4 ms·

If we need regulation, the question then becomes: who does the regulating? Tech firms in Silicon Valley? Big government in Washington? Big business on Wall Stre

by briga 6y ago

If we need regulation, the question then becomes: who does the regulating? Tech firms in Silicon Valley? Big government in Washington? Big business on Wall Street? Putting that editorial power in any one group's hands is going to lead to a different sort of trouble aside from the trouble that arises from misinformation and extremism. I'm not sure what the right balance here is and it really does seem to be one of the defining problems of our time.

moksly 6y ago
In Denmark, and in many other European countries, we have special media laws that are guidelines on what the responsibilities of being an editorial body means. We also have an independant institution to make sure these are upheld. In Denmark it's called Pressenævnet, and it's members are appointed by our Supreme Court, a "guild" of the editors of the primary medias in our country, a political body for PBS services and journalist unions. Works perfectly fine, and as far as the EU goes, I think that's the direction we need to take. I have no idea how you would do it in the US, but I don't think that's really for us to worry about either.
- briga 6y ago
  That seems like a fine solution for a relatively small and unified country of ~6 million, but I don't necessarily think it scales to a country the size of the US, let alone the global news economy. Ideologies are so fragmented these days that I could imagine many different regulatory guilds pushing their own agenda. There is no longer a monopoly on "truth", if there ever was one.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - moksly 6y ago
    Germany and France have rather similar regulatory setups to ours, so it does work in larger and more fragmented countries. But as I said, I have no idea how it would work for USA. It's honestly kind of hard for me to imagine how any US regulatory bodies work, when they replace the leadership every four years, and often without a broad cross-party agreement.
  - username90 6y ago
    Which is why USA has states, why not give them more rights? Currently US states have too little power or they could be run more like small European nations.
u678u 6y ago
The answer is you make rules that items cannot go viral. If a post reaches 100 views it can no longer be shared with anyone else.
lordnacho 6y ago
"Ombudsmand" is a Danish word that certain other countries have adopted. Basically it's an independent office that has the power to investigate certain kinds of issues within their remit. For instance, there's a consumer ombudsman who can look at shady practices like signing up people for subscriptions they didn't think were going to happen. There's also "THE Ombudsman" which was the original independent watchdog over government affairs, who will comment that some legal manuever was possibly wrong. Of course one might add that there is very little questioning of the ombudsman himself, historically. If you get dragged into a case and he says your website is scammy, he's right and you're wrong. The office hasn't been drawn into politics, something that you might imagine would destroy trust in the institution. The Danish government fell on a case brought by the big Ombudsmanden once, but nobody was bringing into question the legitimacy of the office. The question is then whether such an office would be transplantable to other countries, where things are more polarized. Perhaps one of the biggest things comparing Denmark and eg the US is that there are institutions in Denmark that people trust, whereas in the US everyone is put in a red or blue box.
bsenftner 6y ago
There is a graduate college degree offered by many universities with law schools, Business Schools and Political Science departments - it is a cross-disciplinary degree called Governance. It ends up being an entire career that is only concerned with how to compose management policies, working within environmental policies and employment policies to create environments that thrive, are sustainable as well as include self-governing mechanisms. I suggest you locate someone with this type of graduate education and ask them where to start if one is serious about the issues raised by this article. I can guarantee you, unless the people behind this are pure stupid manipulators, they have governance specialists already working on their behalf, and they are using $400 words to describe what they are doing. Pretty much every corporation over 10,000 people have someone either on their staff or on the corporate board whose sole role is governance. This important area is already populated with high level experts with their own Scientology-technical-speak one must know to be taken seriously. We're so smart, we kill ourselves.

by briga 6y ago

moksly 6y ago

In Denmark, and in many other European countries, we have special media laws that are guidelines on what the responsibilities of being an editorial body means. We also have an independant institution to make sure these are upheld. In Denmark it's called Pressenævnet, and it's members are appointed by our Supreme Court, a "guild" of the editors of the primary medias in our country, a political body for PBS services and journalist unions. Works perfectly fine, and as far as the EU goes, I think that's the direction we need to take. I have no idea how you would do it in the US, but I don't think that's really for us to worry about either.

briga 6y ago
That seems like a fine solution for a relatively small and unified country of ~6 million, but I don't necessarily think it scales to a country the size of the US, let alone the global news economy. Ideologies are so fragmented these days that I could imagine many different regulatory guilds pushing their own agenda. There is no longer a monopoly on "truth", if there ever was one.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- moksly 6y ago
  Germany and France have rather similar regulatory setups to ours, so it does work in larger and more fragmented countries. But as I said, I have no idea how it would work for USA. It's honestly kind of hard for me to imagine how any US regulatory bodies work, when they replace the leadership every four years, and often without a broad cross-party agreement.
- username90 6y ago
  Which is why USA has states, why not give them more rights? Currently US states have too little power or they could be run more like small European nations.

u678u 6y ago

The answer is you make rules that items cannot go viral. If a post reaches 100 views it can no longer be shared with anyone else.

lordnacho 6y ago

"Ombudsmand" is a Danish word that certain other countries have adopted. Basically it's an independent office that has the power to investigate certain kinds of issues within their remit. For instance, there's a consumer ombudsman who can look at shady practices like signing up people for subscriptions they didn't think were going to happen. There's also "THE Ombudsman" which was the original independent watchdog over government affairs, who will comment that some legal manuever was possibly wrong. Of course one might add that there is very little questioning of the ombudsman himself, historically. If you get dragged into a case and he says your website is scammy, he's right and you're wrong. The office hasn't been drawn into politics, something that you might imagine would destroy trust in the institution. The Danish government fell on a case brought by the big Ombudsmanden once, but nobody was bringing into question the legitimacy of the office. The question is then whether such an office would be transplantable to other countries, where things are more polarized. Perhaps one of the biggest things comparing Denmark and eg the US is that there are institutions in Denmark that people trust, whereas in the US everyone is put in a red or blue box.

bsenftner 6y ago

There is a graduate college degree offered by many universities with law schools, Business Schools and Political Science departments - it is a cross-disciplinary degree called Governance. It ends up being an entire career that is only concerned with how to compose management policies, working within environmental policies and employment policies to create environments that thrive, are sustainable as well as include self-governing mechanisms. I suggest you locate someone with this type of graduate education and ask them where to start if one is serious about the issues raised by this article. I can guarantee you, unless the people behind this are pure stupid manipulators, they have governance specialists already working on their behalf, and they are using $400 words to describe what they are doing. Pretty much every corporation over 10,000 people have someone either on their staff or on the corporate board whose sole role is governance. This important area is already populated with high level experts with their own Scientology-technical-speak one must know to be taken seriously. We're so smart, we kill ourselves.