5 ms·

For more and more people, a random YouTuber seemed preferable to a credentialled expert People are too used to "having a platform" being a credential in and of

by dfxm12 2y ago

For more and more people, a random YouTuber seemed preferable to a credentialled expert People are too used to "having a platform" being a credential in and of itself. They wouldn't let just anyone be a TV News anchor or have a drive time talk radio show or write a book, right? There have always been snake oil salesmen, but what's unique about today is that it's very easy to make yourself look like Dan Rather or Barbara Walters or even Hunter S. Thompson. Some people fall into this false authority trap. Anecdotally, I find that older generations are more willing to accept what they see online just because it is "published" online. Hopefully this is something that works itself out as more and more people grow up with these platforms.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago
Speaking of Dan Rather, remember he tried to pass off a forged memo as real and was called out on it by a bunch of bloggers. And recently Hollywood released a movie that tried to whitewash this. A lot of the hand-wringing about how no one cares for the truth is mainly the elite crying over the loss of power to define truth for everyone.
- dfxm12 2y ago
  It's important to add that CBS also retracted this story.
  - pessimizer 2y ago
    Which doesn't really happen anymore. How are you going to retract Russiagate Pulitzers?
    - pjc50 2y ago
      Which Russiagate Pulitzer are you referring to, the 1932 one?
      - lazyeye 2y ago
        Obviously not.
    - Sabinus 2y ago
      The only part of Russiagate that wasn't true was no proven collision. The remainder was plenty bad.
- d_watt 2y ago
  I would think a key difference is once this was found out, Dan Rather was fired. There will always be failures of integrity. Our expectation can't be infallible people, but rather the rigor of an organization to care about the failures.
  - lazyeye 2y ago
    I think its more a case of once other people found out it became untenable to keep Dan Rather on. However if his lies had not become public they would have been happy to ignore it and move on to the next thing.
    - LiquidSky 2y ago
      Who is "they"? You seem to be implying that CBS was aware of the deception but hid it until its hand was forced by bloggers. Was that the case? Because otherwise they obviously couldn't act on something they didn't know.
      - lazyeye 2y ago
        I think almost certainly their primary motivation was self-preservation. The media simply lies, fabricates, deflects, obsfucates, cherry picks too much to assume they are acting in good faith.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- spratzt 2y ago
  I’ve always liked Foucault’s inversion of the old cliche: ‘Power is knowledge’
mountainb 2y ago
Part of the issue is the aborted attempt to turn journalism into a profession. Professionals, by and large, carry personal liability for errors, negligence, and deliberate bad behavior that harms their clients. Journalists are supposed to serve the public interest, but they generally only have narrow personal liability for torts like defamation. Recent precedent further limits that personal liability. Despite this, journalists in the later part of the 20th century successfully created an aura of professionalism borrowed. Cronkite, Rather, the 60 Minutes crew, etc. projected a sense of seriousness and professional care. In some instances, the newspapers really did and to some extent still do engage in fact checking and other professional activities to increase reliability. However, because all of these measures are self-enforcing, they became over time even more corrupted than they were before. They increasingly relied on anonymous sourcing for important matters, which is inherently open to abuse (it's why the Constitution requires that a defendant be able to confront their accusers and witnesses against them). They could no longer maintain this false aura because they were repeatedly confronted by bloggers and other small creators with evidence of their unreliability. The standard proposed solution to the problems created by powerful universal publishing technology tends to be a licensing regime of some kind as a preventative measure, or otherwise that publishing technology providers submit to close supervision by the state (as they did during the cough cough era). I think the better way that comports better with the Constitution is to just to enforce the criminal laws and facilitate civil suits against individuals retroactively for the harms that they cause through illegal speech. There are lots of kinds of illegal speech, e.g. you cannot engage in the unauthorized practice of law, you cannot provide medical advice without a license, you cannot defame people, you cannot incite riots, you cannot procure criminal acts, you cannot defraud, you cannot infringe on copyright, and so on and so forth. More lawsuits and prosecutions for illegal speech -- a reactive way of addressing the issues -- is less harmful and better comports with the Constitution than proactive means such as requiring that every social media user have a license that can be revoked or that the platforms submit to close management by the Article II government.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  > There are lots of kinds of illegal speech, e.g. you cannot engage in the unauthorized practice of law, you cannot provide medical advice without a license, you cannot defame people, you cannot incite riots, you cannot procure criminal acts, you cannot defraud, you cannot infringe on copyright, and so on and so forth. Is this sentence unauthorized practice of law? edit: It's a rhetorical question. If I had power over policing and the justice system, and I disagreed with you, and it were actually illegal to give legal or medical advice to people without a license (which it is not), it would absolutely be unauthorized practice of law and the spreading of misinformation. I might also claim that you're doing it to help Russia weaken a potential future law that would force journalists to be licensed. I will claim this with no evidence, but I will claim it everywhere, through dozens of different, soon-to-be-licensed, mouths. The rumor will be used as grounds to investigate you.
tbrownaw 2y ago
Or maybe instead, distrust of credentialed experts is a natural consequence of it becoming easier to catch people out when they lie? If say Fauci declares that there was no gain-of-function research, and some random blogger does a FOIA that turns up a paper trail proving otherwise? That's much easier to find out about these days than if I was limited to what a TV channel or two and maybe a couple newspapers decided to cover.
LocalH 2y ago
> Anecdotally, I find that older generations are more willing to accept what they see online just because it is "published" online. Hopefully this is something that works itself out as more and more people grow up with these platforms. That only applies when the content is something they philosophically agree with. Those same people, when presented with information they disagree with, will say "they'll let anyone put anything on the internet", with a completely straight face. The cognitive dissonance is strong.

