Has social media set back our democracy decades, if not centuries? (1 Viewer)

This isn't a fully fleshed out idea, but just something to get a conversation going (assuming anyone else finds it interesting)...

Throughout history, technologies have changed the rules for civilizations much as superior offensive or defensive schemes change the makeup of professional sports over time.

The wheel, sailboats, paper, gunpowder, the printing press, steam engine, telegraph, air conditioners, telephone, light bulb, car, radio, airplanes...etc.

All things that once coming into societies, changed them in significant ways.

I'll argue that social media is one such technology that is changing society in ways that were hard to see up front.  It has never been easier to spread bad ideas to every single person on earth and we're in such a climate where we have no societal inoculation against this kind of transmission of bad ideas.  It's like the Native Americans could live for thousands of years on a continent not having to deal with the diseases of Europe, but when technological advances were sufficient to bring people from there to this continent, an entire people were nearly wiped out because they were not prepared or ready for the consequences of these technological changes.

In many ways, social media today breaks down almost all barriers between people that used to protect and provide some kind of herd immunity.  Used to, most news was filtered to us through newspapers, magazines, or a few tv stations.  But over the past decade or two, these barriers have been rapidly demolished, replaced with sources that appeal to many of our baser instincts, that are generated by foreign governments and fed directly to our people, and on top of that we have social media which puts reputable sources of information on the same levels as conspiracy theorists.  Our society is simply not prepared against this disease, and we're currently being ravaged by the consequences of it.

The question is, how can we survive the intellectual disease being spread after all barriers have been removed for the sharing of information?  We've effectively diluted our national discourse level by adding in millions of uninformed, uneducated folks with as much of a platform as the most educated and expert among us, and at the same time our society is undergoing attacks on experts and professionals like we've never seen before?

In an effort to make it easier to share pictures of kids, and recipes, and keep in touch with our friends (all while allowing companies to monetize our activity), we've unknowingly demolished societal walls that have kept us reasonably safe from the intellectual disease now running rampant across the world.  

At the risk of sounding like riversco, most of these inventions have lead to massive societal upheavals, revolutions, reformations, and things that have changed the face of the world.  Are we staring down the barrel of such a change now?  With the nearly daily comments from our POTUS, the support of many in our institutions, and the support of many across the country, I fear that we are.  

Social media has equalized the voices of the experts and the idiots, and as a result our collective IQ has reduced by a couple of standard deviations...where we'd previously have (more or less) some of our best folks representing us, now we have something much less.

its very powerful - more so that most people realize

one tweet, one release of a quote and the snowball effect can be an unstoppable force 

funny thing, its only as powerful as people allow it to be. I'm not on Twitter, I do not get streaming media to my phone or anything like it

It's still a relatively new phenomenon. We'll be fine. Just a tough learning curve. Companies are searching for ways to combat this. They'll figure it out. 

I more or less agree with you.  There have always been conspiracy theorists (to pick one example) out there, but the internet in general and social media in particular gives them a way to find each other and mobilize that would have been impossible 50 years ago.  It also creates intellectual bubbles that allow tribalism to flourish, which is a topic lots of people have written on more fluently that I could.  

That said, the internet is a good thing overall, and social media is not going away any time soon.  It's our institutions that need to adapt to technology, not the other way around.  I've become convinced that the solution involves dialing back majoritarianism.  We need to preserve and strengthen existing anti-majoritarian features of our government (like the Bill of Rights) and resist most efforts to foster majoritarianism.    

Stealthycat said:

its very powerful - more so that most people realize

one tweet, one release of a quote and the snowball effect can be an unstoppable force 

funny thing, its only as powerful as people allow it to be. I'm not on Twitter, I do not get streaming media to my phone or anything like it

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The problem is that it doesn't matter if you're not on Twitter.  I'm not on Facebook, but I still suffer damage from the idiots who talk each other into believing stupid things when they vote those stupid things into law.  Incompetent voters are like drunk drivers.  They're a danger to everybody around them.

Adonis, the “idiots” were always out there, in the John Birch society, reading about conspiracy theories in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, talking about the Rockefellers and voting for Lyndon LaRouche. It’s very clear that Social Media has made these people louder, but I doubt it has made them more powerful. 

