Since Elon Musk bought Twitter, I’ve suddenly started blasphemous research. Is it good for society? What should we censor legally? What should we censor socially? What should be the rules of engagement?
I hesitate to write before letting this information sink in a little deeper...
Just one thought for the moment : I reduced my use of social network precisely because the algorithms lead me to extremes. I wish they would do the opposite : draw me towards people who, like me, search for compromises over conflict. A Twitter of Grey VS black or white.
Absolutely GREAT article. I especially loved the survey of free speech vs control of speech going all the way back to the Greeks. Also a minor note about how TikTok (controlled by China) "is limited to 40 minutes a day in China and is focused on educational and patriotic content, while the West receives all the most addictive content without limits." What does that remind me of? Oh, yeah, the Opium Wars. What goes around comes around??
I had the same thought. The reasons are a bit more nefarious though. The CCP isn't pushing TikTok to counter a massive trade deficit (which is horrible enough in and of itself), they're doing it to deliberately undermine their enemies. We really need to get a handle on that app before the problem becomes even worse.
Very interesting Tomas. There's another aspect to information which is the audience. Mis- and disinformation don't have as much impact when the public is educated in critical thinking which provides a tool set for distinguishing between facts and bullshit. This is why the Catholic church used Latin for texts and sermons. Commoners relied on your gorillas at the door (memorable image) for their salvation . Readership of the proliferation of books was limited to the small number of gentry who were literate. This is why the rise of public education was such a revolutionary change. And this also explains why Republicans have undermined public education for decades. The lies of demagogues can only gain traction with audiences poorly educated in evaluating the veracity of what they hear. Bullshit had existed as long as people talked to each other. What ebbs and flows is the ability of listeners to tell the difference. Republicans know that a well educated population won't buy their B.S. So one way to court the explosion of disinformation on social media is to strengthen public education.
Universities like mine are struggling with the tension between free speech and regulated speech in the aftermath of Oct 7 and the anti Israel protests. I think the only tenable stance is that all speech must be free, but only up to calls for violence toward others. Any effort to regulate some speech but not other speech will fail.
Are you asking with regard to my statement about setting a limit when it comes to calls for violence toward others? If so, I don't see this as question of fairness. There have always been limits to free speech. The whole "yelling fire in a crowded theater" bit. I see explicit calls for violence as akin to yelling fire. This is what tripped up the Ivy presidents. Calling for the genocide of Jews/Palestinians/left handed people/reheads/humorless is outside the boundaries of free speech, and a violation of student codes on any campus. If you were asking about fairness in a general sense, then with truly free speech there wouldn't be a need for this FCC regulation. I think it was always dicey to leave that judgement in the hands of the media.
Recently I told a joke to my Daughter who froze me with a look and admonished me with a remark:
'Dad, it is only OK to joke upwards not downwards'.
So on the Bill Maher show a couple of years ago, John Cleese (the famous British comedian) talking about 'wokeness' asked:
'Why are Australians the most balanced people in the World'
He answered his own joke with:
'Because they have a chip on both shoulders'.
Now, as an Australian I think that is funny. It is because we do have a chip on our shoulders (both shoulders).
British humour of the 1960's culminating in the series of Monty Python movies would not be 'tolerated' today (unfortunately). Was some of the British comedy tasteless? Absolutely, and the audience or viewing Public soon let the comedian(s) know. It may have appealed to a section of the population big enough to be successful so if not to your taste you didn't go to the show or turn on that programme on TV.
I wonder now with the 'growth' of intersectionality and its side offshoot 'wokeness', the concept of joking only upwards not downwards is associated with victimhood and forms of discrimination (perceived or otherwise).
So jokes about Whites and Jews - acceptable. Jokes about Blacks or Palestinians or some other 'minority' - bad.
Remember that remarks by Whites can be categorized as racist by those who want to claim victimhood for themselves or on behalf of some minority. Remarks by Blacks or some other category of supposed victims of discrimination can never be racist in the eyes of the same people.
Oh, how I miss British humour of the 60's which was a time of innocence but now looks more like a time of maturity.
Jokes are frequently meant to expose stupidity or incoherence. Are these not supposed to exist when one sort of person talks with another sort of person?
I agree that it is stupid. That is why British humour of the 1960's was so great as it poked fun at anyone who was a buffoon regardless of your social position. A fool is a fool.
