C4 QAnon The Cult Of Conspiracy

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

There is a difference, currently, between print media and online social media, because print media is subjected to editorial controls. If newspapers just printed and published every scrap of text that was submitted to them, they would be held liable for consequences. You may be aware that the DM is losing in a dispute with Meghan Markle over a published, leaked letter. So any argument that being 'just a publisher' should absolve you from responsibility for material you didn't create, is specious. Tony, you know this. But it is the argument used by the big platforms. And if they take that line, then they clearly can't be relied on to take measures on their own initiative. Regulation, at the end of it, is about giving society the tools to ensure that no party is above the law.

 

[Joe Hutch]

There's ambiguity around whether Twitter, Facebook etc are 'publishers'; they would argue that they are more akin to the postal service, and can't be expected to know what's being 'posted' where.

It could be argued that such platforms should be required to take down any objectionable material once it's pointed out. Pre-vetting material would be impossible given the volume of traffic, and different laws apply in different countries (eg Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, but not in the UK; UK libel law is much stricter than in the US), but Twitter etc are international in their reach. So IMO the person who posted the material should be liable for what they post if illegal in their country of residence (which, AFAIK, is the current situation).

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

There's ambiguity around whether Twitter, Facebook etc are 'publishers'; they would argue that they are more akin to the postal service, and can't be expected to know what's being 'posted' where.

It could be argued that such platforms should be required to take down any objectionable material once it's pointed out. Pre-vetting material would be impossible given the volume of traffic, and different laws apply in different countries (eg Holocaust denial is illegal in Germany, but not in the UK; UK libel law is much stricter than in the US), but Twitter etc are international in their reach. So IMO the person who posted the material should be liable for what they post if illegal in their country of residence (which, AFAIK, is the current situation).

Well, in the postal service analogy, the posted material is sealed and invisible to the service. I could accept that the analogy holds with something like WhatsApp, where the comms are encrypted and only visible to the sender and recipient, but the fact is, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and the others are aware of the content, because they serve ads and put stuff in your feed based on what their algorithms decide you'd like, based on how you behave on the platform. So for them to argue, as they do, that there is 'ambiguity', is just a legal fiction, argued by clever lawyers (of which they can afford many, and the best). It is this inequality of arms, between the giant corporation and the affected individual, that gives rise to the need to hold their feet to the fire. If they won't do it voluntarily, they must be made to do it.

 

[Tony L]

This, amusingly, was also the sort of argument used against widening the franchise during the 19th century; the fear that the poor, uneducated masses would be too easily swayed by dangerous demagogues and cheap, sensationalist newspapers.

The wonderful thing about social media is you can entirely remove the establishment filter and not have your news selected or editorialised by Paul Dacre, Laura Kuenessberg etc and go straight to the source, e.g. for politics you can follow any party, MP, trade union or pressure group (good or bad), you can follow the world’s greatest scientific institutions along with any other sources or people you like or trust etc. I suspect this is a key reason so much of the UK establishment is so determined to wrestle it under their control the way they have the printed press. Obviously humans being humans many will end up trusting things other humans sneer at or consider to be false (and many sources clearly are, e.g. The Daily Mail!). This is nothing new, we live in a country where religion is still not only legal but highly state subsidised, so what we are discussing here is really a matter of personal taste and perspective. Is mainstream Tory press fake news really that much better than QAnon’s fake news? I want neither. I’d prefer to follow NASA, Johns Hopkins, World Health Organisation etc rather than have things filtered through an increasingly right-wing and authoritarian UK establishment.

Social media doesn’t care about any of this. It doesn’t need to. It exists to connect you to the things you personally want to be connected to and give you a platform to say what you want to say. It is a mirror as much as it is a megaphone.

PS I suspect many arguing the hardest here for regulation would be perfectly happy to censor the various anti-science, religious or right-wing ugliness, but would scream and shout to protect Momentum, AAV, countless Trade Union pages etc.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

PS I suspect many arguing the hardest here for regulation would be perfectly happy to censor the various anti-science, religious or right-wing ugliness, but would scream and shout to protect Momentum, AAV, countless Trade Union pages etc.