To me the most significant political event involving social media thus far was during Arab Spring, when the Egyptian government was unable to ruthlessly shut down protests as they might have been able to a few years earlier. Consider me optimistic; I think that social media will do more to combat suppression and dictatorship that private ownership of guns ever could or will. So I mostly see it as a good thing. 

IvanKaramazov said:

The problem is that it doesn't matter if you're not on Twitter.  I'm not on Facebook, but I still suffer damage from the idiots who talk each other into believing stupid things when they vote those stupid things into law.  Incompetent voters are like drunk drivers.  They're a danger to everybody around them.

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Facebook is already solving this. They've been rolling out new features to combat this. The problem comes from old people who did not grow up with and don't fully understand the internet but as they die out and new companies with a better understanding solve things and people who have grown up with the internet things will be just fine

Hilts said:

Facebook is already solving this. They've been rolling out new features to combat this. The problem comes from old people who did not grow up with and don't fully understand the internet but as they die out and new companies with a better understanding solve things and people who have grown up with the internet things will be just fine

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We may be talking about two different things.  I think you're talking about fake news.  I'm not worried about that.  I'm worried about people who believe dumb but not "fake" things like "Muslims are bad and we should ban them from entering the US."  I'm incredibly skeptical that anybody can do anything about things like that.

The internet is pretty much the devil

IvanKaramazov said:

We may be talking about two different things.  I think you're talking about fake news.  I'm not worried about that.  I'm worried about people who believe dumb but not "fake" things like "Muslims are bad and we should ban them from entering the US."  I'm incredibly skeptical that anybody can do anything about things like that.

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I think the two are not exclusive. I don't know you can untangle the two. I think a large number of people believe dumb things in part because the fake news isn't refuted. That silence or lack of push back gives it credibility. I think as social media focuses on correcting dumb beliefs that are pushed from fake news sites, it'll really cut down on the public displays of idiocy.

There are some people that won't be swayed but as Tim pointed out, they've always been there. Social may allow them to connect better, but I think overall it's going to end up challenging more of those beliefs than has happened in the past.

In the long term I think social media will have an overwhelmingly positive effect on democracy. 

IvanKaramazov said:

I more or less agree with you.  There have always been conspiracy theorists (to pick one example) out there, but the internet in general and social media in particular gives them a way to find each other and mobilize that would have been impossible 50 years ago.  It also creates intellectual bubbles that allow tribalism to flourish, which is a topic lots of people have written on more fluently that I could.  

That said, the internet is a good thing overall, and social media is not going away any time soon.  It's our institutions that need to adapt to technology, not the other way around.  I've become convinced that the solution involves dialing back majoritarianism.  We need to preserve and strengthen existing anti-majoritarian features of our government (like the Bill of Rights) and resist most efforts to foster majoritarianism.    

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I agree that the internet is a good thing overall, but it's a difficult leap to make from a global society built under one structure of disseminating information (disrupted at times by various technologies, but never until today overthrown) to another society where in essence everything is level.

In business, we've been told the world is flat.  Communication has connected all parts of the world. Transportation advances have further allowed people to connect in ways never before seen.  But none of those advances/changes have such potential to ruin the world as breaking down our previous structures of authority in society. 

Social media has done that, and once authority is demolished, how do we rebuild? Can we expect that what rises will be similar to what we had before?

I think the downside is that this is possible, if authoritarians or dictators take control of societies and they reinstate themselves as the sources of authority.  We're seeing that as a model in the new age.  However, we've yet to see an effective "open model" where authority can exist in a useful way in a society where traditional sources of authority have been demolished.

timschochet said:

Adonis, the “idiots” were always out there, in the John Birch society, reading about conspiracy theories in The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, talking about the Rockefellers and voting for Lyndon LaRouche. It’s very clear that Social Media has made these people louder, but I doubt it has made them more powerful. 

To me the most significant political event involving social media thus far was during Arab Spring, when the Egyptian government was unable to ruthlessly shut down protests as they might have been able to a few years earlier. Consider me optimistic; I think that social media will do more to combat suppression and dictatorship that private ownership of guns ever could or will. So I mostly see it as a good thing. 

