<story><title>Facebook exec blames society for COVID misinformation</title><url>https://www.axios.com/facebook-bosworth-covid-misinformation-89a751dc-6875-4ad3-8103-33cd10b9972c.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>maerF0x0</author><text>&amp;gt; The problem is that Facebook is giving the village idiot a megaphone&lt;p&gt;While you&amp;#x27;re not wrong that it&amp;#x27;s giving the idiot a megaphone, it&amp;#x27;s missing the greater picture. it&amp;#x27;s giving _everyone_ a megaphone. The real question is why can&amp;#x27;t people discern the difference between the idiot and the non-idiot?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d also note that a big issue now is trust -- trust in &amp;quot;elites&amp;quot; (technocrats, wealthy, those in positions of power) has been declining for a long time. i think people are not so much seeking out the village idiot, but massively discounting &amp;quot;experts&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;A list of things that come to mind which have broken trust: 60&amp;#x27;s saw hippies which wanted to break norms of their parents&amp;#x2F;grandparents, 70s saw vietnam war, breaking gold standard, 80s greed is good, iran contra etc, 90s tough on crime policies, y2k fears, 00s - iraq&amp;#x2F;afghanistan, 9&amp;#x2F;11 attacks, governmental data dragnet, manning&amp;#x2F;snowden&amp;#x2F;asange, Covid statements which did not pan out as planned...&lt;p&gt;People have good reasons to be skeptical of elites, but I think anti-corruption work is more important than trying to silence the idiot.</text></item><item><author>mbesto</author><text>He&amp;#x27;s right in some sense, but the context is important. The problem is that Facebook is giving the village idiot a megaphone. Facebook can&amp;#x27;t say:&lt;p&gt;- Amplify your commercial business message to billions of people worldwide.&lt;p&gt;AND at the same time&lt;p&gt;- Well its your individual choice whether or not to listen to the village idiot.&lt;p&gt;You guys gave them a megaphone, how do you expect society to behave?!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>d1sxeyes</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s also missing the greater picture. It&amp;#x27;s giving _everyone_ a megaphone... but giving the loudest megaphones to the people who can get most people to listen to them.&lt;p&gt;You&amp;#x27;ll have noticed on the internet that there&amp;#x27;s a tendency to prioritise engaging with things you disagree with (hell, half of my HN comments are because I felt motivated to write something to disagree with some OP at some point - even this one).&lt;p&gt;What that means is the traditional small-c conservative &amp;#x27;village elders&amp;#x27;, &amp;#x27;parish priests&amp;#x27;, and &amp;#x27;elected officials&amp;#x27;, who hold authoritative positions not because they&amp;#x27;re controversial, but because they historically represented positions of neutrality and consensus end up with quiet megaphones, and the madmen claiming the world is flat and there&amp;#x27;s a paedophile ring run out of a pizza shop end up with the loudest megaphones.&lt;p&gt;Half of the population is below average intelligence, and giving the wrong people the loudest megaphones has a devastating effect on society.</text></comment>
<story><title>Facebook exec blames society for COVID misinformation</title><url>https://www.axios.com/facebook-bosworth-covid-misinformation-89a751dc-6875-4ad3-8103-33cd10b9972c.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>maerF0x0</author><text>&amp;gt; The problem is that Facebook is giving the village idiot a megaphone&lt;p&gt;While you&amp;#x27;re not wrong that it&amp;#x27;s giving the idiot a megaphone, it&amp;#x27;s missing the greater picture. it&amp;#x27;s giving _everyone_ a megaphone. The real question is why can&amp;#x27;t people discern the difference between the idiot and the non-idiot?&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;d also note that a big issue now is trust -- trust in &amp;quot;elites&amp;quot; (technocrats, wealthy, those in positions of power) has been declining for a long time. i think people are not so much seeking out the village idiot, but massively discounting &amp;quot;experts&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;A list of things that come to mind which have broken trust: 60&amp;#x27;s saw hippies which wanted to break norms of their parents&amp;#x2F;grandparents, 70s saw vietnam war, breaking gold standard, 80s greed is good, iran contra etc, 90s tough on crime policies, y2k fears, 00s - iraq&amp;#x2F;afghanistan, 9&amp;#x2F;11 attacks, governmental data dragnet, manning&amp;#x2F;snowden&amp;#x2F;asange, Covid statements which did not pan out as planned...&lt;p&gt;People have good reasons to be skeptical of elites, but I think anti-corruption work is more important than trying to silence the idiot.</text></item><item><author>mbesto</author><text>He&amp;#x27;s right in some sense, but the context is important. The problem is that Facebook is giving the village idiot a megaphone. Facebook can&amp;#x27;t say:&lt;p&gt;- Amplify your commercial business message to billions of people worldwide.&lt;p&gt;AND at the same time&lt;p&gt;- Well its your individual choice whether or not to listen to the village idiot.&lt;p&gt;You guys gave them a megaphone, how do you expect society to behave?!</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>matwood</author><text>&amp;gt; The real question is why can&amp;#x27;t people discern the difference between the idiot and the non-idiot?&lt;p&gt;And here is the real problem with FB, the algorithmic feed. Normal life is pretty boring day-to-day, and doesn&amp;#x27;t trigger &amp;#x27;engagement&amp;#x27;. Conspiracies, etc... cause an enormous amount of engagement. When a person is fed conspiracies all day by the engagement algorithm, even the most critical thinkers will start to drift. It works for the same reason advertising works, familiarity and repetition. The solution is never use FB, but that ship has sailed for most.</text></comment>