[electricEmu]

I agree with OP:

> Healthy discourse cannot occur in the dark. How can I discuss an article that I don't know even exists?

Hyper targeted informational warfare inflames tribalism. You suggest we "mingle more" about 20 miles away at the park. It might be "healthy", but no one will give a crap if the park is empty.

Blaming individuals for group manipulation is not the answer.

[white-flame]

I didn't suggest mingling at the park. I suggest being in online places that aren't the hyper-segmented social media sites. Even here, there's a big sorted bag of articles, each with a big sorted bag of comments. Everybody engages with the same bag of stuff. We don't all have our individual view of the world; we see the entire world of HN together, depending on the time of day we visit. That's healthier for diverse discourse and diverse exposure than a pigeon-holed, AI-enforced separation of only your "targeted interests". Of course, you can argue the mob selection bias of articles here, but it's just 1 mob, not a system which enables an unbounded set of mini-mobs to slice at every discernable difference. We're all in HN together, and that has a striking effect on the style of discourse here in comparison.

(As an aside, I have zero problem with using social media for communication with actual friends, relatives, and activities you're a part of. It's all the extra crap they shovel on to chase that unbounded revenue growth that ultimately feeds the problem.)

Regarding the group manipulation, individuals are always at least legally held to their own actions even under manipulative circumstances (distinguished from coerced ones).

Group manipulation only lasts for so long as people don't recognize what's going on and how it's negatively affecting them, which is much harder to keep under wraps these days. There are movements against using Facebook now, which is the proper response to seeing how manipulative and literally unhealthy its ecosystem has become; whereas I don't consider it a reasonable response to call for wide censorship and scanning of personal information and "private" exchanges that happen there, in a big ol' ball of establishing precedent. If manipulators broke laws by posting or accessing stuff, it's a matter of jurisdiction as to who penalizes them, which is always a problem online, but that legal process seems to be properly progressing against CA.

[electricEmu]

I'd suggest our frames of reference are too far apart.

Your statements indicate that you place the entire onus of responsibility on end users. I hold some fault toward users, but include fault in the providers.

Generally, the world isn't black and white.

Why do you believe users deserve all of the responsibility? What about in countries where the entirety of information in and out is filtered?

This style of propoganda may be a type of coerced information.

These are also private entities. They can legally and morally censor without recourse.

All in all, I find the triviliation of those possibilities distrubing.

[white-flame]

As I said before, propaganda always has and will exist. Certainly measures can be taken to combat it, but some nonzero amount will be there and people first and foremost should expect to face it.

You're injecting an opposite extreme, implying that I don't think propaganda should be combated at all. But the first line of combat is broader communication, so usurpation for propaganda isn't the only content that flows, and multiple points of view are freely shared. With respect to free speech, legal action against propagandists should generally be reserved for origination of falsehoods and incitement to violence, which tends to already exist in our legal frameworks.