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The internet is increasingly a low-trust society

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Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society

#11

Post by ipython »

rosterface wrote: post #7

There'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…

Perhaps it's more a reflection of the incentives at work? How do you drive engagement with your content? Clearly 'clickbait' is (was?) successful at driving traffic, otherwise it wouldn't be called clickbait. Polarization is used successfully by other 'non-political' sites such as YouTube to drive engagement statistics (and hence ad impressions), and so forth. If you're trying to stay afloat in a competitive media environment, what would you do?

There is no mass incentive for thought-out, contemplative, long-form journalism. In my opinion, we have dug our own grave - the truth is that the primitive, animal parts of our brain vastly overpower the analytical parts of our brain, and so your 'outrage bait' is a news (or tech) executive's bonus for the year. If the only metric by which we measure anything is $$$, then, well...

Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society

#12

Post by 0815test »

rosterface wrote: post #7

There'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…

It's not just media, but the education system as well. More educated people are significantly more, not less likely to fail Intellectual-Turing-Tests about people with opposing views. i.e. far from increasing openness to experience, education itself is functioning much like indoctrination into a fundamentalist religion! The effect starts already at a High-School level and becomes worse and worse as educational attainment rises:

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/republican...

If this doesn't scare the s--t out of you, I don't know what would.

Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society

#13

Post by 0xfeba »

At probably a naive glance it seems related to anonymity. Would tying identity to online posts increase this trust? What if you had to insert your National ID Card to comment in some feedback forums?

I remember YouTube tried this and failed due to pushback.

What's the driver of this clickbait/instant gratification/hot take culture that's developing? Is it just ads?

Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society

#15

Post by iagovar »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10
rosterface wrote: post #7

There'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?

Maybe not, but it's still a problem. It's the same in Spain, most media is hard to trust on basically anything. They even adhere to stupid projects like "The Trust Project" and spin off factcheking brands, but none of that solved the problem. It's still the same people claiming that, oh no, this time you can trust us!

I even experienced being the target of a report (well, the company I work for), and they did an awful job. I felt that the story they made up was only tangentially related to reality.

Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society

#16

Post by boomboomsubban »

allemagne wrote: post #14
notasnakein wrote: post #2

Hurr durr my Russian bots

What is this comment intended to mock?

It assumes the entire post is about a throwaway example given as a eye-catching part of the piece. It's also an example of the low-trust society discussed, the commenter assumed the worst if the article and attacked immediately.

Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society

#17

Post by lotsofpulp »

iagovar wrote: post #15
lotsofpulp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Maybe not, but it's still a problem. It's the same in Spain, most media is hard to trust on basically anything. They even adhere to stupid projects like "The Trust Project" and spin off factcheking brands, but none of that solved the problem. It's still the same people claiming that, oh no, this time you can trust us! I even experienced being the target of a report (well, the company I work for), and they did an awfu…

The purpose of my comment is to illustrate that the collective "we" as a society are to blame for the lack of good journalism in the market. "We" don't demand it (i.e. pay for it), and so we get what we (don't) pay for. The person I was responding to claimed the media self inflicted it upon itself (I presume based on the prose of their comment), my claim is society self inflicted it upon itself.

Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society

#18

Post by sb057 »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #10
rosterface wrote: post #7

There'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?

That's part of the issue; there is no need for commercial first-hand accounts anymore. If someone on social media is talking about a news event and provides a video documenting their presence, that is about as verified and accurate as you can hope for.

Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society

#19

Post by parasar1983 »

ipython wrote: post #11
rosterface wrote: post #7

There'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…

Perhaps it's more a reflection of the incentives at work? How do you drive engagement with your content? Clearly 'clickbait' is (was?) successful at driving traffic, otherwise it wouldn't be called clickbait. Polarization is used successfully by other 'non-political' sites such as YouTube to drive engagement statistics (and hence ad impressions), and so forth. If you're trying to stay afloat in a competitive media en…

"Journalism" has a "push" element in addition to "pull"

Re: The internet is increasingly a low-trust society

#20

Post by lotsofpulp »

sb057 wrote: post #18
lotsofpulp wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

That's part of the issue; there is no need for commercial first-hand accounts anymore. If someone on social media is talking about a news event and provides a video documenting their presence, that is about as verified and accurate as you can hope for.

There absolutely is a need for multiple, verified, consistency and fact checked first hand accounts. One person on social media does not provide an objective and difficult to falsify viewpoint.
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