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Except it doesn’t. It falls victim to all the same things. I’ve seen things posted with all kinds of conspiracy theories that I happen to have intimate knowledg

Except it doesn’t. It falls victim to all the same things. I’ve seen things posted with all kinds of conspiracy theories that I happen to have intimate knowledge of from where I’ve worked, and those theories are dead wrong. They’re a combination of not knowing about public information, not being able to understand it (outside of skill set), not bothering to do research before stating opinions and amplifying (upvoting) things that sound right but are in fact not, incorrectly connecting dots that are unrelated, bringing in false “facts”, stating opinions as facts that others assume are then facts, and a host of other issues. If all you’re depending on is others to upvote and downvote, then you information bubbles are easy to form. Facebook is notoriously bad for exactly this reason, as are forums that attract certain demographics / ideologies.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> They’re a combination of not knowing about public information, not being able to understand it (outside of skill set), not bothering to do research before stating opinions and amplifying (upvoting) things that sound right but are in fact not, incorrectly connecting dots that are unrelated, bringing in false “facts”, stating opinions as facts that others assume are then facts, and a host of other issues. "The China one of absolute information control" doesn't fix any of that, because the censors have no better information than anyone else about what is actually true. And bad incentives to suppress things they know are true but don't want to get out. The answer is, again, decentralized moderation. Subject matter specific discussion forums where the moderators are steeped in the subject matter and know better than the average man in the street or government bureaucrat what is and isn't malarkey. This is emphatically not what Facebook does which is why Facebook is a dung fire.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago

> They’re a combination of not knowing about public information, not being able to understand it (outside of skill set), not bothering to do research before stating opinions and amplifying (upvoting) things that sound right but are in fact not, incorrectly connecting dots that are unrelated, bringing in false “facts”, stating opinions as facts that others assume are then facts, and a host of other issues. "The China one of absolute information control" doesn't fix any of that, because the censors have no better information than anyone else about what is actually true. And bad incentives to suppress things they know are true but don't want to get out. The answer is, again, decentralized moderation. Subject matter specific discussion forums where the moderators are steeped in the subject matter and know better than the average man in the street or government bureaucrat what is and isn't malarkey. This is emphatically not what Facebook does which is why Facebook is a dung fire.