The internet is increasingly a low-trust society
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Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society
#2Hurr durr my Russian bots
Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society
#3This is the most intelligent take on internet trust issues that I've seen. The conclusion is overly glib though: it took centuries for high-trust societies to develop the mechanisms that allow them to function as such, and even small changes can upset that balance (as we've been seeing in the real world over the last couple of years). We shouldn't assume it will be trivial to bootstrap those kinds of institutions on the internet.
Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society
#4Hurr durr my Russian bots
Ignoring the politics behind this article, it still has a point in how fake, scripted posts alter the global conversation.
Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society
#5In my mind, focusing on bots is kind of barking up the wrong tree. A lot of fake reviews on Amazon are written by real humans -- my main concern is not figuring out whether a human or a bot wrote a comment, it's figuring out whether or not the comment/review is trustworthy.
If we got rid of all of the bots, that wouldn't make Amazon easier for me to use. I feel like scammers have already figured out that humans themselves are relatively cheap to buy.
Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society
#6In my mind, focusing on bots is kind of barking up the wrong tree. A lot of fake reviews on Amazon are written by real humans -- my main concern is not figuring out whether a human or a bot wrote a comment, it's figuring out whether or not the comment/review is trustworthy. If we got rid of all of the bots, that wouldn't make Amazon easier for me to use. I feel like scammers have already figured out that humans thems…
The article doesn’t focus on bots ( in fact it specifically mentions times when humans pretend to be bots). It’s really about internet fakery in general eroding trust.
Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society
#7There's no mention of what I think is by far the biggest negative influence on trust: the media. Trust in media is at an all time low:
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/trust...
It's a totally self inflicted wound too. Clickbait, outrage bait, blatant political spin, stealthy retractions, journalists on social media starting mobs...
Bots do not even register in most people's minds compared to that.
Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society
#8In my mind, focusing on bots is kind of barking up the wrong tree. A lot of fake reviews on Amazon are written by real humans -- my main concern is not figuring out whether a human or a bot wrote a comment, it's figuring out whether or not the comment/review is trustworthy. If we got rid of all of the bots, that wouldn't make Amazon easier for me to use. I feel like scammers have already figured out that humans thems…
The article doesn’t focus on bots ( in fact it specifically mentions times when humans pretend to be bots). It’s really about internet fakery in general eroding trust.
Yep, just expanding on the premise of the article and reinforcing that this is a general trust problem, since a large portion of the current conversation around internet trust does revolve around bots.
Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society
#9There's no mention of what I think is by far the biggest negative influence on trust: the media. Trust in media is at an all time low: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/trust... It's a totally self inflicted wound too. Clickbait, outrage bait, blatant political spin, stealthy retractions, journalists on social media starting mobs... Bots do not even register in most people's minds compared to tha…
All modern forms of yellow journalism.
Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society
#10There's no mention of what I think is by far the biggest negative influence on trust: the media. Trust in media is at an all time low: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/trust... It's a totally self inflicted wound too. Clickbait, outrage bait, blatant political spin, stealthy retractions, journalists on social media starting mobs... Bots do not even register in most people's minds compared to tha…
Do you think a group of journalists selling verified, accurate, non clickbait articles based on data and first hand accounts would be able to generate enough revenue to feed the journalist’s children and send them to college?