Sorry but didn’t read. The NY Times no longer has any credibility for actual journalism.
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The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
221–230 of 421 posts
Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
#222Earlier quoted context omitted.
I really like those. Verifiability and paper trail seem very important. I’d recommending not using the term accountability if these are the things you mean. Generally it has the connotation of being responsible for outcomes. I also think that there is possibly a false dichotomy between free speech and news here. As if regulating news is somehow the same thing as curtailing free speech. I’m not sure it needs to be so…
The main point of the article is that the free speech laws in this country have clouded the divide between free speech for individuals, and the rights for media companies and political parties to spread misinformation as they see fit. What you're proposing in your last paragraph is what the article is proposing too. The issue is that under the guise of an absolutist take of free speech, we've now put all free speech…
I actually don’t see the article proposing what I am proposing. For the most part it is a good analysis, but I don’t see much about defining what ‘news’.
The New York Times isn’t the fountain of garbage that Fox News can be, but neither is it any more principled. It’s just usually better.
They have a vested interest in this being about social media rather than news, and the article focuses tech rather than news when it comes to solutions. I didn’t see where they addressed the issue of what to do about Fox News, for example.
Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
#223Earlier quoted context omitted.
Mill promoted free speech realistically as better than the alternative, is how I'd put it. Here's where he made his case; it's not too long to read: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_Liberty/Chapter_2
But he lived well before the age of the internet and maybe, you know, just maybe when the world changes we should adapt to it rather than to dogmatically hold that what one person thought a couple of hundred years ago should be enshrined and never ever be changed lest the sky falls down.
I completely agree that citing authority is not an argument. I only contend here that the GP made an inaccurate summary in dismissing Mill's argument; and that argument is only one chapter, not the whole book as you might think from the way it's cited. You might find it pretty on point: he wrote in Victorian times which were also a local maximum of social pressure to profess the correct thoughts. Also a time with unprecedented new media (though I don't recall that topic coming up in this chapter).
Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
#224Society 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.
Newspapers and TV channels are curated and the means to being a publisher or advertiser on those platforms is extremely limited compared to what the internet allows. When everyone on the planet is an unchecked publisher and/or advertiser, the problem is clearly much worse.
Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
#225Society 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.
The problem is that moderation doesn't scale. Newspapers, TV, radio, film all evolved to have or to conform to some kind of standards and practices department, which played well with advertiser needs. The issue with contemporary media companies is that it's not practical to do that at Internet scale -- see all of the routine stories about moderation teams at Facebook, for instance.
Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
#226Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 evolv…
This, I keep saying this. It's not a question of truth, it was never really a question of truth. It's about who is saying what .
In my experience this is 100% the case. If someone doesn't like you, no matter what you do or the rationality of what you say will not change their opinion of you unless it saves them from undue harm.
Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
#227One bright spot is the rise of some independents on YouTube and other social media. I find some far more reasoned and informed than most journalists. I think they are on the positive end of the smeared bell curve created by technology. They gain wider reach and viewers benefit from better voices.
Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
#228Earlier quoted context omitted.
The difference is that TV shows and video games are clearly entertainment, so you know what to expect. It’s possible for a fictional TV show or video game to manipulate you, but it’s harder because you know what you’re experiencing isn’t real. Social media is more dangerous because it can warp your perception of reality: what is happening in the world, what people think and care about in your neighborhood and your co…
I agree. The question is, if Facebook relied on paid subscriptions instead of ads, would they have designed their algorithm differently? I think they'd still optimize for engagement / time spent on site.
Maybe. I suspect they'd optimize for renewals and new subscriptions so the goal wouldn't be how to get ad clicks and ad views.
Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
#229I come from a country where a free speech was never really a thing, and I tell you, americans, this: you don't value it enough. Restrictions on free speech inevitably lead to some form of censorship, and any form of censorship inevitably leads to the population being subjected to some 'official' version of 'truth'. This 'truth', however, is carefully curated to coerce the population to act in a certain way. So when T…
I came into the article expecting to hate it, but the author eventually kind of won me over. She doesn't think Americans should abandon free speech, but she does think we should approach it more like Germany and France. > Germany and France have laws that are designed to prevent the widespread dissemination of hate speech and election-related disinformation. “Much of the recent authoritarian experience in Europe aros…
Is a thought a crime though?
Re: The Problem of Free Speech in an Age of Disinformation
#230Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 prin…
Like a lot of issues you'll likely need to choose a Schelling point (arbitrary cutoff).
Some of it is simple inconveniences. It is a lot harder to learn enough psychology, understand your audience, and so on to influence them in comparison to having a program that scans every word they've put on their [social media account here] to decide how best to convince them. That would likely stop a good amount of actors.
If a quite small amount of people had access to and were using the printing press, then that might legitimately be an argument for the government in that country to ban it as it gives them more power over others. Though, once it becomes common and non-secret technology then everyone has been amplified the same way. Now, that 'give everyone the ability to use machine learning to tailor their text to the audience' could be a route your could attempt, but I don't think it makes as much sense for machine learning even if I could imagine a society that has that.