# I am the Watcher. I am your guide through this vast new twtiverse.
#
# Usage:
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/users View list of users and latest twt date.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/twt View all twts.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/mentions?uri=:uri View all mentions for uri.
# https://watcher.sour.is/api/plain/conv/:hash View all twts for a conversation subject.
#
# Options:
# uri Filter to show a specific users twts.
# offset Start index for quey.
# limit Count of items to return (going back in time).
#
# twt range = 1 27
# self = https://watcher.sour.is/conv/v55m6bq
i'll only say a couple of things here:
* we seem to find ourselves in an age of @information war"
* Elon Musk is a better than a centric idiot (I feel at times he should just shut the fuck up)
* discussing ideas openly and transparently on their merits should not get you banned. shunned, erc or get those around you upset*
i'll only say a couple of things here:
* we seem to find ourselves in an age of @information war"
* Elon Musk is a better than a centric idiot (I feel at times he should just shut the fuck up)
* discussing ideas openly and transparently on their merits should not get you banned. shunned, erc or get those around you upset*
i'll only say a couple of things here:
* we seem to find ourselves in an age of @information war"
* Elon Musk is a better than a centric idiot (I feel at times he should just shut the fuck up)
* discussing ideas openly and transparently on their merits should not get you banned. shunned, erc or get those around you upset*
i'll only say a couple of things here:
* we seem to find ourselves in an age of @information war"
* Elon Musk is a better than a centric idiot (I feel at times he should just shut the fuck up)
* discussing ideas openly and transparently on their merits should not get you banned. shunned, erc or get those around you upset*
@prologic you wrote _“discussing ideas openly and transparently on their merits should not get you banned”_. That is not what is happening. It is baseless misinformation with the intent to harm, confuse, and create chaos. It is subversion. It is ignoramus behaviour._
@bender That's what I call it "Information Warfare". There are entire (scurrilous) business who pay money to others to promote "misinformation" or "propaganda".
@bender That's what I call it "Information Warfare". There are entire (scurrilous) business who pay money to others to promote "misinformation" or "propaganda".
@bender That's what I call it "Information Warfare". There are entire (scurrilous) business who pay money to others to promote "misinformation" or "propaganda".
@bender That's what I call it "Information Warfare". There are entire (scurrilous) business who pay money to others to promote "misinformation" or "propaganda".
@prologic and people, just people spreading things they believe to be right, but aren't. "Brainwashed" people. Idiots, and the like. People with their own backward, erroneous, beliefs (white race is superior, jewish genocide didn't happen, and the like). Moderation (and yes, that includes banning), and what Twitter is disassembling now, is required.
@prologic I agree with you, we should be discussing ideas openly and transparently. Because it's though discussion that we can get the reality. As @bender says "people spreading things they believe to be right", maybe we are ourselves spreading false claims, without knowing, we can only know by exchanging ideas, and being open. The biggest question is what is "misinformation", I believe the answer change according your beliefs. Many times we have seen what was categorize as "official" misinformation, being actually real.
waiting for we define what is misinformation, I will continue dressing like :
Just to be sure (of course it's an attempt to do a joke)
@tkanos @prologic @bender I think we cannot ignore the fact that there are nations with "cyberwarfare" divisions. Hundreds, possibility thousands, of people who sit in rooms all day every day--it's their job--doing nothing but creating and spreading what we call "misinformation" or "disinformation". That is a very different phenomenon from ignorant people spreading beliefs that happen to be dangerous. It is an explicit attempt to cause harm. Social media sites have been horrible conduits of this, but misinformation circulates many ways, including through trusted news media.
One aspect of cyberwarfare that information warriors take advantage of is that well-meaning people *spread the bad information by reacting to it*. Misinformation tends to target the emotions, and receptive people (which is all of us, basically) react to it on an emotional level. However, well-meaning people tend to react to the logical content of the information. They debate the facts being presented, or they attack the logical structure. But this functions to *reinforce the bad information in people who react emotionally*. In other words, the process of debating misinformation functions to reinforce it. Bad actors know this full well. I've read training materials for spreading misinformation--they know exactly what they're doing.
I don't know what the answer is, but we can't be naive and think that just by "debating" we are going to stop people from spreading bad ideas. That's like throwing water on an oil fire--it makes it worse, not better. We need to be better equipped than this.
@abucci good, and comprehensive reply, thank you!
> I don’t know what the answer is, but we can’t be naive and think that just by “debating” we are going to stop people from spreading bad ideas.
Indeed! It comes to mind the popular saying, "How do you deal with nazis? — You punch them in the face."
I still believe that debating is the most peaceful way to deal with disagreement because
@abucci, the point on debating in social network, is not stopping people from spreading bad ideas. Is to make everybody else that look at the debate think, and not fall on those bad ideas, by hiding the bad ideas, and not debating them, we may push others people to believe in them, and we may push people that already believe in them to stay in an echo chamber and become worse.
@bender the problem with that sentence is that if one day two people may disagree, and they may convince themself that the other is spreading hate speech,/disinformation or worse than the other is a nazi, and ask for physical harm.
@tkanos, you wrote *"I still believe that debating is the most peaceful way to deal with disagreement"*. At which point do you stop debating? If you were debating with Nazi Germany, at which point you stop, and take action? Don't be naïve. You can't reason—and, thus, nor debate—with most people believing, and spreading, misinformation. As @abucci wrote, I don't know the answer. Now endlessly "debating", and otherwise doing nothing, ain't.
