4 ms·

> 1. How is allowing the proliferation of false and misleading media not also a slippery slope, and why is that never a concern? we have had this for the past

by kmlx 7y ago

> 1. How is allowing the proliferation of false and misleading media not also a slippery slope, and why is that never a concern? we have had this for the past 400 years (since the birth of the modern press). why do we need it now? how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? what triggered this change?

krapp 7y ago
>we have had this for the past 400 years (since the birth of the modern press). why do we need it now? We've also had experts and arbiters of truth for 400 years. Why do we need to abandon the premise that truth has value in civil society? >how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? what triggered this change? I personally have never made any such decision. Trust is unavoidable either way. Twitter wants people to trust their good judgement in determining what is and isn't a deepfake, fabricated of false information. If you choose not to trust Twitter, you inevitably choose to trust the source, or the community, or your own bias (created and fed from third party sources.) No one is able to independently and objectively verify every claim they encounter. The only (as yet undetermined) relevant factor here is whether algorithms are any better at determining truthiness than the web zeitgeist. If so, then I see no harm done. If not, the feature will probably be abandoned. I don't particularly buy into the implied third option that Twitter and other platforms will be using features like this to intentionally mislead the public in order to further some radical political agenda of misinformation and thought control.
- syshum 7y ago
  >>> Why do we need to abandon the premise that truth has value in civil society? The very same people that are for these types of rules have abandoned it. With things like "there is no one truth, only my truth" believing that there is more than 1 "truth" Most of the time that type of narrative is being pushed by the same people that desire the tech companies to suppress certain kinds of speech >>If you choose not to trust Twitter, you inevitably choose to trust the source, or the community, or your own bias It has never been the case that you should trust anyone. No Twitter, or the new agencies or anyone. This is why people should be encouraged to look at original sources and multiple sources. This is also why in the age of everyone having only "anonymous sources said" is a huge problem. The other problem is most news is just regulations of another outlet or the "news media" takes a single random tweet from some random person and runs 100 nearly duplicated stories sensationalized based on that single account with no verification. >>whether algorithms are any better at determining truthiness than the web zeitgeist. This has been tried many many times before, it always fails and this too will fail
  - krapp 7y ago
    >The very same people that are for these types of rules have abandoned it. With things like "there is no one truth, only my truth" believing that there is more than 1 "truth" Who are you quoting? >It has never been the case that you should trust anyone. No Twitter, or the new agencies or anyone. This is why people should be encouraged to look at original sources and multiple sources. This is also why in the age of everyone having only "anonymous sources said" is a huge problem. So what you're saying is, people should trust "original" sources and "multiple" sources. But original sources can be misleading, deceptive or have ulterior motives, so how do you verify their authenticity without trusting a third party? And if no single source can be trusted, how can you trust multiple sources? Surely all sources are equally untrustworthy, even if they all report the same events. How do you verify that a commonly reported narrative is not simply well orchestrated propaganda? It has always been the case that trust is necessary. Before the internet, people trusted the news. Before television, people trusted newspapers, radio and newsreels. People trust Einstein, Bohr, Newton, Darwin, Euclid without personally doing the necessary experiments to rediscover the entire corpus of modern scientific thought from first principles. Before the printing press and the Enlightenment, people trusted the Clergy and town criers. Subjective truth is always based on implicit trust. Anyone who believes otherwise about themselves is simply unaware of the systems in which they place their faith and from which they form their biases. >The other problem is most news is just regulations of another outlet or the "news media" takes a single random tweet from some random person and runs 100 nearly duplicated stories sensationalized based on that single account with no verification. Absurd hyperbole. "most news" is decidedly not unverified claims from random twitter accounts. I'm guessing you've got some specific instance in mind that you're trying to conflate into a general practice, but if you look at the headlines and news from any mainstream source (CNN, Fox, BBC, AlJazeera, what have you) the vast majority are not the sort of sensationalized, unverified, Twitter-based stories you're describing. >This has been tried many many times before, it always fails and this too will fail Do you have a whitepaper proving that an algorithmic solution to this problem is impossible? If so, let us see it. Otherwise, you're just posturing.
pjc50 7y ago
It's been a concern all that time? "Yellow journalism" was a term coined in the 1890s. Wars have been started by propaganda. > how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? I'm not sure what this means - I find I have to rely on the judgement of others simply in order to get on, as there isn't enough time to evaluate everything myself and it would be irresponsible to conclude that it's all false. That line of reasoning leads to concluding that Chicago doesn't exist because I've never seen it. But I need to be incresingly careful about whose judgement I trust and in what subjects.