by dfxm12 2y ago

RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago

Speaking of Dan Rather, remember he tried to pass off a forged memo as real and was called out on it by a bunch of bloggers. And recently Hollywood released a movie that tried to whitewash this. A lot of the hand-wringing about how no one cares for the truth is mainly the elite crying over the loss of power to define truth for everyone.

dfxm12 2y ago
It's important to add that CBS also retracted this story.
- pessimizer 2y ago
  Which doesn't really happen anymore. How are you going to retract Russiagate Pulitzers?
  - pjc50 2y ago
    Which Russiagate Pulitzer are you referring to, the 1932 one?
    - lazyeye 2y ago
      Obviously not.
  - Sabinus 2y ago
    The only part of Russiagate that wasn't true was no proven collision. The remainder was plenty bad.
d_watt 2y ago
I would think a key difference is once this was found out, Dan Rather was fired. There will always be failures of integrity. Our expectation can't be infallible people, but rather the rigor of an organization to care about the failures.
- lazyeye 2y ago
  I think its more a case of once other people found out it became untenable to keep Dan Rather on. However if his lies had not become public they would have been happy to ignore it and move on to the next thing.
  - LiquidSky 2y ago
    Who is "they"? You seem to be implying that CBS was aware of the deception but hid it until its hand was forced by bloggers. Was that the case? Because otherwise they obviously couldn't act on something they didn't know.
    - lazyeye 2y ago
      I think almost certainly their primary motivation was self-preservation. The media simply lies, fabricates, deflects, obsfucates, cherry picks too much to assume they are acting in good faith.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
spratzt 2y ago
I’ve always liked Foucault’s inversion of the old cliche: ‘Power is knowledge’

mountainb 2y ago

Part of the issue is the aborted attempt to turn journalism into a profession. Professionals, by and large, carry personal liability for errors, negligence, and deliberate bad behavior that harms their clients. Journalists are supposed to serve the public interest, but they generally only have narrow personal liability for torts like defamation. Recent precedent further limits that personal liability. Despite this, journalists in the later part of the 20th century successfully created an aura of professionalism borrowed. Cronkite, Rather, the 60 Minutes crew, etc. projected a sense of seriousness and professional care. In some instances, the newspapers really did and to some extent still do engage in fact checking and other professional activities to increase reliability. However, because all of these measures are self-enforcing, they became over time even more corrupted than they were before. They increasingly relied on anonymous sourcing for important matters, which is inherently open to abuse (it's why the Constitution requires that a defendant be able to confront their accusers and witnesses against them). They could no longer maintain this false aura because they were repeatedly confronted by bloggers and other small creators with evidence of their unreliability. The standard proposed solution to the problems created by powerful universal publishing technology tends to be a licensing regime of some kind as a preventative measure, or otherwise that publishing technology providers submit to close supervision by the state (as they did during the cough cough era). I think the better way that comports better with the Constitution is to just to enforce the criminal laws and facilitate civil suits against individuals retroactively for the harms that they cause through illegal speech. There are lots of kinds of illegal speech, e.g. you cannot engage in the unauthorized practice of law, you cannot provide medical advice without a license, you cannot defame people, you cannot incite riots, you cannot procure criminal acts, you cannot defraud, you cannot infringe on copyright, and so on and so forth. More lawsuits and prosecutions for illegal speech -- a reactive way of addressing the issues -- is less harmful and better comports with the Constitution than proactive means such as requiring that every social media user have a license that can be revoked or that the platforms submit to close management by the Article II government.

pessimizer 2y ago
> There are lots of kinds of illegal speech, e.g. you cannot engage in the unauthorized practice of law, you cannot provide medical advice without a license, you cannot defame people, you cannot incite riots, you cannot procure criminal acts, you cannot defraud, you cannot infringe on copyright, and so on and so forth. Is this sentence unauthorized practice of law? edit: It's a rhetorical question. If I had power over policing and the justice system, and I disagreed with you, and it were actually illegal to give legal or medical advice to people without a license (which it is not), it would absolutely be unauthorized practice of law and the spreading of misinformation. I might also claim that you're doing it to help Russia weaken a potential future law that would force journalists to be licensed. I will claim this with no evidence, but I will claim it everywhere, through dozens of different, soon-to-be-licensed, mouths. The rumor will be used as grounds to investigate you.

tbrownaw 2y ago

Or maybe instead, distrust of credentialed experts is a natural consequence of it becoming easier to catch people out when they lie? If say Fauci declares that there was no gain-of-function research, and some random blogger does a FOIA that turns up a paper trail proving otherwise? That's much easier to find out about these days than if I was limited to what a TV channel or two and maybe a couple newspapers decided to cover.

LocalH 2y ago

> Anecdotally, I find that older generations are more willing to accept what they see online just because it is "published" online. Hopefully this is something that works itself out as more and more people grow up with these platforms. That only applies when the content is something they philosophically agree with. Those same people, when presented with information they disagree with, will say "they'll let anyone put anything on the internet", with a completely straight face. The cognitive dissonance is strong.