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So two th ings:

1) I'm not suggesting idiots are new.  What I'm am suggesting is new is that in our society, as never before, idiots and experts are on equal playing fields thanks to social media.  Previously, yes, idiots clustered in localized groups but really couldn't mobilize or gain any real numbers.  Publishers, editors, held the floodgates against too much crazy publishing.  Also, people are now considerably more subject to propaganda from hostile foreign states, or foreign interests looking to see their own interests served over our own...and due to social media, the connection between those sources and our people need no intermediaries.  This too is new.  So it's not that idiots are new, it's that bad people have easier access to idiots than ever before, and due to social media, the traditional perch the experts have to disseminate their views to the people at a larger rate than the nonsense, has been removed.

2) This equalization between experts and idiots, between entities who don't have our best interests as a country in mind and people they can coerce, has never been easier.  Our institutions, basically all human society, has been structured in a way where few people hold the power in disseminating information, and the masses read what the few put out.  Editors, publishers...all had standards for their jobs, and more or less served as effective gatekeepers to lunacy, propaganda, etc (except in more limited situations).

But what we're seeing now is a complete demolition of traditional sources of authority.  Our entire society has been built on producing, disseminating, and consuming information in certain ways...you see it in how gullible older folks are to believing things just because it's in print.  If it's in print, the theory goes, it's valid.  It's reliable...but the rules have changed from underneath them, and society.  No longer are the rules of the past valid....we're in a new "the world is flat" kind of environment where all of our former methods as a population of holding up truths and weeding out fictions have been removed.  

So after the past 8 years of birtherism, of "burn it all down", of pizzagate, of Alex Jones, of all the crazy #### that's pervading our country with the help of the Russians and our POTUS turning people off from trusting previously valid sources of information like the MSM, like the FBI, like the courts...we're entering a world where there are no authorities.  Where those who weave the best propaganda are those who are in charge, and if we don't get a handle on this, we won't have the internet much longer because someone more effective and smart than Trump, with equally terrible aims, will take power, will sieze control, and shut down what freedoms we have today.  I fear this isn't an exaggeration.

adonis said:

So two th ings:

1) I'm not suggesting idiots are new.  What I'm am suggesting is new is that in our society, as never before, idiots and experts are on equal playing fields thanks to social media.  Previously, yes, idiots clustered in localized groups but really couldn't mobilize or gain any real numbers.  Publishers, editors, held the floodgates against too much crazy publishing.  Also, people are now considerably more subject to propaganda from hostile foreign states, or foreign interests looking to see their own interests served over our own...and due to social media, the connection between those sources and our people need no intermediaries.  This too is new.  So it's not that idiots are new, it's that bad people have easier access to idiots than ever before, and due to social media, the traditional perch the experts have to disseminate their views to the people at a larger rate than the nonsense, has been removed.

2) This equalization between experts and idiots, between entities who don't have our best interests as a country in mind and people they can coerce, has never been easier.  Our institutions, basically all human society, has been structured in a way where few people hold the power in disseminating information, and the masses read what the few put out.  Editors, publishers...all had standards for their jobs, and more or less served as effective gatekeepers to lunacy, propaganda, etc (except in more limited situations).

But what we're seeing now is a complete demolition of traditional sources of authority.  Our entire society has been built on producing, disseminating, and consuming information in certain ways...you see it in how gullible older folks are to believing things just because it's in print.  If it's in print, the theory goes, it's valid.  It's reliable...but the rules have changed from underneath them, and society.  No longer are the rules of the past valid....we're in a new "the world is flat" kind of environment where all of our former methods as a population of holding up truths and weeding out fictions have been removed.  

So after the past 8 years of birtherism, of "burn it all down", of pizzagate, of Alex Jones, of all the crazy #### that's pervading our country with the help of the Russians and our POTUS turning people off from trusting previously valid sources of information like the MSM, like the FBI, like the courts...we're entering a world where there are no authorities.  Where those who weave the best propaganda are those who are in charge, and if we don't get a handle on this, we won't have the internet much longer because someone more effective and smart than Trump, with equally terrible aims, will take power, will sieze control, and shut down what freedoms we have today.  I fear this isn't an exaggeration.

