10 ms·

I’m deeply concerned about disinformation, it’s a major problem. Politics has always had spin, and many issues are complex and it can be easy to state things to

by simonh 6y ago

I’m deeply concerned about disinformation, it’s a major problem. Politics has always had spin, and many issues are complex and it can be easy to state things too emphatically to press your case. Accusations of lying are everyday in politics. But recently flat out knowingly lying with the specific intent of deceiving people has become normalised. It’s a serious threat. This is precisely the wrong way to tackle it though. We cannot ever allow government to control what can or cannot be said, outside narrow limits such as incitement to violence. Making the case for the truth will just have to be done the hard way. Fortunately it looks like this is only 2 congresscritters, not “House Democrats” generally. There are at least a handful of utter wing nuts on both party benches so last put this in perspective. The main problem with social media services is algorithms that drive engagement by turning people’s feeds into an ever more extreme echo chamber. Whether it’s lefties being zombified into SJW snowflakes deplatforming people on campuses, or Qannnon turning people into alt right political flat earthers. That’s what they need to address, picking and choosing opinions to block is a fig leaf move that’s more likely to backfire than improve anything. It’s a hard problem though. What do we do about these engagement algorithms? I’ve no clue.

dragonwriter 6y ago
> This is precisely the wrong way to tackle it though. We cannot ever allow government to control what can or cannot be said Can you please point me to a proposal for government to control what can or cannot be said? Not a speculation about what might, in the future, be proposed based on what some people fear based on the questions in these letters, but an actual concrete proposal? Otherwise, I don't see how “This is precisely the wrong way to tackle it” follows from “We cannot ever allow...” since the only possible thing “this” can refer to doesn't, at all, involve the thing we “cannot ever allow”.
- dnissley 6y ago
  Are you not able to see the implicit threat in this letter?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Spivak 6y ago
> outside narrow limits such as incitement to violence Why can’t those narrow limits include “flat out knowingly lying with the specific intent of deceiving people?” Sure it’s a very human definition but it’s one with built-in limits on its scope. You can’t use it to ban wrongthink because it has to be from people who know that they’re lying. > turning people’s feeds into an ever more extreme echo chamber So yes but also this is done voluntarily. Those algorithms are keying on to the fact that I do not want specific kinds of content. If given the option I’ll even explicitly make my preferences known — I’ve blocked probably a thousand subreddits just to make my /r/all tolerable; Twitter is only usable if you confine yourself to niches. It’s #general or barrens chat that’s the cesspool of nonstop screaming.
- avesi 6y ago
  Who determines what is true and what's a lie? Why do you trust them to make the right call?
  - dnissley 6y ago
    Precisely -- and let's be clear here: the disinformation being discussed here breaks down along partisan lines. We can barely get republicans and democrats to agree on a budget, what makes anyone think that they could reasonably come to an agreement on objective standards of truth in media? Let alone a process by which those standards are enforced? This is way, wayyyyy outside the realm of reality.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      I agree with your point, though I think your example is a bit flawed: I think it's reasonable to disagree on what should be in a budget; there's no one "correct" budget where all other budgets are wrong. On the other side, facts are facts. Assuming you actually have all the facts (which often we don't), there is only a single truth.
      - rayiner 6y ago
        What people call a “fact” for these purposes is a lot broader than what epistemologically qualifies as a “fact.” You can see this with a lot of “fact checking” websites. The second item on the fact-check.org website is whether reduced wind power caused the Texas electrical outages: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/02/wind-turbines-didnt-cause-texas-energy-crisis/ https://www.factcheck.org/2021/02/wind-turbines-didnt-cause-... The percentage drop in window power megawatts is a “fact.” What “caused” the Texas power outage is a multi-variable system analysis that produces a conclusion, not a fact, under certain specified assumptions. (This is obvious to an engineer: the NTSB spends months investigating what “caused” a plane crash, and issues a report with conclusions, not facts. The notion that some journalist can in a day or two perform a similar analysis on a complex system like a power grid, and report the result as a “fact” blinks reality.)
NicoJuicy 6y ago
> But recently flat out knowingly lying with the specific intent of deceiving people has become normalised. It’s a serious threat. It's literally propaganda. A Russian tactic called the firehose of falsehoods. The trick is making the truth politically related, so the real truth doesn't matter anymore. And people can just say it's a "x" opinion to dismiss it. It's unfortunately pretty effective as we've seen...
- camelite 6y ago
  Propaganda is not an inherently russian technique and that fact that you believe so implies you are a victim of anti russian propaganda.
  - simonh 6y ago