Unfortunately you cannot argue with these idiots who promote intersectionality and 'wokeness'. We just have to remain sane and push back where we can.
As Mark Twain was quoted as saying:
'Never argue with an idiot. They will only drag you down to their level and beat you with their experience'.
Great article! I saw a comment recently about “broadcast vs narrowcast”. I forget where I read that but it encapsulated the censorship to misinformation spectrum you outline. I like the idea of providing guidelines to megaphone (and microphone) holders, but those guidelines will be impossible to enforce. My fear is we’re now in a period where no news source (network, cable, internet, podcast) etc can be trusted to provide objective information. I just reread Orwell’s 1984, which should be mandatory reading at some point in the high school curriculum along with Fahrenheit 451. There was a comment earlier about “critical thinking” - this should be built into everyone’s day to day life.
If you are looking for a really polemic topic, I think looking at whether the 2nd Amendment's contribution to it's own original intent (whatever you think that was) has been positive or negative, and whether that tendency is increasing or decreasing.
Mass shootings is like misinformation and censorship is like coups d’etat. Americans went all in on freedom and get both the misinformation and the shootings. Europeans are a bit less out there but get more censorship and tendencies towards dictatorial governments.
Hey Tomas, thank you for this excellent article. Catchy first paragraphs, that bring you to read and read and finally inhale the whole email while supposedly you have other stuff to do :)
The graph about polarisation of US congressmen is really telling. The fact that we live in our own bubble of truth, that can be as pervasive as we want now is quite unsettling. The impact that one person has over the world, by cascades, has really increased. Maybe you could graph that. How many lives has one individual changed?? rank Jesus, Mahomet, and now Trump and Musk (how this list feels wrong already) The thing is, now that the megaphone has escaped control, and no legislation can really compete with billionaires, who will raise to defend humanity's rights? Cf our recent sad soap opera with Altman and OpenAI?
I agree that allowing China to use TikTok as a propaganda tool to indoctrinate youth is not OK. That's what Hitler did in his day using the public education system. By feeding everything to everyone else via TikTok, China is feeding into the addictive nature of humans while collecting a lot of information about them. TikTok does have the ability to educate and to call out propaganda, which is good for those looking for that type of content.
At what point though do humans need to be responsible for their own media consumption? As one person stated, the more educated people are, the better their critical thinking skills and the easier to decipher what is true and what isn't.
Education is the key and that's why education has been under attack for so long. Whoever controls education controls what is taught. Look at how many Republican led states are trying to control education from elementary school to Universities.
The more we understand how social media works the better. The more we know the easier to look at ideas like Community Notes and the Fairness Doctrine.
The idea of social media and MSM being regulated and bound to look at both sides of something, which fits our agreed upon idea of Free Speech (anything goes until it promotes harm to others), seems logical. In looking at both sides, if one side is pushing garbage and the other facts, the media would have put side by side the facts vs garbage and the reporting would have to reveal the substance of each sides claims. This could work as it isn't being biased nor excluding free speech. And corporate ads cannot influence the debate because facts are facts.
You really can say anything you want, but you must be prepared for the consequences of your words. If your claim cannot be substantiated by credible facts, you lose the debate.
Trump being the most recent example. His words have cost him a total of $88.3 million (5 million plus 83.3 million). His claims he didn't know her and never touched her were not backed up by actual evidence, just bluster.
Good article as usual. I'm less optimistic about the free marketplace of ideas nowadays than I was in younger years, but on the whole leaning towards more freedom and less censorship is the way to go. Here the marketplace analogy is apt -albeit not perfect. Much like with economic markets consumers and producers will generally reach pretty fair deals and get what they need better than though a centrally planned economy as we have seen throughout history. Prices are data signals of value.
In both economic and in idea markets, however, people have all sorts of biases and quirks that make them susceptible to scams and persuasion, or will buy things that are knowingly not in their own best self-interest. Marketers and demgagoues alike make us of this.
It might be that smarter (more educated) people are less likely to fall for outright disinformation or scams but it's far from an antidote. Sometimes smart people are better at rationalizing bad ideas exactly because they are smarter.
So all in all I don't think is its a given that the best ideas always emerge out free and open discussions. On the other hand, the solution isn't necessarily to censor bad ideas precisely because the bad ideas might turn out to be the good ones.
