How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire

[Jayjay]

But all of them contingent on Youtube not aggressively fighting back. Basically, anyone who doesn't want ads on Youtube doesn't see them. But how is this sensible for a company based on ad revenue? Are there really that many people who don't know or care about blocking ads?

For a lot of people, Youtube is about downloading music. Youtube-dl is all they need or some similar. I can watch Rachel Maddow on MSNBC's streaming channel. For a lot of people, as long as they can access the porn channels, that is all they need.

The question is, what's in it for Google to allow people to use their services without being forced to watch (or listen to) ads?

Anyway that's a derail, I was using ad blockers as just an example of how I think social media should work. Let the user decide what and how to sort the content, not Facebook's algorithms. But I have no good answer how that would be economically feasible for the social media companies, who make money from selling user data and manipulating what they can or should see.

 

[Swammerdami]

... We lurched from Bush to Obama, Obama to Trump, Trump to Biden. Extremes.

In electronics we call that bang-bang control. Your home thermostat turns the heat full on or full off with no medium. ...

Trump tried to deal the border, Biden blows a whistle to come. Chaos with no workable medium.

WOW! Biden is often called TOO centrist, but to read this weird post one might think he were a card-carrying Commie! Biden opposed school busing, gay marriage, et cetera. Obama also governed from the center: Recall that "Obamacare" began as a Republican plan!

I find steve-bank's opinion so incredible, I'd really like to learn where he gets his news or opinions. (Lemme guess: He watches Fox half the time and, for balance, some other channel half the time! ) Whatever, he's bought into the right-wing Lie Machine and doesn't even know it.

Extremists on one side were happy to have 1000 angry idiots storm the U.S. Capitol. The "other side" took the extreme position that this insurrection was inappropriate. What would "moderates" like Mr. Banks have us prefer? That the proper compromise between the "extremes" would have been an an angry mob storming the Capitol with just 500 idiots instead of 1000?

 

[barbos]

So, how do you regulate social networks without turning into China?

25% of people are simply idiots who can't handle the internet.

 

[Swammerdami]

The article linked in OP has specific proposals for taming social media. Are they good ideas? Will they be effective? I don't know ... but I see little evidence that thread participants have perused the article to find out!

 

[SimpleDon]

So, how do you regulate social networks without turning into China?

25% of people are simply idiots who can't handle the internet.

Let me guess, you didn't read the article. The article suggests many different ways of toning down the conversations on social media without turning into a repressive government along with examples of where it is being done in the world. As the OP suggested, read the article.

 

[Gun Nut]

So, how do you regulate social networks without turning into China?

25% of people are simply idiots who can't handle the internet.

By making the intentional spreading of obvious, provable lies highly illegal and financially devastating to corporations caught dealing in it... by way of clarification of the first amendment NOT meaning you are free to say anything at all with no consequence... just like the second amendment does not say you can shoot bullets anywhere and everywhere because freedom.

 

[Keith&Co.]

So, how do you regulate social networks without turning into China?

25% of people are simply idiots who can't handle the internet.

By making the intentional spreading of obvious, provable lies highly illegal and financially devastating to corporations caught dealing in it... by way of clarification of the first amendment NOT meaning you are free to say anything at all with no consequence... just like the second amendment does not say you can shoot bullets anywhere and everywhere because freedom.

How, exactly, do you prove lies though?
I mean, intentional falsehood as opposed to mistakes?
Every news organization has had opportunity to to print a retraction because they erred. How do you punish lying liars without also putting everyone else at risk if they make a mistake that's later proven wrong?

 

[Trausti]

So, how do you regulate social networks without turning into China?

25% of people are simply idiots who can't handle the internet.

By making the intentional spreading of obvious, provable lies highly illegal and financially devastating to corporations caught dealing in it... by way of clarification of the first amendment NOT meaning you are free to say anything at all with no consequence... just like the second amendment does not say you can shoot bullets anywhere and everywhere because freedom.

How, exactly, do you prove lies though?
I mean, intentional falsehood as opposed to mistakes?
Every news organization has had opportunity to to print a retraction because they erred. How do you punish lying liars without also putting everyone else at risk if they make a mistake that's later proven wrong?

Imagine putting the power to censor in the hands of your worse enemy.

 

[barbos]

So, how do you regulate social networks without turning into China?