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The bolded is your most important statement, which I agree with. But I would argue you that it has much more to do with talk radio and the removal of the Fairness Doctrine rather than social media. I am not arguing for a return to the Fairness Doctrine; far too late for that. But the biggest reason that there is an increase in what I believe to be irrational thinking in this country is that a large group of Americans, mainly conservatives, have been trained by right wing talk radio to regard the traditional media as biased against their interests.

A week ago in this subforum, knowledge dropper refused to open a link from The Washington Post because he stated that it was a fake news source not to be believed. Later he attempted to praise President Trump for being "bipartisan"; his evidence was that Trump had agreed to be interviewed by The New York Times.

knowledge dropper was ridiculed and mocked for these statements, and IMO justifiably so. But unfortunately from what I can see, his views more or less represent a majority of conservatives these days. They have moved, during the Trump era, from a general mistrust of the mainstream media to an outright rejection. I don't know what to do about this; how to solve it. I only know that I view this as the single biggest threat to the future of our democratic system of government.

Surely we all heard about Rod Stewart and having his stomach pumped when were kids younger.  It makes me wonder how stuff like that could spread iso widely n an era that was largely still information passed by word of mouth.

Now, the issues are magnified in terms of global communication with the ease of a few clicks - and then nefariously magnified even further with little to no effort.  

Sinn Fein said:

Surely we all heard about Rod Stewart and having his stomach pumped when were kids younger.  It makes me wonder how stuff like that could spread iso widely n an era that was largely still information passed by word of mouth.

Now, the issues are magnified in terms of global communication with the ease of a few clicks - and then nefariously magnified even further with little to no effort.  

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Lies could still be spread in the old model, just not quite as far as easily.

Today, a single tweet about Gorilla TV can capture millions within hours, as a benign example.

Our society has no idea how to deal with the flat landscape that is now information authority.  The solution seems most likely to come in the form of cracking down on the freedom to spread information, rather than the development of a new paradigm.  We see it time and time again, democracies snuffed out, authoritarianism locking down the spread of information in a country.  Trump, the fool that he is, is attempting to do this even in our own country...and surprisingly he's getting help doing it from reasonably intelligent partisan leaders on his "team".

What would happen to the sciences, to education, religion, the arts...if we locked down our communications in our country and our leadership instituted a new hierarchy of authority?  Already, science is under attack where it intersects with political beliefs.  Religion as well.  News sources are included too, as are law enforcement agencies and the justice department...also the judiciary.

Our entire system of authority is under attack by those in power, enabled by social media and a complicit GOP leadership, and at stake could be more than we imagine.

adonis said:

Our entire system of authority is under attack by those in power, enabled by social media and a complicit GOP leadership, and at stake could be more than we imagine.

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I agree with your point.  I do wonder if its already too late.

And, I would add that our entire system of authority has been under attack for a long time - we allow people in authority to put rules in place to expand and extend their authority.  That drives most decisions in Washington these days - not whats best for the citizens, but what is best to keep those in power, still in power.

timschochet said:

The bolded is your most important statement, which I agree with. But I would argue you that it has much more to do with talk radio and the removal of the Fairness Doctrine rather than social media. I am not arguing for a return to the Fairness Doctrine; far too late for that. But the biggest reason that there is an increase in what I believe to be irrational thinking in this country is that a large group of Americans, mainly conservatives, have been trained by right wing talk radio to regard the traditional media as biased against their interests.

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To borrow from finance, social media makes bad ideas more liquid than they've ever been.  Previously, the conversion rate between bad ideas and widespread publication has almost always gone through some form of a gatekeeper.  Even Rush Limbaugh has to abide by some regulations.

Today though, the only regulations come from TOS from tech companies.  Tech company interests are aligned with maximizing stakeholder returns, not anything to do with society in general.

This entire topic stemmed from Twitters recent announcement about how it treats world leaders as exceptions to its normal terms of service.

So basically folks like Trump, or Putin, or any other terrible leader, have carte blanche to put any idea in front of any person in the world with no restrictions whatsoever aside from the recipient having sufficient access to technology.

"A fool takes no pleasure in understanding, but only in expressing his opinion." -King Solomon

Sinn Fein said:

I agree with your point.  I do wonder if its already too late.