The right/duty to censor is directly related to the harms caused by the uncensored material. So no, your suspicion is both unfounded and, TBH, a bit ad-hom.

Note the qualified right to freedom of expression set out in Article 10(2) of the HRA. The qualification is uncontroversial.

Article 10 Freedom of expression

1 Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2 The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.

 

[Tony L]

The right/duty to censor is directly related to the harms caused by the uncensored material. So no, your suspicion is both unfounded and, TBH, a bit ad-hom.

Note the qualified right to freedom of expression set out in Article 10(2) of the HRA. The qualification is uncontroversial.

That is good to see. I do however have zero doubt that the UK establishment would attempt to censor on political lines if it was given half an inch to do so, and with the absolute power it enjoys it can do as it likes. You only need to read the ‘attack on human rights’ thread and also look at the behaviour of the police of late to grasp the direction of travel in this country at present. It is happening far faster than I feared and there is no political opposition to it as Labour are also highly authoritarian and largely welcome it. I have next to no respect for either party and I do not trust their motives.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

That is good to see. I do however have zero doubt that the UK establishment would attempt to censor on political lines if it was given half an inch to do so, and with the absolute power it enjoys it can do as it likes. You only need to read the ‘attack on human rights’ thread and also look at the behaviour of the police of late to grasp the direction of travel in this country at present. It is happening far faster than I feared and there is no political opposition to it as Labour are also highly authoritarian and largely welcome it. I have next to no respect for either party and I do not trust their motives.

I don't think it can (the bolded bit above). I've been greatly encouraged by the fact that Dacre wasn't allowed to be 'installed' at Ofcom, and that it was the 'UK Establishment' (relevant bits of Parliament and Civil Service) that prevented it. Our current government is dysfunctional and stacked with scoundrels, but it (hopefully) has a temporary lease on the levers of power. And one way to prevent misuse of those levers is by having properly impartial, and accountable, regulators. Most, probably all, can justifiably claim to be both independent and accountable. That is certainly how they have been set up, and you'd see robust and, if necessary, vocal resistance to any change to that from all of them. I'm pretty confident of that. Look at the fuss when they tried to neuter the Parliamentary regulator over Owen Patterson.

A lot of your objections are around the possible misuse of regulation by malign powers within our 'Establishment'. I may be wrong but I don't think your objections to regulation, per se, are deeply felt or, TBH, all that credible.

And right at this point, I'm more worried about the actual misuse of social media by malign powers. Can I just remind you that it was you who started this thread, thus:

... Just astonishing how far from sanity the Republican Party now finds itself. These people are just nutjobs, yet they are great in number and influence. Really terrifying stuff. The human population of this planet is broken.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

Neither do I. I just view the internet as what it is, and being an IT guy who has been there since the start I know *exactly* what that is...

My hope is it leads somewhere far better than where we are now. I’m sure it will in time as there is nowhere for arbitrary authority to hide any more...

Your first assertion is, I fear, is the fundamentail error you make, and which causes your assumptions to be bullt on sand. You 'know' what the 'net' *was* some time ago. But you don't 'know' now, despite your belief.

As per the book I suggested, it is now being *also* used as a basis for other things *out of your sight* by people who have quite different aims and approaches to what we had 40 years ago.

The point of *democratic* and *open* control is that we can all decide what is, and what is not 'arbitrary'. As it is, a few ultra-wealthy people do that *for their uses of the net to gain wealth and power from a mass of other people* as they degrade many lives in the process.

This becomes exponentially more serious when it threatens to derail dealing with climate change or the other flaws in our societies - like the ones BloJo and the chumocracy, or Putin, or (add well-known name here) are doing in 'plain sight'. As is the 'arbitrary authority' which you fail to see despite it becoming ever more pervasive.

