16 ms·

Because it's a central node in a potential disinformation network that wields immense power over American elections. Should it? No. Is it pathetic that it is?

Because it's a central node in a potential disinformation network that wields immense power over American elections. Should it? No. Is it pathetic that it is? Yes. But is vs. ought. It IS a powerful platform but ought not be.

jrockway 4y ago
It's easy to blame Twitter for election misinformation, but getting rid of Twitter will never be the solution. The problem will keep showing up until we fix the root cause. (I'm certain that people were upset about the invention of the printing press for the same reason.) At some point, to have a functioning democracy, the populace has to be educated. Then when there's misinformation, they'll just ignore it. In the past, we've gotten around this by it being expensive to broadcast ideas to large numbers of people. You had to be a newspaper or TV network, and newspapers and TV networks employed people worried about their reputation, so nobody ever published op-eds about how Bill Gates is injecting us with 5G microchips or whatever. This weeded out quite a lot of conspiracy theories and whatnot. But the reality is that the Internet changed the calculus there; anyone can publish anything to a large number of people. With that floodgate open, there is no going back and we have to teach people to critically analyze what they hear on the Internet. It's the last line of defense. This means that all the bluster over Facebook and Twitter and free speech needs to translate to increased funding for schools, and that if we start right now it will probably take a couple generations to get to a better place. There is no quick fix to make democracy work, only hard work and time.
- Jcowell 4y ago
  > At some point, to have a functioning democracy, the populace has to be educated. Then when there's misinformation, they'll just ignore it. How do you ignore misinformation that you don’t know is misinformation?

jrockway 4y ago

It's easy to blame Twitter for election misinformation, but getting rid of Twitter will never be the solution. The problem will keep showing up until we fix the root cause. (I'm certain that people were upset about the invention of the printing press for the same reason.) At some point, to have a functioning democracy, the populace has to be educated. Then when there's misinformation, they'll just ignore it. In the past, we've gotten around this by it being expensive to broadcast ideas to large numbers of people. You had to be a newspaper or TV network, and newspapers and TV networks employed people worried about their reputation, so nobody ever published op-eds about how Bill Gates is injecting us with 5G microchips or whatever. This weeded out quite a lot of conspiracy theories and whatnot. But the reality is that the Internet changed the calculus there; anyone can publish anything to a large number of people. With that floodgate open, there is no going back and we have to teach people to critically analyze what they hear on the Internet. It's the last line of defense. This means that all the bluster over Facebook and Twitter and free speech needs to translate to increased funding for schools, and that if we start right now it will probably take a couple generations to get to a better place. There is no quick fix to make democracy work, only hard work and time.

Jcowell 4y ago
> At some point, to have a functioning democracy, the populace has to be educated. Then when there's misinformation, they'll just ignore it. How do you ignore misinformation that you don’t know is misinformation?