And, I would add that our entire system of authority has been under attack for a long time - we allow people in authority to put rules in place to expand and extend their authority.  That drives most decisions in Washington these days - not whats best for the citizens, but what is best to keep those in power, still in power.

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I agree that within the terms of our government, folks have constantly been pushing boundaries on what's acceptable.  This seems to have happened even at the founding of the country, in a battle between Hamilton and Jefferson (i'm no historian, but i think that's accurate).

However, those battles have always taken place on a certain playing field that has been well established, an the terms of the fight have been ironed out, and there are rules and regulations that bound the actions...plus, the EO's for example can be overturned by the next president.  Checks and balances in government, etc. 

So while not perfect, all of this expansion of power has occurred historically on well-worn ground, where human nature is reasonably well understood and our system of government was set up to account for the excesses and pitfalls of human governmental leaders.

What i'm suggesting is that we're in a completely uncharted world now of technology, the liquidity of bad/dangerous ideas, and we have no framework on how to handle it.  Not only that, but the gatekeepers in charge of policing how our technologies are used are not in alignment with the national good, or principles of freedom...they're seeking to make more money.

And is it a wonder now that the traditional sources of authority are under such attack now that an alternative communication system is available?  This happened, as Tim mentioned, in the Arab spring...but what was the aftermath of much of that turmoil?  Vacuums of power, terrorism?

The same thing is happening in America where folks like Trump and others are using this new technology to circumvent traditional sources of authority and use their access to undermine what traditionally has been our societal gatekeepers of information, for better or worse (mostly better).

We're in for a rough ride here.

Splintering of media broke this down years ago. People could avoid information they didn't like and only accept those facts, breaking a common base of conversation that was the basis of discourse, even dating back to the Socratic dialogues. Back in the early 90s and the nascent years of the internet, I had a college professor theorize that exactly this would happen. Groups of people with fringe beliefs would finally be able to connect and reinforce each other, giving their wack ideas a semblence of common belief and validity. 

People have been dismissing sources of authority forever. As I read years ago, the positive is we have an abundance of people who understand the workings of government and how to really run everything perfectly. The negative is that they all drive cabs and tend bars.

Stealthycat said:

its very powerful - more so that most people realize

one tweet, one release of a quote and the snowball effect can be an unstoppable force 

funny thing, its only as powerful as people allow it to be. I'm not on Twitter, I do not get streaming media to my phone or anything like it

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That is not something to be proud of or brag about. Although there are trolling and bots, one is exposed to a different points of view and perspectives that one will not often see on their preferred media outlets, such as Fox News and Breitbart or MSNBC and DKos. Not to mention that Twitter is the pulse of what happening in the world and you can that information instantly (although it must be taken with a huge grain of salt).

Twitter will take you out of whatever echo chamber you are in, unless of course you insist on only following those who reinforce your point of view. I just don't follow those I agree with and am always read trending hashtags which, in real time, is giving me what everyone is talking about, not just what I want to see. I think that has given me a more rounded view of the world and made me a more informed person.

I doubt it's accurate, but there is some truth to the idea that some of this diminishment of authority can be pinned on Nixon. 

Matthias said:

Splintering of media broke this down years ago. People could avoid information they didn't like and only accept those facts, breaking a common base of conversation that was the basis of discourse, even dating back to the Socratic dialogues. Back in the early 90s and the nascent years of the internet, I had a college professor theorize that exactly this would happen. Groups of people with fringe beliefs would finally be able to connect and reinforce each other, giving their wack ideas a semblence of common belief and validity. 

People have been dismissing sources of authority forever. As I read years ago, the positive is we have an abundance of people who understand the workings of government and how to really run everything perfectly. The negative is that they all drive cabs and tend bars.

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At what point in our national history has the mainstream media, the FBI, the judicial system, the DOJ been under such attack through means which require no gatekeeper to edit views before they go public?

Yes, media has splintered years ago.  Yes, mainstream media has been taking hits for decades, as have newspapers, magazines, and other publications.

But social media is the death knell of our sources of authority.  Never before have so many people been able to reach any human alive by means that are totally unchecked by gatekeepers as there is today. 

adonis said:

At what point in our national history has the mainstream media, the FBI, the judicial system, the DOJ been under such attack through means which require no gatekeeper to edit views before they go public?

