Posted on 05/12/2024 7:35:11 AM PDT by DoodleBob
On May 16 the world will mark the UN International Day of Living Together in Peace. It is a rallying call for people to listen respectfully to others and promote tolerance and understanding.
Perhaps someone should tell tech entrepreneurs Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk. The online platforms they head up – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter/X – have become synonymous with fake news, hate speech, misinformation and other online harms.
Social media has been widely blamed for destabilising democracies and fomenting civil unrest in Europe and North America. In July 2023, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, proposed restricting access to online platforms in order to quell rioting.
This is a far cry from 2009, when Facebook proudly claimed it had created “friendships” between seemingly irredeemably rival groups: Sunni and Shia Muslims, Muslims and Jews, Pakistanis and Indians, Greeks and Turks, conservatives and liberals.
“Peace on Facebook” was a classic example of what social scientist Nicholas John refers to as “social media bullsh**”. Such PR blurb is designed to convince the public these tech companies are a force for good. They purposefully describe themselves as “platforms” – rather than commercial entities – to emphasise how benign they are.
In reality, these companies financially benefit from every click, like, share and comment users on their platforms make. The more inflammatory the content, the more profitable it is. My research shows that such online incivility only makes it harder to promote peaceful coexistence
There appears little chance of social media platforms taking stronger action to remove divisive content. Since tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s acquisition of the X (formerly Twitter) microblogging platform in October 2022, the guardrails designed to protect minorities have, in fact, been dismantled.
Twitter’s Trust and Safety Council was dissolved in December 2022. This move, among many other policy changes, prompted an insider to go public with their fears that the site could no longer protect users from trolling, disinformation and sexual exploitation.
Musk has reportedly described himself as a “free speech absolutist”. This is particularly problematic for those whose real job it is to promote peace in deeply divided societies.
There is already extensive evidence that online platforms such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) have been used to spread hate speech. They have been used to incite sectarian violence, too, in countries including India and Myanmar.
In Sri Lanka, following anti-Muslim rioting in 2018, Facebook issued an apology for its role in the unrest. The company hired Article One, the human rights consultancy, to investigate what had happened. It concluded that the hate speech and misinformation that was amplified by Facebook users online “may have led” to violence offline.
My research shows that rumours, misinformation and disinformation have frequently been amplified by social media during contentious parades and protests in Northern Ireland. There is little evidence that such online activity inevitably leads to sectarian rioting. The indirect effects of online incivility, however, is that it makes it harder to promote reconciliation between former antagonists.
In effect, online platforms at present focus more attention on what divides rather than unites different communities.
Research shows that unsupervised intergroup contact, both on and offline, is unlikely to foster positive peace in societies that are transitioning out of conflict. Reducing prejudices against outgroups is much easier when there are rules in place to respond to content that inflames tensions between different communities. In other words, rival groups are unlikely to find common ground in unregulated online spaces where hate speech flourishes.
Clearly, frequent exposure to the online hate speech amplified by social media platforms is unlikely to aid peacebuilding. Communities who do not typically share the same physical space are unlikely to think differently about each other when they see such negative stereotypes being perpetuated online.
Social media such as Facebook and X (formerly Twitter) might not be the best place to promote peace. These platforms are designed to generate profit, not improve community relations.
For intergroup dialogue in contemporary societies to be effective minorities and vulnerable communities need stronger protections, not less. A public service internet, guardrails included, might be a better way to promote reconciliation in divided societies.
Because the govt would NEVER lie or get it wrong. Indeed - I can’t believe I’m saying this - New York Times executive editor Joe Kahn nailed it.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/4236602/posts
“I don’t even know how it’s supposed to work in the view of Dan Pfeiffer or the White House,” Kahn snapped. “We become an instrument of the Biden campaign? We turn ourselves into Xinhua News Agency or Pravda, and put out a stream of stuff that’s very, very favorable to them and only write negative stories about the other side? And that would accomplish — what?”
Kahn didn’t stop, announcing a formal re-drawing of lines in the sand. He told the White House that fixing the country is their job, reporting is his job, choosing presidents is the job of voters, and stop blaming us if you can’t get re-elected on your own.
“There are people out there in the world who may decide, based on their democratic rights, to elect Donald Trump as president,” Kahn told Smith. “It is not the job of the news media to prevent that from happening. It’s the job of Biden and the people around Biden to prevent that from happening.”
They forgot to include the nightly news and major newspapers....
Like the only newspapers you can read are the ones posted on special boards by the government
Are the flat earth people misinformation , they believe it it’s real to them ,LOL
We can’t allow people to have unmonitored and unsupervised conversations among themselves.
The irony of a LIBERAL arts professor who certainly fashions himself as a political LIBERAL arguing in a magazine called THE CONVERSATION that we shouldn’t have a free conversation.
The issue here is noticing.
X has become something of a hub for noticing.
Some want noticing curtailed so they call for censorship.
For our liberty to be preserved the noticing must continue!
Oversight, control and punishment of speech has been every fascist’s dream since dawn eternal.
The means are now available to not just monitor all speech, but to control it right down to the individual.
Tell this Scottish faggot to invent his own internet and he can post all his skirt wearing fascism there.
3rd world assholes have no say.
Because folks have been brainwashed into not being able to think for themselves.
This is a difficult topic.
Without some form of censorship, any online platform quickly devolves into an outlet for the worst depravities of humanity. Like the torture of animals and humans, etc.
Constitutional free speech is meant to protect political speech, not the depraved rants of unbalanced minds.
If anyone wants to see completely uncensored internet, I believe 4chan still offers that content.
“There appears little chance of social media platforms taking stronger action to remove divisive content. Since tech entrepreneur Elon Musk’s acquisition of the X (formerly Twitter) microblogging platform in October 2022, the guardrails designed to protect minorities have, in fact, been dismantled.”
These companies need to just set up political discussion boards and the only rules are no promotion of violence and what is posted on the board, stays on the board. Donors can sponsor the boards and let the public have at it. You enter at your own risk.
this ehole thing boils down to beimg human, and ACKNOWLEDGI NG THAT THE UNIVERSE DOES NOT REVOLVE AROUND, YOU, ME, AND ‘EM’!
there will always be somebody who don’t like what they heard from somebody else, and make it their buusiness yto put a stop to it!
and if so, there ouught to be somebody to pop them on their snoot, like ya do a forever jumpin’ puppy, and ssay ‘STOP!’
>> The issue here is noticing. &etc.
Well said.
Exactly right! I'll decide what's believable and what's crazy talk and that's my version of free speech.
It’s not a difficult topic, if you don’t want to see that stuff block or don’t watch it, simple. They will use those things to curtail opposition speech.
Lost me there.
“You walk into the room with your pencil in your hand.
You see somebody naked and you ask ‘Who is this man?’
You try so hard, but you can’t understand,
Just what you will do when you get home.
Cuz you know something is happening here but you don’t know what it is.
Do you Mr. Jones?”
“free government lobotomies for Everybody”! will be the next big thing. bill g. and George s. will spend billions to help. don’t laugh.
Peacebuilding = absence of conflict… elimination of opposition.
Democracy is turbulent… deal with it.
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