
The Age of Unregulated Social Media Is Over - pwtweet
https://www.justsecurity.org/52346/age-unregulated-social-media/
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michaelchisari
The problem we're experiencing is what I've been calling "humanity at scale."
The vast overwhelming majority of people can be perfectly fine, courteous,
thoughtful, engaging, but if just 0.1% of the 3 billion internet users are
lacking empathy, argue in bad faith, harass, threaten, etc., we're still
dealing with 3 million people. And if those people don't particularly have
much better to do, and can post pretty often, then you have the worst segments
of humanity having a magnified voice.

The recent focus of troll farms and political interference increases that
number by introducing people who wouldn't be interesting in doing it for free,
but will gladly do it for a paycheck.

And then you have the social influence of all these voices saying and doing
the worst thing and modifying the behavior of internet users who otherwise
would never consider doing these things at all. This behavior becomes
normalized where it wasn't before.

We used to think it was a matter of anonymity, but I don't think that's it,
we've all encountered plenty of people willing to do these things under their
real (or easily traceable) names.

I think it's just good ol' fashioned peer pressure, where the worst elements
get the most influence and the best elements are easily ignored.

~~~
eropple
_> And if those people don't particularly have much better to do, and can post
pretty often_

...and because a huge chunk of them are economically null NEETs and ironic
fascism has mutated into real fascism...

We're pretty well boned unless something changes, huh.

~~~
IntronExon
I’m genuinely curious if it ever was ironic, or if irony was just a convenient
excuse and recruitment tool. What do you think?

~~~
eropple
From my experience, I suspect it was a little of both. A little sugar makes
the medicine go down, and all that. Sell it to kids who don't know any better,
and let the ironic nature filter away over time. What comes to mind the
ironic/pseudoironic use of fascist and totalitarian tropes for Warhammer 40K
now turning into the use of the same memes and ideas in a new context,
celebrating Donald Trump as the "God Emperor" and portraying
liberals/cucks/whoever-they-hate-the-most-in-that-particular-moment as the
"xenos".

~~~
mercer
I think we often underestimate how much pretending to be or do something can
make it real.

~~~
michaelchisari
_“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to
be.”_ \- Kurt Vonnegut

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ageek123
The fact that the new rules, whatever they will be, are so blatantly
politically motivated (don't kid yourself, _none_ of this would be happening
if Clinton had won the election), suggests that there is approximately zero
chance that they will be politically neutral.

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marris
Unfortunately, the most likely outcome is a society-damaging overreaction.

Angry people will still look for other like-minded people with whom they can
share their grievances. The Internet makes it possible for larger groups to
meet, talk, complain, and bond. When these folks get kicked off Facebook,
substitute ecosystems will pop up on WhatsApp, some other social media app.
Are "we" going to start restricting encryption next, just so "we" can keep the
next unlikable candidate out of office? Not worth it IMHO.

~~~
skybrian
I'm not sure that substitute ecosystems are a bad thing? People are more
likely to emulate what they see out in the open rather than what happens in
darker corners of the Internet. Scale matters.

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TYPE_FASTER
How do we get lawmakers to understand the difference between the data going
over an internet connection, the various transport protocols being used, and
the end result that's being rendered in the browser?

If this is done poorly, by regulating network traffic overall like the FCC
seems to want to do, we'll start to have real issues with overreach. Web
content, streaming content, game traffic, etc. will all be held to some
standard, or set of standards.

We, as the tech community, could get out in front of the problem. Some of
issues raised in the article stem from the combination of almost effortless
publishing at a massive scale, combined with complete anonymity.

We could define a standard that would allow for some kind of traceability or
transparency, maybe public key cryptography, to prove identity. Social media
sites like Facebook could voluntarily implement the standard. Browsers would
be able to render some kind of simple UI indicator to mark content source
trust, just like we have a lock to signify HTTPS today.

We can either wait and see what happens, or propose a technical and voluntary
solution that would allow public internet traffic to remain as free as it does
today.

Edit: it would be in Facebook's best interest to implement such a standard,
because they clearly realize they have to do _something_ , and this wouldn't
get in the way of their ad revenue.

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emodendroket
Oh, great, can't wait until social media companies become arbiters of truth
and outright prevent you from reading things they've deemed unfit.

~~~
dredmorbius
They _are_ arbiters of truth whether they choose that role or not. The
question is only who (or what) chooses, andd how well they do that job. The
obligation cannot be shirked.

~~~
emodendroket
They aren't really. They are mostly acting as a platform, not going through
and determining what is true and false.

~~~
adavis321
The problem is that Facebook was presenting truth and lies in identical ways.
People should be able (and willing) to dig in and find out what is true for
themselves, but that takes time and effort.