Yes, media has splintered years ago.  Yes, mainstream media has been taking hits for decades, as have newspapers, magazines, and other publications.

But social media is the death knell of our sources of authority.  Never before have so many people been able to reach any human alive by means that are totally unchecked by gatekeepers as there is today. 

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How many influential twitter feeds do you think are being run by Joe Shmoes? It's more a sharing of an idea from someone with prominence.

Also the "world" has been growing. If you were in one of the Grecian city states you didn't give a #### what people were thinking in Norway. 

Or out in the American prairie or west, what people thought in Ohio. Your voice was smaller, but so was your world. 

Do you think Twitter is more influential than Father Charles Coughlin?

Matthias said:

How many influential twitter feeds do you think are being run by Joe Shmoes? It's more a sharing of an idea from someone with prominence.

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"influential twitter feeds" are many and not all are Joe Shmoes, but some are.  What about facebook fake news creators during the campaign?  How many leaders referenced these stories made up by a creative person in it for the money?

Tons of people on social media are influencers and are Joe Shmoes in it for the money.  They get clicks, their posts get shared, they make money.  It's how this kinda thing works.

And we're not even yet talking about lobbying firms employing bots to amplify their propaganda, or foreign governments, or hostile foreign governments putting propaganda out there sometimes with the assistance of more notable sources.

Matthias said:

Do you think Twitter is more influential than Father Charles Coughlin?

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I'll tell you that for my MIL, who is in her late 70's, what she sees shared on her facebook accounts and forwards she gets in emails are incredibly influential in her life.  

The tweets of Trump are incredibly influential, as are the many posts from russian bots spreading propaganda.

Facebook posts during the election that were truly fake news were influential.

Ad buys on google during the election, highlighting certain stories, were influential.

What kind of dedicated campaign do you see in social media (all of them, not just twitter/facebook) that is working in lock step with Trump to discredit our national systems of authority?

ALL of this is incredibly influential, and barely any of it is done by folks who are traditionally considered authorities, but a ton of it is gladly taken up by folks like Alex Jones, or Breitbart, or white nationalists, or even the Sean Hannity's of the world.

Donald Trump retweets crazy folks on twitter...what do you think that does?  We're at a national level of conspiracy theories never seen before...why?  Because of this kind of stuff.

Matthias said:

Do you think Twitter is more influential than Father Charles Coughlin?

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Absolutely. It has reached more people and unlike the followers of Coughlin, Twitter enables them to communicate instantly with one another.

The thing social media does best is make everyone feel everyone else is the problem.

"Social media would be fine if it wasn't for the stupid / easily led / old people / millennials / right / left / hate / universal acceptance  / etc etc etc"

You make a good point but the printing press also led to this type of revolution.  Somehow we'll survive.

I'd say that what we saw at the last election was the intersection of a lot of different things:

- more access to devices that connect folks to the internet, and specifically social media, than ever before.

- more familiarity with the tools of the internet to affect public discourse

- a potus candidate who was more than happy to use these tools to spread mis/dis-information.

- and to be frank, a lot of older folks who are from a generation less prepared to deal with the craziness of the internet, being exposed and exploited for the first time in 2016.

I saw a picture meme the other day that said something like:

2% of people control everything

3% are willing servants of the 2%

5% are awake

90% are asleep

The 2% want to keep the 5% from waking up the other 90%

I replied that everyone, from the smartest Harvard professor to the dumbest backwoods hick, sees themselves in the 5%. And that's prettymuch the power/problem with social media.

-OZ- said:

You make a good point but the printing press also led to this type of revolution.  Somehow we'll survive.

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The printing press led to a revolution, a reformation, but left a lot of traditional authority structures in place because the supporting technology around it wasn't sufficient to provide any other outcome.

For example, the catholic church still survived and was doing just fine when the reformation hit.

But today, not only are we splintering in almost every conceivable way, all traditional sources of information are being torn to the ground. 

The most likely outcome seems to be a crackdown on the kinds of freedoms we see today, and the setting up of artificial sources of information that are state controlled...similar to Russia and China.

Can the American model of freedom as it relates to the internet and social media survive this kind of attack, or will models like we see used elsewhere in the world become the easier answer for folks looking for clarity and a "just tell me what to believe" mindset?