25% of people are simply idiots who can't handle the internet.

Let me guess, you didn't read the article. The article suggests many different ways of toning down the conversations on social media without turning into a repressive government along with examples of where it is being done in the world. As the OP suggested, read the article.

It's a long article.

 

[barbos]

So, how do you regulate social networks without turning into China?

25% of people are simply idiots who can't handle the internet.

By making the intentional spreading of obvious, provable lies highly illegal and financially devastating to corporations caught dealing in it... by way of clarification of the first amendment NOT meaning you are free to say anything at all with no consequence... just like the second amendment does not say you can shoot bullets anywhere and everywhere because freedom.

How, exactly, do you prove lies though?
I mean, intentional falsehood as opposed to mistakes?
Every news organization has had opportunity to to print a retraction because they erred. How do you punish lying liars without also putting everyone else at risk if they make a mistake that's later proven wrong?

You have members of congress lying, or should I say, having alternative facts.
And don't forget FoxNews.
US has had freedom of opinion for so long that it became more like freedom of alternative facts, even without internet.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You have members of congress lying, or should I say, having alternative facts.
And don't forget FoxNews.
US has had freedom of opinion for so long that it became more like freedom of alternative facts, even without internet.

You're throwing around a few accusations. Not saying you're wrong, as a matter of your opinion, but, again, how do you take them to court and prove "lies?"
That they're not honestly mistaken, that it was not that their source misled them?
If we're going to police behavior for this, there had oughta be standards.

 

[ZiprHead]

So, how do you regulate social networks without turning into China?

25% of people are simply idiots who can't handle the internet.

By making the intentional spreading of obvious, provable lies highly illegal and financially devastating to corporations caught dealing in it... by way of clarification of the first amendment NOT meaning you are free to say anything at all with no consequence... just like the second amendment does not say you can shoot bullets anywhere and everywhere because freedom.

That seems quite a bit OTT to me.

 

[steve_bank]

Biden on TV said to the immigrants 'don't come.. yet'.

The progressives while not being explicit supports open immigration. Some want to decriminalize what is now illegal immigration. Get across the border and you are home free.

Point again being when a political shift occurs it is between two extremes.

Remember Bill Clinton enacted welfare reform, a bipartisan issue. From a documentary on Reagan, Reagan and Tip O'Neil used to have drinks at the White House after hours swapping stories and jokes.

That will never happen today. The polarized media will never let it take hold, and any cooperation will be threatened by Trump who still holds power.

 

[Trausti]

Biden on TV said to the immigrants 'don't come.. yet'.

The progressives while not being explicit supports open immigration. Some want to decriminalize what is now illegal immigration. Get across the border and you are home free.

Point again being when a political shift occurs it is between two extremes.

Remember Bill Clinton enacted welfare reform, a bipartisan issue. From a documentary on Reagan, Reagan and Tip O'Neil used to have drinks at the White House after hours swapping stories and jokes.

That will never happen today. The polarized media will never let it take hold, and any cooperation will be threatened by Trump who still holds power.

You blame Trump, but this started at least with W. Every Republican president/nominee since W (if not before) has been called a Nazi by the Left. Even Romney. Recall when W and Ellen DeGeneres were seen happy together watching a football game. Outrage. But only from the Left.

 

[barbos]

You have members of congress lying, or should I say, having alternative facts.
And don't forget FoxNews.
US has had freedom of opinion for so long that it became more like freedom of alternative facts, even without internet.

You're throwing around a few accusations. Not saying you're wrong, as a matter of your opinion, but, again, how do you take them to court and prove "lies?"

That's my point. US is founded on this idea that everyone can have their own opinion and all opinions are equal and should be respected. Well, here is a drawback of this approach.

 

[Angra Mainyu]

You have members of congress lying, or should I say, having alternative facts.
And don't forget FoxNews.
US has had freedom of opinion for so long that it became more like freedom of alternative facts, even without internet.

You're throwing around a few accusations. Not saying you're wrong, as a matter of your opinion, but, again, how do you take them to court and prove "lies?"

That's my point. US is founded on this idea that everyone can have their own opinion and all opinions are equal and should be respected. Well, here is a drawback of this approach.

