Addressing Misinformation and Harmful Content Online

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

You seem to be implying that all advertising is bad, or one-sided.

I said, nor meant to imply, any such thing. As always (well, usually ) I meant what I wrote, I wrote what I mean. Advertising and marketing is about "influencing" people. It's about turning potential customers into actual customers.

But these exact same tools are available to ALL who want to influence people, for whatever reason. Politicians, special-interest groups, governments... The same tools are used to get people to stop smoking or wear their seat belts as they are to buy a car or vote for a politician. The goal is to alter a behaviour to something that the influencer desires. The actual target is irrelevant.

There's nothing new about this, but FB and Google (and various governments) now have the ability to know so much about any of us that it takes this influence game to a whole new level.

Is it just a continuum, or is it kind of quantum leap? I don't know. I do know it is powerful, and should not be brushed away.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by valhalla360

I'm sure in the good old days, most of your small town papers only took (even if in principal, they are supposed to contribute occasionally).

Speaking as one who has worked in those small town papers, I can say this ain't true. It takes little to contribute. Whether anyone else on the wire service wants your stories is another matter, but most members of services simply dumped all their content into the network.

Originally Posted by valhalla360

It might be time to consider updates to copyright laws...

Copyright laws have been under constant change since the 1990s. I've been engaged in many political and legal efforts and fights, all the way up to our Supreme Court. Finding the right balance for creators, owners, publishers, networks, aggregators. etc... is a constant struggle.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Wotname

...Plus it is great optics, the little Ozzie battler (PM) taking on multinational giants (FB) - "onya matey, y'll get my vote"

Make no mistake, if the wind blew the other way...

You mean there's politics involved in this! Say it isn't so Wotty .

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

You mean there's politics involved in this! Say it isn't so Wotty .

I would if I could but I can't so I won't

But there is more politics involved than what is apparent to the average viewer from afar. However CF frowns on overt politics so I desist and remain silent (mostly ).

[DMF Sailing]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

Without a shared reality, how can any society stand?

I used to live in the Soviet Union. It was a society entirely built on a few blatant lies (Whatever the Party or its leaders are doing, it's good for you; and thanks to what we do, you live better than anyone else, which is why you keep electing us; and you're free to go elsewhere to see for yourself, but why would you want to?).

By the time I was around in the mid 1980s, pretty much no one really believed any of it. It was easy to prove that everything you were being told in school, at work, on the news, and when leaders spoke, was a lie. But that society stood until the people propagating the lie were forced out of power.

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by DMF Sailing

I used to live in the Soviet Union. It was a society entirely built on a few blatant lies (Whatever the Party or its leaders are doing, it's good for you; and thanks to what we do, you live better than anyone else, which is why you keep electing us; and you're free to go elsewhere to see for yourself, but why would you want to?).

By the time I was around in the mid 1980s, pretty much no one really believed any of it. It was easy to prove that everything you were being told in school, at work, on the news, and when leaders spoke, was a lie. But that society stood until the people propagating the lie were forced out of power.

What a surreal experience. But I can't help but feel like that's what happening here, now, in many western developed countries.

[DMF Sailing]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

What a surreal experience. But I can't help but feel like that's what happening here, now, in many western developed countries.

I can say for a fact that the misinformation tricks that the Soviets mastered are the playbook from which all modern demagogues borrow. The online super-spreader known as the internet makes it a lot easier.

I have also noticed that all democracies that slip into authoritarianism do it in the same way.

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by Wotname

There is more to the story than the Australian government going into bat for the embattled print media.

Why is it the Aussie government and not say the poms (UK), or the yanks (USA) or any of the other first world governments? Why is David taking on Goliath?

The answer my friends - because it is politically expedient (in oz) for the incumbents to act right now.

Unlike most other first world countries, Australia has only one major commercial print media outlet. Protect that owner and the donations (and votes?) flow accordingly. Currently the said major print outlet (Murdoch) is friendly to the incumbent bloke, so it is mutually advantageous to shore up the friendship.

Plus it is great optics, the little Ozzie battler (PM) taking on multinational giants (FB) - "onya matey, y'll get my vote"

Make no mistake, if the wind blew the other way...