How many folks on the right would be happy if Fox News was the only state sponsored media allowed in the country?  A huge number I'd wager.  And look at the success Trump, a truly bad leader, has had in getting his political opponents investigated, bastardizing the DOJ, putting incompetent people in positions of leadership, basically trampling all over our government without any major pushback from his party....what would happen if someone like Nixon were to come around today with Fox news to back him, and a GOP unable to find a patriotic backbone? 

I guarantee you that there would be crackdowns across the country on dissenting views, a propping up (more than is being done now) of a state media, and a more authoritarian government being put into place than what we have today.

adonis said:

At what point in our national history has the mainstream media, the FBI, the judicial system, the DOJ been under such attack through means which require no gatekeeper to edit views before they go public?

Yes, media has splintered years ago.  Yes, mainstream media has been taking hits for decades, as have newspapers, magazines, and other publications.

But social media is the death knell of our sources of authority.  Never before have so many people been able to reach any human alive by means that are totally unchecked by gatekeepers as there is today. 

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There's always been propaganda. And people's worlds have grown. A transportation economist told be a fascinating fact years ago. The average commuting time is 25 minutes. Which isn't only constant across societies but also across time. As technology advanced, so did people's sphere of daily existence. So sure. People can broadcast globally now, but it doesn't matter because globally has been irrelevant for most of history. And really, still is. This entire global audience and people here spend most of their time shooting the #### with the same 50 guys.

As far as mistrust of government? Read A History of Rome by Livy some time. New boss is the same as the old boss. Social media is a nudge, not seismic. Sorry.

squistion said:

Twitter will take you out of whatever echo chamber you are in, unless of course you insist on only following those who reinforce your point of view.

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You made me think of this Onion point/counterpoint 

The vast majority of Twitter users aren't using it to broaden their horizons.

Spartans Rule said:

You made me think of this Onion point/counterpoint 

The vast majority of Twitter users aren't using it to broaden their horizons.

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I didn't say that they were, just that it has that potential.

squistion said:

Absolutely. It has reached more people and unlike the followers of Coughlin, Twitter enables them to communicate instantly with one another.

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Unless you block them 

adonis said:

At what point in our national history has the mainstream media, the FBI, the judicial system, the DOJ been under such attack through means which require no gatekeeper to edit views before they go public?

Yes, media has splintered years ago.  Yes, mainstream media has been taking hits for decades, as have newspapers, magazines, and other publications.

But social media is the death knell of our sources of authority.  Never before have so many people been able to reach any human alive by means that are totally unchecked by gatekeepers as there is today. 

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The trouble with gatekeepers is that they necessarily have their own prejudices and limit the flow of good information as well as bad.  This isn't new either...consider the aggressive suppression of contrary religious teachings by all sides during the reformation, as just one example.

We also have a state today (as it has been for decades) that the states maintaining the most aggressive gatekeepers regarding information flow are the most repressive and most in need of free access to info by their citizens.

Asking for a return to strong gatekeepers on info seems likely to do more harm than good.  I'd rather let society evolve better filters than impose them authoritatively.

squistion said:

I didn't say that they were, just that it has that potential.

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There is too much information available, and too much information being broadcast, for anyone to adequately digest it all - from multiple perspectives.

HellToupee said:

58 minutes ago, squistion said:

Absolutely. It has reached more people and unlike the followers of Coughlin, Twitter enables them to communicate instantly with one another.

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Unless you block them 

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The them I was referring were those who are like-minded, as the Coughlin followers were in the 30s, or the alt-right are today.

And blocking is similar to the ignore feature here (better actually) as when someone is trolling your Twitter account, stalking or harassing you, you not only remove seeing their tweets, you also eliminate seeing any tweet of theirs that anyone has responded to on Twitter.

squistion said:

That is not something to be proud of or brag about

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you believe what people tweet ? what % do you think is just blah blah blah ? what % of tweets do you think are false ?

Stealthycat said:

you believe what people tweet ? what % do you think is just blah blah blah ? what % of tweets do you think are false ?

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I didn't say or suggest that I do. All trending hashtags that are represented as breaking news accounts and actual facts must be met with a degree of skepticism until they can be verified. A certain percentage is false but I have no idea the actual number.

