The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation • Hacker News Board

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#161

Post by ironman1478 » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 11:41 PM UTC

betwixthewires wrote: post #128

ironman1478 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, those are examples, however what about people like rush limbaugh? Michael richards should be in trouble for what he did and he suffered the consequences, but somebody like rush limbaugh has an active listener base where he essentially lies about every group under the sun and there are no consequences. Here is his Wikipedia page which lists all his views, many of which are just abhorrent and factually incorrect…

I've seen some names you've named, and I don't like or follow those individuals, but I assume you don't like what they have to say. So as a thought experiment, ask yourself, is there anyone you like and follow that you believe is feeding you misinformation? Or are you the only person that is not basing your worldview on misleading information (or, maybe not alone, but others very much like you)? If the answer is no (…

I don't like what they have to say because its inherently not fact based. I am totally susceptible to bias and I do not claim to be otherwise, but there are certain ground rules we can set. Rush Limbaugh always starts off his rants and problematic messages with straight up incorrect statements. As in statements that are verifiably false. He then constructs arguments around these false ideas. The issue is, to the average viewer its difficult to know that those ideas are false (how are you gonna do that after working for 40+ hours a day doing manual labor, commuting, cooking, taking care of a kid, etc).

There are also people like Tucker Carlson who say things without validating their claims. Here is a recent example https://www.newsweek.com/fox-news-tucker-carlson-lockdown-pu...

and now guess what, oklahoma for example is experiencing increasing covid cases and now local officials are advocating for lockdowns, which is something scientists were advocating from the start. He was clearly wrong, however people DO listen to him. I know because I've lived with people who do and think he knows everything.

We even have a president who dog whistled a terror plot against the governor of Michigan. Trump is a white supremacist and white supremacism is inherently a non fact based ideological stance, yet it leads to stuff like the terror plot.

I am advocating for clamping down of purposeful disinformation. America itself knows how powerful purposeful disinformation is given its experiences with it during the cold war. What we should probably do is punish purposeful disinformation that has an intent to harm a specific group, the general public, or for the gain of an entity at the expense of the public (tobacco companies and polluters come to mind here. Lots of disinformation regarding health effects). Its generally very difficult to prove things like hate crimes (which the spreading of disinformation to harm a group is) and even cases like the michael richards incident wouldn't involve a punitive action. He was angry because he was bombing his set and said something wrong out of a moment frustration. He might truly be racist (or not, who knows other than him), but he doesn't seem to be actively working to advance his life at the expense of other's. He didn't actively work to disenfranchise a group of people, unlike people like David Duke who actively works to disenfranchise specific groups of people and has never suffered the consequences of it in America (he went to jail for tax fraud, but not for his awful actions funnily enough).

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#162

Post by strawberrypuree » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 11:42 PM UTC

tshaddox wrote: post #129

throwaway13337 wrote: post #95

Society is misdiagnosing the issue here. It's not unchecked free speech. Instead, it's unchecked curation by media and social media companies with the goal of engagement. As long as media companies get the most benefit from people engaging with content, they will continue to promote information that is damaging to society. It may even be true information but when the goal is engagement, it's purpose will be to enrage…

I agree with your diagnosis, but perhaps not your treatment plan. You seem to think that making the social networks’ business model illegal would not be a violation of free speech, but that the social networks limiting distribution of misinformation would be a violation of free speech. Am I interpreting you correctly?

No lucid assessment of “free speech” entertains a definition that includes “the use of machine learning to target messages to individuals in order to make money.” In the same way me sitting outside your house watching when you come and go to determine the best time to place a political flier on your door so you’ll see it when I want you to, surveillance capitalism it not free speech.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#163

Post by pdonis » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 11:42 PM UTC

Animats wrote: post #125

Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. So every time I see news of twitter/fb 'fact-checking', it reeks to me with a far too familiar KGB / STASI odor. Going down this path will not end well.

