4 ms·

I agree. But there is a "creepy" factor that a social network knows what you click on. I suspect lots of people are unaware of that. Would you want a librarian

by edent 6y ago

I agree. But there is a "creepy" factor that a social network knows what you click on. I suspect lots of people are unaware of that. Would you want a librarian chastising you for the books you check out? Would that make people more or less likely to use the library?

Wowfunhappy 6y ago
> Would you want a librarian chastising you for the books you check out? If what I checked out was fake? Yeah, personally I would like to be told.
- nradov 6y ago
  Your local library contains many non-fiction books that are filled with inaccurate statements. Librarians are happy to help you with fact checking research but it wouldn't be appropriate for them to label some books as fake. Make up your own mind.
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    I'm imagining a situation where a book was discovered to be an unequivocal lie, in its entirety. Something like the autobiography of Howard Hughes [1], where Hughes eventually said that he had no involvement, and did not know the writer. (This isn't actually the best example, because the book was pulled right before publication, but it's easy to imagine a scenario where it did get published. It came close.) 1: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/50-oh-howard-you-idiot http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/50-oh-howard-you-idio...
    - marcus_holmes 6y ago
      "This is a book full of things that I believe to be true. It therefore belongs in non-fiction" - random nutjob with a blog In real libraries, they only stocked published books, and publishers decided what to publish. So the publishers acted as gatekeepers and fact-checkers (sometimes not so well, as the Howard Hughes example shows), and the library could accept their classification. Now, anyone can write a book and add it to our hypothetical library. If the librarians aren't going to classify the books, then who does? Because someone has got to...
thwarted 6y ago
The librarian analogy is a little stretched, but I do expect librarians to properly put fiction books in the fiction section and nonfiction books in the nonfiction section.
- sshine 6y ago
  Yes, in order to stretch the surveillance analogy properly, the library itself is a living organism and you're inside of its digestive system, and it has eyes on the inside, and you're upset that it's watching you while digesting you.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  In which of those sections do they put the Bible? There’s also plenty of content on social media that isn’t cleanly fiction or non-fiction.
  - pjc50 6y ago
    Dewey Decimal category 220 "Religion".
    - quesera 6y ago
      If my elementary school training was correct, that makes the Bible "non-fiction". "Non-fiction has numbers", we were told. I'm not sure Dewey attempts to separate fact from fiction -- just to categorize the author's intent (or assertion). In addition to the Christian Bible, the "non-fiction" section also contains religious texts that refute it. And New Age crystal vibration harmonic ecstasy stuff. And Dianetics. The wide disagreement on "fiction" vs "non-fiction" is probably not a solvable problem. See also: a world map, at any time in recorded history.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
    - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
      As an atheist, putting the Bible in non-fiction makes sense to me because it's a true statement about the beliefs of a certain people. Whatever your religion, few people would consider reading the Bible to be "story time" in the same sense as Harry Potter, A Tale of Two Cities, or even something like The Odyssey. You're either studying the Bible to learn about God, or you're studying it to learn about other people. That's not to say the line isn't murky, but that's true of any human classification system.
TeMPOraL 6y ago
Chastising? No. But if there was a service available in which the librarian would tell me when a work I've borrowed has been criticized (or even thoroughly debunked) in some other publication, I'd definitely opt-in to that.
toyg 6y ago
It’s just a matter of careful wording. Instead of “you clicked on <bad source>” just say “the source linked was bad”.
- names_are_hard 6y ago
  Better: we're sorry, we showed you <bad stuff> in your feed. We've determined it's untrue and removed it.
mschuster91 6y ago
> Would you want a librarian chastising you for the books you check out? With cars that turn out to be defective, in Germany the authorities can issue mandatory recalls and notices to owners of cars of the recalled model. If I borrowed a book at a library or read a scientific study that has been later proven to be wrong or outright misleading, yes I would like to be notified of that.
- sokoloff 6y ago
  In the library case, I’d prefer that they couldn’t notify me because they didn’t keep a list of what I’d checked out (once I'd returned it).
alkonaut 6y ago
> Would you want a librarian chastising you for the books you check out No I wouldn't want anyone chastising me, nor any contact with a human (that can be awkward). But I'd be happy to get an email saying "Please be aware that the book X from the science section that you borrowed earlier has been found to contain inaccurate information and has been moved to our controversial science/science fiction section". Retractoins occur all the time in newspapera but they build on the model that people actually read the newspaper. It doesn't work when people read one article from a social media link. Fact checking and retractions should be updated to work in the age of facebook 1) Respectable media would publish retractions to facebook, saying "Please notify anyone who followed the link to reuters.com/article/123 that the article has been corrected". 2) Fact checks would do the same thing (because this is most important with less respectable media). For this to happen obviously facebook would want to agree to annoy a fraction of their users who don't want to find their favorite links unavailable, littered with warnigs, or followed by messages that they are eating an unhealthy news diet. Hopefully they realize that this is a goal worth pursuing.
- Nowado 6y ago
  This is something I would like my university to do. Yearly mail of 'Here are updates to course X you took, based on changes in our knowledge'. We really don't have the best relationship with admitting change in our beliefs. Or with keeping records.
  - nradov 6y ago
    Several prominent universities now offer free open courseware. You can just go watch the lectures.
    - Nowado 6y ago
      The difference is reading only differences (which are usually minor and few hours/year from all courses all together) and redoing whole degree every year in one year.
- retox 6y ago
chrononaut 6y ago
Maybe I'm misunderstanding the analogy here but I would expect the library to be fully aware of what books I have checked out. If I don't return a book, they would nag me about it. Why would that be strange or unusual for someone?
acdha 6y ago
Is this a librarian chastising you or, on your next visit, telling you that the reference book you’d checked out had been shown to be a work of fiction and recataloged under conspiracy theories? Libraries have plenty of books with inaccuracies and they haven’t contributed to the downfall of popular discourse.
- Barrin92 6y ago
  >Libraries have plenty of books with inaccuracies and they haven’t contributed to the downfall of popular discourse because one has to actively seek out information in a library. Are you aware of any libraries that send out propaganda pamphlets to tens of millions of people? Because that actually has caused the downfall of societies
tzs 6y ago
To make the library analogy match how social media works, the book should be one you checked out because the library recommended it to you earlier based on books you had checked out earlier.