I'm writing and learning about the topic of misinformation right now and urge you to explore it more too, would be great to hear where you come down in this discussion!
I like the free market analogy, in fact I would argue that they are representations of the same underlying process and the questions it raises. I've asked a few people recently and I'm interested in your view on this question: On a scale of 1 to 10, how free do you think our current economic markets are?
I enjoyed reading your post. Think you have covered the subject very succinctly. It is a huge topic. I have only recently started joining this substack crowd and am impressed with the effort to present 'balanced', (my choice of word), approaches to the variety of subjects presented. Your encouragement of invitation is admirable as well. Keep up the great work. Look forward to further musings.
A good addition to the (very useful!) community notes would be the option for an account that is re-tweeted with comment to reply with a comment that always appears on top of all the others, possibly even highlighted and always shown together with the retweet. This way, out-of-context dunking comes at least with a counterpoint and supportive re-tweeting can be replied to with a "thanks".
Tomas thanks for this great article. I especially appreciate the historical lens on mis/dis-information. We are often very exegetical in our think and only view things through our current lens & world models. It is vital to understand that these issues have happened before in the rhythms of history. We can learn much about how to deal with todays challenges. I also want to touch on something I thought you brought up which is part of the riddle - systems of engagement. I think based on my understanding of history that new communication “technologies”/mediums go through at least three distinct phases - system of record, system of engagement, & system of intelligence. With AI we are moving into the system of intelligence phase. These phases can obviously exist concurrently but one is more dominant or the main driver. Curious what your thoughts on this are?
Basically the simplest way I understand it : is it just comes down to how we handle/structure data, imbue it with meaning, convey it, or use it to uncover more data or transform it into something greater.
I'm perplexed by your opening... You wrote: "This stuff is anathema. This is forbidden. This is the kind of stuff that got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden. And yet here we are, witnessing blasphemous research."
Really?!? What in the world are you on about, here? Wa.a.a.a.a.ay far down in the article, you explain that you are happy you are seeing these. So was the opening an attempt at sarcasm? I've re-read it several times, and I'm not perceiving the "tell" that it is. So I almost didn't read the rest, then thought, no, Tomas CAN'T actually believe that... but got little in the way of confirmation until the very end of a long-ish piece. Given how well you typically write, that leaves me still... perplexed.
So, I'm not sure whether I'm actually disagreeing with you, or with some hypothetical "other" who you were actually trying to sarcastically poke fun at, but here goes...
SOME of the items you included could be considered controversial. There are some I would consider as misinterpretations, and, indeed, likely intentionally so on the part of the poster. There are some that do not fully justify the "claim" depicted below the post (at least, without more context, not in the post or partial post that you have reproduced), but, then, I have no idea from your presentation whether the POSTER actually MADE that claim, or whether that is your interpretation - what you think they meant when they posted what they posted.
There is one (the Crow Creek Massacre one) that "reports" something - that Pre-Columbian Native Americans were not idyllically peaceful across groupings - that we have known pretty well from a variety of research over decades . There is one (newspaper reporting on murder coverage) that seems to be trying to quantify something that I have definitely subjectively noticed and most definitely wondered about over recent years. (As an aside, my own sense is that it is not "about" being "racist toward whites", but rather, about being afraid of being labelled as racist toward blacks by individuals who will single out individual news stories for criticism. It's easier to just "bury" the race part when one knows it'll draw flak... This is subtly but significantly different than being racist against whites. But it IS "unbalanced" if the "bury the race info" tendency and/or policy for any given news operation applies ONLY to blacks, or only to all non-white groups, and not to ALL mentions of race). One (the "national origin of immigrants" one) is... let's face it... a "dog bites man" item. I would be absolutely floored if it turned out NOT to be true - and any convincing evidence that it is not true would make a great story. Finally, I remember seeing OTHER news coverage of the actual study referred to in the DailyWire item, and recall it being both important and convincing... NOT convincing that "...the US CJ system is not racist", but that it is nowhere near AS racist as it is often depicted, and that there are a whole lot of subtleties that get glossed over both in academia and conventional news media coverage of that system.
In summary, it appears that what has changed in your Twitter experience is that you are being dragged out of your "information bubble" and being exposed to things that don't confirm a few of your prejudices. That's not necessarily enough to make Musk's takeover and management a net positive, but, by itself, it is a "plus", I think. And, by the end of your post, I'm getting the vibe that you sort-of-think-so, too...