This isn't a matter of EITHER we deal with BloJo and his chums OR with the effects of anti-social media. They are two facets of the same thing. And our only way forward is open scrutiny and regulation on the basis of informed democratic decisions.

Waving a card with 'internet' on it shouldn't be a way to trump (sic) your way out of democratic scrutiny. Yet in practice, the anti-social media has been weaponised to d this. Early dreams and hopes about what the net would do, regardless. They just use the old aim as a cover story.

 

[laughingboy]

As shown in this discussion, a lot of the calls for internet regulation centre on regulation of speech. This is the wrong ground on which to be fighting the problem of propaganda.

In my view, the bigger problem is how feedback loops and other features of systems can be gamed. The central problem in a lot of social networks is one of power. These systems 'reward' certain posts or posters with greater distribution/prevalance/amplification, so it follows that some speech is given power over others. If the already powerful can game these systems (getting networks of bots to 'react' to posts to drive their 'engagement' scores); if the systems depend upon feedback loops that generate near-exponential concentration of that power (more followers create higher distribution, creating more followers, etc), then the systems - far from being neutral - are generating a real problem of asymmetric power. I'll explain why this matters.

In order to have democracy, you need a healthy public sphere.

In order to have a healthy public sphere, the classic liberal argument is that you need freedom of speech (within limits) to create a marketplace of ideas.

But our current marketplace of ideas (social networks) resemble Amazon's marketplace where 'promoted' equals paid. If you don't pay in cash, you pay in resources: you need to create engagement, or invest enormous energy in generating sales momentum in order to get featured. So the marketplace largely becomes the preserve of the already powerful. If you don't pay to play, you get buried. The enormous democratic promise of social networks (that we all have a voice) becomes almost irrelevant if we cannot make ourselves heard. The value of freedom of speech becomes almost irrelevant if some speech is privileged via powerful feedback loops, and other speech is buried. We can defend these systems on the grounds of liberation from the dread hand of the censor, but we need to recognise also that these systems, by surfacing the 'engaging' conspiracy theories and burying the vast majority of speech (the speech of those who have not paid to play), are de facto censors by other means.

The systems - algorithmic sorting, tracking of user behaviours, hyper-targeted advertising - are the problem.

 

[droodzilla]

Complex debate.

I think it would be helpful to talk about specific measures rather than "censorship" or "regulation" in broad-brush terms.

For example, I oppose the moves to abolish online anonymity in the proposed legislation. It's unnacceptably authoritarian and it would have a chilling effect on free speech.

However, I favour moves to make social media platforms more open about the algorithms they use to push content, and about the sources of that content. I also think that there's a strong case for making all political advertising visible to everyone, not just its target market - how can you have a free and open debate if you can't even see what your political opponents are saying?

The last point ties in with laughingboy's excellent post above. Social media platforms are not publishers in the traditional sense but they do actively shape the conversations that take place on them, so they are more than just a neutral channel. They ought to be accountable for how they do that.

I have a largely positive view of Facebook and Twitter. Used properly, they are excellent sources of information and alternative views. Although I follow mainly left-wing Twitter accounts, I don't feel that I'm in a bubble, because of the engagement they generate from right-wing accounts, and everything in-between. However, there is growing evidence that the companies involved deliberately push users towards polarised and extreme positions because that's best for their bottom lines, even as it degrades liberal democracy.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

As shown in this discussion, a lot of the calls for internet regulation centre on regulation of speech. This is the wrong ground on which to be fighting the problem of propaganda.

In my view, the bigger problem is how feedback loops and other features of systems can be gamed. The central problem in a lot of social networks is one of power. These systems 'reward' certain posts or posters with greater distribution/prevalance/amplification, so it follows that some speech is given power over others. If the already powerful can game these systems (getting networks of bots to 'react' to posts to drive their 'engagement' scores); if the systems depend upon feedback loops that generate near-exponential concentration of that power (more followers create higher distribution, creating more followers, etc), then the systems - far from being neutral - are generating a real problem of asymmetric power. I'll explain why this matters.

