07-16-2021, 06:16 PM
(07-16-2021, 04:47 PM)danbrotherston Wrote: On optimistic days, I hope that the majority of those comments are Russian bots.
God we've got to fix our social media discourse.
4-5 years ago, I would have accepted that a good amount of people pushing such messages are botnets run by malicious actors. But in 2021, the virus of stupidity is enough to propagate such stuff on its own. Russia, Iran, China, far-right conservatives barely need to push any buttons these days. There are certainly malicious actors out there pushing this stuff for sure, but by now the seeds of conspiracy have been planted all over the place. These morons don't need bots to tell them how to think because this is their default mode of thinking.
However, I don't think we need to police social media in any matter, though. That won't fix anything. Those are the sort of goals that the GQP, Iran, North Korea, China, Libya, Syria, Russia etc promote. It stifles free speech in the end. The only reason we're not as fucked up as they are is because we are allowed to be stupid. That is why people in Russia can't write op-eds talking about how bad Putin is without being thrown in jail - or worse, killed. They can't make memes about Putin eating dicks. We can...we can both be morons or world renown philosophers in our part of the world.
People just need to stop being so fucking stupid over here. If we need our corporations and government to protect us from conspiracies then we are already so far gone it doesn't matter in my opinion. Improve education. Promote philosophy, science, critical theory, the arts etc. Teach kids to question things, to challenge, to create, to express. The problems are obvious - the media being a main issue. We're so addicted to the dopamine rush that TV and refreshing Instagram and Facebook provide that we don't really care to read something like The Critique of Cynical Reason or Faust.
Ultimately, I blame capitalism, but that's not a topic to discuss on WRC.