536
submitted 1 year ago by WorldNews@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] CoderKat@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

As an aside, since it's an area where I see a lot of misconceptions, AFAIK, algorithms aren't purposefully trying to promote alt right views. But rather alt right views are usually outrage driven and outrage drives consumption, which is what the algorithms are trying to maximize.

Though I completely agree that all the social media, search, AI, etc companies need to do far more to combat disinformation. Most of them seem to try to be "neutral" and assume good faith, but those are things that the alt right playbook actively tries to exploit. There's a very famous quote by Jean-Paul Sartre:

Never believe that anti-Semites are completely unaware of the absurdity of their replies. They know that their remarks are frivolous, open to challenge. But they are amusing themselves, for it is their adversary who is obliged to use words responsibly, since he believes in words. The anti-Semites have the right to play. They even like to play with discourse for, by giving ridiculous reasons, they discredit the seriousness of their interlocutors. They delight in acting in bad faith, since they seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate and disconcert. If you press them too closely, they will abruptly fall silent, loftily indicating by some phrase that the time for argument is past.

I think a lot of tech companies (except Twitter -- that's gone full Nazi) are full of people trying to maximize profits by attempting to be as centrist as possible, trying not to piss off either "side". But they either don't understand how fascism spreads or don't care, so their actions are resulting in spreading harm.

this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
536 points (97.5% liked)

World News

39367 readers
2330 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS