6 ms·

The promotion of false things is very profitable; by contrast, true things are far less engaging. Worse, it is more expensive to dispel a mistruth than it is to

by clcaev 5y ago

The promotion of false things is very profitable; by contrast, true things are far less engaging. Worse, it is more expensive to dispel a mistruth than it is to create and spread misinformation. How do we address this systems design challenge without censorship?

davidw 5y ago
AKA "Brandolini's Law": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law
dbtc 5y ago
Make “mistruth” dispelling monetizable? Not sure how that could be done. I see the root problem as the same as general device addiction. Seeking instathrills. So, teaching mindfulness and attention-strength-training. General mental health.
peytn 5y ago
James Madison figured it was better to leave a few “noxious branches to their luxuriant growth” than to risk “[injuring] the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits.” What makes you think now, 250 years into the most prosperous society in human history, is the right time to revisit this position?
- mattzito 5y ago
  The noxious branches have mutated into kudzu- invasive, ever-spreading, and damaging to the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits. Madison's analogy imagines a world that was true up until 20-some years ago, where most people believed in a common view of the world, with different philosophies about that world. Today, a significant percentage of the population believes that the election was stolen from donald trump due to extreme election fraud. Another, similar, significant percentage believes that vaccines are at best dangerous and at worst implanting microchips and turning people magnetic. That's people not operating under the same basis of facts as everyone else.
  - JamesAkka 5y ago
    In Arizona, the results of audit are in, please decide for yourself if election was stolen or MSM is covering up by denying and constantly changing their message. In race decided by 10,457 votes 3,981 voted despite registered AFTER Oct 15 deadline 11,326 voted who were NOT on rolls on Nov 7 but WERE on Dec 4 18,000 voted and then were removed from rolls AFTER election 74,243 mail-in ballots w/ NO evidence of ever being sent
- brokenintuition 5y ago
  To be fair, James Madison didn't live in a time where someone could easily spread their beliefs to millions of people instantaneously. Historical comparisons have their place, but this probably isn't it.
  - programmarchy 5y ago
    It's easier to spread information, therefore the ability to spread information should be restricted?
    - dralley 5y ago
      By analogy, consider how frequent spam phone calls have become as a direct result of VoIP technology making it trivial to automate them. Email has been in that position for a long time, so much so that the quality of censorship is frequently advertised as a feature by mail services.
      - nonethewiser 5y ago
        You can mark things detected as spam as not spam though. Filtering is not censorship.
      - programmarchy 5y ago
        Sure, but filtering spam is different than the censorship being done by social media platforms. I can easily opt in to calls and messages from a person or group by adding them to my contacts. However, if my contact is deplatformed, then that removes my ability to opt in. So the locus of agency shifts from me to some corporate or governmental authority, which is what people actually have a problem with.
        sellyme 5y ago
        You're confusing a protocol (email) with a platform (e.g., Twitter). You can still pretty easily "opt in" to receiving their communications. You just can't force someone else to be the middleman. If they set up their own blog or forum you're completely free to visit that. This is similar to how you can't force bob@example.org to forward you your friend's messages, but your friend can send them to you from their own personal email. The locus of agency is on your friend to put in the effort themselves if they can't find anyone willing to help them spread their speech.
- cfjgvjh 5y ago
  For one, now mistruths can be made much more quickly than truths - hello GPT-3 - and can be delivered in a far more convincing way than any other time. I have a hard time telling AI generated video apart sometimes, which will only improve as time goes on. Nor was there an existence of platforms that not only enable but encourage the creation of echo chambers that reinforce preexisting views and actively attempt to intervene for our attention. There is no practical limit to mistruth "content" that can be made, whereas proper information takes time and effort; I think we're nearing a point where genuine information will simply be crowded out and buried.
  - btown 5y ago
    One doesn’t need AI generated content for this to be true, just AI generated suggestions. The founding fathers almost certainly never anticipated that “newspapers” would have the capability and incentive to make every human being feel like the local conspiracy theorists down at the pub were actually representative of all of society. But here we are.
  - helloworld11 5y ago
    Bullshit. If anything, widespread misinformed beliefs were ever more common and deeply rooted prior to the modern digital age. Today many people do indeed pick up stupid concepts and begin to believe them, but the very same system of rapid digital communication of ideas, and evidence, that you seem to think worthy of censorship today also rapidly allows people to convince others of how false their more foolish ideas are. Truthful information may indeed travel more slowly than misinformation (though I'd love to see a citation for this constantly repeated claim) but good, evidence based information is also now easier than ever to find. This is a direct result of open, free expression of ideas in the digital sphere with fewer restrictions than at any time in history. I can't think of an easier way to crush such a good basic thing than some idiotic, misguided and emotionally driven crusade against "misinformation", or fake news.
    - cfjgvjh 5y ago
      > but good, evidence based information is also now easier than ever to find. This assumption does not really work when "the echo chamber" of algorithmic curation and optimization for attention does not expose you to ideas outside of your bubble. It's also true that access to evidence based research, say in open journals, is now easier than ever; that doesn't mean I have enough knowledge to properly understand their implications. That significantly limits the permeability of good, solid information compared to garbage. It's not at all related to the topic at hand, but Japan recently liberalized their power plan so that consumers can choose who generates the power; a study on Japanese public perception of energy liberalization[0] found that over 30% of these that did not consider power plan switching and over 20% that seriously considered it decided to not go through with the provider switch because they couldn't find enough information or had a hard time understanding. It's just a singular data point, but I think the actual hurdle to absorbing the information as opposed to accessing it is a lot higher. Things like COVID safety or the shape of the Earth is far more personal and complex (once you go down to quality, evidence based information) than power plans, and they lack the financial incentive that switching power plans have. What makes you think that these people in a bubble would venture out to find quality information or listen to an outsider pointing out just how wrong they are? Unlike the GP, I'm not personally in favor of censorship, as you say, the freedom of expression and information has far too much benefit to restrict mindlessly. Rather, I want to go back to the pre-"algorithm" days where quality content was spread via word of mouth and not through some engagement metric. [0] 10.1016/j.erss.2017.09.026 - It's just something tangentially related that I've read recently.
- windowojji 5y ago
  What makes you think that everyone who wrote the Constitution and relevant documents 250 years ago was infallible? The founding fathers got plenty of things wrong, knowing they were designing an imperfect system. For example, first past the post voting. Washington cautioned against the rise of political parties knowing full well that they were an inevitable consequence of the system he was complicit in engendering.
- taurath 5y ago
  In his time, to send a letter from the US to the UK took 6-12 weeks. "Fruit" was relatively rare, whether noxious or proper. Too much of anything can be harmful. Your appeal to authority could also be applied to suffrage or the abolishment of slavery. "What makes you think that now, xxx years into the most propsperous society in human history, is the right time to revisit the institution of slavery"? Times change. That said, there's nothing in particular to stop a political party in the US from being completely anti democratic and bringing down the entire system of both government, elections and the constitution. It just hasn't really started happening since the civil war until now.
generalizations 5y ago
By letting people make their own decisions. You've no right to make any claims to better discernment of truth than anyone else, and no one else does either. Your claims to truth have no priority above anyone else's.
cyanydeez 5y ago
engagement is a false value proposition to maximise. works though.
programmarchy 5y ago
> true things are far less engaging This is an over-generalization so I don't think your premise completely stands. Some truths are very engaging, and support large communities of people working together to explore them. I would put forth that the systems design challenge has to start with the human mind. People need to be taught proper grammar, logic, and rhetoric to reason properly and be able to express and debate what is true and what is false. Getting to the truth is often difficult, but a critical thinker can quickly sort through bad information, because it's full of contradictions and fallacies. However, the "system" doesn't seem to actually want too many critical thinkers, because that would make it more difficult to wield power over its population. Cognitive ability only needs to be trained up to a certain point where individuals become useful corporate inputs, so there's an incentive for conformity to outweigh critical thinking and even creativity. Therefore, I don't think a top-down approach e.g. federal education reform, etc. would actually work. What might work is organizing a more bottom-up approach of building peer education systems. If you'll permit me to use Star Wars parlance, imagine 1,000 Jedi academies forming and coordinating at higher levels where possible. These academies could take many shapes and sizes, and some current examples include Khan Academy, Ad Astra Academy, Acton Academy, or even homeschool cooperatives.
helloworld11 5y ago
This has always been the case and false rumors have a long history of spreading like wildfire. They're nothing new to social discourse, not even in the era of digital social media. Yet somehow, many of the most successful and humanitarian societies have managed to avoid forcing a uniform "misinformation-free truth" down peoples throats through censorship of contrary opinions without collapsing in ruin. If the freedom to claim whatever you like is profitable to many, the freedom to repress those who say what it doesn't like is even more profitable to a small group of powerful interests and government officials.
- CRConrad 5y ago
  > Yet somehow, many of the most successful and humanitarian societies have managed to avoid forcing a uniform "misinformation-free truth" down peoples throats through censorship of contrary opinions without collapsing in ruin. 1) Yeah... And some didn't. 2) The mis- and disinformation-spreading machinery is getting ever more effective and efficient. 3) Removing the worst of the mis- and disinformation is not the same as "forcing a uniform 'misinformation-free truth" down peoples throats through censorship".
herbst 5y ago
I am following some missinformation telegram groups for fun. And one thing I dont understand is that these people are actively going out of their way to blinden their eyes whenever someone says something that doesn't fit their narrative. There is not one channel I am part of that does not constantly post contradicting information and yet the same people sit there to agree. The admins only care about their herbal affiliate links, they rarely engage in discussions. What I am saying is, it's the people that are to blame. No one who is willing or able to do their own research, or who does not have some kind of brain damage hindering them should be very well able to fact check and realize what these groups actually are.

by clcaev 5y ago

davidw 5y ago

AKA "Brandolini's Law": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brandolini%27s_law

dbtc 5y ago

Make “mistruth” dispelling monetizable? Not sure how that could be done. I see the root problem as the same as general device addiction. Seeking instathrills. So, teaching mindfulness and attention-strength-training. General mental health.

peytn 5y ago

James Madison figured it was better to leave a few “noxious branches to their luxuriant growth” than to risk “[injuring] the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits.” What makes you think now, 250 years into the most prosperous society in human history, is the right time to revisit this position?

mattzito 5y ago
The noxious branches have mutated into kudzu- invasive, ever-spreading, and damaging to the vigor of those yielding the proper fruits. Madison's analogy imagines a world that was true up until 20-some years ago, where most people believed in a common view of the world, with different philosophies about that world. Today, a significant percentage of the population believes that the election was stolen from donald trump due to extreme election fraud. Another, similar, significant percentage believes that vaccines are at best dangerous and at worst implanting microchips and turning people magnetic. That's people not operating under the same basis of facts as everyone else.
- JamesAkka 5y ago
  In Arizona, the results of audit are in, please decide for yourself if election was stolen or MSM is covering up by denying and constantly changing their message. In race decided by 10,457 votes 3,981 voted despite registered AFTER Oct 15 deadline 11,326 voted who were NOT on rolls on Nov 7 but WERE on Dec 4 18,000 voted and then were removed from rolls AFTER election 74,243 mail-in ballots w/ NO evidence of ever being sent
brokenintuition 5y ago
To be fair, James Madison didn't live in a time where someone could easily spread their beliefs to millions of people instantaneously. Historical comparisons have their place, but this probably isn't it.
- programmarchy 5y ago
  It's easier to spread information, therefore the ability to spread information should be restricted?
  - dralley 5y ago
    By analogy, consider how frequent spam phone calls have become as a direct result of VoIP technology making it trivial to automate them. Email has been in that position for a long time, so much so that the quality of censorship is frequently advertised as a feature by mail services.
    - nonethewiser 5y ago
      You can mark things detected as spam as not spam though. Filtering is not censorship.
    - programmarchy 5y ago
      Sure, but filtering spam is different than the censorship being done by social media platforms. I can easily opt in to calls and messages from a person or group by adding them to my contacts. However, if my contact is deplatformed, then that removes my ability to opt in. So the locus of agency shifts from me to some corporate or governmental authority, which is what people actually have a problem with.
      - sellyme 5y ago
        You're confusing a protocol (email) with a platform (e.g., Twitter). You can still pretty easily "opt in" to receiving their communications. You just can't force someone else to be the middleman. If they set up their own blog or forum you're completely free to visit that. This is similar to how you can't force bob@example.org to forward you your friend's messages, but your friend can send them to you from their own personal email. The locus of agency is on your friend to put in the effort themselves if they can't find anyone willing to help them spread their speech.
cfjgvjh 5y ago
For one, now mistruths can be made much more quickly than truths - hello GPT-3 - and can be delivered in a far more convincing way than any other time. I have a hard time telling AI generated video apart sometimes, which will only improve as time goes on. Nor was there an existence of platforms that not only enable but encourage the creation of echo chambers that reinforce preexisting views and actively attempt to intervene for our attention. There is no practical limit to mistruth "content" that can be made, whereas proper information takes time and effort; I think we're nearing a point where genuine information will simply be crowded out and buried.
- btown 5y ago