Putting it politely, rubbish.

There is a considerable diversity of ownership of print media in Australia. For example, of the 47 newspapers printed in the state of Queensland the Murdock group own only 6. Much the same in the other larger states. In addition the group does not own any TV networks as do some of the other media groups.

There is a parliamentary inquiry underway at the moment on media ownership, and Australia has media ownership laws which I believe were last updated by one of our left wing federal governments and the Murdoch Group complies with them.

One of the things which makes Australia one of the more civilized places in the world to live is the absence of extremist governments (with rare exceptions at the state level) and the media's diligence in reporting on government activities. Some of the more fearless journalist who pursue the official miscreants are of the Murdoch group which, unlike some of the others, our taxpayer funded ABC for example, does make an effort to be even handed in it's reporting.

What we are seeing with the enterprises such as Facebook is the revolution in communications bought about by the introduction of the internet.

If one wished to broadly disseminate information just a few decades ago one needed access to a radio or TV transmission station or a printing press which generally required some sort of organization and fixed assets. Control and accountability were relatively simple by authorities and copyright actions simple to target. The internet has disrupted the control arrangements by disseminating the availability of means and disrupted the protection of intellectual property arrangements by allowing the Googles and Facebooks to obfuscate accountability - we are not publishers only facilitators. However by way of their recent de-platforming activities they appeared to have screwed up this excuse and we'll see where the law takes them now.

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

....Google and FB only takes.

As you've noted previously. Thereby dually illustrating their uber-capitalistic philosophy and the assault/crimes the adoption of such a sinister, asinine system had and continues to have on, broadly speaking, physics (asymmetry), order and our universe. Among many other things...

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

...I think you're seriously undervaluing the benefits that we've received from these companies. I'm not on Facebook; my wife is, my mom is, most of my siblings... There's about f#@k all that FB has been able to sell to my wife... yet today it reminded her that exactly 2 years ago today we started our BVI charter. Good times. How is that not a win for her? Obviously some people are swayed or influenced by FB enough... or advertisers are somehow convinced that they are, that they pay for ads. but for the most part its pennies for 1000s of views. Most people tune it out. We don't seem to be inundated with misinformation, just stuff our friends and family are up to.

I'm much more certain about Google. I've developed in Android, I've used Google maps in projects, used Google docs for work, etc. Amazing capabilities that haven't cost me or my users a dime.

Maybe we're outliers, but I don't think they owe us for the mostly banal, ineffective info they may have gleaned about us.

Hard to see how the destruction of western civilization and the world as we know it (I know, I know, rank hyperbole...but I bring our attention to oh, I don't know, the Treaty of Versailles, or Henry Kissinger's lies; the list is almost endless) is somehow made 'all right' by your, or anyone else's, wife's (shallow?) gratification/satisfaction about "good times" had before.

Paid advertising is an insidious disease for a plethora of reasons, but, as in your perhaps unwitting example, most importantly because of its propagandizing effects on the the emotional gratification centers of the brain, and the concommitant divorcement from reality that produces.

Why on earth else do you think that a sociopathic group of well-fed, reasonably affluent, extremely privileged members of a society recently attempted to bring down the society that allowed them those benefits?

Originally Posted by valhalla360

I'm sure in the good old days, most of your small town papers only took (even if in principal, they are supposed to contribute occasionally).

It might be time to consider updates to copyright laws as they relate to reposting news stories. It's pretty loosey goosey but the rules were put up in a time when it would have been difficult and time consuming to retrieve someone else's paper, read it, find stories you are interested plagiarizing (within copy right rules), then you have to have someone retype it, get it to the printer...blah blah blah...it might be 2-3 days for a big city paper to get out. It might be a week or two for a small town paper. By the time they did, it was no longer news and no one cared. If you wanted current news, there was a significant benefit to the user in going to the source (or an AP affiliate which had advance access)

With the internet and automated indexing, it might be a matter of seconds from the time a story is posted until it's on the google news feed.

If Google was limited to the headline and the first paragraph, it would create two options:
- The reader might then click the link going to the source. At that point the source could monetize it. This would drive readers to the news outlets site which most would consider a positive.
- Or Google could pay for AP access and post the entire story. Then the AP would set up a pricing structure to compensate the story originators. This would reward news outlets that generate stories.

