Stamos says the US must ‘come together to protect’ democracy from misinformation • Hacker News Board

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

#71

Post by smacktoward » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

harshreality wrote: post #59

hobs wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying "everyone should speak" actually means "everyone should speak according to their purchasing power in the market" right now - so I think your premise, while well meaning, is not realistic. Having liars with big pockets broadcast lies (propaganda) works very effectively, no "black market suppression of the truth" is needed to weaponize bad ideas.

Propaganda from deep-pocketed individuals and organizations is a problem, but the current cure is worse than the disease, particularly when the censorship itself is biased. It takes more to be labelled fringe and justify censorship for left-leaning speech, than it takes for right-leaning speech. The root problem with modern discourse and social media is subtle, unforced siloing of communication within subgroups, so t…

> the current cure is worse than the disease

This comment is the text version of that cartoon where the dog sits in the room where everything is on fire thinking "this is fine."

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

#72

Post by sova » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 3:39 PM UTC

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…

Don't give up your right to unbiased information! Don't channel your understanding through one source! You've gotta fight, for your right, to party!

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

#73

Post by sova » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

prolikewh0a wrote: post #66

throwawaywindev wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is the signal to noise ratio is getting so bad that you don’t know what information to trust.

Why am I able to find information I can trust easily, verifiable among many different non-mainstream sources that are nearly always accurate? The most important thing is to get off Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Snapchat, etc, find some independent news sites you like, and be very skeptical.

Disagree, make better platforms. People will exercise their ability to choose once choices exist.

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

#74

Post by prolikewh0a » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

chiefalchemist wrote: post #44

> Congress should update its laws regarding political advertisers, and social media users need to “adjust to a media environment in which several dozen gatekeepers no longer control what is newsworthy.” What is happening as been happening all along, for years. The now difference is who is doing the influencing; for what ends; and yes the how has changed but that's not really what's causing the friction. For Stamos to…

>For Stamos to suggest more people need to think for themselves, that more need to question authority more, sounds naive, at best. That is the last thing the powers that be will allow. They're fine with misinformation, they just want to sure it's their's and no one elses.

Exactly. The powers want censorship, the powers want to narrow the overton window and create a society that can't think for itself. It is not beneficial for them to have a society that actually knows what's going on.

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

#75

Post by isoskeles » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 3:42 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #50

mrleiter wrote: post #28

This is a classic example of shifting the blame. Yes, he admits that facebook spent too much time trying to minimise the problem. And indeed they did. But it's not only the misinformation that is the problem, facebook itself is at the heart of the problem. They are one of many, albeit facebook being on the more influential side, platforms through which misinformation is spread. And of course education is the main han…

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

Yes, it is.

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

#76

Post by alexandercrohde » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 3:44 PM UTC

I think every proposal I've read in this thread is incorrect.

I think the platform shapes the debate. A crowd with megaphones will never be as good at decision-making as a jury. The websites we use are the platform (even if it's the same people in the crowd as the jury).

The "megaphone platforms" (twitter/facebook) are very invigorating in the short-term but will inevitably drive people away. The next step is for a platform to be built that promotes and rewards the systematic advancement of filtering ideas (downvoting/upvoting being the most basic form of this).

To a large extent, HN is superior to twitter because of this. Wikipedia is also a shining example of platform. This attention toward facebook is unwarranted, the platform will kill itself in 7 years.

The important thing is building a new platform that incentivizes productive contribution rather than self-promotion or controversiality.

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

#77

Post by siidooloo » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

0x445442 wrote: post #54

hannasanarion wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And if the majority of those voters are opposed to democracy itself, and vote for candidates who promise to take away votes from people they don't like, or establish a theocracy? "America isn't and shouldn't be a democracy" is a common Republican talking point. This has happened in Poland and Hungary and its darn close to happening in the United States.

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.

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

#78

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

chrisseaton wrote: post #50

mrleiter wrote: post #28

This is a classic example of shifting the blame. Yes, he admits that facebook spent too much time trying to minimise the problem. And indeed they did. But it's not only the misinformation that is the problem, facebook itself is at the heart of the problem. They are one of many, albeit facebook being on the more influential side, platforms through which misinformation is spread. And of course education is the main han…

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

Does everything have to be a code for something else? Half of this problem comes from people seeing "dog whistles" everywhere.

There should be a rule for discussion: take what people say at face value, or don't participate. Nothing good comes from "reading between the lines", it's just an exercise in projecting your own issues on other people.

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

#79

Post by prolikewh0a » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 3:45 PM UTC

qaq wrote: post #27

Joeri wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not that simple, because there have been many attempts at educating and things haven’t improved. There’s evidence that awareness of biases makes one more susceptible to them, and that intelligence is also correlated with a higher susceptibility to bias. Intelligence and education give us tools to strengthen the form of our argument, and that enables us to better hang on to bias. https://www.newyorker.com/tech/fr…

I think if people can clearly identify even the more obvious misinformation campaigns by foreign powers targeting them that would already help a good bit.

What about the much more dangerous domestic misinformation/disinformation campaigns? The ones that make you go buy a 12 pack of Coke you don't need that's going to effect your health. What about things like COINTELPRO? What about the beauty product ad telling me I'm ugly and need mascara?

We should make Manufacturing Consent and The People's History of The United States mandatory reading for high school students, but that would probably change too many minds against our own system as kids would know how things really work, and how history really happened instead of the wishy-washy 'everything wasn't that bad!' crap they teach in grade school.

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

#80

Post by kingofhdds » Sun, Nov 18, 2018, 3:50 PM UTC

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…

While it's probable that formal education levels correlate with political choices, it doesn't necessary imply that higher degree leads to better ones, or even reduces possibility of being manipulated.

Also, every major player of every political fight knows, and has tools to "play to their advantage", it's not like some bad vs good fairytale.

And if you are against all major players then you may want to consider that it is exactly yours opinion which eventually will be censored if the idea about mandatory purging of "bad information" wins.