    The firehose of falsehood is propaganda sure, but it's principles were consciously and deliberately developed by the USSR as a particular propaganda technique. It's partly based on the rhetorical strategies used by Lenin. One of his (Russian) biographers called him the godfather of post-truth politics.
  - NicoJuicy 6y ago
    I explicitly mention firehose of falsehoods. I didn't say that propaganda is solely Russian. But that technique is closely aligned to Russian propaganda which we can all "admire" in the open ( eg. rt) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood#:~:text=The%20firehose%20of%20falsehood%2C%20or,regard%20for%20truth%20or%20consistency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood#:~:tex.... Please, don't change subjects. The technique used by T. Is most similar to what i mentioned. You haven't given any source to discredit that.
garg 6y ago
The violent attack on the capitol was the result of fake news media without anyone ever inciting violence. They simply need to repeat over and over that the election was stolen and that caused the violence and people died. Incorrectly yelling Fire in a crowded theater is illegal and no one is inciting violence in that situation either. There are many commonalities between broadcasting fake news for profit and propaganda, and incorrectly yelling fire in a crowd. Both end up resulting in public safety hazards. It is a difficult problem to deal with because there is always the possibility of corruption and a reduction in genuine free speech when there is regulation involved. But it is a problem that has to be solved. It is also no longer social media only, it is Fox, OANN, NewsMax, Sinclair, etc that are increasingly filling up air time with lies solely to make a buck.
- dnissley 6y ago
  > But it is a problem that has to be solved. Do you think the solution should come from the government? It seems implied here but just checking.
  - Retric 6y ago
    Do you have any other options? I don’t care who solves it, but when a company is run for the intent to produce propaganda it’s pointless to ask them to self regulate.
    - dnissley 6y ago
      There is always the option to let the issue sort itself out. To allow space and time for a solution to emerge. We should be careful not to fall into action bias. E.g. the thought that we need to do something, anything, since that can lead to counterproductive solutions. I've begun to look at information problems like this not too differently than viruses of thought. Right now these viruses are running rampant because we've never had to deal with anything like them before on such a wide scale. It seems perfectly possible to me that over time we will develop social standards that immunize us from these viruses. More and more people will begin to disregard clickbait, outrage-inducing headlines, etc. They will simply become less salient the more and more we experience them. Reframing the question at hand around this metaphor: What would an effective vaccine look like for these thought viruses? I'm not at all sure, but I can't imagine any kind of partisan response that would work, since these viruses infect left and right alike, and many people will bend over backwards to argue otherwise. Until we can face that fact honestly, I don't see how we could even begin to have a productive conversation about a solution.
Spooky23 6y ago
Take the politics out of it — unaccountable, unquestioned mass communication is almost always bad. Mass media needs the fairness doctrine back to take the carnival show out of the news. Social media is no exception. The current model basically neuters editorial discretion and creates a “Team A” vs “Team B” environment that is bad for everyone. These problems started in niche mediums like talk radio and eventually locked in because it’s an easy way to make money. The problem is it’s a race to the bottom, and outlets like OANN, RT, etc are really self-sustaining propaganda outlets. The NY Post has an editorial voice but their news product isn’t fiction. On the internet, if you give Facebook, Google, etc rules, they will develop algorithms to comply. IMO, regulation in the space would improve the quality of engagement and make them money. P&G won’t buy ads associated with flat earth people, and they pay more than the gold coin, prostate pills, crazy pillow people, etc.
- PixyMisa 6y ago
  The First Amendment forbids any such legislation.
  - commandlinefan 6y ago
    And thank god for it.
    - srswtf123 6y ago
      We should probably thank the _humans_ that wrote it.
      - gillytech 6y ago
        Per Thomas Jefferson the "unalienable rights" guaranteed by the US Constitution are God-given, and cannot be suspended or set aside by other humans.
        AlexandrB 6y ago
        But they can be added to? Either it's a human document you can amend or it's an immutable religious text.
pfisch 6y ago
"That’s what they need to address, picking and choosing opinions to block is a fig leaf move that’s more likely to backfire than improve anything." Counter point - before social media that is exactly how it worked for the last 100 years. Newspapers, radio stations and tv stations were picking and choosing opinions to block. This entire problem is actually being caused by the total removal of editorial discretion from sane people.
- simonh 6y ago
  I have no problem with platform owners editorialising. Well I do in some sense, if it's done in a shitty way, but that's an opinion and shouldn't be legislated. Editorialising on a publishing platform you own is a right I'd not like to see infringed on. It's a matter for free citizens to decide. If the public disagree with the editorialising, they can use another platform. It's freedom all round. It's not ideal, but the alternatives are worse.

