We're getting the social media crisis wrong
The bigger problem isn't disinformation. It's degraded democratic publics. On Zuckerberg today and Musk over the last few weeks. https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/were-getting-the-social-media-crisis
The bigger problem isn't disinformation. It's degraded democratic publics. On Zuckerberg today and Musk over the last few weeks. https://www.programmablemutter.com/p/were-getting-the-social-media-crisis
Comments
many intuitively and reflexively sense this-but you’ve put a good verbal handle to it.
https://bsky.app/profile/noupside.bsky.social/post/3lf3haia6c22e
And, it's not just because it's hard to detect '...the aggregated beliefs and wants of the citizenry as a whole', it's because this 'aggregate' no longer exists!
Hopefully we can avoid 'The Revolt Against Civilization'
Or Associated Press
or..
https://monthlyreview.org/2002/05/01/upton-sinclair-and-the-contradictions-of-capitalist-journalism/
We don't have a vocabulary for "these are the good things we did for everyone when we held political power".
Especially if that’s ALL you’re calling for - and not some specific mechanism or effect.
First off, "social media" is not the media, so actual differences need to be made legally.
2nd, it's the oligarch autocrat owners that are already curtailing free speech, by existing, & dictating on platforms.
I'm sure you can see the problem with that.
There is no official, legally distinct status for "the media". So all speech rights must be available to all citizens.
New tech brought new laws: FCC & airwaves, 1934; cable, telephone, internet, 1962; Patriot act, 2001. Regulations on competition, media responsibility, public safety, nat sec, obscenity, violence.
The 1st 4 are important for free democracy.
Individual moderation is 1 thing, platform disinformation promo is another.
"Yes; but under honest leaders they'll make honest policies."
(Euripides, 408 BCE, in 'Orestes')
https://bsky.app/profile/beverlyaparrish.bsky.social/post/3lf36jxhmhk25
Neutral news outlets have no idea how to compete.
Have Dems started talking at last about building or buying their own bullhorns yet?
Trump is just a reflection of that trend. What to do?
TBH, you can't fix stupid. It's gonna stupid.
There’s a step missing here. Musk can use X to spread his propaganda but that alone doesn’t explain his power. The legacy media are amplifying every dumb shit he says, just as they
I think you, and many commentators, underestimate the extent to which both legacy and social media are almost 100% controlled by oligarchs. They have unprecedented power over public discourse and they use it.
since they do all swim in Musk’s pool of madness, they act as amplifiers of his lens.
https://youtu.be/d8PndpFPL8g?si=9C8_-hJ-bmJCmeOt
"The more important change is to our beliefs about what other people think" -- you nailed it here.
Social media is smack to validate our biases.
And when biases are heavily laced with sexism and racism...
Hoo boy, and we thought newspapers and radio were bad.
https://www.amazon.com/Certainty-Trap-Question-Ourselves-More_and/dp/1634312562
Interesting book, but... a little bit too much licking of Hayek.
And I agree, it is a clear next milestone in the conversation started by Popper.
[academic publishing incestuously sucks, too. Also.😺]