The rise of conspiracy theorists and entitlement culture

fob

SPECTRUM001 said:

 I don’t actually think that would work, as we (society) are not able to govern ourselves (we are not collectively smart enough).

Are you suggesting society is smart enough to self govern ? 

Obviously our elected representatives are part of and come from our society

Of course our society is able to 'self govern' - it does. How could it be any other way? You seem to have two different ideas in your head that are overlapping and confusing you.

JezWynd said:

Removing Trump from social media was a good start.

Censorship in the short term might be a solution.

If censorship was to be effective (and be accepted) then policy discussions would need to take place quickly to make social media companies and the infrastructure that underpins them more responsible for the content they show.

How do you respond to something like that? It's said so casually. I suppose you're only agreeing with the Alphabet group, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon though.

crunchman said:

If the price for legitimate freedom of speech is giving a voice to fruitcakes and loons then it's a price worth paying.

Yep.

ThePrettyDamned

fob said:

SPECTRUM001 said:

 I don’t actually think that would work, as we (society) are not able to govern ourselves (we are not collectively smart enough).

Are you suggesting society is smart enough to self govern ? 

Obviously our elected representatives are part of and come from our society

Of course our society is able to 'self govern' - it does. How could it be any other way? You seem to have two different ideas in your head that are overlapping and confusing you.

JezWynd said:

Removing Trump from social media was a good start.

Censorship in the short term might be a solution.

If censorship was to be effective (and be accepted) then policy discussions would need to take place quickly to make social media companies and the infrastructure that underpins them more responsible for the content they show.

How do you respond to something like that? It's said so casually. I suppose you're only agreeing with the Alphabet group, Facebook, Twitter and Amazon though.

crunchman said:

If the price for legitimate freedom of speech is giving a voice to fruitcakes and loons then it's a price worth paying.

Yep.

Social media already censors most of the news on an individual level, so what do you propose to do about that?

Edit: that came across as a bit over-assertive but was not meant to. I don't have an answer, but feel social media should not bias recommendations on previous reads. However, they will lose all their money if they do that so... 

fob

ThePrettyDamned said:

Social media already censors most of the news on an individual level, so what do you propose to do about that? 

Eh?

I don't think that social media should be censoring people if that's what you're asking.

ThePrettyDamned

fob said:

ThePrettyDamned said:

Social media already censors most of the news on an individual level, so what do you propose to do about that? 

Eh?

I don't think that social media should be censoring people if that's what you're asking.

But it already does - if you already read mild conspiracy theories, it will not recommend news, articles or "follows" that counter it - instead, it will double down and recommend other stuff that it thinks you are more likely to click through. 

It's censorship, but modernised - no need to stop people accessing stuff, you just gently nudge them in a way to make you more money.

In other words, how do we prevent social media from censoring in its current format? I proposed that social media should not recommend based on previous clicks, but that would reduce ad revenue significantly. 

ThePrettyDamned

I actually think it's amazing more people don't treat the way social media works as censorship - it never occurred to me until I started using a different "online identity" and it was staggering how much adverts, recommendations and feeds changed.

In other words, what hope do we have of balanced information and discussion if every individual in the world is drip fed their own, custom-tailored news feed that guarantees to make them feel exactly as they want to?

fob

ThePrettyDamned said:

But it already does - if you already read mild conspiracy theories, it will not recommend news, articles or "follows" that counter it - instead, it will double down and recommend other stuff that it thinks you are more likely to click through. 

It's censorship, but modernised - no need to stop people accessing stuff, you just gently nudge them in a way to make you more money. 

They do straight up censorship as well (and advertise it as a positive). But, yes, I think the 'nudging' can be seen as a way of getting around censorship but that doesn't mean it is censorship. There seems to be two different strands: 'social engineering' and 'more of the same'. There have been a few criticisms in this thread of the latter as the cause of marginalization but I would be ok with that - it's up to the individual what ideas they want to pursue and nothing is stopping them looking for contrary opinions. Social engineering is much creepier - you have to wonder at the people who do it.

Roland

fob said:

... There seems to be two different strands: 'social engineering' and 'more of the same'. There have been a few criticisms in this thread of the latter as the cause of marginalization but I would be ok with that - it's up to the individual what ideas they want to pursue and nothing is stopping them looking for contrary opinions.

I hate “more of the same”. When I look for new music or films I want to expand on what I’ve already seen or listened to, not narrow down on it. YouTube is particularly bad for this. If I watch a video on, say, archeology then I’m bombarded with archeology videos for two weeks. Amazon runs the same way, advertising things I’ve bought and am unlikely to repeat.

ThePrettyDamned

Roland said:

fob said:

... There seems to be two different strands: 'social engineering' and 'more of the same'. There have been a few criticisms in this thread of the latter as the cause of marginalization but I would be ok with that - it's up to the individual what ideas they want to pursue and nothing is stopping them looking for contrary opinions.

I hate “more of the same”. When I look for new music or films I want to expand on what I’ve already seen or listened to, not narrow down on it. YouTube is particularly bad for this. If I watch a video on, say, archeology then I’m bombarded with archeology videos for two weeks. Amazon runs the same way, advertising things I’ve bought and am unlikely to repeat.

I agree - but most people *want* more of the same. It's why some folks have 4 les pauls ("they're all so different! This one has a slightly thicker neck!"). 

Lots of people also want to find confirmation of something they already believe, rather than challenge that belief with alternative points of view. Even very bright people do this (and I do it also - I don't believe there is a human that doesn't!). The trick is to know it, and work against it. 

TheBigDipper

Here's a quote from philosopher Karl Popper. I haven't read the tome it’s in, just saw this quote on a social media feed and thought it summed things up quite nicely. 

Although Popper was an advocate of toleration, he also warned against unlimited tolerance. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, he argued:

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. 

In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

 We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal

The difficulty of doing this with algorithm-driven social media is that, half the time, you don't even know these things are being said. Someone enters a quiz on FB, or a survey about themselves. The next thing is they've given some private information away that means they're identified as being receptive about a topic that others are opposed to. They then get bombarded with ads that the rest of us never get to see, and start to reinforce their views on that subject without ever really hearing the other side of things. No surprise that we end up so polarised, eh? 

ThePrettyDamned

TheBigDipper said:

Here's a quote from philosopher Karl Popper. I haven't read the tome it’s in, just saw this quote on a social media feed and thought it summed things up quite nicely. 

Although Popper was an advocate of toleration, he also warned against unlimited tolerance. In The Open Society and Its Enemies, he argued:

Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. 

In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be most unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols.

 We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal

The difficulty of doing this with algorithm-driven social media is that, half the time, you don't even know these things are being said. Someone enters a quiz on FB, or a survey about themselves. The next thing is they've given some private information away that means they're identified as being receptive about a topic that others are opposed to. They then get bombarded with ads that the rest of us never get to see, and start to reinforce their views on that subject without ever really hearing the other side of things. No surprise that we end up so polarised, eh? 

Precisely. This is, effectively, the censorship we all experience on the Internet. It's just not stopping us from seeing it - rather, it nudges us towards things we already like, because we are the product. 

melod

Internet just makes it easier for us to validate whatever preconceptions and bias we already have.

 Sure some might have been drawn to a weird cult or theory but I think most are ready to embrace them. I have been in many real life groups in the past where such ideas are brought forward (“x group controls the world”, “everybody is out to get our country because we are the chosen”, we are sprayed with chemicals etc etc).

Now there are all sorts of niche echo chambers online and attracting large numbers of followers.

Its a bit sad because for all the online wealth of info people just mostly spend times in their own rabbit holes.