“It is the policy of the United States…to encourage the development of technologies which maximize user control over what information is received by individuals…who use the Internet…” (from Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act)
***Background and running updates below***
Part 1. (2/27/22)
Delegation, or, The Twenty Nine Words that the Internet Forgot
The series begins with an exploration of why this emphasis on user control is far more important than generally recognized, and how an architecture designed to make high levels of user control manageable can enhance the nuance, context, balance, and value in human discourse that current social media are tragically degrading.
While that portion of the much-discussed "Section 230" has been neglected, those ideas have re-emerged -- most prominently in the 2019 ACCESS Act introduced in the U.S. Senate, which included among its provisions a requirement to provide “delegatability” – enabled through APIs that allow a user to authorize a third party to manage the user’s content and settings directly on the user’s behalf.
This opening essay concludes:
User choice is essential to a social and media ecosystem that preserves and augments democracy, self-actualization, and the common welfare – instead of undermining it. And delegation is the linchpin that can make that a reality.
Part 2. (4/27/22)
Understanding Social Media: An Increasingly Reflexive Extension of Humanity
We shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us. (Marshall McLuhan)
Social media do not behave like other media. Speech is not primarily broadcast, as through megaphones and amplification but rather, propagates more like word-of-mouth, from person to person. Feedback loops of reinforcing interactions by other users can snowball, or just fizzle out. Understanding how to modulate the harmful aspects of wild messaging cascades requires stepping back and, instead of viewing the messages as individual items of content, seeing them as stages in reflexive flows in which we and these new media tools shape each other. The reflexivity is the message. A media ecology perspective can help us understand where current social media have gone wrong and orchestrate the effort to manage increasing reflexivity in a holistic, coherent, inclusive, and effective way.
Background
This page is to be updated as the series unfolds -- with my own personal perspectives and links to relevant materials. All views expressed here are my own (but owe much to wise insights from Chris).
My other works related to this are listed in the Selected Items tab, above. Some that are most relevant to expand on the themes introduced in this first article:
- My deepest recent prior work on these themes: The Internet Beyond Social Media Thought-Robber Barons (Tech Policy Press, 4/22/21)
- A review of some prominent advocacy - and criticism - of related proposals for increased user choice: Scholars Reckon with Democracy and Social Media (Tech Policy Press, 8/9/21)
- Companion commentary on those critical concerns: Unbundling Social Media: A Taxonomy of Problem Areas (Tech Policy Press, 8/9/21)
- A further discussion with some of the key commentators: Reconciling Social Media & Democracy: Fukuyama, Keller, Maréchal & Reisman (Tech Policy Press mini-symposium, 10/7/21)
- My initial suggestions for a two-level "infomediary" architecture to resolve some of the challenges in enabling user choice: Resolving Speech, Biz Model, and Privacy Issues – An Infomediary Infrastructure for Social Media? (11/3/21)
- Some updates on those infomediary architecture suggestions: Directions Toward Re-Architecting Social Media to Serve Society (11/29/21)
[5/6/22:] Today I was reminded how much the media ecology of reflexivity augmented by human-machine loops has surprisingly early roots. I first dug into that around 1970, including Licklider's 1960 Man-Computer Symbiosis, which I now see again was very pointed about this symbiosis as going beyond the levels of "mechanically extended man" (a very McLuhanesque phrase that Licklider cited to 1954) and "artificial intelligence." Liclider inspired (and sponsored) Engelbart's "Augmenting Human Intellect," which inspired my views on making social media augment human society -- and also anticipates the related resurgence of thinking about more "human-centered AI," and AI Delegability. And of course Bush's 1945 As We May Think inspired all of this.
This reflexive intertwingling of ideas is also apropos of the question of our original attribution of our opening quote ("Man shapes his tools and thereafter our tools shape us") to McLuhan -- we removed any specific attribution because it may have been taken from others -- what matters to us is that McLuhan adopted it and gave it added attention.
[4/29/22:] Opening sections revised to add the second in the series.
[2/28/22:] Very pleased to see this:
Really interesting discussion by @rreisman @MChrisRiley linking the data intermediary space to user generated content & social media (& think outside 230 speech issues). We didn't cover that in our new #dataintermediaries report but it's compelling: https://t.co/SWSpfKfOBH https://t.co/TCUkFYy60m
— Jen King, PhD, Privacy Zealot (@kingjen) February 28, 2022
