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This is an interesting question! I'm not sure there is anything I need to hear from these two. That's not to say that polarization and disinformation being ampl
by tensor 6y ago
This is an interesting question! I'm not sure there is anything I need to hear from these two. That's not to say that polarization and disinformation being amplified due to social media bubbles isn't a serious problem. Rather, I don't think it's up to these two to fix it, nor even understand it.
As a society we need to first understand the problem, then decide on what, if anything, we want to do to fix it. Fixes would most likely take the form of some sort of regulation.
E.g. something like where in Canada, some percentage of media has to be from a Canadian source. That law is very contentious in Canada, but you could imagine a similar law for any system that does content recommendation. E.g. some percentage of the content has to be sampled from the total body of content, and not come from the recommender. Something like this might address polarization, but disinformation is a thornier problem.
In any case, it needs to start first with understanding what is going wrong. Things like Mozilla's media bubble study is a good start. From that we need to form policy. There is no role for CEO opinions in all of this.
- CodeGlitch 6y agoSome things are simply too destructive to be in society. I'll take smoking as an example: Of course you should have the option to put whatever you like into your body. But when it starts to seriously affect your health and the people around you, it calls into question whether your right to smoke is above the negative impact on society. This is how I see social media. (I realise a lot of HN folk work in this area) These CEOs brought social media into our world, and I expect them to take resposibility for it. If they are unwilling or unable to take responsibility, then I'm OK for The State to do that for them - like you said with regulations. Currently it looks like they don't want to take resposibility for the destruction they have caused. Sorry for the rant - but I'm seeing first hand the negative effects of QAnon/Consipracy Theories/Extreme Politics within family members.
- procombo 6y agoI've recently conceded to the argument that it's impossible to solve the problem without first defining the role and function of the companies. I believe that should be at the center of Senate questioning, not because it's comfortable, but because it is necessary. I cooked eggs this morning. There is a diversity of wonderful eggs and even some bad eggs. Is the Twitter service a) the eggs, b) the pan, c) the stove, or d) the hen-to-table service of providing a delicious breakfast?