  One doesn’t need AI generated content for this to be true, just AI generated suggestions. The founding fathers almost certainly never anticipated that “newspapers” would have the capability and incentive to make every human being feel like the local conspiracy theorists down at the pub were actually representative of all of society. But here we are.
- helloworld11 5y ago
  Bullshit. If anything, widespread misinformed beliefs were ever more common and deeply rooted prior to the modern digital age. Today many people do indeed pick up stupid concepts and begin to believe them, but the very same system of rapid digital communication of ideas, and evidence, that you seem to think worthy of censorship today also rapidly allows people to convince others of how false their more foolish ideas are. Truthful information may indeed travel more slowly than misinformation (though I'd love to see a citation for this constantly repeated claim) but good, evidence based information is also now easier than ever to find. This is a direct result of open, free expression of ideas in the digital sphere with fewer restrictions than at any time in history. I can't think of an easier way to crush such a good basic thing than some idiotic, misguided and emotionally driven crusade against "misinformation", or fake news.
  - cfjgvjh 5y ago
    > but good, evidence based information is also now easier than ever to find. This assumption does not really work when "the echo chamber" of algorithmic curation and optimization for attention does not expose you to ideas outside of your bubble. It's also true that access to evidence based research, say in open journals, is now easier than ever; that doesn't mean I have enough knowledge to properly understand their implications. That significantly limits the permeability of good, solid information compared to garbage. It's not at all related to the topic at hand, but Japan recently liberalized their power plan so that consumers can choose who generates the power; a study on Japanese public perception of energy liberalization[0] found that over 30% of these that did not consider power plan switching and over 20% that seriously considered it decided to not go through with the provider switch because they couldn't find enough information or had a hard time understanding. It's just a singular data point, but I think the actual hurdle to absorbing the information as opposed to accessing it is a lot higher. Things like COVID safety or the shape of the Earth is far more personal and complex (once you go down to quality, evidence based information) than power plans, and they lack the financial incentive that switching power plans have. What makes you think that these people in a bubble would venture out to find quality information or listen to an outsider pointing out just how wrong they are? Unlike the GP, I'm not personally in favor of censorship, as you say, the freedom of expression and information has far too much benefit to restrict mindlessly. Rather, I want to go back to the pre-"algorithm" days where quality content was spread via word of mouth and not through some engagement metric. [0] 10.1016/j.erss.2017.09.026 - It's just something tangentially related that I've read recently.
windowojji 5y ago
What makes you think that everyone who wrote the Constitution and relevant documents 250 years ago was infallible? The founding fathers got plenty of things wrong, knowing they were designing an imperfect system. For example, first past the post voting. Washington cautioned against the rise of political parties knowing full well that they were an inevitable consequence of the system he was complicit in engendering.
taurath 5y ago
In his time, to send a letter from the US to the UK took 6-12 weeks. "Fruit" was relatively rare, whether noxious or proper. Too much of anything can be harmful. Your appeal to authority could also be applied to suffrage or the abolishment of slavery. "What makes you think that now, xxx years into the most propsperous society in human history, is the right time to revisit the institution of slavery"? Times change. That said, there's nothing in particular to stop a political party in the US from being completely anti democratic and bringing down the entire system of both government, elections and the constitution. It just hasn't really started happening since the civil war until now.

