Kategori: Fake News
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Just nu cirkulerar en intressant artikel som tycks ge vid handen att det inte är särskilt riskabelt att äta rött kött. För de av oss som tillhör The Church of Holy Bacon är det förstås glädjande, men det är också intressant ur ett rent informationsfilosofiskt perspektiv. Här har vi en relativt etablerad sanning som skjutits…
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Plato’s use of the idea of a noble lie was oppressive. He wanted to tell the people a tale of their origin that would encourage them to bend and bow to the idea of a stratified society, and he suggest that this would make everyone better off — and we clearly see that today for…
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I en forskningsartikel som nyligen publicerades har man funnit evidens för att det går att identifiera falska nyheter, propaganda och andra typer av desinformation med hjälp av en enklare undersökning av vilka känslor materialet uttrycker [1]. Det är i sig inte så överraskande – desinformationen lyckas bättre om den får oss att känna i stället…
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One model for thinking about the issue of misinformation is to say that we are navigating a flat information desert, where there is no topology of truth available. Now hills of fact, no valleys of misinformation. Our challenge is to figure out a good way to add a third dimension, or more than one single…
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Any analysis of fake news would be incomplete without a reading of Hannah Arendts magnificent essay Truth and Politics from 1967. Arendt, in this essay, examines carefully the relationship between truth and politics, and makes a few observations that remind us of why the issue of “fake news” is neither new nor uniquely digital. It…
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Notes on attention, fake news and noise #5: Are We Victims of Algorithms? On Akrasia and Technology.
Are we victims of algorithms? When we click on click bait and content that is low quality – how much of the responsibility of that click is on us and how much on the provider of the content? The way we answer that question maybe connected to an ancient debate in philosophy about Akrasia or…
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Jacques Ellul is arguably one of the earlier and most consistent technology critics we have. His texts are due for a revival in a time when technology criticism is in demand, and even techno-optimists like myself would probably welcome that, because even if he is fierce and often caustic, he is interesting and thoughtful. Ellul…
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This February it is 10 years since I defended my doctoral thesis on what I then called the Noise Society. The main idea was that the idea of an orderly, domesticated and controllable information society – modeled on the post-industrial visions of Bell and others – probably was wrongheaded, and that we would see a…
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It has become more common to denounce the idea that more speech means better democracy. Commentators, technologists and others have come out to say that they were mistaken – that their belief that enabling more people to speak would improve democracy was wrong, or at the very least simplistic. It is worth analyzing what this…
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What is opinion made from? This seems a helpful question start off a discussion about disinformation, fake news and similar challenges that we face as a society. I think the answer is surprisingly simple: opinion is ultimately made from attention. In order to form an opinion we need to pay attention to issues, and to…