The Age of Unregulated Social Media Is Over
justsecurity.org
justsecurity.org
The recent focus of troll farms and political interference increases that number by introducing people who wouldn't be interesting in doing it for free, but will gladly do it for a paycheck.
And then you have the social influence of all these voices saying and doing the worst thing and modifying the behavior of internet users who otherwise would never consider doing these things at all. This behavior becomes normalized where it wasn't before.
We used to think it was a matter of anonymity, but I don't think that's it, we've all encountered plenty of people willing to do these things under their real (or easily traceable) names.
I think it's just good ol' fashioned peer pressure, where the worst elements get the most influence and the best elements are easily ignored.
...and because a huge chunk of them are economically null NEETs and ironic fascism has mutated into real fascism...
We're pretty well boned unless something changes, huh.
So I think social media does two things. It gives people a very small barrier to post. But it also combines them with other, like minded people. Those like minded people then ruminate on their shared aggregations and wind up more outraged than they would have been without that rumination.
A person may not fully believe meme X but they may "find it interesting", may want to "rattle people's chains a bit". Then someone else launches a full attack on meme X and the person feels, attacked, and defends, attacks the other person and so-forth. Polarization is powerful and well-documented dynamic on the net.
In 30+ years of online engagement, I've seen again and again and again numerous transition points for communities as they've grown and hit various sets of problems. These seem to pop up fairly regularly at specific points. The small group (a handfull, maybe two), then the social circle of 20-50. Most online groups seem to fist start hitting behavioural issues that surpass a single admin/moderator after a few thousand or so active members, maybe 100k on the outside.
Facebook, in one view, was successful in surpassing these limits, but in doing so it's discovered others.
Scale matters.
As does speed, cycle time, UI/UX dynamics, incentives, (media system) memory, and so much more.
And it's not just anonymity. Not by a long shot.
Angry people will still look for other like-minded people with whom they can share their grievances. The Internet makes it possible for larger groups to meet, talk, complain, and bond. When these folks get kicked off Facebook, substitute ecosystems will pop up on WhatsApp, some other social media app. Are "we" going to start restricting encryption next, just so "we" can keep the next unlikable candidate out of office? Not worth it IMHO.
If this is done poorly, by regulating network traffic overall like the FCC seems to want to do, we'll start to have real issues with overreach. Web content, streaming content, game traffic, etc. will all be held to some standard, or set of standards.
We, as the tech community, could get out in front of the problem. Some of issues raised in the article stem from the combination of almost effortless publishing at a massive scale, combined with complete anonymity.
We could define a standard that would allow for some kind of traceability or transparency, maybe public key cryptography, to prove identity. Social media sites like Facebook could voluntarily implement the standard. Browsers would be able to render some kind of simple UI indicator to mark content source trust, just like we have a lock to signify HTTPS today.
We can either wait and see what happens, or propose a technical and voluntary solution that would allow public internet traffic to remain as free as it does today.
Edit: it would be in Facebook's best interest to implement such a standard, because they clearly realize they have to do something, and this wouldn't get in the way of their ad revenue.
What you actually do want, whether you realise it or not, are well-formed, well-behaved, epistemic systems. Note that the original false dichotomy I referenced was between no regulation of this and unaccountable regulation.
The fact that that is in fact not the entire universe of possibilities seems to be being studiously ignored.
I do enjoy being told what I actually want, though, so keep using that not-at-all-patronizing rhetorical maneuver.
Clinton didn't do the work needed to win, flat out. The DNC didn't run a solid primary process either. I am not sure Sanders would have won that primary, but the events leading up to the convention were appalling.
But wouldn't you agree it's still a bad thing that Russia is trying to influence our elections? Who knows how much worse it will be next time if we don't do something to stop them.
And, if we actually clean our politics up, that noise won't even rate.
Run Medicare For All, strong commits, nationwide, 80 percent support issue and watch non voters come right out of the woodwork to dominate.
Based on...?
Run Medicare For All, strong commits, nationwide, 80 percent support issue and watch non voters come right out of the woodwork to dominate.
If it’s that easy to “dominate” why has no one done it?
