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"Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation." Who gets to decide which is which? Why would I want to tell people they are wrong

by Lammy 6y ago

"Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation." Who gets to decide which is which? Why would I want to tell people they are wrong about how they experience the world when they disagree with the way I do?

solarmist 6y ago
A fact is a thing that can be objectively verified. It is a fact regardless of a person’s experience. The word you’re thinking of is opinion. Which is how someone interprets a fact or a set of facts.
- Lammy 6y ago
  Facts are just opinions we share with enough other people. Consensus reality is the only reality imo
- war1025 6y ago
  > A fact is a thing that can be objectively verified The past four years of "fact checking" have demonstrated those are not the sort of "facts" anyone is talking about.
- jlokier 6y ago
  As you can see from replies, people do not agree on the meaning of "fact". To be fair this is because the word is used to mean different things, not just objective truths, even in formal contexts. Unfortunately because people don't hold the same idea about what the word "fact" means, and some don't believe in the concept of objective reality at all, one person can talk of "fact-checking website" and be thinking of only objective facts, while another person hears that as "prevailing-opinion-promoting website" to be used for non-objective facts. "Objective truth checking website" would be better. The intent is unambiguous at least. 1+1=2, pi is definitely irrational, and the Earth is not flat. Unfortunately when it comes to things like "evidence of widespread electoral fraud sufficient to overturn the result", that doesn't apply perfectly. That type of fact cannot be known absolutely; there's always that bit of wiggle room of possibility which feeds conspiracy theories, especially in a population distressed about many issues and distrustful of institutions and each other. Such things can however be known beyond reasonable doubt to the man on the Clapham omnibus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus).
jlokier 6y ago
> "amplify factual voices over disinformation." First, to be clear, that's not censorship, and it is entirely compatible with freedom of speech because it is not proposing to prevent speech, only to direct emphasis. Freedom of speech means you are free to speak and people who choose to listen are free to listen, not that you get equal airtime. Second, we already have amplification taking place of non-factual voices. It's not like we can just not amplify once kind of voice systematically over another, because anything we do results in that, including doing nothing. It's just inevitable. A well-intentioned free-for-all in communications leads immediately to the uneven amplifications we see now. There is increasingly justified concern that it is becoming dangerously unfactual lately, perhaps due to an interaction between human instincts and rapid changes in information technology, leading to a breakdown of society and democracy, thus the suggestion to promote factual voices. > Who gets to decide which is which? Something inevitably decides. If by that question you are providing the implicit answer "nobody should", then you are favouring the current system of biased amplification, where things like outrage culture, economic incentives promoting polarisation, and widespread avoidance of good-faith reasoning about basic concepts is looking rather evident. So we already have a system deciding which is which, even if we don't want one. It is impossible to avoid having one, even in principle. Let's acknowledge that hard reality, and discuss how to make a better system than the de facto one that emerges otherwise. I don't know the answer of how we decide, but I think it is worthwhile to investigate the question in more detail than dismissing it outright, given what we see at the moment. I suggest ways to determine facts and factual voices could echo systems that have been developed over thousands of years for this. We have a long history of developed legal, justice, political, journalistic, academic and scientific systems with a variety of methods for finding (or deciding upon) facts, to cope with the problem when people dispute about what is true and false.
- Lammy 6y ago
  > First, to be clear, that's not censorship It's long-term censorship because if you can control speech for long enough you can control the range of ideas people have the possibility to be exposed to, the overall opinion consensus changes over time toward just the allowed range of ideas, and after enough time this changes the facts in consensus reality.
jlokier 6y ago
> Why would I want to tell people they are wrong about how they experience the world when they disagree with the way I do? This is about facts, not experiences of the world, or opinions. Factual statements can be wrong. If you don't believe in telling people they are wrong when they are plainly wrong, what are your criteria for telling people anything at all? Granted, the relationship between facts, truths, experiences, opinions and voices is a complex one, but somewhere in there are still the underlying concepts of true and false, right (correct) and wrong (incorrect). More pragmatically, pertinent to the recent USA election, unfounded ideas that are hypothetically possible but unlikely, investigated by many independent minds of good standing, and found to be lacking anything approaching adequate evidence have to be treated as settled for the purposes of moving forward on an issue. As "no, seriously, we have looked at this hard enough now that we have move forward treating it as a checked truth even while acknowledging the now-unlikely possibility that we are incorrect". People disagree about how much effort to put into investigating such things and how to assess evidence (or lack thereof), but for democracy and social stability (safety) to continue, most of them need to agree that sufficient process has been followed at some point. The quality of process and conclusiveness are essential. This is one of the hallmarks of effective democracy. If you want to be especially respectful of people who you believe are wrong about key significant facts, then I think it best to acknowledge their facts are not literally impossible, but have been investigated and are looking strongly unlikely as a result.

by Lammy 6y ago

solarmist 6y ago

A fact is a thing that can be objectively verified. It is a fact regardless of a person’s experience. The word you’re thinking of is opinion. Which is how someone interprets a fact or a set of facts.

