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Whenever someone says they want to study anything relating to "misinformation", it's almost a guarantee they're looking to solve human problems with technical s

Whenever someone says they want to study anything relating to "misinformation", it's almost a guarantee they're looking to solve human problems with technical solutions. Oh look: "Rally has the potential to help address societal problems we could not solve before." No, I don't think it does. Especially when the first thing you tout is a study on "misinformation about COVID". The fact that American's are locked in a bitter political cold war with each other is not a technological problem, and does not have a technological solution. It's like trying to help a couples on the brink of divorce by updating their phones with new firmware, and changing how Facebook's algorithm works. The reason the couple is threatening divorce is 1% what happens ON their phones, and 99% what happens off their phones. We have to break away from this stupid idea that if only we studied what was happening on Twitter and Facebook we could fix our problems.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago
> We have to break away from this stupid idea that if only we studied what was happening on Twitter and Facebook we could fix our problems. Analogously, to demonstrate absurdity, consider this statement: we have to break away from this stupid idea that if we studied what was happening on our crop fields and our roads we could fix our problems with agriculture and traffic.
xpe 5y ago
> Whenever someone says they want to study anything relating to "misinformation", it's almost a guarantee they're looking to solve human problems with technical solutions. What in your experience motivates you to say this?
- errantmind 5y ago
  Not the OP but I think it is because of a lack of trust in institutions, due to an escalating culture war and tribalism. As an educated person interested in facts and science, there is a surprising lack of due diligence in the media around a lot of the current hot topic issues (not going to name them). Every time I do my own research on one of these issues, it is obvious the media and our institutions are more interested in supporting an official narrative than diving deep into the facts. Opposing opinions are just not 'allowed' anymore in some areas. I personally don't even trust people using the word 'misinformation' anymore, as it has been so abused
  - bjt2n3904 5y ago
    > lack of trust in institutions, due to an escalating culture war and tribalism Precisely. Whenever someone talks about "disinformation" as being the cause of this, it would be insulting, if it weren't so detached from reality and Orwellian. "Gosh, these dumb people are reverting to tribal behavior because they're getting lied to! The real problem is they can't think for themselves -- we just need to figure out how to tweak the algorithm so the disinformation doesn't spread, and they get fed the right truths. Then we'll have harmony again!" People need to get off their computers, and stop trying to understand (and fix) society through Twitter.

9wzYQbTYsAIc 5y ago

> We have to break away from this stupid idea that if only we studied what was happening on Twitter and Facebook we could fix our problems. Analogously, to demonstrate absurdity, consider this statement: we have to break away from this stupid idea that if we studied what was happening on our crop fields and our roads we could fix our problems with agriculture and traffic.

xpe 5y ago

> Whenever someone says they want to study anything relating to "misinformation", it's almost a guarantee they're looking to solve human problems with technical solutions. What in your experience motivates you to say this?

errantmind 5y ago
Not the OP but I think it is because of a lack of trust in institutions, due to an escalating culture war and tribalism. As an educated person interested in facts and science, there is a surprising lack of due diligence in the media around a lot of the current hot topic issues (not going to name them). Every time I do my own research on one of these issues, it is obvious the media and our institutions are more interested in supporting an official narrative than diving deep into the facts. Opposing opinions are just not 'allowed' anymore in some areas. I personally don't even trust people using the word 'misinformation' anymore, as it has been so abused
- bjt2n3904 5y ago
  > lack of trust in institutions, due to an escalating culture war and tribalism Precisely. Whenever someone talks about "disinformation" as being the cause of this, it would be insulting, if it weren't so detached from reality and Orwellian. "Gosh, these dumb people are reverting to tribal behavior because they're getting lied to! The real problem is they can't think for themselves -- we just need to figure out how to tweak the algorithm so the disinformation doesn't spread, and they get fed the right truths. Then we'll have harmony again!" People need to get off their computers, and stop trying to understand (and fix) society through Twitter.