It's easier when your candidate doesn't get railroaded by the DNC. Don't run trash candidates, and people will vote.
"Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders (I) is the country’s most popular active politician, underscoring his importance to the Democratic Party as it seeks to rebuild in the wake of a disastrous 2016 election cycle.
Sanders is viewed favorably by 57 percent of registered voters, according to data from a Harvard-Harris survey provided exclusively to The Hill. Sanders is the only person in a field of 16 Trump administration officials or congressional leaders included in the survey who is viewed favorably by a majority of those polled."
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/329404-poll-bernie-sand...
"Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton's favorability rating is at a new low one year after her election loss to President Trump, according to a poll released Tuesday.
Clinton now holds a 36 percent approval rating among Americans, according to Gallup, down 5 percentage points since June. The rating falls below Clinton's previous low of 38 percent in August to September of last year.
The former first lady also reached a new high disapproval rating of 61 percent. Clinton has bucked the trend of defeated presidential candidates gaining popularity after the election, Gallup says."
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/365656-gallup-hi...
Trump's approval rating (41%) is still above Clinton's; his disapproval rating below hers as well. That says quite a bit.
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/
And finally, US support for universal healthcare:
"A majority of Americans say it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage. And a growing share now supports a “single payer” approach to health insurance, according to a new national survey by Pew Research Center.
Currently, 60% say the federal government is responsible for ensuring health care coverage for all Americans, while 39% say this is not the government’s responsibility. These views are unchanged from January, but the share saying health coverage is a government responsibility remains at its highest level in nearly a decade."
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/06/23/public-suppo...
Sorry for the wall of text, there was nothing I could cull away without removing data points to support the argument.
My point is that this goes directly against the idea that people want universal health care. This was a very strong vote against any sort of help for the poor against any sort of government regulation of healthcare.
I agree apathy and corruption contributed heavily to a Trump presidency, but I’m confident politics will swing back over the next 3-4 years.
Trump is phenomenal for the progressive movement, far better than Clinton would’ve been. People are less apathetic now, and they will outvote conservatives (IMHO).
Really, I think this counters the "Trump won because people are suffering economically" narrative, too. If you are suffering economically, it doesn't make sense to vote for someone who is out to tear down what safety nets we have.
That's no joke.
And it is that simple. Just watch. That, and a couple other strong economic messages will be major issues in 2020.
Or, we will have another irrational election.
So again, why not?
That issue is very strong. It's a winner combined with an otherwise reasonable, if not even all that sexy platform.
Why is it not happening?
Just what do you think all those people getting paid to do political consulting get paid for, and by whom?
The DNC is in debt, it's heavy with these people, and it all is running on big money. Every new office holder gets introduced to the call center, their party quota, and their own get elected again quota.
John Oliver covered this. Did a great segment on "Congressional Funding."
Most spend over half their time on the phones dialing for dollars, and making a lot of promises to those people in exchange for those dollars. The party machine runs on all this, and it literally takes a billion to feed media, consultants, and all that is used to sell an economically tepid message.
This year we will see a few people win office by not doing that, instead actually representing ordinary people. Should they be successful, the next trick will be keeping that funding from those people going, or they will have to smile and dial their way into some of the usual money.
With that, they will lose the agency needed to continue to represent the people.
Notably, Sanders doesn't do that, and spends half his time doing issue events, and interacting with the people who put him in office. He's made that sustainable, doesn't need the big money, and has considerable agency, his recent politics, case in point.
You are correct, the donors aren't really needed. Speaking from the left here, the DNC is dependent on those donors, and that ecosystem doesn't see a transition away from the big money, to actually representing the people.
Secondly, doing it that way doesn't fund the media to anywhere near the same degree. Instead, it goes to events, and a network of people on the ground, selling the value, and the explicit common good.
Health care really is a one policy deal. Of course, the package has to be sane. More importantly, not contain very serious negatives. There are things to balance.
But, health care, as the most stellar example, student loan issues, cost of education being a secondary one, will not only bring out a solid majority of active voters, because they are in real need, but will bring out non-voters, jaded, people who don't believe in the process.
People who are motivated to vote for, not just vote against the worst.