About the concluding bullet points:
* Yes to sunlight.
* Yes to banning speech that fosters imminent violence. My opinion - There are NO other rules that would be universally reasonable or desirable. This is something the US Supreme Court got right years ago, with respect to the 1st Amendment, which covers only Government actions, and we should replicate this with respect to anything that seeks to be, or is, as widespread in use as social media platforms are.
* I'm old enough to remember the Fairness Doctrine, which did, and does, sound reasonable on its face. However, it was a joke, and everyone knew it. Stand-up comedians and sketch comedy made fun of it. Your local TV station would express an opinion (often by accident...) and when called on it by someone citing Fairness Doctrine, they would give someone several minutes on-air at 1:30 AM, just before "sign-off". It would be even more unworkable in our contemporary age. Folks who control a media outlet of any kind and don't want to be "fair" will find ways not to be fair. Folks who don't want to be consuming one-sided media should look elsewhere when they see one-sidedness. Media will be fair only when we consumers of media insist on it.
* "We should not give the government many powers to censor speech" Strike the "m" in "many" and you've got it right. See your first point on Sunlight.
* Oligopolies: Correct. "Avoid". But don't waste time or effort trying to "ban". Oligo- means "a few". Good luck on picking just the right number to enshrine in law...
* CCP/China (or any other outside-the-US-bad actor). Correct - "madness". The devil is in the details, though. How to put limits, here, and what limits to place, is where the bulk of the conversation should be. This is a really deep and thorny problem and deserves the attention of a lot of smart and creative people. Wish I had "the answer". But I don't.
The comment of blasphemy was with regards to Twitter specifically, as I believe I mention in the intro. I think it could be extended to mainstream media—at least those on the left and those that used to be center.
Your conclusions sound valid. Would love to know if your perspective on the fairness doctrine was widely shared. You can joke about something that isn’t perfect but still works. This should go with an explanation of why polarization grew just as the fairness doctrine disappeared.
Would love to hear similar reasonings about your other points.
Arguably the biggest problem with anything controversial is nuance, and the inability to deal with it in mainstream media. Certain topics are impossible to cover given that they require a lot of nuance and need to come with many caveats and obvious reminders. In mainstream media you get a headline and if you are lucky a scripted summary or a couple of paragraphs people might read, 95% of people will stop there and assume the rest based on prior beliefs.
It's a sad state of affairs and seemingly impossible to resolve, thus certain topics are taboo and never discussed or made acceptable to carefully discuss.
Then that's not to mention the clear polarising effect of social media, where through no fault of your own algorithms push you towards typically one of two sides of an argument, again removing all nuance as attention is most easily gained by dropping nuance and being as dramatic sounding as possible.
I wish you luck when dealing with some of these topics!
Generally speaking, censorship is principally bad because state actors usually find creative ways to (mis)use it. Working hand-in-hand with state-sponsored propaganda.
Usual suspects are Stalinism and Nazism, but the same is happening in postwar USA, of course, with more finesse (follow the science, in this case, psychology and neuroscience)
I am curious to know whether you actually followed Darko's link and read the article?
One reason for asking is that I was intrigued to find that it contains some of the key elements of constant conflict theory and so might save me doing some of the explanation.
The other reason is that it demonstrates a key point: the information contained seems mostly accurate (i.e this isn't misinformation) and it is only at the end that the authors present their conclusions (which are very different from those that I would draw). It is the interpretation of the information that is the difference and that is where human biases come into play.
Thanks for the link, an insightful article. I find it fascinating that intelligent people can be presented with the same information and reach radically different conclusions. That usually suggests that there is no "right" answer.
What a great way to open the debate!
I hesitate to write before letting this information sink in a little deeper...
Just one thought for the moment : I reduced my use of social network precisely because the algorithms lead me to extremes. I wish they would do the opposite : draw me towards people who, like me, search for compromises over conflict. A Twitter of Grey VS black or white.
I think it’s doable! But hard
Absolutely GREAT article. I especially loved the survey of free speech vs control of speech going all the way back to the Greeks. Also a minor note about how TikTok (controlled by China) "is limited to 40 minutes a day in China and is focused on educational and patriotic content, while the West receives all the most addictive content without limits." What does that remind me of? Oh, yeah, the Opium Wars. What goes around comes around??
