[intended]

If the majority of people here are software engineers, would it surprise people that someone has automated the job of crafting believable bullshit? Not to mention disseminate it faster and better than we have ever been able to?

I see it as a problem that we can iterate “content” faster, identify “audience groups”, run marketing analytics, A/b test “narratives”, all to craft believable, plausible “content” and then mass broadcast it.

We’ve built systems that create content faster and better than a normal human BS filter can block.

How does this have anything to do with the First Amendment? How do free speech rules bring the balance of power back to individual human levels of filtering?

Mind you the First Amendment is an American construct. It does nothing for things like genocides in Myanmar, or journalist suppression or hate crimes and the like.

[quotemstr]

> We’ve built systems that create content faster and better than a normal human BS filter can block.

Maybe so, but I just don't trust that the "BS filter" big tech has constructed will block only "BS" and not true things inconvenient to a certain strident brand of west coast morality. The NY Post story from last year certainly wasn't "BS".

I don't think algorithmic BS is anywhere near as big a risk as you think it is, and I think the risk of outright censorship is far larger than you imagine. Big tech should be a common carrier and viewpoint discrimination in moderation should be illegal.

[intended]

And my answer to people who believe this is always the same - please volunteer your their time to an active subreddit of your choice, preferably one with an active political aspect.

Look, I am not unsympathetic. I have personally gone through the whole cycle - I started from "the antidote to bad speech is more speech, not censorship", To advocating for better tools to handle misinformation.

I would honestly LOVE for the world to work how I thought it did. I worry about the tools we create to clean our "gardens". Yet, without those tools I know most large communities would fail to be governed.

I am largely tired, of these debates on HN where old arguments are rehashed, un-tempered with empirics. Heck, people should be upset that the data that can answer these questions is under NDAs.

[tekknik]

> please volunteer your their time to an active subreddit of your choice, preferably one with an active political aspect.

Why reddit? That site is a soup of immaturity, did you expect otherwise? On reddit you have people with 5 accounts creating conversations to control narratives and make it look like you have a larger group than you do supporting your case. This is more difficult to do on FB because they do a bit of account validation and other measures.

And your example of a political forum on reddit is a great example of why we don’t want censorship. On reddit admins ban for simply not speaking to the narrative or saying something that is not misinformation yet the admins don’t like. This is literally the same problem we have with FB now. The moral of the story is, stop censoring. It’s ok someone doesn’t say what you think is the truth, I promise the world will keep spinning.

[intended]

How does that work? reddit speech is not worthy of being heard? Its too immature to be even worth experimenting with moderation?

If people are creating 5 accounts to create a narrative, well then thats the job isn’t it? Stopping those 4 fake accounts.

But that would be censorship. So what is your solution for the problem you yourself have described?

Plus, If your first option is to choose a forum where you self select out of dealing with messy problems, then your experience is invalid for guidance on dealing with messy problems - no?

I can’t seem to see anything but a contradiction of your own purposes here.

Perhaps you see how these things are not contradictory>?

[tekknik]

> How does that work? reddit speech is not worthy of being heard? Its too immature to be even worth experimenting with moderation?

I didn't say it wasn't worthy of being heard, I said it's immature and there's zero cost to account creation and therefore you have literal children going to that site and spitting nonsense. Moderating that site is like herding cats.

> If people are creating 5 accounts to create a narrative, well then thats the job isn’t it? Stopping those 4 fake accounts. But that would be censorship.

Yup, banning them would. Did I say ban them? It was used as a reference to immaturity, because immature / crazy people create accounts to make a cohort that does not exist.

> So what is your solution for the problem you yourself have described?

In short, change the way these people are raised. Change what they're being taught in schools that enables this behavior. It's unacceptable to throw online temper tantrums when you don't get your way. It's also unacceptable to attempt to force those into your beliefs. So start by teaching children that instead of raising the entitled society that we have today.

For those, seemingly like yourself, who thinks the world will end if a group of people start believing the world is flat, I'd say learn to ignore people.

> Plus, If your first option is to choose a forum where you self select out of dealing with messy problems, then your experience is invalid for guidance on dealing with messy problems - no? I can’t seem to see anything but a contradiction of your own purposes here. Perhaps you see how these things are not contradictory>?

How about let me speak for myself and quit carrying the conversation forward using assumptions from yourself?

[tekknik]

> We’ve built systems that create content faster and better than a normal human BS filter can block.

How does this work? Specifically the faster than a normal humans BS filter.

[intended]

Without access to specialized knowledge, like being an expert in a subject, users will either check the authority/standing of the speaker, the emotional appeal of an argument, or the underlying logic of it.

In my simple way of putting it - creating a website, or creating a post, and then having it disseminated is dirt cheap today. You can get an article on a news website, having it referenced by a youtube channel, have that sent to a twitter feed.

That alone is sufficient to discuss an increase in the volume of content being created - however, that volume also gets disseminated as fast as it is created, which is what accounts for the speed.

This is also without looking into the fact that people tend to use superficial traits to assess whether information is credible online.

"Yet, research shows that people rarely engage in effortful information evaluation tasks, opting instead to base decisions on factors like web site design and navigability. Fogg et al. (2003), ... They argue that because web users do not often spend a long time at any given site, they likely develop quick strategies for assessing credibility."

From: Credibility and trust of information in online environments: The use of cognitive heuristics, (Miriam J.MetzgerAndrew J.Flanagin)

So a good looking website, with content that purports to be endorsed by known authorities, and hits the right cultural blind spots for its audience will get past their filters.

[tekknik]

If you’re gathering information faster than your BS filter can process it, then you’ve also exceeded your capacity to process the information your receiving. Assuming BS filter means some extension of comprehension

[intended]

Yes, I think so too. However people still will consume content as long it gives those dopamine hits. The brain makes you think you are doing something, even if its not really comprehending what its consuming.

Which is getting closer to the problem as I see it - the tech infrastructure has out scaled the default biological tools we are born with.

[tekknik]

If you’re consuming information but comprehending it then this is listening vs hearing. This is my original problem with this “faster than BS filter”. If you claim that information is coming too fast for them to comprehend then they are not comprehending it and therefore not getting the information. Which would make this all false.