
Stop the online conspiracy theorists before they break democracy - longdefeat
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/18/online-conspiracy-theorists-democracy
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jdoliner
I remember just a few days ago when media outlets were slamming the "alt-right
trolls" for spreading the racist conspiracy theory that the attack on Jussie
Smollett was fake. Fast forward to today, it's generally accepted as fake
(although Smollett still hasn't admitted it) by those same news outlets, yet
there's 0 acknowledgement of the fact that the people they slammed turned out
to be completely right, and of course no apology. Just more rhetoric about how
this might make people less likely to believe them in the future.
Believability is something that's earned, and at this point it's been lost by
mainstream news outlets. Shutting down some internet troll bogeyman isn't
going to change that, a little self-awareness might.

~~~
nopriorarrests
This is an interesting example to look at! I've searched "Jussie Smollett" on
guardian.com, and here are the results:
[https://i.imgur.com/GDRMj2Q.png](https://i.imgur.com/GDRMj2Q.png). Hmmm.

I've also went news.google.com, and "jussie smollett hoax" gave me about
5,750,000 results. Interesting.

Also, I can't help but notice that NYT article about new developments in
Jussie Smollett case is called "Jussie Smollett Timeline: Mystery Deepens as
Police Review Case".

Why people do not trust mainstream media the way they used to?

Mystery deepens, indeed.

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Praxey
The powers that be are afraid that social media has caused them to lose
control of the narrative. So they hire people like this author to argue there
is danger in permitting broad, inclusive, open discussion, where all voices
are allowed - a bedrock of our western tradition. This propaganda is designed
to weaken popular resistance to censorship laws, and condition people to
condone the mass deplatforming we are seeing recently.

Apparently not confident in their ability to make better arguments (to counter
the false narratives etc..) she and they propose more government regulation.
Great for those who have means to influence policy makers. Bad for the rest of
us.

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nopriorarrests
>Cannibals, aliens and clandestine lizard overlords: thanks to algorithms,
such ideas threaten the future of Europe

Great subtitle. Is it ok to consider it a conspiracy theory? (no sarcasm)

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calibas
What scares me is that people are using this as an argument for why companies
like Facebook and Google should tightly control everything people see and
hear. To me, this is an argument for education and media reform.

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gigama
"Our ability to understand threats to free expression, security and democracy
are all hindered by the opaqueness of technologies designed for advertising
purposes to keep a user’s attention for as long as possible, which essentially
distort the level playing field of free speech by amplifying or driving a user
to certain messaging or enabling the micro-targeting of content."

Transparency would help but how do we answer the "right" of tech giants to run
proprietary (non-transparent) systems in pursuit of profits? Regulation by
politician/law-makers who clearly don't understand tech (and often have their
own self-dealing agendas) doesn't seem to be a wise solution. Courts favor the
free speech rights of everyone, which unfortunately includes "disinformation"
speech.

My own approach has been to completely boycott companies that choose profits
at the expense of rational, civilized society. Financial punishment is
typically the only thing that markets pay real attention to. Am curious how
others here view the problem.

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bargl
I agree that a part of this problem is information silos that you're pushed
into my machine learning algorithms.

You should see my youtube feed. I watch 1 Jordan Peterson video and it treats
me like I'm his biggest fanboy. Oh, and you like him watch these other guys
who like him too. Oh and you like them, we'll make you feel even better by
watching MORE things like him. WATCH MORE VIDEOS HERE. Stay we'll make you
feel like everyone agrees with you.

For me to break this I have to actively go out to break the algorithm by
watching videos from people who disagree with Jordan just to add those types
of videos into my feed.

I (only kinda) knowing how these algorithms work try to train it to give me a
healthy diet of both sides of the debate.

So apply that to a conspiracy.

Oh, you think the earth is flat? Watch this self affirming video about the
moon landing.

This works really well when shopping or trying to match a search to the text
you're putting in, but it doesn't work well for creating diversified feeds
that inform people.

One way to break this up is by breaking up the monopolies on data, so that you
can have different companies offer algorithms ON the data that the mega corps
have. This would require a ton of regulation because you'd have to force data
consumers not to turn around and sell that data. As we've seen can be a
problem with facebook. But we need to break apart owning data and owning the
algorithms.

~~~
zby
This would be a useful feature - a button "Search disagreeing videos" or
"Search critique of this video".

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dimensi0nal
I really don't think Q boomers are a threat to democracy.

~~~
michaelmrose
Stupidity is a legitimate threat to democracy. If 30% of your population
believes in a path forward for your nation that is evil/wrong/stupid but not
insane and separately 50% of the total population is dumber than dirt you may
be able to shift enough support to your side to launch the next national
socialist party.

~~~
ASalazarMX
The greatest threat seems to be fear, because it makes you stupid. People in
great numbers behave like herds, afraid of dangers (real or imaginary) and
desperate for anything that makes them feel safer. Herds are manipulated by
fear, and never before has been such an effective medium to disseminate that
fear to the masses.

The dangers of being afraid have been recognized and studied many times in our
history, yet we keep falling for it.

~~~
_Schizotypy
I guess a good question to ask is, do we keep falling for it because we are
stupid?

~~~
ASalazarMX
I think people sometimes feel defenseless, therefore become afraid, therefore
become stupid.

------
MockObject
> Instead of focusing exclusively on the removal of extreme content and
> accounts, it will be necessary to regulate against harmful infrastructures
> and malicious behaviours.

I'm as alarmed as anyone else by the proliferation of conspiracy theories,
from vaccination autism to QAnon to Flat Earth, but I'm also suitably cautious
of official or quasi-official narrative control deciding which views are
legitimate.

That is a level of power that never ever fails to corrupt its holders; a cure
worse than its disease.