generalizations 5y ago

By letting people make their own decisions. You've no right to make any claims to better discernment of truth than anyone else, and no one else does either. Your claims to truth have no priority above anyone else's.

cyanydeez 5y ago

engagement is a false value proposition to maximise. works though.

programmarchy 5y ago

> true things are far less engaging This is an over-generalization so I don't think your premise completely stands. Some truths are very engaging, and support large communities of people working together to explore them. I would put forth that the systems design challenge has to start with the human mind. People need to be taught proper grammar, logic, and rhetoric to reason properly and be able to express and debate what is true and what is false. Getting to the truth is often difficult, but a critical thinker can quickly sort through bad information, because it's full of contradictions and fallacies. However, the "system" doesn't seem to actually want too many critical thinkers, because that would make it more difficult to wield power over its population. Cognitive ability only needs to be trained up to a certain point where individuals become useful corporate inputs, so there's an incentive for conformity to outweigh critical thinking and even creativity. Therefore, I don't think a top-down approach e.g. federal education reform, etc. would actually work. What might work is organizing a more bottom-up approach of building peer education systems. If you'll permit me to use Star Wars parlance, imagine 1,000 Jedi academies forming and coordinating at higher levels where possible. These academies could take many shapes and sizes, and some current examples include Khan Academy, Ad Astra Academy, Acton Academy, or even homeschool cooperatives.

helloworld11 5y ago

This has always been the case and false rumors have a long history of spreading like wildfire. They're nothing new to social discourse, not even in the era of digital social media. Yet somehow, many of the most successful and humanitarian societies have managed to avoid forcing a uniform "misinformation-free truth" down peoples throats through censorship of contrary opinions without collapsing in ruin. If the freedom to claim whatever you like is profitable to many, the freedom to repress those who say what it doesn't like is even more profitable to a small group of powerful interests and government officials.

CRConrad 5y ago
> Yet somehow, many of the most successful and humanitarian societies have managed to avoid forcing a uniform "misinformation-free truth" down peoples throats through censorship of contrary opinions without collapsing in ruin. 1) Yeah... And some didn't. 2) The mis- and disinformation-spreading machinery is getting ever more effective and efficient. 3) Removing the worst of the mis- and disinformation is not the same as "forcing a uniform 'misinformation-free truth" down peoples throats through censorship".

herbst 5y ago

I am following some missinformation telegram groups for fun. And one thing I dont understand is that these people are actively going out of their way to blinden their eyes whenever someone says something that doesn't fit their narrative. There is not one channel I am part of that does not constantly post contradicting information and yet the same people sit there to agree. The admins only care about their herbal affiliate links, they rarely engage in discussions. What I am saying is, it's the people that are to blame. No one who is willing or able to do their own research, or who does not have some kind of brain damage hindering them should be very well able to fact check and realize what these groups actually are.