It might use a time frame to switch from the old to new way.
- Stories less than 2 weeks old, Google (or any other news feed service) is limited to just the title and first paragraph.
- After 2 weeks the old copy right rules are back in play as it's no longer really "news" but historical information.

PS: This is an excellent example of where FB and Google have a political agenda to push forward. If these changes would eat into their profit margins, they have a strong incentive to herd their users into a position where they discourage their elected officials from implementing this type of legal change.

In the "good old days", as now, "small town papers" (read 'journalism) do give something back. Information. 'They' call it the fourth estate, and its importance is established in the 1st amendment of the US Constitution (among many other places).

One of the many problems with FB, Google and their ilk is that they manipulate technology and human nature exclusively for their benefit; as O'Reilly states, they "only take".

Leaving aside the ubiquitous, documented negative effects such actions and policies have on the 'consumers' (actually 'produce') they purportedly 'serve'.

Think of it as the 'industrial/technological farming' of the human mind...

Originally Posted by Lake-Effect

You seem to be implying that all advertising is bad, or one-sided.

If I'm in the market for a new car, I don't mind seeing new car ads. If I bought a car magazine, I'd expect to see car- and car-related ads. When I'm reading some professional technical magazine or website, I expect to see related ads; in fact it's useful for keeping up to date in the field.

When I browse CF, I don't mind ads for anchors or watermakers. I do mind ads for utterly unrelated stuff... and this is my biggest issue with online advertising. When you read a sailing magazine, you won't likely get an ad for used cars or earwax remover (gaaaah ), but on the internet, there's often very little curation of ads to match the OBVIOUS subject preference of someone on a sailing site... but I digress...

Ads are often useful input when a person is comparison-shopping. Their pitches land more successfully with people who are in-market. It's rare that an ad pushes someone into a purchase they haven't already contemplated.

Now, I'm old, a cheapskate, jaded, been around the block (I'm a sailor, in other words ). I'm hard to sell to. I fear more for younger people who are social-media junkies who might be getting the wrong lifestyle messages... but that is often more to do with their peers and the media they consume, than the ads they get.

Spoken like a true advertiser.

Only one thing can be truthfully said about paid advertising. It is the epitome of evil, at least for evolutionary life, promoting manufactured desires over actual needs.

The statement

"I'm hard to sell to. I fear more for younger people who are social-media junkies who might be getting the wrong lifestyle messages... but that is often more to do with their peers and the media they consume, than the ads they get."

seems only to verify how well Madison Avenue knows it job, and victims...

Originally Posted by DMF Sailing

I used to live in the Soviet Union. It was a society entirely built on a few blatant lies (Whatever the Party or its leaders are doing, it's good for you; and thanks to what we do, you live better than anyone else, which is why you keep electing us; and you're free to go elsewhere to see for yourself, but why would you want to?).

By the time I was around in the mid 1980s, pretty much no one really believed any of it. It was easy to prove that everything you were being told in school, at work, on the news, and when leaders spoke, was a lie. But that society stood until the people propagating the lie were forced out of power.

There've even been books written about it. "Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More: The Last Soviet Generation" by Alexei Yurchak, made into a (to me) thought provoking movie (my local library doesn't allow such dissidence), "HyperNormalisation", by Adam Curtis, which I think at least gives some insight into what happened there, and is now happening here, though the concept's been modified and renamed 'inverted totalinarianism' by political philosopher Sheldon Wolin in his book "Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism".

The real power truly is in the people, which is I suppose why those who lust for that power want so much to control the people.

Long as they can keep'um 'fat, dumb and happy', the powers-that-be are on easy street. Failing that, the next best thing is (mind?) manipulation, followed closely by the dissemenation of misinformation and distrust.


Just for grins, who here thinks 'Q' is a Russkie construct?

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Putting it politely, rubbish.

There is a considerable diversity of ownership of print media in Australia. For example, of the 47 newspapers printed in the state of Queensland the Murdock group own only 6. Much the same in the other larger states. In addition the group does not own any TV networks as do some of the other media groups.....
.......