Much of twitter is just people expressing their opinion or take on things, which you can accept as another piece of information or completely disregard.

Quite often there are verifiable links to legitimate news sources or from those in media that have a demonstrated record of credible reporting (and they sometimes can be wrong).

Twitter certainly has its faults and leaves a lot to be desired. However if something big has just happened right now, I can get instant news on it, before it is even on cable - quite often with links to live feeds and on the scene reporting.

squistion said:

I didn't say or suggest that I do. All trending hashtags that are represented as breaking news accounts and actual facts must be met with a degree of skepticism until they can be verified. A certain percentage is false but I have no idea the actual number.

Much of twitter is just people expressing their opinion or take on things, which you can accept as another piece of information or completely disregard.

Quite often there are verifiable links to legitimate news sources or from those in media that have a demonstrated record of credible reporting (and they sometimes can be wrong).

Twitter certainly has its faults and leaves a lot to be desired. However if something big has just happened right now, I can get instant news on it, before it is even on cable - quite often with links to live feeds and on the scene reporting.

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exactly -   I weed through enough BS with CNN, FOX etc etc ........... to have to do it with tweets? no thanks

IvanKaramazov said:

I more or less agree with you.  There have always been conspiracy theorists (to pick one example) out there, but the internet in general and social media in particular gives them a way to find each other and mobilize that would have been impossible 50 years ago.  It also creates intellectual bubbles that allow tribalism to flourish, which is a topic lots of people have written on more fluently that I could.  

That said, the internet is a good thing overall, and social media is not going away any time soon.  It's our institutions that need to adapt to technology, not the other way around.  I've become convinced that the solution involves dialing back majoritarianism.  We need to preserve and strengthen existing anti-majoritarian features of our government (like the Bill of Rights) and resist most efforts to foster majoritarianism.    

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This is a wonderful post. It seems like the direct democracy movements of the sixties and seventies failed, and that we need a republic more than ever, with the restraints of both the progressive era and the Republican era of the '90s both shown the door.  

dark money is more of a threat to democracy than social media is. 

Arodin said:

The trouble with gatekeepers is that they necessarily have their own prejudices and limit the flow of good information as well as bad.  This isn't new either...consider the aggressive suppression of contrary religious teachings by all sides during the reformation, as just one example.

We also have a state today (as it has been for decades) that the states maintaining the most aggressive gatekeepers regarding information flow are the most repressive and most in need of free access to info by their citizens.

Asking for a return to strong gatekeepers on info seems likely to do more harm than good.  I'd rather let society evolve better filters than impose them authoritatively.

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Gatekeepers are a foundational aspect of our democratic republic.  We elect gatekeepers to office who are ideally better informed on issues than we are, more expert in certain areas, and better able to make decisions for their constituents than the average citizen they represent.  We hold them accountable through elections, and this has worked, more or less, for us as a country.

The media has done some of the same stuff.  They've been gatekeepers of a sort, being experts on certain issues that the general public cannot be experts on, and representing us through their reporting.  This has worked in varying degrees throughout our country.

What we have now, seemingly with social media, and some conservative media, is the lack of appreciation for the gatekeepers in our society.  We've started to pretend that average citizens can know what needs to be known about reporting, about investigations, about politics, government, foreign diplomacy, international regulations, domestic regulations, and on and on.  

Instead of outsourcing much of this to the gatekeepers or representatives, we think we know best on a ton of things, and we largely get our information from poor sources.  These poor sources of information cause us to further tear down the gatekeepers and represenatives, and we're left with a "Fake News" culture that's happy just seeing "it all burn down".

This is a tough thread for me.   While I agree with the important role that the our democratic institutions - including the press have historically played and how much we are absolutely depending on them to thwart any authoritarian urges of the current administration, I simply cannot get to having obstacles to expressing opinions being removed is a bad thing.  Sure it will be exploited by those I disagree with, but I simply believe in the "free market of ideas" working over time. I guess in many ways I have contradictory positions here, at least in the "establishment" vs "populism" black and white world.  To use words from an article earlier in the week, I ultimately support "power with" ideas and that means tearing down the "power over" hierarchies - even those that have served us well and are being counted on now.  (Like I said - contradictory.)