Good point. Although, arguably, "fact checking" is merely replying to what others are saying. It's a "the solution to free speech is more speech" approach.

> "fact checking" is merely replying to what others are saying.

Not if "fact checking" actually means "taking down the post because we disagreed with it".

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#164

Post by jseliger » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 11:43 PM UTC

throwaway13337 wrote: post #95

Society is misdiagnosing the issue here. It's not unchecked free speech. Instead, it's unchecked curation by media and social media companies with the goal of engagement. As long as media companies get the most benefit from people engaging with content, they will continue to promote information that is damaging to society. It may even be true information but when the goal is engagement, it's purpose will be to enrage…

It's not unchecked free speech. Instead, it's unchecked curation by media and social media companies with the goal of engagement.

Try teaching non-elite undergrads sometime, and particularly assignments that require some sense of epistemology, and you'll discover that the vast majority of people have pretty poor personal epistemic hygiene—it's not much required in most people, most of the time, in most jobs.

We evolved to form tribes, not to be "right." Jonathan's Haidt's The Righteous Mind deals with this topic well. https://jakeseliger.com/2012/03/25/jonathan-haidts-the-right...

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#165

Post by acituan » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 11:46 PM UTC

betwixthewires wrote: post #151

acituan wrote: post #25

> Facts and transparency are the intended pillars of the modern First Amendment I don’t think we can ascribe intentions that easily. Speech is also the way people process their emotions, clarify their thoughts, get into dialogue with other people and form a dialectic to discover the truth . If people can’t fight their with words, they will fight with their swords, because they will lose hope of integrating their worl…

> Instead I propose this solution; marketplace of ideas now has to incorporate the marketplace for AIs that curate those ideas to be complete. I don't know about this. Interesting proposal. I don't normally take a cynical view, but humans are emotional creatures, otherwise these dishonest mechanisms of generating engagement wouldn't work. In such a system it is likely that the most emotionally motivating algorithms w…

> Beyond that, why does one company need to make multiple algorithms? Why do we need a law to enforce this?

I meant they are enforced to open their content for licensing.

The market we have today is for services that are actually a bundle of things; youtube is both a video infrastructure and a recommendation engine. Twitter is both an infrastructure for textual content, for a network of people and a recommendation engine based on both.

It is hard to say if they are chosen for their recommendation engines or their content/network. The latter is very prone for monopolistic dynamics, the former is being victims of that power law distribution in my opinion.

I don't want to be as engaged as possible with twitter, but twitter does. If the new "virtuous-recommendation-engine" promised they are not there for maximum money but maximum wellbeing and sensemaking of their users, I might switch to that, ask my relatives to switch to that, force my kids to switch to that.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#166

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 11:50 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #154

throwaway13337 wrote: post #95

Society is misdiagnosing the issue here. It's not unchecked free speech. Instead, it's unchecked curation by media and social media companies with the goal of engagement. As long as media companies get the most benefit from people engaging with content, they will continue to promote information that is damaging to society. It may even be true information but when the goal is engagement, it's purpose will be to enrage…

> Companies that make their money selling ads Which includes...the New York Times. And all other media companies. > This business model should be illegal. It's already trivially unethical. By this criterion, pretty much all newspapers that have ever existed should be illegal. Also pretty much all TV channels. If this is a problem, it's been a problem since long before Facebook and Twitter.