In order to have democracy, you need a healthy public sphere.

In order to have a healthy public sphere, the classic liberal argument is that you need freedom of speech (within limits) to create a marketplace of ideas.

But our current marketplace of ideas (social networks) resemble Amazon's marketplace where 'promoted' equals paid. If you don't pay in cash, you pay in resources: you need to create engagement, or invest enormous energy in generating sales momentum in order to get featured. So the marketplace largely becomes the preserve of the already powerful. If you don't pay to play, you get buried. The enormous democratic promise of social networks (that we all have a voice) becomes almost irrelevant if we cannot make ourselves heard. The value of freedom of speech becomes almost irrelevant if some speech is privileged via powerful feedback loops, and other speech is buried. We can defend these systems on the grounds of liberation from the dread hand of the censor, but we need to recognise also that these systems, by surfacing the 'engaging' conspiracy theories and burying the vast majority of speech (the speech of those who have not paid to play), are de facto censors by other means.

The systems - algorithmic sorting, tracking of user behaviours, hyper-targeted advertising - are the problem.

Complex debate.

I think it would be helpful to talk about specific measures rather than "censorship" or "regulation" in broad-brush terms.

For example, I oppose the moves to abolish online anonymity in the proposed legislation. It's unnacceptably authoritarian and it would have a chilling effect on free speech.

However, I favour moves to make social media platforms more open about the algorithms they use to push content, and about the sources of that content. I also think that there's a strong case for making all political advertising visible to everyone, not just its target market - how can you have a free and open debate if you can't even see what your political opponents are saying?

The last point ties in with laughingboy's excellent post above. Social media platforms are not publishers in the traditional sense but they do actively shape the conversations that take place on them, so they are more than just a neutral channel. They ought to be accountable for how they do that.

I have a largely positive view of Facebook and Twitter. Used properly, they are excellent sources of information and alternative views. Although I follow mainly left-wing Twitter accounts, I don't feel that I'm in a bubble, because of the engagement they generate from right-wing accounts, and everything in-between. However, there is growing evidence that the companies involved deliberately push users towards polarised and extreme positions because that's best for their bottom lines, even as it degrades liberal democracy.

I want to 'like' these more than once!

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

FWIW I don’t view Zuckerberg/Facebook as being good or bad, moral or immoral. He had an interesting idea that developed into a radically new tool and eventually a huge global business.

In general, a knife is neither good nor bad. People use them to eat, every day. But a hunting knife or a three-sided dagger are a bit different. None of them care who uses them for what purpose, though. So we, as societies, tend to have rules about what kinds of knife can be carried, and how they can be used. We don't leave it to "whatever makes the most money for knife-makers."

My basic point is that we need openly accountably scrutiny and a way to ensure a knife is used for democratically accepted purposes, and not for damaging people. As i is, the very nature of the anti-social media makes that almost impossible because it bubbles info rather than making it openly checkable by anyone.

Tony: You curate this forum and remove crap or chuck off serious offenders. But the record shows that - despite having vast resources and wealth - the anti-social media have a lousy record for doing this. The signs are this is for two reasons:

1) They income comes from eyeballs on ads, so their AI is aimed at that NOT at dealing with damagingly false info or abuse.

2) They simply don't spend the money required for sufficient human curation. Indeed, given their size I doubt they could afford it!

Which is a clue as to the problem they pose for all of us.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

The wonderful thing about social media is you can entirely remove the establishment filter and not have your news selected or editorialised by Paul Dacre, Laura Kuenessberg etc and go straight to the source,

...or what you, individually, THINK is 'the source'.

Hence the people I routinely encounter convinced that Climate Change is a fantasy produced by evil 'scientists', etc, They KNOW the science is a lie because they've found reports saying so. Says so on the net/farcebook/etc. The BBC is just 'woke' lies so they refuse to ever watch it.

