What do you do when people simply want to spew emotional tirades and mindlessly copy memes, and won't argue in good or any faith? What is that worth really?
That's their right to spew whatever they want. Just because it's worthless doesn't mean we should stop it. I personally think every single conversation in Twitter is absolutely worthless, maybe even has negative value. Does that give me the right to shut down Twitter? No. I value free speech so if people want to waste their time spewing nonsense, that is their right.
I think this point of view neglects the emergent properties of a society where millions of people can spew nonsense all at once, at the speed of light, using AI assisted audience targeting. Crackpots and liars have existed since the beginning of time but never before has a technology been designed to so readily amplify and reenforce their nonsense. Never before has a technology been so adept at hiding from you that the speaker is a crackpot or liar.
It’s not even just the visibility, it’s the direct harm the actions of these people cause. Whether it’s to their own personal relationships or nation states. QAnon should make a lot of people nervous about the state of unfettered free speech and the idea that the counter to bad ideas is more speech.
"At the speed of light" isn't the problem. We also used to communicate at the speed of light through MySpace, text messages, and so on without these specific problems.
You bring up a good point. I don't engage with folks like that. I assume they're already indoctrinated or an influencer from outside of the country or a troll. If I'm feeling empathetic I might try to appeal to the human in them.
Edit: If you're asking me as if I were the host of the free speech platform. I guess I would allow everything except anything that violated criminal law. And would keep a law firm on retainer to field complaints and give the final say to our legal department. It's a tough question.
If 10% of Americans are convinced that QAnon is behind the scenes running the show, and they believe that, and act on it in a variety of ways, then it's a huge problem.
I suggest with the election, COVID and QAnon together we are probably already feeling the results of mass misinformation.
It's an ugly problem because none of us really want to suppress people for saying something not technically true. I mean, who doesn't like a good alien conspiracy theory? Until it gets out of hand ...
QAnon is as successful as it is because it is tapping into the cognitive dissonance created by things like federal mishandling of the Epstein case (slow walking allegations made since the 90s, the 2007 sweetheart deal which granted immunity to any unnamed co-conspirators, not having raided Epstein's New Mexico ranch to this day, etc), as well as the fact that wealthy and powerful elites continued to associate with him long past the point his predations had become an open secret, and they have suffered no professional or legal repercussions whatsoever.
The mainstream media says "he killed himself and was a one-off and all these rich people just wanted to solicit charitable donations and there's nothing more to see here," and anyone with two skeptical brain cells to rub together can see that's a lie and (if they are actually moved by the horrendous circumstances of the Epstein case to find out the truth) they go searching for alternative sources of information, at which point they're often easy game for disinfo merchants of various stripes who gain a foothold simply by not insisting they're crazy for even asking the questions in the first place.
The insistence that this is purely a problem of "mass misinformation" seems almost belligerently blinkered to the broader context and reasons why our society's institutions have lost credibility and trust.
It's as successful as it is because it is KNOWINGLY tapping into the cognitive dissonance, for the purpose of inciting domestic terrorism and the collapse of Western society.
Basically, look at the things you cited as the reason such an attack could be effective, even unanswerable. If the rich people, etc etc, behaved better and weren't awful, it would be a lot harder to mount such an attack. But it was made easy to do, and for that reason the whole 'freedom of speech' thing is nothing more than an attack vector at this point. We've lost that. There is no way it's sustainable the way some people would like it to be sustainable. There are powerful interests, state actors, weaponizing every little shred of freedom to destroy Western society, and I don't see any good answers at this point.
It was a weakness. We could have freedom of speech as long as it wasn't being weaponized on a massive scale against us. We could have freedom of speech so long as massive calculated lying wasn't a primary tactic, so long as people could be taken at face value. That's simply not true anymore.
The Epstein case and QAnon are separate things. If QAnon decides to include Epstein as a part of their fiction, that doesn't make QAnon real.
My suspicion is that QAnon is an alternative reality game created by imageboard trolls. But then foreign adversaries saw in it a potential to subvert the US and they decided to amplify it as much as they could. This suspicion is not based on any hard evidence, but I think it is plausible.
Foreign adversaries from troll farms spend their entire day finding ways to cause harm and troll farms are a cheap way to inflict that harm. Unlike the cold war era, they don't have to pay operatives to travel to the US, they just need social network accounts. Remember when Russia interfered with the US election by buying ads in social networks? Those ads are available here:
All these ads have the objective of amplifying any narrative that is against the best interest of the US. Make everyone angry, make people fight each other, cause economic harm, amplify dissent, diminish governance. And everyone is falling for it, again:
- Foreing trolls amplifying antivaxxers and antimaskers have the objective to make everyone sick and stretch lockdowns forever so that the US economy is ruined.
- Foreign trolls amplifying racists and race baiters have the objective of divide the US into groups and make them fight each other, as well as diminishing trust in the government.
- Foreign trolls amplifying anti-science discourse also have the objective of make people skeptical about science, drive people away from science, with the added bonus of making people fight each other, incentivize pollution, demoralize the population, etc.
However, those foreign adversaries could not be successful if it wasn't for one person: Trump. Foreign adversaries love Trump because he is the person that promotes division and infighting. Trump denies climate change. Trump said vaccines cause autism. Trump said you should inject yourself with bleach, and downplayed the coronavirus. Trump uses racist dog whistling... Trump is the wet dream of any foreign intelligence service, he did more harm to the US than the KGB could ever do throughout the entire cold war. If you voted for Trump, you are not a patriot, you're a giant chump... and if you cannot see it now, there's no hope for you.
