6 ms·

Obama: The internet is “the single biggest threat to our democracy”

35 points by imichael 6y ago

PrefixKitten 6y ago
It has turned people so antisocial >.<
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
m0zg 6y ago
Says the dude who routinely wiretapped journalists, wiretapped Donald Trump's campaign aides under knowingly false pretenses, and prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other presidents combined. And if it wasn't for the "internet" nobody would even know. Au contraire, Barack, the Internet is the best thing that ever happened to democracy, warts and all.
- pnw_hazor 6y ago
  President Obama does say "our democracy" not a real democracy. I guess we know why President Obama did not follow through on his promise of reigning in the FISA court - he needed it to go after his political opponents.
CogentHedgehog 6y ago
Hot take: subtle differences in algorithm choices have huge real-world implications. Facebook prioritizes engagement as their top metric. This means that divisive content which inspires strong emotions bubbles to the top of the feed. This has predictable consequences for discussions and communities. Reddit prioritizes using user votes, which tends to result in less divisive content. But the way the community is broken down into subreddits can result in clear echo chambers at times as people reinforce each other's behaviors.
- Lammy 6y ago
  > Facebook prioritizes engagement as their top metric. Slight nitpick, but the top metric is money. If Engagement didn't lead to the most dollars it would not be prioritized. I think this is important to separate because "Engagement → (Ad Impressions + Societal Collapse)" feels so much more fixable to me than just "Engagement → Societal Collapse".
  - CogentHedgehog 6y ago
    This is true. Engagement -> Ad Views -> $$$ If they down-weighted negative engagement they could easily solve this though. There are pretty trivial content analysis tools that spit out a hostility score for a corpus of text. Facebook just doesn't care to do this.
akoncius 6y ago
so is fox news spreading blatant lies or theories without evidence , so not only internet, but tv, radio or any other broadcasting thing.
- AnimalMuppet 6y ago
  Newspapers, too - see "yellow journalism" a century or more ago. Ultimately, it all comes back to the printing press. The ability to spread information has always been a threat to the powers that be. Oh, wait, Obama said "democracy", not "powers that be". Well... I will admit that I am concerned that on the internet, the feedback loops are too tight, so that hot takes crowd out reasonable thought. That's a formula for gut reactions, which isn't great for democracy. But the parent has a point, too, that this is said about every medium at some point. I fear that Obama is right. I also fear that this is the usual "threatening the powers that be/the existing order" complaint, and that any proposed solution will be worse than the problem. Not sure where that leaves me...
  - loopz 6y ago
    Actively discourage those who spread lies, desinformation and don't contribute. KISS.
    - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
      See, the problem is that I don't know of a simple way to actively discourage those who spread lies and disinformation, without also actively discouraging those who spread truth that most people don't yet agree with. I'm not really OK with unpopular truths becoming collateral damage in the war against lies and disinformation.
      - loopz 6y ago
        It's tough but people need to learn it: https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2016/06/20-diversion-tactics-highly-manipulative-narcissists-sociopaths-and-psychopaths-use-to-silence-you/ https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2016/06/20-diversio... https://medium.com/impactful-changes-hypnosis/gaslighting-101-how-to-catch-an-abuser-a13d04467e76 https://medium.com/impactful-changes-hypnosis/gaslighting-10... https://positivepsychology.com/gaslighting-emotional-abuse/ https://positivepsychology.com/gaslighting-emotional-abuse/
INTPenis 6y ago
Focusing on a negative. Yes the internet can be exploited but the internet means communication between all people in the world. That has never happened before in history. I believe that you don't have to bomb a country to free its people. Simply show them that there is a better way and the people will eventually demand change. This is what the internet is doing. It's showing people women who vote, gays who celebrate their freedom, free health care and education for all, safety, security. Fundamentally that is what all humans want. But I guess it also becomes harder to oppress one remote culture, and use them for cheap labor, if they can see where their labor is going and what it's worth through their cellphone.
Darmody 6y ago
Turning Libya into a country where they sell slaves in broad daylight was needed to keep his democracy alive, I guess.
nickysielicki 6y ago
The title is editorialized and ought to be changed. He's referring to "fake news", not to the internet broadly. It still puts a sinking feeling in my stomach. In-fact, maybe even moreso. I can't believe how much and how fast things have changed in 12 years.
- jfengel 6y ago
  Ironic.
salamimonger 6y ago