~~~
emodendroket
I don't wasn't Facebook to act as an arbiter and decide for me what's true or
false.

~~~
dredmorbius
If Facebook itself does not, _then those with the power to game Facebook
itself will do so,_ because there is a gain to be had by disseminating
disinformation, propaganda, distraction, fomenting distrust, etc., etc., etc.

 _What you actually do want, whether you realise it or not, are well-formed,
well-behaved, epistemic systems._ Note that the original false dichotomy I
referenced was between _no_ regulation of this and _unaccountable_ regulation.

The fact that that is in fact _not_ the entire universe of possibilities seems
to be being studiously ignored.

~~~
emodendroket
Whatever metric they choose is almost certainly much more likely to be gamed
by powerful people. One doesn't need to look much further than PropOrNot, or
the Google changes to address supposed fake news, or the immediate reactions
to the Russia indictment, to know that any drive to "eliminate fake news" will
immediately be turned against independent media and causes like BLM,
opposition to the Dakota Access Pipeline, any political figure not popular
with Beltway types (like Sanders or Stein), etc.

I do enjoy being told what I actually want, though, so keep using that not-at-
all-patronizing rhetorical maneuver.

~~~
dredmorbius
Theories and criteria of truth is _not_ a greenfield:

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

[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/](https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/truth/)

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meri_dian
I'm not sure what the solution is, but it's definitely not doing nothing. The
2016 election has proved this.

~~~
ddingus
Social media didn't cause Clinton to lose. The DNC and Clinton lost.

Clinton didn't do the work needed to win, flat out. The DNC didn't run a solid
primary process either. I am not sure Sanders would have won that primary, but
the events leading up to the convention were appalling.

~~~
meri_dian
I completely agree with you. I believe that Clinton was a horrible candidate
and I don't think that half of the people who voted for Trump are
"deplorables".

But wouldn't you agree it's still a bad thing that Russia is trying to
influence our elections? Who knows how much worse it will be next time if we
don't do something to stop them.

~~~
ddingus
I don't believe they had any real impact.

And, if we actually clean our politics up, that noise won't even rate.

Run Medicare For All, strong commits, nationwide, 80 percent support issue and
watch non voters come right out of the woodwork to dominate.

~~~
ern
_I don 't believe they had any real impact._

It's amazing that massive amounts of money are spent on election campaigns,
precisely _because_ candidates believe voters can be swayed. Similarly,
massive amounts are spent on on online platforms, because businesses and
organizations believe that it's an effective way to reach people.

But combine the two (use of online platforms to attempt to influence an
election), and we hear confident pronouncements that it could not have had any
impact. It simply doesn't add up.

~~~
emodendroket
In fact very few people -- nearly none -- are truly "swing voters" who could
plausibly vote for either candidate. Most swing voters identify as "leaning"
Dem or Republican and vote with that party as reliably as registered voters of
it. Winning an election is about mobilizing your supporters and getting them
to show up to the polls. Understanding of this is one reason why there are so
many contentious changes to voting laws popping up.

~~~
ddingus
You are not factoring in the very large number of people who currently aren't
voting at all. They haven't really bought into the system, or they are jaded,
something.

Those people, giving something to vote for, and explicit good that they can
identify with, we'll improve turnout numbers, and can dramatically change the
election outcomes.

~~~
emodendroket
I think I rather explicitly am factoring them in. The party that wins is the
party that convinces more of its supporters to go to the polls, not the party
that completely changes voters' views with compelling arguments. Obviously
whoever doesn't go to the polls is someone who was not mobilized.

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erikerikson
It'd be interesting for Facebook and the like to provide a report to users of
all the content they were shown that originated from accounts linked to
foreign actors.

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newscracker
I worry more about measures that may be taken by platforms to prevent using
pseudonyms (Facebook is a big enemy on this respect) in the mistaken belief
that real names (or "authentic names", as Facebook calls it) would make people
interact in ways that don't cause harm. Add to this making surveillance a de
facto experience of having an online presence and humanity (as we know it)
would be doomed.

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tritium
I'm severely disinterested in regulated social media, even moreso than social
media under any other conditions.

If I can't write fiction, then why write words ever? Be it on the internet, be
it on a website, be it on an _extra special_ website that people seem to find
more important than most other websites.

~~~
ageek123
The government is happy for you to write words, as long as it's not anywhere
that anyone will see them. (Unless they're words the government approves of,
of course.)

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ddingus
Surely it can't be the majority of Americans in growing, significant economic
need driving lack of confidence in "modern democracies."

Ours is very deeply corrupt. The ONLY place that is really being discussed is
outside of equally owned media channels.

Don't like that state of affairs, but failure to incorporate it into this
problem set is ripe for abuse.

~~~
emodendroket
Russia panic is largely just a way to avoid the discussion of deep discontent,
which did not need to be imported.

~~~
adavis321
Russia spent a lot of time and money amplifying that discontent, so they
clearly thought it needed to be "imported". It's also important to remember
that they amplified discontent on both sides of the spectrum, because that
increases discord and makes our political process look (more) dysfunctional.

~~~
emodendroket
Yeah it was all a harmonious idyll before those 13 guys got on Facebook.

