I think the scope and scale makes it different.
Social media has become extremely important to the free and open exchange of ideas between people.
Social media has become extremely important to the free and open exchange of ideas between people.
Then what is the threshold wherein the natural inability to avoid bias becomes propaganda? Why is Twitter propaganda but not HN or my blog? When does it cross the line?
You're trying to come up with hard distinctions and categories, when trying to do so is totally uninteresting and without any utility. I notice it's extremely common here on HN[2], perhaps because the job of an engineer involves working with categories, and something that's linguistically fuzzy is uncomfortable to them. I write more about this cognitive failing in the second half of my post here[3].
In short, there is no objective threshold wherein the natural inability to avoid bias becomes propaganda. And nor should we waste time on that point. Such a discussion is merely semantics around the definition of the word "propaganda". We should leave that to the people who compile dictionaries.
Such clouded thinking has created a blind spot here in this very thread, e.g. that someone can say something so ridiculous as "How is that different than literally every other website or publication on earth?" and not get downvoted, as if the practical difference between a social media platform with access to hundreds of millions of eyeballs on the one hand, and a small blog on the other, is not self-evident. Such an obvious difference can only not be self-evident to someone who is incapable of understanding that things can vary by degree instead of by category.
[1] https://www.psychologicalscience.org/news/releases/binary-bi...
I'm sorry, but I'm asking how and why the number of people suddenly flips the switch to propaganda and all I'm seeing is a flippant dismissal from you.
It's my stance that it is not the number of people who see it that dictates that it's propaganda, and that the definition supplied fails to meet any real criteria for propaganda.
This isn't a binary bias, I'm not asking "is it or is it not?" I'm asking someone _why_ they think it's propaganda.
I find your response reductionist, and the appeal for downvotes snarky. I'll let citations of your own comments stand on its own merit.
It is a matter of degree, but you keep insisting it's a matter of category.
If the CCP uses networks of bots to amplify pro-CCP stories and viewpoints on Twitter, then that's "different" (to answer your original question) in an extremely important way to if someone pushed those views on their own small blog. It's different because the scale and impact is different.
Also, both of those things belong, to some extent, to the category of "propaganda network capable of controlling the narrative". But one belongs to it more, and one is more of an issue, because the world isn't binary.
No, you added the second part. That could indeed bolster the argument, but it wasn't made in the initial claim.
If scope is the tipping point - which appears to be your argument here with regard to degree - recall my initial question was about the threshold. Which is conveniently what you're saying we should ignore because it's unimportant. So which is it?
I contend that one of the core tenets of "propaganda" is that there needs to be a deliberate and centralized. It's easy to call something propaganda but it's much harder to defend that claim.
Also, when we say degree, we don't mean the degree to which the definition fits. That's a boring discussion. We simply mean the degree to which it's a problem.
Twitter, to the extent that it's being used as a propaganda network by CCP bots, which it is, is a big problem for us.
A small blog being used for propaganda... not such a big problem.
That's the difference that you're missing. The scale and scope is different. Therefore the extent to which they're important is different.
Quite the opposite. I've asked about degree the entire time. "Opinion" does not mean the same thing as "Propaganda," but the scale of the former could transform it into the latter.
What's the degree here? That's what I'm asking.
> That's a boring discussion.
This is dismissive. If you want to discuss things in good faith, please avoid language like this. You're refusing to engage with an aspect of my reply - and that's fine - but don't pretend my thought are meaningless or boring as a response.
I'm ending this convo here. It's become a tedious debate about semantics and nothing productive is being achieved.
You could use a multi-prong test like they do for determining whether an entity constitutes a monopoly.
Or you could use the old Justice Stewart's test for obscenity..."I know it when I see it."
But given what we've learned of late about the government influencing social media sites to censor citizens on their platforms, I don't think there's a legitimate argument that certain social media sites are not different from the general internet.
None of Twitter/FB/Youtube has that kind of correlation