"Now, we are caught in a series of confusing battles between opposing forces: between truth and falsehood, fact and rumour, kindness and cruelty; between the few and the many, the connected and the alienated; between the open platform of the web as its architects envisioned it and the gated enclosures of Facebook and other social networks; between an informed public and a misguided mob."
"What is common to these struggles – and what makes their resolution an urgent matter – is that they all involve the diminishing status of truth. This does not mean that there are no truths. It simply means, as this year has made very clear, that we cannot agree on what those truths are, and when there is no consensus about the truth and no way to achieve it, chaos soon follows."
The article talks about "the future of publishing now being placed in the hands of few" - twas ever thus though, Rupert Murdoch and his like have controlled publishing in a way that us as the consumers had no control over.
It does seem certain that governments are going to get interested very quickly when they realise their control over the media has become greatly diminished, and Facebook is going to bear the brunt of this.
Can't compare govt control with corp control like apples for apples though. Facebook and other social media platforms are arguably just facilitators of social interaction, though incredibly sophisticated at that with personalisation algorithms et cetra. But they don't have a control agenda, at least not as explicit as the one traditionally associated with governments. Well I don't know, there's never been a technological revolution like this before except in scifi so maybe one day tech corps will be regarded with the same disdain and wariness. But it still makes it harder for the mass majority to 'rise up' and rebel, because this time the content is theirs. It's all self-generated. We're living in a pool where the water is so murky with facts and fiction that there's no point fishing for anything but things we happen to fancy. Meanwhile the corps that dig up those pools are keen to convince us that we're having a lovely time. Thanks guys,now we're free!
They undermine their own case with the example of Hillsborough, and a national newspaper slandering basically a whole city in the worst possible terms, stuff that would make Trump blush and getting away with it, just to avoid responsibility for causing a tragedy. And how technology, in that case would make sure the truth got out, as we see with multiple examples of poorly trained cops being caught on camera.
Though now I think of it, there's still the birther/truther/sandy hook hoax element where facts really don't matter. You'd hope they were really out on the fringe, but since one of them is running for president, I guess not.
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[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 15.6 ms ] thread"Now, we are caught in a series of confusing battles between opposing forces: between truth and falsehood, fact and rumour, kindness and cruelty; between the few and the many, the connected and the alienated; between the open platform of the web as its architects envisioned it and the gated enclosures of Facebook and other social networks; between an informed public and a misguided mob."
"What is common to these struggles – and what makes their resolution an urgent matter – is that they all involve the diminishing status of truth. This does not mean that there are no truths. It simply means, as this year has made very clear, that we cannot agree on what those truths are, and when there is no consensus about the truth and no way to achieve it, chaos soon follows."
It does seem certain that governments are going to get interested very quickly when they realise their control over the media has become greatly diminished, and Facebook is going to bear the brunt of this.
Though now I think of it, there's still the birther/truther/sandy hook hoax element where facts really don't matter. You'd hope they were really out on the fringe, but since one of them is running for president, I guess not.