It's a real struggle right now. Party stalwarts holding on to the big money, and fairly tepid economic politics, up against progressives and others looking to start taking seats, chairs, delegate positions, and other close to the people machinery in an attempt to move it away from the big money, and toward people oriented, positive politics.
That's where it stands today. Mid-terms will give us some data, then the real game starts on the run to 2020.
It's amazing that massive amounts of money are spent on election campaigns, precisely because candidates believe voters can be swayed. Similarly, massive amounts are spent on on online platforms, because businesses and organizations believe that it's an effective way to reach people.
But combine the two (use of online platforms to attempt to influence an election), and we hear confident pronouncements that it could not have had any impact. It simply doesn't add up.
To more directly answer your question, spending money does count up to a point - getting your message heard. If people don't like your message, spending more won't work.
Clinton spent over a BILLION.
Some are making the case it was really close, which it was. Now, if all that $500k were applied to the region and people , just in the right spot? Could have an impact.
Use that money to fund people on the ground? Bet your ass that will have an impact.
However, exactly none of that even competes with why it was so close.
Was close for a few reasons:
One, first and foremost. Clinton just didn't do the work. I'm not going to argue why, or what, just that work didn't happen. Major league impact.
Two, Clinton told about half her potential support to get lost* Worse, she told people vote their conscience. Worse yet? She told people moderate Republican voters would carry her into the White House. Solid impact.
*Berners, progressives, greens, basically the economic left, which currently isn't represented in American politics, save for the likes of Bernie and a few outliers. Neither party does that.
Now, there is another aspect to all of this not being discussed much at all, and that is the no and protest voters. Protest voters were significant. No voters are huge, and present in nearly all State elections. Some States have good turnout. Many do not.
Let's say for shits and giggles, that $500k spent by "the Russians" mattered somehow, some small amount. And let's just say the points above are somehow factored out.
So it's "just close enough" for "the russians" to "matter."
With me?
What is the single most important thing we can do to reduce that impact:
A. Regulate Internet media, social media to the already morbid degree traditional media is? Complete with consolidation of ownership, and all that which drove people to the Internet anyway?
, or
B. Actually run politics people would want to vote for, and by doing so, bring the no and protest voters firmly into the camp.
You can bet your ass B would marginalize even a 10x "the russians" influence. And make no mistake, I'm being extremely charitable here even speaking to influence, as the numbers just aren't there at all.
And that's why I'm not concerned about this matter. It's a distraction.
We have the crappy election result we do, because people didn't feel they had a good choice. Clinton had issues, Trump is basically all issues. LOL Seriously.
Somehow, most of the politics have moved from explicit public good, real goals, and such, to this implied model, where it's assumed good will happen, if only we the people just agree to something.
The primary example of this happens to be, "I am not Trump", which is a whole lot of what Clinton did, and the implicit good is there for the taking, not hard to miss is it?
On the other hand, say she ran on "Make Medicare For All Happen?"
No contest, and all those gaffes above would have not mattered, she still could not have done the work, whatever, and she would have won hands down.
That's the discussion to have.
I can boil it down into a very simple expression:
VOTE AGAINST or VOTE TO PREVENT HARM do not result in a greater, or common public good. That's implied, but not an outcome a voter can link to their vote easily, and if they do, not with out an awful lot of faith and assumptions.
This is why we have a lot of no voters, and or protest voters.
VOTE FOR, and or VOTE TO MAKE SOMETHING HAPPEN, can very easily result in an explicit, common public good. People can get invested, know what they are working for, and the rest follows easily.
One guy out there is doing that, and his name is Bernie Sanders, and that's why he's the most popular politician out there today.
Here's the money shot on all that: He damn near won a Democratic Party Presidential Primary on small donations, starting with almost no name recognition, 60 plus points down, and near zero dollars, against a well oiled, mature, potent, relevant, well recognized political machine. One of the best in the world at the time.
How?
Actually spoke to the need out there, and we can say whatever we want, there is an awful lot of need out there. Majority need. Need most Americans feel isn't necessary at all.
Yeah, populism.
It's not favored among those of us of means. And that's understandable. No need to vilify anyone. It's just perspective.
