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This isn't about tech at all. I agree that Congress is out of touch with many tech challenges, but it doesn't apply to the issue under consideration. You don't

This isn't about tech at all. I agree that Congress is out of touch with many tech challenges, but it doesn't apply to the issue under consideration. You don't need to be tech-savvy to understand or consider the implications of media control over public speech. Society has struggled with this issue since the dawn of mass media. It's fundamentally the same concern we faced with yellow journalism a full century ago, and back to the dawn of man in many ways. I don't trust our politicians when it comes to complicated tech issues. I may not agree with how they handle current social media issues. But I don't think tech ignorance is limiting their understanding of this issue. It's a social issue and a media issue. It's not a tech issue.

spfink 6y ago
Yes and no? Is there not an argument to be made, particularly here where the focus is Section 230 and mostly just FB/Twitter, that it's such an issue because Congress allowed these tech companies unchecked growth and consolidation? Outside of more typical news (CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc), what you see on the internet has come down to the whims of Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. Even Instagram is still just Zuckerberg. There's no room for competitors anymore and I think a large reason for that is Congress's continued inaction.
dasil003 6y ago
Yes it's primarily a social and media issue, but the novelty is the impact that technology has on these things. In short the velocity of everything has increased by many order of magnitude. Anyone can publish anything quickly and share across aggregators instantaneously. The distribution of that data from the major platforms is completely opaque, unlike newspapers or tv which had known distribution and self-evident editorial decisions that apply to the entire audience all at once. In the new world, there can be infinite content and infinite eye balls all seeing different slices of it. It's all done by algorithm and no one except data-savvy internal staff have any idea how many people are seeing what and when. I agree this can all be explained without much technical depth, but two problems with congress: first is that they are out of touch and still think in terms of the disappearing era of broadcast network news having massive monolithic reach and corresponding journalistic standards and ethics conferred by their unassailable moat of limited media options. Second, you can't legislate this if you can't reason about the second order effects due to the economics of how tech companies are run (ie. editorial in any old-school sense of the word simply does not fit any social media companies unit economics) as well as the information economy (ie. people prefer watching things that confirm their biases, and there are unlimited media options with many young people having no idea what a television schedule is).
phaus 6y ago
They don't need to understand the tech to recognize that there's an issue, but they do need to understand the the tech if they want to have any hope of regulating social media and fixing the issue that they have identified. They mostly seem to give the impression that Dorsey/Zuckerberg, etc, could just tell their companies to do a thing and then it magically happens. They at least need to understand the tech well enough to recognize that fair, effective content moderation for billions of people is a more difficult and more complicated problem than any of them have attempted to solve. I think social media companies could do a better job of being transparent and working to reduce political bias, but I do appreciate the challenge that they are facing.

spfink 6y ago

Yes and no? Is there not an argument to be made, particularly here where the focus is Section 230 and mostly just FB/Twitter, that it's such an issue because Congress allowed these tech companies unchecked growth and consolidation? Outside of more typical news (CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc), what you see on the internet has come down to the whims of Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey. Even Instagram is still just Zuckerberg. There's no room for competitors anymore and I think a large reason for that is Congress's continued inaction.

dasil003 6y ago

Yes it's primarily a social and media issue, but the novelty is the impact that technology has on these things. In short the velocity of everything has increased by many order of magnitude. Anyone can publish anything quickly and share across aggregators instantaneously. The distribution of that data from the major platforms is completely opaque, unlike newspapers or tv which had known distribution and self-evident editorial decisions that apply to the entire audience all at once. In the new world, there can be infinite content and infinite eye balls all seeing different slices of it. It's all done by algorithm and no one except data-savvy internal staff have any idea how many people are seeing what and when. I agree this can all be explained without much technical depth, but two problems with congress: first is that they are out of touch and still think in terms of the disappearing era of broadcast network news having massive monolithic reach and corresponding journalistic standards and ethics conferred by their unassailable moat of limited media options. Second, you can't legislate this if you can't reason about the second order effects due to the economics of how tech companies are run (ie. editorial in any old-school sense of the word simply does not fit any social media companies unit economics) as well as the information economy (ie. people prefer watching things that confirm their biases, and there are unlimited media options with many young people having no idea what a television schedule is).

phaus 6y ago

They don't need to understand the tech to recognize that there's an issue, but they do need to understand the the tech if they want to have any hope of regulating social media and fixing the issue that they have identified. They mostly seem to give the impression that Dorsey/Zuckerberg, etc, could just tell their companies to do a thing and then it magically happens. They at least need to understand the tech well enough to recognize that fair, effective content moderation for billions of people is a more difficult and more complicated problem than any of them have attempted to solve. I think social media companies could do a better job of being transparent and working to reduce political bias, but I do appreciate the challenge that they are facing.