I had the same thought. The reasons are a bit more nefarious though. The CCP isn't pushing TikTok to counter a massive trade deficit (which is horrible enough in and of itself), they're doing it to deliberately undermine their enemies. We really need to get a handle on that app before the problem becomes even worse.
Ooooh nice comparison!
Very interesting Tomas. There's another aspect to information which is the audience. Mis- and disinformation don't have as much impact when the public is educated in critical thinking which provides a tool set for distinguishing between facts and bullshit. This is why the Catholic church used Latin for texts and sermons. Commoners relied on your gorillas at the door (memorable image) for their salvation . Readership of the proliferation of books was limited to the small number of gentry who were literate. This is why the rise of public education was such a revolutionary change. And this also explains why Republicans have undermined public education for decades. The lies of demagogues can only gain traction with audiences poorly educated in evaluating the veracity of what they hear. Bullshit had existed as long as people talked to each other. What ebbs and flows is the ability of listeners to tell the difference. Republicans know that a well educated population won't buy their B.S. So one way to court the explosion of disinformation on social media is to strengthen public education.
Universities like mine are struggling with the tension between free speech and regulated speech in the aftermath of Oct 7 and the anti Israel protests. I think the only tenable stance is that all speech must be free, but only up to calls for violence toward others. Any effort to regulate some speech but not other speech will fail.
What about the fairness doctrine though?
Are you asking with regard to my statement about setting a limit when it comes to calls for violence toward others? If so, I don't see this as question of fairness. There have always been limits to free speech. The whole "yelling fire in a crowded theater" bit. I see explicit calls for violence as akin to yelling fire. This is what tripped up the Ivy presidents. Calling for the genocide of Jews/Palestinians/left handed people/reheads/humorless is outside the boundaries of free speech, and a violation of student codes on any campus. If you were asking about fairness in a general sense, then with truly free speech there wouldn't be a need for this FCC regulation. I think it was always dicey to leave that judgement in the hands of the media.
No I meant it as a reaction to the last sentence
Tomas
Recently I told a joke to my Daughter who froze me with a look and admonished me with a remark:
'Dad, it is only OK to joke upwards not downwards'.
So on the Bill Maher show a couple of years ago, John Cleese (the famous British comedian) talking about 'wokeness' asked:
'Why are Australians the most balanced people in the World'
He answered his own joke with:
'Because they have a chip on both shoulders'.
Now, as an Australian I think that is funny. It is because we do have a chip on our shoulders (both shoulders).
British humour of the 1960's culminating in the series of Monty Python movies would not be 'tolerated' today (unfortunately). Was some of the British comedy tasteless? Absolutely, and the audience or viewing Public soon let the comedian(s) know. It may have appealed to a section of the population big enough to be successful so if not to your taste you didn't go to the show or turn on that programme on TV.
I wonder now with the 'growth' of intersectionality and its side offshoot 'wokeness', the concept of joking only upwards not downwards is associated with victimhood and forms of discrimination (perceived or otherwise).
So jokes about Whites and Jews - acceptable. Jokes about Blacks or Palestinians or some other 'minority' - bad.
Remember that remarks by Whites can be categorized as racist by those who want to claim victimhood for themselves or on behalf of some minority. Remarks by Blacks or some other category of supposed victims of discrimination can never be racist in the eyes of the same people.
Oh, how I miss British humour of the 60's which was a time of innocence but now looks more like a time of maturity.
Fragility as Jonathon Haidt says, is upon us.
This is a nice clean way to put it.
Only joking upwards is stupid.
Jokes are frequently meant to expose stupidity or incoherence. Are these not supposed to exist when one sort of person talks with another sort of person?
Thank you for this lens
Tomas.
I agree that it is stupid. That is why British humour of the 1960's was so great as it poked fun at anyone who was a buffoon regardless of your social position. A fool is a fool.
Unfortunately you cannot argue with these idiots who promote intersectionality and 'wokeness'. We just have to remain sane and push back where we can.
As Mark Twain was quoted as saying:
'Never argue with an idiot. They will only drag you down to their level and beat you with their experience'.
Great article! I saw a comment recently about “broadcast vs narrowcast”. I forget where I read that but it encapsulated the censorship to misinformation spectrum you outline. I like the idea of providing guidelines to megaphone (and microphone) holders, but those guidelines will be impossible to enforce. My fear is we’re now in a period where no news source (network, cable, internet, podcast) etc can be trusted to provide objective information. I just reread Orwell’s 1984, which should be mandatory reading at some point in the high school curriculum along with Fahrenheit 451. There was a comment earlier about “critical thinking” - this should be built into everyone’s day to day life.
