Observing the public conversation around FB, and the private ones happening among techies and ex-FBers, I think the mutual misunderstanding is worse than when I set out two years (and 500 pages) ago to (in a small way) bridge that gulf.
We're basically fucked.
Techies take weird, improbable visions, and make them realities: some BS pitch deck to a VC, mixed with money and people, really does turn into some novel thing.
Facebook & Co. can take on the most egregious disinformation examples, or efforts undertaken by identifiable state actors (maybe), but it will never be able to shut it down entirely.
Why do I feel confident in this assertion (that I'm sure will get trolled)?
Where'd that end up? Nowhere. We got GDPR, which is pointless, and if anything solidified FB/GOOG's position in Europe. Ditto CCPA.
If you sat down to a meal in the 80s, and took out a camera and took a photo of your food, while telling everyone you were sending copies to your friends, you'd have been locked up in an insane asylum.
The Beacon scandal that blew up FB in the late aughts now seems like a joke. People got worked up over that?
We'll read the current disinformation coverage the same way.
It's the bridge generation (looks in mirror) that's mostly freaking out about it.
https://t.co/LqB2xNe7Cw
More from Antonio García Martínez
This essay about the stripping of our once-broad civic identities down to purely political ones engaged in existential combat...is getting shredded because readers can only perceive it as a political statement from the tribe they're in existential combat with.
This isn't a novel idea, and in fact more than one commenter has made some version of this point recently, without (apparently) this level of scorn.
This is a reaction to the author's politics, which ironically lends credence to the original argument.
Another negative reaction is: You're a senator. Do something!
And another point of the essay is that we can't rely on a political system to forge our communities or sense of belonging for us. That can only come from an engaged citizenry.
Thus, another very ironic reaction.
This critique is more self-aware. It's also a trendy post-modern deconstruction of the argument: everything is power relations, 'all politics is identity politics', etc.
In brief: Apolitical identity is impossible, and we're cursed to debate the meaning of small-town football games...forever.
Not the same ironic backhanded endorsement of the argument, but what a future that implies.
\u201cMore of us are plac\xading pol\xadi\xadtics at the cen\xadter of our lives. Both sides increasingly be\xadlieve a grand so\xadlu\xadtion to our po\xadlit\xadi\xadcal dys\xadfunc\xadtion can be found in\xadside pol\xadi\xadtics. In the Weekend Essay, Sen. Sasse explains why he thinks this won\u2019t work\u201d https://t.co/dCpDjo96Rv
— Ben Sasse (@BenSasse) October 13, 2018
This isn't a novel idea, and in fact more than one commenter has made some version of this point recently, without (apparently) this level of scorn.
This is a reaction to the author's politics, which ironically lends credence to the original argument.
Another negative reaction is: You're a senator. Do something!
And another point of the essay is that we can't rely on a political system to forge our communities or sense of belonging for us. That can only come from an engaged citizenry.
Thus, another very ironic reaction.
This critique is more self-aware. It's also a trendy post-modern deconstruction of the argument: everything is power relations, 'all politics is identity politics', etc.
1/ So, there's a lot to say about this @BenSasse piece, including a contestable and contentious conception of the realm of political life. But ... https://t.co/qiD6IRQzhn
— Josh Chafetz (@joshchafetz) October 13, 2018
In brief: Apolitical identity is impossible, and we're cursed to debate the meaning of small-town football games...forever.
Not the same ironic backhanded endorsement of the argument, but what a future that implies.