@tkanos
> the point on debating in social network, is not stopping people from spreading bad ideas. Is to make everybody else that look at the debate think, and not fall on those bad ideas, by hiding the bad ideas, and not debating them, we may push others people to believe in them, and we may push people that already believe in them to stay in an echo chamber
No. This is a naive point of view, and it does not jibe with current research. Really. I urge you to read up on disinformation research especially after Facebook was called out for the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Other people *do not* look at a debate, see the bad information exposed as bad by good arguments, and change their minds. It doesn't work that way. Misinformation purposely targets people's emotions, and when the emotional appeal works, they tend to view the people debating against the view as enemies. They *reject* the good ideas even more forcefully.
Sure, there are hypothetical people who will see a debate, recognize that bad information has been exposed, and react by rejecting that bad information. Probably most of the people here fall into that group. But people like that were never the problem. The problem is the vast number of people who will react by *believing the bad information even more stubbornly*. Read the research--this is a real, documented effect I am describing.
Also, the dangers of the "echo chamber" that you evoked are very much overblown, almost surely by purveyors of disinformation because that fear helps them do their work (I'll note you raised this as a danger--an emotional appeal--instead of citing data). The echo chamber effect, to the extent it exists, is bad for people *who are already suffering from information poisoning*. People who've already bought into some piece of misinformation fall into or stay in an echo chamber. Once again, misinformation purveyors have very detailed strategies--Google, you can find them--for how to *draw unsupecting people* into an echo chamber and keep them there.
@bender @tkanos I'm blanking on where I first read it--might be Jared Yates Sexton, or maybe Sarah Kendzior--but I'm of a mind that sentiments like "debate is the best way to resolve disputes" are kind of nostalgic and naive because they ignore the conditions we're currently living in. Sure, if we lived in a healthy society with a healthy information space, widespread respect for differing points of view, a relative lack of suffering, etc etc etc, then yes, maybe that would be true. There were points in our history (I'm speaking of the US because that's where I'm from) when we approximated those ideals, at least for some people, and many of us aspired to perfect them. But today, in 2022, we do not live in those conditions. There are many people who actively want to destroy any progress towards these ideals we've managed to make, and who actively, publicly advocate for going backwards from there. Debate is no longer the best way to resolve disputes, in these conditions, not with people who are trying to force the world backwards.
It is foolish to think otherwise. It is just as foolish as believing water puts out all fires and throwing water onto an oil fire. You have to recognize the reality you're living in, then choose the right tool for the job. If you're living in a time where political violence is normalized/is being normalized and demonization is rampant, and you're facing a bad faith argument from a bad actor who is preaching something like antisemitism, you don't reach for "debate" as your tool of choice. You reach for "deplatforming" (for example), because that demonstrably works. You take them, and their damaging ideas, off the public square completely and keep them out of it.
@bender
> Indeed! It comes to mind the popular saying, “How do you deal with nazis? — You punch them in the face.”
One of my favorite animated GIFs depicts exactly that 😆
A little less violently, deplatforming works. That's been demonstrated time and again. It's one of the many reasons to be alarmed by what Elon Musk is doing at Twitter, un-banning hateful accounts that had been banned previously. He is re-platforming people who don't merit a platform, and he himself is amplifying them.
@bender most of the people are not extreme, so taking an extreme example to validate a today's behavior it has no much point. But I will try to answer your question. First if I was in Germany during those times, I hope that I would have been in the good side of history (I hope so because I grew up around jews family), then if it had been the case I think I will have been arrested, and it is when I would have stopped talking (but at least I'm sure I won't have stopped).
@abucci I mostly agree with you in many points, I will read the points you are talking about. For the echo chamber, I tend to disagree a bit, becasue you may be in an echo chamber without knowing it, thus not being able to go out, if you don't see people debating in those echo chamber. One of the biggest echo chambers are the social network recommendation system, you may be recommended a lot of view like yours, and without knowing stay in that echo chamber (youtube is great for that, I mean for letting you around what you are comfortable with).
And each time I talk with people, I assume I am maybe wrong. How could I know that in some subject I may be wrong, if people doesn't debate with me, but just call for my canceling.
I can do research but :
- in some cases I may not do research because mostly I don't care, so I have a wrong view point, and I don't know.
- If I do research I may stay in my echo chamber, not even knowing where to search.
- Maybe some research will indicate me the right direction, but it will be very costly ( a simple debating sentence, may be more indicating)
- And people have the right to be wrong, people have the right to don't know everything, people even (if I stay in the law) have the right to be assholes (unfortunately)
And each time I talk with people, I assume I am maybe wrong. How could I know that in some subject I may be wrong, if people doesn't debate with me, but just call for my canceling.
I can do research but :
- in some cases I may not do research because mostly I don't care, so I have a wrong view point, and I don't know.
- If I do research I may stay in my echo chamber, not even knowing where to search.
- Maybe some research will indicate me the right direction, but it will be very costly ( a simple debating sentence, may be more indicating)
- And I have the right to be wrong, I have the right to don't know everything, I even (if I stay in the law) have the right to be an asshole (I hope I'm not one though :D)
@tkanos "being in an echo chamber that you aren't aware of" isn't a thing. Not for rational people. That's not a real phenomenon. It's as real as bogeymen, ghosts, demons....
@tkanos since I keep making claims to data, I made a post with some references: #qryatdq
thanks I love data.
For the echo chamber I'm doing a study on it. And for now see the opposite.
Example : Someone that is into flat earth "theory" (for example), thanks to the recommendation algorithm will find more content about it, and liking it, the recommendation loop will show him more and more till the point he is surrounded by that content (that part is already validated), then he will begin to see others "theory" near the "flat earth" cluster. I think that at the end (not yet there) that person will be looking (believing?) that the pope is an alien and he is the one ruling the earth. (at least he will know the truth about aliens :D joking of course)
@tkanos You're telling what's known as a just so story. It makes some kind of sense (things happen "just so"), but that does not make it true to reality.