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Personally, I'm conflicted. Your argument rests upon the idea that people's minds can be "poisoned" with false information. And I understand that. But at some p

by atomi 7y ago

Personally, I'm conflicted. Your argument rests upon the idea that people's minds can be "poisoned" with false information. And I understand that. But at some point you have to hold people responsible for believing stuff that is blatantly false. There was a time that, if you believed in Bat Boy [1], most people rightly thought you were a bozo. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Boy_(character) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bat_Boy_(character)

notatoad 7y ago
Yes, it would be nice to say the responsibility lies with the people who believe that stuff, but their believing it has real consequences that impact people beside themselves. This is a problem that needs to be solved now, not a problem to be dismissed because you don't like the problem. It's all well and good to dismiss the people who believe widespread disinformation campaigns as idiots, but that doesn't do anything to prevent the next guy who shoots up a pizza parlour because he believes that the basement is home to a leftist pedophile ring and it doesn't do anything to stop the very real climate crisis that some news sources would have you believe doesn't exist.
- dmix 7y ago
  The guy didn’t shoot up a pizza parlour, he shot a single bullet into the roof, was promptly arrested, and even admitted he was wrong. The world didn’t end, there’s a million worse examples of similar human stupidity that have nothing to do with politics and won’t be solved by letting tech companies choose what is true and what isn’t. This is wishful thinking in response to an overreaction. This sort of thing isn’t worth sacrificing speech over, largely because it won’t work (for ex: Infowars is still extremely popular even without social media accounts) and the costs of false positives will out weigh the returns.
  - jhayward 7y ago
    > the costs of false positives will out weigh the returns. We have several 10's of millions of people killed in the 20th century that put this statement, which is speculative at best, to the lie. People killed because disinformation, mob-rousing, and lies were permitted to poison the commons.
    - winstonewert 7y ago
      That's the opposite of how I'd describe it. 10s of millions were killed in the twentieth century by despotic regimes which decided that anyone opposed to them was spreading disinformation and lies, not because they were unwilling to take action.
- lurquer 7y ago
  Your issue is not with disinformation as you assume that you -- and other like-minded intellectuals -- can tell the difference. Rather, your beef is with democracy in general. The idea of giving ignorant, superstitious, uneducated, low-IQ people a vote is abhorrent and very upsettting. Why don't you instead limit sufferage only to those who believe in climate change? That would be simpler. Indeed, while we are at it, we should likewise forbid anyone who believes in rich liberal pedophilia rings from voting. (Epstein would have been in favor of thst... as would Prince Andrew...)
djaque 7y ago
I too want to believe in individual people having the ability to determine fact from fiction. The problem I see, however, is the power dynamic nowadays. What chance does the average person have in rooting out disinformation when it's being spread by interests using million dollar marketing campaigns and rooms filled with PhDs? The average person can't really invest the time in becoming an expert in all of the problems that affect us even if they want to and you need to rely on other people at some point.
- droithomme 7y ago
  These hordes of extremely naive people that are so easily fooled: if they exist, why should they be allowed to vote at all in the first place?
ouid 7y ago
Blatantly false? The problem is not stuff which is blatantly false. The problem is that if you make a large number of false statements, some of them will not be so obviously false. Also, a large part of the danger of misinformation is not that people will believe false things, but that people will lose faith in journalism as a medium.
- roenxi 7y ago
  If something isn't blatantly false how exactly is Google supposed to moderate it? They don't hire enough employees to even manually review all of the complaints related to their income stream, let alone for voluntary initiatives to police truth. Besides, the category 'things which are false but that gullible people might be persuaded by' is basically what the political process deals with. Along with 'things that are true but naive people don't believe'. Clamp down on that and you might as well just get rid of elections as there isn't a lot to poll people on.
  - ouid 7y ago
    I think that Google very plausibly has statistical tools already built that will help quite a bit in this arena. Combatting fake news is essentially the same problem as combatting SEO.
    - roenxi 7y ago
      You suggesting that Google has statistical tools that can reveal fundamental political truths. That is not true. If it is true, maybe Google could do some good by releasing this information to the rest of us so we can also solve all these pesky partisan issues plaguing the political landscape. It is possible to draw a vague philosophical parallel between SEO and lying, but in practice they aren't going to be similar. I don't know what similarities you see so I can't argue with them, but dealing with SEO doesn't involve figuring out whether the SEO is done truthfully or not. I'd imagine much SEO is done in the service of truth (sell you X for $Y style arrangements) that just happens to turn up in unwanted places.
    - sincerely 7y ago
stjohnswarts 7y ago
Advertisers have a responsibility for truth in advertising, if they can't handle that then their distributors can cut them off. This is as old as the advertising business. Claiming that Obama is a Muslim Cleric and expecting equal treatment with that hogwash deserves to get banned. Same if Trump was claimed to drink the blood of babies (which no one has disproven!) would also be an ad that could be banned. Again I say good for Goog; eliminating targeting of the audience by political affiliation is a good thing.
- vanniv 7y ago
  The core problem being, of course, that only one of your two examples would actually get removed.
archgoon 7y ago
This seems more like a signal/noise pollution problem. Which also means that false things are harder to correct. Showing something that is blatantly false is much harder when all information sources become jammed.
baq 7y ago
it isn't about poisoning the mind, it's about filling the channel with noise so important facts don't get through. note that fake news are being produced, reposted and boosted consistently and continuously, they aren't one-offs.
- wmeredith 7y ago
  It’s called “the firehouse of falsehood” and it’s a play straight out of the KGB’s propaganda book. Read more: https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html

by atomi 7y ago

notatoad 7y ago

Yes, it would be nice to say the responsibility lies with the people who believe that stuff, but their believing it has real consequences that impact people beside themselves. This is a problem that needs to be solved now, not a problem to be dismissed because you don't like the problem. It's all well and good to dismiss the people who believe widespread disinformation campaigns as idiots, but that doesn't do anything to prevent the next guy who shoots up a pizza parlour because he believes that the basement is home to a leftist pedophile ring and it doesn't do anything to stop the very real climate crisis that some news sources would have you believe doesn't exist.