by simonh 6y ago

dragonwriter 6y ago

> This is precisely the wrong way to tackle it though. We cannot ever allow government to control what can or cannot be said Can you please point me to a proposal for government to control what can or cannot be said? Not a speculation about what might, in the future, be proposed based on what some people fear based on the questions in these letters, but an actual concrete proposal? Otherwise, I don't see how “This is precisely the wrong way to tackle it” follows from “We cannot ever allow...” since the only possible thing “this” can refer to doesn't, at all, involve the thing we “cannot ever allow”.

dnissley 6y ago
Are you not able to see the implicit threat in this letter?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Spivak 6y ago

> outside narrow limits such as incitement to violence Why can’t those narrow limits include “flat out knowingly lying with the specific intent of deceiving people?” Sure it’s a very human definition but it’s one with built-in limits on its scope. You can’t use it to ban wrongthink because it has to be from people who know that they’re lying. > turning people’s feeds into an ever more extreme echo chamber So yes but also this is done voluntarily. Those algorithms are keying on to the fact that I do not want specific kinds of content. If given the option I’ll even explicitly make my preferences known — I’ve blocked probably a thousand subreddits just to make my /r/all tolerable; Twitter is only usable if you confine yourself to niches. It’s #general or barrens chat that’s the cesspool of nonstop screaming.

avesi 6y ago
Who determines what is true and what's a lie? Why do you trust them to make the right call?
- dnissley 6y ago
  Precisely -- and let's be clear here: the disinformation being discussed here breaks down along partisan lines. We can barely get republicans and democrats to agree on a budget, what makes anyone think that they could reasonably come to an agreement on objective standards of truth in media? Let alone a process by which those standards are enforced? This is way, wayyyyy outside the realm of reality.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    I agree with your point, though I think your example is a bit flawed: I think it's reasonable to disagree on what should be in a budget; there's no one "correct" budget where all other budgets are wrong. On the other side, facts are facts. Assuming you actually have all the facts (which often we don't), there is only a single truth.
    - rayiner 6y ago
      What people call a “fact” for these purposes is a lot broader than what epistemologically qualifies as a “fact.” You can see this with a lot of “fact checking” websites. The second item on the fact-check.org website is whether reduced wind power caused the Texas electrical outages: https://www.factcheck.org/2021/02/wind-turbines-didnt-cause-texas-energy-crisis/ https://www.factcheck.org/2021/02/wind-turbines-didnt-cause-... The percentage drop in window power megawatts is a “fact.” What “caused” the Texas power outage is a multi-variable system analysis that produces a conclusion, not a fact, under certain specified assumptions. (This is obvious to an engineer: the NTSB spends months investigating what “caused” a plane crash, and issues a report with conclusions, not facts. The notion that some journalist can in a day or two perform a similar analysis on a complex system like a power grid, and report the result as a “fact” blinks reality.)

NicoJuicy 6y ago

> But recently flat out knowingly lying with the specific intent of deceiving people has become normalised. It’s a serious threat. It's literally propaganda. A Russian tactic called the firehose of falsehoods. The trick is making the truth politically related, so the real truth doesn't matter anymore. And people can just say it's a "x" opinion to dismiss it. It's unfortunately pretty effective as we've seen...

camelite 6y ago
Propaganda is not an inherently russian technique and that fact that you believe so implies you are a victim of anti russian propaganda.
- simonh 6y ago
  The firehose of falsehood is propaganda sure, but it's principles were consciously and deliberately developed by the USSR as a particular propaganda technique. It's partly based on the rhetorical strategies used by Lenin. One of his (Russian) biographers called him the godfather of post-truth politics.
- NicoJuicy 6y ago
  I explicitly mention firehose of falsehoods. I didn't say that propaganda is solely Russian. But that technique is closely aligned to Russian propaganda which we can all "admire" in the open ( eg. rt) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood#:~:text=The%20firehose%20of%20falsehood%2C%20or,regard%20for%20truth%20or%20consistency https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firehose_of_falsehood#:~:tex.... Please, don't change subjects. The technique used by T. Is most similar to what i mentioned. You haven't given any source to discredit that.

