Who should do the fact checks with millions and millions of fake news? The nature of social media itself is the problem. However it probably is impossible to get rid of every social network and revert debates to pre 2010-status.
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To me, equating social media with news makes no sense. It's just modern technology for gossip/chat/socializing. Gossip is ancient human behavior; in communist RO🇷🇴 when I was a kid, standing in line provided ample time for this ("I heard from someone, when standing in line for cheese...") You don't
automatically believe everything you hear; you apply due dilligence ("who told you/where does this come from", etc.) Fact-checking social media makes not much more sense than fact-checking every statement uttered in your presence. However, prominent actors' statements do deserve checking, 2/
🇷🇴 did pretty well in dealing with Georgescu and the 💩🇷🇺 manipulation. I fully encourage more forceful intervention by gov and censorship. The rest of the world isn't bound by 🇺🇸 directions on "fReE sPeEch"
What's compounded it is politicians no longer care about the truth. Societies' leaders are more cynical and corrupt now.
Repeat the lies and they become 'truth'
I think it's rather that well-meaning politicians (and most other people) don't understand that truth is about rhetoric and stories, not about the veracity of facts.
Boston University International Law Journal Volume 38 Spring 2020 - From Hate Speech to Incitement to Genocide: The Role of the Media in the Rwandan Genocide. Angela Hefti & Laura Ausserladscheider Jonas. https://www.bu.edu/ilj/files/2020/08/Article_HeftiJonas.pdf
Yes, non-free media can be a channel for the worst, including genocide, e.g., Goebbels, Pravda, RTLM, etc. I think this example shows well what happens when "non-filtered speech" has access to a large-scale distribution infrastructure 😖
I think you missed the point. The radio functioned just like social media works. Talk radio has long done the same thing in the US. Also Rtlm was a private radio station not the government.
I think institutional media has had to shape the way it creates content to increase the likelihood its captures algorithmic engagement. They'd shaping their output for an algorithm, not people.
Absolutely. Starting around early 2010s, legacy media began using more emotive and clickbait-style language in their headlines to remain relevant and compete with digital-first outlets and aggregators for algorithmic attention. https://bsky.app/profile/socialmedialab.ca/post/3lc3o3rbcx22t
Around that time, headline writers also began using A/B testing—because digital platforms made it possible—and increasingly wrote for algorithms rather than for human readers.
Remember articles in 2016-2017 on people in Macedonia writing stuff on US elections Trump vs Clinton for pure Ad revenues and apparently they figured that lies about Clinton and Democrats just created more revenues
It may differ from real-life gossip in the reach and volume, but not from the angle of trustworthiness and significance. People's understanding of how social networks work has been initially very limited, but progress has been made. Public attitudes HAVE changed for the better, e.g., tobacco, etc.
They did change for the better but I fear they're getting worse with a significant rise in denialism. I suspect many people would side with "big tobacco" now if the impacts of smoking were only released in 2022... Especially if they paid enough influencers...
They did and do pay tons of influencers! https://www.amazon.fr/Merchants-Doubt-Handful-Scientists-Obscured/dp/1608193942 Yet medical knowledge has prevailed. No single organization or branch of human activity is without fault, but some are "overall" rather killing people, while others are "mostly" curing them. Most folks will make the difference.
Yes it's a bit late for the tobacco industry to reverse the commonly understood facts about smoking. What I'm saying is if that wasn't know prior to the age of social media I reckon they'd have had some success... Look at what's happening with vaccines FFS!
If it is too much, if sources are biased and deceitful, if the platform amplifies lies algorithmically, if truth is random, the rational action is to stop being part of it, stop consuming it, leave the social media.
that's great, but individual solutions to systemic problems are not realistic. you might be willing to undertake that, frankly, extensive burden you put yourself through, but someone who barely has an hour of downtime per day does not.
they are not less deserving of accurate information.
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https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/misinformation-disinformation
Repeat the lies and they become 'truth'
https://www.bu.edu/ilj/files/2020/08/Article_HeftiJonas.pdf
I do have the impression that a lot of Media like FoxNews or Bild or Sun actually work pretty similar to social media:
Buzz & attention are more relevant than content & truth.
They partially promote rightwing lies, simply because these sell better that facts.
From
'What do you THINK of...'
to
'How do you FEEL about what Joe said?'
#JOURnalism 📎
Remember articles in 2016-2017 on people in Macedonia writing stuff on US elections Trump vs Clinton for pure Ad revenues and apparently they figured that lies about Clinton and Democrats just created more revenues
Would argue this mechanism existed for newspaper headlines or news Trailers before. Basically everywhere where "news were sold"
But social media 10x the effect
Standing in line for cheese.
👍
to Gossip but is also very different, because information travels very fast and reaches many. A new mass media.
That process cannot be offloaded.
If it is too much, if sources are biased and deceitful, if the platform amplifies lies algorithmically, if truth is random, the rational action is to stop being part of it, stop consuming it, leave the social media.
I see something interesting on social media, I check 1-3 reliable news sources to verify it.
If it's really important and I want to be absolutely sure, I check sources in different languages.
Local papers are best in reporting local events.
Eliminating disinformation at the source is not possible. We need to learn how to spot it. Teach media literacy in school.
Education has to be accessible. Make it a privilege and you lose your democracy.
they are not less deserving of accurate information.
https://www.apa.org/topics/journalism-facts/misinformation-recommendations