Ironic coming from the guy who was praised for his campaign's tech savvyness and ability to use the power of the internet and social media to win. I guess he's right. Many people did believe his victory was a threat to the country. /joke I'm looking very forward to a Biden presidency, just to see how far people will flip-flop and bend their beliefs to justify whatever he does as president, now that the victory is secured and he no longer has to campaign. In the end, politics is very much like sports ball. People will accept anything as long as "their guy" is doing it.
- dx87 6y ago
  > I'm looking very forward to a Biden presidency, just to see how far people will flip-flop and bend their beliefs to justify whatever he does as president, now that the victory is secured and he no longer has to campaign. Same here. I've spent the last four years seeing people say that manufacturing jobs are never coming back to the USA, and rural people who believed that Trump would bring them back are naive. Then I look at Biden's campaign website, and he's got a page about bringing back manufacturing jobs to the USA.
- happytoexplain 6y ago
  >I'm looking very forward to a Biden presidency, just to see how far people will flip-flop and bend their beliefs to justify whatever he does as president Of course this happens every time, but you see this being more exaggerated under Biden? In my opinion, this hit a new extremity with Trump. Of course, you also have to be careful not to fall into the trap of interpreting the entire social internet as two people (us and them). Usually when you see conflicting opinions, it's because they are coming from different people, not because "the enemy" is just so hypocritical.
- wwweston 6y ago
  Let's hear some specific predictions of things that the Trump administration has been behind that you believe those who opposed him will support if the Biden administration does them. > People will accept anything as long as "their guy" is doing it. There's probably a heavily nerfed reformulation of this statement that's true, but as stated it's wrong enough I'm tempted to ask for market tips or what domain you consider professional expertise so's to short whatever you're long.
harwoodleon 6y ago
Sorry Barack, but I think you mean: “Advertising models on the internet are the biggest threat to our democracy” The internet, if anything has promoted democratic practice around the world, which is why China wants to shut it out. It has done more for knowledge sharing than any medium in history. Unfortunately, advertising is one of the the only model big enough to sustain the purchase of massive amounts of hardware which grow the internet, that and movie subscriptions. But it will die as a model in the next decade I’m sure. When the AI overlords take over, there will be no need for money.
- newacct583 6y ago
  Advertising models didn't drive belief in Pizzagate, Qanon, adrenochrome, Covid-is-fake or Dominion-ate-my-ballot. They just didn't. That was a bunch of people voluntarily sharing a bunch of content created by people who never monetized it in any way. It's true that it was done on a bunch of ad-supported platforms with elaborate "engagement" metrics who want to keep eyeballs. So I guess in a sideways sense you can argue that "advertising" created viral content. But then "advertising" created the good content too. It's just specious. No, there's something about the way that completely unmoderated discourse on the internet has evolved that is new and dangerous in ways that we hadn't expected. You aren't going to fix this by forcing people off the ads.
  - merpnderp 6y ago
    You can't with a straight face say algorithms that drive people to ever more outrageous content so that they view the force fed adverts, aren't a significant part of the problem.
    - newacct583 6y ago
      Again, this stuff spread on Fox and 4chan and 8kun just as well or better than it did on Facebook and Twitter. Advertising models and engagement algorithms aren't the issue.
      - 6y ago
edgall 6y ago
Misleading headline. Read the article before commenting. Goldberg: Is this new malevolent information architecture bending the moral arc away from justice? Obama: I think it is the single biggest threat to our democracy. This is the quote. He is talking about disinformation. He didn't say it in the context of "the Internet". Kind of ironic in the end.
- andor 6y ago
  The quote is about the information architecture, i.e. the mechanisms behind widespread disinformation: social media platforms that allow users to live in a bubble. Of course they are not literally The Internet, but many non-technical people experience it this way.
ehejsbbejsk 6y ago
This post should be flagged for disinformation.
syspec 6y ago
The editorialized title should be flagged.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
wwweston 6y ago
"The point is – imagine a country full of bioweapon labs, where people toil day and night to invent new infectious agents. The existence of these labs, and their right to throw whatever they develop in the water supply is protected by law. And the country is also linked by the world’s most perfect mass transit system that every single person uses every day, so that any new pathogen can spread to the entire country instantaneously. You’d expect things to start going bad for that city pretty quickly. "Well, we have about a zillion think tanks researching new and better forms of propaganda. And we have constitutionally protected freedom of speech. And we have the Internet. So we’re kind of screwed." https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/
happytoexplain 6y ago
In case you didn't guess right away, yes, the title is editorialized. The content seems fine, though.

