I fear none of this changes until the financial incentives change and I don't see that happening. IMO, most of the disinformation is now driven by trolling and grifting. Sure, ther are true believers and legitimate debaters but, as DiResta pointed out in her brilliant Twitter thread (and I see the irony) there was a time before SOCIAL media when these folks couldn't escalate their message exponentially. The business model of Tech, (growth at all costs) seems to be a really big piece of how we arrived where we are.
In my working life (I am retired) I had a window into the lives of many people that were, at best, high school graduates. They lived paycheck to paycheck, they rarely, if ever, talked about issues, they were open to whatever nonsense FB was circulating, conspiracies made a lot of sense to them, in other words they are perfect targets for disinformation. How do we reach them? How do we clean up the narratives? Seems overwhelming to me......
Full disclosure, I have never had a FB page. My only social media is Twitter, and I use it as a news aggregator.
Free speech advocates are not being dishonest about what the government is doing here. As Facebook's regulator, with people in congress speaking openly about breaking it up as a monopoly, the government cannot neutrally flag problematic Facebook posts for moderation without it being an endrun around the first amendment.
I sometimes like to set aside questions of balance to simply consider the potential power and influence Facebook might have if it just decided to do good, which it could. Why, in other words, does Facebook seek to also amplify the bad? (Ask why give times.)
"...an unproductive, false binary of a conversation on a complex topic that deserves far more nuance. Ironically, the argument is a great example of social media-influenced and flattened discourse that is poisoning us all."
Loving these lines so much. I constantly wonder what it would take to replace the 'either-or' energy in our culture with 'and-and'. I achieved it personally by quitting Twitter & most corporate media, replacing my comforting sources with an uncomfortable news & commentary spectrum, from quite left to quite right. But I struggle to encourage even close friends to try it.
Another homerun Charlie!
I fear none of this changes until the financial incentives change and I don't see that happening. IMO, most of the disinformation is now driven by trolling and grifting. Sure, ther are true believers and legitimate debaters but, as DiResta pointed out in her brilliant Twitter thread (and I see the irony) there was a time before SOCIAL media when these folks couldn't escalate their message exponentially. The business model of Tech, (growth at all costs) seems to be a really big piece of how we arrived where we are.
In my working life (I am retired) I had a window into the lives of many people that were, at best, high school graduates. They lived paycheck to paycheck, they rarely, if ever, talked about issues, they were open to whatever nonsense FB was circulating, conspiracies made a lot of sense to them, in other words they are perfect targets for disinformation. How do we reach them? How do we clean up the narratives? Seems overwhelming to me......
Full disclosure, I have never had a FB page. My only social media is Twitter, and I use it as a news aggregator.
Free speech advocates are not being dishonest about what the government is doing here. As Facebook's regulator, with people in congress speaking openly about breaking it up as a monopoly, the government cannot neutrally flag problematic Facebook posts for moderation without it being an endrun around the first amendment.
Excellent review of a problem that is far more wicked than most people realize, and getting worse. Very good links to great material.
I sometimes like to set aside questions of balance to simply consider the potential power and influence Facebook might have if it just decided to do good, which it could. Why, in other words, does Facebook seek to also amplify the bad? (Ask why give times.)
"...an unproductive, false binary of a conversation on a complex topic that deserves far more nuance. Ironically, the argument is a great example of social media-influenced and flattened discourse that is poisoning us all."
Loving these lines so much. I constantly wonder what it would take to replace the 'either-or' energy in our culture with 'and-and'. I achieved it personally by quitting Twitter & most corporate media, replacing my comforting sources with an uncomfortable news & commentary spectrum, from quite left to quite right. But I struggle to encourage even close friends to try it.