Today, money drives most politics, and that's reflected in the policy, and it's reflected in the tepid voting performance too.
It's time to revisit the politics that got us here. We have Trump because we aren't putting the people into the process anywhere near the degree necessary for the majority of them to feel like it's representative.
At best, a majority of them feel it's harm limiting, like "it could be worse, so vote", not "vote, because we need to get health care sane again."
Huge impacts possible here. And should we embrace more of those things, frankly? Outside chatter won't even move the needle, if it even did.
Call Corbyn. The UK is struggling with all this too.
The world is watching. Maybe we should act instead of making theatre.
Voters can be swayed.
That's not really how it works. We've been using that swayed, influenced type frame for a while now, and it's a big reason why turnout is down, and why elections are often very close.
Politicians, in the classic sense, garner votes. We almost never even use the word "garner" anymore.
That means they attract voters.
The other frame we've been using for too long:
A vote for a third party, no vote, protest vote equals a vote for the dominant party.
A variation on that is spoiler politics. Run someone to compete in a given party, votes get split, the other party has an easy win.
All of that makes some solid sense when we are in the "lesser evil", or "less bad" type frame, which the last election very clearly was for a very large number of voters. That is not to say there were not excited Clinton and Trump voters. There were, no doubt. But the majority really were faced with, "what sucks less" and they were faced with that due to the VOTE AGAINST type framing so often seen.
VOTING AGAINST, or VOTING TO PREVENT HARM, doesn't mean good. It could mean that, but there are no real links, just an implied sense of "less bad" being elevated to "net good" or conflated with "incremental change", itself elevated to "net good."
A VOTE FOR frame, which Sanders actually used, is a strong issue based frame. It's focused on explicit, common, public good.
Here are the implications of that, when we work from a different, garner votes, type frame:
It's irresponsible to run for office, unless one is confident they can garner the votes, or help another to garner those votes.
Why?
Because people can, will and do choose from all of the following choices, not just one party or the other:
Party A Party B No vote Other party vote Write in / protest vote.
That's going to happen. Understanding WHY it happens is critical. Many people want to vote for, not against, and will just do that. Anyone wanting to win an election needs to understand it's not a lock. It's not just one party or the other.
Clinton made this mistake. Lost. Lost despite a very bad opponent.
Failed to do the work to garner the votes to win. It's just not enough to trust the other guy, Trump is so terrible as to insure a win. All those choices being available are why.
People wanting to vote for is why.
Think of it in simple terms.
Say we are selling cars, and the other guys are too.
Compare and contrast:
Buy our cars, because those other guys suck, their cars suck, and they are out to rip you off.
vs
Buy our car, because you will love driving it, the power is sublime, cost reasonable, and it's got all the nice features you want, complete with solid service and support.
The first one assumes you have to have a car. A sale is a given, or at the very least, due to cars leaving the ecosystem, population growth, and other factors, insure a given number of cars will be sold.
Selling by implied good, "the other guys are regrettable and so are their cars" can work. The people, kind of forced to get a car, will probably respond to that.
Now, in the second frame, we are attracting people. They want to buy a car, and we aren't making assumptions about there being forced car sales. We are making an assumption that people who find the value proposition compelling will figure out a way to buy a car.
The more the better! Everyone might want a car!
You get the idea.
Translated to politics, garnering votes means doing that same kind of thing.
It does not mean, "I'm not Trump" is a primary message at all. Maybe that gets said, obviously. But, it really doesn't have to be. No real value there.
Now, here I must say most elections feature a ton of people not voting. We struggle with turnout, and what's the number one and two things people say about that?
Mandatory voting, and or voting on holiday.
That's forcing the first frame into more value than it actually does carry, and nobody can demonstrate forced voting would equal better voting. The more likely outcome may well be more protest or nonsense voting.
Brazil sees a lot of that with it's mandatory voting scheme, as a simple example.
Back to garnering votes.
In this frame, it's selling on value, like the cool car guys selling really compelling cars.
The more aligned the platform is with actual need, actual benefit, put simply, an explicit public good, the higher the number of voters will be.
