Selected Items

***See the Intertwingled tab (above) for comments on the themes of this blog***

(This list of selected items is still being compiled.)

Internet Platform Services -- Augmenting the Wisdom of Crowds

General issues -- Our platforms should serve us, but have take a wrong turn. (See Supportive references below.)

• The Internet Beyond Social Media Thought-Robber Barons
  Published in Tech Policy Press
  A surgical restructuring — to an open market strategy that shifts control over our feeds to the users they serve — is the only practical way to limit the harms and enable the full benefits of social media. This simple twist can put us back on track. 
  ++Updates and additional background are here.
• Don’t Swim Against the Tide of “Nuance Destruction”
  Published in Techonomy
  There are clear paths to creating quality-seeking algorithms. Computers can deal with nuance and mitigate conflict when programmers want them to. 
• Making Social Media Serve Society [Discussion Draft]
  Free Our Feeds! Why and how to regain control of how we view our marketplace of ideas.
• Regulating our Platforms -- A Deeper Vision (Working Draft) 
  A recent review of some of the best think tank proposals, plus visionary suggestions of my own.
• The Augmented Wisdom of Crowds:  Rate the Raters and Weight the Ratings 
  A broad architecture for where we should be going in social media (and digital democracy more broadly), more comprehensive and powerful than any I have seen.
• Architecting Our Platforms to Better Serve Us -- Augmenting and Modularizing the Algorithm 
  Broad solutions to technical issues of openness, transparency, regulation, antitrust, and market forces in platform architecture.
• The Tao of Fake News / The Tao of Truth 
  The inherent limits of experts, moderators, and rating agencies – and the need for augmenting the wisdom of the crowd (as essential to maintaining the intellectual openness of our democratic/enlightenment values).
• A Cognitive Immune System for Social Media -- Developing Systemic Resistance to Fake News
  Why we need a systemic solution to limit the spread of cognitive pathogens.
• In the War on Fake News, All of Us are Soldiers, Already! 
  A simpler view of the massive problem of separating the real from the fake -- and why we must exploit the feedback already available from the crowd.
• Filtering for Serendipity -- Extremism, 'Filter Bubbles' and 'Surprising Validators' 
  How this architecture addresses these specific concerns.
• A Regulatory Framework for the Internet (with Thanks to Ben Thompson)
  Additional perspectives on the issues of free speech versus free reach and advertising.
• Free Speech, Not Free Targeting! (Using Our Own Data to Manipulate Us)
  Much of the disagreement over controlling false political ads stems from confusion over how social media work.
• 2020: A Goldilocks Solution for False Political Ads on Social Media is Emerging 
  A consensus on a stopgap solution.
• The Dis-information Choke Point: Dis-tribution (Not Supply or Demand) [Stub]
  If disinformation falls in a forest… but appears in no one’s feed, does it disinform?
• Full Frontal Reality: how to combat the growing lunatic fringe
  My 2009 comment on the emerging problem

Business model issues -- Specific to user-centered business models for platforms
(See more on my FairPayZone blog)

• To Regulate Facebook and Google, Turn Users Into Customers 
  A surprisingly simple, proven, market-driven regulatory strategy, published in Techonomy.
• An Open Letter to Influencers Concerned About Facebook and Other Platforms
  A call to action (with links) on business model incentives and regulation.
• Who Should Pay the Piper for Facebook? (& the rest) 
  A business model solution to the social media business model problem 
• Privacy AND Innovation ...NOT Oligopoly -- A Market Solution to a Market Problem 
  A regulatory approach that incentivizes the business model solution for customer-based revenue 
• Reverse the Biz Model! -- Undo the Faustian Bargain for Ads and Data
  Crediting users for their attention and data to re-align incentives while still enjoying ad revenue
• Yes, You are the Product …It Matters …and Can Be Remedied
  Why this is important, even if a bit of an oversimplification 

Other issues in User-Centered Media (to be added...)

(These address my perspectives as an inventor in the media space and related commentary)

Broader issues in in our intertwingled world (to be added...)

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Supportive References for Augmenting the Wisdom of Crowds and The Tao of Truth

• Scaling Up Fact-Checking Using the Wisdom of Crowds, Jennifer Allen, Antonio Arechar, Gordon Pennycook, David Rand, Psyarxiv Preprint, 10/26/20.
  "Our results indicate that crowdsourcing is a promising approach for helping to identify misinformation at scale."
• Why you don’t really know what you know, Matthew Hutson, MIT Technology Review, 10/21/20
  On the importance of understanding the social nature of truth ("epistemic dependence" -- our reliance on others' knowledge -- "knowing vicariously"), and the interplay of evidence, trust, and authority. It refers to a much-cited fundamental paper on epistemic dependence from 1985.
• Leveraging volunteer fact checking to identify misinformation about COVID-19 in social media, Hyunuk Kim, Dylan Walker, The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 5/18/20.
  Provides empirical support for the value of crowdsourced data for determining the quality of social media information.