Ditto for anti-vaxxers.

For such subjects what is quite clear is that they have nae clue about actual science or the scientific method or the mass of evidence or how to assess it sanely. But they can point to endless 'sources' on the net that 'prove' they are right and "it's all a hoax to gain power".

The problem with a lack of curation is that you need to have a clue and know how to think critically. Many people simply cherry-pick what they want to be true. Because reality would be inconvenient or embarassing.

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

As shown in this discussion, a lot of the calls for internet regulation centre on regulation of speech. This is the wrong ground on which to be fighting the problem of propaganda.

In my view, the bigger problem is how feedback loops and other features of systems can be gamed. ...

In order to have democracy, you need a healthy public sphere.

In order to have a healthy public sphere, the classic liberal argument is that you need freedom of speech (within limits) to create a marketplace of ideas....

The systems - algorithmic sorting, tracking of user behaviours, hyper-targeted advertising - are the problem.

Overall, yes. And one of the keys here is also that the 'bubble' process hides too much from critical scrutiny. This allows weeds to grow into monsters before anyone else can spot the problem and even begin to deal with it. Clearly, this includes those who should be best placed to spot and fix - the anti-social media company itself.

The basic problem is that you can't fix the above without a much better level of open scrutiny and dealing with the problems that grow exponentially in +ve feedback bubbles. And at that point you reach the question of - who decides what is or is not a problem, and what to do?

Personally, I'd prefer that we as a society should be able to decide. Not leave it to a company whose main aim is to make a big profit. i.e. open and democratic accountability. It is hard to avoid that unless we can be certain that big companies will always 'play nicely'... which experience indicates is a rather counter-factual hope.

 

[CarrotMan]

In general, a knife is neither good nor bad. People use them to eat, every day. But a hunting knife or a three-sided dagger are a bit different. None of them care who uses them for what purpose, though. So we, as societies, tend to have rules about what kinds of knife can be carried, and how they can be used. We don't leave it to "whatever makes the most money for knife-makers."

My basic point is that we need openly accountably scrutiny and a way to ensure a knife is used for democratically accepted purposes, and not for damaging people. As i is, the very nature of the anti-social media makes that almost impossible because it bubbles info rather than making it openly checkable by anyone.

Very good point that is often lost in these discussions. There is very little technology that is inherently good or bad, it all depends on the intentions of the people using it.

The problem is that it is very difficult to imagine what sort of nefarious usages people will manage to come up with for technologies later on (weaponising FB marketing tool to sway public opinion on politics would be one example, explotative usage of AI to repress dissidents would be another etc.).

 

[Tony L]

I've been greatly encouraged by the fact that Dacre wasn't allowed to be 'installed' at Ofcom, and that it was the 'UK Establishment' (relevant bits of Parliament and Civil Service) that prevented it.

I’d argue social media played a *huge* part in the government realising they couldn’t get away with that degree of corruption and authoritarianism. There was a lot of grass roots campaigning from a lot of different sources, vast numbers of petitions etc etc. I’m prepared to bet that without the blinding spotlight of social media he’d be in place, Paterson would still have a job etc.

Your first assertion is, I fear, is the fundamentail error you make, and which causes your assumptions to be bullt on sand. You 'know' what the 'net' *was* some time ago. But you don't 'know' now, despite your belief.

…or what you, individually, THINK is 'the source'.

I’m sorry Jim, I’ve a huge, huge amount of respect for you in other fields, but you are coming across as spectacularly arrogant, condescending and patronising here. I’m getting to the point where I am reluctant to engage further. You are on the verge of turning into exactly the sort of entirely self-proclaimed authority those of us who exist outside of the mainstream have spent our whole lives kicking against. Clearly clueless about how younger people think and how they interact with their environment in the 21st century. Your world still appears to be one of V1.0 HTML, gif files, email lists, Usenet and university VAX systems. I’m probably not that much younger than you, but I’ve moved with the times and fully embraced modern tools and technologies. There are huge amounts of things you can’t even see as you insist in using such obsolete abandonware technology (RiscOS etc), and sadly I suspect the next update to pfm (I really need to take us onto XenForo 2.x) may well cut you adrift! I don’t want it to, but I can’t stay still in a fast-moving world. I absolutely love Acorn kit, but I view it as a retro hobby as that is what it is in 2021! You mention ‘bubbles’, I can think of few more restrictive than being stuck with obsolete tools.