Garnering votes is actually doing that. Selling the idea of alignment, value, representation as some positive thing in such a way as to motivate people to vote.
They should. We expect them to. We try and shame and blame those who don't, or who don't vote the way we think they should have voted, and more.
But the reality is people have agency, and they vote when they feel making that vote makes sense for them to do, and they vote the way they do, when they feel it makes sense, has value, and such to vote that way.
Agency.
A politican who runs on "I will fight to make Medicare for All happen", for example, running against one who says, "I support the idea of Medicare For All" or who says, "I'm not Trump" has an advantage over their competition.
That advantage is people get invested, they are working for, supporting, donating, phone banking, canvassing, and volunteering for MEDICARE FOR ALL. It's a pretty direct link, and the major impact of doing that goes beyond just garnering serious support from the majority of regular, active voters.
Doing that will bring out jaded, burned out, voters who don't believe, who have given up, don't see the value, and so forth.
Rather than just win a share of a known pie, expand the pie, and win a big share of that expansion too.
Give people a reason to fight for it, not just struggle to limit their decline in living, or some other fairly ugly thing, and they will. Network effects dominate after that.
Obama did this in his first term. Didn't end up governing that way, but his rhetoric packed one hell of a punch.
Sanders did that in his primary run too. Same outcome. Punched well above his expected weight class.
We have a lot of basic problems in the nation. It's getting time to speak directly to them.
That will win elections. A majority of Americans are in real economic trouble today. That's why doing that will win elections.
Those people, giving something to vote for, and explicit good that they can identify with, we'll improve turnout numbers, and can dramatically change the election outcomes.
While I certainly have some glee at seeing the Russia allegations come to light, it does seem that they probably aren't very relevant to the election result.
I think the biggest reason for the DNC's failure isn't necessarily even the DNC. It's more backlash against various human rights movements that have tried to win by silencing opposing opinions. While I largely agree with the goals of the human rights movements, focusing on preventing people from saying bigoted things has not prevented people from thinking bigoted things, and in fact has closed off dialogues that could possibly allow us to change bigoted thinking. The results are that the people who think bigoted things voted for a person who said what they felt they couldn't, and it blindsided human rights movements that hadn't been listening to those people and therefore didn't know what they thought.
A few examples of why I think this is:
1. The Reddit crackdown on hate speech. This was effective in making it so that the mainstream who might read Reddit doesn't have to hear hate speech any more, but anyone who thinks it produced positive political change should take a look at Voat. The bigots on Reddit didn't disappear, they went to Voat. I get it, it was tough, some of the comments on Reddit were hard to read. But now those same people are posting those same comments on Voat, and now those comments are going unchallenged by open-minded responses.
2. When I found out about the Trump stunt with families of people killed by illegal immigrants, I was in a room with a bunch of acquaintances, mostly liberal New Yorkers. The response from the people around me was that illegal immigrants kill so few people that the issue isn't statistically relevant. This struck me as a callous, utilitarian answer--it's literally saying that the grief of bereaved families doesn't matter. Trump was appealing to people's fear of violence, and the left has long-standing answers to that, such as gun control, the fact that violence is a function of poverty, etc. But the people in the room with me couldn't engage with those people's feelings because they only saw bigots on the screen. They had forgotten that bigot is also a person who fears and grieves.
Notably, a few of these acquaintances were writers for a liberal media organization--people who represent what the left thinks in the public eye.
Problem is, we do not have a robust body politic. Media consolidation has left ordinary people and their interests largely out of the economic discussion. That has had a major impact on their lives.
They are talking on the Internet, and it's a good conversation.
The intended conversation too.
"FAKE NEWS?"
Half of what I saw branded as fake was actually opinion and advocacy pieces. Crazy!
And we want to make that more solid, official?
Makes no real sense to me.
Most of the Internet, in fact all of it except the USA, does not have a first amendment.
Thus if the first amendment is the resolution I expect robust legislation from the EU, and other places, in due course.
No, that is very probably not, going to lead to the best solution.
The First Amendment guides things.
We either accept that the internet is a peer system, by which our speeches carry based on value, or we do not.