Agreed!
If you are looking for a really polemic topic, I think looking at whether the 2nd Amendment's contribution to it's own original intent (whatever you think that was) has been positive or negative, and whether that tendency is increasing or decreasing.
I think it’s extremely similar.
Mass shootings is like misinformation and censorship is like coups d’etat. Americans went all in on freedom and get both the misinformation and the shootings. Europeans are a bit less out there but get more censorship and tendencies towards dictatorial governments.
Look at the original ruling of Citizens United, for example, and the unintended consequences that appear diametrically opposed to that intent.
So one rule of engagement you’d suggest: Limit the ability to finance politicians. Makes sense.
Hey Tomas, thank you for this excellent article. Catchy first paragraphs, that bring you to read and read and finally inhale the whole email while supposedly you have other stuff to do :)
The graph about polarisation of US congressmen is really telling. The fact that we live in our own bubble of truth, that can be as pervasive as we want now is quite unsettling. The impact that one person has over the world, by cascades, has really increased. Maybe you could graph that. How many lives has one individual changed?? rank Jesus, Mahomet, and now Trump and Musk (how this list feels wrong already) The thing is, now that the megaphone has escaped control, and no legislation can really compete with billionaires, who will raise to defend humanity's rights? Cf our recent sad soap opera with Altman and OpenAI?
Those are the questions! And I don’t have an answer yet.
As usual, I learned a lot today.
I agree that allowing China to use TikTok as a propaganda tool to indoctrinate youth is not OK. That's what Hitler did in his day using the public education system. By feeding everything to everyone else via TikTok, China is feeding into the addictive nature of humans while collecting a lot of information about them. TikTok does have the ability to educate and to call out propaganda, which is good for those looking for that type of content.
At what point though do humans need to be responsible for their own media consumption? As one person stated, the more educated people are, the better their critical thinking skills and the easier to decipher what is true and what isn't.
Education is the key and that's why education has been under attack for so long. Whoever controls education controls what is taught. Look at how many Republican led states are trying to control education from elementary school to Universities.
The more we understand how social media works the better. The more we know the easier to look at ideas like Community Notes and the Fairness Doctrine.
The idea of social media and MSM being regulated and bound to look at both sides of something, which fits our agreed upon idea of Free Speech (anything goes until it promotes harm to others), seems logical. In looking at both sides, if one side is pushing garbage and the other facts, the media would have put side by side the facts vs garbage and the reporting would have to reveal the substance of each sides claims. This could work as it isn't being biased nor excluding free speech. And corporate ads cannot influence the debate because facts are facts.
You really can say anything you want, but you must be prepared for the consequences of your words. If your claim cannot be substantiated by credible facts, you lose the debate.
Trump being the most recent example. His words have cost him a total of $88.3 million (5 million plus 83.3 million). His claims he didn't know her and never touched her were not backed up by actual evidence, just bluster.
Good article as usual. I'm less optimistic about the free marketplace of ideas nowadays than I was in younger years, but on the whole leaning towards more freedom and less censorship is the way to go. Here the marketplace analogy is apt -albeit not perfect. Much like with economic markets consumers and producers will generally reach pretty fair deals and get what they need better than though a centrally planned economy as we have seen throughout history. Prices are data signals of value.
In both economic and in idea markets, however, people have all sorts of biases and quirks that make them susceptible to scams and persuasion, or will buy things that are knowingly not in their own best self-interest. Marketers and demgagoues alike make us of this.
It might be that smarter (more educated) people are less likely to fall for outright disinformation or scams but it's far from an antidote. Sometimes smart people are better at rationalizing bad ideas exactly because they are smarter.
So all in all I don't think is its a given that the best ideas always emerge out free and open discussions. On the other hand, the solution isn't necessarily to censor bad ideas precisely because the bad ideas might turn out to be the good ones.
I'm writing and learning about the topic of misinformation right now and urge you to explore it more too, would be great to hear where you come down in this discussion!
Good thoughts.
Yeah I have a ton of stuff on misinformation but it’s more disheartening than anything else. I don’t have a crisp position on the thing yet.