PS I’ve been running a commercial social media site for about 20 years now. A tiny one, but still big enough to make a reasonable living from. I’m not arrogant enough to assume I have any real knowledge, I don’t think anyone does really, but I have certainly kept a very close eye on the directions of travel. I am interested enough in the whole technology to learn from others successes, failures, and at least look through the many doors they have opened. I certainly grasp how organic and user-driven these things are as entities and that those who think they can really control them are fools awaiting a fall!

 

[KrisW]

This is one area where America is far ahead of us as freedom of speech is enshrined in law.

Apologies for jumping back a day or two, but I just wanted to point out that the UK does actually have this freedom enshrined in law. The 1998 Human Rights Act is the latest instrument that implements the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory (and was instrumental in drafting). Article 10 of that Convention, included as Schedule 1 of the 1988 Act, says this:

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authority and regardless of frontiers. This Article shall not prevent States from requiring the licensing of broadcasting, television or cinema enterprises.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for maintaining the authority and impartiality of the judiciary

(full list here: Human Rights Act 1998 (legislation.gov.uk) )

This is the problem with the UK constitution, from being scattered across centuries of common law, it has a lot of “Unknown Knowns”: something that you have, but don’t know you have. These rights are actually a fairly recent addition (1953), but I wonder how many UK citizens would be surprised to know that it’s the law of the land.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

I’d argue social media played a *huge* part in the government realising they couldn’t get away with that degree of corruption and authoritarianism. There was a lot of grass roots campaigning from a lot of different sources, vast numbers of petitions etc etc. I’m prepared to bet that without the blinding spotlight of social media he’d be in place, Paterson would still have a job etc.

Let's be clear here, nobody is advocating the regulation of social media to the extent that this would not be possible. Even this government's Online Safety Bill isn't anywhere close to even hinting at this.

 

[Sue Pertwee-Tyr]

Apologies for jumping back a day or two, but I just wanted to point out that the UK does actually have this freedom enshrined in law. The 1998 Human Rights Act is the latest instrument that implements the European Convention on Human Rights, to which the UK is a signatory (and was instrumental in drafting). Article 10 of that Convention, included as Schedule 1 of the 1988 Act, says this:



(full list here: Human Rights Act 1998 (legislation.gov.uk) )

This is the problem with the UK constitution, from being scattered across centuries of common law, it has a lot of “Unknown Knowns”: something that you have, but don’t know you have. These rights are actually a fairly recent addition (1953), but I wonder how many UK citizens would be surprised to know that it’s the law of the land.

Ahem!

 

[Tony L]

Let's be clear here, nobody is advocating the regulation of social media to the extent that this would not be possible. Even this government's Online Safety Bill isn't anywhere close to even hinting at this.

I’m sorry, I just do not trust them given they are in the process of criminalising much public protest. It is not a huge jump from there to restricting things they can try to paint as extremists e.g. Momentum, Socialist Workers Party, Black Lives Matter, Extinction Rebellion etc etc etc. I see the movement of travel. Thankfully the internet exists largely beyond their reach so they’d unquestionably fail even if they tried, but don’t assume they are not dumb enough to try.

PS I’m not necessarily arguing against the Online Safety Bill either, though I do think any attempt to ‘teflon desk’ any responsibility for the criminal behaviour of people onto social media businesses is a bit much. The tools to do most of this exists, hate speech etc, yet the police routinely do not act to protect people even after multiple reports.