by edent 6y ago

Wowfunhappy 6y ago

> Would you want a librarian chastising you for the books you check out? If what I checked out was fake? Yeah, personally I would like to be told.

nradov 6y ago
Your local library contains many non-fiction books that are filled with inaccurate statements. Librarians are happy to help you with fact checking research but it wouldn't be appropriate for them to label some books as fake. Make up your own mind.
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
  I'm imagining a situation where a book was discovered to be an unequivocal lie, in its entirety. Something like the autobiography of Howard Hughes [1], where Hughes eventually said that he had no involvement, and did not know the writer. (This isn't actually the best example, because the book was pulled right before publication, but it's easy to imagine a scenario where it did get published. It came close.) 1: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/50-oh-howard-you-idiot http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/50-oh-howard-you-idio...
  - marcus_holmes 6y ago
    "This is a book full of things that I believe to be true. It therefore belongs in non-fiction" - random nutjob with a blog In real libraries, they only stocked published books, and publishers decided what to publish. So the publishers acted as gatekeepers and fact-checkers (sometimes not so well, as the Howard Hughes example shows), and the library could accept their classification. Now, anyone can write a book and add it to our hypothetical library. If the librarians aren't going to classify the books, then who does? Because someone has got to...

thwarted 6y ago

The librarian analogy is a little stretched, but I do expect librarians to properly put fiction books in the fiction section and nonfiction books in the nonfiction section.

