The problem is information DDOS. We, as individuals, are being overwhelmed with enormous amounts of information of vastly varying quality and intention, and we don't have the tools to process it.
This leaves us very vulnerable to manipulation by anyone who has even a slight edge in processing and disseminating large quantities of information.
I heard a very interesting comment on a podcast recently. This problem has traditionally been solved by intermediate organizations like universities, news orgs, political groups, unions, trade guilds, religious groups, etc. People selectively choose which of these orgs they trust, and then receive heavily curated information from those groups.
In the digital age, the influence and reach of these intermediate groups has been decimated / overshadowed in many ways. The proposed solution on the podcast was that we need to foster new ways of empowering individuals to connect with next-gen intermediate organizations in order to mitigate the Information DDOS. For example, Facebook could get out of the content filtering business entirely, and instead provide a completely agnostic platform that intermediate orgs could live on top of as a curation layer. People then choose which of those groups they receive content from. I think the idea needs more work, but I found it very interesting and relevant.
Of course, the intermediate orgs have not always done a perfect job, and have their own forms of manipulation and corruption. But throwing them out entirely without a proper replacement seems to be a huge mistake -- especially as the amount of information expands very rapidly, as is happening now.
>In the digital age, the influence and reach of these important intermediate groups has been decimated
I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Those intermediate organizations have been biased in the past and seem to have become increasingly biased to the point of becoming useless for those that want to focus on facts rather than opinion & commentary.
We know that widely available information is generally good for democracy. This could actually be a step in the right direction, but there is some adaptation that society has to undergo in order to efficiently filter the new influx of information.
Whereas before there was inherent trust of published info, I think a general skepticism over new information is likely to develop.
I hear this reasoning regularly, and I'm still not convinced of it. I don't necessarily think the old way was "good", but the "least bad" workable solution. Centralised media and so on do have inherent biases, but they are also held accountable when they publish incorrect information.
The problem we have today is not that information is widely available, but that disinformation is widely available and all but impossible to distinguish from real information. We're seeing time and time again, in elections across the world, that false propaganda spread virally through social media is having a meaningful effect on the way people vote. I, too, would love to imagine that a "general skepticism over new information" will develop, but we're not seeing any signs of that. If anything it's the opposite.
Those 'intermediate' media companies can be purchased. Who exactly is holding them accountable and to what? I'd argue that both Fox News & MS NBC are biased to the point of being useless for informational purposes and objective thought.
I also wonder how much of this 'fake news' people actually believe vs. using it as justification for their existing beliefs & non-rational biases.
Globalization, LGBT rights, open trade, open borders, etc. have happened relatively quickly and people resist change.
> Those 'intermediate' media companies can be purchased.
They can, yes. But we know who purchases them, and can make educated guesses towards the intent behind buying such a thing. For instance, the mass purchase by Sinclair of local TV stations in the US. We couldn't stop that from happening, but it meant that when there was a sharp shift in the news coverage those channels provided, we knew why.
> I'd argue that both Fox News & MS NBC are biased to the point of being useless for informational purposes and objective thought.
I'm not going to argue with that- like I said, the current system isn't perfect. But the likes of the NYT, BBC, WaPo, WSJ etc. do issue corrections on stories, and are held accountable, broadly, by each other and the public at large, because what they publish is public and known. By contrast, the new world we find ourselves in where posts can be advertised to specific audiences isn't public - not really - so there can't be any accountability at all.
Those intermediate organizations have been biased in the past and seem to have become increasingly biased to the point of becoming useless for those that want to focus on facts rather than opinion & commentary.
I'm not convinced that is true, but even if it were the important question isn't "are they biased?" but "are we replacing it with something worse?". So far, the latter seems plausible.
Developing a general skepticism isn't a bad thing in and of itself, so long as it is tempered by the real goal which is to have a reliable mechanism for evaluating and accepting new information.
We know that widely available information is generally good for democracy.
This is only true if the information is correct, and quite the opposite if we are talking propaganda etc.
Thank you, absolutely agree. Everytime I hear someone say that supposed "liberal" institutions are "biased," I genuinely struggle to come up with an answer to the question "biased towards what?" other than "objective reality."
