Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995) • Hacker News Board

Re: Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)

#11

Post by 013a » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

inflatableDodo wrote: post #2

Terry Pratchett - > 'OK, lets say I call myself the Institute for Something-or-other and I decide to promote a spurious treatise saying the Jews were entirely responsible for the Second World War and the Holocaust didn't happen. And it goes out there on the internet and is available on the same terms as any piece of historical research that has undergone peer review and so on. There's a kind of parity of esteem of in…

To be fair, there's some accurate insight in Bill's response that shouldn't lead anyone to just conclude that he was totally wrong. Terry correctly predicted fake news, but Bill also correctly predicted our response to it, which would be to form centralized authorities (like what Facebook is doing), algorithmic newsfeeds, sharing systems, reputation systems, etc. He even says "not for long", like he agreed that it would happen but we'd solve it. Though the jury's still out on whether we'll solve it.

Re: Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)

#12

Post by ebg13 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

There's always something magical about the naïveté of thinking that technology can solve people. Bill Gates understood business and technology. Terry Pratchett understood people. Gates is literally arguing in favor of filter bubbles here without the clarity to realize that those bubbles go both ways.

Re: Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)

#13

Post by Fellshard » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:41 PM UTC

inflatableDodo wrote: post #2

Terry Pratchett - > 'OK, lets say I call myself the Institute for Something-or-other and I decide to promote a spurious treatise saying the Jews were entirely responsible for the Second World War and the Holocaust didn't happen. And it goes out there on the internet and is available on the same terms as any piece of historical research that has undergone peer review and so on. There's a kind of parity of esteem of in…

You undersell both Pratchett's target audience and his already-known deep insight into his humanity tends to operate.

Re: Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)

#14

Post by moocowtruck » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

lets be real here, isn't it obvious that where there is freedom to do and say what you want in a setting anonymously or even not...a high chance of fake news. Lets be realistic fake news is not new, its just spreads faster on the internet. People have used fake news all throughout history to drive agenda.

Re: Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)

#15

Post by crisper » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

Public enemy warned us too!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vQaVIoEjOM 1:38

Re: Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)

#16

Post by ocschwar » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:42 PM UTC

ocschwar in 1996 would have sided with Bill Gates too, albeit for different reasons.

In 1996 we were seeing disinfo activists (such as Holocaust denialists) trying to emerge from the margins and turn Usenet into their space, and being pushed back into the margins where they belonged.

Now, we have Twitter, which honestly makes Usenet look like a golden age of enlightened discourse.

Re: Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)

#17

Post by flattone » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

Bill forgot to measure the variety of types of character available to the net, which in my current view are a significant contributor to the more alarming instances of fake-news gaining its recent traction.

'Variety of character' example thought process 'this seems totally against all common accepted knowledge but im feeling unique, im going to run with this information as very true.'

Re: Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)

#18

Post by vanderZwan » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

Terry Pratchett was a news reporter before he turned writer[0], and IIRC the latter partially happened out of frustration with how little people seemed to care about the truth (of course, the UK tabloids have a particularly notorious reputation here). Although I may have interpreted that last part based on Neil Gaiman's memory of Pratchett as being a very angry man, in a good way[1]

In that light it's not that surprising that Pratchett had good insights on how the internet would pan out: he had a very good understanding of the human side of it, and especially a good feeling for the ways in which humanity was going to disappoint him, and all of us.

[0] https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2014/sep/12...

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/24/terry-pratchet...

Re: Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)

#19

Post by quirmian » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:43 PM UTC

inflatableDodo wrote: post #2

Terry Pratchett - > 'OK, lets say I call myself the Institute for Something-or-other and I decide to promote a spurious treatise saying the Jews were entirely responsible for the Second World War and the Holocaust didn't happen. And it goes out there on the internet and is available on the same terms as any piece of historical research that has undergone peer review and so on. There's a kind of parity of esteem of in…

> children’s comedy novelist

Do you also consider HHGTTG to be a toddler’s bedtime story?

- A butthurt Discworld fan in his mid 30s.

Re: Terry Pratchett warns Bill Gates about fake news (1995)

#20

Post by josephorjoe » Thu, May 30, 2019, 1:44 PM UTC

inflatableDodo wrote: post #2

Terry Pratchett - > 'OK, lets say I call myself the Institute for Something-or-other and I decide to promote a spurious treatise saying the Jews were entirely responsible for the Second World War and the Holocaust didn't happen. And it goes out there on the internet and is available on the same terms as any piece of historical research that has undergone peer review and so on. There's a kind of parity of esteem of in…

No one who has read Terry Pratchett will be surprised that he has deep insight into human nature.

His books are full of explorations of what motivates humans and how humans misunderstand each other. They are also frequently hilarious.

Bill Gates quote seems to reveal an expectation that humans would respect authority and be guided by it in their decision making -- which shows a shallow understanding of human nature.

The quote also anticipates that information distribution would flow through personal and professional connections and interests rather than being organized in a way to generate the most ad revenue possible.