(no subject)

[sigmaleph]

much of the 'online misinformation' discourse ultimately reduces to the fact that if you let people say things, sometimes they will say things that aren't true

like i just saw john oliver's latest bit on misinformation spreading on whatsapp and wechat and such and, yeah, sure. they are messaging apps! they let you talk to people, ergo you can say things that aren't true there

if your aunt isn't sending you covid conspiracy theories on whatsapp then she's just gonna tell you about them over the dinner table. this is not in any meaningful sense whatsapp's responsibility. there is nothing they should do about it.

i don't have a magic solution to make people stop believing bullshit. it's a hard problem. but pointing at the latest thing people use to communicate and blaming it definitely isn't it

(and darkly hinting about how it's end-to-end encrypted and this prevents the company from moderating it is somehow even worse than the previous fearmongering about how encryption means the government can't spy on terrorists)

Comments

[yvannairie]

Yeah, WhatsApp was a terrible example b/c it's not a public platform, that's like saying cell service providers need to be screening phone calls. I was very frustrated b/c the points about fact checking in non-English languages were good otherwise, generally b/c stuff like YT facts banner and the Twitter misinfo banner are non-destructive and non-censoring, and give people just enough rope to hang their respectability if they keep arguing against them. But WhatsApp is effectively an email service.

[wingedcatgirl]

>it's end-to-end encrypted and this prevents the company from moderating it

... We're not fond of disinformation either, but we'd really prefer platforms not to be looking through everyone's DMs unprompted.

[sigmaleph]

but if facebook isn't looking through all your communication then the terrorists win. i mean the pedophiles. the antivaxxers? whoever we dislike this month