sshine 6y ago
Yes, in order to stretch the surveillance analogy properly, the library itself is a living organism and you're inside of its digestive system, and it has eyes on the inside, and you're upset that it's watching you while digesting you.
sokoloff 6y ago
In which of those sections do they put the Bible? There’s also plenty of content on social media that isn’t cleanly fiction or non-fiction.
- pjc50 6y ago
  Dewey Decimal category 220 "Religion".
  - quesera 6y ago
    If my elementary school training was correct, that makes the Bible "non-fiction". "Non-fiction has numbers", we were told. I'm not sure Dewey attempts to separate fact from fiction -- just to categorize the author's intent (or assertion). In addition to the Christian Bible, the "non-fiction" section also contains religious texts that refute it. And New Age crystal vibration harmonic ecstasy stuff. And Dianetics. The wide disagreement on "fiction" vs "non-fiction" is probably not a solvable problem. See also: a world map, at any time in recorded history.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - Wowfunhappy 6y ago
    As an atheist, putting the Bible in non-fiction makes sense to me because it's a true statement about the beliefs of a certain people. Whatever your religion, few people would consider reading the Bible to be "story time" in the same sense as Harry Potter, A Tale of Two Cities, or even something like The Odyssey. You're either studying the Bible to learn about God, or you're studying it to learn about other people. That's not to say the line isn't murky, but that's true of any human classification system.

TeMPOraL 6y ago

Chastising? No. But if there was a service available in which the librarian would tell me when a work I've borrowed has been criticized (or even thoroughly debunked) in some other publication, I'd definitely opt-in to that.

toyg 6y ago

It’s just a matter of careful wording. Instead of “you clicked on <bad source>” just say “the source linked was bad”.

names_are_hard 6y ago
Better: we're sorry, we showed you <bad stuff> in your feed. We've determined it's untrue and removed it.

mschuster91 6y ago

> Would you want a librarian chastising you for the books you check out? With cars that turn out to be defective, in Germany the authorities can issue mandatory recalls and notices to owners of cars of the recalled model. If I borrowed a book at a library or read a scientific study that has been later proven to be wrong or outright misleading, yes I would like to be notified of that.

sokoloff 6y ago
In the library case, I’d prefer that they couldn’t notify me because they didn’t keep a list of what I’d checked out (once I'd returned it).

alkonaut 6y ago

> Would you want a librarian chastising you for the books you check out No I wouldn't want anyone chastising me, nor any contact with a human (that can be awkward). But I'd be happy to get an email saying "Please be aware that the book X from the science section that you borrowed earlier has been found to contain inaccurate information and has been moved to our controversial science/science fiction section". Retractoins occur all the time in newspapera but they build on the model that people actually read the newspaper. It doesn't work when people read one article from a social media link. Fact checking and retractions should be updated to work in the age of facebook 1) Respectable media would publish retractions to facebook, saying "Please notify anyone who followed the link to reuters.com/article/123 that the article has been corrected". 2) Fact checks would do the same thing (because this is most important with less respectable media). For this to happen obviously facebook would want to agree to annoy a fraction of their users who don't want to find their favorite links unavailable, littered with warnigs, or followed by messages that they are eating an unhealthy news diet. Hopefully they realize that this is a goal worth pursuing.

Nowado 6y ago
This is something I would like my university to do. Yearly mail of 'Here are updates to course X you took, based on changes in our knowledge'. We really don't have the best relationship with admitting change in our beliefs. Or with keeping records.
- nradov 6y ago
  Several prominent universities now offer free open courseware. You can just go watch the lectures.
  - Nowado 6y ago
    The difference is reading only differences (which are usually minor and few hours/year from all courses all together) and redoing whole degree every year in one year.
retox 6y ago

chrononaut 6y ago

Maybe I'm misunderstanding the analogy here but I would expect the library to be fully aware of what books I have checked out. If I don't return a book, they would nag me about it. Why would that be strange or unusual for someone?

acdha 6y ago

Is this a librarian chastising you or, on your next visit, telling you that the reference book you’d checked out had been shown to be a work of fiction and recataloged under conspiracy theories? Libraries have plenty of books with inaccuracies and they haven’t contributed to the downfall of popular discourse.

Barrin92 6y ago
>Libraries have plenty of books with inaccuracies and they haven’t contributed to the downfall of popular discourse because one has to actively seek out information in a library. Are you aware of any libraries that send out propaganda pamphlets to tens of millions of people? Because that actually has caused the downfall of societies

tzs 6y ago

To make the library analogy match how social media works, the book should be one you checked out because the library recommended it to you earlier based on books you had checked out earlier.