461–470 of 551 posts
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Big Tech as a term doesn’t feel like it encompasses the specifically social influence of some of the social media companies (Meta could almost be called Big Social just by itself, but that’s a different conversation). The reason it made sense to me is that when the article said “Big Tech” it didn’t feel right.
I agree with you, but the use of "tech" to mean "computer-centric technology" has already poisoned the term a bit anyway.
Honestly, not sure on which side I am. Facebook being a criminal organization is nothing new. Harvard (and pretty much any other university) being a criminal organization is nothing new as well. But, man, "propaganda scholar"…
"prestigious team of online disinformation experts" Not being the devil's advocate here, but "online disinformation" is not a credentialed field. That's like calling yourself a "truth expert". Also the prestigious part is bogus at best. If they are then they sure don't make the headlines often.
Democratic election politics being a public trust game, at their core.
"prestigious team of online disinformation experts" Not being the devil's advocate here, but "online disinformation" is not a credentialed field. That's like calling yourself a "truth expert". Also the prestigious part is bogus at best. If they are then they sure don't make the headlines often.
I'm not following your reasoning here. There are people working with the topic that is online disinformation. I know Swedish government have some teams who analyze disinformation campaigns, as an example. Are you saying that people who work with this area cannot be experts on the area?
And it really is late stage civ stuff. Journalists are supposed to be the "disinformation experts". This has always been a false narrative, but in recent years the public percieves enough deception from he Press that trust in their proclamations has fallen through the floor. Enter "disinformation experts" as a cheap last-ditch attempt at an appeal to authority fallacy by the same distrusted media. It will and is failing as well. As it should.
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I can't speak for the OP but take into the current Media Matters "outing" of X over the ad placement next to anti-semitic content. Basically Media Matters juiced the X algorithm to give them less than 10 impressions of big ad spend clients ads next to anti-semitic comments they entered on their own sock puppet accounts (with few or little followers), then passed that contrivance off as truth, stating brand-destroying…
Every time I come across a "disinformation expert" they seem to be the ones spreading disinformation.
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What makes information disinformation or fake news? Who decided it?
I don't understand how that is relevant to the question I asked. Are you suggesting that no one can be experts on disinformation because different people have different view on what is true? Sounds a bit silly to me. Is the earth flat or more shaped like a globe?
Laws capping these massive donations need to pass or nothing will change. $500M is more than enough money to operate any school, and Harvard simply does not need more money in its pockets. https://www.statista.com/statistics/221147/the-20-richest-co...
I’d support the full destruction of Harvard and MIT taking all of its assists and land. I want our universities to accept based on merit, not fat donations. The traditional ivys are simply bad for society and our elite schools should be elite because the majority of students their are truly gifted (i.e Stanford, caltech, MIT) not because their from the ultra rich
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There's no such thing as a "well functioning free market". It's an utopia. What we have today is how a free market works. The invisible hand always tipping the scales. They would simply find a better way to get the outcome they want, avoiding the issue altogether (something at the federal level, make an example out of a researcher or institution, etc). The word utopia is used a lot when anything other than capitalism…
> There's no such thing as a "well functioning free market". It's an utopia. It's relative. You seem to be confusing "well" with "perfect". Depending on your point of view, no economic system is well functioning, because there will always be ebbs and flows where people clash with the system and it works better or worse at time. I'm not sure if our version of a free market in the U.S. is closer to well functioning or…
That was not my intention. I simply had to point this out because your comment implied that a well functioning free market could somehow solve the issue. My take is that it can't, because there's no such thing.
Whether or not we should bother with improving it, is a matter for another debate. My take is that we've tried it for long enough, and small improvements simply don't work anymore. Millions of people need/want something and a small handful of powerful rich folks can deny that with no real recourse.
> The counter to the invisible hand working against society instead of in tandem or for it is freely available information.
I mostly agree! But that's, once again, an utopia. Key information is still kept from the public eyes and the trend is to get more restricted to the rich and powerful as time goes on.
As an example, a few key players like Google and Meta have information on virtually every single citizen in the world, while the public has absolutely no control over it or oversight on how that's used.
I don't fully agree because of another problem that we can see almost every day: even with information, the system is unable to make any meaningful change.
We have backroom deals exposed, corruption, quid-pro-quo everywhere, and yet the majority of the responsible people/companies remain free to keep doing those. At best we get a few scapegoats or slaps on the wrist. Information alone is useless if you either have nobody that can act on it (think unregulated markets, industries, etc), or the ones that are able to, can't or won't because of the existing power structures, like the example in the article.
> The only person here who said that is you
I was obviously alluding to the ever-present "communism/socialism is an utopia" argument. I never implied you said that specifically. It's just such a common argument that I assumed could be raised since I mentioned the word and I expanded on it.
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What is "the truth" about animal fats or plant oils? What is the disinformation for it?
I still have no idea what point you are trying to make. I have not claimed to be an expert on the topic, I only asked why no one can be an expert. It sounds like your view is that no one can be an expert on disinformation because some topics are disputed. That's an "interesting" take. I guess that reasoning would leave pretty few experts in the world.
Other than the fact that "disinformation expert" is a fake expertise invented to facilitate fallacious appeal to authority in the void left by a distrusted press:
There are two answers to your question.
First, everyone attempts to derive the truth from imperfect information and therefore is a "disinformation expert".
There's no consistently guaranteed information access that makes any one person consistently an expert above most others, including Joe at his coffee table.
That type of access and divulsion used to be assumed of the MSM. They destroyed their trust, and so now "disinformation experts" demand that trust. Broadley speaking, they won't get it. And they shouldn't.
The second reason is that comprehensive presentation of any truthful information requires a presentation of all facts regarding it. Aside from the most mundane fact checking tasks, I've broadley observed "fact checkers" disseminating disinformation as much as the MSM does. Whether the method is lying by ommission or another.
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There's no such thing as a "well functioning free market". It's an utopia. What we have today is how a free market works. The invisible hand always tipping the scales. They would simply find a better way to get the outcome they want, avoiding the issue altogether (something at the federal level, make an example out of a researcher or institution, etc). The word utopia is used a lot when anything other than capitalism…
Modern world is a utopia by any reasonable historical standard, yes.
I don't know what world you live in if you deem our current society as a perfect place. Maybe you're a billionaire?