dmix 7y ago
The guy didn’t shoot up a pizza parlour, he shot a single bullet into the roof, was promptly arrested, and even admitted he was wrong. The world didn’t end, there’s a million worse examples of similar human stupidity that have nothing to do with politics and won’t be solved by letting tech companies choose what is true and what isn’t. This is wishful thinking in response to an overreaction. This sort of thing isn’t worth sacrificing speech over, largely because it won’t work (for ex: Infowars is still extremely popular even without social media accounts) and the costs of false positives will out weigh the returns.
- jhayward 7y ago
  > the costs of false positives will out weigh the returns. We have several 10's of millions of people killed in the 20th century that put this statement, which is speculative at best, to the lie. People killed because disinformation, mob-rousing, and lies were permitted to poison the commons.
  - winstonewert 7y ago
    That's the opposite of how I'd describe it. 10s of millions were killed in the twentieth century by despotic regimes which decided that anyone opposed to them was spreading disinformation and lies, not because they were unwilling to take action.
lurquer 7y ago
Your issue is not with disinformation as you assume that you -- and other like-minded intellectuals -- can tell the difference. Rather, your beef is with democracy in general. The idea of giving ignorant, superstitious, uneducated, low-IQ people a vote is abhorrent and very upsettting. Why don't you instead limit sufferage only to those who believe in climate change? That would be simpler. Indeed, while we are at it, we should likewise forbid anyone who believes in rich liberal pedophilia rings from voting. (Epstein would have been in favor of thst... as would Prince Andrew...)

djaque 7y ago

I too want to believe in individual people having the ability to determine fact from fiction. The problem I see, however, is the power dynamic nowadays. What chance does the average person have in rooting out disinformation when it's being spread by interests using million dollar marketing campaigns and rooms filled with PhDs? The average person can't really invest the time in becoming an expert in all of the problems that affect us even if they want to and you need to rely on other people at some point.

droithomme 7y ago
These hordes of extremely naive people that are so easily fooled: if they exist, why should they be allowed to vote at all in the first place?

ouid 7y ago

Blatantly false? The problem is not stuff which is blatantly false. The problem is that if you make a large number of false statements, some of them will not be so obviously false. Also, a large part of the danger of misinformation is not that people will believe false things, but that people will lose faith in journalism as a medium.

roenxi 7y ago
If something isn't blatantly false how exactly is Google supposed to moderate it? They don't hire enough employees to even manually review all of the complaints related to their income stream, let alone for voluntary initiatives to police truth. Besides, the category 'things which are false but that gullible people might be persuaded by' is basically what the political process deals with. Along with 'things that are true but naive people don't believe'. Clamp down on that and you might as well just get rid of elections as there isn't a lot to poll people on.
- ouid 7y ago
  I think that Google very plausibly has statistical tools already built that will help quite a bit in this arena. Combatting fake news is essentially the same problem as combatting SEO.
  - roenxi 7y ago
    You suggesting that Google has statistical tools that can reveal fundamental political truths. That is not true. If it is true, maybe Google could do some good by releasing this information to the rest of us so we can also solve all these pesky partisan issues plaguing the political landscape. It is possible to draw a vague philosophical parallel between SEO and lying, but in practice they aren't going to be similar. I don't know what similarities you see so I can't argue with them, but dealing with SEO doesn't involve figuring out whether the SEO is done truthfully or not. I'd imagine much SEO is done in the service of truth (sell you X for $Y style arrangements) that just happens to turn up in unwanted places.
  - sincerely 7y ago

stjohnswarts 7y ago

Advertisers have a responsibility for truth in advertising, if they can't handle that then their distributors can cut them off. This is as old as the advertising business. Claiming that Obama is a Muslim Cleric and expecting equal treatment with that hogwash deserves to get banned. Same if Trump was claimed to drink the blood of babies (which no one has disproven!) would also be an ad that could be banned. Again I say good for Goog; eliminating targeting of the audience by political affiliation is a good thing.

vanniv 7y ago
The core problem being, of course, that only one of your two examples would actually get removed.

archgoon 7y ago

This seems more like a signal/noise pollution problem. Which also means that false things are harder to correct. Showing something that is blatantly false is much harder when all information sources become jammed.

baq 7y ago

it isn't about poisoning the mind, it's about filling the channel with noise so important facts don't get through. note that fake news are being produced, reposted and boosted consistently and continuously, they aren't one-offs.

wmeredith 7y ago
It’s called “the firehouse of falsehood” and it’s a play straight out of the KGB’s propaganda book. Read more: https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html https://www.rand.org/pubs/perspectives/PE198.html