garg 6y ago

The violent attack on the capitol was the result of fake news media without anyone ever inciting violence. They simply need to repeat over and over that the election was stolen and that caused the violence and people died. Incorrectly yelling Fire in a crowded theater is illegal and no one is inciting violence in that situation either. There are many commonalities between broadcasting fake news for profit and propaganda, and incorrectly yelling fire in a crowd. Both end up resulting in public safety hazards. It is a difficult problem to deal with because there is always the possibility of corruption and a reduction in genuine free speech when there is regulation involved. But it is a problem that has to be solved. It is also no longer social media only, it is Fox, OANN, NewsMax, Sinclair, etc that are increasingly filling up air time with lies solely to make a buck.

dnissley 6y ago
> But it is a problem that has to be solved. Do you think the solution should come from the government? It seems implied here but just checking.
- Retric 6y ago
  Do you have any other options? I don’t care who solves it, but when a company is run for the intent to produce propaganda it’s pointless to ask them to self regulate.
  - dnissley 6y ago
    There is always the option to let the issue sort itself out. To allow space and time for a solution to emerge. We should be careful not to fall into action bias. E.g. the thought that we need to do something, anything, since that can lead to counterproductive solutions. I've begun to look at information problems like this not too differently than viruses of thought. Right now these viruses are running rampant because we've never had to deal with anything like them before on such a wide scale. It seems perfectly possible to me that over time we will develop social standards that immunize us from these viruses. More and more people will begin to disregard clickbait, outrage-inducing headlines, etc. They will simply become less salient the more and more we experience them. Reframing the question at hand around this metaphor: What would an effective vaccine look like for these thought viruses? I'm not at all sure, but I can't imagine any kind of partisan response that would work, since these viruses infect left and right alike, and many people will bend over backwards to argue otherwise. Until we can face that fact honestly, I don't see how we could even begin to have a productive conversation about a solution.

Spooky23 6y ago

Take the politics out of it — unaccountable, unquestioned mass communication is almost always bad. Mass media needs the fairness doctrine back to take the carnival show out of the news. Social media is no exception. The current model basically neuters editorial discretion and creates a “Team A” vs “Team B” environment that is bad for everyone. These problems started in niche mediums like talk radio and eventually locked in because it’s an easy way to make money. The problem is it’s a race to the bottom, and outlets like OANN, RT, etc are really self-sustaining propaganda outlets. The NY Post has an editorial voice but their news product isn’t fiction. On the internet, if you give Facebook, Google, etc rules, they will develop algorithms to comply. IMO, regulation in the space would improve the quality of engagement and make them money. P&G won’t buy ads associated with flat earth people, and they pay more than the gold coin, prostate pills, crazy pillow people, etc.

PixyMisa 6y ago
The First Amendment forbids any such legislation.
- commandlinefan 6y ago
  And thank god for it.
  - srswtf123 6y ago
    We should probably thank the _humans_ that wrote it.
    - gillytech 6y ago
      Per Thomas Jefferson the "unalienable rights" guaranteed by the US Constitution are God-given, and cannot be suspended or set aside by other humans.
      - AlexandrB 6y ago
        But they can be added to? Either it's a human document you can amend or it's an immutable religious text.

pfisch 6y ago

"That’s what they need to address, picking and choosing opinions to block is a fig leaf move that’s more likely to backfire than improve anything." Counter point - before social media that is exactly how it worked for the last 100 years. Newspapers, radio stations and tv stations were picking and choosing opinions to block. This entire problem is actually being caused by the total removal of editorial discretion from sane people.

simonh 6y ago
I have no problem with platform owners editorialising. Well I do in some sense, if it's done in a shitty way, but that's an opinion and shouldn't be legislated. Editorialising on a publishing platform you own is a right I'd not like to see infringed on. It's a matter for free citizens to decide. If the public disagree with the editorialising, they can use another platform. It's freedom all round. It's not ideal, but the alternatives are worse.