Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 150 posts

Re: Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation

#101

Post by throw2016 »

This is disingenuous. 'Protecting democracy from misinformation' is misinformation. How do you do 'protect democracy' without erecting 'ministry of truth' structures and becoming undemocratic?

It's a bit sad many champions of democracy are realizing they can't handle real dissent. They seem more comfortable with control, limits and useless debates on media structures and platforms they can influence and control than the kind of actual dissent provided by Assange, Snowden and the wider platform of the Internet that allows people to freely exchange ideas.

Let's take it to the extreme, if citizens elect an flat earther or an extremist running on hate then its not a problem with democracy but a reflection of deeper problems with your society and education system.

Misinformation, propaganda, fake news are as old as human society and used by all countries and special interests, and can be addressed well outside the fundamental structures of democracy, free speech, dissent and free press.

Re: Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation

#103

Post by DanielBMarkham »

ThomPete wrote: post #8
qaq wrote: post #3

It's hard to come up with good policy around this outside of educating people.

Being educated does not shield you from misinformation, unfortunately. I fact I wouldn't be surprised that the well educated is part of the problem when they get into politics because they abstract things and start to think too much in statistics and lose a feeling for what it means to be most people in this world. The end up creating their own misinformation filter. The current political climate has no shortage of w…

There's a management anti-pattern called "management by aggregate statistic"

It goes something like this: take a large human population doing something, like working at Division X. Take a multivariate problem. Abstract out an aggregate statistic along one variable. Report that one data point, generalize, then assume some correlation-causation magic. Manage to make that number better.

This causes a lot of the pain and suffering we see in large companies. People are working and managing to a number that's supposed to mean one thing, but it doesn't. (Whatever metric you manage, they'll game). And it happens over and over again.

Worst thing about it? The smarter you are, generally, the more difficult it is to see yourself engaging in this anti-pattern. Sure, it's easy to spot others. But for some reason, it's nothing you'd ever fall for.

It's the way our brains are supposed to work. Guess the "right enough" answer from lots of noisy, inconsistent input.

Intelligence and education are not magic fairy dust that prevent us from being human. They may make it easier to describe what's happening in general terms, but they don't upgrade us to Human 2.0 or anything.

Re: Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation

#104

Post by 0x445442 »

siidooloo wrote: post #77
0x445442 wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what you’re implying with your statement about the Republican talking point. The point of the point is the U.S. was designed to be a Constitutional Republic which isn’t a democracy. The Constitutional Republic is designed to protect the rights and freedoms of the individual via the Constitution and bill of rights. If by Democracy one is referring solely to majority rule, then protection against individual ri…

The United Stares is a constitutional republic and a representative democracy. The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy and a representative democracy. Democracy is not the opposite of a republic. Monarchy is.

True as long as the representative democracy doesn’t infringe on the individual’s constitutional rights. That’s where the democracy bit gives way to the judicial branch. Of coarse with a politicized court you’re right back to the ills of a democracy.

Re: Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation

#105

Post by patrickg_zill »

mrleiter wrote: post #53
chrisseaton wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is ‘less educated’ code for people with views different to yours?

No, there are some less educated people who share the same views as me. But it is no secret that the degree of education correlates strongly with certain political views. And the people currently in power in America certainly know that and play that to their advantage. They know full well that their proposed solutions won't work a bit, but instead make them richer along the way. But the less educated people don't kno…

You live in a bubble that reinforces your views. It's a problem everyone deals with.

Re: Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation

#106

Post by patrickg_zill »

guns wrote: post #96
mrleiter wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, there are some less educated people who share the same views as me. But it is no secret that the degree of education correlates strongly with certain political views. And the people currently in power in America certainly know that and play that to their advantage. They know full well that their proposed solutions won't work a bit, but instead make them richer along the way. But the less educated people don't kno…

> I am not against conservative people and also not against people with different views. … It becomes a problem when some of those people can't tell the difference between truth and lie. Perhaps we should create camps that educate these people on political issues.

Rehabilitation is no doubt in order.

Re: Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation

#107

Post by DubiousPusher »

noetic_techy wrote: post #38

Oh please. The headline might as well have been: We need to protect people from information and ideas we don't agree with. Freedom of speech is not just about speech, its about ideas. Nobody should ever be deemed the arbiter of truth. Not Facebook, not the government, not anyone. Decentralize the social networks. Let everyone speak, even the bad people. Realize that you actually make the problem worse by suppressing…

> Realize that you actually make the problem worse by suppressing information

I'm not taking a position on your larger post but this is a bit of a cliche I'd politely suggest you stop using. There are numerous historical examples of the successful suppression of information and the impact of said suppression frequently helps the suppressor in exactly the way they intend.

Re: Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation

#108

Post by neltnerb »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #65
yelloweyes wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're telling me that russian bots spreading lies are merely "ideas you disagree with"? I can't... I can't... jesus...

Why is everything a Russian bot? That conspiracy needs to end. The American media lies to you constantly (Manufacturing Consent, Chomsky), politicians lie to you constantly, advertising lies to you constantly. This isn't one big Russian scheme, it's simply capital. Was this Russia? https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/2003/02/06/i...

It's a meme, not something literal. Of course it's not all russian bots, and that's besides the point.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/11/15/faceboo...

Verified by multiple sources. "Facebook said it had found and removed roughly 1.5 billion fake accounts" surely doesn't suggest they're all literally Russian, or bots, but they sure were fake and spreading propaganda.

Re: Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation

#109

Post by jasonlotito »

noetic_techy wrote: post #38

Oh please. The headline might as well have been: We need to protect people from information and ideas we don't agree with. Freedom of speech is not just about speech, its about ideas. Nobody should ever be deemed the arbiter of truth. Not Facebook, not the government, not anyone. Decentralize the social networks. Let everyone speak, even the bad people. Realize that you actually make the problem worse by suppressing…

> Nobody should ever be deemed the arbiter of truth.

Except for you and your comment, right?

Re: Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation

#110

Post by codetwelve »

noetic_techy wrote: post #38

Oh please. The headline might as well have been: We need to protect people from information and ideas we don't agree with. Freedom of speech is not just about speech, its about ideas. Nobody should ever be deemed the arbiter of truth. Not Facebook, not the government, not anyone. Decentralize the social networks. Let everyone speak, even the bad people. Realize that you actually make the problem worse by suppressing…

In Canada there is a law where you can't lie on the news. It's worked pretty well and I can at least stand the news programs we have.

I also think you're a bit too naive. Without proper governance look at what is happening in america. America from the outside believes climate change is a hoax because republicans are bought. No one is willing to go against the establishment and make laws to stop this when they're clearly INCORRECT ideas that are being pushed to the masses misinforming people.

Post reply on HN