by kmlx 7y ago

krapp 7y ago

>we have had this for the past 400 years (since the birth of the modern press). why do we need it now? We've also had experts and arbiters of truth for 400 years. Why do we need to abandon the premise that truth has value in civil society? >how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? what triggered this change? I personally have never made any such decision. Trust is unavoidable either way. Twitter wants people to trust their good judgement in determining what is and isn't a deepfake, fabricated of false information. If you choose not to trust Twitter, you inevitably choose to trust the source, or the community, or your own bias (created and fed from third party sources.) No one is able to independently and objectively verify every claim they encounter. The only (as yet undetermined) relevant factor here is whether algorithms are any better at determining truthiness than the web zeitgeist. If so, then I see no harm done. If not, the feature will probably be abandoned. I don't particularly buy into the implied third option that Twitter and other platforms will be using features like this to intentionally mislead the public in order to further some radical political agenda of misinformation and thought control.

syshum 7y ago
>>> Why do we need to abandon the premise that truth has value in civil society? The very same people that are for these types of rules have abandoned it. With things like "there is no one truth, only my truth" believing that there is more than 1 "truth" Most of the time that type of narrative is being pushed by the same people that desire the tech companies to suppress certain kinds of speech >>If you choose not to trust Twitter, you inevitably choose to trust the source, or the community, or your own bias It has never been the case that you should trust anyone. No Twitter, or the new agencies or anyone. This is why people should be encouraged to look at original sources and multiple sources. This is also why in the age of everyone having only "anonymous sources said" is a huge problem. The other problem is most news is just regulations of another outlet or the "news media" takes a single random tweet from some random person and runs 100 nearly duplicated stories sensationalized based on that single account with no verification. >>whether algorithms are any better at determining truthiness than the web zeitgeist. This has been tried many many times before, it always fails and this too will fail
- krapp 7y ago
  >The very same people that are for these types of rules have abandoned it. With things like "there is no one truth, only my truth" believing that there is more than 1 "truth" Who are you quoting? >It has never been the case that you should trust anyone. No Twitter, or the new agencies or anyone. This is why people should be encouraged to look at original sources and multiple sources. This is also why in the age of everyone having only "anonymous sources said" is a huge problem. So what you're saying is, people should trust "original" sources and "multiple" sources. But original sources can be misleading, deceptive or have ulterior motives, so how do you verify their authenticity without trusting a third party? And if no single source can be trusted, how can you trust multiple sources? Surely all sources are equally untrustworthy, even if they all report the same events. How do you verify that a commonly reported narrative is not simply well orchestrated propaganda? It has always been the case that trust is necessary. Before the internet, people trusted the news. Before television, people trusted newspapers, radio and newsreels. People trust Einstein, Bohr, Newton, Darwin, Euclid without personally doing the necessary experiments to rediscover the entire corpus of modern scientific thought from first principles. Before the printing press and the Enlightenment, people trusted the Clergy and town criers. Subjective truth is always based on implicit trust. Anyone who believes otherwise about themselves is simply unaware of the systems in which they place their faith and from which they form their biases. >The other problem is most news is just regulations of another outlet or the "news media" takes a single random tweet from some random person and runs 100 nearly duplicated stories sensationalized based on that single account with no verification. Absurd hyperbole. "most news" is decidedly not unverified claims from random twitter accounts. I'm guessing you've got some specific instance in mind that you're trying to conflate into a general practice, but if you look at the headlines and news from any mainstream source (CNN, Fox, BBC, AlJazeera, what have you) the vast majority are not the sort of sensationalized, unverified, Twitter-based stories you're describing. >This has been tried many many times before, it always fails and this too will fail Do you have a whitepaper proving that an algorithmic solution to this problem is impossible? If so, let us see it. Otherwise, you're just posturing.

pjc50 7y ago

It's been a concern all that time? "Yellow journalism" was a term coined in the 1890s. Wars have been started by propaganda. > how did you, for example, simply decide you can't rely on other people's good judgement? I'm not sure what this means - I find I have to rely on the judgement of others simply in order to get on, as there isn't enough time to evaluate everything myself and it would be irresponsible to conclude that it's all false. That line of reasoning leads to concluding that Chicago doesn't exist because I've never seen it. But I need to be incresingly careful about whose judgement I trust and in what subjects.