3 ms·

This is very, very, very far from a solved problem. It is not at all clear that flagging posts does anything to limit the spread of false information. Even wh

This is very, very, very far from a solved problem. It is not at all clear that flagging posts does anything to limit the spread of false information. Even when we know that the information we are reading is false, we can still end up believing it, especially if we are distracted or under time pressure [1]. Yesterday, the Lawfare podcast did an interview with a researcher studying misinformation, disinformation, and mal-information which I suggest people check out if they want to learn more about the issue [2]. [1] "You Can't Not Believe Everything You Read" : https://wjh-www.harvard.edu/~dtg/Gilbert%20et%20al%20%28EVERYTHING%20YOU%20READ%29.pdf https://wjh-www.harvard.edu/~dtg/Gilbert%20et%20al%20%28EVER... [2] "The Lawfare Podcast: The Vaccine Misinformation Cometh" : https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-vaccine-misinformation-cometh https://www.lawfareblog.com/lawfare-podcast-vaccine-misinfor...

jstgord 6y ago
> "Even when we know that the information we are reading is false, we can still end up believing it" I'm not saying human perception is the 'solved problem' - if I know something is false, then can I also believe it ? I actually think the human mind is capable of believing both proposition "X is true" and its logical negation "X is not true". eg "birds are dinosaurs" is both true and not true, inmnsho. I want people to believe things that are true, but this would require much wider access to higher quality science education, as well as access to good information, protected freedom of speech ... My feeling is the Twitter model - where outrageous untruths are tagged with a notice - is a good start, and much better than the path of outright censorship that youtube seems to be choosing. I'd like to see a kind of wikipedia crowd-sourced model to fact-check social media - flag a post/comment with "controversial" / "established dogma" / "noncontroversial" / "conspiracy theory" : ] - similar to how we have pseudo-public reviews of books on Amazon and goodreads. Perhaps this can be gamed, but we still have wikipedia and much of it _is_ accurate, so there is hope.

jstgord 6y ago

> "Even when we know that the information we are reading is false, we can still end up believing it" I'm not saying human perception is the 'solved problem' - if I know something is false, then can I also believe it ? I actually think the human mind is capable of believing both proposition "X is true" and its logical negation "X is not true". eg "birds are dinosaurs" is both true and not true, inmnsho. I want people to believe things that are true, but this would require much wider access to higher quality science education, as well as access to good information, protected freedom of speech ... My feeling is the Twitter model - where outrageous untruths are tagged with a notice - is a good start, and much better than the path of outright censorship that youtube seems to be choosing. I'd like to see a kind of wikipedia crowd-sourced model to fact-check social media - flag a post/comment with "controversial" / "established dogma" / "noncontroversial" / "conspiracy theory" : ] - similar to how we have pseudo-public reviews of books on Amazon and goodreads. Perhaps this can be gamed, but we still have wikipedia and much of it _is_ accurate, so there is hope.