I like the free market analogy, in fact I would argue that they are representations of the same underlying process and the questions it raises. I've asked a few people recently and I'm interested in your view on this question: On a scale of 1 to 10, how free do you think our current economic markets are?
Michael Magoon recently made this comment on an article by @Elle Griffin on free markets, which I think is quite spot on:
https://substack.com/@frompovertytoprogress/note/c-48831441?r=2mmx1&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action
Exactly. But what is the most important price in the modern economy?
I enjoyed reading your post. Think you have covered the subject very succinctly. It is a huge topic. I have only recently started joining this substack crowd and am impressed with the effort to present 'balanced', (my choice of word), approaches to the variety of subjects presented. Your encouragement of invitation is admirable as well. Keep up the great work. Look forward to further musings.
Thank you!
A good addition to the (very useful!) community notes would be the option for an account that is re-tweeted with comment to reply with a comment that always appears on top of all the others, possibly even highlighted and always shown together with the retweet. This way, out-of-context dunking comes at least with a counterpoint and supportive re-tweeting can be replied to with a "thanks".
Tomas thanks for this great article. I especially appreciate the historical lens on mis/dis-information. We are often very exegetical in our think and only view things through our current lens & world models. It is vital to understand that these issues have happened before in the rhythms of history. We can learn much about how to deal with todays challenges. I also want to touch on something I thought you brought up which is part of the riddle - systems of engagement. I think based on my understanding of history that new communication “technologies”/mediums go through at least three distinct phases - system of record, system of engagement, & system of intelligence. With AI we are moving into the system of intelligence phase. These phases can obviously exist concurrently but one is more dominant or the main driver. Curious what your thoughts on this are?
Please expand on your categorization in 3 phases!
Basically the simplest way I understand it : is it just comes down to how we handle/structure data, imbue it with meaning, convey it, or use it to uncover more data or transform it into something greater.
I see. I’ll have to think about it.
Good article. Remember Joanie Mitchell’s Both side now. It’s life’s illusions I recall…
I'm perplexed by your opening... You wrote: "This stuff is anathema. This is forbidden. This is the kind of stuff that got Adam and Eve kicked out of Eden. And yet here we are, witnessing blasphemous research."
Really?!? What in the world are you on about, here? Wa.a.a.a.a.ay far down in the article, you explain that you are happy you are seeing these. So was the opening an attempt at sarcasm? I've re-read it several times, and I'm not perceiving the "tell" that it is. So I almost didn't read the rest, then thought, no, Tomas CAN'T actually believe that... but got little in the way of confirmation until the very end of a long-ish piece. Given how well you typically write, that leaves me still... perplexed.
So, I'm not sure whether I'm actually disagreeing with you, or with some hypothetical "other" who you were actually trying to sarcastically poke fun at, but here goes...
SOME of the items you included could be considered controversial. There are some I would consider as misinterpretations, and, indeed, likely intentionally so on the part of the poster. There are some that do not fully justify the "claim" depicted below the post (at least, without more context, not in the post or partial post that you have reproduced), but, then, I have no idea from your presentation whether the POSTER actually MADE that claim, or whether that is your interpretation - what you think they meant when they posted what they posted.
There is one (the Crow Creek Massacre one) that "reports" something - that Pre-Columbian Native Americans were not idyllically peaceful across groupings - that we have known pretty well from a variety of research over decades . There is one (newspaper reporting on murder coverage) that seems to be trying to quantify something that I have definitely subjectively noticed and most definitely wondered about over recent years. (As an aside, my own sense is that it is not "about" being "racist toward whites", but rather, about being afraid of being labelled as racist toward blacks by individuals who will single out individual news stories for criticism. It's easier to just "bury" the race part when one knows it'll draw flak... This is subtly but significantly different than being racist against whites. But it IS "unbalanced" if the "bury the race info" tendency and/or policy for any given news operation applies ONLY to blacks, or only to all non-white groups, and not to ALL mentions of race). One (the "national origin of immigrants" one) is... let's face it... a "dog bites man" item. I would be absolutely floored if it turned out NOT to be true - and any convincing evidence that it is not true would make a great story. Finally, I remember seeing OTHER news coverage of the actual study referred to in the DailyWire item, and recall it being both important and convincing... NOT convincing that "...the US CJ system is not racist", but that it is nowhere near AS racist as it is often depicted, and that there are a whole lot of subtleties that get glossed over both in academia and conventional news media coverage of that system.
