AliceFraser
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Democracy and Free Speech - Train Thoughts
🕑 Added 2018-07-29 08:31:19 +0000 UTC Democracy is a lovely idea - the egalitarian principle that everyone should have a vote, worth the same amount as the next person, regardless of their station, wealth or influence, is simple, was revolutionary and has shaped our ideas of how the world should work.Of course, that’s not quite how democracy actually works for the most part. We vote in increments, electing local representatives to make decisions on our behalf. Those decisions get made, balancing out what they think we’d want with what they think we would want if we had the time or the attention to spare. Also, what we *should* want, if we took into account the interests of minority groups and equality. (A purely popular vote might not, for example, privilege accessibility ramps over... I don’t know... free parking).
The problem with democracy in the age of social media is that increasingly sophisticated corporations have the capacity to hone personalised advertising strategies incredibly precisely. We live in more and more refined bubbles of opinion, increasingly certain that our feelings on morally right outcomes are shared, rational and irrefutably reasonable. Why wouldn’t we believe that? We’re not actually capable of working intellectually with data that’s not available to us.
Our idea of the world is an inherited one. We can only use the words we have. We can build new ideas, but really only in reference to the ideas around us - even contrarian ideas are built on a framework. A fully and purely independent thinker would speak total nonsense. Without common reference points to build analogies and shared understanding, there’s no communication.
So. We are asked to make moral decisions, to hold our opinions within frameworks created by the information to which we have access. But the information to which we have access is increasingly controlled, refined, catered to our tastes.
The *purpose* of the filters on social media and news websites is to make sure we use those platforms as much as possible. Of course it is. They’re businesses. They exist to return profits to their shareholders. Even where idealistically driven, they must maintain sufficient cash flow to remain in operation.
The *function* of the drive to remain in business is that the information we’re given; the worlds of ideas in which we live; the information on which we base our decisions, is malleable by money.
The popular vote, always vulnerable to corporate money, can now be altered at the whim of an algorithm. Increasingly, our democracy is subject to matrix level input feeds that tell us what to fear, what should be our primary concern, what our enemies think and want and feel and need to be prevented from doing. (Particularly if we don’t talk to our enemies)
We’re particularly bad as a species at assessing risks from statistical data. We believe in stories - it’s why you’re more afraid of your child being kidnapped or attacked by a stranger than we are of being assaulted by a trusted friend. We believe the problems we hear about more are bigger problems.*
And now, what we hear about is shaped by algorithms, what we talk about is shaped by our desire to be part of the discourse. We get positive feedback for contributing to whatever topical bonanza sweeps through our feed, and we feel ideological alliances form over those discussions by virtue of our contribution.
What does that mean for our democracy, as these algorithms become more and more refined? As the public vote is shaped by information that is more and more shaped by private interests? I don’t know. All I know is that both culture and counter-culture are equally vulnerable. You can see it in your opposition. You might not see it so much in the mirror (but you know your face is back to front, right?)
Right wing and social justice concerns, news, spin, organisation, argument, access and implementation are both coming out of the the same vending machine. Coca Cola also sells bottled water, and reusable glass bottles if you’re worried about plastic bottles.
It’s opportunists taking advantage of circumstances we’ve fertilised. It’s people being people. It’s entropy through capitalism, democracy, freedom of choice shaping restriction of information. Restriction of information leading to polarisation. Conspiracy theories would be more reassuring.
What’s the solution? Talk to strangers at the bus stop, maybe. Have tea with someone you disagree with?
I’m open to suggestion.
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* People are “cognitive misers” - the limits of our brainpower mean we process threats selectively, mainly along lines of availability and representativeness (see this interesting paper on threat assessment in international relations https://www.jstor.org/stable/3790955)." rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://www.jstor.org/stable/3790955).
Comments
This is a good and interesting thought
Richard Dunn
Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.… (Winston S. Churchill).
It's hard because the algorithms used on social media serve the same theoretically benevolent purpose as the ones for say Netflix or Amazon-- giving you more of what you like. But the problem is that rather than showing you static films or products the algorithm thinks you might like, it is People you are being shown. People with opinions. Because People are the product on social media. The worst thing that might come out of Netflix reinforcing your viewing bias is that you don't broaden your taste in cinema. What comes out of social media is that you don't broaden your exposure to both sides of the issues. Or if you do see a dissenting opinion it is usually being derisively presented with a look-at-these-idiots spin. Frustratingly you don't tend to hear from the other side of the political spectrum when they are talking about things you might actually agree with. Because why would you? They don't sit on your side of the isle, so we're assuming you don't want to see their opinion. Which makes it easier to categorise the other side as evil. You don't see any common ground, so it becomes pure black and white, good vs evil. The worrying thing is I'm not sure there is a solution. Advertising itself I'm not so worried about*, but the social media platforms have to encourage higher usage times so they can serve more ads. And with Facebook and Twitter both having drops in active monthly users recently, I can't see either of them stepping away from the habit they have fallen into of reinforcing biases. Most people don't use social media to have their worldview challenged. Maybe they should. Or maybe this is the way it's always been. Back in heyday of newspapers, if you read the Guardian you probably wouldn't have read the Daily Mail (although admittedly newspaper journalism had a lot more integrity that news posts on social media). But if we didn't have these algorithms on social media reflecting our bubble back at us, would we just seek out and cultivate our own bubble anyway? It's not within human nature-- or at least not within mine --to seek out discomfort. And it can be discomforting to find out you share the same opinion as someone you have moral differences with elsewhere. It's discomforting to be proven wrong. We probably have to be taught from an earlier age that that discomfort is OK. That it's OK to be proven wrong. A lot of stakes seem to be tied up in "winning" twitter arguments or "winning" the discourse, but really we should be learning from and about each other. I've rambled about a bit but I think there is a point in there somewhere... *I work at a media agency so I may be biased, but the targeting of ads isn't as sophisticated as most people assume. It can get a little in-depth sometimes but, especially with GDPR now, a lot is done on broad assumptions/look-a-likes of browsers.