35 points by imichael 6y ago

PrefixKitten 6y ago

It has turned people so antisocial >.<

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

m0zg 6y ago

Says the dude who routinely wiretapped journalists, wiretapped Donald Trump's campaign aides under knowingly false pretenses, and prosecuted more whistleblowers than all other presidents combined. And if it wasn't for the "internet" nobody would even know. Au contraire, Barack, the Internet is the best thing that ever happened to democracy, warts and all.

pnw_hazor 6y ago
President Obama does say "our democracy" not a real democracy. I guess we know why President Obama did not follow through on his promise of reigning in the FISA court - he needed it to go after his political opponents.

CogentHedgehog 6y ago

Hot take: subtle differences in algorithm choices have huge real-world implications. Facebook prioritizes engagement as their top metric. This means that divisive content which inspires strong emotions bubbles to the top of the feed. This has predictable consequences for discussions and communities. Reddit prioritizes using user votes, which tends to result in less divisive content. But the way the community is broken down into subreddits can result in clear echo chambers at times as people reinforce each other's behaviors.

Lammy 6y ago
> Facebook prioritizes engagement as their top metric. Slight nitpick, but the top metric is money. If Engagement didn't lead to the most dollars it would not be prioritized. I think this is important to separate because "Engagement → (Ad Impressions + Societal Collapse)" feels so much more fixable to me than just "Engagement → Societal Collapse".
- CogentHedgehog 6y ago
  This is true. Engagement -> Ad Views -> $$$ If they down-weighted negative engagement they could easily solve this though. There are pretty trivial content analysis tools that spit out a hostility score for a corpus of text. Facebook just doesn't care to do this.

akoncius 6y ago

so is fox news spreading blatant lies or theories without evidence , so not only internet, but tv, radio or any other broadcasting thing.

AnimalMuppet 6y ago
Newspapers, too - see "yellow journalism" a century or more ago. Ultimately, it all comes back to the printing press. The ability to spread information has always been a threat to the powers that be. Oh, wait, Obama said "democracy", not "powers that be". Well... I will admit that I am concerned that on the internet, the feedback loops are too tight, so that hot takes crowd out reasonable thought. That's a formula for gut reactions, which isn't great for democracy. But the parent has a point, too, that this is said about every medium at some point. I fear that Obama is right. I also fear that this is the usual "threatening the powers that be/the existing order" complaint, and that any proposed solution will be worse than the problem. Not sure where that leaves me...
- loopz 6y ago
  Actively discourage those who spread lies, desinformation and don't contribute. KISS.
  - AnimalMuppet 6y ago
    See, the problem is that I don't know of a simple way to actively discourage those who spread lies and disinformation, without also actively discouraging those who spread truth that most people don't yet agree with. I'm not really OK with unpopular truths becoming collateral damage in the war against lies and disinformation.
    - loopz 6y ago
      It's tough but people need to learn it: https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2016/06/20-diversion-tactics-highly-manipulative-narcissists-sociopaths-and-psychopaths-use-to-silence-you/ https://thoughtcatalog.com/shahida-arabi/2016/06/20-diversio... https://medium.com/impactful-changes-hypnosis/gaslighting-101-how-to-catch-an-abuser-a13d04467e76 https://medium.com/impactful-changes-hypnosis/gaslighting-10... https://positivepsychology.com/gaslighting-emotional-abuse/ https://positivepsychology.com/gaslighting-emotional-abuse/

INTPenis 6y ago

Focusing on a negative. Yes the internet can be exploited but the internet means communication between all people in the world. That has never happened before in history. I believe that you don't have to bomb a country to free its people. Simply show them that there is a better way and the people will eventually demand change. This is what the internet is doing. It's showing people women who vote, gays who celebrate their freedom, free health care and education for all, safety, security. Fundamentally that is what all humans want. But I guess it also becomes harder to oppress one remote culture, and use them for cheap labor, if they can see where their labor is going and what it's worth through their cellphone.

