> Do you think there's a problem with the way technology has enabled the scale and precision of disinformation campaigns? If so, do you have any ideas what we can do about it?
Better education. Especially with regard to critical thinking skills.
Even if we removed the Internet, there would still be disinformation and propaganda that the population would have to contend with. Be it from the media, politicians, governments, books, friends, family, etc. Just as there always has been.
So I think the more comprehensive and sustainable approach would be to upgrade brains. Teach critical thinking and philosophy from a young age.
> Do you think there should be any moderation whatsoever? In other words, should people be allowed to incite, advocate, and organize violence in public forums? If not, where is the line? If so, what's remedies do we have as a society to the subsequent violence?
I'm absolutely for moderation on public forums. They are better for it. And by default they have to remove illegal content at least. Beyond that, it's up to them what the moderation policies are. HN is an example where I think moderation is really well done.
This gets a lot harder for platforms that are the de-facto town square like FB and Twitter. I don't know how we should handle that yet. But I think they should mostly stick with removing illegal content and act like a common carrier. If that's a problem due to the nature of social media, then maybe we should revisit the laws of the land. The fundamental issue here is having a few tech giants with a high level of control over the nation's discourse and who optimize for engagement (e.g., outrage, anger, bias confirmation). Which is fueling a lot of hate in the first place. They're not optimizing for thoughtful conversation and interaction. Not even remotely.
I'd also explore some other kinds of governance. Maybe an external non-partisan committee or a crypto governance approach. Not sure, but something external from these platform holders is key I think.