The Future of the Web Is 100 Years Old
nautil.us
nautil.us
It's a difficult question - should information be censored, to make sure it's actually correct?
Personally, I struggle with this one. My default reaction would be yes, a curated internet, fact checked for accuracy would be better. But at the same time, I know that people interpret unbiased information with their own prejudices, to reinforce their own views. So simply curating and only reporting truth, I suspect, isn't enough.
My own feeling is that the issue at its root is societal in nature - how do you get people to care more about being right than about holding opinions that fit their narrative of the world, or their own ego? I'm not sure there's an answer to that.
And now you've made the problem worse. This is the idea of a benign monarchy. Who fact checks? Who is the gate keeper? Who keeps out content that doesn't meet the standards? This is censorship. You may think it's beneficial censorship but all censors believe their censorship is beneficial.
All power has the potential to be used maliciously, and then it becomes far more damaging than the benefit of it being used benignly ever created. The only checks that seem to work against such things are individual freedoms and democratic governance. They're far from perfect but the alternatives are all much worse.
I'm the opposite. I'd rather have a free, open web that's full of lies and misinformation, but with a population who understand it's like that and question what they see.
Something based on your default position is probably easier to implement.
Here is our activity aimed to teach about fact checking and credibility:
http://mozilla.github.io/mozilla-club-activity-kraken-the-co...
Be aware that this is aimed at a young crowd but it works with any group. It is a very simple activity but it has all the basis needed to understand that not all the stuff online is gold.
This is just one activity in our "Web Basics I" curriculum. This set of activities aim to teach the basics of Web/Internet understanding and mechanics.
[1]: more info about Mozilla Clubs at: http://teach.mozilla.org/clubs
The biggest issue is, who decides what's true. Did the Tiananmen Sq Massacre happen? Did PRISM exist? Are my thoughts and rants about how the TSA and DHS are evil and vividly represent the wrong in the US, correct? (What does correct even mean here?)
> My own feeling is that the issue at its root is societal in nature - how do you get people to care more about being right than about holding opinions that fit their narrative of the world, or their own ego? I'm not sure there's an answer to that.
I agree that it's a social issue. It's the same reason Trump can say Muslims need to register themselves with the state and be cheered. Most people are just idiots. We, as a society, need to (attempt?) to make most people less idiotic.
(Yes, I consider myself an idiot much of the time as well. I'm not as well versed in politics and current affairs as I should be. I try to keep up, but part of the problem is the amount of energy and time it requires.)
You start by wanting to be correct, not right, and there is a difference.
Thought this was an appropriate quote.
Thats just sad, really tragic.
When opening this nautil.us page, it turns out to be one of the MANY websites that show a modal javascript "popup" after a few seconds of reading the article.
We're back to the year 1999 with the popups.
I found no plugin for firefox that blocks those (and only those plus EU cookie warnings, I want other JS to run). Does anyone know one? What is the correct word to search for (it's not really a popup)?
Thanks!
nautil.us###adpayload
I wonder how possible it is to make something more advanced that blocks these things programmatically by detecting the behaviour (rectangular thing in center modally popping on top of large amount of text).
e.g. this identifies the popup wrappers on nautilus and yesmagazine:
[].filter.call(document.body.childNodes, node =>
node.nodeType === 1 && getComputedStyle(node).position === 'fixed'
)More info at: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu...
PS: This is not the pocket thing.
Leave it open and allow people and companies to create different curations.
But there is room to promote things like Linked Data or the like.
But I can imagine a type of language with less ambiguity than natural language that would be more easily machine-processable and indexable. Like Attempto Controlled English or something more elegant and not an offshoot of English.
Personal liberation, empowerment, and revolutionary rhetoric—all deeply American traits—
As an American, I feel like these are no longer deeply American traits, and that makes me sad...