How about this idea of "safe spaces"? And also the idea that it is generally okay to attempt to shut down, yell over, or ban speech or ideas that they don't agree with.
That is not what propaganda means. By its very nature it [tends to be] misleading.
By all means clear communication of facts is beneficial for democracy. But that is not what propaganda is.
[edit: dragonwriter pointed out it is not strictly necessary for it to be misleading - this is true and not what I meant to suggest. In practice nearly always is misleading. It's purpose is to manipulate, which is always detrimental to democracy imo]
> That is not what propaganda means. By its very nature it is misleading.
No, propaganda is designed to influence belief and behavior in a particular way (the defining example was material designed to lead people to the Catholic faith; “propaganda” comes from the former [pre-1967] Latin name of the modern Catholic Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples [0]); it is not necessarily intended to be misleading.
I think the biggest issue is just that, we've seen a huge increase in people and groups' ability to have their voice heard without a commensurate increase in the ability and willingness to evaluate those voices filter out bad information/voices. Without the mechanisms at the personal levels to filter out the voice just yelling nonsense for their own gain increased information isn't good it's actively detrimental. This is because people don't have an infinite capacity to consume information and evaluate it against everything else so we wind up in a bunch of smaller communities where the individuals are getting a full helping of information but it can be completely skewed and distorted. At least in the old more monolithic days there was a more common set of facts people were working from where today it seems more and more I'm arguing the basic facts about the state of $ISSUE rather than the merits of one approach to it or the other.
But we already have "next-gen intermediate organizations" that filter the news for us. I carefully curate people I follow on Twitter, subreddits I'm subscribed to on reddit, podcasts in my feed, etc.
This is a good point, we do have some. But I think there is vast room for improvement. For one, the examples you listed require significantly more effort and care to manage.
Perhaps the best platforms of the coming decades will succeed by providing very powerful tools that enable intermediate orgs to more effectively scale up alongside the massive flow of information while remaining true to their core values.
Reddit is probably one of the best examples right now. But I think it is only a glimmer of the potential.
I also think that we have to somehow remove the incentives that push for blindly increasing "engagement" at all costs. The obvious targets being digital advertising and the grotesque, anti-human ad-tech industry that it has spawned.
Because a single person can't be an expert at everything, and at some point, individuals must delegate trust to a third party.
I'm not an expert on climate change, but it's an issue that I may care about. So what do I do? Drop everything and spend the next 10 years becoming an expert?
I think for myself plenty. I have realized that it is foolish to completely abandon accumulated collections of knowledge and wisdom and try to do everything from scratch by myself. Yes, they have flaws, but everything has flaws. Any alternative framework or approach must do significantly better with less flaws.
Of course, constant effort is required to reevaluate things, to account for known flaws, and so on. I would never advocate for docile, naive acceptance of authority.
Edit: I should have also mentioned that I'm a strong proponent of applying a reasonable degree of skepticism to all incoming information, as well as being comfortable with uncertainty. Saying "I'm not sure about that but I'd like to learn more" is a superpower.
Why don't you build your own house, build your own car, filter your own water, generate your own power, build your own transit system, enforce your own food regulations, enforce the boundaries of your own private property, create, distribute, manage your own currency? Do it yourself ffs, it isn't that hard.
This leaves us very vulnerable to manipulation by anyone who has even a slight edge in processing and disseminating large quantities of information.
I heard a very interesting comment on a podcast recently. This problem has traditionally been solved by intermediate organizations like universities, news orgs, political groups, unions, trade guilds, religious groups, etc. People selectively choose which of these orgs they trust, and then receive heavily curated information from those groups.
In the digital age, the influence and reach of these intermediate groups has been decimated / overshadowed in many ways. The proposed solution on the podcast was that we need to foster new ways of empowering individuals to connect with next-gen intermediate organizations in order to mitigate the Information DDOS. For example, Facebook could get out of the content filtering business entirely, and instead provide a completely agnostic platform that intermediate orgs could live on top of as a curation layer. People then choose which of those groups they receive content from. I think the idea needs more work, but I found it very interesting and relevant.
Of course, the intermediate orgs have not always done a perfect job, and have their own forms of manipulation and corruption. But throwing them out entirely without a proper replacement seems to be a huge mistake -- especially as the amount of information expands very rapidly, as is happening now.