Comment by PureParadigm | Hacker News Reader

Comment by PureParadigm | Hacker News Reader

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It is clear that Facebook is either unwilling or unable to effectively address the spread of misinformation. In light of this, I'm increasingly of the opinion that if misinformation and conspiracy theories are like viruses, then we should be practicing "political distancing," if you will. This doesn't mean being politically ignorant, but rather engaging in the minimum amount of political content you need to and no more. This would slow the spread of misinformation, since it simply doesn't have as many people to "infect" as quickly. While this may appear to go against the democratic spirit of maximum political engagement, democracy has worked before Facebook (and would probably be a lot better with less use of it). I think people's "default" political beliefs are generally less insane than many of the conspiracy theories (and if your beliefs already are that crazy then going on Facebook will only make them worse), so reducing engagement with political content should be something positive. This isn't something the journalists will recommend since their careers depend on clicks, but I think it's in everyone's best interest for people to back off the scrolling through the feed all day and take a break.

I agree with the diagnosis, but I think there might be better solutions: not to do political distancing, but to make sure you interact more with politics from up close than at a distance. When you are talking with others and you are physically there, you have to look at people in the eyes, you have to consider their points of view more thoroughly, their personal circumstances; you can hear them reply too and notice they are humans, and last but not least, you can't say random sh*t because someone might get annoyed and actually punch you in the face. There are a lot of feedback mechanisms that are lost when we are just writing on the internet or social media. It's much easier to do armchair reasoning, find the perfect victim for your biased narratives, ignore others selectively, etc.

And it's not that hard to explain to people. Just like we have been educating the general public on how to eat more healthily with the food pyramid, we should do the same with online interaction. Stating opinions online is ok from time to time, but if all your interaction with the "real world" is not on the "real world", you are probably missing perspective, and you might get sick with conspiracionist thinking, extreme political polarization, biased narrative poisoning. Which we are seeing that, when reaching enough people, start to become contagious even outside the internet.

It's totally possible to interact more responsibly on the internet and social media too, but we kinda need to understand what these environments are lacking compared to the "real world" and work on more healthy practices.

I think this makes sense. But I also think it's not easy because I posit that the people most susceptible to being swayed by extremism or conspiracy theories on Facebook are also the same people who would scoff at the concept of political distancing. In fact, they may decry it as attempts to suppress free speech. In that event, it's like COVID-19 deniers. They are the ones who would most flaunt the guidelines to avoid COVID-19, so they are the ones who would be most susceptible to get infected and spread infection among other COVID-19 deniers. This idea of political distancing may stop the spread of misinformation among the general population if the general population agreed to it, but it's the peopled swayed by extremism and conspiracy theories that would cause the most issues and/or societal damage anyway. How do you slow down the spread of misinformation amongst people who seek it out is the more difficult question.

I think this is a good point. I'm not sure how to best encourage political distancing. Perhaps the most realistic way is to pitch it as a way to reduce stress/anger/etc. (which I think will be true), but this relies on a self-disciplined general public which is not exactly something I'd bet money on. So this means we would need a more structural change or tools people could use to help them disengage in a healthy way.

If it is really so difficult to sort out the misinformation, then the next best thing would be to make the feed/site as boring as possible. Of course Facebook will never do this and another site would just take its place if it did. But I think it's important to realize that there are other strategies besides sorting out all of the misinformation (which may truly be a difficult/impossible task).

I think Facebook has banned totally Swedish Government information about COVID. And maybe Finnish Government information too. Because I have only seen American Bulletins on Facebook unlike on Twitter. Swedish did not believe in masks and lockdowns at all. And Finnish government told us masks are only safe with professional training as per doctors and nurses.

Given the maximal confusion from wordwide health authorities aswell as local authorities concerning covid19 I would argue that the split in what people believe is not very suprising.

Really? We're calling people Covid-19 deniers now?

This doesn't seem to be in keeping with the spirit of discussion or rules on HN.

Is there a better term I could use? I thought that was a fairly neutral and nonderogatory term.

They exist, but a much larger group just want to go to work with a few precautions.

Right, but I am talking about the people who call it a hoax and not real. Hence the term denier.

Perhaps skeptics is a less loaded term?

Cynics. Skepticism implies they aren't easily convinced, but that isn't the case.

Fair enough. It would be. I'll use that from now on.

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