In summary, it appears that what has changed in your Twitter experience is that you are being dragged out of your "information bubble" and being exposed to things that don't confirm a few of your prejudices. That's not necessarily enough to make Musk's takeover and management a net positive, but, by itself, it is a "plus", I think. And, by the end of your post, I'm getting the vibe that you sort-of-think-so, too...
About the concluding bullet points:
* Yes to sunlight.
* Yes to banning speech that fosters imminent violence. My opinion - There are NO other rules that would be universally reasonable or desirable. This is something the US Supreme Court got right years ago, with respect to the 1st Amendment, which covers only Government actions, and we should replicate this with respect to anything that seeks to be, or is, as widespread in use as social media platforms are.
* I'm old enough to remember the Fairness Doctrine, which did, and does, sound reasonable on its face. However, it was a joke, and everyone knew it. Stand-up comedians and sketch comedy made fun of it. Your local TV station would express an opinion (often by accident...) and when called on it by someone citing Fairness Doctrine, they would give someone several minutes on-air at 1:30 AM, just before "sign-off". It would be even more unworkable in our contemporary age. Folks who control a media outlet of any kind and don't want to be "fair" will find ways not to be fair. Folks who don't want to be consuming one-sided media should look elsewhere when they see one-sidedness. Media will be fair only when we consumers of media insist on it.
* "We should not give the government many powers to censor speech" Strike the "m" in "many" and you've got it right. See your first point on Sunlight.
* Oligopolies: Correct. "Avoid". But don't waste time or effort trying to "ban". Oligo- means "a few". Good luck on picking just the right number to enshrine in law...
* CCP/China (or any other outside-the-US-bad actor). Correct - "madness". The devil is in the details, though. How to put limits, here, and what limits to place, is where the bulk of the conversation should be. This is a really deep and thorny problem and deserves the attention of a lot of smart and creative people. Wish I had "the answer". But I don't.
Thanks!
The comment of blasphemy was with regards to Twitter specifically, as I believe I mention in the intro. I think it could be extended to mainstream media—at least those on the left and those that used to be center.
Your conclusions sound valid. Would love to know if your perspective on the fairness doctrine was widely shared. You can joke about something that isn’t perfect but still works. This should go with an explanation of why polarization grew just as the fairness doctrine disappeared.
Would love to hear similar reasonings about your other points.
Thx again!
This is a great read! Who controls the megaphone, also controls thoughts and actions. Such an important topic.
Arguably the biggest problem with anything controversial is nuance, and the inability to deal with it in mainstream media. Certain topics are impossible to cover given that they require a lot of nuance and need to come with many caveats and obvious reminders. In mainstream media you get a headline and if you are lucky a scripted summary or a couple of paragraphs people might read, 95% of people will stop there and assume the rest based on prior beliefs.
It's a sad state of affairs and seemingly impossible to resolve, thus certain topics are taboo and never discussed or made acceptable to carefully discuss.
Then that's not to mention the clear polarising effect of social media, where through no fault of your own algorithms push you towards typically one of two sides of an argument, again removing all nuance as attention is most easily gained by dropping nuance and being as dramatic sounding as possible.
I wish you luck when dealing with some of these topics!
Ugh, no mention of the Censorship Industrial Complex?! (https://www.racket.news/p/report-on-the-censorship-industrial-74b).
Generally speaking, censorship is principally bad because state actors usually find creative ways to (mis)use it. Working hand-in-hand with state-sponsored propaganda.
Usual suspects are Stalinism and Nazism, but the same is happening in postwar USA, of course, with more finesse (follow the science, in this case, psychology and neuroscience)
I agree. The question is whether there are rules of engagement that can keep speech mostly free but mitigate misinformation
I am curious to know whether you actually followed Darko's link and read the article?
One reason for asking is that I was intrigued to find that it contains some of the key elements of constant conflict theory and so might save me doing some of the explanation.
The other reason is that it demonstrates a key point: the information contained seems mostly accurate (i.e this isn't misinformation) and it is only at the end that the authors present their conclusions (which are very different from those that I would draw). It is the interpretation of the information that is the difference and that is where human biases come into play.
Thanks for the link, an insightful article. I find it fascinating that intelligent people can be presented with the same information and reach radically different conclusions. That usually suggests that there is no "right" answer.