4 ms·
There are no ways to separate political from non political discourse. You can only remove social media from the political sphere by removing social media, perio
by kace91 6y ago
There are no ways to separate political from non political discourse. You can only remove social media from the political sphere by removing social media, period.
You could, however, try to develop a legal and moral framework for acceptable social media behavior (meaning the way the network itself works, not users' behavior). The particularities that make extreme content rise to the top should be banned/discouraged, rather than embraced in the race for engagement.
- syshum 6y agoThere are ways to limit the influence, such has prohibiting elected officials from maintaining "official" accounts where they announce and do the public's business on the social media platforms. Also making some of the support the social media platform clearly have for some candidates as "in kind" political contributions.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- jojobas 6y ago>removing social media, period This is even better, how do we do that instead?
- hourislate 6y agoThe world would be a better place if FB and Twitter did not exist. People often ask when and where did it go wrong, well it went wrong when Twitter and FB came into existence. They both cause more problems than they solve.
- wruza 6y agoI’m pretty sure dang could handle both, but then we’d lose HN. Is it a good trade-off? Hard to decide.
- m-i-l 6y ago> There are no ways to separate political from non political discourse Most large companies (especially in regulated industries) have strict social media policies, e.g. preventing employees from performing company business via their personal social media accounts, with penalties for serious breaches being disciplinary action up to and including dismissal, i.e. it is possible to separate company business from non-company business. Why not the same for those working in the political sphere?
- hharlequin 6y agoBecause typically you want politicians engaged socially with their electorate? Businesses fear liability. Governments should be built on it.
- kace91 6y agoSure, you can ban politicians from engaging in social networks, but that's far smaller proposal than removing the connection between social media and politics. Taking twitter away from congressmen won't stop superpatriotsforbaldeagles.ru from distributing political propaganda, or random people being fed extreme media each inside their bubble. The issue is inflammatory content spreading like wildfire, and direct intervention from politicians themselves is just tiny drop in the ocean.
- pjc50 6y ago> Why not the same for those working in the political sphere? What does this actually mean? Are you trying to ask politicians not to engage in politics? News organisations? Billionaires? Foreign intelligence services? Asking for legal restrictions on who's allowed to speak about what?
- whymauri 6y agoJust wait until you ask them to define what exactly 'politics' is. You'll either get no response or it'll boil down to 'the things I don't like.' And to clarify, this is actually a really important question because it predicates the entire discourse of separating social media and networks from politics.
- melenaboija 6y agoSocial media makes information available instantly everywhere and there is always someone wanting to believe any speech. If there is someone wanting to believe the earth is flat and triangular you will find him fast now. What could take months with massive people gatherings and paper press 100 years ago it can be done within minutes now. Instead of banning maybe educating people on how to consume information could be a way to start. I guess it is almost impossible to educate everybody but it has empirically worked for me and my close environment, after years of educating some of my older relatives I have been able to at least make them read the links before sharing them.