xroIf you are not paying for accurate information.
Then someone else is paying to show you inaccurate information.
Sad fact of our time.
#FakeNews #climatechange #uspol #facebook #advertising #werbefrei #oilindustry
neuron@neuron
Fully agree.
But there's more than that.
On the idealistic side, it's just so sad to think what we could accomplish as humanity, if everyone would be operating with information that is, if not 100% correct or not slightly skewed or simplified, then at least, undistorted by malicious actors!
Instead, the skills we have most honed in modern times, are all the ways to lie to or mislead each other. Often in undetectable ways and sometimes in ways that abuse what ppl would want to believe.
@neuron
On the realistic side, accurate information has now become an expensive commodity.
Not just for legal entities buying an expensive market study or hiring a researcher, but for the individuals that are supposed to make democratic decisions.
If we want democracy to continue to work, we need two things:
An awareness in every citizen that they have to allocate some money to get verified trustworthy information.
Enough money in everyone's budget, that nobody needs to skimp on this.
@neuron
And there are problems with that as well:
Can you trust everyone to spend that money well? Everybody can see the many depressions in economy since 2008.
You certainly can't trust others to spend that money for you (e.g. state owned media via your tax money will be loyal to the current government not you. Ad financed media will be loyal to their ad customer, even though you pay with your attention span)
@neuron
Lastly: others can outspend you!
If a newspaper is making more money on running ads or paid articles than from your subscription, you will get more skewed information. This is very common.
The newspaper that earns more money in this dishonest way, will also outperform outlets that don't do this.
Researchers who were strapped for cash, worked for the oil industry and wrote lies. Sure they betrayed humanity but earned 1M$ per falsified study. Could you have paid them more?
Thus:
Accurate Truth has become a highly valuable commodity and citizens are being extorted increasingly, for access to it.
@neuron
Of course there seems to be some ceiling effects.. like you need engineers that can actually build stuff that works, which is only possible if you have an accurate model of physics / economics / etc.
Of course there seems to be some ceiling effects.. like you need engineers that can actually build stuff that works, which is only possible if you have an accurate model of physics / economics / etc.
A naive solution may be
to a) mandate that some fraction of your income can only be spent on journalism
and b) to outlaw all other forms of financing journalism (e.g. ads and paid articles)
Not sure if this would actually work, even if you solve the obvious fringe problems with that approach.
But sure would like to see it tried out as an experiment so we can learn more.