this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2023
261 points (90.4% liked)
Technology
60052 readers
2899 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I think we need to pursue a strategy that attempts to discourage the spread of disinformation while avoiding making them the arbiters of truth.
I think social media platforms are like a giant food court. If you do nothing to discourage the spread of germs, your salad bar and buffets are all going to be petri dishes of human pathogens. That doesn't mean that the food court needs to put in hospital-level sterilization measures. It just means that the FDA requires restaurants to use dishwashers that get up to 71 C, and employees are required to wash their hands.
In this case, I think we should experiment. What if platforms were required to let users flag something as disinformation, and share a credible source if they like? Maybe users could see all the flags and upvote or downvote them. The information would still be there, but you'd go to the InfoWars page and it would say, "Hey: You should know that 95% of people say this page posts mostly bullshit."
Something like that. I don't like the role the companies play currently, but disinformation does carry the potential to cause serious harm.
Remember when social media was deleting news stories about a certain laptop?
Yes?
I can't tell if you're agreeing with me or not.
I am also against deleting valid news about wrongdoing for Democrats, if you're implying this stance is political in some way.