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If that is true then that suggests that the efforts of the establishment to rein the big social media companies will prove largely ineffective with the result t
by quanticle 6y ago
If that is true then that suggests that the efforts of the establishment to rein the big social media companies will prove largely ineffective with the result that Facebook, Google, etc, will probably join the New York Times, Harvard, etc, as part of the governing structure of the US.
That's exactly what "reining in" looks like. Instead of being an alternative to, e.g. the New York Times and opposing the next Iraq war, social media just becomes yet another rah-rah cheerleading mouthpiece of whatever opinion the "serious people" hold.
I don't know if you consider Chomsky to be a "serious person", but Manufacturing Consent does go into how the people actually in charge of the government (professional civil servants, corporate lobbyists, etc) manage to make it seem as if their opinions are infallibly correct and countervailing opinions are thinly veiled crankery. What social media did (at least in its early days) was give everyone the ability to manufacture consent at a scale that previously was only the domain of the large media corporations. The establishment media is obviously threatened by this and are working to ensure that the new media follows the same guidelines as the old, even if that means censorship.
Of course, that's not how the establishment media phrases it (and probably not even how they believe it). They see it as "protecting" the people from unsavory "Russian fake news". In reality, though, that's just a lie they tell themselves and tell us to justify their continued hold on the ability to decide which opinions can be held by "right-thinking people". If they were truly interested in "the marketplace of ideas", they wouldn't be pushing so hard to make platforms as centralized, controllable and censorship friendly as they are.
- pfraze 6y agoManufacturing consent online is dependent on the rules of the game. Russian-bot-syndrome is a fraud issue, in this case a state actor manipulating the 1-person-1-voice assumption of the game. If we're making a marketplace metaphor, then this market is being tilted toward actors with the resources to pay for bots, workers, or influencers. It's not like it's limited to Russia; Bloomberg was somewhat showy during the primary about paying people to tweet for him, and it's safe to assume any other well-resourced actor with an interest in manufacturing consent is doing the same thing. The censorship debate is an indicator of game-rule collapse in social media. The platforms are reaching for top down control because they can't cook up a better way to reduce fraud and (let's call it) low-quality behavior. Ironically this method reduces the overall authenticity of the platforms and counteracts the intent of the censorship, and thus you get game-rule collapse.
- querez 6y ago> Bloomberg was somewhat showy during the primary about paying people to tweet for him I'm genuinely curious, do you have any more details or sources on this?
- pfraze 6y agoThis is what my googling pulled up, which matches my memory of it: https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-23/mike-bloomberg-paid-twitter-social-media https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2020-02-23... It was an interesting situation because in some ways, I prefer the transparency involved? But it's sort of like any sale of an account, even if temporary - it seems disingenuous by nature. Almost like how an MLM makes you sell to your friends.
- monadic2 6y agoHas anyone demonstrated how many people these "Russian bots" have influenced? There's enough craziness online before throwing in non-linear warfare. I'd imagine it's far less influence than, say, Charles Koch has. Why is it ok that he has an outsized influence on our "democracy" but such a terrible thought that Putin has influence? It's not like either person will act in our collective interest.
- pfraze 6y agoIt's connected to the same reason we only allow US citizens to be involved in US politics. You at least assume that a citizen has a direct interest in the country's domestic well-being. We talk about russian bots nationally because violating that norm is a cultural scandal, but there's plenty of discussion around outsize influence by corporations and the rich in social media as well. It's not really okay for anybody.
- monadic2 6y agoAnyone who assumes that Charles Koch is acting in our collective interest is beyond nuts. Regardless, I appreciate the hand-holding explanation here.
- headbansown 6y agoTL;DR: You either die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.