
Building a More Honest Internet - lsrose
https://www.cjr.org/special_report/building-honest-internet-public-interest.php
======
ben509
The problem with the CJR presenting themselves as neutral is that they are an
interest group, and their idea of "honest" and the "public interest" is their
business model being promoted.

And that's not peculiar to journalists. Virtually every corporation thinks
they're doing a public good, since people are voluntarily buying their product
or service.

But here they omit facts relevant to their claims, and the omissions distort
the history they're presenting:

> In the US, radio began as a free-market free-for-all.

It did _begin_ that way, but in 1934 the FCC was formed and explicitly
regulated speech via the Mayflower and Fairness doctrines.[1][2]

It was then revoked under Reagan[2#Revocation], much to the chagrin of special
interest groups like the CJR, and political radio exploded.

When political radio was deregulated, consumers got options outside of
traditional media groups who lost subscribers and influence.

An honest recounting of the history is that the US has had regulations in the
name of "fairness" and those regulations do in fact quash a lot of speech.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower_doctrine)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_fairness_doctrine)

~~~
dmix
"Fairness" in that sort of political context is rarely about fairness as it
would be in real life interactions, but about allowing entrenched interests
(or special interest groups in general) being artificially propped up by their
political connections.

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danfang
This is a plug for my personal project, Thread, which is a take on social
media that serves the public's interests.

It's not propped up by VCs, and not funded by advertisements that suck up our
attention via engagement metrics.

Would appreciate a look! [https://get.thread-app.com](https://get.thread-
app.com)

I'm glad the conversation is now turning towards ethical, human-centered
alternatives to giants like FB and Instagram.

~~~
kyriee
Path 2.0? I think it's needed now more than ever.

Bootstrapping communities is hard though, how do you plan to do that?

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jacamera
I think this article is high-minded and moralistic. I feel conflicted after
reading it because while I sympathize with the plight that journalists face, I
also just see so many problems with this author’s analysis and questions.

There is a fundamental distinction between the internet and radio/broadcast
television in that the usable spectrum of airwaves is a finite public
resource. If I’m broadcasting on 700 AM then you’re not. The licensing and
regulatory structure that is (debatably) appropriate for public broadcast has
no application to the internet. There is room for everyone to publish what
they want.

The advertising model is not broken. The wealth of information and services
available to users at zero monetary cost is a miracle of the “free-market
free-for-all” and is most beneficial to those with the least amount of
disposable income. Coining “surveillance capitalism” as a pejorative term to
describe the success of this model is ridiculous.

> While it’s true that public service media like Wikipedia have had to share
> the landscape with increasingly sophisticated commercial companies, it’s
> also true that they fill a void in the marketplace.

Wikipedia is not a “public service” media organization. The author uses the
same term to describe the BBC. If that were the case, then the sale of every
internet-connected device would be taxed to fund Wikipedia and the
organization would be run by the government. Instead Wikipedia is funded by
voluntary donations from millions of individuals. The fact that it fills a
void in the marketplace is a testament to the success of the free market
approach to the internet.

> We’ve grown so used to the idea that social media is damaging our
> democracies that we’ve thought very little about how we might build new
> networks to strengthen societies.

Built into this is the assumption that social media is doing more damage than
or is more susceptible to malevolent influence than state-run news
organizations or the monopolistic broadcast and print publications of the 20th
century and I reject that. If you don’t like Twitter and Facebook, then stop
using them. Asking the government to get involved is the least productive
thing anyone can do. Increased regulation will only serve to further cement
the current crop of companies in their dominant position and we don’t need any
more Quaeros. [The alternatives]([https://readup.com](https://readup.com)) are
out there, you just have to be willing to put in the effort to find them and
be an active participant instead of passive consumer.

~~~
Pigo
>Asking the government to get involved is the least productive thing anyone
can do.

You win the Internet today as far as I'm concerned.

I wish our culture wasn't so focused on rebooting existing things. People
should spend their time creating some new, in their image, and put it out into
the world. The fight should be removing barriers for entry.

~~~
jacamera
Well said. Creating something new of course takes an enormous amount of time
and energy. It makes sense that not everyone would be willing or afforded the
ability to take on such a task. I agree that removing or lowering any barriers
to allow for further, more distributed experimentation would benefit society
as a whole.

------
specialist
Have everyone sign their own work. Then we can judge for ourselves.

Any unsigned work is just gossip (or worse) and should be treated as such.

------
linuxftw
Political article.

> Recently, President Trump referenced a widely discredited study to make the
> absurd claim that Google manipulated search results in order to swing the
> 2016 presidential election toward Hillary Clinton. Though Trump’s claim is
> incorrect (and was widely shared with his massive following on Twitter,
> demonstrating the untrustworthiness of social media), it rests atop some
> uncomfortable facts.

Okay. No links to the original study, the repudiations, or the defense of said
study. That's bad enough, but then they follow that sentence immediately with
this one:

> Research conducted by Facebook in 2013 demonstrated that it may indeed be
> possible for the platform to affect election turnout.

Thank goodness we're relying on research conducted by Facebook.

