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aristarchus [soylentnews.org] writes:

Captain Obvious News reports: Vox Reports! [vox.com]:

The US nonprofit Avaaz has a new report [avaaz.org] out detailing how YouTube is actively spreading climate misinformation to millions of viewers through its recommendation algorithms, including videos with exciting titles like, ahem, “CIA Whistleblower Speaks Out About Climate Engineering Vaccination Dangers and 911.”

The report contains a number of recommendations for the platform, including working with independent fact checkers to identify such videos and remove or demonetize them.

The recommendations make perfect sense — as long as climate misinformation can be reliably and fairly identified in a way that won’t get YouTube embroiled in political or ideological controversies.

But I don’t think it can.

Oh, this is gonna be good!

YouTube and other social media platforms do want to limit the spread of misinformation and hate speech, if only to relieve social pressure and defend their reputations. But they want to do so while remaining ideologically neutral, refraining from anything that might appear to be choosing sides in America’s culture war.

Unfortunately, in a polarized and divided US, where even the most basic facts and values are contested, that posture is becoming impossible. The choice between neutrality and fundamental values like respect for evidence and non-discrimination is becoming unavoidable, and private companies like social media platforms, when pressed, will always choose neutrality, for business reasons.

Social media platforms may well be, as Dawn Stover argues [thebulletin.org] in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, bad for the climate. But in this as in other matters, they reflect an epistemic crisis they cannot themselves hope to solve.

Do you know who has experience in epistemic crises? Yes, Philosophers! Time to brush off that old suggestion by Plato that we will only have good government when philosophers are kings! God knows it would be better than bankrupt sexual harrassing real-estate reality-tv losers. The rest of the article is abuot S1 and S2, and some other nonsense.

Original Submission