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Has anyone ever experimented with totally sanitizing identities when reading news? For example, if there were a browser plugin that would cleanse pictures, asso

by xrd 6y ago

Has anyone ever experimented with totally sanitizing identities when reading news? For example, if there were a browser plugin that would cleanse pictures, associations, academic credentials, and especially names from news, would that make a difference in the way that we as humans process information? Deepfakes create an "adjacent identity" to trick people into aligning their opinions with someone who is in the same group. But, if we were aware of this, and removed the identity to strictly review the information, it might change the way that information is received. This would only work if a majority did this, so it would never work, nevermind.

thephyber 6y ago
"News" is usually a hybrid of celebrity gossip, ephemeral sports/weather, PR / political narratives, and journalism. You seem to be under the impression that everyone wants to "read news" like they are investigative journalists. Yes, the crowd on HN is more likely to do this, but I suspect it is very overwhelming for the average news reader to correlate so many data points.
dredmorbius 6y ago
Reputation matters. There are differing views on how much to showcase authors (or reporters) names, and some organs (The Economist, Hacker News) intentionally hide or de-emphasize these. Almost all questions of identity actally revolve around trust in one of its various guises: trust, credit, accountability, entitlement, and making or receiving of payment. In creation or relating (mediating) information, the persistence of authorship attribution provides a bundling handle for trust. An author might file numerous stories per year, month, week, day, etc. Assessing and assigning trust to each story is expensive. Bylines, editors, and publications accrue positive or negative associations with time. No, trust is not fully consistent or transative, but as an efficiency heuristic, rolling up and bundling reputation offers powerful gains, and numerous checks. Even a pseudonymous source (you're reading one now) can accrue a certain reputation.

by xrd 6y ago

thephyber 6y ago

"News" is usually a hybrid of celebrity gossip, ephemeral sports/weather, PR / political narratives, and journalism. You seem to be under the impression that everyone wants to "read news" like they are investigative journalists. Yes, the crowd on HN is more likely to do this, but I suspect it is very overwhelming for the average news reader to correlate so many data points.

dredmorbius 6y ago

Reputation matters. There are differing views on how much to showcase authors (or reporters) names, and some organs (The Economist, Hacker News) intentionally hide or de-emphasize these. Almost all questions of identity actally revolve around trust in one of its various guises: trust, credit, accountability, entitlement, and making or receiving of payment. In creation or relating (mediating) information, the persistence of authorship attribution provides a bundling handle for trust. An author might file numerous stories per year, month, week, day, etc. Assessing and assigning trust to each story is expensive. Bylines, editors, and publications accrue positive or negative associations with time. No, trust is not fully consistent or transative, but as an efficiency heuristic, rolling up and bundling reputation offers powerful gains, and numerous checks. Even a pseudonymous source (you're reading one now) can accrue a certain reputation.