Darmody 6y ago

Turning Libya into a country where they sell slaves in broad daylight was needed to keep his democracy alive, I guess.

nickysielicki 6y ago

The title is editorialized and ought to be changed. He's referring to "fake news", not to the internet broadly. It still puts a sinking feeling in my stomach. In-fact, maybe even moreso. I can't believe how much and how fast things have changed in 12 years.

jfengel 6y ago
Ironic.

salamimonger 6y ago

Ironic coming from the guy who was praised for his campaign's tech savvyness and ability to use the power of the internet and social media to win. I guess he's right. Many people did believe his victory was a threat to the country. /joke I'm looking very forward to a Biden presidency, just to see how far people will flip-flop and bend their beliefs to justify whatever he does as president, now that the victory is secured and he no longer has to campaign. In the end, politics is very much like sports ball. People will accept anything as long as "their guy" is doing it.

dx87 6y ago
> I'm looking very forward to a Biden presidency, just to see how far people will flip-flop and bend their beliefs to justify whatever he does as president, now that the victory is secured and he no longer has to campaign. Same here. I've spent the last four years seeing people say that manufacturing jobs are never coming back to the USA, and rural people who believed that Trump would bring them back are naive. Then I look at Biden's campaign website, and he's got a page about bringing back manufacturing jobs to the USA.
happytoexplain 6y ago
>I'm looking very forward to a Biden presidency, just to see how far people will flip-flop and bend their beliefs to justify whatever he does as president Of course this happens every time, but you see this being more exaggerated under Biden? In my opinion, this hit a new extremity with Trump. Of course, you also have to be careful not to fall into the trap of interpreting the entire social internet as two people (us and them). Usually when you see conflicting opinions, it's because they are coming from different people, not because "the enemy" is just so hypocritical.
wwweston 6y ago
Let's hear some specific predictions of things that the Trump administration has been behind that you believe those who opposed him will support if the Biden administration does them. > People will accept anything as long as "their guy" is doing it. There's probably a heavily nerfed reformulation of this statement that's true, but as stated it's wrong enough I'm tempted to ask for market tips or what domain you consider professional expertise so's to short whatever you're long.

harwoodleon 6y ago

Sorry Barack, but I think you mean: “Advertising models on the internet are the biggest threat to our democracy” The internet, if anything has promoted democratic practice around the world, which is why China wants to shut it out. It has done more for knowledge sharing than any medium in history. Unfortunately, advertising is one of the the only model big enough to sustain the purchase of massive amounts of hardware which grow the internet, that and movie subscriptions. But it will die as a model in the next decade I’m sure. When the AI overlords take over, there will be no need for money.

newacct583 6y ago
Advertising models didn't drive belief in Pizzagate, Qanon, adrenochrome, Covid-is-fake or Dominion-ate-my-ballot. They just didn't. That was a bunch of people voluntarily sharing a bunch of content created by people who never monetized it in any way. It's true that it was done on a bunch of ad-supported platforms with elaborate "engagement" metrics who want to keep eyeballs. So I guess in a sideways sense you can argue that "advertising" created viral content. But then "advertising" created the good content too. It's just specious. No, there's something about the way that completely unmoderated discourse on the internet has evolved that is new and dangerous in ways that we hadn't expected. You aren't going to fix this by forcing people off the ads.
- merpnderp 6y ago
  You can't with a straight face say algorithms that drive people to ever more outrageous content so that they view the force fed adverts, aren't a significant part of the problem.
  - newacct583 6y ago
    Again, this stuff spread on Fox and 4chan and 8kun just as well or better than it did on Facebook and Twitter. Advertising models and engagement algorithms aren't the issue.
    - 6y ago

edgall 6y ago

Misleading headline. Read the article before commenting. Goldberg: Is this new malevolent information architecture bending the moral arc away from justice? Obama: I think it is the single biggest threat to our democracy. This is the quote. He is talking about disinformation. He didn't say it in the context of "the Internet". Kind of ironic in the end.

andor 6y ago
The quote is about the information architecture, i.e. the mechanisms behind widespread disinformation: social media platforms that allow users to live in a bubble. Of course they are not literally The Internet, but many non-technical people experience it this way.

ehejsbbejsk 6y ago

This post should be flagged for disinformation.

syspec 6y ago

The editorialized title should be flagged.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

wwweston 6y ago

"The point is – imagine a country full of bioweapon labs, where people toil day and night to invent new infectious agents. The existence of these labs, and their right to throw whatever they develop in the water supply is protected by law. And the country is also linked by the world’s most perfect mass transit system that every single person uses every day, so that any new pathogen can spread to the entire country instantaneously. You’d expect things to start going bad for that city pretty quickly. "Well, we have about a zillion think tanks researching new and better forms of propaganda. And we have constitutionally protected freedom of speech. And we have the Internet. So we’re kind of screwed." https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

happytoexplain 6y ago

In case you didn't guess right away, yes, the title is editorialized. The content seems fine, though.