Run the daily circulation numbers by us for the 6 and the other 41, Ray and let's revisit the argument.

As for TV, you originally mentioned "and in particular the print media, " back in post #184 and I only mentioned print media so why bring in the TV networks.

Originally Posted by RaymondR

.....
One of the things which makes Australia one of the more civilized places in the world to live is the absence of extremist governments (with rare exceptions at the state level) and the media's diligence in reporting on government activities. Some of the more fearless journalist who pursue the official miscreants are of the Murdoch group which, unlike some of the others, our taxpayer funded ABC for example, does make an effort to be even handed in it's reporting.
........

Putting it politely - a load of codswallop.

As you well know, the ABC must give equal time to both (actually all) sides of any significant news event by way of it's very charter. Murdoch et al have no such requirement. You might not agree with hearing all sides and you might be biased to one side or another but the ABC is required to be even handed. They have rarely been found not complying with the charter. Of course sometimes they do get it wrong and usually the sitting government (on whatever side of the fence) pulls them into line quick smart.

The simple fact that all sitting governments (left or right) complains of bias in the ABC is proof they are unbiassed.

A principle role of any public broadcaster is to hold the flame to the soles of the elected government especially of the absence of any established independent corruption commission. So yeah, no government likes it's dirty washing to be broadcast to one and all so they complain "it ain't fair" but in reality, if they were squeaky clean, the journos would be causing other stories. The longer one side holds the reins, the more the spotlight shows the cracks.

Why does it seem like the ABC is anti right - well maybe because historically the right has had twice as many (federal) governments in Oz than the left. So the ABC has spent twice as much time looking at the sitting right governments.

Does the Murdoch press spend twice as much time (historically) looking at the right than the left. If not, they are biased.

[jimbunyard]

Originally Posted by Wotname

...Why does it seem like the ABC is anti right - well maybe because historically the right has had twice as many (federal) governments in Oz than the left. So the ABC has spent twice as much time looking at the sitting right governments...

Or could it be that the 'right' so often aren't???

[jimbunyard]

May be wrong, but this seems relevant;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_F5GxCwizc

Guess google really is reading our minds...duh-da, duh-da, duh-da...

[Wotname]

Originally Posted by jimbunyard

Or could it be that the 'right' so often aren't???

Perhaps........

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Putting it politely, rubbish.
There is a considerable diversity of ownership of print media in Australia. For example, of the 47 newspapers printed in the state of Queensland the Murdock group own only 6. Much the same in the other larger states...

In 2016, a landmark study on media ownership and concentration, Who Owns the World’s Media?, was published. The study was a collaboration between academics in 30 countries, and it collated and analysed data on the ownership and concentration of media in each nation.
The results show that Australia had the most concentrated newspaper industry, out of any country studied, with the exception of China and Egypt (both largely state-owned).
The high newspaper industry ownership concentration was largely due to Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, which, at the time, controlled 57% of the newspaper market by circulation.
Since the Who Owns the World’s Media research was carried out, APN News & Media was bought by News Corp in December 2016, further concentrating ownership. In 2018, the takeover of Fairfax Media by Nine increased concentration again, until Nine sold regional and community newspaper group Australian Community Media (AMC).
The market share of Australian newspaper companies, by 'average issue readership', in 2019-20, reports Newscorp as holding 51.9%.
News Corp has 53.3% of the newspaper market, by revenue.

“Who Owns the World's Media?: Media Concentration and Ownership around the World”
➥ https://www.researchgate.net/publica...ound_the_World

“FactCheck: is Australia’s level of media ownership concentration one of the highest in the world?”
➥ https://theconversation.com/factchec...he-world-68437

“Media ownership concentration and public concern” ~ Finkelstein inquiry
➥ https://cdn.theconversation.com/stat...pdf?1518059940

“Australia's newspaper ownership is among the most concentrated in the world”
➥ https://www.theguardian.com/news/dat...d-in-the-world

[RaymondR]

This is an another abuse of statistics.

If you produce quality news papers filled with the product of good journalists of course you will attract customers. Rather than an indicator of ownership concentration high circulation rates are an indication of publications the public wants to read.

That's just common sense.