Hacker News Reader

Comment by Barrin92 | Hacker News Reader

>So how can any new social media platforms or startups ever be able to support all that additional staff/infrastructure?

Why does it matter if they can? Do we allow unregulated oil drilling startups in the name of competition? There's no particular reason to assume that the platforms that govern our social interactions don't fall into a category of institutions who need to prove that they can keep a grip on their activity.

The quality and civility of public discourse is of principal importance to the health of liberal societies. Social media platforms are not irrelevant places of entertainment, it is becoming increasingly clear that they are the primary space where public consensus is formed. As such, they should be held accountable accordingly and not be treated like some random market provider of cat videos.

View on HN

That is such an odd comparison to draw. Oil drilling is inherently destructive to the environment. Social media posts are not, although you do try to make that argument. The solution to oil drilling destroying the environment is less drilling. The solution to misinformation is _more_ information.

You seem to think that these platforms govern our interactions. When I am specifically saying that they should do as little governance as possible. They are merely the channels by which we communicate.

Edit: Actually I'm saying they should be allowed to do as little governance as possible. I think they should still have to option to filter however they like if that's their intention.

>The solution to misinformation is _more_ information.

Sorry, but how is this self-evident? Why is the solution to misinformation not indeed less information, from sources that hold authority and are accountable, well researched, slow enough to be absorbed and reasoned about, and so on?

When exactly was the human brain shaped for a miasma and a stream of low quality information dripping down the Facebook news feed? There is no evidence that this is the case.In fact there is evidence to the contrary, the people most engaged in political news and information are the most easily misled and biased (https://www.vox.com/2015/6/8/8740897/informed-voters-may-not...)

>You seem to think that these platforms govern our interactions.

That's not something that I think. Whoever owns our public discourse and our attention by definition governs our interaction, there is no vacuum of governance that companies like youtube can fall back on, it just means they're playing down their influence and responsibility.

Actually, I agree with you that as a species we are not cognitively equipped to handle an unrelenting torrent of information. I also agree that well researched and well presented (though not necessarily authoritative) arguments should be held to much higher credibility by the voting populace than random twitter posts. Those more credible arguments should be inherently more convincing for readers.

What I think actually needs to happen is to teach people the appropriate critical thinking and reasoning skills to make that distinction for themselves, rather than force the platforms to make that distinction on their users' behalf. Societal change is a very slow process that happens over generations. Every point in history is locally noisy but on a larger timescale that noise diminishes compared to the underlying trend. I don't think it's necessary to make changes based on the locally noisy timescale as I believe we will eventually reach equilibrium between the volume/quality of information in public discourse and the way the population digests it.

> That's not something that I think.

Sorry, didn't mean to put words in your mouth.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com