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The ‘Silicon Six’ spread propaganda. It’s time to regulate social media sites

38 points by d99kris 7y ago

DHPersonal 7y ago
I saw an article on Techdirt about this, which presented a dissenting view. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191122/00412943432/sacha-baron-cohen-is-wrong-about-social-media-wrong-about-section-230-even-wrong-about-his-own-comedy.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191122/00412943432/sacha...
- mattrp 7y ago
  Thank you for posting. I think there are huge issues with the argument that these six people are ruining the world and the solution is to replace them with six other people to tell you how to think.
  - mthoms 7y ago
    >replace them with six other people to tell you how to think That's not (at all) what he argues. While I might not agree with his ideas, I also don't think boiling a complex issue down to hyperbolic, and misleading, sound-bytes like this one is any way helpful.
    - mattrp 7y ago
      I’m pretty sure that’s what Cohen meant. Was there another meaning I did not pick up on?
      - mthoms 7y ago
        He spoke about regulation (either self imposed or governmental) against widely disseminating provably false and harmful content. I realize that's a controversial idea for obvious reasons. But to dismiss it outright as finding "other people" who will "tell you how to think" is disingenuous.
- moretai 7y ago
  Great article
- mthoms 7y ago
  It's a dissenting view that I'm somewhat inclined to agree with, but fails to propose any alternative remedies. I don't think the status quo is tenable.
  - Nasrudith 7y ago
    While there is a temptation to "do something" just because someone is sane enough to recognize that an approach is doomed to failure doesn't mean they have all of the answers. I have seen that asserted but I haven't heard explicit answers. Why do you or others think it isn't tennable? How do you think it will collapse with lack of action?
moretai 7y ago
I like that name. Sounds sinister.
- mthoms 7y ago
  I also liked "Freedom of speech is not Freedom of reach" though I suspect he didn't coin that.
  - chrisco255 7y ago
    Curious why you think consumers and producers of speech are not free to make their own decisions about what speech is acceptable.
    - mthoms 7y ago
      Huh? I liked this expression because people regularly conflate the right to speak freely with the supposed right to have their speech amplified and distributed (at zero cost), which isn't a thing. I made no mention whatsoever about what speech is, or isn't, acceptable.
      - chrisco255 7y ago
        Yes it is a thing. All these platforms were built on people sharing their thoughts, pics, feelings, etc with their friends or with their subscribers. The platform was built on consent. If you don't like what someone has to say, unsubscribe or unfriend. The desire to deplatform is just censorship.
        mthoms 7y ago
        What I said was: > "the supposed RIGHT to have their speech amplified and distributed ... isn't a thing" No such RIGHT exists, period. End of sentence. That right isn't "a thing". I've never made a comment supporting "de-platforming", or anything of the sort, so I'm not sure where that came from. All I did, was point out the confusion people have regarding their actual rights. Somewhat ironically, your response perfectly illustrates my point. So, thank you.
Nasrudith 7y ago
I can't help but think "holy projection Batman" when I see that term. They may be shady but I trust vested interests and scapegoaters even less. They do damage to their own credibility with their incessant pushing on a flimsy and selective basis.
meowface 7y ago
I agree with (most of) the description of the problem - the rise of conspiracy theories online - and agree it's a serious issue. I think the proposed solution would make the problem much, much worse, though. "What are they trying to hide by controlling what we say and censoring our attempts to expose the truth?"
Apocryphon 7y ago
It's interesting how social convention itself causes some social media problems to not arise. Despite its infamy for being a spammy place of careerist self-promotion, LinkedIn doesn't suffer from any of the problems of these other social networks, simply because it isn't designed for that context. I've seen some terrible low quality content posts on LI, but even at its worst, they are simply asinine life/career inspirational thinkpieces intended for a professional audiene. Not dissimilar to low quality on Quora. Yet both places host material that have a general higher standard than on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter.
exabrial 7y ago
No thanks. I don't want to government regulating anything, especially as something as sensitive as free speech online.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
ilaksh 7y ago
Conflating conspiracy theories, propaganda, and racism is very problematic. Propaganda is most often used to motivate state goals, such as war, with falsehoods. Government and government/industrial partnership is the main source of propaganda. Conspiracy theories are generally anti-propaganda in the sense that they contradict the official story. Its true that there are many conspiracy theorists who are racist. However, its certainly not all of them. I would be considered a hardcore 'conspiracy theorist' by most but I'm not the least bit racist. I am a white man who dated asian women and lives in Mexico. I don't pretend to know anything about people who I don't know. Conspiracy theories are also extremely popular with black Americans. The problem with large companies or the government "regulating propaganda" is that, as I mentioned, they are the biggest sources of propaganda. What you will end up with is something along the lines of Chinese government information control. I do, however, believe that we should make an effort to reduce the propagation of racism, and extreme views that are deliberately false. But whatever form this takes, it must not be monopolized by one organization or establishment, and must be structured in the context that I described, rather than a false context where anti-establishment views are automatically censored. One possibility might be to use the legal system. For example, some legal action could disqualify political candidates who blatantly lie about their opponents. Of course, this is extremely challenging, since that would disqualify all candidates in the current system.
peterashford 7y ago
There's a huge difference between regulating what is not ok and "telling everyone what to think". Americans seem to jump on any kind of regulation as equivalent to Big Brother thought control which is just a bizarre overreaction. Any kind of international agreement over regulating speech is going to be very mild by the nature of consensus - you won't get all the governments in the world agreeing to something extreme. You might get agreement around "don't publish lies" and "don't publish racist stuff"