[deleted]

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#167

Post by pdonis » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 11:51 PM UTC

crazygringo wrote: post #57

015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #26

It's ironic that Emily Bazelon, the author of this essay, is the granddaughter of the late influential federal judge David Bazelon. Judge Bazelon was a well-known progressive and a well-known free speech proponent. Although his granddaughter shares his broadly progressive worldview, her position on this issue is different. The evolution from David to Emily reflects that of the US left as a whole. Most people like to…

> In practice, it is a tool for those who don't occupy the commanding heights of a culture to push back against those who do. But isn't the article arguing the exact opposite? It warns that those in power now use the shield of "free speech" to push propaganda and lies in order to undermine truth and democracy and thereby attempt to preserve power. Which is not something anyone saw coming, and which deserves to be tre…

> The New Left wasn't weaponizing free speech to spread disinformation

Yes, they were. They were advocating a way of organizing society that had already killed tens of millions of people and would go on to kill tens of millions more. And they were relying on their audience not being aware of the death toll.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#168

Post by thesagan » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 11:56 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #154

throwaway13337 wrote: post #95

Society is misdiagnosing the issue here. It's not unchecked free speech. Instead, it's unchecked curation by media and social media companies with the goal of engagement. As long as media companies get the most benefit from people engaging with content, they will continue to promote information that is damaging to society. It may even be true information but when the goal is engagement, it's purpose will be to enrage…

> Companies that make their money selling ads Which includes...the New York Times. And all other media companies. > This business model should be illegal. It's already trivially unethical. By this criterion, pretty much all newspapers that have ever existed should be illegal. Also pretty much all TV channels. If this is a problem, it's been a problem since long before Facebook and Twitter.

It's a problem. Been one since the Spanish-American war.

Some of the biggest source of advertising revenues for news media organizations comes from defense companies. The New York Times pushed for the Iraq war, for example. They fired journalists who reported dovish news, too. Many others left to report as freelancers so they could paint more accurate pictures in smaller publications.

Similarly, MSNBC will bring on ex-Pentagon officials to "analyze" current events, but they don't bring in ex-State Department officials. There are likely patterns and incentives here. "Follow the money" as they like to say.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#169

Post by josquindesprez » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 11:57 PM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #158

desipis wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The core issue is the underlying system that values engagement over all things ... the advertising system. I don't think you're digging deep enough here. It's not the business model. It's the technology. We've invented technology that can, to a significant degree, control people. It is as addictive as hard drugs and people will just keep coming back to their dealer for more and more digital crack. But it's worse th…

> I don't think you're digging deep enough here. It's not the business model. It's the technology. I don't think you're digging deep enough here. It's not the technology. It's the people. Meaning not just the people running companies, but all of us. Technology is a tool. Any tool can be used for nefarious purposes, or for beneficial purposes. Which kind it gets used for depends on the people who use it, and on the pe…

These are the same word games that got us tired arguments like "guns don't kill people, people kill people." Looking only at people as individuals limits you to seeing first-order effects. The insidious effects of social media come about because large scale algorithmic optimization has found high leverage points for influencing society. While that's ultimately a consequence of individual people, you can't solve many complicated problems using a lens that can't see higher-order effects.

People seem to be fundamentally incompatible with social media, much in the same way they're incompatible with bullet wounds and drug addictions. Blame-passing word games just get us farther from taking that truth and starting to fix the world.

Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation

#170

Post by cortesoft » Sat, Oct 17, 2020, 11:57 PM UTC

strawberrypuree wrote: post #162

tshaddox wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your diagnosis, but perhaps not your treatment plan. You seem to think that making the social networks’ business model illegal would not be a violation of free speech, but that the social networks limiting distribution of misinformation would be a violation of free speech. Am I interpreting you correctly?

No lucid assessment of “free speech” entertains a definition that includes “the use of machine learning to target messages to individuals in order to make money.” In the same way me sitting outside your house watching when you come and go to determine the best time to place a political flier on your door so you’ll see it when I want you to, surveillance capitalism it not free speech.

So you can't use machine learning.... can you use psychology to craft your message? Can you do surveys and gather demographic data to choose where to target?

You obviously think there is a line where you can no longer use tools to craft your message, but I am not sure where you would draw it.

I feel like any argument you make against machine learning is going to be able to also be used against something like the printing press. Couldn't people have said, "clearly, using a machine to make thousands of copies of your text is unfair and an abuse of free speech... you need to write your words by hand like the rest of us!"