mass information, the spread misinformation etc etc but also not address how we can fundamentally move away from a market in tech that makes money off of anything besides selling ads to people, or selling peoples information to ad companies (and god knows who else, I mean, only the big tech three know who else), is delusional and self serving, at best. Despite this, I rarely hear anyone in the tech community willing to openly talk about these problems, much less come up with alternative business solutions. I would love for there to be more conversation around moving away from a tech market that preys on harvesting user data and ads to solutions that solve people's problems instead of activist posturing from people in tech who talk alot about being concerned about politics etc but work for the companies that fuel this spread of misinformation.

automatoney 8y ago
I agree with you that the ad models which are all about maximizing engagement are a problem, but I think that the article is trying to say that those sorts of models are inevitable given how the internet works. Like suppose no websites did ads at all and they all worked on a subscription model or something similar. Then you'd still have websites trying to get more eyeballs, because more attention means more subscribers. No matter what the model, for a given media source, more users means more money. And if you're trying to get more eyeballs, you'll end up with clickbait and attention seeking, a flood of information and misinformation, and we'd be back where we started.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- stdcli 8y ago
  I get your point, but I think it's lazy (not of you, I mean the entire tech community) to take on this assumption "those sorts of models are inevitable given how the internet works" How does the internet work where the only way to make money is to make money off of ads? That's the only ranking system possible? That's now how y combinator works yet there's a pretty aggressive ranking system on how even these comments are ranked and what is shown first to the user. What if we are were rewarded directly based on the quality/relevancy of our comments using a ranking system similar to this one or in general a quality based ranking system, or really anything with even a slightly democratic approach to it.
nostrademons 8y ago
"Is there any objective data to measure this?" Pretty much every digital marketer's job description consists of measuring and optimizing this. All the major digital ad platforms let you put tracking beacons throughout your page's sales flow so you can measure conversion rates directly and know exactly which ad campaign led to a sale; that's one of the major advantages of digital over print or TV. You can certainly debate the ethics of advertising in general, and whether it's ethical to psychologically manipulate people into buying products they don't need and wouldn't have bought otherwise. I personally don't really want to first because I hold opinions on both sides and second because nothing's going to get resolved by such a debate on HN - it's a debate that's been going on for 120 years, though the media hegemony described in the article silenced it for many years. But as an objective fact, there's little room for debating the effectiveness of advertising. Ads work, even if they might be evil.