Lammy 6y ago
Facts are just opinions we share with enough other people. Consensus reality is the only reality imo
war1025 6y ago
> A fact is a thing that can be objectively verified The past four years of "fact checking" have demonstrated those are not the sort of "facts" anyone is talking about.
jlokier 6y ago
As you can see from replies, people do not agree on the meaning of "fact". To be fair this is because the word is used to mean different things, not just objective truths, even in formal contexts. Unfortunately because people don't hold the same idea about what the word "fact" means, and some don't believe in the concept of objective reality at all, one person can talk of "fact-checking website" and be thinking of only objective facts, while another person hears that as "prevailing-opinion-promoting website" to be used for non-objective facts. "Objective truth checking website" would be better. The intent is unambiguous at least. 1+1=2, pi is definitely irrational, and the Earth is not flat. Unfortunately when it comes to things like "evidence of widespread electoral fraud sufficient to overturn the result", that doesn't apply perfectly. That type of fact cannot be known absolutely; there's always that bit of wiggle room of possibility which feeds conspiracy theories, especially in a population distressed about many issues and distrustful of institutions and each other. Such things can however be known beyond reasonable doubt to the man on the Clapham omnibus (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_on_the_Clapham_omnibus).

jlokier 6y ago

> "amplify factual voices over disinformation." First, to be clear, that's not censorship, and it is entirely compatible with freedom of speech because it is not proposing to prevent speech, only to direct emphasis. Freedom of speech means you are free to speak and people who choose to listen are free to listen, not that you get equal airtime. Second, we already have amplification taking place of non-factual voices. It's not like we can just not amplify once kind of voice systematically over another, because anything we do results in that, including doing nothing. It's just inevitable. A well-intentioned free-for-all in communications leads immediately to the uneven amplifications we see now. There is increasingly justified concern that it is becoming dangerously unfactual lately, perhaps due to an interaction between human instincts and rapid changes in information technology, leading to a breakdown of society and democracy, thus the suggestion to promote factual voices. > Who gets to decide which is which? Something inevitably decides. If by that question you are providing the implicit answer "nobody should", then you are favouring the current system of biased amplification, where things like outrage culture, economic incentives promoting polarisation, and widespread avoidance of good-faith reasoning about basic concepts is looking rather evident. So we already have a system deciding which is which, even if we don't want one. It is impossible to avoid having one, even in principle. Let's acknowledge that hard reality, and discuss how to make a better system than the de facto one that emerges otherwise. I don't know the answer of how we decide, but I think it is worthwhile to investigate the question in more detail than dismissing it outright, given what we see at the moment. I suggest ways to determine facts and factual voices could echo systems that have been developed over thousands of years for this. We have a long history of developed legal, justice, political, journalistic, academic and scientific systems with a variety of methods for finding (or deciding upon) facts, to cope with the problem when people dispute about what is true and false.

Lammy 6y ago
> First, to be clear, that's not censorship It's long-term censorship because if you can control speech for long enough you can control the range of ideas people have the possibility to be exposed to, the overall opinion consensus changes over time toward just the allowed range of ideas, and after enough time this changes the facts in consensus reality.

jlokier 6y ago

> Why would I want to tell people they are wrong about how they experience the world when they disagree with the way I do? This is about facts, not experiences of the world, or opinions. Factual statements can be wrong. If you don't believe in telling people they are wrong when they are plainly wrong, what are your criteria for telling people anything at all? Granted, the relationship between facts, truths, experiences, opinions and voices is a complex one, but somewhere in there are still the underlying concepts of true and false, right (correct) and wrong (incorrect). More pragmatically, pertinent to the recent USA election, unfounded ideas that are hypothetically possible but unlikely, investigated by many independent minds of good standing, and found to be lacking anything approaching adequate evidence have to be treated as settled for the purposes of moving forward on an issue. As "no, seriously, we have looked at this hard enough now that we have move forward treating it as a checked truth even while acknowledging the now-unlikely possibility that we are incorrect". People disagree about how much effort to put into investigating such things and how to assess evidence (or lack thereof), but for democracy and social stability (safety) to continue, most of them need to agree that sufficient process has been followed at some point. The quality of process and conclusiveness are essential. This is one of the hallmarks of effective democracy. If you want to be especially respectful of people who you believe are wrong about key significant facts, then I think it best to acknowledge their facts are not literally impossible, but have been investigated and are looking strongly unlikely as a result.