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I think a lot of the disinformation is just a function of how twitter (and to a lesser extent facebook) encourage misunderstanding/rage. For instance: there was a report that the majority of arrests after a Minneapolis protest were from out of state. This of course went completely viral, and was also completely false.
But the retraction of course did not go viral (since it will not create as much rage), and people are still repeating this misinformation.
Twitter especially is such a sad thing, and I hope at one point we can look back at the it the way that we look back at drug epidemics. It encourages people to misunderstand one another and get angry, not to seek a greater shared understanding.
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I'm afraid the days of an open internet are quickly closing.
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I imagine if any technical measures taken to combat disinformation, it would be more or less like what China did here.
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They've been trying to use this tactic elsewhere (I've been hearing it from de Blasio and Cuomo), but I don't think it'll work anymore. Politicians don't want to acknowledge that the riots are the result of angry citizens acting out in the only way they have the power to act, which is through disorderly conduct, because the system doesn't work for them.
As I write this, I can hear concussion grenades going off outside my window (I live in the middle of Manhattan) for the 5th or 6th night in a row. Every night I've watched thousands of unarmed peaceful protestors march by, demanding action. Meanwhile the NYPD is out in full military gear firing chemical weapons and rubber bullets indiscriminately at anyone who looks at them the wrong way.
I guess my point is that the disinformation is coming from the officials too, so everyone needs to look hard at real evidence before jumping to any conclusions. Please don't fall for the appeal to authority fallacy.
[0]: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/minnesota-officials-say-most-pe...
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It seems like there are two major hurdles. First people need to be informed about history and reality to really see why having Facebook and the government decide what is true or not is a bad idea.
The second big hurdle is, we actually do need to do _something_ to reduce the amount of wanton spread of disinformation and propaganda by many groups online. It's not as easy as many people think it is, because unfortunately all governments and large companies do it quite a bit, and having those types of institutions simply dictate reality is just as bad as for example, having Amazon have complete control of the product listings on its site when they also market competing products. It's the fox guarding the hen house.
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The internet is in need of a reboot.
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I have not seen even a fraction of the unprovoked police beatings and shootings, which have definitively occurred, aired on news broadcasts. That includes incidents where the press has been physically attacked by police. How can this be representative of reality?
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The US imploding is right up Russia's and China's street. Though I suspect that China would prefer that the Us doesn't dissolve economically, they need them to keep buying shit from them.
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Here's my small thread: https://twitter.com/theshawwn/status/1267631457792479237
We're in Seattle. I went to go pick up my script from the local Walgreens. When we stepped out of the Uber, we were greeted with a freshly-shattered window and a freshly-closed Walgreens.
It's one thing to know "unrest is happening" in the abstract, but it's quite another to see it in person. So we walked through the business district and snapped some photos.
Business after business was boarded up, sometimes literally, sometimes with whatever they could use. Chairs, or shopping carts, for example.
More than that, the whole district had a remarkably different feel. Just a few months ago, it was humming and bustling with the usual energy of a semi-big city. Now it's like people are preparing for... well, nothing good.
I'm not sure there's another platform where you can tell a story like this, is there? Not with photos and text, anyway. Sure, I could put up a website and call it "My stroll through Seattle," but why? I suppose Imgur would work, but it doesn't really feel like a community to me. On Twitter you get a few "Be safe!" shoutouts from the people you know, at least.
I guess my point here is that Twitter doesn't need to be read-only. Go participate! You don't even have to post anything noteworthy.
The platform has also helped change my mind about some things. For example, it helps to consider the situation from the point of view of someone who's afraid to call 911. I was pretty far in the camp of "Let the police do their jobs" before this was pointed out.
A lot of VCs do good work on Twitter too. For example, Patrick Collison is starting to gather some info about which organizations might be effective in reducing police violence: https://twitter.com/patrickc/status/1267516891330838528
pg donated $1M to coronavirus efforts, but unfortunately I can't find the tweet right now. It was quite something seeing someone drop $1M on a cause they care about, though. And I only heard about it indirectly, due to the front-line workers thanking pg for his donation.
It's true that there's a lot of hate on the platform, and a lot of sadness, and disinformation. But I wanted to try to highlight some positive aspects, for whatever it's worth.
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Edit: Downvotersβ tell me why you're downvoting this?
Why would Antifa purposefully take actions that would deliberately cause an armed police response to otherwise-peaceful protests?
Edit 2 since I can no longer post responses: Clearly the misinformation campaign continues alive and well here on HN. Dare to defend those with less privilege and get downvoted to hell.
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I wonder if this isn't blown a bit out of proportion. There's a lot of difference between a "war of the worlds" piece that a lot of people might actually believe, and a "trump is a literal nazi" piece that everyone knows is hyperbole.
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But after a few years or so of constant nonsense, you become adapted to the addiction and just ignore everything on it. Atleast thats what happened to me.
I went from constantly checking twitter to deleting my account and just going to the feed of one or two people once a day to keep informed.
I now laugh at how worked up everyone gets, and all the play acting and rival factions involved. Its almost like an iq test, where you pass if you dont play the game.
The problem is a lot of people are staying indoors right now with nothing to do and are discovering twitter/reddit for the first time.
Imagine a person not only new to social media, but new to the internet as a whole with no bs filters built in. He/she would be such a mark.
The real herd immunity is people understanding over time how emotionally manipulative social media is and learning to ignore it like we do 99% of advertisements.