Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
Asking "how do we counter disinformation" when most used sources of information are centralized, oligarch-owned social media, is like asking "how do we manage fever" when most sources of drinking water are contaminated by sewage.
Instead of focusing on symptoms, we should really focus on the underlying causes.
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
We don't even have to assume outright mustache-twirling malice on the part of people who manage and design those algorithms that just so happen to boost disinformation.
Incompetence, as per Hanlon's razor, is quite sufficient.
And in the end any sufficiently advanced incompetence is indistinguishable from malice, just ask the Rohignya.
At some point it doesn't matter if a system was designed to supercharge disinformation, or is being abused for that – if it is allowed to continue doing so.
Noodlemaz
@rysiek well, we need to do both. While these systems exist and have influence, vulnerable people are at risk. It's very important to manage symptoms AND causes. Doing one without the other rarely leads to good outcomes.
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@noodlemaz you're not wrong. Like ano hot-take, mine was not nuanced. :blobcat:
Jon Yoder
@rysiek This. The only problem is that at least in the US, we are dealing with people in power creating the dystopia *and* the awful people at the bottom who put them there. It really feels like the "this is fine" meme.
Dźwiedziu
@rysiek I can only add that my Hanlon's Razor got dull with experience.
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@dzwiedziu to me the value of Hanlon's razor is that it disarms some of the most often used counter-arguments when things like this are debated.
"You can't prove they did this on purpose!"
Yeah, well, I don't have to and don't intend to. The outcome is just as bad.
Flex Foot
@noodlemaz @rysiek loved reading this this morning. basically harm reduction and harm prevention applied to propaganda streams
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@phryk they were not built intentionally to boost specifically disinformation.
They were built to maximize engagement.
I can see how the disinformation boosting is a side-effect.
In that sense I don't think we need to assume intentional malice, and not assuming it simplifies the conversation for those of us who want to push for dealing with the underlying issue.
Of course the fact that once that became clear these companies did effectively nothing to fix it is damning.
phryk 🏴
@rysiek I'd strongly disagree with the take that it's incompetence tho; those algorithms do exactly what they were designed to do – increase "engagement" and thus the bottom line.
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@FlexFoot " harm reduction and harm prevention applied to propaganda streams" – dang, I might just steal this one from you!
phryk 🏴
@rysiek I think the basic mechanic here is that any cost that is externalized is a net profit.
This is why companies lobby so hard to not be held accountable – they want to keep externalizing any costs they can.
Same applies to environmental and health damages and many, MANY other things.
IMO probably *the* central mechanic of how wealth (whether monetary, environmental or any other kind) is siphoned off from society in general and moved to barely a couple hundred obscenely rich people.
Michał "rysiek" Woźniak · 🇺🇦
@phryk oh, I agree.
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