That all opinions are equal and should be respected? What do you mean? In the US, there is freedom to openly disrespect any opinion as much as one feels like, at least from a constitutional standpoint (i.e., you may be censored by private individuals, but not by law).

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

You have members of congress lying, or should I say, having alternative facts.
And don't forget FoxNews.
US has had freedom of opinion for so long that it became more like freedom of alternative facts, even without internet.

You're throwing around a few accusations. Not saying you're wrong, as a matter of your opinion, but, again, how do you take them to court and prove "lies?"

That's my point. US is founded on this idea that everyone can have their own opinion and all opinions are equal and should be respected. Well, here is a drawback of this approach.

Not exactly. The founding fathers had knowledge of the recent past in America where established churches refused to allow all religions to exist equally and oppressed and censored unfavored and non-established churches. Also the British government pre-Revolutionary America censored the press and gave thoroughly hated stamp laws making publishing exspensive. This is why we had the 1st amendment rights added to the bill of rights. It was not respect, but right to speak and write. You had to earn respect. This all was an abandonment of old ways of Europe imported into Early America. Most especially the Puritan way of doing things.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You have members of congress lying, or should I say, having alternative facts.
And don't forget FoxNews.
US has had freedom of opinion for so long that it became more like freedom of alternative facts, even without internet.

You're throwing around a few accusations. Not saying you're wrong, as a matter of your opinion, but, again, how do you take them to court and prove "lies?"

That's my point. US is founded on this idea that everyone can have their own opinion and all opinions are equal and should be respected. Well, here is a drawback of this approach.

We were talking about lies. Not differing opinions. The difficulty of policing actual efforts to misinform and spread those lies.
Which the founding fathers DID review.
Jefferson wanted Freedom of Speech to protect only the Truth.
The other fathers said, okay.....how?
And 250 years later, we still have to ask that question.
Yes, there are drawbacks. But the solutions would be worse.

 

[DrZoidberg]

An article in The Atlantic with the ambitious title:

How to Put Out Democracy’s Dumpster Fire
Our democratic habits have been killed off by an internet kleptocracy that profits from disinformation, polarization, and rage. Here’s how to fix that.​

discusses the joyous history of American democracy, and helps explain why it has recently "gone off the rails."

The authors, Anne Applebaum and Peter Pomerantsev, offer specific remedies. (I won't excerpt from this important article in OP: It will be better to read and debate the whole article than to discuss just whatever excerpt(s) I might choose. You may need to clear your atlantic cookies before accessing the article.)

The article highlights right in the beginning how the rest of the article isn't worth it's ink.

Tocqueville reckoned that the true success of democracy in America rested not on the grand ideals expressed on public monuments or even in the language of the Constitution, but in these habits and practices. In France, philosophes in grand salons discussed abstract principles of democracy, yet ordinary Frenchmen had no special links to one another. By contrast, Americans worked together: “As soon as several of the inhabitants of the United States have conceived a sentiment or an idea that they want to produce in the world, they seek each other out; and when they have found each other, they unite.”

Habits and customs evolve over time to meet very practical needs in everyday life. From history we've learned that revolutions never go the way it was intended. Because so much random shit happens in revolutions nobody could have predicted.

When there's an ideological revolution the government that replaces the old one will mostly resemble the old one. Mostly. Because of people's habits. That's why Mao became a new emperor. Why Stalin became a new Tsar. And why most of the ex colonies went tits up after decolonialisation.

Nobody knows how to fix this current situation. Nobody could have predicted the godawful mess Gutenberg's printing press would lead to. And neither could they have predicted all the great stuff. Modern democracy being one.

We're just going to have to ride this one out. If democracy is a strong enough habit, we'll stay democratic. If it isn't, we won't. There's nothing we can do about it though. Now would be a good time to start praying.

 

[rousseau]

Arrow Theorem

When a community is made up of a number of groups with very distinct interests, over time nobody really gets what they want.

What is unique about the U.S. is that it's electorate, in total, is more conservative than many other Western democracies. This changes the trajectory of the Arrow. In Canada we've had a bit of a better trajectory because fewer Conservatives live in our country, our natural governing party is Centrist.

Personally, I'm not convinced that democracy's problem right now is social media as such. Social media definitely doesn't help, but I'd guess the economy is the biggest factor. When people are struggling it opens the door for populism / racism / xenophobia etc.