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whittily t1_j56da21 wrote

Reply to comment by bildramer in Study of more than 2,400 Facebook users suggests that platforms — more than individual users — have a larger role to play in stopping the spread of misinformation online by giuliomagnifico

I’m going to move past your ridiculous strawman and just say that that is not how algorithm design happens. You are just not engaging with reality. Every design choice is evaluated on its effects on user behavior. To insist that we refuse to evaluate whether algorithm design degrades the user experience by forcing lies into their feed is absurd.

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RonPMexico t1_j56fdea wrote

The problem is that when a person makes a value judgment on content and uses it to promote (or not) that speech, it is censorship. If a platform is going to censor speech, they should be accountable for that speech.

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whittily t1_j56y9xb wrote

  1. It’s unavoidable. You are demanding something that is impossible. Every decision requires a value judgement, especially decisions that attempt to avoid a value judgement. In this case, we should value truth and accuracy.

  2. The platform shouldn’t be responsible for these decisions. We should democratically determine how we prioritize speech in a crowd d public sphere, just like every democratic society has done for hundreds of years. Pretending that every society has always allowed infinite, unfettered speech in public forums is ahistorical and also a little stupid. Society would be chaos, just like corporate-controlled digital public spaces are today.

  3. Finally, no, there is such a thing as truth and a lie. Sometimes it’s complex, but that doesn’t mean it is impossible to determine. Democracy only works when strong, trusted, public, unbiased institutions mediate information between experts/information producers and the public. The introduction of digital media infosystems without institutional mediation is breaking down our publics’ access to true, relevant information and damaging our ability to solve problems politically.

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RonPMexico t1_j574jrw wrote

You are unapologetically anti-free speech. What a stance.

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whittily t1_j57728e wrote

No. Free speech =/= unfettered, unmoderated speech, and it never has in the history of the US. No society operates that way.

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RonPMexico t1_j577huj wrote

Ok, the sentence "a man can not become a woman." Is true or false? How would it be decided in a way that does not infringe on free speech in your world?

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