Frankly, we wouldn't have this fake news problem, is media were actually doing it's job.
That is a core problem, not stupid shit people say.
Yes, but it's a fact of life that won't change regardless of any new social media laws. It's not just the Russians, the Saudis, the Mexicans, the Israelis, the British and more all were doing their part to influence the election in some way. And the US does it too - both with friendly and unfriendly nations, and cracking down on it with new laws will have unintended consequences.
Are we really going to criminalize foreign nationals buying ad spend on social media to influence an election? Is that really a weapon the Democrats want to give Trump, especially in light of the current DACA/Dreamer situation?
And given how much the US tries to influence elections in other countries, is that really a stick they want to give other countries to beat the US with?
> Who knows how much worse it will be next time if we don't do something to stop them.
As the VP of Ads for Facebook mentioned [0], the solution is education related to digital literacy and critical thinking about misinformation.
We shouldn't be making laws criminalising common behaviour that can be selectively enforced depending on who is in power.
Frankly, an awful lot of speech is legal. Our own law bars the government from acting against it.
And that is a great thing!
Originally, the idea was we make a free nation, and the power of that speech, as well as the strength of our people, ideas, and overall justice in our society was going to change the world for the better.
The founders were radicals, and they were smart.
Let the other nations speak. It's not like we don't have a major league impact on so many of them today anyway.
And maybe we, here in the insular USA, could listen a little.
Anyone who has traveled outside the USA, makes the same discoveries:
Many developed nations understand our politics, the world in general, and their own national politics better than many Americans do their own. In some ways, I don't feel good about saying this either: We deserve a little of what we've got.
As a people, we aren't really doing the work to make this thing run well.
And health care? We don't have it right, AT ALL. The world knows it. The poor state of our body politic speaks right to that struggle. It's embarrassing.
If we want them to stop, maybe we should stop too?
> Clinton didn't do the work needed to win, flat out.
I might buy this. Maybe. But she's a policy wonk in a time where "TV Charisma" matters more than competence.
> The DNC didn't run a solid primary process either.
That's a Russian shill talking point. Please don't promulgate it.
The DNC ran a bog standard primary process. Bitch if you will, but Bernie was a carpetbagger and is NOT a Democrat. Hilary cashed in her name recognition on Super Tuesday and ran the system in the New York primary.
People forget--Bernie wasn't winning. People liked his message, but Hilary was getting the votes. If you're the underdog, it's not enough to keep things close--you have to win and do so with some extra margin.
Now, if you want to slag the MEDIA for their craptastic coverage of the whole primary process, I'll stand shoulder to shoulder with you. We have Trump AND Hilary because the media is too damn cowardly to actually slag politicians and stick to their guns.
And, for those of you keeping score, have the Berniebros gotten the primary law changed in New York yet? Or broken up the Super Tuesday chunk which gives a bunch of states not going Democratic too much power over the primary process? Apparently it doesn't matter enough for the Berniebros to get off their asses and CHANGE THINGS.
The fact that nobody else on the Democratic side wanted to run was a function of facing Hilary AND then facing the Worst period Congress period Ever period. Who in their right mind wants that job?
It wasn't TV charisma that did it.
According to Donna Brazile, Hillary thought she had the electoral college vote in the bag, so spent big in areas she was already going to win in order to get out enough of the vote to ensure she won the popular vote also.
She ignored 'blue wall' states in favour of big cities.
In contrast, in the lead up to the election Trump campaigned almost exclusively in those blue wall states (much to the derision of analysts, pundits and commentators) holding rally after rally after rally.
And that made the difference, proving that he did have a path to 270 after all, and that focusing on the popular vote was a losing strategy when the votes that count are the electoral college.
"Russia. Russia. Russia" has been a face-saving distraction that is preventing the Democrats from identifying and fixing the problems that caused their loss.
If I can't write fiction, then why write words ever? Be it on the internet, be it on a website, be it on an extra special website that people seem to find more important than most other websites.
Ours is very deeply corrupt. The ONLY place that is really being discussed is outside of equally owned media channels.
Don't like that state of affairs, but failure to incorporate it into this problem set is ripe for abuse.