4 ms·

I was already immensely concerned over the cognitive hold on millions of Indians by WhatsApp, financial data and debt makes it even worse. When all it takes is

I was already immensely concerned over the cognitive hold on millions of Indians by WhatsApp, financial data and debt makes it even worse. When all it takes is a single forward from your WhatsApp uncle/aunty to undo all the rationale induced in the vulnerable members of the family to protect them against COVID-19, it should be treated the same way as a security vulnerability on a platform is treated; only in this case the vulnerability is limited attention/cognitive biases of the users, nevertheless it's the platform which enables it to be exploited. I appreciate the steps taken by WhatsApp to limit fake news & misinformation such as limiting forwards; but it is certainly not enough. They need to implement aggressive detection, reporting and banning mechanisms for those who spread even a single misinformation/fake news. I don't think it's the Engineering effort which stops them from doing that.

mmm_grayons 7y ago
> They need to implement aggressive detection, reporting and banning mechanisms for those who spread even a single misinformation/fake news. Two issues with this: 1. This is simply not a realistic standard in India, a nation which lacks the basic level of education of many Western nations. While this is true of a few people in most nations, and while many citizens can't be bothered to check, it helps if some at least have the background knowledge to do their own fact-checking rather than just taking the word of one person over another. 2. The "who decides" problem, best illustrated by yesterday's removal of the medical opinion of two front-line doctors from you tube because it "contradicted WHO recommendations". One man's "fake news" is another man's "front-line reporting".
- Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
  >This is simply not a realistic standard in India, a nation which lacks the basic level of education of many Western nations 2016 US elections showed western education doesn't help much in defending against misinformation campaign. I'm not denying that filtering fake news is going to hard, but when people are getting killed directly as a result of fake news from a platform[1], democratic process are undermined by misinformation campaigns, everything which needs to be done should be done. As for YouTube moderation policies, at least there are some policies which we can debate upon. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings
  - ryanlol 7y ago
    > 2016 US elections showed western education doesn't help much in defending against misinformation campaign. How exactly did they show this?
    - rgrs 7y ago
      John oliver, Hasan Minaj,Jimmy Kimmel etc told Russian campaign influenced voters through misformation. As someone who is not american, these youtube shows are our news about US. Whether these shows are misinformed? Honestly I don't know.
      - ryanlol 7y ago
        The Russian campaign has been widely discussed, yes. Little has been done to establish whether it actually worked. The mere existence of such a campaign does not suggest that it actually impacted election results.
    - contravariant 7y ago
      Now I'm somewhat curious whether you don't consider misinformation to have played a role in those elections or whether you don't consider the U.S. an example of western education.
      - ryanlol 7y ago
        Show some evidence that the misinformation actually had a significant effect. I know it’s been widely discussed, but I haven’t seen any significant efforts to quantify the impact.

mmm_grayons 7y ago

> They need to implement aggressive detection, reporting and banning mechanisms for those who spread even a single misinformation/fake news. Two issues with this: 1. This is simply not a realistic standard in India, a nation which lacks the basic level of education of many Western nations. While this is true of a few people in most nations, and while many citizens can't be bothered to check, it helps if some at least have the background knowledge to do their own fact-checking rather than just taking the word of one person over another. 2. The "who decides" problem, best illustrated by yesterday's removal of the medical opinion of two front-line doctors from you tube because it "contradicted WHO recommendations". One man's "fake news" is another man's "front-line reporting".

Abishek_Muthian 7y ago
>This is simply not a realistic standard in India, a nation which lacks the basic level of education of many Western nations 2016 US elections showed western education doesn't help much in defending against misinformation campaign. I'm not denying that filtering fake news is going to hard, but when people are getting killed directly as a result of fake news from a platform[1], democratic process are undermined by misinformation campaigns, everything which needs to be done should be done. As for YouTube moderation policies, at least there are some policies which we can debate upon. [1]https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_WhatsApp_lynchings
- ryanlol 7y ago
  > 2016 US elections showed western education doesn't help much in defending against misinformation campaign. How exactly did they show this?
  - rgrs 7y ago
    John oliver, Hasan Minaj,Jimmy Kimmel etc told Russian campaign influenced voters through misformation. As someone who is not american, these youtube shows are our news about US. Whether these shows are misinformed? Honestly I don't know.
    - ryanlol 7y ago
      The Russian campaign has been widely discussed, yes. Little has been done to establish whether it actually worked. The mere existence of such a campaign does not suggest that it actually impacted election results.
  - contravariant 7y ago
    Now I'm somewhat curious whether you don't consider misinformation to have played a role in those elections or whether you don't consider the U.S. an example of western education.
    - ryanlol 7y ago
      Show some evidence that the misinformation actually had a significant effect. I know it’s been widely discussed, but I haven’t seen any significant efforts to quantify the impact.