38 points by d99kris 7y ago

I saw an article on Techdirt about this, which presented a dissenting view. https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191122/00412943432/sacha-baron-cohen-is-wrong-about-social-media-wrong-about-section-230-even-wrong-about-his-own-comedy.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20191122/00412943432/sacha...

mattrp 7y ago
Thank you for posting. I think there are huge issues with the argument that these six people are ruining the world and the solution is to replace them with six other people to tell you how to think.
- mthoms 7y ago
  >replace them with six other people to tell you how to think That's not (at all) what he argues. While I might not agree with his ideas, I also don't think boiling a complex issue down to hyperbolic, and misleading, sound-bytes like this one is any way helpful.
  - mattrp 7y ago
    I’m pretty sure that’s what Cohen meant. Was there another meaning I did not pick up on?
    - mthoms 7y ago
      He spoke about regulation (either self imposed or governmental) against widely disseminating provably false and harmful content. I realize that's a controversial idea for obvious reasons. But to dismiss it outright as finding "other people" who will "tell you how to think" is disingenuous.
moretai 7y ago
Great article
mthoms 7y ago
It's a dissenting view that I'm somewhat inclined to agree with, but fails to propose any alternative remedies. I don't think the status quo is tenable.
- Nasrudith 7y ago
  While there is a temptation to "do something" just because someone is sane enough to recognize that an approach is doomed to failure doesn't mean they have all of the answers. I have seen that asserted but I haven't heard explicit answers. Why do you or others think it isn't tennable? How do you think it will collapse with lack of action?

moretai 7y ago

I like that name. Sounds sinister.

mthoms 7y ago
I also liked "Freedom of speech is not Freedom of reach" though I suspect he didn't coin that.
- chrisco255 7y ago
  Curious why you think consumers and producers of speech are not free to make their own decisions about what speech is acceptable.
  - mthoms 7y ago
    Huh? I liked this expression because people regularly conflate the right to speak freely with the supposed right to have their speech amplified and distributed (at zero cost), which isn't a thing. I made no mention whatsoever about what speech is, or isn't, acceptable.
    - chrisco255 7y ago
      Yes it is a thing. All these platforms were built on people sharing their thoughts, pics, feelings, etc with their friends or with their subscribers. The platform was built on consent. If you don't like what someone has to say, unsubscribe or unfriend. The desire to deplatform is just censorship.
      - mthoms 7y ago
        What I said was: > "the supposed RIGHT to have their speech amplified and distributed ... isn't a thing" No such RIGHT exists, period. End of sentence. That right isn't "a thing". I've never made a comment supporting "de-platforming", or anything of the sort, so I'm not sure where that came from. All I did, was point out the confusion people have regarding their actual rights. Somewhat ironically, your response perfectly illustrates my point. So, thank you.

Nasrudith 7y ago

I can't help but think "holy projection Batman" when I see that term. They may be shady but I trust vested interests and scapegoaters even less. They do damage to their own credibility with their incessant pushing on a flimsy and selective basis.

meowface 7y ago

I agree with (most of) the description of the problem - the rise of conspiracy theories online - and agree it's a serious issue. I think the proposed solution would make the problem much, much worse, though. "What are they trying to hide by controlling what we say and censoring our attempts to expose the truth?"

Apocryphon 7y ago

It's interesting how social convention itself causes some social media problems to not arise. Despite its infamy for being a spammy place of careerist self-promotion, LinkedIn doesn't suffer from any of the problems of these other social networks, simply because it isn't designed for that context. I've seen some terrible low quality content posts on LI, but even at its worst, they are simply asinine life/career inspirational thinkpieces intended for a professional audiene. Not dissimilar to low quality on Quora. Yet both places host material that have a general higher standard than on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter.

exabrial 7y ago

No thanks. I don't want to government regulating anything, especially as something as sensitive as free speech online.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

ilaksh 7y ago

Conflating conspiracy theories, propaganda, and racism is very problematic. Propaganda is most often used to motivate state goals, such as war, with falsehoods. Government and government/industrial partnership is the main source of propaganda. Conspiracy theories are generally anti-propaganda in the sense that they contradict the official story. Its true that there are many conspiracy theorists who are racist. However, its certainly not all of them. I would be considered a hardcore 'conspiracy theorist' by most but I'm not the least bit racist. I am a white man who dated asian women and lives in Mexico. I don't pretend to know anything about people who I don't know. Conspiracy theories are also extremely popular with black Americans. The problem with large companies or the government "regulating propaganda" is that, as I mentioned, they are the biggest sources of propaganda. What you will end up with is something along the lines of Chinese government information control. I do, however, believe that we should make an effort to reduce the propagation of racism, and extreme views that are deliberately false. But whatever form this takes, it must not be monopolized by one organization or establishment, and must be structured in the context that I described, rather than a false context where anti-establishment views are automatically censored. One possibility might be to use the legal system. For example, some legal action could disqualify political candidates who blatantly lie about their opponents. Of course, this is extremely challenging, since that would disqualify all candidates in the current system.

peterashford 7y ago

There's a huge difference between regulating what is not ok and "telling everyone what to think". Americans seem to jump on any kind of regulation as equivalent to Big Brother thought control which is just a bizarre overreaction. Any kind of international agreement over regulating speech is going to be very mild by the nature of consensus - you won't get all the governments in the world agreeing to something extreme. You might get agreement around "don't publish lies" and "don't publish racist stuff"